Show Notes
Charna Cassell: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Late Open Podcast. I'm your host, Charna Cassell, and today's guest is really special. She's somebody that I have wanted to work with for over a decade. And through a series of synchronicities, she's come back on my radar and I'm gonna get to be in a workshop with her this year. And so she is somebody who really helps people embody their story, tell their story, craft their story.
She's Ann Randolph, an award-winning playwright, performer and teacher whose life work bridges comedy, storytelling, and transformation. A trailblazer, an autobiographical solo performance. Anne has written and performed six critically claimed solo shows earning top honors across the country. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did while being in it, and you might actually see a little bit of a different side of me.
I feel like she brought out [00:01:00] a more casual, excited part of me that. I think my clients get to see, and my friends get to see. But you may not hear as much during my interviews and I, uh, am so excited to get to know this human more so welcome, Anne.
[00:02:00]
Charna Cassell: I'm really, really thrilled to have you as a guest.
Ann Randolph: I'm excited to be here too. Thank you very much.
Charna Cassell: I was telling you offline that I've wanted to work with you for over a decade, and I discovered you when I was. I had performed a one-woman show in my late twenties, and so I'm 50 now,
so it's been a while.
Ann Randolph: God, you still look like you're 20 Charna. Okay. Was that set up for me to tell you that? But congratulations. It's huge accomplishment.
Charna Cassell: It's,
it's it's perspective of like, I've, you know, you've, you were, you were on my radar for a long time and, Then I, I had a quieter impulse of writing writing a book.
And, but the value of what you've offered came, came across my path again from this person, this, this friend in a [00:03:00] Kundalini yoga teacher training. And what he was describing was it was such a powerful exercise that your name came into my head out of nowhere and I hadn't, you know, received anything from you in terms of emails or anything for a really long time.
But for some reason I was like, I wonder if that was Anne Randolph? And then he said your name, and I was like, I have to go. I have to join her next.
Ann Randolph: And I was thrilled. You're gonna be with me
a whole week in Mill Valley, right? Yeah, at the Rosta Villa.
Charna Cassell: And I wanna mention, so you're also offering, this is gonna come out after this.
That's okay. But you're offering a free little writing daily for the next five days, which I'm gonna try to do even.
Ann Randolph: Yes, while I'm talking because I
so believe in the power of daily writing and the healing benefits. If I can get everybody on board during that, oh my gosh, life would be quite different.
For everybody. Yeah. It's a game changer.
Charna Cassell: It's a, [00:04:00] for me it was, I think my first spiritual practice was daily writing.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: I discovered Natalie Goldberg's book.
Ann Randolph: Well, thank God for Natalie and Julia Cameron leading the way for personal writing. Healing writing.
Charna Cassell: Yeah.
Well, that's, that's a big part of your approach, right?
Is, Is writing for transformation.
Ann Randolph: Yes. It is because I've seen it in my own life. When I write solo shows, I think I've written six autobiographical solo shows, but I often hide myself in characters. But I'm really letting the truth come through, because I'm known for big, outlandish comedic characters with great amount of pathos.
But I always think about Steve Almond's, quote that the path to truth runs through shame.
Ann Randolph: And even if you're writing fiction, it's color with the dark ink of your own freakish secrets.
Ann Randolph: So these shows, even though I say they're semi autobiographic when I'm playing characters. That [00:05:00] truth is always coming through.
And I think when I'm playing a character, a comedic character, I can bring up that shame in a, in a way that is funny.
And excites me and not that it, and people in unmute my daily writing. I mean, they're not coming from a comedy background. Maybe if few are. Yeah. But that's just been always my way of finding the way to speak it is through these ultra egos.
Charna Cassell: Well, that's, I mean, it's also so important, like the, you know, tragic comedy Yeah. And the things that, like the truths you can get at through science fiction, for instance. Yeah. Right? It's, it's, and, and so being able to balance that is so essential.
Ann Randolph: It is. I often tell people if, if there's a story, and it's really, I mean, it's bringing up these memories that are quite traumatic that come in through a third person.
Yeah.
Another character. It can make it easier to meet it. For the first time.
Charna Cassell: When I worked on a show. In my twenties it was called Novice [00:06:00] Fucker.
Ann Randolph: Great title. I hope it was sold out with that one man.
Okay.
Charna Cassell: And it was, um, it was about working at Good Vibrations, which is a worker owned sex twist story.
Yeah. And. And it was about the boundary crossings that happened with customers that sparked memories from childhood and all the boundary crossings and, and healing from sexual trauma. So I did customers in the store. I did my mother, I did my great grandmother. I, you know, and...
Ann Randolph: This is great.
Charna Cassell: And, and it was, the use of comedy really softened.
The blow of some of the other scenes. But what was so interesting is I did, at one point, I did it three nights in a row at Highways in, in Los Angeles.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. I know Highways. Yes.
Charna Cassell: And it was very different each night. And one of the nights my mom came.
Ann Randolph: Oh my.
Charna Cassell: She wasn't gonna come. And then she came. Oh. And it was a completely different show that night.
Like one night people were like, you're hysterical. And that night it was just like. [00:07:00] This sad, muted, like it was just completely so it was so interesting. Same written material, but obviously.
Ann Randolph: Right.
Charna Cassell: What I, what what was going through me communicated a very different show.
Ann Randolph: It's amazing what happens when you are in transmission.
'cause I think we're all transmitters on that stage. Energetically we are. Right? What kind of energy? And some nights it is pin drop, silence and as a comedian, that's death, right? He's like, I can't have pin drop science. I'm just thinking of, this is a little bit related to your show, but yeah, I'm thinking about a time.
It's a show that I have now called "Inappropriate In All The Right Ways." And when I was, some nights I would do that show and it's 80 minutes and it's telling my life story. This is the first time I'm really telling my life story in a show without picking like a certain segment. And afterwards, people would come up sometimes and say, oh, you poor thing.
And I, it made me feel like a victim. And I was [00:08:00] just so angry. I'm like, this show's not about, but I realized I was still carrying some victim energy in that show. And this went on for years. And I wouldn't ever let any newspaper review it, anybody. 'Cause like I wouldn't know on a given night is my hero energy gonna come through, or is my victim.
And boy, as a solo artist, you don't ever wanna have victim energy coming out there. And I couldn't control it.
And I realized, I'm thinking about the Julia Cameron quote, "Write in the direction you wanna see your life going." And I literally wrote myself into that hero energy.
But I wasn't there yet. And it took a while for me to catch up to the words.
And then finally, only this year have I been able to sustain that hero energy. Because I'm in a whole different place. I feel like grace and work that I've been doing, I finally got there. Yeah. But
initially I was performing a show, which I wasn't there.
And so you're writing yourself to that place where you wanna be. And I got there. So I'm really happy.
Charna Cassell: Congratulations. And I, I, I, God, I love that. And it, it's, it's so [00:09:00] nuanced and so important. Can you say, 'cause I know I listened to a different interview with you and you were talking about. That, that triangle, right.
Of um, like victim, hero, and perpetrator.
Ann Randolph: Oh yeah.
Charna Cassell: And so can you speak a little bit to that regarding the importance of it?
Ann Randolph: Oh no, it's huge because we all have those qualities within us of victim, hero, perpetrator. And perpetrator is a loaded word. Right? It's offender. Yeah. Offender. But if you're doing a solo show or you're writing anything for anybody to trust, you have to acknowledge that part of you that is, has that offender in you, that perpetrator in you.
Where you are flawed, where you misbehave right and left. And of course, as human beings, we don't want anybody to know that shit. We're trying to like push it down all the time and look like I'm just. You know, I'm a people pleaser. I'm poly amper, right? But it's the very thing you're trying to hide and suppress, which is often where, you know, you do people wrong, you misbehave.
That's the [00:10:00] thing that needs to come to light.
And then, um, the hero, and I'll see this in solo shows, I'll, and this was what was happening with me, even though the words were the same. You hear this energy of this happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me.
Yeah. Rather than the. Hero taking action and taking a forward step, right?
You gotta have action and, and action. Moving forward is hero energy. This happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me. That stuck in the past. You're retelling that same story.
And not that you don't acknowledge that past, that's super important that you acknowledge it, but then you have to make a move.
You have to go forward and there's, that's what's driving the story, is the action.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. Well, and it's what's so important in this is that, so, so I'm a somatic therapist and storytelling, we know in the history of, you know, 12 Steps, there's something very valuable about being able to tell your story and be witnessed.
Yes. That can be really healing. Or even playback theater, which [00:11:00] is
Ann Randolph: Yes, I know Playback. Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Right, right. Telling your story and then these, but you're like, how did you want it to end in getting to rewrite the story? And I was, but I was thinking about storytelling and the shadow of storytelling and how people who have a lot of trauma can get addicted to telling the story.
Or people who are addicts can, you know, maybe they stop using the drug, but they become addicted to telling the story of the high or what their bad behavior was or...
Ann Randolph: Right.
Charna Cassell: And so I would, I'm, I'm really curious what you have to say about that, if there, if you have thoughts about that.
Ann Randolph: I mean, I see people get stuck in their story, right?
Because they are retelling that same thing that happened to them. And they get a lot of attention for it, you know, and it's hard to really look underneath it and say, okay, what am I doing? What am I, what is this victim thing that I'm telling? What? How's that? How is that beneficial to me?
Obviously I like it 'cause I keep telling the same sad story over and over again. So I think, you know, there's something of [00:12:00] benefit and you have to look at that, what is it that I'm getting from it? And so when I first look at a piece of material that a student sent to me, I'm looking all the time, is where, where is the person taking a step forward?
Ann Randolph: Taking just one step forward.
Charna Cassell: Right, right, right.
Ann Randolph: And also owning their behavior. People don't wanna own their behavior. I know. I don't wanna own my behavior. Right?
Charna Cassell: Right, right. So yeah. And then the importance from a somatic vantage point when, when I'm first meeting someone and I'm listening for like, well, if we work together, what difference would it make?
What are some measurable results I'm looking for, their gestures, I'm listening for. You know, it's like, oh, well what would it feel like if you had that thing you say you want. Right. And how does, how do you move from, and so it's very related to theater in an interesting way. It's like, how do you move from how you've lived in this kind of static stuck place?
To that expansive. When people say happy or joyful or whatever, [00:13:00] it's like, well, what does that mean? But there's this, there's a, a, a gesture and a shift in their physicality, and it's like, well, what does it take to move from that to this? And what somatically has to occur for that to be more of your default?
Ann Randolph: I love that. 'cause that's, I love that you're doing that. 'cause that's everything. It's the embodiment. It is a somatic practice. And that's very much what we do in the, in the retreats because I'm like, you looking for micro movements? I'm looking for where, where are somebody contracted and held and where can I get them to expand?
And, and I always say, find another way than they're normally used to being. Step into new shoes. And it's very. That's why I use improvisation, because if we're doing improvs or we're doing monologues it, you can't get that censoring brain in there to stop you, right? I mean, it can, but hopefully through time when we're in this retreat, you get to a really place of trusting your.
Your body's gonna give you some information. [00:14:00] Body doesn't lie. And um, so I'm watching that happen from these contracted places to this full expansion.
And it's very unfamiliar with a lot of people, but if you get them into that state, they can tap it and they can hold onto the feeling in their body rather than just in their mind.
And that's huge. That's huge.
Charna Cassell: What you're naming is so important because, so when I do, I do body work with people.
Ann Randolph: Yes.
Charna Cassell: And the idea is I'm creating some kind of imprint for them to revisit. It's like... Beautiful. It's like a pathway back. And so,
Ann Randolph: That's exactly it. Yeah. Right.
Charna Cassell: And so, and people, when I did the show years ago, and it was very somatic, a couple people were like, my body felt changed and that, you know, and other people were horrified by some of the things, but that's a whole other story.
I love that. When you see a piece of art or when you go to the theater or when you, you any experience where you're [00:15:00] viscerally impacted.
And then you have a point of reference back to it.
Ann Randolph: Yes.
Charna Cassell: The mutual friend who took your workshop. It was the practice that he described that you had him do. It was, I actually cried when he was talking about it.
Ann Randolph: I can't, i'm not 'cause of confidentiality, say anything. No. Yeah. But it was probably one of the most powerful things I've ever witnessed.
Yeah.
Charna Cassell: I mean, I could feel the emotion as he was describing it and the extreme discomfort and the power and, and I was like this before I even knew who you were, 'cause he hadn't said your name. I was like, whatever. Whoever guided him through that, I could see what, from a somatic therapist point of view, the direction that this person was giving him.
And I was like, oh, this person nailed it. This is such an impeccable... suggestion. I want to do, I wanna work with this person. And then it was, it was you. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so [00:16:00] excited.
Ann Randolph: That's so funny. I mean, it's so beautiful. It's breathtaking. When you see these monologues and they're not written monologues, these are on the fly, right?
You get somebody in an emotional state like, I hate, or I love, or I yearn, or I'm, and then you lob in a word and they're just off and running, but they cannot be off and running unless they first embody the feeling. So the feeling first. Then the phrase, and then you've, you've lit a fire.
And I tell you it's the best theater I see all year.
Charna Cassell: You also had him do a gesture, a physical gesture.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. So everybody has to, so if you put your state, like I yearn, I yearn, and you really tap into I year. You're feeling that in your whole entire body, and I'm giving you physical gesture that makes you yearn.
And you get into that and then I lob in a word, like I yearn to be touched. Right. And you just say, I yearn to be touched, I yearn to be touched. And then more and more words will come, or [00:17:00] memories or stories or feelings. It's so powerful and, uh, it's beautiful to watch. And those monologues. They're about 10 minutes people, they could have gone on.
No could I could have gone on for a long, long time. And uh, it's hard to cut people off 'cause you're watching things unfold and unravel from years right there.
Charna Cassell: So just picturing having to stand in front of a room full of people and do that on the fly. Like, I'm go, I'm a writer, so I like written.
I'm more comfortable, but just...
Ann Randolph: i'm looking at you.
Charna Cassell: I'm so uncomfortable when I picture what you just described and the courage that it took for him or anyone to do that. I bow down. I am like in, in awe. I, I still struggle with visibility inside of all the, I mean, I've done a one woman show, but, and I'm still, you know, the, the [00:18:00] trajectory of healing, a fear of what comes when you're visible.
It's still something I.
Ann Randolph: Oh, no, I have it too. It hasn't all gone
away, I don't think it'll, you know, we're all, what is it? As Alanis says, hurdling towards wholeness. We're, we're, we're on a healing journey, so we're getting a little better all the time.
Charna Cassell: That's also a really interesting part of your, your history.
So you've, you've worked with Mel Brooks and Alanis Morissette.
Ann Randolph: Yes.
Charna Cassell: And you're a coach for her or?
Ann Randolph: Yeah. I've coached her and we teach together. We just taught at Canyon Ranch together in Tucson, and I think we both have just great respect for each other's work and artistry. So she's also a big believer of my shows that I do around.
But that came through a student. Well I wanna go back to what you first saw. Oh, yeah. Before talk about Alanis is this fear of like, I can't imagine getting on stage and doing these monologues. So when, when I was teaching at Esalin, I always hid improvisation and movement. I didn't even [00:19:00] say it. And because I knew writers, generally introverted are not going to sign up for this course.
And so they would show up, you know, and they get there and then I spring this on them. And it just worked. I mean, I, I think they, and they would come again and again, I have people come 16, 17, 18 times to the retreat. That would never call themselves performers. They're, they're writers, but they saw the value.
And totally, totally embodying. The story and, and allowing for, because you're trying to break a pattern in any story. You're trying to break the pattern. I'm stuck in my second act. I keep pitting the wall. What is it? Right. That's a second act. And we're all in it all the time with something.
Everybody's fighting a battle. And then you, these, these monologues, these embody practices allow people to at least identify and then make another, make another choice that's gonna change them.
Ann Randolph: And feel it. And so I. And I had one group in [00:20:00] Hawaii, all writers, no performers in there, and by the end of the week we do a show for the community.
Not one of 'em did one of their written pieces. They all did monologues on the fly.
Charna Cassell: That would be transformative for me if I walked away from your workshop with more ease in that way. Yeah, that would be very profound for me.
Ann Randolph: Okay. I think you will for sure.
Charna Cassell: That's an I, I feel like a really important part of how I work as a therapist, but also as an essential part of creating a, a very human character that you can relate to and you feel compelled by and you're like, I wanna, I'm rooting for this person to overcome this piece.
Ann Randolph: Right.
Charna Cassell: Right? But also accept themselves because we all have those parts.
Ann Randolph: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love parts work. I think I've, yeah. You know when you're writing characters, you've been to parts before there was a thing called parts work, right?
'Cause that's what you're doing when you're writing a story. You're minding the contradictions, should I [00:21:00] meditate or masturbate? Meditate or masturbate, right? This one's saying shaming me if I just wanna masturbate. This one's saying, no, you'll only be this medi. See you're working with all that all the time.
And I'm like, okay, yeah. Which one? So I mine those parts for material.
Charna Cassell: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's you know, most people come to see me for parts of themselves that they are rejecting. And I'm like, basically this person isn't gonna, you're not gonna move forward until you can appreciate how that part has served you, how it's trying to protect you and you really accept it and integrate it and even maybe be its protector.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Then there's a shift, but otherwise it's like a, a damn. You know? Things are stuck.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. Well that's beautiful that you do that. I mean, to me, that's the deepest work right there. That acceptance, that profound acceptance of those parts. We wanna [00:22:00] just. Oblate put in a closet. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking too about, where I wanna go with the parts.
Oh. Just, it just left me, I didn't know about any of this actually until coaching Alanis because she, she introduced me to highly sensitive people. She introduced me to parts, attachment, all this. I was like, I mean, I thought I was a self-help junkie until I met her. I'm like, oh, she knew so much and she really opened me up.
So as much as I was coaching her, she was coaching me.
Charna Cassell: That's beautiful. And, and that's as it should be, really.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Right?
Charna Cassell: Ever evolving and.
Ann Randolph: Yes. Yeah. So, and ahead of her game, I mean, ahead of her time, I think with really putting out the message of this wholeness and that we're not, we're just going towards it.
Here are some tools, you know, and really wanting to teach your audiences, which is wonderful, remarkable.
Charna Cassell: The, the best kind of art, right? I mean.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. [00:23:00]
Truly.
Charna Cassell: Also really using your platform. Yeah. For good, for good, yeah. For evolution of.
Yeah.
You know, not just your own, but everyone's.
Ann Randolph: Yeah, exactly.
Charna Cassell: How, how did it come to be that you collaborated or worked with Mel Brooks?
Ann Randolph: That was a, this was a, for anybody out there that's a creative person and wanting to make their living at it, let me just tell you a little story. I worked the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter in, Santa Monica.
When I moved to Los Angeles, my big thing was to make it big. Get on Saturday Night Live. That was my one goal at the time 'cause I was also who I was gonna be. And I loved Carol Burnett. I loved Gilda, I loved all this SNL and then. I got in this company. It's a, it's a series of classes you gotta take and they weed out hundreds of people.
And I got in the company, which is called Groundlings, and I was performing every week with Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri, Chris Katan. Oh, and I, the, the classes, the performances were on [00:24:00] Friday, or sorry, Thursday night and Friday night. And then I had to have a job 'cause I was broke and you know. Trying to make it.
And so I took a job, the graveyard shifted a homeless shelter for mentally ill women in Santa Monica, and I really thought I'd just be there six months before I made it big. Right. Well, it be year after year and I'm performing with him, and as I'm performing, I come to this realization, I just don't want to be funny.
I've got this immense depth in me. And to limit myself to three minute sketch. It is holding me back. And this was a very big choice point for me as an artist because I was in performing with these big cats. You know, we hadn't, nobody had made it yet, but I knew I was in the place that was a launchpad.
Yeah. I had to really listen to that impulse within me as Ann, you're much more than a three minute sketch.
You got so much more and you, so I quit the Groundlings, which people thought was insane. And I [00:25:00] wrote my first one person show and I think I got critics picked for that and I stayed at the shelter making minimum wage.
Another three years go by. I get best solo show in LA, but I'm self-producing with my credit card. It's like this goes on for 10 years now. 10 years full-time at a homeless shelter, and I'm 40 years old. I think I wanna be homeless myself. I had put up a show, this one was the closest I ever got to revealing my own truth and shame.
Uh-huh.
That's what happened. And I put it up and one night that I'm in there, Mel Brooks is in the audience and he comes up afterwards, he says, you're gonna genius. I'm gonna take this show to New York. So it was a game changing moment. And the reason he was in the audience, I was taking this class with this woman and she was Mel's daughter-in-law, but I didn't know this. And she kept saying, I'm gonna bring my in-laws. I'm like, bring her over the fuck you want. I don't care. I didn't [00:26:00] know it was them. Right? Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks
Charna Cassell: I went to, I went to high school with his
son.
Ann Randolph: Oh, you did?
Max. Yeah. I love Max.
Charna Cassell: He was a couple years older than me. Yeah. Um, but I, yeah, I thought he was pretty remarkable.
Ann Randolph: I love Max. He just came to my show when I did it here in LA so it was wonderful to see Max. And I'm seeing Michelle. I just saw Michelle the other night. We went to see Cyndi Lauper.
Charna Cassell: Oh, that's so awesome. That's so great.
Ann Randolph: With Cher came on. Joni Mitchell, John Legend. I mean, it was like star studded, last show of her career. Wow. It's gotta be sad. That's what I think, but maybe not.
Charna Cassell: So that, so that was a that's when you formed a relationship with him and, and part of, part of that story is a, a stick-to-itness and a and a faith in yourself.
Yeah. And, and what you're offering. And I'm just really, I'm curious what resourced you during that decade? What were the, you know, because not everybody has faith in themselves. Especially you up [00:27:00] have them.
Ann Randolph: You know, I, I have, I mean, there's, it was really challenging because I literally, I'm seeing every one of my friends get either writing jobs on sitcoms or get to SNL and I'm still at the shelter.
I think that was line one of my shows. I'm still at the shelter and I definitely was in dark places there with doubt and doubt and, and, and hopelessness for sure. To be 40 years old and I've given up so much. I had let go of relationships because I'm just like, I was outta balance. I was like, I'm only gonna go after this.
That's it. Everything else falls aside. Yeah. So I was also completely out of balance and um. But the thing that kept me going was the support of my teacher and my tribe. I think that's why I live on Mute so much. 'Cause people were championing each other there and it's too lonely to do this really hard work alone.
And um, also winning the awards. I would [00:28:00] win Best Social, I would win these awards and people didn't know I was struggling to survive. So that validation from the press and from peers and awards was also. Very satisfying. I know when and kept me going When Mel Brooks finally did come to the show, you know, I was at the shelter, so, and he, my show was at two hours and 20 minutes, which is insane for solo the show, but he had one best solo the show in LA at 2 hours and 20 minutes.
And so Mel's like, you're not going to New York. Two, you get it down to 80 minutes. So I'm like, but it won. He's like, he goes, we're getting to town. And so. I would literally be at the shelter at night. Then I would go to Mel and Ann's during the day and they'd help me. And it was like back and forth. And then like every six weeks I'd have to put up the new thing for like a private audience of Liam Neeson or Carl Reiner for them to weigh in, was the show ready or not?
And they option it. And if I don't get it ready, right, I'll be back at the shelter. I mean, I still am the show. I'll remain at the shelter. So, the stakes were [00:29:00] high. It was like homeless shelter... broadway?
You
know?
Charna Cassell: That's, that's wild.
That's so wild.
Ann Randolph: And finally, uh, yeah, they said, you're good to go. So that was a quite a a time.
And then there's probably the most traumatic thing happened during that time. I don't know if that's anywhere in my bio, but, so I opened in New York and I got wonderful reviews, but maybe. Four months before the show opened, Anne Bancroft, who... her name was on the poster. Anne Bancroft, presidents Anne Randolph.
She got cancer. Yeah. And Mel said, and she's gonna be okay, but we're gonna turn you over to somebody handed the day-to-day marketing to get you ready for New York. And I got the phone. I was, thank God she's okay. But as the months got on this other producer that was handled, all the marketing was just, I was not on his radar. And I wanted to pick up the phone and call Mel and say, I'm about to do eight shows a week in New York off my, and you gotta have a machine behind you. But I couldn't do it because now I'd found out Ann [00:30:00] was dying and I thought, how can I ask about me? Totally. But here's the thing that's gonna take me outta the shelter and lift me. 'Cause we were also gonna do the movie. We're doing the Broadway show, then the movie. Right. And now all this is not the show on New York's collapsing. That's gonna happen. But there's no marketing. So I opened in New York to these reviews, but hardly any audience and to get your dream. And Mel sees what's happening.
He sees the other guy didn't pick up the ball, wants to show up, and started taking out quarter page ads for $20,000 a pop like, because the guy didn't pick up the ball.
Oh my God. But it was too late. So the show only ran for a limited time with these great reviews and then it closed. And I'm like, oh no.
Now what? I'm back home. I have no money. I'm back. I have a little bit of money from the opening. I'm back home in my parents' house with books on the shelf that say, do what you love and the money will follow. And I'm like, fuck you. Right? So I think that was probably the most traumatic. Like in my early adult [00:31:00] adult of to build to this point.
Yeah. And lose it all. In my mind at the time, I'll never ever have this chance again. I will never recover from this loss.
10 years to get me to Broadway. This is it. And now just collapse. It was the most devastating thing. And at the same time, my dad was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and my mother had a stroke.
So there was a tremendous amount of grief at one time. Loss. Loss. Loss. Yeah. And then that's when I picked up that pen again and, started writing about loss and wrote a, another show out of that. And that show was only supposed to run six weeks. It ran for two years straight in San Francisco. And I made lots of money as one could make money in theater, and then it tore, it went all over the country.
It, it did great. But at the time, it was the best thing I've ever written. That show that came outta that loss was the most honest, raw. Gut wrenching. Holy shit. I mean, I, I had just laid my soul bare in that one. 'cause I had literally [00:32:00] gone to the rock bottom at, at 41 when the show closed.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. And, and that, I mean, that's such, such a, that is the human experience encapsulated in terms of, you know, and I hate to say the, the, like the blessing inside of the challenge. Yeah. But you know, that, that there was this. Huge piece, almost like the, the thing you fear most. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna make it.
It's not gonna happen for me, and it does happen for me. And yet there's still so much loss inside of it. And how do you just completely surrender and how do you grieve? And then being that totally honest and accepting
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: This part of this universal experience of loss.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: And, and how relatable that was for people.
Ann Randolph: But you don't wanna accept the loss when you're in it. You're just surviving and you think, I'm not gonna make it. I'll die. I'm really gonna die, and I wanted to die.
It was like, okay, I'm not gonna get this again. I'm not getting [00:33:00] anything close to this again, right?
And yet I look back and like the best thing that ever happened, right? But you can't do that. You're not, you can't do hindsight when you're in the middle of a crisis.
Charna Cassell: No, no. You literally feel like you're, you're treading water and yeah. You will drown if you stop.
Ann Randolph: And if people can remember that, that are listening out there, I mean, I tell myself all the time a crisis comes and just look, every single time has been a gift, a, a tremendous gift.
Charna Cassell: Yeah, it's an interesting, I'm a glass half full person, and so even in the the midst of it, like I may prematurely be looking for, it's like I'm in the physical body experience of the trauma that's occurring and then, then be from a spiritual vantage point, see. The, the gift or the, the, the growth opportunity inside of it, you know, and so, but it's like, oh, how do doing both and how do you fully process the, the physical experience [00:34:00] and not, you know, spiritually bypass.
Right. And try to look for the gift prematurely. It's like actually let's, right. Let's process, you know, this experience first. Yeah. And then allow time to pass and get the also, you know, yeah. The, the perspective.
Ann Randolph: Well, that's good. You're half full. I'm a half half empty.
Charna Cassell: Well, look, we can, we can, I gotta work harder.
We can make a, here we go. Look, we've got a whole mason jar.
Ann Randolph: I love it. A whole jug. Okay. I'm working on it. I'm working on changing those perceptions and that's what, you know, I'm always asking the students too, can we change it? Widen our lens. So it's not the way we normally see it. And it's really just a practice over again to chat.
Where's my thoughts? Is it going to negative? Am I attacking myself? Right. Others in my head.
Charna Cassell: What do you think is key for that in terms of. Actually being able to transform through storytelling. Are there some, are there certain pieces?
Ann Randolph: Well, I, I think first [00:35:00] the awareness and not trying to suppress something.
So where there's heat in the body, I'm always going back to the body. Where do you feel your get choked up or in your stomach or you get flushed or What's not wanting to be expressed right now and write that and boy, that's terrifying for people. It's terrifying for me. So, it's just. It never goes away.
'cause each time you're upping the ante. Right now I'm doing this crazy character on Facebook. So I got some thousands of people watching her and she's pushing the envelope and I'm like, Anne, you're gonna push it and you could risk losing everything. So once again, I'm at a big risk point and. It's scary for me, it's terrifying.
But if I don't do it, you got that conscious always whispering. Yeah. What is right. Every single second.
And are you gonna choose to pay attention to that? Still small voice. You can call it God. I call it God. I call it other, but you kind of know. You don't kind of know, you know? What would be right in this moment.
And we don't often listen to that voice. We betray that [00:36:00] voice. For safety.
Charna Cassell: A lot of overriding.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. That security of safety is such a powerful seducer just to me. Especially as you get older, you're like, I can't take any risks. Now. I got how many more years of earning power.
Charna Cassell: Are you also speaking to the fear of cancel culture? When you say like, risk.
Ann Randolph: Oh, that's what I meant. Yeah. With my character, now I'm up against cancel culture, right? She's a straight Appalachia. She talks like that and she works at a waffle wagon and she's got some opinions.
I always fear cancel culture because I think cancel culture's super dangerous.
I mean, it doesn't allow for a person to be redeemed. To me, redemption is everything. I make mistakes every day. I've made huge mistakes in the past. If you cancel me for one little, little thing and people do that, I mean, look, we swung too far. I mean, it's good to bring up and call people out.
When they have done wrong.
Yeah, it is. But to. Cancel them and not give [00:37:00] them another chance. I'm, you know, because they dug up something 25 years ago
And found it and shame them for today. Oh my God. The things that could dig up on me.
So.
I'm just trying to, you know, find a way to say that we're all evolving and growing and doing the very best that we can.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. Well, and I think it's so important because there's so much, like, so much suffering comes from. A lack of self-acceptance and a lack of self-forgiveness.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: And also not forgiving others. I mean, you're really imprisoned in the past. And so a lot of, I do energy medicine practices with clients and you know, and it's really about how do you bring all as much of your energy from the past or from the future, fear of what's happening in the future into this present moment.
Ann Randolph: I love that.
Charna Cassell: You know, and it's like, because being in the present moment, that's where your nervous system is usually the most regulated, like I could be having, I remember literally having diarrhea [00:38:00] and feeling like I'm gonna have a panic attack or sobbing before getting on stage. Then I can just be totally present and then getting off again, like, you know, system dysregulation.
But, but being in the present moment, there's so much more peace and ease. Right. You know? So if we're just like gripping the past and what's happened to us or we're afraid of what's gonna happen, you know?
Ann Randolph: I love that you shared that 'cause. It's true, it's true. And that feeling right. And how quickly the nervous system can change.
'Cause I know that right before you go on stage and then once you're there, it's like, to me, the greatest peace.
Charna Cassell: It's bizarre.
Ann Randolph: It's wild.
Charna Cassell: I, I, as someone who I, I mean, I had panic attacks in college and had a massively dysregulated anxious system. Somatic work transformed my life. And but I would literally, I would cry.
My girlfriend would be like, you don't have to do this. And I was like, no, I want to, but I'd be like, [00:39:00] like I was just so freaked out, like I really felt like I was gonna die.
Ann Randolph: Oh yeah.
Charna Cassell: I mean it's bizarre. How, how scary.
Ann Randolph: It's so, yeah, it's like that. And you think, why do you do it? I spend days beforehand diarrhea, crying, like, I hate the, what am I doing?
And then you do it. You're like, this is the greatest time of my life.
Charna Cassell: Well, that, that moment that you're talking about where if you're doing comedy and I like satire and you know, but just, just that moment where you feel either the silence 'cause everyone is with you. Or the, the laughter because they're, they're with you.
I mean, that It is, it's very powerful.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. Well, you're playing with, you're playing with energy up there, right? Yes. And you can feel the energy back and forth and it's profound and, and you're giving a message that's transmitting hopefully to their heart and what can be greater than that? Then their heart's coming back with their heart.
I mean, it's a beautiful, to me love fest up there.
Charna Cassell: [00:40:00] That's, it's interesting. That's the first time I've thought about theater as a, as a tantric practice.
Ann Randolph: Ah.
Charna Cassell: Right. Like isn't, that's basically what that is. It's like this, this tantric, like you're, you're working, you're using your energy, you're, you're conducting something and you're, if you're, if you're, if you're hoping to ultimately have an open heart and an open system, then it's very tantric.
Ann Randolph: Yeah. I, I agree. That's why I think it's also super important that when you're going to transmit that you're about as clean as possible.
Yeah.
Which i've had issues with. 'cause I, I will feed my body with crap like McDonald's, which is embarrassing to say. And like, once I do a show, I clean myself up because that, that all taints you, you know, in some way.
I mean, people think, oh my god, Ann, that's too perfectionistic. But I think it all, it all, makes a difference.
Charna Cassell: Yeah, I, I'm in that I, you know, as a result of health issues that I've had, infl inflammation, like internalized [00:41:00] repressed anger throughout childhood.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: It forced me into, onto a spiritual path and forced me into very clean existence because I actually, I feel everything in my system.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: And not just, not just food, but like other people.
Ann Randolph: Right. And so you're permeable. I get it. It it taught me how to, because you're sensitive.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. Right. The high. Yeah.
Ann Randolph: Thank God you are.
Yeah.
Charna Cassell: One thing that I, I would love to hear you talk some about is the difference between you could write something and read it, right?
Like you could, you could write something and if you're just reading it to yourself, there's a different experience or the experience of writing it, but then once you speak it and the process of feeling and embodying-- completely different.
Ann Randolph: Correct.
Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Right. So vulnerable.
Ann Randolph: It's so vulnerable. And [00:42:00] it's also the act of being, I mean, I don't know if you're talking about speaking out loud to yourself, but when you speak it audience and your witness, there's nothing more healing, not only for you, but for the audience because.
You're giving them permission by you saying your truth and standing your truth. You're giving them tremendous permission for them to own their truth and own their feelings of grief or shame because you've stood there so vulnerably and shared it yourself. So the impact of stories on another. It's profound and breathtaking.
I always, I was doing a show on grief at the arena stage. It was eight shows a week, and it's a comedy, right? I do comedy, but also it's got gut-wrenching tears in it. And afterwards I didn't just sit there, right? And I could see they're hungry. So I said, well, how many, instead of going to bar would like to write about grief and have that audience stayed?
And every [00:43:00] night after my show, I do a writing workshop on grief and. I'd have them write. And then one night, some guy, he said, I'd like to read mine. And he came up and he took the stage and he wrote about losing his wife to breast cancer. And he just started weeping.
And I saw this audience of strangers become this community holding space for this man to tell his story.
And so more and more people get on stage, share their story. Now we're in a theatrical, interactive experience that is breathtaking because then I come, it's not my story, it's your story. It's all our stories, right? But that show, my show, I believe, gave that man permission. Then that man gave somebody else permission.
It's just like this beautiful. It's gorgeous. And I think that's why the retreats are so powerful. 'cause every day you're hearing people share these stories, but you're also saying, well, that's me in there. That's me, that's me. And you're not so alone. And believe me, we're [00:44:00] a very lonely society right now.
We all feel so alone and stories are what connect us. Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Yeah, the use of storytelling to heal isolation and shame.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: And build resilience and self-acceptance and, and self-awareness
Ann Randolph: And self-awareness.
Yeah. And I also think when you're listening, I think the other question you asked me, well, what kept you going during these times?
And this is what keeps me going all the time, is synchronistic events, which I believe come from the divine.
No doubt about it. I've had like, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle. In the midst of hell, hell help Miracle. Miracle, miracle. So I have no doubt that I've got a higher power watching over me and guiding me, so I
Every year I get more trusting in that, that I don't really need to push anymore, just watch what unfolds. Because for many years I just push, push, push. And now I'm like: [00:45:00] unfold, unfold, unfold.
Charna Cassell: Well, and, and the pushing can be like, you're going in the wrong. It's like you're, you're, you're trying to force yourself to go in a direction upstream that isn't the direction.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: And versus what, you know, allowing. And floating, like I'm picturing Yeah. You know, like letting the river carry you, you know?
Ann Randolph: But it's hard when you're, I'm ambitious, you know, and yeah, it's hard. I want things now and then like, but my whole list has also been patience. Patience.
Charna Cassell: Are there, do you have a spiritual practice?
Is, are there any things you particularly engage in that, that are helpful to you?
Ann Randolph: Well, the one is making me open to what, how you wanna guide me? Like what would you have me say? What would ha would you have me do, you know, gimme guidance today, but nothing very. I'll do some meditation and body scans like Reginal Ray.
I love his body scans. I'll do that. I'll do Sara Blonden and, but I'd pop all around, but I also do Maryanne Williamson's
course [00:46:00] because I like. I like the practice of continually changing my thought patterns. So she has a daily where I'll read one and work on that. Which I, I think is really good.
Anything that's gonna help you, I wish I could be one of those person. I'm disciplined, I do this every, but I'm, I pop all over the place, but I definitely believe in God. I, I definitely believe in, the teachings of Christ and Buddha and Rumi and Sufi and... and I read that I'm inspired and.
You know, those words give me great comfort.
Charna Cassell: Yeah, yeah. Well, and the thing around discipline, I think it can look different ways, and I think, you know, being overly rigid and forcing yourself to do the same practice for decades isn't the right thing for everybody, like keeping it alive. I mean, a lot of what you're talking about is being with.
Energy as it arises. Liberating yourself from Yes. Like through [00:47:00] story, but from story. Yeah. Right? Yes. Yeah. But allowing, I mean, and that's what I, why I like, I love all energy practices. I use martial arts based practices. I do energy medicine. You know, Kundalini yoga, I gotta work with you. Well, I, I would love to, but it, it's, but just it's.
It what I see, how I hold trauma, it's like, what we tell ourselves creates restrictions in the body as well as fascial restrictions that exist. But it's like how do you liberate the energy and allow movement to occur?
Ann Randolph: Right?
Charna Cassell: And I love this educational theater.
Ann Randolph: Oh, I'm big on it. Edutainment. That's the word. Edutainment.
Charna Cassell: Edutainment. I love it. That's awesome.
Ann Randolph: Yeah.
Charna Cassell: What are you offering right now that how people can engage with you?
Ann Randolph: I am offering work with the best, the most. Well, there's many ways. If you're online, you can do a daily writing practice and there's nothing like it.
It's called unmute. Your story matters and it's Monday through Friday, super cheap. And we also have masterclasses in there. We have guest artists come in [00:48:00] and it's just such a beautiful community. People have written books, some people in there not to write books, but really doing deep healing in there.
And you really get to know the people. I'm there every day with you. Got any questions about anything creatively or personally? I do my best. Even though I'm not a psychotherapist, I'm a creative coach and I, I have a shit ton of experience. So that, and then weekly, I do probably three to four week long retreats a year, and I usually sell out really quickly.
I'm lucky I have people come back again and again. And so I really get to see people's journeys with these stories and see books written, solo shows put on stage. Then I just was invited by MEA, which is Modern Elder Academy, to come do four weekends a year in Santa Fe.
Charna Cassell: And, and what's your social media? I mean, this will all be in the show notes, but what are you, oh. What are your links so people can find you?
Ann Randolph: @annerandolph12. I think 12 is the Facebook page and Instagram are not so much on, I'm trying to be better 'cause I'm putting this [00:49:00] character out now that's got some traction. In fact, I'm here because. I've been invited as that character, which is a big brassy, redhead. It's got a mouth on her, a waitress to give a sermon at a local church here in Santa Monica.
So I'm like, I can't resist. And it's a sermon where I, I will push the envelope in Kauai. I got. You know, I tour, tour, tour and I was so tired of being on the road and this is crazy story touring, touring. I'm like, I can't keep on the road. I gotta find a place to live, but if I don't go on the road, how am I gonna make my money?
And like, here we go. God, give me a sign. So one of the last stops on my tour was Kauai. And the only place you can perform is at The Church of the Pacific, which is a church in Princeville on the North Shore, and I'm telling the church secretary, I said, I'm so tired of being on the road, and you know, I come there every year to perform.
She goes, well, I don't know why you just don't live in the pastor's house. I'm like, what do you mean the pastor has lives in the house? He goes, she goes, no, [00:50:00] he lives down the road in a tarot farm. He's a tarot farmer. And I said, but I'm not even a member of the church. She goes, I know, but we love you here.
And these are, like I said, I do R-rated shows. She goes, well just remove the crucifix when you do the shows. And she is like I said, this is crazy. She goes, I'm gonna talk to them. That pastor goes to Vegas lots of times and when he goes to Vegas, I think you could do the sermon. They give you that pastor's house.
So this is what this is God. Right. Love it. God put me love. Love it. Yeah. I moved into the pastor's house and I'm taking a risk. I said no to Eslan, Omega, all these places I was touring because I can't keep getting on that plane. And then so I'm there and I start inviting people to come study with me in Kauai.
And there's four bedrooms in his pastor's house on the ocean. Right. And so it gets booked right away. Retreats sell out. Amazing. Amazing. And because it's a... tourist town, I constantly can put up my R-rated show in the church. Right? And then it [00:51:00] was like. I was never leaving Kauai, but then something else happened.
Charna Cassell: It's perfectly edgy. I mean, that's, it probably compelled people, right? They're like, like, Ooh, not a, not a show in a church.
Ann Randolph: Yeah, no. I always feel like my greatest forte is holding both the sacred and the profane. The reverent Yes, and irreverent. They go hand in hand and people are like, oh no, you just gotta be reverent.
I'm like, you can't be just reverend if you don't go to the flip side of nasty.
Charna Cassell: Oh my God. I'm so excited for my time with you and your workshop. I am, this is it, it's a, a birthday treat for me for my 50th birthday.
I'm like doing all the things I've wanted to do for a long time and I'm like doing them this year. So. Thank you so much for your time.
Ann Randolph: I so look forward to, to being with you in person. Yay.
Charna Cassell: I can't wait.
Ann Randolph: Alright. Okay. Have a great day.
Charna Cassell: Thank you.
Ann Randolph: Bye-Bye.
Charna Cassell: i'm your host, Charna Cassell. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please like rate, [00:52:00] review and share it with your friends. If you wanna stay connected, you can go to Instagram or Facebook and LaidOPEN Podcast, L-A-I-D-O-P-E-N-P-O-D-C-A-S-T. I also have a course that you can access at charnacassel.com, and you can join my newsletter and I have a free monthly energy clear out that you can sign up for at either passionatelife.org or charnacassell.com.
This has been the LaidOPEN Podcast with your host, Charna Cassel. We all have different capacities, but I believe in our capacity to grow and change together. Until next time.
