How to Make Money on a Brecht Show, with Becca Blackwell

Transcript

Becca Blackwell  

I was just shocked at how unsustainable making a living as a theatre artist in New York City was. The more work I would do, the less money I seemed to have. I would be going back to back to back to show, and I felt like I was getting poor and poor and poor.

[music]

Alexis Clements  

Hello, and welcome back to The Answer is No. I’m your host, Alexis Clements. And this week, I’ll be talking with award winning performer, Becca Blackwell, whose work has been seen on stages across the US and Europe, and on screens around the world. 

Our goal with this podcast is to share stories of artists saying no to bad gigs in order to think more broadly about how to make the arts a more equitable and sustainable field for everyone. And Becca has a lot to say on the subject. 

I first got to know Becca’s work in the 2000s when I was seeing and writing about a ton of downtown performance here in New York City. One of the first shows I saw them in was a revival of Susan Glaspell’s 1916 play, “Trifles.” Produced by The Theater of a Two- Headed Calf and directed by Brooke O’Harra, Blackwell’s performance as Mr. Hale was one of the standouts of the production, and I have kept an eye out for their work ever since. 

Now, more than a decade later, downtown theater and performance art here in New York looks pretty different. And it wasn’t just the pandemic that changed things. We started to see venues closing around 2010, including the Ontological Hysteric Theater, which was not only home to the work of Richard Forman, but also a low cost performance space available to shows like the one I first saw Becca in. And in the past five or six years, it’s been very noticeable that many artists whose work I admired aren’t producing much in the way of theater or performance anymore. It’s also noticeable just how many theater people have moved into film and television.

[music]

It’s hard to find clear numbers on the shift away from live performance, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics here in the US says it pretty clearly in their overview of employment opportunities for actors, despite the fact that they expect acting jobs to grow overall: “Many small- and medium-sized theaters have difficulty getting funding. As a result, the number of performances is expected to decline.” According to the National Arts index report from Americans from the Arts, the number of actors in Actors Equity, the union for stage actors, went down by a few thousand from 2002 to 2013, while the number of actors in the Screen Actors Guild, the union for actors in film and television, more than tripled in that same time period. 

So what does all of that mean for someone like Becca, who still straddles both live performance and screen-based work? And how does Becca decide which gigs to take these days? We get into that and much more in our conversation. 

Also, just to note that Becca’s dog, Horsey Marie Blarkey, was eager to join in the conversation. So you may hear a few things from Horsey during our interview.

[music]

So when you were a little kid, did you imagine adult life? And if you were thinking about adult life, what did you imagine it would be like?

Becca Blackwell  

I never even thought about being an adult. Ever. I was adopted to a family. There was some, kind of like — there was some trauma, I guess. I know now, with always perspective, I’m able to look back and go, oh my god, we were all trying as best we can. In the moment I just felt really alienated from that family, or like, I think there’s something about being adopted that you’re always like — who might get rid of you. So I think there’s this kind of state of that. And then, there was some sexual abuse, and I think I just, yeah, I mean, I never even thought, I couldn’t even… When I got to college, I was just like, I’m living on borrowed time.

Alexis Clements  

Thinking about college, what was it that made you be like, you know what, if I’ve got time, this is what I’m gonna do with it?

Becca Blackwell  

I think it was having teachers that were really pushing me in that. So I got into trouble. I got wasted in school, and I got an in-school suspension and I think I had a couple of good teachers that really were like, Becca’s really special or whatever. And so they were like, you have a lot of energy, why don’t you try theatre? 

And the school I went to didn’t I have a theater program. So they did like some sort of like, play thing. And oh god, what was it? Oh, it was, “Father of the Bride.” That was what they did. The teacher who was doing it with my drama teacher. And I took drama instead of journalism because it was less work. And [laughter] so he was like, why don’t you be in a play? So I went and did the play. And I loved being in rehearsals because I didn’t have to go home after school and I was having fun. And I was like, I got, it wasn’t a big part, so I could be really silly. And then it came to the show, and I had stage fright so bad that I couldn’t come out of the bathroom. [laughter] And they grabbed me. I remember Mrs. Pinson, like pulled me out of the bathroom. Like literally, she had to climb over the stall, and was like, you have to go on!

I remember wanting to barf. And I still get this when I go on stage it’s very interesting. And then I had this big monologue about, there’s too many, there’s not enough people… or whatever that, like, horrible play is. And I got like a, what is it, what is it, like, a showstopper — like people started laughing and clapping in the middle the show. And I remember like, I was like, oooh, well, that feels good. That’s, I guess, my Leo moon.

Alexis Clements  

Was there anything you were doing as a young kid that hinted at that love of the limelight.

Becca Blackwell  

I used to, like, entertain my mom. When we were, none of us were happy. And like, I would make fun of people, like, in our families, like make fun of like characters. And it would make my mom laugh when she was, like, she had cancer, she was sick. Like this isn’t made to be like, wahhh, but it was one of the things where I was like, woah these were very formative, when I look back on it. Like, I was doing all this kind of, way of entertaining, and I think this there’s something about that as a kid. Like, when you’re like — the way I deal with trauma was like, let’s make everyone laugh, you know, until that became, I guess, my in. 

And so I remember I auditioned for NYU’s program and I got in, but it was, at the time, in 1990 or 91, it was like $20,000. I remember my mom was like, what? Like, they were just like, that’s bananas. [laughter] Like who pays that? Yeah, so. So that didn’t happen. Then I got into another school that was a smaller, liberal arts college. But that college didn’t really do much for me, because it was really heterosexual. I was really queer.

None of the professors knew what to do with me because I came out, also as being queer, lesbian at the time — we used those words, we used lesbian back then. And once you say you’re a lesbian, publicly, men are just like, you don’t exist. But at the time, that is just like how men dealt with dykes. Like men really, across the board, like even my best friends who were men, were kind of like, no, you’re not gay, because it was bad to be gay. It was like a death sentence in a way. And even like, you know, I don’t think any of my friends would like to recall that they were total homophobic pricks about me coming out. Because they are not those people now. But when we were all like, 18, or whatever… And also everyone who was gay had AIDS, you know, like, that’s also how everyone thought, in 1990 and 1991. 

They never would cast me in anything. And maybe I wasn’t right for it. But it was also like, there were people who were definitely not right for who were getting cast, because they were attractive. And I think that’s also the world still. I think everyone loves a hot person. [laughter] And I remember a couple of directors and people who would come from New York, who would work in the college, were always very intrigued by me. And that’s kind of when I was just like, you know what, I’m just gonna go to New York. 

So I didn’t even finish and I just went to New York. I worked in a casting director’s office. It was Stuart Howard Casting, and I remember he was casting “Grease.” And he did a lot of like, really, not shitty stuff, but just where I was just like, this, is this, this is it? Like it was that, it was like not even like anything I want to work on. And then I remember, because in his office he had like Brecht and Genet, like all the same kind of stuff I was into. And I remember saying like, why don’t you cast a show for Brecht? And were in the elevator which he, he was always, he never spoke in the elevator. But he would, he would occasionally speak to me, and he was just like, honey, if you can figure out how to make money casting a Brecht show, let me know. You know, that was kind of my first real clue at how this business actually really worked. 

It was funny because, telling that story now, and then getting back to like, when I had my first lead, I was really like, oh my god, yeah, I realized that it I don’t want to be a theatre person. I want to make work and somehow make a living at it, and I have, I’ll make a better living and have a better life if I’m not a theatre actor. I’ll have a better living making art and getting grants, and that lifestyle that’ll actually give me the space to like, be in reflection and make work.

Alexis Clements  

Talk a little more about what you mean by that. 

Becca Blackwell  

Theater actors, unless you have some sort of huge bank account, but even if you had a huge bank account, the amount of time that is expected of you doing theater… I finally get a lead in a play, after that experience, I was like, I don’t ever want to do theater again. I think I was just gobsmacked at, like, how shitty the pay was. I was like, I’m making $1,500 and they want us here every fucking day. This lifestyle is for 25 year olds. This lifestyle is not for artists. I was also this indie artist that was working with, you know, I’d do a project with Tina Satter, or I’d do a project with Erin Markey, or I did a project with you know, Young Jean [Lee], or Morgan Gould would want to work with me on something, or I would reach out to, like, Jess Barbagallo, and say like, let’s make something, or, you know, my friend, Nicholas Zeig-Owens would like record something.

And you were always like, oh, I can’t wait to get successful. You know, and I was saying this in my 30s and 40s. Because in every other field, that is what it is. Because in every other field, it’s kind of like you’re in a conveyor belt of work. And that is what I realized, I was like, oh, no, the artist doesn’t have that cushion, because the artist isn’t living in a nine to five, complacency — like you’re not living for that stability. And in fact, if you’re an artist, you’re in a state of instability, because you’re seeing how the world gets further and further away from the essence of the human. And the only reason they’re artists is because we’ve fully forgotten that we are of nature and we’re mammals who want connection and relationship.

Alexis Clements  

Did you imagine that there would be success? Did you think okay, I’m gonna hustle my ass off for awhile, I’m gonna take these gigs because I’m excited and they may not pay shit now, but eventually X. Was there an “eventually X” for you — like eventually this will happen? 

Becca Blackwell  

I think I realized really early on that I was not having the same kind of life that like heterosexual people were experiencing. And I wasn’t around queer people, I was only around straight people, I was only around heterosexual theatre. And I had my friend Kim Kefgen, you know, god bless her, cast me — this is like 95, I think — cast me in a play that was at the Louisville Festival [Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville], that was written for a guy, a guy in his 30s, who was from Bensonhurst. And I remember, I was dating this New Yorker, at the time, this woman, and she came to see it and she was just like, you know, she was totally down with me playing a man, because she was, you know, my lover at the time, so she understood queerness and masculinity, but she was just a born and raised New Yorker — she was like, there’s no fucking way you’re from Bensonhurst! [laughter] She was just like, there’s no fucking way, like, there’s just no fucking way. Like, maybe you are to people not from New York but there’s no fucking way you’re from Bensonhurst. I think now I could play someone from Bensonhurst a lot more. But I just was, you know, I was still like, my street was Ohio, rural. [laughter] It wasn’t like, you know… I mean, it’s a probably a little scarier than Bensonhurst guy, because there’s a little bit, there’s a little bit, like, smiling, like, how you doing, I think I might want to cut your tongue out. You know, that’s the way we do it in Ohio.

Alexis Clements  

And what about trying to build your career and get more gigs? How did that go for you?

Becca Blackwell  

I couldn’t get an agent. I couldn’t. And in fact, I still have never had an agent in my theater life. I just got a manager in 2019, January 2019 was the first time I got a manager. And in fact, I love my manager, he’s a fantastic guy, Anthony Ippolito. But even like, I got “High Maintenance” on my own, I got “Shameless” on my own. Those were from just me being in this business so long. And that there weren’t really any trans actors. Like it was, at one point, you know, Jess Barbagallo and I were the only ones, and I’m 10 years older than he is, you know. 

You get so desperate when there’s nothing and you create meals from crumbs, so you don’t even know what a meal tastes like. And then you get, it’s like, I finally get to this place where I have the, maybe, career that people are like, I would do anything for Becca’s career. And I get to that table of success and these motherfuckers are eating plastic fruit. They’re not even eating real shit. And they’re just like, look, I’m at the table. And that’s kind of when I realized like, oh, This is all a facade, like there is no ladder of success. There’s none of that. Like, it’s just like, do you want to do this. 

And this is what my friend Michelle Matlock, she was always telling me, you have to make your own work. You have to make your own work because you’ll kind of figure out who you are as an artist. And you’ll also figure out, like, what you want to do from that. Once I started doing that, I really saw my shift in what I was willing to do, because the role of the actor, it’s shockingly, just considered, like, people treat actors like shit. Like they think that all we want to do is be on stage. Again, it’s a fun hobby for us. Like, it’s like you think these kids are in perpetual childhood. And I had never in my life done eight shows a week, and I had been in a circus where I threw people in the fucking air. So it wasn’t that I’m lazy, or I don’t know how to work hard. I’ve done labor work, I’ve done sex work, I’ve sold drugs. I have done so much. I’ve done more than most of the people in like high positions of power have, to even, like the labor to even get their job. 

It’s half the reason why I never want to make anything outside of solo work. If I have money, I have to pay the designers and the director and the collaborators. I can’t put another performer in there. I don’t want to do what was done to me for so many years.

Alexis Clements  

At what point are you realizing that it’s not sustainable?

Becca Blackwell  

Oh, it was when I did my first eight shows a week show. I was just, I was pulling in $525 after taxes. I had eight shows a week. I would do five shows in 48 hours starting Friday night. So Friday night at 8pm, and I had a 3 on Saturday and an 8, and then 2 and 7 on Sunday. So 48 hours, from the moment I went on stage on Friday, I had finished five shows. I couldn’t speak. I mean, because I just was like, my part was screaming and they didn’t have a mic and you have sound effects and all this stuff. And, you know, I was really, I remember being like, I need a masseuse, I need a vocal coach, I need all this stuff. And it’s not that New York Theatre Workshop was like, no, but they basically were like, no. They were like, okay, well, we’ll try and find someone. And then, you know, five weeks out, they were like, we found someone, you know. And that woman was like, I have this hour free, and then I have an hour free next week. And I’m like, well I don’t have an hour free this time. and then next week, the show ends. 

And I remember just being so angry at them. And it was like, it’s not like they were bad. And I remember like this deep insistence on, you have to be here 12 hours a day, we will do tech for this long, we don’t care what it’s doing to your body, that’s your job as an actor. I’ve know so many actors that, you know, especially if they’re black actors that were just like, I’m working all the time, and I’m in tons of TV shows, but I literally play the same thing. I play the cop, the nurse, the person that, the receptionist. I just remember Donetta [Lavinia Grays], when we were in “Men on Boats,” she was like, here I am in the “Law and Order” episode I did where I played the nurse. “Hey.” And then she’s like here I am, like… [laughter] She went through and literally every kind of like, you know that that role. And she was just like, here’s me at…, and it was just like… But you’re like, she’s working. But then you’re just like, these aren’t meaty roles, these aren’t interesting, these aren’t things that I think she’s interested in doing it all, but she’s making money. 

So then, yeah, there’s just something about masculine people with vaginas, I guess. Or masculine, butches. I mean that was, that was literally why I just could not get shit in the 90s and 2000s. Like I have gotten more work as a trans person than I ever did as a dyke. You know, you can only have so many Lena Waithes and Lea DeLarias. And before that we didn’t have anything, like there was nothing. Like the only time I ever saw myself represented anywhere, was when I saw “Menopausal Gentleman” by Peggy Shaw in 1996. And then, then at around the same time, I believe it was maybe 97, Queen Latifah did “Set it Off.” And then I never saw a butch again. And then any stories about dykes or trans people are always played by like feminine cis women, Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry.” You know, Chloë Sevigny is femme, even though she’s a Scorpio, she looks hard. I don’t, I’ve never had a traditional anything.

Alexis Clements  

When is the first time that you actually said no to a project.

Becca Blackwell  

It was “Genderfuck” [“The All-American Genderfuck Cabaret”], it was Mariah MacCarthy, and I think at the time they were 24 or 25 years old. And this would have been in 2010, 2011, maybe. And I did that show for free, like completely free. It was that Under St. Mark’s, that space, and they wanted to do a remount. And that role I played was the, was the like, narrator so it was just like constant talking and stuff. And so they did a remount. And I just remember thinking, like, I can’t do this again. Like I don’t, I just, I cannot do these free, I have to make something. And they offered me $75. I basically just said, I’m sorry, I don’t have time. And I got a response from them. And I’m sure now that if I told them, you know, they would be really, because they’re much older. But they said something, like, oh, you’re getting too big for… You know, it was that kind of like… And I am 15 or so years older than they are. And I just remember being like, uh, wow. And it wreaked of kind of rich kid. But I don’t think they’re a rich kid, but it wreaked of just that kind of like young like… You know, now you see them online, and they’re like, it’s like those people that are like, canceling people for not paying someone. [laughter]  And I’m like you did that. But you know, they were also young, and they were just like, again, going back to like being like 24 and stupid. And you’re just like, my world, my life, me.

Alexis Clements  

That is such an important point when it comes to the arts. It’s not only inexperience and the ways class is tied up with even thinking that it’s possible to make art without earning any money from it, but it’s also so much about the myths people get fed about artists being so focused on their art that they don’t even care if they make any money or not. And yeah, anyone who has to earn a living to pay their bills grows out of that pretty quickly.

Becca Blackwell  

Yeah, and I mean, it’s very difficult too, because now that I’ve really been studying Taoism, and doing Qigong, I realized that, kind of like, we create a lot of our own — I don’t want to say create our own reality, because that’s self-helpy, but what kind of like loop thinking we have effects what we are exposing ourselves to. And when I really started to shift that kind of thinking, with even starting to say, no, it was huge. And I remember Erin [Markey] and I were just starting to date at the time. And they were the ones who told me, I had to say no. They were the ones who were really like, you have to say no to these projects. Like they’re, like they don’t give you any money, they take all of your time, and they’re actually going to more hinder your brand than help.

Alexis Clements  

What was it like for you when you were going through that? Asking serious questions about whether or not you could keep doing work as an actor?

Becca Blackwell  

Erin and I were having problems. We lived together and they moved out. They were trying to hold on to that. My mother was dying. I was trying to hold on to the rent- stabilized apartment that we had moved into together. And after they left, it was $1,500 a month. I remember telling Lisa D’Amour, I think we were in New Orleans at the time, I was just like, I can’t do this anymore. And she was just like, oh no, no, no, no, you should not leave theater. And I was like, I really can’t do this anymore. And then that’s when I got nominated for the Doris Duke. And I remember just being like, uh, whatever. I applied to these things all the time — rejected from the Guggenheim, I was rejected every year I ever applied to be mentored by a Queer[/Art] Mentorship, all of that, the LMCC [Lower Manhattan Cultural Council], all of it, just denied, denied, denied, denied, denied. And then I finally get the Doris Duke Award. And what do all those people do when that happens? Reach out to me. Oh, god! And I was like, no, you don’t get to like, jump on my tails. 

I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I mean, again, everyone’s journey in this industry is so unique and different. But it all is very much like, if you don’t have a ton of money, you have the added stress of just being in a state of poverty. Justin Vivian Bond said always, you know, that was her famous thing she said, if you stick around long enough, they’ll give you an award. And it’s true. I mean, I always joke, I’m like, there aren’t any — the one thing I have is there’s not a fucking like trans man out there who’s been acting consistently for 20-something years. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily anything other than like my stubborn chutzpah. But it had, it, now it has, the thing I can carry is I have this like, like, I just was on a TV show that will come out later next year and the reason I got cast is because they couldn’t find a trans person that could act, who was in their 40s, and had a sense of humor. [laughter] That was literally, they were like, the show is in Canada and they were, they were looking, they looked everywhere in Canada, and then they had more connections in LA. And they looked everywhere in LA. And it was the same people who cast, it was the “Schitt’s Creek” casting. And they didn’t even go through my manager, someone gave them my personal email, and they were like, the only person I think you haven’t tried is this person. The director even said, he goes, we scoured the United States and Canada for someone who was a middle-aged trans person that had acting chops. 

Alexis Clements  

Does the TV give you the chance to come back, in a way that you want to? Like on a very literal way, like can it cover the bills?

Becca Blackwell  

This whole pandemic was the first time I ever had a regular paycheck. Because when we went into lockdown, I had $0 in my bank, like zero. I had just done “Schmermie’s Choice,” and I was waiting for this check from Creative Capital, because they were like, we’ll give you a little chunk of it first. I was just like, okay, what can I do? I have some, you know, because I, when I got the Doris Duke, you have to get, you have to put money in an IRA, and then I started to, like, amass a little money, and doing some stocks. And I had a little bit of like, a thing. So going from nothing to this thing. And my mom died. She had left me a little bit of money. And I was like, I can’t do anything with this money. Like I couldn’t buy a house or something with it. But I was like, but I could spend it in like a two year period. So I remember at one point, when we were driving back from doing Schmermie’s Choice at Mass MOCA, New York went into a state of emergency. And I remember thinking like, okay, well, because, right, I gotta pay Jess, and I was like, again, this, oh god. And then I was like, I could cash in some stocks. I was like, is that what people do? So I just remember, I was like, oh stocks are for rich people, stocks are not for poor people. Because I was just like, I will take them. And I got that check from Creative Capital, and it was enough that I was like, I paid Jess, and I paid some of my credit card off, like, I, cuz, I was just, I had kind of peaked it. And I kind of was just like, okay. And then I remember feeling guilty trying to get on unemployment, because I didn’t think I had, I was a person who could get unemployment. And then when I did, and that money came in, I had never had $800 a week in my theater career in 30 years, I’d never had money come in like that. And then whenever it stopped at the beginning of August, I looked in my bank account, and I was like, I’ve never had this much money in my bank before. 

And then I think I was furious. Because no theaters came to check if I was okay. And they were all just like, how are we going to survive? What is the world going to do without us? And I was just like, you never gave a fuck about me before, until I got the Doris Duke. So burn, baby, burn. You know, and the older I got, and the more successful I got, no one likes to hear me bitch. But I’m like, no, people are gonna listen to me more than they’re gonna listen to when I talked to a 27 year old that’s like, how do I keep doing this? And I tell them, I have no idea. I don’t know how I kept doing it. I just kept ending up back here. Because every time I tried to kill myself drinking, somehow someone got me out of it. Or I tried to leave New York, you know, the universe wouldn’t let me you know. I, I tried everything to get out of this. So I had something greater than me keeping me here. Whether I, you know, I’ve desperately tried to, to end my theater world.

Alexis Clements  

It’s so crazy. Because you start to step away from live performance towards working in television and film, which will actually pay you. And then you get the Doris Duke. And now in 2020, you got the Creative Capital Award for a performance project. And now you’re part of Soho Rep’s Project Number One, where they’re employing theater artists full time to give them space to create. How are you thinking about performance and theater gigs right now, after everything you’ve been through?

Becca Blackwell  

I mean, this these are the conversations that we’re having with the Soho Rep group. What is the theater we want to kind of go back into, instead of kind of saying how fucked it was, what is the way that we can, you know, not bring shit from the past and push it to the future, but actually try to see what is the future of theater that we want to see? And it is, you know, these words are challenging — equitable, and stuff like that, because it really depends on the person you’re with. If you have a person who comes to you and says, I have $2,000 to make something, you know, and then if they’re working with their friends, their peer groups, that’s plenty of money to make something. That’s more than we ever had. In Dixon Place you can use the upstairs for free. You know, there’s always places you could do that. When I first started getting into those places, like the Vineyard or “Hurricane Diane,” I remember being like, I don’t have time for this. And they’re kind of like, what are you talking about? You’re the lead in a play. And I was like, I don’t care. I don’t, I don’t care because I’m not, I don’t, I’m 40-something years old and I don’t, I, I literally would sell drugs and like, I was just like, if you’re literally cutting me even getting my drugs to like by customers this entire time, and you don’t pay me enough, you don’t get 30-40 hours of my week. But you can’t say that to anyone. Because, I mean, even, I remember Leigh Silverman like looking at me like, who the fuck do you think you are? And I remember thinking, who the fuck do you think you are? You get to walk away when this is all done. I have to fucking do this show, eight shows a week. And that’s what I remember thinking, like theater, live theater, it’s a young person’s game.

Alexis Clements  

For you, what are the yes factors? Like what are the things you want to work on right now?

Becca Blackwell  

When I was first learning how to say no, the yes factors were: will it further help my career; will it give me a lot of money; or will it satisfy like my guts, like something in me? And when I was first learning to say no, there had to be two of those things. And now I’m able to be in a little different position to say one of the things definitely has to happen. But I won’t do anything without one of those things being there, like, you know. Is it a project I really, really want to work on? Is it going to give me a lot of money? Or is it going to kind of help facilitate some of my own like career goals? 

And I don’t even know if I was to hear this, you know, in 1990-something, would I have listened? I don’t know. Because, you know, again, I think what I would tell anyone is to just listen to yourself. Listen to yourself, don’t listen to other people. Do not. Because they don’t, I mean, you, you, it’s good to have friends that you feel like are good friends that you can bounce stuff off of, but really at the end of the day, if you just sit with yourself for like 10-15 minutes and really focus on this question of whether this piece or that, your gut will tell you. But if you’re, if you’re just like, I just don’t want to do this, then don’t. Sometimes we have shitty things happen to us because we’re not listening. I don’t believe things are scarce. If I’m dependent on someone else they are.

Alexis Clements  

And what are you working on right now that you’re really excited about?

Becca Blackwell  

This project, “The Body Never Lies,” is the project that I’m making with the Creative Capital, and I’m kind of playing a little bit with that in the Soho Rep. So that’s a piece that means a lot to me. If there’s anyone who wants my “Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken” piece I make with Amanda Duarte, if they need a six foot vagina to be masked, because I really want to Snatch that wear big mask around her vagina and she keeps squirting you know. She’s like, don’t worry, it’s not contagious? [laughter] 

I feel like at this time, I’m doing fine so I don’t need people to be like come see or go this. But you know, I I love people and I love making art, so we’ll just keep doing it.

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Alexis Clements  

You’ll be able to find links to Becca’s work and website in our show notes for this episode, so please be sure to check those out. 

And please also send us your stories of saying no to bad gigs. Whether you said no on your own or as part of a collective effort. You can email us or record a voice memo and send it to theanswerisnoshow AT gmail DOT com. You can also find us at theanswerisnoshow on Facebook and Instagram or on our website at theanswerisnoshow.com. 

Also, please take a minute to rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify or your favorite podcast apps, and share links with anyone you think might be interested in this podcast. 

Thanks so much to today’s guests, Becca Blackwell, and to Ali Cotterill, our co-producer and editor. 

And remember collectively saying no to bad gigs can help us all get to a better yes.

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