In the Balance

Susan reconnects with award winning flash fiction writer and friend Meg Pokrass. Meg discusses her journey from acting to poet to flash fiction writer, how a rare illness changed her life and informed her creative work, and the key lesson she tries to impart to her students. She also shares a few of her flash fiction pieces and she and Susan reminisce about their teenage friendship.

“I like to live in that space of not really knowing the answers. People have different motives simultaneously and exactly what the right thing to do isn’t 100% clear.”

Award winning playwright Gina Gionfriddo joins Susan to discuss two of her plays; Becky Shaw and Rapture, Blister, Burn, and how they relate to the world at large in a conversation that explores how we react to difficult and challenging subjects, what we do in situations of moral greyness and responsibility, and moving forward to push back against assumptions of what the “ideal life” is like.

“If you examine your thinking process, you may come to the same conclusion; that thoughts happen to us, we don’t necessarily control them.”

Psychiatrist Dr Dan Mierlak returns to In the Balance to discuss his new book, The Spanish Molecule, a purposefully sassy and thought-provoking read. He and Susan discuss some of the central themes of the book - and by extension, themes of the human condition - including how to avoid becoming captive to the choices we make in life, why it’s important to respect and go with the flow, and what happens to the population at large when a world-changing event like the covid-19 pandemic forces us to ask ourselves how we want to live our lives?

“For many people, they feel I give them permission to tell their truth.”

Poet, photographer, and artist Alexis Rhone Fancher returns to In the Balance to discuss her unapologetic and exquisitely done poetry. She tells us that her work stems from two different perspectives of the life force: eroticism and grief, evoking images and experiences from true life, a way of “trying to figure things out and laying it out on the page.” She and Susan discuss how to be creative while in quarantine, why writing erotica is not the same as writing pornography, and why we all should read poetry. 

“If you mentor women, you can take care of a whole society.”

Tony-nominated broadway producer, director, and entrepreneur Dani Davis talks with Susan about her commitment to mentoring and growing the next generation of women by cultivating learning through authentic leadership, finding common ground, and learning by doing together. She also discusses the power of telling your unique story, creating new rituals, and the importance of defining and honouring our purpose in everything we do.

“The theatre’s job at its heart is to ask the question “How can we get along? How can we get along better?” So every play that was ever written that is of any worth is about that question.”

This weeks’ guest Anne Bogart is considered to be one of the greatest innovative directors in the modern theatre. She joins us to discuss how to cultivate and foster collaboration both in the theatre and within our own lives, talking with Susan about her evolution as an artist, the relationship between the artists and audience during a live performance, and what to expect from the performing arts now that we seem to be moving past post-modernism.

“What the research shows about uncertainty is that, the more we fight it, which is sort of our natural instinct, the more we can often end up feeling hopeless or avoid situations that make us feel uncertain. It becomes overwhelming because none of us can tell the future.”

Dr. Erica Lee, Psychologist at the Boston Children’s Hospital talks to Susan about how we can talk to kids and adolescents about covid and coping with all the uncertainty, fear, and anxiety that surrounds us. She discusses the most common struggles and behavioral changes she sees in the children and families she works with, the power of mindfulness practices and validating our feelings while we move through this transitionary period, and why it’s important for adults to ensure they are prioritising their own self-care during this time. 

In this episode Dr. Robert A. Neimeyer returns to In the Balance for a conversation about the state of the world as we continue navigating our way through a global pandemic, how this collective trauma is affecting our mental health at both a macro- and microcosmic level, what it means for our social reality and how to move forward during the big push to get back to “normal.”

“When people of all ages create together, the potential is boundless.”

In this final episode of our Artists on the Cape Series, Susan talks with actor, director and artistic director of the Cape Cod Theatre Company/Harwich Junior Theatre Nina Schuessler about the mission of theatre and how it brings people together. She talks about her work at the theatre, educating and entertaining children, teenagers, and adults, how it has adapted and changed through the pandemic, and her vision for moving forwards in the future: getting back to basics, committing to inclusivity and justice, with an emphasis on “inviting everyone in.”

“In a very real way, all of us are actors. Every one of you is playing the leading role in the story of your own life. It’s a heroic narrative and you’re the protagonist. All of us, even in our quietest shapes, are living heroically - or trying to.”

What’s my motivation? It’s a phrase we’ve heard actors ask countless times. However the answer to that might be much deeper than we think.

In this second to last episode of our Artists on the Cape Series, Susan talks with actor, director, and author Jeff Zinn about his book The Existential Actor and how its themes extend beyond the theatre, making it a study of humanity and what motivates us all. 

Together Susan and Jeff discuss universal truths such as awareness of our own mortality, the armor we wear to protect ourselves, how culture affects how we see the world, and the losses that we choose.