Episode 77 - Making It

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. This episode: aspirations, successes, and creations! Some of the plays may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check out the timecodes below.

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1:50  - I’ve Made, make, making it by Shelton Lindsay

2:30  - In the made for TV Movie of my Life by Nicole Hill 

6:25 [CW: brief mention of gun violence] - Maker’s “Show” & Tell by Hilary Asare

12:41 - Indecisive creativity, What, it, Huh… @ shelton_whimsy on venmo by Shelton Lindsay

16:38 - I haven’t made it home since 2016 by Anthony Sertel Dean

19:12 -  Six Minutes and Twenty-Five Seconds Minutes of Reflections on Whatever Fame Is, Accompanied by Advice from David Foster Wallace as Performed by an Uncredited Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old by Mike Manship feat. Jackson Bird, Chan Lin, and Jake Banasiewicz

Our logo was designed by Gabriel Drozdov

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Hilary Asare, and Shelton Lindsay

Take care!

Transcript 

Show Intro
	 electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Shelton: 77. Making It.

Hi, I’m Shelton Linsday-- a New York Neo-Futurist. 

Our live show is back, but we can’t stop making art for your ears so Hit Play continues!

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hiiiiii! 

We can’t wait to snuggle all up on you. 

If this is totally new to you— welcome to it!

We make art by four rules: We are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. 

Simply put: we tell stories, and those stories are our own. Everything that you hear is actually happening. 

So if we tell you we’re in a shipyard in Genoa, Italy creating a show while ships are being made all around us we’re actually doing that thing, like I am right now. Watching ships be build by the way, is incredible cool. It's like seeing adults play with legos. 

Some of the work in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content 
warnings, check the timecodes in the show notes.

This episode’s randomly generated theme is: Making It, whatever that means. 

And now, Mike Manship will run the numbers! Hey Mike!

Mike: Hi, I’m Mike-- a NY Neo-Futurist. In this episode we’re bringing you 6 new plays. 

This week’s cast is Shelton Lindsay, Nicole Hill, Hilary Asare, Anthony Sertel Dean and me, Mike Manship. 

That brings us to 353 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!


Play 1a: I’ve Made, make, making it (1:50)
Shelton: I’ve Made, make, making it. GO!

Shelton: I make the decision to get out of bed every morning, though some days its a struggle… But if I made it, I would live in a home that was all plants and pets and perfect chaos. 

Play 2: In the made for TV Movie of my Life (2:30)
Nicole: In the made for TV Movie of my Life. GO!

The track Dance Morialta plays 

Nicole (speaks): Making it on a wing and a prayer… Making it all better… Making it up as I go along… Making it pay… Faking it til I’m making it… 
Making it tight… Making it or breaking it… Making it clap… Making it rain… Making it certain… Making it right… Making it on a dime… Making it big… 
Making it count… Making its molehill mountainous… 
Making its fucking head spin… Making it make sense… 
Making it lose its religion… Making it smolder… Making it beg for mercy… Making it unknown… Making it come true… Making it merry and bright… Making it over… Making it last forever…
Making it outta this one horse town tonight… Making it on my own… 
Making it bend at the knee… Making it repeat… (echo effect) repeat… repeat… 
Making no bones about it… Making it all me, alright? 

Nicole (sings): In the made for tee-ee-vee  mo-ooh-vie of my life, this is where the person who portrays me wins an Em-my. Woo-hoo
For yearning, aching, sore to soaring, breathtakingly. 
In a life insistent they remake it with grace and with ease. 
But here comes the ridiculous self-reproach, 
Sublime and so searing it slides from the throat. 
Self-despise has them reeling in regret and remorse. 
So they breathe and remember the truth.
That they’re source. They forgive, the forgotten, and reboot what is kind
Fuck the clock retell time. Change your life, by changing their minds…

Nicole (speaks): In the made for TV movie of my life, this is where the person play-ing me wins an Em-my award. Of this I’m sure… 
As they fake it til they make it… Make it or break it… Make it clap… Make it rain…
Make it certain… Make it right… I’d like to thank the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in advance, as I have decided that I will be playing myself! 

Music slowly fades down as applause fades up…

Thank you, thank you. This is truly an honor and a surprise! I didn’t even write a speech…

Play 1b: I’ve Made, make, making it (6:01)
Mike: I regularly make tofurky sandwiches, with a fried egg and honey mustard or bbq sauce.. I toast them or when I'm feeling ambitious I will grill them… But if I made IT, I would be time rich. If you can do what you want to do with your time then you are as rich as you can be. 

Play 3: Maker’s “Show” & Tell (6:25)
Hilary: Maker’s “Show” & Tell. GO!

Bright bubbly and talk show theme music

Shelton:  I recently tied a bunch of red sequins to my body like they were blood for the queer liberation march. I was thinking about abortion rights, and i wanted to dress myself in the blood that SCOTUS just washed our streets with. Guns yes, rights NO. It was not a masterpiece, it was angry and rushed. 

Hilary: Do you ever make art to help focus or transform a feeling? If yes, tell how. If no, why not?

Shelton: I make art all the time to transform how I’m feeling. When I’m stressed I grab a bunch of gem and art supplies and will make a lampshade. When there’s something that I need to work on and I can’t figure out how to like noodle through a problem, I’ll sit down and I’ll paint.  I think giving yourself space to be creative is a wonderful way to unlock your mind and let yourself work through stress and trauma, even if you are not intentionally or deliberately focusing on that problem.

Nicole:  I thought I lost one of my favorite earrings and I was determined to rock the one earring as part of a new asymmetrical non-matching pair. I whipped up two options. One of them out of beads from an old necklace. I often Frankenstein together new accessories for myself on the quick and it gives me a real high. 

Hilary: Paint us a picture of that creation high. What does it sound, feel, smell, taste like? 

Nicole: It feels- mmm and it sounds like the same “and your time starts now!” from one of my favorite shows like Project Runway or Top Chef- where time after time i defy the odds and I’m the clear winner and fan favorite. And it tastes like an old piece of candy that you haven had forever that you found in an old purse that maybe belonged to somebody you loved.  The kind of sweet you can’t even find anymore. 

Mike: Since joining the ensemble, I've started making things with my hands much more. I cut out corporate logos for a play in the show, and I created a narcissistic version of play #1 to hang on the clothesline. 

Hilary: Budget and physics are not an issue- what is the grandest vision you have for the stage?

Mike: I would love to completely transform the space in about 10- 20 seconds.  A few Ideas include; Taking us all back to prom, where it is filled with 80s music- and no matter when you went to prom, 80s music is the right music- and suddenly the entire space is decorated. Filling the entire theater with water and then we have a pool party for the rest of the show. Or building a zipline that runs from the lobby all the way to the back fire escape. I think transforming the space entirely would be an amazing undertaking, especially given the time constraint. 

Toni:  I’m writing and recording the music for this play right now! 
I love making sounds. You can’t really hold on to them but they stick with you. I feel like this piece wanted a score that celebrated us right here and so- these sounds you know- they make me smile. That’s the point of it right?

Hilary: The moment you get a score just right, what does that feel like? In your brain? In your gut? In your heart?

Toni: It feels like puzzle pieces fitting together but yeah again they’re not physical pieces so they can have that exact incorporeal satisfying snap- sometimes, snaps so good you could cry. You just know, it clicks. And with scoring something like this show I’m writing so quickly and  with practice can quite seamlessly get there and tap into the wavelengths of whoevers speaking and ya know just try to do it right. 

Hilary: Interviewing myself seems trite, so you’ll have to ask me about my diary collage pages if you want to know more about them. Instead, listener, I want to invite you to make 2 things. The first thing you make can be anything you want- a meal, a line on a piece of paper, a Rube Goldberg machine. Just make something. Anything.

The 2nd thing I want you to make is the ending of this play. I’m gonna ask questions and leave some room for you to respond. Maybe you’ll want to pause between each question until you finish answering. Maybe you’ll record your responses and tag us on social media. Maybe you’ll just send it to hitplay@nynf.org and ask us not to share it-  a lil treat just for us. Maybe you won’t record it at all! Whatever you choose, here come the questions.
 
Paint a picture, what did you make?
Why did you make it? 
How did making that affect you? 
What do you think you’ll make next? 
 
Thanks for sharing. And if you didn’t, I hope you made something and answered those questions for yourself- just for the heck of it. There is power in creation.

Play 1c: I’ve Made, make, making it (12:08)
Toni: I make tea pretty frequently. Iced tea in the summer, milky oolong in the winter. But if I made it… I’d just make a lot more tea!  I like the stuff! No I would have time to drink more tea. I don’t drink it for the caffeine, I just like it. And I like sitting down, with a nice glass of something nice. Yeah, that’s the dream!

Play 4: Indecisive creativity, What, it, Huh… (12:41)
Shelton: Indecisive creativity, What, it, Huh…  @ shelton_whimsy on venmo. GO!


Shelton: I can’t decide if I should talk about making something, with my hands out of trash and left over party supplies discarded after a fifteen minute fashion show, or making it, like here I am the boy from the country who moved to the city with big yet unspecified dreams about making documentaries and now floats amongst a sea of indecision trying to decide if they have in fact made it. 

Birds chirp in the background

IS THERE SOME SORT OF SECRET PARTY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE MADE IT? 

I don’t know. Could be? The oscars? Perhaps I even produced that party back when I was in the business of making it happen. It of course meaning the best dance party you’ve ever been to. 

I loved making that. Even though it was an intangible something that was being made. A movement, a feeling, a direction. 

Did I make it, back when I was performing with a bunch of it girls, Aquaria, Pearl Noire, Amanda Lepore. I mean those parties felt like making it, and if I was making it then, I was making it in a wig I made, which feels magic. Of course it wasn’t explicitly Shelton who was working those parties, but Toe Foe the clown version of me, making the me that made it not the me that’s writing this but another form of me that I also made. 

Ethereal space tones fade in as the birds fade out.

I mean, I assume I made this ‘shelton’ personality. I mean my genes certainly had a lot to say when it came to the expression of myself but regardless of nature or nurture I think it’s time for a remodel in which this self made man makes it more. It here being business deals that come with cute bank statements. The capitalist it. 

Which is why I want to take this opportunity  to talk to you about helping make it made. It here being the movie I’m working on, ‘How to Save a City’, a documentary that explores how repurposing corporate waste as art supplies is a way to make it, here meaning the world, better.  It’s all the forms of making it, i would love to make! Social justice, art, Documentaries, hand crafted backdrops for interviews! We’ve already got a few grants but making movies is expensive. So my Venmo is @shelton_whimsy and no matter what you donate I’ll thank you in the credits for helping make all of my it’s happen. 

I wish this wasn’t a play that was an ask for money. I wish I just had all the money. And I wish my mind did not gravitate towards capitalist conversations so quickly. Creation to consumption, art to content, life to commoddity. At it’s core my indecision on creativity stems from the inevitable stress between creative expression and my fucking bills. So many bills, that require me to make things I don't want to make, just to keep the lights on. I’m not even sure what I could would or should talk about under this theme of making it that is not implicitly capitalist. 

OH I COULD TALK ABOUT HOW CLOUDS FORM. 

But I don’t have time to research that right now, because I’m too worried about making it. It here being a life well lived. It here being my rent, it here being the other show I’m working on,. Am I making that? Some days I feel that I am. Some days….

And that was @Shelton_Whimsy… just put Making It in the about. 

Play 1d: I’ve Made, make, making it (16:27)
Hilary: I make 1 cup of coffee in a french press every morning. But if I made IT, I would be able to buy what I want without worrying about what I need. 

Play 5: I haven’t made it home since 2016  (16:38)
Anthony: I haven’t made it home since 2016. GO!

sound of me placing down Musa Dağdeviren’s The Turkish Cookbook

Anthony:  Musa Dağdeviren published this book in 2019. 

I turn on the stove and start boiling water & shelling beans

Anthony: The Turkish Cookbook. It took him years of traveling through his home country of Türkiye, from his restaurants in Istanbul, the many small villages, the many mothers sitting shelling beans, the calm waves on the aegean. It’s not my home country, but it’s my mother’s home country, my mothers parents’ home country, does that make it my home country? This U.S. is kind of my home country but definitely not the U.S. part of it. I want to make Türkiye more of a home. Maybe I make it that through Musa’s understanding of home through his food, through our food, through our food. 
I started making a piece for Hit Play about this. It is about me starting to cook through every single recipe in this thick, thick book. I have started and made only 4 recipes so far. I have started to reach out to turkish chefs around New York to talk to me about how they put home stories into their food. But this is honestly just a start for now.  And that’s okay- we’re always still just putting it together. It’s say we’re simmering it but that seems a bit too nail on the head.

I want to take you home with me, or some sort of home. Maybe I can make a meal for Hit Play listeners once I’m ready to take you home. Maybe it’s an audio meal you eat with your ears. Maybe it’s one we all eat around a table together. 

Why don’t we consider this an invitation to a dinner party in the making. It’ll be at my home. I hope you can make it there. 


Play 1e: I’ve Made, make, making it (18:54)
Nicole: I make my bed every morning. 7 minute eggs every other day or so, usually four at a time… But if I made IT I’d be immortalized as a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. 

Play 6: 6:25 Minutes of Reflections… (19:12)
Name: Six Minutes and Twenty-Five Seconds Minutes of Reflections on Whatever Fame Is, Accompanied by Advice from David Foster Wallace as Performed by an Uncredited Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old. GO!
 
NICOLE
You know, I was famous in 1976 as a kid.
 
KID(S)
After the first photograph has been in a magazine, the famous men do not enjoy their photographs in magazines 
NICOLE
I did a local television show, sort of an Up With Singers kind of show . . . homogenized . . . and we performed for the Governor’s Inaugural Ball. And I remember doing a commercial with Senator Sam Irving . . . oh my god! Exciting at the time. So disappointing as I grew older . . .
 
KID(S)
so much as they fear that their photographs will cease to appear in magazines.
 
MIKE
Last fall, I got to pitch a treatment for a jukebox musical to a major musical group. I was on a phone call with a very significant music industry professional, talking about an idea I helped to craft and what it would look like on stage. 
 
ANTHONY
I was on Broadway in January of 2020... well, technically not "on Broadway", but we were next to Harry Potter, so I think it counts 
 
KID
You have been snared by something untrue.
 
JACKSON
So, I am one of those weird people who is kind of known to a niche group of people online –
 
SHELTON
I’m the lower east side pickle day mascot –
 
JACKSON
– and have spent many years like attending conferences and events where people know who I am and want to take photos with me or get my autograph or like I’ll occasionally get recognized just out and about in the city.
 
SHELTON
And on that one day, I get to be the most famous pickle mascot in the world. I take photos with thousands of people –
 
CHAN
In 2021, my ceramic dumplings were featured on Etsy for asian pacific american month's featured work, and they also made a little IG commercial with my dumplings.
 
SHELTON
and kiss babies, and people usually give me gifts. It’s surreal.
 
JACKSON
It’s weird. It is a weird thing to have only a small population of people know who you are because you put some stuff on the internet. 
 
JAKE
Maybe like years ago on Twitter if I had like a tweet that went even like viral within my college . . . I feel like . . .
 
KID
You have been snared by the delusion that envy has a reciprocal.
 
JAKE
 probably the most likes I ever got on a tweet was maybe like 200 or something and that was like wild, but . . .
 
CHAN
Last month I had my first solo exhibit in Chinatown with a collection of new ceramic art, and some folks recognized me from my dumplings on the internet, and I felt like such a cool chinatown kid. 
 
KID
You burn with hunger for food that does not exist.
 
HILARY
I was in the NY Times for a digital play the 3 USA based Neo-Futurist companies collaborated on.
 
CHAN
I've worked on big TV shows, but always as a small cog in the machine
 
KID
There are feelings associated with fame, but few of them are any more enjoyable
 
CHAN
So they don't really feel like MY accomplishments. 
 
KID
than the feelings associated with envy of fame.
 
SHELTON
Usually, I cry at the  end of the day because I am so exhausted from trying to smile at everyone.
 
ANTHONY
The show returning home to New York, at a theater I admired growing up, that felt big! I mean, the show was plastered around the subway! A show where I got up on the stage after each performance answering questions about our process of making a project we felt strongly about.    
 
MIKE
From the beginning, the jukebox musical has felt like . . . who am I to be here, doing this? There’s no way this works out. 
 
KID
They are trapped, just as you are.
 
MIKE
But I would still do things like not tell people I was dating about the possibility. In case they would then, like, date me for the prestige or something completely fantastical like that. 
 
HILARY
Still feels like fake news . . . I am proud of that work. It just feels like someone else did it.
 
NICOLE
How did I view the ensemble? Yeah, with awe. I thought they were wild and amazing and a little scary in all the best ways.  
 
JAKE
I saw them as like these crazy, wild, creative, exciting group of people doing theatre that was interesting and innovative and like nothing I had ever seen before or really have ever seen since.
 
JACKSON
I remember the first time that I saw . . . from the very first minute . . . wow. It would be a dream to be a part of something like this someday. 
 
 
 
KID
To be envied, admired, is not a feeling.
 
HILARY
I had (read: still have) major talent crushes on Neos and they were also friendly and kind!
 
ANTHONY
That was wholly unique. But it might match the visceral feeling of fame and pride whenever someone remarks "You're a Neo-Futurist!?" 
 
KID
Nor is fame a feeling.
 
CHAN
I wanted to join the neos, yes to have the chance to write and perform, but even more so as I craved a creative theatrical collective to be a part of and something that pushes me to be constantly creating.
JAKE
I definitely did not view the opportunity as something that might open further doors. I didn’t see it as “Oh, this is a step in the direction that I want to get to.” 
 
HILARY
I wasn’t looking for the NYNF to open doors. I was looking for a place to land. 
 
 
MIKE
I remember writing on my audition packet that I didn’t view this as a platform to get somewhere else. This is the thing I want to do. 
 
JAKE
This is what I wanted to do. 
 
KID
Do not believe the photographs. 
 
JACKSON
Just like getting a peek inside that world of like money and privilege and fame and the sort of like warped reality that a lot of those folks live in really can make your skin crawl. 
 
KID
Fame is not the exit from any cage.
 
HILARY
Being in the ensemble led to great opportunities but even if it hadn’t, I’d be grateful for the workshopping and the critique skills and the late night train rides and the dumb jokes and the syrup showers.
 
MIKE
And of all of my artistic projects, this little sports-performance art hybrid that sometimes only 20 people come to see has been the best so far. 
 
JACKSON
I heard someone say a while ago that in this sort of social media era that we’re in right now, it’s no longer that people are going to have their fifteen minutes of fame. Now, it’s that like everyone is famous to fifteen people. 
KID
“The truth will set you free.”
 
SHELTON
I’ve been on tv and in movies, and every once in a while someone will be like HEY I saw you in that show, but my favorite moment of recognition comes when people ask if I am that Pickle.  
  
KID
“But not until it is finished with you.”


Show Outro
	electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Shelton: Thanks for hitting play and then listening to Hit Play. 

If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show, tell a friend, and leave a review on your listening app of choice! If you want to support the New York Neo-Futurists in other ways, and I’m sure you do, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or by joining our Patreon - Patreon dot com slash NYNF. 

For the rest of season 3 we’ll be selecting themes randomly and our patrons suggest ones for upcoming episodes. 

This episode featured work by: 

Shelton Lindsay, Nicole Hill, Hilary Asare, Anthony Sertel Dean, Mike Manship, Jackson Bird, Chan Lin, and Jake Banasiewicz. 

Our logo was designed by Gabriel Drozdov and our sound is designed by Anthony Dean. 

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Dean, Hilary Asare, and me–Shelton Lindsay. Take care!

Shelton makes laser sounds

Shelton: Neos Out.

	Music fades out!