Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 88. Seth Barrish: Mike and Seth’s 15 Year Phone Call

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Mike welcomes to the podcast his longtime creative collaborator, the director and actor Seth Barrish. Seth directed all five of Mike’s solo shows but that’s just one part of his varied career. Seth discusses his early days as a pianist at The Comedy Store, working with actors like Anne Hathaway, and what it’s like being a “that guy!” actor himself, including two different roles on two different seasons of The Sopranos. Seth and Mike go deep on acting process, how to deal with rage-aholics, and Seth’s near-death experience in Africa.Please consider donating to City Harvest

You've acted so much. You're a that guy. You're a quote-unquote that guy. You're one of these people who's in everything. You're in Billions, which I'm in. This is how much of a that guy you are. You're in Sopranos as two different characters in two different seasons.

Not only that, both the best doctor in the city. Oh, both are the best doctor in the city? Both are the best doctor in the city. That is the voice of Seth Barish. Seth Barish is my longtime collaborator, friend, actor, director. He directed all five of my solo shows, including The Old Man in the Pool, which is on Broadway right now at Lincoln Center. It is running through January 15th.

It must close, by the way. Must close. And tickets are going very quickly. I always tell people the least expensive way to get tickets, I say this to friends and family and everyone, is TodayTix. TodayTix.com.

But Seth and I have worked together for a million years. He has an extraordinarily good book about acting um that that people swear by uh i mentioned in the interview pete doctor from pixar uh my mentor college mentor john clavin teaches it it's called an actor's companion tools for the working actor it is it's my favorite acting book i mean It is, it's my favorite acting book. I mean, yeah, it's my favorite acting book. And he's the co-artistic director of the Barrow Group in New York City,

which is a phenomenal, phenomenal theater company. There's great acting classes and productions. And we have a great conversation today. Enjoy my conversation with the great Seth Barish. This may be the loosest episode of Working It Out today because my guest is Seth Barish, who's directed all five of my solo shows. And we've just worked together for literally ever. It's funny, this is how you and I both always describe our collaboration.

We always describe it as a 15-year phone conversation, where we never stop collaborating. Yeah, that's right. So for the listeners, I'll give a super rough overview of of your career and you can sort of correct me where I'm getting it wrong. It's like you studied theater and acting and directing at UCLA in undergrad. It just so happened you dipped your toe in the comedy world because you were a pianist during college at the comedy store

when you were underage, basically. That's right. And then you went on to be actor-director in countless things. I mean, you've acted so much. You're that guy. You're a quote-unquote that guy. You're one of these people who's in everything. You're in Billions, which I'm in.

This is how much of a that guy you are. You're in Sopranos as two different characters in two different seasons not only that both the best doctor in the city oh both are the best doctor in the city

they're like this guy's the best oh my gosh and then your and then your theater company is called the Barrow Group not to be mistaken with the Barrow Street Theater

or the Barrow whatever there's a lot of Barrow things Barrow Group, not to be mistaken with the Barrow Street Theater or the Barrow whatever. There's a lot of Barrow things. Barrow Group Theater, which I've seen you act and direct, you put out some of the best theater I've ever seen in my entire life. The plays that you put on are spectacular. And so to give context to the listener, it's like you're someone who has worked as a writer, director,

actor, theater, film, television for, I would say, 30 years, 30-something years? Yeah, 35, five years or so. Yeah. More. More. Yeah. Plus 40. 40 years.

Definitely 40. And then what am I leaving out? Is there a big thing I'm leaving out? There's three things. Oh, you're a musician. Yeah, I'm a musician, composer. You do a lot of your own work, and you scored a bunch of stuff in Don't Think Twice and Sleepwalk With Me. And you acted in Don't Think Twice as the sort of Lorne Michaels-esque character.

Yeah, that's right. I did that. Yeah, so I do that. I do recording and all that stuff. Also, in terms of comedy, prior to the Comedy Store, I actually was in a sketch comedy troupe. And I don't know if we've ever even talked about this. In high school.

In high school. Yeah. Or just after high school. And then we had an improv component too. So our evenings were two-thirdsthirds sketch one-third improv and stuff yeah and uh and and actually that was one of the amazing things about when you like our our our origin story is i feel like we should have you know cue the music um is that and i don't know i'm curious about your prior to us meeting a little bit but um my view of this was i showed up at

work at the barrow group uh and by my office i think i was meeting my wife lee brock who's the co-artistic director and brilliant and uh we i was uh you were outside the door my memory is that you had a little backpack and a gun a knife, a knife, and some poison. This got really dark. We're going to cut this out. We're going to cut this out. But yeah, we had a nice meeting. It was great. A little scary.

I had a script, a knife, and intentions. Do you want to direct my play? And I looked at the knife and I went, yes. want to direct my play? And I looked at the knife and I went, yes. My memory of this is that you were just kind of, you just said, hi,

my name is Mike Pribiglia, I'm a comedian. I've been on Letterman. Oh my god, unbelievable. This is great. I was like, oh. This is really quality stuff. Cutting this immediately. And then my recollection, she said something like,

yeah, I'm writing like a play, sort of, but it's like a mixture of stand-up and a play. And I was wondering if you'd be interested in directing it. And I remember saying something to the effect of, well, let's maybe show me some of your stuff sometime and I can come see it and everything. And then the next thing that I remember is the very next day you sent me an email

that I think maybe you had written on a plane or something like this. And it said your money or your life? It said the knife is real. Don't forget about it. It said don the knife is real. Don't forget about it. It said, don't disrespect me. And then it had a picture of a machine gun. And there was a little blood in the corner.

Oh, my gosh. I don't know what that was about. It probably was ketchup. But no, you said something to the effect of, it was a script. And it was a script from like a portion of what was to become Sleepwalk With Me. But at that time, it was really just material about sleepwalking incidents and material about this relationship that had... My breakup. A really hard breakup, I think.

Yeah, for sure. But I did not know your voice at all. I didn't know what it was like hearing you talk. And I remember I looked at it and I was like, okay, it's something. I have no idea what to make of this. And then you sent me a CD of, is it called Dog Ears? It was a self-released comedy CD, which no longer exists.

It's an audio format from yesteryear. And it was called Dog Gears. And I self-recorded it at the Washington, D.C. Improv in 2003, I want to say. Yeah. And instantly when I heard it, a bunch of things clicked for me. Because the thing that struck me most, well, there were a couple things. One is, oh, this guy's really funny. But the main thing was, it just feels to me like this guy's just, this is just a guy talking.

This does not feel performative to me at all, which completely lines up with everything I had been dedicating my life to. The whole origin of the Barrett Group as a theater company was I had seen a play when I was in college at UCLA, a student production. And about half the cast members in this student show were performing in this way where I could not tell at all that it was scripted. Yeah. Not even remotely. And I felt like, oh my God, I feel like I'm in the room with real people doing real things. And I had such an emotional response to the play. The play, which was probably flawed and stuff, but I just was so moved.

And immediately I went, more of that. moved and immediately i went more of that i just want to see more of that and then i i ended up you know forming this theater company with like-minded people just all dedicated to that and in comes you who's like wow you're doing it in another form and you're doing the same thing it's like i just cannot tell that you're performing so immediately i went i will i'm really interested in doing more with this guy well it's interesting that you're performing so immediately i went i will i'm really interested in doing more with this guy well it's interesting that you should say that because the reason why it was a it was an it was a it was a case of you and i were concurrently obsessed with a similar performance style yeah and it just so happened that i was researching all the solo shows being performed

around town because i'd written the script for Sleepwalk with me. And I saw Martin Moran's The Tricky Part, which you directed. And similar to how you're describing when you saw a show in college that had this non-performance performance style, sort of what we sometimes describe as invisible design or invisible direction. I just go, yeah, that. I'd seen a bunch of stuff. I'd seen a lot of shows. And I was like, that. I need to meet that person. And what's funny about hearing you describe the young 23-year-old Mike Birbiglia, who has

no sense of himself and his blind ambition. Longer hair, I think. of himself and his blind ambition. Longer hair, I think. Longer hair. A little bit. And I had actually, you know, this is how old this is. We're coming up, tomorrow is the 20-year anniversary of my debut on Letterman. Oh, no kidding.

Tomorrow. Wow. 20 years. Happy anniversary. But so I was drawn to your direction of Martin Moran's show, who Marty, by the way, came to The Old Man and the Pool the other night. Oh, yeah.

But anyway, when I saw that, I was like, well, this is the person who I want to work with. And this is the delusion of being a young artist. It's like, and of course he'll want to work with me too. Well, I didn't not want to. No, it was one of those things. I'm just kind of, something that really intrigues me about it

because on occasion I'm approached by folks that also just have cold approach. And often I have like this spidey sense and I just go, oh, great, nice to meet you. And like inside I'm just thinking like, I don't think I want anything to do with this person. Right, I gotta get out of here. And for some reason that did not trip off, that no alarm went off. I'm just thinking like, I don't think I want anything to do with this person. I got to get out of here.

And for some reason that did not trip off, that no alarm went off. That's interesting. It is pretty interesting to me. Yeah. Because to the extent where like Lee was like, are you going to do something with him? And I was like, why don't we just kind of, he's just mad he came by, you know, because I was telling her about it. So cut to, fast forward, this is our fifth show together and what do you feel like is different from this first show sleepwalk with me and now the old man in the pool the fifth show which is at lincoln center a lot i feel like because of the

fact that we've been having this ongoing what we're calling a conversation, creative collaboration. I think we started to develop over the years a pretty deep group mind. I'm often struck by, I'll have a thought at home, I'll either call you, but let's say you call me for some reason, and you're starting to talk about something, and before you even say it, I'm like, I wonder if he's going to talk about this because it's on my mind. And you will.

And then I'll go, yep, yep, yep. We're totally talking about it. And then often I'll say something and you go like, it's funny you should say that. I was just thinking about that. That's going on with us all the time. Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like you and I are friends with Liz Allen, who's a great improviser and improv teacher. And she taught me in college and did a workshop with me in college.

I feel like the principles of improv have served me in my artistic existence more than any single class or study or anything. I was just thinking about this in death last night completely. There's something about when you're yes-handing everything around you, where all of a sudden obstacles and bumps kind of go away. Instead of coming against this thing and going, oh no, you're just like, well, that's the thing. So where are we going from there? And it shows up in so many ways. Yeah, it's an extraordinary concept,

this idea of yes and no. Because I feel like yours and my relationship, it's a little bit of a chocolate peanut butter meets peanut butter kind of thing, which is the sense that like- Chocolate peanut butter meets peanut butter. Chocolate meets peanut butter, peanut butter, Reese's peanut butter cups, you know?

Oh, right, right. Like where, let me tell you about- Peanut right. Like where... Let me tell you about... Peanut Butter with a knife. Let me tell you about candy. So there's Rolos, and Rolos are caramel, and there's chocolate around them, and then there's Twix, and nobody really knows what's in that.

But what we're really talking about is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yes, that's right. But the chocolate meets peanut butter. There's an accident that goes together? Is that what you're getting at? Yeah. I would say it's that I have a very comedy-obsessed existence

and with a lot of interest and intrigue in theater. And I would say you have a very theater-obsessed existence with an intrigue and interest in comedy. Yeah, that's right. And so I think as a result, we're able to sort of speak these two languages simultaneously. Speak the language of theater, speak the language of comedy. And then we're able to sort of coalesce.

We've been able to make these hybrid shows together that sort of use both of those. I'm kind of amazed at how often my time with this, the sketch group that I was together with high school with these two brilliant guys who were way funnier than I was. And I'm amazed at how often the fundamentals of what we were doing then are showing up in what I'm doing now. Yeah.

Constantly. And the same thing with the Comedy Store. Like, you know, when you're playing piano in an improv situation. And this is in the late 70s, early 80s where like Robin Williams was improvising. It was like a murderer's row of people. It was ridiculous. I wish I could even remember all the names. But the Comedy Store Players, which was the name of the group that showed in the main room on Monday nights.

And I didn't play with them. I played with another group. I can't remember their name. You played in an alley around the corner where it was next to a garbage pile. I mentioned that Rob just to close off what I was saying before I played with this group that played before the Comedy Store Players went on or sometimes after so I was always there and I could see them and one night I got to actually play for them

because their pianist got sick and all this it was nice yes and Robert Williams It was nice. Yes! And Robin Williams notably was not there that night. And I remember just going, oh, damn it. The funny thing I always think of with Robin Williams is literally every time I showed up at the club without fail,

I worked there for probably like a year and a half, I would go to the backstage, knock on the door, and the open door, it would be Robin Williams. And he'd go, can I help you? Having no idea who I was. And I'd say, oh, yeah, I'm the pianist for so-and-so. He goes, oh, great, come on in. Like that.

Next week, can I help you? Yeah, I'm the pianist for so-and-so. Oh, great, come on in. He never put it together. Never clocked it. No. Yeah. But anyway, there was so much.

It's so funny. We're talking about group mind. I actually just right here right now thought of this thing. When I played for the Comedy Store Players, there was some kind of bit going on, and it turned into this kind of detective thing. I was sort of following, and as they did something that was at all suspenseful,

I played this like bum-ba-d, bum, on the piano and everything. And it became like a running gag in the sketch. And that at one point, they said something, and I didn't play it. Because I think I was just spacing out. And literally, the entire group that was involved in the game turned to me, just looked at me and went, bum, ba-dum, bum.

Oh my gosh, that's great. All completely choreographed. And I was like, wow. Not only did they have the impulse to do it, which of course I understand, they did the same move. They did the same thing. It's like one of those things like,

wow, these people are tuned in. It's a crack squad. Yeah, it was really good. And you, I mean, you've taught like an extraordinary group of actors through the years of the Barrow Group, including Anne Hathaway, Tony Hale. Like, I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

Leslie Kritzer, who was here the other night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sreedha Chowdhury, Purnima Jagannathan, Michael Stoltz. There's a lot of people. It's an extraordinary list. And when you're teaching actors, what do you find is the easiest thing to fix? Well, usually the easiest thing to fix. Well, usually the easiest thing to fix anyway

is that I always hate the word fix because it sounds so funny. Yeah, I know. What's the easiest quick hack on stuff? I'm making it worse. What's the completely hacky, horrible thing you do? So what's the completely hacky, horrible thing you do? What is the total failure of your students that you challenge and destroy? Actually, I think I can answer that. I think that typically actors somewhere along the way understandably develop a sense of what they think acting is.

the way understandably develop a sense of what they think acting is and included in that are things like well i think i'm supposed to like have opinions about what the character is like i think i'm supposed to decide what i'm doing at every moment i think i'm supposed to decide maybe how how the character is feeling and all this stuff and me, all of that is actually aside from the point that I suppose I think of acting as you read a script, you figure out what are underlying circumstances, which is simply things like, who are you? I'm a waiter. Where are you? I'm in a restaurant. What time of day? What happened just before this yeah think these basics right and then you just kind of show up and talk and listen um occasionally there's transformational things asked of you we have to do a dialect or you know makeup or something like that but um so the actors come

in they have these ideas and they start to kind of do uh do their thing you know they execute their ideas and it feels like you're watching somebody executing an idea. And so typically what's happening is I'm spotting that. And Lee, who I teach with, is also so brilliant at this. We'll spot it and then we'll kind of apply techniques that will help them basically get distracted from their ideas and let them go so that all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, there's a person talking right here right now.

Yeah. And you have a book on acting that is beloved by icons in art. I mean, I mentioned Anne Hathaway who blurbed the back of the book, but also Pete Docter, who runs Pixar and directed Inside Out and Up and many classics. Yeah, I went to Heaven Is Lay in Times once. I was walking with a pizza friend, a mutual friend of ours, and I was walking with him, and he was asking,

he goes like, so, you know, and he was recording the soundtrack for one of his films, and he said, yeah, you know, I'm enjoying using your book. And I was recording the soundtrack for one of his films. And he said, yeah, I'm enjoying using your book. And I was like, what? And he goes, yeah. And he pulls out from his wallet this little, he had a laminated business card size thing with his favorite tips that were all just like, you know.

That's incredible. I just was like, oh my God, I just went to heaven. My mentor, John Glavin, who taught me screenwriting, I believe begins every class with a passage from your book. That's crazy. Yeah. That's just crazy. Your book has a ripple effect in the universe of acting.

I think it's a real revered text. Yeah, it's interesting. It's fascinating. I mean, you must relate to that. When you put something out in the world, and then you're done with it in a way, you're off to other things. And then people are like going,

that thing you do. And then people steal it and a more attractive person performs it and then they're very popular and famous. And then Paul Rudd. No, it is an interesting thing when you put something into the world. For the record, Paul did not steal anything. No, no, no.

We're goofing around because of this review where someone said that if my show, the new one, becomes a movie, it must star Paul Rudd. Not acknowledging that I'm an actor also. And that actually I can play the myself role too. And they doubled down on it in the next show. And they called back to that thing and said something about like, we're having a Twitter war about this. Yeah, there's no war. I don't think there's any Twitter war.

Yeah, there's only a one-way war being waged. Often, people will message me and say, you know, how do I start telling stories on stage? Or how do I, you know, I feel like I only get three minutes to perform, stand up at an open mic, blah, blah. And it's like, I totally sympathize with that because I was there. I lived that for sure. And I would say, like, what would be your advice for those people who say, like, I only get three minutes. I lived that for sure. And I would say like, what would be your advice for those people who say like, I only get three minutes, I only get four minutes. How do I become a storyteller with this brief amount of time? I mean, I usually steer people towards, you know, thinking of one thing that happened to them that was meaningful that they want to communicate,

that was meaningful that they want to communicate, they want to tell the world about. And the one thing becomes the anchor for the whole thing. That's one of the things that I noticed with you, and you and I have taught together at Princeton and in a number of environments, actually. And I think one of the things that we run into often is that people get up and they're just telling stuff. And maybe they're trying to be funny

or they enjoy a particular image or something and they just go on and on. A lot of times they talk about how they feel. Like, I was so sad about it. Right, a lot of adjectives. Lots of adjectives. Adjectives and adverbs. Yes, I was hugely, hugely sad.

I went to this party, it was so crazy i went skiing on this on this mountain it was so big you know which no offense to those to people who tell stories like like at a at a party yeah that is a certainly good anecdote to tell and connect with people on yeah when you're in on stage in front of strangers who couldn't give less of a fuck about you, people want a story that has some meat to it and some stakes. Yeah, and the idea is that if it really means something to you, then the odds go up it's going to mean something to somebody else. And so for somebody who's looking for the three-minute slot version of that, just think of the thing and just tell what happened. I think it's a natural thing. I think in life, as we are just kind of socializing or going to dinners or whatever,

we end up telling stories. And not only that, we cycle back. There's some ones that are the go-to things. Like that Robin Williams thing, I must have told that like 50 times in my life. It's a really interesting thing to me. I don't know why, but it's just kind of interesting. And so as you tell it, you're gaining practice on telling it, I suppose.

And then you kind of sculpt it automatically, organically. It's not like you're even thinking about it. But then all of a sudden people sit down to write a story for something official. And it's like all those organic processes just melt. And they're overthinking it and it's got way too many words. And often what's happening when I'm working with folks, and I've seen you do this as well, you're just like,

if I gave you 30 seconds to tell me the thing, just what's that version? Yes. And then all of a sudden, a lot of things improve, usually, for people. There's another question that Mabel had. What do you feel like is the defining difference between what we do with solo plays

and with ensemble plays that you've directed? When you're working with a play that somebody has written in a normal way where they spend a lot of time writing by themselves and then they maybe do a reading of it and all that stuff. By the time you're working on it,

it's kind of mostly baked. In solo shows, my experience is not that way at all. You have either elements of a story or fundamentally this one thing that happened. I think contrary to what we were just talking about, a lot of your pieces evolve in a slightly different way

in that you have elements of things that you're kind of throwing up there and there's a common thread that you'll be aware of or maybe I'm aware of it as I experience it. And then that becomes like a sort of vague organizing principle for the thing. And then somewhere in the process, it becomes clear like, oh, I can see where this is going. Whereas I think in a play when you get it that's written,

it's all done so there's no dramaturgical part. Dramaturgy refers to facilitating the writing of something, usually via questions, just asking artistic questions about it. And then it has an effect on the shaping of the piece. So it's pretty different with a solo show. There's a lot of shaping going on where there isn't in the... it has an effect on the shaping of the piece. So it's pretty different with a solo show. There's a lot of shaping going on where there isn't in the... Well, I'll give people an example of that

if they don't understand what you mean by dramaturging. So like, for example, like when Seth and I were first working together on Sleepwalk with me, I said, you know, I had this breakup and it was with my college sweetheart and we fell in love and this way and blah blah and i told you a story from it and you and you said well i'll echo back to you what i'm hearing yeah i hear

from you is you fell in love with this person and um and it got very serious and then you felt like you needed to get out and blah blah and and then what I would hear back is, oh, but what about the part where in the middle of the night I woke up sweating or whatever? And you'd be like, yeah, you'd be like, I heard you say that, but I didn't take it in as the most meaningful part of it or the part that was part of my takeaway. And so sometimes what happens is I'm sort of half making up an example. It's like, I'll go, oh, well, I have to really lean on that part so that the audience, in this case, the audience of one, of Seth Barish, understands that, no, that's what it's about for me. That's what this story is about for me. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the mistakes that I see people making when they're in the position of guiding people in their writing

or directing or something like that is they think it's their job to give their opinion about what they're hearing. It's good, it's bad, etc. Get rid of that. It's great, it's terrible. And I don't think that's my job. I think my job is to, I may have opinions,

but my job is to look, well, to mirror back, this is what I'm getting. And that leaves the artist in a position to, just as you articulated, they might kind of go, oh, I'm actually trying to get this other thing across. It's not getting across. Maybe I'll write to that and everything. And there's times,

I wish I could think of some specific examples, but there's times when you've written something and my first thing when I hit it, I go like, internally, I'm like, that's never going to see the light of day. That is not going to exist in this piece. But you'll stick with it a little bit. And I've grown to understand that

if you, or really, or anybody, is sticking with something, there's usually a reason for it. And so the way I tend to view it is like, well, maybe anything will end up in the piece. It'll be just interesting to see what form it takes. So a great example is, I don't want to give anything away about the show,

but there's an extended improv thing that happened a lot. In The Old Man and the Pool, yeah. Yeah, in The Old Man and the Pool that is just insanely funny. And it was funny the very first time I ever saw you do it. Cherry Lane Theater, like on off hours. I was doing a workshop, a working out workshop.

And I remember thinking, that's so funny, but I can't imagine that would ever end up in anything. It's just so wild and crazy. And here it is. The whole thing leads up to it. Yeah, and it's funny. I was reminded by my friend Jean Korlitz the other day who saw many iterations of the show that when she saw early versions of the show, I think at City Winery a couple of years ago, there was a story that I tell about my dog dying. Oh, yeah.

I remember that. She said to me at the time, she goes, take that story out about the dog. She goes, take that story out about the dog. Nobody wants to hear about a dead dog. You know what she said? It was a really interesting note. She goes, this is a helpful dramaturgical note because it's actually not a judgment

of the story itself. She goes, there's nothing wrong with the story. It's an interesting story. It's about when i was a teenager and my dog died got hit by a motorcycle it was devastating and she goes i can't come back from it oh wow she goes i'm the next 10 minutes i'm thinking about the dog oh that's so interesting that's so and that's an that is an that is in for the creatives listening because there's a lot of creatives who listen like that's so and that's an that is an that is in for for the creatives listening because there's a lot of creatives who listen like that's a helpful way to give a note actually is that like when you said xyz thing it's my experience not it's good it's bad it's boring it's funny that's right my experience was i couldn't pay attention yeah because i'm just thinking about your dead

dog that's right and that leaves you in a position. It doesn't mean you're automatically getting rid of the dog, as it turns out. It turned out it was not in the show. It made its way out eventually. It could have found its way there if it was a different thing. And the point being that you're hearing the effect it has on somebody, and then that puts you in the driver's seat of like, do I want to experiment with letting it go

or do I want to change what it is so that it has a different effect on people? Absolutely. But I think that- Or do I want to move it later in the show? Yeah. Because her feedback is she can't pay attention anymore. Yeah.

But maybe that's in the final 10 seconds. She's not going to need to. That's right. Which is why I brought you here tonight. We're going to change the end. The end of the show now is like, by the way, I have a dog. Had a dog. Exactly.

Exactly. Had a dog is a really short version of that story. It's the subtitle. I have a dog. I had a dog. Such like a Stephen Wright version of that one you were a huge fan of Stephen Wright right? oh my gosh

yeah me too that's another place you overlapped yeah that's a common yeah also I think there's a couple areas there like we also both you and I are a huge fan of Richard Pryor's like vintage stuff yes and there was something that we responded to

about how just human it was. Yeah. And how it was like his shows were not all glitzed up. Like a lot of times, whenever we're shooting a special or something nowadays, they have all these camera moves and all this stuff. You used a term the other day that I love, I'm going to remember forever,

happy camera. It's like- Camera happy. Camera happy. Camera happy, yeah. We were talking about directing the current show potentially long term for film or for concert film. And I was discussing a possible shot, and you're like, oh, it's a little camera happy.

And 100%, and then you look at these shows where Richard Pryor would just come on stage and just, it couldn't have been less glitzy. Yeah. He's just doing his thing, and it it couldn't have been less glitzy. Yeah. He's just doing his thing and it's incredible. They were just rolling camera on that stuff. Richard Pryor live, Richard Pryor live from the Sunset Strip. This is a, was, Gary asked this question, was there a moment of our working together

in all the, you know, 15, 16 years where you worried about about something but you couldn't tell me or you felt like you couldn't tell me? There are temporarily those things I think a lot. But what I mean is temporarily is like I'll have a note or a thought and I will go through this thing of like, I don't know if this

is the right time to mention that. I'm just going to wait until the right time. And usually the time will come or it won't and the note falls away this is the right time to mention that. I'm just going to wait until the right time. Yeah. And usually the time will come or it won't and the note falls away and it's fine. But there is a sense of like, you know, I'm definitely, I don't know, maybe it's genuine for me

and it's also, I guess, part of my job. I'm protective of your creative process. The last thing I want to do is come in and, you know, screw it up. Yeah. So there's to do is come in and you know screw it up yeah um so there's a lot of times where you know but personally now there's a lot of times when like i've pretty open door with you saying anything that you know i think and vice versa i hope oh yeah yeah i mean there it's funny that during Old Man and the Pool, there was like a few times where we have very open lines of communication. Like, I was just like, Seth, I can't hear about this one thing anymore. That's right. Absolutely. this 80 minute monologue and I'm making changes and tweaks and I have to hit this moment. I have

to be at this part of the stage for the lighting to hit me a certain way. But I'm also thinking about how our best friend from childhood died. And so I'm like, there's a lot, I'm a servant to many masters. Absolutely. And I think it's actually important. One of the things I said to you and I stand by it is, I think healthy pushback is great. I think that the healthy part is important. I think it can be unhealthy. But I think when you're collaborating with someone, if something's going on that's counterproductive, it's so helpful to go like, just identify it.

That's counterproductive. And then, okay, great. We'll take a different path here um there's a lot of times where people will sometimes push back unhealthfully where like the worst case scenario is you know somebody who's maybe i don't know uh mean or rageaholic for example yeah um we've worked with we you and i have occasionally um interfaced with people who have different temperaments than you and I have. This conversation is a study in not saying names. Not saying what it is, but we've definitely had a handful of people over the years who we've crossed paths with where you and I, I think, have a very similar reaction to people who have rage issues and anger issues.

And kind of you and i never shout for example yeah um i don't think we make ad hominem attacks on people we don't say mean things to people no um on the job for sure yeah yeah yeah and and uh have you like over the years in general like an actor director how do you react when you interface with someone who has something like god it's uh it's really hard for me it's really painful that um the product i won't go into the details but the project that we worked on where there was a one of the issues was there was a person on the staff who was truly a rageaholic, and there was a lot of rage that went our way.

And I was literally sobbing at home on four different occasions at home uncontrollably. It's just like I'm taking it, I'm taking it, I'm taking it, because I don't know how to deal with it in the moment i actually somebody once was asking me like for coaching advice um on working with an actor they were they were uh it's going to be working with an actor and he had heard that this actor was like really trouble and so he set up a coaching with me and i didn't know what the coaching was about and so i showed up again yeah what did you want to work on he goes well i'm working with someone so i just need any tips for that. And I told him, I said, first of all, this coaching is over because I need to take that class.

Yeah. I don't know. Sign me up. Sign me up. I wish that there was an expert on managing that. It's so hard. It's so counterproductive, that kind of rage. I remember when we did the first meeting for don't think twice um i said to the

crew the whole crew said everybody this this film has a no assholes policy and and uh you're so you don't be mean to anybody you don't shout shout at anybody yeah and if you do that you're not going to work on the show in the movie anymore wow and because i i just i can't i'm 44 you're a little older than me i can't do i can't do that anymore like i i've reached a point i'm just like i can't yeah i can't either it's not and the good news is that if you kind of keep doing this thing you're able to kind of find the people that you work really well with and then keep it going. And then that happens less and less and less. Can we, for the person listening who goes,

oh, my job is like that in this way, blah, blah, blah. Can we teach anything through the podcast that's helpful for dealing with those people? Dealing with the troubles? People who are, yeah, mean. Gosh. Mean coworkers. I'm curious, what would you say?

I think that fundamentally all you can do is be really honest about how, what the person's saying is making you feel. Yeah. And if it continues, then you may have to leave. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. I think it's like a two-step process. That's what I would do certainly differently now.

The second I identified it, I'd sit down and I'd say, I get this is going on and this is not about, to the person I'm talking to, I'm saying, this is not about you being wrong or your opinion being wrong or any of that stuff. It's just a conflicty thing and it doesn't work. I don't think it works for our process. It doesn't work for my process.

So that has to change immediately or it's just not right. I think that that's really important. It's funny because when I called two friends of mine who are really high profile directors, and the first, when I was describing what was going on, because I was like, you know, what do we do? When you and I were working with someone who was very angry and tough, challenging, and mean to us. And they both said independently, fire him immediately. Yeah, yeah. And we're like, what? You know, it's interesting. But I think that you're right. You just sit down

and talk honestly. This is a slow round. Nicknames you had growing up that were very good or very bad? Did not like Seath. Oh, gosh. Which is what I was called mostly. Seath? Yeah, I don't know what it is, but back in the day, the name Seth, S-E-T-H, people could not say. I was either Zeth or Seath.

They could not say Seth. Is Seath some kind of word I don't even understand? No, in college it actually turned into, it was a nickname that I started to like in college. What happened is I went to UCLA, and I was in the Hugh O'Brien Awards, which was this thing where they select their favorite students maybe, and we do a scene showcase in front of a bunch of celebrities. And different celebrities get up and introduce people, and the person who introduced my scene was Hugh O'Brien. He played Wyatt Earp on television.

He was like a big old TV guy. And the theater there sat about 1,400 or something like that. And he got up and he said, our next scene features Seath. This is absurd. This is an absurd story. I don't know how your brain gets there. How your brain even arrives at that.

It does all the time. I'm going to move on from this. Can you think of a time that you were so scared you ran away? Oh, yes. Many, sadly. I remember when you were performing in Atlantic City. I think we were working on... Oh, my gosh.

I think we were working on... Take Over Jokes. Take Over Jokes. And you were there and you had a big... And of course, because we have a group mind, I know exactly what you're talking about immediately. You referenced Hillary Clinton as some kind of a reference. And some...

And George Bush, I think. Yeah. And some guy from the back in this big room in Atlantic City started screaming, die! Yep. And it was weird, and nobody would, and we went there to work on the show, and you abandoned the show immediately.

You just started doing other stuff. I just started doing other material. I just did Best Of, karaoke. Karaoke Mike Bir was like and crack it please yeah exactly i mean i was just doing like and yeah i was uh i was doing like and i'm a bear etc but but the thing that i remember is that afterwards you know i was just like brought up i was like oh it's kind of crazy about the thing and you were shaken i remember you said you almost left the stage. I thought I was going to get shot. Yeah.

So for whatever reason, I'm on stage in Atlantic City, what you're talking about, and I hear this guy go, die, die, die. And it was in the back of the room, total darkness. And it was so menacing. And apparently, someone told me later, he was saying, we didn't die since 9-11. He repeated it over and over. He was too drunk to get the other part out.

But I heard that that's the intent of what he was saying. We didn't die since 9-11. But all I hear was, die, die, die. It was his defense of George W. Bush. We didn't die since 9-11. Which, by the way, we didn't all die. I mean, is that the scenario? It was going defense of George W. Bush. We didn't die since then. Which, by the way, we didn't all die. I mean, is that the scenario? It was going to possibly happen?

All 300 million people die? Then you should vote for him. It's the leftovers. It's the thought of the leftovers. That's a pretty low bar. It could be a good campaign slogan. You're not all dead. Right, you're not all dead.

Vote for me. We're not all dead. Yeah, so all dead vote for me we're not all dead um yeah so he said die die die and i literally thought i was gonna get shot yeah and i stayed on stage because i was doing my job um but but uh yeah so that was the time i yeah i was i was gonna run away um i know the answer to this but but uh five all right i'll go to the next one um no it's uh uh what's the sickest you've ever gotten oh i'm sure you're thinking of uh i went i went on my uh honeymoon to africa and uh is this what you're thinking of? Yeah. It was one of those things where I was so... When you go into Africa, it's a different place.

You go to the... I guess it's the center of disease control and they tell you all the shots and stuff you have to take. Malaria and all those things. Oh my God, you learn about all these things. The big thing felt like malaria is the big thing. So it was like, don't, don't get malaria. And so I just became obsessed with not getting malaria.

I actually went and bought, there's this stuff called 100% DEET, which is the stuff that mosquito repellent is made out of. But this was 100%. It's like fully toxic. And I literally poured it all over my body in the bathroom of the airplane so that I would not be bitten by a mosquito. Long story short, not only was I bitten by a mosquito,

I must have been bitten getting off the plane. It was like because... Because you got it immediately. Well, I got it nine days later and it has like a 10-day gestation period. Absurd. I went down hard. I was taking the preventative, I think they're called prophylactic drugs. I think the stuff I was taking was called larium.

It was a pill that you take like twice a day. This one, are you in Kenya? I forget what country you're in. Well, Kenya was where I got bit. Okay. But I never noticed a mosquito bite or anything. So it was like nine days later in another country. Nine days later, I was in Uganda.

Okay. And I was walking on this hike that was like a three-mile hike, and I'm a hiker. I was like this. And as I was going, God, it's really hot. And I was like, this Africa's place is hot. This Africa place is hot. What a great observation.

This Africa place is hot. What a great observation. Wow, this man is astute. The thing that I was noticing about it, I was at this place called the Bogoti Swamp, and I went there to see chimps. I've been obsessed with chimps ever since I was a little kid. And I was like, oh my God, I want to see a chimp.

I want to see a chimp. And it was just so hot. And all of a sudden, I heard the guy in front of me goes, chimp scat. And he's pointing and there's fresh chimp scat. And I was like, I don't give a fuck. I am so hot. I got to lie down and everything.

It turned out I was having a hugely high fever. And long story short, I ended up getting taken to a clinic uh in the middle of africa no running water no electricity uh just you know nowhere there and was four days in the clinic and uh lee was responsible for like going in town and getting water and everything and uh and you know so i was there and then i i came back, but I lost, oh gosh, I lost about like 35 pounds, which I did not have to lose. And it was pretty nasty. That would be a really bad case scenario for a honeymoon is if your husband dies. It would be bad. I mean, that's really like, talk about good news, bad news week.

You ever do that as a moth story, which I think you should. You should blow that out for a moth story for sure. Because think about, we talked about earlier about like, what makes a good story? What makes an engaging story? I'm immediately hooked in that story. It has the specificity of the deet. It has the specificity of being in the airplane bathroom

and putting it on that you're nervous about getting malaria then it has the plot point of you get malaria then it has the unintended like unexpected consequence of you're in a clinic that has essentially no doctors or one doctor and yeah and there's so And of course the stakes are the highest. There's so many things. The other thing is that the tour that we were on basically left us there to die. What? They just like, they're like,

well, we have to go on with the tour. So good luck. You know, they just took off. And then I think two days later, they realized they shouldn't have done that. So they sent this guy back, but they were now like, you know, two days later, they realized they shouldn't have done that. So they sent this guy back, but they were now like two days away of travel. They sent a guy back to sort of be the representative

who sat there. That's a breathtaking story. It is amazing. It actually does have an end point because what happened was I was there, the peak of our trip was to see the gorillas and be out there in the wild with them and everything. And I couldn't walk i mean i couldn't you know and so uh i had they were at this gorilla place for

like five days and in the course of five days i went from i can't walk to being able to go on the trek and uh everybody in our group had been having trouble seeing gorillas they saw them like you know either way far away or they're in bushes and they couldn't make them out. And we were up there and the guide just says, I'm so sorry, we're not going to see them because it seems like

they've gone towards the border and we weren't allowed to go into Zaire. And then this tracker just kind of shows up and he says, to the whisper something to the guide and the guy just goes, oh, they're here. And we walk through bamboo, like about six foot of, they cut through it and there's nine gorillas hanging out in this pasture. And I mean, the silverback was six feet away from me.

No way. Oh yeah. It was unbelievable. Six feet away from me. No way. Oh, yeah. It was unbelievable. Six feet away from you? Six feet. I measured it. I mean, I was like, that is ridiculous. And it was, I mean-

How come you weren't, were you afraid? No. It's a habituated troop. In other words, the way they do it is they find a troop and then they have found a troop, and then every day they track from where they saw them the day before. So they go to where they were the day before, and then with the tracker they find out where they went through the course of the day.

And so hiking around you see where they slept and everything, and you find them. I actually asked, I wanted to see an unhabituated troop. I thought, I want to see the real thing. And I asked the guide that, and I said, have you ever seen one? And he goes, once. And I said, what's it like? And he goes, let's just say, I'm glad it was not my day to die. Oh my gosh. And I was like, oh yeah, okay, I'll pass on that. But yeah, anyway, it was mind blowing and, you know, I was just sobbing with happiness and it was great. You and I have this, another another thing in common which is we're

both obsessed with wildlife and i think that there's a relationship between wildlife and art yeah which is to say that um there's behavior and there's instincts from wildlife that we observe that's so unadulterated and so un un kind of thought through and so uh unselfconscious yeah that i'm drawn to it i think you are too like my daughter and i watched march of penguins recently and and my takeaway from it was we're all just penguins and when i when i get on stage doing the old man in the pool i'm just a penguin walking out to a thousand penguins saying, isn't it crazy being a penguin? The final thing we do is called Working It Out for a Cause. And is there an organization

that you like to contribute to and I will contribute to them and link to them in the show notes? Yeah, sure. I'm always happy to contribute to any food bank and City Harvest is a great one. City Harvest is cityharvest.org, 40 years rescuing food for NYC. Yeah, that's right. I mean, people should be able to eat. This is gonna be the first of many

working at episodes with Seth Barish, so stay tuned. And Seth doesn't do any social media or anything like that. So the only way you can follow him is really to show up at his place of work and give him a CD, a compact disc of your comedy. And tell him that you were on Letterman. But you can see our show, The Old Man in the Pool, or any number of Barrow Group productions, which are, man, just truthfully, follow the Barrow Group. Yeah, barrowgroup.org.

Yeah, just an amazing theater organization in New York City. Great actors, great directors, great productions, and great classes. Thanks, Seth, for being my friend and collaborator all these years. Thank you Mike Working it out cause it's not done Working it out cause there's no hope That's going to do it for our episode with

Seth Barish. His book is called An Actor's Companion. It's so good. You can see our show The Old Man and the Pool at Lincoln Center right now through January 15th. Our producers of Working It Out are myself along with Joseph Berbigli and Peter Salamone. Associate producer

Mabel Lewis. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Wait a minute. He's the guest on this? And he's the consulting producer? That's not fair. That's how you get booked on the show? You just work on the show and then you're a guest? Da-da! Assistant producer Gary Simons and Lucy Jones.

Sound mix by Shubh Saran. Supervising engineer Kate Balinski. Special thanks to Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Uppfall. Mike Insigliere is Mike Berkowitz. Special thanks to Jack Andanoff and Bleachers for their music. I'm demanding a Bleachers album before the end of the year. I'm doing it on Twitter.

I've been very hostile to my friend Jack on Twitter. I've also been demanding he hashtag calls me back. You can join that hashtag on atberbigs, hashtag Jack Antonoff calling me back. Special thanks to J. Hope Stein, my wife, the poet. Her book is called Little Astronaut. A lot of the poems actually were in the new one but it has a whole bunch of other poems

that are fantastic it's at your local bookstore perfect for the holidays special thanks as always to my daughter Una who built the original radio fort made of pillows thanks most of all to you who are listening thanks for all the feedback and the nice comments we get on the podcast if you're enjoying the show please go on Apple Podcast

give us a star rating it'll take you seconds. You can say one of your favorite episodes. I always find this with podcasts is you don't know where to begin. Like we've done 90 episodes. It's like, well, where do you start? For me, I always say like, well, I would listen to the Hasan Minhaj episode. I would listen to maybe Hannah Gadsby was a fun one. I think the Natasha Leone one was really fun. There's a bunch of them, but you could say what your favorite one was. For example, the Seth Barish episode. That would be a perfect place to start.

Thank you most of all to you, the listeners, who support our little show here. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. Maybe this winter you see one of your enemies shoveling snow in their driveway, and you could help them shovel, and that might clear the air. But you know what would be more helpful than that? Tell them about this podcast you enjoy where a comedian works out jokes and material and process with other creatives and then let let them get back to their shoveling because there's work to be done see you next time everybody