Normal Gossip - Temu Renaissance with Hunter Harris and Peyton Dix

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Hunter Harris and Peyton Dix joined us for some gossip about a director, a dramaturg, and disco Les Mis. We are now on YouTube. Be sure to follow us on there at @DefectorMedia where you can watch today’s episode.Subscribe to our newsletter for writing from Rachelle, Se'era, Jae, Alex, and Kelsey, plus blog recommendations and secrets!You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com.You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page: https://normalgossip.komi.io/Episode transcript here.Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip, and if you have gossip, email us at [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP.Normal Gossip is hosted by Rachelle Hampton (@heyydnae) and produced by Se'era Spragley Ricks (@seera_sharae) and Jae Towle Vieira (@jaetowlevieira). Our audio engineer is Samantha Gattsek. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Theme music composed by Hrishikesh Hirway.Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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The Selects podcast curates the best works and sound, offering you an opportunity to discover new gems. Check out the Selects podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Oh my God. Oh my God. What? Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Oh, my God.

Hello, and welcome back to Normal Gossip. I'm your host, Rachel Hampton. And in each episode of this podcast, we are going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. y'all we did it somehow today's episode is the finale of season 10 this season has been so special in so many ways we brought back a bunch of returning guests and some lovely new friends we plumb the depths of our inbox to bring you the most chaotic gossip possible all season long we hope you had as much fun listening to this season as we had making it maybe someday i'll have the brain power to actually process what 10 whole seasons of normal gossip means, but honestly, today is not that day because we've got some gossip

to tell you and some incredible guests to tell it to. To celebrate, we have not one, but two guests who we have been dying to get on the show. I am beyond thrilled to say that Hunter Harris and Peyton Dix are here to gossip with me today. Hunter and Peyton are friends, writers, and co-hosts of Higher Grounds Pop Culture Podcasts, let me say this, which is often described, as a glorified group chat. Hunter, Payton, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. You know we love to gossip.

Ooh, we're excited to be here. Let's sit up straight, hold on. Yeah, yeah. Well, I feel like y'all's friendship is kind of famous at this point, and I wanted to ask on the gossip show, how do you feel like gossip played into y'all's origin story, or do you feel like it did at all? I guess I wouldn't call it gossip how it started.

Yeah. And we're gossiping about our teacher being hot or not. Yeah. I think that counts. That 100% count. Yeah. We're professional gossiping. We're not doing this for truth to this.

I was like, I don't know that. But there are certainly things in college, like freshman year that we would gossip about. I'm thinking specifically everything really did to Rachel. Of course. Yeah. Just she's so trifling. It's crazy. That's the real.

I'm so grateful. The time she sent an email to me. Yep. From the side of the road. Don't even know how. Yeah. It's my Facebook banner image of like our messy friends. sending me an email being like lost my phone, can't find anything.

I'm on the side of the road. And I said, so I'm not my first or something. I'm like, so I'm going to screenshot this. Before I like call the police. But, um, yeah. I will say that you guys saying because of Rachel, that trifling bitch, I was like, okay. And mine did one of our best friends.

Yeah, no, no, no, truly like, and she knows, though. Like, she, and she knows that she's so chaotic. Like, yeah. Rachel is the type to text my ex to donate to her short film. Like, she really is... Oh, that didn't happen? No, it did happen. She was like, text to your ex and Texas guy that I met that you went out with once.

I'm like, wait, so no. Honestly, I'm not mad about her getting her bag, though. Well, yeah, she is... Women in the arts. Ambitious. Yeah. What more could you ask for? Yeah, I was just like, damn shots fired, but I forget there are there are there

Rachel's in the world, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. You said I took that personally, my community of Rachel. No, we love Rachel. We do. We do. Shout out to you, Rachel.

She's going to love this. And I ate it. And clip it and post it. Yeah. And then with a donate link to her. God forbid a woman be an entrepreneur. Okay. Listen, people don't want to get up off their asses and work these days.

And it sounds like Rachel does. Oh, very much so. Very much so. She took that Kimbracchukh to heart. We made as a Rachel. I'm liking this person. I don't know why I'm feeling a kinship to her. No, she's great.

She's great. I'm wondering if you could tell me about like what you feel like your relationship is to gossip both individually and as a pair. Like, do you feel like you share or talk about gossip differently with each other than you do just like by yourself? I don't think so. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's a contractually our job to gossip about celebrities on a hot mic. Yeah. But I do think gossip is actually so cathartic and so good for like processing through an emotion.

And sometimes you kind of got to get like the nasty stuff out first so that you can come to that person with like, okay, here's like the real point. And I do think we're both good at that of being like, I'm going to like rattle off. I'm going to say things you don't, don't press record and don't write this down and don't tell my mom that I'm speaking like this. But it actually helped me get to a closer emotion. I feel like we do that well with each other when we're like, you know. Yeah. I think what we talk about a lot too is like that first moment when you like lock in with a friend and you're like, oh, wow. we are like, we see each other.

Like that moment is often comes out of gossip where you look at each other like, so what happened there? Like that is a really important and beautiful moment, I think that happens in a lot of, yeah, or call that. Totally. Yeah, yeah. That's really beautiful. I feel like something I get around on this show is it's important to be a bitch and it's important to have a space where you can be a bitch and for the person who's hearing you to

say, I know you're getting this out of your systems you can approach this as like a whole person rather than out of anger. And it's nice to know that someone's not going to judge you for that. I was just talking to my best friend. And I was like, listen, I love the person I'm talking about. I would fight to the death for them. I'm so mad at them. I'm gonna get a gun.

Yeah. And she was like, listen, talk your shit. I know it's important. Yeah. My favorite text to send and I think hers to receive is, can I be a bitch for a second? So that's just some good stuff. That's crack in the 80s to me. Yeah.

Something I've really learned from Peyton in our friendship, that it's not bad to set a boundary. Sometimes you have to set a boundary to protect your own feelings and to honor your own feelings, which I was and am still sometimes bad at. And I think gossiping is a good way to get to the root of what's bothering me sometimes. Like how I'm telling the story is almost like the parts that I'm prioritizing. Even hearing myself back, in therapy, sometimes I'm like, girl, I sound like Amanda Batula. And it's like, okay, strict. Nope, no more.

No more. No more. And sometimes gossiping about yourself is a way to, yeah, to understand your own feelings better and clearer. Wow, I could talk about this for a while with you guys, but a little birdie told me you have some gossip for me. Oh, yes. We never come empty-handed. That is true. Something about us. Yes.

We've got a little yarn to spin for you. This is something we heard from a friend. She was like in a sorority. And it was like, I'm not going to say what school, what sorority, not your business. But basically she had heard that a girl in the sorority, like after they graduated, was lo-key embezzling money from the sorority. The girl was like not the president, but she was like in a leadership role and had the checkbook. Yeah. And after graduation, a group of girls were living together.

They're all like moving out. And someone finds after this girl had moved out of her like bedroom a check that she'd written out to herself from the sorority checkbook. So then they're like, okay, well, let's do some more digging. Yeah. And then later my friend heard that they found that she was like taking Uber's, had connected the sorority card to like all of her Uber Eats, Uber diner, like DoorDash, whatever. She's scammy.

This is kind of now becoming an episode about women entrepreneurship. Like that's actually what I is a theme. I am a little bit like sorority embezzling. How bad is it? Is it saying fuck the man, you know what I mean? Fuck the woman. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. It's got to feminism. Or is she just taking back her dues? That's a good point. Is she not just like you hold this $200 for me and then I'll take it back at a later day of my choosing? I mean, it's kind of like a tax refund where you're like I loan the government some money and now they're giving it back to me.

She said, and I loan my sorority some money and now I'm taking it back. I didn't get a return on investment on this one. So she didn't get one internship. She'd get one good internship. No way. Exactly. She's like, you know what? It's okay.

We don't need a good APY. I'll just take it back at the end of the year. What happened when they found out that she was embezzling money? Did anything happen? I think that they confronted her about it, but there were no real consequences. Yeah, no, no real consequences. And it was like post-graduation. That's, yeah, he knows the other thing too.

It's like at that point, they're all, like, they're all seniors. The Nini Leaks quote. You want to move on. You want to talk about it. What? So what now? So what else? Loki iconic of this girl, I'm not gonna lie.

I would see her as an icon, but like our friend was like, she Loki sucked. Like, well, that's the thing. It's like, you can't be not well. Like, it's easier to be sneaky if people like fuck with you. Because if a bitch you fuck with it was like, oh, I've been embezzling. I'd be like, that's crazy. Like, anyway, so we want to do for lunch. Truly, I guess wouldn't have gotten around.

Sounds like lunch is on you. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm getting a drink. Yeah. I know, but it does feel like, unfortunately, I never find out that the girl that I like is embezzling. I wish I had an embezzling attitude about me. But I tried to steal from American Apparel one time and I had a panic attack.

And then I, like, paid double. I was like, actually, let's see her, take all my money. It was horrible. All my friends had stolen successfully were waiting outside, me flopped me. Like, actually, I want all of it. It was horrible. But, like, you're such a, like, sweet talker, smooth talker. I'm sure they'd just give it to you for free, low key.

And they'd be like, I don't love your attitude. Yeah, totally. They're like, you know what? Take it. Keep it. That's true. Reframed. Sounds like you should start embezzling more.

I should. Audience, let me know. Where should I start? I do like the idea of a sorority is like an organized crime ring. Like there's a really iconic Amanda Binds 2007 movie in that. You know? Like that is like a coming of age movie that would have ate down on Disney Channel. It's true.

I'm imagining bling ring, but at a college sorority. Yeah. Um, your gossip kind of perfectly intersect. with my gossip that I'm going to give you. It's not about embezzlement, but it is about crimes committed by college students. Well, are you guys ready? I am.

Our story today is about a very controversial topic, possibly the most controversial topic we've ever talked about on normal gossip. And we're the right ones for it. Theater kids. Hunter gets up. He grabs her purse while it. Let's do it.

Yeah. Well, I'm assuming you both have some thoughts and feelings about theater. kids. So please hold forth. Are you friends with theater kids? Are you a theater kid? Where do you fall on the love-hate spectrum? I'm Peyton Dix and I'm an actress. Yeah. I actually did do theater growing up. Yes. I did. No, I know, but one time I was like, what were you, crew? And Hunter pulled out a Glock and shot me. And what, sorry, did she not deserve it? What do you mean? What do you crew? If anything, first of all, I'm going to be the judge.

director. I'm going to be the uteur. Yeah. Second of all, no, I was a child in a production of ragtime. Wow. So that's why I know all the songs in ragtime. That's incredible. But like no shade to crew, though, because crew is fab. Crew keeps She'll clean it up now. Don't

try to look at her, look at her. So Glick for kids, she's interference is what's happening right now. What you're hearing right now is someone trying to enter the spin zone. Don't let it happen to you. I'm doing laundry. Okay, sorry. Yes, we love them here. Yeah. Yes. See how yes and did that in the way. I cannot actor sing, but I do love musicals. Like, unfortunately,

if you put Hamilton on right now, I would be off book. I like that you said you cannot actor sing. Neither can a lot of theater kids. And that's something that we can, what we can see. There's a lot of evidence. We learn time and time again. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And this is actually similar to today's friend of a friend. Our friend or friend today is named Aaron. And Aaron is a newly a minted college student. So the year is 2023. So Aaron spent her sophomore and junior years of high school looking at Zoom, basically, and getting really into the Bridgetton musical on TikTok. Like, luckily Aaron's prom and graduation work canceled, but by the time she enters college, she kind of feels like she's never had like a normal school experience. Oh, wow, that's hard. So the moment our girl steps

onto campus, she signs up for like a dozen listservs, including the one for the campus theater troop, which means Aaron is one of the first to hear that the 2024 Spring Musicale will be none other than Les Miserob. One of the greats. I dream and that I dream to dream. And halfway, I stuck with you while everyone else said, be quiet. Exactly. The happy hate never had a home in my heart.

Well, I guess I'm kind of just embarrassing myself in front of you guys today. This was like a safe space. I got really into the 2012 Le May Ms. movie, the one that a lot of people kind of agree is bad because of Russell Crow. Thank you. You're safe here. This is the Ann Hathaway version, right? Exactly.

When she won the Oscar and said, it came true. This movie inspired me to join the Laemise fandom on Tumblr. I was reading PhD analyses of the Victor Hugo book, which the fandom calls The Brick. This is how deep. I heard that about you.

I read a tweet about an article. about you. No, but actually I was listening to an episode where your friends kind of like got your ass and they were like, oh, you're like a fanfic diva, aren't you? And I am. Yes. Oh, wow. And I am. Yes. It is, it's important to me as a person. I love that. Yeah. So anyway, the campus theater troupe is doing lame this year, but they're not just doing any lay miss. Remember that 2023 is the year after Renaissance came out, the life-changing album. And these are college kids who have spent too much time online and are just really into the like incredible thematic symmetry created by mixing disco and its counterculture roots with the French Revolution.

So these kids are doing disco lame-miss, complete with dance numbers performed on roller skates. Oh, the usher is in the room. Okay. Okay. There's a spirit of usher in the room with us right now. Okay. Okay. Okay. I just saw an ankle break in my head, but I'm listening and I'm learning. Would you sign up for Disco-Lay-Miss if it was coming to your campus? I'm a little intrigued. I can't lie. Absolutely not. Listen, I love the youth.

I'm not going to trust them with this execution. I don't think it's going to come together. There's not a lot I say no to in general, which I should probably work on. But, so yeah, I would go off. She signed up. I'm partying the eyes right now. Absolutely she is. I can see it in my head.

Erin is also all in. And fortunately for her, this truth. has a no rejections policy for ensemble roles. Fuck that. Low key. I'm like, that's the participation trophy culture. Literally, I got in trouble in our college because we, like, all the good dancers, like, basically unionized to be like, we can't just let anyone up in here.

They're ruining the routines. And they were like, this is like not how we roll. And we had to have like whole sit down about like who gets to be in. Inclusion. That's so funny. That's so funny. We lost, but whatever. Sounds like you don't like dancers of diverse experience.

Um, you got my ass. You see my real turning? Yes. It's true. I'd be on tape of cray's ass. I'm like, she, like, woke, left the building. She said, oh, well, yeah, sorry. Not in my troop.

What is that? Not in my backyard. Nimbie, but for dance. Oh, my God. Sorry, sorry. Back to our friend. Erin. Yeah.

Aaron, thank you. Yes. Well, if you show up to auditions, you were automatically in the show. So at the auditions, Aaron meets the people who are running the show. Their names are Lucy and Florence. They are transfer seniors. So they're older than everyone else by a few years. Like, they took some gap years.

So they're 23 and 24. The pandemic seemingly disrupted a lot of things for people at this time in their lives. I was very grateful I was not in school in 2020. I was like, okay, I don't have to do with any of this shit. Yeah. Lucy is the director. the show is her senior thesis project, while Florence is the dramaturg. I did not know what a dramaturg was before this story. Do you all know what it is? Can you explain? It's like the person

who research is like for the play to make sure it's like accurate. Yeah. They're like the point person if you have a question about a time period or about like that, right? All the details and like context of the show. Yes. Yes. This is also what I found out when I googled what is a dramaturg. Kind of sounds like flurrington College. Okay, if you think about it. Emerson College, it's like actually part of the Edmonton. Define dramaturg. Well, according to the Kennedy Center, the role of a dramaturg refers to someone who works in the capacity of a research or an advisor.

And a dramaturg described their role as, I'm there to ask questions and help answer them, which feels both like an answer and also raises more questions for me personally. It does sound a bit like a riddle. Yeah. Right? But what do you think a 24-year-old dramaturg is adding to this production of Disco Les Mis? Well, you know, this is the only time I'm going to say 24-year-old adds a lot. Because if everyone else is 19, yeah, she knows. It's true.

Well, something else important to know is that Florence and Lucy are best friends. On the first day of rehearsals, they explained that they were actually together when they got the idea for the show. They were listening to Renaissance on vinyl, and the muse visited them in a glitter-covered vision. Okay, yeah. Lucy also reveals that although she's still early career, her first drama teacher said that she could be the next Andrew Lloyd Webber, and her parents agreed. While Florence says that the first time she heard the Dixie Chick sing landslide, it unlocked something for her about how synthesis is the nature of art. Our girl Aaron is immediately in awe of Lucy and Florence. She's like, for the first time in my life, I'm working with real artist.

Lucy and Florence explained that putting on the show will take three months, opening with the crash court, on roller skating, followed by two and a half months of rehearsals and dance practice, a week off for spring break, and then two weeks of technical rehearsals, all for one week of performances. I was like, that's more than most actors get right now for their shows. That's crazy. Any concern so far? It's her thesis project, you said. It's hard to have a thesis when you can't actually reject anyone from the production. So I don't know. Yeah, it's like, okay, how to work with difficult people? Okay. Well, Erin is ready to take this as seriously as she has ever taken anything in her young life.

She's arriving early. She's staying late. She's practicing on her roller skates in the hallway of her dorm. She's having so much fun. She's making friends. They have a group chat. They stay up together until after midnight to get the blocking right. These are overachieving

theater kids. Erin feels like she's part of something bigger than herself. Like a bee and a hive except the hive is art, you know? Mm-hmm. And I've always said that. It only takes a couple of weeks for Aaron to be like, actually, it is revolutionary praxis to set Lay Miz in 1979. And she's not the only one.

Everyone in the cast is drinking the same Kool-Aid. When Lucy says they're going to replicate Bianca Jagger riding a white horse into Studio 54, except the white horse is going to be bedazzled. Like Beyonce's prop horse and Renaissance, popularly known as Renee. Of course, government. Everyone's mind is blown. Now, if this went up on Broadway. Mm-hmm. Would you go see it? No.

Really? Well, is it comp? I do love a mess. I was going to ask how much you would pay for it. I was assuming it was a gifted situation and, you know, in exchange maybe for a story post or something like that. You said, I'm not paying for this. No? But I feel like I've seen some crazy things on Broadway.

What's one more crazy thing on Broadway? That's true. That's true. Like, you know. Yeah. I mean, I can't lie. I'd pay at least $100. Support the arts.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, our girl isn't just expanding. her horizons artistically, she's also expanding them romantically with a guy in the main cast. His name is Gus, and he is a senior. So he seems very, like, mature and worldly to Aaron, even though he is also a first-time actor. Gus is very tall. He has beautiful brown eyes. He's so hot that everyone in the cast calls him hot Gus, even though there's only one Gus in the cast. That's my dream. Yeah, that's my dream role.

Sorry. Okay. Well, Gus's role is Mary. in Les Mis. And his costume is a see-through metallic pink pirate shirt. Aaron doesn't have any scenes with Gus, but she does see him regularly in passing. And there's always like a little something going on. Like they'll go out of their way to say hi to each other or find a reason to say hi to each other multiple times in like an hour. They both lean in when they're talking to each other and they make eye contact from across the stage enough that Aaron's like, this is a nothing. So you're Aaron. You're a call freshman who has not had a lot of practical experience with flirting because of the pandemic. How would you proceed? Hard for me. I was a hoe in high school. She's a good flirt too.

I've seen her in action and oh my. To the moment where I get made fun of action, where people are like, that's a wall. You don't need to talk to me like that. And I'm like, sorry. No, she gets a loss in it. I'm like, okay, come on. Let's keep it moving. oh my god I hate being myself I'm gonna change oh my god no it is it is funny um okay I don't know I guess I would say ask to run lines with him I that's like a I appreciate clarity so I think I would just be a little bit forthcoming about what I wanted to find out what Gus wants and then if I get rejected then like that's I'm gonna have to do

with that after that but maybe I would just do like shoulders back to these up wow that Walk across that stage. That's how she is. That's how she is. And me, let's run a line together. Go to run lines together. Go get your pretty ass over here. Let's talk.

No, and that's the pioneer right there. Well, Erin is, she's a little shy. She's enjoying the cheeky little tension. And it's really fun to have a crush and have like a time and place where she's known. Don't I know it? I'm going to crush for session right now. Listen. She's like, I know where I'm going to go to get flirted upon.

to get flirted upon, this is great. I don't need to change anything. And she's also a little scared that if things go wrong, she'll have to see this person like consistently for the next few months. So she doesn't really hurry it along. She and Gus have just progressed to the point of exchanging fist bumps

when spring break arrives. I'm trying to find a way to make that like horny to me, a little lingering fist bump. Because I love like bro, I think like that's so sexy to me if someone calls me bro that I have a crush on. Yeah. A fist bump is a little too PG. I think Erin,

is being put in the front zone. That's what I think. Well, spring break arrives and no one from the cast is staying on campus. Otherwise, like Aaron might have stayed too. In fact, Lucy and Florence tell the cast that the two of them are going to Cabo for spring break. And they want everyone to party hard over spring break and come back, rested and rejuvenated, and ready to do the work. Have you ever had any friendships, like, change after traveling together? Oh, yeah.

Remember Rachel? We actually had a crazy. Spring break there. Was I New Orleans? Oh, wow. And that's all I will just claim on this podcast with DM me and I'll tell you what happened. Travel can really show you somebody. Well, spring break comes and goes.

Technical rehearsals start up, which are, as you know, the rehearsals that are supposed to have like everything integrated, like the music, the lights, and the scenery. And Aaron can't help noticing that the vibes of the whole production are like noticeably more tense now. But Aaron's are friends to assure her that that's normal. It's just what happens during Tech Week. Lucy, the director, calls the meeting of the whole cast. She says, look, I know rehearsals are stressful,

but I don't want to hear about any of you lashing out of your castmates. And I don't want to hear any of you lashing out at me. I don't want to hear anyone lashing out of me. It's just crazy to say. So you've lost control of the crowd. Hold on. Get back.

No, you've lost control of the room. Oh, my God. Okay. Aaron's like, I wonder what that's about. So she goes up to Lucy after the meeting, along with some of her buddies. partially to check on Lucy, who despite just coming back from Cabo does not seem like rested or rejuvenated at all. And also, Aaron wants the gossip. But Lucy just says that someone said something

very mean and then refuses to go into any detail beyond that. It does not take long, however, for everyone to notice that Lucy and Florence are no longer attached at the hip. In fact, it's almost like they're avoiding even being in the same room together. So, your Aaron, would you investigate? Absolutely. Girl, I'm me. I'm going to investigate. As Hunter, I'm going to investigate. She holds her clipboard out already. You didn't have to finish the story. I'm taking notes.

What's up? She's like, give me the iPad. No, no, for sure. Yeah, this, Hunter's so jealous of this, by the way, right now. She wants a stencil on an iPad so bad. She's twitching. It's like a cigarette for her. Okay, we're getting to the bottom of it.

We're getting to the bottom of the toilet. Yeah. Aaron's like, okay, I'm going to try and investigate. But before she can, disaster strikes the production. Lucy had booked a couple of makeup artists that she had found on Instagram who said they wanted to, like, expand their portfolio. And they're supposed to start working with the cast once tech rehearsal start, except tech rehearsal start and Lucy cannot get in contact with her makeup artists. Like, they completely ghost her. Do not respond to any texts or emails or DMs, even though Lucy can see them posting from a brand trip in Aruba. Because Aaron always gets the rehearsals early, she hears Lucy and Florence fighting about this on the second day of text.

Lucy's like, we can do a week of tech rehearsals without makeup. And Florence is like, absolutely not. She says she's not going to lower her standards just because someone fucked up with the booking. And Lucy's like, well, if it's a priority for you, sounds like you'll be doing the makeup while I try to find some new makeup artists. And it's quiet for a moment before Florence is like, if I didn't care so much about this show, I would quit right now. And then she says, but I would rather jump in traffic before I let you take my name off this.

Oh, it's serious. Oh, my God. Say you can be the makeup yourself then is crazy. Yeah, okay, yeah. We're rolling with it. Aaron overhears this whole conversation and she's like, wow, these are serious artists. That's kind of me, A.F. But yeah, yeah, that's, I guess, your teen and your life.

Yeah. Do you feel like these are serious artists? They're the most serious artists I've ever met. I would even say too serious. Yeah, yeah. Well, Florence is immediately overwhelmed by the extra work of doing everyone's makeup. Like, she spends so much time doing Jean Valjean's makeup that the actress who plays cassette ends up having to do both Javier and Fantine's makeup.

And after rehearsals that day, the actress that plays cassette tells Lucy that she will never be helping with makeup again because it had cut into her time for vocal warmups. Important. Important. Aaron's friends in the ensemble over here, Lucy, bring up time management to Florence. And Florence just says, you're seriously asking me not to do Jean Valjean's makeup correctly. He's in almost every scene. I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that.

So on the fourth day of tech, Aaron once again shows up early to rehearsal. And Lucy is like, hey, I really like your makeup. Aaron is over the moon. She's been incorporating more glitter into her look to really get into the mood of like Disco Les Mis. And Lucy's like, did you do your makeup yourself? Oh, no. And Aaron's like, yeah, I did. Oh, shit.

Which is when Lucy's like, great, you're hired. Go tell Florence she's got help now. So Aaron makes her way on over to Florence, who is just starting on Jean Valjean's makeup. And when Aaron taps Florence on the shoulder, Florence is like, what? First of all, crazy. Okay, hold on. So let's try that one more time. Yeah, there we go.

And Aaron's like, Lucy brought me on to help with the makeup. And Florence just stares at her for a moment before being like, whatever, don't slow me down. It sounds like she can't get slower, but okay. Yeah. Totally. You said it sounds like an impossible thing to do. Right. Okay.

At this point, we are about 10 days out from opening night. How are y'all feeling so far? Bad. Not good. Not good. I'll tell you. Yeah. I don't think we're going to see opening night.

I mean, with that attitude, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, despite the fact that Aaron wasn't really asked and now she has to show up early for rehearsal instead of doing it for like shits and gigs, she actually does really enjoy doing the makeup. She's having fun. She teaches the whole ensemble.

how to do their own body glitter. She's able to get cassette, Marius, and Javert done while Florence focuses on Jean Valjean. And if she gets faster, she's even able to start putting, like, tasteful face jims on everyone. Plus, now Erin gets the gossip with at least half the cast every day. And she once again starts to suspect that whatever's going on with the vibes is maybe not just stress.

Like, Lucy will go around checking in with people. She always has a red bull in one hand and a clipboard in the other and a pin behind her. ear, and she's speaking more loudly than she usually does. She keeps saying, I need to see smiling faces. And she's always asking people things like, you're feeling good, you promise, let's not have any surprises, okay? I love her. I'm sorry. I'm not like, so I stand. This is just Charpe Evans. Like, God forbid. Also, the disco horse is causing problems for this production. Covering the horse with sequins is taking more time than anyone had really anticipated. like if they're lucky and work really, really hard, as in through the night for the next seven days straight, they might have covered one side of the horse by opening night, which means that the horse can only enter from one side of the stage and it will not be able to turn left.

And Lucy just keeps checking in in a way that even Aaron can see is not helpful. Lucy's like, we used real nettles when I was the AD for Shakespeare in the park in Sacramento and no one has ever forgotten that Ophelia. So just know every sequence will be worth it. This lokey sounds like the pre-production of Renaissance tour. Like from the documentary. But yeah, totally. Oh, my God. Well, with that in mind, do you have any predictions for how opening night's going to go?

I'm a glass half full kind of diva. So I'm always like, I think they could spin it. I think someone's not going to show. I think someone's not going to show. Well, surprising everyone, including me, when I read the story, opening night goes really well. Yeah, I knew it. I knew it. Lucy is like openly in agony waiting for the reviews and the campus newspapers to come out.

Okay. You know, totally. Okay. It's so funny. Oh, my good. But the buzz is actually mostly good. No one notices that the horse can't turn left. Though the Socialist magazine does pan the production, not for the performances, which the writer says are strong, but for

for all the sequins and glitter, which are not biodegradable, which they say really distracts from the anti-capitalist message of Victor Hugo's lay misa-rob. Okay. It's always someone. It's always something from someone. But sure. Okay. Despite this, ticket sales are strong.

And by closing night, Aaron is just grateful to have been part of something. Like, she feels like she's been through a trial by fire and come out the other side. It's time for the cast party. Aaron's buddies in the ensemble tell her the cast parties have a reputation of being overly dramatic, which is not a surprise to me. Sounds like the production, yeah. Exactly. And since this is immediately post-pandemic, this is actually the first real giant college party that a lot of these kids have been to. Oh, shit.

I'm like, girl, what is about it happening with you guys? I hope he's safe. Erin and her friends assume there's going to be drama, so they make plans for the next morning to get hungover coffees to discuss what's going on. Most of the cast speculation revolves around a certain couple that everyone is expecting to get together. Cassette and Jean Valjean are a little item, which is a little incestuous if you know the plot of Le Miz, but whatever. They were constantly side by side in like cast meetings and giggling it inside jokes together. So everyone's kind of placing bets on if they're going to hook up at this party. So the parties at Lucy's house.

It's off campus. It starts at 8. Erin gets to the party at 10. Okay. And she can immediately tell people have been going really hard on the jungle. Juice. Everyone is absolutely fucking gone. Like, these are kids whose brains have been melted by TikTok and they're trying to throw a real college party and unintentionally going way too fucking hard. Like, the jungle juice is as close as they can get to recreating the original

four loco. That's crazy. Yeah. That's a lot. There are enough jello shots for everyone to, like, eat their body weight in jello. And for some reason, they're playing beer pong with Bacardi instead of beer. Almost everyone at this party is still. in their costume, so someone's in like a wig and hot pants. There are bell bottoms and like little vest everywhere. And right by the table, full of jello shots, is none other than hot gus. Thank God. I've been waiting. We need this. We need one win. The collective inhale. I see how it goes. Yeah. He's wearing his metallic pink pirate shirt. He's still got his face jims on. Aaron does literally feel like she's in an episode.

of euphoria as she approaches him under this like blue and red lighting. Her Nate Jacobs. Oh. Oh. Hopefully her Angus Cloud. Or Rue Bennett. Well, now that they're in a party setting, it feels like the flirting is immediately up by 10. Like Hot Gus is complimenting Aaron's plether jumpsuit.

His hand is like lingering on the small of her back. At one point he's like, so who is your favorite character? And when Aaron answers Javert, Gus is like, I see how it is. That's a good one. I love to do that. Oh, so you hate me? What? It's working on you right now? A little bit.

Okay, that's him. Like I said, she's smooth. What can I say? Well, you're Aaron. How are you going to play this? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to say something and then whisper it. So it's like, oh, we have to go somewhere else to talk, like, quieter.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That's good. Well, 18-year-old Aaron decides she needs to be more drunk at this moment. She needs a little bit more liquid courage. So she's on Red Solo Cullough.

Number three, when she spots Hot Gus playing beer pong with Florence, and this feels like a perfect moment to resume flirting. Except when she joins Hot Gus and Florence, it very quickly becomes clear that Florence is also trying to flirt with Hot Gus. The operative word here, though, is trying because Hot Gus is not reciprocating in the same way he does with Aaron, and it is clearly pissing Florence off. And this is both exciting and stressful for Aaron. She's like, should I leave? But she's also like, I want to stay. So she stays, which she does instantly regret one of her friends from the ensemble rose up with a Polaroid camera.

Like, at first it's fine. They just yell, say cheese and Aaron, Hot Gus and Florence all posed together. There's like a big flash. But then Aaron's friend hands Hot Gus the camera and she gestures at him and Aaron and yells, why don't you two just kiss already before running away? Have you ever been wingmaned against your will? I feel like you've done that to me before. Yeah, I feel like it's happened once or twice.

Because I just like to see what happened. It's just my artistic spirit. You said this is improv. Yeah, well, Aaron starts laughing really nervously. Like, our girl is sweating. She's like yelling, come back to her friend because she wants to divert. And thankfully, Hot Gus is also laughing. But Florence is like, I guess I'll just leave you to it then.

Aaron and Hot Gus talk for a bit, but it kind of feels like everyone is looking at them now. And Aaron starts feeling overwhelmed. So she makes an excuse to go chat with some of her friends. And as she's walking across the room, no less than three separate people come up to her to ask her what's going on between her and Hot Gus. Hmm. Aaron is getting like increasingly stressed out. She's like, okay, I know I don't have that much flirting experience, but I didn't realize it was bad enough that. everyone can see it across the room. And then she's like, I need another drink. I can't deal with this.

So she goes for Red Solo Cup number four to recover. That's usually the one. It is now almost 2 a.m. when Erin realizes she has to pee. She goes to the bathroom and has what I feel like is one of the most universal experiences in the world, which is only realizing how drunk you are upon seeing yourself in the mirror. I actually tend to feel it when I'm like getting up from the toilet and I'm like, ho, whoa. But Aaron is in the bathroom. like Issa Rae and insecure, except instead of hyping herself up, she's spiraling. She's like, am I bad at flirting? Did I royally fuck that up with Gus?

Is that why the vibes are so weird? And then she's like, Aaron, you've got to pull yourself together. Our girl is having her moment in the bathroom for approximately like six minutes, maybe seven, max. She's just convinced herself that the vibes are in fact not weird at all. Except then she exits the bathroom and finds that fully two thirds of the people who had been at the party are now gone. Oh, she was not in there for seven minutes. Like, her friends are gone. Hot Gus is gone.

Everyone has just emptied out while Aaron was spiraling. Because standing in the middle of Lucy's empty living room are Lucy and Florence, and they are absolutely going at it with each other. And standing next to them is the actor who plays Jean Valjean. He is soaking wet. Red wine is like dripping from his hair and staining his like billowing white shirt. Before Aaron can even. makes sense of what she's seeing, Florence lunges at Lucy and Jean Valjean like holds her back.

And Florence was yelling, I never want to see you again. To which Lucy yells back, thank God. Love it. Ater up. Ater up. And then Lucy turns to like the rest of the stragglers at the party and is like, all of you need to get the fuck out of my house. So we are almost at the end of our story. What do you think happen between Lucy and Florence?

Maybe they fought over another guy in Cabo. Well, Aaron, like, flees the scene. And she's like, wow, artistic differences are so serious. Girl. Okay, we got to grow up. Okay. Come on. Let's go get you home.

This is crazy. She gets back to her dorm and is, like, catching her roommate up on all the drama. And her roommate is like, I can't believe you can get another chance to flirt with hot Gus. And then she's like, okay, if you DM Hot Gus, I would DM my crush. And Aaron is like, okay, fair enough. Like, deal made. She messages Hot Gus and is like, do you want to get coffee so we can see? talk through whatever just happened.

So the next morning, Aaron wakes up, hung over and confused. As planned, she drags herself out to meet five of her friends from the ensemble for coffee and a debrief. And when she gets there, everyone's like, ooh, here she is, the drama. We saved the seat for you right here. And they put her into a chair, like, right in the middle of everybody. And Aaron's like, what did I miss? Does anyone know what happened last night?

And everyone's like, girl, you happened. You were the drama. Everyone wants to know what happened with Hot Gus and Aaron's like literally nothing. Like we talked for a little bit. And so everyone's talking through the night and also like the past few months of production. And it turns out they all saw different things over the course of all the different rehearsals. And here's what happens as it's laid out at this brunch. So right after casting, three entire months ago, Florence started hooking up with Jean Valjean.

Important context, Florence is 24, Jean Valjean is 18. How do we feel about this entirely legal age gap? It's less the age gap to me and more that's his director, no? Yeah, that's kind of weird to me. There's a power dynamic thing. Yeah. And also, did he only get the role because they were, because she liked him. Well, Lucy apparently walked in on Florence and Jean Valjean making out in the sound booth,

and Lucy told Florence she had to break it off. Wait, this is also why Florence could do makeup on Jean Valjean for days. For days. till the room stank. Get your ass. And that probably, honestly, probably she intentionally sabotaged the makeup artists. She found the course I'm about to branch up to a ruba. So that she could do the makeup on Jean Valjean.

So she can put it on and take it off. She messaged Charlotte Tilbury and said, I have some artists for you. I've got just a girl. Yeah, yeah. Hilarious. Well, Lucy told Flore and she had to. break it off because of the age gap but also because of the power dynamic between cast member and dramaturg were inappropriate. Lucy's like you have to stop or you're going to get us canceled.

But not anybody can about to a little podunk play. Oh my God. They were waiting up at night for the reviews from the school paper, the socialist magazine. The school paper is Hunter hungover being like, listen, I saw what I saw. It was not that bad. She was out of our school paper. Let me say, I'm happy the school paper didn't have that policy. you couldn't reject people. Well, not only did Florence keep secretly hooking up with Jean Valjean, she also invited him to come to Cabo over spring break. I knew someone had relations in Cabo.

You were right. Which meant that Lucy and Florence spent that entire week drunk and fighting in the sun. But by the end of spring break, Jean Valjean was no longer interested, but Florence absolutely still was. And so no one knows for sure why Florence was going after Hotka so hard at the cast, party, but it sure seems like hot Gus was a failed attempt at a rebound, or Florence was trying to make Jean Valjean jealous. But Jean Valjean was not paying attention because around 2 a.m. He started making out with cassette on the couch. And when Florence noticed, she got two solo cups

full of red wine and poured them all over Jean Valjean and cassette. So that's the abuse of power, I'd say. Again and again. Okay. And this is when Lucy started yelling at Florence. She's like, that is red wine. You are spilling on my couch. And Jean Valjean is a child. Grow up. And this is when everyone started leaving. And Aaron missed all of this while she was having her six minute, 15 minute, half an hour,

drunk girl moment with the bathroom mirror. And so someone else at the table is like, Aaron, did Florence apologize to you? And Aaron's like, apologize to me. For what? Like, we had some weird conversations, but like nothing really happened. And everyone at the table looks really surprised. to hear Aaron say this. Oh, she's been talking about you.

Well, apparently when Florence was like, I'll leave you two to it, and left Hot Gus and Aaron alone to flirt, she went across the room and started complaining to a group of seniors that Aaron was completely out of control and that she needed to be pulled off of Hot Gus. Okay, she's giving real big old loser, loser, double loser, whatever, get the picture, duh vibes.

Only because, like, girl, you can't get any man, first of all. You got to something, you can't keep a man, too. That's hard. That's hard on the spirit. and I get it. But damn. You don't have to like sabotage her. Everyone else.

Like, just because she's talking to your rebound, the guy you're trying to use and make your mom out, I'm jealous. Not girl. Also, they're kids together. Right? They're at the same age. Yeah. You need to do some work within.

Aaron is like, this explains all the people who came up to me. The vibes were weird. Yeah. I wasn't just spiraling. This post-party debrief is basically the end of our story. I do have a few updates for you before I share those. But I wanted to ask, Do you think there are any villains in the story

or are they just tortured artists? I think there are several villains. Everyone involved, including Aaron. Yeah, I know. Even Aaron? Erin, girl, too naive, sorry. It's a wrap, okay. Too naive.

Yeah, let's move on. All right, you're really killing me. Florence definitely, Florence is battling demons inside for certain. Yeah, that's definitely happening. And Lucy, I'm going to say not getting involved more is too much. Yeah. Like, you need to step up and say this is inappropriate.

We need to figure this out. Because now everyone's feeling awkward. Letting Florence just do Jean-Bajon's makeup for two hours. It's like, girl, I'm like, delegate. We all know it's not that deep on that look. Well, actually, all the sequins they were using and killing the environment or whatever. You're right. You're right.

And I'm going to say the horse is a villain in it too. Absolutely. Except Renee. Yeah. T-Moo Renee. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're wrapped.

Yeah. That is, you're right. She'll never work in this town again. And she won't. And she won't because you only got one side. She can't work one side. This ain't Zoolander. No, no, no, no way.

Okay, well, we have a few updates today. The first is that to everyone's knowledge, Lucy and Florence kept their promise to never speak again. That's probably for the best. Kept their promise is so funny. The phrasing of that, like that reframe that it's like, thoughtful and not just them being hard-headed, like, under, how old are they 25? Come on, yeah, yeah.

We should have mentioned that. Like, I, like, I struggle with people under the age of 27. If anyone is still on their parents' health insurance, we don't need to be in conversation together. That's just how I feel. And that's so real. Like, come on. The second is that Aaron found out that her roommate lied and never DM'd her crush.

So she was just like, I guess I just DM'd talk us for nothing. But they did meet up to gossip about everything that went. down, but away from the spell of the stage, they had zero chemistry. No. In retrospect, Aaron's like, it was just the magic of the theater. I'm going to beat her out. I'm sorry. I'm going backhand her one solid time.

And you didn't get it. So whatever, move along. Mid-Gus. And yeah, period. I'm like, show me a photo. And Gus better be hot. Gus better be. It's probably one of those boys.

It's only for some reason all of having so straight girls to me, where they're like let me see a pick and they're like oh the fuck he doesn't really know no that's Gus I know that photos are bad I think boys should know how to take photos proven straight men take terrible photos of themselves of their friends you're just like of me no I seen a straight woman struggle to be to scroll I said you don't need to go that far I don't need to see him in 2018 check his tagged photos though check his tags photo yeah like check the tag a woman took a photo at some point and he was good His ex-girlfriend who did the work for you.

He looked beautiful at his sister's wedding. Like, come on now. Don't you see the vision? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not really able to me at all. The last update is that Jean Valjean went on to become an ensemble member on Broadway. Oh, so he was talented. He was.

He was. He credits Disco Les Mitz with teaching him how to roller skate and how to not shit where you eat. I'm sorry that it was a hard lesson to learn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least you learned it at 18. Yeah. Right, young. Some people learn it at 30.

Yeah. And even some people still haven't learned it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at NormalGossip.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 Gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or a friend of a friend at

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