The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #204 Offensive High School Musicals with Megan Gailey (Patreon Exclusive Excerpt)

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

In the excerpt of this Patreon exclusive episode, comedian Megan Gailey joins us for our first live taping in LA to share what role tape played in her high school musical that hopefully nobody took pictures of. Watch the rest of the episode exclusively on our Patreon to hear Megan discuss doing molly at your own wedding while your dad simultaneously hits rock bottom, how Ireland is the result of white on white crime, why Hamilton is just propaganda, and what conscious fandom means in the ethics of consuming professional sports. Follow Megan on Instagram, TikTok, & Twitter Follow guest cohost, Douglas Goodhart on Instagram & TikTok Join our Patreon for free for 7 days: https://www.patreon.com/downside Follow The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi on Instagram Get tickets to our live podcast recording in NYC on May 13 https://www.showclix.com/event/the-downside-w-gianmarco-soresi Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's bi-monthly show in NYC Get tickets to see Gianmarco Soresi in a city near you Watch Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Dave Columbo Technical production by Chris Mueller Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Shop at Sephora today. Limitations apply. Must be a beauty insider. See terms at sephora.com for complete details. dot com slash downside you can watch this whole thing or listen to this whole thing as well as all our old past patreon exclusive episodes and all our past live episodes patreon.com slash downside enjoy the excerpt one two three you're listening to the downside the downside with johnside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. What was the production that you're scared pictures will leak from someday? Oh no, I'm so nervous.

This would have been 2002. Listen, back then everything was in Central Indiana. And it would have been like a week after 9-11. And I think it was, the play, well no, now I'm like, oh maybe it was 2001.

The play was called Tea House of the August Moon. And it was an all Japanese cast. But there was not one Japanese person in it. I don't, guys, I'm too afraid. No, I got one. We did it in Japanese. Oh my god.

Do you remember some of your lines? I'm not gonna say any of my lines. Wait, but how, why? Why is a great question. Wait, the whole play Well, they couldn't remember their lines

so they just tried to fake it and they did. So there were American soldiers and they got to speak English and then all of the Japanese citizens which were white children

in Indiana. Why? And there were live goats. I remember there were live goats. They got live goats but not one live Japanese person to be in the show. Beyond it being problematic, it just seems like so much work. It was.

To have to teach children Japanese. We brought in a dialect coach. Well, OK. John Mark, why don't you tell your story? So I did Stephen Sondheim, Russell's favorite composer, apparently. I did Pacific Overtures, and that is about the colonization of Japan. Now, to be fair, the original Broadway production

also didn't have any Japanese people in it either. That sounds fair. Yeah. That does sound fair. But then later, later they did a revival where they did an all-Japanese cast as like a, sorry. Oh, there you go. And so, but I think more offensively is like, they did a revival where they like did an all Japanese cast as like a sorry and

so but I think like the more offensively is like there was there was one Chinese kid who went to school and they had him like

he wasn't even a theater kid but they had him do the show to be like close see we got we got permission

and the worst part is I was a freshman and so like to like earn my keep because I only had one song. Get ready. I became the, you know how you have a dance captain? I was the accent captain. So I was in charge of teaching them

the Japanese accent and oh fuck all of you okay? This was like you can't be mad at a freshman in high school. That's not fair. But it was more just like, I took it seriously. I had a book, and I studied it. I wasn't doing it like, hey, this will be funny.

Let's do the, it was sincere. And what was, I'm asking this because I want to know, which of our Japanese plays was more problematic? What was your makeup situation? So I feel like it was... Our producer just came so close with the camera. Our producer, Paige Asachika, came close to... No, I was like, she's going to get this on film.

This is it. Paige was like, finally. I've been producing this podcast for two years. Just to finally catch these motherfuckers. I honestly, and I'm not lying, I don't think we did make up what did you do for yours. Oh, no. No, we know now.

We know the answer. No, it's worse than you think. Oh, my God. Was there scotch tape? There was tape. No! All right. All right.

I thought I was making an offensive joke. No way! We gotta file some police reports. And it's crazy because this is all because a musical theater guy was like, can we just do Grease? And I was like, no. No!

We gotta do something real. We gotta do something real. They were like, they did Grease last year. So there was tape. I was a minor. Okay, so if anything, I was being abused. Wait. I was 15, I didn't have a license.

Like, I was being held captive. There was tape, and then during our curtain call, we would peel the tape off. Like, we're white again! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Oh, God. Oof. But with the tape, like scotch tape? No. Mike Pence came. And we said to him. And he loved it. But with the tape, like scotch tape? Mike Pence came. And we said to him. And he loved it. Loved it.

We said, stop Asian hate. I mean, he was governor at the time.