finishing the hat is a piece written by stephen sondheim the most important and significant writer of musicals to emerge during the past half century in american theater it's a glimpse of a self portrait of the art obsessive sometimes tortured self critical lyricist involved in the dynamic an ending process it's about finishing not having finished it's a lot like all our lives the mental energy that the creative process emanates from the song seers into our brain look i made a hat where there were never was a hat it's art is a jealous mistress sondheim understands and knows that the woman he wants won't wait for him and will leave him as he monotonously almost mechanically pays attention to his painting he can't help occasionally appearing up on the canvas to see the real world then it's back to that we have a glimpse into the artist as creator the art of creating like life is not some fixed and sacred paradigm it's a celebration of the joy triumphs and anguish of creativity even in the face of the inevitable personal loss heartbreak and traumas that life brings us the work of art in the process of being created the lyrics on haim writes about are presented as living and evolving they're flawed organisms still being shaped pope that and talked to by the man who created them sun and also gets to the heart of our human anguish in a post modern world we need to create and use our artistry our human skill and ingenuity to create emotional openness and develop a critical perspective we need to cherish mastery in the art of creating to feel alive sondheim puts it this way in his work being alive somebody need me too much somebody know me too well somebody pull me up short and put me through hell and give me support for being alive make me alive today's show we have two brilliant young artists actors directors producers and filmmakers who are making us feel alive to the mastery of their new creations our st guest was on the radical imagination a little over in a busy last three years we're so happy they're back again to discuss these works which includes three new films a new play a satirical you tube show and more so welcome alexis so yeah that's a bad their friendship because i don't know if you know about that but maury chevelle you and you can't and became very good friends as morrie should value was going to perform on broadway and  and we'll get into more political ramifications so was he was he political in that sense or he just loved you know you just like the guy in the music like nothing political that it turns out it became  if you were in that place three years ago as well right yeah i had a small part and then i also produce and we realize that we work well together i also do some writing so we said let's  two piece of world so there's a lot to cover so so you're you're part of this terrific musical artistic tradition and that's what i felt i wanted to start the show with let's see a short clip from this ok village of information trying to make sense you know what's true what's not and everything that's hitting us in the face it's also the big mass that's coming because towards the end it's completely drowning into newspapers unbelievable and something like both candidates look to disappoint in nepal that something in the way that they talk about topics or whatever they're just you know talking in generalities and right and when we thought about labels we were kind of talking about the fact that you know you'll have a news label or a headline and it'll say something and then if you read it sometimes it is the story isn't even that at all you know or right there so he originally he gets his newspaper and he just cuts the headlines off and he starts reading the newspaper he's like ok now i have the information without all the you know the garbage the click bait but you know it's analogue it's a newspaper  then the more he tries to control the information that's coming to him the more newspapers appear and they start flying out of the cause it and eventually he drowns in piles of shredded paper and then that's it and that's the end he suffocates he has no simple like that there's no dialogue either so that was those the rules you know that was not the rule but we decided to do that because that was it was more more efficient than the changing locations and having that several actors it's more complicated dialogue yeah you know he has there's sound there so like at the end of the film he's kind of going nuts and he's laughing to himself and trying and you know but there's no one to speak to you know it's like he's alone in this  information and there's so much of it that he can't handle it what pictures think about the that was all this is this is moderates you know belgian surrealistic painter i see so he painted a pipe in the room underneath this is yeah yeah it makes it was so the hat there was because it's so time constrained there's of course several times during the process really get this is not happening there's no way we can get this done you know i mean i think we we stayed up all night wrestling with the actual story yeah and didn't have a story until about six or eight in the morning tell us this all sounds a little about how you collaborate because one or two of the areas that you were grappling with and how to present during that night there well one of the hardest things when you're doing a project like this and of course of a time when it had to be under five minutes  complicated simpler so you are always making it sign on to it yeah there you go it was a good exercise in that way because we had to come up with something simple and ultimately a want of being a collaboration of our conglomeration of a couple of our ideas that you had the and it's even works why now why i think that unfortunately when the times we're living in it it's still going to be something relevant and twenty years or thirty years from now unless the system or the internet and whatever media we have this changing  drive people crazy drives me crazy actually so what's interesting also is you know it's an age it was an asian american from festival so our requirements were that our lead actor needs to be a ok we had a different ending at the beginning so anyway what's interesting in the festival like this is the labels that you could have tackled the issues of racism etc and we didn't quite do that we didn't quite do that but we now the nd one will look at it's called american fable yes ok now that you want to give us a little bit of background what we set this up on that this is now this is the nd right this is actually the rd one the rd one that you've been that we in what way we had we had four actors and we had a scene around the table which is really hard to shoot there are a lot of the magic things it's it's kind of an allegory so there's a lot of unspoken things i think if i had to do it again i would get somebody professionally to help with the costuming and that would amazing things clearer and maybe some specifically placed props that would have visually made some of the themes a little clearer that i didn't have time to to get into the and produced this one and he's starring in this one start with with a love interest i think the average of all there's only staring at a butt but now it's so what's what was in your head here in your desire was how i was well it's in centered around the holiday of thanksgiving we actually shot it during the thanksgiving holiday and i wanted to explore archetype and stereotypes and the sort of the tyranny that can take place when you get stuck in these in the in playing these roles that are sort of expected of you to holidays roll during holidays or any maybe the role that a husband feels that he has to play or or a wife feel that she has to play or or a brother feels that he has to play just these these expected roles archetype roles that that we get placed into again maybe no exit or is there a way out of this oh so they're right there through the story we did we did have an exit in this one good and it was through an allegorical death of self and then he comes back to life in the end redemption yeah sort of a redemption of ok again this one is so realistic so there are some things that are a little weird but i think the overall mood of just like underlying discomfort i think we did that rea how's that for overkill that we talked about to go get some more firewo so who was breaking out of roles there what was happening between the the people you were trying to carve the turkey and yes do it i'm totally not into whatever that this guy is now  who are the women are woman there as well as a love interest for who for me for you and then a sister sarah who kind of has a weird attachment to him that's sort of uncomfortable and i'm like why or why did i get into writing and i start fearing for my life in that scene like a tank fix my knife and i'm not sure what's happening i'm not sure what these people are actually i know what they're about you don't really care what was in it just so happens that he gets in tangle in there in my reading too much in this when i say ok some american holiday thanksgiving right all right so there's all kinds of overtones for that you know are you she's talking about the american turkey and the fact that it became a staple because they were able to domesticate it and she's kind of throwing that back at him like i'm going to domesticate you you know and h sort of the wilderness and craziness sort of pushing back because of the abuse as it as it anything you try to contain does eventually in the abuse of that was a real it was a real turkey there oh yeah it ok so it's about two friends two girls might actually they're friends and they're going to montauk for for the weekend and it turns out that one of them meets this guy she's kind of in love with her friend right your friends ok and this and they discover that so then at the end it's it's there's a very ambiguous like very ambiguous really being  and it was more about this one was the least actually the only one that's not really political in some way or not just on things like that it's more intimate and it's the only one that actually has no sound because it was sort of a last minute thing in these girls came to us with a script they wanted to do and i knew we had no time to organize sound so i said let's just put something silent and then i have my friend here chang from the st film and he made this this this wonderful he composed this wonderful  what was that what was around his neck there so there's they become when they start in the film that each of the girls has one and during the course of the events of the film when she's on the beach with this guy she leaves it there forgets it and so it turns out that he is just a stop on the road of their friendship and he's left with the little trinket all alone on the beach and the girls drive off into the sunset which is half a piece of came to the studio today right you didn't know i was going to be playing the sondheim thing you know making the hat this was all very spontaneous and of course in that piece there is intense loneliness there's a knowing  salvation through you you mentioned right there's a certain redemption in this one not really or is redemption in this what i think is the nice thing about this is that even it's not really resolved between the two girls one has a more romantic affection that she's been hiding and it's revealed in the other one doesn't see her that way but in the end they both drive off in the in the car together and they take each other's hand ok so it's not resolved in that what's the modern struggle with what's the modern masculine like there's a sort of i feel like even for young men there is sort of sort of a l think so or and some of that but some of that because ok so and you try to capture that and these and all of these i mean the girls are definitely the stronger character of the art and i don't even know if we're doing it the purpose is just to films so in a sense you are making some sort of political gender state yeah i can i use an ambiguity contradictions i guess the difference on that where we're not starting off to make a statement right we just find a story that's interesting and we tell it and because we do live in the world we do occasionally look out our our window and see the world and then go back to making our hats you know here and so i think there are there are obviously reflections of culture in society and things that we see right right right but we don't start from a place of like ok we need to make a film about you know x group rights or something right right right right  vote for anybody for politicians who out of a concern for proximity and modernism well the sex relies of presidential function by putting on a pair of sweatpants and then they're deep take a loss to you and you want to even be aware of it and then you relax a chin that these clues provide you this will be the end of the world and in the general indifference in you you will have generously contribution through the negligence of their physical appearance to sho bilingual i see ok and how did you come up with came up with it because i wanted to make fun of people running themselves as influencer they were very arrogant and usually don't everybody is saying already feeling that they're tackling some issues but they're actually not they're not like you're making any debate advance or anything so i want just to make fun of that and treat a character that's for excellence from the greeks per day and that and what sondheim was talking to about taking pride in one's mastery in the craft that you guys are doing and that we lost the dumbing down of all of us in the would be interesting to have it's a political movement is occurring and the journalist is being asked to cover it and very self important right once and to write a big lie about the march is like no it's not how it is i've been i was there so i know i know a good news or exactly so then you know then he has like he's going to be his last article most lately he's going to get fired but then he meets all these people on the street that makes me even more cynical  it's a parody of causes you mean that cause the problems exist but i mean the causes aren't what up to the solutions or yeah yeah  think to me when i read it it just it it really has a takes a discussion into what is the purpose behind a movement and are people just looking for something to make their life feel meaningful or are they really understanding what it is they're trying to do so you have a point so you have this you have the main antagonist in the in the film there like for turtleneck to big sunglasses people's rights you know and so we he took something that no one's actually fighting for right now but just to illustrate the fact that all the anything could happen and the only thing they're insisting to him is like you should speak to us how we want to be spoken to and you know behave how we want you to behave because we were total next and big sunglasses you know and and and i think that that's where it becomes a sort of a difficult struggle you know you want to fight for everybody to have some sort of fairness and you want to but ultimately everybody is disadvantaged in some way so when this pushing so hard then push past  goodness and become again unfairness on the other side self serving right and over the right these are and so in the end they wind up accidentally pushing him over into the train and he gets run over and nobody's going to get up a journalist ends up cylons are to create i think what you guys are doing i think that's the that's always the struggle is of course you want to comment on these things but if you become too entangled with them you lose yourself as an artist  really a true artist just focuses on on their hat right and you want to help and you want to comment but art for art has some point you can get sucked in and you're pushing people off of train platforms and what are you doing yeah art for art's sake but not only it's always nice if there's a commentary you know a bit like not a strong like position thing like that's how i think and if you don't like me then you know making you not afraid