Music And welcome to The Truth in His
Rob Lee: Heart, your source of conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter and I'm your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to connect for the first time with a New York City-based director and choreographer with over a decade of experience working across circus, dance, and theater.
He's the co-founder of the New York Circus Project, a platform for exploring how circus and theatrical storytelling can push each other forward. As latest production Liquid brings his vision to life, please welcome to the program, Sam Landa. Welcome to the podcast.
Sam Landa: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. I'm super excited to shout with you. My name is Sam Landa. I'm the co-founder and artistic director of New York Circus Project. So my background is predominantly in circus, but also in theater and dance and other performing arts forms. And a lot of my work revolves around basically trying to merge circus with other performing arts forms and make it something that people can see more in line with things like theater and dance.
And whether that is relying on music or narrative or anything like that, I think that there's a lot more excitement that can be had through circus shows than what's currently out there.
Rob Lee: I love that. I love making these sort of connections and kind of rethinking. That's the thing there, or showing sort of those connections. And we're definitely going to talk about one of the things that really had my ears perk up.
I have small ears, but they did perk up. You know, the storytelling element and in your background, I also see, you know, sort of like work as a dancer, circus artist, director, consultant. What did you fall in love with first creatively? Like we all have that sort of first love and sometimes it might be something vastly different from what we're doing currently. But what was that first love and how did that passion kind of shape what you're doing now?
Sam Landa: Yeah, absolutely. My first love was definitely dance. I grew up as a dancer, which started very recreationally as a child. And I always loved it. I was a kid that, you know, I tried lots of sports as well. And I was super enthusiastic about trying everything that I could, but I ended up, you know, on a baseball field and dancing to the outfield. And so my parents were like, great, you got it, go for it. And this is clearly what you want to do and you're meant to do, you know, so I fell in love with dance first.
And that was something that I took sort of as seriously as I think a young kid could. And then I was introduced to circus actually through aerial acrobatic. So I started doing that.
Similarly, you know, very recreationally, I tried the flying trippies on vacation one time and then we're begging my parents to sign me up for classes and all of that. And definitely my definitely circus came after dance. And I always saw it as, you know, I would see the aerial silk and I would say to my parents, they're just dancing, but it's in the air. So I started training it as something that was really sort of an adjacent thing or an add on, if you will. And then I slowly but surely kind of fell in love with it more than dance and it fit, I think me and my style and my natural capabilities a lot more. So that transition was gradual, but was definitely there from the beginning when I found circus and specifically aerial acrobatics.
And then I didn't really make the full switch into circus until I was invited to the National Circus School, which is up in Montreal. And I was there from the age of 15. So I was there throughout high school and I finished up high school there. And that was just a great opportunity because the school is it's one of the biggest programs for circus in the world.
And to be able to go there at such a young age was super instrumental in getting into the place that I am today. So definitely my my first level with dance, but more generally as a performer, I thought that I was going to pursue a career as a performer, all until I think I got to college age. And then I started to realize that there were other things that I wanted to do. And there were other interests and skills that I had. And then it sort of went from there. Thank you.
Rob Lee: Oh, that's great. I mean, having sort of the one I was thinking initially, it's like, so that means you're super graceful. So that's one. Me, I'm clumsy. Well, I'm six, four of all over the place. It's just limbs.
Sam Landa: Yeah, I try my best, but I'll tell you, I did run into a table that's been our set for the show, probably a dozen times in a rehearsal day. So I do what I can, but we don't we don't even escape that clumsy mess. Don't worry. And I think it's funny.
Rob Lee: And I think, you know, having those those connections and kind of going back is important because you know, I've been podcasting for almost two decades at this point. And my initial thing was I wanted to be a visual artist when I go into comics, doing nothing like that now. However, we, it's like Austin Cleon talks about we don't cut away what we used to do or sort of old creative interest. And it's sort of we connected some way. So I'm that storytelling is sort of my thing. And maybe comics at that time was a way of doing it and doing it through this what I like to call facilitated storytelling.
I'm providing maybe direction and a guide, but like to let the guests cook. So, you know, or swing by or whatever the terminology appropriate to this interview. But it is something that also I revisit too.
So doing this has afforded me the opportunity to do over 800 interviews and some of which talk to artists that are in the comic book space. And I've gone back to that. So for your vantage point, like, do you ever get that sort of like, it's to dive back in and still engage at the sort of same rate? Like, tell me about that.
Sam Landa: Yeah, it's definitely a funny feeling because I think as well, like I in my case, I was training as a performer at a relatively high intensity from a young age as well. So I sort of, I really dive into training for a career as a performer. So that's a huge part of that, I think is, you know, my whole life, even if I had stepped away from performing arts completely, that was my high school experience. And that was super instrumental in like, building my discipline and work ethic and just the person that I am in general, like anybody's high school would be. And I think that is something that is, like I said, that's something that I'm going to take with me even if, you know, next year, I decide to make some shift into something crazy. That's something that's still going to be a part of my story and my training and all of that.
So I definitely feel that. And I think that one of the things that's so lovely about circus specifically is that the skill sets of performers is so specialized. So we have, you know, for example, in this show, we have nine performers, they all have different specialties. And so it differs from something like dancer acting, where part of the job of a dancer or part of the job of an actor is to be able to fill multiple tracks in a show and to be able to, you know, swing into different tracks. And, you know, if you're an actor, you want to be able to do play various characters and all that stuff, circus functions a little bit differently in that a lot of people, there are ensemble skills that performers have, but people really have a specialty discipline or a specialty number that they also bring with them to different shows that they're doing.
So because of that, I find that circus, the way circus training works, it has to be more individualized than something like dance just by nature of it. And I feel like that's something that I still carry with me a lot where it's like I spent time developing my own skills as an aerialist and developing my own number as an aerialist and all of those things. And I still, you know, if I had the time to sit down and really like, praying full time again, I'd love to get back up on the stage. I have other things that I'm pursuing that I'm, you know, I'm not that I'm more passionate about at this point. But there's definitely things where, you know, I see what the performers are doing and I get nostalgic about it in a way that's kind of fun because they're, like I said, their skills that is different from mine. So it's not as if I ever feel this like weird, I don't know, envy or like anything like that with the performers, right?
Just see it. And I'm like, I don't know, there's something about it that I'm like, it's one of those what could have been moments, I guess. And it's really exciting to be able to to interact with them still and still be in the world, but to be on the other side of it. And especially to be able to have started doing that at a young age is something I feel really grateful for because I think it's exactly what she's saying. I still consider myself to be in a very, I guess, foundational point in my career. I'm young and I'm still building, you know, skill sets and networks and all of those things. And I think that I try really hard with every show that I do to be able to take that experience with me, whether it was previously as a performer or whether it's, you know, starting a new show or we're going to revamp a show that we did last year, this coming summer and all of that stuff. I try and use each of the experiences kind of as a transfer new formation. And I feel as though that is something that is really instrumental to succeeding specifically in the context of interdisciplinary shows.
Like I mentioned where it's not, there's never going to be, it's not siloed. There's so many different people in the room. So all of those experiences that I think you need to be building blocks to be successful. A little bit of a winding answer, but that's kind of, I think my response to that of like my foundation versus now and what I can take from it.
And I don't know if I would say I miss it. The training hours were really long and it's really hard. And my, due to the performers and the people that are training to be performers because it's really hard. But there's definitely mixed nostalgia in there whenever I'm directing a show for sure.
Rob Lee: Very, very much. And there's one other thing that I see in here that caught my interest, obviously several things caught my interest, but this sort of connection of the training and the circus training you touched on, but also the studying computer science. How do these two sides sort of intersect and how you approach your work today?
Sam Landa: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I kind of, I ended up studying computer science in a little bit of a funny way, but I basically, I started college at Columbia when I was 19 and I had just finished national circus school. I did high school there and I actually started their college program. And I was on a leave of absence from being injured and I decided that I wanted to apply for colleges. In the meantime, I didn't know exactly what would happen and I ended up starting at Columbia and I kind of fell in love with it. And I think to be quite honest, a huge part of it, of my decision to stay at Columbia and do more of a traditional four year college, was that I felt like my high school experience was so, you know, reliant on circus and so defined by circus because I was at a circus for, you know, I was spending close to 12 hours a day at national circus school between academics and training.
So that was really a defining feature of all of my teenage years. And I think I got to Columbia and I was, you know, in New York and out of school with people with so many different backgrounds and that excelled in so many different things. And I sort of felt something, I felt reinvigorated by that in a way that I think, for me personally, I don't always find in a circus environment because it is a super specialized skill set.
So all of these people, you know, we like eat, breathe, sleep circus because you have to be at this level. And because of that, that just didn't, I think at the time, that really didn't feel like the place that was right for me. And my decision to study computer science actually sort of in line with that in the sense that it's something that felt applicable to so many different things, so many different industries, so many different problems in the world that have to be solved or whatever you want to say about it. And that's really what drew me towards it is that I think, you know, there's always the intro to computer science class and they say computer science is the study of solving problems.
And that is super kind of cliche and corny, but it feels like it rings true. And that's really what drew me to the discipline. It wasn't something material itself that I felt a specific passion for, to be honest, but I loved the fact that effectively what we were learning was how to be efficient in solving problems and how to set up systems and how to do all of these things that are able to support whatever other thing you want to do in the world, which again, I'm well aware that sounds really corny as I say it, but it is really the truth is like, it's the study of parameterizing problems and identifying the, you know, variables and constants and figuring out how you're going to piece it all together to serve whatever purpose you want it to serve or your client wants you to serve whatever it is.
And not something that I think is really what I fell in love with about it. I never, I did work briefly in tech, but I never really saw myself pursuing a career in that that was never specifically a plan. But I knew while I was studying it that it's things that I knew would be applicable to stuff that I'm doing. And I even feel that today as I'm building shows, like it's, again, it sounds a little bit corny, but it's these things where knowing that I'm able to parameterize a problem and that I'm able to efficiently get through things, whether it's just as simple as efficiently getting through admin tasks that need to happen in order to have space to the creative aspect of the show, or whether it's being able to, you know, like set up whatever system it is on paper to be able to track my performers throughout the show.
Those are things that I feel like those soft skills that I have some computer science really transfer over to this. And especially with circus, there, it's not something where the creativity and the artistry of it is able to exist in a void or in a simple space. There's so many technical elements that have to go into circus, whether it's the actual acrobatic technique and the needs of that, whether it's the training or having maps or having specific placement of equipment, or it's the aerial rigging or lights being a specific way to not mess up a chuggler. There's so many components to it in that way that I feel as though there's an aspect of it that the management of the show and the creativity of the show kind of needs to go hand in hand in a way that I think other art forms don't necessarily need to.
I think there's some art forms, you know, where you can like lock yourself in a room and say I'm not going to come out until my painting is done, or you know, I'm simplifying, but something along those lines. And with circus is really not something that you can do. You need space that has the capabilities and you need a team that has the capabilities. And I think that that is something that as I have now produced two full shows, as well as a handful of these one-off performances and events, it's something that I feel more than ever where it's like you need to be, you can't just be a director in circus. And I feel that really strongly, you have to also take on a producer role, even if you're not the producer of the project. It's something that can't exist without having a hand in the technical elements of it. And I really do think that having a background in computer science and being able to solve problems is something that perhaps means a lot of soft skills to do that. And like I said, that gives the space for the creativity that otherwise wouldn't be able to be there because it would suck all of our time by just saying, how are we rigging this piece of aerial equipment? And so that's something that I think is like that for me, that's really the the carryover of what I'm doing now.
Rob Lee: That makes a lot of sense. And as a problem solver myself, and you know, I don't have the computer science background, but I work in IT as far as my day job and I see those skills coming in. And one of the things that I'll throw in, I think is, I think at the university it was, but they had a course on adulting and it was really problem solving. So those problem solving skills are always transferable and being able to apply it to a specific thing. Like when I do the behind the scenes here, there are certain checks that I need to do and now it's like a checklist. That's a system.
That's sort of something that can replicate or even the rollout, something that's replicated. And that comes from sort of the data background that I have working on that side of things. No computer science maybe? Just a regular business maybe. But having the problem solving skills is so important to, as you were touching on, being able to wear or juggle multiple things, multiple roles, multiple hats, being a producer, being a director, being the talent in some instances, being the artist, being the therapist for folks sometimes.
So many different things that come into play. Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of which, we got Barry to lead a little bit. I want to get that preamble there. But so let's talk about the New York Circus Project. So founding your co-founder, so founding the New York Circus Project feels like a bold move.
Like just huge. Any founding, it takes some hook spot, as they say. What gaps were you trying to fill when you launched it? What did you want to represent? Talk a bit about sort of the thinking of one in the founding.
Sam Landa: Yeah, absolutely. I think a huge part of it, to be truly honest, is that the first year that we did, which was our circus adaptation of Hamlet, it was an acrobatic production of Hamlet. And that was something that I developed actually in my senior year of college. And we did, me and Emma Owens, who I founded the company with, we did a production of that at Columbia. And it was much more of a play than a circus show because we were working with Columbia students and I wanted to be specific.
Basically, the madness that Hamlet experiences in the show was shown through circus and that was kind of, it was fairly constrained to that in the Columbia production. But that went well. And it was kind of, it was my senior year. I had worked hard at a lot of performing arts on campus to kind of position myself, to be able to do whatever show I wanted.
So I wanted to do something that was kind of bold with that opportunity. And then Hamlet worked and we decided we wanted to do a professional version of it. And we said, if we're going to do all of this work to get that production out there, again, it's hard to produce circus.
There's so many moving parts. And we just said, if we're going to do all that, there needs to be some company that it's under both for the administrative side and for the branding side and the building side of it, where we were like, if this show, you know, hits and it keeps going, we want that momentum to be able to carry and take us to the next thing, which thankfully it has. And that was a huge part of quite honestly, like we did not necessarily set out to sound a company as much as we set out to produce a show. And then I felt like we might as well throw a company together, we're going to do it. And now it's developed, you know, now we're a year and a half later. And now it actually feels more like a company because we have multiple things going on. But the, the, the reasoning that I had behind New York circus project and Hamlet both is that I was living in New York for four years, I had worked on a couple of Broadway productions and consultant roles that were specific to basically flying people in Broadway productions. And that was really fun.
That was really great. But a lot of the time circus is used in more major forms of performing arts and entertainment. It is either for stunts or it is for sort of an aesthetic backdrop. A lot of the Broadway productions that have had circus in them, they're set in circuses and a lot of the circus is to set the tone and that's not to take away some of them have excellent circus in them, but it's not necessarily that the circus is being used to move the story forward as much as the story is being used to, or the circus is being used to set the tone. And that is something that I, I think serve some productions well, but it's not the kind of work that I wanted to do.
And I think creatively, that's the gap that I'm looking to fill. And I think that there is a really strong market for that because I think people with something like Hamlet, there's, there's a natural intrigue to it when you hear circus Hamlet because people immediately don't quite know what that is. And I think especially in America, where so much of circus is traditional circus, so much of circus is more family-geared entertainment. And a lot of people don't have the context to know what I mean when I say it's Hamlet told through circus and acrobatics. And I think because of that, that last year we saw when we toured Hamlet, ended up working in our favor because there was a natural intrigue of what is this that these people are doing and what people come in with sort of a clean slate and without expectations, which is also something that as a director, I value a lot. And so I think that the, the sort of answer to that is that I wanted to have a platform or a way to produce shows that felt like they were merging narrative with physicality of circus. And I think that that can mean so many different things. You know, obviously Hamlet is this huge colossal piece of the English theatrical canon. Not every show is going to be Hamlet just in the, in the scale of what that means to people. You know what I mean?
That's a massive undertaking. And some shows like this, this new one that we're doing is less narrative driven. It still has a narrative and it still is something that it's always important to give people some narrative to hold on to in a show. But it's anything from, you know, are we adapting a classic and are we doing a straight adaptation like Hamlet? Are we taking, you know, a fairy tale and setting it in a different setting and bringing circus in?
And what are the pieces that we're bringing in? So it's, I think a lot of circus focuses really well on the physicality, but I think that it sometimes, it's sometimes hard because I think Broadway has also evolved with the times to be able to integrate more, you know, IP of movies and books and all of these things. And that's something that personally I don't see circus doing as much. And I think that audiences like that and they feel a need for that to have some familiarity when they step into a show. So that's something that I feel strongly about is that there needs to be some familiarity walking into every show, whether with this show, like with that we're doing, whether it's the music and the aesthetic that people are coming in knowing and understanding or whether it's Hamlet and people are coming in knowing what the story is. I feel that every show that I want to do, I want there to be something that's kind of a grounding feature that is getting people into seats. And we see theater doing it. We see theater doing it honestly better than circus is doing it. And that's something that for me, I, like I mentioned before, it's like the management and the producing side has to go hand in hand with the directing. So it was both that Hamlet as a producer, I thought was a good idea to do as a circus show and as a director.
I thought it was something where I had something to say and I had something to contribute to it. But I think that a lot of what I do, I want to make sure that there is a component to it that has familiarity because circus is exotic to so many people and circus is not something that the everyday person understands. Like if I say to you, name a circus artist or name a circus discipline, who knows if you're going to even know one to say.
Whereas if I say to you, name a rock song or name a quote from Hamlet, you probably know one or two. And that is something that I think is the gap that I'm looking to fill as using circus as a medium, as opposed to using circus as sort of the, as exclusively the content that you're seeing. Does that make sense?
Rob Lee: It does. It does. And I think it positions it in a way of prominence versus it just being just, oh, we have this sort of thing. So no, no, this is going to be the form. This is going to be the form of how we're doing it. We're going to pay sort of, we're going to be founded in, you know, circus being treated, I guess for lack of a better term, seriously.
Sam Landa: It's like at times, and this is not related, but I know that we're going to talk about liquid in the moment. But I know that when I look at old clips that have a hip hop aesthetic, and I was like, you guys don't care about the music. It's just something that's a vehicle to get this across because there's a novelty or there's something to differentiate, but this is not a hip hop thing. It's not born from it. It's missing several characteristics.
And if you have done it, one of those moments and saying it doesn't quite, quite work. That's what I'm hearing, I think. Well, and I think also that there's something that people have an understanding of it. I think I, again, look at other performing arts firms often. Like I was just talking about theater and what I see Broadway doing and what's working long, what's not working. And I look at things like dance and so many dance companies do these big, sweeping emotional stories, you know, like the ballet is doing Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake and all of these, all of these different stories. And I look at it and I'm like, okay, a group of acrobots can also do those stories.
And so it's similar to what you said, where it's like, we're sort of Fighting to make things happen that in other farming arts forms people don't even question it. I said, oh, I'm going to the ballet at Romeo and Juliet. You'd be like, awesome, that sounds fun. But if I say to you, I'm going to the circus and the tamelet, that's something that people don't quite understand yet, which is something that I think is both, has its pros and cons for us. Because like I said, there's the pro of the intrigue.
There's the cons of people not quite knowing what they're walking into. And I think that's something that I look at and I sort of say, we know it's possible. We know it's super doable because the ballet is telling these big stories without any words and with ballet, which is a really technical art form and a really finite sort of set of movement. And they're able to use that to tell this huge sweeping tragedy.
So they can do that. A group of acrobats can definitely do the same thing. And that's something that I sort of look at. Like I said, I try and look at other performing arts forms to see what's working both in terms of the business of it as well as creatively. And I think that that's something that I hope to keep doing. And I find that that is what I think inspires me the most when I'm looking at new material and new shows to consider is that like, you know, is there another art form that has done this and done it successfully? And if so, how can we translate that or at least those successful components to circus?
Rob Lee: That makes sense. And, you know, I think one other thing I'll put in before I move into this next question is I think of when and maybe it's in that same vein of it's bordering on to like ballet, for instance, but people don't buck when they're like, Hey, you know, Disney on ice, these performers on ice. It's like, I know this story and it's done in this way and so on. But there's no like, this is a little weird.
It's like, no, let's do it because I'm familiar with the story. It is something that has a novelty component. And maybe it's really good ice skating that happens there and sort of, you know, graceful movement and such, but really that story is the hook and having that route and it should be in it. It's a really strong case that is transferable. However, however it's been done. So being able to.
Sam Landa: I was going to say it's fascinating because the number of people that have said to me as well, when we were doing Hemel last year, you know, I really say, why didn't you choose to do Midsummer Night's Dream that, you know, the fairies could fly or why didn't you choose to do the Tempest where there's already magic in it and circus and magic and all these things. And I think, you know, it's not those we could have chosen that those could have maybe also been good shows, all that stuff. But it was really specific and choosing Hamlet that I wanted to choose a story that, A, there was familiarity with and B, did not have anything to do with circus, both in that aesthetic or like I said, fairies flying that because that felt really important to me in the mission of what we were setting out to do, you know, like it's, and there's obviously other classics and other Shakespeare shows that also check that box. We landed on Hamlet because again, I loved Madness as a theme throughout it and that's something that we played on a lot in the show. But it really was that where I said, I want to do the show that people say, oh, I don't understand, you know, you take something like Alice in Wonderland, for example, that's been done in circus many times and that's really like bright colors and there's a fantasy element to it.
People kind of came from sexualized in their head already, what it is and that is something that I think I wanted to avoid. So intentionally for our first show, I didn't want to do a fairy tale. I didn't want to do something where people were going to say, oh, it's, you know, Peter Pan and Peter Pan is going to fly.
And it's not to say, again, that could have been a good show. We could do that in the future, maybe. But as our first project specifically, it felt absolutely imperative to me to do something that I knew people were going to say, I have no idea how that is going to be done because I looked around and I thought nobody's doing it. So I want to do it and I want to be able to take the opportunity to say, look, we can do it like this before, you know, instead of going again through Midsummer's Nintrinium and the fairies are flying, which is something that I think a lot of people could come to that conclusion if they were turning Midsummer's Nintrinium into a more acrobatic production.
Rob Lee: And it's one of the things that throw around a lot when I see folks do something that's like, oh, this is, this is ballsy. I'm going to do something slightly different. I'm not going to do the thing that looks like it naturally is this. They always say degree of difficulty and it's like much respect. So I want to shift a bit into, you know, I want to dive into the liquid.
Sam Landa: Let's talk about liquid. So liquid, could you give us a rundown and describe what liquid is? And I got some follow up questions, but I'm at least going to open up that piece to give you the space to describe.
Yeah, absolutely. Liquid is our new show that just premiered last night, actually May 29th. And it is a punk rock circus show and story. So it is, it follows a cast of characters and a water bottle salesman that stumbles into this warehouse, which is this group of punk rock friends world. And it follows him through a journey of sort of self discovery and the journey of learning about these characters and learning about himself as the, as the show moves on. And it was brought to me actually by a writer named Jacob Tishler, who has a background in circus as well.
And he now works mostly as an actor and a writer. And we have been offered this warehouse space, who we're currently performing in right around that same time. And so I thought it was a perfect fit for this space because it's something that I really don't see it in a theatrical setting. You know, Hamlet, we wanted the senior spaces.
We want them to be more in theaters and liquid is kind of the polar opposite of that. We want to be in a warehouse. We want it to be blasting music. We want to have a full bar that's slinging drinks all night and all of that stuff.
And it's been really fun. It's something that is completely different from any work that I've ever created. It's not something that is from my world. And I think one of the joys of it has been diving into a genre that is so much, I think, like rich aesthetic, both in its sound and its look and all of that and being able to, again, dive into something that has nothing to do with circus and say, how are we going to marry this circus and make a fun show for people?
Rob Lee: Describe for me the feelings because it's very fresh. You know, you said opening yesterday described to me the feelings going into that. That's the thing I'm very curious about. Like, you know, people ask, like, so what is it about all of that? But what are the feelings? How are you feeling? I know I imagine that there are some nerves there. So talk about that a bit.
Sam Landa: Yeah, absolutely. There was plenty of nerves, plenty of stress leaving up to opening, like you said. We had eight days to rehearse and check the entire show, which is a sprint of a rehearsal process. My cast and crew is exceptional. So it's huge thanks to them as well that they sort of came in and we hit the ground running. And just everybody has been, everybody's attitude has been amazing and just hardworking and open to rapidly changing pieces and all of that. It's definitely one of those things where we are also in this warehouse space and we're building out all of the tech in the space. So there's many moving components that are it's not just a creative aspect of it anymore. That like I was saying earlier, I'm simultaneously juggling, you know, overseeing the story and creative side of the show as well as like, actually, I had blocked you there yesterday, but we just found out that we can't put a light there.
So you're going to be in the dark. So you have to move over here and all those things. So there was rapid fire, things happening. I mean, we basically until the time that our doors opened an hour before the show last night, we were still attacking the show.
I was sitting with my stage manager going through sound cues, like five minutes before doors opened because that is the timeline that we had and what we had to do. Obviously, we're a new company. I hope one day we have months and months to develop a show.
But right now we had basically a week. So it was definitely, you know, sleep deprived and stressed and all of those things that come with, I think launching any sort of product or project. And now that we have one show under our belt, already, I think the entire group has felt just collective exhale, especially with the show. It's something that it's a high energy show and it's this, you know, pop, punk music the entire time. So it's something that having an audience in the room with you vastly changes the run of show. And I think especially with we had a really long week leading up to the first show.
And I think the cast and the team was exhausted and needed to see the show with an audience because I think it's really hard to run a show that is that high energy and not interactive and not have anybody to actually interact with. And so that's something that I think now has been, I've definitely felt everybody in the company take a breather now and I think say, OK, now we understand what it is. And even for me, I operate with as much confidence as I can that, you know, hey, here's this moment that feels really silly to play to an empty room. But when we have an audience here, it's going to feel a lot better and all these things. But I don't know for sure how things are going to play. I don't know if the story is going to read.
I don't know any of those things. So a lot of that is something that's been really exciting to see, you know, like the audience definitely reacted a lot more like a lot stronger to the narrative. And I think I expected last night and I was really excited to see an even moment where I'm like, and if you've a version of this show, I already have.
But some, you know, my note sheet of things that I would want to adapt and update and all of that stuff. But it's been really exciting to see it come together this quickly. And I think especially compared to Hamlet, which, like I said, we did a version of it in college. And then we spent a full year developing it. And this show is something that like we got offered this space in March and then we premiered in May, which is an insane turnaround for a full new production.
So everything about it has just been an absolute sprint, but it feels actually quite in line with the sort of punk DIY of the show. Where there's been so many things where it's been, there's truly been moments where we were like, hey, we need to add wood paneling here. Let's get our scenic person to spray paint them and make them look part of it and slap them down.
And there's been so many things like that that it's like, we don't have time to talk about it. So, Jill, our lovely painter and scenic person, go outside and spray paint these boards. We need them in an hour. And there's been a lot of things like that that have just been, you know, it's been challenging, but it's been a lovely experience with the entire group to everybody who's just like, here we go. We're going to rock and roll and we're going to do it.
Rob Lee: Love that. And see, here's the thing, you know, you're an overachiever because like you know, letting you cook, you've answered two other questions on the back end. I'm like, well, let's say I'm cook over there. And it's great.
I mean, you definitely hit my DIY question. I was just like, oh, there's the punk rock spirit, even with the space from the sort of collaborative nature and sort of the, you know, even the last minute nature of it. And I think in times that collective exhale I was hearing, we have this new phrase I've become aware of, sort of this anticipatory anxiety. But when we get there and we've done it, like I don't perform on stage, you know, I've done it a few times and I am like a clummy individual. I am not happy about it because it's so different from what I normally do. But once I get on there, I activate and I'm just me.
And it goes to one of the things you were touching on. I went through and this is, I'm thinking I'm a very specific example of the creative mornings and I'm just sharing my story in front of a group of people. And I prepared for it and I rehearsed it, all of that stuff because I'm kind of a perfectionist. And when I get it and I'm doing it and I was like, this is stupid.
I don't know how this is going to work. Why am I gesticulating all of these things? And then when I'm on stage and I got past sort of those introductory nerves, it killed it. I crushed it. And it was very much as we've been knowing what I was working in. And like you were touching on, and this is where we're at with Hive's mind here with the problem solving, I kind of did this differently. Let me look at the game footage. Let's figure this out.
Let's go through these details. And so what is the run for Liquid? Open yesterday, when does it run and where is it located? Just for those details for folks interested in pulling up?
Sam Landa: Yeah, we're running in Washington DC and we run every day through June 7th through next weekend until we can have fun. And we're at Union Market Districts, Doc 5, which is where I spend you located on their property. And this is, we also performed Hamlet last year on tour here. It was one of our stops. So it's been really nice to come back to this venue and to be able to set it up completely differently. And last year we draped the entire space and made it look like a theater. And this year you get to come in and realize that it's actually a warehouse, which has been a lot of fun.
Rob Lee: That's really, really, really, really cool. And again, listening to the sort of being new, newish, like, you know, you can't use the new thing anymore.
Sam Landa: Yeah, they got a few productions under your belt, but also the, just the nature of being able to build that capacity, having more time for Hamlet, sort of last year being able to tour it and all that.
And sort of this year for Liquid, having much smaller parameters, having, you know, various collaborators, let's see, Tabdance, Aerial List, Circus Artist, all of these different folks coming together and under that tight timeline and making it happen.
Rob Lee: So that out to you, Kudos to you for the team. Thank you. So, and we're going to talk about Liquid in the close-out, but I would like to go into these rapid fire questions that I have for you, if you don't mind. Sure. So I've got three of them for you. So the first one is fun.
Actually, I'll bring them up. So I know then you touched on this, circus training is intense. You know, you mentioned even an injury at one point, like, suddenly a fire, right? It's like you're a hockey player, so I got an injury. If you were to describe your experience in circus training facetiously, how would you describe it?
Sam Landa: I would describe it. I'll just say necessitating passion, because otherwise you'd run out of fuel quickly. I will say that that anybody that is in circus at a professional level, there's a lot of passion there. Because it hurts, and it's part, and it is like, and I don't say that to, you know, ruin the magic. I say that both as a little bit tongue in cheek, but I say that truly to everybody that is doing this is so passionate about it, and you need to be.
Because otherwise it is something that is really hard, takes a lot of hours. I think sometimes people don't realize that it's like, you know, a trapeze, that's a metal bar. Like you're wrapping your body around a metal bar.
And so if you think about, you know, when you accidentally run into the side of a table or something that's metal, and if you think about that, and then think about doing that professionally. And so that's, I think, something that I would say, like it is, yeah, injuries are common, I will say, and things just like, you know, gymnasts and like you said, athletes and hockey player or whatever sport you're in. It is really a high impact sport, and I think one of the things that I love about it is that you're going to get the best of both worlds with the artistic and the athletic. It's high intensity, the high risk athleticism, and it also has the artistic element, just like other performing arts do. And the training of it is crazy. I think one of the things that I always say differentiates circus from other performing arts form is the stakes of it. And I think that's something that obviously is omnipresent during the training process is that we are, the job is actually to do things that the body should not be able to do, and to make them look both effortless and artistically fit into something. And I think that that's something that you get these people that have been doing this for decades and make it look effortless and things like that. And I think you're exactly right that you get, it's easy to forget how many hours go through. And it's easy to forget that a lot of these performers have been, you know, many of them, even though they might be in their 20s or early 30s, they have been doing this similar to me since they were in middle school, because I think to get to certain level, that's not to say that's not to, you know, if somebody wants to start now, I've also seen people that start in their 20s and end up, you know, soloists or sort of slaying all that. But the Boston Jury of people, it takes years and years and years. Yeah. There's the second one.
Rob Lee: I love references and I love an irreparate nature of things. And I find that, you know, punk is an aesthetic and as a backdrop has these sort of subtle nods, you know, it might be like, it's a comic I was reading recently, and they did that famous cover of I think London's Calling from the Flash, and it was like the smash and it's like bricks and it's calling.
And I was like, that's really funny. Is there anything hidden in sort of liquid drink menu or that punk rock fans might catch any of these little small nods and you're like, absolutely, this is going to be in there.
Sam Landa: There's definitely some small nods. What I will say is that we did work hard to let the music be the main reference for things. And I think what we wanted to do is we wanted to create something that was a story that felt relatable in a sense, where what we didn't want, we didn't want to end up with these characters that felt like they were, you know, obviously the show is about a cast and ensemble characters with one outsider and we didn't want to feel like they were bullying this outsider. And that was something that I think came really quickly in the process with Jacob and I, the writer, is that one of the things is that I think there's a, there's sort of a rawness and a, like, this feeling of needing to be really hard externally.
And the question of how do we balance that with what feels like true characters. And I think it's also really difficult because my background's not in rock or in punk. And I knew that going in. So I knew that I had research to do, but I also knew that, like, I'm not trying to throw these performers on stage and have them look like posers.
That's also not the job or the goal. And so because of that, there was a lot of work to say, how do we make these characters stand out as just a character, a period, and then as well bring in these references of various, also punk and me and so many different things. So one of the things that we did too is we based a lot of the characters on what we saw as sort of different flavors of you will have punk. So we have one character that is more of a Celtic punk.
So he's got, you know, he's doing his Irish dance and he is in this Celtic punk style. We have one of our performers who is more pastel and sort of this play on, you know, this performer, they have the pink all in their hair and like pink all over their costume and all of that stuff. And this play on somebody that, you know, you might walk by on the street and looks all cutesy.
And then, you know, the top layer comes off and it's actually one of the most badass people you've ever seen in your life who will punch you in the face and you fall for them kind of thing. And like that's something that I think we wanted to play on was like, what are these different personas, if you will, that we can pull out of punk? And again, it's not something I think a natural part of punk is the diversity of it. And the feeling of, you know, anything goes is I think a really important component of what punk is. And I think instead of building in specific references that again, somebody was going to point out and say, well, I don't think that's punk because XYZ or I don't think that this is in line with my understanding of what this is. What we wanted to say, do is say, how can we take these characters and sort of riff off these different punk personas is what we really tried to do.
And I think that from last night, it seems like that was successful and worked well because again, like I said, I'm not my background is not in punk, my background is not in rock. And so I took a lot of care going into this saying that I'm well aware that this is something that people really love and will have strong feelings about. And I think that there's a really nice balance in the show, hopefully, of that the cocktails is a great thing to shout out. We are sponsored by Brown Forum for men who's Jack Daniels and Slay and Irish whiskey, and they built craft cocktails for us, which has been really lovely. And all of those cocktails are also built off of those punk personas. So, you know, the Celtic punk persona has the Irish whiskey drink and the pastel persona has a wine cocktail that is pastel pink and all those things. And that's been a really fun aspect of it, where being able to work with somebody who Nathan, our brown form and our brown form and rep, if you will, has built the entire cocktail menu and you'll collaborate with him, which that's not at all what I do. I'm not a mixologist.
I don't know anything about that. But he came to us and he said, give me the description of all of the characters. And we sat and talked to them. And then he came back with drinks that were coordinated with each character. And we were able to pick and choose them for the bar.
And not something that has been so fun. And again, like, like we've talked about, there's so many members of my team that have such different experiences, whether it's theater or circus or, you know, my lighting designer is from American Idol, he works in TV and bringing all these different people in that have different experiences. And the cocktails are a huge part of that, in this specifically. And I think I'm sure like punk needs that. If it was a bunch of circus kids doing punk, it would be weird and read as posers. But instead, I was like, I just want to put together the best creative team that I can and then say, what's our interpretation of this? And that's been, I think, one of the most fun parts.
Rob Lee: And, you know, one other thing before I go to this last rapid fire one is, you know, having, you know, New York is in the name of your company, you're down here in DC, both places with that sort of punk in the DNA, historically.
Yeah, it's wise to like, no poses, we're going to get this sort of, we're going to get this tight. So that's really hard. And here's the last one for you. And this is, this is sort of like one of those sort of one word ones, one word description of a circus, I think, just, you know, just as we kind of close out here. Because I think folks don't have a strong idea sometimes. And say, Oh, circus is this, a circus is that? What is your brief definition of that V1, where your brief definition of circus, just as we round things out?
Sam Landa: Now, I really do think my personally, my answer to that would be, and I touched on it before, elevated stakes. And I think that's something that feels like it really rings through in all this that we're doing. Obviously, there's the natural physical elevated stakes of things.
And also, again, I just hand it for a reason, people are being killed, the stakes are as high as they can be. And like, that is something that I think feels so in the DNA of circus. And it's something that again, separates it from other performing arts forms in a way that the stakes are higher. And I think my goal is to say, how are we using those high stakes to tap into that and make the audience feel something that they wouldn't feel in the straight play? So I don't know, I think about stakes a lot, stakes and physicality, I think are the things that when I'm setting out to make a new show, I'm like, what are the stakes? And what circus do we need to make the audience feel those stakes? Right.
Rob Lee: Great. So that's kind of it for the questions, the hot seat. There's two things I want to do as we close out here. One, I want to thank you so much for coming on and spending some time with me and this busy schedule is busy and I want to spend more time to let folks know where the social media is and all of the details, pretty much shameless plugs of how I like to close out the podcast. So the floor is yours.
Sam Landa: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great to chat with you as well. And we are a New York Circus project. We're here in DC, like I mentioned until June 7th at Union Market District.
You can find us at NewYorkCircusProject.org and at New York Circus Project on all socials. And we are really excited to be back in DC. Like I said, it's our second time putting up a show here and we're super grateful that DC Area has embraced us and we hope to be back many, many times. So please check us out if you're local. And if you're not local, also check us out because we're touring Hamilton again very soon.
Rob Lee: There you have folks. I want to again thank Sam Landa for coming on and telling us a bit about Liquid and the New York Circus project and for Sam Landa, I am wildly saying that there's art, culture and community. You're going to have a great time.
