SHOWING UP: AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN POULIN

SHOWING UP: AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN POULIN

Introduced by Steven Riel

The first time I saw Susan Poulin perform, I immediately became a fan. Of course she tickled my funny bone. Even though I am not from Maine, many of the opinions and values of her character Ida LeClair felt familiar to me; I giggled and hooted in recognition.

But I very soon noticed that Poulin wasn’t only adept at comedy. She was also pulling my heart strings and making me think. She’d honed her language and mastered her delivery so well that no seams showed in the fabric that formed her performance. I was watching a seriously powerful artist at work.

It is only in hindsight that I understand that when I set out to interview Poulin, I unconsciously wanted to provide an avenue for our readers to learn more about her serious side—the hard work and flexible thinking that go on in her creative life behind the curtain (or the printed page). It is my hope that this interview will encourage us the next time we encounter her work to notice that she employs an assortment of literary tools to stitch wisdom into often lighthearted material.

When we consider Poulin’s output, we must think of stage and page. While her individual works may not be classified as hybrid genres, her entire oeuvre contains more than one genre. In this interview, Poulin details how she brings different strategies to different formats. And she’s taken on the high bar faced by all comic authors: the fact that humor found in books has the added burden of being funny enough to survive being frozen in print.  

In the interview that follows, I hope readers will join me in admiring the consummate inventiveness and curiosity expressed in Poulin’s answer about handling artistic restrictions (which she likens to the confines of a box):

The mind-blowing thing about putting yourself in a box and closing the door is that once you stop pounding on the door, you can choose to turn around and actually explore the box.

I, for one, want a ticket to wherever a writer and performer with that kind of expansive mindset decides to take me next. 

***

SR: Am I correct in understanding that acting came before writing for you? Or did you do other kinds of creative writing before you started composing your own material?

SP: I don't come from a writing background. That began in the ‘90s. I'm actor, first and foremost. It's who I am.

However, being a traditional actor is a powerless sort of profession. You have to wait until a theater company does a play that has a role that you would be suited for. Then you audition, and if you're lucky enough to get the part, you work very hard to serve the vision of the playwright and director.

In 1990, I took a corporeal mime class with Pontine Movement Theatre. This was not your white-faced mime, but the mime of Étienne Decroux, whom my teacher studied with in Paris. It was there that I learned the concept of actor generated theater. This blew my mind, the idea of taking the creative reins myself.

That fall, I was performing in an Edward Albee play, A Delicate Balance, when I had a revelation on stage (not the ideal moment). I was standing there, my character holding the other characters at gun point when I thought, what am I doing? I don't like this play. I don't like this character. The audience is leaving the theater in a worse mood than when they came in. It just seemed like such a waste of my time.

In my mime class I'd met a movement theater artist, Liz Korabek. We got to talking and decided to create our first shows together. We took it step by step. It helped that we were both driven and organized. We selected dates a year down the road, booked a theatre, created a production schedule and set to work. We would share the evening, each creating a one act show. That was perfect, because we only had to come up with about 35 to 40 minutes of material. My husband, Gordon Carlisle, created props and the poster design, and friends chipped in, working lights and sound. Liz and I wrote press releases for plays that weren't totally fleshed out yet. (These are in the days where you had to send your press kit through the mail with 5x7 black and white photos). It was a lot of work, but our run was a success, meaning we had fun and broke even. I was off and running.

In creating that first show, The Perfect Match, I didn't start on paper. I talked the show into a tape recorder, and my husband patiently transcribed it. With video from that first piece, I applied for a NH Fellowship Grant (we lived in Portsmouth, NH at the time). I was one of ten finalists, and the prize was a $500 Artist Improvement Grant. With that money, I bought my first computer, a second-hand Mac. It was one of those little rectangular cube-type machines. Remember those? I used a program to teach myself how to type, and voila! I began writing. It was kind of magical, really, the way that little computer changed my life. To this day, I don't write by hand. I love working on the computer. It's neat, and I can save the bits I cut. The only thing I do by hand is mind map the project at the very beginning. I allow myself to be really messy and get all my thoughts down on paper in no particular order. Then I break down what I've generated in the map, clean it up, organize it into an outline format as I input it into my trusty MacBook Air.

SR: Who are the actors, writers, and comics who provided you with the most significant models and influenced your development over the years?

SP: Whoopie Goldberg's one woman Broadway show in the early ‘80s expanded how I thought about theater. She so fully embodied her characters. The same was true with Lily Tomlin's Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. I was also intrigued with the autobiographical monologues of Spalding Grey. Those are different animals, I know, but each influenced me in a different way.

When I came to write my books, the concept was for them to be Maine humor self-help books written in the voice of my character of Ida LeClair (Woman Who Runs with Moose). Think Erma Bombeck or Nora Ephron, only from small town, rural Maine. 

Standup comedy specials are really inspiring to me. The structure—chunks of thematically linked material lightly strung together—has really expanded my view of what a show can look like. I'm also intrigued by variety performers.

Inspiration is all around. I love seeing what younger creators are doing, talking with them and learning how they're thinking about things. Going to a Fringe Festival and taking in as many hits and misses as I can. I saw a street performer in New Orleans last year that blew my mind.

I'm also motivated hearing about others' creative process and ways of working, not just in the arts, but in business, science, all walks of life. A documentary on Metallica (a band I've never listened to) shifted my perspective on the process of creating and evolving one's work. I'm always on the lookout for things that get me thinking a different way.

And of course seeing, reading and experiencing projects that miss the mark is a valuable thing; learning from other's failures, and my own. Why didn't that work? What can I learn from that? I find pausing and reflecting to be such powerful tools.

SR: How did you meet the storyteller and singer Michael Parent? Can you tell us a little about your friendship with him?

SP: Ah, Michael Parent. There was a bon homme. I met Michael in the summer of 1999, though I'd heard of him before that. I had started reconnecting with my Franco-American heritage, and more than one person said to me, "You have to meet Michael Parent."

That summer, I was performing at the Maine Festival. It's now defunct, but back then it was a festival that celebrated Maine storytelling and music. As fate would have it, Michael was there, too. After I did my set in the Maine humor tent, my husband Gordon and I went to check him out in the children's storytelling area.

What I remember most about that performance was how skillful Michael was, working with the children. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand. Michael was a traditional storyteller, meaning he told stories extemporaneously. He knew the basic story, but it would change in little ways with each telling. As he explained to the children (paraphrasing), "A story is like a pizza. There is the crust, the sauce and the cheese. Those stay the same. But you can change the toppings."

We introduced ourselves and were instant friends. Michael seemed culturally familiar to me. He felt like a long lost cousin, which he probably was, if we went back far enough. Soon, we were getting together every few months or so for dinner. We'd tease him, saying what a good eater he was.

Then Michael approached Gordon and myself, about collaborating on a play. He'd gotten a residency through L/A (Lewiston-Auburn) Arts to create a performance about the Franco-American experience and he had an idea for a three person play. He wanted our input.

Collaboration is a strange animal. It doesn't always work, and we didn't know Michael that well. But somehow, we all just clicked. We created A Frog Stuck in the Ice named after a French lullaby, Un Crapaud Pris dans la Glace. I was already working on my own Franco-American themed show, Pardon My French, so the deal we struck was, we'd help develop his play and would perform it once for the grant, then return to our own projects.

Michael eventually adapted some of that material into a one-person show, A Beautiful Game, about his lifelong love affair with hockey. Years later, I interviewed him as my character Ida for my variety show on community television. He told one of those classic hockey stories. It's Michael at his best, telling stories around the kitchen table. 

One specific memory I have: I was interviewing Michael for my show, Pardon My French, and when we turned our phones on afterwards there were all these messages. It was 9/11/2001. Gordon was already at work, so it was just Michael and me sitting on the couch on this beautiful September day in Maine, watching these horrific events unfold. But everything felt okay because Michael was there.

I miss him. I admire Michael's commitment to the world of storytelling, and how generous he was to folks just starting out. He was so supportive like that. If I was performing nearby, Michael would come, even if he'd already seen the show. He still had good friends (his chums) from high school and maintained friendships all over the world. When my Dad was in assisted living, Michael would just drop by and visit with him. That was so kind.

SR: If writers want to reach readers, eventually most need to consider the question of audience. A creative person whose oeuvre takes shape not only through the written word but through one-person performances involving comedy and acting pays keen attention to audience naturally. How does audience factor into your creative process?

SP: I love this question! The answer is, not at all and all the time.

When I'm creating a new work, I don't ask myself, "Who is the audience for this?" That feels too limiting. Instead I ask myself, "What am I drawn to write?" That question opens me up to an infinite number of possibilities. I've worked this way from the beginning.

I am not unique. Yes, how I express myself is uniquely me, but I firmly believe that if I'm thinking about a subject like dieting, belonging or aging, chances are, others are thinking about it, too. My job is to show up, let the topic take me where it needs to go, be as specific as I can in my choices, then get it out into the world. The work will find its audience. It might not be a big audience, but that's okay.

I consider audience in how I adapt my work to different forms. The same story could appear in a blog, play or book, sometimes all three. Each delivery mechanism requires me to tweak the piece so that it works for the audience of that form. For example, on the page I often need to write, "he said" or "she replied." On stage, that slows the pace down. I can signify who's talking by the tone of voice and body language, so I cut those bits out. A blog typically has a beginning, middle and end totaling about 500 words. If I'm going to use that story in a book, I most likely don't need to bother with exposition and conclusion, because they're part of a larger whole. If I'm doing a book reading, I'll tweak things a little to add context within the body of the text. I don't want to start reading and have to look up and say, "Oh, I forgot to tell you that John is Judy's uncle." It breaks the flow, and that doesn't serve the audience. Each form is different, and by moving back and forth between them, it makes me much less resistant to revising a cherished early version of my work.

Lastly, in writing a play, especially a comedy, I consider the audience to be my most valuable collaborator. They help me pace the show and let me know when something is or isn't working, and I can adapt it accordingly. When I premiered my last Ida show, Makin' Whoopie (2017), I had three performances the first weekend. After that first show on Friday night, I cut some material, rewrote jokes and tinkered with the ending. I tried that version out at the Saturday matinee and honed it more for that night's show. I continued to tweak the play for the next weekend, and for runs in different theaters two weeks later and another a month after that. By the time I was twelve performances in, I felt like the play was where I wanted it to be. Still, every time I do a run of a show (more than one performance in a row), things change a little. Usually, it becomes more conversational, or I might get a flash of insight that makes a good joke better. That's the thrill of creating for theater. The blog and book forms are static, but a play is something that can evolve over time. When I debut a new show, I find it freeing to say to myself, "This is the version for now, subject to change."

SR: Have you perceived different responses to your work from Franco-American audience members and readers vs. non-Franco-Americans? If so, what sorts of differences? Have these responses affected your journey?

SP: I remember performing my play, Ida: Woman Who Runs With the Moose, at The Public Theatre in Lewiston, ME. This had to have been in the late '90s, shortly after I created my character, Ida LeClair. Lewiston is an old mill town in central Maine, with a high percentage of Franco-Americans.

At the end of Act I, Ida is talking about her wedding to her high school sweetheart, Charlie, who works at the paper mill. Ida says, "We knew our marriage was official when Emile Duggal sang 'Prendre Un P'tet Coup.' Every wedding in town, the minute he'd get a buzz on, he'd sing the same song. Everyone joined in."

Then Ida starts to sing this old French drinking song. That first night, the audience sang the song with her. They started out so quietly, I thought it was my imagination. Then their voices gradually grew louder. That had never happened before and I was greatly moved by the experience.

I believe it's important for Franco-Americans to see themselves and their culture onstage, in blogs and in books. I chose to make Ida Franco-American for that reason. I use a lot of French character names and incorporate many aspects of our culture and traditions within the context of my plays, blogs and books.

My most overtly Franco-American play is Pardon My French, which is about my experience growing up Franco-American in Maine, and my journey of trying to relearn French, my first language.

In 2003, my husband and I did a tour where we performed that play at the University of Maine in Orono, Presque Isle and Fort Kent. In Orono, a lot of Franco-Americans turned out, mostly people of my generation. In assimilating, we may have lost some of our culture, but we received something in return: a college education and a better quality of life with more opportunities. The audience identified with my journey, and responded with the laughter of recognition.

In Presque Isle, there weren't a lot of Francos in the audience. I think they found the play interesting and, hopefully, entertaining. In Fort Kent, however, the performance was sponsored by Le Club Français and the audience was filled with older folks, mainly French speaking Franco-Americans. My story was not so much their story as the story of their children and grandchildren. The throughline of my lost language, which I describe as a dull ache, was experienced by them as a sharp pain. They told me so in the talk back that followed the performance. While completely quiet throughout the show, they gave us a standing ovation afterwards. For some Franco-Americans, my journey in Pardon My French is emotionally loaded.

I've performed Pardon My French in other parts of the country, too, where they aren't as aware of the Franco-Americans of New England. So they experience my story without all that emotional baggage. At its core, the play is about the search for home and belonging. Whether it is an African woman in Pennsylvania, a Jewish man from Yonkers or an Hispanic woman in Baltimore,  people come up to me afterwards and they say, "This is my story."

I believe it's important for others to experience our rich cultural heritage, be it in literary or presentational forms. My wish for Franco-Americans is not to retreat, but be visible, to claim space. Our experience is important and relevant and we deserve to be part of the conversation, whether we're speaking about cultural heritage, immigration, language or assimilation. It's not just about our history, either. For me, it's about Franco-Americans creating a new body of work, expressing our personal survivance, however that looks for each of us.

SR: In your interview with Jesse Martineau during an episode of his French-American Legacy podcast, you said that “restrictions spark creativity,” and you described how fashioning material around the character of Ida LeClair presents constraints. When you are generating work that doesn’t include Ida, do you find yourself reaching for other sorts of restrictions? If so, can you tell us about how that works?

SP: With Ida, I'm speaking in a more colloquial way. She has lived her whole life in this small town in Maine, so her life experience is  quite a bit different from mine. It's interesting to navigate the confines of that. Something happens in my life that I think would make a good blog subject for Ida, and I translate that into the imagined world of Ida.

My own voice has different restrictions. When I'm writing as myself, I'm usually writing either autobiographically or as creative non-fiction. I have access to a different vocabulary, poetic metaphor. But I don't have access to Ida's world.

As creating artists, we apply restrictions to our work all the time. A deadline is a restriction. Subject matter is a restriction. Voice or point of view is a restriction. Form is a restriction: a sonnet, haiku, a song, a blog post, a play. For example, I know that for me, performing a monologue, 75 minutes is about the right length. Physical restrictions such as the size of your canvas, what is possible on stage, heck, how big the back of your van is for transporting props. I find every time I have to shorten a piece for a showcase or presentation, my writing benefits from that restriction.

It has been my experience that if I have unlimited time to write about anything I want, nothing gets done. But if I say to myself, I'm going to write for fifteen minutes five times this week, that seems less daunting, and I usually write for longer. I just need to get my butt in the seat. Picking subject matter helps, and writing prompts are everywhere. Sometimes, I just start from where I am, describing the scene outside. Then I work my way to where I need to go. I usually keep a list of ideas in a file on my desktop. When I'm working on a big project like a play or book, I start by making a mind map. Every idea on that mind map is a writing assignment. I just have to pick one and begin. There have been times that I randomly take a book off a shelf, open it and place my finger on the page. The sentence I'm pointing to becomes the first line of the piece, and I begin.

One fun way I apply restriction to my work is to take the opposite point of view. Performing an angry monologue like it's a declaration of love. Writing about black fly season in Maine by championing them, seeing the black fly as an asset, not a detriment. When I'm rehearsing a play, every other day, I do the second half first. It changes up the energy and brings a freshness to the material, and I always discover things.

The mind-blowing thing about putting yourself in a box and closing the door is that once you stop pounding on the door, you can choose to turn around and actually explore the box. That's when you discover windows, perhaps a back door, a skylight and maybe even a secret tunnel.

Creating isn't particularly glamorous. It's about showing up and trusting the process. In some ways it is simple, but not easy.

SR: You also told Jesse Martineau about your affinity for “actor-generated theater” because of the freedom it gives you to make your own creative decisions. At the same time, you have collaborated over the years with your husband, the visual artist Gordon Carlisle. What sorts of benefits do you gain when you work independently, and what do you gain when you collaborate? How do the two processes differ for you? Do you always decide before beginning a project which avenue to take for which inspiration you want to explore, or is that process sometimes intuitive, organic, or surprising for you?

SP: Actor-generated theater is empowering because it starts with  and is centered around the creator. However, I've always approached it in a collaborative way. Theater is a collaborative artform; even creating a one-woman show is not a solo endeavor.

For my solo shows and all of the Ida material, I do the base writing. Then Gordon goes over it, editing and making suggestions. I'm a natural monologue writer. He is very good with dialogue. Gordon is always saying, I think this descriptive section would work better as a dialogue. His feedback is invaluable, and gets me out of my comfort zone. Gordon is an expert at keeping Ida sounding like Ida and not Susan, which can happen from time to time. We also talk a lot about what we're working on around the dinner table, on walks and long car rides. I'm currently writing a new Ida show and he and I have gone back and forth on the script five times now.

Some of the earlier shows in my voice featured both of us: In My Head I'm Thin, Spousal Deafness and Other Bones of Contention and Pardon My French. With Thin and Pardon, I'm the main actor and Gordon plays supporting roles. In Spousal, it's more like 50/50. These shows also include original music by Gordon and large painted props. The creative process is similar to an Ida show, though we work more closely on flow, and the scenes we perform together, we write together.

For staging the show, I also work with a director, David Kaye. For me, it's important that the director I work with is also a writer. David's great at reminding me what the play is about, like he just did on this new show. He'll say "The theme is there. Can you now shore it up, drop seeds of it earlier?" Once a play is written, it's helpful to me to have some fresh eyes on the project before I begin memorizing.

So my process is both independent and collaborative. I think the work benefits from this back and forth. It keeps things intuitive, organic and surprising. Even talking about the project with a friend can lead to a an epiphany. Collaboration is so exciting because by asking a question or brainstorming together, an idea comes into existence that wouldn't if I'd been sitting by myself in front of the computer. Then, I take it, run with it or let it go.

Collaboration helps me kill my little darlings, too: those bits of writing I really love but stand out in a self-consciously clever way. My favorite part is when both David and Gordon don't get a joke, and I realize it's a woman thing. The humor was something I just took for granted, and now I get to look at it with fresh eyes. Then I have a decision to make. Is it funnier if I find another way to say it? Is it funnier if I say it and then explain it to the men in the audience? Or, I know all the women will think this is funny, so I'm leaving it as is. I lean toward that last one, but the decision may ultimately be up to the audience.

In the end, I take about 80 percent of Gordon and David's suggestions. I'm the one who has to stand on a stage in front of people and say the words, so I have the final say.

SR: You’ve described “Pardon My French” as a braid of memoir pieces. Certainly, your TED Talk “Can You Find Your Identity through a Heritage Language?” contains autobiographical elements punctuated by heartwarming wisdom and humor. Your character of Ida LeClair also provides you with a vehicle for transforming material from your own life, but you’ve discussed that at times in your career, you’ve self-consciously shifted back and forth between working on pieces that include Ida and those that don’t. Clearly, her character has given you a fruitful opportunity for creativity. Have you ever considered her to be an obstacle? How do you negotiate having created such a successful character?

SP: I don't consider Ida an obstacle. I think of her as a gift. She's been a wonderful companion and teacher to me all these years. As I go through my day, I experience the world through both my eyes and Ida's. At times, we have the same take on things, and at other times we have different points of view. Ida helps me be a little more open to different perspectives.

But I've alternated between writing for Ida and myself from the beginning. In 2008, with the autobiographical Shutting Up Peggy Lee, I felt complete, like I didn't have a lot more to say as myself. I took a re-envisioning year. My working question was, "How can I do more of what I love?" Out of that year came my certification as a life coach, Ida's blog and a keynote speech as Ida called The Moose in ME, the Moose in You. That soon became the book, Finding Your Inner Moose: Ida LeClair's Guide to Livin' the Good Life.

Since then, while I've written mostly as Ida, my TEDx talk of 2019, and last February's And Once We Were Four were both written and performed as myself. Then I switched into writing my current Ida show, Down to the A&P. Now I'm feeling the pull of my own voice again. So you see, I go back and forth. And Ida never gets in the way.

SR: Has your work in PowerPlay Interactive Development (interactive workshops aimed at improving workplace culture and performance) informed your creative life in any way? Has it affected Ida? If so, how?

SP: Yes, I'd say that my work with PowerPlay has informed my creative life in a positive way. I've spent most of my career doing solo work, so it's been a pleasure to be among a troupe of actors. They're so much fun to hang out with: smart and funny. Being on tour has made me a good traveler, too. There have been times when we were traveling twice a month for many months in a row. After hustling for so many years on my own, doing everything from the contracts, PR, writing and performing of my own work, it's welcome relief to have all that done for me. All I have to do is stay well and show up at the airport. Plus, the money I've earned with PowerPlay has taken the pressure off, especially during Covid and after, when my Dad was dying of dementia and my sister was going through a hard time. It allowed me to be more present with them.

It's also expanded my skillset. I facilitate our mentorship program and I help with research for new projects. That basically involves interviewing people and collaborating on script development.

Most of the acting work in PowerPlay is improvised, and that has been a wonderful change of pace for me. Strangely, I'm less nervous improvising than performing a script. The work is about helping people have difficult conversations, so even if I or my character fails, there is something for the audience to learn from watching what didn't work so well. Through PowerPlay, I realized pretty quickly that it's not about being perfect, it's about serving the process. That is so liberating!

SR: You also told Jesse Martineau about your affinity for “actor-generated theater” because of the freedom it gives you to make your own creative decisions. At the same time, you have collaborated over the years with your husband, the visual artist Gordon Carlisle. What sorts of benefits do you gain when you work independently, and what do you gain when you collaborate? How do the two processes differ for you? Do you always decide before beginning a project which avenue to take for which inspiration you want to explore, or is that process sometimes intuitive, organic, or surprising for you?

SP: Actor-generated theater is empowering because it starts with  and is centered around the creator. However, I've always approached it in a collaborative way. Theater is a collaborative artform; even creating a one-woman show is not a solo endeavor.

For my solo shows and all of the Ida material, I do the base writing. Then Gordon goes over it, editing and making suggestions. I'm a natural monologue writer. He is very good with dialogue. Gordon is always saying, I think this descriptive section would work better as a dialogue. His feedback is invaluable, and gets me out of my comfort zone. Gordon is an expert at keeping Ida sounding like Ida and not Susan, which can happen from time to time. We also talk a lot about what we're working on around the dinner table, on walks and long car rides. I'm currently writing a new Ida show and he and I have gone back and forth on the script five times now.

Some of the earlier shows in my voice featured both of us: In My Head I'm Thin, Spousal Deafness and Other Bones of Contention and Pardon My French. With Thin and Pardon, I'm the main actor and Gordon plays supporting roles. In Spousal, it's more like 50/50. These shows also include original music by Gordon and large painted props. The creative process is similar to an Ida show, though we work more closely on flow, and the scenes we perform together, we write together.

For staging the show, I also work with a director, David Kaye. For me, it's important that the director I work with is also a writer. David's great at reminding me what the play is about, like he just did on this new show. He'll say "The theme is there. Can you now shore it up, drop seeds of it earlier?" Once a play is written, it's helpful to me to have some fresh eyes on the project before I begin memorizing.

So my process is both independent and collaborative. I think the work benefits from this back and forth. It keeps things intuitive, organic and surprising. Even talking about the project with a friend can lead to a an epiphany. Collaboration is so exciting because by asking a question or brainstorming together, an idea comes into existence that wouldn't if I'd been sitting by myself in front of the computer. Then, I take it, run with it or let it go.

Collaboration helps me kill my little darlings, too: those bits of writing I really love but stand out in a self-consciously clever way. My favorite part is when both David and Gordon don't get a joke, and I realize it's a woman thing. The humor was something I just took for granted, and now I get to look at it with fresh eyes. Then I have a decision to make. Is it funnier if I find another way to say it? Is it funnier if I say it and then explain it to the men in the audience? Or, I know all the women will think this is funny, so I'm leaving it as is. I lean toward that last one, but the decision may ultimately be up to the audience.

In the end, I take about 80 percent of Gordon and David's suggestions. I'm the one who has to stand on a stage in front of people and say the words, so I have the final say.

SR: You’ve described “Pardon My French” as a braid of memoir pieces. Certainly, your TED Talk “Can You Find Your Identity through a Heritage Language?” contains autobiographical elements punctuated by heartwarming wisdom and humor. Your character of Ida LeClair also provides you with a vehicle for transforming material from your own life, but you’ve discussed that at times in your career, you’ve self-consciously shifted back and forth between working on pieces that include Ida and those that don’t. Clearly, her character has given you a fruitful opportunity for creativity. Have you ever considered her to be an obstacle? How do you negotiate having created such a successful character?

SP: I don't consider Ida an obstacle. I think of her as a gift. She's been a wonderful companion and teacher to me all these years. As I go through my day, I experience the world through both my eyes and Ida's. At times, we have the same take on things, and at other times we have different points of view. Ida helps me be a little more open to different perspectives.

But I've alternated between writing for Ida and myself from the beginning. In 2008, with the autobiographical Shutting Up Peggy Lee, I felt complete, like I didn't have a lot more to say as myself. I took a re-envisioning year. My working question was, "How can I do more of what I love?" Out of that year came my certification as a life coach, Ida's blog and a keynote speech as Ida called The Moose in ME, the Moose in You. That soon became the book, Finding Your Inner Moose: Ida LeClair's Guide to Livin' the Good Life.

Since then, while I've written mostly as Ida, my TEDx talk of 2019, and last February's And Once We Were Four were both written and performed as myself. Then I switched into writing my current Ida show, Down to the A&P. Now I'm feeling the pull of my own voice again. So you see, I go back and forth. And Ida never gets in the way.

SR: Has your work in PowerPlay Interactive Development (interactive workshops aimed at improving workplace culture and performance) informed your creative life in any way? Has it affected Ida? If so, how?

SP: Yes, I'd say that my work with PowerPlay has informed my creative life in a positive way. I've spent most of my career doing solo work, so it's been a pleasure to be among a troupe of actors. They're so much fun to hang out with: smart and funny. Being on tour has made me a good traveler, too. There have been times when we were traveling twice a month for many months in a row. After hustling for so many years on my own, doing everything from the contracts, PR, writing and performing of my own work, it's welcome relief to have all that done for me. All I have to do is stay well and show up at the airport. Plus, the money I've earned with PowerPlay has taken the pressure off, especially during Covid and after, when my Dad was dying of dementia and my sister was going through a hard time. It allowed me to be more present with them.

It's also expanded my skillset. I facilitate our mentorship program and I help with research for new projects. That basically involves interviewing people and collaborating on script development.

Most of the acting work in PowerPlay is improvised, and that has been a wonderful change of pace for me. Strangely, I'm less nervous improvising than performing a script. The work is about helping people have difficult conversations, so even if I or my character fails, there is something for the audience to learn from watching what didn't work so well. Through PowerPlay, I realized pretty quickly that it's not about being perfect, it's about serving the process. That is so liberating!

I think that more relaxed approach has helped me in my work with Ida. Everyone stumbles over words in real life, so it's okay if I stumble onstage, too; it's actually more realistic. Working with PowerPlay has given me new tools to work with, increased my confidence as a performer and broadened my perspective.

SR: The COVID Pandemic hit performing artists especially hard. Looking back, how would you describe its impact on your work? Were you able to use that lull in your performing schedule in any unexpected or productive ways?

SP: Covid was hard, for sure. I facilitated a mentorship program for PowerPlay on March 12, 2020, and my calendar for the spring was full of fun travel gigs, some closer to home. People were talking about Covid, but it was all so abstract. I think it was a day or two later that everything was suddenly canceled and we went into lockdown. It was shocking! My whole livelihood disappeared overnight.

In some ways, I wonder if artists and self-employed people weren't better equipped to handle some of the stresses of that time. We're resourceful and used to financial uncertainty. And we know how to structure our time. It's just what we do. Gordon had several mural projects lined up, so his life didn't really look any different. He was in his studio painting all through Covid. I spent the first few months working on a revised edition of my first book, Finding Your Inner Moose. That was due in May and the way my schedule looked before the lockdown, I didn't know how I was going to find time to do what needed to be done. Now I had plenty of time.

After I turned in my manuscript, however, the reality of the situation started to sink in. For a person like myself, who has spent the last thirty years doing about forty or fifty shows a year, usually not going more than six weeks without performing, I started to grieve that loss.

Plus, in previous times of crisis, I felt what I did was of value. I remember performing ten days after 9/11. Gordon and I were at Bristol Valley Theatre in Naples, NY, presenting Spousal Deafness…and Other Bones of Contention. We were standing backstage before the show while they had a moment of silence. Gordon and I exchanged eye contact and were both thinking, How are we going to go out there and do a comedy? And then we started the show and the laughter was crazy, hysterical. People just needed to sit in community and laugh. That whole fall as we toured around performing, the response was like everywhere. It was the same during the financial crisis in 2008/2009. It felt really wonderful to be of service in that way. But with Covid, I felt the very thing I could do to help was prohibited.

By late August of 2020, PowerPlay had pivoted to Zoom and I began to work again. It wasn't the same as being in front of an audience, of course, but still, it felt great! I threw myself into writing a new Ida book. I did one Zoom comedy show. That was a totally weird experience that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. I performed A Very Ida Christmas at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH in December of 2020. That was good, but kind of surreal. Front of house people couldn't cross the line onto the stage, and only two stagehands were allowed backstage. The audience was made up of about 70 hardy souls in a 700 seat theater, all masked. The audience section was cordoned off, with two people here, four there. From my perspective on the stage, it was kind of post-apocalyptic.

Eventually, things finally started up again. Theater, however, hasn't really bounced back to where it was. For example, I performed at a theater where I used to sell out their 300 seats. Now they say, "We're Covid full." That means about 180 people. Plus, several artistic directors that I had long relationships with retired during the pandemic. Luckily, PowerPlay actually got pretty busy because we could offer live or virtual bookings.

As a working artist, experience has taught me that things are constantly changing. At the moment, PowerPlay is very quiet because the majority of our work was grant funded and the difficult conversations our presentations centered around had to do with bias or climate change. The current political environment is no longer friendly toward those topics, so we are trying to pivot as best we can.

Meantime, I'm feeling a renewal of creative energy and have more appetite for expanding my business again. Though painful at times, I think the pause of Covid was beneficial for me. It gave me a fresh perspective on what I do and how I do it. We are nothing if not resilient, right?

SR: What are you currently working on? You mentioned that doing a TED Talk was on your bucket list. Is there anything else on that list you’d like to tell us about? What do you perceive on your creative horizon?

SP: Thanks for asking. I'm currently getting ready to debut a new Ida play. This one centers around her life working as a cashier "down to the A&P" grocery store. I've had fun exploring her work life and all the interesting characters who inhabit this small town in rural Maine. At its heart, the play is about our changing identity as we grow older and Ida's recurring thoughts about retiring. Who, she wonders, would she be without the A&P? It's something that is on my mind, too, and, based on our conversations, my friends’ as well. Even though I've been performing as this character for twenty-eight years, in every project, I get to discover something new about Ida and her life. The play will have premiered by the time this article is published. I'm also on the second draft of a new Ida book exploring some of the same themes as the play.

Once these are completed, I intend to take a break from writing as Ida, though I may continue with her weekly blog. I started that in 2009 and hope to continue until 2029, but we'll see. I'd like to explore writing in my own voice and seeing who I am now. I have an idea I've wanted to bring to fruition for a long time: a book or workbook on how to stay in creative flow. That's a dream project.

Still on my bucket list is learning how to speak French. I'm in a good place with that now. I've been studying for a couple years, approaching it as a hobby, and (something I never thought I'd say) actually having fun with it. C'est vrai!