Jeff Ornstein 0:01

Hi everyone, and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness. Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those, and stepping into moments that could define their legacy. We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead. So the best is yet to come. Today's guest is Mary Darcy, award-winning actor, writer, host, producer, and voice artist, whose career spans theater, public radio, television, podcasting, and live performance. From hosting nationally syndicated radio programs to interviewing Stephen Sondheim and voicing PBS campaigns, Mary has built a career around storytelling in every form imaginable. And well done. Hey Mary, how are you?

Mary Darcy 0:54

Hi, thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeff Ornstein 0:57

It's my pleasure. And for full transparency to our listeners and our viewers, Mary and I have had the privilege of studying together and actually have been cast opposite one another as a how would you spirited Upper West Side couple, I guess is a good way to describe it. And we brought it. So I'm delighted to have you.

Mary Darcy 1:19

And I'm happy to be here in my very sexy-looking studio. Sorry.

Jeff Ornstein 1:25

You could be wearing a black sheet and you would look sexy. So one of the things about Mary, I would just share with audience before we get into it, is the sheer unbridled enthusiasm and commitment that she brings to all of her endeavors. And it shows, and I think it'll show when we get into some of our questions. So, Mary, I have to ask you about your award, the New York State Broadcasting Award for Best Documentary. I mean, that's to me pretty impressive. So, what can you share with us about the PBS documentary No Ordinary Lives?

Mary Darcy 1:57

No Ordinary Lives was so much fun. It was a companion piece to the Ken Burns film The War, that's his series about World War II. And there was some money for local stations to do companion pieces. And so WMHT television wanted to do something based on the war years in the city of Troy. If you've never been to Troy, it's a scenic city. If you've watched the Gilded Age, you'll see an awful lot of Troy in the Gilded Age. It's also in a whole bunch of films masquerading as New York City in the 20s and 30s, a beautiful little city. And I got to spend an entire summer interviewing octagenarians. And it was the most fun ever because at first they would be like, oh, nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear about that. And you push him just a little bit, and then you'd get these great fun stories. There was a guy, Ernie Taytrow, the late Ernie Taitra, was a broadcaster. He was an anchor for CBS 6 for years. And everyone knew him as, you know, Ernie Taitrose, sort of the upstate Walter Cronkite, you know. And I interviewed him. And when he was young, he used to work in a candy store. He was a soda jerk. And he talked about the drills, the air raid drills. And he said, you know, we'd have these air raid drills. And there was this young woman, Ellen. And her father was an air raid warden. And it was quite fortuitous, he would say that she showed up every time there was an airway. He's telling us that they'd shut the all the lights down, and he and Ellen had a little something, something during the air aid drills. I mean, all of these like cute but funny, but also poignant, really wonderful stories. And the hard thing is that by the time the film came out, there were a lot fewer of them. So it was the time to get those stories. These people were teenagers when World War II began. And hearing their perspectives and what it was like to live in a small city like that and what it really meant was really a fascinating thing and quite an honor to be a part of.

Jeff Ornstein 4:21

Mary, you I know you're a very active schedule, but you are very active in broadcasting and obviously this kind of work, these kinds of projects. But also as a performer and performance in the theater, you know, like you and I did studying performance in a scripted scene, but you're also a stand-up.

Mary Darcy 4:44

That's new.

Jeff Ornstein 4:45

That's new. Well, totally impresses me. So tell me about like, first of all, I mean, I'm amazed anybody has the time to do all those and do them well, like you do, but tell a little bit about stand-up, because it's definitely not an easy thing.

Mary Darcy 5:00

No, and it's it's a whole different type. It is sort of the hardest kind of performing that I've ever done. There's something very nervy about standing up and saying, watch me, this is funny, laugh. I took a stand-up class so that I could learn to write tighter and write better for myself. I've always admired stand-up comedians, but I have a very specific taste. Like I love John Mulaney. I just absolutely adore somebody who can tell great stories, be relatable. There's a woman, Katherine Ryan, who does a similar style, I think, to and also I love Catherine Ryan.

Jeff Ornstein 5:42

I know her work.

Mary Darcy 5:43

You know, oh, she's terrific. Really? And also, what's his oh god, his name is escaping me right now. The old man in the pool, and uh I will think about Berbiglia, Mike Brabiglia. People like that just really, I I just really adore. And so I wanted to learn how to do it, and I wanted it's it I had done improv for years, and I liked doing improv. Improv you rely on each other, which is so nice. But stand-up is so different because it's you and it's just you. Very neat, and you know, yeah, and I like to think the audience is, you know, rooting for you and wants you to be funny. And I think most of the time that's the case, but you know, every once in a while you get a you get a heckler. I haven't had to deal with anything like that. It's still so new to me, but I really enjoy I enjoy it as a form of story. I think everything goes back to narrative and story for me. It is how I make sense of life. And I love, love, love connecting with an audience. People say, oh, you do this because you, you know, want people to look at you and you, but that is absolutely not why I do this. Some people are good at cooking and so they cook and they give that to people. Some people are good at, you know, at building things, and so they build things and they give that to people. I am not good at cooking. I am not good at building things. I am not good at a lot of things, but story is something I had that was innate and also something that I worked on over years as a craft. I'll tell you, you know, when I was seven years old, no, maybe, maybe eight, you know, I was I remember being in school. I remember being in, I went to school in Brooklyn in Kenarsi, and I'm in school and I'm daydreaming as usual, or something, you know, and I I can still see the big windows and the sun and the trees outside. And I remember thinking to myself in that classroom, I think I'm a storyteller. And in the next second, thinking, I better find something else to be because I don't think they pay you for that. That's what I thought when I was like, I don't know, seven, eight, nine years old. And like this comes to me, this thought, I think that's what I do. I think when you're seven, you know who you are. Then everybody mixes you up. And if you're lucky, a little bit of who you are is still there. And you come back to it, you grow young again. You into you you grow back into who you are.

Jeff Ornstein 8:30

Well, you know, I have to say, when I heard you're doing stand-up, it did not surprise me because the one thing that's really clear about you when you're performing is your timing. And that's something you probably had when you were seven. That's very in a. I don't know that you can be taught and coached on timing and successfully cultivated to be terrific, and you have great timing. So I could see that being interviewing people for your podcasts or your radio stations or performing in a scripted show or in stand-up because timing is so much.

Mary Darcy 9:02

I really appreciate that. I really do.

Jeff Ornstein 9:05

And I think anybody who watches you would say the same thing. I don't think I'm a genius, insider, theater critic. I think that just you come, it comes across loud and clear, which is why you and I were able to play like you know, a 27-year-old couple, you know, because oh my god.

Mary Darcy 9:19

Yeah, we we had our timing down. We really did. I grew up around storytellers. I mean, uh, you know, Brooklyn Irish storytellers. My father held court, he told great stories, and he was very funny. His father told great stories. You know, it's just you just came from, and my mother's side of the family had great timing, told great jokes. The moments for the funny stories were always there. And I'm the oldest of six. I have three brothers and sisters, so how funny you were was part of your survival.

Jeff Ornstein 9:51

Right. Look at me, I'm funny. Can I have a ear of corn? Not only are you storytelling, which is clearly like the thread, the common thread that goes through everything, whether you're dragging the story out of an interviewee or providing the story that's been told by a writer, or your own story on stand-up. Where do you find the balance or what strikes you as most the imperative between empathy and comedy? What's really important to you to get across to the your audiences?

Mary Darcy 10:21

Wow. Was it Mel Brooks? I I don't remember if it's Mel Brooks who said comedy is tragedy plus time. Right. And so with you know, tragedy, it is you empathize with people and their tragedy, right? And so you have to empathize with them in their comedy. It's all part of the same thing, it's all part of a piece of the same puzzle. You have to empathize with people, you have to understand them to be able to laugh with them. I don't know if humor necessarily translates between, you know, across language barriers, or is humor different in different cultures? But I do know you have to empathize with someone, you have to understand their situation to laugh at it. But that whole comedy is tragedy plus time.

Jeff Ornstein 11:15

So let me ask you this. We've had guests on that have said, Well, I did this for a while, and then I found this came across, and I kind of focused on that, and then they kind of morphed from one lane of our the theatrical professions to the other. You didn't do that, you kind of like went on all of them simultaneously. So is that just because you've got this unbridled passion and determination? I mean, they're related, but they're not the same, and they take different skill sets. So you never felt forced to pick one, and you just kind of kept plowing through with all of them. And what do you attribute that to?

Mary Darcy 11:52

Well, I feel like I didn't pick Elaine, Elaine picked me. I will say this. I was as a kid, I was a good girl, and I wanted to please the adults in my life. And so if I could have chosen anything, I would have jumped right into theater. And that was definitely discouraged. I don't think it was anything they did to be me and I had wonderful parents. My mother used to see me perform and think, did that come from me? Like, where, like, how did that possibly? I'm the only performer in my family, even though they're all funny and they're all, you know, interesting and you know, tell great stories. What I would say to parents is please, if you see a child that has an interest, encourage that interest and push that interest. The world will tell them no. They don't need you to tell them no. The world will, you know, and that's one thing. And to young people, I would say, or any people, I would say, if this is your interest, if this is your passion, do it. I mentor a lot of kids and I tell them all the time, listen to me, you gotta listen to what people are saying to you, but you have to understand that one day, and this is kind of a sad thought, but one day, all those people giving you advice, they won't be here anymore. You will be here. And when you are the only one here, do you want a life that you are happy with? So while I didn't do theater professionally for a long time, the good part is it did push me into other places where that storytelling was great, which brought me to interesting jobs like the documentary for PBS, like running 51% for eight years, which was a nationally syndicated radio program about women's issues, where I got to put a focus on people's stories and found I had another passion for saying, Hey, come here, I have a microphone, just like you, Jeff, right? Come here, I have a microphone, you have a good story, let's talk. Other people need to hear what you have to say, and highlighting other people's stories became another passion. So I don't want to say that it's sad that I didn't only do theater. It's my story that I didn't only do theater, but I did sort of channel that. And and I'm very fortunate in that there was some core, that little seven-year-old was still in there enough to say I am not going to get pushed into something that is not interesting to me at all.

Jeff Ornstein 14:30

Well, that's passion. Tell me this with the onslaught of social media and so many different forms, the world is such a faster place right now, and kids are have so many technical sources for them to learn stories or tell stories and the avid, obviously, of AI. I mean, do you think storytelling is going in a new direction and has a new purpose as we look at the next 20 to 40 years or so?

Mary Darcy 15:00

You know, it used to be that people only told stories around fires or in their caves or whatever, and then they told stories on stages or with traveling troubadours and through music, and then they told them on radio and television and so on and so on. So the platforms may change, right? But the purpose of storytelling, the purpose of storytelling, connection, education, entertainment, but really, really connection. That purpose doesn't change. And I'm I'm not a Luddite, I'm not anti-technology in any way, shape, or form. But I will tell you, I don't want AI telling my stories for me. I don't. Because even if it gets good enough to tell you a good and interesting story, it steals something from the person who had something to tell. And what it is that's human that needs to share doesn't get shared. And that is unfortunate. And the connection between us doesn't happen. And that is a thing that we need, and that's primal, I think. So you I think the platforms will change, and I hope that we are very, very careful and don't depend on AI to do it for us, that we keep paying artists and listening to each other.

Jeff Ornstein 16:28

Right. So I want to ask you, because I'm so impressed, and I didn't know this about you, that you had the opportunity to interview Steven Sondheim, who is probably one of the world's most effective storytellers. I mean, his work is brilliant. When you interviewed him, what were the personal inspirations you took from that? And, you know, considering his brilliance, his creativity, his longevity, his versatility, all those things. Did you finish those interviews and come home thinking differently at all as a person, as an actress and as a performer and storyteller?

Mary Darcy 17:02

He's a genius and professionally just my idol. And so when I got to interview him, he was promoting his book, his books, the hat books. And so I got to interview him on stage in front of about 200 people. And I saw them bringing him in the building, and I turned around, went right back in the ladies' room and stood my hand in the mirror says, Come on, Darcy, you can do this. I mean, I was terrified. And I will tell you, he was a gentleman every step of the way, really lovely, very interesting. It was a fascinating evening. A lot of our conversation centered on the idea of failure. And it was kind of funny because I asked him when he was young, and he started with West Side Story, and there's Leonard Bernstein and there's Jerry Robbins, and he was so young. I said, you know, I mean, were you worried that you'd fail? And he said, it never crossed my mind that I might fail, you know, which is so interesting to me. But then I think he was very young and he had great teachers, and he was already far ahead in that department. But we did talk a lot about the works that didn't go well, the flops, anyone can whistle merrily we roll along, did not do well in the beginning. And I think what I gleaned from that, and it's funny because recently in succession, I read Mary Rogers' book and Hal Prince's book, and the new Sondheim book in quick succession, and James Lepine's book, like I just did a deep dive. And what fascinated me about all of that and the Sondheim interview is that the things they talk about being problems are the same things my friends, my colleagues, and I talked about being problems. A person who is difficult, and a critic who pans you, an audience that doesn't seem to understand, a story that is not gelling, the people going into something with high hopes and no plan, you know, or not enough of a plan. Like all of the things that they went through were not just remember when you fail that you didn't reinvent that wheel, that somebody has failed that way before you. And somebody will fail that way after you. You can listen, you can talk, you can take advice, you can try to apply it for to your life. But the fact of the matter is, if you create, you will fail on some level at some point. And that's how you learn.

Jeff Ornstein 19:45

Right. I'm glad you touched on that because I I did want to bring that up because a lot of our previous guests have talked about the power of failure and the power that how it can empower you, and how that is failure and rejection is something that keeps people from taking the plunge. So you've been pretty successful on multi-different medias here, but it's important for I think the listeners to hear like not every day is a walk at the beach. Not every day gets off the ground idea. So what you're sharing is the rejection or the failure helped prop you up for the next project.

Mary Darcy 20:20

Oh, yeah. I mean, look, the things on your resume are the things you're willing to talk about, right? I mean, you know, you're yeah, there have been all kinds of moments with, you know, either failure or self-doubt where I may look on the outside like, oh yeah, here I am. I'm talking with Jeff and we're having a great time, and I'm espousing all the things that I learned. But on the inside, maybe I'm going, or there's a little hamster on a wheel in my head saying your hair's not right, and you were stupid when you said that.

Jeff Ornstein 20:56

And you're just that hamster gets around, let me tell you.

Mary Darcy 21:00

Yeah, take it, take a deep breath. You know, there have been stories where I Liz Lemon like completely fell on my face and took a circus bow. You know, there was, do I mean, should I tell one?

Jeff Ornstein 21:17

If you want to, if you I mean, you've shared that you did it, but if you want to tell one particular, I'll tell you that the listeners love hearing it because it's the person who's on the couch. I don't know. Should I, could I, will I? And to see, hey, you know, it happens to everybody. And they still galloped the next morning and did their thing. And and next thing you know, they're interviewing Stephen Sondheim. So something's good.

Mary Darcy 21:38

Yeah. So something good happened. When I was doing all over Albany, someone had tapped us. They were bringing a person to come and talk in Albany about cities and how to make them more attractive to people and how to and he was this guy, he goes around the country and he speaks and he writes books about these sustainable, walkable cities and things like that. Like that. And I don't know, they had tapped us to go and get we had access to a lot of photographers. And should could we cultivate all the pictures that will go behind him? And I had never seen a talk like this before. And so it was early on in Oliver Albany, and I felt very much like I was not succeeding. My business partner was doing a lot of the technical stuff. I was doing a lot of the money stuff. And I knocking on people's doors and getting money is hard. I was just really putting a lot of pressure on myself. And so I went out and I collected interesting photos from all these photographers who had contributed with us. Really interesting photos. They would have been great if they went on a gallery about Albany. But this man was talking about all kinds of things. And these were just supposed to be pretty pictures in the background, but I didn't understand that. Something in my brain did not trigger. So some of them were big, beautiful pictures about Albany, and some of them were not really appropriate. And my business partner looked at him ahead of time and he said to me, Do you want this? Do you want pictures of unhoused people? This is what you want. I was like, Well, we wanted, they said they wanted representative pictures of Albany. So I got them. And, you know, there was one picture that was this religious vehicle that used to drive around with a big crucifix on it, like the Jesus Mobile. And it was a good picture. It was a good picture. But yes, everybody went, when that picture came up, you know, there were goats with the little sign that said goats are great from some festival. So people are paying now more attention to the picture than they are to the man and the talk, right? And so the thing ends and he ends his talk. And when he's talking about how we have to keep our spaces beautiful, there's a picture of the day after a big festival, the tulip fest or lark fest or something, and it's trash everywhere. I mean, it was timed almost perfectly, even though it wasn't. And at the very end, he ends his talk, and there is a guy flashing the V for Victory sign at the end of the co-ed naked bike ride. He's on his bicycle in his tidy whiteys, flashing the V for victory sign. In the first five minutes, I knew what I had done. And I was sitting in the audience and I knew what was coming. No one else knew but me and maybe my business partner what was coming. And I couldn't stop it. I sat there in the audience and I knew, and I could not get around backstage. I could not get in. I could not change what was about to happen. And it was all my fault. 350 people, some big business people in the capital region. So how do I get out of it? The people who set it up, we all went out after and we talked about it. And first of all, the talk was not anything to write home about. People who were gracious and generous said, look, the pictures gave us something interesting to watch, you know. And the big thing was goats are great. And we would just look at each other and go, goats are great. Now it is the story that I tell to make people feel better.

Jeff Ornstein 25:11

That's the kind of story that shows a lot of humility and also tells people that it's it's not the end of the world. Didn't stop Mary from going on and doing other things. It's not an industry, any of the industries that you're you're you're demonstrating your skills in for the faint of heart. So you gotta love it. And you love it. And guess what? We all fall flat on our face sometimes. It just happens. And you're still here, no visible scars. I'm very impressed.

Mary Darcy 25:36

As Elaine Stritch sang, I'm still here.

Jeff Ornstein 25:42

Mary, it was a delight having you on the show. I hope we can find ourselves studying or performing again in the future. And as we did once get together not so long ago when we lost our great coach, John Corcus.

Mary Darcy 25:56

So John, oh, he's the best.

Jeff Ornstein 25:58

Yeah, he was really good. He was really good. He certainly got my juices flowing. So thanks again for joining us. I hope when you've got some other new big project that you want to talk about, you'll call us up and we'll have you back.

Mary Darcy 26:09

Absolutely. Congratulations on the podcast, Jeff. It's a great listen, and thanks for having me.

Jeff Ornstein 26:15

Thank you, Mary. Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextdackpodcast.com. Keep chasing your next act. The best is yet to come.