Frank Smith

0:05Welcome to another episode of the Sting's Stories podcast, where we interview alumni about real experiences at Milton and beyond. My name is Tyla Tsang, and it's my pleasure to introduce our guest today, Frank Smith, a graduate of Milton's class of 07. Thank you. Frank, thank you for sitting down with me today. Let's start by talking about your time at Milton. Of course, with future podcasts, don't say the year they graduated. Oh my goodness, I'm trying to keep that on the DL, but now everyone knows. Yeah, I love Milton.

0:38It holds a very fond place in my heart. One of the highlights of every year being out here in Los Angeles is they do an alumni event in like February usually. And it's so good to just like talk with a head of school and meet with old people from my classes and other classes that's one of the fun things about those events is you meet people that like didn't even necessarily go to school with but you have so much common ground to discuss from milton my husband does not get it at all sometimes he's like he goes to these events he's like i'll let you do milton talk because i don't fully understand it milton talk yeah um we we're in i'm just curious we're in california Yeah, so I live in Los Angeles.

1:21It's called Mid-City where I am, but it's basically just south of West Hollywood. And yeah, I've been here about 12 years. The trajectory was I grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. I went to Milton Public School for a year in sixth grade and then went to Milton for seventh through senior year. So like, you know, mini lifer or half lifer. I don't know if there's a term for it. And then I went. Yeah, we still use those terms. And then I went to college at University of Pennsylvania and worked there in the organic chemistry teaching labs for two years thinking I was going to go to medical school, but instead moved out to California and became a television writer.

1:59So, you know, life takes twists and turns. And for your listeners who go to Milton, don't worry, it's okay. You might not go to the school you think, you might not do the career you think, and you can still be pretty happy. Were there any specific leadership roles that you took at your time that you took on at your time at Milton? This is a fantastic question for me, especially. Thank you. No, honestly, is the answer. I tried. I was a big old tryhard.

2:25Like I ran for class president. I don't think I ran for head monitor. I didn't have the audacity to do that. But I even I just found I got rebuffed from things that I really thought I would have had on lock. Like I, you know, was in the sci-fi club and came up with like a big live action role playing campaign, LARPing, if you know, you know, then some guy who barely had been to any meetings came in from the outside and got elected captain speech and debate was like my thing.

2:53Oh my goodness. I like was a semifinalist at nationals in one state several times, didn't get captain for that. And so I was really starting to take it very personally, to be honest, like, oh, maybe I'm not meant for this. Maybe like people don't see leadership in me. The great thing that arose from that rejection was I taught myself how to be a great leader. So when I moved out to California and was working as an assistant on television shows, I took very detailed notes on what I thought my bosses did very well.

3:22And I would try to replicate that behavior when I was in their position. And then things that I really didn't like that they did. And I was like, I am confidently not going to do this ever. I now have a memory. I think I did that when I was mad at my parents sometimes too. I'd be like, I'll never do this to my kid. And as it turns out, then when I got my first like showrunner position on a show I created, I felt like I was a really effective manager because I had been watching people doing it for a long time, really studying like what makes someone effective, what makes someone ineffective, and also, frankly, just like kind of wanting it for a long time.

3:53And I'm glad I didn't do it before that point in a way, because I think I was that much more studious and attentive. So again, rejection at Milton can lead to greatness. Yeah I know what you mean we've got a lot of competitive spots here so I do relate to that so you mentioned like you grew into like becoming a leader can you tell us a bit more about, Well, what a leader is to you? Thank you. That's a great question. A leader listens. That's the biggest thing, I would say, especially with what I do being a head writer of a TV show.

4:25You don't do every single job on the show. There are people who do set design. There are people who do costumes. There are people who light. And a great leader, I'm borrowing this from Game of Thrones and saying it less well, but a great leader knows what he's good at and knows when he needs to heed other people. And I think a great leader hires brilliantly. And they say, you're going to be excellent at your job, you're going to do something I never could do.

4:51And I'm not going to have to bear down on you and watch you because I know how effective you're going to be. So I think Milton is someplace, as with many a strong school where you get a great education and being good at a lot of things. And I think some of what's great about that is getting to try and experiment with what you're good at. And then when you're older, I think letting go a little bit and knowing like I don't have to be great at everything.

5:16In fact, if I can focus in on a few select things, I'll be more effective and more honestly like happy. Wow, that's that's great advice. Thank you. That was really inspiring. So I do know that you did a lot of speech in high school. I actually do speech myself. I'm kind of zinging to what events do you do right now? Well so last year i did kitty lit and this year i'm doing poetry but i kind of wanted to move into more of an like either di or hi because yeah i felt like there might be a little bit more room in that and i i i want to like challenge myself, I'm going to work up to that. But can you tell me more about your speech experience and how it might have influenced you? Sure.

6:02I'm loving this interview already. You're making me realize and remember a lot of things, like one of which was part of why speech worked out for me was also because of some initial rejection, to be honest. So I started out doing chess club in seventh grade and then betrayed chess club and went to speech and debate because the legendary Debbie Simon, who I'm still in touch with, and she gave us a very nice wedding gift of our wedding cake because she's a wonderful person.

6:28But she came up to me at the English Olympics and said, you have a great voice, you should do speech and debate. So I did speech and debate in eighth grade and did very well despite not really knowing what I was doing. I was winning most tournaments, and that set me up to think I could waltz into high school and be like, I'm going to win all the time. And wouldn't you know it? I was doing... Radio broadcasting, not breaking. I also was spending some more time working on children's theater.

6:59So I think I wasn't giving it my full attention freshman year. But then sophomore year, I decided, no, I do love this. I want to go back into this. And I did this humorous interp that like the script was just a little bit hard to understand. And I was giving it my all, but I was never breaking ever, ever, ever. And I thought to myself, man, like, maybe I'm just not as good at this as I thought I was. Maybe I should give up and focus on something else. But then I changed scripts and I was at Harvard and I broke to octofinals and I was like stunned because I was like I had not broken in over a year at that point of tournament and to break it like a big tournament. I was like, oh, my gosh, what?

7:35So everything kind of turned around for me after that, where I went back to locals like with this like big ego about like I broke in Harvard. This is nothing and was finaling. and then at the state national qualifier it was a very competitive final round my parents live nearby and they came and watched the final round and i felt like i was doing really well i felt really like that i'd given a great performance but you know i was in a room with people who'd been like winning and beating me all year so i was like okay we'll see how that goes and at the qualifier they announced the results in reverse order.

8:08So they announced second alternate first and then first alternate. And I wasn't either of those. And then they announced first qualifying a woman who was going to be very surprised she qualified. No one from her school has ever qualified. And they announced this woman from Ursuline Academy. She was running around. She was thrilled. And so I kind of gave up at that point. I was like, OK, I know this guy, Davis, he's a lawyer now, he's doing great.

8:28I was like, he definitely has beaten me. He never friendly. But I was like, he's qualified last year. He's taller. He's better looking. There's no way I beat him. but then they said and in first place a person who may be equally surprised he qualified frank smith you could knock me over with a feather blew my mind i like grabbed the trophy threw it in the air caught it miraculously i wasn't athletic then and my parents were there they took a picture of me i think the only time i've smiled that big in a picture well there are two one was my wedding day and the other is when i met taylor swift and it was great that my parents were there and my coach told me this wasn't uh debbie but susan she was like i knew you'd qualified and i told them to come and watch, which I thought was very cool of her.

9:08So yeah, from that point on, I did really well. I was like breaking it away tournaments all the time, qualified for nationals every year. But there was one hold back. There are two main national tournaments. There's NSDA nationals and CFL nationals, which for those not in the knows, Catholic Forensic League nationals. Why is it Catholic? Well, you qualified by Catholic diocese, of course. Does it make sense? doesn't have to. That's what it is. And I was qualifying for NSDA every year, but not qualifying for CFLs.

9:36I felt like I always maybe had too humorous a performance because, again, for those not in the know, it's dramatic performance, so they have humorous and dramatic. And then my senior year, I did qualify and not a week before I'd had my throat blessed by a Catholic priest. I was like, I think there's no coincidence that that worked out. And then, yeah, I got 13th place at nationals and that was like huge for me. My friend got fifth place. So we were just really proud of each other making it that far.

10:01And that woman actually was the officiant at my wedding. So speech builds deep bonds. Wow, that's great. Do you have anything else that like any lessons maybe you learned during your speech time that you'd like to tell? Our fellow species out there? Sure. I think this has already become a thing. Fran was a failure at Milton in some ways. But truly, like, failing and being rejected is good for you. It makes you resilient. You learn more from your failures than from your successes.

10:30And I think what was really helpful for me was to not personalize my failures. It's so easy at your age to, and I know because I was there, to turn it into, oh, they don't like my performance. They don't like me. And to make everything you do an extension of yourself. And that could not be further from the truth. Like you doing that particular performance is just something people are seeing. It's no personal judgment. If they give you a last place in a round, they're not like, well, you're useless as a human being.

10:58It's just this performance they didn't happen to like. And also taste is very subjective. Like I'm sure perhaps you've already experienced like being in a round and going six and you're like, how did two people think I was the best and one person thought I was the worst and you all saw the same thing. I hate to break it up, but that continues throughout life. Sometimes people can look at the exact same thing and have very different interpretations, but it teaches you to kind of trust your gut and know like, well, I did the best I could.

11:26Hopefully they saw it that way. If they didn't, on to the next. Okay, thank you. If you could go back in time, what's one thing that you wish you knew in high school? So many things. What's the one thing I would pick. I think I would say that, often you have a much more negative view of yourself than other people do. I remember seeing this in a number of ways thinking like, I'm not as funny as I think I am. I'm not as good looking as I think I am. I'm not as in shape as I think I am.

11:56And then you realize two things. One, you are thinking about yourself way more than anyone else is thinking about you because everybody's thinking about themselves as they have to. So like you think everyone's fixated on you when they're not. And also just that, you know, I watched this show Schitt's Creek And I think Moira Rose says something about taking a lot of photos of yourself when you're younger. And she says, because years from now, you will look back on that person you were criticizing and you will see her with much kinder eyes.

12:23And I think that is the reality of like, we're in it. Milton is intense. Milton's fun. But Milton is obviously, it's competitive. It's like nonstop. And I hope people hearing this can start to internalize because I don't expect that I'm changing lives in one podcast, but start to realize that you will have a fonder opinion of yourself as time goes on. It does get easier to appreciate yourself and love who you are and what you do. Yeah, thank you for that. I think, like, I mean, I personally, I hear that from my parents, but it never truly clicks.

12:56And I guess it's all part of growing up, I guess, to have it finally click and be able to look back and be like, wow, maybe that version of myself that I didn't like so much wasn't so bad after all. Click is a great word for it. You don't feel it until you feel it. But I think it's still a good thing to hear and internalize. I like to say, like, even if people don't listen, they hear you. And I think you're approving that right now of like, I'm glad my parents are telling me that. That's nice.

13:20Don't quite feel it yet. But like, I'll file that away. That's good to know. Yeah. Honestly, that's how that's how I interpret most of my parents. Maybe one day I'll tell you how brilliant your advice was. Maybe. One day I'll follow your advice. Just not today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either. Kind of shifting gears to your senior year at Milton. So a tradition is that everyone has a senior project. What can you tell us about yours? Yeah, thank you for that. What I can tell you is that I recorded it and I'm pretty sure the only DVD copy that I gave to my speech coach at the time is No More. I think she didn't hold on to it.

13:56But what it was was in teaching people with one of my best friends at the time, Marcos, about the difference between theater and speech. So we We did this short play, Scooter Thomas makes it the top of the world, did it in the black box theater. And then we showed if we cut it down, sort of what went into that, like how to play the characters, how to stage it, even what to trim from the script. And we had a great time because we had done duo our junior year and then didn't get around to its senior year.

14:25So it was nice to kind of have that swan song almost of getting to perform together. This really nice kid at the time jake coppathorn filmed it and he's now a writer out here doing very well for himself so it's cool to have connections that endure in that way and just to have done something that i really care about and really enjoyed there are some lessons that really stuck with me like exporting the file was taking so so so long i like a total diva fell asleep and let marcos do it because the first export had no sound and i remember last year the exact same thing happened with the pride special of my series and that's what at that point like 17 years later half a lifetime later so you know adobe premiere just is gonna be a flawed weird beast and you just gotta roll with it.

15:10Yeah. I mean, I suppose it's life skills somehow. Yeah, let's go with that. Life skills somehow. Yeah. I think doing what you love was a good lesson of the senior project. Letting technological issues roll off you. It's not your fault. It happens. It's frustrating. Feel the frustration. Keep moving forward. And yeah, you'll just always do a task better when you care about it. So as often as you can, when you have an assignment, your teacher gives you some free reign to choose your subject, choose your topic, just make sure you're passionate about it. when you can be, it just makes it so much easier to move through.

15:42Is there any like one thing that you feel like your education journey, I mean, just like your education throughout the years has taught you? Like one main thing? I mean, I know it can be difficult because. I mean, there's so much consolidated, but do you have like a big takeaway? Yeah, I mean, I think Milton is obviously a very progressive, caring place. My college, U Penn, was very much like that as well. And I think through a combination of like the people I met, doing speech and debate, studying neuroscience, I feel like I've always been someone who is pretty empathetic, but I think it definitely reinforced like seeing things from other people's point of view, being respectful, like being caring, and really trying to see why people understand people's motivations as they teach you in acting helps you, I think, live in a more carefree way because it's so easy to think, oh, that person's doing something that rubbed me the wrong way.

16:37Because of me instead of that person is just acting carelessly. It is not directed at you. And one suggestion I have that I think some people will be able to execute well already, and some of you will wait 20 years till you do it, but is... Think okay would this person be acting if you're having something with someone like a struggle, miscommunication an argument and like you can think to yourself would this be any different if I were somebody else often the answer is no you're like okay I'm envisioning someone else that I respect that I like in my place and I don't think this person would be treating them any differently so that's just a function of who they are it has nothing to do with me and I don't need to take it on personally yeah I mean I find that to be really mature because honestly sometimes school can get to be a lot.

17:24And so it's nice that you have like this take away from it. Yeah, just just grow grow 20 or so years and you'll be great. Lightwork. And speaking of college, what was your initial plan? Because I know you mentioned you wanted to go into neuroscience. Yes, that's right. So I applied early action to Harvard and got deferred, which was a little bit heartbreaking at the time. But then I had a speech tournament the next day where I did five different events, which they only had once a year in Massachusetts.

17:53In places like Texas, they do that all the time. That's nothing. But in Massachusetts, that's uncommon. And I ended up getting in the five events, first, first, first, fourth, and eighth, and then one overall. And I was like, all right, well, heck to Harvard. I did great. And so then I was going to go to Georgetown, but my last acceptance ended up being UPenn. And so I kind of pivoted at the last second. I think I could have been very happy at Georgetown. I loved the quality of student.

18:17They all seemed very well-rounded. People were very kind. There was a big acapella scene. But I had gone to a tournament at Penn and experienced the campus, really enjoyed it, and just knew the science education there would be terrific. I was planning on. Going into medicine being a pediatric psychiatrist and I really thought I was going to do that for a while like I was working in an organic chemistry lab after majoring in neuroscience and applied to med school and got some great like early interviews from Duke but then I had the chance to kind of realize while I was waiting between med school interviews and getting accepted what am I going to do if I don't get in and I did just have kind of a light bulb moment of realizing I'd been into creative writing for so long.

19:01I'd written a few pilots in the past year, just because I had, I was really on top of my applications. And so I ended up having a lot of free time once I was done and realized that I, I was kind of doing the wrong thing. Like I needed to be a writer and not be a physician. And I'm sure plenty more patients have their lives because I'm not treating them. No, I think I would have been great at it. I just think it wasn't where my heart lied. And so I know to some people that's like unfathomable that you could put that much time and effort into it and i admit i thought i made a mistake because i moved out to california and that week jefferson med school in pennsylvania called and said we think we have a spot for you and i was like oh gosh what am i doing like i'm walking away from like safety security but speaking of feelings it just felt right i felt like if i became a doctor i would always wonder what a career in entertainment would be like but working in entertainment i've never wondered about should i have become a physician should i have done that i know i made the right choice yeah well i i assume.

19:58That provides the sense of relief and satisfaction that I feel like a lot of people look for in life. So I'm so glad that you were able to find that. Thank you. Yeah, it's not the right choice for everybody. Some people like they're meant to do the arts in high school and then they are meant to live a life in the sciences. I actually recently had a friend's wedding ran into someone who had this amazing speech duo that got second at nationals. And she's a researcher at MIT.

20:22And she's like, I don't even think about the performer side of me anymore. That was a great chapter, but I'm very happy doing what I'm doing. So the opposite's true as well. So obviously, many of our listeners here on this podcast are applying to college or have college in their near, near future. Like I, for one, I'm a sophomore. So there's a lot of talk about it already. How do you feel Milton has prepared you for the college experience? Fortunately, I feel like Milton prepared me excellently for college because the academics were rigorous and there was such a nice variety.

20:53So I didn't feel I was too caught off guard with the classes I was taking. I felt like I'd had some prep that made me feel very ready to take on the coursework. It depends where you go to school. I don't think there was any way Milton could have prepared me, but I went to a very big school with like lecture based classes for the most part. So I did miss the intimacy of Milton with like, you know, 12 student roundtable classes. And I had a few of those over four years, but it wasn't the majority of my classes.

21:18So especially for people who are considering applying to very competitive, prestigious schools, I think just know that there may be that paradigm shift for you if your classes are mostly bigger and to really cherish the time you have in these like smaller discussion based classes. I know I'm sure sometimes you're like tired, you don't want to participate, you feel like a spotlight's on you, but it's one of those things you'll miss when it's gone. Were there any challenges that you faced during your academic pursuits? And how did you overcome them?

21:46I think even though Milton was, some people say college is easy after Milton. I don't agree with that. But I don't think it was because Milton didn't prepare me. I think Milton prepared me very well. It was just that I went to a very competitive school. So it was still challenging to me. And I think it's tough sometimes to find the balance. I think I often would just entomb myself studying and then miss out on my social life. And I don't have any particular regrets, because I landed where I landed.

22:17I think of a few things here and there of like one time I like studied for an organic chemistry lab and passed up on a trip to New Orleans. And I did get the only perfect score on that test. So I was very proud of myself. But. You know, and years later, I did go to New Orleans just within the past year. So I'm like, well, maybe that was the way it was meant to happen. I think it's easy for me as an adult to see. And I think right now, everything feels so consequential. And I know it did for me as a student, too.

22:40But the older you get, the more you see like, because that happened or because that didn't happen, that happened. It's not like you don't get into your top choice school and your life falls apart and nothing else works out for you. You adapt you go to a great school still because Milton gets everyone into great schools. And different things happen you don't know if like you discover a particular subject you enjoy studying you meet someone you're meant to be with for the rest of your life or even you just find a part of the world that you wouldn't have thought to go to but you're like I could really see myself living here and being happy that doesn't mean don't try don't shoot for the moon I know everyone's gonna study hard and do well but yeah even when you don't get your first choice I promise on the other end.

23:20And I didn't believe it at that point. But please believe me if you can that things will work out. And thank you. What, So my next question is, what was it like moving to Los Angeles after, I'd say, so long spending time on the East Coast? Yeah, great question. That was scary. Because I had visited California when I was 10 years old, but definitely hadn't spent any long amount of time there. And East Coasters, in my perception, are very different from West Coast people.

23:51When I first moved to California, I was told that I was a very fast stalker. I guess I didn't grow out of that. And that like they felt like my vocabulary choices were sometimes a little too like erudite for the discussion. I just do it now. Goodness. And yeah, I on the one hand, I appreciated the praise of people saying like, oh, you seem so smart. But I was surprised because people would say it quickly from within meeting me. And I was like, you know, I mean, I can think on all my flaws and all the classes I didn't do as well. And so I'm like, I'm not smart. What are you talking about?

24:18But I think it's a combination of speaking fast, presenting yourself confidently. And yeah, perhaps like vocabulary choices. here and there that made people see me a little differently. So I felt like it took a minute for me to adjust and slow down a little bit. Again, yes, this is slowed down for me and be a little more conversational. I definitely used to speak in a different way, but I found two things. One that like it was pressure to feel like I was always saying things perfectly.

24:46I definitely thought through things too much and was not, I think, letting myself just be a little more free with what I was saying because I wanted to iterate it so perfectly that like no one could find objection with my wording choices and be like, aha, that man, he's well read. So I think I learned to relax and also found that I was able to connect better with people because I was just, you seem more authentic when you are a little bit, I think, looser and just like using common parlance.

25:11You don't need to always be like, I studied for the SAT, can't you tell? Yeah, I totally feel that kind of that balance, balancing thing. But yeah, I suppose authenticity is something that we strive for ultimately in human connection. So yeah, it's good that you managed to find balance. So moving on to your industry experience, what are some of your favorite projects so far? Yeah, so I'm lucky in that I had the experience like working as an assistant before like becoming a writer myself and also getting to be on camera.

25:46So I guess as an assistant, one of my favorite projects to work on was Raven's Home, which was the sequel series to a show from when I was a kid. That's so Raven on Disney Channel. Everyone was just so good and kind. And a number of the staff had like come from a more difficult work environment. So I joke that it was like Raven's Home for Broken Birds. And I think because of that, everyone was just very cordial and kind and warm and welcoming and had a great time.

26:13Raven herself was like super professional, led the show very well, and I think was a great mentor to the kid actors because she'd been an actor as a child and really, you know, mastered her craft at a young age. So she was good at like being kind to them, but also being like, you show up on time, you know, your lines, everybody's waiting, like you have to be you have to be on top of it, which I respected how she was able to get that across in a kind way.

26:35And then my husband and I were on a reality series on Netflix called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. And that was a huge show in 2019. It was based on a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. So if any of you feel particularly disorganized, great book. Highly recommend. It teaches you a lot of good tactics. And that was a terrific experience, both because we got to organize our home very well. But also, we had no idea it was going to become as big as it did.

27:01Like, for at least six months after the show, we were getting recognized on the street all the time because so many people had watched the show. And it was a good, like, 15 minutes of fame experience where, you know, people really responded well to our episode because we were just, like, a happy, functional gay couple who was trying to tidy up. We even got a lot of remarks on Twitter about people who said, like, they were in countries like Brazil where Bolsonaro had just been elected president. and felt like more repressed now.

27:28And they're like, just seeing a happy couple is really inspiring for me. So it was a good lesson in how just existing authentically and positively can really impact so many people. And I was glad we got the chance to do that. And also, frankly, that the editor and executive on the show were gay and were like giving us a good edit because we definitely had one argument on camera. It wasn't that bad, but it was nowhere close to the episode. And he was like, I wasn't going to let anyone see you argue.

27:53I was like, that's great. What in that way? And then as a creator, this is tough. I mean, I guess I'll just give two answers. Because the show that has consumed a lot of my life lately is my comedy series that's on Amazon. It's also on this international cable channel called OutTV called Open To It, which I should say is TV14. And I'm not asking anybody to watch it because it's like euphoria-esque in, you know, the content. But what's been great about it is getting to create it, work with people that I respect and like, and having that creative control, because it started independent before it was acquired, to just see people who I thought, you're wonderful at what you do, I would love to work with you, bring together a good team, and also a team that is 75% queer and people of color, which is shockingly hard to come by.

28:44And we even got to work with deaf and hard of hearing actors and crew. So I think we were able to create this really happy, healthy group. And it's something I... You know, really cherish and will always strive to do of just bringing together as inclusive and like excited a group as possible because, you know, people become your friends, people do a great job and you just end up making a product that you're really proud of. And then for something that I can recommend people watch, well, recommend people watch as strong as in it's family friendly.

29:13However, I think most listeners will know it's way too young for them, but it is a cute preschool show that my husband and I write on called Mail with Mr. Zip. And it's based on a character of the post office invented in the 50s when the concept of zip codes came out. And so it's just a mailman named Mr. Zip doing good deeds around the neighborhood. And so if you have younger siblings or cousins, watch. They're very cute. I, you know, they're musical episodes, but it's not K-pop Demon Hunters.

29:37I don't want to overpromise it, but I can, you know, safely say there's nothing objectionable in it. So very cute, sweet show. That's, that's very sweet. And honestly, I don't even, I don't even need my brothers to watch it. I'll go watch it myself. Thank you. You're, you're sweet. There we go. Be like Tyler. Be a good ally to your alum. So you did mention these demographics of your workforces. How do you think this aspect of your identity of being gay has impacted how others perceive you in the particular industry that you work in? Yeah.

30:12It's harder, for sure. Being in any kind of minority group does make it more challenging in Hollywood and the world. It is a business that, like many others, is predominantly white, male, and straight. And for a long time, it was hard to even get a job as a staff writer if you didn't fit those demographics. Even now, I think what tends to happen is people will hire their friends who often look like them for writer's rooms. So it can be hard to break in, especially now as a newer person.

30:37But I think one thing that I'm very proud of is because I was getting pushback sometimes I'm like open to it it's very like queer and in your face and so people were like oh is that too gay is that too queer and I was like at one film festival I sent the script to actually even said this is too gay and too gross and I sat on the script for a few years after that because I felt really bad that hurt my feelings then it came a point where yeah I guess I just felt like it was a vulnerability a few too many times and was like no way I'm making this series i believe in it i'm going to start putting all my resources into this because i know that this is something and that 10 page short that started is too gay and too gross is now in 53 million homes in 13 different languages with some amazing rupaul's drag race queens in it and these awesome deaf drag queens of deafies and drag so yeah manila laganja pandora honey we got a great group and you can't let the can't let the haters keep you down the age old wisdom that is such an excellent saying and i love that saying so so much because it's it's like cliche but it never it never truly dies you know absolutely not.

31:46I love that. Why? Well, you, you kind of like alluded to certain parts of this so far, but why do you like doing what you do? You know, it's funny looking back at your childhood and realizing, oh, this was all, this all makes sense that I am the person I am. Like, I always enjoy creative writing. At first, my creative writing was just rewriting Disney stories. And my preschool teacher was like, no, try writing it with a different ending. And I got really mad at her. But she was right. It was a good suggestion.

32:17In Milton, I remember I was so cool my sophomore year that before I would go to speech tournaments on Saturdays, I would run home on Fridays and start writing Power Rangers fan fiction, which then ended up winning fan fiction of the month on one message board and fan fiction of the year on another message board. I know up until now you're like, he went to Penn. That's the coolest thing he said. But now it's the Power Rangers fan fiction in top slot.

32:39And I think just I've seen that stories change culture. That's just how it is like we are moved to be more accepting more open-minded because of the stories we see on screen when you see it when you see people living happily and without judgment it just inspires people to kind of change their views on things and throughout history that's been true like there was this show in the 80s murphy brown that made it easier for women to work and then there was obviously will and grace which made it easier for gay people to be out modern family normalized the idea of gay people having children so time and time again culture shifts because of the entertainment we consume so what i do believe is you can entertain people you can enlighten people and you can have a darn good time doing it that's that's that's great i mean as an entertainer yourself.

33:32I feel like something that, I mean, I have a lot of respect for is how entertainers all around, they have such, they manage to have influence on how their viewers perceive the world. And speaking of influence, do you have any plans for the future for what you're doing or any bigger like life, life moments? Yeah, well, both outgoing and incoming. So my husband and I got married almost two months ago now, after 10 years together. So that was very exciting to have our nearest and dearest.

34:06We actually, perfect place to say this, did a bit of a wedding world tour where we got married in Los Angeles. But three weeks prior to that, we got married in Milton in Appthorpe Chapel, actually, because my aunt and uncle had gotten married there 44 years ago. And I wanted to do a ceremony for friends and family only. My mom, sadly, is suffering from dementia and doesn't remember a lot now, but I wanted to give her a special moment to be with Matt and me and see our love.

34:34And my aunts and uncles are a little bit on the older side, and so a number of them didn't travel. And it just ended up being this beautiful celebration. My sister sang, and my childhood theater teacher performed music, and Milton Academy made it all possible. So shout to Corey and everybody at Milton. It was a very, very special moment. And as to stuff coming up, my husband and I were going on our honeymoon to Mexico and Panama at the end of the year. And we're also embarking on our new project.

34:59So open to it. We're going to do season three, probably in a year or so. But before that, we want to do an animated project he came up with. It's a musical comedy pilot. And it's about the first interracial drag review to tour America during the 1950s, based on a real story, and the drag King MC who went on to throw the first punch at Stonewall. I hope your queer listeners and allies know what Stonewall is. But if they don't, it was a riotous event in 1969 on June 28.

35:28Some say it was the first pride celebration, basically, because the patrons, a trans lesbian gay of the Stonewall Inn had had enough of the police raiding them and fought back and it really set the gay rights movement into motion so it's a cool historical piece but also with some real bops and hopefully some great voice talent thank you thank you i'm just just being aware of time wow our conversation kind of went by so quickly um okay do you have any.

35:56Last words or last pieces of advice that you'd like to give our listeners before we wrap? Yeah, I know, especially for some of you, because I feel it too right now, there are political moments where we are not happy with decisions certain administrations are making and we feel very like oppressed and pushed back and thrown down. The pendulum does swing back. I have lived through it. My parents have lived through it. and you just need to keep fighting for what you believe in and saying what you believe in and hoping for what you believe in and creating the world you want to see.

36:31People do change, people do grow, but progress does come in fits and starts. And so just know what we're experiencing right now and inevitably when you're in a moment like this, years from now, things will go back to the better version of themselves. I know that, I've seen it, and I hope you can know it and believe it too. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today, Frank, and talking about your experiences. And I hope you have a good night. Thank you. Tune in next week for more Stang Stories.