To do the work you love, you’ve got to unlock a few doors. UNLOCKED Stories are honest conversations with people who chose a path and made it happen.
A note from Ellen: I was introduced to Ann Randolph through a mutual friend, and as soon as Ann and I started chatting I knew: this woman is OUT OF THIS WORLD.
Ann is an award-winning playwright, actor, comedian, and performer, though she prefers to simply call herself a “storyteller.”
Ann’s plays touch upon the dark, messy, uncomfortable aspects of what it means to be human. Audiences leave Ann’s shows feeling cracked open and cathartically transformed, like it’s finally OK to share feelings they never thought they could share. The Washington Post calls her work “inappropriate in all the right ways” and Mel Brooks calls her “a genius.”
Buckle up for Ann’s story, which will inspire you to keep marching towards your dream, even if the journey tests your faith and patience to the limit. If Ann can find the inner grit to keep going, keep writing, and keep putting her work out there… why not you?
What do you do?
[Ann]: I am a storyteller. I write and perform solo theatre shows. I also teach people to speak their truth for the page and the stage in writing workshops across the U.S .
What types of shows?
[Ann]: Most of my shows deal with situations that people may find uncomfortable to witness or talk about. Situations and topics like sex (not PG13-rated, Disney-fied sex, but raunchy, awkward, messy sex), grief, insanity, illness, and stories about marginalized people in our society who often get ignored.
How did you become a storyteller and performer? Where did this all begin?
[Ann]: I was always doing these things. As a little kid I would impersonate different people. I was attracted to oddballs—misfits — people living on the margins of life.
In college, I needed to get a job and there was this mental hospital. Built at the turn of the century, old Victorian, just rotting and decrepit.
They told me they didn’t have any jobs available. But every semester, they let six college students live there—with free room and board—if they’re studying Psychology.
And I go, “I’m not studying Psychology, but I could write plays for the patients.” They said, “You can move in.”
I was assigned to the Schizophrenic Unit. It smelled like urine and dirty feet. Practically my first day on the job, I see a guy walking around with no pants on, masturbating. These patients had no filter, no censorship. It was so hardcore.
I’d never been around the mentally ill before, but somehow I felt pulled to be with these people. Oddly, I felt right at home.
I wound up working there for four years. I wrote plays. I would cast the patients in my plays as a form of “creative/art therapy.” That was the beginning of my “official” playwriting career!
An unconventional beginning! What happened next?
[Ann]: After graduating from college, my goal was to write and perform on Saturday Night Live. My dream was to live in NYC. But I had no money. That was a problem.
I read in the back of a magazine that I could earn $20,000 dollars for one summer’s worth of work cleaning fish in Alaska—so I went there and I got a job on a slime line cleaning fish.
I lived in a tent. I was terrible at that job because I was very slow. I got fired. Then I saw an ad in the paper from a local school seeking a Professor to teach Humanities and Playwriting. I’d never taken a Humanities course in my life, but I walked in there, lied, and said, “Yes I can do this”… so I got the job. I even wrote the first play for the college based on my experiences at the mental hospital.
After that (this is the hyper-accelerated, sound-bite version of the story…) I joined a comedy troupe in Boston, then I spent a year in NYC, then bounced back to Alaska to clean rocks after a huge Exxon oil spill, earned a ton of money there, then went down to New Mexico and moved into a mansion with three professors studying Chaos Theory at the Santa Fe Institute.
While living in Santa Fe, I had this vision of building an outdoor theater in the mountains. I was singing at a local church, and—as it turns out—the church owned some land and they offered to give it to me—for free—if I’d build the theater there. I happened to be dating a contractor at the time, so I used my Exxon oil spill clean up money, hired him to help, and built the theater on the donated church land.
When the theater opened, I put on my first show. Well, at least… my first show outside of a mental institute!
Tons of things happened after that show debuted: you got cast in a movie, moved to L.A., and signed with a talent agency. You also worked at a homeless shelter. That’s not exactly the “glamorous Hollywood actor lifestyle” that most people envision. What was that experience like?
[Ann]: After moving to L.A. I worked at a homeless shelter for 4 nights a week from 7pm to 7am shift. I took the graveyard shift because I was allowed to sleep part of the night. I needed my days free to create. On my days off, I received reduced rent from where I was staying because I only slept there 3 nights a week.
Meanwhile, I was part of the Groundlings comedy group alongside Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, and Cheri Oteri. All these incredible performers were my peers, but I felt ashamed, like I was living a lie. I was performing, but I felt I had much more to say then a 3 minute sketch. I was at a choice point. Do I stay with Groundlings or quit and focus on solo shows. I quit and focused on returning to solo shows.
Everybody thought I was nuts to do this but I had to listen to the stories that wanted to come through me and they were not always funny. Also, it was terrifying financially because who makes their living from solo shows? Who goes to see a solo show?
For the next 10 years, I wrote and performed 4 solo shows in addition to other plays and sketch shows. These shows would win awards, get great reviews, but I made no money. All the money I saved went into renting theaters and never an apartment. I never had my own place.
I really struggled with comparison, jealousy, and questioning my level of talent. My career seemed like it was crawling along while my peers appeared to be soaring. Deals would come my way but then nothing panned out. People told me I was too outrageous, that my characters needed to be toned down. It was now 10 years at the shelter making $8.60 cents an hour and well, I just plain lost faith. I lost my mojo.
Finally, a mentor told me that I needed to stop hiding the fact that I worked at a shelter, and instead, I should write about it.
That’s what I did—and that choice changed my career.
I wrote a play called Squeeze Box, all about my experiences working in a shelter, and in writing that play, I rediscovered myself and found my faith again. The show was discovered by Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. They optioned the play and helped me hone my chops for over a year, before they opened Squeeze Box Off-Broadway.
Being a professional writer/performer is rarely an “easy” road. You’ve had to endure so much rejection and frustration along your path. Yet you keep going. Where does your “grit” to keep going come from?
[Ann]: I’ve had a lot of successes and also a lot of failures. But each failure made me more fearless. Each time I got knocked down, it gave me something deep and gritty to write about. It gave me more courage, too. At a certain point, you’re like, “What have I got to lose?”
I’ve learned that things are rarely “linear” in this business. My career path has been extremely swervy and loopy, not a straight line. I’ve had incredible opportunities handed to me—Broadway opportunities, Hollywood film deal opportunities—only to have everything fall apart at the last moment due to uncontrollable circumstances. Frustrating things happen. But miraculous things happen, too. Like I once received a $10,000 check—out of the blue—from a woman who saw one of my shows and wanted to support me. Then at one of my lowest moments, I got a phone call from someone who loved my work and wanted to help me set up a national tour so that I could perform all across America. Totally unexpected. You just never who’s going to email you or call you up… or who’s going to be sitting in your audience one night… or what’s around the corner.
When you are having an exceptionally difficult or stressful day, how do you get through it?
[Ann]: Should I lie or tell the truth?
Tell the truth!
[Ann]: HAHAHA! I eat a bunch of crap. I have this thing with McDonald’s. That’s my unhealthy coping strategy. I’ve done that. I also love to spend time alone in the woods. That’s my healthy coping strategy.
So McDonald’s and Nature?
[Ann]: McDonald’s and Nature!
I love that. Aside from getting recharged by French fries and forests… who are your personal heroes and role models? Who inspires you?
[Ann]: I have so many. Astor Piazzolla, who’s an Argentinian jazz tango artist. His music inspires me. Carol Burnett, definitely. As a kid, it was Pippi Longstocking.
What’s next for you? Any new projects on the horizon?
[Ann]: I’m premiering my new solo show, Inappropriate in all the Right Ways” at the Marsh. The Huffington Post just gave it a wonderful review and said, “It’s a show like no other” That’s the best compliment because I have combined my love of performing with teaching. I perform and then guide the audience in telling their own stories, so by the end of the show, the audience takes the stage. It’s super cool and inspiring. If you live in SF, please come to the premiere.
Also, this past summer I got to help create a story to Saint-Saëns Organ symphony. It was digitaly mapped in front of 35,000 people with this amazing orchestra playing in front. I love the idea of creating stories to classical music.
I am going to begin my interviews in November and then I will go from there.
What is your biggest piece of advice for anyone that wants to do amazing work in the world and stay motivated and unlock their major doors?
[Ann]: Surround yourself with people who believe in you. People who can be your champions. That’s HUGE.
Who believes in you? Only go to them.
People often give up on their career dreams because they feel too lonely or someone put fear in their bones.
To really do something big, there’s got to be that encouragement. If you don’t have anybody to provide that encouragement right now, create a voice in your head that champions you.
Unlock Yourself
Three questions to think about, write about—or talk about with a friend.
1. Ann says to surround yourself with people who believe in you: your champions.
Who is your biggest champion? Who roots for you to succeed? What could you do to deepen and strengthen your relationship with that person even more?
2. Ann has had a series of peculiar jobs—working in a mental institute, a homeless shelter, gutting fish in Alaska, cleaning up after a huge oil spill—yet each “odd job” provided a ton of inspiration/material for her to write about in her plays.
Have you ever had a really “odd” or “random” job? Did that job teach you something important—or influence your life in an unexpectedly positive way?
3. Ann isn’t afraid to talk about the dark, messy, gritty aspects of being human—and by sharing her experiences onstage, she gives the people in her audience permission to open up and share their feelings, too.
What’s something about yourself—or your past/life experiences—that you’ve always kept quiet? Would it feel healing to share that story? Would sharing help others to feel less alone? What’s stopping you from speaking about it?
For more UNLOCKED interviews, click over here.
Know somebody that ought to be spotlighted? Write to me here.
See you next time for another inspiring conversation!