Episode #67
In this episode, Jennifer talks to Kati Schwartz about channeling challenging personal experience into art and more specifically, playwriting. They delve into large themes of gaslighting, the importance of trusting one's gut, and the complexities of culpability and complicity. They explore what it means to rewire memories, experience betrayal, and to trust the wrong people. They address the bystander effect, one’s responsibility to respond to harm, and the gray areas of human judgment. Plus, they discuss finding joy amidst the overwhelming and relentless nature of these topics and the importance of authentic self-care.
About Our Guest
Kati Schwartz is a New York City based playwright and actor. Kati’s audio play, Bad People, is currently available on Audible and in paperback and was an Amazon bestseller for four months straight. Her play, The Coward, won the 2017 New York New Works Festival and was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, in 2017. Her play She Got Off The Couch premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2016 where it received the Producers Encore Award and was extended twice. Other plays, including The Whale Play and Caring for The Dead featuring original music by For You The Moon, have been produced Off-Broadway (The Duke Theater), as well as at theaters such as Dixon Place, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Arena Stage (DC), Ugly Rhino Theatre Company, Next Stage Arts Project and Alchemical Theatre Lab. Excerpts of The Coward have been published by Smith and Kraus in December 2017 as a part of their Best Stage Monologues collections. Favorite acting credits: The Wolves (Studio Theatre – Helen Hayes Award), August: Osage County (The Fulton Theatre), “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; Season 5.
