Off Off Pod

My friend Gioia De Cari created a very successful one-woman show called Truth Values which has had 95 performances in 45 theaters in 17 states with over 17,000 audience members.

In this interview we talk about the development of her show as well as her background as a mathematician at M.I.T.

If you’ve ever wanted to write and perform your own one person show, certainly Gioia may be held up as a model of success.

Topics covered in the interview:

• Introduction. Welcome to New York! (0:00)

• Hello Gioia De Cari. The acting impulse. MIT. (2:52)

• The beginning of her one-woman show, Truth Values (7:15)

• Tips from Wynn Handman about writing a one person show (11:43)

• Gioia trying to fit in at MIT (14:49)

• How she started booking the show into theatres around US (20:43)

• How she figured out the business end of touring (24:30)

• Political writing, can art change people or policy? (31:31)

• Stephen didn’t realize he was sexually harrassed in the workplace (34:39)

• Writing again after a hit (39:37)

• Gioia’s most horrible or bizarre or interesting audition experience (46:15)

• Go eat at Chirping Chicken at 77th and Amsterdam! (51:44)

As usual my buddy Sal Clemente (of Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra) who wrote the podcast theme song, “Here We Go Again,” plays us out.

Interview by Stephen Bittrich
Off Off Pod
February 8, 2014