#46 – Jonny Sun – Stageworthy

Jonathan Sun is an emerging Canadian playwright whose works have been performed at the Yale School of Drama, the Hart House Theatre in Toronto, and as part of Theatre Lab’s FIRST SIGHT Performance Series. He is an advocate for interdisciplinary creative practice and works across the fields of theatre, music, visual and installation art, design research, architecture, engineering, new media, and comedy. He is currently a PhD candidate at MIT, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and a recipient of the MIT De Florez Fund for Humor. His Twitter account @jonnysun, an ongoing character and comedy project, has over 175,000 followers to date and has been published in NPR, The Washington Post, The Independent, Vice, The Hollywood Reporter, Buzzfeed, Playboy, Cosmo, The Yale Herald, and was nominated for the 2015 Shorty Award for Comedian of the Year.

http://www.jonathan-sun.com/
Twitter: @jonnysun

Stageworthy:
http://www.stageworthypodcast.com
Twitter @stageworthyPod
Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod

Transcript

Transcript auto generated.

Phil Rickaby
Welcome to Episode 46 of Stageworthy, I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, stage managers, producers and more. If you’d like to be a guest on Stageworthy are just want to drop me a line and you can find Stageworthy on Facebook and Twitter at stageworthypod. And you can find our website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes or Google music or whatever podcast app you use, and consider leaving a comment or rating. Johnny Sun is an MIT PhD candidate, the man behind the hilarious at Johnny Sun Twitter account, and a playwright whose work has been performed in both Canada and the US. His play dead end is now playing at the Factory Theatre produced by Theatre Lab.

I was I was doing a little bit of a little bit of research about you and just sort of looking you up. And I noticed that you are you are at MIT right now. Yes. Correct. And your Ogee volume is a little a little bit low on the microphone side. Can you give me a little more volume there? Yeah,

Jonny Sun
let me just get closer. Is that better?

Phil Rickaby
That’s much better. Okay, good. Thank you. So, I mean, I know I talked to a lot of people who are I refer to them as slashes. They’re an actor slash, stage combat person. They’re an actor, slash director and actor slash designer, or playwright slash whatever. I think you’re the first playwright slash PhD candidate that I’ve spoken to. And it’s interesting to me because your, your major, and the things that you’ve studied in your academic world, or don’t seem related to theatre to me? Do you see them as related?

Jonny Sun
I mean, I do I think, I think I see theatre as like a way and like, I see theatre and academics and kind of all the stuff that I’ve been interested in as a way to explore certain ideas. So I don’t really see them as separate things. But really just like different mediums or different different tools that can be used to explore certain things. So like, the stuff that I explore in the play, a lot of it has to do with the idea of confined space and being being present in a space with other people. And I think that kind of relates to the ideas that I am interested in architecture, for example.

Phil Rickaby
Well, just to just to do, you’ve brought up the play dead end, which is opening in October in just a little while, at the factory. Can you tell me a little bit about about what dead end is about?

Jonny Sun
Sure. Dead End is a one act play, it’s set, it’s set during the zombie apocalypse, it’s about two survivors who get trapped in a hallway, where a zombie is blocking the escape or the the open side of the hallway. So really, it’s kind of like, it’s in the tradition of those kinds of like bottle episodes, or like those, those plays that are limited to two characters, or in this case, three characters in, in a setting where they’re kind of trapped. So I’ve, like I read when when I wrote this play, originally, I was reading things like printers, the dumbwaiter, or like, sorry, there’s no exit. I guess Waiting for Godot is a classic example of of that kind of idea. But that’s the format. And it really is, this way, this setup to that allowed me to explore conversation and allowed me to explore how people process things like death and mortality are things like the other or Yeah, right. It’s like that. Well, that’s,

Phil Rickaby
I mean, it’s interesting that you bring up the topic of the other. When in as as we’re recording this, there’s the US election, which seems to be very much hinged on at least on one side, about about conversations about the other. And so that’s, that’s definitely an issue. Have you. I mean, zombies can stand in for all kinds of different they can symbolise different things. For you in the context of this play. What does the zombies symbolise, if anything,

Jonny Sun
it definitely symbolises I think this idea of something that looks human, but is ascribed, like non human properties. And so I think there’s a lot of play. And it’s something I think that’s been explored as part of like the broad genre of, of zombie fiction, I guess, about like, just questioning if this thing is human, or this is a nonhuman thing that has human has a human appearance. So it definitely represents that kind of idea and the exploration of, well, if it’s not human, is it still worth? Is its life still worth something? Or if it is human, then how do we see past the non human aspects to get to the human aspects? And I think like, a lot of those types of ideas are, are related, like metaphorically to, to race and the way that especially in the US, and I think that’s why that’s probably why the Theatre Lab felt a connection to this piece enough that they’re producing it is because I think some of those conversations parallel what’s happening in in US and in the US and in American politics right now.

Phil Rickaby
In terms of in terms of the way that the way that you are looking at that. There’s, I mean, there’s all kinds of all of this stuff that’s happening in the US. And you know what, Canadians get to be smug. But we don’t get to excuse ourselves. Yeah. Because we have our own race problems here. Absolutely. Regardless of what we’d like to think about ourselves. So the these are universal things. And as somebody who is in who is Asian writing about these topics, do you do you find there’s a different way that you’re looking at it than somebody who was Caucasian or Black might be might be looking at it? And that might sound like that might be kind of a stupid question. But I’m always curious about the way that other people approach things.

Jonny Sun
Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s not a stupid question at all, I think. And like this is kind of interesting, because it’s not like my I think identity as an Asian Canadian hasn’t been something that I’ve really explored. I think as I was growing up, because I think I was fortunate enough to live in such a diverse community, like I grew up in Toronto, and I lived, and my high school was incredibly diverse. And like, I think I lived in kind of the, quote, racial utopia, unquote, that Toronto tries to like present itself as. So I didn’t really have to grapple with kind of my identity as an Asian Canadian, until really moved to the US. And that’s when I think I started becoming more aware of race, and especially the way that Americans talk about race, I think is very different to the way Canadians talk about it. But looking back, and in retrospect, I think a lot of my work does relate to the fact that growing up, I think, Asian, I think growing up as an Asian Canadian, there’s there always is a sense of being an other and of being someone who is kind of given membership but doesn’t, doesn’t truly belong. And I think that’s I think that happens both on both sides. I think that happens as, like from my personal side, I think I’ve always felt like a little bit of a distance. And I think, also in a lot of spaces that I’ve tried to occupy like in architecture and design in, in theatre and in comedy. There isn’t a lot of Asian representation. And it’s primarily a space dominated by either white dominated or African American dominated. But I think, regardless of the other races, there really isn’t, there hasn’t been space carved out for Asian Americans. And so I think whenever I’ve kind of been in a space, like going to Second City or doing sketch comedy or anything, I’ve usually always felt like the only Asian in the room. And I think that I think that has contributed to the way that I perceive myself and kind of my place in the world which comes out I think in different ways, then And then our traditional.

Phil Rickaby
Well, it’s interesting because you were saying about, you know, when you go to Second City and you felt like, the only Asian in the room. I mean, where are you? For the most part? I mean,

Jonny Sun
I think I mean, it’s Yeah, yeah. But the other thing is like, it’s it’s also like, that’s also strange, right? Because I think, again, going in being in Toronto, I would definitely say I was always the only Asian male in the room. And I think that’s also an important distinction. Yeah. Because I definitely had there a few classmates of mine who were Asian women. Yeah. But I think like the the Asian male representation of Asian males, I think is the complicated in Western culture. Yeah, I think so. And I think it’s definitely been kind of stigmatised. And there’s a lot of, I think, stuff ingrained in society and the way that people perceive Asian males that, that that definitely, I think, increases that distance.

Phil Rickaby
Absolutely. I mean, I think I think it goes, I mean, I, that I, from what I understand, I’ve talked to a couple of people in the past about about the company, Fujian, in Toronto, which, which primarily, primarily concentrates on creating, work featuring and by Asian Canadians, and were instrumental in in at least the people surrounding that, I think were part of the genesis of Kim’s convenience, the fringe, pre hip, all of that. And now soon now TV show, which are very unique in that they’re putting Asians on the stage and now on television, right. That’s something that we haven’t seen, especially in the context of leading characters.

Jonny Sun
Yeah, absolutely. I think like, Well, I was actually going to bring up Kim’s convenience because I, I love like the fringe, the Fringe Festival in Toronto, and like the fringe community. And when I saw Kim’s convenience, like my world changed, I think there was the first I remember walking out of that show, just like bawling. Because like, just, like just crying like a mess. Because it was the first time that I saw something resembling like my life and my experiences on stage and really given the focus and studied with, with nuance, and I think in Detroit did a really was was just a huge inspiration.

Phil Rickaby
So, I think I think a lot of people walked out of the theatre, especially at that Fringe Festival, because I saw their crying just for different reasons. I mean, the script is really good, but you know, I left weeping. And I will say that one of the cliches that I see in theatre, and I’ve worked in large theatres, just as an usher and watching audiences, the standing ovation no longer has any meaning. But at that performance that I was at, that standing ovation had meaning because it it was spontaneous. Nobody thought about it. It wasn’t Oh, this is the point where we stand up. Everybody was on their feet, because it deserved it. Yeah, absolutely.

When did you start? I mean, there’s, there’s so many facets that I kind of am fascinated by about your story, in that you are academic, and you are an academic, you are a playwright, you have a massive Twitter following. In terms of in terms of just the theatre aspect. When did you start writing for theatre?

Jonny Sun
I, so I like, I mean, I was I was a drama kid in high school. And I think that’s kind of the fun, the fun part of it, because I was also like, the science and math kid. But my real like, the way I really I think identified in high school was as the as the drama kid as a theatre kid among all the other theatre kids. And that’s what made like, that’s what got me through high school. And that kind of is how I defined myself. And how I became a person was through theatre and through drama in school, and I was like, in the mainstage, musical in grade 12. And that was a hugely, like, formative year for me. And so I’ve always kind of seen myself more as like a drama kid or as an arts kid who has somehow infiltrated the academic world, as opposed to the other way around as opposed to the way I think that my resume kind of presents me as. So I mean, like, I think I think it’s, I It’s kind of hard to answer that question, because I think it’s so ingrained in how I see myself like when I went to engineering school for my Bachelor’s at U of T. I was in the engineering science programme. I kind of saw that. I definitely saw that as Okay, I’m going to do this engineering thing on the side. Well I tried to find a way to do theatre as well. And so while I was in school I, I found the skit I, I like became part of this sketch comedy group that was done by U of T engineering called School Night, which is just this massive production that happens every year at Hart House theatre. And through that I got involved in improv comedy and kind of the sketch comedy community in Toronto. So I think I’ve always been a theatre person I started write like this play was actually the first draft, I wrote it when I was 19. When I was I kind of wrote it in between classes. And like, late at night after I finished my problems, that’s because I felt like it was just something that I like, was a part of who I was to, kind of, it was the only way I could like continue to feel connected to theatre while I was busy being overwhelmed by engineering, like that was kind of like I was compelled to write that because I felt like that was my way to, like, stay connected. Even if it was just in my head.

Phil Rickaby
It’s interesting that you say that because I know, I know, lots of people who don’t few people who are playwrights. And so the writing, we also have like day jobs. And so the way that we survive our day job is by every time that every chance we get the opportunity we write. Absolutely. And it sounds like you were doing the same thing during school, but probably with a heavier workload than those of us who are just working the day job.

Jonny Sun
Right, maybe. I do think that I do think that like that amount of pressure sometimes unless it like breaks you I think that pressure is productive in some ways, because it just, it gives you like a reason to write like, it gives you that that motivation to have that creative release, or it gives you that creative energy that you can draw from.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it’s almost like that kind of pressure. If you didn’t write, that’s what would break you. But the writing gives you the outlet.

Jonny Sun
Exactly. It gives you that strength to like to keep going for sure.

Phil Rickaby
Were you doing any were doing theatre before high school or was high school where you found the theatre

Jonny Sun
High School was where I found it, I It’s kind of like my parents actually tried to get like, I used to sew when I was like, really young, when I was a kid I did jazz dance. And that’s, that was kind of the closest I think it got to performance. But really, like my decision to do theatre was I was I was such a shy kid. And I was such like I had, I was so afraid of like public speaking and, but I always watched like, I watched every movie, I loved watching TV and film. And I loved like, I think I loved the entertainment industry. And I was obsessed with kind of Hollywood and TV and like an indie film and film festivals and stuff. And I just thought like I had to I had to get into this somehow. And I think starting to do drama in grade nine was like my way of of it was kind of like I remember like signing up for class. I remember signing up for like, my first drama class in grade nine and be like, This is terrifying. I’m way out of my element. Everyone’s gonna laugh at me. But like, but that that’s kind of how everyone felt when they joined drama. Nine, right. And then you find your community and then you you grow with those peoples.

Phil Rickaby
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting that you’re talking about being being a shy person. But I know so many people in theatre, and I’ve spoken to so many who are introverts by nature, but everybody thinks that an actor is going to be this extrovert that’s like out there, but so many of us are the opposite and not not extroverts. Absolute, you find that. I mean, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that as well. And it sounds like like you’re the same way. Did the your parents encouraged the the journey into theatre?

Jonny Sun
Yeah, it was always like they were there. They’re kind of like, finally eat me because they, I think we’re both the most apprehensive about the arts, but also the most like encouraging and the most like when, whenever me and my brother did anything, I think arts related or theatre related. They were the ones who like who loved that the most. So I think it was a bit of both. I mean, they were they emigrated to Canada. And so I think, and this is something that I’m also just starting to really come to terms with and to really play and to really understand them. But I think the immigrant experience is kind of this feeling of like we came here to create a better life for our kids and for our family. And when when you do that you Do you try to guarantee that success as much as possible? And so you, I think, and this is, I think common to any children of immigrants, regardless of like, where they’ve immigrated from, but like that feeling of like our kids, we want our kids to be successful and to, to like, kind of reap the benefits that we made sacrifices for. And I think that attitude has definitely lends itself to like, going towards more traditional fields where you would expect to find success. And I think Arts has never the arts have never really been on the radar for most immigrant families, I’d say. So I think that was that was where the apprehension was, it was like, Well, if you if you follow this direction, like how are you going to make money here? Like, how are you getting like, we don’t have a roadmap for this? Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
it’s true. Yeah.

Jonny Sun
And I mean, that’s, that’s just true of the arts in general. Right. It’s a lot. It’s a lot more. There’s a lot more of a hustle, I’d say. But, but yeah, I mean, there was that attitude. But at the same time, they were, when they were when they were in China, they were like, they were also performers like they, they sang, they did, they were like they were involved in the arts and stuff. And so they I think they always had that passion as well. So seeing I think, and that’s definitely where my brother and I both got our artistic sides from. So I think them seeing that come out to was also very exciting. And so like, it was this strange dynamic, where like, we were told kind of, to avoid doing theatre and the arts, but every time we did it, they would love it and they’d come to see all our shows and they’d be quoting lines like my dad still quote lines from like a show I was in in 2009. And like, my mom reads all my tweets so it’s it’s like kind of mixed messages but it’s also very encouraging when that when that happens. And can I can I ask you a question about

Phil Rickaby
about the the decision to pursue the the path through academia that you have, rather than trying to pursue a theatre a theatrical or more theatre focused life, maybe you don’t see the two is as separate as they they are in my mind. But your your, your resume, and all of the the media about you does focus more on the on your schooling, your academic life and the Twitter account rather than the theatre life? So I want to I just, I’m curious about what drove you more towards academia?

Jonny Sun
Sure. Yeah. There. I think there are a lot of reasons I think, mainly, like I’ve, when I, I think when I was in, like, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do from undergrad, it was actually kind of like a decision between like, Oh, should I apply to theatre school? Or should I do engineering. And a lot of, actually, like a lot of mentors that I had, that were kind of working artists or people or like my drama teachers and stuff. I think the impression that I got was like, in order to really succeed in the arts, you need experience, right? Like you need stuff to draw from, you need to have lived a life. And that kind of left the impression to me that you’re like a career in the arts can, you can start that when you’re 18. Or you can start that when you’re like 65. And there was no set timeline, whereas I did want to do like, I wanted to explore academia, but I wanted to, like, do engineering, and then I wanted to do architecture. But with those things, because I think those are more institutionalised and they come with like, the degrees and the systems, that felt like stuff that you kind of had to do earlier. So in a sense, like that, those timelines kind of dictated my choices, more than anything, I’d say, like I, I would not feel comfortable going to do a Masters when I was 35. For like, I wanted to kind of get those checkpoints out of the way. And kind of free up the rest of my life to be able to to do the stuff that that I could do. And hopefully my experience that I gained from being in school and doing this stuff would actually help and not detract from my ability to produce as an artistic creator.

Phil Rickaby
What have you learned in your academic life that you can you feel like you can directly apply to the arts life?

Jonny Sun
That’s a good question. A lot of it is like there’s two there’s two things one is like the actual content but the other thing I think is kind of the meta side like which it’s its process and it’s discipline, I think is the most direct answer because I went through two really hard programmes like engineering science. And then architecture school are both notoriously, like, destructive, I think two to the labs of their students. But I think that I think I’ve kind of like, learned a work ethic, and kind of like, almost like a relentlessness to, to produce, that I think has been really helpful in, in letting me in letting me write and then letting me create stuff on like, a schedule. And then the other thing is I even content wise, I think I’ve been able to, like, carve my own spaces within, like, within school. And so in engineering, I was most interested in human behaviour. So I was looking at simulation and like, how simulation systems are designed and how human behaviour was kind of ascribed to, to like computer systems, which I think in a way, lets you see what part like how engineers describe humans. And then you can be like, well, that’s wrong. That’s, that’s not that doesn’t get anywhere close to what how people actually behave and but like, by, by being able to see how people look at how humans behave, or how humans think. I think like, just seeing that from all these different angles really helps give you context and give you perspective on what what’s missing, and what’s important and what what what things you can write in a play that you can’t, like do in a computer programme, right.

Phil Rickaby
Another thing that, you know, you know, that it sounds like you may have learned is because you were in these two notoriously difficult programmes, programmes that break people. You kind of learned what you can take. Yeah. You kind of learned how much you can put yourself through. Yeah, absolutely. Something that we don’t often get to get to learn early in life.

Jonny Sun
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Yeah, it’s, it definitely, it definitely puts you through a lot. And I think that it teaches I think the best thing is it teaches you how to fail. And like that’s like, that’s a mantra that comes up. I think in a lot of arts like improv, that’s, that’s the biggest mantra is you just have to learn how to fail, and you have to go up there and fail. And definitely in school, it also, I think, if you can get through it, I think the only way you can get through it with a healthy mindset. And to come out the other side, having grown is to accept the fact that you’re not going to be able to do everything that you you wanted to do and you’re not going to be able to do it as as well as you thought you would be able to. And that mentality of of, of like I failed my first. I think I failed like all my first midterms in my first year in engineering school. And you kind of have to just learn to accept that and let it go and move on really fast. In order to I think in order to survive,

Phil Rickaby
that’s a really valuable lesson because I mean, that’s something that you may learn in an improv class or in improv classes, but I know in theatre school, failure was the last thing anybody wanted to do. You were so worried about failure, that it was almost for some people that may have been even crippling, I know, I had this intense fear of failing when I was in theatre school. And the having the freedom to to know that it’s part of the process, I think, is something that would have been healthy and better to learn early on. And you’ve you learned that through not even not doing theatre.

Jonny Sun
Right? Well, like what happened, what happened in theatre school when you if when you failed?

Phil Rickaby
Oh, usually, if you always felt in theatre school, that if you failed, that, like failure was like the worst thing you could do if you if you failed the scene or if you failed the whatever the the project was, that this was another strike against you. And in theatre in theatre school. They often like they start with a big class and the idea is to whittle you down, so they’re always looking for reasons to ask people to leave the programme. Oh, wow. And so you always felt like if you failed, that was going to be a thing that they used in order to remove you from the programme. Right? So the stakes were always really, really high that way, instead of it being something that was encouraged and to think that you would learn from the failure. Oh, wow. Which is so hell See and so important because you know what, once we’re out in the in the theatre world, we are going to fail, right? Many times we’re going to fail to get a role that had an audition, we’re going to be in a play that doesn’t work. We’re going to get terrible reviews and how you learn to deal with those things is super important.

Jonny Sun
Yeah, absolutely. And in the real world, like there’s no there’s no like, upper like, there’s no, no upper system telling you what’s right and what’s wrong. Like there’s no system to subscribe to was in school, I think, and that in any school, there’s always like, a definite reason why you failed or definitely reason, reason why you succeed, and that just doesn’t exist. Outside of that is true.

Phil Rickaby
When When did you start this, this Twitter account of yours?

Jonny Sun
2012.

Phil Rickaby
And from the beginning, was it what it became? Was it a comedy? Or did you start with like most people do this is my lunch? Here’s what I did today, that sort of thing? Or did you have a clear vision from the beginning?

Jonny Sun
I definitely did not have a clear vision I actually saw like, the so it’s funny, because I think when people ask, when did the Twitter account start? I automatically think like When did like this version of like, the Johnny sun and like the weird comedy stuff start. But like I had, I think I had my Twitter account since like, Twitter started, like, I think I had it in 2007 or something. And so for like, from then up to 2012 I was just using it the way everyone else was like I was I was tweeting like, just saw movie. My first tweet, I think was like, just looked up Japanese money on Google. And it looks really cool. But it was just like, it was just normal stuff. And I think as I got into comedy more, I started trying to use Twitter as a place to write jokes, but it was still, like, it wasn’t clicking like I think for a while for a few years. I was trying to like use hashtags to like I would I would literally write upon and then go hashtag pong and then tweet, it. Just didn’t. It didn’t work out. Yeah. And but I think around 2011 2012 that’s when, like, on Twitter, there’s like a community that it people have called it weird Twitter and people within weird twit Twitter hate being called Weird Twitter, but I’m okay. That term because there’s no other way to describe it. But around 2011 I think they’re starting to get like they’re starting to a small kind of group of comedians or writers or poets, or just random people just started tweeting like, totally absurd humour, and totally absurd tweets that like, they blew my mind because it was just I’d never seen comedy like that before. And it was so perfect for I think the way Twitter was structured. Because like the strangeness of those tweets, so perfectly subverted what everyone else was doing on Twitter, which was just like tweeting about their real lives. So when you have like, I don’t when you just have like the absurd situations that come up from those accounts show up like on your feed between just had a sandwich and like just saw a movie, it was just something special. And I was like this, this is it like this is I want to get into this, I want to play with this. And so that was around 2012 When I like when I just was like I need to I want to I have to I have to be part of this I have to start doing this. And in doing that I had to change like the whole style and choose like a character and stuff.

Phil Rickaby
So in terms of in terms of the the quote unquote character is as the Twitter page says, and misspelt, an alien confused about human language. I’m not even going to try to pronounce it the way please don’t. I will I think I will break myself if I tried to do that. But did you make any rules for yourself about the way that language would work for this character? Or what was the idea behind the character? The alien confused about human language?

Jonny Sun
Yeah, I think like well, that that description hasn’t changed since 2012. And I think I chose it specifically because I didn’t want it to be like Alien confused about the English language. Human language to me actually just meant like, figuring out how humans work so it was more about like aliens discovering a motion or aliens to just get me like behaviour or something. So that was like, the kind of misdirect and I think in terms of the spelling like originally like I think people now I think because of the way that Twitter has gone and because now I somehow magically have like a tonne of followers. I think a lot of people kind of see my account as though one account got on Twitter, in that community that does the misspellings. But that wasn’t like, that’s just the way it’s like, I’ve I think I’ve been cemented. But that wasn’t true. When I started, like, when I started, everyone was doing the misspellings, like that was kind of the way that that was one of the ways that everyone was subverting expectation and the ways they were kind of being like, they were rejecting the norms. And so like, there were so many accounts that I really looked up to that were also messing around with how, like with syntax and with structure and with it was kind of like, weird poetry in a way. Like, just like, weird E. Cummings, if he kind of talked about, like, crabs and like, clouds? Well, I guess maybe he does, but like, but like it like it was it was kind of like a total stylistic exercise. And I think I just picked up on that. And I think I kind of just kept going for longer than those than most of the other people in the community. And I think that’s where I am now. But definitely, like the misspellings have a purpose of like, it’s funny that you said like, I’m not even going to try to pronounce the bio the way it’s spelled. Because like, I think that’s, that’s like, that’s so ingrained in the joke of seeing the misspellings online. Like, the whole point is that you can’t you can’t like this is something that only works as a medium. If you’re reading it, it doesn’t work as I needed, telling it. And I

Phil Rickaby
know you can’t it, I think that’s what’s what’s kind of interesting about it is just trying to just looking at it. The misspellings don’t actually make sense, right? Which is kind of What’s brilliant about it.

Jonny Sun
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And they like, yeah, they can’t they don’t make sense, like linguistically. Like they’re not your I’m not misspelling them the way like someone would be mispronouncing a word. Yeah, in real life. Like they’re, they’re very native to, like the actual way that most of the things. When I started out, like the system was like, I noticed that n was a common letter, in most words. And the words B and M are right next to N on the keyboard. And so like, I think most of my typos are around the letters and m and b, because they were just like, located in the same area as common letters. But it was a very, it’s very, I think a lot of the stuff on Twitter, when you look at how the typos are formed. They’re very, they’re based on like, how the keyboard is set up. And so that’s also like a design question. Like people, I think one of the common things is, is accidentally putting a comma instead of a period, because those two are right next to each other. If you go like back, like way back, when you start, like at the start of memes, it would always be like exclamation exclamation exclamation mark one. Yes. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s like, I saw that as like this in the same kind of vein of all that stuff. Because it’s, it’s based on the keyboard, it’s typographical.

Phil Rickaby
Did did you actively grow the Twitter account? Or did it just happen?

Jonny Sun
It just happened. Like it was. Yeah, it just, I was just blown away. Because I think, I mean, I used it very much as like a way to keep writing and even when, even though it’s like a tweet a day doesn’t sound like a lot. I think when I started when I was in architecture school, and that actually was a lot to even just like dedicate 15 minutes to thinking of a joke. But I’ve like I’ve always told myself, and I think I’ve, I think I’ve stuck to this, for the most part. But I’ve always said like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tweet once a day, I’m gonna read one joke a day and sit down and think about it and put it out every day. And I think that kind of consistency and that, I guess, like discipline, it’s fun. It’s funny to talk about discipline when you talk about tweeting. But, but that type of discipline becomes like, I think you need that. Because I think when you when I follow someone, I want to like, I follow them, because I want to see what they’re what they’re saying every day. Like, that’s part of the contract that that you make, right? And when if you’re tweeting sporadically, if you’re tweeting like a bunch for one day and then not saying anything for the next week? I think it does. That doesn’t really help natural growth, right. But I think if you’re tweeting every day and people are like, Oh, this is someone that I can kind of come to and see new stuff every day then I think that helps things grow naturally.

Phil Rickaby
Don’t ever look at that that follower count and just wonder how it got to that point. Oh, I look at my personal account I have over 1000 And I’m like yeah, I’m over 1000 Because I made you know he’s like I’m this is what I want to do is I want to get my Twitter account and so it’s not like me and like five Friends, but I really wanted to grow it. So I put effort into it. But I look at that that number and sometimes I’m like, Yeah, and it still goes up sometimes. And here, I look at yours and it’s 181,000. Do you look at that? Does that freak you out? Does it freak you out to the the things that you that you put out there are going to that many people?

Jonny Sun
Yes, yeah. Almost every day I look at that. Now granted, I’m just like, what happened? Like, how did that happen? And it astounds me, and it’s a big and it’s such a big number that like, I think, I think there was like a study somewhere that said, after like 50,000, or something human brains can’t actually understand how much number means. Yeah, like, I don’t, I can’t, I don’t have any intuitive understanding of how much 180,000 How many 180,000 people are? No, you can’t, you can’t picture that many people. So it becomes, it’s kind of funny, because I think at this point, like, when you have zero followers, and you tweet, you’re kind of like, I’m just tweeting into an empty void. And it’s, I think, once you get to a certain number, it kind of feels almost the same in a very strange way where like, this is such a large mass of people that I can’t actually process it. So my brain refuses to process it. So I’m just gonna keep putting stuff out there the way that I always do. It definitely, though, has made me aware of the power of have anything you say, when you have an audience. And I think that’s something that I think everyone with an audience has some responsibility. Because you don’t know who’s following you don’t know, like, how many people are, will kind of take your stuff and internalise that, and, and so so I do think there is a role and a responsibility that I have to abide by and that I think everyone on Twitter, who has that following should, should kind of should kind of be aware of. And so I tried, I tried to be very, very good about that. And I think I look up to two people who do that, and who are aware of that, and who were very conscious of, of just of just being positive and, and spreading a good, good message.

Phil Rickaby
Do you do you get when you when you tweet do are the responses that come back largely? Positive? Or do you? Because I know for me, if I get that one negative tweet, that’s the one that I pay attention to? Oh, yeah. Do you find? Do you find that that yours are weighted positive or negative? Or is it down the middle? Or do you not even look anymore?

Jonny Sun
I still try to look, I still try to look because I think like part of I think like, like, in an academic sense, I guess part of like, the magic of social media is that is that two way engagement, like it’s an immediacy between the creator and audience. And so I think it’s important to kind of keep up with with how people are interacting with the stuff you put out. So I tried to read everything. But I think you’re absolutely right. Like, it definitely skews positive for me. And I’m very grateful for that. But if even if there’s like one negative comment, and like 50 positive comments, that’s the one that will like upset me, like if I wake up, and I see that it’ll ruin my day. But that’s nature.

Phil Rickaby
That is human nature. And it’s ridiculous. It’s kind of ridiculous that that’s where our brains go, that all of the positive responses that we get the negative ones, or the ones that we see, I have had, you know, I’ve had positive reviews, and I’ve had negative reviews of things that I’ve done. And I could not remember a line of a positive review. But I can remember the negative reviews. It’s so much vivid detail.

Jonny Sun
Oh gosh. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Those are the things that that that I like I can recall those other times I could say, oh, I remember I got a good review from that that newspaper. But the bad ones I could almost recite like poetry.

Jonny Sun
Gosh, yeah. And you knew who wrote it, you knew like which platform put it out, like, you know, everything that you need, like the date and the time

Phil Rickaby
I knew the date time I remember the reviewers name. It’s like I can like pick it out, you know, in terms of in terms of dead end, just to bring it back to them. How did you connect with the Theatre Lab?

Jonny Sun
Theatre Lab. So this is like this is kind of a great, I’m very grateful for the way things turned out because Theatre Lab put out a call because they did a festival of readings called the first sight festival in November of 2015. And I think they just put out a general call for for plays that have not yet been produced to do this Reading Festival. And I was in Boston at the time. And one of my good friends Kevin Vidal, who’s who used to Be a second city main stager. And I think he’s, he’s all like he’s kind of all around the comedy community now is my really close friend and I grew up with him and we went to the same high school and we’ve always been really close. And he saw this listing and he said, you should, you should submit this play, let’s submit this together, I’ll like, I’ll read for one part, and we’ll do the play. And that’s what we did. And they the Theatre Lab accepted it for the festival. And then I think they just liked it so much that they found some sort of connection to it, that they contacted me after and said, Hey, let’s, let’s stage this, let’s like do a real production of this. So it was very, a lot of things kind of happened in in the right way for this to happen. Yeah, so they’re, I mean, they’re, they’re phenomenal. There’s such a great group of people and very professional and very, just very smart and sharp and brilliant.

Phil Rickaby
You gave an excellent, an excellent cast, just looking at the the cast list. I mean, Chris, Chris, from Peter and Chris, for one thing, oh, yeah, that that cat caught my attention right away. Because, you know, I love the work that Peter and Chris do and, and the stuff that Christian Smith and cared would have done, just really sort of jumps out. It just looks like it’s going to be a really great show. And it’s good to hear you feeling really positive about it, that your experience with them was, was was really good previously, in terms of how this is this is happening. I mean, you are not in Toronto, as this is being worked on. But I understand you are you’re coming I guess for opening. Yep. Is it strange to be so far away from the production at this point? Or is it almost a relief to not have to be in the room and just to sort of show up and see what they’ve done with it?

Jonny Sun
Yeah, I think that was kind of like I’ve done productions where I’ve written and directed and been in the show. And so I like I feel like I’ve had that experience. And but I’ve never had the experience of kind of giving, giving something I’ve done to a group of artists, and just just letting them take it and run with it. And so like that was very important to me that I wanted to like I wanted to have that experience. And I also didn’t want to kind of intrude and like sometimes it’s it’s kind of like, oh, the playwrights coming now and he’s gonna tell us I like tell everyone that they’ve ruined everything. And I like I didn’t want to intrude on like their creative, their creative process. So it’s been it’s been really great. And and Michael, the director Michael Landau has, he’s kept me in the loop enough to like, so that I’m kind of aware of what’s going on. But the other thing is like, I went to the first table read of the play when we got like everyone together. And I think I was still at like, I was listening to the read and I loved it and everyone was great. But like personally in my head, I was like, There’s no way I could direct this like this is too. This is too close to me. And this is too. It’s almost like too personal to me where like I would not be able to let anything go. And all I saw were like the wrong words I chose in the script and I would be endlessly tinkering. I think I think that kind of separation was healthy on my on my end.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, it’s hard to be the it’s hard to be a playwright and director. It’s hard to. I mean, it’s I’ve been a playwright and performer and that’s hard. But to be a playwright and director because there’s such different hats and you really have to be able to stop doing one and do concentrate on the other. It also I mean, it’s hard to be the playwright in a room when people are rehearsing your play, because that urge to tinker has got to be pretty overwhelming. Even if you’re not the director. If you’re sitting in the room, you keep wondering how could you improve what’s being said?

Jonny Sun
Yeah, absolutely. And like, I think one of the blessings like when you talk, you’ve mentioned the cast, like Krishna and Chris are both improvisers and comedians. I think, first and foremost, I’d say. And I think that’s, that’s kind of excellent. Because I think, I think I think there’s like such a, I think there’s a divide in like Toronto Theatre, where like, the improvisers aren’t seen as actors and actors aren’t seen as improvisers and there’s like such a split there. And I’ve talked to a lot of my improv friends about it and I think it’s like they think it’s very unfair that they’re not being considered for for like truly like for like theatrical productions. And they’re just not seen as like real actors, quote, unquote. So I felt I thought it was great that that our cast is made of improvisers.

Phil Rickaby
Absolutely. And I think that that I mean, it I agree that it is not fair that you know, improvisers are not considered, quote Record real actors because there’s so much talent in, in in the people who are improvising and you and so much creativity. But I mean, every every scene has its own cliques and foibles, and it’s hard to break from one to the other. There’s always resentments between them. But man, I’ve seen some some, some really talented people in the comedy and improv improv world like the guys from sex T Rex, and Peter and Chris and all those people. So it’s really great that this show is coming together like that. And that the show, which is a comedy, but sounds like it deals with not just with some serious issues as well as the comedic ones.

Jonny Sun
Uh huh. Yeah, it does it. I think it’s, I think the premise start, and like, this is my favourite type of like, comedy, is when the premise starts. Kind of fun. And then it just like, unfold and unpacks. And it becomes not comedy, basically.

Phil Rickaby
No, I love that I love when you can, like, draw people in with a comedic, comedic present premise, and then surprise them. Yeah, something serious that they’re they weren’t quite expecting when they walked in. Yeah, to be able to give them that, that, that shock that twist when you’ve Oh, you know, there’s going to be a light comedy, and now they get into something serious, which is awesome.

Jonny Sun
Yeah. And I think like comedy has such a tool, like it’s as a tool, it has such a power to, I think, bring people in and to engage. And I think like, I think that’s kind of what we’re seeing in a lot of like comedy just in in general today where there’s a lot more blurring between the lines, like what is strictly comedy and what’s strictly drama or what is comedy and what’s like a human story. And I think the my favourite comedians working today are the ones who are using comedy as a way in as an entry point to get to be able to talk about the more human stuff.

Phil Rickaby
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think I’m at the at the point where I’m gonna have to let you go. Just so you can make your class so I want to thank you for talking with me today. This has been a lot of fun.