I sat down with Associated Artist Emily Schuman to talk about her multifaceted work in the theater. From acting to props to illustrating to music, this powerful hybrid artist has become a fixture in the Philly scene and a cherished member of the Applied Mechanics community. In this conversation, she reflects on her many different roles in theatrical processes over the course of her career thus far and on her goals for the coming stages of her artistic work. We can’t wait to see what she creates next!
Becky: For starts, can you talk a little bit about how you and Applied Mechanics came into each others’ orbit?
Emily: So, I was an Arden Apprentice in 2013-14, and every month Amy Murphy would bring in a Philly artist and have them talk about their life and what they do, and you were one of them. You came and spoke about Applied Mechanics and what you guys do and immediately I was like, “This sound awesome.” I’d never heard of an experimental theater company such as Applied Mechanics. It just seemed like, for the first time, a theater company that was actually up my alley, that wasn’t doing what all the other theater companies, the ones I thought were like what I should be doing, were doing.
B: What did you think you should be doing?
E: I think when I came to Philly, I was like, “Great. Here are all these major theater companies, and obviously those are the orbits that I should be heading my track towards.” And I guess I never thought about another path or another kind of theater company that was doing cool experimental stuff about social change. And immediately it sounded cool. Maybe, too, you were talking about immersive theater for the first time, and maybe I hadn’t heard about immersive theater? It was also the first year I learned about the word “devised.” When I came to Philly, I was like, “Oh, that’s a word? What is devised theater?” Laurel Hostak [fellow Arden Apprentice] had worked with you before, and when I was leaving the Arden, she mentioned that you were looking for someone to work with you on We Are Bandits, and I applied and I got it and it was awesome. And the rest is history.
B: You were the design assistant on that show.
E: And I will forever have in my brain 50 chairs and 8-10 tables.
B: That’s right! You did all the furniture hunting!
E: It was crazy. That was one of the best experiences. I was like, “I don’t know how I’m going to find 50 chairs and 8-10 tables,” but it was like the best homework assignment ever. That was my first prop gig.
B: That was also really a wow moment for us. I remember us being like, “Alright, this person seems really on top of it, hopefully this can happen.” And you just so totally delivered. It was a study in how to make sure you get hired again forever. So, you came to Philly for the Arden Apprenticeship?
E: Yes, for the Arden Apprenticeship and as an actor. But the Arden Apprenticeship opened my eyes to prop work, and I’ve spent the last five years navigating that. Navigating prop work and asking myself, “Am I ignoring acting work?” I’m not doing that basic track of having a waitressing job and auditioning. I sort of do auditions as they come, and it’s pretty easy for me to get a lot of prop work which is awesome, but I feel like I’ve been denying myself a pretty big part of my life.
B: But you perform as a musician as well, right?
E: Yes, I perform as a musician. With Delaware Shakespeare, I co-wrote the music with Liz Filios and that was amazing. So it has definitely been fun to have my music work it’s way into theater. But I haven’t been performing out [as a musician] at all recently.
B: What would you like the balance to be between these three major facets of your work?
E: That’s something I’ve been figuring out for the past few months, definitely knowing I need to figure out a new balance. I would love to prioritize acting and then props design when something comes along that speaks to me. I would like to do maybe three or four shows instead of six or seven a year as a props designer. It’s a lot. And I’d like to be auditioning more and opening myself up to more opportunities the way I have with props.
B: When you think about auditioning or acting more, is there a type of performance work you’d like to be doing?
E: I’d love to be doing more Shakespeare. I really love doing it. I’ve been playing a lot of the fools in Shakespeare and I’d love a bigger challenge in playing some more roles that have scene work. Because I find that a lot of the fools don’t really get much scene work—they do more commenting on the scenes at play. I would love to do some straight plays, too— it’s been a while since I’ve done a straight play. I’d also love to do more musicals. I feel like I haven’t quite figured out what kind of performing I want to do, because I haven’t been doing a lot of it. I’d love to just get more numbers under my belt, more plays, so that I can figure out the direction I want to go in.
B: Was acting your main focus in college?
E: I was a theater major at Denison University and I performed in a lot of plays during my time there. I also studied abroad in London with RADA for four months; I studied Shakespeare there, which was an incredible experience in that I got to study acting in a conservatory setting. And I also studied acting in high school; I went to a performing arts high school and majored in drama. So, acting was like the path from the beginning. And then I came here and was like, “There are so many other things as well!” But I do want to steer my way back. I feel like I’ve also been talking about that for the last two to three years and I’m tired of hearing myself talk about it.
B: What got you interested in acting in the first place?
E: In middle school, one of my best friends at the time was in this community theater group on Roosevelt Island, which is that little island between Queens and Manhattan. There is this theater program there called Main Street Theater. And I went to go see her in a show, which was an original show that they wrote, and I was like, “This is awesome. I want to do that. That’s cool.” And so then I started auditioning for that group, took acting classes through them, got obsessed with it, and it all just sort of made sense.
And then auditioning for LaGuardia High School solidified it. They were Stanislavsky-based, so we were always doing character study and scene work. At that time, studying acting was also deeply tied into my self esteem, because learning to act when you are also trying to figure yourself out in high school is complicated. Navigating high school was hard for someone who didn’t have a lot of self esteem. And trying to be one with my peers at school, obviously trying to be one of the cool kids and obviously not being one of those kids. Trying to navigate that and trying to prove myself as an actor to my peers. It’s just a complicated thing throwing kids in high school into that kind of work and being vulnerable when we haven’t learned to be vulnerable, so you’re kind of accidentally vulnerable all over the place.
And also LaGuardia taught a very specific kind of track. They taught being an actor in New York City: get an agent, have your headshot look this way, go to these auditions, that is the track. And that never really spoke to me. I always knew I was not that type. There was this ridiculous class that we had that stays with me to this day, where we all sat around in a circle and our teacher was like, “Okay, we’re gonna talk about what types we are.” So she would go around the room and have all of the students talk about one student in particular and be like, “Okay, what type is she? What type is he?” And they’d be like, “Oh, she’s a Julia Roberts type, he’s a Richard Gere.” And they land on me, and no one could pinpoint me, because they were like, “She’s funny, she’s quirky.” And so my teacher was like, “Do you know Fanny Brice? I think you’re like Fanny Brice.” Do you know Fanny Brice? She was a 1930s Jewish comedian. It immediately just fucked me up.
B: Well, no wonder! That sounds abusive!
E: So I never found my place there. And then Philadelphia was the first time that I was like, “Wow. There are so many different ways, there are so many different tracks.” Because the New York track never spoke to me. Or I was running away from it because I didn’t want to tie myself with that constant berating of my self esteem.
B: So why Philly in particular then?
E: Well, my family’s all here. I was born here and we moved to New York City when I was two. But my parents grew up here, they met here, and we would come here for Thanksgiving, Passover and Christmas holidays. My grandparents live thirty minutes north. I lived with my aunt in Fairmount for the first ten months of the apprenticeship. I have more family connections here than I do in New York, so it just felt right that I could go to grandma’s for dinner and hang out with her more. It feels like Philly is more connected to my roots.
B: Are there ways that your props work informs your performance work?
E: It relates for me in that I feel like it makes me a better actor in the room. I think I’m not as self centered as an actor because I’ve dealt with actors as a props master: actors coming to me saying things that they need without checking with the director first, or actors relying on props so much instead of focusing on their job. It makes me appreciate the production process way more. And I like being on that side of the production. I like going to meetings before the show even starts and talking about the concept. You don’t really get that as an actor. And I love that part, especially when the production team is so good. There’s a certain recognition that it’s a tiny group of people that are doing something really cool and no one really knows. It’s a special group to be a part of. And acting does something entirely different for me, which is the repetition, exploring and deepening the performance every night. They exercise different muscles and I like being a part of both those different groups. I was never someone with one friend group— I always had a bunch of different friends in different places. I don’t want to run away from props, I don’t want to ignore that part of my life: I want to figure out how to marry the two a little bit better.
B: The first time I encountered you as a performer, it was a piece that you also created and directed.
E: Yes! It was called Fando y Lis by Fernando Arrabal. I had translated and adapted the play in college and decided to mount it for the 2014 Fringe Festival. That’s the other thing: I haven’t made a show since then. It blows my mind. But I also think that was at a time in my life, at a particular age, when everything seemed possible. Like, I will never direct a show, produce it, act in it, and do prop work for it ever again. But that was an amazing experience and I am hoping to get some of that drive back again.
B: Could you talk a little bit more about your more recent experience at Delaware Shakes?
E: So, it was The Merchant of Venice with the Delaware Shakespeare Community Tour. We went to 18 different locations in Delaware—mainly to locations that don’t have access to the arts at all. We went to three jails, we went to a JCC, we went to some community centers and homeless shelters, sharing this very particular, very specifically-directed version of The Merchant of Venice. We also had a mandatory talkback at the end of each show. Essentially, what David Stradley wanted to do was really to foster a conversation about xenophobia and anti-semitism. So it really felt like a workshop in a way, and some of the conversations we had after the shows were mind-blowing, really eye-opening, and they showed us that, sadly, this play continues to be very relevant today.
It was an interesting process of composing the music with Liz, and it was also David’s first time working with an actor-musician. So it was a really challenging thing for me to navigate during rehearsals; even though I had a smaller part, it was hard to navigate writing the music for a particular moment, and then running on stage and figuring out where I have to be or where I have to enter next, and who’s going to play what part while me and Liz are both on stage, or I have to enter next, so I can’t play this intermission piece, or I can’t play this in-between-scenes moment. But that was a fun, an interesting thing to navigate. I think it was a first time for all of us. And David did a really good job of making us feel heard.
Liz has an amazing plethora of instruments at her house. We did a lot of outside-rehearsal time, sort of jamming and figuring out what these different characters sounded like. We started by exploring the three different worlds of the play: the Shylock world, the Venice world, and Belmont, the Portia world. And then from there we figured out cool, interesting melodies for each of them and what their instruments would be. And then added different character moments: this is a moment of tension that we need to highlight here, this is a character entrance that we need to highlight. Music served as the lighting design essentially, too. Really fascinating. [David] was inspired by this company called Ten Thousand Things, out in Minneapolis. They have a book about their method of performing Shakespeare this way, where you’re traveling and touring and you don’t have a set or lighting, and how music can aid that process. We used it a lot as inspiration. It was very cool.
B: Does making and performing music inform your work as a performer?
E: Growing up I just always had all these different things that I was interested in, and it was always drawing, music, and acting. Acting was just something I did. And drawing and music were ways I would relax. If I was stressed out about anything, playing covers of my favorite songs and learning guitar was how I got away from those stresses. And it connected me to people who were also musicians— having jam sessions in high school, jam sessions in college, that was how I found my people. It’s more of like a hobby that I just love doing and experimenting with with friends rather than making it another part of things that I do for a living. I’ve totally engaged it for my professional work, but at its core, it’s just something that’s fun. It’s the same thing with drawing: drawing things for prop work is more fun for me than just drawing on my own.
B: It sounds like collaborating with other people is really central for you.
E: I love being with a group of people for a very small period of time, and working on the thing together. We all have our roles, and we can all appreciate each others’ work, and grow from each other and learn from each other. And then we have this product at the end. I think that’s what’s so magical about theater.
B: Who are you as a collaborator?
E: I prefer to be a cog in the machine rather than the leader. I love being the answer to someone’s problem. It never feels like, “How can I be the biggest thing in the room right now?” It always feels like, “How can I be part of this larger piece?” And when everyone in the room is thinking that same thing, that’s when the process is really good. But with prop work I’m super autonomous, which I also like. I like that I’m on my own, I can go prop hunting, and come back with answers.
B: What have been some of your favorite projects?
E: Bandits. Merchant’s definitely up there. The one that I did where I wrote music with Chickabiddy for Exile 2588 with Almanac. Collaborating with a dance company by writing music was an unbelievable experience. We have a thing we’re doing, you have a thing you can do, let’s marry the two together: it was like a dream. We would go watch them rehearse, and sit on the side and write something. Or we’d get inspired by a dance they did, or the research we did, and then come together. Essentially, we had music, they had dances, and we just mashed them up. That was a really fun process.
I’ve loved some of my prop experiences too. Working on Lizzie was one of the best experiences ever. It was a very heavy female team. That was with 11th Hour Theatre Company, and Kate Galvin directed that one, and she was so amazing to work with: she just had answers on the ready always.
Designing props for How To Use a Knife was one of the most fun, because the set designer wasn’t very available during tech, so it was me and Lauren Tracy just like, “How do we make this? How do we hang this on the wall? We just got these massive set pieces in here. Let me make a bunch of fake hamburgers and hand cut french fries.” It was a really fun play. When I was doing my research for the production, I went across the street to a burger joint and was like, “Can you show me how you make a burger? Can I come back there with you?”
B: And they let you?
E: He was totally excited to show it to me! I feel like when I do prop work, I get to meet really interesting people and ask them really weird questions. And they’re so surprised. They’re like, “She’s doing this play. Uh, she’s doing a play! Do you have any things you can show her?” I always have interesting conversations with randos. That [How To Use a Knife] one was one of the best ones, because the woman who was at the front was like, “He never does this. He would never let you come back there. He’s usually really grumpy and he hates people, but somehow he’s showing you how to make a hamburger.” And they’ve just been nice to me ever since. Every time I go in there, they’re like, “How’s theater going?”
B: So what’s next?
E: This month I’m working on two illustrating projects, two children’s books. I’m working with my friend Julie and their music partner Anya, who are band members of a children’s band called Ants on a Log, and they have this song called Some Girls Have Short Hair that they want to turn into a children’s book. So I’m excited about collaborating with them.
And then there’s this other children’s book that’s going to be a really long process. Tommy Butler holds these really amazing group sessions called Support and Hang that he started about a year ago. Every month or two, he and his girlfriend Phoebe hold these sessions, and we just get together and talk about where we are as an artist, what we can do to help each other—it’s kind of like a group artist therapy session, which is really awesome, and then it also just turns into a hang session at the end of the night. It’s his way of creating a theater community outside of doing actual theater. And so I had mentioned that I loved making The Many Lands of My Mother for This Is On Record and he was like, “Wait, you do illustrations? I actually have this children’s book that I’ve been in the process of writing and I need an illustrator.” And it’s this very personal book about his relationship with his cat who passed away recently, but he’s known this cat since he was a kid, so he wants to write this book as an ode to his cat. So for the next year and a half, we’re just going to get together and I’ll do some drawing and he’ll do some editing and we’ll do some talking about what this book is going to look like. It feels kind of therapeutic. I just want to be drawing more; I don’t care about making money from it, I just like doing it.
But then after that I’ve just got a bunch of prop work, until June. It’s just books and props. I’m doing Hype Man with InterAct, which i’m looking forward to because Apollo is set designing. So I’m excited about that. And then I’m doing The Few at Theater Horizon, which Chris Haig is set designing, so I’m super excited about that, because he taught me everything I know about props. And then I’m working with 1812 for the first time, doing props for them, and then back to InterAct, and then it’s June. It’s a ton of props work.
Right before Merchant of Venice began, I realized that I was booked for the rest of the season and I had nothing to look forward to in terms of auditions, and I stupidly turned down two auditions because I was like, “Well, I can’t do them anyway, I might as well not waste my time.” But from now on, I just want to say yes to the audition. Or I would love to leave gaps open in my season, because theaters book their prop work in the summer and then theaters have their auditions in the fall or winter: it just doesn’t line up. It’s been five years since I’ve made a five year plan. Five years since I finished the apprenticeship. Five years since I’ve thought about my future.
B: But then also in that five years since you finished the apprenticeship, you’ve built a career
and a life. It’s a big accomplishment.
E: It’s pretty cool. Oh, absolutely. These are all good problems to have.
B: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our blog readers?
E: Send cash! Send cash to Applied Mechanics now.
B: Send cash to Emily Schuman.
E: Also if you’re hiring, let me know.