Exclusive: Lily Santiago Is in Love with the World of MARY JANE

Are you ready? It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon

Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of The Roundtable here on Broadway World. It must be a Friday

Right smack in May as we lead up to Tony Award Ceremony Day. It is the Broadway Super Bowl about to come

And Broadway World and the Roundtable has been at some of the best events. If it's this

Chita Rivera Awards, if it's the Lorchell Awards, if it's the Drama League Awards

if it's the Outer Critics Awards, if it's the Pulitzer Prize, it is season of awards here in New York City

And some of the best in theater, some of the best in musicals

some of the best in plays, are all gracing interviews here on the roundtable

and we've got all the coverage for you. We hope you've been enjoying our chats

They've been a lot of fun. Last week, Leah Delaria was here. She talked about her events coming up at 54 below in June

My event is coming up at 54 below as well, June 14th

So come celebrate pride with me. If you want more information about me, my show, to get tickets, all that fun stuff, you can always go to Robertbannon.com or follow me at Robert M. Bannon on Instagram

Well, Manhattan Theater Club has knocked it out of the park. They are Tony Nomine's Best Musical, Jaja, French Republic, Mary

Jane, I got to see all three of these shows. And let me tell you, if you want to see works of art

written word, people acting their faces off, you got to go to MTC and check it out. So we have

the play, Mary Jane, written by Amy Herzog, directed by Anne Kaufman and starring

Rachel Nick Adams and an All-Star cast. And we have the one and only Lily Santial

here, New York's own, Liguardia's own, Northwest grad's own. We're going to get the full scoop of how she ended up from Shakespeare to TV to the

Broadway, right here on the round. All right, listen, everybody, best behavior, because there's a real actor here

Like, you see this list? It is a television show. It is a Broadway show in every Shakespeare show ever written

I can't even remember my cell phone number and Lily can recite 10 Shakespeare shows

from memory right now for the next two hours. That's what's going to happen. Lily Santiago, welcome to the show

Thank you. Lily, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, measure for measure

Mary Jane was a walk in the park. It's so funny. I really, I, um

When I get like modern scripts now for plays specifically, I find it more challenging because in Shakespeare

I feel like I have the answers. And in modern text, I'm like, I have to find them

I have to discover them. I have to create them, you know? And so it's actually more challenging to me

I understand digging through the clues and evidence in the text as opposed to Shakespeare where it's very laid out

Yeah. I'm like how many P's do they use? How many Fs, S's, is it a perfect line

What are the, you know, syllables? Well, where did this bug get you

You went to LaGuardia High School. Yes. I'm assuming you grew up around the area somewhere

Yes, Upper West Side kid. And my family is in the arts

So I've always been able to, I've been so lucky to experience theater since I was a kid

My first Broadway play that I ever saw was when I was five and I went to see the

Lion King with my family, you know? So I've been around the theater so much. And it was at LaGuardia when they

um, they, there's a whole few months where we do Shakespeare scenes. And that was the first time I'd

ever read and done Shakespeare. And I loved it. And then I studied at the British American Drama

Academy in London for a semester. And that's really where I honed in on that skill

Yeah. So what made you then choose to go to Northwestern? Like, what? What was it about their program that you were like, this is where I'm going to continue my academia

I, when I walked onto Northwestern's campus, I was like, this is always what I imagined

college looked like. You know, it looked like a movie. And I could imagine myself walking

And it's true. Like, anytime I was struggling in college emotionally, I would just sort of picture myself as a little

like college girl in the movies because the campus is so beautiful

But really what drew me to Northwestern was that I wanted a well-rounded college experience

I didn't want to do a conservatory because my dad's always saying to me, like, the best actor is a well-rounded actor

And so I really wanted the life experience because the more I could learn from life, I think, the better, I can use that to apply it to any roles I'm playing

And then also, they have such a bounty of student theater there

about 30 student productions that happen every quarter. So I was like, even if the main stage

don't want me, I'm going to find a role somewhere. So I got to be involved in like the production

side of things. And I was on a theater board where we produced a lot of plays. And I just learned

so much from the student theater specifically there. Wow. Wow. What a laying ground

Was there a moment when you graduated or when you were in school that was like you credit like a big breakthrough in terms of professional work

Like was there a day where you remember getting a call or booking a job where you thought, okay

It so funny because I always say whenever I book every single time I book anything I have that moment of like I can believe it happening you know And then as like the next day I just am like oh it can be that big a deal if I involved because it just me in my little life you know

So I'm constantly feeling like I'm back to zero on the rungs of the life ladder, you know

but I really, especially with this Mary Jane process, I've been like staring myself in the mirror and saying

you must accept that this is huge and awesome. I've been trying a lot more to be present with appreciating those things

But I will say like the first job I did professionally out of school

was in the ensemble of Othello at Shakespeare in the Park. And I ushered at that theater for two summers in a row in high school

I oh my gosh look at the beauty oh there you are right there my rehearsal skirt

it's her time oh my gosh it's like adult summer camp it's the best thing ever and i've just been

obsessed with the delacourt and the you know the public theaters shakespeare in the park um for as long as

i can remember and i worked there you know i was the usher sitting in the aisle at every show and

helping people to their seats and watching these actors day after day light up this massive stage

with everyone in the audience wants to be there at that theater, you know? And when I graduated

I graduated early, which, you know, was great because I sort of just got to hit the ground running

working. And walking onto that stage and seeing the ushers there when I was on the state

It was just one of those really surreal moments where you were like, I don't know where I've made it

but I've made it somewhere, you know? You did. And that audience waiting to get a ticket

that is one of the most amazing programs in New York City. And the most beautiful work is done in that park every single summer

I found, before we talk more about Mary Chan, I found some more, I think they're deep cut

Maybe they're not super deep, but like, here's the McBeth cast. Yeah, girls

All ladies, the all lady McBeth. Yes, that was some kick-ass stuff we did on that stage, I have to say

That is to this day one of my absolute favorite roles that I've ever been able to play

and one of the coolest processes I've ever been a part of. Yeah. And then, you know, King Lear is, when I was in acting school

like we read books about people's experiences being in King Lear, not even reading King Lear

Like, it is an epic undertaking and tale. what was it like to be a part of this

especially with the Shakespeare Theater Company? Yes. I absolutely fell in love

as everyone does when they know, when they sort of discover King Lear

We had Patrick Page playing King Lear, who is just a legend, you know

And his voice. And I felt so lucky that we sort of off the bat

without even having spent much time together, felt this camaraderie and felt this connection

in that we both believed that the core of the play was the love between Cordelia and King Lear

And there's so much death and tragedy in this play, but there are people with good intentions and good hearts

And gosh, I've never, like Cordelia's really in like three or four scenes, you know

in the whole play. But every scene she comes in is pivotal

And it's huge. It's to take this journey of being a young woman who stands up to her father in a way that she thinks is going to be fine

She's like, Dad, you know what I'm talking about. What do you mean? This is not crazy

And to hear Patrick Page, like, slam the table and tell you that you are worthless every day, eight times a week, is something else

And she gets to come back as the leader of an army. She gets to go from being a young woman who's never had to

be on her own and never had problems financially or familial problems, all of a sudden

she's the leader of an army and she's had to make this way for herself

So I just, it's so, that role is so empowering to me. I loved it so much

We just saw Patrick, he just won the Lorchelle Award for his one moment

Woo! I mean, acts his face off. Oh my gosh. That one man show was brilliant. I was sitting there

like it's it's like the most amazing theater and also the most amazing lecture you know like

I've learned about acting but I've learned about history too you know yes how how did you take

your knowledge all of this classical study and work and then throw it onto an hour long drama

every single week is it a different muscle was it a big learning experience to do television

I love the difference because the truth is for me, I never want to do anything without being prepared

So my level of preparation and focus and everything is the same

I think I found a lot more freedom for creativity than I initially expected there to be in TV

Because the truth is, I have to come in not knowing where the story

story was going. And I've never had to do that before. A play, you have your whole story that you're

telling. I loved that I could take everything I wanted to do on the stage and put it in a look

I was never, I never had the freedom to do that before because I need to share what I'm doing

with anywhere from 100 to a thousand people, you know, and in, and, and, and

TV, the camera was in my face saying, what do you got

Because I'm a catch it, you know? So I found that was a good one

I was so, that day I was like crouching on the floor being like, don't, I can't talk right now

You know, I have to focus. That's something I found difficult, actually, is in theater, you have to

and you all are in a process together. And in TV it sort of like you have to show up prepared You have to show up knowing what you doing because they mostly care about getting it visually correct as opposed to the emotional journey that you found for yourself

And so, you know, when 100 people are running around making sure that you have water or food and fixing your makeup and everyone is so brilliant at doing what they do, but they're focused on what they do, taking the time for yourself to say, I need to focus on what I do

So yes, of course you can do your job of fixing my hair. or whatever, as long as I get to focus on my job of what is happening, you know

I've never, that makes such sense. I never thought of it like that

And all of your, you were Veronica, we're talking about LaBrea, everybody

And, you know, I think that studying Shakespeare, no, spoiler alert, everyone, makes you

ready for a storyline about a wolf that malls your father, who's not really your father

I mean, that's Shakespeare to me. I swear to you that in my callback for that show, I know somebody, I found out that they'd been talking after I did my callback and they said, yes, but is she able to sort of ride all of these emotions of this tragedy she's gone through, but then discovering all these new things, like can she ride it? And somebody just went, she does Shakespeare

It got me the job, you know? The fact that they were like, oh, we can trust

her with this huge undertaking of having a very emotionally unreliable character because

she does Shakespeare. Like, you know, if you could do Shakespeare, you can do this

Done. How did Mary Jane enter your life? Well, we're here talking about Mary Jane

Firstly, you could follow Lily on Instagram. You could follow Lily underscore Santiago on Instagram

And while we're talking about Mary Jane, before we get into the weeds of it all, Manhattan Theater Club.com, you can get your tickets

It's running until June 16th. It's a New York Times critics pick

It's got the Tony Award nomination for Best Play. It's got the shabang-de-bang of it all

And Manhattan Theater Club is knocking them, knock them out of the park this season with their total. Woo

So how did, was it an audition? Was it, did you get sides

Did you, what was it like? How did you book it? Oh, my team had reached out to Dave Cap

who is the casting director, saying, Oh my God. You have to see Lily for this. She's perfect for it. And he was like, oh my gosh. That's a great

idea. So then I got an audition and I got the script and I got my sides. And the sides were each

it was one scene for each character that I play. It was like a snippet of the scene, you know

And a song. I had to, if I played a portable instrument to play that in my, it was a tape

My first audition was a tape. I didn't go in. I was sending in a self-tape. So I did my little scenes at home with my brother reading for me

And I sang my little song, just chose a song, played my ukulele

And then I got a callback. And that one was in person. And I got to meet Amy and Annie for the first time

The, you know, all the casting people, producers, MTC people. It was a full room of wonderful people

and I was shaken in my boots because I love this play so much

I think it is one of the most incredibly written pieces of theater that I've ever read

The way Amy fills these characters with such life and humanity and gives you this whole story without telling you what it's about, you know

you just have to experience it. and it's so moving to me

So yeah, I think that they felt that when I walked in the room doing my scenes

and we started sort of playing and collaborating in my audition, in my callback

I think they could see how in love with this world and this character and this play I was

And they all are too. And so they wanted to find people to merge that love with, you know

Yeah, and then I went in for a second callback when it was down to just a couple of us

And by that time, I wasn't as nervous because I was like, we've been here before

And it was great. It was, it was, it felt like I was already just hanging out with a group of friends, you know

Wow. Well, it is one of the most moving evenings of theater you can have

We approach Mother's Day as you have families and friends, like mothers, like family, whatever

it is a story about relationships and people and it is done so eloquently by this cast which is

bananas talented yes i know every day i say this all the time every day i walk in and i'm like

how are you all this amazing oh good looking too look at them all they

what has it been what was it like in the room with and with anne and and and and and and

and and with this with amy and and and this cast what was it like to build the relationships you

show on stage. It's so funny because I feel like the first day we all met, it already felt like we

were sort of kids at a sleepover. Like we all just became really comfortable with each other really

fast. And it took longer to, you know, discover everyone's weird little things that they do

or the things that make them laugh. But we all really meshed well together from the beginning

And I think that that's part of what Annie is amazing at, and that's bringing amazing people together

You know, she really cares beyond making an amazing piece of theater, she cares a lot about uniting good people

So everyone's hearts in this process are so huge. I just, there's so much generosity and love

And I think this play calls for that. And so you feel, you always feel supported because

everyone is there to take care of each other. And then having Amy in the room was mind-blowing because she's just a well of information

you know, and she's so willing to share everything. She's so open, just like everybody else

We're all just very open people with, I feel like we walk around ready for a group hug at all

times, you know? So it was a beautiful process. Yeah. And it long like we were there like 10 a to 6 p most days you know And it just it was like boot camp for four weeks We didn have any other life except for each other and this play And I think that that what you see on stage is that even if there are strangers meeting there this sort

of invisible string that connects everyone. And you can see us all being like, I got you. You know

And it tells, you could tell on stage that relationships are palpable in the audience. And

I want people to get it. What a way to end a run. I mean, you run extended to June 16th, the day of the Tony Awards. I mean, it's like at the end of the year prom. I don't know. It's like graduation. School's out. Yeah. We're seniors. It'll be senior cut day sometime in June. Just, you know, things like that. Just as Broadway in particular, I mean, you've done the public. You've done, you know, Shakespeare in the park, etc. The Shakespeare companies

Have you been a part of the Broadway community now? Do you feel people have come to see your show

I've seen them at your opening, et cetera. It's like a little club

Welcome to Broadway, Lily. You? Thank you. Yeah, it's great. There's three of us in the cast of five that are making our Broadway debuts

And even more, when you go into like the stage management team, the assistant director

the, well, all the people that work at MTC have already, you know, understudies

Those, like, there's so many people that this. is their huge debut and it's really exciting in that way. And I think I do, it's like I was saying

before, where I don't realize how big a deal it is until I'm like walking off stage and they're like

oh, this person came to see the show tonight and wants to meet you all. You're like, who? You know

it's always someone really cool. And you're like, they saw us, you know. So I am feeling

the energy of being on Broadway. And I think also with all the

openings and the little, we all write, you know, happy opening and send it around to the

to the other theaters when other people opened and they sent them to us and we opened

It does feel like a little family, even though we don't know each other, but there's that

communal pride of saying like, you did it. We did this. We're here, you know? And that's a

beautiful New York actor thing. It's so unique to here, I feel. It's so cute. I love it so much

It's so cute. When you get off stage eight shows a week

it's a big story you all are telling. And you've told many stories in your career

How do you take care of yourself? How do you shake the character? How do you shake the experience every night

Well, I'm really grateful that we just finished our fifth week of performing

and we had rehearsal for four weeks. So I'm really grateful for that amount of time

to get me to a point where it doesn't feel like such a task

of having to let it go. And like I was saying, the safety of the space that we're in with the people

that we're with, randomly on certain days, it catches you. And you just don't know why. And there's not

really a solution except to cry, sort of. And this is the group of people that will notice that

and you'll just get five hugs, you know. And I think that that's sort of the solution is

is looking at how everyone's doing, because there's some days I walk off stage

and I'm like, woo, there's another one we did, and somebody's in the corner weeping

And so then you go over and you're like, come here, you know

and it's just that strength of I got you. And the next day I'll be the one in the corner weeping

and somebody else says, hey, I got you. You all are so beautiful

Everyone, I'm telling you, like I saw the show during previews It knocks me out

It will knock you out as well. And the Friedman is a great place to see a theater

and the Manhattan Theater Club. It puts on the most epic, beautiful works

Every single production of theirs is just something really special and a jewel box in New York City

I mean, three of five best play noms with MTC. It's insane

It's insane. Insanity. So you got to go to the website and grab your tickets and make sure you see it, like we said, you only have until June 16th

But you do not only have until June 16th to see Lily Santiago on stages and screens because

you've only just begun. You don't even know what's about to come your way, literally

Thank you. That means a lot to me. It will be so many days where you think it's no big deal

And then you are, there you are on, you know, deadline and variety and Hollywood reporter

and Lily Santiago's TV show and Broadway shows and movies and whatever you wish for

The universe is yours because you are a light up there on stage and screen

Thank you. That is the most amazing thing I've heard all day. Thank you so much

It's such a pleasure to meet you. So nice to meet you. I was so moved by the show and I'm so grateful for you sharing your story and your journey

because a lot of people out there will hear it and be inspired to continue you to make art

Thank you so much. There you have it. Actors. Come on. Shakespeare, does it scare you

My goodness, I love an actor. I love being an actor. I love supporting actors

I love seeing actors. I love studying acting. And if you love all of those things

no matter where you live, no matter where you are around the world, watching us right now on Broadway World

there's a performing art school, there's a teacher, there is a class that you can take

Just take the step in the path will follow no matter how much money you have, no matter where you live

no matter how much support you have. There's somebody out there who's going to help you achieve your dreams

But the number one person that you need to have is yourself. So support yourself

Give yourself some love and light and create some art. And if you're not an artist, hey, no one of my family is an artist

I'm the wild one of the bunch. Support an artist. Go to your local theater

Go to a community theater. Go stream some music. Go watch a movie and support people who are sharing their art with their heart

blood and soul up there on stage and screen. I thank you so much for being here

If you want more information, like I said, follow me on Instagram at Robert M. Bannon or go to Robert Bannon.com

I hope to see you in person. I want my shows or join me every Thursday

when we're on YouTube with a live roundtable or every day on the Broadway podcast network as well

This is Robert Bannon saying, thank you so much for being here. There's always more good than there is bad

There's more joy than there is sorrow. And there is more light than there is darkness. You just have to find it

The best is yet to come. Bye, everybody