hello welcome to the live streaming on the iHeart Network and / 185 broadcast station in 37 countries I'm your host Bev Moore my guest today is a network TV actress writer voice-over artist an award-winning playwright today he has appeared in the CBS TV series God friended me
she is also known for her performance on stage in the theatrical play girl gone
Dina is a strong believer in faith and creating faith-based television and film projects
will be back in a moment with highlights of her amazing career as an actress and writer
Candice Cape Disappointment for the delay but I don't have to make feeling down and defeated the place that I Stay
Verizon the moment
and I can find a way
Birdman net worth 2017
Edison
I love you baby
staring My Bae
my interview with the ward winning playwright actress and voice-over artist Dino Laura is coming up
we come back as highlights of her successful entertainment career including what inspired her to write the clay elephants and otherworldly dilemmas
my guest Dina Lara after the break
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I would like to welcome my guest Dina Laura Vina is an actress writer and voice-over artist
welcome to the show Dina
thank you so much I'm so happy to be here
Dina you are an award-winning playwright and your plays have been produced on both coasts with your most recent play elephants and otherworldly dilemmas that one friend stayed in the 2015 New York International Fringe Festival
first of all you know I read I read a little bit about it and takes an elephant in the room to show you what you believe in what is specially a dead one question to you is where did I do come from
oh God that is such a yes you know it's so funny because I always written things that were set in more traditional setting whether it's an office or just things like that and with elephants and otherworldly dilemmas when I was thinking you know I had literally said to somebody I was at work and they were like how you going to write another play and then I said I don't know and this just kind of came out of me I was like I don't know I guess if God tells me what you're right about then I'll do it and I went to my other job and I had this friend named Martha and she was just we're all talking about seeing you know with a strong faith in God and also nutrition
her cleanse at work and I hear her say that and I'm like oh no Martha are you going to do a water cleanse and she says I don't know and I'll do it to somebody you know I literally went the day and Martha chose to ignore God which was actually the original title of the play and somebody walked in and said that's really funny and I went oh my God that's going to be my next play but from there it was like okay well what do I do with that and so you know I had originally like where am I going to set this thing and it's my natural go to is like an office cuz that's where I came from the corporate world and then one day I was having breakfast with somebody and I said you know I I really want to set this in a non-traditional environment do you have any idea and she said what about a medical waste facility and I should radical ways facility I don't know what
don't say it like burned just like bandages and things like that and she said oh no my friend worked at one and one time and elephant died at the zoo and they brought it there but it was so big it didn't fit in the incinerator and they have to chop it up and burn it so that's where I have to stay like we you know they said good writers good writers borrow great writers skill so that's what Oscar Wilde said and he's a pretty amazing said I was thin and no one knows what to do with it and somehow it ties to the concept of State
the long story but a true out with this with this elephant and the other one is like a science-minded guy is like come on you can do it you can help me get rid of this elephant you don't need to ask for a sign from God and it's about the struggle between having faith in God vs faith in yourself and that you can have both at the same time so that is and what the different people
well I think I can see why it was yeah I'm so sorry to interrupt you but I asked you was in a bar in East Texas so there's like a wacky and fun and it really suited like The Fringe Festival which tends to attract those types of stories were there a little bit wacky or all of that
God is in this story
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is the song you're walking through too much
wedding shoes
this is the Bev Moore Show live streaming on the iHeart Network / 185 broadcast stations and 37 countries around the world have more interview with actress and award-winning playwright Dina Laura continues
we come back about what it was like to win an award for the first play erase we are strong we are resilient and we will get through this together but these are stressful times and it's important to also practice good self-care it's normal to feel overwhelmed anxious or afraid but there is hope reach out to someone connect with your friends stay in touch with your community and know that you are not alone learn more at we are broadcasters.com hope furnished by the National Association of broadcasters and this station knowing that your work is resonating with your audience has to be thrilling when did you write your first play
my birthday was on the rocks and I wrote it in 2007 with a friend of mine from the corporate world Mina radhakrishnan and we just always met partying with talk about boys and relationships and we were like you got to write this down it's and so it was on the Rocks was born and that's where what you're talking about with resonating because it's about broken relationship someone came up to us after the show and said thank you for writing this play it help me resolve a relationship that I had a question about in my life so yeah I think from the very beginning I always wanted to tell stories that made people feel something or or think about something in their own lives and you know haven't relatable do that was yeah that was my first play with with another person and I've gone on to make a full-length screenplay on my own
based on the play
now your first play was on the Rocks is that right yeah yeah and it won it won best audience at the downtown Urban theater Festival
wow that is incredible
I'm in your first play when's an award
it really was exciting but he didn't you know I and I do think with that one because it was about broken relationships and people trying to find connection I don't think there's ever going to be a time where that's not something that we all relate you you know no matter what generation you keep going in and going forward in time you're always going to relate to that so I think that and it was a comedy and I'm some people compared it to like a Nora Ephron kite story like a Sleepless in Seattle other people set a reminder them a single Cameron Crowe and a relationship you know Cameron Crowe and singles its relationship movies and I just saw raise and I think people would resonate forever you know so I think that was part of it
right
what's it yeah and I don't know coming in that way you had to have known that that was what you were meant to do
yeah it you know it came out of needs being an actor and just recognizing I'm not getting the rolls that I want to play so I'm going to write and that's what happened you know the play actually started in my acting studio I was recording studios in New York it's at Mizner Bay studio and he assigned the class to see he said everybody write a scene and pick the two people in class that you want to read it and I said to my friend Nina all right we've been talking about riding this way to start writing it in acting class and then let's see what happened so that's really where it started happening and it really came out of a desire to you no have rolls that I could play
and I think a lot of actors start writing that for that reason
yeah yeah I just found it too interesting you know cuz when you when you step out and do something like that and it's immediately a success that much more powerful and and that's exactly what happened with you with this with writing so yeah I mean and you're a great actress on top of that you know
also music without music music was always it's always been in your family growing up out and become an actress
you know that's interesting because right I started as a musician you know typical kid hair and throws you into lesson so I was playing piano from like when I was like seven classical and then ended up playing for the choir when I was in high school and then in concert band I was I was one of those people that have that could pick up an instrument and just learn how to play the basics of it quickly being a musician but what I found when I was like what the accompanying the choir in high school that everybody singing on stage and I'm like wait I want to be up there so I can I eat I did too I sang in the choir as well as the accompanist we would turn but I found that when I was playing the piano as much as I liked it I was missing
being onstage and I think that's what made me you know and I can know I was always in the pool you know school productions never having big hearts or anyting but I always enjoy being in the musical so I think I realized who I want to be up there singing and then that's initially I went into musical theater because I love singing and something that's really the transition for me with I love being a musician but I really wanted to be on stage as a performer with sure I could have done as just a piano player but I really like the fact that a musical offered me are we going to play
and so that's where the transmission started to happen I would say when I got into college
and you start taking acting classes at that point yeah and we had a student-run theater I went to the University of Delaware and there but I like my brain so it makes sense they're always black and white and there's something beautiful about that cuz creativity is all gray so I was part of the Harrington Theater Arts company which was a student-run theater organization at the University of Delaware so we did everything ourselves and that was so excited you know to be able to do it was just a student putting it all together we directed it ourselves we picked the material we were doing and I really loved being a part of it and that's really where I started realizing
oh I think I actually wanted to do this for I think I always knew I wanted to do it but I don't think I admitted it to myself out loud until I was in college and I think that group really helped me.you know solidify that and I'm still friends with some of those people from the group so just shows you it really stayed with me that experience and you know I got to do Arsenic and Old Lace in the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat so that's great that's great
dad will bring my heart
before I left
I want to know you I want to find you and never sees you
I want to know you
I will bring by and see you
redness and never come
you are my treasure
my interview with actress play right Dina Laura continues after the break and Association my mom was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when I was fourteen and I watched her struggle but MBA helped her get the best treatment and care and they also help kids like my buddy Ethan
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you're short film pillow talk now I really love the synopsis on that you know about the the mother with the with corny who played the mom
yes Karen Lynn gorney right yes yes from Saturday Night Fever and the Jewish mother relationship mother-daughter relationship thing I just think that is the cutest story do you want to talk about that but how is that went I mean cuz you played the daughter right yeah. And Lauren and we you know Karen will like you know she called me like about six months ago or so and was like we need to make a stick come out of that movie The Adventures of mine Lauren like just continued it cuz it is they are two really good characters and I think part of the reason that is is it was birthed out of a real-life experience during the pandemic you know I'm isolated my mom's isolated we were all isolated and in the middle of the night I'm not kidding I heard the loudest crash and I was so
so who do I call my Jewish mother
I know I was there yesterday so it's really true and I locked my bedroom door cuz and then I'm like do I end my mom is like you have anything in your room that you could use like a bad my bad and luck with your Bronx accent and everything and this really came out of my new she stayed up all night with me talking because we're like my mom it was in the early days of the pandemic so she's like well that you could call 911 but then if they come at what if one of the officers at the virus was all these crazy things that the next day or hysterical but as you're going through it it's terrible so she literally stayed up all night just talking to me and then I finally worked up the courage to open the door and of course it was just something fell out of the closet but would you know
you're like oh my God and you're listening at the door and panicking what if someone's in here so yeah so I think pillow-talk I think it was just such a happy accident honestly that that happened because it gave burn her this you no fun story that I got you you know work on with Karen and we have done a play together several years earlier so it was nice to really get a chance to work with her again on film
yeah well I just thought it was just cute me about smothering mother and the daughter you know hooking up you know that you're in that encounter I just want to really really a nice I like it now the other one I was looking at with no place is home and that took my interest too because it's like it's about a chance encounter between a teenage boy and a homeless woman
right and that was also out of something real because I worked with somebody that was talking about how he has a skateboarder as a teenager and he would skateboard next to the tent Community it was right after the housing collapse of 2008 and he would talk to the people and what he learned about home and what it means to different people really with a game-changer for him the concept of home it's not in a fairly rude you know over you and so I think him telling me those stories was really inspiring and it took me a number of years to write it at first I envisioned it as a play because that's what I have been writing at the time and then I just thought during the pandemic I thought wow this could be a really good short film to follow up pillow talk pillow talk with a cough
and no place is home is more of a drama and so that's what happened I ended up writing it and we shot it last summer and now we're playing to festivals and and we'll see and you know it really is how this woman who is on house how she expects Ethan the the teenage state border and helped redefine what home needs to have
and I love stories like that I like watching them I like writing and how other people impact other people's lives and that's what I feel like they walk away and both of their lives have been impacted by their chances
well I mean everything I've read that you've done so far has been that way I mean you that's how you've written everything and it's very inspirational
I don't think you so much yeah I love it I just love it it makes me want to read more so I wrote a superhero I wrote a superhero pilot that I don't know if you called she hero and I wrote that with the phone and now I want a couple of awards and that one you know is really like it's like veering into the superhero world was not necessarily something I had thought but I you know all of a sudden I thought you know all these people that are superheroes verrill long to middle-aged women randomly got superhero powers
use them to help people so that's really and it's here it's two women and one is transgender and their best friend from childhood so it's them navigating this new Dynamic of one of the women with formal and mail and then navigating. And then navigating me superhero powers and one of them owns the bar so most of it is set in the bar which is you know really fun environment I feel like for a story so that woman really excited about and how
and I'm about to do another rewrite of it so we'll see how
yeah cuz that was my next question what's next
I think that is honestly she hero to work on that I also I'm in I'm an acting class now with them Glenn morshower amazing actor and he has his Workshop called the extra mile Workshop where it might be worth any he like my other acting teacher so ironic he also had us write seen recently so I wrote this scene I don't know if you know this but some stores have like jail please temporary Gerald where they put shoplifters Herald Square they don't have it anymore but they did for a long time and so I wrote it being about Macy's jail about these two women that
got caught shoplifting and they ended up in Macy's jail and it's just a five-minute little vignette of them what they go through and and people live in loving it and people think it's so funny so that's another thing that might be next for me is figuring out how to translate that cuz the classes on Zoom so we did the scene over zoom and now figuring out okay how do I make its cinematic and translate it into a short sale so that maybe the other thing that's next for me those two things to really focus on those and then if I could say one more it would be in 2021 I did a project called connections365 where I spoke to a different person every single day did not skip a day the whole year and I hit all seven continents including Antarctica actually got someone else
it was a worse doom and I thought that that would be an interesting book what it what is it like it's kind of still up but I even have it on pandemic here to talk to a different person everyday some perfect strangers that I had never met before it is harder than I thought and I'm extremely outgoing person and it was you know it was challenging but wonderful so that would be something also that I really whether I make it in a book or a play or film whatever it ends up being I really do those are probably the three things that I really would like to do in the Verizon well that sounds great I'm excited about all of it
yeah we must also mention on your actions as being an actress you've appeared on God friended me on CBS
yes girl gone the actors temple theater
yeah Ann from Silence of the theater for New York for the New York for the new city theater for the new city so I just wanted to bring that up you got some acting credits for that as well is there anything I've missed that you want to bring up
let's see I mean from Silence is where that was a play about the Holocaust and together so apply play will always be here and here my heart and yeah I mean I'm hoping you know now what I would love like with my acting is to go back and do some more theater you know for a while I think before on the fence some people doing see it or not doing theater and now as much as I love doing film and television I still I come from theater so that's something that you know I think it's important to mention that I really would like to do some more place because there's just something about a live audience it's so thrilling and terrifying and time so I'm hoping
the theater so I would really you know I hope in the next year I get to be in a play again because it's been gone that was literally right before locked out and I haven't done a place in so I would really like to get back to doing some viateur and acting in something as small part in it and now just do some more things that I didn't write Lexus pressure shell
yeah that yeah I can see that so how do you continue a flow of creativity
that is the million-dollar question right for everybody
bright for anything in this world I think or me what else you know I always need to have a to-do list like things that you know what am I chopped what are other things and just make sure I'm always looking at those to make sure that I'm staying I want to work on that I got to get back to that and really would have helped me stay on target with with doing creative things honestly I tell a lot of people about this and I heard about this myself on a writing podcast are you Pomodoro's there like you know timers and the standard Pomodoro is like 25 minutes on 5 minutes off and when you do four of them you get a 30 minute break and I know that sounds so methodical and heavy but it really is what allows me to stay creative
for class I knew I didn't have a lot of time that week so I would just hit the Pomodoro Timer and when you do it it's like you're committing Pomodoro basically says for the next 25 minutes nothing else exists except for the thing that I'm focusing on that I have chosen and so you helped me in a way freak me up because it's like oh my God for the next 25 minutes this is all I have to pay attention to I don't have to worry about any mail I don't have to worry about somebody calling me I'm just doing this and it realize our photos me or actually would freeze you up did be more creative and open
2 of 31
safe Avenue
add to calendar
keep it down
play with me
when they believe
God only knows what they say about you got a lot of killing you but there's a can of God only knows
Asurion
are you
praying through it is it kind of love
play comeback actress Dina Laura Veirs encouraging words of wisdom for up-and-coming performers break
as a veteran you get a lot of advice
but wisdom is harder to come by
a lot of people imagine themselves in our shoes
without understanding the weight on our shoulders
you can understand the pressure of finding your own way after serving in the military
but few isn't none you've got support
you can't control the chaos but you can chart your way through it steady yourself
take a breath
you're not alone
learn more at make the connection. Net
well let me ask you this in what ways do you set yourself apart from others as far as you know of screenwriter
Valerie know you're you're unique I mean by want to hear from you
thank you so much I think for me the main reason I write is to touch other people's lives and I think that is for me what I feel like Separates Me from other people like other people say I have to write if I don't write I feel like I'm dying or whatever version that is the down but for me yes I do like writing but my main purpose is to touch other people's lives and make them think and feel whether and how to make them question something and I do think that is what motivates me every story that I've written so far has been know whether I achieve it or not you have to ask the people that are on the receiving end of the story but that is the goal that I'm trying to accomplish as opposed to
I just want to write pretty words or I you know for me and let me make sure I make an impact on somebody and then I'm going to know that my story because it made a difference in somebody's life and that's why we're in the play I didn't I don't remember anything that anyone told me about my FJ but I still remember that story about on the Rocks so I think for me that's been in the through line of everything I write is it going to touch you and make a difference
yeah well you answered it right you did good happy to hear that all right well let me ask you this before we close OK Google to the youth out there about becoming successful in life
oh well the one thing the number one thing you know I mean Tylenol you know you can take challenge discipline those are all free records I can speak those are all prerequisite but I think
a positive attitude is the most important thing because it's what's going to get you through even in the downtime if you can somehow you know Glenn always says an acting class that extra my workshop things go well for me and he said I know he says it's the most important time to say that is when they're not going I just really just tell yourself that things go well for me and it starts to really sink in and the more you can Embrace that then the times that are low. You become less and less so I think that having the positive attitude is Sookie and the desire because that just keeps pushing Anthony.
voice lessons if you're a singer but what sometimes people leave out of the equation is telling you you have to work on your mindset you know if your mindset isn't there all your talent isn't going to matter because you're not going to be motivated to use it so I think the mindset is the most important thing and to always work on that and it can be as simple as taking a walk whatever it is that gives you Joy and likes you up you should make sure you do one thing like that every single day it really helped you know your mindset get into the right place so that you're ready to work
and what do you believe in yourself solutely right absolutely great advice yes thank you yes absolutely this is been great I have to stay a great interview and I just want to thank you so much for being a guest on the bed Moore Show
we didn't thank you for having me yes and thank you you're very welcome and we wish you continued success from here on out
that's our show for this week I hope you enjoyed my interview with Dina Lara known for appearing and CBS network TV series God friended me is also known for her performance on stage and is he at Circle play girl gone as a writer her plays have been produced at theaters across the United States continued success thank you for listening to the Bev Moore Show broadcasting on DBS Radio on the iHeart Network worldwide us until next time bye bye
yeah that's like the ocean yeah the voices in your head you don't really know how
always a smile to myself you don't need you don't need to trash
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Subaru
I don't want
you don't have to hit up to you
stop.