INTERVIEW: New podcast welcomes listeners to mysterious L.A.
Photo: An image from “No Casanova,” an episode from A Garden of Terrible Blooms by Sharon Yablon. Photo courtesy of Josh Kolodny / Provided by press site with permission.
Los Angeles has always served as ample inspiration to writers and artists. There’s the unparalleled history, the vast number of interesting individuals and communities, the uncommon terrain of mountains and oceanside, the winding freeways and swaying palm tree leaves. It’s real, it’s mysterious, it’s one-of-a-kind, and it has served as the residential and poetic home of theater artist Sharon Yablon her entire life.
Yablon, a native of Los Angeles, is an award-winning director and writer who has made lemonade out of these hard pandemic months. When live theater was shut down, and seemingly her inspiration cut off, she collaborated with friends and started to present her creativity in audio form. The result is A Garden of Terrible Blooms, an original podcast featuring Yablon’s audio plays. The latest episode is called “Dear Marie,” which joins nine other mini-adventures in the City of Angels, each one covering a different neighborhood and tucked-away corner of the metropolis.
The project began for Yablon when she started collaborating with her neighbor, a musician and sound designer.
“I wanted to do radio plays,” Yablon said in a recent phone interview. “So I talked to him, and we did one. And then the pandemic hit, and it was such a strange world. There was no more theater. There was no more contact, and I started to want to do more of these. And I just felt so isolated, and doing these was like having voices whisper into your ear. It was kind of like a secret friend. It really helped me along during the pandemic, so we did a couple together. And then he got really busy, and I know a lot of musicians. So I was able to work with other people, and it’s been so collaborative this whole time. It’s really kept me connected, even though we weren’t really seeing each other in person.”
Each episode is unique, and the podcast does not have to be experienced chronologically. One segment, for example, is called “The Last Transmission” and deals with a police helicopter hovering over Griffith Park. Another one, “The Grim Sleeper,” centers on a drifter and lost girl in an alleyway. “Nothing Good Happens After Midnight” was inspired by the infamous Hillside Strangler murders.
“It’s kind of like the wild west,” Yablon said about the production of each episode. “Each one is different. … I’ve had musicians who were able to record us remotely or in person, and once I had an actor come over here for one of the plays that was a monologue. And we wrapped him in a blanket, and he recorded on Zoom. And that luckily got an audio file that was good enough to use, so that was another way. Each time has been different, and luckily I do know a lot of people that I can ask for help.”
Yablon freely admitted that she loves and hates her often-misunderstood city. She recognizes there’s a lot of wonder and strangeness, and she has explored these themes over the course of her many years as a playwright.
“I realize that [these plays] all took place in different parts of Los Angeles,” she said. “It really is a character in my work, and a lot of the plays took place at night. There’s something about the night. The rules are different. There’s that magic time between 3 and 5 o’clock in the morning where it seems like anything can happen, and so I just thought it would be really fun to put together something with different locations in Los Angeles and not necessarily the tourist spots or the obvious ones, but what’s behind that corner or what’s up that hill type of thing. I actually go on a lot of walks, so I’m always discovering things. There are strange things behind corners, and that’s kind of the locations that I wanted to spotlight. I’ll think about who I may find there, and that’s where I get the characters.”
Yablon also said that she wants to break listeners from their preconceived notions about the city and its purported “weird reputation.” Visitors who come for a short time, or even people who have never visited, believe the city has a lot of superficiality, and they might focus on the traffic or urban sprawl, but Yablon sees poetry and potential.
“Los Angeles does have a particular kind of loneliness because we are in cars a lot, and because it’s so spread out, it almost feels at times like you might find something undiscovered,” she said. “I’m always getting lost in Los Angeles, even though I’m from here, but I think the loneliness that I write about also is kind of universal because I think we all want to connect with people. We all have shame and horror, things that we’re afraid to show to people, fear and vulnerabilities, and I think everyone can kind of relate to that. When I look at my plays, I think most of them are just about wanting to connect and unlikely connections between people and how those can kind of disappear as well, sort of the mystery of connection. I guess L.A. does have this certain kind of wonder and loneliness that you feel here, so people that live here will kind of recognize that I think.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
A Garden of Terrible Blooms, written and directed by Sharon Yablon, is an ongoing podcast series. The latest episode is called “Dear Marie.” Click here for more information.
