Matt Croke

I Survived Theatre School

Interview: TikToks about terrible haircuts, Chris Noth, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Ringling Bros Clown College, Notre Dame High School, Steve Smith, Oakton Community College, being the youngest clown in the circus, clowning in Japan, Piven Theatre workshop, Auguste clownery, Reduced Shakespeare Company, losing his wife to cancer, Sebastian Maniscalco, Second City, The By Your Side Autism Podcast, Yes And.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
1 (8s):
I'm Jen Bosworth from

2 (9s):
Eunice and I'm Gina Polizzi.

1 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all

1 (21s):
Theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet?

3 (31s):
Hello? Hello. Hello survivors. Happy new year. Happy 2022. What is going to happen to us in 2022? It is truly a crapshoot. It is anybody's guess it literally could be anything with this could be the year of yet more plagues. We could have locusts. We could have cow mad cow member, mad cows. We have some more mad cows we could have just seriously like a Chinese throwing stars falling from the sky. Literally could be anything. So, you know, what are we going to do? We're going to hope for the best prepare for the worst. Is that what it's called? Is that what they say? Yeah. Anyway. So for today, for the beginning, part of our episode, we're giving you, but I hope you'll see as a special treat, which is a look back at some previously, what do they call it?

3 (1m 23s):
Lost footage. Is it footage if it's audio? Hmm. I don't know. Well, footage came from video in any case it had to do with film. So you have so audio footage. Sure. Audio footage back from the days before this was called, I survived theater school and we were calling the podcast undeniable. I mean, we recorded a bunch of episodes of that, which have never been aired. And so we thought it'd be fun to take a little sneak peek back at those old days that we recorded actually in 2020, the year that was, will live in and to, and we're gonna play some of it for you tonight. And then after that, we have a fabulous interview with our first ever clown, Matt croak.

3 (2m 7s):
So please enjoy

1 (2m 20s):
The wire is like a parental figure for me. It's the weirdest thing. He is so complicated, but also really true to himself. But anyway, I just posted about like that, those characters and that, and that, and that trueness to themselves is what I love about television. It's like this character is true to themselves. They're whatever that means to them. You know, like it doesn't always look pretty.

2 (2m 49s):
Yes. And, and television has the opportunity to show a lot more of the, the nitty gritty of the reality of a life in a movie. Everything. I mean, I guess if you're just taking a one slice one day in the life of maybe you could get down to that level of detail, but mostly a movie is just sort of giving a grand and often very positive spin on, you know, if the person is not as layered as they can

1 (3m 20s):
And it's not yet to be, it's not as, it's not as like it's it's. Yeah. It's just, there's not enough time. You're like, wait a second. We just had enough time. But yeah.

2 (3m 31s):
So what did your parents make of you watching that stuff?

1 (3m 34s):
They thought I was like nuts. They were like, you're making yourself scared. And I, and I want it to be like, no, you're making me scared. I, this is comforting me. You know what I mean? Like this, I didn't have control over, but I didn't say that obviously I'm a kid, but I, they thought it was weird. Yeah. They thought it was really weird because I would get into America's most wanted was on the same night as unsolved mysteries, I think. And then, and then once we got cable and or once it also like, kind of merged into like big foot UFO. Oh yeah. I got a two foot UFO's all that stuff.

2 (4m 15s):
Well, I think people who get into that or people who feel also on the fringe of whatever, the thing that they're trying to be a part of is right. And it makes perfect, right? Yeah, yeah.

1 (4m 27s):
Yeah. I left. I believed in big foot. I remember watching the California big foot tape that old 70 something, which is interesting. Cause that's around the Kiki time. There's that famous? There's a famous, famous, famous caught on tape. 1970. I want to say eight or nine in Redlands, somewhere in California. And it I'm pretty sure. And it's the sky. You got to look it up. It's the creepiest. And they still can't. They, they can't disprove it and they can't, they can't. And they're like, no, it's, it's a fake, but it is, it is the quintessential Bigfoot movie. It was caught on movie and film.

1 (5m 8s):
And I remember seeing that and be like, oh my God, that's real. That's that's real. And things exist outside of us that we have no, like universes exists multiuniverse is exists. That we are not approving the privy to, until we stumble upon it.

2 (5m 33s):
Did I tell you about the, when I first saw the warehouse that I lived in with Jeff and Rob and booklet?

1 (5m 41s):
No, but I thought of you the other day, because someone we live near a street called Oakland. Yeah.

2 (5m 47s):
So just briefly, you know, my whole plan to move to California after DePaul was with this person who I was calling my boyfriend, who was definitely my boy who told me like, yeah, I want to move to California. And so my interpretation was we are moving to California together and it was so devastated when he didn't want to do it. So on the quick I had to find a place to live and I don't remember why maybe I called Jeff because they were, I knew he was there. He was like, he was there. Who was planning to go there? Or he was there already. And he was like, yeah, we need a roommate. Do you want to come live in Oakland? Never been to Oakland in my life.

2 (6m 27s):
Never met, Rob didn't know anything about it. And so the day I'm moving in, my dad is driving me from Sacramento and he's driving a big pickup truck and we start to get into Oak I'm he already was like, Oakland, are you sure? Cause my dad's fucking racist and we start driving it and we start getting too. It's like first it looks pretty nice. That was a little scary. Does anybody live here? Because it was all warehouses. It was all that first wave of gentrification of, you know, people turning warehouses into lofts.

2 (7m 7s):
And when we finally pulled up, you know, inside, I'm dying, but I'm saying to my dad, this looks great. This looks awesome. My dad's like, are you sure you want, do you want to just, we can just turn right around and go home. So I get out and kno...