Talking With Jana Wimer – September 18, 2023

Ira Sternberg: "I was planning something scary this Halloween, such as going without a mask, but I think there's something scarier going on with my guest, so I shall defer to her. Jana Wimer, director and co-writer of 'Abandon,' opening October 5th at the Vegas Theater Company in the Vegas Arts District. 'Abandon' presents a scary journey through a Paris asylum in the 1800s. There are 7 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. performances from October 5th through the 31st, and guests must be 17 years or older. For ticket information, go to theater.vegasabandon. And you can follow 'Abandon' on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And Jana, welcome to the show."

Jana Wimer: "Thanks for having me."

Ira Sternberg: "So, what is it with you and horror?"

Jana Wimer: "That's a good question. You know, for as long as I can remember, I've loved horror. I blame it on growing up in Fresno, California."

Ira Sternberg: "Okay, that explains it all. A little bit, yeah. Only kidding, Fresno. I meant Stockton. No, I'm kidding about the only thing worse in Fresno was Bakersfield. Sorry, she said it, I didn't. Okay, uh, there was this channel, 26 KMPH, of course, there is, yeah. Noon on Saturdays, they had action theater, and they would show these awesome horror films. So, I'd get up on Saturdays, and I'd watch cartoons, of course, you know, Bugs Bunny, Chuck Jones is my greatest hero. And then noon, I'd watch like three hours of horror films. And I, I, I blame KMPH, really."

Ira Sternberg: "But now, this may be, you may be too young for this, but since you said Channel 26, from my generation, that's UHF. From your generation, maybe cable. So, which one is it in your case?"

Jana Wimer: "Oh no, I've never had cable."

Ira Sternberg: "Oh, okay, so it was UHF. All right, very good. Yeah, I can see how that would bend your mind a little bit. But what further bent your mind as you moved to Hollywood?"

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, well, I was well into horror before I moved to Hollywood. No, right, but that further bent it, I guess, is what I'm saying. That was kind of an attempt at humor, which once again fails on my show whenever I try. Now, uh, going to LA, I met up with a… I started doing theater at a place called Zombie Joe's Underground. And he came to me in like 2005 and was like, 'Hey, we should create a horror show.' And like horror and theater, I mean, those were my two loves, so I was like, 'Okay.' And so we created a show called 'Urban Death,' which has developed quite the cult following. I mean, if you're in LA, go see 'Urban Death: Tour of Terror' this Halloween. It's unlike any other haunt out there."

Ira Sternberg: "Well, we do have listeners and viewers from all over the world, so if you're in LA, go to see 'Urban Death,' is what you are saying."

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, Zombie Joe's Underground. And, um, so I really got to develop my directing skills, my creating horror skills in LA. So that's what happened in LA."

Ira Sternberg: "How much is the horror moderated by humor in your case, whenever you're directing something?"

Jana Wimer: "A lot. Like, my real passion is actually, like, I… what I really want to do is family-friendly horror, like children's horror."

Ira Sternberg: "Is there such a genre?"

Jana Wimer: "There is now. I mean, okay, excellent theater. So I did 'Urban Death,' which is very adult. Right, so 'Urban Death' is my show that runs out of LA, that I did in South Africa, we took it to Edinburgh Fringe, we took it to New York, and it's very adult. Like, we really go there. And then a few years ago, I was like, 'I want to do 'Urban Death' for kids.' And I did it, it was so much fun. There's something about rules and boundaries that, for me, makes the creative process more interesting. You know, when they're like, 'Do whatever you want,' I'm like, 'I freeze. I don't know.' But you're like, 'Oh, you can't show boobs, so you know, you can't, no sex, no, you know, none of that, no blood.' So you can be, you can be a boob, you just can't show a boob."

Ira Sternberg: "Yeah, I get you. Okay, fair enough. But yeah, for me, I always try to put a lot of humor in my shows because I mean, you kind of need that release, that cathartic kind of release. And, you know, making people laugh, that's like almost like the purest form of entertainment in a way. Like, it's so… and especially as a live performer, it's just instant. You instantly know if you're doing it right because people are laughing, you know. So humor is a big, big part of what I do. That, like, horror comedy is my favorite thing to direct."

Ira Sternberg: "So how did you decide now to get involved in this project called 'Abandon'? And as I mentioned earlier, you're not only the director, but you're also the co-writer of it as well. And again, this is over at the Vegas Theater Company in the Vegas Arts District, and starting October 5th. How did that come about? How did the project start?"

Jana Wimer: "Well, one of the producers, Bob Bowinkle, was my high school drama teacher."

Ira Sternberg: "Wait a minute, is that a real name? Bob Bowinkle?"

Jana Wimer: "He's 68 too, so okay, because I know of Rocky and Bullwinkle, that's why I was asking the question."

Ira Sternberg: "Okay, that's his real name, Bob Bullwinkle. Okay, uh, he was my high school drama teacher. I mean, the reason I'm in theater, he was, he was, I think he won like teacher of the year in California at one point. He was just an incredible teacher. And, uh, we stayed close all these years, and he came to see 'Urban Death,' and was just blown away. He thought theater was dead, you know, and he saw 'Urban Death,' and he was like, 'I had, you know, this is the coolest thing I've seen."

Jana Wimer: "in 30 years or so. So he wanted to get involved. But rather than do 'Urban Death,' he wanted to do something where he could be creatively involved with the project. So we took some elements of 'Urban Death' because 'Urban Death' is very… it's a wordless show. There are blackouts that are completely black, so the lights go out, you can't see anything, the lights come up, and you see a little disturbing moment in time. It could be sad, funny, gross, scary, any of those things, poignant. And then the lights go out, and the lights come up, and you see another one. That happens like 45 times in an hour."

Ira Sternberg: "That's a lot."

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, okay. I hate to be overly technical, but that's the way my mind occasionally functions. You mentioned that it goes totally black when the lights are off, but you still have to see the exit signs, right?"

Ira Sternberg: "Oh sure, yeah, yeah, okay. All right. I'm just checking, of course. Just in case something scares you, and you want to exit, you have to know where to go. I thought I would check that with you. Okay, of course, comply with all the laws. Now, I don't want to imply anything with this question, but going back to Fresno for just a second, were you, yes, were you a nerd in high school?"

Jana Wimer: "Oh, I was a nerd before being a nerd was cool. Actually, being a girl nerd, like, you know, so yeah, I'm like old school nerd. My real love is sci-fi. People know I do all this horror, but sci-fi is where it's really at for me."

Ira Sternberg: "Can you combine those two genres, horror and sci-fi, for your next project?"

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, I would love to. I actually did a dark sci-fi adaptation of 'The Tempest.' Because I was watching a production of 'The Tempest,' and I was like, 'This is boring. Why is Prospero considered a good guy?' He's totally abusing these poor indigenous people, enslaving them. So I did this whole dark sci-fi adaptation. I totally used all Shakespeare's words, but I moved stuff around, and like everybody died at the end. All everyone."

Ira Sternberg: "Oh, comedy. Okay, I could see that. Sure. Now, you mentioned you're one co-writer, but there's another co-writer of 'Abandon,' right? Tell us about that person."

Jana Wimer: "Abel Horwitz. I met him in LA. He came to see 'Urban Death' and was blown away and was like, 'I want to get involved.' He was very involved in 'The Haunt: Tour of Terror.' When we went to Edinburgh, he was the one that did all the hard work of finding a venue, the marketing, finding a place to live while we were there. And then he and I, we were also hired to do an immersive experience for the Paramount lot. It never got greenlit, but we created a whole immersive experience."

Ira Sternberg: "That's a great idea, now that I think of it. Any of the movie picture studios to have an immersive experience."

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, it all happened, and then COVID hit, and so it kind of put the brakes on all that. But we wrote it, we sold it, and it's there. Perhaps someday they'll pull it off the shelf. So I had worked with Abel several times, and he's a great producer. He's willing to do all the work I don't want to do."

Ira Sternberg: "Do you think you could convince him to use 'Bodied' as a middle name? Abel 'Bodied' Horwitz?"

Jana Wimer: "No, 'Bodied' as a middle name. No, I don't think so."

Ira Sternberg: "I know, thank you for at least getting it. At this point, I'm sorry. That's it. I'm done with the humor for the rest of the conversation. So anyway, the three of you got together, and you put this together, right? So everybody got along. What tell us a little bit about the collaborative process and how the finished product looks to you so our audience gets a sense of it. I hinted at it in terms of the Asylum, but can you give us a little bit more of what this is? Is it a scary journey through a Paris asylum in the 1800s?"

Jana Wimer: "It is a sexy, kinky horror show. I like that word, 'kinky.' You know, the Marquis de Sade, I don't know if you're familiar with the Marquis de Sade. You seem like a man who's familiar."

Ira Sternberg: "Well, I've been whipped into shape by my wife, so okay, I think I probably am. So, uh, we, you know, we wanted to do something specifically for Vegas because Bob has been coming to Vegas since the 70s."

Jana Wimer: "1870s or 1970s?"

Ira Sternberg: "He's been coming to Vegas for many years. And I wanted to do something outside of LA. So we wanted to kind of do something that we thought would do well in Vegas, and sexy seems to do well in Vegas."

Jana Wimer: "Yes, correct. It has for decades. Now, the show stars Joshua Berg, yes, and I'm not gonna even attempt to pronounce the co-star's name. Perhaps you can do it. Is it Julia?"

Ira Sternberg: "Julia, although it's not spelled as Julia, which is why I was having trouble with it. And it's Pante, I think."

Jana Wimer: "Oh, good. All right. So you're having problems too. I probably… She's Italian. She's from Italy. She's a cirque performer."

Ira Sternberg: "Excellent. They're both very good performers, and I hope I didn't butcher her name, or you butchered her name. One of the two. Probably, yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're, although they are probably the most featured in the show, it's very much an ensemble show. So it's a cast of 10."

Jana Wimer: "Nice. Josh is playing the Marquis de Sade. So in that respect, he's kind of the lead, but it's still very much an ensemble show. And the whole cast is amazing. It's all locals. It's all Vegas locals."

Ira Sternberg: "And we're not gonna dissuade visitors from coming to see you when they're in town."

Jana Wimer: "So we're really hoping to… We want to bridge that gap between locals and the tourists. Like, we want tourists to come to the Arts District. It's really cool here, you know. There's so much to do and see, and with Uber and stuff, I feel like it's easy now to just hop in a hired car and come to the Arts District. It's not that far."

Ira Sternberg: "No, it's not. No, it's a wonderful area, and people should go if they haven't seen it yet. They should go to the Arts District in downtown Las Vegas. Part of the production also involves sound and music. So tell us a little bit about that component."

Jana Wimer: "Yes, yes. So we have Joseph Bishara doing our soundtrack. He has done the soundtrack to all the 'Conjuring' movies, the 'Annabelle' movies, the 'Insidious' movies, a lot of the James Wan movies. He's considered one of the top horror film composers. And then our sound design is done by Katie Halliday. She's won an Emmy, I think maybe she's won more than one Emmy, but she recently won an Emmy for season four of 'Stranger Things,' which is very exciting for me because I thought the sound on that last season was just really cool. So, the sound, because there is no dialogue and there are moments of pitch blackness, sound is a whole another character in the show. So it's very exciting to have them on board."

Ira Sternberg: "Sound is important to a lot of productions. People don't think about that, but it is very important to communicate emotion, scene changes, etc. And I'm delighted that you have this kind of quality of people that are involved in terms of composing and sound design. So, the plot is that this is a scary journey through a Paris asylum in the 1800s. Which is the scariest part? Paris, the Asylum, or the 1800s? Or is it all three?"

Jana Wimer: "Thank you for laughing. I think, well, although it takes place in the 1800s, it's also kind of timeless. For me, it's really about being persecuted for being who you are. You know, like how you couldn't really be gay, or trans, or have postpartum depression, or any of that without being thrown in the asylum, without, you know, so it's really about the timelessness of mental health and the freedom to be your authentic self."

Ira Sternberg: "Would you be thrown in the asylum if you just went around trick-or-treating at that period of time in Paris?"

Jana Wimer: "I don't know, when did trick-or-treating come around? I don't know, and that may just be an American invention. I'd have to research it. I feel like it might be mostly an American thing."

Ira Sternberg: "Did you trick-or-treat in Fresno?"

Jana Wimer: "Are you kidding me? Trick-or-treating is like the greatest thing on the planet. Like, I want to be a kid just so I can go trick-or-treating. It's the best."

Ira Sternberg: "It is, it is. Sorry, I got sidetracked, but I was just curious about that, whether you did it or not. It made sense. Oh yeah, yeah. So, how long did the project take to, from beginning to end, to put together, and to the point where you were satisfied, as the perfectionist that you are, in the genre of horror and weird stuff?"

Jana Wimer: "Oh, am I ever satisfied? That's the question. Well, that's a separate philosophical question we can get to in the second hour, but for now, uh, when did we start? It's been, I think, about a year and a half is when we… no, it's been longer than that. A little bit longer than that. No, we started writing like a year and a half ago, and we're still changing the script here and there. I believe that theater is always a work in progress until that final curtain drops. I'm one of those directors that will be giving notes forever."

Ira Sternberg: "Did you end up doing rehearsals in Los Angeles first and then move it up here, or how did that work?"

Jana Wimer: "We did a workshop in LA with some of my actors that I've worked with a lot, that have done 'Urban Death' numerous times. So we did a workshop with just an invite-only audience, just to see how it flowed, like a read-through essentially. Because since there's no dialogue, a read-through doesn't really work. It's all visual. And so we did that, and that helped a lot. That was great. That made it very clear what was working and what wasn't working. And we're still figuring that out, you know. Sometimes when it's in your brain, it's one thing, and then when you see it, sometimes it doesn't look like it looked like in your brain, so you gotta rethink it."

Ira Sternberg: "I gather from what you said that there's no dialogue, it's all silent except for obviously the sound, which is important."

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, and it's not… I mean, there's vocalizations. You know, they can use their voice, but there's no words. So this could translate into a global audience."

Ira Sternberg: "That is our goal, yeah, is to have it playing all over the world. And also, as a perennial, so in other words, you could play it every Halloween, or you could play it on an ongoing basis."

Jana Wimer: "Yeah, to me, it's not… the show isn't about Halloween. Horror is a year-round thing."

Ira Sternberg: "Well, for you, it is, in your life, for all those poor nerds. But I think it's good timing to have it right before Halloween, so that's a good… yeah, people have it in their brain, like the non-horror nerds, that's when they go do scary stuff, want to see scary stuff. You're around, right? You mentioned it transcends horror, really. It's… there's a lot of poignant stuff. It's very… it's not just scary, scary, scary. It will really make you think and feel, and so even like people who aren't into horror will come and see it, and they'll feel something, and they'll connect with something with it. It's all about making a connection with the audience, partnering with their imagination. I'm a big believer of we don't have to show you everything. We can just hint at something, and then your brain will fill it in. Because normally, what's going on in your head is probably a lot scarier than what we could show you. So we just lead you there and let you do the rest."

Ira Sternberg: "You mentioned that as a director, you're always going to be tweaking, and rightly so. Do your co-writers feel the same way? Do they attend a performance and then they take notes and say, 'You know what, we need to revise the script here or add a note here?' Or is it just your perfectionism that is at the forefront of it all?"

Ira Sternberg: "No, it's all of us. Yeah, we're all kind of in that mindset of just always wanting to improve things and fix things and just make it better."

Ira Sternberg: "You mentioned, and it's ambitious, you have a cast of 10. So, to mount this on a multi-venue situation, that's a big cast, plus you have technical people and… If it ever expands to that point where you're in multiple cities, as I was trying to say earlier, or around the world, is there… Do any of the cast members double up and play other characters, or is it just 10 people no matter how you slice it?"

Jana Wimer: "Um, there might be ways to get that down, but as it's written right now, most of the characters are just playing one character. There are some people that are playing more than one character. We have puppeteers, a couple more like puppeteers. There are puppets. There's some… I'm a big puppet person. I've studied with The Muppets, and…"

Ira Sternberg: "And you like pulling the strings, so of course, you're gonna… Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. I thought I wasn't going to do those puns anymore, but it just came out."

Jana Wimer: "I like it. I like the idea of puppets. That's great. And you don't have to pay them any more money, the puppets, I mean."

Ira Sternberg: "Oh, right, right. Anyway, when you look at the presentation of the production, is there a story arc, or is there a highlight, or is it all just kind of nonlinear?"

Jana Wimer: "There is an arc. There is a story arc, but it's also nonlinear. It's, for the most part, people are playing the same characters, so you're seeing the people in the asylum. But you're also seeing the stuff that is going on through de Sade's imagination because, in real life, de Sade was in prison or an asylum for like 35 years of his life, and he did most of his writing in the asylum. So that was our big inspiration: 'Okay, he's in there writing, what is he writing?' So we kind of see some of that, but then we're also seeing what's actually going on in there."

Ira Sternberg: "My mind just went blank."

Jana Wimer: "It's okay. But I was surprised that they even gave him paper and a quill in an asylum because he could hurt himself or others. So that's fascinating that he could actually write in that environment."

Ira Sternberg: "Yeah, to be a fly on the wall in the 1700s… You know, he was an instigator in the French Revolution. He was at the Bastille, and like, he was taken out only a day or two before they stormed the Bastille. And, you know, he would shout out the window and get people riled up. So we have all that kind of in the show."

Jana Wimer: "I like it. What's the… This may be a cliché question, but I have to ask it. The biggest takeaway for your audience, what would you like your audience to take away from watching 'Abandon'? And again, it's at the Vegas Theater Company in the Vegas Arts District, starting October 5th."
"I want them to go… I want them to be inspired to go see more theater. I mean, we're unlike anything else in Vegas. I've been going to see a lot of shows, and there's a lot of the circus variety shows, there's a lot of that. But there's nothing like us. And because there's no dialogue, I feel like people go to theater, and then it's like a lot of time it's just people talking at each other. I want people to go, 'Oh, I didn't know theater could be like this. I'm gonna have to go see more theater.' And hopefully, all the other theater companies will step up."

Ira Sternberg: "Well, that's a great way to leave it. My guest has been Jana Wimer. She is director and co-writer of 'Abandon,' opening October 5th at the Vegas Theater Company in the Vegas Arts District. 'Abandon' presents a scary journey through a Paris asylum in the 1800s. There are 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. performances from October 5th through the 31st, and guests must be 17 years or older. For ticket information, go to theater.vegasabandon. And you can follow 'Abandon' on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Jana, thanks for being on the show."

Jana Wimer: "Thank you for having me. It was lovely meeting you."

Ira Sternberg: "Same here. See you next time."