[Podcast] Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs
One day this summer, Lemonada Media’s Stephanie Wittels Wachs received a surprise: an invitation to the White House, because of the emotional impact of her hit show, Last Day. Come with us on her raw, sad, funny, intimate journey to make “A Love Story,” her favorite episode. Don’t miss this behind-the-scenes look at a creative process informed by love and courage.
Please note: This episode discusses guns and suicide.
Stephanie Wittels Wachs is a longtime actor, voice-over artist, theater teacher, author and the co-founder, with Jessica Cordova Cramer, of Lemonada Media. Last Day is only one of Lemonada’s 30-plus podcasts and growing. Wittels Wachs and Cordova Cramer founded Lemonada three years ago. Its tag line matches Stephanie’s personality: Humanity. Unfiltered.
Scroll down for details about the episode featured in this show as well as credits and links.
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How to tell emotional narratives: Stephanie’s takeaways
Find a champion.
How do you find people willing to share deeply personal stories? You need what Stephanie calls a “credible messenger,” to show you the ropes and introduce you to people. The couple featured on “A Love Story” live in Montana, where it is commonplace to own guns. Stephanie’s a Californian and a gun control advocate. She feared she’d have difficulty finding people willing to share their most personal stories – or even talk to her at all.She was right. “We had a lot of trouble tracking down people to talk to us in Montana. To be honest, it took many, many months,” she said.
She and her team started their research with a call to the head of mental health for Montana’s Department of Health and Human Services. He was nothing if not blunt.
“Carl said, ‘You're going to have to fix your poker face before you come into Montana or no one's going to talk to you,’” Stephanie said. “And we kept that in. We wanted to show everyone there's barrier to entry. And if we came in with [the stance that] you shouldn't have guns, we would not get anywhere. So he culturally put us through the wringer.”
Stephanie and he team didn’t default to a neutral, detached stance, one that would be expected of journalists parachuting in to tell a story. Instead, they took an active approach of non-judgmental curiosity. “Once he could see that we were down to not come in and tell everyone the way that they should live their lives,” Stephanie said, “He opened the gate and connected us to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Montana.” Eventually, through numerous conversations with foundation members, they got to know Larry and Shannon, the protagonists of “A Love Story.”Be curious. Frame your story around a central question. “I'm a central question psychopath… I'm always saying, okay, but what's the question? What are we trying to figure out? What's the point? That's really critical to any storytelling, but I think it [emerges] over time. And it's so baked into the process of revision and collaboration. And you know when you’ve found it… If the episode isn't working, it's typically because you haven't nailed down what that central question is.”
To be vulnerable on tape, you need at least one partner who encourages vulnerability. Stephanie relies on her team of skilled and sensitive producers. “I am used to collaborating very deeply and closely and trusting one another through that process. I don't know how I would do this with a team I didn't trust and feel safe with. The show is a real team sport.”
To help a host be authentic in front of a mic, give them permission to have feelings. “Gloria Rivera [host of No One’s Coming to Save Us and a veteran news broadcaster] was doing tracking…using her broadcast voice. And I was like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, that microphone hates that. Let's shake that off. We're gonna play this tape. Can you just listen to this woman talking about how hard it is for her to juggle a newborn with a toddler with her own job? And I know you've experienced some of that yourself. And can you just close your eyes and then respond to it, just however you feel. And Gloria…she's so full of heart and soul and vulnerability herself. Once she had that permission, she started crying. And she started talking about her own experience having to go to war zones with little kids at home, and how painful that was for her to have to balance. And we kept that as the first moment of the first episode.”
Have fun making the show. It shows. “We have fun making the show, and that feels important, because it’s real dark.” (Elaine’s note: If you’re not having fun, it might be time to reevaluate how you’re creating it, what you’re creating, and whether to continue.)
Great storytelling is built on truth, contrast, and unexpected turns — or why Stephanie led an episode about suicide with a scene of her team whooping it up at a shooting range. “I had never understood how hunting could bring somebody joy until I shot a gun that morning. I had a ton of fun. Seven hours later, we were in a living room talking to a family who lost their son. Because he took his life with a hunting rifle. I didn't know how else to tell that story honestly… And I always [pleading with my team] ‘show not tell, show not tell!’ And the way that we showed it was to have fun shooting the guns. And then let's see the pain that this causes. You have to have both of those to understand the issue.”
To make a gripping narrative podcast, use scenes, as often as possible (but only good ones) “This is the theater part, right? It's about character and it's about humanity and that's the stuff we try to capture, right? What are the human things about you? And what are the human things about me? And then when we put those things in a room together, human things happen. And that's interesting.”
Make choices about the quantity of your narration on a case-by-case basis. “We typically have a lot of tracking in these episodes. And we made a very conscious choice with this one to keep a lot of the conversation intact. They were so honest, and we had this really amazing moment together. And let's just try to keep a lot of that together. And take me as narrator out as much as we could…A lot of our episodes are seven voices…really woven together and patchworked.”
A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers. We will strive to give credit to producers whenever it’s possible to do so.
The episode: A Love Story
Executive Producers: Jessica Cordova Cramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs
Supervising Producer: Jackie Danziger
Producers: Kagan Zema and Giulia Hjort
Associate Producers: Hannah Boomershine and Erianna Jiles
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Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Project Manager: Tina Bassir
Sound Designer: Andrew Parella
Illustrator: Sarah Edgell
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