Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Mia Schachter

[laughs]

Mm-hmm.

Jamie, what's your history with the movie? Um, I had seen it once before, and it was such a great experience seeing it the first time that I feel like I haven't returned to it because I, I think I had a really optimal first experience with Hedwig.

But Mia, to echo you, I was also a huge Rent kid.

[laughs]

Like, I, yeah, I remember when, I think Rent closed on Broadway when I was in middle school, and I lived in Massachusetts, and me and my [laughs] my best friends, who were also twins, who were obsessed with Rent-

[laughs]

... we, like, devised a plan to go.

I just, it was like a big part of my childhood, and also, you know, I, I think a, a lot of kids, you know, like found Rent, and it opened up all these other doors.

And I think Hedwig, for many of those same kids, is one of the-

Mm-hmm

... first doors you encounter.

You kind of graduate from being a Rent child, and then you become a Hedwig teen maybe.

Totally.

But I, I don't know why, but I, it took me a long time to see Hedwig, and the first time I saw it was in a basement in Indiana-

[laughs]

... early into touring as a standup, and it was just, like, this awesome standup community in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

It was, like, this big pocket of queer comics, and, um, I just remember I was crashing with someone, and they were like, "Oh, we're gonna have a bunch of people over and watch Hedwig." And so it was like, it was optimal.

I saw Hedwig in a room full of-

Mm

... like, former Hedwig teens who were so stoked that I had never seen it.

It felt, and we'll talk about all of the ways that Hedwig is in conversation with Rocky Horror, but it felt sort of like the experience of seeing Rocky Horror for the first time, where it was just like-

Mm

... you know, f- for, for positive reasons, and reasons that are more complicated.

But-