Not only does the APAC remount of MilkMilkLemonade reconnect the original cast, but it also reconnected me with college friend, Andy Phelan, who plays Emory. (Grab yourself some tickets. Show ends Nov. 13th, 2010)

Andy is one of my favorite people. So it was a pleasure to catch up with him and talk MilkMilkLemonade.

HOW DOES IT FEEL STEPPING BACK INTO MILKMILKLEMONADE WITH THE REST OF THE CAST?

It’s feels amazing. I didn’t know that we’d ever get to do it again. It was so much fun the first time that just the mention of it was completely exciting. I love that it’s the five of us together again. We just had a big love fest the first time and it would have felt really weird if anything was different. So it’s been awesome to work with them. It’s a really great play and it’s sad that it didn’t get seen by as many people. So it’s exciting that more people will get to see it and see Josh’s work. He needs to be seen.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE MILKMILKLEMONADE SCRIPT?

I love that Josh goes places that you just don’t see very often. And it just somehow magically works when he does it. Probably no other writer could write a talking chicken, even a narrator on stage doing stupid things, that would work as well as it does and still get his message across. He’s playing with gender and a lot of bullying issues. Even cancer. It would just be easy to write a straight forward play. And I think that happens all the time. But this gets across a stronger message in a roundabout, awkward way.

Another thing that this play does well, is that it’s not so much about these things or these issues. It’s about your memories of these issues. It’s bright colored and very childlike, not necessarily childish. You’re seeing things from what’s important from a little kid, who is growing up around these issues. What details stick with you the rest of your life? It’s sort of a memory play without actually being that at all. It’s Josh’s memories. It’s like when you see a play you know the writer, you kinda wonder who’s the writer in the play, I think that [Josh] is easily all five characters. Easily. There’s no question that he’s only one-fifth Emory. He’s just as much Linda as he is Lady in a Leotard.

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU COMING INTO MILKMILKLEMONADE THIS TIME AROUND?

Adapting it to a whole new set is challenging. It’s exciting. Before we were basically on a 9 X 9 flat surface, a piece of astroturf, which was cool. But it’s sort of a challenge to take what it was in this little setting and then put it up in something that’s more interesting and dynamic in terms of design. I love that Jason [Simms] also designed this because he’s clearly genius at whatever he does and can make something that works. I trust whatever he does.

I also feel like the play was kinda ahead of it’s time when we did it [in 2009] in terms of the bullying issue because. Obviously it’s always been a problem that affects people forever, but suddenly it’s like a big hot button issue right now. Kids are dying everywhere and bullying is suddenly in the forefront of news, which never happens.

As sad as it is that all that stuff has happened it’s kind of great that people are actually paying attention and making changes. This play is very much about that. Just going over the play now, even though I’ve done it before, this time I’m hearing lines differently like, “Oh. That’s really sad.” I was thinking of Emory as tortured, suffering and waiting to get out. He’s probably more confident than most kids in that situation but I never really thought of him as suicidal. And I don’t know that he is but that’s a touch that’s like, what’s going to push a kid to that extreme? And what words are going to sting really hard? In the memory sense it’s like, if you’re thinking of these as important things that Emory went through, yeah it hurts. It’s painful. Which is great. I’m glad that we can do that. Have something that’s really topical. Accidentally. Oops.

WHAT HAS IMPRESSED YOU THE MOST ABOUT WORKING ON APAC’S PRODUCTION OF MILKMILKLEMONADE?

Well, it’s so organized which is great. We had our rehearsal schedule three months ago. Which is awesome. There’s also so much support here. The fact that you’re here doing this, that’s great. And the fact that there’s a publicity person directly involved in a lot of it. There’s interns. I just got two pages of line notes. Just to have someone take the time to write those out is so helpful and great. There’s just a lot of people obviously willing to support the show through APAC that is so helpful to a production. I would say that’s kinda wonderful.

READER QUESTION: ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING NEW IN YOUR ACTING PROCESS TO KEEP THE ILLUSION OF THE FIRST TIME?

I don’t know. It feels like it’s always the first time. Especially at the beginning of the play. There’s such an arc to the show that he’s so hopeful and excited. He just goes from such a great uplifting place, positive about everything, “I’m going to be a big star, this is how it’s going to be,” -he’s been practicing forever-to such a devastating place at the end. In order to do this show you have to forget everything that happens by the end of the play and start new. So I think that it’s that on a bigger scale of getting ready to go back into it again. It’s always a struggle to get back to the beginning. Forgetting, i guess, is the key. And just paying absolutely no attention to it. You don’t want to play the end at the beginning. It’s great for the audience to witness that devastation. It’s not a sad ending though. It’s an ambiguous ending. You don’t really know where he’s headed. But in the beginning he sure does.

THIS SEASON AT APAC WE’RE EXPLORING THE IDEA OF HOME FROM AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE. THE SPRING MUSICAL, THE HUMAN COMEDY LOOKS AT CHARACTERS WHO YEARN TO RETURN HOME. IN MILKMILKLEMONADE THE CHARACTERS WANT TO GET AWAY FROM HOME. WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HOME?

My upbringing was the opposite of Emory’s and I don’t feel like I ever was struggling to get out of it. But I always had big dreams so in that sense I knew where I was headed. Emory’s kind of in a war zone. His home that he wants to go to is anywhere but here. It’s sort of like the whole Dan Savage It Gets Better thing. He sort of figured that out on his own, which is huge. He knows it’ll get better for him. And he wants to get out of it. I don’t think he considers much of it home. He grew up there and it’s just definitely the opposite of where I came from and my upbringing. It’s kinda fun to play with that. I’m not going to say that I breezed through. Definitely didn’t breeze through. Anyone who went to high school remembers what it was like.

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Don’t miss Andy and the rest of the cast in Joshua Conkel’s MilkMilkLemonade. Now through Nov. 13th, 2010. Buy your tickets here.