Cole Escola
speaker
166 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Cole Escola’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And meanwhile, I wasn't eating because I knew if I said I need money for food, she would say, well, we can't do that. I'm sorry, you can't do this play. And, you know, I lied again. To the adults in the play saying like, oh, yeah, no, I can stay with my grandma in the nursing home so I can be late at rehearsal.
And just 11 years old trying to keep everyone in the dark about the fact that I was a child.
Well, you know, Grapes of Wrath, a serious play. Very. But you, like you're saying, but you ended up finding community there, like an extended family almost.
Yeah. This woman that played Rose of Sharon, her name was Susan, she bought me food on our meal breaks every day. Yeah. It was never an issue. I never asked her. She saw what was going on. And yeah, so she would buy me food and then other actors would give me rides to my grandma's nursing home. And I was in heaven.
Now you were in shows, like you said, you were in Fiddler on the Roof, Little Shop of Horrors, Les Miserables. What kind of parts did you play?
Well, because I was a, you know, for all intents and purposes at the time, a boy who could sing. I was always cast as, you know, like the romantic male lead, like Matt in the Fantastics or Marius and Les Mis. Seymour on Little Shop was a little fun because at least I got to dance a tango with Mr. Mushnik for Mushnik and Son. So I got to be girl in that one number.
But yeah, for the most part, I played these really boring parts that didn't speak to me or spark me at all. And sort of for that reason, I... didn't pursue acting after high school. I didn't think that that's what I wanted to do.
So when you sort of pictured yourself as a performer in the future, it wasn't as an actor in plays?
No, I didn't even picture myself as a performer. I just, I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, but I was like, oh, okay, so if I want to be an actor... I'm going to have to go to school and learn how to move less gay and talk less gay and play these boring boy parts. And I was like, I don't think I want to do that.
Well, you've said that you always associated, quote unquote, theater with pretending to be straight.
Yes.
That's what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. Even back then you felt that way?
Yeah, especially back then. Now I don't at all. And, you know, I would play the stage manager in our town like a bitter, bitchy old jaded queen and not think nothing of it. In fact, someone please produce that. I would love to try that out.
Well, when you first were in New York, you weren't sure that you wanted to be a performer. What then inspired you to become one, to start making viral videos, which is what you did first?
Well, it was a couple things. There was – I was miserable. I was truly suicidal. I was bulimic. And I was walking around near Bloomingdale's, and I remember I was having these thoughts about not wanting to be alive. And then I started having those thoughts in a character's voice. A voice not unlike my grandma and her friends. And I came up with this character, Joyce Connor, who was a...
really sort of cheery, innocuous middle-aged woman who just kept having to put off her suicide because so many things kept popping up over the weekend. And that, for some reason, was like this huge release valve. Like, it both... allowed me to feel what I was feeling, but also relieved me from feeling burdened by what I was feeling.
My guest is Cole Escola. Again, if you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can call or text the number 988. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. Well, you were part or maybe still are part of what New York Magazine called at the time a wave of new queer comedy with comics like Bowen Yang and John Early and all the people you've been mentioning in the 2010s, I guess.
Were there places where queer comedians would perform outside of what could be considered quote unquote mainstream comedy clubs, whatever that means?
I actually kind of predated it a little bit. I was emceeing folk shows as characters at dive bars. I just sort of went where I was invited or where I felt like I could get in. I never sought out... new ground to break. I was just like, I want to do this thing that I want to do. Where can I do it? There? Okay. I'll make it good. And hopefully if I make it good, people will come.
I imagine that the shows that you were doing as being places where friends would gather and try to make each other laugh and maybe be silly or absurd as much as possible.
Showing 121–140 of 166 · page 7 of 9
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