This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2024.
Improvements in technology have made some things easier for reporters. Gone are the days when recording an interview meant hours of transcribing the resulting conversation, painstakingly rewinding a cassette to get every word.
Now, you can upload an interview to Otter.ai and, minutes later, have the transcript. You can search it by keyword, click on it to hear a specific portion, fix the bits Otter got wrong and highlight the sections you know you’ll need. Recording is a breeze.
Until it fails.
Hours before I was to interview Shaina Taub, the Waitsfield native who created and stars in the Broadway musical Suffs, I recorded an interview with her high school music teacher. When I tried to upload it, a message appeared on my recorder screen: “Process Error.” I’d never seen that. I routinely erase files to make sure I have enough memory. I regularly check and replace the triple-A battery. I had watched the device during the interview to make sure the recorder was working, but there was no file. And I had a call scheduled with Taub later that day.
Related
Waitsfield’s Shaina Taub Arrives on Broadway, Starring in Her Own Musical, ‘Suffs’
Granted, it was a video call and I planned to record via Google Meet, but I wanted backup because I could not screw this up.
Getting this interview had taken me to hell and back. I had worked through the show’s public relations firm, corresponding with one primary publicist who routinely cc’d two or three others. I had initially asked to shadow Taub, because the best stories about people show them in action. But Taub’s life — as writer, composer, lyricist and a lead actor — was understandably hectic as the musical’s April opening approached. The publicist offered a 45-minute video call.
To prepare for the interview — and to flesh out the story of how a small-town Vermont kid came to make a splash on Broadway — I called as many people as I could who had known Taub through the years: as a child actor on the Flynn stage, as a high school student running her own production and as a 16-year-old enrolled at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Two weeks before I was to interview Taub, the publicist canceled. The reason? I had called Taub’s mother, she explained, without permission. Of course I called Taub’s mother. Who else would have seen the earliest signs that this child was born for the stage? (Her dad? I tried to reach him, too.) The same publicist had been helping me arrange interviews with the show’s producers and other actors. She ended it all.
I knew she was my access to everyone involved with the show. I didn’t know she expected to be told about every interview I planned. I pled my case: “I can’t ask someone in New York to set up my interviews in Vermont.” I followed with an email: This was a miscommunication. Please reconsider. Vermonters care about Taub. They’re cheering for Taub. It would be nice if she could be part of the article written for the people who “knew her when.”
Then I waited. Six days later, I got a call. The interview, albeit 15 minutes shorter, was back on. After being rescheduled two more times, it was finally set for April 2 at 5:15 p.m. My recorder failed at 11 a.m.
Crowdsourcing advice from colleagues, I learned that Otter could also record, so I set that up. But my faith in technology had been severely shaken. Just before 5:15, I clicked “record” on my phone, on my iPad, on Google Meet and on Otter. Taub appeared on my laptop screen from her dressing room, makeup free and cocooned in a bulky scarf. She talked about using her work to advance equality and justice. She praised the arts education she got in the Mad River Valley, sent her love to her former teachers and thanked Seven Days for featuring her.
We had a perfectly lovely conversation, and I captured every word — four times over.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Highest-Drama Interview”
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Waitsfield’s Shaina Taub Arrives on Broadway, Starring in Her Own Musical, ‘Suffs’
This article appears in Dec 25, 2024 – Jan 7, 2025.
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