Here’s To You, with Dan Bauer
A McCarter Theatre Podcast

Here’s To You: Offstage

with Laura Dadap from A Beat of Our Own

Classical music is such an important part of your life. I’m curious to know how your sons wound up with the names of jazz legends. What role do the arts play in your life?
As central as classical music is in my life, I think both sides of my family found their way into music through Filipino and Chinese folk music, as well as Western jazz, folk, and rock music. My grandfather earned his doctorate in Chinese folk music at the Sorbonne in Paris, so our family has always framed music linguistically and in a very global context. As our family migrated around the world and advanced through their careers in the arts, I grew up not only in concert halls listening to my parents rehearse and perform, but also with a great love and appreciation for the rich history and journey we took from Eastern and Western music. As a kid, I was wearing down records from Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, to ballets, and then the Beatles. When I met my husband, we bonded over that love of music, and strangely both wanted to name a child of ours “Thelonious,” but never discussed it until we were pregnant with our firstborn. When we were pregnant with our youngest, we figured it would be better to lean into our strong choice! {Editor's Note: her second son's name is Miles]

Where do you go for inspiration or to recharge?
In most recent years, the most restorative practice has been traveling through my family’s journey to America. In 2017, I got to travel to my maternal ancestral home in Ningbo, China. In 2018, we returned to my mother’s birthplace in Paris, France, for the first time since I was a child. Then, in 2023, we came back to my paternal ancestral home in Southern Leyte, Philippines, for the first time since I was a child as well. I think those trips filled a hole in my heart that I didn’t know needed to be filled. It is a privilege to get to trace your family’s steps, and I’ve found that this particular kind of journey is so restorative for me holistically. When I'm not able to travel, it’s taking a trip to an Asian grocery store and recreating my family’s recipes.

What’s something you’re really into right now?
Making butter. Socially. Sushma, who plays Sunita in the show, recently posted a video making butter from scratch before we got here, and I immediately knew that I wanted us to host a night where we all made butter from scratch— so the second weekend in Princeton, we invited everyone over to my actor housing and gave each person a pint of heavy cream to shake, and we all made butter and seasoned it. The level of pride and joy that it brought out in everyone was so wholesome and delightful. Also, the butter was really good.

What are you listening to on repeat?
During this contract, I’ve had Doyel Das, who is our incredible pit singer, on repeat when I’m driving. Doyel is an amazing actress/filmmaker and independent artist who makes Desi retro pop music, and I am obsessed.

What are you watching, reading or otherwise consuming right now?
I recently devoured the entire first season of Widows Bay! It’s spooky season, so I’m definitely watching a lot of things that give me jump scares like Haunting of Hill House and other Mike Flanagan series.

What’s something you’ve discovered recently that you love?
Biking in Princeton! I brought my bike down from Queens and I’ve been loving a morning ride to rehearsal through campus. It also helps me warm up my body before a long day of dancing and staging.

What’s something you encountered recently that has stayed with you?
I recently came across Sanjay Patel’s Ramayana: Divine Loophole through another project by the brilliant Manik Choksi, which I had the pleasure of working on at Ars Nova. With two young kids, I’m finding myself increasingly aware of the importance of distinguishing between who we are and what we do, and how those actions affect others. It’s a theme we delve into quite deeply in Beat of our Own, too. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of seeing things in binary, thinking, “Oh, well, this person did something bad, so they must be bad.” In Patel’s retelling of a 2500-year-old story, every character is shown with both a light and a dark side (much like how you use the Force for light and dark in Star Wars), which really resonates with me. It makes me think that if we can’t separate actions from people, we start to believe it, and that person can start to believe it, leaving little room for change. I’m working hard in my parenting to make a clear distinction because when you’re young, you’re really developing that sense of right and wrong/good and bad.

What’s currently making you laugh?
A bunch of us in the company have been coming up with fun merch ideas with phrases from lyrics or text, and true to character, I went online and started designing a few of them. It has been cracking me up to see some of these amazing catchphrases big and bold on a piece of clothing. Honestly, I would wear all of them! Also, just literally, this whole company is so funny. We’re heavy into word games, and since the first few days of rehearsal, we have been making each other laugh on and off the clock.

What’s your favorite thing to do on a day off?
There are two day-off versions of me. One who loves to stay in and cook (usually my favorite Filipino/Chinese comfort meals) and reset for the work week. Then there is the cruise ship director part of me that loves to create a fun, local itinerary for anyone that joins. Once, on a contract, I created an opt-in day-off schedule that started with breakfast on the water, then an excursion to ride horses at a petting farm, and ended with ice cream from a great local spot. On our day off this week, I checked out the Fall Festival at Terhune Orchards and had a blast getting lost in the corn maze and then went home and made some comforting ginger/scallion chicken for dinner.

What’s something people might be surprised to learn about you, something that might not seem to fit with your life as a performer?
I’m pretty vocal about it, but I guess it has got to be that I also own and operate a Filipino hot sauce brand that has been on the Today Show and Hot Ones! www.djablosauce.com

You were part of the original Bhangin’ It at La Jolla Playhouse. What’s it like to return to this world with A Beat of Our Own?
A new musical is like a huge ship built for a long journey; there are so many people that are a part of making it possible, and it takes a long time to turn a ship of that size. It’s been such an honor to grow in and with this piece, to see the creatives find the threads that tell the story as authentically as possible. I’ve met so many people who are a huge part of my life through doing this show. I did market testing on my hot sauce product with the casts who workshopped this show over the years. I’m so lucky to continue sharing scenes with my dear Jasraj (Jesse) Bhamrah from the La Jolla company. Returning to Constance again and again has been a privilege of my career. From the first reading we did with Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, I felt like this piece was written for me, even though I had no previous connection to competitive collegiate Bhangra dancing and wasn’t of South Asian descent. The mixed Asian kid who never felt one culture or the other enough— and who held on to how she might be perceived by others so tightly— felt very seen and heard from the first iteration down to the story we’re telling to audiences in Princeton today.

What do you hope audiences feel when they leave A Beat of Our Own?
I hope that audiences leave the theatre with the same feeling I felt after the first workshop (that both Salena, who plays Mary, and I were in!) when this show was in it’s very first stages. I hope they leave seeing a piece or element of themselves on that stage. I hope people leave loving that part of themselves a little more.