Last Thursday, sitting on the surprisingly spacious fire-escape of a small Chinatown walk-up, I caught up with Chase Sui Wonders and Zachary Zamsky after their table read of Vermont/India, a new play directed by Michael Herwitz. Fresh off her role as the idealistic executive assistant in Seth Rogen’s star-studded entertainment industry satire The Studio, Wonders was looking forward to performing on stage. “The energy of a live audience is very exciting,” she said. “It’s a specific type of adrenaline.” Zamsky, her New York City-born co-star in the family drama, echoed the sentiment: “I’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons in the theater that have been helpful.” Overlooking the city skyline, the two actors joined us to talk about cast camaraderie, the unique thrills of stage work, and meeting the GOAT (Martin Scorsese) for the first time.
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CLARA SCHOLL: Congratulations on a fantastic reading. How are you both feeling?
CHASE SUI WONDERS: Very exciting.
ZACHARY ZAMSKY: Yeah.
WONDERS: Very exciting stuff. It’s very different from film and TV. The energy of a live audience is very exciting. It’s a specific type of adrenaline.
SCHOLL: Right.
ZAMSKY: Also, it’s new work. You don’t know how people are going to react to it. This is the first time we’ve done it in front of people. It’s cool to explore it with the audience for the first time.
SCHOLL: What do you think the biggest differences are between TV and theater?
WONDERS: No bathroom breaks. I mean, it’s very long and you have to pace yourself. It’s like a marathon, and that’s both exciting and challenging. Once you do something, it’s out there and you can’t tweak it. It has to live and you have to make it go somewhere different if you mess up or flub. That part’s fun.
ZAMSKY: Yeah, I’d have to agree and say money as well. Also, you get to interact with the people who are watching it.
WONDERS: Yeah, you play off the audience too.
ZAMSKY: It really is intense, especially today.
SCHOLL: Did you get any laughs that you weren’t expecting?
WONDERS: Yeah. Some snuck in there, but it always feels good. It’s good to hear a live laugh.
ZAMSKY: It’s the thing we were missing in rehearsals.
WONDERS: Yeah, exactly.
SCHOLL: Are you both in New York for long? Chase, I know you’re leaving tomorrow. Are you going back to California?
WONDERS: I’m leaving for Phoenix, Arizona to see family.
SCHOLL: Zachary, you live in New York?
ZAMSKY: I do, yeah. I’m born and raised here.
SCHOLL: Nice. Me too.
ZAMSKY: Oh, nice. I’m from the East Village. Where are you from?
SCHOLL: I’m from Harlem, near the park. Both of you have done incredible work in the last couple months. Chase, you have a new TV show, The Studio, that recently came out with quite a star-studded cast. Did you have any surreal moments on set?
WONDERS: The cast is very stacked. The lineup’s insane. I mean, Martin Scorsese was on set. That’s the GOAT.
SCHOLL: Wow.
WONDERS: I would say I was sufficiently starstruck. I mean, every day it was a new circus of people. It was cool that everyone was really humble despite being legends. They were very willing to play.
SCHOLL: What have you enjoyed most about working?
WONDERS: On Vermont, India? Honestly, the fun part about this thing has been it all happened really organically. We all fell in love with each other socially, and then it became what it is.
ZAMSKY: In three days, we were like—
WONDERS: Let’s do it.
ZAMSKY: We went from friends to reading the script out loud to then deciding we’re going to do this and now we’re here. That was six months ago.
WONDERS: A gift from the universe.
ZAMSKY: We linked up and it was like, “Yes, this is great.” We all get along so swimmingly.
SCHOLL: So you figured this out somewhat recently. I mean, six months is a short time.
WONDERS: Yeah. It’s very recent. We did a hack job at putting it all together. It was cool to see everyone turn out.
SCHOLL: Did you have any surprises while you were going through the script? While we were getting to the end, I kept wondering what was going to happen.
WONDERS: It was cool hearing the audience discover certain things. The oohs and aahs were cool to hear.
ZAMSKY: Yeah. I didn’t expect the fiancée line to get such a big reaction.
WONDERS: I know.
SCHOLL: Can you take parts of the theatrical world into your non-theatrical careers in acting?
ZAMSKY: I try to. I mean, I’ve been training in theater. That’s how I started when I was eight. I’ve learned a lot of invaluable lessons in the theater that have been helpful. In this play, there’s so much going on in the character’s minds and what they’re thinking, and I do that work. On film sets, they don’t ask you to do that for the most part. So it’s nice to bring that into whatever I’m doing.
WONDERS: It’s a big old deep dive. And we both have siblings, so it’s fun to play around with that aspect of this play. It’s a very love-hate relationship, where one minute you can be fighting and the next minute you can be giggling.
ZAMSKY: Yeah.
SCHOLL: And how deep that bond goes, even when there’s been questionable decisions on either side. Congratulations.
ZAMSKY: Thank you.
WONDERS: Thanks, Clara.
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