Whisper in the Wings Episode 1862

0:00Hello everyone and welcome back into a fantastic new whisper in the Williamsroom stage whisper. We are so thrilled to be welcoming on the third event show who soon talked to us about in furnace presentation a Bitcoin bad thing. It's part of the factory series and it's May, October 15th, 3 to 25th of the chain theater and you can get your tickets more permission by visiting tickets. And for now dot works very excited to get to share this wonderful new work with you and so without further ado, please join me on welcoming on Ben welcome into a spring the wins from stage whisper. Thanks for having me Andrew. Oh, I'm so thrilled that you're here and I'm excited to learn about the show with a great title Bitcoin bad boy.

1:00Let's start first by having you test a little bit about what the show is all about. Absolutely so I mean just a bit of background. I was a journalist for a long time. I covered the crypto industry for about 12 years starting in 2014. So I saw a lot of real life drama you know from just reporting on companies there are a lot of hacks and you know big talking guys mainly guys making big claims for Bitcoin and it's kind of an exciting industry with a lot of things going on. And some of the things we reported on really made me want to write a play about it. So there was an original play in 2024 called Happenstance which is really the basis for the second play Bitcoin bad boy that's coming out now. If you know anything about crypto you know that it's become quite sort of associated with the current administration the current president he was said to have kind of saved crypto when he took it under his wing 2024. So that's really what the place about it's really about this kind of anti establishment movement Bitcoin making a deal with power in this case with with the Trump administration.

2:08Wow what what a story to be telling there. So I mean you sort of touched on this but what was the antithesis what inspired you to want. Yes so when we were at coin desk I was a managing editor at coin desk it's a leading cryptocurrency publication. He did a story about a guy called sandbagman freed he went to prison for about 25 years for committing a massive fraud and we reported on this at the time in in 22 and 23 and a number of things about that story really intrigued me on a kind of more human level. Particularly the role played by sandbagman breeds parents they were both college professors from Stanford and they seem to have very much influenced their son in order to do this fraud. And eight billion dollar fraud the mother barber freed kind of wanted to do some philanthropic activity the father wanted more money for his kind of pet projects. So that's just felt like a kind of inherently comedic kind of situation I mean tragic but comedic and that was really the base for the first play and now in this new play this guy who went to prison is coming out on a presidential pardon.

3:20There were a lot of crypto people who went to prison or got in trouble with the law over the years and Trump pardoned or commuted a lot of those sentences. So that's what happens at the beginning of this play this guy comes out of prison he's got a presidential pardon but he's a true believer he really he's a crypto idealist he really believes in the values in which this movement was created. And so he's conflicted by this new reality he's out of prison but he doesn't feel comfortable around these people but say his say their his friends but don't really act like his friends. Meanwhile his family is very much in debt from fighting the legal battles from paying for this pardon so they're very keen to find ways to pay the money back. So come up with this idea of creating a meme coin which is you know it's a kind of digital asset with no real underlying value that is traded publicly and that's obviously what Donald Trump and the Trump family did they created this this meme coin Trump coin which raised $625 million in 2025 widely seen as a big kind of what's known as a rug pull in the industry that's like making money and then taking other people's money away.

4:35His family wants to do this to pay about the debt to the O everybody and they encourage Charlie the main character to front this project and it's very much against his values so that's what the place really about it's really about Charlie and his values and how can he live out the life that he wants to live in the way that he wants to live it while dealing with his family while dealing with the political reality that he now finds himself in. Wow I mean truly this is an incredible story and an incredible journey it sounds like which leads to my next question I'd love to know what has been like developing this piece. Well it's been a lot of fun you know I kind of come from a theatre family I was born in England London and my dad was an actor and we had a lot of actors around and I wrote some plays when I was much younger 16 17 18 and then I had some changes in my life and then this thing happened with I was saying about Sam back with freed and I really wanted to write a play about that and then the whole Trump thing happened with crypto and that seemed like a whole another story and I share wrote an essay for New South America.

5:46I was a little bit more honest this week last week about this and I said that you know the first play was about a crypto founder going to prison and this sequel is very much about power it's about how this movement crypto movement made a deal with power to become part of the financial system become part of the legal system become part of the system as it were and I think that had some advantages but also had a lot of kind of drawbacks and that's what I really try to draw back. I really try to dramatize with the story with this family with this guy in this play and everything I realize everything I've kind of set aside sounds kind of deeply serious or kind of scam me probably to your listeners because people tend to think of crypto as something scammy but I do think that really serious issues about you know privacy about like digital rights and the internet age and the AI age that really come to light because of Bitcoin and hopefully it come to light because of this play and we're trying to do it all with it with the light hands.

6:46It's a comedy but it's dealing in these kind of serious issues of power and personal sovereignty. That is incredible. What was such a a topical theme and story you're sharing is that a particular message or thought you hope audiences will take away from this piece? Well as I said hopefully people will have fun you know and they won't be put off by the fact that it's Bitcoin. I mean the message at the end and I was running about it in this new sweet piece. I mean to me Bitcoin isn't really about prices. You know everyone talks about the price of Bitcoin and the price of all the assets but the prices go up and they go down. The companies go up and they go down. At the end of the day what matters about Bitcoin is this idea of your money being actually yours and not sort of rented from you know from the government from the United States and from any state that money should be should belong to you. You should have ownership of your money over your data over your identity and I think those questions of self-sopporancy of owning our own staff of owning you.

7:54It's very much like a pertinent question now even more relevant now than it was when Bitcoin first came out in 2008 or when they wrote the what's known as the cipher punk manifesto back in 1993. At the time like these questions of self-sopporancy were very like paranoid from these kind of privacy activists but these days you know with chat G.B.T. and these computer systems really out of control and really try and take everything from us. I think these questions of self-sopporancy are very pertinent today and hopefully that's one message that comes out from the play. Absolutely that is a great answer and I'd love to know I mean this is something that affects all of us you know these broader themes that you're talking about privacy and such and who are you hoping to have access to the show. Well I mean hopefully it's going to appeal to people who've been interested in Bitcoin and crypto who are intrigued by it and obviously there's some political aspects to it but you know the aim of the production is really to talk about technology that's quite complicated and they're quite politicized but to do it in a human way this is very much a story about a guy trying to find himself about a family that's in conflict because of money and you know it's a love story.

9:19So hopefully people can really connect with it in that kind of human way and they're not put off by the fact that it's about Bitcoin or about technology because I think the bigger issues here are not really about computers or about who's in office in Washington it's about you know as I say these bigger themes of agency and people being empowered to live the life they want to live. Wonderful, wonderful. Well now we've arrived at my favorite question to ask us and that of course is what is your favorite eater memory? Well I went to the theatre a lot with my dad who I said was an actor and we had a thing about going to check off and I think we saw Cherry Orchard probably I don't know maybe 10 or 12 times I've seen it a few times recently just love that play he loved that play and I love going to the theatre with him. I'm from England he was a big Shakespeare guy so we did a lot of Shakespeare as well particularly like some of the Shakespeare comedies those are probably my highlights every year we went down to place in England called Canterbury.

10:31It's on the south coast of England and they had a theatre week down there with a group called the Old Stages which claims to be the oldest theatre group in the world and we spent a whole week down there with a bunch of actors and theatre people and that really kind of made me fall in love with the theatre. Maybe fall in love with acting and with the theatre with the possibilities of the small stage and those are probably my best memories. Those are some wonderful memories right there I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for asking me. Well as we wrap things up I would love to know do you have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline we might be able to plug for you. Not at the moment I mean I'm working on things myself but nothing to announce the moment we're really focused on Bitcoin bad boy which I'll repeat is October 15th to the 25th at the chain theatre on 36th Street on the west side is basically Chelsea pretty near Penn station so it's easy place to get to.

11:35Yeah but the next couple of weeks we're going to be promoting this and hopefully getting people there if anyone from yours if anyone's listening to the show and we'd like to come along please check out the link and also if you want get in touch and I can offer you a discount on tickets as well if you're interested please just to help get the get the word out. Absolutely and that is a great set up for my final question which is if our listeners would like more information about Bitcoin bad boy or about you maybe they'd like to reach out to you how can they do so. Well please get in touch my email is Ben T. Schiller that's SCH I double L. E. R. At gmail.com so please just get in touch over email hopefully you'll put the link in the in the show notes to the tickets and if you want to know more about the kind of background to the play then I wrote a piece for Newsweek last week and the title of that if you want to look it up was I wrote a play about cryptos outlaws the sequel had to be about power so that's what I was saying about you know the original crypto play was about you know outlaws and now it's about it's about power it's about how this movement kind of made a deal with with the administration with the government.

12:57You live well Ben thank you so much for stopping by and sharing this timely and wonderful new work I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for I'm sure it's going to continue to be to be done it's got strong legs it sounds like but thank you very very much for your time today. Thank you Ajit for your meal. My guest today has been the wonderful playwright Ben Schiller who joined me today to talk about his work being presented by inferno bitcoin bad boy it's part of the factory series in plane October 15 through 25th at the chain theater and you can get your tickets more information by visiting tickets stop inferno dot works. We also have some contact information for our guests which will be posting in our episode description as well as on our social media post but hurry over right now to tickets stop inferno dot works get your tickets for this brilliant piece bitcoin bad boy October 15 through 25th.

13:58So until next time I'm Andrew Cortez reminding you to turn off your cell phones on wrap your candies keep talking about the theater. In a stage whisperer. Thank you. If you like what you hear please leave a five star review like and subscribe you can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at stage whisper pod and feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at stage whisper pod at gmail.com and be sure to check out our website for all things stage whisperer and theater you'll be able to find merchandise tours tickets and more simply visit stage whisper pod dot com our theme song is maniac by jazz are other music on this episode provided by jazz are and Billy Murray. You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon dot com slash stage whisper pod there you will find all the information about our backstage pass as well as our tip jar.

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