Dimension 20:Gladlands aired it’s finale on Wednesday, bringing an end to one of the more unique and uplifting seasons of Dropout’s Actual Play program. Among the cast making their mark on the Gladlands this season were Jacob Wysocki (who played KoKoMo, a soft and comforting entity) and Oscar Montoya (who played Poppy Persona, the storyteller). This is their second time at the D20 table, and I got a chance to sit down with them to learn about their experience making this season.
And if you want a little extra, check out Dan’s interview with Vic and Kimia here.
Panda: Tell me about pre-production, when you sign on to a Dimension 20 season, and how that goes for you, especially since this is your second time appearing on D20.
Jacob Wysocki: You get an email, and they go, you’re available around this time, we’re kind of talking to these people, and then it was a list of some of my closest friends. And I said I don’t care what the premise is, I’ll just hang out. Sounds like a good hang. And then they said “We’re asking these people if the avails work out. Then you’re sort of just, please, I hope it works out. That’s the most perfect list of people I’ve ever seen.”
Oscar Montoya: Truly ditto. And I mean we were gonna make it work no matter what. We asked is this the best group of people of all time?
Oops, all sweetie season.
Panda: And KoKoMo is the sweetest little guy. In Episode Three, they seemed to struggle with a moment of rejection, or maybe fear of rejection. Can you talk about some of those emotional beats?
Jacob: I mean, who likes to be tossed and thrown away? I think it’s a very common, very human, everyday fear. It’s also a very big emotion in that you can reject yourself, other people can reject you, the very universe can reject your your good vibes. If your car didn’t start, that’s rejection. You know, there’s all these levels of living a life and trying to make it good and positive. All these little tiny beads that do feel like moments of rejection of my good time in free space. It may not be some deep thing, but I think it’s a thing that’s worth talking about because we all deal with it. It affects all of us, so why not lean in a little bit and explore what that looks like, you know?
Panda: Poppy had a huge moment in that same episode, finding the story that the people of Rotglob needed to hear, which felt like a message for artists and creators. Was that kind of character development in the moment, or planned out?
Oscar: No, it was not planned. I think that the skeleton of Poppy Persona was very much built into what resonated with me in terms of the premise of the Gladlands, which is positive, but also “Mad Max-ian”. Auntie Entity was the first thing that was on my mind, which is the character that Tina Turner played in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. To me, Auntie Entity was a drag queen and what resonated with me was this idea of drag queen story hour, the fact that these artists are trying to uplift their community, and then there’s people suppressing all that, the status quo. Translating that into Poppy was me saying, okay, let’s see if there’s any resistance happening.
In the times that I have played actual play, identity is a huge part of the way that I create my characters and what it means to be the person that you present versus the person that you hide. This idea of who you are, your day-to-day, what you do, does that define you? Is that you? Creating things to promote yourself or to hide behind yourself, and having validity in creating.
“Navigating the world with how you see yourself is essential to Poppy Persona, who is a drag queen that takes the fantasy and manifests It every single day.”
But in terms of that specific moment in episode three, that was not planned at all. That was through the cast and through Brendan Lee Mulligan’s sick, twisted brain.
Panda: Oscar, you talked a little bit about how the setting influenced your character. Did you have a similar process, Jacob?
Jacob: I’ve been saying for me, there’s Mad Max, and there’s Gladlands. For my character creation, I was more Gladlands first. I was thinking about roles and archetypes that could exist, and a happy apocalypse, and kept circumventing this sort of babysitter, like a community child watcher sort of sensation. Then I went back to Mad Max, and asked well, how do you build a mutated human, or mutated entity, rather, that could fulfill that? Then they kind of met in the middle: big round couch boy. If everybody’s dusty and there’s sand everywhere, it might be nice to have a really soft guy.
That’s all you need. And that idea of soft guy then slowly builds into a guy who might be influenced by the remnants of Beach Boys memorabilia and the wasteland who has a dream of beach summer.
Panda: This season particularly focuses on emotional intelligence and mental health. How did you prepare to bring these subjects to the Dropout audience?
Oscar: I think the Dropout audience is hyper, emotionally intelligent. I think that is the audience to bring this to. Wysocki was saying something earlier about this expectation of being in the dome. The D20 audience is used to a high-caliber performance of actual play.
Jacob: They’re used to getting that Lou Wilson special, you know?
Oscar: Exactly! And I’m looking around, I said, uh oh, uh oh. Ain’t no Lou Wilson around here. Uh oh. We gotta step up. I think the magic of Dimension 20 is having these incredibly chaotic, silly, dumb moments, which people resonate with, and then finding a nugget of absolute emotional resonance in that frivolity that people can react to. That is the magic of Dimension 20. That has happened every single season of Dimension 20. And this one is no exception.
Jacob: I also feel like the best improvisers are good actors. I know this group of people and everybody here is a good actor. So if we have to deal with things that are maybe a little more sensitive or “actor-y” that nobody’s gonna be like, I don’t wanna do that. That’s lame. Everybody’s gonna lean in and connect with you and be a scene partner that’s receiving, you know, more gentle emotions.
Oscar: Everyone is game for anything.
Panda: This season’s been great to see the juxtaposition of something horrible happening and people making the best out of it. Is there anything that you want people to take away from Gladlands?
Oscar: Listen, I’ll be incredibly honest. The Gladands are happening right now. I think there’s a lot of fantasizing about what it would look like if the world just totally crumbled in this post — baby? It’s happening today. So I think that there is a sense of, you are the Gladlands that you decide to create for yourself. There is power in community and having a group of people that you lean to and create stuff. Whether that’s your art, whether that’s activating, calling your Senator, Congress people. You are capable of making this chaotic, insane world a lot more livable, a lot happier, and cozier by you being there with your freaks, you know?
Jacob: It might be scary to be like, I’m feeling weird or heavy, or I don’t wanna put that on people, or I don’t want to be blah, blah, blah. Do it. It’ll be easier. It’ll be so much easier than you realize.
Oscar: I think people do inherently want to help. I think that is what makes humans, human. There’s a community out there for you. Even if it feels like you’re an island completely isolated by everyone, trust that people are willing and happy to help out.
Jacob: There’s only like 14 types of people. We’re all gonna gravitate towards the people who are like us, you know? We’re not, we’re not so amazingly unique as a species. Find, find the other people who are like you.
Oscar: Find you a KoKoMo.
Panda: I just want a KoKoMo stuffed toy. That would be my best friend.
Jacob: Just a full couch.
Panda: Put me down as someone who would buy that.
Oscar: Honestly, this is a call to action. People who are reading this or listening to this — demand some Kokomo merch.
Jacob: Please, absolutely. Demand that I get a percentage.
Oscar: That part.
Images via Dropout and Dimension 20
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