The Moth Radio Hour: All the World’s a Stage

The Moth

Arts, Performing Arts

4.6 • 25.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ready the spotlight and raise the curtains! In this hour, performers, sour notes, tough critics, and a unique take on Mary Poppins. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Director Meg Bowles. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Laura Hitchcock is entrusted with her teacher's prized trumpet. Jason Mesches plays a medley of his own creation for his unconventional piano teacher. Phil Wang contends with his lisp during his primary school's production of Mary Poppins. Ashley Johnson moves to LA to pursue her dream of acting. A series of unfortunate events befalls Liz Phair when she performs at the Rockefeller Center tree lighting. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the Moth Radio Hour.
0:15.4	I'm Meg Bowles, and in this hour, we'll hear stories of imperfect auditions and musical successes, stage debuts and performances royally botched, and one rather distressing situation with a trumpet.
0:29.7	Laura Hitchcock told the story of that instrumental crisis at a Moth Grand Slam we produced at the Bridge Theater in London.
0:36.6	Here's Laura, live at the Moth.
0:44.8	When I was eight years old, I decided that I wanted to learn to play the trumpet.
0:49.3	And I went to my first ever class with my new teacher, and I loved it instantly.
0:53.8	And he said to me like look if
0:56.2	you really stick at this then maybe one day your parents will buy you a trumpet of your very own
1:01.7	but until then you can borrow mine and I've had this trumpet for 18 years so I'm trusting you to look
1:08.0	after it and when he said that to me, I just felt so important
1:12.6	because being trusted to do anything when you're eight years old
1:15.9	just still feels like a really big deal.
1:18.1	And I took it home and I immediately started practicing.
1:21.0	And I sounded horrible, but I didn't care.
1:24.2	And once I finished, I thought about what he said to me.
1:26.8	And I got out one of those yellow
1:28.2	polishing cloths and I started like buffing it really hard with all the strength that my like
1:34.5	twiggy little eight year old arms would allow and once I had finished it looked amazing and I went
1:39.6	to put it away only to realize that the position I'd been polishing it in had gotten the mouthpiece
1:44.8	completely stuck in the instrument and that's not meant to happen.
1:50.3	I panicked and I was desperate to be able to fix it by myself and I was pulling but I just couldn't
1:54.6	do it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Moth, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Moth and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.