“Big Bear” is an original comedy play that follows a group of friends at an AirBnB. In the final hours of their rental, tensions come to a head as they race to check out on time. Patrick McDonald is the writer, director, and star of “Big Bear.” Known for his work on Dropout, Smosh, and his “Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists” podcast. McDonald has put together an impressive cast which includes performers from StarKid, Smosh, Dropout, and even Broadway.
“Big Bear” features an impressive cast including McDonald. Lauren Lopez (StarKid), Joey Richter (StarKid), Jon Matteson (“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals”), Chris Renford (“Oh, Mary” on Broadway), Emily Skeggs (“Fun Home”), Kimia Behpoornia (“Abbott Elementary,” Dropout), Angela Giarrantana (Smosh, Dropout), and Vic Michaelis (Dropout’s “Very Important People”). The production team includes KC McGeorge, the production designer for “Twenty-Sided Tavern” and Art Director on “Dimension 20” and Alex Dennis as Stage Manager. Laser Webber and Cara Christian serve as producers.
In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek McDonald shared the inspiration for “Big Bear.” He also explained the casting process. McDonald also reflected on the rise of independent artists and comedians looking to fans via Kickstarter to fun projects. The “Big Bear” Kickstarter launched on August 5th and has already raised over $54K.
Patrick McDonald Reveals The Real Life Inspiration For Big Bear
Temple of Geek: When I first saw this was happening, I was very excited because I am a fan of StarKid, Dropout, and Smosh. So, I fully went, oh, this is for me. You made this for me!
Patrick McDonald:
I’m so glad! Yeah, that was the goal. I’ve gotten the great fortune of working with so many cool people all over the internet. We all kind of started out together doing theater, improv, and sketch. Every single person in this show is somebody that either secretly or not so secretly, we always do a show together. We’re hanging out and we go like, you love theater? I love theater!
Every single one of these people, I have 10 year relationships with a lot of them. We’re all people that have loved theater, but maybe have never had the opportunity to do it. Definitely haven’t had the opportunity to do it together unless we built it. So it’s very exciting that we’re doing a play. I feel very much like I’m in high school again.
Temple of Geek: How long have you been working on the story? Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired the story itself of this play?
Patrick McDonald:
“Big Bear” is based on the worst idea of an AirBnB trip you could ever have. The worst version of an AirBnB trip with a bunch of friends. So, in 2021, I went on a big bunch of AirBnB trips after COVID. Everybody was going on these trips where it’s like, we haven’t seen each other for nine months and now we’re all going to spend three days together nonstop. I feel like a lot of us were not ready for that much exposure to each other.
Some tension was building and there were always moments. None of the things that happened in this play happened in those, I want to be so clear, this is a work of fiction, but the people feel very real. But I very frequently like to write things to process. I kind of took some of my anxieties with modern friendships, like things with text groups that are never ending or weird. This person is close to this person, but secretly doesn’t like this person. All that stuff that happens in larger friend groups.
I wanted to put it all in one play to allow myself to see it and get all the anxieties out of my head. So, I actually wrote it four years ago, literally in probably a day or two. It just kind of came out of me and then I didn’t look at it again for four years. I did a table read with some friends, a bunch of friends from this group, “Mama Mia But Different,” that I do. Which is a live show where we do a different version of “Mama Mia.” We have a pop punk “Mama Mia” coming up on Friday actually.
But I got my actor friends together to do this table read. I said, I don’t know what this is. This is something that I think could be good. Would you read it with me? Jon Matteson, Angela [Giarrantana], and some other people like Mariah Rose Casillas and Gabe Gibbs and Madison Lanesey, all these amazing people. But they all came together, they read it for me. We stepped back and we were like, wait, this is actually very good. And we were all kind of blown away. I was blown away. I didn’t remember it. It was this exciting moment where we were like, oh my gosh, this is something that I think we all resonated with.
And also, something that we can see just having a great life in theater. Everyone was like, you have to make this. So, I started putting it together and decided to put it up. It was so cool because it’s a fully original show. There isn’t any IP. This isn’t based on anything other than real life experiences and tensions. So, the fact that it was so well received and people were so excited about it was so thrilling and honestly surreal. It’s this thing that I had that I wasn’t even going to show anyone. I didn’t think it was anything. So, for it to fully be something now blows my mind.
A Dropout, Smosh, & StarKid Studded Cast
Temple of Geek: What was the casting process like for you? You said you’ve been friends with so many of these people for so long. Do you think you maybe subconsciously wrote certain characters for certain people or did you adjust the characters to fit some of the performers more? Or was it just, oh, you work for this role?
Patrick McDonald:
I sat with making this show for months and I would slowly cast people. It took me three months to cast. It was going to a movie with Joey Richter and being like, oh, he’s perfect for this play. Sending him the play, realizing that, oh, if he’s the boyfriend, Joey Richter’s character has a girlfriend in the play. That girlfriend actually perfectly fits Lauren Lopez. Sending it to Joey and Lauren, Lauren reading it, coming back. So I didn’t do any open calls. I didn’t do any tapes. It was a very private casting process, but a lot of them are people that I can trust that I know can deliver in such a tight period of time because we’re going to be, I think putting this up in 17 rehearsals. Which is actually a blessing.
I’ve put up hour long shows in three rehearsals, so it is going to be really, really exciting. But I think ultimately it was casting people that, one, I love to work with. Two, I know people love to watch. And three people that I can trust to take this thing over the finish line and really deliver on their performances. None of these characters are based on any of the people playing them. They’re all very much aggregates of nine people in one person. The actors that you know, like Vic and Angela and Joey, Lauren, Jon, they’re all going to be playing either versions of themselves that you’re going to be familiar with.
You’re going to be like, oh, I would say Jon Matteson is playing the most self-conscious version of myself. The funny guy that nobody else thinks is funny, but he thinks he’s funny. That’s Jon. It’s a heartbreaking because Jon Matteson is a really incredible punching bag. He’s really magical in this show. Angela is playing someone that I would say is opposite of her type. So we get to see her portray something that maybe you haven’t seen her perform before. It’s a really fun mix of people that are going to just be able to hit home runs, but it’s going to be different. People are using bats that maybe they haven’t used before. That’s all I’m going to say.
Big Bear Is Set In 1 Location In Real Time
Temple of Geek: And then because it’s set in an AirBnB, is it all in one location?
Patrick McDonald:
Yeah, so the structure of the show is it’s one location in real time. So the entire play takes place between 9:30 AM and 11:00 AM. Which is the moment everybody wakes up on the last day of an AirBnB trip and the time that they have to be out of the AirBnB. So while they’re fighting, while their friend group is falling apart, while all these tensions are exploding, they also have to clean and get the laundry and do the dishes and put the board games away. They’re racing against the clock to save their AirBnB rating and their friendship.
Temple of Geek: One of the most stressful times of any trip. I feel that way with hotels where you don’t have to clean or anything. I’m still like, I have to be out of here!
Patrick McDonald:
It’s a nightmare. It’s awful. And it’s funny because I think it really brings out a lot of unresolved tension because if you can’t get people to do what you’re asking them to do or one person is making eggs when you know all the dishes have to be cleaned. That brings up this kind of like, you always do this. Why did you do this? It causes a little bit of tension.
The amount of people that I’ve talked to since announcing that I was doing this play that they had a friend group that fell apart in an AirBnB is immense. Everyone tells me they’re experiencing this. This is a universal experience, a generational experience. I think everybody is going through losing friendships through a group trip. Literally the reason to go on a group trip is to build your friendship, and so many of them don’t make it out of there. It’s brutal.
Temple of Geek: I love this idea so much. I’ve not done an AirBnB trip with my friends. I now feel like I never want to.
Patrick McDonald:
I know! I do worry that AirBnB is going to be a little pissed at this show because this is not a glowing review of living in an AirBnB. There’s also this whole culture of AirBnBs now where you go into a house that was built to be an AirBnB. It doesn’t feel like people live there.
So there’s these tensions also of what is this feeling? This is an artificial surrounding and my friend group is acting artificial. It’s like there’s so much involved with an AirBnB that I think we should just all go to hotels. I think we all need to make the move to hotels. Yeah, I’m a hotel person. Through and through. After writing this play, I was like, I got to stay at hotels. What am I doing? I don’t like going on these trips. I wouldn’t write this if I loved this.
Big Bear Is Patrick McDonald’s Dream As A Creator
Temple of Geek: The thing that cracks me up about this too is I’m just picturing my friend group doing this because if anyone was trying to fight, I’d truly be like, can you go outside and fight so I can clean? We can stop at McDonald’s. I swear to God, you’ll eat. Just go stand in the driveway.
Patrick McDonald:
I promise. Just go stand in the driveway, please don’t fight in the house. This is bad vibes. Absolutely. That’s a big part of it. It’s fighting the fight for as long as you can. Half of this show is someone being like, let’s just go to breakfast. Let’s just get to breakfast. We just clean. We get to breakfast. We don’t have to worry about this. So of course, they never get to breakfast. Maybe they do. They say they’re going to breakfast. I don’t know if they actually go to breakfast. I don’t want to spoil. The show ends with will they or won’t they go to breakfast? That’s the big twist. Get ready.
Temple of Geek: It’s that awkward post credit “Avengers” scene where they’re all just silently eating breakfast, won’t make eye contact.
Patrick McDonald:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to stay tuned for this plays post credit sequence as well. The first one we’re ever doing in a play. No, I wish, I kind of want to do that now.
Temple of Geek: How does it feel that it’s already been funded on Kickstarter and you now are going beyond what you initially were asking?
Patrick McDonald:
I look at that Kickstarter and lose my mind every single day. I cannot believe that there is so much love for this play, a play that people haven’t seen. Every time I look at it, I’m like, well, damn, it has to be good now. Shoot, now it has to be good. Which is such an exciting challenge and I’m so ready for it. I’ve worked so hard on this play and I know it’s going to be good. I’ve already had reactions that people are into this thing. I’m honored. I think people really look at it around me as like a magic trick. I think everybody was surprised that there was so much interest and excitement for an original theater production that was going to be live streamed.
But I am on the internet. I’m too on the internet. I see Broadway TikTok. I see people obsessed with the slime tutorials on TikTok and theater kids on YouTube. Everybody’s going to opening night of these shows. We’re all celebrating these musicals that were written a hundred years ago or shows about middle-aged people going through loss. There’s not even shows for millennials. We’re loving theater and it’s not even for us. So, it’s really exciting because we get to build something that is relevant to the theater going audience. It has activated a group of theater people that want to see original productions. It just is so heartening. I mean, it’s just so exciting. We make so much stuff out here as creators, independent performers, writers, actors, directors, and content people. We make so much stuff with the intention and the goal of it being seen.
So much of it is not seen because you think it’s good. You get out there and as you’re saying it, you’re like, oh, this was bad. This was a diary entry, this was a workshop piece that I should not be presenting at this place. So just at this level to say I have something I want to get made, and then everyone else saying we want to see it, it really was an emotional moment for me. I definitely cried on the first day I sat with my producer Laser [Webber]. I was telling him right before we launched, I was like, I don’t know about this, I don’t know about that. And Laser said, I want you to remember right now that you don’t think you can make $50,000.
I made it in a week. I made it in six days. So, we still have a little bit more to go to actually make our budget feasible, but right now we can make a version of this show that I’ll still be super proud of and excited about. It’s beyond words. It’s so thrilling, the dream, everyone asks what my dream is. My dream has always been to make things I love with people I love. And so that’s exactly this. So, in many ways this is my full dream.
Patrick McDonald Explains Kickstarter’s Place In The Industry Now
Temple of Geek: We’re seeing more and more projects being funded by fans on Kickstarter. What do you think it says about the industry in this moment?
Patrick McDonald:
I think it’s a turning point in the entire industry that I think these fans and the people that support these internet creators are bringing about. I think it’s incredible. It’s amazing. I am frustrated in some ways that the industry has led to forcing fans to build their own stuff in terms of paying the artists they love. Because all of us that are making things have obviously taken these things to other people and said, this is going to be good. I promise you. Let me make this. And we’ve gotten a pass. We’ve gotten turned down or it’s gotten changed before our very eyes.
I’m really good friends with people like Rekha Shankar and Izzy Roland. These people that inspired me because they said, I have a vision that I’m really excited for. They got their projects crowdfunded, and it was really, really amazing to see. I think it should be a wake up call to the industry that there’s an interest in these projects that are not IP based, that are not rehashing old things or things that are not necessarily even tied to giant names. The big thing you hear in LA, I’ve sent this around to different bigger production companies. And they’ve said, yeah, if we could attach a name to it or if you can get attached this, if we could build this up into being something.
I’ve also gotten, oh, this is a story about a bunch of people fighting at an AirBnB. Maybe you should set it during the apocalypse. Maybe you should set it where there’s a zombie in it or something. The truth of it is that it’s a human story related to real friendship traumas that people have gone through. That alone is enough. So, there’s this Hollywood factory that’s trying to build something out to be bigger than it needs to be. It feels really, really, really cool to know that we know what the audience is looking for regardless of what the studios tell us the audience is looking for.
I already sent it around to people and they said, well, we probably couldn’t make this play, right? It’s going to take three years. You’re going to have to get into a writing lab and then we’ll do a workshop and then we will potentially put this in a reading and then you can get a production in five years. But this show’s not going to be that relevant potentially in five years. This is on the pulse of what I’m experiencing now. What I’m feeling and I can speak to it right now. So I want to make it now, and I want everyone that can relate to it to relate to it now.
So, that’s why it needs to be made. It really feels cool that fans and people on Kickstarter and people interested in funding independent theater feel that way too. Because it just allows us to go to the rest of the industry and say, wake up, they want this stuff! They’re not paying you. They’re paying me. I’m so glad because it’s my stuff in the first place. This is always how it should have been. So, it is really cool.
Temple of Geek: What are you bringing from your live theater experiences? But on the flip side how are you looking to maybe experiment and try things that you haven’t done before with the live production?
Patrick McDonald:
This is the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced. This is going to be the most exciting show I’ve ever done because everything I’ve learned from independent directing, writing, acting, and producing is coming into this. So, in the past, I’ve directed over probably 50 sketch shows. I’ve done over 50 Smosh videos, I directed and wrote and produced. I have directed musicals and “Mama Mia But Different.” I think we’ve done over ten “Mama Mia But Differents.” What I’ve learned from my process is I block fast, almost emotionlessly, and then we run it over and over until we feel the rhythm and the comfort of the show.
So, with the 17 rehearsals we have, my plan is to get in, block the show as fast as possible and then just run it until everybody feels comfortable. I think what’s really important for me is ultimate collaboration. If somebody finds something that’s funnier than what’s on the page, I wrote that, I can talk to the writer that’s gone. We’re going to do your thing. Best idea wins. The goal is for everyone to be excited to create. It’s never more serious than making something that’s fun to be a part of. If you’re having fun, it’s going to be a good show. That’s what I’m going to bring. We’re going to have a good time. It’s not going to be too serious. Patience and joy and happiness and experimentation. That’s what I’m about.
Donate to the “Big Bear” Kickstarter now. The Kickstarter ends on September 5.
