Episode three of StoryTech takes you to the dazzling lights of Broadway. As Jeff speaks to two-time Tony Award-winning producer Stacey Mindich about being lead producer of the hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, and how technology helped capture the emotion of this incredible and heartfelt story.
Dear Evan Hansen is a major Broadway hit with an unlikely theme – teen suicide, social media and mental heath. Stacey Mindich tells Jeff about the origin of the story, and about the technology they used to make social media come alive as the ninth character onstage.
The songs “Sincerely, Me,” “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen are featured in this episode, courtesy of the producers of the show.
You can listen to episode three of StoryTech free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music right now. Or if you’re more of a reader, just scroll down for the full episode transcript and highlights from this week’s episode.
Stacey Mindich is an award-winning theatrical producer based in New York who has helped produce more than 20 plays and musicals, on and off Broadway. The latest being one of the biggest musicals of the last decade, Dear Evan Hansen.
The story is centered around technology and how a high-school kid’s little white lie spirals out of control, with any drama on stage mirrored by projections showing how the digital world is reacting. An unlikely hit about grief, depression and social media that may very well have changed the future of musicals.
This 32 minute podcast episode was transcribed in 13 minutes by Trint’s super-powered AI. View the full transcript below or jump ahead to notable points from Jeff’s interview with Stacey Mindich.
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[00:00:03] Jeff (V/O): This is StoryTech. I'm Jeff Kofman.
[00:00:07] Performers: Goo goo goo goo goo, goo goo goo goo goo.
[00:00:10] Jeff (V/O): What you're listening to are vocal warmups, actors and singers preparing to go on stage. Back in the fall, I dropped by the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End. I was invited to witness a very special day.
[00:00:34] Stacey: Wow. I want to just say a couple of things.
[00:00:39] Jeff (V/O): This is Stacey Mindich, a theatrical producer in New York. She's in London to meet the West End cast of Dear Evan Hansen - a show she originally created on Broadway.
[00:00:51] Stacey: You cannot know what it means for me to see you all today. But I'm going to try to tell you really briefly, because we have a matinee that I'm excited to watch. And please forgive the presence of Jeff and his team from StoryTech. I decided a few months ago before Broadway ended that the only press that I would do and that you would do would be for legacy purposes only. And I think this is that. So I'm glad that they're here. And speaking of Dear Evan Hansen's legacy, you all fall into that category in the most meaningful of ways. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that a company would reach the heights of our original Broadway company. But you did, and then some. Look at what you have accomplished.
[00:01:47] Jeff (V/O): The reason Stacey is getting emotional is because this is the final day of the London production of Dear Evan Hansen. Like all of New York's Broadway in London's West End, Dear Evan Hansen was shuttered during the pandemic. It's been back on stage for a year now. But in both cities, the foreign tourism that fuels theater hasn't recovered. So Stacey is here to close the show. Now, I don't want to talk to Stacey Mindich just because she produced one of the biggest musicals of the last decade. No, the reason Stacey is on StoryTech is because Dear Evan Hansen is both a story about technology and one that uses technology in a fascinating way.
[00:02:34] Performers: Dear Evan Hansen, we've been way too out of touch.
[00:02:38] Jeff (V/O): The plot follows an awkward high school kid, Evan Hansen, who tells a lie that spins out of control. Evan writes a letter to himself as a therapy exercise. A classmate snatches the letter. When the classmate takes his own life, the boy's parents find the letter on him. They mistakenly think he wrote it as a suicide note to his best friend, Evan. And Evan plays along to relieve some of their pain and some of his own.
[00:03:05] Performers: Sincerely me.
[00:03:08] Stacey: You know, we like to say it's about a boy struggling to connect in a hyperconnected society. And in a moment of extreme pressure, this awkward, nerdy boy tells a lie, and that lie spirals out of his control. And in that experience, it brings him everything he always wanted. Popularity, the girl, a family, because he was the product of a single mother and lonely. And as with most lies in our world, the truth comes out. But he grows from it. And the ending brings you a lot of catharsis - you know, the ending you are you, you are enough, you don't need to lie, you matter - has really taken over as our show's motto.
[00:04:02] Jeff (V/O): As the drama plays out, it's mirrored by projections of what's happening in the digital world. Real time social media posts are choreographed with the action on stage, and the result is mesmerizing. This unlikely hit about grief, depression and social media may very well have changed the future of musicals.
[00:04:23] Jeff (V/O): From Antica Productions, Trint and the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in cooperation with WAER Syracuse, an NPR member station. This is StoryTech.
[00:04:41] Jeff (V/O): This is a personal journey I want to share with you. I spent the first 30 years of my career as a broadcast journalist, foreign correspondent and war correspondent, and the last eight years as founder and CEO of Trint - a tech company focused on transcription and streamlining the workflow of storytelling. We have seen so much technological change come at us so fast. The idea behind this podcast is to explore how those changes have shaped what we watch, what we read, and what we listen to. Today, the stagecraft behind the hit musical, Dear Evan Hansen.
[00:05:28] Performers: I've learned to slam on the brake before I even turn the key, before I make the mistake, before I lead with the worst of me.
[00:05:41] Jeff (V/O): The story of Dear Evan Hansen starts in 2007, when Broadway producer Stacey Mindich had a meeting with two young composers, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Those two have since gone on to write for all kinds of musicals and movies, including an Oscar winning song for La La Land. But at the time, they were fresh out of school. Stacey had produced an early show of theirs called Dogfight and loved their songwriting.
[00:06:09] Stacey: And so I took them out to lunch one day, and I had in my pocketbook, being 20 years older than them, a list of ideas that I could commission them to write. One being, and I say this because it's very humorous at this point, a modern retelling of Edith Wharton's Custom of the Country. And here I am in my early forties, sitting with these two 24 year olds who have more energy than I've ever seen in my days. Jumping off the seats of the table with their energy, talking about what they want to do with their lives and I just like crumpled up that piece of paper under the table.
[00:06:48] Jeff: You never told them about Edith Wharton?
[00:06:50] Stacey: If I told them they've heard it in interviews for many years. But I had to pivot and I just thought, they're cool, I'm not, but I want to do whatever they're going to do. I want to do what they want to do. It was the greatest lesson, the greatest pivot of my life, because when you let an artist do what they want to do, they work so much harder. They love it so much more and that was the deep joy of Dear Evan Hansen.
[00:07:18] Jeff: So did they propose this idea, what's the germ?
[00:07:20] Stacey: The germ was Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, met in college. But when Benj was in high school in Philadelphia, a senior in his class passed away. In this particular instance, it was I believe, drug related. But Benj had been haunted not just by the death, but by the fact in the burgeoning Facebook generation that he grew up in that every single kid, according to him in the senior class, wrote their college essay about their connection to this boy, whether they had one or not. And, you know, that was indeed the beginning of this time where not only did you feel that, but you publicized it on Facebook. And he was really haunted by his generation's need to connect publicly and express grief. And so they told me the story. And it was fascinating because I'm a mother of three sons, you know, teenagers who were getting into social media. And yet I thought, jeez, they want to do a story. There's a dead kid, they're 24 and no one's heard of them - this was way before their Oscars, way before their films and their social media. I wasn't on social media at the time, and it sounded like a disaster.
[00:08:35] Jeff: It's one of the creepy sides of social media that people need to pile on in this ghoulish way, this morbid celebration of, "Oh, and I knew him too".
[00:08:46] Stacey: It is and which is why it's so extraordinary that the show, through its projections and its storytelling, was able to gracefully and poignantly show not only how the need to connect in a hyper-connected society makes one feel, but the highs and the lows of it. There's some joy in the show as well. People don't realize that you laugh. But anyway, they told me the story sounded awful, and yet inside my heart was pounding and I'm like, how can I figure out a way to do this? I don't want to do it. I don't care if I fail - it was my second career - but I, I don't want them to fail. And so I just said what was in my brain because I am who I am. I'm like, if there's a boy, can there be a mother? Because then I'm interested. Then this isn't high school, this is a family and everyone has a mother and everyone is a kid. And, you know, I knew from the failures I'd had on Broadway before that if you can write a show that everyone needs to see, you're going to be okay. And yes, there was a mother and I don't know how these men were able to write in that voice, but the mothers in our show, I think, are the most authentic actresses and roles that I've come across in theater. And when they say things, not only do I feel that they are saying things that I said at my breakfast table that day to my own kids. But hundreds of thousands of women across the country have felt that as well.
[00:10:23] Performers: It's your senior year, Connor. You are not missing the first day.
[00:10:26] Performers: I already said I'd go tomorrow.
[00:10:28] Performers: He doesn't listen. Look at him, he's probably high.
[00:10:31] Performers: He's definitely high.
[00:10:32] Performers: I don't want you going to school high Connor.
[00:10:34] Performers: Perfect. So then I won't go. Thanks, Mom.
[00:10:38] Performers: Another masterful acceptance with disaster.
[00:10:41] Performers: Interstates already jammed.
[00:10:42] Performers: Or another cup of coffee and watch it all crash and burn. It's a puzzle. It's a maze. I try to steer through it a million ways, but then each day is another wrong turn.
[00:10:55] Jeff: Social media plays a huge part in this production. It's not just a kind of backdrop. It's almost a character.
[00:11:04] Stacey: Well, the authors have called social media the ninth character in the show. And yes, the technology and the age of social media and how it affects young people is central to the show. But the theme, it's very important to note that the theme of a boy struggling to connect to parents love for a child, and yet an inability to help that child, is central to the show as well. And that theme could have happened in ancient Greece and 100 years into the dystopian future. You have a mix of a classic story with the enhancement of social media.
[00:11:41] Jeff: So what was the challenge of making social media that ninth character on the stage?
[00:11:46] Stacey: The challenge was not to do it the way anybody else has done it before, and the challenge was not to do it in a way that said High School. There are all these charming, cute movies out there where you see people texting each other and they bring it down to a very young level. And we were dealing with some very important and sophisticated themes about life in the way we live it, and we didn't want it to feel that way. And so there had to be a sophistication about this. I mean, one of the great things our director, Michael Greif, added to the show was we took away the ensemble. So you don't see ten dancing teenagers holding cell phones. The ensemble is virtual. And I was very determined that the ensemble that you see in the projections on the stage were people of all races and ages.
[00:12:32] Jeff: When you say ensemble, you mean a bunch of kids as sort of secondary actors and singers.
[00:12:37] Stacey: We don't have that. What we have are a cross between actors and real people - and I'll tell you about the real people because that's real interesting - who were filmed and get paid as long as our show runs. But they're never in our theater. They're only on our screens. And they were scripted by our writer Steven Levenson, and they come on in moments of strife in the show and they react as if they would on Facebook. And the other thing we were careful to do so that the show could have a long life was not ever say, this is Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat. The projections are, in an odd way, choreographed. It works and moves as social media does. Things pass before your eyes and you know, you get down the rabbit hole of it all, but it's not labeled as per say, as Facebook. It's sort of a surrealist, quite poetic, look at it. So we have a virtual ensemble. We went out there on our marketing channels, and right before the show moved from off-Broadway to Broadway, we asked fans of the show and we had many already to send us a video of themselves. We gave them exact instructions, holding up a sign that says, Hashtag, you will be found. And they appear on our projections on the screens, on our stage. During a very emotional moment in the act one finale song, You Will Be Found, which has been a very big song for the show. It's really quite moving because you see how a Facebook or a social media campaign organically becomes part of your life.
[00:14:16] Jeff: When you experimented with this idea of making social media a character on stage - was there anything that just didn't work?
[00:14:24] Stacey: Lots of things didn't work. God knows how many times we rejected the projection design plan because the goal was always to make it feel as authentic as possible. So anything too scripted or anything too theatrical didn't work, which is sort of the opposite of what you try to do on stage. It had to feel like you saw it on your screen two minutes ago.
[00:14:48] Jeff: So okay, can you paint a picture of what that stage looks like from the audience?
[00:14:53] Stacey: Well, the thing I didn't like in the early days about the show was that it was it's very dark, literally physically dark, because in order for the screens to really do their job, and they're projections on screens behind the set and on the floor. So the best seat in the House is really the front row mezzanine, because then you can see everything. And so the show is very, very dark at some points, not just in theme but in physicality, so that all of that pops. And in the end it works brilliantly because at the moment of catharsis in the last five minutes of the show, when Evan walks into the apple orchard that he somehow helped to build without even really trying. You see blue skies and you see that Evan has literally taken a lyric from our show and stepped into the sun. And that was so important to making sure that people left our show feeling they had had a catharsis, and the show ended with hope after a dark journey.
[00:15:59] Performers: You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.
[00:16:23] Advert: StoryTech is sponsored by Trint. The automated transcription and content creation tool made by storytellers for storytellers. Trint can help turn audio and video files into articles, podcasts and videos faster and easier than ever before. A discount code StoryTech25 is available on annual plans at Trint.com.
[00:16:50] Jeff: So a certain generation thinks of musicals, you think of Oklahoma, Gypsy and all those kind of belt'em out tunes and women in petticoats. This is so far from all of that. It's almost wrong to call it a musical.
[00:17:04] Stacey: It is a musical. I think it is a direction musicals are going in. We have also called it a play with songs in our own heads as it was being created. We had a lot of conversations about the fact that there was no overture. There was no song like "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof that set the scene, introduced you to all the characters. As a matter of fact, we finally had to come to terms with the fact that Evan's opening monologue on his bed was our version of "Tradition", because it's very unusual in the structure of a musical that the first song is sung by two people about themselves and not about the whole world. And that the big number doesn't come until 17 minutes into the first act, waving through a window when Evan sings it after having his first run in with Connor and his last real life run in with Connor.
[00:17:55] Performers: Step out step out of the sun if you keep getting burned. Step out step out of the sun because you've learned. Because you learned.
[00:18:10] Stacey: So it is unusual. That said, in this day and age, while people are taking a second look at musicals, Oklahoma has more darkness in it than we realized. In fact, a lot of the old musicals did. And now that we are so much more woke than we were before, and forgive me for using that word, my kids are probably rolling their eyes at me. You know, there's a lot of darkness in all the musicals and we're just putting it out there.
[00:18:35] Jeff: So it's how you produce it.
[00:18:36] Stacey: It's less about producing, I have to give the writers credit here, it's about being honest on the page. It's about wanting to take the risk of reflecting what life is really like.
[00:18:48] Performers: On the outside, always looking in. Will I ever be more than a boy's man? Cause I'm tap, tap tapping on the glass. Waving through a window.
[00:19:03] Jeff: You talked a moment ago about your learning curve as it relates to social media. You weren't even a social media member when this began.
[00:19:13] Stacey: Definitely not.
[00:19:14] Jeff: No Facebook?
[00:19:14] Stacey: No.
[00:19:15] Jeff: No Twitter?
[00:19:15] Stacey: In fact, I wrote up a contract in my family that I made each of my sons sign when Facebook was in its early days. I will not post photos of girls in bathing suits. I will not - and they had to initial it and sign it in those early days. But it was really the authors who said to me at one point, if you're not on social media, you're not going to understand how to market this show. And so I went home and I had my 11 year-old get me on Instagram, and it's a private account and teach me how to do it. And then I did I think what most people do on social media, which is I went wild for it. I was telling my company, do not, do not post pictures of you rehearsing for the Thanksgiving Day parade. This has to be exciting when it happens. Don't post the rehearsals. Don't show yourselves. And then the first thing I did was posted and my digital marketing director called me and said, "What did you just do?" And I'm like, I forgot. You know, It's just so it's just so.
[00:20:18] Jeff: You got sucked down the rabbit hole of social media.
[00:20:22] Stacey: It's so addictive. And then I, between the not-so gentle counseling of my children and my own questioning the world during the pandemic, I stopped completely for two years. There's just there's no point. Like I questioned myself, why do you want to do this? And I realized I don't want to promote myself. I'm in my late fifties. I, I have done what I wanted to do. I don't need to do that. I tend to post a couple of things so that I can reach my friends very quickly. But I follow. I follow because that's how you learn about the world. That's how you learn about people. And I follow my interests and my hobbies, and I follow train wrecks as they're happening, like in our show.
[00:21:10] Stacey: What do you mean, train wreck?
[00:21:11] Stacey: I mean, you know, the other day, Olivia Wilde and some salad dressing. Look it up. It's interesting. Salad dressing, controversy and her divorce with Jason Sudeikis. And I you know, it's interesting. You get it quicker than you get it from People magazine.
[00:21:26] Jeff (V/O): If you're wondering, that salad dressing controversy was a bizarre piece of Hollywood gossip that flooded the Twittersphere with truly inane details of an affair between the director, Olivia Wilde, and her lead actor in "Don't Worry Darling", Harry Styles. If you really want the juicy details, you can Google it after you've finished listening to this.
[00:21:49] Stacey: In the early days, I think people used to feel there was an impermanence to what you did because it was a picture and then you move on to the next picture. But I think it's gotten a lot more dangerous than that. I think it gets picked up and you can Google somebody and the first thing they'll come up is the salad dressing controversy when what you actually are is a female director trying to create art. And so instead, people Google you and the first thing they find out is something you did to your husband.
[00:22:19] Jeff: Dear Evan Hansen really looks at this because this is a boy who, as we talked about, tells a little lie, kind of naively, and he's almost pushed into the lie because the family finds this letter.
[00:22:31] Stacey: They need it.
[00:22:31] Jeff: Right. And they find Connor who commits suicide, has taken this letter Evan's written to himself. They understandably think that he's written this letter to Evan, his best friend, who they'd never heard of. Evan being lonely grabs on to this and not really realizing what's going to happen. And then the world of his High School and social media suddenly takes this into a level that spins out of control. And he knows he's in deep doo doo here, but he can't control it anymore because we can't control our own narratives on social media.
[00:23:04] Stacey: No, we can't. We've always called this a coming of age story, and it's coming of age in a modern age. Really, you you have to learn where your limits are with what you publicize about yourself. We're all our own press agents because of social media. Some of us are better at it than others.
[00:23:21] Jeff: In his case, was there a lesson you wanted people to take from this?
[00:23:26] Stacey: I think it's really important with art to let the story tell itself in some ways. And there were things I had hoped for because that means success. But organically, what has come out of this show is some simple mantras that people have taken and put on mugs and notebooks that we haven't authorized. But you are you. You are enough. You matter. You will be found. You are not alone. When you connected to something like the mental health movement, it takes on a different meaning. But it also means don't lie. Be your authentic self. We all make a mistake. We all tell a lie. I have met very few people since I started producing the show that haven't said to me, "I was Evan when I was 17" or "I was Evan when I was 40 and I moved to a new city with my husband and my kids and I had to make friends again". And we all have that in us. And I think that has organically come out in a way that, had we tried to say this is the show about this. One of our early taglines, which we nixed, was The Musical For The Outsider In All Of Us. But you can't tell people that they're outsiders and then want them to come to the show. I think a lot of the mistakes that happen in theater happens when you don't listen to the audience. And I think that that has been the greatest joy of this show for me since we were a success was listening to the audience.
[00:25:09] Jeff: So I just want to talk about the tech in one more aspect. So you've talked about these screens and video projectors. There's no painted backdrop in this. There are no painted cloths dropped from the rafters. This is all projections and a few props being wheeled in and out.
[00:25:22] Stacey: And a couch or two.
[00:25:23] Jeff: And a couch or two. Yeah, it's pretty simple stuff.
[00:25:27] Stacey: Well, it's simple until you take it on national tour and the screens have to get taken off and put on every night. And, you know, every time an understudy goes on, the projections have to change. So the minute an actor is hired, they have to commit to a haircut. They have to get filmed in front of a green screen so that when they are on the projections, we're committing to this look. You can't grow your hair or cut your hair once you've filmed for our show.
[00:25:54] Jeff: That's interesting, because I did notice that.
[00:25:56] Stacey: Yes. And so the projections team that lives with us in our shows, not the designer, has to pivot the minute someone calls in sick - and you can imagine with COVID that happens quite a lot - to get the projections correct for the actors in the show at that moment. And not only that, but there is a montage in the show with baby photos of the boy who has passed in the show. So we have to get real life baby photos of this boy. And those have to change when people are changing the role as well.
[00:26:26] Jeff: You didn't make it easy.
[00:26:27] Stacey: It's not a simple show. It's not a simple show in any way. It was actually the most difficult thing I've ever done.
[00:26:34] Jeff: So you have really successfully explored technology multimedia on the stage. Does it make you want to continue down that road?
[00:26:43] Stacey: I think it's important to note when it can enhance a story and when it can't. I don't know, somebody will do it someday, but our town, Thornton Wilder, should there be screens of that community behind it? No, but somebody will try that someday, I'm sure. I think, I think you have to listen not just to the artists, but to the art and the story. And technology should come when the story tells you it should come.
[00:27:16] Jeff (V/O): After our conversation, Stacy took me for a walk on stage to show me the set and its technical wizardry. Most of the set is made up of moving screens for video projections that bring social media - the plays ninth character - to life.
[00:27:31] Stacey: All the screens are going to be coming out and down. So part of the rehearsal when you finally get the cast on stage, is making sure that the actors don't bump into the screens and hurt themselves or ruin the screens because it's very dark here.
[00:27:47] Jeff: Stacy, what's it like for you standing on the stage for the last time for the UK production?
[00:27:52] Stacey: It was heartbreaking on Broadway. This company and this theater and being in the West End has been so filled with joy that I actually don't feel sad today. Having an American show do well in the UK is kind of extraordinary. So I just can't wait to hug these actors again. And I know that because they were in this show, especially the young ones who didn't have anything, you know, in terms of credits before. I know they're going to go on to really amazing things. So I feel real happy.
[00:28:25] Jeff (V/O): Dear evan Hansen's run isn't over. It's touring the U.S. and more international productions are in the works, including South Korea and Japan. It's already been made into a movie, and on top of bringing countless people to tears and introducing a few new classics to the repertoire of Broadway songs, it's created a new language for Broadway musicals.
[00:28:45] Stacey: I have many, many, many young composers write to my website every day asking me to help them do what Pasek and Paul did. So I think that people want to write like Dear Evan Hansen. And I think you know, certainly since the pandemic, there will be a flood of musicals and plays and literature that is reflective of the society we've lived in for the past few years. And, you know, I think what I've learned through this show is that for better or for worse, pretty much anyone who's on social media now is the storyteller, because one tweet tells a story. And so for me, it makes me want to find the good stories because there are so many bad ones out there.
[00:29:36] Jeff: So finally in this podcast, I like to ask everyone who comes on the show about their personal relationship with technology. Two questions. What's a piece of technology you couldn't live without?
[00:29:51] Stacey: I'm sad to say, my iPhone. I mean.
[00:29:54] Jeff: It's shocking how many people say that.
[00:29:56] Stacey: But I mean, I remember when I had my first child and we would go out to dinner and I was still writing the number of the restaurant on a piece of paper. Young parents today literally have no idea what I'm talking about. But I also remember since I just came from my alma mater recently, that I would call my parents, you know, once a week and have a substantial conversation with them. And that was that. But I feel really lucky that I hear from my sons every day because it's so simple for them to text. And we keep in touch in a really nice way with the family group chain or even if I just get a picture or we send them a picture. We're in touch. And if I say that's why I can't live without my iPhone, it's because I have three people I created out in the world and because of the iPhone, I know they're alive and that makes me real happy.
[00:30:47] Jeff: So the flip side of that question, is there a least favorite piece of technology that you've encountered through life.
[00:30:54] Stacey: The iPhone? I'm 58 years old and my husband has to look at me over the dinner table and say, Are you going to put that down for a minute? It's a blessing and a curse.
[00:31:04] Jeff: Stacy, thanks.
[00:31:05] Stacey: Thank you.
[00:31:11] Jeff (V/O): StoryTech is produced by Antica Productions, Trint and the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, in association with WAER Syracuse, an NPR member station.
[00:31:24] Jeff (V/O): Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Emily Morantz. Mixing and sound design by Mitchell Stuart. Our associate sound editor is Cameron McIver. Our theme music is by Josh Spear. Stuart Coxe is the president of Antica. Our executive producers are Laura Regehr and me, your host, Jeff Kofman.
[00:31:47] Jeff (V/O): Thank you to London's West End company of Dear Evan Hansen for letting me crash your final day of performance. And thanks also to the producing team of Dear Evan Hansen for permission to use the audio from the original show. By the way, Stacy's first career was in journalism. She graduated from the Newhouse School at Syracuse in 1986.
[00:32:07] Jeff (V/O): If you have story ideas, suggestions or thoughts on today's episode, you can send me an email at storytech@trint.com. One thing that came out of this conversation with Stacey Mindich is that despite all of the technology that surrounds us, we all rely on human connection. So if you like this show, please subscribe and share it in your social media channels.
