Reality TV By Maddie Schumacher

I remember my mother describing reality television to me at a young age as “trash.” My mother, a fearless attorney, was my first mentor of taste. When my mother deemed reality tv less important, I suppose I did too. 

But because a teenage girl has to defy her mother, I fell in love with The Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY) anyway. 

By the end of my senior year of high school, I had watched twelve seasons of RHONY four times. Now a senior in college, I watch the show almost every single night. 

Bravo’s housewives series follows the lives of complicated, privileged, and messy NYC women. These same women sing me to bed each night. 

I can't convince you to love the housewives but I can convince you they are making me a better artist.

Hear me out. 

The art of Acting is complicated. Everyone has an opinion on how one should act or how one should learn to act. And don't even get me started on all the methods. From Meisner to Grotowski, I can tell you with confidence: they are all cultish and no one way of training will promise you a flourishing career. Yet, as actors, we love to say we were trained (we is me). 

I have studied acting for four years under one method and while I tried to obediently drink the kool aid (and sometimes actually have), I know that I will not find everything I need in one method to reach my full potential as an actor.  

Maybe you really learn the most about acting when you're outside of the classroom (blackbox). Growing up as a New York City kid, I was surrounded by performance every time I left my apartment. From a young age, I couldn't help but frantically watch commuters on the subway. Life in NYC was often more interesting to me than the films and television being recommended. 

Which brings me to the Real Housewives of New York City.

If you want to learn about performance and power, watch these women fight about feeling left out on a Hamptons weekend, watch these women have a one on one lunch at Sadelles. The conversations here are dripping with subtext. How the women move their bodies in full costume (furs and Manolos) shows you everything you need to know about decorum. 

In college, I began really watching these women as a way to shut off my mind from rigorous conservatory training. The last thing I wanted to do after a 9 hour acting class was watch more acting. But because all actors are inherently obsessive people watchers, I started to find my characters through these women despite wanting to watch them mindlessly. 

RHONY is not just a show filled with conflict and drama, but one that gives you insight into true inner life too. There's no doubt these women’s lives ooze with privilege but there's also a fair amount of soul searching, vulnerability, and growth for every insane storyline. In one season of RHONY, you may find yourself watching a woman cope with heartache, infidelity, bankruptcy, or mental health struggles. 

I suppose my real question is: What makes these women any different than the characters we read about in plays? 

This past fall, I was working on Stevie from Edward Albee’s The Goat. Stevie is a striking eugene in that her major arc in the play is finding out her husband is having an affair (with a goat). Albee, known as an unparalleled playwright, was known for his ability to depict complex women. If he knew where I derived inspiration for my rendition of Stevie, he might have rolled in his grave. My Stevie was based on RHONY legend Ramona Singer. Singer who may be known at times for her “diarrhea of the mouth” also spent several seasons of the show healing from a divorce where her husband left her for a much younger woman. 

It was Ramona who really showed me, in a few alcohol dazed states, what that process of recovery really looked like: the mania, the pain, and the ability to start again. I didn't have to imagine what Stevie was going through because I had a woman in front of me, actually living it. 

That's the great joy of art, no? Every character ends up being a mosaic of others. Because of course, every human being is a mosaic of the ones they have known and been inspired by, too.

And I’m not the only one who sees the value in the housewives. In 2024, when Sarah Paulson was on Broadway in Branden Jacobs Jenkins’ Appropriate, she admitted to Seth Meyers to basing her own character on one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. In earnest, she said “I am not playing Meredith Marks but I was inspired by some of her physicality and some of her intensity.” 

Maybe that's ultimately the secret blessing of Housewives, if you’re open to it. It's not so much that we're watching these women to escape as much as we're watching them to understand.