by Tim Rich
I recently caught up with Big Meaty Equal Protection Clause’s Miranda Onnen who recently made TOTW. We met up at Emilio's in Soho. They are known for their chicken parm and celebrity diners.
Rich: How did you first get into trivia as a hobby? What are your strengths and weaknesses in terms of categories?
Onnen: Every evening when I was growing up, my family had the same routine -- we'd eat dinner, watch Jeopardy, my parents would read to my twin brother and I, and then we'd go to bed in time for them to watch Ed and Spin City. I was getting the questions right even at the age of 7-8, so I knew I was pretty good at it. I played HS quiz bowl and loved it, but it went by the wayside in college as I focused on other things like political involvement and Model UN. I took the Jeopardy test almost every year, and ended up auditioning four times before I made it on a little over a year ago. That's when things really took off in terms of my trivia participation.
You can creep on my LearnedLeague categories, which reflect to a very accurate degree where my strengths are--film, TV, pop music, and general non-academic subjects. My geography and world history are sorely lacking (but I'm doing my national capitals flashies to shore up that particular deficiency for my OQL teammates because I really feel like I’m letting the side down when I miss those).
Rich: In Week six you made TOTW. What did you like about the questions? Did you notice your teammate Allie was also having a TOTW worthy performance?
Onnen: Just lucky they ended up in my particular wheelhouse! I was on a competitive dance team in junior high, and while my place on the team was doing more street styles, there was a requirement to take ballet. So I did three years of ballet and hated every minute of it. I found it too slow, too measured, and too strict in form. In retrospect the discipline was a good thing, and not only for getting trivia questions right fifteen years later.
I noticed Allie was having a killer game as well and was so happy she also made TOTW!
Rich: So everything was beautiful at the ballet? How did you first get into OQL? How did you join your current team?
Onnen: Speaking of Allie Kallmann Wegner, she was the Virgil to my Dante in that regard! I was so lucky to meet her on my Jeopardy tape day. We, along with her husband Aaron Wegner and another woman we filmed with, decided to go to a random bar trivia in LA after taping (and embarrassingly got second, though I still have the beer stein we won as a prize). A couple months later she reached out to ask if I wanted to join her OQL team and the rest is history! Proud Clause member ever since.
Rich: What is the trivia scene like in NYC where you live? What bars do you normally play at?
Onnen: To be honest, I wish the NYC trivia scene had more independent hosts. So many of the bar nights in the city are run by NYC Trivia League, and while their questions are ok, they lack the personality and spirit of questions written by the host themselves. Plus, there's just something to be said about the fun of writing answers down on a card rather than using an app.
Along those lines, I'm currently shopping around to start my own night in Astoria, Queens and hopefully will find a bar to host me soon! I've loved writing friendlies for OQL and would love to do more of it in meatspace.
Rich: What are your other hobbies and interests?
Onnen: Much of my time outside of trivia I spend with my corgi, Darren. I also read a fair amount, but since I’m a lawyer and most of my job is reading, the books I turn to outside of work are more on the beach read side of things.
Rich: Have you been to any Michelin Star restaurants in NYC? What are your favorite regular dining spots in the city and what is your favorite food and beverage?
I went to a few shortly after I moved to the city—I was a summer associate at a large law firm, and going to lunches at upscale midtown restaurants is one of the perks of that job. Ever since leaving private practice for government, though, my fare has tended to reflect the more humble offerings of NYC. This is not to say the quality of what I’ve been eating has decreased. Queens has the best food in the world (in my opinion), and so much of it is affordable. My particular neighborhood is Greek and the pre-marinated souvlaki at my local butcher is to die for.
That said—my favorite food doesn’t come from a restaurant. My dad is an incredibly talented cook, and every so often when I’m home, we’ll make tagliatelle together to go with his homemade Bolognese sauce. That, with some fresh Parmesan grated on top? Get outta town, it’s so good.
Rich: Have you ever been to SporcleCon or Geek Bowl or any other big trivia event? If so, how was the experience?
Onnen: Yeah! I went to SporcleCon this past year. Ever since being on Jeopardy and joining OQL I've made so many friends that just happen to live all over the place. The con itself was ancillary to my main goal in going, which was to meet as many of those people in person as I could--and I did!
Rich: Do you follow any sports? If so, who are your favorite players and teams?
Onnen: I’m a casual sports fan for the most part. I generally know how the Cincinnati Reds are doing at any point in the season and try to watch some games through MLB.tv. I also follow golf, and though I don’t watch as much as I used to, my guilty pleasure is still catching the Masters every year. It’s my own personal harbinger of spring.
The exception to my casual fandom is football—particularly the Cincinnati Bengals and the Ohio State Buckeyes. When I was at Ohio State, I went to every home game and had a blast. My senior year was the first CFP, when the Buckeyes came in as underdogs to win, and it’s hard to see a sports event in my life topping that (give or take a Bengals Super Bowl win).
Rich: What Broadway shows did you see last year? Do any of them deserve Tonys?
Onnen: As with the fancy NYC restaurants, I don’t catch as much Broadway as I’d like to for cost/time related reasons. I saw so many shows when I first got to the city, since I could take the time to wait in rush lines around law school classes, but my work schedule makes it more difficult. That said, I saw Shucked last year, and it was the perfect “bring your parents” show—incredibly funny, but not too controversial or raunchy. Alex Newell deserved all their laurels for that show and then some!
I’ll be seeing Merrily We Roll Along in April, and I’m very excited—definitely a heavy contender for Best Revival.
Rich: What are your top five favorite Broadway shows of all time?
Onnen: There are just so many! I don’t know if I have a top five favorite, but I’ll give the five that are most meaningful in crafting my love of theater. (Sorry play aficionados, but my heart lies in musical theater first and foremost—though I’ve seen some plays that have moved me greatly).
Sondheim’s Company is my holy grail. I think it beautifully captures the push and pull forces behind human connection—how we crave closeness with each other, but also why we reject that closeness when we finally have it.
Working by Stephen Schwartz is a show I highly recommend from the 70’s. It’s a perfect high school vignette show that honors labor and laborers—a topic usually forgotten in art. The Studs Terkel book on which it’s based is worth checking out as well.
Wicked was the first musical soundtrack I really remember wearing out, and the one I attribute the most to instilling in me a love of the art form. My hot take about Wicked is that while the music is first rate, I don’t love the actual story, and the second act is kind of a mess. We’ll see if they fix that for the movie!
Hamilton is the show I associate the most with my transition from Ohio to New York. I moved to the city in August 2015 for law school, right as it opened. I had eagerly anticipated the show, as I was a huge fan of In the Heights. When it first opened, the lottery for $10 tickets was in person, so I went down frequently in between class. I finally won in October, just after the soundtrack had been released. The sea change I experienced when moving to the “Big City” and starting law school all at once was a little overwhelming, and getting to see Hamilton was a reminder of why I decided to make that change. It really kept me going that first year.
Hadestown is the most recent show I’ve seen that’s really stuck with me. The staging in particular is incredible. It’s the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, so you know how it ends. There’s even a lyrical throughline about the importance of retelling tragedies. And yet, both times I’ve seen it, I believe in my heart that THIS time Eurydice will made it out. It’s just that well done.
Rich: If you could have dinner with any five people from history, whom would you choose? They can be dead or alive.
Onnen: Olivia Colman, Larry Kramer, Kendrick Lamar, Sonia Sotomayor, and Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
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