I WAS THERE w/ David Loud

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: I WAS THERE w/ David Loud
Episode Date: July 10, 2025
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: David Loud (Music Director, Arranger, Performer, Author)

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Episode Overview

The inaugural episode of the new “I Was There” series features the acclaimed Broadway music director David Loud. Host Matt Koplik interviews Loud about his remarkable career on and off Broadway, covering his early days in the original cast of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” his transition to conducting and music direction, and his creative experiences on productions like “She Loves Me,” “Ragtime,” “Masterclass,” and more. The conversation dives into backstage stories, the emotional realities of Broadway’s successes and failures, and Loud’s philosophies on music, teaching, and collaboration. Both informative and full of inside-theatre humor, the episode is a treasure trove for musical theatre lovers and practitioners.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Broadway Obsession and Entering the Scene

• Loud’s exposure to cast albums at home (Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Frank Loesser) fueled his ambition to be on Broadway from early childhood.
  • “I thought Broadway was one theater in New York where they had all played... That's what I wanted to do.” – David Loud [01:55]
• He pursued every imaginable avenue to fulfill that dream from as young as six.

2. Original “Merrily We Roll Along” Experience

• Cast at 18, closing at 20: Loud was both a performer (Ted) and understudy (Charlie Kringas).
  • “Nobody got to go on... There was only the 14 performances, a month of previews as well.” – David Loud [02:54]
• The shifting and chaotic rehearsal process caused considerable anxiety.
  • “Nothing but fear... so scared of not being good enough to be in the company of all these talented people...” – David Loud [03:34]
• Choreographers Ron Field (strict, frustrated with cast’s dance ability) was replaced by Larry Fuller, who made the show work within the cast’s limits. [04:02-04:28]

The Reality of a Broadway Flop

• The company began realizing the show wasn't landing with audiences during previews:
  • “Until I realized one grim matinee, it was the heads of the people going by the exit signs... making them look like blinking lights as they exited the theatre.” – David Loud [05:04]
• Despite challenging audiences and harsh reviews, the cast’s love for the score and each other endured.
  • “We loved the score and we loved being a part of it... if you’re gonna go out on that stage, you have to believe in what you’re doing.” – David Loud [05:59]
• The original cast album was recorded immediately after closing, preserving its legacy for future generations. [63:07-64:10]

3. Transition from Performing to Music Directing

• Loud was inspired by conductor Paul Gemignani while in “Merrily,” appreciating the role as the dependable center of a production.
  • “I wanted to be that rock that beats solidly and steadily at the center of every show.” – David Loud [07:55]
• Classic Gemignani music director’s note:
  • “Tenders, sopranos, I got one word for you: you’re out of tune!” – David Loud [08:14]

4. Revival Work: “She Loves Me” (1993)

• Collaborating with director Scott Ellis on his first Broadway show; Loud’s debut as music director.
• Working with the original authors (Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick) to adapt the score for revived staging.
  • “Their attitude was not, ‘oh, my God, you’ve destroyed my original vision.’ … They came and watched rehearsals, gave tiny little notes that always fixed things beautifully.” – David Loud [10:33]
• Favorite moment: The adrenaline rush at the emotional climax of the show.
  • “The rush of adrenaline in that last 30 seconds of the play is so powerful. That was amazing to me.” – David Loud [12:25]

5. Onstage with “Masterclass” (McNally)

• Loud took a “sabbatical” from music directing to perform as the onstage pianist.
  • “It was a vacation… It was a wonderful, refreshing, nice to do something different.” – David Loud [16:05]
• Observing Zoe Caldwell and Patti LuPone’s contrasting Maria Callas interpretations (LuPone: “half an hour faster.”) [17:46-18:02]
• On Caldwell’s acting approach:
  • “Zoe’s theory of acting was, ‘I act the punctuation. If a playwright writes a comma, I pause; if a period, full stop. And that's where the magic happens.’” – David Loud [18:09]

6. Creating “Ragtime”

• Loud conducted the Broadway company after a year of turbulent development in Toronto.
• On the impact of the original cast:
  • “The combination of Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman, Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell… Its richness is almost too big to remember.” – David Loud [22:39-22:58]
• Favorite moments: Mazzie’s “Back to Before” and McDonald in “Your Daddy's Son,” “drenched in tears at the end of her song every night.” [25:04]
• Importance of vocal discipline in the score: “Please don't belt until here.” [25:53]
• “Ragtime M’s”: “If you don’t do ragtime, then it sounds like ragtime. And what’s that?” – David Loud [26:36]

7. Broadway vs. West End Culture

• In London’s “She Loves Me,” actors took a more playful attitude compared to the work-centric approach of Americans, but both produced excellent shows. [20:24]

8. John Kander Collaborations

• Participated from early workshops for “Steel Pier” and “The Visit,” describing Kander’s collaborative creative process as communal as opposed to Sondheim’s meticulousness.
  • “Kander wants to collaborate… He doesn’t try to control all that… Sondheim writes everything out the way he wants it.” – David Loud [31:21]
• On Kristin Chenoweth’s audition:
  • “The cutest person in the world came in… singing that huge voice… She was charmed for life.” – David Loud [32:29, 34:59]
• “The Visit” journeyed for 15 years before Broadway with many leading ladies—Angela Lansbury, Chita Rivera, and many more [35:04].
  • Story of Lansbury’s mentorship: “Angela said, ‘Could I answer that question?’ And she gave Philip a clear road through this long complicated scene…” – David Loud [36:39]

9. Staging and Teaching Sondheim

• Music directing the first Broadway “Company” revival (1995) and the challenges of teaching its famously tricky opening:
  • “Bobby, Bobby Baby… It takes a lifetime. The only way to do it is to count.” – David Loud [41:21]
• On actors vs. musicians:
  • “You need more patience for the actors, but that patience usually pays off… words are the most important thing, and you’re hearing that from the music director. The words are more important than the music.” – David Loud [42:01]

10. Reflections on Success, Failure, and Broadway’s Contradictions

• The pain and lifelong connection from “Merrily’s” opening and closing, the lessons learned from failure.
  • “That was actually one of the greatest gifts of Merrily… to see my heroes fail. And to see them work so hard… the business is hard. Broadway’s hard.” – David Loud [45:49]
• The role of collaboration over individual brilliance:
  • “It’s never one person with the answer. It’s the designers and directors and music directors and actors all working together.” – David Loud [66:12]

11. On Teaching and Legacy

• Teaching at Manhattan School of Music, importance of classic shows, and witnessing students’ growth.
  • “I love watching them start to understand that the classics are not Les Mis, Phantom and Miss Saigon, but rather Showboat and Lady in the Dark and Oklahoma.” – David Loud [47:33]

12. Challenges and Uncrackable Shows

• On “Porgy and Bess” (“Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess”), Loud reflects on the personal, artistic, and racial complexities that made the process difficult. [44:08-45:06]

13. Unique Musical Experiences

• Conducting Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” (John Doyle’s actor-musician revival) was his hardest job, due to the challenge of actors handling both music and character work onstage.
  • “It was impossible… chords that never were meant to be in Sweeney Todd would suddenly appear and you couldn’t do anything.” – David Loud [52:26]
• On Patti LuPone:
  • “She was devoted to that tuba.” – David Loud [52:57]

14. Sondheim on Sondheim

• On creating the only Sondheim revue with Sondheim’s input and commentary, and the process of weaving together his songs and stories.
  • “We looked through a lot of that material… treasures that still haven’t been played… For me, it's about finding that balance.” – David Loud [54:35]

15. Memoir “Facing the Music”

• Loud discusses his memoir, describing the music director’s role as the “center of three worlds.”
  • “You are in the center of these three forces and you’re the beating heart of the story that's being told. It's a magical place to live.” – David Loud [55:52]

16. Memorable/Emotional Moment: Merrily’s Opening Night

• Loud recalls the euphoria and subsequent heartbreak of the opening, capped by reading scathing reviews alone and crying himself to sleep.
  • “Norm McCall and… a Hollywood star, I didn't recognize half of them. And I couldn't find anybody else in the cast… I left the glamorous party behind… I read [the reviews] in the stand, and I decided to go home and not back to the party. So I walked through the freezing cold rain to my sublet and I sort of cried myself to sleep.” – David Loud [57:39–60:44]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On survival and growth on Broadway:
  • “Broadway is always that contradiction. Some of it is so painful, some of it is so wonderful. And there’s the constant pull of commerce versus art. The challenge of Broadway is keeping yourself centered in the middle of all those contradictions.” – David Loud [64:57]
• On the role of collaboration:
  • “The finest moments in any show have been collaborative. It's never one person with the answer.” – David Loud [66:12]
• On music direction’s unique joy:
  • “To be the conductor of a musical is actually the best job in the world… you are the beating heart of the story.” – David Loud [55:52]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:26 — Introduction of guest and episode theme
• 01:55 — Loud’s early Broadway inspiration
• 03:34 — “Merrily We Roll Along” rehearsal process/fear
• 05:04 — On realizing “Merrily” was a flop
• 07:55 — Discovering his calling as a music director
• 10:16 — Working with Bock & Harnick (“She Loves Me” revival)
• 12:25 — Favorite musical moments conducting
• 13:39 — Audra McDonald/Zoe Caldwell in “Masterclass”
• 21:27 — Starting “Ragtime” discussion
• 25:04 — Favorite numbers to conduct in “Ragtime”
• 34:00 — Kristin Chenoweth’s “Steel Pier” audition
• 41:21 — Teaching the opening of “Company”
• 44:08 — Challenges with “Porgy and Bess”
• 52:26 — Actor-musician “Sweeney Todd” stories
• 54:35 — “Sondheim on Sondheim” process
• 55:52 — On his memoir “Facing the Music”
• 57:39 — Recounting “Merrily” opening/closing night
• 64:57 — Reflecting on Broadway’s contradictions and collaboration

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Tone and Chemistry

• The episode is irreverent, deeply knowledgeable, and at times poignant. Koplik’s passionate, fast-talking style and willingness to throw in personal anecdotes and “four letter words” add a punchy, informal energy. Loud’s thoughtful, candid answers bring both gravitas and playfulness, especially as he shares war stories, observations on the theatre industry, and deep care for both the art and his students.

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For anyone seeking firsthand stories, real insight into Broadway’s machinery, or the inner life of a Broadway music director, this episode is an unmissable listen—and read.

Transcript

[A]

I'm just a Broadway baby Walking off my tired feet pounding 42nd street to be in a show oh, wrong way, baby.

[B]

Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakthrough Down, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And we are starting something new today. It is called I Was There. And we are interviewing Broadway luminaries who have had long and illustrious careers. Tell us a little about a bit about their experiences on Broadway. Some backstage tea, some fun anecdotes about their process and the shows that they worked on. And our very first guest, he's excited and scared to quote a Sondheim character, is the illustrious David Loud. You know David, as a music director, music supervisor, coordinator, arranger for such wonderful shows as the 1993 she Loves Me with our beloved Kunzie Curtin's New York New York Steel Pier, the 1995 company, the look of love, David, most importantly, ragtime. I mean, come on, Ragtime. He's been on Broadway as a performer in the original Merrily We Roll along on Broadway in Masterclass. Hello, David.

[A]

Hello. So nice to meet you.

[B]

It's so lovely to meet you as well. Thank you for coming today. Yes, of course. I mean, I didn't even do you justice. There are so many other things I haven't even counted. We didn't even talk about the Merrily connection with Lonnie Price with a class act. I mean, these things are circular, right? So let's just like jump into it. My first question is, how did Broadway enter your life? When did musical theater become in your mind?

[A]

Well, I had the stack of records in my parents living room that most middle class Americans had. We listened to Rogers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Lowe and Frank Lesser over and over and over. In my case, I love those albums more than anything. And I thought Broadway was one theater in New York where they had all played, which didn't make too much sense, but I somehow made sense of it and that's what I wanted to do. That's that music made me happy and I wanted to be a part of that. And I directed everything in my life that I could control at the age of six, which wasn't very much towards, towards getting here to do that. I wanted, you know, to be in musicals with that beautiful music surrounding me.

[B]

So you, you got your start on Broadway as a performer. You played the role of Ted In Merrily. And you understudied Charlie Krangus. First of all, did you get to go on in that original production?

[A]

We did. Nobody got to go on.

[B]

Nobody got to go on.

[A]

You had to be very quick. I mean, there was only the. The 14 performances a month of previews as well.

[B]

Never. We don't discredit the month of previews, David.

[A]

No, but nobody could have gone on doing previews because we changed that show every night.

[B]

Gee.

[A]

Yeah, it was. We never did the same show twice.

[B]

I mean, how old were you when that happened?

[A]

I was 18 when I was cast. And I was 20. I turned 20 on the day we closed.

[B]

Happy birthday to you.

[A]

Well, I have a card from the whole cast that says happy fucking birthday.

[B]

Any specific memory from the rehearsal process of Mary Lee Bro Long?

[A]

Fear, fear.

[B]

Nothing but fear.

[A]

Fear. I was so scared of not being good enough to be in the company of all these talented people who were in the show. I think a lot of us were operating that way. Hal and Steve were nothing but nice to us. But Ron Field was tough, and we were not hired for our dance abilities. And it was frustrating for him how little we could offer him in terms of dance talent.

[B]

Did Ronfield do the show all the way through to opening, or was there. Yes.

[A]

Fired. And Larry Fuller took over.

[B]

How was. How was Larry? Was he any nicer?

[A]

Larry was lovely. He was great. He gave us things we could do. And he only has about three weeks to do it once we were in previews, so. But he. He at least knew what we might be able to accomplish.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And he gave us that.

[B]

Was there a moment where you as a company. I mean, I don't think it's a secret here. Merrily was very famously a flop when it first premiered on Broadway. Beloved flop. If you are a me person, you love that cast. Recording Full T. Before we started recording, David just heard me do my impersonation of half of the cast doing Rich and happy on that original cast recording. I adore it. But it famously was not a success the first time around. Was there a moment when the cast sort of collectively understood that maybe something wasn't clicking with audiences? Was it the first preview? Was it a week into previews?

[A]

I was very optimistic, and I held onto my optimism as long as I could. But there were some. There were times when during the second act's good thing going, I was situated at the piano and I could sort of looking straight out into the house, and I never. I never could understand why the exit lights were blinking during that number. Until I realized one grim matinee, that it was the heads of the people going by the exit signs that was making them look like they were blinking as they exited the theater.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

During the song, people walked out. People walked out angrily. People would come down and yell at poor Paul Gemignani, who was the only one they could reach, you know, about how bad the show was. My father, I was sitting next to someone when he saw the show, and the guy said, well, at least dinner was good. That was his comment after the show. But we loved it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We loved the score and we love being a part of it. And, you know, if you're gonna go out on that stage, you have to believe in what you're doing. Yeah. I didn't really know what a big flop it was until suddenly it was gone.

[B]

Until it was your birthday.

[A]

Until it was my birthday, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I think that it took so many people years to recognize it, but there is so much merit in that show and it's been proved over the years. And you guys were in the woods with it at the time. So, like, you're hearing songs like Good Thing Going and Not a Day Goes by, and how can you not, like, kind of fall in love with the show that you're in?

[A]

Right. They're the most beautiful songs you ever heard. Yeah. And the lyrics are so clever and, you know, we got them handwritten by the copyists on big, you know, ammonia smelling music paper, the way they used to get the scores. And it was just. It was so exciting.

[B]

So is the plan to be a performer and then you fell into the music department or did that kind of. Oh, was that always your goal?

[A]

I didn't really know what. What my final goal was. I played the piano. I loved to, you know, work with people's voices and approach theater that way, but I liked performing as well. And Merrily was so perfect because I played the piano on stage and was also part of the show. And while working on Merrily, I became aware of Paul Gimignani and discovered what a Broadway music director did. And he was just sensational with us. He was strong and clear and we held on to that. That got us through the nights when the set wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. And, you know, we were wearing costumes we never worn before and didn't know, you know, where to go or what to do when things went wrong on stage, because serious things went wrong on that stage. And Paul was always there for us. And he could fix any problem, it seemed, from his Podium. And I ended up wanting to be that. I wanted to be that rock that beats solidly and steadily at the center of every show.

[B]

What would you say is a classic Paul Gemignani note as a music director?

[A]

Tenders, Sopranos. I got one. One word for you. You're out of tune. That's fun.

[B]

So, okay, talk to me then about she Loves Me, which I don't know if no one who's listening to the podcast can see this, but if you're watching the video content, we've got a nice little show jacket from the 1990s.

[A]

An amazing show jacket.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So impressed by that.

[B]

So I told you I was gonna wait to tell you until we were on mic here. I have that show jacket because my grandfather, who is sadly no longer with us, was an entertainment lawyer and he represented Jerry Bach and for a long time, Roundabout. I don't think he represented Roundabout at the time, but maybe right after that. But so I had that show jacket, I think, because Jerry got that show jacket. And then when Jerry passed, my grandfather was the executor of his estate and inherited. So when my grandfather passed, I got the show jacket. How did she Loves Me come about in your career?

[A]

Well, I had gotten to know Scott Ellis through. We did a play together called Billy Bishop Goes to War that we took all over the country. And he then hired me without knowing that I could arrange to do the arrangements in and the World Goes Round. And when he got his first Broadway directing opportunity, he brought me along with him. And it was my Broadway debut as a music director as well. It was a wonderful production. Boyd Gaines led it with Judy Kuhn, later, Diane Fratteni, Lee Wilkoff, Sally Mays, Howard McGillan. It was the light from top to top to bottom.

[B]

Were you familiar with the show before you got into.

[A]

I had done a tiny little production in college, and I loved the score. It's the most perfect score. We didn't have the whole score when we did it in college. We were missing a couple numbers. So I remember, like, listening to them over and over, trying to figure out what to play at the piano. We didn't have Try Me, and I had to figure it out just by myself. I don't know why we didn't have the music for that.

[B]

Somebody stole it and probably put it in their audition book and forgot to bring it back to the library. So when you're working on a show like she Loves Me, especially this is a revival. What is the sort of attitude when you're doing a revival? Are you. How do you approach it musically? Are you trying to?

[A]

Well, that's a great question, because it's always about finding the line between doing it exactly the way it was before and making changes that become necessary. You know, in the case of the music, like if the set needs another 20 seconds to change, then there is music. Somebody's got to write that music and figure out what it's going to be. Or if the end of a number needs something because of the staging, you might change a little something musically. I remember that when we got to the end of I Resolve, which is different in our recording than it is in the original, the authors are like, oh, finally, there's a button on that song. Thank you for fixing it. Their attitude was not, oh, my God, you've destroyed my original vision. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick were very attentive to that revival. They came and watched rehearsals, gave tiny little notes that always fixed things beautifully. I think Jerry is unsung, generally. I mean, he. People know who he is, but his music is so good. That score for Fiorello makes me weep with joy when I hear him. And Fiddler is, of course, an unparalleled masterpiece. And she Loves Me. Completely different from both those scores. It's just perfection.

[B]

Absolutely. To say nothing of the Apple Tree. You think, I'm not going to let the apple tree get spoken about here. The apple tree. I've told people for years, if you are looking for. If you're a comedic actress and you're looking for rep in your book, just like play the apple Tree from start to finish, you will find five songs in there for. You know, Jerry was a phenomenal and versatile composer. And you listen to she Loves Me, it's so different from Fiddler. While it also still sounds like they come from one brain. Do you have a specific moment in that revival of she Loves Me that you just enjoyed coming to conduct every night, no matter what?

[A]

Well, the very end of the show, after 12 days to Christmas, which we had changed into a much more aggressive and sort of chaotic number.

[B]

Yeah, it built in mania.

[A]

And it left everybody out of breath because it was very physical. And so Judy and Boyd were always out of breath coming into that final scene. And they were so emotional. And the audience is really thinking they may not get together at all. And then they do. And the rush of adrenaline in that last 30 seconds of the play is so powerful. That was amazing to me.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm sure everyone who's listening to this knows there is a wonderful YouTube channel called Aurora Spider Woman who has a bunch of B roll footage from that revival up there. And you can watch the final scene. You can watch 12 Days to Christmas as well as the final scene between Kunzee and Voight. There's also Kunzie's vanilla ice cream on there. There's Sally Mays trip to the library. Howard McGillan's grand. Knowing you, it's, It's. It's quite lovely. I highly recommend it. Speaking of Aurora's Spider Woman, your next time being on a Broadway stage was in Terrence McNally's masterclass with Audra McDonald and Zoe Caldwell. Now, are you familiar with the Aurora Spider Woman?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Okay. Phenomenal. So there was a day when Aurora, who. If you know who Aurora is in real life, you know we're not gonna say it on mic. Cause I'm sure that person wants that.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

I'll tell you off mic afterwards. I don't think they wanna be.

[A]

I'm sure they don't.

[B]

Yeah. Be leaked on mic. But there was a day when Aurora put up two short clips of Masterclass when you were all in Los Angeles at the Mark Tapre Forum. And on the day that that came out, I happened to be going to an event at the Players Club that was honoring Terrence McNally. And I may or may not have had an extra glass of wine at that event. And they may not have been passing around the hors d' oeuvres as frequently as I needed. So I was feeling confident. And in the corner on the chaise lounge is Terence McNally, Tyne Daly, and Zoe Caldwell. And I go down and I announce myself. I'm a big fan, blah, blah. And I tell them that there's a clip of Masterclass online, and Terrence. And so go, well, what's the scene? And the only two words I had to say were murder Happy. And they knew exactly what I was talking about. That's the scene where Audra McDonald Sharon is going up against Zoe Caldwell's Maria, and they're talking about. It's the Lady Macbeth Cavalletta scene. Right? And she goes, how is she feeling? Happy.

[A]

Why?

[B]

I asked. Me.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Really? Happy Christmas morning. Happy birthday, Murder happy. And what's she gonna do? She's gonna sing a cavaletta. It's so phenomenal. And you're there. You're there. You're playing the music during the scene like your body's on there. So how did masterclass come to you? Cause this was pretty soon after she loves me, right?

[A]

I guess it was. Yes, it was.

[B]

So this is where I'm gonna prove to you my worth here. Masterclass came to Broadway in the fall of 95, and we had done it.

[A]

In three theaters before that.

[B]

You were in LA, you were in DC, LA. And DC and that was, I guess, the summer and spring of 95. And I only know this because Audra went straight from closing night of Carousel in January of 95 right into masterclass. She has a whole story about auditioning for it and talking to Shirley Verrette about the Lady Macbeth aria. And Lady Macbeth and Shirley Verrett just went, ooh, girl, that aria. But. So you were there for two out of the three out of town tryouts?

[A]

I did LA and the first stand in Philadelphia.

[B]

Phenomenal. So, yeah. So this was like, probably nine months after she Loves Me had clothes at that point, I guess. How did it come down your path?

[A]

Well, Alan Fildeman, the casting director, who unfortunately just passed away recently called me in. He knew that I had a little acting experience from Narra Lean. He knew me as a music director. So I auditioned with, you know, all the tenors and sopranos who wanted to be Audrey and Jay Morris and all the funny Stubrets who wanted to be Karen Cody.

[B]

So. Sophie De Palma.

[A]

Sophie De Palma. Yes. Not a good name. And it turned out to be just one of the most delightful things I've ever been a part of. It was a vacation. I call it a sabbatical from the music directing. And all I had to worry about was my little part in my little play, which after taking care of the. The mechanics of music, directing a Broadway show and maintaining it during a run which can take 24 hours a day, every day of your life. It was a. It was a wonderful, refreshing, Nice to do something different.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And to. To learn what building a performance meant. I mean, watching Zoe Caldwell start from nothing and come up with that characterization at the end of it was incredible. Yeah. And to be there every night for every step of it was such a privilege.

[B]

I mean, that production was. Was such a hit at the time that it came out like you guys kind of came in.

[A]

We came in, the houses were full, and they never stopped being full.

[B]

Yeah. An entire time. Because you left the run around the same time that Audra and Zealous or either the Hulk.

[A]

I stayed a little. I stayed and did about six months with Patti LuPone.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

How.

[B]

What would you say was the difference between Zoe's Maria Callas and Patty's Maria Callas?

[A]

Half an hour. Patty was half an hour faster. Patty was great. She was great, but it was fast. Yeah. Looking for those laughs and getting them and moving on.

[B]

Oh, I've listened to her final performance of Evita and that woman is singing that score like the meters running outside. It is incredible.

[A]

No, that's Zoe's theory of acting. Was I act the punctuation.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

If a playwright writes a comma, I pause. If a playwright writes a period, full stop. And that's where the magic happens. It's in those moments, those pauses, those reflections before she says the next word.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, it was half an hour.

[B]

I mean, it was half an hour. I mean, I could only go off of again. Aurora, Spider Woman. Who did post more footage of Zoe when you guys went to Broadway. And then Patty after the fact. And Zoe's very. I don't know if imperious is the right word, but it's a very. She's a very imposing figure.

[A]

She's regal and 1000% impatient.

[B]

And Patty's is a little more not laid back, but like maybe just a little more casual. Like it's a little more like tete a tet, like, you know, friendly and engaging. I just think of the way, you know, Zo does, like into the Lion's Den and just the, the. I have all the recordings, of course, even Sutherland. Stop right there. It's just.

[A]

It's never been anything funnier in that moment.

[B]

Oh, so stop right there. I'm not a huge 6 foot Lucia, or should you? Stupid way through the role. I'm not like a huge opera person. My. All of my education comes from the movie Amadeus, which is in its own form of basic. But I just, I don't know, it's the way she goes about it. And I feel like McNally's writing is so clever in that you don't have to know the deep dives to get the basics of the joke. But you hear all the opera nerds in the mezzanine just lose it the moment she says, even Sutherland. Stop right there. It's so good.

[A]

That play educates as it exposes and.

[B]

As the best plays do. As the best plays do. Were you able to do she Loves Me in London or were you busy with.

[A]

I was able to supervise it. Okay. Yeah, I went over a couple times and it's always a little unnerving because that production looks so much like Broadway. You have the same wigs and you kind of forget which theater you're in. At one point when they were both running.

[B]

Have you been able to work in London a few times?

[A]

Yes. On a Couple different projects. That was probably the most extended one.

[B]

What would you say was the difference between working with a West End company and a Broadway company?

[A]

Well, the company of she Loves Me was excellent. It was Ruthie Henschel as Amalia, and she was a wonderful center for that company. I would say the actors in London in musicals at that time had a great time, and they. They. They were doing it for fun. And it wasn't the serious, important thing. That musical theater is here. Here people are here to do the musical and do it right and seeing it right every night and not change anything. And there was that difference in how much the culture cares about, you know. But both productions were excellent.

[B]

I mean, I only. Again, I only have a little bit of material from that production, but I'm a Ruthie Henschel stand. You'll never hear me say a bad word about that girl.

[A]

She was great. And I really liked working with her.

[B]

I mean, a lot of. She's. She's a lot like Kunzie or like. What do you mean? You can sing Amalia and Fantine? Like, no one does both. The question for you, David, is more, do you want to talk ragtime now or talk ragtime later?

[A]

I can talk ragtime anytime.

[B]

Okay. Because the thing about ragtime is I am a child of the 90s, and I am friends with many straight boys. So that show is very important to every single one of us in very different ways. And I'm sure anytime you meet anybody who realizes that you were the music director, conductor of Ragtime and supervised all of it, I'm sure they just sort of bow down and kiss your hand and ask for all the secrets.

[A]

Well, people always remember the first time they saw Ragdoll. That is a powerful memory for a lot of people. They always tell me about that. And it was a show unlike any other that has ever been, really. It was so big and panoramic and ambitious and that gorgeous score in that huge, clean theater that had just been built. Yep.

[B]

Brand spanking new.

[A]

Brand spanking new. A clean pit. I don't know how to. I don't know how to work here.

[B]

I mean. I mean, it is truly an American epic. And it's just song after song of just gorgeous, lush melodies and beautiful arrangements and. And I feel like that original company is one that's like. Is kind of legendary in a way.

[A]

Well, the combination of Marin Maisie, Peter Friedman and Norton MacDonald and Marc Jacoby and Judy Kay and.

[B]

Are we leaving Brian Stokes Mitchell on Red.

[A]

And the great Brian Stokes Mitchell, of course. I Mean, its richness is almost too big to remember.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You can't imagine that there are that many stars and that many.

[B]

Yeah. And so many people who had done it in Canada and Los Angeles because there were so many companies of it for a time. Right. Yeah. Were you sort of overseeing all of them or you kind of had to focus on one at a moment.

[A]

I was hired to conduct the Broadway. The Broadway company. As they hadn't had consistent conducting up in Toronto for that year, they wanted somebody who's going to be there every night and take care of them. But then when Livent exploded, I did end up supervising the tours that were going out. It was a huge mess with that company.

[B]

Those fireworks at the end of Ragtime, that was a representation of what happened with Livent.

[A]

If only it had been that celebratory. I mean, Garth ended up in jail and.

[B]

Yeah, sadly, not long enough, because we then still got Paradise Square, but we did get Ragtime out of it. So. So you kind of came in. The show was sort of already set by the time you came in.

[A]

It had been. Yeah. They'd been through the year of revisions in Toronto.

[B]

Okay. So then you come in as the conductor and music director for something that's already kind of set in. How do you approach it then? Is it your.

[A]

It's hard to know what to do. Yeah. But I just knuckled down and did what I needed to do to fit in with what they were used to and find my little moments that were mine. It was a glorious, huge orchestra. I had 28 pieces opening night, 58 on stage, 58 cast members on stage, which is why the show could never run. Really expensive. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, in giant barn of a theater, but even still, like, impossible finances.

[A]

He had budgeted it as if every one of those seats would be sold every night forever. If we had done that, it could have run, but nobody could have done that.

[B]

Yeah. And eventually we learned that you couldn't do that. But at the time, everyone had high hopes, I suppose. What would you say is your favorite song in that show if you. If you had to pick.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

It can just be your favorite song for today. Tomorrow will be a different well to conduct.

[A]

Marin Mazzie singing back to before, barefoot on the stage, you know, eight feet away from me every night was. That was magic. And to have Audra McDonald singing six feet away from Me to her baby in that grave, asking for his forgiveness, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Drenched in tears. The end of her. At the end of her song every night, I Can't ask for anything more than that.

[B]

Yeah. I have a few friends who are music directors on Broadway, and, I mean, Ragtime is a very important score to them, too. Whenever we talk about Mary Mazie and Back to the before, their title for that song is Mother Learns to Belt, because up until that moment, she's been doing her Mary Mazzie Beautiful mix. Soprano.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

And then the last verse and a half of Back to Before is Afraid to Be Strong.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

You know exactly where I was going with it. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, that was the official coaching of that number. These don't belt until here.

[B]

And yet, David, and yet we've had mothers since Maren who go, oh, I'll start belting at the very beginning. And I sit here and I go, yeah. I'm like, it's as if that cast recording it and those bootlegs never existed. I'm not a. I'm not a rigid person, David. But that is one thing that I strongly believe, strongly believe in. Needs to happen with Mother. Was that something that you would tell future mothers when they would you come in? I'm like, I'm sure you can belt this whole song. Please don't belt until. Yeah. What is a musical note you would give to people coming to that show in general? Is there, like, a specific style of singing that.

[A]

Well, we always have the ragtime M. Which you must explode. The people called it ragtime because you get 18 people singing it together. If you don't do ragtime, then it sounds like ragtime. And what's that?

[B]

I couldn't tell you. I'm not a scientist. Yeah, but were you in Ragtime the entire run or.

[A]

Yes. And would have gladly stayed longer if it had run longer.

[B]

Did you have any particular favorite Replacements in the company that stuck out to you?

[A]

The Replacements were always excellent. We never quite had that chemistry that the original cast had. Having been through the year in Toronto together, they knew that show. They knew each other's performances. They knew how to. How to work it, how to make everything always land. I mean, timing, that underscoring the opening number is so hard. Right. That was always the hardest thing for the Replacements. The music is not going to bend for you. There are no vamps in this number. You must achieve your lines on this note or the whole thing goes to shit. That was always hard.

[B]

Yeah, that's. Sometimes you have actors who very much go, oh, this is my moment to shine, so I'm going to enunciate and elongate all my words. And you're like, you can do what you want, but this cue is coming in.

[A]

And the management of Ragtime was very sort of crisp and corporate. They want things the way they had always been and must always be, and that's fine. But sometimes that's hard for replacements.

[B]

Well, I guess with Broadway, you were saying this about with London, too. London, it's a little more alive each night and can sort of change over a run. And Broadway way, it's a little more locked in and harder to.

[A]

Hopefully not locked in in a negative way, but consistent.

[B]

Yeah, Consistency is always key. Would you. Would you say of any of the shows you worked on, there was one that matured the most over the run?

[A]

That's an interesting question. I did. This is a little bit off topic, but I did this amazing weekend of performances of. It was called A Bed in a Chair at Encores. And it was a look, John Doyle's look at a bunch of Sondheim songs arranged into sort of a story, sort of a suite. And we. The jazz arrangements were done by Wynton Marsalis and his orchestra. And there was a big dance element to the piece. Four dancers, four singers. And that orchestra played totally differently every single night because they're a jazz orchestra, not a theater orchestra. And I was like, how is this going to work for the poor dancers? Because dancers need the same music. They need to time their jumps and they do it off the music and they count on the music. And the music was not going to be the same every night. And it took us about. It was a very quick process. We had a couple days to sort of work with the jazz players and the dancers, and we all, like, leapt in and tried to do something new for ourselves. And that changed me. That really explained to me that I needed to refresh every single night conducting this music now, tonight, for this audience of these performers, and not trying to hit my marks from last night or anything like that, that was a great experience. And I think sometimes on Broadway there's a tendency to just repeat and not reinvent, and we have to keep it fresh in every department. Bernadette Peters was in that. Norm Lewis, Jeremy Jordan and Cyril Ami. And the fact that it was not even recorded and never remembered by anybody sort of breaks my heart. It was a magical piece. Wynton Marsalis had had this big trumpet solo at the end of. With so little to be sure of, and it was like God the Root. It's like the roof opened up and God shone down, and whatever he would play that night would be a masterpiece.

[B]

And sometimes theirs just got so quickly, I realize we've been talking about a lot of stuff that were either revivals or shows that you sort of came into after the process had already been done. But you have a very long history with John Gander, starting with and the World Goes Round. But you've also done Steel Pier curtains. The visit. Were you involved with Steel Pier and curtains during the writing process or was that something that came in a little later on?

[A]

I did the very first workshop of Still Peer Reading of Superior. We did about four of them, I think. Yeah, I was there from the beginning for. For all of them, really, and the. Including the Gospel Boys.

[B]

So as a. With. With your role in the show, how do you work with John Kantor during all of these readings and through previews and rehearsals?

[A]

Well, John. John writes his version of the song that, you know, that we're doing, you know, say it for this meeting or something with the company. And then he wants to collaborate. He wants to collaborate with the choreographer and, you know, his co writers and make sure that everybody is on the same page and that we. Then we decide, oh, maybe there'll be two courses of this and then here's the place where the dialogue happens. Then there'll be a little dance break. And he's involved with all that and he doesn't try to control all that. You know, then he's happy to hand it off to a dance arranger or a vocal arranger. And it's a very. It's a very communal process, how the music is developing. You know, Sondheim writes everything out the way he wants it and that's the way you do it. And then it's great. If you do everything you wrote on the page, you can't go wrong. It was a different process in terms of the creation of how the number is going to evolve on stage.

[B]

Were you part of the audition process for Steel Pierre?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Do you remember Chenoweth's audition?

[A]

I do, yes. The cutest person in the world came in. She always had luggage with her or a strange hat box or something. She was just this flower of energy and she's about this tall and singing that huge voice. Kendra and Ebb wrote three soprano roles in their entire life. One in the happy time SINGS the SONG Singing Seeing things they created Precious for Kristin Chenoweth and Steel Pierre. And can you name the third?

[B]

Cameron Ebb. Is it. Is it a post Steel pure role?

[A]

I'm thinking Little Mary Sunshine. Oh, Gaga.

[B]

Okay, okay, sure, sure. That. I consider that a cheat. Yeah.

[A]

The rest of those songs, of course, are yeah, more for the big school of better, bigger belters.

[B]

Exactly. Well, I mean, I think about, like, everybody's girl and, you know, chief cook and bottle washer. I'm like, that's Kander. And E.B.

[A]

Baby candor and E.B. called. Those numbers are screamers.

[B]

Well, I mean, I think of John Kander, I feel like his signature is. He's so good at writing a vamp, an iconic vamp that just everyone can recognize. And it's something like, you know, I think of all that jazz. I think of don't tell Mama that. Like, it's just so. It's so good. And what's the one for life is the. Was.

[A]

We're.

[B]

I'm assuming Karen Zambo was probably a part of Steel Pier from the get go, right?

[A]

She was from the very beginning. Yeah.

[B]

Whereas Deborah Monka parted from the beginning as well.

[A]

I believe she was. Yes.

[B]

So Chana with was just someone who auditioned for Broadway.

[A]

She auditioned for the Broadway company.

[B]

And then. And then was that. Was that song that she had in Act 2 already there, or was that written for her?

[A]

It was revised heavily for her.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

We adapted it to her voice and mostly during previews, you know, your show's running a little bit long and everybody's stuff gets gradually pared away and the show gets better. When. Whenever they made changes in Steel Pierce, Kristen's part would get longer and everybody else's part would get a little smaller because she was so wonderful and the audience just wanted more of her. By the end, she should have won best actress Tony because she basically was a co lead. She was doing every scene change and hauling the show around on her little bag.

[B]

Yeah. So a year and a half later, when Charlie Brown happens, you sort of sit there and go, yeah, this is no surprise to me.

[A]

No surprise to anyone.

[B]

No, no, no, no. You knew that little girl was going someplace.

[A]

She was charmed for. For life.

[B]

How long were you involved with the visit?

[A]

15 years before we got it on Broadway.

[B]

So you were a part of it when it was still Angela Lansbury, or.

[A]

Was it always one reading with Angela Lansbury and Philip Bosco. Amazing. But her husband was very sick and she was not able to do the production that would have followed that reading. And that from then it was Cheetah with any number of handsome older baritones.

[B]

George Hearn for a time. Right.

[A]

John McMartin first and George Hearn, who sang it so gorgeously.

[B]

Both of them former bends and follies.

[A]

That's right. Right.

[B]

That's a deep cut for some of you.

[A]

We did. We had John Cullum for one section of our 15 year journey. And then Roger Reese, who did it in Williamstown with John Doyle directing. And that's the version that came in.

[B]

Yes, I saw it with Roger Reese, I think twice. I think I saw Reese towards the end of previews and then saw it later in the run when John Riddle would sing along with him because he was. He was very ill at the time.

[A]

I know he had terrible brain cancer. Yeah, glioblastoma. And he. I mean, this is one of the greatest Shakespearean actors ever produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company. And he couldn't remember his words and he couldn't remember where to go and he couldn't find his dressing room. And the company helped him through it as much as they could, but it was terrible.

[B]

Yeah, this is a no win situation for anyone. But on a. I guess on a lighter note, do you have any memories of working with Angela Lansbury? I know it was a brief period.

[A]

But she was very clear in what she wanted. And Frank Galati was directing at that point. And there was this rehearsal where Philip didn't quite know what to do with the scene. And he asked Frank a question and Frank gave him an answer. And Angela said, could I answer that question? And she gave Philip a clear road through this long, complicated scene that they were about to do. We called it. They called it the bench scene, which is strange, but we kept calling because.

[B]

There'S already a bench scene.

[A]

There is already a bench scene. And this wasn't it. But it was like the old folks bench scene. But she had a clear answer for Philip, like how exactly he needed to negotiate this scene for her. And he heard it and he did it. And there was no problem with, you know, how dare another actor give me a note, even if she is Angela Lansbury. Well, if Angela Lansbury gives you a note, you better take it. I would. I mean, if she.

[B]

If she were to give me a note today, I would take it because I'd be like, how is Angela Lansbury able to give me a note? But no, I mean, she's Angela Lansbury. Of course you're gonna listen.

[A]

Yeah, she was so smart.

[B]

Yeah, she's very smart. Very classy lady. What is a Cheetah impression that you have?

[A]

Well, Cheetah is the most open person ever to be on Broadway. She's so available to the company she wants. She keeps her dressing room door open. She's always laughing and joking. And then 10 minutes before the show, she closes the door and in some private way she would prepare and then I would come. You know, the richest woman in the world, Claire Zakanasian, all plastic and steel legs and arms. She was amazing in the Visit and she built that performance, production to production to production to production. And I mean, to work so long on a show and have it run a couple weeks was devastating for all.

[B]

Of us, I'm sure. What was the vibe like in Williamstown? Was there was what. Sorry, let me rephrase and just say it permanently. What was the vibe like in Williamstown?

[A]

Well, we were. It was a very fresh look at the show. I mean, Frank Galati is one of the best directors you ever want to work with, and he did an amazing production in Chicago that moved to the signature in D.C. and was even more amazing because he stripped away all the set and we just did it with sort of lights in an arena. It was fantastic. And that version almost came in and didn't. And then John Doyle had an idea. He trimmed it down to one act and cut all the fat out of it and some of the good stuff, too. And that's the version that came in. And it was an adventurous, difficult show that people didn't connect to. Really.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I enjoy my John Doyle. I will say sometimes his approach doesn't always work with the material and he is a very austere director, which I understand that as a human being. He's actually very lovely.

[A]

He's lovely man. It's so fun and delightful to chat with and dish with and he's just great.

[B]

Yeah. It's just so funny when people think of John Doyle productions, they think of, like, simplicity in a chair and like, ice cold lighting. And everyone stares out into the audience as they talk to each other. And then to find out that he's just like the sweetest little Irishman. Kunzie did Williams down. Did she not of the Visit. Wasn't Judy Keene in that?

[A]

Yes, she was Matilda in that. She was.

[B]

And that was Mary Beth Peel on Broadway.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

See, this is. This is what I'm here for. I. If there's one thing you can count on me, it's knowing Judy Kuhn's resume as well as the resume of, like, 9,000 other people. But she in particular Company. You did the very first Broadway revival of Company at Roundabout.

[A]

Also very. It was a fun production with Boyd Gaines as the lead and Deborah Monk as Joanne and Vianne Cox as Amy. She was hilarious. Lachanze singing Another Hundred People, Charlotte d' Amboise doing the TikTok Dance, and then.

[B]

Jane Krakowski doing Jane Krakowski is April Barcelona. Yes, yes, yes. And also the only time I know of where Kate Burton sang on a Broadway stage.

[A]

Kate has a nice voice. I had no idea she was Sarah in that.

[B]

Yeah. And then also, it's actually. It's a. It's a very stacked cast. There's also Danny Burstein, there's Robert Westenberg.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Absolutely stacked. Yeah, they were great.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, there's all this, I imagine, pressure of being the first production company since the original. Right.

[A]

Well, the pressure is just to learn that opening number.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's the hard part.

[B]

Yeah. How long does it take for everyone to learn all the Bobby Babies? Bobby Boobies?

[A]

It takes a lifetime. The only way to do it is to count. You have to go, one, two, three, four, five, Bobby. One, two, three, four, five, six, Bobby Baby. The only way to get through it, how that original cast learned it without ever having heard what it was going to turn into. I. I can't even imagine what that was like.

[B]

I can't imagine either. I mean, especially some of those original company members were not really musical theater people.

[A]

He was definitely casting actors.

[B]

When you are working with actors versus musicians, or, you know, actors who sing versus singers who act, you know, what is the discrepancy between the two? For you as a music director, how do you sort of. How do you view both and how do you approach both?

[A]

Well, you need more patience for the actors, but that patience usually pays off because in musical theater, the words are the most important thing, and you're hearing that from the music director. The words are more important than the music. That's the way the. That's the way our art form works. And actors can get that. And you can have great actors who aren't that comfortable singing. Be very effective in a musical if they. If they focus on the words and not try to do what they don't do well, which is single. You know, you get Richard Burton doing King Arthur in Camelot, you get Rex Harrison creating a new way to do a musical in My Fair lady, where he just spoke it because he wasn't a singer and didn't try to sing it and therefore fail, but it's a lot of work. And certainly for. If you have to be in a chorus where you have to hold your harmony and, you know, put your cutoffs in the same place every night, if factors aren't used to that, that can be a lot of work.

[B]

And then when you're approaching it with technical singers, like real musicians, part of.

[A]

Me is Praised for that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To have enough of them in the show to. To carry the. The actor people through it, you know, and Broadway is that blend and that contradiction of the different skills that people have. You know, the dancers are never going to sing quite as well as the. The people who are hired only for their voices. It used to be that they were separate choruses, and now you have to do all. Everything you have to clean the. Clean the theater afterwards. Sing and dance and you have to do.

[B]

And now you actually have to be the PR with all the actors who, you know, have social media shows, like their marketing team now, spend their whole.

[A]

Days doing their YouTube and their.

[B]

And their TikToks and, you know how.

[A]

Old I am when that's my modern word is the YouTube.

[B]

Yeah. Honestly, me too. If we're for being honest about it, would you ever. I mean, we don't have to go too intuitive. It's a painful memory. But would you say that there was a show that you couldn't crack when you were working on it that maybe frustrated you and sort of had to let go of?

[A]

Well, I had personal reasons for having trouble doing the Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, but that was. That was a show that I felt that we started off wrong and it. We never quite. I'm just talking about the music direction and the. The way the show was adapted. It never quite felt right to me. And I didn't frankly have the strength at the time to do everything I would have liked to have done to help it and fix it and get it back to what the Gersh. What the Gershwins had wanted in that piece. The legacy of that piece is so complicated and so racially fraught with who exactly is taking advantage of who. And what did George Gershwin steal? And is that a tribute? It's very rich territory in which to immolate oneself, and it's hard.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I would like to think that most shows, people are not going in with bad intentions. They want to create something worthwhile. But sometimes you don't realize that you're on the wrong path until you're too far into it. I mean, not to bring it back to Merrily, but I feel like that's sort of one of the great things about the lack of success Merrily had the first time was even people like Sondheim and Harold Prince can get it wrong once in a while. And there's. It doesn't take away from when they do get it right. It doesn't mean when they get it wrong that there's nothing there there because obviously Merrily succeeding since then shows that there's something there. But yeah, I think that people are so afraid of being tarnished by not getting success that they aren't always willing to take those risks.

[A]

Well, it took me a long time to realize this, but that was actually one of the greatest gifts of Merrily to see my heroes fail. I mean, I was a full out Sondheim fan coming into that and in awe of Hal Prince. You know, I had seen Sweeney Todd and I saw it over and over and over because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And to be, I mean, of course to be working then working with them was amazingly exciting and. But then to watch them working so hard every day, coming in with ideas, rewrites, thoughts, we can try this, we can do this. Oh, it's not going to work. We'll have to do this instead. To see that even that by them, work, not work, you could have realized how hard the business was and how precious success in the business was to have started with a flop like that. When Masterclass was a success. That meant something very powerful to me. And I mean, show business is hard. Broadway's hard. I say that to my students sometimes and they sort of laugh, scared. But you have to really invest your hard work in the good of the play that you are a part of when you're developing new material, which is to me the most exciting thing to be doing. And I love the revivals and I love tackling the Golden Age scores, but to work on new material is so rich and the possibilities are so available.

[B]

Yeah. What would you say is a benefit for to your students of looking at and working through shows from the Golden Age and working their way up to modern day. What helps them with that?

[A]

Well, they're just so good. I mean, and I love watching them start to understand that the classics are not Les Mis, Phantom and Miss Saigon, but rather Showboat and Lady in the Dark and Oklahoma. And Carousel and S Thousand's Cheer and the Boys From Syracuse and so many steps along the way to figuring out what a musical could be. And they're always very surprised. I like this stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If I could get that from a student, I feel like I've done my job.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like people don't always like to go back to the basics, but sometimes you get surprised at just how good something, you know, that is considered a basic is. And how long have you been teaching?

[A]

I've been teaching for nine years now. The program at Manhattan there was never a music theater program at Manhattan School of Music before the one that Louis Perez started nine years ago. And I was in. In that sort of opening faculty. And it's. This is. It's been so much fun to develop the programming. And the kids change so much over the four years they're there. They're almost unrecognizable by the time they leave. And they've learned so much and they care about the business so much. I mean, to. To go to a conservatory at that age is. That's a big statement. My life is going to be about this professionally, so I'm going to learn all about it. Rather than, you know, a liberal arts background, which prepares you for probably more things in your life, but doesn't have that concentrated edge to it, for sure.

[B]

Would you say that as the years continue with your students, they teach you a little bit about sort of where the tides are turning in theater today in terms of taste?

[A]

I try to learn from them, but that's not really my taste. And I'm very committed to them learning about the history of the art form. And I should probably be a little bit more attentive to learning from them about the forward motion of it as well. Sure.

[B]

When this.

[A]

I'm gonna change my ways.

[B]

Yeah, for. Change your ways right here, today. Listen, when something's good, you don't deny it. We were talking before, off mic, how much we both really love maybe Happy Ending.

[A]

Loved maybe Happy Ending. A musical that had never been done before in a different way. So beautifully directed, wonderful music, strange, surprising events happening through the whole thing. I loved it.

[B]

Yeah, no, it's. It's. It's delightful. But you didn't work on maybe Happy Ending, David, so we're not gonna spend that much time about it with your. Would you say that there's a show that you introduced your students too frequently that ends up always kind of being a popular one with them?

[A]

Yes, absolutely. None of them have usually heard of man of La Mancha. We do. We do a table reading of that. And. And they're. They're just stunned by how powerful it is. Same thing with Gypsy. I have them read through the script of Gypsy, and the script of Gypsy is a masterpiece. We do a little Night Music the same way, which has just a great script.

[B]

That Night Music is kind of. I don't say kind of. It is perfect. I think Night Music is a perfect show. Fun fact. I did man of La Mancha in college. Can you guess who I played?

[A]

I. You were probably the golden barber of Mandrina.

[B]

I was, if you can believe it, Sancho Panza.

[A]

Oh, well, there you go.

[B]

Yes. I love talking to the younger generations and informing them of shows of the past because, I mean, not every show of the past is a winner. Some of them have aged in a way where not even like the politics, where you just go, oh, like this first act is creakier than I remember. But then the ones that do maintain beautifully, and it's always nice to sort of show them that you have a lot of John Doyle in your rep. You talk to me about your position in the John Doyle Sweeney, which was our New York's first introduction.

[A]

John Doyle. That was the hardest job I've ever had because the score for Sweeney Todd, which is massive and difficult, was being played by 11 actor musicians who had to memorize the entire score to Sweeney Todd while performing Sweeney Todd. It was so much to ask of those poor actors, you know, who had all been very good instrumentalists in college or high school, but hadn't kept up their cello playing or their clarinet playing or their tuba playing and had to be refreshed with lessons. And my job was to make sure that the music sounded good every night, which was impossible because they were acting. Sweeney Todd while playing was very difficult. Yeah. Because when everything. Whenever anything went wrong, they would just stop. And because they had to keep on with the play, so certainly abandoned all music and very strange things would happen every now and then.

[B]

Can you divulge us with anything?

[A]

Well, just chords that never were meant to be in Sweeney Sad would suddenly appear and you couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything about it. I wasn't conducting the show. I was in the back sort of trying to figure out how to get the clarinetist to finger the A so it didn't sound like an A sharp.

[B]

Yeah, that's got to be very high stress where you're basically like in a control tower, but you have no actual.

[A]

No, none control whatsoever.

[B]

Yeah, no control. You're just sort of sitting there in this isolated booth, knowing when something's going wrong and unable to stop it.

[A]

Patti LuPone was good on the tuba. She was an anchor for several of the numbers, the judges song, and she was. She was devoted to that tuba.

[B]

Would you say that was a show where, as the run continued, that the music got easier, or was it always just sort of every night? Cross yourself.

[A]

They were. They were heroic and they. We actually recorded an album.

[B]

Oh, I know.

[A]

Which is very good.

[B]

It is very good. I like it a lot.

[A]

It was very hard it was very hard.

[B]

We're gonna sort of slowly start to wrap things up. But I would be remiss if we did not talk a little bit about the review that you worked on at Roundabout, which was Sondheim on Sondheim, which holds the distinction of being the only Sondheim review where Stephen Sondheim was able to impart his feelings on the material being presented.

[A]

And that is such a brilliant thing in that show, to have him talking about the songs you're about to hear. It was just magical.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Giving historical anecdotes as well as his own personal artistic insights into it.

[A]

Yeah, he really opened up. I mean, the story about his mother that sort of climaxes the show emotionally is so devastating, where she says that.

[B]

Her one regret was having him.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah. If you all think that you have issues with your parents, listen to Sondheim talk about Foxy. But what I liked about that production was you also kind of dug deep into the creation process. There was the whole company medley where Happily Ever after became Multitudes of Amy, which became Being Alive. And you sort of wove all that together. I thought that was really phenomenal. How were you approached on this project?

[A]

Well, James Lapine asked me to work with him on it. So we had a couple quick readings where we sort of listened to every song that we didn't know of Sondheim's widget. He wrote a lot of material that is not part of his show. He wrote drafts. He was never. He was never precious about keeping things in the show that he had. You know, he threw out some amazing craft over his many shows, you know, songs that other people would have killed to have written, he was happy to abandon. And so we looked through a lot of that material and there are things I. I didn't know about and treasures that still haven't been played, I think, in front of people. And then sort of around the footage that James Lapine had shot of Steve talking about songs, we just. We designed sections that would match his speeches and created this complicated concert of Sondheim rarities and well known songs, sometimes with a fresh look, sometimes exactly as they've always been. And so for me, it's about finding that balance.

[B]

You also have a book that's now out or purchased called Facing the Music. Can you tell us a little bit about this book?

[A]

Happily, it's a book about me, so it's very interesting to me, and it's about my life as a Broadway music director. And there aren't a lot of books about Broadway music directing. And to be the conductor of a musical is actually the best job in the world. You exist in a very privileged place which is in the center of three worlds. You're on your podium and there's an orchestra below you, and there's a cast above you in front of you doing a show that you're conducting. And the audience is behind you and you can feel them on your neck. You can feel their pleasure and their boredom and their enthusiasm. And you are in the center of these three forces and you're the beating heart of the story that's being told. It's a magical place to live. And for 30 plus years I was living there. And it was very hard when my Parkinson's became a part of my life to give that up. I treasured it so much. But as a teacher, I found the same satisfaction since then. And the book is about that. It's about that in my life. And it's a memoir and it's a look at what a musical director does. And it's a love story as well.

[B]

Wonderful. Well, I can't imagine anyone who has been watching or listening to this won't want to get the book now and just read more about this without my annoying presence interrupting everything you say. David, you've had a very illustrious and distinguished career. Could you paint us a picture of one specific night that holds a special place in your heart and your memory?

[A]

Sure, yes. He said nervously. Okay, I've chosen a complicated night, which was the opening night of Merrily, which was the beginning of November in 1981. The show had been getting a much better response by the time we open. People weren't working out angrily. They were standing and applauding the show. And it felt more and more every day like a. Like a real success. I don't know exactly what went into that improvement in the audience's reaction. I think the show did get better, much better. I'm not sure how many friends were bused in or free tickets were given away to people with big voices or anything like that, but it was a very different experience that last week, performing merrily in New York. And opening night was sensational. It seemed like every joke landed and every song got bravos. There was a big standing ovation at the end. We put on our fanciest clothes and we marched over to the Plaza Hotel and the party was so enormous. It was two ballrooms put together. And there was Norm McCall and there was another star, and there was a Hollywood star, and I didn't recognize half of them. And I couldn't find anybody else in the cast at all. The party wasn't for us, but it was so glamorous. And my family left. It was very crowded and was wandering around trying to find somebody I knew. And I saw Lonnie Price and he had a stack of newspapers with him and he sort of looked at me sadly and said, wow. And I needed to get out of there. So I. I left the glamorous party behind and went out into the freezing cold night. It was sort of freezing rain. And I found a newsstand and looked at some of the reviews and I couldn't. I couldn't anymore. They were so cruel and so unforgiving and so offended by the show and condescending to what Stephen Hell had tried to do. And it was very painful. They'd had nothing but success in the five shows that they had done before Merrily. And there was a glee in what the critics were writing about them on this one. And I, I didn't buy any of the papers. I had read them in the stand. And I decided to go home and not back to the party. So I walked through the freezing cold rain to my sublet and I sort of cried myself to sleep. It was. It was the. The expansive emotions from Standing Ovation at the Neil Simon Theater. It was then the album to Crying Myself to Sleep. Felt like seven years had gone by. So that's the cheerful night I chose.

[B]

So when you think back on that night, with everything that's happened in your career since then and the connections you've made and working with Sondheim again and working with many members of that company since the. I mean, obviously the pain is still there. Can you see maybe a path from that night to where you are now?

[A]

Well, that's a wonderful question because of course, at the time I couldn't. It was this new world I discovered being taken away from me. I didn't know if I could ever get back there. It was so fun to be a part of that production. And, you know, my friends from it then are still my friends now. I co teach with Mana Allen, who was in it. I work with Liz Calloway all the time. I got to work with Lonnie in several different productions. And it's a. It's a group that is battle scarred and tied together by what we went through. But life does go on and we mature into other, other people. And the fact that Merrily is a hit now is miraculous and something that we would never have understood at the time. We didn't know that that was going to be the future of the piece. And it was such an unexpected year when it was playing on Broadway to have Merrily Be the biggest hit in town, which it was. And it's not that different in my. In my opinion. I mean, there are many changes throughout still the same show, but for some reason, the audience was ready for it. And the charisma of the three leads was so magnificent in that production and became really the event of the play, I think.

[B]

Were you a part of the anniversary reunion concert with the. Yes.

[A]

That was so fun because we got to play the show as a hit that night, which we had never really done because the audience for that concert was so supercharged and ready to love us.

[B]

Was there a catharsis to that evening?

[A]

There was, yeah. And it was the first big reunion we'd all had for a long time. And as I say, we're bonded. I love those people.

[B]

Yeah. Well. And then I. To sort of go back to the original production for a second closing two weeks later, I believe. When did you record the cast album for Merrily?

[A]

The cast album was recorded the day after our last performance. So it was. We closed on a Saturday night and we did the album from nine in the morning till well after midnight.

[B]

So you're freshly. Next day, you're freshly 20 years old.

[A]

Yes, yes, 20. 20 years old in the day. And we recorded the whole thing in one day, which was, you know, incredibly exciting and also heartbreaking to sing the songs together for the last time. And those words really became quite ironic, you know. Behold the hills of tomorrow Behold the beautiful sky. It was not beautiful for us, but we did our best to preserve the score that we loved thinking, you know, hoping somebody would buy it. And it became the way the show lived. People knew what it was because we recorded that album.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And it led to its great success again. So that's. That's a nice thing to feel responsible for.

[B]

I would argue that the hills were beautiful for you and for that show, just not in that moment. They were. They were a few miles away.

[A]

You were absolutely right. It was a glorious experience. And as I said, even perhaps a more treasured one and impactful one because of the pain that we. That we went through for it. I wouldn't trade. I wouldn't change anything.

[B]

And it toughened you up for all the shows after that. Anytime someone.

[A]

I've had many flops since then, but.

[B]

Anytime people complain to you on any of the flops you've had since then, you're like, this is nothing. Let Me tell you how to turn it. Let me tell you, being two weeks shy of 20 and this happening. Yeah, it gets you ready for this business in a way that I don't think you realized at the time. But, I mean, you look at the life you've had so far, the career you continue to have, and this is, I mean, Merrily is just a very rocky start that ultimately shapes a very beautiful, beautiful career.

[A]

Broadway is always that contradiction.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Some of it is so painful, some of it is so wonderful. And there's the constant pull of commerce versus art. And the challenge of Broadway is keeping yourself centered in the middle of all those contradictions. And it's a great and glorious history standing behind us as we try to create new Broadway shows. And it's as important as it is to look backwards, we all have to look forward too. And I have to count on the younger generation to discover again what musicals can be in ways that Sondheim had done and Rogers and Hammerstein had done and Jerome Kern had done and Kurt Weill had done and Leonard Lowe and Bach and Harnick. And, you know, it's been. Broadway has been a canvas for some of the most remarkable American artists. Leonard Bernstein, who could have spent his life in classical music, creating west side Story and Candide. It's an art form that has accepted many and has always gained from people's contributions. And I think the finest moments in any show have been collaborative. It's never one person with the answer. It's the designers and the directors and the music directors and the actors all working together. Those have been the great achievements, I think.

[B]

Agreed. Yeah. The best kind of collaborations.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Well, David, this has been absolutely phenomenal. Thank you very much for spending your time with us.

[A]

Well, you're such a pleasure to talk to you. You seem to know everything about everything.

[B]

Well, that's a double edged sword, I would say. No one likes to admit why they know so much. It's not like we spend so many days of our childhood staying in our bedroom reading about these books alone. It's fine. We're all pretty now. But this has been phenomenal, guys. If you want, you can absolutely find David's book, Facing the Music.

[A]

Facing the A Broadway Memoir.

[B]

A Broadway Memoir. Available, I'm assuming everywhere. Yes.

[A]

Find places where books are sold.

[B]

All places where books are sold.

[A]

Or find books are sold.

[B]

Yes. And stay tuned for future episodes of I Was There. Coming to you shortly with wonderful, illustrious people of the theater and their illustrious careers. But David, thank you so much for being our jumping off point. This has been a. I can't imagine a better start than this one.

[A]

I love being a guinea pig.

[B]

I do, too, but for different reasons. Waking up the countryside Everybody sing up.

[A]

Your song Rolling alone Rolling alone Rolling up.