Ariana Grande (2:44)

Hello. So nice to meet you.

Cynthia Erivo (2:45)

It's so lovely to meet you as well. Thank you for coming today. 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, in your, in your mind?

Ariana Grande (3:07)

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 sort of 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 to, you know, to be in musicals with that beautiful music surrounding me.

Cynthia Erivo (3:57)

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

Ariana Grande (4:06)

Nobody got to go on.

Cynthia Erivo (4:07)

Nobody got go on.

Ariana Grande (4:08)

You had to be very quick. I mean there was only the, the 14 performances.

Cynthia Erivo (4:14)

Well, a month of previews as well. Never. We don't discredit the month of previews, David.

Ariana Grande (4:18)

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

Cynthia Erivo (4:21)

Gee. Yeah, it was.

Ariana Grande (4:22)

We never did the same show twice.

Cynthia Erivo (4:25)

I mean, how old were you when that happened?

Ariana Grande (4:27)

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

Cynthia Erivo (4:33)

Happy birthday to you.

Ariana Grande (4:35)

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

Cynthia Erivo (4:41)

Any specific memory from the rehearsal process of Mary Lee Rolong? Fear, fear, nothing but fear.

Ariana Grande (4:47)

Fear, 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.

Cynthia Erivo (5:14)

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

Ariana Grande (5:18)

Yes, fired. And Larry Fuller took over.

Cynthia Erivo (5:23)

How was, how was Larry? Was he Any nicer.

Ariana Grande (5:25)

Larry was lovely. He was great. He gave us things we could do, and he only had 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, and he gave us that.

Cynthia Erivo (5:43)

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 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?

Ariana Grande (6:15)

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 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.

Cynthia Erivo (6:46)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (6:47)

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 you saw the show, and the guy said, well, at least dinner was good. That was his comment after the show. But we loved it.

Cynthia Erivo (7:10)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (7:10)

We loved the score and we loved 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.

Cynthia Erivo (7:23)

Until it was your birthday.

Ariana Grande (7:24)

Until it was my birthday, yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (7:26)

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?

Ariana Grande (7:44)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (8:00)

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?

Ariana Grande (8:08)

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 onto 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'd 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. From his podium. And I. I ended up wanting to be that. I wanted to be that rock that beats, you know, solidly and steadily at the center of every show.

Cynthia Erivo (9:18)

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

Ariana Grande (9:26)

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

Cynthia Erivo (9:36)

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 and they're amazing. Yeah.

Ariana Grande (9:48)

So impressed by that.

Cynthia Erivo (9:50)

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 Bok and for a long time, Roundabout. I don't think he represented Roundabout at the time, but maybe right after that. But so I have 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?

Ariana Grande (10:21)

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 McGillen. It was the light from top to top to bottom.

Cynthia Erivo (11:00)

Were you familiar with the show before you got into.

Ariana Grande (11:03)

I had done a tiny little production in college, and I loved the score. It's the. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (11:28)

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? How do you approach it musically? Are you trying to.

Ariana Grande (11:45)

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, 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.

Cynthia Erivo (13:03)

Absolutely. To say nothing of the apple tree. You think that 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. It's, you know, Jerry was a phenomenal and versatile composer, and you listened 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?

Ariana Grande (13:37)

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

Cynthia Erivo (13:46)

Yeah, it built in mania.

Ariana Grande (13:47)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (14:12)

Yeah. And I'm sure everyone who's listening to this knows there is a wonderful YouTube channel called Aurora's 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 Kyunzee and Voight. There's also Queunze's Vanilla Ice Cream on there. There's Sallie Mays's trip to the library, Howard McGillan's grand. Knowing you, 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?

Ariana Grande (14:51)

Absolutely.

Cynthia Erivo (14:51)

Okay, so there was a day when Aurora, who. If you know who Aurora is in real life, you know. But we're not going to say it on mic because I'm sure that person wants that.

Ariana Grande (15:02)

I don't know.

Cynthia Erivo (15:04)

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

Ariana Grande (15:07)

I'm sure they don't. Yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (15:08)

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 Tabor 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 Terrence McNally, Tyne Daly, and Zoe Caldwell. And I go down and I announce myself, say, I'm a big fan, blah, blah. And I tell them that there's a clip of Masterclass online, and Terrence and Zo 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 El Caldwell's Maria, and they're talking about. It's the Lady Macbeth cavaletta scene, right? She goes, how is she feeling? Happy. Why ask me?

Ariana Grande (16:13)

Okay.

Cynthia Erivo (16:13)

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.

Ariana Grande (16:23)

You're there.

Cynthia Erivo (16:24)

You're playing the music during the scene. Like your eyes on there. So how did Masterclass come to you? Because this was pretty soon after she Loves Me, right?

Ariana Grande (16:32)

I guess it was. Y. Yes, it was.

Cynthia Erivo (16:36)

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.

Ariana Grande (16:42)

In three theaters before that.

Cynthia Erivo (16:44)

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 Ajra 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 Verrett 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?

Ariana Grande (17:06)

I did LA and the first stand in Philadelphia.

Cynthia Erivo (17:09)

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

Ariana Grande (17:17)

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 NAR and he knew me as a music director. So I auditioned with, you know, all the tenors and sopranos, who wanted to be Audra and Jay Morris, and although funnies to Brett, who wanted to be.

Cynthia Erivo (17:41)

Karen Cody, so Sophie De Palma.

Ariana Grande (17:43)

Sophie Dea. 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 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.

Cynthia Erivo (18:21)

Absolutely.

Ariana Grande (18:22)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (18:35)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (18:36)

And to be there every night for every step of it was such a privilege.

Cynthia Erivo (18:40)

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

Ariana Grande (18:45)

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

Cynthia Erivo (18:48)

Yeah. The entire time. Because you left the run around the same time that Audra and Zelas or either the whole.

Ariana Grande (18:53)

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

Cynthia Erivo (18:56)

Okay.

Ariana Grande (18:57)

She came in.

Cynthia Erivo (18:58)

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

Ariana Grande (19:02)

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

Cynthia Erivo (19:14)

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.

Ariana Grande (19:21)

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

Cynthia Erivo (19:25)

Yes.

Ariana Grande (19:26)

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

Cynthia Erivo (19:44)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (19:45)

So it. Yeah, it was half an hour.

Cynthia Erivo (19:46)

I mean, it was half an hour. I mean, I could only go off of again, Aurora's 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 I'm curious is the right word, but it's a very. She's a very imposing figure.

Ariana Grande (20:00)

She's regal and 1000% impatient.

Cynthia Erivo (20:03)

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 Teda Tet. Like, you know, friendly and engaging. I just think of the way, you know, Zoe 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.

Ariana Grande (20:23)

It's never been anything funnier in that moment.

Cynthia Erivo (20:25)

Oh, sorry. Stop right there. I'm not a huge, fixed foot Lucia. Or if you do Stupid way through the role. I'm. 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 don't know 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.

Ariana Grande (20:59)

That play educates as it exposes and.

Cynthia Erivo (21:03)

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.

Ariana Grande (21:09)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (21:23)

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

Ariana Grande (21:26)

Yes, on a couple of different projects. That was probably the most extended one.

Cynthia Erivo (21:31)

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

Ariana Grande (21:36)

Well, the company of Sheila, to 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 sing 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.

Cynthia Erivo (22:16)

I mean, I only. Again, I only have a little bit of material from that production, but I'm a Ruthie Henschel.

Ariana Grande (22:22)

Stan.

Cynthia Erivo (22:23)

You'll never hear me say a bad word about that girl.

Ariana Grande (22:25)

She was great. And I really liked where he was.

Cynthia Erivo (22:28)

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?

Ariana Grande (22:39)

I can talk ragtime anytime.

Cynthia Erivo (22:41)

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.

Ariana Grande (23:06)

Well, people always remember the first time they saw Ragtime. That is a powerful memory for a lot of people. They always tell me about that.

Cynthia Erivo (23:14)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (23:15)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (23:31)

Brand spanking new.

Ariana Grande (23:32)

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

Cynthia Erivo (23:38)

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 I feel like that original company is one that's like. Is kind of legendary in a way.

Ariana Grande (23:51)

Well, the combination of Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman and Norton McDonald and Mark Jacoby and Judy K and you know, are.

Cynthia Erivo (24:02)

We leaving Brian Stokes Mitchell on Red.

Ariana Grande (24:04)

And the great Brian Stokes Mitchell, of course. I mean, it's. It's richness is almost too big to remember.

Cynthia Erivo (24:10)

Absolutely.

Ariana Grande (24:10)

You can't imagine that there are that many stars and that many. Yeah, it's just.

Cynthia Erivo (24:14)

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. Were you sort of overseeing all of them or you kind of had to focus on one at a moment?

Ariana Grande (24:25)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (24:48)

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

Ariana Grande (24:53)

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

Cynthia Erivo (24:57)

And, 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.

Ariana Grande (25:07)

It had been. Yeah, they'd been through the Year of Revisions in Toronto.

Cynthia Erivo (25:12)

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.

Ariana Grande (25:19)

It's hard to know what to do.

Cynthia Erivo (25:21)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (25:21)

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 to. That were mine. It was. 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. Yeah. It was so expensive.

Cynthia Erivo (25:45)

Yeah. I mean, giant barn of a theater. But even still, like, impossible finances.

Ariana Grande (25:50)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (25:59)

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 had to pick.

Ariana Grande (26:11)

Oh, my gosh.

Cynthia Erivo (26:12)

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

Ariana Grande (26:15)

Well, to conduct Marin Mazzie singing Back to before, barefoot on the stage, 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 its forgiveness, you know.

Cynthia Erivo (26:36)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (26:36)

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

Cynthia Erivo (26:44)

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 Mazie Beautiful mix. Soprano.

Ariana Grande (27:00)

Absolutely.

Cynthia Erivo (27:01)

And then the last verse and a half of Back to Before is Afraid to be strong. You know exactly where I was going with it. Yeah.

Ariana Grande (27:07)

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

Cynthia Erivo (27:12)

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 to shame.

Ariana Grande (27:21)

Yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (27:21)

I'm like, it's as if that cast recording it and those bootlegs never existed. I'm not a rigid person, David, but that is one thing that I strongly believe strong 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.

Ariana Grande (27:39)

Absolutely.

Cynthia Erivo (27:39)

Yeah. What would. 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.

Ariana Grande (27:48)

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 ragtie. And what's that?

Cynthia Erivo (28:03)

I. I couldn't tell you. I'm not a scientist. But were you in ragtime the entire run or.

Ariana Grande (28:10)

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

Cynthia Erivo (28:14)

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

Ariana Grande (28:21)

The. 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 work it, how to make everything always land. I mean, timing, that underscoring the opening number is so hard. 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. That was always hard.

Cynthia Erivo (29:00)

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.

Ariana Grande (29:11)

And the management of Ragtime was very sort of crisp and corporate. They want things the. The way they had always been.

Cynthia Erivo (29:19)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (29:19)

And must always be, and that's fine. But sometimes that's hard for replacements.

Cynthia Erivo (29:25)

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. In Broadway, it's a little more locked in, and hopefully not locked in in.

Ariana Grande (29:36)

A negative way, but consistent.

Cynthia Erivo (29:38)

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?

Ariana Grande (29:48)

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. It was John Doyle's look at a bunch of Sondheim songs arranged into sort of a story, sort of a suite. And 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 this big trumpet solo at the end of. With so little to be sure of. And it was like God, the roof. It's like the roof opened up and God shone down and whatever he would play that night would be a masterpiece.

Cynthia Erivo (31:47)

And sometimes there's just God 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 Kander, starting with and the World Goes Round. But you've also done Steel Pier Curtains, the Visit. Were you involved with Still Pier and Curtains during the writing process, or was that something that came in a little later on?

Ariana Grande (32:10)

I did the very first workshop of Still Pier reading of Still Peer. We did about four of them, I think. Yeah, I was there from the beginning for all of them, really, including the Scusper Boys.

Cynthia Erivo (32:24)

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

Ariana Grande (32:33)

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'll 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. But it's a different process in terms of the creation of how the number is going to evolve on stage.

Cynthia Erivo (33:35)

Were you part of the audition process for Steel Pierre?

Ariana Grande (33:38)

Yes.

Cynthia Erivo (33:38)

Do you remember Chenoweth's audition?

Ariana Grande (33:41)

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. This flower of energy. She's about this tall.

Cynthia Erivo (33:53)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (33:54)

And singing that huge voice. And Kendra and Ebb wrote three soprano roles in their entire life. One's 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.

Cynthia Erivo (34:15)

Cameron? Is it a post steel pure role?

Ariana Grande (34:19)

I'm thinking Little Mary Sunshine, Chicago.

Cynthia Erivo (34:23)

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Ariana Grande (35:08)

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Cynthia Erivo (35:09)

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Ariana Grande (35:10)

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Cynthia Erivo (35:12)

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Ariana Grande (35:28)

Yeah, the rest of their songs, of course, are.

Cynthia Erivo (35:31)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (35:31)

More video's big school of better, bigger belters.

Cynthia Erivo (35:34)

Exactly. Well, I mean, I think about like everybody's girl and, you know, chief cook and bottle washer. I'm like, that's Canter. And that baby Caner and I call.

Ariana Grande (35:44)

Those numbers are screamers.

Cynthia Erivo (35:47)

Well, I mean, I think. 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.

Ariana Grande (36:01)

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Cynthia Erivo (36:04)

And what's the one for life is the was. I'm assuming Karen Zambo was probably a part of Steel Pier from the get go, right?

Ariana Grande (36:12)

She was from the very beginning. Yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (36:14)

Or is Deborah Monk a part of from the beginning as well?

Ariana Grande (36:16)

I believe she was, yes.

Cynthia Erivo (36:17)

So Chanoweth was just someone who auditioned for Broadway.

Ariana Grande (36:19)

She auditioned for the Broadway company.

Cynthia Erivo (36:21)

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

Ariana Grande (36:25)

It was revised heavily for her.

Cynthia Erivo (36:28)

Okay.

Ariana Grande (36:29)

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 Pier, Christian's part would get longer and everybody else's part would get a little smaller because she was so wonderful.

Cynthia Erivo (36:49)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (36:50)

And we just. The audience just wanted more of her. By the end, she should have won, you know, best actress Tony because she.

Cynthia Erivo (36:56)

Basically was a co lead.

Ariana Grande (36:58)

She was doing every scene change and hauling the show around on her little bag.

Cynthia Erivo (37:01)

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

Ariana Grande (37:06)

No surprise to anyone.

Cynthia Erivo (37:08)

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

Ariana Grande (37:11)

She was charmed for life.

Cynthia Erivo (37:13)

How long were you involved with the visit?

Ariana Grande (37:16)

15 years before we got in on Broadway.

Cynthia Erivo (37:18)

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

Ariana Grande (37:21)

Was it always did 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 from then on, it was Cheetah with any number of handsome older baritones.

Cynthia Erivo (37:42)

George Hearn, for a timing right, was John McMartin first.

Ariana Grande (37:45)

And George Hearn, who was. Sang it so gorgeously.

Cynthia Erivo (37:50)

Both of them former Bens and Follies.

Ariana Grande (37:52)

That's right. Right.

Cynthia Erivo (37:53)

That's a deep cut for some of you.

Ariana Grande (37:55)

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. That's the version that came in.

Cynthia Erivo (38:08)

Yes, I saw. 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.

Ariana Grande (38:21)

I know he had terrible brain cancer.

Cynthia Erivo (38:24)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (38:25)

Glioblastoma. And 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 them through it as much as they could, but it was terrible.

Cynthia Erivo (38:42)

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

Ariana Grande (38:51)

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. They called it the bench scene, which is strange.

Cynthia Erivo (39:23)

But we kept calling because there's already a bench scene.

Ariana Grande (39:26)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (39:51)

I mean, 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.

Ariana Grande (40:00)

Yeah, she was so smart.

Cynthia Erivo (40:01)

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

Ariana Grande (40:09)

Well, Cheetah is the most open person ever to be on Broadway. She's so available to the company. 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 me to work so long on a show and have it run a couple weeks. Yeah. Was devastating for all of us, I'm sure.

Cynthia Erivo (40:53)

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?

Ariana Grande (41:02)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (41:43)

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.

Ariana Grande (41:56)

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

Cynthia Erivo (42:03)

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. Well, key, did Williamstown. Did she not of the visit. Wasn't Judy Keen in that?

Ariana Grande (42:20)

Yes, she was Matilda in that. She was.

Cynthia Erivo (42:22)

And that was Mary Beth Peel on Broadway. This is what I'm here for. 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 also there.

Ariana Grande (42:40)

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

Cynthia Erivo (42:55)

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.

Ariana Grande (43:04)

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

Cynthia Erivo (43:09)

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

Ariana Grande (43:15)

Absolutely.

Cynthia Erivo (43:15)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (43:16)

Absolutely stacked. Yeah, they were great.

Cynthia Erivo (43:18)

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

Ariana Grande (43:25)

Well, the pressure is just to learn that opening number. Yeah. And that's the hard part.

Cynthia Erivo (43:30)

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

Ariana Grande (43:33)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (43:53)

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

Ariana Grande (43:58)

He was definitely casting actors.

Cynthia Erivo (44:00)

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?

Ariana Grande (44:13)

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 the musical if they. If they focus on the words and not try to do what they don't do well, which is sing. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (45:14)

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

Ariana Grande (45:20)

Me is praised for that.

Cynthia Erivo (45:21)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (45:22)

To have enough of them in the show to. To carry 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 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.

Cynthia Erivo (45:48)

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.

Ariana Grande (45:54)

Days doing their YouTube and their.

Cynthia Erivo (45:57)

And their TikToks and you know how.

Ariana Grande (45:58)

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

Cynthia Erivo (46:02)

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 made me frustrated you and sort of had to let go of.

Ariana Grande (46:20)

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? Is it. It's very rich territory in which to immolate oneself, and it's hard.

Cynthia Erivo (47:18)

Yeah. I mean, I. 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 Merily, but I feel like that's sort of one of the great things about the lack of success Marilee 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. Those risks.

Ariana Grande (48:01)

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 them, 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 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, showbiz is hard, Broadway is 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. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (49:34)

Yeah. What would you say is a benefit 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?

Ariana Grande (49:45)

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, you know, 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.

Cynthia Erivo (50:18)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (50:19)

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

Cynthia Erivo (50:23)

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?

Ariana Grande (50:35)

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 that sort of opening faculty, and 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.

Cynthia Erivo (51:30)

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?

Ariana Grande (51:38)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (51:55)

Sure. When it's.

Ariana Grande (51:56)

I'm change my ways.

Cynthia Erivo (51:57)

Yeah, we're going to 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.

Ariana Grande (52:03)

Loved. Maybe Happy Ending. Yeah. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (52:17)

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

Ariana Grande (52:33)

Yes, absolutely. None of them have usually heard of man of La Mancha. We do a table reading of that and 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. It has just a great script that.

Cynthia Erivo (52:53)

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?

Ariana Grande (53:02)

You were probably the golden barber of Mandrina.

Cynthia Erivo (53:05)

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

Ariana Grande (53:08)

Oh, well, there you go.

Cynthia Erivo (53:09)

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, 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 New York's first introduction.

Ariana Grande (53:38)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (54:35)

Can you divulge us with anything?

Ariana Grande (54:38)

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. You know, I wasn't conducting the show. I was in the back sort of trying to figure out how to get the clarinetus to finger the A. So it didn't sound like an A Sharp.

Cynthia Erivo (54:56)

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

Ariana Grande (55:01)

No. Not control whatsoever.

Cynthia Erivo (55:03)

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

Ariana Grande (55:09)

Patty lupone was good on the tuba. She was an anchor for several of the numbers. The. The judges song. And she was. She was devoted to that tuba.

Cynthia Erivo (55:18)

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.

Ariana Grande (55:25)

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

Cynthia Erivo (55:29)

Oh, I know.

Ariana Grande (55:30)

Which is very good.

Cynthia Erivo (55:34)

It is very good. I like it a lot.

Ariana Grande (55:37)

It was very hard. It was very hard.

Cynthia Erivo (55:39)

We're going to 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.

Ariana Grande (55:56)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (56:04)

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

Ariana Grande (56:10)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (56:19)

Her one regret was having him.

Ariana Grande (56:21)

Oh, my God.

Cynthia Erivo (56:21)

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?

Ariana Grande (56:47)

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. Switchett, he wrote a lot of material that is not part of his show. He wrote drafts. He was never. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (57:58)

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?

Ariana Grande (58:04)

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've found the same satisfaction since then. And the book is about that book. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (59:29)

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?

Ariana Grande (59:51)

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 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.

Cynthia Erivo (62:56)

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?

Ariana Grande (63:17)

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 Mama 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.

Cynthia Erivo (64:42)

Were you a part of the anniversary reunion concert with the other husband?

Ariana Grande (64:47)

Yes. 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.

Cynthia Erivo (65:00)

Was there a catharsis to that evening then?

Ariana Grande (65:02)

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. Yeah, well.

Cynthia Erivo (65:11)

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 from? Early.

Ariana Grande (65:19)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (65:27)

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

Ariana Grande (65:30)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (66:12)

Absolutely.

Ariana Grande (66:13)

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

Cynthia Erivo (66:17)

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.

Ariana Grande (66:22)

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.

Cynthia Erivo (66:40)

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

Ariana Grande (66:43)

I've had many flops since then, but.

Cynthia Erivo (66:44)

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. Let me tell you, being two weeks shy of 20 and this happening.

Ariana Grande (66:52)

Yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (66:54)

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.

Ariana Grande (67:09)

Broadway is always that contradiction.

Cynthia Erivo (67:10)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (67:11)

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 Rodgers and Hammerstein had done and Jerome Kern had done and Kurt Weill had done and Lerner and 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.

Cynthia Erivo (68:44)

Agree.

Ariana Grande (68:44)

Yeah.

Cynthia Erivo (68:45)

The best kind of collaborations.

Ariana Grande (68:47)

Absolutely.

Cynthia Erivo (68:48)

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

Ariana Grande (68:53)

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

Cynthia Erivo (68:56)

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.

Ariana Grande (69:15)

Facing the A Broadway Memoir.

Cynthia Erivo (69:16)

A Broadway Memoir available, I'm assuming everywhere.

Ariana Grande (69:20)

Yes. Find places where books are sold.

Cynthia Erivo (69:22)

All places where books are sold.

Ariana Grande (69:24)

Or find books are sold.

Cynthia Erivo (69:25)

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.

Ariana Grande (69:39)

I love being a guinea Pig.

Cynthia Erivo (69:41)

I do, too, but for different reasons.

Ariana Grande (69:44)

Up.

Cynthia Erivo (69:47)

Waking up the countryside Everybody sing of your song.

Ariana Grande (69:56)

Rolling along Rolling alone Rolling alone Rolling foreign.

Cynthia Erivo (70:24)

Hello, and welcome to the Cheese Wheel Podcast, your new favorite podcast about hyper fixations. Gambled on a wheel. In this podcast, we are covering anything that we want to talk about, but the problem is we don't know what we're covering every week, and it's something new every time. And I am joined by two of my co hosts. Andrew DeWolf. Hello. Hello. I'm happy to be here. And Liz Esten.

Ariana Grande (70:47)

Hello.

Cynthia Erivo (70:47)

Also very happy to be here. And this show is weekly, and every time someone else brings something to the table that's a little bent, we're gonna be covering anything and everything, including Chaperone's new album, Spy Kids, and the film version of Waitress. We're gonna have a new episode every Friday, and you're gonna see the vast arrays of interests we might have. Andrew, what might be one of your choices? Oh, I mean, I could pick something like, I don't know, famously bad movie.

Ariana Grande (71:16)

Miami Connection, and we could have a.

Cynthia Erivo (71:19)

Good time watching something that I love that's kind of terrible. Or I could pick something incredibly good, like. Like Jacob's Ladder, which is my favorite movie of all time. Incredible. And Liz, what about you?

Ariana Grande (71:31)

I don't know.

Cynthia Erivo (71:31)

I go something like A Walk the Dewey Cox Story, so I can talk about my favorite comedy since Jess didn't.

Ariana Grande (71:37)

Let me do it on the old podcast.

Cynthia Erivo (71:39)

Well, funny you bring that up. In case you're wondering what happened to Musicals with Chees, we ended that show, but the show's still here and livin on in season one. So if you want to go back and listen to our backlog, that's still here. But right now, we're just the cheese wheel. Please keep on listening. We got a lot of fun stuff to come, and we hope that you like what we're doing.