NINE w/ Kevin Duda

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: “NINE” (w/ Kevin Duda)

Podcast Episode Summary
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Kevin Duda (actor, producer, and Broadway alum)
Date: December 20, 2024

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this lively, uncensored episode of Broadway Breakdown, Matt Koplik sits down with returning guest and friend Kevin Duda to dissect the history, structure, and enduring strangeness of Nine: The Musical. Through playful banter, deep personal reflections, and plenty of R-rated theater gossip, Matt and Kevin explore this unique Maury Yeston/Arthur Kopit/Tommy Tune meta-musical—its origins, influence, problematic movie adaptation, and why it holds such a special place in their theater-nerd hearts. Listeners come away with both an education in Nine’s Broadway journey and juicy behind-the-scenes insight—plus a bonus dream-casting session and a comedic “gender-reversed” version.

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Episode Breakdown & Key Insights

[00:00–05:18]

Setting the Stage:

• Matt and Kevin riff about Nine’s Italian flair, apparently in honor of sharing bread and wine on-mic—“Very, very Vatican. Very Italian” [05:18, A].
• Matt introduces the series and Kevin as a long-lost pod friend: “Since he's been on, he has become daddy. He’s become, how the kids say, important” [01:28, A].
• Kevin recaps last time (“I kind of misunderstood the assignment, but it’s fine” [02:52, A]), promising more preparation and knowledge now.

[05:41–15:44]

Personal Introductions to NINE:

• Kevin’s college discovery: Saw upperclassmen do Nine at Hartt School, became obsessed with the score and its complexity (“Watching them all navigate this show... made me fall in love with this show and the score and the characters and the way it was put together” [08:03–08:29, B]).
• Saw the 2003 Roundabout revival twice (once with Cheetah Rivera, once with Eartha Kitt).
• Matt’s exposure was via a cast album and a fabled summer camp production featuring teenage Skylar Astin and Shaina Taub. Matt calls these “Stage Door stories…so competitive” [15:21, B].

[15:44–24:01]

On Repeats and Revivals:

• Both hosts discuss seeing various Broadway shows multiple times—most often not from love, but because friends got cast (“More often than not, it’s because I have a friend who got cast in it, and now I gotta go see the damn thing” [09:15, A]).
• The 2003 revival context: unusual for Roundabout to present in a commercial theater.

[24:01–38:05]

“What IS Nine?” – Origins & Structure:

• Matt and Kevin break down the show’s inspiration (Fellini’s 8 ½), its central crisis (a film director’s artistic/comic midlife breakdown), and Yeston’s ‘passion project’ beginnings:

  “Yeston had been working on this musical adaptation since 1973…for the BMI workshop…He never thought it was going to be seen; sort of worked on it as a passion project.” [26:08–26:44, A/B]

• The key leap: Tommy Tune’s concept making the cast entirely women (plus Guido):

  “It wasn’t until Tommy Tune came on board that it became all women and one man.” [29:13, A]

• Matt describes the musical as meta-commentary (“Eight and a Half is ultimately commentary on Fellini, of both his successes, his failures, and what everyone in the world has said about him. And Nine leans into that even harder” [32:16–32:42, A]).
• Notable quotes about the show's mood:
  • “If you are only focused on [style], it is like the most beautiful, coldest night of theater” [35:08, A].

[38:05–53:47]

On Women, Sensuality & Archetype:

• Digression on the visual glamour of Italian film and musical—Anita Ekberg, Ann-Margret, and the sexual-yet-wholesome vibe of Nine’s female ensemble (“She had that sort of ‘devil may care’ beauty...She looked like, I mean, what was Ann-Margret’s heritage?” [40:41, B]).
• Deep-dive, with wit and affection, into the construction and performance of Carla (“She is Guido’s mistress...she is a sexual woman, she loves sex—nothing wrong with that—but she’s also kind of a little girl” [44:45, A]).
• Key insight about Carla’s naiveté and function:

  “They dress her up to look like walking sex, but she plays it like she’s a 15-year-old One Direction fan” [45:22, A].

• Matt ties Carla’s archetype to both Marilyn Monroe and Audrey from Little Shop, and the peculiar American relationship to sexualized women.

[53:47–63:13]

Other Principal Women—Luisa, Claudia, Mama:

• Mother figure as both ethereal and sharply critical; Sarah Gina as the “inciting incident.”
• Analysis of how Sarah Gina can be staged as anything from comic earth-mother to “possible child rape”/dark influence (the 2003 revival hints at a much more fraught, potentially abusive “awakening”: “You watch her be this ethereal and this caring figure as well as being this hard cutting figure” [71:22, A]).
• Notable: “Nine is not linear storytelling, really. It’s a tapestry…” [69:09, B]

[63:13–83:08]

Meta-Theatre, Memory & Emotional Truths:

• Discussion of how musical form makes psychological subtext overt (“In a musical, other people start to make a bit more sense when they sing. Their emotions become clearer” [35:55–35:57, B/A]).
• “A character is telling the truth when they’re singing” [37:51, A].
• Personal storytelling as a way into NINE’s logic (“I think in a lot of... If you are having trouble figuring out Nine, start with just thinking of it as possibly…everything we’re watching is coming from Guido’s brain” [70:50, A]).
• Claudia’s ambiguous muse/lover role discussed at length—her function, her signature song, her self-protectiveness:

  “She made the conscious decision years ago to separate herself from him because she realized that he’s in love with a version of her that doesn’t exist.” [79:48, A]

[83:08–107:44]

Gender, Ego, Absence:

• Matt and Kevin reflect on the show’s commentary re: being needed vs. being wanted (especially for Louisa and the “compatible” marriage at the show’s core).
• “To be the smarter one in your relationship is a double-edged sword…” [98:29, A]
• The boisterous, vaudevillian producer character Lillian LaFleur:

  “She’s the one who keeps the money flowing...She knows all of Guido’s tricks, but she’s still caught by him” [107:43–109:25, B]

• Crowd work shenanigans: Both the original and revival actresses apparently milked the audience (“Cheetah [Rivera] milks it just as long as Liliane Montevecchi did...with pretty much also very little payoff” [113:51–114:17, A]).

[107:44–119:11]

Themes of Age & Responsibility:

• Show’s numerical theme: 9 going on 10 vs. 39 going on 40—the fear and hope of thresholds and midlife crises.

  “Nine is sort of like the last age where you can definitively say, I can’t wait to get older.” [120:41, A]

[119:11–144:43]

Discord Q&A – Score, Direction & Casting:

• Is NINE the best “freshman” Broadway composer score? They debate other debuts before agreeing that Music Man is #1, but Nine is an all-timer for scope and complexity:

  “The best freshman effort for a Broadway score is Music Man…but Nine is definitely the top five” [134:13–134:24, A].

• Should “Germans at the Spa” be cut? Yes.
• Dream casting the show past and present (riffs on Shoshana Bean, Heather Headley, Groff as Claudia, and inventing an all-male/gender-reversed NINE, e.g., “If we were to do a gay nine, which is just 9.75…” [190:19, A]).
• Dream creative teams? Maybe Jessica Stone, Susan Stroman.
• Could NINE have worked with a different concept? Only if the meta layers remained.
• Which staging do they prefer? Both surprised themselves by favoring the Laveaux 2003 revival for pace and clarity.

Notable Quotes

• “If you are only focused on [style], it is like the most beautiful, coldest night of theater.” — Matt [35:08, A]
• “Carla acts off instinct and feeling and heat...she’s the one who has all these suicide threats.” — Matt [46:08, A]
• “She is Guido’s mistress...she’s a sexual woman, she loves sex—nothing wrong with that—but she’s also kind of a little girl.” — Matt [44:45, A]
• “In a musical, other people start to make a bit more sense when they sing. Their emotions become clearer.” — Matt [35:55, B]
• “A character is telling the truth when they’re singing…as an audience, we take it at face value.” — Matt [37:51, A]
• “I think in a lot of…if you are having trouble figuring out Nine, start with just thinking it as possibly…everything we’re watching is coming from Guido’s brain.” — Matt [70:50, A]

[144:43–154:23]

The Movie Debacle:

• Universal feeling: The Rob Marshall film adaptation is a “beautiful mess.” The musical’s necessary ambiguity is made clumsy and literal (“To simplify Nine into reality and fantasy is a mistake, because it all exists in the same plane at the same time” [138:10–138:22, B]).
• Praises Fergie’s “Be Italian” number and Penelope Cruz as Carla: “Penelope Cruz is objectively the best thing in that movie. [162:44, A]

[154:23–168:47]

Nine v. Dreamgirls — The 1982 Tony War:

• Exhaustive, hilarious deep-dive into the infamous Dreamgirls v. Nine Tony race. Nine’s press, the “Broadway Massacre,” the Shuberts’ bad PR, and how “enough people think to themselves, everybody’s voting for Dreamgirls, I’m gonna vote for Nine…” [181:17, A].
• Noteworthy insight: “Nine has the Tony, and that's the 82 discussion...There is a lot of campaigning, a lot of likability...” [181:19, A]

[168:47–End]

Loose Ends, Closing Bits & Dream Gender-Reversed Cast:

• Dream-casting continues, with wild mixes (Leslie Uggams, Norbert Leo Butz, Brian d’Arcy James), plus “gender-reverse Nine” with Shoshana Bean, Groff, and more.
• Nine’s enduring “bitstress energy,” and the personal resonance both hosts find in its mix of neurotic male protagonist and archetypal women.
• Kevin confesses: “I actually would love to direct it, and I haven’t ever said that about anything else. I have no instinct to direct. I know Nine well enough, I would want to direct it.” [204:51, B]

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Notable Moments & Quotes (by Timestamp)

• [05:03, A] “For my misophonia guest listeners, apologies for this episode. This is a return of Matt eating on mic. But we’re gonna try to be very mindful and demure about it.”—Matt
• [29:44, A] “Tommy [Tune] is a gay man. And we, as gay men, are like women. We love women, we love their songs.”
• [70:50, A] “I think if you’re having trouble figuring out Nine, start with just thinking everything we’re watching is coming from Guido’s brain.”
• [83:08, A/B] (on being the smarter party in relationships): “To be the smarter one in your relationship is a double-edged sword because in so many ways you can see things that your partner can't … But also there is a frustration that I need you to see what I see so we can get there.”
• [137:03, A] “Unusual Way is the one that became like, well, everyone’s doing Vanilla Ice Cream, I’ll do Unusual Way.”
• [154:18, A] (on Be On Your Own): “Why would they replace Be On Your Own in the movie? Who thought that was a good idea?”
• [181:19, A] “Nine has the Tony, and that’s the 82 discussion... There is a lot of campaigning in it. There’s a lot of likability in it.”
• [204:51, B] “I would actually love to direct it, and I haven’t ever said that about anything else... I know Nine well enough, I would want to direct it.”

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Final Thoughts

• Nine remains a musical with a complex, meta-theatrical legacy: admired for its haunting music, celebrated for its late-breaking Tony victory, and still alienating or confusing for many audiences—especially with its distinctly European cocktail of sensuality, surrealism, and self-loathing men.
• At its best, the show provides both a stew of “bitstress” female roles and a probing look at the fragmented male ego.
• The episode is equal parts history class, opinionated fan argument, and love letter to both creative obsession and creative mess. Kevin and Matt’s dynamic—profane, affectionate, incisive—turn even Nine’s flaws into something glorious.

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For Further Links, Casting Theories, and Discord Community, check the episode description and join the discussion!

Transcript

[A]

Guarda. It's Guido Contini. Oh, my God.

[B]

Guido Contini.

[A]

Guido Contini is here at the spa. Not since Charlie Chaplin has there ever been a film director like this. Guido Contini.

[B]

This is not what I wanted.

[A]

Everything he does gets the attention, whether it's a hit or a miss.

[B]

Guido.

[A]

Teeny, there is something I forgot to tell you. Is it true that your next project. Please, one at a time. No one is suing me. And what makes anyone think my next.

[B]

Project is in trouble?

[A]

Make a lot of money, win a lot of prizes. Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theatre's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called Grab Bag, and it's covering shows that you selected, submitted and I picked out of a bowl. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with us today is a friend of the pod, though not for many, many years. Since he's been on the pod, he has become daddy. He's become, how the kids say, important.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

You bought a table at a thing I did. That's important.

[B]

I sure did. On credit.

[A]

I got. I got to have a free dinner that's right next to Nicky M. James. Because you bought a table.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And you said, who do I know who can show up to this thing day of because they've got nothing going on and is pretty enough that it's okay?

[B]

That's right. You know who didn't buy a table? Nikki M. James.

[A]

Yeah. Nicky M. James doesn't have to.

[B]

Oh, she doesn't? No.

[A]

She was like, I assisted Michael. She was everyone's VIP. Yeah, she's everyone's VIP. When she gave her speech, she was like, I was his ad for once on this island. I was like, you know you didn't.

[B]

Have to do that. Right? Right.

[A]

You're Nikki Mps.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

There are some people in this world that I'm like, you know who you are, right? Must I tell you why are you.

[B]

Boiling it down to that credit?

[A]

Exactly. And on that note, let me tell you who you are. This is Kevin Duda Ayo. Hi, Kevin.

[B]

Hi, pod.

[A]

Welcome back. It's been a minute.

[B]

I know. It has been a minute since our. Since our first and last disastrous take when I showed up completely unprepared and was like, I'll wing it. And you were like, and what kind of research did you do? And I was like, I Don't know.

[A]

If I said research.

[B]

You didn't.

[A]

It was. It was. You were more. What's her face? I think her name.

[B]

Dumb.

[A]

No. Is Tammy her name? The girl in Drop Dead Gorgeous who misunderstood the assignment. That's what it was.

[B]

That's exactly what I was.

[A]

You just came out of the pod. You're like, oh, Oh, I kind of misunderstood the assignment, but it's fine.

[B]

You're like, what do you like How. How long you've been had. Had this obsession? I was like this morning when I.

[A]

When I thought of it. Yeah, you don't need to listen to that.

[B]

And crickets.

[A]

Exactly that. Let's look at it this way. Your first episode of Broadway Breakdown is like the first season of the Office slash Parks and Rec, and this is going to be your season 2, 3, 4, 5.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

Because now the pod has gone through a giant transformation since you were last on it.

[B]

Yes. Correct.

[A]

I got rid of that dead weight. Otherwise known as John Miscavige. Good riddance to gay rubbish, I say. And since cutting out all the people who suck for my life, including my own family, I've since taken off, and I've now become known as a famous ish Broadway person. I love it.

[B]

I love that I know you. I love watching your. Your journey. And congratulations. I love it. I'm very impressed.

[A]

Wait, was that a serious thing?

[B]

It was. It was only because when you asked me to do this, I was like, I don't know if I'm up for the task. A, I screwed it up so much. So hardcore on the first time. And second, I was like, you're. You have really amazing people on.

[A]

Who have I had on? That's amazing.

[B]

I mean, noted. But also, that's what I'm supposed to say.

[A]

I guess I've become a lot more strict about who I bring on now. I pretty much narrowed it down to, I need to know you. I need to know that we're going to get along quite nicely. Right?

[B]

Right.

[A]

But no, I. I don't befriend dummies. No, I know.

[B]

Yeah, I know. I learned stuff from your podcast and.

[A]

But you're also not a dummy. You. You found a way to befriend Eartha Kitt. You found a way to be on Broadway multiple times. And then you looked around and you said, the life of an actor kind of gobbles cock. Unless you're Audra McDonald's, and you said, so I think I'll pivot.

[B]

I think I'm gonna go away from this.

[A]

I think I'M gonna go do more cool things.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that way, actors come to me. It's true. And you did it kind of seamlessly. Well, no, you did well.

[B]

I mean, the seamless part, to be honest with you, was when I was like, how do I not lose a salary and not just drop out of a show?

[A]

You see, I didn't figure that part out when I started this podcast. That's where I'm struggling.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But listen, not since Charlie Chaplin.

[B]

Good segue. Thank you. Very good segue. I won't also men mention that we have bread and wine.

[A]

We do.

[B]

Very, very Vatican. Very Italian.

[A]

Very, very demure. Yeah. For my. For my Misophonia guest. Misophonia guests, Listeners, I should say apologies for this episode. This is a return of the mat eating on Mike. But we're gonna try to be very mindful and very demure about it. But, Kevin Duda, what show are we talking about today?

[B]

We are talking about not eight, not.

[A]

Eight and a half.

[B]

We're talking about Nueve Nine.

[A]

Nine, the musical. Yes. Now, this was selected out of the bowl. Out of Sally bowl.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

And I did ask you to do this one. This was not something you requested, but this was something that I remembered from a long time ago. You did that. This was one of, if not your favorite musical.

[B]

Yes. Correct.

[A]

Is it your favorite? It.

[B]

Well, so it's interestingly enough, I will say that, you know, we. I. I have these lists of, like, oh, my God, I love that song. Oh, my God, I love that musical. That's probably in my top five. Yeah. Nine was always sort of hovering around number one until. Well, not. This is not like a definitive, but like, when we revisited it together. Yes. You know, like when we were, like, looking at it and I was like, oh, maybe it's not. Maybe it holds a different place in my. In my. My world of what I love as opposed to. I think this is also the best.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I know what I mean. I never got the vibe from you that it was the best musical. I got the vibe that it was your favorite. It was my correct. Like, correct.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Carousel, I don't think is the best musical. It has its bumps. There are things that I would trim out of it if I had my hands on it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it is my favorite.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. Nine is. I always knew the nine was. Yeah. Your favorite, if not or like one.

[B]

Of the top three for multiple reasons.

[A]

Yes. And we'll get into all of it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So let's start with how did this show Enter your chat.

[B]

So nine became part of. I didn't know. I didn't know. Mauryeston. I don't think I knew. You know, I knew all the. All the community theater basics, Right. The hello Doll, the. The. The Jerry Herman's, the what's the Stephen Sondheim's, the Stephen Schwartz's. But Maury Yeston, when I became a freshman, when I got into the Fresh, the program at Hart, Hart School of Music, University of Hartford, this was the big show they did in the spring. And so the way Hart worked was everyone, sophomore, junior, senior, got to do the show. Freshmen always never performed. You took a year off. And I really actually believe that this is still a great gift that I was given by that school. Others, I was not given so readily. But the, The. The freshman year, you don't perform it all. So that basically you un. You untrain yourself from all bad habits. I loved that. I thought that was a really good thing. Anyways, 9 was the big show in the spring, so I didn't do it. But I watched all these incredible upperclassmen that I was like, you know, I was just coming into the program and I didn't know how to do anything. So I really was learning. I was learning everything from scratch. I had a decent voice, didn't know anything else about anything, didn't know the business or anything. So watching them all navigate this show, A, made me fall in love with the business itself, but B, also made me fall in love with this show and the score and the characters and the way it was put together.

[A]

And so did you then see the revival from Roundabout in 2003?

[B]

I did. I did see that because. Because I became friends with Eartha Kitt on the road with Cinderella, and she replaced Cheetah. So I saw. I actually saw the original with Antonio and that full cast and Cheetah, and then I went back because, Eartha, I Very rarely. This is something that you probably don't know about me. I very rarely see a show a second time.

[A]

I only.

[B]

I find it to be like. Only if it's notable will I go back and see it. Like, for a reason that I need to go see it.

[A]

So, yeah. I'm similar. I've talked about this on the POD as well. I have seen quite a few shows multiple times. Not because I'm in love with them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

More often than not, it is because I have a friend.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Who got cast in it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And now I gotta go see the damn thing.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Lauren Nicole Chapman is who will be on an Episode of this shortly enough and we'll talk about. Well, actually, I'll talk about that on her episode about. She's the reason I saw Kinky Boots four times. And. Lord, yes. And I was very mid on it the first time.

[B]

Right. I don't mean because it's a bad show. I just mean, like, that would be treacherous.

[A]

Okay, okay. Actually, I'll put it this way. So I. My other good friend, Caitlin Frank, I saw two revivals that she did on Broadway four times. Because I saw it when I saw My Fair lady and Funny Girl when they opened, and then I saw them a second time when there was a notable replacement. Funny Girl was when Beanie left and Julie took over, and a friend of mine was like, we must see Julie. Everyone is speaking of the Julie.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then My Fair lady was when Benanti went in.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Third time I saw Funny Girl is because Leah went in. But then My Fair lady saw it a third time because Caitlyn was making her Broadway debut in that ensemble.

[B]

All good reasons to see it multiple times.

[A]

So I went to go see it again, and best friend Sarah was like, but Benanti wasn't in. It was. It was. What's her faith? Kirsten Anderson, who actually was the best Eliza of all the three I saw. Fun Fact. And so she's like, can we go back and see Benanti? So we saw My Fair lady again to see Benanti for me a second time. And then Funny Girl, Caitlin went into Funny Girl halfway through the run with Leah. So I saw Funny Girl a fourth time. There are a couple of shows I saw multiple times because I just love those shows so goddamn much.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Fun Home was one. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

The revival of South Pacific was one.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Revival of Color Purple was one.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Also because Heather Headley went in and was like, I must go see.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The Talent Alien. But, yeah, I didn't. I didn't get to see that revival of Nine at all. I was. I was too uncultured at the age of 13 to know that show at all.

[B]

How dare you drop that age? I know. Sorry.

[A]

I'm very, very young. I'm used to.

[B]

I can't believe I served you wine on this podcast.

[A]

Well, I'm not 13 anymore.

[B]

13. Okay, sorry. Sorry.

[A]

We were doing so well.

[B]

I know we were. I know we were.

[A]

I was. I was so turned on. And now I am straight. No, I. I remember. I remember the advertisement for it when they announced the cast, and it was like a full page in the Times when they were in Rehearsals. And that was all very exciting. And for some reason, no one in my family was like, oh, we should go see this, or, like, we should take Matt to see this. I don't think anyone in my family who saw the original cared for it all that much. So they weren't exactly excited about this revival.

[B]

Well, it was also weird because Roundabout was producing at the o' Neill Theater.

[A]

Yeah, that was.

[B]

I never. I actually never even. That's the first time I'm saying that out loud that I realized that Roundabout was producing at a different theater. That's sort of strange for them.

[A]

They. Yeah, they very rarely put things on in separate theaters. And I think that was because they only had. They had two home bases.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it was Studio 54, where cabaret either was about to close or hadn't closed just yet.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then it was at that time, American Airlines, which I think at that point, like, they had only done a musical once in there. Everything else was plays. That sounds so. And Nine, once they got Antonio, they're like, we should. We can sell a thousand seat theater.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

So, yeah, they got the Eugene o'. Neill. I think that might be the only time since then that they've done that, that they've produced in a commercial house.

[B]

That sounds right. Unless a transfer. Unless they've transferred.

[A]

Well, they've done that for sure.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

Like, she loves me in 1776. Those all transferred from the Criterion, whatever it's called. Yeah. But I remember all that happening. I remember the Tony performance. I remember when all the replacements went in. And then I. Because I'm a Tony boy. I love the Tonys. They don't matter, but they're the closest thing I get to football.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

So I remember all the money was on Antonio winning.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And Harvey won.

[B]

That's right. Yep. That's right.

[A]

And it was also kind of like a battle royale between Gypsy and Nine for Revival. No. Everyone was like, I think Gypsy's gonna win because, like, it's technically the better musical, but, like, I don't know. And then Nine just kind of pulled through in the end. And then I didn't get to know the show itself until the following summer of 2004, because my friend Lucas. Broadway producer Lucas McMahon. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

[B]

Hey, Lucas.

[A]

Hey, Lucas. He came to camp that summer with the cast album of Nine. He had seen it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And was. I remember he was playing the album for me and telling me what had happened on stage. He was describing Jane's. He was describing Jane's call from the Vatican to me. And I was like, that all sounds amazing. And then as it happened at Everyone Take a Shot stage, Romanor Performing Arts center that summer they did nine and. And the director at Stage Door. The director supreme at the time. I was there. Jeff Murphy loved Jeff. He's a sweetheart. But he was famous for like not really doing his own stagings. He would watch the originals and take copious notes and then just do that. Because like, at the end of the day, you don't go to Stage door to be like, I want to show everyone that I'm a genius.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

You're putting on a show in two and a half weeks with a bunch of teenagers who don't have the mental capacity to understand these shows.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

So he was like, yeah, we're just going to do the closest thing we can to the Tommy Tune original. And that production had Skylar Astin as Guido. Shana Taub was Lily in the Fleur.

[B]

Oh my God. Yep.

[A]

TV actor Brian Muller was Young Guido.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I don't know. Nobody else in that cast went on to be like Broadway. But at the time for us it was like stacked upon stacked. Like all the girls in it were like, the girl who had played Evita the summer before was playing Guido's mom. The girl who would be Sally Bowls the following summer was Carla, the girl who played Vera Charles in Mame. And then also some other like really big role, maybe Dorothy Brock, she played Louisa. And the Joanna. Sorry, the Joanna. And Cosette from the year before was playing Claudia. So that was the show.

[B]

We were like embarrassment of riches.

[A]

Yeah. Like basically, if you were in the ensemble of that production, it was considered like, I made it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And if you were the lead in any other show, you're like, why am I not the ninth girl from the left in nine? It was, it was that I love.

[B]

Stage Door of stories. They're so competitive.

[A]

It's why I both like always apologize for telling stage door stories while I'm also like, no, I shouldn't because they're amazing.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I love it so much.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

They're the greatest things ever. But yeah, I remember that production. It blew my mind. I still have the DVD of it because it was so impressive to me. And then I just sort of was in and out on that show forever. And then the movie came out and.

[B]

Oh yeah, the movie.

[A]

We'll talk about the movie. Cuz you and I have thoughts and I. And you told me a story about you seeing a screening of the movie.

[B]

I did.

[A]

It's. It's honestly Kevin, that story is one of the biggest balls stories I've ever heard. It's the only thing about you I find sexy.

[B]

Oh, good. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[A]

Well, that and the fact that you have a. That you're married or have a partner, whatever it is. I don't know. I don't. I don't know what gays do.

[B]

Same thing. Yeah.

[A]

These days, the fact that you're taken, that's like the second sexiest thing about you.

[B]

The fact that we don't have a third is amazing to me.

[A]

You've made it this long. Correct. Correct.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Well, I think cuz you two understand that in gay world. So like in straight world, openness is actually the final nail in the coffin. And gay world, openness is totally fine. It's having a third. That's the nail in the coffin.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Y' all don't even know the number of Broadway couples that almost died because they dare to have a third.

[B]

Yeah, well, we shouldn't talk about them here.

[A]

We're not talking about them. I'm just saying.

[B]

I'm just saying.

[A]

I'm just saying some that might have broken up recently because there were unintentional thirds. It's fine. It's fine. We're not saying names.

[B]

Did you say it's stage door?

[A]

I'm drinking stage door. Mana. Yeah, but so speaking of infidelity, nine. Yeah. No, so that was my whole introduction. Introduction to it. And then they actually. They did it at Emerson. They did it my final. Not my final. They did my junior at Emerson.

[B]

At the Majestic?

[A]

No, at it was the Green Theater, which is a 200 seat black box theater because it's at Emerson. There's a musical in the fall and a musical in the spring. And the spring musical was always in either the Majestic or my junior year, the Paramount, which is where we did man of La Mancha. We christened the Paramount. Thank you. But I was telling this after we came out of the library yesterday, that production of Nine at Emerson is like the bane of my existence. Oh, right. It was a good production. They did a fabulous job. What pissed me the fuck off. Kevin's heard this, but you guys haven't. I may or may not have directed Carousel my junior year of college. I don't know what I was thinking. Emerson College hates students and therefore they hate student production. They will undermine you left and right. And when they're not undermining you, they are being dickless fucks who don't know their ass from a stop sign.

[B]

I mean, I think that's every BFA musical theater program, to be honest.

[A]

But to fully forget to, to request the rights from Rogers and Hammerstein.

[B]

Oh dear.

[A]

And not tell your students, oh dear. And when the students keep asking you like, hey, when are we getting those scripts? Like, oh yeah, we'll get to it. And they never fully submitted. And Robertson Hammerstein organization sent us, almost sent us to cease to desist. And we had to call them. Be like, we're 20 year olds trying to make something happen. We're so sorry that the adults fail. Failed us. Like, here's what we're trying to do. Can we please, like, we'll send you everything.

[B]

And they were like, totally fine.

[A]

Yeah, they were, they were like, they were like, oh, you go to Emerson. We're so sorry. Like, here you go. So we made it work. But that production of nine, we had a guest director and he was all, he was all fancy because he had worked with some Broadway people. Nice enough guy, I'm sure. They cast it. And they cast half of the women for my production of Carousel course, like my full on leads were in the off stage singing choir for this black box production of nine. And the department was like, this is nine is more important for these girls because they'll learn how to be in a professional room. And I'm like, they're going to be off stage singing la la la's. I'm giving them chance to do scene work. I'm not saying I'm as good as blank as a director. I'm just saying what's better experience for them for an education? Doing the bench scene or singing la.

[B]

La la la la? Correct.

[A]

And ultimately the director and I sat down and I said, okay, let's figure this out. I don't, I don't ask me to recast my whole show. I can't do it. I don't have the time. And I am so thin.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And he said, and he said, sure.

[B]

Oh, it was a he.

[A]

It was a he.

[B]

Just kidding.

[A]

I know a woman would never undermine me that way. Women support other women. Unless you've seen the substance, which, oh, I intend to talk about the substance on this episode because I just watched it last night and my God, do I have thoughts. But so he and I have this conversation. I'm like, okay, you don't. These girls aren't in any of your staging. And he's like, well, they're gonna be the Grand Canal number. I'm like, okay, that's 10 minutes in Act 2, right? 15 if you're being indulgent.

[B]

Correct. Also, it's Grand Canal.

[A]

It's also the fucking Grand Canal. Like, what you're telling me is that they're gonna be holding fake booms and fake stage lights. Otherwise they're off singing Kyrie Leison or.

[B]

Handing off a gondolier. Stick to the girls in the back who are gondoliers. Girl.

[A]

This wasn't the Majestic. This was the black box.

[B]

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[A]

Gondoliers. It's all about imagination in the black box. We, like, figured out a schedule, and I guarantee, I shit you not, like, two days later, he fully just disregarded the schedule and did his own thing. So there would be days when I was supposed to rehearse my Julie Jordan and my Billy Bigelow for the bench scene, and my Julie Jordan was called to be at rehearsal where she would text me and be like, I've. We've been here for four hours and.

[B]

They haven't done nothing.

[A]

I've done nothing. And so I had to be Julie Jordan opposite Broadway's Max Sangerman. And luckily, he won an award for his performance. Thank you. And I was a stunning Julie in our rehearsals. But I was like, sophie should be here, right?

[B]

She's.

[A]

She's sitting in Studio C looking through her textbook to do her homework while she waits to sing La la la's and didn't even get to do that. That's what professional rehearsals rooms are like.

[B]

That's. Welcome to college production, though, where people fight for mediocrity.

[A]

Well, I know I fought for amazingness, not you. I know.

[B]

I'm just saying the rest.

[A]

I'm just saying I want it to be known, of course. And you. And the reason I know my production was good is because the faculty all saw it and said to me, I can't believe you were able to pull that off with what you went through. And I mean. You mean what you put me through, right?

[B]

Right.

[A]

I didn't let them off the hook.

[B]

Jerks.

[A]

I was like, I appreciate being skin and bones right now. Due to stress. I would have loved to have slept once throughout the month of November.

[B]

Bastards.

[A]

Bastards. I was so thin that my mother, friend of the pod, Danny Tickton Coplock, came to see the show. And the next day, I got breakfast with her and my sister. And I got to the table and there was a stack of pancakes there. And I said, oh, who's this for? She said, I order that. That's for you. You need to eat.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And as we all know, my mother does not pull punches. She'll tell me when I'm doing a bad job acting. I famously said this after my live stream reading the next day. She was like, play is great. Here are all my notes on your performance.

[B]

Oh, Lord.

[A]

Oh, that's right.

[B]

I do remember that.

[A]

Yes, yes. So. And she was like, you're too thin. I was like, oh, I'm too thin.

[B]

That's so funny, because my mom came to Beautiful and she was like, I thought you were the fat Tootin Mormon.

[A]

My God.

[B]

And I was like, mom, there is no fat suit in Beautiful. And she was like, oh, yep, yep.

[A]

Must have been nice to been on Broadway, though.

[B]

Yeah, well, I was like, well, listen, I don't have to do all those marches in Mormon anymore, so I. I deserve to get a little. I deserve to get the freshman 15 over at beautiful.

[A]

I was gonna say you didn't do any movement in Beautiful. You came out in Crew, correct?

[B]

Yeah, correct. I sung backstage while the rest of the ensemble went through the locomotion.

[A]

Was nilsedeca a low role for you? Was that like a low vocal track for you?

[B]

Yeah, but it didn't matter because I had. I had love and feeling. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it was sort of like. I mean, that was like a bit. I called that a bit. That wasn't. You know.

[A]

You were a bit stressed.

[B]

I was a bitstress. Yeah.

[A]

Nine is filled with bitstresses.

[B]

Nine is. Must be filled with.

[A]

The bitstrous. Listen, we've done a lot of pussyfooting and. And for foreplay.

[B]

Let's dive in.

[A]

Well, let's dive in.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

After this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy. And we're back. Oh. So, Kevin, for the uncultured Fuchs, what is nine about?

[B]

Nine is a musical by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit with a book earlier by, I think, Mario Fratti. Right. Is that correct?

[A]

That is correct.

[B]

It is a take on Fellini's Eight and a Half, which is a movie, a black and white movie about a director who's having a crisis because he is a turning 40, but also has a creative. Actually, I don't know if did an eight and a half deal with him being 40 or just having a cultural crisis.

[A]

I think both.

[B]

Both. So a creative crisis about not being able to come up with a vision for his next movie. So he sort of has this breakdown in life and in work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All at once.

[A]

The movie is also, like, about selling out because he's doing this, like, weird sci fi epic.

[B]

The Fellini.

[A]

The Fellini, yes.

[B]

Correct. Right, Right.

[A]

He's doing this weird sci fi epic and, like, everyone in his life is kind of flowing in and out. His mistress shows up. Sorry. He brings his mistress to basically relieve him.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Then brings in his wife, and they're sort of on the outs.

[B]

And.

[A]

And he has flashbacks to his past.

[B]

And he also hires the critic to be his own critic. And he has more. He has sort of more agency in Eight and a Half than. Than Guido has in Nine.

[A]

Yes. But he also is far. He's more strategic and far colder in the movie than I would say he is in the show. In the show, he is really drowning much more than he is in the movie.

[B]

Because we need to care about our leading people, you know, we need to care about.

[A]

Yeah. Or like, choose to follow them and give them a reason to sing. I would argue the guido of 8 and a half is not a guido that sings. The guido in 9 is a guido who sings.

[B]

Sure. Agreed. Agreed.

[A]

Because the Guido in Eight and a Half is, like, a little too Comatose.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To sing.

[B]

Right. He's already hit the end. Yes. Guido is going through it in Nine.

[A]

The movie is called Eight and a Half because it is Fellini's, technically speaking, his ninth film. But one of them was one he either co directed or was a short film, something like that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So he. He couldn't think of a title. So he was like, it's my Eight and a Half film.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And Yeston had been working on this musical adaptation since 1973, and both as a way to, like, in case there were rights issues because he didn't have the rights.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He just kept writing it. Right.

[B]

Then he.

[A]

So in case there were rights issues. But also he was like. I don't know, it was his. You know, he did Eight and a Half movies. This is sort of another half. It's nine. And also, as it turns out, nine rhymes a lot more things than Eight and a Half.

[B]

Correct. Very true. Also, he. If I remember correctly, he sort of wrote it in this vacuum. Not a vacuum, but in sort of like a. A space where he was like, no one will ever do this. This is for. Was it the. The BMI workshop?

[A]

Yeah. He. He was a professor of music at Yale.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And in 1973 or 72, he applied for the BMI workshop, got in, and he was there with Ed Cleben and Howard Ashman.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And. Yeah, that. That was basically, like, his whole project, his entire time there.

[B]

Right. I never thought it was going to be seen. Sort of worked on it as, like, a passion project.

[A]

Yeah. Well, also, because, like, I don't know exactly what his career was as a composer during the 70s because his professorship was, like, his thing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He had composed a couple of, like, concertos and, like, cello stuff. He. Yeah, he had a lot of classical music get published, but he wasn't really doing anything else musical theater wise.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The. The turning point for nine happened in 1979, where they did it at the Eugene O' Neill Theater Center, Right up in Connecticut. Yes. And he did.

[B]

He.

[A]

It was him and Mario and then Howard Ashman, I think, was their, like, supplemental director.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because there I watched a. A video. An interview with the two of them on, like, the American Theater Wing used to have that, like, cable access show.

[B]

Yes. Yep. Yep.

[A]

They had one with Audra and Charlotte Dimoz and Lana McKee back in 94. But it. Howard and Maury were on it because Nine had just won the Tony and Little Shop had just opened off Broadway at the Orpheum.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And yeah, it was that. It was that summer.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they were saying, like, they were talking and I don't even know if the host knew this, but Howard and Mori were like, yeah. Like, we know each other from bmi and like, we worked on Nine together, like, four years ago. And Howard Ashman was the one that gave Maury. Yes. In the idea for My Husband Makes Movies.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

He's like. Yeah. He's like, you don't have a song for the wife. Like, she needs a song. And it should be, like, how her whole existence is about her husband and his whole existence is making movies.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

And that's what the song. The more you wrote.

[B]

That's crazy. I did not know that. Yeah.

[A]

The whole. Like, how the whole show came together. And we'll talk about this as we go in and out of it because we'll also, like. We're going to. Welcome to the pod, everybody. What we do is we sort of talk about the material as we also talk about the origins as well as the legacy and all that other stuff. But Nine really is. It started as one artist's idea and then over time just became other people who sort of came in and out of the revolving door of collaborators offering pieces of artistic advice, some of which was kept, some of which wasn't. But, like, it's not as if the whole thing was Maury's Brainchild and came out in one spout.

[B]

Right, right, of course.

[A]

Because the whole idea of it. Because in the movie there are a million characters, men and women and children and all that stuff.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it was. The musical, was that for a long time, originally. Yeah.

[B]

Yes. Mixed gender.

[A]

The producer was a man and all that stuff. And it wasn't until Tommy Tune came on board that it became all women and one man.

[B]

Right, yeah, right.

[A]

And I don't even know how Tommy came to that conclusion. I think when Maury. I was watching an interview with Maury yesterday and he said, it's possible that because of how I was writing the score, Tommy heard it and he was more engulfed in the women's material because Maury said. He said, like, I don't think it's a coincidence that I started writing nine when things like Ms. Magazine came out and like the Women's Lib, it was like in full effect. He's like, I was really thinking about the women's perspectives in this story.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I was writing all these songs and that's what Tommy gravitated towards because Tommy is a gay man. And we, as gay men are like women. We love women, we love their songs.

[B]

We like strong women. Also, like, you know, I have a. I have a feeling that as the development went and they were like, oh, well, there's the. There's the wife, there's the mother, there's the mistress, there's the. The muse. There's, you know, those, all those pieces, you start to think, well, it really is what all those women are to him. And the men have no place in that. There's no. There's nothing for them.

[A]

Yeah, well, because the London.

[B]

The London version did implement the Men again, I believe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

After. After Broadway, the one that they did at.

[A]

I don't know if it was Royal Edward Hall. It was somewhere. It was they very large scale production.

[B]

Palladium.

[A]

No, no, but something like that where Jonathan Price was the Guido and they. They incorporated Men again. But the first genuine, like, West End production of Nine was a duplicate was. It was the Donmar production.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And that one went back to All Women because that was nominated for best musical and did not win. And that was. That Donmar production was the origin of the revival. But it's not a. If you look at photos, it's very clearly not a transfer. It's like very much a. We have $2 in a prayer and. And success with Cabaret. They went to. I'm assuming they went to David Laveau, who also gave Them success with Anna Christie, and they're like, do you want to bring over that nine? He's like, can I start from scratch?

[B]

Yeah, Right.

[A]

Like, yeah, totally.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's so fascinating. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, but it's considered, like, one of the greatest pieces of cinema.

[B]

I read in preparation for this podcast that the Vatican has it in, like, its top 50 of the most important films before 19. Something. Something. I don't know.

[A]

Probably 1970, maybe, or 1980.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because the movie is, I think, 1960. 61.

[B]

Right. But filmed in black and white.

[A]

Yeah, I know, I know. Well, most Fellini is black and white. Yeah. He has a couple in color. But the thing about. And they talk. What's so fascinating about nine is because Eight and a Half is one. That's not one of the first, but it is an evolution of the meta commentary. Because I would argue something like Wilder Sunset Boulevard is, like, really the first mainstream meta movie.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Of. Of talking about Hollywood and the silent era. And your leading lady is a former silent movie star.

[B]

Oh, sure, sure. Okay. I see.

[A]

And it's where it's like. It's. You're like, you. You're talking about the thing, and you have people who had done the thing in real life pretending to do the thing in the movie.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so Eight and a Half, like, is ultimately commentary on Fellini, of both, like, his success, his failures, and what everyone in the world has said about him. And nine leads into that even harder when they talk about the fans of Guido Contini films. And, like, I want to live in a Guido Contini film. Like, it's so glamorous. It's so beautiful. And then you have Stephanie Necropoulos who's like, you are light on plot. You are light on character development. Your movies are all style, no substance.

[B]

Correct. And make no sense. Exactly.

[A]

It's like. It's like, I think she says a line of like, to. To watch a continuing film is like, to experience a world. A world of like, it's like a world delusion.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A world. Yeah. What is that line?

[A]

A world, like, free of substance or free of something.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And it's. It's so. I love that they go even harder on that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it's true. Like, you watch. Because the thing about Fellini is that he really put Italy on the map in terms of international cinema. And he, like, when you watch Lada, not La, you watch La Dolce Vita, or you watch eight and a half or even Knights of Cabiria. There is a style about them that is very chic and like, it started a whole trend that still exists to this day.

[B]

Right. Of. Of. Of exoticizing Italy. And it's, it's, it's, it's people and it's landscapes.

[A]

It's. It's being curvy but tight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wearing black, but, like simple black. But it is so effective. Wearing sunglasses at night of. Of the eyeliner and Cleopatra. Ey?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But so many of his movies are about miserable people, and people just like audiences forget about that. Like, La Dolce Vita is ultimately about the emptiness of fame in the Hollywood industry. You know, what's the actress? It's Mastroianni, the one who's also leading Eight and a Half. And I don't know how you say his actual name, it's Maurizio. But he, you know, he's the lead in La Dolce Vita and an eight and a half. And in both of them, he's, you know, the eyes for the audience. And in La Dolce Vita, he's this journalist who, like, gets to be around the rich and famous and the beautiful. And it's about how, like, ridiculous everybody is and how unhappy everybody is.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But like, when you look like Elkie.

[B]

Summer, how can you really believe that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like.

[A]

Or why. Why should you remember or care.

[B]

Marcello Mastroianni.

[A]

There we are. There we are. There we are.

[B]

Mastroian.

[A]

Which is also kind of, I feel like a trap that people fall into with Nine as a musical. Because in order. I think in order for Nine to succeed on stage, you need people with a flair for style. But if you are only focused on that, it is like the most beautiful, coldest night of theater.

[B]

Sure. It's vacant of anything else going on.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I mean, and the characters themselves are all, I mean, also, like, to your point of living in a Fellini film, living in musical theater, I mean, there's never a better transition than like, going from, like, a Fellini film to, like, Broadway musical. Because it's the same sort of like, made up environment. It's, it's sort of like, who wouldn't want to live in this musical? Who wouldn't want to live on stage? Who wouldn't want to live through, you know, this. This sort of, you know, sort of place where everything, you know, that the end of the. Mostly at the end of the musical, everything's going to be solved, you know, and why. Who wouldn't want to live in. We want to live in that beautiful, you know, colorful world, especially in. In. In the world of Guido, who every single person has their existence and has their. Their. Their what? They. How they serve him.

[A]

Yeah. You know, their place in place in his life and his compartmentalization. Yeah. I also think it's in a musical, other people start to make a bit more sense when they sing. Their emotions become clearer. I say, this is like, I just had a very, very wonderful but, like, very heavy drink night last night with two people in my life who, like, we've all been through a whole time together. And as we were talk, we, like, we had a. We had all this wonderful laughter and chatter, and eventually the elephant in the room was like, there's a lot of baggage at this table. And it started because, like, I started, like, I just was absentmindedly wiping away tears from my face that I didn't realize I had.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And my friend Josh was like, are you okay? I was like, I think we need to talk about all the things that we haven't talked about yet because my body is rejecting the joy that I'm feeling.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And so we talked about all of it and. And, you know, a lot of good stuff, but also, like, so much confusion, then new pieces of information that made other things not make sense anymore that then made like, I went home, and even though I had talked about all the things I wanted to talk about, I was even sadder and, like, heavier. And I was like, this would have been so much better in song where things were simpler and clearer.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And everyone's emotions and the people were talking about in their emotions just like, it doesn't make them any less complex, but they make them more definable.

[B]

Sure, sure. Your. So your. Your. Your emotional moments have fit into song. The song. The song categories of musical theater.

[A]

1000%.

[B]

The. I want the. The makeup song, the. Or even just, like, charm song.

[A]

Even just like a simple lyric of.

[B]

Of.

[A]

And repetition. So, for example, my husband makes movies. Louise is saying how he needs me so. And he'll be the last to know it. And when Guido says that again at the end, you. We understand where he's emotionally at. At that point, and it. We know it's the truth because it's hard to lie in a song.

[B]

Sure. Right, right.

[A]

That's. You know, a character is telling the truth when they're singing. And so you. We, as an audience, take it at face value.

[B]

Sure. Yeah.

[A]

How can I take at face value what somebody says to me?

[B]

Right. Oh, Matthew.

[A]

What?

[B]

Nothing.

[A]

What did I do?

[B]

Just shovel. Get off the shovel. Deep shovel.

[A]

Honey, I've got a right hand and some lube. What are we.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Speaking of looking like a lubed up fist. Hey, I said this on my story today. I would love. And this actually does go into nine. I know. I swear, this is supposed to. I. One of my goals before I die is to be caught on camera and. And be photographed as incredibly as Margaret Qualy. Is that how you say the last name is in the substance?

[B]

I have not seen the substance.

[A]

Are you a horror guy?

[B]

Yeah, I would watch it. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Then you'll be into it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It's. It's body horror. Okay. Which I had to ask Itai. I was like, what do you mean by that? And he was like, well, it's just like grotesquery of the human body.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And I. It's. But it's so over the top and it's so grotesque that, like, it didn't bother me because it was like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, we have a close up of like a needle piercing through skin.

[B]

Oh, sure. Okay.

[A]

But yeah, like the whole point of the movie is like uncomfortable. Yeah, but, but, but, but Margaret Qualy is playing like the. The additional self of Demi Moore. Specifically, she is the younger, more perfect version of Demi Moore.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

And Margaret quality is a beautiful person. But that means the movie's like, okay, we gotta photograph this girl. Like, the sun shines out of her eyeballs.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

So she looks like a lubed up fist. These are. These are the words that I said on Instagram. A lubed up fist covered in cancer curing eyeshadow. Oh, God. And barely legal spandex.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

She looks amazing. Amazing in the way that Fellini would photograph women in his movies. Who is the Swedish actress in La Dolce Vita? Is it Elkie Summers?

[B]

That sounds right. Should we look it up?

[A]

Yeah, I think it's like Elki or Elka. This is why we have computers in our pockets. Dolce Vita. It's the blonde woman in the water fountain, right?

[B]

It is Yvonne. Hold on.

[A]

It's not Yvonne. Sorry. The Internet is slow in here. But as we keep talking. But with nine.

[B]

That is Anita Ekberg.

[A]

Yes, that's who it is. Anita Ekberg. Anita Ekberg. Or like, you know, you know who would actually be great in a Fellini film? And it's a shame she never did one in the 60s because that was like prime her for Fellini was. Ann Margaret is like.

[B]

I was gonna say Ann Margaret.

[A]

That is the American who should have been in It.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Because she had that heightened physical existence. Yeah. She had that sort of like devil may care beauty. She had that statuesque physical like. Like she looked like she. I mean she was. What was Ann Margaret's heritage? She was. She was foreign born, wasn't she?

[A]

Was she?

[B]

I think she was. I think she was. Her father, what they emigrated from, I feel like. I feel like it was like the. The Eastern European probably. I think so.

[A]

Yeah, probably. But she. Yeah, she had that, you know, devil, as you said, devil may care like attitude while also being so overtly sexual but not pornographic.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And had a we. Not to objectify, but like part of the thing about Ann Margaret was she had like that Italian physique, like boobs and butt and tiny waist.

[B]

Sure. And.

[A]

And also for a woman so fucking stunning, had absolutely zero ego. And what's wrong for. She was. She wasn't precious about her looks. Like you see her in something like Tommy, where she is made to look a fool half the time.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And fucking goes for.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's woman who's game.

[B]

Yeah, she. I mean, she, for a long time I think was, you know, sort of. She was, you know, she was such a star and would take whatever came her way, really. Like, she just wanted to be. She just wanted to be loved and she.

[A]

She was.

[B]

So the other thing about Margaret is she had like, she had. She had the United States. She was very much. She was much for the troops. You know, she knew her duty as sort of. She knew her duty as a Hollywood star. Yeah, she was very aware of who she was and what she was doing and like you said, like all of her movement, when she would do it, it did not come across as overtly sexual or, or, or, you know, you know, trope. You know, it was. It wasn't. It wasn't slutty. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't disgusting. I mean, which leads directly into like Anita Morris.

[A]

I was the Carla of it all.

[B]

The Carla, right, Exactly. I mean, she has in. In when we were watching the original, I was like. It was. I was stunned. I remember the body sleeve that Tommy Tune had in mind for Lena Morrison. When seeing it on her, I was like, oh, it is. It's so Playboy bunny, but it's so also like her. She was. She actually. She resolved it for the audience. She didn't make it like about her tits or about her ass or. But she was an object of beauty for. For Guido and you know, sort of like filled that whole. Filled that whole stage with that Persona. And it never felt like when you first see her, I think we even heard the audience go, oh, like, oh, my gosh.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and when she does that whole call from the Vatican and she's doing the splits in the end, she's twirling her ankles and she looks like any other person would have made that trashy. She actually makes it sort of like, so in touch. I mean, she was mime trained, so she knows her body so well.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when she does the rolls and she does the splits and she does the, you know, legs wide open, it doesn't feel trampy. It feels vivacious. It feels like she's in touch with every single inch of her body.

[A]

Somebody talked about this about Marilyn Monroe. Someone who, like, knew her at the time said that Marilyn wasn't Marilyn. Never played sex on screen and not even in life.

[B]

Was that Debbie? Was that Debbie Reynolds? Did Debbie Reynolds say that about Marilyn?

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

Someone. Someone. It wasn't equally famous as her.

[A]

It was. It was a woman who knew her.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And they said Marilyn never played sex. Marilyn actually played a little girl all the time. It's just that Marilyn looked like Marilyn and therefore didn't need to. And also, like, that's what made her so vulnerable on screen, so made everyone fall in love with her. And I think with. As we pivot to Nine again and Carla. So I think this is a great way to get even deeper into the show, the character of Carla. And I don't want to talk about it too much because I want to get back to her because ultimately I think she is the best role in the show and I have a lot to say about her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But she is Guido's mistress.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

She's given far more grace in the musical than she is in Eight and a Half, I would argue.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I would even say she's given a solid amount of grace in the movie adaptation of Nine.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which is a bad movie. But the way they treat Carla as played by Penelope Cruz, I'm like, oh, I think you got her right.

[B]

Yes. Correct. Yes.

[A]

Which is that Carla and as Anita Mars plays her and Jane Krakowski plays her like she is a sexual woman. She loves sex. Nothing wrong with that. But she's also kind of a little girl. And that is ultimately what Anita Morris and even Jane. Jane Krakowski in Revival played was like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They dress her up to look like walking sex, but she plays it like she's a 15 year old one Direction fan.

[B]

Right. Well, that's also how Guido sees her in his Barrage of women. Yeah. Right. She's. She's the one who needs him. You know, like. Like, Luisa doesn't need him. He needs Luisa. His mother doesn't need him. She.

[A]

She.

[B]

She. She functioned to be. She functions as part of who he. Like, who brought him up. You have, you know, you have Claudia, who does not need, like. Like, she's the only. I would argue, the only character who needs him.

[A]

Yeah. Carla has no perspective.

[B]

Right? Correct. She.

[A]

Carla acts.

[B]

She.

[A]

Carla is the one who's the most Italian of all the women.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Outside of Sarah. Gina, which is just like, she acts off of instinct.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And feeling.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And. And heat.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She's the one who has, like, all of these suicide threats.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And. And. And just is. I was. I was actually thinking about call from the Vatican today as. As I was watching the revival at Lincoln center, because I felt it, too, when we were watching Anita, but I felt it especially with Jane, which is, you know, we're introduced to Carla early on. You know, the show opens with all these women speaking.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

They're who they are in Guido's life.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And then, you know, we do the overture, and we do not since Charlie Chaplin, and Carla pops in for a second, and all we know at this point is, like, she's totally his mistress and she's got news to tell him, and she's so pumped.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then her first song is phone sex.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And part of it is like, yeah, she's probably horny at her hotel room waiting for him. But also, she knows the only way to get his attention to come over is to play the sex card.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Even if she does enjoy it. Like her calling him up and saying, guido, I really need to speak to you, because I think it's important for our relationship. That's, like, the first way to get him to not show up.

[B]

Sure. Right.

[A]

To be like, hey, can I ride you to death?

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's how you get his attention.

[A]

That's how you get Guido Cantina's attention.

[B]

Correct, correct.

[A]

And. And.

[B]

And she's also tickled how much he hides her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Until she finds a little hot.

[B]

She finds a little hot. She's the secret until she's not. Which is then when she. She has the reckoning. But at the same time, she thinks being the secret is also enticing.

[A]

Well, also because he's her secret. Because at. What we learn is they're both. They're both married. They're both married.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

The. The key is that she wants her husband. She Wants to get out of her marriage, but she can't get the divorce.

[B]

She can't get the divorce paper.

[A]

She wants her husband to grant her a divorce.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And she's like, if he can get me a divorce and Guido's wife can give him a divorce, like, then we are free to marry. Right. And she genuinely believes it. We're the only. Like, the audience is watching it going.

[B]

Girl, that ain't gonna happen.

[A]

Ain't gonna happen.

[B]

But also, can you imagine, like, I often do this in musicals, like, what would happen if she got her. Well, like, if. You know, like, we talk about, as actors, like, what our wants are and what our suit. You know, like our super. You know, you're super objective. All those things. What if Carla got what she wanted? It would be the most boring musical ever, because all they would be doing is having sex in a bed. Like, he'd be walking away. She'd be wanting to come back. You know what I mean? Like, her only goal is to get him to. In bed. I don't think she. I don't think she has a life plan for them outside of, like, having fun.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But she doesn't respect that. The reason she. The reason she has attracted him is because, A, he's unattainable. B, she's unattainable, and C, he has this whole life that she would constantly just fight to have him. She would just be this. Her whole. Her whole want is to, like, fight him, to have him to herself, which she never would, so she'd never be happy.

[A]

And also, it's. That they are sexually compatible and that's it.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

Like, they don't.

[B]

They don't talk about anything. Right?

[A]

Yeah, they don't.

[B]

The same time next year where act three is, where they're. Where one of them has, you know, one of them. One of the partners has, like, dies or something, like what I can remember. But they get into, like, depth. There's no depth in their relationship.

[A]

No, this is not Frankie and John, the Clair de Lune.

[B]

We're like.

[A]

After they fuck, they realize, oh, they actually could connect as human beings.

[B]

Right.

[A]

No, it's not that. Like, they. Everything that they say and do is either foreplay for the sex or to keep the boat afloat so they can have sex again whether. Whether they realize it or not. I think Guido's a little more aware of that dynamic than she is.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So, yeah, like, if they were to get married, it would fall apart so quickly because he would want to have sex with her far less. Because she's so available, she stops being luxurious and exotic because she's just there every day. And in turn, she would probably devolve from who she is in this moment to something else. It's okay. Speaking of Ann Margaret, it is the Jack Nicholson Ann Margret marriage in Carnal Knowledge.

[B]

Right, Right. Yeah.

[A]

I also love that, by the way, in that movie, Mike Nichols is like, hey, Anne, can you gain £20? And she does, and it's all in her tits. She's like, this is the fattest I've ever been. I'm like, you're still everybody's goal.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Like, go flying fuck yourself. But, like, that. That relationship is awful and toxic because he only views her as a sex object, and the moment he locks it down, he's not interested.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Meanwhile, like, she is a genuine person in there. Sure. That we talked about this in the Little Shop episode as well. Of, like, must Audrey be, quote, unquote, hot to be in the show? And I was like, it's not that she has to be hot, but there are certain aesthetics, unfortunately, it's the reality that are, like, top of the list of objective, objectifiable, or, you know, like, where people objectify women. Certain kinds of body types that are just, like, top the list all the time.

[B]

Yep, yep, yep.

[A]

And it has to be that with Audrey, because this is a person that the world sees and clocks trash and. And humans suck.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And this. The. The tragedy is that she's, like, the most innocent one in the show and, like, has a heart of gold. And it's just a kid. It's very Marilyn.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And Carla is kind of the same way. Like, Carla is a silly person.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

She doesn't have a lot of depth, but she does feel.

[B]

Well, she doesn't have depth that we see. Like, who knows if she could have depth.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

She was, you know, challenged.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Right, right.

[A]

I think that's absolutely fair because also.

[B]

Like, I often think of, like, what was the conversation she had with the husband to get him to divorce her?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, she had to make some kind of, like, listen, kid, you know, this isn't going any. You know, like, she probably has that, like, she can turn it on and turn it off. And in the show, we just never see her turn it off until the end.

[A]

We also learned that this relationship between her and Guido has been going on.

[B]

For a long time. Yeah.

[A]

Because Luisa found out about it, the wife, Louisa, found out about it, and Guido claimed he ended it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's still going. And. Okay. We don't know the details. Like, maybe he did try to end it in the rekindle and, like. But also, a lot of people know about.

[B]

Right. Carla. Right.

[A]

One wonders, like, what exactly is her status in Italy? Is she just sort of like, is she, like, a real housewife of Italy, where she's, like, kind of famous? Being famous. What did she used to be an actress? What's going on?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because Louisa has to answer to all those reporters and, like, your husband's friendship with Carla whatchamacallit.

[B]

Sure. And also, like, does your husband know you're here with another woman? And he's. He's. He's like, that is my wife. Yeah. Does your wife know? Sorry.

[A]

Yeah. It's one of my favorite line readings from the revival cast recording. Does your wife know you're traveling with this woman, whoever that blonde woman in the ensemble is, who does. She's the only one who does a British accent because everyone else is doing either bad Italian or bad German.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Actually, I think only Linda Muggleson's doing the bad German. And it's intentional. She's doing intentionally Badger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Your producer claims you haven't even started it, but everybody else is like, what are you doing here, Guido? And whoever that Blanchic is. She wears a miniskirt. She's like. She's basically wearing a Chanel suit with the skirt chopped in half.

[B]

Right? She's.

[A]

Yeah, she's wearing, like, what Margot Robbie's wearing in Barbie, chopped with a skirt chopped in half with a little blonde bob. And she's one of the few women in the ensemble that Antonio Banderas, like, constantly makes out with because he's making out with all the principals.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But there's only, like, two women in the ensemble that he's constantly necking with, and she's one of them. And she's the one who goes, does your wife know you're traveling with this woman?

[B]

Atta girl.

[A]

I was like, ye. I was like, I don't know who you are. If you know. If y' all know who this blonde gal is, she's done the work. Yeah. Tell her we love her. We see her, we love her.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

I love everyone. I love everyone. I gotta say, I love everyone in that revival. And again, speaking of, like, being photographed like Margaret Qualy, every woman in that Roundabout revival looked like a million dollars ready for the COVID of Vogue. Italian Vogue.

[B]

Yes. Who did those costumes? Do we know?

[A]

I don't know. And. But it's not just the costumes. Like, who did the hair and makeup? Like, if ever there was an argument that there should have been a hair and makeup. Tony, it's the 2003 9.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because the eye makeup, the wigs, it's just fucking incredible.

[B]

It wasn't William Ivy Long, was it?

[A]

No, it wasn't. He did the og.

[B]

Okay, okay, right. He did the og.

[A]

That's what made his career.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

I'll keep looking it up. We actually can talk more about the OG Because I'm sure you know a lot about the origins of that production.

[B]

Hold on. Costume design. Vicki Mortimer. Who?

[A]

I think she's British.

[B]

Sounds British.

[A]

Vicki. Okay. Vicki Mortimer sounds like the most British name.

[B]

The rest of her credits are. Yeah, yeah. Real thing. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

She's British.

[B]

British Fiddle on the roof. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Sorry, Vicky, I don't know you, but I should.

[A]

Well, the other question is, like, her. Her big coup de theatre of that design is Jane's outfit for Carla.

[B]

Right.

[A]

If Anita Morris is body stocking in the original is iconic, I think Jane's like new dress with Cryst dripping off her tits is also iconic.

[B]

Agreed, agreed. And her entrance. Do you want to talk about her entrance?

[A]

We'll talk about her. Call from the Vatican in a quick second. Of the combinations, you. I just want to figure out. Hair design is by David Bryan Brown makeup designed by Naomi Dawn. Those two deserve the world.

[B]

David, Brian Brown is fantastic. He's always fantastic.

[A]

What else has he done?

[B]

Oh, a ton of. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

I'm looking it up.

[B]

Click his. Click his thing. He's.

[A]

He did Days of Wine and Roses.

[B]

Did like a million. A million Broadway shows.

[A]

Kiss Me Kate. Moulin Rouge. Oh, he loves Kelly o'. Hara.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

War paint. She livs me. Oh, so, okay, he had Banante again. Bridges. Okay. Again. Another Kelly Follies. Solid shisht. Bye Bye Birdie. Well, they can't all be winners.

[B]

Oh, Lord, that revival.

[A]

Yep, I saw that revival. The woman next to me fell asleep during English Teacher. I was like, girl, we are seven minutes in.

[B]

No. Oh, no.

[A]

We are strapping.

[B]

That is a very roundabout. That's a very roundabout subscriber there. Yep, yep, yep.

[A]

Well, that's someone who probably signed up to go see Nine and then regretted it four years later. It's like, now I'm here saying goddamn bye bye Birdie. We'll talk about. Call from the Vatican. Vatican in a quick second. But first, let's take another break. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow caller. You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy. And we're back. So I also love how it was like, let's not talk about Carla too much. And now we're just like talking about Carla. Do we want to talk about Call from the Vatican or do we want to get into another character? Or do you want to look at one of the questions submitted by the listeners and start that way?

[B]

Let's look at it. I mean, let's talk about all the characters. I mean, can we hit the women? Can we hit the top five women?

[A]

Top. Oh, yeah. So, okay, top five women would be Mother. Mother. Mama.

[B]

Mama. Mama.

[A]

Carla, the mistress.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Louise. Claudia, the actress and the muse. And then Lillian Lafleur, the producer.

[B]

Sure. Right, right. Yeah.

[A]

And then Sarah Geen is like.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Sarah Guinea's in the history of. She's not. He's. She's not really present, even though the mom isn't either. But let's just, you know, Mom. Yeah.

[A]

Mom is dead and floating and out. Sarah Gina is just. She's the.

[B]

She's a means to. She's a means to the education meaning.

[A]

Yeah. She's the inciting incident.

[B]

Yes, correct.

[A]

Possibly child rape.

[B]

Oh, God, I never thought. I mean. Yes, it's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable.

[A]

It's also. Every production has their decision of what exactly happened with Sarah.

[B]

Correct, Correct.

[A]

The original eight and a half movie is just that she dances for them on the beach.

[B]

Sure, sure. Right. And I think that's an appropriate, like, introduction to the female body. The. A woman who didn't really care.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's. There's that, there's that trope in a lot of, like, coming of age movies where who is that? Who was the sexual awakening? But I think the boys, like, think of her as more like. Like he even says it in, in the, in the lyric. He says, the Catholic Church taught me that there was two types of women. One was a whore, one was a wife.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and this, this. And, and in the old, in the olden days, I'm air quoting here, like, you know, there was always sort of a town whore. Right. Like, there was always that character, that trope of woman. And I think Sarah Gina sort of twists that, that archetype a little bit because she takes it one step further and actually teaches them about, like, if you want to please a woman. Yeah. Like, not just like, here's tits, here's ass. Like, it's like, if you want to please a woman, here's what you do. Yeah.

[A]

He because he asks her to teach him about love.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She says, if you want to make a woman happy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Not like, here's the key to your happiness.

[B]

You're gonna make the woman happy.

[A]

Yeah. Because that's how you're going to keep getting it. Like.

[B]

Well, because her whole existence would be keeping men happy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So she's like, if I get the chance to train a new next gen, you know, here's how we're gonna do it.

[A]

Yeah. She has. She's been paid.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

She has their ears.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

She's gonna do it.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And they're gonna listen because Sarah Gina lives on the outskirts of town. She lives. She lives on a beach, right. By a parochial school.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which is also. I'm just like, bitch work. It's very much giving the witch from next door.

[B]

It is giving the witch from next door. Only. Only when she's singing about beans. Hello.

[A]

Flicking them beans. Hey.

[B]

Hey. Yeah.

[A]

In the.

[B]

In the.

[A]

In an eight and a half, she is just simply dancing on the beach. And you also, like, watch that. She's just sort of having fun with it. It's not.

[B]

They're doing it for. She's not performing for the. Or she is, but she's not.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, she's performing for them, but, like, it's. She's. She's teasing them. She's like, these are children. Let's have fun with it. The boys are genuinely happy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The. In the original nine, it is viewed much more similarly to eight and a half. Or like the Sarah Gina of the original is Kathy Moss, who. She's voluptuous. I would not call her sexy. She's very earth mother and plays it much broader. And then I would argue that the revival. And it's just because it's literally. I just watched it today. They portray Sarah Gina. She's not malicious, but she's not safe earth mother either. It's a little more dangerous.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they. And the way they get away with it is that because there's no group of boys in that revival. Because economics, right. We'll have the one Little Guido. But so for that whole first half of Be Italian, it's Antonio and the little boy. And because they're like mirroring each other. And a lot of the physical stuff Saragina does to Guido, she does to Antonio. But the little boys mirroring all of Antonio's physicality.

[B]

So, you know, it's too.

[A]

Yeah. You know, she did all of this to him when he was nine.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's not like she's like okay. And now your fist goes here.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Nothing like that.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

No, it's musical theater.

[B]

No, it's more like this is the outline of the breast. This is. If you want to tap me, if you want to pinch me, pinch me in the ass. There's a lot of fat there. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

[A]

But then when the number ends, it ends with, like, they're all doing the.

[B]

La, la, la, la, la.

[A]

But it ends with all the women surrounding him and Sarah, Gina. And Antonio's older Guido hugs his younger self, like, in almost like a protective kind of way. And I watched. I was like, are they implying that something happened? Something happened. Like. Yeah. It wasn't just like, oh, let me tell you about love. Which, like, got very dark. Very dark, very quickly dark. Yeah.

[B]

And I don't remember that.

[A]

It's a. It's a very British take.

[B]

Well, I mean, you know, Sarah, Gina should be the antithesis of his mother.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. His mother was this sort of, like, Virgin Mary, angelic sort of, like, trope, you know, like, existence in his life.

[A]

Who.

[B]

And that's why. I think that's why in the script, she, you know, the nun is.

[A]

Well.

[B]

Or the intensity of the nun, but really his mother, who's the one who means something to him. Yeah. You know, the nun says, like, why did you go. The mother says, why did you go there? And he's like, I didn't know. I didn't. I just wanted to go there because I heard about her. Yeah.

[A]

You know, I wanted to see what she was like.

[B]

Right, right. And she happens to be sort of the same. She happens to be this Mother Earth figure, but of a different ilk than his mother. Mother is. Yeah.

[A]

It's. France and Italy are countries that are both very brazenly sexual while also being brazenly religious.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Which is hilarious to me. And listen, like, we come from a country that is also, like, crazy religious, but I think that there's much more of an inner fight in America about that part than anything else.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But so it is fascinating to me that in. In Italy, at least, especially at that time where it's like you have sexuality everywhere.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everyone is just leading with their loins. It's honestly half of what lightning the piazza is about. Like, it's.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's. It's pasta and putting your dick in the pasta.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But then also, it's like crucifixes everywhere.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And so it's just. It's.

[B]

You watch the dichotomy of the European Version. Yeah.

[A]

Virtue. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think what's fascinating is nine as a musical and also in both presentations that I guess technically speaking, you and I both watched, just not both of them together at the same time. We watched one together.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Is that like, it leads with sensuality and style at the beginning, and then once we get to the bells of St. Sebastian, it's like almost a little bit of, like, sex shaming. Does that make sense? Yes. Especially the Laveau Roundabout one. Like, when they. When Be Italian ended, I was like, oh, this stops being a celebration of sexuality and a freedom that comes with it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And because I feel like Be Italian is it's. First of all, it can't be advice. It's like, it's those. I love that song. Those lyrics are camp. Be Italian, you rapscallion. Everyone knows if Dance 10 looks three like more. Yes. Than is Music 10. Lyric 6. Because he has some great ones. Then he has ones. You're like, baby, that was a dummy lyric that made it to print, but actually fun fact. So I brought with me the Razzle Dazzle book by Michael Riedel, and he has a whole chapter about nine V Dreamgirls. Okay. And we'll talk more about this as we talk about, like, the history of nine and its origins. Like, nine coming to Broadway was like, one of the most fast tracked, sloppy paint was still wet on opening night kind of shows.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Oh, you don't know?

[B]

I didn't know that. No.

[A]

Okay, we'll talk more about that in a second. But Frank Rich, you know, goes to one of the critics performances because that was the late 70s, early 80s, was the beginning of, like, critics no longer coming on opening night.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Starting to come, like, early. Yeah. Because, like, we want more time to think about our reviews and write them better.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Not instead of just being like, set good actors, hot.

[B]

Right.

[A]

As, like, as theater got more complex, like, we want to be able to stew on this a bit longer. So Frank Rich went to one of the press releases performances and then asked the producer because the cast album hadn't come out yet and there wasn't a script. He's like, do you have, like, a demo I can listen to? I want to listen to the score again. And she's like, oh, my God, amazing. We're about. We're about to get a rave. And so she gives it to him and his review, like, it's a. It's a favorable review with a lot of caveats. Most of them, I would argue, are relatively fair.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One of the Things he says is like, yeston writes compositions like you wouldn't believe. Some of the best compositions ever. And he's like, he's like, there are so many bum lyrics. And he's like, any. But he used the demo as an example to cite them all, which, to Frank Rich's credit, he's like, I don't want to misquote a lyric. I want to make sure that that was the lyric I heard and that I don't like it. Which is, I think, absolutely fair on his part.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But the producer then was like, I'm never doing that again for any critic ever.

[B]

You smart.

[A]

You're not. Except the irony now is like, when you go on for a press showing.

[B]

You do get this, you get the entire script. Right.

[A]

Yep, yep, yep.

[B]

Well, I wonder how much that. What makes me nervous is like, how many of those demos were changed by the time. Like, like, especially in that day.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

When like demos were not as easy to like, sit down and just, you know, beat off and record.

[A]

Beat off, you're welcome. Yeah, I think it was probably a demo. I think it was probably a demo from the workshop. But again, we'll get to that. But. So we were talking about sort of the sensuality and all and the sarragina thess of it all. Like the song itself is a celebration and a freedom. It's not Sarah Gina's fault that Guido grew up and used that vice. Used that advice terribly.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Like, use it as an excuse to spread his seed everywhere.

[B]

Sure. Right, right.

[A]

Ultimately she was like, it's a. Because her advice was to make the woman happy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And. And you know, live each day as if it could be your last. Like, that is the kind of advice you tell someone in terms of like, live life to the fullest and, and make the most. And. And really, like, use what you got. And Guido's like, right, so women are human socks then. And I. And, and. And movies are the only way I can get my trauma out. And people will applaud me for it.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

Which, I'm sorry, if that's not the entertainment industry, I don't know what.

[B]

Oh, no, it is.

[A]

There may or may not have been a letter making the rounds on the Internet today.

[B]

I saw it. I read it, I read it.

[A]

Yes, we all read it.

[B]

Dear Lord.

[A]

And I told everyone. I was like, there are just so few adults on Broadway. Oh, so few grown ups. It's fine, it's fine.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Speaking of the British.

[B]

But, but I have a question.

[A]

Like, why would.

[B]

Why, you know, why do we think Guido paid attention to her? I've never. You know, it's so funny when you said that, like, that he grew up to be that way in the show. Like, in. In or in. In nine. Like, why. Why did he listen to Sarah Gina more than. Like, he would have had more church than he would have had her. I don't think. I think he was. His eyes were opened to the beauty of women in general, not how to treat them.

[A]

I think it's so much easier to follow the joy. The. The shame is what lives with you. The joy is where you gravitate towards.

[B]

Right, right. So who wants to live in the.

[A]

So, yeah, he gravitated towards the. The joy that came from her advice, but the shame of his upbringing is how he processed it and used it.

[B]

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I got you. It's.

[A]

Listen, we've all been with Catholic boys.

[B]

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

[A]

Yeah, it's tricky because the sex, My Lord, it's like, if it's their last meal. If you want. If you want to feel like the hottest person alive, hook up with a Catholic boy, because they will ravage your body like you are. Like, you're markered quaily in the substance. The problem is when you try to talk emotions and mental state afterwards, it is like no tennis with a fake brick wall that's actually made of jello. Oh, my God. I was just spouting truth today.

[B]

Oh, Lord.

[A]

I'm just saying that's why you don't. The Guido Cantinis.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Well, you barely let them make a movie out of you.

[B]

Right?

[A]

We. That was Sarah Gina. You wanted to talk about mama or you want to talk about?

[B]

I mean, I will talk about Mom. I mean, like, what is it? You know, his mother is so, like, persistent in. Especially when you get to, like, her arc. Like, especially when you get to him, who. Who every time the little boy is, you know, running to his mom, he calls out to her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He remembers that time where he was comforted and he was safe. I mean, certainly, like, we should talk about the fact that 9 is not linear storytelling, really. Right. It's. It's a tapestry of all these pieces of color and emotion and people, and they're all scattered. And I remember specifically going back to, like, why I love the musical. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a challenging musical to watch. It's hard to follow sometimes. Like, you were just talking. We were talking about earlier about, like, Germans at the spa. Like, when is it appropriate to put it in? Why Is it in there? Is it just a production number or is it, you know, is it just do we did. Yes. Didn't need an up tempo like. Or did he need to justify like the people who Guido was going to in turn use in act two? Yeah, like, fine. But I just think, you know, like when you talk about the complexity of it, like his mother being this sort of ethereal Virgin Mary sort of like presence over and over again, who comes in and out and then at the end of the. Almost at the end has this. This great line of like, Guido, why did you make all these movies that I can't explain to my friends, you know, like just like a slap in the face, you know, I mean, she's a real person and yet when you see her through his eyes, she's this sort of ethereal being who can do no wrong. Yeah. Like, she is the. She is what all the other women collectively be. Are. Should be in his eyes. Maybe. I don't know.

[A]

I think in a lot of. I think the easiest way to approach nine and it's not law. What I'm saying is it's not how you have to. But I think if you are having trouble figuring out nine, start with just thinking it as possibly. Everything we're watching is coming from Guido's brain.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It could be happening in real time, but we are watching it how he is filtering it.

[B]

Correct. Right.

[A]

It's why, you know, the whole show mostly takes place in this spa where he goes to get away from the troubles, from the producer, from the script he hasn't written yet, from his mistress and all this stuff. And then everything ends up culminating at the spa anyway. And the past and the present all keep colliding very little. Edie. It's very hard to keep the past and the present and separate. But yeah, like you watch his mother and you watch her be this ethereal and this caring figure as well as being this hard cutting figure.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And again, going back to the substance, the whole point of the substance is that Margaret Quailey and Demi Moore are this. Are actually the same person.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And when they. And. But. And only one is awake while the other is asleep. But they. One cannot live without the other. They are the same. They are the same. Yolk just split in two. One gets seven days, the other gets seven days. And back and forth and back and forth.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And every time something goes wrong, that one of them does something, they call up the people from the substance like she's doing all this shit and they're like, you're she like, I don't know what to tell you. You're the same. They're like, you're no help. Fuck you. Like, Mark Quailey's like, she spends all her day eating on the couch. And then I wake up and I feel like shit. And they're like, yeah, that's. It's you, girl. And Demi Moore is like, she's prolonged. Like, she's only supposed to do seven days. She did 14 days. And they're like, like, it's you. What do you want us to tell you? And so like, everything with Guido's mom is both things that she has said or might have said. And also, like, how he's imagining her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's. She is the mother who sings the title song to him wrapped in that blanket. Like, being nothing but a cocoon of love as well as being the mother is like, ah, we want a Guido to be a priest. But no, he makes these movies I can't explain to my friends.

[B]

Like, it's.

[A]

It's all in there, right? And maybe it's because that's how my brain also works. The people who matter the most to me, when I walk away from them, my brain splits into two of what they actually think of me or what they might be saying about me or how they might actually feel about me.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And it's. Yeah, it's, it's, it's sliding doors, but just in your brain. And it's always about you. And it's always. One is like, I love them, I can't live without them. And it's like I'm trying to phase them out and I don't know how. Lord, does no one else get that work again? How do you think I stay so thin? It's not because of how I eat. I've had half this baguette today, but.

[B]

And half a bottle of wine.

[A]

And half a bottle of wine. But that's how Guido's mom is to him in his brain of like, she's both the loving and the. And the cutting and everyone else in his life. And it also. That is how he views Claudia when she's. When, when, when women. When these women are not directly in front of him. It is how he's imagining them. And I would argue it says so much about his mother because she's the one he spent the most time with and has grown the most with that she flip flops the most in his brain of different interesting mentalities. Because Louisa, when she's on front of.

[B]

Him is like, she doesn't she doesn't fool around. No.

[A]

She doesn't speak either. Like, she has two sung lines right before she comes on stage and says actual dialogue in front of his face. And her. The only two things she sings are Guido.

[B]

Right. Right.

[A]

That's all she does, actually. Okay. We'll talk more about Mama in a second. I do want to talk about Claudia.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

A role that has always intrigued me, and I will say, really locked in for me today at the library watching Benanti do it, because I think being 23, Benanti has had a very charmed career.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

In addition to her own hardships.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Which she's been very vocal about.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

We all know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But, like, girlfriend did start working professionally at 17.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then, like, got to have that Shirley MacLaine story of understanding Rebecca Luker. Getting to replace Rebecca. I also love, by the way, Laura Benanti and Rebecca Luker have the same relationship as Sherri Renee Scott and Idina Menzel in that one replaced the other. And then years later, they replaced.

[B]

They swapped. Yes.

[A]

I think. I think that's amazing. I don't know how many people can claim that. It's amazing. It's amazing. But, like, just never stopped working after that. And, like, Tony nominated at 20. Tony nominated again at 21.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And of course, like, has the Pratt fall that goes wrong and all these other things, but, like, goes right out of surgery into nine, and. And she's always been vocal about feeling so weird and unfortunate looking as a kid, but, like, definitely grew up to look like Laura Benanti at a very young age. And the proof is in the pudding girl has been playing, like, the beautiful ingenue in 17. Sure. You know you're pretty. When people pay you to be the pretty person in a show. It's. It's. No, it's like, it's no longer just my opinion.

[B]

No one's ever played me to be. Paid me to be pretty.

[A]

I got paid to be pretty once, but it was not a. It was not a Broadway contract, so it's not real. When you are. When you get paid to play Claudia in nine on Broadway, I don't care. You're pretty.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're a pretty person.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You're a pretty girl.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Mama?

[B]

She should be the most striking of all of them.

[A]

Well, she's also very specific entities. Like the. In the original, when we watched together, you know, everyone is dressed in black.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In that original Tommy Toon production, and everyone has a very specific style. Like, Louisa is basically in, like, a working Girl skirt suit.

[B]

Sure. Conservative.

[A]

Yes. Conservative and classic.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And sort of no personality.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Carla is walking sex in that body stocking.

[B]

Mama.

[A]

Very matron.

[B]

Very, very. Yeah.

[A]

Sarah, Gina is, like, in a beach dress. Lillian LaFleur is looking like Paris Camp.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Claudia is in a leotard with rhinestones. It is so blank slate.

[B]

Yes, agreed.

[A]

And in the revival, everyone is. It's black and white as well, with a little bit of beige, but it is very much fashionable. Everyone is looking like a million dollars. And how they dressed up. A Nanti is. She's got sort of like a. It's not a beehive, but it's not. Not a beehive. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, it's. It's teased. It's a little teased, but very tastefully done with a little flip at the bottom. Heavy black eye makeup and a black. A black dress with a very fashionable white jacket tied with a tied belt in the middle. She looks like a movie star, but the most classic, undefinable movie star. Like, she doesn't have a style of her own. It's not an Ann Margaret, where you're walking sex. It's not Audrey Hepburn where you're high class and innocent. It's she. Like, she just looks like glamour.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's perfect because all of act one is. She's just this entity floating around Guido's mind. And the one thing he knows for sure with this movie is he needs to have her in the movie because she was part of all of his success successes in the past. And he has no script, he has no ideas. The one thing he knows is if Cloudy is there, he'll get an idea.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And whenever he's talking about her, like, people do different things with the staging, but, like, if there's One thing the 2003 revival did, was that it, like, led with basically every woman either licking Antonio's face or, like, wrapping their hands on his dick.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Until be Italian. When, like, sex went out the window. Because then he was like, and then I got raped at nine. And now no more sex. But before then, we have. Before then we have Jane, like, kind of simulating riding him.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

In her. In her nun outfit. We have the blonde gal making out with him. Then we have Benanti on the table when he's, like, talking about Claudia, she shows up in his mind and she's just like, like, kissing his eyeball, kissing his eyeball, kissing his nose. And then she just keeps pecking his mouth, pecking his mouth as he's Trying to talk to Cheetah Rivera until she starts finally, like, just, like, licking his lips. And that's when he's like, you have to stop.

[B]

Right, right, right, right.

[A]

I was. I. I'm like, okay. Back when we didn't have intimacy coordinators, I don't know how they all got away with this, but it's fucking amazing. But with. But when we finally meet CLAUDIA In Act 2, she shows up, meets Guido on the beach, and she's tired, she's cold, she just flew in from Paris. And she's having none of his bullshit. And he's like. He's talking to her. Not like she doesn't exist, but she's not a scene partner. She becomes, like, his therapist slash fake wife.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And she's having none of it.

[B]

And she's also there at Luisa's bequest.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Not his.

[A]

Yes. Because he thinks she's there because she can't deny what they have.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And she drops the bomb. No, no. Louisa asked me, and she's like. And I can't be here anymore. And that's when she does the one thing in that video where I was like, there's the Benanti we know. And she's like, I can't be Ernie Margarito.

[B]

It takes too much out of me.

[A]

Other than that, she's very. I say other than that she's Grove Grover. Other than that, she's very dropped in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But with. And then when they're filming the Casanova stuff in Grand Canal, as I'm watching her reactions to him, I was like, oh, I. I feel this now because unusual. It always. We always understood. Claudia is in love with Guido in her own unusual way. That's the whole point of the song.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And she made the conscious decision years ago to separate herself from him because she realized that he's in love with a version of her that doesn't exist.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She's in love with the version of him.

[B]

That can never. Can never happen.

[A]

Exactly. Of, like, who she's in love with, who he is as well as who he could be. The problem is, is that she, in order to be with him, he would have to be the person he could be. And he never will.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's what made her sort of walk away.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But there is the part of him that still exists that she loves, which is ultimately what keeps her there for the movie. And you watch in the Casanova sequence where she's playing the Louisa Stand in and they're doing the duet, and you watch, like, in a moment. Benanti's Louisa Benante's cloudy, like, kind of forget that she set up these walls for him. And, like, that's the Guido she's in love with. And she's like, oh, God, this is. This is good, right? This is good, right? And then when she realizes that he used their interaction for a later sequence, and she. Furious. But also. But she's also. She. You. Benanti kind of like, laughs at herself because she's like, I fell for it. Yeah. And she says, like, in the scene with Guido, you know, I'm not your muse. It always came from you. Blah, blah. And she's like, no. Like, this was always what I feared he thought of me. And I always said it because it was like, if I said it first, like, you know, he could ever hurt me with it. But, like, no, he just did it. He did the thing. I'm. I've been used this entire time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's never gonna be that. He doesn't understand me. He doesn't know me. He doesn't care. It's about what I can do for him.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'm out.

[B]

Right?

[A]

I'm out.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I mean, it doesn't have to necessarily be artistic, but, like, I don't know. Have you ever. We don't have to tell too much. Like, have you ever been in a situation where you felt like somebody was around you more because of. They just liked how they felt when they were around you, not because of you?

[B]

I mean, I think whenever you're. I mean, it's hard to say because as an actor, you're always being used for pieces of yourself. I mean, that's your job. Yeah. So it's sort of like you. You protect. I mean, I think what's. Also. Yes. You. So, yes, I'm sure there was someone who wanted to be around me because of how I made them feel, but not who I was. But I don't think I was ever. I don't think I ever identified it. Because you're so used to that as an actor, putting in those bits and pieces. And you're. And your job is to make people feel. Yeah. So it's sort of like it's part and parcel of the job. I will say the interesting thing is it's so meta. The Laura. Not specifically Laura and Antonio, but like the Claudia Guido in the scene falling in love with each other as scene partners who are in love with. She's in love with him, but they're in love with each other for different reasons in the scene than they are out of the scene than they are in life. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's like three levels there that it's really heavy of, like, finding her back in a script and saying, I won't play this role again. And then finally, when he offers her a role that she hasn't played, he still subbed. He still, you know, sort of like drops her into this, this, this, this. This column.

[A]

You know, she's playing a different role in his movie this time, but she has remained the role in his life.

[B]

Correct. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

I think as maybe I know you. You're an actor who's been in quite a few shows that people have enjoyed and have had fans when. When you would see fans at the stage door who would, like, say the loveliest things to you. I'm sure part of it was wonderful to hear as an artist, but while also being like, but you don't actually know me.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And you have to. The survival rate is the people who do say, like, thank you so much. That's so lovely of you to say. And, you know, there was when I, Especially when I left. When I left acting, I was like, oh, am I gonna really miss the. The applause? And I mean, you know, and I don't mean that as a. I mean, I know people are probably laughing now because, like, like, where else do you get applause in your. In your job? But, like, we connect it so much to, like, our. Our, you know, our ego and. And sort of, you know, praise and all that stuff and, and getting attention. And thankfully, I think, like, a lot of the. A lot of the people in Mormon, you know, period, like, that show, period, was a lot of really whole, like, whole human beings who. Who could discern between the praise of the show and who they were as people. That.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

So, yeah, it was. It was good. And. And. But it's funny to see it. It's funny for you to mention it as like a thing in nine, because, you know, those, Those. There's. There's ego all over that show.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

So, like, everyone's using, you know, like a good musical. Everyone's using each other for their own purposes and, you know, getting what they need and walking away, especially guido. But, like, all those women are doing that to him too. They're. They're using him for what he has. Yeah. You know, I mean, they all want more where he doesn't want more.

[A]

But if he weren't a famous film director.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Who gave the world art that they loved.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Would his Attention mean anything, Right?

[B]

Correct. Correct. Would they feel the same about it?

[A]

Yeah, because they say, you know, their moments where we get confessionals, I guess you could call it from different women about, like, how he made them feel or interactions they had with him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was it. He was a good lover. He made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Like, I'm sure that was true in the moment, but would you have. And yes, he's like a handsome dude, depending on who plays him. But, like, the whole point is that he's a world famous director who's given art that people recognize. Last night with. With my two friends, I was going through the list and some photos of men I had been intimate with this year because I needed to be like, tell me that at least four of them are attractive because I thought they were all attractive when I hooked up with them. But, like, tell me that I'm not a broken person looking for validation from anyone who will get naked with me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That I actually, like, made it a point to be with someone who I found attractive.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

And unfortunately, my friend Josh lives, like, I can only say three. I was like, okay, not even a.

[B]

Swing for a four.

[A]

He and I have very different tastes. The litmus test is that he's in love with Joe Locke from Heartstopper. I'm in love with Kit Connor from Heartstopper. So that's how we know we're never gonna fight over the same man. But it was that what. That was my ego being like, I didn't just, like, do this to. To feel okay for a minute. Right. Like, there's I. I waited out for people who I found attractive. Right. And Josh kept me, like, did you find them attractive? Like, if you did, that's fine. I'm like. I was like, no, you're not helping. You're not helping. That's not what. That's not what I'm asking. But the thing with the women in nine, as you said, it's like they all think Guido's is. It is attractive in some way or another. And. And it doesn't matter if they're soulmates or not. The thing with Claudia. And maybe it's just, like, because I have had a. I also have had, like, a very specific relationship where I felt so important in the moment and then after the fact, felt so dismissed. Not dismissed, but misused. Because to say used is to imply, like, malice. It wasn't malice so much. It was just like, they thought that they were doing the honorable and sweet thing. And it was after the fact was, like, now that the highs worn off and I'm where I'm at, this was a misuse of me.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And even. Even with much time later and, and a reconnect and, like, discussion, I'm like, in some ways, this still feels like a misuse. If I'm looking for validation that I hooked up with someone who was attractive, you're looking for validation that, like, I will absolve you. And. And in some ways I did. In some ways I didn't.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I think that they got, like, as much absolvement as they needed. Catholic boys. And I'm like, oh, so like, our very long conversation of, like, wanting to check in on each other and, like, possibly be in each other's lives now isn't real because you got the Hail Mary full of grace that you needed.

[B]

Sure, sure. That's upsetting.

[A]

But also, I don't know if it's real. That's just my perception right now.

[B]

Oh, I see. I mean, you'll never know if it's real. Right.

[A]

Sometimes it's mama singing to you. 9. And sometimes it's mama telling you you're gonna die someday.

[B]

Right. It's.

[A]

It's just how you. How some brains flip. True narcissists think of not only themselves as the leading role, but that everyone's thinking about them all the time.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I have to remind myself that nobody is thinking about me all the time. Nobody's thinking about me half the time. Maybe my mother, and that's because she's got two children.

[B]

Maybe my mother, and that's why it's half the time.

[A]

Half the time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I would argue maybe a fourth of time. She's got me, she's got my sister. She's got her own mother, and she's got her own sister.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

So, like. And her own health. So I'm like, yeah, I probably take out my mom's brain 20% of the time. Anyone else, it's like 5% or lower.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which is upsetting because there are some people in my life who just live rent free now because of everything.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I wish they didn't. But sometimes, you know, you're Guido, and sometimes you're young Guido. Like, sometimes you're the character that I want to watch, and sometimes you're the character I have to watch.

[B]

Or sometimes you're Guido and sometimes you're Luisa. You know, in some ways, you know, like Luisa being like the one who thinks about Guido all the time. He is the center the of universe.

[A]

Yeah. Have you watched Sex and the City, Kevin?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Fantastic. So do you remember in season two?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When Carrie and Big got back together?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then it was revealed that he may or may not be moving to Paris for a little while.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And of course, Carrie totally misquotes him later at lunch with friends. Makes me furious to this day because he says, I may have to go to Paris for work. Could be anywhere between three months to a year. And she's like, why didn't you tell me? He's like, because it's not definite. I wasn't. I didn't want to worry you until it became definite.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And Big can be a douche.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But in that moment, I'm like, I get where he's coming from. He knows what his girlfriend is like.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

He knows how her brain works.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's like, if I told you this was happening and it wasn't real yet, and you went through your whole spinning and it didn't happen, it would come.

[B]

Back to bite me in the eye.

[A]

Exactly. It's like, I wanted to wait.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's like, three months. But it's like, probably three months to a year. Who knows?

[B]

Right?

[A]

The next scene, she's like, Carrie is like. He's like, is it so hard to be like Carrie? I'm thinking about moving to Paris for the rest of my life. I'm like, that's not what he said. And she calls him drunk on the phone while he's in Paris. And she's like, do you think about this kind of stuff? She's like, I think about us all the time. And to be fair, I think when you are. When you do genuinely care about someone, when you're with them, like, you do think about us a lot.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

It doesn't have to be obsessive.

[B]

No.

[A]

But, like, your. Your decisions and. And caring about the other person should be in your brain. It shouldn't be work to, like, reach out and be like, I want to make sure you're taking care of me. What are you doing?

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And so I think that's for someone like Louisa is. She's like, I think about us all the time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because it is us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. And you only think about you.

[B]

You. Right. Right. I mean, I think my. One of my favorite things of watching the. The original yesterday with you, Maureen McGovern was Louisa.

[A]

She sure was.

[B]

She was. She was the replacement Louisa in. In for Karen Akers. Right. You told me that. I remember Karen Akers. I just didn't realize there was only really Two. There was her and Maureen.

[A]

Well, it only ran just under.

[B]

Just under two years. Right, right. But knowing that Maureen had a very. A very wide acting awakening at the end of. My husband make movies where she says, you know, sometimes he might. He. He rarely comes to bed. My husband makes movies instead. Then realize what she says. She's. She is nothing if not intelligent about. About what is going on and hopeful, but more hopeful about how it can be fixed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, there was, you know, there's no reason for her. She wouldn't call. She would not call Carla. She would call Claudia. You know what I mean? Like, that's, you know, there is that. There is that definitive thing about, like, she knows that a woman like Claudia would not step in and take over her relationship, as opposed to, like, Carla would. Yeah. She's not dumb. She's not dumb. She knows that her success with. With Guido is his success with Claudia, you know, So I. I do think there's something interesting about what she. What she thinks of him and how much she thinks of him. And how is, you know, the fact that we sort of resolve at the end where they end up to, you know, they. They embrace and walk off is. Was the whole thing sort of this fever dream? Was the whole, you know, I'm right. Yeah. I mean, I'm sort of left with sort of like, questions of, like, how could she go back with him at the end of the show?

[A]

It's very Italian. Well, so Guido's mom has one interaction with Louisa right before. Be Italian.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I'll talk about what that interaction is right after this break.

[B]

Hey. Oh, really?

[A]

I'd beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. And we're back. So again, nine. Obviously, as we said, like, it plays with memory of. Of what's past, what's present.

[B]

And there's one.

[A]

There's only one scene where Mama interacts with anyone other than Guido.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And it's right before Be Italian.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We have a memory of Mama and Louisa talking, and Louise and Guido are probably going through, like, another rough patch because Louisa says, like, he's in trouble.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And Mama says, like, oh, well, I know when his trouble began. Yes. And talks about Sarah, Gina. But before she gets to that, she says, you know, I left Guido's father once. And she goes, right. She goes. She goes. It was the right decision at the time, but it was the worst year of my life.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

She goes And I got back, it's like I did go back to him and everything was so much better when I went back.

[B]

Yes. Right.

[A]

She goes, and, and she was like, it's not a decision I'm proud of. It's not a decision I recommend. She's like, it's what I needed to do. She was like, and. And the only reason it was better is because I realized I, I shouldn't have left. But like, I, you know, in some ways it all worked out.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I think there is a little bit of that mentality in some of these women of like, we get, we times progress and we talk about being like the modern person and being independent and self aware, but in a lot of ways we do lob onto traditionalism and structure.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And matrimony and monogamy.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Someone might have written a play that deals with those themes. But yeah, I need to.

[B]

Could I watch a live stream of it?

[A]

I am going to make it my fucking mission. Because I was, at first I was like, I'm not going to talk about it anymore. Now I'm going to make it my fucking mission that every episode I'm like, how do I sneak it in for 30 seconds? Just 30 seconds. Because the only two things I've done with my life. No, three things I've done with my life are this podcast, the play, and meeting me. No, that wasn't a thing that I did. That was the thing that happened to me. No. I have deflowered more than one Catholic boy.

[B]

Oh, God. Yeah. Good for them.

[A]

Yeah. The trick is after the first two, you stop asking them questions.

[B]

What were the questions?

[A]

How are you? What are you thinking? You know, things that normally lead to everyday conversation but is like a litany of trauma from them. And you're like, oh, got it.

[B]

You know I'm a Catholic boy.

[A]

Yeah. Why do you think I haven't touched you? I learned my lesson, Kevin. Jesus. Wait, what?

[B]

Hard, hard, hard, hard. Pivot back to the show.

[A]

Had me at the first hard.

[B]

I want, I want to make sure we talk about 9 and 40.

[A]

The two least sexy ages. Yes. So. But you asked about like Louisa going back to him. I think with Louisa, to have intelligence and self awareness and self respect.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Is to separate what do I need and what do I want? She doesn't. You could, you could argue and you could argue it either way for her of what brings her back.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I don't need Guido, but I want Guido. I don't want Guido, but I need him.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Because ultimately they are not I don't. I hate to use the term soulmates, but, like, they are the compatible duo of the show. They balance each other out in a lot of ways. And they. The show does offer you moments to see, like, that their connection is there. She understands him better than he realizes. And, like, they are capable of having fun together when he's not being a wet blanket.

[B]

Well, I mean, it's as.

[A]

Is.

[B]

As is defined by the scene where he says, tell me everything's gonna be okay. And she says, everything's gonna be okay. And he says, how? And she says, I don't know my next line.

[A]

Yeah, she's like, what's my next line?

[B]

She's like, you jerk. Yeah, you're the writer.

[A]

Yeah, they have. Yeah, they have banter.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's. It's. And it's that it's sort of like the. The Kathy Jamie dynamic in last five years of. I'm a part of that. Where the line. She has like, look what he can do.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right. Of. It's the. The art that your person makes means so much to you and not so. It's. It's both. I am so proud of the person I love that they could make this, but also, like, it's so good and it brings me joy now.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So why. Why wouldn't I stick around? You know who's good in that movie?

[B]

Who?

[A]

Anna Kendrick.

[B]

Is she really?

[A]

It's. The movie is about as good as you can get for last five years. Movie, sure. It shouldn't be a movie. That's the problem.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

But Jeremy obviously sings that score very well, but acting wise, she wipes the floor with him.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

The smartest thing LaGravenes does as director is if I didn't believe in you, it just. It follows her like. That's right. Just watch her. She's Anna Kendrick. Let's watch her.

[B]

She's the muse.

[A]

Who would she play in nine? Stephanie Necropoulos.

[B]

Yes. Probably. Yeah.

[A]

That's her part.

[B]

Yeah, Probably. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. That's all there is really, for her.

[A]

I think, like, in 10 years, she could be a Louisa. She's still a little young.

[B]

Yes, she could be Louisa. Yeah.

[A]

Because she's not. She's not bubbly and. And vixeny enough to be Carla.

[B]

She's almost. She's almost not grounded enough to be Louisa, though. She's almost. Not almost plain enough. You know what I mean? In sort of a. Yeah.

[A]

I think it's more tired. She doesn't. She's not quite tired enough, but I think she has it in her. Yeah, she has it in her. That's a question on the discord is casting. We'll get to that in a second. But yeah, I think with Louisa it's also the. To. To be the smarter one in your relationship is a double edged sword because in so many ways you can see things that your partner can't. And there's a bit of a comfort in that. But then also there is a frustration in. I need you to see what I see so we can get there.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

There has been. There have been two men in my life where I very much wanted to sit them down and slap them across the face and say, do you not see that what we have is very rare and very good? I need you to wake up. Wake up.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Check your baggage at the door.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And try. Because this is good.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you are blowing this up with all of your bullshit.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I will walk away.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Which is exactly what happened.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And so that's sort of like what Louise is where she's at with Guido. She's like, what we have is so fucking good. And you keep trying to dismantle it. And I don't know why, but, like, get your shit in order because we have a life to live.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And it can be. And it's been good. It can be good again. You need to stop all this shit. And it's easy. It's actually kind of easy to do. I don't know why it's so hard for you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And he. Ultimately, what it is is that he has to like, do one more grenade to blow everything up.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Before he can finally like respawn and, and, and understand that.

[B]

Right, right. I mean, you know, I'd also argue that she has never had a. Be on your own in their life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where she's lost it and been like, just go.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just get out. Like you want to do it. You go see how difficult it is without me.

[A]

Not it.

[B]

Well, that's. That's a lie. It's not without me. It's. You go seeing who you are without anybody.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I am the person. I'm the person, whether you like it or not, who has been there every single moment. You want to do this? Go and be. You're acting like you're acting like a spoiled, you know, a spoiled brat, a spoiled only child.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Go and go and see how that works out for you without me to have the safety net underneath you.

[A]

Well, it's because it's also. Everyone has told you you're special. Your Mother wrapped you up in a blanket of love.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

You grew up and you fell into a career that was very successful for you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And everyone has come to you. Now you're in a moment of crisis because you haven't been able to bullshit your way out of your last three movies.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You have real things on the line. I'm trying to be her for you. And in. And in kind, what you have done is you have taken my vulnerable, true loving self and put it on camera in a mocking manner. Because what he does is essentially, is the idea he finally comes up with is in a. In a very simple exchange with Claudia, she says to him, like, you're my charming little Casanova. And he's like, that's the movie.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because his producer, Lillian lathor, wants a musical. And he's like, okay, there we go. A musical. Which. And Mauryeson said that the reason why they came up with Casanova is because Fellini made a Casanova movie.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And so they do the Casanova thing. And basically everything we saw in Act 1 is repurposed for Casanova. And people make things from their lives and make it into art.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Don't know what that's like. But he.

[B]

But he does it verbatim. Verbatim, yes.

[A]

And again with a mocking mockery.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which is. Which is what really fucking triggers Claudia and then eventually Louisa.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And what the revival did really well. Really fucking well is they're doing the scene and he starts with Claudia in the Louisa role, then that random person in the Carla role.

[B]

Right.

[A]

By random person, I mean, I don't know the character's name, but the actress is Sarah Gettlefin.

[B]

Sure, sure, sure. Right.

[A]

And then Chita Rivera, Lillian, as the Claudia.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And there's a moment in that piece where he's singing to her. And the. And it's just the violence going.

[B]

And it's just wine burps. Just wine burps and baguette burps. I'm just calling them out. I'm calls them like I sees them.

[A]

Okay. Butterfly.

[B]

McQueen.

[A]

So I know. I love her. She's great. She knows nothing about birds and no babies. She has one scene in the women's fun. But so.

[B]

In.

[A]

In. The point is supposed to be like, it's when everything kind of crashes and. And Louisa and. And Claudia are like, I'm done, I'm done.

[B]

Yeah, you've made a mockery part.

[A]

Exactly. But it's. It happens in that moment where there's no dialogue, there's no Singing. It's just. And in the revival, what they did was everyone's like on. Is on stage watching, and Louise is sort of watching like kind of clutching her chest. And the entire time Mary Stewart Masterson has been in basically like a white button down shirt unbuttoned to her, just above her boobs and a pencil skirt and then glasses that she has on, then has off, then has on, then has off. And Antonio is singing to Chita Rivera and he stops himself and he closes his eyes and everyone's just watching and like Laura Benanti is already kind of on the verge of tears and he makes his way to Mary Stewart Masterson, grabs her glasses, slowly goes over and puts them on Benanti.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's when Mary Sue Masterson loses it and flips a chair.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And. And, and Benanti, God bless her, she was like, her. Claudia was like, I am so done. But also there are cameras rolling and you just watch her die inside. Because she knows what he's doing.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because she's friends with Louisa and she's just like, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. And whereas Claudia is dying inside, Louisa fucking burns it down to the ground. And because in the Tommy Tune version, two things that I felt that Tommy kind of sped through. And maybe it's because that recording was made a year into the run, so some things got a little sloppier, a little more indulgent.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But the Guido dismissing Carla and the divorce papers happened so suddenly.

[B]

Yes. And then she sort of disappears into this mime existence in the. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Whereas in the revival it happens very specifically. And then you watch Jane and Anita did it too, of like picking up the shredded up papers and like piecing them back together. It's so childlike and heartbreaking. But then the, the Louisa moment in the Tommy Tune revival, it's not quite as specific. We know what's happening, but it's not as defined.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I thought that Laveau in that revival really defined it and pushed it even further.

[B]

Is it still the. Isn't it an Italian scene where they.

[A]

Where they, where they were fighting? In Italian.

[B]

Yeah, in Italian.

[A]

He's. He's, he's defending himself in English. She's arguing in Italian. And then. And she has a couple of bits of English in there as well.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where he's like, I use.

[B]

You made a mockery of our. You made a mockery of our relationship.

[A]

Of my life.

[B]

My life.

[A]

And he's like, he's like, as a as an artist, like, I have to take things. And she's like, fine, then use it well and go to hell.

[B]

Right, right, right, right.

[A]

And walks away and then does be on your own.

[B]

I actually thought Maureen McGovern for all. I mean, I toured, so I. As you know, I toured with Maureen in Little Women. And, you know, she's definitely. She's the Stradivarius voice. I mean, she can do no wrong vocally.

[A]

That voice is incredible.

[B]

And her acting is good. It' good. But it's not like she was an actress first. She was a singer. She was a singer first.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was really impressed with that breakdown moment that she had in the original cast in the replacement. I mean, I just was. I was astounded that she had that much, you know, sort of chutzpah in her to, like, slam it. Slam it all to hell and walk off stage.

[A]

I think that because that role was built around Karen Akers, who had natural sad face.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

There's a lot of stuff.

[B]

And a European. Just a whole European character.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Like, her whole. Her whole structure is European.

[A]

But I think there's a lot that they didn't realize wasn't quite baked into the role because it just was so natural on Karen's face.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And when you have someone like Maureen who does not project downtrodden sadness.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In fact, I would argue she projects health and strength.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

And so she had to kind of work harder to be simpler. But things like My Husband Makes Movies is not an overly sad song until the end. And even then, it's like you really need someone who just can break your heart with a look.

[B]

Yeah, agreed.

[A]

With one look. But like, you know what I mean? Like, some people just, like, have naturally sad faces.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Karen had one.

[B]

She has a longer face. Maureen is a round face.

[A]

Why the long face?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Like, she doesn't sing, but like a Cynthia Nixon would. Would nail a Louisa sad face.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes.

[A]

Whereas the Kim Cattrall would not.

[B]

Correct, correct. Yeah.

[A]

Those friends that fearsome for some. Lillian lefleur.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Who is she? What's she about?

[B]

I mean, she's the. She's the sort of. She is his bottom line. She's the bottom line. She's the one that keeps the money flowing. She's the one that. That. She's the sales. You know, he's the salesperson to her. He to her is a salesperson. She is the buyer because she's the producer. She's the producer. So she. But she, again, is a woman, so there is Sort of this mystique that she has that. That Guido is. Is enraptured by who she is. And impressing her and getting her, you know, Guido is. The whole show is all about what do I have to do to get this thing. Get, get. I won't get what I want. Get another piece. Get. You know, I have five. I want six. You know what I mean? There's all that. He just wants to get, get, get. And these women are so. Some of. Some of them are complacent in how they. Or I shouldn't say complacent. Some of them are in. Are.

[A]

They're adding to the problem.

[B]

Sure, exactly. Right. And. But some of them give that. Give. Give generously. Yeah, right. Some of them give reluctantly. Lillian Lafleur gives intriguingly. She's like, okay, I have balls. I am a massive. You know, I'm a producer. I know what I want. I know what you give me. I know all your tricks. But yet she's still. She's still caught by him. She's still caught in the web. Chita Rivera. She's still caught in the web of, you know, of being. Of being drawn in by him. And, you know, there's that hilarious part where she's like, so I go to the spa. I go to the spa. I go to the steam bath. There's a note in the steam bath. I go to the mud bath. I go to mud bath. You know, she still follows the scent. Yeah. Because she likes the whole. She likes the adventure of it. Yeah. He gives her something to fight for.

[A]

There's a lot of her that is just very intrigued, even when she's incensed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She's like. She won't admit it, but, like, it does excite her a little bit.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

There's. I think they have a hate fuck in their future.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Guido and Leo.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Lillian Lafleur. And there's a re. Her name is Lillian lafleur because it was originated by Lillian Montevecchi.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And the role was originally a man. And then when they did the Workshop with Tommy Tune, the winter of 82, Lillian played the producer. And so all of a sudden, the character is French. Her name is Lillian, and she used to own the Falies Bergere.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because Lillian Montevecchi was famous for being in the Follies Bergere.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so the whole number was built around her. That number is both so phenomenal and so infuriating to me.

[B]

Because it takes up half of act one.

[A]

Yes. And part of it is because. God my fucking Jesus. So when we watched it with Lillian.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

There's a whole section. So there's a section of the number where Lillian La Fleur interacts.

[B]

Does audience. Does crowd work.

[A]

Does crowd work on the Passarelle?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And, you know, I'm sure part of that was like Monte Vecchi's shtick in. In the Folly Bridger.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

It's giving very Gypsy Rosely.

[B]

Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Which remind me, when we leave here tonight and go get drinks, we must talk about Gypsy, because, you want to know one of the. One of the things they trimmed down was Gypsy's interactions with the audience. No, the thing she's most famous for.

[B]

My name is. My name's. My name's.

[A]

My name is Gypsy Rose Lee. What's yours?

[B]

They took it out.

[A]

They took it out.

[B]

Oh, no. I can't wait for this.

[A]

And some people were like, you know, and by this point, my review will have come out for it, but some people, like, will say, like, well, you know, it's not in the original script. I'm like, neither is the ecdesias monologue, but they put that in and made it her third strip, not her final strip.

[B]

Oh, dear.

[A]

There. There are choices in this production, and then there are non choices. The non choices is when I didn't want to bite my head off.

[B]

Oh, dear.

[A]

I wasn't. I wasn't in heaven, but I didn't want to bite my head off. It's when they made new choices, when I went, what are we doing? What. What are we doing?

[B]

What is the purpose?

[A]

What is happening here? Why is her final strip just her being Josephine Baker dancing?

[B]

No.

[A]

And I'm not being racist about that. They literally have her in Josephine Baker cosplay. Oh, dancing. Because Joy's a dancer, and, like, well, now we've sacrificed story for talent. Oh, it made me angry, because everyone involved in that production is amazing. Why do we make these choices?

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

I digress.

[B]

I was like, that's up another pod. Are we going into another podcast? Are we transitioning?

[A]

We cannot. We cannot. We cannot. We have too much to talk about. Lillian Lafleur. The whole point of Folie Bergere is her telling Contini because he can't remember what he promised her.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

For the movie.

[B]

She's like, I want production.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I want numbers. I want costumes. I want beauty.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I want flair.

[A]

Yeah. Well, first he's, like, pitching her nothing. He's like, we start with this image and a train and a monkey. And she's like, no. And. And she's like, no, no, I want less singing, dancing, and says, yeah, I want a production. I want a musical.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And the whole number and then it goes right into, like, song and dance is amazing. Like the Folies Bergere. And it is one of the moments in the show where we genuinely forget where we are and it just becomes theater.

[B]

Yes, correct.

[A]

And Guido Contini even has, like, give her an introduction to the audience. And she has this whole bit that the launching pad is. It's. It's very ucb. Someone throw out a word, and it's like, roses in your dressing room. So she. She's like, someone gave me beautiful red roses.

[B]

Red roses.

[A]

But I. But I do not know who. Who was it? Face up, who was it? And the music is very magical and mystical. And Liliana Montevecchi takes her sweet time on that pass real good Lord, does.

[B]

She took for fucking ever.

[A]

Ever. Like a solid five to 10 minutes. Easily on that.

[B]

Easily.

[A]

And before. Eventually, without much payoff, I should say with not much.

[B]

Not much comical payoff, because there's a way, if you tightened it. Yeah, it's very funny.

[A]

Well, so it all ends with young Guido showing up with a gift for her. Yes. The revival. And so Kevin and I watched it on a Monday.

[B]

I'm Kevin.

[A]

He's Kevin. I'm Matt. The next day I go back to watch the revival.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And when I tell you that Cheetah milks it just as long as the Lena Montevecchi did, I'm telling you, milked it just as long with pretty much also very little payoff. The only real things, the only thing that really got a major hit, and it's not something that she does, it's something that the show put in. It is she finally finds a dude in the audience. She goes, what is your name? Oh, that was the name of the. No, no. She goes. She goes, oh, George. I like that name.

[B]

George.

[A]

And she turns to the girl because all the women in the ensemble are on the table, and they go. She goes, george. And they all go, that's right.

[B]

I remember that. I do remember that.

[A]

And if you. There's a bootleg. There's a bootleg of the revival on YouTube.

[B]

I don't know from bootlegs.

[A]

You sure don't. What library? What library? Listen, but. So you're the reason why I'm cataloging my playbills, because your organization skills on your library is insane. But so I call me online. But. So if you watch the boot on YouTube and I think they have it chopped up into three pieces. But her. Her crowd work in the bootleg is like maybe three minutes. Yeah, Two and a half. It's clearly early in the run.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Things are. Yeah, sorry. It's clearly early. Early in the run because the. The crowd work is short and the cast seems to be mostly getting along. Talk about a podcast for another day.

[B]

Backstage at the o'. Neill.

[A]

Yep. Guys, y' all know you've all heard a stage combat, the podcast, Stage Combat. We're gonna have one called backstage at the O', Neill, and it's a 20 episode series about backstage of the 2003. Nine.

[B]

And dressing room space.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There are personalities.

[A]

There are some shows and allegiances. And allegiances. There are some shows that if, you know, you know, and some shows where people actually all got along and it was great.

[B]

Book of Mormon.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah. Never. I can speak for both of mine. Book of Mormon and beautiful. There was never any drama backstage.

[A]

I never heard of any drama. No, no.

[B]

I mean, usual things. You're a family.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So there's gonna be usual things.

[A]

You're gonna have. People are gonna butt heads.

[B]

Yeah. Of course. Someone's gonna be like, oh, my. You know, a lot of it's always about, you know what I will say the majority of complaints on Broadway is tempos. Yeah.

[A]

1,000%.

[B]

Because actors think it's supposed to be this, you know, tempo. And the conductor always says. Says it's a click. I will say that out loud because that. And it's always a lie. I mean, it's. No, it's always. It is a click, but it's like, why am I. Anyways. Yeah, that's another podcast.

[A]

But, you know, one. One camp wants it faster, one camp wants it slower.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[A]

But no, there. There's a difference between being a family and occasionally, like, stepping on toes and just like getting on each other's nerves like you do with a sibling.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And then there are shows where sometimes you're trauma bonded and sometimes where you're not.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But. But my point is that when I went to the library to watch it today, back to back, I was like, oh, God, I'm being punished by.

[B]

By that extended crowd work by two.

[A]

Incredibly talented women who are. Have had months into their run and are getting longer and longer and no.

[B]

One could reel them in.

[A]

And these fags at the helm will not reel them in.

[B]

Correct. No resident director would even approach either one of them to say, hey, could you snip a little bit out of the Cheetah?

[A]

Rivera came from the camp of fosse. And Robbins. She gets off on being yelled at.

[B]

Yeah, right, exactly. You don't come fighting that.

[A]

You don't come up to Cheetah, kindly go, hey, Cheetah, it's going a little slow. You go, Cheetah, it's too long, it's too long. Tighten it up. And she'll fight back. And you're gonna go, no. Your. Your crowd work is wobblier than your knees. You tighten that shit together and get your ass backstage. Oh, Lord. Act one needs to be done by nine o'.

[B]

Clock. The Marquis says ten on it. You've taken so long, honey, we've dimmed the lights.

[A]

And it's not because anyone died other.

[B]

Than comedy, because I'm.

[A]

There's nothing more unfortunate than watching crowd work go mid.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

It's painful if it's going bad.

[B]

Right?

[A]

It's great if it's going great. But when it's mid, you're just like, well.

[B]

And most of the mid is when it's crowd work that is like, oh, this worked last night. That doesn't work ever. Never. Ask any stand up comedian.

[A]

She has a line in the in the library recording and maybe they like wrote it in for her where she's like, this is my stage. It kills in the bootleg. The audience loves it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

This. But that's like probably Aprilish by August. She says it and it's like, haha.

[B]

Right, right. It's the old adage of ask. You know, ask the question. Don't ask for the spoon. Don't ask for the last.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like that's comedy.

[A]

Like sometimes the soup can catch the potato.

[B]

That's right. Oh, slotted spoon.

[A]

Jeez.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, we have, okay, some messages on the Discord Channel. Let me, let me pick them up.

[B]

Let me also just say really quick, I want to talk about for just a hot second, for serious hot second.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I find it. I found it really intriguing. And I don't think I knew this when I was a freshman in college when I was first introduced to the thing. Nor did I really think about it when I was. Because, you know, really, like when we were. When you and I were looking at it to dice, like truly dissecting it, how smart to use sort of like nine going on 10 and. And 39 going on 40.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Right. Like two moments in your life where, I mean, they're different now. Right? I mean, now we're talking about 40 is the new. You know, 55 is the new 40 or. I don't know. I Don't know what the new.

[A]

I don't know. With each decade, the. The boundary of what's considered middle age or past is like, goes up by like three or four years.

[B]

Right. But nine is becoming double digits. I mean, so. So regardless of being a teenager, like, nine going to 10 is like, nine is still single digit. It's still. I know I'm sort of milking that, but it is sort of like there's something safe about, like, that is still a little boy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where 10 we have, you know, we talk about it all the time of how we sort of like our society sort of pushes people older. Right. Like, when you're 10, you can't wait to be 11. When you're 14, you can't wait to be 18. 18, 21. You know, we do that all the time. I just think it's so smart to use those two things where he's having this midlife crisis and he. And the moment he remembers is nine. Yeah. You know, where, where, where Yeston was able to sort of like, not only take the eight and a half mentality of it all and, and about the number of movies that Fellini had, but then nine being in age and being sort of like, you know, where he was.

[A]

Yeah. Well.

[B]

And he says that he found innocence. Yeah.

[A]

And he says, like, you know, they had trouble sort of wrapping up the show and figuring out who gives Guido his come to Jesus moment. And they decided on the kid and, and singing Getting Tall. And he said in, in the interview, he's like, I don't know when it happens where we go from can't wait to get older to wishing we could get younger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, but it happens somewhere. He goes. And nine is sort of like the last age where you can definitively say, I can't wait to get older.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't know when, when it stops after that. Like, nine is. That's easy. And part of it is, as you said, like, it is the double digits. Because when you're a kid, becoming double digits feels so important.

[B]

It's big.

[A]

Yeah, it's big.

[B]

Your birthday card gets bigger. You know what I mean? It takes up more space on the card. Like, there's all this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Subconscious. I remember.

[A]

I remember being around that age or a little older than that. Let's say like 13.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I remember me being 13 and being like, I'm so close to 14, which is so close to 18.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like that. Like.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Just because of. Of all these things where you would see things around you that looked so cool and so adult and fascinating. You're like, I. It's not that I don't want to. It's that no one will let me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But eventually I'll get to an age where they'll let me. Yeah, but they don't tell you that by getting access to those things, you now are responsible for other things.

[B]

Correct?

[A]

Yes. In order to get access, you have to own responsibility.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And Guido just wants the access, none of the responsibility.

[B]

Right, Right. So true.

[A]

Yeah, again, we're digging deep, baby.

[B]

I mean, I also, like, I also think a lot about the fact that when you're nine, you can remember almost everything that's happened to you. Yeah, you have, you have, you know, have. You have. Let's. Let's just call it. Let's just call it. Let's just average it. You have six years of memories, meaning, like, we don't really start to develop probably deep, deep memory until we're like two or three.

[A]

You know, like you have snapshots and then like actual.

[B]

And then actual, like, yeah, family trips, going first day at school, those things you remember. And, and the more, the older we get, the more that that becomes watered down. Like the moments themselves. Like, we just were adding more and more onto our memorables, which is, I think, why we have these sort of ages of like, you're turning 18, you're turning 21, you're turning 40. You know, we put these benchmarks in because after those ages we all were doing is diluting memory, you know, So I think it's interesting to. To think about the show and how he has such a distinct time and place for the, for the age of nine and who he was and who his mom thought he was.

[A]

And also, just as a child, you have nothing but curiosity because so much of the world is a mystery to you.

[B]

Right. You keep, you're just keep on learning to happen.

[A]

Yeah. So many things are happening to you. So many things to learn.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And eventually there gets to be a point where curiosity becomes inappropriate to other people, I should say. And like, for example, Guido with Sarah Gina, like, he just had the genuine curiosity of who she was.

[B]

Sure he.

[A]

He knew tell of her. But also, like, you could also make an argument that maybe he did kind of know a little bit more about who she was and that actually gave more curiosity.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Because it is in the script that he said that he's the one who says to the friends, let's go see Sarah Gina.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So there's been. Word has spread in the parochial school about her.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So his curiosity is like, let's get a. A good look.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And he's told that that curiosity has brought shame to his family.

[B]

I mean, you've got to be carefully taught. You are. You are taught that. We are taught how to feel about certain things.

[A]

Yep. Shame is a feeling you get from others responses to you.

[B]

Correct. Correct. I remember asking, speaking of Catholic, I was raised Catholic.

[A]

You were raised Catholic?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I wrote a play.

[B]

I know you did. I know you did. But I remember walking up to my mom in the bathroom and saying, like, what is. What is bitch and bastard? Like, right out. Like, clear as day. Like, not having any fear of those two words. I had heard them on a TV show or heard about a movie. And I remember her. I remember speaking of, like, nine and, like, moments. I remember her laughing, like, sort of like laughing at the dis. Like, how shocked she was that I would just say these things, but then getting stern and being like, oh, those aren't. Those aren't words, you know, and then being fearful of those words. You know, like, I have a touchstone for those that. That moment.

[A]

I talked about this on the south park movie episode of the day that south park was banned in my house because my sister and I watched an episode. I was too young for it. I didn't understand what I was watching.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And we were relaying an episode to my mom. My sister knew what it was about because she was ten and a half and I was eight.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, oh, the boys get chickenpox and they find out that their parents made them get it on purpose. So they go to a woman who has chickenpox so their parents can get it. And my sister's like, that's not what it was. This is what it was. And tells and says it all to my mom. I don't even remember the words herpes being said or prostitute or anything like that.

[B]

That.

[A]

But it said. And my mom's like, you're not allowed to watch that anymore. And all I remember was being bummed because I was like, that show made me laugh. But I also didn't understand it. But it was. Of course it was a subject. My mom was like, at eight and a half, you. We're not having this talk. We're just not doing it right. You. Like, there's. There is. And I look back on that and I'm like, I can't blame her. There's no world in which you sit your eight and a half down to talk to them about sex, work, and sti. That they can comprehend it and be mature about it.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

So she's like, no, we're just shutting it down.

[B]

I remember at Thanksgiving dinner, my cousin whispered in my ear, like, ask what a twat is. And I just blurted it out. I said, at the Thanksgiving Day dinner at my. At my uncle's house in Rhode Island. I was like, what's a twat? And literally silenced the place. And if. If my father had the superpower of killing people with his eyes, I wouldn't have lasted more than a second. I'd be dead.

[A]

See, I only silence.

[B]

I was innocence.

[A]

I. You're innocence. I only silence rooms when I enter them because I'm simply so stunning. No, I. We've all been there.

[B]

I remember Claudia.

[A]

I remember. I'm. I'm Claudia. I'm Claudia Coblick. That is me in a nutshell. Here's the thing. I. If you were to ask me which woman I would want to play in nine, it's most likely Carla, because I think that's the best one. Sure. I would pro. If this were college, I would be cast as Claudia. In the real world, I'm cast as Stephanie.

[B]

I'd want to play Sarah Geena. But I am Louisa. You're Louisa? I am Louisa.

[A]

See, the thing is, I am not, like, rambunctious enough as a. As a presence to be cast as Sarogina. Although I would have a fuck ton of fun doing it.

[B]

I mean, the tam. I just want to do the tambourine dance.

[A]

I've done the tambourine dance. I can teach it to you.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I. I. When I had Covid. When I had Covid the second time, it was 2021. And you still had to quarantine. We still kind of have to quarantine, but, like, that was when they're like, you quarantine for 10 days. No exceptions.

[B]

No exceptions. Right.

[A]

Even though I was feeling.

[B]

You got food delivered to your door.

[A]

And I was feeling fine for seven days, I was like, why am I. But my mom has a. Has an autoimmune disorder, so we were like, I'm quarantined. Sure. I was going absolutely insane. I couldn't sleep, so I was just watching.

[B]

Clanging pots out the window. Wasn't keeping you entertained.

[A]

We were done with that. Year and a half later.

[B]

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[A]

People were out of lockdown. I was in my room.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But so I was watching all these movie musicals. So I watched nine, and then I was like, I want to learn the tarantella from the Og So I learned it and I put it on Instagram because I was like, I want to prove to the world that I did something with my time.

[B]

Love it. I love it.

[A]

La la. But how did we get here? We were talking about who you would.

[B]

Be, who you are.

[A]

Before that, it was innocence. Innocence. Oh, the children of it all. Oh, yeah. I just remember being. I was at Hebrew school and for some reason we took a day trip into the city and I was in the back of the bus with all the other boys and we were all 12, and they were all asking each other if they beat off. And they asked me. And I genuinely didn't know what that meant. Of course I knew what masturbation was. I didn't know that that was a term you used to. I was like, what is that? And they went beat up. And they were like, they did. And I go slapping my leg. Like, I was like. I was like, no, I don't. I was like, no, I don't hit my leg. Why would I do that? And they were like, oh, my God, get this R word. I was like, I don't. I genuinely don't know what you're asking. And I think finally a girl came up to me afterwards. She was like, they're asking if you masturbate. I was like, oh, no, I don't do that. Not because I don't want to. I just haven't felt the need to. I haven't had my nocturnal emission yet.

[B]

But, but, but it's so technical. And she was like, okay, bye.

[A]

Bye. I'm gonna go get my Paul Frank clips in my hair. And then. Because Jewish girls love their Paul Frank.

[B]

Oh, Lord.

[A]

Anyway, we'll talk about Discord questions in a second, but first, let's take another break. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet. And we're back. Okay, so we. We famously have a Discord Channel for Broadway Breakdown. The link will be in the episode description. If you haven't joined yet, please do. It was a very last minute submission. I forgot that we were recording this today. So I went onto the Discord Channel earlier this afternoon. I was like, guys, if you have any topics you want to submit, do it.

[B]

Last minute submission. Like a nocturnal submission?

[A]

Exactly. Well, yeah.

[B]

Was it overnight?

[A]

I did get an overnight delivery from my package.

[B]

Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

[A]

Oh, speaking of nine. So someone wrote as Mori eston's first Broadway score. Is nine the best freshman effort for a composer on Broadway? So by that, I guess Forest means, like, is this the first. Is this the best. First submission for a Broadway writer, for a Broadway composer? I'm trying to think of who else we could argue, because there's Lynn for In the Heights. Gettle kind of counts for Piazza.

[B]

Correct? I. Yes, correct.

[A]

William Finn for Falsettos. Unless we're just talking New York theater in general, because that's also trickier.

[B]

That's a tough question. Also, like, I would argue that 9 is his most comprehensive score, but not necessarily, like, the most successful score. Overall.

[A]

I think that musically it's pretty impeccable.

[B]

I agree. I don't disagree with that.

[A]

I think.

[B]

But.

[A]

But all my issues with Nine are issues I just have with Yeston in general.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because, like, he has some lyrics that are phenomenal. Other lyrics that you're like, okay. And other lyrics were like, can we try that one again?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I feel the same way about Titanic. And also there are times in Titanic where I'm like, this music is gorgeous. Does it fit the moment? Right.

[B]

Right. Well, I mean, I have a big problem with. With Guido's I Want song. I would like to be here. I would like to be there. It gets too big too quick. Like, there's no growth to the song. Yeah, it's a very much like, you know, it's a. It's a second verse as the first kind of song. Even though it's a great song.

[A]

It is.

[B]

I would also, you know, I'd throw in, like, who else would I throw?

[A]

I also think it's a little too self aware for him at that. Early in the show, he's aware of how much he wants and how. How unrealistic it all is.

[B]

Also, what about Schwartz?

[A]

Stephen Schwartz? Yeah, I guess with Godspell.

[B]

Godspell.

[A]

Maybe?

[B]

No.

[A]

Would we call Godspell enough? Would we call that a no skip score?

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah. Because I would. I would skip. Where are you going?

[B]

I would. Yeah. Yep.

[A]

I mean, I think it's a. It's a. It's a great first effort.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But also, I would argue Schwartz has a similar problem to. Yes. And of like, man knows how to write a tune.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And every now and then you're like, that's the lyric we chose.

[B]

Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. True, true. He's better with Menken. He's better when he's.

[A]

When he's a better. He's a better lyricist with Menken. Absolutely.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's a better composer when he's allowed.

[B]

Yes. Correct.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I get freshman outing. I'm trying to think of, like, like, so what would like. Are we considered we're going back to like Rodgers and Hammerstein? Like they're. They're freshmen outing.

[A]

No, I think Rogers is the outing. And so it's, it's.

[B]

It would be Rogers and Hart.

[A]

Yeah. With Garrett Gates. So. Yeah. Yeah. I would say.

[B]

Hard to compare those. Yeah.

[A]

Then I guess Marvin Hamlisch with Chorus Line.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Henry Krieger with Dreamgirls, maybe. I guess. And remind me, we have to talk about the Dream Girls V9, because I want to get more into that with the origins in the Razzle Dazzle book.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Which is also like full of just fictional shit. But like, he gets a lot right about the nine stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I think if we're. If you were to ask for like a top five first Broadway score, this.

[B]

Would fit in, I think would be in top five.

[A]

Yes. I think it. I agree very much. Is in top five. And if anyone tries to argue, I think you can argue them out of it.

[B]

Yeah, I agree.

[A]

Especially when it's. You are the one writing the whole thing. Yeah, I think. Okay.

[B]

No, I think especially comprehensive score.

[A]

I think as a whole, actually. No. Okay. No, the best. Let me make sure. Let me make sure this is correct because I don't want to say this and then be proven wrong by ibdb.

[B]

Google Music going here.

[A]

Okay, hold, hold, please. So if we're talking about like first Broadway score ever, where you're either the composer, the lyricist, or you're doing the. Both. The best. Okay. Yeah. Here it is. The best freshman effort for a Broadway score is music man Meredith Wilson.

[B]

100%.

[A]

That's number one.

[B]

About 100%.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's. That's a perfect score.

[B]

It's an impeccable score. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

It's incredible.

[B]

I agree. I agree.

[A]

And I think it beats nine because I don't think. I don't have any issues with any of those lyrics.

[B]

Yes, correct. Yeah.

[A]

Including the OG Shapoopi, which. Sure. Yes. Has is as sexual politics, problematic. Do not. I hate that word. Sorry. It doesn't age well.

[B]

Okay. There you go. Okay, good.

[A]

But it's clever. And we're talking early 1900s, Iowa.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you think everyone around there was saying no means no.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

You're living a funko bub. A fucking bubble fuck life. People trying to rewrite history to include 2024 ideology into it is how we got into the landscape we're currently in. So I need everyone to acknowledge that history happened the way it happened. So we can move forward with our future.

[B]

And also, I would. I would argue it might be legally unsound because the writer did not write it that way to begin. Begin with.

[A]

They sure didn't. You know, and listen, there are some people that I would have no problem them spinning in their grave about what's happening to their work. Like Arthur Lawrence. Do I think that the work being done to Gypsy is better? No, but I love that it's pissing off his ghost.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because that man deserves to be pissed off every day of his afterlife. God damn. But, yeah, no, it's. It's music, man. So nine is definitely the top five. So that was one question. Another question was general thoughts about the movie with Daniel Day Lewis.

[B]

Oh, so many thoughts.

[A]

Is there anyone that almost got the role for the movie? Did any Broadway actors audition? As far as I know, no Broadway actors auditioned. Everyone auditioned in Hollywood.

[B]

I can't imagine them trying even to do a movie of that of nine, an obscure Broadway. Which is essentially an obscure Broadway musical to. Like my mother does not. My mother only knows nine because Heart did nine. You know what I mean? Like. Like that's the only reason she knows. Knows. I would say there's. There wasn't even a thought to bringing in someone other than a big. Like a big star.

[A]

Yeah, the. The. The. If we're talking legacy of the show, which we can talk about very. It's very quick to talk about its legacy because it won best musical in a major upset.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We'll talk about that. That Tony season and all that later.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It runs for about a year, almost two years. Like a year and nine months, let's say, has like a semi successful national tour, gets done in London twice. It's only really done in America at schools and regionally because it has so many women. So it's very easy to do.

[B]

Right. But it doesn't become filters with one man, 1,000.

[A]

That's what it is, baby. It's. It's leader of the pack, but gender reversed. Right, but it's. It's not. It is not a household show. It. There are no songs in it that are standards.

[B]

No.

[A]

I would even argue in musical theater, like Unusual Way, Be Italian and maybe Call from the Vatican are the three big songs from the show.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But they're not even major, major standards in musical theater. Unusual Way is the biggest one.

[B]

I think that was for. For a lot of the 80s. Unusual way was the song.

[A]

There was a time when somebody somewhere. For Most Happy Fella was the soprano. Go to song for Auditions. Because it was like, well, everyone's doing Somewhere. Everyone's doing My White Knight. Right, let's do this. And then, in an unusual way, became like, well, everyone's doing Vanilla Ice Cream. I'll do Unusual Way.

[B]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[A]

And we haven't had as many soprano songs since then. But, like, it's not. There's nothing in Nine that has become like Broadway Kenone.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

What happened. The. What the revival did was it brought it back to the Broadway consciousness and made it culturally relevant to Broadway. And anything you feel about nine now is because of that revival and because of the movie. The movie happened because of the revival.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And because Rob Marshall got a blank check from Chicago.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Rightfully so. And that's also why he was able to get every woman in Hollywood to audition for him for Nine. Because they all auditioned for him for Chicago.

[B]

Right, exactly.

[A]

And they kind of tried to go about nine the movie the way they went about the musical, which was like, we'll find the women we like, and we'll tailor the roles to them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it backfired.

[B]

I mean, it also backfired to go. Because that's. That's. The other thing is that to simplify Nine into reality and. And fantasy is a mistake, because it all exists in the same.

[A]

It.

[B]

It exists in the same plane at the same time. Yeah. And you never know where you're going. It could have been a beautiful indie musical, like, you know, Tapestry, like. And yet Rob Marshall put the same smack he did on Chicago, which is like, oh, this goes into her. This is in her mind now. Yeah, this is now in his mind. This isn't. And what the hell were they doing by. In. By putting the Pope scene. What were they actually doing by actually.

[A]

By having the actual.

[B]

Having the Pope.

[A]

I was gonna say because that scene is in the show. It's just. It's guidos doing it alone.

[B]

And who knows? But that's the thing, is that who knows if it actually happens? Who knows if it doesn't? You know?

[A]

Like, that's. I think that is. The problem with the movie is that it is far too literal and too afraid, because the.

[B]

That was my wine glass, by the way.

[A]

Chicago is. I've said this before. I think Chicago is top five best movie adaptations of a stage musical ever.

[B]

Great.

[A]

It's fucking airtight.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

The reason why everything being in Roxy's head makes sense is because all of the songs in Chicago are not diegetic. They don't take place in the world. The whole thing is written Like a vaudeville.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So in order for a movie version to work, you need to create a reality where vaudeville numbers can exist.

[B]

Sure. Agreed.

[A]

And so. And by making it that rock and leaning into the rock, she always wanted to be on stage. And also she disassociates. It all makes sense and actually gives the movie a more emotional pulse than the show ever had.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I love.

[B]

Especially when they go in and out of the moment.

[A]

It's not a bleeding heart, don't get me wrong.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

So suddenly, Seymour, friend of the pod, posted on Facebook the other day, wicked v Chicago, which is the better movie musical. And really, that was Prescott throwing a bone to a bunch of hungry dogs and rubbing their nipples behind the partition and going, that's right, bitches feed. Like, he was absolutely stirring the pot. He didn't genuinely care what people thought. But I texted him, I was like, you know, a lot of dumb people follow you on Facebook. Right. But somebody wrote in the response to that, they were like, wicked, hands down. Like, the nuance, the emotion. Who cried during Chicago? And I. I didn't do it, but I really wanted to write, like, if you cried during Chicago, that's like telling me you watched American Psycho and went, it me like, something's wrong with you if you cry during Chicago.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Chicago is the better movie musical. But it's absolutely. Yeah. Not because you don't cry.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I think with nine, There was an in there in the musical. He's been told, your movie has to be a musical, and he doesn't have an idea.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He can start fishing through his memories of, like, do I have anything that could be a song?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But then do what you're saying, which is like. Like, I think it starts off as a hard, like, cut and paste. Like, the songs are only in his mind as he's trying to figure shit out. But then as the past and present keep blending, as his reality and his.

[B]

Fantasy keep blending, his real world musicalizes. Absolutely. I love that.

[A]

I think that's what it is. And you get someone like a Pedro Almodovar who absolutely should have done it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But it's also hard to find someone these days who understands musicals and understands movies. Because the truth is that I think Rob Marshall does understand musicals. He doesn't understand movies.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

He got so fucking lucky with Chicago. All of them did. Because then Bill Content went on to do Dream Girls, and I think Dream Girls is bumpy. He did the Beauty and the Beast remake, which is flaming hot garbage. I have no faith. I've got no faith in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Oh, I hope to be proven wrong. But like, with Nine, someone's like, oh, could it have been a better. Could it have been good? I don't know if I think that a movie of nine could have been a masterpiece. No, I think it could have been far more fascinating than it currently is. As it stands, I think it is a beautiful looking mess.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I think it is similar to the stage. Like it's. It's fashionable. I think everyone looks gorgeous.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

There. I think there are even some beautiful shots. I don't think all the casting is terrible. There are some people who I'm like, I get why you're in this. You could be doing a good performance. I will also say nine is responsible for one of my favorite teasers of all time. That first teaser with the Fergie B Italian and just nothing but clips of the movie.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

It starts with.

[B]

I remember that.

[A]

It starts with the bell chime and then coming into the studio with Judi Dench talking over it. And then they just do the be Italian. Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember seeing that teaser and I.

[B]

Was like, this is gonna be a masterpiece.

[A]

I'm like, this is gonna win every Oscar.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then foo his. Yeah. If you're ever like, should I watch the movie? Watch that very first teaser. Don't watch any of the other trailers. The other trailers are fine, but the first teaser is a goddamn masterpiece.

[B]

I love. I do love the new song he wrote for. What's her name? Yeah. Cinema Paradisia. No, cinema. Sorry.

[A]

Cinema Italian.

[B]

There we go.

[A]

That's Cinema Paradiso. No, Cinema Italiano was fun.

[B]

That's how memorable it was. The.

[A]

The re edit they do. The one that's not for the movie, but the. Like, they did a pop remix. That one's better than the one in the movie.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because also those lyrics are. They're also kind of dumb.

[B]

I mean, isn't it a take on like, the trouble with Contini is a medium. It's the same beat pattern. Yeah.

[A]

She's. She is playing Stephanie something in the movie, but it's not Stephanie Necropolis because Stephanie Necropolis in the musical is in. Is a European critic who hates Contini and is there to basically be his dramaturg hired by Lillian Lafleur.

[B]

Yes. Right.

[A]

And then in the movie it is. Kate Hudson is an American reporter who's like, oh, my God, I love the fashion.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And Daniel Day Lewis is like the fashion.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.

[A]

Also Daniel Day Lewis I love him and he actually sings better than he gets credit for. He does. But he is so wrong for that role.

[B]

So wrong.

[A]

Because I think the key to finding your right Guido. That's why I'm not. I. You cannot convince me that Pasquale was good in a Kennedy Center. Didn't see it. I'm just telling you, I. I've seen Pasquale and he can be funny, but he's only funny as a heavy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

There's got to be an impishness, I think, to Guido.

[B]

Agreed. And there has to be us. We have to question, like, wait, what? Like, what is it about him that isn't on the surface for me with Antonio?

[A]

So when we watched Raul, we were talking about this before we recorded. We were watching Raul Julia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you said he bothered you far less watching him than when you listened to him on the recording.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Can you speak more on that?

[B]

I mean, well, you know, musically he's not very musical.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

And it could have been the audio on that old, you know. What is it, 81. No, what is it?

[A]

It's 83. 83. 82. 83.

[B]

82. 82 recording.

[A]

It's like the video we watched was done in March of 83. The cast recording was done in the summer of 82.

[B]

Okay. So maybe it was more time that he had with the piece anyways. But I just remember him sounding strained and sounding like not a trained voice. Definitely. Like, you know, he was doing, you know, Kristen Linklater's vocal techniques on, like on a cast album. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like just like barely making the sound and, and shaping his mouth to make it sound like he was singing.

[A]

What I said. Haha, ma.

[B]

Well, when he went on screen, watching him, I was, I, like, I'm, you know, more taken with him as a. As a. As an individual, watching him perform as I am with like just an audible listening. He's not a singer.

[A]

No.

[B]

You know, and, but, but the singing didn't bother me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But also we talked about the fact that he did bother us, watching him not bother us. But he wasn't as full as I thought he was gonna be.

[A]

His Guido is very. Was very reserved and distanced.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I think that's because.

[B]

Calculated.

[A]

And I think that's because it all stems from how Tommy Toon envisioned the production, which was base because again, this is how collaboration works. Right. Like tune gets the recording and he envisions the entire set is this Phoenician spa.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And so he comes up with boxes for all of these women. And Moriestin's like, why did you do that? And Tommy Tune's like, I need things to stage around. He's like, I can't do a. He's like, I'm not Bob Fosse. I hate a bear stage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, I need props and I need objects. It tells me what to do. He's like. And think of it this way. Like, each of these women exist in a bubble in his mind. And so this is him literally compartmentalizing.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And Guido's at the center on this little staircase. And Mauryen looked at it. He's like. Kinda looks like he's a conductor. And Tommy was like, I guess so. And Morriston had already written the overture. And he's like, I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna kind of redo this overture. So it's all voices. And Tommy Toon's like, pop off, sis. Yeah, but that's how. Like, that's how these things kind of happen, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And certain things happen. Like, some songs got inspired by costumes and the costume got inspired by a set piece. Like, it's all that shit.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I also talked about this, by the way, I meant to say this earlier, but in the Follies episode with my dad three years ago, Fellini came to see Follies, the original Hal Prince Follies.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And said to Hal Prince, like, would you consider doing a musical of eight and a half? And Hal Prince was like, I just. Hell, Prince goes, I just did it. That's. That's my eight and a half.

[B]

That's my and a half.

[A]

And I've. And I've since said to people, if you're gonna do Follies, I. It needs to be a Broadway Fellini fever dream. It is not hard. It is not hyper realistic.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It is a black box of memory, trauma and razzmatazz.

[B]

Wow. Yeah.

[A]

And that is. That is what you do. So, like, things pop up out of anywhere. So with. With nine. Sorry. How are we getting. Oh, Raul Julia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think by having Guido in that production is truly the conductor of the production.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because it's not just conducting the overture. He's directing people where to move. He's doing all of these things. And so it makes him, like, constantly on the. Not the attack, but he's always on the angle of, I gotta control this now. I gotta do this now. I gotta move this here now. So he's always just like, a little tired.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And a little withdrawn.

[B]

Well. Because essentially they're all voices in his head.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So he's always trying to sort of like, like, you know, strip this one away, put this one over here, like, move that one aside. He's. The whole show is him allowing certain people to speak and to sing. Yeah. In a way.

[A]

And I wonder if.

[B]

Which is the cacophony at the top of the show.

[A]

Yes, yes. Of all.

[B]

Of all the voices that then he silences.

[A]

He sure does. And then. And with Antonio, what Antonio Banderas Guido was truly was the impishness of. He was a man child and flip flopping between genuinely enjoying the chaos around him because it was a sexy, beautiful chaos of women just constantly grabbing him and kissing him and drowning in flesh.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And eventually just becoming too much. But he really was just like, like this ball of anxiety. What made him. I was thinking about this as I was watching was like, what makes him so sexy in this? Because first of all, he is Antonio Banderas. He's objectively one of the handsomest men to become famous.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But I would even argue 9 is not him in his hottest. I think like him in Evita is his hottest. Because he looks like matinee idol.

[B]

Correct. He's chiseled.

[A]

Break every bone in my body and then treat my wounds. Daddy hotness. Like, he's beautiful, he's gorgeous.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But nine, he's just hot. But he's got like this Caesar crew cut.

[B]

He does.

[A]

I'm like, what is it? And I what it. It came about when he's talking to Cheetah and Benanti's famously licking his lips, which also was just like girl pop off. But. And I. For me, I think maybe it's just my own personal taste with men that I've come to realize is that there are men who have of. It's like a small mouth, but puckered lips. They're just like always naturally in a kiss, ready for kissing.

[B]

Sure, sure, sure.

[A]

And they're not intending it. They're just like naturally there. And it. And it makes you think about it all the time. And you're like, I kind of want.

[B]

To kiss those lips. Right, right.

[A]

I kind of want to see what those lips can do to this part of my body. And you. And you start to question your own sanity. You're like, I don't think they're putting it out there for me to take. But like, it's there. Right? It's there. And that's sort of Antonio the entire time in Nine. Like, even when he's, you know, drowning. You're Like, I. I still kind of.

[B]

Want to go up there, tear him up.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it's just how, how it's. Unfortunately, it's just because of, like, how he's physically built.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But I think that is something to think about when you're casting your guido is he doesn't have to be like, objectively a stunner.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He has to be someone who a can sing.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

He doesn't have to be a lothario. He shouldn't be a heavy. He shouldn't be like a manly man.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

He should be someone with machismo and charisma, but also can channel the boyishness. But ultimately, like, when you watch him, you go, am I thinking about kissing you right now? Like we're talking about your dead dog. And I'm like, I kind of want to kiss you.

[B]

Isn't that funny that though when you put a guido in that who is sort of like Antonio Baneras is like, yes, he wasn't at his hottest, but he's still very good looking when you put someone in like Raoul Julia, who has these quirks. Yeah, he's definitely exotic from. And I hate to use that word, but like, he's definitely, you know, he has a European. He has a flair about him. Yeah. He has some kind of, especially for the early 80s, that sort of like Ricardo Montalban, like, where is he from? You know, But. But then you put like, you put like Anita Morris in that thing and you're like, wait a minute. If she's attracted to him, like, you almost. You almost set him up as this. Like, there's got to be more going on. Yeah, right. He almost. Because he's matched with this absolutely drop dead knockout, gorgeous girl. There's. And she sees something in them. He's obviously more attractive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's the nerd. It's almost like, you know, the nerds are more nerds or the archetype of nerds are more attractive when someone else hotter than them finds them attractive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like, there's that weird thing in our. Our society. I'm not, I'm not retweeting it. I'm just saying, like, it is a thing. It's a trophy thing.

[A]

Well, the hot nerd for men isn't that they're hot. It's that they. They just have something and whatever that something is, some somebody. Something that somebody else can recognize.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I also got to say, when, if you do get a chance to go to the library to watch Nita Morris in nine. Or even look at any photos of her in that outfit. Her body is put together by science.

[B]

Sick. It is sick.

[A]

Not an ounce of fat on her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Listen, you and I could not be more gay. I just need to. But I. I'm saying, this is like, it's. You cannot not talk about it, because she's got a waist that is two inches.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She's got legs that go on for days. She's got the biggest, fattest red hair, and she's got jugs that are the size of cantaloupes and just stay in place.

[B]

And the costume has allowed for that, has built around them.

[A]

Is it. The costume doesn't look like it's holding anything together. The costume looks like they just slipped it on her and it fits. Yeah, it's. The costume is in place because her body is correct.

[B]

She's like Rebecca Rome. Roman Stamo.

[A]

Rebecca Romaine Stamos. Yeah.

[B]

The one in the blue, you know. Oh.

[A]

As Mystique.

[B]

Mystique. You know.

[A]

You know what she looks like? She looks like Margaret Qualy in the substance, but she had prosthetic boobs.

[B]

I'm going. I'm just going in one. Watching this. I just got to go watch.

[A]

You got to watch it. She's got prosthetic boobs in the movie. But, like, again, the way they photograph her in that movie was like, if I could look like that. Not that that. But if someone could photograph me that well for 10 minutes.

[B]

And thus began Matthew's transition with it.

[A]

And thus began the substance to Maddie Cop. But anywho. Okay, let's keep going.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

More discord. We were talking about the movie a little bit. We'd set our thoughts on the movie. Why the fuck did they also.

[B]

I will. I will say that I did go to a screening.

[A]

We know.

[B]

Oh, we're getting there.

[A]

That's a story.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Kevin went into a screening. It's one of my favorite, ballsiest things anyone's ever done. Why would they replace Be on your own in the movie? Who thought that was a good idea? The same people who thought that. So that they should cut the title song from the movie. That. Those same people. Although I did realize Sophia Loren's song, it's like the Bella de Luna or whatever. Whatever that melody is. The melody played underneath Guido's mom's dialogue when she's like, you're gonna die one day.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

That'S in the show. But it's just. It's underscore.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

It's like how Alan Menken took A bunch of underscoring from the Little Mermaid movie and made its songs in the show.

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I also would fight. I mean, not that. Not that I think the movie is good, as you. As. As I've said. But I also think that be on your own is a lyric speaking to Matt's point about Justin lyrics. It's a lyric that just sort of repeats. The only reason it's in the show is to give Louisa that breaking point.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where she musically walks away. And. And if you look at the musical, there's not even a button on the song. It goes right into. Right into the orchestration.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Of her exit. So, I mean, there's applause, but. But only because Tommy Tune had her exit it through the house.

[A]

There wasn't applause at the revival. They went straight.

[B]

Oh, they went straight in. Yeah. Right.

[A]

So, yeah. But I think the applause is based on expectation or how you choose to do it. But, yeah. No, I. I do think be on your own would be very hard to do in a movie. As you said, it's two and a half minutes of the same sentence.

[B]

Same sentence over and over.

[A]

I mean, granted, so is Defying gravity for five and a half minutes before we get to the final verse. Well, but like. But musically, I'll also argue Defying gravity builds each verse.

[B]

It's Schwartz. He knows how to.

[A]

It's the Angeloid Weber effect of that. Each verse is the same. It's just that the orchestration and dynamics have changed a little bit. So you think it's a little different. Exactly. That's what. That's what Webber does, is that he orchestrates the fuck out of his music. Do you have any other composers that. That had a good freshman musical on Broadway? We already said those. Would you rather listen to Judi Dench's Falie Berger or her addressing of Cats? Which one's shorter?

[B]

Oh, God. Exactly.

[A]

No idea. Whichever one's shorter. Jillian, do you prefer the original Tommy Tune staging or the Lavo revival stage? Okay, I have something crazy to say.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Before this week, I was gonna say Tommy Toon. After our viewing of the original and then my viewing of the Lavo one today, I'm gonna say Lavo.

[B]

I'm gonna be honest with you and tell you that I thought Toon directed and choreographed the original. When he didn't. It was Tommy Walsh who did the musical staging.

[A]

Yes, well, he.

[B]

Associate.

[A]

Yeah, they.

[B]

They collaborated.

[A]

They co choreographed the show and Tommy directed. Okay. And that is because there was just no time for Tommy to do everything.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. And Tommy was. Tommy Walsh was also his collaborator for.

[B]

A lot of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's. It's very. It's very Bob Avian, Michael Bennett.

[B]

I mean, listen, the. The. I didn't. I didn't think when we were. Because I hadn't. It's been a while since I've seen the original because on bootleg, but I was surprised at how messy it was.

[A]

Yeah. I think that's because it was a year into the run.

[B]

Okay. Well. And that's why I would also vote with Lavo, because. Because they were. It's tighter.

[A]

It is tighter.

[B]

And shows these days are. Are tighter. I mean, this. This goes into a whole. This goes in a whole diatribe I have about, like, why Chorus Line originally is an actual, like, messy show. And it should be a messy show because it's dancers, dancing things until you get to the line. Yeah. And how Bayork Lee and all those people brought it into this. This distinct, really well paced all. Exact thing that took all of the energy out of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Enhanced revival levels. I didn't feel that, though. About 9, in a way that the messiness aided its storytelling.

[A]

Yeah. The original staging, with all the flair that it does have and the esotericism that it does have, it is a little bit of a. We're feeling our feelings and we're doing our thing. Like, it's. It's a little too. We are artists.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And it's. There's so much gorgeousness to wit. And there are things in the tune staging that are better than the Laveau staging. I would argue. I think that how Toon and Walsh do Folly Berger in the original is better than how Lavo does it in the revival, if only for the Boa alone.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like. Yeah. I'll put it this way. There are pockets where I prefer what Toon and Walsh did.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But the overall effect of the production, I think, was enhanced by the Laveau version. Agreed. The biggest caveat I have is the accents. They don't read them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Just get rid of them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Especially because the whole point of casting Antonio Banderas is the reason why they cast Raul Julia is that they are foreign.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And. Which gives them an exoticism if everyone else is American or American light.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

So, you know, we just. We understand that they're in Italy. We just get it. It's also. It's a show. We just get it.

[B]

Also, like, do a word or here or there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, like, just do a. No.

[A]

Whenever. Whenever somebody Says whenever somebody says a name.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do it. Do the Rachel Zegler on the west side Story press tour, which is whenever you say a name, that's when the accent comes in. And otherwise it's fine.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So when Rachel would be like, so, you know, with my character Maria. Well. And as you know, Ariana Diploma DeBose plays Anita. Right. I'm like, okay, we are here. Yeah, just do that. Just do that. Or do. Or somewhere between that and Clara Johnson trying to speak Italian. And Piazza.

[B]

Somewhere.

[A]

Somewhere in the middle there. Don't do the Jane Gracowski simple. These affairs that touch the heart.

[B]

It's too much.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Or the not convincing anybody. Yes.

[A]

Or Bernanti. Michelle does not. Not distract me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Michelle does not distract me or the teacher. Good. When water is fed by springs from somewhere deep, deep down your. Europe's most exclusive. You don't need to do Linda Muggleston's. Your producer claims you haven't even started it. What are you doing here, Guido?

[B]

You know, it's so funny. I. To bring it back to me. There was a funny Mormon story where we were doing the cast album and. Right.

[A]

You were in the theater. Same theater.

[B]

We were in the same theater and we were doing the cast album. And I did Hitler in hell. And I did. I started a vault, you know, and we. We literally got through the whole thing. And Stephen Remus, like, cut the entire thing off. It was like, thanks for the German accent, Duda. And I was like, I haven't been doing it the whole time. And everyone was like, nope. And I was like, but Hitler's German. And they were like, we were waiting, honestly. Well, it doesn't take. Doesn't take. It couldn't take more than just a cast album that'll live on forever to make you make the right choices.

[A]

That honestly sounds like how Arima should respond to it. Thanks for the German accent.

[B]

Thanks for the German accent, Duda. And I was like, oh, Jesus. Haven't done it yet. Nope. Haven't done it. Nope.

[A]

We were waiting.

[B]

I was like, I was doing it on the inside.

[A]

I thought I was doing it. Next question. Next question. Oh, someone was asking about the 82 Tonys. I'll get there. Lillian Montevecchi, Anita Morris. We. We discussed it. Gonna borrow some basic. Oh, gonna borrow some basic questions from the British Invasion series and the Sondheim series. What is a song you would cut or shorten from the show? I would shorten Folly Bergera.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Can you explain to me why Germans at the spa is in the show? No.

[B]

So that's funny. It's. This is the first time in watching it that I was like, wait, why is this here? And I was like, okay, so it's so I. I feel in the sort of 70s, 80s of musical theater writing, there was a lot of, like, let's give this character a break. Meet, you know, ways of putting the show together. It also. We needed an up tempo. We need an up tempo at that moment, but it's just so darn long.

[A]

It is. It's also a song that has nothing to do with Guido, which is, in some ways, is nice, where you're like, oh, we have the women doing something that has nothing to do with him. But it's also like, if we're being correct to the viewpoint of this show, it's all got to be in his world.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The only reason to keep it is that it's the beginning of the overture.

[B]

Right. Exactly. Right. But I also think. I'm sure Yeston has a story of, like, oh, that's one of the first songs I wrote. And it was gonna go this different way. He was gonna make a German, you know, whatever. Document. I don't know, like, whatever.

[A]

I'm sure there's also a historical context of, like, Germany, Italy.

[B]

Correct. Germans, like, vacationing in Italy. Yeah.

[A]

There's a. They have a line about that in the movie. It's like. It's one of the few lines that actually gets a laugh in the. The movie is when Penelope Cruz shows up at the station to be there with Guido, and she's like, I haven't been here since I was a girl. You know, 20 years ago, it was full of Germans. I saw that movie three times because I famously need to see movie musicals more than once to decide if they're good or not.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And. And all three times I saw nine. That line always got a laugh. And part of it's because it's funny, and part of it is because Penelope Cruz is objectively the best thing in that movie.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I will say her Oscar nomination, in my opinion, well deserved.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Who would you cast in the show? Okay.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

I don't know who I would cast, male wise.

[B]

I'd have to think about that. Gosh.

[A]

Because they just did the Kennedy center, and I really thought everyone was wrong for it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I actually thought that also.

[B]

Didn't they make it? Sorry.

[A]

When they were like, oh, Elizabeth Stanley's in it. I'm like, oh, she'll be a fun Carla. And they're like, she's Louisa. And I Went, yeah, I know. Say what now?

[B]

Yeah, Right, right. And I did see the clips from that. I was amazed that. Well, not amazed.

[A]

Who did it was Andy Blankenbuehler.

[B]

Right.

[A]

How he was able to find pop and locking in nine.

[B]

Correct. It became like a dance piece.

[A]

Yeah. Having dancers during My Husband Makes Movies is dumb.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I think. Yeah. Well, let's just say it.

[B]

It's. It's not a good choice.

[A]

I know. He said three times.

[B]

Different.

[A]

It's different and it's wrong. It's different and it's wrong. You know, it's also different and wrong. Making Louise's final strip in Gypsy a dance piece also different and wrong. Oh, God. I'm just saying it.

[B]

Here we are.

[A]

And I'm not a fucking originalist.

[B]

Face a couple of silver spoons. All right, go ahead.

[A]

Keep silver spoons. I'm not an originalist. I'm not. Like, it's got to be done like how it's like, look at the fucking context.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The whole point of Gypsy Rose Lee is that she was a. She took stripping in burlesque and made it. It an art form and made herself nationally famous. And her whole point was that she spoke to the audience. She led with intelligence and her vocabulary and her humor. And you're gonna take that away from her because you are like, well, Josephine Baker. And we have a black Louise.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I'm like, okay, cool, Right? That's a post it note on the dramaturgy board.

[B]

She also took her mother's line and transformed it.

[A]

She took her sister's line.

[B]

Her sister's line. Right. Her mother's line for her sister and transformed it. Yes, yes.

[A]

It's.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

I've already. I've already talked about this at this point, but I'll say it again because it needs to be said. I know that that section was not in the 1959 original staging. A lot of things weren't that are still in this revival. I don't know why they would cut it. When Rose, impulsively, through just sheer instinct, shouts to Louise from off stage, say something. And the first thing out of Louise's mouth is just, hello. And then realizes that they're all paying attention. She's like, oh, when I speak, they listen.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then she uses June's line, and because of her own intelligence is like, I think I can flip this on its head.

[B]

Yep. I'm gonna own them.

[A]

And that is where she stops being meat behind a partition, and she becomes in control.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they cut it, Kevin. They cut it I'm right here. I hate it. I hate things. Oh, stupid. Things are stupid. Like making my husband makes movies into a dance piece. I don't know. It's hard to say. Like, who I would want for Carl. Can we. You know what? Let's play. No, let's do this game. Throughout history, who we would cast.

[B]

Oh, that's even harder.

[A]

Okay. Okay. If we're allowed to include dubbing, can I talk about who I would cast in a movie version of dubbing?

[B]

Yeah, of course.

[A]

So Carla and Margaret.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Around circuit. Cardinal Knowledge.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Although she can. I think she can sing it. We'll have Marni Nixon do the high C at the end.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Claudia. Audrey Hepburn, dubbed by Barbara Cook. I'm really thrilled with this.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Actress Louisa.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Ann Bancroft, dubbed by Rosemary Clooney. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. Am I fucking nailing this?

[B]

This is. Yes.

[A]

And then.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know who's. Who's original? Guido. Marcelo.

[B]

Yes. Marcello.

[A]

Or no, actually.

[B]

What?

[A]

Fuck it. No, fuck it. Well, let's do Antonio. We're going. All throughout history, we're combining these things. It's all in my head.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Antonio's going to be my. My Guido. But Antonio, two years before, doing it on Broadway, minus the Caesar.

[B]

Cut.

[A]

Lillian Dafleur. What about, like, Leslie Caron?

[B]

Julio Iglesias. If he could act.

[A]

No. Because he's too much of a bottom.

[B]

Her. I guess.

[A]

He doesn't have lips that you want to kiss. He's got an ass you want to kiss.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And listen, I'm sure there are plenty of guidos out there who you want to, you know, eat out, but it's got to start with the mouth.

[B]

Right?

[A]

That's where he's pitching you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I maintain Leslie Caron around like maybe the 1980s is Lillian LaFleur.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Mama. Who do you want as mama?

[B]

Diane Carroll would also be a fantastic, fantastic Lillian Leffler.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Let's do her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Leslie Uggams.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

Can Diane Carroll get freaky enough?

[B]

The trouble with continuous.

[A]

No, here's what it is. No. Leslie Ugams is Lillian. Diane Carroll is Stephanie.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Because Diane Carroll was on Dynasty and Stephanie Necropoulos would be on Dynasty.

[B]

Dynasty, Correct.

[A]

Okay, then you want Leslie Caron is Mama.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And it doesn't matter if Mama's French and Guido is Spanish, but they're somehow in Italy. This is my world, damn it. Oh, God. And I'll say it. I'm gonna keep.

[B]

I'm gonna keep. You're gonna keep Fergie.

[A]

As. As. As Sarah. Gina. I thought she did a good job.

[B]

Great.

[A]

Yeah, she was great. But let's get a better choreo for it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. I want. What. I want to do the costumes. I want Edith Head to do the cost costumes. No, that going to go weird. I want. Who's. What's. Who's the. Who did Dracula? Bram Stoker's Dracula. She won the Oscar for it.

[B]

She.

[A]

It's. It's. I'm going to up her name. I know I am, but it's okay. You know what I'm talking. Bram Stoker's Dracula with white. With Winona Rider and Gary Oldman.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you not remember those costumes?

[B]

No.

[A]

They're some of the best costumes of all time.

[B]

I've never.

[A]

Francis ford Coppola wanted 50% of the budget to just be the costumes. And he was like, the rest of it's gonna be like shadows and dark corners, like on a soundstage. And the studio was like, we are giving you 40American million dollars.

[B]

And he was like, we're giving you.

[A]

40 million American dollars to make this movie. It's not just gonna be costumes and shadows. You're gonna build sets and you're gonna like it. Where is it, Han? I gotta find. I gotta find the role.

[B]

God, who else? But, you know, like, on that. On that. Like, on that token, who would be, like, the most incredible?

[A]

Eiko Ishioka. Eiko Ishioka. That's who did the costumes for Dracula. She also did Spider Man. She did a whole bunch of other stuff. She did Mirror, Mirror and the Cell. She's who I'd want to do costumes for a movie version of Nine.

[B]

All right. Yeah, all right.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We need it. We still need a better guido, though.

[A]

You don't want Antonio.

[B]

Antonio.

[A]

Okay, fine, fine. No, keep in mind you're allowed to dub, but you have to tell me who the singing voice is.

[B]

Okay. God. Pascal. Pedro.

[A]

Pedro. Pascal.

[B]

Pedro. Pascal.

[A]

Maybe I.

[B]

Why do we keep. Why do we keep choosing Latin men? For an Italian. For an Italian.

[A]

No, I'm gonna. Fine. Fuck it. I'll go even ballsier. Tom Finney. Albert Finney circa Tom Jones.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Albert Finney circa Tom Jones. Okay, with this dubbed by God, Who's a good bariton? Brian Stokes Mitchell? There. There we go. There we go. We got it. We have our movie and our lady.

[B]

It's like we chose pieces of paper out of a grab bag.

[A]

And our lady of the spa is played by Jennifer Lopez, so she can come on on screen and go Every girl in Venice isn't loving as an Uber.

[B]

And throw in two Spanish words.

[A]

Yep. And Winona Ryder is going to be. Your producer claims you haven't even started it. All right. How would you personally rate the show from 1 to 10?

[B]

9. 9.

[A]

I think I'd rate the show on its own. An 8. With a great team and cast, it can get up to like a 9.9.5.

[B]

Agreed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

With some cuts, it could be. It could really score higher. It does need trims. And that's what I was telling you the other day was like. When we watched that, when we watched the Lincoln center, when we watched it, I was like, oh, this. I'm now in a place where I'm sitting and literally watching for research. And so I'm able to sort of discern the moment. So I'm like, oh, cut that, cut that, cut that. Yeah, you know, we don't need that. We don't need that. And this. What did the show run, like, 242? 245.

[A]

No, no, because act one. Act two is so short. Act one action runs about an hour and 20. Act two runs about 45.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

It's craziness.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I. I think I already said it on my cure, but I was so thrown with both productions that I watched that they clocked in at almost exactly the same, considering that the revival cut Germans at the Spa, cut the Tarantella, and also felt like all the scenes and songs were going faster than the original.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And yet it still clocked in at the same time. I don't know how it happened.

[B]

Who's the music of the revival? Oh, Kevin Stites. Right. Did Stites, music director, revival? I think he did.

[A]

I'm gonna say yes, I think he did. Who would be your dream director, creative team for this show? I don't have one for none.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

I don't have a single director I would trust with this.

[B]

I. What would a. What would a Julie Taymor 9 look like?

[A]

Insane.

[B]

Right? Yeah. But also, like, I would also. Six hours long. Yeah.

[A]

I would be not having. So, okay, I'll actually. I'll say this. With Kimberly Akimbo and Water for Elephants, I would be interested to see Jessica Stone.

[B]

Yeah, I would too. Yeah. Because. Interesting.

[A]

With Kimberly Akimbo, she. She's proven she's great with actors and she can hone a script. And then Water for Elephants, she proved she has a visual imagination.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I'm interested to see what she does with that.

[B]

I also think, listen, and this is. I mean, you know, I'd also love to see what, like a Stroman could do with nine now that she's sort of graduated to. Oh, no, not that.

[A]

What Aerostruman now? Aero Strawman. No, no, the Strawman that's about to give us Smash and just gave us woman. Phenomenal. Yes. Let's see what she could do.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like not the woman who gave me left on 10th. No, no, not her. Next question as a potential answer to four is a Jamie. Is a Jamie Lloyd nine something? God, I hope not. Oh, no, that man does not. Should not touch nine with the ten foot pole.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

You don't. You do not give nine to indulgent artists.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

You give indulgent artists dumb. And watch them make that dumb fun.

[B]

I mean, I would watch a musical of Jamie Lloyd making a musical of nine, though, because it. Ostensibly, it's the same thing.

[A]

I would watch a Jamie Lloyd Paradise Square.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

That's why I'm enjoying. His son said. I'm like, give me a musical I give less than two shits about. Yeah, and give it to Jamie. Give it to Jamie Lloyd to fuck it up the ass. Yeah, yeah, I will watch that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But no, don't give him something I think is actually solid.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Cloud nine has. Have Cloud nine have worked if they didn't. Could nine have. Sorry. Could nine have worked if they didn't do the. All the numbers are in Guido's head approach. We already talked about that.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

That'S it. Those are all the questions from the Discord. We'll do one more break and then we're talking about the moment you were ballsy. And we're going to talk a little bit about the origins of how the show actually even fucking happened. So let's take that last break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. And we're back. Okay, so the story of how nine came to be in, like, the whole battle with Dream Girls is pretty, like Broadway famous.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Nine v Dream Girls. There are certain Tony years where it's always like, okay, which one? Are you sure? Nine v Dreamgirls, Grand Hotel v. City of Angels. Ironically, both Tommy 2 and Moriestin shows, right. There are a couple other ones. I'm always. I'm usually the underdog boy. So when people are like, Avenue Qv Wicked. I'm Like Caroline.

[B]

Well, correct. Right, Exactly. Right. Right.

[A]

I'm Grey Gardens versus Spring Awakening.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Trying to think what are like some other really big, like going head to headers.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

Oh. Like Sunday v. LA Cage into the Woods v. Titanic. No, that was Ragtime, Ragtime, Ragtime Lion King. Yeah, that was Titanic v. The Life, which was more like. Oh, yeah. That was everyone going. Yeah, that was people going, we like the Life on paper.

[B]

Yeah. Right, right.

[A]

But then we saw it and we really can't defend it.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And then Titanic was them being like, well, there's not a lot to hate here.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

There's not much to love, but there's not enough to hate.

[B]

Then the night. The night that you went, did the set work. That was the biggest thing.

[A]

Listen, Titanic deserved to win best musical that year for Vicky Clark's first class passenger roster.

[B]

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. She must be somebody.

[A]

No one really knows who she is. But. So, like, there are other ones as well. Chorus Line versus Chicago.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Nine versus Dreamgirls is probably the number one because there's. There's strength in both answers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And there's. There are flaws in both answers.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Neither show is perfect.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I think they actually have a lot of the same strengths. It's like they both have scores that.

[B]

Fuck.

[A]

They both are famous for their design and their staging.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And their central performance.

[B]

Iconic. Right.

[A]

And they both are clocked for the second act. Falling apart.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

One has a slightly better movie than the other, I would argue. Not as good as people like to pretend it is. But it is better than the other.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

So with Nine. So Dream Girls obviously, like comes into town that December of 81 and it's a big old titty hit.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And nine was. They sort of threw together this workshop around the same time that Dream Girls opens. They do it on the roof of the New Amsterdam Theater.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And they do the presentation for the Shuberts and the Nederlanders. And Paramount. Paramount backs out, but Fellini gives the okay on the rights.

[B]

And they replace the book writer.

[A]

They replace the book writer.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And the Nederlanders come in and take it. And they are able to raise enough money by like late February, early March. And Whorehouse just closed at the 46th Street Theater. And they're like, we don't have enough money to go out of town. We have just enough money to open this fucker. So they're coming in and word from the workshop is like, nine's good. Yeah, it's not great. It's Good. But the thing is that the only other two shows that year were Punt Boys and Dinettes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That classic. And Joseph, which was everyone sort of being like, okay, yeah, like, Evita was a hit and everyone was okay with it. And Joseph was sort of like, the Andrew Lloyd Rubber is not a threat. It's fine. This is cute.

[B]

Let him run.

[A]

Exactly. But then something happened on Broadway, which is known as the Great Broadway massacre of 81 or 82, where they tore down like five Broadway theaters to build the Marriott Hotel. And they were all Shubert theaters, Right. So the Shuberts were Persona non grata in the theater community. And nobody was liking how cocky they were being about Dream Girl being the hit and being the front runner. So nine opens to respectful reviews. Not rave reviews, but respectful reviews. And, like, that press team was working their asses off to get it out there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

There's a story in the book, in Michael Riedel's book of how, like, they had, like, they. They basically before even they moved into the theater, they're like, we need to start promoting this thing now. We've got 21 women who are all fuckable. And, like, we're gonna get them in costume, we're gonna photograph them. And Tommy Tune's like, william Ivy Long hasn't even fit. Finished sketching. Yeah. And the producer, like, they go into like, not Joanne, but like a bar. And she drops down like the one the publicist drops down, like 21 cocktail napkins. She's like, draw. And really might be Long finishes them all that night. She's like, now. So when's the photo shoot? Two weeks. That's not enough time. Make it enough time. It's like, it was. It's very like this old school Broadway. Like, we there. You have no choice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it was his first Broadway gig.

[B]

We've got the barn. Yeah, get the. Get the trunk.

[A]

Exactly. It was. It's. It's Mickey saying the barn is open and Judy's being like, but I'm not ready. Like, well, then get ready. I love it. I love that kind of shit.

[B]

Yeah, it's.

[A]

It's trial by fire. And so they get all the costumes. It's all done. They do a 23 hour photo shoot. The. Oh, but they didn't have Anita Morris's costume yet, so they just had like a glamour shot of her. Of course, they post these. The photos of all these women across the theater. The story goes is that the day the photos went up, there was a traffic jam on 46th street because all of the Delivery drivers kept stopping by the theater as they were driving to see them.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

I love it. But so they, they opened the show after like two weeks of previews. They joked like the paint was still wet when Frank Rich came to see the show. You could smell the fumes. They opened as respect. They also opened the night before the Tony nominations. So they open on May 9, the last, absolute last day of eligibility. So they're already making headlines of like the last show of this, of the year. Nominations come out the next day. I think they tied with Dreamgirls for nominations. And again the Shubertz and Dream Girls are walking around all Tony season going, we're winning. It's us, it's us, it's us. And because they're like, we gave you the hit of the year. Aren't you thrilled?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And nine is like, come on. Yeah, you like us. And like pulling all these stunts and like just flare upon flare upon flare. And ultimately the two things that did it in were the Shuberts having a helping hand in the Broadway massacre. And the idea of voting for the show that you think doesn't have a shot.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It is.

[B]

That needs, that needs the Tony to, to maintain it is always my.

[A]

It's the thing I've said of like, if enough people think to themselves, everyone's voting for Dream Girls. I'm gonna vote for 9. I liked it more.

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

That's. That's how Anthony Hopkins beats Chadwick Boseman at the Oscars.

[B]

Right, right. Is the tale of like, everyone's gonna do this, so why my vote won't count.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's. It's the tale of Ruthie and Miles winning for King and I.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

When she, when she was dubbed, like fourth on the list of like, of likelihood.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's ultimately what happened. They split the diff. And listen, Dream Girl still kind of walks away with a four year run and the multiple national tours and like, honestly the bigger Broadway legacy. But Nine has the Tony. And that's, that's the 82 discussion of like it is about. There is a lot of campaigning in it. There is a lot, lot of likability in it. It's rare when a show is just so undeniably good that you have to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

There have been years.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know all that. I didn't. You just, I just, just was silent because I didn't know all the.

[A]

Oh, really? No, Yeah.

[B]

I mean, I didn't know all the. I didn't know the sort of triangle Effect of all those things happening at the same time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

All of it all makes sense.

[A]

Yeah. And if you watch the Tonys, there's two specific things that give you clues into all this. One is one of the presenters is presenting the word, and you hear, like, a little boom in the back. And he goes. He does a jolt and he's like, don't tell me they're tearing this one down too. And gets a huge. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, hilarious.

[A]

And then they get. Get to director of a musical, and the guy's opening the envelope and you can't hear it, but someone in the audience shouts, dreamgirls. And so the presenter is responding, goes, dream Girls, big mouth on you. But you don't hear the person saying it. So you just hear him say Dreamgirls for a second, but he's not announcing it.

[B]

He's like.

[A]

He's going, dream Girls, big mouth on you. But then he opens it and goes, nine.

[B]

So. Ha ha, ha, ha. Interesting.

[A]

Yeah. Because the way it went was Dreamgirls won lighting, choreography, actor, actress, supporting actress and book.

[B]

Right.

[A]

A9.1. Director, featured actress, costumes, and score.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So Dream Girls had two more than nine before they got to best musical. So, like, in a way, it looked like Dreamgirls had it locked. But that's where I'm like, it's. It's very rare when a musical wins director and score and not musical.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think I can count on one hand, one hand, the number of shows that have won score and book and director and not best musical. I'm pretty sure I'm just talking year in town.

[B]

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

[A]

There have been a couple times where score and book have been one. But not musical.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's when. When stuff's happened this year. Yes, I did. I did a Tony episode.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[A]

Everyone's like, how could you Inscure and Brick but not musical. And I'm like, oh, how little our memories are. It's happened before.

[B]

It's happened many times. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Falsettos v. Crazy for you.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

Ragtime v. Lion King.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Parade v. Fosse. Urinetown v. Millie. Drowsy v. Chaper. Drowsy Chaperon v. Jersey Boys. I have more.

[B]

More.

[A]

I have more on the 20th century V. Ain't Misbehavin. This is just off the top of my head.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I know. I'm crazy. Woods v. Phantom.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

There's definitely one more, and I can't think of it. Why.

[B]

Impressive, though.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Very impressive.

[A]

Thank you. And then there also shows for, like, that Split score and book and something else. One musical.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like Secret Garden and Will Rogers Folly split book and score and then. Oh, sorry. No, I take that back. That was one where Will Rogers Folly's one musical, but Piazza wins score. Spelling bee wins book. Spamalot wins musical, but Spamalot also won director.

[B]

Right. Yes.

[A]

Well, that whole thing was dumb. Shouldn't have won either. We know this. Nichols knew that.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

He even said so to speech. He was like, this is a career award, and I will take it as far as I can run with it.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Which wasn't far. He died five years later. Oh, no. Eight years later.

[B]

Good documentary on him, though.

[A]

Great book on him.

[B]

Great book on him.

[A]

Love that book by Tony Kushner's husband. My lord.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

No, Mike Nichols is amazing. And I. I just. Because he would have found it funny.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Those were all the discord things we talked about, the Tony thing. I guess now's the moment where we mention Kevin's balls.

[B]

Oh. Oh, drop it. Hanging out. So. Yes. So I. So I told you the story. And it was after I. I was invited. I don't even know how I was invited to a screening of Nine at. It was at the. It was on Broadway at the. The Paramount building. At some. Some reason, I got invited to a screen. A screening of Nine and we all showed up there. We all just signed these. Sign these, you know, non disclosures or whatever they were. And we all walked in and we. I was so excited because it was, you know, one of my favorite musicals, if not the. And so I sat down and the thing started. And at the end of the movie, I remember we sort of like. I was like, oh, that was not good. But then the lights came up and there was Harvey Weinstein and Rob Marshall. And they had walked in or they maybe actually, you know what it was. Someone at the front was like. It wasn't like they were there there. It wasn't like they just appeared. Someone was like, ladies and gentlemen, hope you enjoyed it. We're actually going to do a talk back now, and we want to hear your thoughts because we're still in the edit. And it was either that person that said it, or they introduced Harvey and they introduced Rob. And then maybe Rob was like, I really. I'm very much interested in, you know, your reactions. And so one person was like, I didn't understand the scene where so and so happened or, you know, whatever. Or like. Or I didn't like the scene on the Italian coast because the colors looked up. You Know whatever they were to. Trying to get specific. And I raised my hand. I was like, you should cut the scene with the Pope. It just doesn't work. I don't understand why you have it in there at all. And Rob Marshall was speechless. I mean, they were like, okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Like, it was almost like they wanted to hear praise questions. Like, I really loved what you did with that scene. Like, you know, more of that, as opposed to, like, why would you. Why would you put a scene with the Pope in the actual thing? Like, that doesn't make any sense. It's not. It's not part of the show. Not part of his show at all, really. It's a blip on the radar in the. In the musical.

[A]

Yeah. And the tone of it in the musical is so much more different. And they even cut the final line. That is the whole purpose of it.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Where he says, like, I feel like I see the devil everywhere. And he goes, well, my son, if you see the devil there, that means you have as equal a chance of seeing an angel.

[B]

Right, Right. And it's wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[A]

Just.

[B]

Just is. Yeah.

[A]

Well, also, like. But again, when you. If you. If you get a chance to watch the original, it is done very oddly. It's not done like the pope scene. The pope scene.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

[A]

It's not done in, like, super comical way. It gets a laugh with the try harder line. But ultimately what it is, is, like, it. The stage is dark with a spotlight on rell of Julia with his alien face.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Doing both voices. And when he's doing the Pope, he's doing this, like, Linda Blair and Exorcist whisper.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Yeah. I don't love that.

[A]

It's creepy. It's very creepy. And then Antonio Banderas, he's doing it back and forth with this plastic chair, and it's played slightly for laughs, but it's not super comical. He has a couple lines. It's more about the inner conflict of him. As you said, part of. You could question, is this even happening? Because the lady of the spa is also. Is like, in a weird way, you could argue if she's even real or not. She's talking to the audience. But is she just like a manifestation of everyone there, of what's being said there?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Of the. Of the legacy of the spot in general. And it's just sort of our conduit. Yeah. Our liaison.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Into. Into this part of. Of his life. I'm just like, giving up. Giving us exposition in A way that is Fellini esque.

[B]

Right, right. Or, you know, and. And then on top of that, is every woman in this show just a physical manifestation of what he thinks other.

[A]

People want from him or how he imagines other people to be?

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Yeah, right, right. All of the fans, all of the enemies, all of the lovers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because he loves it. He. He's. He's that person we all hate in life who's like, don't make me sing. You know, But. But here I am.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know?

[A]

Well, it's. It's the. I don't want this job, but why don't you want me to have it?

[B]

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

[A]

It's. It's the. It's my joke about gay men, which is that I don't like you, and I've never liked you and I will never like you. But you like me, right?

[B]

Oh, gay men.

[A]

Oh, gay men. I was like.

[B]

And I do Matthew.

[A]

Oh, Kia, thank you so much. Who would you cast me as a nun if we were. If we were to do a gay nine, which is just 9.75.

[B]

I mean, I.

[A]

Nine and three fingers.

[B]

I feel like I'm gonna cut that off. I feel like. I feel like I'd want to see a bunch of different things from you. I'd want to see your. Your Carla for sure. Like, it would be fun. You would just. You'd be really funny as it. But I ultimately think. Think that you are a Claudia.

[A]

I guess I think I project Claudia to people who don't know me, and then they get to know me and they're like, are you actually just Lillian LaFleur in the body of a Louisa? Which is uncastable. But I have the voice of a Claudia. I do have the voice of a fucking angel. I sing very nicely. You do.

[B]

You also have that, like. You also have that quiet, calm strength that she. That.

[A]

That.

[B]

That is needed for someone in that. In that. You know, in that chair.

[A]

Listen, if Benanti will give me that white coat, I'll fucking do it. Actually, no, that's a fun one. I want to do this as a fun exercise with. This will never happen.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It should never happen. It goes against the whole point of the show.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Of who are women, what are women to any. To men and women, what are. And you know, what is it that men think women are at all?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But let's do a gender reverse nine, because I want it. And this is my podcast.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So let's talk about walking, charisma, sex, fuckboy, energy For a woman. Is that like a Jen Colella energy? But not Jen Colella, because I don't think she's correct.

[B]

Let's see. How about. I mean, Sarah Gettlefinger in the day sure would have been. Sorry, Sarah. I don't mean in the day in.

[A]

The day, but you know what we mean.

[B]

I know what you mean.

[A]

Yeah. Like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. You know who I want?

[B]

Who?

[A]

Heather Headley.

[B]

Well, on in that realm. How about Sharon Renee Scott? Like, I mean, Sherry Scott would.

[A]

I was thinking Sherry, too. I didn't know. I didn't know if I was allowed to say.

[B]

She's strong. No, she's strong. She's sexy. She's got the hoods, but she's also got the. She can play a lot. I would think. I would think she would be fantastic.

[A]

Yeah, I think it. If you're good. If we're good. Okay. This is what I'm doing for our. For our gender bank casting.

[B]

Great.

[A]

Whoever we cast as our female guido, we have to be able to clock three women roles they could have played at some point in their careers in the show. Yeah. So, like, with Sherry, obviously, like, Louisa at one point, I think she could have been a Carla early in her career.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

A Stephanie Necropolis.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

She's currently in her Lily and Lafleur era of, like, fuck around and find out.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

She's. She. She doesn't have a sopranos, but, like, 10, 20 years from now could have been Mama if she. If she wanted to. She doesn't have the notes, but you know what I mean, like, has that energy. Heather, I think, is a Louisa. Stephanie Necropolis, even. I'll fucking say it. Like, if we're doing a Jamie Lloyd production, a Claudia.

[B]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[A]

Her. My house for Matilda is fucking stunning. And everyone should listen to it at some point. Okay, so between Heather and Sherry, it's the Aida gals. Which of them.

[B]

I mean, I. I still choose Sherry. Okay, we'll do Sherry because I feel like she has a more. I've seen more shades from her.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So then let's cast our. Our boys.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Louisa.

[B]

Oh, gosh. Okay. Louise is going to be strong. Has a. Has a loyalty.

[A]

I dropped in this.

[B]

Yes. How about, like.

[A]

What do we think of, like, a Santino? Yeah, I think.

[B]

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I would go with that.

[A]

Do you want to go with that or is that like, our jumping off point?

[B]

Point. Gosh. Who else? I mean, I'm trying to think of, like. Like Clena sort of has like a. A.

[A]

Is he old enough for that yet?

[B]

No, maybe not. Maybe not.

[A]

Well, that's. That's what I think.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Sherry's arquido.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

But let's. Okay. Sherry's playing. Let's say she's playing 48. 40. 40. 40 to 48.

[B]

48.

[A]

40 to 48.

[B]

What a span. Yeah.

[A]

That'S the other thing is, like, we have to remember that Guido's supposed to be 40.

[B]

Correct, correct. And we can't cast this with 20s, is that what you're saying? Yeah, she can. Let's know.

[A]

She can have a 29 year old, Carla.

[B]

She can.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

I mean, where does John Groff fit?

[A]

Groff is probably a Claudia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would say that no person exists. That's what he would say as Claudia. No such person exists. He's either. Yeah, no, that he's. He's Claudia, which makes me our lady of the spa.

[B]

Done.

[A]

And I would say.

[B]

Carla, this is tough because, like, I don't know, like.

[A]

Well, because. Because what we're doing is we're taking men and repurposing them.

[B]

I understand for.

[A]

No, but what I'm saying, this is why it's tough, though.

[B]

Right, Right. We're. Right, because we're boiling down men to characteristics where we only actually boil down women to. In casting.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I'm not saying I do that. I'm just saying, like, as a. As a society, that's how we do it.

[A]

But this is. This is the first. This is the first step towards progress, Kevin.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Is us doing this.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

I hope everyone at Telse is listening to this right now. I hope they are. And I hope that they remember this when they start recasting Wicked in the future.

[B]

So how about, like, I feel like Carla's got to be like, our favorite ensemble guy who hasn't gotten a shot, but who's built like a brick house, totally sexy and.

[A]

No, yeah, no, I'm saying, like. I'm saying, like, is that a Clayton or is that a. Oh, yeah, that would be like a Casey Garvin or.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I would go for either one of those.

[A]

I don't really know either of them as an individual performer. I know them as social media and I know that they dance.

[B]

Yes. Clay would be. Clayton would be fun.

[A]

Max Clayton.

[B]

Max Clayton. Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Max Clayton is Carla then, or also who's the. Who's the guy who was. Who was in the company revival? Who was. Oh, gosh.

[A]

Oh, Clayborne Elder.

[B]

Claybourne Elder Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. He's him. Yeah. Yeah. I think part of me wants someone who's, like, super toned, but, like, I. I partly want to say the needle more is like limberiness.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. True.

[A]

And I'm sure that Clayborne is. I. Just because Mary and Elliot didn't have him do the splits doesn't mean he can't. Clayborn could do it.

[B]

Yeah, Right. Right.

[A]

And I think. Yeah. I think I'll. I'm gonna go with Clayborne just because I'm a little more familiar with his individual personality than I am with Max.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But, yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Okay, Mama. I'm gonna say.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

George Hearn. Is he still alive?

[B]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[A]

Okay. No, no, I take it back.

[B]

Too much. Too much.

[A]

I take it back. I'm sorry. Michael. Rupert. No, I take it back. Stephen Bogardus. Now, I'm just going through the falsettos, men.

[B]

Cerberus would be a decent, like, kind of mutt, like, figure that we gotta recast.

[A]

Sherry.

[B]

I know. That's true. That's true, girl.

[A]

Like, then we gotta go 10 years younger.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Okay. How about at this point, we might.

[A]

As well just have Q&CP?

[B]

God.

[A]

Victor Garber.

[B]

I will take.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I'll take a Victor.

[A]

Okay. Victor Garber is Mama.

[B]

Great. Louisa.

[A]

Well, we said sent.

[B]

Oh, we said Santino.

[A]

Did we? But we didn't lock that in. That was more like think Santino.

[B]

Right, right, right, right.

[A]

Her opposite Sherry. Nick Christopher. Because he's playing opposite her now. Norbert.

[B]

What about.

[A]

Oh, no, I know. It's too on the nose.

[B]

I'm cheating. You cheat. I'm old. I need to look at people I know.

[A]

I hear you, baby.

[B]

Oh, Lord. How about. What about. Like, do we think Josh Henry is too.

[A]

He's a little too forceful for me for that.

[B]

Like.

[A]

No. You know, it is. It's Brian d' Arcy James.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

That's great. That's. That's our Louisa.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

And age appropriate for Sherry.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Love it. I would actually have Joshua Henry as Sarah. Gina. Because I think he would sing the fucking Jesus out of. Of be Italian.

[B]

How about Ben Walker? Is he old enough to be Sher. Renee Scott's husband? Ben Walker. He was American Psycho. Yeah.

[A]

Not husband. No.

[B]

He's almost more Claudia than anything.

[A]

Yeah. He's 10 years ago. I say 10 years ago. He's a Claudia.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I'm trying to think of a Saragina and a Lily and LA Flu. We don't want Josh Henry for Sarah Guinea.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

That's no racist.

[B]

Josh Henry could be. Josh Henry could be.

[A]

No Stephanie Necropolis.

[B]

No, everyone's Stephanie. Everyone who we can't cast is Stephanie Necropolis.

[A]

He can't be Our lady of the Spa because that's me.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

He can be. He can be the blonde woman who goes. Does your wife know you're traveling with this woman? That's Joshua.

[B]

How about. How about like a Christian Borl. As. As a. As a Lillian Lefleur.

[A]

I was thinking Christian or even Norbert.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or no. No. You know what I want? I want him to channel his Adolfo energy again and get Danny bursting.

[B]

Perfect. I love it. I'm sold.

[A]

But he has to be in his Adolfo wing. Yes.

[B]

Done. Done. I love that idea.

[A]

We forget how funny that man is.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Adolfo is incredible.

[B]

I went to. I went to a. I went to an Equity Awards event where he hosted and it was probably the stand up of the century. It was like the best thing ever.

[A]

He's amazing.

[B]

He's so fun.

[A]

He's amazing. And. And just, just about everything he does.

[B]

Everything.

[A]

Yeah, just about everything.

[B]

Okay, heard. Okay, so we just have a Sarah. We have just Sarah. Geena. I wonder.

[A]

I want someone rich in. In energy and voice and body.

[B]

Well, also like that is the perfect casting as we're looking at dei. Like that would be the perfect casting for someone who is non gender conforming as well.

[A]

Sure. You know, Jay would be wonderful.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

Although again. Well, does Jay give Earth mother or does Jay give cloudmother? I feel like Jay's very much like a. I'm gonna sit on this cloud and let you do your business.

[B]

Yes. And look. Yeah, true.

[A]

Not looking down more just sort of like I'm. I'm tired and busy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Jay's very pick on the hand flying out and serving you the lightest pizza roll. It's a. That's right. If Mary Stuart Masterson's very big on the. Like I'm jerking off the air as I sing because I don't know what to do with my hands. Jay Harrison G is. Is. I'm serving you a little pizza roll as I sing. But I'm.

[B]

I just recast you as Stephanie Necropolis.

[A]

No, I'm our Lady of the spa.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

That's fine.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

That's fine.

[B]

You can be our lady of the spa.

[A]

If it means I get to be in a number with Danny, I'll do it.

[B]

Brooks Ashmanskas is Stephanie Necropoulos.

[A]

Brooks Ashmanskas Is Our lady of the Spa. As Our lady of the Spa, Brooks Hashmanskas is. What are you doing here, Guido? You know that I've listened to that album so much because I know those ensemble women's voices like the back of my head, hand. And to the point that I. I had a recent listen because I know that ensemble is stacked of talent.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And one of the Guido Cantinis. And not since Charlie Chaplin. I went, I'm pretty sure that's Elena Shadow. And I barely know Elena as a human being.

[B]

Right.

[A]

We are Instagram friends who met for the first time at the lachiusa Workshop back in October, and it was a very lovely time. She's beautiful. And we got along famously.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I didn't have the guts to tell her this. That, like, two weeks prior, I was listening to that recording, I was like, I'm pretty sure I know which Guido Contini is here.

[B]

Guido Cantin.

[A]

I just knew it. I knew it was her. I knew it.

[B]

Fanboy.

[A]

But that's the thing is, like, that's just how my brain works.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

It's not that I sit around being like, I must know which one is Kathy Voitko. I must know which one is Elena. I just heard it. I was like, that's fucking her. I know it. I know it's her. And then at the library today, I watched and I point. I was like, I'm gonna watch. I know which one's her dress. It's the, like, sunflower yellow, white dress.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Okay. Is she the one who says the third? Guida Contini? Yes, that's her. It's Elena. It's Elena.

[B]

Well done, Matthew.

[A]

We still didn't cast Saraghina, but that's fine. We'll do an open call for that.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, let's open up the comments on that one because I don't know. That's tricky.

[A]

Yeah. Guys, we're doing A gender reversed 9. Joshua Henry is our lady of the spa.

[B]

Leading with that.

[A]

I am. I have Stephanie Necropolis. It's been made. It's been done, it's happened. We've listed everyone else, so now we just need our Sarah, Gina, and a handful of other amazing bitches. We'll put Casey and Max in the ensemble.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

They. They can do the. Not since Charlie Chaplin while they pussy pop.

[B]

I can't imagine, like, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

[A]

I don't know. It's. There's a richness to 20 men singing different ranges. You listen you were in a show all about it, but.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But your show is all high. High 10.

[B]

We had to sing really high.

[A]

Yes, exactly.

[B]

We didn't have to sing really high until after Stephen or Amos saw me in Dangerous Liaison. Sing high. And then he was like, oh, I can use that. The high voice.

[A]

And Andrew Randall's being like, I will. I refuse to get fired off the keys.

[B]

I remember when. I remember we walked out and Andrew Randalls when he had just learned. You and me, mostly me. And he sang, and we were like, is that even a key? It was. Sounded so hot. I mean. Yeah. You know, he comes from the voiceover world, so, like, he makes everything sound higher than it is, even though it's still very high.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, Know.

[A]

Well, that's. This. Yeah. Placement. Placement can make any note sound high based on how you do it.

[B]

Yeah. No, and no vibrato in a good way.

[A]

Yeah. And. And if it's the top of your register, like, if you're. If you're a bass, sing in an E. Yeah. You're like, oh, my God, that's the highest note of all time. And meanwhile, in Mormon, it's like, oh, that's the option down.

[B]

Correct. Correct. Yeah.

[A]

Any last words on nine before we wrap this bitch up?

[B]

No. I just loved revisiting it with you. I haven't thought about it in, like, this in so long. And unpacking it and just talking about it was really, really interesting. I loved it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know if I would like to direct it. I actually love to direct it, and I don't. I haven't ever said that about anything else. I have no instinct to direct. I know nine well enough that I would. I would want to direct it.

[A]

I would see your nine and I would want it.

[B]

And I also think a missed opportunity is more people should be doing it as a symphonic concert.

[A]

Yeah. Didn't they try to do that with Transport Group recently? Maybe. Maybe.

[B]

I'd listen. I'd love to do the Italian version. I'd love to go over to Italy and figure out how to do it in Italy with, like, an American cat, you know?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I am. I would love to do it just, like all the beautiful voices and all the big orchestra doing it. The other thing I'll say about nine is, like, that is a show where you have to cast people with voice.

[B]

Oh, man. Yes. Yes. Which is probably why it isn't such a dancing show.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Like, I mean, half those women could swear. Yeah. You know, it's movement.

[A]

It's very movement based. And anyone who, like, sees a production nine, it's like the dancing just wasn't enough. It's never been.

[B]

No, it's not gonna be a dance show.

[A]

It's never been.

[B]

They need to walk around their boxes.

[A]

Exactly. Well, same with, like, Dream Girls isn't actually a dance show. It's very strategic movement. Right, Exactly. And. And all the choreography in the original nine with Tune and Tommy Walsh, like, it's movement when you least expect it, which is what makes it exciting. Yes, but, like, there's never a kick line. Like, the first half of Folly Bridgere is just them on their boxes swaying side to side. But very specifically.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

I actually think that some of the choreography in the revival is better because it has more sex to it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's a lot of touching to boobies in that revival.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Everyone's touching their titties. Antonio's touching everybody's titties and butts.

[B]

Who was the choreographer?

[A]

Jonathan Petrell.

[B]

Oh, that's right. That's right. Right.

[A]

Is he British?

[B]

He is British. He's the one who did the Fiddler revival, too. Too.

[A]

That's what happened. Because that revival gave us that revival. The same team. Yep, yep, yep. And that's where the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

[B]

Y. Agreed.

[A]

Yep. Be careful how successful you are, but it doesn't mean you're great at everything.

[B]

That's right. That's right. I mean, if nine teaches us anything, it's be careful what you wish for.

[A]

Exactly. Because sometimes you give us a 9 fresh out of Italian Vogue. And sometimes you give us a Fiddler fresh out of West Film.

[B]

Oh, God. Oh, God.

[A]

Well, at least I didn't say IKEA. That was the part. Share 1. Make Fiddler a set again.

[B]

Yes, please.

[A]

Make Fiddler fun again.

[B]

Make Fiddler a production again.

[A]

Make Fiddler have energy again. Actually, no, they did do that. That was the Yiddish production.

[B]

Yes. Right.

[A]

That was incredible.

[B]

Gorgeous.

[A]

I was like, yeah. Hey, other directors who did it this century, just remember the first act of we. Everyone has to sort of kind of like being an Anatevka. That's the whole reason why these traditions getting broken is hard, because everyone's enjoyed it so far.

[B]

Correct. We have to hate leaving at the end.

[A]

Yeah. Why start Matchmaker with Seidel on the ground crying, oh, God. Or sponge bathing herself? Oh, yeah.

[B]

Choices.

[A]

Listen, I love watching women get wet, but not that way. But speaking of Marco in the Substance and we're back to the Substance and.

[B]

We're back to the substance.

[A]

Honestly, the substance and nine have so much more in common than you ever realize. Okay, that's it. We've wrapped all that shit up. Kevin, this has been delightful.

[B]

Oh, my God, what a delight to come back and actually reprieve.

[A]

I wonder, I wonder if this is gonna be the longest episode of Breakdown.

[B]

Oh, Jesus.

[A]

Really? It might be.

[B]

Cut some shit.

[A]

Why would I do that?

[B]

Oh, because there's some silence.

[A]

There's some silence. Well, we had some moments in between breaks that I will cut out. But like, this is definitely an over three hour episode.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Whatever. The. The longest traditional episode of Breakdown I had, that's like an analysis episode I'm pretty sure is either Miss Saigon at three and a half or May or Boys in the Band might be 345.

[B]

Oh, wow. Well, that both deserve.

[A]

Yeah, I'm. Nine deserves it.

[B]

Nine.

[A]

Nine deserves it. I love. People love to tell me your episode is longer than the show. And I'm like, you're welcome. Look at the state of the world. I'm giving you. You four hours to get away from it. You're welcome.

[B]

You're welcome.

[A]

Kids, children. You nine year olds. You uncultured fucking nine year olds. Okay, Kevin, where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[B]

Oh, I'm on Instagram mostly. I'm Kevin Dudagram.

[A]

His close friends is still. Is in progress.

[B]

I don't have a. Oh, I do.

[A]

Have a close friend. You have a close friend?

[B]

I don't really. I mean, I have. Of course I have one. I've never used it.

[A]

I was gonna say because I've never seen you probably post anything.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no. That's where I am. And I'm not acting anymore. I'm producing. So come. Come support things. I'm producing.

[A]

Yeah. Come visit his couch kids.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I said yes too quickly. No, it's fine. He's one of the good ones.

[B]

Yes, correct.

[A]

He's very happily with a man.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yes. It's what makes him sexy.

[B]

Surprise, Mom.

[A]

Surprise, Mom. I'm with a man. And we're very happy. I'm so sorry to tell you Father Donovan was wrong. Good fingers, though. So you can find me on Instagram at Matt Koplik, usual spelling. If you like the podcast, you can give us a nice 5 star rating or review. None that I've gotten since the last time I recorded. So I apologize about any of that. Join the Discord Channel if you haven't yet. That's where you can answer or put in any questions you have for future episodes or anything that's spoken about on the podcast that maybe you know that we said that was incorrect and you want to share, you can share it on the Discord. We have over 200 members. I think we got 215 now. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. And that's just, you know, like a fraction of the listenership. Yes, we were. We were shown.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Recently that we were Broadway Podcast Network, second most streamed podcast on Spotify this year, right after the Cheese Wheel, whatever the she is, but above Sentimental Men. And they had Cynthia and Ariana this year.

[B]

Hey, all right.

[A]

Hey, Yeah, I. I owe it all to you, uncultured Kevin. We close out every episode with a Broadway diva to play us out in post. Who should we play us out with today?

[B]

How about. You know what? I wonder if we should do some Karen Aker since we didn't see her. No.

[A]

A villa on a hill.

[B]

Go take this again. No. Anything. Like have her do the. No. I don't know. Whatever you want. Karen Acres.

[A]

Since I was laughing, because I was. I thought it was funny. That's all.

[B]

I like Karen Acres.

[A]

Yeah, I love Karen Acres, too.

[B]

She's in not really a Broadway diva, though, is she? Not really, no.

[A]

She only did the two shows. She's in Purple Rose of Cairo. She's the lounge singer in the movie in that. Okay, so, you know, that's worth seven Broadway shows.

[B]

I mean, I'm only saying that because we. We missed her on the original since she was replaced by the time we saw her.

[A]

It's true, we did miss her. We had Ms. Maureen McGovern with her.

[B]

Crazy eyes and her Stradivarius voice.

[A]

Yeah, they. We talked about that.

[B]

They.

[A]

We noticed that they upped the key for my husband and twice into the tempo.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Twice in, meaning doubles.

[B]

Correct. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation because I.

[A]

Was like twice, and I think that might be a new word. That is they twice. And it. I love it. Anyway, okay, so we'll see you guys soon. Either the next episode is going to be Come from Away or it's going to be my yearly wrap up of rankings of the Broadway shows this season so far, as well as a preview for the spring. But that'll be it for now. We'll see you soon. Take it this way, Karen.

[B]

Bye. Bye, Karen.

[A]

And I don't remember And I can't recall your touch. Cause I'd never be so stupid as to open up so much. Did I really say I need you? No, the words just don't ring true? Cause I don't remember talking And I don't remember laughing? I don't remember wanting And I don't remember needing. I do not remember April? I do not remember Tuesday And I don't remember Christmas And I don't remember you.