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

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

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.

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]

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.”

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.

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