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Broadway Breakdown
Our Favorite Tony Award Performances (w/ Sutton Lee Seymour)
02:20:55
A look back on some favorite tony performances
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- [00:00]
Prescott Seymour
Think of the prestige. Think of the respect. No, no, no. Think of the Tony.
- [00:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. Normally, we will be doing the big move, covering shows that transferred from Off Broadway to Broadway, but we are still in the thick of. Of our messy, messy Tony series. We just did the destruction of it all with PJ Atzema, and now we have a friend of the pod who we haven't seen in quite some time to talk about our favorite Tony performances. Please welcome back. Real name Prescott Seymour. Famous name Sutton Lee Seymour. Hi, baby.
- [00:50]
Prescott Seymour
Hello. Every time I come on this podcast, when you do your intro, you always go into the most unique accents, and I just think it's adorable. And do I just bring that out in you?
- [01:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You bring everything out in me.
- [01:04]
Prescott Seymour
Tell me more about what I bring out in you while I'm prolapsing, for starters. Hey, there it is. Hey.
- [01:08]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Now. Actually, so by the time this episode comes out next week, we are recording this on the Wednesday after I recorded the pj, I actually have an idea for a reel that I think you'll enjoy.
- [01:17]
Prescott Seymour
Okay.
- [01:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's on brand for this. For this series. It's an AI Tony presenter.
- [01:23]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, goody.
- [01:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And so it's somebody who is mispronouncing the. It's a. The idea is that it's a mishmash of nominees and shows based off of artificial intelligence and then weird pronunciations and accents for each of them.
- [01:38]
Prescott Seymour
And so in this situation. Like John Travolta. Like Adele. Yes, but not John Travolta. AI.
- [01:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly.
- [01:45]
Prescott Seymour
I see.
- [01:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I'm unedited, including accents. So again, because this. I intend to do this before the episode comes out. I will. I will give you a little stage preview. So it be.
- [01:55]
Prescott Seymour
It'll be.
- [01:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And the nominees for best performance by leading actress in a musical are. Jennifer Aniston in Greece.
- [02:02]
Prescott Seymour
Okay. Angelina Jolie in mem. Is this like a weird hybrid of Moira Rose meets Marla Mendel as Celine Dion?
- [02:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. It's. It's. It's the Tonys entering into AI Yas Queen work. But make it. But make it clean. And so slay, slay honey baby boots. Slay boots. Homosexual individual Kickball change. Kickball change. Baguette with a B.
- [02:32]
Prescott Seymour
What'd you call me?
- [02:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I called you a slagette. Cause you're a slag. We also have Anna Ouzel in Fortu Industreet.
- [02:39]
Prescott Seymour
I have to Go now.
- [02:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I know. Me too.
- [02:40]
Prescott Seymour
We've gone off the rails. We haven't even started yet.
- [02:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We haven't even started. But this is to say we're gonna go back on topic now. Cause we're gonna go off topic all the time. This is how this podcast works.
- [02:49]
Prescott Seymour
This is how this podcast works. Yeah.
- [02:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's full chaos.
- [02:51]
Prescott Seymour
It's Broadway Breakdown. It's not just a breakdown of your favorite Broadway shows and Tony performances, but we also have breakdowns. Yes.
- [02:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That is when Rip, John Miscavige and I first created this podcast. That was the idea, was us breaking down Broadway. Broadway shows, audition breakdowns, while also having breakdowns ourselves.
- [03:09]
Prescott Seymour
And just to be clear, John Wascavage is not dead.
- [03:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No. Just dead to me.
- [03:14]
Prescott Seymour
Okay. Okay. No. His 35th birthday is coming up, and we've established he's calling it his Bobby. Bobby Baby Bobby Baby Bobby Bobby Robert Year. And I texted him, I said, who does that make me in your cast? He goes, bitch, you're Joanne. I'm like, oh, you're absolutely Joanne. Okay, now I just need the husband and the money and the vodka. Stinger.
- [03:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And I'm either April or I'm Marta. I can't quite be Amy. I'm not quite manic enough to be Amy.
- [03:43]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, you're manic enough to be Amy.
- [03:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, not on pod. Off pod. I totally am. Seen me at manic. You've seen me at my, like, super low breakdown moments. That's. That's a true friend, everyone.
- [03:54]
Prescott Seymour
But this is. So when you're. What you're saying is when you're on pod, you are galvanized, focused, and ready to take the crown.
- [04:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, no, I am. All the terrible things about myself, but far more mainstream. Oh, I see. The mainstream version of it.
- [04:09]
Prescott Seymour
Hey, you're mainstream now.
- [04:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You're.
- [04:11]
Prescott Seymour
You're. You're part of the Broadway Podcast Network.
- [04:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I have ad breaks and everything, which remind me I got a. Make sure we take them. I keep forgetting to do ad breaks. And so it's like in the middle of a sentence, you'll hear, billy, I'm going to go into the ad, so I just got to remember to do it.
- [04:27]
Prescott Seymour
Don't forget that.
- [04:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sutton, let me ask you a question. First of all, do you recall your first Tony ceremony that you watched?
- [04:36]
Prescott Seymour
The short answer is no. The earliest memory I have is having a bunch of my friends coming over to my. To my dad's house and watching. I remember watching the Producers when the Producer. The Producers was nominated. I remember. I just remember various, you know, Tony Award parties with high school friends. I couldn't tell you which one was the first one.
- [05:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Do you remember when you started paying attention to the categories and sort of.
- [05:06]
Prescott Seymour
Honey, I'm not even paying attention now. I'm kidding.
- [05:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But you know, like, how we have our brackets and our predictions? Like, do you remember when you started kind of paying attention to that shit?
- [05:16]
Prescott Seymour
It must have been mid-90s, because my dad. You know, I think our generation. My first musical I ever saw was the national tour of Phantom of the Opera. And I remember my dad telling me, like, oh, this is this one best musical. Like, what do you mean? What does that mean? And then he told me about the Tony Awards. I remember that. I remember. And this was during the time when we all. We had the most. We didn't have Google. We had Encarta 95. Remember that? And there was no Encarta 95 version of what the Tony Awards were. I remember finding what playbill.com was.
- [05:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And.
- [05:52]
Prescott Seymour
So, no, I don't remember much because I don't feel like it wasn't as broad to the world back in the early mid-90s. When I was a kid growing up, my world of theater was, you know, the community theater productions and the high school productions and then people talking about, oh, this show. Oh, we're doing my favorite year. And my high school did my favorite year.
- [06:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You played Tim Curry, right?
- [06:18]
Prescott Seymour
I played the Tim Curry part. So I. You just. I remember hearing, oh, this. This is a fun show. But it didn't win any awards except for Andrea Martin for Best supporting Actress.
- [06:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And we actually talked about that a few weeks ago as one of the few performances in a musical to win for a closed show. Yeah, it's far more likely to win as an actor if your show's closed. If it's a play. Musicals tend to. Mostly voters go for what's currently running. So it speaks highly of Ms. Martin that she won for the Closed. My favorite year.
- [06:48]
Prescott Seymour
Which is gonna be fascinating this year because I'm especially tuned in to. I'm most excited for the best revival of a musical. Just because into the woods was. So was the darling of the Broadway season last year. Right. And now it's getting all these nominations, but it's a closed show, so what are the chances of that? But that's a whole. That's another story. Never mind.
- [07:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Anyway, anyway, I will say we've done some predictions lately. I think we'll do one. I think we might hold off on predictions until we get a little closer to the ceremony. It's very Difficult this year because one of the big shows that's a contender is Kimberly Akimbo, which isn't eligible for any of the precursors. And precursors matter so little anyway. All they can really do is help maybe gain a little momentum in the community. But. So with Something like it Hot, winning the Outer Critic Circle just now and having the most nominations of the Tonys this year, everyone's like, oh, is that really where everyone's leaning towards it? It's like, you really can't say, because there have been years where this exact thing happened where SpongeBob SquarePants had a whole bunch of Tony nominations. It won the Outer Critics Circle, it won the Drama Desk because Band's visit wasn't eligible. And then Band's visit came in that ceremony and swept with 10 awards that night, including, like, awards that people didn't think it was gonna win, like, book. And I think even people were surprised by featured actor and director and actor in a musical. So it's all very fascinating in terms of revival of a musical. I do think it is between woods and Parade.
- [08:12]
Prescott Seymour
Interesting.
- [08:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, you are seeing.
- [08:14]
Prescott Seymour
I'm seeing Sweeney Todd this evening. So I'm very. I'll give you all my. All my thoughts. But I'm very excited because to see Sweeney Todd at this scale, I mean, I saw the Barrow street production years ago. I saw Teeny Todd, you know, and.
- [08:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Now you're seeing Tinny Todd.
- [08:30]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yeah. Good. Oh, goody.
- [08:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, I'm sure. I think where you're sit sounds actually gonna be pretty good. I was in the center orc. And I. It felt like the orchestra was half a mile away.
- [08:40]
Prescott Seymour
I see. I see. Well, I'm very excited, and I think it's a very exciting year, and I think that's. That's the big takeaway. This is such an exciting season.
- [08:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. So few sure things, which is what makes it exciting.
- [08:50]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [08:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Even if it's down to two nominees, it's still like, I don't know. I can't tell you which one is really the front runner. And.
- [08:57]
Prescott Seymour
And you don't. I don't. I don't necessarily want there to be a front runner. I want to keep guessing. I want that way. It's a surprise. That's me, though.
- [09:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. But also, I mean, this is the beauty of podcasts like mine. I mean, there. I like to listen to a lot of the movie Oscar podcasts. So when the Oscars were happening this year, I was listening to a whole bunch of, you know, little gold men, and this movie had Oscar Buzz and something else where they were sort of talking about which nominees had momentum, what the precursors meant. And for Oscars, it's a little different because all the guild awards are legitimate precursors because all those voting pools also vote for. For the Oscars. Whereas at the Tony Awards that is not the case. Those are very separate voting bodies and nominating bodies. But they would talk about sort of, you know, just the likelihood of an everything, all that everywhere, all at once sweep, while also saying, I don't know. When something seems like such a sure thing, it's really difficult to say for certain because that you have people who go, well, if that's such a sure thing, I'll vote for the thing I liked more. And that's how we end up with, as I've said before, Anthony Hopkins beating Chadwick Boseman, which was a very good win. But. But no one expected it because everyone was so sure it was Chadwick.
- [10:04]
Prescott Seymour
Even the producers didn't expect it. Do you remember that the best actor in a feature film, that was the last award and they fully expected Chadwick to win.
- [10:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yep.
- [10:12]
Prescott Seymour
And he did not. And it was a very like, boner killer ending to the Academy Awards.
- [10:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It was very. Nothing to see here.
- [10:19]
Prescott Seymour
Goodnight, everybody. Bye.
- [10:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, and Anthony Hopkins wasn't there. They didn't even have him on satellite because they. He. He was. I think he was in Ireland filming something and he offered to zoom in and they were like, no, no, you don't need to zoom in. You're not winning. And then he did. But yeah, I love that with awards. Just sort of the uncertainty and even the things that I feel pretty confident in, I'm like, I don't know. It's not an award. It's not a producers for Hamilton where it's like, no, it's happening. And everything else is just a pipe dream.
- [10:44]
Prescott Seymour
So I have a question for today. Since we're talking about our favorite Tony performances, are we trying to categorize what is the best Tony Awards performance that has been televised or how do you want to do this today?
- [11:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Uh, let's start with maybe. Okay, let's, let's. Let's start with an obvious choice and then maybe an under the radar choice.
- [11:09]
Prescott Seymour
I like that.
- [11:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And we can go back and forth and then. Because I'm still not sure what I would consider the best Tony performance.
- [11:15]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, I have my. I have my thoughts.
- [11:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I mean, I've got like my top 10, but also it changes all the time.
- [11:20]
Prescott Seymour
Mine does not.
- [11:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yours does not.
- [11:22]
Prescott Seymour
No.
- [11:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I find it's easier to pick something a little older, only because with the historical impact and the longevity of its impressiveness, it's easier to go. That's clearly the best one because we're still talking about it 40 years later. Whereas with Fun Home, it's like, well, it's been eight years and it's still amazing. But, like, will it have the same impact of 40 years later like a new Argentina with Patti LuPone does?
- [11:44]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [11:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We don't know.
- [11:45]
Prescott Seymour
We don't know.
- [11:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
At this.
- [11:46]
Prescott Seymour
At this point in 40 years, when I'm back on this podcast with you and we're talking, like, Statler and Waldorf.
- [11:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. Well, Statler and Waldorf meets. Death becomes her. It's gonna be great.
- [11:56]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, my God. Do you remember where you parked the car?
- [12:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I can see right through you. Hot take. I don't love that movie, but I love every scene they have together. And so, like, that is a movie where I don't like an hour of it, and I love another hour of it.
- [12:13]
Prescott Seymour
That's fair.
- [12:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I go back and forth.
- [12:15]
Prescott Seymour
That's fair.
- [12:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [12:16]
Prescott Seymour
It's one I revisit. It's not my. I love it. I love it. Most. Most of the gays do, but it's not one I watch. Like, I could watch Drop Dead Gorgeous maybe once a week. Clue. Once a week. But, like, Drop Dead Gorgeous, I come back to it maybe every two or three years.
- [12:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I mean, sorry.
- [12:30]
Prescott Seymour
Death becomes her.
- [12:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Drop the Gorgeous. I haven't watched in a while, but I also can just quote that entire movie. I'm also one of the few that has it on dvd.
- [12:38]
Prescott Seymour
Same. I have it on vhs. You want to go to bat? Let's go to bat.
- [12:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Let's whip it out and go to bat. Okay, so give me one of your big broad, big old dick, big old titties performances.
- [12:50]
Prescott Seymour
Well, wow. Let's see. I think I'm not going to give you my number one yet.
- [12:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay.
- [12:58]
Prescott Seymour
But I think the. When I think Tony Awards performances, Bea Arthur and Angela Lansbury doing Bosom Buddies, that is like staple Tony Awards performance that. You will see that performance at every musical Mondays across America, from the spot here in New York City to sidetracks in Chicago, like, you will always see that. Plus, it's in Angela. It's Bea. It's them being sassy. It's a gay man's dream come true.
- [13:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. They. They're fucking icons.
- [13:33]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [13:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I adore them. My dad and I have had many fights. He never got the Angela Lansbury love. And it was one of those things Where I just said I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, I don't understand how you can't not get it. Listen, she's Every now and then she has a performance that I haven't loved, but that doesn't detract from my love for her and the beautiful things she's done with her life.
- [13:52]
Prescott Seymour
Not every. Not everybody's gonna get a home run.
- [13:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly.
- [13:55]
Prescott Seymour
But this is a 1000%. This is iconic. It's two Broadway broads. It's perfect.
- [14:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They're at that sweet spot where they are still so in control of their talent. Their talent is so fresh, but they've also lived enough that there's a comfort and an ease and a joy with it. And like no fucks given vibes, which I love.
- [14:16]
Prescott Seymour
It's just so good. It's got that sass that musical theater gays love. I mean, yes, we all know the jokes. The. Somewhere between 40 and death. We all know those jokes.
- [14:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
If I kept my hair natural like yours, I'd be bald.
- [14:27]
Prescott Seymour
Well, I am bald, so fuck off. Anyway, so we should do the number. Alright, hit it. It's just. And I love that song. It just. It's a standard. It's a golden classic. It will stand the test of time. We will still be singing it 40 years from now.
- [14:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure, I completely agree. I didn't realize we were able to do the specialty numbers. Because if we're doing that, then I gotta go for another one. Which is Dorothy Loudon's Broadway Baby. Speaking of manic off the rails.
- [14:53]
Prescott Seymour
Okay, go on.
- [14:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, I love it because anyone who is aware of Dorothy Loudon knows what her energy is, which is just. It's just truly talent alien. And she takes Broadway Baby. And this is, I think right after she's closed Sweeney Todd. And she's wearing what I can only describe as what looks like a pink ruffled shirt because it's not even like really a dress. It stops right at her vagina. And these long blue tights that look painted on.
- [15:24]
Prescott Seymour
What was fashion.
- [15:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What was fashion in the 80s? I don't know. And she's just going balls to the walls. It's like the.
- [15:32]
Prescott Seymour
You need her to. Yeah.
- [15:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The spirit has possessed her.
- [15:35]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [15:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because usually when we think Broadway Baby, we think one of two things. We either think of, you know, old broad doing it like Elaine Stritch or Jane Howdy Shell. And they sell it, but it's very old school. Or you get like the cutesy person, you know, broad wing, bing bing. And Dorothy's like, okay, but what if you're at a Methodist church revival? Like, just fully inhabited by the spirit and the demons? It's like, what would happen? It's like, what if Linda Blair and the Exorcist did Broadway Baby? And it's great, especially because she's aware of it. She makes that call out to Sondheim, who I think is in the audience. She goes, you didn't know what you had with this one, did you, Steve?
- [16:17]
Prescott Seymour
I need to revisit that one. I have not seen that performance in ages.
- [16:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, it's just also, it's that it's one of those years where it's. Again, it's a Broadway house, so it's like only industry people and everyone just loves her and they love what she does, and it's. It's glorious.
- [16:32]
Prescott Seymour
I would then recommend if we're. If we're on the Dorothy Loudon train. And this one's on my list, too. I love the Annie medley. Annie medley.
- [16:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
My list, too.
- [16:41]
Prescott Seymour
It's solid.
- [16:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [16:42]
Prescott Seymour
Yes. We all. When you hear Tomorrow, it's gonna, like, trigger your ptsd. Just like, Let It Go does for all those Disney cruise line actresses out there. You know, you're gonna hear Tomorrow, but then you're gonna, like. But then you get Easy street and you get Dorothy Loudon. Like, you, the original Ms. Hannigan, and you realize you've never seen a Ms. Hannigan played the way that Dorothy Loudon plays Ms. Hannigan.
- [17:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think Adam Guncle, Adam Ellsbury was very close with Gary beach before he passed. And Gary beach had done Annie for a very long time.
- [17:12]
Prescott Seymour
I've seen a bootleg of his performance. Oh, it was incredible.
- [17:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Gumby Rubber. Rubber band and what he had said. And I think Adam's even said it on the podcast that with Dorothy Louden's Ms. Hannigan, you knew that what was driving her insane was just how horny she was. All she wanted and all she really needed was a night, one night out to get drunk and get loud and come back and, like, have her zhuzh. How Stella got her groove back. But because of her job and because of the financial times of it being the depression, she couldn't. And it was driving her insane. So he's like, everything about her. Hannigan basically came from the vagina. And you can see it in her performance, the way she moves. It's not even. And that Easy street is incredible. What I love about that medley, because, first of all, yes, you hear the opening notes of Tomorrow with that guitar, and you go, oh, God, here we go. But it's one of those things where much as I love Adina with Let It Go, when I hear Adina do it on some telecast, it doesn't ease the ptsd. I just go, I'm like, no, it's, it's, it's here forever no matter what, even though Adina is slaying. But when I watch 13 year old Andrea McArdle do it on that telecast, the PTSD actually melts away.
- [18:21]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, absolutely. Then once you're. It's like bottoming, you know, at first you're like, ah, okay. And you ease into it and then hopefully it's a.
- [18:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That. That's what I've been told. Bottoming is like, oh, wow.
- [18:34]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [18:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know. I've read about it in books. But the other thing I also love is, and I want to make sure we talk about it, is the never fully dressed without a smile performance.
- [18:43]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, those kids.
- [18:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Those kids. What people forget about Annie when it first was on Broadway was it wasn't as cutesy as we now kind of make it.
- [18:50]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [18:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I mean, it was.
- [18:51]
Prescott Seymour
Kids are working.
- [18:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They are working and they're like all weirdos. They aren't cute little kids. Except for maybe Molly, but she's also missing a mouthful of teeth. They're not to trigger anybody with, you know, canceled movie people, but they all look like faces you'd see in a Woody Allen movie. They are not Gap kid actors. They are. They've got unique faces and unique styles and unique voices.
- [19:15]
Prescott Seymour
They're individuals.
- [19:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. And I know that was something that they really tried to do with the original production was they tried never to cast it with cutesy kids. They always wanted kids who had a little bit of an edge to them because they're in a fucking orphanage during the Great Depression like in New York City. Yeah, they're. They're tougher than most.
- [19:30]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [19:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And that fully dressed without a smile, like, it's. I don't know, it's very vaudeville, burlesque. The dancing and the attitude and the audience is living for it because the kids aren't being precious. They're just living their best lives.
- [19:44]
Prescott Seymour
They're dancing as hard as the original cast of a chorus line.
- [19:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
1,000%. Just because they're like nine.
- [19:50]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [19:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You know, doesn't make it any less exciting. It's a wonderful moment. And it's also great to watch Annie because I think at that Tony ceremony, the show had only really been open for like two months. So it was a huge hit. And it wasn't Cloying yet Tomorrow had not become a cloying number yet.
- [20:11]
Prescott Seymour
It had not become the theme.
- [20:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes.
- [20:14]
Prescott Seymour
Of Anthem.
- [20:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The anthem of all children pushed on stage by their mothers who were just like, I don't know. People say I'm loud, so here I am. So just to watch, you know, 1600 fully grown adults lose their shit for that medley. For every single number. I don't know. It gives me joy.
- [20:34]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yeah, no, that's. It's joyful.
- [20:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [20:36]
Prescott Seymour
It's just a joyful medley.
- [20:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I wish we would kind of come back to that attitude with Annie. Not to go so far, Tina Landau, where the whole show ends up being a dream and there are crackheads on the street during nyc, but where it's not QC precious either. Like, I want that. That sweet spot. Because also, like, the book of Annie is kind of sarcastic and cynical.
- [20:53]
Prescott Seymour
Totally.
- [20:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I love the joke where Annie, you know, explodes in Act 2 and becomes internationally famous. And the kids are talking about hearing her on the radio, and Ms. Anakin goes, I know by this point they're gonna make a cartoon out of Annie. And everyone's like, that's how she started. But it's like, it's one of where everyone on board for that show knows what the audience is thinking going in, like, yeah, we know the car, the comic strip annoyed you. It annoys us too. Let's. We're gonna call it out and then, like, give you a lovely show. Yeah, Yeah, I love it.
- [21:25]
Prescott Seymour
That's solid.
- [21:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Now give me one of your undergrounds.
- [21:27]
Prescott Seymour
Undergrounds. Ooh. Let me consult the text here for a second. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think the. I will say. Okay. Remember when you were talking to me about, like, your first memories of the Tony Awards? It. It's come to me. One of them. I will never forget watching the Wild Party Tony performance and just being mystified by everything between Toni Collette and Mandy Patinkin. And then Eartha Kitt comes out and sings a snippet of when it Ends. It was. It was beautiful and grotesque, and I wanted more. I wanted so much more. Yeah, that is. That is one of my first memories. We got. We got there, Matt. We got there. I. I think that was the beginning of my obsession with Eartha Kitt and Mandy Patinkin, and I was so. I want. I want Toni Collette to come back to Broadway one day someday. Maybe someday far away. Always comes back to Amy.
- [22:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Did I say this? Oh, maybe I did on the. On the episode with Pha. I can't remember, but I Saw dear friend Caitlin Frank in Funny Girl.
- [22:37]
Prescott Seymour
Yay.
- [22:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I went backstage afterwards, and Funny Girl is at the August Wilson, which used to be the Virginia Theater where that wild party was. And I took a photo of the wings and I put it on my close friends, and I said, it was here in 2000 that Toni Collette stood and said, never again shall I do a Broadway musical. And it's devastating.
- [22:53]
Prescott Seymour
And it's devastating.
- [22:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I hope. I hope she's changed her mind. You know, a lot of scars never heal. They can maybe make. Get a little tougher, and you can sort of live with them. But I know that was a very hard experience for her.
- [23:04]
Prescott Seymour
Well, and that. Well, that show, I think, was a little. Was a lot of a. It's ahead of its time. It was ahead of its time.
- [23:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And especially the way that that company and George Seawolf, as the director approached it, it was. They did not hold back. They really went to dark places to make it the most extraordinary thing it could be. And it's. It's a style of acting and directing that we don't really get anymore. And, I mean, we would need intimacy coordinators, obviously, for the way that show is. But I feel like people aren't necessarily willing to go to such a raw, toxic place. I don't.
- [23:36]
Prescott Seymour
I disagree, and I'm gonna tell you why. Tell me, because I wonder, and I'm just speculating here. I think with the success that Chicago had had in what, 1997, that's a show about murder and alcoholism and beautiful show tunes. I'm not saying Wild Party and Chicago are, like, linked, but there's a similarity there. There's talking, there's jazz, there's parties, there's drugs, there's alcohol. So I wonder, the creators, they were saying, what if we could, you know, run? Chicago's a hit. Why can't we do it with this as well? Don't you think. Do you think it's linked?
- [24:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, first of all, they are. They take place in the same era, of course. And yes, they have a lot of same actions involved, but it is about the attitude. Like, Chicago was done as a vaudeville. I mean, Chicago is a very cynical musical, and it was created at Fosse's, like, lowest point, emotionally and mentally. And then he had his heart attack during rehearsals, and he made it even more cynical. But there is a veneer to the stage version of Chicago that I think can at least allow actors doing it to have a lot of the actions at an arm's length, because it's a vaudeville and very. And you know, very presentational. Yes. Very performative.
- [24:50]
Prescott Seymour
What you're saying is Chicago has a wink to the audience that the Wild Party does Not exactly.
- [24:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The Wild Party has characters who are performative, but the show itself is not. And in fact, the show starts in a similar style to Chicago where it is breaking the fourth wall and very, you know, vaudeville, cartoony. And it's that moment between Burrs and Queenie when they have the fight and Queenie pulls out the knife. The moment there's a trumpet blare and the veneer goes away and we just see two people where one's about to kill the other one. And it's that the way that Toni Collette first says, the birds pour me a cup of coffee. And then when the trumpet blares, you hear with all the fear in her voice of, you come near me and I'll fucking kill you. And that is sort of. Wild Party goes from that first beat to the second beat over the course. Yeah. So fast. And then throughout the rest of the night continues down that road. And you see a lot of it, a lot of those actions happening in real time. You see a sexual assault and you see all these things happening. And I feel like Chicago was ahead of its time. But even when it came back in the 90s, we weren't so open minded and forward thinking that we were willing to see all the things that Chicago does in real time in a real way. It was more about the entertainment value, which is its own brilliant commentary. At Wild Party, I feel like the commentary eventually goes away and it's like, no, no, no. Everyone here is a disaster.
- [26:21]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. Okay, so I'm seeing. I see what you're saying. Because in Wild Party, you see the raw, like, beat zero to 60 with the assault. Yeah. But in Chicago, Roxy does kill Fred.
- [26:32]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure.
- [26:33]
Prescott Seymour
But it's done in a very presentational, almost gimmicky, stagey, jokey way. You see the actor get shot, but then he's dancing Fosse for the final beat. Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [26:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And even the presentation of this revival, you know, Roxy doesn't actually have a gun gun. She uses her fingers. Right. And there's no blood. And they even make a punchline of that. I got a pee.
- [26:51]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [26:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The moment in the show that I think always lands emotionally for me, and it's even better in the movie is when the hunyaka gets.
- [27:00]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [27:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because that's the first time it's like, no, no. The stakes here are actually very real. Yeah. And then it goes right back into Razzle dazzle.
- [27:07]
Prescott Seymour
Which.
- [27:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It makes sense because that's the theme of the show.
- [27:09]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [27:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But I. I think Wild Party does that a lot more often. The way I described it on. I don't even think this was on the pod. I think. I know. I just talked to this with a friend recently. I'll talk about Wild Party, anybody. And by the way, Prescott, this show is one of the reasons why you and I are friends. I don't know if you remember this.
- [27:26]
Prescott Seymour
No, tell me when we first started.
- [27:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Talking and hanging out and I went back to see your show. You did when it ends.
- [27:34]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [27:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I was in the front row, and I was the most living for it. And I. And we basically just, like, looked at each other for the rest of the number because you weren't doing, you know, let it go or anything like that. You were doing fucking Lachius. Wild Party. So a lot of gays are. You know, it's a great song, and you sound great on it.
- [27:49]
Prescott Seymour
Thank you.
- [27:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But a lot of gays were like, oh, like, this is the time to go to the bar and get my drink and then I'll come back. And I'm like, no, no, no. For me, this is the song.
- [27:54]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [27:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And we saw each other in that moment, and we became friends from that.
- [27:57]
Prescott Seymour
But I think that's the thing this. This show has stuck with. Maybe I was at a very impressionable age. Maybe when it came out was what, the year 2000.
- [28:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
2000. I'm also so glad you said this performance. So keep going. Oh.
- [28:07]
Prescott Seymour
I want to say it's an underdog. The performance should be appreciated because Wild Party is now a legendary flop of a musical. But it's such a good. It's got its flaws. I'm not saying it's a perfect musical, but it is such a good musical that if people have not seen this Tony Awards performance, just watch it and get a glimpse of how marvelous this show was.
- [28:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's great.
- [28:31]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [28:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Greatness is. Greatness is never perfect.
- [28:34]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [28:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I also think that Tony performance is such a smart way to market a supremely unmarketable show.
- [28:42]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, they.
- [28:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They make it enticing and sexy and odd, but not in a way that's off putting. Like, I think the. The things they choose to show are exactly right in terms of reaching as wide a demographic as they can, while not necessarily lying to the audience. It is very. This is the vibe of our show. And if you come in, like, it is gonna get darker, but, like, there is an energy to It. That is palpable.
- [29:05]
Prescott Seymour
But this was also the same era as the cabaret revival too. It feels like when the Chicago revival came out, it wasn't dark, but then the cabaret revival came out, got darker, and then Wild Party went, oh, too dark. We're too dark.
- [29:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Too dark. Yeah. It was definitely like, okay, where's the line? Where's the line? And then a lot of people saw Wild Party and went, that's the line.
- [29:23]
Prescott Seymour
There it is.
- [29:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That's the line. Yeah, it's. It's a shame because I do think that show is brilliant and I think that original production is extraordinary. I'm so glad you said the performance. I was gonna say something else about Wild Party before I went off topic about saying we were friends. We were talking about murder, the gun, all the things. Oh, yes. The way that the Lachusa Wild party chooses to do the burrs getting shot scene.
- [29:47]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [29:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
As opposed to the LIPA version.
- [29:49]
Prescott Seymour
It's very. It's. It want the lip version. It is a up tempo, tense musical number. But the Lachiusa version is just like. It is eerie.
- [30:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, it is eerie. There's.
- [30:05]
Prescott Seymour
It should be.
- [30:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I mean, if we're. If we're talking like pure opera, pop opera, if you will. Pop rock. The LIPA version does do that. It takes a moment. It goes, okay, how do we make this a song? And it gives you all the dynamic vocals and you do feel sort of the stakes. But the lachiusa version is like, no, no, no one's gonna be singing here. We've got a woman pleading for her life at the hands of her now fully insane lover.
- [30:30]
Prescott Seymour
Who. Who's Mandy Patinkin?
- [30:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Who's Mandy Patinkin?
- [30:32]
Prescott Seymour
Who's just giving you Mandy Patinka in.
- [30:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Full blackface holding a gun to her temple. And you just hear, like a very dissonant note the entire time. And you just hear Toni Collette sobbing for her life. And it's like, yeah, this is real. It's a musical, but it's real. And it's just so. Oh, God, it's. It's powerful. I love it so much. Thank you for saying that. Wild Party and that cast is incredible. And the way that it's so good and you just watch them all. And there's a great shoulder shimmy thing that Tony, that Tanya Pinkins does at the end when they do the don't you know it's my party. You can't take away what's mine. Don't you know it's my party time. Or the devil or Rise and shine. And I'm just like.
- [31:11]
Prescott Seymour
Those of you can't see because it's a podcast. Matt just did a full shimmy that, honestly, Donna McKechnie would be proud of.
- [31:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Thank you, Donna McCachney. You know, I did Music in the Mirror at Playhouse Bar a few weeks ago.
- [31:23]
Prescott Seymour
I saw the video.
- [31:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. I was supremely drunk. Otherwise my. My bones would not have been so limber. I was Gumby for a day. Okay, let me do one of my under the radar. Yeah, let's see. So this one's not. Okay. This one's under the radar simply because it's a play, and the Tonys rarely do plays. I know the Tonys rarely showcase plays, and when they do, it doesn't always work. But there have been quite a few moments where plays have gotten showcased, and they've all been wonderful. So I'm actually. You know what? I'm going to sort of lop them all together. Okay. It is Joan Allen and Peter Friedman doing the end of Act 1 from Heidi Chronicles. It is Mary Louise Parker and Timothy Hutton doing the first date meet cute in Prelude to a Kiss. And then it is James Earl Jones, and I forget the name of the actor who plays his son in Fences, but it's the what law is there that I gotta like you scene. All three are incredible for very different ways. You have Joan Allen and Peter Friedman coming to blows in a very realistic Upper west side kind of way, where they're at Skip's wedding and, you know, Peter Freeman's basically telling Joan Allen all the reasons why he was never going to marry her because she essentially is too much woman for him. And. And then saying that these women of the late 80s, early 90s, they're so smart, they're so successful, and they're never going to be happy because they want it all. And. And you'll never have it all. And the only ways you'll get some of the things that are elusive to you is to lower your standards and to be less exceptional. And Joan Allen is basically like, the fuck do I say to that?
- [33:08]
Prescott Seymour
And Joan Allen.
- [33:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Joan Allen. Brilliant, brilliant. Both wonderful actors.
- [33:13]
Prescott Seymour
And.
- [33:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Fences is mostly a monologue from James Earl Jones to his son. And it's a powerful, legendary actor doing one of the greatest plays of the last 50 years. I know a lot of people who are like, oh, yeah, Fences, that's August Wilson's most mainstream. I'm like, that's just his most successful financially. But Fences is a fucking masterpiece, so kindly kill yourself.
- [33:36]
Prescott Seymour
But.
- [33:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But you know what I mean. Like, you know, people always want to say, like, oh, everyone goes for the obvious answer. I. I love King Henley II or Seven Guitars. And I'm like, okay, yes, those are lovely plays, but Fences is pretty fucking fantastic.
- [33:48]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [33:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's not stupid to say you love that play.
- [33:50]
Prescott Seymour
It's a good play. It's. It's run the course of time. It's standing the test of time for a reason.
- [33:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly. And if you watch the James Earl Jones Tony performance, which is maybe two minutes, maybe three, and it's mostly just him. It is just theatrical energy coming at you like fire.
- [34:07]
Prescott Seymour
Can we just have James Earl Jones just have a play and it's just James Earl Jones reading the phone book. Yes, I would watch it.
- [34:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. And each page he does a different emotion.
- [34:18]
Prescott Seymour
Yes, yes. And the audience tells him what emotion to take.
- [34:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly. Now. Now you're sympathetic, and then he just makes you cry because he's so sympathetic towards you.
- [34:26]
Prescott Seymour
And now you do it as Darth Vader. Yeah.
- [34:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Prelude to a Kiss. Are you familiar with Prelude to a Kiss?
- [34:30]
Prescott Seymour
It's been probably since high school, since. I've never seen it. I read it in high school, and that is my history as Prelude to a Kiss.
- [34:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I love that history. Boy, it's an honor.
- [34:39]
Prescott Seymour
I love the History Boys.
- [34:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We all love the History Boys. They didn't have a Tony performance, sadly, but it's. I mean, the original production, it was Mary Louise Parker and Alec Baldwin, off Broadway, and then a move to Broadway, and it was Timothy Hutton, and I do believe Prelude to a Kiss is what launched Mary Louise Parker's career. And so there was a lot of excitement about that play of, like, who is this, like, manic pixie dream girl who's just so engaging and odd, but yet dropped in and natural? She's such an odd creature of the stage, and that's why I love her so much. But that performance of her and Timothy Hutton, and she's talking about how, like, she has trouble sleeping and she says no. Oh, I tried to do. What's it with the. The. The pins in your face and all that?
- [35:28]
Prescott Seymour
Are you talking about Hellraiser, the horror film? No.
- [35:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You know, like, when Charlotte in Sex and the City's trying to conceive and they put pins in her so she can change her, like, chakras and all that shit. It's. It's like. It's an Asian kind of treatment. They put, like, little needles in you.
- [35:42]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [35:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What's it called?
- [35:44]
Prescott Seymour
I'm having a brain Fart with Me too.
- [35:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
God damn it. Because she Says I'm also ruining the punchline because she says the thing. She says the name of the therapy that she's trying. My listeners are definitely are hearing this and being like, jesus fucking Christ, Matt, what is wrong with you?
- [36:00]
Prescott Seymour
It's always the way, though. You get in front of a microphone and then you just can't think of the term that is.
- [36:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay, I'm opening up my laptop. I'm getting to this performance. Because the point is that she says, oh, I even tried this. And he says, oh, what did. What was that like? And she goes like, little needle stuck into your skin.
- [36:16]
Prescott Seymour
Acupuncture.
- [36:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. God damn it. God fucking damn it. I was literally just watching. I was literally watching the Tony performance being like, mary Louise Parker, what is it? Acupuncture. She says, I even tried acupuncture. And what was that like? And she goes, like, little needles stuck into your body.
- [36:31]
Prescott Seymour
I love that we both were at a loss for the term acupuncture.
- [36:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I know, girl. It has happened so much.
- [36:38]
Prescott Seymour
We can recite the entire lyrics of not getting married today, but we can't think of the term acupuncture.
- [36:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No. This is the problem with our brains. It's filled to the brim with this other shit and then the real world shit. We're like, I don't know. Yeah, the needle thing in you.
- [36:55]
Prescott Seymour
The needle. Tell me more about your sex life.
- [37:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But I love that performance because it. It allows time for the two of them to just sort of do this wonderfully romantic scene. It is sort of a meet cute, but it's not cloying. They're just. They have such chemistry. I think they even were dating at the time. And then it eventually goes into a later scene because the whole point of Prelude to a Kiss is they get married. And the day they get married, this old man kisses Mary Louise Parker on the mouse. And eventually Timothy Hutton realizes that the souls of the old man and Mary Louise Parker have swapped. And so he's now married to.
- [37:34]
Prescott Seymour
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Coming back.
- [37:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. And so later on, he realizes this and he goes to find the old man and he has this scene in the Tony performance with the older man, who is. Who has the spirit of Mary Louise Parker. And it's this. It's just a fun connection. It's an odd, odd play. But that scene on the Tonys with the two of them with Timothy and Mary Louise is just delightful. And I just sit there and I go, let's bring back plays.
- [37:59]
Prescott Seymour
I would love that. Mainly because I want to see a snippet of Gray House.
- [38:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So seeing. I'm seeing her tomorrow.
- [38:09]
Prescott Seymour
Oh. I want to hear everything.
- [38:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You better believe.
- [38:13]
Prescott Seymour
Should we talk about a mainstream one?
- [38:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Prescott Seymour
Should we do. Let's see. Just because we've been talking for a while.
- [38:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh. Before we get to that, though, let's take a break.
- [38:23]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, boy. Really?
- [38:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I'd like to dim it with you.
- [38:25]
Prescott Seymour
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 thread of the feet of Fred.
- [38:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And we're back. Okay.
- [38:39]
Prescott Seymour
Huzzah, Huzzah.
- [38:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay, here we go.
- [38:42]
Prescott Seymour
Okay. Well, I would say I want to bring this one up now because I think not for any reason of making people wait, but if we don't address it soon, people might get mad.
- [38:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure.
- [38:55]
Prescott Seymour
But we have to talk about Jennifer Holiday, Dreamgirls.
- [39:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I'm telling you, Dreamgirls makes me cream Girls. And the. It's all over before that, there's some great. I don't want to undermine the great performances that lead up to. And I am telling you.
- [39:13]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [39:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Loretta Devine.
- [39:14]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [39:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, no. What are you two gonna stop?
- [39:17]
Prescott Seymour
Hey. Still got it.
- [39:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I still got it. But yes. Let's now get into Ms. Holiday.
- [39:20]
Prescott Seymour
But I'm sorry, it's the. It is the. It is the Tony Award performance that is. That is my number one. I think it is many people's number one. I think it is. It is, yes, an obvious choice, but it is the one that even to this day, as many times as I have seen it, it still makes me go, damn. It's just so good. So full of emotion. She's vocally incredible. I love the leg. Over the track.
- [39:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yep. Over the cable.
- [39:49]
Prescott Seymour
Over the cable. It's just. It's iconic in my mind. It is the number one.
- [39:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It is pretty incredible.
- [39:58]
Prescott Seymour
But you don't agree. I do.
- [39:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know. It's in my top five.
- [40:02]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. If not. If it's not the number one for everybody, it's definitely up there in the top five or top 10, for sure.
- [40:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So let me. The ones that I think are battling it out in that top five, for me, it's. It's Dream Girls.
- [40:16]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [40:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's the original chorus line.
- [40:18]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [40:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The original Evita.
- [40:20]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, sure.
- [40:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Our new Argentina.
- [40:22]
Prescott Seymour
I'm not a big. I'm not a big Evita person.
- [40:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You are one of the few gays that isn't. But I get it. I mean, I don't think Evita is a good musical, but.
- [40:29]
Prescott Seymour
But Patty's performance and Bob Gunton and.
- [40:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And that. And the original staging and that. Like, it's. It's one of those things where I would love to see someone do something with Evita that makes me excited about it anew. I just haven't found it yet. And it's. The more times I see people trying to fuck with it and it fails, the more I'm like, I just don't think this is a very good musical. And I think Hal Prince found a way to make it exciting. And we got very lucky that our original trio were coked out. Patti, Manic, Mandy, and Grounded. I'm gonna randomly do an accent bomb. Gunton. We got very lucky with that. We did with, like, three smart actors with amazing voices who were not afraid to make choices and just, like, balls to the walls.
- [41:11]
Prescott Seymour
Balls to the wall choices.
- [41:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, It's. I mean, that is what makes that show exciting for me. I just don't feel like there's a lot of depth to it. And so when I see people be like, well, we're really trying to dive into who these characters are. And I'm like, no, the real people had very fascinating lives that the show has no interest in diving into.
- [41:30]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [41:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's very much commentary and Brechtian, but it's not really quite smart enough to be Brechtian. And in order to make any sense of it, you have to have a semblance of knowledge of Argentinian history. Like, we talked about this in the Evita episode, but, like, there's so much you don't know about the story of Eva Peron. And. And Peron's government regime was that, you know, Argentina was essentially a European country. It was infiltrated by France and England, and they basically were controlled by the British. And what Peron sort of led with as his campaign was like, we will take our country back and we will not be controlled by the British anymore. And they, like, give you two or three random lines over the two hour musical that reference this. But if you don't know that's what they're talking about, you're like, what are we talking about?
- [42:20]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [42:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Foreign domination of our industries. And it's. Again, I love the performance. It's such a theatrically exciting time. And to just watch Patti in really, like, Killer Dom, Top Mood, just go to town. It's really extraordinary. I also love the Promises, Promises performance.
- [42:48]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, you have to talk about. Yeah, of course.
- [42:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which we'll get to her as well. But for me, Turkey Lurky. Yeah.
- [42:52]
Prescott Seymour
Hello.
- [42:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think those are the four for me that are battling it out. And then there are others where I'm like the four. Wait, so Dream Girls, Dreamgirls, Chorus Line, Evita, and Promptness Promises. Ironically, three of them. Michael Bennett.
- [43:03]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [43:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then there are others that mean a lot to me that I think would be in my top 10 or 15. I'm just not sure if I am willing to go to the mat to put them on my top five. Like the original Once on this island performance with Lillias White.
- [43:15]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yes.
- [43:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Incredible. There are some mic issues that keep it from being absolutely perfect. But.
- [43:21]
Prescott Seymour
Well, and that's. And I want to talk about. There are some. There are some performances that have had mic issues or vocal mistakes because you just did a matinee and then you had to drive over to Radio City to do a performance and you're a little vocally tired after an eight show week. And now you got to go on broad, you know, network television. Yeah. Like, there's little flaws that I do appreciate, but also just. You just want the. You just want the.
- [43:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's what makes it live theater, you know?
- [43:48]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [43:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then there are some performances are actually pre recorded. Like that Evita performance is pre recorded.
- [43:53]
Prescott Seymour
And this is why. I see. And I didn't know if it was pre. I couldn't if it was pre recorded. Oh, I see. Okay. So my mind went somewhere else. This is why Angela Lansbury doing her Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd is not in my top anything because. Well, it's also like she's lip syncing.
- [44:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She is badly. Yeah. You can tell because she is not sure when her dialogue comes in. So her mouth is fully just open, not saying words for the customer. And she basically just like nods her head like an animatronic doll.
- [44:23]
Prescott Seymour
Right. And then it's just a random actor in the Sweeney track. But it's clearly not Sweeney.
- [44:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [44:28]
Prescott Seymour
It's very.
- [44:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I want. I. Yeah. I do wonder if Len was like, I don't want to come on and do that. I don't want to be like Angela's scene partner.
- [44:35]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [44:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know. I don't know.
- [44:36]
Prescott Seymour
I don't know. So it's. That's. That's a no for me, love. I love Sweeney Todd. It is one of my favorite musicals.
- [44:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's a shame we don't have a better Tony performance of that original production.
- [44:45]
Prescott Seymour
Exactly.
- [44:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's how I feel about Company, Follies and Night Music. The original productions, unfortunately were years where there were the Follies year, I believe. There were no performances from any of the best musical nominees, Night Music, for some reason, it was just Pippin. And they also had Jesus Christ Superstar in there for some reason. Or was Jesus Christ Superstar the year before with Follies? There was one year Jesus Christ Superstar was not nominated for musical, but yet they still got to perform. And there were best musical nominees that didn't perform. I'm like, what are we doing here? And then Company didn't perform because that was the year where they were like, we're honoring every winner of best musical to this moment with an 82nd, you know, clip. So you have like Gwen Verdon at 50 doing whatever Lola wants and you had Robert Preston lip syncing till you got trouble. But we don't get anything from Company.
- [45:31]
Prescott Seymour
Weird.
- [45:32]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So stupid. I hate it.
- [45:33]
Prescott Seymour
I don't think people knew then that Company would become the hit that it had become.
- [45:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. That it would be the, you know, historical force that it became. But it did do well that night at the Tonys. Yeah, I think, yeah. Sunday in the park with George is probably the first Tony performance of Sondheim's shows where I'm like, yes, this is a nice capsule of the show we like.
- [45:51]
Prescott Seymour
Yes. But that Tony Awards performance, it's beautiful, but out of context. And if you don't know much about Sunday in the park with George, it gives you enough, you know, Mandy Patinkin comes in and takes control of everybody in the cast and they start singing Sunday. And yes, Sunday is one of the most gorgeous songs that Sondheim has ever written. But out of context, if you're just like a casual Broadway fan and you're watching the Tony Awards, it out of context, it's a little like, oh, this is a little weird. But they just keep singing Sunday you need. Which is why you have to take in the whole show. You need all of that tension, haha. Order, harmony, design, whatever. You need all of that to get to Sunday. And so Sunday on its own, beautiful. Out of context. Like, I don't really know what this show is.
- [46:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, I think the best Tony performances, not necessarily not the best because we were just talking about Dream Girls, which we can get back to, but usually the ones that just do like a chunk from the show on its own with no context, they tend to not do great. It's the ones that craft a very unique performance for the telecast that do really well. Like a very recent example for me is the Hadestown performance where they, like, they. Everything that they're doing is in the show, but not necessarily in the order in which they're doing It. You know, the narration of Andre de Shields into the showing of Eva Noblezada and then Reap Carnie and then going into Wait for Me and all that stuff. They set you up for Wait for Me. So you are on board with the style of the performance, for what's gonna happen narratively with the performance. And it works very well on its own.
- [47:30]
Prescott Seymour
It takes the audience by the hand saying, this is a lot, but we're gonna guide you through it.
- [47:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. And it's the same thing with the Fun Home performance, which is. Both of those performances are on my list, by the way. Hadestown and Fun Home. Fun Home, you know, could have done Come to the Fun Home. They could have done Changing My Major, but they ultimately went with the song that is most honest of a representation of that show.
- [47:52]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [47:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then they said, okay, how can we set this up most for Success? Because we can't just have Sidney Lucas come out and sing Ring of Keys. And we would like to maybe show Michael Cerfers a little bit. But so what they do is they have. They added this narration for Beth Malone that's actually not really in the show, but it is representative of how her character is in the show. They show the intergenerational relationships, and they set up Cindy Lucas's scene and her performance the way they film her, and then they end it on Michael Cerver's Close Up. So if you don't know the show, you're like, what's this about? What's he thinking now that he's watching his daughter sing this? And there's just a lot of.
- [48:26]
Prescott Seymour
It makes you lean forward.
- [48:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly. A lot of interest. Gives you interest. Yes.
- [48:30]
Prescott Seymour
It's definitely. That is. I remember watching that performance, just leaning in. It was very inviting, and I wanted more.
- [48:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely.
- [48:38]
Prescott Seymour
And then I bought tickets.
- [48:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Let's go back to Cream Girls.
- [48:41]
Prescott Seymour
Yes. Jennifer Holiday. I mean, what. What. What more is there to say other than. It is. It is one of the most legendary performances we will ever see on Broadway. Just the emotion. The. I love that. I just love that song. I can't. I don't know. I don't know how to put into words how much I love that song and I love that performance. Other than. It's just, to me, a flawless performance for the Tony Awards.
- [49:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And like Fun Home, they include a good chunk of It's all over to set up the number. Oh, exactly.
- [49:11]
Prescott Seymour
You need all that exposition. You're not just getting thrown into. And I'm telling you exactly, you know.
- [49:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And they make some trims to Both numbers. There's a whole. Actually, no, they. No, they do all of. And I am telling you, I was trying to think if there was something they cut, because they usually cut the. Please don't go away from here. Stay with me. They usually cut that from albums, but it's in the performance.
- [49:29]
Prescott Seymour
That was very nice.
- [49:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Thank you. I'm. I'm basically the next Jennifer Holiday, but they do make some trims and it's all over to kind of get to that performance. They also had the benefit, as did a chorus line of the Tonys being like, oh, you want eight minutes? Here you go.
- [49:44]
Prescott Seymour
Done. Yeah.
- [49:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Doesn't usually happen. I think Coco with Katharine Hepburn is the longest Tony performance.
- [49:51]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [49:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's like 18 minutes, 20 minutes.
- [49:53]
Prescott Seymour
It's a lot.
- [49:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And I mean, there were only three best musical nominees that year. I think it was.
- [49:58]
Prescott Seymour
It was Coco.
- [49:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
APPLAUSE. And maybe Pearly. I want to say.
- [50:01]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, I want to talk about.
- [50:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, we're talking about.
- [50:03]
Prescott Seymour
We're going to talk about Pearly, girl.
- [50:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We talking about Pearly. But I mean, Coco, it's like audiences are coming to see Katherine Hepburn. She cannot sing. So let's give. Let's show off one of her longer book scenes where she's acting her face off.
- [50:15]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [50:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then do fashion.
- [50:18]
Prescott Seymour
And then there's that song.
- [50:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, the song.
- [50:20]
Prescott Seymour
Everything is Coco.
- [50:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then. And then the red dresses, outfits, fashion sequence, which is stunning to look at, but you're also like, I've been here for 17 minutes, let's move on, I gotta pay. Exactly. Pearly, actually, for me is an inverse of Dreamgirls or Fun Home, where they should have just done Melba and ended it there. But they go into a big company number after that, and I'm like, it's just.
- [50:49]
Prescott Seymour
Let Melba Moore.
- [50:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [50:50]
Prescott Seymour
Sing I Got Love.
- [50:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because she just nails it so hard.
- [50:53]
Prescott Seymour
She really does. And you hear. You can feel the energy from the audience in that. In that video.
- [51:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [51:01]
Prescott Seymour
And I don't know. I don't know if today's musical theater gay that goes to Musical Mondays. I don't know if they remember I Got Love very well.
- [51:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They said, I think that there are enough jaded bitches like us to teach the children, but I think what a lot of younger gays maybe don't. Can't grasp is how big of a deal that performance was in Broadway history.
- [51:25]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [51:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No one sang like that on a Broadway stage ever before. Something that Seth Rudettsky mentions a lot. He's like, the style of Broadway belting evolved, starting with, you know, Obviously, Ethel Merman. But then it gravitated towards Betty Buckley in 1776, then Melba Moore in Purley, Patti LuPone and Evita. And then, like, after that, it was just sort of, like, done deal. This is what singing is on Broadway now.
- [51:46]
Prescott Seymour
Melba Moore has this effortlessness. Yeah.
- [51:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And honestly goes even higher than Patti does in Evita.
- [51:51]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [51:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Patti just sounds more Broadway in the style that we know from that era.
- [51:56]
Prescott Seymour
Patti is working hard.
- [51:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [51:59]
Prescott Seymour
And she'll say that, too. Oh, yeah. But Melba Moore is just effortless.
- [52:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And as amazing as she is in that Tony performance, she actually sounds better in later performances. There's a televised version of Pearly from, like, 81, 10 years later that she sounds absolutely incredible on. She has a whole bunch of telecast performances for, like, you know, random fundraisers or specials or whatever. And she just sings I Got Love. There's one where she's wearing an outfit that, like, just looks like it's purely made out of fans with a, you know, Jerry curl. And it's. She's glorious. But, I mean, I can just only imagine that that audience loses their. And it's just so stunned by what they're hearing because it's the sound she makes. As you said, it's effortless, but it's just also, like, otherworldly. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible.
- [52:46]
Prescott Seymour
She's Touched by an Angel.
- [52:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Short is.
- [52:50]
Prescott Seymour
Let's see, what else do I got? Oh, can we give you another underdog?
- [52:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes.
- [52:54]
Prescott Seymour
Under the Radar. The Urinetown Run. Freedom Run.
- [52:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I have her, too.
- [52:59]
Prescott Seymour
It's. It's just so fun.
- [53:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Fun.
- [53:02]
Prescott Seymour
And it's so. I mean, when. When that show came out, the commentary on the art of musical theater, just the constant jokes of. That's a terrible title. As Little Sally. Yes, it is. You know, that was one of the first mainstream Broadway musicals that really did that and did it successfully. And then to give us a song like Run, Freedom Run, that is just so fun. And Hunter Foster sounds great, and I think doesn't get as much love as say as much as it should. Yeah.
- [53:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's so weird to think about because there was. I don't know, there was that era of like, 98 to 2004 for theater kids, as we were all sort of, like, you know, coming up from the ranks and getting into our own tastes and minds. Yeah, you're in town sort of came out at the exact moment for a lot of us, because we were, you know, we were loving the shows. We loved, like, our Rag Times and our parades. But there was also A part of us that felt uncool because of, you know, theater is weird and like people break out at the song. And Urinetown was sort of the first big musical on Broadway to acknowledge that and do it successfully.
- [54:17]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [54:18]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And so we could point to it to a lot of our non theater friends and family and be like this, this cynical piece of shit.
- [54:25]
Prescott Seymour
This is accessible to you.
- [54:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly. It's. And the downside of that is so many shows have tried to pull a year in town and be self referential and break the fourth wall and comment on the weirdness of musical theater and are just not as good at it because you're in town. It. There's really nothing in the text of Urinetown that calls out specific musicals. Some of the staging and designs will do references to it of that original production, but the writing itself is mostly about the formula of musical theater.
- [54:52]
Prescott Seymour
Well, that's the way it should be. The writing, it's telling the story.
- [54:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes.
- [54:56]
Prescott Seymour
Honestly, here's the story, here's the situation, and here are characters. All the references, at least in my, my understanding of the show. All the west side Story moments, all the. Yeah, like that's in the staging, in.
- [55:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The choreography, the Les Mis stuff. That's all staging.
- [55:11]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [55:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
There's no. Yeah, there's nothing that's like. Well, you know what they say one day more. None of that bullshit.
- [55:16]
Prescott Seymour
None of that.
- [55:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, it's the writing. The writing is actually very vile. Brecht, like Three Opera esque. And it's. And again, what makes it successful is they are acknowledging the formula of how to make a successful musical while also still adhering to that formula. So it's. As the show is continuing, you have Lock, Stock and Little Sally addressing what's happening on stage in the context of how musicals work while still doing the thing and doing it well.
- [55:47]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [55:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So it's. It's this really great magic trick and I love that Tony performance because they actually bookend it with Lock, Stock and Little Sally.
- [55:53]
Prescott Seymour
Yep.
- [55:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They start with his intro and thank God they do because. And we'll talk about this in the next episode about Tony Snubbs. Jeff McCarthy not being nominated for featured actor for that show is stupid. It's stupid. He is so vital to that show's success.
- [56:07]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [56:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And you and the way that he and Spencer Caden just like bounce off each other in that opening. And then Hunter Foster does Run Freedom Run. It's incredible. And then they ended with Caden and McCarthy just going. But the title's still terrible. Yes, Little Sally.
- [56:21]
Prescott Seymour
Yes, it is.
- [56:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yep.
- [56:22]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yeah, yeah. Great.
- [56:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's so fun. And like, we have the Millie performance that year, which is also really good.
- [56:28]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. We gotta talk about that performance too. Oh, sure. That is. That's. That's a great.
- [56:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think the three best performances that ceremony are Urinetown, Millie and Oklahoma. That does Farmer and the Cowman. Because into the woods does their medley.
- [56:42]
Prescott Seymour
Like medley with Vanessa Williams, which the.
- [56:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Original into the woods does. And I don't. I don't like it very much. Medleys are very difficult to pull off for me.
- [56:50]
Prescott Seymour
But in something like into the woods it helps because there's so much happening.
- [56:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, sure. And I do wonder if they'll perform on this ceremony, even though we'll see. But I don't know. That's a show where I feel like you gotta do two or three numbers, not seven or eight.
- [57:06]
Prescott Seymour
But what was great about Run Freedom Run and Forget about the Boy that season is here are two of our most solid numbers, our show stopping numbers. That's gonna make people want to see more.
- [57:18]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And also are honest representations of the shows themselves.
- [57:23]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [57:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because you'll see some Tony performances where you're like, pretty good. But like, that doesn't really reflect what the show is like.
- [57:28]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [57:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's difficult. Like we were saying with Wild Party. Like, how do you market that show on the Tonys?
- [57:33]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [57:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I think they did the best job anyone could do.
- [57:36]
Prescott Seymour
That they could do.
- [57:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I mean, sure. Listen, are there people who are gonna have problems with that performance?
- [57:41]
Prescott Seymour
Sure.
- [57:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But in terms of what that show is, they did the best job anyone could do. And same thing with you're in Town und Millie. I agree with you. Well, you can talk about Millie if you want.
- [57:50]
Prescott Seymour
Well, what I love about that number, Forget about the Boy, you have a stage full of amazingly talented women led by an amazingly talented woman. And it's just. It's such a. It's such. It's just so refreshing to see a song called Forget about the Boy. What a. What a great number to have for, you know, little girls out there who just are trying to find their own way and find their own voice. And here's a great song that they want to tap to. And I think that song, it's just. It's so strong. It's empowering. When there is a lot of musicals, I mean, there's a lot of. There's not a lot of empowering ensemble musical numbers for women, I find. And I think Forget about the Boy is one of them. Do you agree with.
- [58:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know. I've always just gravitated towards women material in musicals in general. So I don't. I don't. The truth is, I don't know. I couldn't. I couldn't agree or disagree.
- [58:45]
Prescott Seymour
Well, I think in terms of. I'm trying to think of, like, what's the song from Brigadoon, right? Where they're just like. They're all like, oh, they're all fawning over a man, and. Oh, that's. But, like, here's a number where there's just these women tap dancing, fiercely, just going, forget about the boy. It's so uplifting and refreshing.
- [59:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It is. Do you like that they actually then ended the performance with the cast coming out and singing the title song for all of 5 seconds? Or should it have just ended with.
- [59:10]
Prescott Seymour
Forget about my boy? I don't know if I have an answer to that. I think if I am who. The organizer of that Tony Awards being like, we got to bring the cast out. We want the people to see everybody. I. You know, my zodiac sign is cancer. So, like, I. If I have a tremendous guilt, and so I want to include everybody. So if I'm the choreographer or director and, like, okay, let's bring everybody out, because if Johnny is, you know, feeling left out over there, then he's gonna be all upset. That's the kind of person I am. So I don't necessarily mind the whole cast coming out.
- [59:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
This is why you and I are probably bad at threesomes. Cause we're like, is everyone having a good time?
- [59:46]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. I would be the one making the snacks for everybody. I was like, do you need a cocktail or something? Oh, do you want. I have some bacon bits.
- [59:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. No. I don't know. I don't love them coming out just because I am a big fan of sort of final finishes on a number.
- [60:01]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
- [60:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Especially with sudden standing on that desk. And I'm just such a bottom boy. For Sutton, anything she does, I'm like, yes, Just nail it to the wall, please, baby. It's also fun. You know, you have that year with the foster siblings back to back, and.
- [60:16]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, that's so exciting.
- [60:18]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And even though Hunter wasn't nominated, they both get to lead their shows on the Tonys.
- [60:22]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [60:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And have you read Sutton's book Hooked.
- [60:25]
Prescott Seymour
The one in where she's knitting and how knitting, like, saved her life, how.
- [60:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Crafting saved her life.
- [60:30]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. I have not read her book.
- [60:32]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a. It's a. It's a good book. I. I highly recommend it, but they.
- [60:37]
Prescott Seymour
Had a lot Is she a sponsor of this podcast, by the way?
- [60:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sutton Foster is a sponsor of my life. She's also teaching these, like, cardio dance classes. And I'm like, how. How do I get in there? I'm like, how do I get taught by Sun Foster at a fitness class? I. I'm sorry, that's been on my vision board since I was 12.
- [60:53]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, boy.
- [60:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But no, just. She talks in the book a lot about sort of the hardships of their upbringing. Not necessarily that, like, they came from poverty, but just their mom had a lot of emotional and mental issues. That was a darkening on their lives for a very long time and a lot of conflicts. But so she talks about how that year, a lot of people thought to themselves, you know, like, oh, these two blessed individuals, they're brother, sister, and they're both, you know, nominated for best musical and they're leading the Tony Awards. Their lives must be incredible. And she was like, it was actually a really hard year because of, you know, stuff going on with their mom and their dad and all that other stuff. But. So that is beside the point. But those are. Those are two wonderful moments preserved in amber that we can look back on.
- [61:37]
Prescott Seymour
And that's the thing. I don't know. I look at that and I just think, you and I know how hard this business is, and I think most people know how hard this business is.
- [61:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [61:47]
Prescott Seymour
But to the like, I can't imagine someone who was in the business would say, oh, their lives must be so blessed. We know how hard this life is and how hard this business is. To a casual Broadway fan. Yeah, I could hear someone saying that, oh, their lives must be blessed. But I don't know, I. When I saw the two of them on that Tony Awards and their siblings, I celebrated it. And I'm not trying, I'm not trying to be all kiss assy or anything like that, but what a cool moment, because that never freaking happens. I don't know if I could name another sibling team other than the Bulgers who were on the Tony Awards, you know, in similar seasons or near. You know, I.
- [62:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So I think was the year of Newsies was the same year as Peter and the Starcatcher, Correct?
- [62:28]
Prescott Seymour
It might have been.
- [62:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I might have been. But I don't know if Peter and Starcatcher performed well.
- [62:32]
Prescott Seymour
That's the thing, because it was a play that I couldn't perform. And that would have been a brilliant.
- [62:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That would have been fun.
- [62:37]
Prescott Seymour
Honestly, Peter and the Starcatcher, to this day, I was just reflecting on it yesterday. It's still one of my most favorite Broadway experiences I've seen in a theater. It was incredible.
- [62:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It was so much fun. They might have performed a little something because they had a song. I don't know. I don't. The truth is, I don't remember much about the 2012 Tony Awards.
- [62:52]
Prescott Seymour
I mean, we. That was 11 years ago, darling.
- [62:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I know I've. I've become such a person since then. But actually, going back to what you were saying about, we look at people with success in this industry and go, oh, how blessed they must be. And there's always stuff you never know about. Even people have. Having these incredible moments in their careers can come at a very hard, emotional, physical toll. I mean, as we've learned with Patty, with Evita, like, even though she was a celebrated Broadway star, that was a very difficult year and a half for her.
- [63:20]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [63:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But I actually want to go into one of my underground performances now, which is Barbara Harris in the Apple Tree.
- [63:27]
Prescott Seymour
Oh. Oh, thank God.
- [63:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So Barbara Harris. And I've talked about it a bit. She is one of my favorite Broadway performers of all time, even though she's only been in, like, four shows. Right. But.
- [63:41]
Prescott Seymour
But she's incredible.
- [63:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Incredible. And all me. If you were to watch her clip in who is Harry Kellerman and why is he saying those terrible things about me? Which is her only Oscar nomination. You watch that scene, and then you listen to her or watch her on a telecast doing. On a clear day, you can see forever. Hurry. It's lovely up here. And then you go into the Tony performance where she's doing Passionella, you know, Ella into Passionella. The versatility of her talent is incredible. How she can just sort of mold into different characters so naturally how. And Mary Martin says this sort of in the introduction for the performance. She was like. To watch someone on stage where it just feels like everything they're saying and doing is coming to them on the spot is a kind of gift that so few people have. And you don't really realize that until you see someone do it for the first time. You're like, oh, that other performance that I once thought was so organic. I'm now seeing, like, true naturalism on stage, and it's blowing my mind. And she can do that with the weirdest of material. She can do that with a movie where it's very natural. And then she can do that with the Apple Tree, which is incredibly presentational and theatrical. And so her performances as Ella with the squeaky voice and the. And the little dancing and whatnot and going into Gorgeous. Where she's just full Broadway brass, vocals. But on top of all of that, she also has a very infamous acceptance speech when she wins Best actress in a musical. Because she goes up on that stage and she basically can't put more than, like, five or six words together. And part of it is, you know, she was incredibly shy. She had a great deal of agoraphobia. It's one of the reasons why she ended up leaving the industry is a. She had stage fright. She didn't even really like performing all that much. She preferred teaching acting than doing it. And there's a rumor that she was dating Warren Beatty at the time because she was. You know, she officially became a big Broadway star with the Apple Tree.
- [65:38]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [65:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And the rumor is that he broke up with her, like, that night in her dressing room before the telecast. And so she. In addition to all the other isms that she had going on with herself, she was having this whole other devastation on her. Not to make it all about a man, but, like, someone you were involved with, who you cared about, just sort of, like, ending it on what's supposed to be a big night for you. And you can see there's something off with her in that Tony performance, because the moment she finishes the Apple Tree gorgeous number, she's like. Even as she's finishing the final note, her face and her hands just sort of drop. And then once it ends, she doesn't even bow. She just, like, walks off stage in a daze, and it's. You can tell that she's. Something's going on with her emotionally, and she had to sort of suppress it all for four and a half minutes to do this number. She gives it her all, and the moment it's over, just like the wave of whatever she's feeling before it washes over her again and she goes back to being the broken person she was before the number started. And it's awful to see because she is so incredibly talented.
- [66:42]
Prescott Seymour
I'm gonna revisit that one.
- [66:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [66:44]
Prescott Seymour
So this is what you do. You watch Barbara Harris do her Tony Award performance of the Apple Tree, and then you go into your Sutton Foster. Forget about the boy. Yes. To lift up your spirits after that.
- [66:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
As one do.
- [66:56]
Prescott Seymour
As one do.
- [66:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
As one do and one should do.
- [66:58]
Prescott Seymour
Your chat about her acceptance speech made me think about not necessarily an acceptance speech, but my favorite, like, awkward interaction, Tony Ward presentation into the acceptance speech, and it was for Best actress of a Musical. And it was the year Patti LuPone won for Evita and out comes Faye Dunaway and this was just before. Just before Mommy Dearest was released, and Faye Dunaway was, like, on top of the world. She was untouchable. And so she's like, to all the nominee. I can't. I'm misquoting here. But she says along the lines, to all the actresses who are nominated, don't be intimidated by the click of my heels. You know, I applaud you. It was very condescending. And Mary Vay Dunway. And then she. Then Patti LuPone wins, and she's in this tuxedo, which I know she talks about in Patti LuPone A Memoir, but it's just to see. It's just an interesting clip to see. I recommend watching that because it is fascinating. And Patti LuPone just going, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's great.
- [68:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It is great. I think she's. She's wearing the tuxedo because I think she was about to go off and do Les Mouche, like, right after the telecast.
- [68:09]
Prescott Seymour
Something about. Yeah, it's been a while since I read Patti LuPone of that.
- [68:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. The. The 14th Taylor Swift album. It's also ironic that the two of them are there for that night because they both had Sunset Boulevard. Andrew Lloyd Webber drama.
- [68:24]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yes. Which if you have not listened to. If I'm allowed to talk about another podcast, there's a great podcast called the Sunset Experience. I think it's.
- [68:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, the Sunset Project, maybe, something like that.
- [68:36]
Prescott Seymour
But it's a whole history of Sunset Boulevard, and it's fascinating to hear the stories of Patti LuPone and Faye Dunway and all that jazz.
- [68:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And all that jazz. You know, it's. Yeah, there are some very interesting Tony acceptances and then Tony presenters. I've talked many times about when Elizabeth Taylor presents best musical to 42nd Street. And just like being first of all unable to read the envelope of all the producers listed, mispronouncing Jason Gladiator. Gladiator. She's unable to say Nederlander, so she calls him Needleheimer. And then she. And she realizes what she's done, and she goes, oh, Jimmy, I'm sorry. And. But also, she just did Little Foxes. Or she was still in the middle of doing Little Foxes on Broadway. And so everyone in the mezzanine is just. It's all the gays, and they're all living for her. It's Liz Taylor, and she's. She's having a grand old time. And there's a moment where she's. She's trying to continue on with her speech, but the gays are titillating her too much, so she starts giggling. She goes, stop it. And it's. It's so good. It's just a true icon. Star at home in front of 2,000 people. I love it.
- [69:44]
Prescott Seymour
Liz Taylor.
- [69:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Liz Taylor, Diamonds. These have always brought me luck.
- [69:49]
Prescott Seymour
Can we talk about. I'm actually kind of surprised. This is not in your top five or four or five. But Michael Jeter and Brent Barrett doing Take a Glass together from Grand Hotel.
- [70:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. The hotel that is Grand.
- [70:04]
Prescott Seymour
The song itself is fine. It's not a. It's not the best song ever, but the energy from the chorus, from the dancers to Brent Barrett and Michael Jeter singer together. And the second. He's just like a dancing rubber band on that horizontal pole.
- [70:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure thing. Yeah.
- [70:27]
Prescott Seymour
It's crazy.
- [70:27]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a wonderful performance. No, it's. That was. That's one where I'm like, that's definitely top 10. Do I put it in top five?
- [70:34]
Prescott Seymour
Because maybe not.
- [70:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's one of those things where you start having to split hairs of going, what? How do I figure this one out? I think that one actually might also be pre recorded. There's a moment when Michael Jeter is spinning around on the pole.
- [70:47]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [70:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which sounds so. Jennifer Lopez and Hustlers spin around on that pole. But, you know, he's like.
- [70:52]
Prescott Seymour
He's doing.
- [70:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
He's spiraling like a spinny top or whatever and. And gets caught by Brent Barrett. And there's something about the way that his mouth moves with the words from. Like. I'm not entirely sure if this is live or if it's lip synced. Unclear.
- [71:04]
Prescott Seymour
Unclear.
- [71:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because they were. They did do a live vocal for City of Angels that year. I don't know why Grand Hotel wouldn't be. But these. There are so many decisions that happen at these telecasts that we never know about. For example, the Lighting the Piazza performance, which we will get to because it is on my list.
- [71:21]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [71:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
There was an. There was an audio issue that we didn't know about at the time. I remember when the. Well, because when the telecast happened, everyone's like, why the fuck is Vicky holding a microphone? I read that now. Yeah. And we'll get to her in a second because, you know, I love me some Miss Clark if you're nasty. But no, that Grand Hotel performance is great and it's definitely the best one of the night because that's. It's that City of Angels, meet me in St. Louis aspects of love. And I don't think they do anything from the revivals. Which is a shame, because I was hoping they would do something with Tyne Daly with Gypsy, which. Talk about best actress in a musical win where the. Where the actress goes on stage and everyone is so thrilled. It's unanimous. 1800 people are on board with this win.
- [72:00]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [72:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's great to hear. It's so. It's so good. And you can see how thankful she is and grateful she is, because that was a casting that a lot of people had doubts about. And then she came in and crushed it.
- [72:10]
Prescott Seymour
And everyone's like, okay, does she have such doubts? Like Meryl Streep in Doubt?
- [72:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She has doubts. Like Cherry Jones does.
- [72:15]
Prescott Seymour
Very good.
- [72:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, that. Very good. Very good. Yeah. No, that great hotel performance. That's definitely top 10. It's amazing. It's pretty amazing. And what Tommy Tune does with it with the Choreo.
- [72:25]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [72:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Because it's not even like.
- [72:27]
Prescott Seymour
It's just joyful. I just find it just. It makes me happy. It makes me as happy as the. Forget about the way. That is my criteria for, like, a good Tony W. Performance. If it. If it sparks joy in me, if it makes me lean forward and smile, like I'm gonna buy a ticket, well.
- [72:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So think about the way that Tommy Tune choreographed or choreographed choreographed in the past. It was never about newsy style dancing with tumbles and tricks. It was about precision, and it was about how to keep the audience on the edge of their seats of what they were gonna do next. Not about necessarily impressiveness, but intricacy and inventiveness. So you watch We'll Take a Glass Together, which mostly doesn't have any, you know, outlandish choreography. Like, the people in the background, they're mostly just Charlestoning.
- [73:16]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [73:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But they're doing it with a very unified kind of way. And then also, you watch our favorite son from Will Rogers Follies, which is everyone's just sitting and tapping their hands and tapping their tambourine hats. And you watch Be Italian from nine. And like, that's just one woman and a bunch of boys with a tambourine. And it's. Again, it's just how it all builds is so very exciting, even though they're not doing anything. That's like, I could never do that. It's like. No, with some class, you probably could. But that doesn't keep it from being incredible choreography.
- [73:44]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [73:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. I love it.
- [73:46]
Prescott Seymour
Sometimes. Well, what's great about We'll Take a Class Together is how the choreography is happening in the background.
- [73:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [73:53]
Prescott Seymour
And it's bordering. It's punctuating. What Michael Jeter is doing. So you're seeing all this structure happening in the background, and it's precise, it's clean, it's good. But then Michael Jeter, the chaos that is Michael Jeter going back and forth and back and forth, it just makes it. It thrilling.
- [74:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You know what it reminds me of? Do you know how the original story of Lucy and Jesse was choreographed in Follies by Michael Bennett?
- [74:12]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, no, is the short answer to that.
- [74:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay, you can watch it. There's. I mean, there's no official footage of that Follies. It's all bootlegs. And some of it is, you know, synced footage with audio. Some of it is silent footage that someone's, you know, put together. But there is somebody who has linked it all together to try to create a folly's bootleg. And it's. It's stunning. But the way they did Lucy and Jesse is, you know, Alexis Smith famously was going to do Losing My Mind with Dorothy Collins. That was going to be a duet between Phyllis and Sally. And they're in rehearsals and they kind of go through it. Once Alexa Smith goes, I don't have a great voice. I can carry a tune. But, like, Dorothy's the singer. Give her the song. She goes, I'm not really much of a dancer, but I can move and I got great legs. So, like, give me a production number. And so they do. They start with Uptown Downtown. It becomes Story of Lucy and Jesse and the way that they choreographed it, because Alexis is not a dancer dancer. So they can't give her choreography that's like, oh, my God, look how amazing she is. They put the entire ensemble in, I think, red and white top hat and tails, facing away from the audience. So it's all back to the audience. And they all move in unison, doing very precise and very simple moves. So the. What makes it impressive is that it's just 20 people all doing the same thing all at once, but it's not outlandish. Whereas Alexis is running all over the stage facing the audience. So that alone makes her special because she's the only one facing the audience and she's not doing anything. That's Donna McKechnie. But she's kicking and she's flailing and it's all lovely. And it looks even more impressive because everyone else is in unison doing something that is not overly impressive. Very simple. Yes. And it's very creative choreography and framing your star perfectly, which is exactly how you described Grand Hotel. It's the. The real dancing is happening behind them.
- [76:03]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [76:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's not so over the top that it's taking away from what's happening, happening in front. It's just giving it the perfect framing device.
- [76:09]
Prescott Seymour
But when you put the two together, it just makes it so much more thrilling.
- [76:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh. On their own, they're both wonderful together. You have legends.
- [76:16]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [76:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yas. Yas Queen. Okay, give me another one. Gurg.
- [76:20]
Prescott Seymour
Another one. Oh. Kristin Chenoweth.
- [76:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Charlie Brown.
- [76:23]
Prescott Seymour
Charlie Brown. My new. My new philosophy. It's just. It's joy. It's just joyful. And it was her. I mean, she had been around the block, but this was the show that, like, catapulted her star.
- [76:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [76:37]
Prescott Seymour
And it was a new song from a show that everybody knew. And it just kind of. I don't know, it was a star trending performance, but which is initially a very simple song, but it's just so delightful and quirky and bizarre and fun.
- [76:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [76:50]
Prescott Seymour
It's what makes musical theater so fun. You.
- [76:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's always difficult to tell just how much magic a performer does with the song they originate until you watch other people do the song.
- [77:02]
Prescott Seymour
Correct.
- [77:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I've talked about this with Spam a lot, because when we had Peter Duchenne on, and I was like, I think they actually got it right by giving featured actress to Sarah Ramirez. I said, you know, you don't realize how much magic Sarah pulled on that role. Sara. Sara. Until you've seen other people do it. So, like, the number of people I've seen just not land diva's lament in a way that Sara did. And it's actually speaking of a solid Tony performance, Sarah does a really great job with Find your grail. Just like, boots the house down.
- [77:32]
Prescott Seymour
Vocals, belting.
- [77:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [77:35]
Prescott Seymour
For days.
- [77:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That is a solid four best musical Tony performances. We've got Spamalot giving us a solid BB journey around, Scoundrels giving us a solid B. And then spelling bee and Piazza giving us straight A's. Straight A's.
- [77:48]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, spelling bee. That's a fun one. Yeah, yeah.
- [77:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That one with Al Sharpton.
- [77:56]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, that's another one that just kind of took musical theater, because musical theater, there's structure. And then you get shows like you're in town, who's gonna like, oh, we're gonna comment on it. But then you get something like spelling bee, who's gonna say, hey, we're gonna pull Al Sharpton and put him in the musical. And not just Al Sharpton, but also you. I like it when show flip the script like that. Yeah, it's fun. It Makes it surprising and unexpected. I forgot about that. And that's one that is a fun, fun song.
- [78:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think Spelling Bee is a pretty perfect Tony performance in the sense that it is creative. It works so well for the telecast on its own, but it's also perfectly representative of what that show was.
- [78:30]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [78:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And what it did. And. And throwing in those quirky surprises like Al Sharpton. And then allowing time to have the words and their definitions and in a sentence. I mean, the. Because it's. I don't think they even use either of those words in the. In the show. Maybe they use phalange, but they don't use phylactery. Maybe they use phylactery, but they don't use dengue, which is a kind of illness you get from a mosquito bite that results in vomiting, diarrhea, fever. And Al Sharpton goes, can you use it in a sentence, please? When the doctor asked Billy about the symptoms of his dengue, he said it was like there was a race out of my tushy and everybody won, and that it's. To watch Bill Irwin lose his shit over that. It's glorious.
- [79:14]
Prescott Seymour
I think Spelling Bee. With the success of Spelling Bee, that is a perfect example of why having a televised performance of the Tony Awards, why that's important. Because look how long Spelling Bee ran after that.
- [79:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [79:29]
Prescott Seymour
That is a perfect way of selling the show. Here's the show. This is why it's fun. This is why it's different. And then it ran longer than it probably would have without the Tony Awards telecast.
- [79:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. And honestly, same thing with the light in the piazza.
- [79:42]
Prescott Seymour
Correct.
- [79:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which ended up having the most Tony wins that night. Which would have given them a boost on its own. But having that performance as well definitely helped them because that performance is gorgeous.
- [79:55]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [79:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The story goes, Victoria Clark's about to go on and do her Florence, Italy, my favorite place on earth. And she's backstage with her, like, Victoria Victor. Mic is out. Your mic is out. You gotta hold this mic. You gotta do the whole handheld mic the entire time. She's like, I have a book in my hand. I've got all these things I gotta do with both hands. How am I gonna do this? Like, I don't figure it out. You're a pro. So she goes out with the mic.
- [80:18]
Prescott Seymour
Yep.
- [80:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And starts talking Florence, Italy. And then there's a moment where. And you can't even really hear Kelly at first. I think Kelly's mic is kind of having issues too. She eventually comes back in on the final, but you see a moment Where Victoria goes, um, let me introduce myself. I'm Margaret Johnson. That's my daughter Clara. And then you can see Vicky look off camera for a second, and it's one of the producers telling her, your mic is back on. Put down the microphone. And so she takes it down, and you hear with no amplification. She's a special child. And then her actual body mic comes in. We just arrived. And it's. When you know the story and you watch it, you're like, oh, my God, how tense and thrilling that the.
- [80:58]
Prescott Seymour
I can. Like, my blood just, like. I just. It just sped up a little bit. My heart just palpitated a little bit. So, I mean, I imagine being her in that moment. That's. That's incredible.
- [81:08]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That alone is why she deserves a second Tony this year for Kimberly Akimbo. Besides the fact that she's incredible in the show and just deserves it on her own. But when you know that story, you're like, I'm sorry. Why doesn't Victoria Clarke have nine Tony Awards?
- [81:20]
Prescott Seymour
Why doesn't Victoria Clark have nine Tony Awards?
- [81:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
For the same reason Paul Alexander Nolan has no nominations. Because the world is cruel. The world is wicked.
- [81:28]
Prescott Seymour
The world is cruel. The world is wicked. Okay, I see your Hunchback reference.
- [81:32]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Who are we talking about? Bea Arthur?
- [81:35]
Prescott Seymour
Still, I'm right here.
- [81:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
On that note, let's take another break.
- [81:42]
Prescott Seymour
You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the.
- [81:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And we're back.
- [81:56]
Prescott Seymour
Hello.
- [81:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I'm getting so good at and remembering my breaks.
- [81:59]
Prescott Seymour
I'm proud of you.
- [81:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Thank you. She's a professional.
- [82:01]
Prescott Seymour
Can I give you something that also might not be on anybody's list except my own?
- [82:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Please.
- [82:06]
Prescott Seymour
Every time. So for those that might not know, I do host Musical Mondays in New York City. And every time Raise youe Voice from Sister act comes on, it just makes me happy. Because when you're watching it initially, like, okay, well, this song is kind of like, meh, it's all right. But Patina Miller's slaying. And then there's Marla Mandel and, oh, yeah, she can belt. But by the end of that song, I'm like, on my feet. I'm smiling from ear to ear. That is a good. That is a slow burn of a song. But to see a stage full of character actresses goes back to my. Forget about the boy. I guess I just like musical theater women. I really, really do. We celebrate women here just to see a bunch of character actresses belting their tits off. Singing Raise your voice. It brings me joy. And I was. I watched it yesterday in preparation for this. And why does it bring me joy? It's because we live in such a Broadway body world right now. And just to see every different shape and every different skin tone on that stage made me so happy. There was not one bicep or pec, no offense to any pectoral dancer out there, but sometimes I just want to see a human being on a Broadway stage. And that's what raise your voice does for me. It makes me so happy.
- [83:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, I got so. I was never the biggest fan of Sister act when I was on Broadway, but I always did like that number. I thought that number is such a well done piece of musical theater.
- [83:33]
Prescott Seymour
That's a show that has some good songs and not a great book, but what's good is really, really good.
- [83:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, it's been 12 years since I've seen it. So, like, I am making a comment on a show I don't know super well. I'm just going off of my memory from 12 years ago. What I will say is I have listened to some of the cast recordings since, and there's only the London cast recording. There's no Broadway one. But I will listen to Fabulous Bebe, which is fun. But I very recently was on the treadmill listening to Raise youe Voice. I really like listening to boppy musical theater tunes because I. I do want something to jam out to, but I also want a structure. I like something that builds. And something about a lot of modern pop music is it doesn't necessarily build. Sort of like one, you know, at an 11 all the time, which we love it for. But it's also why I like listening to, like, Legally Blonde on the treadmill. But raise your voice. Maybe it's just because, like, I've been in such, like, a weird place these last few months, but I was on the treadmill listening to Raise youe Voice. And when they go out, raise your mom, raise your soul. And Patina Miller goes, you guys are gonna be fabulous. And they start singing, raise your voice. I just started crying because it was just so wholesome and endearing, like they. They finally succeeded at something. Yeah, she's excited for them. It's like. Like, it's affirmation. They're all pumped to, like, go out and do something. And I was like, yeah, I love it when people are nice and people succeed. It's really well when. When people. Yeah, when people. When nice people succeed, I really like it a lot. Yeah, yeah.
- [85:00]
Prescott Seymour
Like when Hunter Foster and Sutton Foster succeed at the Tony Awards, you celebrate that.
- [85:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Everyone knows that Hunter and Sutton Foster are the worst people in the entire industry. I think Sutton Sutton and Jonathan Groff might be the only two people I've never heard a single bad word about out from anyone. Even my most hateful of friends, who I love very dearly, have never said a bad word about either of them. And I'm like, wow, they must truly be Angela, Angels of the world.
- [85:24]
Prescott Seymour
And Angelic Angelica Houston.
- [85:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Angelica Houston did the thing.
- [85:29]
Prescott Seymour
Gotta go.
- [85:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, Angelica Houston did the thing. I haven't done one in a while. Let me do one. Ooh. I want to talk for a quick second. It's about the OBC in 1992 of Falsettos.
- [85:44]
Prescott Seymour
Oh.
- [85:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
For quite a few reasons.
- [85:46]
Prescott Seymour
Very good.
- [85:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which we'll also link to the obc. Once on this island, I really love when small musicals would perform on the Tonys and get the big orchestra treatment. So rather than just do like the.
- [86:01]
Prescott Seymour
Teeny tiny band, that little chamber.
- [86:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. They're like, no, we're at the Gershwin. We've got a 25 piece orchestra at our disposal. Let's fucking beef this shit up for the Tonys. So they're doing the show with a big ass brass section and it sounds thrilling.
- [86:16]
Prescott Seymour
I gotta watch that one again.
- [86:17]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, yeah. So they open with Falsetto Land. Welcome to Falsetto Land. And then it goes into My Father's a Homo into the baseball game. And it's just so. First of all, it's perfectly 90s because it's big. It's also an audience that's just so thrilled that Falsettos is finally on Broadway after like 12 years.
- [86:34]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [86:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And there. And there was also a lot of what ifs because there was a Graziella Daniel production that happened in Hartford, Connecticut that, that might have come to Broadway and then that didn't end up happening. And it's like it all. Falsetto's road to Broadway is very interesting and I hope to do an episode on the show one day because it's a long process. But that audience is so thrilled that it's there, that it's happened, that it's good with a lot of actors that have been in the community for a while and they're all being celebrated. And so the energy in the theater is great. The performance itself is great. The orchestra is incredible. And just. They get all the right moments. They, they get a great laugh on them. My father's a homo. My mother's not thrilled at all. And then when they're doing the baseball game. Barbara Walsh gets a great joke on the. Just what I wanted at a Little League game. My ex husband's ex lover. Isn't that what every mother dreams about.
- [87:24]
Prescott Seymour
Having at a Little League game?
- [87:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And the audience is here for it, and it's just so good. And they capture a great chunk of the story, and it gets you interested because you're like, who are these people? What's their journey? We see Marvin and Wizard have a history, but what is it exactly? What's gonna happen with them? Makes you lean in. Like the book. We lean in. Yeah.
- [87:43]
Prescott Seymour
So how do you connect that to Once on this island with the orchestra?
- [87:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Another show. Another small show with a small orchestra that's given a big sound. To hear Lilia sweat come in, you got to need a help in hand or, sorry, officials got to learn to swim on land. And then to hear what's probably 30 pieces come in. It's so good. And then. I love that. The revival of Once on this island actually kind of followed a similar structure with the obc.
- [88:12]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, I remember they did they. Yes, yes, yes. They start.
- [88:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They start a little differently. So the OBC does part of the human heart and allows Lachanze to open her big old mouth and let us dive in like Pinocchio and the great whale as she goes part of the human heart. And we hear. And the revival does something similar with a different song. They do the. The storm. And the whole idea is that it is. We're showing that this is a story being told. And they. So both productions start differently, but they have the same attitude of we're gonna show that this is a story being told to a little girl. And then we have Ti Moun enter, and then we come right on in on what's her face. She lost her fear. Shino, what's the name of the character?
- [88:58]
Prescott Seymour
Which character? Mama. Yeah, Asaka.
- [89:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Asaka. She know Asaka was named. Although I think they say Mother Earth.
- [89:03]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yeah. Because it's.
- [89:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, yeah. Instead of saying she knew Asaka was.
- [89:06]
Prescott Seymour
Near Mother Earth, make it accessible for the fans at home.
- [89:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Exactly. But they go into the walk with me, little girl. And then they include that little bit that Ti Moune does after Mama will provide in the show, which is. So in the actual once on this island show, Mama will provide ends. And then.
- [89:26]
Prescott Seymour
Oh. And then she sings, oh, Daniel.
- [89:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Mama will provide when you awaken. But they put it into the number for the telecast. Both. Both productions. And it's also cool to see, like, how they. How they alter it differently. So, like with the revival, they have Haley Kilgore. Just hold that note for a very long time. The. The gods will smile. They'll smile. And because Lachanza has already done that for part of the human heart, she just pops up on a.
- [89:57]
Prescott Seymour
They'll smile.
- [89:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's just so joyful and fabulous and theatrical and beautiful. And again, I love hearing a big orchestra play a small little score. Yeah, it's so good. Whatever small shows are performing this year on the Tonys. Kimberly Akimbo, Janine Baby, Honey Booba Child, and John Clancy. Please give us a 30 piece orchestra orchestration on whatever number you're doing, because I want it. I love the orchestrations for that show on Broadway, but, like, I mean, I'll get there. You know, I. How I feel about Ms. Tesori.
- [90:28]
Prescott Seymour
Yes. Give us another one. Yes.
- [90:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, say, speaking of a Tony performance, that's not good. The original Caroline or change. But we're not gonna do that. We're leading with positivity today. Big Deal. Beat me daddy. Eight to the bar. From the 1986 Tony Awards. I think it's the year of mystery of Devin Drood.
- [90:48]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [90:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Do you not remember it?
- [90:51]
Prescott Seymour
It's been a minute.
- [90:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's Wayne Cilento and some other person and actually future Tony winner Katie Huffman in the ensemble. It's just. It's the one number from Big Deal that's good. And it just so happens to be like the last great dance number that Fosse choreographed. And he filmed it too. That's the other thing about Dream Girls in the Chorus Line that no one knows is that Michael Bennett actually directed the cameras on those numbers. So he knew exactly what to cut to.
- [91:14]
Prescott Seymour
He knew what to sell. Yep.
- [91:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
There are two really great nuances in the chorus line performance. Two great close up, where when Zach is calling out all the women of who's gonna stick around, the camera slowly zooms in on Donna McKechnie. And then when he calls Cassie, it follows her to the line, which is just a great, you know, cinematic moment. And then when he calls the boys names and finishes, there's a quick cut to one of the guys who didn't make it. And you just watch the devastation on his face and him having to leave. And then they go back to the rest of the number. And I love those nuances. And Dreamgirls, it's the same thing. He catches a lot of the nuances.
- [91:52]
Prescott Seymour
But it's very cinematic. Yeah.
- [91:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which it's gotta be because even you have you're doing something that's theatrical, but you gotta make it work for a new medium, so you gotta find ways around it. I mean, there. There are some Tony performances that are just filmed so beautifully and others that I'm like, what are we doing here? Why are we doing all the constant swoopings and sweepings? How about some close ups? How about some, you know, peripheral vision shots? Whatever we would call those. I don't know.
- [92:17]
Prescott Seymour
I'm surprised we haven't brought up, well, like, close ups and visuals. Circle of Life from the Lion King show. I mean, that. I feel like that's a very obvious choice. But that show has been around for so long now that you say circle of life and you know exactly what it. It's not a surprise anymore. Yeah, but when it first came out, you know, you got to see what it was going to be with the puppetry and all that. But with the close ups, what I like about that, I remember there's one specific shot where you see the eleph get through the eye and go, oh, that's how they do that. Oh, there's a person in each one of those legs. How clever. Yeah, very clever.
- [92:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Lion King is one of those performances where they really led with their best foot forward and they didn't have to. It was such a ginormous hit still is. That they didn't have, like, they could have been secretive and done some other random number like they did with, you know, the hello Dolly revival. Like, fuck you if we can't, you know, film in our theater. We're just gonna have David Hyde Pierce come out and sing a number no one cares about.
- [93:10]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, that was disappointing.
- [93:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It was so stupid. Scott Rudin. Pompous asshole. Toxic asshole Scott Rudin, as I call him. But Lion King was like, no, we're gonna actually give the world what it's been asking about and show you how we do circle of life.
- [93:22]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [93:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And because they also were like, we've got nothing to lose here. Like, even though we show you what is still the best number in that show, we know you're gonna come see us. Especially because if this is the only thing we're giving you, you're gonna want to see the rest of it. And it was a very smart, very powerful performance. That was a good year for performances because we had Lion King doing that. We had Ragtime doing their opening, which is also incredible.
- [93:46]
Prescott Seymour
Stunning.
- [93:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Stunning. And a really clever compression of what is a nine minute opening.
- [93:51]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [93:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then also Sideshow just doing simple. We've got Emily and Alice Giving you their all belting and just like really nailing it. Oh, God, do they nail it. It's so wonderful. Three glorious Tony performances back to back.
- [94:06]
Prescott Seymour
Did the. Did parade in 99. Did they have a Tony Awards performance?
- [94:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They did. And I talked about this last week where I had not seen. I guess it'll be two weeks from now when this episode comes out. But I had not seen Parade when it came out. I was 9, but my parents did. And I watched the Tony performance. It's Brent Carver and Carolee doing this Is Not Over yet into what is this? What is probably 12 or 13 actors in the ensemble finishing with the Old Red Hillside.
- [94:31]
Prescott Seymour
I remember that. I remember when that performance was televised and I was very like, I was into it.
- [94:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, loved it.
- [94:38]
Prescott Seymour
And then I never heard it again until college when people like, oh, what this musical Parade. I'm like, oh, this is now I know what this is.
- [94:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That's the Jason Robert Brown narrative for the late 90s, early 2000s of like, it comes in. It's a really big deal to the inner circle of theater people. And then it takes like two or three years for other theater people to catch on to it.
- [94:57]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [94:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And again, like the Wild Party, that is a show that's really difficult to market. And they did pretty as well as you could for that show.
- [95:06]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [95:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Another Hal Prince production, also difficult to market. Also produced by Livent Inc. Kiss of the Spider Woman, which actually, I might put that in my top five. I think that. I think that's a glorious Tony performance. They have the audacity to start with a 90 second book scene of Brent Carver and Anthony Crivello. And it's tense. It's a tense scene. And then going right into where you are, which is just fabulous.
- [95:31]
Prescott Seymour
But that is a fair representation of what that show is. You know, to go from jail cell tension, tension, tension, and then lush, fabulous musical theater numbers. That's an escape you kind of have. You have to paint that picture. Because if you're coming in expecting, I mean, yes, you will get Chita Rivera dancing her and singing her tits off, but you got to know where you're being set.
- [95:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You got to know where you are.
- [95:55]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, well, because it is.
- [95:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It is. Showbiz Razzmut has like Chicago, but there is an underlying tension to it all. There's a danger to it all, which makes it. Which just makes you lean in. And that's something that Cheetah just always has had as a person. She's very good at doing pure joy, but she also can do Seductive Danger. And it's so fun to watch her just be, like, celebratory in that number and reveling in the talent of herself while also having that edge. And it's a very well choreographed number. It's a very good Rob Marshall production number. I just think that is a perfectly executed Tony performance. I think that might be my controversial number five in my top five. Just because it's not. Because it's not only.
- [96:42]
Prescott Seymour
It's that good controversial.
- [96:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, but, you know, I think people, they'll think of Dream Girls and they'll think of Evita and they'll think of Chorus Line. They'll think of the shows that are purely.
- [96:49]
Prescott Seymour
They'll probably think of Les Mis as well, which we have not mentioned once.
- [96:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. Well, I do love the original Les Mis performance, but I also have some mic issues with it. And I don't love the original Marius. I think they do a good job of cutting together a performance on the Tonys. I think there are things that make it not quite perfect for me. One is the Marius and one is the mic issues. Because I know when he and Judy start doing the tomorrow, you'll be worlds away. Judy's mic's not fully in, and I'm like, I'm sorry. Of the two people here, the one person I need the mic of is my Cutesy.
- [97:22]
Prescott Seymour
Exactly.
- [97:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And I know she just did Rags five minutes earlier, but I. I'm sorry, I. I can't get enough. I'm. I'm a Hungry Hungry Hippo. Give me that. Give me my Cutesy.
- [97:31]
Prescott Seymour
Wow. Yeah. Give me my Kunzy.
- [97:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Give me my Kunzy.
- [97:37]
Prescott Seymour
I want to make a controversial statement then. So your controversial was, you know, top five being because of the Spider Woman. I'm going to give you a controversial statement saying that I don't care for the wicked Tony performance.
- [97:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't think that's that controversial.
- [97:50]
Prescott Seymour
Well, that's good, because many people freaking love it. I just. Maybe I'm so aware of it because it gets played every single week at every Musical Mondays I get to go to. I think. I mean, Dina does well what Idina does, but she's not in her best vocal moment there.
- [98:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [98:07]
Prescott Seymour
And it's fine. The show is still running, obviously, so it's not. But for me, it's the moment where you're trying to have this, like, tender moment between Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. And you hear clip. I hope you're happy. You're just trying to have that tiny, tender moment. All you hear is the Mic take up. Oh, the carabiner is in. She's secure.
- [98:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [98:29]
Prescott Seymour
I just think that's funny.
- [98:30]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It is funny. The Wicked performance, it's not bad.
- [98:33]
Prescott Seymour
That's not bad.
- [98:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No.
- [98:34]
Prescott Seymour
But it's not just the vote. It's not the best.
- [98:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It doesn't do justice to either of them, really.
- [98:39]
Prescott Seymour
True.
- [98:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
As someone who saw them live. And there are plenty of videos of them in that production where you can hear just how good Idina sounded when she was in the right vocal health. And that number, I mean, and after.
- [98:50]
Prescott Seymour
Eight shows a week and having done a matinee then driving over to Radio City, I get it.
- [98:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [98:54]
Prescott Seymour
I can't blame her.
- [98:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You can't blame her. It's, it's, it's. And it's a tough thing in general. She.
- [98:58]
Prescott Seymour
But it's unfortunate that that is what's being immortalized in gay bars at Mondays. You know that. That's the unfortunate part.
- [99:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. It's also. I mean, they were right to pick that number.
- [99:09]
Prescott Seymour
Of course, it's.
- [99:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But also, I mean, that number also, I think the power of the final 90 seconds of that song is in the waiting for it for like seven minutes, which you can't really do in three minutes. Right. Three minutes is not the same as seven. If ever there was a time where we needed Michael Bennett to whip out his big old dick and say to the Tonys, you're gonna give us seven minutes. It's Joe Mantello with his big old take me out baseball bat saying, give us seven minutes. I want Adina and Kristen to really ride out this train. And the Tonys to say, but of course you're Wicked. You're the biggest hit of the year. We'll give you whatever you want. Boy from Oz. Flop.
- [99:43]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yeah.
- [99:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Boy from Oz actually is a fun performance.
- [99:46]
Prescott Seymour
Hugh Jackman does a really fun job.
- [99:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's fun to watch Sarah Jessica Parker ride the train.
- [99:51]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, and it's really fun to watch Christina Applegate make fun of herself. Remember that bit?
- [99:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes.
- [99:57]
Prescott Seymour
I'm totally sidetracking here.
- [99:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think that's the following year.
- [100:00]
Prescott Seymour
I think so too, but. Ladies and gentlemen, Christina Applegate. She walks down the stairs and then she falls. And it makes me laugh.
- [100:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a great.
- [100:09]
Prescott Seymour
Not a Tony performance, but it is also a Tony performance.
- [100:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a Tony. Yes, it is a performance.
- [100:15]
Prescott Seymour
Honey.
- [100:16]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, Give me another one. Gur.
- [100:19]
Prescott Seymour
I've decided to marry you. The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.
- [100:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which also gets played a lot in Musical Mondays, I have found.
- [100:26]
Prescott Seymour
Yes, it has but do you know, it's the show. I don't think when that show came to Broadway, I don't think anybody expected it to do as well as it did. And I think that Tony Ward performance really sold people and said, well, this is fun. This is ridiculous. Let's go see what the show is about. I think it's a solid performance and you have to be, because that is a literal musical farce happening on stage.
- [100:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That's the thing that people don't realize, because with Gentleman's Guide, we hear these stories of shows that went on the Tonys and changed their whole financial narrative. Like, Evita came to Broadway with a huge advance and then the critics were sort of cool to it and they had to really work hard to keep the momentum going. And then they performed on the Tonys and they win their seven awards and business picks up again. And we hear about how Gentleman's Guide was sort of on Death's Door and then they win Best Musical and it turns around. But it's not just that. It's. They won Best Musical and they had a nice performance on the Tonys that engaged audiences. And that is something that I think a lot of shows don't really take into account. They're, like, so reliant on the win itself. I'm like, no, no. These are your four minutes.
- [101:35]
Prescott Seymour
Use them.
- [101:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Use them and think about how you're using them. What is it that you're leading with? You are not just trying to sell your show to as many people as possible. You want to be very honest about what it is you're selling. Don't give them a fun number if it's the one fun number in your Dower Dower show. But also give us something to lean into if that means fucking around with a medley and adding some narration that's not there, just so everything makes sense in context. Fucking do it, you know?
- [102:02]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, yeah.
- [102:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The shows that take a risk and make those creative choices are the ones I find that do the best. Ironically, the comes out of Gentleman's Guide where that wasn't really the case. They just sort of did the number. But they did introduce it in a fun way with Jefferson Mays doing all the different characters within, like, 30 seconds.
- [102:22]
Prescott Seymour
Because that is a big part of it, too.
- [102:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And it sets the audience up to laugh for the rest of the number.
- [102:27]
Prescott Seymour
Exactly.
- [102:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They get into the silliness and they are enjoying it and they're on a high. So Bryce and Lisa and Horsham. What's. What's her last name? It's Worsham is her last name.
- [102:38]
Prescott Seymour
What's her first name?
- [102:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's Lisa. It's Lisa o'. Hare. Lauren. Lauren Worsham. The three of them, it sets them up for success.
- [102:44]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [102:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's a fun number and definitely was a high point in the show itself, so they were right to do it. It's a good number. Yeah.
- [102:49]
Prescott Seymour
No, you give me one.
- [102:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay. What else we have? Okay. Do we want to do a big number or a small number?
- [102:58]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [102:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Jesus Christ. Okay, I'm going to say. Ooh. Okay, we're gonna go old school for a second. Back to the 1969 Tonys.
- [103:11]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [103:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We haven't really gone into Promises, Promises much, but I would like to. Hold on. We mentioned it, and we can go into it a little bit more in a second. But the other performance, which was the opening number for this Tony telecast, Life is from Zorba. Oh, I love this Tony performance. It is so well filmed. It is so interesting. It makes me lean in. And the actress who's leading the troupe because it's, you know, everyone's sitting in chairs sort of in a circle because they're about to tell the story of the Zorba story. What's it about? It's what every story is about. It's about life. And you know what life is. And they do the intro. Life is. And then it all builds. And our narrator stops everyone in her long black dress and her big old eye makeup and we just get the classic Kandernav vamp. And when I. That, I just mean they were good at vamps. And it's just a number that builds like it starts off loud and brash and then it all cuts out and goes small to big. And just watching it happen that way is so exciting to me. I love that. I love it. It's a great performance that not a lot of people talk about.
- [104:19]
Prescott Seymour
Not exactly expecting to hear Zorba today. Zorba. I'm not mad at it.
- [104:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a great number.
- [104:27]
Prescott Seymour
Not mad. There's one you said Zorba's like, oh, I have to remember this, And I forgot. But it'll come back.
- [104:34]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She'll come back.
- [104:35]
Prescott Seymour
She'll come back. She'll be back. To the point where I think. I don't even think I wrote it down. I'm that bad.
- [104:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You are that bad. There's. I mean, there are a whole bunch of others we could talk about. But at this point, we're just gonna be here forever.
- [104:46]
Prescott Seymour
I know.
- [104:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
We have. I mean, we have the Full Monty with. Let it go. I love that Tony performance.
- [104:50]
Prescott Seymour
That one's fine for me.
- [104:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think it's a lot of fun. I like it. I also love watching once they fully hang dong, seeing Gwyneth Paltrow in the audience be like, oh my.
- [104:59]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, Pearl Cluck.
- [105:01]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She's like, oh, no, a penis that's not part of my diet.
- [105:04]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, wait, Jane Krakowski in nine.
- [105:08]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She doesn't perform on the Tony show.
- [105:10]
Prescott Seymour
She doesn't.
- [105:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
So they do. They do a little bit of the overture and then Antonio Banderas does Guido Song.
- [105:17]
Prescott Seymour
Okay, I just remember, didn't they do the whole she comes down in the sheets on the Tony Awards? Was that just a clip? Am I just making this?
- [105:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They might have just shown the clip, huh? Yeah.
- [105:27]
Prescott Seymour
Cuz I remember watching that telecast just like going, wow.
- [105:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They might have shown. Yeah. A clip from the show when they presented her the award or something they started doing in the late 90s into the early 2000s. But yeah, because they call from the Vatican's never been done on television.
- [105:45]
Prescott Seymour
I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.
- [105:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They wanted to do it with Anita Morris and. And the Tony said, absolutely not.
- [105:51]
Prescott Seymour
Absolutely not. No shifting now. Because I remembered what I wanted to talk about. The La Casa fall performance with all the queens on stage, tap dancing, singing, and then George Hearn coming out in a tuxedo with a caricature of him as Zaza behind him. And it's a great performance. It is not in my top just because I want to see the character Alban. I want to see him in drag. He sings I am what I am in drag. I understand from George Hearn's perspective, he, in that time, it was a different time. He wanted to come out and sing as dressed as himself. Yeah, I can respect that. But it could have been such a more powerful moment, especially in the mid-80s when that show came out, especially with everything going on.
- [106:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [106:43]
Prescott Seymour
Just to hear I am what I am sung as. It's supposed to be sung by a drag performer.
- [106:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's also, I mean, that performance is very representative of how that production sold itself to America in order to succeed, which was like glitz and glamour first and then be moved later. Like, don't think of it as gay, just think of it as Broadway.
- [107:03]
Prescott Seymour
Right. And I think of Al Pacino in the Angels in America movie where he's like in the office on the phone and. And it's like, have you seen La Cage? Best thing on Broadway maybe ever.
- [107:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
After telling, say, go see Cats. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Telling conservative politicians and their wives to Go see Cats instead. You'll love it. It's singing, dancing cats. But, you know, it's a good performance.
- [107:28]
Prescott Seymour
It is. Oh, I'm not saying it's.
- [107:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, I know, but. I know, but I'm saying I agree with you. It's a good performance. It could have been great if George were in Dragon. Honestly, much as I love the Cajells, I would have really liked it if they had set up the number more instead of just like, here's our dancer now, here's George. And given us a little of the context for that number. Because that number is so powerful in a show that I don't love.
- [107:50]
Prescott Seymour
Love.
- [107:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But that moment is so heartbreaking and then becomes so defiant and just like. Like defying gravity, like. And I am telling you, it works like gangbusters any production of it. You see, because by that point, the audience is so in love with Albin and. And, yeah. And even the ones that kind of thought of him more as a clown until that point, their hearts do break for him because they see the hurt that he's feeling from this betrayal and this rejection.
- [108:15]
Prescott Seymour
They do that successful thing that is make you laugh and then kick you in the balls.
- [108:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The best dramas have humor in them because you have to dismantle your audience with humor before you go for the jugular.
- [108:25]
Prescott Seymour
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And what a jugular. George Hearn.
- [108:31]
Sutton Lee Seymour
With how he sort of.
- [108:32]
Prescott Seymour
Sings what I Am is good.
- [108:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [108:37]
Prescott Seymour
It's what? And so what?
- [108:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's like very Sweeney goes, so what if I love each feather.
- [108:42]
Prescott Seymour
Right. It makes me go right back into, like, the forbidden Broadway. A Queenie Sweeney.
- [108:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, my God. Okay, let me find another one. Ooh, another one. I really like. That's. I love this one. Is just for the pure dance of it all and to watch someone just serve cunning Debbie Allen doing America in west side Story. And it's also, I think, the only professional footage we have of that. Of that OG choreography of America. Because the movie, it's very altered.
- [109:16]
Prescott Seymour
Yes, well. And that. Well, America is expanded. Expanded. Expanded.
- [109:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [109:20]
Prescott Seymour
Plus you throw in the Shark Boys in there, too. Yeah. Not exactly the original.
- [109:23]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, it's not at all the original, but they have moments of it. And then the Tony performance, even though they are missing about, like, a minute's worth of choreo. It is like, 80% the number on. As it was on stage, preserved. Yes. And so you get to. And while we never have professional footage of Cheetah doing that number, unfortunately, the next best thing is Debbie Allen.
- [109:41]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [109:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Who is just absolutely incredible who doesn't have joints? I'm pretty sure.
- [109:47]
Prescott Seymour
Is she just a dancing noodle?
- [109:49]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's just jello in her body. She's like, what?
- [109:51]
Prescott Seymour
What's so hard?
- [109:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What? Doesn't everyone's foot go to their eyeball?
- [109:55]
Prescott Seymour
Can't you just like bring your leg over your head like that? No.
- [109:58]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No one else can do that.
- [109:59]
Prescott Seymour
No, I don't.
- [110:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
With also no bones, no body fat. It's all ligaments.
- [110:04]
Prescott Seymour
It's great ligaments and dancing ligaments.
- [110:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Talk about a good Tony's. That night you had. You had Debbie Allen, you had Patti Lupin, all the gays that were born on that night.
- [110:17]
Prescott Seymour
We haven't talked about the Rent performance yet. New.
- [110:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I remember talking about it in the Rent episode, but I don't remember what we said. What. What is your take on the Rent performance?
- [110:29]
Prescott Seymour
I just think if you think about the moment of, well, what. What Rent stood for and everything that. With Jonathan Larson's passing and the journey of Rent. Just that, that song for me. Here's the thing, as you're setting it up, you got to go back and watch this clip. And you got to watch Nathan Lane's introduction of Rent because he's got some great one liners. But then to hear, I don't know, seasons of Love, like tomorrow, you hear those chords and you just go, okay, here we go. But then it's like, oh, wait, this is a good song. And I do love it. And to see the 1996 costumes, to see the original performers, to hear.
- [111:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
To see those 1996 eyebrows.
- [111:14]
Prescott Seymour
Hello. But to hear some of the vocals that were. You can only hear on the recording. Just to hear the. To see it too. It's, it's, it's. It is Broadway history.
- [111:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And then they go into La Vie Boheme, which is.
- [111:27]
Prescott Seymour
That's the other thing you're saying. Hey, oh, I'm Joe Mantello. Here's my baseball bat. I want seven minutes. They gave him 10.
- [111:32]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [111:33]
Prescott Seymour
You know, like, they gave you the emotion and they gave you the fun. They told you this is exactly what our show is going to be. We know exactly what the show is and you have to see it.
- [111:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [111:42]
Prescott Seymour
And I think, I mean, it grabs you. It grabs you and you pulls you. And we talked about leaning forward. This one grabs you.
- [111:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [111:48]
Prescott Seymour
It's very captivating, especially with all the behind the scenes emotions happening with it. Like it was the show. How could you not root for it?
- [111:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You can tell at certain Tony telecast, which is the show that has just everything going for it. It has the momentum, it has the praise, it has the love. It has. It's a cultural moment and it doesn't happen super often. You have Rent where that's happening. You have that with Hamilton, you have that with the Chorus Line. You kind of have it with Les Mis that year. For a show that was not, you know, born on Broadway, the Tony audience is very receptive to it. They're also very receptive to all of Phantom's wins. When you watch that Tony telecast, they are very on board for Judy, for Michael, for, you know, everything that they get. It's. And it's always, I don't know, I love that energy. I love it when it's a community celebrating.
- [112:37]
Prescott Seymour
That's the stand up point.
- [112:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [112:39]
Prescott Seymour
Of Brent. Like you could feel the community not just on stage but in that theater. And I think that transports through the screen as well. Yeah, I think you can really feel that. I think that's why that is a standout performance.
- [112:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And I think that often now, because everyone wants their flowers and everyone wants to be supportive. Everyone is like us at a threesome. They want to make sure every show is having a good time. A lot of times the response is still enthusiastic, but it's all much the same for each performance. So you don't really get a sense anymore of like what everyone's truly behind. And I don't think it's necessarily mean spirited to have genuine affection for one show over another. That's just, you know, that's just sort of the way this works. And they're already winners by being on the telecast and being preserved in general, you know. But there is a joy from the audience, from watching falsettos finally get to be on Broadway, from the audience loving what's on this island and feeling fact, the inverse of this. You can tell how much the Broadway audience is so anti Miss Saigon that year, even though it is the biggest hit of the season.
- [113:45]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [113:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They are so much more on board for Will Rogers Follies or Once on this island winning. And Once on this island goes home completely empty handed. But Will Rogers Follies walks away with Best musical and everyone is just like, thank fucking God.
- [113:57]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [113:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Like we like retired with the British invasion and we don't. We're kind of pissed off Miss Saigon is, you know, succeeding as hard as it is. And.
- [114:06]
Prescott Seymour
But the helicopter, but the helicopter in the car.
- [114:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That's actually a pretty solid Tony performance. But they do something weird that a lot of other shows did like Secret Garden and Tommy and the original into the woods where they filmed stuff in the theater as sort of like a montage, and then cut to the theater where they film something live. So, like, they do these two minutes of all these moments from the stage show, and they have, you know, Lea Salonga saying, you will not touch him. Don't touch my boa. And then they cut to American Dream, and I'm like, just do American Dream. Just do American Dream. Jonathan Price can sell it. Same thing with Secret Garden. Like, Secret Garden actually goes in and out. They'll, like, show something in the theater, then show something on the Minskoff stage and go back to the theater. It's all a little chaotic.
- [114:52]
Prescott Seymour
Little.
- [114:52]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Little chaotic, but it's fine. We let him. We let him be. Same thing. I think we did the same thing with Tommy. Let me do two more. Oh, are dueling anything goeses?
- [115:02]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, yes. Okay. There is something so deliciously dated about the Patti LuPone version, because Patti LuPone's performance is great, but just seeing the ladies in their bikini sailor outfits, which is, like, so weird, but I'm into it. Yeah.
- [115:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, it's one of those things where it's choice.
- [115:25]
Prescott Seymour
It's a choice.
- [115:25]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a choice, but it's a well executed choice. So even though it may not make dramatic sense, they all look great, they sound great, and it's. We let it go because on it just on the chemical level, it works.
- [115:37]
Prescott Seymour
Right? But now there is. There is. There's a rawness, and it's weird because it's anything goes, but also because it's Patti LuPone, there's like, a little bit of a raw edge to her Reno Sweeney compared to Sutton Foster's and that whole production, that. That is slick, that is clean, that is tight. It's beautifully executed, but it's a little too, for me, a little too polished.
- [116:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure. But I think that just sort of shows you how Broadway, the direction it goes in, starting from the 90s onward. There is. I feel like both performances are great in very different ways. What Sutton's does is there's a confidence to it that comes from the polishedness of it all, where it's sort of, you know, you're in good hands and you can sort of just relax and enjoy it. And the Patty version, there it is. You know, it is professional, but there's like. There's a bit of that 80s, coked out, zany energy to it.
- [116:33]
Prescott Seymour
You know, you said it. I didn't want to say it, but you said it.
- [116:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. No, it's the 80s. Everyone was on coke, you know, Just as everyone was on Coke in the late 70s. But even the choreography of the two are just so very different. Like, Kathleen Marshall doesn't really do manic. She does very at ease, which is not to say lazy or anything like that. But, you know, she isn't gonna pound you over the head with stuff. Whereas the 1980s, anything goes that choreography. Especially when they get to the. Yeah, yeah, we know exactly what we're talking about.
- [117:12]
Prescott Seymour
Very gay.
- [117:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That was very gay. But what they're doing there, it's so. It is manic. And not that it's out of control. It's just. It is so much energy. And the audience is into it because the audience is also coked up. But it's.
- [117:25]
Prescott Seymour
It's.
- [117:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Rather than have a preference for one over the other. I just love how they sort of bookend Broadway in two very different eras in the same way that the two she Loves Me's at Roundabout sort of show. The where Roundabout was when the first she Loves Me happened, as opposed to where it got to when the second she Loves Me happened. Where they were financially, like the money they were able to spend on the show, how much bigger and brassier it could be. Whereas the Kunzy one, it was like two synthesizers and a prayer. But I still love it.
- [117:54]
Prescott Seymour
Is that gonna be the name of your cabaret?
- [117:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Tooth Synthesizers and a Prayer?
- [117:57]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, sure.
- [117:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Just like Two synthesizers and a prayer. I want to get you there. Give me another one. German.
- [118:05]
Prescott Seymour
I will say golly, golly G. Oh, I. I'm not. I'm not a fan of Dear Evan Hansen, but I will say the intro of, you know, Ben Platt of it all. Dear Evan Hansen. It did make me lean in. It is a solid number, you know, Tap, tap, tap. You know, waving through a window.
- [118:27]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Unlike anything goes. Tap, tap.
- [118:29]
Prescott Seymour
No, not tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Anyway, anyway, so despite it not being my favorite show, I do think their Tony performance is solid because they give you the song itself. It's an earworm. His performance, it's award winning. But what I like about it is the shows. You what you're gonna see it with all the social media and the screens and all that, and the. The chaotic movement of the choreography, like, it's okay. I get an idea of what this show is. Therefore, it is a solid Tony performance. I think it's solid.
- [119:04]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That was a year where I didn't really love any of the Tony performances, so that is one of the better ones, for sure. But, yeah, none of that year took my breath away.
- [119:12]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [119:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Also, guys, if it feels like we're just talking about every Tony performance. Just know this show has been televised for almost 60 years, and if a lot, and if we're averaging like six performances per telecast, which honestly the average is probably a little higher, that's like almost 400 performances. We're simply talking about like 60 of them. Right.
- [119:30]
Prescott Seymour
But you. But I'm bringing up Ben Platt because right now he. He is. He's his star. That dear Evan Hansen launched his theatrical career. He had been around, but now he's in Parade.
- [119:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
He's back. The moment has become him again.
- [119:45]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah, exactly.
- [119:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
After. After the. The movie. And now he's back with Parade and doing a lovely job in it. Minute I'm gonna. I'm gonna do a sort of a rapid fire of a couple.
- [119:54]
Prescott Seymour
And I got one more for you, so you do yours.
- [119:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because they're. Because most of these I don't necessarily, necessarily want to get into in depth. So I'm just gonna say on big production number levels, I really am into the revival of Pippin, going from Corner of the sky into Magic to do. I think that they do a really lovely job. The inverse of that is the Color Purple revival that goes from mysterious Ways into I'm Here, Cynthia Erivo and. But. And set up for success with Danielle Brooks and Heather Headly. And I also love. With Heather coming on and the audience sees her and they immediately start applauding before she's even begun singing.
- [120:25]
Prescott Seymour
Because it's Heather Headley.
- [120:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's Heather Headley with her Heather Headly arms. I saw that revival three times. I've talked about it before. I always loved it. But I got to see it once more with Heather the night before the Tonys. And it's one of the greatest theatrical experiences I've ever had Book of Mormon doing, I believe, which is not a big production number. It's just Andrew Randalls.
- [120:41]
Prescott Seymour
And he sells it.
- [120:42]
Sutton Lee Seymour
He sells it. And it, again, is a perfect representation of the. That show and the style of humor. It is, yes.
- [120:48]
Prescott Seymour
Christine Ebersol, Grey Gardens.
- [120:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Not for you. Not for me.
- [120:51]
Prescott Seymour
But see, I. That. That was the song. I watched that song. I was like, I want to see this show. And I think that's maybe the strongest song in the show. But it sold me.
- [121:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's. Again, that's just me having. When that performance came on, I had seen it at Playwrights. I saw it on Broadway, and then I saw the closing performance, and I. It was one of those things where I had seen it, and then I watched the Tonys, and I was like. Like this does not accurately represent how incredible she is and how incredible this show is. But I also don't know what it's like to be someone who didn't know Grey Gardens very well, to see that performance. No, it's. I'm just very, very protective of my baby, especially because that was the year of Spring Awakening. And I've said this before, like, I was that little asshole where all the. All the kids were going, spring awakening for the win, and I'm like, grey Gardens. I literally sat there in my Gray Gardens T shirt, which I still own, and all my Gray Gardens pins, because they. That show, they had nerd. They had a whole bunch of pins with all different quotes from the show. It's a goddamn beautiful day. Will you shut up? Not today, Geraldine. That was my, what you call it? So briquet. Daddy's girl. Things like that. A couple other ones I want to just. Rapid fire in the heights. 96,000.
- [121:59]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [121:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Great solo performance. Audra McDonald doing raunchy cartwheel with no hands. I think that we call that an aerial, right?
- [122:06]
Prescott Seymour
Is that what they call that?
- [122:07]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know. I'm not a gymnast.
- [122:09]
Prescott Seymour
We didn't know what acupuncture was before.
- [122:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I know. What are words, Words, words, words. I'm so sick of words. Gypsy.
- [122:17]
Prescott Seymour
Oh. Oh, that's one we got to talk about. Which one? Which one?
- [122:20]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Bernadette Peters. Bernadette Peters.
- [122:22]
Prescott Seymour
Yes. Bernadette Peters. No offense, Patti LuPone, but Bernadette Peters doing Rose's turn on the Tony wards. Like, I will admit, in 2003, I did not know Gypsy very well. I had never seen a production. I'd seen the movie once when I was a kid and didn't. I didn't get it. But her. I'm obsessed with Bernadette Peters, but her performance, especially when she. She does that Bernadette Peters thing when it goes, do, do, do, do, do. Why did I do it? And it was just uplighting. And she's like, looking.
- [122:45]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She's.
- [122:46]
Prescott Seymour
Stillness. The stillness of Bernadette Peters. I was like, what is Gypsy? What is this song?
- [122:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Absolutely. No. It makes you lean in. There's a moment in the Patty, Everything's coming up roses, that every time it takes me out, which is when she runs over to the wagon and just starts. Start shaking it like Madea. And I'm like, oh, God, that's where. And that's. For me. That was representative of that production, which I did not hate.
- [123:11]
Prescott Seymour
No, I love. I saw it four times.
- [123:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I. I liked it, but I. There was Very much an aura of that show, of everyone involved being like, we are actors and we are acting. And no one's ever acted this show like we've acted it before. So here we are with it as actors. This may be a musical, but we're actors. And that. And that honestly came from the head of Arthur Lawrence, who very much just would tout all the time. It's never been done like this before because everyone's acting. And then everyone in that company sort of dissipated that same way of like, yes, we're acting, we're actors.
- [123:39]
Prescott Seymour
Tell me more about acting.
- [123:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The way does Patti Pon always be like, I mean, we started rehearsals just like two weeks of table reads. You never do that because we're actors. And I'm like, yes, we get it. You're actors. It's not even the best acted musical I've ever seen, so calm down.
- [123:51]
Prescott Seymour
But what is the best acted musical you've ever seen live? Sure. Mmm.
- [124:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, if we're talking drama, I would probably say either the final performance of Grey Gardens or Piazza at Lincoln center, but if I'm allowed to go into Comedy, sure. Then 1999, Kiss Me Kate. Because everyone in that production was so on the same page. Everyone was in sync. It reminded me of the OBC into the woods, actually, of just like everyone was catching each other and allowing everyone to get their moments. And it just. It was fire.
- [124:33]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [124:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
If we're talking not live, obviously, OBC into the woods and 94 carousel. 94 carousel might still be the best acting I've seen in a musical of all time. Just the. The things that those people got out of their characters is insane. What about you? What would you say is the best acting musical?
- [124:49]
Prescott Seymour
Well, I would say, you know, if Televised the OBC into the woods, like, it just. It's just. It's in. It's in all our brains. Yeah. In all of our brains.
- [124:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's untouchable.
- [124:58]
Prescott Seymour
And you're. You might laugh at me, but I. I really love the Pat of the Pone Gypsy. I went and saw it four times. Seeing it live and seeing them act the way they acted with their acting and the actors.
- [125:11]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, listen, I don't laugh at you. A lot of people love that production. And I didn't hate it.
- [125:15]
Prescott Seymour
I loved that production. I loved it. I also really, really. I really loved the 2006 company as well. I really did. The John Doyle Company.
- [125:28]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That was good.
- [125:28]
Prescott Seymour
I really enjoyed that. The Barbara. I think Barbara Walsh is underappreciated her. Joanna is her. Joanne is completely underappreciated I'm a Barbara Walsh, Stan. Yeah.
- [125:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, God, didn't they.
- [125:41]
Prescott Seymour
They televised. There's a DVD of that production, isn't it?
- [125:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, they filmed it.
- [125:45]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. If you can get a hand on it, watch it. Barbara Walsh's performance is terrific.
- [125:50]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Oh, you know, another one that I didn't see. I saw the production live, but I didn't see this cast live. I watched the cast at Lincoln Center Library. The opening night cast of the 98 cabaret is pretty incredibly well acted from everyone. Just. It's Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming, John Benjamin Hickey, Mary Louise Wilson, Ron Rifkin, Michelle Pak, like fucking Denis o'. Hare. Those are all amazing actors.
- [126:14]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [126:14]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Most of whom have went on to win Tonys. Either for that actually. No, all of them. Them won Tony's either for that show or later shows.
- [126:21]
Prescott Seymour
Solid.
- [126:22]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's great actors.
- [126:23]
Prescott Seymour
We even talk about Cabaret.
- [126:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't love their Tony performance.
- [126:25]
Prescott Seymour
I don't love their Tony performance. But that was. I mean, that set a tone.
- [126:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure did.
- [126:30]
Prescott Seymour
Sure did. But also go back and watch. I love doing a comparison between the 98 Cabaret Tony performance and then the original Joel Gray Tony performance. How different. How much that show has grown and yet it still is the same story. Absolutely fascinating. Yeah.
- [126:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, it's interesting to see how that 98 one really just sort of made everyone go, oh, okay, so now to do Cabaret. Now we make it very raunchy and. And intense. It's like, sure. But there's. That wasn't just the tone of the mendy's one. It was. It was just to revitalize the show in a way that 90s audiences could understand it.
- [127:02]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [127:02]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Because we had now had gone into the Chicago carousel mode of, you know, looking at golden age musicals and saying, okay, we got to find what's at the heart of this. And the heart of Cabaret is dramatic.
- [127:15]
Prescott Seymour
And was the line before Wild Party crossed it.
- [127:18]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah, it was the line of cocaine before Wild Party snorted it, put it on its gums and spat in our faces. And Tony Voter said, little too far.
- [127:28]
Prescott Seymour
So what's the takeaway then from all this conversation we've had? What's the takeaway?
- [127:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I miss Toni Collette.
- [127:34]
Prescott Seymour
I miss Toni Collette.
- [127:37]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That is my takeaway.
- [127:37]
Prescott Seymour
Dear Toni Collette, please come.
- [127:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, so we didn't really talk as much about Bernadette in Rose's Turn. It's.
- [127:43]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, I saw. What I needed, I wanted to say was just that she did that Bernadette Peters thing, which is just very still and dramatic. It's Very. It's very similar to her moment in the Witch's Lament and Into the woods, where after Rapunzel gets squashed, she says, spoiler alert, Barbara, please. Just her stillness that a lot of people can't get. Nobody can recreate that stillness when Bernadette Peters won. Wants to, like, be dramatic and get that stillness that in her. Rose's turn is, I think, something. There's a smallness there that is such a big number. But to achieve that bigness with such small. With just the stillness is stunning.
- [128:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
There's a focus that Bernadette was so good at that I think we've forgotten that she had. Because like many actors, men and women who, you know, are known for certain isms, a lot of those isms have now come to define her performance style. I feel like now just that's how people sort of think of her.
- [128:38]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [128:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And she's done some performances in the last 10 years that maybe have not helped that case. But you watch her in the Gypsy Tony performance. You watch her in the OBC into the woods, and you remember that, like, she can just stare you down and peer into your soul. Fuck. Even her fucking as the stepmother. And Cinderella, the. Your common Cinderella speech. My God, Tearing her down to smithereens. And the Gypsy performance, it's not. Not with an anger at us, but rather at herself. And you feel like you're watching. Even though it's this big number on a big old stage, you feel like you're watching the most intimate, private moment. And it is. Makes you uncomfortable.
- [129:17]
Prescott Seymour
We're seeing something we're not supposed to see. Yep. She does that very, very well.
- [129:21]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I love that kind of messy rawness in a musical because we don't see it as much these days. And when I see it, I'm just like, more, more, more, please. And. And that audience just leaps to the their feet because they've seen something truly special. She's tapped into something in that moment.
- [129:37]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah. And then she lost.
- [129:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She did lose. And part of that is because she got a lot of bad press. She. She missed a couple performances early on in the run because she was sick. People said she's good, but she's miscast. And then Marissa was just, you know, in the big hit. She was in a role that fit her like a glove, and she was great. And, yes, and Tracy is a role you just root for.
- [129:55]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [129:55]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But it is one of those contentious wins that everyone's got in the opinion on it. And in case no one noticed, neither Peter or I said, Marissa Jarrett winoker in Hairspray as one of our. One of the times the Tonys got it right. Because I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it, if they did or did not.
- [130:12]
Prescott Seymour
Did you just call me Peter?
- [130:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No. My two week episode ago, Peter Duchamp. No, not. I was like, no, not you.
- [130:20]
Prescott Seymour
I mean, my name is Prescott. I've gotten called Preston before, but never Peter.
- [130:26]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What's the word again? Acupuncture.
- [130:27]
Prescott Seymour
Acupuncture. That's the takeaway from today. We will never forget the term acupuncture.
- [130:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Strolling along down. What's that word again?
- [130:36]
Prescott Seymour
Acupuncture.
- [130:43]
Sutton Lee Seymour
That's this podcast stupidity in a nutshell. I also want to say, speaking of Sutton Foster again, show off, Drowsy chaperone. Love that performance.
- [130:53]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [130:54]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You don't love it?
- [130:54]
Prescott Seymour
I. It's. It's for me, after Thoroughly Modern Millie. Thoroughly Modern Millie is like peak Sutton. After that, it just gets a little. It gets a little too Sutton Fostery for me.
- [131:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Well, did you see Violet?
- [131:08]
Prescott Seymour
Except for Violet, that was, yeah, really quite good.
- [131:10]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Violet is one of my favorites I've ever seen in life. But I just like, I think the tone of that performance is so good. Again with Bobby Harden. It's fun. Don't get me wrong. Speaking of celebrating women of all shapes and sizes and ethnicities, my body and the life.
- [131:24]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, my God, my body. How do we forget my body?
- [131:27]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Eight women just stomping on the floor and pissing all over everyone.
- [131:32]
Prescott Seymour
Which I have to do soon.
- [131:33]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay, so we'll get you out of here soon. Dancing. The Sing, sing, sing performance of dance in 1979 or 1978 or seven. I don't remember.
- [131:43]
Prescott Seymour
You're literally just deleting everything off your list as you go.
- [131:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I am Smokey Joe's Cafe doing on Broadway where they go from the August Wilson to the Minskoff Theatre.
- [131:52]
Prescott Seymour
That is cool.
- [131:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which 42nd Street Revival.
- [131:54]
Prescott Seymour
I'm appreciating that you're not. Just. I'm glad that we have not mentioned, like, the Neil Patrick Harris songs or the James Corden songs, because those, those are fine, but they're, they're, they're. It's, it's, it's. They're parlor tricks.
- [132:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
They are. The best Neil Patrick Harris song for me was the opening where they went back to Radio City Music Hall. It was the year of Matilda. Kinky was Pippen. It was the whole thing. Like, we're bigger again. Like, it's all big, big. And that number was fun. But what made it the most fun was at the very end. They had pretty much every Broadway show represented somewhere in the theater. And there was a close up of Deborah messing in the audience, just looking around, being like, oh, my God. That close up is incredible. How to succeed Brotherhood of Man with Lillias White Iconique the Aggie Song from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Every time Aggie song gets done anywhere, whether it's on Broadway, regionally, or the movie, some boy turns gay.
- [132:44]
Prescott Seymour
Every time a note is belted. A little boy turns gay.
- [132:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Rather. We should reword that as a little boy realizes that he is gay.
- [132:51]
Prescott Seymour
That's. That is better. Yes.
- [132:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
He has not been turned. He realizes his true self.
- [132:55]
Prescott Seymour
That sentence was structured perfectly. Thank you.
- [132:59]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Thank you. My last thing about turkey lurkey time.
- [133:01]
Prescott Seymour
Last thing about turkey lurky time. Besides the rubber necking and the jingle bells. Jingle bells. Yes. Unfortunately, the bierkely of it all.
- [133:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
The biercly of it all. It's turkey lurkey time for me is a perfectly choreographed number that can never be bettered if you want to do that song. Because the song itself is the epitome of stupid. The lyrics make no sense. It has no dramatic reason to be there. We don't spend any time with these characters ever again. It's just a celebration in a show that needs a moment before we get into a very sad scene. Scene. And Michael Bennett is able somehow to give us showbiz razzmatazz rooted in character. Like the way it begins. It is just those three women together starting a little number. And we have the little beats. Donna doesn't know what to do with her glass and.
- [133:51]
Prescott Seymour
And then it expands and expands and then you get that crazy choreography.
- [133:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah. And you watch it build in a really phenomenal way. Like watch the number 10 times in a row and just start paying attention to different people in it and see how it expands slowly but surely to everyone until it just becomes beautiful. Joy. Chaos. I love it. I love it so much.
- [134:12]
Prescott Seymour
Until it's recreated in the 2003 movie Camp.
- [134:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yes. Where they even go one better and mash it up with I'm still here. Love it. Last. Last performance for you, Prescott.
- [134:24]
Prescott Seymour
Oh.
- [134:24]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Or do we cover everything for you?
- [134:25]
Prescott Seymour
I think we pretty much covered everything for me, but I. Do I. Oh, I want to say this, and forgive me, because I'm probably going to destroy the pronunciation of her name, but Joaquina Kalagongo's China Kalakongo. Thank you.
- [134:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I fucked it up, too.
- [134:41]
Prescott Seymour
Her performance, I think that is going to be one that stands the test of Time. That's a newer performance and I can't wait to see, like, if we have this conversation again in 10 years, I would like to see if we would still talk about that performance because it is gut. It is. It is heartbreaking and beautiful and well done.
- [135:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Really well done.
- [135:01]
Prescott Seymour
And raw.
- [135:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
She's an extraordinarily talented woman. My feelings on that show are my feelings. But there is no denying that she is a wildfire.
- [135:13]
Prescott Seymour
Right. I just. I want to bring that one up because there's not. We didn't talk a lot about contemporary performances.
- [135:18]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sure.
- [135:18]
Prescott Seymour
So it's going to be interesting to see what is happening in this past season and seasons in recent years, how they're going to stand the test of time. How the gays love them and theater lovers love them 10, 20 years from now. And I think that is one that can stand the test of time because it is just. It is a. It is such a heart wrenching performance. Yeah.
- [135:38]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It's a performance of a song I don't like very much, but she. It's. For me, it is separating the artist from the material of watching someone who is great be great on a thing that I don't think is very good.
- [135:51]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [135:51]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Which is an odd mind fuck. It's quite inceptiony of me, but that's me. I work on many levels, but that's. I literally just talked about this with Promises, Promises. Like Turkey Lurky. Time is a stupid song that you watch. Great artists make great.
- [136:05]
Prescott Seymour
Right.
- [136:06]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And yeah, I think in that way it will stand the test of time. The gays are very opinionated, as we've learned.
- [136:12]
Prescott Seymour
What?
- [136:13]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And he's five hours together, so who knows how everyone will feel about it in a few years, But I think that there will absolutely be a fight for it as it continues. And yeah, you're not totally wrong. And of all the most recent contemporary performances, that is definitely one that is a contender for sure.
- [136:33]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [136:35]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Prescott.
- [136:36]
Prescott Seymour
Yes.
- [136:36]
Sutton Lee Seymour
This has been a joy.
- [136:37]
Prescott Seymour
It's been a wonderful dream come true.
- [136:39]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I love talking to you and I.
- [136:41]
Prescott Seymour
Love being talked to, talking with you. Oh, no.
- [136:47]
Sutton Lee Seymour
You said the thing I'm most sensitive about.
- [136:50]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, no. All right. Do you want to. Should we go have some tea and talk about it? I was just kidding. It's. No, I don't know. But that's what I do.
- [136:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
No, you're a wonderful kidder. And the truth is that what you said is the truth. So I do talk at people. I try to converse.
- [137:05]
Prescott Seymour
Not this. No, no, no, man. This has felt very conversational and I agreed with Many of your things. And there are some things that I had to be kind of sold on, but, like, I was very engaged the whole time.
- [137:15]
Sutton Lee Seymour
But I love when you push back and you've sold me on some things.
- [137:19]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, good.
- [137:19]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Yeah.
- [137:20]
Prescott Seymour
Well, I hope that your listeners will go out and make their own list. And if they want to yell at either of those, please follow me on Instagram uttonlyseymore and tell me why you think I'm wrong about Bernadette Peters 2003 performance in Rose's Turn. Uttenlyseymore. That's my drag name. That's what I do. I take the things you love and I destroy them. So tell. Talk to me.
- [137:41]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What are you, the patriarchy? I am on Instagram only. Attcoplek. Usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating or a little review. You guys have been really killing it with the reviews lately. I would have one to read, but I just read two literally yesterday. And I. I'm not so popular that I get five reviews a day. I get one or two every couple of weeks. So it's gonna be a little while until I get another review to read. But if you. If you are so moved, please do. And that is all for now, I guess, you know, you can DM me and tell me why I'm wrong about Patty Dupont Gypsy. I mean, I've spoken about it before, but I have very passionate, knowledgeable listeners who would love to send me messages and say, I listened to the episode, disagree with you about this, and here's why. And I don't. I'm not being sarcastic. I do really enjoy it because I love people conversing in this way.
- [138:35]
Prescott Seymour
Well, that's. That's. I. What. What's fun about art? Art is meant to be discussed, and you do it from a standpoint that is constructive, sassy, and fun. You never. You never tear anything down for the sake of tearing it down. You look at something and say, well, what could have been done to make it better? Or what could we do to make it better? And it's fun to have those conversations. Yeah.
- [138:56]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And it's don't make like China and let it burn. Make like Adina and let it go.
- [139:00]
Prescott Seymour
Gotta go.
- [139:03]
Sutton Lee Seymour
On that note, Prescott, who should we close out with today as our. As our grand diva?
- [139:07]
Prescott Seymour
Oh, my God. Wait. Okay. Last time I was here, I think we did Sherri Renee Scott.
- [139:12]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Sounds about right.
- [139:13]
Prescott Seymour
And I think I want to do someone obscure. Let me think of someone obscure right now. Can we do. Oh, have you ever Done. Ruthie Henshaw.
- [139:27]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I think years ago.
- [139:29]
Prescott Seymour
Years ago.
- [139:29]
Sutton Lee Seymour
And we are at the stage now where we can start repeating. So let's do Ruthie Henschel. My friend Danny will be so thrilled. He loves her. We all love her.
- [139:39]
Prescott Seymour
We love Ruthie Henschel.
- [139:40]
Sutton Lee Seymour
What's not to love about Ruthie Henshaw?
- [139:41]
Prescott Seymour
There's nothing to not love about. Wait. Did I say that right?
- [139:44]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Ruthie Henshaw. Yeah.
- [139:45]
Prescott Seymour
Ruthie Henshaw.
- [139:46]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Ruthie Henshaw. Ruthie Henshaw.
- [139:48]
Prescott Seymour
Who knows?
- [139:48]
Sutton Lee Seymour
If she wants to correct us, she can come over the Atlantic and tell us her goddamn self.
- [139:53]
Prescott Seymour
Yeah.
- [139:53]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I will be so happy.
- [139:54]
Prescott Seymour
Ruthie Henshaw come back to Broadway. Yeah.
- [139:57]
Sutton Lee Seymour
When was the last time she was on Broadway?
- [139:59]
Prescott Seymour
Was it putting it together?
- [140:00]
Sutton Lee Seymour
It might be all right. Unless she did a random stint in Chicago that we don't know about.
- [140:04]
Prescott Seymour
I don't know.
- [140:05]
Sutton Lee Seymour
I don't know.
- [140:06]
Prescott Seymour
Time to go on to the IBDB.com we'll find out.
- [140:09]
Sutton Lee Seymour
Okay, so we will do Ruthie then. That's it for now. You guys have a great rest of your week. And we will see you in seven days. Time to discuss some egregious Tony snubs. Take us away, Ruthie.
- [140:21]
Prescott Seymour
Bye. But not this time. I'll define my life this time the choice is mine to get it right this time I believe what I feel what my soul needs to heal.