URINETOWN w/ Marc Tumminelli

Summary

Broadway Breakdown: URINETOWN w/ Marc Tumminelli

Podcast: Broadway Breakdown
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Marc Tumminelli
Episode Date: November 24, 2022

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Broadway Breakdown dives deep into the off-Broadway-to-Broadway transfer, URINETOWN. Host Matt Koplik welcomes back Marc Tumminelli (fellow podcast host, Broadway Workshop director) for a raucous, passionate, and highly opinionated discussion. The pair recount personal connections to the show, analyze its structural genius, dissect its musical and comedic influences, and reflect on its impact and legacy as a groundbreaking, meta-commentary satire. As always, there’s irreverence, inside-Broadway gossip, and a cascade of memorable moments — all in the spirit of celebrating musical theatre’s oddest and bravest.

---

Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Personal Histories with Urinetown (02:11–04:11)

• Marc’s Experience: Saw the original Broadway production multiple times using a post-9/11 ticket initiative; describes it as "musical comedy perfection" and shares longing to direct the show, currently battling with rights holders.
• Matt's Experience: Only saw amateur and regional productions, heard about the Broadway version through older theatre kids reenacting favorite scenes (Skylar Astin as Officer Lockstock’s slow-mo run), and found the bootleg on YouTube later in life.

“I was truly… it's like musical comedy perfection to me. So I have a great love for the show.” — Marc (02:11)

2. The Comedy and Satire of Urinetown (06:20–09:42)

• Comedic Style: The show’s machine-gun joke density, demands subtle serious acting to land the humor—a "Law & Order, but in a musical" approach.
• Influences: Parallels to Airplane! and South Park — straight-faced delivery is the key to the comedy’s success.
• Bootleg Praise: The original Broadway cast bootleg is held up as a masterclass in musical comedy timing.

“It is very rare that there's real musical comedy where it's like there's a joke every three seconds. Yes. And Urinetown delivers that in a way that very few shows can.” — Marc (06:20)
“It’s Threepenny Opera by way of South Park.” — Matt (08:49)

3. The Show’s Development and Legacy (10:20–13:12)

• Writers’ Backgrounds: Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, both based in Chicago, developed Urinetown over years, struggled to get Chicago theatres interested until success at the New York Fringe Festival snowballed into off-Broadway/Broadway productions.
• Aftermath: The creative team mostly faded from New York post-Urinetown.
• Meta-commentary: The show is both a satire of social systems (capitalism, bureaucracy) and musical theatre structure/tropes.

4. What is Urinetown About? (11:19–15:39)

• Plot Summary: In a dystopian city with a water shortage, citizens must pay to use public toilets or risk being sent to "Urinetown" — a mysterious, fatal punishment.
• Main Characters: Bobby Strong (rebellious everyman), Hope Cladwell (naive ingenue, Cladwell’s daughter), Officer Lockstock (narrator/enforcer), Little Sally (child sidekick and meta-commentator).
• Satirical Elements: Spoofs elements of Threepenny Opera, Les Mis, bureaucracy, and American musical theatre’s own rules.

“It's a musical about people having to pay to pee. And we are not that far off from that at any time here in America.” — Marc (12:29)

5. The Importance of Tone & Staging (07:13–08:49; 42:34–43:10)

• Straight-faced Satire: Director John Rando instructed the original cast to play everything with earnest seriousness, never "winking" at the audience. Many school/amateur productions err by going “too broad.”
• Comparison to Airplane!: “All those jokes … there’s trouble in the cockpit. What is it? … That to me is what a joke is.” — Marc

6. Original Broadway Cast & Backstage Drama (18:28–25:46)

• Comedic Standouts: Special praise for Spencer Kayden (Little Sally) and the unique chemistry of the ensemble.
• Casting Drama: Only Spencer Kayden transferred from Fringe to Broadway. Lawsuits erupted over claims of stolen staging and regional theaters copying the Broadway production after its run.

7. The Show’s Origin Story (20:08–22:12)

• Greg Kotis’ Eureka Moment: Forced to pay for public toilets while backpacking in Europe, inspiring the premise that would become Urinetown.
• Environmental & Political Satire: The writers’ political awareness shaped the show’s themes.

8. The Show’s Structure and Satirical Devices (43:10–55:06)

• Meta-narration: Officer Lockstock and Little Sally regularly break the fourth wall, discussing musical convention and narrative mechanics.
• Favorite Moments:
  • Officer Lockstock refusing to explain “Urinetown” in Act I: “I can’t just blurt out, there is no Urinetown. We just kill people.”
  • Hope’s ingenue humor, especially in “Don’t Be the Bunny”:

    “Bunnies don’t drive cars. Don’t they, Hope? No, actually, I don’t think they do.”

  • Snuff That Girl choreography as “angry snapping”: John Carrafa’s vision ensured the dance numbers looked slightly beyond the actors’ reach, “real people in a musical who think they’re Sid Charisse and Fred Astaire.”

9. Musical & Score Analysis (45:58–47:36)

• Musical Influences: Score fuses influences from Kurt Weill, Brecht, Blitzstein (Threepenny Opera, Cradle Will Rock), Les Mis, and West Side Story.
• Vocals & Replacements: Nancy Opel’s belt redefined Pennywise, despite originally writing the role for a classical soprano (Victoria Clark type).
• Favorite Songs:
  • Marc: “I See a River,” “Follow Your Heart” (for ingenue moments).
  • Matt: “Follow Your Heart,” Act I finale, and to watch, “Snuff That Girl.”

10. Standout Characters & Performances (56:08–58:29)

• Marc: Hope Cladwell (Jennifer Laura Thompson), for blending comedy chops with a luminous soprano.
• Matt: Officer Lockstock (Jeff McCarthy) for the meta-humor, plus all Officer Lockstock/Little Sally exchanges.

11. Social & Political Satire – The Dark Endgame (70:28–77:05)

• Plot Endgame: After the revolution, when people finally “pee for free,” the water is quickly depleted, and society collapses anyway. The show ends with “Hail Malthus,” a reference to economist Thomas Malthus’s theory that population will always outgrow resources.
• Marc’s Critique: The “Hail Malthus” ending may be too inside-baseball for most audiences, risking confusion.

“Despite all the amazing jokes... there is a dark undercurrent to it.” — Matt (75:05)

12. Broadway & Cultural Impact (92:32–98:39)

• Meta-musicals After Urinetown: Paved the way for meta-comedy musicals (Spamalot, Something Rotten, Shrek, etc.), but none blend commentary and substance as deftly.
• Forbidden Broadway Redundancy: As more shows commented on themselves, Forbidden Broadway became less relevant.

13. Awards & Closure (95:03–99:08)

• Post-9/11 Broadway: Despite positive reviews, some wondered if NYC was ready for a black comedy about social collapse.
• Awards:
  • Lost Best Musical to Thoroughly Modern Millie
  • Won Best Score, Best Book, Best Direction — a rare trifecta for a non-musical winner.
• Reason for Closing: Forced to vacate the Henry Miller Theatre due to building demolition (“the Sondheim” now stands there).

14. Fun & Favorite Quotes

“Knowing me just makes life seem a lot longer, don't it?" — Matt (01:21)

“[Urinetown delivers comedy with] a joke every three seconds.” — Marc (06:20)

“Play it straight. And when you watch the bootleg of the original production, that is exactly…” — Matt (07:13)

“It's like Threepenny Opera by way of South Park.” — Matt (08:49)

“It's a musical about people having to pay to pee. And we are not that far off from that at any time here in America.” — Marc (12:29)

“He’s the hero of the show, she has to love him.” — Matt as Officer Lockstock (99:09)

“Hail Malthus. Thank you, and good night.” — Officer Lockstock (72:41, 99:11)

---

Memorable Moments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Highlight | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:11 | Marc's origin story with Urinetown | | 07:13 | The importance of straight-acting for the comedy to land | | 18:28 | Special praise for Spencer Kayden (Little Sally) | | 20:08 | Greg Kotis’ European inspiration for the premise | | 42:34 | Ingenue humor: “Bunnies don’t drive cars...No, as a matter of fact, I don’t think they do” — Hope (39:36–39:53) | | 43:10 | Why playing the jokes straight matters: “The character can’t know, the actor can know.” | | 53:01 | “Snuff That Girl” as angry, intentionally awkward choreography | | 72:41 | "Hail Malthus" ending explained | | 92:32 | The show's meta-theatrical legacy on Broadway | | 95:03 | Show’s closing due to theater demolition; recouping and awards season | | 100:09 | Meta-jokes: Officer Lockstock & Little Sally on love |

---

Notable Broadway/Life Tangents

• Millie vs. Urinetown: Sibling rivalry on Broadway (Hunter Foster in Urinetown, Sutton Foster in Millie).
• Guest’s personal anecdotes about actors, auditions, and celebrity run-ins (e.g., Jen Cody, Charles Shaughnessy, Tom Cavanaugh's infamous flop as Bobby Strong, Spencer Kayden’s desk-job-to-Tony-nominee journey).
• Quick detours to Annie, forbidden Broadway, wild party, and favorite theatre podcast moments.

---

Final Thoughts & Legacy

• Urinetown is hailed as the gold standard for meta-musical satire, blending social commentary with awareness of musical theater mechanics.
• The original production’s tone and ensemble work are seen as nearly impossible to top.
• Its legacy is felt in subsequent Broadway meta-musicals—none so incisive or effective.
• Both hosts gush about performers (esp. Jennifer Laura Thompson) and mourn that there’s no return to the show’s original magic.
• The episode closes making the case for the musical’s genius, dark wit, and enduring relevance.

---

Closing Quote

“Hail Malthus. Thank you and good night.”
— Officer Lockstock, Urinetown

---

Diva Send-Off

As tradition, the episode closes with tribute to Jennifer Laura Thompson (the original Hope Cladwell).

---

Listen to Marc Tumminelli on "Little Me: Growing Up Broadway."
Follow Matt Koplik on Instagram: @mattkoplik.
For rights to Urinetown, good luck!

---

Transcript

[A]

Sam. Foreign.

[B]

Lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called the Big Move and it is covering shows that were so successful off Broadway that they just had to transfer to the Great White Way and try some luck over there. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast host. And with me today is another BPN host. He's got his podcast with VPN Little Me Growing Up Broadway. He's also been a guest on this podcast many years ago. Please welcome back Mark Tuminelli.

[A]

Many years, Like a year.

[B]

But in my mind it's been like, in my mind I've known you for nine years. But that's simply not true.

[A]

Well, it just. It does feel that way, doesn't it, Matt?

[B]

Knowing me just makes life seem a lot longer, don't it?

[A]

No, it feels great. Knowing you has changed my world.

[B]

Oh, that's so sweet. It's a lie. But he's on my podcast, so he's got to say nice things.

[A]

My people do my podcast all the time and they don't say nice things.

[B]

Well, you get people like Andrea McArdle and she's probably just like, what? So what? Who cares? So what?

[A]

She's the greatest. Smoked an E cigarette the whole time.

[B]

Ah, what we do when we're an icon. Speaking of Andrea McCardell, she did a regional production of this show. Mark, what show are we talking about today?

[A]

We're talking about you're in town.

[B]

Your ticket should say you're in town. Yes, we're talking about Urentown book by Brett Kotis, music by Mark Hulman and lyrics by both gentlemen. Mark, what is your history with this show?

[A]

Great. I was a 20 year old, maybe I turned 21 when this show was in previews. I saw it, I was obsessed with it. And then 911 happened and I still lived in New York, obviously. And so we. There was this initiative in New York City where it was if you spent $100 in New York City on anything, groceries, eating out at a restaurant, you could bring your receipts to New York and company and they would give you two tickets to any Broadway show. And I did that for your in town like four times. So I saw you were in town a lot in the months post 911 and I was truly, it's like musical comedy perfection to me. So I have a great love for the show and I have never seen it again. I'VE never seen a regional production. I've never seen a high school production. I've never directed it. I've never been in it. But I have a great love of that original Broadway cast and production. I feel like you should stage at some point.

[B]

I feel like that's a show for you to direct.

[A]

Well, I'll be honest with you. I am on hold and I've been on hold for several weeks about. I think we're at eight weeks with the MTI who will not give me the rights to do this musical. So I sent an email to Greg last night and said I would like to do you're in town as our first show back at Broadway Workshop for our main stage. And what I got is radio silence so far.

[B]

What's he so damn busy with?

[A]

I don't know. But I would love to do it and very well be my main stage as long as they make that decision in the next five days. Because I got to announce something.

[B]

Absolutely. Well, I'm fingers crossed for you. You will know in the next five days by the time that this episode comes out. But as we're recording, we don't know. I have only seen amateur productions of Urinetown. I did not see it on Broadway, unfortunately. This was the season that I was really into Millie and I was into that.

[A]

Of course you were.

[B]

I was a baby. Okay.

[A]

It's just I loved Millie so much, but I always like the underdog show and you're in town's the underdog show.

[B]

I usually am the underdog person. I just didn't know much about Urinetown. I, I, it was right before I was about to start going to school in the city. I think if I had been going to school in the city at that point, I would have gone to see it because it would, it was just so around everywhere. But it was there for my first two years at PCs and I remember seeing ads all the time and it would say, you're in town. And they would, underneath the title, they would phonetically spell out how it's pronounced. And then there'd be like little scribbles like, is that really the title of the show? And blah, blah, blah. And the only person in my family who had seen it was my grandmother, and she did not care for it. So everyone else in my family was like, oh, we won't see it then. And then I saw the Tony performance and I thought it was, it looked really cool. But when you're, you know, 12, 13 years old, you are really kind of at the whim of the people who pay for the tickets.

[A]

So.

[B]

So I was not allowed enough voice to get anyone to go with me. And then it closed. And I remember the older theater kids around me were so into it and they would sort of talk about moments in the show that they loved. Like, I remember, I have a very distinct memory of Skylar Astin, then Lipstein reenacting officer Lockstock's slow mo run at the end of Act 1 for me and a bunch of other people. Cause he had just seen the show and he was talking about like, just how funny it was. And I was like, that does sound really funny. I wish I had seen it. So I finally did get to see it at Everyone take a Shot, staged Our Manor, and then I saw it at two other schools and in regional production and finally got my hands on the bootleg that's now on YouTube. And I went, oh, right. This is how good the show can be.

[A]

There's a very comprehensive original cast bootleg that I watched last most of last night in prep for this. And it was so nice to revisit Old Urinetown.

[B]

Old Urinetown. It is a very wonderful bootleg. And it's early enough in previews. It's like about two weeks before 911 happens. But the show is set at that point. They didn't really make any major changes after this bootleg happened.

[A]

And the audience is dying over themselves. It's very rare that there's real musical comedy where it's like there's a joke every three seconds. Yes. And you're in town delivers that in a way that very few shows can. Which is why I think I have a great affinity for the. In the book, in the score and you know, these, these brilliant people who brought these characters to life.

[B]

Yeah. Well, it's all. It's also a very tricky show in a lot of ways because it is satirical and it's. It's a send up of the tropes of musical theater while still adhering to the structure of it all. And I think a lot of people, you're very lucky you never saw a school or amateur or region production of it. Because all the non Broadway productions I've seen, they don't. It's not that they don't trust the material, it's that they go too broad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was in my research, the thing that all the actors in the original production talk about is that, you know, like the first day of rehearsal, John Rando, the director, said, treat this like you're in an episode of Law and Order. It's very serious and it's, you know, very earnest. Don't ever wink at the audience. You don't ever mug. Don't ever act like you're smarter than the material. It's so. Because it's such an odd show and what the characters say are so odd and you have, you know, Officer Lockstock breaking the fourth wall all the time and talking about conceits in musical theater, the only way it works is if you play it straight. And when you watch the bootleg of the original production, that is exactly.

[A]

I mean, they are doing Madea. It is so fun because. And that's why the audience is laughing so hard. I mean, when you're. When they're saying my favorite joke in the show. And I don't know if that's like a question we'll get to. And I was remembering last night, I was like, is it coming? Is it coming? And it's. She goes, when can I see you again? He goes, my, my dear, in this light you can't see me at all. Or in this darkness you can't see me at all. And like that is exactly what I think is funny. And as a kid who grew up obsessed with Airplane, that movie, and Spaceballs, like those two movies are my comedy north stars and you'd're in town. Was that on stage? Like every joke is self aware without the actor ever being. And if you go back and watch Airplane, which I suggest people do every six months just to remember that things can be funny, is that, you know, it's like all of those jokes, you know, there's trouble in the cockpit. What is it? It's a small room in the front of the plane, but that's not important right now. That to me is what a joke is.

[B]

It's so good. Yeah. Airplane is such a perfect parallel to this. I was reading the New York Times review for it and they were like, it's Threepenny Opera by way of South Park. And I think that's also very accurate because when you watch a good episode of south park, what makes it so funny is all the voice acting is still very serious. The way Randy will go, shelley, like, it's just so over dramatic and intense. And I'm thinking of Airplane and not Julie Haggerty, but the other stewardess who she's, you know, she's so scared. And I'm 23 and I've never been married. And the. One of the pastors comes up and says to the doctor, like, any idea what's going on? No. How are you Doing. To be honest, I've never been so scared of my life, but at least I have a husband. Just breaks down and sobs, like fully crying tears in her eyes. And it's brilliant.

[A]

It's. It's a perfect film.

[B]

It is a perfect film. And you're in Town is pretty perfectly structured as well. The interesting thing about it is neither writer has really done much since this show. At least nothing. Nothing in New York that we've been able to see. I know that they're both based in Chicago, but there was talk of them doing other stuff. They were supposed to do a musical version of the man in the White Suit, which is a British sci fi satire film that went nowhere. And then they were gonna make a trilogy out of Urinetown. They were gonna do a prequel called Y's Nation which had a production.

[A]

Oh, I remember that. Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Harriet Harris and my friend Joy Soprano was in that.

[B]

It got good reviews. They did anything in San Francisco and Chicago. I don't know if they ever did it here.

[A]

But they did it here, I think in the Fringe or. Yes, the musical theater festival or something like that.

[B]

Yeah, they did it. The Fringe again. And the response was solid, but nothing came of it. And then they never. Maybe they did write the third part, but no one's ever heard of it. But yeah, it's frustrating because it's such a good show and they are good writers and I wish that we would hear more from them. But it's interesting. We say the Fringe because that is how this show came to be. This is the off off that leads to the off that leads to the Broadway.

[A]

And that's what this series is all about.

[B]

That's exactly what it's about. A great way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The origin of this piece. Well, actually, first of all, Mark, for those who don't know, what is Urinetown about?

[A]

Urinetown is about a Gotham like city that has a severe water. Water shortage. Water shortage. Water shortage. And so all of the people have to pay to use the public bathroom. And so it's really a story about haves and haves nots, the upstairs, downstairs of it all, and these rich people who are making these decisions and these poor people who are kind of coming together to figure out how they're going to pay to pee and the uprising that comes out of that. And of course, there's a love story between the guy who's in charge of choosing this pay to pee thing and. And the guy who's leading the revolution and this guy's daughter, you know, that was. Can I start over. There's a lot. There's a lot that goes on. It is a musical about people having to pay to pee. And we are not that far off from that at any time here in America. And so I think the show feels so relevant. I love when people are like, I'm doing cabaret. It's more relevant than ever. Like, all right, we got it. It'll never not be relevant.

[B]

It's never not going to be relevant.

[A]

It's sort of that thing. Do you want me to read a description?

[B]

Yeah, read some description, because left to your own devices, you. You're not going to help anyone.

[A]

You can just suck it. The description here on Wikipedia is really bad, so I'm looking for a better description for you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Oh, my God. All right. It standardizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal policies. The show also parodies the musical, Threepenny Opera, the Cradle Rock, Les Mis, and the Brahmin musical itself as a form. So let's just go with that.

[B]

Yeah. The main characters, we've got Bobby Strong, who helps Pennywise. Miss Pennywise.

[A]

Is there any clown from it?

[B]

Yeah, the clown from it. Imagine if the clown from it or a character in your in town, Bobby Strong helps regulate and takes fees from the worst part of town that at their public amenity. And his father gets carted off.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

So the other thing is, it's called year.

[A]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You are not better at this than I am.

[B]

I am not better. I'm not better. I am perpendicular. But it's the reason why it is called you're in town. So everyone has to pay to use the. To use their restrooms because of this drought that's been going on for 30 years. And there is a major company that's in charge of all the fees called you're in good company. And if you do not have a lot of funds, then you have to. Then you know, you have to go to the worst part of town to be able to pay for the toilet. And if you don't pay, if you choose to go into the bushes or something, you are caught, carted off by the authorities to what is called Urinetown. And the joke. Part of the joke of the show is that no one ever knows what Urinetown is. It's always referred to on the sly. You know, the police officers take people away, and then you never hear about it ever again. But because this show breaks the fourth wall and because Officer Lock Stock is the narrator of it, we do find out what Urinetown is pretty early on. Just the rest of the cast does not until Act 2. And that's one of my favorite jokes in the show. Basically, anytime Officer Lockstock speaks, I am guffawing. And he enters and mentions Urinetown. Welcome to Urinetown. Not the place, of course, the musical. You're in town. The place. Well, it's a. It's a bad place. A place you won't hear about until act two. And, well, let's just say it's filled with symbolism and things like that, and everyone's always talking about it. Bobby's father breaks the law and pees himself because he can't afford the fee that. That day. And they cart him up to Urinetown. And this haunts Bobby. And this is ultimately what inspires him to start the revolution, to rebel against urine good company and have everyone pee for free. And he just so happens to fall in love on site with the daughter of Caldwell B. Cladwell, the man who owns Young company and is in charge of all the fee hikes. And there's another character that was. I thought that was solid. That was actually pretty solid.

[A]

Also, I don't think anyone's listening to this who doesn't know you're in town.

[B]

You don't know. You never ever know.

[A]

If you don't know you're in town. Take a moment, watch the bootleg, and then pick back up and pick up right up and minute. Whatever.

[B]

We're at minute 9,000. I had to do a Q and A event that was Hamilton themed with actors from Hamilton. And we were talking about the show and the liaison. No, Hamilton and the liaison for this event from the. From the company that we were, you know, doing this for. She asked me on the side, can you do a brief plot description of Hamilton for people who don't know? And I said to her, everyone's here for a Hamilton event. I assumed everyone knew what Hamilton was like. If everyone requested it, isn't it because they know it? She's like, well, some people might have shown up just to do something today. I was like, what is your company? What are people?

[A]

So, yes, to quote, that you work there.

[B]

I don't work there. I worked there for that day. The. Well, yes. Let's.

[A]

Let's.

[B]

Let's take Mark's side on this, guys. If you don't know you're in town that well, you can take our terrible, terrible summaries and then go off.

[A]

I thought my. I stand by my summary. I'm sorry.

[B]

Okay, well, someone's got to. So pause.

[A]

We're having fun.

[B]

Watch the perfect. Watch the absolutely perfect bootleg and then come back and we'll. And listen to us talk about it. I also love everything with Lock, Stock and Little Sally. The side character, Little Sally, who is like a street urchin, like street kid, latchkey kids kind of person. And they're always sort of talking about the structure of the show as well as the politics that's going on in it. And the two things I really love are when Little Sally mentions hydraulics, we don't mention. We don't talk about hydraulics all that much, do we? And he. And he explains to her how musicals work. Like how a parent would talk about how babies are made. You see little Sally sometimes in a musical. And then when she asks about Urinetown, is it either. She asks, like, is it scary or something? And he says, I can't tell you about it, Little Sally. We're too, like, we're too early in the show. I can't just blurt out, there is no Urinetown. We just kill people. No, I can't do that. And it's such a wonderful moment because you watch Spencer Caden in the Bootleg and she definitely registers what Officer Lockstack has just said. But because of how the musical needs to work, she pretty much forgets about it pretty quickly. But you definitely watch Spencer Caden's face when Jeff McCarthy just fucking blurts out, there is no urine time. We just kill people.

[A]

Can we talk about Spencer Caden for 30 seconds while we can talk about.

[B]

Every single original cast member for 45 seconds?

[A]

Okay, well, Spencer Caden gave one of the greatest comedic female performances I've ever seen on Broadway. And I was such, like, I just rooted for her so much that year in that Tony season. And also, like, I remember some quote she said, like, six months ago, I was working at a desk job, and now I'm nominated for Tony Award. And as someone who was working at a desk job, and that's all, like, I wanted to do at the time, I found her very inspiring. Of course, she didn't do a whole lot after. Neither did I. So, you know, but in the moment, boy, was I, you know, rooting for that girl and her brilliant, brilliant performance in the show. She was on Broadway again in a show at the Roundabout a few seasons.

[B]

Later, Don't Dress for Dinner, which she was nominated for a Tony again. She does a lot of voice work. I. I looked up because I also.

[A]

Want the best for Spencer Caden. I'm. I'm checking on her wiki.

[B]

She's married to Mark Herlick Harlech.

[A]

She's much older than I. Yeah, she.

[B]

Was 33, I think, when.

[A]

Oh, my God. Wild. Okay.

[B]

And so she's the only cast member from the Fringe production that made it to Broadway because the role of little Sally was written for her.

[A]

Yeah, but that doesn't mean. Sometimes things get written for people and they're.

[B]

I know, I know.

[A]

Oh, that's really made it through the rain. Oh.

[B]

There are two things I want to make sure that we talk about with this show, because there's. There's some backstage drama with this show that maybe some listeners aren't aware of. Quite a few lawsuits after you're in town. Closed on Broadway, but then on top of that, some drama on the way to Broadway because.

[A]

So let me.

[B]

Let me set the scene for y'. All. Picture it. It's Europe circa 1995, and Greg Codis is part of the Neo Futurists, which is a Chicago based performance troupe. They do a lot of political satire and shit like that. And he was like an aspiring playwright, and he stayed behind because he wanted to absorb the culture and eventually buy a. An engagement ring for his fiance. And he started to run out of money pretty quickly, and.

[A]

And he came across $300, and he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay in Paris for weeks and go to hamster. $300.

[B]

That tells you what kind of man Greg Cody is and was. And I listened to him in an interview on a podcast a little while ago in prep for this. He's a very dry person, and it makes absolute sense to me that at that time he was like, I've got enough money to last me six months. No, Greg, no, you don't. And there were public amenities in Paris, I think he said, where you had to pay in order to use the restrooms and this.

[A]

Yeah, everywhere in London. I think he's. I think it was in London that everywhere is. You know, it's pay to pay to use the toilet. Some are nice summer crappy.

[B]

Yeah, well, and part of the reason was to keep homeless people from basically setting up camp in those establishments. And he. There were days when he said he had to decide if he was going to pay for a sandwich for, you know, his meal for the day, or if he was going to pay to go to the bathroom. And he was like, that's a really interesting conundrum to have. I should write that down. And then he said, imagine if this came to America, the, like, what chaos that would cause. And then he realized because he is very political, environmentally conscious, he Was like, you know, that is something we have to think about for the future. And that kind of gave him the idea of, well, what if some giant monopolizing corporate corporation in America was in charge of all the fees for these public amenities? That would be a disaster. And he goes, well, that sounds like a really good idea for a musical because it's too weird to be a play. And he. Which I love, his reasoning is like, too weird to be a play.

[A]

Musical.

[B]

Yeah, that's got to be a musical. And he doesn't really like musicals all that much. He said he always thought they were kind of odd and silly, but he knew Mark Hollman, who was an aspiring composer, and they, you know, they knew each other from college and they were both Chicago based, so they spent the better part of like three years writing Urinetown. And they were trying to get it, you know, produced anywhere in Chicago, and no theaters would produce it. They all were like, listen, we like this, but our subscribers average about 95 years old. We can't do your show. And as luck would have it, he did reach out to John Clancy, who is the head of the New York International Fringe Festival at the time, and Clancy was like, yeah, submit it. We could probably do it. And he did, and they were able to put it up. And things progressed pretty quickly from there. David Auburn, who eventually would write Proof, saw the show and got his New York producer friends to come see it. And remember that name, guys, because we are going to cover Proof in a later episode of this season because that is also an off Broadway to Broadway transfer and they spend about two years covering plays.

[A]

Now. We.

[B]

We've been covering plays. They're just harder to do because they're not always bootlegs. Some people don't want to read the scripts. So far we've covered Torch Song trilogy, but we.

[A]

Yes, I. I did see that episode.

[B]

Yes, yes, With Mama, which for anyone who listened to that episode, knows major parallels to my life in that play, which we did not expect until we were sitting there watching it. And my mom just kept turning to me throughout all of International Stud being like, hmm. See anything you recognize, bitch? I'm like, yes, bitch. Now watch the play. The drama I was referring to is that Spencer Caden was the only actress from the Fringe production who got to transfer to the Off Broadway production at 54th Street. Because the Broadway producer said, we want to recast this with all Broadway talent and we want to get a Broadway director. And the writer said, okay, well, then we would like extra time to develop it. And there was a lot of tension about that because, you know, Holman and Codis wrote the show with a lot of their friends in mind who got to do the show at the Fringe. And it sucks when, you know, you are a part of something at the ground level and it's written for you and it goes off without you, without a second thought. And the director of the Fringe production was uber pissed and waited the solid five years to sue because he claimed that John Rando and John Crawfa stole a lot of his staging and ideas for the Broadway production. And he said he didn't have the guts to file a lawsuit until they filed their own lawsuit. We'll talk about that lawsuit later on. Do you know about that lawsuit?

[A]

I don't know a lot about that. This is very exciting.

[B]

The. The lawsuit that Rando and Crawford filed against two different regional productions.

[A]

Yes, that was the Jen Cody production at the Carousel Dinner Theater. I do know that my really dear friend was Little Sally in that production. And I remember that being a very big dramatic thing of people staging Urinetown with the exact Broadway staging following the Broadway closing and the national tour and the. The, you know, the professional rights being released.

[B]

Yeah, there was. There was a second theater. Yeah, there was a second theater that did it as well. And they sued both, and they were like, talking about, you know, how it was copied, like, basically everything down to the T. And after they file that lawsuit, Joseph McDonnell, the original director from the French production, is like, well, now I feel brave enough to file my own lawsuit against them. And it's. It feels like a South park episode in itself. Or like Roger from American dad.

[A]

Yes. Like suing people for ideas he had 20 years ago.

[B]

It's like, oh, we can sue people now. Fantastic. Here I go.

[A]

You who fly the blimp A people shut up. Evil in the air Then ask why the ride gets jarry now you're sorry you're a fair. Now you're sorry now you're sorry.

[B]

But I don't know if you all, if you know this as well. When they were doing these readings and workshops of Urinetown before going to Off Broadway, what was the name of that theater? The one that's on the Broadway Theater?

[A]

It's. It's a 50. It's on 54th Street. It's the theater, the American Theater of Actors. The Actors American Theater. And it's above the police station. And I went to last year because I thought we would do. I wanted to do Urinetown as our. As our main stage last spring back at that theater and so I met with the guy who runs it who's like, he may have passed away six or eight years ago, and no one let him know yet. And he doesn't have a computer. He has a phone and paper everywhere. And he's a really nice guy. And I. And I. I rented two weeks of the theater with him, and I was waiting for the rights to Year in Town. And I was waiting, and I'm still waiting because they have this New York hold on doing the show or something. And when I called him back, he had rented the theater to someone else because legitimately, he uses a rotary phone.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

It's so. It's that kind of theater. He built it and it was. And all of that. You're in town, scaffolding is still there and up. And that's, you know, was wound up being the design for the Broadway transfer. But that all happened at the American Theater for Actors above the courthouse on 54th Street. And I can see it from my apartment.

[B]

Yes, you can, because you are in the hood. But Jennifer Laura Thompson talks about sort of that whole Off Broadway experience. You know, it's not really a theater. Like, it wasn't built to be one.

[A]

So.

[B]

So the backstage areas and everyone's just sort of like in a giant tent. And you can hear anytime, like, someone flushes the toilet. You can hear it like, from all over the place. So it worked very well for that show. But when they were doing these workshops and readings, basically everybody but Nancy Opal thought it was terrible and wanted out of it. And they only. Everyone kept doing. Kept sticking with it because most of their, like, agents and managers, I guess, had seen it at Fringe. And they're like, no, you don't understand. Like, this is going to be very good. This is going to be very good for you. And the only person who was really in the original Off Broadway to Broadway production, who was Broadway talent, who was, you know, established enough that they probably could walk away was John Column. Everybody else was sort of, you know, of the community, but no one was like Hunter Foster. Jennifer Laura Thompson were not really names yet. She.

[A]

McCarthy was kind is kind of, you know, I mean, I would say was the second biggest star.

[B]

Yeah, he was like the godfather of cult musicals for Broadway with Sideshow and Smile and, you know, he'd been around, but he wasn't like, huge. He had, I guess, with, with. With Sideshow. He could sort of attract some of those fans to come see it. Nancy Opal had been semi retired at that point, so she kind of came out of retirement to do it. And that sort of revitalized her career. Jennifer Laura Thompson was a very, you know, consistently working actress. But while Footloose was a big get for her, it didn't really, like, put her in the high echelon of young.

[A]

Actors because she was like a soprano playing a belty teenager. She had just gotten off the national tour of Carousel, and then the next thing she did was Footloose on Broadway. And I don't know where in the world is it? Julie Jordan and Ariel, whatever her last name is, I won't be on your Footloose episode, I can tell you that tonight.

[B]

Ariel. What's her last name? Ariel Moore. Ariel Moore. There you. Look at you.

[A]

Disgusting. I'm going to the roof of my building and jumping off. Because this knowledge is so, like, I should be, like, I should know about, you know, political things and I could tell you Ariel's last name if you give me 30 seconds.

[B]

If I could. I've always said if I couldn't make my brain understand law or medicine, I would be so rich and so successful. But unfortunately, like that science does not compute in my brain, unfortunately. I have challenged myself to learn more about those things because knowing.

[A]

Well, you should. As someone who's a little a mite older than you, I know everything I'm.

[B]

Going to know just a smidgen older.

[A]

There's nothing anyone can teach me. Keep going.

[B]

This is true. I've tried. And you slapped me across the face in public every time I've tried to teach you something.

[A]

Happy to stand by that.

[B]

Yep, absolutely. Like, they. Everyone who else was in it was of the Broadway community, but not like, really of such standing that they could really afford to walk away. They all had a one week out during that original Off Broadway production. And all throughout the rehearsal process, everyone just was always aware that they had the one week out. And at one point, a producer, the Dodgers, because the Dodgers came on for the Off Broadway run, which was sort of helped give the show some buzz when it was off Broadway.

[A]

That's when the Dodgers were Dodgers.

[B]

When the. Back in the day when the Dodgers were Dodgers, they. Someone from the Dodgers came in to, like, watch, sit through a rehearsal. And apparently one of them said, like, oh, you know, we all know you have the two week out. And Jeff McCarthy shouted very loudly, no, it's one week. Nope. One week.

[A]

You.

[B]

You gave us one week. You said we could, we could quit, we could give you one week notice, something like that. And apparently that's sort of how was how everybody felt. And you know, they just, they would stand there in rehearsals and just like ask each other like, is this funny? And only Nancy Opel's Spencer Kaden had to be like, no, this is funny. Like, believe me, like, this is going to kill. And it wasn't until the first performance they did it and Jeff McCarthy said, and John Coleman said, you know, it wasn't until that first performance they realized they weren't a good show. It took literally the very first laugh from the audience for them to go, oh, I guess I'm not in, like the worst thing of all time. And luckily they. And then they all kind of stuck with the show for a long time because even after it opened on Broadway, a lot of them did the whole two and a half year run or like they left and then they came back.

[A]

Yeah, I think it was, I mean it was so well received and you know, there was, there was a lot of excitement about it and once, I'm sure they got to Broadway and also it was such a crazy time after 911 to be in a show like that that honestly was joyous and funny and smart was. It was really nice. In contrast to Millie, which was big old fashioned musical, the sun like It Hot of that year and you know, it had a lot. I loved Millie had so much going for it. And then there was this great brother, brother Sister on Broadway story that you know, we hadn't seen much of. And it was like, he's the star of this and she's the star of this and they're up for Tony's. And it was like just, it felt.

[B]

Like it felt their shows were up for Tony's. Hunter famously was not nominated.

[A]

Oh, yes. Not nominated.

[B]

Yeah. Hunter. And Jeff, Jeff McCarthy not being nominated for this show is one of the biggest. What the fucks. For me.

[A]

Yeah. That is shocking. Can you tell me who was nominated that year? Was Mamma Mia.

[B]

Mark, can I tell you what was nominated that year? First of all, I'm not even looking at any Wikipedia or paper. Not for Jeff McCarthy's category or for musical, because I can tell you, I.

[A]

Want to know his category.

[B]

Jeff McCarthy's category. Shuler Hensley for Oklahoma. Who won? Who is probably always going to win because he won the Olivier. And there was all the buzz about like, he's the Judd that redefines the role. Mark Kudish for Millie. Brian Darcy James for Sweet Smell Success. Oh, Greg Edelman for Into the Woods. Oh, yeah. And then Greg Edelman, Brian Darcy James. Mark Kudish, Schuler Hensley and Then who's the fifth? I mean four out of five ain't too bad.

[A]

No, it's pretty good.

[B]

Yeah. Who is the fifth?

[A]

I don't know because that was. Because that was anyone. It couldn't have been anyone in Mamma Mia. There was no.

[B]

No Mamma Mia. It was Louise, Petra and Judy K. Those are the ones from Mamma Mia. Who got nominated. It's sweet small success. Mamma Mia Millie.

[A]

Oh, Gavin Creel. Didn't he get nominated for actor?

[B]

He got nominated for actor.

[A]

Oh, lead, wow.

[B]

Yeah, lead actor. So lead actor, I can tell you it's John Lithgow for Sweet Smile Success. Gavin Creel for Millie. Patrick Wilson for Oklahoma. Yeah. John McMartin for Into the woods and then John Cullum for Year in Town. Yes. God.

[A]

Who's the fifth one for?

[B]

Oh, Norbert. Leo Butts for Thou Shalt Not.

[A]

Oh, Thou Shalt Not.

[B]

I only know for that one is Tugboat.

[A]

Tugboat. I make Rochelle Rack talk to me about it every time I see her.

[B]

I would love to meet Rochelle Rock and ask her about.

[A]

Oh God, she's just the greatest. Shout out to Rochelle Rack's new single Drop Swing, available now on Spotify. Play it. Get ready for your night out. Well, you're getting tired in the car. Put on Drop Swing.

[B]

That's nothing. My single, my single is dropping, is dropping. For any 30 rock fans out there. My single, my single is dropping, is.

[A]

Dropping, is dropping, is dropping. All right, carry on.

[B]

So yeah, Jeff, Jeff McCarthy did not make it in there.

[A]

And he's a crime.

[B]

It is a crime and he'll tell.

[A]

You It's a hard cold tumble of.

[B]

A journey worthy of a gurney A bumble down a slapped face smacked with a mace certain to debase As I.

[A]

Stumble down It's a path that leads.

[B]

You only one place Horrible to retrace A crumble down A hard cold tumble of attorney jumble of a journey to Urinetown. Julie Cassidy. I mean he's also a very sexy.

[A]

Very tall, good looking dude. You know he's Michigan J Frog. I don't have to tell you that.

[B]

Michigan J Frog.

[A]

What? So the WB used to have a frog. Yes, yes, with the top hat thing and have a top hat. And that's Jeff McCarthy. No fucking way.

[B]

Yeah, that must have paid for his kids college.

[A]

I think it probably did.

[B]

Yeah. Because sideshow and smile sure didn't.

[A]

They're sure did not.

[B]

Sure did not. But yeah, this show is interesting because as you said, you know, with, with 911 there was all this buzz coming from off Broadway to Broadway. It was, it was a big hot ticket off Broadway. And then there was excitement about this, you know, bold, original musical. It was weird, but it was good. It was all this Broadway talent with a lot of people who were sort of like just waiting to sort of break through and become stars. And this was going to be the show that did it because everyone in this original company is just like really strong character based actors with like amazing voices. You got Nancy Opal and Jennifer Laura Thompson, who sang so, so amazingly well. And her.

[A]

Let's pause for a hot quick second.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Jennifer Laura Thompson is perfection in everything but this show in particular. That level of like just first of all gorgeousness and then the comedy chop and then that voice. It's like bang, bang, bang. You've hit it out of the park. Sister act.

[B]

Absolutely not. She has a gorgeous voice, beautiful soprano with a, with a glorious mix in chest. And she uses it in so many different colors in the show. Like you listen to her and follow your heart and then you listen to her in I see a river or Follow the river. Floating, the freedom. It's so good.

[A]

Smart. I mean, to be an ingenue who's funny is like, you know, there. There are 10 of them and like on earth, urban Auntie her. I'll think of some more.

[B]

Yeah, but eight other examples. It's part. It's hard to tell which ingenues are funny and which aren't because there are so few funny ingenue roles and so there are not many opportunities. And what makes Hope such a great character? I was listening to, in my research, this. I was listening to other podcasts about it, trying to like get some more historical facts.

[A]

There are a lot of Urinetown podcasts.

[B]

Well, theater podcast that talks about Urinetown. Imagine if there was a podcast that was just solely about Urinetown.

[A]

Every week now that you're in town.

[B]

Every week is a different second of year in town discussed. But no, I was listening to one. They were sort of talking about how they felt that Bobby and Hope were the least interesting characters of the show. That, you know, oh, if I had my druthers, I would be little Sally or Officer Lock Stock any day of the week. I'm like, you're not special. Those are two amazing roles. But I would argue here in town has like half a dozen or eight, you know, amazing roles. And Hope and Bobby are two amazing roles. They're not bland. They play up on the fact that ingenue and juvenile roles tend to be bland, but they are very funny. Wonderful roles. And all you have to do is listen to Jennifer Laura Thompson's line deliveries and follow your heart. She goes, of course you wouldn't, because then you'd be dead. Or when they're. When they're connected.

[A]

So, like, when she. My favorite joke of hers is when he's talking about the bunny. And she goes, actually, I don't think they do. When he's like, bunnies, they drive a car. She's like, actually, don't think it's just so serious. Don't think she do.

[B]

Yeah, she's so determined about it. The song Mark is referring to is when it's hope is. And her father are told that the poor are uprising. And hope, because she just came from the most expensive university in the world, has all this empathy. She wants good in the world. And so when her father's showing his true colors of being a mean spirited, you know, monopolizer, he's convincing her how life isn't fair. And using the song don't be the bunny. Like you're either the schmuck or you're not. And he's using the bunny as the image, but she's taking it always at face value when he's talking like a bunny in a toll booth. She goes, but daddy, bunnies don't drive cars. Don't. And you're like, don't they hope? And she goes, no, as a matter of fact, I don't think they do. Like, she's so.

[A]

Did you put that into the podcast right here?

[B]

Oh, it's all going in. It's all going in.

[A]

A little bunny at a toll booth. You heard me. But daddy, bunnies don't drive cars.

[B]

Don't they?

[A]

No, actually, I don't think they do.

[B]

Live long enough. Hope, dear, you see many things, even.

[A]

A daughter doubting her father.

[B]

They're just so unaware that they're commenting on their own situation, which is this whole point of Urinetown. No one's ever supposed to be knowingly commenting. And the whole follow your heart sequence, which is the scene where Bobby and Hope fall in love very quickly, they're playing up on the tropes of, like, how in so many golden age musicals, characters fall in love very quickly.

[A]

Or in Hallmark movie or Lindsay Lohan's Christmas, any Christmas movie extravaganza.

[B]

I can't. I haven't watched it yet. I don't watch Christmas movies till after Thanksgiving. I cannot wait.

[A]

You know what? I stand by that. And I don't like, listen, if you got your Christmas tree out before Thanksgiving, I need you to look inward.

[B]

Exactly. Look at your life, look at your choices. Don't be the bunny. Yeah, I. But I can't wait for the Lindsay Lohan. What's it called? Falling for Christmas.

[A]

Falling for Christmas. Don't worry, she gets amnesia. She still knows the lyrics. Every Christmas song.

[B]

Of course you do.

[A]

Name. I was like, midway through the movie, I'm like, is she a mermaid? Like, she doesn't know to do anything. It's. It's hilarious.

[B]

Look over there. Oh, my God. How are we on? And what might they be? But so in follow your heart, the. Bobby and Hope are talking about, you know, their. Their emotional openness, you know, But Bobby's feeling dejected because he basically sent his father off to God knows where we know, to send his father off to die. And at first, they're talking about their hearts in the metaphorical sense. Right. I don't know how to listen to my heart, and then it just gets very literal. But they still connect in that way, and I love it very much. And when she's listening to Bobby's heart, quite literally, and they connect because she realizes that her heart was saying just the other day what his heart was saying, and their dialog just ramps up and up, and he goes, I didn't know two hearts could speak as one in Jennifer Lawrence.

[A]

I didn't either. It's so good. I didn't mean to steal your joke, but I had to. It's so good. She just screams it. I didn't start until now.

[B]

Or also when she's. When she listens to his heart for the first time, she's like, let me give it a try. And there's a long pause. He goes, do you hear any?

[A]

I mean, it's great writing, but it's perfect delivery. So it's like, you know, that is such a gift for, you know, a young ingenue to get to try to. They have the jokes. Whereas if in. In wild contrast to Laura Benanti making everything funny and she loves me, which is not particularly funny, that, to me is like, that's a much harder job. But here in Urinetown, you get. You get the jokes. You just got to land the plane. It shouldn't be that hard.

[B]

Exactly. If you play it earnestly and sort of get out of the show's way, it will reward you immensely. If you try to make it funny.

[A]

You'Ll still get laughs. Because, honestly, that's. Most comedies, it's like, you know, that's like the acting thing. You're playing it seriously. It has to be life or death for you. And, you know, if it's not we're commenting, then we're in Forbidden Broadway or something. We're commenting on what the joke is, and the actor needs to know what it is, but the character can't.

[B]

Yeah. As an actor, you have to figure out at what pitch you're setting the emotions at. So it's not so much that it's like, oh, Jesus. But, yeah, you also can't. You. You do not want to show the audience that you are smarter than the material, that, you know it's funny. It's.

[A]

We're.

[B]

Situation comedies are the way they are because we're laughing at the antics of characters who are in situations that are just so ridiculous. And that's what makes this original company so good, because that's how they all play it. The way, I mean, Nancy Opal's line deliveries, even every time she talks about, get your head out the clouds, Bobby Strong. Get your head out of the ground. Oh, Bobby, what's become of you? What's become of us? I also love when it's revealed that Pennywise. That's. That's her last name, right? Miss Pennywise.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. When you find out that Pennywise is Hope's mother, which is another joke. I love that not enough people find as funny as I do, because Hope is her. My daughter, and I'm her mother. I just. I love the separate.

[A]

They are like a very big pause.

[B]

Hope is my daughter, and I am her mother.

[A]

Bigger.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

The joke has to be. The second one has to be much bigger.

[B]

Right, Exactly. What is your favorite song in the show, Mark?

[A]

I was just looking up something for. To bring up, but I would say my favorite musical number in this musical. Sweet. I want to look at all of my song options.

[B]

There are quite a few.

[A]

There are quite a few. I mean, I think the finale is really quite good. And I'm going to. I'm going to the cast album. I should be ready for this question.

[B]

There are a million questions you should be ready for.

[A]

There's a million questions I should be ready for. Okay. I mean, yeah, I think I see a River is probably the best thing in the show. And I think also maybe, I guess follow your heart. I mean, I'm a. I'm a big fan of. Of the Ingenue in a musical and their moments. Yeah. And also, like, this is what I will say about this, and you can do a little edit, so that all was better. But what I will say about this is that this isn't like the world's greatest score to listen to it, doesn't I? It's fun to listen to. Every few years it'll pop in. I'm like, oh, I want to hear you're in town again. And that those songs are bop. Or that song's really great, but it's not a score I'm like, I must listen to on a monthly basis. You know, it's not a. For me, a Bridges or Blood Brothers in the way that I'm like, I love this score, but I think it's great and it's perfect for what this is. So, yeah, that's where I am.

[B]

Sorry. Blood Brothers.

[A]

That score is so good. You're out of your mind.

[B]

Maybe. Call me what you will, but no, the thing about this score, I mean, it's. This score is reminiscent of Kurt Weill and Blitzstein with Cradle Rock. It is Threepenny Opera meets Cradle Rock meets West side Story. And Les Mis with a little bit of fiddler involved with what is you're in Town. And Vi, like, vile with his time with Brecht. Like, again, the Three Penny Opera is a. Is a genius score, but it's not a score you sit around like, bopping.

[A]

Correct. You're not giving it a listen.

[B]

No, I. Show me the person that says I do my household chores to mahogony. And I will show you a sociopath.

[A]

The good Lord made us so we piss each day until we piss each away. The God Lord made sure that what goes in man must soon come out again. So you're no different than from Lonely Me. But Miss Pennywise. Enough, Bobby. And I think I'll charge you twice. No need to jeopardize.

[B]

And that is.

[A]

That's.

[B]

Yeah, like, I love Violet, but like, of all of his scores, I'm listening to, you know, lady in the Dark over anything. Because that's more like Broadway. And so you're In Town is definitely kind of Vile Blitzstein Light. And there are other. And it's. There are other songs that have different inflections. But, yeah, like, there are certain songs that I will have no problem listening to on repeat. Like, I'll listen to Nancy Opal Fucking Slay, Privilege to Pee over and over again.

[A]

It's thrilling. And Carolee was also so good in that show.

[B]

I wish I'd seen Carolee. I wish I'd seen Victoria Clark. I wonder what she was.

[A]

I don't remember. I don't think I. I must have not seen her because I have no recollection of seeing her in the show, so. Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it had to have been different. She certainly doesn't sing like that.

[B]

She doesn't. Well. And so I think. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind it was, because. Not like Victoria Clarke was a name. She was a known in the community.

[A]

A Broadway mainstay.

[B]

Yes, exactly. Yeah. She did about two years before Piazza. And again, like I said, you know, this original company, either you had people who stayed the entire run or people who, you know, were there for a year and a half, left for a minute, and then came back. Nancy Opal was in the show for, you know, about a year and a half, and then Victoria Clark did it for about five months, and then Carolee Carmelo closed out the show. From what Nancy Opel talks about, the original voice type for Pennywise was the Victoria Clark type. Like, they originally wrote it to be much more classical soprano. So it's like the good Lord made sure that we piss each day because they were trying to lean into that classical sound. And when they brought in Nancy for the first reading and they were teaching her the song, she. I guess because, you know, it was very short notice and she was a little out of practice. She didn't want to have to worry about her placement. And she's Nancy Opal. So she's like, I'm just going to belt it. And the writers were like, sure, go ahead, I guess.

[A]

Sure. That's thrilling.

[B]

Yeah. Well, the way she describes it, she, like, came in for her audition for the reading, working with the music director on it, and, like. And they. They get in the room and the music director turns to the writers and goes, so just fair warning, Nancy has decided she's gonna belt all of it. And the writer's response was like, I guess, like, have that probably. It's probably gonna blow. And then she did it. And they're like, cool. So never change. And we're gonna do it that way forever.

[A]

We'd like to cast you. What is your favorite song in the. In the musical to listen to?

[B]

Probably Follow youw Heart or the Act One finale.

[A]

Act one finale?

[B]

Yeah, the Act One finale. I mean, I think that Act One finale is just so well built. I also. But to watch, especially the original staging of it, I love to watch Snuff that Girl because it's such. It is one of my favorite moments of choreography because. And I don't, like. I'm not a John Carafe Stan, by any means. I thought, you know, he's the man.

[A]

Are there. Are there ones silly? Well, just because it's like so niche. Like, oh my God, you know what? I'm a stand up.

[B]

Well, so you know this, he, he had this and into the woods of the same season and then followed it up with John Rando with Dance of the Vampires. And the thing about dance. Did you.

[A]

Oh, I saw all of those things. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, God, I sometimes I wish I was you.

[A]

I wish that you were alive in the 90s because in that same way there just was like, nothing was better than like 1994, you know, like. Yeah, it never quite got as good again.

[B]

I, I fear if I were a New York City going teenager in 1994, I would have seen that carousel so many times.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Audra and Sally say what?

[A]

You would still be at the theater?

[B]

Yeah, I would. I would have died there. Sally Murphy and Audra McDonald and Michael Hayden would have had restraining orders put out against me. Sign up. I'm seeing downstate at Playwrights tomorrow.

[A]

Simply, honestly, they should consider taking them out now.

[B]

Oh, I am very respectful. How dare you. I am seeing downstate because Sally Murphy is in it. But I will not wait around for her. I will go see it. I'll support and I'll leave. I'm a very respectful stalker.

[A]

I'm going in two weeks or next week maybe. I'm going next Tuesday and I'm seeing.

[B]

And Juliet next Tuesday, but I'm going tomorrow to opening. Oh, well, look at you. She's very famous.

[A]

She had to get a PCR test to go. So they ready.

[B]

They don't want to Mrs. Doubtfire opening night disaster on their hands. Oh, but so stop that girl. You're saying are there choreography?

[A]

Sorry, go back.

[B]

Well, there are because that's the following season when Dance of the Vampires happened. There is a certain group of teenage theater fans when I was growing up were like taboo. Like if you were the taboo kind of kid you were. And like not just Taboo fans, like teenage Taboo fan. There was a certain kind of intensity about you. And that was also a carryover from Dance of the Vampires, weirdly enough. And I had a couple of quote, quote, unquote dancer friends. I put dancer in quotations because just because you go to a dance class doesn't make you a dancer. But they were huge Dance of the Vampire fans because they kept on saying, say what you will about the plot. You've never seen dancing like it before. And so for like my entire high school career, I would always just hear about how John Carrafa was like the most underrated choreographer on Broadway.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And possible, possibly but what does make a good argument for him is his choreography for Stuff that Girl, where he pays huge homage to cool in west side Story, to the point where, like, they do the.

[A]

You do the run and the jump.

[B]

Do the run, jump. But there's a whole thing about the snapping that they do in, like, the. In one of the major breaks. Yeah.

[A]

And they're all snapping, like, not in time, and just, like, angry about it. It's pretty genius.

[B]

It is. It's very genius. What he talked about with choreographing Urinetown was that it was. It was trial and error of throwing things out and seeing what worked. But the. The main idea every time he was choreographing a number was I want the choreography to sort of just be beyond the reach of the actors, to make it feel like these real people in a musical who think that they're Sid Sharies and Fred Astaire, but don't really have the ability. So it's like, I don't want them to look bad. I just don't want it to look amazing. So they would. They would figure out exactly, like, what was too easy and what was too hard and try to find the middle ground. So Snuff that Girl is. You know, we got Jen Cody, who is a dancer, but like everyone else who's mostly character actors, trying to do their best version of cool. And they commit so hard to it. As you said, like, it's angry snapping. It's angry jazz movements. And we have. Speaking of sideshow, we've got Ken Jennings as Hot Blade Harry, who also is, you know, old man strong in Act 1. But I was watching when the cabaret talk about this, where they were figuring out the attitude for Snuff that Girl, what everyone should do and how they should be acting when they're not dancing. And John Rando turns to Ken Jennings, he goes, okay, so Hot Blades Harry. He's evil, but he's evil in a musical. So what does that look like? And Ken Jennings, who's like, you know, dad bod, squat man, like, short Irishman. The original Tobias and Sweeney Todd.

[A]

Yeah, he's like, literally 4 foot 11.

[B]

Yeah, but like, 4 foot 11 with, you know, like, a thick bill.

[A]

He's a thick body.

[B]

Yeah. And so.

[A]

Hey, daddy.

[B]

And so he decided, well, I think. And he's also Irish, so he's like. I think that evil bevels. And so he would take his hands and, like, put them on his. On his abdomen. But, like, with the. You. No one can see me. Only Mark can see me. Right now with, like, his hand sort of squashed.

[A]

This is an aired live.

[B]

Sadly, no, I don't have the means. But like, a hand squished in on his abdomen, like pigeon chest, while always, like, beveling really harshly. So it was never.

[A]

It was like, imagine your dad in Chicago. That's what it looked like.

[B]

But, like, your dad, like, your dad on stage, really pissed off in Chicago. Like, he's being. He. Like, he's in Cell Block Tango. Your dad is doing Cell Block Tango. Full on. No irony whatsoever. So it's that kind of energy. So when you watch it, like, you listen to it and it is a bop, especially in that, like the drum section and the dance break. But you watch it and you're like, this is genius.

[A]

This is the end.

[B]

Roll the dice.

[A]

Place your bets.

[B]

Who's your favorite character in. You're in town.

[A]

I'm gonna go ho. I think it's just jlt, yeah. Was so transformative to me, and I became a lifelong fan of hers after seeing her in that show. And I. I love. I love her commitment to being good and how it just doesn't work out for her ultimately. And I just think the character is so interesting. And, you know, I always sort of pick. It's normally a female lead when I'm directing something to, like, really see the show through. And Hope is that for me. And. And then Lily, Little Sally is a close second. I can't think of any musical where I would tell you the man is my favorite character.

[B]

It is rare for me as well when the male character is my favorite character. I will. This might be one of the few exceptions. And part of it is the performance of Jeff McCarthy. But part of it also is all of his scene work with Little Sally. That makes Officer Lock Stock maybe my favorite character. And, I mean, I don't listen to his song when I'm listening to this chore. I listen to Hope stuff.

[A]

That's a skip.

[B]

Yeah, Well, I know. I like the song, but it's. But yeah, it's a skip.

[A]

No, if I was watching it, it's fine. It's a fun number. All the flashlights. I remember maybe last night when I was watching act one, I was like, I'm not watching this shit. It's midnight.

[B]

At least you're consistent. No, of all, like, the music stuff, Hope's definitely my favorite. And yes, I. Maybe it's because I'm secretly an ingenue in my heart. I want to do like a whole concert of ingenue songs. And I mean, Jlt Great.

[A]

Just what we need.

[B]

Yeah. A gay boy doing all the ingenue shit. I could never play these roles on Broadway. So I'm gonna sing all A Funny Girl in Carousel and make you guys pay to see it, but not if I'm directing. I mean, JLT's. Yeah. Lifelong fan with this show for me as well, even though I did not see her in it. I got into the cast recording right before she did Wicked and I had seen her in Footloose Live. So I remember when she replaced Kristin Chenoweth and Wicked, that was like a very big deal for a lot of us because Tony nominee coming in, we're like, oh, they're going to like, we're do luxury casting for these replacements from here on out. And then it was never that luxurious ever again. Always talented women, but never like Tony nominee. So and so the new Glinda.

[A]

But I mean, the first replacements are like a whole different.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

In a hot hit show.

[B]

And I think they were also figuring out like how, like how long of legs do we have after the original cast leaves? Is this something that's only a kid for the first two years? Is this going to be a 10 year run? And they learned she was.

[A]

So that was a smart move to cast her because you don't think of her as a Kristin Chenoweth type. So for her to go on, you know, do Wicked and be the second Glinda, like, she's. She looks more like Billy Burke. She's a bigger woman. Like, she's tall, she has, you know, height. She's not like this little cute little nothing. She's like a woman.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it was fun to see Glinda like that. And then, you know, it gives them flexibility moving forward that they don't have to have a Kristin Chenoweth impersonator, you know, after another.

[B]

Yeah, she was a good transitional Glinda in that sense because she like Channel. She is a very funny soprano, like geniusly funny. And she doesn't do manic. She does very smart comedy. Like she could do insane comedy if she wanted to if it called for it. But I remember because I saw Channel and I saw jlt, I made it a point to see Chelsea. And then I didn't see Wicked again for like 17 years. Yeah. But every Glinda after Jennifer Laura Thompson stopped making Glinda a person in act one, they made her like a five year old, which I always hated. Watching videos of everyone else after her jlt, the one thing she kept Channel was like, Glinda's act one. She's vapid, but she's still a human being. And that's what makes it similar to like, the Hope and all the Urine Town stuff. It's like, it makes it funny because Glinda doesn't know that she's funny. She's. It's very real for her. Like, her logic is insane. And to watch Jennifer Laura Thompson just play like, yes, two plus two does equal pink and the audience.

[A]

So 10 out of 10 for Jennifer Laura Thompson.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

This podcast is sponsored by Jennifer Lord Thompson Thompson Club.

[B]

Well, I think we found out who our diva is who's going to close us out tonight. Did you forget we close out every episode with a diva, Mark?

[A]

I did forget, yes.

[B]

Well, in your defense, it's been a solid 9,000 years since you've last been on the podcast.

[A]

I haven't done this podcast since you keep asking me to do shows that I like. Don't really know that.

[B]

No, I gave you options this time. You picked your.

[A]

Yeah, and I. I don't. And all the. All the. Not all the good ones. All the ones I knew. You said other people took them.

[B]

It's true. They did take them. Okay, how about this? How about this, you lovely, lovely bitch who I hate and love very dearly.

[A]

Great.

[B]

The next series I'm going to run to your stupid gay face and go, mark, here's the next series.

[A]

First, it's probably going to be something weird that I also don't know or care about. It's going to be like shows that are based on Shakespearean novel. And you can just go, Shakespearean novels. Be some where my options are to talk about like hair or you can.

[B]

Talk about Murat Saad, you can talk about Rosency or death.

[A]

You're like, what we want you to really talk about here tonight is Tale of Two Cities, the musical.

[B]

No, I'll make sure we only really.

[A]

Talk about Act 1.

[B]

To be totally honest, I can only tell you about the fake musical of talented Cities that was done in the movie Simple Wish with Martin Short and Mara Wilson.

[A]

Wow. I'm not. I'm sorry I missed that.

[B]

Many people did.

[A]

Back to Urinetown.

[B]

Back to Urinetown. Back to Urinetown. I don't know, I just love all the Officer Lock stock, Little Sally interactions. And clearly Broadway did too because they were recurring characters for the Easter Bonnet every year.

[A]

Oh my God. And man, was that funny. So to explain it to the people at home at the Broadway Cares Easter Bonnet, it's at the. Used to be at the new. I think it's still at the New Amsterdam Theater and all the Broadway shows do presentations and Officer Lock, Stock and Little Sally and it was Jen Cody and I can't remember whoever the understudy was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they. They were our hosts for the evening or the afternoon and they just like talk shit about every Broadway show, every Broadway star. It was so mean spirited and amazing. And it was like. It was like for three years. Yeah. I think that's when I used to learn probably. Yeah.

[B]

They might have done it for another year or two after a year in town closed. And then probably like mostly after you're in town close.

[A]

I don't. Maybe it was the first year, was their last year on Broadway and then they did it for the next couple of years and was like a blast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Such a funny. Jen Cody's pretty brilliant.

[B]

She is. I mean, people definitely were looking forward to it. It was, you know, definitely a roasting of. Of everything and was really. But like Lock, Stock and Little Sally, because of sort of the dichotomy of their. Of their size, of their vocal types of their age, so to speak, and their different perspectives with her innocence and his world weariness. It just. It always just made a good blend. And because you're in town is a bit of a smartassy show. They could afford to be smartassy because they come on stage and everyone's like, okay, here we go. They're gonna make jokes about all of us. And it's, you know, like, when you go to a roast, you know you're going to get dragged for filth. So you just got to go in knowing that anything's on the table and just have good fun with it, which for a while people did. But there's. I don't know, there's so much about their blend in this show that's so fascinating to me. And, like, especially because officer Lockstock, for all intents and purposes, is one of the show's villains, even though he is also the narrator.

[A]

And it's not a villain we don't like. You know, the audience, like, really likes. It's not a villain you boo at.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's not cons or whatever in Frozen, Hans and Frozen.

[B]

Yeah. Or, you know. Yeah. Mrs. Nears, all those villains. No, he's. Because Lockstock is more. He carries out the injustice, but he's not necessarily in charge of it all. But. And also on top of that, I guess because we. He's the one who has all the insight into the show. I don't know, there's like, there's a weird thing where it's like we trust him, even though he is responsible for a lot of the murders that happen at Urinetown. And he also, I mean, I love.

[A]

A murder in a musical.

[B]

Yeah. He again, he also has some of my favorite lines. When Act 2 begins and he's, you know, saying, you know, people don't know what your intent is. There's a lot of confusion. That's why we like it. Little boy once asked me, is your intent actually a nice place to live? Gingerbread houses along golden, frothy canals. Like Venice, only different. For some reason that line gets me. Like Venice, only different. I think. Like Venice, only different. I didn't say yes. I didn't say no either. I, I, it's like the kind of weird that just is up my alley and it's the kind of. So, okay, the thing actually we should talk about because we do have, we do have a bit more time. Yes. Yeah. You're, you're fine. Yeah, great. Amazing. Mark asked before we recorded everybody how much time I thought we needed. And when I told him how long the last couple episodes went, he I'm pretty sure you were about to unfriend me on all social media. Just not because, not because you were going to go that long, but because I don't think you wanted to be associated with anybody who would ever create a podcast that would go that long.

[A]

Well, it's just like, even when I release my podcast, Little Me Growing Up Broadway on the Broadway Podcast Network, available on streaming platforms, when you have I release an episode and it's over an hour, I'm like, no one's gonna listen to this. Well, sometimes I just, you know, I'm just talking to someone who played Annie and I've got lots of questions.

[B]

As well you should. Here's the thing, though, I've now put myself into a corner, Mark, because I now do these long form episodes. And you were on the Matilda one, which I think was like an hour and 30, maybe an hour and 40. And I'll do these super long episodes, like really long episodes. And then I'll go, okay, the next one should be a lot shorter. Like this one was close to three. This one, let's try to make it an hour and 45. And people won't listen to the Allen 45 one as quickly. And I think part of it is my listeners now go, oh, if it's under two hours, they didn't have much to say. And I'm like, I'm like, no, we tried to be like, really concise this time. I tried to have fewer tangents or like, my guest had somewhere to be. So we try to just cover everything as soon as possible. But, like, I've had listeners DM me being like, oh, this one was only an hour and 30. Like, was there nothing okay at home?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I. No, I. It's so funny. Like, even recently when I'm in recording, I'm like, at the 45 minute mark, I'm like, let me wrap this up. I'm like, I don't have time to do this and no one has time to listen to this.

[B]

So, yeah, we.

[A]

The episodes of Little Me are getting shorter and shorter.

[B]

They're getting little.

[A]

Eventually it's just going to be like me playing one song from a cast album being like, bye, guys, see you next week. Certainly easier.

[B]

I would listen to that podcast in a heartbeat.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Who's your most recent guest?

[A]

The most recent episode is Danielle Brisois, who was Molly in the original cast of Annie and then went on to be the star of Archie Bunker's Place. And she was on all in the Family and she was on every 80s sitcom. And we had a really fun chat about her career. And she also run. She wrote Pocket Full of Sunshine and Unwritten with Natasha Bedingfield. Like, she's like an incredible songwriter now. And that's my most recent episode, Molly Slaying the Game.

[B]

I heard she taps up a damn storm in that Tony performance, and she sure does.

[A]

And that's because she tapped and they, like all those orphans, like, she had a choice to pick her orphan name. You know, like, all. It's kind of so fascinating to be involved with something that has had such a huge life and there's no escaping it. It's not like, oh, I was on Broadway and Thou shalt not. And that's your only Broadway credit. It doesn't really come back to haunt you much, except in your nightmares. But, like, if you were in the original cast of Annie, there ain't no escape in that.

[B]

No. Especially one of the original orphans. It's not like, oh, I was in the original cast of Annie and I was Cecile, and I think I'm gonna like it here. It's like, no, I was fucking Molly.

[A]

And also, like, it's like, every school does. Like, you can't. You don't. You know, Annie's constantly on your television. Obviously, I'm an Annie Stan. And, you know, it's. I think it was so many. This is not what. We're not on the Annie podcast But.

[B]

We'Ll get back to it, I swear.

[A]

It just. It's everybody's gateway drug who loves musical theater. And so I have such a great affection for what that musical has done for so many people who are in this business, and me included.

[B]

I would love if we had a production of Annie again, like the original that was cast with, for lack of a better term, weirdos, because that original cast is a bunch of big personalities. And Martin Charnan made it a point when casting the orphans throughout the entire run. He didn't want cutesy musical theater kids. He wanted, you know, you wanted real.

[A]

Kids who look like maybe they lost a tooth in a fight.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Well, I think she.

[B]

What's her name, Danielle, was missing a tooth on the Tony Awards, something like that.

[A]

I think that's probably.

[B]

Yeah, there were a couple of missing teeth in those orphans originally. But I bring this up to connect it back to Urinetown, where good hosting. It's like, I've done this before.

[A]

That's.

[B]

I mean, that's an original company filled with personalities and oddballs and, you know, people who've gone on to major success since, who had minor success before. I mean, Megan Lawrence was in the original ensemble who would go on to get a Tony nomination for Pajama Game.

[A]

And that's why. And she was pregnant and that's why that character is pregnant. And that is why Jen Cody was pregnant when she replaced her in that original cast so that she could have her baby.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So like, how cool if you're like Megan Lawrence's kid. You're like, that's why that character is pregnant.

[B]

Every time. Every time. Did it. Does the character give birth during I see a river? Is that what they usually do?

[A]

I don't remember that.

[B]

It would make sense. It would make sense for many reasons.

[A]

Yeah, because then she has the baby.

[B]

Yeah, because the. The last line of the show is, hail Malthus.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, we're absolutely going to talk about hell Malthus. But it makes sense for there to be a newborn baby on stage as everyone's dying. Because the whole point of the end of the show is once you're in good company is destroyed and Cladwell is killed and hope takes over after Bobby's been killed is everyone pees for free. Everyone has justice and hope and love. And within a very short amount of time, all the water gets used up. Because even though Cladwell was an evil money grubbing man, ruthless, ruthless, corporate America man, his tactics helped preserve their water supply which was drying up every day because there hadn't been water in years. And so even. And this is something that's hinted at throughout the show, even acts one finale when he's talking to. When he's singing to Bobby, like, oh, you want happy? Is this you want like, but what about tomorrow? And Bobby goes, well, what about today? He's like, no, no, you always have to think about it tomorrow. That's. That's even a recurring line in the show with the stink years. And they talk about the stink years. People lived like there was no tomorrow because there wasn't a tomorrow. But there is always a tomorrow in some way. And tomorrow comes like Annie says, tomorrow does come. See how. Seeing how bring it all back.

[A]

Tomorrow comes also limits.

[B]

And it all connects.

[A]

It's all connected.

[B]

When the tomorrow comes at the end of the show, the water is gone. And hope tries to bask still in the love of everyone by gaslighting them into thinking that they are all the water they need. The glass of water.

[A]

The water is inside of you.

[B]

Don't you know what you are, Mrs. Strong?

[A]

A river.

[B]

That's right. We all are. But hope eventually does die. And, you know, we have little Sally going, what kind of a musical is this? The good guys take over and everything falls apart. The music's so happy. And she tells Officer Lockstock, no one's going to see the musical. Officer Lockstock says it's because people don't want to hear that their way of life is unsustainable, which is true. And little Sally says, just to cut the tension, that. And the title's awful. And they finish with the reprise of Urinetown. Lockstock says, hail, Malthus. Thank you and good night, Malthus. Why, hail Malthus, Mark.

[A]

So isn't Malthus. Isn't that about how people will always. There always be poor people, they'll always be starving people, there'll always be thirsty people, and that they'll always be someone above them. Right. But Mathis is a writer.

[B]

Malthus was an 18th century economist and writer. And it's. Yes, that is the gist of it. It's part of.

[A]

So, like, I'm not as dumb as I look.

[B]

I'm not as dumb as I am. It's a work he had called An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society. And this came out around 1798. And basically what he said was, as long as humanity keeps producing at an. At a rate greater than the goods that the earth can provide, there will always be the haves and the have nots. But what he Also said was because it came off of the heels of Ben Franklin saying or after the Declaration of Independence that like America's population was going to quadruple in like five years or something like that. And all this was like, so that's bad. That should not, like, that should not be something to brag about. But he also said, and this is something that was also. That is true and remains to be true. He's like, he's like, humanity needs to curb its population. He said, he called marriage, I think he said something about like marriage was an evil or something like that because people get married and have too many kids that they can't afford to have and leads resources. But he also said, you know, humanity is never going to stop fucking and making babies and we're going to keep overpopulating. Goes the good news is that Earth finds a way every time to cut our population down when we get too big for our britches. He goes, there's famine, there's disease, there are epidemics. So you know, he was referring to like the great plague, which, you know, killed off a third of the world in like 50 years or something like that. But, you know, many other diseases and illnesses and epidemics and as we've learned happens fairly recently. Fairly recently. It keeps happening. It's not, it's not a lot. People dying is not a laughing matter. But it is funny how we get smarter but never learn. As Mark has told us. You get to a certain age, can't teach anyone nothing.

[A]

There's nothing. There's nothing anyone can teach me.

[B]

Yeah, but that's the dark side to the satire of Urinetown. And it's. Despite all the amazing jokes about the structure of musical theater, despite all the breaking the fourth walls, the silliness of it all, there is a dark undercurrent to it. And that is sort of set at the end with the Hail Maltus, which always gives me a bit like of a weird culty vibe at the end. Like almost like, yeah, like we're in the cult. Yeah, we've watched this cult perform for us at the end of the night and it's not until the last beat that we realize that, oh, I'm with like Scientology doing an Easter play about aliens.

[A]

I will say Hailmoff. This is my, not my favorite way to end this thing because that's not a norm. That's not something everybody knows. We've just delivered this beautiful, great, well crafted musical and then the last thing the audience hears is something that confuses them. And I'm sure That's on purpose. These are not dumb people who wrote this show. But I just think if I was the director of this original production, I would say we need something else there. I think this is too inside and people are going to be like, what, what? What did he just say? And to me that's not a win when it's too, too smart for its own good. Yeah, it's double.

[B]

I was a double edged sword. I think you're right. I also understand if that's sort of the point and if that's what they want to do, then they've succeeded. Whether it works for everyone is up for debate. Doesn't work for you. Clearly. Definitely confuses it might inspire some people to look it up. But people also can be very dumb and just choose to think that it's a random thing.

[A]

Also, I definitely had a flip phone when I saw this show, a Nokia flip. And so there was. I wasn't gonna get home. Remember Mathis, try to get onto aol, look it up or. Or go to the dick, get an old dictionary. Life used to be very different, sir.

[B]

I know, I know, I know, dear. It was so hard to be you back.

[A]

I just. We had the time. I got back home to Astaria.

[B]

I couldn't remember Mathis with your water, drinking my water.

[A]

My water, my daughter.

[B]

Oh shit. Are we in caps again? But a nice cool mint. Help if I shoved her head up your ass. But.

[A]

Oh, God. Little me growing up Broadway available on all streaming podcast networks. Just me talking to other people for a much shorter amount of time.

[B]

No one's gonna listen. They're gonna be like, I only want to hear Mark talk for over two hours. If it's under two hours, I'm not interested.

[A]

Come work for me. I never shut the up.

[B]

You can hear Mark talk to people much more famous than I and it's very fun to listen to. You've had some very impressive people.

[A]

I thank you so much. But back to. Back to you, baby.

[B]

Back to me. It is my time, my time, my moment. But in my research for this, something I love to do with some of these shows, especially if it's around the early 2000s, I like to go back onto Broadway world and use the search bar to see what people were saying at the time during the run or slightly after the run.

[A]

What did we find out? Well, what did we find out?

[B]

Well, Urinetown was very beloved. There were some replacements that were not beloved. People. You know, obviously it's with fandom. Original companies are become sacred and any replacements are Terrible. We've gotten a little bit better about that since. But a certain TV actor, Tom Cavanaugh, was.

[A]

He was. No, it was very big at the moment because he had just wrapped playing the role of Ed on Ed, a show I loved actually very much.

[B]

A lot of people did. It was a good show.

[A]

It was a great, sweet, charming show. I don't know if it's streaming anywhere.

[B]

But maybe Peacock, because I think it was NBC, right?

[A]

Yeah, it was.

[B]

Yeah. He came in to be Bobby Strong and was such a disaster that I think he only did it for like a month, maybe two. They had to bring Hunter Foster in again for three weeks while they found a better replacement because Tom, apparently Kavanaugh could handle the scenes, but he could not sing.

[A]

And that is not very big. Male singer sing. It's not like an easy score for a TV star to come in and do once.

[B]

No, you cannot act your way through. Run, freedom, run you have to sing the shit out of it. Run, freedom, run freedom run away I'm.

[A]

Afraid you have to run, run, run Freedom run away that freedom so shine Someday you better run, run or run, run, run Hallelujah. I'm surprised. I never understand anyone saying yes to something they actually cannot do. This blows my absolute Beanie Feldstein mind.

[B]

I mean, I love the idea of people, of actors wanting to challenge themselves, but there has to be a sense of humility and self awareness to know what is challenging and what is just simply beyond your reach. And you also. But not just them and also want to put the blame on the actors. There are people in charge as well who have to kind of make the tough call of whether the actor can do it or not. And I don't love this toxic positivity in the community where it's like, well, let's make it a safe space for everyone. Like, well, no, some people just don't have.

[A]

It's not. It takes. Yeah.

[B]

It's not a slate on the talent that they do have. But some people have different skill sets. Like, you would not cast a young Patti LuPone as Hope Cladwell in. And you're in town.

[A]

That's also not your High School Musical. So this is like not a space for everybody. And that is just sadly the truth. And it's in. Of course, this industry needs to be more inclusive as it grows and changes. But, you know, if you can't sing, you can't do it. Yeah.

[B]

If you. If you cannot deliver the song as it needs to be delivered, that's part of the job requirement that and that's just it.

[A]

It's in the same way. It's like, I shouldn't probably do surgery on you because I'm pretty good with a pair of scissors or knife. You know what I mean? Like, I'm creative, but I should move your spleen also.

[B]

Every musical is built differently. There are roles where you can more act your way through it than sing through it.

[A]

Like Charles Shaughnessy, when he joined the same cast of Urinetown Segway as Cladwell. Be. Caldwell. Caldwell.

[B]

Caldwell.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

She's my daughter, my sister.

[A]

And I think they added a nanny joke. It's just coming to me right now.

[B]

That's. That sounds all right.

[A]

I need someone to confirm this, but Mr. It was like Mr. Sheffield is in the office. It was. He was fun, actually.

[B]

I'll bet he was fun.

[A]

He's a.

[B]

He's a very fun, dry actor, and that's a role that you can pretty much act your way through. There's, like, one big money note for him at the end of Mr. Gladwell that I'm sure they found a way to work around. They probably added it for John Column, who's like, I am a trained baritone singer. I am 75, and I still got it. You will give me my training now.

[A]

John column and John McMartin, those are different people.

[B]

They are very different people. Yes, very different people.

[A]

The other night, I was having drinks with a friend, and she goes, so what is N. Juliet? Is it six?

[B]

I mean, the gays do peloton to both of them. So, yeah, they're the same thing.

[A]

Is it six? Makes me laugh.

[B]

It's fun. No, first of all, John McMartin and John Column, one is dead and one's.

[A]

Alive, and I never saw them both in the same place. So I'm just telling you that they.

[B]

Both did Tina Fascias. John McMartin was on Unbreakable Commission, and John Column did 30 Rock. And John Column had two Tony Awards. Has two Tony Awards. He's still alive. I saw John column in 1:10 in the shade and in Casa Valentina and then in Scottsboro Boys as well. That. That was a man who kept fucking chugging along up until.

[A]

Yeah, I saw him in all those things and many other things. He just seems to have never stopped doing the thing, which is amazing.

[B]

Yeah, he's someone who sort of kind of wakes up every day. He's like, I'll go do a Broadway show. And it's like, you're 95. Johnny's like, and.

[A]

And I'll be there And I'll be there.

[B]

Perfect attendance, too.

[A]

Anyway. But Charles Shaughnessy was fun. And that. That's. That would have been a great place to put TV stars in the show.

[B]

Yeah. Not the one that requires the big thing to.

[A]

The hardest male vocal I've heard in many, many years.

[B]

Yeah, definitely the big male saying of that season, for sure. Like, I mean, again, run, freedom, run. That's a big old saying.

[A]

You.

[B]

I don't know how you work your way around the. I said freedom. Like, how do you act your way through that without the notes?

[A]

Yeah. I don't think you. I don't think that's an option.

[B]

No. No. Although I do love there. There are visual aids to that song. Like, when you take. I think it's. Is it Becky Two Shoes or. He takes the brace off of her. Like, you know, oh, my God.

[A]

But she can't walk. She takes the braces off her as if he could heal her.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But then she goes, take a step. She falls right the fuck down. And that is my brand of comedy.

[B]

Absolutely. Which makes it even better is like, they don't. They do not tease you that she might possibly be able to walk. It's. The buildup is he takes off and she. She feels the spirit. So you see on her face before she takes the step that she thinks she can walk. And on the very first step, she falls. The very first step.

[A]

Good and so good. Airplane.

[B]

And no one is embarrassed by it. Everyone's just like, okay. And we put the brace back on her, then pick her back up. Wait a moment.

[A]

I mean, that direction is so genius. I mean, there's so many things that I'm sure John Rando came up with that or executed beautifully or, like, it'll be funnier if you do this, because when you have people that are that funny, any ensemble, like Rick Crom is a funny guy, and everybody's as funny as him. They're going to come up with a lot of stuff. So then it becomes a director's job to manage all of these comedians and their ideas. And this is the kind of show where you bring your thing to it. And so that's sort of why I'm excited to eventually direct this at some point. But, you know, the management of all of those comedians is quite a task and was expertly done on this show.

[B]

Yeah. One of my favorite Tony speeches is Joanna Gleason for Into the woods. And she talks about how the cat. The original cast of into the woods are like, all a bunch of acrobats who they all like, their job is just to catch each other all the time. It's never about who gets the moment to shine, but rather, like, how do you set up the person in your scene? Yeah. Which is a very brilliant image and very perfectly describes that cast and why that original into the woods cast is so, you know, gold standard. And it's similar with this. With this Urinetown. And I feel like that's sort of how John Rando controlled everything was rather than, like, okay, how do I, you know, give everyone something that makes them feel okay, but rather like, okay, it has to be an ensemble. Everyone's got to support each other. It's always about leading into the next joke, which means sometimes you have to set it up so someone else can get it. Someone will set you up. Like, it's always just about shifting the power and the focus to each person all the time. Which just makes it. I don't know, just makes it interesting to me in a way that not many comedies are now. Which brings me to my next topic. Something that I think you're in Town ushered in on Broadway that no show has been able to do as well since is the meta commentary musical. The spoof parody musical. We see it with Spamalot Something Rotten. We see it in pieces. And other shows like Dirty Around Scoundrels makes, you know, fourth wall break jokes. This idea of commenting on what's happening on stage as if all of a sudden, like, all the acting has gone away and like a real person, just like, wait a second, like, the scenery is moving or something like that. We've seen a Book of Mormon as well, and I don't think any show has been able to do it as well as you're in town. That's my hot take.

[A]

Yeah. I would tend to agree with it. And also, I think this is one of the first mainstream musicals on Broadway that's commenting on musicals in this way. I might be wrong. I haven't done enough.

[B]

I think it is, but I think it's. From what I can gather, it's the first Broadway musical to send up musical theater, at least. Yeah. As you said, like this because in.

[A]

The way the producers had done it, which is after this. Right.

[B]

And it's six months before this. Oh, although. Although you're in Town did premiere in New York at the Fringe two years before the Producers, so we'll still give the edge.

[A]

But even, you know, the Producers is a different kind of animal. But, yeah, I mean, that's, you know, the reason why Forbidden Broadway isn't really a thing anymore. Because at that point, they were the ones setting up musicals, and musicals took themselves very seriously. And when they were a comedy, they were seriously in that comedy or whatever. And so once it started to happen constantly after you're in town and the producers in Spamalot, especially Shrek, it just kept happening where they commented on that they were in a musical and that made for In Broadway, less funny and less funny and less funny because they were doing it on stage in so many shows.

[B]

Yeah. There's even a song in Forbidden Broadway of Spamalot. They're doing the song that goes like this. And the joke is they do the song as written for the first half, and then they change lyrics and like, wait a second. Why are we singing the song as written? Oh, because Spamalot stole our gig.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, that is very true.

[B]

It is very true. Well, so the thing about Urinetown is the writing itself doesn't really spoof any specific musical. I mean, there are homages, as we mentioned, like, you know, to Vile and Les Mis and Fiddler and west side Story, but they don't make jokes specifically about those shows. No one's like, well, it's just one day more. Or.

[A]

Yeah. Or it's all in the staging, which is what's funny. It's all in having a reaction to meeting someone that is over the top. It is all in. It's not all in the waving a flag in the Les Mis section. That's where we're getting the. The west side Story, the snaps.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, that's where the spoof comes. It doesn't come from, like, hitting it. I mean, a little bit with Lock Stock, because he does talk about. Well, in a musical, this happens, but it still doesn't feel quite like we're commenting on specific musical theater moments.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not staging.

[B]

Lock Stock talks about Lock stocks. So, like, what makes it so brilliant is that when Lock Stock's talking about musicals, the jokes that he. That are given to Lock Stock, rather than Lock Stock making a joke, the jokes that Lock Stock is given, they are always just about how musicals are constructed, how they work. So, for example, when little Sally says, we don't talk about hydraulics, you know, with this water shortage, you think we would talk about, like, laundry, bathing, things like that. Like, why would. Why aren't we talking about that? And so Officer Lockstock says, well, sometimes, you know, how do I best describe this? Sometimes in a musical, it's best to focus on one big thing that. A bunch of little things. It helps the audience focus, and it's easier to write.

[A]

And I mean literally, almost the line verbatim, I have it open to that. I am.

[B]

I am insane. I am a freak of nature. I hate myself.

[A]

I'm very concerned about your brain and your future partners.

[B]

My what? Future partners. So the, the. The thing is that it's. It's less funny if he's like, you see little Sally sometimes in a musical when you're in 19th century France and everyone's poor and on a turntable, like, that's not as funny. It would be funny in the moment. But like, if he's. What he's doing is he's just talking about the economics of musical theater, the economic storytelling, all the structure, the tropes, the format, all of that stuff. And it's funny because it's true. And we know it's true because we watch you're in town. Adhere to it so. And adhere to it really well. So we can't blame them for being smug because they are doing everything that they are calling out and they're doing it very well. They just. It's just a very intelligent commentary as opposed to, as you were saying, you know, like with Spamalot or with Shrek where they'll do a moment that's like very specific to a very specific musical or like with Something Rotten. The whole, like, it's a musical number which everyone was so up in arms about. You know, I saw Something Rotten twice, about nine months apart. And when I saw it in previews, I thought it was quite funny. And then nine months in, I saw it again and I was like, oh, and this doesn't hold up as well for me because all the jokes are just, you know, name dropping Cats, Chess, Les Miserable, Chorus Line and I. It's once the, the surprise of what the next show they're going to name drop is. Is gone. It's less funny. Whereas you're in town. It's all part of the structure. It's embedded into the story and the characters, which is really, really hard to do.

[A]

It's. I mean, it's pretty genius. And I was just talking to a friend about it last night. They're like, why hasn't there been a big revival of this show? Just think it was so specific to what it was. I think it has to remain really small. I don't know if there's an interpretation that is a. That will top what it originally was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and it's such a commentary on this musical that it's weird to all of a sudden put do something different. And have like a huge cast or a huge set or do something really strange with it. It's sort of like when you hit it right the first time. I don't know if how desperate it's up for a new you're in town interpretation. Unless we do it in like a bathroom in Central park, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Site specific or something. It's. Yeah. It is the double edged sword of when the original production really just gets it completely and hits everything hard. All. All we could really do is put up that production again with a right cast. The only thing I can think of is like Jennifer Simard is Pennywise. I think that would be great casting. I can't think of anyone else, though, which. I don't know what that says about the state of musical theater. Broadway.

[A]

Think of people. We sat down for a minute.

[B]

Sure. It's late and it's late. We've been talking for a while and Mark's got someplace to be later.

[A]

I mean, you know, I'm sure Michaela diamond, my girl, she'll be the greatest hope you've ever seen. Oh, yeah. She would be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you just find another young, good looking, amazingly talented man.

[B]

I'm sitting right here. You don't need to keep saying all the things about me. I'm right here.

[A]

And then, you know, maybe Charles Shaughnessy as Cloudwell.

[B]

Bring him back. Bring him back. Now. At this point, Tom Kavanaugh comes back as Cladwell.

[A]

Oh, my God, that's great.

[B]

We do it. We do it right this time.

[A]

Colin Hanks. I get Tom Kavanaugh. Colin Hanks, very confused. Currently they are the new John McMartin.

[B]

Other John column, which is the white man version of Chita Rivera. Rita Moreno.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I. I would like you to do the. The forbidden Broadway Cheetah is Cheetah, not Rita number. But it's about John column and John McMartin. I would call him as column, not McMartin.

[A]

We'll call it the nichest thing anyone's ever seen.

[B]

Yeah. Niche me. You don't say.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the. So this show opens soon after they were supposed to open, I think the, like day after 9, 11. And they ended up pushing it back a week.

[A]

The 13th was their opening.

[B]

Yeah. And then they pushed it back, I think to the 20th and they, they were able to figure it out. All the reviews were positive, but they all were saying, like, I don't know if New York. This is the show New York needs right now. Which is. And you contrast that to Mama Mia's reviews, like Two weeks later, where everyone's like, this is so stupid. But it's exactly what everyone needs. So, like, both shows got good reviews, but Mamma Mia weirdly got more effusive praise because everyone was like, oh, thank God I have Mac and cheese on a stage right now. And so Mamma Mia became like, the big, big hit. But you're in town. Was able to actually, like, Millie did.

[A]

Great that season too. I mean.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ran three hit musicals in a season. Is like. Yeah. And.

[B]

And made. Made its money back. Something a Millie I don't think was able to do until it went out on the road. And Urinetown probably would have run longer. You know why they closed, right?

[A]

No. Something with Henry Miller. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Was that the Henry Miller. The building above them was getting torn down.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And they had to vacate.

[A]

Which is now the Sondheim Theater.

[B]

Yes, it is.

[A]

And Juliet there. But that was Henry Miller, the original home of the revival of Cabaret and this production of Urinetown. Yep, I do remember that now. And they were thinking of transferring, and then they just kind of closed her out.

[B]

Yeah, well, because, I mean, transfers are expensive and they. They basically exhausted.

[A]

It wasn't like it was an impossible to get into show.

[B]

Yeah, they. Through smart producing and budgeting, they were able to make a profit, but. And they'd never had a consistent. A consecutive number of weeks where they were totally sold out. They had, like, some really amazing weeks where they were averaging, like, 99% capacity. And then they have a week where they were at 70, and they were able to do fine with that. But, yeah, it was never an impossible ticket. And so they were like, we can't. We cannot afford to shut down for a month, move to a new theater and, like, keep the momentum going. It's costly. And we just recouped. Like, let's just close this while it's made money. And that's exactly what they did. They did lose musical to Millie, but they did win score, book and director, which I think it might be the only musical.

[A]

I think you're right. I think it's the only musical to win. I think there might be one other Opal Parade, too. Best book, Best score.

[B]

There are shows that have one. Score and book, but not musical. But not score. Book and director. Parade did not win director.

[A]

No, no. Yeah. So I guess this is maybe it. Score, book, director. But score and book is still crazy. To win score and book and not win musical is crazy in the same way. It was the Aida season to be nominated for best book, best musical. And not even get a nomination for a best score. Best book, but not get a nomination for best musical is Insanity.

[B]

Yeah. Same thing with Blonde. It's like you liked the writing, you didn't like the show. The thing with this, with the Urinetown wins, it's like you could argue possibly sometimes when you get to musical, it's like the parts are the whole is greater than the parts or whatever. You know, sometimes that's how like a jukebox musical like Jersey Boys wins or how something like crazy for you wins when you know it's got a recycled score or Spamalot ends up winning, even though. Because, you know, spelling bee and Piazza split the writing awards. But for Urinetown to win for both elements of its writing and for its direction. So it's like not only do you like the material, you like how it all came together with the direction, but you ultimately gave it to Millie. It was a very political thing, obviously, because as you mentioned, like, you know, Mamma Mia. Was definitely the runaway feel good hit of the season. But the Tonys couldn't bring themselves to vote for Mamma Mia.

[A]

Might go there.

[B]

Yes, yes. Like, we'll go for the show. That's a love letter to New York City that also happens to be feel good. And we won't reward it for its writing because its writing is fine, but not as good as you're in town. And Millie also got a lot of flack for having half an original score. The other half was stuff from the movie and then standards that they incorporated, which is very impressive. I always thought that that score was impressive based on how it all sounded like one whole unit. But, yeah, that's it. On your in town, that's all we. That's all she wrote.

[A]

There's no way ways or how do we close it out?

[B]

Well, so here. Hail Malthus. Thank you and good night.

[A]

Yes, your.

[B]

What was your favorite joke in the show?

[A]

You said, mine is in this darkness. I can't. You can't see me at all.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's a great one. I anything Lock, stock and Sally have together after follow your heart when we see them up in the. The catwalk. And little Sally goes, she loves him. Doesn't she offer Lock, stock. And he goes, of course she does. Little Sally, he's the hero of the show. She has to love him. It's like he gets so moved by the love story. But also commenting on she's got to love him. He's the lead. I just. I love those. Yeah, I love those jokes. Faxing and copying. I also love. Your father mentioned the size of your heart, Ms. Cladwell, but he failed to mention the size of your beauty. Does beauty have a size, officer? In some countries. You're. You're a good girl, Hope. I was one too, before I met your father. A good girl. You heard me. It's.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Also, I would be. Adam Elsbury would be remiss if I didn't quote this one. When Hope eventually takes over in Act 2 and she shows up in Cladwell's office and surprises him in the senator or. And no, sorry, Cladwell and his assistant. And his assistant goes, Ms. Cladwell, what an unexpected surprise. And she goes, is there any other kind?

[A]

Dun, dun, dun. So good.

[B]

So good. We have a new game here, Mark. Ooh, speaking of my restraining orders, who lives, who dies? Jeanine Tesori and Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. They're both the same game. They're both just 6 degrees. We have to get 6 degrees to Jeanine Tesori from urinetown and 6 degrees to Sally Murphy from Urinetown. I could do Sally Murphy if you want to do Janine Tesori.

[A]

Oh, God, I sure I can do. You get to do Sally Murphy while I think about Gene?

[B]

Sure. Well, Sally Murphy's going to be easy. Jeff McCarthy is in urinetown. Jeff McCarthy was in sideshow with Norm Lewis, who was in Wild Party with Sally Murphy.

[A]

Don't you have to do it in six? You have to do it in six or less.

[B]

You have to do it in six or less. Six is your max.

[A]

Great. Jennifer Laura Thompson was in your in town, obviously, and she was in. I haven't really thought any of this out. I'm just gonna go with it. And she was in. I can't. This is a lot to think about because I know it.

[B]

I know, I know, I know.

[A]

All right, you do it.

[B]

I just thought of it. Jennifer Laura Thompson is in your town. She was in Dear Evan Hansen with Michael park, who was the original flick.

[A]

Flick. Violet.

[B]

Monty. The original Monty. Monty and Violet.

[A]

Yes. Oh, yeah. He's not flick, flick, flick. He's Monty.

[B]

Yeah, Monty the original Monty in violet.

[A]

Michael McElroy. And then we do. And how do you get to Michael McElroy? Yes. That's good. See? Not that hard to do.

[B]

Yeah. And then Michael McElroy in Wild Party with Sally Murphy and Lee Hawking and Leah Hawking. Yeah, yeah, Michael McElroy. He's the other brother, right?

[A]

He's a. Yeah, he's the brother.

[B]

Oh, God. Talk about another amazing original cast.

[A]

Oh, God. I love that wild party.

[B]

We've talked about this. This is why we're soulmates, bitch.

[A]

I know. I love it. It's so good. If you don't know the real wild party, give it a listen.

[B]

Hashtag my wild party. So, as Mark knows, we close out every episode with a diva. We already decided nine years ago. Jennifer Laura Thompson. Mark, where can people find you if you want them to find you?

[A]

You can find me waiting for Jennifer Laura Thompson. It's stage door. No, you'll never find me one at a stage door. Ever. Okay, you can follow me at. @mark2minelli.t u m M I N E L L I over at Instagram and you could listen to me talk to other people on the Little Me podcast. And that's just. You can also follow us at Little Me Podcast on Instagram. And you can, if you have a kid who likes to sing, dance or act, you can send them to Broadway workshop and visit broadway workshop.com and that's my company. And if you're hiring a director for anything, you can email me at my first name.my last [e-mail].

[B]

Brilliant. You want to follow me, just go to Instagram. Matt Koplik. Usual spelling. It's mostly just my reviews these days and then occasionally promoting the podcast. But I'll try to come up with some extra original content for y'. All. If you like the podcast. That's all the world wants, is my needs. If you like the podcast, five star rating, please and thank you. Some nice new reviews would be glorious. The algorithm is a bitch and we're a slave to it. The good Lord made us so we'd adhere to an algorithm.

[A]

Please.

[B]

We. We join us next week for. I don't know what. Because we're doing this whole thing out of order and scheduling and recording. This thing has been a monster and I don't. I have four episodes lined up recording. I don't know in what order, so I don't know what's the next episode.

[A]

So just buckle up, everyone. You never know what's coming.

[B]

Yeah, it could be a play, could be a musical, if it's a play.

[A]

But you definitely want to hear about it.

[B]

Yeah. Don't you want to hear about Proof or Top Dog under Duke?

[A]

Me personally?

[B]

No, not you. I don't care what you think or care about.

[A]

I love Proof. Good play.

[B]

Is a good play. No, she'll be talked about. Proof will be talked about. Is a proof or doubt one of the two. I can't remember which. It's either proof or doubt.

[A]

I saw a legendary performance of Doubt.

[B]

Legendary performance?

[A]

Yeah. Cherry Jones called for line three separate times.

[B]

Shut the front door.

[A]

In the middle of the summer after she won the Tony. It was like way into the run and they had to bring her the pages of the script on stage. And she did. She said, ladies and gentlemen, if I can please use these pages, I can get through the rest of the scene. And she did it. And then she came back like nothing happened in the next scene. It was wild.

[B]

That is an amazing story.

[A]

I'll never forget as long as I live.

[B]

I wish I only. I saw Elaine Stritch in Night Music twice. And she didn't forget her lines either time. She was wonderful. But I was like, what I would give to be at a performance for Elaine. Stretch called for line. That'd be great.

[A]

She apparently used to say Bernadette, like she didn't know a line. She's like, you're so cute.

[B]

Yeah. They apparently had to coach the Frederica's how to be ready.

[A]

Ready to say all the important lines.

[B]

Yeah. To be like, yes, grandmother, this the summer night does smile three times. And now let us go off stage.

[A]

And now let us exit. Oh, God bless. God bless you. God bless Elaine Stritch. God bless your listeners. Merry Christmas.

[B]

Merry Christmas. God bless us, each and everyone. God bless John column, John McMartin. And once again, everyone, thank you so much for making it this far and listening. Join us next week for God knows what. And in the meanwhile, here's a little JLT for you. Takes away jlt.

[A]

Bye. Somewhere just beyond my reach there's someone reaching back to me Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat it's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet I need a hero I'm calling out for a hero Till the end of the night he's gotta be strong.