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All the Drama: “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”, 1962 Winner, Pulitzer Prize for Drama
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All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”1962 Pulitzer winner “How to Succeed in Busi...
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- [00:03]
Jan Simpson
The year is 1962. The Kennedy administration declares an embargo on trade with Cuba. As tensions with that small island nation worsen, astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to circle the earth, boosting the country's confidence that it can be a serious player in space. And for the first time, white collar jobs make up over 50% of the American workforce. A fundamental change as the US economy shifts toward service, clerical and corporate jobs. And in that year of 1962, the Pulitzer Prize for drama went to how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, a satirical musical about life in the corporate world. And only the fourth musical to win the Pulitzer. My name is Jan Simpson. Welcome to all the Drama, a podcast about the plays and musicals that have won American theater's highest accolade, the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The golden age of musicals that began in 1943 with Rodgers in Hammerstein's Oklahoma might have been fading out in the 1960s, but how to Succeed in Business was the second musical to win the Pulitzer in just three years in that decade. It started with one of the most unlikely sources for a musical, a tongue in cheek book about climbing the corporate ladder written by an advertising guy named Shepard Meadow Mead began his career as a mailroom clerk at the Benton and Bowles advertising agency, worked his way up to vice president and along the way changed his name from Edward to the more posh sounding Shepherd. He structured his book as a self help manual for those who wanted to get ahead in the corporate world world and he subtitled it the Dastard's Guide to Fame and Fortune. It came out in 1952 and became a surprise bestseller. It also caught the eye of Jack Weinstock, a neurosurgeon who wrote plays in his spare time, and his writing partner, a playwright named Willie Gilbert. And they attempt to to turn Mead's book into a play. But the book is really just a series of jokes. For example, the first of its 17 short chapters advises would be corporate climbers to choose the right company by making sure that it's big enough so that nobody knows exactly what anyone else is doing. Weinstock and Gilbert couldn't find any takers for the script they came up with. But when the agent Abe Newborn took it to the producing team of Cy Fuer and Ernest Martin, they thought that it might make a good musical. And they thought they knew just the right guys for the job. Abe Burrows and Frank Lesser, who had turned Damon Runyon. Short stories about the gamblers, showgirls and other regulars who hung around Broadway in the 1930s and 40s into the hit musical Guys and Dolls. Burrows had been born in New York on December 18, 1910, as Abram Solman Barowitz, the eldest of three children of Louis Borowitz, who owned a wallpaper and paint business, and his wife Julia. The entire family changed their surname to burroughs in the 1930s. Young Abe graduated from high school in Brooklyn and later attended both City College and New York University. But he quit college and worked in a variety of jobs, including as a clerk for a Wall street accounting firm. But he dreamed of a career in show business. In 1938, he met a comic writer named Frank Galen, and they teamed up and started collaborating somewhat successfully on routines for nightclub acts, comedy sketches for reviews and radio scripts. The big break for Burroughs came three years later when he co created and served as head writer for the popular radio show Duffy's Tavern. It was so successful that he eventually got his own show that showcased both his funny observations about life and the comic songs that he wrote and sang on air. A guy named Ernest Martin was the stage manager for the show, and when he later teamed up with Cy Fuhrer and they decided to adapt the Damon Runyon stories into a musical, Martin invited Burroughs to tackle the book. Martin and fewer had already signed up Frank Lesser to do the score because they'd worked with him on their earlier show, Where's Charlie? A vehicle for Ray Bulger that ran for 792 performances and introduced the famous sing along song Once in Love with Amy. Like Burroughs, Francis Henry Lesser had also been born in New York in 1910. But his birth came six months before Burroughs on June 29. His parents were Henry Lesser, a well respected piano teacher, and his second wife, Julia, who he'd married after his first wife Julia's older sister, died. An older son, Arthur, had been considered a child prodigy and grew up to head the piano department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. But Frank, as he nicknamed himself, was the family rebel. And he insisted on teaching himself how to play piano because he preferred the jazzier sounds of the the day over the classical music that his father and brother favored. Frank was a smart kid and he went to City College when he was just 15. But he flunked out after passing only English. That was okay with him because he knew that he wanted to be a songwriter and he felt he didn't need a degree for that. But when his father died in 1926, Lesser took a bunch of odd jobs to support the family. And according to a biography written by his daughter Susan, he worked as a knit. Good Editors for Womenswear magazine, drew political cartoons for a newspaper in Tuckahoe and also held jobs as a process server and a waiter. And although he had been raised in an upper middle class household on Manhattan's Upper west side, he began to adapt to the demeanor of a working class streetwise kid from the Lower east side, speaking with a pronounced New York accent and peppering his conversations with Yiddish. It was a tough guy Persona that he would maintain for the rest of his life and that would seep into some of his work. Eventually, Lesser was able to make a living writing the lyrics for novelty numbers that were used in reviews. He often wrote the lyrics before the composers had written the music, and several of them suggested that he should try his own hand at the melodies. So he did. They worked and he kept at it. But what he really wanted to do was write a Broadway show. That dream came through when Martin and Fuhrer hired him for Where's Charlie and then teamed him with Burroughs for Guys and Dolls, which ended up running for 1200 performances. Still, both Lesser and Burroughs initially turned down the offer to work on how to Succeed. They said there was no drama in Mead's book, no conflict, and most importantly, no romance. But fewer believed that the humor fueling Mead's book fit right into the Zeitgeist as the country shifted from the conservative Eisenhower years to the hipper Kennedy era. And he kept pushing. Burroughs gave in first. He had scored hits with tan can in 1953 and silk stockings in 1955, both of which he co wrote with Cole Porter. And he felt he owed all of it to Martin and Fuhrer, who had given him his first big break by asking him to write the book for Guys and Dolls. Lesser was a tougher get. He had written the music and lyrics and the book for the Most Happy Fella, based on they Knew what they Wanted, Sidney Howard's play about an aging wine grower, the younger woman he loves, and the hunky hired hand who comes between them. Lesser's musical version ran for 676 performances, and he liked creating the whole show on his own and thought that was the way he would always work in the future. But his next solo venture, Green Willow, a fantasy set in a magical town, ran for a disappointing 97 performances. And so eager for another hit, Lesser, even if somewhat reluctantly, signed on to do the music and lyrics for how to Succeed. Fewer and Martin sweetened the deal by giving Lesser's company what turned out to be a very lucrative co producer credit. The entire team agreed that the ideal person to play the show's main character, J. Pierrepoint Finch was Robert Morse, an impish young actor who had worked with Burroughs in a show called say Darling, in which Morse had played a high energy character that many Broadway insiders suspected was based on the young producer, Hal Prince. The team felt that Morse's innate charm and the mischievous grin that accompanied it would make audiences root for Finch even when he was stepping all over co workers to get to the top. The other main roles filled quickly. Burroughs and Lesser took care of the lack of romance in Mead's book by creating one between Finch and a secretary at the company, who they named Rosemary. A young actress named Bonnie Scott was hired to play Rosemary, but a pregnancy caused her to drop out soon after the show opened and she was replaced by Michelle Lee, who was now the actress most identified with the role. Morse recommended his friend Charles Nelson Riley to play Bud Frump, the nephew of the company's chairman, J.B. bigley, who becomes Finch's nemesis. And it was Abe Newborn, the agent who had originally brought the idea for the show to Fewer and Martin, who suggested that Bigley should be played by Rudy Valli, who had been a big star during the early days of radio and the first singer to gain a national following as a crooner. Then 60, Valli was playing in second class venues when they offered him the job, but he still acted like a big star. And he regularly butted heads with Lesser, who Valli said was overrated and not respectful enough of Vallle's own reputation. Valli also insisted on his trademark crooning when he sang his songs instead of performing them the way that Lesser had written them. At one point, Susan Lesser writes in her biography of her dad, Lesser got so frustrated with Valli that he walked out of a rehearsal and didn't return for three days. And Valli wasn't the only problem. Fewer had been knocked out by a dance number he'd seen in an industrial show and persuaded the rest of the team to hire its choreographer, Hugh Lambert. But as Fuer later admitted in his memoir, it soon seemed that Lambert had used up all of his good ideas in that industrial piece. Fewer reached out to Bob Fosse. Fosse agreed to join the production, but he didn't want to hurt the younger choreographer's chances of finding future work by having them take his name off the show. And so, although Fosse did all the dances except for one, Lambert was credited as the show's choreographer, while Fosse got the billing. Musical staging by Lambert never did. Another Broadway show, but he did better on tv, choreographing specials for such performers as Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Dick Van Dyke and Bob Hope, and choreographing all four seasons of Rowan and Martin's Laugh In. He also married Nancy Sinatra in 1970 and had two daughters with her before dying from cancer in 1985 at the age of just 55. How to succeed in Business Without Really Trying opened at the 46th Street Theater, now the Richard Rodgers, on October 14, 1961, to unanimous raves, and it ran for 1,417 performances. Even so, Lesser was somewhat disappointed with the show because he didn't think it was one of his strongest scores. That was in large part because he had always been proud of his ballad writing and the show doesn't really have any. He had originally written its breakout song, I Believe in youn, as a love ballad that Rosemary would sing to Finch. But Burroughs, who was also directing the show, persuaded him that it would work better as a comic number for Finch to sing to himself. And Lesser may have been right about the score, because how to Succeed won seven of the eight Tonys it was nominated for, only losing for its score, although that award went to Richard Rogers for no Strings, the first show he did alone after Oscar Hammerstein's death. So there may have been something else at work there. According to Susan Lesser, her dad wasn't even impressed on how to Succeed won the Pulitzer. The two man jury in 1962 was fairly open about the fact that they thought the best show of the season was A Man for All Seasons, but that was ineligible because it was written by the Brit Robert Bolt. So they recommended how to Succeed. Those judges, the critics, John M. Brown and John Gassner, were the sole jurors for the Pulitzer's drama prize from 1956 to 1963, when they quit because their recommendation of who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Was overruled. But in 1962, they were uncomfortable about recommending another musical just two years after they had gone with Fiorello. So they made a point of arguing that how to Succeed really deserve to win because it was one of America's triumphant musicals, a jubilant, sardonic and hilarious travesty of the ways of big business and the means to get ahead in it. Lesser may have been indifferent to the Wind, but Burroughs, who had worked magic transforming Mead's book, was delighted. And regardless of how they felt about the Pulitzer, both men continued working on new shows. Lesser's next one, Pleasures and Palaces, closed out of town, and he spent the next four years trying to musicalize a short story by Bud Schulberg called Senior Discretion himself. But before he could finish it, Lesser, an habitual smoker, died on July 28, 1969, of lung cancer. He was just 59. Arena Stage did a production of Senior Discretion in 2004. Burroughs wrote, directed and served as a script doctor for another decade and a half. He scored a big hit with the comedy Cactus Flower, which ran for 1234 performances. But he didn't do so well with the now notorious production of Breakfast at Tiffany's replaced him as its book writer, out of Town and still closed before it made it to Broadway. He died May 17, 1985, at the age of 74 from complications from Alzheimer's. But how to Succeed lives on. The 1967 movie with Morse, Lee and Valli all reprising their Broadway roles still pops up on TV, and the stage version has received two big Broadway revivals. The first was in 1995 at the same theater where the original production had been, and that revival starred Matthew Broderick and a pre, Will and Grace Megan Mullally, who was later replaced by Sarah Jessica Parker. That production ran 548 performances. Broderick won the Tony for best actor in a musical, and he and Parker have now been married for 28 years and are the parents of a son and twin daughters. A 50th anniversary Broadway revival opened on March 27, 2011 at the Al Hirschfeld Theater with Daniel Radcliffe as Finch. The how to revival ran for 473 performances, and John Larroquette won a Tony for his portrayal of B. Binkley. Music Theatre International, which licenses the show, says that it is still regularly done by colleges and community theater groups. At least five productions are currently scheduled for the rest of this year. Joining me to talk about this still somewhat beloved fourth musical to win the Pulitzer is the musical theater historian Kristen Stoltz Presley, who is the author of the new book, Pulitzer Prize winning Musicals of the I Sing to a Strange Loop, which is coming out in September. Hello, Kristen Stoltz Presley. Welcome to all the drama.
- [22:44]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted to talk with you today.
- [22:48]
Jan Simpson
I'm wondering if you could start off for us by talking a little bit about your history with how to Succeed before you started working on your book.
- [23:02]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Well, I first encountered it as probably a college freshman, maybe a high school senior. So it was the mid-90s. It was the the revival that starred Matthew Broderick and Megan Mullally, and I fell in love with it. Back then, my family and I would often see musicals during the Macy's Parade. I grew up in South Car. We would sit in South Carolina and watch the parade every year. And that would kind of determine which shows we saw when we went to New York subsequently. And this was one of those shows that we were all like, oh, we gotta see that one. So I remember going to see it, falling in love with it, listening to it, learning it, knowing it backwards, forward.
- [23:43]
Jan Simpson
Sideways, what grabbed you about it?
- [23:47]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
I think it was so funny. And I loved Matthew Broderick. I was a kid in the 80s, so Ferris Bueller was definitely near and dear to my heart. I was a little starstruck to see him on a stage. And then when we saw it, it was Sarah Jessica Parker playing Rosemary. Mega Mullally had already left the show and Sarah Jessica Parker was playing opposite Matthew Broderick. So that was a really special thing. Of course, she was well known to our family as well. So it was just a very fun thing. I don't know what was so funny. I think, you know, my father was a businessman. I certainly was not in business at the time, but I think I recognized enough of what I'd heard about business from him. I recognized enough of it in the. I don't know, it definitely resonated with me. So it's been a favorite of mine for a while.
- [24:31]
Jan Simpson
Okay. Was that production the only one you've ever seen of the show?
- [24:38]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Yes. I have not. You know, there have been, I think, two other revivals since then on Broadway, and I've not seen either one of them, but I loved that one. And we also, around the same time, saw Damn Yankees. Both were cut from a very similar cloth. And I still love both of them would still be in my top 10 list of favorite musicals of all time. So I'm very excited about, you know, there's a Damn Yankees revival, I think cooking in Washington at the moment, and I'm real excited to see what happens with that one.
- [25:06]
Jan Simpson
You're really a golden age musical gal.
- [25:09]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
I am a golden age girlie. Let me just tell you. I am a golden age girlie.
- [25:17]
Jan Simpson
I'm going to ask you the question I ask everyone on these episodes, which is why do you think the Pulitzer board awarded its prize to how to Succeed?
- [25:33]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Well, I actually think I have a pretty good answer for that one. They wanted to award it to A Man for All Seasons, the play by Robert Bolt.
- [25:41]
Jan Simpson
Right.
- [25:41]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
And their hands were tied because he was not an American citizen. And Pulitzer had stipulated years earlier that it would be you know, worked by American citizens. And so that has subsequently changed. It was 2023 when the Pulitzer board voted to open that up to just permanent residents of the United States. But at this point, it was a hard and fast rule that you had to be an American citizen. And Robert Bold, of course, was not an American citizen. And so, you know, the play wouldn't work. They couldn't do that one. And so they said, you know what, though? The phrasing that they used when they reported back to the drama jury was our cupboard is by no means bare. So they. They then recommended how to Succeed in Business without really Trying as what should take its place. And of course, that's how things went. Just weren't able to.
- [26:36]
Jan Simpson
Well, why did they fall back to how to Succeed? There were some other candidates. Among them, Ossie Davis, Pearly. I mean, there were other candidates. Why this one? And particularly since, and we're gonna talk about this a lot more since they had just given the prize to a musical two years before.
- [27:00]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
That's right. That's exactly right. With Fiorello. Well, what they said, and I actually will read to you from what they wrote to the drama jury, they said, the Pulitzer board has long since and wisely recognized an of the Icing and South Pacific that our musicals can be among the most notable productions of the American theater. And even though we did not feel that Fiorello, that was the musical that had won, that you just mentioned, highly enjoyable as it was, was truly top flight, we both think that how to Succeed is. And we are not lonely in this opinion. So we argue that the Pulitzer Prize should not be given with too great frequency to musical comedies. I'm sure you've mentioned previously on this podcast, it's only gone to a musical 10 times. It's been over 100 years of the prize being given, so it has not been given with too great frequency. But they nevertheless thought that how to Succeed was, you know, the best selection for that year. You're absolutely right. Ossie Davis, Pearl and Victorious was an option. Paddy Chayefsky's Gideon was an option, and also Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams was an option. But ultimately they felt that how to Succeed was the right choice. And surprisingly, the advisory board agreed with them. And you're right, they were very reticent to award the prize to a musical. I mean, particularly when that first one was awarded of the Icing, which won the prize in 1932, that rocked a lot of boats. But by this point, how to Succeed was the fourth Musical to win the prize. So it was a little bit more acceptable and the board took the jury's recommendation.
- [28:43]
Jan Simpson
Do you think the board and the jury actually. The jury. Because the same two guys were on the jury for a long time, do you think they just weren't so thrilled with what was going on with plays during the 60s? Because they were really tough during that decade. They declined to give the award in four years. They gave it to musicals twice. What do you think was going on?
- [29:15]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
You're right. I mean, there have been only a handful of years when they haven't given an award. And a number of them were back to. Back to back in the 60s. I can't really speak to that. I would be hesitant to speak for them. All I can say is what I've read from what they've written. And so I know as it pertains to how to Succeed, it was, you know, we want to do this play, but we can't do that play, so we're going to do this show instead. I don't know what sort of biases they may have had against other plays or playwrights. I certainly wouldn't want to speak for them. But I do know that they were very high on how to succeed.
- [29:50]
Jan Simpson
Now, because you've studied all the musicals that have won the award, do you think it's harder for a musical to win the Pulitzer?
- [30:03]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
I absolutely do. And there's a number of years that musicals have been considered for a Pulitzer, one of them being, you know, if we talk about the creative team that produced how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, they had produced in 1950, Guys and Olive, which was enormously successful and was considered for a Pulitzer. It did not win. But in 1950, the same year that Geisendalf Weared on Broadway, South Pacific had won the Pulitzer Prize. So they were very cautious about giving it to musicals too often. But there have been a number of times throughout musical theater history where musicals have been considered and then not given the prize. And I think there's a number of things that play there. One is they're very cautious. We don't want to overdo. Because for whatever reason, musicals, as much as I love them and think they're the greatest thing since Life Bread, not everybody does in kind of establishment circles. And so they're trying to walk that very fine line between what can we do to award works that are truly exemplary and yet still keep everybody happy. Because, like I mentioned that first of the I Sing, when that was awarded in 1932, I mean, you would have thought the world was going to end with some of the responses from the critics nationwide who were just absolutely appalled by it. So I think there's still a bias that musical theater is a popular form, a populist form, and so it's not considered as, quote, unquote, high art as a legitimate play. Right. And I think that bias is definitely at play. So I do think that raises the bar for musicals. When you look at kind of over time and you see they. There have been a couple of times where they've been awarded, you know, in kind of in clumps. And definitely Fiorello and How to Succeed is one of those clumps. But for the most part, it happens about once every 10 years. Right. We have 1932, then we jump up to 1950 with South Pacific. Then we have Fiorello, Then we have how to succeed, then from 1962, and how to succeed wins that. We jump another 13 years to a course line. Then we jumped to Rent. Wait, what am I missing? I'm trying to think of the chapters in my book. I'm going too fast. Sunday in the park with George. Right. And then we jump from Sunday in the park with George was 1985. I believe it won the prize. Then we see 1996 as rent. So it's kind of averaged out to about every 10 years. Pull.
- [32:37]
Jan Simpson
Yeah. Where would you rank how to Succeed in that list of Pulitzer prize winning musicals?
- [32:47]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
I'll be honest, I love it. And I have already confessed to being a Golden age girlie. And in fact, I've written a book about Dorothy Fields, who was a Golden age writer. I have future works about golden age shows coming down the pike soon. But I think that Hamilton is the greatest work of pure genius I have ever experienced. As historians, we're supposed to, you know, kind of shun those things that are popular, but I think it's brilliant. And so I would probably put that first place.
- [33:18]
Jan Simpson
But what I was asking was, where would you rank how to succeed? Would it be in your top. No, no. Would it be in your top five or of.
- [33:29]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Of these musicals of the 10? Absolutely, yes. I think for me, as the 10, I would probably put how to succeed for me second. It would be right behind Hamilton.
- [33:44]
Jan Simpson
Really?
- [33:46]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not. Why believe it or not? You do not like this show. I get this show's not your favorite.
- [33:55]
Jan Simpson
No, no, no. I do like this show, but I don't think I would rate it as Hylia's number two.
- [34:04]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Yeah, well, it goes back to what I Enjoy musical theater for. And my favorite musical of all time is the Drowsy Chaperone. And if you know that show, you know, famously, the man in the chair said, it does what a musical is supposed to do. It gives you a little song to carry with you, you know. So I love musicals that kind of make me happy and make my heart dance and make me laugh, you know, almost a. It's kind of ironic, but I'm the weary businessman, theater goer. I sometimes can fit into that cliche because I just want to be entertained. You know, make me laugh, make me smile, give me a little tune to carry with me when I go. And I think that how to Succeed accomplishes that. Now, if that's not what you're at theater for, then this is not going to melt your butter. You know what I mean? But it is what I like about theater. And so I laugh. I see the truth of the satire in it. I can appreciate that. And so I love it. I really do.
- [35:05]
Jan Simpson
You've just hit on a point. Even though it's a totally enjoyable show, there is some underlying message in it. I mean, it is talking about mid 20th century attitudes toward the corporate world.
- [35:24]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Yeah, yeah. And it's. It's very interesting. It's very interesting to understand how it even came to be, which is. This band from St. Louis named Edward Mead wanted to be the great American novelist. So he moved to New York and started working for an advertising firm. He started, you'll never guess where, in the mailroom of a big ad firm called Benton and Bowles in New York City. And he wanted, like I said, he wanted to be a great writer. So he would try to ride at night, but his roommates were very loud and he couldn't do it. And so he would get up very. Or he would go to bed at 8pm and wake up very early in the morning and try to write. Then. Well, as time went by and he worked his way out of the mailroom, not unlike J. Pierpont Finch. And then before you know it, he's the vice president of Vin and Bowles, which one time had 131 offices in 75 different countries. So a really big deal. And so he ends up not writing the great American novel. Instead, he writes this satire, how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He was really writing almost a kind of backhanded autobiography because that was his experience. So he had lived it and breathed it, and he absolutely knew, you know, where to punch, because he had been a part of that world for a long Time.
- [36:41]
Jan Simpson
What sort of intrigues me is that the play still gets done by community groups, colleges, and maybe even some regional theaters. And as you say, it has been revived on Broadway. And yet attitudes, particularly towards women, have changed. And so why is it that this show continues, do you think, to be done?
- [37:14]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
You know, I think in one part it's a nostalgia almost. It is. American theatrical audiences are comfortable with what they know, particularly those where this is being most frequently performed across the country in community theaters, in educational theaters. They're comfortable with what they know. And this is a show that they know because it's been around for so long. Right. Another strength of it, I think, is Frank Lesler's music.
- [37:40]
Jan Simpson
Yeah, it's.
- [37:41]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
That music is just spectacular. You know, Abe Burroughs, who wrote the libretto and directed the original production, certainly that libretto. Now, when we hear it, just like most librettos of that age, we cringe a little bit, but there are nevertheless some kind of timeless zingers in there that are just hilarious. And so I think that a lot of those things play together. The same reason why we're still reviving, you know, shows like Oklahoma and other Golden Age mainstays is because there's just something so familiar about them. It's almost like a comfort food. And granted, a lot of them need to have some updating done. So there are things that we just cannot abide because it's not only not funny, it's uncomfortable. Right. So there is that piece of it. But I think, by and large, you know, the music is so brilliant, and there's a nostalgia for these shows that kind of created our cultural identity in a sense.
- [38:42]
Jan Simpson
Well, maybe then the Pulitzer board and jury knew what they were doing.
- [38:48]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. Maybe so.
- [38:53]
Jan Simpson
And I want to thank you for taking the time to talk about. Think about this Pulitzer Prize winning musical, the fourth to take the prize. Thank you.
- [39:07]
Kristen Stoltz Presley
Hey, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. Thank you so much.
- [39:14]
Jan Simpson
And thank you for listening. I hope you'll come back next time. And if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send them to me@janbreadleradio.com.