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Special Episode: Amanda Green on ‘Regency Girls’ world premiere
00:21:23
On today’s episode, Matt Tamanini is in conversation with two-time Tony-nominated lyricist Amanda Green. Known for her shows like “High Fidelity,” “Bring It On,” “Hands on a Hardbody,” and “Mr. Saturday Night,
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- [00:01]
Dennis Black
Ever notice your dog slowing down and having health issues and wonder, what can I do to make them better? Well, my friend, add rough greens to your dog's food for 90 days and I guarantee you'll see changes that will amaze you. Greetings naturopathic doctor Dennis Black, inventor of rough greens here, and I invite you to give your pup the Ruffgreens 90 Day Challenge. In the first 30 days, you'll see shinier coats and increased energy. By day 60, your dog will have a stronger immune system, less shedding, improved joint function, all due to the live nutrients that you've added to their diet. And at 90 days, better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you may even have reduced their cancer risk. Fetch your dog a free Jumpstart trial bag today. Go to try roughgreens.com use promo code try rough. That's T R Y R U F F. Go to try rough greens.com use promo code try rough. You just cover the shipping. You don't have to change your dog's food to improve your dog's health. Just add a scoop of rough greens.
- [01:07]
Matt Tamanini
Welcome to a special interview episode of Broadway Radio. My name is Matt Tamanini. On today's episode, I'm in conversation with the Tony nominated lyricist of such shows as High Fidelity, Bring it on the Musical, Hands on a hard body, and Mr. Saturday night. Amanda Green. Greene's latest show is a new musical called Regency Girls that is currently playing at the Old Globe in San Diego, California through May 11. She wrote the show with composer Curtis Moore and Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allen, who wrote the book, and the show is a mashup of so many different things. I don't want to even spoil them because Amanda gives them to us fairly early in this interview and I want you to hear them from her mouth because the utterly ridiculous combinations of influences that are thrown together in this show are absolutely delightful. So I want you to hear them from her. But in terms of a plot synopsis, the official description reads thusly, Eleanor Benton is in a predicament. She's pregnant, unmarried, and living in the 19th century England. What's a young woman to do? Facing certain ruin, she gathers up her best friends and sets off on an ultimate road trip to find the one woman who might offer a chance to change her life. The show is directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes and features an exceptional cast being led by Isabel McCullough and and featuring Christina Alubbado, Ryan Redman, Kate Rockwell, Sav Souza, Nick Walker and more. All of the press releases that I get about the show says that it is Broadway bound and the reviews have been fantastic out in Southern California. So this is one you will definitely want to keep an eye on. Of course, in the show notes I'll have information on where you can purchase tickets to see Regency Girls at the old globe through May 11th. Alright. With all of that out of the way, here is my conversation with Amanda Green. So Regency Girls at the Old Globe has been running now for about two weeks. Reviews have come out. They have been wonderful. You look like that kind of shocks you that it's been running for that long. How have things been going so far?
- [03:06]
Amanda Green
They have been going so well. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. You know, this is a labor of love that it's an original musical that sprung from the minds of me and Curtis Moore and then Jen Critten and Gabby Allen and we've been working on it for seven and a half years. So just the thrill of reaching this finish line, which we hope is not the finish line, but getting to see it. Beautifully staged by Josh Rhodes with this incredible sets by Ana Luizos and costumes by David Reynoso and this incredible cast led by Izzy McCullough. And I won't mention everybody, but I'll get to them. But I just want to say that it feels like a, you know, a dream come true because the thing that we dreamed up in my living room and then met over, you know, on two coasts for all this time is, is on stage, the thing we, we dreamt up is there. So it's, it's a, that's a wonderful feeling.
- [04:07]
Matt Tamanini
Well, you said this is a, this is a finish line, not the finish line. So what is the process of continuing to work on the show now that you can on stage in front of an audience? Are you still in California? Have you come back to New York? What's the, what's the operations right now?
- [04:22]
Amanda Green
Well, I have just come back to New York from California. But up until opening night we were rewriting every day because of course it was the first time we got, as they say, the last collaborator which is the audience who makes you see the whole thing in a whole new way. And you know, things that you thought would be sure fire, like, ooh, that could feel the audience getting restless or like, you know what, you see it and you go, we don't need the second verse of that song. Or you know, the, the book writers would say like, yeah, that's one joke too many. And you know, so you. We're just going in and, and changing the story back and forth like there's a secret, but it wasn't a secret, you know, but the, the audience knew, but the characters didn't know and the characters knew and the audience, you know, and we made our mind up the day before opening, like, what the best way forward was. You, like, so been working on it pretty steadily.
- [05:18]
Matt Tamanini
Yeah, well, you, you mentioned that you and Curtis Moore came up with this idea. And for the people who haven't heard about the. It's a. Not only the fact that you've been working on it for seven and a half years, like, it seems so prescient to so many of the things that we're doing, dealing with right now, but it's, it's brilliant. And so give us the elevator pitch as to what this show is in a nutshell.
- [05:43]
Amanda Green
Sure. I always like to say Regency Girls is like Jane Austen meets Bridesmaids, but about reproductive freedoms. And it is, you know, or Thelma Louise meets Book of Mormon in Regency England, or as another friend said, a funny thing happened on the way to reproductive freedom and female autonomy. You know, so it is. It concerns a young woman who finds herself in a predicament that she's pregnant, unmarried and living in 19th century England. Facing certain ruin for herself and her family, she gathers up her best gal pals and sets off on this road trip to seek the services of a midwife, a notorious midwife who offers cures for women with female troubles. And it's an epic journey and it's hilarious and profound and it transforms each of the women. And they learn to. To make choices about themselves and their futures and to really sort of come into their own. So that was a long elevator ride, but no, no, no, it's good.
- [06:55]
Matt Tamanini
We're going up to the penthouse of a skyscraper. That's fine.
- [06:57]
Amanda Green
Fantastic.
- [06:59]
Matt Tamanini
So, as we said seven and a half, eight years ago, whenever you started this, you have this idea. It's not like necessarily the quintessential thing that you think of. Oh, that makes sense for a musical. So what was the nugget? What was the grain of inspiration that kind of prompted you and Curtis to get started with this?
- [07:17]
Amanda Green
Well, the grain of it, the strong feeling was the injustice of the lack of reproductive choices and the way women and people providing health care for women were being targeted. This is, you know, we had Roe v. Wade then. We didn't know how good we had it when we started writing this, but it was still. Doctors were vilified and women making these choices were vilified. And that's something I felt very strongly about. And I. Curtis is a dear old friend of mine. We've done many shows together off, off, off off Broadway. And we were looking for something to write. And I was like, okay, this is the worst idea ever. But he had a very smart thing, which was really our inspiration, was that he was like, what if we set it in a different time period so we can look at it and comment on it and comment on today from the past. And we hit on Jane Austen because we love Jane Austen. Then all of a sudden, this world of possibility and a lack of heat and a lack of. Of course there's heat. But you could tell it within a comedy because it's in the past. But you could also. You know, there's a. One of the songs in our show is called, the full title is can you believe this shit still happening in 1810 about how badly women are being treated in. And saying, God, if we could only go 200 years from now when women will be equal at last. So you can. The irony and the fun you are able to have while tackling these difficult subjects. Because it's great to be able to laugh about the absurdity and the pain. And we both are comedy writers and we wanted to make a fun story about characters you care about going on a wild journey and also make it meaningful. So that was the germ.
- [09:13]
Matt Tamanini
Yeah. Well, I, I, I am a firm believer that the best musicals always start with somebody saying, this is a terrible idea for a musical. Because, I mean.
- [09:22]
Amanda Green
And some of the worst ideas, too.
- [09:24]
Matt Tamanini
Yes, of course. Yeah. Bad musicals start there too. But I feel like you have to have something that is so outside the box. Okay, so we go from you and Curtis having this idea, and then I'm assuming that Curtis is the one who brought in Jennifer and Gabrielle. Cause they had done a TV show together. Is that. No, just go back further than that.
- [09:42]
Amanda Green
Well, it goes back further than that because I ran into Frank Rich, who I know, and I had just. Curtis and I had just come up with this idea. And I was like, okay. Frank Rich, he was doing Veep. He was doing Succession. And I said, okay.
- [09:59]
Matt Tamanini
Oh, of course. Yeah.
- [10:00]
Amanda Green
Tell me about the funniest. I want to, I need. We're looking for a book writer. The funniest writer, you know. And he was like, you have to meet Jen Critten and Gabby Allen. So he introduced me and I pitched him the idea. And then the four of us met. And that was. I conscripted them on the wild and merry. They've worked on musicals before. But, yeah, that's how we got together.
- [10:21]
Matt Tamanini
Of course, the Veep that they both worked on. Veep. That makes perfect sense. And that seems like a fairly good kind of on ramp for this show specifically as well. But at the beginning, you mentioned this cast. So many great talents, some of whom I know you have worked with before, some of whom I'm imagining are at least new to you, at least in a full production form. So tell us about the cast you mentioned Izzy McCullough, but from her and Nick Walker to Christina Alabado and Ryan Redmond, Kate Rockwell. So many great talents.
- [10:55]
Amanda Green
Yes. Izzy is just a dream. When she came in, we were like, that's it. You know, it was the fastest search. You know, it was the first formal auditions we'd had because we'd done seven and a half readings, seven and a half years and, you know, Covid and all sorts of things. So we'd done one reading after another and was the first day of auditions we had. And I think she was like the second person we saw. And we're like, yeah, that's it. Everybody's like, yep, yep, done. Okay, let's go have lunch. We're done. She's incredible. Kate Rockwell and Ryan Redmond, of course. I. We. We all work together on Bring it on. And they are comic geniuses and delights. And Kristin Alabado, she and I, well, she's done readings for us of this. She's exquisite. The four of them are. Are having a romance with each stage. And off stage, they're great pals. They just have so much fun and they feed off each other. And they. Audiences are falling in love with them because they're just so delightful. And Sav Sousa is fantastic playing the role of Scudder, the stable boy with a secret. And we have. Who else do we have? Nick Walker's incredible. Gabe Gibbs, Benjamin Howes, Jeanine Lamanna. It's just a fantastic, fantastic cast. Marissa Rosen. Marissa and Izzy were in Water for ele Elephants together. So it's. Yeah, there's so many. There's always so many connections.
- [12:24]
Matt Tamanini
Yeah. So much co. Mingling of cast in New York theater. But when you talk about a show like this, you said it is when you're kind of throwing around some of the things that you talk about women's reproductive rights. But then you throw in a show like Book of Mormon as a reference as well. There's a lot of different types of things that I would imagine that this cast has to balance the humor and the comedy of, you know, the story you're telling, but also the seriousness of underneath of the message that you're trying to tell. What does it take for. I guess, first a cast, and then I want to talk about the writers to be able to balance that. But what does it take for a cast to be able to handle all of those different plates that they have to be spinning at all times in a show like this?
- [13:02]
Amanda Green
Well, this is a. It is a musical comedy. It is a comedy. So everybody, and of course, the best comedians are like everybody else, great actors. So they just have to be playing the truth of the moment at all times. And they are handling it beautifully because we love to go. I mean, to me, I'm. I'm always delighted when a song or a moment can, like, you can laugh and it's painful or cry and then burst out laughing, you know, so we have a couple of those moments with, like, it gets very serious and profound and then somebody says something absolutely ridiculous, you know, so they have handled it by just staying true to the moment and not being afraid to be profound and then not being afraid to be profoundly silly in the next moment.
- [13:47]
Matt Tamanini
So, on the writer's side of things, how do you make sure that you are living in that musical theater world? You have a point, you have a message. That's where the whole thing kind of started from. But how do you make sure that you're not. I would imagine you decided to set it in a different time period because you didn't want it to be so of the moment, hitting it so on the nose that you wanted to kind of put a little bit of distance from that. People kind of see the reality and the humor in it. How do you balance, I don't know, kind of getting swept up in the emotions of the story you're trying to tell?
- [14:19]
Amanda Green
Well, because, I mean, even in serious situations, people, you know, there is humor to be found. And also, besides just setting it in the past, it's this, oh, I'm going to just pardon me. I'm going to close this door here because I realize everybody's having to listen to my fantastic words. Besides setting it, besides setting the show in the past, it's also a very repressive society with a lot of rules. So that gives us a lot of humor to play against. And when we were writing it, we did. We had to experiment with the ballad with a balance. Like there was a ballad that we have that's very heartfelt and very serious, and we thought, we're getting too serious. Let's. Can we get a couple of jokes in there, like, in the. Can we just puncture it with a couple of, like, one joke, and we got a very funny joke in the middle of it. And it sort of dispels this tension without ruining, in any way, as far as we're concerned, the. What the. What the song is about. And then conversely, there's another song which is our 11 o'clock moment, and it's very earnest. It's a song called A Woman Knows. And we thought, like, oh, we gotta be funny here. And I. We wrote some jokes and we're like, oh, this just feels dirty. Don't do that, don't do that. It just can't support it, you know, so trial and error. And it's the same for the book writers. They did the same thing and have also punctured very serious scenes with like, an absurd line, which. Which in some ways sort of makes the scene to me feel even more profound. So it's delightful when they do that.
- [15:57]
Matt Tamanini
I love that. Well, you had mentioned the fact that you not only had worked all the way up until opening, but that there is hope for future life for this. I think even in the press notes, it all says Broadway bound and hopeful. And talking with the press reps, they're all excited. I'm not gonna ask you to tell me when and if it's coming to Broadway, because who knows at this point? But what are the things beyond just finding the right producers to work with you and get you there, but what are the things that have to happen from your side to make sure that the show is ready for a next step potentially in New York or on Broadway like that?
- [16:32]
Amanda Green
Well, you know, we've gotten through. Well, the show is still happening. They're still performing in San Diego. We got through it and now, you know, we've gotten reviews and they've been very positive. People are really, you know, it's so exciting. And then there have also been, you know, like, you. You hear if you get the same criticism three or four times, you go like, okay, let's look at that. You know, some people have different tastes and you're like, you know, so. And, you know, we. We are going to regroup in a couple of weeks and. And when we have a little distance and say, okay, what did we think? Obviously, we're going to do that with our director, Josh Rhodes, and with the producers and. And then. And then figure out what we. The work is not done. We definitely have more work to do. And I already have a few ideas. I know my collaborators do as well. And we're so on fire about this show, and we're just excited to keep working on it. So that's what we'll be doing.
- [17:32]
Matt Tamanini
Well, whether it is through the rest of the run at the old Globe through May 11 or any potential productions in the future, what are you hoping that audiences who come are able to leave with? What's the vibe? What's the feelings that you hope that they take out of whatever theater they see the show in?
- [17:51]
Amanda Green
I. At its best, it reminds me, and I'm in no way comparing myself in terms of whatever. Like, I remember going to see what the Constitution means to me the day that Kavanaugh. Right. Was. Was confirmed. And I. Now, you know my politics, because I was just distraught. And I went to see the show, and I went to see what the Constitution means to me, and. And it obviously was the thing, but I was moved. I was laughing. And this woman sitting next to me, she. And I. I don't know her, we held hands during the show, and it was a communion. And so I feel like our show is sillier. And, you know, it's a comedy and it's a musical, and it's outrageous, and there's, you know, there aren't fart jokes, but maybe there will be by Broadway. You know what I mean? It's not afraid to be silly and outrageous. But I see women commun. So I want people to feel like, yes. Oh, my God, yes. You know, And I know that men have a good time, you know, who are. Obviously, men are allies and many. And I want people to have a freaking good time and laugh their butts off. Can we change hearts and minds? I have no idea. But I hope people, even if they don't. We don't change their mind. They go, like, I like those women. I like them, you know, like, it's hard to see people as enemies when you get to know them as you fall in love with the characters. And that's what I hope. They fall in love with the characters and the journey. And people feel heard and galvanized and remember, like, I'm looking for. And we're all looking for in these times, like, hope and the will to go on and the will to fight back and to claim our ground and say, we're not going anywhere.
- [19:46]
Matt Tamanini
I love that. Okay. This was gonna be a hard one. What is your favorite Jane Austen novel since you've referenced her earlier? What is your favorite. What is your go to?
- [19:55]
Amanda Green
I've actually never read. No, I'm just kidding.
- [19:59]
Matt Tamanini
Jane.
- [20:00]
Amanda Green
Who? Who? Who now I, you know, I'm old school, I gotta say Pride and Prejudice and Elizabeth Bennet, but all of her. All of her novels are wonderful. And I will say, yes, of course, we borrowed from Jane Austen because, yeah, I would have to say Pride and Prejudice, but all of them, all of them are wonderful.
- [20:24]
Matt Tamanini
Do you have a specific adaptation that you gravitate towards, either TV or movie version? Because I know that's kind of. That's a thing. Like you've got to have your specific Elizabeth and Darcy combo.
- [20:38]
Amanda Green
What was the one with Colin Firth? Is it. I don't remember. I've seen so many. They all sort of bleed together for me, of course. But, I mean, I guess it was Jane Austen. I mean, our show starts where a Jane Austen novel usually ends, which is the, like, the heroine is engaged to her love her Darcy, you know, and it's called the opening number is a happy ending beginning. You know, so it's like that, and then it's sort of like it all falls to pieces from there. So that was fun to take that trope, and I love that. Yeah.
- [21:13]
Matt Tamanini
Well, thank you so much for that. I'm incredibly excited. I love. I saw Bring it on in Atlanta three times. So, like, I love. I've loved you and members of this cast for many, many years. So I'm very excited to get.
- [21:27]
Amanda Green
Wait till you see them. Wait till you see them. You will just. You'll fall in love with them again. Okay, thank you so much, so much.
- [21:34]
Matt Tamanini
Yeah, thank you. Good luck with everything, and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about it, about the show again in the future.
- [21:39]
Amanda Green
Me too. Thanks so much. Foreign.
- [21:54]
Dennis Black
Notice your dog slowing down and having health issues and wonder, what can I do to make them better? Well, my friend, add rough greens to your dog's food for 90 days, and I guarantee you'll see changes that will amaze you. Greetings, Naturopathy Dr. Dennis Black, inventor of rough greens here, and I invite you to give your pup the Ruff Greens 90 day challenge. In the first 30 days, you'll see shinier coats and increased energy. By day 60, your dog will have a stronger immune system, less shedding, improved joint function, all due to the live nutrients that you've added to their diet. And at 90 days, better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you may even have reduced their cancer risk. Fetch your dog a free Jumpstart trial bag today. Go to tryruffgreens.com use promo code try rough. That's T R Y R U F f. Go to try roughgreens.com use promo code. Try rough. You just cover the shipping. You don't have to change your dog's food to improve your dog's health. Just add a scoop of rough greens.