James Marino (2:45)

February 15th. I've been very often told to go fly a kite on February 14th.

Peter Felicia (2:52)

Yes, indeed.

James Marino (2:56)

And not to make too much of a correlation here, but happy anniversary to you and Linda.

Peter Felicia (3:02)

Oh, aren't you nice? Yes, indeed. It's added up. So this is our 48th anniversary.

James Marino (3:09)

Oh, congratulations to you both.

Peter Felicia (3:10)

Thanks.

James Marino (3:11)

Also with us is Michael Portantier. Michael's a theater reviewer and interviewer. He's the founder and editor of castalbumreviews.com he is also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in the New York Times and other publications. He and he writes reviews of cabaret shows for NightLifeExchange.com Additionally, Michael is known as a producer and director of shows at 54 below the Laurie Beachman Theater and other venues. Hello, Michael.

Michael Portantier (3:37)

Hello.

James Marino (3:39)

Hello. So for folks out there, Jan Simpson stagecraft Matthew Libby on Data was out for Patreon last week and is now available to the general public. So you can now pick that up as well. And there was a number of things this week that Matt Tamini actually broadcast from a cruise ship. I had no idea. So. But he did it last week on Broadway. He talked about the various things that happened in the news and then he did the Broadway Grosses report and then he did a special today on Broadway. We talked about Moulin Rouge unexpectedly announcing a closing. So you can catch all that.

Tim Weil (4:39)

In.

James Marino (4:39)

The regular Broadway radio feed with us this morning. We have a very special guest. Tim Weil is with us. Broadway fans will know Tim because he was the musical supervisor, the conductor, he played keyboards, he did additional arrangements in Rent, the original Broadway production, and he's got a handful of five other Broadway credits here. So he's not just only a renter, but he does have a new book out called Making Rent the Story behind the Music that Changed Broadway. Tim, thanks for getting up on a Sunday morning and a cold Sunday morning here in New York to.

Tim Weil (5:21)

My pleasure. It's great to. Thank you. It's great to speak with you both.

James Marino (5:26)

So how. So what's the, what's the elevator pitch on this book? The Story behind the Music that Changed Broadway. I mean, I feel that. And folks who know Rent probably feel that. But what's your take on how it changed Broadway?

Tim Weil (5:44)

Well, I think if you take it in the broader context, you know, we had just come out of the theater version of the British invasion in the 80s and it was still kind of hanging around in the 90s. And I think I remember sometime in the early 90s where there was a year, not unlike this year, where there weren't enough new musicals to fill out the, the Tony Awards.

Michael Portantier (6:14)

Yeah.

Tim Weil (6:14)

Yeah. So I just think we went through a little bit of a dry spell. And for me, Rent was the beginning of what we have now seen has become a decades long return of American contemporary pop music having a life, a fulfilling life in the theater. And I think it's because the nature of music has changed now that, you know, particularly with Hamilton. But you know, there was rap in Rent as well today. For you, the ways to tell stories is different. And I'LL say as a musician from a musical perspective, rhythm sections, that is, you know, piano based drums, guitars are central to the music that we hear on the radio. And so I think it's that these musical forms have all found a place to coalesce beautifully into the medium of theater, which as we all know for so long was, was in the traditional MT way of, you know, Rogers and Hammerstein and, you know, I could name tons, we all could. And then it sort of moved into a little, that sort of contemporary postmodern Sondheim era where he just turned the world harmonically on its head as a composer and as a lyricist and, and here we are again, sort of in the next phase. And I feel like Rent along with, oddly enough, right about the same time, Hedwig and the Anglery Inch, kind of. Because I think that was 95, if I'm, if I recall, late 95. So. Yeah, but certainly on Broadway, Rent was the beginning of this very, very fruitful period which is going on to this day, where there's an amazing amount of headroom for pop composers and, and, and, and pop music that is based on, you know, the kind of music that I grew up listening to, that Jonathan grew up listening to in addition to musical theater and all that stuff. But so yeah, there's room for everybody on the, on the Avenue and, and contemporary popular music is certainly a big part of it. And you know, kids listen to it. Kids listen to Hamilton. Musicians grew up playing it, composers grew up listening to it. Certainly with performers, they grew up learning it and singing it. You know, in the old days they would concentrate on the, on the, on the traditional MT musical theater stuff because that's of course what they were, that's the profession they were entering. But now that, now that pop music is here to stay, contemporary pop music is here to stay, you know, they're, everybody is, is completely literate in pop music. People, actors, performers, singers that, that come in to audition for these things. So I think that's been a real sea change since we came out.

Michael Portantier (9:52)

It's interesting, I think when, when Hair opened, a lot of people thought that that might revolutionize Broadway overnight. And it didn't really happen, did it? Not right away, certainly.

Tim Weil (10:07)

Yeah, beautifully put. It turned everything on its ear, but temporarily. And that was a testament to the staying power of traditional mt you know, it was a little bit of an interloper and refreshing and, and, but it just didn't stick. And then you could make the argument that Godspell with, you know, day by day being as Big a pop hit as it was when I was a kid. Again, you know, Stephen Schwartz himself obviously didn't prove to be an interloper, but that song did. And it, but I don't think people, even when I heard it on the radio as a kid, this is probably what early 70s. I didn't, I didn't tag it to oh God, spell this Broadway musical. It was just a song that was on the radio. So yeah, it, it came for a time. And then strangely enough, you know, Sondheim had his, his pop hit with Send in the Clowns, which would, there was nothing pop about it, but it was a hit. But there, there was a little bit of crossover and interestingly enough, the irony of it is as much as Rent sort of permanently changed the musical, a large portion of the musical theater landscape. We didn't have a single hit song. Yes, everybody knows Seasons of Love, but for instance, the Stevie Wonder version didn't really hit the airwaves. It was never, I never heard it on the radio. So. Yeah, but, so it's interesting that, that Seasons of Love has certainly embedded itself in the pop culture and the, and the musical and musical theater lexicon, but was never a radio hit. So it's a fascinating irony to me.

James Marino (12:08)

Tim, can I ask some timeline type of questions? Get some, some background from you, where you, where you grew up and how, what was your, what was an 18 year old, Tim, while listening to and doing.

Tim Weil (12:27)

Oh, I was up to no good.

James Marino (12:30)

Excellent.

Tim Weil (12:30)

Another, another misspent youth in music and art. I, I grew up in Minneapolis. Yeah, go ahead.

James Marino (12:40)

What were you listening to? Minneapolis. What we was pre Prints, Preprints.

Tim Weil (12:48)

Here it comes. As a matter of fact, two of the guys I went to high school with, St. Louis Park High School. One was Matt Fink, who famously was Dr. Fink. Just a tremendous keyboard player. Tremendous. And Bobby Z was the original drummer whose name was Bobby Rifkin. And we were high school, you know, chums. I, I wouldn't say like, you know, tight friends, but yeah, we all, we all went to the same high school at the same time. So. Yeah, but I was, I was doing what every, what every good classical music refugee was doing, which is picking, picking tunes off the radio. And I, I was into obviously just pop radio for a while, then got into R B and, and, and, and funk, gospel and jazz. And then I went to college at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where I was a jazz piano performance major and composition major and then, you know, played in a ton of bands out there from, from jazz Groups to. I played in a Haitian band. We had a, it's, this is in the book. We had a. Because, you know, funk was coming into the jazz mainstream. R B and funk, you know, jazz harmonies and jazz players. So that revolution was happening in the 70s. So we actually formed a band called Confuncatory which would tell you the direction we were, we were headed. And so I used to play in that band and, and write for them as well. And so when I got, and I in the middle my college life, I, I ended up at a life changing summer arts camp for young women in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. Lenox to be particular. Be specific. And it was there where I met a woman who to this day is still one of my dearest friends. And she was a director and a singer and a choreographer and a dancer and in the theater. And she, she kind of saw who I was as this musician just studying jazz and you know, who knew a lot of pop and R B and all that. And she really turned me on to all that was magical and beautiful and cathartic about the musical theater and what the possibilities were collaboratively. And even though, like I said, it was only a fine arts camp, she really, really opened this door to this entirely new world that I instantly fell in love with. And the first show we did together, which is hilarious doing at a camp for young women, was Company. But that's the great convention about all these theater camps, right? You have, you have, you know, you have, you know, 15 year old girls playing Susan, Amy, you know, all the women in company.

Michael Portantier (16:17)

And so you must have screamed when you saw the movie Camp and that girl sang the Ladies who Lunch.

Tim Weil (16:24)

Well, you know, I did the music for camp.

Michael Portantier (16:31)

Oh, that's right, yeah, yeah, I forgot.

Tim Weil (16:37)

I did all the arranging. It's okay. And it's actually the Rent band on the soundtrack with, with horn section, obviously. And yeah, so I, I, I had known Anna Kendrick for quite some time. So when she sang Ladies who Lunch in camp, none of us were surprised because I had known her even before the camp movie. I had known her when she did High Society on Broadway with my wife.

Michael Portantier (17:06)

Oh, she was like.

Tim Weil (17:07)

When she was 11.

Michael Portantier (17:09)

Yes.

Tim Weil (17:10)

And she's, she's, she was amazing then. She's, she's all that. But anyway, so I kind of looked back and I, and I realized that I had already been doing. I didn't know it was called musical direction or music directing at the time, but in high school I was vocal director of a singing group and I was teaching younger people Where I grew up, piano lessons. So I always had that teacher in me. So the musical director thing in the theater came quite naturally to me. So then I moved to New York, and I kind of decided. Not kind of. I did decide very, very consciously that I wanted to build my career in New York on a parallel track as a freelance musician and as a musical director. And for a long time I did both. And gradually, one just kind of started melting away and the. And the theater music director stuff took over. This is over the course of my first eight to 10 years in New York. It was a gradual transition. And then, lo and behold, in my mid-30s, here comes rent, and the rest is the rest.

James Marino (18:27)

How did you meet Jonathan?

Tim Weil (18:30)

Well, I was called to be the audition pianist for this new musical at the New York Theater Workshop. And would I be interested in coming down to audition? I mean, I'm sorry, to be the audition pianist?

James Marino (18:49)

Yes.

Tim Weil (18:50)

And I have to be honest with you, when I got the call, the woman on the other end of the phone who's a great director, Martha Banta, she just directed Mamma Mia. That just finished on Broadway. Here she was the point person at the workshop. And she called me and she said, hi, my name is Martha Banta. I'm with the New York Theater Workshop. We're a nonprofit theater in the East Village. And of course, to be completely honest, my first thought was, oh, I'm getting a music director offer. And then she said, we're looking for audition pianists for this rock opera we're doing. So I kind of. I dropped just for a split second, to be completely honest, and. But then I recovered. And she said, you know, it's only $10 an hour. And at that time, like so many young artists, the. The ability, forgive the pun, to pay or not be able to pay your rent, you know, was real hit and miss. And even though I had been in New York for 10 or 11 years, by that time, maybe even more, maybe even 12, you know, there were good times and bad times, and I was going through a really rough stretch. You know, sometimes stuff just melts away, evaporates, or you're working enough, but not enough to cover your life. So I took the job and I went down to the workshop and walked in that first day of auditions and met Jonathan and the director, Michael Greif, who would. Had started on the project. And this was 1994. So this is a year before the 1995 workshop, where the people who everyone knows is now the original Broadway cast was involved. But Even in that 94 workshop, we found Anthony Rap, Daphne Rubin Vega, and Gilles Chasson, who were ultimately part of the original Broadway cast. So that was how it all went down.

James Marino (21:10)

Wow. And just at this point, were you able to see that this was going to be life changing for you, or were you just. Did it just keep on happening and you just kept on going along for the ride?

Tim Weil (21:30)

That's such a great question, and I'll tell you why. It's. Let me. Let me just collect my thoughts here. Yeah, it's.

James Marino (21:41)

Sure.

Tim Weil (21:41)

It's. It's you. You see it a little bit at a time. It gets revealed to you. You know, I'm. I wasn't around for the beginning of Chorus Line, but I'm sure until it became A Chorus Line, it was on its way to being a good, responsible, original piece of theater, which is kind of what we all set out to do when we're doing new musicals. And it depends on so many things going right and so many. So many tastes and esthetics coinciding. In other words, you know, everybody's sort of pushing the boat the same direction, and sometimes you have to have a little luck. And sometimes.

Peter Felicia (22:33)

Yeah.

Tim Weil (22:33)

And, and. And it's all about the collaboration, and it's all about the writers, or in the case of Jonathan, the writer. So, no, I didn't know it initially, but what I was very, very tuned into when I eventually moved from audition pianist to getting hired as the musical director, the first thing I noticed was that when I got Jonathan's demo tapes, I just thought, wow, here's a guy around my age, because we were just about a year, year and a half apart, who grew up on the street, a lot of the same music that I did, has the same passion for musical theater that I do, and he's writing pop tunes with really, really clever lyrics, and he's a great storyteller. So I was definitely tapped into how good Jonathan was. I didn't understand how great, how generational he was, but I certainly understood early how good he was.

Michael Portantier (23:44)

You know, I. In re. In reading your book, there were things I was reminded of. One is that I can't believe I forgot this. That, of course, Rent is based on La Boheme, which premiered in 1896.

Tim Weil (23:59)

Correct.

Michael Portantier (24:00)

And Rent premiered in 1996. Do you recall if they tried to plan it that way or if it was just a happy accident?

Tim Weil (24:10)

It's just a happy accident, to use your words. And. And it's in the book. But it's easy to give away because everybody knows, I think the night before Jonathan passed away. He did an interview with Anthony Tomasini, who was the classical music critic and writer for the New York Times. And a friend of him at the time, a friend of his at the time suggested, you know, for the hundredth anniversary of La Boheme, which the Times was celebrating, you know, they're doing this musical called Rent that is based on la boheme. And Mr. Thomasini decided he would come down and interview Jonathan. So the last night of Jonathan's life, there he was out in the lobby doing the most important interview of his life with the New York Times. And, and the fact that he got to do it before he passed away was kind of incredible and kind of the last sort of gift he received while he was on this earth, you know.

Michael Portantier (25:20)

Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing, of course, is that now your book has come out in 2026, which is the 30th anniversary.

Tim Weil (25:28)

Again, pure coincidence. I mean, it depends on your opinion what you think of coincidence, but yeah, just in terms of time lining it, pure coincidence. Right. I.

James Marino (25:44)

I, I just had a question for you and it went out of my head. What was it? It, oh, when Rent first hit Broadway, I knew about it at New York Theater Workshop. I didn't really pay much attention to it until after all the hype started. But remembering back then, many people thought, oh, everybody involved in this project is so young. They really don't know how Broadway works. This is never going to take off on Broadway. And then everybody was proved wrong. Is it true that everybody was super young? I mean, it seems like Jeffrey seller and Kevin McCollum were also very young at that moment, and you were very young and the cast was very young. Did you guys, did you guys realize that this, what, this transfer from off Broadway to Broadway is not normal?

Tim Weil (27:06)

I think for the cast, I think it was just part of the journey. I think for people like me, people like Michael, certainly Kevin and Jeffrey, we were obviously older than the cast.

James Marino (27:22)

But not much.

Tim Weil (27:23)

No, you know. You know, not, not much. Yeah, I'd say, you know, certainly, certainly within a generation. It wasn't a 25 year split. It was more like a 10 or 12 year split. You know, there were a couple, there was a couple in the cast that were way young. Rodney Hicks in particular was 21 when we cast him, but then Jesse Martin was probably in his late 20s. But yeah, I think most of them were in their mid-20s, but, but a lot of them had experience. You know, Iconakasone, who I talk about in the book, had just come off a Great run. She just come off how to Succeed the Matthew Broderick revival on Broadway. And, you know, there were people that brought different levels of experience, and then we had a great number of people who were completely from, as I like to say, off the farm. And, and, and yeah, so for us, it was doing all that. But here's a great story, which I'll tell you, that involves our friend Michael Portentieri. When we moved to Broadway, Michael reached out to me, and this is probably in May of 1996, and he said, I'd like to do an interview with you for Playbill. And you know how every month in Playbill there's an interview there with someone from some show. And my first thought was, wow, who interviews music directors? So I immediately liked Michael right off, right from the jump.

Michael Portantier (29:15)

Well, thank you.

Tim Weil (29:16)

So, yeah, and I still do Michael, you know that. And, and even in our interview, he said, so here you are on Broadway, you know, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, here, are you on Broadway? Is this thing going to stick? And I said to him, honestly, I don't know. Even I have to be honest with you. It took me until we were there three months to go, okay, we have a chance. We have a legitimate shot at this. And even though we were the hottest ticket in town, and it was a rock concert there every night, and it was electric eight times a week in ways that I had never experienced either in my concert life as a musician or in my theatrical life, just the voltage was out of this world and the kinetic energy and the, and as my dear friend had said so many years ago, the catharsis between cast and audience. But yeah, I, I, I think as musicians, we're always never getting out over our skis. It's just musicians survival instinct. And I had certainly had enough rejection in my young career to know that everything wasn't a given. And the theater in particular, becoming a big commercial hit in the theater in particular was a very, very, very low percentage. So, so, yeah, so I never really fully bought in until, yeah, until that summer of 1996. Yeah. And I very, very much remember saying that directly to Michael at our interview in, in May of that year.

Michael Portantier (31:19)

I don't think find that online anywhere because it was before, you know, really basically before almost before the Internet. But yeah, I think so.

Tim Weil (31:28)

I think that's true.

Michael Portantier (31:29)

But I have a floppy disk. I have sun floppy disk, and it's actually on something called paper. Do you remember paper? I actually have some hard copies of that interview somewhere.

Tim Weil (31:43)

Oh, that's so cool.

Michael Portantier (31:44)

You know, there are so many fascinating things in your book, Tim. Two things that struck me particularly. I don't know if you want to go into either of them without giving, but the way the very beginning of the show had to sort of be constructed or reconstructed after Jonathan died. And then also, I remember you're very honest in the book about that. There were problems with sound amplification that were evident off Broadway, and then they apparently became even more so after they moved to the Nederlander and how people really worked to fix that because they were getting complaints and even. I think you said even walkouts.

Tim Weil (32:28)

Yeah, sure. Well, let me deal with the first part of your question first, which is the. Jonathan had written everything, but as I had learned, and I'm sure, as you both know, and as our theater audience knows out there, is that if you don't have a good opening, you're dead. If the first 10 to 20 minutes are great and in their own way electrifying, maybe not. Again, maybe not from a wattage voltage perspective, but in terms of grabbing your attention and. And not letting go, if that's not good, you've lost the audience for the next 45 minutes, maybe for the entire act. And maybe they're not coming back for Act 2. And it was obvious to all of us that there still wasn't an opening. And I'm sure had Jonathan lived, of course he was going to revisit it. But after Jonathan passed on, that fell upon Jim Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop, and Michael Greif and myself, to whatever degree I would be involved in that. And. And sure enough, before the week was out, Michael and Jim had fashioned the opening as we know it, with Mark as the narrator, which. Which came from Jonathan's notes, his own. You know, writers take their own notes on what they're, you know, just their own just to kind of gather their thoughts. And he typed out a bunch of stuff. Wrote out a bunch of stuff in the margins and. But in his original libretto, there was a typewritten thing where he kind of sets the stage for his musical. But again, it wasn't. It wasn't part of the musical. So. So it was a real, real stroke of genius by Jim and Michael to. To. To construct that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Where my work came in was tightening up the opening. The opening songs. Tune up A and, and. And tune up B.

Peter Felicia (35:06)

That's where.

Tim Weil (35:06)

That's where. That's where my work began. So I actually started working on that the morning that Morning, right after Jonathan. The. The morning after we had done the memorial service concert for Jonathan. So it began on Friday morning. I got set up and went to work. And. Yeah, and it was. It was all. While we were still stunned, sure. But. But. But purposeful in our. Let's do the thing that we know he would have wanted us to do, which is to get his show up and do it the best we can, come hell or high water.

Michael Portantier (35:56)

And it was so perfect because you eventually basically used his own words that were already there. I mean, how wonderful is that?

Tim Weil (36:06)

Well, that was. That was what I alluded to earlier, which is Jonathan left us with the entire treasure map. We just had to figure out the.

Michael Portantier (36:19)

You know, how to get there.

Tim Weil (36:21)

Yeah, we had to crack the code, you know, and. And it was great because by then Michael and I had built up a great trust and rapport and. And Jim Nicola, you know, the head of the. The artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop, is a man of great taste and knowledge and aesthetics that I. That I absolutely was in sync with. So, yeah, we were all, as I said before, really steering that boat in the same direction. And then you. You can't underestimate the value of that cast of 15, the original Broadway company who. Who. Who worked through their own grief and whose lives they were playing on stage every day and every night very much mirrored what was going on in their actual life with their grief and their. And their. And their will and their character. It just revealed the. The true emotional strength of them, of all of us, in. In the face of what happened and how we persevered and how we were so singularly focused not only to make a great show, but, you know, on Jonathan's behalf, to do. To do our best by him and by ourselves and by each other, and then add the last link into that, which is the Rent Band, who, you know, they were the 16th character in the musical. As Jonathan had constructed it, you know, he. He always wanted it to be part rock concert, you know, part musical. And I. And I think we retained certainly an element of that. And. And, yeah, so it all. It all just. It all just came together. Forgive the long winded answer, but I think back about it so many times over the last 30 years and. And obviously more since I've been writing the book. But, you know, there are times when it all feels like 30 years ago, and there are times when it feels like last week. You know, that's how emblazoned that that period of time is in all of our hearts and souls. And I don't mean that in a. In a. In a phony way at all. It truly is like, it's. It's etched in there forever for all of us. And. Sorry, tell me the second part of your question.

Michael Portantier (39:07)

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it was just that you go into how there were problems with sound amplification and how you all work to, you know, to fix that, because that was obviously a problem.

Tim Weil (39:21)

Thank you. Thank you for the reminder. It's so interesting because that was such of a different time than. You can tell that in that week after Jonathan passed. It was its own universe. But, yeah, with sound at the workshop, they just didn't have a bloody chance. You know, the band was slamming 15, 15 open mics, sound everywhere. And if you've been to the New York Theater Workshop, it's a small audience. I mean, it seats at that time, it seated 199, which is not big. You can do the math and compute the number of rows. And we were just blowing the roof off of that place. But strangely, because of its intimacy, it was a little bit easier to understand. And when you get to the more cavernous Broadway houses, the Nederlander at that time, I believe, housed between 12 and 1300. And it, you know, and it had a. The very large mezzanine. So now it's a different animal. And it took us quite a bit of doing. And I personally had to get schooled on this is what. What amplified sound is in a Broadway theater. So I learned a lot from our sound designer and. And the cast learned a lot, and. And we eventually kind of got it tamed. But you can't just. It's not like you're at cbgb, where you can just play as loud as you want. And the. And the. And the room, you know, which is a very intimate room, if you've ever been down there, the room will take care of the rest of it, you know, once you start playing the big cavernous theaters, you know, which makes what they do at Radio City even more incredible with, you know, with that 5,000 seat capacity. And also sick, like you said, 6,000. But also, at the time, this is also the. The beginning. The 90s were the real resurgence. I think the 80s with the British Invasion were the beginning of the real resurgence of, you know, amplified music on Broadway. So it was still going through its own growing pains. Right. And I think all the sound designers were catching up in real time, and. And, yeah, so together we all finally. We all finally got it trimmed and settled. And. And this is a little bit of A giveaway in the book. But. But from the book. But, you know, people still left, but it wasn't. They weren't re. Leaving only because the sound was bad or because the sound was bad, you know, because you're the hottest ticket on Broadway, people are going to come to see it. And maybe they don't respond so well to boys kissing boys, girls kissing girls. With the. With the AIDS activism being front and center in the musical and with the realities of these characters who Jonathan wrote, you know, living and dying and not really knowing the outcome of each day. And maybe that just wasn't for everybody. And there was. I tell a great story of two matinee ladies, you know, ladies that see all the shows, and they're generally coming from Long island or the outer boroughs or New Jersey.

Michael Portantier (43:13)

Oh, I love this story.

Tim Weil (43:15)

No, but. But I ain't gonna tell it because if this helps me sell a book, it's worth holding on to. Yeah, there's a. There's a great interaction that a friend of mine heard, and it's the other reason why people might not want to stay around for the rest of the show. I'll just leave. I'll just leave it dangling at that.

James Marino (43:39)

Tim, we've taken so much of your time, but I have two more questions that I wanted to ask before we let you go for the day.

Tim Weil (43:48)

James.

James Marino (43:49)

And they are Pleasure. Unrelated to Rent.

Peter Felicia (43:52)

Okay.

James Marino (43:53)

Okay. Getting back to the Tim Weil timeline, I think this fits into it, but in. When you were working at New York Theatre Workshop on Rent during the daytime, at nighttime, were you on Broadway doing Sally Marr and her Escorts?

Tim Weil (44:17)

That was just prior to, you know, I did the two versions downtown. We did the 94 reading, and then we did the 95 workshop. So just prior to 94, earlier that year, we had done Sally Marr. I was the composer and orchestrator and music director for that show. And we opened in March and we closed at the end of June. You know, after the Tony Awards, if you. If you don't get nominations, you know, it's. I think, famously, I think it was. Ben Brantley said it's it. And he. He didn't mean it in a bad way. It's just reality. It was the time after the Tonys where Broadway eats its own.

Peter Felicia (45:08)

That is.

Tim Weil (45:08)

That is, if you. If you can't stay afloat, you're. You're gone. And people just cut their losses and move on. But it was a great experience. And. And, yeah, so that was that. That was earlier that year, spring of that.

James Marino (45:23)

We don't we don't have many opportunities to talk about shows that come and go so quickly on Broadway, but Sally Marr and her escort starred Joan Rivers. And you mentioned it was the 1994 season. 1993. 1994 season. It happened at the end of the 94 season, right before the Tony Awards. So Joan Rivers, you get to work with another icon of popular culture.

Tim Weil (45:56)

Yeah, she was amazing. She was like, you're really crazy, hilarious. You can't wait to have her over for dinner every week. Aunt Joan, she was incredible. And. And she was, she was charming, she was sharp. And the best thing, besides working with her, and we worked on the show in development for quite some time. The best thing was I had to go to her apartment to teach her the song I'm Just Wild About Harry, which the character Sally Marr sings, you know, in her kind of post vaudeville days. So I went into her beautiful apartment on the east side and, you know, we sat and we learned the song. She just kind of gave me a tour of the house and, and I went into the. The. For lack of a better word, the den. And I saw the file cabinets. And for those of you who have seen the Joan Rivers documentary, I saw them live, stacked, you know, four or five high, five or six across. And it was all these old school big filing drawers with three by five cards, jokes A to Z, perfectly organized, filled every, you know, airlines, airline stewards, airline food, airline pilots, you know, all the way to Z's. Zebras in the zoo, zebras out of the zoo, zebras on the sidewalk, whatever. And I went. Even at that time, I went, nobody else is doing this. And I'm so grateful, in retrospect, that I got to see the file cabinets, but she was hilarious. And the other great thing is in rehearsal where there was a place for a joke, every day in rehearsal, she'd just drop in a different joke. So not only did she always keep everybody on their toes, but they keep. She kept everybody in the room howling because she was an encyclopedia like all of those old school comedians. I think, obviously, with Billy Crystal just having done Mr. Saturday Night, he's. He did the same thing in rehearsal because my wife played his wife in that show. So, yeah, it was, it was a real. It was a real treat getting to spend that time with Joan and, and I'll. I'll never forget it. And I met Spike the dog.

James Marino (49:01)

You gave me such a great transition here, because this was my final question. How did you meet Randy?

Tim Weil (49:11)

Oh, my sweet, sweet, beautiful wife, Randy Graff. We. We it was kind of a loose fix up. My very good friend Lonnie Price, my dearest friends in the world for many, many years. It was his 35th birthday, I think, and a friend of his threw him a surprise party. And Randy was doing Moon Over Buffalo at the time on Broadway, and we were still downtown in the Village. So Lonnie had sort of said to me. Not sort of. He had said to me, you know, I don't know if it's going to be a thing, but I have this friend, Randy Graff, who I knew in name only because I wasn't embedded on Broadway other than as a sub keyboard player. But I knew who she was and I knew the City of Angels recording. And he said, I'm gonna invite my friend Randy Graff and see if y' all hit it off. And he hadn't told Randy this, so. So Randy got to the party early. I mean, not early, but after her two show day. And I didn't get up from the East Village until quite a bit later because my two show day was. Looked a little bit different than her two show day. And, and then we met and we talked for barely a few minutes and then I did call her and on we go. And we'll be married. Well, we're be married 27 years in about a week and a half. So that's that story.

Michael Portantier (51:10)

Well, we had Randy as a guest on our podcast way back in 2014. So now we have a matched set.

Tim Weil (51:17)

Oh my God. It took a while, but good. At last the work is complete.

Michael Portantier (51:26)

Before we let Tim go, I should mention, I think this is so great. Rent is being done at nyu, the Steinhardt School, and I've reported on their productions in the past. They do really, really good productions. And they have rent coming up February 12th through the 15th. They're doing this one where they used to perform at the Frederick Lowe Theater, 35 W. 4th St, which is much more intimate than the, than the other places that they have now. And I think so for that reason, I think it's going to be akin, the experience might be kind of akin to the New York Theater Workshop in that way. And then plus, you know, I, I think Rent is a show that absolutely benefits from having really young people in it. And so all of that, plus the fact that, that their track record is so good, I think it's going to be really something to see. And on top of all that, the most expensive ticket is $20 and, and the least expensive ticket is $5. So we're including a link to in the show notes so you can check it out and for more information and buy tickets. And I believe Tim said that he might be there for one of the shows.

Tim Weil (52:48)

I. I believe it's likely I will be attending, yes.

James Marino (52:53)

All right, Tim, thank you so much for joining us on Broadway radio and talking with us so much. Tim's new book, Making Rent the Story behind the Music that Changed Broadway, is available at finer bookstores. And so check it out at the Drama bookshop or@bookshops.org and you can get it at large other evil empires that sell books as well. And Tim, thank you so much for joining us on Broadway Radio.

Tim Weil (53:24)

Thank you both so much for having.

James Marino (53:25)

Me on your feet.

Tim Weil (53:26)

When on every street it's trick or.

Michael Portantier (53:28)

Treat and tonight it's trick. Welcome back to town. Oh, I should lie down. Everything's brown and oh, I, I feel sick. Where is he?

Tim Weil (53:40)

Getting dizzy.

James Marino (53:43)

So, Peter, you made your way into the heart of midtown to the Royal Family Theater to see a production of Ivanov. Tell us about this.

Peter Felicia (53:52)

Well, you know, some years ago, a Russian troupe came over with Ivanov, and I'll tell you, it didn't hold me at all. I left after the first act. It was a wonderful production at Lincoln center many years ago. But this is another example of how sometimes you can go off off Broadway and you can see something truly extraordinary. And my heart is My hat is really off to this production, which was gripping. Now, granted, this is not a space where you can really be impressed by the surroundings. For one thing, you have to go up a very steep and narrow stairway to get to it. So I have to admit that there is no easy access. You're going to have to climb stairs to get there. But once you get there, you're going to be very glad you were there. Now, Ivanoff is one of those place where people are always involved with the wrong people. The marriages aren't as good as they should be, and who knows what's going to happen next if somebody's going to have an affair or wants to have an affair, so on and so forth. Sam Underwood plays Ivanov. He's has some work on tv, certainly in Dexter, but he also appeared in Fear of the Walking Dead in Homeland. So he does very, very well. He's a British actor and it's very, he's very welcome here. But this cast was really sensational. I was so, so, so, so impressed with Spencer. I guess it's aste or maybe asked as T e. And you know, he's one of these actors where I, I said, gee, I've seen this guy before and I looked. He has so many credits. I'm not surprised that I recognized him. So I was really tremendously impressed by him. Now, who does he play? Well, he's. He's a good friend to Lebedev, to Ivanov. But of course, there is a problem because his daughter Sasha is very much in love with Ivanov. And what's going to happen there? She's only 20 years old, he's substantially older, and he is married, after all. Sasha, played by Amelia Mason. Lovely performance. Really, really terrific. So. So Anna is Ivanov's wife and she's terribly ill and he has to get her to a place where she can have a chance at least of recovering. But he doesn't have any money. I mean, he's dead broke. He owes a lot of money to people. And even though the doctor who is so much insisting, you've got to do something about this guy, about this situation, he just has such a tough time dealing with the doctor because the doctor is one of these guys who always believes he is right, no matter what he's talking about. Very good performance by an actor named Booth McGowan. So what we're talking about here really is such an impressive situation. And I have to say that Laura Straussfeld, the director, knows exactly what she's doing every step of the way. It is so solid in seeing these people come to life in a way that so many productions of Chekhov failed to do. She really understands what this playwright is about. And as a result, as I always say, if you come to New York, yes, you want to see the big Broadway shows, of course you do, but make time for one off off Broadway show as well. Fit that into your schedule. It certainly will fit better into your budget. And this is an example of one of that should be have attention paid to it. So it's not running much much longer or a couple of weeks. February 14th. Yeah, that's it. So, but get there. I hope they extend. That'd really be great. They deserve to.

James Marino (57:43)

So, Michael, you were on the road again this week, trying to head south and avoid the cold, but I don't think you went far enough because you only made it to Washington D.C. we are at the Library of Congress to see a presentation. It was at a concert of, lo and behold, like Frederick Lowe. So tell us about this.

Michael Portantier (58:05)

This was a really wonderful program at the Library of Congress. And free, I might add, believe it or not, they still have wonderful, free, amazing events like that sometimes in D.C. even with what's going on. Actually, there was some concern that this program might not happen because defunding is still an issue down there. But my friend who lives in D.C. said he was told by someone who works there that the Library of Congress is funded through the year. Hopefully that won't change. So this was a really great program put together by Ted Sperling, friend Ted Sperling as music director, host and pianist with four really great singers. Jonathan Christopher, who was recently so wonderful as Jud Fry in Oklahoma At Carnegie Hall. John Riddle, who has been in a bunch of Broadway shows, including the Visit. Scarlet Strallen, who, among other things, is the star of that new, fabulous complete recording of my fair lady, two two CDs, every note ever written for My Fair lady as Eliza. And she is someone I'm not that familiar with. Some people may know her as the wife of Bryce Pinkham, but she also did Mary Poppins on Broadway and she's done a bunch of other stuff. And she's a beautiful woman with a gorgeous voice. And so it was really fantastic to see and hear her in this. And then the fourth singer was someone who used to be known as Brianna Marie Parham. And under that name she was on Broadway in the Ragtime Revival, Book of Mormon, Porgy and Bess After Midnight, Prince of Broadway. She was featured in that and Our Town. Now she apparently has dropped the Parham Haram and is now just Brianna Marie. I'm not sure the reason for that. But anyway, she's still great. And it was, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 musicians in addition to Ted at the piano. And it was just a really fantastic tribute to specifically to Frederick Lowe, more so than to Lerner and Lowe as a team. So because it was Lowe who was being tributed, this included some really obscure songs that he wrote very, very early in his career with other lyricists. There was even a song in German called Catherine, Catherine from 1923 with German lyrics by someone named Robert Heinz Winter. And Ted. Actually, Ted Sperling sang that number himself. He said he didn't want to to put it on any of the other actors to learn German in order to sing it. But then there were several other songs from other early shows, Pre Learner. And then of course, so many of the the songs we know and love from the Learner and Lo can, including Almost Like Being in Love, the Heather on the Hill, a song that was cut from Brigadoon called Nothing Like A Man, How Can I Wait from Paint yout Wagon, Come to the Ball, which was cut from My Fair lady. That was a song that, that Higgins sang to persuade Eliza, you know, to. To come to the Embassy Ball with him. And the earliest version of on the street where you. Where you Live, which was originally called on the street where she Lives from My Fair lady with a whole entirely different introductory verse before the part of the song that we know particular and some other. Oh, another song cut from My Fair lady called Shy I could have danced all night she's not thinking of Me from Gigi Before I gaze at you again and if I would leave you from Camelot. And the final song was the title song from Camelot. Just really a beautiful evening and lots of interesting facts and patter.

Tim Weil (62:33)

I.

Michael Portantier (62:34)

As I mentioned, I'm going to be doing a Lerner and Low tribute show on May 19th at 54 below. So of course I was very, very interested in this program and that's one of the reasons why I made a trip to D.C. you know, just, just almost a day trip basically to, to see this concert. And I'm so glad I did. So. Yeah, that was, that was really fantastic.

Tim Weil (63:01)

Great.

James Marino (63:01)

So you also back in New York here saw a production of Love in a Plague which is part of the Outplay series. So tell us about this.

Michael Portantier (63:12)

Yeah, I had reported on a show that they did last year which was a bunch of one acts from the Cafe Chino which was a. A very important birthplace of. Of gay theater in New York. And now I mean obviously they, as you can tell from the title of the group, they. They focus on gay themed plays in. In one way or another. And this one had excerpts from three plays that have AIDS as AIDS as their subject matter. Beirut by Alan Bowne, as is by William Hoffman, both of which I was familiar with and have seen productions of both of those plays. And then another one I had never heard of. But I have to say from the excerpts they did, I almost thought it was seemed like the best play of the three. And it's called A Quiet End by Robin Suidos. I really don't know. I have not. I just saw this show last night and I haven't had a chance to do the research yet on the play and on Robin Suedos, but I'm definitely going to. I was very, very impressed. Wonderful actors here, all non equity as far as I can tell. Jade Anderson, Peter McGarry, Steven Rada and Jan Tullik. They also had two singer musicians, Benjamin Leaf and Hannah Taylor singing songs by Michael Callan, mostly songs by Michael Callan between the scenes from the plays. And Michael Callan was a famous AIDS Activist and songwriter and performer. And this was all directed by David McDermott. So it was a really fantastic night for all those reasons. But also I have to give, give a special shout out to really two superb actors, one named Bryce Hayden Henry, who gave a very brave performance as Torch in the scenes from Beirut. Beirut is a very, very intense, scatological, dark play about the AIDS epidemic. It envisions aids, AIDS victims being quarantined in the East Village in, in, you know, in New York back during the height of the AIDS epidemic, which of course didn't quite happen, but things were so horrible back then that I think maybe many people fear that it might happen. So he was fantastic. And then this actor named JJ Bozeman, B O Z E M A N in the role of Max in a Quiet End I I It was one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. So detailed, so nuanced and subtle. And aided by the fact that the theater where all of this was done is called the Matthew Corozine Studio. It only seats about 50 people, I think. So I think that helped this fellow JJ Bozeman to give just a really, really beautiful, superb performance that maybe, maybe in a larger theater would not have worked, but in this theater it was absolutely amazing how subtle he was. Like little transitions you could see in his eyes and his slight changes in facial expression and his voice. I think that he could have. I hope there were some people in the audience who were agents for theater and film because if there were, I think he's going to get a lot of jobs soon. Remember that name. He was absolutely amazing in this. And I remember that the last show I saw from Outplay also had some really exceptional acting in it. And again, I think, I believe they're all non equity. So the talent pool out there, as, as we've stated time and time again is just, just unbelievable. Sometimes the, the depth of the talent pool, especially in terms of actors.

James Marino (67:36)

Great.

Peter Felicia (67:37)

And.

James Marino (67:39)

You went over to the Lori Beachman to see if you could find Dorothy Parker?

Michael Portantier (67:44)

Yeah, this show that they've been doing there for a while, they kept adding performances because it, it was so well received. And I went to what is the last performance, at least for the time being, with the original cast of Julie Halston, Anne Harada, Jackie Hoffman and Anika Larson. Douglas Carter Bean is the mastermind behind putting the whole show together. It was really just an evening of readings from Dorothy Parker's poems and her other writings, her theater criticism and light, light little essays that she wrote. It was fun. When of course, the the classics were included and, and one of them, at least one of them got applause. The one about men rarely make passes at girls who wear glasses. When, when I think it was Ann Hirata who said that one. And, and she got. How fabulous that, you know, like a witticism can become so famous that it gets applause like that. Really well put together evening. I understand that it is going to continue perhaps with some changes in the cast, but I don't think they have the future dates yet. So keep your eye on that. Check the, the calendar at the Laurie Beachman for finding Dorothy Parker. Really just, just delightful. And, and I'm glad I, I finally made it for the, for the last performance for the time being. And I'm happy to report it was sold out.

James Marino (69:31)

And you made your way over to your east side home at Carnegie Hall. Actually, Carnegie hall is on the west side of Fifth Avenue, isn't it? Yeah. So actually you made it over to Carnegie hall to see the Met Orchestra where I guess the Met Orchestra is sort of your almost Upper west side home. So tell us about the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Michael Portantier (69:55)

Yeah, was with their resident conductor now, Yanni Neze Sega and Isabel Leonard was the guest vocalist. And actually I guess the only directly theater related music on the program was that Isabelle sang somewhere from west side Story. Other than that, the orchestra played Fancy Free, which is the ballet that was the inspiration for on the Town. If you don't know Fancy Free, give it a listen because it's. Stylistically, it's so similar to on the Town, but not a note of actual music is repeated from one to the other. So I think that that's that, you know, indication of Bernstein's genius. And then the other two pieces on the symphony were Samuel Barber's Knoxville summer of 1915 song cycle, which Isabelle Leonard sang just gorgeously. And the big item was a Negro folk symphony by William J. Dawson which was written by an African American back in the, in the 30s and had quite a bit of success when it premiered, but then just fell into disfavor probably because of racism more than anything else. So that was wonderful that the Met resurrected that. And just a funny story, funny New York story. This was one of the coldest nights of the week when I attended. And I thought, well, let me get there early and I can hang out at maybe a Trattoria dell' arte across the street. And then I'll only have to walk literally across the street in the cold to get to Carnegie Hall. So I did and I went and I got there early And I sat at the bar and there were a few seats there, and there was a woman sitting two seats away from me. And she looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place her. I thought maybe she was another tour guide at Carnegie who I had met briefly. Anyway, so then her guest joined her and he had his back to me, so I did really didn't see his face. But at any rate, once, at some point while they're talking, I realized that the woman was Jamie Bernstein, daughter of Leonard Bernstein. And then I realized that, but I still didn't know who the guy was. And I didn't know until I got up to leave before them. And I went over and said hi to Jamie and she. And I said, oh, hi. We had met once, maybe in the past, but it's so great to see you. And. And I asked her if she was at Radio City Music hall for the New York Philharmonic last week because they played so much Bernstein. And she said yes, she was there and she loved it. And she said, oh. She said, oh, and this is my friend Lonnie Price. He's coming with me to the concert. So I said, oh, hi. Yeah, I think we've met. But I mention that because it was a fun New York story. And also Tim Weil mentioned Lonnie before as the person who is kind of responsible for him and Randy Graff getting together. So it can be a very, very small world in the theater world in New York City.

James Marino (73:14)

I neglected to point out to during our conversation with Tim that everything is connected through Jennifer Ashley Tepper, Lonnie Price, Jonathan Larson Rent Everything goes to Jennifer Ashley Tepper. All right, so that wraps it up for this week. Before I get on to the brain tusion of musical moments, I want to remind everybody that you can subscribe to these broadcasts by going to the front page of broadwayvideo.com there's a subscribe link. That way you each and every time there's a new episode of this week on Broadway, it'll be automatically downloaded to Apple Podcasts view. Of course, you don't have to listen to us in Apple Podcast. There's many ways to get us. One way is Patreon P A T R E O n dot com Broadway Radio is one way that you can support all of Broadway Radio's offerings as well as get us a little bit earlier and get a few bonuses beforehand.

Tim Weil (74:16)

So.

James Marino (74:19)

Let'S get on to the brain teaser. Peter and I recorded it earlier this week and here it is. Okay, Peter, do you have an answer to last week's brain teaser on November.

Peter Felicia (74:30)

7, 2025, the result of a game in the National Hockey League could be said to somewhat describe somewhat describe what happened in a very famous Tony losing Broadway musical. What was it? Well, on that date, the San Jose Sharks beat the Winnipeg Jets 2 to 1. And in the Tony losing West side story, one could almost say that the Sharks beat the Jets 2 to 1. What with two jets riff and Tony dying and only one shark Renato biting the dust. Why do I say almost? Well, because Chino, who killed Tony, wasn't really a shark, but you get the point. Paul Whitty was first, followed by Juliet Green, Steve Bell, Sean Logan, Tom Riley, Arthur Robinson, Josh Israel, Evan Lola, Nikki Juvan, Tony Janicki. After another endless flurry of wrong answers, Rob Johnson, Mike I. Wanis, Jeff Hosenfeld, Ray Peblak and Brigad this week's question this performer appeared on Broadway in a musical that was considered so bad that are closed during previews. A bit more than six years later, the same performer appeared in a movie musical that did open, but was by and large considered as bad as that stage musical. Hint. In the film, this performer and the character shared the same first name. Who's the performer and what are the properties?

James Marino (76:02)

Okay, if you have an answer for this, email us at trivia@broadwayradio.com we'll let you know if you're on the right track. So Michael, what do we have in this week's musical moments?

Michael Portantier (76:13)

Well, I had not actually listened to Rent for a while, but the publication of Tim Wilde's book got me listening to it again. It really is a great book. You've got to get it. And then, as I said, I'm really looking forward to seeing Rent and NYU Steinhardt. I think it's going to be amazing to see it with a young cast like that. And I urge you all to try to make it if you can. So anyway, our musical moments are both from Rent and there were so many choices just within that score. The opener is the title song as Heard at the Beginning and the closer. I was going to go with Seasons of Love, but I thought, well, let me be a little, little less obvious. And so it's another one of my favorite songs from the score, no Day But Today as heard at the very end of the show. It's actually called Finale B. No Day But Today as sung by the entire company. And you know, sometimes the, the, the greatest music and lyrics are the simplest, right? I was just listening to that, that beautiful song and thinking forget regret or life is yours to miss. Now, was Jonathan Larson the first person to think of forget regret? I mean, it seems so simple and so obvious, but I don't know of anyone using that phrase before him. Sometimes it's. It's just. That's what genius is, right? Just seeing something like that that's been in. In front of you your whole life and no one ever thought to put those words together. Forget regret or life is yours to miss. I think just think it's a beautiful song. So please enjoy these two great moments from Jonathan Larson's Rent.

James Marino (78:18)

So on behalf of Michael Portentier and Peter Felicia, this is James Marino saying thanks so much for listening to you Broadway radios this week on Broadway. Bye bye.

Tim Weil (78:29)

Bye.

Michael Portantier (79:37)

Hi, I'm Chris Getherd and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random.

Peter Felicia (79:42)

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Michael Portantier (79:43)

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James Marino (79:48)

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Tim Weil (80:03)

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