← BroadwayRadio
BroadwayRadio
Today on Broadway: Monday, February 3, 2025
00:27:15
Hell’s Kitchen wins the Grammy, Cole / Cats / Salesman bring home 2025 Obie Awards, JLo KISSed at Sundance. After the news, Matt chats with Gracie Hyland and Gretchen Cryer about the upcoming concert and recording release of ‘House on Fire’ Since 2016,...
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:01]
James Marino
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Monday, February 3rd, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's James Marino. Matt is off this week taking a well deserved vacation on a cruise ship to somewhere in the Caribbean. I think our plan for this week is for me to recap headlines of the day and try not to get all the daily listeners to unsubscribe. Matt and sometimes Grace will pop up later in parts of these episodes during the week, so do not fear that through withdrawal without the Tams of the Tams. In the second half of today's episode, Matt chats with Gracie Hyland and Gretchen Cryer about the upcoming concert and release of House on Fire. But first, let's catch you up on the news. On Sunday night, the 67th Annual Grammy Awards took place at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles. The gracefully named Category 38 Best Musical Theater Album was won by Hell's Kitchen, Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, Keisha Lewis and Malaya Join Moon as principal vocalists, Adam Blackstone and Alicia Keys and Tom Kitt as producers and Alicia Keys, composer and lyricist. This award is given for albums containing greater than 51% playing time of new recordings. The award is for principal vocalists and the album's producers of 50% or more of playing time of the album. The lyricists and composers of 50% more of the score of a new recording are eligible for an award if any previous recordings of said score has not been nominated in this category. Runners up in this category were Merrily We Roll along, the Notebook, the Outsiders, Suffs and the Wiz. For a full list of the Grammy Award winners, please see the show notes. Next up, Cola Scola, Cats, the Jellicoe Ball and more win in 2025 Obie Awards presented by the American Theatre Wing, the Off Broadway Honors announced their winners without a ceremony to allow grants to be bestowed on each of the 35 winners totaling $250,000. A private reception to toast the winners will be held on February 10th. For a full list of the winners, you can see the show notes. Next up, we have a review roundup of Kiss of the Spider Woman, the film starring Jennifer Lopez, which premiered at Sundance. The new film adaptation of the musical officially made its premiere this past weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. We'll have a link to the Broadway World Review roundup and also Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 82 at the time of recording and I'll include the Rotten Tomatoes link as well in recommended reading. We have a story from the New York Times of how New Yorkers spend their Sundays We've included this because it's one of our favorites. Kara Young, who was featured in the New York Times with a great photo spread and they followed her around to see what she does on a Sunday. It's a really charming and wonderful article to take a look at. And finally this morning, after 34 years and 82,150 gallons of paint, the Blue Man Group has closed off Broadway. New York Times did a great feature on this as well, and we'll have a link to that in the show notes.
- [03:53]
Matt
Are you ready to optimize your nutrition? This year, Factor Meals has chef made gourmet meals that make eating well easy. They're dietitian approved and ready to heat and eat in two minutes, especially if you're like grace so you can fuel right and feel feel great no matter what life throws at you.
- [04:10]
Gracie Hyland
So There are like 40 options across like 8 dietary preferences on the menu every single week. I just got my box in. I'm looking at the vegetarian tamale bowl right now that I'm about to heat up. And thank goodness because it literally only takes two minutes and they can always help you get the best food all day long with the morning. You've got the grab and go snacks. I'm literally getting ready to get ready for my morning tomorrow and setting all of those great protein shakes up because I live factor throughout the day. I do my breakfast in the morning, I do a little protein shake, I do a grab and go snack and then I heat up my lunch.
- [04:42]
Matt
So eat smart with factor. Get started at Factor Meals.com Broadway 50 off and use code Broadway50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. Again, that's code Broadway 50 off at Factor Meals.com/Broadway 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. Gretchen Gracie, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this project, not only the album, but the upcoming concert. First off, obviously, Gracie, you have known Gretchen for your entire life, obviously, but how did you start, how did you, how did this project come together for you two to actually work on a show?
- [05:38]
Gretchen Cryer
Well, Gracie is a great singer, songwriter herself and but needless to say, Gracie and I had not decided to collaborate on this thing until just very recently. In the last couple of years, about 40 years ago, I had written a couple of songs that are now in on the album and in this show, it's called Captain of Industry about a guy who's head of the biggest fossil fuel company in the world and a song called Precious Days for his Wife. And I knew at that time that I wanted to write a show about climate change, but did not know where it was going to go from then on. Now this was 40 years ago, before Gracie was even born. So it just kind of sat there for 40 years. And then about a couple of years ago I read an article in the New York Times. Actually, here's the article.
- [06:45]
Matt
There it is.
- [06:45]
Gretchen Cryer
Yeah, about Najin and Fatu, the last two northern white rhinoceroses on earth. A mother and daughter who are living out their lives in Kenya. And at that time I thought, oh my God, when that mother dies, that Fatu is going to be the only one left. I wonder what that's going to feel like. And then I also read an article in the New York Times about the fact that the endangered condor species in California have learned how to reproduce asexually. So I thought, well that's interesting. That's another. So suddenly the story was starting to kind of take a fairy tale kind of thing with a captain of industry, his wife, California Condor, who has done a virgin birth and the last two rhinoceroses on earth.
- [07:41]
Gracie Hyland
Fun bunch, really big fun.
- [07:43]
Gretchen Cryer
And then at that point, Gracie appeared in my life. She had just gotten out of college and came here to New York and she had just written a song called Early Teenage Crisis and it was about a young girl. And suddenly the whole idea came together. Okay, it's about the captain of industry and his wife and he has a rebellious 13 year old kid who is wanting to run away and join Greta Thunberg to save the planet. And that's how it got started because then Gracie appeared on the scene.
- [08:17]
Gracie Hyland
I am so grateful to be a part of this project now because you know, my grandmother is an icon in the theater world and I at first was very scared and hesitant to collaborate because I've never done anything like this before. I've written one off songs but it has been such a great learning process to absorb all of my grandmothers skills and all of that. So I'm very grateful to be a part of it.
- [08:48]
Matt
Now obviously Gretchen, you talk about the fact that this show started with a couple songs 40 years ago and our understanding of what climate change is has progressed and developed quite a bit over those four decades as you two sit down to look at where not only climate change but our society as a whole is today. And obviously you started writing this before the California wildfires and the incoming and I guess now, now the new administration and everything that that could mean for the environment. But as you sit there and say, you Started thinking about it 40 years ago. Now you're looking forward into the future, not only our future, but into the future of this story. What was it that you were hoping to communicate with this story, which, as you said, is a fairy tale. There are some. Some fairly fun personifications of different things, including Mother Earth herself in the story. So what. What was the. I guess, what was the goal of trying to tell this story this way at this point in time?
- [09:53]
Gretchen Cryer
Well, Gracie and I have talked about the very practical thing, that we've now put together a concert of these songs, which are essentially the songs in the First Action. We kind of leave the plot hanging so that people wonder what is going to happen. But we're very wanting to be able to use this concert as fundraisers for various climate activities, you know, and we're trying to hook up with climate activists about this to find out, do you need something, an event like this where we do a show that you can use as a fundraiser? I mean, I know it's crazy, but I'm trying to get in touch with Jane Fonda because she's a major climate activist, you know, and other people like that, to find out what we can do, because this is all that Gracie and I can do to deal with the whole climate change things. We have to do what we do.
- [10:54]
Gracie Hyland
And I think it's a way of forming such a tough message to receive and making it like a easy pill to swallow, in a way, by kind of lacing it into this fanciful musical journey. And I know, like, we're marrying two different generations who have seen the effects of climate change in different ways throughout our lives. And I think now more than ever, it is such a moment that we need to share this message and bring people together. And the whole show is about showing people that everything is connected and everyone has a part to play in this great big world that we live in. So I think now more than ever, we're just trying to spread that message in a way that's, you know, informative but also easy to take in, because it can be a little scary thinking about the doom and gloom of our future, but we're trying to bring hope to it.
- [11:58]
Gretchen Cryer
Yeah. Because in our show, we have this group of kids, the Homeless Children's Brigade. They're living in a homeless shelter. They've been made homeless around the country, around the world, by various climate catastrophes. Yeah. And. And basically, as Gracie says, Mother Earth ends up handing over the future to the Children's Brigade, because that is, you know, just as I'm handing this over to Gracie, you know, this world that we're doing. So the last song in the show is connected at the heart and it is with all the people and the animal characters as well. You know, realizing that we are all connected and. But it is a positive message. Even though, as Gracie said, we're presenting a lot of factual stuff about what is going on. But I think it leaves people feeling empowered. Ultimately, I am hoping that the show leaves people feeling empowered that we can do something about it.
- [13:17]
Matt
Yeah, I mean, it's a. I mean, the title of the show is A House on Fire. I mean, that's a pretty big thing to undertake. When you think of our home as the entire globe and one person, one, you know, two people, you can't change everything. It will take a concerted effort. And you talk about all of the different characters. The captain of industry is his wife. The Condors, the Rhinoceros, the children's brigade. For people who are going to listen to the album coming up later this week or see the concert next week. Without spoiling too much of the story, what is it? That's a lot of very disparate, very different characters coming into one story. What's the, what's the through line? What, what are we kind of getting from this fanciful fairy tale type tale?
- [14:00]
Gretchen Cryer
Okay, what we're getting is a journey. The. The little girl Sophia, the 13 year old girl does rebel from her parents when she finds out that her dad is planning to go to Kenya to try to purchase the horns of Najin and Fatu because they're so valuable. They're the last two on Earth. So she runs away to the children's brigade and then she meets Katarina Condor, the California Condor, who's about to give birth to another egg. They only lay eggs every two years and indeed Katharina does lay an egg on the stage. And Sophia, character that Gracie has written these wonderful songs for, has. Has come up with the idea that maybe Katarina could teach Najing how to have a virgin birth. And the end of the first act is that they are all flying aboard Katarina, flying to Kenya to see if Katarina can do that. Well, without giving away too much, Katarina tries her very best and she can't do it. But then rather than give up the mother rhinoceros, Najing says, look, okay, it may be too late for us, but you must go on with your mission. And they decide they have to find another way. They have to find something else. And again, Sophia comes up with the idea we have to do an intervention on my father, because he is the key to the whole thing. And so the whole world does an intervention on him. There will be a whole scene of all the sounds, of all the animals of the earth, different languages of the earth and so forth, all trying to tell him their stories. And it'll be a great kind of surreal scene because at the end of it, he's utterly exhausted from having heard all of these tales. And then the final plea comes from Najing, the mother rhinoceros, who sings a song to him called Take Care of My Little Girl. When I'm gone, she'll be lonely. And ultimately his heart. We'll hear his heart break at the end. And then he promises, yes, he's going to give. But then Mother Earth comes forward and said, you know, we. We don't know for sure if he's going to keep his promise. And she hands it over to the children to make sure that the man keeps his promise. So that's the basic. The basic entire plot of the thing.
- [16:51]
Gracie Hyland
It's absurdity, but it is totally absurd.
- [16:54]
Matt
Yeah, well, but I mean, it's so interesting that you talk about Mother Earth passing things on to the children and the homeless, children's brigade. And, Gracie, you're coming in here as someone fresh out of college, looking at the future like this is your future. We see the devastation that the planet is going through as you write these songs for Sofia and the other, the younger characters and the children. How much of that is playing into how you're looking at the world now and seeing I'm the one who's gonna have to deal with this far more than, you know, either your grandmother or me or a lot of the other people who will listen or see this concert.
- [17:36]
Gracie Hyland
Well, it's interesting because when I first wrote the song Early Teenage Crisis, I actually wrote early 20s crisis because that's exactly how I was feeling in the time. And it was during the pandemic. So, of course, there was a lot of unknowns during that time. But that was just like a cry, you know, that was just like a cry out loud. This is how I'm feeling right now. I don't know where to go from there. But then I continued to write more songs for the show that were more about coming together and being hopeful about our future, because it only hurts us more if we sit in that sorrow, and it only hurts us more at the end of the day if we don't do anything about it. And like my grandmother said, we are using our gifts and the way that we Express our art, to share this message. And sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough or like, you know, I'm not off grid enough. I'm not sustainable enough. But we have to be easy on ourselves because if we get into that mindset of, I'm not doing enough, so what's the point? Or I could never do. You know, it's hard in this world to completely be sustainable and completely.
- [19:00]
Matt
It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot hard.
- [19:03]
Gracie Hyland
That's just the way that our society is. So I think I'm trying to spread the message that even little steps are more than enough to keep us going. And taking those little steps together are big steps in the end.
- [19:23]
Gretchen Cryer
And in the show, her character Sophia refers to Greta Thunberg saying, no one is too small to make a difference. And that's another point, is really the.
- [19:37]
Gracie Hyland
Catalyst in the entire show. She is the one that is bringing together all of these different walks of life. She's bringing Mother Earth into it. She's bringing the homeless children's brigade because they've all been affected by different climate disasters. And she's trying to bring all of these voices together to show her dad, look, it is bigger than you. It is bigger than our own house that's on fire. Their own family that's on fire. The entire house is on fire. So she is bringing together all of these people. And even though she thinks, like, I'm just 13 years old, I don't really know, I come from a privileged family, like, this is the only life I know. She's really trying to break out of that and prove to her father that it is so much bigger than just their individual lives.
- [20:29]
Gretchen Cryer
And while this is going on, just Los Angeles fires, we were talking to my family out there. My son Johnny has been taking people in who have had to evacuate. I mean, the house really is on fire. Their house, our family's house is not on fire itself.
- [20:49]
Gracie Hyland
My hometown is on fire right now.
- [20:51]
Gretchen Cryer
That's right. Santa Clarita, where she originally came from.
- [20:55]
Gracie Hyland
So it. It's good timing for this. It's unfortunate timing, but like now or never, you know, and she's been writing this for over 40 years. So it's like it's really all coming together now and no time but the present.
- [21:13]
Matt
And Gretchen, what does that mean for you? Like, this idea that kind of sprung up 40 years ago to get it to where it is now, to have the album coming out, to have the concert coming up to do that with your granddaughter? I mean, aside from the Big picture world saving efforts that you hope that this will. Will be a part of. Like, what does that just mean, personally, to. To be able to do this and to do the work with her?
- [21:37]
Gretchen Cryer
Well, it's extraordinary. I'm having a wonderful time, and I'm so grateful to Gracie because that it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't showed up. Showed up right out of college, you know, because I didn't know where to go with the story. 40 years ago. I think I read Bill McKibben's end of, and that's what kicked off that why I wrote those two songs back then. And then to find it finally come to fruition in such an appropriate way at a time of urgency like this, I just feel lucky again to be able to use whatever talents I have and whatever talents that Gracie has that we can collaborate and put this thing together and get it out there, and hopefully it can help in some way, whatever way we can. This is all that we can do.
- [22:37]
Matt
And, Gracie, what about you? You mentioned at the beginning talking about your grandmother's legacy and status in the musical theater world. To have kind of grown up knowing all about that and everything else that your family has done to be like, okay, you're out of college now and you're getting to work with who? Someone who I'm assuming is one of your idols. And to have this opportunity to. Whether you work in the same business as your grandparents or your parents or not, it's still difficult to actually do the work with somebody and to see it through and to have that opportunity. What does that meant for you, being so early in your career?
- [23:12]
Gracie Hyland
Well, if I'm being honest with you, if you asked me three years ago that I would be living in New York, writing a musical and doing music full time, I simply would not believe you. I'll be honest. My grandmother changed my life a few years ago. I mean, she's the best grandmother ever. Like, besides all the cool things she does, she's just the coolest person and the most infectious. Like, she's just the kindest person you'll ever meet, and she never stops. So I'm very inspired by her. But it's truly an honor to get to work alongside her. I would have never expected that I would be a writer. I never expected that I would be a musician and that I would be creating my own stories. So she really brought that out of me. And I said that I was just visiting New York for like a month or so to write a couple songs with Grandma, and then I would go back to Tennessee. At the time where I was living, I just said, oh, yeah, I'll just. I'll just go work with grandma for a few months, write a few songs for her and come back. I never went back. I have been here for three years now and it is my favorite place on earth and she is my favorite person and I feel so lucky to learn from her and to create with her and I would have never expected this. So I'm just so grateful for all that has happened in these three years and what is coming for us. So.
- [24:47]
Matt
Yeah, that's lovely. Yeah. How wonderful. Well, I'll wrap it up here. The album is going to be out on Friday, So that's the 31st. It's going to be available in digital formats then. But then on Tuesday, the 4th, you have the concert at Green Room 42. As you said, it's not going to be the full thing. You're going to kind of leave people wanting more with that. But for people who want to get tickets to come see it, what should they expect from the presentation that you're going to give them next week?
- [25:20]
Gretchen Cryer
Well, we're going to have the band. I mean, it's going to be essentially what they will hear on the album because we have a wonderful music director named Jody Shelton and he has done the arrangements and he is our music director and he is our album producer as well. So we've got our five piece band.
- [25:42]
Gracie Hyland
Which is what they are so talented. They just completely capture the essence that we've been looking for.
- [25:48]
Gretchen Cryer
So they're gonna hear the live concert is gonna sound very much like what they do when they download the actual.
- [25:56]
Gracie Hyland
Album and they'll get to meet our characters in real time. And we have such a phenomenal cast and we've done this concert before and it was just truly incredible seeing them come to life. And we are so lucky to have most of those cast members back again. So they are in for a good show. Trust me, these people are going places and they're already in places, so.
- [26:25]
Gretchen Cryer
And there are bits of dialogue in the thing so that people will get the story. Not just this, they will get the story.
- [26:33]
Matt
Yeah. Well, wonderful. Well, Gretchen, Gracie, thank you so much for talking about this. I, as somebody who loves my grandmother very much, this is heartwarming to see you two interact. It really has been tremendous and I cannot wait. I've heard a few of the songs. I'm really looking forward to hearing the entire album and I wish you the absolute best not only on Tuesday for the concert, but with everything else coming down the pike for House on Fire.
- [26:59]
Gracie Hyland
Thank you, Matt.
- [27:00]
Gretchen Cryer
Thanks so much, Matt.