Grace Hockey (2:32)

I mean, here's the thing about Dreamgirls, which is one of the greatest musicals ever written. And aren't we so lucky to live in a world where this is happening again? I love this show so much. I just want to say that like there might be people in the world that might not have a ton of equity actors experience, but are stars singers. I have seen a lot of actors in so many capacities. With all due respect, and I am not talking about one thing, if everybody is trying to like what you talking about, like it's not about one thing. But I've seen a lot of shows that revolve around a person who is meant an actor who is meant to be a famous singer of some kind, even if they weren't real in real life, but are based on real people. And some people just don't have that star chromosome. And I know that sounds really mean, but it's very evident when you see these shows sometimes where you go, I fully believe that that person could have in another life been her or him or them. Like that needs to happen when you have a show like this because there are so many incredible actors, there is a legitimate performer, star quality in pop, R and B, rock stardom that just can't be replicated by everybody. Even if you're an amazing actor, you just. Some people have that star thing and some people do not. And that's not to say that like they're not stars of the stage. I just think that it's like a hard thing to harness. And when it's magic, when it's, when it's good and it's right, it's undeniable. I think about it with like the way that Jonathan Groff is so effortlessly star. You are gravitated towards him in his role as Bobby Darin. I think that that is the case for the people that star in Dream, the musical. They need to feel like when you are watching them that you are invited to their performance, their concert. Like, Jimmy needs to be a guy where you're like, oh yeah, I saw him on tour seven years ago. It needs to feel like that. And some actors have that within them and some actors do not. And I think that like this is an amazing opportunity to kind of like widen that search a little bit because obviously there are ton Talent is everywhere. But I think that what they are also looking for are people that might not only have the theatrical experience that requires to have eight shows a week, but you also have to have somebody that is a believable star, performers. And I think that this is a really great way to ensure that.

Matt Tammanini (5:08)

Well, I mean, look at the women who played the dreams in the movie. I mean, Jennifer Hudson, this obviously launched her into superstardom, but she was a well known performer from American Idol and obviously one of the great voices in the world. You have Anika Noni Rose, a Tony Award winner and a Disney legend, and then you had Beyonce. Like, these are all three women who are incredibly, not only talented, but also immensely magnetic in what they do. And obviously, I'm not saying that those three are gonna be the stars of the Rev or anyone necessarily of their echelon, but they have to have that, you know, that, that je ne sais quoi, that electricity that, that performers of their status have. And I, I hope they find it. Because like you said, this is one of the greatest shows ever written. I saw a regional production in Orlando a couple years ago and I was like, why is this show not done all the time? And I was like, I, I know why this show is not done all the time, but nonetheless, it is still one of the best ones. So I'm very, very excited about what the potential is for this show moving forward. All right, Grace, I did not get to watch the Emmy Awards on Sunday night. I know you did, and we can talk about that here in a second. But I have to shout out all of the theater people who won Emmy Awards on Sunday night out in Los Angeles, headlined by Jean Smart, who obviously just a month ago was on Broadway in Call Me Izzy. She won her seventh career Emmy in the best actress in a comedy series category. She won for Hacks for the fourth time in a row for playing Deborah Vance, which I think is one of the great characters on TV in recent memory, if not forever. She was also joined in the top acting categories by Kristen Milliotti, who won her Emmy award for best actress in a limited or anthology series or movie for her work in the Penguin, which I think is a show, Grace, that you loved as well in the supporting categories. This one is the one that just made me immensely happy that Jeff Hiller won for best supporting actor in a comedy series for somebody Somewhere. That's a show that I have been shouting out for as long as it's been on air on Some Like It Poppin and other Places. Love Somebody Somewhere. Tramel Tillman won for Severance, who's been a former guest here on Broadway radio. Alan Cumming won two for outstanding host for a reality or reality competition series for Traders as well as outstanding reality competition program. Because he's a producer. He got one there. And then Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Stranger Things. Playwright Jack Thorne on also won for best writing for a limited or anthology series or movie along with Stephen Graham for Netflix's Adolescence. Tons of other theater people nominated as well. Bryan Cranston won for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for the studio. We'll have a list of where you can stream all of the Emmy award winners in the show notes as well. But Grace, what were your takeaways from the Emmy Awards on Sunday night?

Grace Hockey (8:03)

You know, the Boys and Girls Club Tracker was a little, I think it was a great idea in theory, but not in practice practice because it kind of became a, a joke that people were taking money from children, which is.

Matt Tammanini (8:16)

Yeah, explain what that was. Yeah, explain what that was.

Grace Hockey (8:19)

So, you know, people that were going over in time, they were donating like a hundred thousand for each second that people were going over. That lessened the pot that was going to the Boys and Girls Club. People obviously went over in their speeches. And then it kind of came like a bit of a joke throughout the night that someone was going to pay the difference or that it was kind of funny that the tracker was going. And I think again, the idea was great in the idea of we want to encourage people to stick to the time because obviously time is money on those broadcast shows. I think unfortunately it ended up looking like Hollywood elite doesn't care about children that need, you know, these funds. So I don't know. But it was kind of, it was tough. But you know, other than that, it was great to see so many theater people and folks that have been, like you said with Jeff Hiller through the trenches of UCB recently and you're in town like is just such a fantastic, you know, also seen in Smash, lest we forget.

Matt Tammanini (9:18)

Oh, I don't remember that at all or whatever.

Grace Hockey (9:19)

Yes, he was the influencer mentioned in the video content piece that his face flashed up on screen. So he was. Yes, yes, it's him.

Matt Tammanini (9:29)

Musical. Okay.

Grace Hockey (9:30)

And the musical on stage. So did you not see it?

Matt Tammanini (9:33)

Yeah, no, I saw, I saw the Smash. I just did not recognize Jeff Hiller as being in there at all. I love him.

Grace Hockey (9:38)

It absolutely was him. But I think it was uncredited anyways. But yeah, so that's always nice to see. And especially as we have these, you know, shows that are coming up with like Dog Day Afternoon and you've got the guys from the Bear. All of that coverage, like all of those things I think are very exciting for the spring season. I saw a lot of notable names that are part of shows moving forward.

Matt Tammanini (9:57)

So, yeah, yeah, there was one person who won two Emmy awards on Sunday night that I believe is going to be making their Broadway debut. That has not yet been announced yet. So we'll, we'll see what that's all about. And probably this person got the most press for their Emmy wins as well. And you're probably seeing this person's speech on social media quite a bit or speeches on social media quite a bit. So we'll just leave that there. But yeah, again, we'll have the list of everything. You can check them out in the show notes. Now, Grace, this feels like a very you episode of Today on Broadway because we're back to a story of one of your favorites. Billy Crudup, along with the phenomenal Denise Guff, will be starring in the world premiere production of of a stage adaptation of High Noon in London's West End this winter. This is a show that we've been hearing about for a while. It was initially, I think, billed as coming to Broadway first, but it looks like they're going to be doing it in London and then hopefully coming to Broadway at some point. This is obviously based on Fred Zinnemann's 1952 iconic film and Crudup and Guff will be playing the roles that Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly originated in the film Will Kane and Amy Fowler. This is a Western in which Will Kane, Crudup's character is a marshal who on the day of his retirement and his wedding to Amy, learns that a notorious criminal he'd put behind bars is arriving on the High Noon train with a gang of gunslingers and looking to kill Will Kane. So very fascinating. I'm just incredibly interested to see what a play version of this will look like. It reminds me when Quentin Tarantino released the film the Hateful Eight where he which was a Western, he kept saying that he was working on it to come to Broadway. That not never happened. But I'm interested in the idea of these films that are like fairly well contained westerns coming to the stage because it is such a different and unique genre that even though screen to stage adaptations are right up your alley. Grace haven't really seen anything like this. And to have Billy Crudup and Denise Guff, and they are two of the Absolute best. I think this is a very, very exciting project.

Grace Hockey (12:06)

Anything Billy Crudup does on stage is worth watching three times. And that's not a joke. I will go to my grave saying that. So, yeah, I was very excited by this announcement today.

Matt Tammanini (12:17)

Yeah, between Screen to Stage and Billy Crude Up, I was like, oh, this is meant for Grace specifically more than anybody else in the world, probably. All right, let's do some show and casting news. And speaking of new shows, yesterday we found out that New Jersey's McCarter Theater center has commissioned a musical version of the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. Now that itself was an adaptation of a book of the Same name from 1998 by Sylvia Nassar, which is kind of an unauthorized biography of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash. And this project kicks off the McCarter's new multi year initiative to develop musicals and comedies and adaptations. What's interesting to this about, about this, to me the most graceful is that they have tapped playwright Sarah Treem and composer lyricist Zoe Sarnak to write this show. Sarnac's family is actually friends with John and Alicia Nash and her father, Peter Sarnak is an award winning, kind of super, highly acclaimed mathematician who actually appears in the book A Beautiful Mind. So super interesting. Personal connections to this property. Not dissimilar from High Noon. Like this is not something that to me, when you see it, it screams musical adaptation. But as long as they don't cast Russell Crowe to sing anywhere near it, I'm interested to see what they can come up with it.

Grace Hockey (13:45)

That's fascinating. I love when there's like a real life connection to this very real person. Famously Anthony Rapp was in that film. That might be a cool connection to pull from because this is a Ron Howard movie, correct?

Matt Tammanini (13:59)

I don't remember, but that seems right. That seems right.

Grace Hockey (14:02)

So I don't know. There's something there, but I think that's very exciting.

Matt Tammanini (14:05)

Yeah, very cool. All right, and finally here yesterday we got the complete cast announced for the upcoming Broadway return engagement of Bo the Musical. We already knew that Matt Rhoden was going to be returning and he would be joined by Jeb Brown, who had not been in the previous Off Broadway production, but had done the concept album and the filmed version of this. They're going to be joined by Amelia Cormack, Andrea Goss, Miyuki Miyagi and Derek Stoltenberg, who all were in the out of the box theatrics original production. And then new folks joining the production are Ryan Halsaver and Max Sangerman. We also have the list of the standbys and everybody in the show notes if you want to check that out. If you have forgotten, the show is going to be beginning its performances at St. Luke's Theater on Oct. 13 ahead of an Oct. 28 opening night. And this was one that I know Grace, you loved when it would originally played off Broadway from Out of the Box theatrics. It was conceived and written by Douglas Lyons with music by Ethan D. Pakchar. So this should be a great group of folks to bring this show together. I'm excited that it has an opportunity to have a longer life. All right, everybody, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram odwayradian. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace. Where can people find you?

Grace Hockey (15:18)

You can find me at Grace Hockey.

Matt Tammanini (15:19)

All right, everybody, have a wonderful Tuesday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.