Is Broadway Going Easy On Us?

Summary

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Cannonball with Wesley Morris

Episode: Is Broadway Going Easy On Us?
Date: June 4, 2026
Guests: Wesley Morris (host), Helen Shaw (The New York Times theater critic)

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Main Theme

This episode explores the current state of Broadway as the Tony Awards approach, focusing on the notion that much of the 2025-2026 theater season has favored feel-good, audience-pleasing productions over more ambitious, challenging, or “difficult” work. Wesley Morris and guest critic Helen Shaw discuss what it means for theater to be “difficult,” the implications of ease versus challenge in art, and offer candid reflections on notable productions from the season.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Broadway Season and the Search for Difficulty

• Wesley details his annual tradition: jam-packing all his theatergoing into the two months before the Tonys, enabling him to spot emerging themes.
• He observes that this season’s shows, as a collective, seemed “to want me to feel great, to give me my money's worth, to appeal to my goodness or dignity or love of famous people.”
  • (05:24) “But I also missed work that made me uncomfortable in a good way, that challenged what I thought the theater could be... What I missed was difficulty.” — Wesley Morris
• Ragtime revival: celebrated for its emotional power and virtuosic performance (notably Joshua Henry in “Make Them Hear You”), yet Wesley finds the production ultimately too easy and affirming for (primarily white) audiences:
  • (06:20) “It's wild to be sitting in a room full of mostly white people feeling congratulated for knowing what injustice looks like.” — Wesley Morris

2. The “April Rush” and Recency Bias

• Helen identifies recency bias as a factor—shows race to open just before Tony voting, leading to a flood of “super commercial, super populist, super tourist oriented” productions in April.
  • (09:36) “If you watch all your shows in April, what you are going to get is a sense that this is a super commercial, super populist, super tourist oriented season.” — Helen Shaw
• Many ambitious, difficult, or riskier works (her example: Waiting for Godot, Liberation) aren’t aimed at Tony glory, opening earlier or less likely to create awards buzz.

3. Defining and Valuing “Difficulty”

• The pair agree: difficulty in art is desirable and healthy.
  • (11:02) “I want difficulty. I want to be difficultized. Just all over. I deserve your difficulties all over me.” — Wesley Morris
• Helen: The best theater asks big questions and refuses to “close the loop” with neat answers.
  • (11:54) “When a play or musical is brave, they don’t close the loop. It trains us in negative capability. It trains us to think in a sophisticated way.” — Helen Shaw
• Wesley: The pleasure is in leaving a work with new questions, not having had one’s values affirmed.

4. Standouts & Examples from the Season

• Jellicle Ball (Cats reimagined through drag ball culture)

  • Both find it a highlight, lauding its ambition and ingenuity in making sense of Cats for a queer, contemporary context.
  • Memorable scene: Ball legend Junior LaBeija treated like genuine royalty.
    • (15:27) “There is something very powerful about this interaction between the work and the room.” — Wesley Morris
  • Helen notes its “camp ambition” and overabundance:
    • (17:11) “It's like you come out of that thing and you are just like, my Lord, I am just overwhelmed. And I think that that is easy to mistake for ease. And it's not. I don't think it is.” — Helen Shaw

• Dog Day Afternoon (stage adaptation)

  • Wesley disappointed; praises the design and performances but finds the play undercooked.
  • Helen agrees, admiring intent but not execution:
    • (23:16) “It feels undercooked to me. But I don't know, I kind of like treasure the ingredients, so I'm not as mad as you are about it.” — Helen Shaw

• Giant (about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism)

  • Wesley: Only “the monster” (Dahl, played by John Lithgow) feels interesting or alive; the play doesn’t deliver meaningful discomfort to the audience.
    • (28:57) “I just wish this show had made me uncomfortable at all. I was not uncomfortable at all by this.” — Wesley Morris
  • Helen critiques its dramatic structure, feeling it unfairly implies there must (or will) be consequences for Dahl’s views when real life differed.
    • (29:41) “There’s this promise that maybe, you know what, he did this bad thing. Don't worry, audience. There will be a punishment. Guess what? There wasn't.” — Helen Shaw

5. Nostalgia and Pleasure

• Helen: “Nostalgia” worked this season. She enjoyed Schmigadoon (a musical pastiche) for its warm bath of musical tropes and Rocky Horror Show for the full embrace of its flamboyant, subversive energy (especially applauding Luke Evans as Frank N. Furter).
• Wesley: Not all nostalgia is escapist; sometimes it’s about what we need from art at different moments.

6. Liberation (by Bess Wall) and Theater as Forum

• Helen’s pick for the season’s most “difficult” and rewarding show—a feminist memory play structured as a group encounter.
  • (40:14) “They are in chairs in front of us, echoing the chairs that we are sitting in the audience, and it's like, oh, are we in a consciousness raising group together? Don't mind if I do.” — Helen Shaw
• The play’s real value is in the conversation it sparks, echoing Peter Sellars’ notion that a play ends when the audience’s conversations do.
  • (41:21) “A show truly ends when the conversation that night finishes.” — Citing Peter Sellars via Helen Shaw

7. Death of a Salesman: The “Big Dog” and Emotional Difficulty

• The latest production stars Nathan Lane as Willy Loman. Helen explains that while the play is technically accessible, its great challenge is the emotional toll it takes, especially revisited in adulthood.
  • (45:03) “The more times you see it, the older you get... it gets harder and harder and harder.” — Helen Shaw
• They reflect on regret and sorrow unique to live theater, the sense of “witnessing” tragedy, and why such confrontation matters.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On wanting more discomfort from theater:
  • (12:28) “I want new questions.”
• On negative capability and open-endedness:
  • (11:54) “It trains us in negative capability.”
• On camp ambition and abundance (Jellicle Ball):
  • (15:05) “Camp is going to use the materials of trash and kitsch in order to make its kind of splendor.” — Helen Shaw
• On nostalgia/pleasure:
  • (37:08) “It's a warm bath, warm bath, warm bath.” — Helen Shaw
• On Death of a Salesman:
  • (45:03) “It gets harder and harder and harder... I'm a little bit of a sicko. I go to theater to be reminded that I'm dying and that life is short.” — Helen Shaw

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:24: On the comfort and lack of challenge in Broadway’s season
• 11:02 – 12:28: Defining “difficulty” and its value in art
• 14:11 – 17:30: Cats: The Jellicle Ball and (queer) adaptation as ingenuity
• 18:19 – 24:01: Critiquing Dog Day Afternoon and how to “judge” theater
• 24:16 – 30:33: Wrestling with Giant and art about antisemitism
• 36:07 – 38:29: What worked for Helen: Schmigadoon and Rocky Horror
• 39:16 – 41:43: Liberation and theater as forum/conversation
• 44:39 – 48:48: Death of a Salesman and the power of regret in theater
• 49:19 – 51:00: Tonys: their value, significance, and what’s at stake

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Final Takeaways

• Morris and Shaw lament the missing “difficulty” in this year’s Broadway but celebrate works where ambition, discomfort, or open questions prevailed—be that through radical adaptation, emotional depth, or refusal to provide easy answers.
• The value of nostalgia, the technical versus emotional “difficulty” in theater, and the payoff of art that lingers and demands conversation stand out as persistent threads throughout.
• The discussion closes with warm appreciation for the diversity and abundance of work onstage, even amid imperfections, and a reaffirmation of critics’ roles as witnesses and conversation-starters.

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Listen if you want:

• Insightful, candid discussion of the Broadway season
• Critical breakdowns of Ragtime, Jellicle Ball, Dog Day Afternoon, Giant, Liberation, Death of a Salesman, Schmigadoon, Rocky Horror
• Philosophical musings on what makes theater “hard”—and why that matters

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Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This podcast is supported by Neon and the film the Christophers from Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh. The Christophers stars Ian McKellen and Mikaela Cole as painters facing off over an art world forgery in an escalating game of playful, psychological cat and mouse. Nick Shager of the Daily beast raves, Ian McKellen is superb and calls the Christophers a front to back delight. And further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American cinema's most adventurous auteurs, the Christophers is now available everywhere you rent or buy moves.

[Wesley Morris]

Hey, before we start this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that Cannonball. We're gonna do our first live show and we're gonna do it at the Tribeca Festival this year. And I'm gonna be on stage with Cynthia Nixon. That's Cynthia Nixon. And we're gonna talk about some great art about New York City. And that's gonna happen on Friday, June 12th at 6pm I'll say it again, Friday, June 12th at 6pm and you can get your tickets right now as I [e-mail] audio that's tribecafilm.com audio. Can't wait to see you there. Please come join us. I'm wesley morris, and this is cannonball. Today. Tony. Tony. Tony. Tony. Every spring, I do this nutty thing where I try and see as much theater as I can in about two months. Like one day at the end of every March, this alarm goes off and I'm like, oh, right. I kind of miss going to shows. For me, it's a convenient way to do things since the Tonys are usually somewhere on the horizon. And it's kind of nice to know what the theater industry likes. I spent one of my first nights on this spree at Lincoln center watching the latest revival of Ragtime. The show is set at the dawn of the 20th century, and it's a tragedy with sweeping songs and some tension between, like, lefty politics as represented by socialist Jews and radicalized black people, and these more conservative racist forces trying to arrest and and suppress them. It opened on Broadway in 1998. It's based on a novel that E.L. doctorow wrote. And, you know, it's a novel that on no occasion that I have read it ever said, make me a musical. There's just too much going on. But Terrence McNally, one of our finest playwrights, Lynn Ahrens, one of our great lyricists, and Stephen Flaherty, who did the music, which is really good, they all begged to Differ. And so from the opening number, the grandeur of this show is already bowling you over. And it's clear that this is a musical. That opening number is in the key that just seeps into your marrow. It's got a little bit of show biz and a little bit of gospel. One of the main characters is this musician. His name is Coalhouse Walker. He's like a shoulders back, chest out monument to dignity. He loves his car and a woman named Sarah. And when terrible things happen to both, Coalhouse comes basically undone. And the show culminates with his last number. It's called Make Them Hear your. And say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight, that sometimes there are battles that are more than black or white. The way Joshua Henry performs this thing, like from the soles of his feet and the bottom of his sole, you just kind of have to shake your head at the pure force and control of his singing. When they hear you, I'll be near you. I mean, I shouldn't buy the rest of the room. They leapt to their feet and they applauded. They weren't at a musical anymore. They were. They were at a concert. They were at a campaign rally. This was. I mean, it was a rousing night at the theater. And the art that got made that night felt good to everybody. It made us feel powerful. And this show, I mean, it had people talking back to the action. It had white people talking back at the action. Lock him up. This woman next to me said about the racists who were definitely not locked up. And it's a little wild to be sitting in a room full of mostly white people feeling congratulated for knowing what injustice looks like. I mean, I get the appeal of being at a show that knows where you live, but I don't know. This isn't why I go to the theater, to have my values reflected back at me. Ragtime is a big capital I important show. That also, I mean, at least in this production, kind of takes it easy on us. And that ease is, for me, what defined the Broadway season this year. I saw a few things I liked a lot. But as a collection of shows, everything seemed to want me to feel great, to give me my money's worth, to appeal to my goodness or dignity or love of famous people. And, you know, I am not here to argue with getting what you paid for. You've seen the prices. But I also missed work that made me uncomfortable in a good way, that. That challenged what I thought the theater could be to be wild and Weird or tamed, but challenging. What I missed was difficulty. So with the Tonys all set to be handed out this Sunday, I wanted to think through what I even mean by difficulty with the New York Times theater critic Helen Shaw. She knows a lot more than I do about the theater and how shows are made and the power they have to affect us. Helen Shaw, welcome to Cannonball.

[Helen Shaw]

Thank you so much.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay. I do this thing every year. I don't know if I had mentioned this to you. I do a stupid thing mostly because I am a poor planner and I wind up spending. I see all my theater for the year in two months. It's not good. I just. I don't have my act together enough to, like, get the tickets to know when I'd be able to go. But anyway, the reason to mention this is doing it in this sort of spree format really does crystallize some things or things about a season that start to make a kind of sense or not make sense to me. There are themes that emerge. So I'm actually curious to talk to you a little bit about what you think has been going on for the 2025, 2026 theater season in New York City.

[Helen Shaw]

Whew. Well, the interesting thing about collapsing it into these eight weeks is that it means that you are missing certain shows

[Wesley Morris]

that missed a couple of things.

[Helen Shaw]

And I know that some of the shows that you missed, therefore, are really mood setters. So you missed Oedipus. Oedipus.

[Wesley Morris]

Liberation.

[Helen Shaw]

Liberation. Waiting for Godot, and also Bob.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, the Keanu Reeves.

[Helen Shaw]

Not the Keanu Reeves. Yes, yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, I've seen that.

[Helen Shaw]

You've seen it.

[Wesley Morris]

I've seen that.

[Helen Shaw]

Did you see the one with Keanu Reeves? The Wedding? Forgotten.

[Wesley Morris]

I've seen Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter sort of do fan service.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes. Okay. Harsh. Harsh but real. And criticism can be practiced in these short, pithy ways. But the reason we're talking now is because we're about to have the Tonys. Right. And I think we're all pretty familiar with the idea of recency bias. That we have this belief. Yes. That if you back your show right up to the Tony deadline, then you have a better shot at the Tony. So things that think that they could win a Tony are going to hit April so hard, like perhaps a cannonball, to use a phrase.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, boy.

[Helen Shaw]

And so you know that you're gonna get maximum razzle dazzle. I don't think that for the 10,000 reasons. They did Waiting for Godot, which is a challenging and beautiful piece of existentialist

[Wesley Morris]

this is not about. With Samuel Becky grimness. This is.

[Helen Shaw]

Those people are not doing that show in order to get Tonys.

[Wesley Morris]

No, no.

[Helen Shaw]

They're doing it for strange and beautiful reasons of their own. Are they doing it strangely and beautifully? We can argue, but they are definitely not doing it to get Tonys.

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Helen Shaw]

So if you watch all your shows in April, what you are going to get is a sense that this is a super commercial, super populist, super tourist oriented season.

[Wesley Morris]

And I don't know if that's fair to me, Helen. Is it fair to me?

[Helen Shaw]

I mean, you made your choices.

[Wesley Morris]

I did make my choices. But the sense that I got in my little spree was. I mean, my question was, where is the ambition? Where is the difficulty? Is my mind being expanded? Is my understanding of a work being expanded? Do I have to keep up with this thing in a way that I find exciting and challenging and healthy? And I would say, by and large, that did not happen to me.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay, so difficulty. And we mean difficulty as a positive attribute.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. I just want to be clear. I want difficulty. I want to be difficultized.

[Helen Shaw]

You want to be difficulted.

[Wesley Morris]

Just all over. I deserve your difficulties all over me.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

That's. If I can't keep up, that's on me. Tom Stoppard. You know, I might have to see Arcadia 17 times.

[Helen Shaw]

That's right.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm better for it.

[Helen Shaw]

That's right. I'm better for it. That's right. Theater was designed, and I swore to myself I would not mention Aristotle, but theater is designed to not be. You can't. I mean, I've doodled him all over, every page, but he is so. The idea of theater as a forum is right at the heart of why we go to shows, is you get your whole team together, your whole voting body together, and you sit in a room and someone goes up on stage and is like, feminism. What's with that? And then we all think about it together.

[Advertisement Voice]

Right?

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Helen Shaw]

And when a play is. Or a musical is brave, they don't close the loop. Right. Like, it trains us in negative capability. It trains us to think in a sophisticated way. And so for me, what I mistrust in theater is when I see a play that says, hi, I'm an emotionally difficult play, I've decided to bring up an issue for you. And then I watch it close the loop and I'm like, oh, you found an answer.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, you knew I needed to get home. I had a cab to catch.

[Helen Shaw]

Exactly how did you answer feminism in just an hour and a Half. No intermission.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. And I find one of the pleasures of the theater going. Experience of any art is that I don't have all the answers. And I have more questions than anything. I want new questions.

[Helen Shaw]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

I want a work that is also going to maybe have the questions I have and give them a forum for exploration and dramatization. I can be more specific, but I'm just wondering, even in. So I'll tell you some things. I saw, by the way, catch the Jellicle Ball. I've seen Becky Shaw. I have seen.

[Helen Shaw]

You saw Proof last night.

[Wesley Morris]

I saw Proof. I've seen Joe Turner's Come and Gone. I've seen Ragtime and Giant. I just. I was underwhelmed at every possible turn. Oof. Just about. There are a couple things I saw in this batch of like, maybe more than a dozen shows that I loved.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay. Start from love. What was the thing you loved most this season?

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, so the lift of a show like Jellicle. The Cats musical. Jellicoe Ball the Cats.

[Helen Shaw]

Apologies to Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

No, there'd be no apologies necessary. This is what that man needed.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I think what I loved about that show is its ambition. Happens before we get to it.

[Helen Shaw]

Right. Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

The people who made this show, basically, I assume, have experienced Cats in numerous ways, modes states of sobriety and insobriety, and have wondered what the fuck is

[Helen Shaw]

going on with this show and how

[Wesley Morris]

can we make it make sense? Because it seems like he's tapped into something that I recognize in my own life, and that is the ball scene, the drag ball scene, gay culture. And the collision of these queer balls and Andrew Lloyd Webber's cats is ingenious. I had a really good time experiencing the ingenuity of this show as an adaptation.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah. I think, you know. Cause you had been talking about this word ambition. And I think that one of the types of ambition which is the slightest and most difficult to identify is camp ambition. Right. Because Camp deliberately underplays. Because Camp is going to use the materials of trash and kitsch in order to make its kind of splendor.

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Helen Shaw]

And so this is a show that, for me at least, sitting in the room with it, it is really splendid. There are moments in Ms. Kat's that really overwhelm me. So, for instance, you have. Junior labeija is in it. Who I first saw in Paris is Burning Ball legend. Ball legend. And is there and is not just there, is not just trotted out and is saying, oh, look, let us not

[Wesley Morris]

forget, treated royally, treated like royalty, and has a function within the world of the show.

[Helen Shaw]

And we all take this time to not just sort of drape this person in literal splendor. Right. Is wearing these astonishing robes and sort of jewels on every finger, a turban,

[Wesley Morris]

nails, walking around, prancing around. This prancing is wrong.

[Helen Shaw]

There's no prancing. It's a stage. It's progress.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, just a courtly walk from one end of the. I mean, it's a stage. The stage to the other. Yes. And yes, it is a real celebration of forgotten, dismissed, degraded, sort of legally harassed, to say the least. People. And there is something very powerful about this interaction between the work and the room.

[Helen Shaw]

Yep.

[Wesley Morris]

The audience is there to verify. And in the case of, like, this adaptation having happened, ratify this production.

[Helen Shaw]

I agree. But one of the things about Cats, the Jellicoe Ball, is that it is not self serious.

[Wesley Morris]

No.

[Helen Shaw]

And so, yes, this is a great point. Right. And so I feel like there is this. When we talk about things that are excellence. Cause we're trying to talk about different types of excellence. And I think what you're saying is that it was hard for you this season to find the kind of excellence that acts something of you.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Helen Shaw]

Right. Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Helen.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Wait, I'm sorry.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes. So this is a show that it is asking things of you, but it is doing it in such a soft way. I mean, it is doing it in such a. It is giving you so much. There is an overabundance. The only complaint I have ever heard about this Cats is, wow, there is a lot of it. Right. The portions are so big. And so it really is. It's like you come out of that thing and you are just like, my Lord, I am just overwhelmed. And I think that that is easy to mistake for ease. And it's not. I don't think it is.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't think the Jellicle iteration of Cats is easy.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I do think that it's got a different kind of ambition, is what I would say. Right. Ingenuity is. It straightens out a work. It made no sense previously.

[Helen Shaw]

Correct.

[Wesley Morris]

And now it makes more sense.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

In the hands of these Drag ball.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah. Which is strange. Which is really strange. Right. It does feel like, oh, this is what it was supposed to mean all along. And I actually cannot think of a revival I've ever been to where I thought, oh, oh, that's what this is about. So. Okay, so if Cats is your pinnacle this season, dare I ask what your low point was? What's the Hardest time you've had in a room this season.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, there's a few. But I would say, I would start with. I would choose Dog Day Afternoon.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

Because this is the adaptation of the Cindy Lubet movie that came out in 1975. It is considered. I mean, it is a great American movie. Al Pacino, John Cazale, the stars of this film. Chris Sarandon, I mean, Charles Durning. I mean, you know, it's one of the great New York movies. Two men rob a bank for money for one of the men's partner wife. They're married at this point to go through with a transition surgery. That's the plot of Dog Day Afternoon, released in 1975. This show is a set in want of a reason for anything else that happens in this show to exist. Jon Bernthal and Eben Moss Bachrach are the stars of this thing. Jessica Hecht has a small part. She's the best thing in the show. Besides the set itself. The thing that makes the production design great is that the movie is set both in a bank and on the street outside the bank. The ingenuity here is like the bank cantilevers outward into the or inward into the street and outward to become the bank. It's very smart, but that's all it is. And by the time you've seen this thing go from bank to street three or four times, I'm like, call it a day. I'm done. I've had enough.

[Helen Shaw]

Well, I mean, so did this work for you? So let me put it this way. Okay. So I teach, and when my students hit a piece of art or I take them to a show, one of the things I tell them is they're supposed to. That they shouldn't actually do. The thing that is the most common for us when we see a piece of art, which is to ask ourselves, did we like it? Right? That's what we say on the subway going home is, did you like it? Did you like it? Did you like it? And I am not sure. That's a super interesting question.

[Wesley Morris]

No, I never ask that question.

[Helen Shaw]

It's not right. It doesn't. Because first of all, Also, I am 49. I mean, I've watched myself like. And then unlike. And then re like things my whole life.

[Wesley Morris]

That's the journey. That's the journey that we're on as people who watch and listen to any cultural. Any culture. We all change in relationships.

[Helen Shaw]

I loved cats as a 10 year old. I hated cats as a 17 year old. I love cats as a 49 year old. What the hell happened to me? So the thing that I. When I'm thinking about a show is Goethe's three questions. This is something you'll hit if you, for instance, have a dramaturg on your team. So the three questions, dramaturg, of course,

[Wesley Morris]

being the person who saves your show from going, like, saves the show from going any further south than it's going, and finds the brilliance in an already brilliant work and emphasizes that the world

[Helen Shaw]

of dramaturgy thanks you for that definition. Yes, it's on set criticism. It's on set criticism, exactly. It's the person who's sort of like, who their task is the text. They're supposed to be in there looking at the text. Okay, so Gertrude has three questions. Number one, what is this piece of art trying to do? Number two, how is it executing that attempt? And number three, and only after you've answered those first two questions, are you allowed to ask this third question. Was it worth the attempt? So what is this Dog Day Afternoon trying to do? We know that this starts from the stars. We know that it starts from the extraordinary relationship between Eben and John, who are friends and colleagues going back to the Bear. And I think possibly before they're excited by the theater, they're people who both are involved in the theater. And so is there something that has the kind of ripe, vaguely Al Pacino energy that Bernthal has and the slippery, vaguely John Cazale energy that Eben has? Is there something to do with that excitement that at the same time brings a conversation about mascul and trans rights into the modern era, where you can get a whole lot of butts and seats to talk about how beautiful these men are together, their friendship, and also be asking about whether or not capitalism is crushing these lives. So to me, when I look at it, I don't think it succeeded. I really don't think it succeeded. And I think a big reason for that is because the adaptation was written by Stephen Adley Girgis, who's a playwright, who needs a lot of iterations, who needs a lot of operations.

[Wesley Morris]

You mean his process.

[Helen Shaw]

A lot of bites at the apple. So many. And I feel like andromedurg.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, maybe two.

[Helen Shaw]

I mean, possibly two. And this feels like a show that got adapted halfway and then it was like, I guess it's go time. And if you read any of the

[Wesley Morris]

process pieces, yeah, it does feel undercooked. It feels understood.

[Helen Shaw]

It feels undercooked to me. But I don't know, I kind of like treasure the ingredients so I'm not as mad as you are about it, because I was like, hey, I think I know what they were trying to do here. See, now I'm all positive. I'm actually. I have a heart like a raisin. I'm a critic. I hate everything. But now I'm all like, no, Wesley, it's all great.

[Wesley Morris]

Ellen, I read you. You're like a very. You're extremely. It's not even that you're fair. I mean, you just. I think there's a real sense of, like, what all is going on in a show. And some things work and some things don't. And I just love the comprehensiveness of the way you approach the work. Like, these works of art, they're rarely completely perfect and they're rarely completely terrible.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Anyway, I actually want to talk about something that really didn't work for me, that worked for lots and lots of other people that I think is kind of, in a weird way, taking it easy on us. And it's giant.

[Helen Shaw]

Interesting.

[Wesley Morris]

It's a play. It's a play essentially about. I'm gonna put it this way. That time Raoul Dahl said some terrible things about the Jews.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

And the entire play, as far as I'm concerned, is. I understand what it wants to do. Right. This is a show that is trying to sort of re situate our thinking about how we talk about Israel's sort of activities in the Middle East. Right. Its relationship to the Palestinian people, its mission of self preservation and self defense, and in whose name and against whom it's taking those conversations. And, you know, can you criticize Israel and also not be anti Semitic when you do it? All of those questions, those fights we are having now are taking place in this play about Roald Dahl, set in 1983 in his house, which is under construction. And the show is essentially about, you know, him responding to the arrival of his agent. Is it. And his publisher. Or maybe it's.

[Helen Shaw]

It's a woman from his publisher.

[Wesley Morris]

It's a woman from his publisher. And essentially they're worried about his next book coming out, which is the Witches, and its ability to attract sales based on some anti Semitic things he wrote in a review of a book about Israel's relationship to Beirut in 1982. Not even Israel's siege on Beirut in 1982. That's a lot.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And the show is trying to wrestle with these questions.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

My problem with it is that I think that the only interesting person in the show is the monster. The other characters don't matter to me. I mean, they're not as interesting as he is. None of the actors is as good as John Lithgow, who plays Roald Dahl. So there's a real. They're not kidding about the giant part.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Lithgow looms large. Raald Dahl looms large. And I think the way the show is built in some ways is kind of an ingenious contraption. Right. Like, the first act ends with the thing you've been dreading happening. You know, why you're there. And it gives it to you almost the way a musical would give you. Like the big number that brings the curtain down. Except in this case, the big number is, hey, I mean, I know Hitler sucked, but, I mean, the Jews couldn't have been all that good. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that is essentially what he says.

[Helen Shaw]

So this is written by Mark Rosenblatt, who was a. He's a director. He's a director. And this is his first play. And he worked on this play for years, but it is his first play. And I do think that you feel that a little bit. I'm not saying it's not accomplished, but I think that it doesn't.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, I don't think it's accomplished.

[Helen Shaw]

Well, here's why I think it's accomplished. I think that writing any character that is as complex and ugly as the one as the doll in this play is a strength. I think what he does not square. What Rosenblatt does not square is what do I do with a lot of people on stage? And I think you would be forgiven for saying, like, that's the basic job. You have to know why there's four in a room. And if there's no reason for those four people to be there, then you better reduce it to a two person scene. But the real thing that's in the room with Roald Dahl is his legacy. What you really are fighting with is your love of the books, your decision of whether or not you're going to separate the art from the artist. Right. Is he a monster? Yep. Like, that question is answered awfully quickly.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Helen Shaw]

And the play is a bit coy about. It's like, I have this really gross carrot, and I'm gonna dangle it here at the end. And you know what it's. You know what it's gonna consist of? Yeah, it's a gross carrot. And then they came back from intermission, and so it's sort of like it's deliberately feeding us the poison.

[Wesley Morris]

But I think the thing that brings you back from intermission is John Lithgow, right? Yes.

[Helen Shaw]

Oh, God, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And I don't know, Helen. I don't know. I don't know if that was enough for me. I mean, it was very good, obviously. But, I mean, the reason I think this show is taking it easy on us is that I think all of us going to this show know what is morally abhorrent about his views. And I don't know. I just wish this show had made me uncomfortable at all. I was not uncomfortable at all by this.

[Helen Shaw]

Well, so I was uncomfortable a couple of times, but partially because there are a couple of phrases that I literally won't even repeat that he says in the play that just are like, you know, you hear them and they kind of stick to you. They are real. It's really awful. And then the second thing, the thing that makes me angry about the show is.

[Wesley Morris]

And angry at the show?

[Helen Shaw]

No, at the show. No, no. This is angry at the show is that it implies. To me, it implies that there's a cost. It's like the wife hears him say something and she's like, I don't know about that. There's a beautiful maid cook who listens to him say the really bad. And she's like, I don't know about that. There's this promise.

[Wesley Morris]

It's doing the work for us.

[Helen Shaw]

It is. And there's this promise that maybe, you know what he did, this bad thing. Don't worry. Don't worry, audience. There will be a punishment. Guess what? There wasn't. I mean, he stays beloved until he's in the ground. He stays beloved until 2016. Right. There is no cost. And so for me, the problem with shaping it into a play is that in order for the play to do, the shape that a play has is it has to end with Ruh Roh. They heard him. Something bad will happen to him. And then, you know, because you live in the world, that's not what happened to Roald Dahl. When I grew up reading James and the Giant Peach, no one was like, well, you know. You know, he's a terrible anti Semite, but good luck with the peach situation. You know, don't eat any big fruit. And, you know, so there's a. I don't know. That bugs me.

[Wesley Morris]

It doesn't. Trust me.

[Helen Shaw]

It's the Social Network problem. You know, the movie the Social Network, where it's like. And you know what? Girls in school didn't like him, and you think, sorry, he married his college sweetheart.

[Wesley Morris]

Right, right, right. Okay, Helen, I think we should just take a break.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Enough about me. I mean, let's actually just talk about. I would like to hear about, like, what you liked, what you didn't like. So we'll take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about what rocked your world and what put you to sleep.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

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[Wesley Morris]

We're back. Helen, you know, we just. Enough of me. You know, I am always curious about how people who practice criticism practice the criticism. Not so much the thinking and the synthesizing that we do in our work, but how do you physically do the job? So, for instance, you know, I don't like to watch a lot of movies after I eat lunch, right? These are like things like this. Like, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm gonna fall asleep.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

So I'm wondering what your procedural methodology is. When you are out in the world and watching things, do you see things more than once? Do you have a rule against watching them more than once? Talk to me.

[Helen Shaw]

So it is very handy in the theater that Most of that is decided for you. Curtains at 8. And so that's where I should be. And so I would never see a show twice simply because of the practical project of trying to see everything in New York. So if you're trying to see every show that's happening in New York, you need to see eight shows a week, and you need to do that 52 weeks ago.

[Wesley Morris]

So you working like you on Broadway or in the theater?

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a powerful hoofers mentality, and so I don't really see shows more than once. But so this actually gets to the question of, like, practically, how is theater criticism done differently from other kinds of criticism? A lot of times you're looking at something that you have a very long relationship with. So. Right. Half of the time I'm seeing a show. If I see Our Town on Broadway, I. I have seen 12 our towns starting in high school and going until now. I've also.

[Wesley Morris]

You might have been in Our Town.

[Helen Shaw]

I have not. No, no. My powerful acting career is luckily in the pre cell phone era. But you have these long relationships with plays. So you come into the space and you sort of simultaneously, you do this little trick where you simultaneously remember everything you know about it. So what do I know about Henry iv? Okay. And then you also try and forget it at the same time because you're supposed to be there with the art that's in front. So it's a little bit of a sort of Zen practice, like you are. You try to make yourself a neutral slate. And then practically what I do is I take a ton of notes, I write down almost everything that's happening while I'm watching it, because otherwise I tend to start to dream a little bit. You know, I do start to think about the last time I saw Henry iv. And so you say no. It keeps you grounded, it keeps you there. It keeps you in the moment. It's like snapping your fingers and saying, no. It's right now, Helen, you're looking at this Henry Ivan, and that's very handy.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, sometimes you might be watching this Henry IV and wish you were watching one from five Henry IVs to

[Helen Shaw]

go, but you can't let your mind do that.

[Wesley Morris]

That's not what I heard. What I'm just saying.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah, that's what a civilian.

[Wesley Morris]

Ooh. Okay.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

All right, so let's talk about what is happening this year. You went to a bunch of shows. Talk to me about some things that worked and didn't work for you.

[Helen Shaw]

Okay. So one thing that really Worked for me was nostalgia. So it was a nostalgia. Worked for me. Yes. And here's how. So there are shows like Schmigadoon, which is a musical which is purely nostalgia. It's like, do you remember the golden age of musicals? If not, we will cram them down your throat.

[Wesley Morris]

Two regular people.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Who like musicals. Oh, maybe one of them does and one of them doesn't.

[Helen Shaw]

That's right.

[Wesley Morris]

A couple.

[Helen Shaw]

That's right.

[Wesley Morris]

She loves them, he hates them. They get trapped, Brigadoon style in the world of a musical.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes. And then everybody they encounter is sort of like a figure from the Music man or a figure from Carousel or whatever.

[Wesley Morris]

Classic amusement.

[Helen Shaw]

Classic musicals. And so it has this sense of. If there has been a secret part of you that thought, you know, why can't musicals just be like Carousel?

[Wesley Morris]

Just Bergers and Hammerstein all day?

[Helen Shaw]

I know. Exactly. Why are they dead? Exactly. I know. Don't play so many sharps and flats. And so this is deeply pleasurable for that. For that kind of, you know.

[Wesley Morris]

I haven't seen it. I saw it.

[Helen Shaw]

It's a warm bath. Warm bath, warm bath. But the part of nostalgia that really worked for me, and this is something that was just fantastic for, was the Rocky Horror Show. Oh, and do you have a relationship to the Rocky Horror Picture?

[Wesley Morris]

I have a relationship to the Time Warp as a music video. That was just a clip from the movie that got played on mtv.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes, yes.

[Wesley Morris]

It was just Tim Curry just from. They just ripped it from the movie. Put it on video. Video City. Just pick your video channel there with

[Helen Shaw]

the Time Warp and for. I'm trying very hard not to overshare, but for a person of a certain

[Wesley Morris]

age, you're a cannonball, ma'.

[Helen Shaw]

Am.

[Wesley Morris]

There's no such thing as oversharing.

[Helen Shaw]

Oh, man.

[Wesley Morris]

What do you want to tell us?

[Helen Shaw]

So I just feel that in the world of creating a sexual identity, that if you take the Phantom of the Opera and cross it with Frank N. Furter, you're pretty close to a young hell. Helen Shaw's ideal man. And I am sorry that. That is.

[Wesley Morris]

Helen, let me get my phone. I've got about seven phone numbers for you. Are you available? Do you need. Do you need a.

[Helen Shaw]

No, I.

[Wesley Morris]

Do you need a Franken Frank N. Furter.

[Helen Shaw]

This is not a call for help. This is a call for action. Which is. People should go to see Luke Evans in this production.

[Wesley Morris]

Definitely should. He is. I just never think about him as having this performance in him. And he is. I don't know where this. This Is, you know, this is one of those things that, like, it just seems like it's been living in him this whole time.

[Helen Shaw]

Agreed.

[Wesley Morris]

And nobody asked him to do it.

[Helen Shaw]

Agreed. Absolutely. And that, I think, is what I had a good time with this season. So you were saying, like, what are the things I liked? So those two aspects of nostalgia really worked for me. And then also another show so we were talking about Difficulty, is one of the shows that I think had the highest level of difficulty this season was a show called Liberation.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I missed it. I missed it.

[Helen Shaw]

Which was a very, very beautiful show and it won the Pulitzer. So, you know, it has been like. It's not exactly like a well kept secret, but it is about a woman interrogating both her own feminism and her mother's feminism. So it's sort of a memory play. And she takes us back to the 70s encounter group where her mother and a group of women try to sort of do some consciousness raising together.

[Wesley Morris]

Is it Bess Wall?

[Helen Shaw]

It's Bess Wall, written by Bess Wall, who is a very, very delicate, deft touch. And that was a play that was done in a very, you know, there was no outrageous moment. There was no sort of explosive climax. Instead, it was sort of like, this is what conversation can do. So when I was talking about how much I love that theater is a forum, this was like the peak of

[Wesley Morris]

that, for me, structurally, seems built to be Exactly. A classical Greek forum.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes. And so there they are in chairs in front of us, echoing the chairs that we are sitting in the audience. And it's like, oh, are we in a consciousness raising group together? Don't mind if I do.

[Wesley Morris]

I picked it up. I picked up a copy just to, like, I didn't, you know, I've read some of it. But also, it was a show for me that I just heard people talking about it. And it seemed initially like it was like, I shouldn't see this. And it's very, you know, I'm gonna. It was obvious what it was doing, and it wasn't working for some women in my life. And then about two weeks later, I was part of this other conversation where the women talking about it were like, it was fantastic. This is exactly what I needed. And like, this fight between the generations about what feminism even isn't as good for. I was like, God damn it, I've got a week to see this thing and I'm not gonna make it.

[Helen Shaw]

And you're out of time. Now, look, Peter Sellars, who's a great opera director, I once saw him give a talk. And he said a show ends, A show truly ends when the conversation that night finishes. So a show may take two hours in the theater.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I see what he mean, right? Yeah, I see what he means.

[Helen Shaw]

But when you stop talking about it that night, that's actually when the curtain comes down.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I just got a little. I just got a little tear in my eye.

[Helen Shaw]

Peter Sellers. You can't turn your back on him. He'll get you. And so for me, like liberation, Giant, all the things that we talked about that were limitations of Giant, I kept talking about it that night. Right.

[Wesley Morris]

And so I'm still talking about it.

[Helen Shaw]

I'm still talking about it.

[Wesley Morris]

We go back, has heard enough about. I mean, we agree, but then we're like, it is trying to do something though, but it just does. It didn't. It's not. It's not. It's doing it in the wrong way.

[Helen Shaw]

And I feel like I should turn to camera and be like. And that's difficulty.

[Wesley Morris]

It's right there.

[Helen Shaw]

Hi. That's difficulty. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

So what else?

[Helen Shaw]

Okay, Other shows I love. Can we talk about it? Can we talk about the big dog?

[Wesley Morris]

What's the big dog?

[Helen Shaw]

Death of a Salesman.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, yeah. Okay. We could talk about the big dog. I will say personally, as I explain what this play is. It's a play that a lot of American kids encounter in school for reasons I don't wanna say I don't understand. I commend the teachers who put it in front of me, and I commend the teachers still trying to put it of lots of other students. Also, have you seen a high school performance of Death of a Salesman? Because I have. I've seen 13 year old Willy Loman. But this is a show about a family whose patriarch is at the end of his career, essentially, but can't afford to be, and his pride won't allow him to be there. And so he's trying, trying, trying to just. I don't know, I mean, I'm gonna say one last go round in the sales business. Anyway, that's the setup, basically. That's the setup. So what? Talk to me about what you felt, what you thought.

[Helen Shaw]

So for me, this play. So there are. There is nothing that's aesthetically difficult about this play, right? No, you can go to this show.

[Wesley Morris]

You mean as a text?

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah, as a text. It is. What is. When I was trying to define difficulty for myself, when I was thinking about coming here to talk about it, I was thinking, well, what's the opposite of difficulty? Is it Accessibility. Is that its opposite.

[Wesley Morris]

It's Anne Juliet. Well, no shots to Anne Juliet, but that is the opposite.

[Helen Shaw]

And yet a shot has been fired. But I think that it's a candy shop.

[Wesley Morris]

It's a very delicious candy shop.

[Helen Shaw]

That's true. But. But when you have Death of a Salesman. Death of a Salesman's serious. I mean, it's super serious. It's about a guy who is. And this is a spoiler. Gonna die and his sons.

[Wesley Morris]

In Death of a Salesman, really, in

[Helen Shaw]

Death of a Salesman, the selling isn't gonna work out, and he is going to disappoint his sons. His sons will disappoint him. It's like this terrible, terrible confusion of generations. And the reason why kids get it in high school is because it allows teachers to assign an essay on the American dream and how the American dream isn't a dream, but it's a nightmare. And so those sort of simple thoughts have kind of attached themselves to this.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, obfuscated.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah, exactly. These simple thoughts have been tied to this difficult play. And so it's not difficult. It's not difficult to understand. You watch the guy, he whines, his sons disappoint him. He disappoints them. Dad. Death, sadness, denouement. Okay, but what is hard about it is that, in fact, the more times you see it, the older you get.

[Wesley Morris]

This is crazy true.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah. And it gets harder and harder and harder. Oh, my God.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't need to be crying today. But it is actually true. Go on.

[Helen Shaw]

So for me, this production, so it stars Nathan Lane, and Nathan Lane is. All he has to do is walk out on stage and you can see the song and dance. Man, who doesn't know what song is up next? That is.

[Wesley Morris]

That is so beautiful.

[Helen Shaw]

It's so sad.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. What you just said is beautiful. And Nathan.

[Helen Shaw]

And he's so beautiful in it. And in this production, the sorrow that we have for the generation that missed it, that is a sorrow that resets every 10 years at every generation.

[Wesley Morris]

And this is the time for that show.

[Helen Shaw]

And this is the time for that show.

[Wesley Morris]

It's uncanny how punctual this thing is, right? Like, it just. It knew. It knew gas prices would be. Would be crazy. Yeah, Right? It knew that all we do all day, if we're so inclined, is to be on an object where the new Willy Lomans are pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. But we're also at a point where there's another set of actual Willy Lomans. Right. Who are being displayed. And some of those Willy Lomans, it's gonna sound crazy to say, Helen, are like 30, 35, being displaced by AI. I mean, there's just so many considerations just on that front.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And this, to me, it may not be a difficult play, but it is a difficult production to me. Do you feel. I mean, how do you feel about it as a work?

[Helen Shaw]

I mean, I love it. I have to say. I love it because to me, it is just distilled sorrow. And I, like. I'm a little bit of a sicko. I go to theater to be reminded that I'm dying and that life is short.

[Wesley Morris]

This is part of what I'm asking. Right. This is part of what I'm asking with this ambition difficulty question. Right. Like, remind us. Remind me that I am human, but in all the ways I am human.

[Helen Shaw]

Yep.

[Wesley Morris]

And don't cut any corners. Don't spare my feelings. Make it hard.

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah. And if you have ever disappointed a parent, this show is unbearable. If you've ever disappointed your child, this show is unbearable. Like, that for me, is why I watch it. Is that it is. It's almost not different from my life. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's so close to the things that I feel sorrow about.

[Wesley Morris]

Like actual. Like Helen Shaw's life.

[Helen Shaw]

Well, no. I mean, my parents are very proud. But what I mean is that it's like every. It has. Theater is great at creating emotions. It's very good at turning up the volume and making you feel like you can kick up your heels. It's very good at making Feel anger that happens in Giant. It's very good at making you feel a certain kind of way that's in Rocky Horror. But it is also. It has this one emotion that I actually don't think you get in other media. I don't think you get it from books. I don't think you get it from film. Is regret is you are watching it unfold in front of you. And you can't stop the play from happening. You can't get up out of your seat. You can't put the book down on the coffee table. You can't stop Willy from doing what he's doing. And so you regret with him the way that life is possible.

[Wesley Morris]

It didn't have to be this way.

[Helen Shaw]

Stoppable.

[Wesley Morris]

Maybe it didn't have to be this way. But also the tragedy of the play is. Yes, it did.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes, it did.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes, it did. Cause, you know, look at this place. Look at this country.

[Helen Shaw]

And that's. I feel like. Yeah. And that's difficult.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, Helen, listen. Pink Is gonna, like, supervise some Tonys this weekend? Yes.

[Helen Shaw]

Yes. Pink is.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know. I mean, we talked about some shows that are up for some Tonys. I mean, do you care about. I mean, Karen and I. It's not even. That's not the right way to do it. But, like, what is the value of giving these out? Is there a show that's up for some Tonys that deserve to win them just as a seal of their excellence?

[Helen Shaw]

Yeah. So for me, what. The Tonys are number one. It's the most attention that the country ever pays to the theater.

[Wesley Morris]

This is how I found Audra McDonald was the ton. Audra and McDonald when I found out.

[Helen Shaw]

Right. You just explained why the Tonys are important. Right. Is they find people who don't know that the theater is gonna be there for them yet, and they're like, wait, what's that? And so, on this production, on this Tony Awards night, you're gonna have production numbers from that Cats we're talking about, which is a sacred space right now. We are going to have whoever, either Lithgow or Lane or whoever win this award, and it is going to. So I don't know. For me, it's the big PR moment, which is. Look, what you started this conversation with was there was a lot that was disappointing. The point of awards is that we get to the end of a season and there is too much to love, there's too much to award. There are several races here that I can't call because I want them both

[Wesley Morris]

to win, I. E. Nathan, Lane and

[Helen Shaw]

Jeff, I. E. Ragtime and Cats.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Helen Shaw]

So you have this situation where.

[Wesley Morris]

Which are both up for best revival of a musical.

[Helen Shaw]

Of a musical. And I think that's what I love about the Tonys is it says no matter what kind of, like, I don't know, sulky, brooding attitude one might have had during the season, one realizes, no, wait a minute. It was an abundance of riches. And aren't we lucky?

[Wesley Morris]

Helen, I'm lucky to have you. I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

[Helen Shaw]

Thank you for having me on.

[Wesley Morris]

Hey, before we go, I just want to talk to my passionate potato salad people for a second. We're working on something over here, an episode of the show. And I need you passionate potato salad people my PPPs to just tell me what you love about making potato salad. Like, what is. What is it that you just. You need the potato salad to do? What should it be communicating? What should it not be communicating? You got a minute to do this? Just try to keep it under a minute. I need a vertical video from you under a minute Vertical video. You're gonna send it to cannonballytimes.com that's C-A-N N O N B A L [e-mail] thank you.

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Choose your perfect Caribbean escape with Princess Cruises. Maybe you spend a day relaxing on the top deck, golden sun, a refreshing pina colada and nothing on your schedule except dinner and a show. Other days you embrace a tranquil shore, snorkel mask in hand, ready to explore white sand beaches and crystal clear waters. The best part? Relaxation and discovery are both on the itinerary. Sail to the Caribbean with Princess Cruises. Visit princess.com or contact your travel advisor to book Princess ships registered to Bermuda.

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[Wesley Morris]

This episode of Cannonball was produced by Janelle Anderson and John White. It was edited by Austin Mitchell. It was fact checked by Kaitlyn Love. This episode was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. It's got original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty took the photo for our show art. Our audience team is Katie o' Brien and Maria Abdulkoff. Our video team is Felice Leon and Brooke Minters. This episode was filmed by Lauren Pruitt, Danieli Sarti and Luke Piotrowski. And it was edited by Jeremy Rocklin and Amy marino. We're on YouTube but you knew that. We'll be back next week everybody, and we'll be talking about what happens when you wish upon a star and get the girl of your dreams and she wants to beat up the girl in your car.

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