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- [00:00]
Announcer
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- [00:18]
David Biancolli
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Biancooli. The 2026 Tony Award nominees were announced this week with numerous nominations for the musicals Lost Boys, Schmigadoon and the revival of Ragtime. Our guest today was a key behind the scenes figure in two Broadway mega hits. Rent and Hamilton each won a Pulitzer Prize for drama and multiple Tony Awards, including best musical. Our guest, Jeffrey Seller, produced Rent with his business partner. Seller's own company produced Hamilton. He also was a producer of Lin Manuel Miranda's first musical, in the Heights, as well as the satirical adult puppet musical Avenue Q and the revival of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Josh Groban. You might assume since his skills include raising money to produce shows, that he's from money, but he's most definitely not. His family was often broke or close to it. He grew up in a neighborhood outside Detroit that was nicknamed Cardboard Village because the houses were so cheap and shoddy. Seller is the author of the memoir Theater Kid. After many stops along the way, he became a booker with the job of booking touring companies of popular musicals into theaters around the country. That work led him where he always wanted to be, producing musicals. He also writes about coming out during the AIDS epidemic and how it wiped out so many people who created and performed in Broadway shows, as well as a significant part of the audience. Jeffrey Sellers spoke with Terry last June when his memoir was published. It's now in paperback.
- [01:58]
Terry Gross
Jeffrey Seller, welcome to FRESH AIR. Well, since this is the 10th anniversary of Hamilton, congratulations of Hamilton opening on Broadway. Let's start there.
- [02:07]
Jeffrey Seller
Thank you.
- [02:08]
Terry Gross
You had already produced Rent and Lin Manuel Miranda's first musical in the Heights. When you heard in the Heights mix of rap and Broadway music, you felt a little out of your element Cause you hadn't followed rap. Had you listened to a lot more rap by the time of Hamilton?
- [02:25]
Jeffrey Seller
No. I had, of course, become completely enamored with in the Heights. And you know, that first time Lynn sang Lights up on Washington Heights at the break of day, it was so warm. It was like this Caribbean water that's just enveloping me. And then when after that, the Broadway chorus came in with in the Heights, I wake up and start my day. My God, I already had the goosebumps. And in many ways, Hamilton was just Lynn's next musical.
- [03:03]
Terry Gross
Okay, so since you mentioned in the Heights in that opening song, let's hear it.
- [03:11]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
That was Abuela. She's not really my abuela, but she practically raised me this corner as her escuela. Now you probably thinking I'm up creek. I never been north of 96th Street. Well, you must take the A train even farther than Norm to northern Manhattan and maintain. Get off at 181st and take the escalator.
- [03:31]
Jeffrey Seller
I hope you're writing this down.
- [03:32]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
I'm gonna test you later. I'm getting tested. Times are tough on this bodega. Two months ago, somebody bought Ortegas. Our neighbors started packing up and picking up, and ever since the rents went up, it's gotten mad expensive. But we live with just enough. In the Heights I flip the lights to start my day. There are lights and endless debts and bills to in the Heights I can't survive without the night seems like a million years away. In Washington next October.
- [04:09]
Terry Gross
Okay, that's the opening of the Broadway musical In the Heights, Lin Manuel Miranda's first musical, produced by my guest, Jeffrey Seller. So Hamilton was supposed to be a record that was supposed to the plan, and it was going to be called the Hamilton Mixtape. And you convinced or helped convince Lynne that it should be a musical, not just a recording. How did you convince him?
- [04:32]
Jeffrey Seller
Well, I'm going to give real credit to that to his colleague, friend and director, Thomas Kael. And Tommy had an idea, which is that if he could get Lin to do a public cabaret performance of just the songs, that would persuade him that this could be a musical. So in early 2012, they did like eight songs from Hamilton at Jazz at Lincoln Center. And it was so clear from that performance that this was a book musical that after that I wrote a letter to both of them saying, if you want to get going on a musical, I want to be your producer, and I'll clear the decks. I'll be your cheerleader, I'll be your nurturer. I'll be your critic if you want to go. I had a new company at that point. I named it Adventureland. And I said, let's go on this adventure together. And that was early 2012.
- [05:27]
Terry Gross
So as the lead producer, what was your role? What was your job?
- [05:32]
Jeffrey Seller
Sometimes it was to make lunch. Like, at one point, Lynne and Tommy and another writer we were considering working with came out to my house, and they would work in the morning. I would make egg salad with my own mayonnaise that I had learned how to make from the New York Times cookbook and serve. But what I mean, by is setting the table for them to do the great work and giving them that space and giving them that praise when it was necessary, giving them that reinforcement and encouragement when it's necessary. And then sometimes knowing when can I make a suggestion or not? Can I sometimes knowing what, when is the right time to make a suggestion?
- [06:21]
Terry Gross
Tell us a suggestion you made that you think was really helpful.
- [06:26]
Jeffrey Seller
You know, in the case of Hamilton, I would say I made less suggestions than I ever had before. But, you know, one very important one was cutting the third rap battle in act two. You know, we had not two rap battles, but we had three rap battles. You know, another situation was cutting the Dear Theodosia reprise in Act 2. I also seem to remember talking deeply about how the set would be realized, which came later with David Corens and Thomas Kail. I also remember talking a lot about the staging of Washington on youn side, which may not have been in its best form the first time they did it.
- [07:11]
Terry Gross
Cutting. Why was cutting the rap battle and the other song that you referred to, why was cutting them important and why did you think they needed to be cut?
- [07:22]
Jeffrey Seller
Um, how much can we as audience members take in it? We are not equipped for three hour musicals. And our musical already had a first act that was an hour and 15 minutes. And believe it or not, the second act was even longer, which actually breaks the rule that Oscar Hammerson once said, which was that the first act is usually gonna be twice as long as the second act. Or let me put it another way, the second act is going to be half as long as the first act. And in our show, the second act was actually longer. And one of our jobs is to really try to feel how the audience is gonna stay with the show through every moment of the show. And there's a moment where the audience, they can't take anymore. Where are we redundant? Where are we in a situation where we can actually lose something? And in those instances, I gave. And there were others in Act 2 as well that we succeeded.
- [08:26]
Terry Gross
What's the logic behind the second act being shorter than the first?
- [08:31]
Jeffrey Seller
Because we give our greatest amount of energy to the show for the first act. That's where you're establishing character plot, the rising dramatic action, that big dramatic question. What is the major dramatic question? And then in Act 2, we just really want to see it resolved. And if you look at west side Story, that's a show that has a 90 minute first act and a 45 minute second act.
- [08:56]
Terry Gross
Is there a particular song in Hamilton that when you first heard the music from it made you think, this is great.
- [09:07]
Jeffrey Seller
Well, Lynn shared with me the first songs probably around 2010, 2011. And when I heard My Shot for the first time, I was like, whoa. Like if. If in the Heights was this warm Caribbean embrace. My shot was lightning. It was a wallop. And I knew he was taking this form to a deeper place that had even more impact. And I knew he was on another creative tear.
- [09:43]
Terry Gross
Well, let's hear a little bit of My Shot. And of course, this is Lin Manuel Miranda.
- [09:48]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
I am not throwing away my shot I am not throwing away my shot Yo, I'm just like my country I'm young, scrappy and hungry and I'm not throwing away my shot I might get a scholarship to King's College I probably shouldn't brag with Dag I am maze and astonished the problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish I got a holler just to be heard with every word I drop knowledge I'm a diamond in the rough A shiny piece of coal Trying to reach my goal, my power speech unimpeachable only 19 but my mind is over these New York City streets get cold I shoulder every burden, every disadvantage I've learned to manage I don't have a gun to brandish I walk these streets famished the plan is to fan this spark and but damn, it's getting dark so let me spell out the name I am the A L, E X A, N, D E, R We are meant to be a colony that runs independently Meanwhile Britain keeps on us endlessly Essentially they tax us relentlessly Then King George turns around, runs a spending spree he ain't never gonna set his descendants free so there will be a revolution in this century and to me he says in parentheses don't be shocked when your history Every book mentions me I will lay down my life if it sets us free eventually you'll see my ascendancy and I am not throwing away my shot I am not throwing away my shot hey, yo, I'm just like my country I'm young, scrappy and hungry and I'm not throwing away my shot that's
- [11:14]
Terry Gross
Lin Manuel Miranda from the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton. And my guest was lead producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Celler. He has a new memoir called Theater Could. Was it hard to convince backers to invest in Hamilton?
- [11:31]
Jeffrey Seller
Oh, gosh, no. Hamilton had this incredible power to galvanize audiences almost within minutes of any performance starting. So when we started to share readings of Hamilton with people in the industry, they were Going crazy for it. So I raised the money for Hamilton faster and easier than I had raised money for anything else before.
- [12:03]
Terry Gross
Let's talk about Jonathan Larson and Rent. You went to a workshop of Larson's show that was in the works at the time, Tick Tick Boom, which at the time was called Boho Days. It was in the workshop process. It was an autobiographical one person show and that person was Larson. Describe what you initially saw and why you really identified with it.
- [12:29]
Jeffrey Seller
Oh my gosh. You know, up on that stage was just this piano, bass, drums, guitar, and out came this guy named Jonathan, who I'd never known in my life before. You know, he was tall and lanky and had curly brown hair. And he just attacked this piano ferociously. And he was singing these songs about turning 30 and how he had this image or this sound that kept going off in his head. Tick, tick, boom. He thought he was going to explode because he was a writer of rock musicals that nobody wanted to produce because he lived in the fourth floor walk up of an apartment down on Greenwich with a bathtub in the kitchen where all the roommates had to switch off on who could use it at what time. He was an amazing performer and he was singing these songs through the most amazing rock music that was giving me goosebumps all over my arms. And you know, here was the question. Should he keep writing rock musicals that nobody wants to produce, or should he take a job as an advertising copywriter where he'll finally have some money and get health insurance and a better apartment and maybe be able to go on a vacation? And what do I do? Do I sell out or do I keep pursuing my passion? And I thought, how is this guy telling my life story when I've never even met him before? Because I felt exactly the same way as a 25 year old Booker who really wanted to be a producer.
- [14:06]
Terry Gross
And his goal also was to write a show that spoke to his life and the people he knew and his generation. Did you identify with that goal?
- [14:14]
Jeffrey Seller
Oh my God. You know, Jonathan said about the shows that were happening in the late 80s into the early 90s. Those aren't our characters, that's not our music, those aren't our stories. And you know, the first shows that meant something to me were like A Chorus Line where I looked up on that stage. I'm a 14 year old kid and they're telling stories of their lives. It was a genuinely contemporary musical with a sort of contemporary score and that I knew right then and there. That's what I love.
- [14:48]
Terry Gross
So when he said that the shows on Broadway aren't telling our stories. What was on Broadway at the time?
- [14:54]
Jeffrey Seller
You had the four mega musicals from England. You had Cats, Les Mis, Phantom and Saigon. And basically, that's it. Like, we were not making musicals during the 80s and the 90s on Broadway. I'll give you an example, Terry. In 1995, the year before Rent, there were only two musicals nominated for best musical. One was Sunset Boulevard, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, and one was a show called Smokey Joe's Cafe. That was a review of songs by Lieber and Stoller. So Sunset Boulevard actually won best score and best book by default. Two musicals. And that's where the industry was in the late 80s into the 90s.
- [15:45]
Terry Gross
Why do you think that was true?
- [15:50]
Jeffrey Seller
I think one big reason was aids. Look at the number of artists we lost. Howard Ashman, Michael Bennett. And look at the artists we lost that we don't even know. And I think it was also about economics. And for some reason, Broadway was having a hard time attracting investment dollars in the 80s into the 90s.
- [16:14]
Terry Gross
So you offered to produce Boho Days, decided to rename it Tick Tick Boom, and you convinced Larson to do that. And in serendipity, you were getting fired from your booking job, and the person you were working for said, your heart really isn't into this. You should just, like, leave and go produce. We're firing you. And as Chu was firing you, Larson is returning a call.
- [16:39]
Jeffrey Seller
Yes, it actually was.
- [16:40]
Terry Gross
And you couldn't take the call. So that seemed like real serendipity.
- [16:45]
Jeffrey Seller
Oh, my gosh.
- [16:46]
Terry Gross
And then, you know, you offered to produce that first. Well, really second show that he had written, and then you decided it wasn't really working. You had several problems with it. What were some of those problems?
- [17:02]
Jeffrey Seller
I couldn't raise the money. You know, in many ways, when we were working on that show, he had told me that he had shared it with Sondheim once. And Sondheim. I said, well, what did Sondheim say? He said, that show is just you whining about Superbia. And in some ways, Superbia was the
- [17:19]
Terry Gross
show he'd written before the music.
- [17:20]
Jeffrey Seller
That's correct. And you know, those listeners who remembered the movie Tick, Tick Boom that Lin Manuel directed with Andrew Garfield knows that they had done this big workshop of Superbia and nothing happened from it. And when Jonathan calls his agent after Suburbia doesn't get picked up by any theater, she says, pick up your pencil and go back to work. So he writes Tick, Tick Boom, and or Boho days. And in so many ways, it's his rant about not getting Superbia produced, at least according to Sondheim. And for me, it was a show about how do I stay true to my dreams without selling out. And guess what? Every theme, every motif that's in Tick Tick Boom ultimately finds its way to the better show. And that's rent.
- [18:14]
Terry Gross
So how did you convince him to stop writing Tick Tick Boom and instead start writing? What was his next idea, which is a musical, a contemporary musical based on Puccini's opera La Boheme.
- [18:31]
Jeffrey Seller
Yeah. Early on in our professional friendship, he shared with me this idea that someone had given him to make a version of La Boheme that would take place in the East Village in which Mimi would have AIDS instead of tuberculosis. And I thought it was a genius idea from the moment he told me. So he was kind of working on two things at once. But the thing about Tick Tick Boom was that if you took away all the other instruments and he was just at the piano and he was in a rehearsal room and doing it for a bunch of people that could be investors, it seemed as he was getting older, it seemed to lose its luster. Like, I wonder if he had moved on himself emotionally because at some point as we were trying to get Tick Tick Boom done, it just sounded like a 30 year old who's afraid he's never going to be successful. And I'm not sure audiences really are going to be that sympathetic to a 30 year old who's already in despair that he's not going to be successful because most of us would say, well, get on with it.
- [19:35]
David Biancolli
Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller speaking with Terry Gross last year. His memoir, Theater Kid, is now out in paperback. We'll hear more after a break. And Justin Chang will review the new film Silent Friend. I'm David Biancooli and this is FRESH air.
- [20:03]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
525,600 minutes. 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter and striving. 500,125,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? How about love? How about love? How about love? Measuring love, Seasons of love.
- [21:10]
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- [22:17]
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- [22:49]
Terry Gross
How do you deliver criticism to someone like Jonathan Larson without destroying him?
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Jeffrey Seller
Oh Lord. Jonathan invited me to the first ever staged reading of rent in the spring of 93. Stage reading means actors are reading and singing in front of music stands with the scripts in front of them, and there may be a band or a piano and a drum and I go down. It was at New York Theatre Workshop. It was a hot day in June, and I actually had met this guy who wanted to be a producer and I knew came from a very wealthy family in Australia. So I thought maybe if I bring this guy and he loves it, I can get him to invest. That guy leaves an intermission and the reading starts with the song Rent. And it's like a wallop. It's great. But then immediately the show kind of disintegrates into all these different songs about life in the East Village. And it really has no spine. It doesn't have a plot that's coming through yet. And that reading kind of drones on for almost three hours. It's like 90 degrees in there. And then this other guy who was there that I was with says, well, Jonathan's very talented, but he should just try something else. He should just work on something else. And then Jonathan calls me and says, okay, let's go to dinner. I want to hear what you think. So the first thing about criticism is don't offer it till you're asked, right? You got to wait until they say, what did you think? And sitting at Diane's Hamburgers on the upper right side, when he said, what do you think? Think? Then I really had to pause because I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and I was afraid that he might reject me. But you always start with praise. And I talked about how great that opening song, Rent, was, and I talked about how great the environment was. And he said, yeah, but what else? And that's when I said, I don't understand the story. I don't get the characters. Are you trying to write a play, or are you trying to write a collage of life in the East Village? And he looked at me and he was like, no, I'm trying to write a play. And I said, well, then you have to bring forth the story, because right now, I'm not getting it.
- [25:10]
Terry Gross
So during the final dress rehearsal of Rent, Jonathan Larson went home early complaining of an upset stomach, a stomach ache. And by the next morning, he was dead. And the day that he died, that was the day of the first preview that was scheduled of Rent. What we know now is he died of a tear in his aorta, probably caused by Marfan syndrome, which is a genetic disease that weakens the body's connective tissue. First of all, he didn't have health insurance. If he had health insurance, do you think it might have been diagnosed and he might still be alive?
- [25:47]
Jeffrey Seller
He had visited two hospitals in the week before he ultimately died, and neither of them had diagnosed it properly. Had he had health insurance and a doctor who was his personal advocate, would the outcome have been different? I don't know. But I know what it means to not have health insurance, and I know how scary that is.
- [26:15]
Terry Gross
Yeah, because you went through a lot of your life without it.
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Jeffrey Seller
Yeah.
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Terry Gross
So describe for us how you heard the news about Jonathan Larson's death and what that day was like for you, including deciding what to do that night, which was to be the night of the first dress rehearsal.
- [26:34]
Jeffrey Seller
I woke up that morning euphoric after the dress rehearsal, and I had given huge praise to Jonathan after the show, saying, you did it. You made the show. It's great. He was happy to hear that praise, and he described that he wasn't feeling well to me, but that morning after. So I woke up, I was like, you know, I was picking out, what sweater do I want to wear tonight? What clothes? After, I went to my own therapy appointment, I took the R train to the office, and when I got there, everybody's Head was down. And my own general manager said, jeffrey, I have something terrible to tell you. Jonathan Larson died last night, and I was in shock. And then I was immediately struck by the fact that, holy. He wrote his own life and he wrote his own death. This is a man who wrote the song for Roger. One song, Glory One song before I go. And I thought, did he know he was going to die? I thought, did he know he was going to die? I was maybe. Maybe I wasn't shocked. Maybe it all made its own dramatic sense. But I was sad, and I was crushed. And I also somehow knew in that moment, he would become a legend.
- [28:25]
Terry Gross
Well, that's a very famous story now in Broadway history. What about deciding to go through with the dress rehearsal? In what form?
- [28:34]
Jeffrey Seller
Yeah, you know, I was on the phone with Jim Nicola, the artistic director at New York Theatre Workshop, and what he said is he was afraid that the kids in the show would not be safe to try to do all the complicated maneuvers, choreography, staging, backstage and onstage, given this trauma that we had all just experienced. So they were going to do a reading of the show for family and friends of Jonathan. And in fact, that night, we all came into the theater, sat down, and they started doing the show sitting at those famous silver metal tables that were the set of Rent. And it was so powerful hearing Adam Pascal sing One Song Glory. It was so powerful hearing Wilson Heredia sing I'll cover you with Jesse Martin. And then by the end of the first act, when they were in the Life Cafe doing La Vie Boheme, there was just this moment that Daphne Rubin Vega, who was playing Mimi, just got up on that table and she started dancing. And then Wilson Heredia, as Angel, got up, and then Idina got up, and then the entire cast did all the choreography on that table to love you, Bohem. And the first act ended with a sense of euphoria.
- [29:53]
Terry Gross
I'm gonna let you choose. What would you rather hear right now? Rent or One Song Glory oh, glory okay, here we go.
- [30:03]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
One song Glory One song before I go Glory One song to leave behind Find Find One song One last refrain Glory from the pretty boy front man who wasted opportunity One song He had the world at his feet Glory in the eyes of a young girl A
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Justin Chang
young girl
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Lin-Manuel Miranda
Find glory Beyond the cheap colored lights One song before the sun sets Glory on another empty life Time flies time dies. Glory. One place of glory. One place of glory. Glory.
- [31:31]
Terry Gross
That was Adam Pascal singing One Song Glory from the original cast recording of Rent. So I think that Rent won the Pulitzer Prize at more or less the same time that Larson died. They're like very close to each other. What was it like to go through the honor and the, I'm sure, like normal feeling of jubilation having won a Pulitzer and at the same time still be grieving for Jonathan Larson?
- [32:05]
Jeffrey Seller
Oh, it was the best of times and worst of times because the show's success was potent and thrilling and changing my life. And yet I was also filled with the loss of Jonathan and I think a little bit of guilt that he didn't get to go with us because it was going to change his life. He had only just quit the Moondance Diner as a waiter two months before we started rehearsal. He still lived in that fourth floor walk up, and he didn't get to enjoy all of that. And I felt badly and I felt a little bit guilty.
- [32:53]
David Biancolli
Theater producer Jeffrey Seller speaking with Terry Gross. He was a producer of the mega hits Rent and Hamilton. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
- [33:03]
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- [34:16]
Terry Gross
apply since you're a producer and part of your job is raising the money needed to produce the show and rent the theater. Like I said in the introduction, people might assume you came from money when the story is the opposite. So describe your neighborhood that was known as Cardboard Village.
- [34:34]
Jeffrey Seller
Okay? My father, who had inherited his family business, which was a tool business, bankrupt it by overspending and through his own manic behavior. And then he was in a motorcycle accident on I94 in between Detroit and Kalamazoo, which caused brain damage, aphasia A kind of dementia and disenabled him from working. Our family wound up on welfare and we lost our nice house in our nice neighborhood. And we had to move to this neighborhood that the kids called Cardboard Vill. Cause the houses were made of those shingles, those tar shingles, instead of bricks. And instead of having basements, they were built on these 800 square foot slabs of concrete. You know, one teeny bathroom, maybe a carport, but certainly no garage. And that was the neighborhood where I grew up.
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Terry Gross
Ultimately, no basement meant there was no place to shelter if there was a tornado.
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Jeffrey Seller
Yeah, so they'd like. They would like tease you and say, you know, this is Michigan. So they tease you and say, hi, you have nowhere to go. Where do you go if there's a tornado? And I would go, I don't know.
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Terry Gross
So then your father, because of his traumatic brain injury, he became a summons server, you know, serving papers.
- [35:59]
Jeffrey Seller
That's right. Summons subpoenas, all the different court orders to people in trouble.
- [36:04]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So he dealt with deadbeat dads, prospective divorces, delinquent mortgage holders, and when you were available, he'd take you with him. But it sounded like a terrifying experience because he was a reckless driver. And his way of serving papers was often very confrontational. Like there were incidents that really left you terrified. Would you describe one of them?
- [36:26]
Jeffrey Seller
Well, I have this very strong memory of him. Like, come on, go serve papers with me. And I didn't want to. I didn't like it. I didn't like going to these neighborhoods that were far from our house and leaving, you know, the house. But he wanted my company so badly, so I would say yes. And I remember once going to this one neighborhood where, you know, the house doesn't look that different from ours. It actually might have been a little bigger. And he can't. Like, he's banging on the door and no one's coming. And then finally this woman comes out and she has like, you know, like she's wearing like a T shirt dress, and she's like kind of shaking her head no, no, no, meaning, like whoever he's looking for isn't here. And then from the other side of the house, this guy comes around and he starts trying to kind of run away. And my 6 foot 3, 250 pound father starts chasing after him. And then he winds up seeing, you know, getting him on the sidewalk in front of the next door neighbor's house. And then the neighbor, who's actually living in the house next door, opens the door and says, leave him alone. And Then my father serves him the paper. And then that guy screams to my father, get out of here, you pig. And he used the F word. And then my father ran up and put his hand through his window.
- [37:52]
Terry Gross
So, you know, during all of this, you fall in love with theater. And was theater for you the kind of place you wanted it to be for others? Like, you leave life outside the theater door and you immerse yourself in the characters or in directing or producing the show, and that becomes your world while you're in the theater.
- [38:11]
Jeffrey Seller
I guess it became the greatest new world I could have ever discovered. This world where we make plays and invent dialogue and create characters and build sets. And I took it very seriously. And I was incredibly rewarded by the audience reactions.
- [38:35]
Terry Gross
Yeah. Cause you started off acting. Sure. And then. I love this story. You were in a play called Popcorn Pete. It was a school play. Right.
- [38:45]
Jeffrey Seller
It was the community. It was the youth theater play.
- [38:47]
Terry Gross
Yeah, right, right. It was the youth theater play from a local theater company that was an adult company, but that had a kid's part.
- [38:55]
Jeffrey Seller
Correct.
- [38:55]
Terry Gross
And it didn't do well. You know, the theater was half filled. And you decided it's. Cause, like, it's not a. It's not a good title. Why would anybody come? And so you asked to be on the committee that chooses the plays that the kids perform. And in a way, like, that's your first time you were a producer and you were how old?
- [39:14]
Jeffrey Seller
13 years old.
- [39:16]
Terry Gross
Yeah. And you had to convince the adults that you were worthy of being on the committee. So was that a very empowering feeling, like helping to choose the plays?
- [39:27]
Jeffrey Seller
Well, that was the first step I took toward becoming a producer. Because you know what the most important decision I ever make is as a producer, what play to produce, and is that a reflection of my aesthetic, my values, my likes, the characters I care about? So that was a huge moment for me. And I want to also say, at the time, I didn't even know it. I just knew we could do better. And I started reading plays. Every weekend I would read all these different plays. And that's where I started to learn what makes a good play and a bad play.
- [40:04]
Terry Gross
One last question. Do you see Broadway as headed in a particular direction? Do you see any interesting risks being taken?
- [40:12]
Jeffrey Seller
Now, the one thing that I look back on with Jonathan and his goals to write stories about our characters, our stories, our music, is that that value started with Rent, and it continued on from Avenue Q and in the Heights to Hamilton. But it also continued on through so many other shows that I didn't produce like the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal or Dear Evan Hansen. And even in its own fun way, maybe Happy Ending, which is now about two robots who fall in love. So when I look at Broadway and I see all these contemporary musicals, I say, bless you, Jonathan, because every single one of these musicals is standing on his shoulders in some way, shape or form. And I think if we keep making musicals about who we are today, and by the way, Hamilton does that, too, even though it's telling a story that's 250 years old. So if we keep making those musicals, I think we're going to be in great shape.
- [41:19]
Terry Gross
Jeffrey, it's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much. It's just been a pleasure.
- [41:25]
Jeffrey Seller
Thank you so much. It's been my great, great delight and pleasure.
- [41:29]
David Biancolli
Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller speaking to Terry Gross last year. His memoir, Theater Kid, is now out in paperback. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new film Silent Friend. This is FRESH air.
- [41:43]
Announcer
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- [42:44]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
the NPR Politics podcast, President Trump has
- [42:47]
Terry Gross
never been more unpopular and the midterms are now less than six months away.
- [42:52]
Jeffrey Seller
So the intensity of opposition that's waiting for a lot of these Republican candidates in a general election is very, very high.
- [43:00]
Terry Gross
The politics of a Wartime Economy this week on the NPR Politics podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [43:08]
David Biancolli
Our film critic Justin Chang recommends the new art house drama Silent Friends from the Hungarian writer director Ildiko Enyedi. He says it's a beguiling century spanning film about humanity's relationship with the plant world. It features a cast that includes such international stars as Tony Leung and Leah Seydoux. It opens in select theaters this week. Here is Justin's review.
- [43:35]
Justin Chang
Some movies will forever change the way you look at plants. Unsurprisingly, many of them are thrillers and science fiction films like Little Shop of Horrors, the Day of the Triffids, or more recently, the mind controlling flower freakout, Little Joe. You could probably make a more sinister version of the new drama Silent Friend, which dares to suggest that the tree outside your door or the geranium on your windowsill might be studying you intently and might even reach out if it could and tell you what it's thinking. But the Hungarian filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi isn't interested in scaring us. She wants us to leave this movie feeling more connected to the natural world. Silent Friend tells three separate stories, all set in different periods across more than a century, but rooted in the same location. The University of Marburg in Germany. First, we meet a neuroscientist named Tony, played by the Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chu Wai, who's visiting the school as a guest researcher. It's 2020 and when Covid hits, Tony is left stranded on a near empty campus. Bored and lonely, he stumbles on some online videos featuring a French botanist, Alice, played by Lea Seydoux, and is captivated by her theory that plants have a highly developed consciousness. Inspired, Tony plans an experiment and gets in touch with Alice via Zoom to ask for her guidance.
- [45:11]
Jeffrey Seller
Would you supervise me? I know it is quite arrogant of me. I'm a total amateur in your field. Not even an amateur. What I want to test is not so complex. Just as you said in your talk. What if they observe us the same way we observe them to try to create a back and forth between? Are you in Hong Kong? Can you enter the university lab? Oh no. You will need some equipment. I'm stuck on an empty campus somewhere in Germany. I see. I'm also stuck, but at home with a three year old. I'm flipping out for not being able to work. We had to close down everything. I'm not even supposed to be here. I sneaked in to check on an experiment. Actually, I have to go to the greenhouse. It is not fully clear to me what your goal is, but let's see.
- [46:09]
Justin Chang
Tony's experiment involves attaching electronic sensors to the leaves and trunk of a nearly 200 year old ginkgo biloba tree and studying the resulting data to see what, if anything, the plant might be trying to communicate. In a way, this tree is the true protagonist of Silent Friend. It's the only character old enough to appear in all three time frames. In the earliest story, set in 1908, an aspiring botanist named Greta, played by Luna Vedler, becomes the first female student admitted to the university. As she pursues her studies, she trains to become a photographer and develops a deeper aesthetic appreciation of the flowers, fruits and vegetables that she often finds herself shooting. The third story is set in 1972. A young man named Hannes, played by Enzo Broom, is tasked with looking after his roommate's prized geranium. In a primitive early version of Tony's 2020 experiment, Hannes finds himself studying and decoding the flowers responses to stimuli. The film cuts vigorously among these three stories, wrapping them around each other like vines. There's no danger of getting lost, though, since each era has its own distinct visual style black and white film for the early 20th century, warm grainy color film for the 70s, and cool high def digital for 2020. Every era, Enyedi seems to be saying, has its own technological advancements. Every era also has its own political pressures. In all three stories, the university is a place where human progress is both nurtured and threatened. Tony has to deal with pandemic isolation and paranoid campus staff. Greta must endure the profound condescension of her all male professors and peers, and Hannes finds that even the let it all hang out spirit of the 70s can be unexpectedly stifling. And Yeti loves telling tales about misfits and underdogs and infuses them with a magical sense of possibility. In 2017, she directed the Oscar nominated romance on Body and Soul, about two slaughterhouse workers who start seeing each other in their dreams. Now in Silent Friend, she gives us three distinct characters, all outsiders in one way or another, and all of whom use science to push beyond what can be strictly observed. As wonderful as her three human leads are, especially Leung, who's as mesmerizing as ever in his first big European production, the filmmaker encourages us to consider a plant's point of view. She sometimes frames the actors from high above, as if the camera were perched on a branch over their heads. In one scene, Greta enjoys a cigarette break under the ginkgo biloba tree and we see close ups of a leaf withering on contact with the smoke. It takes patience to see things from this perspective, to appreciate the vulnerability and beauty of a germinating seed, a budding flower or a head of broccoli. If you let it, Silent Friend will gently open your eyes to that beauty.
- [49:32]
David Biancolli
Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed Silent Friend, now playing in select theaters on Monday's show actor Will Sharp. He was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Ethan, a tech entrepreneur, in season two of White Lotus. He's also starred in the TV show Too Much and the film A Real Pain. Now he stars as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a new adaptation of Amadeus. Hope you can join us. FRESH air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Moseley, I'm David Biancooli.
- [50:37]
Announcer
This message comes from the International Rescue Committee. Right now, in places like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, conflict and disaster have forced millions of famil into temporary shelters without basic supplies and in urgent need of aid. With your help, the International Rescue Committee is on the ground in more than 40 countries delivering food, clean water, shelter and medical care where it's needed most. Donate today by visiting rescue org Rebuild.