← Stage Combat The Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. I'm an attorney, I'm an actor, and I'm an advocate. My name is Sean Hayden. When I was wrongfully fired as an actor from a certain famous theater, I fought back. Suddenly I was a whistleblower and I told my story true crime style in a podcast. Since then, I've been telling your stories and having the tough conversations that a lot of people in the entertainment 3 don't want us to have. This is Stage Combat, the podcast. This past season, Broadway fans were clamoring with anticipation for two members of Broadway royalty to reunite Wicked's original Glinda on Broadway, Kristin Chenoweth and Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. And for their first collaboration on Broadway in 22 years, Chenoweth and Schwartz chose to work on a new musical about the life of Jackie Siegel, Queen of Versailles.
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B
Based on the 2012 documentary about Jackie Siegel, a former beauty queen from humble beginnings who marries billionaire timeshare mogul David Siegel. Together, they set out to build a Florida home inspired by the palace of Versailles. Very special guest, Emmy and Tony Award winning performer Kristin Chenoweth. The one and only. When this project first came to me, I thought, now how are we going to make a show about billionaires building
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A
a big house a musical? What could possibly go wrong?
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B
Chenoweth isn't just making news for her return to Broadway. Last week, the actress sparked controversy on social media after posting her reaction to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Your post, Kristin, was met with mixed reactions. Mix, you're being kind. You have a big LGBTQ fan base. Yeah. So I ask, what were you hoping to convey with that post? Oh, goodness, I'm sorry if emotion gets involved here. Forgive me.
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A
And then there was the pushback from the public who didn't seem to like the idea of a musical being created about Jackie Siegel and that big mansion.
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B
Is there any wonder to the idea
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A
that I hated these people and I say it's the journey because they build,
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B
they rip it out.
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A
They build. They rip it out. I mean, are they ever going to finish it? Do I care whether they're going to finish it or not? These people are obscene. And then there were the reviews. Something strange is going on over at the St. James Theater and with the mob outside escalating into a frenzy, the Queen of Versailles on Broadway was sent to pack up his house. It is announced that the Queen of Versailles will end its run disappointingly early on January 4th. Something happened with the Queen of Versailles and I'm not sure we've come to terms with it. Once the show posted its Closing notice seemed like was a social media mob almost celebrating. It was insane. I mean, shows come and go all the time. But why did this particular show hit such a nerve with the community? Well, now that the construction dust has settled on Broadway's $23 million flop, I want to get to the bottom of it all. And to do that, I'm bringing in Broadway history extraordinaire, Matt Koplik, host of the podcast Broadway Breakdown.
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B
I have felt, honestly, since the 2016 election that that has become a case for a lot of Broadway and film of there's a villain of some sort that everybody zeroes in on because there's so much that we don't have any control about in the world at large and our own country right now. But we do have control over how everyone views this work. We do have control over smearing the reputation of said show. So it closes and its closing becomes a mor. A political victory, if you will.
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A
I'm Sean Hayden, and you're listening to season four of Stage Combat, the podcast. This is episode two, the Queen of Versailles on Broadway. What the hell did we learn? Matt Koplik, welcome to Stage Combat, the podcast.
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B
Thank you for having me.
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A
Sean, man, the Queen of Versailles. Let's get right to it.
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B
Okay, diving right in, because you have
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A
a lot of opinions about this show.
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B
I do. I also saw it three times.
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A
You saw it once with Kristen and two with Sheri Renee Scott.
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B
That is correct.
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A
And let's just say Sheri Renee Scott was Kristen's standby. Everyone knows Sheri from the original Aida in the last five years. So, Matt, before we get to the Kristin Chenoweth controversy and William Ivey Long's name also came up in this production, I want to talk about that, but let's start with this question. Was there a problem with doing a musical about Jackie Siegel, morally or artistically? Well, I think morally, I know the answer to that. But artistically, like, from a material standpoint?
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B
Well, so I will actually counter and say morally. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with it. If the show itself were good, that's like, always kind of the rebuttal, right? Like, none of it matters if the show works, because we've had shows about plenty of people who are awful, who are real, too, artistically. Having now seen the show more times than most, I don't know if I believe she was a great character to musicalize. I just don't think she was terribly interesting. I watched the documentary. I think after the second time I saw the show, after my first Sherry performance, I went and I watched the documentary, and the documentary is. Is fine. But she's not this, like, vivacious, bold personality of a person. She says a lot of ridiculous things. It's more about sort of the lack of self awareness that she has that makes the documentary fascinating.
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A
That's. That's my recollection of the documentary. She's not that interesting, and she's kind of a passive person.
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B
Yeah. And the musical doesn't really go any further than the documentary goes in terms of Jackie Siegel as a person, even though it does include more of her life post documentary. And I think the musical only just sort of further proves your point of just. Yeah. She's not a dynamic personality. She doesn't have these moments of clarity that make you go, oh, maybe there's more to her. And while there's been a lot of tragedy in her life, it's not as high drama. It sounds so condescending to talk about someone's actual life in this way, but what can you do when they've literally made a musical about it? So.
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A
And she invested in her own show. So there you go. Yeah.
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B
And. And had. And had. So. And she really celebrated the show's existence. So I think for. In this case, I think it's fair game what she has gone through in her life with her first marriage, with the marrying into a lot of money, the recession, her first daughter passing away from suicide, her husband now passing away. I think her sister also passed away. No. There's been a lot of tragedy, but it's not super high drama. The story itself has a lot of human qualities to it, but it's not totally interesting, or at the very least, how the show presents it doesn't make a case for it being interesting. Which leads us back to the show itself.
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A
Yeah. And also we have to think about the moment in time in which this musical was launched. Right. So this is happening as Trump is destroying the East Wing. He tore it down to build his ballroom, and the public is talking about affordability. We can't afford groceries. And I've heard you say that a musical doesn't necessarily have to meet the moment of time that it's in, but the actual moment and time that was happening as the show premiered certainly did
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B
not help the way people were perceiving
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A
Jackie Siegel and this musical.
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B
Yeah. I think that, again, because the show doesn't work, that's what's making us have all these other questions.
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A
Yeah. Okay. So unfortunately for this musical, it had other problems apart from the material Itself. Yep. And not everyone knew this. It was the worst kept secret on Broadway. But what happened was the summer before the show starts previews, we start hearing rumors that William Ivey Long, who has essentially run out of Broadway after Diana the Musical, when there were a couple of stories. We've talked about this on this podcast about allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment. He was pushed out of Diana the Musical. And we thought we would never hear from him again. But then we hear the rumor is that Chenoweth asked him in to work on her costumes and because she wasn't happy with the quick changes in Boston. And so on a certain level, the New York actors and artists level, that sort of support theater, that rubbed people the wrong way.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. And the truth is that while William Ivy Long is a phenomenal designer, he's not the only designer out there. And so it is unfortunate that Kristen found it so imperative to the success of her performance that he. Come on. They could have brought on Greg Barnes. They could have brought on Linda Cho, like Paul Tazewell, like, it could have been a number of people.
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A
This is before the Charlie Kirk comments. And that's when I heard that news, particularly having covered that story on this podcast. That's when I thought, really, Kristin Chenoweth, with your LGBTQ fan base and the allegations that are out there, you're okay with this? Like, you can't not know what those allegations were. So that was like. My first thing was being incredibly disappointed whether she made the decision or the producers made the decision, but it was for her costumes.
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B
He was also, I will say this is further confirmation. He was at Sherry's first performance. He was in the lobby talking to production about.
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A
You saw him, William Ivy alone?
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B
I saw him in the lobby.
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A
Wow. Okay. That's new information. Wow. Okay. You and I, we're not going to be afraid of this conversation. We got to talk about what happened with Chenoweth. And this is. Everyone forgets. This is before the show has even started previews. But someone was killed who should not have been killed. But the person killed on a daily basis made very vile, abhorrent comments about every marginalized group you can imagine. The trans community, black people, gay people. And what stays in my head saying that a scripture in the Bible that says gays should be stoned to death is God's perfect law. And Ms. Chenoweth makes a social media comment expressing condolences over his death. But the infamous words are appreciated. Some perspectives of this person who was killed. And that really set people off.
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B
Yeah. There is a Weird expectation that I think celebrities have for themselves of I need to make a public statement because people are going to wonder why I didn't say something. And Chenoweth's brand for 30 years has been, I want to love as many of my neighbors as I can. This is a situation where she tried to apply that, and unfortunately for her, most of us on the Internet were too well versed in the comments and the history of Mr. Kirk, that that statement wasn't going to slide with us and in fact made us have more questions and concerns about what she meant. Because the best case scenario, the truly the best case scenario would have been that she said that without actually knowing what she was talking about. This is not necessarily about Ms. Chenoweth, but I will say this is a grand statement and I want people to hear this. Just because someone is in the arts doesn't mean they're smart.
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A
Well, I think you're right. Yeah. Many of them are in bubbles.
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B
Absolutely. And even the ones who do have intelligence, as you said. Yeah. They are in a bubble and kind of act within the world as they have known it for a while. It gets harder and harder to be self aware, to be read up on the world and to be intelligent and have emotional intelligence. The more famous and the more wealthy you get. Are you a Drag Race person, Sean?
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A
I am, but I'm not watching it this season. I had turned it on and I thought, you know what? I've had enough.
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B
You and me both.
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A
I was, but I'm like, I'm done.
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B
But the point is, is RuPaul is someone who worked very hard and went through a lot of stuff throughout his life to get to where he is. He has been wealthy and famous for a long time. And part of the interesting thing about Drag Race is a lot of these queens that have been going through more recently, the stuff that RuPaul went through 40 years ago, are kind of showing up and sort of reminding RuPaul how far he's gone and is so out of touch with what's really happening.
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A
Yeah. He almost has an Oprah out of touchness that everyone sort of gets now about her. It's like you've been rich for so long that you're out of touch.
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B
Yeah, it was. It's the goop of it all.
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A
It's the goop of it all. I like that, Matt. Yeah.
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B
I think Gwyneth was. Gwyneth Paltrow was sort of like the first celebr of my lifetime. That made. Yeah. Made us all go like, oh, movie stars. They're very wealthy and they really don't get it, do they? And I think that's true of any, especially now, where anyone can think that they're famous. Like, like there are ensemble members on Broadway who, you know, are very talented, very whatever. But like the whole point of A Chorus Line is like the ensemble is, is faceless. No one ever knows their name. And now like there are ensemble members with a hundred thousand Instagram followers and an only fans page making like bank.
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A
And perhaps got cast in that show because they had that many followers.
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B
Exactly. But this is to say, people started to. Because Chenoweth was not the only person. She wasn't even the only former Glinda to make a really tone deaf comment about Charlie Kirk. She was the most famous one. And she was the one who then did a worse job trying to follow up about what her statements meant.
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A
I mean, I do think, Matt, that her impetus to respond was because of the tragedy. And there's also a person of faith link to all of this, regardless of what we think of the man who was killed. But that was all wrapped in Christianity. I'm not going to say any more about that, but I think what you're hitting on is the point is the way she responded to it. Yeah. Because she had opportunities to respond and that made it worse. Yeah.
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B
And again, I, if I, if I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be that she made those comments, as you said, knowing the tragedy and knowing his faith and sort of leaving it at that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then when it got exposed, all the things that he, all the so called perspectives that he had that people were like, well, which one of these are the ones you appreciated? Did not respond to that. Rather, she responded to in a follow up interview with Frank Dilella.
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A
Yeah, let's get it out here, what she said. Because Frank said for members and allies in the LGBTQ community, Charlie was a controversial figure. He opposed same sex marriage, trans rights. What were you hoping to convey with that post? And her response is, I saw what happened online with my own eyes and I had a human moment of reflection. Just right then I came to understand that my comment hurt some folks and that hurt me, me so bad. It's no secret that I'm a Christian, that I'm a person of faith. It's also no secret that I'm an advocate for the LGBTQ community. And for some, that doesn't go together.
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B
Yeah. That comment doesn't address what everyone was hurt about.
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A
And it made me feel like her comment was about Her. It made her hurt so bad. Like, what about your LGBTQ fan base that has adored you rabidly so for all of your career?
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B
Yeah.
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A
That's what's so hurtful. And I did a video. I said, it's really not that hard to respond to this. You would just say, I don't agree with this thing. He said, I don't agree with this thing. He said, I don't agree with this thing. He said, see how easy that is?
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B
Yeah. Now is the time to say, like, I don't agree with X, Y, Z,
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A
and I don't agree that gay people should be stoned to death.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Not hard.
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B
Just I, I. Yeah. And I've. A lot of celebrities right now are having issues because they have products they want to sell, and they don't want to cut off potential consumers. And so they try to walk this middle ground where they answer nothing. We're seeing this with Taylor Swift a lot. She's getting called out, too. And I'm like, girl, it's just, as you said, we've been here for you for so long. We love you, we support you, and this feels like such a betrayal. So do not give us a PR statement. If you really want to speak from the heart, speak from the heart and be honest with us.
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A
Yeah. And then there's another opportunity. The week of the show opening with the Hollywood Reporter, she doesn't clear that up again. And so for me, Sean, this is where I start thinking, oh, she wants to have it both ways. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, it's not hard to clarify it and still express compassion for someone who was assassinated or express your grief for that. And then that's where I start thinking, because I haven't seen the show yet. Oh, this is a maga musical. Now, when I saw the show, I'm like, oh, it's not a maga musical. No, it's about someone who supported Trump, but it's not a maga musical. But to me, on the outside, not having seen the show that totally created that, Queen of Versailles was a maga musical. And that's what you saw a lot in social media and on message boards that they didn't want to support a maga musical.
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B
Yeah. And I. I will say I also made those comments. Not online, but, like, with friends, we would talk about it. Before I saw the show, I was like, yeah, it's the maga musical. And. And, yeah, it's. That is unfair to the show of giving it that label without seeing it. But that is ultimately the case that they made for themselves of the subject matter they were conveying. Everyone being able to read up on the woman who. It was about Chenoweth's comments and then her follow up comments. And I mean, to the team's credit, they double down on Chenoweth, not necessarily on Kirk. And they just said, you know, we know her where her heart is and we're okay with it. And like everyone else should be too.
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A
Well, that was Michael Arden's comment, right?
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B
That was his comment.
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A
Yeah. And I remember thinking, and I said this on social media. I don't know Kristin Chenoweth. I don't know her heart. I don't. I'm sure she's a nice person, but I don't know her heart and I still don't know what she meant by that comment.
- [20:06]
B
And that's sort of the thing of everyone. They're trying to sell a Broadway show, they're trying to sell 1600 seats a night and they want this to go away. But they also, they don't want like, I think in. Ultimately what everybody wanted was like, can we, how quickly can we sweep this under the rug? Can we just like get this over so we can open our show and just sort of everything they did, it didn't necessarily make it worse, but it never made it any better.
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A
Well, this is where you have to start wondering a. Who was advising Chena with. Because whoever she has, she needs to fire them. And who was advising the show? Who was. Because in terms of asset protection and asset management of a Broadway show, they could not have handled it worse.
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B
Yeah, it's. I always come back to. There's that line in Social Network that Rooney Mares says the Internet isn't written in pencil, it's written in ink. And that's. And that's just true. Even if you delete something, it can get. Especially if you have a million followers like Chana with does someone's going to screenshot that within the first five seconds, no matter what. And you have to remember that every time you post, think to yourself, is this something I'm okay tattooing on my body? Yeah.
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A
And the whole thing is just so confusing too, because I've seen a TikTok where Kristen Chenoweth was telling us to vote for Kamala Harris before the election. I know someone else who said she did a fundraiser for her. So the whole thing is just so perplexing and such a hot mess. And I just think there was a way to handle this, to smooth this out. And yeah, it wasn't done. Okay. So let's talk about another phenomenon, Matt.
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B
Sure.
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A
The preview starts and, man, it is getting trashed on social media, the show message boards, wherever. And this is not unique to the Queen of Versailles. This is a problem that every show happens to have to face now. Right. You can't wait till the reviews come out on opening night. You're getting reviewed by the public in a. A really substantial way by various forms of media. And the Queen of Versailles is taking a looking, right?
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B
No, it was social media. Reviews are really hard to parse because everybody wants to be first, everyone wants to be best, everyone wants to be loudest. And I do not envy a Broadway production that's trying to get the kinks out in front of paying audiences with social media around.
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A
Yeah, I don't either.
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B
There are shows like Queen of Versailles, like Bad Cinderella, like In My Life, even like Merrily We Roll along the original time back in the 80s, that become a Broadway punching bag. They become the show that has been generally agreed upon from fans from the community. Oh, we can make fun of this show openly. We can come for it.
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A
I think Punching bag really keys into something because, you know, everyone is so angry right now, obviously, the horrors of what we're going through as a nation, people dissatisfied with Broadway and opportunities. Scott Rudin coming back. And I think there was something about needing a punching bag, whether it was deserved or not. Perhaps it was. And they found that in the Queen of Versailles.
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B
Yeah. I have felt, honestly, since the 2016 election that that has become a case for a lot of Broadway and film of there's a villain of some sort that everybody zeroes in on because there's so much that we don't have any control about in the world at large and our own country right now. But we do have control over how everyone views this work. We do have control over smearing the reputation of said show. So it closes and its closing becomes a moral victory, a political victory, if you will.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I don't think that's. That's necessarily fair to that show, but I understand where a lot of that energy comes from. It doesn't help that the show wasn't. I think it would have been more tragic of. The show was good. Yeah. But I think what. Also the punching Bag of Versailles, because part of it is. Yes, it's what we were saying of sort of everything outside of Broadway and that energy needing a target. There's also. With Broadway, the punching bag is. And I'm saying this now because I've been drafting an article for my own Substack that by the time this comes out, it will absolutely be out. And I have absolute faith in myself that I will have finished it by then. I'm not a procrastinator at all. I don't know what you're talking about,
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A
but I. I can't wait for that, Matt.
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B
But it's. There are certain factors that go into it, which is that it has to be a show that has not been well received overall. It has to be a show that has a couple of key Broadway figures involved with it. There has to be a sense of hubris about the show, and there has to be something that doesn't appeal to people on a level that's not just artistic. And for something like bad Cinderella, it was, we're taking Angel Lloyd Webber down a peg with Merrily We Roll along at the time, and Sondheim said this himself, it was Broadway wanted to take down Sondheim and Hal Prince a peg because they had had so much artistic success. And everyone was like, who do these guys think they are that they can just do whatever they want? And there is also now an energy of toxic positivity in the theater community because everybody wants to work. Nobody wants a bad reputation. Everyone wants to be a team player. And that's totally fine. I get that. But there's such little artistic discourse now.
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A
Yeah. Intelligent discourse.
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B
Yeah. And nothing can just be like, oh, this doesn't work. And let's talk about it. It has to be, this thing is morally reprehensible. It is politically unsound. And I. It. It needs to close now because of xyz, rather than, here's where this show fails on a score level. Here's why this actor is miscast. Because then it becomes, why are you being mean? Why are you being negative? It's so hard to do a Broadway show. And that leads us nowhere. Because everybody wants to make a good show. Stephen Schwartz didn't aim to make a bad musical. But because people are not able to have those conversations right now, when there is an opportunity to then just openly go like, oh, I do have something that I have the opportunity now to say something negative here and not get filleted for it, people do it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And do with such a fervor that I don't think they would do if they had the opportunity in shows past to openly have that kind of discourse.
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A
So you brought me up to the. The next event in the timeline. Well done, Matt.
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B
Thank you.
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A
The show opens early November. The reviews come out, and except for the New York Times, they're mostly negative to mixed. And two weeks later, the show announces it's closing. And then for a lot of people, there is a celebration online of this show closing, which is not cool. You know, it's not cool to celebrate so many people who will not have jobs. But this is what I have an issue with. There's this segment that says what you were saying, that you can't even criticize a show that has faults because you're celebrating or you're working for that show's demise versus. Look, we're not sycophants. It's like, it's okay to have critical thinking about art and to express that, and you want that. Otherwise, everything's just gonna be shit.
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B
Yeah. I don't trust anyone who is a fan of a pop star and cannot name a single song of theirs that they don't like, because then you're no longer an artistic fan. You're a cult follower. Because that's just sort of a numbers game. If someone's truly a great artist, they're gonna make a bold swing and they're not gonna hit it every time, and that's okay. And it doesn't make you love them any less. It doesn't mean you don't love the art any less. But, yeah, it becomes this whole, well, why are you a hater? Shouldn't we be supporting all art? I'm like, I'm supporting it by seeing it and giving it my full attention. Turning my phone off, not eating food. Like, when I go see a show, Sean, I am locked in. I am the best audience member.
- [28:21]
A
I'm sure you are.
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B
Thank you. But, like, and then I walk out and I go, okay, here's why I didn't like Back to the Future. And everyone's like, can you just support Broadway?
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A
Yes. I mean, some people have said that about this podcast. It's like, if you're pointing out the problems with the industry, you're not supporting Broadway. Yeah.
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B
But also, like, does supporting Broadway mean I have to turn a blind eye to all of the things that could be made better?
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A
Fuck, no. Yeah, like, there's. It's.
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B
There's the.
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A
Well, this is the toxic positivity what you were talking about. And that is just. I could do a whole episode about toxic positivity.
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B
You could do many seasons on it. Sean. Come on.
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A
We could do the toxic positivity season of Stage Combat, the podcast.
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B
I genuinely love theater. I have so many friends working in the community. I'm somewhat working in the community still. So when I talk about Things I don't like or things that didn't work for me. I try not to do it with a super hateful tone. I'll be a little snarky sometimes. I've been called out for being snarky. But just, shouldn't we be able to talk about it? Why are we not allowed to talk about it?
- [29:21]
A
Look. Yeah. And if you can't recognize critically, you know, what doesn't work and what does work in a work of art or with performances, and you're an artist, you're really missing something because that's going to make you a better artist, Right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Okay, so then there's another thing that happens in the Queen of Versailles saga. So unfortunately, two weeks after opening Closing Notice is posted is going to close January 4th, the Starkey people were saying, why isn't it closing January 6th? But we did not say that.
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B
It was a good joke, though. I was like, come on, that was funny.
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A
It wasn't a maga musical. But then what you start to see is a backlash to the backlash, because the vitriol towards Chenoweth, I did see it really going too far. I mean, they were calling her a Nazi. I mean, there was just really, really nasty things being said about her. And finally you start to see the backlash to the backlash. And, like, everything. Everything goes too far. Right.
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B
Absolutely. And when you go that loud and that harsh, the genuine points you're trying to make or the actual. The argument that is worth having becomes irrelevant. And the people who need to have the argument with you aren't going to hear you anymore because you've gone too far.
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A
Yeah. And I tell you what, where I really started to feel it was for the cast of the show. Who's the actor who played the daughter?
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B
Nina White.
- [30:49]
A
Yeah. I remember seeing her post on Instagram and it said, come see our show or don't. And I saw a couple of kind of sad posts like that from some of the cast members. And I started thinking, all of this is affecting these people that have to go through that stage door and muster themselves up to do a show that they know probably know is not great and that has so much hate thrust upon it. And I kind of started because, you know, my soapbox is the lack of mental health support for productions. Right. And if anything, this is where you really need someone who's part of the production team, who is a mental health coordinator or mental health person to provide some support for what this cast was going through with this frenzy being hurled at it, you know, And I was really feeling for the cast.
- [31:42]
B
Yeah. And first of all, everyone who's making these comments online and making these posts, in a lot of ways, they are faceless people with nothing to lose who have no skin in any of this game, of course. And. Yeah, and. And do not have to go up eight times a week to show their face and give it their all. That's the part that I don't understand of, like, you and I saying, let's talk about why this show maybe doesn't work or why the timing was wrong or all this stuff we. We become. Or like, us saying, hey, there's a lot of toxicity on Broadway in terms of, like, backstage antics, and we're being told, why can't you just support Broadway? But then those same people then, like, flood the comment section of, like, of the third swing in Queen of Versailles post about being sad about closing, being like, serves your right for working with a Nazi. I'm like, I'm sorry, how is that supportive of the person who's going to lose health weeks next year? Like, yeah, what are we. What is that about?
- [32:34]
A
And let's just note that even sadder, the show closes earlier than it was originally announced. So it closes December 21st with a whimper. You know, I also just want to say, unfortunately, I don't think the ill feelings towards Kristin Chenoweth are going to go away soon.
- [32:53]
B
Not anytime soon.
- [32:55]
A
I feel like it's baked in for right now, and it's. It's going to take something or some sort of action set of actions from her to. To heal that. It just. The comments I still see, people are still really angry even a few months out from the closing of the show.
- [33:11]
B
Yeah. And I absolutely understand that. I. What I'll say is that she got a very major commercial beating from this. From this show. The only person who came out of Queen of Versailles with a better profile was Sherri Renee Scott.
- [33:24]
A
Sherri Renee Scott.
- [33:25]
B
Yeah.
- [33:26]
A
Yeah. Okay, Matt Koplik, where are we at the end of this? What did we learn from the Queen of Versailles? What have we learned that's dust? What have we learned? Have we learned anything? Maybe we didn't learn anything.
- [33:38]
B
Can you genuinely tell me that Hollywood or Broadway learns anything from any success or failure?
- [33:45]
A
No.
- [33:46]
B
Yeah. Any success that happens, they just try to replicate it as closely as possible, and any failure, they chalk up to the fluke of the times. And I think with Queen of Versailles, if Queen of Versailles maybe has taught us anything, which I feel like shouldn't be that much of a lesson, but I feel like we keep Having to remind ourselves, is that the New York Times giving you a critics pick does nothing. Does nothing. Especially now.
- [34:15]
A
Well, it's the waning influence of legacy media. Right.
- [34:18]
B
Well, it's also that media itself. Yes. Because now that we have social media, we can hear word of mouth from people early on. It's also now that content from shows gets out faster, and we see more of shows now wherever we are. So someone in Australia who's coming to New York in a few weeks can go on TikTok and see a clip from Queen of Versailles and go, well, that's a piece of crap. And then they'll read the New York Times critics pick, and that won't make them go, oh, maybe I should give this a second chance. They'll go, no, I saw that clip with my own eyes. I don't want to see that.
- [34:48]
A
Okay, Matt, here's what I think we learned. Correct. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not every story should be musical.
- [34:58]
B
Yeah.
- [34:59]
A
Is that good? Okay.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [35:01]
A
Don't hire William Ivy Long, but I have a feeling you're going to anyway.
- [35:05]
B
Yeah. Maybe look for. See who else is around first. I know he's. I know, I know he's good.
- [35:11]
A
See who else can be good. He's not the only one. Yeah. Celebrities and producers get better at asset management and protection and do better in responding to a crisis.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah, I would agree with that.
- [35:26]
A
And then the last of this. I mean, there's no solution for this, Matt, but it's. The mob mentality of social media is not going to go away. And I don't know what we do about that. I think individually, we can choose not to be a part of that mob, and I think we have to continue to encourage intelligent discourse in the name of not succumbing to toxic positivity.
- [35:51]
B
Absolutely. I think that. Yeah, I think that's a great way to put that.
- [35:56]
A
Matt Koplik. We did learn a few things. God bless.
- [36:01]
B
I thought I was gonna end today having learned nothing, so thank you for that, Sean.
- [36:13]
A
Coming up on the next episode of Stage, the podcast, we're talking about everyone's favorite Canadian gay hockey show, heated rivalry, and how intimacy directors and coordinators help actors perform intimate scenes. And we've got intimacy director Nicole Perry to break it all down for us, because if the choreography doesn't tell the story, like, what's the point? Yeah. And I think that's what's so good about heated rivalry and why people are watching it, like, two, three, four times. Because the first time I watched it with my husband, I was like, oh damn, there's a lot of sex here. But when I saw the whole story and then when I went back, I was like, oh wow. Every sex scene, every move was part of the story. Like it was deliberate and it was intentional. Because we should always be learning something about the character. Even if what we're learning is like, who they like to have sex with, how they like to have sex. Like we're learning something about the character. That's coming up. He did rivalry and how actors perform sex scenes.
- [37:24]
B
I just want to be in this.
- [37:30]
A
So what do you think you learned from the Queen of Versailles experience? You may not agree with everything Matt and I had to say, and that's okay. Just let us know your thoughts. Send us a DM at Instagram tagecombatthepodcast ig where you can also follow us or email us@stagecombatthepodcastmail.com and don't forget to check out Matt Koplik's amazing podcast Broadway Breakdown. You can hear bonus content and more of my conversation with with Matt Koplik plus insider information about this episode at Stage Combat at Patreon. Just follow the link in the show notes. If you believe in the meaningful content we are producing, you can support us for just $5 a month so we can produce more episodes for you. And there's no commitment. Enjoy the bonus content you want to explore for a month or maybe three months or throughout the year. And if you are an existing Patreon member, thank you for making this podcast happen. This episode was edited by Alex Griffith, mixing and sound design or by Justin Gerrish. This episode was written and directed by me, Sean Hayden for Heywood Productions llc. Hey, be sure to hit follow on your podcast platform. Do it right now so you don't miss a single episode of Stagecoach Combat. And while you're there, why not rate us five stars and leave us a review to let others know what this podcast means to you. I hope today and every day brings you an opportunity to claim your story. Stage Combat is a production of Heywood Productions llc.