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[0:00] Joe Iconis: Hey everybody, I'm Joe Iconis. And I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And on today's show we're going to be talking about "Play the Princess," which is a song that I wrote that's about theater and art and music and society's perception of us and the boxes that society places us in. And also it was cut for my musical "Blood Song of Love." Who doesn't love a cut song? Cut songs are like the secret gems of musical theater. And this one is performed by the great Destinee Rea and L Morgan Lee. So killer duet. Everyone's gonna want to hear this one. Duet. "Play the Princess." So this is a song that sort of is cut from a musical of yours.

[0:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It was like truly, I don't have a lot of those. I feel like I don't have a lot of like proper trunk songs. Or I don't have a lot of ones that can be performed outside the musical because when I write a song for a musical, it tends to be so deliriously like specific, you know, that you can't really take it out of the musical. But this one you sure can. Yeah. And so this was originally written for "Blood Song of Love." And what happened was that "Blood Song of Love" is in its current form or the form that it, you know, arrived at at Ars Nova is a musical that is a rock and roll spaghetti western musical. And it's about this man who's known only as the musician and his wife, Santa Violeta, has been kidnapped and he's trying to get her back. And it's sort of this show about a, you know, a quest and finding your tribe and following your heart and all this kind of stuff that operates fully in the world of spaghetti westerns.

[2:03] Joe Iconis: Initially, my conception of the show was it was half that, the spaghetti western musical, and then half the story of the actual actors who were putting on this musical. And the conceit was that it was this group of actors who were performing this show called "Blood Song of Love" in this theater that was going to be torn down tomorrow. And they were all at different places in their lives and sort of coming to terms with it. They wanted to continue making theater, continue to be in the world of art, or do other things, or sell out, or all this stuff. And their personal troubles or their personal issues were sort of explored in this spaghetti western that they were putting on. So, it was telling these two different stories.

And so, as I was in development at Ars Nova with it, you know, we did a few readings. And then at a certain point, Ars Nova, who was really amazing, Jason Egan and Emily Schultz, they were the sort of, you know, creative forces there who were working with myself and director John Simpkins on the show. And they basically said, look, we really like the spaghetti western stuff, and we don't quite like as much all the other stuff. You know, they were like, this half of the musical is right on. And initially, I was like, this is garbage. This is, you know, this isn't what I want to do. I'm an artist, and I want to tell the story of the people and all that. But what they said, which was so correct, was that we think you can tell all the stuff you want to tell about the actual people, all the stuff you want to say about art and about sticking together, you can do it through the spaghetti western musical.

And so I rewrote the show, and I was able to say all the things I wanted to say. And of course, it was 10 million times better, and it felt 10 million times more authentic to write a spaghetti western musical than to like have it be half and half. But the casualty of all of that was this song, "Play the Princess," which I tried to make work in the context of the spaghetti western musical, but I just couldn't because it is so explicitly about actors, about female actors. And it made perfect sense in the world of, you know, actors putting on a musical, and it just did not make sense in the world of like, you know, spaghetti western cowboys and murderous prostitutes and all that. It just wasn't jiving.

[4:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Was it, so a few things, did it always have the title "Blood Song of Love"? Did it have a different subtitle or title when it was the original version?

[4:54] Joe Iconis: So it was always called the Untitled Spaghetti Western Project. And then it was, so what I, so it was always called that. And so I never really knew what I was going to call the whole thing. And then the musical they were doing was called "Blood Song of Love." And it was in the context of the original piece, "Blood Song of Love" was adapted from an Italian spaghetti western by Dario Donati, I think was the name I made up, right? But I made it up. And so I always, and I actually now regret not doing this, but I always thought it would be fun to pretend that "Blood Song of Love" was based on an old spaghetti western made by a director who I created. And I regret not doing it. I actually think the show might have been received slightly better in some ways if it was a lie adaptation.

[5:56] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: That's interesting.

[5:57] Joe Iconis: Yeah, I still might do that for something.

[5:59] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I also think, no, I never thought of that as being like, oh, like if you get to do "Blood Song" again, which hopefully you will, that would be a really cool revision.

[6:07] Joe Iconis: Yeah.

[6:08] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna say it's based on something.

[6:10] Joe Iconis: Was there other cut material that was like full songs? Like, were there full songs that were cut and also it was the same exact actors, right?

[6:14] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It was the same exact, yes, it was the same exact actors. And so the actors played themselves in the other half, right? And so like the, we'll call it the backstage half. So the backstage half, it was Jason, MK, Katrina, Jeremy, all those people. The one exception was Eric Lee Morris in the backstage half played a character named Christian.

[6:46] Joe Iconis: Oh my God, I forgot his last name. I'm gonna pretend I'm not upset about this, but like, do I even have a recording of this? I definitely saw it once, but it was before the age when I was like saving copies of everything you did. I hope that you have a recording.

[6:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I have a bootleg recording of it. Yeah. I haven't thought about it in so long. But the conceit of it was that it was all these actors and then Jason was supposed to play the musician and the theater made Eric play, Christian play it because he was famous. He was like a famous musical theater person. And Lance, his story was that he was contemplating whether or not to leave the troupe because he was just cast in "Iron Man: The Musical."

[7:32] Joe Iconis: Because it was like right after the Spider-Man time and that was his like struggle and everyone, you know, and it was his the main, the main, you know, head-butting thing was him and Jason and Jason was like how could you sell out how could you not want to make our art you know on our shitty downtown theaters and you want to go be in this big, you know, sellout Broadway musical. So there were other songs? There were other songs so there was so the name of their theater troupe essentially was the Jamboree and so there was a song called I Believe and the chorus was I believe oh I believe oh I believe in Jamboree. I remember this now. And so yeah so it was like this other opening number another song that I wrote for the show that would have been in the spaghetti western world but ended up being cut because the character never really made it past the song was Girl Your Days Are Numbered which we've done in concert a little bit it's a kind of strange like country rock song and the idea behind that song was that they, the musician and banana get captured by this like lunatic who was gonna who's gonna grind their face up with a washboard it's like a like a sharpened washboard he's gonna grind their face and they get out of it and he was singing to them by singing Girl Your Days Are Numbered.

Yeah I think those are the only, the only ones that got sliced. I'm surprised that I Believe in Jamboree has never made it into like the beginning of a concert or something. Yeah I know I have to revisit it it was one that was kind of cut and it kind of could be yeah I don't know why I don't know why I haven't come back. So Play the Princess is sung by the original cast members Katrina Rose Diedrichson and MK Lawson. Yes. Do you want to talk about the performance on the album?

[9:24] Joe Iconis: Yeah the performance on the album is it's the great Destinee Rea and L Morgan Lee and Destinee is an actor who I've worked with several times and I just think she's great she's just incredible her voice is so stunning and she's so weird she's weird in the best way in the way that you know.

[9:46] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Weirdo in the good way.

[9:46] Joe Iconis: Yeah yeah yes and I love that she like many of the actors who I love either as you know just as a fan or as a collaborator she's you can't put her in a box you know there's she's not a type which is something that probably has been unhelpful to her insofar as like you know her professional life but it's something that I think it is such an asset because she's you know she's not this and she's not this and she's not this because what she is is a human being and she's you know like so many things and and sort of similarly with with L Morgan who I've been a fan of for years obviously from her work in Strange Loop and other things and have just always wanted to work with her and I thought she would be a really great partner for Destinee in the song but L Morgan also is kind of like typeless you know and and I really like the idea of having these two actors who do not fulfill the role of you know like the princess or the sidekick um singing about how they feel like they do because I think that's the I think that's really what the song is you know it's these it's like two women who feel like why does she get to do that why does she get to do that I wish I was that or I was that when in fact they both they both are they they both are just just as you know traditional as the other one and both and and both just as non-traditional as the other one you know it's like it's yeah does that make sense?

[11:55] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah totally.

[11:55] Joe Iconis: Um I hope that we get the chance to see Destinee and L Morgan do it live at some point.

[12:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I know I know me too and they're you know the vocals are so like they're just gorgeous they're so nuts and and um and the two of them I think sound so so beautiful together and and you know something it's um obviously I wrote the song a long, a long time ago and and I like it but it always you know I never want it to feel like I don't want it to feel like like catty you know I feel like a lot of times when you have in musical theater especially when there's a song with two women and they're singing about the business or something there's always this sense of like you know it's like anything you can do I can do better which is not a song for two women but it's that kind of like you know if you have a song with two women they're competitive yeah and it's not it's not that and it's so you know and it really feels like it's it's it's it's it's they're not fighting with each other they're they're fighting with themselves and they're fighting with with the what they think is the perception of them you know um they're fighting with the the image that's been placed on them and so I I wanted that to come across in the song and I think that their performances uh just do that you know there's no there's no sense of like I'm gonna outdo you vocally or whatever with it it really feels like these are two women who are struggling with something you know in and of themselves and they just happen to fit together and I'd hope that like you know them sounding so gorgeous together uh helps helps get across the point that they're they're they're actually not in competition they're just you know they're feeling the same thing right you know they can both do lots of things yeah they're in harmony play the princess play the princess.

[13:38] Joe Iconis: Hey thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast uh do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast more ways to watch more ways to listen and check out my album album thanks so much for hanging out album podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong produced by Dory Berenstein, Alan Seales, Kim Garris and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.

[14:30] Joe Iconis: Hey everybody I'm Joe Iconis and I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper and on today's show we're going to be talking about Play the Princess which is a song that I wrote that's about theater and music and society's perception of nope society as I said sir society great society that sounds like a great new word sir society come on that's like relevant yeah I should I should remember that and put it in a in a post or on a t-shirt or something society or it's like a good uh it's a good drag name.