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[0:01] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow is being written today.

[0:10] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow is almost ready to play.

[0:18] Joe Barros: Experience the musicals of tomorrow today.

[0:21] Joe Barros: Get a glimpse inside the blueprint of an original musical being developed in real time.

[0:26] Joe Barros: With New York Theatre Barn's podcast, The Musicals of Tomorrow.

[0:32] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow.

[0:40] Joe Barros: I'm Joe Barros.

[0:42] Jen Sandler: And I'm Jen Sandler.

[0:44] Joe Barros: And we're the hosts of The Musicals of Tomorrow.

[0:46] Joe Barros: As the artistic director and associate artistic director of New York Theatre Barn, we make space to speak in community with musical theatre writers and their creative teams.

[0:56] Joe Barros: Lifting up songs from original culture-shifting musicals in development and introducing them to a global audience has become a major part of New York Theatre Barn's evolving story.

[1:06] Joe Barros: Each original musical's intention, content, and journey are unique and extraordinary to the storytellers who create them.

[1:14] Joe Barros: We believe that there is no formula for musical theatre except authenticity.

[1:20] Joe Barros: We recently spoke with The Lightning Thief's Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer and Tony nominee Joe Iconis about their new musicals Experience Marianas and Love in Hate Nation.

[1:33] Joe Barros: Experience Marianas has a book by Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer and music and lyrics by Rob Rokicki.

[1:41] Joe Barros: Experience Marianas is a wild, sapphic rock musical adventure about one woman's journey to escape an oceanic cult.

[1:49] Joe Barros: The piece is a high-octane, darkly comedic examination of systems of control and how we struggle to define our identities within them.

[1:59] Joe Barros: Set aboard a ship, the show immerses our audience into the Marianas Institute, an aquatic healing center.

[2:06] Joe Barros: Informational sessions start off completely plausible but get progressively wilder and more fantastical, complete with pyramid schemes, sex rituals, sea monsters, and eventually murder.

[2:20] Joe Barros: And now here's our conversation with the writers of Experience Marianas, Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer.

[2:28] Rob Rokicki: Hi!

[2:29] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Hello!

[2:31] Jen Sandler: We're so happy to have you both here with us.

[2:33] Jen Sandler: Sarah, you are a writer, actor, and director. You made your Broadway debut as Clarice in The Lightning Thief, the Percy Jackson musical, and also played the same role off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theater and in the TheatreWorks USA national tour prior to its Broadway bow.

[2:49] Jen Sandler: You're also a core member of Marissa Michelson's Constellation Corps and a prolific voiceover artist.

[2:55] Jen Sandler: We had the privilege of lifting up Marissa's show Tomorrow of the River, so we know how thrilling and exciting the work she's doing.

[3:04] Jen Sandler: And for those of you who don't know, corps is about the core of our soul but is also referencing choreography and movement and the energy within us.

[3:15] Jen Sandler: And Marissa works in a really incredible, inventive, and inspired way, so I'm excited that you're working with her.

[3:22] Jen Sandler: Rob, you were the composer, lyricist, and co-orchestrator of the Broadway musical The Lightning Thief. The initial off-Broadway adaptation was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award, an Off-Broadway Alliance, and three Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical, before launching tours across North America.

[3:40] Jen Sandler: Your musical Monster Songs received a world premiere recording from Broadway Records, was an official selection of NAMMD, and has played London and Japan.

[3:49] Jen Sandler: You're also co-arranging and orchestrating Punk Rock Girl with your friend, frequent collaborator, and fellow guest here tonight, Mr. Joe Iconis.

[3:59] Joe Iconis: Who?

[4:00] Jen Sandler: You're also one of five writing teams involved in an upcoming musical with book writers Jodi Picoult and Tim McDonald, and I'm also one of the directors on that project, collaborating with writers Dan Mertzloff and Kate Leonard.

[4:16] Jen Sandler: New York Theatre Barn had the privilege of getting to lift up Rob's work in 2009, and I was excited about the energy of the songwriting, the rich melodic lines, and the humor that was infused.

[4:29] Jen Sandler: So, Rob and Sarah, when did you decide to collaborate together, and what inspired you to want to tell this really interesting story together?

[4:36] Rob Rokicki: Well, Sarah Beth was in one of the original workshop productions of The Lightning Thief.

[4:42] Rob Rokicki: She was in the mini tour, the minute tour, right? That's what we called our mini first tour.

[4:46] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Yes.

[4:47] Rob Rokicki: And then you basically…

[4:49] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: And then I got cut from it when that shorter version of The Lightning Thief got to have a runoff Broadway, and Rob felt bad, so he asked me to come help him workshop a show we just heard songs from.

[5:02] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: It was called Relativity, now it's called 1111, at a super cool writer's retreat called The Pitch, because he needed somebody who could, you know, felt relatively high and, you know…

[5:17] Rob Rokicki: And I needed a good dramaturg, and honestly, she had had such good insights when we were working together, and I just, you know, I needed somebody who could sing, and somebody who could kind of keep my other writing partner and I in check, Mike Ruby and I, to be like, to really, like, shake up what we were working on that show.

[5:36] Rob Rokicki: And we really did rip that show apart and put it back together, and I'm really proud of how that came out.

[5:42] Rob Rokicki: But yeah, we came fast friends out of that, and then we took a road trip together to Colorado and wanted to find, like, a project that we both felt really inspired by.

[5:52] Rob Rokicki: I wanted to write a musical about the Rajneeth Puram. This was before the Netflix series had come out, and we both started talking a little bit about cults, and we found we originally wanted to write a vehicle for ourselves, and then, like all things, when you start diving into a project, things just get exponentially bigger, you know, and the world that we created and the rules of as we were researching different kinds of cults, we suddenly found ourselves wanting to create kind of our own version of what that might look like and how everyday people, smart people, people from good, you know, family lives and things like that, that will still end up getting indoctrinated or radicalized.

[6:38] Rob Rokicki: And so that's kind of what the impetus started out with. We listened to a lot of great, great different podcasts and did a lot of research over the last couple of years on the show.

[6:48] Jen Sandler: Tell us more about your research to craft something as layered as the show.

[6:51] Rob Rokicki: Oh, man. Well, Sarah, you know, my favorite one was Glenn Washington's podcast about Heaven's Gate. I think it's fascinating.

[6:59] Rob Rokicki: And Glenn Washington, who is on NPR, it's interesting because he was born in an evangelical white nationalist church, but his family is black.

[7:08] Rob Rokicki: So it was very interesting to like his perspective. And he had kind of unprecedented access to family members and people who had survived Heaven's Gate.

[7:17] Rob Rokicki: And it's a phenomenal series. So you should watch that. You get to listen to it if you get a chance.

[7:22] Rob Rokicki: But yeah, I mean, cults, I think we all have like a deep fascination with cults, right? Once you start researching them, you know, you do start to see that there's kind of there's one pattern that just repeats itself over and over again.

[7:37] Rob Rokicki: And then also, you know, when you go beyond the act, the extreme organizations that you would call cults, you can also kind of see those patterns in other aspects of society, you know, perhaps from pulpits as large as the presidency.

[7:55] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Or as small as your soul cycle class.

[7:58] Rob Rokicki: Right, exactly. You know, or any neighborhood church or musical theater college. I feel like we all have a friend that was in a cult in college, whether we want to admit it or not.

[8:14] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Well, that's part of it.

[8:16] Rob Rokicki: I did. And what's fascinating is as we've done research over a couple of years and when we did, we were able to do a workshop, some developmental work, a large workshop at Cap 21, Molloy College.

[8:27] Rob Rokicki: And, you know, when we were doing research there, there were former students, former teachers and things that had told us about their experience in cults.

[8:36] Rob Rokicki: The more you just. Thanks, Jeff. The more you do research, the more you interview people. People who had left culture, families had been a part of them. The more you find out just how prevalent they are all around us.

[8:51] Rob Rokicki: And Sarah Beth and I were creating like the rules of our kind of our cult aboard this this kind of ship. And we made up the most insane things about the leader and these things. And then literally the NXIVM cult broke that story. And things that we had made up were absolutely true.

[9:09] Rob Rokicki: Things that you just couldn't even like have predicted that we were like, we'll fabricate this outlandish thing. We're like, they're branding each other and having these like sex rituals. And it's this hierarchy of power and they're calling him daddy and like all these. And you're like, oh, yeah, that that happened. Absolutely.

[9:26] Rob Rokicki: So it's or like weird things like he or we said our guy is a Capoeira master. And Keith Ranieri, sure enough, he was a judo master, but, you know, in middle school. But the the the lies that kind of the leaders can take on that the fantasy world that they create, that people that they believe and then they self-perpetuate and then people continue to perpetuate is interesting to us.

[9:56] Jen Sandler: So let's talk about the first song we're going to hear tonight.

[9:59] Rob Rokicki: Yeah. So this song. So I promise you, this show is very funny. This show should be funny and upsetting. That's kind of what we like as our kind of marketing tagline.

[10:11] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Yeah. Yeah. We bring up like Little Shop a lot in trying to manage the tone of our show and not let it get too dark while still confronting ideas that are very dark.

[10:22] Rob Rokicki: You know. Yeah. I feel like some of my favorite shows do that very well. Many of Mr. Icon's shows do that very well. Shows like How Big and the Angry Inch do that very well.

[10:31] Rob Rokicki: So this song is called We Just Want to Know. And it's from the point of view of the family members. It's kind of it's a break in the action sort of window. You zoom out and see the world outside of the organization.

[10:47] Rob Rokicki: And these are actually based on many real interviews of family members that were leaving messages for their loved ones that were still inside.

[10:55] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: But Rob and I will be playing all the different family members, just the two of us.

[11:04] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Since you left, Mom's kept your room the same. Since you left, Mom thinks that she's to blame.

[11:10] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: And she cleans the clean house like she's scrubbing away some sin.

[11:16] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Did I do something? Say something. Something wrong is not like whenever we were getting along.

[11:22] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: But no letter, no nothing. No nothing's to it.

[11:28] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: And we just want to know where you are. Are you eating all right? Do they know all about your diet restrictions?

[11:40] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: We just want to know if you're safe. Are they treating you well? Are you happy and loved? Are you still?

[11:52] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Since you left, Dad's been drinking out of watering holes. Since you left, Dad's been thinking about damage control.

[12:03] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Cause he won't let me, won't let me say your name out loud. Do you need something? Say something. Something more.

[12:12] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: You're so changed. I don't know who I'm leaving this for. Are you scared? Are you mad? Are you just being too damn proud?

[12:20] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: And we just want to know you're okay. Are you making nice friends? Do they know all about your aversion to chocolate?

[12:32] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: We just want to know if you're safe. Are they treating you well? Are you happy and loved? Are you still alive?

[12:48] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Are you ever coming, are you ever coming home? Are you ever coming? Are you ever coming? Are you ever coming home?

[13:04] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Are you ever coming? Are you ever coming? Are you ever coming home?

[13:14] Rob Rokicki: So one thing I just thought about, you know, you're interviewing people to be a part of this show, and you're using the people's characters or all the characters, you know, compositions of a bunch of people together.

[13:25] Rob Rokicki: I feel like it's always so interesting when you do shows like this where you interview real people. I mean, a lot of it was based on it's all loosely based. We're not like taking things verbatim. We're taking, obviously, artistic license. But it is strange how much things that you see patterns. And this is, you know, Sarah really brings up a lot of these cycles that we see throughout different organizations.

[13:50] Joe Iconis: He is also the co-founder and co-producer of Love In Hate. He is also the co-founder and co-producer of Love In Hate. He is also the co-founder and co-producer of Love In Hate. He is also the co-founder and co-producer of Love In Hate.

[15:27] Joe Iconis: And he is also the co-founder and co-creator of Love In Hate.

[15:57] Joe Iconis: He is also the co-founder and co-creator of Love In Hate.

[16:57] Joe Iconis: And he is also the co-creator and co-producer of Love In Hate.

[17:07] Joe Iconis: And he is also the co-creator and co-producer of Love In Hate.

[17:17] Joe Iconis: It's called Answers.

[17:20] Joe Iconis: And it kind of deals with exactly what we were just talking about. It is one of the last songs in the show.

[17:25] Joe Iconis: And no spoilers, but, you know, ship's gone down. And the main character, his name is F.B., who has been leading the cult sort of in Daddy Davis' absence, has sort of had her dark night of the soul moment and realized that what they're doing there is not good, but perhaps that realization comes too late. And so there's action going on on stage with all the rest of the cult members, and she's sort of singing this song over top to sort of comment on and narrate that action.

[18:01] Joe Iconis: On your street, in your hometown

[18:11] Joe Iconis: They put up posters of missing cats

[18:19] Joe Iconis: On your street, where they know you

[18:24] Joe Iconis: Your mom kept your room exactly the same

[18:32] Joe Iconis: I was searching for answers

[18:39] Joe Iconis: You gave me one

[18:46] Joe Iconis: I was searching

[18:49] Joe Iconis: I found answers that now I can't outrun

[18:59] Joe Iconis: Back on land, there's a postman

[19:05] Joe Iconis: He'll take a package out to your town

[19:13] Joe Iconis: And your home, they will get the letter saying

[19:20] Joe Iconis: I am happy, I am happy

[19:26] Joe Iconis: I am happy on my way down

[19:33] Joe Iconis: I was searching for answers

[19:40] Joe Iconis: Then I met you

[19:47] Joe Iconis: I was searching, I was hoping

[19:53] Joe Iconis: Look what these answers made us do

[19:59] Joe Iconis: The end, the end, the end, the end

[20:04] Joe Iconis: The end, the end, the end, the end

[20:10] Joe Iconis: There's no beginning

[20:17] Joe Iconis: The end, the end, the end, the end

[20:22] Joe Iconis: There's no beginning

[20:31] Joe Iconis: I love how you talk about 80s music, but I also really feel the liturgical music, and I understand why it's there now. And I feel like, you know, you really understand the seduction of music and how music can seduce and how it sort of plays into the way that a cult could seduce somebody. We had so many great conversations while we were working on this show, and it was really collaborative. And to hear from young people who I think are the most susceptible, because you're finding your identity. You're trying to find who you are in your early, you know, late teens, early 20s, and that's when somebody can offer you direction, guidance, whatever, and it can go awry if you don't have a strong foundation of self that can get taken away from you.

[21:23] Joe Iconis: Our second new musical is Love and Hate Nation, which has book music and lyrics by Joe Iconis. Set in a 1960s juvie hall, Love and Hate Nation tells the story of young delinquents caught between eras of a changing America. Sixteen-year-old Susanna Sun is carted off to the National Reformatory for Girls to get her head put on straight. There, she meets the aggressively incorrigible Sheila Nail and a relationship forms which leads to an all-out revolution in the institution as they attempt to break out of the box that society has created around them. Girl group wallop sound harmonies are filtered through a punk rock spirit in this rebellious and romantic new musical. And now, here's our conversation about Love and Hate Nation with Joe Iconis.

[22:09] Joe Iconis: Hey, friends.

[22:10] Joe Iconis: Hello, hello.

[22:12] Joe Iconis: Hello.

[22:13] Joe Iconis: So, like I said earlier, there is so much Love and Hate Nation tonight. Joe, I called you the writer who brings together misfit toys yesterday, and I believe that. You are a musical theater writer, composer, and lyricist. You've been nominated for a Tony Award, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and you're the recipient of an Ed Kleban Award, a Jonathan Larson Award, and a Richard Rogers Award.

[22:41] Joe Iconis: Wow.

[22:42] Joe Iconis: You made your Broadway debut with the fan sensation Be More Chill, which has also played London's West End and, prior to Broadway, played off-Broadway after a world premiere at New Jersey's Two River Theater. You're also the co-writer of Broadway Bounty Hunter, of which Jen was a co-producer on off-Broadway. And I love Annie Golden. She's incredible, and I love her I Want song about records. You're also the writer of the spaghetti western Blood Song of Love, the teenage garage band musical The Black Suits, and the musical comedy Rewrite. Your music also appeared on season two of NBC's Smash, including the anthem Broadway Here I Come. You, just like Rob, were also part of New York Theater Barn's Glory Days as we got to feature you in one of our first new work series. In the summer of 2007, we also lifted up your songs and other events early in our company's history with Mandy Gosling and Alison Posner.

[23:41] Joe Iconis: So that concert was the first time I ever worked with Lauren Marcus, like in a concert setting. Lauren Marcus, who in later years became my wife. And at that concert, I announced that I had a big crush on her, and all of our parents were there to see us at the show, and she was in a relationship at the time. It was like a whole thing. It was a whole, it was like a huge dick move on my part, but I did it. You know what I mean? So my first question is what led you to create this female-focused musical revolution?

[24:12] Joe Iconis: What led me to create it? Well, I mean, the sort of origin story, the quick version of the origin story is that I was commissioned by Penn State School of Theater to write a musical for their senior class. This was in 2016, I believe. And the guy who runs the Penn State Musical Theater Department is this dude, John Simpkins. He's one of my most beloved collaborators. He's my favorite director in the whole wide world. We've worked together for years and years. And so John runs the musical theater department there, and he had sort of recently taken it over at this point in time, and he started this commissioning program so students would have the experience of developing a new musical. And so his whole thing was like, I want to commission you to write this show.

You could write whatever you want. The only thing that the show has to do is it has to be rehearsable by our senior class, and the senior class, I think, was like seven women and one dude. That was the makeup of the class. And so I said, besides that, you could write whatever you want. And so I thought about it, and so I paused that part of the story. Now we're going to go back. So many years before that, I had written this standalone song for an Iconism family show called I Was a Teenage Delinquent! And the song was only, it only existed onto itself. It was a little standalone, and it was a love song between two girls, and the scenario was it was like this love song between two girls in a juvie hall for girls in the 60s. And the song was like kind of a girl group song, and it was sung by the great Jenny Donahue and Rachel Lee.

And it was just supposed to be this one-off deal, but when we performed it at the Beachmen, I thought, oh, this song could be like something bigger. Like there's a musical here, I think. And I got really excited about this idea of a love story between two girls set in this juvie hall for girls in the 60s. So that was kind of floating around in my head. And so then when I got this commission in 2016, I thought, oh, maybe this would be a good time to write my juvie hall musical, because I have to write something for predominantly women. And so that was like one thing that was sort of floating around in my head. The other thing was that the election was happening, and then by the time I got the commission had just happened, the 2016 election, and so I wanted to write something that spoke really specifically to what was going on in America today.

And I wanted to do that without actually writing something that was about America today. And so it kind of felt like, oh, maybe I could write my 1960s, Lesbians in Love in a Juvie Hall musical and have it actually be sort of a sneaky way to talk about what I saw happening in America. And that's kind of how the show was born.

[27:00] Joe Iconis: So tell us more about the journey of the show. I know Kelly was involved just when it went to Two River, and Amina did it at Penn State and Two River.

[27:07] Joe Iconis: Yeah, yeah. So the sort of life journey of the show was that we developed it at Penn State, and we did a workshop production. That was a student populated production that starred Amina Faye. And then a year plus later, we did a production at Two River Theater, which is where Be More Chill started, which starred Amina Faye and Kelly McIntyre.

[27:40] ♪ Musical number: "Revolution in the Institution" — performed by Amina Faye and Kelly McIntyre ♪

[28:53] Joe Iconis: So tell us more about your journeys with the show, Amina and Kelly.

[28:57] Amina Faye: Yeah, my journey, I always, I'm so glad that I got to do it twice. Because the first time I was a sophomore, this was like my first role at Penn State. And I was so nervous. And not only was it my first role at Penn State, but it was the first time too. There was a, you know, Joe was in the room with us the whole time, all the time. So it was so nerve-wracking. I remember the first time that we read through the scripts, my hand was like under the table because it was shaking so hard. The whole time. So the first time was a blur. But the second time actually was honestly amazing. It's such an empowering show. It's honestly an honor as a Black woman to be part of a show where I can have so many colors.

I can be quirky. I can fall in love. I can be strong. I can be resilient. I can be weak. I feel like a lot of the times, girls who look like me don't get stories like that to be able to tell. And so it's the most empowering thing to be a part of a show that showcases that and lets me be who I am and show all the colors that I have.

[30:10] Kelly McIntyre: What about you, Kelly?

[30:12] Kelly McIntyre: Yeah. I mean, I think Amina is unbelievable. And to be a part of a show that was, you know, made up of these insanely powerful and impactful and extremely beyond talented women was definitely a treat. And as we've called Joe, you know, like the writer for Misfit Toys and, you know, kind of giving voices to the voiceless, which I think is a John Simpkins quote, you know, it definitely made me feel super comfortable working on this show because it was a role that Joe allowed me to run with a little bit and take some creative and vocal liberties and kind of bring some of my personality to the table. And, you know, similarly, you know, it's kind of rare. There's a lot of cookie-cutter musical theater roles, and unfortunately not everyone fits into those. And so to see roles that, you know, have that space is really encouraging. And it was super, super, super fun. And we love John Simpkins, right?

[31:22] Amina Faye: We love John Simpkins.

[31:25] Joe Iconis: Yeah. I mean, and I'll just say, too, that, you know, the whole, like, you know, the whole sort of thing of, like, me being this writer who's writing for, like, you know, the Misfit Toys, I love that, of course. But there's also a part of me that feels like, well, you know, like these people who, like, we think of as, like, misfits or sort of off the beaten path, either, you know, characters or humans or actors, whatever, it's like I think that it's, like, when you call them misfits, it also kind of, you know, it implies something that's incorrect. Like, I think that, you know, like to me, it's like, you know, Amina Faye is a leading lady. Like, there's nothing misfit about her. There's nothing misfit about Kelly McIntyre.

These are leading ladies who they should be the stars of every fucking musical. And it's everyone else's problem that they're not. You know what I mean? It's like there's nothing. And so I love being someone who has the reputation of populating musicals with people who you don't normally see playing the roles that they're playing in these musicals. But I think that, you know, that you should. I think that musical theater and theater in general would be so much better if, you know, if it was populated by people who have personalities and people who have charisma and people who don't look like every other person that you normally see starring in a piece of musical theater, you know?

[32:47] Joe Iconis: And so for me, it's like, you know, just talking about these two actors who are on with us now, but the entire cast of Love in Hate Nation, it was such an honor to get to collaborate with these artists on all of these roles, you know? And it goes without saying that, you know, so I wrote this show that is about so many things. It's a love story, first and foremost, and it's about revolution, but it's about women. Every, you know, character in the show, except for like our one token white dude, is a woman. This is a show about women. This is a show about every type of person who is not a cis white man, which is what I am, and I cannot help being that. And so I wanted to populate the room and the show with artists who did not have the same life experience as me and artists who are game to bring their experience to the table, and then I tried to do my best to honor that and to not just like, you know, take what I needed and be like, oh, thank you so much for your experience, and now I'm going to go over here and, you know, filter it through and take what I want from it.

But I really felt like every single human who was in that show was a collaborator of mine, you know, and it makes me happy to hear, you know, I mean, and Kelly, you both feel like, oh, you know, that you created that stuff because you did, and as a writer, it's like the greatest gift in the whole world to have artists who are game to do that and who are as brilliant as these two and everyone who did that show.

[34:18] Joe Iconis: The first song we're going to see tonight is a song called "Oh Well," and it's our, you know, it's a love song. It's a love song, but the setup is that Susanna's son, who was our heroine, at the top of the show she arrives at this Juvie Hall, the National Reformatory for Girls, Nation for short, and she's sort of our window into this world. And she gets there, and she's really strange. She's kind of a weirdo, and she doesn't quite fit in anywhere, not even in this place that is made up exclusively of young ladies who do not fit in anywhere. It's like she doesn't even fit in here. And she feels very uncomfortable, and she becomes enraptured with Sheila Nail, and Sheila Nail is just like the coolest chick who's ever lived.

She's like a 17-year-old female, you know, James Dean, always wears a black leather jacket. She's just like the coolest, the most badass, the hippest. And so Susanna falls for her, and throughout the whole show, we know that Susanna feels this way about Sheila, but we don't know how Sheila feels about Susanna. This show takes place in 1962. It was a time, obviously, when you could not say your feelings about pretty much anything, let alone potentially having a crush on a person of the same sex. And so this song happens late in the first act, and it's the first time we kind of hear the feelings of both of our leading ladies, and it's all internal. That's the important thing to know. They're not saying this to each other. It's completely 100% internal, so we're just getting in their internal monologue.

[36:01] ♪ Musical number: "Oh Well" — performed by Amina Faye and Kelly McIntyre ♪

[41:10] Joe Iconis: We should also note that, I mean, you know, it was extraordinary for them to be, to identify that they were queer during this time, but interracial marriage wasn't legalized until 1967, which should definitely be noted, considering this is 1962.

[41:31] Joe Iconis: Welcome back to the show. We're diving into the world of new musicals today, and I’m thrilled to have with me Rob Rokicki and Sarah Beth Pfeifer, the creators of Experience Marianas, along with some incredible cast members from Love In Hate Nation.

[41:55] Rob Rokicki: Thanks for having us, Joe! We're excited to share our work and the stories behind it.

[42:23] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Absolutely! Experience Marianas is such a unique project, and we can't wait to talk about the themes and the journey of our characters.

[42:51] Joe Iconis: Let's start with Experience Marianas. Can you give us a brief overview of the story and what inspired you to create it?

[43:19] Rob Rokicki: Sure! Experience Marianas is a sapphic rock musical about a woman's escape from an oceanic cult. It’s a wild ride that explores identity and control in a darkly comedic way.

[43:47] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: The setting is on a ship, and we really immerse the audience in the Marianas Institute, which is this bizarre ‘healing center’ run by a character named Dr. Davis “Daddy” Johnson.

[44:15] Joe Iconis: That sounds fascinating! The blend of comedy and serious themes is always intriguing. How do you balance those elements in the musical?

[44:43] Rob Rokicki: It’s definitely a challenge, but we find that humor can be a powerful tool to address heavier topics. It allows the audience to engage without feeling overwhelmed.

[45:11] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Exactly! We want to create a space where people can laugh and reflect at the same time. The absurdity of the situations helps highlight the underlying messages.

[45:39] Joe Iconis: Speaking of absurdity, let’s talk about Love In Hate Nation. What can you tell us about its premise and the characters?

[46:07] Rob Rokicki: Love In Hate Nation is set in a 1960s juvenile hall and follows Susannah Son, who is sent there to get her life on track. She meets Sheila Nail, and together they spark a revolution against the constraints of society.

[46:35] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: The musical captures that rebellious spirit of youth and the desire to break free from societal expectations. It’s both romantic and empowering.

[47:03] Joe Iconis: I love that! The music also plays a huge role in conveying those themes. How would you describe the sound of Love In Hate Nation?

[47:31] Rob Rokicki: It’s a mix of Girl Group Wall of Sound harmonies with a punk rock edge. We wanted to create something that feels both nostalgic and fresh.

[47:59] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: The music really reflects the characters' journeys and their struggles against the system. It’s energetic and emotional, which makes for a compelling experience.

[48:27] Joe Iconis: I can’t wait to hear more about the creative process behind both shows. What has been the most rewarding part of working on these projects for you?

[48:55] Rob Rokicki: For me, it’s been the collaboration with such talented artists. Seeing the characters come to life through their performances is incredibly fulfilling.

[49:23] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: I agree! The community we’ve built around these shows has been amazing. It’s inspiring to see everyone’s passion and dedication.

[49:51] Joe Iconis: That sense of community is so important in the theatre world. What do you hope audiences take away from Experience Marianas and Love In Hate Nation?

[50:19] Rob Rokicki: I hope they leave feeling empowered to question the systems around them and to embrace their true selves.

[50:47] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: Yes! And to recognize the importance of connection and love, even in the face of adversity.

[51:15] Joe Iconis: Beautifully said! Thank you both for sharing your insights today. I’m excited for everyone to experience these incredible musicals.

[51:43] Rob Rokicki: Thank you, Joe! We appreciate the opportunity to discuss our work.

[52:11] Sarah Beth Pfeifer: It’s been a pleasure! We can’t wait for audiences to see what we’ve created.

[52:39] Joe Iconis: And that wraps up our discussion for today. Stay tuned for more insights into the musicals of tomorrow!