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[0:00] Joe Barros: The music of tomorrow is being written today. The music of tomorrow is almost ready to play.

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

[0:41] Joe Barros: I'm Joe Barros. And I'm Jen Sandler.

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

[0:57] 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.

[1:07] Jen Sandler: Each original musical's intention, content, and journey are unique and extraordinary to the storytellers who create them. We believe that there is no formula for musical theatre except authenticity.

[1:20] Joe Barros: We recently spoke with the writers of Broken Ground, Christine Toy Johnson, and Jason Ma, and the writers of Love & Southern Discomfort, Bobby Daye, and Monica L. Patton.

[1:30] Jen Sandler: Our first musical is Broken Ground, which has book and lyrics by Christine Toy Johnson and music and lyrics by Jason Ma.

[1:38] Joe Barros: Taking place in 1912 on the cusp of a new era for China, Broken Ground tells the story of an 18-year-old Shui Lan as she sets out on the path created for her by tradition and her family to marry a young soldier.

[1:51] Jen Sandler: Still grieving the recent loss of her mother and twin brother and yearning to make peace with the new life before her, she seeks guidance from both Guan Ying, the goddess of compassion, and the spirit of her mother.

[2:03] Joe Barros: Transported to another space and time of an ancient myth via an embroidered story in Nushu, the centuries-old writing system created by and only for women, Shui Lan connects to her mother's wishes for her and discovers that she can indeed find happiness by both speaking her truth and honoring her destiny.

[2:22] Jen Sandler: And now, here's our conversation with the writers of Broken Ground, Christine Toy Johnson and Jason Ma.

[2:28] Christine Toy Johnson: Hi.

[2:29] Jason Ma: Hi.

[2:30] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome, and we're so happy to have you both here.

[2:33] Jen Sandler: I was really excited about this story because I'd never heard anything like it or what this writing system Nushu was like at all.

[2:41] Jen Sandler: So there's something really special here.

[2:43] Joe Barros: Jason, you are a true veteran of the theater community.

[2:46] Jason Ma: I'm a multi-hyphenate.

[2:47] Joe Barros: You've been seen on and off Broadway in shows like Miss Saigon, Hamlet, Sly Fox, and Anthony and Cleopatra.

[2:53] Joe Barros: Among film and TV, you're also a celebrated writer of musicals such as Gold Mountain and Barcelona.

[2:59] Jason Ma: Barcelona, you also wrote with Christine.

[3:01] Joe Barros: Christine, you're also a true multi-hyphenate member of the theater community.

[3:05] Joe Barros: We can frequently find you on stage in shows like The National Tour of Come From Away, The Music Man, Flower Drum Song, and many others, including film and TV as well.

[3:14] Joe Barros: And I grew up watching you in the Nonsense musical.

[3:18] Joe Barros: I used to marry Leo through Rue McClanahan as Reverend Mother.

[3:22] Joe Barros: I wore out those VHSs.

[3:24] Christine Toy Johnson: You're doing it yourself with the VHS.

[3:27] Christine Toy Johnson: I couldn't travel to New York growing up in the Bay Area, but it was exciting to see this incredible story of these nuns on all-female show, basically, doing incredible things like tap dance and dance on point and raise money for their dead order.

[3:44] Jason Ma: Yes, and roller skates in part, too.

[3:47] Christine Toy Johnson: And roller skates in part, too.

[3:49] Christine Toy Johnson: You're also a director, filmmaker, podcast personality, self-fulfilling advocate for inclusion, and a writer.

[3:56] Christine Toy Johnson: You've written shows such as The New Deal and The Secret Wisdom of Trees.

[4:00] Christine Toy Johnson: And New York Theater Barn had the great privilege of presenting excerpts from your musical Till Soon Ann, written with Bobby Cronin and featured in our 2018 New Work series.

[4:10] Christine Toy Johnson: It's a really special show, inspired by true events.

[4:13] Christine Toy Johnson: Till Soon Ann tells the story of a young woman at the end of her journey with brain cancer who throws her family and closest friends a perfect final weekend, a party, determined to celebrate the life we're given and the art of letting go, which is an extraordinary song in the show.

[4:28] Joe Barros: Thank you.

[4:29] Jen Sandler: As we said, you are a true multi-hyphenate artist.

[4:32] Jen Sandler: So when did you both discover that you were writers, or has writing always been in your blood as storytellers?

[4:38] Christine Toy Johnson: Well, you know, I think like a lot of writers of color, I started writing because I noticed that I wasn't seeing stories about people that look like me populate our stages and in film and television.

[4:51] Christine Toy Johnson: So I got a late start, actually, because I've been acting since I was a wee child.

[4:59] Christine Toy Johnson: But it's been—now I cannot imagine my life without it as part of my creative life.

[5:05] Christine Toy Johnson: I think I started writing songs probably in high school, but my first full-length musical also came out of the same impulse while I was in Miss Saigon.

[5:15] Christine Toy Johnson: I just realized that the canon was so small for us, and there was not enough sort of variation in the way we were portrayed in the musical theater canon.

[5:25] Christine Toy Johnson: I think Chris and I, and so many of us, there's a little herd of Asian-American writers in New York City trying to expand the stories that are told about Asian people.

[5:35] Jason Ma: Absolutely. And what made you want to tell this story?

[5:38] Christine Toy Johnson: Like Joe already said, it's something we've never seen before, and it's so exciting to us.

[5:42] Christine Toy Johnson: Well, I have to say that—so Jason and I wrote this show called Barcelona, and it was part of Village Theatre's Festival of New Works in 2015.

[5:49] Christine Toy Johnson: So that's when we got to know the fine people there.

[5:52] Christine Toy Johnson: And Rob Hunt, the executive producer, brought me out to lunch about two years ago when I was in Seattle with Come From Away.

[5:59] Christine Toy Johnson: And he said, have you ever heard of Nushu, this language that was written by and for women? I hadn't.

[6:06] Christine Toy Johnson: So he handed me a little manila folder with a couple of pages copied from various sources and said, I don't know what the story is, but I've always been interested in some musical that has this at its core.

[6:20] Christine Toy Johnson: And of course, Jason was the person that I had to write this with.

[6:23] Christine Toy Johnson: And through our research, it just became more and more exciting to us to be able to tell a story about empowerment, women being empowered by their curiosity and following through with it and being able to find their voices.

[6:38] Christine Toy Johnson: And in the course of this research, we started to see this sort of recurring theme and these very words.

[6:46] Christine Toy Johnson: You know, it was a secret language, a language of tears.

[6:49] Christine Toy Johnson: And as we continue to do more research, we realize that a lot of this was just people sort of projecting what it must have been like for these women.

[6:58] Christine Toy Johnson: And after a while, I kind of started to feel like I needed to push back against this idea of a language of tears and Chinese women in perpetual misery and oppression.

[7:07] Christine Toy Johnson: You know, whatever the systems are in place, whether it's oppression in the U.S. or Europe or China, people find a way to be happy.

[7:14] Christine Toy Johnson: They find a way to make their lives work. It just kind of set off all sorts of feelings and my sort of B.S. meter as far as this secret language of tears.

[7:25] Christine Toy Johnson: So we have created this world where women are making it work. They have agency. They're active. They're productive. They're even happy.

[7:35] Jason Ma: I also wanted to just add, I forgot to say this, that the reason they were inspired to create this language is because they were in this large period of time in China not allowed to be educated, to write, read and write in their own dialect.

[7:50] Jason Ma: So that's why they created for themselves so they could have a way to express themselves.

[7:55] Jason Ma: Connection, emotion, just wanting to be remembered. But it was not a secret necessarily. It wasn't some sort of code.

[8:02] Jen Sandler: And this was a commission from the Village Theatre. What was it like collaborating with that team on this?

[8:06] Christine Toy Johnson: Commissions are always so different. You know, sometimes you get a grid of what they want. Sometimes they just say go write and come back with something after. What was that experience like?

[8:13] Christine Toy Johnson: Well, we touched base a lot before the commission actually was formalized to get to know what they really had in mind.

[8:21] Christine Toy Johnson: They weren't prescriptive about it, but just to get a sense of what kind of story they were interested in.

[8:26] Christine Toy Johnson: I have to say that I was really, really very happy that at no point did they say, can you do this story about people in China, but maybe not have Chinese people in it, or maybe only have three characters.

[8:41] Christine Toy Johnson: So they never said any of that. And so we just let our imaginations go wild. And also, we're so thrilled to be able to center a story on Asian people and Asian characters and give them a humanity that we don't see all that often in musicals about.

[8:56] Jason Ma: And a community of strong women.

[8:58] Christine Toy Johnson: Right, exactly.

[8:59] Jason Ma: I think we're going to say unapologetically for sure.

[9:01] Christine Toy Johnson: Yes.

[9:02] Christine Toy Johnson: There's no frail lotus blossoms in this show.

[9:04] Joe Barros: We have a message from the fine folks at Village Theatre. We have Brandon Ivey here to tell you more about Village Theatre.

[9:09] Brandon Ivey: Hi there. My name is Brandon Ivey and I am the Associate Artistic Director and Head of New Musicals at Village Theatre just outside of Seattle.

[9:17] Brandon Ivey: And we are very proud to be the commissioning theatre for Broken Ground by Christine Toy Johnson and Jason Ma.

[9:25] Brandon Ivey: Village Theatre has a long 40-year history of developing new musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal, Tony Award winner Million Dollar Quartet, as well as It Should Have Been You, Lizzie, Desperate Measures, The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes, Making Tracks, and many others.

[9:45] Brandon Ivey: We are just at the beginning stages of the developmental process with Christine and Jason, and we are thrilled that New York Theatre Barn audiences get to be the first in the world to hear some of this new material.

[9:56] Brandon Ivey: We are very honored to be developing and supporting a new musical about a young woman who finds happiness by both speaking her truth and honoring her destiny.

[10:08] Brandon Ivey: Enjoy Broken Ground.

[10:16] Jen Sandler: I love that last thing that he said about how they're proud to support a woman who's speaking her truth and following her destiny.

[10:22] Jen Sandler: So with that said, we'd love to dive into material from the show. So tell us about our first song, Beyond the Broken Ground.

[10:30] Christine Toy Johnson: This song is sung by the luminous Ali Ewald, playing the character of Guanyin, the goddess of compassion.

[10:37] Christine Toy Johnson: And our heroine, Xuelan, has just reached the depths of her despair, trying to navigate between her destiny and her curiosity.

[10:45] Christine Toy Johnson: And she seeks help and guidance from Guanyin.

[10:49] Joe Barros: Here is Ali Ewald.

[11:00] ♪ Musical number: "Beyond the Broken Ground" — performed by Ali Ewald ♪

[13:20] Joe Barros: You will rise anew as the blessings come to you.

[13:31] Christine Toy Johnson: And I hope telling stories like this and watching women go through these journeys, also the ideas that we bring up in the embroidery, will continue to make people aware of this and that we can take care of our girls who are going to be our women and mothers in such a way that's better than we've been doing.

[13:53] Christine Toy Johnson: Well, thank you both for this extraordinary untold story. I mean, I certainly knew nothing about it. And another thing to add to that, too, is that so many people don't understand that China is not referred to as China in China. It's called Jianguo. And this is like something that I feel like most Western countries don't even know about. There's so much to uncover there. This incredible writing system called NüShū.

[14:17] Christine Toy Johnson: I also just want to add that, you know, with so much xenophobia in our own country, often you're discouraged from embracing your own culture and your own heritage of your ancestors. And so it's been such a joy to be able to do the opposite, embrace the culture. And we're so grateful to the fine people of the village for commissioning this and encouraging us all the way.

[14:45] Christine Toy Johnson: And it's all in the beginning. So there's so much more to see from this show. And we can't wait either.

[15:05] Jason Ma: Thank you.

[15:25] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you, Christine and Jason. We can't wait to see what happens with the show.

[15:45] Jason Ma: Thank you for having us.

[16:05] Monica L. Patton: Our second new musical is Love and Southern D!scomfort, which has music and lyrics by Bobby Daye and book and lyrics by Monica L. Patton.

[16:25] Monica L. Patton: When Dowager Mrs. Catherine de Joie of polite Louisiana society dies, she leaves the entire estate to her estranged granddaughter, Mila. But only if Mila comes home from her self-imposed decade-long exile to bury Catherine.

[16:45] Monica L. Patton: Mila reluctantly leaves her life in France and returns to her ancestral home, a sprawling postbellum southern mansion, and to her mother, a faded alcoholic debutante undone by the burden of bearing the family's legacy. With the help of the family's cherished maid, the women begin to repair their relationship until the reconciliation grinds to a sudden halt when a long-held secret is uncovered.

[17:05] Christine Toy Johnson: And now here's our conversation with the writers of Love and Southern D!scomfort, Bobby Daye and Monica L. Patton.

[17:25] Bobby Daye: Hi.

[17:45] Monica L. Patton: Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Jen.

[18:05] Bobby Daye: Thank you both so much for being here. You are both celebrated actors with many credits under your belt. Bobby was in Aladdin, The Color Purple, and the production of Free Charity that I've heard all about.

[18:25] Monica L. Patton: Monica was in the Book of Mormon and Free as Rainbow. So my first question for you is when did you become writers and when did you start collaborating?

[18:45] Bobby Daye: Well, our duo began because Bobby and I, he was an alumni of Book of Mormon as well. And so I was in the second national, he came over to the first national once it had concluded. And we were out over cocktails. And I've been writing poetry, everything since I've been a child. And, you know, and I had just completed Psychological Thriller. And so I was trying my hand at, you know, being a playwright.

[19:05] Bobby Daye: And so I said, Bobby, I think I wrote a play with music. I said, can you take a look at it? You know, because he was this fabulous composer. He sat with it for a week. And then like seven days later, he came back with three songs. And we've just been rolling ever since. And he is a dream of a partner. It's like, I don't know where I stop and he begins.

[19:25] Monica L. Patton: And what inspired you to tell this story? It's a story we need right now, but it's also a very specific story about family.

[19:45] Bobby Daye: The DeJoie family. So my family's from a lowest part of Louisiana. And so I grew up with stories of the homestead. And every summer, probably until I was about 15 or 16, when I would protest, but we would go down every summer. And my family has a lot of land on both sides. And so it would just be woods and trees.

[20:06] Bobby Daye: And we'd go over Aunt Isofene, who was like, she passed away at 113. But I felt like she was 113 when I was little. And she would make sweet pickles. And she had a wood burning stove. And, you know, my mom showed me the house that she grew up with. And she had a cousin staying there. I remember the first time we jumped out.

[20:23] Bobby Daye: So the woman came out dressed like a man and she had a shotgun and she was spitting tobacco in his platoon. And she was like, we're like, we're cousins. We're cousins. So I kind of was like in between these two worlds. And so my grandfather, he was a piano player. I've never felt like he got his due because growing up in the segregated South, you know what I mean? So I kind of like built the story around my grandfather and all of our like colorful relatives, you know, and the family land. And that's where the story came about.

[20:47] Monica L. Patton: Like Jen mentioned, the show is about family. And I think when I was reading it and listening to the songs, it felt like August: Osage County, August Wilson.

[21:05] Bobby Daye: There is some definite homage. I mean, Bobby and I, we've been in classical musical theater together almost 50 years. We have to pay respects to what our training is. And so I did take from a lot of like beautiful, well-made, very successful musicals. So yes, I did.

[21:25] Monica L. Patton: And tell us more about the development of your show. You've had a lot of exciting development.

[21:45] Bobby Daye: Yes, we do have a lot of options on the tables that we are discussing and have started production. So the show is growing, and we are blessed. And we are blessed because of people like you to support us. And thank you so much again for having us.

[22:05] Monica L. Patton: We're definitely in a time right now where we have to find what other landscapes there are to get our arts out there, especially theater. So we've been really working hard and talking to people and really developing things. So hopefully, yeah, we'll see.

[22:25] Bobby Daye: I mean, the theme of the show is just love cures dysfunction. To give love, even when someone is at their lowest, they need to know that they're not going through it by themselves.

[22:45] Monica L. Patton: And so you have the protagonist, Wilhelmina Joshua, who has been brought up in plenty, but she struggles with holding this family legacy of this Beaumont mansion that has been in their family for six generations.

[23:05] Bobby Daye: And so there is this legacy that she feels like she cannot uphold, that she is not good enough. And we all have those feelings of not being good enough. And so she is estranged from her daughter.

[23:25] Monica L. Patton: And so when the Maitreyi brother family dies, she is going to lose her inheritance, unless her daughter, who she has not spoken to in years, because her daughter does not want to speak to her because of her upbringing and the hardship she had with her mother not being a mother. But she comes home because she has to uphold the legacy as well. So it's about the family ties that bind. It's about dysfunction. And it's about staying tethered to one another, even when it is so difficult.

[23:45] Bobby Daye: Originally, it was called The Inheritance until the play The Inheritance came. And it is about her coming back and have to deal with not only the inheritance of her family and the home, but what she inherited with her mother.

[27:03] Jason Ma, Bobby Daye & Monica L. Patton: Will she find redemption? So, I think that's a journey of universal things that everyone can relate to. Absolutely. I think the Dubois family is fractured, but fractured in the best way possible where you relate to them because of how fractured they are. So the show received its world premiere at South of Broadway Theatre Company in January of 2020. And as we mentioned, Tamara Tooney is the director. So we have a little video from Tamara.

[27:55] Tamara Tooney: I'm Tamara Tooney, and I am very excited to have joined the team of Love & Southern D!scomfort as the director of this fantastic show. I was really struck at how beautiful and complex this story is. It has so many levels and so many interesting components. It's tackling issues of mental health and addiction and family dysfunction. The music is exceptional. Bobby Daye's music is fantastic. The book is strong. We're continuing to develop it and make it even better. And it's been an incredible journey thus far. And I can't wait for us to share Love & Southern D!scomfort with the world.

[28:45] Bobby Daye: And I'm sad Tamara couldn't be with us, but I'm glad she sent a message. She's so amazing. Jason and I, we just went through another pass through the story with her and the pearls this woman drops. I'm telling you, we pick them all up. We pick them all up. She sees everything.

[29:09] Monica L. Patton: Oh, we're sculpting now. It really is. It's just it's like we're excavating and it's so good. It's so good. We're very happy. So enough about the amazing Tamara. What is the first song we're going to hear tonight?

[29:21] Bobby Daye: Oh, the first song is Memory Lane. This is when Mila, the daughter, is finally going out with a young man that she grew up with. They had a crush on each other. And, you know, he's kind of wondering, has she changed since she's left? Maybe she needs a little reminder of what her home was about, you know, and it's called Memory Lane. This song was written with HBCU written all over it and second line.

[29:44] Monica L. Patton: So who is performing the song tonight?

[29:48] Bobby Daye: It's Nicki M. James and Anthony Wayne. And here is Memory Lane.

[29:53] Jason Ma: You know what we should do?

[29:54] Bobby Daye: No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me.

[29:55] Jason Ma: We should steal some candy.

[29:56] Bobby Daye: You're ridiculous.

[29:57] Jason Ma: I'm going to take that as a yes. Can I get you anything else, sir? The check, please.

[29:58] Bobby Daye: Where are you going?

[29:59] Jason Ma: We. Where are we going?

[30:00] Bobby Daye: All right. Where are we going?

[30:01] Jason Ma: Down Memory Lane. I want you to see what you left behind.

[30:02] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[30:03] Jason Ma: Oh, my God.

[30:04] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[30:05] Jason Ma: Oh, my God.

[30:06] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[30:07] Jason Ma: Oh, my God.

[30:08] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[30:09] Jason Ma: Oh, my God.

[30:10] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[30:11] Jason Ma: Oh, my God.

[30:12] Bobby Daye: Oh, my God.

[32:46] Bobby Daye: I was dancing to that.

[32:56] Jason Ma: And I should have said Tony Award winning Nicki M. James.

[32:59] Bobby Daye: Ok, Tony Award.

[33:01] Jason Ma: Thank you.

[33:02] Bobby Daye: Our fellow Book of Mormon sister.

[33:04] Jason Ma: Yes.

[33:05] Bobby Daye: And Anthony and I have done many an encores together, so yes. That song is just so much fun. I was singing it in the shower today.

[33:13] Jason Ma: I also wanted to say, since you were gushing about Nicki M. James, I always think about her incredible Tony speech about how she talks about the flight of bumblebees and how no one knows how a bumblebee flies, but no one ever told it that it couldn't. So it knows. And her performance in the bubbly Black Girl at Encores a few seasons ago, I still think about as well. She's just she's such a chameleon as an actor and just someone I love to see in everything.

[33:44] Bobby Daye: And you know, we can't do this by ourselves. Shout out to our producer, our producer partner Downers, Andrena Dunnan, and also our partner, the Slater and Patton Day Slater Productions.

[33:54] Jason Ma: Adam Slater.

[33:55] Bobby Daye: Ok, not only does Adam protect us in mechanics and legalities, he's actually also a copywriter. So every and, but, and if in my script, he's looking at it. We see you, Adam.

[34:06] Jason Ma: Well, I know, fun fact, you were telling me when the people playing the waiter and playing the little parts in these songs, it's the two of you guys and Adam.

[34:13] Bobby Daye: Adam is a superhero.

[34:15] Jason Ma: Well, and also just a little tidbit about that. Adam is a huge fan of Book of Mormon. So when he finally was in the same room with Nicky James, we had to have the smelling salts, you know, just a fan boy, just fan boy. Let me tell you.

[34:29] Bobby Daye: And also also shout out to Ken Davenport. He is our Yoda. Thank you so much. Yoda is on our advisory board. We love Ken Davenport. And we're so glad he's involved with the show.

[34:39] Jason Ma: Our next song is Liquid Courage.

[34:40] Bobby Daye: That's performed by Ramona Keller. So did you want to set that up for us before we hear it?

[34:46] Jason Ma: Yeah. Okay. Number one, Ramona Keller is amazing. And Ramona actually has been flirting and associating with this project for a long time. Her voice has always been in my head and I'm so glad that it came true. She delivers and more. Liquid Courage is a reminder that pain and struggle bear no one. And the protagonist, Wilhelmina, she is at the lowest point in her life. And basically, she is saying, I give up. This is what this song right here is defeat.

[35:22] Bobby Daye: And she is Wilhelmina, right?

[35:23] Jason Ma: Yes, she is.

[35:24] Bobby Daye: She's Wilhelmina.

[35:25] Jason Ma: Yes, she is. So here is the amazing Ramona singing Liquid Courage.

[35:34] ♪ Musical number: "Liquid Courage" — performed by Ramona Keller ♪

[39:34] Bobby Daye: I got that gut punch to me. And I think we can all relate to that lyric. Never enough. What is enough? And also, I love...

[39:37] Jason Ma: Hair never straight enough, yeah.

[39:39] Bobby Daye: I also love the lyric, my mind's not mine.

[39:42] Jason Ma: Thank you. All right, well, thank you both so much. We can't wait to see the show on a stage. So thank you both, Monica and Bobby.

[39:50] Bobby Daye: Thank you guys.

[39:51] Monica L. Patton: Thank you so much for having us on today.

[39:53] Jason Ma: Of course. Thank you so much. We'll see you guys soon.

[39:56] Bobby Daye: Yes, indeed. If you enjoyed The Musicals of Tomorrow, please rate, subscribe, and share. The podcast is co-produced and edited by Pals Max and Hector Flores Jr. Our theme song, The Music of Tomorrow, was written by Lynn Schenkel and Sarah Cooper for their all-female identifying musical, Perpetual Sunshine and The Ghost Girls. Join us next time for more of The Musicals of Tomorrow.