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[0:00] Unknown speaker: We are so thrilled to be here tonight as nominees.

[0:03] Unknown speaker: Yes, Selena is nominated as Best Comedy Actress for the first time.

[0:10] Unknown speaker: Bravo!

[0:13] Unknown speaker: And Steve and Marty are nominated as Best Comedy Actors in the same category.

[0:18] Unknown speaker: Guys, is that a little awkward?

[0:19] Unknown speaker: Oh, no, I don't think so. I mean, Steve and I both obviously voted for you.

[0:23] Unknown speaker: And Marty and I made an agreement, to be fair, that we would both vote for each other.

[0:28] Unknown speaker: Right, so I voted for Steve and Steve voted for...

[0:34] Unknown speaker: Steve voted for...

[0:36] Unknown speaker: What an exciting night here at the Emmys.

[0:40] Unknown speaker: But the Emmys are not about who wins or who loses.

[0:46] Unknown speaker: Oh, you're young.

[0:49] Unknown speaker: Honestly, do you see what I have to go through every day?

[0:58] Eila Mell: Hello, and welcome to Behind the Awards.

[1:04] Bruce Gotlieb: I'm Bruce. I'm here with Eila.

[1:07] Eila Mell: Good morning, Bruce. How are you?

[1:09] Bruce Gotlieb: I'm good. I love Only Murders in the Building, so I'm so glad you chose this.

[1:15] Eila Mell: Yeah, that was the trio doing a little intro at...

[1:19] Bruce Gotlieb: I believe it was the 2024 Emmys, I want to say.

[1:25] Eila Mell: So anytime you get the three of them on TV, it's always great.

[1:31] Bruce Gotlieb: So I have jumped into the new season.

[1:33] Eila Mell: I am waiting.

[1:34] Bruce Gotlieb: I couldn't wait.

[1:35] Eila Mell: I know. I know. I know.

[1:37] Bruce Gotlieb: It's so smart to wait till they're all there, because then you can just binge it.

[1:41] Eila Mell: But I couldn't wait. I needed the immediate credit.

[1:44] Bruce Gotlieb: Sure, sure.

[1:46] Eila Mell: Of new episodes, but it's good so far.

[1:49] Bruce Gotlieb: I'm sure. Listen, it's smartly written. It's acted really well.

[1:54] Eila Mell: They have always a who's who of guest stars, so you really can't go wrong with it.

[2:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, so no spoilers, but I will tell you that there are a lot of old guest stars that have returned, and then Bobby Cannavale is on it, so that's nice.

[2:11] Eila Mell: Take a little break from art, I guess.

[2:14] Bruce Gotlieb: All of this would have filmed beforehand, so...

[2:17] Eila Mell: That's right. So, you know, it's a lot of fun.

[2:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Absolutely.

[2:21] Eila Mell: So, Bruce, you know what's going on with this proposed casino in Times Square, right?

[2:26] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, yes. There's been a lot of reports on the proposed casino in Times Square.

[2:32] Eila Mell: Obviously, the Broadway community is feeling a little encroached upon, I guess might be the right phrase.

[2:38] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, yeah, it's a threat.

[2:39] Eila Mell: So I know that you ran into some people the other night that are, I guess, spearheading the campaign to stop the casino from being brought in.

[2:45] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. And so here are a few reasons why.

[2:53] Bruce Gotlieb: I guess maybe it sounds like it could be fun to have a casino in Times Square, but it's a really bad place to have a casino because it's going to keep so many people inside and not out in the community. So people are not going to go to Broadway shows, they're not going to patronize businesses. It's, you know, it's bad.

[3:16] Eila Mell: Also, you know, just like on a more personal level, casinos are built so that people are going to lose. So, you know, are you a casino person?

[3:27] Bruce Gotlieb: I do dabble in a casino when I go on a cruise.

[3:33] Bruce Gotlieb: You know, they're fun. And I think that if you go in with the right mindset and maybe you set a certain, you know, level of, OK, I'm willing to walk away or walk away without X amount of dollars. I think if you go in with it, you know, in that type of a vein, you normally can do OK and not lose your shirt. But there are people that go in and they just, you know, they can't stop. I know they have ATMs in there and people just, yeah, it's dangerous. But also, so the thing is, Times Square is congested enough. Can you imagine the amount of people that that will bring in?

[4:10] Eila Mell: Yeah, I mean, most New Yorkers or people that go to the city often, even if they don't live in Manhattan, most of them avoid Times Square at all costs anyway. But yeah, it certainly would increase the amount of people that are in the area. I mean, but if you know, if you love Broadway and you go to Broadway, that's Times Square. So, you know, you're going to be there. So anyway, what people can do is, you know, there are several things, but the easiest thing is that they can share posts on Instagram. So there's an account called No Times SQ Casino and just repost something from them and, you know, make your voice heard. And, you know, a casino can go anywhere. You don't need it right in the heart of Broadway because it's a real risk to the community.

So that's my two cents. We're trying to help, you know, help the campaign for a community that we love and a community that provides so much to the city. So I mean, billions of dollars to New York City. It's it's really it's probably one of the the biggest resources that New York City has. So why would we do anything to?

[5:16] Bruce Gotlieb: Absolutely. Let's move on to something hilarious like Ginger Twinsies. We have former guest and friend Jesse Robb and Kevin Zak on the episode today, joining us to talk about the creation, how Ginger Twinsies came to be and, you know, the hilarity that the show is.

[5:37] Eila Mell: We both saw loved it. It's so funny. It's you know, we think it's the next cult. It certainly could be.

[5:44] Bruce Gotlieb: And Jesse, who did they say is probably planning a visit to see the show?

[5:51] Eila Mell: Well, the rumor is a certain redhead, Lindsay Lohan, might be stopping by. They didn't have an exact date, but they've been in conversation and you never know who you're going to run into there. It's it's really a who's who.

[6:02] Bruce Gotlieb: I know. Well, Ali Stroker was there when I was there and Michael Cyril Crichton, who was on Only Murders in the Building. So you may run into a Broadway person. You might run into Lindsay. Who knows? That would be fun to see.

[6:18] Eila Mell: Absolutely. I'm sure she would love it. She seems to have a pretty, at least in things I've seen, she seems to have a pretty good sense of humor of all that went on before now. So I think she has to. It's just, you know, otherwise it'd be difficult.

[6:34] Bruce Gotlieb: So let's get the guys out here and chat.

[6:44] Eila Mell: Let's get them out. OK. Well, Bruce, last week we did this review of Ginger Twinsies and now we're so thrilled, because we have two of the creators of that show. Welcome, Kevin Zak and Jesse Robb.

[6:51] Kevin Zak: Hello. Thank you so much for joining us, guys.

[6:55] Jesse Robb: Hello. Thank you for having us.

[7:01] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh. We love Ginger Twinsies. What a fun night in the theater.

[7:05] Kevin Zak: Absolutely. Kevin, you're the writer and director. Where did this idea come from?

[7:11] Kevin Zak: Well, about two and a half years ago, during the writers and actors strikes, I had a friend of mine, Ross Stippengraff, who was the programmer at Littlefield in Brooklyn, this great cabaret event space. And he just asked if I wanted to host a screenplay reading or something that would raise money for people affected by the strikes, just like a night of fun. And so I said, yeah, I'd love to. And I think The Parent Trap is one of my favorite films. I grew up on the Hayley Mills one before the Lindsay Lohan came out. And then when the Lindsay Lohan one came out, I was a camper at the same time. So it was just like, I was her aid, which is the perfect movie for me that summer. And it's just I watch it all the time.

And so I got a bunch of my funniest friends and just cast it completely against the film. They had Ira Madison and herself as the twins and, you know, two adult men, one black, one white, both gay. And so we just read the Nancy Meyers, Charles Shire screenplays word for word, straight through. And people were losing their minds. There's all these extra laughs came out of it because of the nature of the casting. And also the super fans came out. They people were in costume. People were speaking along. And I thought to myself, I feel like if I don't do something with this soon, someone else will. Last June, I texted our lead producer, Preston Whiteway, who's just the best guy in the world, and said, I think I want to turn Parent Trap into like a satire or a spoof or a send up.

And he's like, that sounds great. Let me read it when you have it. And I sent it to him and he thankfully liked it, or he's just the world's longest liar. And he got people to, you know, pay for the first reading. We had that last September. And that's where Jenny Steingart and Mandy Packett, our co-lead producers, hopped on board. And we did one more reading for them in January for all of their investors and got more people on board, including the OG Meredith Blake Elaine Hendricks. And amazing, just kind of snowballed. And we were going to go to a smaller theater downtown, but then the Orpheum opened up and now we're in the Orpheum. And it feels like some crazy fast forward dream that I, you know, I've been telling people I've been disassociating because it's so overwhelmingly wonderful to have this opportunity and to have Jesse at this Tony Award winning team around me. And it's insane. You saw this insanely special. So that's that's the long story. I'm sorry to be monologuing right off the top, but that's that's how it came.

[9:51] Eila Mell: No. Yeah, that works. Orpheum. It's just it's you know, it's legendary. Little Shop of Horrors was there. Stomp was there. To be there must be such an absolute thrill.

[9:58] Kevin Zak: It is. I mean, Bea Arthur did her first play in New York there. So did Eileen Brennan. So like the ghosts in there are fabulous. And as soon as we found out it was the Orpheum, I said to Jesse, I was like, well, we have to do Stomp in the secret hand fake. And Jesse, I mean, he can speak more to that. But he is like, great. I need seven brooms and two trash can lids. So the Orpheum, yeah, the Orpheum was great. So when this idea came to you in your in your whole wild imagination, did you sit down to become a playwright at any point? You know, was that always a goal?

[10:44] Kevin Zak: I've always like written in various forms. And like in my early 20s, I did sketch comedy at UCB. And then before the pandemic, a couple of friends and I wrote a parody of Murder, She Wrote called Bloody Bloody Angela Lansbury. And I had a blast doing that. And we got it auctioned by Hal Luftig. And we were supposed to go off Broadway fall of 2020 with that level as Jessica Fletcher. And of course, that all fell to pieces. But it really was. I mean, during the pandemic, when we lost all work, we're bringing a thing and everything like that. It was a lot of necessity from there on out. It was like, what if what if stages don't come back? At least, you know, maybe television will first. Are you excited about Jamie Lee Curtis playing Jessica Fletcher?

[11:34] Jesse Robb: Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes. I think she I think she's the perfect kook for that kind of thing. So you got to feel like you got to be.

[11:44] Eila Mell: So, Jesse, at what point did you come on to the project as choreographer?

[11:51] Jesse Robb: In my personal head, I think I always thought I was the choreographer. But honestly, Kevin, when workshop it again in late twenty twenty four and over January of twenty twenty five, and there was realities of this going somewhere in New York and sort of the writing that Kevin had already done for it and the structure he had created already in terms of the actors and how they would move and how they would sort of be staged. He sort of came to me and sort of said, you know, I got a couple of ideas. And the first one is.

[12:29] Bruce Gotlieb: How do you feel about the production number on page 6?

[12:59] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[13:29] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[13:59] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[14:29] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[14:59] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[15:29] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[15:59] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:04] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:13] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:17] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:22] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:26] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[16:56] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[17:26] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[17:56] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[18:26] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[18:56] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:00] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:04] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:08] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:12] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:16] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:20] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:24] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:30] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:34] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:38] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:42] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:46] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:50] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:54] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[19:57] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[20:00] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[20:04] Jesse Robb: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[20:08] Kevin Zak: What was it like working with the cast of Ginger Twinsies?

[20:11] Jesse Robb: What does it mean to be a fan of a theater production?

[20:15] Kevin Zak: What does it mean to be a fan of a theater production?

[20:18] Jesse Robb: What effect do scenes have on your memory of playing a part in a show?

[20:21] Kevin Zak: There's not a new score that you have to work with, or any real score that you have to work with.

[20:26] Jesse Robb: Are you freer in terms of ideas for what you want these numbers to be?

[20:31] Kevin Zak: Yes, I think the easy answer is yes.

[20:36] Jesse Robb: I think it's terrifying without structure.

[20:39] Kevin Zak: I'm such a musical person.

[20:42] Jesse Robb: I find that all of my impetus and whatnot comes from musicality.

[20:47] Kevin Zak: So in this, with a group of eight actors that are physical actors, without a score and sort of infinite possibilities, you can run amok very easily and go down roads that both Ken and I found very quickly could be tangents that just could go on endlessly forever with stuff that just doesn't work.

[21:10] Jesse Robb: So it's creating a score with bodies, which is wild, because then you're taking on this physical composer value that is not usually in the equation.

[21:21] Kevin Zak: And that was one of the things I kept going back to Kevin and saying, are we too long? Are we not enough?

[21:29] Jesse Robb: Can this run on and people are with us?

[21:31] Kevin Zak: Is it funny enough that we could sustain this for another section?

[21:34] Jesse Robb: Do we need another chapter?

[21:36] Kevin Zak: Do we find ourselves in a situation where this musically or when we get to stomp, rhythmically, just doesn't relate to people?

[21:43] Jesse Robb: And so you don't have a team of composers going, this is what it is. Now make it fit. Make it work.

[21:50] Kevin Zak: You have X amount of measures normally.

[21:53] Jesse Robb: You have X amount of measures.

[21:54] Kevin Zak: We can fudge putting in three here for a dance section or we can make this work.

[21:59] Jesse Robb: It was like you have anything carte blanche, which is terrifying and exciting all at the same time.

[22:05] Kevin Zak: So I think there's excitement in that.

[22:08] Jesse Robb: And also you really are working with comedic physical timing and that is, I believe, harder than anything else.

[22:17] Kevin Zak: Yeah.

[22:18] Jesse Robb: And I'm guessing that you didn't cast people for their dance abilities.

[22:21] Kevin Zak: No.

[22:22] Jesse Robb: Right.

[22:23] Kevin Zak: There was no dance call?

[22:25] Jesse Robb: No, no.

[22:26] Kevin Zak: Kevin presented the company to me, which I have to say in terms of the eight that he chose, I mean, they are killing it up there in terms of physical execution.

[22:37] Jesse Robb: They are like physical bodied movers that come from an acting text based first.

[22:44] Kevin Zak: So it's like every single physicality that we keep, we kept working through in rehearsal, they would come at it with intention.

[22:51] Jesse Robb: So there was already a lineage and lineage that kept the story going inside of the comedy.

[22:56] Kevin Zak: And I felt like we didn't just stop and start a production number and now we're dancing and we have to pick up the end of it and go, okay, where were we?

[23:04] Jesse Robb: It really felt like they continued to snowball off of Jesse.

[23:08] Kevin Zak: And he made this point so many times in it.

[23:11] Jesse Robb: It's these, these actors, they truly, none of them are trained dancers at all, but they perform it like they are in Liza with the sea.

[23:20] Kevin Zak: Like it is with that much, that much emotion and that much passion.

[23:25] Jesse Robb: And, and one of our dear best friends, Phillip Tarantula plays Meredith Lake, but also plays tie dye girl in that.

[23:32] Kevin Zak: And he was watching him work is a marvel because he's like, the way I learned about learn choreography is, is I need to know how I feel about it.

[23:40] Jesse Robb: As, as my, like, he's like, as I type girl, like even in this parody in this farce, he's like, how does I die girl feel about this section, this step?

[23:53] Kevin Zak: And you watch him and he is like, all of them are because they're all coming at it from this sampling, as opposed to how high can we get our legs or how many turns can we do?

[24:04] Jesse Robb: It's like, look how I feel about fun Julie.

[24:07] Kevin Zak: And it's, it's like a, it's a miracle to me to watch every night. Those they're, they're so spectacular.

[24:12] Jesse Robb: And never once do you think that, Oh, this person isn't really exactly.

[24:16] Kevin Zak: You just accept it that these are the characters dancing like people.

[24:20] Jesse Robb: Exactly.

[24:21] Kevin Zak: Well, and it's funny, you guys put it, put it that way too, because it's taking a physical comedy and physical acting.

[24:29] Jesse Robb: And it's almost like these characters are doing an interpretive dance as you wish do like in camp, so to speak.

[24:35] Kevin Zak: It's just, it all kind of riffs off of one another.

[24:39] Jesse Robb: It's exactly that.

[24:40] Kevin Zak: It's, it's like the, the impetus and the beginnings of finding these people to get into a physical language was what naturally comes.

[24:49] Jesse Robb: And that's where, as Kevin, and having Kevin with his insight of knowing these people well, he was able to say to me, you know, Philip always wanted to be a Fosse dancer.

[24:59] Kevin Zak: Some moves in this style, Russell's got this physical capability, so then all of a sudden you're able to accentuate what their traits are as human beings that I can immediately and then we started riffing on that and it was like, that's where we found the language and then it was, it was as you were saying a little bit, I love it in terms of like, well, is there no score? Is it endless? It's like, then we were able to find what people actually collectively looked like together and we found a language that was no longer like, okay, well, these are actors moving or these are actors dancing. It was like, these are just people moving. Like, it is just, it became natural in a way. And that, again, yeah.

[25:43] Jesse Robb: And to your point about it feeling like a camp and putting on a show, it's the whole, the whole bone of the design of the show is we're at this summer camp, it's a bunch of counselors putting on the best damn production of air and crap they can. So, any props we have that are only things that like you find in a camp infirmary, a kitchen, a camp cabin, closet, costume room, anything that's fantastical is made out of cardboard. And which is what, I was a camp counselor for years and that's what we would do is that like, if we would put on shows or whatnot, we would gather what we could physically and anything else we made out of something.

[26:26] Kevin Zak: So, Beowulf Forret, who did the set, he came to me with this, like, it's very, went out American summer themed set, right? It's like you're walking into a camp auditorium and as soon as he showed me his idea, it answered so many questions staging-wise for me. It was just like he handed me the keys to my own show and we just took that and went to a hundred even with Wingerth Gonzalez did the costumes and he is an absolute genius. He just did real women have furs on Broadway and he did the same thing because I was saying to him as a camp counselor, we have this huge costume room and sometimes, yes, it was party city wigs, but sometimes it was someone's actual wedding gown.

[27:09] Jesse Robb: So, we had like $2 wigs and also this inherited wedding gown. So, that's why in the show, we do have these moments where it's like, yeah, you're wearing a headband with braids and then Meredith Blake comes on stage and she's in a Chanel. So, it's got that and we found that as well in the production number of like, you know, Noel Carey, who did A Vengeance for Everything, he took the song that the handshake in the movie is to the soulful strut and he wove that into the rest of the handshake.

[27:49] Kevin Zak: So, when we go into the Wicked section, he's using the melody of soulful strut, but in a Stephen Schwartz way. So, and then we go to Chicago and it's soulful strut in the background, but in a Candor and Ebb way. So, he really knows that if he wrote Death Becomes Her, the music was that.

[28:10] Jesse Robb: Yeah.

[28:13] Kevin Zak: The brain, I'm so grateful for the brain.

[28:17] Jesse Robb: Yes.

[28:19] Kevin Zak: Hi, I'm Kevin Zak.

[28:20] Jesse Robb: And I'm Jesse Robb.

[28:20] Kevin Zak: And we are the director and choreographer of Ginger Twinsies. And we'll be right back to behind the awards after this break.

[28:31] Jesse Robb: Very short clips, Kev, of pre-production of basically when we were investigating the Wicked section and when we were investigating the stomp section and handshake and the epilogue and whatnot. He got very short clips of these and just sort of went, okay, go to town, Noel. Good luck, I'll see you at opening. Hopefully, I haven't messed up your music, you know. But Kevin was very smart to put together people who already either knew each other in the creative team or had Bradley King, who lit it, had just done elephants with me. So, immediately, every time we'd get to a section in the number, he would turn around and he was like, I got exactly what you want. I know it already. So, it was like you had that lineage already structured in his team to sort of just rip off each other.

[29:16] Kevin Zak: It was huge because we had two and a half weeks of reversal and we had four days of just tech. And then we started previews and we were teching during previews, but we really had four days before there was an audience. And then from first preview to when we froze, we shaved 12 minutes off the show because when we got the first preview, there were 12 minutes of laughter was added. So, we were well overnight at that point. We were like, oh, God, oh, God. And then you just have to start, got the scissors out. And luckily, we had this fantastic team that we've known and already developed this breathing rhythm. We knew everyone was all on board for what needed to just leave the stage and nobody was precious about anything. And even the actors were like, I feel like I don't need this line. It truly was like lightning struck. Luckily, I'm married to one of them.

[30:07] Jesse Robb: With the piece being the type of piece that it is and the actors that you've now hired and they're in that same sensibility, I have to imagine it gets a little difficult to almost stop them from wanting to improv or add certain things in. And now if you're trying to trim a show, how do you turn off that?

[30:30] Kevin Zak: Totally. I think what's been so great about this group is none of them are trying to hold a moment or try and be like, hey, can you say this like that so I get this laugh? They all kind of clicked together. And the show is so structured. It's very slamming doors, right? It's very like, look over here, look over here. It's like hard cuts in a TV show. So it's like there isn't a ton of wiggle room in that because we rehearse those doors and when to close them, making sure we weren't closing them on certain words. That is also choreography. Are those four front facing doors, the laughs in windows above and everything in between.

[31:24] Jesse Robb: So there are moments where they can improv, but they always have a cue line that asks me to say it. And like not to give spoiler alert for anyone that hasn't seen it, but there's that moment with the dog that Danny has where she rips. And Russell has freedom to react to what Danny has just done any way he wants as long as he ends on the same line, right? So he's got pocket in there where he can improv a couple lines and then he knows this is how he finished it and the show can continue. So there are two or three moments in the show where we have like allotted pockets for improv that can paint you tonight. But otherwise, like the actors know that this is a moving screen. And as you guys have been saying, like it is a joke a second and you can't step off the screen or the whole thing starts to wobble.

[32:17] Kevin Zak: My favorite laugh in the show, and I think about it all the time, is the Jennifer Hudson show line. I love that.

[32:47] Jesse Robb: Yeah, me too. People love it. But yeah, I would never want to do that.

[33:13] Kevin Zak: But it's like I have the same reaction as you is that like when I when they do it, I just like screaming, laughing because of the way they're saying the cheer and dancing. But like people love the spirit tunnel. So you get both both reactions from the audience. So I'm so glad that that struck your funny bone.

[33:30] Jesse Robb: Oh my gosh. What what are your favorite lines?

[33:33] Kevin Zak: Oh, Jesse, do you have any?

[33:36] Jesse Robb: There's there's sort of a there's there's a train that goes across during during the hotel sequence from door to door. And it's absolutely Phillip's line that hops on top of someone else's line when he says, Let's all go inside. That's probably one of my favorite lines, because it's just it hits you at a moment that you're already laughing. You're trying to get your air back to tension. And then he just hits it with that one line. And then you're done. You can't you can't pick up.

[34:06] Kevin Zak: It's like, and I'll say this, because like, a lot of the stuff I wrote really works because of the actors delivery and their choices, like, Philip, especially the choices he makes are the you would never think of, but they're always the right one. And he walks across the stage in that same sequence. And he's like, I've already checked this in. Why don't we go upstairs to dumps and then run even for lunch?

[34:29] Jesse Robb: Wait, wait, he delivers dumps like it's just like, you know, pottering your nose. The delivery is the only reason that line works so well. And it's such a secret.

[34:40] Kevin Zak: Well, no, I think it's a brilliant line that is hilarious. He does deliver it in an amazing way. But it is a great line. Thank you. There's another moment where Matt, who plays Nick Parker, enters and he's kind of getting himself ready in the mirror to see Elizabeth. And he starts being really, really viciously hard on himself, calls himself, you know, old fat, balding faggot, and whatnot. Sorry for 50 family listeners. But it's Russell as Annie who catches him doing it, you know, saying that word. And, and Russell's like, Dad, and Nick goes, how long you've been standing there? And Russell just goes, it's fine. And like, just the full giving up in despair of seeing her father say these words and talk about himself like that and just realizing this is who I'm stuck with. This is my dad. It's fine.

[35:38] Kevin Zak: Oh my gosh, this show is so much fun.

[35:41] Jesse Robb: I will tell you two of my one of one of the lines that I loved, personally, was the Whitney Houston moment. And I said, that's, I said, the reason why was because you didn't go for the crack is whack joke. You went for you like, you didn't go for the low hanging fruit. And as a Whitney Houston lover, I just I caught it right away. I knew exactly where you were going.

[36:07] Kevin Zak: For me, the line, it just that one came out during tech, because we didn't, we didn't see LaKeisha in that outfit until that moment. And Anissa was like, you look like Whitney. And like, he's just like, Oh, my God, you're right. And so we and she was already doing cocaine in the script. So we like we got this reference, right? Like, it's, it's, it's absolutely, it's being given to us by all the elements surrounding us. So I'm so glad you thought.

[36:33] Jesse Robb: And it's so nice. So 90s. Yeah.

[36:35] Kevin Zak: Oh, yeah. And I have to say, I don't think I've ever seen anyone look better in a dress than LaKeisha in that stunning, stunning. Oh, my God.

[36:45] Jesse Robb: LaKeisha May. Has she asked to keep it yet? LaKeisha May is I'm surprised she brings it back every day. Yeah, it's unbelievably beautiful in person on stage. Like it's it's almost like I'm like, is she AI? How is she this gorgeous no matter what? And hilariously funny, too. Because usually, you know, people don't think those two can go together. But of course, well, I, I, I sing her phrases to her all the time. And I'm going to right now as well. But I, I, she wasn't in the readings, either. It was Gina Duvall, who was playing Elizabeth. And we had a lot more Princess Diana jokes in the show when Gina was doing breakouts being in Korea. And I had seen LaKeisha in Jaja's African hair braiding on Broadway.

[37:28] Kevin Zak: She played like seven characters and each one was funnier than the next. And I was like, there's no way she'd say yes to this. She does like comedy, talks to you're on Broadway with like, Jocelyn Beaux and like all these fantastic playwrights, and she just hits it out of the park. I'm so grateful she's in it. And I mean, again, like, she's a new, like, I was a fan, I now call a friend and colleague of hers. And she's also a producer in her own right. She produces with LaChanze. So it's like, she's got so many wonderful layers to her that it's like, oh, I just love that kind of theater person. Well, the Orpheum is home to these great musicals, like we talked about Little Shop and then Stomp, which wasn't a musical, but you know, these cult shows, and I feel like this is absolutely the next cult show.

And I love that people, you know, there's a Rocky Horror sort of feel to it with people wearing their ginger wigs in the audience. And I love that you can buy them at the theater. That's amazing. It's so much fun. And it really includes the audience. I think that it can have a very long run and I hope that it does. Thank you. That's not a knock on wood. Thank you for saying that. I mean, it's like, for you guys to speak on the podcast last week and have a song, that means the world and helps so much because, you know, we're opening fold off Broadway in the summer. We've had no prior production, no built-in audience. We're lucky to have Elaine Hendricks on board. It's like the stamp of approval and being a mouthpiece for bigger outlets as we start. But we're like word of mouth has been sensational. And so like users are happy we're in good shape. But I'm so appreciative of spreading the word because that's everything for off Broadway as well.

[39:20] Bruce Gotlieb: It's our pleasure. I mean, people who we know and people even online, you just see people are just raving about it, loving it, talking about, you know, going again and again and bringing friends. And that's the beauty of it is that you can tell somebody and then almost want to go and experience it with them because you want to see their reaction and all of that. So it becomes this inclusive, just merry-go-round of...

[39:48] Kevin Zak: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I think it's almost more fun to go and see it a second time because you know what it is. So then you can really take in a lot more the second time around. Yeah, it's having seen Titanic multiple times. I would co-sign with that because every time you see it, there's just a joke you didn't catch because you were too busy laughing the first time around. And like even I went last night and I hadn't seen it since opening. And even in the past, you know, eight performances since opening, they found things within our, you know, grammars we've set that have I died laughing brand new to me. And I want to ask eight weeks like Lakeisha has fit the dance into a moment when she, when she's on cocaine, she goes, oh, Martin, you never let me have any fun before.

And she starts to give me a bit of and the audience died. So it's like they're finding these things without, like you were saying, without leaving these parameters or going on too long or stepping on each other's jokes. Like, I'm just the hats. My hat is off this past. I will sing their praises forever.

[41:04] Jesse Robb: What was exciting to me was to look around the audience. I always like to see who's seeing the show. And it was all different ages. I thought, is it going to be all 90s kids? But it wasn't. It was, you know, definitely that even older than that. And then very young people too. And everybody loves it the same amount, it seems.

[41:19] Kevin Zak: Yeah, it's a crazy mix of ages. And yeah, and every night, you know, having the advantage of seeing it multiple times, people laugh at different things. Every night, the laughs are not the same. And the amount of laughter for jokes might be on one joke heavily one night, and then it's the same stretch of laugh, just on a different joke. So it's really interesting as you feel like the whole room come together, and they choose like what they're, you know, accessing each night, which is wild.

[41:51] Bruce Gotlieb: A great moment of that, but it's totally different audience response each night is the way Jesse staged the top of Stomp, because you have that trickle effect of people realizing what's about to be or what is coming. You know, because it's, it's everyone knows Stomp, you know, even like tourists know this is where Stomp was, because Stomp was the biggest tourist show for decades. And so it's like when Philip comes down the stage with that room, and they start doing those little steps, you can just hear the trickle of audience. And I can say it comes back down on itself, and everyone is realizing what's going on. It's fantastic.

[42:31] Kevin Zak: I want to stress that it's not just the Parent Trap. So if you don't even know the Parent Trap, it's really all of the 90s. But not only the 90s, because that Jennifer Hudson's line that I love so much, you know, that's very current. You know, it's really, it's just pop culture.

[42:47] Jesse Robb: Yeah, it's pop culture. Have you ever been to a sleepaway camp? Have you ever? Like there's so many other avenues that you can find yourself to come into the show that you don't even need to be a pop culture person.

[42:59] Kevin Zak: Yeah, thank you. That means a lot. A lot of what I grew up watching and another weird thing that's happening over research is the Naked Gun. I grew up watching those movies, the Naked Gun trilogy, Airplane, Jerry Zucker, sort of like, everything you say you deliver with full commitment. And even if you're talking about literally poo, you say it like you're delivering someone, you know, a terminally ill disease or, or you do the opposite, which is Megan Hilty. I work with her on Death Becomes Her. She came to the show last night, which was great. And I've said this to Jesse too. And I said it throughout rehearsals is the Megan Hilty news rule. If you don't know how to deliver something, just deliver it as good news, no matter what you are saying.

It could be telling us, you know, cancer or monkey pox. And if you say it like it's truly good news, it usually lands really well with an audience because you just don't expect that intention. And she does that masterfully. And that becomes her, which is why she's made this character Madeline Afton be so awful and mean. She's so muggled because she delivers all these, these, you know, bullets into Helen with literal bullets, but bullets into Helen with the intention of it's good news when she says it. So it's like, it all comes from that Jerry Zucker, Leslie Nielsen world. And I just saw the reboot with Liam Neeson. I highly recommend it. I took myself to a Saturday night.

[44:28] Jesse Robb: Oh, good. Liam Neeson is perfect.

[44:34] Kevin Zak: Yeah, I'm so excited about that. And just a little aside about Megan Hilty, since you brought her up, who else has taken an iconic Meryl Streep role and made it their own? Right? Right. She is. She is brilliant in that show. Absolutely brilliant. And I, they both are. They both are. She asked me, I helped her write her bio for Broadway, which is Meryl Streep's bio. So that's amazing. And so I asked her, and if you read the Ginger Twinsies playbill, my bio is Megan's bio. So I made sure to like, like there's even Easter eggs in the program. So they're everywhere.

[45:15] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh my gosh. I love it. So my takeaway from the show is that I just want to watch movies with you and TV.

[45:20] Kevin Zak: Let's do it. I mean, we could spend a day. Let's do it. I love that. That's my favorite thing to do. So I don't know if you guys can speak to this or not, but is it an open-ended run? Is there talk about what happens to this at a certain juncture of time?

[45:32] Kevin Zak: So it's, we're a limited engagement through October 26th. So we have a decent run. The goal, of course, is to hopefully extend and like, you know, I've been saying this in any interview with full transparency is like, like I've been saying, word of mouth is everything. Our ticket sales are doing the right thing right now. They're trending upwards and we're now, like you said, hosting everywhere about it. The audiences are coming, they're crazy, but it has to continue. Like Hannah led up because this is off Broadway. This is the summer. It's August in New York. Nobody's in town. So it's like, we're on the exact right path we need to be. Our GMs and producers are like, this is where we need to be.

It's doing the right thing, but it has to continue. So like, that's why when anybody comes, when I'm there, I literally like say, I'm so glad you enjoyed the show. Can't leave until I see you. So it's like, it's that energy. And like our Marvine team has been great and our press people have been amazing. I'm actually going today, and he said, Russell, we're going to, they're going to be bartending at a lots of happens live in character. So that'll come out.

[46:41] Bruce Gotlieb: Have fun.

[46:41] Kevin Zak: We're getting a lot of great big outlets coming in, like every, like the word's gotten out. So like people's bookers are coming in. So, you know, a dream and I'll say it here as to manifest is that we can do the secret handshake on Seth Meyers or on Good Morning America, something like that. Some big national thing. Right. So yes, the answer is we are hoping to extend and a dream I'll say out loud is to do a London company. I would love to do a show in London.

[47:07] Jesse Robb: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because this show, it's not a summer show. It's an all-season show. We definitely need a Halloween night. We definitely need, you know, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever, all the holidays, you know, Valentine's Day. There's so many fun things that you can do.

[47:22] Kevin Zak: Oh, for sure. It can go year-round. And like, because we have Elaine, like Lindsay, Lindsay is going to come and she's going to come in October, which is great. So it's like, we just got to, you know, keep building that word of mouth, keep building to itself so that Lindsay can come and see it.

[47:31] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. Yeah. Have you guys sent Jennifer Hudson the clip of the spirit tunnel? Maybe she'll want...

[47:44] Kevin Zak: But I believe, I believe her bookers are coming. So hopefully when they come, they get a real kick out of that. So I think they would. And it's all in good fun. So I think, you know, as they say, all press is good. I think she'll love it. That's been our thing for every single person that has come to see it. We've every single reference that's been in the show. We've just been crossing our fingers and hoping that they know it's in great fun. It's in positive taste and it's in like the most, highest of praise and compliment because, you know, first week David Stone came and I was thinking, oh God, is he going to hate the Wicked section? You know, Tommy Kail and Lin-Manuel came and I was like, are they going to hate the bullet section?

You know, it's like, you just, you sweat that, that all these folks that are coming, just like Jennifer Hudson, know that this is such the highest praise and why it's been selected to be in the show. I mean, it's just, that's why the audience gets such a kick because it's such epic, iconic moments.

[48:43] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. And it's all things that the audience loves or you wouldn't...

[48:45] Kevin Zak: And they love or wouldn't do it. Yeah. Absolutely.

[48:50] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, thank you so much for joining us. You know, I can't wait to go back and see it again. I hope that every listener joins me in coming to see the show because it's the best time I've had in such a long time.

[49:01] Kevin Zak: Thank you. Thank you so much. It is. It's so much fun. You'll just nonstop laughter, which is what we need right now.

[49:10] Jesse Robb: Agreed. I so appreciate you both coming and having us on and speaking about the show last week, too. It means the world. And you've been so generous to both of us and Jesse as well, last year through this show. So big, big fans and so grateful. So grateful.

[49:27] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, our pleasure. Once you hear your family, so let us know what we can do.

[49:30] Kevin Zak: I do. And let me know when you want to come back. You just message me or something.

[49:36] Bruce Gotlieb: OK. All right. Well, I will do that because I definitely want you. And if there's any news with the show, we'd love for you to come and share it with our audience. So absolutely. Fantastic. And thank you again. And we will see everyone next time on Behind the Awards.

[49:52] Kevin Zak: Bye bye.