This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:08] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff and Richie. I'm Jeff.

[0:11] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie. And today on our show, we are welcoming a very special guest.

[0:15] Jeff Malone: From Cola Scola's hit play, Oh, Mary! on Broadway, we have here Bianca Leigh.

[0:20] Bianca Leigh: Thank you, Richie. Thank you, Jeff. I'm very happy to be here.

[0:26] Richie Grasso: Yes, Bianca is a versatile actor known for her standout performances on stage and screen. With roles in productions like The Nap and Tales of the City, the musical, Bianca has showcased her talents and depths as a performer. She's captivated audiences with her roles in groundbreaking projects such as Transamerica and Law & Order SVU. Bianca is not only a talented actor, but also a skilled writer, with works featured in productions like Overheard, Fourteen Monologues. Bianca's contributions to the entertainment industry extend beyond her performances, as she is featured in Laverne Cox's documentary Disclosure on Netflix. Her work continues to inspire and make an impact in the world of film and theatre.

[1:03] Bianca Leigh: Richie, thank you. How'd you like to be my press agent? That was fantastic.

[1:09] Richie Grasso: I would love it. I'll just read that every day. I love it.

[1:15] Jeff Malone: Bianca, we're so excited to have you on the podcast. And having seen you in Oh, Mary!, we loved your portrayal of Mary Chaperone.

[1:23] Bianca Leigh: Thank you.

[1:26] Jeff Malone: Can you first share with us how you got started in the theatre industry? And then also, what drew you to this particular role?

[1:34] Bianca Leigh: Well, thank you for that. Yeah, I started as a kid. My sister and I were in the local dance studio, taking classes. My sister, ballet, and I, tap. And it was a local production of Gypsy. And they needed kids for Uncle Jaco's talent show. So they grabbed us all from the dance studio. And I had the time of my life. I mean, talk about starting with the best material there is. And that curtain went up. And I heard the laughter and I saw the light. And I had my tap shoes on. And that was it. I was like, this is it for me. I loved it. And then just being in the rehearsals and hearing that incredible music and the scenes from the book, the best book ever. Luckily, we had a very active community theatre. And a lot of stuff was happening in my high school. And then I went to Rutgers. So I done a lot of stuff before I even got to New York. And that started a long, arduous road in professional theatre.

[2:59] Bianca Leigh: But how many of this? Yeah, yeah. I got a call. I got an offer from the casting director. And they were doing a couple of developmental readings of Oh, Mary. And, you know, it was at CAA. And Sam Pinkleton, the director, was there. The producers were there. Cole and, you know, a table of actors. And Henry Russell Bergstein, the casting director. So I knew something was up. And we read through the play a couple of times. And there were discussions. And they even asked us what we thought. And we knew it was very special. What was going to happen? We had no idea.

[3:45] Bianca Leigh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, how much kismet was involved. And how everything would click in such a big way. But about a year later, I got a direct offer to be in the Lortel production. And, of course, they said yes. And the rest is history. But I was in the dressing room. Now, I know Sam Pinkleton, the director, his family. I've known him for years. I've worked with his husband, Andrew Russell, who was also a director, many times. Henry Russell Bergstein, I've auditioned for him many, many times. But in the dressing room, Cole said, no, it was me. I said, but, Cole, we've never met. He said, I saw you in Transamerica when I was 18 years old.

[4:44] Bianca Leigh: Wow. And you've been back here ever since. Wow. So, I said, why did you wait 20 years? I didn't. No, it's very good. And it just goes to show, you never know. Whatever you're doing, somebody might be in the audience that takes note. And you may be perfect for something in the future. It's happened to me about five years later. Never this long. But it's wonderful to know somebody, you know, I was on the radar. And Cole.

[5:30] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[5:31] Bianca Leigh: For hiring me and bringing me along on this fabulous journey.

[5:35] Richie Grasso: Totally. It's amazing. And, you know, your character in Oh, Mary has such this unique presence. I just, the whole show is so brilliant. I just love what you're doing with the character. What aspects of Mary Chaperone do you find most enjoyable or most challenging to you to portray every night?

[5:55] Bianca Leigh: It's probably both, is that she is such an innocent. And the show is very much the same. But when we got the chance to go back into the rehearsal room and refine a few things, one of the things was Louise 1.0 had a little more edge. She was a little more worldly because that's what was coming out of me. There were times I'd look at Mary like, I see what you're doing. You know, and I, you know, when they have the big confrontation, I kept saying, you know, could you please, please turn and say, and you are too old to play Juliet. And obviously I did not get that because that's not who Louise is or needs to be in this world. So I've grown to love her very much.

[7:08] Bianca Leigh: And to get into her world, I will pull up some YouTube videos with puppies and kittens, specifically puppies and kittens playing together to get me into that. There's a joy. She is happy to be alive. She just adores Mary. And, you know, I don't have to tell you, when you're the one playing, you see a different aspect. Like if you're playing a villain, you don't see them as a villain because you understand their justification, no matter how twisted. You see they're doing what they think they need to do. And everyone keeps saying she's very uptight. She's very prim. She's very proper. And I'm like, well, I guess she is prim and proper. But I don't see her that way. I just see her innocent and joyful.

[8:37] Bianca Leigh: But the lens that the audience sees the characters within the play, that has nothing to do with me. You know, the director and the playwright, if they are highlighting her slightedness, then that's fine. I think she's a great gal. And I think she's very sweet and very lovable.

[8:42] Bianca Leigh: I'm sorry.

[8:44] Richie Grasso: So that's not even –

[8:44] Richie Grasso: No, I was going to say, I feel like she has so many of those characteristics that you're talking about. But she also has some of the most hilarious moments on the stage. And, like, which of her moments are you most excited to play every night?

[8:57] Bianca Leigh: Please say the ice cream.

[9:01] Bianca Leigh: I mean, I love the ice cream. The ice cream, there's a long setup to that.

[9:08] Richie Grasso: Yes, there is.

[9:10] Bianca Leigh: So Cole and I have to do a whole scene before we get there. And just as the audience thinks, oh, that, her talking about the ice cream is the joke. And it's like, no, no, that's the setup.

[9:32] Bianca Leigh: So, of course, I love doing it. But, you know, we work together very hard to get from the beginning of the scene to that famous line, which I cannot say. But I love doing the ice cream bit. And, again, Louise does not have an ice cream fetish. She doesn't. She doesn't. She doesn't have anything but ice cream. She, as a very sheltered, proper 19th century woman, had no idea what an orgasm was. She did not know anything. So when she had one, that's what she said. She now associates it with accidental ice cream spillage.

[10:23] Bianca Leigh: And I think I'm okay. I spoke to the PR team. There's things we cannot reveal. And I think the idea is the ice cream is out of the bag.

[10:34] Richie Grasso: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[10:35] Bianca Leigh: I see it in the promo, and I feel like it's just so. I get ice cream toys, ice cream, you know, little gag gifts and pins and photographs and emojis. And my sister sends me an ice cream cone petulite. So in my dressing room I have all this stuff that's a cone of vanilla ice cream in various configurations.

[11:03] Richie Grasso: Ice cream is going to haunt you now.

[11:05] Bianca Leigh: It's going to haunt me. But you know what? I mean, I've seen a lot of people make their mark in something or be in something that really clicks and blows up. And then they sort of come to go, oh, God, you know, they're forever going to think of me as Ginger Grant on Gilligan's Island. And then you have to learn to, you know, appreciate it for what it is.

[11:31] Bianca Leigh: I'll take the ice cream. I think it's funny. It reminds me that they remember Louise, they appreciate who she is and what I'm doing and my work. And so I love it. But I do that. I like the sack scene a lot. Because that visual gets a huge reaction and I don't have to do a thing. So I really enjoy that. And I think when the lights come up, I do a little exhalation, like, you know, like, here I am, like, what's next? And when I come in the door, and I discover something I'm not supposed to know about, I don't know if you remember that. I do like that. Because that's, it's quick. Not a lot of heavy lifting. And that's sort of between Louise and the audience. It's the only time any of us can look directly at the audience. And I enjoy that very much.

[12:46] Bianca Leigh: And we, of course, know this show has transitioned from Off-Broadway to Broadway. You all have wonderful chemistry. We saw it Off-Broadway. And then we saw it on Broadway. And to me, I mean, the energy is still there, even though it's a bigger house. I feel like it's working so well. I do. I have actually one question. Did your gown change from Off-Broadway to Broadway? I feel like you're in a different color. But is that me?

[13:10] Bianca Leigh: No, I have brand new everything.

[13:13] Bianca Leigh: You do. Okay. Because I was going to say, yeah, okay, I feel like something changed with your look specifically. But can you talk a little bit about just like the energy of the cast moving to Broadway? What's that been like being in a bigger space and just how you're all working in this new environment? We'll be right back. Welcome back.

[13:36] Bianca Leigh: I think, obviously, we were terribly excited. But there's a little trepidation. And I've heard it in some of Cole's interviews. You know how some people in our community are, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you're a little too overexposed. And they're like, you know, I didn't think it was so great. So there was this year, like, this gap, you know, we could lose the momentum, you know, people could decide, you know, they could decide, oh, this isn't so great. And of course, it transitioned to the theater. But the width is very similar. So it didn't feel terribly different. You know, it's the same set. So and, you know, you can see the doors, the entrance and exit doors. So it's not terribly deep either.

So in a sense, there's a similarity to the Lortel, except of course, we have a second mezzanine. And we do try to make sure that we do send some of what we're doing up. Yeah, we got to give, we got to give them a little bit of love. But I've heard that people even in a second mezzanine can see everything. And that they're very good seats. I've heard that from some people.

[15:12] Bianca Leigh: I think there's a fear that it won't translate to the larger space, like you said. And I think of the dress rehearsal, you know, when we first heard the audience, and the first few scenes, and we know it's going to work. It's going to work in this space. It's just going to work because you just you're doing the scene and you just feel it, feel it, filling it up. And you just, you know, it's like a dialogue with the audience in a way of energy and laughter. And, you know, we're doing our thing, and we're throwing it out. And everybody hears everything. Everybody can see everything. And suddenly, there's 900 people laughing at these jokes. And it's like, we filled it, we filled the space. And it worked. And it was, I mean, I don't know if I can, I can't describe it. And it really makes any logical sense. But it just you just felt it floating up and filling this space. And it was just right.

[16:38] Bianca Leigh: And we got it back. You know, I feel like the best way to kind of like sum that up, too, is like the show is receiving such great feedback and positive feedback about the show in general. And now it's also been extended to November. Yes, we have extended. It is amazing. It is amazing. How does it feel to be part of this production overall now that like, it's reaching bigger audiences, and will continue to?

[16:58] Bianca Leigh: It feels great. It feels great. I was afraid that this would feel kind of, it would be overwhelming. And it would sort of feel like cocaine. You know, like, like, no, yeah. And it would just sort of feel like this drug, you know, like, the success would feel like, like Tina. I don't know what Tina feels like. I don't know her. But I do have to say, I love our community so much. Yeah, that here's this horrible drug. And somebody thought, let's call it Tina. I just makes me I just, I just love it. I just love it. Whoever thought of that. But it actually feels different. It feels calming. It feels like a warm blanket. Because, you know, it's, it's a tough business. It's a very tough business. And you work.

And sometimes the work doesn't pay off. And, you know, for me, I've had, and I know for Cole, too, we've had, and even Conrad and James, you have your successes. And I would feel the momentum start, because that being something auditioning for the next thing. So you're like, okay, we're cooking with gas now. And then the momentum would slow down. And then a year or so later, then you're okay, I'm in something I'm auditioning for the next thing. I'm getting callbacks, you know, and then it slows down again. And I have a lot of friends over the years that have blown up. And I've always been very happy for them. Because one thing I learned very early on, you have to give credit where credit is due.

And when you congratulate someone, and acknowledge, you know, you freaking deserve this. It's a beautiful thing. And it works both ways. You know, it frees you from any negativity, and it helps support them. It feels good. You know, all of a sudden, you're in something that is on a different level. And all these old friends over the years are like, you did it, you deserve it.

[19:40] Bianca Leigh: I was gonna say, tell us a little bit about with this in particular, being in the right time. I feel like this, you know, comic farce has always existed, right? On Broadway, we've had the noises off. We've had even the cottage last year, right? Like we've had that on Broadway. But there's something about this that feels like it's reinventing. Talk about right place, right time. Like this is the time for a piece like this. I almost feel like what Cole's done is reintroduce the art form in a new way. And I just hope we see more of this wild, farcical comedy. I just think we're hungry for it. I mean, do you agree?

[20:19] Bianca Leigh: Well, definitely people were hungry. And they were in New York was ready and hungry for this. And they'd been eating it up since the beginning. And I just want to tell you, I mean, I adore Cole. Cole is one of my favorite people in the world. They are absolutely wonderful as a person and a scene partner and a playwright. But I have a feeling Cole would say that they weren't trying to, you know, reignite an art form or take this to the next level. I mean, that's kind of really what happened. I mean, it's a whole new ballgame now for comedy for what they stopped using the word tamp. But let's face it, this is queer comedy. And Cole would be the first one to say this is, you know, when Charles Bush was in the audience, Cole did a curtain speech and said, let's hear it for this, you know, for Charles Bush, the mother of us all.

And I think Cole would acknowledge that, you know, there's a progression on the shoulders of giants like Charles Bush, Charles Ludlam, John Macarro. John Macarro and many, many before that. But the spin on this is, I think, so timely, the idea of saying, the idea is Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated cabaret star. That is the idea. No, no research, no literary references. We're just going to do this. We're just going to do this. And it's like everything and the kitchen sink has been thrown into it.

[22:28] Bianca Leigh: You know, I was taking these stand up classes with Kate Rigg. And we were learning about we were learning how to write and how to edit, which is, you know, you got to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And we're like, this is a different, you know, this is the rule of three. This is a one minor. This is a callback. This is a twist. And I said to her, I'm in rehearsal for this play. And Cole's doing all of the styles of comedy.

[23:02] Bianca Leigh: From the lowbrow to the not-so-lowbrow. There's a little highbrow in there, a little highbrow, but everything. And it works. It's not that I'm shocked, but when people say, this is the best play I've ever seen, and I've heard that from a dozen people, and I think, okay, calm down. Calm down. Really? We know some people, they've seen it like eight times. Yeah, they keep going back. Yeah. So, so yeah. And now I forget what the question was.

[23:45] Jeff Malone: That's okay. We were getting ready to kind of, I would love to actually ask you a question here about, you know, here you are making, this is your Broadway debut, yes?

[23:51] Bianca Leigh: No.

[23:58] Jeff Malone: Oh, it's not. Tell me what you're doing.

[24:06] Bianca Leigh: It is not. Okay. Okay. I understudied The Nap at MTC a couple of years ago. Okay. And I got to go on a couple of times.

[24:11] Jeff Malone: Oh, you did? Great, great.

[24:19] Bianca Leigh: And yes, I did. And then I was involved with a project, the musical Tales of the City. And I did a couple of workshops of that. I wasn't in the San Francisco production of that. But Betsy Walsh was like, look, it doesn't look like it's coming to New York, but we're going to at least do a concert version of this fantastic show with this fantastic music. And we did, we did a concert version of it at the Music Box. So that was the first time I'd ever been on a Broadway stage. And then a couple of times in The Nap. But this is the first time I've originated a role.

[24:53] Jeff Malone: Right. And that's why I was going to say, what advice can you give to young performers who are trying to get to where you are? What could you kind of give as advice? Because we always have people listening to our podcast who are aspiring actors and playwrights. And so what advice could you give?

[25:09] Bianca Leigh: We'll be right back. Let's jump back into things. Go home. Now, you know, I remember, you know, I went to Rutgers and we did four years and then we worked our asses off. And, you know, at the graduation party, my voice teacher, Martin Waldron, was talking to my grandmother. Oh, it's, you know, your grandchild picked the worst business. It's terrible. It's horrible. It's extremely difficult. And now that you have my money, you have to do four years of tuition. But I mean, I would say that don't get too excited about auditions. I mean, you sort of can't help it, but try not to see every audition as a potential job because it's very easy to go, oh, I like this. I want this. This would be so great.

But as a Tony award winning actress who still had to do self tapes, I gagged, um, was telling a bunch of us who were doing these self tapes in the summer. The numbers are staggering. Even when you have a name, even if you have a Tony or, you know, the number of people, chances are you're not going to get it. So think of it as an exercise. Think of it as acting class. Most importantly, every audition, every tape is a casting director is seeing your face. You're hearing your name, you're getting to see your work. And it's like brick by brick, audition by audition by audition. They're becoming familiar with you. That's what you're building. You're building a familiarity. So that at some point, a script goes across somebody's desk and they say, you know, who would be great for this?

[27:34] Jeff Malone: Right, right.

[27:35] Bianca Leigh: Now, I don't know, other people may book constantly with auditions. That was not my experience. My experience has been directors know, you know, casting directors know who you are. I'll have her send in a tape and the person that gets it is perfectly right for the part. I think as actors, we think, oh, they just used a little imagination or, you know, they don't have it. They don't have imagination. They don't need to have imagination. They have an idea of the person they want. Maybe you could change their mind. Good luck. Change their mind. But if you don't, it doesn't mean it was a bad audition. It doesn't mean you failed.

[28:26] Jeff Malone: Right, right, right. Dominic Jackson.

[28:32] Bianca Leigh: I was going to say it's great advice for sure, you know, and I know we're almost, I'm looking at the clock. We're almost out of time. I can't believe this half hour. I feel it should be called one hour. I could talk all day. I know. I'm a young chap.

[28:45] Jeff Malone: No, no, that's okay. We have, we just have one final question that we love to ask all our participants. Jeff, would you like to ask away?

[28:54] Jeff Malone: Yes. For our final question, our listeners love hearing a fun story that maybe happened on stage or behind the scenes. So do you have a particular story you would like to share with us?

[29:03] Bianca Leigh: Well, I, at the Lucille Lortel, you, so you obviously recognize that I also am a bartender.

[29:10] Jeff Malone: Yes. I love that. Yes, yes.

[29:14] Bianca Leigh: So what we would do is change clothes and just put the top hat with the shaggy hair right over Louise's wig, you know, and then we don't do that. Now we take the wig off, we have enough time. But, you know, and then I didn't realize, and then you see Mary yells, she does some crazy thing where she yells at the bar and Bill jumps through the air. Well, one night Bill jumped in the air and the hat fell off.

[29:50] Jeff Malone: Oh no.

[29:52] Bianca Leigh: Jumped in the air and I didn't pull it down enough and the hat fell up and over the bar and onto the floor. And so there I'm standing with a fake beard and Louise's coiffure and false eyelashes and, you know, the men's clothes and I completely lost it. I lost it. I just, I completely lost it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't, I just lost it. And of course, the audience loved it. The audience gets, it was just like, what is going on? Cole did Mississippi, picked up, handed it to me, I put it back on and the scene is moving on and I have to start talking to Mary and I'm going, oh God, please let me be able to speak. Please let me be, please let the words come out. And I was able to get my lines out and then we sort of go into frozen tableau.

I kept laughing every, you know, every couple of seconds because of what happened. Supposed to be frozen. That was probably the funniest thing that's happened. There had been a couple of times where Cole made me laugh, you know, especially, you know, the way that she looks at Bill sometimes. And it's so like, and then I say, were you laughing? Were we both laughing? And they're like, no. That was just you. I was still in the scene.

[31:31] Jeff Malone: I love it. I love the energy and I love the stories like this and people come and can see that and it's wonderful. I mean, I could, like I said, I could talk to you for a whole another half hour about this, but I know I wish we were out of time, but this is great.

[31:41] Bianca Leigh: Can I say one more thing?

[31:43] Jeff Malone: Of course. Yes, yes, yes.

[31:44] Bianca Leigh: Okay. So I think, I know I keep, I'm like Cole's cheerleader, but you know, whatever. What I love, what Cole did, a Tara Burnett. And Tara Burnett has said, when she got her show, she wanted the ensemble to be good. She didn't want to surround herself with mediocrity so that she shone brighter. She felt if I have good people around me, it'll elevate the whole thing. So what's great about Cole is even though obviously so much of it is about Mary, so much of it is about Cole, they are aware that it is a play and had the confidence and the generosity to say, I'm going to have an ensemble that was going to kick ass. And then we're all going to, we're all going to fly because I had friends from back in the day that would say, I won't be on, I will not stand on a stage with you. You'll pull focus.

[32:46] Jeff Malone: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[32:58] Bianca Leigh: So somebody's like, I don't care. Well, nobody can upstage Cole, let's face it.

[33:01] Jeff Malone: It's so nice to see you all working together so well like that.

[33:05] Bianca Leigh: Thank you so much. I'm very proud of that too, that we have a strong company.

[33:09] Jeff Malone: Yes. It was great. Well, we have to go back and see this again, Jeff, I think. I mean, now that it got extended, I loved it so much. We've been telling all our listeners, make sure you listen to this episode. We did another episode about the whole show too. Go get tickets to it. It's really, really wonderful. It's great stuff.

[33:23] Bianca Leigh: Go to omaryplay.com and put your name on the mailing list so that when they do release blocks of tickets that are more affordable, you will be notified and there is a lottery and there are rush tickets. So we understand that tickets are expensive, but there are tickets that are not so crazy expensive. You just have to, you know, fight for them.

[33:49] Jeff Malone: Absolutely. Next time you come, let us know, put you on the secure and you come back.

[33:54] Bianca Leigh: To the green room. Yes, come to the green room. We would love that.

[33:59] Jeff Malone: Oh my gosh. Well, listen, thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Half an Hour. We really appreciate it.

[34:03] Richie Grasso: Yes. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Bianca. We'll share all of the information where you can learn more about Bianca and how to get tickets to the show. And to our listeners, if you have suggestions on future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. You can connect with us on Instagram at half hour podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today, Bianca.

[34:20] Bianca Leigh: My pleasure. Thank you both so much.

[34:27] Richie Grasso: Signing off for now. I'm Richie.

[34:27] Jeff Malone: And I'm Jeff saying tata.

[34:30] Richie Grasso: Bye.