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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out.

[0:13] Mo Brady: Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:29] Mo Brady: Creating a character in a new Broadway musical is a gift for any artist because you get to infuse the show with your own artistry. But it is the lucky few who get to create characters multiple times in multiple musicals. By originating roles in more than one show, they've helped in a small but meaningful way to shape the legacy of musical theatre for generations to come. At least, that's easy for me to say from the outside. But does it feel like that to the actors who create these ensemble roles? Do they think about the characters they create once the show is closed? I posed these questions to five of the most experienced and storied ensemble actors working on Broadway today before a live audience at BroadwayCon 2020. Currently performing in Broadway's Beetlejuice, Chicago, Frozen, Hadestown, and Wicked, they each shared stories about the small but mighty influence they've had on some of our favorite musicals. Let them introduce themselves after this break.

[1:32] Mo Brady: So these are five storied veterans of the Broadway stage. These are the best of the best, the people who've done so many shows, so many original casts. And so I asked the five of them to join us to talk about some of their biggest successes, some of their biggest failures, and what they hope their legacy will be as ensemble performers. Or maybe I didn't ask you that, but I'm gonna. So let's go down the line with the mics, starting with Barrett. Will you say your name, what neighborhood of New York City you live in, and your current show?

[2:00] Barrett Martin: Hi, I'm Barrett Martin. I currently live in East Harlem, and I'm currently in Chicago, the musical.

[2:12] Kelvin Moon Loh: Hi, I'm Kelvin Moon Loh. I hang out in Harlem. And I'm in Beetlejuice, the musical.

[2:18] Tracee Beazer: Hello, I'm Tracee Beazer, and I am in Frozen. And I live on the Upper West Side.

[2:28] Bret Shuford: Hey, I'm Bret Shuford. I currently live in the East Village, and I'm currently in Wicked.

[2:35] Afra Hines: Hi, I'm Afra Hines. I live in the Bronx, just moved there. And I'm currently in Hadestown.

[2:42] Mo Brady: Okay, so the first question I want to ask is, what do you think people would be surprised about being in a Broadway ensemble? Like when you go home and visit your family, what's the thing that Aunt Janice raises her eyebrows up the most?

[2:56] Barrett Martin: The schedule. I think most people think we just show up and do the show, and that we get to just hang out and sleep in. And when you talk about how many put-in rehearsals and understudy rehearsals that you cover, and then also when they add additional performances or holiday schedules and things like that, most people are surprised at how little time we have outside the show.

[3:16] Afra Hines: I feel like my parents are most, my family's most surprised that we don't get free tickets. They're like, oh, you're in a show, cool, when can we come for free?

[3:25] Kelvin Moon Loh: Yeah, and to tag on to that and the schedule, holidays, obviously, you know, a lot of shows, they make the most of their money during the holiday weekends. So a lot of people are surprised that, you know, oh, where are you going for the holiday? Or where are you going for Christmas break? Where are you going? I'm not going anywhere. I'm working.

[3:44] Mo Brady: So let's talk more about the brass tacks and nuts and bolts of being in the show. How early do you get to your theater? You're required to get to the theater half hour, but will someone just take us kind of through what time they arrive and what they do before the places?

[3:57] Barrett Martin: Last possible second. For me, I don't have fight call. So I literally just walk in at, because you have to, or you get docked. And so then, yeah, I go. After doing it for so long, it's like, you know what you're doing. You can put your makeup on in like five minutes. So I put my makeup on. My hair is usually prepped. Sometimes I just do this and put a wig cap over it. And then for the next 10 minutes, 10, sometimes 20 minutes, I'm just talking with my girls who are on my phone. And then they call places and I put my costume on.

[4:28] Kelvin Moon Loh: You're not stretching. You're not.

[4:29] Barrett Martin: Wow.

[4:31] Kelvin Moon Loh: I don't kick my leg in that show.

[4:43] Afra Hines: Depending on the show.

[4:44] Kelvin Moon Loh: Yeah. I mean, I've had shows where I've shown up earlier or had fight calls. Currently, I get there probably about 10 minutes before half hour, only because I'm allowing for the MTA to be horrible. So I usually get there and just catch up with my mates in the dressing room and see how their days were, you know, exchange stories, talk about current events. At about five minutes to places, I put on my one costume for the whole show.

[5:11] Barrett Martin: That's amazing.

[5:12] Kelvin Moon Loh: And do the show. But I do have to warm up, but I tend to include that in my day's work, you know, at the gym and all that. And I, once I'm warm for the day, I'm pretty good for the show.

[5:22] Afra Hines: I'm new to Wicked and only like a few months. And so, and I'm a swing. So I try to get there an hour before the show, no matter what, just so that I'm not surprised if somebody calls out or something happens and I got to review a track and like, cause I still, I mean, I'm still figuring the show out. It's pretty complicated. So I tried to get there an hour before. Sometimes I'm not on, so I can just visit, but sometimes if I'm on, no, don't talk to me.

[5:46] Mo Brady: Okay. So you've been there for two months.

[5:48] Afra Hines: Yeah.

[5:49] Mo Brady: How many tracks do you cover?

[5:50] Afra Hines: 10.

[5:51] Mo Brady: Which is now the max, right? That's a new thing.

[5:54] Afra Hines: You can only—

[5:56] Mo Brady: Two of them are principles.

[5:57] Afra Hines: The max?

[5:58] Mo Brady: Yeah, that's the max.

[5:59] Afra Hines: Two of them are principles and then there's eight ensemble.

[6:00] Mo Brady: And how many have you gone on for in the first two months?

[6:03] Afra Hines: Five.

[6:04] Mo Brady: Wow.

[6:05] Afra Hines: Mm-hmm.

[6:06] Kelvin Moon Loh: Calvin, when, how, tell, take us through your pre-show.

[6:10] Kelvin Moon Loh: Oh, I lied to you guys. I don't have an apartment in Harlem. I live at the Winter Garden Theater. I do. The thing is, you know, when you're a performer, you're not just doing your show. There's always like workshops and new musicals. They don't just start from scratch. So, you know, I feel like I have the greater pleasure to be able to be working in them all the time. So I often call my dressing room my Midtown office, my Midtown apartment. And so I really am at the Winter Garden maybe all day long. If somebody's like, oh, you have a two-hour break between this reading, I'll go and I have a great station. There's tons of things to do. I don't know. I'm a pain in the ass. Like I, I get there, I beat my face, whatever time I get there, I put on everything except for my big jacket and I just walk around and I terrorize everyone at the theater. Like, like this, with a cup of coffee in my hand, hey, what's up guys? Every dressing room.

[7:09] Afra Hines: And that's how I warm up.

[7:10] Kelvin Moon Loh: If you put it, if you do the right placement, the hey, hey, that's good.

[7:19] Mo Brady: Let's talk about creating new Broadway shows. Each of, many of those shows have been based on previous IP, but your roles may have not been in the original intellectual property, right? How are you inspired by something like Ghost or Frozen when you're not playing Whoopi Goldberg or Elsa?

[7:39] Afra Hines: Or Elsa. Yeah. That's a hard one. I think my cast is very inspirational. I think we like to play. I have always had the attitude that even though I'm in the ensemble, I'm very important to the show. And so I find ways of, I'm notorious for this. Like if there is a silent moment, I will fill it. I have given myself lines that are in the show right now. So it's just making sure that you realize how important you are and that you're not just in the background and that you are telling a story, have your story and make it clear and just creating. When we were creating Adam's Family, actually, we had the original director, Phelan McDermott, he had two things that he said to us that I will never forget.

One, he read the definition of ensemble and he read it to everybody. He read it to Nathan Lane and all the, you know, the principals in the show. And the definition is really the entire company. He called us the ensemble. So he put all of us on the same level as creating the show. And then he said, if you have four actors doing a scene and they all come on stage and they're all trying to do their best scene or make themselves look the best, you have this actor at this level and this at this and this at this and this at this. If every actor comes on and tries to make the other three actors look and sound the best they can, you have three people helping you, give you that energy to create your best performance and, you know, it multiplies around, you know, those four actors. And I'll just never forget that. So when I'm creating a new piece, it's about.

[9:13] Barrett Martin: What do I do? How do I calibrate my performance? And I have this anxiety of, I will never be that movie person. Then you just have to go, have a big bottle of wine, and say to yourself, Get over it! You're not going to be that person. The only person you can be is the best version of yourself. So you say, Thank you so much, Glenn Chaddox, rest in peace, for creating that role. Now I have to make it my own. Now I have to figure out why they cast me, what brought me to the table, and put my energy and my likeness to that, and create a brand new. Yes, there are movie versions of things, and there are musicals made of movies. At some point, I always go, They're two different beasts. They're two completely different mediums. And once you realize that, you can kind of free yourself and say, Hey, yes, that exists, but this is new, and I hope you all enjoy it.

[10:46] Barrett Martin: I think there's probably lots of things that are really cool about being in an original Broadway cast. One thing that you were just like, I can't believe I get to do this. I was going to say cast recording, because I remember as a kid, always looking at the back of the CDs, and looking at the cast list, and seeing people's names, and thinking, Oh, I'd love that to happen to me one day. And then to have been on, I've been on like three cast recordings now, and to think that somebody is probably, well, now looking at the Spotify list or whatever, and thinking, Oh, maybe that could be me one day. And I think, Yeah, it can. I'm going to piggyback on, yeah, you used to go down in history as being the first to ever. Like even your random part that you created, somebody else is going to do it years and years to come. So it's kind of cool.

[11:52] Kelvin Moon Loh: Y'all do musicals when you're in high school, and you have the MTI. You get that script, right? I used to obsess opening the first page, and you get past the title page, and then inside you're like opening that cast. And you see all the characters listed out, and like who originally played it. And I'm still waiting for that moment for myself. I haven't had it yet, but I'm waiting for, you know, maybe Beetlejuice or SpongeBob will get licensed out in that way. And I'll be like, Oh, there it is. Because I remember collecting these memorabilia over time, the playbills, the souvenir programs, reading every single person's bio. I have read your bio so many times, Tracy, before I got to Broadway. So many times.

And I'd be like, I hope I get to be there one day in my life. And that is something that's true. I'm sorry, now it's just stalkery. But those are the things that you collect. And, you know, this is such a silly Facebook meme thing. It's like try to remember that you wanted to be here yesterday, you know, in that place. And I was like, and I try never. It's hard for me to forget. It's hard for me to forget that, like, man, this is all I ever wanted. And I know I haven't slept in about five years. But boy, oh, boy, it does feel like a dream because I'm half asleep. But it is a dream because I'm living it. So it's awesome.

[13:27] Bret Shuford: I mean, the same thing, the cast album. Specifically, I remember being asked to be one of the three tap-tap dancers for the Young Frankenstein cast recording. And that was such a privilege. But it also was a lot of pressure. They didn't want everybody tapping because it just sounds too messy, too many taps, a few amount of people, and then they kind of double the track or triple the track. That moment was like, wow, I'm creating the sounds for this album, not just singing on it, but I'm actually doing the tap. And also, kind of what Kelvin was saying, they did Young Frankenstein at Drury Lane out in Illinois maybe like three years ago, four years ago. Somebody sent me a picture of the score.

And in the score, it said, Barrett Jumps. There's a part of the show where somebody, during the instrumental dance break, somebody's supposed to do the Barrett Jumps. My friend who was out there was like, what are the Barrett Jumps? Because they want to know. They were pike jumps moving forward, which I dare you to try it. I dare you.

[14:30] Barrett Martin: What's something you've created that's in a show now? Time hasn't told you. It's one of those things that's a hard question for me to answer because I can't wait to see my first production of SpongeBob, particularly, because I think it was wildly imaginative the way that Tina put it together. But I'm thinking that as companies and amateur companies, schools do it and other regional companies start doing it. I was like, you guys can do anything to it. But the thing is, I will always feel a part of that DNA in the character that I created. But that was all with the creative team. I don't want to take anything away from them. But to see that that will always be a part of the show, it will always be a part of the script, I'm really curious to see what does happen and what sticks. If there is one triumph in that particular show for me is I got a ball gag put into a Nickelodeon show.

[15:25] Tracee Beazer: Proud of you. Listen, it was completely dramaturgically sound, I'm telling you. It makes sense to me. He talked a lot during the show, and so at the end of the world you just want to shut that guy up. So I don't know. Don't search the dark web of Broadway, but it's there. SpongeBob Jr., that's going to be a great moment.

[15:52] Tracee Beazer: Oh, that's a hard one. I think you were saying not many of... What did you do in Wedding Singer? You have stuff in Wedding Singer?

[15:58] Tracee Beazer: Oh, I was the fake Tina Turner. Right, see, there you go. That's in the script. And then after when I was out, Eric Lawan Summers, rest his beautiful soul, he was my understudy, so they actually might be doing a drag Tina Turner instead. They're like, I think that works a little bit better. So yeah, that was it.

[16:18] Barrett Martin: And you have features on that album too, right?

[16:20] Tracee Beazer: Yeah, I have features. You're right, you're right. I heard you. Trace is good, guys. Trace is good.

[16:26] Tracee Beazer: The only thing I can think of on the Little Mermaid cast album, Heidi Blick and Seth and I would have this moment on stage during Under the Sea during the dance break where we were getting down and we would yell at each other across the stage, hey! And she'd be like, hey! It's on the cast recording. And that's the only thing I can think of as I was getting headshots done by somebody who was like, oh, I grew up listening to that cast recording and I always wondered who was yelling hey. And I was like, oh, that's me. That's me and Heidi. But that's the only thing I can think of because otherwise, you know, like, on the Little Mermaid script, it's like a seahorse, you know, or a stingray. And yes, I did those, but that's not me.

[17:04] Barrett Martin: Okay, these are all great. What great successes you've had. You've also had disappointments.

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[17:20] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Tracee Beazer, Afra Hines, Kelvin Moon Loh, Barrett Martin, and Bret Shuford for sharing their stories with us this week. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. The Ensemblist is proud to be a part of Broadway Podcast Network. If you can't get enough of theater conversations directed into your earbuds from us, there are more than 40 other great theater podcasts to listen to. Check us all out at bpn.fm. Also, we've joined the world of Patreon, where you can support the work we do here at The Ensemblist for as little as $5 a month. Learn how at patreon.com slash theensemblist. And if you don't have the cash to donate $5 a month, you can still help us out by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. One more thing, make sure you're following us on Instagram to see the latest posts from our website, where we share the stories of talented artists working in theater ensembles. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time.

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