This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:12] Jack Sippel: My name is Jack Sippel, and I'm calling from New York City.

[0:56] Mo Brady: And what is your job on the new Prom film?

[1:08] Jack Sippel: My title with The Prom film for Netflix is the assistant choreographer. That's what I went there to do, and I was lucky enough actually to be thrown in the movie, so I guess I'm also labeled as a dancer for the film. But yeah, I am the assistant choreographer for The Prom on Netflix.

[1:25] Mo Brady: Awesome. And this is not your first relationship with The Prom, though, so tell us about your journey with The Prom up until the movie.

[1:32] Jack Sippel: Yeah, so I joined The Prom, and I was cast as a swing, and I was a part of that production, and then I transferred to the Broadway company. We opened the Broadway company November 15th of 2018, and I was the swing and dance captain for the show, with the show through closing, and then joined the movie after that. So I've been with The Prom not since the beginning, but since the beginning of kind of that Broadway transfer.

[1:58] Mo Brady: Got it. All right. So you're a member of the original Broadway cast. You are performing sometimes. You're offstage sometimes. You're the dance captain, yes?

[2:06] Jack Sippel: Yes.

[2:07] Mo Brady: So when was the first time that you heard that you working on the film might be a possibility?

[2:15] Jack Sippel: You know, we heard about the actual adaptation of the film when we had a special night at the show. We called it Ryan Murphy Night. He came with a lot of his special guests, and it was a very big deal. It was almost like a second opening night for all of us. And he was on stage with Casey Nicholaw before the show, and they announced that evening, saying he was going to turn The Prom into a Netflix movie. And none of us had really any idea. I think we could have had maybe some inklings here and there, but obviously, we don't know anything. You know, we're just kind of doing our show. It's right in the middle of, you know, awards season, all the things. It was crazy. So that was the first time we actually heard it was happening. And then it was fairly shortly after, I was asked by Casey to join the team to make it all happen and help out.

[3:00] Mo Brady: And how did that offer happen? Was it in a stairwell? Was it via email? And what was that ask to you at that time?

[3:11] Jack Sippel: He texted me first. He said, "Hey, are you available to talk on the phone?" And I said, "Yes." He called me on the phone. It was like a simple ask almost. It wasn't anything like crazy. There's no, you know, sitting down in an office and with all the pay. None of that. It was he called me on the phone like a regular human being and asked me, he said, "We're putting together this movie, and I would love for you to be on the team to help me put this together." And I, of course, instantly said, "Yes." He also was saying, "I'm also calling to see what other projects you're going to be doing in the future. What else do you have going on in your life? What's going on?" And I was, you know, responding back saying, "Whatever it is, I'll cancel it kind of thing to do this."

And I think those was even before the casting was announced. So I didn't really know that Meryl and Carrie and Nicole and all them were a part of this, but just to do another project with Casey is a no-brainer. And to continue carrying this show, to keep spreading that story, that was like my instant "Yes." It was a no-brainer. I don't really care who was on it. It's that we get to continue this amazing story that we were sharing nightly in New York.

[4:25] Mo Brady: Tell us where did you film? When did you film kind of the nouns of it all?

[4:31] Jack Sippel: Yeah. The project started in the fall. Our team went out to LA. They started doing rehearsals with some of the cast members, all the dancing. They taught everything there. I stayed in New York City during that time because of another commitment that I had. And also I was doing some casting here in New York City for the film. So they used me as like the New York rep, I guess you could say. So I was here. And then right after the new year, I flew out to Los Angeles, and it was the very beginning of January, and we hit the ground running. I mean, we started and just did not stop. And we went all the way through probably about the middle of March. So it was about a two and a half, three-month process of filming.

And it was just incredible. It moved at lightning speed. There was no time to kind of come up for air, but every day was just thrilling to work on this project with these amazing people and this amazing crew who are award winners of their own that all came together to make this beautiful story happen. You would look left and right every second and just be like, "Where am I? Like, what am I doing right now?" So it was incredibly special, but it was for the most part, it was a very fast project to put together such a huge movie as people are going to find out there's a million locations in this film, unlike what we could do on Broadway. But that is just the brilliance of being able to turn it into a movie. Yeah, it was just an unbelievable process. The rehearsals right into filming just nonstop.

[5:55] Mo Brady: So what is an assistant choreographer? What's your job? What did you do?

[6:01] Jack Sippel: My job every day was I worked really close with Brennan Stimson. He was on the project with us. He had done The Prom in Atlanta and I think a lab before that, before transferring to Mean Girls. So he was out there with me, and we were also with Beth Nicely and Patrick Wetzel. And my job was just working hand in hand with Brendan. So we would show up on set. Everyone knew the choreography already, but it was our time to really fine-tune exactly what the image is supposed to be for the space that we're in. Because we may have had a rehearsal once beforehand in the actual space with everybody, but adapting it for exactly what's going to be shown, what needs to be shot for Ryan and everyone's image to kind of come true.

So we were kind of the people to make everyone else happy, right? How do we, you know, present Casey's vision and still bring that to the forefront while also being true to what Ryan needs to be shown and his image and his direction. We worked hand in hand with each other, Brendan and I, and, you know, we would also teach Meryl, Nicole, James, Carrie, all of them how to dance. Was another huge part of our job, which was unbelievable. So we got to teach them all of this brilliant choreography and work one-on-one with them. Of course, these amazing LA dancers just are out of this world. I mean, they are spectacular to watch. So we would do that. We would teach everyone what needs to happen, adapt for the space and adapt for exactly what the shot is calling for and try to make the best vision possible.

[7:33] Mo Brady: I have so many questions. Was Casey there on set?

[7:37] Jack Sippel: He was.

[7:37] Mo Brady: Okay. All right. So he, he's just worrying about like bigger picture things or something like that?

[7:42] Jack Sippel: Totally. So he was very involved with the rehearsals, obviously to help make sure it was on its feet. And then he is an extremely busy man. So he had a million projects going on. So he would bounce in and out a lot, but he gave so much trust to Brendan and I to really take care of this, to kind of take the reins. But no, he was very much a part of this process to present his vision. It's his show and he is the choreographer and executive producer on the movie. So he was very much involved. Yeah.

[8:09] Mo Brady: So I'm interested in this kind of dance team. What did you guys call yourselves? The five of you?

[8:15] Jack Sippel: Yeah. We always say, I don't really know how this got started. I don't know if it was before our lab or whatnot, but we always called us team dance. That was something that happened. I think it just occurred on Broadway with me and Kate Murilly, who was my assistant dance captain. We would just call ourselves team dance, and it just caught on. And I don't know, we had hats made in LA. Like it's a thing now. It's a thing. Anytime music was playing, we were on set and they needed us to kind of have all eyes and ears on what's going on because anytime there's music playing or there's movement, they want us responsible for what's going on in them, as in the Ryan Murphy team, all of them. So yeah, team dance. It's trending, Mo.

[8:55] Mo Brady: So I'm interested in sort of the levels of responsibility in this team. It sounds like you're all sort of working together and that the title of associate versus assistant, those aren't really that different. Or how are you all working together?

[9:07] Jack Sippel: Yeah. So when I got there, a lot of my duties and responsibilities, I totally fed off of Brendan. He has been Casey's right hand for many other projects. And he is someone who I 1000% respect and look up to in all aspects of our industry. So I really fed off of him and Brendan and I, at the end of the day, collaborate on everything. So those titles do blur a little bit because we're doing the same job. But I think with my position, there still had to be, of course, that level of respect for Brendan because he is the one in charge of Casey's Not Here. And there are times, you know, where I would take certain shoots by myself, you just kind of feed off of what needs to happen. At the end of the day, we both know what it takes to get the job done.

And we both have Casey's vision in mind. And we both have been trusted to do it. So we just make it happen. And Patrick and Beth are unbelievable. I don't think we could have done this without them. They were the lead dancers. Beth worked closely with Nicole on all of her material. And Patrick was there to really work with James and Kevin and all of them. But they were kind of stand-ins, like our dance stand-ins. So whenever there's a song that happens, they would go up and be Meryl and James so that we could camera block and all of that. There are, of course, stand-ins on set for the scene work. We just don't have time to teach those amazing people these steps. It's just moving so fast. So we kind of have our team to step in.

It's amazing the way we all work together. Patrick and Beth totally just kind of go off of what Brendan and I need to get done and the amount of respect for all four of us because we've known each other for a long time. I really got to know Patrick officially in this process. But everything just clicked and really fed off of each other to get this job done.

[11:09] Jack Sippel: How big are the soundstages? One football field? Ten football fields? I'm so curious. So yes, a lot of the time we were on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. That was kind of, I guess, our home base. So we had maybe two soundstages on the Paramount lot. And I can't even begin to say how massive these soundstages are. I know they all vary in sizes, but we were, I feel like, in one of the biggest ones on the lot. And I truly don't even know a dimension. It was maybe a football field at the end of the day. Like, it is just crazy. Maybe not that big, but they are a monster. Where they are building, you'll see the opening number takes place in Sardi's. And that was built. That's not a real place that they made up.

You'll feel like it is, but everything was just down to the carpet, to a T, perfection. So they're building these massive set pieces in these soundstages. And we spent a lot, a lot, a lot of time there. But we also did a lot of on-location shoots. So we went to a middle school in Tarzana. We went to a monster truck rally in Bakersfield, California. We went to a high school across the, just all the places, all the places. We rented out a neighborhood in one of these cities to film some of Tonight Belongs to You. It was just crazy. The locations we were at and just the visions of our art team and the set decorators to create these two-scale street scenes. They recreated New York City. I don't even know the process on how to begin to do that.

Like, it was just crazy. You would walk out there and just be completely transformed. So a lot on the Paramount lot, a lot of location, on-location shootings for anywhere from like the Santa Monica pier area down there to, like I said, Bakersfield, California. We were all over the place.

[13:08] Mo Brady: So other than Casey Nicholaw himself, you're the one with the institutional knowledge on this piece, right? You're the one who just came from the Broadway company, had helped put people into the Broadway company. I'm wondering if you can tell us about the breadth of things that were really similar to what you had done on Broadway and then really different. So maybe there's like a number that you can say, gosh, this is almost exactly like we saw it in New York. And then this totally had to be changed for these reasons.

[13:30] Jack Sippel: Yeah, I will say Build-A-Prom at the very end and like Tonight Belongs to You are very, very, very similar to what we did here in New York. A lot of the numbers across the board, you'll watch them and say to yourself, yes, I remember this exactly how it was. There are some numbers that have big tweaks to them. I would say Changing Lives in Sardi's is probably one of the bigger changes just because you're not around all of these tables and you can shoot 360 and now we're moving differently because we're trying to capture it on camera. So some of the movement that we had on Broadway just reads differently through a camera lens. So I think that was one that really, if anything, changed the most for us.

Tonight Belongs to You is very similar. You'll see Build-A-Prom. Zazz is for the most part similar. You'll get the flares of what we did in Zazz. And then probably the biggest, maybe now that I think about it, is Love Thy Neighbor. That choreography is definitely, I think, representing of what we did on Broadway. No, it was wild to see what I'll call the Mary Antonini stand-in, like the black girl in the purple dress, like leading the triangle in Build-A-Prom. And I was like, I have a very clear memory of that moment. I think that was also a little bit of a fluke. That wasn't trying to match Mary necessarily. Overall, when people watch this movie, they'll see a lot of the color scheme throughout the entire movie, whether it's in the lighting, in the costumes.

If you look at the four leads kind of in the very beginning, they're all in the prom colors. They all have a green, red, a purple, a pink. So that is definitely throughout the whole film. So I don't know if that was trying to fill the shoes of our Broadway moment there for the Mary's wedge. But yeah, I mean, there's definitely staples that people love and know from the Broadway show that they'll definitely see in the film.

[15:23] Mo Brady: So like you said, you are a part of this movie. You're on screen as well as off screen. So tell people where they can find you. And I'm curious how that opportunity happened. Did you know weeks in advance? Were they like, hey, just wear this tux and go? How did all of that come to be?

[15:41] Jack Sippel: So I found out about me being in the film. It must have been two days before we actually shot the number. Like I said, we had rehearsed all back in the fall. Everyone knew the choreography. And all of a sudden, we get a message from one of our dancers that had an extreme emergency happen with them, and they could not be there for the film date. And they kind of weren't sure. But at the end of the day, because it's such a fast paced timeline, we had to just nix that person. We needed to fill the hole now. So we didn't have time necessarily to cast and bring someone in because we needed to do a fitting, we needed to get them rehearsed, all of that would have gone into play. So I was the closest one there.

And Brendan Stimson had already made an appearance in the film. So I was just next. And I quickly was, you know, shuffled off to a costume fitting. And then I already knew the number because of being a part of creating the movie with them. So I just did a quick little put in rehearsal. And then we filmed the next day. And it all just came together. So it happened really fast for me. The number that I'm in is the ladies improving, which No, I'm not DD. If you know the Broadway show, it's just DD and Hawkins. We're all disappointed. Honestly, now I'm disappointed, right? So I'm in the ladies improving. And what we get to do with this film is like I mentioned before, we get to go to many locations.

So something special we could do with that number is take that principal's office scene where it normally happens, but also show the audience the flashback that principal Hawkins has of watching DD perform this number on stage and swallow the moon so we can match the choreography from being on a Broadway stage in the movie to now in the principal's office so it can just splice back and forth back and forth. So I'm in that number for very few quick seconds. And there might be some other special sneak flashbacks in another number where you will see me I don't want to ruin all the flashbacks.

[17:49] Mo Brady: Okay, you don't have to spoil it.

[17:54] Jack Sippel: Okay, so I was imagining like, Jack, we need you get the costume. It basically was that yes, they said go to a fitting, they're gonna build you a tuxedo and come back. So what's the strangest or most surreal moment you had of watching this little thing that you had helped build in a rehearsal room? I don't know it Ripley Greer, a new 42. And then you're like watching it blow up on this massive scale. Do you have a moment that you remember that you're just like, what the heck?

[18:18] Jack Sippel: I think something that gets me every time whether I watch the Broadway show or was a part of this movie, when we all come together for that final build a prom, and you see everyone who has been a part of this production in whatever sense you want to view it as, it is just so breathtaking to watch them all go, it's time to like just that little bit will just hit your chest and sit you down for a second. And it just you just take it all in. So I truly think it was that final week of doing the final prom. You just look and you see the front row of these incredible stars who you never thought you would ever interact with in your entire life. And you're like, wow, I just taught them how to do these steps.

It was incredible. And then the dancers who are behind them, a lot of them, you know, had been with the movie for a couple other scenes. But you're like, I've been working with you to teach you this and just seeing them all thrive. And I felt the same way about the Broadway company. I will have to say that, like watching them every night. It's one of the hardest shows, in my opinion, because it is just go, go, go. The energy always has to be there. And doing it eight times a week, they are unstoppable. So I think my biggest what the heck moment was truly that final prom, just watching all 65 dancers for that one number. There were a million dancers in this film, as you see the cast list, those 65 dancers with the line of principles and then the 300 background that we had in that one number.

There were 300 background kind of standing around enjoying the prom. And all of those background were all LGBTQ people that they brought in for this one shoot. So having them just like watch and feel that energy and they're all crying just because the story really resonated with them, even though they were there for one day and it really kind of took them back. So it was just amazing to watch all of them. That was like my biggest what the heck moment. Absolutely.

[20:10] Mo Brady: What else?

[20:11] Jack Sippel: When we were setting this movie, we were also with our producers were there, Bill Dory and our writing team, Matt Sklar, Bob, Chad, all of them who built this amazing Broadway show now writing it and recreating it for this film. I had the biggest joy watching them watch the daily shots every day because they would be on set with us in front of their monitors and just kind of seeing their jaw drop at some of these amazing sets that they have or just everything about the film, just watching them see their creation come to a scale that they, I don't want to speak for them, but that they probably never thought it would be able to reach. They had this dream 10 or so years ago and they were like, we're going to make this a Broadway show.

They had no idea, I think at that moment to this scale and to the money that would be thrown into this production to shine that vision of what they had. I think just watching them was so amazing just to see how happy they were that it was A, being created and B, getting to be shared now with the rest of the world because they knew how important it was. We all, I think everyone on set knew exactly how important this story was and it was just so thrilling to watch them sit and see their creation just flourish.

[21:24] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Jack Sippel for sharing his stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by Mo Brady and me, Jackson Klein. Please rate and review The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that's on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, our home of Broadway Podcast Network. Our Patreon members have on-demand access to our full podcast series, including a full-length podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and full archive, including full conversations with our guides and early access to episodes. You can support us for between $5 and $20 a month at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Thanks for listening. Stay safe. Until next time!