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[0:00] Seth Meyers: What's up, Broadway?

[0:07] Alan Seales: Welcome to a special bonus episode of The Theatre Podcast. I'm Alan Seales. Back on February 10, 2022, I had the amazing opportunity to be on the red carpet with some of Broadway's greatest fans and, of course, superstars. Please check out my Instagram feed for some pictures and videos of the event, including content with, you know, Cynthia Nixon, Anne Hathaway, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He's an up-and-comer. Keep your eye on him. But let's dive into this episode.

[0:36] Alan Seales: Music Man is a very special place in my heart, and I actually credit it as one of the three shows I've watched over and over again as a kid that cemented musical theatre into my life. I have actually never seen it on stage until this production, and it's a production that all of you need to see, but don't take my word for it. Here's Randy Rainbow.

[0:56] Randy Rainbow: It made me gay. My mother, literally, my mother used to put me to sleep with the album of the Music Man every single night, and that's how this happened. So it's this very, very special show for me tonight. I've never seen Hugh Jackman on stage before, if you can believe it. So this is my first Hugh Jackman experience. And Sutton Foster, who I love and have been following since she was in diapers. So I can't wait for the whole thing.

[1:21] Alan Seales: Speaking to me before the show, Tony-winning choreographer Warren Carlyle, who's also personal friends with Hugh Jackman and the Music Man choreographer, by the way, had this to say about his experience with the show.

[1:31] Warren Carlyle: You know, it's interesting. It means a lot. I think it's Music Man is very American, and I wasn't born here. You know, I choose to be American. I chose to become an American citizen, and I love how American it is. It takes place on July 4th. I love the love story of it. I think the love story is just extraordinary and unexpected. And for me as a choreographer, there's a ton of dance. There's a ton of opportunities. There are some great numbers in that.

[1:54] Alan Seales: Let's hear from the stars themselves. Here are Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman speaking on how they approached their interpretation for these iconic characters.

[2:02] Sutton Foster: These characters are very complex. You know, there's a lot going on. I mean, I can speak for Marion, but Harold Hill is a complex dude, you know, and I feel like, but for me, it was finding with Marion, it was, I felt like she had, she had a lot of darkness. And I think with a lot of darkness comes a lot of comedy. So I thought there were, there were a lot of opportunity. There was a lot of opportunity with her. But I, in approaching her too, and even I had to kind of pretend like the show had never existed. So in that we were in the hands of, you know, Jerry Zaks and Warren Carlyle, and they were, they were treating it the same way. They were ready to sort of rediscover or even, not even that, it was just sort of like investigating, you know.

And so I don't know. It was very, it felt very collaborative and playful. But the real heart of it, right. And how do you, and making sure you, you hold on to the heart of what this show is about. So I don't know, that constant balance. You know, Meredith writes a little thing, you know, as a, for directors who are going to, you said, treat the characters as real. He's written a beautiful story. They're not caricatures.

[3:11] Hugh Jackman: No, they're really beautiful. And there, there is some darkness and there is a light and shade to all of them. And I, I think, I mean, for Harold, he's, obviously there's some darkness there, but he loves what he does. He, he loves it. I think the terrifying thing for him is in between gigs, you know, he probably feels a bit lonely. So, you know, I think he's really having the time of his life, you know, he likes the danger.

[3:36] Alan Seales: Continuing on the Sutton and Hugh love train, here's Jefferson Mays, who plays Mayor Shin.

[3:41] Jefferson Mays: I think that Sutton and Hugh have discovered this vein, this comic vein, which is wonderful and very right and giddy and all about love. Because I think when you're truly in love, you make each other laugh. And that's what they do. Sometimes to the point where the show stops because they can't carry on, you know, and that, that is so glorious to see.

[4:03] Alan Seales: But as a show that's been revived so many times and been around for so long, director Jerry Zaks and his production team had to approach it from a completely new perspective, just to keep it fresh, of course. Here's Jerry, followed again by Warren Carlyle.

[4:16] Jerry Zaks: I'm thrilled. We've been working really hard to get this one just right. And I think we have, and I think it's going to make people very happy. You know, for me, I approached it like it was a brand new show. I took my script and I opened my first page and I said like, all right, what does the overture sound like? All right, what's the train look like? You know, it was really, it was not, this wasn't one where I felt like I was walking someone else's footsteps. When sometimes with revivals, you do feel that, I feel the weight of that. But I didn't feel that with this at all. This felt just like a completely original, completely fresh take on it.

[4:46] Warren Carlyle: They've really like edited the book. They've edited songs. They've, you know, and they've taken a new spin on what you know as like the classic music man. But I think it can happen with any show that you revisit at a different time in your life. Like if I saw the music man five years ago, it'd probably have a different impact than when I saw it today. And I think that's sort of what they did. Like they took what they learned and what happened throughout the pandemic and put that into the show. And they weren't trying to hide that it's 2021, right? It was, it might be, you know, mid turn of the century in River City, but we're still taking those ideas from 2021, 2022 into this show.

[5:25] Cherise Springer: Joining us together, we have Cherise Springer, Garrett Long and Lance Roberts. And with everything that has been going on, you want to just come away with joy and be happy. Doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, doesn't matter. This show transcends so much. And that's what we hear when we walk out of the theater. We hear people as we walk out, just like, I had so much fun. And you're just like, yay! That's all you want for them. And as far as like the show, it is timeless. It will always be loved. And I think our show with that extra sense of humor, which it normally doesn't have, it's spot on for right now.

[6:05] Jordan Beal: I think we made some changes that are appropriate for this day and age, which I think is very important and I'm all about. And I think was needed. We did some updating, we did some revising. And I think it's going to spread a lot of joy throughout the community. When I walked into rehearsal the first day, I was a bit intimidated. So many stars and so many veterans. I felt almost like I didn't belong there. And I still have to remind myself daily that I do. I worked really hard for this and it's deserved and I do belong. But it is so wonderful working with them because I learned so much. Just being able to watch, I learned so much, which is really special and really cool to take those lessons away.

[6:49] Jane Haddishall: There were 21 debuts in The Music Man. 21. So many emotions, so many feels. It's unbelievable. I mean, there was a time during the pandemic where I thought, oh, well, maybe this is it. Maybe I'll just never be on stage again. And it was very hard to kind of wrap myself, wrap my head around that idea. And so the fact that not only am I back on stage, but back on stage with such a full-bore experience with, you know, 40 people in the cast and a full orchestra and a full crew, it's pretty thrilling, really.

[7:34] Daniel Patrick Russell: I've got to say, being here at the Winter Garden is so special for me because, you know, I've done West Side Story quite a few times. That's a story that's very dear to my heart. I just did the movie with Spielberg at the end of last year. Yeah, yeah. And that's where this, you know, that's where they first played West Side Story was here at the Winter Garden. So I feel a lot of the energy in this theater. It's very special. So to be doing Music Man here is just, it's great.

[8:00] Drew Menard: So I've been waiting a long time for this moment, and I'm just overcome with emotion. You know, it just is so exhilarating. And we've all worked so hard for this. And it's just, it's amazing.

[8:14] Cherise Springer: I have to say, we are all rooting and pulling for each other. One hundred and fifty percent. We all fan on each other. Yeah, definitely. Especially the young people. We're so in love. If I could crawl in their bodies and just love them from the inside out, I would. They all call me auntie. I feel really good. And I also call Rima Webb auntie. But I just feel ecstatic. And just I love seeing the exuberance. And like I said before, it's like I love being thrilled by our twenty one Broadway debuts. I mean, they inspire me to no end. They really do. I can't wait till tomorrow. I mean, this was fun the first night, but now I'm like, OK, now let's really get into it. So I can't wait till Friday night.

I want to see what that audience is going to bring and what we're going to bring. And now that these kids, I was calling them all Broadway stars today. I said, well, now you've been you've opened on Broadway. You're an official Broadway star. So tomorrow they may not speak to me, but I can't wait to see them on the stage. I have to say making people laugh right now is it makes me feel so full, so much fuller than I ever have before. I feel like we have the cure for the pandemic blues in our building. And it's every night people are dying of laughter. It's so good.

[9:38] Ronnie S. Bowman Jr.: You felt the love. You felt how everyone was here to support us and also to celebrate the work that we have put in. We've gone through a lot in the past years and also with Broadway coming back, there's been ups, highs and lows. So it has felt amazing to open a Broadway show, my first Broadway show with this great company, this great cast and creatives. I'm just so blessed.

[10:04] Philip Boykin: My late father, Dwight Woods, took me to see the music man when Eric McCormick, when he was the music man. And I sat in the audience and the guy that sang my role was an African-American guy. And I said, one day I'm going to do that role. And look here, I'm here. Dreams come true.

[10:38] Maria Briggs: I was really just talking to Kate, our producer, and saying that this family is really special and the community that we have is really special. And I think it's because of what we're coming out of, you know, like it's been such a trying time. We're all so tender. And this feels new to all of us. Even those of us that have been doing it for years, it still feels new because we're in this new era post-COVID. You know, it's been a tough couple of years for all of us. And so I think that has really bonded us in a way that is really special. So it's incredible.

[11:12] Marie Mullen: The warmth coming off the audience and, you know, the show, the music, it's life-affirming. It's joyous. It's a love story. It's a small-town community. It's all about community and people learning how to feel joy again.

[11:32] Cami Crum: It's something that it's hard to just think about because I feel like if you start thinking about it, it gets very overwhelming. But this cast, we really are so close and we've all kind of held each other through all of this because whether it's a Broadway debut or this is your 10th Broadway show, we've all been through the last two years and we've all kind of had a similar experience. So to be able to just like hold each other together and get through this, it's made this night even more special.

[11:58] Eloise Kropp: I just feel so relieved. And I think everyone was just ecstatic to finally kind of cross that finish line in a way. Because we've been waiting, like some of us have found out about this two years ago and have been waiting throughout the whole pandemic. And then when we opened in previews, there was another little wave of the pandemic. So I think now we're all just like, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Not that we haven't been having fun, but now we can really start having fun.

[12:25] Jefferson Mays: It's been mentioned a few times, but with 21 Broadway debuts, this was an extra special night for so many. Congratulations to all of you. And to close us out once again, here's Jefferson Mays.

[12:36] Jefferson Mays: I got quite emotional about it because it just filled me with such joy and such hope and faith in the future of our industry and of our art, because it's in their hands. And they are the most dedicated, hardworking, professional, and above all, joyful people. Because you can't fake joy. You can't fake it.

[12:58] Alan Seales: Thanks for listening. Make sure to visit MusicManOnBroadway.com for more info and tickets. And make sure to leave a rating and review about the podcast wherever you're listening now. Make sure to find me on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast, and find more information online at ttp.fm or bpn.fm slash ttp.