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Variety's Business of Broadway Breakfast, presented by City National Bank, celebrates the upcoming season of Broadway with conversations from cast members and directors of “Sunset Boulevard,” “Yellow Face,” and “Our Town.”

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Transcript
00:00Well, thank you all for being here.
00:03So, of course, Our Town is a classic of American theater,
00:07but I was wondering, for each of you,
00:09what's your relationship to the piece,
00:11and then how did you get involved with this production?
00:15Jim, if you want to start.
00:16Yeah, I'd had no relationship with it.
00:18I had never read it or seen it,
00:20and they asked if I would like to do it,
00:24and I said, sure.
00:26And so that's how my journey began with Our Town.
00:30I knew what it was.
00:32I knew that she died, but I didn't know how.
00:35Spoiler.
00:36Way to ruin it for us.
00:37Oh, sorry.
00:40I have the opposite of Jim.
00:41Yeah, you are.
00:42This is my favorite play of all time.
00:44I've read it more than any other thing ever.
00:47I'd sat on my night table since I was 13,
00:51and it has been the dream of my life to play Emily Webb.
00:56Never in my wildest dreams in this capacity,
00:59and with these amazing human beings.
01:01It's a huge cast.
01:02It's 28 people,
01:05and they're all really extraordinary, honestly.
01:10So, yeah, I've been dreaming of doing this forever.
01:15So when I, I actually talked about it
01:18way before it was happening,
01:21and when it started all,
01:23it was just amazing how it all came to be,
01:26and felt very meant to be.
01:28I don't know.
01:29Yeah.
01:30Yeah.
01:32Yeah, I didn't have that experience, unfortunately.
01:35I'm like, Jim, I didn't,
01:36I actually didn't know of the play
01:38until receiving a call last year,
01:40and saying, hey, how would you like
01:42to be a part of Our Town?
01:44George, I was like, who's that?
01:46But yeah, once I read it,
01:49I was like, this is stunning.
01:50This is so beautiful and powerful.
01:51I'm so honored to be a part of this.
01:53So this is my first experience with it.
01:55It's already changing me, and I'm just grateful.
02:00I saw a production in high school.
02:03It was awful.
02:06But really, my memory is,
02:09is kind of like this corny nostalgia.
02:11Do you know what I mean?
02:12Like all shucksism,
02:14and it's so not that,
02:16like when you climb inside of it,
02:19and what Kenny is doing with it,
02:20it's not mannered, it's human condition.
02:24And he just keeps refining it, and refining it.
02:26And Thornton is a genius, right?
02:30So it's beautiful.
02:31But my introduction to it
02:33is nothing like my experience of it.
02:37And this is a show that has been revived many times.
02:40Did anyone feel hesitant
02:42about taking it back to Broadway?
02:45Hmm, I didn't,
02:46because I don't consider that my decision.
02:48Like if somebody else says that I think we should do it,
02:51I'm like, yeah, that's up to you, that's great.
02:54The only thing that made me nervous,
02:56a little bit, and only a little bit,
02:57is that it is so well-known,
02:59and the role of the stage manager
03:01has been played by some people that we've heard of,
03:04and things like that.
03:06So yeah, but other than that, no, no, I didn't.
03:10I was excited.
03:13I'm more excited now that we're doing it, though.
03:15Like it does feel a little pinch me
03:17to be on a Broadway stage doing Our Town.
03:19It feels like quintessential realization of the dream
03:24when you were a child.
03:25It's like, oh my God, we're doing Our Town on Broadway.
03:29No pressure.
03:31And he's so remarkable as the stage manager.
03:34Thank you for saying that.
03:35You really are extraordinary.
03:38And such a leader, on and on.
03:40You don't need to come see it now.
03:42Just go with that.
03:46This feels very prescient of Kenny.
03:49It's almost like, how did he know
03:51that we would need community,
03:54space for nuanced grief and joy, you know?
03:57And so my feelings about it
04:00when they first offered it to me was like,
04:02oh great, yeah, you know?
04:05And my, like I said, the experience of it is night and day.
04:09It's really, it's been so profound.
04:12And I think everyone who's working
04:14on this production has been changed, you know?
04:18So Kenny Leon is directing this revival, of course.
04:22So how did he approach the material
04:24and what is he like as a director?
04:29Am I allowed to curse?
04:31He's like a coach.
04:33Yeah.
04:36Can we curse in here?
04:38Please.
04:40I mean, the most commonly used word is motherfucker.
04:42In the most artistic way.
04:46And respectful way, too.
04:48It is.
04:49He always, he does call it,
04:50with the best respect, with the most respect, he'll say.
04:55He, you know, you help me,
04:58but it's like he's very,
05:00it's kind of what Michelle was getting at.
05:03It's like, it's just, he would play it for what it is
05:07and we say it for what it is.
05:09And every time he knocks off cobwebs of some aspect of it,
05:14you realize the script is completely available for that.
05:18Like, I kept saying there's nothing he's done,
05:21we've done with the show,
05:23that may look out of the quote-unquote norm
05:26that the play doesn't have room for.
05:30I think that's partly
05:31because he's making extremely well-informed
05:34and heartfelt decisions.
05:36It's not, there's nothing whimsical about it
05:39in that way.
05:40But it's amazing how this piece of theater,
05:43I've never been in a play like it,
05:44that has so much room for humanity of all aspects.
05:49Whatever you expect it would look like or sound like.
05:51If you try something new and you do it with your heart
05:54and you just mean it,
05:55the play's like, yep, that works, too.
05:59I was saying that this play is about the human condition
06:03and in the past, some of us have had more conditions
06:06on our humanity.
06:07And by opening it up, it just, it vibrates, right?
06:13So you have a black family and you have a deaf milkman
06:18and you have, it's just so layered
06:21and it makes the tribe bigger, right?
06:24And the conditions of our humanity clearer
06:27because of the diversity.
06:32I'll just put though in that Kenny,
06:34I happen to come from the same hometown as him.
06:36He grew up, I could probably walk to where he lived
06:39from my house and my family.
06:41Our families have known each other and stuff like that.
06:43So him as a director, yes, he does use motherfucker a lot
06:46but he uses it in a way that I know what it means.
06:49So when he calls me motherfucker,
06:51sometimes it's like, yeah, I'm the motherfucker.
06:54It's such a term of endearment.
06:55There is such a real family.
06:58And we throw family around in the theater community a lot
07:01and I think sometimes it's maybe a little too much.
07:04But in this setting, it actually has created this family.
07:07We walked in that rehearsal every day and said,
07:09hey, how was your day?
07:10What did you see today?
07:11We ended every rehearsal like,
07:12what's one thing you remember today?
07:13What's one line from the show that made you,
07:15whatever, it could be anybody.
07:16So we established this thing that like,
07:18oh, I know who I'm with.
07:19I trust who I'm with.
07:21Everybody's open and come leading with heart.
07:23And it's really started with Kenny, his heart,
07:25his intention, his intention for this piece is so gorgeous.
07:29And then took the cap off this beautiful script to say,
07:32all right, now let's think of it like this.
07:33And okay, because of who you are,
07:35let's think of it like this.
07:36And it's continued to build our town,
07:39as corny as that sounds.
07:40But that's really what it's felt like.
07:41It's not corny.
07:42And he kept saying,
07:44if you're getting too far away from yourself, it's wrong.
07:48Stay close to your heart, stay close to yourself.
07:50And this play is so delicate, but it's so sturdy.
07:54Do you know what I mean?
07:55You're in the middle of it.
07:56I don't know if I can explain it.
07:58It's like, you act on the words,
08:03don't hold anything because of Clarice Kenny's
08:05and his speed, no intermission.
08:09And it's just like, it builds.
08:14Jim, as you alluded, you're following in the footsteps
08:17of a lot of greats who have played the stage manager.
08:19And you also mentioned you hadn't seen it before,
08:22but how do you put your own stamp on this role?
08:25How do you make it your own?
08:27Well, the thing, working with Kenny,
08:30especially, and Michelle was just saying this too,
08:33two things occurred to me very early on.
08:36I was like, I know there's a lot of talk,
08:39is the stage manager God?
08:40Is he whatever?
08:41I think he is Thornton Wilder for the most part.
08:46It sounds like, I don't know if anybody here has read,
08:48there's a wonderful biography by Penelope Niven about him,
08:51and it's unbelievably good.
08:53But I read that and I thought, this is his voice, I think.
08:59And I think that in order to play the stage manager,
09:04I think it's equally important to understanding
09:06as much as you can, Thornton Wilder is to,
09:10doing this, what Michelle was saying, be yourself,
09:12because you are the honest broker between the scenes
09:16that these actors are doing and the audience.
09:18And any false note in there is completely alienating
09:24and to would take, you know,
09:26he's watching the play along with you
09:28and in addition to setting up scenes.
09:30And so that's been the thing for me
09:34and to my delight and sort of surprise,
09:39I don't know if this is the right word for it,
09:41but I feel like there's so much
09:44as opposed to sentimentality,
09:48there's empathy in the play
09:51and in the part of the stage manager,
09:52but there's also a sort of irony
09:55and a sort of, you know, he has this line about
09:58when we go to the cemetery and says,
10:00some of the things they're going to say
10:02might hurt your feelings.
10:04And Kenny and I were talking and he was like,
10:07I really think that's kind of one of the phrases
10:10or mantras to think about for the stage manager
10:12through the whole thing.
10:14He's not unkind, but we're taking, in a very kind way,
10:20we're taking a real naked look at what it is
10:23to live our day to day on this earth.
10:26So it's not nearly as sweet or as twee
10:29as I think many people think it might be.
10:32I don't think.
10:33There's a devilish something
10:37about looking at us living our lives.
10:42Ephraim, you have an extensive career in musicals.
10:45So how does your prep differ
10:47when it's preparing for a play?
10:50I'm discovering it day by day.
10:53I really am.
10:54And again, I have to say thank you to my cast mates
10:57who are so, like, I walked into this thing,
10:59it's like, what do you guys gonna teach me?
11:01I'm watching and trying to pull from everybody.
11:03How are you preparing?
11:04Okay, let's try that.
11:05How are you doing?
11:06You know what I mean?
11:06Of course, reading it over and over
11:07and just trying to continue to get my own sort of sense
11:12of what this is and know what I'm saying
11:15and all those things that of course you do.
11:17But I kind of really walked into this very,
11:19just an open book and looking to be led in a way.
11:23All the while still just trying to trust myself
11:24and trust that like, oh no, but you are meant to be here.
11:27You do have something to say.
11:28And again, thankful for Kenny
11:30because Kenny has been willing to guide me
11:32completely throughout this.
11:34He has no problem being, hey, motherfucker,
11:36that was terrible.
11:38And I'm like, okay, bet.
11:39Let me do it again.
11:40All right, that was better.
11:42But all right, but not as good as the first.
11:43I like, you know, it's been cool to be open,
11:46to be guided because it's a completely new space for me.
11:48And I'm learning as we go along
11:50and I've been enjoying being pushed.
11:54Therefore, I get to feel my growth as we go along.
11:57So I don't know if that answers the question completely,
12:00but that's where we're at.
12:00I will add to it to maybe answer it even more.
12:02Everybody should be required as an actor
12:04to be in a rehearsal room with Ephraim
12:07and watch how he takes notes and directions
12:09in the least defensive, open-hearted,
12:12quick learner way you've ever seen in your life.
12:15I mean, every time I watched him and Kenny work together,
12:18I'm like, oh, calm down, Jim.
12:20You get so defensive and then stuck in your ways.
12:23Look at Ephraim.
12:24It's true.
12:26I agree completely.
12:28But can I just say about Jim,
12:31he is such a verbal painter.
12:35But they're not these just broad strokes.
12:36Like he'll put a color and then he'll go in
12:39and start doing pencil drawings within the same sentence.
12:42And you get to the end of it and you're like,
12:43how did he do that?
12:45Do you know?
12:46It's beautiful.
12:46Well, now you're getting in my head.
12:48Sorry.
12:51So you don't have to do the splits every night.
12:53Come on.
12:54That's awesome.
12:55My hamstrings and knees are thanking me.
12:57Just a little break for you.
13:01Zoe, this show marks your Broadway debut.
13:03So now that you have some performances under your belt,
13:07what has surprised you the most
13:09about performing eight shows a week?
13:12How much joy and how much fun I'm having.
13:16I'm such a neurotic, anxious person.
13:18I was expecting to be just living in fear all the time.
13:23And it is the total opposite.
13:25I'm having so much fun.
13:28And I'm just, yeah, the joy.
13:31The just like, wow, how awesome I get another chance
13:35to try something different and to deepen it
13:39and to stay curious.
13:42And yeah, that's been the most surprising thing
13:46that I've ever experienced, actually.
13:50Michelle, how do you feel like you've changed
13:52as a performer since you made your Broadway debut?
13:54Oh.
13:57How have I changed?
13:59I never really expected Broadway.
14:02Do you know what I mean?
14:03Chicago's, I'm from Detroit,
14:04but Chicago is where I'm, is my creative home.
14:08And so I was doing theater in little bitty storefronts.
14:11And I came and as a kid,
14:14my mom used to take tours to us.
14:16So this is always a lovely surprise.
14:19I was asking, during the whole sweat thing,
14:23I was asking my manager, I was like,
14:26how am I being perceived?
14:27And she said, like, you didn't expect
14:29to get invited to the party,
14:30but you're having a good time now that you're here.
14:33So that's my experience, so.
14:37This production is a very minimal set.
14:39What is it like performing in that kind of environment?
14:44I mean, it's amazing.
14:49It certainly keeps you excessively attuned
14:53to all the words, not just that you speak,
14:56but that everybody else does.
14:57It also keeps us all very connected
15:00because there's nothing else to hold onto out there,
15:02except everybody else who's on stage with you.
15:04It's really interesting.
15:07And I think sort of to Zoe's point about,
15:11it's really a special play to perform eight times a week.
15:14It's really never, knock on wood, so far,
15:17there's never a drag because it's like,
15:21not every script, most scripts aren't like this,
15:23where it's almost like evergreen
15:25with every time you do it,
15:26something else pops up out of the soil
15:28that you're like, oh, wow, that's in there.
15:31Or an audience reacts and you're like,
15:33oh my God, I never thought of it like that.
15:36But that's rare.
15:37I don't feel like I've experienced that a lot.
15:39What the hell was I answering when you asked that?
15:42Why'd you ask me?
15:43It was a great answer.
15:44About the minimal set?
15:45Oh, the minimal set, yeah, thank you.
15:47I really couldn't, I was like, okay.
15:49There's something about the minimalism, though.
15:52It forces the actors as well as the audience
15:55to engage on a different level.
15:57Because everybody's, you usually have
15:59that kind of relationship with a book, right?
16:02Where you fill in what's not there.
16:04And so it's forcing everybody to kind of lean in,
16:07like, right, she's making French toast.
16:11It makes the audience participate
16:15and play in a different way.
16:18Am I crazy or is there bacon
16:19that pumps through the theater?
16:22You can smell it?
16:23Can you smell it from the stage?
16:24Oh God, they're pumping it right by my face.
16:26I'm like, I can hear the fan that's sending it out.
16:30I wish you could see our prop woman
16:32because she has a bacon costume when she's making it.
16:35You ever get hungry when you're on stage?
16:38Absolutely.
16:41So this was a show that was written in 1938
16:44and of course it continues to be performed,
16:46but what is it about the message
16:48that continues to resonate?
16:52I'll say, I think I was listening to Jim talk about it once
16:57and I started thinking about it later
17:00and the play is written about now.
17:04It literally feels like Thornton was talking about,
17:08of course, not now in 2024, but his now.
17:10And it's about living now.
17:12It's about loving now.
17:14It's about literally loving what you have right now.
17:17So with that being sort of the baseline of everything
17:22that we're kind of speaking about,
17:23that he's speaking about, it can never get old
17:26because it's always in the moment, you know?
17:29One of the things that I learned in the biography about,
17:32which many people in here may know I didn't,
17:34was that he was on, he's so well-traveled,
17:37Thornton was, and so well-learned and read,
17:39but he worked with an archeology group
17:42or a class in Rome at some point.
17:45And at one point they were on a dig
17:47and they uncovered an old road with all these things
17:52and he was just like, we are here,
17:55how many thousands of years later,
17:57walking on top and doing our thing,
17:59essentially in the same way that they did,
18:01it's buried way down there.
18:03And so he became fascinated with this idea of like,
18:07we just keep doing it over and over.
18:10And I always think of that line in the start of Act Three
18:13where I tell them what's changed in the last 14 years
18:17in Grover's Corners or whatever it is.
18:19And then I say, you'd be surprised though,
18:21things don't change that much around here.
18:24And I'm like, that could be the subline of the text
18:28in my opinion, or the title,
18:29like things don't change much around here.
18:33I think one of the most beautiful things about the play
18:36is that it's not punishing the experience of living
18:44and that it's impossible to appreciate every minute.
18:48It's just taking a moment to recognize,
18:51oh, maybe I'll call my mom,
18:55maybe I'll tell that person I love them,
18:57maybe I'll drink my nice bottle of wine.
19:00It's just a beautiful reminder
19:03of how extraordinary this one life is.
19:09And I can't, it's a perfect piece of text
19:15and the more we do it, the more kind of shocked we all are
19:18at how profound it is, I don't know, yeah.
19:24That you bring up a great point
19:26because the show is about people
19:28maybe not appreciating the smaller moments of life
19:31while you're living it.
19:32And so for everyone else,
19:35do you feel like working on this show
19:37has helped you treasure smaller moments,
19:40as corny as that might sound,
19:42but how has that manifested for you all?
19:45I'm crying all the time, 24 seven.
19:47I'm crying, I'm crying.
19:48Everything is beautiful, that's how I feel.
19:52I'll say I lost my grandmother about three weeks ago,
19:56like the week before we started previews.
19:59And she was kind of in decline over the summer.
20:04And of course I had known and started reading this play
20:07before I got to go down there and be with her one last time.
20:11And the intention that I had
20:13when I walked into her hospital room
20:15and I turned my phone off
20:17and I literally stood there with her
20:19and I watched her and I spoke with her
20:21and I sucked in every nanosecond of time I could
20:25because I remembered that this play was like,
20:27don't lose this, you won't have it again.
20:30And I got to be maybe the most intentional I've ever been
20:34with every second of my life and my experience with her.
20:39And yeah, for that whole entire day.
20:41And I have that memory vividly in my mind now
20:44and I get to take it on the stage with me
20:46and I get to grieve it every night too
20:48in this beautiful way and celebrate it every night
20:50the way that I've been led to by this play.
20:55The play keeps saying it goes so fast, it goes so fast.
20:58And there's no way that you can be present every minute
21:03but you just start remembering that this goes so fast.
21:06We just got out of COVID.
21:08We were separated for how many years?
21:10Do you know what I mean?
21:11How much grief and loss?
21:13And I think this play is really timely
21:15because we're not very good at nuanced conversations
21:20and this really forces a very simple nuanced conversation
21:24about love and loss and life and it goes so fast.
21:32Do you have anything you want to add?
21:37Sure.
21:38I mean, I do feel that it's put a beautiful, unique umbrella
21:47over this period of time so far
21:49that we've been working on it.
21:50Like every day does feel a little different
21:53and I don't say that just to give you a good answer.
21:55I really do feel that way and I've thought about it.
21:58Like there's something, I'm just in a better mood
22:03and part of it is getting to play this role, I think
22:09and having that relationship to those 27 other people
22:13and then to the 1100 in the audience.
22:16It sort of forces, in a good way, a patience upon you
22:22and I feel like that's trickling over.
22:25I feel both more patient and because of that,
22:28I feel more energetic in a weird way.
22:30I can't believe how energized I feel
22:32for every one of our shows.
22:33Even right before it, I'm tired.
22:35By the end, I'm just like buzzing
22:36like I sucked on caffeine through the whole thing
22:38and I didn't.
22:40It's really great.
22:42So I understand the cast took a little field trip
22:45to New Hampshire where they're playing.
22:47What a nightmare.
22:50Five hours in a bus.
22:5210 hours.
22:5310 total.
22:54Oh my God, for those of you who got car sick.
22:58What did you all gain from that experience?
23:01Nausea.
23:03I do think it humbled us.
23:04That was the first day.
23:06We had never met.
23:07It was the first rehearsal.
23:08We meet in front of the theater and they throw us on a bus
23:11and we go to New Hampshire, Petersburg,
23:13which Grover's Corner is modeled after.
23:15And by the end of the night, everybody was just like,
23:19I'm sure I'm gonna love you people,
23:22but I gotta get out of here.
23:24But it does something.
23:26It strips you.
23:27You're very right.
23:28We've talked a lot about it.
23:29Like a week or two in, we were all looking around going,
23:31that first trip kind of broke us in a good way.
23:34And we were like, well, hell, let's just rehearse.
23:36You know what I'm saying?
23:40But the town's adorable.
23:41They're very sweet people.
23:42We're so glad we went.
23:49Aside from actually performing,
23:51what is everyone's favorite part of being on Broadway?
23:56Doing press.
23:56No, I'm kidding.
24:01What is it?
24:02What's your favorite part?
24:04Oh, man.
24:06I don't know.
24:07I say there definitely is a community on Broadway.
24:11There's like-minded people and beautiful artists
24:14and some of the most extraordinarily beautiful humans,
24:17not just performing, but who they are in this community.
24:20So getting to share a space and time
24:25at the same time as these people,
24:26meet them and not the people that I'm working with,
24:29of course, but the Broadway community,
24:32we hold each other down.
24:33We hold each other up.
24:34And it's real.
24:35We show up for each other.
24:36We advocate for one another.
24:37And it's just something that's very powerful
24:40to be a part of.
24:41There aren't many, if any, other ways of participating
24:45in this kind of art or creativity
24:47where you generally understand and know every schedule
24:52that everybody else is on at the same time.
24:54You shoot things on camera.
24:55Somebody could be done in two hours.
24:57Somebody could take three months to get their stuff done.
24:59We all know we all slug through eight shows a week
25:01and go out there and have live audiences
25:04that change things every night.
25:06And it's just beautifully unique.
25:11And I've never been in such a large cast.
25:14I'm not a musical theater person.
25:16But the idea of you just have all of these people breathing,
25:20I know this sounds ridiculous,
25:22but it's just like, and all of their energy
25:24is going towards you to tell the story.
25:27Do you know what I mean?
25:27And they just keep passing the energy around the stage.
25:30It is really profound.
25:32You're like, I might have to learn how to sing.
25:34I might have to do something
25:38so I can be around all these folks.
25:39But everything's getting smaller and smaller and smaller
25:43because of economics.
25:44And just the idea that we have all of this beauty
25:47and humanity and diversity on stage,
25:50it makes me feel very hopeful, very, very hopeful.
25:54Well, thank you guys so much for being here.

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