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.”
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
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.