Stages PodcastStages Podcast

Success & failure Are Illusions with Joe DiPietro

Published Jan 23, 2022, 6:00 AM
Joe DiPietro is a Tony Award-winning playwright and lyricist. His musicals and plays have received thousands of productions across the country and around the world, including NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, MEMPHIS, ALL SHOOK UP, LIVING ON LOVE, THE TOXIC AVENGER, THE THING ABOUT MEN, and, most recently, DIANA: THE MUSICAL. In this episode, Joe shares behind the scenes of the Netflix filming of DIANA: THE MUSICAL, his new collaboration on the Sir Tom Jones musical WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT, and growing up with a big Italian family in New Jersey.

Joe Dipietro

It's Only Make Believe

The Oradell Library

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It still says my Internet connection is unstable. It still says it's unstable. My laugh Maybe it won't maybe it won't happen, Damn it You're frozen again. Can you hear me? I can hear You're really you didn't hear me say I'm unstable the internet connection? And that's what I have in common. What is ethic internet connection? And then we both sound like squeaky dog toys when we left m H Happy Happy, Where are you Welcome? Cast members on today's show. We have one of the nicest writers I have ever worked with. He won the two thousand tan Tony Award from Memphis. His comedy I Love You You're Perfect Now Change is one of the longest running off Broadway shows. His other works include drama Desk Award winning Nice Work, If You Could Get It, Toxic Avenger, All Shook Up, Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, which I just adored, What's New Pussycat, which has recently finished its run in London, and Diana, based on the life of Princess Diana of Wales, is now streaming on Netflix. He's a founding board member of the philanthropy Only Make Believe and they have performed for almost a hundred thousand children in hospitals, care facilities and special education centers. Please welcome Mr Joe DiPietro. Joe DiPietro to stage, please, Joe, can we have you on stage? Hello? Hello Joe, how are you. I'm good to see you. Hello Joe. Stephanie, how are you. I'm well, how are you? I am doing fine, doing fine. Now let me correct right off the bat. Was it Tony's plural for Memphis? Yeah, it was too too. You don't want to separate siblings. I'll say it was a fun night. I bet, I bet, I want to jump in with I love you. You're perfect. Now change because anytime I see that there are over five thousand performances of a show, there are very few shows that can tet that. I mean very very few, right, Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think it's I think it's the second longest running off Roly show after the fan Fantastics. Holy crap. Yeah, that's amazing. Seb Seb told me it was one of his abash your my husband told me it was one of his very first professional experiences. He played man number two. He was thrilled and the way they got him was the wording of we will pay you a thousand dollars over the span of ten weeks, and he got hooked up and then finally he sat and he was like, wait a second, it's only a hundred dollars a week much not a mathematician, my husband, but but he hears a thousand dollars and it's like I'm a paid actor to do the most fun role. He said, Yes, I had a blast doing that show. And the people that were in it. I mean, you had the greatest cast members in and out, in and out, and I'm still friends with tons of them. I just loved loved it. And it's like, you know, it's funny because when I was not a kid, but a much younger man, when I you know, you know, that was like sketches about dating that I wrote about me and my friends, and you think, oh, a few people will like this, and suddenly, you know, you put it up and it runs and it really started my career. You meet remarkable. The one thing about shows, which a lot of people don't know about is when you do a show, you generally meet great people who you remain friends with for many, many years, and you see them in various guys is in and now the business and stuff. So it really uh yeah, it was a great group. It was a great you know, we had this super talented people throughout, you know, we really got always got good people. And it's also amazes when I you know, see auditions for shows and I see someone's done, I love you, You're perfect, uh, you know, all over the place, and I'm like, oh yeah, I totally can see them in You can really sing and they're really funny. If you were going to remount it now, what changes would you make as an author to kind of reflect what has happened? You know, we did actually we did a revival of it with changes at George Street Playhouse like two years ago, sort of a year before the pandemic. So there's a new version. Some of the things that I mean, you know, it was so a lot of change. One of the big things that have changed is how we used technology to interact with people. So there was a sketch about someone looking in their diary, you know, like suddenly now it's like, what are you looking at when you know? How you line date someone? You know, you someone groups over the years have made some of those couples, which were all heterosexual couples in the Off Broadway version, have just naturally made them, you know, gay couples and lesbian couples. But we actually added some or we rewrote some things, so that's what they are so for everyone to do. And also that we we added a song that I literally can't believe how great reaction it gets, which is about guys sending crotch picks to the two women, which I didn't know guys did. I didn't know straight guys did. I'm a gay guy. I'm like, this is what gay guys do. And when my female friends were telling me, I bet this guy and he said, I'm like really, So we actually have a song called A Picture of His Penis that I thought, well, this is too crude. People go crazy for it. That's how that's how we've we've for rest and how many languages hasn't been done it? I mean it's done everywhere all over the world. But yeah, no, it's great. It's China. There was a movie of it in Hong Kong. Like actually, like you know all those numbers, you know, one number is two people playing tennis, and suddenly there's like a thousand people with tennis records dancing. Yeah, you can't, you know. It was literally like you never know what's gonna hit. I mean, this business knows, you know, you think you're doing something you know important or that's really going to reverberate, and it doesn't. And then you do a show with four people about, you know, trying to connect with someone in life, and it suddenly goes on and on. But like you said, writing that was personal. They were personal stories. So all of a sudden that personal becomes so universal because of the specificity with which you were writing. It's kind of amazing, really amazing. Yeah, I think writing is all about specificity. Specific becomes a universal. The gift I've gotten from writing and being creative is that I've learned we're all the same inside. Like we're born with different bodies and ethnicities and sexual preferences and religions whatever, But inside we all want the same things out of life. We all want to be happy, we all want to love someone. We all want to be seen. You want to be seen, you want to be heard, you want to have a purpose. We all want those same things. And so when you can as a writer, when you can view that with your characters, everything else is literally the external, but it's really you know, I feel what I love about theater is I feel is connects us all as humans. When it's done well, even if it's something as frivolous as uh, you know, a musical comedy about dating and romance, that's what theater is. That's the whole point. It's like to bring us to that space where we're all one and we share one heartbeat and one understanding of humanity. That explains it all. That was why I think theater, you know, even in these pandemic times will always exist. And you know, theater has been well been saying it's dying for the last two thousand years. But it's it's unique and when it works that you know, it's it works better than any creative entertainment form. I think. So you're an original Jersey boys. My daughter was born in Jersey as well, and I think Jersey gets a really bad So tell me about like being raised in Jersey. Great memories, I'm guessing, helping a supportive family. You know, I came from like an Italian American family and a very middle class. A couple of my grandparents were immigrants, like literally you know, came here when they were fourteen alone because there was no work or food for them in Italy. Part of Italy did they come from? What part? All over? My grandfather uh was born in a little town called interdoc which is Um River south south of Rome. One was from Sicily, their family one was from by Lake Cuomo, and all met in New Jersey and Cliffside Park, sort of like an Italian you know. Middle class was really a lower class, but no one knew they were lower class. They were all just you know, my grandfather one built railroads, one worked in a factory all his life. So it was very sort of you know, the American immigrant experience. And then their goal was you educate your kids so they can have a better life than you do. So my dad went to college on like the g I Bill and was a terrible student but became a businessman. And my mom, who was valedictorian of her class, became a housewife because that's what you did in the nineties, you know, and she raised kids and then she went back to school later on, and actually um became a really wonderful artist. Actually she's a great um painter watercolors. But it was very much raising in a very um sort of conservative, but very loving family. And one thing was always the culture of the kids. Like the big thing was you expose your kids so as much as you can. So I grew up in Jersey, twenty minutes from New York City. My dad worked there, so when I was growing up in the nineteen seventies, he always took us to see shows. The big shows of the seventies like that were suitable for children, so like Annie and Shannondoah and the Whizz and the first show that they took me to see with seventeen seventy six, and it just remember the lights came up on the Continental Congress and I was hooked. I was like, I can remember that moment where I was sitting. I was in the mezzanine on the left, and the lights came up and it was the original cast I have from the play bill, and I was like, I don't know what this is. I don't know how I can be a part of this, but I have to be a part of this. I started going on my own when I was older. But you know, it's a great lesson and really exposure your kids too, as much as you can, because who knew you were you an avid reader and writer up to that point. Like your mama as valedictorian, did she instill those sort of um I always loved reading, and I always wrote, had a journal, I wrote poetry in short stories. But I also was very hooked on old movies for some reason. I don't know why. When I was a kid, like, you know, Black and White too, same, you know, they're so some of those movies are so well written, and I just like loved them. I had the biggest crush on Jimmy Stewart. My mother said, oh my god, the TV. If Jimmy star, I would just stop and stare at him and him and Danny. Kay, oh, Laura, I love these are good choices. Danny. I was madly in love. My mother just thought it was the strangest child. Everybody else loved Greg Brady and I'm like, no, it's Danny think. You know, I think a theater folks are all like a little odd in certain ways. But where I based at home and watch, you know, a Barber Standwich movie and be happy, I plan. But I think I sort of like had picked up an ear for dialogue from them. And what I also used to do was I would there was a place in our public library. I grew up in a little town called Oradelle in New Jersey. I know it well that had new planes. You know what, Yeah, I do. You want to know the connection is a little odd. But my dog who just passed away, but he was my life and love. And we would go to or Adele Animal Hospital all the time because it was one of those places that literally had like internals and opthalmologists and orthopedic surgeons for animals, and so we would be in your town a lot with our little pooch. Yeah, I know, I grew up, you know, four minutes from there. So yeah, so that's where I grew up. And but the library had all these plays that were um that you know, that you could take out, and there were sort of plays of the nineteen seventies and sixties which actually were very seemed very sexy and contemporary dealing with all sorts of issues that I loved reading. So I would take out classic plays Arthur Miller Tennessee, williams Ollian Hellman, just sort of more modern plays, and you know, it was a real education that I just did it because I loved it. I would just read these plays and I loved how dialogue flowed off the page, and I had such reverence for playwrights um and they opened up worlds to me. That I wasn't getting on television or in the movies or you know, in the literature that was being um assigned at school. So really, you know, I'm sort of a little self educated in that way, but I just, you know, loved it. Like no one had to tell me to read these I just loved reading them. Do you find yourself eavesdropping all the time in coffee shops and listening to conversations here for you all the time? I do it. Sometimes I have to, Like I'll be reading my boyfriend. I'll be so I'll be zoning out because I'm like like listening, stay in reality. Come back, come back, Let's come back, come back. Right, that's the that's the original reality show right where we're all just kind of watching each other going, oh, they're in the first date. It's not going I just just worked out I could use that. Yeah, the words just when in myself if I'm having an argument, like you know, my boyfriend or something and I'm like, oh wait a minute, I could use that. That's interesting. Can you just stop for a second. I want to write that down so real life. Since you are so well acclaimed on both the Off Broadway stage and the Broadway stage. Do you feel the pressure is different when you're creating, Yeah, big time pressure. Talk a little bit about that and what that feels like like, you know, I you know, and and off Broadway. I mean I've been doing this now for twenty five years, and off Broadways really change. I mean when we started with I Love You Perfect now change. You could do a little musical off Broadway that's commercial and could run and no one says, let's move to Broadway, and you know, and it's happy to be just not just it's happy to be and off probably you know, it's sad in me. You know, not only musicals, but also plays. I mean there was a time where the hit from Playwrights Horizons and from you know, Lincoln Center would move off Broadway and run for two or three years, and those plays would make their off and then those plays would would play all over the country in the world and then make their off. There's a lot of money. Now. The pressure is, oh, if you're have an off Broadaway, head moved to Broadway and expose it to bigger audience, which works for some shows but not all of them. So I feel there's a real pressure to Broadway, you know, it's just the money is And I always say that when you have a new show on Broadway. Um, during previews in the back of the theater, you meet a new producer every night because someone comes up to you and says, Hi, Joe, I'm one of your producers. And because so many people are pretty money into it, because you need millions, millions of dollars, you don't know if they or with all due respect, they don't know the difference between saying a producer and an investor, right, and then it's actually different, right. But they like to immediately come up and say, yeah, oh, I'm a producer on the show. And you're generally yeah, supportive and nice, and you know you're five dollars is a lot of money, so you're grateful. A lot of people say, oh, people shouldn't be called producers unless they do this, but I'm like, you know what, we need the money and the enthusiasm. I think they're patrons of the arts. No one puts really puts money in thinking they're gonna make a zillion dollars, you know, because you never know. So UM, I really appreciate them. But you do meet. But there are a lot of people and there's just pressure, especially when things every show always has I always called no matter even if a show is a big hit and goes well, there's always a bump somewhere. So you really need to work with people who know how to sort of get over any sort of bumps in the road that you might have. But yeah, there's just a lot of pressure. And you know, I you know, I've been around long enough that I just tried to focus on the work. Always try to ignore what I call the circus that goes around any show, which is, you know, the noise noise, noise, noise, noise noise, and the chat rooms and Twitter and this and the like, just you just like, you know, I feel like as creative people were so lucky to do what we do and I so love it. I just try to really focus on what's on stage and the relationship that the show has every night with its audience. I mean that you learn more from putting a show from an audience than any reading anybody reading it. So um, that's what I try to really sort of focus on. And is it hard sometimes to get the vision to gel between you know, what what you envision, what the composers envisioning and what the director is envisioning, because I remember, well we started Men. It started out really farcical, and it was really big, big, big, and over the top, and it got kind of got whittled down, down, down, down into and then by the end it wasn't so farcical. It was it felt and it's a totally different feel. Honestly, that was a show Merrily and I did, which I still love called the Thing about Men. Were changed the title thanks, and it's it's end. That was the one instance I actually had where the we're a director who was, you know, a talented guy and had a different vision of the show than we did, and it seems seductive at first. Uh. I was the one that there was a one experience where I was really in the middle of rehearsals were like, oh, we have a different vision, We're not doing the same show. Um, and I still love how it came out, and uh, you know that great you know, seriously ridiculously talented cast. Uh And I read for a few months, but it was that was a tough one. That was one of my um That was one of the experiences where the director and I sort of were not hopefully you know, and I believe in never or exposing any problems to the cast, right. I think the cast needs to have one voice and to really do their show every night. But that was a tougher one, yeah, because he put it in a darker way than I think was written and that the material can withhold um, which made for some interesting moments and some moments that were maybe pushing and pulling against the intent. So Joe, is it hard for you to let go of those kind of experiences? Because for me, I would think if I were a writer, I would have a really hard time not having my original vision put in place, and it would sort of be this white whale for me that I was chasing down to do again and again. I feel like if I have any keys to any success that I've had is that i keep trying to work on new things, and I'm always trying to work on the next project prior to when I was. When I'm in the midst of one, which is like an old so you just jump right into something new, jump right, and you know, usually something I've been working on. But just like, Okay, this one show is not all you no matter how well it goes or not. It's like you know, be try to be a writer that has a career that's beyond just this one thing that you want to say. So I really my rituals come afterwards. Yeah that feels healthy to me. You know. When we asked um James the Pine what his favorite show was, he answered, I hope it's my next one. So a similar sort of mind frame, you know, just constantly moving forward, proud of what you put out, but let's keep moving on. Yeah, I tell you how I learned that. Actually. So my first show that went to Broadway was called All Shakap and it was about was Elvis Presley jukebox. And we've been a couple of years before. We had a couple of readings and everyone loved Like all the people who make theater happen, the theater owners, the investors, producers all came to these readings. They were like, it's the next big hit, It's the next moment me. It was like all of this excitement and I was first show on Broadway. Oh my god, this is my dream. Blah blah, I have this eldest the eldest people. Everyone loved it. We developed it for a couple of years and then when it's sort of open and sort of like did Okay. I ran for four or five months and it toward, but it certainly wasn't. I hit a big hit whatever that means. And it was really very devastating in a way. And you know, so I sort of remember I went to like I went on vacation for a week to lick my wounds and sort of come back, and I said, Okay, how am I going to deal with this? Because what I had done was prior to that. For two years, I worked on nothing but that show because I wanted it to be as good as it could be. I just was focused, focus, focused. Uh. So when that show opened, I realized, oh my god, I have nothing. Next, I have nothing. Really had a couple of things that have been developing, but there was nothing that was ready to go. Uh. And then I sort of had decided, you know what, I there's one of two things I could do right now. I could retreat and maybe go to l A and write some sitcoms or which I didn't really want to do. Or I could do what no one expects to me, which is doubled down and really right for theater as much as I can and really try to do good work and focus on the writing and see what happens. And that's what I did. Four years later Memphis opens on Broadway, which was a show I had been working on a bit, but then I really sort of dove into that one. Yeah, it really was like a great lesson, like the old success and failure are illusions, like people journey, Have there been big lessons that came from the one that you just put up that you now bring to the next one that you're in the middle of as you go. I try to Yeah, you know, I always, you know, I think, like life, you always learned the same lessons over and over again. Which one is like be creative, be collaborative, like be a good person and work with talented people and be open to them so they want to work with you again and you want to work with them. Forget about yesterday because it doesn't matter through everything. You can focus on today and look towards tomorrow, which is you know, really exciting. So is it hard? I think it's part of the process I've I've learned to you know, Look, if you're not if you don't like collaboration, do not go into theater, and especially don't go into musical theater it is, then you're gonna have a life full of frustration. And I've worked with great friends who were ridiculously talented where we've had disagreements over the directions something should go. You know, I'm very lucky I work with you know, I try to work with people who I think are super talented and super nice and decent people, and I've generally, you know, been been fortunate to have that. We try to talk things through, and you know, I also work with people. I always like to say I like to work with people smarter than me, because I like I like to learn things like say, oh, that's an interesting thing, or um oh, I never thought of it that way, and I respect you. So let's try it that way and then hopefully if it doesn't work, they'll go back to my way. And if it does work, I'm the first to say, great, let's do it. So you're working with Floaty Suarez right now on What's New Piske and he can talk a lot about changing a vision and changing. Of course, in the midst of rehearsals are out of town. We did a lot of changing, but his his heart and his engagement and investment and belief in Jake's is something I will never forget. He showed up every single day. He fell madly in love with the cast, and that's sort of sort of parental support that I feel he gives as a producer. Really, Booye's you know a show, So how's it going over there in London? It looks like it's crazy great reviews. Yeah, you know, and you never know, as we all know, you never know with the reviews. And Floaty is the share show which I loved and you were obviously fandestic and thank you, and he was such a big supporter of that. He still talks it, and you know, he's he really is like like as you said, he's like a like producer as parent because there's a warmth there. He keeps in contact with the cast of What's New pussy Cat, which is as we record this playing in Birmingham, London, which is we're both Flooda and I are the two Americans and we're both back in New York. He keeps in contact with them all every day. He's so supportive and he was the guy who really kept us through through the pandemic and in line and he gives notes, but they're always smart and they're always back. Because that was my next question, how do you feel as an as an author having a producer there behind the table almost every day? Because that is rare, that doesn't happen. It's rare, you know. I try to make it a converse. I like it. If it's a good producer, and Float is a great producer, I like it, and I try to have a conversation with them. So for instance, oftentimes, and there's of course more than one producer, so oftentimes I'll get here's five thoughts I have on the show from a producer. What I always do. Some people ignore those or just talk to them. I always sit down and I write out and I spend a little time writing out my my response. And someone's like, this is a good point. I'm working on it. And sometimes it's oh, you know what, but if we do that, if we change this moment, then this moment won't work, or we should talk about this. Thank you. However, yes, yes, one of my one of one of my things I always say is never break something in a show that's working to fix something that isn't, because then you have two broken things. So never move something around because oh, that's great in the second act, let's put in the first where we have this slow spot. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, let's let's let's fix the slow spot. But let's leave what's working there. So you know, and I think when you can really talk, as I say, I sort of really go into the weeds with producers and say, you know, if you want to change this, this is how it's going to affect. And then they can hear that. Producers raise a lot of money. They push us through, they make shows happen, they keep them going, they get us over the hurdles. So you know, I want to have good relationships with my producers, and you know, I've been fortunately to work with some really great ones over over the years. So I'm just engaging them and you know what's new. Pushing At is a big old um romp through the sixties and Tom Jones shows, and it's really fun and Floaty was the one who pushed it through. And the show like looks great and sounds great, and the cast is just wonderful. But it was interesting because I'm the American author of a very British musical. Sometimes, like the director will say, well, let's try this and I'm like, is that funny? It goes? It will be to a British audience, right, like, oh they're laughing. I don't understand it. But how is blood pudding so funny? What eat? I'm like, okay, so um yeah, and you know there's a surprises. Yeah. But but like a floaty is just a great you know, we all should be blessed with the producers like that. But Floaty is also i think, as you're alluding to Stephanie, very detail oriented. Like the costumes, which are just gorgeous, and what's put there from the swinging sixties are very mod They're super fun and colorful. You would have a note session would be like, you know, the sleeves on that coat, you know, are are sort of distracting, and I'd be like, what are you talking about? And then the next time I might see the show and be like, oh, yeah, those sleeves are interesting, or when I play what are they doing? Yeah? So yeah, So he really is, you know, precise, but super supportive and all that what you ultimately want. So tell me a little about Diana. Tell me how how it ended up. I'm assuming it got filmed in the kind the deal was made before the pandemic hit, and then that's why they just no, they didn't, So what what was that a risky choice to have it released on Netflix before you know you bring it live? We you know it was um so my show Diana about Princess Diana. We were we had started previewing on Broadway, um after debuting at Laya Playhouse a year earlier. Uh, a week week and a half before Broadway was shut down by the pandemic. So anyone who's working in the pandemic times, it was an odd time to be on Broadway because the show was going really well. We were in previews, We had a month of previews. We had just started, so we were still working and honing and changing and tightening and seeing what a New York audience reacts to. And suddenly, but as I say, you know, we're rehearsing, and maybe a week before we actually went into the theater, Chris Ashley rehearsal, our director goes to me, you know we're not going to open this season, Like, what are you talking about? Because this virus that is coming it's gonna shut Broadway down. I'm like, crazy, what are you talking about? But suddenly like two weeks later, we all knew, like, oh something, something's up here clearly, and as anyone working shows will tell you, everyone's advanced sale suddenly died and there were still audiences coming, but you suddenly saw pockets of seats where, you know, like holes, like not in the back of the theater where it was unsold, but like in the middle of the theater meeting people have bought tickets and didn't show up, which you know, you don't you don't see that, And you can tell audiences were an Audiences were great, they were responding, but then you can tell they were getting a little nervous by the end. And then so we shut down. Um, we were literally having a rehearsal. It was like our seventh or eighth preview, and like around two o'clock, our producer Great another great producer, Beth Williams, walks in and says, okay, stop rehearsal. Everyone gather front of the stage, and we all sort of knew it was coming. And she said, I just came from a meeting of the Broadway League with all the producers and where shutting Broadway shutting down for three weeks. And while we're having this talk in the theater. The stage hands are literally wrapping up the costumes and the sets like we were shutting down. It was surreal. It was like, okay, I think two or three months in when we realized it was going to be an extended time and no one knew how long. And many of our cast members got sick. No one knock Wood got seriously sick. But it was, you know, like if Broadway was still running in another week, all the half the shows would have shut down anyway because people were getting sick. And my collaborator David Brian got really sick. He didn't have to the hospital, but I talked to him a couple of times and he looked like and then he did a TV interview about it and he looked just like gaunt and death warmed over. I was like, oh, I was really worried for a couple of days and he rallied. But so it was, you know, it was a really, as we all know, a freaky time. And then like two or three months in, our producers said, you know, we had these sets, we had these costumes, we have the show we love. What can we do? What can we do because we don't know where we're coming back. And one of our producers is Frank Marshall, who's a big Hollywood producer, and he called up a couple of the streamers and says, hey, would you be interested in coming to the theater and filming the show? And Netflix just jumped on it. So we like had no idea and then and basically this was before anywhere the vaccines. It was right away that September. I think we shut down to March. For September, we all had to isolate in a hotel, tested three times a week. You couldn't see family or loved ones. We the creatives were on different floors than the actors, and when your food was delivered to a box in front of your door, it was very it was wild. It was a little um. It was disconcerting, but we everyone was working, you know, every we were actually paying people, which was great. And then we went in the theater and Netflix like the first day they were like nine cameras, like they ripped out the orchestra because we couldn't have an audience, and it was this wild, wild thing, you know, And they ran through the show twice and filmed it, and then they spent three or four days doing pick up shots with all these angles and stuff. I think we all felt very lucky. We were very happy. Um. Chris Ashley directed and edited the film. I think he did a great job on it. Netflix really was excited about it, and they held it for a year because they said, we want to do this when broy reopens, and this is the big sweeps time for them. So it it's not quite a business model. I know it exposes people to Diana and to Broadway. UM amazed. You know how many millions of people have seen it already and how many people who would never see a Broadway show I've seen it. So it's just, you know, it's one of those things. Were just like our all credit to our producers. They just like you don't want to do something different, want to do something creative, and it was at a very dark time and you know all of our lives, you know, working on the show. I wonder if it will start happening more and more. I hope. So I think it's a great thing. And they did it with Come from Away too, which was it was great too. I want to know how you did some of those quick costume changes, because someone they are pretty hard to figure out choke? Come on? Was that they are actually on stage? That's all. Yes, that's all that wasn't edited in in the movie making. That's all it actually really you know, because Diana was you know very much um knew how to get media attention by what she was wearing. We felt that the clothes were an important part of her stories and a fun part of her story. How about Chris Ashley both of his shows being on Netflix. He's now like a major director on these streaming sensation Netflix. He's super talented and you know, and he's a collaborator I've worked with many times before. Other things coming up, so um yeah, no, it's you know, look, it's it's great for everyone to uh creatively, to spread their wings as much as they can and be it are right to do, you know, television and movies and stream in this new world of streamers where what's TV and what's the movie is very blurred. And if you could have a second show that represents kind of your work, which other piece of yours would you like to have a Netflix? I would love I would love to have had a recording of the Thing About Man with Mary Lee and everyone else. I love that show. And I think that's a show that has an edge to it that would really play well in these times. Such such fun. Plus the cast just adored each other, so we didn't lab And what about David Brian? How did you two connect with each other? Is it a Jersey a Jersey connection or you are part of bon Jovi? And we just didn't know it, Like, how did that all happen? It was? And this was years ago, no um, I was. I had written a draft of I was commissioned to write Memphis, and I written a draft of it and I wrote what I called dummy lyrics in it. I just wrote quick lyrics like first draft. You know, I said, this is about the birth of rock and roll. I would love a rocker to write this, and I knew exactly zero rockers. So I gave it to my agent and he said, oh, you know, I know a couple of rock and roll managers. I'll give it to them. I'm like, okay, fine, sounds good, sent it out. I sort of forgot about it, probably for a month or two, and then one day I literally get a call saying, Hi, Joe, this is David Bryant on the keyboard is for bon Jovi and I just read your script from Memphis, and I hear every song in my head and I want to know how I can write the score. I was like, okay, uh, you know, rock stars usually don't call me, so I was like, okay, fine, and then he I said, well, you know, we chatted. He seemed like a good guy, and I said, look, pick a song. There's some dummy lyrics in do whatever you want and send it to me and then we'll talk. He goes great, like very you know, just like no fuss, no uncertainty, no negotiation, just yeah, great, I'll write a song for you. Hung up, and I thought. A couple of weeks later, I got something, and the next day there was a fed X with with a c D. This was in the days before the next day day literally said I heard all these songs in my head. He picked um it was from him, and he picked a song called Music of My Soul, which is the second song in the show, which is essentially the I Want song, which details with the character really feels about music and how it's going to take us through the show. And I put it on my C deep player and I listened to it once and I said, I hope he's not crazy, because he's the guy. Yeah, that was literally that easy than we met. And he's a good guy, you know, because you think a rock guy it's gonna be weird to work with. But he's just like a real down to earth Jersey guy, um who happens to being a huge band and you know, he's one of those compute composers who just hear's melody and music all the time. It's so funny. I love when you have those moments in life where you just kind of know and it just sort of falls right in front of you and you just go, yep, yep, that's it. I was like, that's it. Yeah, I love those moments. And that song was in the show Forever. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's amazing. And now it's time for the five questions. Joe, do you have a good luck charm or ritual that you use either before writing or before the opening of a new show. That's a good question. Do I have a good luck charm? I don't know if I do. That's in the rain it or do that That's where I'm going right after the podcast? Uh no, you know, you know, actually my ritual is always after I always when I come home from like an opening, the first thing I do is I walk my dog like I always. You know why, because you know what an openings are like. They're the bell of the ball, and they're stressful and the producers are nervous about review, you know. So it's all that stuff going on. But I've always had dogs for the last twenty years, and right now we have to have a knees and you used to have two pugs yea, yeah, yeah. I used to bring Rocko to the rehearsal. Yeah, it was rehearsal, and I used to bring Natick. Memory used to bring right, that's right, Oh my god, that's what I love. I love dogs and rehearsals. I think they're so relaxing for everything. As long as you're not allergic. It is a perfect perfect having. Really, it's like the great equalizer. Everybody comes together to love on something. It's really good. That's great. Yeah, but no, I was so basically after every opening I do, I make sure I come home. It gives me an excuse to sort of get home at a relatively decent hour and then walk the dog, and that just like brings every Yeah, this is what I love. This is what I'm about, you know, it's about this, and then the very next morning I do try to work on another project. If you could have any talent or ability, what would it be. I would love to be able to fly. I would love to just be able to go like I'm going to London for the day and just come across the water. That's so. That's that's the dream. And the second dream, which I am actually probably look, I don't have, but I wish just because I've worked with you know, folks like yourself Merrily and you know, seeing Stephanie, and I wish I could sing, which I can't really sing a note, and it's probably good I can't because I'd probably pursued it would probably be awful. But I really have such you have bring written so many music. I have such great respect for Broadway singers and what you all can do eight times a week and the excitement you can bring in. What that must feel like like, that's I would I would love to feel to experience how that feels. You know. What's funny that you gave both the answers that Lynn and Stephen gave lenn Aaron's and Stephen clarity Stephen Flarty wanted to fly, and len Aarons wanted to say, exactly right, exactly right, Okay, if you were a pizza, are you a thin, thick crust or deep dish? And what are your toppings? Joe? Oh yeah, I always think about this question. I love it. I love it. Oh God, I probably am. I probably am thick. I feel like I'm thick crust because I'm a thick guy. And um my toppings, I'm hopefully I'm like I like to think I'm pepperoni, which would be like well liked and spicy, maybe more anchovy, which is like a you know, not everyone likes but acquired m Okay, Pepperonian and chovy. All right, Joe, you're kidnapped. You have one phone call to your boyfriend, but you have to tell him you're in trouble. Without telling him you're in trouble, what do you say? How does he know you've been kidnap? How does he know that you've been kidnapped and you need help? Hey, Derek, let's go to a sporting event tonight. That's fine, Yeah, that's what I say. Mine would be. Oh I'm so bummed. I won't be able to watch that football game with you. That's very clear. Okay, here's another crazy question, but to get you thinking, if you are a nail polished color, what color would it be? What with the cheeky little name of that neil polished. Oh, I gotta say red because I love red. I think red is a very creative color. In my office, I painted red, which is a bold choice, as my friends say, but I feel like it's just very creative. So I would see, I'm red. I'm definitely red now, I'm definitely red nail polished color. Uh. And I would call it Rocco red based named after my dog, my beloved dog fifteen years old who's no longer with us, and Mary Lee knew I would be Rocco red, and he was. He was oddly very he was. He was the type of dog that when I was writing with sleep at my feet for hours. So I feel like very inspired by his just breathing, like you know that that dog sleeping like because they're a better sound. So yeah, listen, this was so great. I really appreciate you taking the time and talking to us. It's so good to see you and to catch up with you. I so enjoyed it, and it was so good to see you both too. I'm glad you're both doing well. Alright, much love, all right, take care, bye bye. Coming up next, What struck a chord with us? It after this break? Stages Podcast is sponsored by Better Help. Our theme song says love where you are Now, but sometimes we all need a little help. I've learned from therapy and in my yoga practice that growth comes from challenges. A good therapists can help you reframe the way you look at a challenge and your life, and Better Help can provide you with a therapist that give you some tools to navigate. They offer customized online therapy, either on video or phone chat sessions. It's more affordable than in person therapy, and you can reach a therapist in under forty eight hours and right now. Stages cast members get ten percent off their first month with Better Help, So don't wait. Remember when you support our sponsors, you support Stages Podcast, So log on to Better Help. That's h e LP dot com slash Stages and Love where you are Now. Mary Lee, you know Joe like intimately in the sense that you guys have been in a rehearsal room together. You guys would have your dogs at rehearsals together. I found him to be so wonderful and now I want to work on something with him. But tell me what it's like to be in a room with him. Actually, yeah, he he immediately makes you feel very comfortable. He really appreciates the actors, and I found him to be just a joy. He's wonderful. But you know, I want to tell you a story about Joe. I was writing something and I um, I wrote an opening scene, an opening number, and I wanted his feedback. So I hadn't spoken to him in ages, and I just sent him an email and I said, could I trouble you to just read through something and give me some feedback. And he read it right away and said, let's make a phone call. He called me up and he sat on the phone with me for probably two and a half hours, dissecting scene, giving me all this advice, ing, this is where this should go, this is what you should do over here, this is how you should move. This is too broad. You have to think about it this way. This is why this will work when they did it, but this is why yours won't work if you do it. And it was he gave me this little mini master class just because he's a nice guy. Wow. I mean, that's just what he's like, just a really really like dress human being, extremely generous, extremely I wish I had asked me if someone had been that generous with him and that's where he kind of learned it, or if it's just been a truly a nice human being, very grounded, very grounded. That's exactly right, because sometimes you think, oh, these these writers of musicals and plays, they're they're heady, they take their work so seriously, they're not really flexible in the sense that they don't want to change their work. But he even spoke, Look, if you're jumping into the pool of musical theater, you have to be collaborative, you have to be willing to change. I also one sentence that he said, and then pure Stephanie fashion, I'm going to paraphrase and get it wrong, but he kept saying, if something is going really right, and then later in the piece, something's wrong and you want to fix what something's wrong, don't take what's going right and move it. Well, yeah, going to have don't break one thing that's working to fix something else that's not working. Yeah, that's what he was saying, and it was like even beyond work like that is so me in my life. I'll look at something and be like, oh, this is really really great. Now, how can I move the really really great in order to fix the stuff that's not going so well? And that has never been the answer. And I don't know why I always double down on stuff like that. When am I going to learn that? You know, just work on the stuff that's not so great without disturbing what's going really well. The other thing, the other thing I just love that he said was how success and failure are illusions, Like it's there really is no success, there really is no failure. What is that? I think he said? Right? It was it wasn't a big success whatever that means, right, That's what he said, And I think it's it's it's so success and failure are taken from our own perspective. It's just our own point of view. It's and it's colored with our own experiences with what we've been taught. Success and failure mean. Um. Remember from me, I would never let myself say I was an actor until I could support myself on actor money, because to me, once I got paid, then I was really an actor. And so that was sort of my definition of what it meant to be successful. Am I supporting myself as an actor? Well, then I'm actually one. And really that's such a terrible way to think about it because it limits you in so many ways. Money doesn't define your worth. And it's part of why he's so nice and part of why he's so grounded, is he has this way of coming home. He walks his dog, his feed around the ground. He remembers what's really important. He connects back to that small part of his world that feels like a real, true success for him, so other people judgments of his work don't don't matter as much. I always love that about him. I thought that really profound. It all comes down to ego, right, Success and failure is really defined by ego, And once you take that out of it, then it just becomes uh an experience or some a lesson. UH, something that is for me seems much more uh part of a healthier mindset. Like success seems so finite, failure seems so finite, And nothing in this world and nothing in our art form is ever really finite. It's constantly ebbing and flowing and growing and breathing, and so yeah, once you remove the ego of it all, which is not an easy task for anyone. And if you know you're on the stage, behind the stage, walking through life. Have you been able to see Diana on Netflix? I did see it. Yeah, yeah, it's really it was fun. Yeah, it's fun. I kind of wish I could have seen it. I've because I heard that they had made some changes when they came back up and put it back on Broadway. But I didn't get to see it. Well again, because the art form is never finite. It's constantly changing, you know. I saw it too on Netflix, and I really enjoyed it. There was some heartfelt moments, but you know, there was I hope it doesn't take any offense to this, but there was some camp to it too. Now I personally think that was part of their plan. I don't think, uh it was in error that there was some camp to it. But I so enjoyed those moments. And I'm finding that in our world of musical theater, especially on social media, like Casey Mink and Robbie Rosel, they all have quite a large following and they felt the same way. There's now like this cold energy that has circled around the musical and um, the great part is right if if you had to see it on Broadway, you're paying anywhere from seventy dollars to a d and twenty every time you have to see it. But everybody's getting their fixed by going back to Netflix and watching it again, or watching just a particular scene or a particular song. And I will be very interested to see if in the next several years this is now perhaps not the norm, but it will become much more typical to see some musicals, you know, streaming online. How it affects ticket sales. You know, I don't necessarily have the brain of a theater owner or a producer, but I certainly think when people want to go to that art form and see a stage production of something, and perhaps they can't afford it, or they don't have the time, or just to pop in and get their fill, you know what I mean, get there the laughter and the music and the and it might expose people to theater that otherwise I've never seen theater and inspire them to go and see a show, you know, for sure, for sure, I mean, I just want to make sure that it always is represented in the way that it's intentioned. If it looks different on the screen, then I don't know if it's really working to the benefit of the art form. You know. But when you're thinking that large scale, how can you possibly control everything? Yeah? I actually have another little story to tell you, just like a super kindness that someone did for me. So I had to put that three legged dog down right before Christmas. He yeah, he both passed away because he was just riddled with cancer. It was withstating, and I was totally heartbroken. And in the process, um, he he didn't mean to, but he turned his head and his tooth hit my face and so I had a puncture wound and a big, huge bruise in my face. So the next morning I wake up and I'm a wreck. I'm a wreck, big bloody thing. My hats pulled way down over my eyes because I couldn't. I would burst into tears randomly. And I'm in the nail salon and I'm getting and I'm trying not to talk to anyone, trying not to look at anyone, and the woman notes me because I go in there were every couple of weeks, she was like, are you okay? And I was like I am. I don't want to go into details because I don't want to cry, but yeah, I had to put my dog down. Yes, it's very traumatic and very upset. I really can't talk about it, like pull my hat back down. So I'm going to leave and I'm paying the bill. And the girl behind the death says, oh, this woman left this for you, And I was like, what woman? And she said she was just a woman that was just in here. I don't think you know her. She left me a note and said I know how you feel. I love dogs to your next nail appointments on me and gave me a gift card. I mean, is that like? So then of course I stood there bawling my eyes. I'm like, do you You tried even to cry the whole way. But I don't know who you are, a lady, and I don't know if you listen to podcast, but I hope some day this finds you. The little nail salon and Georgetown and you left me at present and it meant so much to me that so kind. Yes, again, just being aware noticing somebody else going through something and the just a teeny little thing. It didn't even have to be a monetary thing. It's just she took the time to recognize someone else and where they were, and you were not doing well, and you know it was a wreck. She was very sweet. That is very very sweet. All right, well, I am going to go out and try to do something nice for someone today. I don't quite know what that is, but hopefully I'll pay attention enough and it will reveal itself to me. Good. I love it. I love it. Let me know what happens. I will. I'll have a good day. I love you. I love you. Bye. So if this episode resonated with you, please follow, subscribe, and share. You can always find us at Stages podcast dot next. A big thank you goes out to our assistant and do her all. Thanks Technical Sara Cho, Thank you to Noah Kaiserman and Garrett Heeley for our beautiful original music, Melanie von Trap for our Stages Podcast logo, Rock Grenfeld, our son engineer, and Ellison Arn's r PR and social media expert. And thank you are cast members for joining us today. We hope you come back next week.

Stages Podcast

Tony Award winner Stephanie J Block and Marylee Fairbanks share intimate conversations with the grea 
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