 huge response to it. And I really think it made a difference in identifying the vocabulary of what your show is. That's right, that's very important. And one of our challenges with Douglas Carter Bean on Cinderella was that he's a very contemporary playwright and there were times that we had to pull him back, his political sensibility and his snarky sensibility at times and it was very natural to him and would be funny to all of us but wrong vocabulary for a family show and Cinderella in particular. So those kinds of things are always things that you're that to keep your show in one vocabulary to make sure the sound is a score. I mean that's the difficulty of pop songs I think is that it's not really a score, it's a lot of great songs. I love the show and I love those songs. I grew up with them. I mean the good thing is that there's a singular voice behind it. Because the story of the show is about the sound changing over the course of this decade between meter 1959 and it ends up in 1971 and so you're watching the evolution of music and the evolution of music is happening through the score through the evening. But I have one quick little story just about the finding the right place for a song. So we were in San Francisco and one of the most well-known songs in the show you've got a friend. Everyone loves the song. It's a song that Carol at her concerts will often play as the encore because it's one of the most well-known songs that she's ever written. So we thought well we're gonna replicate that experience by putting it last in our show. So we're gonna have her sing I feel the earth move and everybody's clapping along and then we'll top it with this great encore you've got a friend terrific song everybody will be bringing their lighters out and this will be terrific. So we get to our invited dress in San Francisco and we and the show has gone quite well. We get to the finale they sing earth move everybody is up on their feet they're very excited and then boom, napalm. It completely didn't work and at that point that was when I in the back of the house walked out on to Geary Avenue in San Francisco and it didn't watch the rest of it. And we cut it immediately it didn't even make it to the first preview but we knew we had to find a place for this song but we knew that it didn't work there. So once between San Francisco and New York we were restructuring the second act and the part of the plot where Carol moves to California was something that didn't actually exist in San Francisco and in between San Francisco and New York we found that what was missing about the show was that we people wanted to see the the evolution of tapestry and watching tapestry kind of come to life and that part of it was kind of glossed over in the San Francisco version. So we we were gonna we knew we were gonna add the plot element of her choosing to leave New York and moved to California and as part of that we came up with the idea of her saying goodbye to her friends in the in the building and and Jason overnight did this arrangement for the four for three voices and then Jeff Brown as Danny Kirschner also joined so that it became a four-part vocal arrangement around the piano. It's very simple it's not it's unorchestrated it's just it's just piano it's the only song that's completely just piano on the whole show. And by giving it that kind of context and by giving it a kind of window into a reflection of why that song was written it is now I think one of the more successful moments of the show whereas but it's the same song you know it and so it's it's all about kind of finding that that right moment and and setting it up in the right way and a lot of giving the audience a lens to see it I mean and that's the all the way through that show I think that's what the goal was with with these pop songs that are so well known that the task is to give the audience some kind of new lens in which to appreciate them in a new way. I feel like we're all hitting on a very interesting topic that I'd love to spend a moment about in developing musicals which is who and what your audience is and I think it's one of the very first things that you really have to think about when you're creating a show I think today and you've done this in terms of adapting musicals based on movies and how and sort of balancing expectation of what a movie is and creating it for the stage I think it's one of the things I think it's what means that move very tricky and how to do that. I don't think that much about it. Okay. I used to you know when I did the opera Harvey Mille was one of the first big Alec operas done in San Francisco, Houston, New York and I said oh the gays are gonna come out in droves. No. New music people came out in droves and I found that in certain communities like Houston the gays said oh operas for the old queens we don't go to opera and that's history we don't care about that. I was shocked. Great gardens I thought oh well the great gardens fanatics will come out and they'll dress up like little Edie. A couple came with the escutchees of tomatoes the first not ready for ready to defend it to the teeth. Turns out they liked it but the biggest audience was again not the gays it was mothers and daughters so you never know and I say I don't write for my friends. I write for friends I haven't met who are here enough to buy tickets and come to see things. Well I you know when we were doing Avenue Q we were doing it at the Vineyard off Broadway first lots of people in the business came to see it and they all loved it but they said you're not gonna move that to Broadway are you? And who's it for? And Jeffery Seller and I used to hear that a lot and finally we said well let's say to that person well I guess it's not for you. Because I don't know who it's for but I know we love it and many people love it and that's just the way it is now I mean even Nathan Lane said to me you're not gonna move that puppet show to Broadway are you? And I always like to tell the story that cut to who hands me my Tony Award but Nathan Lane. So nobody knows who a show is. If it's good it'll make it. I just wanted to spend a few minutes on where we all think musical theater is going because we see a lot of movies. Every day I get a call from somebody who wants to take their songs and make them into a jukebox musical. I'm tired of it actually. I always find that musicals and ideas that come from artists themselves are the best because they're passionate about them and they and I think the work when you hire when they're for hire it's much more difficult. Doug Bean came to me I pitched the idea to him that I wanted a Cinderella story where she changed the prince's life as much as he changed hers because I didn't want to tell little girls that they were gonna be whisked off by some guy. I wanted them to tell little girls that they could change the world and be proactive and he left my office and came back and pitched the story. He was passionate about it. He had a little girl. He wanted his little girl to see this story. That's why we did Cinderella really and then we pitched it to Ted. So I'm hoping that there are more original musicals on Broadway. What you saw last night for those of you over there are just totally original musicals which I'm a huge fan about that those writers are passionate about. But what do you think? What do you guys think? I'm bullish on musicals. You know when I grew up everyone was listening to Carol King and you couldn't be called Ted going to musicals and I would go and see Pearly. Yeah. Or Coco. I mean who went to see those? Well but today all the kids know musicals. I teach you know and I see and they love them. I think they're sick to death of the internet. They love the feeling of actually feeling this really music in the theater. We don't go to church so much. We don't go to Russia. Shana, we go to the theater and it's one of and I think that there are more original musicals. Producers such as you are getting adventurous and finding ways to budget things. So that we've had a spate of original musicals. We're having a Janine's Stories is coming this year. And Sting's musical? Right. And I say the kids love them and they they can and all of course the aging rock stars now love them. They found a home of venues so I think that we're back to being the great American art form within five years. I'm a fan of forbidden Broadway and you know when it's good it's really good and the one that was there recently didn't last that long but I heard that Cinderella was in it and and also that Carrie Underwood sounded music so I figured I better go and take it like a man. But what I really took away from it is that the Cinderella is mean and all that kind of stuff but the last line in the Cinderella in forbidden Broadway was well it doesn't really matter what it is it still is Disney light. And I thought to myself you know what it's not Disney light because one of the problems of the Broadway musical theater is when these institutions like Disney come in they have absolutely endless checkbooks. They can they can spend any amount of money they want and and that is what the Latin is. If you see a Latin it's wonderful it's very very good it's very well done and they're like enough costumes for about 18 musicals on that stage. And I thought you know I mean it kind of that comment about Cinderella is not only wrong-minded but it but I thought it's dangerous because if there are not independent producers doing shows and especially you know new ones I mean I think Tom Schumacher would love to do a very good you know inventive new musicals and I don't think he ever will because I think ultimately he works for the mouse and the mouse wants to go through that catalog and make more Latin's which is fine I have no problem with that. But the way Cinderella was was produced so it could exist on a weekly basis in a Broadway theater and not lose all the I mean I don't think Rocky had a single week during its run where it ever made its weekly nut you know and that's just not good producing so I think I think the more independent producers there are who are smart understand how to listen to artists and work with artists and also you know get a hearing for the Schubert's so they can do other needle-and-resort jams since they can actually get a theater you know I think that really does need to be encouraged and I think there every time there is an original musical on Broadway that people like next to normal being one you know fairly so in great gardens but I think those need to be encouraged and they need to be successful and as you say there are there are audiences their audiences for a lot and their audiences for those and I think what really needs to be what Broadway especially Broadway needs to continue to be is to have a spectrum and if it doesn't have a spec you know yes the tourists need to have something to go to yes the New Yorkers strange that may sound need something to go to so well on that note I'm going to let Ted and Andy go back to their show tonight I want to now invite the creative team of String onto the stage Adam Guan composer lyricist and Sarah Hammond book writer and Mark we're here to talk about your musical but mostly we're going to talk about lyrics here's what Ira Gershwin said about lyric writing a fondness for music a feeling for rhyme a sense of whimsy and humor and I for the balanced sentence an ear for the current phrase and the ability to imagine oneself a performer trying to put over the number in progress I try to I think the thing that I love about lyric writing and that is such a structured art form there are some serious limitations that you have to deal with when you're writing and all of that stuff you know performance and whimsy and humor trying to fit that into this very contained thing is like it's a joy it's a challenge and I think when you when you can figure it out and actually use the limitations to nail humor and rhyme and honesty I think it just soars like nothing else well just to go back for a second what was your impulse to work on this musical Sarah and how did you find each other so we met in the mentorship program at the drama skills that you run now we met in the drama skills fellows program where I was a playwright and Adam was writing ordinary days at the time and well Adam says when I read a monologue that I wrote we were we were in this year-long fellowship program each presenting work in progress on a regular basis and I sort of immediately took a shine to Sarah's work and I think my sort of felt this simpatico we both really like getting at great big things of the heart through very specific details the just choosing the just right special thing that tells you who someone is and why they're falling apart and why the fates well so I wanted to write a love story wanted it to be able to sing this layer of they are three Greek gods in our world and one of them falls in love with somebody and it wreaks havoc with her life and his life it becomes the whole the whole concept and structure of it becomes a just a larger than life way to look at love to look at what it does to you when you fall in love with someone how you can't control it even if you are the fate and you have to make certain decisions along the way as this as this thing this feeling is running away with you with your life and what did you learn last night well at what we the sort of portion of the show that we chose to present last night was sort of the the like the main love story which is what we had been focusing our work on to this point really sort of figuring out the main plot of the key in that post and for me something that I realized last night was sort of the that the real turn of that relationship sort of the moment the shoe drops in that relationship which was for me watching it last night every little thing number you realize is like the consequences of his immortality and it's so it's always so interesting to see your work up and like people were saying in front of people for the first time where you are sort of just sitting back and receiving it which is such a different experience from sitting at a table and pouring through pages and like intellectually analyzing everything and it's a very different and important step to be able to like let that go for 45 minutes and just watch what's happening and receive it and being able to sort of feel the emotional arc of that story as opposed to like intellectually try to piece it together on the page something that I really experienced last night in a beneficial way to sort of help us shape the rest of the show around what we feel the main spine of it is so added just for this presentation added this what like a bar of music to the very end that actually the difference between the doom cord and she sets in free music and Adam added sets in free music just for this concert so we wouldn't end that last number with whatever but I think that it was and feel good yeah I think that it's actually actually a necessary step in that spot in the show it doesn't mean you can't be moved right you know if somebody said once you know musicals start on the ground and end in the heavens you know you know or somebody else that musicals have to be north of the floor they have lift you up in some way even if you're you're feeling moved and sad it's still a large emotion which we don't feel in our everyday life or maybe some of you do and there's medication for that Mark how did you feel about how it went last night yeah I I think we were all sort of talking at breakfast this morning about that very thing of just I think I think we all responded to the spine of that of that moment that Adam was describing of finding how the small action of this of this love story and her choosing to not cut the string and I'm in listening to the demos when they when I they brought me on board when you sent them to me that was the that was the part that I responded to in listening to it for the first time just as a one-person audience member but I think with the one comment I wanted to get back to about what we were talking about before about receiving comments comments and receiving both criticism and also just just feedback on audiences collectively don't lie people individually they may not lie to you but they may give you an opinion you get a lot of different opinions from a lot of different people but the when when you have the group response of everybody in an audience together and they all have the same response at the same time you can really feel when they get it you know and and I and so that you could you could just feel that the energy in the room last night of a fee of especially at the end being quite moved by his by her her finally realizing that she needed to let him go and that ended up being I think very moving in a somewhat surprising way to all of us yes I think so Michael you'd never heard this score before or experience no and I didn't know your before I'm a playwright at a or was I just graduated from a seven year residency and you surprised by what you heard last night a little bit uncertain how to respond in such a public way I mean did you want to talk about lyrics I would just say that in order to get where you want to get to that very moving place a surprising place it's not for example she does not go to the sea which is sacrificed hard she doesn't go to Zeus and sacrifice her life so that he can live it's a twist that I haven't actually seen before which is good to get to that place metaphysical musicals are a handful you know we've had one this year big fish that I know they're trying to now do a smaller version they're just to I wrote a metaphysical musical people have a tough time with them and I think it's the ground rules I think when you go into fantasy land you have to be absolutely clear the reason why Disney is so successful a movie like a toy story every single one of those toys has a specific function that feeds into the plot pays off into the climax so and the ground rules are clear remember the guys and dolls called itself a musical fable was set in a New York City that was kind of magical not 40s not 30s not 20s that's feeling that I got from yours that we were in a musical fable in a magical city and hidden among our everyday lives on these fates or string makers that actually had the task of controlling human destiny that right so far I was wishing that there was a way I would have had that information right up front and it brings friends to mind the story of Jerome Robinson funny thing happened a very hackneyed story to those of us in musical theater but it's useful to remember that nobody knew what that show was also with Greek myths until Jerome Robbins came in and said well you need to tell them it's a comedy in the first opening minutes and your opening song was about another Wednesday or something a workday and an incorporated the regular workforce and within that we found the subwork force the hidden work force of the face I felt I would have loved to get the information musical musical fable magical New York we make strings we're the string makers and we are hidden and I didn't need to hear the information about the other people's Wednesday when I needed to have right up front was a clear definition of what a string is what they're doing what their function is and then I felt it's the opening number issue then your story is off and running and I think that's a leader today yeah I think you're right about that I was saying to Mark last night are we setting up the world of the fates clearly enough I don't think so and anytime they were contemporary and feeling it felt wrong to me that they are otherworldly and they have to be very specifically otherworldly in their vocabulary and you know in how they're the strangers who come to town and you know I always say there's only two or three stories in the world and one of them is strangers a stranger comes to town and we don't get we don't understand how long they've been there why they're there yet I mean I know there's a bigger book story but but I think that what Michael's saying is very true there's something that's not clear enough about who they are and and how they're functioning with the metaphysical thing I mean there's death takes a holiday yes what's the other work borrowed or borrowed time where somebody gets caught in the time continuum and bad things yeah one touch of Venus one touch of Venus and I think death is a tough thing for people to deal with the musicals and try and lighten it up but it's scary so we need to know clearly that's well it was interesting when you were talking about the musical lifting people up I was thinking the end of carousel you know I mean what can be a sadder thing and yet at the end of carousel when he says I love you Julie know that I love you and walks out you feel like you've just been absolutely carousel was a metaphysical so was the way to do and yet the entire audience you are really incredibly brilliant they started with the very real people start with the carousel walls we need to be Billy bigelow and Julie Jordan which is probably the greatest scene in musical theater history where they go opposite if I love you and the very next scene they're married or break a tune is the hunters that encounter this strange situation but they're very real and we recognize these types you know from New York and they are the conduit through the metaphysical world isn't if I love you the song that Oscar said ended it on a valve it would have been played on the radio and all the rest is tall and all the rest is tall as a tall you need to know thank you yeah I know I read it but obviously have no retention so where do you go from here Mark well Adam wants to talk to the next step but they these these guys have been working diligently over the last week to kind of talk through the plot points of the first act and have have already kind of excised a couple of songs that were in the draft up until this point and are there now I think in a state stay around here for a couple of days we go right here next we're sticking around for another few days just to take advantage of the peace and quiet and then with the show is going to be part of a showcase of new musicals that can be our next month so we're kind of aiming for that as well and then sometime in the spring we're going to do a full reading of it when you guys feel you're ready right so we can hear the whole thing through and really have a sense of where we are you know you can't you can't put a timetable on these things that's what I said last night about sometimes they take four years sometimes they take two years you just never know you have to let them evolve in their own way and you have to you know it's a patient process and so once we do that reading we'll see where we go next but we're going to keep moving forward that's the idea of the festival is that we we spend you know a year working with these musicals and hopefully by the end of that year or before the end of that year we can find a production and so that's where we are with this one anybody have any questions about string before we go on to the next or should we yes last night for expository in the head kind of songs where they're talking about what they're thinking all that person you know a couple of them were the interactive one how do you decide whether it's an outside the head or conversation or whether it's all gosh there's a there is a lot of conversation between Sarah and I just kind of sit around and talk and lots of ideas come up in those conversations some for a very fleeting moment and then are discarded some which sort of not your brain sometimes it has to do with the way I write the source material for him to begin with it some sometimes I'll write a scene with a particular like theatrical vocabulary and Adam will very faithfully write the song with the character speaking in direct address in the way I wrote the scene and so he'll have the character sing that sort of stuff or sometimes I'll write a scene he'll look at it and he'll take it away on his own and then just put a song wherever he wants in it and it's and it's something I would never have expected to be the song and we found that both ways work and we never know which one I mean I think it's it's a constant sort of every song comes from a different place you just need to deepen a character in the moment and so they need to sing from their own head and express a longing or something and sometimes they need to be interactive it's just the way of the script I mean and right now we're at the stage where we have a whole draft we're looking at how to balance things and there are some missing interactions we're talking right now about the next song you know we want to try to get in is an interaction between the sisters in song in which they're not working so that we can get a feeling for what their relationship is so like that the idea for this moment is going to be related to the plot and everything we actually are starting with that target I don't know if that's what that's the thing we have the conversation and we say that's the goal but then the impulse has to have to be right yes first of all it was just so exciting to see and in the process of deciding which seven songs that you were going to showcase did you learn about the other songs in the show was it agonizingly difficult I don't know how many you have at this moment that are sort of safe and are you hearing this on the live feed okay great sorry yes I because I think I think one of our sort of next step things that we're trying to figure out is we have been we had sort of had a draft and then the goal leading up to this thing was sort of strengthening and and identifying that that main love story and our next step on our agenda is then to sort of figure out how the the story that the other sister sort of hook into this main story and and I think simply by working out the the touchstones of the main story sort of helps illuminate in some ways ways in which the of the rest of the script and sort of hook into it but it was important for us to sort of you know hang the line that we can then hang other things on but to get that to get that solid thing up and sort of let that inform how the rest of it is going to hold it but you just had two specific things one I just love I don't know I'm not okay it's the right thing yeah I mean the main language and it keep the music and what was going to specific that one there's so many things that I forgot to say Speck at the book bag Okay, whatever That was just so magical oh thank you and then the one I don't know is it criticism or just me but earlier I'm in the show when the three sisters are singing in counterpoint or all at the same time and I couldn't understand any of it. I was in the front row and I wanted to know, but I appreciate the complexity and I just don't know if that's just me or if there's a way to do it where we get to know what they're all singing and then they join in to the counterpoint so that would be rapid fire. I don't know. It could have been our sound system too. Yeah. Well, thank you. But why don't you guys move down to the end and we'll invite the thanks team to come up. Lindsey Turner wrote the book. Gary Adler is our composer. Coming up first is Phoebe Kreuz, our lyricist. Each of the hilarious is one of the most hilarious. So, it's funny, I was thinking this morning that both shows are really about different cultures meeting in a way, right? And when we first met together, that was one of the first things we talked about is that we were going to try to pull out the cultural complexities and specific things about each culture so that we could really see that there was a clash and then a meeting of the minds finally in the musical. How did you feel about last night and what you accomplished? Because I think you came a great distance. Yeah. I agree. Thank you. Really fun. I mean, obviously it was so fun and I'd be lying if I said I was thinking about it from an intellectual standpoint back there. I was mostly just like, oh my God, people are laughing. But yeah, I think because we wrote it, we've been writing it for, you know, Gary just did the math and it's been a really long time. I'm forbidden to say it all. It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been 40 years. We were just children when we started. So small. But you know, we had the idea of just thinking like we want to do something fun and we want to do something frothy that had like a lively vocabulary where we could feel like we could be silly and I think, you know, pilgrims and Indians, tap dancing just sort of made us all laugh. That's an idea. But then when we started meeting with Robin and Josh and thinking we don't want to just come off like a skit that goes on for two hours. You know, it's like there has to be a heart to it. And I think it's been interesting to sort of try and pull that out and we added the finale recently just to sort of try and give it, you know, I mean, you want to end on an up note. You don't want to stand there and moralize. But something that says this is a universal thing and it's not only about tap dancing pilgrims. So, you know, I think and I mean, you know, I'm not going to just be angry. No, you're fine. But I think, you know, it was interesting last night to seeing that, yes, like, okay, we're not crazy. Like there's something here that is fun and funny and people seem to like it and they want to go on the ride. I think it just sort of gives us the responsibility to make sure that ride is as satisfying as possible and to keep on surprising people and creating things that mean something more than just like, okay, well, now it's another bunch of jokes. Yeah, the surprise element really works in your show, I have to say. Lindsay, what do you think? Oh, no, I was just going to say last night was the first time we've ever heard it in front of a large audience of people. We've had a couple of readings where, you know, we each invited five people and, you know, because we have a large cast, they each invite two. It turns into a bigger room, but we've never had a paying audience in front of us before. And the idea that they seem to find it very satisfying was great for us and I think the thing that really came through, like Phoebe was saying, you know, we started off thinking, oh, pilgrims and Indians and think of all the rhyme schemes that could happen and tap dancing and all the jokes, haha. And then as we began to get into it, we thought really about the culture clash and how, you know, it is about two groups of people who are trying to understand each other and how much that does relate to family and Thanksgiving, where you wind up with a lot of people in your house that you don't see out of eyelid and what else are you going to do but sit down and eat. And that's like, those are some heavier themes. So, you know, just from a book standpoint for a second, you know, Regina and I, my writing partner is not here because she's getting married on Sunday. But if she were here, she could join me in saying that the hard part for us just as book writers was actually the straight line, was the two people who meet and they're completely different and they don't like each other and then they fall in love, which is like at the heart of every great musical. But trying to find an honest way to get at it is incredibly difficult. Trying to make it interesting is nearly impossible. And the great thing for us, I think, and going through it and hearing it last night is the straight line is there, which is great. You know, we were thrilled because it's been the hardest thing for us to do, so we were really happy. You know, and then everybody laughed, which made it better. So, Gary, how do you write your songs together? Do you do lyrics first? Do you do music or do you do both? For the most, I would say for most of the songs that we experienced last night, Phoebe wrote the lyrics first. Every so often, we may have a discussion, the four of us, actually, and come up with what is the musical moment, then Phoebe and I will go off and discuss, okay, what could the hook of the song be? And then once we figure that out, she may go and write the entire lyric and then hand it to me and then I may make some adjustments as I put the music on it. Or she, like in the case of the finale, we were talking about, well, what are we really saying here? Mix it up is what we're ultimately saying in a hook form. And so I just came up with kind of how the main part of the chorus might scan. Just repeating, mix it up, mix it up, thinking it could be just like the end of Full Monty. Let it go, let it go. You just repeat lyrics and people will think, okay, well, that's a book. And so I kind of came up with the structure of the chorus and then she wrote the chorus and the verses herself and then gave it back to me and then I put the music on. So that was a little bit more back and forth, but mostly it's Phoebe first. So Michael, what about this thing about repeating words over and over? Is that something you teach? Yeah. I mean, it's also so that you can learn the melody. A composer needs something to hang on to and to make the melody soar and repeated words when they're used in different ways or a great way to advance the story and also lead the audience with the melody. And how did you respond to this song? Oh, I had a blast. Oh, that's nice. They're very witty, I have to say. You know, I think of some charming about it is that it was funny all the way through it, but it was also topical and I didn't have to announce it. It just was. So that says something was right about this time of doing this show. Yeah, yeah. And now I think I'm seriously out of those kids coming across the border from South America and people standing in the middle of the road with guns to make the buses turn back and say, call them a National Guard. I say, yeah, call them and take those people away. But this is that time again. We thought we were beyond and we're not beyond it. Here we are. And this is a great way to bring awareness to it without being didactic about it. I felt last night that it's so wonderful that they're not cliche Native Americans. And that you play with who they are and how they function in the world. And then Susanna tries to become the cliche Indian. Where does she get that idea, I wondered? I mean, is that something that you were going for? Or is that something that somebody should call her on? We don't put our heads and hair and braids anymore. Yeah, probably. That made me a little uncomfortable. I was wondering how you guys felt about it. I mean, it may not stay. We've been playing back and forth with all these different plot points for so long and I think we're trying to figure out how was the first song we wrote for the show. I love that song. And about eight different versions of it when it came up in different places. Because for a while Susanna and Squanto used to see each other in the woods every day and it was like months went by and they saw each other and they would sing the song. But then it was like, well, no, we can't have her just be hanging out in the woods for months at that point. That is not for emotion. We had all these different versions of it and then sometimes it was all of a dream sequence and sometimes it's half a dream sequence and so this was just like, well, if she was left by herself and all she wanted to do was be like people around her like she might have this terrible idea to try and dress up like an Indian and it would be like ridiculous and bad. Who's modeling that behavior? Well, I mean, I know it is. She read books back then. We actually did talk about that for a while. There used to be a section in the show that was the pilgrims actually knew what they were walking into, which is historically accurate. They knew that there were Indians there and there was literature about it that portrayed them as these savages. And it's one of those things that we've had that and then we cut it and you get these little bits and pieces that are sort of vestigial. I was wondering if that was one of them. It is and it's not. I mean, that idea used to belong to Joan and then we had given it to Susanna. I mean, I will say this, Phoebe has gone above and beyond with Howe because it's always been such a great song but she has rewritten it a lot and I think right now we're in a very successful place with it. I think, I mean, we did, when Regina and my writing partner and I redrafted the book, not the draft that you saw but the one before, there was a place where Squanto called Susanna on her transformation and said, this is what you think I am and he's hurt. And I think that might be worth exploring just because you do have preconceived, we all have preconceived notions about people who are different than us and there is something to be said for that when we are talking about something that is topical. We talked about the way the Native Americans are depicted now, they're pretty sophisticated, they're artisanal, they're very high-end people, very high-end people, much like the people today who are gluten-free and blah, blah, blah. And the more specific we get about that, I think, is fun, really fun and hilarious actually. And the pilgrims, they're not so good. Not so good. So, anybody have any questions about that show? Yes? Hi, I thought that your presentation was extremely clever and I'm a big theater goer, I'm not an entertainer, so I'm always the viewer. I love the fact that you took a piece when I was looking at the description, I said, how are they going to take a period piece like this and fill seats with today's people? And you get it, the music was perfect. It was current, it had all the ideas of what we're going through now, and it makes you think that you really haven't changed as much in our movie as we did back then. And for me, the term Indian summer will never be the same. You'll never, you'll never lose that visual. But you pushed the music stand down. Yeah. One tricky thing about putting the score together just from a musical standpoint was the, just the idea and I kind of feared it a little bit that musically I was going rather old fashioned with everything as far as, you know, the tonality and it's not a very rock-pop kind of score, right? You know, I thought, is this really just too old school? Am I just emulating my old, you know, Compton Green-Julie Stein cast albums too much before it's in the audience? There was something really charming about it. It was echoed in the structure. I mean, how many shows do you see as a sub-flood? Or you had Joan and the Brother. It was like something from Mary Sunshine and it was hilarious and great and it all fit with other beats. It was sort of a relief to hear that people kind of got that joke that was sort of in my head. It's tuneful. We don't always hear tunes in real melodies and musicals and it's really fun to hear them. I have a question. I thought it was useful. I was just going to say, we always talked about should this show have some sort of a framing device because for those of you familiar with Drowsy Chaperone if we just told this story in a silly way would it be like Drowsy Chaperone without the man in chair sort of giving it some sort of relevance? So we'd always gone back and forth and then... Well, Abraham Lincoln showed up, I think about six months ago. My writing partner and I had written a framing device after framing device after framing device. Initially it was a house that you heard the argument inside and these two siblings came out to talk about why do we come here for Thanksgiving every year and then it was a Wikipedia entry because Wikipedia is inaccurate and it had sort of the beginning of the plot of the show. So my writing partner and I were researching about how to Thanksgiving had to be a national holiday and it turns out Abraham Lincoln after the Emancipation Project. I thought that would be in the back too of why it was there. It was funny. What happened to Carl the turkey? There wasn't time. Would you explain Carl the turkey because I think they'd like to hear about it. There's a great... you remember that he doesn't. He decides that he's going to run away and he's very much a freewheeling kind of guy and he talks to animals. So there is an animal course but his best friend is a turkey and he talks to the turkey as though it's an actual person and the turkey makes philosophical points and they have this... But how does it make... How does it talk? I can't do it. And you understand exactly what he's saying. We were writing this for so long without actors really doing it and we had our first reading that we were able to invite these guys to... It was like this kid, that our director knew from another show and he was like, well, I don't know, he'll be in the ensemble he's a really nice guy, I'll be happy to be there and he shows up and he does this incredible turkey voice. It was amazing. And it wasn't this great like deadpan. So now we're just like writing everything for Carl the turkey. And I pull it back now. Actually, because of Carl the turkey, Tago thinks that his brother is gay. Right. Which just doesn't turn out to be true, but it's very fun. And that's how you get the roasted turkey in the end. That's right, he sacrifices himself to say he's gone. Santa and he lands on the table when the turkey is dead. Yeah. Animal lovers don't keep your eyes open for them. So many protestors. Yeah. So many. Yeah. But it took me a little while, because I was sort of like... Ah! Yeah, thank you for mentioning that. That's what I was thinking. That is drunken history. Oh, yeah. Drunken history. I think, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a balancing thing and we're always sort of testing things out and seeing what's too far and what's, I think, sort of our guideline is we're not, we don't want to poke fun at actual Native American culture. We want to poke fun at like the stupid white people's idea of Native American culture. So in a way, it's almost better the more inaccurate we are. We had like real tribe names and real, you know, spiritual things. I feel like that might feel nasty, but it's just nonsense. So it's like, you know, yeah. Yeah, it was similar to the work that I did on Alter Boys and trying to figure out how can we make fun of this while we're just making fun of these five characters singing these songs as opposed to really making fun of Christianity and religion. Yeah, you know, it took a long time for people to understand what Alter Boys was. Gary and I did it together because well, sometimes they thought it was about molesting young boys, which was horrible. But they thought we were making fun of the Catholic religion and we weren't at all. It was sort of an homage in a way and it was about those five boys who were wonderful and hilarious and now we're all starring in musicals. And they were young men and now they're really long. Phoebe was the puppet wrangler in Avenue Q, that's how we met and that's how Gary and Phoebe met because Gary was our original musical director as well. So you never know where these partnerships are going to start. It's very interesting. And we went to Six Flags Great Adventure one day. No, it's true. We met Regina and Gary and I spent an afternoon at Six Flags. Roller coasters. Because when you scream with somebody you might as well write a musical. Yes. We could fight about that at the end of the partnership. The four of us had a lunch meeting because I thought it would be fun to just collaborate together on something and we all pitched different ideas and the idea that I pitched was doing Lost to the Musical which was basically a bunch of strangers find themselves stranded in a deserted land. They think they're alone. They're all just crazy people. It turns out they're not alone and they interact with the other crazy people on this deserted land and as the plot unfolds you realize oh my god this is the story of the pilgrims and the Indians and the first Thanksgiving. So that was kind of how it started and then we realized well you can't really keep that big a plot point a big secret well let's just bite the bullet and have you know goody whatever goody susanna kicking her legs and tap shoots. Writing lyrics for people that wasn't allowed to know who they were. But that was the very basic first idea that all of them did. And you guys had power at that point didn't you? No. I love that she sings I want everything to be the same. So smart. I think it surprised the three of us or all of us the actors and staffer and everybody that that song got any laughs at all. Yeah. That song was funny. Oh it is funny. We thought oh we've got to cut it in half and slow it's too long but that was one of the fun things to learn last night. She delivered it beautifully. I have to say you know before we came out here we did a reading in a small rehearsal room and I learned the same things over and over again that when you have this kind of high comedy and you're in a small room the actors are intimidated. They don't give their all. And so things were not as funny in that room as they were when you put them on a stage and they have a distance from the audience and they can really relax and play the moments they were all so much better. I mean they were good to begin with but they were so much better I know that our director had something to do with that but I think it was the freedom of having a distance from the audience and we always say the second most important thing you do as a producer after you choose what you want to produce is choose the venue, the actual theater that you're putting in it because it can make all the difference. Well there's something about a proscenium you know I was thinking when Banya Sonia was at Lincoln Center in a thrust it didn't play the comedy didn't play the same way it played it moved to Broadway and was in a proscenium stage and there was that distance with the audience suddenly it was like Charles Bush just played Tell the Outer Swipe and it was in that tiny little upstage and at the theater club it played very differently then when suddenly when you're in the Broadway theater and there's that distance it was hilarious and it's fascinating how that and we do we keep learning that over and over Steven do you want us to take some questions from people who are watching this live or Steven Raff? The first question is how do you choose all these new musicals how do you identify them how do you choose them and then how do you decide what's going to go into your season? Good taste That's such a nasty arrogant answer Honestly everybody Josh and I work very closely together and Alex and fortunately we have similar sensibilities we all love plays with humor we like smart things we love musicals we see a lot of stuff we go to a lot of readings we read a lot of plays and we read a lot of musicals and listen to them on our earphones and you just certain material it's original it's fresh I always say I'm looking for something I've never seen before on stage a way of telling a story I've never seen before all those kinds of things I touched on this a little bit last night this is a little bit of a unique situation because we also have previous relationships we've worked on shows with them for the most part up here before we had wonderful times we know we love their talent and they like us enough that they say hey I wrote a new show will you take a look at it and it's just a continuation of the initial relationships that we all started that's true is that a good answer Steven? that was great to another question how do you balance the relationships you have with the previous collaborators versus looking for new talent? well we often return to good collaborators there's some people you work with and you think well it doesn't go on you'll be happy I just saw Douglas Carter be the other day at a rehearsal and he said don't worry I'm writing my new play you're going to read it and that makes me so happy because we went through a long period together and we actually did have a wonderful time it doesn't mean at some point in the collaboration we didn't have a difficult moment but we got through it and ended up loving each other and so you hope we'll come back and come to see the reading of my new work or would you read this or Rajiv Joseph whose play I produced with Robin Williams on Broadway we're working on a musical with him now so relationships in this business are very important and it's such a cottage industry that your reputation our reputation is very important too that people want to come to you and they want to work with you and I'm out at least four nights a week seeing shows and that ranges from a reading in a basement in the East Village to seeing a show on Broadway looking for the new talent and it's not always necessarily that I see a show in its entirety and say this is something we have to produce but I might cease I love this score I love this set designer I love the lighting of this show and you remember that I'm older so I only go three times a week thank you there's so much for you and watching me do festival and stuff like that there's so much talent music art so many of you can write beautiful songs I never realized how important it sounds so naive how important the book is you can have beautiful songs and if you have a lousy working on the show yeah it's not a booksicle though I think that's absolutely true I think it is true but without great you know without good music if you have a great book and the music's no good it's just as bad I think it's a marriage it's a marriage between the two I mean Avenue Q we found a book writer now that's very unusual because the composers Bobby and Jeff had written three or four songs with this idea of doing a TV show actually but they needed a playwright and we introduced them to two or three people they met and they chose Jeff Whitty you never know until they get into that room what that collaboration is going to be like and you know all I ever said to them was make sure there's a love story please women buy the tickets we need a love story it's true women do buy the tickets but you know those collaborations like these people I mean when they started they just had a wish that it would work because they liked each other and they respected each other but you just never know until you're in the room what that chemistry is going to create and it's I always say it has to have a little fairy dust on it to make it great and I think these people have that fairy dust and thank you all for coming today because we love your support oh boy take your water thank you you never wanted to say that I'm sorry I just figured it out I tried to leave Rome again but it turned out to be the mascot of the theater