This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Poor little orphan Annie will never have that because her parents are dead. But she doesn't think they are. Because she's got what? A locket. Because she's got a locket and a note. That's a lot of pressure to put on a piece of jewelry. And it's a broken locket. You think engagement rings have it rough? A broken locket in the hands of a Depression-era orphan? Forget it. I'm just happy that, like, the orphans didn't steal it, that they respected the locket. How did she hang on to that locket for so long? If she was placed on the doorstep of Miss Hannigan's home for orphans as a baby, right, with a locket? Yes. You think Miss Hannigan wasn't going to take that locket and pawn it when the going got tough?

For sure. There's no way Annie was going to get to hang on to that locket. That is what we call a device, ladies and gentlemen. That is a theatrical device. I think we could also justify it by saying, that's just how tough Annie is. She's a, you can't even get close to that locket. She'll bite your goddamn finger off before you get to that locket. She is a scrappy. Touch my locket. You know that original orphan Annie at the Goodspeed got fired because she wasn't tough enough. Too sweet. Too sweet, they say. And so who did they get? Old Andrew McArdle playing Pepper. Andrew McArdle. Yeah, she'll bite off something, not just your finger. That's what I think. She'll smack you for that locket, I'll tell you what. She really will.

[1:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast, where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today, we're talking about Annie, and I'm really excited about it. One of the reasons I'm very excited about it is because Annie is a musical. She's a musical that's been around for a long time. She's been around for a long time. She's been around for a long time. She's been around for a long time. She's been around for a long time. She's been around for a long time. One of the reasons I'm very excited about it is because Adam Wachter's here to talk about it with me. Hi, Adam.

[1:44] Adam Wachter: Hi. Hi, everyone.

[1:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You are a very talented composer, writer, musical director, but you might be most well-known.

[1:53] Adam Wachter: Probably.

[1:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As the resident musical director of the show Encore.

[1:58] Adam Wachter: Sure, yeah.

[1:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: On Disney+. Yeah, including the Annie episode.

[2:02] Adam Wachter: Exactly, which was your very first episode.

[2:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Are you going to get a season two, do you think?

[2:07] Adam Wachter: I hope so. I really hope so.

[2:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For those who don't know what I'm talking about, can you give us a brief rundown of what Encore is?

[2:12] Adam Wachter: Yeah, Encore is a reality show on Disney+, where every week for 12 episodes, we take this group of people, adults now, who did a musical in high school, and we remount their musical in five days, and we reunite them all. By all means, they're not professional actors in any way, sense of the word. No, they are just random people living their lives, and we make them get back on that stage. In the case of Annie, we put that curly red wig back on, that little red dress on a 40-year-old woman, and she belts out "Tomorrow," and we do a musical for all their friends and family.

[2:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And how much time do you have? Is it five days?

[2:49] Adam Wachter: It's five days, yeah.

[2:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it's fully orchestrated, like you have a band.

[2:53] Adam Wachter: We get new orchestrations for every show, because we reduce the original. We usually do between eight and ten musicians, local musicians.

[3:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I rewatched that Annie episode yesterday.

[3:04] Adam Wachter: Oh, you did?

[3:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I got weepy the first time I saw it, and I got weepy the second time. I've realized through this podcast that I'm a total Hufflepuff, and just cry at the drop of a hat, but particularly when it comes to musical theater. For some reason, okay, more often than not, they're doing it for their kids. So when their little kids are in the audience, and they're freaked out backstage, the grown-ups are freaked out backstage. Because they're completely unprepared, because you can't be prepared for something like this in five days. Especially when you're not doing it regularly. And so they're so nervous, and then they go out, and then the camera cuts to the kids, and their faces just light up. And they always point, and they're like, that's my daddy, that's my mommy. And seeing that magic, it just felt so sweet.

[3:51] Adam Wachter: I know. And actually, the thing I'm most proud of with Encore is that all the participants, the alumni, across the board at the end of the week are like, oh, I had a great time. And I'm glad I did it. And even after, actually, they see the episode, and some, I don't know if you've seen the whole thing, but there are some cast members that get, yeah, they're sort of painted a little bit in a negative light, which I think they sort of did to themselves. But even after their episodes aired, a lot of them messaged me, and they're like, no, I thought it was great, I loved it. And I was like, oh, God, okay. That's cool.

[4:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, great. I haven't seen all of them. I was a little worried about the Daddy Warbucks.

[4:25] Adam Wachter: Oh, yeah, Jeremy.

[4:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He's someone who comes off for a while as kind of abrasive.

[4:30] Adam Wachter: And then he gets a little redemption arc with his cancer.

[4:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which was sweet. It was actually a very sweet arc.

[4:36] Adam Wachter: Yeah, he was actually really nice. They were all nice. I remember I was out of town doing a show, and so I was going to a different church, like a different congregation.

[4:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, right, because you're like a big Mormon.

[4:45] Adam Wachter: Yeah, big old, yeah.

[4:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Big old gay Mormon.

[4:48] Adam Wachter: Big old gay.

[4:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow, we should have a podcast about that. What is that like?

[4:52] Adam Wachter: It's tricky.

[4:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can imagine.

[4:55] Adam Wachter: It's tricky. There's nothing better than a Mormon on stage.

[4:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There's something in the blood. You know, why is it that you all are so good at musical theater?

[5:04] Adam Wachter: I mean, music is in the culture.

[5:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: In the culture. And dance.

[5:07] Adam Wachter: A lot of dance.

[5:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Those Hufflepuff people.

[5:10] Adam Wachter: Oh, yeah. God. Yeah, the ballroom team at BYU is insane.

[5:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm sure. I'm sure it's got to be the best in the country. Half the cast of Dancing with the Stars is Mormon, right?

[5:18] Adam Wachter: Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, certainly raised that way.

[5:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah, racially Mormon. In the same way that I'm racially Jewish, but I don't do anything about it. You know how in the revival of Cinderella, they had all those amazing costume changes? Like, I swear that those were invented by the BYU ballroom team.

[5:36] Adam Wachter: Like the magnetic quick change stuff.

[5:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah. Where you like turn around and all of a sudden you're dressed as something else.

[5:40] Adam Wachter: Yeah, like that couple on America's Got Talent.

[5:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Yeah. And they always, at the end, they always dump like a thing of glitter over you in your dress. You know what I mean?

[5:47] Adam Wachter: Exactly. Yeah. That's, oh, I didn't even finish telling the story.

[5:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: About what?

[5:51] Adam Wachter: So when I was in, I went to that different ward, that different congregation.

[5:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, God, right. And there was this guy speaking. And I was like, this guy kind of seems like an a-hole.

[6:01] Adam Wachter: While he's like, you know, giving a speech from the pulpit.

[6:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And that, which is a terrible thought to have at church.

[6:08] Adam Wachter: Well, also, that probably stops you from really like listening and learning.

[6:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. If you don't like the person. I'm getting like a-hole vibes from him. I'm like, what is going on? And I don't, and I don't want to be judging him, whatever. And then he casually lets it slip that he works in law enforcement. And I go, oh, that's what it is. Like, he's not an a-hole. He's just a police officer.

[6:27] Adam Wachter: Oh, I thought you were going to say it was actually Jeremy from the Annie episode of Encore.

[6:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But that's kind of, that was the energy I was getting from Jeremy, too. Where he, when you work in law enforcement, you just have that like.

[6:38] Adam Wachter: Maybe you sort of have to. Because you have to sort of assume authority in any situation.

[6:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can't blame them for that.

[6:44] Adam Wachter: No, I guess not. Yeah, he did come off a little bit. I think, I think it all stems from insecurity. Don't you think?

[6:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, most, most stereotypical masculinity, I would say, stems from insecurity.

[6:56] Adam Wachter: Let me ask you this about Mormons.

[6:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[6:57] Adam Wachter: Circumcised?

[6:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[7:01] Adam Wachter: Yes. It sounded like that means they just cut off half of it.

[7:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What is that?

[7:06] Adam Wachter: Well, I was going to say, like, do you have to? It's not like ritual. It's not ritually like Jews.

[7:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No.

[7:11] Adam Wachter: Like Jews, I just went to my nephew's bris in December. That was a full experience.

[7:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And then on my sister's dining room table.

[7:19] Adam Wachter: And do they?

[7:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Snip, snip. And does he kiss it?

[7:22] Adam Wachter: No, that's just the crazy Orthodox ones who like transmit the herpes. Is that what you're talking about?

[7:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right, let's talk about Annie.

[7:27] Adam Wachter: Let's talk about Annie.

[7:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Annie. Annie, Annie, Annie. I brought you a gift.

[7:31] Adam Wachter: You brought, do you want to show me?

[7:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I want to show you what the gift is and I'm going to give it to you. It's a real gift.

[7:36] Adam Wachter: No way. Are you ready?

[7:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh. I don't even, I need to think, I need to prepare. I don't know if I.

[7:41] Adam Wachter: This is a souvenir program that I bought 30 minutes ago at the Iliad bookstore down the street. It is a souvenir program from Annie the Musical. I think from the original production.

[7:51] Adam Wachter: Oh my gosh.

[7:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I don't know who any of this cast is because it's obviously like.

[7:57] Adam Wachter: Jane Connell.

[7:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Who's that?

[7:59] Adam Wachter: She's like, she's a famous lady.

[8:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't know who that is, but look who played Kate.

[8:04] Adam Wachter: Molly Ringwald.

[8:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This is yours to keep.

[8:06] Adam Wachter: You are kidding me.

[8:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, you have it.

[8:08] Adam Wachter: Oh my gosh, thank you.

[8:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're so welcome. It was $3.95.

[8:14] Adam Wachter: What a gift.

[8:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That is Chuck Bergman.

[8:17] Adam Wachter: I know him.

[8:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my God, you should have him sign it and then resell it back to the bookstore.

[8:22] Adam Wachter: Oh my gosh, he's going to die.

[8:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There you go. Holy cow. Yeah, yeah, that's history. Look at this. They have pictures, they have their headshots in this program. And then a picture of them as a character.

[8:34] Adam Wachter: Exactly. I think that's a great strategy and I will tell anyone listening who's about to make a souvenir program for their own production, that works great. See the headshot and right next to it, see them in costume so that you can look up on stage and be like, oh, that's that person.

[8:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'll tell you what, people in headshots, and I speak from experience, aren't as good looking in person. Not truthful. They do not necessarily look like their headshot. Faithful representations of the humans. Also, it helps you if you're a stage door Johnny to be like...

[9:04] Adam Wachter: Oh, you. Because you were a redhead in the show.

[9:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Why are there so many redheads in musical theater?

[9:12] Adam Wachter: Well, in Annie particularly.

[9:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Is that a thing? You think redheads in musical theater?

[9:16] Adam Wachter: Yes. I feel like most women hit the age of 40 and they're like, oh, I'm 40. I'm a character actress. I better dye my hair red.

[9:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you know what? Now that you mention it, that's a really good point. I don't know why. That's really true. Not with men as much.

[9:31] Adam Wachter: No, because it usually falls out.

[9:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, right. Well, not these days.

[9:35] Adam Wachter: Not with Propecia.

[9:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you.

[9:37] Adam Wachter: Thanks, Propes.

[9:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But you got those nice Jewish curls.

[9:43] Adam Wachter: I do have the Jewish curls. Yeah.

[9:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They're not going anywhere, are they? Or can you feel...

[9:47] Adam Wachter: Propecia, we don't know.

[9:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. Well, there you go. I hope not. That's why I take it every day.

[9:51] Adam Wachter: Yeah, just be on it.

[9:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh yeah. I'll just be on it. Who needs a sex drive? Not me. I need hair. I'm on television.

[10:00] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[10:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Annie. Annie, Annie, Annie. Do you like the song Annie?

[10:09] Adam Wachter: That song that I just sang?

[10:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Or do you like the song from the 80s film, We Got Annie?

[10:16] Adam Wachter: How does We Got Annie go?

[10:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She's like a shine in your shoes and tellin' the blues that's great.

[10:23] Adam Wachter: It's the one that Anne Rankin dances to?

[10:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Obsessed. Do you know what? I haven't seen that movie in, like, over a decade. I hate to say, and I was going to watch it in preparation for this, but instead I watched the Audra McDonald-Victor Garber one.

[10:34] Adam Wachter: Fair enough.

[10:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because I only had time for the one. I thought, what's on Disney Plus? This one.

[10:40] Adam Wachter: It's actually a great choice.

[10:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's a great choice. It's a great version. It's more, I think it's more faithful to the stage show in many, many ways than that crazy movie.

[10:49] Adam Wachter: Oh, for sure.

[10:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No poon job to begin with.

[10:51] Adam Wachter: No.

[10:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No poor poon job. No crazy, uh, final scene.

[10:55] Adam Wachter: Oh my God, with the helicopter. I remember that ladder terrified me as a kid.

[10:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it's not even a, she's climbing the tracks. It's like a bridge.

[11:02] Adam Wachter: Oh, right.

[11:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The bridge goes up. Oh my God. That is, it becomes like an action film. It's like, am I watching the Avengers?

[11:09] Adam Wachter: No, I'm watching Annie.

[11:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're watching Annie. You could have fooled me. She's like, I just don't know where she thinks she's going to go by climbing up that thing. She's just terrified.

[11:17] Adam Wachter: She's a child.

[11:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She's a child. What a crazy thing Annie is. That there's this kid like running around. And then Tim Curry is like, I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill you. Like, you know what we need in this musical? Infanticide.

[11:27] Adam Wachter: Right? Sign me up.

[11:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There's already alcoholism.

[11:32] Adam Wachter: What are you going to do?

[11:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. It's a, it's a, it's, do you know what? There's, you know, there's a novelization.

[11:37] Adam Wachter: Yes.

[11:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: By Thomas Mann.

[11:39] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[11:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I've not read it. Have you read it?

[11:40] Adam Wachter: No. I would very much like to read it because I was just reading about it. And apparently it is dark.

[11:46] Adam Wachter: Unless people really know Annie and like have done it and understand sort of the heart involved and like the darkness. I think people in their heads when they think of Annie think children's theater. They think brash children belting really annoying earworm songs.

[12:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[12:03] Adam Wachter: And there's an element of that to it.

[12:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[12:06] Adam Wachter: Yeah. Okay. So we're in the 1970s.

[12:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[12:10] Adam Wachter: And there's a composer named Charles Strauss. Charles Strauss is at this point very successful.

[12:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Bye Bye Birdie.

[12:15] Adam Wachter: Bye Bye Birdie.

[12:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Applause.

[12:17] Adam Wachter: Both huge hits. He's looking for, you know, a new project and his friend, Martin Charnin calls him up and they're going to have this little meeting. So Charles Strauss shows up. It's him. It's Martin Charnin and this guy named Thomas Meehan. And Thomas, good old Tom has never written a musical before, but Martin worked with him on like a TV special. And so he brings him in thinking that he'll be great. Spoiler alert. He is great and wrote scripts for both the producers and Hairspray. Like he's phenomenal. He knows how to write a joke.

[12:49] Adam Wachter: He sure does.

[12:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So they're all sitting down, they're having lunch and Martin Charnin goes, I have this great idea. We're going to make a musical out of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. And it's going to star Bernadette Peters. What do you think they were eating?

[13:03] Adam Wachter: I'm going to say pastrami.

[13:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: On rye.

[13:06] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[13:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. If it's Charles Strauss, it has to be like full on deli food.

[13:11] Adam Wachter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A whole bowl of pickles of various sort of sourness on the table.

[13:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's the best, isn't it? With a chocolate phosphate on the side.

[13:19] Adam Wachter: Chocolate phosphate.

[13:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. We're hitting all the spots.

[13:23] Adam Wachter: I agree. I'm a Jew. That's a great lunch.

[13:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't eat meat anymore, but if I did, I'd eat that lunch.

[13:28] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[13:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you miss it sometimes or not really?

[13:30] Adam Wachter: I did until last night when I watched Okja in the hotel room.

[13:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Jesus.

[13:36] Adam Wachter: Then I was like, I'm happy with my decision.

[13:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, that's rough.

[13:39] Adam Wachter: Yeah. I still eat fish. I love sushi, so I don't think I could give that up.

[13:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, I still eat fish. I won't give up fish.

[14:52] Adam Wachter: Thank you. And he passes. But then a year later, he calls Charles Strauss from like, Europe, and Charles Strauss answers the phone.

[14:57] Jeff Parsons: This is a very detailed story.

[15:02] Adam Wachter: Right? Thank you. Charles Strauss puts down his fourth pastrami sandwich of the day. Picks up the phone. He's like, okay, just a second. One more bite of pickle. To wash down the pastrami. You need it. You need the juice. Yeah. So he picks up the phone. Michael Price says, hey, my wife and I are in Europe. We keep singing these songs and we couldn't figure out what they were from. And then we realized that they're from Annie.

[15:27] Jeff Parsons: Wow. Just from that one backers audition.

[15:29] Adam Wachter: Exactly. And so Charles Strauss is thinking, okay, you heard these songs a year ago and you're still humming them. They must be good. So long story short, too late, Goodspeed Opera House decides we're gonna do it.

[15:41] Jeff Parsons: Hooray. Right?

[15:42] Adam Wachter: Yeah. They cast the show. They get Dorothy Loudon, who is phenomenal. Phenomenal. Listening to it recently, to the original Broadway cast, I was amazed by Dorothy Loudon, how good, like, vocally she is. And this is like before autotune and everything. She is in the center of the pitch, but then, and Little Girls is flawless and the vocal sort of control over it is impeccable. But then you get to Easy Street and she's just screaming. She's just in the background going like, yeah, and it's nonsense. And then there's like a weird classical Irish tenor playing rooster. Like what's happening?

[16:18] Jeff Parsons: Gorgeous tone.

[16:19] Adam Wachter: Yeah. Do you know what? That's what I love so much about Dorothy Loudon is that she can, she has that, like, she does all the gravelly stuff, but then still has that crystal clear and the fast sort of jazz vibrato.

[16:31] Jeff Parsons: Exactly. I don't know how she does both. And I have never heard Miss Hannigan being able to do that.

[16:40] Adam Wachter: Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.

[16:43] Jeff Parsons: I love you so much for that. Let's go back to the cartoon, like the comic strip.

[16:47] Adam Wachter: Oh, yeah. I've never read it.

[16:48] Jeff Parsons: So Harold Gray, is that his name?

[16:51] Adam Wachter: Why not?

[16:52] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. So the comic strip was created by Harold Gray in 1924. And it first appeared in the New York Daily News, which I've never read.

[17:03] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[17:04] Jeff Parsons: But the characters were...

[17:05] Adam Wachter: That's the one that Carrie Bradshaw wrote her column for.

[17:08] Jeff Parsons: Really?

[17:08] Adam Wachter: No, that's a joke. That was the New York Star, which doesn't exist.

[17:11] Jeff Parsons: Wow. See?

[17:12] Adam Wachter: Oh, yeah. See? You could fool me with anything. I mean, I've seen episodes. I've seen all of the important episodes.

[17:18] Jeff Parsons: No, no, no. Every episode is important.

[17:21] Adam Wachter: You must watch the entire thing and both movies.

[17:23] Jeff Parsons: Okay, fair enough. And both movies.

[17:25] Adam Wachter: I've seen the first one. I didn't see that. The second one feels problematic.

[17:28] Jeff Parsons: Terrible.

[17:29] Adam Wachter: Deeply problematic.

[17:30] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely terrible, but it still bears watching.

[17:32] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[17:33] Jeff Parsons: Liza Minnelli's in it. She sings single ladies at a gay wedding.

[17:35] Adam Wachter: I can't.

[17:36] Jeff Parsons: And it's fun in that actually first scene is the gay wedding. And you can play like Spot the Broadway Chorus Boy because they're all in it. Everybody.

[17:43] Adam Wachter: Back in the day, actually, I played piano for the auditions for that scene.

[17:45] Jeff Parsons: Really?

[17:46] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[17:46] Jeff Parsons: Oh my gosh.

[17:47] Adam Wachter: Yeah, like 10, 15 years ago. I don't even know.

[17:49] Jeff Parsons: Oh, that's insane.

[17:50] Adam Wachter: Yeah. So the characters of the comic strip originally were number one, Annie, obviously. We got Daddy Warbucks, which in case you haven't thought of this, his last name is Warbucks.

[18:02] Jeff Parsons: Right, because he made all his money war profiteering.

[18:05] Adam Wachter: In the comic strip, it says that he made money from every bullet, like every bullet that was used, he got some cash. So that's why he's a...

[18:12] Jeff Parsons: Can you imagine?

[18:13] Adam Wachter: ...residuals on bullets. Then you've got Mrs. Warbucks.

[18:17] Jeff Parsons: Oh, twist.

[18:18] Adam Wachter: Yes. Very different than the musical. Daddy Warbucks had a wife named Mrs. Warbucks, and she was actually a bad guy. She didn't like Annie.

[18:26] Jeff Parsons: Well, nobody likes Annie.

[18:27] Adam Wachter: Well, and then you've got Miss Hannigan, but it's not Miss Hannigan. It's Miss Asthma.

[18:32] Jeff Parsons: Asthma.

[18:33] Adam Wachter: Basically, what happens with the comic strip is Annie goes to live with Daddy Warbucks. They immediately connect. Mrs. Warbucks hates Annie, so whenever Daddy Warbucks leaves, she sends her back to the orphanage. She has some crazy run-in with Miss Asthma, and then Daddy Warbucks comes back and rescues everything.

[18:54] Jeff Parsons: Oh, good.

[18:55] Adam Wachter: And that's kind of the cycle that continues.

[18:58] Jeff Parsons: Oh, interesting.

[19:01] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[19:01] Jeff Parsons: Interesting. So then you would... Can you find them now? Are they published in an anthology?

[19:04] Adam Wachter: I mean, you probably can, but I...

[19:06] Jeff Parsons: I'll stop at the Iliad on the way out and pick it up.

[19:09] Adam Wachter: But I also read them online.

[19:10] Jeff Parsons: Oh, great.

[19:11] Adam Wachter: They have a lot online.

[19:12] Jeff Parsons: All right. The humor is very, like, a lot of, oh, shucks. And the specific way that they speak is very stylized.

[19:20] Adam Wachter: Okay. And this was like the 20s or the 30s?

[19:23] Jeff Parsons: This is 22, 24.

[19:24] Adam Wachter: Oh, 24. So pre-Great Depression.

[19:26] Jeff Parsons: Pre-Great Depression. And then the depression hits and it continues.

[19:30] Adam Wachter: Oh, wow. Popular.

[19:32] Jeff Parsons: And as it...

[19:33] Adam Wachter: And does Annie ever get older or anything?

[19:34] Jeff Parsons: No, no. It's kind of like The Simpsons.

[19:36] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[19:37] Jeff Parsons: And as the, you know, the depression hits and everything, they start becoming more satirical.

[19:43] Adam Wachter: Oh, she got a point of view.

[19:46] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. And Annie really does become kind of a progressive commentary on politics and...

[19:54] Adam Wachter: Does she change out of that little dress and put on a pair of pants?

[19:56] Jeff Parsons: She's like...

[19:57] Adam Wachter: Go off to work?

[19:57] Jeff Parsons: She has on her, like, bandana. And she's like, we can do it. And but more like the fact that Daddy Warbucks is so Republican, conservative, rich. And then she is the symbol of the streets and youth and optimism.

[20:10] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[20:11] Jeff Parsons: And how are they working together and how are they not?

[20:14] Adam Wachter: Interesting.

[20:14] Jeff Parsons: They explored a lot of stuff.

[20:16] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[20:16] Jeff Parsons: Maybe not totally upfront, but when you look deep, it's all there.

[20:19] Adam Wachter: Yeah, yeah. So Thomas Meehan, when he's creating the script for it, he reads all of the comic strips to try and mine some sort of structure, plot structure from the different stories.

[20:31] Adam Wachter: He couldn't find anything.

[20:32] Jeff Parsons: No. Makes his own story up.

[20:33] Adam Wachter: So he makes up his own.

[20:34] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. And can you name all of the orphans?

[20:38] Adam Wachter: I want to see. Pepper, Kate, Molly, July, Annie.

[20:46] Jeff Parsons: Two more.

[20:46] Adam Wachter: There's two more?

[20:47] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[20:49] Adam Wachter: Oh, my goodness.

[20:49] Jeff Parsons: Oh, my goodness.

[20:51] Adam Wachter: Oh, my goodness.

[20:52] Jeff Parsons: Oh, my goodness.

[20:53] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[20:54] Jeff Parsons: I don't know.

[20:55] Adam Wachter: Tessie.

[20:55] Jeff Parsons: Tessie's the one who always is like, oh, my goodness.

[20:58] Adam Wachter: Oh, my goodness. Well, the only real...

[21:00] Jeff Parsons: And then Duffy.

[21:01] Adam Wachter: Oh, Duffy. Nobody cares about Duffy. The only real time I've done Annie, I think, was on Encore.

[21:06] Jeff Parsons: Fair enough.

[21:06] Adam Wachter: And I'm actually shocked I remember those. I can't believe you remember Kate.

[21:08] Jeff Parsons: We shot this a year ago.

[21:10] Adam Wachter: A year ago. I remember Kate because I just saw Molly Ringwald's little face in that souvenir play, though.

[21:17] Jeff Parsons: Exactly.

[21:18] Adam Wachter: That's awesome. Wow. All right. Good for all this. So it's a home for orphan girls.

[21:22] Jeff Parsons: It's a home for orphan girls.

[21:24] Adam Wachter: They...

[21:24] Jeff Parsons: Who all happen to be around sort of the same age.

[21:26] Adam Wachter: Ish.

[21:27] Jeff Parsons: Except for Molly, who's the youngest.

[21:28] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[21:29] Jeff Parsons: But we don't have any two-year-olds, strangely.

[21:31] Adam Wachter: No.

[21:32] Jeff Parsons: Maybe they just keep them in another room.

[21:33] Adam Wachter: Maybe.

[21:33] Jeff Parsons: The basement.

[21:34] Adam Wachter: I mean, but Annie, at some point, was a two-year-old because she was dropped off there as a baby.

[21:39] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[21:39] Adam Wachter: So maybe they just stopped taking in new ones at a certain point, like when the depression hit.

[21:43] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[21:43] Adam Wachter: Because they were like, Ms. Hannigan's like, my titties are dry. I can't do this.

[21:46] Jeff Parsons: So they're just filled with booze, one or the other.

[21:52] Adam Wachter: They didn't have formula back in those days, didn't you? Someone had to nurse Annie.

[21:54] Jeff Parsons: Think about it.

[21:55] Adam Wachter: It was Ms. Hannigan.

[21:57] Jeff Parsons: Wow. Right? No wonder she's pissed off.

[22:01] Adam Wachter: It's just her tits are sore.

[22:02] Jeff Parsons: Oh, God. She's had orphan after orphan just chewing on her nips.

[22:06] Adam Wachter: She's just bleeding.

[22:07] Jeff Parsons: Oh, God. Wow. I would be miserable, too.

[22:11] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[22:12] Jeff Parsons: That's rough. That gives a whole new subtext to little girls.

[22:17] Adam Wachter: Think about it. Everywhere I look, I can see and feel them.

[22:20] Jeff Parsons: And then she just holds herself.

[22:26] Adam Wachter: The sound of the song happens and she just starts lactating.

[22:29] Jeff Parsons: And she's like, no.

[22:35] Adam Wachter: That's not going in.

[22:36] Jeff Parsons: OK, so the comic strip, even though the comic strip started in 1924, they decide to set the story in the 30s, smack in the middle of the Great Depression.

[22:48] Adam Wachter: Great. Love that choice.

[22:49] Jeff Parsons: And the show originally started with this, like, Apple selling number.

[22:54] Adam Wachter: Right.

[22:54] Jeff Parsons: Right?

[22:55] Adam Wachter: Right.

[22:55] Jeff Parsons: Two for ten, right?

[22:57] Adam Wachter: Two for five.

[22:58] Jeff Parsons: It's two for five at the end, but it's two for ten at the beginning. It changes.

[23:00] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[23:01] Jeff Parsons: And because that's kind of a famous thing. You know, we see the we've seen those pictures.

[23:06] Adam Wachter: I love it.

[23:07] Jeff Parsons: Like, oh, you don't have a job anymore. It's the depression. What can I do? What can I do? I guess sell apples. Everybody loves apples.

[23:14] Adam Wachter: Everybody loves apples. Where's everybody getting these apples?

[23:16] Jeff Parsons: I don't know. There's nothing else to sell.

[23:18] Adam Wachter: So some pencils, some condoms.

[23:22] Jeff Parsons: That's what they needed. You know, invent baby formula. I don't know. Someone had to invent baby formula for Miss Hannigan. Nobody needs any more apples.

[23:30] Adam Wachter: Sell an orange. Everyone out there is going to have freaking scurvy. Give us some vitamin C.

[23:37] Jeff Parsons: Apparently, everybody really loved apples. Anyway, this whole so the whole show started with this Apple number to kind of introduce the Great Depression. And at some point in the middle of the whole process, they realized that by starting with that, even though you are, you know, dictating the time and the struggles of the lower class, we're not hearing what Annie wants.

[24:01] Adam Wachter: I think there's a great lesson in here. And for anyone who's like writing musicals or developing musicals, directing new musicals, because you listen to all these cut songs and they're all for secondary characters, like focus, focus, focus, and Iris and these are characters. Let them sing their songs.

[24:17] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely.

[24:19] Adam Wachter: When they realize what the problem is, then they write this beautiful song called Maybe, which is, which is a really, really great song and very ballsy to start the show off, I think, with that kind of a ballad. Because we hear that before we hear Hard Knock Life or anything.

[24:31] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, we go straight from the overture into the scene and right into Maybe. And it's like, whoa, you're expecting this giant audience of people to just like focus in on a little girl singing a ballad right off the bat.

[24:43] Adam Wachter: You're absolutely right.

[24:45] Jeff Parsons: That's impressive.

[24:45] Adam Wachter: It's ballsy.

[24:46] Jeff Parsons: It is. It's a ballsy move. And it totally panned out.

[24:49] Adam Wachter: Oh, yeah. Because if it's and when it's done well, you're on her side. You know exactly why the show is called Annie. And you're in her corner.

[24:55] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[24:58] Adam Wachter: And you get it. You get like her I Want song right off the bat. Yeah, she wants parents. She has this note that she always keeps with her that the orphans have her read because in many ways it instills hope in them that maybe one day their parents will come back for her.

[25:14] Jeff Parsons: Right.

[25:14] Adam Wachter: Or any parents will come back. Now, they hear at some point in the run at Goodspeed that the reviewer from the New York Times is coming to review the show out of town and they're freaked out. They're like, oh, crap. I hope he likes it because maybe if he likes it, then producers will step up and help us take it to Broadway.

[25:30] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[25:31] Adam Wachter: So he comes and he sees it and he hates it and just writes a horrible review about them. And they're like, we're sunk. We're dead in the water. Charles Strauss's friend who he had worked with comes to see this show. And she actually says, you know what? There's a great show here. And I think that my friend Mike needs to come see it.

[25:47] Jeff Parsons: So the Mike turns out to be Mike Nichols, right?

[25:55] Adam Wachter: Who is a very famous theater director. At this point, he directed all of the Neil Simon plays like Odd Couple and Prisoner, said Second Street and Second Avenue.

[26:03] Jeff Parsons: Thank you.

[26:04] Adam Wachter: And Plaza Suite.

[26:05] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. And at this point, he had also won an Academy Award because he'd gone into film. Plaza Suite, Make a Quick Connection, now starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

[26:12] Adam Wachter: It's a Broadway.

[26:14] Jeff Parsons: Is it Broadway bound?

[26:15] Adam Wachter: Yeah, it's in Boston and it's going to Broadway.

[26:17] Jeff Parsons: Oh, cool. Sarah Jessica Parker, who was in Annie.

[26:21] Adam Wachter: I love SJP.

[26:23] Jeff Parsons: Me too. OK, so Mike Nichols comes in. He had won an Oscar for The Graduate and also had directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. So this is like a legitimate deal. Hollywood director.

[26:34] Adam Wachter: Right.

[26:35] Jeff Parsons: But also associated with grown up stuff.

[26:38] Adam Wachter: Right. So the fact that his name is on this, quote unquote, kid musical now is bringing it some sort of legitimacy. And he really likes the show and he decides to produce it. So even when you see when you see the original poster for the musical, it says Mike Nichols presents Annie.

[26:54] Jeff Parsons: But he did not direct it.

[26:55] Adam Wachter: No, he did not. It was still Michael Price from Goodspeed.

[26:57] Jeff Parsons: No, Michael Price didn't direct it either.

[26:59] Adam Wachter: Who directed it?

[26:59] Jeff Parsons: Martin Charnin.

[27:00] Adam Wachter: Oh, of course. Because he and Charles Strauss got in this huge fight where Martin Charnin, who, by the way, was one of the original Jets from West Side Story as an actor. He said, I have to direct this. And if you all don't let me, then I'm going to work with a different composer.

[27:17] Jeff Parsons: And Charles Strauss was like, well, then I guess you need to go work with a different composer because you've never directed anything.

[27:22] Adam Wachter: Who do you think you are, Martin Charnin?

[27:23] Jeff Parsons: Right. Like, I get the lyrics are good, but who do you think he was going to get?

[27:30] Adam Wachter: He said, the only way that I will let someone else direct this is if it's Jerome Robbins, George Abbott, or like, it was ridiculous.

[27:39] Jeff Parsons: Why did he think he was so good at this?

[27:42] Adam Wachter: Because it was his idea. I think he had this vision that he thought he was the only one who could bring it to fruition.

[27:49] Jeff Parsons: Well, he was certainly the only one who could rhyme Times Square with I'm square. So good for you, Martin Charnin.

[27:55] Adam Wachter: I guess you win in the end.

[27:57] Jeff Parsons: And he does win. They finally let him direct it.

[28:00] Adam Wachter: Yeah. The thing that makes me laugh a little bit is that Mike Nichols name is above the title. So everyone assumes that Mike Nichols directed it.

[28:08] Jeff Parsons: Of course.

[28:09] Adam Wachter: I was like, oops, they let Martin Charnin direct it. But then everyone thinks that Mike Nichols did it. But who's laughing now? Because Martin Charnin is making bank. Because he kept directing it for decades.

[28:16] Jeff Parsons: Because he directed all the revivals.

[28:19] Adam Wachter: And I think there's probably like a Current Networks tour out at some point that he probably directed.

[28:25] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[28:26] Adam Wachter: Yeah. So he's the only guy. And he had the vision and he made it happen. So good for him. He worked on 2x2 with Richard Rodgers.

[28:35] Jeff Parsons: That was like one of his first things.

[28:36] Adam Wachter: Oh, I don't know 2x2. Should I? Do I need to?

[28:39] Jeff Parsons: Okay. No, there's like one good song.

[28:41] Adam Wachter: All right.

[28:42] Jeff Parsons: And Madeline Kahn was in it.

[28:44] Adam Wachter: Oh, Madeline Kahn.

[28:46] Jeff Parsons: So that's cool.

[28:47] Adam Wachter: That is cool.

[28:47] Jeff Parsons: But it's kind of famous for Danny Kaye. He kind of took over the show and made it the Danny Kaye show. And it was no longer an actual show.

[28:54] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[28:54] Jeff Parsons: Okay. They open out of town. They open in Washington, D.C. with now Mike Nichols attached. They're making changes. And then it transfers to Broadway and becomes a huge hit.

[29:06] Adam Wachter: It opens in 1977, I believe, and runs for six years.

[29:11] Jeff Parsons: Yeah.

[29:12] Adam Wachter: Two thousand some performances.

[29:13] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. One of the longest running at the time. Certainly set like a record for the theater that it was in.

[29:18] Adam Wachter: Yeah. The Alvin.

[29:20] Jeff Parsons: Let's go through the plot super quick.

[29:22] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[29:22] Jeff Parsons: Okay. Because this is what we always do on the show. So it starts with maybe.

[29:27] Adam Wachter: Right.

[29:28] Jeff Parsons: Then after maybe Annie tries to escape.

[29:31] Adam Wachter: Yeah. She's going to leave the orphanage.

[29:32] Jeff Parsons: Right. Miss Hannigan.

[29:34] Adam Wachter: Miss Hannigan, who's the mean owner of the orphanage. She comes in and stops that and also makes them get right to work and make this place shine like the top of the Chrysler.

[29:45] Adam Wachter: And apparently in the novelization by Thomas Meehan, like they also like they sew garments in the basement and she beats them. And oh, good heavens. Like it's real serious, like she is not a good... sometimes you see it in Miss Hannigan sort of likable and she's funny. Like a Cruella de Vil. Yeah, we love to hate her, but she doesn't do it any like bad. But like, I think in Thomas Meehan's mind, like, no, she was evil. She was not a nice woman. So then they sing "Hard Knock Life." Now, that interval in "Hard Knock Life" is one of the biggest in all musical theatre.

[30:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which interval?

[30:23] Adam Wachter: Well, the whole thing is so high. Yeah. Re-listening to it, those girls are singing so high. And I get like, they're young. Yes. And so they can. But why? It is so strident. Yes. Charles Strauss said that the reason that the orphans were hired was because there were like only seven girls that they found that could actually sing that. And so they were the ones who booked it. Don't spread that around because that's what girls like in New York think now. They're like, oh, if I'm if I'm if I can just sing high enough, I'll book it. It's like, no, that's not what anybody's looking for.

[30:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I mean, it also might be different if you're 10.

[30:56] Adam Wachter: Yeah, maybe. But have you seen "Life After Tomorrow"? That's the big question. The documentary about the former...

[31:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, no, I haven't.

[31:07] Adam Wachter: Oh, you should. These kids were messed up because there were like not the same laws back then as there are now. So in terms of like the tutoring that they were supposed to have, and they were like, Annie was doing eight shows a week where nowadays, like with "Matilda" and some things like that.

[31:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, they're sharing it between three people.

[31:23] Adam Wachter: They share. And like they and they were in Times Square in the 70s, which was a rough part of town at a rough time. And, you know, Andrea McArdle at the age of 13 was going to Studio 54 and like partying the night away and snorting up who knows what. And they were like little kids running around and they I don't know that they were really being chaperoned because I don't think the child entertainment labor laws specifically at that time were like as stringent as they are now.

[31:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[31:51] Adam Wachter: And I don't know if there had ever been a show with this many principal children. And probably there shouldn't be because that's a lot. You don't want to be backstage. They always say don't work with animals, don't work with children. And "Annie," you have to do both.

[32:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You have to do both.

[32:10] Adam Wachter: Okay, so after "Hard Knock Life," then Annie jumps into the laundry bin because she realizes Mr. Bundles. That's the part I'd play, Mr. Bundles.

[32:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, I don't want to deal with that cart.

[32:22] Adam Wachter: Everyone, I'd be Rooster. Everyone would be Rooster. That's the only part anyone wants is to be Rooster or Lily St. Regis. Lily St. Regis would be great. I would actually want to be Grace Farrell, but only if it was a hand-wringing version.

[32:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because you don't want to be that hooty hoot soprano on the original cast recording.

[32:36] Adam Wachter: Oh, that's a rough. That's taking your head voice low. I don't even know if she's doing it. At some point, just transition into your chest.

[32:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't think she can. She's like an 18-year-old girl just going into musical theater school for the first time where they don't think they can belt yet. It's like, no, you can do it. Just sing it like you would speak it. And she's in the cast with Laurie Beechman.

[32:57] Adam Wachter: Greatest belter of all time. It's like, take a belt.

[32:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Take a belt.

[33:01] Adam Wachter: Take a belt.

[33:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Take a belt.

[33:05] Adam Wachter: Take a belt.

[33:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Take a belt.

[33:09] Adam Wachter: Take a belt.

[33:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Greatest belter of all time.

[33:13] Adam Wachter: Take a tip. Take a pointer. Laurie Beechman is belting higher than Grace Farrell is head voicing. This is crazy.

[33:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's like a Twilight Zone universe.

[33:23] Adam Wachter: Okay, so she escapes with Mr. Bundles.

[33:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She escapes with Mr. Bundles.

[33:27] Adam Wachter: She goes to Hooverville. Hooverville is the pits. Now, one of the big things about this podcast is that I've learned most of my U.S. history from musicals.

[33:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely.

[33:41] Adam Wachter: Hoovervilles were tent communities that people in the Great Depression created and named after Herbert Hoover because he was this horrible president who got them into the Great Depression in the first place. They were homeless.

[33:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They were homeless people living on the streets so they built little towns for themselves because they had no choice.

[33:59] Adam Wachter: And this is actually a great song, too. This was the song when I was little I would always skip past and now that I'm an adult, I'm like, oh, actually, I really dig it.

[34:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: See, that's how I feel about "You Won't Be an Orphan for Long."

[34:07] Adam Wachter: Oh, that's so sweet. So they sing this song about living in Hooverville.

[34:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: In a shanty.

[34:15] Adam Wachter: And it's very biting but then sounds very fancy. So it's kind of playing against itself. The ensemble in this show is bizarre.

[34:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because they just play like these sort of communities of people.

[34:29] Adam Wachter: They're either servants or they're like... They just appear. There's a bunch of numbers. They all got cut. And I think it would have been even more random but now it's like they have less to do and it's still random.

[34:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Very random.

[34:47] Adam Wachter: They should all be sort of character types but then there's like dance numbers. It's a strange sort of... It's a strange thankless ensemble. Period.

[34:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: While Annie is on the street, she finds a dog named Sandy and she connects to the dog because he doesn't have a home either.

[35:01] Adam Wachter: Because it's a dog. What kid doesn't like a dog?

[35:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. Best friend. She sings a song to cheer him up but of course it's also to cheer her up called "Tomorrow."

[35:15] Adam Wachter: Which has probably become one of the most famous theater songs of all time. With "What I Did for Love" and "Send in the Clowns" and "Music of the Night." And Andrea McArdle just built that voice.

[35:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What's fascinating is that she still sounds like Andrea McArdle.

[35:29] Adam Wachter: That voice was already there. A little trickle of coke at the back of her throat.

[35:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No wonder she could sing so high.

[35:39] Adam Wachter: She had no sinuses.

[35:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She had no nasal cavity left.

[35:45] Adam Wachter: That's terrible.

[35:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, this show has a dark history. I don't think I realized it until now.

[35:53] Adam Wachter: It really does. It's a dark piece. The thing that I love I think most about Andrea McArdle in "Tomorrow" is that at the very end, she does that awesome diphthong. She goes, "Day away."

[36:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh yeah, yeah.

[36:09] Adam Wachter: She does it also on "I think I'm gonna like it here."

[36:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know I'm gonna like it here.

[36:19] Adam Wachter: It's crazy. Why does she hold it for so long? Nobody knows.

[36:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We should look up who music directed that originally. Do we know who it was?

[36:29] Adam Wachter: I don't know who it was. We should look up. I don't want to talk about the music directors but maybe it wasn't the case live but on the cast recording, that is some sloppy music direction. The cutoffs are all over the place.

[36:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: People are just singing as loud as they can with no sense of are we singing the same rhythms, the same pitches. It's sort of madness.

[36:49] Adam Wachter: I mean, it was the time though. Yeah, they just sort of sing as loudly as you possibly can and we'll just figure it out later.

[36:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's probably Martin Charnin.

[36:57] Adam Wachter: He's like, I'll do that too. I've written it. I've directed it. What else can I do?

[37:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He's like, I will walk from this if I am not allowed to be a musical director.

[37:05] Adam Wachter: If I am not the music director as well.

[37:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh god.

[37:09] Adam Wachter: Okay. The police come and they take Annie back to the orphanage.

[37:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Annie runs away. Enter Grace Farrell who is private secretary to Oliver Warbucks, the billionaire.

[37:21] Adam Wachter: The multi-billionaire, I think they say. She is there because he needs kind of a publicity lift.

[37:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[37:29] Adam Wachter: He's got a bad public image because he's ritual and he made all his money on war profiteering.

[37:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[37:37] Adam Wachter: So they have decided to bring an orphan in for the holidays and that will be a great photo op.

[37:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What a stupid thing to do. What a fake charitable thing. He could have given a million dollars to the orphans of New York and said one orphan gets to spend essentially like maybe one, two nights in a nice house.

[38:01] Adam Wachter: Also, I love like no questions raised of like, will she be cared for in this random home? They're like, no, he's a billionaire. He must be great.

[38:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'll tell you what, if this was like real life, you know what that billionaire would be doing with that little girl. I don't have to spell it out for you.

[38:15] Adam Wachter: Oh my gosh, we're not going there.

[38:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, actually we are going there because one of the other problems with this musical is that if Annie is a little too old, it reads romantic.

[38:27] Adam Wachter: It's strange. I saw an Annie where the girl was like maybe 11, 12 and you know, that's that age where they get those like really long skinny legs and then you put the short red dress on her and she sits on Daddy Warbucks' knee and you're like, this looks gross.

[38:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It looks really creepy.

[38:45] Adam Wachter: You're telling me I did it with a 40-year-old Annie. But that's just funny.

[38:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That was funny.

[38:53] Adam Wachter: Oh, I loved her. She was so good. And I love how stressed out she was.

[38:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of course, would you be? If they were like, you're playing Annie and Annie in five days, wouldn't you freak the fuck out if you hadn't done it in like 20 years?

[39:05] Adam Wachter: But also there would be something really creepy. And then there were cameras everywhere.

[39:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, now that would be creepy. You're like, oh, the world is going to see this. Great. When she has her breakdown in her journal moment and she's like, oh my gosh, I don't know why I'm doing this. That would be me on reality television.

[39:19] Adam Wachter: And one of the reasons why I avoid it like the plague because I know I would become incredibly emotional talking about my family or something and then I'd be crying on Netflix.

[39:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Instead I cry on a podcast and everybody...

[39:35] Adam Wachter: Do you cry on this podcast?

[39:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Are you going to cry today?

[39:39] Adam Wachter: No, I don't think I'll cry today. I cried on "Fiddler on the Roof." I cried in "Peter Pan."

[39:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's when you go through the plot and then you become emotionally invested and then it all comes out.

[39:51] Adam Wachter: Listen to my show. It's good.

[39:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I listened to Mary Jo Catlett.

[39:55] Adam Wachter: Oh yeah, that was fabulous.

[39:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The other day in the car.

[39:59] Adam Wachter: That was a great episode. I loved hearing all of her stuff.

[40:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Grace chooses Annie because Annie's there. She's like, I'll take that one.

[40:07] Adam Wachter: That one. She doesn't give a shit. She's efficient. She's the private secretary to all of her goddamn orphans. She does not have time to be picking out an orphan.

[40:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She says, you, get in the car.

[40:21] Adam Wachter: You've seen one, you've seen them all. Honestly, that's how I feel about orphans and all children in general.

[40:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Here's something true about me. I cannot tell a child's age to save my life.

[40:31] Adam Wachter: You could tell me that kid was six months old or three years old and I would believe you because I have no point of reference and I do not know how old children are.

[40:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I have a difficult time with that too and so I always ask, what grade are you in? Because I'm really good at knowing what grade.

[40:45] Adam Wachter: What if they're three or four or two?

[40:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, I know that. I know four and under. I'm like, does that child look like they could get into Disneyland for free?

[40:55] Adam Wachter: Sometimes you see a child and you think, oh, I could have a reasonable conversation with that person and then you find out they still wear diapers.

[41:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's hard enough for me sometimes to talk to my students and they're like 21. And I'm like, you have no experience in the world. What are we going to talk about?

[41:11] Adam Wachter: Kids freaking crack me up. The things that come out of my nephew's mouth are things that come out of their asses.

[41:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, that's not my problem. That's somebody's problem and I don't want to deal with it. Stay away.

[41:23] Adam Wachter: Do you know what though? It's different.

[41:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you have a dog?

[41:27] Adam Wachter: No, but I have fostered many dogs and I love them very much.

[41:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I have a dog named Little Dude and he's the sweetest.

[41:31] Adam Wachter: His poop doesn't gross me out at all.

[41:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All poop grosses me out.

[41:35] Adam Wachter: But it's different when it's someone else's dog. I'm like, you disgusting thing. What have you created?

[41:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But when it's Little Dude's poop, I'm like, oh, good job, buddy. Proud of you. You squeezed it out. It doesn't bother me.

[41:47] Adam Wachter: And I've heard that from my siblings about children.

[41:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, once they get to adult...

[41:51] Adam Wachter: Do you have a lot of siblings?

[41:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There are five of us and I have 13 nieces and nephews.

[41:57] Adam Wachter: Wow.

[41:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I have three nephews.

[42:01] Adam Wachter: Oh my gosh, they're the best. I would want more.

[42:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I would forget their names if I had more.

[42:07] Adam Wachter: I grew up with a friend named Jennifer and she had siblings who were like Jessica and Jason and John. It was like a whole J family. Their parents also were both Js. And I found the whole thing absolutely nauseating.

[42:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely.

[42:23] Adam Wachter: I had to chew back the bomb. It was that bad.

[42:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Like seeing some poor productions of "Annie." It is that "Annie" can go really quickly from a brilliantly crafted sort of moody period piece that has something to say about socioeconomic conditions into nauseous Christmas family schlock.

[42:45] Adam Wachter: Okay, what happens next?

[42:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, I think I'm going to like it here. She comes to the mansion. She meets a bunch of servants. She thinks she's there to clean.

[42:53] Adam Wachter: Which tells you a little bit about her mental state and condition.

[42:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's adorable, but it's also like, oh my God, what have you been through? What kind of Pavlov problem have you? You see a house, you think you're there to clean it.

[43:05] Adam Wachter: They're like, no, no. There's a tennis court. And you're going to play it. And we're going to get Don Budge.

[43:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There's more musicals to reference Don Budge.

[43:15] Adam Wachter: Can we ask the real question that's important about this musical?

[43:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Please do. I'm dying to know what it is.

[43:21] Adam Wachter: What's a Mickey Finn?

[43:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Martin Charnin with all of his 1930s stuff.

[43:29] Adam Wachter: That's a specific sort of breed of homosexual that knows all the holds. And guess what? You're the new version. Congratulations.

[43:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm the new Martin Charnin. Stand back. I'm going to direct everything.

[43:41] Adam Wachter: How about in "Little Girls" when he rhymes breathe them with see them, but because you don't take the breath, breathe them, see them, becomes an actual rhyme, even though actually those words don't rhyme.

[43:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're a genius. Thank you for pointing that out.

[43:57] Adam Wachter: That's what I'm here for.

[43:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: By the way, I looked up what Mickey Finn is.

[44:03] Adam Wachter: Oh, great. What is it?

[44:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Nowadays we would call a Bill Cosby, where Mickey Finn was this gangster guy and he would slip things into people's drinks so that he could do whatever he needed to and have them out of commission.

[44:17] Adam Wachter: Like a roofie.

[44:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A roofie. That's the word. And so they would call these beverages Mickey Fins because they would make you so intoxicated that you could be raped.

[44:27] Adam Wachter: It was more like that he could steal your money because he was a gangster. He was more interested in that than the other.

[44:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, okay. Well, that makes one of us.

[44:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, which is a great moment. That's my favorite moment of that Encore episode. I will say to bring it back to that for two seconds is Patti Dupouma as Mrs. Greer, Soap No Bubbles, I think, and when she's out with Mike Starr. Trying to rehearse it? Oh my gosh. Do you know Mike Starr? Of course, everyone here does. Yeah, that's a great moment of television. She is rehearsed then when she says, maybe I'll do it Italian. Soap No Bubbles, I think. It sounds like no person who's ever existed. All right, so welcome. She's in the house and Daddy Warbucks comes home. He doesn't really care for her.

[44:57] Adam Wachter: Tyrant, isn't he?

[44:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Well, he's a Republican. There you go. Tight-fisted. And he's not a big fan of her, but he's like, whatever. I'm glad, you know, if it needs to happen for the publicity, it needs to happen. I'll have this dirty child running around my pristine home. Just don't get your foot in the dirt. Not enough good publicity in the world for me to do that, P.S. I think you'd be surprised how much you'd love orphans.

[45:39] Adam Wachter: Only if they do the cleaning, quite frankly.

[45:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And hey, they might already be prepared. What happens? Is it NYC next? Yeah. So next is NYC. So Warbucks decides that he's going to take Annie out on the town, thanks to Grace Farrell's gentle nudging. And so they go out to NYC. They see all of the great things about the city that she's never seen before.

[46:03] Adam Wachter: Yeah, including a belting unemployed actress.

[46:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. That's what you need.

[46:05] Adam Wachter: By the name of Lori Beachman. People might not know who Lori Beachman is.

[46:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They should.

[46:10] Adam Wachter: They should. She is one of the best belters of all time.

[46:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Original narrator in Joseph.

[46:15] Adam Wachter: Famously did Gorzabella for a long time, right? And Cats. And passed away much too soon. What I love about Lori Beachman in this show is that when you listen to that original cast recording, you're like, is there just a second soprano who's singing at the top of her lungs? Yes, it's Lori Beachman. The whole show.

[46:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The whole show. Belting everything. And it's thrilling. It's so fun to listen to. Ignore everybody else and just try and pick Lori Beachman out of the ensemble. You know, it'd be like a fun story, maybe, like some sort of biopic on Lori Beachman.

[46:50] Adam Wachter: On Lori Beachman.

[46:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We don't need another Judy. We need a Lori Beachman movie.

[46:54] Adam Wachter: We've already got Me and My Shadows.

[46:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you. Don't even get me started on... Judy Davis was so brilliant.

[46:59] Adam Wachter: So brilliant.

[47:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: After NYC, we go back to the orphanage. Oh, I think we skipped Little Girls.

[47:06] Adam Wachter: Oh, so we revisit the orphanage and...

[47:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Miss Hannigan doesn't like girls.

[47:11] Adam Wachter: She doesn't like little girls, even though this is her occupation.

[47:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. But she can't leave her job because she's stuck because it's the depression. So she sings this number called Little Girls and all the girls sort of torment her. And Dorothy Loudon's amazing.

[47:23] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[47:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: End of story. End of... that's all you need. So then when we come back to the orphanage again, we meet Miss Hannigan's brother, who's named Rooster, and his girlfriend is Lily St. Regis, named after the hotel. And...

[47:39] Adam Wachter: Jinx.

[47:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And they're con artists.

[47:42] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[47:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like living outside the law.

[47:45] Adam Wachter: Which, I mean, let's be honest, they're trying to do their best.

[47:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, but they're also like not necessarily bright people.

[47:51] Adam Wachter: Which makes it more funny.

[47:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. To see them there. They're sort of... it's very sort of gangster in his mall, but like idiots and not successful at it.

[48:00] Adam Wachter: Right.

[48:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They got all the attitude, none of the skill.

[48:03] Adam Wachter: Correct. It turns out that Miss Hannigan and Rooster had a pretty terrible mom who taught them some pretty bad stuff.

[48:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, some bad lessons, which now Miss Hannigan's probably passing on to these poor children.

[48:13] Adam Wachter: Right. You know. And so they kind of sing about it in this song called Easy Street, which is a great number. Great trio. And, you know, originally in the movie, Easy Street was like a big number.

[48:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[48:25] Adam Wachter: A big number in the streets of New York with a giant chorus. And they went back and reshot it. Have you heard the story?

[48:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So Carol Burnett, after she got done filming the film version of Annie, she had always wanted to get a chin implant because she didn't feel like she had a chin.

[48:39] Adam Wachter: Do you know what?

[48:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So she also really wanted a chin implant. I think I might get one.

[48:43] Adam Wachter: You look great.

[48:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, not from the side. Look, it's very small.

[48:47] Adam Wachter: No, you look great.

[48:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I wanted just a little bit bigger. No, but so she got one. She got a chin implant after Annie, and then they called her and said, we're redoing Easy Street. She's like, I have a new chin. So she says she always kids that in the movie, she goes into a closet without a chin and then comes out of the closet with one. If you look very carefully.

[49:06] Adam Wachter: I have to rewatch this movie.

[49:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Isn't that awesome?

[49:09] Adam Wachter: It is so awesome. And I want the same thing to happen to me.

[49:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, after Easy Street is your favorite song.

[49:14] Adam Wachter: You won't be in Norfolk for long.

[49:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's not my favorite song.

[49:16] Adam Wachter: It's your favorite song.

[49:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I haven't really thought about it until I was just relistening to the cast recording yesterday for this very podcast. And I was like, oh, wait, no, this is actually like, it's sort of a bop.

[49:27] Adam Wachter: Yeah, it's sort of a bop.

[49:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And the reason that everybody sings it in the mansion, in the Warbucks mansion, is because they're going to get the FBI involved in the search for their, for her parents.

[49:36] Adam Wachter: For Annie's parents.

[49:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Which is really great. So then the second act, we come back and they have not only enlisted the FBI, they've enlisted the local media.

[49:45] Adam Wachter: Right.

[49:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. We're at Guy Smiley's.

[49:48] Adam Wachter: Is it Guy Smiley?

[49:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wait, who sings on the radio?

[49:51] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[49:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Guy Smiley?

[49:53] Adam Wachter: Bert Healy.

[49:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Who the hell's Guy Smiley?

[49:56] Adam Wachter: I don't know. I kind of want to look it up.

[49:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wait a minute. Who's Guy Smiley?

[50:00] Adam Wachter: Bert Healy.

[50:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, no, you're right. It is Bert Healy. So they're at the, they're at Bert Healy's studio.

[50:06] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[50:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And he's going on the radio to lie to the search.

[50:10] Adam Wachter: Exactly. And they sing, You're Never Fully Dressed, I'll Smile. Another great jam.

[50:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's a bop. Come on. And then when the girls take it over, it's very, it's very sort of a precursor to like, Mama Who Bore Me and Mama Who Bore Me Reprise, isn't it?

[50:23] Adam Wachter: That's exactly what I think of. You're like, that's a cute number. That's fine. And then the girls take it over and they make it into something else.

[50:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it hits hard.

[50:31] Adam Wachter: Yeah. I love it. I wonder if that's what inspired Anne-Marie Milazzo to do that vocal arrangement.

[50:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let's ask Anne-Marie.

[50:37] Adam Wachter: I will ask her.

[50:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She won't know what I'm talking about.

[50:39] Adam Wachter: She'll be like, what's Annie? I've never heard of it.

[50:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Then after You're Never Fully Dressed, big crowd pleaser. They go to Washington, D.C. to meet FDR himself.

[50:48] Adam Wachter: Why do they do that?

[50:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Again, they've already got the FBI, right?

[50:51] Adam Wachter: Right. I think it's more that he was meeting with him anyway. Annie goes with him. So they're fighting about politics, right? Republican versus Democrat. And then Annie is chiming in.

[51:01] Adam Wachter: Thanks, little orphan.

[51:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let the adults speak, please.

[51:04] Adam Wachter: Which is certainly how the cabinet responds to her.

[51:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, as they should. Because what is she even doing there? And then FDR's like, actually, I kind of want to hear what this kid has to say. And so she sings a reprise of Tomorrow.

[51:14] Adam Wachter: And then everybody has to join in.

[51:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which is great when they all join. That is a beautiful moment. I will give it to them. That's a great scene. And it also is kind of like this weird fan fiction where you're like, where did FDR get all of his optimism? It's like, maybe he got it from Orphan Annie.

[51:29] Adam Wachter: Do you know what? FDR is the only president who was elected three times.

[51:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, because then you couldn't do it anymore after that, right? They changed the rule.

[51:36] Adam Wachter: Certainly not a perfect president, by all means. But what a symbol for that time period, though. A president in a wheelchair who can't even walk.

[51:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, polio. Like, how amazing to kind of put your faith in that type of leader. Then he saved the country, basically, with his New Deal. And I think that's really cool and inspiring and kind of artistic in a way.

[51:56] Adam Wachter: After Tomorrow, Annie kind of changes everything about that meeting, which is one of the big moments for Daddy Warbucks to realize, oh, I really care about this person. I want her to be a part of my family. And so he sings Something Was Missing, which actually is a really beautiful song.

[52:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And there's another song that was written for...

[52:11] Adam Wachter: In Act One.

[52:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: In Act One. What does he sing? The other ballad?

[52:14] Adam Wachter: Why Should I Change a Thing?

[52:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Why Should I Change a Thing? Is that what it's called?

[52:17] Adam Wachter: Yes.

[52:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that's what, like, Anthony Warlow sang in the revival.

[52:21] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[52:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: OK. Where he's like, I don't need to change anything. Right. He thinks his life is complete, but actually it's not complete because he doesn't have a child, which is something I think a lot of gays go through at one point in their life. And to them, I say, no, your life is complete. Stay the way you are. This world is overpopulated.

[52:39] Adam Wachter: There's also great options for adoption.

[52:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. And foster care. Be inspired by Annie and by Daddy Warbucks. Get an orphan.

[52:46] Adam Wachter: Let's go ahead and take that back where you say, and to them, I say...

[52:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And to them, I say, adopt. Don't shop. There are so many children in the world, just like Annie, who need a home and they are valid. And what if they inspire you to create the next New Deal? One never knows. This announcement was made possible by Adam Wachter for Present.

[53:03] Adam Wachter: So then he's like, all right, kid, we can't find your parents.

[53:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[53:07] Adam Wachter: So I'm going to adopt you. And she's like, oh, really? OK, awesome. Let's be a family. And they sing, I don't need anything.

[53:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. What if it just kept going up and they just never got to the end?

[53:19] Adam Wachter: I'd be OK with it. I want to see it.

[53:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Laurie Beachman could do it.

[53:22] Adam Wachter: Laurie Beachman could do it. Like random maid. She just keeps singing higher and higher and higher.

[53:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But in the meantime, that is all kind of thrown out the window because her parents show up.

[53:31] Adam Wachter: And by her parents, I mean Rooster and Lily St. Regis dressed up as her parents.

[53:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. And because they have Miss Hannigan in their back pocket, they know about the locket and the note.

[53:41] Adam Wachter: Yep.

[53:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So they come in and the Warbucks are like, oh, OK, I guess these are the parents, but their plan doesn't work. And do you remember why?

[53:48] Adam Wachter: No, because Grace Farrell recognizes Rooster.

[53:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What does he say?

[53:52] Adam Wachter: Hi, Blondie.

[53:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I should remember that we did it in an encore thing. Hi, Blondie. She clocks that this is Rooster in disguise.

[53:59] Adam Wachter: Exactly. When she was at the orphanage a gajillion times.

[54:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Correct. And the adoption paper signed.

[54:04] Adam Wachter: Right, right. Yeah. And so then their cover's blown and now we have to get Annie off stage because she has to change into that curly wig and the red dress.

[54:12] Adam Wachter: Annie, Annie, here she is, top of the staircase, coming down like Dolly Levi.

[54:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And Martin Chardon could never.

[54:19] Adam Wachter: Just borrowing everything from Gower.

[54:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So she's coming down the staircase with her arms in that third arabesque. Let's talk about the curly hair for a minute, because as someone who has curly hair, speaking to someone who does not, I find it very affirming that she is made more attractive by getting curly hair.

[54:34] Adam Wachter: There you go. Instead of ironing it out.

[54:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. That's right. Natural is the way to go. We're going to say that she's a natural girl and she didn't like it. So she's been ironing it her whole life. They took her up. They just spritzed it a little bit. Boing, came back to life.

[54:48] Adam Wachter: And they all live happily ever after by singing, We get a new deal for Christmas.

[54:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because then FDR shows up to the house along with the orphans. Oh, this is all on Christmas Day.

[54:56] Adam Wachter: This is all on Christmas Day.

[54:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, that's the new deal. And it's his new deal for the country. And he's like, Annie, you've inspired my politics. I now have this new deal where it's the country's going to be saved. All the orphans are going to get adopted.

[55:06] Adam Wachter: Yeah, yeah.

[55:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And here comes Sandy the dog. Who can ask for anything more? How did Sandy come back to us? We don't know.

[55:12] Adam Wachter: I don't know.

[55:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sandy doesn't know where that house is. And Sandy only met Annie for like a good 30 minutes.

[55:17] Adam Wachter: But it was enough.

[55:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was enough. She's been looking everywhere for Annie.

[55:21] Adam Wachter: That dog was inspired by Michael Price. And does it imply that Daddy Warbucks is adopting all of the orphans?

[55:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I kind of feel like that is the case. Can you imagine two days ago, he was like, I guess for a PR stunt, we should like have an orphan come stay for Christmas.

[55:33] Adam Wachter: And you know what I call that?

[55:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What?

[55:36] Adam Wachter: A character arc.

[55:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Then two days later, he's adopted a daughter and is housing seven more female orphans.

[55:42] Adam Wachter: Absolutely. You have the real estate. You can go in your, you know, West Wing.

[55:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Where is that house, by the way? We think this house is in Manhattan. That's the implication. I don't know where that mansion is now. That's something. I hope he held on to that property.

[55:56] Adam Wachter: Not like he needed the money.

[55:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I hope he donated it. And now it's like a museum. You know what he could donate is that big old diamond. What if it was like now Daddy Warbucks is dead and he's left his house to the city and it's now the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[56:11] Adam Wachter: It was that big.

[56:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's actually the sequel to Annie that I would have liked to have seen where Daddy Warbucks dies and Annie inherits everything. And then she has to figure out what to do with all of them.

[56:20] Adam Wachter: What do you do?

[56:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And she just becomes like Tilda Swinton in Okja. All right. Let's go to our Tony Awards, shall we?

[56:27] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[56:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So in the night in, what is this? 1977.

[56:30] Adam Wachter: Okay.

[56:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 1977 is when...

[56:32] Adam Wachter: Not a lot of competition.

[56:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Not a lot of competition, but a really interesting trend going on Broadway at this point. So like we said, New York City, a little scary. Specifically in the theater district. The musicals up for Best Musical this year are Annie, I Love My Wife, which is like, it's about swingers. Side by Side by Sondheim.

[56:52] Adam Wachter: Review.

[56:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Just a review of Sondheim stuff. And Happy End.

[56:56] Adam Wachter: Which one is that?

[56:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Happy End is a three act musical comedy by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. And it was new that year?

[57:03] Adam Wachter: It was in Germany and then closed after seven performances.

[57:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And so then, and that was in like the 1920s and it hadn't ever been done on Broadway before.

[57:12] Adam Wachter: Oh, so this was the first and we didn't have all sort of the Tony committee probably to decree that this was a revival at that time.

[57:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And there were revivals because this was also the all African American Guys and Dolls year. Right, right. But for some reason, they thought it should be considered original because maybe it had never been in America.

[57:28] Adam Wachter: So that was, those were the best musical nominees. But the other big shows on Broadway were Your Arms Are Too Short to Box with God and Godspell, which Godspell had been off Broadway, but never on Broadway.

[57:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Both of those are musical retellings of the Book of Matthew.

[57:42] Adam Wachter: Both of them. And they were on Broadway at the same time.

[59:32] Adam Wachter: It is. I haven't read the Bible. It's okay. So like, in the traditional Holy Bible, you got Old Testament, New Testament, New Testament, the first four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, are all different accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

[59:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Are they very different? Like different things? Which one do you believe?

[59:54] Adam Wachter: There's nothing. There's like no really contradicting stuff. It's just like people point out things more than the other.

[1:00:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Interesting. This is very like, like 2000, the year 2000 with the wild party.

[1:00:06] Adam Wachter: Yes, exactly. Yeah. But what's kind of fun is that there are some of them are better writers than others.

[1:00:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it sounds real fun.

[1:00:14] Adam Wachter: No, but so Godspell and Your Arms Are Too Short to Box with God are both musical retellings of Matthew.

[1:00:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Why?

[1:00:21] Adam Wachter: Right? And then you've got Annie. You have this trend of...

[1:00:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Is Annie also secretly a retelling of something from the Bible?

[1:00:28] Adam Wachter: Well, I mean, no, but it's so optimistic and so much about love and hope and, you know, joy.

[1:00:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah.

[1:00:34] Adam Wachter: I don't know if Broadway's just trying to send some God to New York City, like this godless theatre district.

[1:00:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But interesting that those two weren't nominated or were they nominated as revivals?

[1:00:42] Adam Wachter: They weren't. They weren't nominated for best musical. They were nominated for best score, I believe.

[1:00:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Interesting that Godspell would be nominated for best score, even though it had already premiered off Broadway so long ago.

[1:00:53] Adam Wachter: Do we have anything else? What are your takeaways? What do you like? What do you love?

[1:00:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do we want to talk about the sequels? No, because we don't really know.

[1:00:59] Adam Wachter: No, I mean...

[1:01:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There are sequels, everyone. There's two and neither of them were a hit.

[1:01:03] Adam Wachter: And I'll probably, maybe I'll do an episode about musical sequels and that will be fun.

[1:01:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's a good idea.

[1:01:08] Adam Wachter: What are some things that you love about the show?

[1:01:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Annie, do you want me to read the things that I wrote?

[1:01:13] Adam Wachter: Yes, yes.

[1:01:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, so before the show, I asked him to write down three things that he secretly loves about the show.

[1:01:20] Adam Wachter: Okay. I mean, it's not secretly. It's like three things I actually love.

[1:01:24] Adam Wachter: I don't think Annie's a perfect musical, but I don't think it's bad. I still think it has quality. The score is very high quality.

[1:01:32] Adam Wachter: Okay, so first and foremost, we've already touched on it, the curled hair.

[1:01:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[1:01:38] Adam Wachter: The curly hair sends a very powerful message to everybody that curly hair is attractive.

[1:01:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[1:01:45] Adam Wachter: And in fact, can be more attractive sometimes than sort of floppy hair that just lays there. I think for a long time, and certainly in some specific cultures, straight hair has been prized. But we are back. Curly hair. Annie has helped us usher back in a great time for curly hair.

[1:02:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Embrace it.

[1:02:02] Adam Wachter: Embrace your curls. Do you know what? Even recently, I got my haircut the other day, and the guy who cut my hair was like, Oh, you should really try to find a product that will tame these curls. And I said, Why would I want to tame these curls? These curls, annoying as they can be sometimes, they are just as beautiful. I'm not going to invest in money to tame these curls. Thank you very much.

[1:02:23] Adam Wachter: The only tame I'm interested in is Julie Tamer.

[1:02:26] Adam Wachter: The only tame I'm interested in is the magic show Lion Tamer.

[1:02:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, number two.

[1:02:32] Adam Wachter: Oh, you're not? I'm doing all mine first?

[1:02:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[1:02:35] Adam Wachter: Okay. Number two, the dog. I'm a big fan of adoption of children and dogs, but especially dogs. Adopt, don't shop. I love that so many dogs have been rescued as a result of productions of Annie. I love Bill Berloni's story about finding his career path in working with animals through the original production of Annie. And I just love, you know, that we can offer some animals employment in the musical theater where I think they all really yearn to be. They don't even know it. They want that instant feedback from the audience.

[1:03:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah, they really do. I think they thrive on it.

[1:03:03] Adam Wachter: Every performance, it's a little bit like what's going to happen is the dog, you know?

[1:03:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:03:11] Adam Wachter: Great. The dog. All right. Number three.

[1:03:13] Adam Wachter: I love these.

[1:03:14] Adam Wachter: Christmas. Number three is Christmas. And it's a secret because I'm quite clearly Jewish. I mean, not practicing or religious, but certainly raised Jewish. Did not grow up with Christmas in my home to speak of. I've always secretly wanted to celebrate Christmas. And through Annie, I've had sort of an opportunity to because every time you see Annie, you get a big old Christmas tree at the end of the show. And it's everything. That Christmas tree is awesome. I love a Christmas tree. I love Christmas. I love, like, the feelings that it evokes and the music of Christmas. I would much rather see Annie than a Christmas carol. I think it's a risky move to put Christmas in your musical or any holiday, I guess, because it does sort of cement it in a time. And you might worry like, oh, do people want to see Annie in the spring?

[1:04:00] Adam Wachter: But they do. People always want to see Annie.

[1:04:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Yeah.

[1:04:04] Adam Wachter: Okay. Here are my confessions.

[1:04:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Dying to know.

[1:04:07] Adam Wachter: Confession number one. Full body chills in the overture every single time.

[1:04:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So good.

[1:04:12] Adam Wachter: It's a great overture. It starts with the trumpet, right? Then the trombone comes in.

[1:04:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[1:04:20] Adam Wachter: It makes me so happy.

[1:04:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Harpsichord.

[1:04:22] Adam Wachter: Terrific. It's a great, great orchestrations.

[1:04:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The originals.

[1:04:26] Adam Wachter: Agreed.

[1:04:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:04:28] Adam Wachter: Number two. That movie from the 80s, the 80s version is generally a good film.

[1:04:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Was considered a disaster.

[1:04:33] Adam Wachter: Was it?

[1:04:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was.

[1:04:35] Adam Wachter: It was like one of Razzie's, you know, it was considered one of the worst.

[1:04:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And we just don't see it because we grew up with it.

[1:04:41] Adam Wachter: Exactly.

[1:04:42] Adam Wachter: And it was directed by John Huston.

[1:04:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[1:04:45] Adam Wachter: Huston's father.

[1:04:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly.

[1:04:47] Adam Wachter: And, you know, multi Academy Award winner. There was this really strange period in time in film when all of these big, high profile directors decide to start making musicals in the late 70s. You had Peter Bogdanovich doing A Long Last Love. Robert Altman doing Popeye. John Huston doing Annie. All of them. Total flops.

[1:05:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:05:06] Adam Wachter: Because it takes a skill to do a musical. It's not something you can just sort of do. You need to know the art form and the genre and like some of the tropes of it to understand it.

[1:05:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For sure.

[1:05:15] Adam Wachter: Yeah. That being said, there are things in that Annie movie that I adore. Carol Burnett's amazing. She has that great duet with her and Daddy Warbucks because he goes to try and get her to sign the papers. And they have this song called Sign.

[1:05:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah.

[1:05:31] Adam Wachter: I forgot about that. And she's like, I'll call you Ollie. My heart to Molly. It's so fun. She's so good in that movie, isn't she? Just drunk as all day.

[1:05:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She is just doing a giant performance for the screen.

[1:05:45] Adam Wachter: And yet somehow really detailed.

[1:05:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:05:48] Adam Wachter: Because she's Carol Burnett. You can't beat her. And then any excuse to have Anne Reinking on film dancing is worth it to me.

[1:05:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure.

[1:05:57] Adam Wachter: So they've got that whole We Got Annie number.

[1:05:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:06:00] Adam Wachter: Interesting that Grace is always sort of thought of as this beacon of warmth in Annie. And then you get Anne Reinking who's probably one of the coldest human beings to ever exist. Or at least appears that way. And is playing this character. And yet very warm. You know, there was a lot of sort of cigarette smoke headed in Aileen Quinn's face in those scenes. You know, Annie Reinking was like, hi, Annie.

[1:06:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I saw Aileen Quinn.

[1:06:25] Adam Wachter: Curly hair wilting. I saw Aileen Quinn do Unsinkable Molly Brown.

[1:06:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh.

[1:06:31] Adam Wachter: And she was.

[1:06:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Is she still performing?

[1:06:34] Adam Wachter: I mean, this was years ago.

[1:06:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[1:06:37] Adam Wachter: And she was exactly the same. It was exactly the same performance.

[1:06:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[1:06:41] Adam Wachter: Yeah. Like all of the same beats. Nothing had changed. Maybe that's why she hasn't gotten so much more work after becoming a movie star with Annie.

[1:06:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sounds great.

[1:06:50] Adam Wachter: Hasn't hurt Quavon Zanay Wallace.

[1:06:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[1:06:53] Adam Wachter: My last confession is sometimes at the gym, I listen to Annie.

[1:06:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it's the Sia version.

[1:06:59] Adam Wachter: And I love it.

[1:07:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[1:07:01] Adam Wachter: Like, like while you're getting a handjob in the steam room.

[1:07:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No!

[1:07:05] Adam Wachter: Okay, okay.

[1:07:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh.

[1:07:07] Adam Wachter: While you're actually working out.

[1:07:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So it's got a beat to it.

[1:07:09] Adam Wachter: Yes. Please include that. Please include that. You must.

[1:07:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You absolutely must.

[1:07:14] Adam Wachter: That was good. That was so good. You must include it. I have a reputation as being funny, so you have to include some of these jokes, even the ones that you as a Mormon think are inappropriate.

[1:07:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, fine.

[1:07:23] Adam Wachter: Thank you. Here's my thing with Sia. She's a genius.

[1:07:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[1:07:27] Adam Wachter: And sometimes I hear a Sia song, and I think, oh, I like this little part, but it's not enough for me to like the entire song.

[1:07:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[1:07:34] Adam Wachter: And then I come back to it, and I listen to it again, and I go, no, I was wrong. It's totally enough for me to like the whole song.

[1:07:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[1:07:42] Adam Wachter: And that's how I feel about the movie soundtrack of the 2014 Annie.

[1:07:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So you love the Sia moments so much that you will suffer through what they did to Charles Strauss's score.

[1:07:50] Adam Wachter: Yeah, the score and the lyrics have been, you know, butchered and sliced up, but there are these moments of production and, like, arranging and producing that hit and make me happy, and it somehow is totally worth it.

[1:08:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right.

[1:08:07] Adam Wachter: I don't know why, but it's true. The I think I'm going to like it here, where Rose Byrne has that horrible alto line. It's like, yes, yes, think I'm going to like it here.

[1:08:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, yes.

[1:08:18] Adam Wachter: It's so terrible, and I live for it.

[1:08:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[1:08:23] Adam Wachter: It fuels my workout sometimes, I'm not going to lie. Only every once in a while.

[1:08:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Whatever gets you through.

[1:08:30] Adam Wachter: There are moments of that soundtrack that I refuse to listen to, however.

[1:08:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure.

[1:08:34] Adam Wachter: Little Girls won't be one of them. I, as an addendum to my list of secret things, secretly sort of like that Little Girls with Cameron Diaz a little bit, only when actually paired with the video, because I think it is so, there's something so, it's like the Cats film. It's like there's something so off and cringey and wrong about it. And you can't look away. And there's something that sort of works for me as a little bit of a tickle fest.

[1:08:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I get it.

[1:09:00] Adam Wachter: I think the idea to have done that new Annie is so good.

[1:09:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's great.

[1:09:06] Adam Wachter: It's great. I would put it on for my nieces and nephews.

[1:09:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:09:11] Adam Wachter: Thank you so much.

[1:09:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Is that it?

[1:09:13] Adam Wachter: That's what we're ending on.

[1:09:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:09:15] Adam Wachter: Here's the thing about Annie.

[1:09:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What is it about Annie?

[1:09:18] Adam Wachter: I like it.

[1:09:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Good.

[1:09:20] Adam Wachter: It's a well-constructed musical.

[1:09:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For sure.

[1:09:22] Adam Wachter: And I can't think of anything like it.

[1:09:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oliver.

[1:09:27] Adam Wachter: Do you know what? That is interesting that you bring that up, because Tom Meehan said that he wanted to approach Annie like a Dickens story. And I think actually his novelization is very similar. It's less, there is still the Daddy Warbucks element, but you spend a lot more time in the time that she runs away from the orphanage. And that doesn't last like a few hours like it is in the musical. It lasts for months. And it is more Dickensian in that it's like a sprawling epic over a long period of time.

[1:09:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What I mean by I can't think of anything like it, it's a musical that seems like it's a golden age musical, something that was written in the 50s and 60s, and yet it's written at the end of the 70s.

[1:10:03] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[1:10:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So it automatically doesn't feel like it belongs in the canon of old school classic musical theater. And yet it brings up the feelings of old school classic musical theater. It's got great like big band arrangements, but then it also has like weird 70s pop stuff like at the beginning of NYC.

[1:10:21] Adam Wachter: No, you're exactly right. It spans a lot of sort of musical genres, and yet all feels kind of cohesive and it all fits together. And it was also in this like weird transitionary period where what is the purpose of an ensemble in a musical now? And do we hear from them? Do they step out? This is like post-chorus line.

[1:10:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:10:41] Adam Wachter: So it really, it exists in an interesting place. In a weird space where Charles Strauss is obviously attacking it from like a very old school, traditional golden agey place, but maybe Tommy Henn who would have been sort of young at that time is coming at it from a more contemporary lens, trying to do something more serious. And then you've got Martin Sharnan like piecing it all together. So anyway, it's an interesting show.

[1:11:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Was Chorus Line already going by then?

[1:11:05] Adam Wachter: Yeah.

[1:11:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[1:11:07] Adam Wachter: Was that 75?

[1:11:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 75, 76.

[1:11:09] Adam Wachter: Wow. I wonder what people thought. They're like Chorus Line is playing here at the Schubert, and then like, what is that, seven blocks up the road.

[1:11:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like you had Chorus Line, you had dancing, you had all of these like kind of dark shows.

[1:11:21] Adam Wachter: Yeah, it was like the Fosse days. And then it hits 77 and everyone's like, oh my gosh, we need some light and hope and love in this place. And so they have Godspell and Annie.

[1:11:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's cyclical, isn't it?

[1:11:30] Adam Wachter: You see that happening over and over again. We're like, we just get ready for a, where we want to see Hello Dolly again, or we want to see Drowsy Chaperone, or we want to see something that harkens back and makes us sort of forget. And then we have periods where we really want to like attack things seriously and try to stretch the art for them and do things like that. And then we're like, nevermind escapism, we need escapism.

[1:11:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it goes back and forth, doesn't it?

[1:11:52] Adam Wachter: It really does, it ebbs and flows.

[1:11:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Wow.

[1:11:55] Adam Wachter: And certain musicals I think that maybe were flops or successes in certain years would have been something else in a different year.

[1:11:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And they are.

[1:12:01] Adam Wachter: I think that that's the reason why if you poo-poo Annie, if you don't like it, I mean, stick around for 10 years and maybe the country will be in a place where all of a sudden we're craving for it.

[1:12:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I think not even 10 years, maybe one or two.

[1:12:15] Adam Wachter: Yeah, you just never know with art what life and the circumstances surrounding it give birth within us to want to consume.

[1:12:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, absolutely. Look at like the case of Mamma Mia. People always say like, would Mamma Mia be the juggernaut that it is if it hadn't opened right at 9-11 when people so desperately wanted to escape?

[1:12:36] Adam Wachter: Exactly. It's a great art form. It really is, Annie's just one example. And it's always incredibly reflective of who we are and what's going on.

[1:12:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Very much. So thanks for tuning in, everybody. If you have any suggestions about shows that you want us to cover here on A Musical Theatre Podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Also be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter at amusicalpodcast for more great content. Adam, how do we follow you? How do we keep up with you?

[1:13:05] Adam Wachter: You can follow me on Instagram or on Twitter at ZebraAdam or you can check out my website, adamwachter.com. Listen to my music. Make sure to tune into Encore.

[1:13:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh yeah, watch Encore on Disney+. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than later. And this has been a pleasure. Thanks, Jeff, for having me.

[1:13:22] Adam Wachter: Thank you. I'll have to come back. We'll do another one on A Musical I Know Better.

[1:13:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, this was really fun. Thank you so much for coming in.

[1:13:32] Adam Wachter: Thank you.

[1:13:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And to everybody out there, you know what? Tomorrow, it's only a day away.

[1:13:39] Adam Wachter: Before we finish, sorry. Is it only a day away or always a day away?

[1:13:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah. Because different versions have different lyrics.

[1:13:47] Adam Wachter: You're right. And we didn't talk about that, but maybe nobody cares.

[1:13:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Maybe nobody cares. Do you know what I always think about with tomorrow? Rosie O'Donnell, once on her show, said that she always swallows her gum. And you want to know why? Because the gum will come out tomorrow.

[1:14:03] Adam Wachter: Oh, my God.

[1:14:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Bye, everybody.

[1:14:06] Adam Wachter: Bye.

[1:14:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Bye.

[1:14:08] Adam Wachter: Bye.