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[0:00] Jeff Whiting: I'm a huge Susan Stroman fan who is, of course, director of Big Fish. And you have a long working relationship with her. So can you take me through how that started? Yeah. Well, basically, I'm the luckiest person on the planet to have gotten the chance to sort of be in her world. I was working as a director and choreographer. I was on the national tour of Hairspray. And they were doing the national tour of Producers coming up. Stroman didn't do that tour, but her right-hand man in London, a guy by the name of Nigel West, did the show. And they were looking for an assistant. And I got recommended for the job because I was working for the producer. And so I assisted him on the national tour of the Producers.

And at the end of that production, after we opened, I'll never forget. It was New Year's Eve. I got an email. And the subject line of the email said, from Susan Stroman. And I was like, what? And she basically just said, you know, I'm doing a new production of a show called Young Frankenstein. I just had lunch with Nigel West. And he was singing your praises. And I wondered if you might want to get together and talk about perhaps working on Young Frankenstein. And so it took me like a day. Exactly. And so I spent all New Year's Day crafting the perfect response to say yes. Just to say yes. Yeah. So essentially, I met with her. And then I had a couple of meetings with her. And at the end of our second meeting, she hired me to be her assistant choreographer on Young Frankenstein.

So now that's been 12, 13 years now. And so I've been lucky to be at her side really since that time. We did Young Frankenstein. And then we did a show called Happiness at Lincoln Center. Big Fish, Scottsboro Boys. And then after that, Bullets Over Broadway. And so I've been really lucky to be at her side in the creation of some of these big, giant, iconic musicals.

[1:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's incredible. How have you found that you work well together?

[1:57] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, well, I was terrified going into the first day of rehearsals of Young Frankenstein because, of course, Harry, I'm the luckiest person on the planet getting this job. And so I didn't want to mess it up. And as time went on with each show that we've done, I've sort of gained more and more. Our relationship has grown closer. Now I basically can finish her sentences. I know all the things that she loves, the things that she wants to avoid. And so as an associate to her, she's such a creative soul. And she and I have relied on each other. And she often says I'm the what if guy. I'll go, oh, what if we tried this? Well, it could also work that way. And that's, I think, the most fun part of the rehearsal process. I could be in a room with her forever and just be going, okay, what if we tried this? Wow. Just like the curiosity of it all.

[3:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to a musical theater 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 are talking about the musical Big Fish, which was a listener request from Ian. Thanks for listening, Ian. And to everybody out there, if you ever send me a recommendation, I promise I don't forget about them. I am always in search of the perfect guest. And the perfect guest for Big Fish kind of fell out of the sky. And I was just so happy and honored. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Jeff Whiting on the show, one of the busiest people I've ever heard of in my life, director, choreographer, associate director and assistant choreographer to Susan Stroman on Big Fish in particular. But I think that I am most in awe of your app. As someone who's been a dance captain before, good heavens, we all owe you a huge, huge debt of gratitude.

[4:03] Jeff Whiting: Oh, thank you.

[4:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Can you talk to everybody about this? You'll explain it better than I do.

[4:08] Jeff Whiting: Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me here. This has been so much fun to chat. But yes, Stage Right is an app, a web app and an iPad app that allows you to track all the moving pieces of the production. So that includes the movement of the actors and the performers around the stage. But also you can track all the scenery and the prop movement. So it basically allows you to track where everybody is at every given moment during the production.

[4:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which if you've ever been on the other side of the table or a dance captain, you've always been in charge of creating the show Bible, right? It's this huge binder that gives you scoliosis. And it has every piece of information that you just said. You're creating it on top of learning the show and the show is constantly changing. So the book is constantly changing. And it is kind of the bane of my existence, whenever I've had to do it.

[4:59] Jeff Whiting: It's a challenging thing, for sure.

[5:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So to create an app for it, how did that start?

[5:04] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, well, I actually started my first project with Stroman. I think it's the reason I got the job actually, when I first interviewed to meet with her to work on Young Frankenstein, I actually had the inklings of the idea of how it could work. And she has some of the most detailed shows out there. So in our first meeting, she pulled out one of those giant binders and flipped through the producers. And she was like, do you think you could do this? One of your duties would be to create the show Bible. And I said, yeah. I said, actually, I have an idea to use technology to actually make it easier and more accurate. And she was like, OK, cool. And so overnight, I actually, in the precursor to the app, I created the opening number to Young Frankenstein.

And I printed out a hard copy of it. And I said, this is what it would look like. And I delivered it to her office the next day. And I think that's how I got the job. And it was while we were working on Young Frankenstein, the orchestrator of the show, Doug Besterman, one of the great Broadway orchestrators, he was carrying around the theater a tablet. This was the first time I'd ever seen a tablet. And I was like, what is that? I was swiping with his finger. He goes, it's a tablet. He's like, the entire score is in this little thing. And I was like, what? And so later that year, the iPad came out. And I knew immediately that this technology that I had in my head would be an iPad app.

[6:40] Jeff Whiting: Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, it's been fun. It's really out of personal need. I needed to do these Bibles. And I kept looking for software, thinking, oh, somebody surely has done this. And I finally just said, well, I might as well do it. I know exactly what I want it to be. I might as well design it. Yeah, it's been out for about eight years now. It's been fun to see. I think we have over 50,000 users worldwide. And so it's fun to see it be adopted by the industry.

[7:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so cool. What's really funny is last year, when we did Your Good Man, Charlie Brown, our guest was Julie Cohen Theobald, who is the executive director of the Educational Theater Foundation. And you're on the board, right?

[7:05] Jeff Whiting: I am. Yes, I am. Which is kind of how we made the connection.

[7:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. Yeah, I actually listened to her, to the podcast you guys did together. And I think it was that day she introduced us. And I was like, of course, I would love to chat.

[7:15] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, it's a tangled web we all have. It's a small community, for sure.

[7:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I assume that means that you're also very passionate about theater education.

[7:26] Jeff Whiting: Absolutely. Yeah, it's been fun. I think I'm in my second year of being on the board. And it's so fun to find ways to, particularly this year, find ways for students everywhere to be able to have access to theater and to have proper training, not only for the students, but also for the educators so that they can provide the best education possible. It's a wonderful organization.

[7:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And if you weren't busy enough, you've also done Open JAR this year. Can you talk about that?

[7:53] Jeff Whiting: My gosh, did you have trauma? Why are you so busy?

[8:01] Jeff Whiting: I don't know.

[8:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're just industrious.

[8:04] Jeff Whiting: I guess so. Yeah, well, I have run a theater training program called the Open JAR Institute for about 15 years. And it started as a summer theater program. We bring in high school and college kids for the summer, and they work side-by-side with Broadway professionals during the summer. So I've been doing that for a while. And about three years ago, I was like, we're almost year-round. I was sick of renting space, so I ended up finding a space. And now we have a huge 50,000 square foot space in Times Square. It's like the biggest one, right?

[8:36] Jeff Whiting: It's the biggest studio in New York, yeah. This building is a beautiful place, but it randomly has no columns. And so column-free space in New York is a hot commodity. And so as soon as I walked in, I went, oh my gosh, I don't really need this much space, but I know people who do. So I put together an investment team mostly made of Broadway producers and designers, all who know the value of it. And so we've been open now about a year and a half, Open JAR Studios on the corner of 48th and Broadway.

[9:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing. And I know that you've been doing some interesting projects in quarantine in 2020.

[9:10] Jeff Whiting: Yes, yeah. We sort of had to pivot like the rest of the world. March 12th, I was walking around the studios, just turning out the lights and turning out the air conditioning, not really knowing when we would be back because everything was closed down. And literally, as I was walking around the studios, I got a call from a friend of mine, Neil Douglas Riley, who's a wonderful composer, and he now works in government. And he called me, he said, we keep hearing that Broadway wants to help with this pandemic, but nobody's really organized. And he said, I was just thinking who's good at organizing? Jeff Whiting. And what's the center of Broadway? Open JAR Studios. He said, could you just try to organize all the players of Broadway and put together a call with Governor Cuomo, who's our governor.

And I said, of course. So I started just putting together a phone call with all the major players on Broadway to just figure out how we could help. And the course of that tornado of phone calls and emails, I ended up on a phone call with the New York City EDC, which is the Economic Development Corporation. And they were charged from the governor with the task of making 10 million hospital gowns for the New York public hospitals. On that call was me representing Broadway, and then four other like big factories who make clothes for The Gap and Ralph Lauren. And she just basically said, we need to make as many gowns as quickly as we can. And so on the spot, I was sort of like a Mickey and Judy.

I was like, well, I got a big space and we've got, you know, hundreds of stitchers that normally are making Broadway costumes. Let's do it here. So basically we transformed Open JAR Studios, normally a rehearsal space, into a PPE factory. So that following week, we basically enlisted over 400 Broadway professional stitchers, designers, stage managers, actors who all, you know, of course, the stitchers did the sewing, but there was plenty of preparation work. So I think it was 59 days we created over 50, 51,000 hospital gowns for the New York City hospitals.

[11:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 51,000? Yes. Jeff, that's incredible.

[11:14] Jeff Whiting: It was very cool to see just how the entire Broadway community really stepped forward and just, you know, made something out of it. Because we were all sitting in front of our TVs, not knowing what to do. And then this, here, somebody said, well, here's something you can do. And so it's been cool to do that. So we did our gowns. And then after our order with the city was done, now we're making masks. We're making what we call the singer's mask, which is a mask that has structure inside of it. So you can breathe in when you're singing and not breathe in a mouthful of fabric. So we've been, I think we've created over 150,000 of those masks already.

[11:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How do we support that and buy them?

[11:56] Jeff Whiting: You can go to our website, which is broadwayreliefproject.com or thesingersmask.com.

[12:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How cool. My gosh. Jeff Whiting, he gets things done.

[12:12] Jeff Whiting: Well, look, you know, we have the space and I was like, well, we have this opportunity. And I think the greatest thing about it is, you know, we've been able to do something for the cause, but also our industry, which is at a shutdown, we've provided over 400 jobs for people in our community. So that feels wonderful that at least we have, it's not the job any of us ever thought we would be doing, but at least it's an income of some kind for all these individuals.

[12:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh. Very inspiring. What a way to start the episode about a show, by the way, that makes me sob openly. So this was not a good beginning because now I'm already feeling like sympathetic. Now, Big Fish is of course, based on a movie by Tim Burton and both the movie and the musical to me have a lot in common and it's not just the story. So there's this book, right? And it's written by Mr. Daniel Wallace, who didn't have an awesome relationship with his dad. His dad was very much like a businessman. Daniel wants to become a writer and he explores the father-son dynamic in this book entitled Big Fish, which is about a son really struggling to get to know his father before he dies. And before the book even goes into print, but when it's just a manuscript, it's read by John August, who is a famous screenwriter.

He reads the book before it's even published and is like, I got to make this into a script. And I can't remember what studio he convinces to buy it, but he was at Columbia. Thank you. So he turns it into a script and it becomes just this script that a bunch of directors read. Steven Spielberg is looking into making it into a movie. He ultimately passes to make Catch Me If You Can, which is also about a father-son relationship and also becomes a musical go figure. But when Spielberg passes, Tim Burton gobbles it up instead. Now, at this point, Tim Burton is known for making super quirky but also incredibly successful films. Beetlejuice, Batman, Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands. And even though he's really celebrated and really beloved, I think that Hollywood had

[14:32] Jeff Whiting: We've been in a very condescending way asking, when is Tim Burton going to make a real movie? And so when it's announced that he's going to make Big Fish, a script that Spielberg almost made, it's like, oh my gosh, here it comes. This is Tim Burton's entry into essentially the Oscars, right? This is going to be his big Oscar nominated film. It comes out. I'd say it's like pretty well received. People like it. Oscars come around. It gets no love whatsoever. I think it gets one nomination for Danny Elfman score. And everything else is forgotten despite having some incredible production design and amazing performances. The film made a pretty good amount of money in the theaters, but not enough to cover the budget because Tim Burton doesn't know how to make an inexpensive film.

But it becomes a big hit on home video, and I think it even propels the success and notoriety of it further. Then it gets turned into a musical. Enter you to help me with these holes. It's not always done that the musical is also written by the person who wrote the movie, but this is the case. John August also wrote the script for the musical.

[15:49] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, I think he always knew that he wanted that to be the case. It's such a beautiful story on its own, and I think he talks about even while they were making the film, he knew that he wanted to make it into a musical already. And he's no stranger to musical-like storytelling. He had done Corpse Bride with Tim Burton. He had done the new Willy Wonka, which also had kind of fantasy musical sequences. So it's not like some guy who's like, musical theater, that seems easy. Let's give it a whirl. I feel like he really did respect the art form and saw a really great entry point for the story.

[16:26] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, and I think that's one of the challenges in taking any movie and making it into then a musical is you have certain limitations. You can't just let the pen go to a new location. But John did a beautiful job in adapting it for the stage and for the musical.

[16:45] Jeff Whiting: And you all opened the show, or you all previewed the show in Chicago, right?

[16:50] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, we did. And it was a very different show to what you ended up seeing on Broadway. What for you were the big shifts from the preview period to the Broadway opening?

[16:59] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, well, I think the biggest shift that we made from Chicago to the Broadway production was really the relationship of the father and son story. It was perceived by many in Chicago that the son was coming across as a complainer, and yet he's the person who the audience is supposed to sort of be seeing it through his eyes. So we really took a hard examination at why was he being perceived that way? And it's sort of built into the story. Here's a son who his father, he grew up with his father just telling these crazy big fish tales that weren't true. And he ends up being a reporter. And so facts matter. And so he was always just like, my dad is just a liar. So that's not what is at the core. The core is that he learns to understand his father in a new way. But the audience was, from the beginning, just perceived that this young kid just wasn't likable.

[17:56] Jeff Whiting: This is where the similarities, I think, between the movie and the stage production really get going for me. Because I think that that was a big problem for the film as well. You have somebody as charismatic as freaking Albert Finney playing the father. And then you've got the son, Billy Crudup, amazing actor, nothing against him, who's like, I don't like you. And everybody watching is like, your dad's Albert Finney. What's the problem? Everything's fine. And I think that you'd face the same thing on stage when you've got freaking Norbert Leo Butz playing the character this time. Someone with all of the energy and all of the charisma that you would ever want in a stage performer. And then having a son complain about it. It's like, your dad's Norbert. Your dad's Fierro. What's the problem?

[18:46] Jeff Whiting: Exactly. Yeah. No, it was the trickiest thing about the story to tell. Because you want to fall in love with Edward, the character that Norbert played. And it was hard to go, well, what are you complaining about, Bobby? Exactly. I think that was the biggest challenge that we faced.

[19:06] Jeff Whiting: Now, I read the script in preparation for this. And I feel like I got a better sense of the son in the musical than I do in the film. So props to you all. Because it does reach a point where you're like, okay, this dad's a little annoying. I would be annoyed.

[19:24] Jeff Whiting: Well, that's good. That is good to hear. Yeah. Because that was when we made a big effort to make sure that you could see where the two worlds were so far apart and yet not hate either of them so that they can be happy when they meet in the middle.

[19:38] Jeff Whiting: Exactly. The show, like we said, Tries on Chicago. You open on Broadway at the end of 2013, I believe. And once again, in the same way that the film was very much hyped, I feel like this musical was very much hyped. You had Susan Stroman behind it. You had the notoriety of the film title. You had Andrew Lippa as composer and lyricist, who we've already discussed from The Wild Party and writing supplemental music for Your Good Man, Charlie Brown. And yet, you all open on Broadway. And I just want to go through the list of musicals that opened during the 2013-2014 season. Starting with First Date, Soul Doctor, Big Fish, A Night with Janis Joplin, After Midnight, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Beautiful, the Carole King musical, The Bridges of Madison County, Rocky, Aladdin, if then Bullets Over Broadway. That's one season. That is a jam-packed Broadway season, if I've ever heard one.

[20:43] Jeff Whiting: That was a big season. I'd forgotten all those shows that opened that same year. Wow.

[20:47] Jeff Whiting: So then Tony Award time comes around, and a bunch of those musicals get forgotten, and one of them is Big Fish.

[20:54] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, that's true. I think we were gone, really, by the time nominations came out. So I think that was because we closed, I think, at the end of December. So by the time people were thinking about the Tonys, the shows that were still running were much more on the mind.

[21:12] Jeff Whiting: So it wasn't a financial success, despite having really beautiful production designs and stellar performances. It doesn't get remembered by the awards people. And yet, the only musical that has been requested by my listeners of these musicals from that season is Big Fish.

[21:30] Jeff Whiting: Wow, that's good to hear.

[21:33] Jeff Whiting: It kind of is the home video phenomenon, where the cast album came out, which I think a lot of people really took to some of the songs, like Stranger. Everybody sings Stranger.

[21:46] ⚠ About 4 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[25:16] Jeff Whiting: It does remind me of how important it is to listen, and particularly listen to our men in our lives. Because I feel like the messaging that they receive, because we all receive messaging, is that they are not supposed to express emotion because that is weakness. And that lyric puts it so beautifully. His biggest fear is that he's not enough. You know, that he's not big enough and strong enough as a man, as the head of his family. And in many ways, that has fueled these stories to make sure that his life means more than he's afraid it won't.

[26:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right, well, I kind of want to dig into it. So can we talk through the show?

[26:03] Jeff Whiting: Sure, of course.

[26:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It gets a little complex in terms of the time shifts. So help keep me on track. The show opens in the present, as it were, right. And we have the grown son, Will, who has come home with his bride to be Josephine, and his parents, Edward and Sandra, Sandra, Sandra, Sandra, Sandra. And right from the get-go, we know that there's a lot of history, because they are at the place where Edward had taught Will how to fish this river. Will tells his dad, "Hey, Dad, look, I'm about to get married. Could you do me a favor? I don't want you to say anything at the reception. I don't want you to make a toast. I don't want you to make any jokes like it becomes the Edward show. And I just want this to be about me and my wife. Love you, Dad. But like, keep the trap shut." And then how do we get into the opening number from that?

[27:02] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, so they're standing out there on the waterfront, and they're, you know, skipping stones, basically. So as that happens, Will is trying to skip stones, but he's no good at it. But Edward, you know, of course, skips one. And what happens is magically in the theater, the entire stage through the magic of projection fills with water and these things lift up off of the ground, and the scene changes and time goes back. And now we're back. So Will is now six years old. So we've had an actor change out for Will, but in a tour de force slash change from the film, it's still Norbert Leo Butz as the father, he plays himself as both the younger and the older.

[27:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. I didn't mention that we're in Alabama. So we're in the south. And there is something about Southern mystique, tall tales, even in New Orleans, there's always like a feeling of magic that is always captured. And this whole story is really capitalizing on that. It feels like an American fairy tale.

[28:03] Jeff Whiting: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

[28:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I mean, the whole opening number is essentially him, you know, taking him through all these legends of the things that he made up. Of course, Will believes he made them up. But one day I met a giant. One day I met a mermaid and, you know, and the witch, of course. And of course, the witch.

[28:27] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. So that's the whole opening number. Basically, here's Edward, you know, painting this giant picture of all the things he's done in his life. And the song is called "Be the Hero," right? Write your own story so you can be the hero. He finishes all of these stories. Sandra comes in and is like, "Why are you keeping our child awake? He needs to go to bed." Edward tries to leave, but then his son catches wind of this witch story. And Edward's like, "No, I don't think I can tell you that one. It's too scary. You won't be able to go to sleep." He's like, "I'm not scared," of course, because the child is even more interested now.

[29:05] Jeff Whiting: Which then gives way to the big witch story. And this is quite possibly the most transformative story of all of the ones that he tells, which is that he and his friends, when they were little, go into the woods because every town in the South has a witch. And they come across this witch who will tell fortunes for money. One of his friends, what's his name? Don?

[29:30] Jeff Whiting: Don Price. He pays a dollar and gets his fortune told, which is not great. Basically, he'll live an insignificant life and die. And he's like, I want my money back. And Edward sticks up for the witch and gives Don his dollar that he was going to give the witch, just so that he'll leave her alone. The witch rewards that with telling Edward his future, which is exactly the opposite. She tells him that he will live an incredible life, and then proceeds to tell him exactly how he'll die. And when young Will asks his dad, well, how is it? How are you going to die? He replies with, well, I'm not going to tell you, ruin the ending. And yet we know he knows how he's going to die.

[30:20] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, he saw it all. Edward was shown it all. The witch showed it to him. And the way the show is designed, in the vision that she shows him, the witches have these big giant cloaks on that they do a dance and fill the stage. Projections actually appear on the back of these witches. And you can just make up, it's kind of through water, of course. But if you compare that picture to the end, it's actually a foreboding of what's going to come later on. So Edward actually did see all of the people that were going to be at the end when he's dying at the river. He saw the vision of kind of how it happened. How cool. So now we're back to present day, and it's like the day of the wedding. Edward has suspected that the fiancée, Josephine, is pregnant.

And Will's like, what? How did you know? We haven't told anybody. And he's like, how did you know? And he's like, well, just now when you responded. And Will, once again, pleads like, well, don't say anything, please. It's too soon. Anything can happen. We haven't even really got the ultrasound yet.

[31:32] Jeff Whiting: Cut to the wedding reception. Edward goes against the wishes and starts making a toast, saying all of the jokes, and it becomes the Edward Show. And then icing on top of the cake, he tells everybody that he's going to be a grandpa. It's like outing your child before they get to... Yes. That's sort of Edward's theme. He jumps to everybody's beats. Now, Will is, of course, furious, kind of setting up the dynamic that we see throughout the rest of the show, which is Will on one side, Edward on the other side, and mom in the middle being like, what am I going to do with you boys? Right around that time, we also find out that Edward is sick. They leave the wedding and then time passes. So it's been several months. Now we see Edward and Sandra at the doctor and Josephine's further on into the pregnancy.

[32:27] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. So it's like these hospital scenes happening in tandem. One where Edward and Sandra are finding out about the end of his life. And then one where Will and Josephine are finding about the beginning of their child's life. Will and Josephine realize that they are expecting a son, that it's going to be a baby boy. That causes Will to reflect on not only his future relationship with his son, but his current relationship with his father. And he sings the song "Stranger," which, I mean, is exactly what that character needs. "Stranger" probably is one of the reasons why the character is more sympathetic in the musical, because we get an entire moment of him having an I Want song about the relationships with the men in his life.

[33:13] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. And this was new from Chicago. This did not exist in the Chicago production.

[33:17] Jeff Whiting: You're kidding me. I can't imagine the show without it.

[33:20] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, I know. That's beautiful, isn't it? What used to happen was Will and Edward were fighting, and then they sang a song together about them not connecting.

[33:26] Jeff Whiting: Oh, is that the "River Divides Us" sort of thing?

[33:33] Jeff Whiting: Yes, that's where that was, yeah.

[33:35] Jeff Whiting: Which is like a bonus track on the cast album.

[33:37] Jeff Whiting: Yes, yeah, yeah. And then this song, "Stranger," sort of came out of, you know, let's make sure Will is more sympathetic. And so, it's very appropriate. Here he is, the idea of now I'm going to be a father. I don't want to make in his mind the mistakes that his father made, and how can I make sure I do it the right way? Because to be fair, on top of him being kind of a showman, he was very absent. He's a traveling salesman, kind of like a Harold Hill type person, so he's going from town to town to town. He's never there.

[34:07] Jeff Whiting: But he didn't know that. He thought he was there every time he was needed.

[34:10] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, but he was absolutely not there when he was needed. After "Stranger," Will gets a phone call, which is when he learns about his dad's health condition. And so, he and Josephine go back home. In Alabama, this is the time to start doing the work, as the Yon LeVant's aunt would say. The son, Will, is talking to his mom, and she sings this great song about how there are two men in my life, my husband and my son, and that you guys are more alike than you think. And I think that was certainly true with me and my dad. We didn't ever bump heads in the way that Will and Edward did. But when we did, now looking back on it, I know it was because we were so similar. Very analytical, very verbal. My brother was the one who was like, I want to go downstairs and put on my headphones and rock out to Metallica. And I was like, no. I need an itemized list of what's going on.

[35:11] Jeff Whiting: How about you? What was your relationship like with your pops?

[35:16] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, my dad's still here. He's wonderful.

[35:18] Jeff Whiting: Is he? Oh, cool.

[35:18] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, yeah. He sadly is going through Parkinson's at the moment.

[35:23] Jeff Whiting: Oh, wow. I'm so sorry to hear that.

[35:25] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, but he's a trooper, and we've always had a wonderful relationship. And there are some similarities between Edward and my dad, and probably between Will and I. All of my brothers are big into sports, and I was terrible at sports. I always felt like the imposter in the family. My dad, he was not big and boisterous like Edward was, but he always told fun stories, and he always made me feel special and took me on special work trips. He also traveled a lot for work. So there were a lot of similarities between my dad and Edward. I certainly found myself calling on that a lot as we were building the show. And my dad came to see it, actually. My mom and dad came to our opening night, and I think it was so cool for them to be there.

In fact, the opening night party was at Rosebrand, back when it was around, and was right across the street from the theater. And of course, my mom and dad knew that there was going to be famous people there, and they wouldn't recognize them. So my dad just took a picture of everybody that came in. And so he scrolled through his phone later to see if there were any famous people.

[36:35] Jeff Whiting: Just to be safe.

[36:36] Jeff Whiting: Just to be safe.

[36:37] Jeff Whiting: You've got to document everything.

[36:37] Jeff Whiting: You don't want to miss the famous ones.

[36:41] Jeff Whiting: But actually, my mom and dad's relationship is very similar to Edward and Sandra.

[36:46] Jeff Whiting: Really?

[36:46] Jeff Whiting: My mom's the busybody and the peacekeeper, and my dad traveled a lot for work. They're still really, really close. They're wonderful.

[36:55] Jeff Whiting: How sweet. Where do they live?

[36:57] Jeff Whiting: Utah, Salt Lake City.

[36:58] Jeff Whiting: In the SLC.

[36:59] Jeff Whiting: That's right.

[37:01] Jeff Whiting: How cute.

[37:02] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. I think because of Sandra, Will decides, all right, well, if I'm going to understand my dad, then I need to start deciding what is fact and what is fiction about his life. I don't even know him. All I know are these crazy stories. And so he starts treating his dad like he would as a reporter, and is going through all of the memories and writing down everything that he knows and everything that he doesn't. So the first big story that we go to in his life is his childhood in Ashton, right?

[37:39] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, Ashton. And at that point, he has this girlfriend named Jenny Hill, who's beautiful and bright and blonde. And Jenny is so in love with Edward, of course, how could you not be so charismatic? And the town of Ashton at this point is terrified of a local giant who's living in this cave in the mountains. And they kind of want to do this like Frankenstein pitchforks drive him out of town. Edward volunteers to go and talk to him.

[38:08] Jeff Whiting: So that, you know, like, he's probably a nice guy. Just got to chat with him.

[38:17] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, he says, nobody's ever talked to him. Why don't you go? I'll go talk to him. Yeah, not to mention, the witch told him how he was going to die. And it wasn't because he was talking to a giant.

[38:26] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, I think that's one of the key things the whole show like he knows how he's going to die. He says it over and over the saying it now. So I'm no problem going to talk to the giant. No need to fear.

[38:37] Jeff Whiting: He goes to the cave, the nearby cave. Yeah, it's funny, this whole sequence is really interesting. Like, the song "Ashton's Favorite Son" is really like a flashback. And it's just like, wow, it's like some weird 50s, you know, version of reality. And then it just keeps going into so you really get the difference of what's real, you know, back at home. But then, as soon as you launch into any of the stories that Edward tells, there's just this magical weirdness to it that, you know, that's the reason why Will is so suspect of it. And can we talk about this ensemble, like the hardest working ensemble? I'll tell you, because each of these surreal moments are a huge production number filled with people and new costumes.

[39:22] Jeff Whiting: Oh, yeah. The auditions for "Big Fish," it was wild, because we needed people, you know, later we're about to go to the circus, and we needed people who could juggle, who could ride unicycles, who could flip. And then, of course, the giant who needed to work in painter's stilts. You know, it was, I think of, you know, we had more than triple threats in that cast. They were already triple. And then, many of them learned these circus tricks, you know, for the show. So, yeah, it was a pretty amazing cast.

[39:50] Jeff Whiting: Oh, my gosh. Good for them, man.

[39:54] Jeff Whiting: So, he meets Carl.

[39:55] Jeff Whiting: Right.

[39:55] Jeff Whiting: We'll just skip to it. He meets the giant named Carl. And Carl, turns out, is actually a very logical and sweet guy.

[40:04] Jeff Whiting: Yeah.

[40:05] Jeff Whiting: But he's also an agoraphobic. He's terrified of going outside. And so, Edward says, all right, well, I need to go see the world. I need to get out of this small little town. I need to go see the world and live my life that the witch promised that I would. Why don't you come with me? And, ultimately, Carl agrees. And so, they sing "Out There on the Road," in which they leave town. I think it's cool. In that scene with Carl, he said, I think, you know, he immediately diagnoses what's wrong with the giant. Well, you're not, you know, you're just alone. You want to get out there. And he says to him, you know, look, this town is too small for you. And it's too small for a man of my ambition. Let's get out of here. You know, so he, you know, he immediately solves the problem of the giant, which also coincidentally solves his problem. Now he can get out of town.

[40:56] Jeff Whiting: Did you grow up in a small town?

[40:58] Jeff Whiting: I was born in Denver, Colorado, but I grew up in Salt Lake City.

[41:01] Jeff Whiting: So, it's a suburb of Salt Lake City. I didn't think it was small. But now that I live in New York, it seems small. I mean, let's be honest, Jeff. The reason you're so busy is because of the land of Deseret. Like that, we are all haunted by it. We're all so busy.

[41:18] Jeff Whiting: I do blame my mom. My mom is the busiest body ever. So, she can never sit still for a minute. So, I think I have part of her genetic code inside. I think that there is something to growing up in a small town. Nobody ever grows up in New York City and is like, oh, I need to get out of this place and like see the world. I think there can be like, I need to get out of my neighborhood, like that sort of thing. But unless you grew up in a small town, there is this thing that we deal with where I'm proud of the place where I come from. I love it. I'm so grateful for it. And is this all there is? Grappling with that and not feeling guilty about it. I always love when it's in a musical because I feel seen and heard.

[42:02] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, that's true.

[42:03] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, it is so true. I was 12, I think, when I first took a trip to New York City. And the second I landed in Newark, took the bus under the tunnel, I'll never forget coming out and I just went, this is where I'm going to live someday. I just knew this is where I would be someday. So, yeah, I definitely always knew that I would not stay in Salt Lake for long.

[42:25] Jeff Whiting: That's a beautiful place. I love visiting, but I don't live there.

[42:31] Jeff Whiting: And that's all there is. The beautiful mountains, they have the perfect seasons in Utah. Fall, living in California, I miss fall. I miss carving pumpkins and not having them mold overnight. They last so long in Utah. You can have a jack-o'-lantern for weeks. It's amazing.

[42:52] Jeff Whiting: I never realized that you're right.

[42:53] Jeff Whiting: That's true. Okay, so now Carl and Edward are out in the world and they come upon a circus.

[43:02] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, they do. They stumble upon the circus. The circus is run by Amos, who is a werewolf.

[43:13] Jeff Whiting: Naturally.

[43:14] Jeff Whiting: Naturally. And at that point, there's like a girl group auditioning to be one of the acts. And one of those girls is Sandra. And so they're doing their little audition, "Little Lamb from Alabama." And Edward sees her and time stops. Now, this is one of the most visually amazing moments from

[43:37] Jeff Whiting: And he had written something that wasn't quite like upbeat enough, and so Stroman was, she sent him away saying, "Write me something more fun and upbeat." And, you know, like, so she thought it was going to go away, and he was like, "You mean something like this?" And he was kind of joking around on the piano, and he wrote the song on the spot. I was like, "Okay, that's the song." Well, that's it. He said it took him like less than three minutes to write that song, the Alabama Lamb song. But then, yes, to talk to answer your question, you know how that moment happened. Scenically, there's a set of bleachers, and the girls are doing their audition downstage for Amos, and Edward climbs up the back of the bleachers and just watching the real number.

And then as soon as like they make eye contact, time slows, the music slows, and, you know, she just looks at him briefly, but he zooms on her and he makes a slow walk downstage center. But really, in the realness of time, they didn't really talk at all; they just had one little glance together. But this whole big beautiful number of time stops occurs, you know, in a combination of super, super slow motion clogging. To quote Jerry Herman, it only takes a moment.

[45:17] Jeff Whiting: Yes, and oddly enough, this whole sequence, the whole circus sequence, of all the shows I've done with Stroman, this sequence took the longest amount of tech time to... really? Yeah, because it's, you know, there's this song, but then there's a whole sequence after it where there's dancing elephants and, you know, circus tricks and unicycles, and this whole sequence happens so magically. But it took four complete days of tech to actually get through, figure out how, because of course the cast has to change from, you know, dancing clown to get into the elephant costume. And so it was an incredibly challenging process to do. So I think of all the techs I've ever done, this circus sequence took us the longest to get right.

[46:04] Jeff Whiting: That's insane. So let's talk about that sequence. So, yeah, Edward is obsessed with knowing who this girl is, right, that he's bound to marry. He's convinced. And so he asks Amos, the guy who owns the circus, "You gotta tell me who this girl is." He's like, "It's not gonna happen." However, if you work for me every month, I will give you one clue. Right? So skip to three years later, he's still working at the circus, and he still doesn't know her name, but like he knows that she likes blue and he knows that she likes daffodils. And then finally, he gets, he knows her name, and that only is because Edward finds out that Amos is a werewolf and helps him not feel so ashamed about it.

[47:03] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so he finally reveals, "Oh, I know her father. She's at Auburn University. If you want to go find her, that's where you should go." And her name is Sandra Templeton.

[47:10] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, so Edward travels all the way to this university to find her. He finds her only to realize that she is actually engaged to someone, but not just anybody; she's engaged to Don Price, the high school rival. And when Don sees Edward, he's like, "Oh, come on, not this guy again." And of course, you didn't mention the way he traveled. He travels via cannonball.

[47:35] Jeff Whiting: Oh my gosh, how could I forget the way? Well, the way he's going to get there, I'm out of the circus, so he climbs into the cannon, he gets shot out of the cannon, and of course lands perfectly in Auburn University campus. I say perfectly, but of course it was a dummy that fell into the trees. But then he pops up with his helmet, and there she is, and he's on the hunt looking for her.

[47:57] Jeff Whiting: That's fantastic. No wonder Will's like, "Oh my gosh, Dad, can you please just tell me an actual fact, please?"

[48:06] Jeff Whiting: Yes, Don gets really mad about the fact that his rival isn't, you know, showing up and trying to take away Sandra, so he and his like druids beat him up. And because they beat up Edward, Sandra breaks up with Don on the spot and picks Edward over him.

[48:25] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, he brought daffodils magically with him in the cannon, and it's actually a really lovely duet called "Daffodils." Has there ever been a song called "Daffodils" in musical theater? Absolutely not, but here it is. And just such a beautiful visual, the entire stage filling up with daffodils.

[48:41] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, it was really, really magical. Yeah, because the way the stage was designed, it was mostly a series of moving panels and, you know, projections upon those panels. And now for the first time, you know, we have daffodils that magically rise out of the stage, but also an entire back wall mountain of daffodils actually really shows up. So we've been looking at mostly like, you know, projections and not real, and then finally to see an entire mountain of daffodils was pretty spectacular. Ending of Act One, yes, romance.

[49:20] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, I guess something that I skipped is that Will, in the process of looking for facts, comes upon a deed to a house in Ashton that is signed by both Edward and Jenny Hill. So now kind of planted in his brain is, "Was my dad leading a double life?" You know, traveling salesman, it's not that big of a stretch to think he may have another family. So now Act Two is about really getting down to brass tacks about what that is all about. First, though, is the whole war thing. This big war sequence is the moment from Will's childhood when he realizes these things that Dad has been telling me are probably not true.

[50:14] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, and that's true. Yeah, he always just kind of went along with whatever Dad said, but yeah, that was sort of probably the first moment where he began to question, you know, that couldn't possibly be true. So it's this whole "Red, White, and True" number in which he saves like a general from being assassinated by this guy called Red Fang.

[50:31] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, Red Fang, the poison assassin. And the way that he saves him is Red Fang like blows a poisonous dart, Edward like jumps in front of it and catches the dart in his neck. But because, why doesn't he die? It's something ridiculous.

[50:46] Jeff Whiting: How does that work? I can't remember. Oh, I know. Oh, he says, so here's the line, he says, "Luckily, years earlier, I had bitten by the Chucalabra snake," and I was immune to Red Fang's poison.

[51:00] Jeff Whiting: Chucalabra, of course. Yeah, he shoots the dart in his neck, but of course he's immune to it, and so then instead he throws the dart at Red Fang.

[51:08] ⚠ About 3 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[54:36] Jeff Whiting: And by the end of it, Edward is standing and just screaming. She wakes up and calms him down and basically just holds him, and they just sit down, stay centered, and the rain is happening. And he says, "Oh well, when I'm gone, you're gonna have to get those shingles fixed so the rain doesn't come in." And so that's sort of how this song was born. Well, I don't need a roof. I'm not thinking, I'm not worried about the roof right now, just hold me and just be with me. Every night watching this, watching Kate Baldwin deliver this number, we haven't even talked about Kate Baldwin. Oh my gosh, she's amazing! That voice, she can sing anything. She can sing anything, and she's a brilliant actor. I mean, to watch this is a, you know, an emotional song, but to watch her do this every night, you know, we, the audience, were just bawling.

And she said to me one night when I was just chatting about it, she goes, "Well, you have two choices: you can either cry or sing." And so she did a beautiful job of, like, you know, not wallowing in the self-pity because actually this is the most beautiful positive moment ever. Brave, of course. Yeah, of course, from our perspective, we were breaking our hearts seeing, knowing that that wasn't going to last. But it was a brilliant way to watch her deliver that number. On opening night, incidentally, Andrew Lippa came up to me and opened up his lapel and showed me the inside of his jacket. Yeah, and in gray embroidered on his pocket said, "I don't need a roof." That is the sweetest thing ever, isn't that sweet? Yeah, that's the same guy who wrote, "Give me a bottle of bourbon and half a chicken and I'll conquer the world." He's very personal.

[56:20] Jeff Whiting: Amazing. Okay, Will goes to Ashton because he realizes he can't have this conversation with his dad. It's not helping his condition, his health condition, so he's just going to go to Ashton. He goes to Ashton, he finds Jenny Hill, gets the story about what happened. So this was a really brilliant way to, like, incorporate two stories from the movie into one. Yeah, Ashton's hometown is about to be flooded because the government has built a dam, right? And in order to have the dam, all of the area needs to go underwater. And Ashton’s like, "Absolutely not! We're a small town, we are here, we are here." And Edward shows up because he promised that he would come back, and Jenny's thrilled, everyone's thrilled.

And to their surprise, he tells them, "I think we need to move the town, find another place to do it, and start over." And they're like, "We can't do that! What are you talking about?" He's like, "Leave it to me." He goes to Amos, the circus guy, and is like, "I need land." Amos says, "Absolutely! You were there for me as a werewolf." Um, I will give you land. So he gets the land from Amos, he goes to Carl, the giant, who is now a very wealthy giant because of some smart investments in Wall Street, and gets money from Carl. So now he has both the land and the money. He helps the whole town move and basically saves Ashton, which is one of the most heroic things—no, no, I would say probably the most heroic thing, outright heroic thing that he had done. And Will had never heard this story, and the reason why is because in the process, he also bought Jenny a house.

[58:09] Jeff Parsons: Because her heart was broken when he left. And to make it up to her, he gets the house.

[58:16] Jeff Whiting: She kisses him. He stops it and says, "No, I can't. I love my wife. She is the only girl for me." But if he told Will that story about the town, then he would also have to talk about Jenny. And like that was too vulnerable, I think. Yeah, this is such a big moment for Will to learn this story. Here he's on the brink of thinking he's going to catch his father having an affair. And he discovers that, oh, my father saved this entire town. And then the second that this girl who was in love with him even kisses him, he stops immediately and says, "I love my wife. She's the only one for me." And he walks away. And he never sees her again. So that was such a huge journey for Will to make this discovery about his father, who he had been assuming was doing the very worst possible.

[59:10] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, talk about assuming the worst. Absolutely right. After his time in Ashton, he gets a phone call that dad's in the hospital. So Will goes to the hospital and learns that like this is it. He's probably not getting out of here. And Sandra and Josephine, the wife, go downstairs and leave Edward and Will together. And Edward is, he's kind of out.

[59:38] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. And he asked the doctor, can he hear us? And he said, well, the doctor says it's hard to say what anybody hears, but harder to know if they're listening. And the doctor leaves him alone with his dad. He has this really beautiful monologue about how you put all of his stories together and they create a myth, which the purpose of a myth in classical storytelling is to explain something that's bigger than all of us. And in many ways, like this myth that his father has created is to explain what life is, you know, and particularly his life. And he says it beautifully. He says in there an epic tale about a farmer's son from Alabama who wanted to see the world. But you never did, dad. I did. And that's because of you.

[1:00:26] Jeff Whiting: And he said, I think it's so beautiful. He says, "All this time, I thought you were trying to impress me. You were trying to inspire me." That's so beautiful. This actually makes me think of, we recently covered Cinderella. And in talking about fairy tales, the more that you analyze them, the more you realize how problematic they are. Right. And one of the messages of Big Fish is like, think less. Yeah. Like sometimes it doesn't matter. And I'm not sitting here and saying that like facts don't matter. But if we are so concentrated on the facts that we are missing life, if we're missing the greater message, the spirit of the law, if you will, then that's on us, you know?

[1:01:14] Jeff Parsons: That's true. Yeah. And it feels like a balance that we have to strike in our lives, particularly. And I feel like we're very polarized on either end of that.

[1:01:28] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, that's so true. At this point, Edward responds, kind of wakes up. And Will is like, "It's the end, dad. You got to tell me how you die." He doesn't remember. And he's in a rush, too. Edward is like, he wakes up and he's like, "I got to get to the river." And he's like, "No, dad, you're not going to the river. We're here at the hospital." And he's just, he won't take no for an answer, the water. And so, yeah, Will sort of stuck with like, what shall we do? And Edward insists that he's got to get to the river and get out of there. And so now Will, for the first time, Will is the one who sort of takes the wheel and goes, "OK, I'm going to play my dad's game and take you on this journey."

[1:02:08] Jeff Whiting: And they do this whole escape out of the hospital to get him free. So he kidnaps him from his hospital room and they get in a car and they drive away and they get down to the river. So it's a pretty cool turning around moment for Will, who's so far been thinking too much. And now, like, as you said, he's just going, "All right, I'm just going to go for it."

[1:02:22] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. So it's this whole song called "What's Next," which takes him to the river. And it's reminiscent of what we saw earlier when the witch was showing him his death. All the people, all the characters from every story in his life appears, you know, and they're in the exact same spot where the witch showed it earlier in this vision on the witch's cloaks. So everybody's there, the giant, the mermaid, Jenny Hill, everybody's there. He sees everybody and he says, "Well, I can't say this was a surprise exactly," because he knows what it was. And he says, "But somebody's missing here." And then you see Sandra and she comes in and then he sings, I think, one of the most beautiful songs in musical theater, "How It Ends."

[1:03:05] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. When I first heard that song, of course, I just lost it. I was bawling. And I just, I said to Andrew after that run, I said, "I can't believe that the song didn't exist before. It's so, makes sense. And it's so perfect. And it just, it echoes my sentiments. Anybody who wants to be a good person and a good father, I just said, somehow you pulled that song out of the heavens and it's now it's here, but it's such a beautiful, beautiful ending to the show."

[1:03:37] Jeff Parsons: It truly is. Wow. One of my favorite lyrics from that song is, oh my gosh, I need to be off book. It ends with sons. It ends with wives. It ends with knowing when the pavement bends, we find our lives. There was a bravery to the way that Edward lived his life for whatever reason. And it's like in those moments where you don't know what's coming next, even that song, "What's Next," right? Those moments when you don't think too much and you follow your gut and you lead with bravery and with faith, like those are the moments where you actually find what your life becomes, what your life is meant to be.

[1:04:20] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, that is so true. And then he passes away.

[1:04:27] Jeff Whiting: And what happened, he finishes just past those lyrics you shared. He says, "So let it come and let me go, show me the waves and let them flow. It all ends well, this much I know." And that, and the entire group surrounds him, just like congratulating him. And then as they, you know, pull away, now the hospital has reappeared and he's never gone anywhere. He's been in that hospital a little bit, and now it's just Will, where he was before, sitting by his dad's, holding his hand, and you hear the flat line go, and then you hear Will say, "And that's how it happens. That's how you go." And they spend a moment there together. So he never really did leave the hospital, but he saw the vision of all those people that he had in his life and those that were real and those that were just stories all combined together.

[1:05:21] Jeff Parsons: And that's really the lesson that Will learned, you know, that it's not necessarily about what's true, but what you learn and what, who you touch along the way. And then, and then that sort of segues into, flash forward, now we're at the funeral. We hear, you know, the funeral and everybody's putting their daffodils into the water.

[1:05:40] Jeff Whiting: Susan, what are you doing to me?

[1:05:44] Jeff Whiting: Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so all these daffodils are going into the water. And then at the very, at the very end, you know, all these daffodils have gone into the water and then a giant catfish leaps out of the water and does a big splash. And that's Edward Bloom in a different form.

[1:06:02] Jeff Parsons: That's so sweet.

[1:06:12] Jeff Whiting: And there at the funeral are all of these people. And is it a giant? No, but it's a really tall guy.

[1:06:17] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. Essentially what you see, you learn that all, all of the, all these fantastical creatures that were in the story, now you see the real version of them. So you see, oh, these were the real people in his life who he came across and he just created stories about this tall person who was the giant that he interacted with. And you know what, maybe he did help that tall guy overcome his agoraphobia. Was he a giant living in a cave? No. You know what I mean?

[1:06:41] Jeff Whiting: I think that's true. Yeah. I think there are versions of history, you know, versions of the truth that he just embellished and maybe so that his son could understand the lesson. Who knows for what reason, but that it's a beautiful moment at the end for Will to just connect all these people that, oh, oh my gosh, I know you, like, I know your story, but you're not really the giant, but Will goes up and he, you know, he goes up to the tall man and you know, the giant's name is Carl. He says, "I don't think we've met. I'm Will." And the guy says, "I'm Carl." So I think you imagine that, yeah, these were all real people that were really in Edward's life that just, he impacted or they impacted him in some way.

[1:07:16] Jeff Parsons: Cut to a few years later, now Will has his own son. You guys had a lot of children in this show.

[1:07:30] Jeff Whiting: Yes. Now that I'm thinking about it, Will and his son are now at the river and we, we get the idea that Will is carrying on the tradition of the big fish stories and he reprises the song, "Be the Hero" that we heard his dad sing at the very beginning.

[1:07:47] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. Like father, like son, even if you don't want to.

[1:07:53] Jeff Whiting: Yeah. And the sooner that we can get over that, the better. We are our parents, embrace it and move on.

[1:08:04] Jeff Parsons: So true. Yeah. And it's wonderful to see, you know, Will make that transition because he goes from, you know, being the suspect of his father and now accepting that actually he learns all these wonderful things that his father did. That's a pretty cool transformation.

[1:08:20] Jeff Whiting: That's awesome. It's a beautiful show with, like I said, one of my favorite endings. And, and if I'm being totally honest, sometimes I think I, I like the ending more than anything in the show and, and yet like it doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's no way that that ending can be as impactful without everything that's led up to it. So like, because I love the ending, I have to like the show.

[1:08:43] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. No, it's, it's a such a, I think the last 10 minutes of the show are just some of the most powerful that I've ever seen in any show. Just the emotional impact of, you know, you've loved Edward Bloom all night long and then to see him and his legacy, you know, go and learn why he did it, you know, just so that, you know, you can tell my story and I hope somebody will tell my story and that I pass the torch to you and then see his son pick up that torch. I think it's everybody's dream to see, you know, whatever legacy you give to let that, you know, pass it forward so that we can all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

[1:09:21] Jeff Whiting: Amen. Well said. Well said. The last thing that I wanted to talk about is actually something with all of the talk that we've had on the show about Susan Stroman. One of the things we haven't discussed is how young she was when she was widowed. Her husband was theater director, Mike Ockrent, who they worked together on Crazy for You. He's a very, very well-respected director and he passed away very tragically in the 90s, right?

[1:09:41] Jeff Whiting: Yeah, yeah. Leukemia. Yes, he had leukemia. And in many ways, I think that it was from my perspective out here, it was kind of a double blow because it looked like her collaborator is gone and her husband is gone. What is going, how do you move on? And what's amazing is that she moved on by becoming a director and choreographer, one of the best ever, and then brings us stories like this that say exactly how you do it, how you move on.

[1:10:15] Jeff Whiting: I think, you know, they, they were so close, you know, in life and in work. And, you know, he, he, I never met Mike so it was before I met her, but to hear her speak about the creative process with him, he's absolutely in her thoughts and in her mind and the things she creates, you know, he's, he's never far from mind. He was the one who's quoted to say that rehearsal is the best part. And so she certainly makes that her mission, you know, just that when you're in rehearsal and you're creating together to, to have a fun time and to, you know, to enjoy the process along the way. And so she absolutely exudes that. And I know this, Mike had a big impact in the telling of this story, you know, that the impact that he had in her life and in her work certainly came to play, you know, as we were staging the end of this, you know, end of this piece.

[1:11:16] Jeff Parsons: Wow. Amazing. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today to go through the show. It was really, really lovely.

[1:11:24] Jeff Whiting: Oh, it's lovely to chat with you. Thank you so much for, for going through it with me.

[1:11:29] Jeff Parsons: Oh my gosh. My pleasure. As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on A Musical Theatre Podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and follow us on Instagram and Twitter at amusicalpodcast where we have more great content. And if you want to do something even better, go to our TeePublic store, where we have great designs that you can put on products from episodes past and present. Jeff, how do we follow you and everything you're up to?

[1:12:00] Jeff Whiting: Oh, you can find me, my website is jeffwhiting.com, or you can follow me on Instagram at jeffwhitingnyc.

[1:12:06] Jeff Parsons: Fantastic. Thank you again. What a pleasure.

[1:12:13] Jeff Whiting: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of this.

[1:12:18] Jeff Whiting: And to everybody out there, remember, rehearsal is the best part.