This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:16] 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.

[0:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today, we are discussing the musical BIG!

[0:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I had to, like, lean away from my microphone, so I wouldn't blow it out. BIG!

[0:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A listener request from Daniel, who wrote us back in 2022, and said, quote, "Any way to take on Maltby and Shire, either baby or big?" End quote. And I immediately wrote him back and said, yes, we must cover Maltby and Shire, and now we finally are.

[1:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I've featured BIG several times over on the Flop Shop, on Patreon, just hoping that listeners would kind of shoot this thing to the top of the request list. And earlier this year, it finally won the Flop Shop poll and got an express pass to its own episode here on a musical theater podcast. BIG won something, everyone! Congratulations, finally!

[1:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Our guest in the Flop Shop this year is back with us today. He is the creator and host of the podcast, The Little Things You Hear Together, a show that, honestly, very elegantly scores and rates the cast albums of a specific Broadway season. I've been on it a couple times. Super fun, and made me think about things in different ways. Oh, and he also saves lives in an ER in Minnesota. And I'm not being cute. He's not playing a doctor on stage or something like that. He is one. Everyone, please welcome Alex Asp!

[2:02] Alex Asp: Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I love that you're slumming it with somebody like me after all the big stars you've had on your show.

[2:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I'm so grateful you're here. You are organized and thorough and a musical theater nerd, and I really admire that about you.

[2:20] Alex Asp: Those are words that I would use for myself, yes.

[2:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I honestly don't think I know your background. When did you fall in love with musicals?

[2:29] Alex Asp: So I kind of think of it as being in stages. Growing up, I knew mostly the movie versions of musicals that I would get from the library. You know, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Music Man, all those old-timey ones that are very family friendly. So my parents would get them for me. And then in high school, I kind of got into theater a little bit, discovered there's this whole world. Went to the library and got all the cast albums I could and ripped them to my computer so I could listen to them on and on.

[3:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh boy, do we love a rip.

[3:02] Alex Asp: Mm-hmm. And for a long time, that was the main thing, plus getting recommendations from friends.

[3:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That also makes total sense, then, why your podcast is so cast album based, right?

[3:15] Alex Asp: That's where it began. Absolutely. I didn't get to actually go to Broadway until I was 25. And then I was like, oh, there's this whole other world.

[3:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: First show when you were 25?

[3:25] Alex Asp: Yeah.

[3:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What was it?

[3:27] Alex Asp: Kinky Boots on my 25th birthday.

[3:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. Okay.

[3:31] Alex Asp: Yeah. I'm not mad about that.

[3:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So it was like I thought I was a major Broadway fan. And then right before the pandemic, went to a local cabaret show that was featuring Sondheim. And it was all these songs I didn't know. And I was like, oh, I don't know anything.

[3:49] Alex Asp: Well, look, the quickest way to be humbled is to think that you're a fan of anything. And then there's an entire army of gatekeepers who will be the first in line to tell you that, in fact, you know absolutely nothing.

[4:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I do. And I realize that. And that's, I think, the most enlightening part is realizing how much I didn't know. So I still feel like my knowledge is really 2000 and later. That's not great, considering all of the huge shows that came before us, the huge composers, librettists, all these things that are so important to the history.

[4:23] Alex Asp: And that's how the podcast started, because cast albums are how most of us can access Broadway.

[4:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Amen. I completely agree. I love your perspective on that. Well, let's dive in and talk about this thing, because I'm so excited. I've been waiting for years to do this.

[4:39] Alex Asp: Oh, boy.

[4:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let's begin by talking about the movie, which is, of course, what the musical is based on. The film, Big, from 1988, directed by the one and only Penny Marshall.

[4:48] Alex Asp: Huge hit, starring Tom Hanks. I think we're going to talk about Penny Marshall, because, of course, cinephile here. We forget, like, she only made maybe four or five films. Most of them, huge cultural footprint.

[5:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, she did not mess around.

[5:03] Alex Asp: League of Their Own.

[5:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She didn't really miss.

[5:05] Alex Asp: No, not at all. We love Penny. Did you grow up watching this film?

[5:09] Alex Asp: I did. I remember growing up with this and always loving it and revisiting it every so often. And Tom Hanks is just kind of, for a large group of children growing up in different times, was like the big star that you would see on screen. And also like a normal movie star, if that even exists. You weren't getting Tom Cruise looks, necessarily, but you also weren't getting Tom Cruise vibes.

[5:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No. No jumping on couches. Tom Hanks, you could go to lunch with and probably be okay.

[5:44] Alex Asp: Yeah. And I think for myself and probably a lot of people, when it came out that he had COVID, that was like, oh, no, this is real. This is real. It can affect America's sweetheart, Tom Hanks.

[5:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh no, we must save him at all costs.

[6:00] Alex Asp: Save him at all costs. Send out the guard.

[6:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 100%. I totally forgot about that. So, Big, huge hit. That's 1988. Only a couple of years afterward, Big starts getting some momentum in terms of becoming a musical. And it is because of the one and only Didi Khan.

[6:18] Alex Asp: Who's that?

[6:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She is the original Frenchie from the film Grease.

[6:23] Alex Asp: She is the icon we all know but don't know that we know.

[6:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. I mean, I think everybody knows that woman. She is married to David Shire, the composer of Maltby and Shire.

[6:35] Alex Asp: This is so crazy. And she saw the film Big, I think, in like a hotel room or something like that. And when David Shire got back, I mean, you can just hear her voice being like, "David, are you ready for a really big idea?" You know, like...

[6:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She pitches it to her husband, says, I think this would be a great musical. And David Shire is kind of into it. Now, this is where we need to just fully stop everything and talk about Maltby and Shire because I'm so embarrassed we haven't talked about them on the podcast before.

[7:10] Alex Asp: Maltby and Shire, incredible composing team that only have really two Broadway shows to their name. Because everything else they did was off-Broadway. And I think this was one of the big reasons why Didi was so adamant about doing a show like this. Because as the wife, right, seeing who her husband is, she's like, you need a hit. You need a big Broadway show that's worthy of your talents. Not that the off-Broadway is, you know, not. But like...

[7:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Commercially, it's not.

[7:42] Alex Asp: Commercially, it's in a whole other level, right? So you can see why they would want to go in this arena. Now, favorite shows, songs, etc. from Maltby and Shire, do you have any?

[7:53] Alex Asp: So I will admit, Maltby and Shire is largely a blind spot because so little of their work has been on Broadway. So I mostly know them from Baby. I do have the vinyl of Starting Here, Starting Now. So I've listened to that. But I don't know it well.

[8:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The vinyl, though. Come on.

[8:10] Alex Asp: That's great. I started collecting that like a year and a half ago, two years ago. And that's been fun, too. But they are so talented. And I just don't know as much about them as I should.

[8:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They're surprisingly accessible for also being a little underground. Like, those melodies are so hummable, so freaking catchy, every single tune.

[8:33] Alex Asp: Well, I think part of it, too, is they really were kind of bridging the gap between the Sondheims and the more mainstream musical theater writers.

[8:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I love that.

[8:44] Alex Asp: At least David Shire. I think both of them were close friends of Sondheim. So they were very much coming up in the same time of that same mentality. But Maltby and Shire were skewing a little bit more toward more accessible things. But they still had enough of that avant-garde complex sensibility that I think that prevented them from making it fully into the main musical theater consciousness. Because they just were not willing to compromise for that.

[9:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They're willing to write a really catchy pop song about a guy who's a stalker on somebody's roof.

[9:18] Alex Asp: Even when I think of Baby, Baby begins with this narration of the egg comes from the fallopian tube and the sperm is ejaculated through the vas deferens. Like, it's so specific.

[9:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It really is a weird show when you think about it in those terms. Like, what is this? Oh, it's about getting and being pregnant. Period. But there's so much within that. And they're being so specific and intentional with it that it almost makes it weirder. Right? To hear it so objectively stated with this really beautiful, accessible music accompanying it.

[10:06] Alex Asp: It's a little niche corner that they have that is really unusual, but also just full of great tunes. I Want It All is...

[10:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, gosh.

[10:10] Alex Asp: It's a theme that has come up throughout definitely modern television and movies of can a woman have the family and the career and everything. And to so effectively put that into song form in the context of a show and be such a banger, like, that is insane. I want to be Donna McKechnie, Donna Summer, Donna Reed. Come on!

[10:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes! Come on! It's so good.

[10:31] Alex Asp: Oh, it's so good. Now, David Shire, maybe most successful as a film composer, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for that Sally Field movie.

[10:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What was it? Norma Rae? Norma Rae.

[10:48] Alex Asp: Yeah, Norma Rae. Did many scores for films, including Zodiac.

[10:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I didn't know that he did Zodiac.

[10:54] Alex Asp: Freaking David Fincher, love that movie. Richard Maltby, Jr., probably most successful as a director and conceiver of lots of shows. He won a Tony Award for directing Ain't Misbehavin'. Incredible. He was a co-lyricist on Miss Saigon. He's done a lot of really interesting things. They meet up in Yale. They're going to school together at Yale and immediately start writing together and then continue collaborating while they're also doing their own thing.

[11:30] Alex Asp: David Shire in film. Richard Maltby with his directing. This kind of leads me to something that's been on my brain forever and please indulge me. Where did you go to school? Were you Midwest?

[11:41] Alex Asp: Yeah, Ohio. I grew up in Ohio.

[11:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, Ohio. I was talking to a friend recently and she went to one year of college before she booked something and then left. But in that one year, she met two people that became lifelong friends and lifelong collaborators. One of which has continued and to this day continues to write shows for her and knows how to use her skills so incredibly. Shout out. That's Malone. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because I think that is one of maybe the biggest incentives for going to college is meeting other people, like-minded people who might become lifelong friends, collaborators, and just fellow artists to have a community with.

[12:38] Alex Asp: Absolutely.

[12:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: By the way, David Shire, Richard Maltby Jr. still alive, kicking it at like 88 and 89. God bless him. Some of the shows that they've written, of course, we discussed Baby. Starting Here, Starting Now, a review. Closer Than Ever, another review. These Off-Broadway song cycles slash reviews that really give singing actors a chance to show their stuff. They're just wonderful songs to sing and act.

[13:10] Alex Asp: When they get on the same page about Big, they also end up getting a few other people on page with them, including some great producers, some very ambitious producers, as well as the director, Mike Ockrent, and choreographer, Susan Stroman, who had both just experienced a huge success in Crazy For You. If you remember our Crazy For You episode from last year with Shannon Lewis, not only was that show a big hit, but they met each other and fell in love. So coming right out of Crazy For You, this opportunity comes up.

[13:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Also coming up around the exact same time is the Alan Menken A Christmas Carol that debuted in Madison Square Garden. So all of this is happening.

[14:06] Alex Asp: With Lynn Aarons, correct?

[14:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely, with Lynn Aarons as the lyricist. A Place Called Home. So the year was supposed to happen like this. Crazy For You closes at the Shubert Theatre. A reminder, a chorus line has played at the end.

[14:22] Mike Santos: Big is going to go into the Schubert and they're going to try and open it before they start working on A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden for Christmas. That's all going to be in one year. What a year. After A Christmas Carol opens, then they're going to finally go on a honeymoon because wow, what a year. Almost immediately as they start diving into the schedules and the numbers and what they want the show to be, they realize they do not have the time to create a show this big and have it open on Broadway before Christmas. So they instead decide to go out of town, open the show in Detroit, work on it there, come back into the city just in time to open the show before the Tony Award deadline. Now, you told me that you watched a recent doc on it. I guess it's not recent, but it was on YouTube.

[15:36] Alex Asp: Yeah, I watched it earlier today. It's on YouTube in full. It's an hour and 20 minutes behind-the-scenes making of. I think it was produced around the time that they opened. On YouTube, it says from 1996. I'm telling you, those producers went hard in terms of marketing. So I would not be surprised. Keep going. So sorry.

[15:59] Mike Santos: It's just so much of getting to know the cast, which is great, getting to know the creatives, which is great. It's a lot of background on all of those people and the projects that they've worked on before. I mean, it's really nice. You hear from Beth Fowler and Liz Calloway about their experiences with Maltby and Shire on Baby. You hear people talking about Crazy for You with Stro and with Mike Ockerent. And it really sets the context of the mentality of all of these people entering this show and thinking, like, we've assembled all the things necessary for a great musical. This is going to be amazing. The anticipation, the expectation is maybe more in the focus than even the show. Is that fair?

[16:41] Alex Asp: Yeah. Yeah, a little bit.

[16:43] Mike Santos: Interesting. That's going to come up later. So one of the reasons I was so excited to cover Big on the podcast is because I really wanted to read this book. And I needed an excuse. There's this book called Making It Big, The Diary of a Broadway Musical. It's by Barbara Eisenberg, who infamously did the Miracle of Miracles, Wonder, Wonder, Miracle, about Fiddler on the Roof. She is a writer from the L.A. Times and has spent a lot of her time in her career writing about musical theater. And she somehow convinced everybody that you just mentioned to let her follow them around the entire time they created Big. She turned it all into a book. The book reads like a journal where it'll be a date. And then this is everything that happened that day.

Sometimes it's literally split up by half hour, but it's really well written, really interestingly written. Since this show was included in the Flop Shop, spoiler alert, it flopped on Broadway. And this is not the only book about Broadway flops. When we covered Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark, I read that book about that flop. And so as I was reading this one, I was kind of comparing the two in my brain. Have you read Song of Spider-Man?

[18:01] Alex Asp: I'm notoriously bad at keeping my focus to read nonfiction, especially.

[18:06] Mike Santos: Do you read more fiction than nonfiction?

[18:08] Alex Asp: Still not a lot, but more.

[18:10] Mike Santos: That's impressive. On the total opposite. If I have time to read, it's probably nonfiction. And my friend Amanda is really trying to break me of that habit. I'm impressed.

[18:19] Alex Asp: I wish that was the case for me. I have such a stack of books that I have bought that I want to read. And I'm like, there's so many other things I could or should be doing, or I just feel lazy.

[18:29] Mike Santos: Nope, I get it. You have lives to save and Love Island to watch. I get it. So as I'm reading Making It Big, I'm thinking about the Spider-Man book. And the main comparison that I would make between the two is that when you read the Spider-Man book, it almost reads like a horror film in that you're like, no, no, don't go in there. I know why you're going in there, but don't do it. And in Making It Big, you don't necessarily feel that way. In fact, I was kind of like, oh, yeah, well, that happens in theater. Like, yeah, there's a mid-show stop, or yeah, it takes a lot of time to figure out costume changes, or, you know, all of these sorts of things felt pretty normal. Everybody gets along really well.

Everyone's incredibly collaborative. There aren't really a lot of diva fights. There isn't like the one person on the creative team that refuses to listen to somebody else. And like, there's no funny girl here where there's all of this fighting. There's no Seussical where people are getting fired and replaced. There's no Camelot where people are getting sent to emergency rooms. So while Big was a very difficult journey, it actually feels like it was a very respectful one.

[19:46] Alex Asp: Yeah, it's especially crazy considering how many kids they had, that that did not become a chaotic thing of its own. It sounds like from all accounts, the kids were all great. They all got along well. They were all hard workers. They took direction well, which is insane that that part was not an issue.

[20:04] Mike Santos: A non-issue, truly. They were going to school, you know, their three hours a day or whatever Broadway kids are required to do. That being said, it wasn't a walk in the park. And they really struggled to figure out how to musicalize this story. So now I want to turn it to you. Do you think that this movie that we've discussed, this story, which for those of you who might not know, Big is about a little boy who makes a wish to grow up to be big, especially after he gets humiliated for not being able to go on a roller coaster at the carnival. The wish is granted. He wakes up in a grown man's body, has to figure things out until he realizes, oh, it's actually much better to be who he is. And he makes another wish. And that's ultimately the whole plot, right? It's not a super dense story. Do you think that that film, this story, is good for a musical? And we're not declaring war on DDCon, but what do you think?

[21:07] Alex Asp: I think it is a good idea for a musical in the same sense that turning an Ingmar Bergman film into A Little Night Music is a good idea, where you're using the concept and then creating your own story on that concept rather than taking the actual plot of the movie and turning it into the show. There are a lot of things in the movie, especially, I mean, it's a rom-com from the late 80s. Tom Hanks has a romantic entanglement with one of his co-workers at the job he gets. And when you actually think about it, that's really creepy. And on film, it's so much easier to just go, oh, well, the whole kid thing was just a pretense for us to watch a movie with Tom Hanks, versus in the theater, just the mentality of the audience, I think, is much more taking it at face value. And we're all like, oh, no, I do not like where this is going.

[22:03] Mike Santos: Not to mention the integrity of the writers, right? They are really trying to, like we said, get to an emotional truth. And so, that kind of specificity that comes from writers like Maltby and Shire means that you're doubling down on some of these things that might have been brushed off while watching a film.

[22:18] Alex Asp: Yeah, like in the show, when they're about to sleep together, we get his younger self coming out and singing about how he does not know what this moment is and how to handle it, but he kind of wants to find out. And you're like, oh, we're reminding ourselves of the worst part of this at the worst time. And dramatically, like John Weidman did a great job of turning the story of the movie into a much more concise and streamlined plot for the stage. It's just the oversight of some of these plot points should not be brought to the stage.

[22:59] Mike Santos: Be musicalized, maybe quite so hard. It's a fascinating question that honestly never gets really talked about in the book. That doesn't even really enter the conversation about whether or not it should be musicalized, which I find fascinating and also maybe a byproduct of hindsight. We've had a lot of time to think about it. Also, I didn't mention John Weidman, book writer, won a gajillion awards for writing for Sesame Street, but don't worry, also did Assassins. Talk about range, you know what I mean? He did the book for Big. Before we dive into the plot and kind of talk through some of these musical moments and make sense of them and help people understand what this show is, I do want to talk about the cultural moment of them opening on Broadway.

Like we said, what the plan ended up being was that they were going to open right before the deadline for the Tony Awards. Looking at the shows that were going to be opening, it didn't look like there was a lot of competition.

[24:10] Alex Asp: As they're in Detroit, a lot of stuff gets announced, and a lot of it from off-Broadway. First, Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, which was an incredible Savion Glover tap show.

[24:22] Mike Santos: Which opened three days before them.

[24:24] Alex Asp: And then another little show called Rent.

[24:27] Mike Santos: That opened the day after them. So, you have these two very different shows. They're not big, like truly. They're quite small, very scrappy, very off-Broadway, very inventive in terms of what they're bringing to the art form. And so, that's the Broadway that they are coming into. A Broadway that just a season before had really no new musicals other than Sunset Boulevard, and now there's this almost new generation of interesting theater and interesting stories behind that theater, lest we forget the whole Jonathan Larson narrative.

[25:12] Alex Asp: Yeah.

[25:12] Mike Santos: It should also be mentioned that in terms of big old-fashioned musicals, they're not the only ones. Victor Victoria, starring none other than Julie Andrews, opens that season, as well as the Rodgers and Hammerstein kind of new-slash-old show, State Fair. All of that is now opening basically around the same time, whereas I think they thought that the spring was going to be all theirs.

[25:38] Alex Asp: Yeah, because other than that, the only other new shows were Swinging on a Star.

[25:43] Mike Santos: A Review of Johnny Burke Music.

[25:46] Alex Asp: And Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

[25:48] Mike Santos: Which you all know! I went to the New York Public Library, and what was the first thing I checked out?

[25:55] Alex Asp: Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It's a really interesting piece, you guys.

[25:59] Mike Santos: It was breaking the ground of 90 no's before we even knew what a 90 no was.

[26:05] Alex Asp: Yeah.

[26:06] Mike Santos: But yeah, also very experimental. Graciela Daniel, like, tango choreography in this small town in South America is interesting, but not big.

[26:16] Alex Asp: Definitely not big.

[26:17] Mike Santos: But if you take out those late entries of Bring in the Noise and Rent, Big seems like it's the favorite to roll the competition.

[26:25] Alex Asp: Yeah, for so many different categories in the Tonys, and for audience perception, it's that combination of new and old. It really made a lot of sense, and you just can't foresee a Rent coming in or a Hamilton coming in.

[26:39] Alex Asp: You would have never been able to predict that. Absolutely not. Now, the other kudos I want to give the creators of Big. Name, at this point, another blockbuster-type modern film to be made into a musical.

[26:53] Mike Santos: I mean Beauty and the Beast.

[26:58] Alex Asp: Exactly. That's the first one that comes to mind. And so then, let's go a little further down that road. The difference is bringing an animated story to life that's pure fantasy, I think might actually be, in many ways, an easier task than the magical realism of a film like Big. You have some magic in there, but it's also very much in a world that we know and understand. People are wearing jeans and t-shirts. They're not wearing candelabra outfits. You know what I mean?

[27:36] Mike Santos: And as I'm looking back through, I'm all the way up to the early 80s now, and there really are no other major movies turned into Broadway shows.

[27:44] Alex Asp: I just mentioned Sunset Boulevard, but that's an old film. I'm talking like blockbusters, Spielberg kind of created, and Star Wars created from the late 70s on. I think Big is maybe the first one.

[27:56] Mike Santos: Yeah. When I first heard about Big the musical, I assumed it was from 2008, because that was the era of this type of turning a popular movie into a musical. And when I learned it was so much earlier, I was like, oh, that's interesting because that just wasn't the thing at the time.

[28:12] Alex Asp: But because they were doing it, a lot of people were interested in throwing money at it, including FAO Schwartz, the huge toy store with their flagship store in New York City, including McDonald's at one point. There were a lot of companies that were interested in giving Big money because they saw it as a great commercial bid for success on Broadway. That mixed with, and this is really where the narrative from this book comes into play,

[28:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The scrappiness of off-Broadway Rent and Bring It to Noise really gave it a villain crown in that Broadway season. A huge part, according to the people in the book, a huge portion of Broadway was really excited to see it fail. And the schadenfreude of that is also in alignment with Spider-Man. At some point, there was a big portion of the theatre community that was like, wouldn't it be fun to see this flop? I'm not saying that that's 100% true. But one of the best arguments for it being true is the fact that when BIG opened, they got a rave review from the New York Times. And when you read about it in the book, Susan Stroman bursts into tears because they've been working on this thing for so long.

And during the 90s, the Times review really meant whether or not you're getting nominated for Best Musical; it meant whether or not you were running. In addition to the Times review, they get a rave from USA Today. But then you get a slew of reviews that are so mean. That is an enormous contrast that feels like there's something else going on besides the art. I think David Shire is the one in the book who says, I was afraid that they would be complacent, that reviewers would come in and be like, meh. And that would break my heart because they wouldn't see all the work that we did. A lot of reviewers came to this show, saw the work, and were angry about it. Well, so often I feel if you have a mixed reaction like that where some people are raving and some people are scathing, that makes audiences go, oh, I kind of want to see what this is that has such divided opinions out there.

So, for it to not have that kind of boost from that curiosity is strange. And ultimately, the fact that it was not nominated for Best Musical, whereas Swing on a Star was. Chronicle of a Death Foretold was. Was. I mean, it did get a score nomination, at least. But you look back, and in hindsight, it's like, what were they thinking to not nominate this and to nominate something else instead? There feels like an agenda underneath all this. That's what I'm saying. It has to be connected to that heat coming from the haters.

[31:24] Alex Asp: Like you said, when the Tony nominations come out, they get nominated for Best Book, Best Score, Best Featured Actor, Best Actress, Best Choreography for Stro. But they do not get nominated for Best Director or Best Musical. Best Musical nominations go to Rent and Bring It to Noise. And then these two shows that have already closed. A review, Swing on a Star, which truly, I don't think anybody has seen or heard of since. No one's heard of. And then Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which is interesting. And I'm not mad about it getting a Best Musical nomination, but some people might argue that it's not even a musical. Maltby has kind of a conspiracy theory about the Tony Awards. Do you want to hear it?

[32:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, absolutely.

[32:12] Alex Asp: Okay. So, back in '96, when this is happening, the way that you vote for the Tony Awards, the way that the committee votes for the Best Musical is you rank four musicals, one to four. These are the four musicals that you think should get nominated. The musical that's in the number one spot gets a lot of points, and it's a weighted system. Number two gets less points, number three gets even fewer, and finally number four. Does that make sense?

[32:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[32:44] Alex Asp: Then after everybody puts in their votes, they total up those points, and the top four musicals with the most points get the four nominations. So, after the Tony Awards are over, Maltby has this impulse to reach out to all of his friends, because he's won a Tony Award. He knows basically most people on the nominating committee. He reaches out to them, and at this point, I think there are only 12 or so. He reaches out to the ones he knows and says, he doesn't ask for how they voted, but he just says, hey, where did we go wrong? I'm curious. From the moment the curtain went up, were you dribble, not interested? Was it at one point in the show that we totally lost you? What happened? Every person that he talks to says, oh, no, I actually really loved BIG, and I ranked it pretty high on my list, and they all offered up this information voluntarily, said, and I don't know where Swinging on a Star came from. So, then he's like, okay, interesting. He takes all of that information and starts doing some math, and this is the conspiracy part.

[33:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, I love him already.

[34:00] Alex Asp: Right? He starts doing the math, and he's like, okay, if these people voted for BIG in the way that they told me, and maybe they're lying, but what reason would they have to lie? The award season's over. I'm a writer. I'm trying to better the work maybe for the national tour. They have no reason to lie. If they voted the way that they did and BIG had these points, and they didn't vote for Swinging on a Star, then that means the people I didn't talk to had to have placed it above Rent in the number one spot in order for it to get the most votes. And then not have ranked BIG. And then not have ranked BIG, which means that people were voting specifically to keep BIG off the ballot because they knew other people would vote for Rent. So, they wanted to give all their points to some show like Swinging on a Star to ensure that the big, quote-unquote, commercial show on Broadway wasn't going to receive any Tony love.

[35:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, you said it was a very small number of people at that time.

[35:03] Alex Asp: I know now it's more like 60 people.

[35:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[35:06] Alex Asp: Was it shortly after this that they expanded it because of all this?

[35:09] Alex Asp: The year after.

[35:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, yeah, that's a—

[35:14] Alex Asp: It goes up to 30 the year after, and then like you said, I think it's even more now.

[35:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, that—

[35:20] Alex Asp: Isn't that interesting?

[35:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, that's the thing with such a small number is you don't need that many people to play that game for it to have a huge impact, which is why I think it is smarter to have a much larger group. Still, obviously, way lower than the number of total Tony voters, but you cancel out that kind of behind-the-scenes machinations that can really sway things.

[35:44] Alex Asp: It can really make it unfair, yeah.

[35:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because I think the next one after this that had a similar thing was Aida getting kept out, and I think that probably further prompted expanding because that was also a little shady.

[35:57] Alex Asp: So, that was Marie Christine, Wild Party. I'm doing this off the top of my head. Contact.

[36:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Contact. Oh, another Strowman. Interesting.

[36:05] Alex Asp: Another Strow, yeah. But yeah, for that to get the nominations it got and not Best Musical felt very intentional, and it kind of feels like, oh, this is just a few years later. We're doing the same kind of thing to put down the ideology behind the show rather than the show itself, first for big commercialism and then for Aida Disney. It's not cute. And Strowman had such a great point where she said, this here is a season full of diverse musicals. You've got Victor Victoria, which is based on a film musical, but it's a big star vehicle bringing Julie Andrews back to the stage. And they had their own drama. Look, egregiously overlooked. And then you have Rent, the rock and roll. You've got the dance of Savion Glover.

You've got the big family-friendly splash that's kind of the answer to Beauty and the Beast in BIG. So, you've got a buoyant, diverse group of musicals. And so, then to focus only on the little off-Broadway ones, 50% of which have closed and aren't going to bring the industry, the business of show, really any juice.

[37:17] Alex Asp: So, completely random, and you can cut this if you want.

[37:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're good.

[37:21] Alex Asp: Rob W. Schneider has a podcast called Broadway Bound.

[37:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Love it.

[37:24] Alex Asp: If you listen to it. And I just listened to the episode on Buster Alley, which was supposed to come out this year as well. And it would have been another completely different offering. That made me think about how this really is such a diverse season as far as what kinds of shows are up. And that's so fascinating. I can't think of another year that had that much diversity in kinds of shows being featured.

[37:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely.

[37:52] Alex Asp: Doctor, if you want to look at Broadway and the health of the new American musical, it looks pretty healthy at this point.

[38:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Especially after the 80s.

[38:03] Alex Asp: Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, so with our time left, let's look at BIG. I remember when we spoke earlier this year in the Flop Shop, the most you had to say about BIG was that you would listen to it a little bit, but it hadn't grabbed you, and you were interested to dig a little deeper. How are you feeling about the score now? Do you like the songs after sitting with them a little bit more?

[38:25] Alex Asp: I do, definitely. A lot of things in the score are fantastic. I am so confused by the different versions of the show.

[38:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, gosh.

[38:35] Alex Asp: And how after Broadway, they completely rewrote a lot of the show for the touring company. And then that's kind of, I think, the version that got licensed and produced in the UK. And then there's a cast album from 2016 of a UK pre-West End tour. And the differences between them, it took me—I had to go through and make a list of the tracks side by side to figure out which things got swapped out, which things were just rearranged. And it kind of ends up feeling like two different shows. But I do like things about both. I think, ultimately, I prefer the Broadway version.

[39:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Interesting.

[39:09] Alex Asp: As far as the cast album, the only video I can find is of the newer version. So I don't know how the whole show would feel with the original version. But the songs, I largely feel, work better together in the original.

[39:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, that's a great hot take. I will say that in the back of Making It Big, the book, there is an entire list of all of the songs that Maltby and Shire wrote and got thrown out. It's two pages long. They wrote so many songs through all of the workshops and rehearsals in out of town in Detroit, etc., even on Broadway. Most of those songs that you mentioned that are now in the licensed version are all songs that they cut in Detroit, and they decided to put them back, which I find really interesting. It's especially Act 1 that had changes from that. So the show begins with this little kid named Josh. He is right on the edge of puberty. So he's starting to like girls. He, like many kids, finds his parents annoying.

And the parents, just like many parents who have kids that are this age, they are annoyed by them. So this whole opening is about how kids wish they were older so they didn't have to do what parents tell them to do, and the parents wishing, can we get through these teens? Because boy, oh boy, this is trying. Yeah, I generally really like this opening as a way of setting up themes. I think, ultimately, as we go through the show, I don't think there's quite a connect between how they're set up and how they land, which is maybe part of why it didn't settle for some people.

[40:47] Alex Asp: Definitely for the kids, it hits of, I want to be big, and then later we'll realize being big isn't all it's cracked up to be. But for the parents, and we'll get to it more with Stop Time, but it's not quite a... It sounds really great. And that was one of the first songs that jumped out to me when I was listening to it. And then the more I re-listened, I was like, this doesn't actually make complete sense if you drill down. Because earlier we were saying that their I want was, I want to not have a teenager. And then that's what she gets, unknowingly. So it's just kind of...

[41:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Interesting.

[41:23] Alex Asp: I think, on my end, there's such metaphysical energy around the themes of the show. We're talking about time. We're talking about growing up. Things that are really difficult to nail down. Which makes them really ripe for music, because sometimes music can explore those things better. But maybe not so for a show that's trying to be a family show, with a really fun, comedic plot. Because we're beginning right with the heart of this theme. Nobody is where they want to be.

[42:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, everybody is dissatisfied. And I think that that is the greatest thing we face when we're human.

[42:09] Alex Asp: Yeah, no matter what age.

[42:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, is this constant struggle to be where we are. It's done really beautifully in this opening number. They're just singing, I can't wait until we're in a different phase. And it's so catchy. What that sets up for me, then, is this arc, this character arc, where they all realize, don't wish for time to go any faster, because it's already going by way too fast. And sometimes you don't realize that until it's too late. I heard the other day that when you're a parent and your child turns 18, you've already spent more time with them than you will for the rest of their lives.

[42:50] Alex Asp: Yeah, that makes sense.

[42:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And so, for any moment that you're really annoyed with your child, which, I mean, that's going to happen more often than not, there's this voice in the back of your head that's like, once they're 18, this is over.

[43:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Like I mentioned before, Josh goes to the carnival with his friend Billy. Cynthia Benson is there, his crush. He is humiliated because they're all going on this rollercoaster, which, by the way, Broadway had an actual rollercoaster, which is insane. Maybe too expensive. Shout out Robin Wagner, who's one of the all-time great set designers. But he's not tall enough to go. So, they go to this Make-A-Wish machine. You put a little coin in, and then you make a wish. He wishes that he were big. They go to bed. He wakes up, and now he's a full grown. I just think of Into the Woods. What is it you wish, child? Be specific. Don't just say you want to be big. That is so open to interpretation. Come on.

Don't tempt the fate. It's never going to go well. It's not going to happen. Poor thing. He doesn't have the wisdom. Now, he's this little boy trapped in a man's body. It's very much a comedy of manners, where mom thinks that a grown man has invaded her home and is endangering her children. She threatens to call the police. Her actual son, who's in this man's body, runs away. They go to find the Wish machine, but since it was just a temporary carnival, it's nowhere to be found. He has to hide out somewhere for two weeks before the carnival comes back. Well, it's so much weirder. I mean, this is, I guess, the sign of the times. They have to write in to the company that owns the machines or to the carnival to find out where they're going to be next, and they're not going to hear back for two to four weeks.

[44:47] Alex Asp: Oh, that's what it is. Oh, my gosh. How funny. It's so hilarious. Nail mail, man. That's really funny. There are some great songs here from the original Broadway cast album, including I Want to Go Home for Josh, which is both sweet and funny. That got cut after Broadway, and now it's just kind of this duet between the two boys. I find it interesting that grown Josh doesn't really get his own song until pretty far through Act One. I Want to Go Home should be there for him to have that moment of, it's a weird take on an I Want song, but it is literally I Want to Go Home, and it's not cloying because it's got these bits of humor mixed in, and he's encountering life on the street in New York and the reality of being a grown-up. And I don't understand why you would ever get rid of that.

[45:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Get rid of it? I know that one of the creators said something like, the character of Josh is a reactive character. And I think one of the struggles that they dealt with was trying to figure out how to musicalize a character who's truly just reacting to all of the things that happen to him. I mean, that kind of goes for whether or not this is a character who should be leading a musical, right? But still, I wonder if that's the reason why, is because they were always trying to give him something to do or express when in reality, that's not who he is. He's just there to take in what happens to him and react accordingly.

[46:21] Alex Asp: Yeah, I feel like when you react so abruptly like that, you're going to have that moment of regret of, oh, this is not what I thought I wanted. And that's more interesting anyway. While he's in New York, he goes into FAO Shorts, and thus begins one of the most memorable parts of the film, which is, of course, the light up keyboard, right? The chopsticks dance that happens between Josh and the owner of this toy company who has forgotten how to be a kid, who's struggling to find the desire and the drive to make toys for kids. And here's this guy who strangely knows exactly what kids want. It's this huge, huge production number that went through so many different iterations. It's called Fun. From what I can see in the making of the documentary, it seems like Susan Stroman did a great job of understanding how to turn the kind of bore.

In the movie, it works fine for it to be just the two of them on this flat piano on the ground. And she understood how to make it visually work for the audience and pull in other performers to make it a big number that's entertaining. She's a genius.

[47:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: While you can't see the whole number in the video, what you can see seems amazing. And I want to see the whole thing. So, so fun. The piano, I guess, was so heavy and so cumbersome. And it was an absolute pain. And everybody threatened over and over again, we got to cut this number. It's too big. It's too big. It's too big, which is hilarious. You can't not have it.

[48:07] Alex Asp: You can't not have it. That's what the producers kept saying. We will not do a musical of the film Big without the most famous scene as a musical number. It's a non-negotiable. That's how you close on opening night.

[48:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Now, do you know Forbidden Broadway? Have you ever listened?

[48:26] Alex Asp: Yes. I've not listened to all of the albums, but I've listened to many of them.

[48:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. This kind of goes to the schadenfreude of it all. I knew the Forbidden Broadway lyrics to fun before I knew the actual lyrics to fun. Big, the show that thinks it's a ball. Big, the show that looks like a mall. Big. No. Big is playing the Schubert till they get a new gig. Till they bring back chorus line, you'll have to suffer through big. Half that cash was better spent making other shows like Grant. Shows like Grant will now prevent big from being too big. This is exactly what the industry was thinking about this show. They're like, it's commercial crap. And yet here we just got done talking about how metaphysical its themes are. We're also approaching it from 2026 where it's gotten so much more commercial crap that we're this seems great by comparison.

[49:29] Alex Asp: Is this a masterpiece?

[49:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's a great point. Josh gets a job at the toy factory at the toy company. At the toy company, he meets this woman executive named Susan, who's a really interesting character. She has sold her soul to corporate life and feels completely lost. Meeting this new kid on the block brings something to life in her. She remembers how to have fun again. She has some really interesting songs. Do you know that this role was either going to go to Krista Moore, who got it and is featured on the cast album, or Karen Ziemba, who we love and is, of course, one of Stro's favorite people to work with. But if she had done big, then she probably wouldn't have been able to do Steel Pier, is my thought. She made the right choice for herself, at least.

[50:20] Alex Asp: I agree. I agree. Susan, what do we want to say about her? Any of her songs that you like?

[50:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I have definitely two minds about the new version of her song, My Secretary's in Love. I kind of dig it. I like it.

[50:34] Alex Asp: It makes absolutely no sense, but it is such a bop. That song has come into my head randomly in the last week more than any of the other songs. It's a rant that she is singing about how her secretary does nothing because she's in love, revealing how she views love, as well as her drive to get things done in the corporate sense. It's interesting. I dig it.

[51:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: From an economy of storytelling standpoint, it is terrible. You're taking so long to tell such a small idea, but it's such a good song. It's such a good song. It's like, I can't blame them. It's a good song.

[51:10] Alex Asp: Her second act song, because truly all of her songs are about this, are about either being unhappy, or remembering that she used to be happy, or celebrating that she is now happy. They're all very, very emotional. Her second act one is probably my favorite, Dancing All the Time. I think it's a lovely song. The lyric is from a line that Stroman said about her own life, and they were like, ooh, that's it, that's it. So they took it and made it into a song. It really is a true collaboration in that sense.

[51:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. But that song does not require this to form an arc. That song is great on its own. Again, from economy of storytelling, you don't need My Secretary is in Love, because we get it from the character from the world that she's like this. What we need to dive into more is her rediscovering how to find joy in life again. That's where the money is.

[52:10] Alex Asp: This is a quote from David Shire. He said, If you put Richard and me in a room with a piano and three monkeys with a typewriter for the age of the universe, it's just possible that we might come up with the right first number for Susan before the monkeys type Hamlet. Meaning that they really had a difficult time cracking, like, how do we introduce her musically?

[52:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because she is, in the original movie, not the most developed of characters.

[52:41] Alex Asp: Not at all.

[52:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So you really have your work set out for you to turn her into a more three-dimensional character that we're going to want to root for.

[52:48] Alex Asp: Who is she? Yeah.

[52:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He invites her to his house, because that's what you do when you're a kid. You invite your friends over.

[52:54] Alex Asp: To play with toys.

[52:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. There's this really cute song called Do You Want to Play Games, which is unintentionally filled with double entendres. But essentially, he realizes all of his toys are for boys, and he doesn't know what a girl does for fun. And she's trying to express what she wants. And so suddenly he realizes, oh, I have this astronomy machine. And he turns it on, and then there's stars. And he basically sings, I can give you stars, which is so romantic when you think about it. So no wonder she's just taken by this guy who's like, I don't know what to give you, but how about I give you stars? That's really sweet.

[53:35] Alex Asp: Yeah. Okay, this is another thing I was thinking about as I listened to this more. I wonder if the changing mentality of the youth of America from the late 80s to the mid-90s was starting to play a factor in how people perceived this show. I feel like the rise of video games especially really changed how preteen boys were at least perceived by the mainstream, if not reality, of being obsessed with playing the video games all the time. And does it resonate as much to have this kid who wants to play with GI Joes and trampolines and do all these other things? Like if it's not sports or video games, does it ring true to that audience anymore? I feel like if you put on Big now, it would be far enough removed that we could recognize that. That it's a period.

[54:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. There were a lot of people who called this musical Wonder Bread. And I wonder if it's getting to that a little bit where it's like, wow, everyone's very square, very white, very traditional in terms of how they play and live. Maybe that's not what doomed Big, but it may not have been helping.

[54:49] Alex Asp: Yeah, it's fair enough. Especially once again in the season where you got people singing about AIDS. So, yeah. The first act ends with an office party where Josh is really kind of, he becomes the star of this office much to the disdain of a fellow colleague who, you know, in a Bud Frump sort of way, it is very hard to succeed now that I think about it, wants him out. He and Susan kiss. There's this great song called Cross the Line. Now, this is a song that I have memorized by heart. It's this moment where he's like, I think this is what it feels like to be Big. I think I'm getting it. I think I understand.

[55:39] Alex Asp: I will push back on rhyming mom with from. I don't like that. I don't like that.

[55:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But this song is great. Otherwise, I'm still not sure what it means to cross the line in this context where he's at a party like I get the subtext, but what is the surface level reason for him seeing this bar mitzvah? But with adults, why would he be saying it to them? There's kids at the party. Okay, so it's all about the kids. And this was something that they discovered in Detroit at like a cast party. You know, there was like lots of dancing. And the thing that the kids could do was these bar mitzvah dances because they had all gone to rehearsals, you know, like when you go to practice these things. And so everybody was doing it. And the composers were like, oh, my gosh, this is this is it. There's something really interesting about these kids understanding these line dances. And then Josh thinking like, oh, am I crossing the line? Am I becoming big? It's kind of interesting.

[56:37] Alex Asp: Yeah, this is one of those situations where I feel like the subtext is a lot more obvious and makes a lot more sense than the text of why he's saying this, which again, is maybe not helping audiences to connect with it.

[56:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, you're not wrong. In the second act, things have to fall apart, of course.

[56:58] Alex Asp: Of course.

[56:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But let's talk through the other lyric that comes from Forbidden Broadway for me. At least it's smooth and really slick. And Michael Ockren does the trick, but sexy kids are kind of sick for a musical play. I actually quoted that the other day when we were talking about Chicago Teen Edition. Are you aware of all of these like Teen Edition musicals?

[57:22] Alex Asp: Yes, but not Chicago's version.

[57:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This moment when Josh and Susan hook up is one of the moments in the creation of this musical when the team knew they had found something perfect. They were convinced that this was the heart of the show. This moment when a boy has that feeling of, like, I don't know what this is, but I feel like I want to know what this is. That is an embodiment of growing up. And maybe it's supposed to be uncomfortable, but I find it deeply uncomfortable. From listening to the making of the documentary, I don't think they meant it to be uncomfortable. They really seemed like they believed that this is the heart of the show. And I'm like, maybe that's our main problem. And when I say maybe it's supposed to be uncomfortable, I mean, maybe it's our fault that it's uncomfortable, right?

Maybe this is something very universal and yet not explored. And so the fact that it is, it's like touching a nerve for us that's like, whoa. Well, it's, I know I'm trying. I'm trying. It's just, I think it would have been actually better if they had set him up earlier in the show to be a little bit farther along in his pubertal discovery of himself.

[59:03] Alex Asp: You think so? Even the very first number, he's like, why am I sweating when I'm talking to Cynthia Benson? That's his very first song. And maybe they could have developed that first before we got to this point, because here it just feels like if you take him out of his adult body, it's a kid saying, I don't know what this is. I'm kind of curious. And your first step is to have sex with an adult woman. That's not cool. Versus, I don't know if it's actually better, but it's at least a little bit less creepy if he has some idea what it is. And he's like, oh, this is my chance to explore this thing. I don't know anything about, but I'm curious about. Like that would at least feel a little bit less icky, very slightly less.

Very slightly. This is, once again, playing devil's advocate, because I agree that I kind of skipped this song when I'm listening to the album. If you don't know what it's about, it sounds like a great song. And it's a beautiful little melody when you hear it at the top of the show. It's magical. It really is. And I love that they're brave enough to present puberty as magical, because it's so deeply gross and uncomfortable in real life. So, more power to him.

[1:00:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But what happened at homecoming, where he's dancing with a girl his own age, having these thoughts of, I don't know what this is, but I'm curious. That's sweet. Here, it's to catch a predator.

[1:00:39] Alex Asp: I know. I feel so bad for Susan. Also, the amazing self-talk that she has as a person, because she finds out who he is, and she's like, you know what, Susan, you're okay. I would have a complete existential breakdown if I found that out. And I would turn myself in.

[1:01:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. I don't know what to tell you, but I don't want to even say it on microphone. Anyway. But it leads to such a great number after.

[1:01:10] Alex Asp: Coffee Black is so catchy.

[1:01:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, this all goes down, and then he shows up feeling like a man at work and sings this song, Coffee Black, which is fantastic. He doesn't even need sugar and cream in his coffee, but he has got this. Damn. From a craft standpoint, I think this is one of the best songs on the show. The lyrics are so streamlined, and the rhymes are so good, and the melody is so catchy and dancing around. It's just a well-crafted song.

[1:01:39] Alex Asp: Agreed. It's so fun. All right. So, what is the inciting incident that makes all of this fall apart? I'm trying to remember.

[1:01:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, I think it's when he and Susan are now dating.

[1:01:51] Alex Asp: Yeah, they're a couple.

[1:01:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And so, he goes to a dinner party with her friends.

[1:01:55] Alex Asp: The real one.

[1:01:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And realizes how out of his element he is.

[1:01:58] Alex Asp: Yes.

[1:01:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, the real thing. She has all of these yuppie friends. They go to a super fancy dinner party. There's caviar, and he basically barfs. You know what I mean? We haven't really mentioned it much, but shout out to Daniel Jenkins for being so great in this role. I can't believe I didn't even mention Daniel Jenkins, who really is the musical theater version of Tom Hanks. And his two greatest roles are both in musicals with the word big in it. Big and Big River. Go figure.

[1:02:30] Alex Asp: And then Big River again is a different role.

[1:02:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. That's right. And from all that I read, couldn't be a greater leader and nicer guy. And with all of the changes, was willing to just do it. He also had knee surgery right between Detroit and Broadway and recovered in time.

[1:02:52] Alex Asp: Good for him.

[1:02:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. So, dinner party. And all of a sudden, we realize this can't go on. Yeah, he's finally realizing what people expect of him as an adult. And he's like, oh, I am not equipped for all of this. And I love his reaction to it. The energy of when you're big. Like, David Steyer, get out of here. That is so well done.

[1:03:19] Alex Asp: It's so good.

[1:03:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because you feel that panic of, I thought I was living the high life and I don't need anybody else. Because at this point, Billy has come back with the letter of all the places that have the machine. He's like, no, I am an adult now. I don't need that anymore. And I was like, oh no, I need to go back. I need to find this and make it right.

[1:03:40] Alex Asp: Yeah, we need to nip this in the bud. You're right. He and his friend have had a falling out. And so now, after Josh tells Susan the truth, it's time to reconnect with Billy.

[1:03:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Billy finds the machine in a warehouse, right?

[1:03:56] Alex Asp: Or it's a carnival nearby. In the movie, it's a carnival that he and Susan went to on a date and he just walked by it.

[1:04:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's right. I don't think it's that in the musical, but I don't remember what it is.

[1:04:08] Alex Asp: Yeah. I think Billy finds the machine in this warehouse that has all of these different amusement park remnants. But then Josh also asks Susan to meet him there so that she can watch this and understand what's going on.

[1:04:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which I get, but it's also kind of weird.

[1:04:28] Alex Asp: Come watch me turn back into a little boy.

[1:04:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh gosh. And it happens. He makes the wish. He turns back. Susan is like, Love you, kid. You're going to grow up to be a great man. Now, excuse me while I go just pour Listerine all over my body.

[1:04:44] Alex Asp: And register myself.

[1:04:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. Who's my neighbor dot com or whatever.

[1:04:55] Alex Asp: So at least in the video that I saw, which it said it was the U.S. tour just after Broadway, but what I could read about the rewrites didn't match up with this video. So I'm not sure if that was accurate, that it was from the tour, but it ends really abruptly. They always really struggled to figure out.

[1:05:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He turns back into a boy and like, all right, curtain. Bye. I thought there would be a big reunion with mom. It would be more home-based. As soon as Susan takes herself out of the picture, I don't need any more of her. I want the wish fulfillment. And maybe this is what you were talking about with all of the parents expressing at the beginning that they wish their children were different and all the children are wishing that they were different. It would be great if the whole ending was about the resolution of that, right?

[1:05:40] Alex Asp: Yeah. Because that's how the movie ends is he goes back home. That's the emotional closure we actually want. Not him and Susan. Choices.

[1:05:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Choices. Is it better than swinging on a star? I don't know.

[1:05:53] Alex Asp: Who knows? Because that thing isn't good enough.

[1:05:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No one knows anything about it.

[1:05:57] Alex Asp: I'm pretty sure. Yes, it is.

[1:05:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What an interesting piece of Broadway history. Maulby and Shire never did another Broadway show. I think this broke them.

[1:06:06] Alex Asp: Yeah.

[1:06:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I think they were done. They're like, screw it. After Baby and this, no more. No more. We're not doing this commercial theater thing anymore.

[1:06:14] Alex Asp: That's me projecting and putting words in their mouth.

[1:06:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Both of their Broadway shows were all marketing-wise based around black, white, and red.

[1:06:23] Alex Asp: Maybe that was what doomed them.

[1:06:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That was a color palette. It's just that.

[1:06:27] Alex Asp: Thank you so much, Alex, for doing this with me. Before we get done, is there anything else that I marked in this book that I want to say? We've already been talking so long. Everyone's like, why are we having a two-hour episode on Big? It's like, because I read this book and I'm so proud of myself.

[1:06:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And because for my podcast, this is a short episode. In reviewing this a lot more and diving into both cast albums that are out there, I think there's so much good in here that I think gets overlooked because of the cloud around the show itself. At the time, it was the most expensive flop up to that point, or at least one of the most expensive.

[1:07:06] Alex Asp: No, it was the biggest financial flop in Broadway history. And I think, once again, even going through the book, there are no huge red flags where you're like, oh, this is the thing that drove the budget too far. They had so much money from all of these sponsors and stuff, so they just kept going, thinking that this was going to be a hit and run for years. And then audiences didn't come and they're like, oh, shoot, we have to close.

[1:07:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I've talked before about there's different kinds of flops and the hit flop and whatever. But in the total history of Broadway, this is above the 50th percentile for runtime as far as how many shows it had.

[1:07:46] Alex Asp: Over 100.

[1:07:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Where did all that money go? I don't know.

[1:07:53] Alex Asp: Yeah. I mean, I do think, because they had to go to Detroit, you always lose a lot of money. It's a big gamble. It's one of the reasons why sometimes people are like, well, let's just open cold in New York. Because if you...

[1:08:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I guess it wasn't as much a thing by then.

[1:08:08] Alex Asp: So, I do think that that was it. The set was enormous, for sure. A lot of big set pieces. And then they probably stayed open too long. They did this huge marketing push where they had scouts going all over New Jersey, giving $25 off vouchers to just people in the street saying like, come to New York and see Big. They were doing family packages that you could buy for the balcony. They were really kind of from a marketing place treating Big almost like a Cirque show. And I think that once again, that it turned people off even more.

[1:08:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We've already talked about Paramore, Jeff. We can't go back.

[1:08:44] Alex Asp: We're not doing it. However, Jeremy Kushner commented on your post.

[1:08:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Oh, that was so exciting. And he's coming back to Broadway in Galileo, I believe.

[1:08:53] Alex Asp: Galileo. The next most expensive flop in Broadway.

[1:08:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I hope it's really good.

[1:08:59] Alex Asp: I'm just kidding. No, I want him in. He needs a hit again.

[1:09:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, he's very talented.

[1:09:04] Alex Asp: We love him.

[1:09:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. Alex, thank you again for doing this. I really appreciate you and all of your work.

[1:09:11] Alex Asp: Thank you so much.

[1:09:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And thank you for being on The Flop Shop so that we could finally discuss Big. You finally got your wish.

[1:09:19] Alex Asp: As always, if you have recommendations you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to join us on Patreon! Where you can also come to The Flop Shop. We have, what, three years of Flop Shop episodes for you to listen to? So, join us at patreon.com slash amusicalpodcast. I would love to see you there. We're also on social media. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. We're always making great content, and we'd love for you to share it so that people can hear about a show and our episodes. If you're feeling particularly generous, head over to our TeePublic store where we've got really fun designs that can go on all manner of products, and the profits we receive from those orders are donated to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS.

More than anything, though, I'm just really grateful you're here, listening, participating, keeping musical theater alive. Hey, Alex, before you leave, please share with us how we follow you, your show. Listen to it, because it's a lot of fun.

[1:10:19] Alex Asp: So, you can follow the podcast wherever you get your podcasts, The Little Things You Hear Together. You can find me on Instagram at littlethingsweheartogether. And yeah, we're in a little bit of a break now before we dive into the next season, but it should be a lot of fun, and it's going to be even more shows that people don't know. So, hopefully, people are into learning new things, because I'm looking forward to it.

[1:10:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing. And if you haven't checked out his show, there's a large library now, because that last season had a lot of cast albums.

[1:10:48] Alex Asp: And God bless you, Jeff, for going through all of them with me.

[1:10:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I tried. I feel guilty about my score for Falsettos, and I feel guilty about my score for Hello, Dolly!, but after listening to 17 albums, you just stop caring as much, and you're like, no, something has to be at the bottom.

[1:11:06] Alex Asp: No mercy.

[1:11:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you, everybody, for listening. Remember, Stop Time. Oh, my gosh, we didn't even talk about the song, Stop Time. Everybody, go listen to Stop Time.

[1:11:20] Alex Asp: It's so beautiful.

[1:11:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's filled with so many truths. And it's Barbara Walsh, speaking of falsettos.

[1:11:26] Alex Asp: Yes, speaking of falsettos.

[1:11:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Love.