This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was such a powerful opening. I don't know that I've ever seen, except for, now I do like the opening of Lion King. I have to say, the march down the aisles is pretty exciting. I love that.

[0:15] Aisha DeHaas: Those elephants are exciting.

[0:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They're very exciting.

[0:18] Aisha DeHaas: But next to that.

[0:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Next to that.

[0:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons.

[0:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You can call me Jeff. Today, we are discussing the musical Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, and I'm really excited. I've been thinking a lot lately of organizing like a top 10 list of musicals that I think people should know from each decade, beginning maybe with the 1930s. And if I were to do that, Bring in 'da Noise would definitely make my top 10 list for the 90s. Like, it's just chef's kiss, but it's not just me. This musical is also a listener request from Amanda who wrote in and said, quote, I was gifted a collection of brass Broadway ticket keychains from the 1990s, which included iconic shows such as Cats, Les Mis, Chicago, Miss Saigon, Rent. Included in the set was a keychain for a show called Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, which I had never heard of before.

Should I know it? Am I the only one that doesn't? Is this a classic I've overlooked? Please help me remedy this. I need to learn more about the show that managed to be included amongst this pantheon of 90s Broadway, unquote. Well, Amanda, this one's for you. And just so everyone out there knows, Amanda isn't just a listener. She has kind of rescued A Musical Theatre Podcast. Last year, my schedule just exploded, and she stepped in to help me with emails and scheduling and social media. And I'm so, so grateful. That's all to say we have her to thank for not only this episode, but many others as well. We love, love, love you, Amanda.

[2:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, here to chat with me today is someone who knows Amanda's keychain collection intimately. She has been on Broadway many times in shows like Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, Rent, As the Moon, and Caroline, or Change. One of my favorites, and we could talk about that show all day. I guarantee you've also seen her in TV movies, including the pro shot of Newsies, where she played Meta. Everyone, please welcome the divine Aisha DeHaas.

[2:34] Aisha DeHaas: Hello, hello, and thank you, Jeff, for having me. And thank you, Amanda, for asking the question.

[2:42] Aisha DeHaas: Amen. I completely agree.

[2:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: OK, so I want to say right at the top, because many people might not know, Bring in 'da Noise is a dance show. Right. And like so many of them, including like Sophisticated Ladies or Black and Blue, Contact. Usually the only way most people know about them is if they saw them in their original production. Like your local regional or community theater can't produce these things. The original choreography is way too important, which is also why I feel like this episode is so important, because this show is so much more than a dance review.

[3:19] Aisha DeHaas: Yeah, absolutely. When did you first come in contact with it? Because this was your Broadway debut, am I correct?

[3:26] Aisha DeHaas: This was my Broadway debut.

[3:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so cool.

[3:30] Aisha DeHaas: So I my family moved to Chicago when I was very young because my dad was a musician. He got a gig. So we were in Chicago. My brother actually moved here before I moved back and was going to Amden, blah, blah, blah. And he would tell me about this show. He's like, you've got to get here because I've been moving back to New York since we moved to Chicago. So he's like, you have to get here, you have to get here. There's this show and you would be great in it and blah, blah, blah. And so he had been talking about Bring in 'da Noise. And when I finally did get back here at the top of 1997, shortly thereafter, I got. Well, no, I did a couple of shows. I went to Germany. I did Dreamgirls. I came back.

[4:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You were Effie in Berlin.

[4:26] Aisha DeHaas: Very good, Jeff. I've done everything. With the late, great Tony Stevens was the director. And we had a great time. But shortly after I returned at the top of '98, I got a call to come in for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. And I was flabbergasted because they told me it was a short list. And I was like, well, what is a short list? And I haven't been here that long. And I was like, yeah, there was like eight folks called in for the singer. And the role is called the singer, the singer. So, yes. So I went in, I went in and I got it. And it was for Andrew. And they had been long gone. And Lynette Dupree, who was her understudy, went into the role. She was leaving. And Tina Fabrique, the fabulous Tina Fabrique, was her understudy. And so she was moving into the role. And then I understudied Tina Fabrique, the fabulous Fabrique.

[5:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[5:37] Aisha DeHaas: I'm so glad that you can kind of talk about going into the show, because I've done some research on kind of how they created it. But then stepping into what has already been created and seemingly improvised, like what was even written on the page for the singer? Because there's a lot of growls, a lot of...

[5:59] Aisha DeHaas: Well, luckily, when you get a job on Broadway, you go in and you have I think I might have had two weeks rehearsal before I actually went in. But you go and you watch the show. Right. And the thing about this show is the creation of this show. Oh, my goodness. Is that if you are lucky enough to be cast in this show, you are cast because you have a certain creative ability. Right. So when you're given a song like Chicago Bound, which was my favorite to do, and you know the outline of the song and you know the words that you have to say, then all those little pieces that fit in between are your own interpretation of what that song is, what it means, the purpose, whatever specific time it lands in the show. And then it is up to you to create that. That is the profound theatricality of Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk.

[7:09] Aisha DeHaas: And I want to dive into that right now, because this show is about history, specifically African-American history. And it's funny that this is coming right after our Hamilton episode, because where Hamilton is using rap to kind of spew out as much information as possible, Bring in 'da Noise is going inside, is going into the rhythms of history. And what can we learn about life?

[7:37] Aisha DeHaas: Yeah. It's a show about tap and the history of tap. And the history of tap is the history of, you know, America and black people in America and where it came from and how it started. And during the enslavement, we had drums that were used to communicate. And once, you know, people found out that that's what we were doing, they took those drums away. So how then do you communicate? Right. And that is what tap came out of. We had nothing. So you got something for nothing. That's where something for nothing comes from, right, is that now we have created dance. And that is the birthplace of tap, you know. And when you think about somebody like Savion, who I think George actually said he's like the repository of all tap, of all styles. He has learned from the greats who learned from the greats before them and so on and so on through time. So, yeah.

[8:51] Aisha DeHaas: This show comes at the perfect time because of that very thing. You needed people associated with this show who could be a bridge from the history of tap that's being passed down, you know, from generation to generation into now a commercial Broadway platform that can sustain that kind of artistry, you know. And so that plus the fact that R&B and hip hop is really coming on strong there in the 90s and, you know, even more so today, it's such a perfect example of what the 90s did well.

[9:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let's talk about some of these people because your career has continued to have these connections with Bring in 'da Noise ever since. Let's begin with Savion Glover because you brought him up. Savion Glover, one of the all-time great tap dancers. By the way, everyone, Savion Glover is on Instagram. He has like 60,000 followers. That is not enough. How is one of the most important dance figures of all time on Instagram and only have 60,000 followers? You all need to go to Instagram. I'll have the link in the show notes. Follow Savion because he's doing amazing work, educational work. I mean, just so locked in. So born November 19th, 1973. From what I have read, white dad left early on, but his mother's side of the family, incredibly musical.

And from the get just had this rhythm that everybody recognized. He begins tap dancing and by 1985, he makes his Broadway debut in The Tap Dance Kid, which is a show that I think a lot of people forget. We shout out Dreamgirls. We just talked about it. It was like Henry Krieger's follow-up to that show, right? So Savion Glover makes his debut in Tap Dance Kid. A few years later, he does Black and Blue, which is another dance review. Starts out, I think, in Paris and then transfers to Broadway. And then a few years after that, does Jelly's Last Jam with Gregory Hines. He plays a young Gregory Hines and the director of that musical, which I'd love to do on the podcast one day, is George C. Wolfe. Now, not only did you do Bring in 'da Noise with Mr. Wolfe, but that's Caroline, or Change as well, right?

[11:28] Aisha DeHaas: Yeah. Can you talk to me a little bit about Mr. Wolfe, who's a legend?

[11:33] Aisha DeHaas: Here's the thing. Because I went in so late, I was pretty much put in by one of my favorite stage managers in the world, Beverly Jenkins, who is constantly working. So I didn't get to work with George so much at that time.

[11:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's interesting.

[11:56] Aisha DeHaas: But who I did work with, and thank God he was still there, was Zane Mark, who was one of the creators of the show. And he was the musical director and conductor for the show throughout its run, right? Because I think he has some credits in the music, like in the actual scoring of the show.

[12:17] Aisha DeHaas: Yes, in the actual scoring of the show. So him and Savion and George and Ann Ducanet actually were the creators, right, of the show from an idea that came from George and Savion, right? And then Reggie Gaines wrote the book, okay? And I've still not met, unfortunately, still haven't met Reggie Gaines. Poet, the poet Reg. I keep hoping that time will come, yeah. Fantastic poet and advocate and still doing so much work, you know, hosting poetry slams and spoken words and so on and so forth. So unfortunately, at that time, I did not work with him, George, personally at that time. But Zane Mark was a tremendous help and really working with him in this musical format was great because of that give and take of the creative energy. It's like, no, I'm not going to do it exactly like Tina or Lynette or Ann. But I've taken all of that that they've given and incorporated it into what I'm doing, right?

[13:40] Aisha DeHaas: Totally, yeah. But yeah, you bring yourself. Which is kind of when you like zoom out, that is the meta definition of bringing the noise in many ways.

[13:49] Aisha DeHaas: Exactly. What is the culmination of this tradition that's being passed down? So actually, I didn't get to work with George until a little known show that I'm still upset about called Harlem Song that we did at the Apollo Theater.

[14:07] Aisha DeHaas: Yeah, you have to look it up. Harlem Song was fantastic. The late B.J. Crosby was in it. Of course.

[14:20] Aisha de Haas: Zane was also the musical director for that. And let me not forget to mention that Daryl Waters was also on the creative team of BRING IN 'DA NOISE, BRING IN 'DA FUNK. Right. So, you know, George is a wonder, first of all. He's so knowledgeable about everything, right? But really wants you to participate. You know what I mean? He's not a director who's going to just tell you what to do. He will tell you what to do. But he wants to see and hear what is your motivation? What do you think? Why do you approach it like that? Why do you think that? You know, yeah, he likes to be surrounded, of course, by uber creative people. It's a wonder to watch him work. And you really have to listen because he talks very fast.

You're trying to write down everything he says. Slow down, George. That's incredible. I have a quote from him here. Because when you look at what tap had been on Broadway up until this point, you know, 42nd Street had run forever over the Schubert, only to then be replaced by Crazy For You with Susan Stroman. And then you have Tommy Tune's, you know, tap additions on Broadway as well, all of which exciting showstoppers, but all using tap in an emotional way that isn't very complex. I think that's how I would say it is that it's coming from joy. It's coming from exuberance. It's coming from what we like to say, teeth, you know, teeth and hands. You got the big jazz hands and the big smiles. And here is what George had to say about tap specifically.

I wanted to see how tap could not just tell stories, but how it could convey complicated emotions. Jazz dance does this as do modern dance and ballet, but tap wasn't being mined for its emotional content. It was always lopped off as an art form that's just exuberant and fun and playful. I wanted to see how we could use tap to convey desires and how it could become a source of delight, intensity, rage or power. So I can imagine after working with someone like Savion for Jelly's Last Jam, he kind of turns to him and says, Hey, we should do something together. What are you interested in doing? And Savion's quote is literally, I want to bring in the noise. I want to bring in the funk. I want to bring this energy that African American tap.

I don't even know. Is that the right way to say it? It's rhythmic tap, but the African American traditions of tap. Well, that's what happened. I mean, what happened was, you know, in the jazz age, black people had moved to Harlem. We had the Harlem Renaissance and they brought that energy with them and that style of tap. And then Hollywood wanted to cash in on that, but they couldn't have it be as what they thought of maybe as indelicate as it was in the black community. So they had to clean it up a little bit, right? They had to clean it up. That's why, you know, you see Bill Bojangles Robinson dancing sweetly. Everything is fun and games. You've got Shirley Temple and that is the tap, the Hollywood tap. You couldn't have the raw, let's say the raw tap of the jazz age, you know, in Harlem. And I think that just carried along to Broadway, of course, you know?

[18:31] Aisha de Haas: Of course. Especially in the 1980s when you see musicals trying to make blockbusters in the same way that Hollywood was making blockbusters. So that makes perfect sense. What's interesting also is that at this point, George C. Wolfe is the artistic director at New York Shakespearean Festival and the Public Theater. And so Bring in the Noise starts out off Broadway at the Public Theater. It also feels, and I could totally be wrong about this, but it feels like this show was also the moment when the Public Theater found its kind of iconic type and font that's like very energetic and rhythmic. Paula Scher, I think is the famous, I watched a Netflix documentary about her. Anyway, but she kind of created the type for the Public Theater.

And if you look at it, I think Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk is kind of the beginning of that. Anyway, it starts out there and then transfers to Broadway pretty quickly after. Now we have already discussed this whole phenomenon during our Big episode earlier this year, where Big the Musical was going to open and thought it was going to pretty much have the season all to itself. And then two shows transferred off Broadway to Broadway, one being Rent, the other being Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, both of which once again, you know very well. So can you talk to me a little bit about what you feel like these two shows brought to Broadway and what it was like being around that, you know, kind of energy, especially because, I mean, who could have predicted that that's what musical theater would have turned into in the 90s?

[20:10] Aisha de Haas: Well, I think, you know, when you look at the big Broadway musicals before Noise, Funk and Rent, a lot of them were, you know, geared toward family fun. And, you know, you just want to be entertained, not necessarily you want to learn something, right? And I think with the advent of the 90s and rap music and, you know, such a movement that we had of youth in theater, that what these shows brought was an energy that really wasn't seen on Broadway, that I can recall right now off the top of my head. And it brought not just entertainment, but knowledge, right? That people may not be aware of. You see a show that has all this tap dancing, like 42nd Street, but where did the tap dancing come from?

Let's look at that, right? You see a show like Rent, my goodness, and how many people really learned about the AIDS epidemic from Rent, you know? And with such great storytelling in both cases. So, I think, yeah, so I think they kind of knocked the other big boys off the street.

[21:47] Aisha de Haas: No, they did. And I remember the Tonys that year. Everybody thought, well, it's Rent's year, you know, in the same way that people probably just expected Hamilton to win everything and it did. But what's interesting is that when the Tony Awards come around, Bring It to Noise, Bring It to Funk wins a lot. It wins Best Director for George C. Wolfe. It wins Best Featured Actress for Anne Duquenet. It wins Best Lighting, Best Choreography for Savion Glover. So, it really, when you look at the awards, Rent didn't sweep like I think a lot of people thought it would. It was very shared between these two shows. When you were performing in both of them, what was the makeup of the audience? Was it still mainly white and older, or were you seeing more diversity in the audience?

[22:40] Aisha de Haas: Well, by the time I had landed in Noise Funk, it had been running over a year already. And so, the audience was more diverse than really I've seen lately on Broadway. And with Rent, the diversity was in the youth. So many young people that came. Also, both of these, they had a score that you weren't hearing on Broadway. So, yeah, the audience was quite diverse. And in that respect, the audiences are still... You still have a lot of young people that are still coming. But with the shows that maybe we call the black shows, I am not seeing as much diversity as I saw when I went into bringing the Noise, bringing the Funk.

[23:53] Aisha de Haas: That's fascinating. I mean, to me, a lot has to do with the price of a ticket.

[24:01] Aisha de Haas: Marketing and price. I get it. Well, I will say, I don't want to put my grandparents on blast, but because I'm so grateful for them, they were the first ones to take me to New York and see a Broadway show and it changed my life forever. But when we were looking at what shows to see, I think it was probably 97 when we went, and Bring in the Noise was one of them. And they said absolutely not that they were not interested in going to see Bring in the Noise. And unfortunately, I had heard them say racist things in my youth. But since then, as I've gone through it, I honestly think maybe they made the right choice. I don't think that they would have been ready for the truths that you find in Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, because it is confronting in how entertaining it is amidst the pain and complex emotions that are being explored.

So, with our time left, I would love to go through these different sections, because that's basically how the show is constructed, is in these sections. And any context that you can bring to us about what was going on on stage or what was being explored, because there is an original cast album that you can hear and it's thrilling because it's recorded live. So, you get the mix of the rhythms from the spoken poetry and the rhythms of what is being sung by Anne Duquenet as the singer, plus all of the live taps. So, it's really, really exciting, but you don't get the visual. You don't know what's really happening.

[25:47] Aisha de Haas: Oh, my goodness. Which by the way, wouldn't a revival be amazing for this?

[25:52] Aisha de Haas: Yes. Yes. I mean, there's a revival. There's so many revivals that have happened in the last five years of shows that have been revived enough. But, yeah, I think it's still- The next time we want to do another Music Man, let's instead do Bringing the Book. Or Guys and Dolls. I mean, we all love Guys and Dolls. They're fabulous. They're absolutely wonderful. But add another section about the Obama administration and then George Floyd. Add two more sections to this thing. It would be incredible. Just saying. All right.

[26:34] Aisha de Haas: Yeah. It was an incredible experience and I was fortunate to go on a few times and it was thrilling. And just from the opening, Slave Ships, right? It's a stage that's almost sparse and then you see a doorway and it's a wash, kind of a blue light, because the beat. So, you have the singer, the voice, and then there's the beat and that's the tap, the beat. And so, you have various cast members who are the beat.

[27:16] Aisha de Haas: The beat at any point. At any point. So, you have the beat and when the song begins, he is depicting sitting in the hold of a slave ship. And really, the whole opening, because we didn't know anybody's names. They didn't write down any names. They didn't give them names until they became a slave. So, we don't have the names, but we do have the names of the slave ships. So, it begins a little slowly with the naming and then the C's get rough. And so, that's the build in the song. It's the rough C's and then the debeat. The debeat, that's the intense tapping going on and on and on. I mean, it's such a powerful opening. I don't know that I've ever seen, except for, now, I do like the opening of Lion King. I have to say, the march down the aisles is pretty exciting. I love that. Those elephants are exciting, but next to that.

[28:31] Aisha de Haas: Next to that.

[28:41] Aisha de Haas: You know how huge the slave trade was, right? But then you hear just name after name after name of the ships full of people. It's 400 million humans, 400 million out of every 300 made it. Yeah, insane, yeah, so that's where we're beginning like when we're talking African American history, we're talking African American history from that first section called "In the Beginning," where I love the idea that in the beginning, you know, in the Bible, it says in the beginning there was the word and here there is a play on that and saying that in the beginning there was the beat, right? There was this rhythm, there was life, and even in the face of this horrible tragedy. The next section is called "Something from Nothing," and we've already talked a little bit about this, but can you talk more about the ring circles? Because I think that that's something that people don't know a lot about, kind of the ritualistic nature of tap as far as it's connected to Africa.

[29:53] Aisha de Haas: Yes, and the call-and-response. So the call-and-response. Yes. Thank you. As we, you know, as we talked about, the drums were taken away. And so, how do we communicate? And not just communicate, but how do we let our people know how we feel, how we're doing? And that's from the beat. So what you would have is, you know, the enslaved in a circle and one would start communicating through hand clapping and foot stomping and tambourines maybe, and then would pass it to another person who would then enter the circle. So that's how the circle became such a bit, which is still, you know, just a short story aside, my brother, who was in Shuffle Along, so he's had the George Will Know experience as well.

[30:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my god.

[30:53] Aisha de Haas: Oh wait, Darius, yes. Okay, you, my gosh, the royalty in your family. Thank you. So he's got a story about he wanted to be in Chili's last day. I'm so bad. So the audition, you know, you have Gregory, you have all the Ted Levy, you have all these fantastic tappers, and they did a circle. And they did a circle, so you had a drummer that did the beat, and then you would, you know, Gregory would start, he would do something, and then he would pass it to somebody else, and on it would go. And Darius, who is not a tapper by any stretch of the imagination, he went in there though and did his time step. You know, did the best he could do, and you know, he said, I looked at Gregory's face, and you know, Greg was like, "Okay, all right for your syncopated single time step, my friend."

[32:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's adorable and terrifying.

[32:09] Aisha de Haas: Yes, I can't even imagine that circle. Well, they often say that a lot of tap as we know it is the combination of the ritualistic nature of, you know, of the call-and-response and these circles mixed with some of the Irish traditions that were found in New York City and all kind of smashed together during urbanization, which is where we go to ours.

[32:48] Aisha de Haas: Urbanization, reconstruction. Absolutely. Well, you had it, you know, after the emancipation, you had free Black people migrating, the Great Migration, right? People looking for a better way of life. So up they go, and here's so many landed in Chicago and New York right at around the same time that so many Irish were also landing in New York. There was a show on Broadway, and now I can't remember it, but it was just maybe two or three years ago, Paradise Square, that talked about the Black village in, you know, the mid to lower Manhattan and how the Irish and the Black people really lived together.

[33:40] Aisha de Haas: Yes, so you had this exchange of culture. None of these people were living high and mighty; they had to get along. And yes, so you had two great traditions that were meeting. One of the other things I love about this section of the show is, of course, the creation of this tap as we know it and also a reminder of how noisy everything became because of industrialization. You have the sounds and the bits and the bobs of the city that in many ways, like we said about discovering the rhythm of history, changes the soundscape, the landscape of where you're living. And to think that that doesn't influence the musicians and people living in the city is ridiculous. You hear them, you hear the tap representing and reflecting a lot of that, the new technology that's being used in the city.

[34:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Amen.

[34:47] Aisha de Haas: Oh, by the way, if there's anything that you loved performing during all of these sections, shout them out because it all feels so integrated. But I think I said my favorite was "Chicago Bound," was the bit that which is part of the migration where the singer and the beat, you know, represents sort of a train, the train that's moving north. And of course, everything wasn't all hunky-dory once you got up north. But I loved performing "Chicago Bound," and then I loved it. I just loved, I loved everything. I skipped right over the "Lynching Blues," which is devastating, and you can imagine what that song's about, but it really does go through piece by piece and beautifully leads into the next. So like, you know, the lynching and everything then brings us to this migration and "Chicago Bound," etc. The first act ends with, like you said, the fact that not everything's hunky-dory when you move and dare I say violent. The first act ends with a more, because like you got the Chicago Riot Rag, you got "Dark Tower," the "Whirligig Stomp." Those are kind of the numbers that end the first act.

[36:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, seeing it in my mind's eye.

[36:23] Aisha de Haas: Yeah, because right when you got to up north there, it was a disruption in the way of life to have this influx of Black people. So in act two, we go to Hollywood. Things had become commercially viable. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because of Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance and the incredible artists that came out of that. And so it becomes this promise of let's head west, right, and find our dreams in Hollywood. It's this section called "Where's the Beat?" It almost reminds me of, you remember the dream ballet in the middle of "Singing in the Rain"? When Gene Kelly is like knocking on all the doors like, "Gotta Dance," and then they're like, "No."

[37:18] Aisha de Haas: It's kind of like that, except for the people are like, "Yes, but clean it up."

[37:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, but...

[37:28] Aisha de Haas: Mm-hmm. So I'm so curious about what was going on stage during this, like "Uncle Huckabuck" and "Kid Go," kind of these different things that feel, it sounds very satirical.

[37:42] Aisha de Haas: Yes, yes. So you had the open stage, then you had this staircase, right? So it was flat top and then stairs down each side, and you had "Uncle Huckabuck" and what was her name? Anyway, they were representative of Bojangles Robinson and Shirley Temple, right? And it first starts out with just, you know, Uncle Huckabuck just doing his tap up and down the stairs, and it's a beautiful iconic scene from the films that we know.

[38:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, absolutely, and it's beautiful.

[38:22] Aisha de Haas: Then you have the voice and the singer, the singer mainly, I think, in this number, who is singing about what is happening, you know, what's going on and aren't they cute and blah blah blah, but then it takes a turn and it becomes, "You are not doing what you're supposed to be doing." And so there are many times when Bojangles worked with the Black community, but you don't really see those images so much. The images you see of Bojangles are in these movies with Shirley Temple, so that is masterfully done.

[39:06] Aisha de Haas: After the Hollywood sequence, we're now into like the 1950s. It's called "Street Corner Symphony," I think, which really kind of spanned the decades from like 1956 through 1986, I think, okay, somewhere around there. So sure, every momentous happening was depicted during this time, you know, from the marches to the beatings to the great writers that we had of the day, you know, the history makers and the ones that made history because of whatever events would happen to them. And so that was all in that whole sequence of events.

[40:02] Aisha de Haas: I'm suddenly remembering this gorgeous poetry where they talk about Langston Hughes. Yeah, no, I can't remember. Anyway, Webb Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, all of these great writers, they took excerpts from and incorporated it into the "Street Corner Symphony," and that's what Reg E. Gaines, who just still, we can't find him. He's out there, but that's where he really came in in terms of bringing that structure and those words. Originally, all of this spoken word was done by the great Jeffrey Wright, who of course we all know and love for many things, including "Angels in America," that George C. Wolfe himself had directed.

[40:53] Aisha de Haas: So I mean, once again, y'all are, it's a really great juxtaposition or dichotomy to have these history-making people, the progress, if you will, right up next to something like the big blackout number where you see that money isn't being allocated to communities and there are severe electrical problems. And so you also have these blackouts, and what does that sound like, right, when you can't see anything? What is it? How does that change the rhythm, and then how does tap embody it?

[41:44] Aisha de Haas: Scary sometimes, still thrilling. Like this is what I'm saying about my grandparents, incredibly entertaining, but also thought-provoking and, yeah, because I mean in the tap, you know, so you have the tap going on, and is it tapping or is it gunshots? What is it? Yeah, and this is what our experience is in our neighborhood, and then that blackout, you get all the fears, the noise. It's all the noise, and the funk is, all right, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna deal with this? You know, funk, I think it's from an African word meaning, you know, sweaty, which, you know, funky, sweaty, but then of course it changed, funky meaning, "All right, let's deal with this. Let's find a way." It's finding a way, and so right, that's the noise and the funk. I don't think, thank you for framing it that way because I hadn't considered that like, bring it on, because we have the funk that's gonna match it. Mm-hmm. That's really powerful.

[43:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Almost makes me tear up, is this section of Savion Glover's specifically, where he talks about what we discussed earlier, his connection with all of the legends, all of the great tappers, and how all of their styles, how he really is a sponge, just kind of like you said, a repository of all of this information about not only technique, but style of these great artists. And so, in this number, he goes through each one and describes how the style was a little bit different and why the style was the way that it was. Was it because of sociopressures? Was it because of personalities, right? And he's able to mimic every single style. And it's the coolest thing I've ever seen, and I have never seen it. Because you hear it on the cast album, and it's so clear what he's doing. It's inspirational beyond anything.

[44:08] Aisha de Haas: Buster, he made his look with the copacetics and the hoofers. He was like a real showman. He would come up with jokes for the audience. Then he could also hit. His hitting style was on the light side. He wasn't a heavy hitter or nothing like that. He was light, crisp, clean. Sly would be somebody you could go to, and he'd just have the answer. Sly was like our grandparents. Just mad wisdom. From that, from showing all of the breadth of this work of these teachers, Savion Glover then finds his own. If you think of Dolly Dinkle's School of Tap, full at-ball change, full at-ball change on your toes, that ain't Savion Glover. Savion Glover is a heavy tapper. He's a heavy hitter. He's a heavy hitter.

It is a heavy sound that he discovers that he's coined as hitting. To hear him express that and basically say, like, all of the stuff is great that's come before, but this is what I feel, and this is how I have to express it, feels so authentic and genuine. It's really cool. It really is because he is now the gatekeeper of the style, of the art form. Our history is told through the art form. That's the greatest way to learn about our history.

[45:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We did at City Center, we did Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. So cool. He choreographed it, right?

[46:02] Aisha de Haas: Yeah, he's another one. When you work with him, he's not a tap count person. He is a rhythm. He's going to sing the rhythm. He's going to do the rhythm. Don't ask him if it starts on eight. No, he's not concerned with that. But yeah, it's marvelous to work with him.

[46:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: By the time you got in, I'm sure he had moved on, but are other people telling his story, or was he still around?

[46:35] Aisha de Haas: Well, he came in for the last month.

[46:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, how cool. So you closed it out, basically. Wow.

[46:42] Aisha de Haas: He came in for the last month. I was there for five or six months, and he came in for the last month. And taking nothing away from Bakari, who was doing the role that Savion did before that, he was fantastic. I think he is living, working, teaching in DC now. But yeah, it's Savion.

[47:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, 100%. Now, the day that this drops, members of our Patreon fam over at Patreon! will receive a bonus episode all about another choreographer, Buddy Bradley. Now, this is a choreographer that has largely been forgotten in history, and Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk felt like the perfect time to talk about him. The only reason I know about him is because of this new book called Feel the Floor that's all about Buddy Bradley. And I was able to chat with the author, Maureen Futter, about his contributions, not only to dance in general, but the Broadway musical. When I mentioned Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, she had something very interesting to say. Let's listen to this little clip.

[47:59] Aisha de Haas: Buddy Bradley's studio assistant when he had a Broadway dance studio in the 1920s was someone named Henry Letang. Henry Letang went on to win a Tony Award for the choreography of Sophisticated Ladies. But he was also the mentor of Gregory Hines, who in turn was the mentor of Savion Glover. And this is so for all dance, and particularly African American dance, it is a person-to-person lineage, and we're all fortunate recipients of these traditions.

[48:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: To hear the entire conversation with Maureen Futter all about Buddy Bradley, the forgotten choreographer, go to patreon.com slash a musical podcast. You won't regret it, and it may change the way that you look at dance forever.

[48:49] Aisha de Haas: This then leads us into kind of the last big section, which is the more modern day. I think the number Taxi is maybe one of the most famous numbers, because I remember seeing Taxi maybe on David Letterman or something like that growing up, and didn't get it. I thought it was amazing. But I'm just like a teenager in Utah, and sorry, you guys, I didn't get it. But now I do. Now I do. The whole concept is that for so long, and maybe even still to this day, Black people had a really difficult time getting taxis to stop in New York City. And it didn't matter how you were dressed, if you were dark-skinned, light-skinned, if you had on a hoodie, if you had on a suit, it didn't matter. It did not matter.

That's how the number is structured. It begins with someone who, maybe a more judgmental person would be like, okay, well, I see why a taxi won't stop for that person. But then maybe the next person is dressed like a professional with a briefcase, still not stopping for him. And every time that the taxi doesn't start for them, they express what that is in tap right there on the sidewalk. And tap in the beat. Because each dancer, once the taxi goes by, he connects with the drummer. He connects with the drummer first. Who's like the street drummer, the street drummer right there. And then they have that communication. That's great. This is how I feel about what just happened. That's an important element, that community, that connection with somebody.

[50:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And one of the drummers, Choc, his real name, Jared, now I can't remember, because we always called him Choc. But he's Lauryn Hill's drummer for years and years.

[50:46] Aisha de Haas: Stop it. Oh, my gosh.

[50:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Choc, yeah.

[50:49] Aisha de Haas: Hot dang. Choc Hills, what's going on?

[50:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Larry, who was also fantastic, was like his young protege. He was in a Coca-Cola commercial way back in the 80s or early 90s of a kid drumming on the street. And that was Larry, yeah.

[51:10] Aisha de Haas: And he was in Noise Funk.

[51:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh. The legends in the show. It's so cool. So, the show does end, I think, on this, well, for lack of a better word, funky note, right? Where, despite all the noise, it's celebratory. It's, um, let's bring in the noise, bring in the funk.

[51:36] Aisha de Haas: Yes, absolutely. I mean, because it's, you know, we have to. We have to survive. We have to persevere, despite all the noise, and what we have to do to make it through the day in this country. And, you know, I think that we, as Black people, are generally a joyful, joyous people. We have to find a way, because there's so much other bullcrap that you have to deal with, that you find a way. You just find a way.

[52:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Amen to that. I'll be your amen corner for that one.

[52:25] Aisha de Haas: All right, yeah.

[52:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you know, I was at church on Sunday, and I don't want to put, once again, I'm not trying to put my brothers and sisters on blast here, but there was this old white guy, and he was talking about, kind of with the rise of megachurches, that there's not a lot of room for still sacred spaces, if that makes sense? Like quiet, meditative spaces, which I totally get. And I will also say that I think what some of the megachurches are trying to do is what you're saying, which is that tradition of that no matter what comes, we are going to be more joyful than the ugliness that comes our way. And when that's real, I think you can feel, versus when it's just trying to be entertainment.

[53:22] Aisha de Haas: I agree with you, Jim.

[53:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, that's ultimately what I hope everyone's taking away from with Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, is that incredibly entertaining, but more than that, soulful, and joyful, and thought-provoking, and just kind of theater at its core and definition. So, what a cool thing to be a part of.

[53:44] Aisha de Haas: Yes, indeed. I agree. I agree.

[53:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm so grateful that you spent some time with me today. Thank you so much, Aisha.

[53:52] Aisha de Haas: I was happy to do it, Jeff, and thanks for asking. And thank you, Amanda.

[53:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Shout out, Amanda.

[53:59] Aisha de Haas: Shout out, Amanda.

[54:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast, you should email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to see you over at Patreon! That's patreon.com slash amusicalpodcast, where you'll get the bonus episode that was mentioned earlier, as well as an entire library full of bonus episodes, essays, contests. It's a wonderful place. I'd love to have you over there. That's patreon.com slash amusicalpodcast. We're also on our socials. Yeah, we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok. Please share our content so that people can hear about our episodes and allow our community to grow. If you're feeling generous, head on over to our Public Store, where lots of designs can be put on all manner of products, and the profits we receive from those orders are donated to Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids.

More than anything, so grateful you're here and listening to the pod. Aisha de Haas, you're incredible. So grateful you're here. Can you please share with us how we follow you or anything that you want to plug that's coming up?

[55:07] Aisha de Haas: Well, I am on the Instagram. Lately, I've been doing, you know, I've been involved with the plays, with the plays. Did a beautiful play last summer at Alabama Shakespeare called Kudzu Calling, just absolutely gorgeous, written by Donetta Lavinia Grace. I've also been doing symphony. I sing a lot of the Great American Songbook with symphony orchestras around the country, and I got to go to France this year for the first time. I've never been to France. That's amazing.

[55:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was absolutely amazing. Was it a working trip?

[55:46] Aisha de Haas: Yeah, we did. That's the best kind. Right. We did two shows in Lille, France, which is glorious. You know, well, listen, it's France. I've never been to France, period. But Paris, you see pictures of all the time, right? Movies, pictures, blah, blah, blah. But Lille, France was glorious.

[56:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How gorgeous. Oh, that sounds amazing. You have an amazing website.

[56:21] Aisha de Haas: Well, it needs to be updated, so don't go there.

[56:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So don't go there. Just kidding.

[56:28] Aisha de Haas: Go to Instagram. And threads.

[56:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. And you know, I'm still, if I'm doing something, I will post on Facebook. I'm not there every day, but if I'm working in New York.

[56:37] Aisha de Haas: For your mental health, I recommend.

[56:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. If I'm in New York doing something, I will put it on Facebook.

[56:43] Aisha de Haas: Amazing. Aisha de Haas, thank you so, so much. Have a wonderful day out there. Everyone, thank you for listening. Let's bring in the noise, bring in the funk, yeah?

[56:59] Aisha de Haas: Yes. Yes. Very good. Thank you, Jeff.