This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You know the famous story of Streetcar Named Desire. Do you know that story?

[0:07] Debbie Gravitte: No, you've got to tell me now.

[0:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, so, I mean, this was a story, you know, years ago. This actor says, I just got cast in Streetcar Named Desire. And somebody says, what's it about? And the guy says, well, it's about this delivery boy, because he was playing the delivery boy. So that's all he knew. He didn't know that, like, you know, okay, that's it.

[0:34] Debbie Gravitte: Oh my gosh.

[0:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So basically, I know all about Rosalie. This is a musical about Rosalie. However, I guess it's not called Rosalie, is it?

[0:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite shows in musical theatre history.

[0:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What? I think I did that wrong. That's all good.

[1:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today, we are discussing the musical Carnival!

[1:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Which was a listener request from both Roseanne and Mark. Roseanne wanted us to cover the show because despite being oddly dark, quote, my father saw it on Broadway in the 1960s, and it's his favorite show. I grew up hearing all about it. So her dad, favorite show.

[1:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mark wrote in a funny story with his request. He said, as a kid, I was very into unicycling and juggling. Apparently, like, he competed internationally in New Zealand for unicycling and juggling. And so in my junior year of high school, I heard that the local university was looking for, quote, unquote, circus performers for a show called Carnival. And at this point, he had no idea it was a musical.

[1:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So he shows up to the audition, showed them his unicycling and juggling, and they asked him to sing. And he was like, oh, I don't really sing. And they said, oh, okay, well, come to the dancing call. And he was like, oh, I'm busy. And so they said, all right, and he left. And like a few minutes later, he gets basically the call asking him to be in the show because of his, you know, skills.

[2:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So he goes to the first rehearsal, and it isn't until then that they give him, like, the score and tell him that he's going to be dancing. And he's like, wait, this is a musical? What have I gotten myself into? The biggest shock, however, was, and this is him talking again, the biggest shock was when we got into our costumes, and I was given what looked like white toothpaste to cover my face and make myself a white-faced clown named Sven the Juggler. All in all, I had an amazing time and made wonderful friendships. I learned I'm not really built for the stage, but I survived and even enjoyed it.

[2:48] Debbie Gravitte: I love that. I love that so much.

[2:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, well, you know what's so funny? Oh, am I allowed to say anything?

[2:54] Debbie Gravitte: Yes, please, please. Are you kidding me?

[2:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What's so funny is the two people, like, hello, Rose, what's her name?

[3:02] Debbie Gravitte: Roseanne, yes.

[3:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Roseanne and Mark, and of course, it's Rosalie and Marco the Magnificent.

[3:09] Debbie Gravitte: Oh, I didn't even catch that, Debbie. That's fantastic.

[3:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Come on.

[3:15] Debbie Gravitte: That is fantastic.

[3:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Come on, you've got to catch those things.

[3:17] Debbie Gravitte: Oh my gosh, I love that. It's Kismet, which is another show. Anyway, here to chat about Carnival is a Tony winner, Tony winner in the house. She won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in Jerome Robbins Broadway. I'm wearing my friend Jerry's shirt, belting and botmawing her face off. She also starred as Rosalie in the encore staging of Carnival a while back that also starred Anne Hathaway, Oscar winner. Crazy. Anyway, we have lots to talk about.

[3:44] Debbie Gravitte: And Brian Stokes Mitchell. I mean the cast. Hello. Everybody, please welcome, you may know her as Debbie Shapiro, or Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, or Debbie Gravitte. It's Debbie.

[3:57] Debbie Gravitte: Yay!

[3:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you so much for being here, Debbie Gravitte. You're amazing.

[4:02] Debbie Gravitte: It's my honor, my pleasure. Aloha.

[4:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Aloha and mahalo. Thank you.

[4:09] Debbie Gravitte: And mahalo, yes.

[4:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What I love about your career is that you kind of ushered in the modern age of musical theater, if you will, by working with some of these legends that were gone by the time many of us started performing, right? So it's like this cool bridge in our musical theater history.

[4:32] Debbie Gravitte: I'm a bridge. That's what I am.

[4:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Not to objectify you.

[4:36] Debbie Gravitte: I am a bridge. I'll be a bridge, because you know what I was thinking? I just have to say this. Right before we started, I was thinking, at what point do you start? What happens in our lives and in our careers that people want to look back on stuff? It's interesting.

[4:58] Debbie Gravitte: Anyway, there's really nothing to be said about it, but continue.

[5:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It is true. Well, I think it's when you've done something great, because like Jesse Mueller was on the show doing Waitress, and that was just a few years ago. You know what I mean?

[5:11] Debbie Gravitte: Right, right, yeah.

[5:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But you have done some amazing things, and I kind of want to talk about them, because like I said before we started chatting, I wear my friend Jerry's shirt, ironically, because he was notoriously, what's the word, tyrannical?

[5:31] Debbie Gravitte: Difficult.

[5:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't know. Difficult, right? Exacting. He was a perfectionist.

[5:35] Debbie Gravitte: Exacting. That's great. That's great.

[5:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[5:38] Debbie Gravitte: And he is in the same, I call them, I hope you don't take offense, I call it the generation of great manipulators, where that was how you got the performance out of the actors. You would sometimes play mind games, and Michael Bennett did it, and Jerome Robbins would do it, and Gower Champion would do it. Everybody did it, and I'm not blaming them. It was another time.

[6:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't know if it was manipulating.

[6:05] Debbie Gravitte: I don't know. I mean, I worked with Gower Champion, and I worked with Jerry Robbins, and I met Michael Bennett when he was really, really high, but that's another story.

[6:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, no, this is good. This is why I want to hear, because the Internet is flooded with other types of stories, you know?

[6:25] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, because, listen, it's your point of view, it's where you were standing when you were talking or being with that person.

[6:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure.

[6:37] Debbie Gravitte: I happened to love both those men, Gower and Jerry Robbins, who were very similar, because they required more of you. Now, if you couldn't give that, I guess you were in trouble, but for the few of us, for the many of us who worked with both of them, that we could, I mean, I compare everybody to Jerry Robbins that I work with, because he was brilliant, and he brought out the best in you, and, yeah, he could be a tyrant, but, you know, so you just have to yell back, that's all. But anyway, I loved him. I did love him.

[7:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, that's fantastic. I'm one of, like, probably a basket full of people who did.

[7:24] Debbie Gravitte: But the same thing with Gower Champion, and I was in the chorus when I worked with Gower Champion.

[7:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What did you do with Gower?

[7:32] Debbie Gravitte: It was my first, like, sort of big show. I grew up in L.A., and when I was growing up, they had this thing called L.A. Civic Light Opera.

[7:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, of course.

[7:43] Debbie Gravitte: And they would do these incredible shows, and you'd go, you'd do it in L.A. at the music center, and then you'd go up to San Francisco and you would do it, and, you know, it was just like a little... Anyway, I got cast. Gower Champion was directing Debbie Reynolds and Harv Presnell in Annie Get Your Gun.

[8:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[8:06] Debbie Gravitte: And I was cast in the chorus, and it was like, oh my God, this is huge. It was huge. And Gower loved me so much, yes, and he loved me so much that he actually wrote me a little part. I was called Ramona, because he just, you know, he recognized I was...

[8:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He wanted to give you something to do, yeah.

[8:26] Debbie Gravitte: ...a baby, and I, like, came out and sang, I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night, and I just came bursting out of some door, and that was me.

[8:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's fantastic.

[8:37] Debbie Gravitte: And they came to me and they said, normally we would have you cover Debbie, but she will never miss, and you're, you know, twice as big as she is, because she was wee.

[8:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She was a little thing.

[8:48] Debbie Gravitte: She's just a little thing.

[8:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, little, little. Oh, my gosh. I'm so jealous. That's so cool.

[8:53] Debbie Gravitte: That was pretty cool, yeah. It was awesome. I always heard that Gower, and we're talking, we're spending time on this, because Gower Champion directed the original Carnival.

[9:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God, that's right.

[9:05] Debbie Gravitte: It was always said of him that he would wear, like, like tennis wear, you know, like a sweater tied around his shoulders type thing. Do you remember how he would show up to rehearsal?

[9:15] Debbie Gravitte: He was casual, but it's L.A., so it was casual anyway.

[9:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, sure, sure, sure. But you know what's interesting, and I know we're sort of all over the place with everything, but I, in anticipation of us speaking about Carnival, I sort of went online to sort of remember and reeducate, and there's a little, there's a thing on YouTube, and it's like, I don't know if it's the first few minutes of the Encore show. It's shot horribly. You can barely see anything. But I was watching, and I went, why does this look so familiar, the opening? And I realized when I did Annie Get Your Gun, he built this opening number from nothing. I remember somebody brought a, what was it called? Like a trunk?

[10:04] Debbie Gravitte: A trunk.

[10:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Like a trunk. And then the next person opened the trunk, and then he built this whole thing so that by the end of it, you had this stage life from Annie Get Your Gun. It was like the circus. And that's exactly the opening of Carnival.

[10:19] Debbie Gravitte: Exactly.

[10:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that's exactly, so he copied himself. Wow. But it was so brilliant, and he did the same thing that Jerry Robbins did, which was he would clap, clap, clap, and you had to be completely quiet because they were being geniuses.

[10:35] Debbie Gravitte: Sure. Anyway, so.

[10:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You said they require more of you. Is that a talent thing? Is that a discipline thing? Is that a, like what is that? Is that a different gear that you shift into that you didn't know you had? Or is it all of the above?

[10:53] Debbie Gravitte: Listen, I think it's maybe all of the above because there are so many incredibly talented people. I mean, everybody now can sing, can dance, can act, can juggle, can, you know, I don't know, spit fire. And he didn't want you to mark ever. There was no marking. You didn't mark. And, of course, I'm sure all your listeners know what marking is, which, you know, I'll just remind them that, you know, you just sort of like take it a little easy, sort of lay back a little bit. You're not really giving full performance. Didn't do that with Jerry Robbins. You did full performance, or he replaced you.

[11:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[11:32] Debbie Gravitte: Because he needed to see what you were going to bring, and that's a really sort of smart thing because we all do sometimes mark, and then all of a sudden you're like, Whoa, I didn't know they could do that. Because now you're saying them not mark. But I feel like for me, you know what, I can only speak personally.

[11:53] Debbie Gravitte: Absolutely.

[12:06] Debbie Gravitte: So when you say something to me that triggers something for me to enrich what you want, those are the best directors. And I just did Fiddler on the Roof for the first time in my life, playing Golda with the Chicago Lyric Opera. Oh, I bet it was the most magnificent production. Stephen Skybell played Tevye, who had just won the Lucille Lortel Award doing it in the Yiddish version. Anyway, but it was like a cast of a hundred people with the opera, and it was mind-blowing. And it was this director from Berlin, Barry Kosky, who does a lot of opera. Hmm, and it was the same thing where he asked more of you, and when somebody asks more of you, you want to give more. I think that's life too, you know?

Somebody goes, "Oh, that's fine. That's okay." What does that mean? Hmm? I remember like my first drama teacher, Don Bondi, who went on to direct and choreograph a couple of things on Broadway, but from my high school. And I remember once he said to me, "Oh, you're fine." And that meant I wasn't good. And so it's like even now if somebody said, "Oh, it's fine," I'm like, "Oh my God." So it's like that's the worst thing you could say. Say I'm terrible. Yes, exactly. Thank you.

[13:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so real. Well, thank you for sharing that because I love having those pieces of information as we talk more in our lives about self-care and about healthy boundaries in the arts and in the rehearsal room, which tends to be a very sacred space. It's also very important to remember how important it is to be pushed, right? To get a little uncomfortable sometimes, right? But of course, in today's atmosphere, which is very different from the way back that we're speaking about. Mm-hmm. I mean, first of all, I feel like everything is constantly this pendulum that swings back and forth, and I feel right now we're sort of at this scary part of the pendulum because we're being so careful. It's shutting down parts of us because we have to be so careful at times.

The other side of that is how great it is that we're honoring people's identities and making it safe for people who probably at other times would have not felt safe and ran off either to the closet or to wherever they ran off to because they didn't feel safe. I also know that like the Jerry Robbins, the Gower Champions, the Michael Bennetts, they wouldn't have been able to do what they did now. They would have adjusted, they would have adapted, sure. I really, really have to believe that, right? Yeah, because it's just the rules of the game have changed, so you adapt, you know? You adapt or die, obviously. So I feel really good about that.

[15:37] Debbie Gravitte: It's important with context to look and see what lessons we can learn from all sorts of people in our history, especially people like our champion who honestly is somebody that I always looked up to in terms of stage pictures because you think of like the iconic Telephone Hour in Bye Bye Birdie or Dolly walking down the staircase. Even I saw some stills from 42nd Street the other day and was like, "Ah, Gower." He just knew how to build a stage picture, but he was also a very inventive stage director. And I don't think I've given him a lot of credit for that on this podcast. And I think Carnival is a great opportunity because here's a show coming out in like 1961, so we're still very much in the heart of traditional Golden Age Broadway musicals, and he's starting the show, like you said, from like a Brechtian way, from a zero, from the audience actually watching the actors build the set and build the setting all from this tiny little perfect tune of "Love Makes the World Go Round," you know?

It like almost gives me chills just talking about it. That was him, that was a brand new young director who had just done Bye Bye Birdie, right? And then got hired to do this kind of bizarre little show. So really an inventive guy.

[17:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Before we dive into kind of the story of Carnival, though, I think I want to spend some time talking about, and go with me on this, our literal brains, like our conscious brains and our subconscious brains. Because I think we nowadays are given a lot of time to our literal brains. What is this story saying, and how can and how do we see its literal effects in our society? If you're looking at a fairy tale through that lens, I think that all of the stories can seem very harmful. Cinderella, Little Mermaid, you know what I mean? They're creepy. People seem to not quite be acting like people. A lot of the heroines almost have like no personality whatsoever. But a lot has been done in terms of studying in the original The Little Mermaid, by the way, just so you know, I have one of the voices. I'm one of the voices.

[18:09] Debbie Gravitte: Yes, I am. So do which one?

[18:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you remember what you said?

[18:15] Debbie Gravitte: No, I didn't sing. I was one of the speaking sisters. For some reason, they didn't need me to sing; they wanted me to speak. So we, okay, I said, "She's got it bad."

[18:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you.

[18:27] Debbie Gravitte: Thank you, I'll take it. You're the...

[18:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm "She's got it bad." Yes, and I'm also the scrub woman when Sebastian the crab—there's an old lady and she's like, "Well, if you ask me," and I, yeah, I do a whole little speech while he's being scrubbed on the little board.

[18:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, I didn't know this, and I'm kind of speechless.

[18:54] Debbie Gravitte: I'll talk over you. No, but does that mean like, did you know Howard? Did you ever work with Howard?

[19:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But I know Alan really well, you know, actually a neighbor. I do.

[19:07] Debbie Gravitte: Well, you're amazing. By the way, everybody, Debbie came out with an amazing record of all Alan Menken songs, so like if you want to actually hear what "Will He Like Me" or "Daughter of God" or "Take Care of Your Heart" sound like, oh my God, you're so good.

[19:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, I love that album. Anyway, sorry, what were we talking about?

[19:29] Debbie Gravitte: Little... Oh, no, no, we're talking about so fairy tales.

[19:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, yeah, I get it, and it's been fascinating. I haven't seen the new version of The Little Mermaid. I don't know that I want to.

[19:39] Debbie Gravitte: Sure, it's great. It's great.

[19:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But this isn't just like to hate on The Little Mermaid, but a lot of like the live-action Disney remakes have been about, okay, how do we take this literal-minded approach to these fairy tales that when you look back at them seem constructed to almost access the subconscious mind to help us deal with anxieties and stresses of life more so than teaching little girls to give up their voice in order to, you know, go be with that. Yeah, and I think that Carnival is a fairy tale that's not a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale when you look at these characters that from once again using that literal brain, you're like, "Hmm, I don't think people really behave like this." And there's a case to be made for that.

If we can set that to the side, if we can just put that over here, and it's great and it's fine, and it's absolutely a valid viewpoint, but let's just set it over here for this episode and kind of look at this show and let it kind of wash over us and see what maybe is underneath because I think it's pretty profound. Now, the one literal thing that I do want to look at with this show is the power of puppets. How on earth have we as humans decided that like you get next to Kermit the Frog and that thing that's made of felt and like styrofoam, it has life? We all just forget that these puppets are being handled by somebody else because they are so iconic and really access, I think, dreams, wishes. I don't know, it's a really beautiful thing.

[21:28] Debbie Gravitte: It is beautiful. And I think that the idea in Carnival is that this man is incapable of vocalizing his love for this person. Now, she's way too young for him, and he's too old for her, and that's like a little creep thing. But yes, once again, but this is what fairy tales and stories speak to us about, which is we can't—we all don't have the gift of verbalizing all our feelings all the time.

[22:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And so much good people.

[22:14] Debbie Gravitte: That's right. And I mean, how many times—I don't know about you, but I watch movies and I'm always going, "Just tell him! Talk to each other!" You're like, "Why? Why are you just saying what you feel?" If you're British, okay, I get it, you're not supposed to do that. But even I—crazy, the thing that popped into my head was last year when Everything Everywhere All at Once came out, which I just loved, and Michelle Yeoh is fighting with her daughter, and she like goes up to her, and you think that she's going to say something beautiful, and then she just says, "You're getting fat. You need to watch what you're eating." And you're just like, "No! Just say I love you!" Right? But like that's her puppet. Like that's what—that's the only way that she can say it, right?

[23:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. So I think obviously circling back to Carnival, it's really—it is. It's a fascinating take. And then you have little Anne Hathaway, you know, who then responds to those puppets. It's really—it's an interesting thing. I mean, every kid has their stuffed animal that they're talking to or cuddling or making out with or, you know, it's—I mean, not that I ever did.

[23:38] Debbie Gravitte: But I think that these puppets are something that everybody can agree on because we all grew up with Sesame Street. We all know like the Muppets are one of the most iconic intellectual properties out there. And even Jim Henson, I think when he was inducted into a Hall of Fame, you know, he said we owe all of this to the old TV shows that first introduced people talking to puppets.

[24:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, Kukla. Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. Kukla, thank you. See, nice job. That's why I need both of us. And that was such a hit because it was a children's show that also accessed adults. Like everybody loved watching that because there was this woman, Fran, and she was talking back and forth with the puppets and it was fun and, you know, smart and clever. And then based on that, there was this short story called The Seven Souls of Clem and O'Reilly by this guy named Paul Gallico. And he wrote kind of what you were just talking about, which is this man who can't really access parts of his heart. And so he uses the puppets that he performs with to express that. And that then became a movie called Lily in 1953 that starred the amazing Leslie Caron. Amazing Leslie. I mean, I re-watched that movie in preparation to chatting with you. And she's just so lovely and such a unique talent on screen. And so unique.

[25:18] Debbie Gravitte: She is one of my favorite musicians.

[25:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, really?

[25:23] Debbie Gravitte: That's really wrong too, but I just love her so much. And I met her and I just sat at her feet and worshiped her and we did something together. And she was as wonderful as you wanted her to be.

[25:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's so great to hear.

[25:36] Debbie Gravitte: Another shorty. They're all short.

[25:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They're all short.

[25:38] Debbie Gravitte: Everybody in the movies is short, everybody. Everybody in the movies, short, short, short.

[25:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But she was so lucky that this story was written because she has such a unique presence and a unique set of skills that post-American in Paris, which like turned her into a star. The studio was having a hard time finding pictures for her to star in. And then here comes Lily, which is just kind of built for her. So after Lily's a big old hit, which also had a big old hit of a song, a song of love is a sad song. Hi, Lily. Hi, Lily. Hello.

[26:12] Debbie Gravitte: Okay.

[26:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That was from that movie. And I'm always really fascinated by movies that become musicals, but are famous for different types of songs. Anyway, once that was a huge hit, then Carnival.

[26:30] Debbie Gravitte: Like an inverted version of that song.

[26:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're right. You're right. It does sound like that. But David Merrick, the Abominable Showman, gets pitched this idea to turn Lily into a stage musical. Long story short, the great Bob Merrill, who's someone we haven't talked about on the podcast yet, wrote the score. Now, Bob Merrill is probably most famous for writing the lyrics to Funny Girl. That was his biggest hit, but he also was a composer in his own right. This is probably his most well-known score. Am I right in that? What do you think?

[27:04] Debbie Gravitte: That I know. That I know.

[27:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because he wrote a lot of musicals and pretty much all of them flopped really too bad. Some great work, of course, in all of them, but he had some notorious flops like Breakfast at Tiffany's with Mary Tyler Moore. That was his. Pretty Belle with Angela Lansbury. They just didn't take. But Carnival did. In addition to Bob Merrill, Michael Stewart comes on to write the book, who would later go on to do Hello, Dolly! Gower Champion comes on, who would later go on to do Hello, Dolly! And Mac and Mabel.

[27:42] Debbie Gravitte: And Mac and Mabel. So, David Merrick is kind of creating his little team that would repeat several times thereafter. Did you ever do Mac and Mabel?

[27:52] Debbie Gravitte: I did a big, giant concert version with Jerry in London.

[27:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: In London? Were you a part of multiple Mabels? Was that that one?

[28:02] Debbie Gravitte: Correct. It was Georgia Brown, Debbie Gravitte, Tommy Tune, Paige O'Hara, who had just come off of doing Beauty and the Beast. Oh, my God. There are other people too, and I can't remember who they are.

[28:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Frances Ruffell, wasn't she on there?

[28:22] Debbie Gravitte: Oh, yes. She was.

[28:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Anyway, Ruffell.

[28:26] Debbie Gravitte: She was pregnant.

[28:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, how cute. You're going to have to help me with some of these French pronunciations in the show because I am the worst, literally the worst. So, great team, small little odd show opening in a season that honestly, and I've said this on the Milk and Honey episode we did last year, this Broadway season is one of my favorites because it is so diverse. It has so many weird, interesting shows.

[28:52] Debbie Gravitte: 61?

[28:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 61 or 62. I forget what the Tony Awards, how they spaced out. But you had How to Succeed in Business Without Overtrying, Carnival, Milk and Honey, Kwamena.

[29:06] Debbie Gravitte: I've never heard of that one.

[29:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's Richard Adler, like, Damn Yankees, Pajama Game fame. No Strings, Richard Rogers and Diane Carroll winning, being the first black woman to win the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress. So, it's such an interesting season. And a lot of the shows don't get done anymore, but I think it's filled with all of these really cool nuggets. And Carnival is one of them. It ends up being nominated for Best Musical. It doesn't get nominated for Best Score, which is kind of crazy. But the competition was really stiff because there were just so many musicals. And it wins for Best Leading Actress for Miss Anne-Marie Alighieri.

[29:49] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah. Now, if anybody doesn't appreciate the soprano voice, go listen to this Carnival cast album. I mean, my gosh, she sounds just...

[30:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was really sad that we didn't record our version.

[30:04] Debbie Gravitte: Me too. It was recorded for the New York Public Library, right? That's what I read.

[30:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really? I didn't know.

[30:12] Debbie Gravitte: But you guys would have sounded incredible. So, now let's go to Encores! Because the show gets done in community theaters, but in terms of having a major revival, not so much.

[30:24] Debbie Gravitte: Right, right.

[30:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But you guys had an incredible cast when Encores! decided to stage it in the early 2000s?

[30:32] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah, mid... I think it was 2007, 2002, 2007. I don't know.

[30:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We're going to give ourselves a little window there. In the role of Lily was Anne Hathaway. You had Brian Stokes Mitchell playing the guy with the puppets. You were playing the incomparable Rosalie. And who was your magician? Douglas Sills!

[30:55] Debbie Gravitte: Douglas Sills, yeah.

[30:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, come on. You ate up that stage.

[31:00] Debbie Gravitte: No, no. It was pretty fabulous. This is like the end of the story, but they did want to move the show to Broadway. Because people loved it. But this is a quote, Anne Hathaway wanted to be a movie star. And she was right on the precipice. She had done, I guess, Princess Diaries, the first one. And, you know, her management just went, no, you don't want to get stuck doing a Broadway show. She was really young. Her parents would pick her up, I think, from rehearsals.

[31:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh.

[31:40] Debbie Gravitte: I mean, it was crazy. It was crazy. Yeah.

[31:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, I mean, and I guess she was right.

[31:46] Debbie Gravitte: I was mad about that, because I went, oh, this would be really fun to do on the Broadway. But it didn't happen.

[31:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's too bad. Now I need to go to the New York Public Library to see if that is actually true.

[31:58] Debbie Gravitte: Well, I'll go with you. I'm going to see it.

[32:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, let's talk through the show a little bit. We'd already discussed this opening that begins with Love Makes the World Go Round. Probably the most famous song from the show, yeah? It reminds me of Try to Remember, like those beautiful, beautiful songs from this time period. I mean, I think I can guess the answer. But why do you think the show starts out with this song?

[32:24] Debbie Gravitte: Well, I don't remember it starting out with that. But I don't know that our version did.

[32:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, sure.

[32:29] Debbie Gravitte: Maybe the tune of Love Makes the World Go Round.

[32:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's just the tune. Yeah.

[32:32] Debbie Gravitte: It's just the tune. And then it morphs into this other moment where he presents the cast. Because I think, you know, smart people go with their hit.

[32:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's true.

[32:45] Debbie Gravitte: Like, why not do, you know, the most tuneful thing? I mean, I think they knew right away. That's a smart thing that good writers do. They tease. I happen to love White Christmas and actually tried to get it produced many years before it actually did, when it was still like on a DVD. And I was like, this would be the greatest Broadway musical. Anyway, if you listen to that, throughout the movie, all the background music that's being played while, you know, everybody's talking is blue skies, blue skies, blue skies, you're hearing blue skies 50,000 times. Every tune just keeps getting repeated, repeated, repeated. So it's an earworm. And then when you hear the song in the show, you're like, oh, that's so beautiful. Why does it sound so familiar to me? I know this song.

[33:36] Debbie Gravitte: That's right. So these are smart people who do that. So that's my guess with that. And I think that emotionally, it connects as well, right? You're planting the seed so that when people actually do listen to the lyric and the full song, it lands, you know, it has some weight. And this beautiful, simple little tune is the basis of this whole fairytale world.

[34:02] Debbie Gravitte: John Tartaglia. John Tartaglia. He was one of the puppets.

[34:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, he was in your, he was like the assistant, the puppeteer assistant guy?

[34:13] Debbie Gravitte: Because he worked on Sesame Street. So they got he and Stephanie, Steph, oh, Steph, I can't remember her last name.

[34:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: From D'Ambrosio? D'Ambrosio?

[34:24] Debbie Gravitte: Yes.

[34:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: From Avenue Q World?

[34:27] Debbie Gravitte: Yes. Yes.

[34:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's cool.

[34:30] Debbie Gravitte: Anyway, so they went on to do, obviously, Avenue Q. I think they were going to do that right after that. Does that make sense?

[34:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh. Go figure. Yeah.

[34:36] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, sorry. It was very star-studded. And there were a lot more people than that, even so.

[34:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So the simple tune bleeds into direct from Vienna, which is the, you know, welcome to the show. Welcome to the carnival. And in the carnival, we have the great magician. How would you describe Mr. Marcus? He's a...

[34:59] Debbie Gravitte: Marco the Magnificent.

[35:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Marco, excuse me.

[35:02] Debbie Gravitte: He's a complete and total narcissist and, you know, or maybe that was Doug Sills at the time. No, no, no. I love him. I love him. No, he was fantastic. He's got the thing. And Marco has his incomparable assistant, Rosalie, originally played by the amazing Kay Ballard.

[35:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God.

[35:29] Debbie Gravitte: Right?

[35:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What a talent she was. Incredible.

[35:32] Debbie Gravitte: For those who may not remember one of the ugly stepsisters from like the Julie Andrews Cinderella, right? But so much incredible, great comedic musical theater that she gave us playing Rosalie. So can you talk a little bit about the dynamic between Marco and Rosalie?

[35:50] Debbie Gravitte: Well, I mean, I think he just sort of tortures her. And she, of course, loves him. And, you know, it's all a little bit unrequited. And yet, it's not. I think they sort of give each other what they both need, maybe not what they want, but what they need. And, you know, a really fascinating relationship, which I don't know that you would portray, you know,

[36:15] Debbie Gravitte: Again, these days. A fraught, a fraught, you know, hetero relationship. It's like, who cares? Yeah, really? Screw them. So I remember just having such a great time with it. And of course, you know, of course I had a crush on him and of course it was, you know, completely ridiculous, but you know, that's just like what we do in the theatre. We all crush on the person that we're playing opposite of.

[36:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. I think it helps, especially when they're that talented.

[36:47] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah, yeah, no. And it is this really fun dynamic where Marco is such a ladies man and is always trying to get with everybody and honestly probably does get with everybody. And Rosalie knows it and knows way more than he even knows. She knows, you know, like that sort of thing. And it gives her a lot of, a lot of fire to work from.

[37:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. And I think that she, at one point, and you probably know this more than I do, at one point, she sort of like says to little, little Anna Marie Albuquerque, Lily, you know, careful, careful.

[37:27] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah. I can handle this dude. You can't handle this dude.

[37:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And she, of course she's right.

[37:34] Debbie Gravitte: That's so true. Also in the carnival is Paul. Paul has a puppet show, which is, I mean, unfortunately failing miserably. Paul is a veteran from the war. He was originally a dancer and then has sustained a war injury on top of, I'm sure all of the other trauma that comes from serving in a war and has really withdrawn himself into this kind of world of puppets. The person, the guy who owns the whole thing is like threatening to shut down the puppets because it's just not popular, especially in comparison to Marco and Rosalie. And right at that point is when Lily enters the world.

[38:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Lily is an orphan. Her parents have died. Fairy tale anybody? And she comes into this kind of magical world of the carnival looking for the souvenir man who her father told her to seek out because he might be able to get her a job. So here comes this young, very innocent girl, orphaned, looking for the guy. He's no longer around. I believe he's passed away as well. And within like the first 10 minutes of her being in this world, she's basically assaulted. Marco happens to run into the whole situation and saves her. And that kind of gives birth to her infatuation with him. She's now in love with Marco because he saved her.

[39:11] Debbie Gravitte: Let's see. I might need to check my notes, but does she then get hired to be another assistant? Oh yes. Then she does get, yeah, she becomes part of the show, which is when she, yeah. Yes. Lily gets offered a job in the magic show. And Lily is so excited to take it. She sings this beautiful song called Yes My Heart, which is if you're looking for a soprano audition song, ladies gobble that one up. It's fantastic. Unfortunately at the magic show, Lily's so excited that she ruins one of the magic tricks and she's humiliated. And now this leads to poor Lily, like trying to commit suicide. Like this is, this is like, yeah, like this is where I'm like, it feels like a fairy tale because it's fanciful and there's puppets and there's wonder and imagination. And also in the first act, there's sexual assault. There is a suicide attempt and like a protagonist of a male protagonist who is hated by every other character in the show. It's strangely kind of dark, right?

[40:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I think it's, I think it's fascinating. She decides, it's really interesting way to kill herself. She decides to try to climb up like where the acrobats, like the, the tight rope, the trapeze. Oh, the trapeze. Thank you. To, to jump off. Right. And, and, and things. And as she's about to do it, a puppet pops up. The puppet of course being one of Paul's puppets, but Paul, because he can't talk and express his emotions in this way, he uses the puppet named Carrot Top because he's like a little ginger to talk Lily down from the cliff, literally. And it works. And she connects to the puppet. Now, never once does Lily like peer behind the curtain at this beginning and be like, who's talking there?

She, she fully accepts that this puppet is saving her life and connects to it. A Carrot Top isn't the only one though. There are several other puppets, all of which embody a different personality of Paul's because we are complex people with lots of different parts of ourselves. And so anytime that someone's a little egotistical, another different puppet comes out and talks. And the Carrot Top is really the one who cares most about Lily and wants her to be happy and wants to take care of her. And this friendship, this really beautiful relationship begins to grow between Lily and the puppets so much that it gives birth to now the most popular thing at the carnival. It's a puppet show where Lily talks to the puppets and they sing.

And there are several really sweet songs, no pun intended because one of them is called Beautiful Candy, that really get to delve into the fun dynamic of the jokes and the heart. And, and they're, they're just really charming.

[42:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The first act ends with Love Makes the World Go Round, which is what Lily sings. Once again, everybody go listen to this cast recording. It's so beautiful. Paul is in love with Lily. He can't talk to her about it. And like, what's going to happen, right? That's kind of the big cliffhanger. One thing before we go to the second act that I got to talk to you about though, is the song Humming, which is Rosalie's big song. And I did not know, I did not know this song very well at all. And I've listened to it at least four times because I think it's so funny and so clever. It basically is about how Rosalie knows that Marco has cheated on her because he'll always hum. So every time he's like walking around humming in a good mood, he's, she's like, that's son of a bitch.

[43:15] Debbie Gravitte: It's pretty fantastic. That had to be fun to sing.

[43:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my God. It was incredibly fun to sing. I mean, listen, you have to know, and for, for those of you who don't know, you know, when you do an Encores! production, you have a small rehearsal window and unfortunately a small performance window. And the whole thing about when you're doing a show, no matter what show you're doing, the more you do it, the better you are and the more comfortable you are. So you sort of have to go into instant performance mode. So I guess I could take the song out right now and like, look at it again. I probably should because I'd probably be so much better now because I would remember it and everything.

[44:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Are you, are you guys memorized in Encores! I forget, or do you have scripts in hand?

[44:08] Debbie Gravitte: Well, you know, what's interesting about that, Donna Murphy called me one day. She was about to do Wonderful Town for Encores! and she said, okay, tell me what really happens. And I said, Donna, you should be completely memorized. They say, oh no, technically you're supposed to have your book in hand. Like equity rules, right? Technically. Yeah. Nobody uses their book and everybody's memorized so that if you're, if you're the one, if you're the asshole who didn't memorize your stuff, you're going to look like, wow, well she's not very good. So, so anyway, I, I, you try to be memorized.

[44:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Earn her other Tony award.

[44:54] Debbie Gravitte: Well that, see and Wonderful Town got to go to, to Broadway.

[44:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: To the Broadway. Yeah. Because Anne Hathaway didn't need to become a movie star in that one.

[45:05] Debbie Gravitte: That's right. Anyway, anyway, so you do, but again, it's fast. So, you know, the next time I do an Encore show, I will be well armed and prepared if I ever do one again.

[45:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You've done, was that the last one you did?

[45:22] Debbie Gravitte: I did. I did. Boys from Syracuse, Carnival.

[45:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, maybe Carnival was the last one I did.

[45:29] Debbie Gravitte: What was the other? Tenderloin.

[45:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Tenderloin. Of course. You guys did record that one and your Little Old New York is fantastic. And My Gentle Young Johnny. I think that's such a beautiful song. And then of course, and we did record Boys from Syracuse as well. So I just assumed we were going to record our Carnival, but that didn't happen. Instead, you get this podcast episode, everybody.

[46:02] Debbie Gravitte: All right, so in Act Two, like we said, the puppet actor has become a hit and then things get a little dark again. Paul gets really jealous because Lily is still infatuated with Marco the Magnificent. And so he kind of goes all director tyrant. Speaking of some of our faves, he starts like controlling every little thing that she does during the show and picking everything that she does apart to the point where Paul and Lily get in this huge argument. And then at the apex of the worst possible moment of that fight, he says, I love you. And like kisses her. And she's like, are you kidding me? This is the most confusing, aggravating human I've ever met in my entire life. And she sings the song called I Hate Him while he sings in counterpoint this song about her face because she's got a great face. Anyway, this is kind of the crux of the second act is that he's like slowly letting things out, but like at terrible times. And it's just confusing poor Lily to death.

[47:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Rosalie and Marco the Magnificent have a kind of happy ending, though, right?

[47:24] Debbie Gravitte: You guys have this as dysfunctional as it seems. You had this song called Always. You just say always, always, always over and over again. What's it called?

[47:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Always, always you is the song. And is that kind of where we leave those two? Is that?

[47:40] Debbie Gravitte: Oh, no, no, no. Wait, because I totally forgot about this. So Rosalie is always kind of dangling this guy named Dr. Glass over Marco's head, saying like, I'm going to run away with this guy and you'll and you'll never see me again. And so like that's kind of her ammo that she's always using to to make Marco be in line. Anyway, Dr. Glass proposes to Rosalie and she turns him down, but takes instead a contract to allow their magic show to tour all of these super fancy hotels that he happens to own in Europe. So like Rosalie as the true.

[48:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Just like solidified their itinerary for the next couple of years and so they're happy campers. Wow, Rosalie, she had her shit together.

[48:35] Debbie Gravitte: So then that leaves us with what on earth is going to happen with Paul and Lily. I'm so excited to hear. What on earth is going to happen? Paul has fully realized that he is in love with her and she has kind of unlocked this part of him that he thought didn't exist anymore. But unfortunately she has become so fed up with his back and forth and all the drama that she's leaving the carnival. She says goodbye to Marco and it's interesting because Marco has this one last attempt to like get with Lily and Lily at that point stands up to him and he's like oh shoot you've grown up little girl. Good for you. And in a weird way by her rejecting this infatuation that she had with Marco is kind of the sign that she has grown up here at the carnival.

Then the puppets appear to Lily and they ask her to take them with her. Right, I remember that. It's so sweet and they're like shaking and trembling and that's the moment when she grabs the puppets and takes them off of Paul's hand. Now do you remember and if you don't that's totally okay did you play it in this Encores! version as though that's the first time that Lily realizes that Paul's been behind the puppets? I don't you know what I don't remember. I don't I'm sorry. No it's fine. Sorry. But once again that's kind of like the literal part of the brain that you just kind of have to set over here because originally it was written that like this is the moment when she shows that she has matured that is also the moment that she's willing to finally recognize that these puppets are being puppeteered by someone else.

And Paul reveals himself as kind of like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain and that it's been him all along. She puts it all together that all of these different puppets all these different personalities are what make up this one human being and she's able to see him for who he truly is and they continue on with the carnival together because kind of that that is the setting that's the far far away that allowed them to get to know each other in the truest sense.

[51:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So just problems and black ketchup abound. Here's what I have to say about this and what makes this show kind of seep into my cellular DNA. We are all whole people and we are all terrible at showing the people we love the most that fact. And I'm speaking this as my my my own personal self. I know that I am a control freak. I know that I am kind. I know that I am selfless and I know that like the person who loves me has to deal with all of those parts of my personality coming out at times that aren't always awesome. And that's what being in a relationship is. And what I think soothes that anxiety for me about this show is that the people who love you will see that puppet and recognize that it's part of you. Does that make any sense to you? Does that connect in any way? I'm really trying to work that out my brain.

[52:20] Debbie Gravitte: The only thing I can say is that what you just basically did say is that we are all made of many many parts. And what's interesting in relationships is is what attracts us to different people and mutual attraction. I mean it's not always easy. I mean that's why people are like you don't know what goes on in the bedroom with people. You know that you don't know what goes on behind closed doors with people because you're like why are they together? Why are those two people together? But we're attracted to these weird things that we can't we can't summarize in a neat little tight little two-line story.

[53:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's it. That's it. And so you know for this guy I mean it's sad that that true it gets back to what we started talking about which is like be honest tell you know give people your truth about stuff. I have three children and I hopefully if there's one thing I've taught them is you know be honest be truthful to people because life is short. Tell people how you feel. Don't don't waste any of that.

[53:35] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah. So I think that you know you're seeing this show and you're like just tell her you love her. You know you just want to like you know rip off the puppets from this guy.

[53:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And I think that we all have a little bit of that with us in ourselves.

[53:46] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah. You know I think we all have our puppets.

[53:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes we all have our puppets. I think that's I think that's what I'm trying to say is that there we have parts of ourselves and sometimes we don't even know they exist. And we don't always want to reveal.

[54:02] Debbie Gravitte: And we don't always want to reveal. But when you when you meet somebody you love they come out. They come out because of love. And like that's kind of magical. Cue the music. Here we go.

[54:15] ♪ Musical number: "Love Makes the World Go Round" — performed by Debbie Gravitte ♪

[54:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Ladies and gentlemen thank you for being with us. Okay. Yes. But seriously like now the song hits right. Right. We heard the little concertina at the beginning to kind of introduce this tune. But now it's like all right now now we get it.

[54:36] Debbie Gravitte: It's a weird show. It's a weird. It's a weird show. But the more I think of the more I just kind of let it wash over me the more I'm like there is something really sad and beautiful and real about this show that in many ways makes no sense. And isn't that art?

[55:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's art.

[55:01] Debbie Gravitte: Yeah.

[55:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Debbie Gravitt thank you so much for chatting with me today. It's so great. When you look back on this show what are we walking away with? What do we keep? What do we dump? Like should it be done? What do you think?

[55:19] Debbie Gravitte: I think in the context of the time that it came out of which is post-war when there were many walking damaged people. Amen to that. Which probably you know we're sort of living that right now. We're all sort of walking around little zombie apocalypse damaged humans. I don't know. I don't know that this isn't one of those like you'd have to do it as like a historical moment in time. I don't know. It would take somebody very you know again if you take away a lot of the darkness you know you need darkness to let in the light. So I don't I don't know if somebody could take this piece and retool it and then it would be like what? Something might be even more confusing.

[56:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah it would be more confusing.

[56:09] Debbie Gravitte: So I don't know. I always I sometimes use on the podcast this metaphor of black ketchup because my great great or my great grandma was from this time period from like post-war and so she didn't throw a lot of things away and in her basement she had all of these like containers of ketchup like these bottles of ketchup that had turned black like they were no longer red they were black and it was like hey grandma maybe we should throw these away. She's like oh it's fine you know what I mean? And I wonder sometimes metaphor if we have musicals like that in our theater history where they've sat on the shelf way too long and they've turned a little black and it's like all right well maybe do we just throw them away and are grateful that they were there? Or do we dump out the black ketchup and put in some new stuff there? There are many ways to kind of approach it but I don't want to forget this because it's a good exercise for us in 2023.

[57:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes I completely and totally agree.

[57:19] Debbie Gravitte: I know how you could fix the show. I know how you could make it more palatable if you shorten the age difference between the two. That's one thing right there and if you gave it the context of you know not like you can you know have shots from World War II or World War I. In fact did this come out of World War I or World War II?

[57:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was two. I think it came out of World War I.

[57:46] Debbie Gravitte: Oh do you think so? Oh well because maybe the carnival the whole idea of the carnival was probably more popular post World War I right?

[57:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah it might have been yes World War I. Anyway but that's a whole other discussion.

[57:59] Debbie Gravitte: Anyway I think there's so much good to it that it should be remembered.

[58:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah agreed. I feel the exact same way about all of the amazing shows that you have done over the years and I can't wait to see what you do next because you have like this amazing family and you've really dedicated time to cultivating that and also doing amazing you know concert tours and things like that but I'm not gonna lie I'd love to see you on stage sometime soon.

[58:25] Debbie Gravitte: Me too. I'm ready.

[58:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast you can always email me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com just like our friends Roseanne and Mark. Be sure to follow us on social media we always got great content there as well as on Patreon where for only one dollar a month you get bonus episodes and you know what the best way to support the show is of course to give us a nice review and rating wherever you might be listening. Don't forget check out our TeePublic store where you can get your very own My Friend Jerry t-shirt and the profits we receive from that will go to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS.

[59:12] Debbie Gravitte: More than anything I'm grateful for you and I'm grateful for these conversations that we have and for the opportunity to talk with amazing people like Miss Debbie Gravitt. Debbie do you have a website that people can go to to learn more about you?

[59:30] Debbie Gravitte: I do it's sort of being reconstructed but yes yes yes yes it's uh it's debbiegravitt.com very difficult to remember and yeah and of course you can you can find me you know on Spotify and you know and everything all the music things. The Jerome Robbins Broadway cast recording, Tenderloin, all of the Encore stuff, the Alan Menken album. I'm telling you guys Debbie's a treasure.

[59:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's me. Thank you again for chatting with me and everybody out there um uh take off your puppets.

[59:57] Debbie Gravitte: Wow yes take off those puppets.