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[0:00] Karen Ziemba: Before the Tony Awards, you had won a lot of awards for this role. So like, did you kind of know you were going to win? I mean, a little bit. I guess I had a leg up, so to speak. But there were some pretty heavy hitters in that category. And especially, Bertha Kitt was the one I thought, you know what, she's been around a long time. She may take it home. Sure. And she was sitting right behind me. Anyway. And I also thought because for some reason, the Best Featured Actress in a Musical Award was given that night later in the show. And it's usually one of the things they do earlier. You know, you think those things to yourself. Totally. But it was very exciting. And Rosie O'Donnell had been the host that night.

And she told us prior in the day prior, she said, Listen, you guys, 45 seconds, get up there. Think who you should. Don't go too crazy, because I don't want to preempt any of musical numbers. You know, you can't go past 11 o'clock. So I made sure that I was, you know, brevity is the soul of wit, I said to myself. And so it was a pretty short speech and everything. But I, I felt so strangely comfortable up there, because Radio City Music Hall was where I did my first professional show in New York. In 1982, 81, 82, I was one of a part of a big ensemble, the big summer show, which was called Encores!, which was the 50th anniversary of Radio City. And so that was my first foray into professional theatre in New York.

So I'd been on that stage, and I felt it felt so warm being up there. And even though Radio City is huge, the colours, the gold and the white and gold and stuff, and the way it's, it kind of envelops you kind of has a curve to the, to the audience. It feels very warm. And so when I got up there, I felt so comfortable. I've never heard a story like that of accepting an award. But I did get myself up there and out of there quickly. I remember because Rosie said, in and out, come on, let's do it.

[2:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because you're a dancer and you take notes.

[2:07] Karen Ziemba: Yes, that's true. I do take direction well.

[2:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favourite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. Today we are talking about the musical Contact, which I know, even mentioning that Contact is a musical will probably make somebody upset. But do not worry, we have the Tony Award winning star from that show here to discuss it with me. Ladies and gentlemen, she's been in like 15 Broadway shows. She won a Tony Award for Contact, she was nominated for four. It's Miss Karen Ziemba.

[2:57] Karen Ziemba: Hello, Jeffrey, Jeff.

[3:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey, KZ. How did you get that nickname, by the way, KZ?

[3:05] Karen Ziemba: When I was rehearsing And the World Goes Round, the songs of Kander and Ebb, a review of Kander and Ebb songs, it was myself, Jim Walton, Robert Cuccioli, and Brenda Presley, and Karen Mason. So it's a cast. Karen, Karen, Karen, Karen, Karen. You're KZ now. Susan Stroman and Scott Ellis, the director, started calling me KZ because it was too confusing with the two Karens. And so I've been KZ to them and many others for, I hate to admit it, but it's like 30 years ago.

[3:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes!

[3:44] Karen Ziemba: But it went by fast, and it feels like yesterday.

[3:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm so grateful that you're here. You are definitely like a hero of mine, as a singer, dancer, actor. And I'm really grateful to have you on this episode, because you are a staple of musical theater, and yet you have the dance technique to do a show like Contact. You have the working relationship with Susan Stroman, who was the director-choreographer from way back. So I'm really excited to dive into a lot of this.

[4:12] Karen Ziemba: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Glad to be here.

[4:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, I saw you in Contact, and I got a picture with you afterward, which I'll be posting. I wore a yellow sweater because of the girl in the yellow dress.

[4:26] Karen Ziemba: Right.

[4:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Like, I was that kid who designed all of my outfits based on the shows I was going to.

[4:32] Karen Ziemba: Oh my goodness.

[4:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That was my graduation trip. Like, I graduated high school, and my mom and my grandma, we went to New York to see a couple shows before I left to go be a missionary for my church.

[4:45] Karen Ziemba: Oh.

[4:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was an LDS missionary, and so this was a last hurrah with me and my granny and my mom. And we had a wonderful time, and we went and saw Contact, and it was the first time I had heard the F-word in a theater.

[4:59] Karen Ziemba: What'd you think of that?

[5:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was more worried about my mom. And it's not that mom would be offended and walk out, like, she's not that type of person, but I wanted to make sure she wasn't, like, crying. Like, she wasn't injured from the sound of those words. But I remember really loving it, and it's also the show that I wish I could see now in my 30s. Like, it was a momentous show to be having this much storytelling through dance in one evening of theater.

[5:32] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, it was how it conveyed so much through very little dialogue, even though John Wideman did write spare dialogue for a couple of the pieces. There were three pieces that night, three different acts, as it were, or I should say three different one acts, and the last two had dialogue. Did You Move, which is the piece I did, and then Contact, which was the final piece, which had quite a bit of dialogue for Boyd Gaines, who played the lead in that piece. And even though it was quite a bit of dialogue, the dancing was the main story and continued to tell the saga. So I thank John Wideman for his ability and deftness of writing to say so little and convey so much, to set the scene, to create feeling and the humanity and understanding prior to us continuing it through movement. So he's pretty amazing.

[6:41] Karen Ziemba: Contact was the brainchild of Susan Stroman, who is the director and choreographer. She may be best known for the producers, but she started out as a dancer originally and then very quickly realized that she wanted to be on the other side of the creative process, choreographing and directing. And I think her big break came in And the World Goes Round, which we've already discussed. And she collaborated with Kander and Ebb and Scott Ellis in creating this review of Kander and Ebb's music, of which you were one of the stars. You guys won the Drama Desk Award. It was this whole thing. And from then on, you've consistently worked together throughout your career.

[7:25] Karen Ziemba: Yes, after And the World Goes Round, I did Crazy for You, which is very special to my heart. A lot of people I've worked with have told me, Karen, that was my first musical, and that's what made me want to go into musical theater. They probably already loved theater as young people, but they decided, I'm going to go to college for musical theater. And I guess we made it look so much fun, because that was such a fun show. And the music was divine. The Gershwin brothers, they wrote a couple of good tunes. But I had done the national tour for like about 10 months. And then Mike Ockrent, the director of the show, was in Chicago, where we were playing the auditorium theater. And he says, KZ, would you like to come and replace the role of Polly on Broadway?

And I said, let me think about it. And he said, I believe you and Harry Groner will be electric, you'll be electric together. So Harry was going to stay in the production, and I was going to join him. So we had to go back into rehearsal once I came home to Broadway. And then I played with him for a while. And then my leading man from the road, James Brennan, replaced Harry. So then we got to be together again. And we closed the show in 1996. And it was the night of the snowstorm. I believe it was January 7, 1996. And there was a huge snowstorm. And if you didn't get to New Jersey and into the tunnel, before a certain point, they closed the gates, you couldn't get out because the snow was like five, six feet deep.

[9:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[9:10] Karen Ziemba: Yeah. So we were at the cast party at the end. Afterwards, trudging through the snow to get a cab. There were a few cabs sputtering along in the snow. Yeah, it was some night. It was some night. And what a wonderful experience to bring that much joy every night to an audience and to each other. That was an easy show to do as far as wanting to walk through that stage door and just say, hey, we're going to have fun tonight. But it was very exhausting, too.

[9:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For sure. But do you know what? There is nothing more honest to my soul than to say who could ask for anything more.

[9:43] Karen Ziemba: Right. It's a special one, really. As cheesy as I Got Rhythm may be, or basic as it may seem now, it is tied to my heartstrings.

[9:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Or how about stiff upper lip?

[9:57] Karen Ziemba: I mean, sober blotto. This is our motto.

[10:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know. It's silly. But it's great. You're right.

[10:04] Karen Ziemba: For me, I believe that is one of the greatest strengths that Susan Stroman has brought to musical theater is reminding people that dance is an expression of emotion. And so often in her shows, it's an expression of joy. Some of the greatest joys that I've seen radiate from a stage have been her choreography.

[10:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I agree. She can also build a number like none other.

[10:31] Karen Ziemba: Yes. And build, and build, and build.

[10:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Even in Contact. Contact was the first time where the curtain call, I was like, wait, this is another number?

[10:42] Karen Ziemba: Yeah. Yep. She always choreographs her curtain calls.

[10:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, it was glorious.

[10:47] Karen Ziemba: Even if you're just walking out for a bow, it's to a certain count of music. Everybody's included, and it's all done with a backdrop of music. It just buoys everything. It just brings it all up to another level.

[11:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The show moves and has a flow and a pace because of the movement.

[11:08] Karen Ziemba: No doubt.

[11:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, after Crazy for You, you starred in Steel Pier, which I promise we'll get to Contact more, but we have to talk about Steel Pier because I saw this one too. And it's one of the shows I'm most proud to have seen. Number one, because it was an original Kander and Ebb score. Once again, you and Kander and Ebb and Susan Stroman, choreographed by Susan, gorgeously produced with huge sets, amazing dancing, and wasn't based on anything.

[11:41] Karen Ziemba: Wasn't based on a prior story, film. You just don't see musicals like that.

[11:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No. I mean, it was definitely inspired by former pieces of literature. June Havoc wrote Marathon 33. June Havoc, Dainty June, who had an experience as a marathon dancer.

[12:01] Karen Ziemba: In the 30s.

[12:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: After vaudeville. After vaudeville was dying, and so she went into that during the Depression. So she wrote a play with all the characters at the dance marathon, and They Shoot Horses Don't They, of course, was a film about Jane Fonda. Here comes Mr. Jordan, which was about a man who comes back to fulfill a dream that he had after he has passed. So he's like an angel. So there were definitely inspirations that were put together, but the story itself, the characters, everything was original. It wasn't based on verbatim, a movie, or anything else. So you are right in that.

[12:44] Karen Ziemba: The other thing that makes it legendary in my life is that Still Pure is apparently the score that I started singing coming out of anesthesia when I got my wisdom teeth out.

[12:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What was the song you were singing?

[12:58] Karen Ziemba: I believe it was the title's number, which is surprising. I would have guessed Willing to Ride, but my mom was like, I think you were singing a song called Still Pure.

[13:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was like, well, there you go.

[13:11] Karen Ziemba: Why don't you come to the Still Pure?

[13:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Still Pure, Still Pure.

[13:51] Karen Ziemba: The one of the really tall showgirls just kind of had to hold it.

[13:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's awesome. I do the entire time. Yes. Yes. That was the night I was there.

[14:01] Karen Ziemba: That was probably the showgirl that had nine costume changes and wig changes.

[14:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because she was very tall. I don't know. But that show was another one. It's like, OK, it was very cinematic in that way where everybody changed characters, changed wigs. You know, this woman now plays this woman. Now she's in the dance marathon. Now she's the beauty queen. You know, the suit and the thing, because that was very.

[14:22] Karen Ziemba: Susan Stroman comes from Wilmington, Delaware, and she was a young dancer. And they, and so she used to go to the Jersey Shore as a kid because it was very close to where she lived in the summers. And the South Jersey Shore was, you know, in Atlantic City was where the Steel Pier was. And they had all these big, you know, concert acts and the dance marathons, of course, were there in the 30s. She wasn't there then. But there's quite a history with the real Steel Pier. And so she was very familiar with that being a kid who used to spend time on the Jersey Shore.

[14:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How sweet. Yeah. Now your character in that show was you're like one last marathon, one last dance marathon to try and break into something new.

[15:03] Karen Ziemba: Yeah. You feel definitely like you're trapped in both the relationship and in this grueling, grueling marathon life.

[15:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. And in the second act, you had this number called Running in Place.

[15:17] Karen Ziemba: Yes. Which is when all of her fire and anger finally comes out. And it's a vocal solo that gives way to this huge dance solo. All you all by yourself. And I'm now realizing that that's so unusual in theater to have a number like that. The ones that I can think of are Cassie in A Chorus Line for Music in the Mirror, Bobby Child in Crazy for You, nice work if you can get it, and Rita in Steel Pier doing Running in Place. And you've done all three of those shows. Right. Go figure.

[15:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Anyway, you were in this like amazing red dress and you had a pole and you're like pole dancing at one point. That's still I mean, that's got to be pretty cool, though. Did you?

[16:07] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, well, it made sense to have the pole because I was on the roof. And so there probably was a flagpole and then it was like windows like a solarium that was so the sun would come down in through the windows there. So there were windows that I was dancing on and hitting. And it was something that they wrote later when we were in rehearsal. They compiled because it was lending itself towards the stuff that I was able to do. Right. And instead of writing another just angry song and singing, standing there and singing it, it became like also this kind of angry dance, but beautiful dance.

[16:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I will always remember that.

[16:46] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, I remember it originally finished with my head down like I was defeated. And I thought, I think, no, it needs to end like one last moment of like, I'm going to continue on. And I think it's the same thing as like Cassie getting the job in the end of Chorus Line, as opposed to the originally she didn't get it, which really upset the audience. So I think there's something about the leading lady, the main character needs to it needs to be hopeful.

[17:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[17:18] Karen Ziemba: And I think we all decide, you know, figure that out that, you know, it needs to be hopeful. So at the end of that number, it was sort of like, okay, one more time. It's a great show. I highly recommend everybody to listen to that cast album if they haven't. It's got a beautiful score to it. There's some great numbers in that.

[17:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I did want to make sure and make some time to ask you about Cabaret, because we just recently covered the episode. It was a wonderful episode. But we talked a lot about obviously Kander and Ebb and Hal Prince, both of which you have had a relationship with in your career.

[17:50] Karen Ziemba: Right.

[17:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Even to the point of in Prince of Broadway, the show that you starred in, which was a retrospective of Hal Prince's career. You did the Fräulein Schneider material, right?

[18:00] Karen Ziemba: Yes.

[18:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you have any memories or specific anecdotes that came from working on that material?

[18:08] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, well, I was one of the people cast in the Broadway version of Prince of Broadway. There was they did a production of it in Japan the year before. And then when they were recasting some of the roles, I had to go in and sing for Hal in his office at Rockefeller Center, which was this kind of small... He had a large office, but his particular private section of it was just his desk, a lot of books, a lot of awards down the wall, and this little spinet piano by the wall. And Stroh said, you have to come in and sing So What and Worst Pies in London.

[18:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh!

[18:50] Karen Ziemba: For Hal Prince. Now, he knew who I was, but Hal Prince is a very loyal guy and he would always go to his Rolodex, so to speak. The people he'd worked with, the people he trusted and he knew would rise to the occasion and do a great performance. And a couple of the ladies that he had worked with many years ago, they were not interested or not available because you really were part of an ensemble in this show, even though you got your chance to stand out in the solos. Everybody really worked together and had to dance a little bit. And anyway, it was a real ensemble show. But having to go into his little tiny office, I was standing as far away from him as practically as I am to this laptop and had to like, you know, spit across his desk going, look, what's up?

And so I did Worst Pies for him and he's like leaning back, you know, with his glasses up. And then, first of all, I'm going, shoot, I'm like going up into Rockefeller Center offices to sing for Hal Prince. I mean, it was like, ah, I was like so daunted. It was daunting and yet it was exciting. And I didn't want to look glamorous, really, because the characters were more kind of not downtrodden, but they were like regular gals, you know, working class gals. And then I sang So What, and I was familiar with it, but not that much. And I hadn't seen a production of Cabaret in a long time. But anyway, so I sang So What, and he gave me some notes on that, which were great. But when we were in rehearsal, whenever we worked on a piece, you know, a song, a solo, Susan Stroman would give us our staging, we'd work on it.

But then we would go into another room with Hal to talk about intent and the character and all that, and the background of the era it came in and all that kind of stuff. And he told stories about Lotte Lenya, who originated it. But I mean, Lotte Lenya was a big star in Germany, Cabaret star and Kurt Weill's wife and all that in Germany. And he wanted that kind of essence. And she and I are very different, but I had it inside of me to, even though she was probably five feet tall, I was able to inhabit this woman as much as I possibly could. And so he really helped me with that. He says, Nah, just telling it like it is. And because I was kind of trying to make it maybe a little too kind of nuanced and stuff, as opposed to just drive it home, you know, give it a little bit. But so he really helped, you know, even with certain movements that he remembered her doing, and it really helped enhance the music.

[21:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so cool.

[21:01] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, it was great. And I think he really enjoyed it. And what was cool about the Mrs. Lovett thing, I did all the same movements as Angela Lansbury in the original, he wanted the original choreography and staging for that. But what I gave to it as Karen Ziemba is, of course, a little bit different than Angela. And he really liked it. He liked some of the stuff I was doing. So that was that was fun.

[22:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, speaking of these different characters that you've played, I think that this is one of your fortes. And if this is news to you, I apologize. But I think that you are unusual and special in terms of the singer, dancer, actors, because you can play these like, very diva, Roxy Hart type characters. But there is something so real about you, that allows you to do things that I think, I don't know, like Chita Rivera might not get cast in.

[22:40] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, and I'm not sure what it is. I don't know. But I think that, especially in Contact, Susan Stroman knew that if she cast me in this part, when I walked out on the stage, people would say like, oh, that looks like the lady next to her. Oh, that looks like Jimmy's schoolteacher. Oh, I know her. She works at the, you know, it should be somebody that we relate to that we know, not somebody walking in like Miss Glamour or whatever.

[23:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[23:08] Karen Ziemba: I guess I can make myself up to be that, if I have to, and put on the right clothes and the right high heels and eyelashes and the whole bit. And it really enhances a character, how you display yourself. And yet, William Ivey Long and I, we got together and we discussed that, what kind of a dress is this woman going to wear? She's, we're talking about Contact now, it's the 50s, 1950s, and she's going out on a date with her husband to the buffet, the Italian buffet, which she loves. And yet, what kind of, what kind of dress would she wear? I mean, when she gets dressed up and we thought of, I love Lucy, Lucille Ball in the kind of dresses that Lucy wore when she would go out, which would be sort of like, kind of like working class, middle class woman getting dressed up.

And that's what he designed. It was very much like something you would see that Lucille Ball would wear in I Love Lucy. So it, the minute you enter the stage, it's like, oh, that tells you who this person is and the way they act and the way they purport themselves. And if they're, whether they're nervous or they're shy or not like owning the place.

[24:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[24:21] Karen Ziemba: And the expectation of the evening, like you are so excited for this to be a wonderful night out. Like from the minute we see you, we see that you care about this, this date with your husband. And then of course we find out that he's kind of an a-hole.

[24:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And he doesn't, yeah, he doesn't enjoy anything, can't enjoy anything.

[24:47] Karen Ziemba: And so it just, it just whittles away at my heart, at my soul, at my joy. And I try and try and try to bring him back and say, oh, this is wonderful. He doesn't want to have anything to do with it. He just wants to have his dinner. He wants some rolls. He wants you to shut up.

[25:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[25:05] Karen Ziemba: Stop talking. Let me eat.

[25:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So yeah, I can do that kind of, I can play the lady next door because that's what I look like.

[25:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Is that who you were surrounded by? Like, were you born and raised in the city or did you have?

[25:13] Karen Ziemba: No, I was born in Michigan.

[25:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Michigan.

[25:22] Karen Ziemba: Yes. We're Michiganders, suburbs of Detroit and middle class, upper middle class upbringing and pretty religious. And you went to church on Sunday and I went to decent public schools and did kind of a normal life, but wasn't anything outlandishly glamorous about my life. But I did, my mother did put me into dance lessons very, very early because I think it's something she always wanted for herself, but that didn't work out. So she gave them to me and I loved it and I excelled at it. And I loved singing also. My grandmother was an opera singer. She sang with City Opera, her mom. And so it's, it all kind of came together. So I always sang, I always danced. And then when I got to be in high school, it was sort of like, okay, let's, let's do this stuff.

So did the musicals in high school, joined the local ballet company and took, you know, ballet became, and tap too, became very important to me. So I had all that training and all that confidence in that, leaning in that direction. So it just made sense that I would go onto the stage and be some kind of a dancer, singer person.

[26:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Did you model your career after somebody or something, or were you just like, yes, and let's figure this out?

[26:36] Karen Ziemba: No, not in particular. Actually, I, what I got very serious into ballet because I was there like four or five times a week at the dance studio. After school, I was a student demonstrator for my teacher, you know, in front of like the little kids classes. And then I also was in the local amateur ballet company that did like the Nutcracker every year and did other ballets. And our ballet teacher took us a couple summers for a couple of weeks to New York City to take classes at ABT, to take classes at the Joffrey Ballet to see what it was like to be a small fish in a big pond.

[27:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. That's great.

[27:08] Karen Ziemba: Yeah. Cause if you stayed where we were, there was, you could be the best dancer in Detroit, but you needed to see what it was really like out there to be a professional. So we would take classes and it was so exciting to be in New York. And also we got to see one musical every time we went the first time I saw a little night music. And the second time I went, I think I saw dancing.

[27:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. So anyway, so that was my experience growing up. But then when I went to college, I ended up going into a dance.

[29:14] Karen Ziemba: I've got another one for you that you got to Google "Lady Be Good" and this thing in her real living room. They filmed it in her real living room with a dog, a terrier that does these tricks as she's dancing and she's kicking in. The dog's fantastic. I just saw it the other day for the first time. But from "Lady Be Good," I believe, just I was checking that out. And it's this cute little terrier that looks a little bit like the terrier on "Frasier." Oh, I'm "Frasier," a little bit like that dog, only that looks if it goes. Fabulous number. I never even knew it existed. I'm sure she knows all those, but anyway, back to what we were saying, it made sense to go into the musical theater. Plus, I got to, you know, fall on my face, do pratfalls, be funny, you know, yes jokes, which you didn't get to do in the concert world.

No, it's so serious. Even though I love it, I love going to see people dance. It makes me thrilled because I know what goes into it and I understand the vocab, the dance vocabulary. But that just wasn't my bag. I had other ways I wanted to express myself.

[30:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah, I totally get that. And I think that that's what I, that's what to me makes "Contact" a musical more than anything is that sensibility. It lacks that taking yourself really seriously that the dance world has and infuses it instead with emotionality, with humor, with real life, and that's what brings it into musical theater land for me, just from like a feeling place. Now, when you guys opened "Contact," there was this huge hoopla about whether or not it wasn't a musical because you didn't have live music, you didn't have singing. It was just, it was originally considered more of a dance play, correct? But then all of a sudden the award season came around and it was thought of as a musical. What was all that about for you? Did you care? We just sort of had to show up and still do our show every night?

[31:20] Karen Ziemba: Right, I think the fact that it was so well received and so moving to audiences that the powers-that-be, you know, got a taste of it and said, "Well, yeah, it's not your normal musical, but it is a musical nonetheless because it is telling a story through music and dance." No, they were not live musicians and because of the way it was constructed where I would hear music that I would listen to on my phonograph in the '50s, the classical music that I danced to, the music that was in the third piece of "Contact," which is all different stuff that you'd listen to on your hi-fi or on your iPod or whatever. Yeah, yeah, to reconstruct that live would be impossible. You couldn't do it. You have everything from jazz to Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic to, you know, to radio hits, right?

It's so if the way the whole conceit of it was that something that you'd push a button and then you'd hear something and it would make you feel a certain way. That's the whole fantasy part of it, like is when you start hearing how does that make you want to move? How does that make you feel? How juxtaposed with how awful you feel when someone has their thumb on you and makes you feel awful? And then this music starts and it's like, "Oh, I am the belle of the ball. Wow, I'm in a different place now." And the same thing, I think, with "Contact" too, in the second act, all of a sudden, you know, the girl in the yellow dress walks through the door.

[32:59] Karen Ziemba: It was so well structured and plotted out. There were so many iconic moments. For those who may not have seen it, the first story, so the first act has two stories, second act one. The first story in the first act was called "Swinging," and from what I understand, Susan Stroman originally had thought that the show might be just an exploration of the word swing, what that means. So in the first act, you have this, what period, what time period would you say that was? It was based on a Fragonard painting, so it was the 18th century, one of the few musicals based on a painting like "Sunday in the Park with George," right? Uh-huh, and it comes to life, and all three pieces in the show are about making contact or not making contact and how that makes a person feel or gets them moving forward or sends them backward or how that affects their life.

And that's what these were all about, very different stories though. And this Fragonard painting where somebody's in a swing and two men, one man is on the side and the other man is pushing her in the swing, and then they switch places, and it's like, "What? No, who's who?" They both her man. What's going on? Yeah, he's like the butler. Oh no, he is the paramour. Oh, the husband. Oh, who's that? And so fascinating to see what's going on. It was very sensual, very sensual, right? And in the shortest piece of all of them and yet kind of death-defying because there was an actual swing on stage and you had all, and you had dance going on while the woman is in the swing and you've got these two suitors and you don't know who they are. Really, really fun stuff.

[34:51] Karen Ziemba: The second piece was "Did You Move?" which after you see the piece and then you realize that the title is "Did You Move?" which is something that the husband is yelling at the wife constantly after she has this fantasy of dancing. It's just like, oh, it just makes me feel so many things. I cannot tell you how many people either wrote to me or confronted me or talked to me after the show who said, "Karen, that was my life. I was that woman that you played. I was, you know, in a marriage for 25 years and I finally escaped or I finally left or I finally what it could because I played this woman who was emotionally and verbally abused. And then she would go into her fantasy world and become the belle of the ball and the happiest woman in the world."

So it was like these two personalities I was playing and so many people related to it. And even male friends of mine who said they would cry every time they came to see it. They came for the ones, one particular actor who was a friend of mine because I think he obviously had some kind of experience in his home life where he experienced this kind of, or his mother or his aunt or I don't know, whatever, somebody in his life experienced that kind of abuse and it really affected him. You know, even the gentleman that played opposite me, Jason Antoon, who played my abusive husband, but he said, "My father was like this character that I played, so I know how to play this guy. My father had a rage problem."

You know, it's, I hopefully I'm not telling tales out of school. He was very open about it. But it doesn't mean you love the person any less. It's just that you understand that people have cracks and foibles and faults that you must live with sometimes to survive. And that's what it was about. It wasn't sugarcoating anything. It was again telling it like it is, you know, but in a very almost fantastical way without even speaking and what it conveyed and how it touched people and how it made people laugh across the board. You had every kind of an emotion if you watched that piece, and that's what made it so spectacular and so memorable.

[37:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's beautiful. Yeah. Can you tell me what you ate?

[37:14] Karen Ziemba: We ate real spaghetti, did you really? Every show, pasta with red sauce. Wow. Mm-hmm. And rolls, real rolls. Because sometimes your mouth doesn't make saliva to get a roll down your throat. He was able to actually eat it because he had to because that's what he wanted the whole time. Where's my rolls? You know, oh, I gotta go out and get him. But because he went back to get somebody to get his rolls, I was able to go into my fantasy.

[37:49] Karen Ziemba: Anyway, no, but it's so Susan Stroman because you've got a pregnant lady in the restaurant. You've got all of these different characters that all end up getting engaged, a girl who's getting engaged, who the other, or somebody's taking photographs of each other. It's really cute. Now because you weren't in the show until this, you know, the second piece, did you feel like you had a nice time to warm up your body? Because once you were on, it was like sprints and then you would have to speak after dancing these huge pieces, something that regular ballerinas don't have to do, right?

[38:28] Karen Ziemba: Now in your piece, at one point there's a gun, like your husband has a gun. Yes. And there's this great sense of comedy where like the waiters have their like cloche things over the gun and they're mixing it up to see if they carry things with there. Yes. Yes. Yes, the trays, card Monty thing where they're shoveling the gun back and forth underneath the trays to hide it from my husband. And so he keeps picking like the different tray to see if that's where the gun is, and it's not there. And it's like, it's so goofy, but like exactly what we need in this really tense moment. Oh yes, and then what's even crazier is that the gun isn't under any of the trays at all. It's actually with you. You had the gun, and then you shoot your husband right in the fantasy, and that's what's so upsetting is that you shoot your husband, and there's like this huge celebration. Everyone's like, "Yay, the Wicked Witch is dead." And then at the end of this huge number, he walks back in and you realize it's just been the fantasy sequence.

[39:36] Karen Ziemba: Oh yeah, so life continues on like it was.

[39:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. So my heart is broken. A lot of people live that way, and so it was relatable. I got a nice letter from a woman who ran a seminar at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital for women of domestic violence, and she said, "You really nailed this person. I work with these women, and their stories are very similar to what this woman was going through." That was one of the biggest compliments I received.

[40:07] Karen Ziemba: You were doing ballet. I know that incredible when Susan Stroman asked me to, she was doing this workshop of a dance piece called "Contact," and I want you to come see it. So I saw this piece with a girl in the yellow dress and the act, which was the second act. That's all she had created at that point, and I saw it. I thought it was unbelievably amazing. It was just so good. And then she said, "You know, I'm gonna do another workshop, and we're gonna add on to this piece, and this is the music that I want you to listen to because your piece that I would like you to be part of, we're going to noodle around with this idea. Listen to this music." So I listened to the tapes, and it was, and at the time it was cassette tapes because it was the late '90s, and it was all this ballet music, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky, Grieg.

And I said, "Wait a second." I said, "Stro, this is ballet music. Wait, your piece is a swing piece to all this great pop kind of music of its time." And she goes, "I know." Yeah, you're gonna do ballet. I was like, "Knew I could." Yeah, exactly. And that's what this piece became. It became the classically danced piece.

[41:35] Karen Ziemba: It turned out very interesting. I remember asking people to come see the workshop after we got it up because I wasn't sure. I said, this is strange. It's new. Tell me what you think. People saw it that I trusted. People were close to me. I was like, so what do you think about this? He said, you have to continue with this because it is so moving and you're really, really good in it, Karen. You have to continue with this. It's going to be something really special. I don't even know if they said that. It was just like, no, this is worthwhile being part of. I did and this is what happened. I probably would have done it for Susan Stroman anyway because when she asked me to jump, I say how high. She's a mentor. She's a friend. I respect her so much. She respects all the people she works with so much too. She creates an incredible work environment. This was a very unusual piece made out of love. I was so grateful and so fortunate to be a part of it. I lucked out.

[42:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing. I don't think I realized how tight you two were until I read an interview when she was mounting Oklahoma in London, doing the whole Hugh Jackman revival thing. She had been looking for a singer, dancer, actress for Laurie. I can't remember who it was, who she ended up finding. I can't remember her name. She said when at one point she saw her do something and she goes, she's the British Karen Ziemba. I went, yes, icon. That's amazing that you both find each other very inspiring. It feels like a symbiotic relationship in that way.

[43:26] Karen Ziemba: The second act of Contact, like we said, is this ad executive who was played by Boyd Gaines, who is not happy. He doesn't have anybody in his life. He feels completely alone and tries to commit suicide. Yes, everyone, this is a hilarious dance show. In his attempt, he somehow gets transported to this bar where he sees a girl in a yellow dress. This is based on Stroman having gone to a swing club and seeing this really incredible woman at the swing club in a yellow dress. It was like every time she would get up to dance, there would be a whole line of men who wanted to dance with her. She had her pick. She would just give a nod to the one that she wanted to dance with and off she'd go until she didn't want to dance anymore.

Anyway, this really vivacious, interesting character. That's what this piece was based around, is this woman who he then sees, the ad exec sees, and becomes, I don't want to say obsessed, but he's convinced that she's his person. To add a little bit more of what you said earlier with the ad exec, the fact of the matter was that he comes from an award ceremony. He is just like the Clio, which is like an ad exec or somebody who's created a TV commercial. It wasn't the Clio, but something like that. He's got all the success. He can do whatever he wants, and yet he's empty inside. There's something missing. There may be many things missing, but he's like, as we know, there are successful people that end it all because for whatever reason, we don't know.

It went from being in this depressed state to trying to buck himself up. He got a phone call from somebody. He says, I'm going to go out and have a beer at this club. He said, yeah, meet me there. I can't remember in the script exactly what happens or how he gets there, but he goes to this club. He doesn't see her at first. He sees all these other couples dancing, and they're very different. There's somebody from Westchester. There's somebody who's from downtown. They're all dressed differently. They're very diverse cultures. He's engulfed with all of this incredible human beings that are enjoying each other and making contact. It's like, I want that. Then when this woman bursts open the door and she's standing there in this light and this yellow dress and sits down at the bar, it's like, okay, I want me a piece of that.

What Stroh says is that she felt when she was at this swing club, she said, that woman is going to change someone's life tonight is what she was thinking. That's how that story was born in I'm Going to Make This Into A Musical. She does change the guy's life. Then he finds out, I'm not going to spoil her alert. During this whole scene when he's trying to hurt himself and hang himself and take pills before he goes to the swing club, he's making all this noise up above. The girl below is saying, who lives in the apartment down below, says, excuse me, sir, stop making so much noise. I'm trying to sleep. I have to get up for work. Then he finds out at the end that this girl who comes up in her pajamas and her robe, oh my gosh, it's the same girl, but she's just like a regular girl.

It's like she was right there. I just didn't open myself up. He needed somebody in the yellow dress. He needed somebody that flashy and spectacular to go like, wow. Wow can be sometimes the simplest things and we don't notice it. We don't realize it. That was a really fabulous piece because of that. It's like, oh my gosh. It's like Dorothy saying, I had it with me the whole time. He was trying to do the deed. In fact, during rehearsals, Boyd Gaines was doing during technical rehearsals, he was in the noose and something happened where he was stuck and it was literally kind of like asphyxiating him a little bit. He came down, but it took a while for him to be revived. He wasn't like gone, but it was like it really had gotten under his throat there because it was a real noose he was putting around his neck.

It was pretty scary. There were some really scary moments in the whole evening and yet so many funny. It was a real banquet the whole evening of feelings and crying and joy. I think that's why it won the Tony. It was just one of those spectacular evenings where like, oh my gosh, I want to bring everybody to see this. I want to see this again. It does win the Tony. Some of the other musicals nominated that year were James Joyce's The Dead, The Wild Party, the Michael John LaChiusa Wild Party, and Swing, which is interesting that there was another show about that included swing dancing that year. But Contact was the one that won. I love that you said that. I love that you said that it was a buffet, not an Italian one, but a buffet of humanity, of what we experience as humans trying to make contact or not.

It leaves the audience going, okay, what I just experienced just got me in the gut, but I feel wonderful and I want to dance. I want to go out into the street and dance. It had everything. I remember a dance partner telling me once that she felt like she really got to know me once she danced with me. I think that that may be something that we forget about, but dance is really an opportunity to connect with somebody in a way that isn't necessarily sexual, but reveals much of the same information that we get from being intimate with a partner.

[49:46] Karen Ziemba: The best things happen while you're dancing.

[49:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Can I backtrack to Steel Pier? One of the things I've mentioned many, many times about that show when just talking about my experience with it, the thing that was so spectacular about that show as an actor for me was being in someone's arms all night because not only was it the feeling of warmth and tactile and all that, but it also was you were so responsible for the other person. Yes, when you're touching someone else, too, and you're not always going forward, you're going backwards a lot of times. There's a trust involved, and you're actually looking at somebody in their face. You're not in the car driving and talking to somebody. You're not on the phone. That was before FaceTime and smartphones and stuff, so there was that connection that we all had to make.

A lot of the people in that show were not really dancer-dancers, but they had to learn to dance to do that show because everybody had to dance because there were dances at that time, that era, that everybody knew because that's what people did when they went out on a date or they went out to meet somebody. They didn't have TV and all that kind of stuff. They went out dancing. That's how you courted somebody, and that's how you got close and got to touch them and all that kind of stuff and put your arms around them. Because of that, you're absolutely right. You get to really know people, not only literally what they feel like, what they smell like and all that, but it's, are they going to take care of me?

Are they going to not let me fall? Do I care about this person enough that I'm going to do the same? It's your job, so yes, you better, but when you have that much of a responsibility of someone, especially when you're doing Susan Stroman choreography, which can be dangerous if you don't duck or dip or get out of the way at the right time or jump in the air, there's something else coming underneath your feet and it's going to tangle you or it's going to trip you. Also, you're playing characters that are in a competition, in a dance marathon, so you want to look good. You're singing at the same time. It was some experience as a human being and as a performer and an actor and all of that kind of stuff. Anyway, to add something to what you were saying, I felt that so strongly, getting to know someone by dancing with them, as your partner said that she did with you.

[52:21] Karen Ziemba: Well, and I think that that is something beautiful about theater because it's undeniable. You have these people in front of you. There's something tactile. There's something unlike anything else when you get to see dance like this, and I love that Contact was able to spotlight it, but also to shed light on how important dancers are to musical theater, that they are good enough to be musical theater all by themselves, and that what that kind of contact between people looks like is actually also incredibly emotional and important to us as healthy, happy human beings.

[53:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mm-hmm.

[53:03] Karen Ziemba: Now, just to wrap up, Contact certainly wasn't the end of your collaboration with Stro. You've continued to work together, even with Prince of Broadway, Bolts Over Broadway.

[53:17] Karen Ziemba: Yeah, another one coming up, too.

[53:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you? Are you able to talk about it?

[53:21] Karen Ziemba: We're going to do a workshop with Adrienne Warren, and Stro and Tommy Thompson have written it. It could be Kander and Ebb, and so we'll see what happens. I won't talk too much about it because I'm not sure what's happening, but they're hoping to, who knows? We have to do it virtually, which is tough, but I'm going to be putting a couple of songs down as a template, so once we do the workshop, that's the way we will be performing it.

[53:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. That's exciting. Congratulations.

[53:53] Karen Ziemba: Thank you. I just keep on keeping on.

[53:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[53:57] Karen Ziemba: Pleased to be invited to participate.

[53:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, you are fantastic, and there's no end to your abilities, and you keep surprising us. That's what I love. I love that you keep surprising us. I didn't know that you would do a Mrs. Lovett, and you do a fabulous Mrs. Lovett.

[54:16] Karen Ziemba: Thank you.

[54:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on A Musical Theatre Podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media, Twitter and Instagram, at Amusical Podcast, for more great content, and while you're at it, go check out our Tee Public store, where we have designs based on episodes past and present. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you again, Miss KZ, and everybody out there.

[54:47] Karen Ziemba: What was your bow?

[54:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: For Contact?

[54:51] Karen Ziemba: Yeah.

[54:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's a marvelous night for a moon dance.

[54:54] Karen Ziemba: Yes, that's right. Everybody go have a moon dance.

[54:58] Karen Ziemba: Yes. Whenever I hear that song now, I'm like, oh, great memories.