This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: When I was first introduced to Lempicka when I was at Williamstown, I just thought, what a funny name for a musical. I didn't know that it was a person. And then, and then, you know, got to know the story of Tamara de Lempicka. And wow, what a fascinating human being. But like, why would I have known that? You know, like, we don't...

[0:22] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely.

[0:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Even in the limited art education that I had in high school, which was better left not had, because I am not a visual artist, and I give such props to the people that are. We didn't talk about Tamara de Lempicka. We talked about Picasso. We talked about Dadaism. We talked about, you know...

[0:41] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Van Gogh.

[0:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Van Gogh, Pollock, all of that. Yeah. So I mean, what a fascinating human being, what a fascinating story. And what a fascinating musical that just sort of adds on to this legacy now.

[1:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. We are beginning 2024 by doing something we don't often get to do here on the show. We're looking at some of the bigger musicals in our recent theater history. So over the next month or so, we will look at one of the new hits on Broadway, one musical that just recently closed, and one considered to be a flop.

[1:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And you all know what I say next. Flop is not a bad word on a musical theater podcast. Today, we are discussing that musical flop, Lempicka, which only ran for 41 performances, but it hasn't been forgotten. In fact, in a crowded season of musicals, it kind of has lived on. Case in point, our special guest. Sarah Fernandez was most recently seen as the Elphaba understudy on the North American tour of Wicked, making her one of the youngest gals to don the green paint, by the way. This month, on January 13th, she's bringing her popular show, Don't Forget Me, to the Green Room 42 in New York. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah, there will also be live streaming options. Is that true?

[2:24] Sarah Anne Fernandez: That is correct. That's correct.

[2:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey. Okay. So the show honors women in history whose stories have basically been in musicals, have graced the Broadway stage, just like the title character of this musical, Tamara de Lempicka. So this whole thing that Sarah has going on is right in alignment with everything this podcast stands for. So I'm so grateful she's here. Everyone, please welcome the wonderful Sarah Fernandez. Yay.

[2:51] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Happy New Year, by the way.

[2:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Happy New Year. All right, Sarah, tell me how this show came about.

[3:01] Sarah Anne Fernandez: So- Not Lempicka, your show.

[3:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. That I don't know personally, but my show I can speak on.

[3:11] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Fair. Yeah. So this show, so I'll be doing it January 13th, like you said, at the Green Room. This is an encore of the show. The first time we did it was last March at Chelsea Table and Stage, also in New York City. And this show came about, honestly, it was always an idea percolating in the back of my mind. I love history and I love musical theater. So obviously I was remarkably popular in high school. But I always wanted to marry those two together. And especially as an actor, I think a lot about when you're playing a character who has existed in real life, the kind of responsibility that you have to tell their story just amplifies by so much more. And that's just something I always thought about.

[3:54] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Elphaba, for example.

[3:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. Right. Exactly. Absolutely. A real person. No. So and then, you know, last year, coming off of a time of, unfortunately, just a lot of personal grief, thinking about legacy and having lost people that were important to me. And it just all came together where I was like, how are we handling the legacies of people that are no longer here? And for me, musicals are my way into anything. And so it led me down a really fascinating rabbit hole about women in history and about musicals and the history of musicals. And I've loved every second of it. It went really well back in March and we got asked to do it again. So we're doing it again with a bunch of new songs and new stories. And yeah, I'm really excited. And one of those stories happens to be Lempicka.

[4:47] Sarah Anne Fernandez: I love this so much. It has so much in common with why I started the podcast. Truly, when I was growing up, I discovered musical theater as kind of a, I sometimes say like a filter, like a social media filter through which I began to understand and relate to the world. You know, all of a sudden in church, I could remember the 12 Tribes of Israel because of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And the New Deal in school made so much more sense because I knew Annie. Like these were just ways that I loved to learn about history. I think understanding that is then diving into this cultural and emotional impact. We learn about our culture, we learn about history, and then it sinks in to our hearts because then we also feel everything that those characters are singing about, you know?

And it's this really special way to connect to history. Now, it certainly isn't without question marks because we often represent characters in musical theater in order to sell tickets, you know? So I'm sure that there are quite a few stories that you tell where we're like, yeah, we didn't create a faithful adaptation here. Or maybe these characters were a little more dynamic than maybe they're represented in the show.

[6:06] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. I was just going to say one of the big things that we do explore in my show because that has been super important to me too is the show, regardless of which songs and shows we decide to include, the show always goes in chronological order of when the musicals were written. And I do this specifically because the time in which a musical is written about a woman is very indicative of how her story is told.

[6:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Fascinating.

[6:32] Sarah Anne Fernandez: So, you know, the first musical ever written about a real woman in history is Annie Get Your Gun.

[6:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 1930s, right?

[6:40] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Right, yes. And right now, Lempicka and Suffs are kind of the most recent. The next one will likely be Queen of Versailles. But it's wildly interesting, even just to talk about the parallels before we even get into Lempicka, to talk about the parallels of Annie Get Your Gun and Lempicka, two women who were really, really good at what they did. But one story was written in 2024. And one story was written in the 1940s. And it's wildly different how we treat a woman who's good at her job, just based on when a musical is written. Yeah, so it's fascinating, you know, just to see how even time affects it. And I'm sure that comes up on the podcast a lot, delving into the older musicals.

[7:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely, absolutely. And what I like to often bring awareness are things that maybe in the time couldn't have made their way into the musical, but may have inspired the writers to believe that that person was worth singing about. So, you look into Annie Oakley's life, and it's so much more than sexual politics. That's all to say, I want Annie Get Your Gun to be done, so that we keep talking about these people. But is there a way to infuse for a modern audience some of these things that couldn't maybe be talked about at the time? I don't know. I don't know. But Lempicka is a really interesting example of this, because there's no way that this musical could have happened before 2024. And based on what the writers have said, you know, it took 14 years to write this thing and get it on Broadway.

It was a really long process. So, that in and of itself is like, if you want to write your show a specific way, then it needs to be a fit for the culture in which it's going to be seen. Even then, you know, sometimes it's a hit, sometimes it's not.

[8:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, I was not able to see the show on Broadway, but you did?

[8:44] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes, yes, I did. I was very fortunate to, shortly after it opened.

[8:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Tell me about that.

[8:52] Sarah Anne Fernandez: I mean, so I had been following Lempicka for quite some time, mostly because anything Eden Espinosa does, I'm interested in. Because, duh, she is the greatest. So, I was following Lempicka back when it was just hearing bootlegs of her sing Woman Is for years, which was always thrilling. Yeah, and then when they announced it for the 2024 Broadway season, I was obviously super intrigued. Because I think Matt Gould's writing and Matt Gould's score, everything that I had heard of it up to that point, is just so fascinating to me. I don't know, I think that the current landscape of musical theater, of contemporary musical theater, can sometimes veer to a bit more of a, and I say this in a completely kind way, but into, yes, yes, yes, like in a completely respectful way, but a bit of a simplistic type of, you know, catchy, recognizable pop melody, sometimes even pop songs.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But I think what interests me the most as a singer and as an actor are the really funky, different, complex type of scores. Like those are the ones that just have me sitting up a little bit straighter in my seat. And I think that Matt Gould really does that. So from the first couple of songs I had ever heard of Lempicka, I was immediately very intrigued. But yeah, I got to see the show shortly after it opened with my mom, who also loves Eden Espinosa. And we had a great time. I mean, we will get into it, but I do think it was simply a victim of a post-COVID Broadway landscape.

[10:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And crowded one at that.

[10:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes. Because I did think that the show was brilliant. And I do wish that it had had a longer life. But I had a great time. I loved it. There were so many things I loved about it. I can't wait to talk about how much I loved it. And I will go on record as saying that I do think that Woman Is is one of the best written female contemporary musical theater solos in a very long time. And I hope that it continues to get its due in that way. Because it's just so good.

[11:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. So what are you singing from Lempicka in your show?

[11:10] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Woman Is. Of course.

[11:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Are you? Of course. Okay. That's epic.

[11:14] Sarah Anne Fernandez: No, it is just, it's such. All right. We'll talk about it more when we get to it.

[11:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. I can't wait. So let's talk about Madame de Lempicka. So Tamara de Lempicka, born 1889, died 1980, saw a lot during her life.

[11:31] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Saw a lot.

[11:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Fortunately, when we go through the show, we'll learn about her life because that's what the show is. So we'll save that for then. What I will say is that her art, if you love Art Deco, you've seen Lempicka's work.

[11:46] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Correct. Yeah.

[11:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And if you love the color green, you've seen Lempicka's work. Her paintings are, I was so excited about this musical. Okay. Sorry. Now my brain is going in several tens. There were so many musicals announced for this season. And for some reason, Lempicka was one of those that I was most excited about.

[12:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Me too.

[12:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Number one, because I love a musical about a painter.

[12:10] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Sure. Something in the park with George, you know?

[12:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Heller, right? Number two, the artwork itself was so exciting to me in the same way that when I first saw the paintings of the Wild Party, like the LaCusa Wild Party, and I couldn't get those images out of my head. And they became cemented with the score that LaCusa created. I couldn't wait to find another show like that, where the art was so striking and like, what is this musical going to be so I can marry them together and they'll be in my brain forever. Like that's kind of how I was working. So I was really, really looking forward to it. Super sad I couldn't, but I have seen the slime tutorial. Just putting that out there. I used to live in shame about this, but no longer. That's how I've seen it.

And I've also, of course, listened to the cast recording, the original Broadway cast recording a lot. The script is not available yet. I don't know if they will license it at some point, but would love to read the script at some point. So let's talk about the writers of said show.

[13:18] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Carson Kreitzer, co-lyricist and also the book writer. I found an audio clip of her talking about when she realized she wanted to write about Lempicka. Let's listen to it.

[13:42] Sarah Anne Fernandez: I didn't know her incredible life. Tamara de Lempicka was a woman of incredible vision. She is someone who loved both men and women. As a bisexual woman, I was acutely aware that this is a story that is not often told. So she sees this art book in the way that, shall we say, Andrew Lloyd Webber saw the book of The Phantom of the Opera in a random used bookstore, right? Realizes she has no idea who this woman is, discovers that she's a bisexual woman, bada bing, bada boom. Carson meets the composer Jeff Gould. They write one song together and realize we're a match made in heaven. We got to work together. And if I'm not mistaken, the first song that they write together is "Woman Is." When it's right, it's right.

[14:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: When it's right, it's right. Exactly. So they begin working on this show, like I said, 14 years ago. I like looking at the show with that historical mindset. And I hope this doesn't sound like a read because it's not meant to. You can almost track the evolution of modern musical theater throughout the show. Not chronologically at all, but you hear bits and pieces of, oh, they wrote this song maybe first. They wrote this song a little bit later. Pasek and Paul have kind of changed the game. Maybe now we're producing things this way. It's an interesting score that really embodies a lot of what modern musical theater has become.

[15:20] Sarah Anne Fernandez: In addition to that side of the creative team, they hit the jackpot by getting Rachel Chavkin involved as the director. Just FYI for everybody, Rachel Chavkin really comes onto the Broadway scene with Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which I've gone on the record saying I think was the most important musical of that Broadway season. But it also really gave her quite a bit of clout as a visionary Broadway musical director. That leads, of course, to Hadestown, which needs no introduction. She wins the Tony Award for that. This musical is not only building up with 14 years of anticipation, it's also building up with what is Rachel Chavkin going to bring to Broadway post-Hadestown. They take the show out of town.

It first plays in Williamstown in 2018, then goes to San Diego, shout out La Jolla Playhouse, in 2022, and then finally ends up on Broadway in 2024. I say this all the time, but I think it bears repeating. The game of writing musicals is a long one.

[16:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yes, a long one.

[16:30] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Which is why when something like Dear Evan Hansen happens in like a year and a half, it freaking blows my mind. Because most things are a decade, if not more.

[16:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely, absolutely. And that is certainly the case with this musical. It opens at the Longacre Theater.

[16:49] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Across the street from Hadestown.

[16:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh. Wow, I didn't even think about that.

[16:53] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Chavkin way.

[16:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It opens on April 14th, 2024. It receives, I mean, I'm just going to say it, negative reviews for the most part. Certainly, Eden Espinosa is given great notices, as is Amber Iman in her featured role, Beth Lovell. I mean, there are great notices for several of the performances, but the show in general is given negative press. I remember specifically kind of a social media outcry in response to that, in which people were saying, if you're a straight white male, you shouldn't be able to review Lempicka. And I don't know if that's really the answer here. But my point being, it had its fervent fans who wanted to see it succeed.

[17:41] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely.

[17:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But now let's talk about this season. All right, I'm going to go through the list, and maybe I'll read this more than once over the next couple of weeks. But here are all of the musicals that opened during the 2013-2014 Broadway season. Here we go. Back to the Future, the musical, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Gatsby, Harmony, The Heart of Rock and Roll, Hell's Kitchen, Here Lies Love, How to Dance in Ohio, Illinois's Lempicka, The Notebook, Once Upon a One More Time, The Outsiders, Suffs, Water for Elephants. That is insane.

[18:16] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yeah. It's also fascinating that it's not the only musical in that season about a woman in history. I mean, Here Lies Love, also about Imelda Marcos, which I also did see shortly before it closed. In its own way, Once Upon a One More Time is all about women's lib.

[18:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Listen.

[18:36] Sarah Anne Fernandez: So is Suffs. I kind of loved Once Upon a One More Time. I also, to be fair, when I was two years old, when people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would either say a princess or Britney Spears. So that show is like—

[19:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A plus B equals Sarah.

[19:05] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Right. So that show, when the premise of it was announced, I was like, I'm pretty sure that my toddler self wrote this. I had a great time, loved Once Upon a One More Time. But back to Lempicka.

[19:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But no, there is this kind of, there is a wave, right, of women in history, of women being allowed their time to tell their story throughout the season.

[19:20] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. Well, and I mean, I think even to touch briefly back on the Rachel Chavkin of it all, what I think she does so brilliantly, outside of just the technical aspects of her directing, is the way she handles pieces that deal with resistance. She does a very good job of not doing the thing that people sometimes do, where they want to bring it into 2024, 2025, and then it just feels like you're trying to connect two things to connect them. But Rachel does it in a way that it happens in front of you, and then you think about something, and then you're like, oh, wow, this is where we're at.

[20:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's relevant, but it's taking place in the time in which it is.

[20:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes, yes, exactly. And as for the season in which Lempicka existed, I think this is Lempicka, and I think this is a lot of musicals. There are so many original musicals that are sort of falling victim to the post-COVID landscape, where we spent almost two years without Broadway being open, and there are a lot of financial deficits. There were less tourists, there was less this and that. Just the whole industry as a whole has been relying a lot on commercial theatre, for lack of a better term, and taking movies and turning them into musicals, taking pop songs and creating jukebox musicals, and hoping that that sells. And sometimes it really does, and sometimes it really works. And sometimes that leaves a disparity for these original musicals that are being developed to have their chance to really shine on Broadway before they're able to fully find their audience and lock in.

They are giving their closing notice. And I think that that, unfortunately, was the case with Lempicka. It's the case with Swept Away. It's the case with a lot of original musicals that we're seeing kind of pop up and pop off pretty immediately. They're just not getting enough time to find their audiences.

[21:26] Paul Matzkoff: Certainly, this isn't new. Most Sondheim shows didn't run longer than a year, right? This is something that we've seen throughout Broadway history. And would I expect Lempicka, even if it was received really well, to last longer than a year? Maybe. Maybe. I don't see it being a Wicked, because it's not really trying to be a Wicked.

[21:51] Jennifer Abel: Absolutely.

[21:53] Paul Matzkoff: 41 performances is too short. It's not enough time for people to find it. That being said, a lot of people found it. And I found it really interesting that, like the theater lovers, that great social media Instagram account, they gave their feed over to a bunch of other sort of Broadway influencers and allowed them to pick their 10 favorite moments of the 2024 calendar year on Broadway. And there were at least two instances in which Lempicka was referenced. Can't say that there was anything about some of the other musicals that were actually nominated for Best Musical. And that's saying something, like the people who found it and loved it, it spoke to them on a level that I don't think is going to be leaving anytime soon.

[22:45] Jennifer Abel: 100%. 100%.

[22:48] Paul Matzkoff: Do you know what show it reminds me of quite a bit is Taboo. Do you remember the musical, the Boy George musical Taboo?

[22:52] Jennifer Abel: Same season as Wicked. Yes.

[22:56] Paul Matzkoff: Yes. And same season as The Boy from Oz.

[23:00] Jennifer Abel: Correct.

[23:01] Paul Matzkoff: Which technically also a queer musical, right, but starring handsome, straight Hugh Jackman. And you see how The Boy from Oz was the mega hit and Taboo died almost immediately.

[23:14] Jennifer Abel: Yes.

[23:15] Paul Matzkoff: And yet when you look at kind of the impact, I don't think we get a Lempicka without a Taboo.

[23:20] Jennifer Abel: 100%.

[23:21] Paul Matzkoff: But we definitely could have got a Lempicka without a Boy from Oz. You know what I mean?

[23:25] Jennifer Abel: Absolutely. Once again, nothing against Boy from Oz. We did an episode on it. Yay, Australia. But truly.

[23:31] Jennifer Abel: No, no. I mean, you know, I think the most fascinating thing about musical theater, and one thing I've loved working on my show is that you start to, once you start to go backwards, and sort of play the how did we get here game, you see how each musical affects the form to create the next musical and the next musical and the next musical. And it's fascinating. I mean, I don't think there would be a Lempicka without a Fun Home.

[24:01] Paul Matzkoff: Well, let's go through the show, because I don't know when people will get to really see it. And I want them to kind of understand what it is and what it's about. The show begins, like so many shows in the 2024 Broadway season with a look back, we see Tamara de Lempicka as an old woman living in Hollywood, which I did not realize. And she is, well, actually, I should say that this overture is like one of the most exciting things ever before we even see her like it pumps me up. And from what I saw on the slime tutorial, like the coolest lighting stuff that could change in an instant. I swear I was looking at blackness like there's nothing there and then lights would change in a millisecond and Beth Leavel standing there like I couldn't believe how crazy beautiful it was lit.

Anyway, overture, Tamara de Lempicka, older woman, Hollywood, girl's upset because she is not famous. This type of storytelling would have never happened with Annie Get Your Gun. She is a prickly old woman who is pissed off that Picasso is famous and she's not to kind of boil things down very simplistically. And this is very much part of her personality. I found this quote of hers where she said, I was the first woman to make clear paintings and that was the origin of my success. Among a hundred canvases, mine were always recognizable. The galleries tended to show my pictures in the best rooms because they attracted people. My work was clear and finished. This is the bitch we're talking about, right?

[25:50] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Okay, but also like, is she wrong? That's just it. We wouldn't think twice about a man talking like this about his own work.

[25:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. And also, when you really think about it, like you were saying before, you were like, if you think of Art Deco, you think of Tamara de Lempicka, because Tamara de Lempicka was Art Deco. Tamara de Lempicka ushered in Art Deco. Granted, similarly to Lempicka the Musical, was she appreciated in her time? No. But when you look back at it, she's the trailblazer. She's the one and Picasso's great too. I don't know. Maybe this is just like me being ridiculous, but I feel like if I look at both paintings, I'm more of a Lempicka girlie than a Picasso girlie.

[26:44] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. No, I completely agree. I completely agree. I don't know if it's where I am right now, but I'm really fascinated by people who demand to be famous. I don't know if that makes sense. What if everybody in the world felt like that? These are just things that sometimes pass through my head. But I do think that sometimes artists have such a huge world inside of them. If that world isn't expressed and viewed by as many people as possible, they don't feel like their life means everything that it could. I think there is a beautiful lesson there for all of us to...

[27:24] Sarah Anne Fernandez: To figure out what we want to leave here on earth, right? What is it, what do we want our legacies to be? And I think sometimes artists, particularly ones like Lempicka, have it so clearly defined because their work is so clear. And so it's undeniable. She sits here and gives quotes like this, and I'm like, you're not wrong, girl. You're not wrong, you know? So this is who we meet. She sings this song about being unseen, and she says it right to the audience, everybody sitting there, and then takes the responsibility of telling her story so that everyone does know who they're dealing with, right? Now, from this point on, Eden Espinoza never left the stage except to change a costume. No, no, she is on stage from start to finish.

Now, I've been obsessed with Eden for years. If for no other reason than I worked at Disneyland, and she, of course, got her start at Disneyland. And so there is this deep Southern California love for Eden Espinoza as a hometown girl. I first became obsessed with her voice with Brooklyn. Oh, gosh, yes. Do you remember? Speaking of another musical that wasn't a huge hit, but somehow had a huge cultural footprint because people were just singing so much. Pound for pound, the amount of singing in Brooklyn, right? Once upon a time. Karen Olivo. Karen Olivo. Everybody was just singing their faces off in that show, and it reminds me a lot of Lempicka. These types of shows give me chess vibes as well.

Ooh, correct. It's that type of musical theater where we just want to see people sing all the notes, and it's kind of unrelenting. Even Woman is, I feel like, is a song that just chugs and chugs and chugs and doesn't really let go. I do, you know, now that you brought that up, I'm like, yeah, I really love it when women unrelentingly sing at me. Those are the musicals that I love to both be in the audience of and be sung at by talented women, and I also love to just unrelentingly sing, I suppose, because those are all the musicals I'm like, yeah, Brooklyn would have loved to have been part of that. Chess, sign me up. Unrelenting women singing, I think, is going to be the title of my autobiography.

Thank you for that. And or maybe the next show at Green Room. Yes, sure. Honestly, that could be the title of this show because with the way the set list is looking, it feels a little unrelenting. Oh gosh, bring that honey water. Right, exactly. And listen, if anyone could unrelentingly sing for hours and hours and hours, it is Eden Espinosa, the one and only. Insane. She's a beast. She was my first Elphaba, which obviously that's why I have such an attachment. But she also was my professor at NYU for like a semester, which was the coolest experience of my entire life. Okay, I had no idea. And I had no chill the entire time. All of my classmates would make fun of me because every word she said, I looked at her like she was Beyoncé.

Because honestly, by musical theater standards, she is. She just, she is such a wonderful human being. She's such a talented performer. I am a part of the Eden fan club. I love that story. That makes me very, very happy. Thank you. All right, so when we go back in time, we go back to her wedding day in which she is marrying, is it Tadusz? Tadusz, no, it's husband. I'm just gonna refer to him as husband. But he— Like I feel like I kind of know it, but I'm gonna embarrass myself if I try. It's fine, it's fine. So he is a rich dude in Poland. So she's marrying into wealth, into money. He is, of course, tied to political power because sometimes wealth and political power are kissin' cousins, holdin' hands.

So when a huge revolution in Poland goes down, he's on the poop list, to say the least. He is imprisoned. She goes through a series. I love this sequence so much. She goes through a series of guards and kind of officials trying to bribe her way into finding her husband. She uses bracelets and necklaces and jewels, and every time she gives it to somebody, they're like, oh, great, thanks for giving the jewels that you stole from our people, right, from the everyday man. And now you're here flaunting your wealth and pretending like it's gonna get you somewhere. It does, however, get her closer and closer to her husband until she reaches the final guard, in which case he is not interested in any of this jewelry.

Instead, he wants her. He wants her to trade her body for a knight in order to save her husband. She agrees to it, and in just like a devastating line, he says, interesting how you came in here a spoiled rich girl and you're leaving a whore. And I think what hurts most about that is that he's right. She is engaging in transactional sex in order to get what she wants in the same way that a prostitute would. That creates problems and opportunities from here on out. She saves her husband, but he doesn't know how she did it. He's constantly asking, how did you do this? All of my ties and friends and family couldn't get me out of prison, how did you do it? And she just always changes the subject, knowing that he doesn't want to know, and also knowing that he probably does know already deep down what happened.

Yeah, I think the thing about that moment too, that's where we start to see this shift for Tamara from somebody who is a follower to then in that moment and for the rest of her life on is the leader. She is in control of her own narrative. Ultimately, she makes the decision to do that in order to free her husband. She doesn't have to, but she does. She feels that she has to. 100%, it's a carpe diem thing that she doesn't let go of from here on out. Absolutely, and from then on, we see just how in control of her narrative she truly is. I think that her life is certainly not something that happens to her. It's something that she ushers in, which is wildly strong and courageous in general and especially in the time where in which this actually happened in history.

And she was unconventional to begin with. Am I remembering correctly that she was pregnant on her wedding day, right? Yes. At some point, she says something like, my belly was expanding as I was walking down the aisle, and I don't think it was because she had too much wedding cake. You know what I mean? She was always an artist, so she was always going to be a little unconventional. It was just a matter of peeling back those layers a little bit at a time. The next layer comes off when they travel to Paris. They're able to escape Poland. They go to Paris. She's like, hey, babe, get a job, please. And he's like, are you kidding? I'm an aristocrat. I don't work. That would be embarrassing for me to get a job.

She's like, well, then I guess we don't eat. And once again, creating her own life, she begins walking the streets of this place that she's never been but is instantly fascinated by. She says it's the most beautiful, ugly city she's ever seen in her life, which I love. It's what we think of as Paris in its heyday. The streets are lined with artists painting the Seine, and she approaches one artist and is like, oh, you got the perspective totally wrong on this because she is a talented painter. And yet a tourist comes and buys it for 50 francs, and she's like, oh, shoot. Well, I can make that schlock, so maybe I should start painting in order, if my husband's not gonna get a job, then maybe I could do this and make some money so that we can eat.

Along the way, she meets an artist by the name of Marinetti who's a fascinating character. Tell me what you remember about this guy. For one, stellar performance. So charismatic and energetic. Yeah, absolutely. Who was that, by the way? Who was this guy? I do think his name is George. Yes, George Aboud. Shout out, George. Shout out to George. I'm so sorry I forgot your last name, but you are a very talented, talented human being. And once he comes in, he's particularly opinionated about what art is and what art isn't. Incredibly opinionated. And sometimes he has really great points. That's what I love about the script here. He's full of hot air, but sometimes the hot air makes the balloon go up.

Absolutely, and I think what's the most fascinating about her relationship with him is that Tamara de la Pica is not a woman to be bossed around. Yet, what he says she listens to, which just goes to show the value of what he says, because I don't think that Tamara de la Pica is going to take unvaluable advice from somebody that you might deem to be below her. He would need to make sense in order for her to listen to him. Absolutely, and I mean, spoiler alert, we do see the ways in which he influences her art. Now, I am not an art history major in the slightest, didn't even take an art history class, so I might need some listeners out there to message me and help me figure out what I'm missing here.

But in the show, Marinetti, who I believe was a real painter, is constantly talking about the banality of art at that time. He's sick of landscapes. He's sick of women reclining naked. Why on earth do we need to see another bowl of fruit or another naked woman? Like, just, it's done, it's over. And what he is most interested in is the idea of futurism. Now, when I think of futurism, I think of modernism, I think of Scandinavian art, like Bauhaus, and it usually is a little more optimistic. The way that he is describing it, though, is that it's kind of devoid of humanity. It's all machine-based, which maybe I'm just seeing the holes in this argument, but if you're so interested in machines, didn't humans make machines?

So maybe you're not totally uninterested in humanity. You know what I mean? Sure. This whole idea that futurism and perfectionism are the same, I don't quite understand. Yeah, I mean, I think that maybe in that point of view, there's something to be said about the sort of hopes that they had for the future, and that perhaps future and technology and what we don't already know might actually be perfect, as opposed to sort of the imperfect poverty and society that they were currently living in. Which, by the way, to remind ourselves, they had just gone through World War I. Right, so I think that there is this sort of— The hope isn't gonna come from people. It's gonna come from— Come from art, come from the future, right?

And I mean, I think for as much of a cynic as he seems to have been, I think that his cynicism is strangely actually rooted in hope, which is fascinating. And I mean, again, this is my speculation of how it fits in my mind. I don't know what Marinetti was actually thinking. Yeah, who knows? No idea. But especially in the 20s, there was this sort of hope for the future because the right now sucked, which is hilarious because here in the 2020s, we have to have hope for the future because the right now kind of does suck a little bit. That's my interpretation of how he does that. I love that. I also think it's fascinating. They paint him as a foe maybe, but they don't paint him as a villain per se.

But it is interesting to see so much of what he prophesizes then perverted and taken into fascism. Yes. I think I'll leave it there for now. I do think that all of his talking about machines and metal and kind of the inner workings of things inspires Lempicka in an Art Deco sort of way. There is a sheen. There is an almost, there's like so much motion and energy to her paintings, but it isn't necessarily always emotional. I don't know if that makes any sense. No, yes, yes, absolutely. And I mean, even speaking about hard lines and about futuristic, I mean, when you look at Lempicka's paintings or when you look at Art Deco, just the whole aesthetic of Art Deco, it is sharp lines. It is sort of futuristic. You know, like when you think about the.

[41:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[41:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[42:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[42:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[43:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[43:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[44:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[44:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[45:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[45:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[46:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[46:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[47:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[47:37] Sarah Anne Fernandez: LEMPICKA with Sarah Anne Fernandez

[48:07] Sarah Anne Fernandez: And I think the brilliance going off of that, of it as well is, I think my favorite part of the whole song is, I guess you would call it the bridge. When she starts to go, I want to feel your soft lips, your sharp teeth, whatever. And it just keeps going. It is both stream of consciousness of what she wants. And it makes total sense lyrically because when you really want someone, like that's what goes through your mind. I want this and I want that. And I want you, whatever. And it sounds musically like a heart beating faster and faster and faster and faster until it gets to her saying over and over again, I want to feel your heartbeat. I want to feel your heartbeat. I want to feel your heartbeat, both lyrically and musically, which is in my opinion, like the most intimate and romantic that it can get.

I mean, to want to be close enough to feel their heartbeat is like, to me, just the most intimate, beautiful lyric in that whole song. And it's the simplest one. Beautifully, beautifully written. Dare I say it's also incredibly feminine?

[49:20] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, I think that that's also just why it works, why the whole musical works is because the whole musical is inherently feminine. It is a musical about a woman for women. Not to say that people who aren't women can't love it or understand it, but there is a very singular experience that I think is very well captured.

[49:46] Sarah Anne Fernandez: That's beautiful.

[49:48] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yeah. All right, so going into act two, there are a couple of other characters that I haven't talked about. The Baroness.

[49:52] Sarah Anne Fernandez: The wonderful Beth Lovell. Oh my gosh. Every time Beth Lovell comes on stage, honestly, you can sing notes as much as you want, but Beth Lovell comes out on stage, and her stagecraft just, I can't take my eyes off her. I can't wait to see what choice she makes. She can be given any line, and it becomes just this masterclass in storytelling.

[50:18] Sarah Anne Fernandez: But who is this woman?

[50:20] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes, yeah, she is the wife of the Baron, who is, in act one, he's one of the first people to sort of stop by and take an interest in Tamara's art. And yeah, over the course of the musical, sort of becomes a maternal figure for Tamara. And also knows a lot about art. In fact, she's sometimes rolling up her sleeves and arguing with Marinetti.

[50:45] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes.

[50:46] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Tamara has a daughter. Of course, we mentioned that she was pregnant, but she has her daughter, Cassette, who is often represented in her paintings, even if she wasn't always represented in her life. But she did paint her a lot. The one thing about Cassette that holds one of my favorite parts of the entire show is there is a line that she has while she's painting. Cassette, I'm not sure if it's in act one or act two, I don't remember. But Cassette is complaining about sitting for a portrait, and Tamara says, it's good to see your mother work. For me, that's like one of the most impactful lines of the whole thing, because I think, especially for her time, but even now, ambitious career-driven women are often made to feel like they have to make a choice between being ambitious career-driven women or being mothers.

[51:40] Sarah Anne Fernandez: In Tamara's case, it might have been a little more than—

[51:46] Sarah Anne Fernandez: A little one-sided.

[51:47] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Sure, sure. But I think just that whole idea of it's good to see your mother work, I think just the addition of that line, for me, it provoked a lot of thought.

[51:57] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Also, a beautiful performance.

[52:00] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yeah, not a one-dimensional character there.

[52:02] Sarah Anne Fernandez: No way. The last person that I haven't talked about is Susie, who is the owner of a lesbian club, right?

[52:12] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Correct. Because we are in the roaring 20s, and what's really fascinating, and I think where you mentioned Chavkin's great handle over social revolutions, the way that social liberalism often precedes some sort of conservative backlash is very well represented in this show, because the space between World War I and World War II, everybody's partying, go representation, go lesbian clubs, and I mean, it's not socially acceptable, but it's also a secret that everyone's willing to look the other way and just deal with, until they're not, right? Until it's becoming a threat to society. And Marinetti, right at the top of act two, is telling us, you know, everyone keeps saying Paris will always be Paris, but it won't. The stock market just crashed in the US. You don't think that's gonna affect us, right? And once again, he is correct.

[53:14] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Now, the thing about this character, and who knew that Lempicka was gonna be so much about Marinetti, but it is such an interesting character, is that he becomes the face of fascism in act two.

[53:26] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Yes.

[53:27] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Well, and I think what's fascinating, to even tie it back to Tamara de Lempicka, is that she lived through all of these. All of it. Revolutions. She lived through all of this change and unrest, and when you look at the time period of which she was actually alive, what she saw and what she lived through and was affected by is absolutely bananas. You read this stuff in history books, and you're like, that's wild, and then you look at it, and that was just her life, right?

[53:59] Sarah Anne Fernandez: That's just her life. I mean, truly, to go from Polish nobility to Paris rags to fascism to this. And what's fascinating about Lempicka is that she was not always a hungry, starving artist. So on some level, she gets what money does and is unapologetic about it. So when she sees this stuff happening, and I'll never forget that scene where she is in one of her showings, her paintings and everything, and the Baroness has that great line where she's like, so nice to see your paintings inside. Congratulations. And Marinetti says, wow, look at how sexual your paintings are. I wonder if this was what it was like to see all of the debauchery of ancient Greece right before the fall. And then he just lets that.

[54:50] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Oof, so creepy and cabaret-like. But seeing where things are going and refusing to kind of turn a blind eye to it, she begins having these fights with not only her husband, but her lover, Raffaella. It is a love triangle thing, for sure that's involved. He wants Tamara to be with him and no one else. Raffaella wants to live openly in their love, and she's like, that's not possible. And through it all, Tamara's like, I have to focus on the work. I have to focus on money, because if I don't have money, we're going to get squashed. I'm right now referring to that big song called Speed, which is really interesting. Also, shout out to that song, The Other Woman, which I think is just another beautifully written musical theatre song.

I should spend a day talking about that one as well, where husband and wife have this really interesting relationship, where he's kidding about, maybe I should go find a new woman. The play on that, what is a new woman? Is it someone who's just new to him, or is it the new woman of the new world? Which ultimately, when you look back at history, she had a hand in creating.

[56:07] Jeff Parsons: Wow, great point.

[56:08] Sarah Anne Fernandez: So isn't it wild that if it's that way, that he wants something that she created? And unfortunately for Tamara, this is where it all starts to go a little downhill.

[56:20] Jeff Parsons: Also, unfortunately for the world.

[56:22] Sarah Anne Fernandez: For the world. She wasn't alone. That's the one good thing, I guess. Suffice it to say, she tries to choose Hubby, and Hubby's already moved on. So then as a second place, or well, at least I still have Raphael, she goes to her, and she says no. I think it's less of going to Raphael as a second place, and more, I think the thing about Tamara de Lempicka, when we were talking in the beginning about how she takes ownership of her life, she does that because she's a survivor. And a certain degree of realism is always going to play into that, right?

[57:04] Jeff Parsons: Correct. And I think we just spoke about everything that she's lived through. Of course, she has to be a survivor, right? And ultimately, being a survivor does not mean making the choice that you would want to make emotionally, but making the choice that you know will keep you alive. And not to say Raphael is not a survivor, because she is in a lot of ways, but Raphael wants to live openly and sort of survive in a different way, kind of a come what may survivor. Whereas, Tamara is not willing to become what may. Tamara is going to survive by pushing her deepest desires as dark as they can possibly go into the cave and close the door. And oddly enough, although Eden Espinosa is an Elphaba, and she's Tamara, I will say in this moment, Tamara is kind of giving Glinda vibes.

Glinda is going to do the thing that she doesn't really want to do to survive. She doesn't get on the broom and go with Elphaba. Raphaela is the Elphaba in this moment. Even if it is going to send her into the woods, into the sky with nothing more than her morals, she'll stick to them. Whereas Glinda is not really willing to do that. Tamara is the same thing. I mean, you know, for better or worse, we were talking about Cosette. For better or worse, she's going to be a mother to her. And she can't do that with Raphaela, not during those times.

[58:34] Matt Stauffer: Yeah, exactly. It's just tough choice after tough choice. You can't exist on the streets when there's bombing everywhere.

[58:40] Sameera Kapila: Exactly. Especially not with a child, you know.

[58:44] Matt Stauffer: Not with a child. You're exactly right. Speaking of tough choices, next comes maybe my favorite scene personally, which is the baroness comes to Lempicka and wants her to paint her portrait, which Tamara has become well known for, you know, painting rich people. And so, she does. It comes at a very low point for Tamara because she has just tried to commit suicide. And, you know, says like, I didn't have the courage to go all the way through with it. And the baroness says, well, you know, it actually takes more courage not to do it. And then reveals that she herself, she is chronically ill and is going to pass away. And she wants to be captured. Maybe art can do what biology just refuses to do, which is let time stand still.

[59:41] Sameera Kapila: Which, you know, the most fascinating thing about that, because it is the truth, but the most fascinating thing about that is bringing it back to this conversation of art is not human. Human beings die. Art does not. I mean, I think so often about the Sondheim song, children and art, that's all we can leave. And isn't Tamara doing that right now? She's putting her child first and she's putting her art first. Those are the only two things that she can leave.

[1:00:15] Matt Stauffer: That's very beautiful. It's such a beautiful poignant moment in the show and is such an interesting character to be the one to deliver this message to the audience. She also gives Tamara her husband.

[1:00:26] Sameera Kapila: Yes.

[1:00:28] Matt Stauffer: And says, when I'm gone, he's taken a liking to you. And I really suggest that you go with him. And so she does. And they end up in America. It's once again, how they survive. But now we're back to this old woman asking, why am I not the famous painter I should have been? And the truth is, for a lot of reasons, we see how many reasons there were. In the same way that there are so many reasons of why she's not dead yet.

[1:01:06] Sameera Kapila: You know why? Because she's not a quitter. I mean, when she's at the whole musical, she's not a quitter.

[1:01:11] Matt Stauffer: Yeah, absolutely. But just like Marinetti taught her, you can't control everything. You can't control the world, but you can control one canvas at a time. So while she may not understand why she's not famous, she has her art. And in kind of a wish fulfillment sort of way, the musical goes through a bit of a history lesson in terms of art deco being rediscovered in the late 60s. And in doing so, she becomes rediscovered and her paintings are sold for millions of dollars. And so she did fortunately live to see her paintings receive the kind of attention and financial acclaim that I think she had always wanted. So there is a happy ending here. But the truth of the matter remains, women's stories have been told so infrequently that it wasn't until 2024 that I really even knew this woman by name.

[1:02:14] Sameera Kapila: Now, the one thing I want to make sure to carve out time for, because it hasn't really come up naturally, but a lot was made of this being like the first bisexual love story on Broadway and awesome representation matters great. But I think that there's something so much deeper to this love story, which is at the beginning, we see Tamara called a whore and be forced to engage in prostitution to save her husband and the kind of shame and darkness that that creates. And I think what a profound magical thing that the woman that she fell in love with was the prostitute.

[1:03:54] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Hmm. Wow. Yeah. You know, like the people we fall in love with are our greatest teachers of how to love ourselves. And as like, sassy and downright arrogant as Tamara's Olympic may have been, I think she had to love a woman who had done what she did in order to love herself.

[1:04:17] Jeff Parsons: Oh, wow. That, wow. Oh, that just hit me. That is really beautiful. And how poignant and likely true, even for the real Tamara.

[1:04:34] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. I don't think you survive without that kind of understanding of who you are.

[1:04:38] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. And I'm going to take that with me now that the people we love or the people who teach us how to love ourselves, that is wonderfully beautiful and accurate. Thank you. Well, I think Olympique teaches it beautifully. I don't know what the future of this musical will be. Maybe they'll keep trying to make it work if it, quote unquote, didn't already.

[1:04:56] Sarah Anne Fernandez: I have high hopes. I mean, I did see they just released the sheet music today, actually.

[1:05:04] Jeff Parsons: Yeah, all of the sheet music today. And Matt Gould did post it saying, if anyone needs it for an audition with a winky face. So I do hope that that means that there's a future for Olympique beyond Broadway, because there is theater beyond Broadway.

[1:05:30] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. I can absolutely picture the show happening all the time in college situations.

[1:05:39] Jeff Parsons: Absolutely. I also can picture it happening regionally. I also do hope that it tours. I think that there are a lot of people across the country that need to see a story like this, especially given the type of government we're about to enter in this country. I think that that is wildly impactful to look at what fascism can do and also how a bisexual woman survives fascism.

[1:06:03] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Absolutely. How does a woman tell her story in the energy of that, right?

[1:06:11] Jeff Parsons: Exactly. No, I really do. I think that Olympique is brilliant, and I'm so glad that we got a chance to talk about it today, because I don't think people talk about it enough. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me. I don't think this is the last we'll hear about it. If for no other reason, then there's a whole generation of people who really grabbed onto it in its very short time on Broadway.

[1:06:39] Sarah Anne Fernandez: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on A Musical Theatre Podcast, please reach out to me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us and share our episodes on Instagram, TikTok. We're also on X.

[1:06:53] Jeff Parsons: We have Patreon, exclamation point, which I'm so excited about this year. There's going to be so many great opportunities. I'm going to give a special offer right now that if you write us a great review, take a screenshot, send it to me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. I will gift you a full year of Patreon, exclamation point for free. That is $12, people. It's not very generous on my end, but that also shows to you how easy it is to subscribe to Patreon, exclamation point. It's 12 bucks. I'm happy to gift it to you in exchange for a shout out, a little sweet review, wherever you might listen to us. Don't forget about our TeePublic store, where we have great designs that can go on all kinds of merchandise. Those profits that we receive go to Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS. More than anything, so grateful you're here having these conversations with us. Couldn't be more happy to have you here.

[1:07:45] Sarah Anne Fernandez: Help us know how we follow you and how we get tickets to your show.

[1:07:51] Sarah Anne Fernandez: You can follow me on all platforms at sarahann17, but it's Sarah A-N-N-E-E 17, and that's because there is another Sarah Ann 17 without a second E somewhere. If you are her and you would like to give me that handle, I would love to take it from you. Take it off your hands. For now, it is Sarah S-A-R-A-H-A-N-N-E-E 17 on all platforms, where you can get tickets to my show at any of those platforms, or you can go to the Green Room 42's website and search either my name, Sarah Ann Fernandez, or Don't Forget Me, which is the title of the show. It's on January 13th at 7 p.m. Tickets are available both in person and there are unlimited live stream tickets available. If you're not in New York or you don't want to get off the couch, you can still see the show from the comfort of your own home, and we would love to have you.

We will be celebrating Lempicka and also the stories of tons more famous women who have had musicals written about them, so we'd love for you to be part of it. Check out our show notes because we will absolutely have links in there for all of that.

[1:08:59] Jeff Parsons: Sarah, thank you so much. Happy New Year. Grateful to talk to you.