This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The irony that it had taken 20 years for everyone to realize that Chicago was a masterpiece, at the same time that Steel Pier is coming out. And I'm not necessarily saying it's a masterpiece, but at the same time that Steel Pier is coming out.

[0:17] Colden Lamb: Excuse me? Excuse me? Jeffrey?

[0:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, at the end of the day, we still have to reconcile that power is a powerful thing, is maybe not the most well-written song of all time. Perfectly exemplifies Mick's point of view to the world in a vaudevillian tempo, the same way that Billy Flynn's All I Care About Is Love does.

[0:42] Colden Lamb: How dare you speak so poorly about the greatest American musical ever written.

[0:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today we are discussing the musical Steel Pier, which was a listener request from both Carl and somebody else who I will introduce right now.

[1:21] Colden Lamb: Colden Lamb. What do I say about Colden? He is one of the most passionate musical theater nerds I've ever met, and I invited him on a recent episode of Patreon! to visit the Flop Shop. Now, a reminder that on A Musical Theatre Podcast, the F-word is not a curse word, and by F-word, I mean flop. I believe, I truly believe, we can learn even more from the quote-unquote failures on Broadway than the hits. So, I always love going to the Flop Shop to talk shop about our favorite musicals that didn't last too long.

[1:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Here's the twist, though. After that episode on Patreon! in which Colden and I brought four favorite flops to the table, we then created a poll for subscribers that allowed them to vote on which of those flops would become a full-length episode in March, right now, on the regular feed. Selfish plug. If you want to be a part of these super fun bonus episodes and activities, subscribe to Patreon! for only $1 a month. It's $12 a year, you guys. There's no reason to not do this.

[2:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Anyway, here were the choices. Here were the original shows that we discussed in the Flop Shop. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pipe Dream, Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier, here we are, Leonard Bernstein's Candide, and Rags by Charles Strauss and Stephen Schwartz. Now, I'm going to tell you the truth right now. Not all subscribers voted, but the ones who did left things in a three-way tie between Pipe Dream, Steel Pier, and Rags, which then left Colden and I to break the tie. And because of my personal connection to the show, and because we had listener requests for it previously, I voted for Steel Pier. And Colden, you voted for Steel Pier because...

[3:08] Colden Lamb: It's the greatest American musical ever written.

[3:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That was not scripted, and yet I knew that was what you were going to say, so thank you. Thank you for taking the lead. Everyone, please welcome actor, teacher, writer extraordinaire, Colden Lamb! Yay!

[3:23] Colden Lamb: Jeffrey, I've been such a fan of the podcast ever since it came out, and now I'm on the podcast, and I'm talking about my favorite show and the greatest American musical ever written. Dreams are coming true today.

[3:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I do what I can. I do what I can, Colden. I'm so grateful you're here, because this show gives me all the feels. And you know how for, I think, a very large portion of our society, when the first notes of My Heart Will Go On play, it immediately transports you to a time and place and feeling? That's how Steel Pier is for me. Steel Pier is my Celine Dion in many ways.

[4:03] Colden Lamb: It's mine, too.

[4:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, all right, where do we even begin? We're going to start out by talking about Kander and Ebb's first big introduction to Broadway, which was the musical...

[4:17] Colden Lamb: OK, Kander and Ebb, John Kander...

[4:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A Family Affair.

[4:22] Colden Lamb: A Family Affair, which everybody loved.

[4:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, I tend to think that the first big Broadway bow for them was a musical called Floor of the Red Menace.

[4:31] Colden Lamb: Oh, that stirred me! I'm so happy to be here on the podcast, everybody. They wrote that score just for me!

[4:39] Colden Lamb: Floor of the Red Menace featured a Tony-winning, brand-new star turn by a young lady named Liza Minnelli.

[4:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, she completely took Broadway by storm.

[4:52] Colden Lamb: The show also has one of my very favorite songs. Not just one of my favorite Kander and Ebb songs, but one of my favorite songs of all time, A Quiet Thing. It's a perfect little tune.

[5:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But it also had book problems and never got much revival love. So, John Kander and Fred Ebb, and book writer David Thompson, and choreographer Susan Stroman, and director Scott Ellis... They had all worked together to create this musical review of Kander and Ebb songs called And the World Goes Round. Pretty popular, pretty well-known.

[5:26] Colden Lamb: And they all really, really enjoyed working together. So much so, that they started working together on reviving Floor of the Red Menace. Doing whatever needed to be done to kind of bring that show back into the spotlight.

[5:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, Colden. You never need to raise your hand, by the way. We can stop the recording at any time, right?

[5:44] Colden Lamb: Of course, but we can always just keep going.

[5:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. It was actually the other way around.

[5:49] Colden Lamb: Was it the other way around? Oh, they did Floor?

[5:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Floor came first, then World Goes Round.

[5:53] Colden Lamb: Oh, interesting, interesting. Okay, so Floor preceded And the World Goes Round.

[5:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[5:59] Colden Lamb: Okay, great.

[6:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So they first worked on Floor, then they went to World Goes Round. Well, that makes sense. So I don't know if you need to rerecord that.

[6:05] Colden Lamb: No, of course, of course not.

[6:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, yeah, that makes total sense. So then, either way, they had all worked together, and they really enjoyed working together, and they all tried to make Floor of the Red Menace work, and it just didn't. It didn't really go anywhere, this whole revival take. However, in the process, they had done a lot of research about the 1930s, which is when that show takes place.

[6:28] Colden Lamb: After working together on And the World Goes Round, the review, someone else had also joined the team, triple threat singer-dancer-actress extraordinaire Karen Ziemba.

[6:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So after this, they're still wanting to work together, and specifically they're wanting to create something for Karen Ziemba, that's how they always call her. And they're like, okay, well then it's got to be in the 1930s. We've done all of this work researching the 30s. What's it going to be?

[7:01] Colden Lamb: Is that fair?

[7:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, that's correct. And so one of the things they thought about was actually featured in the revisal of Floor of the Red Menace, which featured a dance marathon.

[7:11] Colden Lamb: Did it really?

[7:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All I need is one good break was given to two people who were in the dance marathon.

[7:19] Colden Lamb: Oh, wow. I didn't know that. That's cool.

[7:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So dance marathons had kind of entered the vernacular, had entered the party, if you will, even back then. So let's talk about these dance marathons. Obviously in the 1930s, things are not great economically in the United States of America, and people are pretty desperate across the board to find a way to still have the American dream.

[7:39] Colden Lamb: Dance marathons come out as like this Hunger Games meets reality show.

[7:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It really is a fascinating social experiment.

[7:59] Colden Lamb: Yes, so dance marathons were these contests. Well, the people participating in them thought they were contests, but to the people who were running them, they were a source of entertainment where audience members would come in and watch these performers or these contestants try to stand on their feet or dance as long as they could.

[8:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: These performers would get one 15-minute break every two hours or every one hour. It's sort of like a big game. The game is to stay on your feet as long as you can, and the last one standing wins.

[8:36] Colden Lamb: And stay connected, too, because a reminder that in the 1930s, people don't dance with each other, which is maybe something that we forget nowadays, but dancing was meant, especially at this time, to be a source of connection, physical, if nothing else. You can maybe blame our puritanical roots on that, but it was a way to touch people in a very acceptable way.

[9:04] Colden Lamb: So not only are you dancing, you're dancing with someone. That contact has to be maintained, and you have to keep moving together as a unit in some way for... I mean, I don't even know what the longest dance marathon was. But most of the time, they lasted months. As long as people were still standing, it kept going.

[9:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Now, because people were standing so much, and to keep the audience entertained just watching people sway side to side, they would do sometimes little stunts to keep the audience involved and to have the audience come on back. For example...

[9:43] Colden Lamb: Hunger Games. Seriously.

[9:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It is very much like the Hunger Games, yes. But it was also, like you said, the beginning of reality TV, in which to keep the audience entertained, they would make these little melodramatic subplots in between the contestants. One famous example is that they put contestants in a block of ice, and they'd see how long that contestant would stay in a block of ice. There were fake or real marriages during the dance marathons. Another example, they would do these derby sprints in which the last two contestants who did not make it, who did not finish, were eliminated. And again, it's the beginning of reality television.

[10:25] Colden Lamb: And you see this a lot in Mr. Beast's videos. He did a marathon style in which people had to stay in a circle, and the person who stayed in the longest won, and he would do these little obstacle games to try to get people to get out of the circle. That's just one example of marathon style gaming that still continues today.

[10:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And then on top of the final prize money that you're trying to compete for, which I think I did the math, and it's basically $2,000 in Steel Pier that they're trying to win, which would equal, what, like $30,000 or something crazy like that in 2024? So this is a substantial amount of money.

[11:07] Colden Lamb: And then you add to that the time period of deep economic crisis, and people are willing to do it in order to maybe win. But not only win that end money, you have the opportunity to get attention, be sponsored by a local business, right? You have your number on your back, your couple number 13, so you got your lucky number 13 on your back. What if Frelinger's taffy shop sponsors you, and then all of a sudden you can put their logo or their name on your back, and they become a sponsor. So there are opportunities for celebrity, there are opportunities for sponsorship, there are opportunities to win the sprints or some of these other little standout moments that then maybe get you tips. And so by the end of it, hopefully it feels worth it, right?

[12:06] Colden Lamb: Now the thing about reality television is that whenever people get eliminated, I was even just watching an old Drag Race episode the other day, and they're put through this emotional wringer, and then at the end as they're wiping mascara running down their face, they're like, I'm just so grateful for this experience and for everything that it did for me, and I will never be the same. And I'm like, yes, but you also went into so much debt to buy all of these costumes that you're never going to wear, you know what I mean? Reality television, reality competition television, has a way of making it seem very worth it. And maybe it is. Who knows? Maybe it is.

[12:47] Colden Lamb: When I step back and just kind of take a breath, and even look at these dance marathons, I'm like, was it? Was it really worth it? I don't know, especially in the 1930s. This feels pretty barbaric.

[13:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It is pretty barbaric. And there was a New York Times article back in 1928 that talked about why they object to dance marathons, and they used this analogy.

[13:28] Colden Lamb: I think the same applies to dance marathons, and to reality television. On some level, there is the possibility that you stop looking at people as people.

[13:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Here's where I think we can start talking about the musical Steel Pier. Well, one of the people who attended dance marathons in the early 1930s was a young man who lived in Kansas City, and his name was John Kander.

[13:52] Colden Lamb: Hey!

[13:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So he was very well aware of dance marathons, and being an observer, and just watching these people suffer and sway side to side. And he also visited the Atlantic City Steel Pier, and one of the other creators, Susan Stroman, I was going to say, Jersey, yeah.

[14:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Visiting the Jersey Shore. Now, there certainly weren't dance marathons anymore, but she did visit the Steel Pier and was very much aware of the vibe and the history of this place. So, bada-bing, bada-boom, it seems like a perfect vehicle to talk about, A, a star dancer, Miss Karen Ziemba, and create a wholly original show for Broadway. Now, I know I've said this on the podcast before, but one of the most difficult things that you can do, we always make fun of, oh, they made Mrs. Doubtfire into a musical. Oh, they made another movie into a musical. But the truth is, there is nothing more difficult than creating an original musical that is based on nothing, like no prior intellectual property.

It's so rare. It's one of the reasons why Dear Evan Hansen becoming a huge smash that it was and is seems miraculous in some way. You often have to have a pre-existing character, a pre-existing story, something for audiences to hold on to, and something for creators to hold on to, because when you add in all of the extra elements of music and dance in this art form, it's really easy for the story to get away from you. That didn't stop these guys, though. This group was more than willing to just go for it. Yes, they were willing to create what they really wanted to do, was not only do an original story, but an original American story. And the story of Steel Pier is very much American, and even dance marathons have that sort of American, we're gonna get through this, and we're gonna survive, and come out of the other, and just doing all right.

[16:09] Colden Lamb: Yeah, you're exactly right. What do you know about the creation of this show? Because they didn't really do any out-of-town tryout. They certainly had a lengthy rehearsal process, and when you go back and look at the show, it was so intricately staged that you know those rehearsals and the whole creation process had to be incredibly intricate.

[16:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It very much was so, because of Tony Walton's gigantic sets, because although the main action of the show takes place on the marine ballroom of the Steel Pier, they still needed to do locations outside the Steel Pier, and in a sequence where they go up on an airplane, and this was also at a time when musicals needed to be big. Nowadays, musicals can be accepted doing a one-unit set or doing small things, but this was the era of Titanic and Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis, so this had to be a big set. So on a technical level, it was gigantic, and like you said, the whole show is about dance and a dance marathon, and poor Susan Stroman had to figure out every single style of dance for the show, from waltz to polka to all the 30s dance crazes at the time, bunny hop, bear hug, all the animal names.

I gotta say that I think that the most difficult choreography to come up with is tap choreography. If you're doing it right, if you're doing it well, you're not only creating a visual choreographic style, but an audible one. You are essentially becoming an extra orchestrator with the score, with the music, and how does that all work together? And then once that is settled, does it look pleasing to the eye, to the audience? But I would say a close second is partner dancing, and in the same way that tap is incredibly intricate, partner dancing, you're not only choreographing where one person is, you're choreographing where two people are working together as a unit consistently, where not only where does one foot go, but where does the other person's foot go while that person's foot goes there.

It's such a beautiful form of dance that we don't do nearly enough in this musical. Top to bottom, it is filled with partner dancing, not just of them in the marathon, but kind of the metaphor of what does that connection between people mean, and is it important, and is it otherworldly, and is it spiritual in a way? It really is partner dancing across a huge spectrum of storytelling.

[19:00] Colden Lamb: Yes, I agree, and Susan Stroman even said that dance in the story was used to heighten the romance, and that in Steel Pier, the marathon is used as a metaphor for people trapped in a rut, and that rut could be a relationship, a job, or the depression, and it's not until Rita, or Karen Ziemba's character, is empowered with love does the character of Rita realize that she does have a choice to leave at the end. I love that, I love that. If you dance with someone long enough, you're going to fall in love with them on some level, like that's all there is to it, because in that dance, you understand how to make love.

[19:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, period. As a matter of fact, during the rehearsals of Steel Pier, they had a gentleman who was a dance marathon pro, and a matter of fact, that while he was doing a dance marathon, that's how he met his wife, because they were dancing together. There is a language shared as you dance like this, and then on top of it all, there's certainly going to be trauma bonding. And you are responsible for that other person that entire time. If you're tired, then you need to lean on your partner to sleep on them, and vice versa, if when they're tired.

[20:11] Colden Lamb: Yeah, I hope that people listening are understanding this. They did not stop to sleep. If they did, it was during the one 15-minute break they got an hour. And that's what made it really challenging.

[20:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's what made it incredibly challenging, and what makes things like the sprints and some of the games, quote unquote, even more devious in my eyes, is because they're trying to take advantage of the exhaustion and push people even further to then either hurt themselves or collapse so that they can get out faster. It's not just about entertainment, it's about forcing people to drop out. Otherwise, maybe they could be going on even longer.

[20:53] Colden Lamb: Oh, there's so many things to talk about, but when we're talking about kind of the dark element of the show, that's when I'm like, yeah, this is a Kander and Ebb show.

[21:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, and a lot of Ben Brantley, in particular, in his New York Times review of Steel Pier, said that this was the anti-Chicago and the anti-cabaret, which is easy to understand when you listen to the cast recording, but in the book scenes lies this very dark underbelly.

[21:22] Colden Lamb: I completely agree, Colton. If you read the script at any moment, this could be an incredibly dark musical, and they opted to present it very optimistically and filled with hope because that is American! That is the American musical! But if you wanted to do a really dark production of Steel Pier, you sure could. And that could be American, too. So when they said they wanted to create an American story, they wanted to show the positive energy of America and the dark energy of America. So for the positive energy, they decided to represent this through the character of Bill, in which you can get a second chance at life, and you just need to follow your hopes and your dreams, and that will lead you home. And then there's the dark side of the American dream, represented by Mick Hamilton, in which you just need to step on people and humiliate people, and that's going to get you far in life.

[22:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And therefore...

[22:17] Colden Lamb: Climbing your way to the top, and if you're climbing over bodies along the way, so be it. Never be an employee, always be the boss, as he sings. Therefore, the audience, or Rita represents the audience, in which they have to pick which side of the American dream to find home, because that's Rita's big objective that she wants throughout the show, is to go home to her house on 12 Ocean Drive.

[22:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Great point. Pausing here, let's talk about the personal connection with this show. When did you discover it, and when did you know you loved it? Because you certainly weren't alive, or if you were...

[22:53] Colden Lamb: No, I was not. But, so my first love with John Kander and Fred Ebb's work was the musical The Visit, and it's because of The Visit...

[23:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, fascinating. Okay.

[23:07] Colden Lamb: Yes, and it's because of The Visit I started to learn more about the works of John Kander and Fred Ebb throughout college, and then I came across Steel Pier, and the show is just so meaningful and beautiful. It just touches me on a very emotional level, and I've been fortunate enough to have seen it two times in person by two college productions, and each time I just come out like a crying baby, just because of the beautiful romance between Bill and Rita. I mean, it's a little silly, but it is true. Who wouldn't want a kind, considerate, charming, handsome pilot to come sweep you away, and take you away from the awfulness of the world, and just help you get on the right path in life?

[23:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, so for me, you know that I had this trip to New York City when I was 15. It was for my 16th birthday that my grandparents took me on. They were cattle farmers, but really believed in theater and the arts, and they would take each of their grandkids somewhere fun for their 16th birthday, and I really wanted to go to New York and see a Broadway show, and so there was this group tour thing that we could get in with, and you could see a lot of shows. The whole idea of going with this group tour was that they would get you the group rate, so I go with my grandparents, and the first show that I see is Chicago, a Kander and Ebb show. The second show I saw was Titanic. That was a matinee, and then the third show I saw was Steel Pier, and as I look back on my 15-year-old self, Steel Pier really is one of the shows that formed how I take in theater, because after I saw it, it soon closed.

It didn't win any Tony Awards. It didn't go on tour, but I had seen it. I had had the opportunity to sit in a theater and experience something that maybe would never be experienced again, and that, along with the fact that there was this magical place far away from where I was born and raised that felt like a Disney World in some ways, this little haven of ornate old buildings, and each one housed a different little world that you could disappear into and experience, and then it might vanish, and like the gratitude of being able to participate in that, and it's one of the reasons why I have like a black and white xeroxed poster hanging in my office here, because I look at the poster and I'm like, that was a flop.

That was a flop that makes me cry when I think about it, so like if my 15-year-old self could figure that out, you know, that sometimes our flops mean more to us than our successes, then like, boy, that was well worth the price of the ticket, you know? Anyway, so this show means a lot to me, and it's not just because of the show. It's because of what it represents, and I think we all have maybe weird little curios that mean a lot to us for bizarre reasons, and then people are like, why do you care about the sound of music? And you're like, shut up! It means a lot to me, have respect.

[26:52] Colden Lamb: Geoffrey, that was beautiful.

[26:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, stop, stop, thank you. All right, so the show opens in a season that is a really interesting season. I love the... The 97 season, how exciting! It's so fun! I've watched this Tony Award so many times.

[27:09] Colden Lamb: So have I, yeah. So the shows up for Best Musical that year were Steel Pier. Steel Pier had so many nominations, and I didn't realize this until logging on to Wikipedia, but Steel Pier became the show with the most nominations and zero wins, taking over the record held by Chicago, another Kander and Ebb musical, and then would only be eclipsed by the Scottsboro Boys, another Kander and Ebb musical.

[27:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What is going on here, Colden? People don't appreciate Kander and Ebb.

[27:49] Colden Lamb: I don't think they do! And here's the other interesting thing. You'll list all the musicals, I'm sure, but each one of them did not get good reviews by the New York Times.

[27:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, well, look, this was a really... This was a big turning point for critics, for those who want to go back and maybe listen to our Titanic episode. Even though Titanic got terrible reviews, Rosie O'Donnell loved it, and she had one of the most popular talk shows in America, and so it almost didn't matter. I felt like this was a real turning point. But yeah, so Steel Pier opens the Best Musical nominees, Steel Pier, Titanic, The Life, which is a fascinating Cy Coleman musical. I'd love to explore that one one day. And...

[28:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What am I forgetting? It was like a Julie Taymor show, right? Or was that just a play? Was it Wandarian? Carnival Mass?

[28:41] Colden Lamb: Yeah, maybe that's what it was. Yeah, Wandarian, which was, I mean, the fact that it was a musical is kind of crazy, but Wandarian is what gets Julie Taymor Lion King, essentially. It's a really interesting show with music by her husband Elliot Goldenthal and had all of her amazing puppets and playing with scale. Like, that show was incredibly instrumental and nobody remembers it. I mean, we didn't even remember that it was one of the nominees for Best Musical. Jekyll and Hyde was also this year. It does not get nominated for Best Musical. Again, did not get well-received, but it was loved.

[29:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're so right. Not a lot of rave reviews for anything other than a different Kander and Ebb show, The Revival of Chicago. But what ends up happening is Titanic wins everything, Steel Pier wins nothing, and everybody else maybe gets like, you know, Life gets Best Featured Actress for Lilius White, so on and so forth. The show closes pretty soon thereafter and here we are. Want to go through it?

[29:43] Colden Lamb: This is gonna be very hard to go through without crying.

[29:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's okay. Now, we talked earlier about the emotional impact this musical has for us, but I was thinking about if there was any historical or cultural impact the musical has.

[30:03] Colden Lamb: Yes, and it has three.

[30:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, I can't wait. And it all comes from the cast.

[30:13] Colden Lamb: The most important one is that Steel Pier gives us a very popular performer named Kristen Chenoweth in her Broadway debut a year before Good Man Charlie Brown in the role of Precious McGuire. There was also two ensemble men who would later go on to have very big, big careers behind the table. One was Andy Blankenbuehler, who would later be working doing a different show at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. I wonder where that show went. Actually, two shows of the Richard Rodgers. In the Heights and... Oh, that's right. He did do In the Heights.

[30:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And then the other one was Casey Nicholaw. Hello.

[30:54] Colden Lamb: Who I personally considered a modern-day George Abbott. You can give him a musical comedy and he can make it fantastic, just like George Abbott did.

[31:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so great. Great point. So they're all learning how to build... How fun for them to be like on the front row of seeing these legends create a brand new original musical. That's got to stay with you.

[31:16] Colden Lamb: Yeah. It would for me.

[31:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Oh, I do want to say we're kind of bouncing all over the place. But, you know, in David Loud's... Shout out David Loud, who was on our show in our Ragtime episode. He was the original musical director for Steel Pier and he did all of the shows for Kander and Ebb. He talked about how, you know, right across the street from them was Titanic and they and legendarily so, Titanic had a very tumultuous preview and huge, huge portions of the show were changed or cut and so on and so forth and it was kind of his belief that they were able to be a little bit more adventurous in their editing and in a way that Steel Pier wasn't and that that was kind of detrimental to Steel Pier. You know, that during the preview process or once they got into the theater, not a whole lot changed and maybe it could have been changed. How do you feel about that? I mean, you've already said it's a masterpiece, so no notes.

[32:19] Colden Lamb: Well, to be fair, I wonder how Steel Pier would have changed or fared if they had an out-of-town tryout first. Would that have helped it be more successful? Or would it have never made it? Because of the Chicago revival, because of the cabaret revival, when people saw a new John Kander Fred Ebb musical and also four years before that was Kiss of the Spider Woman. So you think, oh, we're gonna be seeing something cynical, we're gonna be seeing something dark, something tragic, and we do see that, but it ends up on a happy, positive, cheery note and the music is so romantic and wonderful. I think it's John Kander's most romantic score right next to Kid Victory. And so I think that's what mainly threw people off. You know, Titanic, all singing, all dancing, all drowning. The life is all about prostitutes. To see something so hopeful about something so sad kind of threw people off.

[33:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And would you tell our listeners what you told our friends over at Patreon?

[33:28] Colden Lamb: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we often say that the Golden Age ended with hair, right? The hair came in and changed everything and then the Golden Age stopped. And I believe that and I teach that, but that didn't mean that the Golden Age musical went away. And you look at the 70s and Annie was one of the biggest hits. Totally a Golden Age musical. You go to the 80s, Le Cageot Faux, one of the biggest hits. 100% a Golden Age musical. The 90s, we had Will Rogers Follies. We had Will Rogers Follies. Great point. But by the time Steel Pier came around in the end of the 90s, it was the first time that Broadway was like, yeah, no, thanks. We're not interested anymore.

[34:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, and what I said also on the Patreon podcast was Ethan Morden in his one of his books about the history of the American musical said the real reason why Steel Pier did not succeed was because people lost their appetite for well-crafted and well-written musicals. I mean, that's a shame if that's the fact. Even he thinks it's a masterpiece, Jeffrey. So there you go.

[34:43] Colden Lamb: I think it's wonderful.

[34:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right, so let's talk about it. Let's go through it real fast.

[34:55] Colden Lamb: Oh sure. I'm willing to ride.

[34:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: There it is. All right, so Steel Pier begins as much as we've said the intricate, crazy staging, it actually begins with one individual. First, well, okay, I'm already stopping myself. You guys, the amount of music in Steel Pier is insane. I think it's the most music John Kander has ever written for a musical. Broadway musical. Absolutely, absolutely. There are so many dancing sequences in this and they all have their own piece of music in a way that you might hear Benny Goodman write a piece for people to dance to. There's just so much music and we have a beautiful overture that the show begins with. But then it gives way to one individual on stage and this guy is named Bill Kelly. He's a pilot.

He's got his little rocketeer bomber jacket on. You know exactly who he is and he's down on the stage and the light comes up on him and he looks up into the light and he's holding this like pink piece of paper. At least I remember it as being pink. And he's like, I got three weeks. Okay, I got it. I get it. Three weeks and then he runs off stage and you're like, oh, this is somebody from the military. He's like a pilot and I'm currently taking you through my thought process as a 15 year old. And he just got a three weeks leave, right? A little vacation. That's how I took it. What does a 15 year old think about all these people behind him slowly dancing behind him in ethereal white? I thought they were lovely.

[36:27] Colden Lamb: Lovely and...

[36:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And after he leaves these dancers then come down to the front of the stage and they put their hands out almost like they're zombies except for their they've got fists, right? So their arms are straight out and then they slowly loosen their fingers and sand falls from under their fingers onto the stage. My favorite part of David Loud's autobiography is he says that whenever he opens his score from Steel Pier, there is nothing but sand that comes out. Yes, they had like things marked in their score like cover the instruments Here comes the sand like just it was a show about sand but it is such an essential part of the visual storytelling because we are going to be talking a lot about time and we're going to see a lot of lapses in time whether it's in the dance marathon.

We'll go from seeing them at hour 14 to then hour 22 in only a few seconds or we will we will jump back in time see a little flashback as they're releasing their sand. It really is the sands of time. Now, once again, I'm 15 so I'm thinking uh-oh here comes the soft shoe, right? They're they're about to do like a little little tea for two. Not the case. They go off now enters Karen Ziemba. Now, I have scheduled exactly 45 minutes to discuss how incredible Karen Ziemba is as a performer. You need to know that Karen Ziemba Tony winner for the musical contact came on a musical theater podcast and did an episode all about contact and many many many of you couldn't have cared less. I listened to it.

Not very many people listen to this episode and I really really encourage you to go back and listen to Karen because she is a pro with a capital P. You will never meet somebody in your life who's more of just like has great work ethic great attitude and loves what they do and does it in a professional way like Karen Ziemba. I can't speak too highly of her. I've worked with her several times now because of like benefits and one night only events and what I would add is that she is known for her dancing, but I have never met a dancer who loves singing more than Karen Ziemba like think about things that crap out of this score. She really does and she loves it and that love that warmth that like presence on stage is so difficult to do and something that we don't appreciate enough because it just feels natural.

It's very natural for Karen Ziemba to walk out on stage and for us to go Ah, she seems like a really great person. That's because she is. But it's because it's that's number one who she is and number two she allows herself to be seen on stage and showcased in that way. Anyway, I just want to give her all the props in the world. She makes things look so easy and they are not.

[39:36] Colden Lamb: Agreed.

[39:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So she comes on we meet her her name's Rita Racine. She's coming to participate in this dance marathon. She runs into Bill our pilot he's looking for a partner and he's maybe hoping that she doesn't have one. She's like no I do he's coming. He you should see him. He's he's absolutely fantastic. And he says well, of course you would be dancing with someone amazing you're who you are and she's kind of taken aback because she's kind of a d level celebrity. Like why would you know who I am? She's known for being lindy's lovebird. She was the first girl to kiss charles lindbergh when he got back from his huge, you know famous flight. And that in addition to her dancing and being the star of dance marathons she is a name I guess if you will for this circle this little sphere and then she goes and launches into one of the most glorious leading lady songs ever written willing to ride.

It's a terrific song and such a I mean Rita because of a lot of abuse especially in her marriage holds her cards very close. She's not able to communicate a lot to people because of the secrets she's forced to keep. That means that rita's only real scene partner for most of the show is the audience and as she reveals these pieces of who she is beginning here with willing to ride she is communicating it to us and only to us and what she communicates is her want to go back to her home on 12 ocean drive she's done many many many marathons and as we talked about how grueling they are and this is going to be her last marathon and then she's going to hopefully have an easier life a calmer life. But for right now she's gonna do one last push and then it'll all be worth it.

Here's the twist her partner never shows up. This guy that she was supposed to meet this fabulous dancer never shows up and bill throughout this big opening where we're introduced to the ballroom and the steel pier itself and all of the different characters bill keeps coming over to read and is like has your partner showed up yet and Karen's the emba in her warm very nuanced way is like thank you so much for checking in but i'm pretty sure he's coming. And by the end of that number she realizes he's not and so she gives in and becomes partners with bill now in the meantime we meet the announcer the host of this entire dance marathon happening at the steel pier mick hamilton. Mick is just like the most handsome fellow you could ever want with a gorgeous announcer voice flocked by ladies who are the lovely boylan sisters.

[42:31] Colden Lamb: Exactly. Mixed pics are his little trio of angels who are always backing him up and he is on the radio right as he is announcing it is being broadcast to homes everywhere that might be tuning in to listen to what's going on at the marathon.

[42:48] Colden Lamb: is also one of the ones with his button on the drama to make sure that people keep listening and keep being interested. He introduces not only Rita Racine, the Lindy's love bird, but Shelby Stevens, who is a firecracker played originally by the firecracker Deb Monk. I mean, look, Deb Monk is one of the true candor neb broads. Who else do we meet? We meet Happy and Precious McGuire. Yep, those are the names because people from Utah are idiots and we name our children Happy and Precious. We don't actually do that. We name them McCadelyn with two Ys and a K and a D. Anyway, newlyweds from Utah, they are really struggling as newlyweds because they have nothing and so they have joined the marathon with the hopes of, you know, making something out of nothing.

Precious McGuire, of course, played by another dynamo, Kristen Chenoweth. Let's see. We've also got Johnny Adele, who is a former Olympic athlete, and he has his dance partner, Dora Foster, who used to be a socialite. And that's a really interesting dynamic, too, because throughout the show, Dora is just so embarrassed to have to grovel in this way. She finds the dance marathon demeaning and humiliating. And I love Dora's character very much because she starts out very particular. During dance marathons, if you did a dance step or if you did a trick very well, people would throw coins at you as a way of little tips. But she finds that demeaning. She says, I am not an organ grinder's monkey. And that's why organ grinders have monkeys.

So they don't have to pick up the coins. The monkeys do. And unfortunately, there's a really sad scene in Act Two where when the marathon dancers become more aggressive and more sleep deprived, Dora starts groveling on the floor. She even starts grabbing money that she doesn't even see. So she unfortunately has a very sad character arc. But again, at the very beginning of the show, it starts out very optimistic that they all think that they're going to win.

[45:11] Colden Lamb: Another great kind of ensemble couple that has an interesting character arc, Bette and Buddy Becker. Am I remembering that right? Yep, Bette and Buddy Becker, a good old vaudeville team, unfortunately. A brother and sister, kind of like a Fred and Adele stare is kind of what you would imagine. They were vaudevillians. They're falling on rough times. So they're hoping that they'll use the dance marathon to find a theatrical agent or a producer to get them in their new show. And that's what sometimes people did. I think we can, because I don't want to forget to talk about their character arc, we can say what ends up happening, which is they're two of the strongest dancers. I mean, they're actually pros.

They're not just ones who are swaying back and forth. But the exhaustion gets to them so much that Buddy loses his mind. The term was squirrely, meaning that when the sleep depravity hit you really hard, you started to hallucinate and imagine things that aren't there. And unfortunately, Buddy does not have a good time pacing himself throughout this marathon. And because he doesn't pace himself well, he ends up getting squirrely and therefore disqualifying. In the same heartbreaking scene where Dora is groveling for coins, Buddy Becker imagines himself that he's at a backers audition and he doesn't get it. And he just, it breaks my heart every time he just keeps on screaming, I want a job, I want a job, I want a job.

Because if he only had a job, he wouldn't have to be at the dance marathon. When she's like, trying to make excuses for him, and she's like, no, he's fine. He's fine. Like, let us keep going. Let us keep going. Just the desperation of that is so profound. And shout out to Joel. Oh, what was his name? Oh, Joel Blum. Joel Blum. He was nominated for a Tony for this, which was so exciting. I'm like, that's one of my favorite Tony noms that this show got was freaking Buddy Becker got nominated for Best Featured Actor. How cool is that?

[47:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I know. It's so touching. I completely agree with you, Colten. Any other main, main characters that we were forgetting here at the top? Mick Hamilton has kind of like a, an Igor type henchman by the name of Walker, Mr. Walker. He's the one who's always going around and making sure that people are still moving, dancing, pointing out when they're in violation and are about to be called out. You can bunny hug, but you can't grizzly band. It's so fantastic. This is all done in this huge number called Everybody Dance. Once again, just choreographed within an inch of its life. And then we get started. So people are dancing, people are doing their little standout moments to try and get sponsors.

And you see this clock kind of tick away. I wrote this down, by the end of the first act, we are at 14 days. So the first act is 14 days long of this marathon, which is absolutely crazy to think about. Now, you can imagine a lot happens in those 14 days. What are some of the highlights that we for sure need to talk about?

[48:31] Colden Lamb: Deborah Monk says to Mr. Peanut, get out of here, you nut! That's a very important highlight. Oh, I mean, probably one of the biggest things is that Rita finds out her, you know, knight in shining armor, this guy who stepped in last minute and has become her new dance partner, can't dance. He's got two left feet. And so she has to take the first part of this marathon to even teach him how to not step on her feet. It takes place in this song that he sings called Second Chance, just a great little tune. Now Second Chance is referring to a lot of things. It's saying, hey, give me a second chance, even though I am failing miserably in the dance department, give me a second chance. I can learn, I can do better.

He's also referring to the fact that he originally won the opportunity to have a dance with Rita at the Trenton Airshow Raffle. Thank you. Yes, he won the raffle and the prize was a dance with her and he wasn't able to cash in his prize. And so he is hoping that at some point that he can cash in that prize and they can have their special dance, which has to be different than the dance marathon. It can't just be, you know, blah, blah, blah, sway back and forth. It needs to be his dance because he is kind of in love with this girl. Now, here's where we're going to reveal the secret. The third Second Chance that Bill is singing about is the fact that he is an angel.

[50:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, you spoiled it.

[50:18] Colden Lamb: It's okay. It turns out that when he at the very beginning was saying, I got three weeks, he was in fact talking to heaven or God or whoever you want to believe and saying, thank you for this second chance to come back to Earth to fulfill the dream that I never got to live out. Now, my grandma, who once again, a rough and tough farm lady who could kill a rattlesnake easy as one, two, three. She said that from the get-go she knew he was dead.

[50:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow, your grandma's smart. I, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea.

[50:50] Colden Lamb: Yes, and since you spoiled the... It's okay because we're going to talk about it a lot throughout the rest of the show. So that was the main qualm that most people have with this show. We do not find out about who Bill Kelly is until the very end of the musical. And for many people, it threw them off because they just thought it came out of nowhere. But here's my main stance on that is that four years earlier or three years earlier, excuse me, the Lincoln Center Theater did a revival of Carousel, meaning that Carousel was in the consciousness at the time. And people love and adore Carousel. Here's what I don't understand. The first act of Carousel, we are in...

[51:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The earthly world.

[51:42] Colden Lamb: The earthly world. And then in the second act, Billy Bigelow, very different from Bill Kelly, dies. And then out of nowhere, we go to the gates of... out to the gates of heaven. Then we meet the starkeeper and we can't meet God because we only can meet the starkeeper. But we can look down from heaven. And then from heaven, we can fast forward very quickly and then watch a 15 minute ballet. And then Billy grabs a star from the starkeeper and he tries to give it to his daughter, but the daughter wouldn't accept it. And then we go to this big ending where the preacher of the town is somehow also looks like the starkeeper and then Billy gets to go to heaven. And everyone's fine with that in Carousel. But when Steel Pier says he was an angel trying to come back to help Rita, oh, that came out of nowhere. I didn't expect that. That doesn't... It just drives me insane. That's all.

[52:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I completely understand. There is so much old school, even almost an MGM quality to this musical, that if there is a little bit of it's a wonderful life mixed in, I'm totally fine with it. It doesn't bother me whatsoever. It feels cohesive.

[52:49] Colden Lamb: Yes. But going back to what you said.

[52:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, please.

[52:52] Colden Lamb: About second chances. Yes, he does. The third reason being getting the second chance from the heavenly world above to help Rita find her second chance in life, which I think is just the most profound thing.

[53:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And here's my question. Do you think he knows that's his purpose?

[53:12] Colden Lamb: I do believe so. Yes.

[53:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[53:14] Colden Lamb: So what happened was... How did he die, you might ask? Well, at the Trenton Air Show raffle, when Rita was performing, he was supposed to go later and to get his dance, but the schedule changed and he had to go early. And because of that, he got into an accident with his plane and he died. And then at the very beginning of the show, that's where you see him is that he's given this second chance.

[53:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's interesting because, and I wonder if this is one little massage that could happen with the show, is that in order to keep the secret going, it needs to feel like he's doing everything almost selfishly, like out of his own desire to fall in love with Rita, to get his last dance, right? Whatever it is. And it's not until much later that we realize, in addition to that, he's been there to help her all along. And I wonder if that secret, if trying to keep that secret prevents Bill and Rita from having real vulnerable conversations about their inner lives, what they need. Does that make sense? I wonder if I should say that now.

[54:25] Colden Lamb: I understand what you're saying, but at the same time, he never talks about himself. All he cares about is Rita. And then when he does talk about himself, it's to correlate to how to help Rita. For example, he talks about the medal of bravery he won and how Rita could do the same as well. Also, the book writers said that Bill might be also worried that if he says too much or if he goes too far, then he might vanish into the ether.

[54:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Interesting.

[54:55] Colden Lamb: If Rita rejects his love.

[54:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure, sure. The other big secret of the show we actually do learn in the first act, and that is that Rita is already married. And not only is she married, she is married to Mick Hamilton, the guy who's at the microphone.

[55:13] Colden Lamb: And who staged Lindy's Lovebird's Kiss. Yes. He has been orchestrating her whole career this entire time. Every time they have a little moment to steal away from everybody else, they are continually planning how are we going to rig this so that Rita is the star of this marathon, that she gets the sponsors, that she wins, because a win for her is a win for them as a couple. That being said, Mick is incredibly abusive. Not necessarily physically, but mentally and emotionally. He keeps her under his thumb and does it in a really manipulative way. His little phrase that he always says to her is, who needs you the most? Who needs you more? And she says, you do. And as she replies to him throughout the musical, that answer begins with sweetness and love and gratitude, and then slowly but surely fear and a realization of how controlling he is and abusive he is, is reflected in that answer.

[56:25] Colden Lamb: Yes. And although this is an original story, there are small moments from Steel Pier that are based on the Orpheus myth.

[56:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, interesting.

[56:36] Colden Lamb: Yeah. It makes you think that if that other musical can do well on the Orpheus myth, this one could do well too, right? But Mick is supposed to represent, not overtly, but if we are thinking about analogies, Mick is supposed to represent Hades. And the Dance Marathon is the underworld that Mick controls. And Orpheus is Bill Kelly. So for those Hades town lovers, it...

[57:04] Colden Lamb: There is some correlation there, yes, but Mick is our villain. One of the little things that he's orchestrating is that he wants Rita to get married because he wants a sponsorship from Fraylinger's Taffy. So you may think, what? This guy wants his wife to get married? Yes, like that's who we're dealing with. We're dealing with somebody who doesn't want anyone to know that they are married, and then he wants her to pretend to get married to somebody else during the marathon. He then forces Rita to convince Bill, and then will drop him after you win. The way that Rita tries to seduce him is by taking him to the horse diver tank. If you've ever seen Cowgirls Don't Cry, is that it? Wait, what is it?

Are you referring to that Disney movie? Yes, of course. Do you remember this? Was it real Cowgirls Don't Cry? I can't remember. Anyway, it was about horse jumping. Because this is the thing. The poor horsies would be up on a huge diving board, and the rider would be on the horse, and they would jump off. And in the case of this Disney film, which I'm blanking on the name, she was blind, and she still did it. Anyway, so they're at this tank, and they sing the very... I mean, it's Karen Ziemba being just as sweet as pie, but when you look at these lyrics, they are dirty about getting wet. I always thought of it as a big pastiche of Singing in the Rain. A very dirty version of Singing in the Rain, you might say.

Right. But she's like, come on, jump in, jump in. And at the end of the number, Bill gets in his cute undies and jumps in. And Daniel McDonald, who unfortunately became an angel not too far, not too long after Steel Pier. He was a cutie patootie, gotta say. Gone too soon. That's another one we can talk about. Okay, so then she's trying to get him to agree to this whole marriage mishigas. They get called back to the ballroom, and she doesn't have the chance to tell him. She doesn't have the chance to even tell him the plan. And yet, when they show up, and Mick assumes that she has told him the plan, they get up to the microphone, and Bill proposes to Rita in that moment. How did he know? Is this an angel thing?

First of all, I'd like to make one thing quite clear. I never explain anything. Again, I think that's where I believe that Bill knows everything and what's going on and how to help Rita, so he naturally knew. Now, it could also be justified that he loves Rita so much, as exemplified by a song he sings earlier called The Last Girl. Exactly, which once again has nothing to do with Rita and her growth and him being there, other than to like ooh and ah over this girl that he obviously loved when he was alive, but loves to this day. Yes, so his love for Rita is so much that, of course, he would just ask to marry her right then and there. I mean, he only has three weeks, so might as well be married for a week and a half.

To Rita's surprise, he proposes, Mick's like, oh perfect, my plan went great, and now they are going to get married, but it's not going to just be any wedding. It's going to be a cellophane wedding, which for anybody keeping track, I had just seen Chicago the night before and had officially within two days, my first two days in New York, seen two Kander and Ebb musicals in which cellophane is an important plot point. Okay, so the first act ends with the sprints, which we've talked about. It's one of these games that's really supposed to cut things down. We're at two full weeks, and the desperation is sitting in. We look like we just got out of clown prison. Yeah, they give them these like basically P.E. outfits from middle school to change into, and they're not only upset about it, but they're scared because they know how exhausted they are, and now they're supposed to be put through these sprints, obviously to take some out, right, so that people will fall and get eliminated.

Three, two, one, go. The sprints, the sprints, the sprints, they're running, they're running, people are falling, and Rita falls, and everyone's like, oh no, she's out, but that is when time stops. There's a freeze. Everything stops, and Bill says, no, I'm not ready to go yet, and all of a sudden, the orchestra starts playing the music you just heard backwards, and in the staging, everything goes back in time until we're at the point right before she fell, and then time starts again, and this time, Rita doesn't fall. And do you know what the music there that is going backwards at that moment? Please tell me. The melody to Second Chance. Oh, Second Chance. Yep. Wow, how cool. I thought this would be an okay time to also bring up very quickly the music of Steel Pier.

There are two main themes in Steel Pier. There is Rita's theme, which sounds like this, and then there's Bill's theme, Second Chance. Now, whenever in the show, Rita is having an issue, or there's a problem, you hear, and when Bill comes to help, you hear Rita's theme mixed with Second Chance. A prime example of that is in the sprints. You also hear that in the prelude, and there are a couple of other moments where those two melodies combine, so whenever Rita's in trouble, her melody is mixed with Bill's theme. Oh, that's so fantastic. Thank you for pointing that out. Now, once again, going back to my 15-year-old self, I just saw time go backwards, and had no idea why, and didn't bother to talk to anybody about it during intermission.

I was just like, oh! Harry, did you understand why the time stopped? It's a little loud, but I like it! Those are my, that's my intermission people. I love it. I love them. I probably have sat next to them many times. I had no idea though, truly. And your grandma's next to you going, I know why that happened. Yeah, she didn't even say anything! I think grandma was maybe making up stories and just didn't want to seem like she got, she got had, but uh, I don't know, maybe she knew. Maybe she knew, but we were, I don't know, I was confused. I was confused, but I didn't want to say anything. I'm sure most of the audience was confused, but again, we don't know until the very end, and I think that's maybe why people also felt upset, because they felt like they waited two hours for an answer, and when they finally figured it out, they couldn't go back and re-watch the musical to understand it.

Maybe that might have been a reason. So the second act begins with, they're in like a little 15-minute break post the sprints. Rita has fallen asleep, and she has this dream, and the dream is Bill saying, wake up, get up, it's time to go, and he, and he, and the actual lyrics are, come on, wake up, it's time to go, but him, but Jefferson's going, wake up, wake up, come on, let's go, let's go, and they go to his plane. A plane rose out of the stage at the Richard Rogers Theater with all of these MGM show girls on the wings. The number is a gigantic pastiche of a famous musical sequence from the movie Flying Down to Rio. Yes, Flying Down to Rio, thank you. Flying Down to Rio, where all these girls are on the propellers, and they're dancing, and there's a great story that Susan Stroman says, that when they first did the technical rehearsals for When You Leave the World Behind, all the girls were really scared, but then Karen Ziemba goes up, does her little tap dance, her kicks, and her twirls around the airplane without a care in the world, and all the other dancers go, oh, okay, I guess I can do that.

Yeah, like, it just took Karen Ziemba to do it. All of the ensemble were, like, kind of complaining, this is unsafe, and they literally are holding on to ropes, by the way, they have, like, a rope to keep them tethered to the plane. Miss Karen Ziemba, no rope, just literally going back and forth on these wings, kicks and swirls and all sorts of things, and ain't nobody can complain when the star is showing you exactly how it's done. Like, this is the professional we're working with. All right, after the dream, it almost feels to me like when you have a sexy dream about somebody, and then you see them in real life, and you're like, oh gosh, I suddenly feel a little different about you. I feel that that's kind of what's happening to Rita, right, is that her subconscious is working on her, and then as she spends more time with Bill, she realizes, like, she realizes what it's like to be with someone who actually likes you and treats you well. It's something that she hasn't really experienced in this way. And then we go to another relationship, a different relationship in our story.

[1:06:39] Colden Lamb: That's great. Which is between Shelby Stevens and Happy. Now, you might remember Happy McGuire is currently with Precious, but Precious, unfortunately, she's getting a little star hungry, and a little, and she really wants to win this marathon, and she also...

[1:06:55] Colden Lamb: She's going full housewives on this. Yes, she wants to be, as she says, the next Jeanette McDonald, who was a big operetta star in that day, and she starts being really mean to the other contestants to the point where Happy drops out just because he doesn't like the marathon, and he doesn't like the way this marathon is making impressions.

[1:07:16] Colden Lamb: It's changing, yeah. Yes, and Shelby sees Happy, and Shelby is known as everybody's girl. She's the tough broad. She's been around town, but she sees Happy, and she sees someone who's genuinely kind and friendly and treats her like a lady.

[1:07:34] Colden Lamb: So this later scene in the second act, she goes outside Shelby, and she sees Happy, and she sings this beautiful song that John Kander wrote called Somebody Older. It's one of those Kander and Ebb songs that's so simple. Once again, I think that maybe this show is filled with a lot of these beautiful moments that you take for granted because of their simplicity, and yet the honesty and beauty, and it's so pure. And John Kander has even said that this was Somebody Older is not a romantic song. I have found someone I love, and I'm going to stop the world for you. It's just a simple song of I'm a nice person, you're a nice person, take me away. And Shelby asks, and Happy rejects her, and it really hurts her. And unfortunately for the rest of the show, she becomes a little bit hardened by what happened.

[1:08:26] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. Shelby is such a great character because it's one of those that you're like, oh, nothing gets to her. An armor that is impenetrable. And then throughout the show, you see what that armor is actually protecting.

[1:08:39] Colden Lamb: All right. So now we're at the wedding. We're at the marriage. The night of the phony wedding.

[1:08:48] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. The cellophane wedding between Rita and Bill. And Precious McGuire has elbowed her way into the ceremony. She is now singing this Jeanette MacDonald operetta type song called Two Little Words, which of course is referring to the words I do. And John Kander said to Kristen Chenoweth, when I think it was the first day that she got handed the song, I have written you your very own glitter and be gay.

[1:09:16] Colden Lamb: Well, look, you listen to her do that. And I'm sure everyone was like, Coonagundah win? Because it's absolutely fantastic. She does steal the second act with that song. But unfortunately, the sad thing is, is that Precious unintentionally tells Rita the way she was able to get that slot was by sleeping with Mick. But because Rita does not tell anybody that Mick is Rita's husband, it really stings Rita to the point where originally she sang a torch song called Nobody's Fault talking about, well, this was my fault. No one's to blame but myself. It's nobody's fault, but my own. And it didn't really work, especially not because of the message of the song, but also because it was sandwiched right in between Somebody Older a Ballad and the next song, First You Dream. So John Kander and Fred Ebb went back to the writing board and they wrote one of the most exciting, if not the most exciting number in the piece called Running in Place.

[1:10:26] Jeff Parsons: Colden, talk about it. Running in Place is right up there with freaking Music in the Mirror from A Chorus Line. I mean, it is an opportunity, and this doesn't happen very often, where you get one person alone on stage to sing their feelings and then dance their feelings all by themselves in a completely thrilling, vulnerable, passionate way.

[1:10:52] Colden Lamb: Tour de Force.

[1:10:53] Jeff Parsons: Tour de Force, truly. So in this moment where she finds out she's up on the roof and there's kind of a solarium, like a skylight above the ballroom. So there's this window dome and then on that dome is a pole, like a flagpole, and this is the setting for her to do Running in Place. She's in this red dress. It's all coming out now, right? All of the anger, all of the...

[1:11:18] Colden Lamb: Hurt.

[1:11:21] Colden Lamb: She begins to use dance in a way that you don't see in any other moment of the show. She's grabbing the pole. She's doing really interesting pole dancing type movements. She's melting in and out of these arabesques and then finally starts just doing across the floors, up and down the stage. And this is someone who has been dancing, remember, for like three weeks at this point. It's just musical theatre at its best, in my eyes, because it's a fully integrated moment of story, emotionality, singing and dancing. It's a thrilling moment. And who should come to help her in her moment of need? But Bill, right after that moment, right before two little words, Bill comes, picks her up off the floor and just comforts her.

I love it. It's a very small little moment, the sweetest little moment. Once the pretend wedding happens, the complete psychopath that Mick is, he creates a little tent on the dance floor for them to go in as newlyweds. So that's what happens. The tent comes up. Rita and Bill go into this tent. But instead of making love, they honestly do something maybe even more vulnerable, which is a dream. Bill gives her a lesson. Certainly she had the dream about him, but now he's actually going to sit her down and give her this lesson on how to dream of something better. He asks her to close her eyes, to pretend like she's flying. Here's this pilot using what he knows to teach this beautiful message. It's an incredible song that many might know because Audra McDonald recorded it in one of her solo albums.

But first you dream, man. Gorgeous, gorgeous song. And it really is the apex of the whole show. The whole message of the show for me is not to look back and just go forth with your dreams and your hope and your convictions. Yeah, I agree. Rita's completely fallen for Bill because, once again, this person who in such a short time has given her so much. But three weeks is up. The dance marathon has continued for three weeks, and that's all that Bill had. So he must go. He does, and she is left without a partner. Mick Hamilton is thrilled about this because this is more drama. This newlywed, this bride, has lost her husband. He was evil and left her. In Bill's place, Mick wants Johnny Adele, the Olympic guy that we talked about at the very beginning, to step in and be the new partner for Rita.

Rita is done with a capital D. Well, what makes her done? What was the final thing that pushed her? What is it? Oh, oh, oh, oh, yes, I do know this. The final thing is that her house is gone. Mick hasn't been totally honest with Rita, obviously. But one of the most important things he hasn't told her is that this is not the last marathon, that he has another one set up. And let's be honest, there will probably be another one after that and another one after that. And she's like, no, you told me this was the last one. I want to go home. And then that's when he reveals, I sold our house. And she said, why would you do that? And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's connected to the fact that they lost a lot of money when there was this accident at the Trenton Air Show and the pilot died.

And that is the moment, number one, that Rita realizes her house is no more. But number two, that Bill, the pilot who won the raffle that was hoping for a dance with her, has been dead all this time. Now, if I'm Rita and I'm three weeks into this, maybe even closer to four weeks, I might think that I am going insane.

[1:15:30] Colden Lamb: And she does go insane because right after she finds out that Mick lied to her, that Mick sold the house and that Bill died, suddenly her mind just slips and we see the inside of her mind and we're in limbo. And all these dancers are around her singing this number very similar to the title number from Cabaret, in which life's a party, come to the steel pier. And it just scares Rita because she realizes that the song is not an invitation, but a warning. Out of nowhere comes Bill. The final time he gets to see her and they do the most beautiful and profound, simple dance. And Rita comes back to the drudgery of the real world and she realizes to escape it. And she does. And she grabs her suitcase.

And I mean, you still see the people dancing behind her. You still see the couples that are just slogging and trying to get through it and her breaking through them with that suitcase and with that medal that she got from Bill to say, no, enough is enough. And with all the love in her heart and everything that she learns from Bill, she walks off and she creates a better future for herself. And that's how the musical ends. And that is my favorite part of the show. And that's why the show makes me so emotional to this final moment. And you have this triumphant orchestral bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, which is ushering her into this new second chance.

[1:17:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Isn't that beautiful?

[1:17:13] Colden Lamb: It's absolutely stunning.

[1:17:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, I wanted to ask you this, Colden. In preparation for this, I was listening to your episode on Mac and Mabel. And for a majority, I love the episode, but it seemed like for a majority of the episode, you were talking about how if only they did this, if only they did that, then the show could have worked. And, you know, mostly with flops, it is always that game of, oh, if they only did this, if they only did that. What is it with Steel Pier? Do you think that if they only did this, if they only did that, would the musical have been more successful?

[1:17:50] Colden Lamb: I don't think like I've suggested a couple massaging things. One of the possibilities would be for us to find out that Bill is an angel sooner. Do you think if people knew about Bill's situation, would the musical make more sense, you would think?

[1:18:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And we would lose a little something because there is this beautifully romantic story between Bill and Rita. And by him being more of an angel with a mission than a man in love, you might lose a little bit of that romance. But if he does become this angel with a mission, I think it might give the audience a little bit more clarity and it might give Rita somebody to talk to and confide in. But once again, that maybe changes a lot of things. Maybe she doesn't do running in place, right? Because she hasn't been forced to keep everything inside for so long. This isn't a Mac and Mabel type situation where I'm like, this show is entitled Mac and Mabel, and yet like Mabel is a featured character in the piece. And it's all about Mac. I don't see any huge problem like that. What do you think?

[1:19:03] Colden Lamb: Well, I don't have any.

[1:19:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You think it's a masterpiece?

[1:19:05] Colden Lamb: The greatest American musical ever written.

[1:19:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And look, it's a really difficult piece to stage. And so I don't see it getting done very often. But luckily, it has been getting a second chance at a couple of colleges. Colleges have been picking up the show, which I'm so thankful for.

[1:19:23] Colden Lamb: And it's a great idea. There are so many characters.

[1:19:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know that when I was in college, dramaturgy was a big thing in this period. And the history of the Dance Marathon is a great thing to look at from a dramaturgical, is that a word?

[1:19:38] Colden Lamb: Yeah, absolutely.

[1:19:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Dramaturgical viewpoint. And I was fortunate enough to see two college productions of it at UCLA in San Diego State. And I think even Kristen Chenoweth has gone on record saying, why isn't there a City Center Encores! production of it? Because she wants people to see what they missed. And I feel the same way. I think what Steel Pier really needs is a second chance.

[1:20:04] Colden Lamb: I love it. Colton, thank you so much for doing this with me.

[1:20:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, we laughed, we cried. Well, that's what Steel Pier does. It makes you laugh and it gives you a good tender cry. And I'm so grateful that your podcast, here's what I love about your podcast most of all. I should have left a review, but I'm just going to say that. I've listened to many a podcast over the years. And many podcasts, especially theater podcasts, just loves to berate and just harshly criticize things. But I know with your podcast, if and when you do it, it's not very harsh, or it's just not to beat something down just to rip it a new one. But your podcast mostly is about the love of the art form and the love of the musical. And musical theater and theater just in general is a very special, ethereal thing. So I really appreciate that your podcast takes such good, kind care and love of musical theater.

[1:21:09] Colden Lamb: Thank you, friend. I am grateful to be here with you to talk about this show that means a lot to both of us. And hopefully it'll introduce people to it anew, if not for the first time, then the second. I mean, if you're looking for a new cast recording to listen to, oh, this is the one.

[1:21:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: As always, if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on a musical theater podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcasts at gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, X, TikTok. We've got great content there. And I mean, it's all because of Patreon exclamation point that we are here today. So for only $1 a month, subscribe to Patreon exclamation point. You get a bonus episode every month and opportunities to connect as a community, which honestly is the purpose of this. I love all of my new friends through this podcast. I appreciate all of you. Don't forget about our TeePublic store either, because all of the designs and profits that we receive there are benefiting Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS.

[1:22:17] Colden Lamb: Jeffrey, how do we follow you? What's up in your life?

[1:22:20] Colden Lamb: You can follow me at coldenlam on Instagram. And if I was going to plug anything, I have written two critical analysis essays regarding Steel Pier. And I am fortunate enough to say these words. I'm very grateful. And I hope I don't get in trouble for saying them. But I'm very fortunate that I've had the privilege to be the first to record two never before heard or publicly heard before John Kander Fred Ebb songs that were cut from Steel Pier. And you can find that on my YouTube channel, or on the blog about Steel Pier's 25th anniversary.

[1:23:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Amazing.

[1:23:03] Colden Lamb: The two songs I've recorded both took place around the same scene. One song is called Do Re Mi. And the other song is called In Here. They're sung by all the contestants of the Steel Pier Marathon and why they are there. So in here, for example, they say, I'm in here to win the prize outside they're selling apples and they're hawking pencils and they have a bread line. So I'm in here to avoid that. With the other song Do Re Mi, they're trying to say, you know, it's about winning the contest. It's about being strong. It's about all these things. But Shelby sets the record straight by saying, it's not about love. It's not about partners. It's about D-O-U-G-H, as in money, Re, Mi.

[1:23:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Ah, that's so great.

[1:23:56] Colden Lamb: It's a play on Do Re Mi, but not in a Rodgers and Hammerstein way, but more like Do as in cash, moolah, bucks. And you can listen to those two deleted songs on my 25th anniversary Steel Pier essay.

[1:24:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Amazing. Oh my gosh. Good for you, dude.

[1:24:13] Colden Lamb: It's kind of weird to say that I'm the first to record two never before heard John Kander Fred Ebb songs. It makes me scared.

[1:24:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, I love that. That's amazing. That's incredible. Congratulations.

[1:24:25] Colden Lamb: Everybody out there, thank you so much for listening. I am going to end the show today with a little clip from our Contact episode in which I forced Karen Ziemba to listen to me tell her about a time I sang the title song Steel Pier. See you next time.

[1:24:42] Colden Lamb: The other thing that makes it legendary in my life is that Steel Pier is apparently the score that I started singing coming out of anesthesia when I got my wisdom teeth out.

[1:24:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What was the song you were singing?

[1:24:56] Colden Lamb: I believe it was the title's number, which is surprising. I would have guessed, you know, Willing to Ride, but my mom was like, I think you were singing a song called Steel Pier.

[1:25:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was like, huh? Well, there you go.

[1:25:11] Colden Lamb: Why don't you come to the Steel Pier?

[1:25:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Steel Pier, Steel Pier.