This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Hi, I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper. And I'm Joe Iconis. On today's episode of the ALBUM PODCAST, we're going to be talking about HELEN SHARP, an epic manifesto as written by Joe Iconis and sung to the heights by the great Lorinda Lisitza. The song is inspired by the Robert Zemeckis film DEATH BECOMES HER and my own jealousy and bitterness at those around me.

[0:32] Joe Iconis: Well said.

[0:33] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It's the truth. Check out the podcast. Here's some more dirt.

[0:51] Joe Iconis: Helen Sharp.

[0:52] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah.

[0:52] Joe Iconis: What a song.

[0:54] Joe Iconis: Thanks. I wrote this song the summer of 2017. And like many of the songs in the album, I was feeling very frustrated and annoyed with my career and my place in the American musical theater. And I wanted to write a song that was about jealousy. And because I was feeling feelings of jealousy at other people who I perceived as having the kind of success that I wanted and still want. And it's something that is a constant thing in my life, looking at other people and feeling like I wish I had that. And I think that it's a constant thing in most artists' life. We just rarely talk about it. And so I wanted to write a song that was about that and the anger that comes with that and the sense of not wanting to turn bitter.

And because just having a career in the arts, I've seen so many people go to the dark place for good reason, because it's really, really hard to do this. And especially if you're anyone, but if you're an actor, for sure. And I feel it as a writer or anyone. It's really easy to get beaten down, especially if you're someone who's a lifer, who's been doing it for so long and wants to keep doing it. It's really easy to get discouraged. And with all of those years of disappointments and rejections, it adds up. And you have to consciously try not to become bitter, to try not to become someone who's angry at the world and moving about life with nothing but jealousy and anger and bad feelings. And so that's what the song is about. I feel like this is another one where you perform this most often, but has anyone else performed it?

[3:01] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: No one else has ever performed it besides me until now.

[3:05] Joe Iconis: Wow. Yeah, Lorinda is the first person ever to perform it, who is not me.

[3:08] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And Lorinda never did it in a concert?

[3:11] Joe Iconis: No.

[3:11] Joe Iconis: You've conjured it up. Yeah. She's never done it. And it's a crazy song. It really is. It's very, it's huge. It's like one of my, it's like fire and brimstone. It is a big belching, furious song. And I should say that, like many others on the album, inspired by a film, it's inspired by Death Becomes Her. And something I always loved about Death Becomes Her, in addition to how sort of lurid and kind of trashy, classy the movie is, is that it is, it's a movie that's about, it's about jealousy in a way that many pieces of art aren't. And it's, and the way that that movie dramatizes it is by using, you know, like plastic surgery and zombies and like the living dead and Beverly Hills and all that.

But I always thought of the relationship between Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp. Madeline Ashton is the Meryl Streep character and Helen Sharp is the Goldie Hawn character. I always thought that relationship was so interesting and really kind of like weirdly moving. And so it felt like a great vessel with which to write something about jealousy and about me as a writer feeling, you know, feeling resentment and feeling like, you know, this longing and wishing I had what, you know, insert X person's name here, has. And yeah. And so even though it's written from the point of view of Helen Sharp, which is why it's called Helen Sharp, even though her name isn't in the song, it's very much something that feels really personal to me.

This is another one where I felt like this is as autobiographical as any song on the album, even though it's, you know, using the situations of death becomes her to tell the story. So because of that, I did it for the first time when I did a solo show the summer of 2017. And then I've done it a few times since. And it's just one that like I connect with so deeply that it just kind of makes sense, I think, for me to sing it. However, in the back of my mind, I always thought if I had someone else sing the song, it would be Lorinda Lisitsa. Lorinda is an actor who I have known since NYU. I first saw her in like thesis readings of other people's shows, and was so like, who is this woman? There's no one like her in the history of like, they broke the mold.

They broke the mold. She's not a type. She doesn't fit in a box. The box is Lorinda Lisitsa. She is her own box. And she was in this thesis musical, one of my, I wrote two thesis musicals in NYU, The Black Suits, and then the show called Plastic, which had words by the great Robert Maddock, and I co-wrote the music with Reza Jacobs. And Lorinda played this totally unhinged character in that musical, and I've been working with her ever since. And she is so good at playing unstable people. She is Mrs. Claus in The Christmas Show every single year, drunk Mrs. Claus. She is a fearless actor. She will do absolutely anything.

[3:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I have a memory of her doing it in a concert that I've conjured in my brain.

[6:48] Joe Iconis: The first time I ever saw her was in Triumph of Baby, which is another show you wrote with Robert Maddock. And like, it's a tour de force for Lorinda. And it's incredible, like what she did in that show. And she was in Rewrite, of course.

[7:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, yeah. In Rewrite, yeah, as Ms. Marzipan and others. And she just, you know, again, like so many people on this album, like her voice is so gorgeous. And she's such a great interpreter of song. So she's someone who could, she could just stand at a microphone and sing standards, and you as an audience member would have a perfectly transcendent experience. Like, she's so great at it. And it's like, almost cruel that she is so great at that, and also is such an incredible, fearless actor, and also so funny, like so truly funny. It's she can just do so many things so well. And I think that then when you can harness that and put it all together, you get performances like her performance of Helen Sharp, which is it's, you know, what she's doing technically is really stunning.

And like her actual vocal performances is, is really hard. And, and really gorgeous. But it's, it's really the fearlessness of it. That is, it's just otherworldly. She's definitely like a fearless performer on stage where I think people get this in the Christmas show, because obviously, that role is written as so Lorinda can like, excel at that thing that she excels at. But I just feel like, yeah, it's exciting to see Lorinda in anything, because you don't know how far she's gonna like take a line or a moment.

[8:35] Joe Iconis: Yeah. And it's like, and the answer is like, it's farther than you ever thought possible. Like, there's just like, there's no like, she, you know, some actors or performers, they're like a little bit like below zero, you know, and they tend, I tend to, I tend to like a performer who's, who makes big choices, and who's bold and has personality, and is like firing on all cylinders from the top. And I less respond to performers who like, give what I would call whisper performances, where you're just like, what are you saying? What are you saying? And Lorinda is like, every choice is like a cannon. Yeah, you know, and in the best way. But what's, what's great, though, and like, and you hear it on the song, and I'm really proud that I'm involved with the song, because I think it's an amazing performance.

She's huge. And so in your face, and it's like almost punk rock, how, how huge she gets on this tune. But then there's also these moments where she's so quiet and so intimate. And she sounds so like, so wounded, you know, and it's that like, the huge position.

[9:51] Joe Iconis: So special, you know, where she like I've always said that I want to do a production of Carrie with Lorinda and Laura Marcus where they swap roles as Carrie and Mrs. White like every night because I think they both have that thing of being able to be like huge and crazy in your face and then be so good at being this kind of fragile wounded soul. And Lorinda just, she just, you know, truly, truly breaks my heart on this track and the orchestration of the track is something that is, it's one of my favorite orchestrations on the album and Charlie did such an incredible job with it and the players did such an incredible job and this is like as big as any song and it's, you know, full like strings and brass and it just sounds massive.

It sounds like, you know, like film score huge and the fact that Lorinda cannot, not only carves out a space for herself in that massive wall of sound but matches it and sometimes goes over it is really, really incredible. Um, yeah, and I'm so, so proud to be associated with it and you know the obsessive return to Madeline, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline, it's, you know, it's the kind of thing where it's something that I find myself doing and I try so hard to not where it's like all of the things that I am unhappy about with my life whether it's professional or otherwise I find myself putting on other people, you know, where it's like and I think it's something I think it's a natural thing because I see other people do it where it's like, oh, I didn't get this thing I wanted or people treated me in a certain way they're not treating that person a certain way and it's, and that person, that person, that person has everything I want and it's so hard to not, to not, you know, corral all of your issues and all of your disappointments and then put them on someone else and aim your anger at another human being.

Um, and so I try really hard not to, um, but it's, but I still do and I think that, um, that that really is like, it's like that aspect of jealousy that I think is what the song is about and it's like, and I, and I, and I, you know, I'm something I'm proud of in the song because I think I think I did an okay job of expressing this and something that I know Lorinda did an okay job of expressing it is like this idea of really trying hard to not be like that, you know, it's not just, it's not just recognizing it and being like this is how it is, it's like desperately trying to pull yourself away from it but you just can't, like you just absolutely cannot and even, you know, at the end of the song, you know, when she says that, you know, that bitterness becomes me, it's just, you know, she's like sort of, you know, succumbing to it and owning it and being like, well, this is, this is what it is and this is who I am even with that ownership she still has, you know, Madeline, it's, Madeline still is, is making her crazy, yeah, you know, and it's like, and this is another song where I think that it could just go on forever.

It ends because the song ends but it could just keep going on and she could keep finding new reasons to know that that Madeline is somewhere getting the thing, Madeline is somewhere being more bitter than she is and everyone else knows that Madeline is more bitter than she is and everybody's talking about it and it could just go on forever which is also why at the, you know, the very end of the track after everything's stopped there's like, there's one little Madeline like right before, right before it's over and it's like really bad, it's this idea of like it could just keep going forever and ever and ever in the timeline of things, you know, this song as you said you wrote in 2017, you know, if things had happened in a different order with Be More Chill like who knows if this song would exist, you know, it was like right when everyone was like loving it on the internet and kids were like why haven't I seen this show, it's my favorite show and it hadn't happened other than the True River production which, you know, happened and then nothing happened with it so it's interesting that this song while about many things not just about Be More Chill as you've talked about exists in the 2017 part of the timeline.

I don't know, I just don't know if it would have been in the same way. I don't think it would have, I genuinely don't think it would have. It's such a, it was written in such a specific moment and every time I hear it or I perform it I'm taken back to that moment and yeah, and you know, and I literally wrote it, I was on Long Island in my parents' house and I wrote it on the piano that I played growing up and I think that's part of it too, it's like the song is like, it's like kind of waltzy, you know, and it almost sounds like a waltz like a kid would play and I don't think I did that intentionally but there is something that I think is like, you know, my fingers were touching the, these are the keys that I literally learned how to play piano on and played for years and would play like, you know, medleys from Phantom of the Opera and A Little Shop of Horrors and all these things and it's like thinking about then, you know, 30 plus years later like my same, my same finger is playing the same keys and what I'm playing is like this song, you know, which is complicated.

[15:38] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, I was going to say if you were in a horror movie I feel like any song you wrote on your piano and your childhood home would start to sound like Miss Saigon or A Little Shop, like you wouldn't actually be able to write it.

[15:48] Joe Iconis: Right, I just like couldn't move my fingers from it. Yeah, I do have to shout out one more thing about Lorinda's and his performance on at the end of the bridge and you know the bridge has the bridge, it's I want it to be its own thing so there's lines in it that I think feel true to my life and experience and hopefully others that aren't literally from Death Becomes Her and then there are lines that very specifically reference, you know, Death Becomes Her like, you know, this idea of completely eliminating and the, you know, and the cats that Helen lives with but at the end of the bridge when she says and you pull a tub of icing off the shelf which is something that happens in Death Becomes Her, Lorinda's doing a total Goldie Hawn impression there if you listen to it, it's very amazing and it feels kind of easter eggy that you wouldn't necessarily notice if you weren't, you know, listening with an ear towards Goldie Hawn impressions but it kind of is there and I think it's very brilliant.

[16:58] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: That's related to my final question about Helen Sharp which is do you, when you're collaborating with actors on these songs that are inspired by films, are you ever like, hey you should make sure you've seen this movie or have you seen this movie? Like do you think in every case where people have sung these songs they even know the plot of the movies?

[17:12] Joe Iconis: No, and I actively don't and a lot of times when I've written these songs and I send them to people I won't even talk about the movie because truly all of the songs that I've written that are inspired by movies I want you to never have had to have seen the movie in order to understand the song. The idea is always that the song is its own thing, it lives in its own world and if you happen to know the movie and you happen to remember it enough and you can spot the direct references and all that great, I think it will only, you know, enhance your enjoyment of the tune. But the goal is that it has nothing to do with that and so with any of these songs and especially with this it's never about like, you know, trying to recreate someone's performance or trying to recreate, you know, an accent or a character or something from the movie.

It's its own thing that sits outside of the film and so yeah, so it's so funny that's always the last, I just don't even think of it when I do these songs and you know and with Lorinda like we, you know, we rehearsed it and then in the studio we had tons of time and there was never a moment where she was like do you want me to say this like in the movie or anything and even that the Goldie Hawn moment, Goldie Hawn never does the Goldie Hawn thing, you know, in Death Becomes Her. It's like, you know, it's truly like an easter egg but yeah, it's just, it's always its own beast and the character is always their own character sort of divorced from the piece of art that gave birth to them.

[18:50] Joe Iconis: Helen Sharpe. Helen Sharpe. Hey thanks so much for listening or watching to my podcast. Do me a favor and go to wherever you just listen to or watch this thing and subscribe or like or give us a great rating or review and then head to bpn.fm slash album to find out even more information about this podcast, more ways to watch, more ways to listen and check out my album. Thanks so much for hanging out. Album Podcast is executive produced by Liz Armstrong, produced by Dori Berenstein, Alan Seals, Kim Garris, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Be sure to visit bpn.fm slash album for both audio and video versions of this podcast and to listen to album.