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[0:00] Teresa Attridge: Ever wonder what it takes to make a new musical sing? Our mission is to give you an inclusive look behind the scenes. We are interviewing the creatives who are changing musical theater.

[2:22] Teresa Attridge: You're listening to Rhapsody from the new musical Big Quarterly. Welcome back to part two of our conversation with S. Todd Townsend, Kim Kilby, Luke McElmore, and Jōvan Dansberry about this inspirational hip-hop musical. Big Quarterly spotlights the legacy of Peter Spencer. Formerly enslaved, he rose to found the nation's first wholly independent black church and sparked the Big Quarterly, a joyful reunion of freedom in Delaware that exists to this day. For those not yet free, Big Quarterly was a chance to secure passage on the Underground Railroad. Perpetually haunted by deep childhood wounds in the face of outer powers, Peter's private battle threatens to unravel his life's great mission. Through the grace of God, he discovers the underground family secrets that provide him a path to truly be free.

As New York Theatre Barn prepares to launch its milestone 20th season in 2027, we're going to kick off the celebration with a special benefit concert performance of Big Quarterly on Monday, November 16th at 7 PM at the Green Room 42 in NYC. And listen all the way to the end of this podcast for a game where we decide which musical theatre piece should be the next hip-hopper. You just mentioned that you were just at Big Quarterly, so I'd love for you to talk about that experience, but also just talk to the audience about what Big Quarterly is and why it's such a meaningful celebration.

[3:42] Kim Kilby: Oh my goodness. Well, I guess I'll start because Todd's been, you know, for many years and is familiar with the event. It was such an honor to be able to go and have this connection, this direct connection to this important event that these beautiful, strong women have stewarded from the Mother African Union Methodist Church for over 200 years and passed down through their family generations. That amount of diligence and love and passion for stewarding the legacy of Peter Spencer was just so palpable in the room. It was part of the electricity in the room. I just, I can't say enough about how joyous the morning felt. The Big Quarterly itself is actually an outdoor, there's a church service indoors that goes on for quite some time and lots of dignitaries and speakers and music and singing together and just feeling the spirit and honoring the past, but also then after that service wraps up, everybody moves down to the Riverfront where there's, you know, a large stage and outdoor amphitheater and people with chairs and picnics and all sorts of just festivities for the community. It's a community event. It's free. It's open to the public. People just gather and spend the day together. It was really special. It was quite an event.

[5:21] S. Todd Townsend: Absolutely. Something that you have to think about, especially as a director, is the feeling that you want the audience to have. I heard a wonderful quote from a director that said, you are the surrogate for the audience. And so my job is to bring a feeling that when you walk away, you experience a feeling. And going to the Quarterly, from the moment we walked in to the building, I looked over at Kim and I said, oh, this is a feeling of exactly how I hope the show even starts when the audience walks into the room. You get that understanding and that vibe of what you want to create and it goes into the music and then it has to go with you outside of the show as well so that you're actually participating and active, not just being an observer.

But it was nice to go to the Quarterly so we can understand that feeling. One of the things that happened actually very recently is that Peter Spencer's original church building tragically burned down in a fire this year, earlier this year. It was in May, right, Todd?

[6:24] Luke McElmore: There is a coming together that I observed just as a person who was attending my first Quarterly in Wilmington, Delaware, that was an invitation for connection and togetherness and lifting one another up through this tragedy. It was very special. It was a particularly intimate moment for the church in its resilience, what we were talking about before, you know, what we're trying to get across in the show. There was so much of that on display.

[6:52] S. Todd Townsend: I would add that it really speaks to, I guess, a moment that we draw and describe as in the land of the living and the bright sunshine. In spite of the fire, all these years later, the community is vibrant and it's a support community. So prior to that event, we've met on city corners because of the church burning down, all the pastors, all the politicians, the community. We've met and had community gatherings and support has been generated. And churches have volunteered their space and political leaders have generated revenue to support the church. And out of the tragedy comes this electric energy. And it really is kind of like the ancestors' voices from a cultural perspective. It's an unbroken drumbeat.

And the Quarterly itself is the annual headquarter. And so this year in particular, because of the church and its burning down, not only that, but the Smithsonian Institute has endeavored to tell the story afresh. And so support is coming in from all over the country, which is another reason that this timing for us is just profound. It's really, really dynamic.

[8:05] Kim Kilby: Yeah. Pauls, I know you have, you're planning on sharing "Freedomland" and I think it might be a perfect segue because the song "Freedomland" was written to essentially embody and show Peter coming up with this idea, being struck with a vision for something that he is going to create, which is their own church, not under the auspices of any other church or a white denomination, and a freedom festival in community, in public. And so the lyrics there in that song are, in "Freedomland, we don't need no walls, just liberty when our Savior calls." I wrote that lyric down.

[8:47] Kim Kilby: But think about what happened earlier this year to the original church building that Peter Spencer was the founder for. It's just, you know, sometimes these resonant moments just occur and you say, wow, we wrote that lyric. And there's meaning in all sorts of different spaces and places for that. I just hope that what we are doing is an offering to the generations of families that have stewarded Peter's legacy. And we want to just be a chapter in that. So "Freedomland," right? One of the driving elements that when we were writing back at Berkeley, there's a quote, you can take my body, but you cannot take the locus of my soul. In other words, my body is twisted or shackled or imprisoned or limited or worked.

You turn me into a workhorse where my bones are literally separating. And yet, in spite of all that, you cannot take the locus of my soul. My freedom, that's my Freedomland. My circumstances are terrible, but my freedom is functional. And that's the idea. We're not limited to a building. We need a building because it rains and it snows. But the fact of the matter is, the Freedomland is that declaration that soars above all circumstances.

[10:06] S. Todd Townsend: Well, I think that's a great setup for the song. Who is performing "Freedomland"?

[10:11] Jōvan Dansberry: It's a good old Todd Kim shuffle. Todd and Kim doing it together?

[10:17] S. Todd Townsend: Well, singing the lyrics, and Luke is always playing underneath all of everyone. Is Cory on this one too? Is Cory on this one? I think he is.

[10:28] Jōvan Dansberry: Yeah, I think he does the sung part. Let me see if I can nail this. Here is "Freedomland" performed by Todd Townsend, Kim Kilby, Luke McElmore on the keys, and we also have Cory Harvey singing.

[10:28] ♪ Musical number: "Freedomland" — performed by Todd Townsend, Kim Kilby, Luke McElmore, and Cory Harvey ♪

[13:12] Jōvan Dansberry: That intro is so catchy. And there's a lightness, an expansiveness to the song that mirrors Peter's solution to his problem. He can't have a church inside, so he's taking it outside. As there are in so many songs in your show, I said movements earlier, or very properly said, a rhapsody, a free-flowing spirit. There's this really amazing build which revolves in that refrain, and I wrote it down. In freedom land, we don't need no walls. It's crazy. TV and devices have so captivated people. People stare at them all day long. If you ever just walk out your door and look up at the sky and the sun or the clouds, that's the best sanctuary that you're ever going to step into. And that's the idea. We're so captivated by the devices and the television screen and the remote control.

[14:10] Kim Kilby: Yeah, what's in our houses.

[14:12] Jōvan Dansberry: Beyond our screen, what's even interior in our houses. You look outside and wow. And there's no such thing as bad weather. There's just different kinds of good weather.

[14:20] S. Todd Townsend: I love that. I'm going to hold on to that. The next time it's raining in Seattle, and I know it's bad weather in New York right now. I'll go back to the word that you said at the beginning. Outside. Because I feel like the intro to the song, and kind of the song is how they are at the second half, and as we progress through the show, outside of time is kind of what we're trying to go for.

[14:40] Luke McLemore: Which is what this Afrofuturism ideal proposes in the music world. And it's like this Earth, Wind, and Fire, this Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, where things like live. The song itself lives outside of the time that it's addressing essentially.

[14:56] Jōvan Dansberry: The thing that I think is most palpable and interesting to me about this piece is how it feels so modern in certain ways. We are speaking in the language of hip hop, but there is also such a strong connection to ancestors, both specifically in the way that this piece highlights a hidden history, but also musically, and in your production concept. And it's not just the past as well. It also, through the elements of Afrofuturism that you describe in your production concept, people use that term timeless a lot. You know, like, oh yeah, enjoy this timeless classic. But this piece, because there's the past, present, and even future, it really does feel timeless in its execution.

[15:38] Kim Kilby: It's like a clock without hands. It's like a bridge that's built by footsteps, and yet timeless.

[15:46] S. Todd Townsend: So I gotta tell you, pals, some of the stuff you're saying is really refreshing, because we're in it, we're in the trees. But what is the impact on somebody else? Just hearing the way you're articulating your interpretations is really encouraging.

[16:04] Kim Kilby: Absolutely.

[16:06] S. Todd Townsend: I'll just say that part of what has been such a gift is seeing Jovan as a collaborator, as a director. Vision, being able to envision how to create that timeless feel is really where the concept of Afrofuturism and embodying this in that way and staging this in that way emerged. So we have to give that credit to Jovan.

[16:30] Luke McLemore: But it's sort of the magic of bringing writers and directors together in a time when things are still being shaped and very malleable. And it's really kind of cool how it becomes this symbiotic type of organism, really, where one part grows another part and we each feed off of each other. But it's pretty exciting stuff.

[16:52] S. Todd Townsend: The idea of the Afrofuturism came because, listening to the music, I really tried to understand how do you take this time, something of history, and put it in a place of today? And so that came with the idea of time travel. That's when I started going on this long, long journey of researching Afrofuturism. And there were so many aspects to the overall idea of Afrofuturism that was coming in through the story. You know, the story is, Afrofuturism is not just about the future, but it's also aspects of liberation. Time is not linear, and people can offer things in so many different ways.

[17:30] Kim Kilby: It's also, back to what we said earlier, not looking at our past, but having an idea of a future. A lot of times in Black cultures and in our communities, we think about the past often. But to have the audacity to really think about what can be in the future is really exciting. And that's what Peter Spencer had, just like people would say, like Harriet Tubman or Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. Afrofuturism is the idea of having a future. That kind of gave me a vision that, oh, now we can do anything. We can time travel in this music. We can have projections. We can do that because we are all putting it in a shell that kind of lets you kind of break so many boundaries, which I'm really excited to do.

[18:18] Jōvan Dansberry: I already felt that you were great collaborators, but in that moment, in that last statement, I was like, oh, that's why. Like, I see it so clearly right now how this is truly a match made in heaven, how that vision, that concept of Jovan's really enhances your piece. So that was fantastic.

[18:34] Jōvan Dansberry: Well, I think you have another prepared question for our creative team. Why don't you take it away?

[18:40] Kim Kilby: Yeah, I mean, I'll just do some quick rapid fires just because, I mean, I know them very well, but I think that some of these will get us understanding of them a little bit more. First, I'll say, who's most likely to do rewrites or changes at 2 a.m.?

[18:50] Jōvan Dansberry: This is like that wedding game, you know.

[18:54] Kim Kilby: I know it is.

[18:56] Jōvan Dansberry: But, right, yes, who is it?

[18:58] S. Todd Townsend: It's Todd.

[19:00] Jōvan Dansberry: Yeah, in the middle of the night.

[19:02] S. Todd Townsend: Yeah.

[19:04] Jōvan Dansberry: He doesn't sleep.

[19:06] Kim Kilby: We know I sleep.

[19:08] Jōvan Dansberry: Yeah, something about the quiet in the middle of the night.

[19:10] S. Todd Townsend: Yeah, creativity universe.

[19:14] Jōvan Dansberry: I know, yeah.

[19:16] Kim Kilby: Truth, truth.

[19:18] Jōvan Dansberry: Okay, here's one. What's your ultimate gospel song?

[19:22] S. Todd Townsend: I mean, I've heard y'all even more so for this show.

[19:24] Kim Kilby: Oh, well, I'll answer that. I mean, I'm obviously still a newbie and there's still a lot I'm learning. Well, Todd introduced me to...

[19:32] S. Todd Townsend: No, actually, Rashad, going to this gospel brunch at 54 Below, introduced me to Mary Mary, and that's the God in me. They're just amazing.

[19:40] Jōvan Dansberry: That's a good one.

[19:42] Kim Kilby: Absolutely, and that's one that inspired a song for you to write, I believe.

[19:48] S. Todd Townsend: Yeah, I started after going to that gospel brunch, and when I came home and started the song Preacher, it just sort of started to emerge, and then obviously took it to the group and made it what it is.

[20:00] Jōvan Dansberry: What about your favorite hip-hop album?

[20:02] Luke McLemore: Oh, yeah.

[20:06] Jōvan Dansberry: Oh, God, that's a tough question.

[20:08] Luke McLemore: Huge black album, Jay-Z. Love that album. Old Kanye West, College Dropout. Gotta shout out that. Kendrick Lamar, I'm a big...

[20:18] S. Todd Townsend: Registration.

[20:20] Luke McLemore: I mean, honestly, the early ones are hard to beat. More modern one, some JID, Atlanta rapper. A lot of songs we like of him.

[20:26] S. Todd Townsend: Todd, you gotta throw one out there. Give a rap album you like.

[20:30] S. Todd Townsend: Well, so you got me thinking about Cross Movement, but I know everybody doesn't know about Cross Movement.

[20:38] Jōvan Dansberry: Alright, that's great.

[20:40] Kim Kilby: I guess I'll ask maybe you, Todd. What is a song that you, from the show, that you keep thinking about, when you're not all collaborating together?

[20:48] S. Todd Townsend: I'll give the nod to Wilmington. Wilmington just resonates with me because it's Delaware, it's Wilmington, and it's got a hip-hop vibe and it's got a lot of bravado. You know, he meets his crew, that's when he meets Anna, and we put a little love story in there. I just really dig Wilmington.

[21:08] Kim Kilby: How about you, Kim?

[21:10] Kim Kilby: Oh, goodness, gosh. You know what's so interesting for me is not only me singing them, but also I catch my son singing them, and we reference the songs all the time. I would say Freedom Land comes up a lot for me, Rhapsody, the memory, memory part of Family Destroyed, but also the classic Brother that is, you know, a two-male duet.

[21:34] Jōvan Dansberry: Which we don't get often.

[21:36] Kim Kilby: A nice ballad in our show. That's actually my favorite number. I don't really get to see the tenderness and excitement on the stage often in doing a ballad. That is really, really one of my favorites that you guys have written.

[21:50] S. Todd Townsend: You don't see them very often, and it's also the last song we're going to share because to me, it's one of the most important moments in the show because even as the Big Quarterly is created, that doesn't mean it's the end of the story, right? Because all of a sudden, there's the way that the white communities are now looking at the Big Quarterly and putting it under a microscope. What's going on over there? While also, Peter's having to hold still his community up at the same time. So he's still in his pressure cooker and also still has this unresolved trauma. We weren't able to play the song, but the trauma of losing his family. But there's this really powerful song called Brother, and I'd love for you to set that up.

[22:32] Kim Kilby: I can set this up, actually, because the show is at its heart about a man who is fighting to heal a wound in the condition of his family. While he builds a community, he builds a church, he builds a festival. But what he realizes is that all that family that he is building, he gets to be back with his brother and gets to have that connection with his brother, whether it's in spirit or in life, and you have to come see the show to find that out. But that is where you kind of understand Brother as this reconnection with his family. Family destroyed in the beginning sets the tone. It's a family formula where there's some sort of family loss early, but family restored through the reconnection of the brothers and the building of the construction of the community and church. I think it's a very important moment.

[23:20] Jōvan Dansberry: Alright, let's play it. Who is performing Brother?

[23:26] Kim Kilby: Anthony Chapman II and Aaron J. McKenzie and with backup vocals from Alexis Tidwell Bailey and Bree Jackson. They performed this live at an event we did at Vanderbilt, New York City. Here is Brother performed by Anthony Chapman II, Aaron J. McKenzie, Alexis Tidwell Bailey, and Bree Jackson.

[26:51] S. Todd Townsend: This, to me, is such a cathartic healing moment. And once again, I'm very conscious that there's a pastor in the room. But it just seems to me that for Peter, who's holding the weight of his community, your brother, your family can relate to you. Even if they've been separated, but relate to you and know you in a way that's different than anybody else. And especially because that relationship is connected to his deep wound. You can tell Jōvan's a director because he's like, the core of this play is a wounded person. That's so true, right? I'm a director too, just so you know. But, you know, to see he and his brother come back together after so long, the healing that happens in that moment is very, very powerful.

And, you know, that shift to gospel, not that it's the only gospel moment in the show, but that's just really the way that the music palette transforms, communicates that transformative. You see him change in a way that's completely different than any other moment in the show.

[27:54] Kim Kilby: Yeah. So you refer to the pastor being in the room. That phrase brings to mind with the years that what I've learned is the pastor is quite as is kept and it doesn't appear this way. The pastors are the biggest students in the room when it comes to leading people and managing everything. You're all you always have to be learning. And so that's something that people don't necessarily embrace because they see you as driving the bus when in actuality you're hanging onto the back bumper. But that vulnerability is hard to release a family member who knows your pre and your post, your journey and the coming back together. The intimacy there that's represented, you know, for Peter as a pastor, but also as a person who has been without this element all these years. And it's been a big question mark. No answer, no clarity. This is a really important and powerful moment. And especially as has already been said between men, you know, tenderness and emotion and recovery.

[29:00] S. Todd Townsend: Well, and that's not the end of the show either. So if you want to hear more of the music, as a reminder, the benefit concert is coming up on Monday, November 16th at 7 p.m. The Green Room 42 in NYC. I highly suggest you be there. But I think it might be time to play our game.

[29:18] Pauls Macs: Here we go. I created a special game for you all as we do. This is a fan favorite segment. We design a special game for every guest. And so I was thinking about your show and we sometimes or often will focus on choosing a specific musical theater character that would be appropriate to be in a situation in your musical. But for this particular one, for Big Quarterly, I was so interested in the form of hip hop. Since this is our first hip hop musical that I thought about a show I haven't thought about for a while. But if anybody remembers Carmen at Hip Hopera starring Beyoncé in 2001. You can stream it on Amazon, I think.

[30:00] S. Todd Townsend: You can.

[30:02] Pauls Macs: Amazing. So this game is called – we name our games – Musical Theater, the Hip Hopera. What musical theater piece would you convert? I mean clearly there's hip hop musicals already. But what piece would you transform? So everyone think about your answers and I will go first. Especially as I was listening to Holy Ghost, the song that we played earlier. I just thought to myself, oh, I'm going to need a Valjean and Javert rap battle against each other. Maybe it's because Hamilton is such in the DNA of musical theater right now. We see a historical context transformed into a hip hop context. That just leapt out to me. Also, The Music Man flirts with hip hop in certain moments. And I was like, what if that whole score was hip hop?

How interesting would that be? I might put this earlier. This is a little bit inspired by Play On Shakespeare, that program. Where they take Shakespeare plays and put them into modern language to make them accessible. What pieces might hip hop unlock for other folks? So does anybody have an answer? You go first, Todd.

[31:00] S. Todd Townsend: I thought Lion King. I think that the lion, the jungle context and a hip hop vibe would just work. And then obviously James Earl Jones' voice as a rapper. Gosh, I'm suddenly thinking about that. And I'm like shaken to my core. My heart is vibrating. It would rock.

[31:24] Kim Kilby: My answer would be Evita. I know we're having a revival coming back, I think, soon. But I think about the character Che and how there's a lot of percussive elements. But also, can you imagine Ava Peron rapping? I mean, I can. I actually can. You said that and it instantly rang true to me. What's up, Argentina? Going into a rap, that just makes sense.

[31:50] Luke McLemore: Yes. Luke, do you have an answer?

[31:53] Luke McLemore: I think I do. I mean, it's also one of my favorite shows. I think maybe Cabaret. And I don't know, it just becomes for me, guys, an actual MC. But even with that new revival of it that's so grimy and kind of wild and a little, you know, I don't know, dissonant. I feel like, oh my God, you could just throw some heavy beats and samples under some of those songs and it would just be dirty. I just imagine sampling the song Tomorrow Belongs to Me in the background. And then you could put something over that that is chilling.

[32:25] S. Todd Townsend: I love that answer. All right, Jōvan, do you have an answer?

[32:29] Jōvan Dansberry: I do. I do. Okay, I do have two.

[32:33] Pauls Macs: You have two.

[32:34] Jōvan Dansberry: I would love to see, like, a Faust done, like someone who has to give up their soul for greatness. I just think it would be a really—I don't know what you could do with it, but I think a classic Faust. But music-wise, I would love to do a Jekyll and Hyde. I just think there are certain things that you can go ahead and change up with some of those songs. Frank Wildhorn.

[32:57] S. Todd Townsend: Right. Yes, absolutely. I've been wanting to do something with his work so much. So I think I'm still thinking about it to this day. But, like, a Bring on the Men or this is—you know, there's so many things that you can do with that story and with that music.

[33:14] Pauls Macs: Those are all fantastic answers. And I love that in the way that we've done something with the form, with our form of our podcast today, we're just kind of dreaming and thinking about the form in a way that's not the same thing at all. But to dream of the future, you know, I think is just a powerful exercise because sometimes we can get so caught up in like, oh, what have we done in the past that can work? Truly dreaming of what could work is a really fantastic exercise. So thank you all for being here. Because the music is so wonderful, but it's still told through bodies. The next thing we really can't wait to do is get back into telling the story through bodies and hopefully doing a workshop or a development lab at the beginning of 2027. That is what we are out there talking to people about. I have meetings right now setting those up so that we can go ahead and get something in the books very soon to put this back on bodies.

[34:05] S. Todd Townsend: That's brilliant.

[34:06] Kim Kilby: Yeah. And I would say anybody who's enthralled with this podcast and suddenly feels loyal to our cause, they can go to our website and they can support us. And we want to do a 29 hour, right? We want to advance our work into the public arena at every opportunity that is presented to us.

[34:28] Pauls Macs: Well, thank you all so much for being here. As you say on the podcast, old friends and new.

[34:33] S. Todd Townsend: Yeah, we're often in that situation. So what's next for Big Quarterly?

[34:37] Jōvan Dansberry: Well, y'all, it was so great to have you here. Thank you all for being here and for sharing your piece. It's truly fantastic. Jōvan, thank you for being my guest co-host.

[34:47] Pauls Macs: I had a great time.

[34:47] Jōvan Dansberry: Thank you. I should get into this. I'm here for it.

[34:54] Pauls Macs: I got to tell you, it's really nice when I'm like, think of something insightful to say. Jōvan, you want to ask a question?

[35:01] Jōvan Dansberry: It was a nice back and forth conversation. I loved it. Thank you so much for having us.

[35:05] Pauls Macs: Of course. Of course. Well, Todd, Jōvan, Luke, Kim, thank you all so much for being here. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, Barnacles. We love you. We appreciate you. We'll see you all again very soon.

[35:16] S. Todd Townsend: All right. Big ups to Theater Barn.

[35:18] All: Thank you.

[35:23] Thanks for joining us on New York Theater Barn's Backstage Pass, hosted by Teresa Attridge and Pauls Macs. And if you believe in supporting original culture-shifting musicals, please like, subscribe, and share.