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[0:43] Teresa Attridge: Welcome back to Part 2 of our discussion with Sean McCabe and Jinhee Kim, the writers of the hilarious and poignant new musical Saint Sebastian.

[0:51] Pauls Macs: You'll hear two more songs from the show as we delve deeper into their writing process.

[0:55] Teresa Attridge: Listen all the way to the end for a game where we cast our very own passion play using only musical theater characters.

[1:01] Pauls Macs: The excitement of seeing actors have material is also met with the fear of, oh no, do we write this well enough that people, they get who they are?

[1:09] Teresa Attridge: And I feel like all of the characters in the show are really well rounded, including the parents. One of my favorite characters in the show is Liz.

[1:16] Pauls Macs: And Liz is Jamie's mother. Jamie being the boy that Sebastian meets at the farm who becomes his friend, confidant, and even love interest.

[1:25] Teresa Attridge: I think Liz is so interesting. I'm obsessed with that character. I'm like, where's Orfeh?

[1:30] Pauls Macs: Love. Nathan Lane and Orfeh.

[1:32] Teresa Attridge: Jim Cassidy is going to come back. It's going to come back.

[1:35] Pauls Macs: It's this idea of like there's a single mom. She's working so hard. She's trying to figure it out.

[1:40] Teresa Attridge: She is stressed, smoking, even though she promised she wasn't going to smoke anymore.

[1:44] Pauls Macs: But I think it's really easy to kind of write off parents as being like, yeah, parents just don't understand.

[1:50] Teresa Attridge: It's like all about the kids' problems.

[1:52] Pauls Macs: But Liz is dealing with being houseless with a child and trying to figure out what they're going to do.

[1:57] Teresa Attridge: And Sebastian's parents are trying to figure out how do we talk about sex with our son?

[2:01] Pauls Macs: How are we going to have that conversation?

[2:02] Teresa Attridge: And then later being like, oh, I think we have to have a different conversation with our son when they start to catch on that there might be something about his sexuality.

[2:09] Pauls Macs: The way that these parents are written, like you were both saying that you feel fortunate that you had parents that even though you were raised in the church, you felt really loved and really supported despite the fear.

[2:18] Teresa Attridge: And I actually really appreciated that the parents in the show were so loving because I think that when you have shows about Catholicism, so much of it is rooted in like a deeply traumatic experience.

[2:28] Pauls Macs: Which I'm not going to pretend those don't exist.

[2:30] Teresa Attridge: My sister was kicked out of my church for being autistic.

[2:32] Pauls Macs: Trauma of church runs very, very deep in my family.

[2:36] Teresa Attridge: One of the things I really loved was that I wasn't sitting in complete fear the entire time that somebody was like a parent was going to abandon them or that it was going to end up hurt.

[2:47] Pauls Macs: It's one of those shows that you're able to explore the complexity of those feelings without something that is, for lack of a better word, intentionally painful.

[2:56] Teresa Attridge: And so there's something really beautiful about grappling with these bigger ideas without having to sort of like mine for trauma porn.

[3:02] Sean McCabe: It means a lot. I'm so glad you said that. And that was a balance, I think, that we worked out in this show where it is a send-up of Christianity and of a lot of the contradictions of like Christian charity.

[3:14] Jinhee Kim: There's a lot to unpack there and there's a lot to criticize.

[3:16] Sean McCabe: But also, this is at least from my experience, there were problematic things and there are imperfections, no doubt.

[3:22] Jinhee Kim: But in my experience, at least, especially on this farm and in other similar environments with my family and our family's community, I also met a lot of really fantastic people.

[3:31] Sean McCabe: And people who actually genuinely had big hearts and cared about community and helping people in a really powerful way.

[3:40] Jinhee Kim: We wanted to poke at and criticize and laugh at the funny and problematic parts of the church.

[3:46] Sean McCabe: But I think that we also wanted to acknowledge that it's more complicated than that.

[3:50] Jinhee Kim: It seems crazy to say almost, but there are actually things I'm really grateful for that I learned growing up in that environment.

[3:58] Sean McCabe: Oh, yeah. As I was reading the show, a word that came to mind was loving.

[4:02] Jinhee Kim: This critique of the church is loving.

[4:04] Sean McCabe: We've all seen those angry critiques of the church and they have their place.

[4:08] Jinhee Kim: Absolutely. Those need to be created and they need to be expressed.

[4:12] Sean McCabe: Absolutely.

[4:13] Jinhee Kim: For sure.

[4:14] Sean McCabe: But what was so kind of wonderful about this, that's I think true to your experience personally, is that you're still able to come through and give that loving critique, that loving push in a way that I think a lot of people who probably grew up in a religious context are like, oh, I relate to that so much as well.

[4:30] Jinhee Kim: And not necessarily Catholic. I think you see similar patterns in many different denominations.

[4:35] Sean McCabe: No doubt.

[4:36] Jinhee Kim: In church and other religions. Very, very, very relatable experience. But also the loving tone of this critique was really fantastic.

[4:45] Pauls Macs: Especially for writers, there's a really fine line between teasing and mocking.

[4:51] Teresa Attridge: And there are some shows that do it better than others.

[4:53] Pauls Macs: Sometimes you walk out of a show where they talk about religion and you're like, okay, there were a couple off-color things there.

[4:59] Teresa Attridge: Or you're like, oh, yeah, they weren't really brave enough to kind of like go into that.

[5:03] Sean McCabe: But I feel like you guys did a really nice job of not shying away from criticism, like Pauls was saying, but also being able to look it in the face and be like, yeah, there are real reasons that there are concerns here.

[5:16] Jinhee Kim: No spoilers.

[5:17] Sean McCabe: But Miss Amy, what a tricky little girl you turned out to be.

[5:22] Jinhee Kim: And it's funny because we also see in the context of when Amy writes her show about the passion of the Christ and decides to reframe it in a high school musical-esque filter.

[5:37] Pauls Macs: Sorry, the crap in the segue is perfect.

[5:41] Jinhee Kim: I want that musical fully written also because it's beautiful.

[5:45] Teresa Attridge: Hallelujah High is so funny because she is also walking a line between teasing and mocking.

[5:52] Sean McCabe: But she doesn't know because she is full earnest, like, your eyes, full heart can't lose on you.

[5:59] Jinhee Kim: And it is so apparent her love, but also her youth and her inexperience in writing about Jesus Christ as a high schooler with Principal Pilot and Maggie and Mary Magdalene.

[6:14] Pauls Macs: Anyway, it's so good.

[6:16] Teresa Attridge: And I'm so excited that you guys are going to let us play the demo.

[6:22] Sean McCabe: Talk to us about the masterpiece that is Hallelujah High.

[6:26] Jinhee Kim: I need to know.

[6:27] Sean McCabe: How did you come up with that?

[6:29] Jinhee Kim: When you were like, what if we did this?

[6:32] Sean McCabe: This would be funny, I think.

[6:34] Jinhee Kim: And yeah, it is.

[6:35] Sean McCabe: That song was added after our thesis project.

[6:39] Jinhee Kim: So it's kind of new words for our show.

[6:43] Sean McCabe: I was like, this had to have been one of the original ideas for this show because it's so funny.

[6:48] Jinhee Kim: I remember in our thesis project, we just showed not played with songs.

[6:52] Sean McCabe: So we felt and also we got comments and the wheelbill also.

[6:56] Jinhee Kim: Oh, we need the scene for a song, not just dialogue.

[7:00] Sean McCabe: So we made it right now.

[7:02] Jinhee Kim: It's a cop's gun, but it's Hallelujah High.

[7:06] Sean McCabe: It's an important part of the structure of the show that we're leading up to this event, this performance.

[7:10] Jinhee Kim: We see the auditions for the show.

[7:12] Sean McCabe: We see some rehearsals for the show.

[7:14] Jinhee Kim: Our passion, as you mentioned before, is sort of not interested anymore in being part of it, but is being pressured to be part of it.

[7:20] Sean McCabe: So we knew we would arrive there.

[7:21] Jinhee Kim: Our first version of this was 90 minutes long and it existed without it.

[7:25] Sean McCabe: I'm so glad we added it in the next version.

[7:27] Jinhee Kim: We added it.

[7:28] Sean McCabe: It's also drawn from some real-life experiences where when I was in high school, we did the passion play.

[7:33] Jinhee Kim: It was obviously nothing like Hallelujah High, but my drama teacher showed up because she changed my life.

[7:41] Sean McCabe: But she indeed did modernize the story where it was like Jesus and his buddy are like playing cards.

[7:47] Jinhee Kim: And he's like, man, my girlfriend, like she's pregnant, but she said it.

[7:56] Sean McCabe: Literally, and I remember at the time taking it so seriously.

[7:59] Jinhee Kim: Like, you know, I was like a drama student and I was like, wow, this is amazing that we're doing this.

[8:03] Sean McCabe: What an interesting way to look at this story.

[8:05] Jinhee Kim: I guess story that, yeah, that was not the passion play, but that was the nativity story.

[8:09] Sean McCabe: You know, years later, looking back and going, that was kind of silly.

[8:12] Jinhee Kim: So just wanting to really embellish that.

[8:14] Sean McCabe: And so in the world of the show here, Father Blooger is being critiqued by Sebastian's parents.

[8:19] Jinhee Kim: That play is kind of boring and shouldn't take so much of his time and he needs to help out more.

[8:23] Sean McCabe: So he decides to really make it extra special this year.

[8:26] Jinhee Kim: And he enlists the help of Amy to completely radically reimagine this old story that we all know so well.

[8:32] Sean McCabe: And modernize it and make it interesting.

[8:34] Jinhee Kim: Miraculously, in the course of a day or two, Amy rewrites it.

[8:38] Sean McCabe: No, I'm saying in the show.

[8:45] Jinhee Kim: No, no, no.

[8:48] Sean McCabe: She does it.

[8:51] Jinhee Kim: She's going to NYU.

[8:52] Sean McCabe: She doesn't even need to go to NYU.

[8:55] Jinhee Kim: They're going to name a wing after Amy.

[8:58] Sean McCabe: A tish, yeah.

[8:59] Jinhee Kim: Amy's got her own wing, a tish.

[9:00] Sean McCabe: That's right.

[9:01] Jinhee Kim: That's right.

[9:02] Sean McCabe: So, yes, Amy rewrites the story of the passion play for a modern high school setting and has a lot of fun putting that on for the families at the farm.

[9:10] Pauls Macs: Fantastic.

[9:11] Teresa Attridge: Who is singing on this?

[9:12] Sean McCabe: I mean, I don't think we need to list them all by name.

[9:15] Jinhee Kim: Yes.

[9:16] Sean McCabe: Well, we can shout out to Tori Lynn, again, playing Amy.

[9:18] Jinhee Kim: I want to shout out Naima Alakam, who plays the cafeteria lady.

[9:23] Sean McCabe: We should shout out—I mean, there are a lot.

[9:25] Jinhee Kim: The two more, I guess I'll say, are Nicole Saruhas and Maya Thomas, who's currently on Broadway in Harry Potter, as Anna and Kai, the popular kids, who are versions of Caiaphas and Annas, the two high priests.

[9:38] Pauls Macs: Oh, I fully laughed.

[9:39] Jinhee Kim: This is also a live recording from Broadway's future songbook series at Lincoln Center, just like Kids Are Kissing.

[9:44] Teresa Attridge: Here is Hallelujah High, performed by Tori Lynn and many other very talented artists.

[9:49] ♪ Musical number: "Hallelujah High" — performed by Tori Lynn and many other talented artists ♪

[11:15] ♪ Musical number: "Hallelujah High" — performed by Tori Lynn, Naima Alakham, Nicole Tsarouhas, Maya Thomas, Stephen Mellen and many other talented performers ♪

[16:01] Sean McCabe: Yes, yeah, this one's from that same performance at Lincoln Center. It's so funny that you're like, well this happened in real life because again this is the second time in the show I was like, what a fresh and incredible concept, how did they possibly come up with this? Sometimes life just gives you all that you need to write a musical, it seems. Truth is greater than fiction, as they say.

[16:21] Jinhee Kim: So true. But when Father Bluger comes in as Pontius Pilate after casting himself, that's what I was talking about with that character. I recognize that director who and his voice defines a role for himself within the show. I know that person. I know that moment.

[16:36] Sean McCabe: Oh yeah, we love the song. It's a lot of fun. It opens up the second act. It's got a lot of energy and it was a blast to write. I think both musically and lyrically. Musically it goes all over the place. We're getting a whole musical within five minutes or whatever. That was really fun and lyrically I think it was just a lot of fun to retell that story with silly high school words and settings.

[16:58] Jinhee Kim: I was just talking about structure, right? And we've seen so many great examples. We've seen an incredible duet. We've seen this big fantastic group number with Hallelujah High. If you're coming back from intermission and you're still a little sleepy or something, suddenly you're right back in the world of the play in like the most fantastic and grossing way possible. Kids are Kissing is a beautiful solo number. But I'd love to talk with you about Only Trees because this is such a different moment, a different feeling in the show as Sebastian is contemplating the next chapter of his life and what he's going to do. Can you talk to me about this song?

[17:29] Sean McCabe: Yeah, first talking about the writing process because I randomly sketched some musical sample music but it doesn't aim for especially Sebastian. And then one day like Jinhee listened to my sketch and then, oh this could be really perfect for Sebastian's solo number. So, oh wow, I really love that and then we started writing a song for Sebastian.

[17:51] Jinhee Kim: Wow, so it was music first?

[17:53] Sean McCabe: Kind of like small parts.

[17:55] Jinhee Kim: Yeah, that kind of short theme, right. I've spoken before about how much I love Journey's music. Not to compare or whatever, but I think this is my favorite piece of music in the show that you've written. I remember because the lyrics are very, very, very simple especially on the page. It's like three words a line. It's very simple and I remember giving it to you and we talked about the moment and then I remember you coming back with such lush emotional moving music and I just remember that being so thrilling because I think it's like verbally he's only able to communicate so much. He's sort of limited a little bit in his capacity especially at this moment. He's not exactly sure what he's going through but the music to me so speaks to like his internal experience and he is just like overflowing with emotion which you know is so true of that time in our lives I think.

You know he has all these feelings for this new friend who has run away and meanwhile he's supposed to be, he's expected to be at the Passion Play but he's decided to not go there and he's standing at the edge of the forest where he's not allowed to go into. He's strictly forbidden to go past the fence and into the forest. For the first time he's sort of contemplating this big decision of like defying his parents and making a decision for himself that will no doubt have big consequences. I just feel like the music so beautifully captures that feeling.

[19:12] Sean McCabe: I am like an amateur pianist myself and I still long for the day that I can fully play this piece. I'm always trying to learn it. It's like the arrangement on the piano is it leaves me speechless. I think it's a gorgeous piece of music and I think it pairs really well with the words and we're really proud of it and this is a huge moment for Sebastian.

[19:30] Jinhee Kim: Great, and who's performing on this song?

[19:32] Sean McCabe: This is also Mike Cefalo. Here is Only Trees performed by Mike Cefalo.

[19:37] ♪ Musical number: "Only Trees" — performed by Mike Cefalo ♪

[22:31] Sean McCabe: Contemplating this decision, but the musical storytelling of his internal state of mind is so fantastic because then he'll pause and you'll question those old insecurities are coming back, you know throughout this whole piece. We want to know this character so badly. We're like trying to get to know him. I think we get such a great lens into his internal conflict through this song. It's fantastic.

[22:52] Jinhee Kim: I think you're right that we're trying to get to know him and I think part of that is that he is trying to get to know himself and this is maybe the first moment that he is learning who he is and what kind of decisions he makes.

[23:02] Sean McCabe: Well, that's really great. Yeah. No, I'm kind of thinking of it for the first time talking about it.

[23:08] Jinhee Kim: Yeah, I think that's part of his challenge as a character is that he is a little bit opaque because he is following rules and doing what he's told and trying to not rock the boat. He's a little bit vague that way or a little bit passive and for the first time in this show he is taking matters into his own hands and sort of deciding actually I'm the kind of person that does this.

[23:27] Sean McCabe: Yeah, so it is an important moment for him as a character definitely, but you just said clarified his character for me. You're absolutely right. He's kind of vague and kind of passive and we're trying to figure out who are you and through this moment? We start to really know Sebastian.

[23:41] Jinhee Kim: We so often take for granted in musical theater or even Shakespeare that these characters don't know what they're gonna say before they say it. They don't know what they're gonna say as they're coming up with this language in the moment and that is so clear and vivid in this song. It's almost like you guys wrote like a really cool show.

[24:03] Sean McCabe: We gotta get into our game my lens we have a really fun one this week. I think shout out to all the former Catholic kids out there especially this one is called the passion of the cast and the idea is that if you were going to cast no musical theater characters in your own version of the passion of the Christ and we're gonna stick to three because there's like a thousand characters in the passion of the Christ but we're gonna stick to Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus Christ. Which characters do you pick to play the roles? The only thing the only rule is you can't just do Jesus Christ Superstar. You can't cast a canonically biblical character in any of these roles. So pals you have some really fun ones. Do you want to start this week?

[24:44] Jinhee Kim: Yes, I'm gonna start us off. Alright, so I'm gonna start with Pontius Pilate and my mind immediately went to Cladwell be Cladwell from You're in Town. Greg Kotis, friend of the pod, our original singular first guest. My favorite Cladwell line, I can't remember the exact lead-up to it. Miss Pennywise says something like why'd you do it Cladwell? It was just cash and he says it wasn't just cash miss Pennywise. It was an awful lot of cash. I just feel like he could be swayed to wash his hands and absolutely, you know, I always challenged myself to try to put in a new musical, you know. I didn't want to cast Elwood's as Jesus though. My mind went there and how she could play what she is.

[25:34] Sean McCabe: Exactly so for Mary Magdalene I decided to go with Aldonza slash Dulcinea depending on your perception from Man of La Mancha because you know she's a loose woman, but with a heart of gold. I feel like this is kind of an obvious choice, but I wouldn't John Valjean as Jesus just he's got like the gravitas the righteousness. I feel like he could carry that role. Now those are my picks.

[26:03] Jinhee Kim: So good. Okay ready for this. I'm so ready. Pontius Pilate, I'm gonna cast the witch from Into the Woods. She's gonna bring that drama. Gonna bring the beans gonna bring the beacons my rutabaga. Mary Magdalene is gonna be Velma Kelly. She's gonna steal the show a hundred percent. Ariel is gonna be Jesus. I mean, she's perfect, you know. She wants to be a part of the world she literally comes from like a different realm kind of you know she's a stranger to earth. You could say and she dies for our sins. She unites two worlds. She totally unites two worlds.

[26:43] Sean McCabe: I would definitely go to a mass where I had to like comb my hair with a fork.

[26:49] Jinhee Kim: Beautiful. She's basically she's already like topless already like Jesus like she's preparing for the role for a while. This is an all-female cast.

[26:59] Sean McCabe: Now that's what I want to say.

[27:07] Jinhee Kim: Yeah, I pop into my mind while we're talking for Mary Tinkerbell. I'm curious. I want to know this reasoning if you if you're able to share.

[27:22] Sean McCabe: Yeah, I don't know why just it pops in my head and then in the Pinocchio show Tinkerbell sometimes she's cute and also sometimes sexy. So this feels like oh she could be a good character with the Mary Mary.

[27:37] Jinhee Kim: Yeah, it's right she's a complex character.

[27:42] Sean McCabe: Yeah. This honestly the master's degree is they're showing.

[27:55] Jinhee Kim: Maybe in the musical Shakespeare in something rotten also.

[27:59] Sean McCabe: Of Christ, who are you casting as Jesus?

[28:19] Jinhee Kim: Jesus? I have this I'm still thinking of Jesus. So I think I like how do you you know, like Ariel is a great choice, how do you cast that role also apologies to anyone we're offending right now in good fun.

[28:28] Teresa Attridge: Do you want to go while we give Jenny some time a thousand percent and I'll start with Jesus. Simba is Jesus.

[28:40] Sean McCabe: Oh, it is oh my gosh. So Catholic.

[28:47] Teresa Attridge: In the unity of the Holy Spirit right there, you know, so I was like, oh man, this is a little too close, but we can't that's brilliant.

[28:56] Sean McCabe: I'm a boss that is like God above also our IP to James Earl Jones, not just oh my god. I've been reading a lot of a true legend if we're talking. Oh, we need to bring him up like I am unbelievable. Oh my god, so a moment a moment for James Earl Jones. Yes. Thank you then for Mary Magdalene I'm changing my answer from what I had before Gertrude McFuzz from Seussical as Mary Magdalene because she is ten toes down. Gertrude buzz will sprain her little toe and she will hobble like so for Jesus. I think there's something about this idea of that level of devotion and sort of like almost the manic love of like I'm working so hard for this person who it's like it's not even about me. It's about supporting them and I feel like that's very Mary Magdalene coded and then much as pilot I want as Roger Dupree from The Producers.

[30:04] Jinhee Kim: Oh my god, I would really love to just I want to smile it be like this is a really fabulous gay director. I think having this fabulous conscious pilot and also like a slight nod to having that really flamboyant theater director in your show in this very flamboyant like theater that and The Producers. So those are my choices.

[30:21] Sean McCabe: Did he do we have this how we had a come-to-Jesus moment? Oh, yeah.

[30:30] Jinhee Kim: Yeah, I just came into my mind. Can I say the character in the animation? Oh my god.

[30:39] Sean McCabe: I'll say it's for Jesus Yoda or wise men in Kung Fu Panda.

[30:44] Jinhee Kim: I'm in here and said everyone's about to be my biggest fan. I think Teresa often says that if there's like an other category that I'm the one who writes it in and I think Jenny just like wrote Star Wars there should be a musical. Is there like a Star Wars musical on Disney Plus that I haven't seen yet?

[30:54] Sean McCabe: I think if there's gonna be a Star Wars musical, it has to be just called episode.

[30:58] Jinhee Kim: Okay would be the tastemaker everyone needs to go and download that old clip of seagulls stop it now. It features Yoda singing to Luke Skywalker, which is basically an incredible musical theater moment seagulls stop it now.

[31:14] Sean McCabe: We'll put the link into like the episode description or something Yoda is absolutely a musical theater character for sure. Also, the idea of Jesus as Yoda is so funny cuz it's like body you will take I don't know.

[31:31] Jinhee Kim: Jet for you my body is what they do. They know not.

[31:39] Sean McCabe: This is truly honestly dare I say one of our best castings so good and as a fan of the podcast you made it through without mentioning Legally Blonde.

[31:47] Jinhee Kim: First of all, thank you for that shoutout. We deserve it. We deserve this shoutout.

[31:53] Sean McCabe: Sean is a true barnacle. That's right. We have barnacles in the this is like a full circle moment.

[31:59] Jinhee Kim: This is our first international podcast. This is incredible.

[32:02] Sean McCabe: Let's go. Yes, yes, yes. There's so many firsts on here and yet we shall return in the eyes of God. Backstage pass.

[32:10] Jinhee Kim: It's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but it's like our casting. The Roger Dupree and the yes, Simba.

[32:16] Sean McCabe: And the Simba be with you.

[32:18] Jinhee Kim: Thank you so much for being here and for sharing this incredible piece with us. We've had so much fun chatting with you today.

[32:22] Sean McCabe: Thank you for allowing us to experience this music. I'm so excited for our friends out there. Our barnacles out there to listen to it. And there's more music. Go check out songs like Hey Stranger. This musical is stacked. Please check it out. It's truly so good.

[32:40] Jinhee Kim: Thank you guys so much. This has been so much fun. We love talking about our collaboration and this piece that we really believe in. Thank you so much for giving us this platform to talk about it. And for bringing your enthusiasm. It means so much to us. This was a blast. Thank you.

[32:56] Sean McCabe: Thank you so much for having us. And a really great experience with you guys. And also, it feels like, oh, now I work with more of this show.

[33:02] Jinhee Kim: Sean, thank you. I love it.

[33:06] Sean McCabe: Well, in the spirit of this piece, peace be with you.

[33:08] Jinhee Kim: Peace be with you.

[33:10] Sean McCabe: Thank you both.

[33:12] Jinhee Kim: Peace be with you, Barnacles.

[33:14] Sean McCabe: Bye.