This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:43] Pauls Macs: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a very special episode of Backstage Pass. It's Pauls flying solo today. The last time I was in New York City, I was able to see a very special show on the last night I was there at 9:30 p.m. It was a show called Beau the Musical. I'm so pleased to share it with you today. I'd heard amazing things about it, but when I went there, I was completely blown away, and I haven't stopped listening to the show since I got home. I'm so pleased to welcome the co-creator and conceiver of Beau, Douglas Lyons. Douglas, thank you for being here today.

[1:16] Douglas Lyons: Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

[1:18] Pauls Macs: So Douglas, first off, before we get started, for anybody who doesn't know about the show, I'm going to read a quick synopsis just so everyone knows the show that we're chatting about. When young Nashville musician Ace Baker discovers that his long-lost rock star grandfather is still alive, his world shifts forever. Now confronted with buried memories, family secrets, and strained relationships, Ace must find his way and rediscover his voice. A coming-of-age like no other, Beau the Musical blends an immersive pop-country score with a story of love, family, and redemption. Brought to life by eight actor-musicians in a theater-turned-Nashville bar, Beau the Musical is an electrifying and unforgettable night out.

And truly, it was 9:30. I had a really exhausting week. The lead actor, Matt Rodin, comes up and he goes like, okay, 9:30, let's go. It was a really, really amazing performance. So yeah, Douglas, can you talk a little bit about how you came to write Beau the Musical? Where did it come from?

[2:11] Douglas Lyons: For sure. I was in the original company of Beautiful the Carole King Musical. During, actually, when I was in Book of Mormon, I think I was invited by my friend Steve Kazee to see the final dress of Once. I was blown away. I had never seen actor-musicians in their element that way. It was very inspiring. I had not been writing yet, but I already, you know, sort of pinged in my head that when we would write musicals and when we would work on them, I wanted to create something that was a combination of Rent, which I did the national tour of at 19, and Once. Like, I wanted to create a baby that was the two of them, but queer. And that exploration began backstage at Beautiful the Carole King Musical when I knew that all of the actors in the band would eventually step out and have scene work.

That was the experiment. And I was like, I don't know what the story is, but I know there's this lead guy, he's going to sing some songs, he's going to have a band, and those band members will be characters in his story. And yeah, it started with five pages. I pitched this to Leah at the director's company where I had been an actor eight years prior, and she was like, yeah, I've seen you've been writing on, you know, Facebook, I'll give you a residency. And so it was on 43rd and 8th in the old Telsey building. And so I would come in a couple hours early, work on it, and then go to Beautiful and do the show. And eventually that work meant I started inviting actors to the table. And the initial title page was like, Beau, a play inside a concert.

So I kept sort of dancing around what I thought the idea would be, but now nine years later, it's bloomed into this sort of remarkable actor-musician heartfelt piece about legacy and love and music and the importance of communication and of healing. I couldn't be prouder of what we've done in the past 10 months. You know, we've had two productions in New York City because of out-of-the-box theatrics, and our wonderful producers. And so it's been a real journey. And the second time around, it really got into like the college space and the Reddit space and the TikTok space that we had some mega fans that came back between literally like three. There was a woman, she had to be in her 40s. She was like, I came five times. And this other woman came 48 times and everything. It's just, it's become the dream I wanted it to be. And so I couldn't be prouder of Beau.

[4:26] Pauls Macs: That's really exciting to hear. And very, very moving. I didn't go back to see it 48 times. But as I said, when I first introed the show, I have continued to listen to the music after I got home from New York. And don't get me wrong, I saw some really good shows. I saw like maybe Happy Ending, but I would say the music of Beau the Musical is just my kind of music. And some of the lyrics really resonate with me. Like I was doing laundry yesterday and I was listening to Run-In and I was tearing up as I'm like doing my laundry. So and we can go more into that. But I'm so pleased to hear that you have that experience at closing. Just to go a little further back in development, we had two readings in 2018 at the Director's Company in a black box.

And between the first reading, which is April of 2018 and August, we wrote, Ethan Deepak Jha, who I wrote the music with, we wrote Disappear, Run-In, and I think Coming Home. I think those were the three songs that were written between because we knew he needed an I Want song. We needed sort of an 11 o'clock banger, which Run-In became. After that second reading, it became evident something was there. And I begged and annoyed the hell out of Chad Rabinovitz, who was the artistic director at the Adirondack Theatre Festival at the time. I had heard, you know, the kinds of productions they did. I like pitched it to him. I was like, you got to look at the show. I think it would be really great. And it was between us and one other show.

And in December of 2018, got the call that they were going to go with Beau. And so in summer of 2019, we did this developmental run of nine performances and a bit of a red spot upstate. And I was a little nervous because there's lots, you know, pretty gay. It's a pretty gay show, but that's great. That's also what's so powerful about it. Yeah, it's pretty gay. But to my surprise, by the end of the run, it was selling out. They were adding seats. And it's also a family show, right? If you've ever had a cousin or a child or a daughter who is different and not just queer, but like, you know, they have a disability or they're soft spoken or they're on the spectrum, anything that makes you different that you could be teased for in your adolescence, Beau explores as a theme.

Out of that run, I had been in communication with Scott Farthing at Sony Masterworks, pitching him the idea of a concept recording because many traditional musicals like Tommy, there were a lot of concept recordings back in the day. And I thought the best way to sort of capture the electricity of the show, if we never make it to Broadway, was to do an album. And so luckily, Sony Masterworks got behind us. We got a whole host of incredible Broadway talent like Aisha Jackson and Charity Dawson, Saint Aubin, Ben Roseberry, John Krause from the original company of Hadestown, mixed in with some of the ATF company and Matt Rodin. And we put out this album that created a fan base that has allowed the show to sell sheet music for the past seven years around the world.

Like we have fans in, you know, in Asia and in London and in Toronto. It's been really cool. So that album set us up as a proof of concept for what the show could be. And now it actually came to fruition.

[7:28] Pauls Macs: Yeah, that's really fantastic. And you know, you've seen that happen with other shows, like for example, Be More Chill experienced something similar. I think one thing that's really cool that you mentioned is the connection to the musical Once and how you envisioned seeing each of the actor musicians come out and playing an integral part of the story. And I think that's so well expressed in your piece. I've seen actor musician shows where that's not always the case, where it just kind of feels like there's main characters. And you know, some of the musicians are kind of on the periphery. But in your show, every single one of the players is integral to the story.

[8:03] Douglas Lyons: Thank you. I wanted to make sure that the actor musicianship of it all wasn't a hoax and like a cool thing to add on, like a device that was plopped onto a story, but that it actually mattered. And I don't play anything. I play these vocal chords. That's all I got. But I have so much respect for the actor musician community. You know, something that a lot of the actors that have gone through Bill in different iterations talk about is the power of the band. So when they come on, even though they're not front and center, they get to play music with each other in a public way, you know, not in the pit, but on stage. And so they have this community. And those relationships in the band have fostered relationships, you know, out in the world.

And it's really, I think, crucial with these shows because they're popping up like there's a come from away movement now with actor musicians as well. But that original production sort of had the pit on stage in a way, right? So it feels authentic. And I just really wanted to capture that. And I think we did.

[9:00] Pauls Macs: I think you did, too. I think you nailed it. Well, before we go too much further, I want to make sure people know the artists I'm speaking with. So I'm going to read your bio just so everybody knows about you, Douglas. Douglas Lyons is a two-time Emmy-nominated multi-hyphenate artist. As a writer, he earned a GLAAD nomination for his Broadway playwriting debut, Chicken and Biscuits, which was the second most produced play in America during the 2022-2023 season. His most recent play, Table 17, which premiered off-Broadway at MCC Theatre, was deemed a New York Times Critics' Pick and won two 2024 Adelco Awards for Best Playwright and Outstanding Ensemble. Douglas served as a writer on both seasons of Apple TV's Fraggle Rock.

His Broadway acting credits include The Book of Mormon, plus the original cast of Beautiful and the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Parade. Tour credits include Rent, Dreamgirls, and The Book of Mormon. As a composer-lyricist, his music and lyrics have been featured on Nickelodeon, BET+, Apple TV, CBS's Sunday Morning Show, Audible, and more. His other written works include Don't Touch My Hair, Polka Dots, which won an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Family Show, The World Premiere of Five Points, and more. He is currently developing television with Skydance and Ryan Reynolds' Maximum Effort. Douglas, you talked a little bit about how you originally conceived of the show, but so you're starting to write it, and you create this album.

Can you talk to us about the conception of Ace? We've said the show is very, very gay, or, you know, it's been described as queer joy. Can you talk to me about the story of Ace, and where that journey of self-acceptance and the relationship with Beau kind of came from as you were starting to create the show?

[10:34] Douglas Lyons: Sure. You know, to be honest with you, I didn't know where it was going to go. Historically, Beau is the first script I've ever written. So musicals take so long that it's arriving now, but before Chicken and Biscuits, before Table 17, before Don't Touch My Hair, before Pure Glitter, all these other works I have, there was Beau. And I was terrified to write script. We had been writing music for five or six years at that point, but I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to be bad, because there's so many great writers who've gone to Yale and Juilliard and all these other things. And I have a BFA musical theater degree in performance from the Hart School. So I was a little nervous, but it's fine to fail, you know, amongst friends.

And so that's how Beau started as this experiment. And I knew my buddy Harley J., who I'd done the Rent Tour with. I went to one of his concerts at Rockwood Music Hall, and it was stage three. Well, what used to be Rockwood. It's gone now, I think. But in the basement, they have a small stage, maybe like 40 people or so. And it was him, his wife, and a pianist. And he, in his set, stopped and talked about spending his summers in Salt Lake City, I believe, with his grandfather. And when his family would go to Hawaii on vacation, he'd rather stay and spend the summer with this man who would hotwire a radio to a motorcycle so that they had music. And he would spend weeks on end with this man. And then he went into a song.

And when I witnessed that, I was like, oh, that was story to song right there. That was scene to song right there. Like, and what beautiful, intimate storytelling that was. And so I just knew there was an opportunity there. Now, what came of Ace Baker? I like the name. I thought that was a quirky, cool name. I have Southern roots. My mother is from North Carolina on the coast. And so I would spend a lot of my summers in North Carolina. You know, I'm from New Haven, Connecticut, but I would go down 12-hour drive. I hated it. We would get there, and it smelled differently, right? Like the South smells different. And my uncles would go fishing. They would fish and get shrimp and scallops and then come back and fry them.

It was just a whole different thing that I was used to. But culturally, I had my mother's grandfather, who I knew he passed when I was, I don't know, in my 20s or something. But he had this sort of grouchy and loving nature about him. And I think part of creating Beau...

[12:52] Douglas Lyons: That was my imagination of who I would be if he knew me to be a queer person that I would come to be. Yeah, I honestly didn't know where the story was going. Daphne, who's his best friend in the show, very much was there from the very beginning. And then, you know, the whole bullying aspect with Ferris and this very complex relationship of like, I'm going to abuse you in public, but then discover you and myself in private, sort of evolved over time. A lot of the songs began to rearrange. There's a cut song called "So Better" that was in the ATF production, which is when Raven, his mother, is getting ready to go to this date. But after years of people telling me it didn't work, I finally listened to them and removed it from the show.

I mean, it's a great song. I mean, Jen Colella sings it really well. But I remember after I got home, I listened to the album and I was like, Oh, I don't remember this song. But you're right, you know, but it's a great song, just so you know. It's a good song, but like part of, you know, as they say, killing your babies is understanding what serves the moment, what gives the best emotional impact. And so the middle, which is in the show now, is a duet between Raven, Ace's, you know, single mother and him where they don't understand each other. And she gets to call him by a very specific name at the top of that song because of the tension that they have. Yeah, I always say experiment because even between, we've had two productions in the past year.

One was down at 154 Christopher Street with Out of the Box in their old space. And then we transferred to St. Luke's Church, which is their new space. And there were actually new lines and lyrics that I continued to work on with the show from the transfer. So some people that saw it downtown came back and there was one whole little scene bit that was cut. And then the final scene between Ace and his mother, there was new adage there in language. So I really try to listen to what the story is giving us and mostly what it's giving the audience, because if they are not moved or they're confused, then I haven't done my job. And luckily, I think by the end, people really identified with all of the themes of the show.

[15:04] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. Well, I think it does resonate. I sometimes serve as the avatar for the listener. You know, Ace is a young man who, you know, is figuring himself out, is coming of age and discovering that he's queer. Part of his discovery is through that relationship with his bully, Ferris. But I think a great way to introduce that journey would be by playing the song, "Pop Pop Beau," because I think that sets up your show in a really beautiful way. Can you set up that song for our audience?

[15:20] Douglas Lyons: For sure. So "Pop Pop Beau" opens the show. There has been many versions of this. So the version in the musical proper is different than the version on the album. Okay, so the framing device, because we haven't talked about this, of the evening is that you are at the second album release of Ace Baker and his band. So when you show up, it's a bar, you actually can, you know, get a beer from the bar proper and take a seat. This man comes out and he starts to sing this song, which if you were doing an album release is just the, you know, opening number to the set. Obviously, in a theater piece, there's a lot of story to listen. So if you listen to the details and the lyrics within the song, it's a bit of foreshadowing for where the musical version or the musical journey within the setting is going.

And you'll understand why it's called "Pop Pop Beau" later on in the show. I'll tell you now, it's the title character is Beau, his grandfather, and Pop Pop is the name they come up with once they've spent a summer together.

[16:17] Pauls Macs: Absolutely. And I know this because I have the album credits in front of me, but this is performed by John Kraus. Is that correct?

[16:20] Douglas Lyons: Yes.

[16:25] Pauls Macs: Okay, fantastic. Well, Matt Rodin was incredible on this performance. We'll hear John Kraus. So here is "Pop Pop Beau" performed by John Kraus.

[16:55] ♪ Musical number: "Pop Pop Beau" — performed by John Kraus ♪

[19:43] Douglas Lyons: I mean, I have listened to this song so many times, and it was such a great way to just drop you into the evening. As you said, when you're there in the audience, you really feel probably more than any other theater piece I've ever been to, that I'm in a Nashville bar. I know I'm in New York City, but I feel like I'm in a Nashville bar. You know, the actors came out, they picked up their instruments. I'm like, wait, is this a concert or is this a show? And then all blended together. The words that really resonate with me in the song is, he told me how to love myself and never let it go. And it seems so simple, but you know, so leave it all in the hay and focus where you are today. I will think of that as I'm going through my day.

I'll let you know I'm like a straight person, but that journey of truly loving yourself is something that I think many of us can struggle with. And so it's like, okay, stop thinking about that thing you messed up yesterday and just focus where you are right in this moment. And I think that's really powerful. I'm a man of like metaphor, and I love lush, inspirational post and lyric. That's just my style. I think that theater is an opportunity, yes, to impress, yes, to provoke and evoke emotion, but also to hug and to heal. And I'm not sure that we're always using it for its full capacity. And so I always say that Beau is a hug for people. And a lot of the insight that Beau passes down to Ace are tidbits that my father has passed down to me in conversation.

And I think so many people resonate with the show. You know, there was a woman who flew. She introduced herself. She had flown from Illinois. She only comes to New York twice a year, but she had saved up money from a recent contract because she'd been listening to the album since 2020. And she lost her grandfather a month ago, and she knew that Beau would help heal her. And she was shaking as she was talking to me. But the significance of people identifying their own story in Ace's story is so moving and so exciting. And that's really where I wanted the show to live. I'm kind of beyond the expectation or interest of how it's received. It's like, what is the impact of it? With the second run, we definitely got to see the impact of these college kids and people who found the music and are owning it as their own.

That, to me, is what Rent did. That's why I say Rent. And once, you know, there became Rent heads who saw the show so much because they saw a bit of themselves in it. And so I think people see that in Beau.

[22:06] Pauls Macs: Yeah, I think you're totally right. And, you know, the great thing is there is a universality to it. Someone like me can really grapple onto it and be like, oh, I feel like this is speaking directly to me and my circumstances. And yet I want to not diminish the fact that for so many people, the experience of discovering that you're queer and trying to find your way through that experience in your adolescence is very, very challenging and is something that I think would speak especially and imperatively to them. There's so many people who especially I think I saw this in an interview, you know, something along the lines that you said or someone said, I think about those kids in those Midwest states that really need to have someone there to encourage them and let them know that if they're feeling different, that that's OK, that they should celebrate their differences. The fact that it works both in that universal way and also in that very specific way, it worked very well for your piece.

[23:01] Douglas Lyons: Thank you. Also, you know, there's a deeper moment where Ace questions if he even belongs on this earth anymore because the way he's being treated later on in the play. I feel like in theater, queerness can often be minimized to glitter and drag queens and the fun of it. And we sometimes skip over the kids that are not saved, the kids who really struggle to even feel like they deserve to stay on this earth. And so I'm abundantly proud of the depths that we go to. And, you know, some people have seen the show and they're like, oh, it's coming of age. We've seen this before. And Josh Rhodes, the director, even last night was saying, yeah, you've seen it before, but some people are still living it. Right. Yeah. And so we have to think about them. And this musical is centering them and saying, hold on, you might have to run from your current circumstance, but you don't have to run from yourself.

[24:42] Pauls Macs: Yeah. Which is really expressed without spoiling it in the song "Runnin'," for sure. Well, as long as you just brought him up, I will let you know that I was once very lucky to assist Josh Rhodes on a production of Spamalot here. I'm actually in Seattle right now. Josh directed a production of Spamalot at the Fifth Avenue Theater, which I know you've been at. Yeah. I was already living in New York when you played Cole House in Ragtime. Oh. I heard you were fantastic. I'd love to hear how Josh Rhodes joined the process or how Josh got involved because Josh's staging was so inventive. Again, like the way the actor musicians weaved their way in and out of being the backing band for Ace to suddenly being integral parts of the scenes was really fantastic. So I'd love to know how Josh became part of the process.

[25:02] Douglas Lyons: For sure. Josh was originally the choreographer for the ATF production. I had seen his work. I was in Beautiful at the time, and we had a general meeting because I saw his work in Bright Star. There was like a moment where he took a blanket, and at one point it was like a kite, and then it was, you know, a picnic sort of blanket, and then it was a tablecloth. It was a sequence, and I was like, who did that? I'm looking at a blanket, and it is a character. Whose mind thought that up? And when I found out it was him, you know, we had a meeting and we had been dying to work together. So he took over as director. We actually shot a film of Beau as well, which has not been released. It's a whole thing.

But there was a feature film, and Josh directed that first and then shepherded, you know, these two productions. He just, he has a gentle theme to him that is so collaborative and so open, and he just loves the show, and he loves what the show has to say, and he poured so much of himself into that. And because of my schedule for round two, I was doing a writer's room out of town and had to go to L.A. because Table 17 was playing the Geffen, and so I was back and forth. And so for the second version, I wasn't really in the room in rehearsal for more than three or four days. So we did book work on sort of the new, you know, edits and updates, and then I was gone.

[25:45] Douglas Lyons: He would check in, and I trusted him to do what he needed to do with the show, because we have a rapport and a respect and an understanding. It's been a beautiful journey to work alongside someone that you can whisper and just tackle at something that has nothing to do with what's happening, but has been inspired by just the familial relationship of the show. So yeah, it's been a beautiful journey, and I'm so proud of his work in it, because, you know, even from downtown to uptown, I had a little feedback to him. I was like, I think there's an opportunity to make, you know, even some of the staging a little bit more theatrical and surprising. And he said, you know, I appreciated that note. And so coming into this new space and this new version of Beau that was completely immersive, and watching the changes from downtown to uptown in his work were also something to behold.

[26:33] Pauls Macs: Oh, yeah. And I saw footage of the out-of-the-box production versus the show that I saw. You're right. My sense was that it'd become even more immersive. You know, the actors are just weaving in and out of everywhere. It seems like they're coming and going from every little place in that space. That was really exciting. And the other thing I would say is, you know, that word you used, gentle, for Josh, is really, really accurate. I remember that quality about his direction. And also, like, I still laugh about some of the things that he said in rehearsal. So it seems like he was an ideal collaborator, but also good job on picking your collaborators. It's a feeling. And now in my career, I'm like, it's not just what your resume is. Is there a vibe? Can we have a cocktail and laugh about life and the work? You know, it's such a long, treacherous road that you want to make sure that—oh, road, there's a pun there. Beck, you have fun.

[27:22] Douglas Lyons: You know, I work with Shaden Lovingston a lot, who has Cats' Angelical Ball coming to Broadway this spring. And we have fun, you know, and he's taught me that lesson of how we make is just as important as what we make is something I take with me. And so when I'm in a room with Josh, I know I'm going to have a good time. And there are going to be moments where he challenges me and I challenge him. But we're always in service of the work and trying to figure out how to make something that is best fit for an experience that will be memorable.

[27:49] Pauls Macs: Right. Well, I'm going to take it back to the plot of the show a little bit. So we have Ace. We meet him. Well, we first meet his band. We're in that device of this is a second album release. But then we start to flashback to him growing up. He's going through high school. He has this person who bullies him. But then that same bully then kisses him and they begin a relationship. Can you talk about how you developed the journey of Ace's high school story?

[28:10] Douglas Lyons: He is from a single parent home when the story I don't know that he knows that he's queer yet. I think it is the influence of people in school naming him something that he did not even discover yet. Right. There are kids that are puny and just they haven't developed or grown the same way as their classmates and such. And so they're deemed things that they're not. And I think Ace is a victim of that. And this kid, Ferris, makes a mockery of him daily and demands the cigarettes of him, which he has to steal from his mother, which creates some annoyance there because she is a no B.S. woman. And in the midst of having to supply the cigarettes every day to Ferris one particular day, he makes him smoke with him. And as they smoke, spoiler alert, Ferris kisses him. And it takes Ace by surprise in so many ways because a curiosity of himself is sparked. But he also knows it's maybe wrong, but also confused as to why this bully chose him to kiss.

[29:12] Pauls Macs: Right. There's all these feelings and a cool device of the show that I have taken from stand up comedy. It appears in a lot of my work, but his direct address. So Ace throughout the entire musical, because remember, he is at a concert and a concert. The artist is going to talk to you as the show begins to bleed between, you know, theatrical narrative and concert. Right after that kiss in the scene, he's able to talk to the audience and react to them as he goes back to Mike for the concert. And so that's the other cool aspect is as he's developing, he in real time is trying to figure out through the audience's relationship to what is happening to me. If I can go back and look at it. Wow. My bully was my first kiss. And then he can comment on it in real time and go, Yeah, right. But at 12, he was not saying, Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was effective.

[30:03] Douglas Lyons: I got to tell you, you know, yeah, the Ferris relationship is a very manipulative one. It's fascinating. And there are so many Ferrises in the world who can't express, you know, who they really are. You know, we're living in this time to I was having this conversation yesterday with a friend where there are bi curious men, but because we have not allowed the world to get to a point where people can just be who they are without this idea to patriarchy and masculinity going into play, you have a lot of closeted people who just feel like they have to uphold a certain way of life to be accepted. And I think Ferris is an example of that in culture.

[30:34] Pauls Macs: Something that you touched on that I thought was very effective was the direct address precisely. And you know, I was actually thinking about Shakespeare when I was watching your show, because that ability to have a soliloquy with the audience to speak directly to them allows us to bond with the character in a way that, you know, when we don't have that connection to them, there's that like barrier between us and them. But when they're able to so directly connect with us and address us, it does make that bond more palpable.

[31:04] Douglas Lyons: Or another show that I was thinking about, you know, was actually, I hope this is okay to say, was Richard III. You know, Richard III is all about a character who, you know, in Act 5, he has a whole monologue or a soliloquy, actually, where he's just saying, oh, no, I rather hate myself because of all the things that I've done. He realizes he's done all these horrible things because he's never been able to love himself. Well, I wish Richard III had had a grandfather who taught him how to play the guitar, you know. But just to say that device worked really well to help us, you know, feel that intimacy with Ace as a character.

[31:39] Pauls Macs: It's something that I use in Table 17 as well. I'm just really, I'm always interested in how I can break open the theater and the traditionalist mindset of like, you come in, you sit down, you have your cup, and you sit, and you don't participate. That version of theater, as we progress as a society, becomes a little less interesting for the attention span of culture, because now we have these phones, right? You could sit in a theater for three hours because you weren't going home to a TV in Shakespearean time. But now people are like, all right, this half hour, 22 minute thing, or this limited series, and I'm out, you know, you really have to grasp their attention. And I think the new age of theater goers that I'm interested in pulling in, I want to break down the form. I want to meet them where they are. I want to reach them and make them feel a part of the evening. And so that has been successful in things like Table 17 and Beau.

[32:30] Douglas Lyons: I think we should go ahead and play another song for the audience. I want to play one of the most charming songs to me. Can you go ahead and set up Crush for our listeners?

[32:38] Douglas Lyons: So Crush is actually one of the first songs that Ethan and I wrote back in 2012, 2013. And it was written, I distinctly remember, it was completed in a hotel room in Detroit, Michigan. The great Michael Kilgore would record it. He was on tour with us at the time, but he would record it the following August in 2013. I was determined. It became one of our most popular songs from that album, Hashtag Love Live. And I thought to myself, I have to figure out a way to get it in Beau. The way you get it in Beau is you have Ace, who has become a songwriter because he's been gifted a guitar and taught guitar by his grandfather, Beau, on their first summer. When he goes home and he starts writing his own music, of course he's going to write this song about having a crush on Ferris. And so that's how we got it in the musical. It's one of the most recognizable songs. In this version, you will hear it is sung by Aisha Jackson, who did it on the concept recording.

[33:34] Pauls Macs: Fantastic. Well, here is Crush, performed by Aisha Jackson.

[34:00] ♪ Musical number: "Crush" — performed by Aisha Jackson ♪

[36:57] Douglas Lyons: I mean, this song is so charming. It's such a bop. Forgive me for saying if that's okay. But also that is such an interesting grab of your show is these weird conflicted feelings that Ace is having for Ferris. What is it to fall in love or, you know, at least have feelings for your bully? What just happened is exactly what Ace is experiencing. It's like, am I falling in love? What are these feelings? Should I be feeling this way at all? And now I have to go steal cigarettes from my mother, you know, and yet there's like a sweetness and purity about it that comes through in this in the song. Part of being a musician and a writer is what are the things that you create that are universal and everybody either wants love, has love, or has had it, right?

This idea of crush, you know, even if it's looking at celebrity culture and being like, we all have crushes, right? So the idea of putting that lyric out in the ethos is like so tangible. Anytime people can be reminded that, hey, you know, queer kids have crushes too. We're all human. And like, they are sweet and joyful and innocent. And I think this song like encapsulates that and celebrates that in a really fun, powerful way. I just think people need to like hear that as much as possible.

[38:05] Pauls Macs: Thanks for joining us on New York Theatre Barn's Backstage Pass, hosted by Teresa Attridge and Pauls Macs. Join us next time as we continue our conversation with Douglas Lyons about Beau the Musical.