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[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi everyone, I am Martín Acuña and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:19] Martín Acuña: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today I have the privilege, big honor, of having the whole Chaining Zero, a new musical, creative team over. With me today, I will let each of you introduce yourself after, but with me today I have Griffin Parsons, Justin Halpin, Jeffrey James, and John Morrow. Did I get that right?

[0:49] Jeffrey James: Yeah, absolutely. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for coming over. I found your musical over Instagram last year and since then I have been obsessed with it. Your digital marketing strategy of releasing songs over social media, I think it was really powerful. It was a really powerful way to show people your work. So congratulations on that and I will let each of you introduce yourself. So who wants to start?

[1:25] Justin Halpin: I'll start because why not? I'm Jeffrey James. I'm one half of the composer team.

[1:33] Justin Halpin: I am the other half. I'm Griffin. I'm part of, I wrote the book with John who will introduce himself next, I guess.

[1:48] John Morrow: Yeah, same. I'm John Morrow. I am a co-book writer on Chaining Zero.

[1:56] Martín Acuña: Awesome. I want to ask you how, the first question I have is, how did the four of you find each other for this project?

[2:08] Justin Halpin: So my then girlfriend now wife is kind of the connection for all of us. Erin Kors, she went to school with these two guys and moved to New York and kind of got started. These two guys being Griffin and John? I'm sorry. Yes, Griffin and John. Got started in the business with them and she was an actress in New York and touring for 10 years. And one night we were all having drinks in Manhattan somewhere. I don't even remember. We should know the bar, but I don't remember what bar it was. We do know. Don't we? Do we know? Yeah, I know where it is. I can tell you the name. I can picture it. We were having a blast and while Griffin finds the name. And we kind of just were talking about, you know, I was doing a lot of other writing, pop writing, which I've been doing for 10 years now in Nashville. And we were like, we should do a musical. And I was like, I would love to. Would that be crazy? And you know, a few years later, all of a sudden we've got ideas flying around.

[3:16] Justin Halpin: Now, what happened for me was I didn't take it as being crazy. I was like, oh, he wants to write a musical. So I went back and I was like, oh, this is real. Like, I'm going to start writing a musical. So I was like, Griffin, we should get together and we're going to write a musical. And so Griffin and I, yeah, we just got together. I can tell you the rest of the history of how it all started if you want to, if that's what you're looking for right now.

[3:41] Jeffrey James: To add to that real quick before this is Jeffrey. I wasn't at that dinner because I was not in the shredding group yet. At this point, I had known Justin for about 10 years, writing together and living together for a bit in Nashville. And I was brought in once it became a thing that they were actually going to do the show because Justin has known for a while that I was, even though I've been a pop writer for X amount of years now, he knows I've been a not so secret theater junkie and was like, he hinted at it for a second that they were going to do this and kind of offhandedly was like, oh man, and maybe I'll like, I don't know if it's that, but maybe I'll bring you in. In the back of my head, I was like, oh, I got to convince him.

This was like bucket list for me. So he was always my guy because he would make references that I didn't know yet because I was just kind of getting into it. And it was like, he was always my guy. It was always going to be the two of us on the music side. So sorry, I interrupted you, John.

[4:43] John Morrow: Don't worry. Because I know that one way or another, the four of you have been involved in theater or in songwriting one way or another. I know that John has been a Broadway and of Broadway and West End and the rest of you have either been writing for musicals or for pop stars. So I think that it's amazing how life takes a round corner and projects like this come to life. Now, how did this start? Like you got together one night and you said, let's do a musical. And then what came next?

[5:32] Justin Halpin: Yeah. So I went home and I was like, so we're writing a musical. I called Griffin and I was like, we have to get together. We have to start writing this musical. So we started having weekly meetings in a coffee shop. And our original idea was just to come up with characters that we thought would be interesting lead characters in a musical. So we made a list of like 40 some characters. And so then from there, we decided we just wanted to narrow it down to the characters we loved the most. So we narrowed it down to a group of eight people and we were like, oh, we just can't pick which character we love the most. What if we created a story that had all of those characters interacting with each other?

And how interesting could it be to have all these different people from different walks of life going through and experience with each other? We also knew that we wanted to have the ending of the show be very ambiguous. And we also knew that we wanted the musical to be a one act, 90 minutes. We also knew nothing about music and neither of us had ever written. So it was really just a passion project at first. And we were just kind of having fun. And then one day we sort of looked at each other and we were like, this is actually a really cool idea that hasn't been told before. And there might be potential here. And then that's when we reached out to Justin and we proposed the idea to him initially.

[7:15] Jeffrey James: Yeah. I guess I'll throw in like when John and I were meeting, like, you know, I had been in a theater business. I kind of got out now in marketing and have a great career there, but missed theater and missed, you know, being creative. So John really like made me excited about this project after us drinking. Like, I didn't think it was serious. And John was like, no, it's real. So I think us kind of putting out, we had like characters and like John said, different story ideas as well that we thought were important that came from like our lives, like, you know, like being gay or like, you know, other issues that are kind of prevalent in America right now. Hopefully things are turning around, but, you know, there were like a few years that were pretty bleak in America and we wanted to really tell a story around different people, like John said, coming together. So it was our idea to kind of just merge those, I guess, eight-ish people together. And then we started kind of crafting this story.

[8:23] Martín Acuña: That sounds awesome. Let's dive a bit more into what the musical is about and what the story costs.

[8:27] John Morrow: Sure. Yeah. So like I was saying, we wanted to bring different people from different walks of life. And for the specific musical, we wanted to have them be sort of forced into each other's lives and then have to use each other and rely on each other to sort of survive the circumstances that they were in. In this instance, we have them trapped on a subway, not trapped, but stopped on a subway. So they're on the same train car the entire show. And through the situations that happen and the different relationships that happen and the different mental states of people that are there through their anxiety, their stress, their discomfort, their impatience, they end up relating to each other in a way that they weren't really expecting to happen. So the musical is based on human connection, not judging a book by its cover, and how we can tell stories that have yet to had a life on the Broadway stage.

[9:46] Martín Acuña: I'm intrigued by that. I need to see that. I mean, I need to see that on stage. Because creating multiple stories into one single story frame is something that just blows up my mind. So the idea of having different characters that we may not only know who is the main or who's the secondary character, but they each have an important role in the story is just mind-blowing for me. And I'm just going to ask for each of you, which is your favorite character in the story?

[10:25] Jeffrey James: I'm going to say Cammy, who is a makeup tutorialist and social media influencer. Many reasons, most because her song, she has a song called Like, that is like one of my favorite songs from the show. It's just one of the more fun things we've done, I think.

[10:58] Justin Halpin: I think it's interesting, Martin, you said something like you don't really know who the main character is, I've heard of secondary characters. I think I've had probably eight different answers of who the show is about. And I don't even want to say that I think that's part of the beauty of our show is that you kind of pick who you think is the main character, who you relate to the most. You're going to follow their track. And maybe you'll see the second time, follow a different track. And that's a different lead character in your mind. I think for me, for some reason, I have a real connection to Jen, I think. So she's an ex ballet dancer who got into a bad relationship and is starting anew in New York City. This is her first, she just got off.

[11:45] John: A train or a plane or a bus now is on the subway on her way to the city. She's a real growth arc in the show and I really enjoy seeing her find her voice and kind of develop throughout the show.

[12:02] Justin: Yeah, for me, I'm just piggybacking off of what Griffin said. Um, it's tough because for me, I, um, professionally, I was, um, in the ensemble of Hair on Broadway, like you said, um, on tour, off Broadway, uh, in the West End. So I had this experience with this cast, like this ensemble cast, and I see this show as that as well. Like, I don't necessarily see one person being the lead, but I see this being a group of people that are important because of the people that are around them. Very Rent, but I'm not comparing it to Rent, you know, very heresy. Don't do that. But like, very that, where it's like, you have this group of people that like is surviving. Their characters are surviving based on their relationships with each other.

Um, I have to say right now, well, always, I'm the most critical of the book, obviously. Um, and I'm always going in and really diving into who these characters are deeper and deeper and deeper. Sometimes for my own fault, I need to be like, stop. Cammy is probably also my favorite character right now. I, I find, and as I was writing her, Griffin and I were finding her and we were hearing her inside my head speak. I empathize and sympathize with her. And she's telling a very modern story with her relationship with social media and how that can be good, but how it also has a very dark side to it. So for me right now, she's my favorite.

[13:50] Griffin: Uh, I kind of look like John looks at everything through the lens of the book. I kind of look at it through who is the, um, who's the most fun or intriguing person to write songs with or about or for how look at it. And I just think there, Cody is, is fascinating because he's going through so much. Oh, they're all kind of going through a lot, but a lot of their stories come to light or a lot of their trouble is sparked by what's happening on the train. Whereas Cody, I mean, this guy is dealing with so much stuff before he ever even gets to this train. And then in some ways on the train, he almost elevates himself and is trying to do something for everybody else when he's going through so much.

So it's like from a complexity, there's so much to sift through and to take into, you know, seek your teeth into as a songwriter, which I love there. You, I mean, we have to pull back the reins sometimes where we're like, should we just do an entire musical about Cody? Cause there's, there's so much there. And I love writing for that character. Awesome. Which case in point, Cody, one of Cody's big songs is "Capable Of" that Steven Christopher Anthony is singing in the video, right? Right. Which was, which was one of the latest additions to the show. Actually, we, we knew we needed something because we all kind of felt this way about Cody. And we were like, man, if you're going to have somebody who's going to sing a song, that's really going to not completely encapsulate what the entire ensemble is going through, but can certainly speak to it for each person. That was a song and he had to be the guy we were like, let's, I love, I love the process of writing that song.

[15:28] John: Yeah. It's funny. Cause I'd say Tammy and Cody are probably the two characters that John and I have kind of started with. I think Cody was, you know, a big inspiration. Like Justin just said, there's a whole show I can imagine around Cody and Cody's story. And like we had thought that. So I think that's interesting. That's who kind of people are relating to the most. I like that a lot.

[16:02] Martín Acuña: Well, let me tell you that not knowing the whole story and the whole songs about the musical "Capable Of" is one of my favorite songs so far. Like what all of you were saying about relating to someone else's experience. I felt that through the lyrics and the music of that song. I mean, I just find it really powerful and it has, it has a really deep backstory to it. And I feel I can relate to it because we've all felt unvaluable and maybe a bit worthless. And this song, I found it as an empowerment anthem. So yeah, I really love it. That song and "They Will Remember." It's just like mind blowing to me. Thank you very much.

[16:55] Justin: And yeah. So in terms of music, how would you describe the musical and its sound to someone that hasn't heard it before? I mean, I'll just answer to, I do feel we went in knowing that we wanted to make it, you know, to not stray from what we do, which is pop music. So it's very much a pop musical. I would, I would like to think our influences are very much set in more classic Broadway. We did our, we've done our research on the Jason Robert Browns and the Stephen Schwartz's and, you know, the Duncan Sheik's that, that kind of led the way to us to be able to do more pop music. But it's very much that you can tell from that Kid Bullough song specifically that like we're very, almost like stadium. It's like a stadium song, you know, but set within like lyrically a story. So that's how I would describe it.

[17:57] John: Yeah. I think some of the, the musicals that have kind of, you know, broken the mold, whatever mold there was left, you know, the last several years with obviously Hamilton, but then the stuff Patrick and Paul have done with "Dear Evan Hansen" and "The Greatest Showman" and all that stuff almost kind of gave us creative license to take some, some, some chances that we may not have otherwise. So "Dear Evan Hansen" was really kind of, he was actually on Broadway when we were together. And then for that very first meeting, because Broadway was always, musical theater was always a very intimidating genre for me because I always saw these virtuosic piano players and just these, these guys who I just saw as like incredible artists in their own right.

So, and I'm much more of a lyricist and with some musicianship kind of built in around it and I write pop music, but I was like, this music, I know this language. I know what these guys are doing. And this speaks to me and I love this version of storytelling. So I'm going to like, let's do this. So I would say that style of like, yes, it's pop music, but it's narrative and every word means something and there's no, there's no fat. So that is what we're trying to do. And it's what feels natural to us. So.

[19:12] Martín Acuña: I love that because for my college thesis, I wrote a musical film and trying to write lyrics that have a story. Damn, it's difficult. I mean, I'm a musical theater geek and it kept being an obstacle to tell a story without being that literal through lyrics of a song. So I think that, that musical theater lyricists and writers step up the game on writing. I want to know a little bit about that book writing and music composition process. How did it work with the four of you?

[20:10] John: Sure, yeah. So we, we, we came up with our storyline. We came up with some scenes and we knew the direction of where we wanted the show to go. The, the way it was all working out was we had the ending figured out pretty much from the very beginning of Griffin and I, and, and my meeting. What we didn't know is how were we going to build the bridge from the beginning, where we knew where they were starting and how they're getting to the end. And through that process, we looped in Elena Rader, who's also on the show as listed as additional book by, um, and she helped, um, help us with structure, helped us build the bridge to get to where we were trying to go. Once we got the bridge built, the book sort of started flowing out pretty quickly. Once we saw how to get there, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Um, and then we had, um, our first New York reading of the show and we learned a lot from there.

[21:34] Justin: I keep going, but I'm going to stop there.

[21:36] Griffin: I was going to go back even further because I feel like Martín might want to know about like how we actually like wrote, like John and I would like meet up and like write and John would write stuff. I would kind of go back and edit and we kind of go back and forth. Elena would help in here and there as well. And then I don't know the first time we kind of showed the book to Justin and Jeffrey, but I think, you know, they took some of our words and like you said, we're not, John and I aren't songwriters, so like we could help suggest lyrics, but Justin and Jeffrey would kind of take some of our words and then make a whole story out of it in the song. So like, it was very, um, collaborative and like we had a Google doc and we would share, you know, constantly different things.

They would, you know, create a song and volley it back and we would kind of see where it fit or say like, Oh, our song should go here. It should go here. Um, so it was very like a collaborative back and forth and it took us a long time. I mean, two, two year, a year and a half. We've only been in the same city during this process for like no more than maybe two total weeks over the course of the last few years.

[22:45] Jeffrey: Yeah. At that point, um, to your point, uh, Griffin, actually, um, I remember the first thing I got was an outline you guys had made with moments of the show, kind of little paragraphs about like, here's what's happening here. And then what helped Justin and I having never written musical theater before, um, was that you guys had possible titles for songs listed. This is a song, this song. So that was a great jumping off point for us for like, uh, the opening, how do we get here? We actually both came in with a melody for that line. That was very, very similar. Justin and I already were on the same page about like the, how do we get here? Which ended up being, we were basically already written that melody individually, just having read the lyric. So you guys were very prescriptive about what the song titles were, which kind of guided us to what the song.

[23:31] Jeffrey: I actually hadn't met the book writers until our first reading, to the point where we were writing back and forth for a year and a half. I'd only talked to them over the phone. It helped a lot, the ensemble nature of the show, and the fact that a certain amount of the storytelling is siloed from one another. So we were able to dive into some backstory with this character, and the connective tissue in the show was something that we didn't have to worry about until later. Which we then really dove in on, especially around the 29-hour reading, which I think was our third or fourth reading in the process. And that's really when we started diving in and being like, okay, where are these recurring themes that need to come back?

Where are the different callbacks and things like that? But we were able to just like, okay, this is a person who I am learning, and they're going through something. Let's write a song about what this person is going through in this moment. Yeah, a bunch of individual character songs. Right, which was hugely helpful for us to kind of get our feet wet. And then we really kind of picked up steam from there.

[24:42] Justin: Yeah, I want to say really fast. When I said the first New York reading, I meant our first Nashville reading, which was when we all met for the first time.

[24:49] John: Right.

[24:50] Justin: That's where I was reading next to you.

[24:51] John: No, that's where I was reading next to you.

[24:53] Griffin: Jumping so far ahead.

[24:55] Justin: I see why everybody looked at me like, well, let's go back a little bit. Yeah, that's when we ended up getting into Nashville, and that was the first thing that we had. We just had a really light script. We could tell that it wasn't any more than an hour long, maybe 50 minutes long. We just wanted to hear it out loud. Because when you're reading the book on a page, it's so different. Everybody can read something so different until you hear it out loud. And then there were so many moments. I think that entire time I sat in the corner just like cringed in a ball. Oh, my God, this is not good. What the hell am I thinking? But you need to have those moments to be able to take the next step forward.

And lines that we felt like were going to bring the house down, like comedy, or like, oh, people are going to cry here. Completely opposite of what happened hearing it out loud. Having an actor bring life to it where we're like, oh, my God, we have to change this whole character. It was so eye-opening. But that was what was wonderful about it, right?

[26:01] Jeffrey: Yeah, we needed it. That's what I mean. It was just great.

[26:06] Griffin: Yeah. I think we had like a five-hour meeting after that of our individual notes about what needs to change, what was terrible, what was good. But the good was on the small end. And then we got really drunk.

[26:17] Justin: Yes.

[26:18] Griffin: Very much so.

[26:20] Justin: Yes. So biggest lesson from that reading.

[26:28] Jeffrey: Because your comedy moments or your tragedy moments turned the other way around. So which were the biggest lessons from that big national reading?

[26:47] Griffin: I do remember, and I think we all agreed, at that point we didn't know who Cody was.

[26:53] Justin: That's what I was going to bring up.

[26:55] Griffin: I'm sorry.

[26:56] Justin: No, no, no, you're right. I think, you know, the relationship between Cody and, oh, my God.

[27:06] John: Christina?

[27:07] Justin: Cody and Chris is, you know, I've always thought Chris was more hashed out than Cody was. And, like, she felt, her story felt more real. And he always kind of felt accusatory. When it came out in the reading, it was just, like, he kind of sounded like an asshole. There was no redeeming quality about him. He definitely was on his high horse the whole time.

[27:30] Griffin: Yeah.

[27:31] Justin: Yeah. I think John and I, during the pandemic, we went kind of through each character. And I think we've gotten to a better place with him. But he's one that, like, there was a point after that reading where I was, like, they should be one character. Combine them. Cut one of them. And everybody was, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think that's a little crazy. He's the one that I think we really wanted to change after that first reading.

[27:55] Griffin: That's an interesting thing, I think, for all of the characters is that they, we think they're one person. And then when you start to hear the dialogue and the songs that they sing, they actually show themselves sometimes to be someone else. And you can either go and chop and chop and try to make that character who you intended them to be. Or you can follow them down that road and be like, okay, that's interesting. Let's kind of cater some of the dialogue. Let's follow this and see where it goes. And we did a little bit of both, I think, throughout the course of creating the show, which is cool.

[28:28] Justin: Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway from Nashville was stop trying to write characters and just write people. I think I was trying to add too many, like, Cammy I had sing like all the time. She was almost like a valley girl. And I remember being the girl who read that part. Her name is Brittany Price. She said it feels so forced. Like, it just feels like there's too many likes. She doesn't feel like a valley girl. She doesn't feel real. But if you took all of those away, I feel like there's something there. So I think, yeah, just making them more real people. That was my biggest takeaway.

[29:13] Griffin: Yeah. Something that also we really tried to focus on was kind of writing with Showtime kids. Like, we're all white men. Like, it's difficult for us to write a person of color because we don't come from that perspective. So something that we asked the actors that day was like, how do you feel about this language? And we really took their feedback to heart and kind of really went back and tried to make those characters feel more authentic from our actors.

[29:43] Justin: Yeah, we also get feedback about, you know, I like to joke, one, that I am the resident young person in this group, and I'm 34 now. But there were some younger people in the cast, and speaking to the language, they really helped us. Like, hey, this isn't what we say anymore. So it was a couple learning curves like that. Like, oh, okay, we are old people now. Don't get me wrong. There's still those moments in the show. They need to also be worked out because we're not speaking what the youth are speaking these days.

[30:18] Jeffrey: It's a living document. It will continue to be updated. It's like the Constitution.

[30:25] Justin: Yeah.

[30:30] Jeffrey: One last question before we go to the next section I have planned. And it is, how do you think that the pandemic changed your point of view towards your work?

[30:43] Griffin: I mean, I can say it changed the collaborative process enormously, and that's in all of the music that I'm working on. It's, you know, I think the most collaborative creative experience there is, and certainly that I've ever worked on, is theater. And you have a lot more cooks in the kitchen, and they all need to be a lot closer and on the same page, which is already difficult. And then taking the ability to be in the same room and to kind of breathe the same creative air completely off the table makes it, I mean, that just makes it really difficult. So it helped us, I think, a little bit that we were already kind of working that way.

[31:25] Justin: Yeah. So we were able to kind of keep doing what we were doing, but it's just in general, not even just with this show, but other projects I work on. I mean, it's, I miss being in the same space with people, because there's things that happen by accident that end up being the purpose. And it's when the accidents become the reason, that's the stuff you miss, because you just can't pick up on that, doing this. So that's what I would say.

[31:52] John: Yeah, I think right when the pandemic started, we were two weeks out of doing a week-long workshop at Marymount Manhattan over their spring break. And it got canceled because of the pandemic. So I think after we all got over the shock of what was going on, we regrouped and we thought to ourselves, what can we do to pivot? And the only thing that we can do now is something virtual. So how can we use the songs from the show and get them out there so that we can keep moving? I luckily had a plethora of unemployed Broadway actors that had nothing to do. And they were willing to give their time and their talents to our project free of charge. So thank you. Shout out to all of them. And yeah, we made these Chaining Zero sessions just to sort of pivot so that we had something going on during the pandemic.

But it's been tough. Justin's right. Live theater is that for a reason. And we've been fortunate to have already been working remotely. So it really didn't change us as a creative team. But, yeah, we just got stopped from being able to do anything.

[33:33] Griffin: So that, though, John, you've been great about, you know, every now every I feel like every couple of months you check in with Justin and I was like, hey, Griffin and I were talking, we're learning about this. And honestly, because of that, we've since 29 hour reading. I feel like we've written double the songs with new reprisals that there were in there because you guys just keep having little ideas. And I've seen people perform those songs in the videos we made. We're also like, oh, this is interesting. Okay, so kind of like just a little moment to keep the show growing. It's great. And just FYI. Sorry, Griffin. That time is about to come round the bend again, Jeffrey.

[34:13] Justin: So piggyback on what Jeff said, like John, I think Jeffrey and Justin, you can talk to like John's really the one that's kind of brought us all together. I think he's the one that constantly has a through line like, you know, I have another job and everybody does. But like John's really good about like he knows me really well, too, because we're best friends. But he knows when to bring me in, when we need to communicate, what we talk about, what characters we have to do. And then he's a really good fellow to talk to the music boys, which is what we call Justin and Jeffrey. And he's really good at like coordinating all that and making us feel excited about it and keep it moving forward. So I've been really grateful to have John on the team because he's really been that driving force, I think, of our show.

[35:05] Griffin: Agreed. Yeah, absolutely.

[35:15] John: You've done a lot of changes. Now, what's in the future of Chaining Zero? Where is this project headed? Because hopefully Broadway, but we don't know when that will be back.

[35:31] Justin: Absolutely. At the beginning of the pandemic, John said we had this opportunity at Marymount Manhattan, as well as a couple others that all kind of fell through because of the pandemic. And no one's really scheduling anything for live anytime soon anyway. But at that point, we kind of started to apply to different festivals. Some, you know, great that got postponed that they were interested in, some, you know, there's a lot of people just out there to take advantage of people. And there are a couple festivals that we got accepted to that didn't feel right for our show. So we passed on. But I think we have a lot of irons in the fire of future possibilities. We have a lot of people, John and I have been sending, I don't know if Justin and Jeffrey know this, but we've been sending out our script, just people to read, to give us some feedback.

And that's gotten a lot of interest as well. So I don't know. I don't want to say too much, but I feel like there are things kind of perhaps coming down the pipeline. But again, we don't know when live theaters need to come back. We'd love to do something digital. I just don't know how our show would translate to that, but maybe that's a challenge that we can rise to and find some solution. But yeah. But to your point, I think we're all confident that as things are picking back up, we all have, like you said, enough irons in the fire that it'll be, whether it's just a week at a workshop at a college, there's a couple of colleges that have options. We know that'll be, it's always with any kind of theater show, it's going to be this step and this step and this step so that seven years down the line, you're Hamilton and you're the best musical ever.

People seem to be responding to the content. Like people really find connections in the music and the book and the characters. And they're really, I think people are really interested by it because it's very different. And that's what we wanted to do. We didn't want another jukebox musical, which we're fine, but we wanted original content. I think people are really thirsty for that right now.

[37:51] Jon: What are you going to say, Jon?

[37:53] John: I was going to say, I think that the future does seem to, just because of pandemic life, seems like there could be some sort of virtual something that's in our future. And I think that like the boys said, we need to do another workshop. We need to just figure out a few things on its feet. We need to just see if a few of the pieces are working because where we are now, it still feels very developmental, but the show is pretty solid with where it needs to go. It just needs the opportunity to get actors on its feet. Like we said, we did the Nashville reading. Then we did a New York reading. So that was just people sitting at chairs with music stands, reading the lines, singing the songs. And then we did a 29 hour reading.

But for those of you that don't know, a 29 hour reading is no choreography, no staging, no walking. It's just sitting at chairs, sitting at music stands. So we did that as well. And that's helped us take the next step forward. So I think us being able to get it on its feet, allow it to have a world premiere somewhere in a smaller venue to try and generate some word of mouth. And from there...

[39:29] Justin: Broadway.

[39:32] John: And from there, Broadway.

[39:36] Justin: Yes. Take over the world.

[39:39] John: And hopefully it will be like that. I know it will.

[39:42] Justin: Thank you.

[39:44] John: Thank you. You've released songs on Instagram. And I'm dying to know, will we get a cast recording from this?

[39:53] Justin: We hope so. We love that. Yeah, yeah. There is an interesting... Our demos right now, Justin and I were lucky enough that living and working in Nashville, we write and record stuff every day. So we actually brought in, man, a full cast of all our friends to make the original demos of it. So there is a cast recording of the demos that were made. We'd love to have solidified characters, like Broadway professionals to it. Yeah.

[40:22] Jeffrey: Yeah. I would love the process. I would love the opportunity to get in a studio with some... Just have a blast recording these songs and let these characters really kind of dig in. Instead of just being a session where they show up for a couple of hours and learn the lines, the parts, but have people of that level, the Broadway level talent, which are... My friends in Nashville are going to kill me, but they're the most talented people I've ever worked with in my life. 100%.

[40:50] Justin: We just need some investment to pay for that. We need investors. That's what we need.

[40:56] John: Yes. We need some investors. But so does everybody else. The show is on Broadway in the closing because we don't have the money.

[41:03] Justin: Yes. Everybody's listening and wants to get this money.

[41:13] John: Yeah, Martine, full disclosure as well. Like I said, we're still very developmental. You need money to be able to make these things grow. You need a lot of money to make them grow fast. And we don't even fully have all of the songs scored still to this day. Everything is still sort of changing. Everything is still ebb and flowing. And like I said, I think until we get it on its feet and we're able to see what works, then we can finally solidify what we can put down on paper and make it like, okay, this is official. This isn't changing. This is how it's going to be.

[41:44] Jeffrey: Awesome. Well, I'm excited and I hope I really, really wish you the best with this project because with the few things you've shown to the world on social media, I do think you're doing things that are impacting people one way or another and they're touching people and relating with them. So I really wish that this project ends up with a production, like a full stage production in the near future.

[42:31] John: Thank you. Yeah. No, we're confident and we appreciate people like you wanting to help get the word out.

[42:37] Justin: Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, people can listen. Oh, everybody can access the SoundCloud, right, Justin and Jeffrey? Like if people wanted to listen to it.

[42:41] Jeffrey: Oh, yeah. The videos are on YouTube as well. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But if you want to like just listen to the score in order, most of it's there on SoundCloud.

[42:53] John: Awesome. I'll be sure to link that on the episode's description. Where can people find more about each one of you?

[43:02] Jeffrey: On all the social medias. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously Chaining Zero has an Instagram and a YouTube and a Facebook page. I have music out there under Jeffrey James. So if you go onto Spotify or Apple Music, I have a bunch of albums that I've toured on and all that kind of stuff.

[43:21] Justin: Yes. I mean, I have obviously my social media connects to my name, Justin Halpin, but I'm also one half of a band called Unions. We do a lot of stuff in film and television and scoring. We've always got projects going on. But yeah, just all the typical YouTube, Instagram places.

[43:42] John: Yeah. And I think the same for Griffin and I. If you want to reach out to us, feel free to go through Chaining Zero on any of our social media platforms.

[43:54] Martín Acuña: And one last surprise question for each one of you. Five favorite top musical theater shows. No brainer.

[44:05] Griffin: Oh, man. Go.

[44:07] Martín Acuña: Griffin, you're first.

[44:10] Griffin: In no particular order. Legally Blonde, a really well written show. It's a great book. Very solid. Assassins. That's my only season. Stephen Sondheim, I'll say.

[44:29] Jeffrey: Anyone else? Anyone else?

[44:35] Justin: A Chorus Line always is a good classic. And Lippa is the Wild Party.

[44:43] Griffin: All right.

[44:49] Jeffrey: Into the Woods, Titanic, Ragtime, Hair.

[45:01] Justin: And Rent.

[45:07] Griffin: Does it count just because it was the first musical I ever saw professional? Jesus Christ Superstar. So that will always have a place in my heart.

[45:16] Jeffrey: Songs for a New World was only off Broadway, but that's one of the first cast albums I ever loved. Layman's, Dear Evan Hansen, and Spring Awakening.

[45:31] Justin: Wow. Am I really going to be the only one to say Hamilton?

[45:34] Griffin: Oh, my gosh.

[45:36] Justin: I mean, I'll do it.

[45:38] Griffin: Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

[45:41] Justin: Yeah. I mean, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, obviously, just because it was the timing of all of that was amazing. I love Sara Bareilles, so Waitress. I'm just, I love, I love those, like, obviously, Jason Robert Brown, Last Five Years. Like, those are my influences. So I kind of focus on those.

[46:01] Griffin: Contemporary musical theater.

[46:04] Justin: Yeah. That's what you like.

[46:05] Griffin: What's that?

[46:06] Justin: Contemporary musical theater.

[46:08] Griffin: Absolutely. Unapologetic.

[46:10] Justin: There's nothing wrong with that.

[46:11] Griffin: That's right, yeah.

[46:15] Jeffrey: That thing you did.

[46:19] Martín Acuña: Well, it's been amazing having you. Thank you for coming over. And as I said before, I wish you all the luck, all the best, and break legs, because I know this musical will get far.

[46:33] John: Thank you so much.

[46:34] Justin: Thank you, Martín.

[46:34] Jeffrey: Thank you so much.

[46:36] John: It's a pleasure, yeah.

[46:40] Martín Acuña: Thanks, everyone, for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.