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[0:11] Martín Acuña: Hi everyone, I am Martín Acuña and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:18] Martín Acuña: A lot of things have happened through 2020 through 2021 and that also means a lot of new work and I am super excited today to have over Spencer Williams. He is a queer musical theater educator, composer, and playwright. Spencer focuses his teaching and work to include untold stories of underrepresented voices in the musical theater canon. He is the founder of the diverse educational platform and curriculum Broadway Refocused and is the host of two new podcasts, Broadway Refocused and Musicals with Impact. He is also the composer and writer of For Tonight, a new musical that he will tell us all about it in this episode. Spencer, thank you for coming. Welcome to Backstage Talk.

[1:15] Spencer Williams: Thank you so much for having me.

[1:18] Martín Acuña: How's everything going? I know that you are right now in California, you're ready to go back to school. And yeah, how's everything over there?

[1:30] Spencer Williams: It's good. I mean, I guess as best as we can be, you know, in the middle, still in the middle of all this. I feel really lucky that, you know, we've been able to have some movement on our musical For Tonight during a pandemic lockdown, all of that, which I didn't expect. And, you know, I have often said that without the pandemic, a lot of these things wouldn't have happened because, you know, certain people wouldn't have been available and all these different things. So it's, you know, I'm trying to see the good and trying to, you know, keep focused on creation and doing musical theater in a time where we can't really be together still.

[2:20] Martín Acuña: Yeah. You do a lot of things in musical theater. You write, you create music, you teach. So my first question for you is, why musical theater?

[2:35] Spencer Williams: It's a great question. And it's just something that's always been a part of my life since sophomore year of high school. That was my first introduction. And I have always loved teaching at the same time. So there is no musical theater teaching degree that you can get. Like that's still today in 2021. That's not an option. You can go get your music degree with an emphasis on choir or voice or instrumental, like orchestra or band or strings. But there's nothing really that's blending the two worlds of musical theater and education. And to be honest, it's kind of crazy to me because even when you look at job listings to teach musical theater in upper level universities and community colleges, whatever, in that level, they ask for a BFA or an MFA, which is a performance degree.

And so we, and of course, there's amazing teachers out there without education knowledge or like that degree program. But like, I kind of wanted to make sure that teaching was like my first and foremost in my career. And then musical theater kind of was there in my passion. So I've done a lot of work kind of like combining the two. So yes, I've done directing, I've choreographed, I've costumed, I've done props. I have like over the years really kind of gone an ebb and flow. There was one point where I wanted to be a Broadway conductor. There was one point where I wanted to be a performer, like all these different things, but really I've always come back to teaching. And you mentioned the new curriculum that I built over the pandemic called Broadway Refocused.

And that was kind of my response to some of the social justice and just looking at how white musical theater curriculum is. So I've spent a lot of time working inside of that this year. Anyway, it's all to this idea that I just love musical theater so much. And I love storytelling through music and dance and acting in that medium. And so for me, I created my own education and then teaching kids. I've always really wanted to have this really strong concept of how to teach musical theater in the same way that you go and get your master's in choir teaching or strings teaching.

[5:01] Martín Acuña: I love it. So double click on the education curriculum. How did you build it? Because it's a newborn thing from the pandemic. And yeah, I'm intrigued by how you build this educational program.

[5:36] Spencer Williams: So it's been a lot of just learning as I've gone over the last 20 plus years. So my master's degree I got at Boston University, and I actually did my thesis on musical theater high school curriculum, which to my professor, to chagrin, I don't know, he wasn't very pleased. Because it's just not seen in the educational world as very academic. And just, I've always had that passion for it. So I, you know, even back in 2006, 2007, I was like trying to build something in a thesis with not a lot of resource. So combine that with 15 years of teaching, and I've done a lot of musical theater teaching and like all these different things. I just, you know, I kind of had like, my own personal awareness of like, I've been teaching this in such a very, you know, the way I was taught, which was through my own kind of way too.

But it was very white centered, you know, even calling the golden age of musical theater, the golden age, like to me is very white centered and white centric and white uplifting, and calling it golden means that it's better. And that was at a time and a period where like, BIPOC and black folks, like they weren't on Broadway, on the Broadway stage. So we're literally heightening a moment in history, and calling it golden. And basically, we're just upholding whiteness. And I just had like this, you know, last summer was like such a big moment. And you know, I was reflecting, and I just was like, no, I'm not teaching it that way any longer, because that's not the truth, right? And like, so I just, I dove deep into each kind of section of decade and kind of created this curriculum as I went.

And it was really powerful, I think, maybe more for me than the students, but I just, the good part about it was I walked away thinking, oh my God, thank God we have kids, like as a next generation, because they inherently understood this. And like their comments, and like the way they were able to navigate these like hard discussions, seemingly weren't that hard for them. And if you would have asked me to have those discussions at 16, I would have been like, uh, no. So it was really inspiring. And so, you know, in a middle of a pandemic, like I taught remotely for 16 months, it was my little joy that I was able to kind of create that curriculum and refocus my own like way of looking at musical theater history and what stories need to be told in the future and how we can uplift those.

[8:30] Martín Acuña: I love it. Now that you mentioned which stories must be told or should be told in the future, talk to me about For Tonight, because I've seen a lot of social media posts since basically, probably maybe four months ago, announcing things and this new concept recording. And I just, I'm just excited about this show. So dive deep into this show. What is it about?

[9:01] Spencer Williams: So For Tonight, my co-writer Chanel Salcido and I have been writing, I think we're on year eight. And any person who's written a show that's like, gone somewhere, it takes so long, which is part of like, the struggle here in musical theater. And, you know, we started this journey wanting to tell my great, great, great grandfather's story. And we are, and it's exciting. And it's so, it's been so amazing to look back at my genealogy and my family history to understand how he grew up in Northern Wales and eventually immigrated to America and then literally walked across the plains from the Mississippi River to where he ended up in Ogden, Utah. So that's all been really fascinating. And I've loved every second of it.

But it's also been like, a journey for like, ourselves as writers and like, kind of what we've been experiencing and, and, you know, seeing the racism and seeing what, you know, people, like making assumptions about people and otherness, like, it just really tied into what we were telling. And it was kind of like this weird lived experience. But at the same point, like, we're sharing what was happening in the 1850s or 40s. And there were so many parallels. I mean, one of the parallels that like, didn't happen until just recently was, you know, his parents died of cholera, which was basically a pandemic in that time, right? And so like, at one point, we like turned to each other, and we were like, how is this happening?

Like, how is this so connected to our world today? And that's been like the amazing part about the show that, you know, experiencing through the eight years, like, life was very different eight years ago, personally, professionally, like, even just what's happening culturally. And so it's kind of morphed as, as we've written the show, like everything's kind of morphed to really kind of connect that. So, you know, it's a story that's based in three siblings, and one of them falls in love with a Romani woman, who, which we, you know, kind of flippantly say, gypsy, which is a derogatory way of saying that. And, and it's that idea of like, who is the other? And, you know, his brother is very afraid of the Romani people and afraid of what could happen and, you know, like, racism, you know, it's not understanding the other.

And, and so we just have had a lot of like, wonderful experiences as we've developed it. And we had this opportunity to, well, it was an opportunity, it was like this crazy idea back last December, where I was like, I want a concept album, like, that's what we need for the show. Like, that's what we need to move the show forward. People just need to hear it. And I was introduced to Joseph Perdue. And he has been our co-orchestrator and basically our music audio producer. He's based in London, and he was able to create like, one track for us based off of our orchestrations, because it was fully orchestrated before. And it was magical to finally hear it with like, well, there's one song that has 100 instruments.

So we're like talking like a symphony because it's all computer generated. And so, but to finally hear that, because no theater is ever going to be like, I'll throw you 100 musicians for your show. Never. They're like, you have a five piece band if you're lucky. So it's just been like this amazing experience the last seven months. So with that, I had this idea to do the full album with a full cast. I was like, I don't know how to do this in a pandemic, cross continentally, because I really wanted them also to be from the UK, you know, mainly from Wales, because this is a Welsh story, again, uplifting voices that haven't been heard in musical theater. And so that was what we did. And you know, I just basically took it step by step.

And on Friday, on the 30th, we are finally releasing a full album, it's going to be 26 songs. And it's all the music from the show. And it's one full cast. And they're all from the UK. And they're brilliant. Like we have so many amazing people from the West End, I honestly like still am kind of like besides myself that we've got these incredible singers, singing the music and maybe a full Welsh cast, which has been amazing to hear the Welsh language, because in three or four of our songs, we have Welsh language in the songs. And so it's just exciting, and scary. I'm scared. Putting it all out in the world. I'm like, Oh, my God, I can't wait for this moment. But I'm also like, Oh, my God, this is kind of insane. It's big. Like, I mean, doing this, it's big. And it's huge. And of course, it's

[14:32] Martín Acuña: It's also exciting, but it's very scary. I want to ask you, how does it sound? Because I just can't imagine this mix of music from Wales, but also other parts from the UK, but also, I guess, an American tune or an American-ish sound for musical theater. I'm just intrigued by it.

[15:00] Spencer Williams: So, the music is really a kind of personification of what Chanel and I, like, what our style... I don't know. It's very much of who we are as people. And that kind of sounds weird to say, but we started to write this show because we had seen a lot of musicals that didn't have a lot of melody-based... You can think of shows that are very melody-based, and I love them. That's my world of musical theater. I love a good emotion, and I love melody-based songs. And so, we wanted to write songs that you could hear on the radio, and at the same point, play in a musical. And this is all pre-Hamilton, pre-a lot of stuff, right? We were on the cusp eight years ago on all of that. And so, there's that kind of pop, empty indie rock kind of sound in there.

And then there's also this really strong choral sound that comes... that's very Welsh. Both Chanel and I grew up Mormon. We both grew up singing four-part harmony every Sunday in this very Protestant, hymn-style world. And that world is very a part of the Welsh sound. I mean, that's where... I always mention that the brother of the person that we wrote the show about, he started... No, his uncle, sorry. His uncle started the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This choir is ingrained in this world. And so, we have that sound into it. And then we kind of have this Romani, very rhythmic, and yet... So, the trick here is that Romani culture, music, all of that is all passed on orally. So, there's not like recordings.

There's not sound that we have historically. We know that it's very harp-driven, very fiddle-driven. But that world is very specific to that little tiny part of Wales in that area. So, we kind of just... we're inspired by that. And so, we've kind of created this whole other sound that you'll hear in the show as well. So, it's kind of a blend of those kind of worlds. I don't know how else to describe it. But I love it. I mean, it sounds amazing. Like, honestly. Because I can just imagine a mix of a lot of sounds. I want to like dive in a little bit into... it's been eight years. Like, from the start of this show until today. What was your writing or composing creative process like? And how did it change through these eight years? Because I mean, that must be insane.

[18:04] Spencer Williams: That's a great question. And I don't know if things have necessarily changed in how we've written. But like, you think of yourself eight years ago, you're different. I mean, at that point, I mean, Chanel and I were married. And we're not any longer. So, we've definitely like, had our own personal pivot, our journeys in our own world. And you know, that is reflected in when and how we wrote a song. We can always look back at every song and think, okay, this was that moment in our life. And this is why we wrote it. And this is the feelings that were behind it. And it's very personal. And yet, it works really well in the show. But we were also talking last night, like, we wrote For Tonight, the song, the titled song, I think in 2009.

So it's even longer, 12 years. And so, you know, this shows, we have a son together, Thomas, who's seven, and he's brilliant. But like this, we call this show like our other baby. Because this has kind of grown with us. And it's, you know, we've always come to it, like, in times of, I don't know, hard time, good times. And we've always just wanted to tell the story. It's just been something that we've, I don't know, it like is part of like my being and hers as well. It's like, we have to tell the story. I don't know why. Sometimes I'm like, oh my god, this is insane. You know, we've been working on the show for eight years, we haven't ever got paid for it. It's like a massive dissertation and historical knowledge and all of this stuff.

And like, and yet, it's been probably one of the most rewarding things that we've done, or I've done. I love it. And I mean, I think artists have this urge to tell stories and to tell great stories. And of course, there is a lot of pressure with, because it's a difficult market, and it's a difficult profession. But I think that the most successful stories are these type of stories, the ones that are with you in the good, the bad, and at the top of the mountain, or when you're starting to climb it. So I just love it. And I'm excited for this, for what's coming for the show.

[20:33] Martín Acuña: Thank you. And I agree with you. I think, you know, it's, we wanted to have like emotional moments where like, you know, at any point in your life, like this song might be your favorite. And then another moment, this song is like your favorite. And, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, like everyone was like, oh, you have so much time to write and like be creative. And I literally was like, I had nothing. I had like, I couldn't do anything. I had no inspiration. There was no creative drive. And, you know, once this picked up, and like, I started to hear that song, it like, it basically got me through the last seven months, because every time something new would come in, it would be, it was magic.

Like, I've cried so many times. Just because it's like something that's been in your head for so long, and then you finally hear it. It's like the first time I heard Jade Davies, who is from North Wales, and she's, you know, she's performed in Les Mis and Phantom in the West End. And she sings Sue Agon, I melted. It's this Welsh lullaby that is very important in the song, or in the show. And it was just so stunning to finally hear someone of that caliber, someone from North Wales. It was just stunning. So I've just had so many moments where I've been so grateful throughout this that, you know, it's come alive. I feel like the show's come alive.

[22:04] Spencer Williams: What other best moments can you recall? I mean, it's 80 years to think of, but maybe one or two. I mean, each time the show's been presented, it's been special, because it's been such a big sacrifice. So the first time we performed it in a backyard, you know, in Atherton at the Wise Family house, like, that was special. And then we went to Nymph. And I literally sobbed through the reading presentation, because this was, like, now, you know, Broadway folks in a, you know, small off-Broadway theater singing the music. It was so unbelievable. You know, and then there was a moment in the Goodspeed Opera House rehearsal room. Like, I'll never forget it. Like, it was when we wrote the song Just When, and we literally looked at each other and we're like, this has to be in this spot in the show.

Like, there's just so many of those, you know, and then all of the hard work behind the scenes, you know. I don't know, I've always felt like the journey, you know, my hope and dream is that the musical will go to the West End. Like, that is my dream. But this journey has been so amazing and powerful, and the people that I've met, like, my dear friends are in that, you know, have been my friends since the Nymph production, and they've been rooting us on and cheering us on since. And so, the people I've met and the experiences, like, on the Isle of Man, like, everything. Like, it's just been such a beautiful experience in the journey as it has been in the production. And I hope that people know that, like, they can be a part of that. Like, it's not always just about, like, getting to that big moment. It's, like, this whole experience on the way has been so powerful, I guess.

[24:11] Martín Acuña: Yeah, I agree with you, and I love it. Before we close, Spencer, I have one surprise question for you.

[24:20] Spencer Williams: Okay.

[24:22] Martín Acuña: Which are your top five favorite musical theater shows?

[24:26] Spencer Williams: Oh, that one's hard. Because you've directed a lot. I guess that you've performed a lot. So, maybe there are some there.

[24:35] Spencer Williams: So, the show that got me into musical theater is Rent. That, to me, was so powerful when I was 16, 17. And so, that has just always been a massive piece of my heart. It was, like, one of the first Broadway shows that I saw. I was able to be Mark, and just kind of changed my life, like, inherently. Another show that I love is Spring Awakening. And I have been able to work with Duncan Sheik since then on another show that I love of his called Whisper House, which is a little less known. But Whisper House and Spring Awakening are just two albums that I can always put on, and I love. A fourth musical, I'm kind of looking around. I mean, I've realized that shows come and go in your life, in the same way, like, an album comes and goes.

Like, they're really important for you. But a show that's really important for me with our journey for Fortnite was a musical called From Here to Eternity, which was in the West End, kind of for a hot second. It's written by Stuart Brayson and Tim Rice. And that's how I ended up on the Isle of Man. I tweeted Stuart Brayson after the show and told him how much I loved it, and it ended up that we had a meeting, and then he came to California to work with my students, and then we got invited by his manager, Tony Gibbs, to come to the Isle of Man. And that's where I met Simon Gordon and Aaron Caldwell, who are on my cast recording. So, I feel like that one has changed my life, like, just actually. But I just love that show. And the fifth musical.

[26:30] Spencer Williams: It's hard. I want to give you one. I mean, I don't know. I'm looking around my room, sorry, because I have all these posters on my wall from shows. I don't know what my fifth one is. I mean, shows like The Light in the Piazza was stunning. And then there's Chicago. Like, there's all these, and Les Mis. Like, these are all, like, really important shows in my life. But honestly, like, Evita was the other one that got me into musical theatre. So, I'll say that one.

[27:01] Martín Acuña: Awesome.

[27:02] Spencer Williams: Which is funny. But I loved that movie when I was 16. Like, obsessed. So, Evita.

[27:10] Martín Acuña: I love it. I love it. Spencer, thank you so much. If people want to know more about you, your work, your educational program, For Tonight, this new musical, where can they find you? Where can they contact you?

[27:24] Spencer Williams: Yeah. So, on For Tonight, the best place to find us is on Instagram. It's For Tonight Musical. We also have a website, www.fortonightmusical.com. So, that's where you can get all of the latest info on the show and anything that's happening. We're pretty on, like, we're on that quite often. And then for Broadway Refocus, that is the same. It's Broadway Refocus on Instagram and broadwayrefocus.com for the website. And yeah, just come and explore. It's really great to, like, up the conversation with other folks. And I've really, really enjoyed kind of, you know, doing my own podcast and meeting people there. So, just reach out there. And yeah, those are the two best places.

[28:09] Martín Acuña: I love it. Spencer, thank you so much. I've loved this whole episode. And I cannot wait for, I know, like, deep down in my heart, I know that this show will go places. So, I wish you the best.

[28:26] Spencer Williams: Thank you. And thank you for having us, or having me on. I always say us, but, you know, we're representing everyone, like, Chanel and I in the show. But I really appreciate it. And, you know, yeah, we'll cross our fingers. We'll see where it goes.

[28:43] 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.