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[0:45] Eila Mell: Hello and welcome to Behind the Awards. I'm Eila. I am, as always, here with Bruce.

[0:52] Bruce Gotlieb: Hello there, Eila.

[0:54] Eila Mell: So that amazing song is sung by Kristen Bell.

[0:59] Bruce Gotlieb: And yes, tell me what it's from.

[1:01] Eila Mell: So it's when she hosted the SAG Awards, it was they parodied her.

[1:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Do you want to be a snowman into you want to be an actor?

[1:09] Eila Mell: And the lyrics all featured an actor that they showed on screens like first role as, you know, whatever a baby, you know, with no lines or whatever the case was. But it was really, really clever.

[1:23] Bruce Gotlieb: So just a little snip of it. We had posted on our Instagram. So kiddos go there to watch the actual video of it all.

[1:31] Eila Mell: Yes. But so clever. I just I love when they do that with an award show and they just. Those creative juices get flowing and it's just that perfect lightning in a bottle moment.

[1:40] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, my gosh. I recently posted a clip on my Instagram of Quinta Brunson and Janelle James talking into the camera. You know, you know how they say, I don't know what their first job was. And then I'm an actor. Well, the two of them were they were doing like a bit like Quinta Brunson was asking Janelle James question and Janelle James didn't know what was going on.

[2:08] Eila Mell: That's so much fun. Oh, my gosh. I love Abbott Elementary. The actors are so great on that show.

[2:14] Bruce Gotlieb: It's a good show. It's funny. It's and from what I've heard from teacher friends, it's not so far off.

[2:20] Eila Mell: Oh, really? That's funny. There's so few actual like network shows.

[2:26] Bruce Gotlieb: I know that especially big hits like that. So now it's a fun one for sure.

[2:31] Eila Mell: It's almost like a throwback.

[2:35] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, absolutely. You have to watch it, you know, on their schedule, not your own.

[2:40] Eila Mell: Yeah. I mean, listen, we used to be tied to, you know, you knew when everything was on, whether, you know, right.

[2:47] Bruce Gotlieb: Day of the week and the time slot. Yeah. If a show moved time slot, that was a big deal.

[2:51] Eila Mell: I guess, you know, if they moved it. Right. And now between DVR and streaming, you don't know. Is the show normally on Tuesday or is the show normally on Friday? Who knows?

[3:02] Bruce Gotlieb: Right. Like everybody is their own programmer. Like you just pick your own schedule.

[3:07] Eila Mell: Which I don't know. I like it because obviously, you know, you can watch a whole series at once if you want. And, you know, I don't want to wait. So that's good. But, you know, we are missing that communal experience.

[3:21] Bruce Gotlieb: So, yeah. But I think that the ones that you are concerned about, you know, getting spoiled or, you know, the Internet is going to go crazy over. You make sure to tune in when.

[3:30] Eila Mell: Yeah. When you need to. Well, that's true. I mean, I guess if, you know, people are watching the whole series at once, which is OK, so we can all do that together.

[3:43] Bruce Gotlieb: I've done that before, though, where I've timed out and said, OK, I know how many episodes there are. This is the finale is going to be on this night. If I time it right.

[3:53] Eila Mell: Yeah. Watch the finale live with everybody else and then kind of do a binge.

[3:58] Bruce Gotlieb: So it becomes a little bit of a hybrid, I guess.

[4:02] Eila Mell: I know. Well, that's always the thing for me. Do I wait to watch, you know, so I can binge the whole thing or do I wait week by week?

[4:08] Bruce Gotlieb: So most shows I just wait until they're all dropped. But sometimes it's hard.

[4:14] Eila Mell: So that's a big, big concern because only murders in the building is coming back very soon.

[4:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, it is. How am I going to watch it? I don't know. It's hard to wait.

[4:24] Eila Mell: So I don't know. I saw an article the other day speaking of shows coming back that I'm very excited about. Carol Burnett shared it on her Instagram. I can see it's coming soon.

[4:33] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, my God. I love that show. It's so much fun.

[4:36] Eila Mell: So I'm curious to see where they're going to go because they left us on a little bit of a cliffhanger.

[4:40] Bruce Gotlieb: And with Carol. Yes, it was a big spoiler with Carol.

[4:44] Eila Mell: I'm not going to say it in case people haven't watched it. No, they should go binge it before.

[4:49] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, my God. It's so good. Speaking of things that are so good, though.

[4:53] Eila Mell: Oh, well, we have three. Yes. The started with, you know, his screenplay for To Wong Fu. Thanks for everything. Julie Neumar. We have the so funny Douglas Carter Beane on today.

[5:05] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, let's bring him out. Absolutely.

[5:10] Eila Mell: Well, Bruce, I think that we should not waste any time and welcome the fantastic Douglas Carter Beane to Behind the Awards.

[5:18] Douglas Carter Beane: Welcome. My God, I'm at the stage of my life where I get adjectives. Isn't that thrilled to have you to throw another one out there?

[5:27] Douglas Carter Beane: So, no, I'm glad I've escalated up to fantastic. I don't know how people find exactly what words. I mean, your career. Where are the words? Where are the words?

[5:37] Eila Mell: So tell us a little bit about this new show you have coming to the Laurie Beechman Theatre.

[5:42] Douglas Carter Beane: The Laurie Beechman Theatre. We're doing it for a very limited engagement, just like three or four times. Doing it in front of an audience and saying, what the heck we've done. This is Dorothy Parker, who's one of who is probably the great American with. Sorry, Mark Twain. Yeah. Funny, but not with. Right. But Dorothy Parker was our great, great with. And there's nobody like her.

[6:03] Douglas Carter Beane: And some friends and I were realizing that she's sort of falling by the wayside as we embrace the new things. You want to make sure the really great stuff gets taken with us. And so Dorothy Parker, she was a cocktail drinking gal from the 20s, hanging out at the Algonquin Hotel, being funnier and wittier than anybody else. And she wrote poems and she wrote monologues and she wrote all these wonderful things that are not immediately grabbable today. So they sort of neglected things also. So we just decided this is probably mid-COVID. Some of the funniest gals I know when I got together and just started working on this stuff via Zoom and then in rooms with masks on. And then we tried it a couple of times. We invited people to come in and watch us, what we were doing. And we've come up with this show, which is a beautiful show of the writings of Dorothy Parker. It's called Finding Dorothy Parker.

[7:11] Douglas Carter Beane: And let's talk about these women. Finding Dorothy Parker. Yeah, that was about people not knowing who she is. And even if you know who she is, you don't know her political side.

[7:21] Eila Mell: Oh, OK.

[7:22] Douglas Carter Beane: She was very involved with, as a matter of fact, her estate was left to Martin Luther King Jr.

[7:30] Eila Mell: Wow.

[7:31] Douglas Carter Beane: And upon his death, it was left to the NAACP, who were dealing with and creating the show with their blessing and their observance. So it's been a remarkable experience. And Finding Dorothy Parker is what it's about. And so the ladies who are involved, I have a list here, are Julie Halston, Ann Harada, Jackie Hoffman and Anika Larson.

[7:56] Eila Mell: Come on.

[7:57] Douglas Carter Beane: I mean, these are amazing women. These are four of the funniest actresses working in the American theater and also on American television.

[8:06] Eila Mell: I saw Jackie Hoffman was the pie owner.

[8:12] Douglas Carter Beane: Yes. And just like that.

[8:15] Eila Mell: And then next was a commercial for her on her other show, Only Murders in the Building.

[8:21] Douglas Carter Beane: That's right.

[8:22] Eila Mell: Julie Halston recurs on and just like that as I think her character's name is Biffy or Miffy.

[8:28] Douglas Carter Beane: I don't know. Something like that.

[8:30] Eila Mell: Mitzy.

[8:31] Douglas Carter Beane: Right.

[8:33] Eila Mell: And then, of course, Ann Harada is on a lot of television.

[8:39] Douglas Carter Beane: Schmigadoon.

[8:41] Eila Mell: I was going to say the late lamented Schmigadoon. But they're also theater people through and through.

[8:47] Douglas Carter Beane: Oh, my gosh. Anika Larson was so brilliant in Almost Famous. Did you see that?

[8:52] Eila Mell: Yes.

[8:53] Douglas Carter Beane: Yes. Wow. Wonderful, wonderful actress.

[8:57] Eila Mell: Yes.

[8:58] Douglas Carter Beane: And funny. And there are some songs that they wrote. So we get to hear the gals sing. It really is a great night out. And, you know, you go out, you have a lot of laughs. And then afterwards, sometimes you feel a little like, well, that was a waste of time.

[9:12] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[9:13] Douglas Carter Beane: But this, you go out, you have a lot of laughs. They're like, oh, my God. I can do whatever I want. I can change things. I can, like, I'm a part of all the process of all this. I can really change the world, which is a remarkable feeling to give anyone at this particular time. It needs some changing right now.

[9:30] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh, yes. We could just use this.

[9:35] Douglas Carter Beane: I was driving in the car and the news was on. And they were halfway through the news on the radio. And I just said to my husband, I said, just, I don't like anyone they say anymore.

[9:41] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[9:43] Douglas Carter Beane: They're talking, I just go, oh, I hate him. Oh, I hate, oh my God, I hate her books. Oh my God, no, I hate him books. So turn it off, I hate them all.

[9:56] Eila Mell: I know.

[9:57] Douglas Carter Beane: And I'm just a loving person. It's hard right now.

[10:02] Eila Mell: It's tough. And that's why we have to find in our history, our American history, moments of resistance, moments of, you know, I mean, Dorothy Parker was blacklisted by the House Committee on American Activities in the 50s and didn't work for almost a decade because of her political statements and because of her, you know, I mean, she was, according to her FBI files, she was listed as being prematurely anti-fascist.

[10:33] Douglas Carter Beane: Wow.

[10:34] Eila Mell: That's crazy.

[10:35] Douglas Carter Beane: She was hating fascists before it was cool.

[10:39] Eila Mell: That's right. I would think that everybody is that.

[10:43] Douglas Carter Beane: I would hope.

[10:44] Eila Mell: One would hope. If you were in the early 30s and you're against Franco, that was a little like, I don't know. You had to have someone like Hitler come along and show you how it was done. But she's a wonderful writer, smarter than everyone, even Fran Lebowitz says she's the best. Leave her alone. Nobody can touch her.

[11:01] Douglas Carter Beane: Do you think Fran Lebowitz is, like, the closest we have now to Dorothy Parker?

[11:07] Eila Mell: I think she even says, you know, don't say that because I'm nowhere near. I'm nowhere near what she is.

[11:15] Douglas Carter Beane: Well, she is pretty great. But that is pretty splendid. I mean, probably one of the funniest people out there right now.

[11:21] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[11:22] Douglas Carter Beane: And smartest observer of what's going on.

[11:25] Eila Mell: You mentioned that these pieces, these works of Dorothy's are included in the show. So is the construct that each of these women are now taking on their version of Dorothy?

[11:39] Douglas Carter Beane: I think visually they start off all in basic black and a string of pearls. We have a wonderful rave artist, a musician from London called Alistair Rowe, who has put this all to help us weave this all together. He'd listened to 20s music and then put it through a contemporary blender and made it all come out sounding like dance music, but it's all 20s jazz music. So it's splendid. And then each is a heading of like, here are things Dorothy talking about men, here's Dorothy talking about politics, here's Dorothy talking about... So they're little divisions. And within those divisions, we can have her theater reviews will show up, her poems, which are unbelievably brilliant. And she called them her soliloquies, were these monologues, or could be something as a society woman reading her diary for the week, which is hilarious.

One is called Study of Black and White, which is about a white woman trying to figure out if she's going to shake the hand of a black man. And it's just that inner monologue, that conversation. And it's written in 1927. And you can see any white woman pretty much having that conversation in her head now. It's a beautifully written piece. It's amazing what she accomplished, Dorothy Parker, but it's all the more amazing that she did it as a woman because... She did it as a woman. My favorite story of gender and Dorothy Parker, she had to share an office with somebody. And so she just moved into the men's room.

[13:25] Oh my gosh.

[13:26] Douglas Carter Beane: She moved her desk and went right in the men's room at the New Yorker. So the men went off. It was a lot of men swinging the rope and unbuttoning their flowers. It's a wonderful piece. I do find that I didn't want to be writing about the past so much or creating things out of the past so much, but I feel the need to go into the past to show us a way to the future that we have here. There was a show I had a couple of years ago on Broadway called The Nance, which was about drag and burlesque and gay comedy in burlesque. And The Nance was the gay comedy character. And I was trying to say, look at the self-loathing gay men carry with them even now. So I thought that was interesting to write about and that through this guise.

And the more that I think that part of it is, number one, is there's a wonderful book writer called Eric Larson who writes these amazing novels that are completely historically accurate. They're histories, but they read like novels. And that became interesting to me, creating out of the past. And then it's also, for me, it's a wonderful way of like, if I'm not writing, I'm doing research. So at least I feel like I'm active.

[14:48] But I'm doing something right now. I'm creating a show in London, which is called Café Society, which is about, I think you're the very first people I'm telling this to, which is being produced by Cameron Mackintosh, who's Scottish, but we have to give him a break. He's a wee little Scotsman, but it's based on a nightclub, which was on Sheridan Square. I think it's now the Nexus Theatre, but it was a nightclub downstairs. And it was the starting point of everybody, Billie Holiday, Billie Strayhorn, Lena Horne, Carol Channing, Betty Comden, Adolph Green. And it was this little downtown nightclub that also was a political place. There was a hangout, it was a left-wing place, which ultimately the whole thing was shut down by in the 50s. But it is that story of how, and I think those stories, we have to know that these artists that we just go, yeah, oh yeah, Lena Horne.

We don't know, you know, she had to deal with a lot just to be Lena Horne. What she went through before nine o'clock in the morning, most of us don't have to go through in our lives. We're just getting into the middle of it.

[16:03] Eila Mell: Right, we never even have to think about it.

[16:06] Douglas Carter Beane: No, what she had to deal with. So that's something very interesting I'm working on right now.

[16:10] Eila Mell: That sounds very exciting.

[16:12] Douglas Carter Beane: Yeah, I'm very excited. We go for a reading on that September 15th, I fly out for a reading of that.

[16:16] Eila Mell: Oh, wow.

[16:17] Douglas Carter Beane: I know, it's gonna be like immersive. They're gonna like build this, recreate this nightclub in London, this 20s. I love that. But they're just so excited because it says all these like, you know, New York Express, let's get a cab. Oh my God. There's one scene where the whole, everyone, Black and Jewish, gay and straight get together the next morning to read the reviews, and they're eating bagels. And they're like, we never think of Black people eating bagels. I'm like, oh, Jesus.

[16:50] Eila Mell: Oh, gosh.

[16:55] Douglas Carter Beane: Just being from New York, you don't even think twice about bagels. You don't think about anything. You don't go, get a cab. I'm calling a cab home.

[17:02] Eila Mell: Right.

[17:07] Douglas Carter Beane: Hi, this is Douglas Carter Beane, and behind the awards, we'll be right back.

[17:13] Eila Mell: Is Too Wong Foo the thing that people most talk to you about in your career?

[17:20] Douglas Carter Beane: Well, I've got a couple. There was one time a girl came up to me, a very nicely dressed young woman. And she came up to me and said, are you Douglas Carter Beane? I said, yeah. She goes, I was in two of your plays in college. And I said, oh, really? What show? She goes, I was in Cinderella with Rush and Hammerstein, and I was in Sister Act. I was like, oh, my goodness. I said, where do you go to college? She said, Liberty University. I said, don't do anything else I wrote. Like, those are the two you can do. Everything else, I get the musical version of Xanadu, I get a lot of stage stuff. Wong Fu, I get a lot because it's a film. It's perennial, so like every five years, a new group of gay or gay allies comes up to it goes, oh, my God, this film is I can't believe they were getting away with it. So there were things that were nobody thought twice about. But now it's like, oh, my God, that was like, so incredible.

[18:25] I don't know if you remember in the beginning of that film, it's a drag contest.

[18:29] Eila Mell: I knew you were going to go there.

[18:29] Douglas Carter Beane: It was played by Ru Paul, enters a black drag queen in a blonde wig in a sequined dress of the Confederate flag. Her name is Rachel Tensions. Nobody at the time thought that was remarkable in any way. And now it's become and then we got a quadruple controversy in that the dress, a picture of the dress is in the American Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia. And people who are going to the museum were complaining about it, which I love. I called Ru and I said, Ru, we've made it. It's one of my favorite films. And even when I see clips, you know, I'm always like, I need to sit down and watch it again because it's not only a who's who, but it's just it's so brilliant, so funny. It was a wonderful moment in my life.

It changed my life forever. I was like a lowly playwright in a studio apartment. And then one day I was and I wrote this because I was my day job was I working as a manny for this friends of mine. And they went off for spring break. And I wrote that movie on spring break about because I was going to clubs a lot in New York. So I knew all the dry queens and I sort of wrote this and I invented these these three queens and I text Sean Leguizamo about once or twice a week. I mean, you know, like where we were still in contact. And sure, even Kidron is now the director is now in the House of Lords.

[20:06] Eila Mell: Oh, wow.

[20:06] Douglas Carter Beane: Because that she is the Baroness of Islington and she is very involved with the with the National Theater in London. But funny that it's unbelievable. Everybody was still in touch and have great warmth about it. But it was it was a wonderful thing. And the fact that so many young gay people come up and say, oh, my God, this was my favorite when somebody said when I came out to my parents, they told my uncle who's gay and he showed up with a DVD of two on three.

[20:37] Eila Mell: Amazing.

[20:37] Douglas Carter Beane: I said, well, that's a terrible, terrible guy to go through life. Just sort of oblivious. Just go through life. Maybe that's the way to go. Your cast was amazing, but you wouldn't be able to cast these actors today in that movie because none of them were gay. Right. That was but that was of the time. I was the same in thinking and that to have three certified movie stars as these queens coming in. And then someone like Robin Williams, which was only a character with two or three lines, and I frantically wrote a scene for him and then he added whatever the hell he added. But it was but it was people were desperate to like, we want this movie to come out and be tells. So now now it's interesting. We are now casting the musical version.

[21:25] Eila Mell: I was going to ask if you're involved in that.

[21:28] Douglas Carter Beane: But you started we're doing in this summer and we're getting a couple locations for it. And I am not saying you have to be a drag queen to play a drag queen, but I'm saying you have to be a gay man just for sensibility's sake, just for the sensibility. And it's wonderful fun. It's very delightful. And it's great to go back and say what 1994 was like, you know, it's for gay people, right? The different clubs and all that. Yeah, it was very funny. And we did a tryout of it in England, in Manchester, England, to see you too far away from everybody saying that we create the Pyramid Club on the stage of the of the new was hilarious.

[22:07] Eila Mell: And do you find that doing it in England that there's do you need to explain sometimes like the humor doesn't translate from either them to us or us to them? Do you have to rework some of it?

[22:18] Douglas Carter Beane: There was like one maybe there are one or two lines that they would get. Yeah, like they never got joke of the black woman having the name Noxemus because they don't know. So they were like, no, Noxemus kind of hilarious. That was the one big one. But they got the attitude they love and drag is very, very much a part of English society more than American society. Yeah. Now, now American society, you know, it's it's it's it has taken over American culture. I love that. Very proud of that. And happy for that. But yeah, no, it was a couple words here, there and explaining the difference of drag in the 90s is what it looked like in the 90s. It was much more about trying to pass. Whereas now it's become this whole other kabuki like art form of creating this, but it's like there were a couple people like hit a lettuce was always a little out there, but mostly it was pretty contained to actually like trying to be like, you know, Lady Bunny's rig was.

[23:49] Douglas Carter Beane: I read a brilliantly funny show. And that is by the way, that's getting a revival. Oh, I just I got a call from somebody in LA who said they wanted to do it and I said, OK, and I called the producer and he said, Oh, I'm glad you called because I'm actually putting a production together for the spring. And I was like, well, there you go. Oh my God. And then my other show, Little Dog Laughed, is also going to have a revival. Oh, wow. Next season. I'm getting revivals. I'm getting adjectives and revivals.

[24:17] Eila Mell: Look at you.

[24:17] Douglas Carter Beane: Well, I mean, what more could you ask for? I'm trying. I'm directing my first movie this year.

[24:24] Eila Mell: You are. Oh, congratulations.

[24:25] Douglas Carter Beane: I'm really out of control. I really am out of control.

[24:28] Eila Mell: That's wonderful.

[24:30] Douglas Carter Beane: Better you than the people who are in power right now. Well, I mean, that was I mean, just sort of looking around. I mean, just for me to get an off Broadway show on costs a million dollars. That's just what it costs. Whereas when I was doing I had a theater company drama department, we would do our shows. It was fifteen thousand dollars was the limit we were allowed to do under our contract. And that was perfect because that was my limit on American Express. So I knew like, OK, show's done.

[25:00] Eila Mell: Can you tell us anything about the movie or is it too soon?

[25:02] Douglas Carter Beane: No, it's a it was it's a it's an all if you're a theater nut, it is a theater nutty cast. Oh, who is it is about this basic premise is a man who's left was in the theater, left theater to do all these other things, which they have all fallen through, which they have for all my friends who left the theater, film, television, streaming, all of it. We're sure going to crazy, so he left and he goes back home to get put his stuff in storage. And while he's visiting the community theater where he got his start, the old queen who runs a community theater, it was his mentor, dies and he finds out in the will he's been left the community theater. So he has to go back into the very basics of theater. And the yummy part is that the ghost of the old queen haunts him and tells him, oh, and it's a one that starts. That's who is it? It's Santino Fontana plays the guy.

[26:00] Eila Mell: We love him. He's been a guest on our show.

[26:02] Douglas Carter Beane: He's a great guy. Ari Greiner is the girl he meets in the town. Willie Cooper is in the mix. Mayo Pincholi is in the mix. Josh Segarra is in the mix. I mean, it's a whole it's like an all theater. There's like the ghost is portrayed by Peter Bartlett. I mean, if there was ever an old queen to be a ghost, that's our Peter Bartlett. And so it's all theater people. So it's a very under a million. It's like nine hundred thousand dollar film. We're going back. We're filming in my hometown. We're filming in my old community theater, Genesis and running Pennsylvania, where I got my start. And it's a wonderful, wonderful project. And I'm really, really proud of it.

[26:43] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh. You're going to have the best time.

[26:45] Douglas Carter Beane: That's what everyone says. Oh, my God. This is so much fun. I'm like, yeah, it is. Yeah. Projects like that don't come around a lot. I'm dozing all I've been reading every book and watching every director and his work. And I'm just watching a lot of movies without sound just to see where the camera goes and how it goes. But also reading Sidney Lumet's book of like you rehearse for three weeks and then do it, which is what we're going to do.

[27:09] Eila Mell: Yeah. OK.

[27:11] Douglas Carter Beane: I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited.

[27:12] Eila Mell: Oh, congratulations.

[27:13] Douglas Carter Beane: The other thing is, there's a sophisticated suburban lady who comes in and has to dance the fling during that role would be Donna McKechnie.

[27:26] Eila Mell: Oh, oh my God.

[27:28] Douglas Carter Beane: Wow. And at the very end, I was showing the script to someone, to a young person in their 20s who was reading through it. I said, just find anything that doesn't make sense to you. And they're like, why do they keep going back to this 80 year old woman dancing? I'm like, I don't like that because when they're in the movie, people will be screaming.

[27:48] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah.

[27:49] Douglas Carter Beane: Right. Brian Delore, Bayark Lee and Priscilla Lopez to come and join her in the background for one turkey lurkey like number.

[27:57] Eila Mell: Oh my God.

[27:59] Douglas Carter Beane: Oh my God. The theater will erupt.

[28:01] Eila Mell: Yeah. One's hoping, one's hoping.

[28:03] Douglas Carter Beane: It needs work anyway, for sure. But I'm very excited about the project that I just got a wonderful producer on it that I'm loving working with. And and it's been it's been fun. It's been it's been hard working on it. And if it's the first thing that I've done for a while, that isn't just a struggle to get, you know, instead of like, oh, sure, I'll give you I'll give you money. That's nice. Pennsylvania. We'd love for you to film here. We'll give you a break.

[28:32] Eila Mell: Wow. That's great.

[28:33] Douglas Carter Beane: Going back to Finding Dorothy Parker. Yes. Laurie Beachman Theater is wonderful. I'm so glad that it is still here because there was a danger that it was not going to be there. And they've done a beautiful redo of it. They might have done a wonderful job there. And I have to say, Concord, which is interesting, which is interested in publishing Finding Dorothy Parker so that high schools and colleges and women's groups can perform it. When they found out that we were doing it at Laurie Beachman, they loved that it was like in a nightclub, in a bar, drinks, have a piece of chicken, you know, and then just have a great time with some comedy.

[29:12] Eila Mell: So that was going to be my question, because it's important to know, are we going to be able to have dinner when we go and watch the show?

[29:16] Douglas Carter Beane: You can have dinner. You can have drinks.

[29:20] Eila Mell: Yeah. The food there is good.

[29:21] Douglas Carter Beane: It is good. They did a great of the kitchen. And it's quite, quite wonderful. The food is really good, though.

[29:28] Eila Mell: Yeah, I'm very happy with it.

[29:29] Douglas Carter Beane: Yeah. And drinking, of course.

[29:31] Eila Mell: Yeah. Yeah, of course.

[29:33] Douglas Carter Beane: So here's a question for you. You have these four women who you you've said yourself and I would agree are four of the funniest people.

[29:41] Eila Mell: Yeah. How do you get them to not just go off the rails? Because I feel like their instincts are improbably they are just naturally funny people. Is it difficult to keep them kind of reined in?

[29:46] Douglas Carter Beane: I think that with Jackie, Julie and Anne, their devotion to Dorothy Parker is such. And she does give way for you to be like, you know, there's one scene that's written. And I went, you know, I was talking to Jackie. I said, they're going to when you do this, people are going to think that you it's you going off book. But it's actually her writing where she's in a she's at a dinner party and someone gives her a glass of white wine and it's Chablis. And she goes, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. And it's Chablis. Listen, fellow, where I come from, this is what we throw to the.

[30:38] Eila Mell: So that's a lot.

[30:39] Douglas Carter Beane: Oh, God. Oh, God. Now you have someone like, oh, God, it's good. Each one of those is going to be bigger and grander and greater. Right. Well, she just went off book there. Like now they're they're they're honestly are sticking very, very close to the material. They're not going off at all. I think out of respect for that's the best. When something feels like someone's improvising and it's not, that's really great writing. Exactly. You know, and then it's about mining. I mean, there's a one thing in the diary of a New York woman, which Julie Halston does, which is going through and every night she goes to see a different show. And I said to make them different. Why don't you actually see the marquee?

And I just see it and create the marquee. And it's hilarious when she's sit there and she goes, like, got two tickets to run like a wreck. And he is going to be the best one. It's got to be. It's got to be. It's got to get it. And then afterwards, they're always all vials. Most poisonous costumes I've ever seen in the show.

[31:40] Eila Mell: My gosh, I can already picture her doing that.

[31:42] Douglas Carter Beane: I can't wait. Yes. They're phenomenally great.

[31:45] Eila Mell: Yeah. Yeah. And so do each of them sing also in the show?

[31:49] Douglas Carter Beane: Yes, they have. There's a there's a group number, which is a song called I Wished on the Moon. And then another one called I've forgotten the title. It's so complicated, but it's something about I love I love that I lost. But it's that is done by a solo by Anna Arana. But she wrote. Yeah, it's a very beautiful song.

[32:07] Eila Mell: And who wrote the music?

[32:08] Douglas Carter Beane: Different people. I've forgotten the names there. They were actually staff writers at Paramount.

[32:13] Eila Mell: Oh, wow. Well, she was under contract.

[32:15] Douglas Carter Beane: Oh, very cool. She'd be writing a screenplay and just go, well, here's a song they can sing. And she'd had the lyrics. They did give it to a staff writer and he would come in. And one of them, I was like, who are these nobodies? And we were Googling them with a and running. I was like, he has no Academy Awards done. Not a nobody.

[32:33] Eila Mell: Yeah, but he's staff.

[32:35] Douglas Carter Beane: He's not like, get me, you know, get me Leonard Bernstein. This guy was like on staff.

[32:38] Eila Mell: Wow. That's crazy.

[32:41] Douglas Carter Beane: Yeah. The theater reviews are wonderful because they're funny. Yeah. And they're also so sharp, but also very much talking about theater today and how we choose to cast black actors and what we do with black talent in the theater. So it's very it's great stuff. And then her literary reviews are in the mix. And it's just instead of she just gives so much to play with. It's really a wonderful time.

[33:06] Eila Mell: It's such a treat to give people such an enjoyable way to get to know Dorothy Parker.

[33:12] Douglas Carter Beane: It is. That's why we chose the word finding. And because it was just like I was fighting with young women in their 20s. They were going like, oh, yeah, I heard about her, but I don't really know who she is. And we're like, oh, well, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. And by the end of it, you will have seen every type of material she did, like an hour's ten minutes worth of everything she did. And it's spectacular and amazing. And I think that's a great way. It's like an introduction. There are a number of writers along the way. You kind of want to pull people back. I know this is really great stuff. Don't kick this. Don't dismiss it as, oh, that's an old person. That's that that's bad politically or bad socially.

Like, no, they're really beautiful things. I think we have to just get rid of the idea that old is a negative in any way. I happen because I'm a nut and a lunatic to find in my files the original 1920s book to showboat, oh, which everyone says, like, oh, that's dead that you can't do that. I really like this is I saw a production of it last year. But I think it's Target Margin did it. Is that right? Target Margin. But it's it's great. Showboat is wonderful. It's really talking about the song. The score is insane. Yeah. And what they're talking about. I mean, what I mean, the fact that a major plot twist is a person is passing for white is black. And then alcoholism. It's just everything. Every turn he takes, you go, why is this not?

Why are we afraid of this? Right. I know. You know, I know there was a great production that Paper Mill did, I think, in the nineties. Remember that? Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah, I thought. Yeah, it's really great. And it really does hold up like you're going. This is really strong stuff. So, yes, I'm I'm helping Jerome Kearns.

[35:29] Douglas Carter Beane: She picked on the story of the chorus girl who pushed her way in front of her and said, age before beauty. And then Dorothy said, pearls before swine. Yeah, she made fun of the arrogant and the self-righteous. I just read the Graydon Carter autobiography, which I loved. Really good. It's an excellent book. But in it, he talks about he's starting Spy Magazine. And I just remember reading those magazines that came out and how they just mock anyone who took themselves seriously. Like if you were bad, if you were kind of stupid and sleazy, they just let you go. But if you were like, you know, Donald Trump or somebody, you got it, right? I was gonna say she'd probably have a field day in the current climate.

She would. Yeah, I mean, well, we're trying to find she has a one of her quotes is fascism. Fascism is here, darling. Do something. I mean, that was that I was she said in the 50s. So it fits today, doesn't it? Yeah, sadly, it does. It's scary. So what else I can tell you about my sordid life and career? I'm just so excited. But every year, every year looks every season looks great. And then by the end of the year, like, well, none of that happens.

[36:46] Eila Mell: Well, it sounds like there's so much going on, but I do want to just take a moment before I mean, I know we're keeping you, but I'm stuck about the now. I thought what's that? Nance is just such a wonderful show. You know, I had never even heard that term before the show. So just the title was in. That was in a book I was reading about burlesque. I was reading. I was obsessed with burlesque. I just thought it was really because it is a abandoned art forms of theater and burlesque the way it was thrown together. And the whole business of it was so funny. You know, the fact that they just had a drop that would come down for a comedy sketch and it didn't necessarily relate to what the sketch was at all.

They would sometimes just put a line at the top of the sketch and just say, like, well, here we are in Paris, France, and it'd be like a bedroom. It's like Shakespeare. We said what it was. Keep up. But I love that. And then I became then one of them made reference like was a famous Nance. And I went, oh, and then I researched it. And then there was a wonderful book by Chauncey about gay New York, which then I read. I was like, oh, OK, now I get it. So I went off with a couple of books on burlesque. I went to a writer's retreat in you cross Wyoming with Sundance and wrote pretty much the whole show in a week and a half, just sections of it. And I would for the longest time, if I saw any men like over the age of 60, I'd say, did you ever go to the burlesque when you were young?

And I said, I don't want to talk about the women. I said, tell me, tell me the comedy sketches. And like Robert Altman or anybody I would ask, they immediately knew all the jokes and the punchlines because there was nothing like it because it was so, you know, double entendre sexy, you know. And I just like that. And so but they remembered it. So that's what I would write down. I put in I would create these sketches out of all the things that people said. And then one review, one critic from the T.C. paper said, like, Doug Bain just uses all these old comedy sketches. No, I actually found the research, the recreate, reconfigured them. I weren't like, no, it was it was a beautiful part of the process.

You know, it's great when you're writing something and you know, like I've got a period and just be able to ask them, tell me about it. Tell me what was there. What do you remember? Nothing better as a writer. Right.

[39:04] Douglas Carter Beane: This is maybe a silly takeaway from that show. But, you know, in addition to the burlesque, something that really struck me was that it's it was really the only kind of glimpse I had into something I'd heard about, like the automat. But you get to actually. Yeah, that was that was a gay pickup. Yeah, that was from the Chauncey book. And that the balcony was burlesque is where gay men would have sex with straight sailors and straight guys would get so aroused, they'd go up to the balcony and get themselves taken care of by a gay man. And that the balcony is why they shut down burlesque. It wasn't the women stripping like that. Oh, that was really interesting. Yeah, that that that was. But the different parks, I would I was reading police reports to find the different parks that they would go to to have sex and all the different places. And it was my favorite thing was I actually got a police report of the show at the Irving Place Theater and they listed all the acts and all the numbers that they did.

[40:15] Eila Mell: Oh, that's amazing.

[40:16] Douglas Carter Beane: And I named the characters those names and gave them the songs. Wow. Oh, my gosh. So so we had Carmen was it was the one Latin woman sang La Cucaracha, which was her strip them. Wow. That's incredible. I mean, that was the level of crazy that we went into. I'll be finding I'll be reading someone else's book and I'll go, oh, my God, you're kidding me. Like I find something else about the theater. I wish I'd known I would have put it in. You ever want to go back and update June Havoc's autobiography, which I read after the dance just to read it because I'm a nerd and I was reading it. And she said my sister was performing at the Irving Place Theater. And I gasped with, oh, my God, because I made a joke.

We haven't seen numbers like this since Gypsy Rose Lee played here, making that up. Not really. She explained she had played there. And she goes, it was the filthiest audience, which was true. And then the refugees. But backstage, it was the warmest family I've ever seen with a theater.

[41:57] Eila Mell: Oh, that's so nice.

[41:58] Douglas Carter Beane: Oh, I did create I did want to create. Yeah, because what I do love working on in shows as a director, as a writer, as a producer is that instant family that occurs. Yeah, we do band together. We do have a theater company called Drama Department, which had remarkable actors. And what was wonderful about it from Phil Seymour Hoffman, they're just the Parker to Cynthia Nixon's on and on Dylan Baker is that when they were doing a show, you would see them step back a little bit to let someone else shine at a moment in a play. But with this unconscious vibe of like, wait, he sees it. This is going to be great. And then they move on. Then they'd have their moment. And that was that was I love when that theater is like that, when it's so giving. And so an ensemble, an ensemble is a beautiful thing.

[42:47] Eila Mell: Yeah, it creates such a special moment. Right. And those bonds are never broken. You're just family forever then.

[42:51] Douglas Carter Beane: My daughter once said to me, why do theater people have such big hellos? I said, because we've just when we left, it's been fun. You know, it's like when I worked with Mark Brokaw, who just passed away, Mark Brokaw on Cinderella. And they said, oh, why don't you work with Mark? So I just work with him on. Oh, my God. That was 15 years ago. Yeah. Right. But you don't think that way. Oh, I just work. Right. Oh, I just all these four women I have worked with before on shows. You know, I knew I've known them forever. Yeah. And I've done shows with them. And then we're together. It's like, oh, yeah, we just know each other forever. Right. And then you all work with each other and then you all know each other. There's really is a theater community. And it's what I love most.

[43:47] Eila Mell: Well, because the work is so it's so personal. So you can't help. But, you know, you get to know each other on such a different level than people working, you know, in an office together. It's much different. There's a moment in Fighting Dorothy Parker, which I found at the last minute, I found this poem by Dorothy Parker, which is written in the sort of basically it's like a mega poem. The person who realized like, everything's great. But I said I wanted to be like a real like a real funny, warm hicks that you don't hate. Yeah, it's just funny and awful. But they say that I remember Jackie Hoffman's first paying job was as cowgirl Sally at Hershey Park. Oh, my gosh. And she did it once at a party.

And I went, I think we're going to bring cowgirl Sally back. No more. No. We put it in that night for some people. They came and we read it. They were like on the floor laughing. It's like, well, that's the character she came up with all those years ago. But it's in her. You know, so she's got to bring back up.

[44:52] Eila Mell: Oh, my gosh. I can't wait to see it. How can people get tickets?

[44:56] Douglas Carter Beane: You just go right. You just go right to I should have that number to rattle off. But I'm not I got I work at PBS. That's OK. We'll post the link. We'll post the link. Post the link. You just go and you just get tickets. And it's fabulous. It's at the you know, it's the West Bank Cafe. Yeah, it's on 42nd Street. Naughty, gaudy, bawdy, tawdry, 42nd Street. And it's there. It's right across from right across from Playwrights Horizon. That's right. Cafe Josephine right across the street. And you go down the basement and it is theater history. I saw Mary Tessa do a play there in the late 70s. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it is like it's been there for quite some time. And name Lewis Black. We play every month.

I had no idea. Yeah. He was a playwright first. Wow. So you go there and it's a one and the food is going to be great. Drinks are great. The room is I think it's the most beautiful room. And I go to a lot of cabaret. I think it's the most beautiful room in New York right now. It's the seven o'clock show. So you're it's like the perfect time to go have dinner. Watch your show. Bob's your uncle. You'll have a drink afterwards and then you go home. And it's not this trauma and it's not this ordeal. Right. It's not this. Oh, no. We had a dinner break. Yeah. Like, boom, boom, boom. We're out. September fourth. We're just starting off with that and seeing what happens. We may forget. We're getting some people in to look at it. So do you want to do this somewhere? You know, how do we do this? You do this as a run. It could be. It could be our personal vagina monologues. It could be.

[46:31] Eila Mell: Well, have you thought about doing it for a night at the Algonquin?

[46:34] Douglas Carter Beane: We have. But they're but they reject the Algonquin. They gutted it. They made it all spiffy and new. So we're a little like, oh, darn it. No, we looked at other speakeasies and this particular take on it is a little more contemporary just in terms of the framing device with the rave music and all. It's it's more fun. It's trying to cabaret. And then you'll come and you'll tell me where you think it should. All right. We have people come to look at it. Sounds perfect. Absolutely. What an absolute treat to talk to you, too. Well, you've given us so much. When in doubt, I know. I know. When in doubt, I'll talk. When in doubt, I'll talk about myself. That's that always works. That's good for us.

So I literally in 13 minutes, I have a Zoom with a theater owner for a revival of a show of mine. So that's the life I lead. Amazing. Look at that. Well, we hope our whole audience will go and see Finding Dorothy Parker. Yes. And we will see everyone next time on Behind the Awards. Bye bye. See you later. Bye.