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[0:09] Bruce Gotlieb: So Bruce, when did you first see the movie Titanic?

[0:13] Eila Mell: Um when it came out in movie theaters.

[0:16] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, me too.

[0:17] Eila Mell: I want to say it might have even been the day early in the day of Super Bowl Sunday.

[0:24] Bruce Gotlieb: Ah.

[0:24] Eila Mell: In fact.

[0:25] Bruce Gotlieb: I for some reason the two kind of meshed together.

[0:29] Eila Mell: Okay.

[0:29] Bruce Gotlieb: Um, but I went and I remember walking out of the theater feeling like I could sit through it all over again, like instantly.

[0:36] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[0:37] Bruce Gotlieb: Which is a long movie, and you know, normally you need a little bit of a breath.

[0:41] Eila Mell: I know, but it didn't feel long.

[0:43] Bruce Gotlieb: It didn't.

[0:44] Eila Mell: It's such a compelling story.

[0:45] Bruce Gotlieb: So I think the world was introduced to the story. I mean, obviously people knew the story, but our generation anyway really got to know the story of the Titanic through this movie.

[0:56] Eila Mell: But our guest, Nelson Aspen. Welcome, Nelson.

[0:59] Nelson Aspen: Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, wherever you are.

[1:03] Eila Mell: Well, Nelson, you're a Titanic expert.

[1:06] Nelson Aspen: I am.

[1:07] Eila Mell: You know, they that old expression that is so cliché, do what you love and you'll never work again in your life. But after a decades-long career as an entertainment reporter, singer, author, my love for Titanic is what actually has now become my full-time job.

[1:27] Nelson Aspen: And you reference uh referenced the uh 1997 James Cameron film as your introduction to the Titanic story, but mine actually began and full disclosure, I'm 61 years old. My obsession with it all began as a very young child in 1971, December of '71, when I begged my parents to take me to see the Poseidon Adventure.

[1:53] Eila Mell: Oh my gosh, I love that movie.

[1:55] Nelson Aspen: And the whole, you know, from Carol Lindley and her orange turtleneck singing the morning after through the tidal wave and climbing up the tree. And I yeah, it just captivated me so much that I became obsessed with ocean liners and disasters. And nothing grabbed me like Titanic.

[2:16] Nelson Aspen: You can have your Lusitania, your Andrea Doria, but there's nothing like Titanic. And it's what is so remarkable, and now I host a podcast called Titanic Talk, and my new book is all about my past life aboard the Titanic. But what is it? The eternal question is like you said you were captivated. You could have seen that four-hour movie four times in a row. Unlike other disasters, tsunamis, the Challenger explosion, 9-11, there's something that's romanticized about Titanic.

[2:51] Nelson Aspen: And it was just as horrible as a disaster as any other disaster. It was a world shaking across demographics, across class and gender and age. I mean, it was truly unlike anything that had ever happened before. Man thought they had power over technology, man thought they had power over nature, and boom, no way. So maybe that's it. Maybe it's the Edwardian world that doesn't exist anymore. But but yeah, what is the pop culture phenomenon of Titanic that endures generation after generation?

[3:29] Eila Mell: Do you think it's because it's so long ago that, you know, that's why we maybe romanticize it?

[3:36] Nelson Aspen: Perhaps au contraire, it's because it really wasn't that long ago. You know, we we it it's within, you know, maybe our great grandparents or great great grandparents' generation. There there were until recently um some survivors, granted, they were little babies on the Titanic that may have survived and lived to be a hundred, like Gloria Stewart's character in the movie. Uh, but but yeah, I mean it's it's one of those remarkable things when you think about it. It was just it was just within a century.

[4:05] Nelson Aspen: So it really wasn't that far along uh far ago. And now, if you recall about a year and a half ago, the Titan, ironically named Titan submersible that was going down to the wreck, imploded on the way down, tragically killing the five people on board. However, aren't there interesting parallels? Once again, man's hubris over nature was like, yeah, yeah, we we can go down and this will pay a fortune, like John Jacob Astor, you know, the richest man in the world perished on the Titanic. You know, when your numbers up, your numbers up. And they went down, and here it here it is. Uh now it's 113 years since the Titanic sunk. It's still killing people. So we really need to take a look at what is adventure tourism. And do we need in an AI world, do we need to go down to the wreck? We have a perfect AI way to tour the deck to tour the wreck without risking our lives.

[5:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, I think part of it is the A in AI, right? It's the artificialness of it. And people always clamor for what's real. Um, and funny thing is I was looking just last night because I booked a cruise for this summer of that goes up to Canada. And one of the things that you could do is this Titanic, not really experience, but there are, I think it's at 112 um people who were buried at this Nova Scotia, right?

[5:31] Nelson Aspen: In Nova Scotia at this graveyard, and you can go and walk the cemetery, which I'm not doing, but it knowing we had this conversation this morning, it made me go, oh, how funny.

[5:41] Nelson Aspen: You may, you may want to go. It's very, it's very interesting.

[5:43] Nelson Aspen: I've spent my life, you know. I have a connection. That's what my book is about. I have this past life connection to a passenger, an obscure passenger. No, I wasn't Molly Brown. No, I wasn't John Pastor. But but I have a connection to this gentleman named Milton Long, who was a first-class passenger from Worcester, Massachusetts. And I spent a lifetime figuring out what that connection was. And hence I've now made that into the book, Kindred Spirits, a Titanic Tale. And it's just kind of my way to, I sort of feel like I had to pick up the baton from Milton. So I've created a backstory for him. There are certain passengers we know a great deal about. Not a lot is known about Milton. So I pieced together what I could, and I created uh a world in which Milton goes from the Titanic and sort of wakes up after he's pulled beneath the icy waters. He wakes up in the body of a young, extroverted, flamboyant New York City guy.

[6:46] Nelson Aspen: And he gets to the two of them, it becomes two souls and one body, and it's an odd couple situation, but they both help each other out. And it's my way to honor Milton and celebrate this Titanic legacy that goes on. You might want to think about going to that graveyard in Nova Scotia. There are exhibitions and tourist opportunities everywhere. One of the most remarkable, I was in the town of Cove, Ireland, which was the last stop for Titanic before she sailed off forever. And they have a trail there where you can walk the Titanic Trail where the where the final people disembarked and the final passengers embarked from Ireland, most of them immigrants, thinking they were, you know, off to start their new lives together.

[7:33] Nelson Aspen: Wherever you go, even here in New York City, there's Strauss Park on the Upper West Side, which tributes Ida and Isidore Strauss, the famous older couple who refused to be separated. He was one of the owners of Macy's. There are two Titanic plaques inside Macy's department store.

[7:46] Eila Mell: There are?

[7:52] Nelson Aspen: Yes, there are.

[7:53] Eila Mell: Where?

[7:55] Nelson Aspen: Google it. You'll find where in the store you find it. There's a stained glass tribute to John Jacob Astor in um uh St. John the Divine. There, you know, there there are there are Titanic remembrances all over the world, everywhere you look. So uh it's very much still a part of us. I did a I did a cruise in January. I was hired to be a guest speaker, and it was the maiden voyage of Cunard's very fancy new Queen Anne. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm here to speak about my expertise in the entertainment industry and as an author. And I thought, dare I get into the Titanic on the maiden voyage of a cruise.

[8:35] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[8:36] Nelson Aspen: But a lot of cruise goers have derived their love and pleasure of cruising because of the romanticism of Titanic. Everybody wants their picture taken at the staircase. So it, you know, talk about my heart will go on. It definitely Titanic's heart will go on.

[8:54] Eila Mell: As well as it should.

[8:56] Bruce Gotlieb: That's so interesting that I mean, I feel like I wouldn't want to tempt fate, but you know, I guess there are plenty of boats now, Isla.

[9:04] Eila Mell: Don't worry. There's there are enough, there's enough room in the boats for everybody.

[9:08] Bruce Gotlieb: All right. Well, then all right, then I'll go.

[9:12] Eila Mell: Um so what was it about Titanic that grabbed you, though, in particular?

[9:17] Nelson Aspen: Well, I, you know, it did start truly with the Poseidon adventure. And uh I had, I don't know, I was so in love with Carol Lindley and Isla, you you look not unlike Carol Lindley. You do have that beautiful, that blonde folk singer kind of look to you.

[9:33] Nelson Aspen: I if I put you in an orange turtleneck, I I think maybe you'd be singing the morning after.

[9:38] Eila Mell: Let's do it.

[9:40] Nelson Aspen: But uh yeah, I I was on my dad's case about like you gotta he always my dad was a very bombastic character who said, Oh, I can do anything. I'll, you know, dare me to do anything and I can do it. And I said, You can't get me a date with Carol Lindley. You know, I I didn't know then that I really wouldn't care for a date.

[9:57] Eila Mell: Right.

[9:58] Nelson Aspen: Yeah. I I probably would have been better off with uh Ernest Borgnine, but you know. So he got me a date with Carol Lindley when I was 15 years old, and we became lifelong friends. And she and I, at some point, when I moved to Hollywood for 20 years, I say you get less for murder, but anyway, I did my 20 years in LA. And Carol and I became friends, and we would we did regular lunches and dinners, and I also joined her Poseidon Posse, which basically was comprised of Ernest Morgnine, Red Buttons on and off, Stella Stevens, sometimes Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowell, the director Ronald Neeme, and Pamela Sue Martin.

[10:39] Nelson Aspen: And we would do events on the Queen Mary or screenings at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. And, and you know, it became a, it became almost like a rocky horror picture to see the Poseidon adventure. And because I was about the same age of the little boy in the movie, uh, Eric Shea, uh, Carol would always be like, just tell them you're Eric Shea, sign a few pictures and just, you know, come along for the ride.

[11:01] Nelson Aspen: And I think I had the distinction of being the last guy Roddy McDowell felt up before he passed away. Uh, because, you know, I was, I remember sitting in the theater watching that film that so profoundly changed my life. And I'm sitting in between Carol and Roddy McDowell, and Roddy's death scene, spoiler alert, uh, it comes up on the screen, and Roddy grabbed my upper thigh and squeezed it and said goodbye to himself on screen.

[11:29] Nelson Aspen: And it was, I couldn't believe where I was. I it was amazing. And so Titanic has the same thing. Look at the the off-roadway musical Titanic. Titan has become camp. It it anything with pop culture becomes camp by by virtue of it being popular culture. And so Titanic has become much the same way. That said, we must always remember that it was a disaster. That people lost their lives. And in my book, what I'm trying to do with Milton, Milton Wong, is acknowledge that even those who survived probably, you know, there was no happily ever after. Just because you lived, if you were a man, you probably had survivor's guilt because, you know, how could you have survived when other people perished?

[12:18] Nelson Aspen: And then just the post-traumatic stress of that event. I mean, imagine in 1912 being out in the middle of a freezing ocean watching that skyscraper-sized technology disappear under the water with thousands of people screaming. I mean, it just uh it's it's really not just a Kate Winslet movie.

[12:41] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[12:42] Nelson Aspen: Right. Do you feel like in some way it's a cautionary tale for today?

[12:46] Nelson Aspen: Absolutely. I mean, just as we were just saying about the the Titan uh submersible, but we you know we do this. Man can't help but think of ourselves uh as invincible. And they I we certainly are we're only human, but it is a cautionary tale. And we we get very caught up in uh technology and look at look at now how we're adjusting to the web. Now we're the wild west days of the internet are essentially over. We know we know we're being watched, we know we're being tracked, we know it it nothing really ever goes away. And that's that's the the web is the Titanic of today.

[13:27] Eila Mell: So where can people who even just have the the slightest sliver of a Titanic uh curiosity find your book?

[13:35] Nelson Aspen: Well, Amazon Barnesandnoble.com, ask for it at your local bookstore. It is Kindred Spirits, a Titanic Tale. And uh yeah, it travels time between then and now. I I like juxtaposing the hedonistic party scene of modern Manhattan with lots of cameos of real places. So I mean, if you're a New Yorker, you're gonna know all the places that they're going. Uh and uh, and if you're a Titanic fan, you will have that as well. And of course, I co-host the Titanic Talk Podcast. But like I said, Titanic is all around us, it's everywhere. And it's it's never, it's never just relegated to 1912.

[14:16] Eila Mell: Well, we're coming up on the anniversary. So what better way to acknowledge it than having you here? Thank you so much, Nelson.

[14:23] Nelson Aspen: You're amazing.

[14:25] Eila Mell: It's my pleasure. You guys are amazing. I love your work and I'm honored to be a part of your your podcast.

[14:31] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, you will have to come back for your next book because you're very prolific. You what number book is this for you?

[14:37] Nelson Aspen: This is my ninth book. I am like the Jackie Collins um of New York City uh stories, and they're all naughty.

[14:46] Nelson Aspen: Like there's someone told me that this book was like, wow, this is like if there was grinder on the Titanic.

[14:52] Nelson Aspen: Because there are some adult situations that were going on.

[14:55] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, there was, there was probably plenty of sex going on in Titanic, not just the scene with Leo and Kate down in the car underneath.

[15:03] Eila Mell: You know, they were they were grown-ups then too.

[15:06] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[15:06] Eila Mell: Well, I my advice is to lead with that next time.

[15:12] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, everyone should go out, grab the book, immerse yourself in all things Titanic.

[15:17] Nelson Aspen: All right.

[15:18] Eila Mell: Well, thank you, Nelson, and we will see you again soon.

[15:20] Nelson Aspen: Thanks, guys.

[15:21] Nelson Aspen: Bon voyage.

[15:25] Norm Lewis: Hi, this is Norm Lewis, and behind the awards, we'll be right back.

[15:31] Bruce Gotlieb: So, Eila, we had the pleasure of seeing the second performance of Smash.

[15:37] Eila Mell: And I mean, it was just so much fun.

[15:41] Bruce Gotlieb: It was, and what's gonna even be more fun is having Rick joining us to chat about it.

[15:46] Eila Mell: I mean, the writer Rick Elice, welcome to behind the awards.

[15:50] Rick Elice: Well, good morning. Uh, is it fair to say it's morning?

[15:53] Rick Elice: I uh yes.

[15:55] Rick Elice: Or should I should I I pretend to be more mysterious?

[15:57] Rick Elice: Should we pretend it's three o'clock in the morning?

[15:59] Bruce Gotlieb: Ooh, I like that.

[16:01] Rick Elice: I wouldn't be drinking coffee. It was three o'clock in the morning. That's the giveaway.

[16:05] Bruce Gotlieb: That's true.

[16:07] Rick Elice: Well, I mean, Smash is a smash. It's wonderful.

[16:10] Rick Elice: Congratulations.

[16:11] Rick Elice: Well, thank you very much. It's very, very nice to hear you say that because it's, you know, it's been a while.

[16:18] Rick Elice: Uh we started, we started working on this before the pandemic.

[16:24] Rick Elice: And then, you know, there was that there was that pause, and and we had our first reading of this thing in May of 22.

[16:32] Rick Elice: And uh, you know, so it's it's kind of remarkable. It feels impossible to get these things on.

[16:39] Rick Elice: And so it's kind of remarkable that it's on. I'm I'm black and blue from pinching myself.

[16:44] Rick Elice: And um as we all are. And uh especially because uh, you know, it's a great group of people and um being helmed, as they say in the business by um the the great, the truly great Susan Stroman.

[16:59] Rick Elice: I mean, she's just fantastic to work with, and I'm having the best time of my life, really.

[17:06] Bruce Gotlieb: What is the what is the process like when you know the decisions are made at I guess at whatever point that, okay, you know what? This is finally gonna make it to Broadway, which is what everybody who loved the TV show is was clamoring for. At what point do you come onto the project?

[17:22] Rick Elice: Well, um, Bob Martin and uh with whom I'm writing the show, the legendary Bob Martin, who has two shows opening in the same week.

[17:30] Rick Elice: Um right now, uh Boop and Smash. He only he only works on one-word titles now because he's so busy that that's all we can all we can do is one word, one word title.

[17:40] Rick Elice: And um uh Bob and I uh were working on another project, and we were sort of enjoying working together.

[17:48] Rick Elice: And uh we had both been asked, I think separately, we were at the same agency at the at that time, and we had both been asked separately whether we would be interested in pitching uh an idea to Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, the songwriters from the TV show of Smash.

[18:07] Rick Elice: We had nothing to do with the TV show of Smash, Bob and I.

[18:10] Rick Elice: And um I think in independently or separately, we weren't particularly interested in writing a musical about Marilyn Monroe, which was sort of the thing that we were asked to do because apparently Smash, the television show, was about a bunch of people who were putting on a musical about Marilyn Monroe.

[18:27] Rick Elice: And Marc and Scott felt that they'd written all these songs for that fictional musical.

[18:33] Rick Elice: And wouldn't it, and they did it, had done a concert in New York, I think at the Minskoff Theater one night, with the cast of the TV show, including um, you know, my one of my best friends, uh uh Christian Borle.

[18:46] Rick Elice: Everybody's great. I everybody I get to know is great. So I'm I'm uh I so I forgive me for using that word a lot, but um uh Christian uh was in this play that I was doing, Peter and the Starcatcher at the same time that Smash was happening, and so we were sort of living through the all the Smash hubbub on TV with Christian.

[19:05] Rick Elice: Uh and then they did a concert um, I don't know when, maybe 10 years ago, and it was a big uh event. People were, you know, selling their children to get tickets.

[19:15] Rick Elice: And so Marc and Scott wanted to uh to pursue the thought of um taking those songs that people love so much and they're great songs, and actually writing the show about Marilyn Monroe.

[19:28] Rick Elice: I didn't really know very much about Marilyn Monroe.

[19:31] Rick Elice: And I think Bob uh neither was Bob terribly interested in doing a musical about Marilyn Monroe, but we thought, because we were enjoying working together on another thing, we said, well, why don't we pitch this together and why don't we pitch a different idea, which is not to do a musical about Marilyn Monroe, but to do a musical about making a musical about Marilyn Monroe and uh and really lean into the comedy of it because we love writing comedy and we love hearing the sound of laughter in the theater, and it's the greatest feeling in the world um uh to hear that sound, or the greatest feeling you can have standing up, let's say.

[20:07] Rick Elice: Um so that's what we pitched, and we figured they were gonna say no.

[20:12] Rick Elice: Uh and that way, um, you know, they would say no to us. We, you know, we wouldn't say no to them, so uh we would all be friends and that would be it, and we would get on with our lives, except they said yes.

[20:21] Rick Elice: So um then suddenly there we were um doing it.

[20:24] Rick Elice: And uh Marc and Scott's sort of kept uh their uh arm's length distance in case they hated what we did, so they could say we had nothing to do with it.

[20:33] Rick Elice: And so we did a we did a couple of treatments for them and for the producers, Bob Greenblatt and Neil Merrin and Steven Spielberg.

[20:40] Rick Elice: Uh, you know, you may have heard of Steven Spielberg. Maybe, you know, he was um he was very involved very involved with a TV show, and we talked about these documents we would hand in, and then the pandemic happened.

[20:52] Rick Elice: And so uh it's uh Bob and I got together during that period of time like this via FaceTime and wrote a script because this because we had the songs.

[21:03] Rick Elice: So we were able to sort of plot it out and place the songs and check in with Marc and Scott and see if they were um into what we were doing.

[21:11] Rick Elice: And then um, when we had something that the producers felt was ready to be heard by um other actors than Bob and me reading all the parts to them over the phone, uh, we put together this reading in May of 22 with friends and family, and they came and Stephen came and they decided to move forward.

[21:30] Rick Elice: So that's sort of a very long and tedious explanation of how we got into it.

[21:35] Rick Elice: But we had nothing to do with the TV show.

[21:37] Bruce Gotlieb: Right.

[21:37] Rick Elice: Um and I think that's probably wise because certainly there are tremendous number.

[21:42] Rick Elice: I mean, we've done three previews by now.

[21:45] Rick Elice: Uh each night um the theater has been full.

[21:48] Rick Elice: And the, you know, it's there are obviously people who are very familiar with the TV show because they come wearing T-shirts with names of songs on them.

[21:56] Rick Elice: But there are a lot of people like us, the writers, who really were not familiar with the TV show.

[22:02] Rick Elice: And um, you know, the trick, I guess, in terms of writing for the theater is um, you know, as many fans of the show uh of the TV show as there may be, there's a much larger universe of people who didn't see it because it was set several years ago and it was just two seasons.

[22:19] Rick Elice: So we want to make sure that people who don't know have a lot of knowledge about the TV show, or maybe have never heard of the TV show, we're still going to have a rip roaring time in the theater.

[22:28] Rick Elice: And as I said, it's just you wonder whether things are going to be funny.

[22:32] Rick Elice: Um, you whether you wonder what's going to land and what's not going to land.

[22:35] Rick Elice: You wonder if the audience is going to be with it or not.

[22:37] Rick Elice: And we've really styled this as a almost a farce structure, you know, and it sort of has to keep on tumbling over itself and little plot twists revealing and revealing, revealing, so that it's not what the audience expects, and you're constantly surprising them.

[22:51] Rick Elice: And um, you never really know that until an audience comes.

[22:55] Rick Elice: So I think Neil Simon said collectively, the audience is always the smartest person in the room.

[23:01] Rick Elice: And so we haven't had the smartest person in the room until this week.

[23:05] Rick Elice: And uh so you, you know, we we stand in the back and we listen very carefully, and you know, and then we rush back to our little laptops and we start making changes and all that.

[23:15] Rick Elice: And it's was very yesterday was a very exciting day in the theater, running from one department to another, you know, tearing pages out of the typewriter was great.

[23:22] Rick Elice: It was just like old time, you know, uh my idea of what it was like, you know, if if indeed it was like that, of people just sort of passing each other, handing each other new stuff, getting into the actors, getting into music, getting it to the lights, getting it to the to the um to the stage management, trying to run it, you know, figuring out when we're gonna do it, taking the breaks, getting out of there by five o'clock in the afternoon so you can set up for the show.

[23:47] Rick Elice: It was very yesterday was a really exciting old-time Broadway day, and I just love it.

[23:52] Rick Elice: I'm still sort of high from that.

[23:53] Eila Mell: Oh, that's so nice.

[23:55] Eila Mell: Well, what I like so much about it is that it absolutely delivers everything you want if you're a fan of the show.

[24:02] Eila Mell: But then it gives you so much more than you could have even expected.

[24:07] Eila Mell: And it's so much fun, and it's so funny.

[24:10] Eila Mell: And it just there are some twists and turns that are kind of shocking, which is so much.

[24:17] Rick Elice: I know, I know.

[24:18] Eila Mell: I won't say what they are, but it's great.

[24:21] Rick Elice: There's a sound that the audience has made three nights in a row now, when you know one of the big reveals happens.

[24:27] Rick Elice: There's a sound that is I maybe um, you know, the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard in a theater.

[24:34] Rick Elice: And I've been going to the theater longer than both of you have been alive put together.

[24:39] Rick Elice: And and, you know, and I've seen a lot of extraordinary, wonderful, wonderful shows.

[24:43] Rick Elice: But I don't think I I last night people were just like standing up and like shouting at the stage because they had been so they were so delightfully surprised.

[24:54] Rick Elice: It was it's just oh God.

[24:57] Rick Elice: And Bob, Bob had Bob had was at Boop last night.

[25:00] Rick Elice: So I was I like I'm texting him going, you're not gonna believe this.

[25:03] Rick Elice: This is why I it's like, oh, I wish that he was there because he's so great and he's such a genius.

[25:08] Rick Elice: And I want him to hear that sound, but I'm really, really glad that you heard it.

[25:12] Eila Mell: I'm glad I'm glad that you felt it.

[25:14] Eila Mell: I mean, that's really what we're doing it for for moments like that, where an audience is like, oh wow, we really didn't see that coming, and we love it.

[25:21] Rick Elice: I love uh to just be able to give a little bit of pleasure right now is a great is a great thing.

[25:26] Eila Mell: And it's hard as somebody who's seen it not to you want to talk about it, but you also don't want to ruin it.

[25:32] Rick Elice: I know, I know.

[25:33] Eila Mell: It's really hard, isn't it?

[25:34] Rick Elice: I know because it's too good.

[25:37] Rick Elice: We just keep talking to each other incessantly about every nuance of it.

[25:40] Eila Mell: Oh, call me.

[25:41] Eila Mell: And just tell everybody.

[25:42] Eila Mell: We'll talk. We can, you know, I'll be happy to talk to you about it.

[25:45] Rick Elice: Okay, good. We will.

[25:46] Eila Mell: And then we just tell everybody else they have to see it.

[25:48] Rick Elice: Oh, bless your heart.

[25:49] Rick Elice: Well, I already have people who are buying tickets because I posted and said you must see it.

[25:54] Rick Elice: And they are, they're buying tickets.

[25:55] Rick Elice: So thank you.

[25:57] Rick Elice: Thank you. My accountant thanks you, and the producers especially thank you.

[26:02] Eila Mell: It is, though, the likeness that you were giving it to.

[26:05] Eila Mell: It is that classic Broadway comedy.

[26:08] Eila Mell: It gives you all of those feelings of the you got the big showy numbers, you know, the costumes, the light, everything is just meticulous.

[26:16] Eila Mell: And who better to be commandeering this sort of ocean liner than Susan Stroman?

[26:22] Bruce Gotlieb: You know, you know.

[26:22] Rick Elice: I mean, she's just if you if if you could dream of the best person to do it, and then you get the best person, your dream comes true.

[26:31] Rick Elice: Wow.

[26:31] Rick Elice: I mean, it's it's the only thing I'm sad about is, you know, now I'm counting down the days because you know, I'm I I uh I'm old and I think, wow, it's only a few, we only have a few more days where we're getting to spend all these days together, and then it'll be open and it what'll happen will happen, and you know, and we'll get on with our lives and do other shows.

[26:53] Rick Elice: And but I think, oh wow, this has been this has been a joy.

[26:58] Rick Elice: And principally because I mean, I you know, working with Bob is a thrill.

[27:03] Rick Elice: Uh, but spending every day with Susan Stroman for months at a time, I it's it's an occupation I heartily recommend.

[27:11] Eila Mell: Yeah, she is wonderful and so generous to let someone else choreograph the show.

[27:16] Rick Elice: Yeah, I you know, we we we've we actually were very surprised that she said yes because Josh Bergasse, who um choreographed the TV show, uh was on board the project before Bob and me.

[27:27] Rick Elice: I mean it was just if there's going to be a show, then Josh was gonna be the choreographer.

[27:31] Rick Elice: And I don't think Stro has ever um directed and not choreographed before.

[27:36] Rick Elice: You'll have to check me on that.

[27:37] Rick Elice: But uh we thought, you know, when we were having our little dream meeting after that reading, okay, so like who should direct it?

[27:45] Rick Elice: Because we didn't have a director at that point because they weren't sure they were going to move forward with the show.

[27:50] Rick Elice: Okay, so where they're gonna move forward, who do you want to direct?

[27:52] Rick Elice: Well, everybody said, well, first of all, Stro and Um or Susan, as we may have said, because you know, you have to be asked.

[28:00] Rick Elice: It's like it's like Sir Lawrence Olivier has to say, oh, call me Larry, you know.

[28:04] Bruce Gotlieb: You know, right, right.

[28:05] Rick Elice: She has to say, call me Stro, and then you can call her Stro.

[28:07] Rick Elice: You have to be in that club.

[28:09] Bruce Gotlieb: That's right.

[28:10] Rick Elice: I don't think she answers to the name Susan.

[28:12] Rick Elice: I think you can scream Susan three feet away from her and she wouldn't turn her head.

[28:16] Rick Elice: Um but she was, of course, the first person on the list.

[28:18] Rick Elice: And we said, well, but you know, would she ever do it?

[28:20] Rick Elice: Because we already have a choreographer.

[28:22] Rick Elice: And um, and then she said yes.

[28:25] Rick Elice: And I think it's been, I think it's been wonderful for her.

[28:28] Rick Elice: Um challenging, I'm sure.

[28:32] Rick Elice: Uh, but it's been great to watch Josh and Stro working together, and they become very, very close.

[28:38] Rick Elice: And he's he's, you know, he's really good and he's very smart and and he really cares about story, and it's not just steps.

[28:48] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[28:48] Rick Elice: Uh and and Stro is always about story.

[28:52] Rick Elice: So I think they bonded over that.

[28:53] Rick Elice: And I, you know, I I bet they're I bet they're gonna be um friends for life.

[28:58] Bruce Gotlieb: Was it important to get a female director just to have because it's about women for the most part, to get that female point of view?

[29:05] Rick Elice: Well, we are a bunch of guys, so you know, it's always nice to have a woman in the room or women in the room.

[29:13] Rick Elice: I spent 20 years working for the legendary Nancy Coyne as her sort of creative partner at Serino Coyne, the advertising agency.

[29:23] Rick Elice: So to me, the idea of working with and for a woman was, you know, is like is something I've always done.

[29:32] Rick Elice: So it's not that it's not extraordinary to me in any way.

[29:35] Rick Elice: I can't speak for the other people, but certainly, you know, I don't think anybody would call Stro a female director.

[29:42] Rick Elice: She's a great five-time Tony Award-winning director choreographer, full stop, you know, and I and I So I I don't know about the I guess you're right, but it but it it didn't occur to me.

[29:53] Rick Elice: I was I I I wanted the, you know, I wanted my first choice, and I was really lucky, and it was everybody's first choice.

[30:01] Rick Elice: It's interesting to think about it, the gender of it.

[30:04] Rick Elice: And you're right, of course, it's great to have Josh's assistant, Jenny LaRoche is a woman, and Stro has two assistants, Leah and Naomi, who are associates, I should say, who are, you know, very much, they're very much a team, that trio.

[30:19] Rick Elice: So, you know, there's now it's sort of equal, I guess, gender-wise, in terms of who's sitting at the table, you know, pounding the table and saying it's gotta be like this, and everybody has an equal voice.

[30:30] Rick Elice: So yeah.

[30:31] Bruce Gotlieb: Was it hard to obviously you guys leaned into the comedy more, and I know that that's been something everybody is talked about coming up to the show.

[30:40] Bruce Gotlieb: And obviously the TV show was much more dramatic.

[30:43] Bruce Gotlieb: Was it hard to to keep it on that side of comedy?

[30:47] Rick Elice: Like, did it, you know, because Marilyn obviously lived a complicated life, and it seems like it would be easy for it to kind of fall dramatic.

[30:56] Rick Elice: Well, the we I think what we brought to the table, Bob and I, was this idea of it was is inherently a comic idea, which is first of all, in in the tradition of Tom Stoppard's Rosencranz and Gildenstern are dead, the show is really uh a comedy about these people who are doing a musical.

[31:16] Rick Elice: So as in Rosencrans and Gildenstern, you know, Hamlet, the play and the character are happening, but they're over here.

[31:23] Rick Elice: And and the and the that writer, um, Tom Stoppard turned, you know, panned over here to these sort of secondary people that nobody ever thinks about and made a play about them.

[31:34] Rick Elice: So um, so that's what we did with this.

[31:36] Rick Elice: We sort we kind of pan away from the musical about Marilyn Monroe and make it about the people who were making the musical, because that's what we know as people who put musicals together and how crazy it is.

[31:49] Rick Elice: And it, you know, if in real in real life, it's pretty crazy.

[31:52] Rick Elice: So if you just lean into that a little bit, or just dial up a little bit more, there's nothing.

[31:56] Rick Elice: There's the show is so meta, it's crazy.

[31:59] Rick Elice: To and including the fact that, you know, that one of our um, you know, lead leads got sick and wasn't able to perform at the last minute.

[32:05] Rick Elice: I mean, everything that happens to us during the day when we were first, you know, writing this from scratch, we would just come in and say, Well, what happened to you today and what happened to you today?

[32:14] Rick Elice: And we would make notes and say, okay, how can we get that in every there's nothing that doesn't happen in real life in this show.

[32:22] Rick Elice: We're just leaning into it a little bit more so that the absurdity of it and the craziness of it is in starker relief than the than the darker, the darker, more depressing moments.

[32:33] Rick Elice: Because, you know, it's just it's not a time for dark or depressing.

[32:36] Rick Elice: It's time for, you know, it's please know it's time for it's time for laughter in the theater anyway.

[32:42] Rick Elice: And the other thing is that while, of course, uh Marilyn, as I now understand her to have been, you know, was um somebody who aspired to be taken very seriously as an actor and not just thought of as a sex goddess.

[32:56] Rick Elice: And yet, of course, Hollywood presented her in that way.

[32:59] Rick Elice: And that struggle of hers to be taken seriously, you know, was just is has been described by people who knew her and you know have spoken about it as um as somewhat obsessive.

[33:11] Rick Elice: And obsession is great, fertile comedy territory.

[33:17] Rick Elice: So that, you know, that's without giving away too much.

[33:19] Rick Elice: Yes.

[33:20] Rick Elice: I I, you know, that's that's sort of what we focused the comedy on, on, you know, the obsession, her obsession applied to the a whole group of people who were were working on a show.

[33:30] Rick Elice: Anyway, we'll see what happens.

[33:33] Rick Elice: Going in, I didn't realize it was going to be as hilarious as it is.

[33:36] Rick Elice: It's just so funny.

[33:38] Rick Elice: The TV show, by all accounts, I'm uh, you know, again, uh I I'm not a student of it, but uh, they went for sort of more of a dramatic show.

[33:48] Rick Elice: And that just uh wasn't something that I think Bob and I are capable of doing.

[33:52] Rick Elice: I mean, we you you would just hire other people if you wanted to do that.

[33:55] Rick Elice: Right.

[33:55] Rick Elice: So we just went to town.

[33:57] Rick Elice: And you know, the great part of it was in terms of the comedy of the piece, I guess, that for most of the time, because of the way the world was wagging through the pandemic, it was just me and Bob.

[34:10] Rick Elice: So we were we just we were able to just satisfy our own comic obsessions, and we're very, very different people.

[34:19] Rick Elice: And we come from very, very different backgrounds.

[34:22] Rick Elice: And so we were able to make each other laugh a lot.

[34:26] Rick Elice: And a lot of that helped keep the process and the and the show that we were writing um, you know, like a little comedy bubble.

[34:34] Rick Elice: And then the challenge, of course, is to try to not let the bubble ever hit the ground so that it pops, you know.

[34:39] Rick Elice: Yeah.

[34:40] Rick Elice: Um, I'm I'm I'm thrilled to hear you talk about that you were amused.

[34:45] Rick Elice: It's it's our only goal is to amuse.

[34:48] Bruce Gotlieb: How did you decide which characters from the show, the TV show would stay in this version?

[34:55] Rick Elice: Well, I'm a I'm a big puzzle fan in the in the Sondheim tradition.

[34:59] Rick Elice: And Garson Caenan, of course, wrote this book called Smash, that I think Mr. Spielberg first got the rights to about the making of a show in the sort of in the 50s in that golden age of Broadway um style of what a crazy business.

[35:14] Rick Elice: And I thought it would be interesting, and as did Bob, that we would, it's all about misleading, you know.

[35:20] Rick Elice: So that we built, we built the story around a s one of the two central characters in the TV show.

[35:27] Rick Elice: But really, and then of course we have what we have one other character that from the TV show, just sort of as a so that the audience starts to think something, and then we and then we've just created different characters to pull those characters in that the audience may the audience who are fans of the TV show may think they know and just pull them in different ways.

[35:52] Rick Elice: And the audience of people who don't know the show will go in and go, okay, well, everyone knows who the star is, everyone knows who what an understudy is.

[35:59] Rick Elice: And I guess you understand what writers are because they're called writers, and you understand what a director is because you know they're called directors, and um, and just then thwart the expectations because, you know, that's the puzzle of it.

[36:12] Rick Elice: You know, you you want people to so it's kind of in a way, it's sort of like a it's sort of like a mystery in terms of the way it's structured, but a comedy in terms of the way it's it's pitched, so that as the revelations occur, it becomes increasingly um amusing.

[36:30] Rick Elice: Yeah, because it I'm not gonna say what happens, but at the end of Act One, you really don't know where it's going.

[36:35] Rick Elice: Yes.

[36:35] Rick Elice: And you're kind of wondering.

[36:36] Rick Elice: Well, and neither did we.

[36:39] Rick Elice: Last year we did, we did a couple of performances.

[36:42] Rick Elice: We did a workshop last year, and then we performed it for a couple of audiences over at Hunter College, which we thought of as our out-of-town tryout.

[36:51] Rick Elice: Those of us who live on the uh on the uh Upper West Side will understand why.

[36:55] Rick Elice: Well, it's your upper east side.

[36:56] Rick Elice: Hunter College feels like out of town.

[36:58] Rick Elice: But um, we wanted to, you know, we wanted to know what was funny.

[37:03] Rick Elice: And we had a big event in Act Two that we thought was fantastic.

[37:07] Rick Elice: And then um we talked to the audience about it, and they asked questions about it.

[37:12] Rick Elice: And so we, you know, we we learned from the audience response and went several different ways for Act Two and kept presenting them and reading them and talking about them.

[37:22] Rick Elice: So uh literally, I'm not being glib when I say, you know, there was a there was a period of time where we didn't know what we were gonna do after the first act too, because the the end of the first act is like, okay, wow, what's what's gonna happen now?

[37:36] Rick Elice: And um it's such an interesting um this theater thing, you know, it's like so interesting.

[37:43] Rick Elice: You know, you've you you you can be very logical and you can say, well, you know, if A follows B, then C and D will happen.

[37:49] Rick Elice: And you know, but that sort of math sometimes doesn't work in the theater.

[37:54] Rick Elice: Right.

[37:54] Rick Elice: Sometimes it does.

[37:55] Rick Elice: Sometimes it's sometimes two plus two equals four, and sometimes two plus two equals seventeen.

[38:00] Rick Elice: Or sometimes two plus two equals Q.

[38:03] Rick Elice: You know, you just don't know.

[38:04] Rick Elice: So the process, it's been so interesting.

[38:07] Rick Elice: It's such an interesting art form.

[38:09] Rick Elice: This the most collaborative art form, certainly, I think, of the lively arts.

[38:13] Rick Elice: And um as people start weighing in and you explain and you talk, it makes perfect sense.

[38:19] Rick Elice: But, you know, if I drop a hammer on the ground, I don't have to look at it to know it's gonna hit the ground because there's this thing called gravity.

[38:26] Rick Elice: But in the theater, the laws of gravity even are different, you know.

[38:31] Rick Elice: So it's just such a it's so interesting to me as a craftsman to think like, oh, how do you build this chair?

[38:39] Rick Elice: Because that's because four legs may not make sense in the theater.

[38:44] Rick Elice: Right.

[38:44] Rick Elice: You know?

[38:45] Rick Elice: So anyway, it's really fascinating.

[38:48] Rick Elice: Comedy, comedy is really interesting.

[38:49] Rick Elice: I'm learning so much about it from Bob, who of course is one of the great comedy writers.

[38:54] Bruce Gotlieb: As a writer, I know you mentioned, and we all know as theater goers during previews, there are times where the show might change a bit here and there based on what works.

[39:04] Bruce Gotlieb: But as a writer, do you find it hard to stop that that process of, oh, well, if I just change this word, and if I just oh the tweaking that I would assume inevitably continues.

[39:17] Rick Elice: Well, you know, I'm an old ad guy.

[39:19] Rick Elice: You know, I never set out to do this.

[39:21] Rick Elice: I've just uh, you know, I'm I'm I this is what I do now.

[39:24] Rick Elice: But um, you know, in in advertising, you're you're constantly rewriting because you know, you're suddenly there's a new client who wants a different headline, or you know, make that bigger or make that smaller.

[39:34] Rick Elice: You're constantly re-jigging and refining and rethinking and always on a deadline.

[39:42] Rick Elice: So I think probably I rewrite to a fault, because to me it's like, oh, what about this?

[39:42] Rick Elice: Oh, what about this?

[39:51] Rick Elice: And Bob, who came up through um, you know, Second City and versions of Second City in Canada, is also, you know, somebody who, you know, thinks on his feet and is constantly, well, you know, maybe we could do this.

[40:05] Rick Elice: And of course, then when you add actors into the mix and you hear you have some brilliant people like Brooks Ashmanskas coming in, a comedy genius who like inflects a line differently and think, oh, well, what about this?

[40:16] Rick Elice: And what about that?

[40:17] Rick Elice: Until finally, you know, the director says, Stop.

[40:22] Rick Elice: Don't be so fast.

[40:24] Rick Elice: Let them do it twice before you change it.

[40:26] Rick Elice: You know, you know.

[40:26] Rick Elice: So we are our natural impatience isn's not because anybody's bad.

[40:31] Rick Elice: It's because they're so wonderful.

[40:33] Rick Elice: They give you a hundred new ideas.

[40:35] Rick Elice: There is, you know, there is an end because maybe it was Jerome Robbins who said, you never finish, you just run out of time.

[40:42] Rick Elice: So there is a moment where the stage managers will change the locks on the door and we will not be allowed in the building anymore.

[40:49] Rick Elice: But that's uh we still have a couple of weeks to drive everybody nuts with uh with pages.

[40:53] Rick Elice: We've got about 20 today.

[40:55] Rick Elice: Just sometimes that's like a word or switching a word, or you know, a more specific joke, so that specificity I've learned also from Bob is the, you know, is a great way to punch up comedy.

[41:08] Rick Elice: And of course, as I said, we have Brooks and Christine Nielsen and Christa Rodriguez and John Bellman and Robyn Hurder are really, really funny people, Jackie Arnold.

[41:19] Rick Elice: I mean, Jackie Arnold.

[41:21] Rick Elice: She's greatness.

[41:22] Rick Elice: Jackie Arnold last night, you know, there's a speech that Jackie has in Act Two that, you know, is kind of, you just sort of know that it's a speech that if you just say it, if if I got up there and I read it and it just was and I read it badly, there would still be people who would want to cheer for it at the end because of the point that's made in the speech.

[41:44] Rick Elice: Yeah.

[41:44] Rick Elice: And and last night, she they interrupted the speech three times to to with applause.

[41:49] Rick Elice: Because she's so good that uh I I mean, and I thought, oh, Jackie Arnold, where have you been all my life?

[41:56] Rick Elice: You know, she's really, really funny and great.

[41:59] Rick Elice: And this principal cast is a, you know, is a uh sort of a comedy dream team.

[42:03] Rick Elice: And so we are and and they work so well together.

[42:07] Rick Elice: And Stro, obviously, is somebody who knows everything about the funny, but she's been very patient with us.

[42:16] Rick Elice: By us, I mean me mostly, you know, uh saying, no, Rick, it's if we do it this way, it'll be better than if we do it, you know, your way.

[42:23] Rick Elice: And I go, well, that's ridiculous.

[42:26] Rick Elice: And then of course, you know, it happens, and I go, Oh.

[42:30] Rick Elice: So there's even a few moments where characters go, oh, you know, in the show because that's me watching, because I'm really while I'm probably um, you know, older than a lot of the people at the table, I feel like um I'm the the ju the um the junior partner here, you know, and I'm learning, I learned so much.

[42:48] Rick Elice: Mark and Scott and Bob and Stro I mean they've they've done so much, and um, I mean, they're great.

[42:55] Rick Elice: They're the greats.

[42:57] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, I mean, you're very humble to say that, because in no way are you a junior partner.

[43:02] Rick Elice: Your career is don't let the gray hair fool you.

[43:12] Kevin Solak: Hi, this is Kevin Solak, and we'll be right back with Behind the Awards.

[43:17] Rick Elice: Obviously, you've had this wonderful collaboration with Bob Martin, but you also, you know, I'd love to give a nod to the incredible Marshall Brickman, who you worked with for, you know, on so many shows.

[43:28] Rick Elice: Marshall.

[43:30] Rick Elice: Yes.

[43:31] Rick Elice: Marshall, who I now have to say the late great Marshall Brickman, you know.

[43:35] Rick Elice: Marshall and his wife Nina and their kids, and my late husband, uh, also a late great, you know, we all became very, very close friends in the 90s.

[43:46] Rick Elice: I'd never dreamed of getting to work with Marshall Brickman, you know.

[43:50] Rick Elice: Right.

[43:50] Rick Elice: I grew up here in New York.

[43:51] Rick Elice: There were those bold-faced names that you grew up thinking, oh wouldn't it be amazing.

[43:57] Rick Elice: And then there I was, you know, playing poker across the table from one of the Marshall and uh and we just um, you know, fate just sort of gave us an opportunity.

[44:11] Rick Elice: And uh and it's uh it was a life-changing opportunity for me, obviously.

[44:15] Rick Elice: I'm talking about Jersey Boys, but he too had never he'd never written a Broadway show.

[44:21] Rick Elice: So we went into that thinking we'll only waste our own time.

[44:24] Rick Elice: And we were in we enjoyed each other's companies.

[44:27] Rick Elice: So we embarked on that project, not really expecting anything from it other than it might maybe it'll be interesting to do this and we'll see.

[44:35] Rick Elice: And because it we and because we didn't know, of course, it all happened very quickly, because we one of the things we didn't know was it's supposed to take years and years and years and years and years. So it happened very, very quickly, and um the stars were in alignment, and of course, Des Makinoff came on board and w was uh, you know, all of Des's vast array of skills and this particular project came together in a really beautiful way. And we had amazing luck with the cast, and because that show worked, we got asked to do more things. And so I got to work with Marshall quite a lot.

[45:08] Rick Elice: Yeah. And I I know that he had a the the last year of his life was really, really rough for him. So I know that he's now up in heaven being able to do a lot of the things that he really loved to do that he wasn't able to do the last year of his life. But I miss him like hell. It's it's it's been it's it was it was awful losing losing Marshall. And um, you know, but I I I do love his uh his family and his uh kids and his grandkids, and uh, you know, so so there's that.

[45:42] Rick Elice: But yes, Marshall Brickman and Marshall Brickman and Nancy Coyne and and uh Roger Rees and Bob Martin. These are the people who have who have who have these are the people who have shaped me. You know, I really um I uh I'm I'm only a reflection of of these people. I don't I'm not sure who the hell I am as me. Um, but I'm surrounded by decades of hanging out with people who were so smart and funny and kind and jolly and I I'm the I'm very, very lucky person, especially because you know, I the theater was the grand passion of my life since I as if as a little boy growing up in Manhattan when, you know, a theater ticket was 90 cents and you can go sit in the last row of the balcony.

[46:29] Rick Elice: And you know, it was cheaper than a movie, and you could go to see a show on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and uh, and that's what I did. Um, and then I, you know, I got to I got to know so many of those people um when I was at the Ed agency and I got to work on shows that they were working on and watch and learn and been a great been a great life. Great.

[46:49] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes. And I, you know, I certainly grew up thinking of your husband, Roger Rees as a Broadway legend for Nicholas Nickleby.

[46:57] Rick Elice: Oh I mean amazing. You talk about it now, and you think, well, they no one would ever do an eight and a half hour show now. You know, there and uh an audience wouldn't, you know, that it was 1981 and um, you know, it was before the internet and email and faxing and i even then it was extraordinary that it was so long, but it was an entire an entire novel, an entire Dickens novel.

[47:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes.

[47:20] Rick Elice: Um uh of course when they first did it uh at the RSC a year before, um, when they s first started, Raj said it was 15 hours long. When they first when they first got it up onto the stage, it was 15 hours long. And they kept shortening and shortening it because in London they were playing at the Oldwich Theater as part of the RSC London season, and the buses stopped running at 10 30 p.m. or something like that.

[47:45] Rick Elice: So they kept shortening the show so that people could come to the theater and get home after the play. And it's crazy. You know, and then they uh, you know, and the then presenting it in two halves and things so that there were some nights where you could just watch one half and then come back the next night. Um when it came to New York, I was uh I was an actor in those days, and I was outraged because I had gone um with Christy Nielsen, who's now in our musical, um, uh gone through uh Yale Drama School.

[48:14] Rick Elice: And uh, you know, I I I all I all I wanted to do was to be part of a company like the Royal Shakespeare Company. The US doesn't have these, you know, so or New York, I should say, was has never for some reason been able to support repertoire in that way. And of course, coming through Yale, where you're constantly doing many, many things at one time, I loved that so much.

[48:34] Rick Elice: And I wrote a letter to the then artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company immediately, I think the day I got my uh sheepskin and my equity card, I wrote a letter to Trevor Nunn, artistic director of the RSC, and said, uh, just tell me what play to be uh plane to get on. I I want to come and spend my life at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[48:53] Rick Elice: And he wrote back. He wrote back uh and he said, I can't hire American actors. I can't even hire all the British actors I want to hire. We've just had our arts funding cut. Uh and I thought, you know, it was that was uh it was late in 1979 when that happened, and and then, you know, suddenly, um Piaf comes to Broadway and and uh takes up all the oxygen and wins all the awards, and then Amadeus comes to Broadway and you know, and then every year there would be some British production on Broadway, and there it would, you know, it it would be all anybody would talk about, and all anybody wanted to see.

[49:35] Rick Elice: And I thought, how come we keep rolling out the red carpet for these Brits? And we can't get and we can't get any work over there. So I went to equity and I started a committee called British Out of Broadway, because I made myself a t-shirt that said boob. British out of Broadway. And I I just wanted I because I just wanted some equity. You know, it it's not fair.

[49:58] Rick Elice: And I I started this committee, and it was the same foal uh that Nicholas Nickel became to Broadway and charging $100 a ticket. $100 a ticket in 1981. I mean, how absurd. Now we think $100 a ticket. Boy, that's like that's reasonable. It's a bargain. $100 a ticket. I mean, they might as well have asked for a million dollars a ticket. I I if I had a hundred dollars in 1981, I would have been spending it on food, you know, for like six months.

[50:25] Bruce Gotlieb: Right.

[50:26] Rick Elice: Um, you know, we were all starving actors trying to, you know, make a dent. And um, and here comes these these Brits with their hundred dollars a ticket. Like, what kind of bullshit is that? Cover of Time magazine, like, come on. And it was infuriating.

[50:44] Rick Elice: And uh, one of my classmates from Yale, now no longer with us, a wonderful actor named Kate Clark, Caitlin Clark.

[50:52] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, I remember her.

[50:54] Rick Elice: And uh, and we did a million things together at Yale, and uh, you know, of course, she was working all the time, and um, and she called me and she said, Rick, you've got to go see this Nicholas Nickleby thing. It's it's so it's it's gonna, it's exactly the thing that right up your alley. It's I kept thinking of you the whole time. And I said, I wouldn't go to see that show.

[51:17] Rick Elice: I mean, uh, they can take their hundred dollar ticket. And, you know, who do they think they are? She said, Rick, you have just go. And because she was always right, I I called, I did something I I'm still sort of embarrassed about. My birthday is in November.

[51:36] Rick Elice: And um, so I called my parents um around the time of my birthday, and they said, Well, what would you like for your birthday? And I said, Could I have a hundred dollars for food? And um, and they said, What do you mean? Uh, I mean, you know, well, like, I can't give you money for food for your birthday. How about a sweater? I said, No, no, no, just, you know, I 100 for food would be great.

[51:54] Rick Elice: Because uh, and I took the hundred dollars they gave me for my birthday, and I got a ticket to Nicholas Nickleby because Kate Clark said I had to go see it. And so I went with my big Yale drama school chip on my shoulder to see this thing.

[52:06] Rick Elice: And um, eight and a half hours later, I left the theater, you know, all those embarrassing verbs, you know. I was obsessed and infatuated and uh, you know, sleepless. And I and um, and um impossibly, uh a few months later, I was trying to not be a waiter in between acting jobs. So I took a part-time copywriting job at an ad agency and got sent to the dress rehearsal of cats, directed by the same Trevor Nunn who had directed Nicholas Nickleby and told me to, you know, go, you know, leave him alone and stop bothering him about working at the RSC.

[52:50] Rick Elice: And uh, because I was gonna be working on the ad campaign for cats, you know, now and forever. And uh and walking down the aisle at the dress rehearsal, this actor that I had sort of turned my little one-room apartment into a shrine to. And it and I I um, you know, I'm a New Yorker, so I'm in New Yorker rhymes with Stalker.

[53:13] Rick Elice: So I I waited out, I waited outside that theater after that cats thing. And um, I, you know, for this person to leave the theater and I pounced um as cats do. And uh I just started talking to him, and um uh and we were together for 35 years.

[53:32] Bruce Gotlieb: Uh that's so lovely.

[53:34] Rick Elice: We'd still be together. He would be telling me now, Rick, you're talking too much. Shut up. Um if he if he were here.

[53:42] Bruce Gotlieb: Sorry, Raj.

[53:44] Rick Elice: Well, that's lovely. I think I saw I know I saw Caitlin Clark in something at Circle in the Square.

[53:49] Bruce Gotlieb: I think maybe it was the marriage of Figaro.

[53:51] Rick Elice: It was the marriage of Figaro.

[53:53] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, and um she was also great. She and Kevin Klein, and I think Kevin Klein and Ralph Julia maybe did um Arms and the Man also with the case.

[54:00] Rick Elice: I saw that also with Glenn Headley. And and Kate was in that too.

[54:04] Bruce Gotlieb: Okay.

[54:04] Rick Elice: And then she was she was in a lot of TV stuff, sadly, she uh passed away in 2004 from ovarian cancer. And her sister, Tori Clark, or Victoria Clark, as she is known professionally, was George W. Bush's press secretary.

[54:17] Bruce Gotlieb: Wow.

[54:18] Rick Elice: And before that, before that, she was John McCain's chief of staff when he was first a senator. And that was just when I met Roger, and Roger was desperately trying to get a green card. And so because of Katie, I got in touch with Tory, and Tory put Roger's green card application on the top of the pile on John McCain, brand new senator's desk.

[54:38] Rick Elice: So John McCain signed Roger's application for a green card. John McCain. I mean, of all the people in the world. And then ironically, a couple of years after Roger died of a very particular horrible brain cancer, John McCain died of exactly the same horrible, rare brain cancer. But we always felt, you know, as much as politically we didn't agree with anything John McCain said. We, you know, we were always grateful to John McCain, but that was a that's a Kate Clark connection, too.

[55:05] Bruce Gotlieb: Wow.

[55:05] Rick Elice: Yeah, but at this point, I mean, I would kill for a Republican like John McCain.

[55:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, or a Republican, you know.

[55:12] Rick Elice: Yeah, right.

[55:13] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[55:14] Rick Elice: There's that.

[55:15] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[55:17] Rick Elice: Well, I think we should get back to Smash.

[55:19] Bruce Gotlieb: Smash.

[55:20] Rick Elice: But this was a wonderful detour. Thank you. What a wonderful story.

[55:24] Rick Elice: Well, I mean, who listens to your who listens to this podcast? Are they gonna are they gonna know anybody that I'm talking about? Are they gonna I thought if it's like who is this guy? Where what planet is he from? So I'll I'll try to only now in our last few minutes together. I'll try to only mention names that everyone will know.

[55:43] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, I think everyone knows Roger Rees, and I think everyone should know Caitlin Clark because she was amazing.

[55:50] Rick Elice: Oh.

[55:50] Rick Elice: Yeah. So Robin Hurder was actually the first guest we ever had on this show, and we adore her. We're so thrilled because, you know, of course, we know how talented she is, but this is really next level for her, and people are getting to see what she can do.

[56:06] Rick Elice: I got to see her the first night, her husband came with her son, and she came out at the curtain call, and everybody screamed.

[56:21] Rick Elice: And she put her hands over her heart like this. And because I gotta tell you, again, I maybe because I grew up here and I, you know, I I grew up seeing Gwen Verden and Cheetah Rivera and, you know, uh people, you know, the real Broadway triple threat leading ladies.

[56:40] Rick Elice: Mm-hmm. The last show Roger did, well, we even while he was so sick, was with Cheetah, the visit, and they became great pals, and we hung out. In fact, the part that Jackie Arnold is playing in the show, we we wrote for Cheetah because that's when we started, when we started writing it, you know, Cheetah and I were having a conversation, and she, you know, she said, Yeah, you know, she was performing her one-woman show all over the place.

[57:05] Rick Elice: She said, you know, I would love to do another show, but I, you know, I can't like, you know, I'm 88 years old. Yeah. You know, I it it's I said, we'll write you a part that you can do eight times a week. And sadly, by the time we were able to get it to her to do, it was, you know, it was too late.

[57:24] Rick Elice: But the Robyn Hurder of it is, you know, to I I I didn't, I wasn't really, I didn't really know anything about her. Went to see Corusline at City Center, and there she was as Cassie, and I walked out going, who is that? You know, I've seen a million Cassies. I did the advertising for Chorus Line for almost its entire 15-year run.

[57:46] Rick Elice: And um, you know, this was like it was extraordinary what she did and thrilling. And she came to audition for this, and she came in a red dress, you know, she'd done her hair up. She, you know, she really went for it. It's I never know what to think when actors come in in that way. You know, sometimes people come in just as themselves and and then they transform for you and then they leave.

[58:12] Rick Elice: And sometimes they come in, you know, in costume and very sort of methody. She came in, you know, looking like Marilyn Monroe, and she sang uh one of the big songs, and she was so funny in the scenes. I mean, she just got it. She, you know, she's she reeks of intelligence as well as comedy. She's sexy as hell. She's so attractive because her talent is so seductive.

[58:37] Rick Elice: You know, it just, she it just washes over you in waves. There's nothing that she can't do. She's always the first one in the theater. She's always the last one to leave. She's constantly, she never does anything less than 110%. She's such an example. She's a masterclass for ever for all the kids in the ensemble.

[58:54] Rick Elice: And and for and for me, I mean, I wouldn't miss a second of rehearsal for this show because I wouldn't miss a second of watching Robin. And she's a doll, she's funny, she's filthy, she's hilarious. She's she's just she's a great comrade and um fun to hang out with, and she's completely committed and working and and she can do everything.

[59:18] Rick Elice: It's thrilling. And when she got to come out for that curtain call, like you said, it was sort of like the apotheosis of everything she's been aiming for. And here she is. It's such a privilege to be able to serve her up in that way. I'm so excited for people to see, like, you know, every night, 1,400 people are gonna be going, oh my God, like, where has this woman been all my life? And of course, you know, that's terrible thing to say because she's been working for 20 years. I just didn't, I just didn't know. And it's like this, she's like an she explodes like a, you know, a fantastic atom bomb on the stage. I mean, I just think she's spectacular in every way. I'm so pleased. Such a privilege to work on a show with her, because she's really like a theater animal, you know.

[1:00:07] Rick Elice: Like the people listening to this podcast are like us and just want to live for the theater and be in the theater to live. Robyn Hurder is that is is like the sort of person you can very easily become obsessed with. And I'm totally obsessed with her. And the joy on her face when she takes that curtain call it is just a thing to behold. Oh yeah, because nothing, none of none of it is lost on her. All of that, you know, what got her to this moment she is so grateful for. And she's she's told us that, but you could you can feel it, even if you never had the conversation. You can just feel it. Oh, I just love her. I, you know, I I'd love to like buy her a car or something, but you know, I I mean, I just I just I just every day I want to come in, I want to like give her gifts. The gift, the gift of that she gives is this performance. I mean, she's the minute it starts, till the minute it's over, you think, oh, oh, she can do that too. She can do that too.

[1:01:06] Rick Elice: And, you know, the show backstage is a madhouse, guys. I mean, the Imperial Theater is 101 years old. It was built at a time when, you know, you didn't have moving pallets and set pieces. It was just cloth sets and a couple of sticks of furniture. You know, there's no room back there. There's set pieces flying and moving and running, and there's dressers all over the place tearing clothes off people and putting them in new clothes. I mean, the show backstage at Smash is um, you want to know where what's hilarious. Like, that's hilarious and terrifying all at the same time. Somehow they get out there. But what she's doing back when you think, like, how does she do that too? You know, it's not like she goes off and she thinks, oh, I'm gonna have to concentrate on that scene coming up.

No, she's like tearing off her hair and she's tearing off her shirt and she's tearing off her shoes and she's getting dressed again and she's putting the wig on and getting a microphone, and then she they push her out on the stage and there, and she's brilliant and completely funny in another way. I mean, it's uh it's such an it's like Mount Everest. It's this role for her for anybody, is so is a real Mount Everest kind of a role. I mean, she has to she it's really a lot. She gets to do everything.

[1:02:19] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, such a range.

[1:02:19] Rick Elice: Oh, cool. And you and Bob Martin created so many characters that really get their moments. There's so many people who we could say similar things about that they're doing such great work. It's unusual for a show to have 10 principal roles. I mean, the producers, I think, really uh hate us for it. You know, they have voodoo dolls with Bob's face and my face on them because it's like, why couldn't it have been five people? But there, it's 10 great, funny people. And it's it's challenging as writers to write for scenes for 10 people because they're generally on together all the time. And you know, it's kind of shitty to bring an actor on and just have them be there. So you have to, you you have to write the show in such a way that everyone gets to participate. And um, and then, you know, you get these amazing people and they come on and they're fantastic. It's it's there's a lot of master classes going on there. Brooks Ashmanskas, I mean, oh my gosh, he's hilarious.

[1:03:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh my god.

[1:03:21] Rick Elice: There's not, you know, you guys, however, you did it, and hats off to you, that like you said, each person has their their moment uh moments to shine throughout the piece, thanks to your writing. And it's just well, you know, and maybe that's because Bob is Bob is an actor, and I used to be an actor, and you know, I lived with an actor, and you want to, you know, you want to get you always want to get good people, so you always want to how do you get good people? God knows it's not because we can pay them a lot of money, because you know, I don't know that um none of us are getting paid a lot of money, but the you get good people by saying, Oh, well, here, like here's some fun stuff to do.

[1:03:57] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[1:03:57] Rick Elice: And right, um, and then they come on and they make it funnier. And, you know, it just sort of grows on itself. It's um there's there, it's you know, comedy is hard, but it's also great when you have a team of people and they're everybody likes each other and everybody's sort of like giving each other little extra bits and pieces and things, and it's great. It's sort of been an exponential comedy explosion up there because everybody's trying to make everybody look good, you know.

[1:04:26] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[1:04:27] Rick Elice: And it's a lot of fun. Again, again, like it's great, it's great to s to sit and watch that and to be part of it. Sometimes the pressure is a little daunting for me, you know. It's like they go, Well, you know, can we have we need uh something a little bit and I think oh god, oh god, you know, think of something, think of something. I think that we're really we're really lucky. I'm really lucky to be in that position. It's great. It's like training for a sport, you know.

[1:04:53] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[1:04:53] Rick Elice: Um, but for the brain, for that comedy part of your brain. And uh yeah, it's it's it's cool. I it must be wonderful to have a partner like Bob who, you know, when maybe you don't have the idea he does, and you know, vice versa.

[1:05:07] Rick Elice: I recommend it. You know, he's he's doing a show with Adam Gedell immediately after Smash and Boop open uh down at the Alliance called Millions, based on a uh film, Danny Boyle, I believe, Danny Boyle film, and Bart Sher is directing it. And he's doing a television series right now. The episode's being directed by Michael Hoffman and Kevin Klein is starring in it. Um he is uh, you know, of course, he he did Slings and Arrows, you know, one of the great, wonderfully funny theater-based sitcoms. Sitcom, that's not a bad idea, a bad word for slings and arrows, uh a television program, A M M E, because they did it in Canada. But it's you know, it's classic. He's really good. He gets it, he talks about it like, you know, like math.

And um comedy is uh Roger did a film with uh Mel Brooks, and I remember Mel saying one time, well, you know, it's mechan comedy's mechanical. It you know, it almost doesn't matter what the words are. If you if it sounds like it's if the audience thinks, oh, I know that sound, that's the sound of a feed. So the next thing they say is gonna be the punchline, and then we laugh. And and I've I I always was fascinated by the idea of thinking mechanical, and Bob breaks it down even more into comedy math. And he's um he's so wise about it. Um very, of course, completely charming and brilliant and funny and affable, and everybody loves him. But he's like, there's real wisdom there.

[1:06:39] Rick Elice: It's it's uh I'm very jealous of his other collaborators, Chad Beglin and Matt Sklar, he's and Casey Nicola and Bob are doing a working on another musical. And, you know, and of course, uh, you know, Jerry Mitchell and Bob and the wonderful Susan Birkenhead and David Foster are doing boop, and you know, and he's always telling us telling us stories, and I pretend to be really happy for him. But you know, but I'm I'm just jealous as hell because yeah, I just want to do everything. I want to do everything with uh with Bob. Um, you know.

[1:07:11] Bruce Gotlieb: So, you know, we got to see you before the show the other night, you and Bob.

[1:07:15] Rick Elice: Oh, that's right, yes, you did. And Scott Whitman. And, you know, the takeaway for Bruce and I was just that it's such a fun group. You must have just had the best time working on this show.

[1:07:24] Rick Elice: Oh, well, you know, and we're uh the our personalities are all very, very different. Marc Shaiman, who's one of those people like Mozart, who can just sit down at the piano and melodies come out of his fingers, you know, it's oh God. You know, it really is like proof of God, I think. You know, it's like you see the, you know, you see the David statue in Florence, and you think, how could somebody have done that? You hear a, you know, you hear a Mozart symphony, you know, and you're like, this was his first draft. He never crossed anything out. How would you do that? Mark is like that. He this the talent in these in this guy. And of course, he's funny as hell. Scott is Scott and Mark are like this very sort of strange, odd couple. And so they are they're so different from one another, and they know each other so well, and for so long, they're really like a comedy team. Every conversation with them is is sounds like it's been written.

[1:08:19] Rick Elice: And Bob and me, Stro, of course, because you know, she's an old comedy pro and she's worked with all these amazing, you know, she's done work with Mel, of course, and Woody Allen. And I mean, she she she there's nothing she doesn't know. And and it's uh it's uh yeah, I guess, you know, we stand in the back. Oh, last night Ken Billington, who's our lighting designer, legend, legend, came over to me and he said, Oh, I just want to tell you someone came over and said, I love the show. I think the writing is great. And I said, I'm so flattered that someone would think that uh, you know, that you were me. Yeah, you know, because I, you know, I I I'm the I like standing in the back because I, you know, nobody knows who the hell I am.

And I thought, gee, I I wonder if somebody will mistake me for Ken Billington, you know. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do my best Ken Ken Billington stance tonight and see if see if I can trick some people.

[1:09:14] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, so for me personally, the show hit a note because Carol Burnett and I are partners on this campaign to have a theater named in honor of Hal Prince.

[1:09:24] Rick Elice: Hal Prince. Yes.

[1:09:25] Bruce Gotlieb: And you know, there's so many people who have had such long-standing relationships with Hal Prince working on this show, and I love the tribute that you give to him in the show.

[1:09:35] Rick Elice: It it's incredible. It's not an exaggeration um for me to say that I am a literally alive because of Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim. And because just at the time when it could have gone either way for me in my life, was that period of Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, 70, 71, 72, 73, that period in there. I was 14, 15, 16 years old. And um, and uh, you know, it was I had a I wasn't happy, but I discovered something about the theater through what they were doing. And I didn't know that, of course, like Hal was, you know, taking things that that uh, you know, Andrei Vida had done in Poland and you know, and that uh Brecht had done at the Berliner ensemble. I didn't know any of that. I just went to see these musicals and I thought, oh, and the idea that they were live, living people that you could get to know never occurred to me.

[1:10:38] Rick Elice: And uh, and 10 years later, uh, you know, I was in meetings with these guys and uh, you know, talking to them about uh music beds and uh, you know, I just feel like it's worth honoring these people, you know. Um, and if you don't know who they are, then look it up. I have the words that I know in my vocabulary I learned from Sondheim lyrics. I would go to see, I don't know what a diadem in what's what's a diadem. I'd go home and I'd look it up. Half of what I know about the theater, I learned from Hal Prince. And if you don't know, then you gotta, you know, you gotta find out. So I'm yes, of course we honor Hal Prince, you know. I and I I of course there should be a theater name for him.

[1:11:18] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes.

[1:11:19] Rick Elice: But until there is, we're gonna say his name every night at the Imperial Theater. The, you know, because uh, you know, the one of the first shows that I ever saw was in that theater, Fiddler on the Roof, that Hal didn't direct, but he produced it. And yeah, I feel like his DNA is in that, yeah, or in those walls and everything, and in those flies and and on that stage. And we have to know. We have to know these people. There's a lot of names that are mentioned in the show because I really believe in keeping those names uh present, present in the lives of people who make the theater because it's an ephemeral art form, obviously. So unless we talk about what's come before, we're never gonna know what to do next.

[1:12:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Right.

[1:12:02] Rick Elice: And um, you know, all the people now who are starting out in 25 years, you know, you gotta know who you're standing on the shoulders of as they stood on the shoulders of people before them. So I just think it's really important. And because Bob has taught me that specificity is good, it's also, you know, it also sometimes works. You know, there's like a really funny uh little moment about Bob Fosse in the show.

[1:12:23] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[1:12:23] Rick Elice: Um, and uh, and it's not because everybody necessarily even remembers Bob. But they're gonna, if you don't know, go home and find out, you know? Yeah, because they shaped what people are enjoying to this day. Well, none of the none of us would be there, and the show certainly wouldn't be there if it weren't for these people.

[1:12:41] Bruce Gotlieb: Right.

[1:12:42] Rick Elice: Um because it really is kind of a love letter, I guess somebody said. It's like a love letter to Broadway. And I thought, well, yeah, it really is. It really is, because we are all of us in love with it in the theater. So yeah, it it I guess it is a it it's a well-worn phrase, but in it it's very apt for this show. And how fun to be a writer writing about writers.

[1:13:04] Bruce Gotlieb: That's right.

[1:13:06] Rick Elice: Well, you know, they say write what you know.

[1:13:08] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, and you certainly did.

[1:13:10] Rick Elice: Uh well, thank you so much for joining us. It's just been so wonderful. We hope you'll come back.

[1:13:16] Bruce Gotlieb: We adore you.

[1:13:17] Rick Elice: I got nothing. I, you know, I great. I you know, call call me, call me anytime. I'm always sitting here. I'm uh surrounded by surrounded by books and uh and uh and projects uh and coffee. Always uh always uh, you know, give me a holler.

[1:13:31] Bruce Gotlieb: Sounds good.

[1:13:31] Rick Elice: We would do that.

[1:13:32] Bruce Gotlieb: We will. And everybody needs to run to the Imperial and see Smash.

[1:13:36] Rick Elice: Oh my gosh. If you're having a bad day, it will turn it around. If you're having a good day, it'll make it even better. You must see this show. It's like nothing else.

[1:13:45] Rick Elice: Thanks for the conversation. I it's you've made it very easy. I don't usually get a chance to, you know, to speak so much. So thank you. Um it's it's been a delightful hour.

[1:13:56] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, it's been our pleasure.

[1:13:58] Rick Elice: Absolutely.

[1:13:59] Bruce Gotlieb: And we will see you all next time on Behind the Awards.

[1:14:02] Rick Elice: Bye bye.

[1:14:02] Bruce Gotlieb: Bye.