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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W. Schneider.

[0:01] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[0:03] Robert W. Schneider: And this is Behind the Curtain: Broadway's Living Legends.

[0:06] Kevin David Thomas: Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Broadway Curtain Podcast.

[0:10] Robert W. Schneider: Plus, you can always listen to all of our episodes, old and new on the Broadway Podcast Network, iTunes, and Spotify.

[0:15] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, nothing makes me happier than to know that another show will be opening soon that has our guest attached to it.

[0:22] Robert W. Schneider: He is one of the most brilliant individuals working in theater. And if you don't believe me, head up to the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, July 1st through August 6th, and see the show he worked on with the late great Marvin Hamlisch and Jerry Lewis.

[0:35] Robert W. Schneider: It's a musical version of The Nutty Professor. And I've heard the score, friends, this show is not to be missed.

[0:42] Kevin David Thomas: Indeed.

[0:43] Kevin David Thomas: Uh, our guest has crafted some of the greatest evenings in our theater-going lives with such shows as The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for which he won the Tony for Best Book and Best Score, Accomplice, Say Goodnight Gracie, Curtains, A Time to Kill, Marty, Robin and the Seven Hoods, The First Wives Club, Second Hand Lions, not to mention the iconic AMC series Remember When, and a little thing called Escape (The Pina Colada Song).

[1:06] Kevin David Thomas: To tell us what it was like to work with such legends as John Kander, Joe Papp, Jason Alexander, Marvin Hamlisch, Frank Gorshin, Cleo Laine, and so many others, here is the star of the iconic Mystery of Edwin Drood music video, Mr. Rupert Holmes.

[1:21] Rupert Holmes: Rupert, how are you today?

[1:24] Rupert Holmes: Yes, that was my greatest role starring in that music video. That brought me some time on air with Rita Coolidge, and we had a lot of fun. That was very nice. But um, yeah, do you have that video? Do you? It is okay? So it is on YouTube, and us and our listeners are fascinated by it because it doesn't tell us who ended up being the murderer.

[1:48] Rupert Holmes: All the YouTube video shows us is the video, which is hysterical. Do you remember who the murderer was? There's a clue. You have to look at the video very carefully. You can call that video yourself if you wish to. And let me see. Um, it involves watching a close-up of someone's hand.

[2:11] Rupert Holmes: Okay. And we made the murderer someone who was most rarely voted the murderer on Broadway. We decided that this person—I'm trying to remain gender-free, so thank you—did not get to be the murderer very often, although they campaigned for it a lot. So we decided that that would be the person who would be the murderer in this video. But you have to look at it and watch your close-ups and keep your hand in until you've solved it, and you'll figure it out.

[2:44] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, so listeners, if you click on our show description below, you can click on the link to the music video. See if you can figure this out. Maybe Rupert will be kind enough to tell us if we can—if we—Kevin, you and I, this is gonna be our weekend activity. I think we're gonna solve this mystery.

[2:58] Rupert Holmes: I'm—I can't wait. This is gonna be the saddest Agatha Christie novel ever written.

[3:03] Kevin David Thomas: But we'll do it. Now, okay, so Rupert, let's talk a little bit about The Nutty Professor first. Um, which is, first of all, the score is wonderful. How did you get involved with the musicalization of this piece?

[3:15] Rupert Holmes: It started with Marvin, uh, Jerry Lewis, who created the original movie, 1960 Motion Pictures, starred in it. Um, rated one of the 100 best comedies of all time, film comedies of all time by the AFI. He and some other people, including the producer, decided it was time that perhaps this could be on a stage. And he opted for Marvin Hamlisch, and Marvin and I had had parallel careers.

[3:47] Rupert Holmes: Marvin wrote a Tony Award-winning Broadway show, and I wrote a Tony Award-winning Broadway show. Marvin wrote songs for Barbra Streisand that he also arranged and conducted. I did an album for Barbra Streisand that I also arranged and conducted called Lazy Afternoon. Marvin wrote some magnificent film scores for motion pictures, and I owned DVDs of all of those films. So it's almost, almost, you know, so inseparable.

[4:17] Rupert Holmes: Plus, the funniest thing is that we used to end up in that golden era of American history known as the Pina Colada Age, when I had the number one record in the United States for my 15 months of fame. Um, Marvin and I got booked on a lot of shows together, which was maybe the stupidest booking. I mean, you've got two people sitting at the piano with glasses who are kind of nerdy, no doubt about that. And why not have them both on the same show?

[4:44] Rupert Holmes: So when I did The Carson Show for the first time, Marvin was sitting at my right hand. And um, and so we had always known each other a little. We would meet in green rooms and talk, or he'd come to an opening night of mine, I of his, and he called me and he said, "Are you interested in doing this musical?" I said, "Who for?" He said, "Well, it would be really—we'd be writing it for Jerry Lewis."

[5:13] Rupert Holmes: And I—now, okay, step back a second. Jerry Lewis, my absolute boyhood idol. When I was a boy, this is pre-Beatles, the two coolest people on earth were Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. That was—they were the coolest people. They wore tuxedos when they performed, but they clowned it up. They were buddies. It was the original buddy team. They were Hope and Crosby, but more hip.

[5:42] Rupert Holmes: They would—the TV series that they did, the Colgate Comedy Hour, sometimes they would come in like eight minutes too short on live TV, eight minutes out of an hour, and they had to fill eight minutes on live TV, network TV, and they would do it, and he would be undaunted. It would be the best part of the show. And then you'd go to the movies, and it was beautiful Technicolor and how Wallace production and the Paramount picture. And they were buddies, and then they broke up, and it was devastating to a generation.

[6:13] Rupert Holmes: But so Marvin said it would be for Jerry. And we both, of course, thought, well, this is Jerry Lewis. This is a comedy god. We have to do this. And so we agreed. The deal was initially that we would write two songs to show him what this character that he created of both Julius Kelp, the nutty professor, and later the character of Buddy Love, the ultimate obnoxious swinger, what he would sound like if he sang.

[6:45] Rupert Holmes: And then we were flown to San Diego, where he had a house on a houseboat, and we went to a hotel, and we were about to play him these two tunes we had written. It was essentially an audition. If he liked them, we were in, and that was it. Um, the first thing that happened is I'm standing there, and Marvin starts an intro. And for the first time, I think, you know, when you have Marvin Hamlisch as your piano player, you have one hell of an accompanist.

[7:10] Rupert Holmes: He was suddenly—I say, I'd never have had an accompanist who ever played the stuff he's playing. He was a chip on the tip. So that was one wonderful thing. Then I realized something quite frightening, which is I am about four feet from Jerry Lewis. And I realized I have to do Jerry Lewis for Jerry. I thought, what corner have I painted myself into? And this is a character he created. It's not just that, oh, I directed the movie, and that's not how I—this was Jerry.

[7:40] Rupert Holmes: And I suddenly had to stand there and go, "Ah, Miss Purdy, I believe you're all fine that if you look at the formula, you'll find." And when I was all over singing the song, which I have sung at 54 Below, I'm very proud to have done that, he turned to me and said, "Holmes, you're a real ham." And I thought, Jerry Lewis is calling me. Anyway, he was delighted with what we had written, and then we went on to write this musical that is probably as good a set of lyrics as I've written.

[8:16] Rupert Holmes: And Marvin was at the height of his powers, and it's a beautiful Marvin Hamlisch score with a couple of songs that are really endearing and touching, and a couple of songs that are life-affirming. We did the show, and while we were in our initial run out of town at the huge Tennessee Performing Arts Center, which is like a 2500-seat theater—oh wow—doing this first tryout of this musical, Marvin died unexpectedly.

[8:48] Rupert Holmes: And immediately, if you've ever been through contesting a will or anything like that, so many legal ramifications started kicking in. Not people being adversarial, and then Jerry died shortly after that. And now we had so much legal red tape that it has taken us 10 years. Marvin died 10 years ago next month. It's taken us this long to be able to clear the underlying rights, get that going, clear the publishing, clear the music.

[9:21] Rupert Holmes: So this is the first chance we've had to raise this musical in 10 years. And that's why if people wonder why there's this Marvin Hamlisch musical that they've never heard of, it's because it had this one outing during which Marvin passed away. So this is a very meaningful show, obviously, for any reason, but particularly because it is one, the last Marvin Hamlisch musical; two, it is as lovely and touching a musical from his—I can speak about his end of it because I can't speak for myself.

[9:55] Rupert Holmes: But in terms of just the kind of—as we work on these melodies, we look at each other every now and then and say, "Boy, Marvin really knew what he was doing, didn't he?" And he is—he liked to think of himself as a people's composer. And you should never be confused by how accessible his music is. He made it accessible; he worked artfully and caringly to make sure that—not to be showy with it, but to make sure it all made sense, and that a person without a musical education could come there and experience the songs every bit as much as someone who was more astute about such things.

[10:36] Rupert Holmes: And as we work on this score, um, I sit there and I just marvel how right up until his last days, he was writing supple, robust melodies and just the most endearing ballads. Just beautiful work. So it means a lot to be doing this.

[10:53] Kevin David Thomas: And what a beautiful gift for you to give both of them. Because I'm assuming you could have easily walked away from all of this after they had passed and put this show behind you, but you want to get their work out there and have them be remembered. I think that's so lovely.

[11:08] Rupert Holmes: I want people to hear this score. I really do. Um, because it shows that he hadn't lost a thing. Tell us a little bit. Have you been in rehearsals?

[11:18] Rupert Holmes: Yes, indeed.

[11:20] Kevin David Thomas: And how's it going up there?

[11:23] Rupert Holmes: Um, they decided to abandon the script and the score on the first day, and they're just improvising now.

[11:28] Kevin David Thomas: That's wonderful.

[11:29] Rupert Holmes: They said, you know, we've read Pirandello, and we think that what we should do is just think about the script and then say what we're feeling. Kind of like the way they make movies.

[11:41] Kevin David Thomas: It's a great idea.

[11:43] Rupert Holmes: Well, wouldn't my characters say this? And then they let the person say this.

[11:46] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[11:47] Rupert Holmes: No, it's going fantastically. Um, Mark Bruni, who directed Beautiful, is an incredibly sensitive and inventive director. And uh, we are—we alter things truly three, four times a day. Um, I don't mean, you know, just say what would happen if that happened. Yeah. And what if he doesn't know that yet? Oh, and I'd say, oh, that plays out kind of interesting. So it's absolutely, which is the thing I love about theater, always malleable and always capable of being re-envisioned. It's going really, really well.

[12:21] Rupert Holmes: Cannot wait to see it.

[12:22] Kevin David Thomas: We are so excited.

[12:23] Rupert Holmes: And like I said, I had heard the score a few years ago, and it's just marvelous.

[12:29] Rupert Holmes: It is just marvelous.

[12:31] Rupert Holmes: And you've got an incredible cast up in Maine.

[12:35] Kevin David Thomas: Can you tell us about some of the people that are going to be embodying these great roles?

[12:39] Rupert Holmes: My pleasure. For the lead for the title role, it's about as much as an actor could ever ask for, which is that of the three leads of a musical, you're two of them.

[12:50] Rupert Holmes: Anyone who, you know, um, and uh he because uh it's it's Max Crom who uh is uh I remember seeing because Kathle Marshall, my friend, uh was part of choosing him to be the lead in her revival of Greece.

[13:06] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[13:07] Rupert Holmes: Uh and and watching him rise to stardom that way was was quite amazing.

[13:12] Rupert Holmes: It's quite something because he he has to be two completely different characters, and yet we have to always sort of see the the kind character through the brash character.

[13:26] Rupert Holmes: And I challenged him even further in that I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but it's one point he is forced to be the kind character, pretending to be the brash character while seeming appearing to be the brash character, but we can tell that he's impersonating the person he usually transforms into.

[13:48] Rupert Holmes: So that's as many layers, yeah.

[13:52] Rupert Holmes: You know, really seriously.

[13:54] Rupert Holmes: Uh, you know, Eliza, you'll be not only the Cockney flower girl, but we want you to be the professor of elocution as well.

[14:02] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[14:02] Rupert Holmes: If you can just, you know, cover, you know, alternate balance, you know.

[14:07] Rupert Holmes: So um, so Max is doing a spectacular job with that.

[14:11] Rupert Holmes: And then uh we have uh Eleanor Ricardo who is bringing so much to a completely reenvisioned version of the role.

[14:18] Rupert Holmes: Um and we have had to do some rewriting since 10 years ago because I don't know if any of you have noticed, but the world has changed.

[14:26] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[14:27] Rupert Holmes: And when Nutty Professor was originally filmed in 1960, it was about a professor who falls madly in love with his young student.

[14:36] Kevin David Thomas: Well, that takes us.

[14:37] Rupert Holmes: That means that show closes around uh page two.

[14:40] Kevin David Thomas: Yep.

[14:42] Rupert Holmes: In this day and age, you know, everyone gets canceled and we move on.

[14:45] Rupert Holmes: Well, it's about a teacher, you know, it's a teacher-student romance.

[14:47] Kevin David Thomas: It's fun.

[14:48] Rupert Holmes: Yeah, so I had to kind of re-envision the role, and we did a new version of the the not only the musical, but particularly of her character, the character of Stella, uh, in 2019 at a reading for O'Gunkwood.

[15:06] Rupert Holmes: And we were gung-ho, and we were gonna move right forward, and then COVID struck.

[15:11] Rupert Holmes: And we would have been open two summers ago otherwise.

[15:14] Rupert Holmes: Wow.

[15:14] Rupert Holmes: So not only is this show 10 years since we last did it, but two years since we were supposed to do it because of COVID.

[15:21] Rupert Holmes: So I have reinvented the role pretty much from the ground up.

[15:25] Rupert Holmes: The songs that were written happened to work for her because we were writing a song about a very uh a different kind of uh woman in, even though it was the setting is still 1960, we were writing about someone who was ahead of the curve in 1960.

[15:41] Rupert Holmes: So now, as we get to 2022, um the lyrics do not seem very far afield from what we were doing, but um the scripting and how she reacts to things and what she wants out of life, I've had to reevaluate that um uh a lot.

[15:56] Rupert Holmes: But she is she is that kind of a performer.

[15:59] Rupert Holmes: She's um she has a real core to her, the voice out of control.

[16:04] Rupert Holmes: When she sings While I Still Have the Time, which is the anthemic ballad, um, I defy any goosebump to remain uh hidden on your on your arms.

[16:15] Kevin David Thomas: And so she's spectacular.

[16:16] Rupert Holmes: Well, we cannot wait to see it.

[16:18] Kevin David Thomas: And folks, once again, if you look into our info description, there's a link.

[16:21] Kevin David Thomas: Get yourself up to Maine.

[16:23] Kevin David Thomas: Uh, it is a marvelous show.

[16:24] Kevin David Thomas: Fingers crossed, if you miss it in Maine, maybe you'll get to see it in New York at some point.

[16:29] Rupert Holmes: That would be very nice.

[16:30] Kevin David Thomas: Now, Rupert, we're gonna jump all the way back to your beginnings.

[16:33] Kevin David Thomas: Um, I understand that uh you uh grew up in a Gilbert and Sullivan home.

[16:39] Rupert Holmes: Is that correct?

[16:41] Rupert Holmes: Yes, I did.

[16:41] Rupert Holmes: Yes, I did.

[16:42] Rupert Holmes: My father was uh uh a fascinating blend of different musical influences on me and on the family.

[16:49] Rupert Holmes: Uh, my father was a um Juilliard graduate who um was also the youngest musician to tour in the big band era.

[16:58] Rupert Holmes: When he was 19, he was playing lead alto with a band called Red Norvo, who was one of the great vibra film players of all time, uh, and touring the country.

[17:06] Rupert Holmes: So he was both a jazz musician and a classical clarinetist.

[17:10] Rupert Holmes: And after the war, he conducted Tuscanini's Orchestra on NBC Radio.

[17:15] Rupert Holmes: Uh he had his own show called Serenade for Strings.

[17:18] Rupert Holmes: And by the time I was growing up, I did get to see him conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra once, but he became a um a school teacher.

[17:26] Rupert Holmes: He had a family to raise and he needed something consistent.

[17:29] Rupert Holmes: One place in our household where we all could agree was Gilbert and Sullivan.

[17:34] Rupert Holmes: Because my father loved the classical music.

[17:36] Rupert Holmes: My mother, who was British and taught me, would sat me down and educated me on the lyrics of Lawrence Hart and Lulk Howard and said, This is what writing is.

[17:45] Rupert Holmes: So she loved their lyrics, Gilbert and Sullivan's lyrics.

[17:48] Rupert Holmes: My brother liked it because it was almost opera, and I liked it because it was almost musical theater.

[17:48] Rupert Holmes: It was almost musical comedy at times.

[17:55] Rupert Holmes: So we all could agree on it, and we grew up in a household where that was the one music that anyone could play in the house as loud as they wanted any time of the day.

[18:04] Rupert Holmes: So yeah, that is, and my first musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drude, set in 1895, the same time that Gilbert and Sullivan were writing things through the Savoy Opera uh opera house in London, certainly was influenced heavily by all the Gilbert and Sullivan I heard growing up.

[18:20] Rupert Holmes: And the joy was that when the West End production of The Mystery of Edwin Drude opened in London, it was at the Savoy Opera House where Gilbert and Sullivan debuted almost all their operettes.

[18:32] Rupert Holmes: So that just felt like oh, I'm home.

[18:33] Kevin David Thomas: Wow.

[18:34] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[18:34] Kevin David Thomas: What are some of the things that you've absorbed from Gilbert and Sullivan that you still take with you today when you start to write a project?

[18:43] Rupert Holmes: They were great at songs that introduce, where characters introduce themselves.

[18:49] Rupert Holmes: They were great at writing a song where you come out onto the stage and a character comes on the stage, and the first thing they decide to do is to tell you their life story.

[18:59] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[19:00] Rupert Holmes: And you can't and you know how often that happens.

[19:04] Rupert Holmes: Hey, how are you? What's your name?

[19:05] Rupert Holmes: Joe Smith.

[19:06] Rupert Holmes: I was born in 1947.

[19:07] Rupert Holmes: I was doesn't happen that often in life, but but there are ways that you can do that.

[19:14] Rupert Holmes: And in uh in Nutty Professor, uh, for example, when Stella arrives uh on the scene, when Julius first meets her, she has a song that, in a camouflaged way, basically lets you tell her everything she went through to get to the moment she's at right now.

[19:31] Rupert Holmes: And and it helps.

[19:32] Rupert Holmes: It gives you you by the time the song is over, you know who this person is, and you kind of you know.

[19:37] Kevin David Thomas: So that's one of the things.

[19:39] Rupert Holmes: Let me ask you, because I think a lot of uh younger people that are now in like these BFAs other than me.

[19:46] Rupert Holmes: No, no, no, no, no.

[19:47] Rupert Holmes: They say, no, please, no.

[19:49] Rupert Holmes: A lot of like uh people that are in BFA musical theater programs because they listen because they listen to the show.

[19:54] Kevin David Thomas: Well, musical theater began with Le Miz.

[19:56] Rupert Holmes: Yes, it was absolutely before Le Miz.

[19:59] Rupert Holmes: Absolutely.

[20:00] Rupert Holmes: Um we don't have to bother with anything that happened before that, right?

[20:04] Kevin David Thomas: No, absolutely not.

[20:07] Rupert Holmes: No, I for but for a good joke, so I'll let it go.

[20:12] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

[20:13] Kevin David Thomas: So let's imagine someone has never seen Gilbert and Sullivan before.

[20:17] Kevin David Thomas: What operetta would you hand to them and say, listen to this, because this is probably the best representation of their work?

[20:25] Rupert Holmes: Doesn't have to be their most popular, it doesn't even have to be their most accessible, but one that you think is yes, that to me is the definitive GNS.

[20:33] Rupert Holmes: That that's tricky because you want to write something that will be the easiest to like on a first listening.

[20:40] Rupert Holmes: And I have to admit, and I wrote a chapter with my brother about this in a wonderful book called Um 50 Key.

[20:49] Rupert Holmes: E stage musicals.

[20:50] Kevin David Thomas: Thank you for the plug, Rupert.

[20:51] Rupert Holmes: Nice job.

[20:52] Rupert Holmes: Nice job.

[20:52] Rupert Holmes: Edited by the brilliant uh and professorial Robert W. Schneider.

[20:57] Rupert Holmes: Um but I I would say probably HMS Pinafore is is if you're going to only because it makes silly sense.

[21:05] Rupert Holmes: Almost every song is likable.

[21:07] Rupert Holmes: It's full of what I just described, songs where people come out and tell you who they are.

[21:13] Rupert Holmes: And it's got a plot that is kind of funny but pretty easy to follow.

[21:18] Kevin David Thomas: So when did you first realize that being did you want to be a songwriter when you were growing up?

[21:18] Rupert Holmes: Did you want to be an author?

[21:25] Rupert Holmes: Did you just want to do all of it?

[21:27] Rupert Holmes: How did you fall into actually creating pieces?

[21:31] Rupert Holmes: To bring it down to a very short story, if I can, I knew by the middle of high school that I wanted to tell stories, but that I also wanted to write music.

[21:42] Rupert Holmes: I loved music, and that should have been enough.

[21:45] Rupert Holmes: I was a good musician.

[21:46] Rupert Holmes: I entered the I went to the Manhattan School of Music as a clarinet major, immediately dropped clarinet because I hated clarinet, but it got me into school.

[21:54] Rupert Holmes: Immediately switched to um theory and composition.

[21:57] Rupert Holmes: And by the way, kind of childish joy.

[22:00] Rupert Holmes: Uh last year got an honorary doctorate from the school I dropped out of.

[22:04] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[22:04] Rupert Holmes: Dr. Holmes, yes.

[22:06] Rupert Holmes: Yes, I know.

[22:07] Rupert Holmes: There it is.

[22:08] Rupert Holmes: Doctor is in.

[22:09] Rupert Holmes: Uh so I could have been a musician, and that should have carried me.

[22:12] Rupert Holmes: But I had this compulsion to tell stories.

[22:16] Rupert Holmes: And then I started noticing certain songs where they told stories, and yet they were also wonderful songs.

[22:22] Rupert Holmes: When I was in high school, I heard a song.

[22:25] Rupert Holmes: I hope you'll know it, Robert or Kevin.

[22:28] Rupert Holmes: Uh and I think it was called Guess Who I Saw Today, My Love.

[22:28] Rupert Holmes: Guess who I saw?

[22:33] Rupert Holmes: And it was from New Faces of 1916.

[22:34] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, yes.

[22:35] Rupert Holmes: It's devastating song.

[22:36] Rupert Holmes: And it's a devastating song, and it's got a trick ending.

[22:39] Rupert Holmes: It's got a surprise ending that leaves you in a completely different place than when you began the song.

[22:45] Rupert Holmes: I heard it listening, I was sick at home in bed from uh uh during high school, and I had the radio on, and I was listening to the last remnants of radio, daytime radio was at Arthur Godfrey, and some woman came on to sing this song, and I thought, what is that?

[22:58] Rupert Holmes: Yeah, that's a whole movie in itself.

[23:01] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

[23:02] Rupert Holmes: And thought, maybe there's a way that if I write songs that tell stories, I can have my cake and eat it too, which I've always thought, by the way, is a completely reasonable goal if one is involved with cake.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: So I got jobs doing things like arranging for the drifters and Gene Pitney and the platters, and I'm 18, 19 years old.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: You want to the cake and you wish to eat it.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: There are people who don't have it and wish to eat it.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: There are people who have it and don't eat it, and they're missing the mark.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: It is the having and the eating that is a good thing.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: So I started thinking maybe there's a way I can tell stories in song.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: Basically, what I was doing a lot of the time was writing theater songs or cabaret songs.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: Right.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: But I was doing it in the guise of pop or rock at the time.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: I got into the music business, and I got into the record business when I was like 18.

[24:03] Rupert Holmes: And the advantage that I had was that I could read and write music, and I was also willing to lie and say that I knew how to write for strings, I knew how to write for brass, because I had attended Manhattan School Music, where I never learned how to write for strings or brass.

[24:12] Rupert Holmes: And finally an engineer came to me and said, I've got a group, and they have the chance to make one single, and the label doesn't even know they're on the label.

[24:20] Rupert Holmes: What do I do?

[24:21] Rupert Holmes: What do I do?

[24:22] Rupert Holmes: How do I get them noticed?

[24:23] Rupert Holmes: They all they get to make is one 45 record.

[24:25] Rupert Holmes: No days a single was a 45 RPM disc.

[24:28] Rupert Holmes: And I he said, What do I do?

[24:29] Rupert Holmes: I said, Well, they should record a song that gets banned.

[24:32] Rupert Holmes: And he said, Why would I do that?

[24:34] Rupert Holmes: Wouldn't that be the exact?

[24:35] Rupert Holmes: I said, No, no, no.

[24:36] Rupert Holmes: If it gets banned, there will be controversy.

[24:39] Rupert Holmes: And they'll get noticed and there'll be stories about them, and then you can go to a different label and say, This was that group that would have had a hit, but they got banned, and they'll get a new deal and they can make an album.

[24:48] Rupert Holmes: He said, "Will you write me a song that gets banned?" I said, "Sure." Because I said everything. I said, "Sure" to everything. If someone said, "Can you write the lead sheets for the five blind boys of Alabama?" I said, "Sure." So I wrote this song and I wrote a song that would get banned. I wrote it about a mining disaster where this boy is trapped, and when there's three boys, and when they're pulled three, there's only two of them left. And they don't know what happened to the third boy, but they know they're no longer hungry. So it was the first song about cannibalism, and it went to 17 on the charts. It was called "Timothy" by the boys. And I had written a story song that got up on the charts because of its plot as much as for its tune.

And I suddenly thought, maybe there's something to do in this, you know. And I wrote a song for The Partridge Family called "Echo Valley 26809," which had some sound effects in it, which helped tell the story. And finally, I got to make my own album for Epic, and it was called "Wide Screen" because every song on the album was going to tell a story. And every song was a different orchestration, different instrumentation. I had 10 actors on the album doing dialogue. The last band on the album was a 10-minute radio show. Singer songwriter. I've got my first album, and I decided to waste two bands of the album with a 10-minute radio show. And it fell into the hands of Barbara Streisand, who picked up the phone and said, "I love what you're doing.

I want to record these songs. I see you do your own arrangements, and I want you to fly out here and I'm gonna sing." And she recorded some of the songs from my first album, and I was standing there in front of a 45-piece orchestra, my arrangements conducting Barbara Streisand. We did an entire album together. And it sort of made me think that I could be. I had, for example, I had a song on the album that she did called "Letters That Cross in the Mail." And it's a fully plotted song. It goes, "Last month, while thinking of love, I wrote her some words and mailed them away. And the next day I found at my door a letter from Spain she'd sent long before." And the note read, "I haven't heard from you in weeks.

I must assume that you no longer care. Too bad. That's it. We're through." It's just amazing how loving can fail from letters that cross in the mail. I sat with swords in my heart and pen in my hand. I wrote, "I'm glad that we're through." Full of hate, I mailed it. And then in a week, her letter arrived. With love did it speak. And her note read, "I loved the tender words you sent. It seems I've wronged you. Please forgive me. I'll return my ship leave soon. But God, I know now that she'll never sail. Our letters will cross in the mail." And what it did was it proved to me that there was this genre that I could work in of popular music where there is a narrative involved and where you're left in a different place when the song is over than when the song began.

And if Streisand herself was saying, "I fly out here, I want to record this song," surely that must be an indication that this is not like a silly theory. And I continued to write story songs after that. And eventually, on my fifth album, a song that told a pretty complicated story that people think is about piña coladas became the number one record in the United States of America. And it's an interesting record in that a lot of people who like it, I don't think have ever listened to the lyric and don't realize there's a story in there with a twist ending. But those who do sort of rediscover again. So at that point, I was sort of I had done five albums, and I was kind of getting tired of writing stories that took three minutes and had to be told entirely in rhyme.

And I thought, I want to tell a larger story. And from the year 1971 on, I had been haunted by this book called "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" by Charles Dickens. I'd always meant to read it, and I happened to have a replica of this is the copy we had this on our shelf when I was a boy. Everyone had this complete set of Charles Dickens when I was a boy. You were considered a good person if you had it. And I love mysteries because in mysteries the heroes could wear glasses. And it's the only stories I knew where the hero could wear glasses. And I was interested in mysteries. I was young, I mean, I was about 11, 12. And I saw this and said, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," my father said, "No, no, no, no, no. No, that's not a mystery like you think of mysteries.

It's more of a gothic novel. And anyway, Charles Dickens never lived to finish it. He died while he was writing it." Well, boys can think the most macabre ghoulish things. And I thought, he died while he was writing this. I'm gonna read the last chapter of the book. And I turned to what I thought was the last chapter of the book, and it wasn't really, it was an insert that it was something that had been inserted that Dickens had written for the novel that, and they didn't know where it went, so they just stuck it at the end of the book. And I read this sentence, "Or pursued poker in a kind of despondent rapture, or if I was to deny that I came to this town to see and hear you, sir, what would it avail me?

Or if I was to deny M the End." I mean, it just stops mid-sentence. And I pictured Charles Dickens writing and going to the bigger. And I was haunted by this idea of I always loved unfinished works, and it stayed with me. One day I was taking a train ride from LA to New York, as everyone does because it's so convenient. It's only four days. Thank you. I grabbed this and by Penguin, and I read it. And as I read it, I thought, you know, this could be an interesting musical. And then I got to the part where Dickens wrote no more. And I was on a train. And I couldn't go to a library or anything, and I went nuts. And I started, I thought, I'm gonna try it anyway. And in 1971, I sat down and tried to write this.

This is four years before Barbara Streisand discovered my work, and eight years before "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" hit the charts. I started to try to write it. And I wrote some passages of it, and there's a couple of bars that are still in the score from 1971. But it was so dark, it was so somber, it was so unremittingly grim, that I thought, I don't know that this is what I want to write for theater. So I set it aside. And in 1983, Joe Papp, the legendary producer, came to see me performing at Danger Fields, where I was doing an act. I was the first comedy performer to headline at Danger Fields Club. It was usually comedians with a comedy with a musical opening act. I was the musical main act because I did a lot of comedy in my act.

My show at Danger Fields got a good review from the Times, and he and Gail Merrifield came to see me. And Gail sent back a card to me after the show saying, "Have you thought about writing a musical? If so, we should talk." And I looked at this card and I thought, how many people in New York City would kill their maiden aunt to have this card saying, "We're interested in what you might have in mind?" I went to meet with them, and I said, "Well, actually, I've always had this idea about a musical based on," they had no idea what I was talking about. No one had ever heard of this novel except English literature majors or something. And he said, "It's interesting. How would you, how would you, what would you do about the fact that it's unfinished, though?

You're gonna write an ending?" I said, "I would not have the audacity to write an ending and say this is what I think Charles Dickens wrote. I said, but I think you could I knowing how I've worked in the past writing alternate lyrics to the same pieces of music, I think I might be able to structure it so that as long as each actor keeps track of what they're supposed to do if they are voted this, and if they are voted a lover, and if they are voted a detective, as long as they mind their business and the thing is staged so that whoever's in that slot is going to be the person you played to, I said, I think it could be worked out that we could have the audience vote on key questions about the plot, and you could have a different ending for the show every night."

I went home and I wrote something I had never I did something I'd never done before. I wrote a thesis for myself. All my life I had written term papers or theses, you know, essays or stuff for a teacher to please the teacher. I said, let me sit down and I'll be the teacher and I'll and let me write why I think this could work and why it might be a good thing. And I was writing and I did a lot of research, and finally one day I got to this last page here, doing all this on a Selectric typewriter, and I suddenly typed the words "Victorian vaudeville" at the top of the page. And I realized that the way I could do this that would work for me and would allow us to the ability to be modular with the piece, would be to not try to do a musical of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," but to do a musical about a motley music hall company in 1895, shameless hams, who are eager to get an encore under any circumstances, and who have a bunch of their set pieces that they're going to sing no matter what the plot is about.

If they're doing "Hamlet," they're still gonna sing that song. Yeah. Have them try to do this "Mystery of Edwin Drood," and it'll be about them. It's a show within a show. We'll have a chairman. Oh yes, of course, Victorian vaudeville. Because if you have a music hall, you have a chairman, he could be the narrator. Oh, and Edwin, I was looking for an extra female lead. There weren't enough women in the show. And I suddenly said, wait, wait. If Edwin Drood sounds like what you call principal boy in an English Christmas panto, oh yes, I will, Uncle, I'll be, I'm off to London to make my fortune. I'm Dick Whittington. I said, what if Edwin Drood was principal boy? What if a woman played Edwin Drood?

And then you'd that would mean that you'd have for the love duet between Rose and Edwin Drood, you'd have a love duet for two sopranos. No one's ever written a love duet for two sopranos. Not then. Now, sure, but not in 1983, we're talking about here. And I went into his office, Joe's office, and Joe took the phone off the hook, and I performed the entire musical alone. Start to finish. Joe voted. The person he voted for for murder was my least favorite choice. When he said, when he said, "I vote for blank," I said, "Shit." And I had pre-recorded all the accompaniments, and I did every bit of dialogue, three hours. And when it was done, he said, "Okay, well, this is the story. Every year we do Shakespeare in the park.

So this year you're going to be Shakespeare. If it goes well, you know, we'll take it to Broadway." I walked out of that meeting at the public theater. Can you imagine what I felt? I didn't know what to do. And I was lucky enough to have Wilfred Leach as my director, Graziella Danielle as my choreographer. They had Bob Shaw as the designer. A lot of the cast of "Pirates of Penzance," which they had just finished doing. Patty Koenauer had just been alternating with Linda Ronstadt as the lead in "La Bohème," the production of "La Bohème" they were doing in English at the new at the public theater. She alternated with her the way the you know Howard McGillan was in that production of "La Bohème" as well.

[37:06] Rupert Holmes: And I suddenly have this amazing team that already is sort of knows how they work together. And into that I suddenly came. Rob Marshall was the dance captain. He said, uh what are you going to do? I said, uh I don't see you dance. He said, Well, I'm dance captain, I'm gonna be swing, probably. I said, Oh, you can be swing. I said, that's good. What's a swing? And Rob took me aside and exchanged, explained how swings work and how they have to cover all the ensemble roles as the ensemble players step into the lead roles. Um I learned to just listen and try to understand it all. It never occurred to me not to orchestrate the piece myself. I didn't know that Broadway composers don't orchestrate their work, except for maybe Jason Robert Brown, one exception in recent times.

Yeah, I'd always arranged everything myself. The Streisand albums that I did, I was the arranger on it, conductor. And but they finally told me, no, you don't have to do the orchestrations, and I was halfway through doing them. So I finished them. So I had this day where um this musical opened and I had written its book, lyrics, music, orchestrations, and it flew. People liked it. It's amazing. And I was reborn as a writer.

[38:39] Rupert Holmes: Good morning, Mama.

[38:40] Kevin David Thomas: Liza, darling.

[38:42] Rupert Holmes: We've got to help the boys in behind the curtain.

[38:44] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, Broadway's living legends.

[38:46] Rupert Holmes: Oh, it's marvelous.

[38:47] Kevin David Thomas: Well, what would they like?

[38:48] Rupert Holmes: Some cream of wheat.

[38:50] Kevin David Thomas: No, Mama, they want some money.

[38:52] Rupert Holmes: Money.

[38:52] Kevin David Thomas: Well, let's send them a great big bag of money.

[38:56] Rupert Holmes: No, all you have to do is go to Patreon.com.

[38:58] Kevin David Thomas: You know, it's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com and you set up a monthly donation.

[39:04] Rupert Holmes: Money makes the world go around, Mama.

[39:06] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, don't I know.

[39:07] Rupert Holmes: Patreon.com.

[39:08] Kevin David Thomas: Do it now.

[39:13] Kevin David Thomas: Rupert, can you tell us about the first read-through where you got to hear other people's voices embodying your work?

[39:22] Rupert Holmes: I always say this, Robert. Whenever I have a new piece, I said this just a couple weeks ago with The Nutty Professor in Ogunquit. I said, I will learn more the first time actors read my script aloud than I have learned in the year or two years or three years of writing it. That two-hour period, I will suddenly say, Oh, that's what this is. That's who that is. That will never oh, that line will never be heard by any human being again. That joke will never be attempted. That's a goodbye. And that's who this show is about. I didn't know. They always inform me. Kevin is a fantastic music director and knows so much about that world of orchestrations. I'm assuming he probably has some music questions for you.

[40:14] Kevin David Thomas: Well, I I'm fascinated that you studied music theory, composition, right? And that yet you spent so much of your career, you know, in the studio arranging all of that. But the score to The Mystery of Edwin Drood is complex music. I mean, what were you constantly writing? I mean, because pop tunes is pretty one, four, five, one. But the harmonies and the voice leading, all of these things that's going on in The Mystery of Edwin Drood is so much more complex than I ever would have imagined coming out of you. Did you know that you had those kind of complex compositional skills? Was this uh did content dictate form? Was it because this is a uh this you know Victorian English Hall comedy, so we're gonna we're gonna sort of infuse a little bit. Can you just tell us a little bit about your writing process in that?

[41:02] Rupert Holmes: It's gonna sound I don't know how to answer this without sounding very smug about my humility out there and do it. No, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, people don't understand because there is a lot of silliness in it. Yeah, but a lot of it is as complex as any musical director or keyboard player has had to deal with. It's hard to play. And it's very hard to play. It's chromatically all over the map. You never know what key you're in from one bar to another. Now that's not true of certain songs where they are what you would expect them to be. Wages of Sin is a very it's uh just uh she was poor but she was honest kind of music hall song. Right. Uh but some of the stuff, especially Jasper's stuff, is like you just it's all over.

I always wanted to write that way, but you can't write that way for pop radio. Right. You couldn't write that way. People would say, is it hard writing for theater? I'd say, no, no, you don't understand. I said, when I write for when I write a pop song, I wrote a song in 1987 that went to like number three on the charts for a group called The Jets called You Got It All Over Him, sung by a 14-year-old girl. What am I going to write for a 14-year-old girl on top 40 radio to sing? This is pre-Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, by the way. So you are constrained when you write for pop top 40 to write number one in the vernacular. You can't write. If I had walked into a place on Tin Pan, if I'd walked into the Brill Building or 1650 Broadway and said, here's a lyric, it goes, I'm wild again, beguiled again, a whimpering, simpering child again. They'd say, okay, out, out now, out. No.

[43:00] Rupert Holmes: So, so you warn you have what I lack myself, and now I have to scratch my back myself. No, you don't do that. Bad writer. Bad writer. Um, so you always had to funnel yourself into what how people were talking, unless you were Bob Dylan, and then you could say anything you bloody hell wanted. And no, you know. Now, when I started working, writing my own albums, I could start sneaking in some of this chromaticism and strange voice leading. And what I said is that when uh there's a quote I've seen of mine circulating, and it's not that it's profound, it just happens to be honest in this case. I said, it's so much better to write songs for a world you've in a universe you've invented than for the universe you've inherited.

So if I'm a songwriter in 1975, 80, 85, I've got to write for that universe. But suddenly I looked up and said, no, it's 1895. And I have all the tools at my disposal that Sir Arthur Sullivan had. And maybe I can cheat a little and say I had some of the skills that Gustav Holst had, who wrote The Planets. Maybe I can start to do that. And Wagner was beginning to do some stuff where it just trellised up this way. And I'm saying, so there's no one gonna, I'm just writing atmosphere here. It's not like someone's gonna say, well, that tune will never work on the radio. And it was almost like it was like a complete rebellion against everything that I had to deal with for 20 years as a songwriter.

And being able to say, no, what the only scale by which I need to judge this is is it working in the dramatic moment that I have created on stage? Is this what a crazed choir master would sing what he talks about wanting to do evil and having to keep that inside? And can I then voice lead that way? And wouldn't he feel and and so it became this very not every bit of it? Don't Quit While You're Ahead is a big Kander and Ebb type of song. Except that it has some kind of it keeps modulating and modulating in ways that you don't notice. It keeps going up a step each time a new person comes on, but you don't quite hear it, and yet for some reason you're now in a key you never expected to be in.

[45:27] Rupert Holmes: One other thing I would throw your way, Kevin, is think of my luck. In 1985, if you had a Broadway musical at the Imperial Theater by the rules of local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, I had to have a 27-piece orchestra. Right. If I could have done it, if I could have done it with six pieces, the producer would still have had to pay 27 people. So I could be indulgent and have a real woodwind section, a real brass section, a real string section. I had some synths doing some other stuff. I had a percussionist as well as a drummer. Nowadays, to get eight, you're lucky. So from a historical perspective, I'm curious. The union said if you were in a Broadway theater, you had to have 27.

I think each house had its own rules. That's right. It depended on how big the theater was and what they would stipulate, which each theater, the number of pit musicians that they had to employ. Yeah. So even if you weren't going to use 27, that is correct. There was still 27 paychecks going on. They would be there would be a chair there where you would have to sit for the show. That's correct. Wow. Getting to work with that size orchestrate of an that size of an orchestra, I owed it to myself and to them and to everyone paying a salary for them to play to make use of every color that they were capable of. Beautiful.

[46:57] Rupert Holmes: So I had every doubling of woodwinds you can possibly imagine. And I did without violas because I found that most of what I write for viola can be played on the cello, and if I do without the violas, I can double the number of cellos. And when you have double the number of cellos playing a unison line, that sounds like a symphony orchestra. Rupert, I'd love to jump ahead a little bit to Curtains, because this is fascinating, which is this is a show that you're not with from the ground up. You're entering to help save the day. Can you talk me through a little bit about how that process worked for you? How'd you get involved and what it was like working with John Kander?

[47:34] Rupert Holmes: Working with John Kander is one of the great privileges of my life, not only from a theatrical career musical point of view, but just as a human being, one of the great human beings to ever know. And likewise Scott Ellis, the director. Just two of my favorite people on the planet. But Curtains was unusual. Curtains was a long time a burning. John Kander and Fred Ebb and Peter Stone, one of the great book writers of all time, wanted to do a mystery musical. I'm told, I'm not, I don't know that this is true, but I'm told that they went to see The Mystery of Edwin Drood and said, well, we'll put that aside for a while, because that one's that's a mystery musical, and that's anyway. They tried a lot of passes at it.

And um I didn't know I didn't know anything about it, but Scott had made it a personal mission of his to try to give this musical life for Kander and Ebb. And they did a couple of readings, and the first reading ran four hours. And uh I was told by the people who were in that cast that they, when it was done, they didn't know what the story was. They got very excited when Peter Stone came in with a new script because it was half the length of the previous reading. And then they learned that he had learned that you can print on both sides of a page. Good, good. True. They did another reading, and again, didn't work. I again repeat Peter Stone, one of the great book writers of all time. Yes, yes. Then Peter Stone died. And they thought, well, maybe that's that. A year went by, and Scott came to me. I don't know if he came to me because I had written a mystery musical before.

[49:25] Rupert Holmes: I know that he attended a number of the original productions of The Mystery of Edwin Drood because he was involved romantically with someone in the cast. So he lived all that with them. They were lead. And uh so I don't know which of it it was, but he can't he said, Can you take a look at this? And he gave me the a copy of the last script that they had done a reading of. And I remember I was taking a drive up to um up towards Buffalo, and I read it on the way up, and I was disconsolate because even though Peter Stone was one of the great book writers of all time, this book I I just couldn't, I couldn't find any way into it. It seemed to be a parody. First of all, everyone in the in the story was unlikable, but they were all show business characters, and I I thought, but I like show business characters.

I hate all these people, and I didn't know, and the hero kept devolving into um parodies of songs from other great shows. And I thought, but this is Kander and Ebb. They write the great shows. Kander and Ebb doesn't have to do a parody of The King and I. Suddenly the detective is going, etc., etc., etc. And I'm thinking, no, we don't need to quote The King and I in in the Kander and Ebb musical. I took a look at it and and finally met with uh John and Fred. I have to tell you, my previous meeting with John Kander was at the opening preview of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in Central Park at the Delacorte Theater. And it went wonderfully. We almost went past 11, but it went wonderfully. And as I'm standing there hearing the audience going mad at the possibility that this is maybe something that's gonna be something other than in the park, I start to be pummeled, pummeled, beaten on my shoulders, and I turn and I see it's John Kander, who barely knows me, and he shakes me, and he says, You did it, you did it.

He says, Isn't it wonderful? He said, musical theater. There's no money in it, but isn't it wonderful? And I thought, you're John Kander, if there's no money in it, what am I doing? Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I go to Fred's kitchen. You went in through the service entrance, and uh we sat in the kitchen where apparently there was always traditionally a bowl of cookies, and there was Scott and Fred and John and me. And I said, Look, the songs here, a lot of these are wonderful, and I think I can keep them in the show, but um I think I've got to reinvent the whole show. I've got to write a new show. I said, I can keep the basic premise of a that you're out of that it's a company out of town, and that there's been the threat of a murder or a murder, and that the detective who comes to solve the murder happens to love musical theater more than solving crimes.

I said, I can keep that. I said, but I think everything else has to change. I've got to change the murders, the methods, the motives, the relationships, some of the names. And I said finally, and this was where I took a deep breath. I said, and um, and I I think that this cannot be a contemporary musical. This cannot be set in the present day because we all know that these kinds of people don't exist anymore. These are all wonderful characters out of All About Eve and the Golden Age. The Golden Age. I said, and I I think you have to let me reset it in the Golden Age. Let me put it in 1959, that era where you were just about to launch your own work and the era that that you that made you want to be write musicals, and I think I can make it work if it's an in period, because no one is gonna accept these people being that, but we all accept that maybe back then they were that way.

And they sort of, I thought I could get thrown out on my ears. But it but I didn't know what else to say, except that I've got to do it. I rewrote Act One and we met again around the kitchen table. And Fred seemed to love it. He particularly loved the curtain for Act One, which involved someone being hung to death by a curtain going up and down. He liked everything about it, and he at that day, he sang me a song that they had been trying to work into a musical for like 20 years, that they had written for, I think a TV special. I think Carol O'Connor. It was probably on something like the Gary Moore Show or the Carol Burnett Show. And it was a song about being on the sea called In the Same Boat.

And it was one of those songs, not a Broadway counterpoint, but a Broadway triple counterpoint. Three melodies at the same time. Oh wow. And he said, We've been, we every time we get it into a show, it gets cut. We tried to get it into Steel Pier, couldn't. And I said, I I looked at Fred and said, I I'll I'll guarantee you I'll I'll get that into this show. And he said, That's that's great. And uh Friday, he faxed me a new lyric he had written for one of the songs. And I called him and I said, Oh, this is a wonderful lyric, Fred. Thank you. He said, Oh, that's so nice. By the way, he gave me a hug. It was the first time I've thought I'm accepted, I'm in the family now. And Monday Scott called me and told me he had died.

Fred had died. Oh, okay. And I had only written Act One. And then the question was, could John move forward with it. And there was a a period where John was thinking about it. Huge loss for musical theater. And imagine you can't imagine the loss for John. And um he finally said that for all the time that people had put into it, for the actors who had already started to shape these roles, for all that Scott had put into it, and for the work that he and Fred, the songs that he and Fred had written, that he was willing to give it a try to see if we could complete the musical without Fred. One of the problems was that there were some topical references in the lyric that would make no sense in 1959 because they were talking about things that happened in the 70s and the 80s. So there were those just a couple of them, but they were anachronisms.

And that I would be able to be a good sounding board, or maybe in some instances come up with a word or two or something like that. And we continued. So if you say, Oh, it's a wonderful love song between those two characters, you remember that in act one, we'd you say, Yeah, but they're not, I want to know what's happened to you, the people who are gonna the people, the real people outside the interplay. So I had to make it a story that anyone could figure out without a whole lot of backstory. And read so I knew it should be some kind of fairy tale or some story that everybody already knows. And I thought Robin Hood. I thought of the old musicals from the Golden Era, that the ones that were set in Wild West settings, Destry with Andy Griffith.

Of course. Yes. And uh I'm impressed. Red Garters, which I think was a movie that was filmed like a stage play with Rosemary Clooney. I just thought that that's a thing that they did back then. They would think we could do whoop up, whoop of everyone's ever seen. And I thought, well, Robin Hood, except it's R O B B I N apostrophe. He's a Robin Hood. That Robin dad blamed bandit, Robin Hood. Yeah. And I thought, yeah, everyone. And made that from that instantly became Madame Marion instead of Maid Marion. So Madam Marion's the saloon hall woman. And there's Miss Nancy, the school mom. And there's uh instead of father, what was it? Instead of Friar Tuck, it's Parson Tuck. I like that. But you you you didn't have to get a you didn't need to have a pamphlet to tell you what that inner musical was.

And and once we knew we could have so much fun with that, uh, we started to write songs that were fun for that musical, such as That Away and uh Kansas Land and Wide Open Spaces. And um we managed to complete it. We did it at the Amundsen, and uh and eventually we um came to Broadway with it. So that was that was very nice.

[58:53] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, Rupert, this has been such a wonderful joy getting to talk to you today. And thank you so much for letting us in into the way you work and all the all those wonderful anecdotes. Once again, folks, Nutty Professor at Ogunquit. Rupert, tell us again who's in this wonderful. You have Max Crumb. Um, you have uh Eleanor Ricarda and Ricardo, and uh by the way, uh you've got um Mel Johnson Jr., who's just I mean, it's such a such a privilege to work with him, and he's such a delight, and he's got so many great inventive ideas. I can't believe that we we have him, Jeff McCarthy as well, and Clea Blackhurst doing the role once again, she did 10 years ago. Just amazing, and it's it's as fresh as ever.

So it's an amazing company. Amazing director, Mark Bruni. Joanne Hunter, my favorite person to work with. Just so great. And uh, and uh, and we're having a great time. Amazing, folks. Please go up and see it. Ticket link in our show description today. Rupert uh, on behalf of Kevin and I, but all of our listeners, thank you for giving us so many wonderful, wonderful moments in the theater, and we cannot wait to see all the next wonderful moments that come from your imaginative, brilliant mind. Thank you, Rupert.

[1:00:11] Rupert Holmes: Thank you, Bob. Thank you so much. We should have enjoyed this a lot. Thank you. Yay.

[1:00:15] Kevin David Thomas: All right, folks, till next time. Bye-bye.

[1:00:18] Rupert Holmes: Bye everyone.

[1:00:23] Robert W. Schneider: Thank you for listening to today's episode. And a big thanks to the punchy players, Jeff Marquis, who is bringing back Lucy, Betty, Judy, and more to shill for us. And a big thanks to our sound editor, Daniel Schwartzberg, and social media manager Bethany Ann Selecki. And don't forget, we want more folks to hear these incredible stories, and that's where you come in. In order for people to find out about us, we need lots of ratings on iTunes. So head on over to iTunes, search for Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends, click on our logo, click on ratings and reviews, then write a review and leave us five stars and make us feel as special as Eliza Doolittle on Eliza Doolittle Day. Or you can leave us just one star and you can make us feel as bad as Annie did in that really weird production in Boston where Annie dreamt that she was being adopted, but then she ended up back in the orphanage, right? Back where she started. Yeah, true story, Rob saw it. Yes, and it was badly. It was bizarre. I was there. Oh god. So head on over to iTunes and make us feel even more special than we already did.