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[0:18] Robert W Schneider: Hi, happy Throwback Thursday.

[0:20] Kevin David Thomas: Hello, everybody.

[0:22] Robert W Schneider: Okay, so full disclosure. You're gonna see some acting on this episode. Do you hear something in our voices right now? Do you hear a slight annoyance, but a little bit of déjà vu at the same time? That's because Kevin and I just finished doing a My Favorite Things. Kevin went off, I went off, and then my computer crashed and it lost the file. So now we're doing it again. Much like Helen Gallagher's interview the first time around, we have now done this with the My Favorite Things.

[0:50] Kevin David Thomas: The good news is now it's gonna be even more polished, and we won't even have to edit anything, Rob. So there you go.

[0:56] Robert W Schneider: This is great. This is great. So we'll just jump right in. First of all, we'll give you a recap on what happened on last week's episode or the unaired episode you didn't see. Kevin and I talked for a little bit. We talked about the fact that we're doing working on August 12th. We talked about the fact that Kevin is music directing Legally Blonde at the school we teach at, your Professional Conservatory of Musical Theatre, PCMT at New York Film Academy.

[1:18] Kevin David Thomas: That's a lot of acronyms. I did about five minutes of jokes on why I wasn't gonna play Elle Woods, and then Kevin talked about Bend and Snap for a little bit.

[1:27] Robert W Schneider: I talked about how I wanted to see you do Bend and Snap for a little bit. Just to make sure that we got that in there.

[1:35] Kevin David Thomas: Great, great, great. So we talked about that. You're not really missing much.

[1:37] Robert W Schneider: No, I really now that I do the recap, it really seems like this is actually the better edition.

[1:43] Kevin David Thomas: It seems like wow, we spent like 20 minutes talking about that stuff and we just covered it in 20 seconds.

[1:47] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, so that's you know what? We're doing better. We're doing better. That's good. We're editing ourselves now. We're like the Neil Simon of podcasting. We just consistently come back and edit and edit until it's a refined little jewel in our lives.

[1:59] Kevin David Thomas: That's right. Oh, I talked about how I yelled at a cab driver when I got back to New York.

[2:03] Robert W Schneider: Because you're finally back.

[2:03] Kevin David Thomas: Because we should say everybody, Rob is finally back to town, no longer in Pennsylvania. He is back in New York. And we're happy about that, aren't we, Rob?

[2:13] Robert W Schneider: We're happy, Rob. We're happy about that. We're very happy. We're also happy about our favorite things this week. So let's talk a little bit about some of our favorite things. Kevin, what is your favorite thing?

[2:25] Kevin David Thomas: And then I'll act surprised.

[2:26] Robert W Schneider: And you have to do that.

[2:27] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, you're gonna act like you don't know. You're gonna act like you don't know. Okay, so on, let's hold on. I need to hear it. And I gotta get in character. Hold on. Hold on. I'm not ready yet. What's all that noise? I can't focus if there's all that noise going around. Please, everybody, on the set, quiet. That was my Christian Bale impression.

[2:42] Robert W Schneider: Oh, that's right. Oh, that great. You could have used a little more anger.

[2:48] Kevin David Thomas: Okay. Uh, I also I saw your post last night, Rob. You watched the movie Rosemarie. Um, guess what movie I watched last night on Turner Classic Movies at the exact same time.

[2:56] Robert W Schneider: Rosemary.

[2:57] Kevin David Thomas: You better believe it, buddy. I could not. I woke up this morning and I saw your post and I laughed so hard because I watched Sun fell asleep and I watched the same thing.

[3:06] Robert W Schneider: Why didn't you come over? You could have snuck out of the house. Come up. We could have skyped and like watched it together.

[3:14] Kevin David Thomas: Well, last night on TCM was like I think a Nelson Eddy Jeanette McDonald fest, because they did that, and then they did uh the new moon.

[3:21] Robert W Schneider: Yes, they did do that after Naughty Marietta, Naughty Marietta as well.

[3:24] Kevin David Thomas: You know, I I I I must confess that I've not watched a lot of Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy uh movies. I have not. I I enjoyed her. I really enjoyed her. I think she's like actually a really it was made in 1936. I mean, it you know, it was still the world of operetta. But I I love Jeanette McDonald. I can I could do without Nelson Eddy, I could do without him. I I could I'm okay without him like uh he looked so happy on that horse on like better run better run better runaway he's like so happy on that horse he just like not even trying to act i mean like doing what the studio told him to do but oh man he was deep that was cracking me up all right anyway my favorite thing so in you know if we're gonna throw it back to 1936 let's just take it back 10 years earlier than that see what I'm doing Rob so I'd like to take it back to 1927 I'd like to not talk about a show or talk about a book or I want to talk about a place I know you don't know what it I know Rob I know you don't you don't know what it is you don't know what I'm about to say yes a place now this restaurant opened in 1927 on 44th Street and it is legendary to this day and that restaurant is I don't know Kevin what could it be you're killing me Sardis that's right folks we're gonna honor Sardi's uh and and I would like to actually talk about uh Sardi's the restaurant the history of Sardis but also a book that you can um get uh that at Sardi's actually uh I got this as a present uh I did a reading at um the where we teach professional conservatory musical theater trying to that with we renamed the school so I'm trying to trying to get you used to that's why I'm saying it everybody PCMT uh we did uh the Bell of Tombstone uh musical uh and the writer Thomas Edward West gave me this book that he wrote with Vincent Sardi Jr.

[5:15] Robert W Schneider: Who was the son of the original Sardi owner from 1927?

[5:19] Kevin David Thomas: And Vincent Sardi unfortunately is no longer with us, but he wrote this book with Thomas in 1991. It was republished in 2012. And the book is a chronicle of the restaurant. Along with every other page has a spread of one of the famous caricatures that are donned the wall of the restaurant. Now, a little history of the restaurant for y'all. It was, yes, the Schuberts actually built the building that the restaurant is located in today. Same location since 1927. I lament all the time the closing of all the old cafes and bars in New York City and Midtown that, you know, a lot of people, you know, like now yeah, people go at his Barstentral and Joe Allen's. Those are like some of the old theater hangout spots you can go to, but there's no Angus, you know, there's no, you know, there's no, and going even reaching further back, there are all those other like really, really famous places you'd go to.

Well, Sardi's is the only one I think that is still existing with that same legendary history attached to it. Um and so, yeah, so Vincent Sardi's uh uh the older Vincent, um, he the older Sardi, um, the restaurant was not a big hit. It was no one was coming to it in 1927. They they tried to figure out a way to get people to come into their restaurant. And uh Sardi remembered in being in Paris and how there was a cafe that had a lot of the local celebrities on the wall. And you know, if you were a constant guest of the restaurant, you had your caricature taken. So that's what he started to do. And the first artist was a man named Alex Gard, G-A-R-D. Um, and his pay was a free meal. And in fact, when the restaurant got to be such a big hit and his in his you know, caricatures really took off, and he was doing all the famous people in town, they you know, he said, Well, in the father died and the son took over, he said, Listen, Alex, we'll read and negotiate your contract.

You, you know, you're making lots of money now. He still said, Nope, my contract and the initial one was good, and I'm only gonna do it for a meal. It was for the love of it. He just loved, you know, being a participating and sort of creating that legacy that it is to this day. There's over 200 and boy, there's like over 300 pictures now. This book has about 275 of those pictures in it. Some names you might not recognize, some names that you should recognize that you still don't know. And all and political figures, all different kinds of people. And along with like fun little anecdotes about what the world was like in New York entertainment history, you know. You you would go to your opening night party at Sardi's. We've heard from legends that we've talked to about how closing night, I mean opening night parties that you know, you would be standing on a chair with the when the papers came in and someone read the reviews or the place cleared out if the reviews were bad.

We've heard all of those stories. But I think it's pretty cool that you can still go to this restaurant to this day and and get a glimpse of what New York City life was like to be in the entertainment industry. You know, just to give a little more insight on that, the the Sardi Sr. He made a point of making sure that his weight staff, and this is in the 30s, 40s, 50s, made sure that they went to see all the shows so they would know all of the bit players and shows, that being a working actor on Broadway, you know, you had a home there, that if you were out of work, he would let you have a tab and not have to pay the bill. And then when he passed away, the the son found the in his dad's desk all these tabs of unpaid bills from the actors because he he wasn't a stickler for it.

He just let him like let him eat because he really was a fan of the actor, of the entertainment actor, not necessarily the movie star, but the stage actor. And I and I I lament that we really don't have a place like that to this day. So, all that talking is aside. Oh, and incidentally, there's only been four artists since 1927 that have done the caricatures. The guy that's doing it right now, Barrett's B-E-R-T-Z, B-A-R-A-T-Z, he's been doing it for the last 40 years or so. And still churning them out.

[9:05] Robert W Schneider: Yeah.

[9:07] Kevin David Thomas: Pretty cool, isn't it?

[9:07] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. That's incredible. A quick question for you. I had heard that the photos that the people see in the restaurant or the sketches people see in the restaurant are not the original, they're copies. The originals are in a vault somewhere. Is that true?

[9:19] Kevin David Thomas: That is a that is true because uh in the in the in the book, uh there is anecdotal stories about this that it either fans would steal them or the the actual actors themselves were all would steal them. One was uh uh an actor whose uh partner had died, so they wanted to keep the picture as a memento. Another was an actor who hated their picture so much that they stole it. And eventually they just realized that they needed to keep uh because this has become such an archive, um, they they realized they needed to preserve them.

[9:49] Robert W Schneider: And now I think one of the libraries has a lot of them. They've donated some of them to the library, I think the performing arts library, and they've had exhibits and stuff. I have to say, a shout out to the artists that have created these caricatures because when you look at the book and you look at these pictures, yeah, there's faces that you recognize, but the art of caricature is something that we don't really have today. We have them in political cartoons, but back in the day when there were many, many print newspapers, you would have these artists like Al Hirschfeld and a plethora of others that were making a living doing a send-up of these stars. A lot of times they were not happy with the pictures that they made, but the smart ones put up with it and signed it, and so it would go on the wall because you were a legend as soon as you're on the wall at Sardi's. I think it's nice that we actually still have Lindsay Mendez just had hers done, and I think it's great that we still are carrying that tradition to this day.

[10:46] Kevin David Thomas: That's great.

[10:46] Robert W Schneider: And please, I hope everyone will come to Kevin and my unveiling at our Sardi's character shirt.

[10:52] Kevin David Thomas: In the bathroom.

[10:52] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, we're gonna draw a post that stick figures of ourselves and stick it at stall number three.

[10:58] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[10:58] Robert W Schneider: Stall two was taken.

[11:00] Kevin David Thomas: Stall two was taken, so that's fine.

[11:02] Robert W Schneider: Broadway wasted that one, yeah.

[11:04] Kevin David Thomas: Broadway wasted stall two.

[11:05] Robert W Schneider: We're stall three, so come say hi. Awesome. Good. I can't wait to read this book. I have never heard of this book before.

[11:12] Kevin David Thomas: I didn't even realize it.

[11:17] Robert W Schneider: And you can get it on, it's $24.95. You can get it on the website of Sardi's. Sardi's actually has a website, and you can get it on the Sardi's website for order, or you can go to the actual restaurant and experience the actual restaurant itself and go there. Incidentally, one last side note, a tradition that started decades ago, decades and decades ago, on two-show days on Wednesday, they would have an actor's menu for actors that were in Broadway shows, would have a discounted menu for them, specifically for them, and they still have that to this day. I think that's a pretty cool thing to celebrate. So go to Sardi's, buy the book.

[11:46] Kevin David Thomas: That's awesome. Will you bring it to rehearsal today so I can take a look at it?

[11:49] Robert W Schneider: Yes, of course I will. Thank you. So my favorite thing this week ties in a little bit with our guest this week. Our guest this week is the wonderful Tony Award-winning Debbie Gravitte, who won a Tony Award for Jerome Robbins' Broadway. She's a brilliant, brilliant artist. I mentioned on the podcast that I'm obsessed with her voice. She is my favorite singer of all time, period. And yes, I realize what company I'm putting her in. She belongs in that company, and yes, she's number one on that list.

[12:14] Kevin David Thomas: So my jaw dropped on the floor when you said that during the interview.

[12:18] Robert W Schneider: I really did. Because you don't use those kinds of, you don't say stuff like that a lot. There's something about her voice I really, really like, and I cannot articulate why I like it. I just like it. So anyway, Debbie was the great guest this week. Debbie did an album in the mid-90s. It was her first album. The album is my favorite thing this week, and it was going to be my favorite thing at some point, even way before we had Debbie on as a guest, and that is her album from the mid-90s. I think it's 1996. The album is called Part of Your World: The Alan Menken Album. It's an album dedicated entirely to the music of Alan Menken, who in the mid-90s was known, but not really as known as he's come to become subsequently, with not only a lot more Disney movie musicals coming out, but also a lot of his movies being adapted to the stage.

[13:03] Kevin David Thomas: So she sings on this album about 15 Alan Menken songs, and they're all wonderful.

[13:07] Robert W Schneider: She sings the popular ones like Seize the Day from Newsies, and all that fun stuff. And of course, Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid. You know, she was in The Little Mermaid.

[13:18] Kevin David Thomas: A voice, but not a singing voice, incidentally.

[13:21] Robert W Schneider: No, a speaking voice. How ironic is that? So we have all of those, but then she also gives us some really wonderful, lesser-known Alan Menken songs that I think everybody should listen to. Her first song on the album is my favorite I want song in a musical ever. Ironically, it's an I want song that nobody's ever seen on stage in the musical, and that is a song called I Want to Be a Rockette, which is from the musical Kicks, which never got produced on Broadway. I wish it would come at some point. It's just a beautiful, great song. Very fun. It's her number one song. She also does a song called Crystal, Ranette, and Chiffon, which was an I am song for the urchins from Little Shop of Horrors that never made it. We'll have Tomorrow, which was cut from Little Shop of Horrors. You hear it at the end a little bit.

[14:08] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[14:09] Robert W Schneider: Where they just randomly are like, We'll have tomorrow. And you're like, What is that? Wait, whoa, whoa, what music? In the middle of Don't Feed the Plants, you're like, what is that? It was from a song called We'll Have Tomorrow that got cut. She does Santa Fe. She does One Jump Ahead from Aladdin, which when she does it sounds like an old 1940s big band. It sounds amazing. And one of my favorites, if you are an alto belter and you're looking for a song to do, take a look at a song she does called Growin' Boy, which was cut from the Babe Ruth musical that never got to be. So it's 15 really fantastic songs. Her album is great. It's her first album. It's on Apple Music, it's on Spotify. You can buy it on iTunes. But take a listen to it because it's my favorite thing for the week. I hope if you aren't already in love with Debbie's voice, this will make you a convert the same way it made me.

[14:58] Kevin David Thomas: So that's mine. And also, we talked about this when we got cut, but we'll do it again, which is the album cover is kind of genius. I love Debbie, but it's literally the mid-90s album cover that everyone had in the back of Show Music magazine. It's those artsy album covers.

[15:12] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah.

[15:20] Kevin David Thomas: It's nice and feathered. I cannot tell if she's under a sheet or at the ocean.

[15:24] Robert W Schneider: It's one of those. And then Kevin and I were talking that we want to, what are some of your favorite Show Music magazine back of the ads? We should, and we were saying that we should act out some of the covers and do side-by-side comparisons. And I really, really, really want Rob to do the Jason Graae, You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile cover, which is just naked with a little hat covering the bits.

[15:50] Robert W Schneider: I will just say that if Jason did it, he's wearing a straw hat to cover his bits.

[15:54] Kevin David Thomas: I'm doing it. We're gonna need a top hat, boys.

[15:57] Robert W Schneider: Hey oh hey. So anyway, that's that. My favorites though, we were talking about some of these album covers. My favorite ones are like, because it's all mid-90s, it's all guys with bleached blonde hair, spiky, like bleached tips, long white shirt, dress shirt open to like mid-chest, and torn jeans barefoot, like sitting on the pier.

[16:17] Kevin David Thomas: Always barefoot.

[16:17] Robert W Schneider: Always barefoot being like, let's do it. The music of Cole Porter. Pondering, pondering the music of Cole Porter. And then what'd you say for women?

[16:26] Kevin David Thomas: Women were like they were laying on a bed, is that what you said?

[16:28] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, always, always, and looking up at something, yeah, looking way up, like a photo shoot. It's great. Black and white, always sometimes the women were always in black and white, guys were full vibrant color.

[16:39] Kevin David Thomas: No, I even think of like even like Judy Kuhn's album, her Julie Stein album.

[16:42] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah. You know, it's just her like I love it. Is she in the rain in that one or am I making that up?

[16:46] Kevin David Thomas: No, she's like she's on a random street corner, I think.

[16:49] Robert W Schneider: Yes, that's right. Wow, good memory. So, well, you know, it's those 90s albums were kind of my favorite. So I'm gonna go open up a Show Music magazine and take a picture and see what I find. It'll be like advertising the cast album of Mayer along with Lee Less's cabaret hits.

[17:04] Kevin David Thomas: Lee Lessig's 40 CDs.

[17:05] Robert W Schneider: Lee Lessig's 40 CDs. Where is Lee Lessig?

[17:08] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, bless. Does he still work? Is he still doing shows, I mean?

[17:11] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, I think he does. I think I see his name a lot in cabaret scenes.

[17:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I think that's the scene he's in, definitely. Come give us your CDs. Come be on the show at some point. We'd love to have you. I want to talk to you about your photo shoots.

[17:24] Robert W Schneider: No?

[17:25] Kevin David Thomas: Kevin, Kevin, Kevin's worried that I'm gonna like actually do some of these photo shoots. But don't you worry, Kevin. I can't wait. Wait till you see your Christmas gift this year. It's gonna be a calendar, and each month is me doing a different photo.

[17:36] Robert W Schneider: A different cabaret CD photo.

[17:39] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. I like it. I want really good titles as well.

[17:43] Robert W Schneider: Oh, I'll come up with some. Don't you want to do that? You know what I mean? Good. I got a couple of months before Christmas. Like all the wasted time, the Jason Robert Brown songs or something like that, you know, and it's just me like barefoot on the pier.

[17:54] Kevin David Thomas: Looking back.

[17:54] Robert W Schneider: But like kick like you're in mid-kick. You know how when you kick and you're like, I'm a little, I'm just bored, I'm gonna kick. But you're like in mid-kick.

[18:00] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah, and I'll have my hands tucked in my pockets.

[18:03] Robert W Schneider: Yep. Head tail like an all shucks. You know what I'll do is I'll get all 90s outfits. So I'll get like a really long suit jacket and roll the sleeves up and just have a t-shirt underneath it.

[18:13] Kevin David Thomas: And get a unit.

[18:13] Robert W Schneider: I'll get different 90s units. Yeah, I think that'll be really good. Okay, so guys, this is my, oh, Kevin. I hate to tell you what your Christmas gift is gonna be this year. It's going to be a Rob of the Month calendar doing each of the month recreating some of our favorite Show Music album covers.

[18:21] Kevin David Thomas: Rob of the month.

[18:30] Robert W Schneider: Oh man, I gotta go dig and find some good albums for you to do.

[18:33] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah. You can and we'll take suggestions, guys. You can tweet me some suggestions if you want. But that's what our next thing will be. Thank you. Okay, obscure that everyone will love it.

[18:43] Robert W Schneider: That's what we love. We love when it's niche.

[18:44] Kevin David Thomas: Obscure.

[18:46] Robert W Schneider: That's where we are in this world. That's really where we are.

[18:48] Kevin David Thomas: That's where we are in our lives.

[18:52] Robert W Schneider: And for dealing with us in our frustration and re-recording all of this again. But it sounded fun and spontaneous, didn't it?

[18:59] Kevin David Thomas: It did actually. I got into the mood eventually.

[19:01] Robert W Schneider: Well, you know what? That's disgusting. I don't want to hear anymore.

[19:04] Kevin David Thomas: You'll really get in the mood when you gotta go to my calendar.

[19:06] Robert W Schneider: All right, okay, all right. Bye, everybody.

[19:08] Kevin David Thomas: Bye.