This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:13] ♪ Musical number: "My Favorite Things" ♪

[0:20] Robert W Schneider: Happy throwback Thursday.

[0:22] Kevin David Thomas: Happy Thursday, everybody.

[0:23] Robert W Schneider: How are you doing?

[0:24] Kevin David Thomas: I'm I'm doing good. Wait, Kevin. I'm so sorry. Before we go on the air, Kevin and I talk, and then when the timer comes, I have to tell Kevin to stop talking, and it's my fault. You had a solo in church, though, Kevin. That's what you were telling us before this went on the air.

[0:36] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I don't even know how this came up, you guys. But I I I don't know about you, but I did you know theater, and I my theater started when I was uh went to church. I went to a congregational church in Elmira, New York, Park Church. And uh and I I just had this memory all of a sudden to I we were you said something, but I'm not your keeper, and I said, Oh, I was my solo in church. I was all of 11 years old, and I sang, I am my brother's keeper, I can rely on him, and I don't know about the rest of it. That was all I remember though, but it was epic because that is what started my love.

[1:07] Robert W Schneider: That's amazing.

[1:09] Kevin David Thomas: With those little silly little church musical pageants that are somebody made a lot of money writing.

[1:14] Robert W Schneider: When um when I was in Temple, we sang a song, Your Brother Shouldn't have bought retail. Where did I stop him? I mean, come on. You call this a sofa. I can get you better at the pennies.

[1:29] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, that's it. You know, speaking of, I'm uh I'm so I'm halfway through season two of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And they go to the Catskills, and when they go to the Catskills, you know what? I really feel like they really captured it. I really loved it. You know how much I love the Catskills in that time period.

[1:44] Robert W Schneider: Are you with Oh no, I'm still with you. I'm still with you. I got so over. I think I over-energized, and you were still at normal level, and I think that I just thought you weren't there for a minute.

[1:56] Kevin David Thomas: I will never leave you.

[1:59] Robert W Schneider: I will never go away.

[2:01] Kevin David Thomas: No, I'm too old to take the high part.

[2:03] Robert W Schneider: I can take it. Hey, I've been working on a Mandy Patinkin impression.

[2:06] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah?

[2:07] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. Speaking of high I like high voices. I just wanted to share that. I don't know if I should bust it out.

[2:13] Kevin David Thomas: I think I think that's a good thing. We're all good. I think we're good. I think we can no, let's just save it. Let's save it. Because the last episode we had, there were quite a few impersonations. So I think we're and we had your dissertation on why the chicken crossed the road, and which we had people saying, what the hell is he talking about?

[2:28] Robert W Schneider: No, no, no. No, no, no. We had both sides, my friend. Both sides, and you know it. Both sides were there. I rest my case.

[2:37] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, you can okay, Clarence Darrow. Good for you for resting your case. You got something in your hair.

[2:44] Robert W Schneider: Uh it's my glasses.

[2:45] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no. You actually have something in your hair, Kevin. It's like a white thing. No, no, go to the other way. No, it's not dandruff. That's too big for dandruff. That's your dandruff. You've got a huge issue, my friend. No, you're fine now. It's gone. It was like fuzz.

[2:55] Robert W Schneider: No, I'm embarrassed. Everyone's embarrassed for.

[2:58] Kevin David Thomas: What are you embarrassed for? It was fuzz. The guy had fuzz in his hair. What do you want from me? That's what a friend does. A friend says when things are going wrong. A friend says, a friend helps you out.

[3:06] Robert W Schneider: This sounds like a song from the musical 13 all of a sudden.

[3:11] Kevin David Thomas: I'm not gonna say what I was gonna say. Okay. So uh why don't we just jump into our favorite things?

[3:18] Robert W Schneider: Um and uh let's let's let us begin.

[3:21] Kevin David Thomas: Let us all right, you go first.

[3:23] Robert W Schneider: Me?

[3:24] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[3:24] Robert W Schneider: Okay, this was the one I was gonna talk to you about last week. Uh, but we went for the Mr. O'Leary kid in the car ride instead. Which really was a great payoff because we all needed that thing. And uh you guys, if you haven't listened to it yet, just go back, watch the uh the O'Leary. So, oh gosh. Give that star. Oh, so I'm happy we had that, but you're right. I'm glad we get to have part two. So um I saw Chorus Line at Encores a few weeks ago, which was fabulous and marvelous and wonderful. And I forgot how wonderful of a show Chorus Line is. I actually did it, uh not in it, uh, at a children's theater years and years and years ago.

[3:59] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes, a children's theater years and years ago. There'll be more on that later on in the weeks coming up. You you did it, and which implied that you were uh in it.

[4:07] Robert W Schneider: No, uh me, please. No, I was the assistant, I was the assistant director to it, the assistant director to it. Although for all of the fucking rehearsals, I played Zach because the guy who played Zach went on birthright. Well, wow, he's like very and then he just like showed up at the end, and they were like, Oh Rob, you can't do it because you know you can't, you know, you can't dance. I was like, neither can Birthright Elon over there. That was his name, Elon. I remember.

[4:32] Kevin David Thomas: Wait, is that because he went to Elon or was was he really?

[4:34] Robert W Schneider: No, his name was really Elon. No, it was Elon. Elon was actually when Elon moved to the city, he worked for Jeffrey Richards and got me like comms to every show, which was amazing. So that paid off. Elon and I have made peace. I'm glad I had like burned that much of intuition. I should have played Zach. I should have played Zach. Yeah, but it was it was a it was a bad production. It was a bad production.

[4:55] Kevin David Thomas: It's because you weren't playing Zach.

[4:55] Robert W Schneider: I mean it was a obvious production of a chorus line. I got nothing else to say. Except this is horrible. I don't even know I should tell you this. The kid who will the kid who played Paul was he just he just whatever reason he did, you know, the monologue. So we were on headset, and every time he came up to speak, everyone. It's a very serious monologue, you guys. If you don't know it, uh it's just it's epic, it's serious. It's lots of tears, it's it's just rough for everybody. We had this old, old woman who was running lights and over the heads. When he would start to talk, she would go, Smoke them if you got 'em. And everybody would go like take a break while he talked. It was so sad. Anyway, that's okay.

So if you got them. But going back to a chorus line, I was just doing some research on it. I was like, oh my God, what a fabulous, fantastic show. And when I came across, and I didn't even realize it was on there, was in 1990 when the show was finally closing after 15 years. Um Phil Donahue, remember the Donahue show?

[5:50] Kevin David Thomas: Of course, yeah.

[5:50] Robert W Schneider: He used to have Broadway people on there.

[5:52] Kevin David Thomas: All the time.

[5:53] Robert W Schneider: All the time. They brought back the entire original cast, except one actor, but the whole original cast was on there, and they did a reunion of a chorus line.

[6:04] Kevin David Thomas: And I am familiar.

[6:05] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. It is so good. So everyone, I think you should watch it. It's like seven different parts. But you see the original cast, they're talking about the inception. They sing at the ballet, they sing what I did for love. It's really fabulous. And I think it also there's this really sad part where they play a um the video of Michael Bennett accepting the Tony Award. And this was only two or three years after he passed, so it's still fresh in everybody's mind.

[6:29] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[6:29] Robert W Schneider: Like Donna McKechnie's crying and everybody. It's just it's really, really uh wonderful and emotional, and it's very raw. And you see the love that these people have for each other. So anyway, uh, everyone, you should go into your YouTube. You should just search a chorus line on Donahue. D-O-N-A-H-U-E. Uh, and at one awkward part, Robert Lapone tries to teach uh Phil Donahue the opening combination.

[6:55] Kevin David Thomas: No, that doesn't really work.

[6:57] Robert W Schneider: No, like like we're like freshman year of college where everyone learns the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Uh yeah. Pivot step, walk, walk. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, it's really marvelous. It shows you the entire um the the original cast, which I think is so fabulous and so fascinating. It's also a really interesting insight to see how they sold their lives away for her dollar and haven't received any you know compensation for that. And what I find so interesting is that the logo where they're all in those different poses, which are so iconic, right? All happens spontaneously one day because they were all standing in the line, and Michael Ben was like, it has to like everyone pick a pose, and that's all the poses they picked.

And that's so iconic with the show now. Um and they got a dollar. They got and yes, it opened doors to many other things, but still a dollar. Um so anyway, that's mine this week. I think you should take a look at it. It's a chorus line on Donahue, uh, seven different parts. It's really fabulous.

[7:54] Kevin David Thomas: And you know, it's funny because that's exactly what equity is talking about right now is of changing the lab rules for the workshops and not a lab lab, yeah.

[8:01] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, not allowed and it's to to for that, you know. Uh, you know, I mean, I'm sure that there are roots in that from the 70s, but that, you know, basically, so that actors that have all this input into the role of their character and how the re-writers will rewrite stuff for them and everything.

[8:14] Kevin David Thomas: And well, this is literally based on their lives, so it's like this times a thousand. But now, you know, they're saying that that input is is is valuable, it's invaluable, especially if it's I mean, chorus line is a non-fiction, basically. It's it's unbelievable. So, um uh speaking of um legendary things, uh I have a book this time. This is a very I you know, I'm speaking now to I think maybe perhaps the younger listeners out there, I think, but our older listeners definitely will uh certainly enjoy this book if they haven't read it already. Um we we lost the great Barbara Cook recently this year, and uh she wrote a memoir uh just two years ago, right? At the very end of her life. Uh, you know, and like so many of these Broadway legends, you like our friend Leroy, you know, people say, You gotta write a book, you gotta write a book.

And they are, they, you know, and these these stories that they collect over their years are are really special because they we don't have any other outlet for them. You know, we can go on our YouTube and see them, a couple clips of them, but anything from the 60s or earlier, it's really hard. I mean, and that's part of the reason why we set out on this podcast was to capture those stories. So, this book she wrote, this memoir, Then and Now, um, is a I think a real it's a really easy read. It's a fast read. I mean, you can zip through, I think I read in like a day and a half, and it's it's it's a fun read because it she's very candid, she's very honest. It doesn't get too deep, too in-depth, but it gives you enough of the information that it feels like one of our interviews is really what it feels like.

[9:30] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, you know, and it feels like what we would have wanted to chat with her about. And now she goes in more in depth about her depression and her uh food addiction and her alcohol addiction and all of the struggles that she had. But why I think it's really important for some of our younger listeners and students of musical theater especially, is to understand like this is somebody that for most of us we heard rumors of this kind of stuff, but she here she laid it out what show business is for her. And she's a star, she's the diva. She was like one of the greatest. You know, she starred in all some of the greatest musicals of the golden age, like Candeed and She Loves Me. I mean, and all these great, great, great shows.

Um, and yet, you know, even at the she says her biggest regret is that at the peak of her career, you know, she was squandering it away with, you know, alcohol and food addiction and and and and unhappiness and depression and all of this, and then and then was able to famously change it around with the cabaret scene. But to to read about it and document it, and for us to interview people and hear about it as well in their own ways, you know, the ups and downs of the business. I just think it's really important for you know, students of this business to understand, like really, that's not gonna happen to you at all. But that is a story of someone who was quote unquote famous and successful, and that's that's a reality of this business as well, is that it it's a it's a constant um ups and downs, and like you know, as much as you worship the talent and the person behind it, um, that there's a real human being there uh that has struggled their whole life to get where they are. And I think that uh I don't know. I think this book is a great celebration of that.

[10:57] Kevin David Thomas: I agree. I think it's a fabulous, fabulous, fantastic book. I read it, I think, in a day. It's an easy it's an easy read.

[11:03] Robert W Schneider: It's an easy read. So yours is Barbara Cook here and now.

[11:06] Kevin David Thomas: Here and then and now sorry, then and now and mine was Donahue, a chorus line. You can't see it. Kevin's doing an impression of what she looks like on the book. Which is you'll know when you see it. Just like a little hand on the chin. This is that's good. Hey, what have a great rest of your week, everybody?

[11:25] Robert W Schneider: Oh, okay, okay. Fine, you don't want to hear my new Mandy? That's fine.

[11:28] Kevin David Thomas: Oh no, you've got a what what do you got? What do you got? Give me some.

[11:30] Robert W Schneider: Okay, just I just need some feedback. Okay. I know I can tell that you really want it. I can tell you on a workshop, but we all can tell. Everyone right now can tell. Go for it. I want to hear flying a dog.

[11:40] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, guys, that's pretty good. So young. And yet so easily. Nope. That's not the lyric. That's it's well, he doesn't like lyrics. Right? He doesn't he doesn't want to stay with the lyrics. It is about the placement, isn't it? It really is about getting that like, ha, ha. Yeah, just yeah. How do we do? It's just all about the soft palate, is all I can say.

[12:03] Robert W Schneider: There it is. There it is. Am I doing it okay? So, what do we think? Is this is this one? I don't know if it's gonna go into the repertoire, but I just think so.

[12:10] Kevin David Thomas: No, I just wanted to workshop it a little bit. All right. Finishing the hat. Does that work? I got one for you. Let's go finish the hat. No, no, we're we ain't doing secret garden, even I have standards. It's you know this week, it is life about it. I'm just looking at my watch. Make the garden grow. Buddy, we're gonna make all your garden grows, and we're gonna let you off the hook for now. We'll talk to you next week. Bye everybody.

[12:50] ♪ Musical number: "My Favorite Things" ♪