This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "My Favorite Things" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[0:20] Robert W Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W Schneider.

[0:22] Kevin David Thomas: I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[0:23] Robert W Schneider: I'm sorry, I just stared at Kevin for like five minutes without saying.

[0:26] Kevin David Thomas: Your mouth is just wide open, like, what's my line? What am I doing now? Help me.

[0:31] Robert W Schneider: How are you, Rob?

[0:32] Kevin David Thomas: I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing?

[0:33] Robert W Schneider: Well good. I just had some mozzarella sticks, so I'm a happy man.

[0:37] Kevin David Thomas: I love a good mozzarella.

[0:38] Robert W Schneider: Except when the cheese gets hard in the middle, and then I'm like, ugh.

[0:40] Kevin David Thomas: In the middle?

[0:41] Robert W Schneider: You know, like when it gets when you let them sit too long.

[0:43] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[0:44] Robert W Schneider: And then you're like, mm-hmm.

[0:45] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[0:46] Robert W Schneider: This is what we call first world problems.

[0:47] Kevin David Thomas: Amen to that.

[0:48] Robert W Schneider: I just I tweeted about that. I was like, you know, why can't Apple just invest in headphones that detangle themselves?

[0:55] Kevin David Thomas: Because I spend, I feel like half my day I spend detangling head.

[0:58] Robert W Schneider: And then I thought, hashtag first world problems, Cat.

[1:00] Kevin David Thomas: I'm surprised.

[1:01] Robert W Schneider: I really get over yourself.

[1:02] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[1:03] Robert W Schneider: No.

[1:03] Kevin David Thomas: I need my headphones.

[1:04] Robert W Schneider: I know. I know. I'm looking over in the corner.

[1:06] Kevin David Thomas: They're tangled.

[1:07] Robert W Schneider: They're tangled again.

[1:08] Kevin David Thomas: And I did not leave them that way, but they are now.

[1:10] Robert W Schneider: Anyway. I wonder what we can do to fix that problem.

[1:12] Kevin David Thomas: Well, they give you that container to put it in, but who has time to wrap it up in that little plastic thing?

[1:16] Robert W Schneider: I don't have time for that.

[1:17] Kevin David Thomas: Ugh. I wish there was a way that they could be retractable.

[1:20] Robert W Schneider: Right. Like a seatbelt.

[1:21] Kevin David Thomas: You know how like a seat belt.

[1:22] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. I have to go. I have to go patent something.

[1:24] Kevin David Thomas: I'll see you later.

[1:27] Robert W Schneider: But I can't. Before I go, I have to tell you about my show. What's your favorite thing today?

[1:31] Kevin David Thomas: My favorite thing today is a musical.

[1:36] Robert W Schneider: It's a CD.

[1:37] Kevin David Thomas: Okay.

[1:37] Robert W Schneider: And I think the story on the behind the making of the CD is so fascinating.

[1:42] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, I'm excited.

[1:43] Robert W Schneider: It's okay, so here we go. It's a musical that came out in the 60s. Did not get a cast recording, though, and only got a cast recording in 2004.

[1:52] Kevin David Thomas: What?

[1:52] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, isn't that interesting?

[1:54] Kevin David Thomas: I know.

[1:54] Robert W Schneider: Oh no, 2003.

[1:55] Kevin David Thomas: 2003.

[1:56] Robert W Schneider: It got a CD because the writer of the show became very famous in the 2000s, in the late 90s and the early 2000s, and that's what got a CD pushed.

[2:08] Kevin David Thomas: I'm so I can't wait.

[2:10] Robert W Schneider: It is a musical called Sherry.

[2:13] Kevin David Thomas: Do you know I of course James Lipton of James Lipton of uh and it was an all-star cast. I have the CD.

[2:18] Robert W Schneider: And it was because I thought, oh my God, this gem from the 60s. Right?

[2:22] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah. No, you go ahead and you can tell the story.

[2:25] Robert W Schneider: Because it's you're right. It's a really great behind-the-scenes story.

[2:28] Kevin David Thomas: Okay, well, and you add on to it, because I'm sure you know more about this than I do.

[2:32] Robert W Schneider: So if you remember, inside the actor studio, the host James Lipton. He was like 130.

[2:36] Kevin David Thomas: Who's 130?

[2:38] Robert W Schneider: I spoke to him on the phone yesterday.

[2:40] Kevin David Thomas: Wait, what?

[2:40] Robert W Schneider: For a project.

[2:41] Kevin David Thomas: What?

[2:41] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it'll come to fruition.

[2:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[2:44] Robert W Schneider: But he was fascinating.

[2:46] Kevin David Thomas: Did you have to like tell like what like Peter would say when you came to the gates and stuff at the end of the phone call?

[2:51] Robert W Schneider: Was like, what's your favorite word? Your favorite sound. What is your favorite ringtone? What is your least favorite ringtone? It was very cool.

[2:59] Kevin David Thomas: That's cool.

[2:59] Robert W Schneider: I have to I loved watching his show when I was growing up. I loved it.

[3:04] Kevin David Thomas: And so um he I sent him an email and I got a phone call and I didn't recognize the number, and I picked up and I was like, hello, and he goes, Mr. Schneider.

[3:04] Robert W Schneider: And I was like, Yes. He goes, Jim Lipton.

[3:14] Kevin David Thomas: Oh.

[3:14] Robert W Schneider: And I'm like, oh I wrote everything out on blue cards and stacked them up. So anyway, he was before he was the host of Inside the Actors Studio, he was actually heavily involved in writing musicals.

[3:27] Kevin David Thomas: Um he worked on a show called Nowhere to Go But Up, which I don't think has a cast recording.

[3:31] Robert W Schneider: No, but we've talked about it before.

[3:32] Kevin David Thomas: We've talked about it before.

[3:33] Robert W Schneider: I think with Jack Vertell.

[3:35] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, maybe yes, he had a post-article.

[3:37] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. Maybe Sherry, for those of you who don't know, Sherry is a musical version of the great play, The Man Who Came to Dinner, which is a fabulous play.

[3:45] Kevin David Thomas: They did it, uh they filmed it a few years ago at Roundabout with Nathan Lane in the leading role.

[3:50] Robert W Schneider: Um and it's on YouTube. So if you don't know the play, you should know the play.

[3:54] Kevin David Thomas: But the idea of the story is this very eccentric radio personality, comes to small town conservative Ohio. He breaks his hip, and he's confined to a wheelchair for six weeks at this house where he wreaks havoc.

[4:07] Robert W Schneider: So it's great setup.

[4:09] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, it's Urban World Meets Country World. It's very funny. He changes the family's life, and it's it's a lot of fun. It's just a very fun play.

[4:15] Robert W Schneider: Not really produced a lot anymore because a lot of the punchlines in the play were 1930s references. And if you're unless you're an expert on 1930s history, the play doesn't really make you laugh as much.

[4:27] Kevin David Thomas: However, it's still done in a lot of high schools and community theaters, big cast, lots of fun, lots of heart.

[4:31] Robert W Schneider: And so James Lipton and his uh the composer Lawrence Rosenthal, they decided that they were gonna musicalize it. It went through some trouble out of town.

[4:38] Kevin David Thomas: George Sanders, who probably people remember as Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, he's the critic.

[4:46] Robert W Schneider: He was supposed to play uh the leading character who's the guy who's confined to the wheelchair. He quit when his wife got sick, so they got another guy in there.

[4:54] Kevin David Thomas: Uh they fired the choreographer out of town, they fired the director out of town. So lots of trouble.

[4:59] Robert W Schneider: So anyway, show opens up on Broadway, and actually, even though we consider this a why musical, which is you know, why would you musicalize something that works so well? It's a lot of fun.

[5:10] Kevin David Thomas: And actually, what I think it does is it gives the characters a third dimension that the second that the first play is kind of missing.

[5:18] Robert W Schneider: The play itself is very fun and very silly, and the musical actually gives you a heart to latch on to with a lot of these characters, and I think that's what the musical does so well.

[5:28] Kevin David Thomas: Obviously, I was not around in 1967, but they said there were a lot of funny things. There was a whole wheelchair ballet.

[5:34] Robert W Schneider: Oh my god.

[5:34] Kevin David Thomas: Because the character is supposed to be confined and he really can't get up.

[5:37] Robert W Schneider: So anyway, show opens, closes, doesn't get a lot of great reviews. Audiences, though, have a really good time at it.

[5:44] Kevin David Thomas: And so they decide that they're gonna strike the set. There's like seven performances.

[5:48] Robert W Schneider: I mean, it was all yeah, yeah. I don't even have any. It's very yeah, it was like just a couple, yeah.

[5:52] Kevin David Thomas: Sherry exclamation marks.

[5:53] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah, Sherry exclamation point. So they decide that okay, show's over. So apparently they used maybe they still do this. When a show ends, they take all the sets and they take them out to New Jersey and they burn them.

[6:06] Kevin David Thomas: Oh they put them in storage.

[6:08] Robert W Schneider: No, back then they would burn them, so they would just get rid of the sets.

[6:11] Kevin David Thomas: Wow.

[6:11] Robert W Schneider: So they did that, and James Lipton calls up, and uh, this was in the 60s, and he calls up and he says, Hey, listen, I don't have all the orchestrations and the score of the show. Did anyone pick one up from the theater? And they said, Well, it was in a trunk.

[6:21] Kevin David Thomas: Uh-oh.

[6:26] Robert W Schneider: With I think it was on the truck that went to New Jersey. So for years, people had assumed that the scores just mistakenly were burned and lost.

[6:34] Kevin David Thomas: Or lost.

[6:34] Robert W Schneider: Not true, because a music product producer named Robert W Schneider discovered the trunk in the library of Congress.

[6:44] Kevin David Thomas: What?

[6:44] Robert W Schneider: And contacted James Lipton and said, Hey, you probably have this already, but we found all the orchestrations. We got a trunk here with your name on it, Jim. Do you want it?

[6:53] Kevin David Thomas: And of course, James Lipton said, Would I? Absolutely.

[6:57] Robert W Schneider: And at this point, he had become a huge uh hit with Inside the Actors Studio. Now, this is really interesting. Because he had had such a big name and such a cachet along with him, he amassed an amazing cast to be on.

[7:10] Kevin David Thomas: I'm gonna call it, I want to say it's a concept recording. It's not, it's a cast recording. It feels like they rehearsed it, though.

[7:13] Robert W Schneider: I mean, there's dialogue, there's like it's two CDs.

[7:18] Kevin David Thomas: It's a two CD set.

[7:20] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. It features not only every song that was in the show, plus incidental music, but also songs that were cut from the original production.

[7:27] Kevin David Thomas: And I think this was so interesting. They recorded the vocals in New York City, but the orchestra parts were recorded in Bratzlava and Prague over a three-year span.

[7:39] Robert W Schneider: It took them three years ago. When they had the money, they'd go over there and do it. And they like, well, we need more money, and then we go back.

[7:43] Kevin David Thomas: Now here's the cast. Imagine seeing this cast in an actual live Broadway show.

[7:48] Robert W Schneider: All right, here we go. Nathan Lane.

[7:50] Kevin David Thomas: Reprising or no, yeah, yeah.

[7:54] Robert W Schneider: And Man Who Came to Dinner. Bernadette Peters. Amazing. Carol Burnett, Tom Wopat, Tommy Toon, Mike Myers from SNL Fame, Lilius White, Keith David, James Lipton himself, and Phyllis Newman.

[8:08] Kevin David Thomas: This is the cast.

[8:08] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. This is the cast he assembled. And I think the score is absolutely fun.

[8:15] Kevin David Thomas: It is fantastic.

[8:16] Robert W Schneider: It puts a smile on your face. And it's one of those last 19 joyous 1960 musicals. When do you get to rediscover a show that was essentially lost?

[8:27] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely. You know, I mean, like lost, completely.

[8:30] Robert W Schneider: Literally. And imagine the joy of thinking, oh my God, you know, it all got thrown away, it all got burnt. And then 30 years later, it shows up on your doorstep.

[8:39] Kevin David Thomas: It's crazy.

[8:40] Robert W Schneider: And you had the money and the ability to put such an incredible cast together. So my favorite thing is Sherry, James Lipton, uh, Lawrence Rosenthal. The CD set is available on iTunes, I think for like 11 bucks.

[8:54] Kevin David Thomas: And the cast is amazing.

[8:55] Robert W Schneider: It's got a great booklet, it has a whole libretto in there. It's got everything. It's it's fantastic.

[8:59] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, it's really wonderful.

[9:00] Robert W Schneider: So that's mine.

[9:01] Kevin David Thomas: Sharing.

[9:02] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah, it's wonderful.

[9:04] Kevin David Thomas: I have a CD as well. This is not a show, although I believe it's made into like a song cycle-ish. This is a composer. It's of his songs.

[9:10] Robert W Schneider: It is um he has written for theater, but he is known for his classical work.

[9:18] Kevin David Thomas: And it's he but he used all Broadway singers, except for one, Broadway singers on this album. And it's all it's just a song cycle. Not even a song, I'm not even gonna say cycle. It's just his songs, like a recital, if you will.

[9:31] Robert W Schneider: Okay. I'm a huge fan of his work. I've worked with him uh as his copyist or as as a proofreader and copyist for some of his his uh his scores.

[9:38] Kevin David Thomas: Um another three name composer.

[9:41] Robert W Schneider: Oh, okay.

[9:41] Kevin David Thomas: Let me guess.

[9:42] Robert W Schneider: Let me guess.

[9:42] Kevin David Thomas: It's not Michael John LaCusa.

[9:44] Robert W Schneider: Nope.

[9:45] Kevin David Thomas: It oh, oh, uh Jonathan Reed.

[9:48] Robert W Schneider: He wrote a show off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons once again.

[9:52] Kevin David Thomas: Playwrights Horizons always for the winner on this one.

[9:54] Robert W Schneider: And then like 2003, I want to say you know, I'm gonna kick myself when you say it.

[9:58] Kevin David Thomas: I know, and Kelly O'Hara started it, but a very long book by Proust.

[10:03] Robert W Schneider: I I boy, you know what? Here it goes. I'm throwing my hands up. I don't know what this is.

[10:09] Kevin David Thomas: His name is Ricky Ian Gordon.

[10:12] Robert W Schneider: And it's Myths and Hymns.

[10:13] Kevin David Thomas: It is not Myths and Hymns is uh Adam Gettle.

[10:16] Robert W Schneider: That is wrong, Rob.

[10:17] Kevin David Thomas: It is not Myths and Middle. Strike two.

[10:20] Robert W Schneider: So no, no, so Saturn returns.

[10:22] Kevin David Thomas: So Ricky.

[10:23] Robert W Schneider: No, it's called Bright Eyed Joy, the songs of Ricky Ian Gordon.

[10:26] Kevin David Thomas: I've never heard that.

[10:26] Robert W Schneider: Listen, then you're going to, because it's really special. Now, Ricky Ian Gordon definitely has a foot in the musical theater world, but he definitely has his whole body in the pool of art song and opera.

[10:38] Kevin David Thomas: I mean, he wrote a whole opera for Minnesota Opera called The Grapes based on the Grapes of Wrath.

[10:42] Robert W Schneider: But Ricky's music is very rooted in all styles. I mean, depending on what the character's going through, he writes for that style. I think right now his passion is definitely more in the opera world.

[10:53] Kevin David Thomas: But he wrote My Life with Albertine was an off-Broadway show that Kelly O'Hara starred in at Playwright's Horizons with Chad Kimball.

[11:01] Robert W Schneider: And his music is it's piano-based, like a lot of his stuff is on the piano first, and then he orchestrates it. But they're art song-ish. I mean, like they are very smart songs. If you ever listen, friends, Audra McDonald's first album, her very first solo album, where she just did songs of new composers like Adam Gettle, Jason Robert Brown.

[11:21] Kevin David Thomas: Ricky was featured prominently on that album.

[11:23] Robert W Schneider: He Dream Variations was the opening song on the album that she did that is just gorgeous. He writes for strong singers. So on this album, you have Teresa McCarthy, who is in Floyd Collins, she played the girl that she's done a lot of, she was in Titanic as well.

[11:38] Kevin David Thomas: Darius Dehaas, Audra McDonald. A lot of people don't realize that Adam Gettle, the composer, the great, you know, the grandson of Richard Rogers who wrote, you know, Floyd Collins and Light in the Piazza, he's an incredible singer and glorious singer.

[11:51] Robert W Schneider: And he was a boy soprano at the Met when he was a kid. But he sings Ricky's songs on this album, as well as the one true classical singer is Don Upshaw, and she sings as well on this.

[12:01] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I love Don Upshaw.

[12:02] Robert W Schneider: And so these songs range from, you know, show tune style songs to like true art songs with heavy lifting, you know, legit singing, but all have a story, all have an idea. He went through a phase where he took a lot of Langston Hughes poetry and he musicalized them.

[12:17] Kevin David Thomas: A song called Audra sings a lot of those songs, like Daybreak in Alabama. I just find this music complex, like in the way that Michael John LaCusa is, and Adam Gettle for sure. And I think it's interesting that they all kind of came, these Jason Robert Brown, Adam Gettle, Michael John LaCusa, Ricky Ian Gordon, they all kind of came to prominence at around the same time in the mid-90s, early aughts.

[12:39] Robert W Schneider: They had three names.

[12:40] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, well, isn't that interesting? They definitely changed the way we the way musical music was used as an art as a storytelling art form. You know, I think that Michael John and Ricky for sure are a little more classical.

[12:52] Robert W Schneider: You get a little more complex, and Adam Gettle for sure. I mean, their music is way more complex. Jason Robert Brown is just has more pop influence and all that. His piano parts are just as crazy and hard to play as anything, but they're definitely like there's a more of a groove to his piano playing, I want to say.

[13:07] Kevin David Thomas: But um, but this album it fascinates me because of the incredible singing on it, and because each song is its own little story, its own little musical, if you will. And it's they are almost art song-like, but they're beautiful. And I wish he would write more theater music.

[13:28] Robert W Schneider: I remember he was doing a show at the Signature with Judy Kuhn when I was working with him a couple years ago, and then I think it's called Sycamore Trees. And it didn't, nothing ever happened with it. And I don't know why he doesn't do more theater music. I know he does, he gets commissioned for operas all the time now, and he's a really smart writer, and this album is a great introduction to a contemporary, I'm gonna say theater writer.

[13:52] Kevin David Thomas: I'm gonna listen to it right now.

[13:53] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, it's got you've got simple songs. There's a song called Once I Was that is just simple and sweet. You've got these overflowing songs that the very last song of the album is called Joy. A lot of legit, like you know, if you studied legit in college, you probably heard Sopranos sing this song because it's just Audra just kills it.

[14:09] Kevin David Thomas: And it's it's a fine line between art song and theater song because art songs were trying to do the same thing that traditionally that theater songs do. In other words, give you an emotion, make you feel something through the music, and tell a story, you know, Strauss and all that. They were doing that. Schubert, oh my gosh.

[14:25] Robert W Schneider: You know, so Ricky is sort of the contemporary of them of that style, and he's got his foot in both worlds. And I'm appreciate that, and I wish that he was known more. Uh and and but he's known in the classical world for sure. But my favorite things, Bright Eyed Joy, the songs of Ricky Ian Gordon.

[14:43] Kevin David Thomas: I feel so smart.

[14:44] Robert W Schneider: That was so interesting.

[14:46] Kevin David Thomas: I feel like I just gave a lecture.

[14:48] Robert W Schneider: I know.

[14:48] Kevin David Thomas: I feel like I should go on to Spark Notes now.

[14:51] Robert W Schneider: Next up, Benjamin Britten.

[14:53] Kevin David Thomas: Well, and he was a major influence on Ricky.

[14:55] Robert W Schneider: Uh in fact, uh like but Ricky was like, if you want to hear really great theater music and really great smart music, Benjamin Britten. Like, listen to any one of his operas because that is contemporary that is acting singing going on, but extreme singing going on and crazy stories.

[15:11] Kevin David Thomas: That's so interesting. Jeez, you know what's so funny? I don't really know a lot about art music. I know a lot about musical theater and popular music.

[15:18] Robert W Schneider: I don't know anything about art anymore. I think I do because of when I went I stu I went to a music conservatory and I got a bachelor of music in musical theater, but for the first two years, we really were only allowed to sing legit, not musical theater, like legit, like l almost. I mean, I sang like not like crazy lot, not Wagner or anything like that, but I sang art songs and stuff like that.

[15:38] Kevin David Thomas: Baldwin?

[15:38] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, Baldwin, yeah, music conservatory. Um, and so the first two years we were encouraged to sing classical stuff to really get that foundation. Like, like you know, much like dancers take ballet first, and then you can go do your other stuff. But you need that, you need that firm foundation before you can you know play around in the other stuff.

[15:55] Kevin David Thomas: That's so cool.

[15:55] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, and that's that's so cool.

[15:56] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, huge fan of the big.

[15:57] Robert W Schneider: Well, I'm gonna go listen to it right now, actually.

[15:59] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[16:00] Robert W Schneider: And the singers are they're Broadway singers, so that's what's fun about it, is that they can handle it.

[16:04] Kevin David Thomas: That is so cool.

[16:05] Robert W Schneider: What do you got for me today?

[16:07] Kevin David Thomas: Uh I did Sherry.

[16:08] Robert W Schneider: Oh my gosh.

[16:09] Kevin David Thomas: Hello, Kevin.

[16:10] Robert W Schneider: Obviously, it left such a lasting impression.

[16:12] Kevin David Thomas: I can I I can do my whole spiel again.

[16:14] Robert W Schneider: No, no, no, no, no.

[16:15] Kevin David Thomas: It's good.

[16:15] Robert W Schneider: That's good.

[16:16] Kevin David Thomas: That was good.

[16:17] Robert W Schneider: You nailed it the first time, right?

[16:19] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[16:19] Robert W Schneider: Well, that's fine. I can I can tell you about more about Bratislava and Prague and James Lipton with his blue cards.

[16:24] Kevin David Thomas: And that's I wish the whole score was written out and on his blue cards.

[16:28] Robert W Schneider: Just like the whole score was like next one of a hundred blue cards.

[16:33] Kevin David Thomas: And then he stopped writing musicals.

[16:35] Robert W Schneider: Then he stopped.

[16:36] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I don't think there was anything after Sherry.

[16:38] Robert W Schneider: Because at that point, he I think he got into the academic world and he did a lot of producing. I think he, if I'm remembering correctly, I think he produced Jimmy Carter's inaugural.

[16:47] Kevin David Thomas: That gets produced?

[16:49] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, yeah.

[16:50] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah, those are big deals.

[16:51] Robert W Schneider: Wow.

[16:52] Kevin David Thomas: You know, Frank Sinatra, I think, produced Reagans.

[16:55] Robert W Schneider: I didn't know that those things.

[16:56] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah.

[16:57] Robert W Schneider: Wow.

[16:57] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[16:59] Robert W Schneider: Those were big deals.

[17:01] Kevin David Thomas: Did you ever see the those are on YouTube, I think.

[17:03] Robert W Schneider: Never, never.

[17:03] Kevin David Thomas: You're a political guy though. You love that stuff.

[17:05] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, in college I did political science.

[17:08] Kevin David Thomas: I did not know that, Rob.

[17:09] Robert W Schneider: Yeah.

[17:09] Kevin David Thomas: I majored in political science in college.

[17:12] Robert W Schneider: Where'd you go to college?

[17:12] Kevin David Thomas: I went to California Lutheran University.

[17:15] Robert W Schneider: It was the only gay Jew on campus.

[17:17] Kevin David Thomas: So they kept me in the quad in the cage and I waved to everybody once in a while.

[17:21] Robert W Schneider: Dear, somebody different.

[17:23] Kevin David Thomas: Uh through peanuts.

[17:26] Robert W Schneider: But yeah, that's yes, that's that.

[17:27] Kevin David Thomas: So I went to Cal Lutheran, you went to Baldwin Wallace.

[17:29] Robert W Schneider: Shout-out.

[17:30] Kevin David Thomas: I got my master's at Penn State.

[17:32] Robert W Schneider: Nice.

[17:32] Kevin David Thomas: Shout out.

[17:33] Robert W Schneider: And that's that.

[17:34] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, that's that.

[17:34] Robert W Schneider: Um, so I'm gonna go listen to what's the name of yours again?

[17:37] Kevin David Thomas: Uh it's called Bright Eyed Joy.

[17:38] Robert W Schneider: Bright Eyed Joy.

[17:39] Kevin David Thomas: Bright Eyed Joy Songs of Ricky Ian Gordon.

[17:41] Robert W Schneider: And I'm gonna go re-listen to Sherry.

[17:43] Kevin David Thomas: Exclamation.

[17:44] Robert W Schneider: It's not a musical in the 60s unless there's an exclamation point.

[17:48] Kevin David Thomas: Donnie Brook.

[17:49] Robert W Schneider: I wonder where that came from.

[17:50] Kevin David Thomas: Sherry?

[17:51] Robert W Schneider: No, the exclamation point.

[17:52] Kevin David Thomas: Oklahoma?

[17:53] Robert W Schneider: Yeah.

[17:53] Kevin David Thomas: They were the first one.

[17:54] Robert W Schneider: I mean, I mean, I'm sure there were other ones, but they really it wasn't just Oklahoma.

[17:58] Kevin David Thomas: Oklahoma!

[17:59] Robert W Schneider: You gotta yell it at everybody.

[18:01] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[18:01] Robert W Schneider: I wonder why they don't do that today.

[18:02] Kevin David Thomas: I don't I'm trying to think when's the last time. Does something Rodden have an exclamation?

[18:06] Robert W Schneider: I think it should.

[18:07] Kevin David Thomas: It would.

[18:08] Robert W Schneider: Hamilton.

[18:09] Kevin David Thomas: That would be great.

[18:10] Robert W Schneider: Cats.

[18:12] Kevin David Thomas: I gotta get tickets for cats.

[18:14] Robert W Schneider: Good luck.

[18:15] Kevin David Thomas: Are you coming with me?

[18:16] Robert W Schneider: No, we'll think about it.

[18:17] Kevin David Thomas: I was I was always a couple of weeks ago. I saw a show and I was talking to my friend about I was like, I said, I've never seen a production of cats.

[18:23] Robert W Schneider: Actually, have not either.

[18:24] Kevin David Thomas: And the person in front of me was like, keep it that way. People love to hate that show, even though everyone loved it at the time.

[18:30] Robert W Schneider: I was like, now wait a minute. This thing ran for what, 18 years or something? It can't be that.

[18:33] Kevin David Thomas: I'm gonna I'm gonna go see it.

[18:37] Robert W Schneider: I will.

[18:37] Kevin David Thomas: Alright, we'll go together.

[18:38] Robert W Schneider: All right, sounds good.

[18:39] Kevin David Thomas: Deal like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings.

[18:53] All: These are a few of my favorite things.

[19:02] All: These are a few of my favorite things.