This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:18] Robert W Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W Schneider.

[0:19] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[0:21] Robert W Schneider: And this is our favorite things.

[0:25] Kevin David Thomas: I love when we say it like that.

[0:27] Robert W Schneider: Nobody else does, but I like it.

[0:29] Kevin David Thomas: Hashtag TBT.

[0:31] Robert W Schneider: TBT, yes.

[0:32] Kevin David Thomas: What's TF?

[0:33] Robert W Schneider: No, T not TDS.

[0:34] Kevin David Thomas: Throwback Thursday.

[0:34] Robert W Schneider: Oh, that's right.

[0:35] Kevin David Thomas: I was like, favorite things.

[0:37] Robert W Schneider: Yay. I love doing these, actually.

[0:39] Kevin David Thomas: These are fun.

[0:40] Robert W Schneider: I love them.

[0:41] Kevin David Thomas: Um Dead Silence.

[0:45] Robert W Schneider: Dead Dead Silence.

[0:46] Kevin David Thomas: No one else is here.

[0:48] Robert W Schneider: We love them too.

[0:49] Kevin David Thomas: That's right. And you could just review us and tell us that too if you don't want to, or not.

[0:53] Robert W Schneider: I don't know. Please tell us how we're doing.

[0:55] Kevin David Thomas: Um so continuing on. Once again, thank you all so much for the wonderful, wonderful contributions you have for your skip songs.

[1:03] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, hashtag skip songs. Um we got some we got some more here from some great, wonderful people.

[1:09] Kevin David Thomas: The lovely uh Karen Elliott.

[1:11] Robert W Schneider: I love Karen Elliott. You were on tour with Karen Elliott.

[1:13] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes, lame is. What is Karen Elliott saying?

[1:15] Robert W Schneider: She said Green Finch and Lipbird.

[1:17] Kevin David Thomas: She said sacrilege, I know. With a sad face emoji.

[1:19] Robert W Schneider: I know I love you, Karen. Going along with it. Um, my good friend Megan Crockett from Los Angeles, California.

[1:26] Kevin David Thomas: She says so many. The more you rub someone from Avenue Q, and better with a man from Gentleman's Guide, two recent ones she said that she can think of.

[1:35] Robert W Schneider: I gotta I have to. This is when we talked about the very first time we talked about it. Jonathan Savage wrote Blood in the Water from Legally Blonde.

[1:41] Kevin David Thomas: I'm I'm like, that's the one where like Michael Rupert's number. That's whenever whenever I see Legally Blonde, I'm like, what is going on? Sorry, Michael. He's great.

[1:50] Robert W Schneider: Bobby Traversa, lovely Bobby Traversis had something bad from Wicked. Michael John McGraw said, I second this, and Jesse Jones said I third this.

[1:59] Kevin David Thomas: So it's a quorum. So it's everyone has agreed on that. And you know what? Let's let's talk about this one.

[2:04] Robert W Schneider: Because we've got two here. My favorite Richard Rowland, great at Richard Rowland, wonderful actor, director said something was missing from Annie.

[2:12] Kevin David Thomas: I think I've only heard it once in its entirety since 1977.

[2:18] Robert W Schneider: That's funny. We got any others here, Kev? What do we got?

[2:21] Kevin David Thomas: An original musical from the title of show.

[2:24] Robert W Schneider: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I understand that. Days Gone By from She Loves Me from our student Sean Ben Litt.

[2:30] Kevin David Thomas: Uh Sean, I am your teacher, and I will tell you that I did She Loves Me, and I was Mr. Maracek.

[2:35] Robert W Schneider: And I did sing Days Gone By. And it would not have been your least favorite song in the show. In fact, it would have been your favorite song in the show.

[2:45] Kevin David Thomas: Oh goodness. As I talk sing my way through it.

[2:48] Robert W Schneider: Talk so much.

[2:49] Kevin David Thomas: I bet you are good, Rob, I bet you were. Did you have matching purple socks to your matching purple shirt for that as well? Because I keep looking at you, and you've got purple socks.

[2:57] Robert W Schneider: Yep, look at you. And your purple's I'm so impressed.

[3:00] Kevin David Thomas: But hold on, I'm gonna impress you can't see this, but I'll post a photo.

[3:05] Robert W Schneider: Oh, they've got little angels.

[3:07] Kevin David Thomas: The Cherub Angels like the artwork.

[3:09] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. Thank you for matching your socks to your shoes.

[3:12] Kevin David Thomas: You know what? You know what? And thank you all for this one, because this one we got a lot of. Are you ready for this?

[3:17] Robert W Schneider: Everyone does, everyone seems to skip over this song. It was a real nice clam bake from Carousel.

[3:23] Kevin David Thomas: That's a good one. Somebody said, I don't do well with recipe songs.

[3:27] Robert W Schneider: Classic.

[3:30] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, that's so poisson. That harkens back to that other one.

[3:33] Robert W Schneider: Because recipes, right? Yeah, recipes, right? So there we go. I guess.

[3:37] Kevin David Thomas: Um so what's our next step? So here's our next thing that Kevin and I would like to start with you guys.

[3:41] Robert W Schneider: Oh yeah. Uh, we'd love to do ask Rob and Kevin.

[3:45] Kevin David Thomas: Oh ask Rob and Kevin. Hashtag question Rob and Kevin. Hashtag ask Rob and Kevin.

[3:50] Robert W Schneider: I like that. Questions about anything that you want to ask us. What's our favorite show? What do we think of this? How old are you? Do you still wear a toupee?

[4:00] Kevin David Thomas: Sorry. I'm so sorry. For those of you who don't know.

[4:03] Robert W Schneider: Or a unit. You can call it a unit. I wore a toupee from the ages of 17 to 23.

[4:08] Kevin David Thomas: We called it a unit. And Rob used to model them for stars, but he can't talk about it today because he had signed too many non-disclosure degrees.

[4:14] Robert W Schneider: I did sign non-disclosure defense. I'll tell you off off the air who they are. Some of them you're like, oh, really? Like Rob Lowe.

[4:22] Kevin David Thomas: No, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding. I'm kidding.

[4:24] Robert W Schneider: I'm kidding. He's got hair.

[4:25] Kevin David Thomas: No, he's got hair. No, I think I think it's natural. No, we had some we had some real winners at the toupee clinic. Uh it was called, I don't even think they're in business.

[4:33] Robert W Schneider: Oh my God. The last. Okay, so I stopped wearing it. I'm gonna go real quickly. I stopped wearing the toupee when I was 23 years old.

[4:42] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[4:43] Robert W Schneider: I'm 33 now, so I've been 10 years without the touch. 10 years without the unit.

[4:46] Kevin David Thomas: And then well, yes, they made us call it a unit. They wouldn't, you said they said you can't call it a toupee.

[4:50] Robert W Schneider: Toupee sounds bad. You have to call it a unit. The last time I saw the people that sold me the toupee, they were on the people's court getting sued.

[4:57] Kevin David Thomas: No, wait, you're lying.

[4:59] Robert W Schneider: I swear to you, they were on the pieces court getting sued.

[5:02] Kevin David Thomas: That is a true story.

[5:03] Robert W Schneider: Oh God. Because I used to tell people like, oh yeah, you can go swimming in it, you can go swimming in it.

[5:07] Kevin David Thomas: You really couldn't go swimming in it.

[5:08] Robert W Schneider: There's no swimming. There really there's no swimming.

[5:11] Kevin David Thomas: There's no swimming in baseball.

[5:12] Robert W Schneider: Why is there a raccoon in the pool?

[5:14] Kevin David Thomas: Rob's unit.

[5:15] Robert W Schneider: Rob's unit. Hashtag ask Rob and Kevin.

[5:17] Kevin David Thomas: So you can rob and Kevin. Hashtag ask Rob and Kevin. Hashtag.

[5:24] Robert W Schneider: We'll answer anything reasonable.

[5:25] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. Yes. Oh my God. We'd love to hear from you guys.

[5:28] Robert W Schneider: We'd love to hear from you. We'll take questions, suggestions, comments, and concerns.

[5:32] Kevin David Thomas: Speaking of questions, comments, and concerns, I have a concern.

[5:36] Robert W Schneider: What's up?

[5:36] Kevin David Thomas: My concern is that my favorite thing for today has never been revived on Broadway in the past 25 or 30 years, and it upsets me.

[5:43] Robert W Schneider: So it has been revived once.

[5:45] Kevin David Thomas: Once for a very short run.

[5:49] Robert W Schneider: And I'm angry about it.

[5:50] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, cheapers. I think it's a wonderful.

[5:52] Robert W Schneider: Bells are ringing.

[5:53] Kevin David Thomas: No, but I do love bells are ringing. That was a good one.

[5:55] Robert W Schneider: 70s?

[5:56] Kevin David Thomas: 70s.

[5:57] Robert W Schneider: 1970s, 1974 to be exactly.

[6:01] Kevin David Thomas: No, no.

[6:02] Robert W Schneider: Oh, oh, you're no no nanette.

[6:04] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no, no.

[6:05] Robert W Schneider: 1974. Geld and Udell wrote the score.

[6:09] Kevin David Thomas: Pearly?

[6:09] Robert W Schneider: Cool.

[6:10] Kevin David Thomas: No, getting closer, though.

[6:11] Robert W Schneider: Not Angel.

[6:12] Kevin David Thomas: Not Angel.

[6:13] Robert W Schneider: John Cullum.

[6:15] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, Shenandoah.

[6:16] Robert W Schneider: Shannando. Speaking of remember uh the last podcast you talked about the commercials that you had.

[6:20] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[6:20] Robert W Schneider: The Shenandoah commercial. So Shenandoah, Shannon's great score. It's got a wonderful score.

[6:26] Kevin David Thomas: Guys, if you're looking for material, look at Shenandoah because there is so much great stuff in there for you.

[6:31] Robert W Schneider: For those of you who don't know Shenandoah, um, it's from 1974. It's a musical. It's based on an old film with Jimmy Stewart where he is a pacifist, really.

[6:40] Kevin David Thomas: Uh huh.

[6:44] Robert W Schneider: And he just chooses not to pick sides. And he wants to have a very pacifist life. And unfortunately, his kids get destroyed by the war, his family gets destroyed by the war.

[6:53] Kevin David Thomas: The reason that I'm really fascinated by this is because people have said that one of the greatest performances ever in musical theater was John Cullum's performance in Shenandoah.

[7:03] Robert W Schneider: Wow. And if you listen to the recording, I think you can hear why. I obviously was I wasn't old enough to see the show, but his performance on the recording is really, really great.

[7:14] Kevin David Thomas: Listen to Meditation, which is a really beautiful song that he sings when he's at the gravestone of his wife because he's a widower.

[7:22] Robert W Schneider: There's a fun song from men called Next to Love and I Love Fighting.

[7:26] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, like I like Fighting.

[7:27] Robert W Schneider: Next to Living. I like that and I like fun. It's exciting. Kevin knows it.

[7:30] Kevin David Thomas: It is really a really interesting show. It's very, it's got a nice country western sound to it, very folksy.

[7:38] Robert W Schneider: So mine is Shenandoah. I am surprised it has not been brought back to Broadway.

[7:42] Kevin David Thomas: When was the first revival?

[7:44] Robert W Schneider: 1989, and it was with John Cullum again.

[7:46] Kevin David Thomas: I had no idea.

[7:48] Robert W Schneider: Yeah, there was one in '89 with John Cullum. They did it a good speed a few years later with Mark Kutish.

[7:53] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, geez. As the son, not as you can't remember who played the dead. And then 10 years ago, there was gonna be a revival.

[7:59] Robert W Schneider: They started off in DC with Scott Bacchula in the John Cullum role. If you remember Scott Bacchula, and it never went anywhere. I'm just surprised, like it's never been done at Encores, it hasn't been done in any shape whatsoever in New York for a long time now. So I'm hoping, guys, bring Shenandoah back, but listen to the cast recording. Take a listen to John Cullum's performance, because it really is wonderful. It really is incredible. And I think there's also some clips of him singing, so we'll post those as well. But what a special performer over the years. I mean, he's constantly, I mean, he was in Scottsboro Boys, and he was, I mean, he's what a career. I mean, uh yeah, talk about resilience and surviving this business.

He, because of, I remember Camelot, he was in Camelot, the original Camelot. We should interview him. Jeez. I would love to get him on a clear day. He was Mr. Cladwell in Urban. Oh, gosh, that's right. Um, it just on the 20th century. Just a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant performance. And a lot of TV folks, you might remember him from Northern Exposure, I think was the name of the TV show. Oh, yeah, I remember that show. Great actor. So mine is Shenandoah.

[8:57] Kevin David Thomas: Right on. Good one. Yeah. What about yours? All right. I have neither show nor website nor book, but I have a human being. We've talked about this gentleman many times in our travels on the podcast. Um, he's probably, other than like Jack Cassidy, as you know, I love how he sings and all this. This is like one of my favorite tenors ever. And we were robbed of this voice and this being, uh, way, way, way too soon. Of, um, of course, it's David James Carroll or David James Carroll, as he was often known. Um, David James Carroll, uh, we talked to Judy Kay about him. You can go back and listen to that interview. Um, Walter Bobby talked about him because they had worked together. And whenever anyone talks about David James Carroll, they always kind of have happiness and they have a little smile in their eyes because he seemed to be such a special man.

Uh, so how, where can I start with him? He, um, he was born in 1950, uh, and he has made his Broadway debut in Where's Charlie? Uh, and but what I like is that so much of what he was in a lot of flops, let's just be honest. He was in a lot of shows like Oh Brother, like that's not exactly a household name of a show, or Wind in the Willows in 1985. But, um, but a lot of the work he did is preserved. There are concept albums that were made in the, uh, like 1990 and 89 that you will be able to hear him. Uh, you most people know him because he was on chess. He sang Anthem and Where I Wanna Be, and he sang those duets with Judy Kuhn that are so gorgeous. Um, and then, of course, he was in Grand Hotel, but unfortunately he, that's when he passed away.

Uh, he passed away, in fact, during the recording session for, they tried to bump up the recording time for him. And my mentor when I first moved to New York was Jack Lee, who we talked about in a podcast as well. Um, Jack passed away earlier this year, unfortunately, but he was the original music director on Grand Hotel. And I remember during a coaching session with him years ago, like in 2002, I remember asking Jack about David James Carroll because I was such a fan of him. And Jack was like, Yeah, I was there the day that he collapsed, and he, you know, they were gonna record um Love Can't Happen, this big 11 o'clock number. And he, he had a pulmonary embolism as you know, complications from AIDS.

He was part of that whole generation of, uh, artists to that we lost in the 90s, uh, in the late 80s and 90s. Um, but he was boy, I mean, what a special, special, special voice, and a special guy, it seems like.

[11:19] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. Um, I don't, I don't know anyone who other than the ones we've interviewed that knew him personally. I would, I would like to know more stories about him. But here's some ways that you can listen to him and get to know what an incredible artist he is. First, if you want to see him perform, just type in his name on YouTube and you'll see there's a bootleg of chess that you can see some scenes. But there also is a great clip of him singing Love Can't Happen from Grand Hotel, this like crazy tenor extravagance type of song that I think is one of the hardest songs to sing. But he sings it on the Phil Donahue show, which thank you, Phil Donahue, for having so many artists, you know, on your show.

Yeah. Um, it's a little, um, a little stiff because he's clearly directed for the camera. Like he turns to the camera at one moment, turns to camera two at another moment, but you get to hear him sing, and yes, he looks sick. I mean, you can tell that he's not well, but you still get to see his performance. Um, personally, I think I'm, I will post this. Um, there's a song from a musical called Mark Twain, the musical or the Mark Twain drama. This was a musical that was done in Almira, New York, which is my hometown. And they did it for 10 seasons from like 85 to 95 or so. I was in the last season, full equity production. Uh, they hired three equity actors. There was an ice skating rink. It was a full house, three-story house that turned at the end into a steamboat.

I mean, it was like a multi-million dollar production. Wow. Well, the songwriting team did Wind in the Willows, which was a musical that Nathan Lane and he were in that was a flop on Broadway. So that must have been how they got David James Carroll to record the demo, the concept recording. So there's a song on there called A Pilot on the Mississippi, which is like Mark Twain's sort of like, that's how we knew what he wanted to do, that he wanted to be a pilot on the Mississippi. So it's a very, it's like an I want song. It will bring tears to your eyes. It is so majestic, and David James Carroll is at the peak of his voice, and it's like, it's unreal. Like it's just, I will post it. You guys will hear it.

You'll know what I'm talking about. He's got this, his voice had this like, how do you describe it? It was like a baritone weight with like tenor ping, but like, and he kind of chewed his vowels so he'd be like a lot of liquid you's so it'd be like, yeah, like it was like, I think Seth Rudeski does a whole deconstructing of his voice and Love Can't Happen.

[13:30] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah. It he's, it was, it's like, I just think you need to listen to him. I think everyone needs to listen to him. He was on also Girl Crazy when they did a remake of that Gershwin album in 1990. He sings like Embraceable You and Uh Could You Use Me with Judy Blazer. Songtime has gone on record as saying that he was the best Bobby he ever saw in a production company. But I would have loved to have seen that. If you read Sondheim's biography, he mentions that Sondheim was not a huge fan of being alive. He didn't feel like it was an appropriate end for the show. And he goes, When I saw David perform it, I suddenly realized what that moment was and how good the moment could be in the actor's right hands. And that was David James Carroll.

[14:10] Robert W Schneider: Yeah. I mean, what a, what a, I, he's my favorite person to ask, uh, you know, when we interview these legends that have worked with him. I, I always want to ask them about him because it's just that there's a void there, you know, that I feel like we cannot forget. You know, I think, you know, there's so many great artists who we lost in the 80s and you can only imagine what was next. Oh, him, Michael Bennett, Chris Chadman, let alone writers and stuff, there's a whole void of theater writers that we, you know, we missed out. I, it, the list goes on and on. I mean, that's, it's a whole era that we, that is unfortunate that we have lost and I'm thankful with at least with David James Carroll that we have his voice preserved and that, you know, young tenors especially are all singers, but you can listen to this, the genius artist, you know, at work.

Thank you, you know, but like you said, thank God for Phil Donahue for preserving that stuff, thank God for Rosie O'Donnell for preserving it in the 90s. Totally, like we're, we are very lucky that we have some of their recordings preserved and I wish there was more of David James Carroll to save. So you're, and he never did make it onto that Grand Hotel. I mean, he made it onto the CD in that they found a recording of him in a cabaret and that's a bonus track, but he never, he passed away before he could record the song for the album. So he meant fighter, he did that show until he could, that's right, he couldn't anymore and that was, that was incredible.

[15:24] Kevin David Thomas: So, so David, so David James Carroll, I want to celebrate him. David James Carroll and Shannon Doah, those are the two ones we are celebrating this week. Can't wait to hear your responses and don't forget hashtag ask Rob and Kevin. Yeah, and let's hear what you've got for us. We would love to hear from you. We love you all so much. Thanks for listening, everybody. Take care. Bye. These are a few of my favorite things. These are a few of my favorite things.