This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "Beltline to Broadway" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[0:28] Lauren Van Hemert: Welcome to Beltline to Broadway!

[1:04] Lauren Van Hemert: This is the Belt Line to Broadway podcast. I'm Lauren Van Hemert, your host, and on this episode, I'm chatting with Randy Redd.

[1:07] Lauren Van Hemert: Randy Redd was in the original Broadway cast of Ring of Fire. He tells me that long before he found the theater or even stumbled into the show, he was drawn to this style of music. And that is where our conversation begins.

[1:32] Randy Redd: Music has been in me my whole life. And this music, especially country music, folk music, roots, and the roots music has been in me since I was a kid. My parents had a fantastic record collection. I'm way twitty, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, like all of it. Um, but especially the Johnny Cash records. There was the San Quentin album. Um as a kid, like it's this gorgeous album cover. He's it was so like magical, and there was something mystical about Johnny Cash to me. And that that even like an eight or nine year old. I was obsessed with all the like noise that was happening in the prison. I was like, what is going on? What is who is this man and what is this event? So it's been it's been with me for a very, very long time now.

He, as a figure, and the music and the voice, it's almost um otherworldly, you know. It's just like a whole different, it's a whole different playing field, I feel like. Yeah, it's got such a mythic, epic, larger than life quality, but you get to know who he was and who he is through the music. And this man had so much to say. He he said it so simply and so just to the point. Like there was so much truth and and articulate honesty in everything he had to say through his music and his lyrics. That you you pair that with that that just that sound, that Johnny Cash voice, and it takes a whole it takes on a life of its own. It's just a beautiful, beautiful voice.

[3:10] I do want to talk about your first Broadway show, which was Parade, directed by the legend, Hal Prince. Um, music by Jason Robert Brown. Talk to me about that experience of working on Broadway and working on Broadway with him, with Hal Prince.

[3:34] Randy Redd: Yeah, I it spoiled me. It really ruined me. Um, that experience. Uh how much time do we have? I could tell you stories and stories and stories, but the experience is so I'm I I get very sort of like emotional when I think about it on just because you know how passed away recently. But um it uh it was one of it it it you know, people throw around the the term life-changing all the time, but it truly was life-changing. And I I like I said, I didn't grow up with my eye on Broadway. I didn't even move to New York with my eye on and being on Broadway or being, you know, the Broadway show was not my dream. I like I like to work and I liked working and I liked you know exciting things. And when the audition for Parade came up, I you know, just like any actor, they call and they say, you know, there's a new musical, Hal Prince is directing.

I'm like, yeah, okay, great. I'll go audition. It's probably not gonna happen. But my audition was not unlike my Ring of Fire audition, which I hope we can talk about, but I I go into my my Parade experience and it it started in the audition, like from singing for them and reading for them, and just being a sort of, you know, back in the 90s, uh just you know, wanna wanna work actor, you know, looking looking for a job.

[5:02] And I didn't think that it went particularly well. Um I I feel like I chose the wrong song. They kept asking for other songs. Jason kept asking me to sing higher. Um they gave me two scenes like on the spot, and I I fumbled and stumbled and I I just kind of made a mess of it. And they were like, All right, thanks so much. And I turned and I think my body language just said, oh shucks and Hal stopped me as I was leaving the room and he said hey kid it doesn't matter how you think it went and it was like all the light bulbs went off at once I didn't really get that until like you know years later that was just sort of like you you live with with a phrase coming from from Hal's voice like that and you think oh yeah it kind of doesn't like if you're right you're right and my my journey with Parade began that day I I did the first workshops of Parade I did uh a workshop in Canada and then the Lincoln Center production and then I went on tour with Parade but it really it it truly truly changed my life and becoming friends with Mr. Prince and Jason and Alfred that T Alfred Uri who wrote the book for Parade it was it it was truly one of the most special things what I was just uh telling somebody one of the actors we were talking about Parade and I said well they're just obsessed with the show and I was like where were you in in 1996 when when we were like bombing on Broadway people don't believe that Parade was not a success on Broadway.

[6:46] It was it was very difficult and it was a very difficult time and I even learned from that experience you know you it there's no such thing as a short thing and we we thought we were gonna be it we were sure of that we just knew like we're ready for this, like we're gonna run forever. And it just didn't happen. And I think the legacy of Parade is is all about not only the show and the quality of that show and that storytelling, but that album. We recorded that entire album in one day, top to bottom, live. I don't remember us ever going back and doing any of the tracks more than once. We may have gone back and done some pickups, but it was a live experience and there was so much energy in that room.

And we were so excited to get to do it because we knew the show was was wrapping up on Broadway and didn't know that, you know, we didn't know like what would happen in the future or if if people would even care about that show. But I'm I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud of that experience and my relationship with Jason and Alfred and Hal. And I miss him so much. He's such a great communicator, and we stayed in touch and worked together a little bit over the years, and I just I just miss him. And I know the theater misses him too, but we have this incredible, incredible body of work that just influenced everything. He taught us how to do it.

[8:09] He taught us how to do it. Um, you mentioned Jason Robert Brown. He he wrote the beautiful score of Parade, which won Tony Award. Then you went on to work on the film The Last Five Years. People love this film so much and and certainly love the show, but the film has a whole life of its own. Did he have any influence on your musicality, your music?

[8:37] Randy Redd: Oh, yeah. Um I wow, like Jason around the time of Parade, you know, Jason was still, you know, I I guess you could it seems so strange to say this, but he was still sort of up and coming. He was such a young, you know, young thing back then. And so he was doing concerts all over town at Joe's Pub, and he, you know, enlisted several of us to to do his shows. And so getting to like we would always, you know, show off a brand new piece of his that we that he threw sheet music at us that day, and we would like sing it in concerts. And I did a lot of that with him. And really, I don't know, it was there was so much confidence in me. Like he was investing so much in all of us and loved writing for us in in that way.

It it gave me so much room to grow and play. I'm not I can't believe I'm even gonna go here, but I I remember writing a whole collection of my own songs, and I thought, well, I can do this. And I I got a room down in down in the village, and I put on a show, and uh the first night of this show, Jason is sitting at the first table, and I'm gonna like play and sing like all of my original songs, and in that moment I thought, what was I thinking? He was so great and so supportive, but it's it's those moments that you sort of rise to that that exchange, you know, and I don't know. Like he I don't know, he became he we're great friends and support each other and love each other to death, and and I'm so yeah, I'm so happy that I got to be a little a little piece of that Last Five Years movie because it is you're right, it is the show has its sort of cult following.

[10:21] Randy Redd: The show itself is a musical theater master class. I often think that schools should teach The Last Five Years. I think it would be a great class. And just to get to be a part of that, my good friend Richard LaGravenese directed it. So, and if you kind of know like Jason's shows and know like Jason's world, like you can watch the film and see like little cameos by everybody in Jason's life. Like lots of people pop up in that film. And it's so fun to kind of look at it and see, you know, see all of our friends in one place at, you know, in one project. All right. So let's talk about Ring of Fire. I need to hear this audition story. You alluded to it. So talk about auditioning for Ring of Fire.

[11:06] Randy Redd: Yeah, Ring of Fire is another one. I've had so many like amazing opportunities. Every time I sort of talk about my life or career, I'm just always sort of like overwhelmed by how many amazing opportunities I've had and a very unexpected path. Um, but I was at Chelsea Studios down like on 20, 20 what is it, 24, 25th Street, New York. And I was in callbacks and what they sometimes call like puppet camp for Avenue Q. And you spend lots of time like working with the puppet, sort of like having sessions with the cat. You're not in the show yet, but you're still sort of in the audition pool. And on a break, I wandered down the hall and a door opens and I see Richard Maltby, who I knew I was friends with the family, and I saw Richard Maltby at the table, and he just sort of like waves at me and I said, "Hey," and leaned into the room and he said, "Are you here for us?"

Oh no, I'm in an audition down the hall. And he goes, "Oh, come on in." And when I get in the room, I see like a dozen people sitting behind the table, like you know, like a big Broadway audition. But he goes, "Why don't you sing something for us?" And I was like, "I, uh, I'll have to play for myself. I don't have my book with me, I don't have anything." So he said, "That's great." And I sat down and I played and sang a song, and they said, "Okay, that's great. Do you have something else? Something down and dirty." And I said, "Uh, yeah," and I sang an old George Jones song. And they could go on talking about, you know, the music, and I just stopped them and I said, "I'm sorry, what is this?"

He goes, "Oh, this we're making a musical, a Johnny Cash musical, a Broadway musical around Johnny Cash's catalog of songs." And I was like, "Oh, wow." He goes, "And we're going to Nashville in a couple of weeks. Are you available?" "Yeah, I guess so." And so I truly just stumbled into Ring of Fire, and I feel like so many of my opportunities in life I've just sort of stumbled into. But that was a big one. And you know, a couple of weeks later, I find myself in Nashville with an amazing, oh my god, an amazing cast of country music artists, country music stars, Johnny's musicians, like the Cash family, everybody was involved in that. And we built Ring of Fire from the ground up. We would listen to a song, talk about it, listen to it again, sit down and try to fumble our way through it and build an arrangement around it.

And there were so many songs that we sort of worked up into arrangements that didn't make it into the show. But that's what we did down in Nashville for three or four weeks. And but the audition, that story. I rarely tell it just because I don't want, I don't, I don't know. I guess that is showbiz, you know, right place, right time. Like it should seem so cliché, but it truly, truly was a very like, I don't know, right place, right time moment for me.

[14:21] Randy Redd: Well, it's almost like divine intervention, you know. I feel like if you fight, um, you know, not to get too spiritual, but if you fight the path that God has set out for you, then you're just fighting and fighting and fighting. Whereas, you know, he's gonna open the doors that need to open. And in this case, literally. It was astonishing. And I really, I agree with you. Like this is a spiritual path. Um, whatever your spirituality is, you know, it's all, there's something so magical, mystical about life in general, but especially in showbiz, there's something so specific about the people you meet and the people you connect with and the work you do and the music you make and the life you build is so full of spirit and following that path and investing in, you know, I may not always know like what the deck's job is.

I thought my next job at the time was gonna be Avenue Q. I kind of remember Puppet Camp going pretty well, but um, that never happened. Instead, I spent, you know, another I think almost three years working on Ring of Fire before we opened on Broadway. So having been involved in the development of Ring of Fire and then doing it off Broadway and then, or not off Broadway, but at the out-of-town try-out, and then bringing it to Broadway, what did that whole collective experience teach you that you're able to bring to this North Carolina theater production?

[16:01] Randy Redd: Like so many of my experiences. And I have to say, like, I'm that lucky actor that has been involved in the original productions of lots of shows. I did lots of shows from the ground up. I never had the chance to kind of go off and do like, you know, summer stock shows. And I was always making something new. And that's the greatest gift of all, I think, as an actor is being involved in new projects, but certainly around Ring of Fire and building it the way we built it as a kind of an old-fashioned hootenanny. We sat around and worked it out. We worked out these songs and just talked about it and tried it. And the tryout in Buffalo up at the theater studio arena that I don't think is around anymore, but the tryout up there, we did the show in the round.

It was out in the middle of the theater, it's just a gorgeous space. And people were so close to the music and so close to all of us. And it was a huge, huge hit up there. Um, and that sort of, you know, everybody from New York came up to see it from New York City came up to see it, and everybody got very excited about moving the show to Broadway, and we did too. Like we were, oh, that was really the movie Walk the Line was coming out. Um, the timing was perfect, like the theater, the Barrymore Theater opened up, and I think something was gonna go in there, and for a minute there wasn't a spot for the show, and it just is right in line with all of those sort of, you know, right place, right time moments in life that the show had, you know, the door opened and the show happened on Broadway and it didn't work.

You know, we had some great audiences but for the most part it just didn't work. But we never stopped trying, we never stopped trying to make it work. I don't think I've ever rehearsed a show so much in previews as we did Ring of Fire, changing and cutting and moving and just a ton of changes throughout. We never had that sort of like we're failing experience. Richard Maltby is such a genius in the review form like he created Ain't Misbehavin' and Fosse and Starting Here, Starting Now, like truly iconic review shows, and taking music and making it theatrical, giving it that theatrical life. We were working so hard and getting closer and closer and closer to making this thing that, you know, clearly Ring of Fire still has a life and it has a big life, but our experience on Broadway, we sort of just abandoned the idea that we were going to be a big Broadway hit.

Like, okay, we know it's not gonna happen. So, and we just started making music and that's when I feel like the show really kind of sparked and came to life that we, everybody, I don't know, you can't help it, you can't help but think like I'm gonna be in the next big hit Broadway show, but we, I don't say we gave it up, but we certainly, you know, we started focusing on the music and our, and each other.

[19:22] Randy Redd: And I made so many great friends in that experience, Jeb Brown and Beth Malone and Jason Edwards, a North Carolina native, and Laurie White, who just a stunning country music star. The difference between Ring of Fire on Broadway then and what Ring of Fire has become and how Ring of Fire is sort of done usually now. Um, there has been a sort of revamp of the show in the last several years that Richard Maltby and Jason Edwards and a bunch of guys got involved in sort of trimming it back and reimagining it to a five-person show. But at the time we had a full band. There were six lead actors, two of David Ludkin and I are like sort of, you know, the other guys. And um, but now it's a beautiful five-person show that we get to reimagine and explore a different way here in Raleigh. You mentioned the Cash family and working in Nashville. What hand did they have in this show? What did they have to say about the show and the music and the way it was being brought to the stage?

[20:31] Randy Redd: I do know that before I never met Johnny Cash, but while they were sort of like, you know, securing the rights to the catalog, and they pitched him the idea, and he had given it his blessings, and the Cash family gave the idea their blessing.

[20:49] Randy Redd: It was around the same time that the movie *Walk the Line* was being made. Um, there was a whole lot of Johnny Cash energy in the air. And I think the song "Hurt," the Nine Inch Nails song that he recorded and that gorgeous music video that he made, that song was sort of in the air, and the family got behind it 100% from the beginning. John Jr. was really involved. Several of Johnny's musicians were involved and gave us so much inside information to how not only like how just like songs that we that were forgotten or songs that we wanted to look at, they gave us so much insight into how the music was made and what went into it and what Johnny's thinking was behind every song and behind every note of that music.

And even told just amazing stories of just how beautiful their experience was working with him and watching that life and that career become what we all know it became. There was never a moment of like, who are these Broadway people coming down here showing us how to make a Johnny Cash musical? No, it was a truly learning experience. They took us to the Grand Ole Opry. We got to participate in the Opry, and I don't know. It was one of my first Nashville experiences, even though I grew up in Mississippi. I think I only went to Opry Land once when I was a kid, but being in Nashville, soaking up that culture, going to singer-songwriter nights while we were rehearsing this singer-songwriter show made all the difference in the world.

And the family and the country music community really rallied around that show. Our opening night on Broadway was truly one of the wildest experiences. I, you know, we'd sort of been in that preview period where we were getting a little discouraged. And I remember like we had our sort of regularly staged curtain call, and we did that, and then we all kind of like were making our way to the dressing rooms, but the crowd was still going crazy, and it was the legends of country music, like on their feet. And I remember Jared Emmick, the great, the beautiful Jared Emmick came running back on stage with his jeans around his ankles. We were like, what's happening? Like, they're still like cheering and stomping their feet, and we came back out and just wrapped our arms around each other and had a big old love fest, and then went to one of the best parties I think I've ever been to.

I love this so much. Now, this isn't really like a *Walk the Line*. This isn't really a biomusical chronicling his life. It's really a showcase of his songbook. Right. It's a real thoughtfully imagined showcase of the work, and in the process, you get a sense of the timeline, you know. While we don't sort of say, you know, in 1954, we don't do that, but you get a sense of like, wow, that song and that song, these two like opposite ends of the spectrum songs, like were created and made famous by the same man and the same family. And it's a, I think it's just such a beautiful, beautiful experience to just sit there and soak in this music. Johnny had a lot to say, a lot to say when you look at the catalog of music, and to sort of give an audience that experience to whether you're a Johnny Cash fan or not, and you have to sit in that room with these songs and appreciate what he gave us, and what not only what he gave country music, but just what he gave us, gave humanity.

He was such a man of the people, and he, you know, he so many interviews he denies like being political or sort of, you know, an activist. But Johnny Cash was one of the originals. Like he was a real fire starter, and it and just by speaking his truth and telling the truth, looking at situations and speaking to it. I don't know. He was really truly an icon. You know, there are so few people that you can call an icon, but Johnny Cash is one of them, and one of those people that you have to respect and you have to respect the music.

[25:23] Lauren Van Hemert: You're also a playwright. You've done television. We don't even have time to like touch on the whole career here in this brief interview. But how does that experience of being a playwright, how does that inform who you are as a director?

[25:41] Randy Redd: Well, you know what goes into it, you know, you know from the ground up, like what that process is, and you know how to make room for that process too. Um, I know how to sort of make room for myself as a director. Um, when I approach anything for the first time, I’ve, you know, another great director that I've worked with pretty recently is John Doyle. And John taught me so much about, you know, not getting to the finish line too soon, you know, and taking your time with that process. And I know, like as a playwright and a writer, I know how much time it takes to develop the idea and to find your way into, okay, how are we gonna do this? What is it about, the premise, and like kind of building story and all of that.

So, you know, like process, you know what it takes to just get it on the page. And then that leap, you see it, you know, that really is in the hands of truly the actors. But as a director, what I like to do is not, it's not my job to tell everybody where to go and how to say it. It's my job to sort of support everyone's process while we all find it together. That's another one of those things that John Doyle like gifted me with. Uh, you know, I think a lot of us are very like, you know, product-oriented performers. We like, we want to know. We want to know like what's it gonna be, what's it gonna look like, what's it gonna sound like? You know, everybody wants to learn their part and learn their songs and learn their chords and, you know, put it together, but we have to take our time and we have to let the show surface and show itself.

Um, and so that, that to me is the strongest connection between being a writer when all of a sudden your play starts to really write itself, and then as a director to see, to see your, you have to have some ideas, clearly, but you also have to just sit back and let it surface when it's ready, you know. Let the show tell us what it wants to be. And if we're making theater and we're making art, you gotta sit back and take your time. You gotta really invest in the process, trust the process, trust yourself. That's another one of those lessons that Mr. Prince gave me in his office. I wrote, yeah, I dared, like, pretty much my experience, like playing my original songs for Jason Robert Brown. I dared to write a musical back in the day and pitch it to Hal Prince in his office.

And he sat there, he sat in a chair this far away from me and listened while I played and sang the whole show. And he called me over to his desk. I didn't know what he was gonna say, but he sort of kicks back glasses on top of his head and he says, "Listen, do you want to know? Do you want to know what it is? Because I just want to tell you one thing." And I was like, oh my god, he's about to give me like the holy grail. And he said, "Get selfish." And it was one of those things that I, it was sort of like yuck. Uh, you know, my response was like, what's that mean? Get selfish. Because we have such negative connotations around that word. But what he meant was the big capital S self, you know, invest in yourself.

Tell the story you want to tell, take your time. And he, it was specific to what I was writing, but it was also just one of those big artist life lessons that you really have to invest in yourself. Who are you? What do you have to say? How are you gonna say it? And that has, I've never forgotten it. I carry it with me every day. I think about it every day that I go to work, and it's not me being selfish, like I have something to prove, it's me like investing in the idea for the piece and investing in these beautiful humans that we've cast in this show to tell this story. And I don't know, it's just, the process is everything for me.

[29:41] Lauren Van Hemert: You know what I love about doing these interviews and talking to artists like Red is the conversations about the process, the art of creating the thing that I love so much. I want to thank Red for sharing his stories and time and invite all of you to check out the North Carolina Theater production of *Ring of Fire*, which runs through Sunday at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. I'll put ticket information in the episode notes. If you like what you've heard today, please consider subscribing to this podcast. Leave us a review, follow us on social media on Facebook or Instagram at Beltline to Broadway, or Twitter at Beltline to Be Way, or visit us online at www.beltline to broadway.org. Until next time, I'll see you at the theater.

[30:44] Beltline to Broadway.