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[0:05] Jan Svendsen: Welcome to the Broadway Gives Back Podcast.

[0:07] Jan Svendsen: I'm your host, Jan Svendsen.

[0:10] Jan Svendsen: This podcast spotlights Broadway actors, shows, and organizations in their pursuit of social impact and philanthropy.

[0:17] Jan Svendsen: Join us as some of the brightest lights on Broadway share their stories about their favorite charities and how they got involved and the people and causes who benefited from these philanthropic efforts.

[0:33] Jan Svendsen: Anika Larsen is currently playing Elaine Miller in Broadway's Almost Famous Musical.

[0:38] Jan Svendsen: She's also performed on Broadway in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and received a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk Award, Avenue Q, Xanadu, All Shook Up, and Rent.

[0:50] Jan Svendsen: Anika joined the Theater Climate Revolution via the Broadway Green Alliance and leverages her social media to share behind-the-scenes Broadway fun that also happens to demonstrate Broadway sustainability.

[1:01] Jan Svendsen: She is a huge supporter and activist, not only for environmental issues, but also for arts, education, and children's theater.

[1:08] Jan Svendsen: Anika, welcome to the Broadway Gives Back Podcast.

[1:12] Anika Larsen: That was a lovely intro.

[1:14] Anika Larsen: Thank you.

[1:15] Anika Larsen: Would you come everywhere with me and just say that when I enter rooms?

[1:18] Jan Svendsen: I would love to.

[1:19] Anika Larsen: Thank you.

[1:21] Anika Larsen: Well, I'm so happy you're here today.

[1:23] Anika Larsen: I'm happy to be here today.

[1:25] Anika Larsen: It's um kind of a sad day, because we just found out that our show, ALMOST FAMOUS, is closing on January 8th.

[1:33] Anika Larsen: But um, I guess if this business has taught me anything, it's resilience.

[1:37] Anika Larsen: Even this is a particular heartbreaker.

[1:39] Anika Larsen: I really, really love and believe in this one.

[1:41] Anika Larsen: Just a really tough time for theater, for new theater particularly.

[1:46] Jan Svendsen: It is.

[1:46] Jan Svendsen: So we're gonna we're gonna drop this podcast and hopefully everyone will hear it and get to see this show before January 8th.

[1:52] Anika Larsen: Yeah.

[1:53] Anika Larsen: Um, but we definitely feel your sadness.

[1:56] Anika Larsen: And um, yeah, it is like the nature of the beast here, sadly.

[2:00] Jan Svendsen: Yeah, make sure it's well, you know what, we're gonna talk about ALMOST FAMOUS, but I we're also gonna talk a lot about um just giving back and philanthropy and activism.

[2:09] Jan Svendsen: Um, but before we do that, I thought maybe we'd do a little sort of vocal warm-up and do some rapid-fire questions.

[2:15] Anika Larsen: Oh my goodness, I'm ready.

[2:16] Anika Larsen: Are you ready?

[2:17] Jan Svendsen: Okay, so I've themed these all for the holidays.

[2:21] Jan Svendsen: So let's see how we do.

[2:23] Jan Svendsen: Um if you were an elf in Santa's workshop, what would your assignment be?

[2:29] Anika Larsen: Oh, um, knitting.

[2:31] Anika Larsen: Knitting stockings.

[2:33] Jan Svendsen: Gosh, you and uh you and Sutton, right?

[2:35] Anika Larsen: Oh yeah, that's true.

[2:36] Anika Larsen: Yeah.

[2:37] Anika Larsen: I only knit stockings though.

[2:39] Anika Larsen: So that's why I literally can't make anything else.

[2:41] Anika Larsen: So that's why I'd be perfect as an elf knitting stockings.

[2:44] Jan Svendsen: Um if you're what would your elf personality be?

[2:47] Jan Svendsen: Like what three adjectives would you use to describe your elf?

[2:50] Anika Larsen: Oh my goodness.

[2:51] Anika Larsen: Um my elf self.

[2:54] Anika Larsen: Um uh O C D.

[2:57] Anika Larsen: Um this is not one word, but super good at deadlines.

[3:03] Anika Larsen: And um uh joyful.

[3:07] Anika Larsen: Joyful elf.

[3:09] Jan Svendsen: Uh what's your favorite holiday tradition?

[3:11] Anika Larsen: Well, you know, it's I have two little boys now, so it's changed, right?

[3:15] Anika Larsen: Because it's all about them.

[3:16] Anika Larsen: Because you're it's joyful when you're a kid, and then it stops being so special uh when you're just uh 20 something, and then you have kids and you just the the joy of it is all brought back to you.

[3:27] Anika Larsen: So um uh I think it would be what all the stuff that involves them.

[3:32] Anika Larsen: I mean, really, um, I suppose um how excited they get.

[3:36] Anika Larsen: I mean, it's like they're on drugs, the euphoria of it all when we decorate our Christmas tree.

[3:41] Anika Larsen: Yeah, really anything involved with the holidays that has to do with my kids.

[3:44] Anika Larsen: It's just, it's so magical.

[3:46] Jan Svendsen: Nice.

[3:47] Jan Svendsen: So what's the best or the worst holiday gift that you've ever given or received?

[3:53] Anika Larsen: Can I do the best work, I mean the worst birthday gift I've ever received?

[3:57] Anika Larsen: Because that was yesterday was my birthday.

[4:00] Anika Larsen: Oh yeah, I got a closing notice for my beloved Broadway show.

[4:05] Anika Larsen: So worst present ever, which is what I texted back to all the people sending me love.

[4:10] Jan Svendsen: Yeah.

[4:11] Jan Svendsen: Gosh.

[4:12] Jan Svendsen: Is there a character or scene in any holiday themed Broadway show or even a movie or a book or TV show that you love or relate to?

[4:22] Anika Larsen: We're so obsessed with Elf in my house because it's just it's one of those movies like that a five and seven year old boys and then grown-ups can equally enjoy that I relate to in that um I don't know I guess it's back to being the um the OCD elf as I would um the it's the scene when Will Ferrell he just he um decorates the whole all of the it's not Macy's but the fake Macy's the inside of it.

[4:48] Anika Larsen: I love I love decorating for Christmas and um if I had those powers that's exactly what I would do.

[4:53] Jan Svendsen: Love it.

[4:54] Jan Svendsen: So if you were Santa, what kind of cookies would I be leaving out for you on Christmas Eve?

[5:00] Anika Larsen: Any cookies.

[5:01] Anika Larsen: I love I have such a sweet tooth all cookies.

[5:04] Anika Larsen: I do not discriminate when it comes to cookies.

[5:07] Anika Larsen: Since the fam the holidays are about family they're about giving and I wondered what's the last random act of kindness that you've performed I don't know how random it is, but I make I very much make a point too, and I and I do this I think all the time, certainly at the theater, is I think often we think lovely things about people and we don't say them.

[5:27] Anika Larsen: Especially if they're people who are successful at what they do, you think they know it.

[5:31] Anika Larsen: Um and so I really always try to make a point to articulate to say out loud that the way th that those positive things and big or small.

[5:40] Anika Larsen: Um uh sort of like with Yelp reviews, right?

[5:43] Anika Larsen: It's like everybody everybody voices it when they had a terrible time at a restaurant, but if they had a great time, they just go home and move on with their lives.

[5:49] Anika Larsen: And I think, no, we should Yelp review each other throughout our lives and be letting each other know um all of the ways that we appreciate each other.

[5:57] Jan Svendsen: I love that Yelp review each other through all of our life.

[6:01] Jan Svendsen: That's great.

[6:01] Jan Svendsen: Um that should be like you should knit that on some kind of stocking.

[6:05] Anika Larsen: Yeah, that's that's a good quote.

[6:07] Jan Svendsen: Um What are you most grateful for this holiday season?

[6:11] Anika Larsen: Um uh even though it's closing, I'm grateful to be back on Broadway.

[6:11] Anika Larsen: I'm grateful to be working again.

[6:16] Anika Larsen: It was really hard to be languishing for so many years.

[6:19] Anika Larsen: Um and you know, I did everything I I could to try and feel like a theater artist throughout COVID times.

[6:25] Anika Larsen: Um, and a lot of good came out of it for me in terms of trying to pivot and you know, finding uh th uh new skills that I didn't know I had.

[6:35] Anika Larsen: Um I directed for the first time and I want to keep doing more of that.

[6:38] Anika Larsen: I've also started hosting things like this um that I and I didn't I didn't realize that I was good at that.

[6:44] Anika Larsen: And so um and of course time with my children when they're so young.

[6:48] Anika Larsen: Um there's so much good that came out of it, but I keep saying I felt like a um a goldfish that was flopping around on a counter for two and a half years and then I went to rehearsals for ALMOST FAMOUS and it felt like somebody put me back in my bowl.

[7:01] Anika Larsen: And um, so I'm grateful to be swimming back in my bowl.

[7:04] Anika Larsen: And um, even though I'm gonna have to move to a different bowl sometime soon, I'm getting evicted from my ALMOST FAMOUS bowl.

[7:10] Anika Larsen: Um uh I know that I'll be I'll be swimming again soon.

[7:15] Jan Svendsen: I believe you will.

[7:16] Jan Svendsen: Um, let's just talk about your two boys because they're called the beautiful boys, right?

[7:21] Anika Larsen: They are.

[7:22] Anika Larsen: They only exist because of CAROLE KING and Cynthia Weil, who I played in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, because my dresser on that show, um, I guess I complained too much about my love life backstage, because one day during a quick change, she said, Would you like to be set up on a blind date with a trumpet player named Freddie?

[7:38] Anika Larsen: I said, Sure, gotta go.

[7:39] Anika Larsen: Um, and um, so um, yeah, cut to three months after our it was an amazing blind date.

[7:46] Anika Larsen: He's a trumpet player, and I watched him play for an hour and a half at BB King's R I P BB Kings on 42nd Street doesn't exist anymore.

[7:53] Anika Larsen: But I watched him play and it was amazing.

[7:55] Anika Larsen: And I thought, please let us have something to talk about.

[7:58] Anika Larsen: And we shut the bar down, talking all night.

[8:00] Anika Larsen: And um three months later, I moved out of my Brooklyn apartment into his house in the suburbs.

[8:05] Anika Larsen: And three months after that, I was pregnant with our first.

[8:08] Anika Larsen: Um, so yeah, so our two boys, they're five and seven now, but they wouldn't exist if it weren't for that show.

[8:13] Anika Larsen: My family wouldn't exist if it weren't for that show.

[8:16] Jan Svendsen: That's beautiful.

[8:18] Jan Svendsen: Uh now, speaking of uh suburbs, I'm gonna take you farther north.

[8:22] Jan Svendsen: You grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and what's so fascinating is you had is it nine brothers and sisters from different races and countries?

[8:29] Anika Larsen: Yes, exactly.

[8:30] Anika Larsen: Okay, so I have so many questions, but first talk about that because what I really want to know is how did this childhood that you had inform and influence who you are today?

[8:38] Anika Larsen: Oh my goodness, sort of in every important way.

[8:41] Anika Larsen: Um yeah, no, my parents are extraordinary.

[8:43] Anika Larsen: My mom in particular, she grew up in Connecticut in um sort of upper middle class white Connecticut, and um, she didn't speak to a black person for the first time, like a real conversation until she was in college and her professor, one of her professors, was black.

[8:59] Anika Larsen: And she uh was so upset by that.

[9:03] Anika Larsen: And um that um when it w when it came time to start making a family with my dad, they just they knew she had it's it was even rarer then than it is now in a racial adoption, but she had seen it, and so she thought, um, if I'm gonna be mom, I'm gonna be super mom.

[9:22] Anika Larsen: She didn't think that, but that's my that's my subtext for her because um I think if she'd been born 10 years later and really um uh sort of she was on the cusp of the women's lib movement.

[9:34] Anika Larsen: She'd if she'd been born 10 years later, she would have been a I think a surgeon.

[9:38] Anika Larsen: Uh but yeah, so she's just an highly competent, sort of incredible woman.

[9:41] Anika Larsen: She's she's my model for a fierce unorthodox mother like the one that I play on stage um in ALMOST FAMOUS.

[9:49] Anika Larsen: So yeah, so they started.

[9:50] Anika Larsen: I was the first by birth, but by the time I was born, they had adopted four kids.

[9:55] Anika Larsen: Um yeah, six by adoption, four by birth.

[9:58] Anika Larsen: And um it's it's made me who I am today in all of the important ways.

[10:02] Anika Larsen: It's made me being one of ten has made me a compulsive team player, which really serves me in such a collaborative art form.

[10:10] Anika Larsen: Um and then um yeah, being raised uh with such an awareness of um, we didn't call it anti-racism back then, but um of um, you know, the importance of diversity and and people's humanity and and um uh um yeah, has really formed who I am and how I move in the world.

[10:31] Jan Svendsen: So you really, your mom was really an activist and she said, I'm gonna put my life, you know, yeah, change change my life and show how I can be an activist in in real time and in your own home.

[10:44] Anika Larsen: Yeah, well they always say the personal is political and yeah.

[10:47] Anika Larsen: Right.

[10:48] Anika Larsen: It's it's being the change, right?

[10:50] Jan Svendsen: Right.

[10:50] Jan Svendsen: It's exactly being the change.

[10:53] Anika Larsen: Wow.

[10:54] Jan Svendsen: So I want to pivot a little bit and and talk about children's theater.

[10:58] Jan Svendsen: So it's you um we're gonna get to Broadway Green Alliance in in a little bit.

[11:03] Jan Svendsen: But um I was just fascinated when I was you know reading about you that you also are um have done so much work in the area of um children's theater and you actually uh started you founded a theater company to promote truth through performance which I love through performance and service to school kids to at-risk youths to teen alternative incarceration incarceration programs and more um what what motivated you to do that?

[11:03] Anika Larsen: My dear my best friend in the whole wide world for decades um is April Nichols she was a director um a theater director at the time and um it really was her concoction um her idea and the minute she pitched it I was like yes I'm all in um we were young and naive and and didn't didn't know how much it would take to run a theater company and how hard it is to to raise money for a theater company um even one that's sole purpose is to is to serve um but um so it lasted four years but it's the four years of my career I'm proudest of um but yeah no we really did um looking back I just I know I'm in the the the light that the light bulbs that went off behind children's eyes the the the joy we spread and really the a lot of the purpose of it was is um for theater people for me particularly um I felt it it's so hard to serve in a way that is uh regular and reliable because our lives are so erratic i mean the exhibit a being ALMOST FAMOUS is closing and uh January first January 8th my life is flipped upside down right so everything I thought I knew was happening in 2023 is not now and um but that's typical of our lives you know your agent calls and says you're gonna be on tour in two weeks and you're touring the country suddenly and um and that's the joy of it sort of for some people I'm too much of a planner to enjoy that part of it but um it does keep it interesting um but so I when I first moved to New York City I became a big sister in the Big Brother Big Sister program um and um and I was I was a terrible failure at it I just couldn't be there every Thursday afternoon and I let her down so many times and had to cancel so many times and then I got cast in Rent in LA and um and I'm I sent her postcards for a while and that fizzled and I just thought I can't ever let a kid down again like that.

[13:21] Anika Larsen: So um one of our aims with this theater company was to create ways for theater people to serve that didn't require ongoing commitment. It was just lots and we would schedule all of them but it was lots and lots of one-offs and we had lots and lots of backups. So if at last minute somebody got a call back we got it we understood we were overstaffed um and so um uh I I know how many not only like the people we affected but also just everybody wants to help the minute you say hey here's this way I can make it easy for you to help people jump at it. So it was really heartening to see how many theater people came alongside us and you know it helped brighten their lives too. And I like the idea of this this idea of promoting truth through performance and service, like this idea of truth, especially for these kids who are at risk.

Because I bet that's that's a different way to reach them. Um and I haven't heard that from a lot of um organizations that um that do children's theater or um or help, you know, with arts education. I love that.

[14:22] Jan Svendsen: Oh, thank you.

[14:23] Anika Larsen: It's actually the full thing is uh to promote mercy, beauty, and truth through performance and service was our our complete mission. But yeah, that that was um we had lots of meetings, you know, when you're creating your mission statements and all of those things. We had lots and lots of heartfelt and and idealistic meetings about um about what we wanted to be doing. But yes, I agree. I think it captures a lovely, a lovely uh way of phrasing. Um, because I I mean, one of the programs that we did is uh um a playwriting program for fifth graders in in public schools, and so they would write their own plays, and so much of it was about them being able to articulate their own truths. Um kids whose stories aren't necessarily being heard, um, get to speak their truths and then get to act out their truths. And um, there's a real empowerment in that and uh a real um uh support of one's own self-worth, I think in that.

[15:17] Jan Svendsen: That's beautiful, it really is.

[15:19] Anika Larsen: Thanks. And you also released an album of lullabies, uh, which I I have to listen to because I am not a good sleeper. But what I love is in your promotion of it, you'd say that it's for people of all ages.

[15:31] Anika Larsen: Yes, it is. It is, you know, it's funny. Um the the wonderful Dan Watt who produced it came to me. I was doing beautiful, and he came to me and he said, Um, would you like to do an album? And I said, no. What I don't I don't write music. Why would I? And it comes back to um my life, one of my life's compulsions is that or neuroses is that um being one of 10 kids, I'm desperate for attention, but deeply uncomfortable when I get what feels like too much or more than my fair share of it. So the idea of a whole album that's just me, what singing cover songs just so people can hear me sing feels felt so uncomfortable that I was like, no thanks. And then I was visiting um my nieces and nephews, and I was singing them the lullabies that I sing to them, which are never kids' lullabies.

They're always like gorgeous Broadway standards or wonderful jazz songs or whatever. Um, and um, and I thought, oh, but wait, but an album that had a point that had a purpose that I could get behind, and you know, one that people could give people as like a baby shower gift, or you know, for grown ups who don't, but yes, so but I but I So grown ups who can't sleep.

[16:20] Anika Larsen: Grown ups who can't sleep. But I also think you don't um uh kids can handle the sophisticated musical palette, and I didn't want it to be ch childish. Um and I was, I guess at the ultimately I didn't I'm I didn't think about it this way till right this moment, but I guess I was making the album for my future kids and the music I would want them to be hearing. Um and so I just I wanted it to be, yeah, sophisticated musically. And the lovely thing was I had just met my now husband and he's a trumpet player, and I said, Would you play on it? He only plays on three songs. I would have had him play on more if I knew he was gonna really stick around. Um But while we were recording it, um I got pregnant.

So um, and the boys, it's in there. We we have a C D player, it's a clock C D player in their bedroom. Who knows how long it's gonna last and if we'll be able to replace it. So old school. Um, but they listen to that CD every night before they go to bed, and how magical that they're now listening to the the thing we created. I don't know, I suppose in hopes of having kids one day. And then the fun thing that I'd always wanted to do, and this I learned from my many years of babysitting was sometimes if I was not feeling great or hung over or just tired, I would just sing the same song over and over again to the kid I was babysitting. Um, and I would just do it slower and slower to help them go to sleep. So if you listen to the album in order, the songs get slower and slower as they go on.

[17:59] Jan Svendsen: Oh, nice trick.

[18:02] Anika Larsen: I wish I had that when I was raising my kids too.

[18:05] Jan Svendsen: Okay.

[18:06] Anika Larsen: Um, everybody's learned something day today. Well, speaking of creating things, so let's talk about almost famous.

[18:14] Jan Svendsen: I don't want to make you cry.

[18:16] Anika Larsen: No, I can't.

[18:17] Jan Svendsen: Yeah, at the end of the day, what a joyful experience.

[18:20] Anika Larsen: Yeah, such a great story. And what a character you played. I mean Oh my god. I mean, I don't know that I'll ever get a better one, honestly. It's a phenomenal character.

[18:30] Jan Svendsen: Yeah.

[18:31] Anika Larsen: Yeah. No, that's I that's really hard to say goodbye to.

[18:35] Jan Svendsen: No, I'm sure people ask you this question, but um, you know, Francis McDormant played this role in the film. And I just wondered, did that influence any of your choices in playing Elaine on stage?

[18:44] Anika Larsen: Um, that was the reason I said yes. I hadn't seen the movie, but my agent called, he said something he'd never said before or since. He said, I want you to be as excited about this project as I am. And I said, What? He said it's almost famous. Um, and I said, I you know, I have an image of a bus and Kate Hudson in glasses, but I don't, I haven't seen it. And he said, Well, it's the Francis McDormand role. And I said, Oh, well, then I'll do it because um I don't know what the role is, but she always plays people who are compelling, interesting, and have a an inherent integrity that I knew I knew it would be a role I'd be proud to play, even though I didn't know what it was yet. So I watched the movie that weekend, and then two days later was in the first day of rehearsals for the first workshop of it.

And it was awful because uh she's my favorite actor of all time. So um why would I ever do anything different than her? Why would I say any lines different? Why would I do make any different choices? Um and so I felt so trapped in her performance um and that I just felt off my game and I thought, oh, they're gonna replace me. There's no way they're keeping me I was terrible this week. Happily for me they kept me and um of course I never have gone back to watch the movie again to so that time helps to to forget her performance. And then also just the repetition and the practicing and the morphing of my own performance and um and then at the end of the day what she does so masterfully is she can say volumes with a look.

I don't know how I'm I don't understand TV and film acting. I don't know how she does it so well. But um but my job is to sing those volumes and songs. So the scope of work is so different that I just I I at some point just really stopped worrying about comparison um and decided I'm gonna do the Elaine Miller that's in the script of the musical and she did the Elaine Miller that's in the screen screenplay for the movie. And those are different yeah and also just the amount of trust that Cameron Crow put in me and the amount of just incredibly positive supportive lovely feedback. I just feel so secure that I'm I'm doing doing it um well in his eyes and that's really if if if if he approves of my performance then I I know I'm I'm doing it right.

[20:55] Jan Svendsen: So yeah well anyway it's such a beloved you know film and it's it's hard to translate sometimes, you know, film to stage. And uh also, you know, you guys have done an amazing job with that. But it's just there's been there are hard times on Broadway right now.

[21:10] Anika Larsen: Yeah, I don't think it's the show. I think the show is fantastic. And I just the the audiences how excited they are when they leave, how happy they are when they leave. I know that the vast majority of them are telling their friends that it was wonderful. Um I just really do think that um people aren't coming back to Broadway yet, like they did before COVID. And um not just tourists, local people. The Schuberts just did a study um I read that that 35% of people within 90 miles of the city aren't are we 35% down in in those people's and it makes sense because offices in Manhattan are at 50% capacity. So the people who were at their office all day and then saw a Broadway show in the evening, um, are at home finishing a Zoom at six o'clock and not driving into the city to see a show.

And all of that makes sense, but it's um it's killing, it's killing us. The new shows, the shows that are trying to get a foothold. It's not gonna be just us. I mean, it's gonna, it's it's really um I don't I mean, I'm not a producer, that's why I don't know. I don't know the solution, but the timing for us is really really unfortunate because I really think there's no reason in normal times, there's no way this wouldn't run five years. Yeah, at least so it's just heartbreaking.

[22:24] Jan Svendsen: It is, it is. And I I do think that when I think back about the time that I've worked on Broadway as, you know, a marketing person and and an executive, you know, we went through 9-11, we went through the recession of two th you know, 2008. And I feel like, you know, we're gonna make it through. This is just such a different type of, you know, experience. And I think it's just gonna take time to bounce back.

[22:46] Anika Larsen: Yeah, no, absolutely.

[22:47] Jan Svendsen: Yeah. And you never know what's gonna happen, you know.

[22:50] Anika Larsen: I just never do.

[22:51] Jan Svendsen: So I I I feel optimistic for for the show, and maybe something will happen with it. You never know.

[22:56] Anika Larsen: Yeah. But um, it's also really hard to have a show in the middle of winter on Broadway, even in the best of times.

[23:03] Jan Svendsen: Yeah, no, absolutely.

[23:04] Anika Larsen: January and February. Hey, everybody listening, go see a Broadway show in January and February.

[23:08] Jan Svendsen: Absolutely.

[23:09] Anika Larsen: Because it's that's it's the hardest time for Broadway. It's just it's always no matter what, it's always the hardest time. If you can do that, you're supporting an art form.

[23:17] Jan Svendsen: Yeah. And I mean, it's so cold right now too. And I've I mean, well, let's get into climate change because that's a good segue. Um right now, as we record this, I'm actually in LA for the week. And it's just like it's so cold here, and I know that sounds really crazy to say to people who are on the East Coast right now, but for LA it's freezing. You know, climate change is real, and you um are such an advocate for the Broadway Green Alliance. Um, and you sort of join their cultural or their th their revolution about what they're doing, trying to do. And you use your Instagram and you post these behind the scenes fun ways to sort of help Broadways and communicate Broadway sustainability, but also give people tips on on how to you know help support the environment. Talk can you talk a little bit about that? How did you get involved?

[24:03] Anika Larsen: Absolutely. Um uh first and real quick, I just want to speak to like it being cold in LA, but it's also cold here. Is I just remember years ago seeing an interview with a uh climate scientist who said we shouldn't call it global warming, which is why we now call it climate change. We should call it global weirding because it's just gonna get weird. Yes, the whole planet is gonna get warmer, but it might not be so noticeable to depending on where you are, but it's gonna get weird, and of course it has with fires and hurricanes and droughts and um beyond weird, horrifying. You know, about six months ago, I read yet another terrifying article in the New York Times about how dire the situation is, and I did what I think all of us do, which is I panicked, and then I thought, but I recycle, I drive a Prius, I take short showers, I vote for people who care about this and try to pass legislation about this.

I don't know what else I can do. And then I went about my day and moved on. And um, and that just didn't sit right with me for a few days. And I just thought, I think the difference is having children, right? And I just thought I have to be able to look my little boys in the eye and say, I really tried to save your planet. And then and and not everybody has the capacity for that. There are a lot of people who are just trying to get through their days. Um, and um, so I think those of us who can must. Um, and so um I didn't know what that looked like. But lucky for me, I have a friend who is a professor of sustainability up at SUNY New Palts, the lovely Andrea Varga, and um who is also a costume designer.

[25:37] Anika Larsen: She also teases costume design, but in getting into the textile industry and ethical fashion and stuff, really pivoted and has really started focusing more on sustainability. But so she understands my world and she's just unbelievably knowledgeable about all this stuff. And so I called her up and I said, "What do I do?" And she said, "Well, we all have to act locally, we all have to do what we can where we can." And for everybody that looks different because it has to be something that you can actually manage to fit in your life. But for most of us, there are more things that we can be fitting, managing to fit in our lives without it being onerous. And she said, "But the good news for you is your local is Broadway, and Broadway gets attention."

And I was like, "Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That is true." And I'm about to star in a show on Broadway, and I'm going to use the attention I'm getting from that show to just raise awareness about climate change. But I, you know, in trying to figure out what does that look like because everybody knows it's a problem. I don't need to be telling people it's a problem. Nobody, I don't have any interest in preaching to people or telling people what to do, quite frankly. So, yeah, sort of trying to figure out how that was going to play out. And then my first stop was, of course, the Broadway Green Alliance. And Molly Braverman there is just doing unbelievable work on a shoestring budget. And just the grassroots efforts she is leading that all of Broadway is responding to, and the amount of stuff that everybody is doing across Broadway in our Broadway houses, it's really, really heartening.

So I thought, all right, what if I have so avoided social media, I've been so blissfully out of that, the melee that that is. But then I thought, all right, but again, I'm doing it for my kids. So I joined Instagram purely, I don't post anything personal or career, even. It's all just posts, it's just a blend of backstage shenanigans that involve some kind of Broadway greenness. And just basically showing what people are doing, which I think optimism breeds action, positivity brings action, breeds action way better than helplessness does. I know, because I've felt helpless about this for decades. And then finally, I just started taking those first steps. Actually, in my very first post on Instagram, I talked about the movie Frozen Two.

And Bobby and Kristen Lopez wrote a just a fantastic song for one of the characters. She's at the lowest point of her life and doesn't know what to do to solve her massive problem. So she sings a song, "Do the Next Right Thing." And that's all any of us can do. You know, corporations and governments can do more, but even they have to do the next right thing for them. It's just larger. But if all of us did the next right thing, I know now we can solve this problem. The more I have learned, the more I have researched, the unbelievable things people are doing out there, the unbelievable innovations that are happening that are coming. People are solving this problem in ways large and small. It's a groundswell.

It really is. Revolution is not too strong a word. It is a revolution and people have different tactics, and we might not agree with all the tactics that people have, but everybody has to do it in their way. And so in my way, there's stuff that I'm partnering with the BGA in getting in trying to get done, actual pragmatic stuff we're trying to do. I became a Broadway green captain. Every Broadway show has green captains that help their particular backstage be as sustainable as possible. That program has spread across the, so it's in national tours and regional theaters and colleges. I don't know if high schools do it, but they could, they should. So if you're a drama student out there, anywhere, you can become a green captain and you can help make your... So I mean I really think artists lead the way, right?

And so we model it, right? And so that's really what the Instagram is, it's just me being silly backstage, but also showing, "Hey, this is what we're doing." And then ergo, you could do it too. So for now that's where I'm at. And but I have joined the revolution, and so I don't know where it's gonna take me next, particularly now that I'm gonna have more time in January. One thing that is coming up that's exciting that I'm working with Molly at the BGA and Jen Gambitese, my old friend from All Shook Up. I was her understudy in All Shook Up. We three are producing, along with Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, a Broadway Green Alliance Stars in the House co-production, a concert at Green Room 42 with fabulous stars and lots of fun, really heartening, heartening.

It's going to be optimism inducing. I always say I wanted to help people go from helpless and hopeless to helpful and hopeful, which is really what's happened for me over the past six months is in taking these first steps and starting to do the next right thing for me. It has really, really made me feel so much more helpful and hopeful than I did before. So it's going to be a really fun night. Seth Rudetsky makes everything silly and fun. And you can go to Green Room 42 and be there in person, or you can stream it. So everybody can watch it live streamed. Twenty-five bucks. And yeah, so please, please, please, if you're listening, the Broadway Green Alliance needs help financially. So we've got to, that's the next thing on my docket is to help make that wonderful.

[30:55] Jan Svendsen: Oh my God. First of all, all your passion. This is so amazing. And like there were like 20 different things.

[31:01] Anika Larsen: There's a reason for it. Absolutely. There is. I mean, there were like at least 20 different things you said that I would have loved to take those quotes and put them on a little needle-pointed pillow.

[31:10] Jan Svendsen: Um, it's great. Um, I have so many questions right now. First of all, to everybody listening, in our episode on our episode page, we'll put links to everything that you just talked about.

[31:20] Anika Larsen: Thank you.

[31:21] Jan Svendsen: So people can go to Broadway Green Alliance, they can learn more about it. We can give information about Seth Rudetsky's concert. Also, we have, there's an auction going on right now to raise money for Broadway Green Alliance. So I'll put that link in there too. It's an online auction where you get to come to New York and do like a whole, you know, week of theater.

[31:41] Anika Larsen: Yeah, do you get to meet Carrie Butler? I feel like you get to meet Carrie Butler.

[31:42] Jan Svendsen: I think you get to meet Carrie Butler.

[31:45] Anika Larsen: Yes. It's actually a sweepstakes.

[31:48] Jan Svendsen: Yeah. Um, so for ten dollars, you're automatically entered to win this gigantic thing. So we'll talk about that too.

[31:53] Anika Larsen: Yeah.

[31:53] Jan Svendsen: But I want to go back to like your backstage shenanigans, as you call them.

[31:57] Anika Larsen: Yeah.

[31:58] Jan Svendsen: Just can you give me some examples of ways that like what are some examples of showing some of the shenanigans and some of the ways that Broadway, particularly your show, have been demonstrating sustainability?

[32:10] Anika Larsen: Sure. Um, and this isn't, uh, all of this stuff is not just happening at ALMOST FAMOUS, it's happening everywhere. But um, the first one was I came outside, the very first one, because I think this is a huge deal and wonderful and a real coup for the Broadway Green Alliance, is that, and this happened years ago, but I got our house electrician who I let everybody know is the handsome Matt Maloney, because there are two Matt Maloneys who were crew on Broadway shows. And this one, our Matt Maloney says he's the handsome one. So the whole interview, I call him the handsome Matt Maloney. But we stand outside the marquee and he tells everybody how they are now all across Broadway, LED bulbs instead of regular bulbs.

And that means that Broadway marquees are using about two-tenths of the energy they used to use 15 years ago, which that adds up at the end of a year, right? That's a significant amount of emissions that are not put into our environment thanks to those bulbs. And that's I think a terrific example of meeting people where they are, is there are going to be Broadway marquees to ask Broadway marquees to go dim for the sake of the planet? It's just it's not going to happen. So how do you do it better? And this is the way to do it better, right? So there's that one. Um, what are the ones that I've posted so far? Because we have some coming, but um, we talk about using reusable water bottles backstage, so we're not using it, we're trying to avoid single-use plastics.

Um, we, um, oh who else have I interviewed? Um, I'm gonna post one tomorrow so it will be out by the time this is out. But talking with my favorite usher Joanne about how they try to save people using playbills. Again, there's going to be playbills. There's going to be people have tried to figure out ways to do digital ones. Everybody pays a lot of money to come to a Broadway show and they want their playbill. A lot of people collect those playbills. It's a special part of the experience. So it's just, you know, sometimes when I go, if I'm going with other people, we share one. If you keep it in pristine condition, they will reuse it. They take the stuffers if there's understudies, they take those stuffers out at the end of the night and they reuse them.

I'm trying to think of what else. What were the other things I did backstage? Oh, we reuse and repurpose the vases we got from opening night. And so my post about that, I haven't posted it yet, but my post about that one, I'll give you guys a spoiler, is that I make one of our castmates, Diana, who's wonderful, I make her read the card that came with my opening night flowers that I got from Frances McDormand. And that's how we, and that's how I do a very heavy-handed segue into how we reuse the vases that we're, because there's so many vases in the building after opening night wonderfully, but you know, all of the things you think about. But yeah, it's, um, I did one about how because we use masks backstage, it's been an amazing way to contain COVID and other illness, quite frankly, backstage.

It's been, it's come into our building and it's never spread. And I firmly believe it's because we wear masks backstage, and um, so we go through a lot of masks and those end up in landfills. So we have a TerraCycle bin in our theater and people put their masks there and we recycle masks. But yeah, it's Broadway is, oh, I one of the fun things about our show is that because it's set in 1973, so many of our clothes are vintage. And in terms of fashion, the most sustainable thing you can do is buy something that's meant to last and rewear it. So talk about an example of that. I actually give a kind of a magnificent example of that because I wear in the show a shirt that was my mother's that she was, I'm ready for me to blow your mind.

The show's set in 1973. I was born in 1973. The shirt is a maternity shirt she wore when she was pregnant with me when the play was happening that I then wore when I was pregnant with each of my boys. That is now a shirt that I wear in the show. Boom. Wow. Talk about reusing, repurposing. So it's that kind of stuff. I mean, I could go on, but it's lots and lots of stuff like that. And now that I only have three weeks left, I'm gonna double down and I'm gonna get as many, I'm gonna start doing these things daily if I can, just to capture as much of it as I can before we leave. But then I'm gonna keep Green Mom AF on Instagram, it's going to live on. I'm just gonna be doing it at other Broadway shows and with Broadway people outside of the Jacobs Theater because it's fun. And I think it will be, I need more followers. I don't really get any of it. I don't know how to do it, but I'm gonna get them as I continue to do what I do.

[36:44] Jan Svendsen: I believe that.

[36:45] Anika Larsen: I do too. So, you know, it's one thing. So Broadway's doing a lot to be greener, which is great. And I love your point about it's the small things, you know, that are important too. So can you give us some advice about what to do? You know, when Broadway Green Alliance first became an organization, I was actually part of the team that helped put on the very first press conference. And we worked with some other organizations. And I remember at that time, this is a long time ago, they gave us like a list here 10 things that you can do, small things that that will actually mean a lot if a lot of people do them.

[37:21] Anika Larsen: Yeah.

[37:22] Jan Svendsen: And I'm sure that that list has changed. I remember it was like unplug things when you're not gonna be home and using the blue.

[37:29] Anika Larsen: I think it probably is.

[37:30] Jan Svendsen: But yes, turn things off at the plug is a great way of thinking about that.

[37:35] Anika Larsen: Yeah, um, I mean, those lists are easy to find on the internet. So, and I feel like if I started to list, I would not do a great job of it. But I what I would like to urge people to do that I think they maybe don't know about as much, that's a really great place to start if you're trying to figure out how you're gonna help. And my friend Andrea Varga, professor of sustainability, turned me on to it when I called her that day. The UN Global Goals for Sustainability. It's a mouthful. They also like to call it the world's to-do list. All 193 of the UN nations have signed off on it. And in its agreement of things that need to happen by 2030 to help save the planet. But the beauty of it, there's 17 of them.

[38:22] Anika Larsen: The beauty of it is that there is an inherent understanding that you can't make a greener world without making a fairer world, and vice versa, and that all of our problems are so entrenched in each other that you can't fix one without fixing all of them. So find the one that matters to you the most and start working on that. On their beautifully branded and well laid out website, they have all of it broken down for you in such a user-friendly way. Each global goal has targets and what you can do. The first one is no poverty. The next one is no hunger. It's about access to education, it's about gender equality, it's about clean water, it's about social justice. It's this idea that we can't fix the world unless we do all of these things.

So I would urge people to go to that website for the global goals and check that out. It's the place to find which is the thing, because one of them is marine life and one of them is life on land, and one of them is responsible consumption and getting rid of waste, like all of the different aspects of it. It's just a really good jumping off place for people who want to start being more active or just know what to do. It’s so easy to feel helpless, as I've said, and those global goals help me feel hopeful. I am hoping to, in the works, not hoping to, it will happen. I will make it happen, but I'm gonna do a vlog about the global goals with different Broadway people. I was gonna do it with my folks backstage at ALMOST FAMOUS, and now I'm gonna find a new way to do it.

It's still sort of in the works, but a vlog with 17 episodes, and each episode will be about a different global goal. Hopefully, it will still have the same vibe of fun and frivolity, but also always encompassing some sustainability and some ways to do the next right thing.

[40:25] Jan Svendsen: I love do the next right thing. We should collaborate on your vlog. That sounds so interesting. Let's have a meeting about it.

[40:31] Anika Larsen: I'm gonna take you up on it. I can use it. I'd love to.

[40:34] Jan Svendsen: Yeah, no, that sounds amazing. You know, I love everything that we've talked about today. I know a lot of people listening to this podcast, one of the questions that I get most from people is, okay, I want to do something. This is broader than the green conversation, just in the area of being a philanthropist or being an activist. People get so stuck. It's overwhelming. The world has so many issues. They need advice on how do I start? What do I do? I just wondered if you could give any advice based on your hopeful point of view and your experience.

[41:13] Anika Larsen: We really do need people doing what they can everywhere, right? It's not just next door to the factories that we need the air to be like everybody everywhere needs to be doing what they can. It really is that the local matters, but there are groups everywhere. There are organizations everywhere that are just really, really hyperlocal. One of the first things that comes to mind is voting. The way that you vote really matters in terms of the legislation being passed, which is huge. A really heartening thing is this federal legislation that Biden passed is very, very hopeful. Even perhaps even more importantly, the legislation that California just recently passed. Everybody probably heard about it because one of the things is that they're gonna phase out gas-powered cars starting by 2035.

That's huge because I didn't know this until I read that article, but California is the fifth largest economy in the world. So as California goes, so goes the auto industry. They don't have a choice. They're going to have to follow that. Everybody is going to ultimately have to follow that whether they want to or not.

[42:32] Jan Svendsen: Well, I like the advice of going local. It really matters. It might lead to something broader, but it really is the way every revolution works, right? Person by person.

[42:44] Anika Larsen: Here's another thing that I think is actually important. I was thinking about this a lot because I debated putting this in my Christmas card talking about this. I always do an update of the family, and then I decided, no, I think we all need to be talking about this more. It needs to be a part of our everyday. It is such a big dire problem that we can't make really any decision without thinking about it. When I went Christmas shopping for my kids, for the first time, I started thinking about the amount of plastic packaging or what the gifts were made of. I worked really hard to try and buy stuff that was made out of wood, and sometimes that stuff is more expensive, so it's not possible for people.

But in terms of doing what you can, it really is in every decision that you make. Do you run the water while you're shaving? Maybe you could not run the water while you're shaving. If everybody thought about that, here's a really small thing that's really huge: when you wash your laundry on cold, short cycle. I have a five and a seven-year-old; they get so dirty and muddy, and I'm telling you, their clothes get washed on cold in a 27-minute cycle. That is huge. We don't need to wash on hot or even warm. Or even rinsing dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. The dishwashers now are so much better. You don't really need to sit there and rinse your dishes. I used to wash them before I put them in the dishwasher, and now I just kind of throw them in and make it clean.

[44:17] Jan Svendsen: Exactly. So, I was debating whether or not to talk about climate stuff in my Christmas card because it's a downer. But if I think with everything, if you talk about it in positive terms, in optimistic terms, I really think we need to create a cultural expectation that this is something we expect sustainability from everybody we encounter, certainly from our governments, our town governments, and our federal government, but we expect it from the business people in our communities. It becomes an expectation that we are all doing our best in these efforts. The more we talk about it, the more we let people know what we're doing, the more I really think in other countries it is different than it is here.

I've talked about the global goals. Their brand is this ring that looks like rainbows. I actually wore the Global Goals pin on my dress on opening night of our show. If you see any photos of me on the runway, I am wearing the global goals pin on my dress. I'm wearing a dress that I have worn many, many times before in my life, intentionally to rewear that dress. I'm gonna wear it for the rest of this year. If I have anything else fancy to go to, I'm gonna wear it to the concert that we do on January 23rd to raise money for the BGA. It's just about, I really think the importance of talking about it. You don't have to say, "Hey, what are you doing? You should be doing." It's just let's start talking about what we are doing so that in that way, it starts creating this expectation as a country, as a society, as a planet, that we all are expected to do what we can every day.

[46:02] Anika Larsen: I think that's huge. I was gonna say in Japan, where business people are now expected to wear the Global Goals pin. Of course, there's backlash because some of them are not helping the planet, but wearing the pin. I still argue that even if they're not helping, wearing the pin is creating in Japan a cultural expectation that business people should be thinking about this. I do think the action necessarily follows if we are expecting people and we're upholding people to these standards.

[46:33] Jan Svendsen: This sounds like a good New Year's resolution, this cultural expectation of doing our best.

[46:38] Anika Larsen: The problem with New Year's resolutions is that by February you've forgotten them.

[46:42] Jan Svendsen: I don't know. I've kept a few, actually.

[46:44] Anika Larsen: Good for you. You're the only one.

[46:48] Jan Svendsen: I had a New Year's resolution last year that you know how you get all the junk email. Well, if you unsubscribe, they'll stop sending it to you. I made a New Year's resolution that every piece of junk mail I got, I was gonna unsubscribe immediately. It takes a minute or two to go through the steps.

[47:06] Anika Larsen: Yeah, I have done it consistently.

[47:08] Jan Svendsen: I do that too.

[47:10] Anika Larsen: That's amazing. You know what I've actually started doing too is I so resent getting paper junk mail at this point. I'm like, how have we not moved beyond this? Nobody reads their paper junk mail. Who's still even trying this? I just ignore it and recycle it. But now I've actually started, it's not easy, but I collect them. While I'm at the theater during my show, between entrances, I am fighting the good fight for the planet. I'm on my computer, hoping not to miss an entrance because I'm trying to help. I now go to the website of the place and I find their contact email and I say, "Please remove me from your paper mailing list." It's a small thing, but I just don't want it. It makes me feel better when I get their email back saying we have removed you from our paper mailing list.

[47:53] Jan Svendsen: You are walking the walk and talking the talk and doing it all. You're such an inspiration.

[47:56] Anika Larsen: Oh, thank you. But there are ways that I'm failing. There are also ways that I'm not, you know, like, and so I'm just trying to do what I can in a way that is realistic for me in my life. That's all anyone can do. I just know how good it feels to be doing what I can, and I encourage other people to seek that great feeling.

[48:32] Jan Svendsen: Well, it has been a great feeling having you on this podcast, and it's a perfect way to end. I think, you know, I know that you've got bad news, but I feel like the hopefulness in you and your voice, it's just there. I was thinking about the holidays this year, the past few years actually, and you know, peace, love, hope, and all that. I think I want to change mine to more just I hope 2023 is hopeful. I feel like there is so much to be hopeful for. We're not there yet, and we all do have our things that we'd like to improve, but I feel like hopeful. You've made me feel very hopeful too.

[49:09] Anika Larsen: Oh, well, I think hope is contagious. Negativity is contagious, but I also do think we humans, most of us are naturally wired to want to be hopeful. When we feel it and when we are given good reason for it, it really does spread those endorphins or whatever they are that's firing off in your brain when you see, you know, even altruism. I mean, they've done studies. Altruism makes you feel good. Doing this makes me feel good. That's part of the reason I'm doing it. It's not just because I feel like I gotta, but it makes me feel good. It's the best drug there is.

[49:46] Jan Svendsen: Well, thank you so much. I wish you the happiest of holidays, and I hope you have a good last few weeks of the show, and I'll be thinking about you. We're excited to see what comes next, and I'll be, you know, career-wise, but also with regard to your activism. Thank you so much for being part of Broadway Gives Back.

[50:05] Anika Larsen: Oh, thank you. I appreciate you.

[50:08] Jan Svendsen: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Broadway Gives Back Podcast. Broadway Gives Back is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Special thanks to my producing partner, writer, editor, and friend, Jim Lochner. Thank you to everyone at BPN, including Dori Berinstein, Alan Seales, and Kimberlee Garris. I'd also like to thank Julian Hills from the Bulldog Agency and Eric Becker from Broderick Street Music. If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe and rate this podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. You can also follow Broadway Gives Back on Facebook and Instagram at Broadway Gives Back Podcast and on Twitter at Broadway Gives. To learn more, visit BPN.fm slash Broadway Gives Back. Thanks so much.