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[0:00] David Armstrong: Welcome to another episode of Broadway Nation. I'm David Armstrong, and my guest today is Dan Elish, who is the author of a new novel called King of Broadway. Although the majority of authors I've had the opportunity to interview here on Broadway Nation have been historians or scholars who have created non-fiction works about the history of the Broadway musical or about the shows and creative artists involved in it, every once in a while it is my great pleasure to introduce you to a fiction writer of what I call novel approaches to the Broadway musical. These have included, back in episode 90, Laura Franco's and her time travel novel, Broadway Revival. In episode 132, Stephen Cole and his time travel novel, Mary and Ethel and Mikey Who?

And in episode 137, Jack Vertel's novel, Broadway Melody. And most recently, in episode 155, Chad Beguelin's Showmance, which, like the novel we'll be discussing today, is set in the world of contemporary Broadway. Dan Elish co-wrote the book to the Broadway musical 13 with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, and that show has been performed all over the world and is now a movie on Netflix. He's also the book writer and co-lyricist of the off-Broadway musical The Evolution of Man. Additionally, he's the author of 12 novels for readers of all ages. As always, I need to acknowledge the generous patrons of Broadway Nation, such as Kelly Allen, whose support helps to make this podcast possible.

And there'll be information at the end of the episode about how you, too, can become a patron. Now, here we go. Dan Elish, welcome to Broadway Nation. It is so wonderful to have you here today to talk about your recent book, King of Broadway.

[1:59] Dan Elish: Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here. So tell us, how did this come about? You are someone who has worked in both worlds. You have written a number of books, I think 12 books, if I read that correctly.

[2:09] Yes. You also are involved in writing for the musical theater. You've co-wrote the book to the musical 13 with Jason Robert Brown. People can see that musical now, can't they?

[2:20] Yes. It's a movie on Netflix. It came out well. I think it's very cute. And, you know, I've always been a big fan of Jason's work and the songs in 13. And I think the movie came out well.

[2:31] David Armstrong: Well, and he seems to be a big fan of your work as well. His quote about your book, his very positive quote about your book, is featured on the cover of the edition I have.

[2:39] Dan Elish: He's a tough customer. I know him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was very flattered by that blurb. Let's put it that way. It was very generous of him, and I don't take it for granted.

[2:50] David Armstrong: But that's not the only musical you've written. You've written the book and the lyrics for a show I remember that was off Broadway, The Evolution of Man.

[2:58] Dan Elish: I co-wrote the lyrics with Doug Cohen, who wrote the music. Very fond of that show. It was based on a novel I wrote called Nine Wives. It's kind of about a single guy kind of desperately and hopefully humorously and endearingly looking for the right woman in New York and the right wife. Yeah, it went really well. It's, you know, it's out there now and it's done occasionally. I mean, you know, I would love it to be done more. I mean, 13 is done all over the place, which is very lucky and is very great.

[3:29] David Armstrong: So what was the inspiration for this book?

[3:29] Dan Elish: There's a very direct inspiration. I got into writing, writing in general. I wrote just very quickly. I wrote musicals in college and I came to New York to want to write music. Pretty quickly that shifted. I still play piano and do stuff like that, but my interest and I think my talent switched more towards lyrics and fiction. And I wrote this first children's novel, which is quite a long book, and I still think it's one of the best things I've written. It's called The Worldwide Dessert Contest. And when I was 29, in an act of brazen craziness, I wrote Stephen Sondheim and I sent him a copy of my book and asked him if he wanted to turn it into a musical with me. I just kind of love the book and I love him, of course, and I just wanted an excuse to write him.

To his credit, you know, he was supposed to be so good at that. He wrote me back. I got a letter back within a week saying no, saying very kindly, no, I like haven't. It was a short letter, but it was, Dear Mr. Ehrlich, thank you for your book, which I look forward to reading. Unfortunately, in terms of musicalization, it's not my thing or something. Please forgive me, Stephen Sondheim side. And I have this rejection note from Stephen Sondheim framed on my piano.

[4:37] David Armstrong: Of course.

[4:38] Dan Elish: That's where it stood for years. And then I had the idea that what if I fictionalized this, like had a fictional me, kind of a young guy who's written this book, The Worldwide Dessert Contest. So it's kind of meta. I'm using my own book and sent it to a completely fictional Stephen Sondheim guy who in the book is named Horatio King, who's 85 and a brilliant composer, but he hasn't worked in 15 years. But in the book, they do end up after some ups and downs working together, turning my children's novel into a musical. So I just thought it would be funny to see this kind of like very serious kind of curmudgeonly Stephen Sondheim guy turning a children's novel into a musical with a young guy. And it took off from there. But this is a book with a definite inspiration from when I took that risk and wrote him.

[5:26] David Armstrong: It's an amazing story. And it's fascinating then to read the book, knowing that to sort of look at you just mentioned meta, trying to figure out not that it really matters, but it's always interesting to try to figure out how autobiographical this book is. And clearly in some main element, it's very autobiographical. As you said, it's the book that is being adapted into the musical is a book you actually wrote.

[5:49] Dan Elish: Yes. But then you have created a alternative character for yourself named Ben Willis.

[5:55] David Armstrong: Yes. Who I assume has elements of you, but is not you in every respect.

[6:03] Dan Elish: Precisely. That's you're right on it. Yeah. And even the Sondheim character Horatio King is not a copy of Sondheim, but he means, in fact, he only writes music in this version of him as opposed to writing lyrics, which the character Ben Willis then writes the lyrics and the book for the musical version of the Worldwide Dessert Contest.

[6:20] Yes. And I did feel kind of, no, I mean, not just to be agreeable, but I agree with everything you said. I mean, Ben Willis character is sort of based on me and that he wrote the book. I mean, you know, I one thing I think I'm kind of proud of in the book that the Ben Willis character and Horatio King character kind of help each other with each other's kind of romantic lives. You know, they've kind of become friends. They're very unlikely friends, but kind of become friends. And so I had to make I just had to make the Ben Willis. I had to make a lot going on in that regard with him. And I don't know if that was the case with me. I mean, all that's made up. But the fact that this guy wrote this book and that he's proud of the book and, you know, it's all true.

It is kind of funny about the Stephen Sondheim thing, because, like, I never met him. And there's some people who have read the book think of the characters very much like Stephen Sondheim. And some people who knew Stephen Sondheim who read the book thinks like the character is very different. But Stephen Sondheim for people like you and me and people of musical is so in the ether. It's like I never met him, but I feel like I knew him because he was just everywhere. And he's Stephen Sondheim. You know, so I feel like bits of Stephen Sondheim got into this character without me even intending it, probably, even though we had never met.

[7:38] David Armstrong: And were there other legendary musical theater writers that figured in that you drew from as well?

[7:43] Dan Elish: Oh, that's interesting. Not anybody legendary. There were people I knew in my life who kind of helped me do the character of Ratio King, who's kind of this brusque, kind of curmudgeonly, hopefully funny, charming, ultimately good-hearted guy. I was very fond of this English teacher I had in high school, who was kind of like that my first editor, you know, so there are people in my life. But no, in terms of the role model of people who were famous, it was purely Stephen Sondheim. I wasn't thinking of anybody else.

[8:14] David Armstrong: I found it interesting that you adapted a real book as the source material for the fake musical or fictional musical in your show. How much of that musical version did you need to write? Had you actually ever thought about post writing to Sondheim? Had you done any work on musicalizing this in real life?

[8:25] Dan Elish: That's a very good question. And it's true. When Stephen Sondheim wrote me this polite, no, I did still at that point in my life, write music and I wrote the whole show and it got put on. This is years ago. This is 30 years ago now at Fordham University. And it went well. It was fun, but nothing has ever really happened with it since. So I did have all these lyrics in the book. You see them part of the book as you kind of get a sense of them working together and writing on the show. So I did have a lot of I was able to use my favorite quotes from the book and some of the lyrics that I wrote. I tried not to overdo it because nobody wants to read a book just filled with lyrics. You know, that's fiction.

It wasn't that kind of book, but I did need to show scenes of them working together. And so I use those. I wrote this King of Broadway. I didn't think it'd be a good musical, but I thought there's really is there's two major characters in the book, Horatio King and Ben Willis. And I wrote it as a two-person play and I needed somebody to write music for it. And I didn't think my music was right or really good enough. Scott Frankel, the composer of Great Gardens, is writing. I've written a play version of it, and Scott Frankel has written the music for the few songs that we need. And we're in the process now of trying to get people to read it. Frankly, this is very recent. Nothing. I've nothing more to report except that this is it's underway. It's underway. That's what there is to report on it. And I feel very lucky to know Scott and that he said yes.

[10:08] David Armstrong: Well, that would be a very fascinating third incarnation of the original book. I'm trying to milk this as much as I can. Just like Hollywood, you're creating sequels. I've talked to other authors who had to invent a musical within a novel to serve their story, and then they had to sort of write or at least draft out that musical in order to be able to refer to it or excerpt it or do the things that you need to do when you're talking about the creation of a fictional musical. You had a big advantage because you had actually written a musical of it that you could then draw from.

[10:42] Dan Elish: Yes, it was a very big advantage.

[10:44] Dan Elish: And I think it was a friend of mine who knows all my work, one of my best friends, I was saying, well, what should the musical be? And he said, I think you should have the musical be the Worldwide Dessert Contest. You know, I think it was his idea to do that. And that's really when the book took off, because I think a lot of the humor of the book, it's a weird idea for a musical, especially like a very serious composer like Horatio King to be doing this musical about a dessert contest. And I think that was funny. You know, that's the hope. And you incorporate that weird idea into the story. It is a weird idea within the world of your novel as well.

[11:18] David Armstrong: Yes. I also think, you know, part of me writing it, the Worldwide Dessert Contest is one of the things I'm proudest of that I've written of my books. And so I kind of feel sort of reading King of Broadway. It's a book for grownups and especially theater fans. But I feel kind of people get two for the price of one. They learn a lot about this thing, the Worldwide Dessert Contest, that I'm really proud of and also get this new King of Broadway story. That's another reason I did it. I just want to keep the Worldwide Dessert Contest alive a little bit in a new form.

[11:48] Dan Elish: I found the tone of the book really interesting because it's sort of very expertly veers back and forth between being very satirical, very romantic in some cases, an insider backstage story that seems very real. Talk a little bit about that. Was that something you were conscious of as you were writing it or just it sort of came out that way?

[12:10] Dan Elish: I think it kind of came out that way. That's an interesting question. Nobody's ever asked me that. What is interesting is like I'm so into the world of musical theater, the book is pretty insidery. And some publishers who really liked it who said, no, this is too insidery and I just don't know who's going to read this book. And I'm like, there are tons of people like me out there, you know, who love musicals. And I think the book is appealing to people who don't like musicals. It kind of shows this world. I think I'm so into the world of musicals. When I was writing it, it didn't even seem that insidery to me. But now that it's been published, I kind of see and I reread it after a year of, you know, I thought, oh, this is pretty insidery.

But that's just sort of how it came out. I kind of spoof people might know listening. There's this workshop in New York for aspiring people want to write musicals. I got in at my first year out of college. It's called the BMI workshop. And they give you a bunch of assignments to write songs and then they play them for the class and the class critiques them and you learn a lot. So I have that in the book and that's a very New York people who want to write musicals thing. But it also adds a great sense of authenticity to the book.

[13:19] David Armstrong: I also participated in the BMI.

[13:24] Dan Elish: Oh, you did? Oh, wow. Yeah. In the librettist workshop. It was great fun to, you know, recognize these references to and that's probably one of the most satirical parts of your book where you have a lot of fun with the BMI workshop in a deserved way, I think. And, you know, they deserve a lot of praise, which you also give them in the book. But I think for the audience of this podcast, which, of course, the book won't seem too insidery for most of the people listening to this, they will feel like, well, of course, this is the book that we would want to read. Talk just a little bit about the resistance you get from publishers in that regard. I think the people, again, listening will want to know, well, why aren't there more books like this? What's keeping these books from being published?

[14:07] David Armstrong: Don't go away. Dan and I will be back with more Broadway Nation right after this quick break. Hi, this is David Armstrong. And if you're enjoying this episode, I strongly suspect that you will want to read my new book, Broadway Nation, how immigrant Jewish, queer and black artists invented the Broadway musical on sale now wherever books are sold. And I'm very happy to report that the early reviews have been terrific. The esteemed author Jeffrey Block says that Broadway Nation is a fascinating, comprehensive and timely gem of a book that more than lives up to its promise of delivering no less than five books in one. Kudos to David Armstrong. And Tony Award winning lyricist David Zippel says that David Armstrong's insightful history of the evolution of the Broadway musical and its creators is captivating and comprehensive as well as indispensable.

The book is, of course, available on Amazon, but I recommend that you go to the publisher's website, bloomsbury.com, where you will currently receive a 10 percent discount. Again, like the podcast that inspired it, the book is titled Broadway Nation, how immigrant Jewish, queer and black artists invented the Broadway musical. Now back to the show.

[15:23] Dan Elish: Well, first of all, I thought when I started writing this book, this is really original. I'd never seen another book like this. I just know that I have a good agent and something of a track record. And a lot of the publishers were shy about it. Like I got one editor I'd worked with before at St. Martin's. He's a really good guy who wrote my agent. He wrote a whole bunch of compliments. I really enjoyed this book, blah, blah, blah. Super entertaining. I have no idea how to market it. I have to pass. And I got a lot of that. That was frustrating. It took a while to find the right publisher. It was finally published by this place in London. They did great. And I'm just thrilled it's out there. That's all ancient history now.

But in my years in publishing, now that I'm getting older, I think publishers do compare to like when I started in the late 80s. They have to care much more about who's marketing and how much they're going to sell. And when I started, if you got one editor who really liked your book, they would do it. They could push it through. They would push it through. And it wasn't like it had to go through a ton of marketers to be approved. My first editor was kind of well-known. And it was Children's Editor. And if he liked it, they did it. And that isn't the case anymore. And that makes it harder for writers if you're writing something that's a little offbeat. That seems to be the world we're in today.

[16:39] Dan Elish: Every aspect. I was intrigued by the lyrics in the book. It's not laden with lyrics, but there are enough there. And they're very expert lyrics. And they're very intriguing. So we might get to hear those sung at some point in the future.

[16:53] Dan Elish: Well, yeah, that would be a dream. I would love to have. It's weird. I have turned one or two of my books into musicals in the past. I've written for adults and kids, but they were the kids books of their kids musicals. This I just felt like because it really stars two major people, I could make it into a play. And yeah, it would be a dream. It would be very cool to have a play of this performed. It would help more people know about the book. It would just be like a win. I wrote it as a play just because I thought it could stand on its own. It's not really to sell the book, but it's just a way to get the work out there more.

[17:29] David Armstrong: Well, as you say, you have two very strong characters who have a great arc because they start out at odds with one another to a great extent. In fact, I believe Horatio King attempts to murder Tony Award in one of the early scenes. He throws a Tony Award at his head.

[17:46] Dan Elish: No, no, I also feel with the play, it could be a really great part for an older man, you know, like and I could give a list of dream performers, but, you know, we'll see if any of that happens. That's the hope that would lure somebody with Scott's talent, you know, luring somebody into it who wants to be involved in this, who's, you know, maybe we could make something happen. We'll see. It's as you know, that's tough out there, too.

[18:09] David Armstrong: Totally the same issues that you were talking about with the publisher.

[18:13] Dan Elish: Yes, yes.

[18:14] David Armstrong: We have the same issues in the theater.

[18:15] Dan Elish: Yeah.

[18:16] David Armstrong: Talk a little bit about creating this contemporary world of Broadway. It's still a fictional world, even though you're living in it to a great extent. You live in New York. You are part of that world. You are in the midst of that. How many of these characters surrounding the main two characters are inspired by real people or real situations that you've encountered?

[18:38] Dan Elish: Oh, interesting. Good question. Sort of a lot. My main experience on Broadway. I mean, I've had some off-Broadway experiences. My main experience was 13. And I kind of bent over backwards to not make anybody directly based. I didn't want to be accused. I mean, I knew the fact is Stephen Sondheim before this book was published, passed away. But I wrote it when he was still living. And I was part of me worried. Maybe it was if the book did well, like God, I would hate, you know, I love Stephen Sondheim, though I never met him. I would hate him to read this book and be insulted or something. You know, that was but then just have a time doubt. He unfortunately passed away and then the book came out and I really bent over backwards.

I think some of the characters were kind of types like there's the kind of over the top British director. And then I made the dramaturge. There's kind of an evil dramaturge in this. And, you know, 13 and my shows, I've never had a dramaturge. And I made the guy Norwegian, which is, you know, I have nothing against Norwegian people at all. Love Norwegian people. But I just had to pick something. And I did that in part to make it not like anybody I would know, because I didn't want and nobody has, I think. I didn't want anybody I knew. And I was a little nervous that people affiliated with the BMI workshop would be offended. But the one person who's one of the teachers there now I'm friends with, at least he told me he thought it was really fun and he wasn't at all.

I do feel I like to feel it's all very affectionate, the spoofing, even of BMI. I love BMI. My work wasn't very good in BMI. I was very young and right out of college, but I didn't want any bitterness or anything to come through. So the whole thing is meant to be affectionate. And I, with the exception of Stephen Sondheim, I tried very hard to keep anybody I knew out of it, including myself, the Ben Willis character, tried to keep them, you know, very fictional.

[20:29] David Armstrong: That's very interesting, which probably at times is hard to do.

[20:32] Dan Elish: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were some things where I just kind of put in placeholder names that were kind of like real people I'd known. And one of the last rewrites, somebody pointed out to me, you know, this name is a lot like I won't say who, because I don't is a lot like this person. And I didn't mean it to be like that person at all. So I went and just changed the name and that changed a few details just to really make it clear. Yeah, my goal was to write an entertaining book, not to like, you know, it's not a Romana club, not to attack people. Yeah, yeah. I'm lucky I had a good experience, you know, with 13, you know, like anything had its ups and downs and it's done very well in its post life.

It didn't do very well in New York. So that was disappointing. But I didn't want to make it about that. Right, right. Well, in fact, I think what was I won't give away the ending of your book, but I did find it surprising in the sort of realistic ending that I wasn't really. I.

[21:29] Dan Elish: I didn't anticipate it because I thought this kind of book often ends with a sort of a smash hit show.

[21:35] David Armstrong: Exactly. Did you think about that from the beginning? It ends very positively, but not with, you know, the ending of, you know, like it's the next classic.

[21:45] Dan Elish: Exactly. Yeah. I forget when I thought of that, to be honest. But I yeah, I clearly it just seemed given my experience of 13, because as much as I love the show and as good as I think, you know, talented, I think Jason and Robert Horne are, you know, it didn't for whatever reason it didn't catch on. So I wanted to reflect, you know, I just wanted to reflect that. But it's not like a horrible ending. It's just if anything, I worried and nobody said this and I'm happy. I mean, it gets the ending with all the craziness that happens to the show gets pretty over the top. And I guess I was worried that some people but people kind of rolled with that, I think. And, you know, so I was happy with that.

You enter into this kind of book, a comic novel, I think it's fair to say where you expect there's going to be it's going to culminate in a lot of drama, somewhat perhaps exaggerated drama, because that's what makes comedy. And so I think we do roll with that. We know that the preview period of the show that is going to be fraught with events and fraught with challenges. That's just the nature of I think we would be disappointed if that didn't happen in this kind of a book.

[22:59] Dan Elish: Oh, thanks for saying that. Yeah. Not to give anything away. This is just one detail. I had a lot of trouble. There's a scene where I'll say the dramaturge is set out to be kind of humorously evil. And there's one scene where the Ben Willis guy charges down the aisle and like, you know, attacks him in a humorous way. And that I kept feeling this is just going too far. I kept it in. I felt it needed to be in there just for different plot reasons and stuff. And I but I work very hard within the ridiculousness of it all to make that believable.

[23:31] David Armstrong: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks. So what's the reaction been to the book?

[23:35] Dan Elish: It's been really positive. I've been really pleased because, you know, I will admit most people who have read it are real theater fans. And I think people who like musicals who like theater have really liked it. I've also had some people read it and I've gotten some really nice reactions from people who don't especially like who are like, as one person put it in a there's one review on Amazon saying this is good for musical lovers and those who are simply musical curious. You know, he said he was he didn't really care about musicals. And I do. And that was going back when the first publishers turned it down because they thought it was too insidery. I was surprised because I never meant it to be so insidery.

So it seems like the insidery people are really liking it, but some people who aren't are liking it, too. So I've been very I was I was pleased. I was very pleased. And people saw it as kind of a nice coming of age. I'm pleased that some people have seemed to relate to the fact that even though Horatio King is eighty-five and Ben Willis is twenty-five, they both kind of help each other grow up in different ways because Horatio King kind of given up on life and different things. And so, yeah, I've I'm happy, you know, like with any small press. I mean, getting on your show is like really big and important. And I thank you. You know, it's just so hard, even if you're with a big press, because I've mostly been with bigger places. It's just very hard to get PR for a book, as you know.

[24:57] David Armstrong: I absolutely know. Well, there's a lot of books out there, you know. And as you say, even with great publishers, every author I talk to says they have to do the majority of the press themselves. They have to do the legwork. That's how it is these days.

[25:08] Dan Elish: Yeah. And again, and I can say this from my own publishers who are terrific there, you know, they can only do as much as they can do with all the books that they are working on.

[25:17] David Armstrong: Yes, totally. So what's next? Speaking of publishing, you seem to always be writing something. Do you have something in the works?

[25:22] Dan Elish: Yeah, I'll just I did. It's weird. I had this King of Broadway and a young adult novel about a boy at camp, which I think is a very sweet story and kind of different that came out like it just came out. So they were like a year apart. I am working on other things. Usually I work more slowly. But these two things that built up the book about the boy at camp, which is called One Last Ride, because horseback riding figures in the story, among other things. It's kind of based on some autobiographical things that happened to me. And I've been working on that. I got the idea 30 years ago. I mean, I was having been working on it straight for 30 years, but every five years I would take a crack at it.

So these books kind of came to fruition weirdly at the same time and found publishers at the same time. In a way, I might sound more prolific than I am, but it's been a good year. I have these two books out and they're both for different market, very different tones. And I'm you know, I'm hoping this thing with Scott Frankel on the play turns into something and I have some other theater things brewing and, you know, I'm trying to get an idea for another book. We'll see what happens. You know what it's like, just as you just indicated, you have to keep your irons in many, many fires in order to get something, because most things won't happen and almost none of them will happen when you want them to happen.

[26:41] David Armstrong: If anybody listening is just starting out and wants to take a takeaway from this aside from going out and buying both of our books.

[26:47] Dan Elish: No, it's true. I've learned I try to have a bunch of things going on and try to not put all my eggs in one basket because, yeah, this camp book, I'm really, you know, I literally I got the idea 30 years ago to write about this event that happened to me. But sometimes it takes that long just for it to it's it's you know, it's a good idea, but actually figuring out how to manifest it might have taken that long. You need the perspective of 30 years later to actually write what you had in your mind all along.

[27:13] David Armstrong: That's very true in this case. Yes. It would have been a different book 30 years ago and maybe not as good a book.

[27:18] Dan Elish: Very different. And I think not as good. I look back on those drafts and it's like, OK, there's a reason I did not continue with this. You know, I put it aside.

[27:26] David Armstrong: But you were smart enough to know it was a good idea to keep it active in the back of your mind, at least somehow.

[27:31] Dan Elish: Yes. I think that's another good lesson as well for people is that when you abandon something, it may not be that you've actually abandoned it. You've just delayed it until you're really ready for it.

[27:41] David Armstrong: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've got a couple of those. We'll see if they ever reach fruition.

[27:46] Dan Elish: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Indeed. And let me ask this question because it's one of my challenges is as an author, you probably have multiple ideas of things that you've thought about writing that you've considered that you may even have worked on to some extent. How do you actually decide which ones you're going to move to the front burner and actually work on?

[28:07] Dan Elish: That's a good question. That's hard. I think when I was younger, I used to be much more just shooting from the hip. If I got an idea, I start writing it. And I had some success. I mean, some of the things I wrote then turned out really well, like the Worldwide Dessert Contest, plug that again. But I kind of didn't know as much what I was doing. I wrote and started a lot of things like I have 30 pages of a lot of things that aren't very good. And I think that's one good or maybe bad thing about getting older. I'm like more critical and I don't jump into something as quickly without thinking it through and thinking, oh, this could work. This is a something I could write. Well, you know, it could be a good idea, but not the kind of thing that suits my talent or just something given what the market is, I think that, you know, would never sell.

But that doesn't really stop me. If that stopped me, I wouldn't have written King of Broadway, you know, even though, you know, for the reasons we discussed. So it's hard. I just like try to get an idea that's really seems good and potentially may be publishable if I can pull it off and go for it. And, you know, right now I'm looking for an idea. I don't really. But I'm trying to be calm about that and not freak out about it. You know, and I have, as you've said, I've had these just because of weird timing. These two books come out this year. So it seems like I'm really busy.

[29:31] David Armstrong: Well, you're busy promoting them, I'm sure of that.

[29:35] Dan Elish: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying. No, this is great. It's so nice to talk to you about them.

[29:39] David Armstrong: Well, Dan Elish, it's been delightful to have you on Broadway Nation today to talk about your recent novel, King of Broadway. Thank you so much.

[29:44] Dan Elish: It's been a total pleasure.

[29:51] ♪ Musical number: "Just About to Turn 13" — performed by Dan Elish ♪

[31:41] If you love this podcast and would like to delve even deeper into the world of Broadway musicals, I invite you to become a patron of Broadway Nation. For as little as $7 a month, you can receive access to a whole world of exclusive features, including new original episodes not available anywhere else, including a five-part series on the Broadway musicals that receive the Pulitzer Prize for drama. And all patrons will receive on-air shout-outs and acknowledgements in recognition of your vital support. To join, simply go to broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech. That's all one word, broadwaynationpodcast, s-u-p-e-r-c-a-s-t.tech, or simply click the link in the show notes to this episode. Broadway Nation is written and produced by me, David Armstrong. Special thanks to Pals Mox for his help with editing this episode, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network.

[32:03] ♪ Musical number: "Just About to Turn 13" — performed by Dan Elish ♪