This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Benj Pasek: Welcome to the Broadway Teachers Podcast. We are Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and we are thrilled to be here.

[0:30] Justin Paul: Yes, we are! It's been an incredible year for us, and we can't wait to share some stories.

[1:00] Benj Pasek: So, let's dive in. We just came off an amazing experience at the Oscars.

[1:30] Justin Paul: Absolutely! Winning the Academy Award for "La La Land" was surreal.

[2:00] Benj Pasek: And then to follow that up with "Dear Evan Hansen" winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, was just mind-blowing.

[2:30] Justin Paul: It really was. We were so grateful for all the support from the community.

[3:00] Benj Pasek: Speaking of support, we had a fantastic pre-Oscar dinner with Justin Timberlake.

[3:30] Justin Paul: Yes! That was such a fun night. He was so down-to-earth and genuinely excited for us.

[4:00] Benj Pasek: It was a great way to celebrate our achievements with friends.

[4:31] Justin Paul: And it reminded us of our journey from being students at the University of Michigan.

[4:38] Benj Pasek: Right! We used to get out of dance class just to write songs.

[4:45] Justin Paul: We had our priorities straight, that's for sure!

[4:53] Benj Pasek: It was all about finding that balance between our studies and our passion for musical theatre.

[5:03] Justin Paul: And now, looking back, we can see how those experiences shaped us.

[5:13] Benj Pasek: Definitely. It's amazing how far we've come since those days.

[5:23] Justin Paul: And we owe a lot to our professors and mentors who believed in us.

[5:33] Benj Pasek: They really pushed us to explore our creativity and take risks.

[5:43] Justin Paul: Speaking of risks, we took a big one with "Dear Evan Hansen."

[5:53] Benj Pasek: Yes, it was a unique story that resonated with so many people.

[6:03] Justin Paul: And the response has been overwhelming.

[6:13] Benj Pasek: We are so grateful for the audience's connection to the show.

[6:23] Justin Paul: It's a reminder of why we do what we do.

[6:33] Benj Pasek: Exactly! And we hope to inspire the next generation of musical theatre artists.

[6:43] Justin Paul: That's what this podcast is all about.

[6:53] Benj Pasek: Sharing our journey and encouraging others to follow theirs.

[7:03] Justin Paul: So, let's keep the conversation going!

[7:13] Benj Pasek: Yes! We have so much more to share.

[7:23] Justin Paul: And we want to hear from our listeners too.

[7:33] Benj Pasek: Absolutely! Your stories matter, and we want to celebrate them.

[7:43] Justin Paul: So, stay tuned for more episodes where we dive deeper into our experiences.

[7:53] Benj Pasek: And share insights from other Broadway luminaries.

[8:03] Justin Paul: We can't wait to connect with all of you!

[8:13] Benj Pasek: Until next time, keep dreaming big!

[8:23] Justin Paul: And keep creating!

[14:25] Benj Pasek: Having that whole experience, I always went into it thinking there's more than just being an actor on stage, and so that's why it wasn't so weird to switch to think about writing. Yeah, I think for me, I was really lucky that I had teachers that introduced material that was really inappropriate. You know, I mean, I do, I mean, I think that, like I had my drama teacher in, I guess, like the end of middle school or the beginning of high school, we were doing like Anna Deavere Smith plays, you know what I mean? And that's pretty badass, you know, and you don't really know how cool that is until you step away from it, and you're like, wow, that's really cool. And it ended up kind of controversial, and we ended up not doing it, but she tried to do a Susan Laurie Parks drama, and it was really, really cool.

I had, you know, a teacher in middle school who, you know, one of the first songs that he played, you know, that was not sort of classical music. It was like we had to analyze A Weekend in the Country. So like just having these teachers that introduce this stuff to you before you're really ready, and as Justin says, you sort of have to like rise to the occasion, or it's sort of like a couple of steps beyond where you're able to grasp. It makes you sort of hungrier to see what's out there, which I thought was really, really valuable and necessary.

[15:44] Benj Pasek: Well, I do want to take a moment. I think he's here. I think we have Justin's middle school teacher, Ben Fremmer here. Is Ben here?

[15:51] Justin Paul: Yeah.

[15:52] Benj Pasek: He's in the back.

[15:53] Justin Paul: Hey.

[15:54] Benj Pasek: Thank you very much. Ben. I've never met this man. It's a plant. It's a plant. Yeah, no, I mean, I feel like we'll just talk and, you know, everyone will listen. No, but I feel like we, you know, I grew up in a town that is, thankfully, really supports the arts and brings on tremendous teachers like Ben and our high school theater teacher as well, and I think that was a constant thing. We were always being talked to as if we were professional actors, which I know is a little bit ridiculous in certain ways. Like I had an extracurricular teacher who wasn't Ben, who was someone else who like literally screamed at us one time, and I was like, that's probably a little bit too far. He's like, you're not being professionals.

It's like, we're not professionals. But, you know, we were always being treated as if we were, like we were there to do some serious work, and that being the case, then you should do show up to do some serious work, and you take it very seriously, and you take a lot of pride in what you're creating, and again, the emphasis, I know from Ben and from the high school program in our town as well, was always finding ways to get students involved in making the show in whatever form that took, so it was so far beyond just like, I'm the director. I'll tell you what to do. I'll tell you where to go. I'll tell you what to make, and here's what it is. It's like, I'm the director. I'm here to guide you guys in this learning experience and guide you into learning how to do this yourselves.

It's much more about you than it is about me. It's about you guys. You know, in a perfect world, like that director almost becomes invisible in a way that the actors are just making the show themselves, and the kids are feeling, at least, like they're making the show themselves, and so, you know, you come in with that kind of thinking that's far beyond just, I'm an actor on a stage, and I walk here and say this and do this, but it's sort of like, I was part of making the show. I built the sets. I helped make the costumes, and you understand why they're made that way or why that's built for that reason, so it's a very comprehensive approach to it, and I think that's also why so many people I know from our theater program have gone on to do things in theater or in film or TV that's not just acting because a lot of people, I think, get set in that. That's what the road is, and there's so much more.

[18:17] Beth Dombkowski: You grew up in Connecticut, so was your childhood, did you come to the city and see shows? Was that a part of your growing up?

[18:23] Justin Paul: Yeah, it was. It was. Not tons, but yeah, I'd say I came in several times a year with my family, seeing Broadway shows.

[18:33] Beth Dombkowski: Was it the same for you, or?

[18:35] Benj Pasek: Yeah, I mean, Philadelphia has a lot of theater itself, but I remember maybe when I was 12 or 13, I started to come up and see Broadway shows more often.

[18:41] Beth Dombkowski: So you guys were relatively close to the city, so I want to jump back to University of Michigan, so you do Edges, you get this great response, so are you now juniors, seniors? Where is that, like, in your...

[18:52] Justin Paul: So this would be like, yeah, it was between...

[18:54] Benj Pasek: End of sophomore year.

[18:55] Justin Paul: Yeah, sophomore year and junior year.

[18:56] Beth Dombkowski: And so did you feel a real shift in terms of your focus, like, hey, we're going to write more?

[19:00] Benj Pasek: Yeah, well, I mean, speaking to a group of teachers, it really was because of our teachers that I think that we were able to actually become songwriters. When they perceived that there was a shift in our interest, which I guess we were sort of vocal about, they really tailored the rest of our experience to helping us become writers. Even before we wrote the show, Edges, our sophomore year, everything that we learned about how to write a theatrical song was because we were in acting classes, and those acting classes were teaching us about how songs sort of make sense on stage. So like, you know, you guys all know this, but you know, like, what makes a song actable? Like, well, this was the first time that we had heard, like, oh, you should have someone that you're singing to in a song, or you should want something in a song, or there are objectives, or there are tactics, and all these things that, you know, are very basic.

But like, then, you know, we were able to say, well, if we're going to write songs, how do we stuff these songs with, you know, someone that we're talking to, or objectives, or tactics? So, you know, the next year after we kind of said we want to be songwriters, or we want to explore this a little more, our teachers really, instead of sort of forcing us to be actors and commit to that thing that we had said that we were going to be at 18, they allowed us to kind of grow and change, and they designed classes specifically for us so that we could really begin to dig into that interest. You know, the head of the program, Brent Wagner, he would meet with me once a week, and he would play classic, like, songs pre-1960, and he would give me the sheet music and eliminate the lyric from it, and then I would have to match the music and try to write and see where it scanned, and see where it hit, and see where my rhymes, you know, went, and then I would compare it to the actual song. You know, so, and I know, Justin, you had a class that Jerry did for you, too, right?

[20:50] Justin Paul: Yeah, yeah, I had a class that was like, it was an independent study. I would literally went to my professor's house during the middle of the day every week to do, we would take old musical theater standards and American songbook standards, and, like, I'd just do rearrangements of them, and like, sit down, and he'd say, here's just, here's the melody of the song and the chords, and like, you know, create your arrangement of it. So it wasn't composing exactly, but it was arranging and, like, having that sort of mentality of making that melody fit, you know, in a new harmonic structure or a new rhythmic structure or whatever. So our teachers were really encouraging of us and, you know, weren't, didn't feel, you know, threatened is the wrong word, but didn't feel like, because we weren't following exactly the path that we had said we wanted to follow or that they might think we should follow, they didn't feel like, oh, well, then you're not doing this right. You have to stay on the path, and you came here to be an actor, so be an actor. It was really, they embraced the sort of different thing that we were, we had an aptitude for.

[21:49] Benj Pasek: That's amazing. So you graduated, and what was the plan? Was there a plan?

[21:53] Justin Paul: Well, I'll say, like, before we even graduated, we spent, over that summer, we spent time in New York City between, I guess, what would it be, junior and senior year. So we interned for a writer, Jeff Marks, who co-wrote Avenue Q, and that happened because we literally wrote, like, 30 emails to 30 people, and, like, no one wrote us back except for this one guy, but he happened to have just won a Tony Award, so it was really great. And then he let us sort of shadow him.

[22:22] Benj Pasek: He went to Michigan.

[22:26] Justin Paul: Yeah, he went to Michigan. So it was part of, like, you know, an alum connection, but we got to see how Avenue Q got put together for the Las Vegas production, which was really amazing, and from there, just living in New York City, we really began to see how the city worked, and, you know, what concert venues you should show up at, or who the other young people were who were pursuing this thing, and sort of got our feet wet a little bit, and then the next summer, I guess that was sophomore year, then the junior summer, we sort of did the same thing. So we had two years in a row where we got a little bit acclimated to New York, and then our senior year, there was a grant that you could apply to, which still is, called the Jonathan Larson Foundation Grant, and you had to be a graduate of school to be eligible.

You couldn't be in school and apply for it. So we were like, we're going to graduate early and apply for this grant, and it's, like, now looking back, we're like, it wasn't, like, enough money to justify, like, trying to graduate college early, but we were really excited about it. We also, though, we had gotten, from doing a concert in the city, we had gotten, through another Michigan connection, a job writing a couple of songs for a show called Johnny and the Sprites, which John Tartaglia, as a Broadway actor, had a TV show on Disney Playhouse, which was, like, a morning Disney thing on the weekends, called Johnny and the Sprites, and it was all theater writers who wrote the songs, and, you know, at 21, we were like, this is the biggest deal in the world, and I remember thinking, like, how could I possibly be doing homework?

Like, I have to be writing for Johnny and the Sprites. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, homework? So that was another reason that we were, like, we have to apply for the grant, and we have to do our work. You know, we're professionals now. So we crammed all of our final credits into the first semester of our senior year, and we moved to New York, basically January of 2007.

[24:14] Justin Paul: Yeah, we ended up getting that grant, which was really a big deal for us. And the last thing that I'll say, which is still the Michigan connection, is that we ended up writing a song. So we didn't participate in the showcase, but we wrote a song for the class, I guess, a year before that, but it was the first time that our work had ever premiered in New York. So we got the experience, like, because our teachers kind of let this happen and helped us and tailored this, you know, closing song of the senior showcase, we got to have, like, a little bit of work premiere in New York, too, which was a really big deal in that connection to the city.

[24:44] Benj Pasek: Right, right. Well, I want to jump forward a little bit to talk a little bit about Dear Evan Hansen, because this entire group is coming to see the show this week, which is great.

[24:53] Justin Paul: I hope you guys like it.

[24:55] Benj Pasek: Well, and I want to share, I wasn't sure I was going to share this, but a little personal story, which is about, I don't know, two weeks ago, I had to have a little dental surgery, nothing, you know, terrible, but I'm in the chair, and it was heavy duty stuff, and we're about to start, and I'm a little nervous, and the dentist is like, how about we play some music? And I said, yeah, okay, we can play some music, and he goes over to the assistant, and he goes, Marnie, just go to YouTube and put Dear Evan Hansen, and I literally, I'm like, you're freaking kidding me, I'm like in suburbia, like at a dentist office, and the guy had just seen the show with his family, and he's literally in my mouth going, like, Dear Evan Hansen, like he's sort of singing half the song to me, but it really was funny, because it struck, and you didn't know that, you know, it was in theater, and what really struck me is the reach of this show, and that has been, to me, and this is like a middle-aged guy, it wasn't even like a young kid who you would, you know, think would be aware of it, so are you guys surprised by the reach of this show?

[25:56] Benj Pasek: Yes.

[25:57] Justin Paul: Yeah, for sure.

[25:58] Benj Pasek: Yeah, I mean, you know, we talked about, in writing this, we kind of made a commitment that this was gonna be the show that we were just gonna write for ourselves, and that no one had to like, and no one probably would like, and that's like the irony of all is that it's the show that the most people relate to, but it really is, I mean, I remember before we even, we had no clue whether people would like the show, or whether they would relate to it, especially before it went out of town in Washington, D.C., and we had this real moment where we were like, okay, well if it goes to Washington, and it's gonna have its life there, and that, you know, that's what we're writing it for, and that's the only thing we're gonna write it for, and we had no expectation beyond that, that it would do anything, so the whole, all of this has been very, very, very surprising to us.

[26:40] Justin Paul: Wow, I think there's something to that, as a producer, when it comes from the head down, like some guy has an idea, and let me get all these people together, and write about my idea, it's sort of like a different experience, as opposed to something that was truly a spark between the two of you, and the book writer, and what you guys came up with.

[26:58] Benj Pasek: Yeah, yeah, you know, and we give so much credit to our producer, Stacey Mendich, for thinking of it that way, and approaching it that way, we had been, she was a, she had been interested in producing more, and had a career as a journalist, but was transitioning over to be a producer, and she had someone that she knew, and respected, put together like a mix of young writers, she's always been obsessed with, and interested in, and wanting to support young writers, which is such a gift, and she took a liking to our songs, and she wrote to us, and was like, I jog around the, what's it called, in the Central Park?

[27:36] Justin Paul: Jackie Onassis Reservoir.

[27:39] Benj Pasek: The Reservoir, right. I even got the naming rights correctly. I like the full name, wow. She's like, I jog around the Reservoir every day, and I listen to your songs, I'd love to meet with you guys, and so we started meeting with her, and we were at lunch one day, and she was like, so tell me about everything you're working on again, and we said, okay, well we have, we're working on A Christmas Story, the musical, because, you know, we found out that they were looking for new writers for it, and we pitched and demoed for it, and we got the job, and so we're working on that, and then, you know, we have Dogfight, which she ended up sort of commissioning at Lincoln Center, but we said, you know, Lincoln Center is interested in that project, so we're doing that, and we had some other things as well.

James and the Giant Peach was doing it, and she was like, it sounds like everything you're doing is great, but it's all sort of because someone was like, you should do this, you should do this. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, we're 22, or whatever, we were 23, you know, that's how it works, you know, we're just, you know. Who wants us, we'll go.

[29:20] Benj Pasek: When you had that conversation with her, what had been written about this? Anything? Or just like, this is just an idea? I mean, I think we had written... Had we written any songs or anything like that? I think we had written like four songs that weren't what it to plot at all. But I don't think... I guess we did share those with her. But I mean, it really was... It was very, very early. And they're now... I mean, they're so irrelevant to what the show is now.

[30:03] Justin Paul: Are they not in the score at this point?

[30:05] Benj Pasek: Oh, no, no, no. They're not even like... They're like six cut songs ago. They're not even in the cut songs batch.

[30:12] Justin Paul: They were burned in a fire or something.

[30:15] Benj Pasek: Yeah. Well, that leads me to my next question because I think people are often surprised. I used to do creative development for an organization and I'd meet new writers and I'd say, well, how long have you been working on this? And they're like, forever, like six months. How long was the development process for Dear Evan Hansen?

[30:34] Justin Paul: A long time.

[30:36] Benj Pasek: Yes, right. I mean, it was... Since... Until we opened on Broadway, like back, it was about eight years, I would say.

[30:43] Justin Paul: Yeah. I mean, we sat down with Stacey, I want to say in 2009 for the first time. And then we began to search for playwrights, book writers in 2010. And I remember we committed to Steven Levinson at the end of 2010.

[30:55] Justin Paul: And how did you find him? What was that? How was that match made?

[30:58] Benj Pasek: It came from a lot of asking around and a couple of recommendations. Stacey had writers, our producer, she had writers that she was interested in that she wanted to suggest. And then we also were, we asked her. I mean, we knew some, we were still very young, but we knew some other writers our age and people that we were interested in. And then we asked other people that we trusted and who they liked. We just ended up reading a lot of playwrights. And when we read Steven Levinson's work, it felt like exactly the tone that we wanted for this show.

[31:34] Justin Paul: And when you met him, was it love match? Like you're like, this is it?

[31:37] Benj Pasek: Yeah.

[31:38] Justin Paul: Yeah.

[31:39] Benj Pasek: Actually. We loved him.

[31:41] Justin Paul: That's great. And so then you guys worked together. And for those of you who don't know, you had an out-of-town tryout at Arena Stage in Washington. And then you came to second stage off-Broadway and then to Broadway. How much did it change between those three productions?

[32:01] Benj Pasek: This show's undergone a lot of changes. I mean, we had, I want to say between like, what, four workshops and two readings or something before we ever got to Washington. And then we self-edited a lot. So like there were, I mean, massive changes before it even got to Washington.

[32:19] Justin Paul: Then in Washington, during that process, it changed a great deal.

[32:23] Benj Pasek: Well, even from the last workshop in New York until the very first production at Arena Stage, there used to be an ensemble.

[32:30] Justin Paul: There was an ensemble in the show.

[32:32] Benj Pasek: We got that. There was like a singing, dancing ensemble.

[32:35] Justin Paul: And with camera.

[32:36] Benj Pasek: Like other people.

[32:37] Justin Paul: Yeah.

[32:38] Benj Pasek: It got cut. Every part in Dear Evan Hansen matters.

[32:41] Justin Paul: Yeah.

[32:42] Benj Pasek: Now they do. No, but that was, there was something else that we cut too, I thought. I said, there was like, there were a few big kind of big ticket items.

[32:49] Justin Paul: In the bedroom and in the hall.

[32:51] Benj Pasek: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were, we cut from that final workshop, which was supposed to be like, okay, let's just get everything, make sure everything's in a good place before we go into rehearsal in DC. We left the workshop being like, everything's in a bad place. We have to like gut this.

[33:06] Justin Paul: And then we added two songs.

[33:08] Benj Pasek: We cut three songs from it. We cut the ensemble and then we added a few songs in DC. Then we took out some songs from DC, the second stage. We replaced like the opening number. We replaced the end of act one number.

[33:20] Justin Paul: Which became You'll Be Found. That was a big, big moment.

[33:23] Benj Pasek: Less changes from second stage to Broadway. That's because we had so many opportunities to work on the show leading up until then. So I'd say the show changed 15 to 20% moving from second stage to Broadway. But from workshop to arena, it was like 60%. And arena to second stage, like probably 40 or something, 30, 40.

[33:42] Justin Paul: That's great. And I'm going to open this up for questions in two minutes. So I'm jumping around a little bit, but I'm going to move a little bit to La La Land just because obviously folks are interested and it's so current and new. How did that come about? How did that gig fall in your lap?

[34:02] Benj Pasek: We started working with a manager maybe three years ago named Richard Craft and he's fantastic. We didn't really get his vibe at first because he would just be like, you're going to do this project. You have to do this thing. And we would always be like, we thought of him as like an emotional terrorist for a long time.

[34:24] Justin Paul: My wife always referred to him as like a domestic terrorist. She has like a list of the people that mess up our personal lives always and like he was at the top.

[34:31] Benj Pasek: He's always on it.

[34:33] Justin Paul: He was like the director of something else, whatever. And Richard Craft, he's like top of the list.

[34:36] Benj Pasek: Because he would always be so enthusiastic. Like we're going on vacation. No, we're not.

[34:40] Justin Paul: But he was like, I met these, we'd just known him maybe for a month at that time. And he's based out of LA.

[34:46] Benj Pasek: Yeah. He called us and he was like, guys, I just met you in LA. We're like, what do you mean, Richard? And he's like, I met these two guys. They're friends in college and they're filmmakers and they're passionate and they're just like you guys, but they live in LA.

[35:05] Justin Paul: We're like, okay, cool.

[35:06] Benj Pasek: Cool, Richard. He's like, they're the same age as you, whatever. He's like, they're doing a movie musical. It's at Lionsgate. It's happening and you have to be part of it. He's like, here's the thing. One's a director and the other one is a composer. So there's already a composer. So you guys would just write the lyrics.

[35:27] Justin Paul: And we were like, well, you know, that's not really what we do. We write the score to shows. We write the music and the lyrics. And he's like, I know, but this is what you're going to do for this. And we're like, okay, well, let's talk about this for a second.

[35:39] Benj Pasek: He's like, we talked about it. It's like the way he is. But by the way, this was also before, like, you know, it wasn't like Whiplash, Damien's movie before this, it hadn't come out yet. Like we had no, they were just two guys to us. Like they had no credits. We were just like, okay.

[36:00] Justin Paul: He was like, they love the classic films. They love Umbrellas of Cherbourg. They love an American in Paris. Like it's going to evoke those movies. This sounds, it sounds amazing. You guys have to meet with them and you have to do this project, even though it's just lyrics. You just have to be part of it. I'm telling you, it's worth it to be part of this.

[36:20] Benj Pasek: And we were like, okay. We're still thinking he's crazy.

[36:23] Justin Paul: We are supposed to get on a conference call with the guys, with Justin and Damien and the producers of the film. So we get on a conference call with them and just have a general kind of talk about approach to writing songs and influences and what kind of songs we love and musicals and all that kind of stuff.

[36:42] Benj Pasek: We have the call. He calls us and he's like, okay, I got the information. I got the scoop. We're like, okay. He's like, they like you. They don't love you. We're like, okay.

[36:51] Justin Paul: We're like, well, you know, well, we did it. And he's like, they're talking to a lot of people about this. And so we're like, of course, totally get it. And you know, they either like us or they don't. And so we'll see how it shakes out.

[37:05] Benj Pasek: He's like, no, no, no, we have to do more. We're like, okay. He's like, here's what's going to happen. It was like, this was a Friday, like Friday night, like probably at like 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. in New York a few years ago. He's like, he's like, here's what's going to happen. Monday, you're going to run a Sunday night. You're going to write to them and you're going to say, hey, guys, we happen to be in L.A. and would love to meet up with you guys tomorrow to just maybe grab a bite. Maybe we could talk and stuff.

[37:34] Justin Paul: We're like, okay, we don't happen to be.

[37:36] Benj Pasek: Well, we're not. We're not in L.A.

[37:38] Justin Paul: He's like, well, let's talk about how that's going to happen.

[37:41] Benj Pasek: We're like, okay. He's like, you're going to go and you're going to book flights to L.A. and you're going to go whatever.

[37:46] Justin Paul: We're like, okay, well, he's like, is the studio bringing us out?

[37:49] Benj Pasek: He's like, no.

[37:50] Justin Paul: We're like, okay, well, are you saying we're just...

[37:53] Benj Pasek: He's like, yep, you're going to book flights to L.A. and you're going to fly there in two days and then Sunday night you're going to write them and say, we're in L.A., guys. Like, we just happen to be here and we'd love to take you guys out for dinner and talk about the movie.

[38:10] Justin Paul: We're like, okay. And I remember talking this over like with like my wife and like us talking, we're being like, this guy's insane. Like, are we really going to submit to terrorism here? You can't negotiate with terrorists.

[38:25] Benj Pasek: And your wife's like, we have dinner plans.

[38:27] Justin Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And so we're like, I guess we're doing this. So we're like, do we press book? We're like, yeah, let's do it. So we're like on the phone at the same time. We're like, okay, I just bought it. Like, click.

[38:41] Benj Pasek: And so we went out there and they submitted a... they gave us a song.

[38:45] Justin Paul: Yeah, they did. It was just like a piano demo of just a melody. And so he was also like, and not only are you going to meet there, you're going to show up and you're going to have written a song to present to them to get this job.

[38:56] Benj Pasek: Just a little pressure there.

[38:58] Justin Paul: Yeah. But I mean, honestly, like now we were very happy that that happened. And so the song that we wrote on the plane to meet them is City of Stars.

[39:06] Benj Pasek: Yeah.

[39:07] Justin Paul: All right. My last question before I open it up, just because I'm dying to know, most of us will not have the opportunity to be at the Oscars. What was it like? Any good Oscar stories?

[39:17] Benj Pasek: Well, what do you think? I mean, it was an interesting night.

[39:20] Justin Paul: Oh, yeah. What are you asking?

[39:22] Benj Pasek: I was actually looking for smaller stories.

[39:24] Justin Paul: Yeah. I mean, it was pretty wild.

[39:27] Benj Pasek: Yeah, you know, I would say, well, obviously, it was, you know, it was a really great night. And then it turned really weird. And, you know, it was obviously we're like, hey, well, we were part of history. That's always going to be cool. It was hard in the moment because it was tough for some of our colleagues that we love very much and had a sort of a really crappy moment. So that was, you know, that really shifted the dynamic of the night and the tone of the night. So we'll always remember it in a little bit of a sort of a little bittersweet way.

[40:01] Justin Paul: It feels like a Jewish wedding where you're like, it's happy and then let's break this glass. Let's remind ourselves of the sorrow of the world.

[40:08] Benj Pasek: There is some suffering, exactly. But you know what? I would say one of the things that we love, one of our most cherished memories from that time was something that the film academy does that we then brought over and did that we organized with the other people for the Tonys as well is a couple of nights before the Oscars, the music branch of the academy organizes a dinner that is just for nominees, just for music nominees. So no guests, no press, no anything. And it's like a couple of the governors from the music branch and then just the people. So it was like us and Lynn and Justin Timberlake and Jay Ralph and Nick Brittel, like all these amazing musicians that we idolize and love and so respect. And it's just us sitting at dinner, like the 12 of us sitting down. And that was really cool because obviously these things always become all about like press and flashing cameras and all this kind of stuff. And so it was really cool to sit and just talk about music.

[41:01] Justin Paul: In a quiet place.

[41:02] Benj Pasek: Yeah, in a quiet place. And like we all sat down and it was like sort of awkward but sort of great. And we're like, all right, we're going to like eat this like halibut right now. And Justin Timberlake is like, I think we need to do a toast. And we're like, okay.

[41:17] Justin Paul: He's like, guys, we're going to have a toast. I just want to say like, I think we're all going to be working together for a long time.

[41:22] Benj Pasek: And so we're like, are we? We're like, okay.

[41:25] Justin Paul: He's like, we're going to be at these things for years to come. Like this is our new family.

[41:30] Benj Pasek: And so we're like, this is the greatest person in the world. And so similarly, we did the same thing in the Tonys where a few nights before we got together, just the writers, book writers and composers of the nominees.

[41:41] Justin Paul: Where'd you go?

[41:42] Benj Pasek: We went to Un Detroit in Times Square. Times Square, of course. But again, that was the most fun because also people like get to whine about like, the director didn't get this. The producer messed this up. Or like, why didn't the cast get this? Or like, we want to...

[42:01] Justin Paul: You're a band of brothers.

[42:02] Benj Pasek: You get to tell war stories of like how hard it was, but also like how amazing it was to get to have your thing finally do this. So that was definitely our favorite part, I think, of both those experiences is like, because you don't get to interact. Writing is a very solitary job. And so you don't get to interact with people in the way that, unless you're in production. So that was really special.

[42:22] Justin Paul: Oh, that's great. Well, I for one have to say that your speech was so lovely, the two of you. I mean, and it really, for anyone from the theater world or even the education world. I mean, it was a great moment to watch, and everybody was so proud and happy for your success.

[42:36] Benj Pasek: You've been listening to the Broadway Teachers Podcast, recorded live at the Broadway Teachers Workshop, an annual program that brings theater teachers together with the Broadway community for behind-the-scenes classes, workshops, intimate discussions, and Broadway shows in New York City and online. Learn more at www.broadwayteachinggroup.com.