This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jerry Mitchell: You know, a jump rope, a proper jump rope is made for your size. Each person has their individual jump rope. It goes basically from armpit all the way to the floor and back to armpit. So we had extra ropes hanging in each wing. So when we got to the final section, if somebody lost a rope, they could go into the wing, grab a rope and come back out and join in for the last section of the jump because there were times when people hit it and they lost a rope. And we, you know, went during that whole process of learning that number, people had welts all over their body. It was, it was, yeah, it was really, it was a lot.

[0:55] Joe Rosko: Hey, what's going on? It's me, Roscoe, founder and host of Built for the Stage, an online training program that helps actors to train like athletes. Actors are athletes, so start training like one. Head on over to the website builtforthestage.com. You can try a free trial, no catch, no gimmicks, just a week of trying to claim center stage on this little show called Your Life. We have an exciting podcast episode as usual. This one's gonna be full out. I'm gonna give you a couple seconds to maybe register that one. Do you have a guess? Maybe. All right. If you're out there and you know what full out is all about, you guessed it. It's Tony Award winner, it's my hero, it's Jerry Mitchell.

[1:40] Jerry Mitchell: Hey Joe, thanks for having me.

[1:44] Joe Rosko: Thanks so much for your time. I know it is limited because you are always into so many things. You're such an inspiration to the Broadway community. Um, so just thanks right off the bat for that. And thanks to your time.

[2:01] Jerry Mitchell: My pleasure, really.

[2:02] Joe Rosko: So you're on Fire Island right now. Are there any deer in the window right now?

[2:07] Jerry Mitchell: There are no deer in the window, but I saw some babies this morning. The babies have been born, so they're hopping around, they're hopping around. There's nothing that I like more than when I'm sipping my morning coffee and I'm watching an Instagram story of these little deer just following you through the walkways of crazy, you know. The animals out here, someone posted a whale the other day. They've seen a whale. I've seen whales, I've seen seals, foxes, and deer all this spring. Quite a lot of uh there, there are a lot of them, and especially when no one was here in March when we first got here. Place was crawling with animals.

[2:43] Joe Rosko: Oh, bananas, bananas. How have you been during this pandemic? What's been what have been some challenges or fun things? I know Broadway Cares is uh a big part of this part of the year, or it just passed. How are you keeping that alive as far as like its mission or just your other international projects you have going on as well? How's that been balancing all that?

[3:08] Jerry Mitchell: When the pandemic hit, you know, it hit in stages around the world. So uh the first show to close down for me was Germany, uh Pretty Woman in Germany, and then Pretty Woman, and then the shows in New York, and then the show in London. London closed after New York. And uh actually this week, Kinky Boots will go up. It'll start performing again in Seoul, Korea. But they because they have it under control over there. So um uh it's been for me personally and for Ricky, my partner, my fiancé, uh, it has been a challenge. Some days we feel great, and some days we really feel like we can't get out of bed. You know, I think for everyone, it has been that you've had to, I've had to do a lot of um a lot of breathing and a lot of meditating and a lot of thinking about how am I going to make this day work for me and make the most of this day with what the circumstances are.

We're all we're all in it together. And uh, but you know, I have to say, extremely blessed and extremely lucky to be here at the house near the ocean, where I have that luxury of being able to be outside. I know it's a luxury, I know it's a privilege, and I and I don't take it for granted.

[4:23] Joe Rosko: Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that. This being a wellness uh themed podcast, I'd love for you. You talked about breathing and meditating, just kind of slowing down and saying, how can I, in a way, say, how can I win today? How can I do something to move forward in some capacity? Do you have any other things that on those days that you are really nailing it full out, like what is it that helps you in your structure that gets you to that point?

[4:52] Jerry Mitchell: I have to exercise every day, you know, something. And usually for me, Joe, I've always been an early riser. And so I get up early anyway. It doesn't matter if I'm if I have a plan or not, I just wake up. My body is trained to wake up at six o'clock. And I get up and I'm usually working out by nine at the latest if I don't work out before then, because I'm ready to be at rehearsal at 10. So being able to keep to that schedule with we even without a rehearsal to go to sets me off on a great way to start the day. And everything else is easier to do. I do feel like I'm more motivated just in the basic day, if I get up and do those things, right? It's kind of like they say the person who makes their bed succeeds, right?

[5:42] Joe Rosko: I was just going to say, that's right. First thing, wake up, make your bed, do something, achieve something. And then what better to do uh a few moments later than to work out and do something to improve yourself? So I'm a big advocate of that as well. Where if you can get it done first thing, to me, it sets the whole tone for your day. So I'm a big fan of that too. I've also tried, I've really tried not to fight what I'm feeling, right? And for someone like myself, who's very much a like you said, full out all the time, completely focused, completely uh, I'm trying to fight, not fight what I'm feeling. If I feel like I need to stop and I need to take a break, or I need to breathe, or I need to have that hamburger, or I need to have those French fries, I'm trying to be, I'm trying to balance it out and not beat myself up with what we're all experiencing. And I think that's really important for people right now.

[6:41] Joe Rosko: Absolutely. Yeah, my Built for the Stage fam right now that's going through an eight-week challenge. A lot of the challenge, not a lot, most of it has been the mindset aspect. It's been the journaling, it's been the slowing down of saying, I'm anxious. Why am I anxious? Can I do something about it? What actionable things can I do? And if not, if I'm just kind of like organically feeling this way for whatever reason, it is you are where you are, and that's okay. So I love that. Thanks for sharing that.

[7:15] Joe Rosko: Okay, everyone that's listening. Um, if you listened in the week prior, we had Mark Pikert on here, editor in chief of Playbill, who also has a podcast on Broadway Podcast Network, and uh it's called Um A Day in Theater History and or Today in Theater History, excuse me. And he helped us launch our new series, Fitness on the Broadway stage. And one of our shows that we'll be highlighting in this series is none other than LEGALLY BLONDE, and in particular, the number Whipped into Shape. So who better to have on the podcast today than Jerry Mitchell to talk about um this iconic number, this iconic fitness number that was just crazy up there. We're gonna get to that in a second, but I just want to talk a little bit about the background of LEGALLY BLONDE really quickly.

[8:08] Jerry Mitchell: It started its tryout in California, correct?

[8:12] Joe Rosko: Yeah, we were in San Francisco for our out-of-town trial.

[8:15] Jerry Mitchell: Yeah. So you were in San Fran, and from the jump from the beginning, can you tell us the kind of uh progression that Whipped into Shape took on? Was it always there? Did it always lead act two? Tell us about its kind of its journey to Broadway.

[8:34] Jerry Mitchell: Okay, the fast the fast story is um we had a first act, it was really great, and the writers went off to write the second act, and they brought in the second act, and it wasn't really great. And so we all hunkered down in a house in East Hampton for a couple of weeks, and we retooled the second act. And while we were in that house, Larry and Nell presented the song Work It for Me. And I said, Or worked in work it for me or work worked into shape. And I said, hmm, I really like this song. I said, but I wish there was a gimmick for for Brooke Wyndham, sort of like, you know, the Suzanne Summers Thigh, the Suzanne uh Summers, is that her name, who had the Thighmaster. I said, I wish she was hawking like her exercise equipment and we could use it as a prop in the dance.

And they came back and she's and Nell said, What about a whip, a jump rope? The cardio whip 5000. And I said, Yes, a jump rope number. I'd love to create a jump rope number. And then I thought, well, wait a second, you don't know how to jump rope. Because I had never jumped rope. So in the pre-production period, I went home to Pawpaw, Michigan to visit my brother, who is an athletic director and is an incredible jump roper. And he had that beaded jump rope in the garage. And I said, Show me how to jump rope. And so he taught me a few basics, Rick Mitchell, my brother Rick Mitchell, and I brought them back. And then I had um uh a couple of the dancers in pre-production who were really great jump ropers, and that we started building ideas, and I watched a lot of jump rope videos, and I taught myself how to jump rope.

And then we would jump rope every morning for one hour, every single morning in rehearsal for one hour before we went to San Francisco. The entire cast jumped rope, and it got us in shape for that number because it is hard to jump rope and sing, you know, and especially when you've been jumping for a few minutes, and then you've got to do double jumps as your last trick. And so I put it at the end, and it was tricky, but um, it was a lot of fun.

[10:40] Jerry Mitchell: It was really a lot of fun.

[10:42] Joe Rosko: So from California all the way to the east coast of Broadway, were there a lot of changes, if any, to "Whipped into Shape"?

[10:51] Jerry Mitchell: "Whipped into Shape," I think was already pretty much set by the time we got to San Francisco. And I don't think it, I don't remember going through a lot of changes. Other numbers did. Other numbers were cut and replaced. Positive was added for Broadway. Um, that section, we went through a lot of changes in that number. Um, but uh I think "Whipped into Shape" was pretty well set because we had to learn how to jump rope, and it took a lot of time to train everybody how to do it.

[11:20] Joe Rosko: Yeah, jumping rope is no joke.

[11:22] Jerry Mitchell: Um, coaching athletes in jumping rope is definitely a challenge, and especially that double jump that you're speaking of is a skill that is hard to acquire. So props to the cast for sure. We actually, you know, a jump rope, a proper jump rope is made for your size. Each person has their individual jump rope. It goes basically from armpit all the way to the floor and back to armpit. So we had extra ropes hanging in each wing. So when we got to the final section, if somebody lost a rope, they could go into the wing, grab a rope and come back out and join in for the last section of the jump because there were times when people hit it and they lost a rope. And we, you know, went during that whole process of learning that number, people had welts all over their body. It was, it was, yeah, it was really, it was a lot.

[12:19] Joe Rosko: Yeah, that's definitely common. You'll have these welts usually in like the tricep forearm area, um, or sometimes in the butt or back if you're if you're uh unlucky. But when you walk into the gym, people say, like, oh, you're working on your double jumps, huh? They'll just they'll immediately know why you have all these welts on your arms. That's uh so cool about uh the side stages. Thanks for sharing that. Um my question about the one hour of practicing a day, how long did that last?

[12:50] Jerry Mitchell: I can imagine like you know, just every day, like, oh gosh, here we go again. Well, the first two weeks, um, it was pretty consistent. We would spend a full hour. But then as we got more and more into the show and we got better, it we started cutting off the time and it became more condensed and much faster, and it became a 30 minute workout. And then it became a 14 minute workout, which you know, just enough to do the number two or three times through because the entire number was blocked and choreographed. So it really was it was it's just like doing a HIIT workout. You know, you start on Monday and you do it this way, and by Friday, your breaks are much shorter and you're working much harder because the same thing happened in the six-week rehearsal process.

[13:35] Joe Rosko: Sure, sure. Well, I want to kind of uh take a quick write. Obviously, we're gonna we're gonna stay in the path of "LEGALLY BLONDE," um, but I kind of want to relate this to a fitness journey or just like overcoming um different challenges or obstacles that listeners might have. When it opened on Broadway, "LEGALLY BLONDE," first off, so grateful, "Positive" got added to the mix, or the changes were had because it's definitely on my gym playlist for music. Always listening to "LEGALLY BLONDE" during uh my workouts for sure. Um, it's a favorite of mine and uh Mark Pikert it's actually. We share this same obsession with "LEGALLY BLONDE." Um, but not everyone in the states were were necessarily necessarily obsessed like we were with the show but then when it went to London it was a smash you win the Olivier for Best New Musical uh the actress playing El wins um best actress shared in for yes what did you what did you think it was from the states to going to London was it that the movie was too popular in the states and people had this idea where London maybe didn't have this preconceived thought about what they were getting into?

[14:14] Jerry Mitchell: I think there were two things that really set "LEGALLY BLONDE" on a successful trajectory. One was the MTV live taping that brought the show with those girls from "The Hills" or whoever hosted it brought the show directly to its market audience MTV and those girls hosting when we did that that partnership with MTV uh that changed everything for the show. Um, it was so successful it also changed the road for "LEGALLY BLONDE" and made the road successful. We took some of the girls later who participated in the casting of Elle Woods which we also did with MTV on the road and made the show a big success for many reasons. But by then we had we, and then we went to London, and the London production was, I think what made the London production very special was the Savoy Theatre which is a much smaller, tighter, more intimate house.

It's got as many seats, it's got three belt, but it's closer. And I think the Palace Theater, which is a theater that I absolutely adore and love, was a very large house for that message and that musical. And um, and so we learned, and then it went on to Australia and was a huge success, and then it went on to all these other countries, and it's still one of the most produced musicals today of all the musicals. And I'm ripe to do a revival, I hope soon.

[16:34] Joe Rosko: Yes, I'm ripe to see it for sure. Well, as the host of Built for the Stage and a coach to many of you listening, you know, I hope you can take away from what Jerry's saying there was that it wasn't necessarily that they were doing the wrong things or they're missing the mark, or it was like you said, it might have been the audience, it might have been the size of the theater. So for those of you out there with fitness aspirations or career aspirations in theater, you just got to keep showing up to the plate and swinging, if you'll if you allow me to use that baseball analogy, and that no matter what, as long as you keep at it and keep moving forward, you don't know when the perfect mix or the perfect storm is going to come into play. So I hope you guys took that from what Jerry was just sharing.

[17:21] Jerry Mitchell: Joe, you are so so right. We can't control the outcome. We can only control the effort. That's all we can control.

[17:29] Joe Rosko: That's all we can control, especially in theater.

[17:34] Jerry Mitchell: With fitness, however, sometimes that's the nice thing about fitness. Sometimes it is literal in a sense of like you put the work in and the work shows up.

[17:44] Joe Rosko: That's right.

[17:45] Jerry Mitchell: But definitely with uh the theater world and the arts in general, where so many opinions are had and so much is up in the air. You can only control you, and you just have to keep putting your best foot forward. So continue to do that for those of you listening out there.

[18:01] Jerry Mitchell: When I was very, very young, and I was in, I was in every sport in school. I had an amazing coach, Coach Phelan, and I was trying to clear six foot, I think, on the high jump for the first time. And I kept missing it and missing it. He said, Come here, come here. He would walk by and go to the next thing, and he wouldn't spend a lot of time. He come, what are you doing? I said, I don't know. He said, do it. And I and I missed, he said, okay, close your eyes. He said, imagine, look at yourself and see yourself approaching the bar, see yourself jumping in the air, see yourself clearing the bar, and see yourself succeeding. And I said, okay. And he said, close your eyes and see that. He said, now try it. And I cleared the bar. And he taught me for the very first time in my life the power of visualization as a young athlete. And I've used it my whole life, my whole life.

[18:54] Joe Rosko: I was just gonna say, have you brought that into your career?

[18:58] Jerry Mitchell: I'm a huge, I'm a huge, huge, huge believer in this, where the power of what you're saying, you know, positive self-talk and self-imagery, what you're saying as well. Do you practice that in your meditation?

[19:08] Jerry Mitchell: Absolutely? I practice it all the time in my life, in my life with everything I do. Usually, even Flossy said, you know, the challenge for any choreographer is I see the pictures in my head. The challenge for me is how do I get the pictures out of my head onto the stage? That's the challenge, right?

[19:29] Joe Rosko: Right, right, right. Yeah. Oh man, I hope you all are listening to this because if anyone has a successful stage to stand on, it's Jerry Mitchell. So if he's giving you some advice out there, I'd take it for sure.

[19:41] Jerry Mitchell: I want to be really respectful to your time. I'm so appreciative of you being on Built for the Stage Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.

[19:49] Jerry Mitchell: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. Keep keeping Broadway in shape for me.

[19:54] Joe Rosko: That's right. All right, guys. You heard it from Jerry Mitchell. That's going to be our first episode of Fitness on the Broadway Stage. You're listening to Built for the Stage Podcast, Broadway's number one fitness platform. Once again, if you want to try that free trial, you can head on over to BuiltfortheStage.com to give it a go and to start training like some of Broadway's most in-shape actors and actresses out there. Jerry, thanks again. Thanks again to the Broadway Podcast Network for producing this episode. If you want to check them out, you can go to BPN. And Jerry, you're on Instagram at Jamie Prod, right?

[20:31] Jerry Mitchell: That's it. JamieProd.

[20:33] Joe Rosko: Give Jamie Prod a follow. You can see the cute deer on Fire Island. You can see all of the hats he's wearing with his uh the "Kinky Boots" production that's still booming internationally and just all the things he has going on. Um, Broadway Cares, all that stuff. So make sure you keep checking out Jerry Mitchell at Jamie Prod. All right, y'all. Until next time, it's me, Rosko signing off.