This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:04] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome back to Conversations from Away.

[0:07] Shawn Pennington: I'm Christine Toy Johnson.

[0:09] Jenny Ashman: And I'm Shawn Pennington.

[0:10] Christine Toy Johnson: I'm Jenny Ashman. So during the week of January 11th, with all of our strict safety protocols and vaccinations and boosters firmly in place, our company was severely hit.

[0:23] Christine Toy Johnson: And by hit I mean bullied full on by the Omicron variant of COVID-19. On opening night in Minneapolis, not only were seven out of our 12 regular playing company members out, all six of our wonderful standbys were on, and also Holly Ann Butler, a standby from the Broadway company who was flown in to help give us extra coverage.

[0:44] Christine Toy Johnson: By the end of the week, eight of our 12 regular playing cast members and one of our six standbys were sidelined. That's when things got even nuttier. And despite our best efforts, we did have to cancel three shows. But we were able to get back on the boards after being joined by some friends from away.

[1:07] Christine Toy Johnson: We were joined by Gino Carr, who was Oz in the original Broadway Company, David Shannon, Kevin T from the original London Company, and our two very special guests today, Happy McPartlin, who is a standby with the Broadway Company. She came to play Bonnie for us, and James Kall from the Toronto Company, who came out to play Nick.

[1:27] Christine Toy Johnson: So we're coming together for the first time since all this craziness happened to check in and talk about our different perspectives of that time. Welcome, Happy and James. Can you please introduce yourselves to our listeners?

[1:39] Happy McPartlin: Hi, I'm Happy McPartlin, and I'm a standby with the Broadway Company. I'm just joining you here from my dressing room in New York City.

[1:48] James Kall: And I am James Kall. I was playing Nick in the Toronto production of Come From Away, and I am joining you from my living room in Toronto.

[2:00] Happy McPartlin: It's really so wonderful to see you all again and not under duress.

[2:03] Christine Toy Johnson: That's amazing. I also want to acknowledge that a lot of the excitement also had was tempered with knowing that our members who were sick were not terribly sick. So we were worried about them, but we weren't so worried that we could not also experience the silver linings of this. I just always want to acknowledge that.

[2:47] Shawn Pennington: Sure, sure. So as many of the listeners will know, when the theater industry finally reopened late last summer and into the fall of last year, we put a lot of COVID policies and procedures in place to protect everyone working on stage and backstage and in the pit, also the front of house staff and of course the audience.

[3:09] Shawn Pennington: And that was really a Herculean task, which involved vaccine mandates, strict masking policies, enhanced cleaning procedures, social distancing when that's possible, because as we all know, that's very hard to do given what we do. And of course, many, many, many, many, many, many rounds of testing. We test a minimum three times a week.

[3:34] Shawn Pennington: And what was great was that it seemed to be working. I think most shows on Broadway and on tour got up and running, and there were, you know, we heard about rare breakthrough infections, but it generally didn't seem to cause any big sort of spread. And then came Omicron, and that just broke through all our defenses across the board like a tidal wave, and show after show after show started having to cancel performances left and right.

[4:03] Shawn Pennington: And the Broadway company had got hit with their first wave about a month before we did, and they sort of built this model for us of bringing in alumni, and at the time, even one of our cast members, Marica Aubrey, was there and helped get them through their wave and helped them to keep open as much as possible, canceling as few performances as possible.

[4:31] Shawn Pennington: And I remember that once they were through the worst of it, our creative team, our associate director and Danny Goldstein was telling me, he's like, get ready. And he was right. And fortunately, we had spent a lot of rehearsal time since we reopened getting all six of our standbys fully up to speed on most, if not all, of the five roles that they cover. And they are all absolute rock stars, and so I felt very prepared in terms of our internal coverage, which was great because sure enough, by the time we got to Minneapolis, they all six of them were on.

[5:14] Shawn Pennington: Plus, as you mentioned, Chris, the very wonderful Holly Ann Butler came out from New York to sort of function as our seventh standby, an additional standby. But then the hits just kept coming in Minneapolis, and we got pushed past the breaking point where we literally just did not have enough people to do the show. And that's really when the cavalry really started to come to the rescue.

[5:36] Shawn Pennington: And we were having conference calls every single day, multiple times a day, with the creative team and the general managers and the producers, just brainstorming as to how we might reasonably keep going. And it was sort of like this giant jigsaw puzzle where the pieces just kept changing shape based on what that day's test results were and who we would have available to play what role.

[6:19] Shawn Pennington: So can we see if maybe Happy might be able to come out from Broadway? And gee, if we had a Nick, we could move Aaron over to play Kevin J and Kilty could then play Bob. So maybe James from Toronto could come help us out, and so on and so on. And it was really kind of a miracle. And we had all these wonderful willing people who were game enough to pop on planes and come to the freezing tundra of Minneapolis to join our show with minimal rehearsal. And they did, and they just nailed it every single one.

[6:53] Shawn Pennington: And in some ways for me, it's kind of a blur because it was just this two weeks of just non-stop testing and conference calls and rehearsals, and then we had these exhilarating performances with these new friends on stage with us that just felt like it was just like opening night after opening night after opening night, because every night it was a different company and it was a new company, and yet it still felt familiar and it felt safe.

[7:21] Shawn Pennington: And there were a couple of performances which we had at least one representative from all five global productions of Come From Away on stage. And I remember in the report that night, I lovingly dubbed it the International Company of Come From Away, because that's really what we were for those few shows.

[7:38] Shawn Pennington: Happy, can you talk to us a little bit about your reaction when you first were reached out to about coming to join us in Minneapolis?

[7:45] Happy McPartlin: Well, I sort of had a feeling I might be coming because I had just been through this monsoon here, right? And you know, what we went through on Broadway was pretty crazy and happened very, very quickly. And I'm very good friends with your dance captain Jane Bunting, who she and I started together on the DC company of Come From Away, and have remained in close touch.

[8:12] Happy McPartlin: So as soon as things sort of started going down, we just sort of text each other. She said, girl, dot dot dot. I was like, oh no, oh no, what's happening? And she said people are starting to go down, and I was and I knew that Holly, so Holly was actually our extra help. She's not normally with our company all the time. She was brought in to help us when we started going down, and so since I knew she was already going, and I was just getting back from having COVID myself, I was like, well, if you have two people, you're probably gonna have four people or more, and that means they're gonna call somebody. So I was half expecting it.

[8:54] Happy McPartlin: I jokingly said to Jane, I was like, well, I'll keep my ringer on. And that's what I did. And they called Wednesday morning and said it's a big maybe, big maybe. But would you be willing? And I was like, well, of course, of course, like you guys helped us, you loaned us Marica, thanks. She was in New York already. She didn't have to fly to get to us, but we were so grateful nonetheless, because when we got to our theater that day, we were like, how do we have the numbers? Who could even be here? We only have five women, but we had six because Marica was here.

[9:29] Happy McPartlin: So my reaction was, okay. Oh, I haven't packed a suitcase in two years. I haven't gone anywhere in two years. What do I do? Oh, plane. How do I get to a plane? Oh, I take a car service. And so actually I ended up, they packed up all of my costumes here, all my costumes save one set, and I took this gigantic bag with me and took a car home on Thursday night and jumped on the plane on Friday morning. So it was crazy. I thought this is nuts. I just got over COVID, but like what else can you do? Like it's just the Come From Away way, you know. Are we gonna be ready? Well, we have to be, don't we? That is the standby saying.

[10:11] Christine Toy Johnson: And was there anything that you had to do to prepare? Because the companies all differ slightly. Was there anything you had to prepare, especially because you had just been through it, to get you ready for line?

[10:21] Happy McPartlin: I mean, yeah, I think the biggest thing was I know very well that as much as people wanted to keep the companies consistent, it just doesn't end up that way because there are different things about the depths of your trees, and because of the different sizes of touring houses, and our house on Broadway is a little bit smaller, and that kind of thing. So I knew that intellectually when you started to watch, I started to watch the overhead video, and I was like, oh wow, okay. I got a lot of notes to make. But it was so really it's just doing that preparation of traffic because as a standby, wherever you go, I think your biggest goal is don't hurt anyone, step on anyone, or take the wrong chair.

[11:06] Happy McPartlin: So you guys have different chairs, they even look different. So that was my biggest thing was like, okay, familiarize yourself with the layout and find out where the traffic is. And so that was my main preparation was just watching the overhead as much as I could to see where the different traffic patterns were and noting those.

[11:24] Shawn Pennington: Wow, that's for people listening. The overhead video is this tool that we have. There's a camera mounted directly above the stage that shoots straight down. So if you're looking down onto the stage, it sort of is like a pinball machine where you see people bouncing around from above. And for our show, it's extremely useful for traffic and for chair movements and entrances and exits. And it's one of my favorite tools.

[11:53] Happy McPartlin: Yeah, it's the best tool.

[11:55] Shawn Pennington: Yeah, I remember using it when we were relaunching the show to remember some things that I had done like six hundred times, but somehow I couldn't remember them.

[12:07] Happy McPartlin: Yeah.

[12:08] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much, Happy. So James and I are old friends, although we don't really like to say old friends. We just go way back. And I was so happy when I got the email that you were joining us and also, you know, frankly, a little relieved that we already knew each other because you playing Nick and I playing Diane, we just had to like go right into the lovey-dovey stuff and just trust each other, and that was awesome.

[12:37] James Kall: Um I remember saying something to you on that first performance you had, like, okay, I'm just gonna go kiss you in public now. So we get ready, right? Um, but like I said, thankfully we already had a built-in um trust going on, and um that was awesome. Um I wonder if you could tell us um how everything happened for you, the first phone call, how did you how much notice you got, how you felt um when you got the phone call, etc.

[13:03] Happy McPartlin: Uh yeah, uh pr same with with Happy's experience. I um I didn't anticipate it, but I uh I was hearing rumors that things uh a lot of the companies were um in need of help. Uh but I I we had just closed. The Toronto Company had just closed uh about two, three weeks prior, um rather abruptly, unceremoniously, because of COVID restrictions in Canada are were much more severe in terms of uh audience size. They were down to 50% capacity, and um which happened the day we opened, they made that announcement, the day we reopened. So we were struggling with the or the producers were struggling with that already, and then COVID started to hit our company, and it hit it hit hard and it hit quickly, and everyone started to drop down, and we didn't have we weren't able to pull from other companies because we're in Canada.

So there is that issue of border crossing and visas and um work visas. So uh unfortunately I we had all kind of moved on and thought, okay, that's the end of our show, sadly, and we were all still in a very much in a mourning uh, you know, mourning our the loss of the show. Um when I was out walking my dog that morning, quite early in the morning, and a little vibration in my pocket, and I pulled my phone out and it said, Maybe Danny, New York, which I thought, what the hell? Like, why would that show up like that? Obviously, he was in my phone, but maybe at the different name, whatever. And I looked at it and I thought, uh, okay, butt dial, butt dial. So I put it back in my pocket and I went on with my dog walk.

Very cold day. Came back in and saw that there was a message on my phone, and so I listened to it, and it was Danny, our resident director from New York. And he said, Can you call me back? Uh I have some questions for you. And I thought, oh, okay, maybe he just needs to talk something about the show, whatever. Uh didn't make sense. But I called him right back and he said, Hey, what are you doing for the next couple days or next couple weeks? And that, you know, that's a loaded question. Whenever somebody asks you that, it's like, oh, are they gonna ask me to go to dinner? Are they gonna, you know, they want me to look after their dog, their cat, whatever. Anyway, doing the next couple weeks.

And I said, uh, I was honest with him. I said, I'm actually just I'm filming a television show right now, um, but other than that, not much. And he said, How would you like to fly out and join us in Minneapolis? And I was just speechless for a moment. Uh, and he explained the situation, and I uh I I said, uh, of course, if we could work this out, oh yes, if I could fly Friday. This was Thursday, and I said, Oh, I'm my final day of shooting is on Friday. So I could fly, and I don't know my call time yet, so probably Saturday, so which is what happened then. I flew Saturday morning. Um, but as soon as I hung up the phone with Danny, I I my husband came into the room and I said, I I I think I'm going to Minneapolis to do come from away.

I I don't know, should I can I because we have a dog, we have he works full-time and uh all things like that started spinning. And he's like, hey, hey, we'll make you can do it, we'll make it work. Don't worry about it. If you want to do it, do it. And I did want to do it.

[16:30] James Kall: Uh so then uh the wheels started turning, and um I thought, well, what do I do? How do I get my costume? Uh uh will I hear somebody'll call me, I assume, um, which is exactly what happened. I was once again outside with the dog at noon when the general manager called from New York just to make sure I was on board, and that sort of got the wheels uh rolling. The um and uh I still was in a state of shock, but one thing that helped was knowing that Christine was there playing uh would be playing um Diane opposite me. And because I already had a relationship with her, I kept that that calmed me down a bit because I didn't know anyone else except for the musical director, Cam Moncour, is an old I've known him for about 10 or 12 years.

Uh but all these emails started showing up from Sean, from Eric, from Dominic, and I was like, Who are these people? And you know, it started bombarding my you know, my my mailbox, and then but once I heard okay, Sean, stage manager, whoo, okay, there was a a sense of relief once I heard from the stage manager, but I was literally my head was spinning because as Happy said, I I can't remember the last time I packed a suitcase and I've been on tour a lot uh and I knew I could go light this time having been on tour a lot um so I let Randy my partner start thinking about the packing because I had to go I was in a cemetery all day Friday shooting this Guarmal del Toro TV series in this freaky priest costume in a cemetery about an hour from home and we're in between takes I'm standing there freezing in this cemetery and singing the window into the whole time the whole time on set like when I'm in my trailer I'm over there doing lines and people on the next trailer saying what are you talking about who are you talking to anyway uh I just panicked but the next two days were a blur a bl a blur till I got on the air as I got on the airplane and was literally just the guy next to me thought I was crazy because I just kept singing and talking to myself the entire time but anyway uh I'll move on that's amazing we're going to take a short break and come back to talk more about coming from away and we're back so um let's let's talk to Jenny a little bit Sean yeah so Jenny you uh everyone should know.

[19:16] Christine Toy Johnson: Jenny uh for the tour anyway holds the record for the most roles played.

[19:22] Jenny Ashman: That's correct, right? Kilty now matched me. I was the I was the first uh two on for I think four of my five tracks and then Kiltsy the next week when he went on for Bob. But yes.

[19:31] Christine Toy Johnson: So you have played just so you you have played Diane and Hannah Hannah and Bev and Janice.

[19:38] Jenny Ashman: Yes.

[19:39] Christine Toy Johnson: And during this period, you played three of those.

[19:41] Jenny Ashman: Yes.

[19:41] Christine Toy Johnson: During this same like two-week period.

[19:44] Jenny Ashman: Yes. Um, so what was that whole experience like for you?

[19:48] Jenny Ashman: Well, it's funny because we actually already had a cast member out when this all began, like people were saying earlier, Marika was in New York uh on maternity leave. So sort of last minute, I I got this stretch of shows going on as Bev, which was really lovely. Uh, while we waited for Becky Gulsvig, who was uh Bev in the first year of the tour, she came in to cover for Marika. So I had this sort of nice stretch of shows, which was fun going on for like a really joyful reason for someone. And it was my last show as Bev, where there was sort of stuff starting to happen, and then that first day where I was like, okay, I've been on for a few weeks, I'm getting a break, and I got to the theater, and Sean was like, Hey, can you come step into my office real quick?

Um, everybody's favorite thing. Literally, uh Sean called me at one point during the lockdown during you know the pandemic shutdown, and we haven't been on for months, and still I see Sean Pennington calling on my phone, and my stomach just drops. There's no one I can go on for. I'm in Seattle, we haven't had a show in six months, but still seeing that name pop up on my phone, just anxiety inducing. So Sean calls me, and it was me and Jane uh Bunting, our dance captain, called into the office, and the first couple of people had tested positive, and basically, because of the coverage in the building, I was gonna make my Janice debut that night, who I had never played. I had had a six plus six four, but you know, never gone on for.

Um, so I went home and started prepping. I was on, and and it went, it was great. It was so much fun, you know, a role I did not think I was ever gonna go on for. And then, so it was Bev to Janice, and then the start of the next week, I showed up for company meeting, and Sean's like, hey, so can you step into my office? Um, no, it's like I have to, I'm so sorry, but no. Um, and then it was like, okay, great. So now we're gonna move you to Hannah, which is my other secondary, because my primaries are Bev and Diane. Um, and so then it was switching from Janice to Hannah, which is a pretty different uh track emotionally, vocally, everything. Um, but yeah, it was jumping. I was, I think I was within less than a week, it was those three different roles.

Well, also we were still rehearsing during that week, and I was rehearsing Diane uh just to make sure I was ready for that. So it was uh it was pretty wild jumping between all those. And then as we had everyone coming in, rehearsing every new person to sort of make sure that they were in the fold of our company and our little changes.

[22:16] Jenny Ashman: But it was wild, it was exhilarating, but it was uh I I don't know if I've ever been more stressed.

[22:22] Christine Toy Johnson: Yeah, yeah, I think the stress levels in the entire building were were pretty pretty high and varied for for various reasons, but yeah, yeah, but uh yeah, but uh you're a rock star, like Sean said.

[22:36] Jenny Ashman: All thank you. All six source standbies. Um I I wanted to um talk a little bit about that whole idea about jumping into rehearsals and or even performance. Like you're like, oh hi, nice to meet you. Let's do the show, you know. You know, and it was it was kind of crazy, but I feel like, first of all, like Sean said earlier, how it exciting it was that everyone was so game. You know, it was just like, okay, you know, Happy flies in, Gino flies in, David, James, Holly, they fly in. We are here's our suitcase of costumes. We're gonna do the show. But but that um, you know, the show is in our bones, and and um, like we've also talked about, there are some differences, but bottom line, we're I feel like fundamentally we're all so committed to telling this particular story and telling it well, that there's there's um uh an emotional investment, there's a professional investment, there's just all kinds of uh feelings that go into wanting to do this, and um, and also, you know, the show is so meticulously maintained by the the team's associates, the stage managers, dance captains, music directors, that we all speak the same language.

[23:48] Christine Toy Johnson: Um, and and so that that's how the foul run starts, and they were like, here we go, we're gonna do the story together. Um what tell me, Happy and James, what was it like for you being jumping into a brand new company?

[24:04] Happy McPartlin: Well, um I I thought it was uh first of all, it's it's so great that I got to do that whole thing on Broadway too. So I knew kind of, I was like, I knew this wasn't gonna be like, oh God. I knew it was gonna be like, oh, this is gonna be really fun. And I I knew that no one else probably knew that also, um, how fun it was gonna be. Because we were all a little bit terrified when we just jumped on stage with completely new people here and some of our original people as well. But it was mainly, we outnumbered all of the um on stage cast members. I think it was nine to three.

[24:40] Happy McPartlin: Wow. I believe it was nine to three, and so we're like for the first time in history, we outnumber you guys. This is a whole different thing. So even though we speak this, you know, we all speak the same language, but there is that difference of comfortability. And when you don't have the comfortability, which standbys really never have, you know, you're operating as a minority in the company always. And to go out there and actually be the majority, it was this cool springboard for the people who are normally on stage that they were like, wow, this is something totally new and magical. And so I kind of knew I was like, wow, I'm gonna get to go do that. And Dubani, which I don't normally do, that's not a primary for me on Broadway.

Um and I love playing her, but she's not somebody I get to play typically. Um, I think the funniest thing was that we when we did our run through on Saturday when James had just gotten there, we basically, Sean's like, okay, all right, we're all set, are we ready to go? Let's just uh run through it. We start doing our run through, we do the whole thing. James and I literally, our characters are also married in the show, albeit they don't have like the nicest love relationship like uh like Diane and Nick, the other counterpart. But at the same time, like we're married, right? We do all of these things together. We did the thing and finished the run through. And afterwards I said, Hey James, I'm happy.

It's so nice to meet you. I mean, literally, that's what happened. And like that's the best example I can give. It's like we did this magical thing on stage and we created something I didn't even really know his name. And um, so that was just so so cool. And after having done the concert um in DC with Christine and some of the other on stage cast members but not really getting to work with the standbys um and knowing lots of um fantastic tales of what you guys do from my Miguel Jane. It was such a thrill to be able to like work with people I had worked with a little bit and then people I hadn't worked with at all but sort of like I knew the legends. I knew the tales they tell in the hills so it was it was really thrilling and um and the other thing I'll just say is that and Broadway you know we're in one spot so we don't move around so to go and do this in this huge other theater where the people were like clamoring to come in and we'd had you'd had canceled shows and stuff so it was packed like you know New York has been a little bit more difficult in this um omicron season people got very nervous and so to go there and do that magical thing with all of you guys and have a packed house of people in that gigantic theater which is like almost I think it was twice the size of our theater was just um that was a home run that I will never ever forget that experience so much fun.

[27:35] James Kall: How about you James?

[27:37] James Kall: Yeah I would I would uh echo that I was shocked when I stepped out on that stage and I saw the the size of the theater and I thought wow how how is this going to play here? This is crazy because we had done uh our company in Toronto had done uh a few other uh venues but they were all intimate in by comparison 1200 1400 seats um so that first of all that was the first thing that struck me when I went on stage for the rehearsal was like this is massive, this is huge. Um, but I kept telling myself, because I was so overwhelmed, but I kept telling myself, just tell the story, just do your show, just do your show, tell the story. That's what we're all here for. And I even I remember saying to Christine and to a few other people, tell me what you if you need me to do something differently, because I'm here to to do your show, and people would say, No, no, no, we're we're doing our show, we're doing our show, just do it and we'll make adjustments, which is what everybody did.

But uh also to to echo what Happy said, I I remember meeting Jenny specifically for some reason. I remember meeting you during that rehearsal, like before we started, but I was so lost because you're used to like saying, Okay, just look for the yellow sweatshirt, that'll be Bonnie, just look for the purple, you know, the glasses that'll be, but not that wasn't there in rehearsal. So I didn't know, and I just met most of the people, so I didn't know I really didn't know who was who until we started saying the lines, but then it was a bit of catch-up. Uh, so it was all very overwhelming, but exciting and exhilarating, as you said, because you're hearing things differently for the first time, and you're seeing things done differently for the first time.

So I was both a spectator and a performer for those 10 shows. It was really wonderful. And the fact that we had just our the Toronto company had just re-rehearsed with the creative team with a lot of the creative team, Chris Ashley, our director, and um and uh Ricky Hines and all and our resident directors and choreographers, but we had just discovered a whole new show here in Toronto. It was exciting. Uh Barb Fulton, who played Diane up here, she and I had we'd found some really wonderful new moments. Um, and we got to do it 10 times. That's it. Boom, rug was pulled out from under us. And then I was able to go do it another 10 times, which is ironic in Minneapolis. And again, a new show for me and a new experience and finding a new Nick and different moments with different characters.

And I thought, as an actor, this is you know, we are in our third year of performances. So yes, you do sort of perhaps get in a rut. You can still keep it honest and fresh, but you are in a bit of a rut because you are repeating the same things with the same people over and over. So it was exhilarating as an actor. But I did feel like I was cheating on my cast back in Toronto. So the first thing I did after I accepted and said I was gonna do it was I wrote to everybody. I emailed everybody and I said, Hey, this is what's happening. And I kept making excuses, like the only reason I'm going is because I'm a dual citizen, you know, I'm American, I'm Canadian, so they can use me. And the only reason I'm going is because they're down a Nick.

Uh, so that's the only reason, you know. So you're all good. You all should be going, and you know, because I just felt like, you know, forgive me, but I'm gonna go do it with other people now. I'm just gonna kiss another Diane. Sorry. Um and you know what? I hope they all get that experience because there was nothing more exciting than looking into these actors' eyes, these actors I just met, and just that connection and that feeling of being taken care of, and we're all in this together, and it just reminded me it in my 40th year as a professional actor, how much we depend on each other and how much we need each other, and that's what this is so exciting about this business that we are just such there's such partnerships and I felt incredibly safe from the moment I heard from Sean with with recordings of the show from the time Cam sent me vocal tracks I thought wow these people are really making sure we are all taken care of so I I've said this over and over I'm not talented enough to be a standby I'm not I don't know how you they do you do what you do I can barely learn one track um one vocal track and to see what you all did that week those weeks just blew me away I s I still in awe and amazement by what you all did.

[32:31] Shawn Pennington: So I applaud you and you Sean and everyone who kept the ball rolling and made it so seamless. Thank you. Any other questions Sean or Jenny you have for for our wonderful friends here?

[32:45] Jenny Ashman: I just I I have a little anecdote I wanted to I wanted to share just sort of going along with following in with what James was saying um because I think like all shows you know have had similar experiences in the recent months unfortunately like we've the the whole industry was hit with this. But come from a way in particular uh what struck me was what what a unique corollary it is between real life and the story that we tell every night in that this is a story about you know strangers coming together, becoming friends, working together in times of crisis and struggle, you know, to take care of each other and provide safety and comfort. And all of these things sort of became real for us during this time.

That you know, this terrible, you know, sort of crisis that we all that we all went through. And it made me think of way uh a conversation I had with Chris Ashley with the director when I was interviewing for this job. Um, and I don't think he would mind me sharing this, but but he mentioned in that in our our initial conversation that his vision for the show long term was you know, this world in which we could do exactly what we've done, where we could interchange, where people we could we could have members from each company go to the other companies and just sort of because of the nature of you know, seven a story about 7,000 people, there's room for every single different vision, every single different take on every character, and and it brings it can only add more life to the show and more more reality to the characters.

And it was just funny to me that he he said that, you know, just sort of uh in conversation, and then four years later, due to this terrible event that sort of manifested that actually has started to happen. And I just think it's it's it's very unique. And like I said before, I I appreciate all of you like so much. And it's something I will I truly will never forget. It was uh it was just a momentous time uh to be to be in our industry.

[34:57] Happy McPartlin: I will just say that I will never forget that I was actually on for Diane in New York when we had this experience, and the same thing struck me when I was on for Bonnie and listening to Christine say the line. Um, the only reason we met was because this terrible thing happened, and I got so choked up when I said it because I was like, you know, we're not allowed to cry and come from away. So you know, I try to keep that to a minimum, but I really, I just couldn't. And because it was like this is that that meaning of that line is so great. Um, but you're not supposed to um, you know, you're not really supposed to give it a lot of edge or anything like that. You're just supposed to say what's happening.

And and I was so full at that moment because this terrible thing happened, but this magical thing came out of it, and um, it was just an expansion of that storytelling. So it's amazing that of course you and Chris had that conversation years before we even knew anything about COVID to create this magic with all of these amazing people. That's so cool. I'm so glad you share that story.

[36:03] Christine Toy Johnson: So I'm gonna wrap us up here on that note. Thank you all so much for your amazing generosity and kindness and compassion. It's um a real honor and privilege to share the space with you as we continue to uplift each other and wish you all all the best healthy days ahead.

[36:05] Happy McPartlin: You too.

[36:05] James Kall: Thank you.

[36:26] Happy McPartlin: Yes.

[36:26] James Kall: I'd love to come back, but I hope you never need to.

[36:28] Happy McPartlin: That's what I was doing too.

[36:31] James Kall: Except like too many people have vacation or three people are getting married or something like that.

[36:35] Happy McPartlin: And then you can call me.

[36:37] James Kall: Absolutely.

[36:38] James Kall: I know. I was I was really sad when it ended. I was like, I I was happy to go home, but damn, I had a good time.

[36:46] James Kall: It was I keep using the word exhilarating. So thank you.

[36:50] All: Thank you. Thank you all.