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[0:12] Andrew Child: I'm Andrew Child and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast. A companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:31] Andrew Child: Today's episode focuses on chapter 24, the 1971 revival of No, No, Nanette. And with us today is the author of that chapter, Professor Robert W. Schneider. Professor Schneider holds academic appointments at Penn State University, New York Film Academy, and the University of Mount Union. He is the artistic director of the J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company, original programming producer at Feinstein's/54 Below, as well as the host of the podcasts Behind the Curtain: Broadway's Living Legends, Gay Card Revoked, and This Was a Thing. He is also the co-author of Fifty Key Stage Musicals. Hi Rob, how's it going?

[1:19] Robert W. Schneider: I'm doing fine, Andrew. Thank you so much.

[1:21] Andrew Child: Good. I'm super excited to unpack this revival of No, No, Nanette with you today.

[1:27] Robert W. Schneider: As am I. It is one of my favorite shows of all time, and one of the great things about being the editor of Fifty Key Musicals is I got to assign who wrote what. And so needless to say, I claimed this one for myself.

[1:39] Andrew Child: That is crazy. One of your favorite shows of all time. And the first thing that I want to know is, um, and obviously you talk about this in the chapter, but for those who haven't gotten their hands on the book yet, can you just give us like the brief elevator pitch? What makes this revival so key? Why is this one of the greatest shows, one of your favorite shows of all time?

[2:04] Robert W. Schneider: Sure. I mean, the thing that No, No, Nanette, the revival did in 1971 is actually create the idea that a revival could be commercially successful on Broadway, and that there was a place for nostalgia on Broadway. Prior to that, we did not we would have revivals, but they were few and far between, and they were mostly relegated to like City Center, which is, as you know, the theater in New York City that over the summer would maybe do one or two weekends of, you know, Carousel or Oklahoma with the original staging and the original costumes, but there was no sort of deviation from what had been done originally. And No, No, Nanette says, no, we can deviate a little bit, and there is going to be an audience for that as well.

And because of No, No, Nanette's revival and its success, we then had tons of revivals coming out after that from the 70s, 80s, and as you probably know, within the past 20 years, you might have a Broadway season where there's more revivals than original musicals on stage, or the number is at least 50-50. All of that because of the revival of No, No, Nanette in 1971.

[3:09] Andrew Child: Wow. That's a very long elevator pitch.

[3:11] Robert W. Schneider: We're going up the Empire State Building, I feel it's a very long elevator pitch.

[3:15] Andrew Child: Totally fine. We're not in a rush here. Not in a great, you know, you do go more into detail about that in the chapter. But again, for those who haven't gotten their hands on the book yet, uh, can you just give us another? It can be a long elevator pitch. Uh, what are those changes that are being made to this show? That it's not just No, No, Nanette from the 20s?

[3:38] Robert W. Schneider: Sure. So, uh, pure and simple, the changes that are being made in the 1971 version are actually somewhat minor compared to the overall like massive changes you might see in a revival of a musical like Cabaret, um, which is, you know, the Sam Mendes version from 1998 was a drastic overhaul of what Hal Prince had done in 1966. What had happened in 1971, as we I'm sure we all know by now at this point, which is musicals had changed after Oklahoma. After Oklahoma, audiences were expecting book musicals to be literate. They were expecting book musicals to have, uh, logical sense to them because prior to Oklahoma, as we know, it was quite often common for, you know, a maid to be on stage, sweeping the stage and all of a sudden sing a love song, and you would never see that character again.

And you would go, where the hell did she go? It didn't matter. We just wanted to give this wonderful soprano a chance to show off her voice. So there was an illogic to a lot of those 1920s musicals. So when Burt Shevelove, uh, gets tasked with not only directing No, No, Nanette, but writing the new book for it as well, the first thing he did was say, what can we keep from this show? What can we keep that the audience will buy? And what in a post-Oklahoma world will they not buy into that might make them gravitate away towards the show? And the best example of this, I think, is the opening. In the original No, No, Nanette, the show opened with the maid, Pauline on stage, and there was a knock on the door, and she went off to get the door, and two flappers came in, and they had like a band, you know, a little comic banter and exchange with the maid.

Then Pauline went off stage, and the two flappers sang a song called Flappers Are We, which, if you hadn't figured out they are flappers, now the song will tell you Flappers Are We. Uh, and out of nowhere, all these random flapper girls came on stage and danced with them. And then they all left, and the main plot started, and then we got to meet the protagonists of the show. So Shevelove, like once again, in 1925, audiences, I'm sure, ate this up because they had no other entertainment, so they were willing to like buy in and sit there and go, Oh, this is really, really fun. Shevelove says, now wait a minute, we can't start a show now post-Oklahoma where we're gonna introduce two characters that do nothing to the plot.

These two characters, you never see them again. They have no, uh, emphasis on the plot whatsoever. Flappers Are We gives us no information. No information. So when in the new version of No, No, Nanette that Shevelove crafted, it starts with Pauline the maid, and the next thing you know, the next people coming in are all of our main characters for the evening. So we go immediately, ah, this is what these are the people we should be focusing on. You could get away with it prior to Oklahoma, you can't get away with it after Oklahoma. But Shevelove was making those sorts of changes. The big thing that Shevelove kept insisting to his cast is, uh, and it became known as Shevelove's Valentine's Day speech because he would give it so much in rehearsal, was the idea of look, this show has to be a Valentine's to an audience that is consistently bombarded with the war, with politics, with, uh, racial strife, with, uh, feminist strife.

There's, uh, turmoil all over this country, there's turmoil over this world. When they come into the theater, the only thing we need them to care about is will Nanette go to Atlantic City? And that is our Valentine to them. So anytime the show started to veer off track in rehearsal, Shevelove would give that speech. So, but it was embrace, but it was embracing the 1920s. That his trims on it and shifting of things around wasn't, was not major. It wasn't, it wasn't, I don't think it was major.

[7:39] Andrew Child: Okay. So yeah, that's what I was kind of wondering because you know, we talk about you're talking about the 1970s, that these audiences are in need of this Valentine because of what's going on. 1925, same kind of thing. So I'm wondering, you know, he sits down with, uh, this libretto, and he's immediately saying, Flappers Are We, that has to go. What do you think in your mind is he saying this needs to stay? What are those key elements that are tracked from 1925 to '71?

[8:13] Robert W. Schneider: I think the innocence, I think the innocence of these characters, these characters that don't know that any second there's going to be a Great Depression that's gonna come and hit them. The innocence of there's not gonna be a World War II rearing its ugly head any second. There is no, uh, feminist commentary on it. Nanette wants to get married and she wants to go to Atlantic City and have some fun. You know, it would have been very easy for Shevelove in this, you know, equal rights amendment post-feminist era to make Nanette be this woman who is very independent and goes, I don't need a man, because that was sort of the idea that was being pervaded at that time. And that's not something he wants to embrace.

What he wants to embrace is the innocence that these characters had, characters that don't question the status quo. Characters that don't, you know, listen, how many protests do you think that these audience members had to walk through going from their homes to the 46th Street Theater where it was playing protests about just about anything? This is a world where there is no protesting, where we all embrace this particular world. So that innocence, that guileness, I think that's what he is. I think for him that's the most important thing.

[9:25] Andrew Child: Okay. Yeah.

[9:27] Robert W. Schneider: Um, wow. So obviously the art form has totally shifted in the landscape over 50 years. Uh, coming from a little bit of a different angle, when we look at today, do you think that that same rift exists between pieces that were being generated, being produced 50 years ago, and what we are seeing made today?

[9:56] Robert W. Schneider: You know, I don't really think so because I think if you look at musicals from about 50 or 40 or so years ago, which is the time span between, you know, Nanette 1 and the revival of Nanette, musical theater has really, really changed. In fact, just about every single piece in musical theater in the 1970s going forward is really about social commentary. It's about darker thematic elements, which is also what musicals are about today. So I don't think there's that massive of a leap between, um, musicals from 50 years ago to today versus like Nanette in '25 versus Nanette in '71. I don't know if that answered the question.

[10:35] Andrew Child: No, yeah, absolutely. Do you feel like Nanette has a place on the Broadway stage now?

[10:44] Robert W. Schneider: I do. Yeah, because at the end of the day, the show is about, um, sweetness, it's about love, it's about romance, it's about innocence. And no matter how jaded or cynical that we get in our life, we're always looking to go back to something pure. We're always looking to go back to comfort food. And that's really what nostalgia is about. And Nanette is a nostalgic musical. It's about fondly looking back on a time where we felt more innocence. And I feel like the 1920s really evoked that time period. I think it's very hard to revive anything from the 1970s now and go, oh, look how quaint and innocent it was, because most 1970s musicals had a political or social bent to them.

[11:27] Andrew Child: Right, right. You know, I was, you know, I was thinking about this. There's only, you know, a handful of musicals set in the night that were written in the 1970s that were set in the 1970s that you might look at today and go, oh, they have an innocent, nostalgic view of things. Something like They're Playing Our Song, which is nostalgic and innocent. I Love My Wife, even though it's about wife swapping, has a nostalgia and innocence to it. But everything else, as we know, was gritty. You look at like Company, gritty. Uh, you can look at something like A Chorus Line, gritty. There, there is no innocence in any of those shows.

[12:06] Robert W. Schneider: Is there when we have a revival of Company on Broadway right now? Is there a nostalgia factor coming into play for that, you think?

[12:15] Andrew Child: I don't think so because I think the theme of Company, which is about marriage, is so universal, and it's not a rosy optimistic view of marriage. In fact, it's a quite cynical view of marriage. I don't think that goes out of fashion. And as we know the production of Company that's running, uh, as we're recording this direct by Marianne Elliott, it's set in contemporary times with updates from Mr. Saund himself. So it has no, uh, roots in its period. It has no roots in its period anymore.

[12:46] Andrew Child: Okay. So what would you say? What's the poultice? What's the medicinal nostalgia musical? What would you say to serve the same function as 1971's Nanette? What are the shows that you would say should be coming back to Broadway?

[13:03] Robert W. Schneider: You know, this is really hard because you know you can look at something like well, we'll take Hello Dolly for an example if we can. You know, Hello Dolly is a show that we go, oh, it is filled with innocence, and it is filled with nostalgia, and it's filled with warmth. However, it was written in 1964, but it was set 50 years earlier in the early 1900s. It's hard to find you know, this is difficult. It is hard to find a musical about contemporary times. That and what I mean by that is a musical in which it was written in a time period that is supposed to be reflecting what's going on outside the theater. You know, company does that, Follies does that, a chorus line does that, but they're all dark and cynical.

Uh, maybe something like, you know, I love you because, which isn't you know, an off-Broadway musical which dealt with love in um the beginnings of the 21st century, or an off-Broadway musical like Personals, which dealt with love in the 1980s. Maybe those you could look at as something nostalgic, but I off the top of my head cannot think of one which is as pure as Nanette, which is it was written in the 20s about the 1920s. Okay. Because most everything else is like, look at thoroughly modern Millie. It's about the 1920s, written in the 1960s, early 2000s. Hairspray is a musical from the early 2000s that was written about the 1960s. So it's all you've always got that looking back aspect of it, which Nanette did not have.

[14:35] Andrew Child: Oh, interesting. So when we have this show, and that word keeps coming up pure, with these words simple, do you think that there are elements that Shevelove kept in the libretto that a 1971 audience was kind of gagging at? That were there things that still seemed kind of trite or cheap or too simple to them?

[15:02] Robert W. Schneider: I think for based on because I did not see the original production, but based on the people that I've spoken to who had seen the original production, I don't think there was any sort of that, you know, eye rolling of looking back on a time in that regard. I think there were, you know, you know, somebody said, Boy, that's a load of banana oil, meaning, you know, that's a bunch of BS. And I think people laughed because they would go, well, today we would say bullshit, but back then it was banana oil. It was little things like that, little things like that. But you know, two things happen, I think, and what I think really made Nanette work was be was was it hit both generations right in the like sweet spot.

An older generation of theater goers and a younger generation of theater goers. And so I think they gave a lot of permission for this show to be successful. For an older generation of theater goers who had loved NO NANETTE and loved the princess musicals of Jerome Kern and loved all those pre-Rogers and Hammerstein shows. I'm sure there were some people in that audience who saw Oklahoma and were like, what the hell is this highfalutin concept shit? You know, uh, what it was it Mike Todd, no, no girls, no legs, no chance. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When referring to Oklahoma. So I think, and you have to remember that these older people who love musical theater were now being inundated with company and the me nobody knows and um the Rothschilds and Cabaret and these darker shows.

So they felt they were being alienated. So they could come to Nanette and go, Oh my god, this is so wonderful. This is bringing me back to my youth. Now, if you were a younger person who loved Cabaret and loved Zorba and loved these darker, more cynical shows, you are coming to know NO NANETTE and going, Oh my god, I love how quaint everybody is. I love how innocent everybody is, because the nostalgia craze not only was happening on Broadway at this time, but it was also happening around the world at the same time as well. Revival houses on college campuses were starting to do lots of uh screenings of old movies that remember, there's no DVD, there's no YouTube. So, you know, you would go out and see a Gloria Swanson movie tribute, and you go, Who the hell is she? She's amazing. So, all what's that song by Peter Allen, Everything Old is New Again?

[17:28] Robert W. Schneider: Right. Yeah. This generation who also, I mean, think about it. You know, if you're a 19, 20 year old guy or girl living in New York City at this time, you know, you're watching your friends getting shipped off to Vietnam. You're watching your friends of color being beaten with, you know, a hose and policeman sticks. This offers you a chance to see young people not living in fear. You see young people whose only concern is, will my friend Nanette get to Atlantic City. Okay. Do you think that maybe different from Nanette today's Broadway? Are we chasing the same thing with different tactics, maybe?

[18:09] Andrew Child: The idea of escapism, you mean?

[18:11] Robert W. Schneider: Or the idea escapism, or are we looking for um like Beetlejuice? Yeah. You know, going back to not so long ago, but the late 80s, early 90s, looking at when that movie came out. Are we looking for things like that? Yeah, that's the newest. That is the new nostalgia. That is the new nostalgia, which is taking, you know, something like a Beetlejuice or taking something like uh Wedding Singer or uh even Shrek in some ways. That's the new nostalgia. SpongeBob is the is the new nostalgia. That's huge, yeah. Yeah, this audience, the the 1971 audience didn't have movies, they didn't have television, they had stage shows. So for them, their their idea of nostalgia or their access to nostalgia, art nostalgic artifacts is limited, as opposed to now, where nostalgia can come from 90 million different sources.

It can come from SpongeBob on television, it can come from Shrek, it can come from uh things like the like uh double whammy nostalgia, the clueless musical that was off Broadway, Clueless the Movie is nostalgia, and the score was all 90 songs, which also evokes nostalgia. So, yeah, I I think we are doing the same thing. I will say in this current political climate, I don't know how many of those things we'll see, but they will always be successful.

[19:38] Andrew Child: Okay. Do you think there's something else that's stopping them from getting created? Is there some other sort of drive going on?

[19:46] Robert W. Schneider: Uh nostalgia musicals getting created? Yeah. I mean, I think the the complaint right now is with everything that's going on in the world, why do you want to focus on rehashing the past when we could be possibly presenting ideas on how to fix the present and fix the future? However, the shows that are doing that, and this is just it's it's just uh the reality of the situation, whether we like it or not, don't really succeed on Broadway. Right as of now. You know, they don't really succeed, and and if they do, it has to be something looking back, which is if Hamilton was about a you know, the current idea of immigrants and what they contribute to the United States in the 21st century, probably would not be as successful as it is of we're looking at what immigrants did in the past and how they helped to create something, if that makes sense.

[20:38] Andrew Child: No, that absolutely makes sense. I remember watching the Tony Awards a couple years ago and seeing the band's visit win award after award after award when no offense, but I heard no real buzz from people I know in the city about that show. And what I was hearing buzz about was all the things it was nominated against Mean Girls, SpongeBob, stuff like that that hit on that nostalgia market.

[21:09] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, and I I will be honest with you. I my feeling, and this is just from you know my perspective, it doesn't mean that it's correct. My feeling is that when bands visit one, the voters were sending a very clear message to this this nostalgia world saying you're not welcomed here. I think that it was so evident. I mean you know and yeah I I will say this and you know I don't know though in 15 years how many productions of the band's visit you will see but I can tell you you will see countless productions of Mean Girls and you will see even more productions of SpongeBob.

[21:50] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[21:51] Robert W. Schneider: So you might you might say hey listen you're not welcomed here doesn't really matter because at the end of the day something's gonna out last I have my own thoughts on the band's visit but this is not the podcast for you. Listen you know what we'll say Amar Sharif great song great job everyone beyond that we'll we'll save that for a different podcast yes that's her that's her that's for a a different podcast.

[22:12] Andrew Child: The band's visit was a very you know it was one of those shows where you know people got very passionate about it very passionate about it. I remember I told one person my thoughts on and they said you just don't understand theater I said okay okay you obviously have some very deep feelings about this particular show. But you're right it was sending a very clear message to Nickelodeon and I think MGM who might have had the rights to mean girls at the time but just saying you're not welcomed here.

[22:42] Robert W. Schneider: Right. And it wasn't those are the two that I distinctly remember. I know that it was like a slew of other shows. It was jukebox musicals, it was pop, it was big, it was bright colors. But the two that stick out in my mind are Mean Girls and SpongeBob versus fans and I think also you have to, and I don't think you can also take that season out of the political equation at that time, because the band's visit was really a show about human compassion at the end. Whether you like it or not, you can say at the end of the day, the show was really about humans being compassionate towards one another regardless of their differences. I will say this, and I don't have a crystal ball. I will say that had Hillary Clinton become president, I don't know if the band's visit would have won Best Musical.

[23:29] Andrew Child: You think that if Hillary had just campaigned a little harder, Spongebob could have gotten the toney?

[23:34] Robert W. Schneider: I I think one of the things that people were really reacting to at that in the current political climate was a show that was about human compassion, and they didn't like things that were plastic and fake because I think they were seeing that in their daily life on news all the time. But I I genuinely do mean that I think had Sponge had we had a different political outcome, I think we would have had a different outcome on what would have won Best Musical. And listen, I'll put it out there. I don't think that Spongebob or Mean Girls were like the perfect show either, but it definitely uh absolutely was something.

[24:11] Andrew Child: No, listen, I mean I will agree with that Mean Girls Mean Girls had a major issue, and the major issue was first of all, it's an iconic movie, but it's one of the best screenplays ever written. And if you're gonna take a movie and turn it into a musical, the music has to add something that the screenplay is not able to provide. And unfortunately, I felt in this case that it didn't add anything. In fact, it attracted. When they would burst into song, you would go, why did they stop talking?

[24:38] Robert W. Schneider: Right.

[24:39] Andrew Child: And you kind of don't want that in a musical. You don't want you don't want that. SpongeBob, on the other hand, I thought was now I did not grow up with SpongeBob, so full disclosure, I had no exposure to SpongeBob whatsoever until I saw it in the theater. And I loved every second of it. And my vote was for Spongebob for best musical. There, I said it. I have no shame. I have no shame.

[25:02] Robert W. Schneider: Not to totally derail it. Um, because I know we're gonna come back to no no no net. Favorite song from Spongebob is Flappers Are We.

[25:10] Andrew Child: Of course.

[25:11] Robert W. Schneider: Uh it was the iconic number that I was thrilled they kept it in there from the original.

[25:15] Andrew Child: Me too.

[25:16] Robert W. Schneider: Um, but yeah, as someone who did grow up on SpongeBob, like as a quasi religion, like who knows that show inside out, like most people in my demographic do. I had some issues with the show.

[25:32] Andrew Child: Um, just sort of it felt like it was not for me, and then they threw a couple of gratuitous like in jokes out there for people who were familiar with the show, but other than that, I was like, I feel like this is a show for little kids, and then all of a sudden it's giving me jokes that are just for me.

[25:52] Robert W. Schneider: Um, so yeah, I had very conflicting sure, and that's also you know, that's that's really difficult because it's based on nostalgia, but what happens when it takes the nostalgic elements away from those that are coming to see it specifically to get that comfort food?

[26:10] Andrew Child: Exactly, yeah. You know, it's like I remember, I don't know if you've ever had this, but it's like I remember grandma used to make—I'm making this up—meatloaf in a very special way, right? And then somebody came along ten years later and someone tried to make grandma's meatloaf again for you, and you're like, this doesn't taste the same, and you get disappointed, and it's sort of the same thing, which is I remember what SpongeBob was like watching it on television, and now in the theater, you've taken—you might have added more pepper, you might have taken away this type of bread crumb.

[26:39] Andrew Child: Now it's a cooking podcast.

[26:41] Robert W. Schneider: Um, cooking recipe at the bottom of the show's description.

[26:45] Andrew Child: But yeah, no, and that's tricky. That is tricky when you take away the thing that makes it nostalgic for the audience.

[26:54] Robert W. Schneider: But it sounds like flappers are we—that there's a gamble there with the net, right? You're taking that away.

[27:00] Andrew Child: And I guess we're never gonna know, but maybe there was some old queen leaving in 1971 saying, where the hell was flappers are we? This is an outrage, an abomination.

[27:10] Robert W. Schneider: Of course, of course. I'm sure, as soon as, you know, because when we see these shows, they're so special to us. And you know that maybe there was an individual in 1925 who went with their parents who went, it was their first Broadway show, and the first thing they remembered was the first opening number I ever saw on a Broadway stage was flappers or we, and these girls came out, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

[27:35] Andrew Child: And you go, where the—what the—where is it? Where is it? For us who weren't familiar with it, it didn't mean anything.

[27:38] Robert W. Schneider: It didn't mean anything because we just know that the story is moving along. But that is the gamble. That is a gamble. You're absolutely right.

[27:49] Andrew Child: Do you think that—and I'm totally throwing this out there—uh, just popped into my head. Is there anything going on on stages right now that you would say 50 years from now, you feel like that's gonna be our flappers are we? They're gonna be saying absolutely these people had no taste, no idea, they needed some guidance, they need someone to come in and fix this.

[28:08] Robert W. Schneider: I think there are a lot of shows that we have now that maybe in about 50 or 60 years somebody will come along and quote unquote fix them. I'm trying—I am very interested to see how Dear Evan Hansen ages.

[28:39] Robert W. Schneider: I'm very interested to see how that show transforms itself over time. I feel like that's a show that might be a show 40 years from now that someone does and it's so of—it's so of its period. The only problem is, you know, Nanette's a comedy and it's always knew it was a comedy, and Evan Hansen is, you know, serious theater.

[29:03] Andrew Child: I mean, yeah, but then I also—I mean, I also think there are some shows that are flawed that didn't get long runs that might get fixed. You know, I think there was a lot of potential in Bandstand.

[29:16] Robert W. Schneider: Oh yeah, that I just don't think this was the right—not the right time for it. I don't know if the right people were involved on it, if that makes sense. And I hate to say, you know, because there is no right or wrong, but I think that that might be a show that will come back and people will—in different hands, people will be able to, you know, change it around.

[29:37] Andrew Child: Dear Evan Hansen, I'm very curious to see how it ages because I know the big complaint now about it is he does not have a redeeming quality about him.

[29:47] Robert W. Schneider: No, I shouldn't say that. He doesn't get punished, right? That's the complaint is that he doesn't get penalized for this lie that he's created.

[29:55] Andrew Child: So I'm curious to see if, you know, 40 years down the line, if new book writers will be able to punish him for what, you know, for what he's also think a lot of that comes in because, you know, I feel like they might have flown too close to the sun with that one. Like they had a good thing going, they had a clearly dedicated fan base, they had an audience, and to make the movie and bring it under the scrutiny of like the mainstream, you know, yeah, is all of a sudden like, uh oh, people are calling out some things that, uh, maybe could have slid under the door, you know?

[29:55] Robert W. Schneider: Oh absolutely, you know, so many shows are victims of the period in which they open or they exist, and I think that the conversation about the musical, the stage version of Evan Hansen, the problem was there was a small minority of people going, why doesn't this guy get a—why doesn't he get penalized for crafting this massive lie, which is I knew I was best friends with this guy who killed himself, and you know, and he creates this false narrative about it, and he doesn't seem to get any punishment for it.

[31:10] Andrew Child: Back when the musical first came out, there really wasn't a massive public discussion about being held accountable for your—oh, it was a different time.

[31:10] Robert W. Schneider: It was a different world now, a couple of years later with this movie, and the movie is emerging at a time where people are saying you did something wrong, you must be held accountable. So now there's no slack for this movie whatsoever.

[31:35] Andrew Child: There's no slack given to this character, you know.

[31:39] Robert W. Schneider: And I think while people are complaining about the fact that, you know, Ben Platt might be too old to be playing it on camera, to me, I think that's gonna be the secondary discussion to what the overall discussion is, which is in a time where we're saying everyone must be punished and everyone must do a mea culpa in the middle of the street, why is this character being glorified for getting away with a crime?

[32:02] Andrew Child: Right.

[32:02] Robert W. Schneider: And I shouldn't even say—and when I say crime, I don't mean in like the legal sense, but the crime of, you know, emotionally manipulating grieving parents.

[32:14] Andrew Child: Um, and you know, and there's arguments, you know, did he do it for the right reasons? What harm was there in lying to these—either way, it's a lie, though.

[32:18] Robert W. Schneider: Either way, it's a lie, and he manipulated people's emotions. What—uh, but in this day and age, it's hard to fathom that. So who knows? Dear Evan Hansen in 40 years might be like an Annette where they come back and give him some sort of punishment because audiences are demanding it.

[32:40] Andrew Child: Right.

[32:40] Robert W. Schneider: But that's also, you know, a tiny—it's a tiny aspect of that overall story. The overall story of Dear Evan Hansen is about connection, right?

[32:50] Andrew Child: It's about the needs for humans to feel like they are connected to the rest of humanity.

[32:55] Robert W. Schneider: And him being penalized for lying to get that connection is a small part of the story. So maybe a couple of lines of him getting punished might be the same thing as cutting flappers are we in the 1971 mindset.

[33:12] Andrew Child: Does that make sense?

[33:13] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, that does make sense. And I guess also, who knows, maybe 40 years from now, 50 years from now, people are gonna say, hey, look at Dear Evan Hansen, what a simple time.

[33:25] Andrew Child: So beautiful, nostalgic.

[33:27] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, yes, yes.

[33:29] Andrew Child: Absolutely, a hundred and ten percent.

[33:31] Robert W. Schneider: A hundred and ten percent. We don't know—we don't have a crystal ball, we don't know where technology is going.

[33:36] Andrew Child: That's—they might be saying it about The Band's Visit.

[33:40] Robert W. Schneider: Absolutely.

[33:41] Andrew Child: But simple, beautiful folk.

[33:42] Robert W. Schneider: We love Mar Sharif with a sounding melody.

[33:45] Andrew Child: Yes, yes, yes, agreed, agreed.

[33:48] Robert W. Schneider: All right, so let's talk a little bit about Busby Berkeley.

[33:53] Andrew Child: Yes.

[33:54] Robert W. Schneider: And so I've read the chapter, I've read the book. Was originally attached to the production in one capacity.

[34:03] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[34:04] Robert W. Schneider: Ended up quote unquote serving in another.

[34:07] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[34:07] Robert W. Schneider: Um, but so yeah, talk to me a little bit about Busby Berkeley. Obviously, we see his stuff on film.

[34:12] Andrew Child: Oh god.

[34:15] Robert W. Schneider: We know it's his, it's groundbreaking, it's iconic, it's recognizable, he's a pioneer.

[34:22] Andrew Child: Um, even I'm thinking of um his original stuff that got cut from Annie Get Your Gun.

[34:30] Robert W. Schneider: Um, another project that kind of ended badly for him. The movie, you know, we see it, we know it's his.

[34:36] Andrew Child: Sorry, Busby.

[34:38] Robert W. Schneider: Sorry, Busby.

[34:39] Andrew Child: Sorry, Judy, you gotta go.

[34:41] Robert W. Schneider: I'm sorry.

[34:42] Andrew Child: Um, actually I love that movie. I love Betty Hutton in it, yeah.

[34:47] Robert W. Schneider: Fabulous, but it's like a Mac truck that just like steams over the Wild West.

[34:54] Andrew Child: Which she should be, that's the role, you know, you gotta do it justice.

[34:57] Robert W. Schneider: Absolutely. You know, we see the early stuff by Busby Berkeley. We know it's his. Did he have that on stage?

[35:04] Andrew Child: Would we have known that this Nanette was his?

[35:07] Robert W. Schneider: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. And I have, you know, one of the things I don't mention in the chapter because there was just—there was no room for it is one of the greatest things about No, No, Nanette and the revival of it was it was all chronicled in a book called The Making of No, No, Nanette by Don Dunn.

[35:28] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[35:28] Robert W. Schneider: And it's a fantastic insider account of not only how the original Nanette was created, but every single thing that went on in the Surrus, as my people would say, the Surrus of putting the revival up for the first time.

[35:42] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[35:42] Robert W. Schneider: And so it's chronicled really well in the book, The Making of No, No, Nanette. It's very hard to find. I think it's on Amazon for like $500.

[35:50] Andrew Child: Wow.

[35:50] Robert W. Schneider: So if you've got some money, you know, buy the book.

[35:53] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[35:53] Robert W. Schneider: Um, Busby Berkeley was a genius in terms of cinema because he was the first camera, the first director to say, why do we keep positioning the camera like it's an audience member and it's static?

[36:08] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[36:08] Robert W. Schneider: And just doing wide shot, medium shot, close-up? Why don't we use the camera to tell the choreography? Why don't we use the camera to dance the same way we're using humans to dance?

[36:19] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[36:19] Robert W. Schneider: So, because of that, he changed the way movies were filmed in terms of choreography, but you really can't do that on stage.

[36:28] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[36:28] Robert W. Schneider: I mean, the one thing he was known for more than anything was lines and lines of beautiful female-identifying dancers on stage.

[36:35] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[36:35] Robert W. Schneider: So that's pretty much it. You know, you can't do kaleidoscope patterns, you know, you can't do tracking shots on stage.

[36:44] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[36:44] Robert W. Schneider: So the big thing that Berkeley had was really he was the name, and I hate to—oh God, I can't believe I'm gonna use this analogy.

[36:52] Andrew Child: Oh no.

[36:53] Robert W. Schneider: It's sort of like when Trump would put his name on a building.

[36:57] Andrew Child: Right.

[36:58] Robert W. Schneider: And you knew that, oh, because he's this successful businessman that the building must be good.

[37:05] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[37:05] Robert W. Schneider: It's sort of the Buzz, it was sort of the Busby Berkeley thing, which was they slapped his name on the production because it evoked nostalgia in people.

[37:14] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[37:14] Robert W. Schneider: It's sort of like what the National Lampoon did in the 1980s, which was they just sold their name to comedy things. But you knew, oh, it's National Lampoon, therefore it must be funny.

[37:23] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[37:25] Robert W. Schneider: It's got that seal of quality. So that's really what the Berkeley thing brought. No, he—I mean, by the time when he got to rehearsals for the revival of No, No, Nanette, he was much older.

[37:34] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[37:34] Robert W. Schneider: He hadn't worked in a number of years. Um, he might have had allegedly a drinking problem, he would fall asleep in rehearsals, you know, he wasn't able to put a big Broadway musical up on his feet.

[37:49] Andrew Child: Right.

[37:50] Robert W. Schneider: He just was incapable of doing so.

[37:52] Andrew Child: Okay, but they—but if they fired him, it lost a major nostalgia element, and they really liked him.

[38:01] Robert W. Schneider: Great, and they didn't want to embarrass him. So they negotiated—so if you look at any posters from No, No, Nanette, it says production supervised by Busby Berkeley, and it was very sad.

[38:12] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[38:12] Robert W. Schneider: They literally gave him a card table in the corner of the room, and he just sat there.

[38:18] Andrew Child: Wow.

[38:18] Robert W. Schneider: And Bert Shevelove, who was originally hired to just write the book, also came in as the director.

[38:25] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[38:25] Robert W. Schneider: So, you know, he was sitting there, and the first thing Bert Shevelove told the producers was he can be here, but he has to stay out of my way.

[38:33] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[38:33] Robert W. Schneider: I don't want to hear from him, I don't want to talk to him. This is my show.

[38:38] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[38:39] Robert W. Schneider: And what do you think the production, this revival gained because of that?

[38:44] Andrew Child: Like having the book writer also be directing.

[38:48] Robert W. Schneider: I mean, I think I—you know, sometimes it works great, and I think this is an example of it working great because Shevelove was, you know, first of all, a brilliant book writer.

[38:57] Andrew Child: Uh huh.

[38:57] Robert W. Schneider: He'd also done A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. That was, you know, a big one of his.

[39:03] Andrew Child: Right, that was him, right?

[39:05] Robert W. Schneider: Yes.

[39:06] Robert W. Schneider: Right? Um, The Frogs. He directed uh one of the revivals.

[39:11] Andrew Child: Yes, he did.

[39:12] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah, in the 70s, he did the revival. He had done uh The Frogs with Steven Sondheim. Uh he was a brilliant writer, so he knew exactly what works, what doesn't. And instead of taking the time to try to explain that to a book writer, he could just come up with it on the spot and go, I know what the sensibility of this should be. And I don't, I don't have a middleman, you know. And it's interesting, they originally hired someone else to write a new book for Nanette before Bert Shevelove came in, and that person ended up writing a script that was longer than the original script that they handed him from 1925.

[39:51] Andrew Child: Oh no.

[39:51] Robert W. Schneider: And so, and he would change lines to like Paulette the maid, somebody said, She's a funny maid, isn't she? And he just changed the line. She's a peculiar maid, isn't she? Like that's what he was doing. He was just he wasn't cutting anything. In fact, he was adding. Um, and so when Shevelove came in, he knew immediately I know what a night post Oklahoma audience will watch. So I think in this case it worked brilliantly. There are cases, obviously, where it doesn't work brilliantly, and I think an example of that would be like Nick and Nora that Arthur Lawrence did in 1991. Arthur Lawrence wrote this god awful book for a musical version of Nick and Nora, and also was directing it, and you know, could not understand why the show wasn't working and blamed every other person except it's the book.

[40:38] Andrew Child: Oh it's a murder mystery, and within five minutes, we've all figured out who the murderer is.

[40:43] Robert W. Schneider: You know, and he could not grasp. So sometimes it's, you know, depends on the ego. It depends on the ego. But I think I think in this case it works brilliantly.

[40:54] Andrew Child: Yeah, I mean, apparently it sounds like the show was a success.

[41:00] Robert W. Schneider: And you know, they went, yeah, and it was not, you know, once again, read this great book by Don Dunn. It was, you know, they went into rehearsal for this show without a script.

[41:09] Andrew Child: Wow.

[41:10] Robert W. Schneider: And every single day they would get like one of the actors said it was almost like war rations. You would get a little slip of paper saying, You're gonna say this line at some point. We don't know when, we don't know where, but we know that you're gonna say this line. Um, and it was not, you know, the easiest group of people to work with, you know, Ruby Keeler, who was the star who the whole show was built around for her nostalgic value, did not want to come back to Broadway, did not want to act again. She was a very happy grandmother living out, I think, in California. And when they would interview her, they would be like, Are you excited about coming back? And she'd go, No, not really.

[41:47] Andrew Child: So, you know, that's like the you know, that's the and every time like Bert Shevelove would sweat over like the right line for a scene, he would bring it to her, and she goes, Oh, I don't want to learn any more lines. You know, so this was not they fired the actress playing Nanette. Um, they fired uh the um uh Hiram Sherman who played uh the the uh Bible salesman character. I mean, they went through a lot, a lot to get this show to where it needed to be. But yeah, they went into rehearsal without a book. And it came together and it came together because the director was knew what needed to happen, and the director was also the book writer, so it was great.

[42:28] Robert W. Schneider: So uh uh Bert Shevelove would, you know, take mornings were always dedicated to choreography, and he would stay up all night, all through the morning, write a new script, come in after lunch, hand out the new pages, stage it, go home, and write new scenes. So this guy, I don't know how he was sleeping, but was consistently producing new work based on what he was watching in rehearsal.

[42:52] Andrew Child: Wow.

[42:53] Robert W. Schneider: Now the structure of the show pretty much stayed the same from 1925. But the the you know, what was a w audience willing to accept and what was it not willing to accept in terms of speed, you know, and timing, that had obviously changed in the 40 or so years, and that's what Shevelove was really trying to get at.

[43:10] Andrew Child: Gotcha.

[43:11] Robert W. Schneider: Okay. So he's coming in rather than an eye for funny versus peculiar. He's got it. He's got this eye for pacing, he's got this eye for timing. And I guess, yeah, he took on both roles who really can have a heavy hand controlling that in the show.

[43:28] Andrew Child: Absolutely.

[43:28] Robert W. Schneider: And the one thing he also stipulated in his contract was I get final approval over everything. I get final word.

[43:34] Andrew Child: Now that's pretty bold.

[43:38] Robert W. Schneider: That's pretty bold. And they gave it to him. They were desperate, desperate, desperate, because they had sunk so much money into the show that they need they needed to make sure. And you know, and the producers got into a massive lawsuit about who actually had the idea for producing the show, and that's also chronicled in Don Dunn's book. But I mean, this was not an easy show, which is so funny because you watch it and it's this girl going to Atlantic City and people dancing on beach balls. Like you, and you got and you can't imagine the trauma and trouble that was going on behind the scenes to make audiences smile and remove them from the problems of 1971.

[44:16] Andrew Child: No, well, and it's something that you hit upon in the chapter really well. That, you know, someone had to do this grunt work, this legwork, because now this is a formula that we all know that we're all familiar with.

[44:30] Robert W. Schneider: Absolutely, absolutely. And because of the success of Nanette, and you know, it was a it was an American phenomenon. You know, Lyndon Lyndon Johnson went to go see NO NANETTE. When the astronauts returned from space, John Lindsay, the mayor at the time, brought them to NO NANETTE.

[44:48] Andrew Child: Wow.

[44:48] Robert W. Schneider: I mean, this was the thing. It toured the United States, people loved it, and it made people feel nostalgic. And that had been missing for the longest time from the American psyche. You know, you know, this idea of can the country ever be as great and as innocent as it once was. No, but for two hours at the 46th Street Theater, yeah, it can be.

[45:13] Andrew Child: Right.

[45:15] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah. So, but you're right, and it created this formula that then every single person tried to copy. And they all had, and I talk about this in the chapter, you know, variations on exactly how to revive something.

[45:28] Andrew Child: Okay.

[45:29] Robert W. Schneider: You know, there's the traditional, what I call the traditional revival, the revisionist revival, you know, and all that stuff. Why is a show being revived? What's the you know, why are we doing this show now? Is it because there's something happening in the times that's allowing that show to come back? Is there a star that's my god, they should do this show now? And in this day and age, when ticket prices are so expensive, audiences are less willing to take risks on unknown quantities. So they will that's why we see tons of these revivals because they know there's a built-in audience.

[46:04] Andrew Child: Right.

[46:05] Robert W. Schneider: Wow. But no, it is it's crazy to think that I mean, someone had to figure that out. Someone had to take this was a risk. This was a massive risk. And the person who figured it out that really I don't think gets the credit for it, is Harry Rigby, who was the original producer of the revival of NO NANETTE, who was the person who said, let's get Ruby Keeler, let's get Busby Berkeley, um, let's get uh Raul Pende Bois, who did the costumes, you know, let's get all of these wonderful people. And then Sima Rubin was brought on by him for the money purposes. And they had massive arguments with one another, and she got rid of them. Um, and uh he then went on to keep producing. And he took the Nanette formula and then did it again with like a show with a show called Irene from 1919.

He did it with Debbie Reynolds, who also was a big, you know, a big star. Then he did Good News with Alice Faye. Um and then that started that nostalgia craze, that nostalgia wave. And then people started to deviate from it. Then they started to go, well, let's do revivals of shows with the original stars. So we saw in 76 My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison, uh, who had done it originally. How many times did Yul Brynner play the King in The King and I? How many times did Carol Channing play Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly? But this is all because of Harry Rigby.

[47:34] Andrew Child: And then later on, obviously, like in the 90s, we get what we call the, or actually, I should say a little bit earlier, we get what's known as the revisionist revival. And that's where they will take a piece like Candide is a great example of this. They will take a musical that was pre-existing and totally revise it. So it looks nothing at all like what you saw originally. Candide that was once this big opulent Broadway musical in the 1950s became this very avant garde, downtown, experimental type thing in Hal Prince's staging in the 1970s, or Sam Mendes' Cabaret from the 1990s. Um also Hal Prince's Show Boat in the 1990s as well, which is we will totally re uh reconfigure what this show is supposed to be.

[48:21] Robert W. Schneider: Wow. Well, thank you, Harry Rigby. Um, without you.

[48:25] Andrew Child: Oh, yeah, Cher would be flipping burgers, you know.

[48:27] Robert W. Schneider: Absolutely, absolutely, or doing, you know, some Brecht play somewhere in uh Seattle. Um, and then you know, like you know, we also have like we were talking about recently, which is you know, star revivals, which is, you know, is it time for like Kristen Chenoweth doing On the 20th Century? Let's be honest, uh, On the 20th Century is a lovely show. There is no need to see it again, except if there's a reason, and the reason is Kristen Chenoweth. It's not like they said we're doing On the 20th Century who can play that lead. They said, here's Kristen Chenoweth. This show is perfect for her.

[49:00] Andrew Child: So I'm gonna put you right on the spot.

[49:02] Robert W. Schneider: Yeah.

[49:03] Andrew Child: If you have all the money in the world, who's the star? Who's the show? What's the revival we need?

[49:12] Robert W. Schneider: Oh my god, this is putting me on the spot. I know it's a tricky one. You know, I'll be honest with you. There isn't, you know, I was thinking about this recently. There is an actor I would love to see do something. And we've had countless revivals of Gypsy, and I love Gypsy more than you know, life itself. I would love to see Viola Davis play Mama Rose.

[49:30] Andrew Child: Oh.

[49:32] Robert W. Schneider: That's to me, uh, you know, because uh, you know, you do Gypsy when there's an actor that comes along and you just go, oh my god, they're so brilliant. And I would love to see her do it just because I think she would get all the different Rose to me is like a prism. And so I think no matter which way you turn it, you get a different angle, a different color, a different side, and I think she would just knock that out of the park.

[49:58] Andrew Child: All right. I would love to let Barbara Streisand hear you saying that too much.

[50:01] Robert W. Schneider: No, you know, no, oh god, no. Barbara Streisand, who at 112 was gonna play Mama Rose and playing Dainty June was gonna be Betty White.

[50:13] Andrew Child: Exactly.

[50:14] Robert W. Schneider: And had Cloris Leachman not passed, she would have made a great Louise. So we we had all of those people. No, that that would be a fun one for me, just in terms of star. You know, a musical though, though, in terms of, you know, is there anything that it could be responding to socially or politically?

[50:31] Andrew Child: Mm-hmm.

[50:32] Robert W. Schneider: That's you know, I would love to see a revival of VI Sing because I feel like that whole show is about politics becoming a reality show. And it would just happen to be written in the 1930s. So I think you could draw a lot of nice parallels between what's happening in the country then versus what's happening in the country now.

[50:51] Andrew Child: Oh, absolutely.

[50:52] Robert W. Schneider: That's one I would like to see at some point. I don't, but I but that's one where I'm like, I don't know who would be in it. I just know that thematically it feels appropriate to what's happening in the in the current state of the world.

[51:03] Andrew Child: We might be able to get Barbara Streisand in that one, right?

[51:06] Robert W. Schneider: Great, great. I know she wants to come back to Broadway. There's one thing she loves. It's eight performances a week, I'm sure.

[51:13] Andrew Child: All right. Well, this was great. Thank you so much. Uh for entertaining so many questions about NO NANETTE, SpongeBob, Bartlet Shares, career prospects.

[51:24] Robert W. Schneider: Yes, great.

[51:27] Andrew Child: We really did. Thank you so much for joining us today. Please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about NO NANETTE, please also review the links in the below description.

[51:45] Robert W. Schneider: I'm Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.

[51:58] Andrew Child: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nanette.

[52:04] Robert W. Schneider: What's the matter? Why does that make you run?