This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Ben Rimalower: Broadway Podcast Network presents Giants in the Sky How Sondheim and Lapine Went Into the Woods with me, Ben Rimalower.

[0:09] Ben Rimalower: Today's guest, Chuck Wagner, the original Rapunzel's's Prince.

[0:13] Ben Rimalower: Once upon a time.

[0:19] Ben Rimalower: Chuck Wagner created the role of Rapunzel's's Prince in Into the Woods, beginning with its Old Globe premiere through to the Broadway opening, eventually starring as Cinderella's Prince and The Wolf on the National Tour.

[0:31] Ben Rimalower: His other Broadway credits include leading roles in Beauty and the Beast, Les Misérables, Dracula the Musical, The Three Musketeers, and Tours of Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate, Jekyll and Hyde, and Les Misérables.

[0:43] Ben Rimalower: For four years, he was ringmaster of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and TV audiences may remember him for starring as the computer-generated superhero Automan.

[0:57] Ben Rimalower: I think your first involvement with Into the Woods was at the Old Globe Playhouse, is that right?

[1:02] Chuck Wagner: That's correct.

[1:02] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, I was in the original cast.

[1:04] Chuck Wagner: I at first I auditioned in Los Angeles for James.

[1:07] Chuck Wagner: And it was about the same time that they were doing Edwin Drude in New York.

[1:13] Chuck Wagner: Yeah.

[1:14] Chuck Wagner: And I'd heard the cast album, and so I wrote the New York Shakespeare Festival and said, I'd really like to do this when you come to the West Coast.

[1:22] Chuck Wagner: And they wrote me back and they said, Would you consider replacing Howard in New York?

[1:26] Chuck Wagner: And I said, Would I consider it? Of course I would.

[1:29] Chuck Wagner: In the meantime, before that had happened, I auditioned for James in Los Angeles and hadn't heard anything back.

[1:34] Chuck Wagner: But then when I was in New York auditioning for Edwin Drude, I got a chance to be seen again, and this time Steven was there.

[1:40] Chuck Wagner: And so he liked me better, I think, than James did.

[1:43] Ben Rimalower: Oh, really?

[1:44] Chuck Wagner: And so then they made me the offer, so I did the out-of-town tryout in the Old Globe.

[1:50] Chuck Wagner: And at that point, Ken Marshall was the Cinderella Prince, and he was the guy.

[1:55] Chuck Wagner: You remember the movie Kroll?

[1:57] Ben Rimalower: No.

[1:58] Chuck Wagner: Oh, check it out. He was the lead in that, and he was the original Cinderella Prince.

[2:03] Chuck Wagner: Delightful gentleman.

[2:04] Ben Rimalower: And he was not the wolf in that production, right?

[2:07] Chuck Wagner: No, no.

[2:09] Chuck Wagner: Um, how did that go?

[2:11] Chuck Wagner: Actually, I know.

[2:14] Chuck Wagner: I know we went through a lot of permutations.

[2:16] Chuck Wagner: They had me trying to be the wolf.

[2:17] Chuck Wagner: They were gonna have John Cunningham, who was the narrator, try to be the wolf, but then all of a sudden it was very creepy, dirty old man things.

[2:25] Ben Rimalower: So yeah.

[2:26] Ben Rimalower: Oh, that's interesting.

[2:28] Ben Rimalower: You know, I'm so I want to know more about that because there's um like the only part of the reason I'm doing this podcast is because this stuff is all pre-internet.

[2:38] Ben Rimalower: So, you know, nowadays you do one thing anywhere and everybody can know about it, and then you know, the only thing that's on record about what the show was like in San Diego is the final version you guys opened that was reviewed in, you know, Variety or the LA Times or right.

[2:55] Ben Rimalower: But um, it was an amazing, it was interesting to see how it evolved.

[2:59] Ben Rimalower: You know, it was gonna be like would have been much longer.

[3:03] Ben Rimalower: There was an act one and an act two.

[3:06] Ben Rimalower: You know how we kept coming in with, you know, our little aphorisms?

[3:11] Chuck Wagner: Oh yeah, the first midnight and midnight, there was a second midnight, you know, there was a whole, there were a bunch of different things.

[3:18] Chuck Wagner: Um, one of my favorites, there was a song for the narrator called Interesting Questions in the second act, and there's a ghost of the music is still in there.

[3:28] Chuck Wagner: Um, but one of the it was uh contemplating right, wrong, good, bad, things like that.

[3:35] Chuck Wagner: But these are interesting question archetypal figures, blah blah blah was a great thing.

[3:39] Chuck Wagner: Um, but the hook of the there was a beautiful melody in it that it goes, fairy tales, not what's real, only what's true.

[3:47] Ben Rimalower: And so if you listen to that kind of underscore music, you can hear that phrase made it through that survived from that song.

[3:55] Ben Rimalower: Is that what they play as the crowd is getting ready to serve him to the giant?

[4:02] Chuck Wagner: Yes.

[4:04] Chuck Wagner: Yes, exactly.

[4:04] Chuck Wagner: That's when the song would have happened.

[4:06] Ben Rimalower: Ah, oh, that's wonderful.

[4:08] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[4:09] Chuck Wagner: And um exactly.

[4:12] Chuck Wagner: It was, yeah, it was a lot of great music in there that didn't make it.

[4:16] Ben Rimalower: What about the um this might be getting ahead of us, so I I don't want to get far ahead, but I I because there's these demos that were released on one of the issues of the Broadway recording.

[4:26] Ben Rimalower: And um it had there's a song, or no, sorry, they are I think the same demos, but there's some of them were on that Broadway CD when they re-released it.

[4:36] Ben Rimalower: Uh like an earlier version of Giants in the Sky and an earlier version of On the Steps of the Palace and the Boom Crunch song for the witch.

[4:45] Chuck Wagner: Oh, right, right, right.

[4:46] Chuck Wagner: And then there's uh, but there were three more, I think from that same recording session, because it's the same, it's like Maureen Moore and George Lee Andrews and John Cameron Mitchell and Betsy Joslin, um, and Kim Crosby.

[4:58] Chuck Wagner: And uh the there's like a Sondheim box set where they have uh interesting questions, and um

[4:58] Ben Rimalower: Oh really?

[5:06] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, I'll send it to you because you can't you it's not on Spotify or anything, you know.

[5:10] Chuck Wagner: It's it was just that one time they released it.

[5:12] Chuck Wagner: But it's um they have that, and then there's this song that I'm obsessed with, Second Midnight, that's like six minutes long with like the whole cast singing about their parents and children and all that.

[5:23] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[5:27] Chuck Wagner: Right, right, yeah.

[5:28] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, yeah.

[5:29] Chuck Wagner: So was that in the show?

[5:34] Chuck Wagner: How you got it all, all of it.

[5:35] Chuck Wagner: Uh was it was that in the show in San Diego too?

[5:40] Chuck Wagner: Um, no, I don't think it actually.

[5:45] Chuck Wagner: Um, and then um so okay, and then when was that just like in rehearsals or were there performances in San Diego where you were Rapunzel's's prince and the wolf?

[5:55] Chuck Wagner: Oh no, no, no.

[5:56] Chuck Wagner: We when we they were first doing the wolf thing, we kind of did a different we we all tried and gave our turn at the wolf, right?

[6:02] Chuck Wagner: We sang it for Steven, and then he basically decided one way to go, and it was uh you know, it was fun.

[6:09] Chuck Wagner: But I love playing the wolf when I finally got to do it, and I do it in my show every night.

[6:14] Chuck Wagner: So I have a whole second right you know, 'cause people don't it's amazing to me how many people don't know Into the Woods, right?

[6:21] Chuck Wagner: Even though I mean they've seen the movie now, some um, but even then the people who've just seen the movie are not you'd be surprised how few people are actually hardcore theater people.

[6:31] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[6:36] Chuck Wagner: Some people love it and have are very passionate about it, but a lot of people don't know.

[6:39] Chuck Wagner: And so in my show I do a section that starts with uh Agony, because I talk about uh, you know, having played both princes, so I sing Agony together with myself.

[6:48] Ben Rimalower: I love that.

[6:50] Chuck Wagner: And then I do um the wolf song.

[6:53] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[6:54] Chuck Wagner: And then uh then I explained to them about the show, and I sing no more because it wasn't in the movie, right?

[7:01] Chuck Wagner: And it's such a great song.

[7:03] Chuck Wagner: And I thought when I saw the movie, I was up, you know, you didn't have the narrator, so you didn't have that old man dichotomy.

[7:08] Chuck Wagner: But then finally the father appears, right?

[7:10] Chuck Wagner: So I said, Oh, so they're gonna have the song, right?

[7:12] Chuck Wagner: And then they don't.

[7:13] Chuck Wagner: I was it's like, how can you not?

[7:15] Ben Rimalower: No.

[7:16] Chuck Wagner: Right.

[7:17] Chuck Wagner: But anyway, but you because the music starts, right?

[7:20] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[7:20] Chuck Wagner: You hear it, here it comes, and then nothing, nothing happens.

[7:23] Chuck Wagner: But it's a beautiful song, so I do no more at the end.

[7:25] Chuck Wagner: And I do that do single parts, the father and the son back and forth together.

[7:29] Chuck Wagner: So there's a lot of me talking to myself in my show.

[7:31] Ben Rimalower: I listen, I told you I want you to come do the show at the Green Room 42.

[7:36] Ben Rimalower: Um, but uh tell me, I know that you did the first national tour, you were Cinderella's prince and the wolf.

[7:43] Chuck Wagner: Right.

[7:43] Chuck Wagner: Did you ever return to the show again beyond that?

[7:46] Chuck Wagner: In New York, no.

[7:48] Chuck Wagner: Or any other it was not long after that that the national tour of Jekyll and Hyde started up, right?

[7:56] Chuck Wagner: So you were just busy with that, and then uh uh but did you ever do another production anywhere?

[8:03] Chuck Wagner: No, no.

[8:04] Chuck Wagner: I do master classes.

[8:06] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[8:06] Chuck Wagner: I have a thing I have a thing called Game of the Woods where we explore, you know, I put the each house as its own like motto, like on Game of Thrones, right?

[8:14] Chuck Wagner: So that's fun.

[8:16] Chuck Wagner: It's kind of a fun way to get people to talk about the show.

[8:18] Chuck Wagner: And it's been so great to see so many different interpretations.

[8:22] Chuck Wagner: What the beauty of Into the Woods is that it can be done in an empty room with blue jeans on, and it's still just as effective, right?

[8:28] Chuck Wagner: Because it's such good material.

[8:30] Ben Rimalower: So anyway, there's that.

[8:32] Ben Rimalower: So okay, tell me.

[8:34] Chuck Wagner: No, well, listen, it's not too late.

[8:36] Chuck Wagner: There's still parts you could play for the rest of your life in Into the Woods.

[8:39] Chuck Wagner: Oh, hell yeah.

[8:40] Chuck Wagner: Oh yeah.

[8:41] Chuck Wagner: Um, you know, I people you people ask me what I'm doing.

[8:43] Chuck Wagner: I said, Well, you know, when I was a young, I was a prince, now it's king or nothing.

[8:48] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[8:50] Ben Rimalower: Um, so okay, well, back to your first stint as the prince in in the Old Globe.

[8:57] Ben Rimalower: Um, was there a lot of involvement day to day with uh Steven Sondheim and James Lapine wearing his writer hat in terms of rewriting the show, or did you guys just kind of work to get it on its feet first?

[9:12] Chuck Wagner: Well, no, they I mean listen, I'm on the pretty outskirts of the whole experience, right?

[9:18] Chuck Wagner: You know, because I'm a young actor and I'm Richard in awe of all the people that we're working with.

[9:22] Chuck Wagner: And when they brought Agony in, he brought it in on in pencil on the music page, right?

[9:29] Chuck Wagner: So that was pretty fresh.

[9:31] Chuck Wagner: Um, but that but uh at the beginning, James gave us all, we had like a psychological questionnaire to fill out, and you know, a lot of you know, he'd asked us questions about you know what's uh what do you like most, what do you like least about your character, things like that.

[9:45] Chuck Wagner: So he collected all this data.

[9:46] Chuck Wagner: He's very academic, or at least he seemed to be at the time to be um approaching it almost as a class, kind of an experience, right?

[9:55] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[9:56] Chuck Wagner: So uh, you know, he'd ask us these questions, he would kind of pick us apart, and he was very good director and tr pull out more out of you than you thought you had inside of you.

[10:06] Ben Rimalower: Oh yeah, especially for a young actor that must have been so cool so cool and stimulating.

[10:11] Chuck Wagner: I mean um was very cool.

[10:14] Chuck Wagner: And had you been like just like a theater nerd before that?

[10:17] Chuck Wagner: Were you like a Sondheim head before you got this job?

[10:21] Chuck Wagner: Well, it's uh you know, I'm from Tennessee, so you know, we didn't have a whole lot of I mean the theater, I had I had great teachers, and they exposed me to, you know, I came up the first thing I ever did was uh My Fair Lady, so it's probably the youngest Henry Higgins.

[10:33] Chuck Wagner: And then senior year, I was Billy Bigelow in Carousel.

[10:36] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, and that led me to do outdoor theater in Kentucky, a place called Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater, and we did a show boat at South Pacific and the Grass Harp and a bunch of things that first year.

[10:47] Chuck Wagner: That's how I got my exit card.

[10:48] Chuck Wagner: Then for two summers I did The Lost Colony on the Outer Banks of North Carolina under the direction of Joe Leighton.

[10:55] Chuck Wagner: Oh wow.

[10:56] Chuck Wagner: Who uh, you know, and he was very smart.

[10:58] Chuck Wagner: You know, he was I mean, he was amazing.

[11:00] Chuck Wagner: He's the real deal.

[11:00] Chuck Wagner: You know, Terry Mann went on to be Barnum right after that season of uh The Lost Colony, and uh and then you know, then he was the beast, and then I got to be his standby, and then I got to take over in Canada.

[11:13] Chuck Wagner: And uh, you know, Beauty of the Beast is still being very, very good to me.

[11:17] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, glad to hear it.

[11:19] Chuck Wagner: But uh but Into the Woods is so is such a rich and wonderful thing because everybody can relate to the fairy tales, and every, you know, if it's not one fairy tale, it's another one, right?

[11:29] Chuck Wagner: So I love the kind of fairy tale essence of Into the Woods and that it's back again.

[11:35] Chuck Wagner: And so many of my and Beauty of the Beast, same thing, fairy tales, right?

[11:38] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, truly.

[11:39] Ben Rimalower: I mean, well, it's the same costume designer, right?

[11:42] Ben Rimalower: Isn't it and I mean they feel like in the same world.

[11:46] Chuck Wagner: The beast chess piece and uh wolf chess piece are the same.

[11:50] Chuck Wagner: I mean, that wolf costume is insane. I mean, everybody talks so much about the genitalia that was so problematic and got so many unwanted laughs, but I'm just fascinated by the face and the chest, the way that it's like I mean, talking about the movie, the work I like the movie, but the thing with Johnny Depp in the Zoot suit is like you know it shows you how perfectly the Jack Saber cartoons, right?

[12:16] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:18] Chuck Wagner: So that's you get that. But it just doesn't seem to work in the movie. But the thing that's so beautiful about Anne's design for the wolf in Into the Woods is it's like right in that perfect best of both worlds of human and beast. I mean, it really, you know, he um, no, it was great, and mercifully by the time we did the Wolf on the Road.

[12:37] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[12:38] Chuck Wagner: I was still anatomically correct, but certainly painted so not to draw so much attention to it. No, no. And I had big hairy thighs, right? So it was hit a little better hidden like a bomb. Bob had these crazy skinny legs, and then they took that fur and they trimmed it down really short. And so and the when the show first opened, yeah.

[13:01] Ben Rimalower: It's pretty in your face as it is now, right?

[13:05] Chuck Wagner: Yeah. But before that, the very opening time, the first time we've ever put on that costume, we're backstage going, you can't be serious. You had independently pendulous testicles.

[13:17] Ben Rimalower: Oh my god.

[13:18] Chuck Wagner: That were photorealistic as well, right? And so he comes in dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun boom. You heard audience go, oh so those those were removed right away.

[13:33] Ben Rimalower: That yeah, that's the best castration in show business.

[13:38] Chuck Wagner: Um, tell me though, um what happened like after you guys got back from San Diego? Because you had like like what like nine months until you started up for Broadway.

[13:53] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[13:54] Chuck Wagner: No, all well I went back that summer I did a thing called musical comedy LA, which was a repertory thing we did as a through UCLA and I think Carol Burnett was on the board. Carol Channing was on the board, people that you know it was keeping musical theater alive in Los Angeles and we did in repertory we did the voice from Syracuse and leave it to Jane and Jane was played by Michelle Nicastro who has since passed away but she was she was amazing queen right and so I miss her because she was great as Jane and so while I was doing that I heard that they were thinking about going to New York and I said oh I'm not gonna be able to do it.

[14:44] Chuck Wagner: But then our run was going to close a week earlier so I contacted them again and I said you know just to let them know I am available now just in case and then they called me back and they said come on.

[14:55] Ben Rimalower: Oh great.

[14:57] Chuck Wagner: Yeah so as far as I know they had done a workshop in New York and I believe Burke Moses was doing the Rapunzel's Prince and he did a fine job too but then I was just lucky they wanted me back.

[15:09] Ben Rimalower: Good.

[15:09] Chuck Wagner: So they tried to get you back before that and you just you were in this gig with the LA that that makes more sense. I was like trying to figure out what that you know it's very confusing because all this stuff there's no records of it and no yeah exactly it's it's a it was a long time ago.

[15:28] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[15:28] Chuck Wagner: But it was still an amazing time and um but you know so I'm exactly there probably are exists a record somewhere but it would be like in an obscure newspaper and I think I was at the Yale library going through James Lapine's archives trying to get information and it's amazing how little there is.

[15:46] Ben Rimalower: But I'm not giving up.

[15:47] Chuck Wagner: But this is great to know. So um so did you um what do you remember like what what month you would have like started rehearsals for the Broadway production?

[15:57] Ben Rimalower: I mean were you there for the first day of rehearsal?

[16:03] Chuck Wagner: I think makes uh I think I can't remember, I don't remember. I believe I was I don't remember not being there.

[16:12] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:13] Chuck Wagner: Um you know, I know well clearly obviously they had been doing some work before, right? Because Burke had been working with them.

[16:21] Ben Rimalower: Right.

[16:21] Chuck Wagner: So uh but it worked out fine for Burke because he went uh went ahead and became best on, and that was like, you know, he was born to play that role, so that was fantastic.

[16:30] Ben Rimalower: Oh how funny, yeah.

[16:31] Chuck Wagner: And you guys would have been in that together.

[16:33] Ben Rimalower: Um now did you uh were you when you got there and got back on Into the Woods, was Bernadette Peters already in the show at that point?

[16:41] Chuck Wagner: Yes.

[16:42] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, when we opened in New York, Bernadette was the witch.

[16:45] Chuck Wagner: So you were never in like rehearsals with anybody else? It was Bernadette from the beginning.

[16:48] Ben Rimalower: No, well, I mean, we had uh um Ellen, right?

[16:53] Chuck Wagner: What in the uh Yes, in San Diego?

[16:55] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:56] Chuck Wagner: But by the time it came to New York, no Bernadette was already in she was the witch.

[17:01] Ben Rimalower: And did they did they um like did you feel like they were beefing up that character because Bernadette was Bernadette, or because that was just the direction that the show was going, you know, dramaturgically?

[17:15] Chuck Wagner: I think it was probably a little bit of both. I think you know, you get Bernadette Peters and it's like, oh well then we really must have we gotta really punch up that 11 o'clock number, right?

[17:22] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[17:26] Chuck Wagner: You know, it's um it was a similar song to begin with.

[17:30] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[17:31] Chuck Wagner: But it but they just made it a bigger 11 o'clock number.

[17:34] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[17:35] Chuck Wagner: Yeah, yeah, you gotta do that.

[17:38] Ben Rimalower: You gotta do that.

[17:39] Chuck Wagner: Um now did Agony always I mean, it seems like every time I've seen the show Agony First Act, Agony Second Act, stops the show cold, crowd pleaser. Like, was that always the case, or did you guys have to sort of like figure that out as you?

[17:49] Chuck Wagner: No, we were lucky, and James was very good about this, and Steven very specific too. He explained he told me once two things. One that the show is the song is in a buckarole, which is a like a gentle canter on a horse.

[18:07] Ben Rimalower: Ah and it and that tempo should never it doesn't shouldn't vary.

[18:12] Chuck Wagner: These guys are precise, right? So I thought that was an interesting observation.

[18:17] Chuck Wagner: Uh and uh but James, but Steven also said that those songs, these kind of braggad braggadacio hero characters like Milus Gloriosus or uh or Carl Magnus in Nightmare, right? He says these are easier songs for him to write.

[18:30] Ben Rimalower: Right.

[18:33] Chuck Wagner: So because he really understands that. So and James was very clear to us that don't play the comedy of the song. This is you know, when he says uh none would run from us, it's not trying he's not trying to be tongue in cheek about it.

[18:45] Ben Rimalower: Right.

[18:47] Chuck Wagner: He's going just listen absolutely listen. Nobody was gonna run from us, right? Not wrong just to play it honestly, and by playing it honestly, that made the comedy that much better, right?

[18:55] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[18:55] Chuck Wagner: So I really enjoyed that. I thought both of them approached that song in a and I felt very lucky to be involved.

[19:04] Ben Rimalower: Well, I we were lucky to have you. And is there um was there a difference in how that was from San Diego to New York?

[19:12] Chuck Wagner: Uh was the relationship different? I mean, obviously you had a different um brother.

[19:17] Ben Rimalower: Um, no, I think it was basically the same thing.

[19:19] Chuck Wagner: Um, that was all about one-offsmanship, right? It was like, you know, we each had that fanfare.

[19:25] Ben Rimalower: But I don't dun that's our entrance, right?

[19:29] Chuck Wagner: But because ours was so close, they like overlapped and they stepped on each other and uh and so there was you know but there was never any I don't ever think there was any animosity.

[19:38] Ben Rimalower: I think it was an absolutely they these brothers loved each other and they're just you know having a great time being princes, pretty much.

[19:44] Chuck Wagner: And were you um were you standing by for Bob while you were playing Rapunzel's's Prince before he got down in the road?

[19:53] Chuck Wagner: But Bob, but he never left.

[19:55] Ben Rimalower: He never left.

[19:55] Chuck Wagner: He left one week he left, and that was the week that Dick Cabot was the narrator.

[19:59] Ben Rimalower: So there's I have a profile picture of me as the Cinderella Prince with uh fake sidebars on.

[20:05] Chuck Wagner: I love that. That was on that week that uh that uh Dick was that Bob was on vacation, and uh so I got to do it with Kim as Cinderella.

[20:15] Ben Rimalower: And uh so there's a picture of me and Kim, and then that picture of me that Dick Cavot took in the wings right before I went on.

[20:23] Chuck Wagner: And did you love that? Were you already thinking I've got I've gotta get into this this this wolf character uh you know?

[20:31] Chuck Wagner: Oh the wolf the that transition from the wolf to the prince is fast, but you've got people backstage helping you. It's not impossible.

[20:37] Chuck Wagner: And um, and because I had uh um, you know, well, uh the you know, they I had a permanent by the time I did it on the road, but every night for the Rapunzel's Prince, they curled my hair with a curling iron.

[20:50] Ben Rimalower: Wow because they got they tried to get a wig and and and James never liked any of the wigs.

[20:55] Chuck Wagner: No.

[20:56] Ben Rimalower: So they curled my hair every night before the show.

[21:00] Chuck Wagner: Amazing. So but that held in pretty well.

[21:02] Chuck Wagner: So by the time you took off the wolf thing, there's some you know, you just gotta fluff it up the best you can and go, but you got time.

[21:08] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[21:09] Chuck Wagner: Uh well, it was the 80s, right? Everybody was uh bluffing up their hair.

[21:13] Ben Rimalower: Um and then what about uh when you went out on the road? Had had you left the Broadway production before that, or did you go straight from Broadway to the tour?

[21:22] Chuck Wagner: Oh, I went from straight from Broadway to the tour.

[21:25] Ben Rimalower: And uh were you rehearsing in New York while doing the show?

[21:29] Chuck Wagner: Oh, it was nice.

[21:30] Chuck Wagner: And uh that's aga again, you know, I very few I didn't get um other than great encouragement the fact that I got the job, James was very quiet about his he was not very heaping on of the praise, right?

[21:41] Ben Rimalower: No.

[21:42] Chuck Wagner: Which is fine.

[21:44] Chuck Wagner: Well contract is better than any compliment, right?

[21:47] Chuck Wagner: Well, we're we um a guy named Dean Butler, who was the the husband on Little House on the Prairie, right?

[21:52] Ben Rimalower: Oh yeah.

[21:53] Chuck Wagner: Uh-huh. He came in to replace me in New York and uh and uh the to me the I took it as a compliment.

[22:01] Chuck Wagner: Um Doug Sills, who was uh Scarlet Pimpernell, he was my brother, he played the Rapunzel's Prince on the tour.

[22:08] Ben Rimalower: Right.

[22:08] Chuck Wagner: And uh James brought Dean to watch me and Douglas do the scenes because I think Dean had was was posing the show, right?

[22:18] Ben Rimalower: You know, he was it was very artificial what he was doing.

[22:21] Chuck Wagner: And so that fact that he brought in just he's just said watch them do it.

[22:25] Chuck Wagner: And uh because we're not, you know, it's not you don't punch a joke, you don't yeah this isn't this is funny, right?

[22:31] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you know, and uh and so so that he brought him down to watch us during rehearsal was made me feel well, I must be doing something okay.

[22:41] Ben Rimalower: Now, had you already filmed uh the the T V version at that point, or did you have to go back for it?

[22:48] Chuck Wagner: No, it I went back for it because what we did was we did that, we launched the national tour, and then we done several months, and then when we were in New Haven, that was the week that they're recording the PBS thing.

[23:04] Chuck Wagner: So so I opened the show in New Haven on Tuesday. And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, maybe even Saturday, I did the Broadway company.

[23:13] Chuck Wagner: So I had to I opened as the Cinderella Prince and then went back to do the Rapunzel's Prince.

[23:19] Ben Rimalower: Oh, it was a pretty good week.

[23:21] Chuck Wagner: That was a good reason.

[23:24] Ben Rimalower: How did you keep your uh parts straight with all that?

[23:27] Chuck Wagner: Well you just have to listen.

[23:27] Ben Rimalower: Yeah I guess you just gotta pay attention.

[23:31] Chuck Wagner: Uh I mean did you know at that time that this was going to be such an iconic video that would I mean it's like it's I say it's like a gateway drug for theater fans.

[23:42] Chuck Wagner: Well I think, well, I was thrilled with the way that the reason I think that I love the way they shot this. We did it over several nights in New York, and then I'm sure they took the best of all of it. But, uh, because you've seen the video of Sunday in the Park, right? Which is brilliant. Yeah, but it's shot with them alone in the studio. Yeah, and it's good, it's clean, it's nice, but what makes Into the Woods a great recording is that the audience is actually a character too because you can't do it without that audience response. So by being able to have that connection, then you get a better theatrical experience, I think, from the video. So yeah, well, James Lapine directed it, uh, he directed the camera, so that made a big difference, I think.

He knew, you know, how to make the experience. Well, I know that, you know, because he was very, very meticulous in the rehearsals. And then, you know, he was out in that truck. He did all the camera directing too, right? So yeah, so he did a nice job with that too. And I mean, it just seems like, um, for so many, uh, you know, I'm 46, and I think I'm probably, uh, well, but I'm probably the oldest of the people that sort of grew up on that video. Because, you know, the people that I was assisting and stuff when I first came to New York, they talked about Into the Woods kind of like, yeah, whatever. Like they cared about Follies and Company and Sweeney Todd. Oh, sure, sure, sure. But these younger people, I mean, Into the Woods is the number one, that's their Sondheim show.

That's it. I mean, it's, you know, it's for them, I think it's up there with Les Mis and Beauty and the Beast and, you know, all that stuff. I'm glad. I'm glad that that's the case. I remember when we first came out, you know, a lot of people were saying, well, you know, and you know, kids today do this, uh, when they do Into the Woods Jr., they finish it. They're happy ever after at the end of act one, and that's it. Good night, everyone. So, um, I think that's interesting. But, uh, but yeah, I think it's a great show. It is a big shift though. It is, if you're not used to it, it does all slow down in the second act. Yeah, totally. You know, but it's very smart. It's very, I love everything that it deals with, and I think that, uh, what I love about the show as opposed to the movie, in the movie, it seems like it's been from the time Cinderella gets married to the infidelity moment.

Yeah, seems like half an hour maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So if it's, but it's been a, but if it's like when you have act two and then you start a whole nother scene, it could be a year later, right? Totally. You know, so that's kind of missing. And then, and then you don't get to do the second agony. They don't kill Rapunzel's in the movie because you can't kill a Disney princess. Right. So, oh, I have a question for you about that. Um, in San Diego, I know that, um, Kay McLellan doubled as the stepsister and as Rapunzel's. Oh, she was the best. I love Kay. Yeah, I like, did she tell you she fell through the stage in San Diego? No, I ha, I reached out to her, but I haven't gotten to talk to her yet. Yeah.

We, you know, uh, in the end of Act One, and, uh, things are, you know, the blindness happens, the tears are restored, you get your eyesight, and you're about to be cursed by the witch. Nothing happens and you go. Well, in San Diego, at the end of the act, there was a trapdoor so the beanstalk could rise up through the floor. The witch curses us. We turn to go, and Kay starts to fall through the floor. Boom. Oh shit. And I'm able to catch her, but she got bruised the shit out of herself. Oh, so she didn't fall all the way down, but she could have. So all of a sudden she's like falling next to me, right? So I was able to stop her from falling. But that's because they'd opened the trap a step too early, right?

Wow. So theater can be, uh, a real adventure. Yeah, God. Um, what was, what were there differences in the Rapunzel's and Rapunzel's Prince story in that incarnation where she was played by Kay? No, I think ultimately it's the same thing. You know, it's what, uh, what again, it's the true fairy tale, right? So if she's Rapunzel's, she's Rapunzel's, right? So she goes deep into that. And, but as far as the, you know, the nature of Kay was great as Rapunzel's. And, uh, but you know, at that point they didn't have my little world or whatever, uh, you know, right, yeah. She sang, uh, tried a lot, but she didn't have a lot to do. Ah, you know, so and then, um, Kay was great, but, but Nikkei is irreplaceable as a stepsister though.

Yes, yes. Uh, although I hear that she was a very good baker's wife. I'm trying to find a lot of amazing. She's amazing, she's a, she's a real deal. She's, uh, she's a real star. Well, I won't, I won't give up on getting to talk with Kay too. Um, but, uh, it's been so good to talk to you. I, I, so wait, are you telling me that that's a hard no on coming to New York to do your show? Oh no, no, no, it's all about money. All right, well that's, that's the right answer. I'm happy to come make a, give me a reason to be there, and I'm there. All right, I'm gonna send you an offer for that. Um, and tell me what, what boat do you go on if people want to come see you there? Well, right now I'm getting ready to go on to the Carnival Miracle starting, um, on the, what's gonna be 27th, I believe, of this month.

And I just came back from the Pride. I've been, the Carnival keeps me busy all the time. I've done, this must be 27 cruises this year already. So that's fine. And how did you get started with that? Were you doing one of the Disney shows first? I, well, I had done, I had done Beauty and the Beast for a long time and things had slowed down, and so I contacted Thomas Schumacher, head of Disney, and I said, you know, I feel like I still got a lot to offer. You have any ideas, right? And he put me in touch with Jeff Lee, who was the assistant director to Julie Taymor in The Lion King, right? Yeah. And he's also in charge of, they called it, uh, Disney Ambassadors for Disney Theatrical Ambassadors, or, and then they called it Stars Set Sail.

But they have a program where I think when I started, there were sixteen of these in a year where they would bring in performers from Disney Theatrical Productions. I know Susan Egan does it a lot, uh, the, uh, genie from Aladdin a lot, you know. And, but I'm so, I'm more of a more obscure, but so they, they, he said write me a show that we can sell pitch and we'll see what we can do. And so I created the first version of the show I do now called Living the Dream where I tell my story, right? And, uh, the only caveat was it had to be 50% Disney theatrical. Yeah. And so, okay, can do that. But they had just bought Into the Woods, so that counted. Wonderful. That, that was a winner. Exactly. So I got that, I got Beauty and the Beast, so I didn't only had to add a couple things.

I added, uh, Proud of Your Boy from Aladdin for when I was in high school, uh, Her Voice for when I met my wife, and then I also did, uh, before the big beast song, I did Made of Stone from, uh, Punchback on stage. Yeah, that is a bear of a song to sing. But it was so, I did that live with Jeff Saber on the piano, you know, who was, he was a music director for Into the Woods, um, in the pit, and, uh, and fantastic. So he came with me and, uh, very, very successful. And while I was there, there was a group called ABAF, and they are an ABBA cover band run by this family whose patriarch, his name is Terry Davies, and his wife is Ann, so T A D, Terry and, and Davies have management too that does a lot of, they do local, you know, land performances, but there's a whole cruise division, right?

And so they saw me on the Disney Cruise Line and said they had, they thought they could sell an act like mine, and would I let them represent me? I said yes, I would. And so that's been now four or five years, and this has been like this past year's my most successful year. They keep me so busy. It's like another C Day. Oh man. Oh, you don't like the C Days? That's always my, I love them. Listen, I love them, but it's like, you know, after a point, it's like, it's again, it's the same food, it's the same place. It's just at sea. So yeah. It can be great. Sometimes I have a guest cabin, it's very nice. Sometimes I have a crew cabin. Yeah. Still nice, less nice. Less nice, gotcha. That's understandable.

Uh, well, uh, we will, we will have to catch up on that too then. Um, but thank you so much for talking, Chuck. This is really great to get. It's my pleasure. I again, how many, how many 35th anniversaries do you get? Yeah, well, hopefully, several. It'll be in 35, 70, 105. Just keep on going. All right. All right, have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

[32:50] Ben Rimalower: Thank you for listening to Giants in the Sky, how Sondheim and Lapine went Into the Woods on the Broadway Podcast Network. Look out for episode 16 with Lauren Mitchell, the original Lucinda.