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.

[0:06] Ben Rimalower: With me, Ben Rimalower.

[0:08] Ben Rimalower: Today's guest, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, auditioned choreographer.

[0:12] Ben Rimalower: Once upon a time.

[0:18] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I auditioned to choreograph the original production of Into the Woods, and actually choreographed the acclaimed arena stage production of Merrily We Roll Along.

[0:30] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, as well as the Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Choreography, and the Astaire Award for directing and choreographing the revival of Ragtime.

[0:43] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: One of the most sought-after directors and choreographers working today.

[0:46] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: My regional theater resume is sprawling.

[0:49] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I am also an Edgar-nominated playwright for Sherlock Holmes and the West End Horror, which I co-wrote with my husband, Anthony Dodge.

[0:58] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I launched Directing Musicals, a private studio for training early career directors and actors.

[1:20] Ben Rimalower: So what was your Sondheim, uh, you know?

[1:24] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: My introduction was a touring company of A Little Night Music in Ann Arbor when I was in school there.

[1:34] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So I was in school from '73 to '77. So I'm not sure exactly what year it was, but I know it was George Lee Andrews who was playing Frederick, and they played the Power Center in Ann Arbor, which was a new building, where I ended up getting my first chances to choreograph in that beautiful new building.

[1:56] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I remember buying the album and playing it over and over again and marveling at everything in three-quarter time.

[2:05] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I had studied piano, but I started dancing when I was three, and so musicals and movies and all that stuff was my lifeline.

[2:18] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And then when I came to New York, I moved here in '77, and the whole Sondheim stuff began in the late '80s when Ira Weitzman, who I had worked with at Playwrights Horizons, invited me to audition to choreograph Into the Woods.

[2:57] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I was like, and we had never—I didn't even know that was a thing.

[3:02] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: You know? So this was way before dance breaks and all that, you know. I used to just answer ads in Backstage, and if it said choreographer TBD, I would send my resume. That's how I did it.

[3:17] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So Ira invited me, he set up a meeting with me and James, and we had a nice conversation, and he said, "I'd like you to stage the opening number two different ways, one with excitement and two with trepidation."

[3:32] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So excited and scared.

[3:34] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Right? So I was working part-time at a dress shop on the Upper West Side. They had a great big sort of open dressing room with big mirrors.

[3:48] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And at the end of my shift, I locked the front door, went in there with my cassette player and my cassette and my friend Don who worked with me. And I started moving around to the music and trying to figure out how to stage.

[4:04] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I knew I was gonna have Little Red, Jack, the Baker, and his wife. And they were giving me those four characters. I don't think I had Jack's mother, but I had those four.

[4:18] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: What was on that cassette? Was it Sondheim singing? Or because this was before they even—no, this was after they did San Diego.

[4:28] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So was it a recording from the show? It was a recording from the show, and I had a script.

[4:34] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So when I looked at the stage directions about where the houses were set up, I inverted Little Red and the Baker was in Jack, who was in the middle, but I inverted Little Red and the Baker. I put Little Red on the other side.

[4:53] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Anyway, so I started playing, and I came up with this idea built off of patty cake for the Baker and his wife, which I thought was kind of cool.

[5:04] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And then I did a kind of Wizard of Oz step, you know, inspired traveling step for the sort of galloping feel of da da da da da da da da da ba da ba da ba da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[5:19] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So anyway, I'm dancing around this dressing room, right?

[5:22] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I worked for, I guess they gave me about a week or something, and then the day I was supposed to go to 890 Broadway, I walked into this huge studio to meet everybody.

[5:33] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And it was Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason and Kim Crosby, and then two young actors who were auditioning for Jack and Little Red, and the accompanist Paul Ford.

[5:47] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: It was like very heady and very, you know, exciting. And we worked for a few hours, took a break, and then the creative team arrived, and it was James and Steve.

[5:58] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And he said on that day, he said, "Call me Steve." And the producer set designer Heidi Landisman. And I think there might have been a couple other people there.

[6:10] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And so I presented the work, and this was so weird, you know, because I had never done this before. And then I packed up my bag and said thank you to everybody and shook hands, and I went into that big wonderful old elevator with the clanging doors.

[6:34] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And hands kind of shot in and opened it, and it was the entire cast. It was everybody, and they were very, very complimentary. And I like flew out, floated home on a—you know, like from 890 Broadway to West 73rd Street.

[6:55] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I don't even know how I got home. I just flew. So it was very exhilarating.

[7:01] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And then the next day, Ira called and said I didn't get the job.

[7:11] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So I went about my business. I went up to the Berkshire Theater Festival that summer to work on a new musical, Portrait of Jenny.

[7:21] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And Ed Lindeck was in the cast.

[7:23] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Oh, look at that. I was like Sondheim connected.

[7:26] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And then this was like late summer of '87.

[7:31] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Early summer of '86, I think it was. No, 'cause '87, '87.

[7:37] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So '87. So Ed Lindeck was not yet cast in Into the Woods.

[7:44] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Correct. Because he didn't—I don't think he did the workshop they did that summer.

[7:47] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I think he—no, but I have a workshop. So then, okay. So then I go to the Berkshires, I'm in rehearsal.

[7:53] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Uh-huh. And I don't know if you know the Berkshire Theater Festival, but in those days, you know, no cell phones, obviously. So if you got a phone call, you had to like go to the office to take the call or something.

[8:07] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So I went to the office, and it was James, and he said, "Laura may not continue with the project. Oh, we've been doing this workshop, and I want you to come down and see it."

[8:19] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I was like, so I got—I finagled either it was my day off or I finagled to get, you know, to go. I got on a bus. I came to New York, I went to the workshop.

[8:34] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: It was a presentation, so tons of—I’m sure there were a lot of luminaries there. I was just kind of focused on where's Steve, where's James? They were preoccupied.

[8:44] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I watched the run-through. Betty Buckley was the witch.

[8:52] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Wow. And I was sitting like, you know, this close to her. It was like amazing. And I kind of wandered around afterwards to try to get their attention. They were very, you know, not looking at me. So I left.

[9:07] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah. And then I went back up to the Berkshires and got a phone call. And it was Ira again. And he said, "Laura's gonna stay with the project."

[9:16] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So I called my mother. I said, "I lost—I didn't get my Broadway show twice." So you have to come to New York and take me shopping.

[9:25] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: But later that summer, I got a call to meet with the creative team at Goodspeed about Little Rascals, which Joe Raposo was writing the score for, and that was on Sondheim's recommendation.

[9:42] Ben Rimalower: Oh, lovely.

[9:43] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Well, obviously they respected you and liked you because they circled back to you.

[9:48] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Uh, yeah. You know, I had worked with Doug previously at Arena Stage. Doug Wager, who was the director. I worked with him on On the Town in 1989, and then he said to me, "I got the rights to do Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. I want you to choreograph it."

[10:08] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I was so—I, you know, and I'm sure they had to vet me through Steve, and Steve, you know, remembered me. So he was lovely to me during that time.

[10:17] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: It was a complicated—unfortunately, Doug had a fall in New York, ripped out his knees, was on codeine the whole time, and not fully there, and the cast was—the show was still kind of figuring itself out, and there were days that were just complicated.

[10:47] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: But I remember when Steve first came down, and we had a big meeting in their boardroom or something, and he looked at me and he said, "Opening doors is brilliant. Now we have to talk about all the other numbers."

[11:02] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And he was so—but he was darling about it, and he was also very collaborative. He didn't want people to just say, "Yes, Steve, whatever you say, Steve." He wanted to get into the weeds with it, you know?

[11:16] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I was excited to do that with him and felt very heard and wasn't dismissed as, "Well, she doesn't know anything, she's the new girl, she's the young choreographer," whatever.

[11:30] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I never felt that with him. And one day, I sort of seized an opportunity to give him a big idea.

[11:39] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And Doug was unwell that day, and I'm not sure he was even in the building. We were in the theater putting the show on stage, and Victor was bogged down with all these costume changes.

[11:52] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Victor Garber played Franklin Shepherd. And he just was—it seemed like it was bogging him down. And I just turned to Steve and said, "What if Vic—what if Frank never changed his clothes? What if Frank just appears in the beginning of the play and stays, and we really understand that it's his journey back in an instant, right?"

[12:16] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: In that moment of, you know, the acid in the face, the iodine and his girlfriend's face and all that stuff. And so Sondheim did this. This is like an amazing—can you see? He goes like this, puts his head down, hands in his hands, and I just—I thought it was like an hour went by, but it was probably like 15 seconds, and he lifted his head and he said, "Marcia, that's either the most brilliant idea I've ever heard or it's like when Hal said to me, 'Let's put him in T-shirts.'" But I was, you know, I was undeterred. I had spoken to Shakespeare, you know? I had told him this idea, and later I got an opportunity to direct the show for NYU with the student senior students at NYU, and the cast included—oh gosh, who was in that cast? Anyway, Noah Weisberg—no, was Noah? Yeah, Noah Weisberg was in there. Anyway, I did it, and I applied my idea.

[13:27] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Beowulf bore it was my set and costume designer. Yeah like crazy right and Alex Corey saw it and Alex ran up to me and like grabbed me and she goes you fixed it so I was like well thanks you know and then I tried to reach out to Steve to come see it and he wasn't really interested and you know I think his I think this the show you know hurt for him because it was a lot of you know there's a lot of history and his tale and but I saw the uh final pre the final performance on Broadway.

[14:06] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: The original production.

[14:07] Ben Rimalower: The original production.

[14:08] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah. Um wait, I have so many questions um okay from a blabbermouth so no I love it. I love it. Back to that into the woods workshop. I'm so curious if you remember anything else. I mean that's thrilling the idea of being you know just inches away from Betty Buckley playing the witch. What do you remember about her performance about the the whole thing, everything?

[14:30] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Her the ferocity of her performance, especially the scene with um Rapunzel um was un like unbelievable. So it was just if it broke the walls of the room. When I heard that she wasn't doing it on Broadway, I was like, why? Um but you know Bernadette's a treasure too. And yeah um honestly I that's about the only thing I remember about that run through I like Lar. I worked with him as his associate on um High Society.

[15:07] Ben Rimalower: Oh wow I didn't know that's a whole nother podcast.

[15:10] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah right but uh I mean I'm yeah well it's hard you know it's hard when you work on your own version in a dressing room at a shop two of your own versions two of my own versions yeah so but I do remember I remember the tr I mean I remember the trepidation I I can't do the choreo but I in my mind's eye I remember working with Chip and Joanna and that and that moment of them saying we've done this five times with five different people and we really really like you. Like it looked like I felt like Sally Fields, you know so yeah I thought it was I thought I had it in the bag, you know.

[15:54] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Well you can never take anything for granted. But also I mean Laura was such a different direction to go, you know. Um well he opened the door for bringing in the kind the concert dance choreographers into the Broadway vocab, you know. And some of them I think are very successful. He had a really rough time during high society.

[16:15] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:16] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: It wasn't a it wasn't a marriage made in heaven on many levels. Yeah. Um and then ultimately Wayne Celento came in and he Wayne and I went in the you know went into a studio and recore graphed the whole show in like ten days or something.

[16:31] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:31] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: But um yeah no it's uh it's Broadway's tricky.

[16:37] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:38] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: But I mean to be to be um uh passed over in favor of someone from such a different direction it it's it must have felt less you know like a rejection of w your work and you know yeah I mean I I didn't take it too personally I've been through situations since then where I'm invited to have a meeting right because they're considering the the a different direction and then I take the meeting and then I find out they're staying with the director that they were origin you know so I wonder if sometimes we're brought in to kind of galvanize their negotiations or to let them know that maybe you're not the only you know choreographer in the woods. Let's see if there's somebody else you know just I don't know.

[17:30] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I don't know. It's a kooky business, right?

[17:33] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[17:33] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I'm still here. So I use a folks on time all the time. I'm definitely still here. And he was kind to me. And he talked about me to Beverly Sills. And I got a job at New York City Opera. He talked about me to with Franny Lee that was the c conduit to the Little Rascals because Franny had designed the costumes for Sweeney Todd and was working as a producer on this Little Rascals and doing costumes. So there were all these little connections, you know.

[18:05] Ben Rimalower: What did you do at um City Opera, by the way?

[18:08] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I did The Music Man with Bob Gunton as Harold Hill.

[18:12] Ben Rimalower: Oh wonderful. With um with Into the Woods, I'm curio I'm so curious what you would have done with it. Because you you told me over email that you you wound up never directing or choreography.

[18:24] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah, I haven't production of it. Um it can you describe, I know you said you don't remember your exact you know, choreography, but can you describe sort of the what your different sort of um vision for the the movement of Into the Woods is or what?

[18:41] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I it was really I used to call myself a sort of choreographer behaviorist type choreographer. So for me it was always about what are the what are the gestures and behaviors of the character that can be expanded and illuminated through movement. And so with because it was a fairy tale, the patty cake thing came to me kind of right away. And so during the trepidatious version of of the title song, I had the baker and his wife kind of hold hands and um one wanted to go this way, one wanted to go that way, and they would do a kind of slapping. Like, yeah, we're going this, you know, it's like based on patty cake. It wasn't like they did patty cake, but it had a it had us it i it used their hands.

Um he was a baker, so he was that's what he he did and um so I just sort of built it on that with um uh the group trepidation. I gave them terrain. I gave them a ma obviously imaginary, but I gave them streams and tree tree trunks and things that they had to climb over and navigate so that there was some obstacles consistently in their way.

[20:05] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And so that's the kind of approach I took. With the with the happy version, the excited version, that's where I sort of leaned into um finding uh a step that looked very s uh unison, but each character did it in their own way, in the kind of the way that you see, you know, we're off to see the wizard.

[20:30] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[20:30] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So that it wasn't a skipping step. It was more of a it was a traveling step, sort of more like a more like a grapevine kind of thing. Which again symbolically grapevine and sort of vining and weaving and and and patterns. I like to do a lot of figure eights and things like that. So it was, you know, it was I think very theatrical. I would like to think I'd love the opportunity to work on the show sometime and see if I can apply some of those concepts. Um but uh I haven't done that many Sondheim shows between Marilee. I've done three times and uh I did a You mentioned besides Arena, you mentioned doing it at NYU.

[21:20] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Um where was the third?

[21:22] Ben Rimalower: The third was at um SUNY Buffalo. I did it with the students up there.

[21:28] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Um were they always the same version of Marilee that you had had at the arena?

[21:38] Ben Rimalower: Yes. We tried at Arena putting back in the um school anthem, you know, the hills at the tomorrow.

[21:47] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah. But it didn't work.

[21:50] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[21:51] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And then we did something at Arena. I I'm not sure if it stayed in where we started with the book with the rooftop scene.

[22:00] Ben Rimalower: Interesting.

[22:01] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: During the overture, and then it dissolved into um the Los Angeles location.

[22:12] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[22:12] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah. I've heard people talk about the arena production as being like the halfway point between the original Broadway incarnation and then I guess what was done at the York um in like ninety. And I don't know how what Eric Schaefer did with it at that con the Sondheim Festival at the Kingdom.

[22:33] Ben Rimalower: Right, yeah, in like 2002, yeah.

[22:35] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah. I mean, the big thing for me was opening doors. I just was I just had some I had David Garrison and Victor Garber and Marin Maisy and uh Becky Ann Baker, and it was just I made it like babes in arms, you know. You know, I had them uh everything was on wheeled furniture and um Ruth w I mean my ensemble was insane. I had Ruth Williamson and I had uh Tom Hewitt and Tom Cessma and Eric Devine. It was like it was, you know, David Garrison left married with children to come do this.

[23:17] Ben Rimalower: That's why he left married the children those worth it it sounds like I know and so and then we thought we were going to Broadway and and we didn't.

[23:26] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So um but so opening doors for me was like it. And then I kind of worked backwards and I tried to give each transition I tried to set up the scene that was coming with the transition that preceded it. So one of them I remember was like a singles bar. Like I had a you know like I had them doing it and that's where Steve was like, I think you're overthinking I think they're just have to come out and sing. And I you know and I I gave them like a quirky you know like tango step in one of the in the sort of big production number of the opening number. And you know but the thing that was unfortunate was just it wasn't the right environment scenically and it didn't need all those costume changes.

[24:22] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: And I was r I remember when I worked with Beowulf on it, we created um panels that were just kind of like three three sided panels and they would and the actors would just shift them during the transitions and take us to the next place. And even though it was done you know at e at school with with students, which really is a great way to tell the story, right? Because that was their always their intention. Um it we just we found some solution some strong choices that seem to make sense. And having Alex Corey just scream in my ear you got it. I was like okay I'm done with this show now.

[25:06] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Okay let's put it in the let's put it in the door but I haven't seen the new production. Lindsay was a student of mine I love her. Um and uh I don't know it would be hard it would be tough I think for me to I think they might now I I haven't seen it on Bravo yet I saw it at um New York Theater workshop but if memory serves I think they have your concept of the like single costume or at least in the two acts yeah that's what I read I read that in uh Jesse's seems I so I think the history has proven uh of the two possibilities Steve said that you were having the most brilliant idea not the worst idea not the timing was off right it just wasn't good timing.

[25:54] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: I needed to wait 20 years to come up with that. Yeah, well you and Marilee both were there. Were there other Sondheim shows that you've worked on? So far, well I've done Gypsy twice with Vicky Lewis. She is my favorite Mama Rose. Yeah, well I guess that must have been once at Sacramento Music Circus. One at Music Circus and then we did it again at Malt's Jupiter Theater in Florida. Yeah, and you know, it's just great. I know Sondheim. I've never done West Side Story. I've never done. I've done Forum a few times. Oh yeah. And my most recent one was with the beautiful Peter Scolari who sadly passed away two years ago, I think it is now. We did it at Bay Street Theater, so it was really intimate.

And I remember he and it was really crazy. I had Jackie Hoffman as Domino and Nick Marina and Laura Lee Gayer were the hero and Philia. Yeah, and oh, oh, McMillan and wife. What's his name? He was my Senex. Uh can't think of his name. John Shuck was, yeah, and I wrangled Stuart Lane. Oh yeah. I he lives there, so I said, come and play Erroneous. So my concept for Erroneous has evolved. I've done the show three times. I've done it with Gary Beach at Music Circus as Pseudolus. Yeah, I've done it with Jimmy Brennan, also at Music Circus. I'm sure also brilliant. Then I did it with, oh, I did it once before where I just choreographed it for a theater in Massachusetts a long time ago. And then I did it, my third favorite was with Peter at Bay Street.

And Stewart, so my concept for Erroneous is that it's the Seven Hills Marathon, and by the third time, rather than exhausted and about to collapse, he's sprinting. So the first time I had him come out, I had him come out the first time in like a Greek key walker. So he was like, you know, and then the second pass he was kind of, you know, jogging and had trainers on, and then the third pass at Music Circus, he had Heelys and he zipped around the whole thing and landed. It was so funny. So I said to Stuart Lane, you have to learn how to do Heelys. And so we kind of modified it for him. So we gave him a cane and then a walker and then I very much appreciate that. I thought it was really silly and fun.

Yeah, and doing, you know, I did it at Music Circus twice, and I remember Michael Schweikart was my set designer, and we're working and we're like coming up with like, you know, doors in the corners of the circle, right? There's bombs. Yeah, it's like a clock, so it's like one, five, seven, eleven are the entrances, right? And the pit is at twelve. And then Leland Ball comes by and he goes, you know, you can't have doors. This is in the round. And we're like, we're doing Forum, and he's like, yeah, you can't have doors. So we figured out a way to do, and we couldn't have a curtain either, you know, because we're not doing a proscenium. So we figured out a way to do it, and Michael was so smart.

We made these little porches. We made three porches, and the porches also had like secret doors so the proteins could like open things up and pull things out of it like a toy box. Yeah, and for the opening number, we brought out staffs. DJ Salisbury choreographed it for me at Music Circus. And we brought these giant staffs out and we planted them in the porches so that the audience could see S for Senex, E for Erroneous, and um, uh S for Senex, E for Erroneous, and what's the third one? Uh Marcus Lycus. Marcus Lycus, yeah. Um, so and then they would have this whole sort of like jousting thing going on in the opening number. It was really fun. But we did Forum without doors. Like it was hilarious.

And so when we got to the chase, yeah, Gary Beach was just such a treasure. He just would improvise and scream out things like, you know, it's the plague. Run all the way to Vacaville or something. He would be like, and then the second time I did it, we just had people kind of stop and look at each other and quote lyrics or lines from the other shows of the season. Like we just had them stop and go. They were doing Little Night Music that summer, and I had Lycus and Sudalus go, sir, sir, and then take off, you know, like so, you know, that show just lends itself to anything zany you can think of, throw it in there, you know. So yeah, I've done Forum four times. Well, I wish I'd seen Gary Beach, that would have been Gary B. Oh you know, Peter was like cerebral and small.

Gary was a true vaudevillian. But has an elegance about him that was unmatchable. Like nobody came close. He made me laugh so we did Of The I Sing at Arena Stage and he played Wintergreen. And we laughed so hard in rehearsal that I just thought, you know, it's always the curse, right? If you're laughing in rehearsal, right, then when you do it in front of the audience, not gonna be funny. Yeah, that was not true of Gary Beach. Anything he did that made you laugh was ten times funnier with an audience. Can I tell you one Gary Beach story? So you know, in Forum when Hysterium is dressed as the woman is laying on the beer, yeah, and Marcus Lycus comes in and says, first a farewell kiss, yeah, and then he's gonna go kiss her, right?

Well, in the round, I had Gary here, can you see me? Yeah, Gary on one side and Mila's here and the beer in the middle. Yeah. And Chris Carl was playing the melee and he goes, but first a farewell kiss. And Gary walked, kissed him, and then walked all the way back. And the audience on this side, yeah, saw him coming, and then you know, he planted him a big kiss, and then he went back, and the audience over there lost their mind. So it was like this 360-degree laugh. And it was unbelievable. So five years later, they invite me to come back and do the show again. Yeah. We kind of recreated it. Gary wasn't available. He was doing Producers or something. And so we asked Jimmy Brennan. And Jimmy in the scene when I was blocking it, Jimmy kept scooching over.

And I go, what are you doing? He goes, I gotta be over there for the kiss. I go, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh. You're gonna do something, and then you're gonna write Gary Beach a thank you note. And I made him do it, and he did it. And he said, Marcia, he wrote me like two days later, after the show had been running a couple of nights. He said, I have never in my life had a laugh like that. And I said, well, you better thank Gary Beach. That's amazing. That's amazing. That was like passing on time steps, you know. That was taking from genius and giving it over and allowing somebody to live in that glorious, just unabashed talent. Gary just was something.

[34:54] Ben Rimalower: Well, um, Marcia, this has been amazing. I'm so grateful for your time. I'm glad you reached out. Thank you. Yeah. This, I know people are gonna really appreciate all these, and you know, I mean, and it's so wonderful to talk about Gary Beach because, you know, what a great talent, and um, not people don't talk about him enough so I'm very happy.

[35:16] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Oh, I was so lucky. I met him doing that Of The I Sing. We did a Closer Than Ever together in California at the Pasadena Playhouse, and um, obviously we did this Forum, and then he, you know, he was in Producers and but then he moved to Palm Beach Gardens and I was at the Maltz Jupiter Theater and he went up to Andrew Cato one day and said, I want to work here. And so when I did Hello Dolly with Vicky Lewis and Gary Beach, talk about just comedy bliss, right? It was just heavenly. And Gary said, I'm thank you for Horace Vandergelder. I can now play him for the next 10 years. And sadly he didn't make it. He died like three years after that, I think it was.

[36:07] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, we miss him.

[36:10] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Well, um, I will not soon forget the story of the going and coming on the lap.

[36:19] Ben Rimalower: Oh my god, just like you when you take the time to let the moment be what it's supposed to be, yeah, the audience will stick with you. They won't get fidgety, right?

[36:31] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: No, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I take that as a lesson every day.

[36:35] Ben Rimalower: So yeah, yeah. Oh, and congratulations on your work with me with Mamie.

[36:41] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Oh, she's so great. Well, we've had so much fun. Oh my gosh. You know, she closed Ragtime.

[36:47] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes.

[36:48] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: No, wait, no, I didn't know that. I was thinking of Cats. No, I knew that she understudied Christiana. I didn't know that she had replaced.

[36:55] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[36:56] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Christy Ann had booked out that weekend for concerts. And when we got our closing notice, I said, are you gonna stay? And she said, no, I'm gonna go. And so Mamie went on.

[37:09] Ben Rimalower: Oh, I wish I'd seen her do it. I bet she is so incredible as mother.

[37:13] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Yeah, Mamie went on, and it was, she was just spectacular.

[37:18] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[37:19] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: So call me again when you want to talk about Forum or Marily.

[37:24] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, High Society.

[37:27] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Um, I hope we get to meet in person soon. But uh, great to look at you over the Zoom.

[37:33] Ben Rimalower: And I'll keep my eyes on your eyeglasses today.

[37:37] Marcia Milgrom Dodge: Thank you, Marcia. Have a great rest of your day.

[37:40] Ben Rimalower: You too. Bye again.

[37:45] 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 43 with Daniel Henning, the witch in James Lapine's blocking exercises.