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.

[0:08] Ben Rimalower: Today's guest, Jean Louisa Kelly, the original Snow White.

[0:12] Ben Rimalower: Once Upon a Time.

[0:17] Ben Rimalower: Jean Louisa Kelly originated the role of Snow White in Into the Woods on Broadway, understudying Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel. She had previously played Frederica in A Little Night Music at the Boston Public Theater, and later went on to play Amy in Company, Beth in Merrily We Roll Along, and Young Sally in Follies with the Reprise series in Los Angeles. Her other stage roles include the title roles in Annie, Gigi, and Off Broadway's The It Girl. She is best known for memorable performances in the films Top Gun: Maverick, Mr. Holland's Opus, The Fantasticks, and Uncle Buck, as well as the long-running CBS sitcom Yes, Dear.

[0:59] Ben Rimalower: When did you first become aware that there was this fairy tale musical by Sondheim and Lapine?

[1:05] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, so I just when I got the audition from my agent, um, I uh I was 14. I guess I was I was 14. And I lived in Massachusetts. Yeah and um I had gotten an agent earlier that year. I was doing um a production of A Little Night Music at um the Public Theater in Boston.

[1:14] Ben Rimalower: Were you Frederica?

[1:14] Jean Louisa Kelly: I was. I was sharing the role with my very good friend still, Jessica Walling, who now goes to my guess with Walling Stokes, and she grew up to be an actress on Broadway as well. Um, anyway, I my mother and I drove down to New York City. It's so funny. I have a um a show that I created. And like last year I performed it in New York and I tell this story through song, and it's it's really um it's really fun. So anyway, I feel like bursting into song, but it would take 15 minutes.

[2:11] Ben Rimalower: Feel free.

[2:14] Jean Louisa Kelly: So my mother and I like drove down to Massachusetts, uh drove down from Massachusetts and I auditioned, and then I think I must have gotten a call back later. And when I came down again, I sang and then I went and met with Paul Ford, who was um, you know, uh helping with musical direction. And um he I went to his apartment, which was pretty awesome. And um, I learned, you know, now I uh mother said straight, don't be uh we I know things now. Yeah, but how does it go? Mother said straight ahead. Mother said straight ahead. Don't not to delay or be misled. I should have read it, or advice it seems so nice. Anyway, I I ended up doing I was the understudy for that role.

[2:59] Ben Rimalower: So as you know, you know, you are probably a guru on this show. How many people have you interviewed?

[3:05] Jean Louisa Kelly: Oh gosh, I mean, we I have released 45 and I have several more that haven't come out yet. So I guess 50 at this point.

[3:14] Jean Louisa Kelly: My gosh, you must be so interested in this musical.

[3:18] Ben Rimalower: You must be.

[3:18] Jean Louisa Kelly: It's so funny. It's like it's not even like my favorite Sondheim show or anything like that. I just was so curious about the process with it and the San Diego production and all the workshops and then going from Broadway to the um the broadcast, and it's just become such a um iconic musical. It's such a Sondheim um gateway for so many uh younger generations, especially, and there's so many revivals and the movie, and uh I just I just wanted to know everything about how it came together.

[3:52] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[3:53] Jean Louisa Kelly: Oh wow, that's very worthy, very worthy of your interest.

[3:58] Ben Rimalower: Yes, thank you. Well, I'm I'm feeling that people are responding well to it, but I I want to know everything about your experience with it. So you were the understudy to Little Red, and this was um when they were casting the Broadway show. Was this for that summer workshop, or were you not gonna do the workshop, just go straight to the Broadway?

[4:19] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, no, I did not do the workshop. Um I came in in sometime in July and um was there for rehearsals. But I also played Snow White. I had the role of Snow White, so I did go on every night, but I understudied Little Red and Rapunzel. So I was around and you know, went to the rehearsals and um and yeah, I started my sophomore year. It was a formative time for me. I started my sophomore year of high school in New York City, went to the Professional Children's School.

[4:53] Ben Rimalower: Oh yes.

[4:54] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, with um, let's see, with Jerry O'Connell and uh Tempest Bledsoe.

[5:01] Ben Rimalower: Wow.

[5:02] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, like there were some a lot of you know, cool kids there at the time, and a lot of ballerinas. And I used to go to school on Wednesday morning, and then I would go do the matinee.

[5:16] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[5:17] Jean Louisa Kelly: And um, and I went Thursday for a full day, Friday for a full day, and then I would, you know, do all my shows, and then I would take the train home from New York City to uh Massachusetts or at, you know, a bus or whatever to Hartford and my mom would pick me up and I'd go home to Massachusetts from Sunday night, Monday, Monday night, and then take the train back on Tuesday morning in time to or Tuesday afternoon, whatever to get there in time for the show Tuesday night.

[5:48] Ben Rimalower: And where were you living in the city that half of the week?

[5:52] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um I lived it uh on Horatio Street in the village.

[5:57] Ben Rimalower: By yourself?

[5:59] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, there was uh so my parents had some friends who lived there and there was a little studio a half like literally a half a flight down from their apartment. So I was alone, but I wasn't alone. You know, like if I needed help, I had them.

[6:19] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[6:19] Jean Louisa Kelly: And I really spent a lot of time at the theater. Um, but it it was like if I think about my own kids now, yeah, who are older. They are older than that, and I wouldn't have them living in the city by themselves. Pretty, you know, it's a different time.

[6:38] Ben Rimalower: Did you take the subway to the theater every day?

[6:41] Jean Louisa Kelly: So funny. That's part of my show too. Like my mother learned how to use, she taught herself how to use the subway and taught me that time. Like we literally learned how to use the subway in the same day. Um, so uh yeah, I'd take the subway to school in the morning, and then I would walk from because a Professional Children's School is 60th street between like ninth and 10th. And I walk down Ninth Avenue to the Martin Beck Theater.

[7:10] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[7:10] Jean Louisa Kelly: Which is no longer the Martin Beck Theater.

[7:12] Ben Rimalower: Yes, the Al Hirschfeld Theater.

[7:14] Jean Louisa Kelly: And um, okay, so just for the beginning of the process for you, I mean, obviously, having done A Little Night Music, you had some awareness of Sondheim. Um were you uh like a big musical theater nerd, like as a performer, was that your kind of milieu?

[7:30] Jean Louisa Kelly: It was my milieu.

[7:32] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah. Um I was just a nerd in general. I don't know if I was a musical theater nerd. I probably didn't know as much as as some but I that was that was all the music that I knew. Like I didn't know like Journey and Led Zeppelin, like I was listening to Yeah. So um, but I did grow up with uh Sondheim in particular. I I knew most of his music already.

[8:11] Ben Rimalower: Oh wow.

[8:12] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yes, it's because my mom knew it. Um my mom is a pianist and she was a piano teacher, and she used to be my accompanist. So she would, if I had auditions, she would often accompany me at the auditions. And uh actually the way that I got my agent, because it at the time it was not normal for a person in central Massachusetts age 14 to have a a New York City agent.

[8:40] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[8:40] Jean Louisa Kelly: And the way that that happened was I she entered me into a talent competition where they had the locals in Massachusetts, and then I ended up going to the finals in the city in New York, and the agents the the judges were agents and casting directors and managers, and and so I got an agent at that time. And she was my um pianist, my accompanist when I sang for that uh performance that got me.

[9:07] Ben Rimalower: What was your song in that competition? Do you remember?

[9:10] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, it was a medley, Ben. Um it was a medley of uh a Barbara Streisand medley.

[9:18] Ben Rimalower: Oh funny girl and I'm the greatest star.

[9:22] Jean Louisa Kelly: Love it. Love it. Um yeah, I think that was what I sang. I mean, yeah, that's I'm pretty sure that's what I sang. Because I also had another really good medley. I had another good medley that I did, a New York City medley. I mean, you were very sophisticated.

[9:38] Ben Rimalower: Um okay, so uh this is a big get for you, then this Into the Woods. I mean, were you intimidated? Were you just excited and scared? I mean, what was your take going into this first rehearsal with Bernadette Peters and James Lapine and all these people?

[9:55] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, it made me feel excited. Well, excited and scared. Sorry. As soon as you said excited or scared, I had to say that.

[10:02] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[10:04] Jean Louisa Kelly: Thank you. Um, yeah, I was excited. Um, I I mean, you know, when you're young, yeah.

[10:13] Jean Louisa Kelly: It's harder to be scared. In my findings, in my experience, I mean, there are all kinds of things in my career that if they happen to be now, I would have the good sense to be terrified. That there's just no big whoop, you know? And I had already starred in Annie twice in Summerstock. I did it at Theater by the Sea in Connecticut and Candawood Playhouse, which is no longer. And um, and so, yeah, I mean, it was more, I think it was as scary, if not more scary, moving to New York City than it was to be, you know, in the arena because I was very comfortable in theatrical arenas, like those were my people. I definitely felt more comfortable around adults, adult actors than uh around my peers at the time.

[11:09] Ben Rimalower: That makes sense. And I mean, but as far as like developing a new musical, had you done that before? It would seem that your work would have been in pre-written pieces.

[11:18] Jean Louisa Kelly: Correct. I had never done that. No. So was that uh, you know, did you understand what you were getting into in terms of like new pages and all that?

[11:28] Ben Rimalower: No, but I didn't have that pressure, right?

[11:31] Jean Louisa Kelly: I understand. And had you ever understudied before?

[11:35] Jean Louisa Kelly: That was hard. That was hard. Yeah. I'll admit, I wanted to be the star.

[11:40] Ben Rimalower: Yes, of course. And I mean, did you get to go on a bunch? Was with did Danielle get out?

[11:46] Jean Louisa Kelly: I did, and actually, um, Danielle and I were friends, and we and she's awesome. And we used to after the curtain uh at the end of the show each night, she and I would literally race up the steps to the wig room to get our wigs off. We would have a like a race. She fell one night. Oh fell on the concrete steps and bruised her hip so badly she was at it for a week. And guess who went on? Having never gone on before.

[12:21] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[12:22] Jean Louisa Kelly: Wow. That was it. Very dramatic.

[12:25] Jean Louisa Kelly: It was very, very dramatic. Um, and uh, I remember just like sitting waiting while you know, whoever the medics came and they were examining her, and I'm sitting there in the wings, like a humina, humana, humina, and Bob Westenberg came over and gave me a look. Um, but she she was fine, she recovered, and I went on and um talk about being shot out of a cannon. It definitely was that's what it was like for me being shot out of a cannon.

[12:59] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah. Um, and was what was your you know, being in the rest of the company stepping into that principal role. Did you feel supported? Was there um you know what what was that dynamic like for you?

[13:14] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, yeah, I don't remember not being supported. I mean, very comfortable with everybody. That cast was like a family to me. I mean, I may not have been like family to them. They were to me, you know, like when you're a kid, uh, I think it's different, you know. It was new for me, and um, and also I was I didn't have family there with me. Yeah, I was like on my own in the city, so particularly the other understudies. Um in France, Caroline Marlowe, Terry Burrell, Michael Piantek. I mean, uh, all of those guys were my family. Yeah, Maureen Davis.

[14:00] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, so anyway, played Sleeping Beauty and was um your understudy, which doesn't really make sense to me, but that's what it says on IBDB.

[14:09] Ben Rimalower: Oh, really?

[14:10] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, that she covered you.

[14:12] Ben Rimalower: I guess that would make sense, and I guess that I could cover her if I but then uh I don't know. It's weird.

[14:18] Jean Louisa Kelly: Double duty. Yeah, she was have you spoken to her yet?

[14:22] Ben Rimalower: No, no.

[14:23] Jean Louisa Kelly: She was um she also did the um she was the double for the witch when the witch transpired.

[14:30] Ben Rimalower: Oh yes, right.

[14:32] Jean Louisa Kelly: The um the costume change and everything, yeah. So like go every night she had to put that makeup on. Yeah. So that poor thing. Um, but anyway, she uh she was my roommate and um we had a great time. We had a great time together. We would um, you know, sometimes play cards and you didn't do anything on stage until the final sequence, right?

[14:59] Jean Louisa Kelly: So I didn't have to do anything until like after intermission. I mean, I would start you know, I'd put on my wig cap and all that stuff, but I used to go into um Philip Hoffman and um Michael Piontex and Chuck uh the Wagners. Well I don't I guess they all sh they must have shared it. The three of them in there? I don't know. It was the guys' dressing room, they were never up there in the first act. So they let me use their room and I would have an exercise mat and I would do like Jane Fonda Walkman you know, in their room.

[15:36] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[15:37] Jean Louisa Kelly: You know, like that that was it was just home for me was where the theater was as much my home as my apartment, if not more.

[15:44] Ben Rimalower: Wow. Well you lots of hours.

[15:46] Jean Louisa Kelly: It was a lot of hours, you know, sitting there. And I would sit I would go into Terry and Carolyn's dressing room and just sit there sometimes and read a book while they were there because I just I must have been feeling lonely. Yeah. You know? I was little.

[16:02] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you were a kid. I mean it sounds like a wonderful experience. And so what uh how long did you stay in the show?

[16:11] Jean Louisa Kelly: I left at the end of my school year. I did not want to stay for the full year and they let me out. Yeah. I just was ready to go home. I mean, it is a long time for someone my age to be kind of on her own in the city. So they they let me out at the end of my school year. And then of course, like right after they let I left, they shot the footage the um Yeah.

[16:37] Ben Rimalower: The broadcast.

[16:39] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah. And I must have known that, but I still was like, whatever.

[16:43] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[16:44] Jean Louisa Kelly: No, you're just dumb. You just well, but you know what? You went on to do a lot of film and television. You didn't you didn't need to play um, you know, Snow White for a walk on, you know. You were you were bigger things.

[16:57] Jean Louisa Kelly: I did okay. But although interestingly, so much of the film and television that you were known for is um related to musical theater. No. And you know, and singing. I mean that it was not it's not something you left behind as you went out and did that stuff, you know.

[17:13] Jean Louisa Kelly: I've never left it behind. I still sing. I actually was just doing this uh Zoom call with somebody who was writing a book about my voice teachers who I studied with for many many years out in LA. Um, you know, anyway, I still sing and I love it.

[17:31] Ben Rimalower: Who sorry, who was your voice teacher in LA, by the way?

[17:34] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, it was Lee, Lee and Sally Sweetland, and then it was Steve Sweetland, their son.

[17:40] Ben Rimalower: Sweetlands, I love it. I want to read the book.

[17:43] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, but I mean, even not just that you sing, but that you've sung in in your in your film career. I mean, that's not um, especially more common maybe now, but you know, when I was growing up 30 years ago, 40 years ago, movie musicals were considered dead. It was not um even a thing. Um, but you were this sort of strange exception, you know, with um uh Mr. Holland's Opus, which is focused on music and you sang so beautifully in it, and then the movie of the Fantastics. Um was that I mean, was that did you have a unique uh was your agent particularly uh focused on your singing or was that just by fate that you wound up in those roles?

[18:27] Jean Louisa Kelly: That's a good question. Um I don't think that my agent was particularly focused on that. It was that Mr. Holland's Opus, well, so I had done Uncle Buck, which was yes, the classic actual classic in my child in our childhood. That was um like a ticket, you know, like a ticket anywhere at the time. And then um that was before Into the Woods, right?

[18:53] Ben Rimalower: No, no, that was after.

[18:54] Jean Louisa Kelly: Oh, was it?

[18:55] Ben Rimalower: Okay.

[18:55] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, it went I I moved I got home from Into the Woods, I spent a summer in Massachusetts, and then in the fall, my family up and moved to Maryland. Do you believe they did that to me? Um my junior year of high school.

[19:11] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, but um, but I did love Maryland, but I then I audition I got the audition for Uncle Buck that fall from um when we had just moved to Maryland. And it's funny because that character is a girl in her junior year of high school whose family moves to a new state.

[19:31] Jean Louisa Kelly: So um anyway, I did Uncle Buck and then I was like, you know what? I just I want to go to college and be a normal person.

[19:39] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[19:39] Jean Louisa Kelly: Which is the same. This is kind of how it's gone for me.

[19:42] Jean Louisa Kelly: Is like a war between like my career and then like wanting regular life.

[19:50] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[19:51] Jean Louisa Kelly: Particularly when I was well, it's still that way. I mean it's still that way because I mean I I sort of slowed things down to raise my kids too. And I'm happy about it, you know. It's been very, very rewarding for me. But I went to college, didn't major in theater or anything, majored in English, yeah, kept kept my you know fingers in the pie and you know, did I did the Fantastics at college and did a couple of musicals, did Our Town, you know, stayed on on the stage.

[20:24] Jean Louisa Kelly: And then the audition for Mr. Holland's Opus came in right after graduation, and the reason that I think that went so well for me is I was not there for they had somebody already for that role.

[20:38] Ben Rimalower: Oh wow.

[20:39] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, and I was a replacement. So she had to I never even auditioned for it originally, and she had to she had a conflict and she left early to do another movie, whatever. They had already even shot a couple of little things, and I got this audition to come in and sing "Someone to Watch Over Me" and do a you know a few lines, which I did, and then they flew me out to meet with Richard Dreyfuss and um along with a few other girls, and he was you know, I met him on the set. We had the audition, you know, in a trailer and then I was out shooting within a couple of weeks yeah so they needed somebody yeah you know and actually the girl it was it was um well I won't say who it was but she didn't sing like she's she's not a singer so they this is one of the con the questions that I always get like through like my website and everything like how come you're not on the album for the sound effect they had somebody else who she was like lip syncing and so my voice when they realized that I could sing they just had me you know of course sing it but um she wasn't a singer so they had somebody else for that so that's it's not like it just sort of found me and then because I had done that I think that I was a natural for to audition for The Fantasticks.

[22:08] Ben Rimalower: Yeah and I do think those two casting directors worked together Sharon Bialli and Rick Rick Pagano I think that they had both um worked together at some point so you know that's how it happens when you're young.

[22:23] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yes yes well we're glad that it did but so and then as someone who has become a mother and had children has that changed your appreciation of Into the Woods from being an actual kid in the show yes actually um my daughter's middle school did Into the Woods wow and she played um Florinda.

[22:48] Ben Rimalower: I love it.

[22:49] Jean Louisa Kelly: And she was fantastic um and I went in and helped a little, you know another was like they're all like, oh, Mrs. Pataro's here again. Why she thinks that she knows anything. You know, it was whatever, but um, I had a couple of little things, little tidbits.

[23:10] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, it might help if you did this.

[23:12] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, yeah. It was fun. It it's fun. And and actually my daughter has been involved in theater. Um, so it's been kind of fun to to watch her take that journey, but it's her journey.

[23:24] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you know, it's very different from mine.

[23:26] Jean Louisa Kelly: That's one thing you learn.

[23:28] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[23:29] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, there you go. Children will um listen.

[23:33] Ben Rimalower: They won't listen, yeah.

[23:34] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, no matter what you do. But um, and have you um you haven't done any other productions of the show over the years though.

[23:41] Jean Louisa Kelly: No, I haven't.

[23:43] Ben Rimalower: I would love to.

[23:44] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, you still listen, there's got you got lots of Into the Woods uh left to do. Um, and there's no shortage of productions. Have you seen any of the other productions?

[23:54] Jean Louisa Kelly: I did. I saw one of them the revival w when it came to LA. Um Vanessa Williams and that one.

[24:03] Ben Rimalower: I think it was Vanessa Williams.

[24:06] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yes, I think it was.

[24:14] Ben Rimalower: Oh, that's sweet.

[24:15] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, which I loved, actually. I loved the movie. You know, it's just such a great show.

[24:22] Jean Louisa Kelly: It's so there's so many layers of meaning.

[24:25] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, that it's really the man was brilliant.

[24:29] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, truly, truly. I mean, and uh the legacy just lives on because we I think we see the layers, we see different layers at different times in our life and you know, different contexts of what's going on in the world and you know, all that.

[24:45] Ben Rimalower: Um well, um, that's so interesting. Is there any other um specific memories, just even random things that stuck with you over the years that you know might I might want to hear?

[24:58] Jean Louisa Kelly: Hmm. We did during previews uh there were a couple of songs about the midnight, you know.

[25:16] Ben Rimalower: Um Oh yeah, second midnight, the the epic nine minute uh extravaganza.

[25:23] Jean Louisa Kelly: And then they cut it.

[25:24] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[25:25] Jean Louisa Kelly: And then we all got t shirts, second midnight gone.

[25:30] Ben Rimalower: You have that shirt still.

[25:31] Jean Louisa Kelly: I have it, I have it.

[25:33] Ben Rimalower: Oh, please send me a picture of that shirt.

[25:35] Jean Louisa Kelly: I I must see it.

[25:37] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I think it's out. I think it's out west. Next time I'm out there, I'll find it.

[25:42] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, that that chestnut needs to have a a rebirth.

[25:45] Ben Rimalower: Um that's too funny.

[25:46] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, yeah, I think someone else told me that that Tom Aldridge had those shirts made. Does that ring a bell?

[25:52] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I didn't I actually didn't remember that he did that, but um it's funny.

[25:57] Jean Louisa Kelly: I did a movie with Tom years later where he played another crotchety old man.

[26:03] Ben Rimalower: Yes, that's staple.

[26:07] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um, yeah, I'm sad he's gone and um uh, you know, that I didn't get to talk to him or Barbara Brynn.

[26:16] Ben Rimalower: Um but uh but those performances are definitely iconic.

[26:20] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um I know this that's the thing, all of the people in that show, really, it was just like top nice.

[26:30] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[26:31] Jean Louisa Kelly: Well, including you, just buried right right, just the little droplet of you.

[26:36] Ben Rimalower: We didn't even know.

[26:37] Jean Louisa Kelly: Um yeah, well, thank you so much for talking with me. I really appreciate it. This would be great to have.

[26:41] Ben Rimalower: Um I can see you.

[26:45] Jean Louisa Kelly: I haven't seen you at all. The entire the entire I just put my glasses on.

[26:49] Ben Rimalower: It's not much.

[26:50] Jean Louisa Kelly: It's a little bit more.

[26:53] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, I get it.

[26:54] Jean Louisa Kelly: I get it. Those are cute glasses though.

[26:56] Ben Rimalower: Um I have to tell you, off off the um topic of Into the Woods, but um my day job is I'm the programming director at the Green Room 42. I don't know if you're familiar with that cabaret room in Manhattan.

[27:08] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah.

[27:09] Ben Rimalower: So I don't know if you I think you said you had done the show, which but I'm sad I missed it.

[27:13] Jean Louisa Kelly: Where did you do it at Fitz4 Below?

[27:15] Ben Rimalower: Um, no, I did it at Beachman.

[27:17] Jean Louisa Kelly: Oh, the Beachman.

[27:18] Ben Rimalower: Well, we're much better than the Beatrice.

[27:20] Jean Louisa Kelly: You guys are bigger.

[27:21] Ben Rimalower: I love I love your room. I actually went to see um what's his name? I love him.

[27:25] Jean Louisa Kelly: He's so funny.

[27:27] Ben Rimalower: Uh with with Jerry uh Sternbach, Jason Gro Gras.

[27:32] Jean Louisa Kelly: Oh, yes, he was one of the first shows I booked when I got the job last year.

[27:36] Ben Rimalower: He's amazing.

[27:38] Jean Louisa Kelly: He is the best.

[27:39] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, he's really special.

[27:41] Jean Louisa Kelly: Yeah, he really is. What an entertainer, yeah.

[27:44] Ben Rimalower: Is such an entertainer.

[27:45] Jean Louisa Kelly: So I went in because I've worked with Jerry numerous times. I did a bunch of shows out in um in LA for reprise.

[27:53] Ben Rimalower: No, sure, yeah.

[27:55] Jean Louisa Kelly: Company. I played Amy, and we did applause. I did um, you know, the one um Pippin.

[28:03] Ben Rimalower: Oh, yeah.

[28:04] Jean Louisa Kelly: So many shows for them, and he he musical directed and oh, I didn't realize that.

[28:09] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, he's he's helped uh me a lot.

[28:13] Jean Louisa Kelly: And I actually did a demo of one of his musicals and he was musical director when I put up a couple I did some stuff from my kids school out there and he helped so anyway I love that guy so I I went in to s to say hi to him and and I just love Jason who I've I've done benefits with before I figured yeah you LA musical theater people are a very uh tight tight crew um well listen I mean if there's anything you ever want to do the sh the show you did I mean I want to see that show I want to hear the Into the Woods story but but any anything you want to do if you want to direct something a benefit and anything you want to do we would roll out the red carpet I'd be so happy to have you so please please hit me up okay thank you very much I will definitely keep that in mind I'm I'm probably gonna do my show out here for the playhouse they're trying to open a little I'm in Westport and they're um they're doing like a little space that they want to open up to cabarets so that's a good idea yeah so I'm gonna do it out here again but it's so much work.

[29:14] Ben Rimalower: I know well that's why you should do it in several places so you get you get more you know fun on stage and people buying tickets and clapping for you than just one rehearsal process you know great great that's true.

[29:28] Jean Louisa Kelly: All right well I will definitely keep that in mind and and likewise if I can ever be of assistance to you please call me you know because I'm here I come into the city I we have a place in the city you know so amazing I'm glad to know that I mean you know I don't I we mo I mostly just program the shows I don't I don't have anything to do with too many of them, but I but I would be I would be delighted and thrilled if there was ever a thing to do with you.

[29:50] Ben Rimalower: So we'll keep in touch.

[29:52] Jean Louisa Kelly: Okay, great.

[29:53] Ben Rimalower: All right. Well, thank you so much, Jean.

[29:55] Jean Louisa Kelly: Thank you.

[29:56] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you too. Have a great rest of your day and winter and everything.

[30:00] Jean Louisa Kelly: Okay, you too. Goodbye.

[30:02] Ben Rimalower: Bye.

[30:07] 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 49 with RJ Cutler, assistant to the director on Broadway and in the final workshop.