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[0:14] Sarah Goodman: Hello and welcome back to Good Show. This is Sarah Goodman. I am here with a really exciting episode today. I got to attend the press event for the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT, a new Off-Broadway musical opening at the Orpheum Theatre, starting previews February 14th. This show is gonna be incredible, you guys. I got to see two sneak peek performances at this press event. They were both fantastic. And then I got to interview all the cast and creatives, and that is coming up in this episode. I have to say that I have a special place in my heart for JONATHAN Larson because I am also the editor and producer of one of our Broadway Podcast Network original podcasts. It's called Singular Sensation, and it's based on the best-selling book by Michael Riedel about Broadway in the 1990s. And we did an eight-episode deep dive on the creation of Rent and the life of JONATHAN Larson.

And so I just have been working on that project in the last year in 2024, and it's really exciting and special to be able to get to see this new show soon, which is gonna be so exciting. It's got 20 plus new songs of JONATHAN Larson's work that have never been heard before. The creator, Jennifer Ashley Tepper, who also is my coworker at 54 Below. She is the director of programming there and has been there quite a long time. Jennifer went to the Library of Congress over the last 10 years and uncovered these unknown songs and material by JONATHAN Larson. She's put in a ton of work and passion and love to this project, and I hope you all check it out. But in the meantime, check out my interviews with the cast and creatives of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT coming up right now.

[2:04] Adam Chanler-Berat: Hi.

[2:05] Sarah Goodman: Hi.

[2:05] Adam Chanler-Berat: I'm Adam Chanler-Berat, and I am in the cast of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[2:10] Sarah Goodman: Yes, and we just saw some really exciting preview performances of the show.

[2:15] Adam Chanler-Berat: The first, our very first audience, actually.

[2:18] Sarah Goodman: That is so exciting. How does it feel to be bringing this sort of unknown JONATHAN Larson music to a new generation?

[2:26] Adam Chanler-Berat: It feels really special. I grew up with JONATHAN's music. His music is like a really big part of why I fell in love with musical theater. Why I have a career right now. My very first job was Next to Normal, which was directed by Michael Greif, who directed Rent. So I just feel like JONATHAN's legacy is such a huge part of the fabric of my life, and it feels like a real honor to be able to sort of continue that after his death and to share all of this incredible music that he wrote that people haven't experienced yet.

[3:02] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. How did you discover JONATHAN Larson? How did he come into your life? You said you grew up on his music.

[3:07] Adam Chanler-Berat: I definitely saw the show several times.

[3:10] Sarah Goodman: Friends?

[3:11] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes. And I remember very distinctly having bought the album. I think it might have been the very first album I bought, and I listened to it on my like pizza box Mac computer.

[3:22] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[3:22] Adam Chanler-Berat: Which, for you young folks, have no idea what that means, but I remember.

[3:26] Sarah Goodman: I remember the exact Mac he's talking about.

[3:29] Adam Chanler-Berat: Okay. Look it up. Older Millennial in the House.

[3:32] Sarah Goodman: Hello.

[3:32] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[3:34] Adam Chanler-Berat: What's your favorite, um, like OG Jonathan LARSON song?

[3:39] Adam Chanler-Berat: Uh, I feel like, uh, It's Without You. I love that song so much.

[3:44] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[3:44] Adam Chanler-Berat: Rent is really my touchstone. Tick, Tick... Boom! came much, much later. Yeah, I think for me it's Without You, but I could, it's like, you know, any day, a different day, a different song.

[3:56] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing some time. Can't wait to see the show.

[4:00] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thanks.

[4:00] Sarah Goodman: Can't wait to have you.

[4:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thank you.

[4:02] John Simpkins: So I'm John Simpkins, and I'm the director of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[4:06] Sarah Goodman: John, thank you so much for talking with me today. Tell me what it's meant to you to bring this project, brand new JONATHAN Larson work to a new generation of people.

[4:15] John Simpkins: The honor of a lifetime. It is. It sounds cliche, but it feels like to me, I get the privilege of teaching college students when I'm not directing professionally. And it's such an awesome responsibility. And so to get to take part in somebody who's such a legend in our business, but to actually be a part of trying to infuse contemporary meaning and stories and themes into this work that the next generation I think feels JONATHAN Larson as a figurehead.

[4:45] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[4:45] John Simpkins: But I think Rent is sometimes even a period piece to this young generation now. It's been that many years. So they have Tick, Tick... Boom! as a jump off, oddly. Not oddly, but they have that because it's a little more recent in the world.

[4:57] Sarah Goodman: Right, it's a little bit more relevant.

[4:59] John Simpkins: Time frame wise. Sure. And I think they can feel that story relevant to them. And now we get a chance to actually take all these songs from forever, you know, 30 years ago, and see if we can connect them to a contemporary landscape. And for young people, JONATHAN was all about young people.

[5:14] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[5:14] John Simpkins: It felt like that was one of the groups of people that he was trying to amplify and trying to actually allow stories of who they are authentically into the theater in ways that other people were trying. And he just kicked a door down and said, These are people that you don't necessarily always see in musicals.

[5:29] Sarah Goodman: That's right.

[5:30] John Simpkins: So for young musical theater artists to see through this piece that that's still alive and well in the current musical theater, I hope it tells them to stay true to themselves and be the authentic, sometimes messy, sometimes awesome, you know, people that they are.

[5:44] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, speaking on that, JONATHAN Larson's work has always really had like a lot of representation in it, different races, different sexual identities. How does that play into this show?

[5:52] John Simpkins: I feel like he's welcomed everybody. And he was doing it decades before lots of people were doing it.

[5:59] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[6:00] John Simpkins: Um, I think it's a message now that I hope people hear louder than he was able to have it be heard in his lifetime. Rent, of course, but I wish so much that he could have seen the impact that he had on people who are like you said, who are people who don't often show up in musicals. And so, even my own experience, I'm a gay man from Ohio, and I saw Rent and I felt like it was talking right to me.

[6:25] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[6:25] John Simpkins: Um, it was the first time that I ever felt like somebody was speaking through that kind of music right to me. And I think that's what binds all of us to JONATHAN so much in maybe in my age bracket.

[6:35] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, and I'm so excited for younger generations to be able to see and experience and feel what I did, which is there's a place for you in the theater, there's a place for you in the world.

[6:44] John Simpkins: Yeah, there's a place for you to be exactly who you are.

[6:47] Sarah Goodman: That's wonderful.

[6:49] Sarah Goodman: I feel the same way. I'm a lesbian. I grew up listening to Rent since I was a little girl before I even knew I was gay. I felt like as I was growing up gay in Ohio, which was not the easiest thing to do in the 70s and 80s earlier, it was just a little bit tricky for me to do that. And then I see Rent, and I feel like it wasn't just the funny gay man who was sort of in act two of the musicals singing a great song. I love those characters, of course. But this was a group of people that I felt like, oh, that's not my story necessarily, but that piece of that story is something I can grab onto in a way that musical theater had never let me do before.

[7:25] John Simpkins: And so it was almost like a port in the storm a little bit.

[7:29] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[7:30] John Simpkins: And like everybody, you know, I bought the merch and I still to this day have that Rent book that everybody bought. And you know, I read it before we started this process just because it feels not only nostalgic, but it feels like a place in his world that I could plug into before we start all this feast.

[7:46] Sarah Goodman: Yes, yeah. Moment in time. When did you first discover JONATHAN Larson living in Ohio? Like how did this happen for you? Or were you already in New York and the first time?

[7:52] John Simpkins: I actually had just, I was about to move six months later to New York, but it was 1997, I think. And I had come here and by chance just scored a single ticket to Rent.

[8:03] Sarah Goodman: So is that the Nederlander?

[8:04] John Simpkins: And you would walk in and go down that long hallway and you'd walk in. And I remember, like it was yesterday that the playbills were not handed to you. They were folded, at least in that night.

[8:10] Sarah Goodman: Oh, like over the seats.

[8:12] John Simpkins: They were folded over the seats. And I kept thinking, I can't believe I paid whatever, $70 or $60 for this ticket. And I'm like, I have to like retrieve my own. Like where's my usher? And I don't know where my seat is. And I just because I was from Ohio. What do I know about going into a Broadway show? And I remember that the lights went down and I looked to my right and left and I saw people at profile. It was early in the run. So I saw like, oh my gosh, there's all these stars here. This must be really good. But I didn't have any context.

[8:41] Sarah Goodman: You just went in like, here's a show.

[8:42] John Simpkins: I mean, it's like somebody recommended that I see this show called Rent. And I was like, Well, it's on 41st Street, and I'm a little scared of 41st Street and do you know what I mean?

[8:49] Sarah Goodman: It had to be a little bit more sketchy then, yeah.

[8:50] John Simpkins: Right. And so I, about 10 minutes into the musical, like everybody, I felt like I was the only person in the audience.

[8:55] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[8:56] John Simpkins: And that it was talking right to me. And I went home and like everyone bought the two CD.

[9:00] Sarah Goodman: I love that.

[9:01] John Simpkins: Still have mine, still the two CD set.

[9:03] Sarah Goodman: Absolutely, still have mine.

[9:03] John Simpkins: And then as you get a chance to meet your heroes, yeah, Anthony Rapp, and you get to meet your heroes from that show and kind of just hear a little bit about their journey in it. And now to be able to have the privilege of this kind of journey where I get a chance to participate in the storytelling of this incredible legacy of JONATHAN is we're so lucky every day.

[9:27] Sarah Goodman: Oh yeah. I want them to walk away with the world is not as bad as it may seem. And we'll dig into all of those things in the piece. It's about loss and it's about love and it's about disappointment, career disappointment, personal disappointment.

[9:41] John Simpkins: Yeah.

[9:42] John Simpkins: However, it's also about staying true to your beliefs and true to your goals. Several moments in the show where if you are not still with your optimism in some way, then you can't play in that world. And so I'd love to convey through our show that there is a way through whatever the mess is that you're in right now, and that part of this can be about you being true to yourself and finding your community.

[10:08] John Simpkins: There's a terrific song late in the piece that basically gives a blueprint for how love can be step one toward whatever you desire, whether that be career success or whether that be community, which JONATHAN writes about in all ways.

[10:23] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[10:23] John Simpkins: But I think even through the tragedy of his life and career being cut so short, that sits with us all night long. You can't not honor him, and you can't not also think about wishing that he would have had more time on the earth.

[10:40] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, as a human, as an artist. What would musical theater look like?

[10:43] John Simpkins: Oh my gosh, if he had stuck around to write more?

[10:45] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, would he have been able to write?

[10:47] John Simpkins: It would have been great. But I think ultimately the show's message is that, like the title says, it's a project, right? And so our hope is that we can present this stuff so that people can take it and then go present it somewhere else themselves so that his legacy and what he thought and what he wrote about can still live on in generations to come.

[11:05] Sarah Goodman: That's so cool, and it's so special that we're getting to get a chance to hear and see this material that might have been forgotten otherwise, just sitting in the library for decades, right?

[11:15] John Simpkins: You know, sometimes the artist community can get a little bit jaded.

[11:18] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[11:19] John Simpkins: I hope that this show, when people come and see it, I hope they will give over to it and allow the kind of the messages in it to resonate with their own life about hope and optimism and about actually changing the world, whatever that means to each person that sees it.

[11:32] Sarah Goodman: That you still can do it.

[11:33] John Simpkins: Yeah, we really need that right now, more than anything, for sure.

[11:35] Sarah Goodman: For sure. So thank you so much for it.

[11:37] John Simpkins: My pleasure.

[11:37] Sarah Goodman: It's so nice to meet you.

[11:39] John Simpkins: My pleasure.

[11:39] Sarah Goodman: Thank you.

[11:40] Cynthia Meng: My name is Cynthia Meng, and I am the music director of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[11:44] Sarah Goodman: Woo! How exciting! And you just played a few songs for us to preview. They were really amazing. I'm so thrilled to see the show.

[11:51] Cynthia Meng: Yes.

[11:52] Sarah Goodman: I would love to know what it's been like for you to work on this project and bring new music from JONATHAN Larson to a whole new generation.

[11:59] Cynthia Meng: It's been so beautiful. I think that like something that our Jen, who conceived the show, and she's been in the room with us the whole time. Something that she does, which I really love is that she asks everyone like what their connection to JONATHAN Larson was or their first, you know, exposure to it is.

[12:15] Sarah Goodman: That's one of my questions as well. So throw it in.

[12:17] Cynthia Meng: Well, no, I mean, I'm like kind of boring. I watched the Rent movie when I was a kid, and that got me, you know, into the musical and all of that.

[12:25] Sarah Goodman: And then that leads the same road.

[12:27] Cynthia Meng: Yeah, yeah. It's great. And but like you truly, it's amazing to see what kind of effect he's had on everybody.

[12:32] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[12:33] Cynthia Meng: And like the kind of, you know, deep, meaningful experiences people have with his music in any way. And that's what has it informed a lot of the choices that get made and like musical choices and dramaturgical choices, also.

[12:44] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[12:44] Cynthia Meng: Um, so it's been great.

[12:46] Sarah Goodman: Tell me about the band orchestration a little bit.

[12:48] Cynthia Meng: So the band is on stage, it's a huge part of the show, very similar to Rent. The band was up there, it was like really exciting.

[12:52] Sarah Goodman: How many pieces? What's going on?

[12:55] Cynthia Meng: Okay. So we actually have the original Rent orchestration in the sense of cool. It's a piano and then a guitar, bass, and drums, and then we have a fifth musician who plays both guitar and keyboard.

[13:08] Sarah Goodman: Cool.

[13:09] Cynthia Meng: So you have sometimes for like the heavier rock songs, you want two guitars because it's very idiomatic to the genre. And then sometimes you need like a little bit of extra synth material as well, and that person fills that gap.

[13:22] Sarah Goodman: Cool. Have you started working with the band yet?

[13:23] Cynthia Meng: Nope.

[13:24] Sarah Goodman: Next week, too.

[13:25] Cynthia Meng: Oh, exciting.

[13:26] Sarah Goodman: That's fun.

[13:27] Cynthia Meng: That's really fun. What's been your favorite song on this show to work on?

[13:30] Cynthia Meng: Okay. Wow, there's so many. But I will talk about one, which I really love, and it's a song called Rhapsody. And it's actually a solo piano number with vocals.

[13:41] Cynthia Meng: So it's just two people. And it is literally, it's not like anything I've ever heard from JONATHAN Larson. I was very surprised he wrote it. And but it's like a sort of, it's like free form monologue almost, eh? It just feels so collaborative in every spirit of it.

[14:00] Cynthia Meng: And it's talking about this feeling of kind of being a little bit like jaded with, you know, the hustle.

[14:06] Sarah Goodman: Which is something that I'd be like relatable.

[14:08] Cynthia Meng: Any artist or person working on the freelance feels like, right?

[14:10] Sarah Goodman: But we all definitely know.

[14:12] Cynthia Meng: And like that just, it just feels like when Adam is the one who sings it, and he and I, we just have to parlay with each other musically in a way that is so dynamic.

[14:25] Cynthia Meng: You know, and it's like that's the thing that we love about theater. It's dynamic. It's in the moment. Things that happen in the moment happen, and then they go and they're released to the world. And like while it's just something that you get very, very specially in theater.

[14:42] Taylor Iman Jones: Yeah, and you mentioned before we saw our little preview that like live theater in particular is just so special. And I really agree with that. Like you cannot recreate those individual moments night by night, show by show. It's always a little different. I love that breathing room that you get. And it's like those little differences from night to night, the energy that you get by inhabiting the same space, like whether you're an audience member or you're a performer, like you're there with them. That's like what makes live performance great. And like that's always I love all forms of media, movies, you know, recording albums and stuff. But it's like that's why this one is also very special in its own way. And what's good about it. What do you want audiences to walk away with after they've seen this show?

[15:26] Taylor Iman Jones: I think I just want them to feel like they've had a very cathartic, interesting evening filled with bops. I don't know, you know, I just for me, I am always drawn to the music of a show. I think it really affects how I experience things, and I think that musically the show is very strong, it's got some really interesting twists and turns. Yeah. And I also feel like there's a great through line, you know, to see a composer that we see a very in a way we've seen a very small subset of his work. Because he passed so early. And you know, two of his things really did make it big, one of them in particular, but the stuff that didn't, it's, you know, the only reason it didn't, most likely is just because of the early passing.

[16:14] Taylor Iman Jones: Right. So it's nice to be able to see the breadth of the kinds of work that JONATHAN Larson wrote.

[16:21] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, that's so wonderful. Thanks so much for seeing. Nice to meet you. My name is Taylor Iman Jones.

[16:25] Sarah Goodman: Yay, Taylor! Oh my god, so exciting to talk to you. Big fan of yours, saw you in the Lonely Few. You're amazing. So so good. So speaking of the Lonely Few, I'm gonna jump right into a question about JONATHAN Larson and like queer representation.

[16:40] Taylor Iman Jones: Yeah.

[16:40] Sarah Goodman: And representation in general, because I feel like he's a composer that brought a lot of new voices to Broadway with Rent that we've never seen before. What does that mean to you and how does it play into this show?

[16:50] Taylor Iman Jones: Oh my gosh, it means so much. Immediately out of the gate, JONATHAN Larson was creating safe spaces for people to exist, for people to heal, for people to love themselves, each other. Um, and this show is no different. And so I'm really excited and I feel really special to continue that legacy of his, you know. Um, and for anyone who gets to see it, sees themselves in this show.

[17:12] Sarah Goodman: Oh, I love that so much. When did you discover JONATHAN Larson? When did that come into your life?

[17:17] Taylor Iman Jones: Yes, I was 11 years old. Yeah. And I was doing a youth musical theater performing company type deal around my house, you know.

[17:25] Sarah Goodman: Cool.

[17:26] Taylor Iman Jones: Um, and part of our troop, one of the numbers that we performed was Steve You've Loved. Uh and so that was the first song I heard. I ran to my mom to be like, that was some of the songs we were doing, not knowing anything about it.

[17:36] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[17:37] Taylor Iman Jones: And she happened to have the two-disc CD at home already.

[17:40] Sarah Goodman: Love it. I have that two-disc CD set.

[17:42] Taylor Iman Jones: The orange, yes. Um, and so I like burnt those to a crisp just listening to them over and over and over again.

[17:47] Sarah Goodman: Absolutely. I love that so much. What are you hoping that audiences will take away from this show?

[17:52] Taylor Iman Jones: I hope they leave first of all, even more impressed by JONATHAN Larson than they were before. But ultimately, I hope they feel loved. I hope they feel capable of loving. I hope they feel capable of change and hope and that they see light on the horizon.

[18:07] Taylor Iman Jones: Yeah, no matter how they come into the theater that day.

[18:10] Sarah Goodman: Oh, that's wonderful. We really do need the light right now, right? It's kind of like, where is it? What's going on out there?

[18:17] Taylor Iman Jones: If you could say something to JONATHAN Larson about this show, what would you say?

[18:22] Taylor Iman Jones: I hope you're proud. I think you would be proud. You know, we consider him a lot every day in this room with every choice we make. But I think the one thing we can all agree on is that he would be proud of this show.

[18:34] Taylor Iman Jones: So yeah, I think I just I hope that he knows that we're bringing him to a thousand more ears and eyes.

[18:42] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, people. Do you have a favorite song in the show?

[18:44] Taylor Iman Jones: Hi. Uh, you know, I feel like it changes every day. I think right now Love Heals is one of the songs in our show, and I get to sing a lot of it. So selfishly, maybe biasedly, it's one of my favorites, but it also is just one of the best messages, I think, in our show.

[19:00] Sarah Goodman: That's a great note to end on. Thank you so much for joining us today. Excited to see the show.

[19:05] Lauren Marcus: I'm Lauren Marcus. This is a take two. Can you tell? Anyway, we're very excited to be here talking to you, Lauren Marcus. Thank you. Um, about the JONATHAN Larson project. It currently feels like everything to me because uh it's not often that I feel like as a performer, you're handed a score that is so extraordinary.

[19:25] Lauren Marcus: Yeah, and also one that it feels like comes with the reputation like it's gonna be good.

[19:31] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[19:31] Lauren Marcus: Yeah, he wrote so many good songs. It's ridiculous. And so many more than I think anybody even knew in so many different styles, genres. So I feel I feel very lucky. When did Rent or JONATHAN Larson's music like first come into your life? Were you a rent head growing up? What was it like?

[19:43] Lauren Marcus: No. So in okay, in sixth grade, everybody who didn't do theater started singing this thing called rent. And I got really annoyed. Because I was like, you guys don't you know other musicals? Don't you know she loves me? That's one I keep saying. Don't you know she's like, like, don't you know she loves me? Get out of here. And so I was so annoyed by it. And then in high school, I listened to it and I was like, oh no, oh, I get it. The hype is worth it.

[20:10] Lauren Marcus: So I feel like I'm definitely late on the train because like everybody else in the cast knows every single word, every pause. Like the way I think I know like the little shop original cast album, like that was my jam.

[20:20] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, yeah.

[20:20] Lauren Marcus: Um, so I was late on the train and then heavily on board once I was a little older.

[20:24] Sarah Goodman: I love it. That's great. What's your favorite song in the show?

[20:28] Lauren Marcus: It changes every single day.

[20:30] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[20:30] Lauren Marcus: Today it's Rhapsody.

[20:31] Sarah Goodman: Um, that was Cynthia's favorite.

[20:33] Lauren Marcus: Adam sings.

[20:34] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[20:34] Lauren Marcus: It's stunningly beautiful.

[20:36] Sarah Goodman: Oh amazing.

[20:37] Lauren Marcus: Yeah, it's so incredible. Like how many different genres, how many styles, like the breadth of JONATHAN's vocabulary musically, is really incredible.

[20:45] Lauren Marcus: It's it's wild. I I feel like I'm also like very very fortunate. I think I get two of the different genres you might not be expecting in two of my solo numbers. So it's really it's exciting. And I've also been thinking about this because also I think when I was growing up and listening to Rent, I was like, I don't know if there's a place for me in that show. Like I I am so in awe of the people who have the rock voices, and like that's not a hundred percent me. I'm not I'm not gonna lie.

[21:12] Lauren Marcus: And then what's been wild and uncovering more things that he's written, like the songs I'm singing like he he like he wrote for Ace Soprano.

[21:20] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, it's unexpected.

[21:21] Lauren Marcus: It's like unexpected at every turn.

[21:23] Sarah Goodman: What do you want us audiences to walk away with after they see this show?

[21:26] Lauren Marcus: Oh, that's a great question. I guess I obviously want audiences to walk away and feel um empowered in regards to our political climate because it is it is wild some of the stuff he wrote that the relevant today.

[21:42] Lauren Marcus: Like it's really crazy. Yeah, not gonna spoil anything, but it's like, oh wow, wow, wow, wow. And I also just hope people walk away with a greater sense of him as a writer. Because I mean, Rent's absolutely perfect, but he did he did so much other stuff too, and it yeah, so much more than that. He's more of a genius than you think. And like he deserves people to know that.

[22:03] Sarah Goodman: Oh, I love that. Okay, what would you say to him if you could tell him something about this show?

[22:08] Lauren Marcus: Wow, that's we can we're getting a little for Clemt. I would tell him thank you.

[22:13] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, that's beautiful.

[22:15] Lauren Marcus: Oh, thank you so much for sharing this. I did not expect to throw you that one and you so hard.

[22:21] Sarah Goodman: No, but that's really a beautiful moment. And I think that just shows like how incredibly meaningful this work is, how incredibly meaningful someone who has been gone from this planet for decades is still like impacting us all on such a deep, deep level.

[22:34] Lauren Marcus: It's he cared so much about being an artist too, and that shines in this show. It's it's yeah, very moving.

[22:40] Sarah Goodman: So I love it. We're all gonna be moved to tears, I'm sure.

[22:43] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I'm Jennifer Ashley Tepper, the conceiver of the JONATHAN Larson project.

[22:47] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god, so excited for this show. I like don't even know where to start because I feel like this journey for you has been so intense, so many years. You said in your speech before the presentation that you've been working on this for 10 years.

[22:59] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yes. I would love to know like how did it all begin? Like, when was the first time you went to Library of Congress to like dig through all this stuff? Like, what was the impetus for it? You're a historian, you've got a lot of that going on, but like what happened here? How did this all start?

[23:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So, as a historian, I knew that JONATHAN had some shows, like we all know from Tick Tick Boom that he had a lost musical called Superbia. I knew some things here and there, but when I found out that his whole collection was at the Library of Congress, that they had taken all of these boxes of his unheard songs and journals and tapes and all of that and um left it there. I thought I have to go explore, I have to go look through that.

[23:34] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: So over 10 years ago now I went to DC and I started listening to everything. And the first thing that really hit me was like, oh my god, there's so much, and I have to listen to absolutely every song if I'm going to make this into a musical because I missed something.

[23:47] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And it was so thrilling to find these songs that nobody had ever heard before and go, somebody needs to hear this. And it was also like there were recordings of like workshops that JONATHAN had done and him being given feedback by Stephen Sondheim. Or there were like tapes where he would just be belting out like a Billy Joel or Elton John song. Um, I felt like I really got to know him as a human as much as you can with someone that you didn't actually know.

[24:08] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:09] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: At the same time as I was looking at all of this unheard work that he had as an artist.

[24:12] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god, that's so incredible. So, what does it mean to you on a personal level to like be bringing all of this unknown material to a new generation of people?

[24:20] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: You know, I feel like a big part of it for me has been I've worked with so many new musical theater writers over the years and thought like how important it is to make a musical come to life. So it's felt like I knew how to treat JONATHAN as the writer in the room that wasn't actually in the room because of my work with other new musical theater writers for sure.

[24:38] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Um, it means a lot. And I think that for so many of us who love rent and tick-tick boom, but we weren't actually there at the beginning. Yeah, we're here right now at the beginning of a brand new JONATHAN Larson musical.

[24:48] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[24:48] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And it feels really exciting for young people to come to our show and that to be their exposure to JONATHAN.

[24:53] Sarah Goodman: That's very cool. Like insane to me. And um, yeah, I we're gonna have rush tickets. We'll be announcing that. And I I'm just so excited to see like a bunch of young people in rush seats at our show.

[25:04] Sarah Goodman: Yes, just like at Rent. They kind of rent like the producers of Rent, Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, they started the whole like $20 rush, like making theater more accessible for younger people, bringing in a new audience. So it's so cool for you to be continuing that tradition.

[25:20] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah, it's really exciting. My um second job that I ever had out of college was I was Michael Grife's assistant.

[25:25] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god.

[25:26] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Yeah. So like I feel I feel like multiple ways I've been tied to the JONATHAN Larson legacy. Um I also I worked on the tick-tick-boom movie because Lyndon and Well Miranda knew that I was working on the JONATHAN Larson project.

[25:36] Sarah Goodman: So I feel like I just have all these touch points of like different moments of the LARSON legacy, and they've all led us here. Like so many of the times that I've interviewed JONATHAN Larson's friends and family have impacted something that's happened in the rehearsal room.

[25:50] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I think that if you have never heard of JONATHAN before, you'll walk in and I hopefully love our musical and go like these are songs that hit me and inspire me. But if you do know anything, I think you'll find a hundred Easter eggs in our show.

[26:01] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[26:01] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Oh, I love that. That's fun.

[26:03] Sarah Goodman: That's fun for all of us LARSON fans who are going with like, what are we gonna see? What's all this gonna be about?

[26:09] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Totally. It seems really exciting. And the two numbers we saw today were fabulous.

[26:12] Sarah Goodman: Thank you.

[26:12] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I'm so impressed.

[26:14] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, they were amazing. It's just so wild how it like really captures his vibe right away. And it's just like, oh my god, I can't believe we're seeing new JONATHAN Larson music. This is a good idea.

[26:22] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: No, and I sang that Andy Mientus sang the lead on today, uh, SOS, which is from 1984. Jonathan wrote that when he was 22. I mean, like, it's so amazing to me that we have these songs in our show that he wrote when he like had just moved to New York when he was so young.

[26:36] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[26:37] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: You said during your presentation speech that your marquee reveal is on his birthday.

[26:41] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: It was. It's so cool. I wait to sound like when all of these things that have occurred, um, it was really crazy because like Lauren Marcus and I both had posters fall off of our wall that like she had a red poster fall off her wall. I had a 2018 JONATHAN Larson project poster fall off my wall. And we were like, JONATHAN, like what's going on? Hello?

[27:01] Sarah Goodman: What do you feel like?

[27:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: We feel like um, you know, very touched by like his spirit throughout this process. And on that note, and I apologize in advance if this is too emotional because I just made Lauren cry. But if you could say something to JONATHAN about this show, what would it be?

[27:13] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I constantly want to thank him. I constantly sit in this room and I'm so mad that he's not here. And I'm so just like grateful, and I I just wish he knew because for me, this show, which like has been an unbelievable time to rehearse, it's not complete until the band is here because the show is the music.

[27:31] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: And JONATHAN Larson just all he wanted was for his songs to be fully realized with a band and to have these songs that only existed on demo tapes of him singing them that are so incredible, but to be realizing them with a band and a cast and vocal arrangements and design elements. It's like I just I would like to say to him, like, we hope we're doing you proud because like we're we're trying to fully realize these amazing songs you gave us.

[27:52] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god, I'm so thrilled to see it. I'm excited. Everybody get your tickets to JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT at the World GM. It's gonna be fucking awesome.

[27:59] Andy Mientus: My name is Andy Mientus, and I am a cast member of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[28:05] Sarah Goodman: All right, and we just saw you sing two incredible and brand new songs.

[28:08] Andy Mientus: Yeah.

[28:09] Sarah Goodman: I've never heard before that are JONATHAN Larson bangers.

[28:11] Andy Mientus: Yeah.

[28:12] Sarah Goodman: This process is completely crazy for me. I am one of the biggest LARSON heads uh in the world, I think. Always have been. I saw Rent when I was 11 years old. I was completely obsessed. That's why I got involved with this project in the first place, is because Jen and I would email about just like stuff that she had uncovered in her research as she was beginning to go through his papers in the Library of Congress.

[28:34] Andy Mientus: Yeah.

[28:34] Sarah Goodman: And that led to me being a part of the concert, and now I'm here. So, you know, I've had a really interesting life. I've gotten to meet a lot of my theatrical heroes. But of course, JONATHAN is one who I will never get to meet. But the fact that there's not only new material for me to enjoy as a fan, but to actually be the one to premiere in New York City is just completely insane.

[28:56] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, it's really exciting. And the songs that you sang today were both fabulous. SOS, what a heartbreaking, like just really hit me hard. What is it like for you emotionally portraying these different roles in the show?

[29:09] Andy Mientus: It's a real honor and privilege, and there is a good kind of gravity to it because he wanted so desperately for these songs to get out there. We know that through how many different avenues he tried to get them heard, like putting them in different shows, sending them out endlessly.

[29:26] Adam Chanler-Berat: Like "SOS" that I sang today, he wrote for his own musical adaptation of "1984" that he tried desperately to get the rights for, couldn't—this was in 1982. He was 22 years old when he wrote that song. It's the earliest song in our show. It's the oldest of all the songs we're doing, and it's so fresh and new and great. And so, you know, you just feel in these moments, you're of course trying to do all the normal things you do when you rehearse a show of just trying to like do a good job, find a cool way in and present it honestly. But we're also like, wow, we're really doing this. We're really like completing this work that he began all these years ago. Yeah. Uh, and finishing this thing that he wanted finished so badly. It feels really, yeah, holy.

[30:08] John Simpkins: Yeah, yeah. It's very special. It's like definitely very, very special.

[30:11] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah. Um, so you said you saw "Rent" for the first time when you were 11.

[30:14] John Simpkins: Yeah.

[30:15] Adam Chanler-Berat: Amazing. How did that impact you as a young person? What did you think of it?

[30:18] John Simpkins: It was my entire personality. So I went there because it was the first national tour in my hometown in Pittsburgh, and I just gotten interested in theater. You know, I'd been like, I did Little League, I did like I tried to find Cub Scouts, all this stuff that wasn't sticking in my mom because mom always knows she was like, I feel like theater, there's something about you. A sensitive child I was, and um, and it clicked, and so like, you know, within weeks, they're like, Well, we gotta start going to shows. And "Rent" was coming through town, and they had like read about it in Time magazine or whatever, you know, it like really hit the mainstream. Like, this is the show everyone's talking about at the time.

We better go. And luckily, my parents were very cool and not at all. Very okay with it. They were because they were like, This is really urgent. This is my mom's a nurse, so she was very plugged into the AIDS crisis. Oh, yeah. And um, you know, we lived in a city, and I would— it was things that I was used to seeing, but now on stage and condensed for me and set to the kind of music that like we wanted to listen to as a family, not like, you know, what we thought of as Broadway.

[31:17] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah, yeah. And it just totally like hit me right between the eyes and cemented like, oh, this is what I was gonna do forever. This is the kind of thing I wanted to do.

[31:26] John Simpkins: Yeah.

[31:27] Adam Chanler-Berat: Uh, and you know, this was years and years and years before I would like really find myself, but I was seeing queer identities on stage for the first time. It made everything for me. And so, yeah, I just again I cannot believe that I'm here like doing this.

[31:40] John Simpkins: That's amazing.

[31:41] Adam Chanler-Berat: It's very cool.

[31:42] John Simpkins: Yeah, and yeah, representation is so important. Like, "Rent" was so cutting edge with bringing so many different voices to the stage that normally don't really get a moment on stage. Even today, you know, you look around in the landscape, there's not a lot of queer people. There's still not a lot of POC actors on stage getting large roles, having their own moments. So it's really exciting to see more of that in his other work, like how it kind of reflected through a lot of the stuff that he was working on.

[32:07] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah. He I think, you know, a lot of his story is about the struggle of getting to "Rent," and then of course the tragedy is that he didn't get to see it. And I think that, you know, he kept getting those no's way. Like a lot of the material in our show are no's that he got, like we haven't heard these songs till now because everyone told him no.

[32:27] John Simpkins: Right.

[32:27] Adam Chanler-Berat: Because of his commitment to writing about urgent, risky topics.

[32:32] John Simpkins: Yeah.

[32:32] Adam Chanler-Berat: Including kinds of people that were not included at the time. I mean, he was so ahead of his time in that way.

[32:38] John Simpkins: Yeah.

[32:39] Adam Chanler-Berat: And had such a commitment to that. And so it just feels really gratifying to get to like, yeah, complete this work on his behalf. Um, because so many of us are so grateful that he did take that risk because it did give us "Rent," and that gave so many of us our place in this industry, in this world.

[32:54] John Simpkins: Yeah, absolutely.

[32:56] Adam Chanler-Berat: Like the big takeaway of "Rent" is nobody, no day but today.

[32:59] John Simpkins: Yes, that's right.

[33:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: That is true. That you know, he was able to do all of this, and we can too.

[33:05] John Simpkins: Oh, I love that. That's so beautiful.

[33:06] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thank you.

[33:07] John Simpkins: Thank you so much for talking to me today. I appreciate it.

[33:09] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thank you. Appreciate it. Congratulations.

[33:11] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: Thank you. I'm Jessie Hooker-Bailey, and I am one of the standbys of the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT. We're so excited for JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT. I keep like pinching myself. That sounds so cheesy, but I really mean like you'd know. I'd be like, it's fine, but I really actually feel excited. This whole company has such a genuine enthusiasm for the material and for JONATHAN. It's like so great. It has such a great vibe. That's what my husband and I—he's the other standby. We've been talking a lot on our way home, and we're like, wow, everybody really cares about it. And that's not the case. Like we've been in another for the job, right?

[33:42] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[33:42] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: Exactly. And with this, everyone's excited about it.

[33:44] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[33:44] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: And the fact that it's new, we haven't changed the word or lyric of his, and we're like, we'll sit there and talk about it. Being like, I can't believe he wrote this in the 80s, and wow, we're dealing with some of this stuff relevant.

[33:55] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[33:55] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: So I'm excited for everyone to hear it and then be singing it, you know. Have it in their audition cuts and like be taking it to their colleges and high school.

[34:03] Adam Chanler-Berat: Right.

[34:03] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: It always will trickle down, right? And that's what I think his message was about too. Is like he wanted his music to be out there. So the fact that he's not here anymore, and that is going to be happening is really cool.

[34:13] Adam Chanler-Berat: And when did you discover his music? Were you a rent head growing up? What was the vibe?

[34:18] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: I've been saying this, it's kind of controversial for the rent heads, but I fell into "Rent" through the movie.

[34:22] Adam Chanler-Berat: Okay, Cynthia did too.

[34:23] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: You're not the only one. It's okay.

[34:26] Adam Chanler-Berat: I love the movie.

[34:27] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: Okay, the movie brought it to Damascus. You know what I mean? A lot of the original casts.

[34:31] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh my gosh.

[34:32] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: I really, really loved it. And then I saw the show, and I think it was one of the times Anthony Rapp was coming back into "Rent." So that's how I fell in love with JONATHAN's music. And it had a lot to do with representation too. You're like seeing people of color on stage, yeah, talking about these things, and you're like, oh shit, this is how I feel about things.

[34:48] Adam Chanler-Berat: Can I say shit?

[34:49] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: Yeah, you can say whatever you want.

[34:50] Adam Chanler-Berat: Unfiltered here on VPN.

[34:51] Jessie Hooker-Bailey: Yeah.

[34:52] Jason Tam: I'm Jason Tam, and I am in the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[34:54] Adam Chanler-Berat: JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[34:59] Jason Tam: Uh, we just got to see you perform some of the music from the show. It's so exciting.

[35:03] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thank you.

[35:03] Jason Tam: I'm thrilled to see it. It feels like such a privilege. Uh, it feels really exciting. It's like uncharted territory almost.

[35:05] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[35:10] Jason Tam: Um, it also feels very full circle-y because JONATHAN Larson has had such a huge impact on me as an artist and in my life. I moved from the Hawaiian Islands to New York for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones was because of "Rent." Just because I was like, I really identify with this world, with New York City. Like those are my people. That's where I want to be. My life would be so different if I hadn't done that.

[35:27] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[35:32] Jason Tam: It feels really exciting. I can't wait for people to hear this new music and to see what they think.

[35:37] Adam Chanler-Berat: That's amazing. So you said you discovered "Rent" before you moved to New York.

[35:35] Jason Tam: Yeah.

[35:40] Adam Chanler-Berat: When you were living in Hawaii. Did you have the two CD set? Like, how did it come into your life?

[35:45] Jason Tam: I did. I did. Uh, well, I had to share it with my sister.

[35:48] Adam Chanler-Berat: Because she was the one that got it.

[35:50] Jason Tam: Yeah, same.

[35:50] Adam Chanler-Berat: Um, but uh, yeah, she introduced me to it. She was like, we were in the car at Kahala Mall, and she was like, You have to hear this and put it on. I was like, what? Like this is musical theater. I just—it blew my mind.

[36:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Uh, yeah, there's been a lot of shout outs to the two CD set today. I think it's really impacted.

[36:06] Jason Tam: Somebody's got a lot of things.

[36:07] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes, yes, yes, with the like that the book, you know, you don't get the book anymore.

[36:11] Jason Tam: I miss that.

[36:12] Adam Chanler-Berat: I really miss that all the time. I miss the booklet, the photos, the lyrics when shows would put all the lyrics. That's my favorite thing.

[36:17] Jason Tam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[36:18] Adam Chanler-Berat: And I feel like I learned a lot of vocab, honestly, from it. Because I'd be like, they prolonged my coat. And it's like, what? Purloined? Like I'd never heard that word before. Like I didn't even—so I looked it up, purloined.

[36:27] Jason Tam: Oh, and then you go and you look it up, and now I know what purloined means.

[36:30] Adam Chanler-Berat: I love that.

[36:31] Jason Tam: So cerebral.

[36:32] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[36:34] Jason Tam: What's one of your favorite songs in this show? I know a lot of people say it changes all the time, but today, what's your favorite song in the show?

[36:40] Jason Tam: Um, I love one of the songs that we performed for you all today, "One of These Days," because of the message of it, which is like how hard it is for us in this context as artists to keep going, and that's JONATHAN Larson's story too, right? But how important it is to keep going, even like despite how hard it is.

[37:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[37:02] Jason Tam: And also because it puts us in community with each other and it focuses on the importance of sharing that heavy load with people that you trust and people that you love, and also helping them through their experiences as well.

[37:15] Adam Chanler-Berat: Um, yeah.

[37:16] Jason Tam: That's so cool. There's been so much talk today about community and about connection and love, which I think is so beautiful. That like really is so much of the heart of JONATHAN Larson's music was like spreading this message of like love first, right?

[37:28] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[37:29] Jason Tam: And if you could say something to JONATHAN Larson today about the show or about him in general, what would you say?

[37:36] Jason Tam: I would say, look what you did. I would say, like, yeah, look you did it. Look what you did. It's amazing. And I hope that he is just like having the time of his life wherever he is right now, seeing all of this happen.

[37:51] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah, that's so beautiful.

[37:52] Jason Tam: Yeah, congratulations. I'm so excited to see the show. Thanks again for talking to me today.

[37:57] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thanks.

[37:57] Byron Easley: Hi, I'm Byron Easley. I'm the choreographer with the show.

[38:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Amazing. It's so nice to speak with you today. I loved the presentation today. We watched two numbers from the show, and right away I could just like feel the impact of JONATHAN Larson. I could feel the excitement, I could feel the love. And something everybody's been talking about today has been love. And how it's such a big theme in the show, and that's so important. I would love for you to speak on that and how that affects your choreography and what you're bringing to the movement of the show.

[38:26] Byron Easley: Well, I think it—we get to love, you know, the show deals with so many issues. And though it was written some time ago, it felt as though it was just written yesterday.

[38:39] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah, I've heard that a lot today about how oddly timely everything is, and like he almost kind of saw the future, right?

[38:46] Byron Easley: Yeah. And then it's not a—the show is dealing with issues. It's not afraid to unpack some stuff. It's okay, let's deal with it.

[38:54] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah, yeah.

[38:54] Byron Easley: You know, and so that's exciting and complicated.

[39:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[39:01] Byron Easley: And it's how we get to that. That I think in the end we fall back on love.

[39:06] Adam Chanler-Berat: That's so beautiful.

[39:07] Byron Easley: Sounds so corny, but it is the truth.

[39:09] Adam Chanler-Berat: We need corny these days. You know what I mean?

[39:11] Byron Easley: I am so with that.

[39:13] Adam Chanler-Berat: And so that informs the choreography. And we're dealing with these life situations.

[39:17] Byron Easley: Yeah.

[39:18] Adam Chanler-Berat: You know.

[39:18] Byron Easley: Yeah.

[39:20] Byron Easley: Loss. Frustration. Disappointment.

[39:22] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[39:23] Byron Easley: Hope.

[39:24] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[39:25] Byron Easley: Hope is also very important.

[39:26] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh my gosh.

[39:27] Byron Easley: You know, that keeps us going. Even a city like New York where people come here to fulfill dreams.

[39:32] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[39:32] Byron Easley: And how many times do people that get dealt with rejection? And what gives them that something that allows them to continue?

[39:42] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[39:43] Byron Easley: It's a collaborative room. You mean? We created a—dare I say—community in this room.

[39:48] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[39:49] Byron Easley: And that's how we move. And with that, you know, there gonna be times when not everyone has a green. But we finally get to something. And with that, you know what? I can jump off a cliff.

[40:00] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[40:03] Byron Easley: I got my posse with me, you know.

[40:05] Adam Chanler-Berat: Right.

[40:06] Byron Easley: There's something at the bottom to catch me, right?

[40:08] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah, yeah.

[40:09] Byron Easley: Yeah, think about it. The spirit of darn. We move our arms enough, maybe something will happen. We'll fly, or maybe get such a sore or something. Nothing's impossible, right?

[40:16] Adam Chanler-Berat: And that's what this is about, I think.

[40:18] Byron Easley: Yeah.

[40:18] Adam Chanler-Berat: Inspiration.

[40:19] Byron Easley: Yes.

[40:21] Adam Chanler-Berat: We all need space to be inspired.

[40:23] Byron Easley: Yes, definitely.

[40:25] Adam Chanler-Berat: So we need that.

[40:26] Byron Easley: Yeah.

[40:26] Byron Easley: Because it gives us the wherewithal to deal with life.

[40:30] Adam Chanler-Berat: And life is full of, you know, awesome stuff.

[40:33] Byron Easley: Yeah, yeah.

[40:34] Byron Easley: How did JONATHAN Larson enter your life? When was the first time you were aware of his art? Were you a rent head? Did you see the show?

[40:40] Byron Easley: I of course I saw the show, but I also—I grew up here in New York.

[40:43] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[40:44] Byron Easley: And so as a teenager, I hung out in the East Village.

[40:46] Adam Chanler-Berat: This is your personality.

[40:48] Byron Easley: That's like, oh, he's talking about stuff I know.

[40:49] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[40:50] Byron Easley: I was around for the AIDS epidemic. I know all that. I remember walking through Alphabet City through Thompson Square Park. It was pretty rough back then.

[40:56] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[40:57] Byron Easley: You know?

[40:58] Byron Easley: Yeah.

[40:59] Byron Easley: Homeless people and displacement. And I'm like, wow. This guy's writing about all these things.

[41:05] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[41:06] Byron Easley: I know about these things.

[41:07] Adam Chanler-Berat: That's really special.

[41:08] Byron Easley: Especially when no one else is writing about that.

[41:11] Adam Chanler-Berat: Right.

[41:11] Byron Easley: Nobody was writing about that.

[41:12] Adam Chanler-Berat: Right.

[41:13] Byron Easley: And then it—and then take it to commercial theater. And have it be such a humongous sensation for so—you know it was touching people's lives, particularly young people.

[41:23] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[41:24] Byron Easley: If you could say something to JONATHAN today, what would you tell him?

[41:27] Byron Easley: Thank you.

[41:29] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thank you.

[41:30] Byron Easley: And I hope we are steering or shepherding your legacy on your poem. And may you bless us. May you help lead us in the right direction. With big gratefulness.

[41:42] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh, absolutely. What a beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much.

[41:45] Gilbert L. Bailey II: Oh, thank you. Uh, I'm Gilbert L. Bailey the second.

[41:48] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yes.

[41:49] Gilbert L. Bailey II: And you are?

[41:51] Adam Chanler-Berat: I'm a standby in the JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT.

[41:54] Gilbert L. Bailey II: Yeah. I really love that I'm a part of a piece that the creators are so passionate about. I think JONATHAN Larson is an artist that has inspired such passion within the community. And I think that's what's cool that you get to kind of show new works that no one's ever seen, but also I think inflame people who are already hot about him. I think that's what's cool. Like I've never been a part of something that people low-key are already cultishly into.

[42:12] Adam Chanler-Berat: Yeah.

[42:18] Gilbert L. Bailey II: And then high key people will come to and see something new, and we can introduce, as you say, like people who really might not know him.

[42:26] Adam Chanler-Berat: Totally to induce them to new things as well.

[42:28] Gilbert L. Bailey II: Tell me how you and your wife ended up in this same production together. Was that just a coincidence?

[42:31] Gilbert L. Bailey II: Well, first off you called in separately.

[42:34] Adam Chanler-Berat: Well, we met, we met on the floor at the audition, you know, and then we decided that we would get married.

[42:40] Gilbert L. Bailey II: I'm just joking.

[42:41] Gilbert L. Bailey II: We walked into Pearl, two separate people. We walked out together. You know how it is. I work very fast, you know.

[42:47] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh my god.

[42:49] Gilbert L. Bailey II: That 10 years ago doing a production of "The Color Purple" at Milwaukee Rep.

[42:53] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh, beautiful.

[42:53] Gilbert L. Bailey II: And uh she was playing Squeak, I was playing Harpo in that show. So she was my girlfriend in the show.

[42:57] Adam Chanler-Berat: Oh man.

[42:58] Gilbert L. Bailey II: And I turned it into a real thing. There's hope out there, people. You know.

[43:01] Adam Chanler-Berat: Right.

[43:01] Gilbert L. Bailey II: But this, we actually both got our own calls. We got individual calls really worked as it happened.

[43:06] Adam Chanler-Berat: It worked out that way.

[43:07] Gilbert L. Bailey II: I'm not even sure like I do know the director, you know, before this is so me and John knew one another, but I'm not sure everyone in the room was actually aware of our situation.

[43:17] Adam Chanler-Berat: I think she kept that under.

[43:19] Gilbert L. Bailey II: So it was like really cool that like we both kind of just ended up at the callback, and then we both ended up with the call. It was really cool.

[43:31] Adam Chanler-Berat: Thanks for listening to Good Show. Please follow Good Show on Instagram and TikTok at Good Show Podcast and become part of my showbiz chosen family. You can find Good Show on the Broadway Podcast Network at bpn.fm slash good show, and everywhere podcasts are available.