This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Dan Tracy: So an actor is saying his lines, and then out of nowhere, he just starts singing.

[0:07] Joe Carroll: Box 67.

[0:15] Dan Tracy: Don't cry for me.

[0:23] Joe Carroll: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[0:25] Dan Tracy: What was that sound?

[0:26] Joe Carroll: I don't know.

[0:27] Dan Tracy: It was like a punching noise.

[0:31] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I was like, we're doing the scene from the martial arts thing.

[0:34] Dan Tracy: The martial arts musical that they wrote.

[0:36] Joe Carroll: Excellent segue.

[0:37] Dan Tracy: This week, I'm my name's Dan Tracy.

[0:39] Joe Carroll: My name is Joe Carroll.

[0:41] Dan Tracy: I'm currently in the cast of Gun and Powder at the Signature Theater in DC.

[0:45] Joe Carroll: That's cool to say.

[0:46] Dan Tracy: Yeah, that feels cool.

[0:47] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[0:47] Dan Tracy: And this week we are talking to Angelica Cheri and Ross Baum, the writers of Gun and Powder.

[0:53] Joe Carroll: We sure are.

[0:53] Dan Tracy: And they also did a thesis thing on a they wrote some musical numbers for a Kung Fu movie, and that's why we were making Kung Fu noises.

[1:03] Joe Carroll: Right?

[1:04] Dan Tracy: Yeah, yeah.

[1:04] Joe Carroll: That they wrote a musical sequence for a martial arts film, which I guess is, yeah.

[1:11] Dan Tracy: But which we'll never live to see the light of day, I think.

[1:14] Joe Carroll: But they, this is really cool because we get to pick the brains of the people who are writing your show.

[1:20] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[1:20] Joe Carroll: Ross is I've known Ross for a long time. We did this workshop of this Kerrigan Loudermilk show called The Bad Years, which some of you probably know some of the music from that, although I'm like showing my age, I feel like here, which is crazy because I don't feel old, but like the songs that kids are singing now.

[1:42] Dan Tracy: Kids? Is that how I sounded like?

[1:42] Joe Carroll: You sounded like you were 70 years old.

[1:49] Dan Tracy: Point being, like 16-year-old girls are singing like Beetlejuice and Heathers.

[1:54] Joe Carroll: They're not singing Kerrigan Loudermilk songs, which is what they were singing when I was 16.

[2:00] Dan Tracy: So they might not actually know Run Away with Me.

[2:00] Joe Carroll: Run away with me.

[2:05] Dan Tracy: Yeah, but there's like Avalanche.

[2:07] Joe Carroll: Yeah, of course.

[2:08] Dan Tracy: Of course.

[2:08] Joe Carroll: And I'm trying to remember all the other things.

[2:11] Dan Tracy: But those were like the hot musical theater songs when we were in college.

[2:15] Joe Carroll: Yeah, and this show Bad Years is like filled with a bunch of those songs that everyone used to sing in concerts.

[2:19] Dan Tracy: Love it.

[2:20] Joe Carroll: And that's how I met Ross.

[2:24] Dan Tracy: And now he's gone on to this crazy, he's been working on this show for five years with Angelica, but he's one of the founding members of that a cappella group Range.

[2:34] Joe Carroll: Have you seen them on YouTube and stuff?

[2:36] Dan Tracy: Yeah, I didn't really know.

[2:37] Joe Carroll: Yeah, he's like, so he does a lot of the arrangements for that, and they've been like all over. I saw, I'm pretty sure I saw them perform like on one of the big morning shows, but they've been on like Nickelodeon and Sesame Street and Billboard, and they've done Playbill videos and all this stuff, so they're really cool.

[2:53] Dan Tracy: You can check them out on Spotify. He's also obviously a composer and orchestrator and has done a bunch of different things there and is a vocal coach and teacher, and he's a performer.

[3:07] Joe Carroll: The dude's voice is insane.

[3:08] Dan Tracy: Yeah, he got a BFA from Syracuse.

[3:12] Joe Carroll: From Syracuse, yeah.

[3:12] Dan Tracy: And all of the demos of the show that we're doing, he sung on.

[3:16] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[3:16] Dan Tracy: It's just so real.

[3:17] Joe Carroll: They're so good.

[3:19] Dan Tracy: See, I think that's so incredibly valuable. We don't talk about that enough. Like when the demos are amazing, you know, when you get a, it completely changed the game for me.

[3:26] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[3:26] Dan Tracy: Because I was like, oh, like this.

[3:28] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[3:29] Dan Tracy: Yeah, or like find your version of this.

[3:31] Joe Carroll: That's, but it's not like trying to.

[3:36] Dan Tracy: It's just so different than what you sometimes get, which is like sometimes just MIDI tracks.

[3:40] Joe Carroll: Like sometimes just like a do do do do and then there's no, that's a Christmas song I just did.

[3:46] Dan Tracy: But totally true. Like sometimes there's no interpretation, and there was just so much life in this that it made it so much easier.

[3:52] Joe Carroll: So his writing partner, Angelica Cheri, they were, you know, they were obviously wrote Gun and Powder together, but she's written a bunch of plays, including The Prophets of Cycle trilogy that includes three plays, The Seeds of Abraham, The Sting of White Roses, and Crowd Nation. Other plays include I Will Not Lie to David, Berta Berta, Slow Jin Fits, and a children's play called Learn to Speak Doll. She's written a bunch of pilots that have been finalists at festival, you know, different, like one of her TV pilots Derailed was a semi-finalist for this Showtime's sort of emerging screenplay competition and stuff. She's done all sorts of stuff. Got a bunch of stuff in the works, bunch of stuff in the works.

[4:34] Dan Tracy: She got a BA in theater from UCLA and an MFA in playwriting from Columbia and an MFA in musical theater writing from NYU, and that's where she and Ross met.

[4:42] Joe Carroll: Yes, she has two MFAs, which is like so insane.

[4:45] Dan Tracy: I have no, and Lynn Nottage is her mentor, yes, which is crazy, which is really cool.

[4:49] Joe Carroll: Yeah, so these two are, and they're totally up and coming, we're all the same age. They are just, you know, we're catching them on the right as the wave is cresting, I feel like people are just about to know who they are.

[5:03] Dan Tracy: And Gun and Powder is gonna be awesome. And it's fun. I love picking the brains of writers because it's just different than actors sometimes. And yeah, I got to ask my question that I really wanted to ask them was like, what do you wish actors knew? You know, like you sit, you know, at the table and you're working on this thing, and then a bunch of actors come in, and what would you like us to know? Like, what can we do to make your life better? You know, like, and feed your piece because that's what we're trying to do is like tell your story and bring us to it. And I thought that, you know, both of them had really eloquent answers to that. So listen for that. That was my favorite part.

[5:39] Joe Carroll: Yeah, that was interesting.

[5:42] Dan Tracy: I just, I don't even know what to say. I, you know, Angelica pointed to like my audition for that show, and the only thing I can say is that like sometimes preparation is hard and sometimes it's not because sometimes it just makes sense to you.

[5:59] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[5:59] Dan Tracy: And like this was just one of those scenarios where it made sense, and they talked about how I like brought it to life or whatever, and like that just came naturally to me. I didn't really have to work at it. It just was there.

[6:09] Joe Carroll: Such a cool compliment to like have the writers here, and you know, you had this, it was cool because you had this lightning bolt moment with the material, yeah, and you loved the material, and then you got to say that to them, yeah, and they got to say to you, like, you brought this character to life, you know, exactly how we wanted.

[6:26] Dan Tracy: It was a very sweet moment, and I was also here.

[6:29] Joe Carroll: So you're sick.

[6:31] Dan Tracy: Here's Angelica and Ross.

[6:33] Angelica Cheri: I can't change clothes to wander and roll.

[6:39] Ross Baum: I have to take the street home and bring it back back home.

[6:46] Joe Carroll: Are you recording?

[6:47] Angelica Cheri: Uh huh.

[6:47] Joe Carroll: Okay. So, first of all, I have to thank both of you for giving my best friend a job because he was getting a little weird. Waitress is closing, and he was getting a little crazy. And he was trying to make this podcast like, you know, way too important. And you know, this was turning into his number one thing. And I was like, Dan, you need a job. And then our next guest gave you a job. And so I gotta thank both of you for casting my friend in a show.

[7:16] Angelica Cheri: He didn't really give the choice.

[7:17] Joe Carroll: Okay, thank you for coming in.

[7:19] Angelica Cheri: No, I am so grateful I got to come in. This was really when you go second and like whenever we just spoke with a casting director last week, and Joe and I have every single bad trait of a psychoses that like that's not a word that an actor can have, yeah, right?

[7:41] Joe Carroll: Yeah, like all of those things that you shouldn't think.

[7:44] Angelica Cheri: So whenever I go second, I'm like, oh well, I wasn't even supposed to come in for this. They threw me in and they threw me in at the last minute, you know.

[7:51] Joe Carroll: He has this whole thing. Somebody turned this down.

[7:52] Angelica Cheri: So he has this whole thing about time of day and how actors get scheduled in the day from casting. That's like, oh, if you go at 4:30, like they really want to cast me. This is the prime time slot.

[8:01] Joe Carroll: Because you're they're giving you the optimal time.

[8:03] Angelica Cheri: Exactly warming up.

[8:06] Joe Carroll: Exactly.

[8:07] Angelica Cheri: And like, you know, it's in the end. And you can come in and save every lunch, and like, you know, but if you're second, you're not gonna get that job.

[8:13] Joe Carroll: And then I did.

[8:14] Angelica Cheri: It's very cool.

[8:15] Joe Carroll: Second to bed.

[8:16] Angelica Cheri: That's right.

[8:17] Joe Carroll: Yeah. So we were so we Gun and Powder, like w this. I've never seen him so excited about an audition, frankly. Like, like this idea that you get a script and you know, you feel aligned and you're so excited about it. He was really, really stoked about it. And I know very little about it, and I think our listeners would probably know even less. So I, and it started kind of as a semi-autobiographical story of your grandmother's aunt, is that correct?

[8:45] Angelica Cheri: Or something like that? Family folk tale.

[8:46] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it's one of those situations where you have, you ever like have a family photo album, and every time it gets opened up and then the pictures come out, and then different stories kind of circulate.

[8:58] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, and so I'm, I've, I'm obviously I'm an African American woman. And so there would be this particular photo album, and then every time we would go holidays whenever we were at great aunt whoever's house, and they would open up the photo album and see these pictures of two white women in the middle of the photo album. People would say, well, who are these white women in the family? And then, you know, we'd have to kind of clarify like they're actually not white, they're actually our great great aunties Mary and Martha Clark, and then that was basically the only thing that remained consistent. Everything else was subject to change. Oh, you know, they were outlaws, you know, they killed this man, you know, they robbed this bank, and then they got away with it, and oh, this man was following them for months, and oh no, they were not the outlaws, the outlaws on the other side of the family. They just married these Pullman porters, like nobody agrees.

[9:45] Joe Carroll: That's wild.

[9:46] Angelica Cheri: It's so wild. I'm like, well, who can tell the secret lies with the women, and nobody's alive anymore that was alive when they were around, except my grandmother's baby sister who was like 10. So she has no clue. You know what I mean? So it's basically up to us, and that's what Ross and I did. We were like, well, we like this premise. How can we make it fierce?

[10:10] Joe Carroll: It's a remarkable, it's a remarkable premise. Um, and so then as you started to always know this about your family, did you, I'm sure you did research upon research to actually like find anything, like find those stories.

[10:24] Angelica Cheri: You know, who, who was, I don't want to say you said that there was a bunch of different versions of this. So did you like interview family members, or did how did you come up with, or was it just literally stories from your past?

[10:36] Angelica Cheri: It's just literally, well, so what you see on stage is completely of our own making. The interviews and the questions that I asked family members kind of proved unfruitful in terms of like not like nailing down an actual story, just didn't really happen. I just got more of the like hodgepodge collage, cut pictures out of a magazine and paste them on your family tree of whatever you wanted it to be. So I think that that was actually helpful in us understanding that this is a folk tale, this is a legend. Nobody really knows what happened. It's almost like Peter Cottontail or you know, Johnny Appleseed. Right. You can figure out whatever you want, and then whatever's the most heroic and epic sounding can be the truth.

[11:22] Joe Carroll: That's amazing.

[11:23] Angelica Cheri: And so how did you, because you guys met at NYU grad in the musical theater writing program? How did you, how does that work? How did they team you up? Did you pick each other? How did that come about?

[11:36] Ross Baum: The first year is like speed dating. Okay, half of the class is composers, half of the class are words people, and for every assignment you rotate working with somebody different, and then for the second year, you have to pick one person.

[11:51] Angelica Cheri: And um, so we did one assignment together like halfway through the first year. And it was based on a Chinese fighting.

[12:08] Ross Baum: Some kind of martial arts.

[12:08] Angelica Cheri: Martial, yeah, but it was a musical and extended sequence that you had to adapt from the movie into like a musical sequence. And we decided to make each character like based on a pop star. So like the queen, like the queen was Lady Gaga, and then the prince who ended up having like an affair with the queen was Justin Timberlake. And each of them like sounded like those different people. And I was like, oh, we kind of like speak the same language here.

[12:41] Ross Baum: And we just jived.

[12:43] Angelica Cheri: And it was like I didn't like working with anybody else just as much.

[12:47] Ross Baum: I love that.

[12:49] Angelica Cheri: And so it was like just a no-brainer by the time we got to the end of the first year, and we were like, yeah, I'm putting you first on my list.

[12:54] Ross Baum: You have to rank people.

[12:55] Angelica Cheri: It's like so high school.

[12:56] Ross Baum: It's so weird.

[12:57] Angelica Cheri: It's like such a strange, like, oh, like, well, so who are you thinking of? And what what number are you on on my list? And it's, it was so weird. But we're like, we're doing a thing, I don't know what you're doing.

[13:10] Ross Baum: And then this was the first idea that she pitched at our like coffee meeting.

[13:15] Angelica Cheri: Wow.

[13:17] Ross Baum: At the Starbucks on Aster Place.

[13:18] Angelica Cheri: Oh, yeah.

[13:18] Ross Baum: Specifically.

[13:18] Angelica Cheri: Flagship Starbucks on Aster Place.

[13:21] Ross Baum: Right off the six.

[13:21] Angelica Cheri: That what a great first pitch.

[13:23] Ross Baum: Did it blow your mind a little bit?

[13:25] Angelica Cheri: I didn't need to hear anything else.

[13:26] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah.

[13:27] Angelica Cheri: I was like, Style, great.

[13:28] Ross Baum: Oh, that was easy.

[13:29] Angelica Cheri: Well, that's great.

[13:30] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[13:30] Angelica Cheri: And then you have to come up with two ideas and write like sample songs for two ideas. And I mean, I tried really hard on Gun and Powder, and then for the second one, we were like, okay, like let's like kind of fill this one, like write these songs, and then it was clear.

[13:47] Ross Baum: The faculty is like they help you pick what out of the two, but it was clear.

[13:52] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, no brainer.

[13:53] Ross Baum: So cool.

[13:54] Angelica Cheri: So then how do you, how do you decide how that show sings? Because it takes place in the 1890s in Texas. We should probably like maybe, well, we kind of know the context of like what's going on enough, but it's 1890s, it's Texas, so then what, there's a huge pop influence in the show, which clearly is like your own modern tastes, but then how did you like meld those two worlds to have something that feels authentic to the time, but is still sings today?

[14:22] Ross Baum: Yeah, well, I mean, we, I guess like we knew we didn't want it to sound like 1893.

[14:28] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, it would be like all military marches.

[14:30] Ross Baum: Yeah, right.

[14:30] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[14:31] Angelica Cheri: So um these well, first off, I guess the two main characters are like total badasses, and so we wanted them to sound fierce.

[14:44] Ross Baum: Um like they were like two like young women taking control over their lives and their destiny, and that um filtered through just like our own personal musical tastes and like the world we live in.

[14:58] Joe Carroll: Um, it doesn't sound like 1890.

[15:02] Dan Tracy: That sounds like what what was your your musical, like both of your musical tastes when you say that? Like what what is the what do you find are your biggest is sort of inspirations or like when you when you sit down at the piano to inform something? Like what would you do you go to something first? Is there an artist or a a composing team or something?

[15:19] Ross Baum: He's John Legend.

[15:25] Angelica Cheri: Jewish John Legend, thank you. John Legend, Stevie Wonder. I mean, I'm a fellow guy who likes musicals, so I grew up right outside the city going to see everything.

[15:38] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[15:39] Angelica Cheri: And so I grew up on like Spring Awakening, Color Purple, In the Heights, Ragtime, Wicked. So I think all of those influences are there in like the musical theater sense.

[15:49] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[15:49] Angelica Cheri: And then people like John Legend and Delta Rae, yeah. We listen to a lot of gospel stuff.

[15:57] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[16:00] Angelica Cheri: And then just a lot of like R and B and Soul. Pop. I don't know. I like so many different things. And I think with this show, because there are so many different kinds of people in the show, different characters who have different backgrounds, there was a lot of opportunity to um to just kind of like throw paint at the wall and just put all kinds of stuff in it.

[16:23] Ross Baum: Totally.

[16:23] Angelica Cheri: Yeah. Some of the songs like that, that some of the songs really hit like Les Mis. Like they hit like a good old epic musical theater song, you know? And then there are some songs that you could just put right on the radio.

[16:37] Ross Baum: That's what we were hoping. The Gun and Powder mixtape.

[16:39] Angelica Cheri: Yes. There was also a lot of like Bruno Mars when I like I had to make a list of references for our orchestrator. I kept coming back to like Bruno Mars. Just like get the party started. You know, we wanted to make it feel like you're going on an epic journey that you would want to be on in twenty twenty. You know what I mean? And that's Bruno Mars, that's uh what Sia, you know what I mean? Like huge big sound.

[17:04] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah.

[17:05] Angelica Cheri: That's amazing. What uh what was the first when you so you uh Angelica, you have this idea that's a part of your family, and then you you go to trust it musically with Ross, and I imagine that's a very like vulnerable place to to be in. What was the first did you have an aha moment where you're like, here's this this this this story, Ross, I want you to try to musicalize it, and then you probably wrote you said two or three songs. Was there one where you were like he's got it, like we're good, you know?

[17:35] Angelica Cheri: Uh, I mean, I feel like I knew that when we did that Curse of the Golden Flower, which was that the the giant come through from the movie musical coming in 2021. That we conceptualized as like Grammy performance. You know I feel like you know just you that it it's what happens in that first year where you are obviously speed dating around other composers and lyricists, but then you also are watching everybody else's work and I feel like I've seen enough of Ross's music to know like he gets it. You know what I mean? Like he just he understands the voice because his voice in his his own voice is so ridiculously awesome.

[18:16] Ross Baum: Won't put him on the spot but kind of did it. You know what I mean? And I'm like we could release those demos because they're like trying to get to that level. Like seriously.

[18:25] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[18:25] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, there's some actually excellent Instagram content of of of Ross doing some seriously and that became the standard. It's like if you can't sing the demo better than Ross, then you can't shadow opposite that's a tall order.

[18:38] Ross Baum: Damn.

[18:39] Angelica Cheri: But then obvious I mean because the story is so disjointed in real life it didn't feel like okay I'm coming with this specific precious narrative that we have to remain loyal to.

[18:53] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[18:53] Angelica Cheri: It was already we get to make this up ourselves. And so it became our story. Just like the the women, the figures behind it came from my family but the narrative is like it's ours. We can do what we want.

[19:06] Ross Baum: So yeah which is genius because sometimes the biopics fall into that place where they get they're too historical. It's too like this is what happened and then this happened and then this happened. But this show has this like overarching dramatic narrative where each scene has to come out of the scene before it in this in this way that like makes it really watchable, so that you really want to know what happens next, which isn't true of every single musical out there.

[19:34] Angelica Cheri: Although I do love musicals.

[19:36] Ross Baum: Yeah, we love musicals. When actually we I uh did Dan and I both listened to an interview that you did with with Paige.

[19:41] Angelica Cheri: Oh Paige!

[19:42] Ross Baum: I I used to work with John Greer.

[19:44] Angelica Cheri: Oh my gosh, no way!

[19:46] Ross Baum: Yes, I had spent a lot of time catering with John Greer, and he would always talk about his beautiful wife. And then when I was I guess I had gotten the job when I listened to that interview. I'm not sure if it was before I had the job or not. I think it was after I got the job, and then I just wanted to know more about you, so I found that.

[20:03] Angelica Cheri: Oh, bless you for listening to the Blank Page podcast.

[20:03] Ross Baum: The Blank Page podcast.

[20:08] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, go check it out. Yeah, it was it was great. Um, but one of I just loved uh you had this you're not a person who loves musicals, not from the start, not from the start, which I actually loved because that's literally like the name of our podcast is you know, guys who like musicals, and we talk to people who like musicals, and I think you're the person first person who actively like doesn't like musicals who then wrote a musical and is very good at it, and is very good at it. But you said in that interview, uh, you know, in musicals you sing the subtext, yeah, and in plays you don't, and I just love that I had an audition for a play yesterday, and I was like, okay, don't sing your subtext.

Like I was like thinking about your weird like advice and that. But I just wonder like if you could speak a little bit to that because you've obviously you've you went into the musical theater writing program, you are writing musicals, but um you know, traditionally you didn't come up as like you know, the three of us, I think, you know, wore out the Les Mis cast album, and you were right probably doing just the opposite.

[21:05] Angelica Cheri: Well, so I'll clarify it's not that I don't like musicals, it's that I didn't like them growing up.

[21:09] Ross Baum: Exactly.

[21:09] Angelica Cheri: Sorry, yeah, yeah.

[21:12] Ross Baum: Which is different than the three of us.

[21:13] Angelica Cheri: A girl, right?

[21:14] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah.

[21:14] Angelica Cheri: That's different. I grew up in LA. But it's interesting because my father's a singer and he loves musicals. You know what I mean? And so he would be like watching the VHS of like Oklahoma. Like he would, you know, he put me on to so much of my musical theater heritage. And like I love The Sound of Music but hated Oklahoma growing up.

[21:33] Ross Baum: Oh gosh, please don't have like all of my all of our classmates like oh we're gonna look me up and try to stone me no I'm but like no honestly as a child like I just didn't understand the convention of like breaking out into song in the middle of a cornfield.

[21:49] Angelica Cheri: Totally totally but I think learning what the device of musical theater could do and I referenced Caroline, or Change a lot because um for one growing up I just didn't see myself in musicals. Totally you know like Lion King and it's lions it's Simba, you know it's James Earl Jones, it's fierce. But as a young black girl watching Guys and Dolls I'm like this is cute but like I don't see it doesn't look like it's something made for people like me. Totally but so then hearing and watching Caroline, or Change and I'm like so you mean the washing machine is singing? Like what is that?

[22:25] Ross Baum: Right.

[22:26] Angelica Cheri: Um so just understanding like it's not just a like it felt arbitrary to me like oh people are singing now but like understanding the craft of it I feel like I grew in in terms of like my artistic maturity of what musical theater was doing.

[22:42] Ross Baum: Absolutely.

[22:42] Angelica Cheri: You know yeah and I was like I want to get on board with that.

[22:46] Ross Baum: Totally.

[22:46] Angelica Cheri: Totally. And especially that representation, like you talk about, like you're just not seeing yourself, which is so important. You know, and then it's like, you know, we turn on the TV and always saw us up there singing in cornfields, you know, and stuff. So I mean, that's just remarkable. And uh Caroline, or Change is doing a revival, so that's gonna be very cool.

[23:02] Ross Baum: Yeah, and my so excited. My good friend is is the washing machine.

[23:05] Angelica Cheri: No, this girl who's like 25 who's in Waitress, Erica Jackson.

[23:09] Ross Baum: Oh my gosh.

[23:09] Angelica Cheri: Her third Broadway show. She's like a little Joe Carroll, you know, just like booked, booked, booked, booked on Broadway.

[23:14] Ross Baum: Wow.

[23:15] Joe Carroll: Um how did uh that was a compliment, Joe.

[23:18] Ross Baum: Thanks.

[23:18] Angelica Cheri: You you look like you're insulted, but it was a compliment.

[23:21] Joe Carroll: He's like, I don't know what to do.

[23:22] Angelica Cheri: I don't know what to do.

[23:23] Joe Carroll: Um that's all the time we have today.

[23:25] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[23:26] Joe Carroll: Just receive it.

[23:27] Angelica Cheri: Uh right. Angelica, I want you to answer this question too. But uh, Ross, how did you because I know you you do perform um you have performed, you still perform. I know you have a like an acting agent and stuff, but how did you choose to go to grad school for musical theater writing? How did you come to be a composer? You obviously pay the play the piano beautifully and sing beautifully.

[23:47] Ross Baum: It was like it was a total accident. I graduated from um Syracuse University musical theater performance, and I went, I was working on a Disney cruise ship playing Peter Pan.

[24:02] Angelica Cheri: And it was an interesting time in my life, and I actually I was almost uh fired from that job. That's a long story, but it was two weeks before the end of the contract, and I'm just hoping that like they don't send me home and take my bonus away. And I get an email from Joel Durfner, who is a professor at NYU, and I I had taken a summer course there in undergrad. Just like a four-week musical theater writing thing. I was like, I had been dabbling a little bit.

[24:45] Ross Baum: Yeah. And um lost touch with him, but then he got back in touch like two years later, saying we need more people for this upcoming class, and I think you should apply. And I'm like, um, okay, like I have nothing to do in two weeks. So I like shacked up for four days and just put an application. They were like, Don't worry about like the application, just send us what you have. And then, like a week later, they're like, Okay, you got into the new star's musical theater writing program in the country.

[25:20] Angelica Cheri: Wild.

[25:20] Ross Baum: And you start. I got off the ship on September 1st and they started September 2nd at NYU. And it was just like kind of like not even right place, right time, just like it just like that it was handed. It's like divine or something, like whatever you've got. I never thought I'd go to grad school, I never thought I'd be writing. And it just like changed everything, obviously.

[25:44] Angelica Cheri: It changed everything.

[25:45] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[25:45] Angelica Cheri: That's amazing. He was the cool new guy. We were like, who's this?

[25:49] Ross Baum: Hey.

[25:49] Angelica Cheri: Because everybody was like have been through orientation and all that stuff, and I was like on a floating box for the past nine months. And it was like, you know, he just got off this Disney cruise ship. Like, yeah, he was totally performing. And we're like, oh, this cool new guy.

[26:03] Ross Baum: So cool.

[26:05] Joe Carroll: There's so much dating. This is like the third dating reference that has been made. I wanted to go back to something that Angelica was talking about, though. I think one of the reasons that she is so good is because of that background of like not having come up in musicals, because like I have so many reference points when we're working together, and I will go to like, oh, this sequence is like reminding me of this one from this other show.

[26:30] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[26:30] Joe Carroll: And um you you don't think like that, you think everything is so outside the box, and so it yeah, it doesn't follow any rules, and so I think it's a good uh balance for the two of us, totally um, because it pushes me to just go with that idea, and even in the way that she writes lyrics, like it's not typical, so it's so patient. It really pushes me to like break my own rules, right?

[26:58] Angelica Cheri: Um, and I you still have the foundation of knowing the rules so that you know how to break them.

[27:02] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:04] Joe Carroll: That's that's really cool.

[27:05] Angelica Cheri: I love you.

[27:05] Ross Baum: That's really cool.

[27:05] Angelica Cheri: I adore this man, seriously, and he's like the got the most patience in the world because he'll be like, you know that, you know, that scene out of you.

[27:15] Ross Baum: I don't know, Les Mis.

[27:15] Angelica Cheri: He's like build the moment, and I'm like, yeah, no, can you pull it up on YouTube? Like I was like, I'm so sorry. Like the vocabulary, I'm working on it, but no, seriously. And now she's learning piano.

[27:28] Ross Baum: Now I'm learning piano.

[27:29] Angelica Cheri: Yes, I just love that. I can't tell him, Oh, can you take it a fifth down? I'll be like, um, it doesn't sound scary enough. He was like, Okay, I'll just figure out and then I have to interpret it. But that's perfect, right?

[27:41] Ross Baum: But that's that's amazing.

[27:43] Angelica Cheri: That's amazing because that's giving notes. That's like into like you giving notes and you have having to find like intention behind music. Like, I'm I'm just you say that it has to be scary. And I go to the opening of Sweeney Todd when when uh when he talks about writing that opening, and he's like, it had to be in the lowest key possible, and it was super minor and super clashing a do that do that, you know, all of this stuff. And it's like that, I don't know, I want to be in the room with you guys. Make I want that, I want to see that happen, you know what I mean?

[28:10] Ross Baum: Totally.

[28:10] Angelica Cheri: We're having a follow up to the kitchen table. Come up to the kitchen table.

[28:12] Ross Baum: No, seriously, and Sweeney Todd was one of the few that I'm not gonna I would keep referencing Sweeney Todd like that moment in Sweeney Todd.

[28:20] Joe Carroll: Oh, the battle of the Sweeney Todd.

[28:22] Angelica Cheri: That's the musical you know, right?

[28:24] Ross Baum: Right.

[28:25] Angelica Cheri: Does it start you alluded to that it starts kind of in this epic folk tale way? Does it start with kind of like a join us, like you know, on the edge of the stage, like kind of sort of moment?

[28:38] Ross Baum: Oh yes. He takes us to church.

[28:41] Angelica Cheri: Yes, yeah, and the guy who's doing it, he was a finalist on The Voice. He was on uh Adam Levine's team on The Voice.

[28:46] Ross Baum: Wow.

[28:47] Angelica Cheri: And he racial is from DC, and when we knew we were gonna do this show in DC, we were like, please call him now.

[28:56] Ross Baum: That is so cool.

[28:57] Angelica Cheri: That's that's epic. This is such a bad huge deal. Are you guys so excited? I'm sorry to just like nerd out for a second, but like, are you really like this is because you've been working on this for five years, right?

[29:02] Ross Baum: Five years.

[29:09] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, five years.

[29:11] Ross Baum: Yeah, I mean, it feels like an arrival, but it also feels like the beginning.

[29:14] Angelica Cheri: The very beginning.

[29:15] Ross Baum: Totally, yeah, because it's like another whole journey from here.

[29:18] Angelica Cheri: Oh, another second potatoes.

[29:19] Ross Baum: Yes. I'm just happy it's finally here and that we have um all these names have been floating around.

[29:25] Angelica Cheri: Oh, this person's working on it, this person's designing it, this person's and then now that we're actually gonna be like in a room with them and actually seeing what they bring, yeah, and knowing that it's not gonna be anything like the version that I see in my head or that you in delicacies in her head, the way that like what I've been watching, yeah, of it for five years.

[29:49] Angelica Cheri: Like that version. It's not, it's not that.

[29:52] Ross Baum: Right. When did when did um did the signature theater come into play before Robert O'Hara or how did that so signature was you know theater you're doing it at in DC? They can't they they were did they option it, or how did that kind of work?

[30:06] Angelica Cheri: Started off because we applied actually to this Sigworks lab back in 2017, which was this two-week-long laboratory workshop situation. Actually, how we met Ration Lamar and another one of our fabulous ensemble actresses, Awa Sal Seca, who just just burned that name in your memory, everybody. Um that's all we'll say for now. But we applied, and it was one of those another wonderful things plucked from the universe. Was we were the the show chosen for this workshop out of 170 submissions.

[30:45] Ross Baum: Wow, crazy.

[30:46] Angelica Cheri: And so we were like, hi, thanks. We can't wait to play with you. And so we developed this relationship with the signature from that moment.

[30:55] Ross Baum: And so Joe Calarco, who was the director and new works development director at the time, um, was just our champion throughout this process. You know, he kept in touch with us and he kept championing for the show for the show for the show, and then eventually they offered us a spot.

[31:14] Angelica Cheri: Amazing, amazing.

[31:16] Ross Baum: And then and then how did Robert O'Hara come into the the fray a little bit?

[31:20] Angelica Cheri: And uh those of you who don't know directed slave play on Broadway, and which is the most remarkable one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen, but has kind of taken Broadway by storm uh this season. It's just remarkable. And so when that I mean, I mean Dan comes in here and he's like, I'm auditioning for this musical that the guy who did slave play is doing in DC.

[31:41] Ross Baum: And I'm like, okay, okay, man, great. Like, you know, so that was kind of the m the first selling point was that he was attached. Was that how did he come up in in get involved?

[31:50] Angelica Cheri: He was someone who we all were talking about. Right?

[31:53] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[31:54] Angelica Cheri: The signature, we were excited about him. And you know, we were just kind of having a conversation about names.

[32:01] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[32:02] Angelica Cheri: Because we were very passionate about the fact that we really wanted to have a d an African American director.

[32:07] Ross Baum: Totally.

[32:08] Angelica Cheri: Yeah. Um with this material. And so Robert O'Hara obviously is Robert O'Hara. So we were just we were like to the signature. We're excited about him. Are you excited? And I think it was a no-brainer at that point.

[32:20] Ross Baum: Yeah, we met up with him. He had read it. Um he is such a character.

[32:26] Angelica Cheri: And um and he is for how busy he is, he is so um focused on the task at hand.

[32:35] Ross Baum: So he had read through the script, like he had pages and pages of thoughts.

[32:41] Angelica Cheri: So it was just clear that he was passionate about it as well. Especially for somebody who is doing so many amazing things. Um it made us feel comfortable putting it in his hands.

[32:52] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[32:52] Angelica Cheri: And he's also a writer too. Did he help to kind of influence the show in in that way? Were there changes that were made because he was involved?

[33:00] Ross Baum: He did ask some very specific questions that sort of already spoke to things that we were working on, questioning, concerned about so he just, you know, laser it's like I don't understand that. And we're like, great, that's that's what we needed to do.

[33:16] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[33:17] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[33:18] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, it's super helpful. Like it's it must be nice to have someone who's like a vet and a champion to like to attach yourselves to as you like make this big step into this this like whole other echelon that you guys are about to like soar through.

[33:34] Ross Baum: He makes us feel very safe.

[33:37] Angelica Cheri: He's just like, listen, we got it.

[33:40] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[33:40] Angelica Cheri: This is about to be a technical question about how do you know when a character sings and why?

[33:47] Ross Baum: Ooh, grad school question.

[33:51] Angelica Cheri: Yes. We're about to steal your NYU grad education so that the actors in the audience can have some understanding of what the hell they're doing.

[33:59] Ross Baum: I think we do we have a lot of conversation back and forth about the moment that we're working on.

[34:07] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[34:08] Ross Baum: And we talk through every single detail, like every thought.

[34:12] Angelica Cheri: Well, you well, usually Angelica will like r write a scene or some kind of idea for a scene, and then we'll go through it and talk through it, and then um and then maybe like I'll hear some kind of music and just start like noodling around on the piano, and then she'll be like, Oh, I like that.

[34:29] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[34:30] Angelica Cheri: And then I'll keep going on that, and then she'll like write maybe a lyric to that, and then we'll go back and forth. So I guess it kind of happens organically.

[34:38] Ross Baum: I mean, like the textbook answer would be like, you know, they they sing when the emotion gets too high that they can't speak.

[34:45] Angelica Cheri: Right, can't work in.

[34:46] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[34:46] Angelica Cheri: Um but I don't know. I think it kind of happens naturally in in the moment.

[34:53] Ross Baum: I love working in the room together as opposed to because we're like bicostal, so we do a lot a lot on Skype.

[34:58] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[34:59] Ross Baum: Yeah. Um, but there's something about the energy in the room.

[35:03] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[35:03] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[35:03] Angelica Cheri: Did you have a script script when like when you guys started? Did you start with I mean, this is the worst question to ask a music lyric team, but like is it music or lyrics first?

[35:12] Ross Baum: And it sounds like it is together. But like, did you have a script like a a script script written when you guys started working on it?

[35:18] Angelica Cheri: Or no? It was just this idea and then it was scenes.

[35:21] Ross Baum: Yeah. The the way that this grad program is structured is that they start you in the conversation and then you have to do sort of like an outline treatment.

[35:30] Angelica Cheri: And you know, you still have no idea what this what the show is.

[35:35] Ross Baum: Um and you do you just present scenes, pieces, bits of it, and they kind of critique the bits, and you go back and rewrite, but it's kind of disorienting because if you don't know what the whole show is, and then you get critiques on this one scene, then you start trying to rewrite.

[35:52] Angelica Cheri: So I feel like the first year was us like just trying to get our bearings on what the story was in the midst of critique from the faculty and feedback, and well, then this isn't working.

[36:03] Ross Baum: And so the version that is being produced is almost completely uh rewritten from the first ver it's almost nothing in common except the same characters.

[36:14] Angelica Cheri: Right, yeah, right, right.

[36:15] Ross Baum: And like what, five songs?

[36:17] Angelica Cheri: Um, maybe seven songs.

[36:19] Ross Baum: But we've written like eighty-six.

[36:22] Angelica Cheri: Wow.

[36:23] Ross Baum: That have been like, well, about 25 or main, I guess, but the rest are cut.

[36:28] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[36:29] Ross Baum: But like your character, Dan started as he was this dude called the scorekeeper.

[36:35] Angelica Cheri: Oh, yeah.

[36:35] Ross Baum: Because we wanted to write like a number that happened in a saloon, and there were like poker games and and like all kinds of like rude and tutin stuff happening.

[36:46] Angelica Cheri: And he was just kind of like the ringleader, and his name was Scorekeeper.

[36:50] Ross Baum: That's right.

[36:52] Angelica Cheri: And then he somehow evolved into Jesse.

[36:57] Ross Baum: And then and then that was when we were like, well, okay, when so this guy needs to sing because he's becoming more important. What what does he sing about?

[37:06] Angelica Cheri: He's very guarded on the outside because he's um like a strapping cowboy.

[37:14] Ross Baum: So obviously he's gonna sing his vulnerability because he's finally meeting somebody that he he thinks he can relate to.

[37:21] Angelica Cheri: Um so we knew we wanted a song like that and a scene where they kind of connect on a deep level for the first time.

[37:28] Ross Baum: And then even that song we've had maybe three or four versions of we've gone back to version number two, we've rewritten half of those lyrics, and yeah, because I've seen the version that John Riddle sang at uh Lincoln Center.

[37:41] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, similar.

[37:43] Ross Baum: Similar, similar song, but tone but different details.

[37:48] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, totally.

[37:49] Ross Baum: That's really interesting.

[37:50] Angelica Cheri: That's so cool.

[37:51] Ross Baum: I'm just kind of geeking out.

[37:54] Angelica Cheri: I'm very 86 songs, 86 songs.

[37:57] Ross Baum: Like, and I mean we joke about the you know, Lost in Boston, those those albums.

[38:01] Angelica Cheri: There were these musical theater albums of of show songs, sh trunk songs and sh songs that were cut from shows, and like I want, I want that concert at some point.

[38:10] Ross Baum: I want the yeah, I want the coding power, like like double vinyl pressed, you know, 86.

[38:16] Angelica Cheri: That's just and those were all also like notated, yeah, like put like put onto sheet music.

[38:21] Ross Baum: So like to present to the faculty and to put into all these different versions.

[38:27] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[38:28] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[38:29] Angelica Cheri: That's wild.

[38:29] Ross Baum: Is it a little strange to have because John sang those songs at the thing, is it a little strange to have songs out there that are no longer part of the show, or that you know, because you've been working on it for so long, and you know, you did have to present material at NAMP'd or whatever, you know.

[38:41] Angelica Cheri: Are there things that is that kind of strange to be like, hey, well, that's actually not the way it is anymore?

[38:45] Ross Baum: Or I don't know.

[38:48] Angelica Cheri: I guess that's kind of par for the course.

[38:50] Ross Baum: Like, yeah, we were very, very, very intentional and strategic about what we did um release because we knew the we know the nature of the beast at this point.

[39:00] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[39:00] Ross Baum: So we were like, well, what songs do we know are like not leaving the show?

[39:05] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[39:05] Ross Baum: Um, and so the ones that, you know, the the song that John Riddle sang and the the different pieces that you know have been presented in different cabarets and things were things that we have remained very they're sort of like our the anchors of the show.

[39:22] Angelica Cheri: Um, but you know, we kind of you just have to take that risk because then you'll just not release anything until the cast album.

[39:29] Ross Baum: Right, right.

[39:29] Angelica Cheri: And for us, I think it's it's worth it to have like John Riddle singing her song out there.

[39:37] Ross Baum: Right.

[39:38] Angelica Cheri: It I mean, we'll take all of the exposure we can get because we are up and coming.

[39:43] Ross Baum: Right.

[39:44] Angelica Cheri: Um I guess at a certain point we'll probably be a little more um careful to monitor that.

[39:50] Ross Baum: But um take all the help I can get and I guess it's just interesting because like you know, when you're just working on things in in the privacy of your own studio, your own house, like they can stay sort of private until you want them to be public.

[40:03] Angelica Cheri: And you guys have had to kind of pitch this along the way.

[40:06] Ross Baum: You've had to you've had to show people this in, you know, sort of in beta as it grows and as it grows.

[40:11] Angelica Cheri: And you know, that's also very vulnerable.

[40:13] Ross Baum: I mean, this whole process is just you know, yeah, it would be like scary to like show people your baby and then have them be like, actually, this needs some help.

[40:20] Angelica Cheri: And you're like, no, oh god, I'm still working on it.

[40:22] Ross Baum: I'm still working on it.

[40:23] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, that's that's really tough.

[40:25] Ross Baum: There's a lot of uh like in the history of musical theater, there are so many teams that have written over and over and over and over and over.

[40:32] Angelica Cheri: Do you guys have the plan to keep working together?

[40:34] Ross Baum: Oh, of course.

[40:35] Angelica Cheri: Definitely, yeah.

[40:36] Ross Baum: You can't get rid of me, he better not.

[40:38] Angelica Cheri: Are you working on anything else that you probab might not be able to talk about it, which is totally fine too?

[40:43] Ross Baum: But we got something cooking.

[40:45] Angelica Cheri: That means yes.

[40:46] Ross Baum: Early stages.

[40:47] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, early, early, early stages of the sun.

[40:50] Ross Baum: That's very exciting.

[40:51] Angelica Cheri: That's very exciting.

[40:52] Ross Baum: I'm excited to hear that.

[40:53] Joe Carroll: I have a question.

[40:54] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[40:54] Joe Carroll: Is there anything like I love talking to writers and and producers and thing people who uh, you know, w what do you wish that actors knew? Is there anything that you can think of as writers that like you wish, whether it's in an audition setting or just in a performer, like, you know, is there anything that you wish that actors knew that writers know?

[41:16] Angelica Cheri: Is that it?

[41:17] Ross Baum: Is that makes sense?

[41:18] Angelica Cheri: There's another pause to edit out of the side.

[41:19] Ross Baum: That's how we can we can edit it all.

[41:21] Angelica Cheri: There's plenty of pauses to edit.

[41:22] Ross Baum: That's uh it's a heady question, but I just I remember I remember taking a class and and having this teacher be like, you know, as actors, you gotta start thinking about this, you know, scenes from the perspective of the writer, from the perspective of the producer, from the perspective of people that have been working on this thing for five years.

[41:37] Angelica Cheri: And I thought that was really helpful to be like, even if it's just learn your words, you know.

[41:42] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[41:42] Angelica Cheri: But like you guys have such an intimate connection to this piece, and then we show up for two minutes and sing one of your songs that you've sweat over at the piano for five years.

[41:51] Ross Baum: Yeah, you know.

[41:53] Angelica Cheri: Well, um, I I learned so much too, like sitting in on our own auditions.

[41:59] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[41:59] Angelica Cheri: Like as a performer myself.

[42:01] Ross Baum: Totally.

[42:01] Angelica Cheri: Um, the biggest thing was that like a little preparation goes a really long way.

[42:07] Ross Baum: And it was so in what way?

[42:09] Angelica Cheri: Like you did like the most preparation out of anybody.

[42:16] Ross Baum: Is that true?

[42:17] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[42:18] Ross Baum: Because you um you just came in and like lived it, and you what am I trying to say?

[42:29] Angelica Cheri: Actually, you you were talking with on the Shoshana Bean episode. You were like the moment that people learned how to like open their hearts in an audition room, everything changes.

[42:40] Ross Baum: And I really feel like you were like one of the people who did that.

[42:46] Angelica Cheri: And it put me at ease knowing like, oh, this guy's like super passionate about this material, like as passionate as we are, and it just shows in the preparation and like the um the care that you took and the graciousness like with which you perform the material.

[43:06] Ross Baum: And I wish that that was something that that I knew is like we want you to be it.

[43:16] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, like we're really rooting for you.

[43:17] Ross Baum: We want you to walk in and like be just be that character and just want to live in the moment.

[43:23] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, um, and then it just makes it like kind of like easy, makes our job easy because it's like, oh, but oh, this person, like, but Dan.

[43:32] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah.

[43:33] Angelica Cheri: Adding to that, and you know, kind of in the same vein, make a choice, you know what I mean?

[43:39] Ross Baum: Yeah, like because specificity is key.

[43:44] Angelica Cheri: Um, preparation and knowing that you're coming in to add something to bring to life something that was on paper, you know.

[43:54] Ross Baum: I think there was another, you know, of course, just singing your praises, honestly, because you specifically you presented two sides of this man who we have very specifically kind of delineate, not to give anything away, but he has he's got this Jekyll and Hyde, you know, and you put forth equal amount of specificity and um detail into both of them.

[44:22] Angelica Cheri: And you like you had nuance, there were just different things about this man had made him three-dimensional.

[44:29] Angelica Cheri: And I think that that's what's so important because I feel like sometimes actors in an audition setting will get nervous and just try to like get the song out or get the words out and just trip up and not remember that this has to be a person that we actually believe and follow and go through an arc.

[44:47] Angelica Cheri: And I know it's tough because you know, obviously, you don't necessarily have time to like read the whole script of something before you go into an audition room, but like just based on context, like the sides are chosen with a lot of intention in all situations.

[45:02] Angelica Cheri: So, like extracting as much from the sides as you can to understand, like, I think I know what this man is, I think I know who this woman is, I think I know who this person is. Let me see if I can put this on it. I think that's just helps us so much to understand, like, okay, you can follow through this journey with this character. You're not just trying to sing the get the words right.

[45:23] Ross Baum: Right.

[45:24] Angelica Cheri: And also like you can bring something additional, like to our space, to our rehearsal room by showing all those things and living all those things. It's like that's that's like an energy that is like a quality that is going to add in a way that I can't even conceive at this moment. But when we get into the rehearsal room, um, like that's gonna mix in super well.

[45:51] Ross Baum: Totally.

[45:52] Angelica Cheri: Yeah. And there was so much I I feel like I wanna I we may have to do this like before, like in the intro, I might have to answer, like give all my thoughts on this because there's so many things I want to say. But what I want to say in front of you guys is there's like an interesting um I was I don't know who sang the underneath demo, but I couldn't, I don't think it was you.

[46:17] Ross Baum: It was me.

[46:17] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, it's Ross.

[46:18] Ross Baum: That is you?

[46:19] Angelica Cheri: Mm-hmm.

[46:19] Ross Baum: That's me doing my best, Stephen Pasqual.

[46:23] Angelica Cheri: Okay, it's next level. That's amazing. I'm looking at Joe with the widest eyes because it's next level.

[46:27] Ross Baum: Yeah, and it just is a different quality than in Destiny. Um it's so good. It's like John Paul Owens. Like, it's like great, it's like epic lay miz. It's really amazing. But listening to that song, like I felt deep in my soul, something was alive.

[46:40] Angelica Cheri: Oh wow.

[46:40] Ross Baum: Deep in my soul.

[46:49] Angelica Cheri: And I would I was driving home from I'm gonna cry. I was dri I am I was driving home from Chelsea Pierce on my city bike on 26th Street, and all of a sudden it was like the world just like opened up and like I was there.

[47:05] Ross Baum: Oh my god.

[47:06] Angelica Cheri: Oh my god, it was wild. It just like totally, and we've been talking on this show like over and over and over. We when we started doing the show, we didn't really even know what we were doing. But the more we do it, the more we're like, oh, this is about just like trying to figure out how this world works, and we keep saying the world alignment.

[47:21] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah.

[47:22] Angelica Cheri: We keep saying alignment, alignment, and it just was one of those moments where there's only been two scenarios in my career where I've ever felt like I actually connected to what was happening. And it is weird to connect with this character that is a Jacqueline Hyde. It's weird to like when people see this show and they're gonna be like, wait, you connect with this guy, it's gonna like gonna be concerning because of some of the themes in the show, but it's deeper than that.

[47:41] Angelica Cheri: It's about like identity and and those kinds of things, and um just the way that the music and the lyrics came together, not to give anything away, but and you just you you you had a great song on your headphones riding your bike, like yeah, a great musical theater song.

[47:56] Ross Baum: Yeah, like you know, that that doesn't happen very often, I I think, you know.

[48:00] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, I don't think those like moments you're I can see it. I see the movie of that Dan riding his bike times when he's with like the sun opening. I get it.

[48:08] Ross Baum: Yeah I love musicals and like and like where you where I was, you can see the uh the Empire State Building, like through the buildings behind me, and I just like stopped there as the lyric switches in that motif comes in from earlier in the show.

[48:27] Angelica Cheri: Well, we have a you know, I don't want to give it a few that that switch when he makes the choice. Oh and I was like, oh, this is about a man who's like dealing with something that's really complicated, but he wants to do the right thing because he thinks he can, you know, and then it all opened up for me that it wasn't about this guy's not a terrible person. He's not, he just doesn't know.

[48:53] Ross Baum: Yeah, and that I could totally relate to. And that all just like unraveled for me, and then I was like, oh, because the trap, if we're gonna talk about the story of of the sides, right? And like how to prepare an audition as an actor and figure out what the thing is, a lot of times I think in our preparation, we end up just playing general moods.

[49:12] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, yeah.

[49:13] Ross Baum: It was clear in the first scene that he was like, uh the general mood of that first scene could have been to interrogate and be like menacing. But I was like, no, like this is a this is a fun game for me. We have to show the charm here. And then in the second scene was where you could like kind of show those other sides, and you could like I don't know. Now I'm just rambling about how I think I put that together.

[49:37] Angelica Cheri: Because also the last thing I want to say is that sometimes you have five odd four. I'm not gonna say I have five auditions because that never happens, but sometimes you have three auditions and you have no time to prepare.

[49:49] Ross Baum: Right.

[49:49] Angelica Cheri: And I got really lucky that I hadn't had anything come in and it was just you guys, and I could just like all day for three days, just like do this and like know it and be there and do it and show up on the day and do it. And it was only three days, which is not a long time for musicals, but it just like all worked out, and now here we are.

[50:07] Ross Baum: Wow.

[50:08] Angelica Cheri: My heart's beating super fast.

[50:10] Ross Baum: Mine too.

[50:12] Angelica Cheri: Mine three.

[50:14] Ross Baum: And I'm here too.

[50:16] Angelica Cheri: I I'm I'm just help us show up. I'm so excited. First of all, I'm I'm gonna come to DC and see it, obviously. But then what I'm excited for is to like we'll I think we'll air this around the time that it opens, around the time some, you know, we'll figure all that out. But and we're just talking live now, but we'll figure out that. But I'm excited to re-air this, like when it comes to New York, and to be like, and to be like, remember we were sitting here talking about it, you know.

[50:41] Ross Baum: And then and then all of do you think that things will change when we're down there?

[50:46] Angelica Cheri: It's so fast. Like I know, like I think so, but also we have like three weeks.

[50:51] Ross Baum: Yeah, three and a half weeks.

[50:53] Angelica Cheri: So fast. It's I anytime I'll go into a rehearsal process, I always feel like all right, I'd done all the work that I can do, and it's the script is tight. It's ready. And then I'm amazed at how much rewriting still happens in plays.

[51:08] Ross Baum: So this is my first musical that I'm taking to production. So I am absolutely I don't want to say terrified. I have I just have no idea.

[51:14] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[51:15] Ross Baum: And there's so and there's like so many more moving parts too. It's like if we make a change, well, this affects the choreography, this affects the orchestration. This will like there's so many, it's like dominoes.

[51:27] Angelica Cheri: Right.

[51:28] Ross Baum: Um so who knows? And then within that, we have like two seconds to put it together. And this is like the first real production, correct? Like so, so you know, you'll want to probably make some changes, but you're right, like it affects everything.

[51:43] Angelica Cheri: Because it's it's three weeks, yeah, and then tech, and then you know, five, four previews or whatever, and we open it, like it's really fast. And I've I've done like a lab before, and the lab was changing like the day of so like it can happen, you know, it can change, but it's different when you're like worrying about how a moment's gonna tech. You can't just rewrite a scene.

[52:02] Ross Baum: Yeah, but it's funny too, because you guys have been working on it for so long that I imagine you're you are you're like it's it's tight, it's ready to go.

[52:08] Angelica Cheri: That's you know, we would hold I mean, five years, yeah, we think okay, we've done so much work, but then again, like Ross was saying, you until living breath living breathing people walk it out, really, there's so many things you just will not absolutely know at all.

[52:25] Ross Baum: Right, yeah.

[52:25] Angelica Cheri: It's like you can't finish the end of destiny and change into this petticoat in five seconds.

[52:31] Ross Baum: What do you mean?

[52:34] Angelica Cheri: Cut the petticoat.

[52:35] Ross Baum: Yeah, yeah, that's gonna be a cut five bars of this song. We'll be like, what do you mean? Cut this song. We've cut this song 18 different times. You know, do you know how long this song was in 2015? This used to be 20 pages now.

[52:47] Angelica Cheri: It's four page.

[52:51] Ross Baum: Before we finish, I just want to know what uh what you guys have cooking and what we should.

[53:00] Angelica Cheri: I want you to ask your question because I think it's really great here.

[53:02] Ross Baum: I'm excited.

[53:03] Angelica Cheri: Do you want me to do it? And that can be part of it.

[53:05] Ross Baum: Yeah.

[53:05] Angelica Cheri: Okay, great.

[53:06] Angelica Cheri: So this is my really cheesy, again, musical theater reference question. But what is your for both of you? What is your unreachable star? And what that means in is anything that is on the horizon that you're now like trying to point the ship towards. It could be anything, it could be something next week.

[53:29] Ross Baum: But it's funny because we taught we I asked that question a lot. What? We did the show joke.

[53:32] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[53:34] Ross Baum: I right over my head because I don't know anything about it except that my friend is in it and you guys are awesome, and I'm excited to see it.

[53:39] Angelica Cheri: No.

[53:40] Ross Baum: Um but uh we asked like we asked that question to a lot of people, and so you know, I we asked it to our friend who's 22, and he's like, I want to be in an X-Men movie. And then you ask a friend who's like in their 40s, and they're like, I want to, you know, it's a more ethereal answer. So, like, whatever it can be anything, but I just want to know where you guys see, like, you know, what what's down the road? Besides Broadway, Broadway's great.

[54:05] Angelica Cheri: Ladies first.

[54:06] Angelica Cheri: I mean, definitely Broadway. Let's go.

[54:09] Ross Baum: Yes.

[54:10] Angelica Cheri: Definitely Broadway. We're definitely, you know, I think that you know, I can speak for us both saying that, you know, the this would be the first of multiple Broadway shows for us that we you know.

[54:21] Ross Baum: Yeah, definitely.

[54:23] Angelica Cheri: Um, and I want to write a film that Hans Zimmer scores.

[54:27] Ross Baum: Hell yeah.

[54:27] Angelica Cheri: Uh just sorry, Ross.

[54:29] Ross Baum: No, it's not personal. He's told me that he's if I do if I do opera, he's out. So I'm like, well, then I'm gonna just write an opera for Han Zimmer.

[54:36] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, there you go.

[54:37] Ross Baum: Everything else, Ross, and then for opera for Han Zimmer.

[54:41] Angelica Cheri: It's okay. You can he can take the opera.

[54:42] Ross Baum: Do you have the do you have a part of that answer that is like Angelica aside from like what you have to do as a writer?

[54:55] Angelica Cheri: Um I definitely you mean like the fact that I want to choreograph a flamenco dance in Pampelona?

[55:02] Ross Baum: Yeah, is that what you mean?

[55:03] Angelica Cheri: Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah. I'd love, yeah. I'd love to do some stuff with choreography. Um I'm in LA, so yeah, there are some TV ideas that um I want to that I, you know, definitely staffing on TV and starting and creating my own show. But yeah, I want to get to Spain and do some flamenco.

[55:23] Ross Baum: That's awesome.

[55:23] Angelica Cheri: Nice, that's awesome. Let's do that.

[55:26] Ross Baum: No, it's perfect. It's perfect. And also, you're the first people that have been on the show to be like Broadway, which is like awesome because we're we're kind of a Broadway podcast or whatever. But it's like, what what's your unreachable star? Broadway. Like that's exactly when you get there. We'll re-air this. And then we're when you get there, we'll re-air the butt like you know, that's very it's that's just like that's very cool.

[55:46] Ross Baum: I think that's like the I think that's like the little kid dream inside me.

[55:51] Angelica Cheri: Yeah.

[55:53] Ross Baum: It's just always been that. And I know it's like everyone's always like, they get there and they're like, okay, now what? Um but like I guess it's par for the course.

[56:02] Angelica Cheri: Um yeah, totally.

[56:03] Ross Baum: And it's just uh I don't know, it's like the little theater nerd inside you has that goal. And then beyond that, I think it's just to be able to make a career in theater. Like I look at people like um like Pass again Paul and like Lynn Manuel Miranda and Bobby Lopez, and like um these are people who just make careers in theater.

[56:30] Angelica Cheri: Steven Flarity, Lynn Erens, yeah, Neon Mencken, and it's just like an amazing legacy that they that they leave.

[56:38] Ross Baum: Yeah, and um, those are the people that I really look up to because they just and it's not that they don't, it's not like a constant stream of successes, it's just that you can live your life like fulfilling your passion every day, and you have projects that continue to feed that. And um that I guess that's my kind of like unreach me at 29.

[57:05] Angelica Cheri: It's an excellent unreachable star.

[57:08] Ross Baum: I love sure.

[57:10] Angelica Cheri: That's an excellent answer.

[57:11] Ross Baum: Yeah, that's awesome.

[57:12] Angelica Cheri: Well, I can't wait to see the show. Holy shit.

[57:15] Ross Baum: I can't wait to start rehearsals. I like was uh they they we're in a workshop week right now.

[57:23] Angelica Cheri: Um, and so we had this whole week, and I was like, great. I want nine to six every day. Like I just want to, I just want to do it. Let's go now. And I'm sure like week three of tech, I'm gonna be like, or week three of rehearsals, I'm gonna be like, I need a break. Can I sit down? But right now I'm just so excited to get to get going and working with you guys. I'm really excited.

[57:41] Angelica Cheri: Guys, we can't wait.

[57:45] Ross Baum: Yeah, go see it if you're especially if you're in the DC area, but it's Broadway.

[57:50] Angelica Cheri: Yes, yes, let's make it happen.