This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:20] Joe Carroll: I can't believe the song starts this way.

[0:26] Dan Tracy: Since the beginning of time.

[0:30] Joe Carroll: Billy Eilish has Lauren in the Hollywood Bowl 2022.

[0:36] Dan Tracy: Is that actually happening?

[0:37] Joe Carroll: No, I'm just like putting it out in the universe.

[0:41] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[0:42] Joe Carroll: Why wouldn't they?

[0:42] Dan Tracy: I don't know.

[0:43] Joe Carroll: They've done it everywhere else.

[0:44] Dan Tracy: I don't know.

[0:46] Joe Carroll: Why were we listening to that?

[0:48] Dan Tracy: Because you came in singing dun dun dun dun.

[0:51] Joe Carroll: And I was like, are you singing the beginning of "History of Wrong Guys"?

[0:53] Dan Tracy: And he didn't even know what I was talking about.

[0:55] Joe Carroll: So who's the bigger guy who likes musicals here?

[0:58] Dan Tracy: Okay, take it easy.

[0:59] Joe Carroll: I just had something stuck in my head, and I don't know why.

[1:02] Dan Tracy: But I guess it was "History of Wrong Guys."

[1:04] Joe Carroll: It was "History of Wrong Guys."

[1:08] Dan Tracy: Oh no.

[1:09] Joe Carroll: This is such a horrible start.

[1:12] Dan Tracy: Should we start over?

[1:13] Joe Carroll: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[1:15] Dan Tracy: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[1:17] Joe Carroll: We are back with a season two with something.

[1:21] Dan Tracy: With rambling nonsense.

[1:22] Joe Carroll: Nonsense.

[1:25] Dan Tracy: Yes.

[1:26] Joe Carroll: We're back.

[1:27] Dan Tracy: It's been a month.

[1:28] Joe Carroll: Has it been a month?

[1:29] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it's been over a month because shout out to Russ, the doorman at my show.

[1:32] Joe Carroll: He was like, hey, Joe, it's been a month, and you said that you guys were gonna take a month off, and it's been almost a month, over a month.

[1:39] Dan Tracy: So like if you're gonna get the podcast back together, you better get going.

[1:39] Joe Carroll: Get going.

[1:45] Dan Tracy: Right.

[1:45] Joe Carroll: And I was like, I guess it's true.

[1:46] Dan Tracy: So we gotta start, we gotta start rambling into microphones about musicals again.

[1:49] Joe Carroll: Right, so here we are.

[1:50] Dan Tracy: So here we are. What are we doing this week?

[1:53] Joe Carroll: We're talking to Anne L Nathan.

[1:55] Dan Tracy: Which is gonna be great.

[1:57] Joe Carroll: We did "Once" together.

[1:58] Dan Tracy: She is about to be in "Sing Street" at New York Theater Workshop, which is coming to Broadway next season.

[2:04] Joe Carroll: Fingers crossed.

[2:05] Dan Tracy: She just did "Broadway Bounty Hunter" with Joe Iconis.

[2:08] Joe Carroll: She's been, I want to call this episode...

[2:09] Dan Tracy: I mean, now we're just working through things on air, I guess.

[2:12] Joe Carroll: But I think I'm gonna call this episode "Ann Nathan Has Been in Every Musical You've Ever Seen."

[2:17] Dan Tracy: Because basically, she's been in every musical that you've ever seen.

[2:22] Joe Carroll: Most famously, "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Ragtime," "Once," as I mentioned, "It Shoulda Been You."

[2:28] Dan Tracy: She was a Mama Morton in "Chicago."

[2:30] Joe Carroll: She's done so much, all sorts of off-Broadway, all sorts of TV, all sorts of things.

[2:34] Dan Tracy: Uh, Dan, you want to turn your cell phone off?

[2:36] Joe Carroll: Yeah, whatever, Joe.

[2:37] Dan Tracy: Okay. And uh, so we're talking to her. We're gonna do the news, we're gonna do things we love.

[2:41] Joe Carroll: We are back.

[2:41] Dan Tracy: Dan, how excited are you?

[2:43] Joe Carroll: I'm so excited.

[2:46] Dan Tracy: So an actor is saying his lines, and then out of nowhere, he just starts singing.

[3:03] Joe Carroll: Don't cry for me.

[3:08] Dan Tracy: Just a few things to look forward to this season that we know that were that we know are happening.

[3:12] Joe Carroll: Confirmed.

[3:13] Dan Tracy: Confirmed.

[3:13] Joe Carroll: Uh, we're gonna interview John Riddle, and we're gonna do "Hans on Hans."

[3:17] Dan Tracy: "Hans on Hans" from Dan.

[3:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah, and Dan's Don's interviews "Hans on Hans."

[3:18] Dan Tracy: "Hans on Hans."

[3:23] Joe Carroll: Uh, uh, we're going to pump you up.

[3:25] Dan Tracy: Pump.

[3:26] Joe Carroll: You know that recording.

[3:28] Dan Tracy: Putting down.

[3:28] Joe Carroll: Um, so that's gonna happen.

[3:30] Dan Tracy: Uh, we're gonna interview, uh, we got an interview with Paul Nolan from "Slave Play."

[3:35] Joe Carroll: And Paul and I did "Once" together.

[3:37] Dan Tracy: Uh, he's a great, great dude.

[3:39] Joe Carroll: And uh, Alex, my wife saw "Slave Play" last night and just could not even speak.

[3:45] Dan Tracy: And we're gonna go next week.

[3:46] Joe Carroll: No, we're going next week.

[3:46] Dan Tracy: So we'll talk about that next week.

[3:48] Joe Carroll: Um, what else do we know that's happening?

[3:50] Dan Tracy: We know, um, we have an interview with Ellen Marsh, uh, who is in "Rose Tattoo."

[3:56] Joe Carroll: "Rose Tattoo" opens next week, so we're gonna, uh, have that interview out next week.

[4:00] Dan Tracy: Oh, we got so much stuff happening this season.

[4:02] Joe Carroll: We swear to God we're actually, we're back.

[4:04] Dan Tracy: We're back.

[4:05] Joe Carroll: And we missed it.

[4:06] Dan Tracy: And we hope you missed us because we're not going anywhere.

[4:08] Joe Carroll: We're not going anywhere until we run out of interviews and then we'll take another month off.

[4:13] Dan Tracy: But until then, yeah, or until one of us has...

[4:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah, right, right.

[4:19] Dan Tracy: Um, trying to figure out how to do the...

[4:19] Joe Carroll: Yeah, yeah, we're figuring it out. Whatever.

[4:24] Dan Tracy: What did we miss? I feel like a lot of things happened last month.

[4:28] Joe Carroll: Joe got fired, not fired.

[4:30] Dan Tracy: Don't be dramatic, Joe.

[4:32] Joe Carroll: I'm not being, I'm joking.

[4:33] Dan Tracy: I'm joking, but it's definitely worth talking about.

[4:36] Joe Carroll: Um, because this is something that happens.

[4:38] Dan Tracy: Yeah, this is a Broadway thing.

[4:40] Joe Carroll: Um, we talked about a few weeks ago when "Waitress" got its closing notice.

[4:44] Dan Tracy: We kind of took you guys through that, what that's like.

[4:46] Joe Carroll: Um, and I was informed by the nice people at "Frozen" that, uh, that I'm not gonna be coming back for another year on my contract as Hans, which this is the thing.

[4:46] Dan Tracy: This is the thing, and I just, I want to make this very clear. In shows like "Chicago" and "Wicked," and even like "The Book of Mormon" and stuff, that people come and go.

[5:09] Joe Carroll: They come and go all the time.

[5:10] Dan Tracy: You can't, you drop in "Waitress" is a perfect example. I mean, people come in, they do it for a couple of weeks, they do it for six months, they do it for a year, and then they move on.

[5:17] Joe Carroll: There's this thing that's interesting about like when people are asked to stay in shows and when people are not asked to stay in shows from company management or from the producers from management.

[5:28] Dan Tracy: And I think that there's a bad stigma about it because it's like, you know, you get to this point of the contract, and the producers are like, hey, we love you. You did great. And everybody said that they enjoyed what I was doing in the show, but they were like, We're gonna bring in somebody else for now what is year three.

[5:44] Joe Carroll: Um, and that, you know, it stings, obviously, because you want to, you want to like stay in the show.

[5:51] Dan Tracy: But right also, if they would have said, hey, you know, we'd like you to stay, maybe something else would have happened, and I would have said no, thank you, and I'd like to move on.

[6:00] Joe Carroll: So that's also part of it. But it was an interesting couple days because it's obviously emotional. Then like I found out that I was not asked to stay, and that also that Casey and Patty, um, you know, Casey Levy and Patti Murin, who originated the roles of Elsa and Anna in the show were also, um, you know, thanked for their service and thanked for everything that they did for the show, but they're also not going to be returning for year three.

[6:20] Dan Tracy: And it's, it's one of these things. It's, it's, it's just kind of like getting killed off of a TV show, you know.

[6:26] Joe Carroll: It's like this and this is where the show is going, this is where the project is going. But like, you know, hey, we're gonna, uh, did you see that Yuri, our friend Yuri got killed off of "Chicago Fire"?

[6:38] Dan Tracy: He's been there for seven seasons.

[6:39] Joe Carroll: He's been there for seven seasons, and just I, I still have to watch the episode, but he posted all on our Instagram, like I saw him in a neck brace, and then he was like thanking the fans of "Chicago Fire" for all of his...

[6:48] Dan Tracy: Hopefully, that's not a spoiler alert.

[6:49] Joe Carroll: But no, that was a couple of weeks ago, so that's okay.

[6:51] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it might be a spoiler alert if you're planning to binge "Chicago Fire," but yeah, but our friend, but like this is a good thing.

[6:57] Joe Carroll: He was posting about how he was dead, exactly.

[6:58] Dan Tracy: So he's spoiled about it, and it's fine.

[7:00] Joe Carroll: But it is one of these things that like I, I was excited to talk about it in this format because it is like it's part of the job.

[7:07] Dan Tracy: It's part of, you know, you people get, you know, it's really the thank you for your service. It's not really like you get fired or let go or whatever, but it's like, hey, your contract is up.

[7:16] Joe Carroll: You know, and one of the things that they said, like they do with the Fierros in "Wicked," was they want to bring in a new Hans every, you know, uh, every year or so.

[7:24] Dan Tracy: Um, that they want that to be kind of the track that turns over.

[7:27] Joe Carroll: And that happens with the Fierros. The Fierros are asked to stay for nine months, and then it's thank you very much on to the next Fierro, and they bring somebody new in to keep the show fresh, and you know, for press releases and to keep people talking about the show, and so it makes a lot of sense.

[7:39] Dan Tracy: But it was a little bit of a stinger. But I'm also there till February 16th.

[7:43] Joe Carroll: So if you haven't seen it, you can come and you can see it.

[7:46] Dan Tracy: You can see me and Casey Levy and Patti Murin.

[7:49] Joe Carroll: And I'm proud of you.

[7:50] Dan Tracy: Well, thank you.

[7:51] Joe Carroll: Um, in my life, I made my Dr. Palmetter debut.

[7:55] Dan Tracy: Yes, you did, um, during our, uh, hiatus.

[7:59] Joe Carroll: Yeah, our little hiatus. And just to make it about me for a second, I stopped at your stage door to drop you off a bottle of whiskey because, uh, this is a big deal.

[8:07] Dan Tracy: That's what we do.

[8:08] Joe Carroll: You know, you bring your buddies a little gift to the stage door, and I brought you a bottle of whiskey.

[8:12] Dan Tracy: It was dropping off the stage door in the middle of the show as you were singing "You Matter to Me."

[8:19] Joe Carroll: Those are not the pitches.

[8:20] Dan Tracy: It sounded so pretty, way prettier than I just did.

[8:23] Joe Carroll: And I got to listen to you sing it because I was in my show, I couldn't come actually see you do the thing, but I got to hear you sing a little bit.

[8:28] Dan Tracy: That was really cool.

[8:29] Joe Carroll: It was cool.

[8:33] Dan Tracy: Is that you?

[8:34] Joe Carroll: Yep.

[8:37] Dan Tracy: This is illegal.

[8:44] Joe Carroll: That's all you get.

[8:45] Dan Tracy: That's pretty good.

[8:46] Joe Carroll: That's what you missed.

[8:48] Dan Tracy: Opposite, uh, opposite Jordan Sparks, American Idol winner.

[8:51] Joe Carroll: Pretty cool.

[8:52] Dan Tracy: And as of this morning, uh, Jordan Sparks is extending through the end of November, and Al Roker's coming back to join us, uh, to play Old Joe for the month of November.

[9:03] Joe Carroll: So if you're looking to come see "Waitress" before the show closes, now is a good time.

[9:08] Dan Tracy: That's awesome.

[9:09] Joe Carroll: Yeah, that's awesome.

[9:10] Dan Tracy: So that's a little bit of "Frozen" and a little bit of, uh, a little bit of "Waitress," a little bit of us.

[9:15] Joe Carroll: What's been going on in the biz?

[9:17] Dan Tracy: Biz.

[9:18] Joe Carroll: Um, what has been going on in the biz?

[9:19] Dan Tracy: What are some things that you...

[9:21] Joe Carroll: Well, I thought we're going back to the Emmys now for a second, but "Fosse/Verdon" nominated for 14 Emmys, won or nominated for 17 Emmys, won four.

[9:28] Dan Tracy: So that's pretty cool.

[9:29] Joe Carroll: Yeah. All the Broadway people involved in that.

[9:31] Dan Tracy: Um, more casting for this "Company" revival we're obsessed with.

[9:35] Joe Carroll: There's a bunch of stuff happening.

[9:36] Dan Tracy: But one thing I'm super excited about is this off-Broadway revival of "Assassins."

[9:40] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[9:41] Dan Tracy: That is gonna happen.

[9:42] Joe Carroll: Also "Assassins," shout out to Anne L Nathan, who we're gonna talk to in a minute, was in "Company" of "Assassins."

[9:48] Dan Tracy: Wow.

[9:48] Joe Carroll: So that's not a big deal.

[9:51] Dan Tracy: Um, but yeah, Steve Pasquale, Will Swenson, Judy Kuhn, Brandon Uranowitz, Wes Taylor, there's more people that are gonna be announced, but they're gonna bring, uh, to Classic Stage in, uh, 2020, which is gonna be stupid.

[10:06] Joe Carroll: Directed by John Doyle.

[10:07] Dan Tracy: So no doubt that's gonna be a legendary production that you should try and get to see.

[10:11] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[10:12] Dan Tracy: Um, what else is happening?

[10:14] Joe Carroll: Right now we got, uh, "Almost Famous" got a rave review out in at the Old Globe, and they did a, um, Cameron Crowe did an interview.

[10:23] Dan Tracy: I forget what the publisher was, but he was like, We're on the fast track to Broadway. We're trying to find a theater before the Tonys this spring.

[10:27] Joe Carroll: So it's gonna be a definitely, uh, I don't know if he knows that like people don't usually say stuff like that.

[10:35] Dan Tracy: Yeah, like, but also like good for him because everybody wishes they could.

[10:39] Joe Carroll: Yeah, we're just all like so cautious over here.

[10:41] Dan Tracy: Basically, they're trying to create this like super competitive awards environment, which to me is real exciting.

[10:45] Joe Carroll: Like, uh, a few weeks ago on the podcast, you know, months ago now, but when we last talked about this season, there were no new musicals, and now there's just a bunch of stuff happening.

[10:55] Dan Tracy: Yeah, you know, "Lightning Thief," yep, and, um, and, uh, and you know "Sing Street" has potential and there's also coming.

[11:04] Joe Carroll: Right, and of course, um, uh, "Jagged Little Pill," obviously is the big one, but that's been announced for a little while.

[11:10] Dan Tracy: Right, and I did, I sort of wasn't including the jukeboxes because, you know, it's not technically like I think what we had said was that there were no new...

[11:10] Joe Carroll: Oh right, original music.

[11:23] Dan Tracy: We want new, more new original music.

[11:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah, musicals, yeah.

[11:25] Dan Tracy: Just that they're a little harder to come by, but now there are a few kind of in the...

[11:24] Joe Carroll: Is "Freestyle Love Supreme" going to be considered a musical?

[11:33] Dan Tracy: Uh, I think that Tony, they haven't really...

[11:33] Joe Carroll: They haven't talked, they haven't, I mean, I haven't read the ruling yet, but "Freestyle Love Supreme."

[11:38] Dan Tracy: Also got a really rave review of it.

[11:39] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[11:40] Dan Tracy: Those of you who don't know, um, I think we did talk about it on the podcast a couple weeks ago, but, um, it was this, uh, Joe's Pub, um, fully freestyled, um, musical that was created by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Chris Jackson and, uh, a bunch of those sort of Hamilton guys, and it was, it was always sold out at Joe's Pub.

[11:58] Joe Carroll: It was always like one of the hottest tickets in, uh, in town when they were doing it down to the public, and then they moved it to Broadway, and it has just been an absolute smash, um, for the last couple weeks.

[12:09] Dan Tracy: And I think that that is just, uh, a limited run.

[12:13] Joe Carroll: I'm not totally sure about that, but it's supposed to be really cool.

[12:17] Dan Tracy: But, uh, "Thief," the Percy Jackson musical, um, was written by Rob Rokicki, who, uh, Anne L Nathan and I teach with.

[12:24] Joe Carroll: Uh, one of the questions we're gonna talk to her about, and she teaches all the time, uh, works with high school students and college students and professionals.

[12:31] Dan Tracy: Um, you know, and she's just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to, uh, you know, teaching and the biz and all these things.

[12:39] Dan Tracy: But Rob, uh who wrote The Lightning Thief, works with us, and this is his Broadway debut as a lyricist and composer, and it is amazing. So this show is like, and it's a it's totally the little show that could. When it came to Broadway, we were all like, whoa, where did that come from? It was on tour, right? And you know, everybody's really excited. Chris McCarroll, the star is a good friend of my wife Alex's.

[12:56] Joe Carroll: And mine.

[12:57] Dan Tracy: Yeah, yeah. So we're super excited about that one. Um succession right now. Alex and I are watching it. And uh we just we started from the beginning.

[13:04] Joe Carroll: Good.

[13:05] Dan Tracy: And last night latecomer.

[13:07] Joe Carroll: Yeah, late comer to the party.

[13:08] Dan Tracy: But one of the things I was obsessed with in the pilot, it's just Broadway City. So it's literally Drew Galen and Ray Lee is in it, and Alex is working with Ray Lee right now on a workshop, and so she's like showing up at work and like you know, she's like Ray, what do you you know, Ray is on the show, and Julia Murney plays in the pilot. She's the woman who is like uh uh giving the welcome speech to all of the people who are working at the theme park. Remember when they're like in the room?

[13:34] Joe Carroll: Wow, I didn't realize that.

[13:36] Dan Tracy: Yeah, didn't recognize her. It's just like it's so like I love that with the New York shows. You just see these Broadway people all the time. So that was it was at that season it was Henry Russell Bergstein uh was doing the casting with um and now it's Avi Kaufman, so it changed. But this season has almost no guest stars.

[13:54] Joe Carroll: There's I auditioned for the second season, and um like as far as I can tell, it's like the one role that was castable.

[14:04] Dan Tracy: Nice, nice.

[14:06] Joe Carroll: And you didn't get it.

[14:07] Dan Tracy: Definitely didn't get it.

[14:08] Joe Carroll: Definitely didn't get it.

[14:09] Dan Tracy: Definitely went to a guy like 15 years older than me. Dan and I were talking uh just before we started that.

[14:13] Joe Carroll: Yeah, just I also didn't get a lot of jobs in the last month.

[14:15] Dan Tracy: Yeah, yeah.

[14:16] Joe Carroll: Yeah, yeah.

[14:17] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[14:21] Joe Carroll: Um, but yeah, I got uh in the last couple weeks, I got um too old and too ugly for a bunch of stuff and not famous enough.

[14:29] Dan Tracy: Yep.

[14:30] Joe Carroll: I'm currently like kind of waiting to hear if I'm gonna get a job to see like they want someone more famous, and we'll see if I'm gonna get it.

[14:37] Dan Tracy: Yeah, exactly. So this is part of the journey you're going on with us, is just like our trials and tribulations in the industry. Um Should we do a things we love?

[14:43] Joe Carroll: We should.

[14:44] Dan Tracy: So uh I I now that we're back, I definitely wanted to get back into a things we love, right? Things we love.

[14:44] Joe Carroll: Things we love.

[14:51] Dan Tracy: We need a gr we need a we need a um Things we love.

[14:51] Joe Carroll: Things we love.

[14:56] Dan Tracy: I love him.

[14:58] Joe Carroll: I'm such a good one.

[14:59] Dan Tracy: Oh, wait, no, I did make I did make a thing for this.

[15:01] Joe Carroll: I think you did.

[15:01] Dan Tracy: I did. I'm gonna put it back in there.

[15:03] Joe Carroll: Okay, great.

[15:03] Dan Tracy: I love him.

[15:05] Joe Carroll: Okay.

[15:05] Dan Tracy: That's why.

[15:06] Joe Carroll: Okay, you're holding a book.

[15:07] Dan Tracy: Yes. Uh this week how do we love I love um being back in acting class. Since we started uh our hiatus, I started back in class. And it's it's interesting on the first day we did like kind of uh going around the circle and everyone talking about kind of how they ended up in the class. And most of the people it's a professional acting class you have to audition to get in. Most of the people are in various stages of their career. Some of them are right out of school, some of them are kind of new-ish to acting, some of them are were acting and now they're trying to get back into acting. And I was kind of the one in the class who was um st was uh currently working. And everyone came up to me afterwards and they were like, Well what why are you here? What are you doing here?

[16:03] Joe Carroll: And uh so I wanted to share kind of my idea about acting class for those of you who are um actors yourselves, and that is no gymnast, football player, ballet dancer, doctor, doctor, financial advisor, pick your freaking profession. Some of those, some of those more like desky professionally um jobs, people aren't necessarily continually training. Definitely a doctor would. But anything that's physical, anything that's physical and mental, is it's inherent that there's a lot of continual practice and work that goes into that uh profession and that job. And I think that act as as actors, we forget that. I think it's most often that you go into acting class because you're unhappy with your agent or you're not getting enough TV and film auditions. Um I'm not I'm neither of those things. I'm not unhappy with my agent or with the auditions that I get. I just feel like there's a muscle in being an actor.

[17:09] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[17:10] Dan Tracy: And it that muscle requires you to work, or it will uh what's the medical word for it? Um atrophy.

[17:18] Joe Carroll: Thank you.

[17:18] Dan Tracy: So I've been taking uh a this in professional. So I've been taking the professional acting scene study class at the barrel group. The barrel group was started by Seth Barish, and some of their famous students are like Ann Hathaway and Mike Barbiglia and Jay Farrow, not a big deal. And um, I currently have in front of me Seth's book called An Actor's Companion with Seth Barish again. Really interesting school of thought, really interesting book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has any trouble kind of being in their own heads while they're performing. He breaks down acting to being exclusively about play. Acting isn't about uh anything emotional or anything kind of intellectual. Acting is about like the act of playing something.

So he refers to actors as players, never as actors. He kind of figures everything to be a game to be figured out, and it's it's it's all about craft, right? Um some of my I I wish I could go through kind of some of my favorite sections of this, but it's really cool. It's it's like the the war of art where everything is only every paragraph is like I mean it's like the war of art where every chapter is like a page and it takes you through this like technique and each technique kind of it gives you a context for when you would use the technique and how it kind of works. Yeah, and it's so helpful. And honestly, I finished this book right before I went on for Dr. Pometer and used two techniques from this book to try and finally figure out what they mean when they say I need you to be more quirky.

And it totally worked. Yeah. And I wasn't in my head. I was totally felt like I was like simultaneously myself and present and simultaneously fully a character that the audience could kind of like pull pull on. So uh this week I love acting class.

[19:11] Joe Carroll: I love that.

[19:11] Dan Tracy: And actually, I was gonna do a different one, but I think based on that, I'm gonna I'm gonna say the thing that I love. I uh um this week I started rereading um audition by Michael Shirtlift. Do you remember that book?

[19:21] Joe Carroll: Yeah, of course.

[19:22] Dan Tracy: I think I have it on my bookshelf over there.

[19:23] Joe Carroll: Uh and if not, I have it at home.

[19:25] Dan Tracy: So I'm walking around with with this book, and and so I think what I love this week too is is books on acting. I guess is kind of my short answer because in that book in particular, this was we had to read this freshman year of college, and basically he he breaks down there's like his 12 guideposts to auditioning, and it is about you know it's it's about using everything that you do as an actor, but but under the you know, through the lens of getting jobs because we need jobs, and uh you know, 99.9% of actors have to audition, and then you know, point one percent of them just get offered things. So you have to you have to go into the room. And just what I loved when he starts in the introduction of and talking about how this is a completely absurd profession that we have all gotten into.

And I just love the acknowledgement of that always, like when somebody, you know, when things are terrible and somebody's like, hey, things are terrible. Like, I really appreciate that as opposed to just sweeping things under the rug. And he was like, he was like, This is an absurd profession you've gotten yourself into, and don't try to make it normal. Like, don't try to normalize it. It is absurd, what you're doing is absurd. Own it, and you know, and then he gives you a bunch of great things. So so read that book. If you're auditioning for colleges, if you're a professional, if you just are like interested in the craft a little bit, like that's another great book to I think we're gonna make a guys who like musical reading list.

[20:45] Joe Carroll: Ooh.

[20:46] Dan Tracy: Ooh. I think we're gonna make a guys who like musicals uh reading list, and I think we're going to make like um curated playlists for Spotify.

[20:56] Joe Carroll: Ooh, these are fun things.

[20:57] Dan Tracy: Look at us season two. We're growing up. We know how to read.

[21:01] Joe Carroll: And don't think I forgot about your care packages.

[21:04] Dan Tracy: You did.

[21:05] Joe Carroll: No, I didn't. I have those messages saved and the addresses saved. We just haven't filled the care packages yet. But that's coming in season two, also.

[21:12] Dan Tracy: Here we go. So let us know if you have any questions. Thank you for listening. Um we are excited to get back to this. So we're gonna get into our interview with Anne L Nathan. Um I love this woman. I will never forget um how crazy it is to when I made my Broadway debut, how insane it was a walking into once uh after they had won the Tony and everybody there was so much craziness happening that summer, and Anne was like the the safety blanket, the warm, calming spirit that had been in a hundred Broadway shows who was like everything's fine, just go to work. Like she was just like the best. And so we're gonna talk to her about her career, about teaching, about all the things she has so much coming up, so much that she's just done. And so listen in, young actors, because Aunt Anne is gonna ask not Auntie Ann. I don't know. I have an Aunt Anne. But uh but she's gonna have some, she's gonna have some some wisdom for you.

[22:10] Joe Carroll: I'll find myself another though.

[22:12] Dan Tracy: No, I do, and I love this view. It's so nice.

[22:15] Joe Carroll: Yeah, this is the this is the the selling point, is the view.

[22:18] Dan Tracy: And also it's good because we talk about this view a lot on uh our interview podcast show, and no one can see what we're talking about.

[22:23] Joe Carroll: So it's insane.

[22:24] Dan Tracy: That's also good radio or what that's radio.

[22:27] Joe Carroll: Um take it from me, it's really good.

[22:30] Dan Tracy: Yeah, just call it home.

[22:31] Joe Carroll: Yeah, home is good.

[22:32] Dan Tracy: So Ann Nathan is here. Um we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of crap. We want to pick your brain about a whole bunch of crap. But but Sing Street.

[22:39] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[22:39] Dan Tracy: New York Theater Workshop. Yeah, how is it going?

[22:41] Anne L Nathan: Well, we start rehearsal in a week and a half.

[22:44] Dan Tracy: Okay.

[22:44] Anne L Nathan: But we did a one-month workshop about two months ago.

[22:48] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[22:49] Anne L Nathan: And it's great.

[22:50] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[22:50] Anne L Nathan: And it's weird because I'm working with many of the same people that it's the ones with.

[22:55] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[22:56] Anne L Nathan: It's a lot of the the ones crew.

[22:57] Dan Tracy: Now, did they call you or did you go through an audition?

[22:59] Anne L Nathan: Oh no. Well, I don't know. Audition. A lot. Many times.

[23:04] Dan Tracy: Awesome.

[23:06] Anne L Nathan: Uh yeah, I went in and played piano and did a scene and then went back in again and then went back in for a callback.

[23:15] Dan Tracy: And it was it's Rebecca Teigman. And she doesn't I mean, I know her socially a little bit, but she doesn't know me.

[23:20] Anne L Nathan: So yeah.

[23:20] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[23:21] Anne L Nathan: And it is like it's a lot of the once once crew who's working on Rebecca. Let me see if I can get it right.

[23:25] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[23:25] Anne L Nathan: Okay. And the Walsh.

[23:26] Dan Tracy: Yep.

[23:26] Anne L Nathan: Who wrote it? Uh Bob Crowley.

[23:28] Dan Tracy: Yep.

[23:28] Anne L Nathan: Did I say that right?

[23:30] Dan Tracy: Crowley Crowley.

[23:31] Anne L Nathan: Both set in costumes. And Martin Lowe. Who we love, who's doing the music.

[23:36] Dan Tracy: Yeah, the music super.

[23:37] Anne L Nathan: See, is he like the music director, music supervisor, that sort of thing.

[23:39] Dan Tracy: And then Fred Layson, were you that round when Fred was there?

[23:41] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, yeah.

[23:42] Dan Tracy: Well, Fred, Fred and I did um uh we did bandstand together.

[23:46] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[23:46] Dan Tracy: We worked on bandstand, and he had kind of started in on once as I was leaving.

[23:51] Anne L Nathan: Right.

[23:51] Dan Tracy: Um let me see, like, I'm you know, I have I'm not gonna lie to the to your audience.

[23:55] Anne L Nathan: Right, yeah, to your studio audience.

[23:57] Dan Tracy: I have here on my phone because I want to know what people's you know, in case there's like what is Fred's title.

[24:04] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[24:05] Dan Tracy: Not that that's very important, but we love Fred and he's amazing, and yeah, both of them are doing it.

[24:08] Anne L Nathan: So there you have it. Fred actually, while you're looking that up, I'll tell you a very cool story about Fred Lassen. He it was an organ major in college. He majored in the organ. And when I married Alex Fink, I wanted to arrange a piece of music for her to walk down the aisle to. And there was this big glorious organ at this church in Dayton that we got married, and so I put together some stuff and I wrote a little piece and I gave it to Fred, and Fred orchestrated it on the organ in about 12 hours for free. And sent sent sent me the music and an MP3 of the piece, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. And he did it, he totally did it for free.

[24:47] Dan Tracy: How special.

[24:50] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, it was pretty cool.

[24:51] Dan Tracy: He's the best.

[24:53] Anne L Nathan: And he is actually the music director.

[24:56] Dan Tracy: Got it.

[24:56] Anne L Nathan: Got it. I guess Martin is the orchestrator and the supervisor. I'm gonna call him.

[25:01] Dan Tracy: So someone says that that's not true.

[25:04] Dan Tracy: We're gonna go with that.

[25:05] Joe Carroll: Awesome.

[25:05] Dan Tracy: Great.

[25:06] Joe Carroll: Yeah, and Martin did did once. We did once with him, and he also did Harry Potter, and he's done it.

[25:10] Dan Tracy: And he's amazing, and his arrangements are gorgeous.

[25:12] Joe Carroll: And so is he focusing on like the you guys playing and like the music, like because it is those of you who don't know about Sing Street, it was a movie, uh.

[25:21] Anne L Nathan: I love that movie.

[25:22] Joe Carroll: Lucy Boynton.

[25:23] Anne L Nathan: And uh but it's about a band, it's about a band of a guy who falls for a girl, and he I mean, uh just to simplify it. A guy falls for a girl, wants to impress her, wants to win her, gets a band together. There are all these other things happening, but that's really the right plot point.

[25:37] Dan Tracy: That's the um, yeah.

[25:39] Anne L Nathan: Uh it's very similar to Once in terms of actor musicians, except that not everyone plays an instrument.

[25:45] Joe Carroll: Cool.

[25:45] Anne L Nathan: So all the young people, uh, and they're they're very young, they're like truly 16 to 20 year old, 20 year olds, and myself play instruments.

[25:54] Joe Carroll: Nice, and then uh there are three adults, and so far no one is playing an instrument.

[26:00] Anne L Nathan: Got it, got it.

[26:02] Joe Carroll: So it's not exactly but we do the same kind of things. We get up, we get there, we rehearse the band for a couple of hours, yeah, and then we work on this show in the afternoon.

[26:10] Anne L Nathan: And John Carney, who wrote Once, who wrote the the movie of Once and wrote the movie of Sing Street, who he didn't write the music for Once, he did write the music for Sing Street, some of it and and with which I have oh, Gary Clark, yeah.

[26:23] Joe Carroll: Okay, so the lyric music and lyrics are by Corney and Gary Clark.

[26:27] Anne L Nathan: Got it. Got it. Got it. Frontman of Danny Wilson, which was a big popular band in the 80s.

[26:32] Joe Carroll: So uh the music's really good.

[26:34] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, it is really good. Uh I love that movie. The album on Spotify is great from the movie.

[26:41] Joe Carroll: Hopefully, you guys make an album.

[26:42] Anne L Nathan: Oh, yeah, that'd be good. And there's actually one song that Glenn wrote.

[26:45] Joe Carroll: Oh, cool.

[26:46] Anne L Nathan: It's really that's very cool. And I guess I don't know if you guys have gotten into this a little bit, but I was I was talking with with uh David Abelus, our good friend. Um and he had like lunch or something with End, and it was like they're trying to not make it Once 2.0, and they're like very like they they love that world, but it's like I do you know now how sort of how they're gonna differentiate, you know, that world, like yeah, it's hard.

[27:09] Dan Tracy: It's a hard thing.

[27:10] Anne L Nathan: It's something that I've actually talked to Martin about a couple times. Well, the first thing is that Rebecca Teichman wasn't involved.

[27:16] Dan Tracy: And she's a wonderful director and a brilliant person.

[27:19] Anne L Nathan: So I think that she and Sonia Tayek are so different, yeah, that I think they're they're not coming from the place of we did this already. So that is what's really helpful. It's also helpful that not everybody plays an instrument, totally right.

[27:31] Dan Tracy: Um, so I think it's just a different I I think that there are always gonna be comparisons because it's still that actor musician vibe.

[27:38] Joe Carroll: Yeah, but what can you do about that?

[27:40] Anne L Nathan: Well, and everything is like that. Anything that is an actor musician show now is compared to like the great actor musician shows like Once or Million Dollar Quartet or or that revived, you know, the revival of Sweeney Todd, like any time that they add instruments, it's gonna be compared to like the ghosts of that's right.

[27:54] Dan Tracy: And and because the person at the helm wasn't involved with Once, that is what really helps because she she's not coming at from it from any point of view of but it being new.

[28:02] Anne L Nathan: That's awesome. But yeah, I'm sure that I mean I I'm still hoping and praying that I'm not sitting on stage the whole time.

[28:08] Joe Carroll: That would be a star.

[28:08] Anne L Nathan: I would say that that would be the best way to make Once not like Sing Street, is not have the actors sit on stage.

[28:14] Joe Carroll: Um I do play a lot of piano, so I regardless we'll probably be there.

[28:18] Anne L Nathan: A lot, yeah. And also musically, it's so different. There are four keyboards.

[28:22] Joe Carroll: Nice.

[28:23] Anne L Nathan: Um there are a lot of guitars, but there's a lot, it's piano heavy because of the kind of music it is.

[28:27] Joe Carroll: Yeah, the 80s.

[28:29] Anne L Nathan: It's very 80s.

[28:30] Joe Carroll: Awesome. I can't wait to see it.

[28:31] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I'm super excited.

[28:32] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. It's one of those New York Theater Workshop shows that like you have to get your tickets now.

[28:36] Dan Tracy: Right.

[28:36] Joe Carroll: Because it's basically so the run is basically solid.

[28:39] Anne L Nathan: Well, they the half the run sells out quickly because it's the the subscribers, right?

[28:43] Dan Tracy: Right, but it's November 25th to January 19th.

[28:46] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Is there an extension of the thing possibly?

[28:48] Anne L Nathan: Possible possible extension, I think through the 29th.

[28:50] Joe Carroll: Nice.

[28:50] Anne L Nathan: Okay. Well, get your tickets before they're gonna be.

[28:52] Joe Carroll: Thanks for plugging it, guys.

[28:54] Anne L Nathan: Well, we're excited.

[28:55] Joe Carroll: We're excited.

[28:55] Anne L Nathan: We'll we'll be there on opening night, hopefully.

[28:57] Joe Carroll: Yeah, we're just to see it.

[28:58] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, yeah. Putting it out in the world.

[29:00] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[29:00] Anne L Nathan: Well, and and we did we did Once together, obviously.

[29:03] Joe Carroll: I know I've mentioned that probably.

[29:05] Anne L Nathan: How many times have I mentioned that yet? Like a dozen times.

[29:08] Joe Carroll: Um, but I I just remember when I went into that show that, and just like a little shout out to you, I guess, because I remember it was chaos. I remember like you guys had won the Tony. It had been, it was this big hit, and I came in to make my Broadway debut, and I've never been more excited about anything in my entire time. It was like September, right?

[29:25] Anne L Nathan: It was August.

[29:28] Joe Carroll: August.

[29:28] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, so it was in August. And I like walked through the door, and people were like, as they do, like people were kind of like bickering and there was drama and there was this and that, and you kind of like put your hand on my shoulder and you were like, just do your job. Everything's great, everything's gonna be fine. Like, don't get swept up in in the the mania. And I was like, I just remember, and then you you have you helped me with this this company that we teach with, and so we're gonna talk about that. But but I remember you being just like this calming presence that was like everything's fine, these people are lunatics we all know we were all lunatics I mean I include myself in that that was like the m part of the magic of what that show was I think was everybody was crazy.

[30:08] Anne L Nathan: Everybody was fully insane yeah but a lot of love a lot of love a lot of love and a lot of crazy when you look back on it what do you remember I loved that show yeah I loved being in that show I loved that cast yeah um I have so many memories I mean I get choked up all the time when I if I hear a song from it or hear a song that reminds me of it um it meant so much to me and I I think there's something about the actor musician thing it's just very special there's a connection that I I've got I've had a other experience obviously where I had a deep connection but there's something about having to play together that makes it something that you can't you just can't put into words.

[30:43] Dan Tracy: Yeah um so as as hard as that job sometimes could be like any job.

[30:48] Anne L Nathan: Right any job um I loved it I loved that pre-show I loved making myself a better musician totally um and I loved working with a cast of people that I didn't work with before this this kind of group right I'd never worked with people who were I would say most of them were musician were actor musicians but not necessarily not necessarily musical theater people.

[31:11] Joe Carroll: Yeah and I mostly work with on musicals so it was refreshing.

[31:15] Anne L Nathan: Totally and I miss everybody all the time. I talk to Elizabeth a lot.

[31:19] Joe Carroll: Yeah yeah we're quite close.

[31:21] Anne L Nathan: Yeah we live in the same neighborhood and I can't I don't I don't see Elizabeth A. Davis I don't I haven't seen her in years but she's just running around yeah she's doing great she's got a little kid cutest kid and yeah great.

[31:32] Joe Carroll: Love it.

[31:32] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[31:33] Anne L Nathan: Um, so yeah, I wanted to go back to like kind of we like to start, or at least we like to cover at some point kind of the beginnings of people's careers. Um so like how did you get involved in the business? Sort of where are you from? How did you get your start?

[31:45] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. I grew up in Rockland County. Do you know where that is?

[31:50] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[31:50] Anne L Nathan: Mm-hmm. Grew up and play a couple hockey tournaments up there.

[31:53] Joe Carroll: Seriously, where'd you grow up?

[31:54] Anne L Nathan: I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.

[31:56] Joe Carroll: Okay.

[31:57] Anne L Nathan: So I grew up in Muncie.

[31:58] Joe Carroll: Okay.

[31:58] Anne L Nathan: And uh I always wanted to do it. I was that annoying kid who always was like, I remember seeing Annie on Broadway and being like, I need to be Annie. Like I was that kid.

[32:07] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[32:08] Anne L Nathan: I went to the neighborhood playhouse when I was little. My poor dad driving me to and from the city to take classes. I did all that stuff.

[32:16] Joe Carroll: But I never did anything professional until uh after college.

[32:20] Anne L Nathan: That was sort of a uh uh an agreement I had with my parents.

[32:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah, which was you can do it and we'll support it, but you gotta go to school.

[32:28] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. And then I went to um so I did a lot of stuff growing up, just learning, and then I went to the Boston Conservatory of Music and I studied musical theater and uh got out and was was really hard. Like I was not that person who got out and got a big job.

[32:43] Joe Carroll: Right.

[32:44] Anne L Nathan: I went to all the open calls, I went to all the non equity calls, I waited around for the equity calls till six, you know, waited for eight hours. I did all that stuff.

[32:52] Joe Carroll: And um, my first big, big job, I guess was Le Miz.

[32:58] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I did the tour. I did uh the the first bus and truck.

[33:02] Joe Carroll: Oh wow, the Marius company.

[33:03] Anne L Nathan: And I was so green that when they called and told first of all, there were no cell phones yet.

[33:09] Joe Carroll: Right.

[33:09] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. So they left me a message on a Friday, uh, Vinny Liff, and he said, I want to talk to you. He didn't even say I got it. He said, I have some news. So I had to wait the whole weekend because you had to actually get them on the phone.

[33:22] Joe Carroll: Right, right.

[33:22] Anne L Nathan: Because that's it on my answer machine. Right. And I remember that the the Monday I remember smoking. I smoked at the time. That was my cool thing. I was smoking cigarettes.

[33:29] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[33:30] Anne L Nathan: And just chain smoking and drinking coffee. And he finally, I finally got him on the phone. He told me that I got it. And I was like, for how long? Like I I really didn't know. Like I thought six weeks.

[33:42] Joe Carroll: And it ran like 20 years or something.

[33:44] Anne L Nathan: Right. Yeah. But I just didn't know. I didn't know I could make that much money. That was so much money.

[33:49] Joe Carroll: Right.

[33:49] Anne L Nathan: I was waitressing at the time.

[33:51] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[33:51] Anne L Nathan: In an Irish pub. I just had no idea that it was gonna be as great as it was.

[33:55] Joe Carroll: Yep.

[33:56] Anne L Nathan: And I met some of my best. I didn't did Mary Sugarman was in uh that production of Le Miz with me. Mary Sugarman is a casting director, uh, Terra Rubens office.

[34:05] Joe Carroll: And actually, I think she cast the revival of Le Miz, didn't she?

[34:09] Anne L Nathan: She did she did. I didn't realize that's how you guys became friends.

[34:17] Joe Carroll: He's some of my best friends are still from that show.

[34:20] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I think that first big show is important to people.

[34:23] Joe Carroll: Yeah, absolutely.

[34:24] Anne L Nathan: Definitely, especially like uh if you're like at similar levels.

[34:30] Joe Carroll: My first job out of school was like everybody's first job.

[34:33] Anne L Nathan: So we were all kind of in the world.

[34:35] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[34:35] Anne L Nathan: That's how we were we were everybody's first big job.

[34:37] Joe Carroll: So absolutely. There's definitely like a because you're like, wait, what am I doing? Are we actually getting paid to do this together? This is crazy.

[34:43] Anne L Nathan: I still remember flying to Florida for our first for our tech, and I still remember us singing, do you hear the people sing on plane?

[34:52] Joe Carroll: Oh my god.

[34:53] Anne L Nathan: I know I look at that and I go, if I were on that plane, I would be like, shut the hell up. I would find that so not charming.

[35:01] Joe Carroll: But if we were like singing all the group songs, we were we were so excited.

[35:05] Anne L Nathan: Oh my god. So whenever I get a little snarky when I see things like that, I have to remember that that was absolutely me.

[35:11] Joe Carroll: Absolutely.

[35:12] Anne L Nathan: Right. Totally. Totally. Totally. It's good to look back and think of that stuff.

[35:17] Joe Carroll: You know.

[35:17] Anne L Nathan: That's amazing.

[35:18] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, like you see the video, like the Lion King cast did that uh on, they were on an airplane and they like sang the circle of life on a delayed lane.

[35:26] Joe Carroll: And now I did the same thing. I w we did a press event for Frozen a couple of months ago, and the associate director was like, you know, what have you guys got? You know, did like a a cappella version of Let It Go or something that like got and I and we were all like, There's no way in hell that we're doing this is a horrible idea. You know, we're all jaded and and you know, over it now, but right.

[35:45] Anne L Nathan: That's that is I love that story.

[35:46] Joe Carroll: Now to jump like yeah, so now you so then you when you got off the tour, what was next? Do you remember?

[35:51] Anne L Nathan: All of a sudden, no work again.

[35:53] Joe Carroll: It was sure.

[35:54] Anne L Nathan: I mean, I left the tour because I even at my very young age, I knew that I couldn't do it for too long. So I left about a year and a half later.

[36:01] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[36:02] Anne L Nathan: And then I just pounded the pavement like you do, you know, went to a million auditions, didn't have an agent, just open calls.

[36:10] Joe Carroll: The next big thing I did is I did Aspects of Love with this wonderful director, Robin Phillips, uh, which was in Canada in Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta, and then Chicago.

[36:23] Anne L Nathan: And I I loved it. I love it. It's the first time I ever worked in uh Canada, and I have worked there several times since, and I love it there.

[36:30] Joe Carroll: So I did that and it was a lot of fun.

[36:33] Anne L Nathan: And actually, guess who replaced me?

[36:36] Joe Carroll: Mary Shekerman.

[36:37] Anne L Nathan: No, I feel like this whole podcast would be by Mary Sheckerman.

[36:40] Joe Carroll: But honestly, I think what happened was I was leaving and the associate director we were talking, and I said, you know what would be really good at this part?

[36:46] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, was Mary Sugarman.

[36:47] Joe Carroll: Oh my god.

[36:48] Anne L Nathan: So yeah, so I did Aspects of Love.

[36:50] Joe Carroll: That's perfect.

[36:51] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[36:51] Anne L Nathan: Well, she did one of my first auditions in the city was for um uh the Joe Iconis um that uh Black Suits.

[36:51] Joe Carroll: Black Suits.

[36:59] Anne L Nathan: I love Black Suits.

[37:00] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it was awesome.

[37:01] Anne L Nathan: And she um she she sent me an email. I think I was a senior in college, and that was one of my first audits.

[37:08] Joe Carroll: So she's she's the best, and she's still around and you know, like just desperately trying to get in her shows always.

[37:15] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, she cares.

[37:15] Joe Carroll: Yeah, she does.

[37:16] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, she really cares.

[37:17] Joe Carroll: For sure.

[37:18] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[37:18] Joe Carroll: So where did you make your Broadway debut?

[37:20] Anne L Nathan: Uh Ragtime.

[37:21] Joe Carroll: Wow.

[37:22] Anne L Nathan: Did Ragtime the first Ragtime.

[37:24] Joe Carroll: Sure, of course.

[37:24] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. When I'm really greatest, the greatest Ragtime.

[37:28] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Well, I won't say I mean the revival was great.

[37:30] Anne L Nathan: Yes.

[37:30] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[37:31] Anne L Nathan: But yes, that was uh it was crazy because we did it first out of town in Toronto for a full year.

[37:36] Anne L Nathan: Oh wow. It was crazy. And did you workshop the show the whole time you were there? Did you like kind of get it up and then set it? We got it up, did it, and then weirdly, they opened up a company in LA before we came to Broadway. So then once they did that, there was some tweaking going on, but basically it was what it was, and then we re-rehearsed it when we came to New York. But the cast stayed intact.

[38:00] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[38:01] Anne L Nathan: So we all just moved to Toronto. I love that show so much.

[38:05] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it's pretty great.

[38:06] Anne L Nathan: I watched Joe play younger brother when he was 19.

[38:09] Joe Carroll: So at the University of Michigan.

[38:11] Anne L Nathan: Was he great?

[38:12] Joe Carroll: He was great.

[38:13] Anne L Nathan: I bet you killed it.

[38:14] Joe Carroll: He did. That's pretty good. That was but I think it's been all downhill from there.

[38:17] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, that was his peak for sure.

[38:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah, definitely.

[38:19] Anne L Nathan: I actually, I was in the ensemble and understudied Emma Goldman, and I just recently did it at Barrington Stage and I played the role and it was so crazy to revisit it. To revisit it. And that would like so did you play so you understudied Emma Goldman.

[38:32] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[38:32] Anne L Nathan: Went on as Emma Goldman. A lot, yeah. And then so that and that was the first Emma Goldman.

[38:36] Joe Carroll: I th that was the chance.

[38:37] Anne L Nathan: Oh, yeah, I know. I have to put I put a moratorium on it now. No more Emma Goldman.

[38:40] Joe Carroll: No more Emma Goldman's.

[38:40] Anne L Nathan: Because that would be a really good segue to the fact that you played it in the Assassin's Revival. But that's not we're not gonna jump to that just yet. But I do want to uh props for making that segue.

[38:51] Joe Carroll: Yeah, good job.

[38:53] Anne L Nathan: Good job, theater nerd. Good what what it wait, what's it called?

[38:56] Joe Carroll: Guys who like musicals.

[38:58] Anne L Nathan: Good job, guys who like musicals. It's so bad.

[39:00] Joe Carroll: That's so bad.

[39:01] Anne L Nathan: It's Captain Obvious.

[39:02] Joe Carroll: I know. But what okay? So one thing that I that I would love to, there's a million, you've done a million things that we could we could literally ask you a million questions. But one of the things that I want to talk about the Millie years.

[39:09] Anne L Nathan: Yes, please.

[39:14] Joe Carroll: Okay, the million not the million, you know, the milli years. The milli years if that's like a set that would probably be a chapter of your biography, right? Because last year you got to do this concert where everybody got back together. And so I imagine it was a great time to kind of revisit like what everybody was like. You know, what's a 23-year-old Gavin Creel like or a 24-year-old Sutton Foster, like what like what were they like during that time, and also what were you like? Like how do you look back at that time?

[39:40] Anne L Nathan: Well, that was a very happy show. We loved doing that show, and I think that there's something about that theater somehow that I think that people are happy in that theater because there's so much space. I think that's seems weird, but there's just so many dressing rooms and people seem to be kind of happy at the Marion Arcade.

[40:02] Joe Carroll: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[40:02] Anne L Nathan: Um they were young but wise. Like I was older than them obviously older than them. But you know, I couldn't believe watching Sutton what she did, because to be honest, I could never have handled that at her age. And she handled it with such grace. And when I say handled it, I just mean it's such an enormous role. I mean, she sings so many songs, it's enormous, it was so much weight on her shoulders, and she just I know that it was hard. Yeah, I know that it wasn't. If you asked her, she'd say it was not just all a walk in the park because there was a lot of pressure.

[40:34] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[40:34] Anne L Nathan: But she handled it so well and was consistently great.

[40:39] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[40:39] Anne L Nathan: Honestly. And I was there when she did it out of town. Right. I was there at In La Jolla when she was in the course. And we would get together. I this is a good story for real. We would get together at Sutton's apartment. Myself, Katie Baldwin, who understudied Miss Crazy. Who understudied? Looking at the city. Myself, who understood? I had to understudy Muzzy and Millie, which was I mean Muzzy and um uh Mrs. Mears, weirdly had to do both those roles. And a bunch of us would go over and we'd get some wine and we go over our understudy parts.

[41:12] Joe Carroll: Oh, I love it.

[41:13] Anne L Nathan: Okay, and we're still really close. But Sutton, even when that when she took that over, just handled it with tremendous grace, and something that could have been an ugly thing wasn't. And then they once she took over, they were very smart in terms of creating the role so that it suited her assets best.

[41:31] Joe Carroll: Yes, absolutely.

[41:32] Anne L Nathan: So yeah, they were young, but they were wonderful. I mean, I loved working with both of them, and Gavin's the same. I mean, he's just Gavin, like they're he's an enigma. Yeah, I think that they handled the pressure really well and they were wonderful, and they were even better at this reunion concert because you know, you just get easier as you get older, hopefully.

[41:52] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[41:53] Anne L Nathan: You have ease about what you did. So it was really fun. We had the best time.

[41:57] Joe Carroll: Yeah, and I mean, did you think this is such a stupid question? But uh it do did you feel like it was gonna be kind of the musical theater bombshell that it became. You know what I mean?

[42:08] Anne L Nathan: Like, I was just gonna ask the same question. Because for us, like coming up when we did, I feel like Gavin changed the way that men sing in musical theater. And Sutton did the same thing for women, like really changed the precedent changed when that cast album came out, when that show came out, every girl wanted to play that part, every guy wanted to play Jimmy. It was like so. Did you know what you guys were doing at that time? Does that make sense?

[42:33] Anne L Nathan: I think that I still remember doing a reading of it and just thinking it was so funny. Yeah. I remember seeing the subtitles and just thinking, that's so funny. And I don't think that we I knew it was fun, and I knew it was good, and it was very interesting in La Jolla because you'd watch in real time, we'd be on stage and they'd write, you know, the day a late day later, Sutton was singing gimme gimme. Yeah, like crazy, like the one of the greatest songs ever written. Happened in a day, yeah. Well, I don't know, I'm sure it didn't happen in a day for him writing it, but we heard it, like I still remember being there, and all of a sudden she sang this song and going, That's a great song. Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Um, I think that we knew it was fun and we knew it was good, but I am always someone that sees things, the glass half empty because I'm scared of disappointment. It's not because I am not positive. I just am so scared that I will be disappointed. I remember being very very excited that Variety gave it a rave. I remember that being a thing, yeah, and that we had these incredible producers who ran with it, and all of a sudden we were going to Broadway, but you know, we didn't sign contracts for Broadway, so we didn't know what was happening.

[43:37] Joe Carroll: Oh, totally.

[43:38] Anne L Nathan: The whole are we going or what? And we also made a ton of changes up to a week before we opened, we were making so many changes, so we just didn't know. Also, Gavin hurt his knee, he got injured. Like a second preview or something crazy.

[43:50] Joe Carroll: In New York.

[43:52] Anne L Nathan: He had surgery. So he had municipal surgery. Yeah. And was back in three weeks. He like came back for press night. Yeah, like right before they opened. I mean, can you imagine having knee surgery and three weeks later being ready to go? And it's he danced in the show. It was so so many things could have gone wrong that went right. Wow. So yeah, we loved it. And we didn't, I mean, who you never know what how but that is the show that people get most excited about. My students and young people especially. And a lot of people your age say, Oh my gosh, that show.

[44:23] Joe Carroll: Yeah, right.

[44:24] Anne L Nathan: Well, I just think it's interesting because I think I was thinking about that when we were going to talk to you. Just like remember listening to that cast album and being like, Oh, this is this is new. This is it, this is a sound that is new. This is a this is a style that brings the best of musical comedy when it was musical comedy to musical theater, you know. And it's also that it happened right after 9-11.

[44:45] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[44:45] Anne L Nathan: So there was also something very special about doing a show that was so joyful and happy in a time that people were still scared and needed an escape.

[44:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[44:56] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we uh I mean Janine, that score and Dick, and it was great. I have such amazing memories about it. And getting to revisit it, it could have been like that disappointment, but instead it was with the best time. We still have a uh an email chain and a text chain that we the girls, the forget about the boy girls were very we're very close.

[45:09] Joe Carroll: The forget about the boy girls.

[45:18] Anne L Nathan: Um and we did that, I remember doing that last year where we did the number, and then Rob came in because Joanne Hunter said it. Then Rod came in to see it, and he just started crying because we were we all could do it. And that was that what was that his first show that he choreographed by himself?

[45:32] Joe Carroll: I want to say yes.

[45:33] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. Because that was a little musical. But I could be wrong, so don't shoot me, but I'm pretty sure that it was because I mean I'd also just like you look at that cast with Kate Baldwin and you and Casey Nicola was in the ensemble.

[45:44] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[45:44] Anne L Nathan: Which is just completely insane. You know, like so I I'm sure it was very cool too.

[45:49] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it was great.

[45:50] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. What um in in sort of it now jumping just because it's it's the once stuff again. Well, same question with once. Did you guys know you're in Cambridge?

[45:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[46:00] Anne L Nathan: You're like, this is something special.

[46:01] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[46:01] Anne L Nathan: I mean, it's funny, like, you don't. I think that because Millie was such a humongous product, yeah. It's one of those that you're like, I think this is great, but so many crazy things were happening with with Sutton coming in, and then some replacements and things changing so much that you just didn't know.

[46:20] Joe Carroll: Right.

[46:20] Anne L Nathan: Um, and even with with Millie, the New York Times review was a bad review. No one knows that or remembers it, but it wasn't good. It's just that there were so many good reviews, and word of mouth was good, and I think you won the Tony.

[46:34] Joe Carroll: Then we won the Tony, and we had truly like the best producers.

[46:38] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[46:39] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Well, I love that about like like Wicked, too. Like Wicked had a terrible review. It's like, well, right, who's who's laughing now?

[46:44] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, right. Right.

[46:45] Joe Carroll: Right.

[46:45] Anne L Nathan: But with once, we were at when we were at ART and it ended. I think we all were kind of like wow. Wow. And also like heartbroken that we were it was done.

[46:55] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[46:56] Anne L Nathan: Right. Yeah.

[46:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[46:59] Anne L Nathan: I knew when I read the script for once. I mean, I kind of felt like I really wanted that part. It was one of those things where you more than the part, I wanted to be a part of that show part because I loved the film, but also I read the script and just it knocked me out. It's just a perfect script.

[47:16] Joe Carroll: I saw it four times.

[47:17] Anne L Nathan: You did?

[47:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I did.

[47:18] Anne L Nathan: But I think no matter how much you love a show, you just don't know. I still remember sitting in uh tech in New York, and uh when we're uptown, and some people would say, Ann, And what do you think? What what's gonna be our run? And I'd say, I th I like it look at it. The most positive thing you can do is think, well, we'll definitely run through opening night. So that's four weeks of work. You know, six weeks of work, and maybe then we'll run through the Tony's just like baby steps. So you just don't I just don't like being disappointed.

[47:45] Joe Carroll: Totally, totally.

[47:46] Anne L Nathan: And actually in this business, like we're we're constantly I mean, you go on a dozen auditions a week and you don't get all of them. So I mean, we're conditioned for that. I think I am with you a hundred percent that like you protect yourself, you know. This is just a really interesting thing to give some context for people who don't know to try and make sure that everyone's all on the same page. When you're in a show that you take to Broadway, you don't necessarily know whether that show is gonna make it even past opening night. There have been shows that have closed in a night. So the kind of like anxiety and nerves that go along with bringing a show in, you kind of just hope that a show is gonna run for four years like once did or three years in the case of Waitress and Frozen will probably run 20, but yeah, you know, nobody ever really knows. And even if you get a knockout review, you still have to sell tickets. It's it's hard you never really know what is going to appeal to the public.

[48:41] Joe Carroll: Right, right, right.

[48:41] Anne L Nathan: And then something else that doesn't get a good review for some reason, it just catches fire. It's it's you just don't know. You don't have any control over it.

[48:48] Joe Carroll: Yeah, right.

[48:48] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. I just I remember seeing it. I saw it on Broadway, my senior year of college, so once back to once, because I just love to to relive those times that I saw it, I got a really good ticket and just laughed and heave sobbed through the thing in a way that I've I have not since and had never before in the theater. And so I love to reminisce about it because it was just such a joyful show.

[49:17] Joe Carroll: It was such and yes, there was weirdness because we were a band, and you guys were I entered the band, I came into the band like.

[49:23] Anne L Nathan: But you also have the hardest job.

[49:25] Joe Carroll: I did everything.

[49:33] Anne L Nathan: Just sounds terrible to me. But also, like I think that that people I was thinking about this this week, that people want jobs where they have to problem solve. That's like a human thing where you want to solve problems. And for us, a lot of times it's frankly just like learning lines and could be being creative and coming up with things. But that was the greatest problem-solving job because I was having to learn new instruments and learn new things all the time. But anyway, yeah, it was a wonderful time. The closing night of that, too. I'll remember everybody like people had come back, like people who had been in the show had come back and were all on stage for the pre-show, and it was very cool. It was very cool.

[50:08] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I loved it. I mean, I stayed a long time because it was just such a good job.

[50:12] Joe Carroll: You remember the audition process at all? When you read that scene, when you read that speech, because I had that scene. It's this big scene. And if you hadn't seen the show, and Ann had this big speech about kind of love and loss, and it was always just dynamite funny. Do you remember the choice, the kind of the way that you went about that audition process?

[50:32] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I actually had like two weeks, which is crazy. Um, and Deb Abramson, do you know Deb Abramson?

[50:39] Joe Carroll: Yeah, uh no.

[50:39] Anne L Nathan: Great pianist and composer. And I said, I have to kill this audition. So I thought I had this arrangement of this Tom Waits song called "Old Boyfriends," which weirdly Larry Yeerman did this arrangement years ago that I had, and it's this she sings, you sing it, and then in the middle there's this like Bach concerto piano situation. So I had the perfect song.

[51:02] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[51:02] Anne L Nathan: And I went in and I did that. And then Martin asked me to play a bunch of other things in my book. And then I really worked incredibly hard on that audition. My super Ivan is from the Czech Republic, so I sat down there with my microphone and said, speak these lines for me. So he helped me with the dialect. And I just worked it really hard so I could just be in it and off book. And they were really nice. I will say it's the only time I did something as embarrassing as what I'm about to tell you. I've never done anything like this. As I was leaving, it was the final callback. I went, you should hire me because I really want this job and nobody's gonna work harder. And I have never, like when I hear it in my head, I think that was the stupidest thing.

How could you ever say that? But I had such passion about it that somehow Martin assures me it was not weird, but I just there was something about me needing to button it that way. It was very weird. I just had such a need for it.

[52:01] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[51:59] Anne L Nathan: Because of the musician aspect of it.

[52:01] Joe Carroll: Right.

[52:01] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. That's unbelievable. That's so crazy. That's like lore. Like that could live in life. Also, that's like kids don't ever do that. Don't do that. Because I don't know how that happened, but looking back on it, I would say, don't ever do that. But they did forget to tell me to learn the accordion.

[52:18] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[52:19] Anne L Nathan: So when I got to rehearsal, John Tiffany said, How's it coming, darling?

[52:24] Joe Carroll: Oh no.

[52:25] Anne L Nathan: And I said, I'm sorry, what? I had no idea. So I had to learn it. It was very stressful.

[52:31] Joe Carroll: Oh my god. And you played the accordion the whole show.

[52:33] Anne L Nathan: It was very stressful, but they were so lovely to me. Martin would just say, hit a droney E chord, uh-huh, and we'll figure it out. And then I just I had a couple lessons at ART, and then I just got up really early and practiced every day.

[52:45] Joe Carroll: That's unreal. Backtracking a little bit. You played piano forever.

[52:48] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. Piano is easy, is not hard for me. Piano does not stress me.

[52:51] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[52:54] Anne L Nathan: So that part of it, the only thing I find stressful about piano is memorizing all the piano.

[52:59] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[53:00] Anne L Nathan: Because coming up with Sing Street, I play a lot of notes, not so much chords, but notes. So that takes a little more brain power than I'm used to because I'm just not used to having to memorize.

[53:05] Joe Carroll: Yeah, piano.

[53:13] Anne L Nathan: Right. And normally musicians on Broadway don't have to memorize the entire show. They look at the show on sheet music. And that was something about Once that was you had to learn what was how many songs is it in the pre-show, guys?

[53:25] Joe Carroll: Uh, well at the end.

[53:27] Anne L Nathan: How many were it?

[53:29] Joe Carroll: I'm gonna say like thirty.

[53:30] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, there's probably, I think by the time that they were doing it on tour, they'd like just kept adding.

[53:35] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[53:35] Anne L Nathan: They had so many pre-show songs. They had all those memorized and then also the show. But we got memorized. We got so good at that because, you know, you learn they would, uh, Martin would give us new songs all the time. And then you'd have a week to kind of look at it, and then you just sort of go out there and kind of like look at it before you went on stage and say, Okay, those are the chords, and sometimes I would have a cheat sheet.

[53:55] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[53:56] Anne L Nathan: It was one of those things that terrified me at the beginning, and then a year into it, it was a piece of cake. So that's why I learned so much on that job.

[54:06] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[54:07] Anne L Nathan: I just love it.

[54:07] Joe Carroll: Yeah. I still remember like a lot of those like stuck, you know, weird Irish folk songs and Czech folk songs that are just like stuck in my head. But that's okay for another time. There was gonna be an album. Wasn't there gonna be an album of Once pre-show songs?

[54:21] Anne L Nathan: Just went away.

[54:22] Joe Carroll: Ugh.

[54:22] Anne L Nathan: That was a thing. May we need to revive that. Anyway. But there were times we walked into the building, we didn't know what the song was gonna be, and we'd go, oh gosh, who put this list? Like there were the days that were like the ballads.

[54:34] Joe Carroll: Right.

[54:35] Anne L Nathan: On a Tuesday, you just go, oh, that's gonna be rough.

[54:39] Joe Carroll: I know it.

[54:41] Anne L Nathan: Um, so I a couple because we we wanna we don't want to keep you here all day, but we could keep you here all day. Um, the coup I want to talk about w this is another lame question, but I'd really wanted to know like how has the business changed from your perspective, both you know, whether it's social media or whatever the hell's going on, like how has it changed for you, you know, in recent times in 2019?

[55:04] Anne L Nathan: Do you mean the business in general or the business how it affects me or just the business?

[55:08] Joe Carroll: Just kind of like yeah, whatever you what are you seeing and what's good, what's bad.

[55:12] Anne L Nathan: I think that because of social media and because of Glee and American Idol, I think that there's a lot of people wanting results instantaneously, and I don't mean directors and producers, I mean people who want to do this. So I think sometimes people get into this for different reasons than maybe I did and my friends to be famous.

[55:37] Joe Carroll: Right.

[55:37] Anne L Nathan: And I think because you can go online and you can see that someone out of the blue just like got some great thing and you think, oh, I don't have to really work hard for it. So I find that not everyone, because I do have a lot of students and a lot of awesome students who work really, really hard. But that is I think social media makes it look more glamorous than it is.

[55:57] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[55:57] Anne L Nathan: And they think, oh, that looks really fun. I want to do this, even if you're not equipped to do it, and maybe you don't have the passion or the talent to do it. So I do think that that's a thing. I think that having to keep up on Twitter and Instagram and all those things is challenging sometimes because I don't always want to. And then I have to go, oh, I haven't in a week. I better because people get more and more jobs because of that.

[56:18] Joe Carroll: Right.

[56:19] Anne L Nathan: Your presence on social media. So I think that what's interesting is it's become easier in certain ways, like you can get any piece of music, right? Instantaneously. But because everything's so easy, I cannot tell you how many students are like, I can't find the music. And I go, Really? Because I just found it.

[56:33] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[56:34] Anne L Nathan: How all you have to do is type a word. I had to go to I had to go when I was your age. But I did. I had to go to Colony Records, and it wasn't a had to. I loved it. My dad would drive me in and I go to Colony Records and I'd buy the score to A Chorus Line.

[56:48] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[56:48] Anne L Nathan: Because you couldn't get it online. There was no online. And I'd take my babysitting money and buy like a brand new score for $25, $50. Um, so I think sometimes that is the challenge of it. But yeah, it also makes it easier for me. I love it. I can get everything quickly.

[57:06] Joe Carroll: Right.

[57:09] Anne L Nathan: Um, but there's no romance to like going on Dropbox and just being like, oh, there's the score to blah blah blah. But like I remember waiting for something to come out, which was so exciting.

[57:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[57:18] Anne L Nathan: And I remember Colony Records. I mean, that was the point I went there once. You'd go and you'd buy scores and CDs and like all of the stuff that just didn't exist. I also find in and I don't know, I cannot explain this, but the number of times I teach a class and people don't know shows.

[57:36] Joe Carroll: Right.

[57:37] Anne L Nathan: I'm shocked. Like you can't say, well, it's because you're older than me. I'm like, Yeah, but I knew shows that were written in the forties and I'm not I wasn't born then, so that's ridiculous. It's just I think it's being taught at places like Michigan, obviously.

[57:49] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it was a huge part of our curriculum.

[57:50] Anne L Nathan: But sometimes it's not being taught, and or people just aren't interested in it. That's what's amazing. As I get students who say, Well, I'm not really interested in the old musicals. Like, okay, wow, that's like limiting yourself like 50%, but okay.

[58:01] Joe Carroll: Okay.

[58:02] Anne L Nathan: Or I get a lot of I can't relate to something. I'm like, well, just act. Pretend. It's just acting. Just putting protection. But also, like, I'd love to challenge that.

[58:11] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[58:12] Anne L Nathan: What? That you can't relate.

[58:14] Joe Carroll: Yeah, of course.

[58:15] Anne L Nathan: I couldn't agree more. Totally, totally. You can challenge that. Some of those things are like absolutely not resonant. You're not thinking about it.

[58:22] Joe Carroll: Right.

[58:22] Anne L Nathan: And you can see that in like the Oklahoma revival where it's like, just take it and make it your own, you know?

[58:29] Joe Carroll: Mm-hmm.

[58:29] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. I do think though the social media, the social media thing is really hard because if I were 22, I would be so distracted. I'm distracted, but I know how to turn off my phone. But it's hard.

[58:41] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[58:41] Anne L Nathan: It's really hard. There are just so many things that pull you away from what you really want to do. I mean, you go to rehearsal now and people are on their phone.

[58:45] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, I was thinking about that this morning, and this is also like what did people do in rehearsal for the original company of Thoroughly Modern Millie on breaks? You know what I mean?

[58:56] Anne L Nathan: You talked, you laughed with each other. There was a lot of pranks and laughter, and sometimes reading a book, but like just laughing, and also things like making calendars. Let's make a calendar and sell pictures of ourselves half nude for Broadway kids. I just found a calendar that we did because you didn't it's going in the care package, yeah. We're gonna find it.

[59:17] Joe Carroll: Yeah, we just didn't. I mean, I think I had a cell phone then, but like it wasn't like it is now.

[59:21] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, nothing it was like it is now. So you talk to each other, talk to each other. And just what here's an idea just watch the rehearsal.

[59:30] Joe Carroll: Right.

[59:31] Anne L Nathan: So many people are in the room like scrolling their phones while the other actors are working because you're not working. But like, yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to actually just watch and be part of the collaboration, even though you're not being used?

[59:46] Joe Carroll: I saw Freestyle Love Supreme the other night and they lock up the phones.

[59:50] Anne L Nathan: It's awesome.

[59:50] Joe Carroll: Because they want to have a collective feeling of they want people to pay attention. And also because it throws them because they're over.

[59:55] Anne L Nathan: How do you mean improvised?

[59:56] Joe Carroll: They take your phones and they put it in the they make you turn it off and then they put it in this locked sack that you sit with and they will not unlock the sack till the show's over.

[1:00:06] Anne L Nathan: Wow.

[1:00:07] Joe Carroll: And it's amazing because everybody's present.

[1:00:09] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[1:00:10] Joe Carroll: I wonder if that's something that they're gonna start to do more.

[1:00:13] Anne L Nathan: It was great.

[1:00:14] Joe Carroll: Yeah, there's a whole bunch of I read an article about this. There's a whole bunch of things.

[1:00:17] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, there's like there's a big sort of give and take about it, you know, in this twenty-first century and, you know, and phones and the whole thing. It's worth reading. But I think that it is so valuable. And people want to say, like, you know, okay, if you're a doctor, that's it, you know. But I don't know. There's ways to fix this problem, but I really hope that they do because to be able to sit in at Freestyle Love Supreme and not have a single phone go off and not have anybody, you know, nothing flash and nothing happen. And to have nobody filming. I mean, the other night, like somebody's filming, you know, Casey was singing "Monster," somebody's filming in the third row. It's like how am I supposed to how she's supposed to do her job with that happening? Can't you just watch it?

[1:00:57] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, just watch it, right? You have to always prove that you were somewhere or prove that you met someone.

[1:01:02] Joe Carroll: I know.

[1:01:03] Anne L Nathan: It's really tough.

[1:01:05] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:01:07] Anne L Nathan: And also the instant gratification.

[1:01:08] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:01:08] Anne L Nathan: People just being so frustrated that they're not immediately getting what they want, or they're not immediately getting here.

[1:01:14] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:01:14] Anne L Nathan: Cause my next question with that was was like the perseverance element, because that always just fascinates me for someone who's been in it, like and I feel like there's two types of actors. One who's gonna do it kicking and screaming, going into the grave, and then the other is quitting all the time. And I fall in that second category where it's like every other day, I'm like, oh my god, I can't do it, I'm quitting. And so how to persevere, I think is I would just love your thoughts on that.

[1:01:39] Anne L Nathan: Yeah, I think it's, uh, I mean, I look back on how hard I worked, and I can't believe I did it. Because now I look at it and think I could never do that because it just seems so tiring.

[1:01:48] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:01:49] Anne L Nathan: Now it seems tiring when I was in my twenties or early thirties, I wasn't. But yeah, I did all that like getting up in the morning, 6 a.m., waiting online, didn't have an agent until I had an agent. I started having an agent in the middle of Ragtime.

[1:02:04] Joe Carroll: Got it.

[1:02:05] Anne L Nathan: Um, but I went to all those calls and I waitressed. I wasn't someone who had a lot of money. So I did that thing that people do, and I just, you know, I had my days where I cried and I had my days where I think that the I just had good friends. That's what you need is you need to be able to see your people and say, but I had money, I didn't want to quit. I just kept going, I know I can do this, so I just kept pushing. Um, but I don't know how you do it. You just have to want it the most. You just have to keep it. And you just actually liked it that much.

[1:02:42] Anne L Nathan: You weren't just doing it because some teacher told you.

[1:02:44] Anne L Nathan: Oh no, I really wanted to do it. And I also think I just kept working on new songs and taking, I kept taking classes and just trying to go, why isn't this working? Let me keep getting better, keep getting better, keep getting better. So there was not a lazy bone in my body.

[1:02:58] Anne L Nathan: Right. I will say I got to a point where I’d done Les Mis and then I did Aspects of Love and then I didn't work for a really long time.

[1:03:08] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. Years and years. And I was, I gave myself like two weeks. I had two more weeks of unemployment insurance. And then, but I really was like thinking what else? Maybe I'll do jingles. I had all these ideas about something because I had been doing it for years. And then my friend Stephen Sutcliffe called and said, "We're doing this Ragtime, and the girl that you're perfect for this track, and she's pregnant. She's not gonna come with it. You should call Arnold Montgelli." And I called Arnold, he knew me because I did Aspects of Love. And I just said, "Can you get me an audition?" And I auditioned two days later, and then I got Ragtime. So I was, but I was gone, I was done.

[1:03:44] Anne L Nathan: I was out the door, done.

[1:03:46] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[1:03:47] Anne L Nathan: I love that. So you know, you can keep persevering, but then sometimes you need breaks. Sometimes you have to say, "I can't do it anymore," and then you leave forever, or you come back with something lucky happens.

[1:03:58] Joe Carroll: Yeah, right.

[1:03:59] Anne L Nathan: But it's hard.

[1:04:00] Joe Carroll: Yeah. I mean, I really understand when people give up because it's so hard.

[1:04:05] Anne L Nathan: Yes.

[1:04:06] Anne L Nathan: And I, but I do love, I mean, you said good friends, and whether it's good friends or good family, like you just need somebody, you know. I'm so grateful for Dan and for Alex and for people like to not judge when you're like, "I haven't worked." Because that was me after Cinderella. I had three Broadway shows and I didn't work for a year and a half. And I was like, and that's not even that long in the scheme of things. But this dude and two of my buddies sat me down, they were like, "It's okay," he was gonna quit the next day. We had had a lot of drinks, but it was like, it was a big fight.

[1:04:36] Anne L Nathan: It was tried to kick us out of his house.

[1:04:38] Joe Carroll: Not oh yeah, I did.

[1:04:39] Anne L Nathan: You did.

[1:04:39] Anne L Nathan: I did. And one of our...

[1:04:41] Joe Carroll: So you had like an intervention.

[1:04:42] Anne L Nathan: It was like a little intervention. We didn't know that that's what it was, but it turned into this intervention and Joe wanted to quit.

[1:04:46] Joe Carroll: Still want to quit right now.

[1:04:48] Anne L Nathan: But the best part was, was somebody in the group was like, "If you were a rich person, would you be doing anything else?" And I still go back to that. Like if you had all the money in the world, would you be doing anything else? And I was like, "No, I would just be doing more of it." You know, if I didn't have to worry about it, I wouldn't have to worry about the money.

[1:05:04] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:05:04] Anne L Nathan: And it's like, okay, well then you're on the right track. So just find a way to persevere.

[1:05:10] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:05:11] Joe Carroll: How did you come into teaching? Did you always teach?

[1:05:14] Anne L Nathan: Uh no, I never taught and I had no money. And I remember that Leo Ash Evans, do you know Leo?

[1:05:25] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:05:25] Anne L Nathan: Of course you know Leo. Yes. Uh I did a workshop with him. I did a reading for an NYU musical theater project. And we hit it off and then he told me he did this thing and I wrote him and said I really want to teach. This was a long time ago. This was about eight years ago. And I met Ellen Bletch and I kind of bullshitted my way a little bit because I really wanted to do it. But I never had taught before. I just felt like I could. So when we were, when I was starting out, like I would just listen to songs two hours a night, just try to get better at it. So it was a learning curve for me as well. And it fell into my lap because I was broke. That's really what happened was I was broke. I didn't have any jobs on the horizon. I wasn't gonna waitress anymore. And I just needed to find a day job. And I saw that other people were doing it and I thought, well I'll try this, see if I like it, and it just worked out.

[1:06:16] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[1:06:17] Anne L Nathan: Because I really do love it.

[1:06:18] Joe Carroll: Yeah, and what do you love about it?

[1:06:19] Anne L Nathan: Uh I love getting to help people with things that if I had someone who helped me when I was younger I think it would have been, I think it would have helped me deal a little better. And I like paying it forward kind of thing where I can, whatever wisdom I have from many years of doing this, I can maybe help someone who's struggling and more than anything help them be calm. I feel like I'm a therapist more than a musical theater teacher. I always felt like my voice teacher was like a therapist, and then I kind of stopped taking voice lessons when I moved to the city, and I was like, oh, I just need to get a therapist. Actually, Gary Gavin Creel said that. Gavin Creel said to me, my senior year of college, he was, I was like, "Do you take voice lessons?" He's like, "No, I just got a therapist."

[1:07:00] Joe Carroll: Oh, that's amazing.

[1:07:07] Anne L Nathan: I love that. That's about right. So I do think that I'm helpful because people, the kids see me as someone who's already, who gets it because I've been where they are. I've done what they're doing. I'm not just, you know, pulling it out of the air. I actually get it when you tell me how frustrated you are. I get it when you tell me that you went to fifteen auditions this week and no one liked you. I understand.

[1:07:29] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:07:30] Anne L Nathan: So I'm coming from it from the point of view, I'm coming at it from the point of view of I get it, but also, but I'm gonna be a little tough on you now and say too bad. If you want to do it, you've got to work really, really hard and you just gotta push through that.

[1:07:40] Joe Carroll: What do you think that students struggle with the most?

[1:07:43] Anne L Nathan: That's a really good question. Finding who they are and trusting that, as my friend Sierra says, you're enough. It's true though. Because you're always trying to second guess what somebody wants and you have no idea what they want.

[1:07:56] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:07:57] Anne L Nathan: So that's a foolish thing to waste time on thinking you know what Rachel Hoffman wants. You don't know what she wants. So just try to find who you know, what can you bring to it that nobody else can.

[1:08:07] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:08:07] Anne L Nathan: So that I do think that there's that. And that doesn't mean being the most thing that you think Rachel Hoffman wants.

[1:08:15] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[1:08:15] Anne L Nathan: Right? It's a bit more. It's like how can you bring as much of your own self out of it, not how can you be the closest to what they want? I think the most successful people are the people who just figure out who they are the earliest.

[1:08:28] Joe Carroll: Yes and with the most conviction.

[1:08:30] Anne L Nathan: Because I still sometimes walk around, I'm like, I have no frickin' idea what I'm doing. But like you look at people.

[1:08:36] Joe Carroll: But the days when you do think you know are the good days.

[1:08:39] Anne L Nathan: Those are the good days.

[1:08:39] Joe Carroll: Those are the good days.

[1:08:40] Anne L Nathan: I think that that's a big thing. I years ago when I did Les Mis, I understood your Fantine and Richard J. Alexander said, "I want, I see you as this part, not Madame T, but you have to lose 30 pounds." And I didn't do it. And I never didn't understand that. I never thought, how dare you? I thought, yeah, you told me what I needed to do, and I didn't do it. So there you go. I wasn't insulted by it. I knew who I was.

[1:09:06] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:09:06] Anne L Nathan: And then years later I had actually lost a bunch of weight and I was playing a leading lady, which was in Christmas Story, the first, not Panges, the one that was before it. And it was the first time I've ever played that kind of a part and been thin and I was bad. And that's when I went, oh, it doesn't actually matter. I mean, it matters for your health and stuff. But actually, I'm more, I'm right for Mrs. Shields.

[1:09:29] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:09:30] Anne L Nathan: So it didn't actually matter. So I kind of figured it out, but I was always a realist about what I look like, who I am, what kind of roles I'm good for, that kind of stuff.

[1:09:39] Joe Carroll: I love that.

[1:09:41] Anne L Nathan: I love that.

[1:09:42] Joe Carroll: A lot of people are not.

[1:09:44] Anne L Nathan: Yeah.

[1:09:45] Anne L Nathan: A lot of people are not. Yeah, but I think that's part of training too. Like, I mean, we always joke about like, you know, going through musical theater college and like everyone, Patti Murin and I were joking about this last week, that everyone is singing too high. You're just like, you just show up at school and you're like, "I can sing hot story." It's like, okay, well, some of you can, but like that's one of those versions of, you know, I'm trying to just... And yeah, it takes time. You have to figure it out.

[1:10:05] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it doesn't happen overnight.

[1:10:07] Anne L Nathan: Right. But self-awareness and I wish there was a way to train self-awareness the way I guess that's what's good about acting school is like hopefully you're becoming more self-aware of like when it's working and when it's not.

[1:10:19] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:10:19] Anne L Nathan: But that's the hardest thing is that like I see it all the time that people are trying to do things that really don't work for them, but they have no idea.

[1:10:26] Joe Carroll: I know.

[1:10:27] Anne L Nathan: They gotta figure it out for themselves. Also, like I could tell you something that's not working, but you're not gonna, it's like a parent. Like you have to figure it out for yourself.

[1:10:33] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:10:35] Anne L Nathan: If you tell me and I'm like, "Yeah, you're wrong." So I'm also gonna say right now there's a lot of sensitivity.

[1:10:41] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:10:41] Anne L Nathan: I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this, but like everybody's so sensitive that it's also hard to know what am I allowed to say. Where am I crossing? I don't want to cross a line.

[1:10:48] Joe Carroll: Right, right.

[1:10:50] Anne L Nathan: And that is a thing.

[1:10:51] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:10:51] Anne L Nathan: Everybody gets a participation trophy.

[1:10:54] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[1:10:54] Anne L Nathan: I mean, I don't think you need to be. I've had some teachers that were, or adults when I was younger who were a little harder on me than I think was necessary.

[1:11:03] Joe Carroll: Sure.

[1:11:03] Anne L Nathan: But I think that that is a line that people are trying to navigate.

[1:11:07] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[1:11:07] Anne L Nathan: Totally. I got one more question. And we've kept you longer than we thought.

[1:11:11] Anne L Nathan: I'm fine as long as you're not bored with it.

[1:11:13] Joe Carroll: No, not at all. Not literally not at all.

[1:11:16] Anne L Nathan: But my favorite question, unless you have another one to end with, is just your, what's your impossible dream? That's kind of my favorite.

[1:11:22] Joe Carroll: Wow.

[1:11:23] Anne L Nathan: Like, you know, next thing, where do you want to go? You've always, you know, and that may be, I don't know. For you, you've loved this business, you love musical theater, you love everything about it and have for a long time, but like what do you see?

[1:11:38] Anne L Nathan: That's really interesting. Um I would like to be on a TV show that I shoot three times a week and just have...

[1:11:50] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:11:51] Anne L Nathan: I'm not saying that's easy. I know it's not easy. Yeah, but it's easier than eight shows a week. Yeah, I think that there's something about making some nice money for a change.

[1:11:59] Joe Carroll: Oh yeah.

[1:12:00] Anne L Nathan: And getting to do a nice job that's fun and not hair-pulling. And yeah, that would be great. That kind of a show.

[1:12:10] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:12:11] Anne L Nathan: I've done some TV and I've done some film, but to actually get that to be that person who's on something regularly would be amazing. I'm sure we all feel that that would be amazing. After you've been on Broadway for a while, it is, and anybody who comes from the TV world who's been a regular on many shows will show up on Broadway and be like, "This is the hardest thing I've ever done." And you've seen this at Waitress, Dan, because a lot of people come in and they're like, "Oh my god, this Broadway grind is really, really hard."

[1:12:35] Joe Carroll: Um so I don't think that that's, and actually I don't usually play roles that are vocally demanding, and the first one I had to do was Broadway Bounty Hunter recently, and I loved it, but I also was like, "Wow, people who sing sing have to sing like this every night."

[1:12:51] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:12:51] Anne L Nathan: That is, and Annie Golden sang it great every night and was amazing. But it was, it's a whole different thing. You really are the person who doesn't drink milk and puts on scarves. I've never been that person.

[1:13:01] Joe Carroll: Right, right.

[1:13:02] Anne L Nathan: Because I've never had to be. But I did have to be for that show. So that was, that's an interesting thing too. But yeah, I think just something that I think as you get older you want to find things that are fun and slash easy. That doesn't mean I don't want to be challenged. My favorite things to do musically are still the, I love working with the newer composers just because it's a new voice. I love working with Joe. I've been wanting to work with him for years, and that was really fun.

[1:13:24] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[1:13:25] Anne L Nathan: So yeah.

[1:13:26] Anne L Nathan: Yeah. That's, that's, no, I don't need, I don't need to be the star in a show.

[1:13:31] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:13:32] Anne L Nathan: I've never been someone that needed that. I'm very happy being like the best friend or the sidekick or the fun, I like being the funny parts.

[1:13:41] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:13:42] Anne L Nathan: Because you know where you fit and you like the process. You like working hard, which is really important.

[1:13:47] Joe Carroll: I love that.

[1:13:48] Anne L Nathan: And thank you so much for talking about guys who love theater.

[1:13:53] Joe Carroll: Musical, musical theater.

[1:13:54] Anne L Nathan: Basically guys who like music, we like plays too, so we like TV. Guys who love Broadway would work.

[1:13:59] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:13:59] Anne L Nathan: Who knows? The name is still in beta.

[1:14:02] Joe Carroll: No, it's not.

[1:14:03] Anne L Nathan: No, it's not. It's dark now.

[1:14:04] Joe Carroll: I like that name.

[1:14:06] Anne L Nathan: We love you.

[1:14:07] Joe Carroll: Thank you so much.

[1:14:08] Anne L Nathan: Go see Sing Street, everyone, if you get to.

[1:14:09] Joe Carroll: Hands on dirty, dirty hands on your hands off.

[1:14:16] Anne L Nathan: If you like her, you wanna put a ring on it.

[1:14:23] Joe Carroll: Take your hands off.

[1:14:25] Anne L Nathan: Death man is mine.

[1:14:27] Joe Carroll: Take your hands off.

[1:14:28] Anne L Nathan: He took me to the chat and that's it.

[1:14:34] ♪ Musical number ♪