This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Joe Carroll: You're winning for background. The background you have right now is very cool. We got some Kinky Boots. We got some Book of Mormon. We got the sexy microphone. We got the sexy piano. There's a little Grammy certificate there hanging. You can't really see that, but yes. Is this the home studio?

[0:20] Brian Usifer: Yeah, this is the home studio and the foyer. This is where everything happened. But yes, multi-use. This is where I sort of sit all day and try to...

[0:24] Joe Carroll: Have you sound-treated it and stuff? Is the ceiling all...

[0:30] Brian Usifer: I haven't. I have the... What you can't see in front of me is there's... It's a closed situation. The wall is here, and so I have my Genelecs, and what I've been trying to do is cure the bass trap problem, but it's not. Everything I do doesn't really work, so I just have to know when I'm mixing things that I've got about three or four more dB of bass than I'm hearing more than there is. So I have to use my eyes a little bit more to mix, but I've just learned how to do that. It's not a big deal, but it's sort of hard because it's just so open. There's nothing to sound-treat. I could hang foam on my Kinky Boots poster, but I'm not sure what that'll do. And the piano, I like to open it to record it like this, but it also sounds like an upright piano, so you're not going to get something out of... So when I need it for that kind of sound, that's what I'll do. If I need something that sounds like a piano, I'll use a plug-in.

[1:25] Joe Carroll: Oh, gotcha. Do you mix with headphones?

[1:27] Brian Usifer: I do, a lot of the time, and that's partially just because I am in a house with two people, and we're in the middle of a pandemic, and there's never alone time, so it's a lot of just out of respect for the general public of my house. But again, when I learn how to drive, I learn how to drive with mirrors, and when I learn how to mix, I learn how to mix with my eyes. And so I'm always looking at view meters and EQ curves and everything. I know what I'm seeing.

[2:01] Joe Carroll: I love it. Now, can we do an hour on that? Because that's what I need.

[2:05] Brian Usifer: Yeah, it's funny. One of my jobs in quarantine has been coaching people on logic and recording and producing. I mean, I can get around in Pro Tools, but it's not my preferred method, because so much of what I do is MIDI-based. But I've taught a couple courses on it, and then some of those students have reached out and been like, can I have coachings on that? And I'm such a nerd about it that I don't even... I'm like, you don't have to pay me to do that. But then I'm like, oh, well, I don't have a job, so maybe I'll accept it. But I love all of it. It's really fun. It's been... to have the time during this to geek out over it and learn and get better. I'm a perpetual student, so I'm always trying to get better and trying to learn about it.

[2:52] Joe Carroll: Well, we should probably tell the people who we're talking to.

[2:55] Dan Tracy: Literally. I mean, we just started, and we're going to include all of that, because that's fascinating. But welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[3:03] Joe Carroll: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals, Mr. Today, we're here with Brian Usifer, Brian Usifer himself.

[3:09] Dan Tracy: So an actor is saying his lines, and then out of nowhere, he just starts singing. Dan and I are both very excited to have Brian on today, because for most recently, Brian was the music director and conductor of Frozen. Not sure if you heard of it. Not sure if I mentioned I was in it, but was also the music director of Kinky Boots. And so Dan and I have both worked with this fellow. His bio is kind of insane. The Book of Mormon, he's played in many Broadway pits and many orchestras, including Spelling Bee, Avenue Q, Alter Boyz, was most recently working on The Heart of Rock and Roll, a musical based on the music of Huey Lewis, Swept Away with the Avett Brothers, Beautiful Noise with Neil Diamond, The Wiz Live, he's worked on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Seagull Film, and most recently, and what we want to talk about almost immediately, because people will listen to the beginning of this and then turn it off because Dan and I drown like morons, is a collaboration with our friend Colin Donnell from Anything Goes, Patti Murin's husband. So the band is The 1920.

[4:39] Brian Usifer: Yes. Hi, guys.

[4:40] Joe Carroll: And this EP just came out, Chaos and Cocktails. Brian, thank you for being here. Thank you for talking to us. And I want to talk about that immediately. So you guys, the pandemic came, and Dan and I have just been getting fatter, and you decided to start a band.

[4:56] Brian Usifer: Well, I started a band and I'm getting fatter. So I'm doing both.

[5:01] Joe Carroll: Cool. So both.

[5:04] Brian Usifer: I mean, Colin and I have known each other for a long time. We've been trying to figure it out, but it's like 12 years at least. And he and Patti sang in my wedding, and I did the music for their wedding. We go back.

[5:13] Dan Tracy: How did you meet? How did you meet originally?

[5:19] Brian Usifer: We can't really figure it out. We think that it's-

[5:21] Dan Tracy: It's lost to time.

[5:22] Brian Usifer: Yeah, I think it's just through a mutual friend. I think it probably was his agent is a good friend of mine and my wife's, and I think that's probably where that happened. But Patti and I actually grew up in the same town, but didn't know each other because we went to separate schools. And I also wasn't into theater at all. Hint, hint. But yeah.

[5:47] Joe Carroll: You kind of have that air about you.

[5:50] Brian Usifer: That something's coming?

[5:52] Joe Carroll: As a person who walks into a musical theater audition and is like, this is the most important moment of my life. Every time I walk in, you have that air of like, meh, it's just a musical.

[6:03] Brian Usifer: Which is a good-

[6:03] Joe Carroll: Well, there's so many. And there's so many musicians who come to it kind of from that way because you started, I forget now, but we've talked about it a lot. We'll talk about all of this, but talk about the collaboration first because I want people to know about that.

[6:16] Brian Usifer: Totally. So, you know, Colin and I were talking at the theater one day. I was noting the show and Colin was backstage and, you know, I hadn't seen him a lot because he was in Chicago for a long time doing Chicago Med. And like, I was out there a couple of times checking in on the Mormon tour, Kinky Boots, and we hung out, you know, but over the years, since he's been gone doing the show, we hadn't really seen each other a lot. And so he was there and we were just hanging out and he's talking about getting into writing songs and that he'd always sort of done it. And, you know, I was like, oh, that's cool. You know, I did that, too. I wrote songs when I was in high school and in college and, you know, I had bands and everything.

And when I first moved to New York, that's kind of where my head was. I mean, I had done like a classical piano degree, but I sort of came to be in like the pop music, you know, songwriting, playing in bands kind of world. And so we were like, oh, cool, we should do something. He was like, yeah, we should do something. You know, one of those, like, we should do something. And that was like, I guess, like late February, early March. And a little bit, you know, a couple weeks later, he posted something on Instagram of him singing a song of his. And I texted, I was like, we should do this. And then the pandemic hit and everything sort of closed. And so, you know, over the next couple of weeks, he would sort of send me ideas and I would send him ideas.

We could sort of talk back and forth. And we hadn't really figured out what we're going to do yet. We didn't have a plan. There wasn't any there wasn't any anything. It was just listening to songs and talking about it and talking about what it could be. And we hopped on a Zoom and kind of dug into one of the songs. We like did it all. Basically, we did the whole album on Zoom, really. So I would sort of pull up a Logic session that he had done something in, and then we would sit there and start to talk about it and produce the track, basically. And so the first song that we did that with is the second song on the album, which was actually called Chaos and Cocktails, because he says that in the in the song.

And eventually we decided to change all the songs to Prohibition-era cocktail names and name the album Chaos and Cocktails. But anyway, we pulled that up and kind of made crazy sounds. And we were like, well, let's just sort of do this all right here on Zoom. And everything that's going to get played or made is either you or me or creating things, you know, production-wise. So we took that song and we like chopped up guitar parts and reversed them. And, you know, I did some drum programming and we talked about, you know, what are we going to do for bass? And I was like, well, Moog, let's just everything should be Moog bass and like 808s, you know, just embrace the fact that it's like going to be synth and that's what it is.

[9:01] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[9:01] Brian Usifer: And also you're doing it. You're doing it virtually. Don't pretend like you're not, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, you can't you can't get a session together. Just like make make the best of it. Yeah. And we always knew, you know, that having, you know, the strong sort of foundation of Colin playing guitar and a lot of times many guitar tracks and singing was a really like good live thing to hang the rest of the production on and that it would support it would be supported by quite a bit of live performing. And so that song kind of turned out unlike anything we were really expecting. I mean, we had some ideas of what we were trying to emulate. But again, at first I think we thought we were going to go into a recording studio and like get people together and make a folk album.

I mean, that was sort of the idea. And then once that looked totally not possible, we shifted gears into this more produced sounding thing. It's why it turned out more like indie folk, you know, or like alt folk than just folk. But essentially that song then became the template. We're like, OK, well, this is really cool and really different. How can we sort of apply these same ideas to the rest of it? And so yada, yada, yada. We'd meet probably two times a week, I guess, on Zoom. And we probably wrote like 12 or 13 songs. And we were sort of getting down to we were honing in on like eight of them or eight or nine of them. And Patti was due to have a baby in July. And so, you know, I'm also a parent and know what that is like.

And I was like, listen, we need to like be done with this a couple of weeks before that because you're you need to be there and like have your focus there. So it was at that time we were like, let's just pick these seven songs. And so we picked the seven, finished them, had them mixed remotely, obviously, because that's how we are. And then, you know, when it came time to master, I've I'd always been sort of like, you know, looking at like the Abbey Road online mastering thing and wondering, like, is this good? Is this real? Is this like, what is it, you know? And we were like, this is kind of the perfect, you know, application for this because we can't really go somewhere to master it anyway.

We're going to do it online. Why don't we do it at Abbey Road? So we had it mastered online at Abbey Road, like in their analog room. And, you know, they give you one one set of mix notes. We got it back. And I was like, do you have anything? He's like, no. I was like, I don't either. And I was like, it's done. Let's be done. And so, you know, we picked a release date and, you know, I've blabbed about this a lot, but it was really exciting and really fun for both of us to do something that we'd both always really wanted to do and never really got to the finish line. Totally. And so we yeah, we put it out on September 25th and we've just been like doing our thing and promoting it. And I don't I don't think anybody knows this. Actually, you're probably the first one that I'm telling this to, but we're dropping a new single tomorrow. Real News Podcast. Christmas Time Again.

[12:02] Brian Usifer: Sweet. That is on Bandcamp right now, if anybody wants to go and buy it early as a pre-release, but it'll hit everywhere. If it's midnight on December 4th where you are, which right now, I guess, is Australia, then it's out. But so we, you know, we've done that. We also did a song, another Christmas song coming out in another way that that I that I won't mention. And there is another single that is kind of 80 percent there that I think we're going to aim at like January. So there's more coming. That's so great. You guys made a hat. That's that's like, yeah, that's so cool. Anybody that's doing anything in this time is just like wildly inspiring. So and the album is great. It is it is excellent drinking music. Sure. And I actually like we're kind of jumping around, but it feels like, you know, when I was leaving Frozen, you were starting to work on Swept Away, which is the Avett Brothers musical. Yeah.

[12:50] Brian Usifer: Did that influence this at all? I mean, it feels like it might be a little bit of like the year of folk in a way that maybe you didn't totally anticipate. Maybe. I mean, I've always loved that kind of music and I've always enjoyed it. I've never played that kind of music, incidentally. All the bands and all the things that I've written and been in have been either more rock or more pop. I played drums in a hip-hop band in college briefly too, which is random, but I played drums in a Christian rock band in high school too. But, you know, I mean, I literally have a banjo right next to me on the floor because we were orchestrating, swept away, or sort of pre-orchestrating, I guess, because we wanted to get a good sense of it.

And so I was learning how to play the banjo just because I'm a nerd and like to do that. And oddly, it never came out. It never sort of made its way into the album. So we really sort of decided like this will be folk, sort of Americana songwriting, but it's not going to be that in the final analysis. So I don't know. I mean, did it influence it? Maybe. But it definitely kind of was a different thing, you know? I love it. I love it. Oh, so cool. So awesome. So we've got a lot here. There's a lot of stuff that we, if you don't know a lot of the things that Brian referenced about Abbey Road and mixing and mastering, well, that's totally okay. We're going to keep moving. It's totally cool. I want to talk to you more about microphones.

The nerd alert, like it's a separate hour. We're going to do this, you know, well, maybe, I don't know, but I'm with you because I want to talk about mastering and I want to talk about how you got to, you know, mix and master online at Abbey Road. But we're here to talk about musicals because technically we're a musicals podcast. So I want to know how you, how you went from classical pianist at, you went to NYU, right?

[14:46] Brian Usifer: Yeah, I did my master's at NYU. Classical pianist. And then you moved to New York and you're thinking you want to be a contemporary musician of some kind, probably in more of the actual recording world. And then you end up in musicals. How did that transition happen? So when I was, I actually had my first job as a music director, I turned 18 that summer and I had like played trumpet in the pit of Bye Bye Birdie in high school. And I was like, this is, this is not for me. And then I did, I did Greece and I was like, well, it's, it's fun, but it's not for me. You know, I didn't like grow up listening to music, musicals or musical theater. My family didn't, um, didn't go to see them. It just wasn't sort of part of my upbringing, but I definitely had a little more trying to play drums in a Christian rock band.

Correct. Like you're coming to me, I'm going to go the distance in that direction. Correct. And so I'm going to speed through this a little bit, but in undergrad, I did, you know, I obviously like did a little bit of theater because people wanted pianists and music directors. And so I did that and I, I did a lot of accompanying. And so I definitely, you know, knew the material. Um, but again, never considered a career, knew nothing about it as a career. I mean, this is like pre-internet too. So it's not even like you could see people on, you know, social media or the internet doing this job, which you can today. And it's like, it's out there. People know what it is. Um, I didn't, I had no, I had no clue.

So, uh, my roommate was, uh, going to NYU for grad school and was, you know, like, Hey, they're looking for accompanists if you want a job, which I didn't have. And I was like, that's a great idea. So I got sort of into the NYU thing. And I, I ended up, I did, I did my master's there, but I did like eight years of teaching and like accompanying and coaching while I was there as well. And so I started to really learn the repertoire and, um, you know, started meeting people that work in the business. And the thing that kind of finally clicked for me is that, you know, growing up, I'd always loved playing with bands and working with the orchestras. And I always loved singers and working with singers and music, musical theater is a combination of those two things. As a music director, you get to do those both, both of those things. So that was sort of my like, Oh, okay, well I can get into that. I can, that makes sense to me. I can sort of get into that.

[17:01] Brian Usifer: Um, and then, you know, again, I've talked about so many different styles of music here. I have always loved everything from Beethoven to Miles Davis to, you know, the flaming lips, you know, to the Beatles, lots of different things. And theater can be that, you know, theater can be very classical like West Side Story, you know, or which is even not that classical, I guess, but, or Hamilton or, you know, Kinky Boots or a show that is very contemporary. And that really appealed to me because I didn't have to necessarily pick a style I could really kind of, you know, work in a lot of different ways. And that, that really kind of hooked me. And then once I sort of started seeing how the business worked and how the whole thing came together, I was like, Oh, new musicals, you know, you're part of the creative process.

You're part of writing it. You're there while the show is being made. Um, right. And that is where I sort of aimed all of my energy because I was like, this is what I want to do. And I did, you know, five years of like regional theater doing, um, doing West Side Story and Guys and Dolls and like, you know, the sort of standard, you know, rep, which is all really cool and really fun. Um, but I was trying to find that sort of new musical thing and also getting into orchestra, you know, getting into orchestrating and arranging and, you know, that really hands on like getting your, getting yourself sort of into the process. And so, um, yada, yada, yada. I had known, um, Steven Remus, you know, through the business and everything.

And I, I played some auditions, um, for some stuff that he was working on and he called, I was working on a new musical in Birmingham, Alabama, and he called and was like, we're doing the first workshop of Book of Mormon. Do you want to come, um, join the music team? And I was like, yes, absolutely. I'm there. And we started like two weeks later and that's been, that was a decade ago.

[18:50] Brian Usifer: Um, that's so cool. And so that's kind of where I kind of got into it. And, you know, Mormon, Kinky Boots, Frozen were sort of like the last 10 years in terms of my Broadway shows and, you know, lots and lots of other projects in there in between there. But what was, what was Steven Remus's title on Wicked? And like for those of those people who are sorry on, on, cause he worked on Wicked, but, um, for, you know, on Book of Mormon at the time, what was his title? Um, and how did you meet him?

[19:16] Brian Usifer: Uh, he was the music supervisor. He was also the music director and he co-orchestrated it with Larry Hockman. Um, and I met him, gosh, it was like socially, I think like he came up to see something in a, at a theater that I was working on. Um, and, you know, we just sort of met and, and knew each other. It was a social thing. I, um, I certainly, um, knew who he was and what his career was and everything. But I also saw him as somebody, you know, they say when you're, when you're networking, you should try to sort of go for like the people that are a level above you or two. And I was like this, I'm not like in the ballpark. So, you know, I was like super happy to meet him, but I also was not like, can I have a job?

[20:05] Brian Usifer: Right, right. So I wasn't in that place. So, um, I was so happy to sort of get brought onto the team and, um, and sort of work my way into it like that. My gosh. And then, and then you're in the room for your new musical. I mean, I mean, and one of the biggest, still one of the biggest and most successful new musicals of all time. I mean, was that like, it must've been a spongy experience. You must've been sitting there like watching these because you had masters in that room. You had, I mean, people, you know, Trey and Matt and people who had not really worked in the field before. I mean, that must've been a crazy first experience.

[20:39] Brian Usifer: Yeah. Yeah. Quote unquote, first gig. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And my, you know, my first job actually was I was the music assistant, um, on the show, which is like my job was to sit there and keep up the finale files and keep up the piano vocal score. The finale is the program you use to build the scores as they're happening, basically. Yeah. It's a note. It's a sheet music comes out of that. Yeah, exactly. So somebody's like, you know, Oh, like we're going to change this, this melody line. And you just like, you put it in on the fly. And then two seconds later, you're handing out music to everybody. You know, that job is like, that's a tough job. That's a tough job.

[21:11] Brian Usifer: Yeah. It was hard. And it was, you know, it, but, but fun. And like, you know, talk about being a fly on the wall. I was able to really, um, like you said, absorb a lot of things because I wasn't always, I wasn't in the hot seat. You know, once you sort of get to be the music director or the associate or the supervisor, you know, you have to run the room in a lot of ways. You have to be in charge or you have to, at least, you know, if it's not your turn to run the room, you need to be on all the time in case something, you know, comes up. And so that wasn't my job on that particular workshop. Um, so I was able to really watch and yeah, I mean, listen, I mean, Bobby Lopez is a double EGOT, you know, like I can't, I mean, he's, he's such a genius and also like the nicest guy and I just, I love him.

And he's, you know, been so great to me in my career, but he is such a genius and watching him work and getting to like be part of his music was really cool. And I really, um, respect him a lot as a musician.

[22:04] Brian Usifer: Um, you know, I think what he does is just really incredible and, you know, getting to get like files from him and, you know, and voice memos from him of new things was just really cool and exciting. Um, you know, and then watching Trey and Matt work and Casey, it was just, it was, it was really fun and really fun to like have that moment of like, oh, this is like, this is something different. This is, um, what's, what's this going to be? People are not, you know, I don't, we didn't know what to expect. Everybody was a little bit on edge because the show is, um, you know, a little aggressive in some ways and it's, and it's, and it's point of view and it's, it's commie and it's comedy. And so, uh, we were excited, but also like, what's this going to be? And so we were of course thrilled when it went well.

[22:48] Joe Carroll: Oh my gosh. Yeah. What was that like to, cause I've always wondered this with that show in particular to, to make it in a vacuum, to like make it in a room, in a rehearsal studio with people throwing ideas against the wall and then to actually have people see it for the first time. Like, did you guys have an invited like workshop or what, you know, when, do you remember sitting there like with that audience being like, how's this going to go?

[23:09] Brian Usifer: Yes. And I, again, because for that first workshop, I didn't have to play or anything. I would just watch the audience and just like watch their reaction because I knew what was happening in the show. Um, but I will say, and that was really exciting just to see people like, oh my God, what's happening. But the first, um, the invited dress, you know, at the O'Neill was really exciting and electric. And to see, you know, a full theater of people seeing it with the orchestra and with the sets and with the costumes, you know, fully realized was great. And then, you know, the, the preview process, watching them hone and, you know, the way they would just take like two words out of a sentence and then the joke would totally land, you know, or change one little lyric.

It was really like pretty surgical. I wouldn't say there was a lot of big changes to the show in previews, but there was a million little ones and you could just see it tightening and tightening and tightening. And, you know, now that I've worked on the show for so long and part of my job is maintaining the show, um, I know it really well. I know every word of it. And it's hard to sort of find something that you're like, well, that could be something else or that you could trim that, you know, when, when you're, when you work on new musicals, your brain is always yes. And it's always what's, what else could this be? You know, and you look at that show and it's pretty, it's pretty solid.

[24:28] Joe Carroll: That's amazing. That's amazing. So the real reason that we brought you here today was to ask you what, what gives, how can Joe and I get cast in the book of Mormon? Because we're, we're there, we're trying to get in the show and it never works out for us. Is it my face? Is it my, what is, what is wrong with me?

[24:45] Brian Usifer: It's because you're 30 years old.

[24:49] Joe Carroll: Yeah, you're right. It's not because of, no, you're right. Yes, we made it to final callbacks, both of us multiple times to be in that show, but we're 30 now and we have to let it go. It's over. You're right. It's over. It's over. Well, thank you for being here, Brian. Thank you for answering that. No, but we, we did want to ask the question, especially from your perspective, because you've been in so many audition rooms, so many different shows and it's, it's kind of a tacky question, but it's one that actors want to know. I mean, what, what can we do? What do you look for, you know, especially in something that's been, you know, so, you know, around for so long, something so iconic, what do you, what do you look for? Maybe, maybe even something, you know, what do you look for in a new project as opposed to something that's been around forever?

[25:31] Brian Usifer: Yeah, it's a good question. I, you know, one of the things that I really focused on in my time at NYU was vocal technique, you know, part of my.

[25:40] Brian Usifer: My master's that I did there was in collaborative piano, which is essentially a fancy term for accompanying. But I had to take all the vocal pedagogy classes. I had to take the song rep classes. I had to take the diction classes in four languages and sing in four languages. So I really, you know, got a strong foundation in knowing what I'm hearing when somebody's singing and knowing how the voice works. And so, you know, the first biggest thing is training and technique and, you know, really, you know, and also coming into the room ready to sing an audition with good technique. And like, of course, those two things are sort of not always working together because, you know, fight or flight response and singing don't always help, right?

When you can't find your breath or where you can't find, you know, the relaxation that you need to make good sounds. And especially, you know, a lot of these shows that I've worked on, it's not easy stuff to sing. And part of my job is to make sure that we are hiring people that have the technique to do it and do it eight times a week in a consistent way. And, you know, I take a lot of pride in being able to hear that and always being able to cast people that can do that. So that's, you know, that's the first thing that I'm listening for, because a lot of the time, and especially with like the maintenance of the shows, I really need to make sure that it's somebody who can technically do it. When it's a new show, you know, things are a little bit more up in the air.

I mean, it's hard to kind of, you don't want to nail things down too soon, right? You want to keep options open. So if a song is too high or too low, you know, you have to be flexible, I think, because sometimes you have people that come in for a new thing, and they are so right in a lot of ways. And if they're not necessarily fitting with the material, in a technical way, we can, if the composer is willing to do it, of course, if everybody's willing to do it, you can sort of work with that. So that's, it's a different approach when you're casting a brand new show, because you're really just looking for the best interesting people. And, you know, always sort of thinking, like, can I make this work?

Can I make this fit? If I adjust this? Will they, can we, you know, you don't want to get to that place where you're like, they can't do it. Because I'm not because I'm not willing to change something about it. But that does happen sometimes. And it, you know, at the end of the day, the composer is the creator, and they're the writer. And if that's, if they want a tenor, then it's a tenor. And that's, you know, you have to honor that, and you have to respect that. But I do think, just generally, I, you know, being relaxed and being normal and being cool, I, you know, I, again, I know that's like hard to do. And I, I have a lot of respect for you guys, when you come into auditions, and it's a job is on the line, and there's a million people, you know, or there's just one person or two people.

But I think getting in the right headspace and getting in the headspace of, you know, being able to perform at your best. And a lot of that is, you know, inter game of tennis stuff and performance success that, you know, Don Green, that great book, there's, there's lots and lots of books on that. And I, I've definitely gone through periods of time where I've struggled with performance anxiety in lots of different ways. And I've, so I also have read a lot about it and managed it in my own life. And I think that's, it's important. It's important to know it's important to, you know, are you? Are you watching yourself? Or are you in the zone and performing? Because if you're spending a lot of time editing, and watching and judging and sort of, you know, saying, Oh, that note wasn't good, or that, that line wasn't quite right.

You're not in the right space, and you're not showing yourself at your best and your subconscious is working against yourself. And so I think, you know, spending time on that and being really honest with yourself and really clear. And, you know, I don't think that feedback from the room is necessarily the best way to do that. I think that, you know, you have to know how to self-assess, you have to know how to identify things that are working for you and things that are not working for you. It's like, and again, sometimes, though, a teacher or a coach really helps, because sometimes you want that outside point of view. But you know, again, asking for feedback from the room, which happens a lot, it's hard, because, you know, having a background as a teacher, I have two brains, right?

I have the brain of like the teacher where I'm looking at somebody and thinking of they just did this, you know, they'd be there. But then I also have the professional, which is like, I have to hire somebody who can do it today. And it's not it's not like if they did this, this, and this, they can get there, because that's a risk. And, you know, you take that sometimes, and sometimes you get to a place where you say, Okay, they do have to work on this, this and this. But in my experience, I believe they can get there. And it'll be my job to help them get there. And so I'll take I'll take that on, basically, and make that happen. And that's happened many times. And it's happened, you know, because casting is a compromise.

And so you might have somebody that the director really, really loves that you have to spend time with. And then that's your job, you have to do it, or the choreographer really loves and you have to spend time with them. And that's, that's part of the process. And I enjoy it as coming from a teaching background. I, I like that, you know, but I'm careful, I'm careful to, to take that on because, you know, you just have to make you can't like rebuild a house in two weeks of rehearsal. And then somebody stepping on a Broadway stage, I think like, you know, it takes months of work to change anything in your voice, you know, the way that your voice works is a million tiny little muscles and tiny little things that like, you know, a lot of it, you don't even have direct control over a lot of trying to control things that will then control the subconscious muscles, you know, in the vocal tract.

So it's like, you know, that stuff doesn't just change in two weeks. So again, it all goes back to what I said, which is technique, you know, technique and, and keeping your brain healthy and keeping your, you know, well, that's, that's so awesome. And one of the next questions that we love to ask people, are there any resources or books or things that you've, you've found invaluable? And I mean, you, I love the inner game of tennis. I just found out about that this year. Um, I highly recommend that as well. Are there any other, you know, you know, sort of books or resources that you love? Yeah. I mean, inner game is great and they have, it's a series now I, um, they have, you can have like inner game for like musicians or actors.

I think they've sort of like, you know, change it. But Don Green's book performance success, um, is a really great one as well. And he's still active. I see him online, like doing seminars and stuff like that every once in a while. Um, but you know, I think those two are really, are really great. That's what I would say. I mean, there's many more. Um, there's a book called a soprano on her head that I remember, um, reading while I was at NYU that I really enjoyed, but they're definitely out there. Um, and, and worth looking into and worth like doing a little bit of reading. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. Those are so great. Um, well, another thing that we, we would love to know, I mean, uh, with all of the, um, successes and all of the things that you've, you've done all, there's like a lot of really cool, very flashy musical theater titles.

We got frozen, we got Book of Mormon, we got Kinky Boots, we got Grammys and Tony's and all this stuff. Yeah. It's like, well, also we want to try to normalize, um, challenges on our show. Like what, what has been one of the greatest sort of, um, career challenges for you so far? I think the biggest challenge is, um, always working on being flexible and collaborative because I think that that, and that is, that is true at any level. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, an everyday interaction or like the hardest day of your life at your job. Um, theater is a collaborative art and you're not the, you're not an Island. You're not the only person, um, on a production. And so I think, um, being true to yourself and being true to what you stand for, right.

And your, uh, your standards, right. Um, you're still always going to be put in a room with a bunch of people who are going to have similar or different ideas than you. And at the end of the day, everybody has to come to an agreement, um, on what's, what it's going to be, whatever that decision is. And I think that that does take work and that does take upkeep. And it does take, cause you know, looking back, there's times where I feel like I was very flexible and very collaborative, but then I look back and I'm like, actually could have, I could have been more, you know, and I could have said, well, can I bring that, can I offer this, you know, and offering, you know, um, ways to sort of meet in the middle.

And so that I think, um, I'm not sure if challenges the right thing for it, but it's definitely the thing that I have wanted to focus the most on, you know, as a, as a person that works in theater is, is that flexibility and that collaboration and being willing, and this is the hard part, being willing to truly love the compromise. Right. And, and not, you know, not make the compromise would be like, well, my idea was better. Um, you know, those, that's like a totally normal thing to feel, but, you know, add up like a bunch of those over time and, and like the resentment grows and all of a sudden you're not a good collaborator you and you're, you know, you're just bending. You're basically just like bending to what somebody says, you're not coming up with something that you both feel really good about.

Um, totally. So, you know, I think that that's, that's certainly been, been tricky. Other, you know, weird thing, but like is true is, you know, a lot of, you know, Kinky Boots and Frozen, I was the music director of, and so on some level, the music director is the person who, uh, in the initial stages, um, you know, and in my case, working with Steven Arimas as the music supervisor, uh, you know, cast the show, teach the show, um, work with the orchestra, conduct the orchestra, you know, on a, on a day-to-day at Frozen, for example, I would show up, you know, check in with stage management, see who's on, there's probably understudies on, there's probably swings on, um, go down to the orchestra pit, check in, see who my subs are.

I don't, you know, the orchestra a lot of time has, um, substitutes. It's part of the job and part of it. Um, and so, you know, when you add all that up, it's, it's management, right? A lot of it is music is managing the music department. And if there's one thing they don't train you how to do in music school is be a manager. And, um, totally. And I, I sort of identified a little later than I'd like to admit that that is the job. And so, and, but once I figured it out though, I was like, okay, I'm going to read some, again, I'm a nerd and I'm a self learner. And I, so I read books and I sort of looked into, you know, how can I be a better people manager essentially. Um, and that's, that again was something that I didn't expect.

I didn't see that coming, but once I identified it and figured it out, it's, it made my job a lot easier and it made my job a lot, you know, happier to do, you know, sort of knowing that 50% of my job is music and 50% of my job is managing people and dealing with schedules and calendars and rehearsals and giving notes and taking notes and, um, you know, trying to maintain the show and how to do that. You know, how do you hear something and figure out what's the best way to solve this problem in a way that's going to keep people happy and productive and creative? You know, I think, um, it's hard, you know, in a long running show, you're blessed to have a long running show, but you're also trying to keep it in, in this box, right?

You're trying to keep it in this range of what's acceptable. Um, because, you know, having it be the same as opening night is the idea, but also that's not, it's different people. It's different day. I mean, obviously like it's, you just can't do that, but you have to know here's, you know, here's the standard of the show. Here's what it needs to be. It can't be less than that, um, on a consistent basis. And sometimes it's less than that. I hate, I hate to say it, but people, you know, it's a theater is people and people are, are human and humans are not always perfect. And when you get a hundred of them together on a daily basis, sometimes you have brilliant moments and sometimes you have less.

And so, you know, knowing, okay, this was not a brilliant moment today, but is what fault is that, right? Is that, um, is that an aberration? Is it a, is it something that just happened today or is it that we're dealing with some issues that need to be addressed and need to be noted and how to, so anyway, that certainly has been, um, something that I've spent a lot of time in my life working on. Totally. I had a student the other day to ask about what the difference is between arranging and, and like,

[38:30] Brian Usifer: Arranging and orchestrating. Would you just touch on that for a second?

[38:36] Dan Tracy: Yeah, for sure. So in the real world, outside of theater, arranging and orchestrating tend to be kind of the same term. You'll hear a lot of the time arranging a song, and they're really talking about an orchestration. But in theater, we sort of separate them into two things. And arranging, to me, at its most basic level, is building out the structure of a song. It's building the house, right? How does the song begin? What is the intro? What is the verse? What is the chorus? How does it build? What are the dynamics? And again, a lot of the time you have a composer who's giving you this information, but sometimes you don't. And sometimes it's your job to supplement that. But the arrangement is the full arc of the song on a structural level, on a feel, sort of stylistic level.

Is it a ballad? Is it an up-tempo? Is it rock? Is it pop? Is it hip-hop? Is it R&B? What is the main ingredient list of the song, musically speaking? And so that's a song arrangement. There's also vocal arranging, which is essentially writing the harmonies for the voices so that there are all the parts for people to sing. There's dance arranging that is creating music from the songs, working with the choreographer, that go with the dances and that support what they're doing on stage. There's incidental arranging in theater, which is underscoring, scene-change music, bows, overtures, on-tracks, all that stuff. A lot of the time that's an arranger doing that, not a composer. So they might take a song from the show and create the bows around it, or four songs from the show. But anyway, on a very basic level, the structure of the song, the dynamics of the song, the style of the song, that's the arrangement.

[40:32] Brian Usifer: What the orchestration is, which is a much easier explanation because it's very specific, is once you know what your ensemble is, whether it's a five-piece band or a 20-piece orchestra, you don't get much bigger than that on Broadway, but it's writing all of the parts for each individual player so that when they play it together, it sounds like what you want it to sound like. It's a very creative job. You have to make a lot of decisions on texture. Is this strings? Is this brass? Is this percussion? What is that? But also knowing what's the best range for this instrument to play in, and how do you write parts that are idiomatic, that when a guitar player looks at the part, it feels like a guitar part.

It feels like they're playing something really comfortable. So that's what the orchestration part of it is. And sometimes it's two different people or three different people or four. Sometimes it's the same person. The way that I like to work is I like to arrange and orchestrate because I sort of conceive it all at the same time. I sort of can't not do that. It's hard for me to not think of what the instrumentation will be when I'm working on the arrangement.

[41:45] Dan Tracy: Yeah. What is something you remember specifically? And this is a bad question, but I'm just waiting for the question to come. Should I get another cup of coffee?

[41:55] Brian Usifer: You should. You should. The question is, I want a story. I want a Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots moment. What do you remember from the developing, or Frozen, of the development of those shows? Something like Broadway lore-ish. Again, it's a bad question. I'm just off the cuff. I want to know. In the development of those shows, what do you remember? Do you remember something specific that's like, Oh my God, that was a crazy story. That was a crazy thing that happened.

[42:30] Brian Usifer: Oh gosh. I've signed so many NDAs over my career that I'm flipping through my... What can I talk about? What can I actually say? Am I allowed?

[42:33] Dan Tracy: Yeah. I don't know.

[42:41] Brian Usifer: I think that one of the really exciting things, obviously, is showing the show to people. And definitely across the board, the preview period of Book of Mormon, the preview period of Kinky Boots, the preview period of Frozen, that whole time when you're constantly trying to make it better and you're constantly trying to hone the show, those are the most exciting things. And I think there are breakthroughs a lot of the time in those processes where you totally change something. I guess the thing that pops into my head is we were doing the Kinky Boots out of town in Chicago. And there was a song in the first act called I Come to the Rescue. And it's when Charlie decides, essentially, that he's going to try to fix the problem.

The problem is that the theater, the shoe factory is going out of business. It's been a minute. The shoe factory is going out of business, and he inherits it from his father who dies. And he is essentially handed this problem, right? And he makes this decision to try to solve it. So anyway, this song, I Come to the Rescue was this cool thing that I love the song musically, but it wasn't working. It wasn't landing. And I remember sort of at one of the production meetings, the idea of a new song came up. And I think that it was like a Friday. And so the decision was made, we're gonna get a new song. Cindy was in New York, she'd gone back to New York. And so we knew there was coming, nobody knew how it was gonna go, where it was gonna be.

I'm sure somebody did, but me, I didn't. I was like, new song, great. But the next day, Saturday, we got like a rough demo. Sunday, we got like a fully sort of fleshed out demo. Monday, or Sunday, I think later in the day, like after the matinee, we all sat down with Stark Sands and played through it, picked a key. And between that moment, and Tuesday, the song was sort of arranged and orchestrated. We went into rehearsal on Tuesday at two o'clock, you know, two to five is your rehearsal period when you're in previews, you rehearse from two to five, and then do the show. And Jerry completely restaged the number. You know, we talked, I don't think, was there backgrounds in that? I don't remember. Dan, do you remember? I don't think there was.

[45:08] Dan Tracy: In Step One?

[45:09] Brian Usifer: In Step One, yeah.

[45:10] Dan Tracy: No, no background singing, no.

[45:12] Brian Usifer: So we had to sort of change that. But anyway, it went into the show that night. And so, and that's...

[45:19] Dan Tracy: And that's Step One.

[45:19] Brian Usifer: And that's Step One.

[45:20] Dan Tracy: That's the...

[45:22] Brian Usifer: That's what we're talking about.

[45:23] Dan Tracy: The song that prevents a lot of young men from not being able to play Charlie Price. Thank you, Stark Sands.

[45:30] Brian Usifer: Thank you, Stark. Yeah. But that's, you know, I mean, I remember...

[45:33] Dan Tracy: That's awesome.

[45:34] Brian Usifer: That process also was the result of a really efficient team, a really efficient team of people who knew that there was a small amount of time to turn this around, and what was the best way to do it? And it happened without a hitch. And that...

[45:53] Dan Tracy: I remember you saying at Frozen, we talked about that, that like that crew doing Kinky Boots in Chicago in that little pod was pretty tight, that you guys were, you know, really close.

[46:03] Brian Usifer: It was amazing. I mean, you know, everybody, everybody definitely was on board to make that show as good as possible. And you felt it. You felt it every day in rehearsal. You felt it at night. After the show, we would all go hang out, you know, and have cocktails. And it was like, you know, the entire cast, the entire crew, the producers were there. Cyndi Lauper was there. I mean, it was a family, definitely. And we brought that to New York, and we brought that to the Hirschfeld every day. And a lot of people, you know, said it and said it as we were doing the show. And you're like, OK, you know, but when you look back, it really was, you know, a really happy, incredible place to work. And like, sure, it was challenging, you know, in its own way.

But at the end of the day, that what the show was trying to do is make you happy and make you smile and show that acceptance is the way that we can do that on a large level. And I love that about the show. And you felt it at the end. You felt it when I turned around to bow. You know, every show you just felt the love coming from the audience.

[47:09] Dan Tracy: And totally. Yeah.

[47:09] Brian Usifer: Now, I remember I remember one of my favorite moments in musical theater, period, was I'm not my father's son. When that moment happens. And you guys know the show far more intimately than I do, but I remember seeing it on Broadway and like it is it's flashy, it's loud, it's joyful, it's all of these things. And then there's this quiet moment between these two guys. And I was like, I'll never forget it. And watching Billy Porter and like, you know, everything, it was such a such a transformative show. And we were talking about this with a lot of people. It will live on. You know, it's sad that it's not, you know, on Broadway anymore and that it's, you know, but like, I'm sure it's being licensed all over the place or will be licensed in the future for people to do regionally.

[47:53] Brian Usifer: The license is out there. Yeah.

[47:53] Dan Tracy: I have the bench behind me that they sat on. That's the bench, not the one, not the actual bench. I found it online and bought it because I I was like, I needed something for this space. And I was just sitting there because it's just me that plays that song for like the first like two minutes before the band comes in. And so I was just and I remember I always played the show from memory, you know, Kinky Boots and Frozen. I conducted from memory, but they you know, I would sit there and play and I was just staring. I was like, eventually, when I was like, that bench is really perfect. I mean, like, that's kind of what I need. Where can I get that bench? So I found it and bought it. And that's what I have behind me.

[48:29] Brian Usifer: It's like people crying behind you. You're like, this is a beautiful musical theater moment. You're playing the piano. You're like, you know, I actually need something. I found the bench. There it is.

[48:39] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it's it's really interesting that you highlight kind of the people element of a lot of the projects that you've worked on, because as you've started to learn that people managing is the job of music directors, it's kind of the job of being a theater professional. And it's it's definitely worth like paying attention to, like kindness and how you collaborate, how you work in a room, how important that is. It's not just about whether or not you can sing Charlie Price. It's whether or not four years after the show closes on Broadway, that the company of the tour is still going to get along, which like we did. And I look back on that as the the the best, the most collaborative and fun group of people I'd ever worked with. And we would always look around to each other and be like, casting did a damn good job with this. And I know that that was part of, you know, what you were doing.

[49:28] Brian Usifer: So the one of the final questions we kind of get into as we as we come to the end of our talks is, you know, advice we would have for people. It's very clear that that that is something that you've focused on and that you think is important for people to focus on. Do you have any other advice or things that you wish you knew when you were 17 years old coming into this business and that you would have for listeners?

[49:51] Brian Usifer: Yeah, I think that the thing that I think is really important, and it goes back to the beginning of this when we were talking about how what I loved about theater was all the different styles that it that it had and that you're able to work in. But I think it's also important to acknowledge the fact that not every human is amazing at every style, right? And that not every person is going to swim in every kind of music or in every kind of show. And I think that there's a lot of focus, obviously, when you're training and when you're in continual education of, well, how can I get better at my pop song? Or how can I get better at my this and that? And I think that that is important because, you know, as a musician and as an actor, stylistic flexibility is something that is something that really makes a difference in your ability to get a job and get a lot of jobs, right?

But I but I think at the end of the day, everybody has their thing that they really love that they like get excited about, they get jazzed about. And whether it's a show or a style of music or a composer or a genre, an era. And that's like, that's, I think, where you you want to spend your time. And that's where you want to spend your focus. With musicians. It's a little bit. It is a little bit like acting where obviously, like, a very basic level, in a gross way, everybody needs a job, right?

[51:21] Brian Usifer: Right. And so, you know, having a job playing West Side Story or having a job playing Hamilton are two very different kinds of jobs. But if I'm the person that's hiring for, you know, whatever show, you name it, I want to hire the person that is so excited about that music that they wake up and can't wait to go do their job and can't wait to go do the show. Not somebody who's like, well, I feel fine about it, but I'm, you know, I'm sort of happy to have the job. And listen, and I respect I, again, I don't want to say it enough that, like, we all need jobs. We all have to work. And sometimes you have to take a job that you don't love. And that's OK. And that's just part of our career. But in terms of like how you're trying to focus your energy and how you're trying to focus your attention, finding that thing that makes you so excited that when you're talking about casting and putting a show together, we see that we know that we know when somebody comes into the room and that they're excited by the material and they're, you know, electrified by the material, being cool people and being, you know, good collaborators and good company members is something that we have to it's an intuition.

It's a sense that you have to have. Sometimes you have a question. Sometimes you have to go back toward through the resume and ask people and say, like, what were they like to work with? And, you know, that's how you sort of learn that. But a lot of the times it is just about having that sense and feeling comfortable with them and feeling that this is the person for this project. And again, it's the same with musicians. You know, if I'm working on something that, you know, if you love the Avett Brothers, by the way, and I and people have reached out to me and I love it every time, you know, they're like, how can I work on this? I love the Avett Brothers so much. I have every one of their albums.

I love their songs like that's the kind of excitement that I want. I can't always hire everybody. And that's obviously like, you know, a problem. But I love to know that because it does make a difference to me and it does make a difference when you're building a team and you're putting together a group of people, because that electricity that you have when a show is really flying is it. I think it comes down to that. I think it comes down to either the fact that people love the material in a way that they bring themselves to it or they're able to get there and love it. But they're still there and they’re present. And you want it from the crew. You want it from the orchestra. You want it from the cast.

You want it from the ushers. You know, it's like when you really walk into a show that has all of those things firing on all cylinders, you feel it. You absolutely feel it. And you're ready and you're excited. And as an audience member, you're open to accept that show in that way. And it really, you know, talk about management. It is like it has to be every level of the operation to make that work. That's so good because, you know, it is it's not film. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens every day in a space in the present moment. So in order to make that experience transcend for people and to have the kind of like mystery and magic that makes theater so exciting, you need all of those people to only want to be there. That is the place that you would rather be than anywhere else. And it's also going to make kind of the harder parts of the business easier. The eight times a week for two and a half years, you know?

[54:40] Dan Tracy: Yeah. And it is it is hard. I mean, you know, all three of us have worked on long running shows to some extent, and it is hard and it is a job and you can't ignore that away. It's not going to go away. And sometimes you're going to be tired and sometimes you're going to be bored and sometimes, you know, but that like that thing, that core, that center of like, I do love this project and it's there and that, you know, having that going into it, you're always going to be able to access that a lot sooner than if it's something that you really just don't enjoy.

[55:08] Brian Usifer: Yeah. You know?

[55:09] Dan Tracy: Yeah, totally. When I remember with Dan, with you, with Kinky Boots in particular, like that you had that was an alignment for you going back to when the show came out. I remember, you know, you talking about that and being like, this is my voice. This is my this is my style. This is what I want to do. So then, you know, you know, I remember that very clearly. And then for Frozen, I was like when it was coming to Broadway, I remember being like, this is right in line. This is and especially with the humor. Like, I love being laughed at. And so even when the shows were hard, even when, you know, you're you're 11 months in and you're you're exhausted and you're whatever, it's like, oh, no, I know that I'm going to go that a couple of 10 year olds are going to really laugh when I do this thing.

And it's going to be fun. You know what I mean? So I mean, that was my favorite part about Frozen, too, is is that it was so many kids first Broadway show. And they were able to, like, come and see theater, you know, see the thing they'd never seen before, this live thing and just see that excitement. They would all come down to the orchestra pit. They want to know where the musicians are and what they were doing, what they looked like. And, you know, it was it was cool. I mean, that part about it, that from the other end, you know, from the audience end is really exciting. And especially on a show like Frozen, where you're bringing that to younger generation is really cool, too.

[56:28] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[56:29] Brian Usifer: Well, thank you so much for talking to us today. I mean, I feel like I still have a million questions and then things that, you know, I want to pick your brain about. But I we leave this.

[56:36] Dan Tracy: Go ahead.

[56:40] Brian Usifer: We're going to say I'm very available for questions.

[56:43] Dan Tracy: So it's kind of so is everybody. But like we're like, you know, we don't want to like take up your entire day. Let's just keep it gold. You know, the whole hour, tight hour, that's all really good. And then let people go on their way. Because I want to talk about we could still sit here and talk about wine for 45 minutes. We could talk about food for 45 minutes, which, you know, is clearly some of my favorite topics. But one of the things that we always want to ask people, we call it the unreachable star question, which I actually remember talking to you a lot about at Frozen. Like, what are you what's on the horizon? What are you pointed towards? Obviously, you're writing music, but like what's something, you know, down the line that you are really trying to trying to achieve?

[57:25] Brian Usifer: I've been, you know, in my career, Kinky Boots and Frozen, I was the music director. Right. And on and on those shows, I got to do a little bit of additional arranging. And on Kinky Boots, a little bit of additional orchestrating. But like I said, you know, 10 years ago, when I sort of figured out what I wanted to do in new musicals, the arranging and orchestrating part of it was always my real like love and passion. And so over the years, that's been the kind of thing that I've been trying to gravitate towards in those shows. And so, you know, right before the pandemic, you know, the Huey Lewis show, Heart of Rock and Roll, which we didn't talk about, but I like talk about like things that I run to rehearsal every day.

And I there is no better person to work with in the world than Huey Lewis. I'm sorry to everybody I've worked with, but Lewis is just the best. And he so anyway, that show was like kind of ready to come in. Like we were sort of there and looking for theaters and everything. And, you know, that show, I'm I'm the music supervisor and arranger orchestrator on. And so I have my hands completely in all of that, you know, and Ava Brothers swept away was going to happen at Berklee Rep. And I'm actually co-arranging that and orchestrating with Chris Miller, who's a composer and a good friend. And what a like fun collaboration. Getting back to your original question, that's where I'm that's where I was focusing all of my energy in my career.

And we were sort of so close to it with a bunch of different projects. And, you know, hopefully we'll be back and back to that. But I think, you know, it's awesome getting that first job on Broadway as the as the arranger orchestrator, you know, or music supervisor, arranger orchestrator is the thing that I've definitely been aiming at. And I hope I hope it's tame. I don't know if it's the unattainable star thing that you're talking about. I think that would like be getting to write songs for for big artists, I mean, or produce for big artists. I think like that whole other side of my like brain and career is something that I was ready in a way to walk away from, because like I'm a parent and I'm a husband and I have a career and like you can't do all the things, you know, sometimes you just have to say these are the things, you know, like I love film scoring and, you know, I just can't like I don't think I can do that.

I just don't think I could put enough energy into that, that I'd have to actually be able to make a career as a film orchestrator. So in a way, I have to like put that into the like the love category, not the like I'm going to try to do this category.

[1:00:00] Dan Tracy: Yeah, yeah. And back to what you were saying to like actors that like, you know, you can have your love category, but like, you know, it's got to match up a little bit, you know?

[1:00:10] Brian Usifer: Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, doing the album with Colin and producing the 1920 stuff and, you know, continuing to work with him. And I've been doing that with a couple other people as well. That's really sparked something that was there for a long time in me that I wasn't able to have time for now that I do have the time. I don't want to let it go. So I'm hoping that I can keep doing that, you know, while I'm while I have my theater career at the same time, because it does really satisfy a different part of my creative brain than theater does, even when I am arranging and orchestrating, because that's such a it's like it's just such a different thing, I think, to me. But as creative people, we have that energy.

It's there. It doesn't go away. You know, when you're not when you're not working and when you don't have a project to work on, it doesn't it's just there. And so how do you how do you satisfy that? What can you do? What are the things that you can do to be creative? So yeah, yeah. So you make an album, make a hat. You make you make a podcast.

[1:01:23] Dan Tracy: Yeah. And listen, if it's not Huey Lewis, it's going to be something else. You know, you're every time I see your name on a project, I know it's going to be good. And I'm excited about it. Getting to read some of the stuff from swept away. That show looks so awesome. So that to me is like a surefire the next American idiot. I can't wait to see that kind of come to fruition. And that's awesome. Everybody listening, you can you can find Brian's album with Colin Donnell, Chaos and Cocktails on iTunes, Spotify and wherever you stream music. Brian, where can people find you on the Internet? Do you want them to find you on the Internet? Would you rather be private?

[1:02:01] Brian Usifer: Yes, they can find me. I have a website. I have a brand new server dot com. I have I that's kind of where they can find. I have an Instagram that is probably pretty boring these days. But the 1920 Instagram. Yeah. I mean, it used to be like pictures of my dog. And then I was like, well, I'll do food. I was like, I don't do food anymore. And now I'm just like, what am I going to post? But the 1920 Instagram is a lot more interesting because we're actively posting or, you know, we're trying to make new songs and put things out there. So totally. But yeah, I can be found. I'm there.

[1:02:32] Dan Tracy: Well, thank you for talking to us. And also, like, truly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for Frozen. Thank you for giving me a job. Seriously, a wonderful job.

[1:02:42] Brian Usifer: I hope to give you both many more jobs. I hope that this is that this keeps us to us, too.

[1:02:47] Dan Tracy: I will never forget my first audition for Kinky Boots because there was a very notable actor in front of me who fell on his face being nervous or singing out of his range. Sometimes with that show, you don't know because it's just like if you start holding any tension when you go to sing step one, it's just not going to happen. And for whatever reason, you made me feel comfortable there the whole time I was there. And I was not as confident as I should have been. And I will always remember. And thank you for that. So thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. And let's stop this interview so that we can dish on the real stuff. Awesome.

[1:03:22] Dan Tracy: All right, ma'am. Thank you for listening to Guys Who Like Musicals. We are now part of the Broadway Podcast Network. We are hosted by Dan Tracy. That's you. And Joe Carroll. That's me. We're produced by Ryan Kincaid. And Matthew Mucha is the social content manager. You can find us on Instagram at Guys Who Like Musicals, on Twitter at Musical Guys, or the old-fashioned way at www.guyswholikemusicals.com. If you'd like a chance to be featured on the Ask the Guys segment of our show, please call 203-900-7990 and leave a message with your question. As always, thanks for listening.