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[0:00] Dan Tracy: My Wagner project was Hello Dolly.

[0:02] Joe Carroll: Wow.

[0:03] Dan Tracy: Let's go.

[0:04] Joe Carroll: Okay.

[0:05] Dan Tracy: You want to tell the listeners what that is?

[0:07] Joe Carroll: Well, tell okay. So when we were in college, our freshman year, the chair of the department made us do reports. We all had to pick one musical and we had to do a report about it. And it turned into this like 50 page, you know, total the comprehensive history of your particular show. And so mine was Fiddler on the Roof. Will's was apparently Hello Dolly. Dan, what was yours?

[0:29] Dan Tracy: Music Man.

[0:31] Joe Carroll: Great. Which was oh my God, what an amazing trifecta of musicals we learned about. And the Music Man was like Joe last week talked about how when he played The Beast in Beauty and the Beast that everyone in Grand Rapids still talks about it. It's when he peaked. The same thing is true for me when I played Harold Hill a freshman year of high school. Yep. No one knew who I was. I came in and got cast as Harold Hill. Had no friends after that for the rest of my time in high school. And I still have my family still talks about it. Like, man, you were so good at Harold Hill.

[1:01] Joe Carroll: Incredible.

[1:02] Dan Tracy: So good. That's incredible. My history with Hello Dolly runs very deep as well, beyond just, you know, the most recent Broadway revival. And I'm sure we'll have a chance to expound on that. But like it, I've been in the show three different times. It was like it was a musical theater awakening for me, truly. I did the show at the Muni after my senior year in high school, before I started Michigan, and I had gotten cast in Greece, Hello Dolly, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And I was not like a seasoned musical theater person at that point. I mean, I had done a ton of shows at my like, you know, performing arts high school, but I didn't know the history as much as some people who were starting college for musical theater at that point.

And so when I booked those three shows, I was pumped as hell for Greece. I was pumped for Joseph. And I said, What the hell? Hello Dolly, just didn't I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was, and therefore, because I didn't know what it was, I assumed it was old musical theater garbage. And so then someone said to me, You need to watch the movie. And I'm sure we'll talk about the movie a little bit at some point. But I watched the movie and I was just like my jaw was on the floor. I know the movie is not for everybody.

[2:26] Joe Carroll: Which was news to me as of like last night.

[2:29] Dan Tracy: I rewatched it last night, and like we'll get into the movie because that was news to me that people I was like reading the critical response, and like it wasn't that well received, and people are like this, you know, have all these issues with it. And I probably saw that movie 10,000 times as a child. It was one of my mom's favorite movies. It was on in the background all the time. I was I think the fact that I didn't become a costume designer is strange because of that. The move the costumes in that movie are so perfect. So anyway, we'll get into all of this.

[2:55] Joe Carroll: So an actor is saying his lines, and then out of nowhere, he just starts singing.

[3:25] Joe Carroll: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[3:26] Dan Tracy: Welcome to the podcast Musicals. Will Burton is back.

[3:30] Joe Carroll: Will Burton is back on the podcast, and we love Hello Dolly.

[3:30] Dan Tracy: We love Hello Dolly.

[3:35] Joe Carroll: Hello, comma Dolly exclamation point.

[3:37] Dan Tracy: Exclamation point wrong. You were you were saying that you did it at the Muni the first time. What were the, I mean, obviously we know about this most recent revival, and we talked about this when we talked to you the first time, but what when did you do it the second time?

[3:50] Will Burton: Wait, arena. Then I did it at Goodspeed. I did a Goodspeed Opera House. I understudied Barnaby. A woman named Clea Blackhurst was Dolly. And she is this hilarious, she has cabaret style shows. And she has this insane voice.

[4:10] Dan Tracy: So did Carol Channing.

[4:14] Will Burton: Not surprising that you know you get the same types of ladies in this role. But this one was sort of, you know, one of the amazing cool things about Hello Dolly is that it is a star vehicle. Like you have to have a star of some capacity to bring the life to the show. And it doesn't have to be a star necessarily that everybody knows, but they have to have star factor. They have to have that like they have to be able to synthesize themselves really well because it's the role is built for that. Like it's a funny role, but you can bring so many different colors to it. And I've learned that through the years after seeing, you know, five, six, seven different Dollies over the course of my career. But her name was Clea Blackhurst.

She was funny as hell. Her voice was Merman-esque. It was like just bratty and punchy and probably too big for the 400 seat Goodspeed Opera House. But it was like the show was a rousing success because people were just right on top of her and on top of this show. I love it. And then this revival that we'll you know we'll talk about we'll talk about all the things. But when we start these things, and you know, because you're our resident expert on Hello Dolly this week. Please jump in as we get into just a little history. One of the things that we're trying to do with this new segment is just celebrate musical theater that's kind of going on right now that you can actually see. So you can rent the Hello Dolly movie on Amazon Prime.

It is on Disney Plus. That's where I watched it last night. So if you have that, you can watch it for free. And then like it there's so much content for over the years, you know, on YouTube. You know, you could watch Pearl Bailey's, you know, Tony performance. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff that we'll get to, but like really worth checking out right now. And we'll kind of talk about the pros and cons of the movie. We'll talk about you know the show itself. But Dan, do you want to launch into some history?

[6:23] Dan Tracy: Yeah, let's get into some history. Sounds good. Hello Dolly opened in 1964 with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart based on Thornton Wilder's play The Merchant of Yonkers, which was later revised into a play called The Matchmaker, and produced on Broadway, which was also produced by the same producer, David Merrick produced that play as well. It won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, which set a record which lasted for 37 years. So they were unseated by The Producers in 2001.

[6:58] Joe Carroll: The Producers won 12.

[6:59] Dan Tracy: Oh my God, I did not realize that. So it was a really long record. It's like you know, iconic Tony show. It also ran for 2,844 performances, which made it the longest running show that was open at that time, and it was surpassed by Fiddler on the Roof. So really moving right along, so we got a lot to cover here, but historical context for the world at the moment. In January, the show opened on Broadway, January 1964. But if you guys recall in your American history, on Friday, November 22nd, 1963, was when JFK was assassinated.

[7:35] Joe Carroll: Oh my God.

[7:36] Dan Tracy: So what's interesting about this season is that 16 musicals opened that year, and a lot of them have this same kind of post-war glam thing that Jerry Herman is like really known for because we similar to today, like really needed positive stories, and we really needed something that was not gonna focus on the world as it was, which was a very interesting and you know, the very complicated time in the 60s. So like I said, 16 musicals opened that year. Five ran for over five hundred performances, which it doesn't sound like a lot to us today. Like, you know, Waitress runs for a couple thousand performances and is considered like a long run, but not a long run. At that time, not from like the season of 2016. The season of 2016, it was just you guys in Hamilton, basically that ran for that long, right now.

[8:27] Joe Carroll: Right.

[8:27] Dan Tracy: But point being like a successful show ran for two years at that time. Shows turned over a lot faster than they do now. They didn't have these mega musicals that lasted forever. So 500 performances was actually something that was to be was really impressive. Like this 1964 was a big year. Funny Girl opened, Anyone Can Whistle opened, Golden Boy opened, and then She Loves Me.

[8:51] Joe Carroll: Was that 64?

[8:52] Dan Tracy: Oh 63. It was in the same season because I think it was also nominated for Best Musical that year.

[9:00] Joe Carroll: Got it.

[9:07] Dan Tracy: So it opened it because this list has like Fiddler on the Roof, which was actually the 1965 Tonys, but it because it opened a season.

[9:14] Joe Carroll: Got it, got it, got it.

[9:15] Dan Tracy: So I see. Good research resident expert. Love that.

[9:19] Joe Carroll: That's it.

[9:20] Dan Tracy: That's it. Um so when you think about like some of the talent that was on the stage at that time, we had Carol Burnett, Jack Cassidy, Carol Channing, Barbara Cook, Sammy Davis, Buddy Hackett, Angela Lansbury, Zero Mostel, Robert Preston, Cheetah Rivera, and Barbara Streisand were all on Broadway in 1964 at the same time.

[9:43] Joe Carroll: Crazy, crazy stuff.

[9:45] Dan Tracy: That is why. I mean, that speaks to me. Um that speaks to Broadway as the primary, like the pop culture. You know, like all those albums were circulating in the top 10 all the time.

[10:02] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[10:02] Dan Tracy: You know, whereas now they really don't do that anymore. Um the stars, the stars of the day of the United States were like in New York City on Broadway.

[10:14] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[10:15] Dan Tracy: At that time.

[10:16] Joe Carroll: Totally, totally. And that's actually a great point because the album, Dan, you had this on here that what the album was actually Yeah, J J Jerry Herman's show tunes were always in that pop standard category. And the Louis Armstrong recording of Hello Dolly was the number one hit in the United States, knocking off the Beatles' 14 week run with I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

[10:41] Dan Tracy: That is incredible.

[10:43] Joe Carroll: So that's some crazy context for like what this musical meant, and also just what you're saying, well, like what Broadway meant at that time. I mean, like, can you imagine if something from Waitress, Waitress is a bad example because Sara Bareilles wrote it, but if something from like some new musical written by Adam Guettel knocked off like a Katy Perry pop hit that had been running for you know like that that's unheard of.

[11:11] Dan Tracy: I guess I mean honestly, the closest thing that we've had in over a decade to that is Hamilton. Like I remember walking around some bookstore at some point hearing Hamilton come on in the place, just being like, what is happening?

[11:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah, right, totally.

[11:26] Dan Tracy: I was actually thinking that when I was watching the movie, as I was like, oh, right, this is like this is the Hamilton of that moment. Like the fact that this was as popular as it was. The development of the show and what we know. So originally we just know that the role of Dolly Levi was originally written for Ethel Merman. And she turned it down, which I couldn't find information about why she turned it down, but Mary Martin also turned it down and was in something else that season, as we heard. They then auditioned and yeah, ended up taking the tour out. Yep. And they ended up auditioning a woman named Nancy Walker, but they hired Carol Channing. And Gower Champion was not the first choice to direct.

Actually, Hal Prince was the first choice to direct and turned it down as and Jerome Robbins turned it down as well. At this point, I mean, Jerry Herman, I don't think had had a massive, a massive hit. Right. I think he did like Milk and Honey, maybe a year or two before this, which I don't think was like a massive. I think it might have been nominated for Tony, but I don't it wasn't, you know, right, it wasn't considered a massive hit like a Rogers and Hammerstein or something like that. So, you know, it's not surprising to hear how Prince was maybe like, uh, you know, I've got other irons in the fire. But um, you know, isn't it a I love I love going through the history of a production like this and and finding out the like misses and the things that didn't happen that gave us what did happen and which has been this this show that is now been revived, you know, like four or five times, and and like would it have been the same? Probably not, would it have had the same success? Who knows? It would have just been a totally different thing. That's so cool to me.

[13:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Well, and like you we were talking about with when you did it with Cleo Blackhurst, that that Carol Channing was a primarily a I mean, she'd done a couple of Broadway shows at that point, but she she was doing a bunch of cabarets. And you know, sort of lore, you know, had you know, or Broadway legend sort of has it that that um Gower Champion like sees her at a you know, sees her at a cabaret doing her show, then you know, Gower's like, you know, she you know, Carol Channing is is is my Dolly, and then they go pitch it to David Merrick, the the infamous, famous, you know, abominable showman David Merrick, and and they pitch him on it, and then like he go, you know, like he comes and sees her in a cabaret and is like, oh yeah, that's it.

[14:10] Will Burton: You know, like, you know, I so this this cabaret idea, this like walking to the edge of the stage larger than life, interacting with the audience, really funny, you know, sort of thing is like I I think that I don't know. I just thought that that was kind of an interesting, you know, how much how true that is, I don't know, but like I love spreading that line. I mean, that that that, yeah, I mean, that works for me as myth. I don't care if it's I don't care if it's a myth. Um but it, you know, I think you brought up a good point about the cabaret act being like, I mean, Bette Midler did a Broadway show when she was 20. She did Fiddler on the Roof, and then she didn't do another Broadway show until Hello Dolly on Broadway.

And in the interim, she did a lot of movies and she did a lot of um, you know, albums, recordings, uh, but she did a lot of her own like cabaret shows where she had these characters that she that people just knew and were iconic, but that you know, she did these shows like in Vegas where she she could she could improv if she wanted. It was like, you know, these cool like comedy musical acts that she was just famous for and people came to see. Um seeing her do the show, uh, do Hello Dolly, is is like it's you know, I didn't know much about Bet Midler before Hello Dolly. Obviously, I knew who she was. She's she's a complete, like she's an international icon, but I didn't, you know, I didn't know all of her work.

Her work, right? Her entire ooh. Um and then to do a little research and to watch some YouTube clips of those shows in Las Vegas, and then to be in a rehearsal room where you cannot possibly see that like electric uh interaction with the audience that someone who's used to doing cabaret style shows does, to see that, and then to see as soon as she was on stage in front of people, like to see that instinct that she has that people like Carol Channing, you know, like people who who dabble in that sort of performance that is different than just a regular musical, to see her do that was like I mean it's like unforgettable and unforgettable is not even the right word. It's just like it's insane to watch someone so in their element, and to have been in the musical theater and done a lot, a lot, a lot of traditional musicals, and then to see why this one is special because it becomes this vehicle for someone like that who does that so well was like it was like a mind explosion, you know what I mean?

To go, oh my god, what a cool um like imagine this in in in 1964. Imagine seeing someone with that kind of star power right like step out and break the fourth wall and talk to you as the audience, you know, like that's what I wanted to say is that for the kids at home who don't know like what even cabaret is, which is something in that style. Yeah, it's like before there was John Mullaney's Radio City comedy specials, or before it was cool for Jimmy Fallon to play his guitar and sing, like the stand-up comedians of the day were these people, were the Bette Midlers, were these performers who could have been in musical comedies, and when they weren't, they were doing this like this satire y musical comedy that came from a vaudeville thing.

That's like the origin of the standard hold your mic and talk about your how you hate your wife, like style that we have today, you know? That's what this was. And then you got to see that in a musical. It was like definitely historic and would have stood out at the time.

[18:03] Will Burton: Yeah, well, and and Will, I just we talked about it with the last time we talked to you, but like one of my top five theatrical moments as an audience member was watching you watch her do that for the first time because I was at the invited dress rehearsal of Hello Dolly. Yes. So Bet Bette Midler gets an audience for the first time, and the show was like three and a half hours long. She just was like riffing and improving and and just electric. And at one point, you're standing on stage with her, and it's and I was gonna say this right when you when you got on the on the show. So she hands you the the card. I think it was this moment where she hands you the card and is like about to teach, you know, teach you how to dance, and she totally forgets her line.

She forgets where she is, and you remember this better than it. I mean, I'll let you kind of go because I'm we're sitting there watching Bet Midler improv, and I'm standing there watching one of my best friends from college on stage next to Bette Midler watching Bet Midler improv. It was a real trip.

[19:03] Will Burton: It was an unbelievable trip. It was one of the coolest things ever. And the place just died. It was so fun. Yeah. Um, that that was um that happened on a nightly basis. Like after, you know, you were there for the first time. None of us knew what to expect because we also sort of knew where she was in terms of like it's it's a massive, massive role, and she had a lot to remember, right? And so we knew, like, all right, there, you know, this is gonna be fun because she's not totally confident at this at this juncture. Right. And I was nervous, like, I'm always nervous on the first like the first audience. I'm nervous for no one else but myself. I'm like, I'm sure everyone I can't fathom worrying for other people because I'm so worried about my own stuff.

And that for me too was a big moment because it was my first time like being um a principal role in an in a Broadway show. And I had invited you guys, and that always freaks me out. And then I'm standing up on this platform that's like you know, 15 feet in the air, that's tiny with Melanie Moore and Ben Midler, and she's in the real time forgetting her lines and making up new ones, and just like sweat all over my upper lip and like on my face, and she was looking into my eyes, begging for me to remember like how the scene goes, and I just didn't like I couldn't help her. Um, but at the same time, at the very same time that all that's happening, I just remember thinking, just soak this in because uh what an what a unique experience this this particular moment is and will be, and you'll always have this moment.

Um like people because that invited dress, totally. They gave each of us like eight tickets or something, and it was like snowing outside, which is very rare. Yeah, usually, you know, you get like the friends and family, which is like the the balcony is, you know, three or four rows of people. And downstairs is like still you've got the director and the choreographer and the dance captain and all those people down. Exactly. All the tech tables. But this house was basically full. And um, you know, of people that we knew and loved, and then people that I didn't know, and people like there were people scalping their tickets or people like asking for tickets outside of the theater. Um, and that would that would end up being very indicative of how uh the experience would be different than a normal Broadway show as well, in that like people who came to see the show were not always there to see Hello Dolly, they were there to see Ben Midler. And I think that is also probably true of almost every production of Hello Dolly that's ever been done.

[22:02] Will Burton: And one of the reasons, and I I do have a question for you guys is Hello Dolly as underrated as I perceive it to be. Um, in terms of I don't know, it just never seems to be mentioned in the same conversations as the um Oklahomas and the South Pacifics, you know, the Rogers and Hammersteins and the and the My Fair Ladies of the Fiddlers on the You know, it feels a little underrated, and I have a few theories as to why that might be the case, but I I'm wondering if I'm just wrong and if it's not actually if if more people know about it and more people it's more beloved than I realize. Joe, I know you said you watched it a lot growing up because your mom, you know, loved the movie.

[22:44] Joe Carroll: Uh yeah, she well, she she really loved the movie, and then I did it as a freshman in high school. That was the first like kind of real musical that we did. I think a lot of high schools do it. Um, I met uh my friend Johnny Stellard, who's still very much in the business, and he yeah, and he was the first person I knew to go to a musical theater school. So, like, you know, he was a you know a huge conduit for me getting into the business in the first place. But you know, he was Cornelius and I was Barnaby. And it was I th I've always thought it was huge. I was actually surprised doing research this this week. Like it actually, like you said, it is kind of underrated. Like people are not people are not necessarily huge fans of Hello Dolly.

They're fans of Dolly, they're fans of Barbara, they're friends, fans of Bet, they're f they're fans of Pro B Pearl Bailey, you know, whoever. And so that was in that was news to me because I was just like, oh, you know, it only takes a moment before the parade passes by, I know every word to elegance still like oh, of course, of course, of course. And then even Dan, uh, you know, I think you you were not you didn't really know it until this week. Like people I think are more I think you're 100% right.

[23:48] Dan Tracy: Yeah, I'd never seen it done, right? So it's I I think that you know, I I was only into a certain kind of musical, and we can get into that when we talk about our response to this. But uh uh watching it for the first time, just that's all I could think was like when you talk about the flow and the structure of the show, we are on the Barbara Streisand train. We're on the Dolly train. We're not necessarily breaking the mold of what a book musical can be. Like, you know what I mean? So I think when theater historians are talking about Fiddler on the Roof or Oklahoma or Company or some of the shows we've talked about, uh you know, this doesn't fall in only because it they've made a lot of choices that have helped a person to to equate into this commercially successful show.

[24:40] Joe Carroll: Okay. Yeah. Well, and uh as we were watching it last night, I went one of the things that Alex mentioned was just she's like, I think that the orchestrations are remarkable in this movie, but I don't know if I actually love the songs as much as like, you know, on an individual basis, which I thought was interesting because you know I think that's that you know that the the orchestrations from your revival to the original to the movie are just out of this world. I mean Andy Einhorn, there, you know, all of the dance music, all the waiters gallop. I mean, just get out of here. So I think that that you know, it is this idea that like, yes, individually, you know, you know, it only takes a moment is remarkable, but you know, if you just played, you know, elegance on the piano, would you think that it's as sort of revolutionary as you know something else?

[25:29] Will Burton: I agree with both with both of you guys. I think I think there is something to be said also for the ability for okay, so especially right now, so much of America gets their exposure to musicals through like community productions, high school productions, you know, things that are done often in that capacity.

[25:53] Joe Carroll: Are you about to say that me as Barnaby at age 14 wasn't?

[25:56] Will Burton: No, I'm about to say because of Barnaby at age 14, we're exposing we're exposing your community to something beautiful, and I don't know who your dolly was. But my dolly actually, well, this is amazing. My dolly, uh, her name is Mal Murphy. We're still friends. She's a writer on The Politician. Oh, sick. Oh, wow. And out of nowhere, I did an episode of The Politician this season. She sent me a text, and she's like, I'm sitting here watching the dailies from this episode and I'm seeing your face. What are you doing here? It was really cool. And she's in LA, she's worked with Ryan Murphy and and Brad Falchuk for a long time. It's pretty cool. This leads me to my next point, which is that you don't do Hello Dolly, especially like in high school, mostly because like it's sort of there's a lot of older parts.

It's weird. There's one part that does so much. It's not spread out very well, but it's a star vehicle. So you do Hello Dolly when you feel you have that star, whether it's an actual name from your community or from the actual theater community where theater people know this person, or whether it's a full-on movie star, but there are different levels of that, obviously. But you don't do the show unless you've met someone where you go, oh my God, she would be a perfect Dolly Levi. Therefore, we have to do Hello Dolly. With the Oklahomas, with the South Pacifics with the fiddler on the roofs, you do them when you're not inspired to do something.

[27:21] Will Burton: That's such a horrible way to put it. No, I get no, no, no. I get what you say. It's an ensemble. It's more of like you can spread the wealth a little bit. There's a lot of great parts of South Pacific. There's a lot of great parts in Oklahoma. You know it's gonna land because it's a great, it's a great show. Also, to be fair, and to speak to Dan's point, those shows have more maybe to say in um on sort of these deep levels that are dealing with really uh, you know, big issues, like Rogers and Hammerstein notoriously wrote about things way ahead of their time. Um, you know, with race relations and you know, fiddler on the roof. I mean, think about Fiddler on the roof, not Roger Hammerstein, but you get my point.

Um, Hello Dolly, it's it's really interesting that you put it in the in that historical context, um, Dan, like the idea that the country was mourning, like really mourning. And then you get this show that is that is, I mean, it is, I think the reason people love it is not because it touches on some complex uh issue, ish, you know, issue that we're dealing with. It does the opposite. It just says, look at how beautiful the world can be. Like he said, like Cornelius says that in the show. He's like, isn't the world full of wonderful things or something to that effect? Like that's what the show is about. The show is literally just about like people, you know, noticing the beauty in the world, you know, and like the I think I think the songs really do that in a major way.

Like, you know, you've got the songs like elegance, you've got the songs like Penny in my pocket, which um uh we did in our revival that it doesn't isn't usually done that David had. You get those songs, which are fun songs, but then you get put on your Sunday clothes, which is just this insane synthesis of every element of musical theater that you could ever imagine coming together to create that like goosebumps moment. Yeah, and then you get yeah, and then you get it only takes a moment. You get the just like the most sincere character in musical theater history coming forward and singing this beautiful song about falling in love with woman the second that he sees, you know, it and and it doesn't have to be more complex than that.

You know, I and Dan, I am so with you that many times when I go to the theater, I I want to see a company, come company, the show. I want to see you know, like I want to see something rich and that's got a ton to say and that says it in really interesting ways. And then sometimes I just want to show up and be reminded that like the world actually is beautiful and like that that beautiful music can just be sung beautifully, and there you don't need it any more reason than just like it makes me want to cry when I hear it. And that that's I mean, that is like pure, it's very pure in that way, which is that's what I that's I think Hello Dolly is. It's just like a really it's like pure joy. That is really that's that's gorgeous.

I love that. And I was I was reading this thing this week. Um, this this writer for L magazine, our Eric Thomas had this article about the Hello Dolly movie saying that basically Hello Dolly is is a story about a woman and her favorite restaurant. Which I was like, that is so great. Great. And in an era where all we want to do is go to restaurants, you know, yeah and all we want to do is be together and we wanna we want people to, you know, say hello and hug and you know what I mean. We want to go places we love and connect. Like it was actually for the moment. Totally. It really is like if you're if you're feeling down in the depths of despair about about the pandemic, and because you can't visit people that you love, and because you can't go do the things and connect with the thing, this is a perfect I mean watch Hello Dolly, truly.

I mean it's all about just it's all about connection and and just sort of enjoying the beautiful world around you and um yeah set in New York. Very cool. Um yeah, critically, yeah. Critically, um critically, at the time, it was uh generally positive. Um the New York Times talked about how it had qualities of freshness and imagination that are rare in a quote machine-made musical of the time, but Mr. Herman's songs are brisk and pointed and tuneful. And a shrewdly mischievous Carol Channing make the necessary frenzied touches to make Hello Dolly a warmth color, uh full of of warmth color and nice.

[32:11] Dan Tracy: Can I cut in real quick? What's interesting to me about that is the idea of the times being there on opening night or or in some preview before opening night and reviewing her performance then when she was like, you know, 30 performances in or whatever, however many previews they did. I should know that because of my Brent Wagner, you know, research project, but I don't. Yeah. But she was in the show for so long. And you know when you see personalities, when you see anybody do a show for longer than a hundred performances, like the transmutations of what the role becomes, sometimes it gets so far away from what it was opening night, and not necessarily in a bad way, and not necessarily in a good way.

And I also think we all know that Carol Janning was such a character, like that review probably is not actually indicative of what her performance eventually was because she did it. She did it on Breakfast. She did it almost 5,000 times. And she said, like, you know, like it, she, and it was something like, you know, she said she missed half of a performance in previews in Detroit. Unbelievable. Because she had food poisoning or something like that. Or maybe it was on tour after or something like that. So you know, just totally, and I was thinking the same thing because the performance, I then saw, you know, one of Bett's last performances, and it was a completely different performance. We're talking about first of all, you know, it was I can't imagine what it was like to see Carol Channing 2,000 performances in. Oh my god. Like, what was that like? You know? You're 100%. Oh wow.

[33:45] Will Burton: Yeah. So the Tony Awards won obviously 10 Tony Awards and that was a record, but specifically they won Best Musical, Best Book. Carol Channing won for leading actress. Jerry Herman won for score. There was a uh Tony for producer, which we've heard a couple times, but that doesn't exist anymore. David Merrick won the Tony for Best Producer. They won Best Direction, Best Choreography, both going to Gower Champion, uh, Best Musical Direction, which also doesn't exist, unfortunately. And they won best scenic design and best costume design.

[34:15] Dan Tracy: That's awesome. The movie also won a bunch of awards. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and it won three, but critically, it was a disaster. It cost 26 million dollars to make, which is roughly 200 million dollars now. So actually, I said this to Julie when we were watching it yesterday. I was like, that opening scene where you see the picture and then the picture dissolves into being real life. I was like, that at the time is like watching Black Panther. Right. That at the time is like watching like an iconic superhero movie. That is so that is so funny. And actually, I wanted to talk to you about this, Will, because like like so, you know, Warren Carlisle did the choreography for the revival.

It feels like a lot, there was a lot of stuff in the movie that like I was like, oh, wait a minute. Like the that sort of iconic like walk across the stage, you know, where you like flick your heels thing. Like, there's a guy doing that in the opening of the movie. Like one dude walking across the street street. Uh yeah. And I was like, wait, wait. Oh, Will, oh, Will, where did he, you know, like were there any did he talk at all about like the influence of that or yeah, there was a lot of Gower influence in the choreography. Um ultimately. Like uh Warren had a ton a ton a ton of ideas and did a lot of did a lot of work. Um, but the final product that ended up on stage really was a lot of of Gower.

[35:39] Will Burton: Um and for those of us who don't really know what that means, what what is what is the kind of stuff that Gower Champion was known for? Gower Champion was known. I mean, I'll speak on it, but watch the Hello Dolly movie and you'll see exactly what what I mean. Gower Champion was known for really like um because Michael Kidd did the co did the movement in the movie. Oh and Gene Kelly directed it. Oh, yeah. The movie, yeah, yeah, like did the musical stuff, but it's like the all the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm saying it's like Michael Kidd doing it. My first time doing Hello Dolly um at the Muni. And a lot of that stuff did ultimately end up in our production on Broadway. And honestly, I I mean, I'm I'm sort of surprised, but I I think Michael Kidd was influenced heavily probably by Gower's work as well, like in in the movie.

Maybe he was maybe he was more experienced at at putting stuff uh putting choreography on camera at that point. He'd done Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which was a huge thing. I mean, the choreography in that is like some of my favorite like on camera or um film choreography. Yeah but um just just uh with that show in general, just seven brides for seven brothers. Just don't don't if the book just could be removed completely. I take all the words out of that show, yeah. And then put put that just watch it like with music and dancing that would be. I I feel guilt at how much I love watching that movie, but but I watch it with you know a woke eye and and open ears, and I know what to think, but the the music of that show is beautiful and the choreography in that movie is amazing.

But anyway, yeah, we're so Gower, yeah. We did end up Gower's choreography is um really playful. It it's like witty in a lot of ways, like the way he plays with with like height with the men and the girls and um really playful partnering, um, really high energy dancing, especially if you think about something like um the waiter's gallop. The waiter's gallop is his you know, like masterpiece in in the show because it's it's this perfect synthesis of just great athletic dancing and choreography and also theatrical like direction. You know, it's like it's interwoven into this into the story, you know, it it cuts out and we're into a scene and then right into choreography and into a scene and into choreography, and and it's like landing a joke at the end of every little chunk, which is uh you know, I I pretty recently worked with Dennis Jones, who did who did holiday and he did honeymoon in Vegas.

Um he's done some other stuff. He is also in that way very playful and funny. Like that is something that I really love in a choreographer, someone who understands how to bring like wit and humor like into movement, because it feels like maybe easier to do that with words. Um Casey Descala, obviously, majorly majorly does that, but uh yeah, that's that's Gower's big thing, and um that that's that uh I don't like I wonder what the conversation was like with the creating the waiter's gallop, like the waiter's gallop is just this weird kind of numberslash scene is it moving the story forward? Who knows? It like makes honestly as an ensemble member who's been in the waiter's gallop several times, like we love it because it sort of makes the ensemble the star of the show for a little while and help you know, we get to come out and have these cool like moments that are in the scene with Dolly and with Vandergelder and with you know, all the so if that's a really cool, interesting moment in the show.

[39:34] Dan Tracy: Um, what I'd love to do, because Will, you you said you're going to teach something, you have a fun masterclass you're doing for some lovely people in a minute. I want to get to some this is like some of our questions. Um, I want to like you know, we we we talk about casting, we're talking about like you know, what if dream casting? We got so you know, we want to get into songs that we love because that's our favorite segment. But I mean, if you could if you could choose, let me I think that'd be a fun question. Like, give me give me an iconic casting for for Dolly, anybody that you'd want to see play that role because for me, watching Kate Baldwin as Irene in this most recent revival made me want to see her play Dolly.

[40:14] Will Burton: Oh yeah, you know what I mean. I I I just in a few years, I was like, I want that, you know, before the parade passes by. Oh yeah. Oh my god. Well, I I just have to tell you. So in our project, in our Wagner project that we keep referencing, at the you know, you have to cast the show. Um and I cast Bette Midler as Hello Dolly as Dolly. You did not know I cast Bette Midler as Dolly Levi. So I sort of manifested that. You won. That's amazing. I won. And I I I yeah, I tricked the Matrix uh into it. And then I who know I I want to see who I cast as Ambrose. Like I there is a good chance that I cast myself as Ambrose.

[40:56] Joe Carroll: You need to look back at that.

[40:59] Dan Tracy: That's amazing.

[41:00] Will Burton: Because I—you still have it, right? You still have this report somewhere.

[41:02] Joe Carroll: That's saved on a hard drive.

[41:09] Will Burton: If I emailed Brent Wagner, he'd be able to send me like, you know, a file. But anyway, so yeah, so but yeah, that's your—that's your—you did it, yeah.

[41:19] Dan Tracy: That is—that's a tough question because there's so many. Like, I want to see every—the cool thing about it is that you see the actress's personality on this amazing, hilarious—like, I want them to remake the movie now with, I don't know, with Amy Schumer or Maya Rudolph.

[41:42] Will Burton: That's like if Amy Schumer could sing or, yeah, exactly, Tina Fey sing?

[41:48] Dan Tracy: Exactly.

[41:48] Joe Carroll: Like, those are the things. So I just finished watching all of Parks and Rec for the first time.

[41:55] Will Burton: Oh yeah, and oh my god.

[41:57] Joe Carroll: I'm in that twilight of like, oh my, everything is beautiful, and like I wish you could start again.

[42:03] Dan Tracy: And why don't more shows exist like this that have this perfect balance of humor and tenderness and poignancy and heart?

[42:11] Will Burton: I've watched it like four times, start to finish.

[42:13] Joe Carroll: I will be watching it. I'm gonna start starting over tomorrow. Like, it is—it was truly like I—I mean, it's perfection for me. Anyway, so like an Amy Poehler, I would love to see her. I also want to see like a Meryl Streep, like I want to see just the legends, like what they would do with it.

[42:27] Dan Tracy: You know, she just—she did Mamma Mia. We know she can do musicals, we know she's interested.

[42:31] Will Burton: Absolutely.

[42:32] Joe Carroll: Yeah, she's a chameleon.

[42:34] Dan Tracy: Yeah, exactly.

[42:36] Will Burton: But also, you know, like that's awesome. Imagine someone like Hannah Gadsby. Imagine someone like a pure comedian doing it now, like that's who I—that's who I want to see doing it.

[42:48] Joe Carroll: Sarah Silverman, you know, like they all have their own spin too, you know.

[42:53] Dan Tracy: Completely. So let's see. Well, this is our favorite segment. We jumped around a lot today because it's just, you know, three guys nerding out about Hello, Dolly!, but we want to talk about the songs that we love because this is like, you know, for all of the things that you may think of the show or, you know, the songs or whatever, Jerry Herman can write a catchy tune.

[43:09] Will Burton: Oh, yeah.

[43:10] Joe Carroll: Jerry Herman could write a tune that you leave singing, and you know, I think that it's silly, but for me, I think "It Only Takes a Moment" was one of the first songs I ever learned how to sing, period. Like, you know, for those auditions for Hello, Dolly! when I was 14.

[43:10] ♪ Musical number: "It Only Takes a Moment" ♪

[44:09] Joe Carroll: You know, it's just such a great song. "It Only Takes a Moment" is definitely mine.

[44:13] Dan Tracy: Oh man. Yeah, what—yeah, Will, what about you?

[44:16] Will Burton: I gotta say that's up there. I have a few, but I gotta say, if I had to narrow it down to one, it would be "Put On Your Sunday Clothes." Because the way it starts, you get this like tremolo of, you know, like and it's like out there.

[44:33] ♪ Musical number: "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" ♪

[45:06] Will Burton: You know, now I've got Gavin's voice in my head going out there, and it's just like, oh my god, oh my god. And then it so it then so it starts as those two characters singing this really cool song where they're just talking about having the best day of their lives. And then it turns into this massive.

[45:25] Joe Carroll: Okay, my goosebumps moment. You told me in a text last night, like we're gonna be talking about like goosebumps moment, blah blah blah. My goosebumps, maybe we were gonna get there, but I'm skipping right here, right ahead.

[45:34] Dan Tracy: It was next, it's next.

[45:35] Will Burton: It was next, yeah. Okay, it coincides with my favorite song, which is "Sunday Clothes," because you get all that build up where you have like, you know, Cornelius and Barnaby talking about this and that, and then you have Dolly, and she's setting her little path, everything's being set in motion, and then you get the ensemble entrance, which is exactly the thing you were talking about earlier, where they're walking out, they're just walking, their heads are staying on the same plane, their legs are like picking up, kind of you know, kicking their butts, and they start really like soft and they're suddenly close to you feel time.

[46:15] ♪ Musical number: "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" — ensemble entrance ♪

[47:11] Will Burton: It's the synthesis and the costumes.

[47:13] Dan Tracy: Oh my god, they're coming out in these like crazy colored costumes, like these neon pinks and greens and blues.

[47:22] Joe Carroll: And it's just like you don't know why, but you're crying. You know what I mean?

[47:26] Will Burton: That's—that's what—that's what happens to me.

[47:28] Dan Tracy: And you have the goosebumps.

[47:30] Joe Carroll: That's mine. I literally brought mine exact same thing. Like the crescendo into the end of "Sunday Clothes" in this revival is just like you can't help. I mean, there's—there are a bunch, but that was mine too. That's—that's fantastic.

[47:42] Will Burton: My goosebump test is the beginning of out of "Sunday Clothes" when he sings out there.

[47:47] Dan Tracy: Oh yeah, Gavin's version.

[47:48] Will Burton: Yeah, I mean like you just can't be and uh I don't care who you are during that moment, and behind the big um like Vandergelder's Hay and Feed Store, and which they are on the other side of. So I was like actively on stage every night when that would happen, and truly goosebumps almost every night, unless I was just like telling some stupid story to Melanie or whatever, but like it's just like it's just one of those things where it's like if you if you I'm thinking about the audience going, if you know what this song is about to be and who Gavin Creel is, and you know his voice, you're pumped.

[48:31] Dan Tracy: And if you don't, you don't know what you're about to get, and it's about to like make you very emotional. And and either side of that coin is that's what musical theater dreams are made of for me. And so that like truly it gave me goosebumps every night.

[48:47] Joe Carroll: That's so sick. I've really never been so sad that I didn't see something.

[48:52] Will Burton: Yeah.

[48:53] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[48:53] Joe Carroll: I was like, you're the—you're the odd man out.

[48:55] Will Burton: Yeah.

[48:57] Joe Carroll: I was on the road and then I was working, and it just like I couldn't. It was sold out when I was every time I was available. It was one of those. It was like you could get in.

[49:05] Dan Tracy: So what was I gonna get in?

[49:05] Will Burton: Yeah, it was it was it was a special show, and uh it was very cool to be a part of. One thing that I think is cool, just to reference briefly, we we talk about famous motifs and stuff. That that it's in the back of that that song that um uh uh "It Only Takes a Moment" is in the background of Wall-E. Like Wall-E, like the movie Wall-E, like all of a sudden we're like, wait a minute, like he he's falling in love with the other robot or whatever, and like he uses he figures out like what love is by listening to that to Michael Crawford, yeah, who was the Phantom of the Opera.

[49:36] Joe Carroll: The other robot lights the lighter, and then Wall-E's like, wow, and then that starts to play to show the context for how Wall-E's feeling, and it's like when time runs Yeah, oh so a lot of people learned what Hello, Dolly! is through that movie, and I'm so okay with that.

[50:32] Dan Tracy: I think about young people watching all these Pixar movies, just going, you know, now they know what that is.

[50:38] Will Burton: Right.

[50:38] Joe Carroll: Totally, totally.

[50:40] Dan Tracy: Um, so favorite lyrics.

[50:42] Will Burton: Um I—I mean, there's a million. Though you've only just said hello.

[50:51] ♪ Musical number: "Dancing" ♪

[51:06] Joe Carroll: You know, uh dancing in general is just super duper fun. But that was the one that I chose because I could choose all of it only—it only takes a moment. But um that one that was the one that I choose. Do you have one?

[51:17] Dan Tracy: I mean it's kind of like all of this is sorted together, but if you have one that's your favorite.

[51:21] Will Burton: Um first of all, I can't believe we haven't talked about the number. Dancing, I—I absolutely love that. This show is full of those because the next one that I'm about to mention because of some of the lyrics. I can't think really like what my favorite lyrics are, but this the the meaning of "Before the Parade Passes By."

[51:32] ♪ Musical number: "Before the Parade Passes By" ♪

[53:20] Dan Tracy: Just so it's so moving. And it's it's it's like at the end of Act One, it's this tender moment where Dolly walks, you know. We had the passerelle and everything. She walks in, you know, beyond the orchestra, and is right there on top of the audience, and and is like asking talking to her husband, her dead husband to like let her live the rest of her life, and depending on who you have cast to, you're looking at the person just going, Wow, like I know you've done and been through a lot, and what does that mean to ask for forgiveness from a dead husband, or you know, or just to be accepting what is so that you can move forward with the the years that you have left, like how beautiful is that, and then before the parade passes by, what a beautiful metaphor for that, and then to have totally you know, all of the other characters like in you know, in that scene and in the parade, and and have the parade as like the metaphor, and how beautiful that that is, and the parade comes in our show.

[54:20] Will Burton: It came down in front of the passerelle, you know, on the passerelle, right next to the audience. So you're going, oh wow, there's a lot of joy to be had in life, and don't let the parade pass you by. It's such it's such a simple metaphor, but it's also very effective in my opinion.

[54:33] Will Burton: This is one of the things that, like, in the movie, just because like you know, Barbara Streisand was 27 years old when she shot the movie, and then you watched like Bette Midler, who's I think she was almost 70 when she did it.

[54:42] Dan Tracy: 70, yeah.

[54:43] Will Burton: Bernadette 73.

[54:45] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it's like it's a completely different meaning.

[54:48] Will Burton: That song has a completely different meaning when you watch somebody like you said who is of that weight, you know, like you're like, oh my god, I believe you.

[54:56] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[54:56] Will Burton: And then you listen, you get to listen to Barbara sound perfect, which is great. It's like, I get you. Like that has value too.

[55:02] Dan Tracy: Totally.

[55:02] Will Burton: If we're talking about flaws in the movie, that that's sort of one of the unavoidable things is like she she sort of was too young, maybe to play the role, especially if you're gonna cast Walter Matthau as Vandergelder that we like then because at least with 2020 eyes, you're like, ah, like, whoa, I'm you know, um, yeah.

[55:23] Dan Tracy: We talk about the things that that don't age very well, so we'll get to that in a second. Dan was like, you know, he had some thoughts about that. And uh, you know, I think this all kind of loops in together because the next thing we say is like songs you must know, and like your most replayed song. I guess, you know, I think the most replayed uh sounds like the consensus is probably the most replayed for all of us, is put on your Sunday clothes because now that we have Gavin Creel's version, right?

[55:48] Will Burton: You know, it's like what else do you need? But right, you know, you know, in terms of actual pop culture, probably the most replayed is actually Hello, Dolly, because it's definitely the Louis Armstrong.

[55:56] Dan Tracy: 100%.

[55:57] Will Burton: Um, but that's another moment in the show, like that's another amazing moment in the show that's a lot like before the parade passes by, a lot like dancing. Um, but it's this reveal. She comes out in this beautiful dress, and and you you're starting to get a sense of how important she is to all the people who work at at the restaurant. Like you said, the show is about a woman in her favorite restaurant.

[56:19] Dan Tracy: And her favorite and her favorite dish at her favorite restaurant because she talks about the chicken like four times.

[56:25] Will Burton: Which is like yeah, I like I was like, that is my kind of that's my kind of shit right there. Quick quick trivia break.

[56:32] Dan Tracy: Yes.

[56:32] Will Burton: That the dress from the movie where she comes down the stairs.

[56:37] Dan Tracy: Oh, the kind of like beaded gown when she arrives at the top of the stairs at Harmonia Gardens. What do we what are our guesses on how much it weighed?

[56:45] Will Burton: Ooh.

[56:47] Dan Tracy: I'd say I I don't know. Ask how much a dress weighs.

[56:56] Will Burton: Hey, how much did your dress I mean because of the question? I'm gonna say something absurd, like 25 pounds.

[57:05] Dan Tracy: Forty pounds.

[57:06] Will Burton: What?

[57:06] Dan Tracy: 40 pounds.

[57:08] Will Burton: Which would explain why it was so took her so long to walk down the stairs. Also, what do we think about cost? Here's another fun fact, real quick. The dress was built before they cast the Dolly, and then they realized they had to get a 27-year-old to even be able to carry the 40-pound dress down the stairs.

[57:25] Dan Tracy: Right.

[57:25] Will Burton: I see that's that cat. I get it.

[57:27] Dan Tracy: Yeah, I get it. That makes perfect sense. How much did it cost? Is the question?

[57:34] Will Burton: Uh I mean, yeah, I have no idea. It's six nineteen sixty dollars.

[57:38] Dan Tracy: So eight thousand dollars.

[57:41] Will Burton: Eight thousand dollars. Which if we adjust for inflation, it's probably like fifty grand. You know, like crazy too. It was it was the Avengers of the day in terms of it.

[57:50] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it was totally, totally, yeah. And apparently she tripped during rehearsals, and the movie was a nightmare. Michael Kidd was having fights with Gene Kelly, Gene Kelly was hired after everyone was already cast. And Michael Kidd and Gene Kelly were not speaking by the end, because I think the costumes were getting in the way of the choreography, and there was all like a lot of fights about how that was going on. Anyway, we're almost to you know the themes and what age the best and what age the worst. What do we think, boys?

[58:19] Will Burton: Um fans here, a couple of fanboys.

[58:25] Dan Tracy: Yeah, this is not gonna be I don't think there's a lot of negativity happening on your end.

[58:31] Will Burton: No, but for I I think that one of the things that I I liked was uh, you know, when you sit and watch the I the guys I want song being that they want a woman, and then they say all of this like you know, misogynist bullshit.

[58:47] Dan Tracy: Yeah, but then the idea is that the whole show is that they their I want song, they don't know what they they don't know anything, so you go on their journey and you realize that like Horace has no fucking idea what he's doing or what he's talking about, and so like I I like that it's kind of like a faux moment, but like standing by itself, it takes a woman is like what whoa, yeah, whoa, but but that you know that's really interesting because that actually is that's sort of one of the things we're still grappling with is that especially now, like what what can comedians say, what can writers write, like because it truly it takes a woman is not in earnest, like it's in earnest from Vandergelder's perspective, but everybody in the audience, even then, I think knew that that's like that's not okay.

[59:38] Dan Tracy: Yeah, it's a joke.

[59:40] Will Burton: And he's laughing.

[59:41] Dan Tracy: You're laughing.

[59:42] Will Burton: Yeah. But like I think if you, you know, it's out of context. Out of context, it's problematic, or if you're not willing to look at it, yeah, in context, like people will purposefully pull it out of context. So in that way, like, I don't think that that's one of the things that hasn't aged well necessarily because the misogyny is coming from a place of like we're pointing to this character's ignorance.

[1:00:05] Dan Tracy: And this character goes one of the most beautiful moments I've ever seen on stage is something that David Hyde Pierce added to this show at the end when he finally it's the final character arc that needs to kind of come to its resting place is Vandergelder. And it doesn't happen till the very last second of the movie. And usually he just like says, Oh, Dolly, like I'm sorry, or whatever the line. I don't remember. Like that's what Walter Matthau does in the movie. And it's like, come on, dude. It was that's a little bit of a letdown.

[1:00:35] Will Burton: Yeah, exactly. That that's dated because it's it's I mean, that's sort of like it's to me not the best writing to just have him all of a sudden be like, oh god, I'm so exasperated that I love you now. What David did, so at the top of act two, he has this song Penny in My Pocket, which explains to like his whole modus operandi of like I am obsessed with investing money, spending it carefully to invest. You know, I'm he's like he's like the Ron Swanson like capitalist guy. And like, and that's been and even his song It Only Takes a Woman is like I think of a woman as more of an investment and arrangement, something that can help. You know what I'm saying? That that's his whole thing. And so he shows this penny at the top of Act Two.

He's like, I put a penny in my pocket and I turned it into this this, you know, empire that I have now where I have like half a million dollars and I have this store that's blah blah blah. And you understand that that is the most important thing to him.

[1:01:37] Dan Tracy: At the end of our show, one day in rehearsal, David took the penny out of his pocket and like put it into her hand in that last moment, which is so much more meaningful. It's it's saying like I'm not just exasperated by you. It's like I'm I'm giving in because I realize what's important now. And like what a cool way to take a moment that really probably didn't even work at the time. You know, it's just sort of like a weird way to wrap up the show. And it wouldn't work now. And to make it so much more meaningful, and because we added that song, he was able to do that. But I like that was a day in rehearsal where I just cried. I was just like, oh my God, this is so special. And David is such a David Hyde Pierce is a very special, special, generous, beautiful, amazing human beyond just being like a hilarious comedian and an amazing actor. And so uh that was a really cool moment.

[1:02:36] Dan Tracy: So I'm so veering off the the answer. That's that's great. I mean, you're defending yeah, and how to how to make it, you know, uh, you know, what it's supposed to look like in 2019, 2018, you know, 2020. Like it's you know, you can't just do the same shit that was going on in the 60s. You have to update these things for the modern audience to make it look like but I still think that you know, and and I could be wrong, how it plays in how it played in your revival, but in the movie, it's just like it's brutal to watch this woman try and convince this man to love her.

[1:03:09] Will Burton: Right.

[1:03:10] Dan Tracy: Who sucks.

[1:03:10] Will Burton: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:11] Dan Tracy: And like you don't know anything about why he doesn't suck. It's just that he sucks and he sucks and he sucks until he's so exasperated so bad he has no other options. He's like, okay, yeah. And she's like, thank God.

[1:03:23] Will Burton: Yeah.

[1:03:24] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[1:03:24] Will Burton: Well one of the things too that I was thinking though is like it is also a movie. Yes, it's about a movie. Uh it's a show about a woman in her favorite restaurant, but it's also about a woman trying to take down a monopoly a monopoly and take down a capitalist empire.

[1:03:36] Will Burton: Yeah.

[1:03:36] Dan Tracy: She's like you're giving it a lot of credit here I'm gonna turn you into a fucking Democrat sir. And you're gonna give all of your money away.

[1:03:44] Will Burton: Literally I mean it's it become it is like confusing whether she's chasing love or whether she's chasing his money or both. And I think ultimately it is supposed to be both but she says very explicitly that like her ex-husband says the point of money is to spread it around like manure, you know, encouraging young things to grow and right and like so she she's going after like the richest person in Yonkers and you know it's that is a weird you don't really understand why she's doing what she's doing which yeah is a little maybe Jerry Herman was an anti-capitalist and I'm not giving the show enough credit.

[1:04:19] Dan Tracy: Like this is a hot take.

[1:04:20] Will Burton: I'm not I'm I I stand by it. I will defend it I we could we can call somebody uh but that's my take is that is that he was an anti-capitalist we would get Snickers in the audience which we support on this podcast.

[1:04:33] Dan Tracy: Oh but me that's a separate podcast but we could we could talk all day um but but truly we would get Snickers when when people when the Dolly would say like you know money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow. And there would be nights where people would applaud like loudly, you know, just going, Yes, yes, you're absolutely right. Now, as to whether it's very gracefully integrated into the plot, maybe, maybe not. But like when she says completely different way, you know, just I think it makes a completely different you know, sort of statement when it's Bette Midler as opposed to Barbara Streisand.

[1:05:16] Dan Tracy: Like when a 27-year-old says it as opposed to when a 70-year-old says it, right? You know, like it's not I I you know what I mean. That's just where casting and character and everything. It's just like it's supposed to work because this is a woman, you know. Carol Channing says it, and you're like, yeah, you're like, oh, yeah, yeah. She's she's she's breaking down the monopoly in this curmudgeon old man who needs to like you know lighten up and spread his wealth around and not be, you know, not be such a hoarder. That's my that's my feeling about it. Just you know, but anyway.

[1:05:46] Will Burton: Um, guys, it might be time for me to boogie, because I have to think I wish to sit here and talk. I now I want to go, I just want to talk for another hour about capitalism and we can do that. But also we didn't give we didn't give Dan a chance to like totally destroy my my like favorite show of all time. And that to me is a win.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: So yeah, it's it's time for us. That's all the time we have on guys who like musicals.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: Wow.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: And we're we'll will thank you for talking to us again. We'll have you back. You're our our favorite to just like nerd out about this stuff. Thank you for coming on.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: I love it. Thank you guys so much for having me. I love talking about this show. And uh yeah, you guys stay healthy, stay safe. Everybody listening. Um, thanks for listening. And and watch Hello, Dolly if you haven't seen it and think about all the wonderful things we said about it because it's the best show of all time.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: All right, buddy. Talk to you soon.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: See you guys later.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: Bye, Will.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: Thanks.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: Bye.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: Bye.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: Thanks, Will. So we gotta talk about Jerry Herman.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: Yeah, we gotta talk about the whole creative team. You know, like our champion. His first really successful Broadway show was Bye Bye Birdie, and then Carnival the same year.

[1:07:03] Dan Tracy: Carnival was the first show my mother ever saw.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: Oh, cool.

[1:07:03] Will Burton: And she was like, which we talk talks about it actually was kind of a just a brief really cool story. When we saw Wicked, um, for the very first time, she took me to see Wicked at the Gershman Theater. They have the original puppets from Carnival on Broadway.

[1:07:16] Will Burton: Uh um uh Carrot Top and Horrible Hank or something. There's the like these the really like sort of old school puppets. Anyway, so and my mom just burst into tears. We're like walking through the lobby, had no idea, and just like, what? And started crying. Is like the first show she ever saw and remember seeing it with her dad. So that's a kind of cool story.

[1:07:32] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[1:07:33] Will Burton: Um Gower Champion was one of those, another one of those people who had more to do, I think. He developed a rare blood cancer, which no which you know is something that like you don't even hear of happening to people. That's how rare it is. And he actually passed away on opening night of 42nd Street.

[1:07:53] Dan Tracy: So he ends up winning a Tony Award for it posthumously, but and it ran for three thousand uh three thousand four hundred and eighty-six performances. So it ends up surpassing the success of Hello, Dolly, but he doesn't get to see any of that.

[1:08:07] Will Burton: Wow.

[1:08:08] Dan Tracy: You know, obviously he went on to influence all of these people. And what were you gonna say?

[1:08:12] Joe Carroll: No, no, just that that's that's that's a crazy. I mean, that's like a that's a Jonathan Larson story. That's a Howard Ashman story. Like, I mean, that's really that's really sad.

[1:08:21] Will Burton: Yeah.

[1:08:21] Joe Carroll: And we didn't get to see you know, you know, onto Jerry Herman's and and the kind of the straight line between Jerry Herman and Howard Ashman. Jerry Herman was diagnosed with HIV in 1985, and he was one of the people who actually got one of the experimental medicines in the beginning, and it helped him to live a long life into his 80s. He passed away at 88 in uh in December, which is crazy.

[1:08:47] Will Burton: That's crazy, and not something that we even knew when we're I was like, Oh, I want to talk about Hello, Dolly!, and it was like, you know, he just passed away uh the day after Christmas last year, and you know, God, the guy could write a show tune and we talk about I mean I mean La Cage aux Folles, Mame.

[1:09:04] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:09:05] Will Burton: I mean, if you don't know the songs in La Cage too, I think like we were talking about I think that the song like La Cage gets much more credit as being so sort of revolutionary at the time.

[1:09:14] Joe Carroll: Right, because it normalized the idea of talking about gay relationships, totally which was not something that we'd seen on a Broadway stage, really.

[1:09:23] Will Burton: And um, so he gets a lot of credit for that. It's this I found this thing from the New York Times really interesting from this article right after he passed. It said to millions, Jerry Herman was the post-war theater's clearest successor to Irving Berlin. Irving Berlin was obviously known in the golden age as the guy who wrote these like catchy witty pop songs like you hear in shows like Christmas, you know. Um, so it says uh he was a throwback to an era of songwriters who touched the heart with sophisticated simplicity, bringing audiences to their feet at the curtain calls and sending them home humming the unforgettable tune Hello, Dolly!. Um which we've really kind of which we've discussed, obviously, these how these songs work and stuff. But you know, it was again tying into this like escapist idea, he that's like what he was so good at and what he was so special at. And his shows have that like when you talk about musical theater.

[1:10:22] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:10:23] Will Burton: If you take musical theater and turn it up to an 11, that's Jerry Herman. Like it really is.

[1:10:29] Joe Carroll: No, it's joy, it's musical comedy. Like Will was saying, it's it's happy, happy, it's what life could be, you know, and and and and the thing that we talked about, you know, we talked about this with Company. Uh that like you leave humming his tunes. You you leave humming these songs, and that has incredible value. And even just like as a sort of nerd sidebar, that was like the point of selling records. You know, that like they wanted to, you know, these songs were written, they were put into overtures, they were put into entre acts, so that you left humming the songs so that you'd go and buy the record. And so, you know, I I think he was there, he was masterful at that. And totally, you know, you leave humming all these things.

People have been messaging us on Instagram asking for um reading lists and books that that they can check out during this time when we're looking for theatrical things to fill our time with. And so it's definitely worth checking out Jerry Herman's memoir. It's called Showtune. It was published in 1996. Um, I haven't read it, but I'm sure it's wonderful. And let us know what you think when you come back to it.

[1:11:29] Will Burton: Producer David Merrick, the abominable showman.

[1:11:33] Joe Carroll: Also on the reading list.

[1:11:35] Will Burton: Yes, which is a book you should throw on the re-reading list.

[1:11:39] Joe Carroll: So I I want to talk about a little bit about like the history of of some of the kind of shit that David Merrick pulled. And then I want to draw a straight line to the recent revival without getting too uh awesome, too iffy for our future careers.

[1:11:55] Will Burton: Um, that's okay.

[1:11:58] Joe Carroll: Scott Scott Rudin doesn't listen to this.

[1:11:59] Will Burton: Right.

[1:12:01] Joe Carroll: You drew the line already. Um, so David Merrick is kind of known for his publicity stunts. He was like the great marketer of the day. He he did this thing where he had a show called uh Clutterbuck, which obviously hasn't stood the test of time, but he used to page hotel bars and restaurants during cocktail hour, you know, saying there's a phone call for Mr. Clutterbuck, Mr. Clutterbuck has a phone call, right? Kind of putting the name into people's ears, but there that was not a real thing. It was not a real person, it was just a marketing ploy. Before there was Instagram ads, there was uh fake people at a bar phone. I love it, right?

[1:12:40] Will Burton: And then there's this other famous story that um that's like one of those mentalist tricks where like you know, they did like the mentalists like like incept, you know, like and all of a sudden you're like, why do I know this name? Were you singing that song? Or were you singing that like why do I know this name? And then you're walking down the street and you see a poster for it, and you're like, wait a minute, and then you all of a sudden you're spending your money to go see and David Merrick was a was a genius, a genius at that. He also did this, he has this iconic stunt that he pulled for a show in 1961 called Subways Are For Sleeping. Um, it got really poorly reviewed. So what he did was he grabbed a bunch of New Yorkers who had the same names as the iconic um theater reviewers of the time, people like Walter Kerr and Howard Taubman, and he grabbed people with their namesakes, took poll quotes from those audience members who had the same names, and then ran an ad in the New York Herald giving a seven out of seven rave reviews from these fake New Yorkers with the names of the critics. Unreal.

[1:13:43] Joe Carroll: It only ran for one edition and it was only this one ad, but like that story has stood the test of time because like what a psycho.

[1:13:51] Will Burton: Exactly.

[1:13:52] Joe Carroll: But then also what you yeah, keep going, keep going.

[1:13:54] Will Burton: Well, he said later that he wanted to, he had been trying to do this for a long time, but he couldn't find anyone named Brooks Atkinson, who was the New York Times theater critic in 1960. So he had to wait until till Brooks Atkinson, the namesake of the theater that Waitress is in, to retire before he could pull this stunt, which is just so genius.

[1:14:14] Joe Carroll: That's so good. And I think there's gotta be a straight line to be drawn between the stunts that David Merrick pulled and then the kind of you know, he's known as this guy who was infamous, but also famous. He was clearly had a huge impact on the business, but also was kind of like feared and respected and feared. You know, he had this like legendary persona, and you can draw a straight line between that and the producer of the most current revival, who is known as one of these people who's super successful and has had an amazing impact on the industry, but is also being sued for millions of dollars by Spotco for stealing money, you know, and like he just has one of those reputations too.

[1:14:57] Will Burton: That's Scott Rudin.

[1:14:58] Joe Carroll: It all exists, it all exists in the same world. And I mean, he is one of the and and like Will talked about this the first time that working for Scott Rudin was amazing. Right. You know, like the people who work for him are like, you know, but he's got these stories, you know. Like, I I had a friend, we can record we you know, I had a friend who worked as his assistant for a long time and said that he called he called her every morning at seven o'clock in the morning and was like, you know, what you know, what's on my agenda for today? You know, like like it's 7 a.m. on a Saturday. Yeah, where are you? She's like, I'm sleeping, you know. Like, like which is but she, I mean, you know, he's gonna produce the uh you know, Music Man and he did To Kill a Mockingbird, he's done a 10,000 shows.

[1:15:35] Will Burton: Um because we just jumped around so much because that's what how we we like to do it. We didn't get to talk about the all-black cast uh replacement of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway. Pearl Bailey stepped into the role in 1967 and won a special Tony Award for her performance as Dolly Levi.

[1:15:53] Joe Carroll: Um Cab Callaway played Horace Vandegelder. This was an unbelievably historic moment on Broadway because um there was at this time, and still we're still fucking dealing with it, that black actors couldn't play roles traditionally written for white people. So there's some you know, it's the same sort of shit. And they this whole cast came up. I believe that they were doing it in Washington, DC. They were actually was touring. I don't know exactly how long, like how many cities it was or anything like that, but it was it was a touring production that was a huge success. So David Merrick brought it to Broadway. And can you imagine an all-black cast of any show touring this country in the mid in 67 at 66, 67?

[1:16:40] Will Burton: Yeah, right? I mean, just yeah, and and it just a remarkable, you know, a remarkable switch then to then say we're we're bringing it to Broadway, we're bringing it to, you know, bringing it to the St. James, and and here, you know, it was just one of these things that like we're still dealing, like, why why is it such a big deal that you know you have a black Elsa? Why is it such a big deal that you have a black Dolly? It's a story about a person in Yonkers, New York. Like, you know what I mean?

[1:17:11] Joe Carroll: And so they were doing it in the 60s, we're still fighting this now, but I just I think that if you know, we have to, we'll post this on our Instagram, but but there's a performance pro Bailey on the Tony Awards. Um, you know, I guess that would have been 67, 1967, 1968.

[1:17:26] Will Burton: 67 or 68.

[1:17:27] Joe Carroll: Right. Um, and and she wins a special Tony Award uh for that performance. It's just it just an um unbelievable cast. Um, and getting, you know, showing Broadway audiences, like, you know, way before way before anything else, way before now, anyway. And they made a cast album of that per that version.

[1:17:46] Will Burton: Yep.

[1:17:46] Joe Carroll: RCA recorded that.

[1:17:49] Will Burton: I went away from the lights of Fourteenth Street and into my personal high.

[1:18:03] Joe Carroll: But now I'm back in the lights of Forty Street, and tomorrow will be brighter than the gold days.

[1:18:37] Will Burton: I'm glad to see you hang.

[1:18:40] Joe Carroll: Thank you, Lucky Star.

[1:18:44] Will Burton: You know you are looking great, Stanley.

[1:18:47] Joe Carroll: Listen, did you lose all the weight?

[1:18:49] Will Burton: I think you did, Stanley.

[1:18:51] Joe Carroll: Doll is overwhelmed and well done older Joan Old.

[1:18:57] Will Burton: I hear the voice.

[1:21:22] Joe Carroll: Thank you for listening to Guys Who Like Musicals. We are produced by Dan Tracy and Joe Carroll, your hosts. You can find us on Instagram at Guys Who Like Musicals or on Twitter at Musical Guys. For more information about us or our show, please visit our new website at GuysWhoLikeMusicals.com. You can find our merch store, our Patreon page, and more. Thanks for listening.