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[0:00] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff & Richie, the podcast where we explore the latest shows we see, sharing our insights and opinions on the performances, storylines, and everything in between. In today's episode, we're discussing the new Broadway musical A WONDERFUL WORLD, the Louis Armstrong musical, currently playing at Studio 54 in New York City. Whether you cannot catch the show in person or you want to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you. And as always, we want to inform you that this episode will contain spoilers, so if you're ready to dive into this production, stick around with us. I'm Jeff.

[0:32] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie. We're thrilled to be your hosts for this episode. But before we start the conversation about A WONDERFUL WORLD, here are a few words from our advertisers.

[0:48] Jeff Malone: Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff & Richie. Today, we're discussing the Broadway production of A WONDERFUL WORLD. Conceived by Tony Award nominee and Drama Desk Award winner Christopher Renshaw of Broadway's The Canine Taboo and novelist Andrew Delaplane, book by R. N. Squire of This Is Us and The Good Fight, directed by Renshaw and choreographed by Ricky Tripp, associate choreographer for Broadway's Hell's Kitchen, Once on This Island, and Choir Boy, featuring classic songs from Armstrong's catalog. A WONDERFUL WORLD, the Louis Armstrong musical, is the new musical about the life and loves of Louis Armstrong, starring Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart as the legendary American icon.

A WONDERFUL WORLD charts Armstrong's incredible journey from the birth of jazz in his native New Orleans through his international stardom. It features beloved songs recorded and made popular by Armstrong, including favorites like WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD and WHEN YOU'RE SMILING, among many standard favorites. All right. So in today's episode, we're discussing the Broadway musical A WONDERFUL WORLD, the Louis Armstrong musical. So let's start the conversation with our hot take.

[1:51] Jeff Malone: All right. Here's how I'm going to start the hot take. While I find Louis Armstrong's career and legacy in life to be fascinating, I don't really understand how the telling of his story worked in this show. I didn't really learn much about him. I found the overall concept to be a little bit of a mess, unfortunately. And other than a few moments where I really enjoyed the singing and the music of Louis Armstrong, there were a lot of issues I had with some of the flow, direction, and book writing of this piece overall.

[2:27] Richie Grasso: Yeah, my hot take on this is that while Louis Armstrong is undoubtedly a fascinating protagonist, I felt that the musical didn't fully capture the depth of his character. And that said, the music still is fantastic. I thought that the set is stunning and that this show is definitely going to appeal to the jukebox crowd. But ultimately, it's a mixed bag, which is what I want to get into. So let's do it.

[2:53] Jeff Malone: Let's do it. So when we talk about overall thoughts and plot and concept here, to me, this hit some bumps in the road at some point long ago in the creative process. Because if this was just to tell the Louis Armstrong story, OK, we're going to tell his full life story. But what are we going to focus on here? To me, if this was me, I would be saying we need to focus on the music and we need to focus on his love for trumpet and singing and jazz. And he was part of this birth of jazz in a way in American music culture. And to me, I think we totally missed the mark when we're playing the instruments, fake acting on stage. Where was the opportunity to have a real trumpet player impersonate Louis Armstrong and really play the trumpet on stage? I'm sure there was an opportunity there, but that was missed for me.

[4:05] Richie Grasso: We also have this heavy emphasis on the four wives that he had. And we're spending so much time learning about their relationship with him, but they were all performers. And I would have loved to know more about them as musicians. I would have loved to know more about watching them play the instruments that they played. What were they like as performers? Maybe we have a moment where we see him watching them perform and he falls in love with them. Would they get the belt? All four of them get plenty of moments to belt, but they also did other things in the industry. So to me, we had this major missed opportunity of music. Now, I will say we did not see James Monroe Iglehart in this role. We did see James T. Lane, which was a very last-minute understudy cover moment at the performance we were at, who was fascinating. James T. Lane, we're going to talk about the actor performance in a second. He was wonderful.

[5:07] Jeff Malone: Yeah, but I feel like when we're just talking about overall plot and concept here, I didn't relate to anything going on in the sympathy for these characters because, yes, there were struggles. Yes, there was hardship. It was a rags-to-riches story. I understand that, but I had a difficulty connecting when we spent so much time just focusing on these four wives. And if your intent was to just bring out the four wives every time we needed drama, it was such a missed mark for me because there has to be so much more interesting things to go about Louis Armstrong's life than just his fascination with women.

[5:56] Richie Grasso: I think that's what we're kind of struggling with here when it comes to the actual concept here. We are framing this musical through the lens of his four marriages, which, number one, I would kind of say, why are we doing that? Like you're saying, I feel it makes him less interesting by doing that. It makes it seem like that's all he really had in his life, which it wasn't that because he did so much in the jazz space. And this seemed just so much more of like, let's talk about how women came in and out of his life. And did that push him further in his career? I'm not so sure. It just pushed him into new locations. You know, when you're seeing things like Hadestown, where the instruments are played on stage, when you look at the role as far as a company revival, where the actors in the show played instruments, or the Patti LuPone Sweeney Todd revival where she played the tuba, you can get performers to play instruments on stage.

I'm not saying that needed to happen here, but when you have such an icon, when everything is about this trumpet, we don't learn enough about the playing of the trumpet. We hear the trumpet. He's imitating playing the trumpet. To me, you're imitating the vocal. The trumpet is so important here. And it was just, I would have totally focused on that as a director, a book writer, a producer, having a real trumpet player who can sing and play the trumpet and perform up there. I think that's what people are struggling with here when it comes down to this story.

[7:00] Jeff Malone: So like, you know, we were looking at a book that focuses much, much more on all of the relationships in his life, not just his marriages. It's also the people with like his management or other people in the music industry and how they maybe wanted to limit him or help him with his career. But it really didn't seem like it ever related to him and his artistry, which is what I'm struggling with. I wanted to know more about why he loved that trumpet so much, how he became the face of jazz. Why did he become the face of jazz? Why him is, I guess, what I'm saying. And I didn't feel like, other than I could kind of Google all of this, I didn't really feel like I learned much in this space where someone who was wanting to do this musical said, oh, we should make the Louis Armstrong musical. Like, I think that's what the issue is here, right?

[8:03] Richie Grasso: Right. And not to mention, the songs seemed very cut short and fast. And then we went to a book scene and then we moved on to a different time period. Everything is moving for a show that's two hours and 40 minutes, roughly. Everything moved so fast that we packed so much in that I couldn't relate. And then Louis kind of fades into the background. And I feel like we don't see Louis as much as we should literally and figuratively. I feel like he's just not in the focal point of the show the way like maybe Carole King was in Beautiful, right? Or some of the other biopic shows that we've seen.

[8:30] Jeff Malone: And then I kind of want to touch on a little bit here about how they tried to bring racial issues into this storyline as well as continue talking about and celebrating his music. And where I kind of struggled with that as well was they only touched the little hairs on how he continued to just move forward with his artistry and as a musician versus when he was able to actually say something about the stuff that was going on in America during the time. And I think that didn't hit it for me. Where was the kind of moment that showed him that really was like, no, I'm against this or no, I'm not going to go perform for the president? And, you know, artists do this. We're seeing this right now with artists that are saying like they have to back a president versus not backing one.

And some were like really saying, no, I don't want to do that. And people are getting mad about it. So it's interesting to see how timely that something like this still is. But what I don't really understand is why they didn't go deeper with it. You know, I didn't have that moment where I felt like, oh, you know, this is emotional or this is, you know, I see what he's actually doing. And it just was like, all right, we're going to touch this and then we're going to move to the next scene and we're going to bring his ex-wives back in. And I'm like, OK, fine, sure. But that didn't feel right to me.

[9:53] Richie Grasso: It also kind of felt like it kind of does the cookie cutter thing, you know, or is it the checklist musical for me? It kind of leans that way, especially in the jukebox space. You know, we get to the end and it's like, how do we close an ending? Oh, it's him reflecting on his life and he's getting ready to die.

[10:11] Jeff Malone: And he sees his ex-wives again and then we sing the song and I'm just like this feels cheap, especially since you're ending with "Wonderful World" when he had such an anger with the end of his life and the anger with politics and the way he dies. And then it's like he sings about "Wonderful World," but was the world wonderful to him? He tried to find the happiness in it, but it was also this heavy ending that seemed like maybe the world wasn't wonderful. Although then he's thinking it is a wonderful world and we're all waiting for that moment. I wonder if "Wonderful World" could have come in and out of the piece. Maybe we start with "Wonderful," I don't know. We're all waiting for it. I think that's the thing that part of this actual plot and storyline here that was written feels like this was also rushed to the stage. It didn't feel like someone came in and made suggestions. It almost kind of felt a little too amateur in my opinion for the Broadway stage because it just didn't feel ready.

[11:18] Richie Grasso: And yeah, I think that's what's going to kind of lead us into our next section of this podcast now about the overall direction, production, actor performances, and design. But before we do that, here are a few messages from our sponsors.

[11:32] Jeff Malone: Okay, so let's get into it here. Let's get into the direction, actor performances, and design. I want to start with direction first, and I think you're going to put some big spin on this because there's a big issue here when we have a main director and two co-directors, one of them also being an actor in the show, which is James Monroe. I just found that if I see something like that, I would think that this would be probably the best-directed thing on Broadway. I actually found that there was no direction on this at all. I think people coming on and off the stage with nothing to do felt silly, and I found half the time they're standing there and they're just reading lines, and there was nothing happening beyond that.

[12:16] Richie Grasso: It just, I didn't feel like there was any direction at all to me. The set designer saved the director sometimes; it's the opposite. Your scenic and lighting design saved your direction.

[12:30] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the biggest thing because, well, we'll get to the design in a second, but when you have a rotating turntable stage, that doesn't make the direction work just because you're putting automated stage movement. That doesn't make your flow of the show correct or better because, oh, we have the budget for an automated stage bringing the piano on and off, the desk on and off, and then actors coming in left and right. It just seems very like a high school with automated stage is what it felt like. And I'm not saying sorry, schools are wonderful. I'm sure some high schools do have automated stages; that's what, you know, even more interesting here. But I sit down and we've talked about this all the time: whatever you see happening in this show is approved by the director, correct?

[13:20] Richie Grasso: Yes.

[13:21] Jeff Malone: And so, and I would look at this and there's two co-directors, and who's approving what? And I look at this and I say it is all over the place when it comes to direction, from the costume design to some of the choreography choices. It just did, it was like, whoa, okay. The choreography seemed, you know, I'm also getting a little like you have this stage full of scenery, a proscenium that's kind of cut off a little bit from the actual house proscenium. You've pulled this show in, and then you've hired four male ensemble, four female ensembles. You have eight people in the ensemble dancing. They're dancing a lot, but it didn't seem, it seemed like they were just dancing to dance. It didn't seem like we were telling a story through dance.

It didn't seem like we were creating pictures or imagery or any, it was just let's just dance now because that's what we would do here. It is what it seems like, but it doesn't make sense to me because we're talking about jazz music. Now, some of them, the biggest thing that you can do with choreography is tell music through a jazz score, and the limited tap felt like where was it? You know, and so many of the expressive lyrics that he has in his music did not correlate at all with what was happening on that stage, especially when it came to jazz.

[14:38] Jeff Malone: And, you know, touching a little bit more back onto the book and actually incorporating the music into this piece, they didn't know how to actually use his music to drive the plot right. It was like let's just put his music chronologically because in this playbook it says we do that chapter one, New Orleans 1910s, then the 1920s, then the 1930s. And then I love how chapter four is 40s through 70s. Like we just spent 30 years of his music in one last 45-minute segment. It was just, excuse me, it was just very, yeah, it was like let's just put the music in order and let's just say even when the wives were singing songs, I was like what are we singing? What are we singing about here? And I just feel like that goes deeper into the fact that did he write his own music?

Was it music that he was just singing? This is a question that I have because we don't even know from this piece. So that's a big issue right there. If you want to relate this to a jukebox musical like "Beautiful," the Carol King musical, she was writing her own music, and the music that she was writing related to what was happening in her life. So it was easy for them to plug and play into her storyline on saying, okay, well, she's the songwriter, so obviously it makes sense to put this in here. And if we were going to just pull in some of her big hits, we were doing it with the people that were singing them. So that's where you brought in the big theatrical production numbers, and that also worked.

[16:00] Jeff Malone: So when you come here and you don't even really get that, we bring in this like, okay, now he's in Hollywood, and we're gonna have it, it kept coming back to this, oh, they're almost filming music videos or movie production numbers. And let's, the easy way is, is the director is going to come on and off the stage, so oh, you know that they were just filming a movie or something, which didn't make sense. But that's the only way to incorporate one of his songs in here because it just didn't make sense for the storyline. Now, when we just saw last week "Ragtime," where they're filming Atlantic City, and they break Atlantic City, and you're like, whoa, they were filming that was far. Like, but not when you see epic book writing like that and then go to something like this where they're filming a show at the show.

[16:45] Richie Grasso: Listen, I will also say about the direction of what the design, I did enjoy the scenery because we had a mix of projection and literal scenery. I like that. I want more of that on Broadway. I don't want projections only.

[17:01] Jeff Malone: Right, well, I think that's great because, you know, it's Adam Koch who did the scenic design here at Broadway debut for him. We've known that he has been doing some epic things. He did the Titanic in the water, which is big. And you know what's great is from a visual standpoint, it's kind of everything that everyone's been wanting with scenic design on Broadway right now. It's big, it's lavish, it's moving, it's interesting, and it's helping tell the storyline. I actually think the set did more storytelling than the actual book was and the actual direction as well.

[17:29] Richie Grasso: And that's why I will also say for costumes this didn't work for me at all.

[17:36] Jeff Malone: No, I don't know what was going on with the costume design here. It didn't seem like the women's dresses fit appropriately to the time period. The colors didn't seem to match the ensemble. The men's suits looked nice at times, but I was very, very thrown off by this costume design. Enough not almost none of that worked for me.

[18:03] Richie Grasso: Right, because then you have an issue with that costume design because it's not moving well with the choreography. So right then and there, they're not working together. And then the costumes are totally not matching the scenic design. They feel so out of place because you have this elevated, enhanced scenic design, and then you have costumes that almost look like they're off the rack from a Halloween store, which is like you hate to say that, but I'm like this one doesn't fit, that one, this one, it, it's not reading well on the stage. If we look at that and we say, oh, okay, this feels like that, then that's what everyone else might be, and it's not even about, it's not even about like all the women's gowns didn't fit.

I understand at the time women didn't wear tight fitting. I'm very aware of that. It has nothing to do with like, oh, well, I want them all on tight fit. No, no, no, of course, the 40s that women didn't. But there was just the way the dresses were cut. But as a designer, I would say that you have to figure out how to elevate a time period for 2024. So yes, this was early, this is 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, wherever we are in that period, I get it. But you have to look at that time period, I think, as a costume designer, and you have to say yes, we're going to put them in pleated pants or yes, we're going to have ruffles on them because that fit. But how do you elevate that to make it look good for today?

Well, Greg Barnes, Tony Award winner for "Something Like It Hot," does that. He's an expert at what I think, oh, um, uh, Emilia, I forget whose name is who did the "Music Man" costume. Like we know how to elevate a time period on Broadway stages. Like don't get me wrong, but this was not that elevation. The Cotton Club outfits, no, was not working.

[19:40] Jeff Malone: Those black and white, it didn't, that's what we're talking about. They looked almost like feather testers. Yeah, it didn't look from the "Beauty and the Beast" production, and I said no, wrong, wrong show. What's going on? It's almost a disservice to the actual women of these times who wore elevated things, I think. But anyway, yes, and then, you know, moving on to some actor performances here because I know we're running out of time. I said earlier we did see James T. Lane in this role, who fun fact, Jeff, I don't know if you realize this, we saw him as Billy Flynn in "Chicago."

[20:03] Jeff Malone: Yes, I knew I saw him somewhere before. He was wonderful. It would be nice to see James when we're on this. I've seen James do things before. I know that he's wonderful. I think like, you know, some of the clips that we've been seeing online, we get the gist of like what he's actually doing.

[20:22] Jeff Malone: I don't think there's a lot of depth to the role. So other than seeing James T. Lane, I thought he was great. And he does the matinee performances. So if people want to see another version of how Louis Armstrong is getting played, I highly recommend seeing him. Don't be discouraged if James Eichelhardt is not in the role. Also, a standout for me... Well, let's talk about the four wives. Because I think, you know, vocally, so many are killing it. You know, they actually kind of feel like they become more of the stars throughout this whole piece. Anyway, we saw Darlisa Kiersey in How to Dance in Ohio. You know, she's belting. Darlisa in this is phenomenal. She's really, really good. We saw her in How to Dance in Ohio.

She was in Once on this Island, The Color Purple. I mean, she's done so much Broadway work. She's very talented. She was my favorite of the four wives. She really, really stood out to me. I did also think that Jenny Harney Fleming also stood out to me as one of the very, very strong performances of the wives. Those were my two standouts for sure. I mean, they all had their moments. You know, I think the first wife is a little bit harder. She has to play a prostitute. And vocally, she, I feel like, is a little bit more limited in the songs that she's singing. And then Kim Zion is also killing it as well. She plays the Hollywood wife. And yeah, I think they all balanced differently of what we're supposed to take away from them.

Totally, totally. And I want to get ready to move on to some other talks about the experience of the show. I do want to have some Tony Award talk here, and some fun facts about the show as well. So let's go over there. But first, here are a few messages from our sponsors.

[22:15] Richie Grasso: Okay, and we're back. So experiences of the show. It is definitely drawing a touristy, older crowd. People are singing along to Hello Dolly. They're singing along to Wonderful World. These are iconic Golden Age Americana music songs that everyone loves. I still think, let the actors on stage sing. We don't need to be singing along. I bet everyone likes that song. Well, here's my issue. Listen, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it. They obviously knew during certain portions of this, people were going to sing along, and they allowed for it to happen. With the narration that we're still continuing to have on Broadway, to the sing-along moments, they did it in a beautiful noise, where everyone got to sing Sweet Caroline.

And hey, maybe this show isn't for us sometimes. And maybe this is for the crowd that's maybe a little bit older. They're here to see the music of Louis Armstrong, and that's great. Feels a little Las Vegas, in my opinion, but whatever. Especially when people are going and they're paying the prices they are for Broadway tickets. But if we're going to have audience participation, and people can't clap on beat, or people are singing the lyrics at the wrong time because they're trying to remember it. He's singing, I see skies are blue, or whatever, and people are a line behind, and then they're just saying, just don't sing. If you don't know the words, don't sing. It's very disruptive while we're watching this, and we're trying to see his performance, and I hear Marian Clark behind me, and they're like...

[24:01] Jeff Malone: Well, I waited two and a half hours to hear the actor on stage sing Wonderful World, and I could barely hear him because everyone around me was singing. That's the point. Also, let's talk about some Tony award potential here. Do I see this potentially getting a lighting or a set design Tony nomination? Sure. I think there's an elevated level of craftsmanship there, for sure. Do I see them maybe giving James Monroe Iglehart a Tony nomination for this? Maybe. I mean, maybe. It's an iconic figure. We have seen the trend of Stephanie J. Block winning for Cher, Jesse Mueller winning for Carole King, Adrian Warren winning for Tina. This has happened in the trends of the Tony voters, the impersonation Tony.

It could certainly happen. Do I see this winning? He is going up against other impersonations this year. We're going to have Jonathan Groff playing Bobby Darin in this same category this year. The male musical season is kind of getting stacked as well. Recently, we saw Swept Away. What John Gallagher is doing in that show, we'll talk about on another episode, but that's a big contender this season. Grey Henson playing Buddy the Elf is a big contender. We're going to have Nick Jonas in the last five years. You have Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard. We're going to have Ramin in Pirates of the Caribbean and David Hyde Pierce. There is a lot coming, and what's going to be hard with these fall shows is if they keep through the dead of winter, will it leave for nominations?

We also have Christopher Sieber in Death Becomes Her. We have Danny Burstein and Gypsy, if that's not supporting, but I don't remember how they built that character. Then we have the boys in Tammy Faye, Michael Cervais and Christian Borle. Listen, we haven't really had a male-stacked season in a while, and this is just as stacked as the winning actors. Michael Cerveris and Christian Borle, Tony Award fans. I will also say, for this Louis Armstrong musical, I don't see it getting a Best Musical nominee. I don't see it getting much else, unfortunately. I don't think so, not with this saturated season. It's one thing that I wanted to touch on really quickly about jukebox musicals in general. What I think we're starting to realize is there is a shelf life on these older public figures when it comes to the jukebox musicals.

What I see that's working now is the years are getting a little later. Neil Diamond didn't really work. People would argue it did. It didn't really work, in my opinion, because that show would still be running. I think that this might have the Neil Diamond run or even shorter, but when things like Hell's Kitchen and MJ are thriving on Broadway right now, look, the years are getting later. We're into the 80s now. We're into the 2000s. Juliet Prime Example is doing so well. I don't know what the demand is so much for some of these older artists now because there was no one young in the audience other than us. I said, well, this feels different. You need a young audience to get in there to see it.

[27:28] Richie Grasso: I totally agree. Not to mention some fun facts here. The show premiered in Miami in 2021 before its Broadway run and then had pre-Broadway engagements in New Orleans and Chicago. Vanessa Williams is one of the lead producers on this show as well. It's not like it just came here out of nowhere. A big thing that you touched on earlier, though, the musical does use Armstrong's actual recordings from some of his trumpet solos. I think that's great, but then where was the incorporation of maybe some video projection of him actually playing it at some point? If you're going to use the actual audio recording, we have projections. There was some video TV screen usage at one point. Don't be afraid to show us the actual Louis Armstrong at some point.

Know what you are. You are a biopic musical. Show me that at some point. Not the whole time, but playing the actual trumpet, I think I would have liked to see that. I didn't know that until we researched it that actual recordings of his trumpet solos might have been used. And that's so cool. And just kind of seeing, too, the show premiering in Miami in 2021 and then had pre-New Orleans and Chicago, I look at that and I say, okay, great, they did do their out-of-towns, but it still felt like it needed more work before coming to Broadway. That would be my only call out there.

[28:46] Jeff Malone: Yeah. Oh my gosh, we're just about out of time. Let's give our final thoughts on A Wonderful World, the Louis Armstrong musical. Final thoughts are, again, it was a mixed bag for me, but there is an audience, I think, still for jukebox musicals on Broadway. I really think it's changing. So if you're interested in seeing Louis Armstrong and kind of a history lesson about him, and I say kind of hard there, um, go check it out. I mean, you know, you can't undoubtedly say that I'm sure James Monroe Egelhardt is doing great in the role, but also seeing James C. Lane in the role was great. So for that reason, I would definitely check it out.

[29:27] Richie Grasso: Yeah, this didn't really, um, much of this concept didn't really make sense for me, but if you like Louis Armstrong and you like his music and you want to learn a little bit more about him, sure. I don't think this was a production that showed a cohesive, creative team working together. It seemed a little messy and lost. Um, but yes, if you want to see some great live jazz, there's a live band there, which is great. It's a lot. I love hearing live jazz. I'll always be a proponent of that. Um, so I think that was great too. So yeah, check it out. If you're interested in, in this time period of music and Louis Armstrong music for sure.

[30:01] Jeff Malone: And there you go. That does wrap up our discussion of this episode. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into A Wonderful World, the Louis Armstrong musical. We will share the link with ticket information in our description. And remember, we want to hear from you. Continue the conversation with us on Instagram at FROpodcasts and let us know your thoughts on A Wonderful World. If you enjoyed our show, please give us a review. Your feedback helps us bring more theatre to you. And remember, you can listen to past episodes and stay tuned for upcoming ones as well. Until next time, I'm Jeff.

[30:28] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie, saying ta-ta for now. Bye.