This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff and Richie, the podcast where we explore the latest shows we see, sharing our insights and opinions on the performances, storylines, and everything in between.

[0:08] Richie Grasso: In today's episode, we're discussing the Off-Broadway production of Ava: The Secret Conversations, playing at New York City Center Stage I in New York City.

[0:16] Jeff Malone: Whether you cannot catch the show in person or you want to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you.

[0:21] Richie Grasso: And as always, we want to inform you that this episode will contain spoilers.

[0:24] Jeff Malone: So if you're ready to dive into this production, stick around with us.

[0:27] Jeff Malone: I'm Jeff.

[0:28] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie, and we're thrilled to be your hosts for this episode.

[0:31] Jeff Malone: But before we start the conversation about Ava: The Secret Conversations, here are a few words from our advertisers.

[0:36] Richie Grasso: Welcome everyone to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff and Richie.

[0:39] Jeff Malone: Today we're discussing Ava: The Secret Conversations.

[0:42] Richie Grasso: Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy Award-nominated actor Elizabeth McGovern stars as Hollywood's original femme fatale Ava Gardner.

[0:51] Jeff Malone: The golden age of cinema's Ava Gardner sat for a series of real-life interviews with writer Peter Evans in an attempt to glean the juicy details about her life story.

[0:59] Richie Grasso: Her marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, and her turbulent relationship with Howard Hughes.

[1:04] Jeff Malone: Initially barred from publication, Evan's stories of a bygone era were published 25 years later with permission from Gardner's estate and are now being reimagined on stage.

[1:14] Richie Grasso: Played by two powerful forces, Elizabeth McGovern as Ava and Aaron Costaganis as Peter.

[1:20] Jeff Malone: All right, theater hot take for Ava: The Secret Conversations.

[1:24] Richie Grasso: I'm gonna say that Elizabeth McGovern truly shines in this role as Ava, and that her inspiration for the film is truly seen by her.

[1:36] Jeff Malone: And I think it would be great to see her actually do more stage work after seeing this play.

[1:41] Richie Grasso: Yeah, I thought her performance was incredible in this.

[1:44] Jeff Malone: I really thought she was captivating.

[1:46] Richie Grasso: And I think that I had a couple of issues with some of the design and directorial choices with this, but very minor.

[1:51] Jeff Malone: And overall, I enjoyed this. I think it was cool to tell this woman's story like this.

[1:54] Richie Grasso: But kudos to Elizabeth for writing and starring in this.

[1:57] Jeff Malone: I thought it was a vehicle of force for her, and I liked that.

[2:00] Richie Grasso: Definitely.

[2:01] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[2:01] Richie Grasso: All right, let's dive into it.

[2:02] Jeff Malone: So let's talk a little bit about the overall concept of this play and the plot here.

[2:08] Richie Grasso: So this is a book that was written or written after Ava's life, um, because they were writing it together while she was alive and then it stopped.

[2:19] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[2:20] Richie Grasso: So we were talking about the late 80s where Peter and Elizabeth got together.

[2:24] Jeff Malone: They were gonna write this, they have these, I guess, you know, secret conversations or whatever they wanted to call it then.

[2:29] Richie Grasso: It never got it, the project got stopped.

[2:31] Jeff Malone: And then she had wound up writing her own book, right?

[2:34] Richie Grasso: In her own way.

[2:35] Jeff Malone: Then she passed away.

[2:36] Richie Grasso: And then Peter, years later, passed away, but with the, as I said earlier, with the permission of the Gardner estate, published these conversations that never wound up becoming a book.

[2:46] Jeff Malone: So then it became a book.

[2:47] Richie Grasso: And I believe Elizabeth McGovern was in an interview recently and said, and she read the book.

[2:52] Jeff Malone: She picked up the book off a shelf and read it and was inspired by it.

[2:55] Richie Grasso: So if you're a performer and you're inspired by something and you think, oh, I think I could play her, but actually I think I could adapt this for the stage and play her, then like kudos to you because I think that's really, really awesome that actors can do that.

[3:08] Jeff Malone: And she's been doing a lot, she's an Academy Award nominee, she's done, uh, we'll talk about her performance a little later in the episode, but she, um, has I believe it was Downton Abbey.

[3:18] Richie Grasso: She's been doing a lot of work on TV, and so I think it's always cool when you say, you know, I could play that character.

[3:24] Jeff Malone: And when you read the book and you say, oh, there's some interesting things here, and why she wanted to talk about why Ava wanted to talk about some things and why she didn't want to talk about others, totally makes for a stage play.

[3:36] Richie Grasso: So this concept I think works.

[3:39] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[3:40] Richie Grasso: Because I took it as yeah, it's really, really, really expensive to do a biopic movie about someone's life, right?

[3:46] Jeff Malone: So maybe this is the other way to do it.

[3:48] Richie Grasso: If maybe Hollywood's not ready to put a big movie out about this woman's life, there's many other famous people of Golden Age cinema that we haven't had full movies on.

[3:56] Jeff Malone: So maybe this is the way to do that.

[3:57] Richie Grasso: And I know it's been touring a little bit.

[3:59] Jeff Malone: Now it's in New York, I think it's gonna keep touring.

[4:01] Richie Grasso: I love the concept also of try this in smaller venues with smaller cities, Toronto, Chicago, LA, New York, bring it all over the place and let people get glimpses that way, yeah, instead of blow it over to Broadway as quick as you can in a mega production, right?

[4:16] Jeff Malone: Because could Elizabeth, she's done Broadway before, like, right?

[4:19] Richie Grasso: Couldn't she just be above title on Broadway Academy Award nominee?

[4:23] Jeff Malone: Like, yeah, sure.

[4:24] Richie Grasso: But I think this was like a really smart, I don't know if she's 100% on the producer side of this with a say, but whatever producers are working with her on this, I think that's really smart to do it in the way.

[4:34] Jeff Malone: So, in terms of just concept size of space, putting this where it needs to go in a summer run in midtown Manhattan, that all makes sense to me.

[4:43] Richie Grasso: Do you agree?

[4:44] Jeff Malone: Yes, I think like concepts for this, this is definitely an off-Broadway play.

[4:50] Richie Grasso: I think it taking this and adapting it to the stage and putting it there for a more industry theater crowd, that's where this is gonna shine.

[4:58] Jeff Malone: This is not gonna really shine, and we'll talk about like what we think for the future of this play later on.

[5:04] Richie Grasso: But I think in terms of plot as well, you know, do you think stories like this, where we're kind of having this more like autobiographical style on the stage, kind of I wouldn't say like recite the lines, but like just kind of giving it that visual is also working.

[5:25] Jeff Malone: Yes, this concept of this and the way this was told works for me because it's conversation.

[5:31] Richie Grasso: And if anybody's listening and listened to that, uh, had seen that Over the Rainbow play that from a few years back when it was like Judy Garland and of her life, but then she had flashbacks to her other days.

[5:40] Jeff Malone: I love the flashback idea.

[5:41] Richie Grasso: Instead of let's tell Ava Gardner's whole life in a play, right?

[5:45] Jeff Malone: Which we kind of talk a lot on here is like, okay, that's a lot to put into two hours.

[5:49] Richie Grasso: Instead, I really like this idea of like, let's have her much later in life talking to a reporter and then flashback.

[5:55] Jeff Malone: You know, when it pe— when I've ever talked to, I don't know Ava Gardner's performances too well, but whenever Ava Gardner's ever come up in anything, a classroom, a family member, someone talking about, usually one of the first things said is, oh, that she was married to Frank Sinatra.

[6:09] Richie Grasso: Oh, she dated Mickey Rooney.

[6:11] Jeff Malone: Oh, she— those were like the first things out of people's mouths.

[6:13] Richie Grasso: And I love how the concept of this was like she had a career in a life without being like, did she have one of their children or not?

[6:21] Jeff Malone: Or do you— how many marriages did she have?

[6:23] Richie Grasso: And because that's what people were and unfortunately still are obsessed with is like women of golden age cinema's like personal lives and narrative lives.

[6:31] Jeff Malone: And I think they addressed that really well here by in a way setting up the plot of this play, like, let's talk about the three marriages, but let's not let that be the only thing that we talk about.

[6:42] Richie Grasso: And instead, let's really get to the root of why this woman doesn't want to talk about all these marriages as much.

[6:46] Jeff Malone: And that's maybe why the book idea kind of crumbled because it wasn't what she really wanted to talk about.

[6:51] Richie Grasso: That's why she has her thing called Ava: My Story, that she supposedly wrote herself.

[6:56] Jeff Malone: I think when you look at something like this, you have to see, like, okay, what was really Elizabeth fully inspired by here?

[7:02] Richie Grasso: And like one of the things that we were starting to talk about was like when you look at something like this, is she trying to kind of shed light or give more people an in-depth look?

[7:14] Jeff Malone: And I'm talking about Elizabeth here.

[7:16] Richie Grasso: Is she trying to bring this plot to the stage to kind of show, like, hey, yeah, these are golden age actors.

[7:24] Jeff Malone: You know, when we think about that time, it's like it wasn't looked at as a bad time.

[7:30] Richie Grasso: It wasn't looked, like they call it the golden age.

[7:33] Jeff Malone: So, what does that mean to you?

[7:34] Richie Grasso: And we hear constantly about all of these stories from Hollywood, that like it wasn't all rainbows and ponies.

[7:41] Jeff Malone: Right.

[7:42] Richie Grasso: And that's why, even the whole another concept seemed to be here with Elizabeth writing this was the use of sexual innuendo and profanity.

[7:50] Jeff Malone: Because when a lot of times when we look back on golden age films and things, it's squeaky clean.

[7:55] Richie Grasso: You weren't allowed to put any of that on the film.

[7:57] Jeff Malone: So years later, we think, oh, those time periods must have been like everyone was like perfect and no one cursed and everyone had squeaky clean lives.

[8:05] Richie Grasso: No, there was a lot going on.

[8:06] Jeff Malone: And she talks about that in her days with Mickey Rooney and the sexual lust, I guess, for lack of a better word, that they had for each other.

[8:14] Richie Grasso: And we didn't really hear about those.

[8:15] Jeff Malone: That's why maybe this is called the secret conversations, because maybe these were things that the general public totally didn't really know, and that she was okay to say until it looked like I don't want this whole book to be just about my marriages and the gossipy, uh, paparazzi style of things.

[8:32] Richie Grasso: But when you think about that, that's what was really starting with like these golden age Hollywood people is like, yeah, the paparazzi, and when you have like the Frank Sinatras and the Marilyn Monroes and the Judy Garlands and the dramas of what rather than the actual work, and that's why when we talk about concept, to me, I love that we saw, you know, if you notice the projections on the walls in the flashback were headlines and articles and photos from her life, but then at the end, when we are at the very end of the piece, spoiler alert, right?

[9:02] Jeff Malone: What do you see projected is all of the clips of her from her work?

[9:07] Richie Grasso: And we were watching, oh, how beautiful is she here.

[9:10] Jeff Malone: Look what she's wearing there.

[9:11] Richie Grasso: Oh, she's a great acting moment here.

[9:12] Jeff Malone: And we're just watching her work, and we're not seeing tabloids, and we're not seeing personal life.

[9:17] Richie Grasso: We're seeing her immersed in her work.

[9:20] Jeff Malone: And we're left with that.

[9:21] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[9:21] Jeff Malone: As an audience, as we're left with that, I think that was the root of maybe where Elizabeth or the producers wanted us to remember is like, let's remember Ava Gardner for what you know.

[9:31] Richie Grasso: A lot of times, uh, Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft say, please stop trying to promote my mother, Judy Garland's life off camera, and just watch her films, just watch what she did on— that's how you can honor.

[9:44] Jeff Malone: I agree.

[9:44] Richie Grasso: Do you know that's what I think it felt like anyway?

[9:47] Jeff Malone: I would agree to disagree on that, though.

[9:48] Richie Grasso: Okay.

[9:48] Jeff Malone: Because I think that yes, that's great, but how does anyone ever learn if we don't hear these stories?

[9:56] Richie Grasso: You know, when you look at Ava Gardner, someone might have their own opinion on her.

[10:00] Jeff Malone: But oh no, look, she was very early on into the Hollywood scene.

[10:05] Richie Grasso: She had these men that were almost like nymphomaniacs that were going after her, as well as she was part of it, but like she was trying to kind of get through her life and career, and she did just want to be a movie star, but she had to get through all of these men to get anywhere, and you're watching them kind of control her life, and eventually she, you know, verges on being an alcoholic, and she's a chain smoker, and you see all of these things, but you learn, and I think this is what Peter Evans was trying to kind of go for in his writing about this book was that like he was trying to shed light, he was getting pushed by the book company to be like, no, we need those stories.

[10:46] Richie Grasso: But in there, he was also putting, like, yes, we're gonna talk about your movies and we're gonna talk about what you did, but we're showing what these terrible men kind of did to you in your life.

[10:56] Jeff Malone: Yeah, and that's why I think it's hard when now we're years later and both Peter and Ava have passed on, and now we're just telling the story years later.

[11:04] Richie Grasso: And that's why I think it's very honorable that Elizabeth would do something like this. Because how many actors in their 50s, 60s, 70s are sitting around saying, when's the next script coming my way? And it's like in instead, it's like, let me get my own script going my way. And if nothing ever happens with this, okay, but maybe we could talk about that at the end, like what could the future of this could be. But regardless, it's very, very cool. And I give her a lot of credit for doing this.

[11:29] Jeff Malone: Yes, some people can say, Oh, well, it's self-serving, right? You wrote your own script, now you're starring in it. Well, hey, a lot of people have done that, and that's somehow how Lynn Manuel kind of got where he did with In the Heights and Hamilton. You have to kind of pave your own road in this industry sometimes. So good for her. Definitely in a way, you know.

[11:45] Richie Grasso: All right. Well, I think this is a great time to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're gonna talk about the direction, the actor performances, and what uh and the design.

[11:54] Jeff Malone: Okay, and we're back. So let's kind of get into the direction, the actor performances, and design here, starting off with direction. What do you feel like really worked versus what didn't work in this piece? And who's the direction by?

[12:06] Richie Grasso: Well, direction by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, he's great. We've seen, I believe he's Tony nominated for uh Hand to God um Broadway. He's done a lot of work. Um, to me, I feel like this was well directed up to a certain point, and I think there were just a few moments for me that I would have changed or done differently. Not saying the direction was poor, I just think this was what, for example, one thing that bothered me a little bit was the uh uh P the character of Peter constantly addressing the audience when he was on the phone with his agent. And it seemed like that actor at times didn't quite know where to look and it was like breaking the fourth wall, but not, and then there were times when he was on the literal phone, and so and then sometimes he was on the phone talking to Ava, and sometimes he wasn't holding the phone, also talking to Ava. So to me, there were inconsistencies where if you were only gonna be on the phone with certain characters, but then every time you're at the age, it just seemed inconsistent.

[13:00] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[13:00] Richie Grasso: And I for me picked up on that, and I was like, This is odd. Like, why doesn't he just always talk on the phone? I don't care if we hear the agent's voice. I liked that we heard the other side of the show. I'm trying to think back with the agent in the beginning when he was on the phone, was the agent speaking to him? He was on the phone in the very beginning when you saw Ava through the wall smoking the cigarette, looking at her, talking to her, and then later on in the story, he was talking to her, not holding the phone. And I picked up on that, and this is a minor thing, but I was like, we're inconsistent. So like phone calls seemed inconsistent. And then I liked when he was when I think he was Artie Shaw on the phone, setting up like listen, Ava's not gonna go on set today. Like she's you know, that whole scene.

[13:38] Jeff Malone: Yeah, and we didn't hear the other person.

[13:40] Richie Grasso: So that was cool, but just I didn't like the constant looking at the audience during the phone calls. To me, I didn't personally like that. Maybe it didn't bother you as much. It just seemed a little like, okay, we have to change the scenery, or there's a costume change, so let's just like you know, have him look out to the audience now. I think it kind of just felt like a little more like voice of God.

[13:57] Jeff Malone: Yeah, as the now you must go talk about Mickey Rooney's original.

[14:04] Richie Grasso: Yeah, right. And it's like, yeah, it just seems in that way. I mean, that didn't bother me as much.

[14:10] Jeff Malone: I I didn't really mind most of the direction.

[14:15] Richie Grasso: I when I'm watching it, I found like I liked the transitions in between the flashbacks versus those were strong. I think the flashbacks and pulling out of the flashbacks back to reality with the lighting design were very strong. However, another direction directorial point to me that I wasn't a huge fan of was the I loved the accent work and the pacing and the flashbacks. When Elizabeth had to play young Ava, middle age Ava, old. I thought she did well with that. And I thought the actor was playing Peter, I said his name earlier. Uh Aaron Costaganis. I thought he was amazing with his accent work.

[14:48] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[14:52] Richie Grasso: And we'll talk about their performances in a second. But the pacing when it was just Peter and Ava in the 80s, it was just um to me personally, it was a mile a minute. We weren't taking pause and it was like talking, talking, talking. It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, take a minute. Just take a beat once in a while. I found that it was like we gotta get this 90 minute play done. And 90 minutes, it's kind of what it felt like to me. Not the flashbacks. But that was just me.

[15:16] Jeff Malone: I sure I do think maybe in the beginning the pacing I actually found the pacing to be a little slow.

[15:24] Richie Grasso: Yes, in a way.

[15:26] Jeff Malone: And then it picked up too fast.

[15:27] Richie Grasso: I don't know, it seemed inconsistent for me.

[15:29] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I I did find the pacing in the beginning to be a little slow, and I was trying to digest the story a little bit and figuring out like what was the intent here. So when I'm watching this, I couldn't really figure out that we were gonna get the flashback moments between them, and that he was kind of going to embody each man in her life, between like Mickey Rooney or Artie Shaw and uh Frank Sinatra. So once I started getting the gist of that, I was like, oh, actually, I'm finding this play super interesting, and the direction is working for me. You know, later, I think, like I think what could have been a more interesting idea was that this film set idea that they were kind of on was made known a little bit earlier on.

[16:15] Richie Grasso: Yeah, because we get this, like at the end, the set breaks away, and we're like, and I've been thinking, like, wait, where are we now? Like, because he kept saying, What's going on? What's going on? And then she kind of walked out. Are we breaking into another fantasy dream sequence? Like, why were they he was in her house, right? Or then it felt like we were on a movie set the whole time. So the concept came so late, which is fine. Plenty of plays like give you the gotcha moment very late. Um, what's which I liked it.

[16:41] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[16:42] Richie Grasso: What was the play we saw?

[16:44] Jeff Malone: Like Slave Play.

[16:45] Richie Grasso: Slave Play, right? With the very end, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, fine. It works. It was like that you have the first scene of Slave Play, the first couple of scenes of Slave Play, and then they strip it away and they're like in this whole therapy moment. But I think with this, I'm like, when I started seeing the stage hands kind of moving things around, I was said, okay, I feel like we're going to be able to do that.

[17:05] Jeff Malone: Yeah, because we would see them a little bit in the light.

[17:07] Richie Grasso: I'm like, oh, that's interesting. That's a definite director choice because I'm like, I'm seeing them too much. And then once we got to the end and we like stripped away the set now, and I'm like, oh, okay. It kind of was like a little like a la Sunset Boulevard at times. Like this, oh, are we on set? Are we not on set? Which I think, like, from the director's point of view, like, even like having the the voice of God mic up there at at top, and then like moving things around, I was like, hmm. You know, what I think, and and we did Google this. What I think would have made a little bit more sense is like if she did actually sell her story rights to a movie, and then it's like all the like what could have been with this book.

[17:51] Jeff Malone: Sure.

[17:52] Richie Grasso: And then but then we're talking about many different concepts here. And what concept are we going for, right? Even the projections, and that's why, like talking about some of the design choices. Overall, I thought the design was nice across the board. Wig, uh, costume, lighting, design. One small little thing is, you know, the walls were not too busy, but busy enough that the projections were a little hard to see. And I was like, I think that's Mickey. I was trying to read one of the tabloids, like, it wasn't crystal clear. That was a little tough for me.

[18:19] Jeff Malone: Um, it was that's a minor thing because you had design on the walls of this room, and I get that.

[18:24] Richie Grasso: Right.

[18:24] Jeff Malone: It makes sense.

[18:25] Richie Grasso: Uh, and then when they projected on the main grand curtain, whatever that was, the wall that would come out, that was clearer. But the design choices overall are great. I do want to get into some of these acting performances though, because it is a held on by these two actors, right?

[18:38] Jeff Malone: Yeah, so we start with Elizabeth McGovern.

[18:41] Richie Grasso: As we said at the beginning of this, she's very strong. She is, she knows what she's doing. I thought she was captivating. I really enjoyed her. I think she grew into this. I've never seen her do anything before, so I don't know what to compare it to. But I was like, wow, you got a lot of time periods of this woman to cover, and your uh the her accent changed too. She was that North Carolina accent with Mickey Rooney when she was 18, and then later she's got that like smokers, raspy, like vocal going. So, like, I just thought she looked great, she sounded great, she was captivating. I I enjoyed her.

[19:13] Jeff Malone: I do think it's a hard thing to do between changing and like giving that vocal inflection of like, okay, yeah, she had this more like hick-ish, like country twang to her that like didn't feel like oh, that's what she ever sounded like, and then that she had to kind of train her voice to speak more Hollywood, and that when she went into that, it was great, you know.

[19:34] Richie Grasso: And what he's doing as well, Aaron's great too.

[19:37] Jeff Malone: What Aaron's doing with his vocal work there.

[19:40] Richie Grasso: I mean, he's really impersonating at times, like the Mickey Rooney. I don't really know what Artie Shaw Artie would have sounded like, but between Mickey Rooney and uh Frank Sinatra, which I if you close to the city.

[19:53] Jeff Malone: Oh, you would have sworn the Frank Sinatra impersonation by Aaron in this is amazing.

[19:58] Richie Grasso: And when he was singing I Got You Under My Skin, I had to be like, wait, is he lip syncing to the audio of Frank Sinatra? Because it sounded just like I was blown away by that.

[20:07] Jeff Malone: I was like, wow, you really sound just like Frank Sinatra.

[20:09] Richie Grasso: And you realize he was actually doing it too, because when he was speaking, he was doing the accent.

[20:15] Jeff Malone: And I'm like, wow, that's talent. Because then in the scenes, he's now switching back like that to the British accent. Which and then and I also and I would love to ask him, like, what's your native accent? Because he's got so many different accents that I actually didn't even know which one his native one was because he did all of them so well. And he that's hard to do these different characters, and I thought that he was really impressive like that, and to go up against Elizabeth, who's also gotta carry this iconic character. It's hard, it's a two-person show that's really held by both of them throughout. You know, I'll give him props because like we have not seen him on stage before. I actually don't know if he's done much stage work in general, and especially not in New York, it doesn't look like it in his credits.

Um definitely has a future on the stage, I think. I think that he, among a many actors on Broadway right now, is standing out for me in someone who can kind of embody a character and bring them to life. So give him props there.

[21:16] Richie Grasso: Yeah. I thought overall it was strong. And I think the, like I said, I had a couple issues with some design and directors. Nothing major where I thought it ruined the piece. The piece worked for the most part overall. And it was cohesive.

[21:29] Jeff Malone: Yeah. So all right. Well, I think this is a good time to take another break. And when we get back, we're going to move into our own experience at the show and what we think is next for this show.

[21:37] Richie Grasso: All right. And we're back. And we're going to get into our own experience at this show and what we think is next for Ava: The Secret Conversations. Um, starting with like this is our first time heading to the off-Broadway space at New York City Center. What'd you think?

[21:50] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I loved it. I thought it was great. It's like below the city center Encore stage, you know, where we go often. And it seems like um it's an off-Broadway space that's right in midtown that has a nice raked seating and a nice stage size, and it's a great off-Broadway space. I thought it was really, really great.

[22:06] Richie Grasso: And is this Manhattan Theater Club does most of their off-roads? But this is not Manhattan Theater Club. This Ava is not a part of the... But yeah, we have not really seen many of the off-Broadway Manhattan Theater Club productions. But when you are walking around the space, you see all of these past productions, and you're like, oh, look at that one there, and look at that one there. And you're like, I love seeing that in the Manhattan Theater Club.

[22:31] Jeff Malone: Yeah, and Roundabout does that too. Some of these spaces have the photos of past shows. And I think what's special about City Center is that you have this big, huge, grandiose space upstairs, and then downstairs you have a smaller space in one building. It just shows that like theater at the heart there is just being supported in so many different ways. And I love that space. I'd love to keep seeing things down there. And I thought Ava worked well in this space.

[22:52] Richie Grasso: Yeah, could I think Ava could have worked, it could have worked downtown. It could have worked in New World Stages. There's plenty of places that could have worked, but this just seemed right.

[22:59] Jeff Malone: This seems right.

[23:01] Richie Grasso: I agree with that. Because when you look at the show and the demographic that was sitting around us, I'm like, oh, okay, this makes a lot of sense that it's in the city center area because that's what that clientele is that's seeing a piece like this.

[23:12] Jeff Malone: I also older audience that maybe knew Ava Gardner's works from a long time ago and things like that.

[23:17] Richie Grasso: Right. And I really also was going to touch more a little bit on the theater, like going down, it makes you feel like you're in the miniature version of the space upstairs, right?

[23:28] Jeff Malone: Yeah, kind of.

[23:29] Richie Grasso: Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, like with between the staircases going down, and it's like facing that same way. It's cool.

[23:34] Jeff Malone: Yeah, we love seeing it all. Beautiful space. And when I look at Ava, you know, it's interesting. The piece overall, it seemed like the audience enjoyed it. I think you know, we had heard one person in the audience say, oh, there's a lot of cursing in this because I think we there was a decent amount of um sexual references and cursing. I think that was to what we said earlier to kind of show the point of what Hollywood maybe was really going through at that time.

[23:57] Richie Grasso: Yeah, besides what we think it was around that wow factor, I think for me, I look at it and I say, no, I only think of the golden age as like the pretty Hollywood, and like, oh, no one was doing this, and no one was doing that, and you just like I love hearing that the stories from that time, though. It's like, and I really think it's coming from the attire that was worn during that time.

[24:19] Jeff Malone: Yeah, because when you see people in suits and dresses and their hair is always done, yeah, it's like, oh wait, no, they were still doing everything that everyone does today. And it's like, no, it's not just because it was the 20s or the 30s or the 40s or the 50s. It's like, no, they were still the same way. And it was just a different time, yeah.

[24:40] Richie Grasso: You know, and so I also think when I look at Ava and I see this piece, it's been in a few places. It's gonna wrap up in New York in September and it's gonna go. It says their tour dates, it's next is the Studebaker Theater in Chicago from late September to mid-October, and then it's going to the CAA Theater in Toronto from November 6th to November 23rd. So by the way, if you're listening and you're in the Chicago or Toronto area, you can check out this piece after it closes in New York on September 14th.

[25:06] Jeff Malone: But I look at that and I say, okay, this can find its audience and float a little. And I say to myself, I'm very torn, because I say, could this work on Broadway? Sure. Maybe it's got a limited run, it's got a star name to it. Both Ava's name and Elizabeth's name are star names. It could work, it could be a Tony nomination for her. Sure, maybe. But I also say, I don't know, maybe it just had its New York minute and now it's just gonna maybe license out, or maybe it could film, right?

[25:33] Richie Grasso: I would see it go down more the road of like film, right? Or a TV movie of some kind, like a three-episode arc of something you could do with a mini series.

[25:42] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I think like it fits that mold more than going to like a big stage. I don't find this to be like a tourist trap. And like I think sometimes when we look at these plays, it's like that's a lot of seats that you have to fill. And it brings me to the actual like intent of the play, and what is someone taking away from something like this? And that's like kind of like the bigger conversation here that I kind of wanted to end with is like around when you have these stories of these kind of like um what would you call it? Is it they're like biopic, but they're also like um off the beaten path biopic, kind of like hearing about their life when they're older, flashing back on their life.

[26:22] Richie Grasso: Yeah, like I kind of would call it like a little bit of like a hybrid between like an actual biopic as we know it on stage right now versus like this is what we talk about of like that moment in time kind of thing. So, like this is moment in time where they're writing the book together and doing something like that. But I feel like this is something that's more of like an inspiration play versus like um pure entertainment play. Whereas like we look at like the Louis Armstrong musical we just saw. It was like his whole life, it was very entertainment focused, it was focused all on his marriages and barely about learning the trumpet. And right, we talked about that. We were like, okay, but you know, but then like when you look at MJ and you're looking at a specific period of MJ, you know, and all the music associated with it, that's another concept, too. But now we're talking about spectacle and things like that.

[27:11] Jeff Malone: So, like if this was a musical, and in her flashbacks, it turned into these big musical moments. And that's why I think this works when it's you know, just down to these conversations. I love the subtitle, The Secret Conversations. Right. What were these conversations? And the flashbacks do help. Uh I did like that. There was like the Mickey Rooney, the already show on the Frank Sinatra, because I'm sure at some point you're like, oh, what is it gonna be like when we get to Frank Sinatra? That was a big one, right? So yeah, the concept is there, it's done. But in play form, then I don't think there is enough for the masses to really resonate deeply with something like some a play like this. That's why I don't know if Broadway would be the right.

I think it to me it sounds filmic. It seems filmic. Like we need to go to like you expand it and it's lavish and it's beautiful, and it shows like what it was like when she was writing this versus like what it was like being in Hollywood, and I think that would be glorious.

[28:06] Richie Grasso: Yeah, totally. I love it. All right, but oh my gosh, just about out of time here. What are your final thoughts on Ava: The Secret Conversations Off-Broadway?

[28:16] Jeff Malone: Again, I did enjoy this. I enjoyed watching this and I enjoyed watching the conversations. I think that was very theatrical enough for me to say, like, hey, if you're interested in seeing something like this and kind of diving more into like the nitty-gritty of Hollywood, then this is the right play for you to see, you know.

[28:34] Richie Grasso: Yeah. Is it not mass for me? Probably not. But is it, you know, niche? Yes. And I love that.

[28:41] Jeff Malone: Yeah, it's niche and it's a story, and it's she was a famous Ava Gardner was a famous Hollywood performer, but not maybe the most famous. So it's cool that we're not just getting the Frank Sinatra story or the Marilyn Monroe story, the big big name. We're getting someone who also was important in the story of a golden age cinema. And I enjoyed this overall, and I did enjoy Elizabeth's performance. It was a nice, it was nice to see something like this also. We didn't talk about like this too much, but the summer time, right? This would have maybe gotten lost in the spring or the fall or the holidays. It could have gotten very lost. There's a million shows in the city at that time. But I always think that the shows that can kind of put out a show in the middle of the summer when it's pretty quiet, good for you. That's awesome.

[29:22] Richie Grasso: Yeah. I mean, and this is another play too. Like, it would be amazing to talk to Elizabeth McGovern about a play like this. Because like getting that inspiration and then writing it and getting it adapted for the stage, like I think there's a lot there in that process that would be like so much fun to talk about.

[29:38] Jeff Malone: Yeah. You do have till September 14th to check this out off-Broadway. And like I said, and then it'll go to Chicago and Toronto if you want to go check it out there too. But uh, if you're listening to this now, uh try to get a ticket if you can. And uh if you're looking for something like while we're waiting for where we're all way and off-Broadway to come this fall, go check it out. It's right in midtown.

[29:54] Richie Grasso: Yeah. All right. That does wrap up our discussion for this episode. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into Ava: The Secret Conversations. Remember, we want to hear from you. Continue the conversation with us on Instagram and TikTok at Half Hour Podcast, and drop us a comment on Spotify and let us know your thoughts on Ava: The Secret Conversations. Please also leave us a review. Your reviews mean so much to us. And remember to subscribe to our channel for all past and future episodes. Until next time, I'm Jeff.

[30:18] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie saying ta-ta for now.

[30:20] Jeff Malone: Bye.