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Marjorie Prime: Memory, A.I., and What We Leave Behind

In this episode of Half Hour, we take a deeper dive into the Broadway production of Marjorie Prime, written by Jordan Harrison and directed by Anne Kauffman at Second Stage Theater’s Hayes Theater... Read More

From the show: Half Hour with Jeff & Richie (Post-Show Broadway Discussions and Interviews)

32 mins
Jan 21

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In this episode of Half Hour, we take a deeper dive into the Broadway production of Marjorie Prime, written by Jordan Harrison and directed by Anne Kauffman at Second Stage Theater’s Hayes Theater. We break down the play’s near-future look at artificial intelligence, how we tell and revise family stories, and what the piece suggests about grief, legacy, and the afterlife.

We also discuss what’s working in this cast (June Squibb, Cynthia Nixon, Danny Burstein, and Christopher Lowell) and how the production’s style and pacing shape the audience’s experience. From structure and design to awards potential, we consider how Marjorie Prime might factor into this season’s Tony conversation, before wrapping up with our “Half-Minute,” each highlighting one specific moment that stayed with us.

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Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[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 Broadway production of Marjorie Prime, playing at the Hayes Theatre 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.

[0:28] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie, and we're thrilled to be your hosts for today's episode. But before we start the conversation about Marjorie Prime, here are a few words from our advertisers. Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff & Richie. Today, we're discussing Marjorie Prime.

[0:41] Richie Grasso: Yes, and Happy New Year to everyone. It's our new year, and we're very excited to be bringing you the first episode here of 2026 for new theatre. For new. Here we are. What would you say to someone you lost if you could never see them again? What if they're a better listener now than when they were alive? Pulitzer Prize finalist Jordan Harrison reinvents the family drama in his richly spare, wryly funny, and powerful Marjorie Prime, directed by Tony Award nominee Anne Kaufman of Mary Jane. A heart-achingly beautiful rumination on aging and artificial intelligence, memory and mortality, love and legacy, Marjorie Prime examines the blurred line between a life lived and a life remembered, presented by Second Stage Theatre.

[1:22] Jeff Malone: All right, so let's get into our theatre hot take for Marjorie Prime. I felt that Marjorie Prime is like a theatrical jigsaw puzzle where Jordan Harrison lets you connect the pieces of memory and identity one scene at a time until the picture quietly breaks your heart.

[1:40] Richie Grasso: Yeah, that's really great. I would say that for me, Marjorie Prime, my hot take is that this is written by a playwright who always feels like they're a step ahead of the audience and is thinking more in advance and taking the audience on that trip with them, not dulling anything down. And then when you add this wonderful cast to tell this story, I think it makes for a really great piece of theatre and a night where you just constantly are thinking and being probed with questions and you're leaving the theatre wondering and kind of connecting this to your own life. It's very well crafted and well done overall. I very much enjoyed it.

[2:10] Jeff Malone: I agree with that too. So let's get into the overall plot and concept of this play here. So right off the bat, we have this kind of a bit of a memory play mixed with A.I. and it's very interesting for me because while I'm watching this play, I found it to kind of weave you through how stories are told, how you kind of have to really pay attention to what's happening in here. And for those who have not really seen this piece yet, you know, there are multiple characters in here that are kind of speaking to A.I. primes that are visions of how someone remembers someone or wants to remember someone. And I found that to kind of be one of the most interesting things that were kind of like shown right off the bat here.

[2:52] Richie Grasso: Yeah, right away. I mean, it's if you don't know what time period the show is set in, I think that it's a little unclear in the beginning, but I think the playwright gives you clues throughout to kind of allow you to connect and say, oh, it seems like we're in the future, right? Because when you originally see this piece, it looks like it could be set in the present day. Nothing seems extremely futuristic or abnormal.

[3:18] Jeff Malone: Right. Again, I think the playwright gives that to you with some of these one-liners, like when the older woman character is singing the Beyoncé song and the children don't really know what she's singing, or these references to things like that. I will also say that this piece really takes you on a journey and allows you to realize what the pros and the cons are of AI. I think there's this like, well, we can use these primes, right? When I first didn't know the play, I was like, oh, Marjorie sounds like the name of an older woman. That's probably the older character. And then prime, I thought maybe that's their last name. But instead, that's the code word used in the play for like an AI virtual Alexa of sorts, right?

Or like a, you know, that's what we use today to talk to AI in a way with one platform anyway. So Marjorie prime or blank prime, right? And Walter prime, right? These characters that are referred to as the prime. And I think that there's with a lot of technology, we see, oh, that's a cool idea. I'm going to try that. And then we also realize that there's repercussions to that. Because I think that the actors and the humans rather, I should say the human characters are feeding select things to the primes to help people aging, remember, select things, but not only to help people aging to help the children, remember the parents, the parents to remember their spouses. There's a lot of relationships here.

[4:39] Richie Grasso: Yeah. And so I think that it's important to remember that, like, who's spoon feeding the primes different things, and then who's leaving things out purposely, that in and of itself calls for a family drama. Right. And when I kind of like look at this whole concept here around these AI, like holographic primes, I looked at this as okay, when this play first kind of was making its rounds around 2014. And we're looking at what how far AI has even come from then to now. And I'm saying to myself, well, this really doesn't feel that futuristic anymore. I feel like this is something that we're getting closer and closer to like having these like, AI holographic moments. And where I think like the plot point here around like story, and how do you remember the story?

And how do you tell the story? And how does someone continue that story on is what I found most fascinating, because I think that's where like the puzzle kind of came in for me and saying, all right, we first have Marjorie prime, who is probably in her 80s. And she has a Walter prime, but it makes me not like connect back to this, because I'm like, wait, was prime actually their last name? No prime is the artificial intelligence like creation that's happening here. And we meet this young, handsome Walter that Marjorie envisions. And that's who she wants to remember Walter as. Whereas that's the irony of the literal word prime, right? Usually remember prime is like, oh, in your prime, in your youth, in your better days, right in your prime.

So like, that's like, I think the prime has a double meaning of, yeah, this is how I want this person remembered as but there's a lot of references when the characters say, well, oh, I don't you were mean to me. And I want to remember you as funny, or I want to remember you as nice, right? And, and or things like that, right? It's like, we're kind of recreating a person based on what we want them to have be remembered by. Similarly to how this conversation kind of goes to like, what people take to the grave with them and what they don't. And I think there's definitely commentary on looking at something and saying, Oh, did it does everybody really know when when Marjorie's character has lost her child, the other child has difficulty dealing with that for so long?

[7:04] Jeff Malone: Yeah, because Marjorie's character doesn't want to talk about it doesn't want to have any takes pictures down and things like that. And so then that's why Cynthia Nixon's character in this piece says, I have to now mourn and and now that my mother has passed, I have to think about my brother passing away, right? And I have to process that because maybe I wasn't able to. So maybe that's why she selectively leaves out parts of her brother in the prime version of her mother, because she doesn't want that aspect in the later part of her life. So you're you're kind of re you're repaving lives. It's very dangerous, I think in that way. And so I think it's very interesting when you listen to your own life and say, What would I want people to remember me by and not remember me by and then vice versa?

What are parts of family and friends that I want to be able to say, I only want you to be like this, because that's the better parts of you. And I don't want to know or remember as I get older, these parts of you, we can't really do that now. And so this is that sci-fi kind of feel of this piece, which is very thought provoking.

[8:04] Richie Grasso: It's really thought provoking, because when you look at it, and you say, Oh, okay, yeah, Marjorie wanted to remember Walter. And I think Tess even brings up and that's the daughter who brings up, Oh, why did my mother want to remember him in that form? Oh, it was pre her whole life with having children. She couldn't go back to the time with him or she wanted to go back to the time with him. That was pre her losing her son was pre her having her daughter. And she kind of couldn't really deal with that Tess meeting. And I found that even more interesting, because then as we learn after Marjorie passes, Tess now gets her own version of the mother. But I find it even more interesting because the Walter prime still exists.

And now Marjorie prime exists, but exists in this form of as of recent, like when she first passed. And what is that meaning around Tess? Tess didn't have enough to say to her as her older mother in this like grandmother form. You know, I found that to be then jumping forward when they're sitting around the revolving table. It's the primes and that have all characters who have passed on sitting, having these conversations, it feels a little sterile and stiff because they're primes and they take these pregnant pauses in between the end of a conversation. However, there could be a parallel drawn between, was the playwright's intention to compare primes to maybe heaven? In this sense that like we think, oh, when we go to heaven, everything's amazing and everyone's perfect.

And we remember the best parts of people and like all dogs go to heaven. So like the best dogs are running around heaven, right? And like everyone's amazingly happy in heaven and reunited in heaven. And I'm not saying that the primes are equivalent to that in all ways, but in some ways, are we supposed to sit in because there's something felt heavenly to me about the three of them, this table, there was no fighting, there was no yelling, there was no arguing. It was just conversation that was simple and light in this very calm way. I couldn't help, but compare heavenly past life to the prime past life. But I think that's because we are now getting to the primes in their final form. I think it's left up to us to decide and Tess has a husband, John, who's still living. And Tess and Marjorie and Walter have all moved on and they're in their prime form now.

[10:33] Jeff Malone: Only the stories that have been told to the Primes.

[11:03] Richie Grasso: And they're left there with the stories that were only ever told to them. But the three Primes then connect the dots that they were all told different stories.

[11:34] Jeff Malone: Or have photos or remember that person. The soul moves into another. There's a lot of cultures that believe that. So there's this sense of like, yeah, the younger generations of Marjorie Prime are not going to remember their parents and grandparents in that way. Then what lives on for the Prime? And like any technology, who continues the fueling of the Prime with more data and information, right? And then it also comes down to like, how much empathy or sympathy or what, you know, when a Marjorie's character has an accident and has to use the restroom and has to go take a shower after. Those things don't exist with the Primes, but the human functions of hugs, love, bodily functions, right? These things can't be replicated in a Prime.

But it also kind of made, it also showed like how people age and what humanistic qualities stay as they age and what leave. But also emotion. So like the Primes talk about how like, you have to talk to us more so that we can pick up on the emotion and continue the emotion. But the major like gut punch for me was like, John is literally telling his test Prime version that she had killed herself. That's the big spoiler here. And she has no emotion to that. So leaving it on that, I think this is a great time to kind of switch into this overall production here now.

[12:57] Richie Grasso: But first, we're going to take a quick break.

[13:02] Jeff Malone: Okay, and we're back. So let's kind of get into the direction, the act of performance is in the design here of Marjorie Prime. And let's kind of kick things off with the direction by Anne Kaufman.

[13:09] Richie Grasso: Yes, I will say that I don't want to say the direction was one of the weaker parts of this piece. However, I feel like the cast and the playwright brought this piece and I didn't really feel like the direction was as strong as other things that I have seen. I felt like the direction was kind of like move about the space freely, kind of play down and center. A lot of the times I didn't really think the set helped that much with the overall flow of this. It seemed like the set was fine and the direction was fine. But I wouldn't say this was extremely strong direction for me, personally.

[13:43] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I felt that I would agree with you on this. I think like, okay, if I look at this and the history of here, we have Anne Kaufman, who also directed this off Broadway, and she's now moved to this on Broadway. But there's been years in between now of Marjorie Prime being here. So I kind of say, I'm like, listen, I think that there could have been more stage direction happening with the actors. Like the text is the text that's happening in the play. But I think that there was not happening enough like movement around this stage from her. And that was like one of my big things, like really looking at this. I said, okay, some changing, some of the scene changes felt a little like wonky, maybe a little too long at times, too.

There was not really much happening with the scenic design anyway. So I couldn't understand why we were going into complete blackout into some flashing lights that flash at the primes, which then gets us to the next scene. That felt like it was a little stiff in my perspective.

[14:41] Richie Grasso: Yeah, and that kind of does reflect on some of the design choices. But before we go there, I will say one more thing about direction. Direction to me doesn't always have to be actor movement. There's so many more aspects to direction besides just where do you move the actors. But when in a piece like this that flows at a very robotic kind of pace to keep the actors very simple in this house, I don't even really know if I believe that this is the house that they would have been in. I just feel like the house didn't match the family. It just seemed odd. I understand they were in California and they had sold the family house and they were this in this new house and all that. But the direction did seem a little stiff at times and very flat and very center. And it just didn't seem to use the levels as I would have wanted them to. I think the jet out of the table spinning that direction was cool.

[15:30] Jeff Malone: And like I said, going into some direction design, I found this overly green set seemed odd to me for just multiple reasons. But the lighting shifts of the clicking, I think there was one moment I remember Danny Burstein's character is trying to talk to the private of his wife and then can't in the blackout. And then it's like he tries a second time. I would like to more of those photo flash moments like that, I think. To me, the strongest design is sound. And I'm going to tell you why. Because I found that Marjorie's history with the orchestra was so important. And then when we had orchestral pieces playing as sound, how wouldn't you think that a sound designer would take this and maybe be like techno sound? And instead we had this gorgeous orchestra playing sound in between, which kind of reflected back on her love for the organic sense of the orchestral music. That was very smart design for me from the sound design.

[16:23] Richie Grasso: Yeah. And that was sound design by Daniel Kluger. And yeah, I do agree with that. I found that was probably the biggest thing bringing in here because we're dealing with two things in this production. We are also dealing with dementia and such a big thing. Is music. Yeah, music. I mean, really memory and bringing that in. And I felt like that was something that we needed to hear as the audience. So I did agree with that. I thought the sound design was quite nice bringing that in here. And I think costumes were nice too. I think everything flowed very nice overall.

[17:00] Jeff Malone: Yeah. But I did agree slightly. Maybe this was a choice to kind of bring the scenic design into more of like a past life. But it felt like it needed to be more futuristic. I mean, if we're talking about the year 2062 or around that time, whenever this play is fully set in, I would think that we're more advanced and modern in how a home would look and not just being in this kind of like wallpapery kind of, it looks like Palm Springs or Florida or like retirement.

[17:33] Richie Grasso: Yeah, exactly. Maybe there's this like advancement of like lights are turning on and off by just entering a room and not hitting a light switch. Like they could have been more technologies in the kitchen, maybe. I don't know. Maybe, but maybe not. I don't know. I just think like, but again, I think that goes back to the playwright slow easing you in. I think if this looked like the Jetsons house, we would have been like, okay, right? Like here we are. But I think that was going to beat us over the head. The playwright really trusted the audience to kind of unfold this throughout the piece. And I think that was important. And also maybe it's to show that we are really not going to evolve as a society that much in that many years.

And we are still going to be living in a time that everything still looks the same. Because when you really kind of look, some people still live in homes that look like they were built in the 50s. And it stayed exactly the same still to this day. So why should we assume that we're just going to magically change and look so futuristic in, you know, 40 years or however many years it is.

[18:27] Jeff Malone: And now I'm going to ask you, Richie, tell me what you think is working with the cast of this piece.

[18:31] Richie Grasso: Well, I think this is a super strong cast here. I mean, we have June Squibb as Marjorie. We have Cynthia Nixon as Tess. Danny Burstein as John. And Christopher Lowell as Walter Prime. Like, come on, this cast is out of this world. I found that June Squibb is, I'm so sorry, how old? 96. Amazing, because you would not know it with her coming out on this stage. And the real scene stealer of this show for me, though, was Cynthia Nixon. Because I love how great her stage presence is on this, in this piece alone. And we just saw her, I think, was it either last year or two years ago off Broadway? And now to see her here on Broadway, you know, she's going to be one to watch for me in this Tony season as well.

[19:15] Jeff Malone: Oh, totally. I think the whole cast is working so well together. I mean, and different generations working together. I think there's something really heartbreaking to me about seeing Danny Burstein in real life has lost his wife, Rebecca Luker. And so I think to see the heartbreak as he's trying to navigate the loss of his character's wife's loss, rather, on the stage really was heartbreaking to me to watch something like that. They're all working. Yes, June Squibb. I mean, incredible. Like, everyone's just dynamic here. And these are big names that are good performers working together on the stage for this. The cast is very strong. The cast is pulling the playwright's piece and moving it forward. And I thought that was impressive.

[19:52] Richie Grasso: Right. And I think with Cynthia Nixon, too, if you really kind of get into the kind of character and that she's created for Tess and like really being into this role, I think she gave us maybe the most depth of like watching this woman who kind of takes you on this ride that doesn't trust in the A.I., but then kind of succumbs to it. And you see that she's a little bit more broken throughout each scene to where then she has to fully change when she becomes the prime. And I think she kind of really clicks and changes the fastest in saying like, oh, wow, she just had a very bad end to her life. And now she's this like happy little prime. And like for Danny to have to kind of react to that and be like, you were just here and now you're just like, fine.

I think that becomes the hardest part. And then when we like kind of go back to the plot here and the concept, I think that's where we have to decide, does he continue on with the primes or has he moved on, too? And maybe he's moved on because the very ending of them at the table leaves you to believe that they're in their own world talking to each other. They were kind of like left in the computer and the computer got turned off. And now they're sitting in the computer and like, hey, okay.

[21:07] Jeff Malone: What are we doing here now? Because there's no one else to really probe us or provoke us to continue the prime growth. And that's the vibe I took from this was that they're sitting at the end like, no one's turning us on. Did anybody turn us on? Is anybody going to engage with us? We're just three people sitting here talking.

[21:24] Richie Grasso: Well, and they even ask that they say, Oh, what's going on with John? Oh, I don't have that information. But then they just start reciting the stories that they were told. And wait, does that happen?

[21:36] Jeff Malone: Yeah, well, it's kind of like, what happens at the end of social media or a recording of something or like, you know, when we put an end to technology, or just sits, how long does something sit in a cloud or sit on a computer, right? And just doesn't get developed and grown and used in different ways. And you know, what gets thrown to the side? Very, very interesting. And what do you feel like kind of makes Second Stage bring this kind of play to this season right now?

[22:01] Richie Grasso: I think a modern sci-fi futuristic piece like this that gets you thinking, but also deals with family drama, which a lot of people are dealing with difficulty with children, difficulty with spouses, difficulty with parents. And we're dealing with Alzheimer's and the death from that, as well as suicide and the death from that we're dealing with different tragedies and losses, and how Alzheimer's can be a very, very long, long process. Whereas then we deal with suicide issues here, which are very difficult and very sudden. And so there's so many different levels of emotion here. And so I think that's a family drama can mean so much, but I think that's why Second Stage brings something like this for all generations to come together and witness and realize, everybody can leave that piece in some way and say, Oh, I kind of understand that character at that moment was or I get what that character is going through in a way.

[22:56] Jeff Malone: Yeah, well, I feel like they ask a big question in this piece too. And it comes from Tess, Cynthia Nixon's character, where she says, Why do we want to keep ourselves alive for so long? Like, why are we not ready to go when we don't serve a purpose anymore? And that I found to be most interesting, because I'm like, Oh, she can't really continue on because her parents have died, even though that her and John are parents now. And like, she doesn't know how to continue on that she doesn't feel right in this world anymore. And you know, I always just kind of thought and sat on that question a little bit more on like, why do we keep ourselves alive for so long? But also, how do we keep people's lives alive after they've gone? And I think that ties it fully back to the prime, right, in general, right, you know, so.

[23:46] Richie Grasso: All right, so let's take another quick break. And when we get back, we'll get into our own questions about the show and how we think this production will measure up at this year's Tonys. Okay, and we're back. So let's kind of get into our own experience at the show here. And then we'll do a little Tony talk. But how did you kind of feel sitting in this play? And like, did it hit home for you at all?

[24:06] Jeff Malone: I mean, I feel like overall, I can reflect on a piece like this and draw different conclusions and understand how our own personal lives reflect on that. I think what was more interesting to me at this experience was hearing others around me audibly react. There was a lot of gasps and oh, and ooh, throughout the piece when we discovered things together as an audience. Yeah. And I think that was most impactful. There was a lot of that going on. There was a couple of laughter moments too, because there were some really funny one-liners from Marjorie's character in general, but I would say just the experience of diving into like, when you don't have a narrator and you're not spoon-fed the, this is the year we're in, and this is the location we're in.

And you have to just, it goes back to playwriting of the days of the Tennessee Williams and the days where you have to realize, who is this? What's going on? Oh, oh, oh, the ping pong ball. That's playwriting, not feed me it now. You know, so I think I will always enjoy an experience with an audience where people are diving in and organically feeling that reaction.

[25:14] Richie Grasso: There were a lot of audible moments throughout the audience this time that I definitely felt that too. And a lot of it was because I was looking in the beginning and I did not see the kind of note that says the time and place that this is taking place. And I think it was kind of left up to us to kind of figure out on our own, which I did enjoy. But there was a moment when she was humming the Beyoncé song that I was like, wait, what year is this? Because I thought we were in the present day. And I think that's where the blending of like current AI to now made me think like, yeah, this is not that far off from something that feels like it would be on the market tomorrow for you to buy a prime version of a loved one that has passed away.

There are many things that you can kind of buy on the market today to kind of remember someone like a keepsake that you can kind of hold onto their voice or a heartbeat. There's like this whole egg thing that you can get the heartbeat of someone before they pass and you can have that and hold it and it's supposed to be like a comfort thing. But I was like, OK, maybe this is present day. And there was that Beyoncé moment where Marjorie is humming the song and the kids don't know. And I said, no, that's way too weird for them not to know it. And then there was the moment where they're talking about the Gates installation in New York City. And I was like, wow, this is very interesting because we just did an event recently.

I did an event recently where that was part of this theme and design. And I was like, wow, I know that that was in the early 2000s. So when that conversation was happening, I had to put myself back here saying like, oh, they were young parents in the early 2000s. And now we're set in the future. So it's a kind of connect that you really have to be like paying attention to like what's going on here.

[27:01] Jeff Malone: And it also kind of made me reflect a little bit, too, about like my own grandparents and the things that you maybe remember about them, but also all of the things that you never got to ask them as you mature and get older. And like, you know, if there was something out there that had their stories and you can go and talk to them and like hear about them, that would be like super interesting, I think, to have as a resource. But, you know, they're not here anymore. So you can't ask them the questions anymore. And it's only what's passed down to generation. Like how do my parents remember their parents and how and can they tell me the stories about them? So, you know, I think that's where it hit home a little bit for me in being like, wow, this could be a really cool concept in the real world, too, you know, so. And then like when we get to the kind of Tony talk here, how do you think this is going to measure up? And like, what do you think should be remembered when the nominations come out?

[27:56] Richie Grasso: I definitely think this should get a Best Revival nomination. However, there's many plays in the revival category this year, so I think it's going to be very stacked. The one standout to me would be to see Cynthia Nixon probably in supporting role. I think that is definitely valid and I could totally see her being nominated for that. Everyone else was very fine and great. I would just totally say that this was an opportunity for her. I wouldn't necessarily maybe consider it for anything else personally as of now. I think there's a lot coming this spring, so we'll see. I don't know if they've ruled on this show yet. I would say that it probably is not because it only just opened recently. But I would say, yeah, I don't think that Cynthia should be forgotten in the nomination category.

I definitely think the play will get a revival nomination. And I also probably will go back to what you talked about earlier around sound design. I think that this could definitely be something that it gets a sound design nomination as well. If we get into the tech side of things, I think there could be some things there around lighting and sound design possibly.

[29:09] Jeff Malone: We're going to try something a little different at the end of our episodes now, and we're going to do something where a play on our half hour, because we've just talked about Marjorie Prime for a half hour, and we're going to talk about something for a half minute. So, Richie, for a half minute, I want you to talk about June Squibb.

[29:25] Richie Grasso: Okay, for 30 seconds. Are you ready with that timer? We're going to do a 30 second half minute timer. Let's get the timer ready. Hold on. June Squibb. June Squibb. Okay. Half minute at half hour. Ready? Go.

[29:38] Richie Grasso: Okay. June Squibb. Blown away by this woman coming on stage eight times a week at the age of 96 years old. She was born in 1929. And being on stage, and just knowing that that is part of a generation of actors that not many left, and to see that she is sharp as a tack, memorizing lines, moving about on stage, doing this with such grace and ease. This is a woman who was in the original Broadway cast of Gypsy, with Ethel Merman on Broadway. I mean, if you could just sit with this woman. Is anybody sitting with this woman and talking about Gypsy? I could go on a lot longer. I'm very impressed with June Squibb.

[30:15] Jeff Malone: Amazing. Always comes back to Gypsy.

[30:17] Richie Grasso: Yeah, always comes back to Gypsy for me, if you know. Okay, now I'm going to give you 30 seconds.

[30:23] Jeff Malone: All right.

[30:23] Richie Grasso: And for 30 seconds, let me get my timer set. You're going to be talking for 30 seconds about Cynthia Nixon in Marjorie Prime. Go.

[30:34] Jeff Malone: I was absolutely blown away by Cynthia Nixon in this. Like I said earlier, I think that she really took this character and made this role her own. She gave us the whole storyline that we needed from to kind of see her as very weary about AI, bringing it into a moment of maybe slightly enjoying it, wanting to keep that story, and then also having to completely change into a different character throughout. I was blown away. She will get a Tony nomination.

[31:04] Richie Grasso: There we go. 30 seconds. She'll get a Tony nomination. Hang in there strong.

[31:08] Jeff Malone: There we go. That's kind of fun to talk about something for 30 seconds.

[31:10] Richie Grasso: Half minute!

[31:12] Jeff Malone: Half minute at half hour. Well, that does wrap up our discussion of this episode today. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into Marjorie Prime. And 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 Marjorie Prime. 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.

[31:35] Jeff Malone: All right. Until next time, I'm Jeff.

[31:37] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie saying ta-ta for now.

[31:39] Jeff Malone: Bye.

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