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[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, story lines, and everything in between.

[0:10] Richie Grasso: In today's episode, we'll be discussing the new Broadway musical Water for Elephants.

[0:14] Jeff Malone: Whether you're unable to catch the show in person or you're looking to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you.

[0:19] Richie Grasso: And as always, we want to give you a heads up 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: I'm Richie, and we're thrilled to be your hosts for today's episode.

[0:30] Jeff Malone: So without further ado, let's start the conversation about Water for Elephants.

[0:40] Richie Grasso: Half hour.

[0:52] Jeff Malone: After losing what matters most, a young man jumps a moving train, unsure of where the road will take him and finds a new home with a remarkable crew of a traveling circus and a life and love beyond his wildest dreams.

[1:03] Richie Grasso: Seen through the eyes of his older self, his adventure becomes a poignant reminder that if you choose the ride, life can begin at any age.

[1:10] Jeff Malone: Directed by Tony Award nominee Jessica Stone, a book by three-time Tony nominee Rick Ellis, adapted from Sara Gruen's novel, and a score by Pig Pen Theater Company, Water for Elephants unites innovative stagecraft for the very best of raw talent, and an authentic and deeply moving new musical that invites us all to give ourselves to the unknown.

[1:29] Richie Grasso: Alright, so let's start with our bold statement about the piece and see how that unfolds into our conversation today.

[1:35] Jeff Malone: So you get to go first.

[1:36] Richie Grasso: Alright, here is my bold statement on Water for Elephants.

[1:44] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[1:47] Richie Grasso: I didn't love it.

[1:48] Jeff Malone: I didn't hate it.

[1:50] Richie Grasso: Just bold statement.

[1:51] Jeff Malone: Just my bold statement.

[1:57] Richie Grasso: I think that Water for Elephants is going to do much better than people are pinning it to do.

[2:05] Jeff Malone: Better where?

[2:06] Richie Grasso: You mean in awards?

[2:09] Jeff Malone: In ticket sales?

[2:10] Richie Grasso: In overall, like length of this on Broadway, and yes, maybe in the awards.

[2:17] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[2:17] Richie Grasso: Well, we're gonna dive into this then now.

[2:19] Jeff Malone: Can't wait.

[2:20] Richie Grasso: So let's I so when we start with talking about this is a very famous book, this is a very famous movie.

[2:26] Jeff Malone: A lot of people know the subject matter already.

[2:28] Richie Grasso: And actually, as y'all are listening to this, Jeff and I have never seen the movie, and I actually started the book and never finished it.

[2:35] Jeff Malone: So we didn't really know too much about the plot going in.

[2:37] Richie Grasso: We kind of did that on purpose with this.

[2:38] Jeff Malone: A lot of times we do watch the film or read the book before we go, and this time we decided not to do that with this.

[2:43] Richie Grasso: That was kind of an interesting take to learn the plot for the first time, I think, watching this.

[2:47] Jeff Malone: Um which is very different than when we just saw The Notebook and we knew the movie so the movie, we've known the book, and this one was complete opposite, and we kind of did that purposefully, I think, not going in.

[3:01] Richie Grasso: I look at this and I say, I say meh because I say even the plot to me is I don't know.

[3:01] Jeff Malone: I don't know.

[3:09] Richie Grasso: I'm nothing about this gripped me and grasped me and took me the way I probably wanted it to.

[3:17] Jeff Malone: And when I say that, I a few things, and I will highlight some things that I did enjoy, but when I look at this thing as a whole, I didn't feel anything for the score.

[3:27] Richie Grasso: I found the plot to be like, okay, sure.

[3:31] Jeff Malone: Like, I don't know.

[3:32] Richie Grasso: Nothing was like enticing enough for me.

[3:35] Jeff Malone: Other than, yes, there were some incredible acrobatic stunts, but we see that in circuses already.

[3:40] Richie Grasso: So I'm not I don't think they're doing anything reinvented there with it, even though it is amazing.

[3:45] Jeff Malone: I think the puppets are nice.

[3:46] Richie Grasso: The use of puppetry for the animal representation is nice.

[3:50] Jeff Malone: Uh and so that was a nice element.

[3:53] Richie Grasso: There's obviously some wonderful talent on the stage, but it this was an example to me of a show where the director is doing one thing and the scenic designer is doing another thing, and the costume designer is doing another thing, and then the music writers are doing another thing.

[4:07] Jeff Malone: This didn't look like a bunch of a team got together and worked on this piece together.

[4:12] Richie Grasso: I really don't feel that.

[4:14] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[4:15] Richie Grasso: I don't know if I necessarily fully agree with you on this.

[4:18] Jeff Malone: I feel like I definitely liked this show a bit more than you did.

[4:23] Richie Grasso: I think we know people too that did not really gel with this show at all.

[4:29] Jeff Malone: So I feel like going into this, I was trying to go in with an open eye and really see what this creative team number one was putting on this stage, how they put it on the stage, and then also not letting other people really sway my opinion.

[4:45] Richie Grasso: And at the end of the day, maybe it did still kind of sway my opinion, because the whole time I was waiting for the show to lack of a better saying that is be bad.

[4:55] Jeff Malone: And it wasn't.

[4:57] Richie Grasso: So I kind of wanted to dive a little bit deeper in here on why we might like you necessarily might not be fully gelling with a plot like this.

[5:07] Jeff Malone: And one thing that I was kind of thinking a bit more was is this a story that's kind of a wash rinse repeat?

[5:14] Richie Grasso: Like we've seen stories like this before, and that's why you're like not blown away by something like this.

[5:20] Jeff Malone: It could be.

[5:21] Richie Grasso: It's very like um older person tells a younger story about traveling with the circus and the loves that and the animals and the it just seems like a very surface-y circus story to me.

[5:33] Jeff Malone: I'm not even just talking about this musical, I'm talking about just the story.

[5:36] Richie Grasso: To me, it's like, okay, cool.

[5:39] Jeff Malone: I don't know.

[5:39] Richie Grasso: I don't think that we needed two hours and forty minutes to tell this.

[5:46] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[5:47] Richie Grasso: I I also don't know if the narrator was used to the best of the ability in the staging of this, because there was like so much in and out of the narrator that then I would look on the stage and I would say, oh, he's sitting back there, but he's not lit.

[6:01] Jeff Malone: So are we supposed to not realize, or is he supposed to be in and out?

[6:05] Richie Grasso: Like, you know, when you watch The Drowsy Chaperone, and the man in chair is there and he's like in and out and in and out, and you keep remembering that it's in his living room.

[6:13] Jeff Malone: I didn't find that that was directed well with this.

[6:15] Richie Grasso: I don't think the narrator served the point of what an MC in cabaret does, or even maybe what flashback scenes happened in The Notebook where you had the older Allie and Noah in and out of the interstitial moments, and I think for this, he was just kind of completely lost up there where I didn't know if anyone knew where to put this narrator.

[6:35] Jeff Malone: And so already I'm kind of like, are we feeling for him?

[6:39] Richie Grasso: Sure, but there's a lot going on with that, you know.

[6:43] Jeff Malone: I guess I guess one thing that could be very confusing while watching this is yes, we do have the narrator.

[6:50] Richie Grasso: It's kind of like this flashback piece.

[6:53] Jeff Malone: It's not really made clear in the very beginning that he's telling the story, and the fact that two of the actors in the show are playing other people and also the characters from his past was a little confusing at first.

[7:07] Richie Grasso: I'm gonna agree with that.

[7:09] Jeff Malone: It's something that you had to click sooner, and then once you realize that that's what was actually happening, sure.

[7:16] Richie Grasso: It kind of worked.

[7:17] Jeff Malone: But you know, I was talking to someone else about this and I said this is almost like the fourth show this season where we have an older man narrator telling their story.

[7:29] Richie Grasso: So it's like we have Water for Elephants, we have The Notebook, we had Harmony, and there's one more I'm trying to remember.

[7:37] Jeff Malone: Well, Catabra kind of has an MC but uh a narrator but not really maybe thinking of something else but but I'm like watching it and I'm just saying why am I finding because listen I enjoyed Water for Elephants but I know it's not perfect.

[7:52] Richie Grasso: And I'm not saying it's perfect, but why do we have this older kind of narrator part really being the star I'm finding in the shows it's kind of being a distraction number one.

[8:07] Jeff Malone: It's a tr it's a it's a tool that is used to just and this is once again goes back to trusting audiences oh if you put a narrator in everything will make sense and then we'll understand and you know the narrator is supposed to be the audience's crutch the place where we look for guidance and support and in this there was no I I just didn't understand what was the the point.

[8:29] Richie Grasso: I did feel a little bit for him at the very end when he jumps on the train with them and says that you can join the circus at any age.

[8:35] Jeff Malone: That was a very Disney moment and I thought it was cute.

[8:38] Richie Grasso: And I did enjoy the last like 10 minutes of it but it took us way too long to get to that emotion of that narrator usage.

[8:45] Jeff Malone: Right, but I think what I'm trying to say here though is like any time he came on the stage, I kind of like didn't want him to.

[8:54] Richie Grasso: And I don't think that should have been the intention.

[8:57] Jeff Malone: Right.

[8:57] Richie Grasso: Because we were having some really like plot moments with certain actors up on that stage, especially like when Isabel is like singing with the younger version of him, and we're like watching this, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, why is he coming in now?

[9:16] Jeff Malone: This is like taking completely away from the actual scene that's happening.

[9:24] Richie Grasso: We'll be right back.

[9:28] Jeff Malone: Welcome back.

[9:30] Richie Grasso: So where in The Notebook, like Marianne Plunkett's uh playing uh older Allie is like on the stage but far away and watching the scene happen, he was like literally sometimes touching them in the scene, and I and it wasn't clear, and I also feel like what was uh yes there was and and just to keep diving into a little bit more of some of this, it there was so much there was the plot moved so slow for me that I didn't under I didn't feel any sort of excitement or sadness throughout because I'm like what halfway through after what I'm like what is going on?

[10:03] Jeff Malone: I I just I found that the staging to be very like the ensemble walks on, the ensemble walks off.

[10:09] Richie Grasso: And if we had one more scene just front and center in a bare stage, like pull intimate scenes down more, close them off in darker lighting.

[10:18] Jeff Malone: I'm gonna be completely honest with you. The lighting design was amazing because the lighting designer had almost nothing to work with. It had to light so much, there was almost no scenery. The high top tent. They're putting up the big high top tent, and that's the top the tent, like a piece of fabric hung like that. I also found the scaffolding train cars to be very clunky, but also very eh, like, okay, this is what this big spectacle mega budget musical is gonna put out. And then when we talk about some I thought the costumes were period and really nice. I thought the puppetry was nice, but all act one, we're hearing about this elephant that's got this big elephant's gonna save the day. And to me, when you finally see the elephant, you're like, okay, this is kind of a small elephant, only because the stage is so big that it looks so small.

And when I think of the elephant and Phantom of the Opera, or I think of the elephant and the Lion King, which are double the size of this rosy elephant, I'm like, we couldn't just pull a little bit more budget to get just a little bit that looked like a baby elephant up there, which then they're like, well, she's 50 years old, the elephant or something. They said like she's really old, and but a big elephant would be so much bigger than that. And so to me, I'm like, I don't know, this stage was bare half the time. It just didn't seem like it was finished.

[11:44] Richie Grasso: Yeah. The design, the staging, I felt like I think.

[11:48] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I mean, we definitely were not blown away by the elephant. I mean, that's definitely clear there, I would say. Like my overall thoughts here on the actual book, though, could have still been edited down a bit. Some of the book scenes definitely moved a little slow.

[12:03] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[12:03] Jeff Malone: And it was like, come on, we get it. And there was probably two too many songs. Like, but let's talk about the score now, as we're kind of going into a little bit of this. Um But wait, I just want to touch on the elephant real quick before we get into the actual score and like some of the character performances, because I feel like with the elephant expanding our thoughts on this a bit more. You and I have seen puppetry now on the stage.

[12:32] Richie Grasso: So we've seen it in Lion King. We even saw it in the Winnie the Pooh um ex show that they did off Broadway. We saw it in Life of Pi last year. Some amazing puppetry things. I thought in the beginning they were going really cool and unique with the puppets. Like the masks were only parts of the um animals. And then we put together the elephant. And I do feel like where I'm aligning with you on this is like, yeah, I wasn't wowed by it. The other animals felt really cool and different. And kind of like the puppetry in Life of Pi and how brilliant that was. And then you're seeing like this, and you're like, okay, like the puppetry just didn't seem finished to me. It just didn't seem like it was finished.

[13:19] Jeff Malone: Right, but I felt like that was cool because that was like those animals were part of the actors, and the elephant didn't have that same style. But the elephant also has a major plot point, too, right? Because that's trying to save them, but then the elephant is disturbed, but then the elephant, you know, spoiler alert, kind of causes the stampede and kills the man at the end. And the elephant's such a at the name of the show is Water for Elephants. I mean, it's you would think there would have just been more of a huge, beautiful, gorgeous puppet of an elephant. I I don't know. Is that so hard to ask for? I don't have it. I just don't know why that would have been so much more difficult.

[13:56] Richie Grasso: I don't think it's difficult. What I'm saying is I don't feel like the stylized version of the other animals was a through line through to the elephant, and this elephant looked very different compared to what was actually happening on the stage from a design point. So we weren't wowed from it because I think I was so wowed by the other things that they were doing. That like, where was the cool uniqueness of like that horse being the dancer?

[14:20] Jeff Malone: Well, the horse being the dancer and the horse death was probably my favorite part. It was gorgeously staged. I felt like when she was holding the horse and petting the horse, it was such gorgeous puppetry movement. And you really thought that that was a horse there, and then the death of the horse. That was beautiful, and nothing else lived up to the horse.

[14:37] Richie Grasso: I agree. So then my last question on that though was going to be like, Do you feel like someone who is seeing something like Water for Elephants, like a child or someone who doesn't really see a lot of theater and then sees this elephant is gonna be blown away? And then on that, we're going to move into direction and act a performance.

[15:02] Jeff Malone: I do want to talk about score.

[15:03] Richie Grasso: Okay.

[15:04] Jeff Malone: This score did nothing for me. I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel the songs moved anywhere. There was there was moments in the score where, like, oh, and now we will pause the plot for a 10-minute circus act rebat acrobatic show. And the music was like dun dun dun dun dun, and we're like, wow. And like then I was like, oh, now I feel like we're at the circus. Well, I could just be on a circus right now. And then the plot moved on, and then we paused again, and there was more acrobatic work. And that was cool, the acrobatic work and some of the choreo, but it just totally kept stopping and it got clunky and heavy. And most of the songs did nothing for the plot, but most of the songs did nothing for character development.

When I think of a sir another circus show like Side Show, I think of that score being so gorgeous. And so then the act one finale song is all of the people in the circus singing Who Will Love Me as I Am, how how heartbreaking and painful that song is, or I will never leave you. Some of these big songs in that show, and to me, I'm looking at this and I'm like, I I almost could have been a play because the music to me didn't do anything for me. I I couldn't tell you one song, and I I didn't feel for the score. I was intrigued to hear because I've heard about Pig Pen before, and I was kind of I wanted to see what was going to be different with this score.

[16:24] Richie Grasso: You might not think you're going to be ready for what I'm going to say, but I do agree with you that I don't think the score really lands in this show. And my feeling on this is a little bit like where we can think on this a little bit more is like with modern musical theater, we're really starting to fall into a big big trap that we've been saying time and time again is that these scores all sound the same. There's no originality in the music that's coming. And when I'm listening to this, I'm trying to understand like what was their theme that they wanted to go with for this show. Because at the beginning, I was like, all right, maybe we're gonna get like a a kind of folky sound, which was cool, but then we lost it.

We lost it. It was like we were trying to do bluegrassy and then folk, and then all of a sudden it got like rock kind of at one time. I feel, and then it got like Broadway ballad, and then we were backed. It just seemed so inconsistent with style to me. And I was trying to find I was like, oh, okay, maybe they are gonna go with this folky sound, or they are gonna move into a more of a musical theater sound. And I was trying to say, like, hmm. Now we're we're checking the boxes again of um a musical on Broadway. Do you have this? Do you have this? Do you have this? Even as far as to okay, we're gonna give you an 11 o'clock number, but then we're gonna. What are we doing here? Like, what are we singing about? Like, I it to me, I think every word, every note means something, and this was just very let's throw some music together.

[18:17] Jeff Malone: Yeah, I I just well it should be important, and like going back a little bit to the book now, because while we're talking about when you have something like this, and it's a circus piece, and we've had shows like Pippin, Side Show, even as far as Circus Ola doing their own Broadway style musical. How are you now making your circus musical different? And guess what? I'm saying this to you, Great A Showman, because I'm sure you're in the wings next for your circus show. I think you do it in a way that's not your cookie cutter standard, you you do it in the round, like a literal circus ring, maybe, or maybe you um I don't know, there's a million things we but I also feel like when I'm looking at this as a whole, once again, I do think that some elements of this, like the costumes were really nice.

I thought they were really period. I think they learned worked well. I I think some like I said, some of the puppets were nice, but I just feel like and and talk about it. I'll talk about another nice moment. Uh, the horse death scene and the horse was wonderful. I did really, really like the stampede freezing that they were doing at the end when they come in and freeze in the narrator, and then Strobe Blade, Strobe Freeze. That was kind of really cool and kind of a really cool way to now. We've had two shows with Stampedes, Lion King and this that showed a stampede both really well in really different ways. So clearly, like two for two on the Stampede, because that was like so cool to see that moment at the end.

And I didn't know a stampede was coming, and the animals were gonna like react to these people like this. I thought there was a cool way to do it. Very, very cool stylistic way of directing choreographing that.

[20:03] Jeff Malone: For sure. And now let's let's make a bold statement on who do you think is like the top standout performer in this show.

[20:14] Richie Grasso: We'll be right back.

[20:19] Jeff Malone: Let's jump back into things. Isabel McCall is great.

[20:23] Jeff Malone: She's really talented. She has a few real in act two, she had a few really serious acting moments. I thought she was great. And I thought Paul Alexander Nolan was really strong. I think they're both I could see them getting potential Tony nominations for this.

[20:36] Richie Grasso: Sure.

[20:37] Jeff Malone: Uh, I do think that they're really working hard up there. Those were my two standouts for sure.

[20:41] Richie Grasso: Yeah. Also, I will say Sauer Gettlefinger only because she's a really seasoned pro. If you look at her bio, she's been in a lot of shows. Uh, I loved her in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels years ago. And she's, I haven't seen her name in a show in a while. And she's up there, she's tall, she's got that blonde wig on. She has a mo, she has a song. I wasn't my favorite song, but she kind of works her song. And I think to see Sarah's name up there again is pretty cool. So kudos to her. She's a Broadway vet, and uh, she's been in a lot, so good for her.

[21:09] Jeff Malone: Again, I'm gonna say top two in the show too are Isabella McCullough and Paul Alexander Nolan. They really knew how to own that stage. They were giving acting moments as well as great vocals. I actually also think that they had some of the best music in the show. So, you know, when she is doing that number with the horse, like you said, it is one of the best moments in the show, I think.

[21:35] Richie Grasso: And that leads into the acrobatics now that are happening on that stage. And we have to applaud it.

[21:40] Jeff Malone: Oh, yeah. I mean, the acrobatics are brilliant. The way these people are throwing their bodies across the stage, they make it look so easy. Like, do they not make it look so easy? When he slid down the pole and almost stopped at the floor, I actually like when he slid down and put the hat on the guy's head, when they're throwing the bodies and doing the spinning, it's gorgeous.

[21:58] Richie Grasso: But I asked the question between Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey, and then even Cirque de Soleil. We've had over a hundred years of circus acts in American history and in the world. My question to you, Jeff, is if I could go in the Big Apple Circus, if I could go to a circus and see that, which is also amazing. And maybe some of these people have done circus before. Why do I then need to see it in the musical where multiple times we're pausing the plot? And yes, I understand in musical theater we've had dream ballets and 20 minutes dance sequences that do pause the plot. I get it. I'm not saying this is anything new in the musical theater form, but to constantly keep doing it, I almost felt like then the audience applauding, going, ooh, ah, like I'm at a circus.

Well, maybe the creators were like, well, that was the point, is that we wanted you to feel like you were at a circus, but it totally then elongated this piece to being so long and taking a plot that does not need to be told over two and a half hours. So my question is do you feel any different if you just said I'll just go to the circus and see it?

[23:01] Jeff Malone: I'm gonna take your words out of your own mouth and say there's room for everything on Broadway.

[23:06] Richie Grasso: Sure.

[23:07] Jeff Malone: Oh, I think there's definitely room for this. I just think of it. But I feel like this is a great hybrid of collaborating a real musical and acrobatics together. So where when we saw something like Sarto Soleil's Paramour, it lost the whole musical lane and was just a cirque show.

[23:27] Richie Grasso: Right.

[23:27] Jeff Malone: This is doing the opposite. This is really giving you that talent. And I'm gonna say something. I was not expecting this ensemble to have the vocals that they also had, because they had vocal power behind this as well. They're singing and doing all of that. So I don't know if I would get that at a traditional circus.

[23:47] Richie Grasso: True.

[23:48] Jeff Malone: And I understand. I'm just saying that I feel like one too many times we had these long pauses in plot for multiple circus act moments. And I don't know if we really needed that as often as we got it.

[24:02] Richie Grasso: And do you feel that it's making up for something that you thought was missing in the show in general?

[24:07] Jeff Malone: Sure, a driving score that moves plot and gives me emotion because I feel like it was like, well, let's put some music in it. And it's okay, whatever the song sound like because it's all about the circus acts and the puppets, and that seems to be no pun intended, a little bit of a masking of maybe some issues with the plot and the score. And I'm sitting here saying to myself, I'm not buying it. Maybe the average tourist is, maybe the average fan of this movie and book is. I'm sitting here saying I'm not buying it because the puppetry should have been elevated more, and we should have had a high top tent way up here, and we should be looking up there at this gorgeous big tent. Because the whole thing was about putting up the tent. And to me, I don't know, a bare stage with two pieces of scaffolding coming on. It does not cut it for me, Jeff. Not at this caliber, not at the Imperial Theater on Broadway. I'm sorry.

[25:04] Jeff Malone: No, that's just how I feel. I was very underwhelmed.

[25:08] Richie Grasso: Okay.

[25:09] Jeff Malone: I think the elephant was half the size of the scaffolding. If I was supposed to believe an elephant was going in there, I would do it and made an elephant picker. I don't know, but once again, this felt like the puppetry department did their own thing. The costume department did their own thing. The scenic department did their own thing, and then a director tried to put all that together. Oh, but there's acrobats. Oh, there's but there let's just put an acrobatic sequence because everyone's gonna ooh and eye over that. And oh, just um write some music, just heard some music. That's kind of how it felt a little bit.

[25:39] Richie Grasso: Okay.

[25:39] Jeff Malone: So the moral, the moral of the story is you don't think they collaborated on the musical.

[25:44] Richie Grasso: Correct.

[25:45] Jeff Malone: And it seemed rushed and it seemed like and once again, I've seen much worse things. I didn't hate this. I enjoyed parts of it. I sat there thinking that there were some nice things happening. I'm talking about overall as a whole show. I don't know. And listen, I know it got good reviews. I'm sure it's gonna get some Tony nominations. I hope it does well. I just wasn't landing for me the way some other things I'm seeing this season are.

[26:10] Richie Grasso: So if you were a New York Times writer, reviewer, would you have given it a critic's pick?

[26:16] Jeff Malone: No, no, I would have given it an on-the-fence review, which is what I'm kind of doing right now.

[26:20] Richie Grasso: Of course.

[26:21] Jeff Malone: So do you think it deserves a critic's pick?

[26:24] Richie Grasso: I mean, I don't.

[26:27] Jeff Malone: I don't know. I think it's a good thing. Because you know, what's very interesting in the New York Times right now is we've been seeing this critics pick thrown out here and there. And sometimes we look at each other and we say I mean a critic's pick could be a Jeff and Richie pick, uh whatever. A critic's pick could mean anything, you know, it's sure.

[26:46] Richie Grasso: Which goes back, which goes down to it being uh someone's opinion.

[26:50] Jeff Malone: Yeah, yeah. And and that's why I said I do see a talented ensemble working together. There's a lot of talent up there, of course. I just don't know if this was the most cohesive show you've ever seen.

[27:02] Richie Grasso: Uh right.

[27:03] Jeff Malone: Which kind of brings us to our final experience at this show. I mean, I'm looking around and I'm seeing school groups there, I'm seeing older people there, I'm seeing families there. I mean, we saw this in spring break, so it's a little bit different, but I'm saying this does have the space right now on Broadway in the lack of children's family theater on the stage. So if this is a kid's first show, I'm sure they're going to be amazed. And I look at that and I say to myself, Wow, this is someone who's probably going to see this and might want to do theater now because they saw that.

[27:41] Richie Grasso: Sure, there's definitely that appeal to it.

[27:43] Jeff Malone: I could also turn to the same family and say, go to see The Lion King if you're looking for your kids for a show, too.

[27:50] Richie Grasso: Of course.

[27:51] Jeff Malone: I mean, you know what I'm saying?

[27:52] Richie Grasso: But also, yes, if they've seen The Lion King five times, go to this. I get that too, you know.

[27:57] Jeff Malone: Yeah, but well, when you're spending $190 for a ticket versus, you know, you have a family. I do think there's space, and yes, we always want everything to be at the top notch in terms of creativity, which is why we kind of put our headlights out there. That's why I always say with uh I said this on the Back to the Future episode. I'm supportive of this art form and all the people that work on this all the time. So I'm totally for people putting their names on this and putting their all. I even know two people that worked on this show or in it and are working so hard. I think that's amazing. Like this Broadway debuts, and of course, I always say that when I sit on a show and I think about it. I just don't think it was exactly as coherent and cohesive as I would have liked to have seen. And that's why I'm sitting here saying, meh, because I'm saying I'm on the fence, of course, you know, right.

[28:46] Richie Grasso: So there we go.

[28:48] Jeff Malone: Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. So we're getting ready to wrap up. Final thoughts on Water for Elephants on Broadway, Jeff. Go.

[28:55] Jeff Malone: I had a great time at this show. I mean, we're critiquing this based on what we thought could have been better, but overall, I think it's fun. I think many people are going to actually enjoy this, and it has a space on Broadway for the time being.

[29:12] Richie Grasso: It does have a space on Broadway for the time being.

[29:14] Jeff Malone: I will say that. Like I said, I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I'm just sitting on the fence about it. Uh, and I wish everyone in the show well. I hope it does well. I'm just not blown away. And I think with a show of this caliber, of this title, of this all the producers, all the money in a big house like this. I just wish there was a step up of elevation in all departments. And I wish all departments just stepped it up just one notch. And that's where I felt a little bit of lackluster in general in most of the departments of this. But like you said, family theater introduced people to the art form, and kudos to those people working really hard on stage eight times a week. You know, yeah.

[29:55] Richie Grasso: There we go.

[29:56] Jeff Malone: Well, that does wrap up our episode discussion today. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into Water for Elephants on Broadway. We will share the link with ticket information in our description as well. And don't forget we want to hear from you. Continue the conversation with us on Instagram and TikTok at Half Hour Podcast and let us know your thoughts on Water for Elephants. And if you've enjoyed our show please leave us a review. Your feedback helps us bring more theater to you and remember you can listen to past episodes and stay tuned for upcoming ones as well. So until next time I'm Jeff and I'm Richie saying Tata for now.

[30:30] Richie Grasso: Bye.