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[0:15] Eva: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of My First Show.

[0:20] Eva: We are here with a mother-daughter duo who I am so excited to talk to for several reasons. One of them being I get to see this actress come alive and come into her own every night when we were running on Broadway. And I get to be the producer of her very first Broadway musical and her very first Tony Award nomination. Her name is Celia Rose Gooding. Say hello.

[0:48] Celia Rose Gooding: Hi, my darling, my friend.

[0:52] Eva: And her mom is someone who I don't actually think she knows. I became obsessed with in 1992, maybe 93, when I first heard the cast album of her, I think her first Broadway musical, Once on This Island.

[1:12] LaChanze: Yes, it was our first lead.

[1:16] Eva: And that is no Broadway. Hello, LaChanze.

[1:21] LaChanze: Hello, hello, thank you for having us.

[1:25] Eva: Oh, thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. You know, we use this podcast to do a lot of things to talk about theater, to talk about the theater we're missing, but to also be nostalgic about our upbringing and what made us who we are and how we experienced musical theater as a kid and then as an adult. And I think it's kind of remarkable that I'm talking to a mother-daughter acting duo who are living in the same house together right now due to our pandemic wonderfulness.

[2:01] Eva: So everything about your history and your upbringing and your now are kind of meshing as one. So I just need to ask mom and daughter, as roomies, how's it all going?

[2:18] Celia Rose Gooding: Um, I'd say it's going pretty well.

[2:20] LaChanze: Yeah.

[2:21] Celia Rose Gooding: I am lucky enough to have been living with my mom pretty much my entire life when I wasn't in school or at camp. I've been roommate since since since birth, since the beginning.

[2:34] Celia Rose Gooding: And so we've always gotten along. We've always, um, yeah, we've always been really good at living with each other.

[2:43] LaChanze: So I think right now I'm glad to be living with someone that I know I'm compatible living with, and instead of freshly moving in with a roommate and trying to figure that out, especially right now.

[2:54] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[2:54] LaChanze: Yeah, it's been it's been it's actually been quite nice. I was expecting to be an empty nester this year because my youngest is off in college, and Celia was planning after Jag had got settled, she was planning on getting her own apartment and moving into the city. She already had a roommate and everything, and COVID happened, and she's my roommate.

[3:17] LaChanze: So it's actually been quite nice to have someone here, being that we are quarantined, you know?

[3:23] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[3:23] LaChanze: So yeah, that can't. I mean, it's one thing to be an empty nester and be able to go out and see your friends. It's another thing to be stuck in the house.

[3:31] Eva: So is I'm happy that she's around. Is there is like someone on dinner duty and the others on cleanup? Like what, like what are the what are the roommate? Who's the Oscar Madison? Who's the Felix Unger? Like, how does it all actually go?

[3:46] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh, I take the dishes out of the dishwasher, she puts them in. That's sort of how we've we've split it up and it's been working pretty well.

[3:56] LaChanze: Yeah, we're we're um I do most of the cooking, I would say.

[4:00] Celia Rose Gooding: Yes, you do.

[4:00] LaChanze: I'm still mom, so I still do most of the the cooking. Um, but you know, we we kind of split things up, you know. We're we're not like, hey, this is your job, this is my job. If there's something that needs to happen and I'm not around, typically Celia will do it. If there's something that needs to happen and she's not around, I'll do.

[4:20] LaChanze: So we kind of she's she's an ideal roommate because she will she sees things that need to be done and she'll do them without me asking, so that keeps me from being mom, you know, which I really like. Because I don't want to be mom all the time.

[4:34] LaChanze: I really don't. I'd rather just, you know, be her roommate. And so it works for that reason sometimes. So it's it's it's been fortunately, we've not had any incidents with regard to being stuck in the house together.

[4:47] Celia Rose Gooding: Not yet, anyway.

[4:48] LaChanze: Listen, we're looking the way we're looking.

[4:51] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, if it's not over yet.

[4:54] LaChanze: Something's gonna happen.

[4:56] Celia Rose Gooding: No plates have been flung across the kitchen at the other.

[5:00] LaChanze: Listen, Eva, if I don't show up to the first rehearsal, you know what happened.

[5:05] Celia Rose Gooding: She cleaned that cat litter.

[5:08] LaChanze: Cat litter, that's the job I don't do. That's her job.

[5:11] Eva: And and how has I mean, because you you mentioned it, like like time was going by in a certain way. Celia was on Broadway. She was about to move in to her own apartment. You you were you, LaChanze were about to be an empty nester. All of that stopped. This devastating pandemic hit not only our country and our city, but our industry in a profound and horrific way.

[5:37] Eva: And now we are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. How have you coped and sort of dealt with the ups and downs of this of these 10 months and what and what what's your outlook for what's to come?

[5:53] LaChanze: You know, there have been waves of through this whole period that I'm sure most people have experienced. Initially, we were like, woo-hoo, two weeks, we don't have anything to do. Because initially it was two weeks. So we were thinking this would be great. We get to be stuck in the house together or get to clean closets and eat great food and cook all day and do those kinds of catch up on binge watching TV shows, catch up on reading.

[6:18] LaChanze: And then we did that. And um we did that. And then it was like, okay, now what? And then, you know, George Floyd happened, and that really just um just threw through us and sort of like this moment of deep emotional concern and fear, and and it just it just really ripped through our family and our community in a profound way, which then ignited us to um become very uh become advocates for racial justice and equality.

[6:52] LaChanze: So one of the things that me and a few of my friends did based on a tweet that I put out about um my industry, not not feeling the support of um so many uh different areas of our industry, I just put out a little simple tweet about, you know, I wish my I could hear more from our community, um, the theater community, and that tweet sort of went viral, and then um got a call from Audrey McDonald, and she was in full agreement with me, and Black Theater United came out of that conversation.

[7:24] LaChanze: And so um that sort of like took it took a lot of my focus during the summer, and it still does. We're we're very active with our 19 founding members, and we've been very active with the things that we've done as an organization. But it was what it was a way to, it was someplace to put all of the angst and and and energy that um I didn't have anywhere else to put because of work.

[7:49] LaChanze: So it was good in that regard, and and then the Zooms started happening. So we started zooming like crazy with everyone and doing all kinds of virtual concerts and songs and interviews and different things, and so that kept us busy.

[8:05] LaChanze: But then it's but now I feel now that the elections happened and we've gotten through all of that. We have new president, you know, everyone is starting to feel uh what what does Fauci call it? Uh fatigue. He calls it yeah, it calls it quarantine fatigue or something like that.

[8:25] LaChanze: And I'm starting to feel that for sure. I'm ready to get out of this house and see my friends and have a little bit more of a life. Um, so it it was it's been ups and downs, I'll say that's what it's been for me.

[8:34] Celia Rose Gooding: It's been ups and downs.

[8:39] Eva: Yeah. How about yourself?

[8:41] Celia Rose Gooding: Um I would agree.

[8:44] Celia Rose Gooding: I would say that there have been a lot of ups and downs. I feel um, I feel a little, I wouldn't say displaced, but just it it's it's interesting my circumstances. I started working with the show when I was really, really young, and that was sort of like the thing I was looking forward to for years.

[9:05] Celia Rose Gooding: And then it the show came to Broadway, and I was getting ready to give the next 52 weeks of my life to that and and worry about the future when it happened. Um, and then the pandemic hit, and um, I felt really displaced. I was really, really confused and just candidly speaking, mentally was just it was a weird, weird time and a really um difficult headspace to navigate.

[9:31] Celia Rose Gooding: But um yeah, I we did the zooms, we did the galas, we did the the concerts, we did all of that, and we're still doing those, but I feel like they've slowed down a little bit just because everyone's getting a little um settled into this uh different normal.

[9:50] Celia Rose Gooding: Um yeah, I've been coping, I've been getting through. Some days are tougher than others, and I feel like something that I've been really focusing on is allowing myself to make space for the good days and also make space for the bad days because I'm young and Jagged means a lot to me, and this show means a lot to me, and not being able to do it, of course, has uh a toll on my happiness, but um it's it's it it would uh that's normal, and I'm allowing myself to uh realize that it's normal to be a little heartbroken right now, and judging myself for being heartbroken isn't helpful.

[11:03] Celia Rose Gooding: I was either 16 or I just turned 17, because I remember March 2017 was like.

[11:03] Celia Rose Gooding: It just I gotta pick myself up and get ready for the next thing and get ready for the next gala and and prep myself for rehearsal for the next project and just uh keep myself busy and flexing those creative muscles so that when everything comes back, I'll it'll be a a more seamless transition of it'll be a seamless transition of power.

[11:03] Eva: When you got involved in Jagged, you were 16. Is that right?

[11:03] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh yeah, I think in the first reading she was 16, yeah.

[11:03] Eva: Yeah.

[11:07] Eva: Oh, that's right. That was your day of rehearsal with that picture of you with the wings.

[11:11] Celia Rose Gooding: Yep.

[11:12] Eva: Yeah.

[11:13] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, that was, yeah, she had just turned 17.

[11:15] Eva: Just turned 17. So, and you know, it's been a while since I've been 17. But one of the things that I remember from high school and college years is that time seemed to go slow so slow that when some when time was interrupted, when something was either I was told that something couldn't happen for X amount of months or it wasn't gonna happen on the timeline I thought, it felt like forever.

[11:39] LaChanze: And I remember a boss for a new job who said, you know, well, we're gonna talk in six months, and that's when you can start. And I know for you that feels like a year from now or years from now. Well, for me, that's tomorrow. It was really good advice because it, you know, you're right. Like, not that I'm here to give you advice on this podcast, but I totally get it that when your life is disrupted and you're a younger person just beginning all of these journeys, it feels like forever. I worry sometimes about our children, um, about the generation, the Sulli's generation. Um, and even those actors that were working in theater whose jobs just stopped, not only your show, but there are a lot of um like Celia's fortunate, she gets to come back home, you know, she gets to go back to her room and be back in her home, her childhood home that she lived in forever. So she hadn't started paying her bills yet, or you know, she hadn't started that part of her life.

[12:45] Celia Rose Gooding: I work.

[12:46] LaChanze: She pays her bill.

[12:50] Celia Rose Gooding: My bill.

[12:50] LaChanze: Singular.

[12:51] Celia Rose Gooding: Her one bill.

[12:53] LaChanze: She pays her bill.

[12:55] Celia Rose Gooding: Okay, sorry, health insurance.

[12:56] LaChanze: That's right. You're in the union.

[12:58] Celia Rose Gooding: So she pays that too.

[13:01] LaChanze: It's so funny getting mail from now from the union and her name is on it. It's hilarious.

[13:06] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[13:06] LaChanze: So but I worry about those other kids, you know, that are in these shows that are now so many have had to pick up and leave New York. So many have had to move back into their families' homes. We're talking about adults, you know, that have been on their own and living in the city. They've had to close up their apartments and go back and figure out alternate ways of living. And that's, you know, that you're right. The PTSD from this experience is going to have lasting effects.

[13:45] Celia Rose Gooding: I absolutely agree. I think there is a long term effect that we're not realizing in this moment about the mental health of our colleagues and, you know, your colleagues especially, because I truly believe it's the actors and the young actors and the early career actors that are going to have the hardest time recovering from this.

[14:08] LaChanze: And I'm so glad you two have each other, Felix and Oscar.

[14:18] Celia Rose Gooding: It's really breathtaking. Well, being back at home and having this downtime, has it given you a chance to relive the early days of your inspirations? Musical theater inspirations, that is.

[14:36] LaChanze: I mean, yes. Well, yes, and I feel like I have taken this time to really fall deeper in love with musical theater, but I also feel like I've taken this time to sort of explore who I am outside of musical theater. Again, I've been I'm very new, very new, very new at this. Um, and so when I was young and I started working really young professionally, that became my entire personality. Like I was known around school as the girl who's gonna be on Broadway in a few years. And that was just like me. That was all I was. And now that I am that girl still very much, um, I'm also navigating like what else brings me joy and what else I can really fall into that is just on my own accord and not really at the not in the hands of anyone else.

[15:38] Celia Rose Gooding: That's something that can't stop me, uh, or something that cannot be stopped because of a pandemic or for any other reason. And um, yeah, I've actually been really, really enjoying that. And I think that that's what a lot of young actors are doing right now. If we're not putting down self tapes every day or stuff along those lines we're exploring outside of the arts or um we're getting into um science or for me I'm getting really deeply into therapy and um really focusing on my mental health um but yeah I feel like something that we're all learning how to do is see who we are outside of our career and outside of this craft that if we're not careful can consume 100% of our livelihood and that's perfectly fine.

[16:30] LaChanze: I mean I'm glad to have my soul consumed by art.

[16:35] Celia Rose Gooding: But there's an importance to balance and there's an importance to um navigating all sides of who I can be. And so I'm that's something that I've been grateful for during this time is having an opportunity to just see myself outside of Broadway and and know that I am uh I know that there is worth in um focusing on other things too.

[17:00] LaChanze: Let's go back to where it all began right so it's called this show is called my first show. So tell me first show you ever saw we'll start with you LaChanze um where were you what was it?

[17:12] LaChanze: That would be for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enough. When I was 12 years old my mother took me to see that with a group of her girlfriends and um it was very I don't know if you've ever seen the play. It's brilliant. It's by Ntozake Shange. And it is basically a story of a group of women who are bonding on their womanhood, this but bonding over the uh struggles that they've had in their lives. And they're all uh women of color. And it's it's told through poetry and prose.

[17:52] LaChanze: And I didn't quite understand a lot of it because it was thick with um uh flowery language, and so it's really quickly a funny story is the women would I would hear them say things like moan to themselves after a certain moment in the play. I would hear them going, or going, mm, or yeah, that's right. And I wasn't always clear as to what they were referring to. So I started just throwing in my own little mm-mm, and yeah, but in the inappropriate times. So they started laughing all around me because they knew that's what I was doing. They knew I was trying to just be the big girl with my mom because I was the only young girl there.

[18:41] Celia Rose Gooding: Wow.

[18:42] LaChanze: And then I was just trying to be a big girl. But I remember seeing all these beautiful black women on stage and brown women on stage, and they were vibrant and gorgeous and colorful and outspoken and dancing and just looking so uh majestic to me that I thought, wow, I would love to be a part of this experience. Um that was the first play, and then I saw Chicago. Um that was my first Broadway musical, and um that was it. That that took me over the edge.

[19:12] Celia Rose Gooding: So amazing. Sal, what was yours?

[19:17] Celia Rose Gooding: Um, I think my first show, was it Lion King? Was Lion King my first show?

[19:24] LaChanze: Uh no.

[19:25] Celia Rose Gooding: Your first show was Little Mermaid?

[19:28] LaChanze: No, yeah, who was my first show?

[19:29] Celia Rose Gooding: Okay, so my memory is she's seen everything I've done except the color purple. Every single show. But because I wouldn't let her see the color purple. But I think it was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[19:39] LaChanze: Oh my goodness, it was!

[19:41] Celia Rose Gooding: I think it was either Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[19:42] LaChanze: No, it was definitely Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[19:44] Celia Rose Gooding: Or in the Heights.

[19:45] LaChanze: No, it was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[19:46] Celia Rose Gooding: It absolutely was because I remember being so young and watching the car fly over the audience and me being terrified because I didn't understand how theater works. I was like, how did they get this car in the air and when is it gonna fall on me? And so yeah, I it was chitty chitty. I think it yeah, it was chitty chitty bang bang, and then you saw Lion King, and then I think in that order.

[20:08] Celia Rose Gooding: I saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Lion King in the Heights, in the Heights, Little Mermaid, Little Mermaid, they were roller skates and Norm was in it.

[20:16] LaChanze: Yep, and Norm was in it.

[20:17] Celia Rose Gooding: So uh so Chitty, that production, this was I think it was called the Ford's theater, right?

[20:23] LaChanze: Then now, yeah, back then and that so how old were you?

[20:28] Celia Rose Gooding: I oh goodness, like could not have been older than like four or five, maybe I I was introduced to the theater real, real young. Um, but I think I was like four, I was really, really young. I remember all I remember is looking at that car and its really bright headlights and being so petrified of thinking that that car was gonna follow me.

[20:50] LaChanze: I was like, why isn't anyone else freaking out? Why is everyone like laughing and clapping?

[20:54] Celia Rose Gooding: I was four.

[20:55] LaChanze: She was four.

[20:55] Celia Rose Gooding: I had to think about it for a second because I was trying to remember what I was doing at the time.

[20:59] LaChanze: And I was in Baby, and I remember you guys went to see that without me.

[21:03] Celia Rose Gooding: But it was chitty chitty chitty bang baby.

[21:05] LaChanze: Oh.

[21:05] Celia Rose Gooding: You went with Derek.

[21:06] LaChanze: Oh.

[21:08] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[21:09] LaChanze: I think it was.

[21:10] Celia Rose Gooding: I I just I don't remember.

[21:11] LaChanze: I just remember it was your first show.

[21:12] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[21:12] LaChanze: And because your mom is an actor, what was the first show you ever saw that your mom was in?

[21:24] Celia Rose Gooding: Um I think it was Baby.

[21:25] LaChanze: It was b I think it was Baby.

[21:26] Celia Rose Gooding: Ink Baby or different.

[21:26] LaChanze: No, baby with the one with Norm again.

[21:28] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, yeah.

[21:29] LaChanze: In Jersey. Remember?

[21:30] Celia Rose Gooding: Yes.

[21:30] LaChanze: At the Paper Mill Playhouse.

[21:32] Celia Rose Gooding: Well, I didn't want them to see me in a lot of the roles that I played in were very traumatic for a child. So they're very adult. I mean, I was doing like DeCarlo's and the Color Purple, and they were really heavy, heavy, heavy parts. So I would let them only see either portions of my shows or I think that was I think Baby was the first one you actually saw me in, but I don't think you remember it because you were so young.

[21:57] Celia Rose Gooding: I was so young.

[21:58] LaChanze: I don't remember anything. But I think the actual first show show that you saw me in was um it had to have been it had to have been if then that you really got to see me.

[22:01] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, that's true.

[22:01] LaChanze: It had to have been if then because it was then or what was the one right um oh it was before if oh uh Cap No, Captain the Sky was after if then um it wasn't the Wiz.

[22:26] Celia Rose Gooding: No, that was it, it was the Wiz.

[22:28] LaChanze: That was the first like show show I got to sit down and watch you through with the Shanti.

[22:32] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, okay.

[22:32] LaChanze: So it was in 2009.

[22:35] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh and she was 11.

[22:38] LaChanze: And I believe that you were nine in 2009.

[22:38] Celia Rose Gooding: That's right.

[22:38] LaChanze: You were nine in 2009, so it was uh the Wiz at this at City Center for the part of their encore series.

[22:48] Celia Rose Gooding: Wow, and and memory uh Sal, what like what was it like to see your mom up there acting?

[22:55] Celia Rose Gooding: It I just remember seeing her in this very large um head wrap.

[23:04] Celia Rose Gooding: It was like two feet tall this thing. Uh my mom looked stunning, gorgeous, beautiful. But I could not shake the fact that you kind of resembled something from Alien. Yeah, it was really big. It was huge. It was big. It was really, really big but she looked beautiful. It was this wonderful like blue, very, very regal honestly like probably one of my mom's favorite costumes. It was very Erykah Badu. It was very Erykah Badu of you, but I just remember it looked like something out of Alien, but um I really, really liked that production. I love The Wiz, um but I of course have a little bit of bias because my mom's in it, but um it was really, really well done that show.

[23:45] LaChanze: Yeah, that was Tommy Kail and Black and Blau. It was the whole Hamilton team.

[23:49] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh yeah, director, choreographer, yeah, and Alex was musical director, yeah, it was all a Hamilton team.

[23:55] Eva: First show you were in, Celia, let's start with you. Uh first like show ever or like show or like Jagged, don't have to pay to pee. Um and I think wasn't no the first show ever was probably I would consider milestone.

[23:55] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh yes, when you did Shakespeare. So you want to tell this? I feel like you love this story.

[24:18] LaChanze: Oh my god, I love this story. I'll tell the story. So, um when Celia was, I had her in a Montessori program when she was very young. Montessori is a type of education for some people they don't understand, it's a school. It's a, it's it was like a little private school that she went to, a very small school and the, and tiny, tiny school. I mean the classrooms were like maybe six, seven kids. So anyway, um the head administrator of the school insisted that the children learn Shakespeare. They had, we had to know and she would teach them a Shakespeare play every year. They would do one Shakespeare play. We’re talking about pre-kind, like pre-K to third grade. Okay, like these young babies were reciting Shakespeare.

It was crazy. It was important because it was black and brown kids. It was all black and brown kids, and they all learned, and what she would do is she would take certain scenes and little medleys, like little medleys of the scenes, and she would have the actors, the young kids, like one child would be the nurse in one scene, and then the next scene that same child would be Juliet. That was me, and that was Celia. So Celia was Juliet, she was one of the witches, and she was also the nurse, and Celia stole the show.

[25:27] LaChanze: Celia stole the show. Every time she got on stage, the audience perked up, they were laughing hysterically. So yeah, that's when I knew in that moment. I was like, oh my god.

[25:47] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[25:48] LaChanze: She's naturally got this. She was like six years old, six, seven years old, doing this Shakespeare. Then she was switched from Juliet, then she was switched to the nurse. It was very, very um, as a mother, I was so, I was crying the whole time. Everyone else was laughing. It was her, it was literally when I saw that she had this gift to get on stage. But I've known it her whole life. I knew when she was three. Um, but it was when I really noticed that.

[26:13] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, so that was probably her first production.

[26:16] LaChanze: And what was yours, LaChanze?

[26:19] LaChanze: I was uh Lola in Damn Yankees.

[26:24] Celia Rose Gooding: Amazing.

[26:25] LaChanze: Whatever Lola wants.

[26:26] Celia Rose Gooding: Lola, yeah.

[26:28] LaChanze: Whatever.

[26:29] Celia Rose Gooding: Lola.

[26:30] LaChanze: What was really fun? Where?

[26:31] LaChanze: I was in high school in Connecticut.

[26:33] Celia Rose Gooding: Did you love musicals before Damn Yankees? Or and and that experience taught you that you were ripe for this career, or or how did you get the role?

[26:45] LaChanze: Like what how did that come to you? My parents, um, my dad was in the military. He was Coast Guard, so we traveled quite a bit in my childhood. We lived all up and down the east and west coasts of the country because he was Coast Guard. So I never really had a settled experience until we got to high school. That's when uh my parents separated and divorced, and my mom moved us to Connecticut from Florida to be with my uncle. And so that's where I really was able to learn about theater. Prior to that, because we traveled so often, my mother would put me and my siblings in different art programs and cultural centers all around. So I've been dancing. My first choice was a dance. I was going to be a concert dancer until I discovered theater.

[27:34] LaChanze: Um, so theater didn't really come into my life until high school, until let's say junior high school. I was in seventh grade the first time I saw a play, so that's when I really started discovering it. Um, but it had been nurtured from really early, early on through dance.

[27:51] Eva: First professional show, LaChanze. Let's start with you.

[27:55] LaChanze: My first prof, where you mean where I got paid?

[28:00] Celia Rose Gooding: You got paid.

[28:00] LaChanze: You got paid. I got $400 and I got my first paycheck. It was at um, I was in college in Philadelphia, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, University of Arts in Philadelphia, and I was working at a local dinner theater. Um and I'll never forget getting a paycheck. I remembered uh taking a picture of it and wanting to frame it and everything because it was my first check. And I was uh the tornado in The Wiz back then because I was dancing. So that was my first professional job um out of college, outside of college.

[28:38] Eva: And how much was that check for? Do you remember?

[28:41] LaChanze: My God, it wasn't much at all. I remember putting a ring on layaway out of that check. I remember I wanted to buy myself something to note the occasion, and I went to the, I was in college, I had no money. I was like a starving student. Yeah, and I went to like a I don't know, K Jewelers or something, and I saw a ring, and I said I have to buy something with my first paycheck from my first job. And I used my paycheck to as a down payment for the ring. And I think it was something like $35. It was no money.

[29:14] LaChanze: Yeah, there was it was I wasn't, it was no, I mean if I got $50, I made a lot of money. I mean, it was just like no money. It was dinner theater.

[29:20] LaChanze: Yeah. My first professional real job was in Jersey City, though. That's where I really when I was working at the Tropicana Hotel. Uh that was a real check. They paid me in cash though. Very interesting.

[29:32] Eva: Do you get dinner at the dinner theater when you work there?

[29:36] LaChanze: Yes, we got dinner, and I think that was a part of the paycheck. For a college student, it was amazing. So I would get, I got a free meal. So yeah, it was um it was it was a meal and a paycheck. And I literally think we made $35 a sh. It was either $35 a week or $35 a show. I don't remember who was per show. Hopefully it was per show.

[29:56] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh my gosh.

[29:58] LaChanze: Oh god.

[29:59] Celia Rose Gooding: No, the other way it's horrific, but yes, oh god, no, it's what we do. It's what we do at first.

[30:03] Eva: And Celia, your first professional show.

[30:07] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh it's this small show. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called Jagged Little Pill.

[30:13] LaChanze: Um I star in it with uh Elizabeth Stanley, Sean Alan Krill.

[30:17] Celia Rose Gooding: I'm sure you'll meet them at some point. Um Derek Klena, Catherine Gallagher, Lauren Patton, and Antonio Cipriano were in the Broadhurst Theater. Um I can't really can't wait for you to see it.

[30:26] LaChanze: Yeah.

[30:28] Celia Rose Gooding: It's really a spectacular.

[30:29] LaChanze: It sounds wonderful.

[30:31] Celia Rose Gooding: It sounds really, it sounds like the producers of it are pretty wonderful.

[30:36] LaChanze: They're actually I think y'all would get along very well.

[30:40] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh they're kind open people.

[30:43] LaChanze: Uh they answer whenever I call.

[30:46] Celia Rose Gooding: And I do call often.

[30:48] LaChanze: Um yeah, it's it's been a dream.

[30:53] Eva: So I can we just stop for a minute and everyone not like really stop the presses. I just mean Celia, LaChanze, and I stop for a minute and realize that the first professional show of this person. This is the first time this has happened on this podcast, I'm telling you, where the first professional show is also this person's first Broadway show, which is also this person's first Tony nomination.

[31:19] Celia Rose Gooding: It’s it I talk to mom about this every once in a while, just like, what, what? Because it's it's something that like I have stopped trying to force myself to like understand and and just like recognize it in its fullness because it's it's a lot of milestones all happening at one time and also in like probably the weirdest year of my entire life, yeah, uh for good and for bad.

[31:50] LaChanze: But um yeah, it's it's it's really special circumstances I'm in, and the the gravity of it um it's not lost upon, it's not lost on me.

[32:02] Eva: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things that I worry about is um uh not worry, but one of the things that I impress upon Celia oftentimes is the um understanding that you know you gotta have balance in life, and this is so much happening for her at such an impressionable time in her life, and you know, it it's the beginning and it's a pretty hell of a springboard, but this business requires a certain level of tenacity and resilience and um the ability to understand that things can be great, things can be not so great, you know, and that there's a balance.

[32:38] LaChanze: So, as a mom, my job is to make sure that she's still very balanced in life. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I never put her in this industry professionally at a young age when I have had people come to me when she was much younger and they saw it and they would say, Hey, you think you can get we'd love to have uh so you audition for something? And I wanted her to have pretty much of a childhood. I want her to be a child as long as she could. I could have been a Disney kid.

[33:06] LaChanze: Not under my watch, wasn't happening, but so so I'm happy that it happened the way it did, quite honestly, because she's been prepped most of her life for something like this.

[33:16] Eva: So, did you have any trepidations then? Even at 16, 17, knowing that this was a Diane Paulus musical, a Tom Kitt musical, a music by Alanis, it was obviously gonna have a very intense track and it wasn't such intense subject matter. Like, did any of that either give you pause or or make you think things differently before you know helped her make this opportunity a reality?

[33:45] LaChanze: Well, before the be when when it first started, it was um, it was a conversation that I had with with Tom that uh put all of those fears to rest. So um initially it was just hey, I'm I'm doing this workshop. I was wondering if I could have uh and you told me your daughter sings. You think maybe you sent me some video of her singing so see if I can have use her in this workshop. And then once he heard the voice and he saw the video that I sent him of her, and and I and I it was Tom, so I would completely trust anything with Tom. And um then the audition process happened after that. So that's when she had to go in and read for the part and work with Diane and and I and I was appreciative of that too, that they didn't just give her the part. I was happy that they put her through the audition process because I wanted her to earn it.

[34:39] Celia Rose Gooding: You know, I didn't want it to be one of those, oh well, she's LaChanze's daughter, and blah blah blah, you know. People will have their opinions. People may have those opinions, but you know, we will go on the record stating she definitely auditioned. Yep. She definitely earned the part. Um, but um I had confidence in in in uh Tom having my daughter in Tom's hands. And also then I got to speak with Diane quite a bit. And she and I had a few conversations about um things that I would I was concerned about as a mom and knowing that Diane is a mom as well, yeah, she would be open to those conversations. Um yeah, and it was it was it was a mutual we we kept the communication open, and I thought that that was important given that she was a minor and she was being thrust into these uh very adult situations at the time, adult for her.

Um so um, but everyone was sort of circled around Celia and gave her the protection. I I want to say for lack of a better word, and and um support support of of what she needed, and and I was happy about that.

[35:47] LaChanze: So we're ready for dream time, guys. If you could be in any show anywhere at any time, what would it be? Any uh why uh I can't go first. Um any show at any time. Oh gosh. Um uh I would uh I want to be in Great Comet. I feel like that show uh had such a short lived time on Broadway when it really could have it I truly think that that show could have had the opportunity to go on forever. But um, Great Comet, absolutely. Um I would have to do a little bit of vocal training to get my voice up to where I I would want it to be for Natasha, but um uh yeah, Great Comet, definitely.

[36:39] Celia Rose Gooding: Same type of production, like with Josh Groban and directed by Rachel, or do you have like a reimagined plan? Oh gosh, I have a reimagined version with all of all of my friends with Antonio and Renee and Jalen and Haley and Eva and Catherine and Lauren, and of course I'd find a way to put the Jagged Little Pill cast over there. But um yeah, I uh I have um definitely the same theater, definitely the same um set, definitely the same um honestly the same show. I loved the show. It was probably one of the most engaging shows I've seen on Broadway. But um yeah, I definitely would want to be a part of that.

[37:21] LaChanze: Yeah. And you, LaChanze, what's your dream world dream show? Oh god, I have a couple. One would be Evita. I would love to be Eva Perón. Um, and the other is Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar.

[37:35] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, I love that idea.

[37:38] LaChanze: Yeah, I would love to be Judas.

[37:40] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh wow. Have you heard the Indigo Girls version of Jesus Christ Superstar?

[37:47] LaChanze: So 20 plus years ago, the actual Indigo Girls recorded a version of them, those two women being Judas and Jesus singing Jesus Christ Superstar.

[37:58] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh no, I have not heard that. I'll have to look into that.

[38:01] LaChanze: Yeah, Amy and uh and uh I'm such a bad lesbian right now. Emily. Amy and Emily. Um okay, I will look into that.

[38:11] Celia Rose Gooding: Definitely check it out. Um well listen, I think knowing the trajectory you both are on and have, I think both those dreams are very possible. So that's that's exciting. I'd like to see them, if not produce them.

[38:25] LaChanze: So let's keep talking. Um so this is our surprise lightning round.

[38:34] Celia Rose Gooding: And it is a little bit of a free association.

[38:39] LaChanze: Uh and it's for musical theater aficionados, which I think you both are.

[38:44] Celia Rose Gooding: And I'm gonna give you help if you need some help.

[38:49] LaChanze: Where I speak, I do not sing the lyric to a song, a famous Broadway musical, and you have to shout out what musical it's from.

[38:59] Celia Rose Gooding: Okay.

[39:00] LaChanze: Oh, jeez. And because there's two of you, you're gonna compete against each other.

[39:05] Celia Rose Gooding: So we put 30 seconds on the clock.

[39:09] LaChanze: I speak the lyric. And we see, we see how you both do. And you know.

[39:16] Celia Rose Gooding: Let's go for it.

[39:18] LaChanze: It's gonna be great. I'm just I'm here to help.

[39:20] Celia Rose Gooding: I'm here to help.

[39:21] LaChanze: Um, everyone's a winner on my first show.

[39:24] Celia Rose Gooding: Um here we go.

[39:28] LaChanze: Somebody crowd me with love.

[39:30] Celia Rose Gooding: Somebody forced me to care.

[39:32] LaChanze: Company.

[39:33] Celia Rose Gooding: Dang it! Company.

[39:34] LaChanze: Oh, being oh, being a company.

[39:39] Celia Rose Gooding: Correct.

[39:40] LaChanze: Well, someone tell me when is it my turn?

[39:43] Celia Rose Gooding: Don't I get a dream for myself?

[39:45] LaChanze: Starting now, it's gonna be my turn.

[39:47] Celia Rose Gooding: Uh uh, everything's coming up, bro.

[39:50] LaChanze: Uh, Gypsy is yes, yes.

[39:56] Celia Rose Gooding: I got it.

[39:58] LaChanze: You don't know what I'm feeling.

[39:59] Celia Rose Gooding: I'm more than what you've made of me.

[40:01] LaChanze: I followed the voice you gave to me, but now I've got to find my own.

[40:06] Celia Rose Gooding: You should have listened.

[40:09] LaChanze: Dream Girls.

[40:10] Celia Rose Gooding: Yes.

[40:10] LaChanze: No, that's just that's true.

[40:12] Celia Rose Gooding: And now I gotta find.

[40:15] LaChanze: Listen.

[40:16] Celia Rose Gooding: I'm sorry, but that was not in the original Broadway company of Dream Girls.

[40:21] LaChanze: That was so from the movie.

[40:22] Celia Rose Gooding: It's from the movie.

[40:23] LaChanze: You're right.

[40:24] Celia Rose Gooding: Ooh.

[40:24] LaChanze: Ooh.

[40:26] Celia Rose Gooding: You can't see it at home, folks.

[40:27] LaChanze: But but LaChanze got very defensive just then.

[40:31] Celia Rose Gooding: Very defensive.

[40:32] LaChanze: No, it's a lightning round, lightning round.

[40:34] Celia Rose Gooding: Keep going.

[40:34] LaChanze: Keep going.

[40:36] Celia Rose Gooding: Anything you do, let it come from you.

[40:39] LaChanze: Then it will be new.

[40:41] Celia Rose Gooding: Oh, Steven Sondheim.

[40:43] LaChanze: Um God.

[40:45] Celia Rose Gooding: Anything you do then.

[40:46] LaChanze: Um Steven Sondheim.

[40:47] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah.

[40:48] LaChanze: Ooh.

[40:49] Celia Rose Gooding: Which is a Stephen Sondheim show.

[40:52] LaChanze: Um I know it's his lyric.

[40:54] Celia Rose Gooding: Anything you do, then oh God.

[40:56] LaChanze: Children in the saw this show.

[40:59] Celia Rose Gooding: I'm sorry, I can't think of the name of that.

[41:00] LaChanze: Is it Into the Woods?

[41:01] Celia Rose Gooding: No, it's not Into the Woods.

[41:02] LaChanze: It's um Is it Sunday in the Park?

[41:05] Celia Rose Gooding: Yes.

[41:06] LaChanze: Okay, here we go.

[41:07] Celia Rose Gooding: Sunday in the Park.

[41:08] LaChanze: There you go.

[41:09] Celia Rose Gooding: You did great, guys.

[41:10] LaChanze: Guys, you did great.

[41:11] Celia Rose Gooding: You got them even with a fake out of the film version only song in there.

[41:18] LaChanze: So yeah, Eva.

[41:21] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, Eva.

[41:22] LaChanze: That was not taking the Broadway.

[41:25] Celia Rose Gooding: Yes, it was.

[41:26] LaChanze: No.

[41:27] Celia Rose Gooding: I did Dream Girls.

[41:28] LaChanze: I'm like, Dream Girls.

[41:29] Celia Rose Gooding: That is not from Dream Girls.

[41:31] LaChanze: Oh, I did Dream.

[41:32] Celia Rose Gooding: I know me, my Dream Girls.

[41:33] LaChanze: I didn't know Dream Girls.

[41:35] Celia Rose Gooding: That was my first national tour.

[41:37] LaChanze: Come on, we had to throw it a little Beyoncé.

[41:39] Celia Rose Gooding: Let's be honest.

[41:39] LaChanze: You got it.

[41:40] Celia Rose Gooding: Absolutely.

[41:41] LaChanze: No, it's not a day without Beyoncé.

[41:43] Celia Rose Gooding: No, not in this house, at least.

[41:45] LaChanze: There has to be at least some bit of Beyoncé before the day.

[41:47] Celia Rose Gooding: Yeah, we are Beyoncé fans.

[41:49] LaChanze: Stans.

[41:50] Celia Rose Gooding: Stans.

[41:50] LaChanze: Oh, we are all stans.

[41:52] Celia Rose Gooding: You two are fantastic.

[41:54] LaChanze: I appreciate it so much.

[41:55] Celia Rose Gooding: LaChanze, I'm wishing you so much love on this insane Tony campaign.

[42:00] LaChanze: Thank you.

[42:01] Celia Rose Gooding: Thank you.

[42:02] LaChanze: Same to you.

[42:03] Celia Rose Gooding: Thank you, friend.

[42:03] LaChanze: And LaChanze, thank you for answering Tom Kitt's call and giving us the wondrous that is your daughter and my favorite human beings.

[42:13] LaChanze: My pleasure. I'm I'm happy that this was her first project and that she's working with the likes of you.

[42:19] Celia Rose Gooding: I really lucked out.

[42:20] LaChanze: And everyone else has been so wonderful to her on this project.

[42:25] Celia Rose Gooding: So good congratulations to you too, and good luck.

[42:27] LaChanze: It's our pleasure.

[42:28] Celia Rose Gooding: Thanks to the song here in my heart.

[42:32] LaChanze: My First Show is produced by Josh Altman, MEP, Dory Berenstein, and Alan Seales, and is part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[42:40] LaChanze: This episode was edited by Derek Gunther.

[42:43] LaChanze: Special thanks to Leslie Papa and Whitney Holden Gore at Vivacity Media Group.

[42:48] LaChanze: For more info about the podcast, visit bpn.fm backslash my first show.

[42:54] LaChanze: Follow me on Instagram at Eva RPC.

[43:35] ♪ Musical number: "Listen" — performed by Celia Rose Gooding ♪

[45:34] ♪ Musical number: "Listen" — performed by LaChanze ♪