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

[0:20] Eva: We are continuing our special mini season focusing on the 1920 Broadway season and the Tony Awards and Tony nominated shows and creatives.

[0:32] Eva: Today's episode is featuring Andrew Burnap and John Benjamin Hickey, two of the stars of last season's The Inheritance.

[0:43] Eva: I saw it twice. I was in a puddle of tears and emotions both times.

[0:50] Eva: And every time I think about my experience in the theater with these men and this play, I am brought so much joy and so much feeling.

[1:00] Eva: So I am really honored to have John Benjamin Hickey and Andrew Burnap of The Inheritance on the show today. Hi guys.

[1:12] John Benjamin Hickey: Thank you.

[1:13] Andrew Burnap: Thank you.

[1:14] John Benjamin Hickey: My real real pleasure.

[1:18] Eva: And you know, we're gonna get into lots of stuff about the play and you know, early plays and musicals of your life.

[1:29] Eva: But before we kind of get into that, we are into a new year.

[1:29] Eva: We are into a new phase.

[1:41] Eva: Certainly how it feels.

[1:43] Eva: So how are each of you? Andrew, let's start with you. Where are you? How are you doing?

[1:50] Andrew Burnap: Um, I am okay.

[1:53] Andrew Burnap: Uh, first of all, thank you so much for having um having us.

[1:57] Andrew Burnap: Um, I am currently in Rhode Island, where uh I was uh born and raised.

[2:04] Andrew Burnap: I am uh I have the the privilege of of teaching an acting class at my alma mater, University of Rhode Island, and I just got out of class and I'm in my uh sweet little office um with a big window uh overlooking a campus quad, which is um so weird in the times of of COVID.

[2:25] Andrew Burnap: But I'm doing okay.

[2:27] Andrew Burnap: I'm healthy, which is um you know all you can really ask for right now.

[2:33] Eva: Yeah, absolutely. And and John, where do we find you today?

[2:37] John Benjamin Hickey: Uh you find me in Los Angeles.

[2:40] John Benjamin Hickey: Um first of all, I just want to say, Andrew, you're getting to go to a campus.

[2:44] John Benjamin Hickey: You're not it's not virtual.

[2:47] Andrew Burnap: Well, I'm trying, how do you I you know, I just I don't know, I can't teach acting over Zoom.

[2:51] Andrew Burnap: I don't know how to do it.

[2:52] John Benjamin Hickey: So we're we're in person with masks six feet apart, which you know is I think that's great.

[2:58] John Benjamin Hickey: That gives me hope that we'll all be in a room together again.

[3:03] Eva: Oh, I hope.

[3:04] John Benjamin Hickey: I am uh I'm in Los Angeles where it's you know sunny and gorgeous, and I'm from Texas, where you know my entire family is without power and water right now.

[3:15] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah, um, I uh I have been here for three months now.

[3:20] John Benjamin Hickey: I've been incredibly fortunate because I'm I'm working uh right now and I have this, I'm doing this reboot of um that HBO show in treatment, uh, which is there they they brought back for a lot of reasons, but I think one of the reasons is it's a very COVID friendly, that's a terrible impression, but you know, I I know what you mean.

[3:43] Andrew Burnap: Yeah, there are very few moving parts in that show.

[3:46] John Benjamin Hickey: So it's uh it's a good idea to bring it back.

[3:48] John Benjamin Hickey: And so I've been here working, and um, you know, it feels it feels just so surreal to have such a good job or any job at all in this uh in this crazy calamitous time.

[4:02] John Benjamin Hickey: Um so that's where I am, and I go back to New York soon.

[4:05] John Benjamin Hickey: I'm very, very homesick and very eager to return home.

[4:10] Eva: Yeah.

[4:10] Eva: You know, in in treatment is it's a wonderful show.

[4:14] Eva: I was a big fan when I first saw it when it first came out a few years ago.

[4:18] Eva: Um, but now that mental health is cool or cool again, or of great import to us all, I think that show is gonna serve a lot of people who either don't have the time or or the or the resources to actually go to therapy.

[4:35] Eva: I think being able to watch in treatment is gonna do uh God's work.

[4:40] Eva: So thank you for doing that.

[4:44] John Benjamin Hickey: I I got excited for a second when you said you were doing a reboot.

[4:46] John Benjamin Hickey: I thought maybe it was Melrose Place since you were here.

[4:50] John Benjamin Hickey: Lots of rebooting these days.

[4:53] Andrew Burnap: It's true.

[4:54] Andrew Burnap: It's true.

[4:54] Andrew Burnap: BH 90210 was one of my favorite quarantine discoveries, if you guys haven't seen it yet.

[5:00] John Benjamin Hickey: Oh wow.

[5:02] Eva: Well, speaking of reboots, let's let's uh let's get into it.

[5:07] Eva: Um so when the shutdown happened on March 12th, if I recall, uh The Inheritance had recently ended its run like the Sunday before.

[5:19] Andrew Burnap: Was it that that's close?

[5:22] John Benjamin Hickey: No, we uh we were still we were still showing.

[5:25] John Benjamin Hickey: We we had a couple of shows left that um left on our schedule when we got it so so the Thursday I believe it was a Thursday so that that following Sunday would have been your final show right exactly wow wow yeah and I I was uh talking to Andrew I was no longer in the play I'd left it to direct Plaza Suite uh we were about to have our first performance on the 13th and John so as director which by the way congratulations it's so exciting it's such a thrilling pairing of cast and and I'm so excited for when that show comes back and to see your work um you had to play a leader role and and sort of be there for for your stars that day was you know incredible and uh and terrible and for all of us um they were Sarah Jessica and Matthew were on stage running through the play in full hair makeup costume tech was a full tech you know it was our last rehearsal um and and there were and Sarah Jessica says that she could see or sort of out of the corner of her eye in the darkness people running around in the in the theater you know kind of whispering to each other so everybody knew something was up and you know when you looked at those actors on stage it was a little bit like uh like you know that quartet at the end of Titanic you know how valuably keep playing their instruments in the in the face of all of that um terrible but it was like that.

[7:03] John Benjamin Hickey: And then the producers all came in from that big meeting everybody had um and said, we're done.

[7:09] John Benjamin Hickey: And just to kind of end that.

[7:11] John Benjamin Hickey: So it was it was terrible uh you know, the the people just left.

[7:16] John Benjamin Hickey: I mean, I think Sarah Jessica said her her, you know, her wig is still on a wig stand, her makeup is still all out.

[7:24] John Benjamin Hickey: It's all still sitting there.

[7:26] John Benjamin Hickey: But I went straight from them to my doctor's because I wasn't well.

[7:33] John Benjamin Hickey: It was right at the beginning of all of it.

[7:35] John Benjamin Hickey: So, you know, you were kind of in, you just didn't think it you could have it because you didn't know anybody who did.

[7:43] John Benjamin Hickey: And um my doctor said, I have the tests, uh, come down and get one, even though I'm sure you don't have it.

[7:50] John Benjamin Hickey: Um and they they shut Broadway down.

[7:55] John Benjamin Hickey: I went down to his office to test.

[7:57] John Benjamin Hickey: And by the time I got home and got on my sofa, knowing that I didn't have to go back to work, you know, I was really sick that week, but I had so much adrenaline and so many, so much Advil in me that I was like, oh, I'm fine.

[8:08] John Benjamin Hickey: I just have a little cold.

[8:09] John Benjamin Hickey: There's nothing wrong.

[8:10] John Benjamin Hickey: Uh by the time I got on the sofa, I was super sick and I got really sick with it.

[8:16] John Benjamin Hickey: And you know, I've said this before on a s I at the time on a scale of one to 10, I was calling it like an eight.

[8:22] John Benjamin Hickey: It was really bad.

[8:23] John Benjamin Hickey: It was, you know, just all of the symptoms we've talked about, you know, the no uh loss of smell, loss of taste, terrible backaches, headaches.

[8:33] John Benjamin Hickey: Um, but then when I got better after about two weeks, I started reading other people's accounts, of course, most uh specifically Danny Berstein's wonderful Danny.

[8:43] John Benjamin Hickey: I was like, oh wow, I was a four or five.

[8:46] John Benjamin Hickey: I consider myself very lucky that I was able to fully recover and had the time to fully recover.

[8:53] John Benjamin Hickey: And you know.

[8:54] Eva: Andrew, did did you have anyone in your life sick or experience the illness?

[8:59] Andrew Burnap: And I um on that Wednesday that we did our final, we ended up doing our final two shows.

[9:06] Andrew Burnap: It just so happened that we were recording those for uh, I believe it was Lincoln Center performances.

[9:13] Andrew Burnap: And it turns out that I had COVID that day.

[9:17] Andrew Burnap: I woke up in a terrible, terrible state, but I had so many people coming from um Rhode Island to come see the play for the first time that I felt like I couldn't I hadn't missed a show yet.

[9:31] Andrew Burnap: This one I couldn't miss because I had so many dear loves in the audience, but I fully had COVID.

[9:37] Andrew Burnap: Um and got tested afterwards and uh even when went home to my parents uh without knowing that it was COVID, but then I couldn't taste or smell anything for uh about a week after I got home.

[9:52] Andrew Burnap: And I had about three days where I was convinced that I had uh inadvertently killed my parents.

[9:58] Andrew Burnap: Um thankfully nothing of the sort happened.

[10:00] Andrew Burnap: Um and my parents are both vaccinated now, so it's a huge relief.

[10:05] Andrew Burnap: But that was that was crazy.

[10:08] Andrew Burnap: Um and uh and the whole experience of that day was so I mean, I was not only in a fever dream because I actually had a fever, but it was also, you know, news alerts all the time of all of these things shutting down across the country.

[10:24] Andrew Burnap: That when I got the news that the NBA was shutting down, I I sort of through deductive reasoning, was like, I think actors are not gonna be able to go on stage if the NBA is shutting down all their games.

[10:39] Andrew Burnap: So uh that's when I texted John, like, I think this is our last performance.

[10:42] John Benjamin Hickey: And lo and behold, Thursday we got the call.

[10:45] Andrew Burnap: Wow.

[10:46] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah.

[10:46] Andrew Burnap: Yeah.

[10:47] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah.

[10:47] Andrew Burnap: Yeah.

[10:48] John Benjamin Hickey: The I think the NBA, it was like Coachella, the NBA.

[10:54] John Benjamin Hickey: And then Broadway felt felt next.

[10:57] Andrew Burnap: Yeah.

[10:57] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah.

[10:58] Eva: No, I I well.

[11:00] Eva: I'm really sorry you both suffered and got sick.

[11:04] Eva: I'm glad you're both better.

[11:05] Eva: But I'm mostly sorry that that, you know, your your beautiful endings and beginnings were were sort of stilted and what feels so dramatic and and I'm sure at the time very unfair and very upsetting.

[11:19] Eva: Um and uh I I do have to say it was it it felt like though, like such a sort of fitting end that we couldn't actually prepare for a goodbye, if that makes any sense.

[11:34] Eva: It was sort of we gave it it was such a beautiful uh full day of performances on that Wednesday that it was almost like if we had if we had to do the show on Sunday, it wouldn't have been the show that we all wanted to give because we all would have just been a complete and total mess.

[11:52] Eva: And we it would have been hard to get through, it would have been hard to get through the play knowing that this was the last time we got to do it.

[12:00] Eva: So uh um as much as it was difficult to not be able to say goodbye, it almost seemed like a somewhat of a fitting end in a weird way.

[12:09] John Benjamin Hickey: I had left the play not thinking that I was gonna be coming back to it, that it wasn't gonna run that long.

[12:16] John Benjamin Hickey: Um, but also you you know, with me and Andrew and and the three or four other people who had done it in London as well, we had had such an extraordinarily long, you know, and and full full experience with that extraordinarily long play that that you know it doesn't it doesn't it feels like something was you know cut short but it doesn't feel like I certainly for me I think I can say that for Andrew too it doesn't feel like we didn't get to do it you know even though I left early and didn't get to come back and didn't didn't get to see the last show you know I I still feel like it was this absolutely complete experience in my artistic life.

[13:04] Andrew Burnap: Yeah yeah no I mean that's actually that's very poetic what you're saying about your experience with the play and frankly it fits the ethos of the play right about enjoying the moment that you're in it and how richly beautiful life can be when you're in it and appreciating it.

[13:23] Eva: So that makes perfect sense that you both feel that way about your experience with that play.

[13:31] Eva: Well let's dial back to your first um we'll we'll we can talk about all sorts of firsts but why don't we start with your first show that so this is first show you ever saw uh joint let's start with you start with the oldest beauty I came to New York in 1982 on a school trip from my college in Texas and I saw like 12 shows.

[14:03] John Benjamin Hickey: And I sh I saw uh I think the first one was um this play called Foxfire with Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronin, my God. Wow. And there's a there's a, you know, there's a legendary moment that people have written about that Jessica Tandy had on stage. She was playing like a 90-year-old woman in this play. And she was deep into her 70s at that point. And she turns around on stage and is 16 years old, because she's having a memory of being 16-year-old and uh 16 years old and at a dance. And without any, you know, light change without it, she just did it. And the audience just gasped, you know. And I I remember that like kind of going through me, like, wow, I am I am at the center of where it's happening.

Um I I so I so want to be here. I uh I saw that week I saw um uh Agnes of God with Amanda Plummer and Geraldine Page. I saw Plenty with Kate Nelligan. So I saw these, you know, two or three plays. I know you're asking for one, but I think it was like Higher Get Stall, that entire experience that was like, I want to be one of these people. I want and I I remember I would wait at a stage door and watch one of the actors, not even like a star of the play come out, and I would follow them like a stalker to the subway. Like, this is what they do. They get out of work and they go to the subway and they go home. I I was a kid from a small town in Texas, and I just was like, wow, I am coming here and I'm going to try my best to do this. So that that was it for me. Uh Andrew, how about you?

[15:44] Andrew Burnap: First show you ever saw. Um, the first uh play I ever saw was a play called A Celebration of Twelfth Night. Um, and every year they would put on this story uh dealing with some like miss uh mythical themes of good versus evil. And uh I saw uh the version of um I believe it's the version of the the the uh green horse. Uh and every year there's like a big monster in it that's a puppet. And uh this giant green horse entered the hall, and I was a little nine-year-old soprano singing in the background, and it was a dress rehearsal, and I screamed. I was terrified. And I don't I don't think I could have articulated it at the time, but I you know, you you get that lightning bolt of feeling, and you're like, I remember feeling like I want to be able to make people feel like that.

I want to like move, you know. I could never have said any of this stuff, but it was that feeling that that started there. Um I wanted to be a big green horse and just scare everyone. Um, and but the first show I saw in New York was um was as an eighth grader. We also took a school trip, and I saw uh Hairspray, and it absolutely blew my mind. I was obsessed. I could not believe that people could sing and dance like that. Uh and I remember there was um there they were doing one of the scenes, I believe it was um uh was it Bruce who was playing the mom? I don't remember it might have been Bruce Valanche, and I s I I had never experienced anything like this before, but in the scene where he's um where she's dancing with with uh Wilbur's the husband's name, right?

Is it Wilbur? Yeah, um went on probably like a 10 minute improv in jokes, and just the audience was eating out of Bruce's hand. And I I remember feeling like, oh, yep, that's what I want to do. I want to do that.

[17:53] John Benjamin Hickey: And and in that moment, did you think musicals were more exciting than plays? Like did you differentiate between

[18:00] Andrew Burnap: Oh yeah. I mean, I was I was a huge, I would as a kid, I was obsessed with uh Ron Moody was my first real love, I would say. Um his when he watching him in Oliver uh was like just uh endless fun for me as a kid. So it was Ron Moody and like Bert Law were my two big obsessions as a kid. And so, you know, these are two guys who were larger than life. And uh so I thought I I had no idea what a uh I had no idea what uh sort of a like a play was. I thought everything was just everyone would just burst into song when they were feeling complex emotions. I I had no idea what a play was to the point where when I well, I'll tell the story later, but I I got into a very embarrassing things about I I didn't even know what the word playwright meant. Like I I just had no idea about anything other than the fact that people would sing and dance, and that was it.

[19:00] John Benjamin Hickey: None of us need anything else, I agree.

[19:04] Andrew Burnap: Uh first show you were in.

[19:07] John Benjamin Hickey: Uh Andrew, why don't you continue? What was the first show you were in?

[19:12] Andrew Burnap: First show I was in was I was this uh this version of um the next year's version of Twelfth Night. I got I got so jazzed by it that I went and auditioned for the next year. Um that was the first show I was I was in uh I I as sort of a a background character the first show I ever had lines in uh which uh was highly illegal but my friend and I sat stayed up watching Aladdin uh the Disney movie and we pressed pause every time there was a line and wrote the lines down and wrote down the entire script and then presented it to my fifth grade class. We had no idea about copyright laws at the time but um that would be the first show that I remember really having agency over and like directing my classmates and telling them what good acting was.

[19:49] John Benjamin Hickey: I love that you began your career as a plagiarist that's that's kind of the exactly don't we all though don't we all a little bit and John what was the first show you were in uh I I I guess it would be I was in Tom Sawyer playing the title role in uh like the seventh grade and uh I remember we had a very you know um like uh uh this director who was very bold made big choices and she had enter through the audience and uh oh wow revelatory yeah I wore you know what you know overalls you know Tom Sawyer wears overalls and and I remember I I like before our first performance I had to pee really bad and I I like I I I peed a little bit and I over you can kind of like maybe even see it a little bit and I was really panicked.

And I mean and since then every time before I go on stage when I have my I'm very very careful when I go to the I mean like I remember I I that's what I remember about my first uh I don't remember anything about my performance or the show, but I remember like be careful when you pee before you go on stage.

[21:17] Andrew Burnap: My gosh, that's so good.

[21:20] John Benjamin Hickey: Right, yeah.

[21:21] Andrew Burnap: Okay, so first professional show now.

[21:25] John Benjamin Hickey: So this is you got a paycheck, you signed a contract, and you were maybe even part of a union. What was the first professional show, John?

[21:36] John Benjamin Hickey: Let's start with you. Uh I think, well, I I think I I might have had a job out of Juilliard where like off off Broadway where I got kind of sorry, where? Out of Juilliard, thank you. Oh and uh and I um but I I I got my equity card, so I consider that my first professional job. I went to the Cleveland Playhouse, the beautiful Cleveland Playhouse, and a trilogy of plays that were all together as long as the inheritance. I have this pension for uh long plays, and uh they were written by the great Southern novelist uh Reynolds Price, and they were directed by the wonderful director David S. B. Orenson. He was at the beginning of his career, and um, and so I made my debut there, you know, and I I love regional theaters and I think about them so much in this time that we're going through, and you know, hope and pray for their survival.

But that was uh that was my first professional gig, and it felt amazing to get my equity card and to get like a a paycheck that you could you lived on, you know, you could you could live on it, which is just such great memories.

[22:48] Andrew Burnap: Uh my first one was I got to do All's Well That Ends Well um on the Boston Common. I was way out of my league. But I I I I that I probably learned more in that summer um just about what it means to be an actor in a professional setting than I than I did in you know many years of of training. Just truly just watching some of the the greatest actors in Boston do their thing was uh just a master class in each and every day.

[23:20] John Benjamin Hickey: That's amazing. And if I'm not mistaken, The Inheritance was your Broadway debut, your Broadway first.

[23:28] Andrew Burnap: It was, yes, it was.

[23:30] John Benjamin Hickey: Yes. And and was that a life-changing dream? Like what was on opening night making your Broadway debut. What was what was that feeling? You you looked back to your days in Boston and thought this could this kid got here.

[23:47] Andrew Burnap: Yeah, it's I to be quite honest with you, I was so exhausted I couldn't even think about it. I mean, we we were uh and I'm sure John Viserly remembers this too. I mean, uh the preview period in New York was was very long and very, very just very, very difficult in the sheer number of hours that we were at the theater. Not to mention that the play is seven hours long. So uh it was it we were very much like we just gotta get this thing up and and let it and let it fly. Um and so uh it it it my sort of personal goals fell by the wayside and it very much became you know this this massive team effort to to get this thing to sing. So um uh I think after we were finished, I I I got to really reflect on uh on that, but it was I I I felt everything you know to put it simply uh every single feeling that one would associate with a with a a Broadway debut I I I felt it nervous ecstatic total like deep deep imposter syndrome um and uh but also you know like so just filled with like profound gratitude for all the I just thought of every teacher I've had every person who's who's told me that I can do it uh everybody I mean even you know even John who I who I don't even like that much I just thought of him the whole time like how lucky am I to I mean I you know I can say I grew up coming to New York watching people like John watching John on TV and film and to be able to share a stage with with him both in London and on Broadway it was like who I don't deserve this is unbelievable.

[25:39] John Benjamin Hickey: The um the parallel between that Andrew and the fact that John your Broadway debut if I'm not mistaken was Love! Valour! Compassion! um I mean that's that that's where I'm sure you're deriving great meaning Andrew with that feeling um yeah absolutely yeah standing on the shoulders of of giants who came before me and John is one of those giants and and John when you reflect on your Broadway debut and and certainly your your last Broadway show before the shutdown as actor um and you think about Terrence and and Tom, your producer and losing Terence I I I'm just so curious how all of this, I'm sure, played in your mind in in those early weeks.

[26:28] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah, it was uh, you know, we lost Terence at some point in March. And I think I was on my sickbed, you know, when he was when he passed, and uh and I so it it it didn't seem real to me. That was a very surreal for all of us. But you know, I was sick, so I was dealing with that as well. I I just I it just didn't seem it didn't seem real. So uh when the reality set in that we had really lost him, you know, it just uh makes one reflect so much on how much that person means to you. And nobody meant more to me than Terrence, uh as a mentor, as an artist, as a uh a person of the theater. Um just I've never met anybody else that like that. Um he's one of the kind, and he uh he loved The Inheritance so much, and he loved Matthew and Matthew's writing so much, and that was probably the greatest lesson from him is his his generosity of spirit.

[27:31] John Benjamin Hickey: He was not without uh edge, he had a lot of edge, Terrence. He could be a real, you know, he was a very complicated, uh I mean, it's it's apparent in his writing. He had terrific um anger and and passion and a lot of edge, but but boy, he loved playwrights and he loved watching them soar. And and so the inheritance, not just because his husband, Tom Curtihy, who was our lead producer, of course, not just because his husband was was uh this was his husband's passion project, it was it was Terence's passion project too. He saw this as a passing of the torch to a next generation and watching them tell a story in in this specific instance, watching a playwright who had not lived through the calamity of AIDS talk about it and and articulate it in a way that was different and new and um and profound.

So that was really what a what a great you know ribbon, what a great thread to my this experience to uh that experience. I mean, I'll just finish that by saying, you know, Terrence was around a few times when we were at the Young Vic when we were first doing the show, and I would feel like odd, like wow, I had this experience all these years ago with Love Valor, and here I am doing this thing, and there's Terrence there, and like we share this thing that's in the so far distant past. And then when we opened at the Young Vic, and people made speeches, Matthew Lopez got up and made a speech, and his speech, and I didn't know Terence really meant that much to him. And his speech was all about what he owed Terence. It was a great uh echo of my first experience on Broadway. Absolutely, absolutely.

[29:24] Eva: Thank you for sharing that.

[29:25] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah, you you think a lot. I mean, theater is an art form that I think does this a lot, where it passes the torch in a really beautiful way, from director to director, and from playwright to playwright, and from actor to actor, but you got to actually live that thread of that torch, you know, from 25 years ago to to today. Um, that's astounding.

[29:50] John Benjamin Hickey: That's astounding. Great gift. What a gift. Um, all right, it's dream time, guys. If you could be in any show anywhere at any time, what would it be? Andrew, let's start with you.

[30:07] Andrew Burnap: Gosh, what a question. Oh man, I mean, I can't, I can't help but think I I would have I would have loved to have been a part of the first iteration of what I think is one of the most perfect plays of all time, which is Shakespeare's 12th Night. Um, I I to be able to have somehow been a part of that uh that community uh of actors, uh that sort of um, I mean it's the it's the foundation, it's the it's the some of the greatest plays ever written in English language. Um so I think I think being being able to be in an original Shakespeare play, original cast would be pretty freaking wild. Um it might be uh my most uh you know some of my actor friends might call that very basic of me, but you know what? The basics are important.

[31:07] Andrew Burnap: We're we're not limited by time and space here on my first show. If you want to be in the 1600s, uh crass dressing and do I even have that century right?

[31:19] John Benjamin Hickey: Crest dressing in 12th Night.

[31:20] Andrew Burnap: Yeah, you do, yeah. Then I want you to have that. So that is that is great. That is great. It's it's actually have you noticed the through line of 12th Night in your theatrical.

[31:32] Andrew Burnap: I guess I guess so. Somehow I I I've never done the play actually, but maybe you know, maybe that's where I'm headed.

[31:39] John Benjamin Hickey: Well, I hope there's a green horse in which yeah, exactly right.

[31:44] Andrew Burnap: I just gotta uh make this about me in 12th Night. Oh I forgot so I my maybe my very first professional job was out of you got it, Juilliard. I was a spear carrier in a star-studded production of 12th Night in the park, which is kind of like legendary now that had Michelle Pfeiffer and Jeff Goldblum and and uh oh yeah, Charlene Woodward, John Amos, Fisher Stevens, and me and Bill Camp were uh were spear carriers in that.

[32:18] John Benjamin Hickey: I love that.

[32:19] Andrew Burnap: So yeah. Um it's all about 12th Night this episode.

[32:25] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah, this is the 12th Night episode. Um John, what is your dream show? Anywhere, anytime.

[32:33] John Benjamin Hickey: I read that question and I I don't know, I just couldn't think of uh uh anything. I mean, you know who I thought of? I thought of uh Vanessa Redgrave and I thought of Lois Smith, you know, two of our greatest actresses, and and them doing this play, um, and being at their ages. I I guess uh Vanessa was probably 83, 84 when she did it. Um Lois was 88, 89. Um, and watching them be so deeply challenged by it and and work so hard on this brand new play that nobody had ever seen before, you know, trying to figure it out. And I was always so inspired by that. And like, so I guess the thing is is like you don't it's always uh new plays, like thing I want to be in is something that comes across your desk when you've said, I don't ever want to do a play again.

And the the last thing in the world I want to do is a seven-hour play. And then The Inheritance, you know, when you read it, you're like, well, how can I not do that? How can I not be a part of that? So it's always like, you know, it's always like the next thing is the thing I I want to do. I know that's probably a cheat. Other than that, I don't know. I'd like to have been in, I would like to have been in A Chorus Line because I can't sing and I can't dance.

[33:56] Andrew Burnap: So you'd be Zach.

[33:57] John Benjamin Hickey: But yeah, that would exactly. Or that would mean I would have been able to do those things. I'd like I'd like to see the John Benjamin Hickey.

[34:07] Andrew Burnap: No, you wouldn't.

[34:08] John Benjamin Hickey: I would too.

[34:09] Andrew Burnap: That's good.

[34:09] John Benjamin Hickey: No, you wouldn't.

[34:12] Andrew Burnap: Well, we have a surprise element to the show, which I don't think you know about. Um, it's our lightning round.

[34:21] John Benjamin Hickey: Um I know, I know, I know.

[34:23] Andrew Burnap: And what's fun when we have uh two guests is you get to compete against each other for the answer.

[34:30] John Benjamin Hickey: Oh my gosh, this is not gonna be good.

[34:32] Andrew Burnap: I read a lyric, I'm not gonna sing the lyric, but I read the lyric to a really famous musical theater song, and you have to name the musical that it's from.

[34:43] John Benjamin Hickey: Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous.

[34:45] Andrew Burnap: So we we put 30 seconds on the clock, and the first one to know it, shout it out, and then we'll move on to the next question. And we're gonna see who would actually win at Marie's Crisis.

[34:58] John Benjamin Hickey: Um, here we go.

[35:00] Andrew Burnap: Which John took me to, by the way.

[35:03] John Benjamin Hickey: Good.

[35:04] Andrew Burnap: All right, here we go. Somebody crowd me with love, somebody forced me to care.

[35:11] John Benjamin Hickey: Good job.

[35:12] Andrew Burnap: Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loves me.

[35:17] John Benjamin Hickey: No, dang it.

[35:18] Andrew Burnap: He was in it.

[35:18] John Benjamin Hickey: That's not fair.

[35:21] Andrew Burnap: It only takes a moment for your eyes to meet.

[35:26] John Benjamin Hickey: And then your heart knows.

[35:28] Andrew Burnap: Yes.

[35:29] John Benjamin Hickey: Oh, well done.

[35:32] Andrew Burnap: Walk on through the wind.

[35:34] John Benjamin Hickey: Walk on.

[35:37] Andrew Burnap: Dang it.

[35:38] John Benjamin Hickey: Now, now I'm alone.

[35:41] Andrew Burnap: Still I dream in of paradise.

[35:44] John Benjamin Hickey: You know, South Pacific.

[35:45] Andrew Burnap: Oh, South Pacific.

[35:46] John Benjamin Hickey: Shoot.

[35:47] Andrew Burnap: This nearly was mine.

[35:48] John Benjamin Hickey: Yeah.

[35:49] Andrew Burnap: I mean, I mean, I got you.

[35:51] John Benjamin Hickey: Andrew, you did fine.

[35:53] John Benjamin Hickey: JBH, you crushed it.

[35:55] Andrew Burnap: Yeah.

[35:59] John Benjamin Hickey: All right.

[35:59] Andrew Burnap: Yeah.

[36:00] John Benjamin Hickey: You you were good. You had good self-awareness.

[36:04] Andrew Burnap: Oh, I can't wait to go to Marie's with you both.

[36:07] John Benjamin Hickey: This was really lovely.

[36:09] Andrew Burnap: It it was I I actually was not being hyperbolic. Um, your play meant the world to me when I saw it in the theater. And uh you spending this hour with us to just hear about your upbringing and the way you're feeling, that means a lot as well.

[36:26] John Benjamin Hickey: Um so thank you.

[36:28] Andrew Burnap: I loved being able to like talk about what we do, you know. It uh it's important and it's um, you know makes you realize just god just how much you miss it.

[36:40] John Benjamin Hickey: This time has been quite isolating in many different ways.

[36:43] Andrew Burnap: And so to be able to find common points of connection, even in the nerdiest of song lyrics, is uh such a such a gift.

[36:52] John Benjamin Hickey: So thank you so much for having us.

[36:55] Eva: My pleasure. Thank you guys. Best of luck. Stay safe.

[37:09] John Benjamin Hickey: My first show is produced by Josh Altman, MEP, Dory Berenstein, and Alan Seals, and is part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[37:17] John Benjamin Hickey: This episode was edited by Derek Gunther.

[37:20] John Benjamin Hickey: Special thanks to Leslie Papa and Whitney Holden Gore at Vibacity Media Group.

[37:25] John Benjamin Hickey: For more info about the podcast, visit bpn.fm backslash my first show.

[37:31] Eva: Follow me on Instagram at Eva R price.

[38:31] ♪ Musical number ♪