This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:03] Drew Gasparini: Hey, hey, it's everyone's favorite Broadway cyber hacker, Drew Gasparini here with another episode of Now We're Talking, the podcast that Oprah Winfrey calls a huge waste of everyone's time.

[0:15] Drew Gasparini: But Oprah doesn't know shit because everyone and their mom is gonna want to hear today's episode. Our guest today has been seen in the first national tour of Kinky Boots. She's been in off-Broadway shows such as Jasper in Deadland, and she starred as Pamela in the Broadway musical Head Over Heels. She can also be seen in her hundreds of concert appearances in New York City every year. And heck, you can even hear her on my album, We Aren't Kids Anymore. I am so thrilled she is here because she's amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, now we're talking with Bonnie Milligan.

[0:47] Drew Gasparini: Dive in, we're recording. I'm here with the most fabulous, the most fabulous Bonnie Milligan.

[0:55] Bonnie Milligan: How are you, Bonnie?

[0:56] Bonnie Milligan: I'm good. How are you?

[0:58] Drew Gasparini: I'm so thrilled you're here because you know, I think the way that I know you is just kind of funny. And the way that like our friendship kind of started was very recently, but we've been within these all the same circles for such a long time. And I just like adore talking to you. And I'll tell you what did it. Here's what did it. We were in the studio. We were in Brooklyn, and we were recording my album, We Aren't Kids Anymore. Plug plug plug. Everybody go check it out. It's amazing. But we were having sandwiches, and we were just eating, it was like a break, and I remember talking sandwiches with you. And I was and I looked at your sandwich and I looked at my sandwich, and I was like, damn, I was so out ordered here, and I fell in love with you. That's really what did it. I fell in love with you. Sandwiches are very serious business. You've got an it's all about ratio, it's all about everything.

[1:49] Bonnie Milligan: Absolutely. No one can see this. I can see this, but you have like a little shrine to yourself behind you. What's what is this framed picture? Does it say like certificate of excellence?

[2:00] Bonnie Milligan: Actually see it. Um, no, so I'm in Ohio at my mom's currently. And so she has in the other one, that is the street art that was done of me in 1900 something. I don't even remember. I was five.

[2:14] Drew Gasparini: Wow.

[2:15] Bonnie Milligan: You're welcome. In New York. Thank you. And then um, that is my back when 54 Below used to do actual like sandwich board posters outside before they went digital. That was for my original solo show. Afterwards, my mom was like, Can I get the posters outside?

[2:26] Drew Gasparini: That's amazing.

[2:33] Bonnie Milligan: Went and had it like cut up and framed so she can see. No one else has done this right away.

[2:38] Drew Gasparini: I do actually. Your mom got something very special. I don't know if anybody else has done this. My mom went Midwest. So she actually I do have one of these in New York in my apartment because she gave me one, and then she has the other that is hanging in here.

[2:51] Drew Gasparini: Well, you've done that's not the only solo show you've done at 54, or is that the only solo show?

[2:55] Bonnie Milligan: No, it was just the very first.

[2:57] Drew Gasparini: Very first. So that is kind of a big, a big stamp of the holy shit, look at my kid, I'm so proud moment. That's really awesome.

[3:05] Drew Gasparini: Um, Bonnie, before we get really into the juice.

[3:08] Bonnie Milligan: Oh god.

[3:08] Drew Gasparini: Into the deep, the French dip of juiciness, let's Oh, that sounds good.

[3:14] Bonnie Milligan: It does.

[3:14] Drew Gasparini: I'm hungry. We've I started right away talking about sandwiches, and now I'm like starving. Um I have a problem, and I want to see if you have the same problem as I have. This has nothing to do with you. This really has nothing to do with you. This is just a thought I had moments before we started this podcast.

[3:29] Bonnie Milligan: Okay, great.

[3:30] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, and I just want to see what your take is. Here's I want to get uh Bonnie's hot take on this. In Aladdin, the movie Aladdin.

[3:37] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[3:39] Drew Gasparini: How long does Aladdin know Jasmine before he does the line? Do you trust me? And do we think it's an okay example to set for young women that immediately you say yes to someone? Is it because he's shirtless? Is it because he happens to have a rug that flies around in a monkey pal? All of those things I just said, by the way, are totally reasons to not trust somebody. Fact. Why does Jasmine go for it?

[4:12] Bonnie Milligan: Well, I mean, the first time he says it to her, he doesn't even have all the accoutrement of a flying rug yet. Because he first says it to her in the market when he's trying to help her escape the guards.

[4:23] Drew Gasparini: That's right.

[4:23] Bonnie Milligan: And he's like, Do you trust me? And that's when they jump out the window and thankfully land on awning.

[4:29] Drew Gasparini: I know. The whole fucking town is made of awnings that are like trampolines that you can just bounce from one to the other.

[4:36] Bonnie Milligan: Supple awning. You can either like it either like holds you like a baby or it's like a trampoline. And it's like, how do you know which awning is which? What if you were looking for supple hold?

[4:46] Drew Gasparini: And you got to know.

[4:46] Bonnie Milligan: The name of this episode is Supple Awnings with Bonnie Milligan.

[4:50] Drew Gasparini: I love that. The whole name of this podcast might just change to supple awnings.

[4:55] Bonnie Milligan: Oh god, I click on that. Like, what is that?

[4:58] Drew Gasparini: Yes. There but supple is such an intriguing word in the first place. It's alluring. It pulls you right in. Like I just awning wood. I was having a real issue with this today. I just can't. I'm kind of like, I had all this respect for Jasmine, and immediately I was like, Well, now wait a minute. Now she I really lost a little respect for for the jazz.

[5:17] Bonnie Milligan: The jazz caller the jazz. He gets her out of her accidentally stealing the apple because bitch doesn't know about paying for money because she's a princess. Great. Right. Um, and she's like, I just wanted the apple you mean I can't just take it how removed are you jazz I mean it's kind of that's you don't know that people deal with money the Winona Ryder situation remember when she was like caught shoplifting and you're like Winona Ryder you're a billionaire with all the movies you've done how come you're not just paying for these things and I think it's when you have enough money yeah that you totally forget what it's for that's what I really think happens.

[5:53] Drew Gasparini: You forget about yeah you forget what it's for you and I don't have this problem right now uh you're in your you're in your mom's house in Ohio and I am in my parents' basement in uh northern California as you can see by the grotesque amount of community theater uh memorabilia that we have hanging on it's community see it just from here it just looks like a bunch of like Broadway posters.

[5:53] Bonnie Milligan: No I know we'll I have you fooled if you zoom in on what on what's actually being said here it's like a young people's production all of them say that this is where Matt Doyle and I met Matt Doyle and I met doing all of these shows when we were young young little children.

[6:34] Drew Gasparini: Babies I love it. You know it is a perfect way to segue into where I've started with all of our guests. So uh I haven't told you anything about this podcast have I no not at a not at all do you like going and do you like just diving in with me knowing nothing about what we're gonna be talking about.

[6:47] Bonnie Milligan: I mean sure right do you trust me oh god Aladdin yeah we're gonna we're gonna pray for some supple awnings to catch us along the way I uh I wanted to do this podcast you know when you hear a lot of these Broadway podcasts.

[7:01] Drew Gasparini: It's always like broad wasted, or like what you know, there's always some Broadway pun yeah going on, and inevitably we talk about our our theater nerd self, and I I don't mind going into that, and I'm sure we'll brush upon it. That's just the nature of who we are. We're really in the industry. That's part of our thing. What I really want to get to is the parts of you that not everybody could necessarily Google.

[7:25] Drew Gasparini: I mean, we could talk your resume, but shit, that's all over the goddamn internet. You know what I'm saying? So you're in Ohio right now. Why don't we start there? Are you from Ohio originally? Tell us everything about your childhood.

[7:37] Bonnie Milligan: Oh god. Well, originally central Illinois, like uh Decatur, which is where Milliken University is.

[7:47] Drew Gasparini: Oh, I've I've been to Milliken University.

[7:50] Bonnie Milligan: Sure. Is that where Sierra Boggess went?

[7:53] Drew Gasparini: Yes.

[7:54] Bonnie Milligan: Yes. I totally taught a master class there.

[7:56] Drew Gasparini: Did you go there?

[7:57] Bonnie Milligan: No, I did uh musical theater camp there when they had that.

[8:02] Drew Gasparini: Amazing.

[8:02] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. No, I never went there because I didn't want to be five minutes from because also it's expensive, but they were gonna give me a lot of money.

[8:12] Drew Gasparini: Like a scholarship, yeah.

[8:16] Bonnie Milligan: Lots of scholarship, not just like under the table, like we thought you could use this. Come on, and you're like, what? And I was like, I don't want money. No, not that scholarships.

[8:24] Drew Gasparini: Um, I hate money.

[8:25] Bonnie Milligan: I want to struggle, so my art is better.

[8:27] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, no, like the the thing then would have been I needed to live with my grandma to go there, and she lived like five minutes from campus, and I was like, I don't wanna not, I don't I want to have that experience of you know, all the things, yeah.

[8:42] Bonnie Milligan: Isn't part of college kind of like losing yourself so you can figure out what you're doing.

[8:47] Drew Gasparini: Making tons of mistakes, all of the living the dreams all of them you're falling without a supple awning at all.

[8:53] Bonnie Milligan: It's a it's an awningless fault. That's what college should be. And if there is one, it's a trampoline, you're you're bouncing into something else and you don't know what it is 100% yeah um I like that we keep bringing that back it feels good um so I was there and I was super super small like where our uh I grew up in a double wide trailer where our trailer was uh which my grandparents owned where you want the real nitty gritty I'm giving you I do I really do I have I already have 10 questions just about the double wide trailer but please keep going about it so my grandparents owned like I don't know like five doesn't sound like a bunch but like I don't know how many acres but a fair amount of acres and uh what would have been the equivalent to probably like an avenue in New York City was a just an open kind of meadow situation and you could walk through that and that's where our trailer was so it was a different street but directly behind their house and I would walk through that field um to get and I caught the bus at my grandma's every day because my trailer was at the end of a dead end road and other the bus wouldn't come down the road.

[9:58] Bonnie Milligan: This sounds like kind of like um like magical as a childhood experience but it also sounds like the beginning of like 10 dateline episodes that I've watched it could go either way.

[10:10] Drew Gasparini: Yeah it could go either way um exactly no there were like they had a garden out there and then they had you know pear trees and apple trees and all that was kind of like as you walked from the little field whatever from my house to theirs and my grandma made me breakfast every morning and I caught the bus there and I got off the bus there and hung out with her until my parents got off work and um yeah so that that is where I grew up.

[10:37] Bonnie Milligan: My school was literally like maybe 30 kids in a grade.

[10:42] Drew Gasparini: No.

[10:43] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. So had I graduated from there, because we moved later, but had I graduated, I think I would have been there would have been like 25 kids in my graduating class.

[10:54] Drew Gasparini: Oh my god, that's like that's amazing. Like I have no idea what that would have been like. I think there was 40,000 billion kids in my graduating class.

[11:05] Bonnie Milligan: You couldn't find me in the picture.

[11:07] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, yeah. So we had like there was two grades, I'm sorry, two classes per grade growing up.

[11:14] Bonnie Milligan: So there's like just two teachers.

[11:16] Drew Gasparini: So there would be like 12 to 15 kids in your class.

[11:19] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. And then when we got to fifth grade, is when we s had like half classes with one teacher, you had your homeroom, but they were trying to prepare us for junior high.

[11:28] Drew Gasparini: Can you imagine they were trying to prepare like 30 kids?

[11:30] Bonnie Milligan: Oh god, how big will junior high be?

[11:32] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[11:32] Bonnie Milligan: So funny to me now.

[11:34] Drew Gasparini: That's hysterical.

[11:34] Bonnie Milligan: It's like in your junior high, we'll still be less than a hundred kids for all three grades, but it's overwhelming.

[11:40] Bonnie Milligan: Um, so I grew up there until uh let's see, we moved. My parents got divorced when I was 13.

[11:49] Drew Gasparini: Okay.

[11:50] Bonnie Milligan: And my mom got remarried, and uh the uh my stepdad worked for she was a secretary at a uh they sell farm equipment kind of farm farm equipment.

[12:03] Drew Gasparini: Uh-huh.

[12:04] Bonnie Milligan: The more the more words you say, the less you and I are similar in any sort of way.

[12:11] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, we're getting there. You're yeah, absolutely. You're definitely more gentlemen, I'm a lot more Aladdin.

[12:16] Bonnie Milligan: It's true.

[12:18] Drew Gasparini: Oh no. That you didn't know that, but I'm Aladdin bitch.

[12:22] Bonnie Milligan: Um, so anyway, you heard of your first folks. So then um uh oh, my my stepdad was a salesman who was based out of Indiana, but because you traveled a lot, that's how they like got to know each other.

[12:34] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[12:35] Drew Gasparini: And so when they got married, he wanted to start his own business of the same thing. And he had so many different states as kind of his territory that I don't remember why it was Ohio is where he decided to base his business.

[12:49] Bonnie Milligan: But so we moved to Ohio. My brother had already graduated, he's five years older, so he was 18. He was going into the National Guard.

[12:56] Drew Gasparini: Um again, we had no money, so he needed to pay for college.

[13:02] Bonnie Milligan: Right.

[13:03] Bonnie Milligan: And um he was going off to boot camp, and uh I was about to be a junior in high school when we had to move two states away.

[13:13] Bonnie Milligan: And my mom is the oldest of six kids, and a bunch of they all had a lot of kids. So there was like 27 grandkids, and I was super close with my grandma, cut to me getting breakfast with her every morning and hanging out all the time. Um that was really hard for me because you know, I was used to having my grandma and grandpa right there. Um I not not mentioning my grandpa much. Sorry, I love you too, grandpa. Oh both in heaven, but um, yes, but you know what I mean. Like my grand and I were buddies, and uh, and I had all these cousins and aunts and uncles, and anyway, so we move away from everyone, and right before junior year of high school, it's really hard. So we moved to another small town in Ohio, northwest Ohio, uh called Archbold. And that was about a hundred kids in a grade, which again I thought was huge.

[14:03] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[14:09] Bonnie Milligan: Because I went from twenty five to 100. I mean, like literally, still it's very small. But I was like, I was from 25 to 100. Oh my God, how does anyone keep track of this?

[14:21] Drew Gasparini: Right.

[14:21] Bonnie Milligan: This is what China must be like.

[14:23] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[14:25] Bonnie Milligan: I'm ready for a city now.

[14:27] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[14:28] Bonnie Milligan: No. Um was your New York prep.

[14:30] Drew Gasparini: Wow.

[14:32] Bonnie Milligan: Um, but it was a good prep for like, you know, college wasn't terrifying to me because I already had to leave everybody and everything I knew and start over again and make friends. And I have I'm kind of like both extrovert and introvert. Like if I know a group of people, I could be super extroverted and like let's be fun and let's, you know, whatever.

[14:54] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[14:54] Bonnie Milligan: But if it's like a group of people that already know each other, it is not the easiest thing for me to immediately be me in that space.

[15:03] Drew Gasparini: Right.

[15:03] Bonnie Milligan: Like, hey, how's everybody doing? And some people are great at that. I that's not my ministry.

[15:08] Drew Gasparini: Right.

[15:09] Bonnie Milligan: So I can fake it though. And it, but it's very hard to like kind of like let's go act today, because what it felt like.

[15:17] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, you really do have to like find new energy to put inside of you for that kind of thing.

[15:22] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, absolutely. Stressful. So um, but I I I managed to do it. I found some really beautiful, wonderful friends, and uh it anyway. I finished high school there, and then I got um Did any of these friends become lifelongers, or are these like people that were like just part of that chapter?

[15:40] Bonnie Milligan: No, I definitely have some lifelongers that like even like traveled out to New York to see me in Head Over Heels.

[15:47] Drew Gasparini: Oh, come on now.

[15:48] Bonnie Milligan: We love it.

[15:48] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, yeah.

[15:50] Bonnie Milligan: So um met some really great people, and then um Ohio State University offered me lots of money, again, not in a paper bag, but via scholarship.

[16:01] Drew Gasparini: Right.

[16:01] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[16:01] Drew Gasparini: And uh paper bag.

[16:05] Bonnie Milligan: That wasn't even part of the joke earlier, but I love the idea of just giving you a bunch bag of some cash. Just so shady, but you're like I love it. I need it.

[16:18] Drew Gasparini: Yes.

[16:19] Bonnie Milligan: I don't know. Um, so I ended up going there kind of uh begrudgingly, like, uh, I wanted to go out of state. I wanted to go to New York.

[16:30] Drew Gasparini: Um was college always part of the agenda for you? Was that always something that you were told to do or that you wanted to do?

[16:37] Bonnie Milligan: I think both. I think I was a uh a pretty smart kid. Somehow I went into theater. But um I I don't know how that happened. Somewhere I lost the brains. I was a straight A student and I was very like uh obsessed with uh kind of being that perfect kid and trying to get all the straight A's and um you know I I wasn't like a I didn't like ever drink until college. Like I didn't really curse much. I was very much a good girl. I really was a loser.

[17:11] Drew Gasparini: Right?

[17:13] Bonnie Milligan: No, if you are one of those kids listening, you are beautiful. Don't beautiful, keep being you, don't listen to Uncle Drew, he's a horrible example. Don't turn into an actor.

[17:23] Bonnie Milligan: Um, so anyway, I um I had kind of always like had straight A's, and you know, I I I graduated, I can't remember the names. There's Magna cumulada and Suma, which is higher.

[17:37] Drew Gasparini: Is Suma higher?

[17:39] Bonnie Milligan: You are asking. I think there couldn't be a wrong person to ask that question to but let's go ahead and say yeah it was it's smomo what did you say mush yeah you were mush mush cum clo clavo so I there's either like the 4.0 everything's a that's the top top and I was the one below it because oh so what you're saying is you were I mean like really given the the thumbs up in college I mean like it was your grades and your efforts were acknowledged.

[18:08] Drew Gasparini: Yeah even when I started drinking I still was able to like weird I started seeing my grades go up the minute I started drinking it's crazy all the time.

[18:19] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah no so uh I ended up but I loved Ohio State because I mean it is a big 10 school so we had the football games we had uh everything in the theater department they didn't have a musical theater degree which I'm really glad I didn't end up in because that's where I would have gone had I gone to a conservatory which we just like could not afford right um because they they do ask and I I hope they're all listening.

[18:46] Drew Gasparini: I hope all you fucking conservatories are listening right now Jesus Christ you're trying to raise you're create artists in these programs why are you asking them for so much money they can't pay these loans off your crooks money you are crooks bobo I hope you're listening and even with like all of the scholarships because again I was super smart and I yeah uh really applied I applied for like every scholarship ever because again we did not have money um and I got a lot of them and still it was just like not possible.

[19:16] Bonnie Milligan: And I think there's something when I remember, you know, kind of learning about it in sociology class in college, but there's just a mindset that people don't take when they want to like judge poor people or judge anybody from a different class. Like, why don't you just try? Why don't you just apply yourself? But you don't understand the mindset that is instilled in you. Um you don't you don't like believe oh anything's possible. Oh we can yeah we'll we'll find ways to get that money. No. Because it's like you're when your parents have struggled when your parents have been like let's just make sure we have food on the tape. You know my mom made 16 one six sixteen thousand dollars a year when my parents divorced and she was like a single mom for a little bit with just me.

And had it not been for our grandparents that owned the trailer we were in and you know as my mom has taught me like how much they helped her financially that we could have been like it could have been real real rough you know.

[20:02] Drew Gasparini: Well let me ask a question here because this you bring up something really interesting. You come from uh really uh lean times you come from I mean 16,000 that's that's a that's a drop in the well compared to what everybody else should be making and what is uh survivable what's livable.

[20:32] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[20:32] Drew Gasparini: But yet you had a passion for something that you would think a family that is in that situation would never even allow that to be a dream lived because no you gotta earn a buck and that's a silly way to go and it's gonna take you forever to get there and you know so what was the conversation within your family of like pursuing such a lofty dream.

[20:55] Bonnie Milligan: You know it seems lofty until you get close and then it's a job like anything else but like in in those times. Talk about that a little bit.

[21:02] Bonnie Milligan: Well, um, what's also funny is I there was so much when I was little, and I was like, I'm gonna be a doctor, I'm gonna be a newscaster.

[21:11] Drew Gasparini: Random.

[21:12] Bonnie Milligan: My mom recently found something where I said that when I was five. I was going to be a newscaster.

[21:16] Drew Gasparini: Five years old.

[21:16] Bonnie Milligan: I love it. Five newscaster, also not like an like a news person. I was like, I would like to be a newscaster. What?

[21:24] Drew Gasparini: Okay.

[21:25] Bonnie Milligan: Um random. Uh but um, and then I wanted to be a vet, I wanted to be doc, you know, all these different things. And then it was like I got the lead in the school play when I was 10 years old for the Christmas play.

[21:40] Drew Gasparini: Yes.

[21:42] Bonnie Milligan: And again, this was the super small school. So what it the fifth graders were the actors and K through four in the school gym, you know, the the fifth graders would be on the stage in the gym, and then they would bring out the risers, like where they would usually put, you know, I don't know sports terms, the audience for the game.

[21:59] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, the audience for the ball throwing and whatever happened.

[22:04] Bonnie Milligan: And K through four would sit in the risers, the you know, the stand, I don't know, the words, and uh they would put chairs on the court for the audience, and um, because you could fit the entire elementary school like that, because there were so few of us. Um, but anyway, the K through four would sing all the songs, and the fifth graders were the actors, and that's how we did the Christmas show every year.

[22:30] Drew Gasparini: So by the time you're the fifth grader, you're like, I get to be on stage.

[22:34] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, you get a part.

[22:35] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, it's like, oh, it's been building up when you've been sitting in them risers watching it every year.

[22:41] Bonnie Milligan: And um, it was I don't remember the name of the show, but it was something about I want to say it was like the elf who saved Christmas.

[22:49] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, that old one.

[22:50] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, and I was the elf who saved Christmas.

[22:52] Drew Gasparini: Yes, you were, Bonnie.

[22:54] Bonnie Milligan: Come on.

[22:55] Drew Gasparini: Okay, I was Georgian.

[22:57] Bonnie Milligan: Was her name.

[22:59] Drew Gasparini: That's a great elf name.

[23:01] Bonnie Milligan: Georgianne.

[23:02] Drew Gasparini: Georgianne.

[23:03] Bonnie Milligan: Georgianne.

[23:05] Drew Gasparini: Not Georgia Ann, just Georgianne.

[23:07] Bonnie Milligan: Just George Ann.

[23:08] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, that's great.

[23:10] Bonnie Milligan: And there was some other elf that was there too. I don't remember that elf's name, because who cares?

[23:14] Drew Gasparini: Who cares?

[23:15] Bonnie Milligan: Honestly. Everybody was talking about Georgian after the show anyway.

[23:18] Drew Gasparini: Thank you.

[23:19] Bonnie Milligan: And um, and it was like a light bulb went off, and I was like, oh my god, this is it.

[23:26] Bonnie Milligan: And um I got my first B plus.

[23:31] Drew Gasparini: This is fifth grade, so it doesn't really matter.

[23:33] Bonnie Milligan: Um, in science, because I just didn't, I was just learning my lines. I didn't care.

[23:36] Drew Gasparini: And you were getting into it.

[23:40] Bonnie Milligan: School was always easy for me. So the fact that I really didn't care at all, and that somehow was still a B plus was like should have been amazing.

[23:49] Drew Gasparini: Wow, girl.

[23:50] Bonnie Milligan: And uh I my the image in my head is you at 10 years old, and your teachers are like, Bonnie, you're really behind on your work. And you're like, uh, please call me Georgian for like two months. I'm trying to find where she's coming from.

[24:02] Drew Gasparini: Can you just say Georgian?

[24:05] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, method acting driving the other students crazy. That's just like I love that idea.

[24:12] Bonnie Milligan: Um, and it was the other teacher, like I said, we started to change classes, like, and it was the um her name was Miss Wood, and she was amazing. She was like fresh out of school, and my homeroom teacher, Mr. Deremia, was very intense, and he liked gifted students. Like he was very biased. If you were smart, you were his favorite. If you struggled, he didn't really have time for it.

[24:36] Drew Gasparini: Right.

[24:36] Bonnie Milligan: And he would have us, it was very weird. We were 10 years old, right? Like 10 and 11 is fifth grade, and he would have someone at the back chalkboard write out high honors, honor roll, honorable mention.

[24:51] Drew Gasparini: And he would say the names out loud and they would write it on that chalkboard.

[24:55] Bonnie Milligan: So all of us knew where everyone stood. He created like a sick little hierarchy within the classroom.

[25:04] Drew Gasparini: And in fifth grade, nobody cares yet.

[25:07] Bonnie Milligan: You know what I mean? That's like what Donald Trump does with his kids, I think. He's like Don Jr., you're here, Eric, you're here, and then whatever the with one with that starts with a T.

[25:17] Drew Gasparini: You're in an honorary mention.

[25:21] Bonnie Milligan: I don't even know if she made honorary mentions because there were people that didn't even get on that list because those were all like, you know what I mean? Like if you got a D, like you weren't up there at all. And I was already very concerned about getting everything, and I had just gotten a B plus, and it was unheard of. And I was already still, this is around the time I was kind of fighting the teacher's pet stigma because then he really also took a very strong liking to me in the way of like he would give me extra projects, or if people would go to recess, he wanted me to help him decorate his window. And it was like stuff like that. So it was already like, uh teacher's pet, oh, straight A Bonnie.

And people didn't even need to know that. But the day that he did not write my name on the list, everybody in the room literally was like, Bonnie, because he went, high honors, no one. And everybody turned to me. And I went to the next class, and Miss Wood was like, saw that I was so distraught.

[26:21] Bonnie Milligan: And she's like, okay, everybody, Bonnie, can I see you real quick? And she took me out in the hall. Yeah. And she's like, What's going on? And I had like a full breakdown, and she was like, It's my subject. It would you, it's a B plus. It's still good. And I know, and she was so sweet because she saw me and she was like, I know that you're really worked up about the play right now. And I was like, Yeah. She was like, Oh, she understood. She fully did. And she was like, She understands tech week. She gets it. Yeah, thank you. Yes. Um, and so I was she kind of had a moment with me and she was like, if you keep up like this, you're gonna have an ulcer by the time you're 15. I remember that clear as day.

Wow. And um, so she really encouraged, it's okay to love this thing that you're doing, like you need to take the pressure off of yourself a little bit, like with this other. And uh, and that's kind of when the I don't know why I went into that story, but that's that's just part of my life, deep diving. Well, it's I was I was this was going back to the way of answering how how in the world you got into theater or the arts at all in this kind of environment in this town. And and also my so my parents met when my dad was the new lead singer of the southern gospel group. My mom was the pianist for. Oh, so music is definitely in the family. Music has always been there, and so my dad was a preacher, as well as they would sing, so as soon as I could talk, I was singing in front of the church.

Yeah, so that was always there. The acting part didn't come till I was 10, and I was like, wait, but I was always performing singing wise for people, and my dad, I know he always wanted desperately to be a singer, and my dad was a beautiful singer. Um, but he did not have that support. And because also he he didn't grow up like uh, I don't know, he didn't, they were it was not a religious house. He became uh a Christian. I I think he was like 17 or 18. He was who was older, and he at one point like he was maybe was older because he was like kind of rebellious and hitchhiked his way from Michigan to Florida at one point to be a caddy for some golf thing. Like But he wanted to go to school for music and he did the metal, what was it called?

The Meadow Lane, the Meadowbrook Music Academy, somewhere in Michigan. He did that for a little bit, and he really wanted to do that, and then he didn't really have that um support, and then he kind of became religious, and then I think he wanted to do Christian music, and that's when he started singing with like quartets and stuff, and it's um the Southern gospel, the I don't know, the white gospel. Yeah, there's stuff there's some toe-tapping good jams on the book. There's some really beautiful harmonies and um really really good singing. Um, and so that's kind of where he started going into that world. So I think um there was a certain degree of knowing that was in my blood, and my mom, I don't know, she was just kind of like always on board about it.

They saw uh they knew about the singing in the church and stuff, and I remember being very little and having people come up to me afterwards and be like, You're anointed. They would say those words with me, and they're like, You just like crying, like you just kind of changed my life, and I was like five, and you're like, What? So there was something special that happened when I sang for people that well, at least we as a family felt. Yeah. My brother is a beautiful singer. He doesn't care though. Like he now likes sings at his church, but he's it just was never for him. And it was like very for me. I remember I was five, and I got to sing the verses for one of the songs, and my family only did the choruses, and I was very jazzed about that. Yeah. And my brother was like, Do I have to sing? And I was like, Can I take his verse? Wow. You belong in the spotlight. You really, really, really do.

[30:27] Drew Gasparini: Hey, this interruption means we have made it to the very middle of the episode. It's around this time that I like to chime in and remind all of you, sexy Nimrods, to go support our guests. How can you do that? Well, they'll tell you how. All you gotta do is follow them on their social medias. So please check out what they're up to and what they're doing and who they're supporting and who they're performing for and where they're performing, etc. etc. etc. You can find Bonnie Milligan on Twitter at Belting Bonnie or on Instagram at Belting Bonds. I mean, not right now, but right after this podcast. Look at the impact you've had on uh your fans through before Head Over Heels. I mean like let's even talk about before Head Over Heels.

The, you know, the little microcosm inside the microcosm of doing these concerts in New York before you do the big Broadway show, or just doing that as a byproduct of being an artist in New York. These videos of Bonnie Milligan singing are a lot of them are gigantic for these younger artists who see this this presence and this voice, and you just command a room in a way that is. I I imagine it was the same feeling when you were five. Does it feel the same to you now, or is it old hat?

[31:41] Bonnie Milligan: It's it does feel like really special like every time that it happens there's also something that like you know right before I do any show uh I mean it got a little different for head over heels because there's a degree of when you do a show eight times a week same with when I did kinky boots that you're like okay we know how to do this we don't have to like freak out but there is a degree of like nerves that happen right before that curtain goes up every time which I think is important and good but then once you start you're like oh I'm at home here and it goes away and excuse me um that's kind of how I felt how I felt about um performing live right before so I started doing a lot of the concerts in 2014 and it was just one of those things where I was just saying yes to anybody that would ask and I did a lot of um kind of new composer evenings where there would be a ton of different composers um what did they used to be called it was like it happened in New York or once upon a I don't know they Jen Tupper used to produce a lot of them oh yeah it's what I mean there was like a series yeah now I can't remember it either it was her and what's the other guy with three names I can't remember.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah so there was like series is that would like and this is another one of the where it would just they would pick a theme and have a bunch of writers have a song about it. Right right and um I started doing those and which was great because then you meet a bunch of different composers, and one night you sing one song, and a bunch of people just heard you live, and they're like, Oh, wait, maybe we should do something or whatever.

[33:22] Bonnie Milligan: Absolutely. And um, and I was just doing any concert that would have me in for that year, and I was at 54 so much that Dylan Bustamante and um Jen Tepper were both like, you need to do your own show. And I was about to leave for Kinky Boots. They asked me, I think around it was around the July 4th weekend. I had just performed at like a bitching and belting thing. Right. And I was leaving August 20th, and I'm like, um, I'm about to leave. And they're like, Well, can you put a show together? And I said, Yep. And I had never that's that's that the way you just told that was like, oh my god, I'm about to leave. But can you put a show together? Yes, I can. It was like there was the fear and the anxiety of the short amount of time you had before leaving, jumped out the window, and you were gung-ho, ready to go. Deadline's good.

[34:17] Bonnie Milligan: Um, no, it was like scary, but I thought, yeah, I could, right? And um, I had worked a lot with David Dabin, um, doing some off off Broadway shows, and I'd met his partner Andy Einhorn, um, who had seen me in the shows where David had written music and I'd done stuff. And David was like, I'm gonna be out of town, but I think Andy would love to work with you. Andy does like Audrey McDonald concerts. I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Like, he would want to do like my 54 below show, and he was like, Hell yeah, he'd want to do your 54 below show. I I wouldn't be surprised at that at all. And it and he was MDing uh Bullets Over Broadway at the time. And so I would have all day rehearsal for kinky boots, and I was around the corner because I I feel like Bullets was on 44th or something, and I was rehearsing at 42nd.

So I would get done with rehearsal and I would jump over there because he would have night shows and I would have day rehearsals and we would kind of do that or weekends. And I went all the way up to his uh dressing room and we put together a show. And I'm so grateful for him because he's like, You get three numbers. I want you to think about this show of what would a fan of yours expect. And I was like laughing and belting. And he was like, Okay. Now you get three songs that are just for you. And it doesn't matter if it fits any of those. It doesn't matter if a fan would be like, What the heck is that song? You get three of them. They're hands down, whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter.

I was like, okay. And then it was like, it's too much to worry about trying to learn songs right now. What do you know? What can we pull that like feature these things? And it was um He was your he was your supple awning. He caught you.

[36:02] Drew Gasparini: He was your supple awning.

[36:03] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. Well, can I just ask, what were the three songs that you chose that were like a little out of, you know, out of your own pure heart, but may have been a left uh left turn for some of your fans who are going to the show?

[36:15] Bonnie Milligan: So I wanted to do a Doris Day number because I grew up uh right around, I guess when I was like 12. I remember my mom had talked about Loving Doris Day, and so I bought her like a VHS of one of the movies for Mother's Day or something. And I watched it and loved it, and then I learned about Doris Day, who uh grew up in Ohio and she was gonna be a dancer.

[36:40] Bonnie Milligan: Her story is insane. She was gonna be a dancer, like a ballroom dancer, and they her and her partner won some competition. They were supposed to go to California and compete. And on the way to the going away party, their car got struck by a train. And the bones in her legs like shattered, and she was told she wouldn't walk again. And then she was like on bed rest, depressed because that was her whole life was dancing. And then start was listening to the radio and Les Brown and his big band and uh started singing. And then there are people like, wait, you're kind of an amazing singer. And then she like lied about her age and went to audition to be the lead singer of something. She got it. She started touring with Les Brown.

And they were somewhere, she married her trumpet player, got like had her baby at like 18, and then he was super abusive. And so she was trying to get out of this abusive relationship and getting divorced, and that was like horrifying in the the 40s, you know, like oh my god. And um, she was at a party, and somebody was like, 'She should sing, and they're like, 'She was so beautiful.' They're like, 'She needs to test for movies' because they were all movie musicals.

[37:48] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. And she sang at a party, and somebody said, 'Let's give her a screen test.' And she went and she was such a mess because of her like divorce and everything, that she was a wreck and it didn't go well. She's like, 'I just need to go back to Ohio.' When she did something else, and somebody was like, 'Just have her come in again and do this.' She's like, 'I'm not an actor.' And she went in and booked it and literally became one of the top box office draws. It's just someone who's met nothing but adversity, yeah. And like her second husband, they were married for 17 years before he died. And when he died, she found out he had squandered all of their money, and she had no money. And he'd signed her up for a television show she didn't want to do, but she was in debt and had to do it, like crazy stuff. So something about her story was obviously like, um, this is the hero everyone should be talking about.

[38:37] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, I'm gonna homage this person and sing her shit to not. So I had like listened, I watched she's 40 movies. I watched them all, I'd watched her TV show, listened to her music nonstop. And she's a big influence and a lot of people don't uh uh like they're like, What? You love Doris Day? I'm like, I do. And so that was that was one of my picks. I even like wrote a paper about her when I was in the high school. I this is why I'm having this podcast. This is the kind of shit that I'm like, I l I never would have guessed that just based on what I feel like you're made to sing all the time. I would never be like, Oh yeah, Doris Day is her thing. But this is super interesting. She's like a she's one of your muses a little bit.

[39:17] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, very much. Wow, wow. So um Andy, we we matched together two songs. Um and one of her movies that I love that I really recommend, um, is called Love Me or Leave Me.

[39:27] Bonnie Milligan: It's her and James Cagney. And it's all about Ruth Edding, who was a jazz singer back twenties, thirties. Um, and there's just such great music. It's like some of the best music. Um, so uh we put together um You made me love you and what's the other one? Um I can't think off the top of my head, but we combined two and he made like a waltz kind of trance. It was just really beautiful. So we I love that. We did that, and I remember a lot of people like, I did not know, like when you talked about Doris Dan like what? And um, so that was like important to me. Another one was actually his partner David's song. David and Dick Scanlon wrote a song called Wildflowers, which I had done at one of these concerts, which I think might have been my first big concert that kind of started it all for me. Yeah.

[40:18] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[40:18] Bonnie Milligan: And I have such a passion for working with um new musical theater writers and singers. I that was another big thing that I had a lot of um that music in my show and yeah some Cooman and Diamond and Yeah, just like people I've worked with, and um that I was like that's important to me to also sing some stuff that isn't you know just Whitney Houston, which I also did. Um, sure.

[40:43] Drew Gasparini: That's that's the part where you're giving them what they want, right? That's the part where you're giving them the the big the big voice. I mean Whitney Houston is such a big voice, and I mean for Christ's sake, your Twitter handle is Belting Bonds or whatever, belting bonds.

[40:58] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, that's Instagram.

[40:59] Drew Gasparini: Uh yeah, so I mean, like you it's out there, people expect that of you.

[41:03] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[41:03] Drew Gasparini: Uh I like when you give the treats though. And you know, to be honest, that was some of my favorite parts of uh working with you on the album that we did. We aren't kids anymore. Again, go buy that shit, kids. Um, but it was uh like a duet like on and on and on with you and Lily Cooper and stuff like that. I don't feel like I get to hear you do stuff like that enough because you're always given the big note, which you're you excel at in in spades, but you have so much more to offer, and I love when people are like surprised, like I had no idea that blah blah blah. Why not? You take five minutes to talk to Bonnie. I would right away assume, oh, you're you've gotta be the most cultured and versatile performer, one of them at least, out there, you know. Just take a look at the stuff that interests you, not necessarily what people want you to do.

[41:52] Bonnie Milligan: I think you are are gifted in like every avenue you could possibly go down. I have such a talent crush on you, Bonnie. I really do.

[41:58] Bonnie Milligan: Thanks, bag gotcha.

[42:00] Drew Gasparini: Well, hey, hey, hey, look at us. A couple of a couple of awnings for each other.

[42:00] Bonnie Milligan: Look at us a couple awnings. Do you think that doing this 54 below show? I I mean, we're gonna talk about career now because we're kind of there. We're in New York, we're talking about new uh in your 54 below experience. I mean, we're not physically in New York right now. We're both very, very not there, but uh just in terms of your story right now, I kind of want to lead up to Head Over Heels because in my eyes, as an observer of your career, which I was just an observer before we ever got a chance to like hang out and dilly-dally and fuck around in a studio or what have you. Um I was watching you do these new musical theater concerts.

[42:43] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, I know that you went on the road with kinky boots for a while, but head over heels seemed to be this really big turn for you in your career. It was that your performance in particular was very talked about and uh very written about, and there was a lot of praise. I didn't see any negative words about uh Bonnie's performance in that show. I thought you were so spectacular. How did that, first of all? Did it change your life? And if so, in what way?

[43:13] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, I mean, when I started when I went on tour, what was really crazy when it kind of was building up to it, you know, we had stage doors in every city, and I hadn't done anything big of note. You know, I done off Broadway and off off Broadway, and um I had some of the videos from the other concerts I'd done, and then I had just put out videos from my own concert. Yeah, and um I would have people at the stage door that had seen my videos. Yeah that would and also another thing is I was um playing Pat, the she was the redhead in kinky boots, who was kind of the office manager who looked cute. She did the tango with Lola at the top of act too. So I had lines, I had a little little solo bits here and there and like ensemble things, um and you know, like a like uh just a featured ensemble.

But because I think of the tango moment that was like a featured dance, I would have women of size wait to tell me what it meant to see a bigger girl on stage in kinky boots, doing a featured ensemble track, dancing and being beautiful because she was dressed really cute and she had a great wig. God, that was a good wig. Um and I already was just feeling the stirrings of that when I did kinky boots, like going across the country and feeling either what they had identified with watching me on stage dancing, and I made sure to tell the producers and to tell Jerry Mitchell, and I was like, I just need you to know that this is what I'm getting. There was one, I can't remember what city, but one of the reviews brought me up in the review saying that that was another message of the show, and that you know, it was just it was really beautiful to like see that beginning, the churnings of it.

[45:06] Bonnie Milligan: Yes, head over heels. I had done the first 29-hour reading of right before I left in 2014. We did it. So that's when that started for you.

[45:15] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[45:16] Bonnie Milligan: And so what I talked about earlier working with David Dabin were shows at the Flea Theater off Off Broadway. And there were these epic shows, like one was a five and a half hour Greek drama of like all of Sophocles' plays in one evening. Wow, wow. But they added so starting with Oedipus Rex and ending with Antigone. And uh heavy night. That's a that's a real heavy night of theater. Uh-huh. Sean Grainy did the um adaptation of this. It was called um These Seven Sicknesses. Yeah. And uh, so I guess there's seven plays, not five. Good work, Bond. Um, so anyway. Um they had five and a half hours, seven, that's there, there it is. Um, and it was, you know, down in Tribeca, and the it was all about mingling, like so.

If you would come to the theater, I would greet you in costume and say, Hey, can I help you find your seat or anything? Bonnie, nice to meet you. Uh, can I get you a drink? And it was that kind of a mingle, so that it was part of the concept of the director, Ed Iskandar, that uh if the audience knows you, they root for you a little bit more. And it's not some people do not want to be mingled, and you gotta read that and walk away. Some people are into it. Um, but it the first intermission we would serve dinner, and the second intermission we would give dessert, and then it was so it was a whole thing. Yeah, but through that, because of the mingling, you met a lot of people, and somebody's job was to put out an email before with all the industry coming that evening with their headshot and a bio. So you also oh my god, yeah, and the director was like, it's everything's about networking, and so it was just a big learning lesson that year that I spent there.

[47:05] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah, and Jeff Whitty was some one of the people that came and was friends with Ed, and I found out later he wrote Head Over Heels with me in mind from seeing those two shows. I did there. Come on, Bonnie Milligan. Just come on now. People are writing parts for you. This is legend status. You're there, you're there.

[47:26] Drew Gasparini: That's the clone. What's funny is I found like still, even when I found out he like wrote this for you. Like at one point there was a short list of I saw, I don't remember how I saw it, but it was like just celebrity names to see if they would do it first, like Adele. And so this is like years ago, you know. And I'm like, oh great, you know, and then any celebrity fat person there was was just like on this list, and you're like, great. Um, but we did the 29 hour reading, and uh, and then I got this tour. And the tour, I wasn't even an equity member yet. I didn't have an agent, I had no equity card.

[48:03] Bonnie Milligan: Oh my god, I had no idea about that. That's amazing.

[48:05] Drew Gasparini: I got my equity card doing kinky boots, and so they at first were the director was like, don't do that tour. And I was like, Because it was going to go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015. Um, and they wanted to do a workshop of it in November first. And I was like, I'm gonna take this tour, and if it's meant for me, you guys can get somebody to do that November week, yeah, which was just pre-production for OSF, which a lot of the time they've they've cast they cast their shows over the summer, and then not everybody is out in Oregon yet, so they usually don't use the cast for the pre production anyway. It's just right for people out there to be like, oh, we'll use it's not even you know what I mean.

So a lot of the time they don't use their cast, and they were trying to be like, don't do that, so you can do this. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna take this big tour. Yeah, get my equity. Money's good, yeah. Yeah, the equity card's good, and the payday is all right. Hell yes. Do a first national tour. You know, you're working with Jerry Mitchell and Harvey Weinstein with not Harvey Weinstein, I'm so sorry. Harvey Feierstein.

[49:13] Bonnie Milligan: Oh God.

[49:18] Drew Gasparini: Listen, I've made that same exact slip-up. I'm just so happy I haven't done it on this podcast. That's horrifying. Happy there. There was no supple awning for you to catch you there. That was a trampoline into a ditch where I got a head injury from a rock.

[49:32] Bonnie Milligan: Oh my God.

[49:35] Drew Gasparini: Harvey Feyrstein, if you ever hear it. Harvey Fierstein, don't you? Yeah. I still love you. Please still love me. Back. Oh, kill me. Um Harvey and Cindy Lopper. Everybody was there. So, you know, like we were really kind of creating what the tour would be. Um, so anyway, I did that, and uh, I st I had to submit an audition tape. And because it was the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, everything's in uh rep. So I had to do a couple of Shakespearean monologues and do all that, which I had that training from college. Yeah, and um I got it. So I did the tour for seven months, and then I left to go do head over heels in Oregon.

[50:21] Bonnie Milligan: And when when that transferred to Broadway, because it was pretty short after that. It wasn't a long waiting period, was it?

[50:28] Drew Gasparini: Or am I crazy?

[50:30] Bonnie Milligan: Well, so we were. They did, they did, they loved it too. They called me up right away to tell me how much how much fun it was. They absolutely loved it. My dad was like, I thought I was gonna hate it, but it was so fun. Oh god, I loved being out there in San Francisco. They were such good crowds. Oh, so good. Perfect for that show. Great city for that show. Oh god.

[50:57] Bonnie Milligan: Um, so we were at OSF in 15 from you know, I was out there six months. I came back in October of 2015, and then they overhauled it all. Like I got a call in like February that they were essentially was a very strange call. Um, basically restarting with everybody except me. Like the entire cast, the entire creative team. Uh, who was left was Jeff Whitty and myself. Wow. And the go-go's, but they hadn't yet been involved. I met four out of the five go-go's came to the uh Oregon opening. Belinda couldn't make it, she like lives in Bangkok, I think. Yeah. Um, so it was a weird call to get because it's a show you care so much about. And my grandmother had died um right before I went to Oregon. It was a very hard, hard year.

You know, I was on the road, my grandma died, it was very sudden. Yeah. And then I leave the tour a month later of everybody that held me up during that to go to a place where I don't know anyone at a Shakespeare festival, one of the most prestigious ones in the country, which is already super uh intimidating. Yeah. Um, and they have a company, so here and there they do hold auditions for people. I'm outside of the company, so I'm talked about because I'm the one coming in that now. People are talking about oh, this was written for oh, she's the lead of the musical. Like, who is this? Right. And um, so you're like, God, I have to live up to these expectations, and I have to prove myself.

[52:39] Bonnie Milligan: And um, only a few people made me feel like that, but I did get that. Um, yeah, that's that's still what what treatment? But then those people, it's so funny, became very, very dear friends of mine. But at first they were like, they were like, Who are you? Um, but anyway, joke about it now, and I was like, You were you were scary. Yeah. Um, but uh and it became the most amazing time of these people that were so beautiful who held me up in another way, you know. And so I came back to New York and that was a hard transition for me. And then to hear, oh wait, everybody that really held you up, like they're all gone. And a lot of them who work there, they're like, We know we get replaced a lot. Yeah, it's not easy big, but we're used to this, and um, and so it was just it was really strange.

So Michael Mayer took over, and we had a workshop up at Vassar in 2016. Okay, then we did a lab in January of 2017. Okay, then 2018 is when we went to San Francisco and then Broadway. And then Broadway in that fall, right? Is that what it was? Yeah, uh summer. And that that production uh on Broadway was all too short-lived. And uh, you know, that's that's my personal thought on the whole thing. I thought it was it was so fun and great and beautiful once you really got the juice of what the show's about and the importance of the storytelling and the casting, I thought was so magnificent. The best, yeah. And when that came to an end, um, real quick, I just want to know like what did you feel your future was gonna be after that?

Because you'd made such an impact in that short amount of time, just with your performance and the buzz leading up to the Broadway opening. When it didn't get the length of the run you would have hoped for, perhaps. Did you feel like, but I'll be okay because of this, or did you feel like okay, it's back to the hustle, which is certainly part of the the gig of being an actor. What was like what were the fears and what were the securities you felt?

[54:46] Bonnie Milligan: There's definitely like um a bit of both of that. Like I it was so heartbreaking. You know it was coming because the the you know, the houses just weren't full. And we had a producer from Oregon who Louise Gund, who believed so much in us and the show that she just kept us open. And you know, we could have closed people like you're gonna close in August. And you're like, huh? But we stayed open through January. You know, we had a six and a half month run, which is nothing to balk at. Yeah, no, not at all. You're right. But it's way too short, way too short for the show. Some people are like, had it happened this season, it would have been embraced. And you're like, it's frustrating when people say you were just um a little ahead of your time, which is annoying because you're like, but just like when it's like years, like just tiny amounts of years.

You're like, but doesn't that mean we were needed when and I know that we were like our audiences that we found were really beautiful and um it was special to know what we were doing. What was amazing about the cast? Just 23 of the most beautiful people ever. And we believed so deeply in what we were doing. We had meetings with producers, you know, like what can we do? How can we turn this around? You know, let's brainstorm. Like, like we were too desperately trying um to fix it. And it's hard when you come out and the curtain rises and you see the group of people, and we were all in a pose behind a table. Um, save for Peppermint, but 15 of us were standing there when the curtain would rise up, and you sometimes you would just go, okay.

And you could do that with each other, you could feel it, like we're gonna do this show. Because something about that cast is we gave it every show because even a small house, they were so with us, yeah, that like it was real, even the quiet ones, you could feel them still, because not every loud laughers, but you it it's so anyway, it was um it had been such a road of feeling like you're just shouting into the wind.

[56:51] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah. Um, so that when we got our closing notice, you know, I cried and cried, of course. Um, but uh you you felt it coming, you had to feel proud of where you were, and uh frankly, like to be very honest, I was I was I felt a lot of dreams crushed. I I had so hoped that this would be such a breakthrough for me and um selfishly and uh in a lot of ways, like well, you just clocked the years you put into this. This is not like it opened and you had six months. You this is 2015, 2014, sorry. 14 to all the way to 200 early 19. Early 19 is when we closed. So I mean, we're we're talking like five and a half years here. This is this is a lot of time to be put into something. So of course your dreams felt that way, and and who can blame you?

And I'm not somebody that um easily gets cast in these types of roles, you know. I was standing center stage by myself, belting out a song about how beautiful I am, yeah, and um getting to be a romantic lead and getting to have a full character arc and doing things that usually you're relegated off to the side and you might make a quick joke, and it was like I feel like we're changing things that need to be changed. Like when I was on the road and someone was changed by me doing a dance solo. Right. Um, a duet, I mean, but like things that you're like, people are hungry for this and hungry for this representation and hungry for something that, like, I don't know why it's so taboo to like cast a big girl in this way.

Like, you don't have to explain why she's there. I was never explained why I'm in this role ever. Right, right. And so, and it was intentionally written like that, but it was never spoken of in the show. Right. And um, so it's like you feel this wave of like it's needed, but also the the pullback of it, so it's super frustrating. And you hope for running through things, and I I you know, again, you selfishly feel it sounds dumb, but like award seasons, maybe not going your way now.

[58:53] Bonnie Milligan: Right. Um, and which are is like a career thing because people get things and then their career sales. You're gonna get a TV appointment if you have this award or this nomination, and so it becomes a business thing as well as a dream that you've had since a kid tuning into the Tonies every year. It's like the permission. I always say you like one each step you take in your career gives you permission to the thing you really want to do uh down the line, like whether it's TV or movies, you have to get some other accolades so that the rest of the industry gives you permission to kind of keep going. That's what it feels like at least. Yeah, yeah. And so it it became the sadness of the show closing, the sadness of this dream of this specific show, and knowing what this show said and meant to so many people across all uh gender identities and sexual orientations and sizes and everything that how much it meant to such a widespread amount of people.

Yeah, that disappointment, the disappointment, and just again my own career of what it could have meant had it been a smash hit, which I felt like it should have been and could have been. And then you're like, am I gonna be forgotten all over again? Because it took a really long time to get me here. And what does this mean? And on top of just being sad about the show itself and what it would mean to the fans.

[1:00:17] Bonnie Milligan: Right. Um so it was rolled up into all of that in the fear of you're not no one's gonna like care anymore because it was hard enough to get them to tune in to anything you were doing before. Right. It's like you said, it's like you're shouting into the void at times, and and you you don't. I mean, like I know we're keep going back to this joke, but like it's kind of been used as this metaphor now. You don't have the awning beneath you to catch you, you really don't. And that is a scary circumstance to be in.

[1:00:45] Drew Gasparini: Yeah. Bonnie, I just we're we're about to hit an hour here, so I want to just wrap this up with one with one big final thing here. And uh first I'll say that good lord, as a as a creative and a writer in this industry, I can tell you from every conversation I've ever had, you are so far from forgotten after that role. You are so so talked about. Uh, you always got a place in anything I write. And I hope you know that because I just I uh you were you I'm bewildered by your talent. Um, but I want to end by saying this. Uh 2020 has been a diarrhea volcano in a lot of ways. And uh, I mean, for for you know, nationwide, worldwide, of course, but I and we do not have to discuss this at all, but I just want to say that I know that uh we talked about your dad, and uh what he was uh he was a pastor, he was a musician.

The man the man lives on in you and in every respect, I'm sure, but we lost him this year, and I I am I'm gonna say, first of all, I'm so sorry that that had to happen on top of every other shitty thing that had to happen in 2020. Uh but going forward in uh hopping into this new year, let's pretend we got the etch a sketch in front of us and we get to shake it, okay?

[1:02:00] Bonnie Milligan: Yeah.

[1:02:01] Drew Gasparini: What what is it that you draw for yourself in 2020? What do you want to see yourself doing more of? How are you going to can uh continue maintaining the output that you've made it so clear it's not just for you and your your greedy artistic soul, it is for others. You see the impact you have on others, and that's such an important thing. Uh the impact your family had on you. How are you gonna carry all of that into 2021? Is it more Broadway? Is it more theater? Is there other avenues you want to start going down? If you had the all the resources to do so, what would you be doing in 2021?

[1:02:38] Bonnie Milligan: I mean, if I had all the resources and all the the people on my side, I would love to um create I I would love to be a little bit more creating myself. Um yeah, and it's something I used to call myself a writer, and I I I've and I haven't written in a long time, and then that like weird voice comes in your head, it's like you're not that's not good enough, or you can't do that. And um I j I joined cameo and I started writing little parodies for people to sing their name and to sing their message, and that all of a sudden I was like, wait I do wait hold on and it was like my own way of just I wanted to make them special messages so I just started writing those and I was like I need to do more creating and I and there's so much that has happened um god in this last year especially but um the last few years that I'm like I need to put that out into the world somehow and I would love to uh do an album I would love to um also write a show that I get to be in like or be in the room about like that would that would be like the most ideal ever and I need to like learn a lot but if you're asking like fanciful the best thing ever I would love to like be on a TV show and me be there and me have a voice in a room about the writing of it yep and to be like this is well let's represent some things.

[1:04:07] Drew Gasparini: I don't think that's too fanciful. I think that you know and and God willing some we didn't lose somebody with the El Adam conversation at the beginning of this hopefully people are still listening at this point. But if there's someone listening let it be heard here. Bonnie Milligan deserves the world and more uh and it's it's not just because you're so talented it's because of of you just painted such a good picture of yourself. You are generous to a fault you give you create and you perform for the sake of others and making sure that your voice is other people's voice and I will always respect that of you.

[1:04:41] Bonnie Milligan: Um Bonnie I love you so much I can't thank you enough for doing this podcast with you.

[1:04:46] Bonnie Milligan: Yes. Thanks for having me.

[1:04:48] Drew Gasparini: And I hope we get to work together again soon when we're both not living in our parents' house.

[1:04:54] Bonnie Milligan: Oh my god.

[1:04:55] Bonnie Milligan: 2020. What have you done to us?

[1:04:56] Drew Gasparini: We're in our 30s.

[1:04:59] Bonnie Milligan: We're in our 30s.

[1:05:00] Drew Gasparini: We deserve better than this.

[1:05:01] Bonnie Milligan: God damn it.

[1:05:02] Drew Gasparini: Oh god.

[1:05:03] Drew Gasparini: All right, Bonnie Milligan. I love you. Thank you so much.

[1:05:05] Drew Gasparini: I love recording these outros. Hi, it's me, Drew Gasparini, and I just want to let you know that now we're talking as a proud member of the Broadway Podcast Network. Go to bpn.fm slash now we're talking if you want to find out more about that. You can follow me on all my socials at Drew Gasparini or on TikTok at the Drew Gasparini. A special thanks to Bonnie Milligan and all you listeners. Please rate and subscribe and come back for more guys.

[1:05:31] Drew Gasparini: Fuck Mary Kill, Waluigi, Wario, or Toad.

[1:05:37] Drew Gasparini: I think I'd fuck Wario.