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[0:00] Jayke Workman: Well, whoa, whoa. Luko's come crawling back. Oh my god, did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear? Oh my god, guys. Oh my god. Oh my god, you guys. Ah! Oh my pod, you guys! You guys! How I have missed you. Sorry, sorry to your ears. How I've missed you, you guys. She is back. I know. I know what you're all thinking. This bitch has been gone for far too long. And I know. I agree. It has been far too long. But I have been doing some crazy things. And I am so beyond excited to share the news with all of you. So thank you for bearing with me on my little four-week hiatus. I am on uh week four, almost the very end of my fourth week on working on a new show. You guys, I slipped away in the dead of night to Washington, DC.

I am working on a wrinkle in time at Arena Stage. And let me tell you, this show is so special, you guys, and I was chomping at the bit wanting to share the news for so long that this is what I've been planning to do for months. I am here and we are in the midst of things, and it is going to be a show unlike any other. It is so special, and I am just truly so so beyond grateful to be a part of it. So that is the update. That is where I've been, that's where I've been hiding away, working every single day. Um, I am in Washington, DC, and the show is phenomenal. This cast is unbelievable, and this episode of the pod features one of my absolute favorite people uh who happens to be in this show with me, and I'm so excited for you to meet him.

But of course, we have much to discuss because while I've been on my little hiatus journey, um, things have been going on in the Broadway world, and we have to talk about them, including Tony nominations. Yeah. Ew, that was horrible. Anyway, well, we're gonna talk about it all because we have to get to this week's Broadway World recap. You guys, where do I even begin? We we are just gonna have to blaze through some things because uh too much has happened and blah blah de blah. Okay, Jamie Lloyd wants to direct Hamlet, starring Timothy Chalamet. Uh sure. Why not? I mean, uh Timothy Chalamet, sure. Okay, and Jamie Lloyd, you know, a nominee, whatever. He's phenomenal. His work is beautiful, so sure, why not?

Uh the cast is set for Muni's Come From Away this summer, starring Heidi Blickenstaff. Uh and John Bolton. I mean, come on. Come from away, stunning. The Muni, great. The cast stacked. So, yes, this is going to be perfect. Cynthia Arrivo is going to lead a one-woman Dracula on the West End. Sure. Just add it to the list. I mean, my god, where do I even like the news, you guys, that is surrounding Broadway and theater right now is kooky crazy. So I just have to dive specifically into the Tony nominations. And you guys, I usually, I mean, of course, I'm always just as thrilled as anyone to find out who is nominated and what work is being celebrated. But this season, I don't know. I feel like such a specific tether to these shows.

Maybe it's because I have friends who are working in these shows, and I even have friends who are nominated, but it I don't know. Something about this season just feels different and feels exciting and thrilling. So I am so excited to share my few little hot takes on this season's Tony Award nominees. First category I will be evaluating is best leading actress in a musical. You guys, Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard, duh. We knew she was gonna be nominated, and we are happy about it. Next is Audrey McDonald, who also fantastic, absolutely beautiful. We knew she was going to be nominated. Jen Simard and Megan Hilty are both nominated for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in their respective parts in Death Becomes Her, which I had the pleasure of seeing.

And you guys, if it came down to the two of them, I don't know how someone would choose because they are both chomping in this show. They are phenomenal. And then you guys, uh, sleeper hit dark horse, youngest nominee, and Broadway debut. Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop. If she won, I would not be mad. I would not be mad at all. Her Betty Boop was extraordinary. One of the best performances I've ever seen in a show on Broadway or apart. So we're starting out strong with these leading actress nominees. But you guys, best leading actor in a musical, Darren Chris for Maybe Happy Ending, Tom Francis in Sunset Boulevard, Jonathan Groff in Just in Time. I had the pleasure of attending the opening night.

It was extraordinary. Jonathan can do no wrong in my opinion. He's so good and he's so sexy. Uh, but he his portrayal of Bobby Darren is stunning. It is beautiful work. You must see it. And I think he could win. Also, Jeremy Jordan in the new production of uh what is it called? Flood Collins, Floyd Collins. Sorry, sorry, sorry to this man. Uh, James Monroe Eigelhart playing fucking Louie Armstrong, of course, and Andrew Durand in Dead Outlaw. I have not seen Dead Outlaw yet, but I cannot wait to see it. And speaking of Dead Outlaw, we have Best Featured Actress in a Musical, you guys. Julia Nitel, friend of the pod. She's coming on the pod, and I cannot wait to have her is nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a musical for Dead Outlaw.

I my god, I just love Julia. She oh, okay. So if you have been an avid listener of the pod, she is partners with PJ Adzima, also a darling angel who has been on the podcast, and she is phenomenal. She's been beautiful on Broadway. She is an amazing talent, and she is nominated for her first Tony Award, which is unbelievable. Also, we have Justina Makado, Natalie Venetia Belcone, Joy Woods for her beautiful portrayal of Louise in Gypsy, and Gracie Lawrence for her performance in Justin Time. We also have the nominees for Best Leading Actress in a Play, which are Sarah Snook. Yes, confirmed. That is how you pronounce her last name. It is not Snook. Sarah Snook, Laura Donnelly, Sadie Sink, Latanya Richardson Jackson, and Mia Farrow.

I mean, an amazing category. Can you imagine being nominated against these people? Okay, then we get to best leading actor in a play. You guys. It simply has to be Cole Escola for O'Mary. It just has to be. I'm sorry to the other nominees. Congratulations. You get your flowers. You deserve it all. But Cole is everything. Okay, so apart from Cole, we have Harry Lennox, George Clooney, who never heard of him, Louis McCartney, Daniel Day Kim, and John Michael Hill. Congratulations to all of the best leading actor in a play nominees. And then we, of course, have the best featured actor in a musical, Jeb Brown, Danny Berstein, Brooks Ashmankis, who gets a little shout-out in this interview coming up, if you pay close attention.

Jack Malone and Taylor Trench. Amazing. Congratulations. I am so proud of all of you. Best featured actress in a play, Cara Young, who I believe holds the record for a most consecutive seasons being nominated. I think she's been nominated the last four or three seasons. Unbelievable. Fina Straza, Jessica Hecht, stunning, Marjon Nishot, and Tala Ashe. I believe that's how you pronounce her name. Congratulations. And best featured actor in a play. Gabe Ebert. Oh, I love me some Gabe. Glenn Davis, Frances Ju, Bob Odenkirk, and Conrad Rickamora for Oh Mary, you guys. This season is crazy. I'm just I am forever in awe of the Tonies, and I'm so excited that all of these people get to receive their flowers, not just, you know, to win an award, but to be nominated is such a special thing.

So congratulations to everyone nominated and everyone even eligible. This is an amazing season, and you your work is not lost on any of us. And I cannot wait to see who wins. And I will, of course, keep you updated on all things Tonies on Oh My Pod, you guys. Also, you guys, I have to plug the newest EP by this very episode's guest, Mr. JP Walker. It is entitled Last Night I Dreamed, and it is gonna drop on all streaming platforms on Friday, June 13th. You guys, I cannot wait for you to meet JP and you guys. This has been the Broadway World Recap. Cheers!

[10:30] JP Walker: Cheers, darling! Welcome to the pod! Oh so delighted. Oh, oh my pod, you guys. I'm nervous, I'm excited. We have gin and tonics in hand. Obviously. Thank God. You guys, my next guest on the show. Needs no introduction, honestly. Um, star of the stage and screen, truly. Uh icon. Total icon. Total icon. Uh, musician, father. Mother. Mother. Father, mother, sister, brother. You guys, Jon Patrick Walker is here. Cheers! Thank you for coming on the pod. I'm so glad you're here. I put my drink down. We well, where do I even begin? We're working together currently. We are. But we have worked together on the same project in another iteration of it in the past. Roughly a year ago. Yes, roughly a year ago, which is so wild because I kind of can't believe that I hadn't met you until that point.

I know, because it feels, doesn't it, like we've known each other. Like kiss met a long time. Oh my are we gonna kiss? Oh, I know. I truly feel like we are such like kindred spirits. And of course, I am pals with your mom. And we and we actually go away back. Okay, shout out. You know Jenny is listening right now. Hi Jenny. So hi Jen. Hi, buddy. Old pals. We'll do lunch when you're in town, we'll do lunch. Oh god. She's gonna kick me to the curb as soon as she gets here. She's like, I am sorry, I have plans with Jenny. We just need just a meal. Just give us a meal and a drink, and we're fine. Yes. That's it. So before we ever crossed paths, what was your role? I I didn't even tell the listeners.

We are currently working on the out of town of A Wrinkle in Time. Music and lyrics by Heather Christian. Genius. Directed by Elise Evans. Genius. A book by Lauren Yee. Genius. Genius. Also, shout out to our incredible music team, Ben Moss and Emily Whitaker and Ari, who are literally Yeah, it's insane. But we've been working on this show. I've been a part of it for this is my third iteration, so almost three years. You this is yours like second time back with the material. But like, how did you end up working on a wrinkle in time? You know, I've known Heather, Christian, who did the the lyrics and the music, and uh honestly, I think she's a genius. Oh, un I mean, just bandy this word about, don't they?

Right. Uh prone to hyperbole, but she really is extraordinarily gifted uh musician. And so I've known her s for like fifteen years. She actually at one point, about fifteen years ago, was teaching my younger daughter piano lessons. Oh and when she realized that my daughter, who was like eight at the time, nine, when she realized that she loved songwriting, really the lessons became song like a songwriting session. Sure. So Heather would come over and they would sit at the piano, and Heather would sort of prompt my daughter May May to just come up with ideas, and they would write songs, and it was incredible. Like just listening to the two of them while I was like in the kitchen or whatever around the house.

Really just a an amazing like little relationship that they formed. And um and I was a fan of Heather's music and saw her live and just was totally enamored of her work, and so I really think it was it was she suggesting me to the creative team. She was like, We're looking for the father role, and yeah, I got a pal who I think would be right what's amazing. Yeah. It's just one of those great sort of, you know, happenstances through connection and through relationship and which is often the best way to get work, I think. A hundred percent. And I also I love uh not necessarily, you know, in thinking of it as like loyalty or or anything the like being owed, but like I remember I I never auditioned for Wrinkle specifically.

I had auditioned for another project that uh came my way that Heather had done at R S Nova, the oratorio which I saw, which was insane. And I extraordinary. I couldn't believe it. And when I got the audition I was like, what is this? What what what you know? And then I read it and I listened to it and I was like I have to do this. And I had an audition and it was for Heather and Lee. Oh we directed that. Yeah. Of course. And uh I didn't get it. And I was crushed so crushed because I was like this is my type of thing. And then you know cut to they they remembered me from that audition. So you know everything fell into place that way. But that works out. Yeah. So where were your um or the piano lessons for your daughter and Heather was that in New York?

[15:00] JP Walker: Yeah at our house we have a house in Brooklyn and uh we had we were rent we had actually like decided to rent a piano for a year. Oh like we want to buy a piano that seems like a big you know purchase and expensive but so we we were just renting a piano. An upright and um yeah and then they just I mean May May took to it. She couldn't heal her away from it. Now she plays banjo and writes incredible songs and my other daughter's also a great songwriter.

[15:29] Jayke Workman: Wow.

[15:29] JP Walker: Well I always I ask because I I often ask when I start an interview where are you calling in from because most often I don't have the pleasure of being yeah in person. Um so you are are you like would you consider yourself a New Yorker at this point?

[15:42] JP Walker: I moved to New York in nineteen ninety.

[15:44] JP Walker: So I've been there a while. So I'm a New Yorker.

[15:48] JP Walker: Yeah. There's no way I'm not. I mean, I was born in upstate New York, so I get I was even born in the state.

[15:52] JP Walker: Love. Grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.

[15:54] Jayke Workman: Oh my god.

[15:55] JP Walker: I know her well.

[15:56] JP Walker: And she's I love New Haven.

[15:58] JP Walker: Yeah. And um went to Carnegie Mellon for drama and did the four year undergrad program there.

[16:05] JP Walker: And sure. You know, basically the next day after graduation.

[16:08] JP Walker: Moved to New York. Moved to New York City.

[16:10] Jayke Workman: Wow.

[16:10] JP Walker: And got a waitering job and like, you know, try eventually found an agent and okay, that is so amazing because I feel like it's been a long journey.

[16:20] JP Walker: It it I mean I can't. You can consider it long.

[16:24] JP Walker: Oh. But also it's not yet short.

[16:28] Jayke Workman: Yes.

[16:29] JP Walker: And it is like now I feel like the the thing to do if you are, you know, an up and coming actor. If you say I want to be an actor, it is you go to a four-year program and then you go to New York.

[16:41] JP Walker: But like that I just feel like there's a different mentality behind it. Like when you went to Carnegie Mellon.

[16:48] JP Walker: Yeah, did you know I want to be an actor? This is what I need to, you know, uh devote my life to, or and and this is what I need to be presented as.

[17:00] JP Walker: Like was there any was there like the idea of like branding that there is or seems to be now?

[17:06] JP Walker: Definitely not.

[17:07] Jayke Workman: Okay.

[17:07] JP Walker: So did you even know like Carnegie Mellon was one of the top programs and you were gonna I definitely did.

[17:13] JP Walker: I mean, uh dude, I got my start acting, I got my my first professional acting job. Here's here's an order that's gonna knock you sideways.

[17:13] JP Walker: My first professional acting job was in nineteen seventy-seven.

[17:22] Jayke Workman: Work.

[17:23] JP Walker: Amazing.

[17:24] JP Walker: Hello? Is this thing on?

[17:26] JP Walker: You were five years old.

[17:27] JP Walker: I was eight.

[17:28] JP Walker: I was eight years old. Um, and okay, it was I mean, I say professional gig, I was paid a silver dollar every performance.

[17:35] JP Walker: But let me tell you, I've never had a better paycheck.

[17:38] JP Walker: Well, I've been paid something. I've never had a pa I'll I'll s I've had a better paycheck, but I've never had a paycheck that excited me as much as an eight-year-old boy getting a silver dollar every night to get to work at the it was at the Yale Repertory Theater in in New Haven.

[17:52] Jayke Workman: Oh, casual.

[17:53] JP Walker: What the fuck? And I was working with professional actors and sitting, you know, crouched in the wings every night, mouthing everyone's lines, completely smitten and totally fell head over heels in love with theater.

[18:05] JP Walker: Oh my god. Um I just I got the gig because a friend of mine, his dad was a a professor at Yale, and they they had cast him in the show.

[18:13] JP Walker: It was a Brecht play. Were we were we talking about Brecht?

[18:16] Jayke Workman: Yes.

[18:16] JP Walker: Yeah.

[18:16] JP Walker: Yesterday.

[18:17] JP Walker: So my first show was a Brecht play.

[18:18] Jayke Workman: Oh my god.

[18:19] JP Walker: And I know you were stuck with it.

[18:20] JP Walker: You literally and yet it didn't crush my spirit.

[18:24] JP Walker: But it was a really fun production.

[18:26] JP Walker: Yeah.

[18:26] JP Walker: It really was.

[18:27] JP Walker: And um, because it was it like the concept of the show was like carnivalesque.

[18:31] JP Walker: And uh in fact, at the intermission, this was the best part of my my track, if you will, because I had a walk-on in the in the actual show.

[18:39] JP Walker: But in the intermission, they had devised a little carnival in the lobby where the drinks were served at the at the rep.

[18:46] JP Walker: And they had like a fortune teller and like a place where you could like throw darts at balloons.

[18:51] JP Walker: And and this actor Marklyn Baker did this whole mime routine where he would like mime climbing a ladder and diving into a glass of water.

[18:57] JP Walker: And I got to be the amazing rubber boy at the intermission.

[19:02] JP Walker: I knew that about you.

[19:02] JP Walker: And because I could do a Chinese split, at least they called it a Chinese split.

[19:09] JP Walker: I could just my legs go straight out and down, just crotch to the floor.

[19:13] JP Walker: Work.

[19:13] JP Walker: And I would lean and then I would lean over and pick up a a hanky, you know, that had been dropped on the stage with my platform.

[19:19] JP Walker: And this Barker would sort of introduce my step right up and see the amazing rubber boy.

[19:23] JP Walker: I mean, this sounds like, you know, when I told my ki I told my kids about this gig, and they said, okay, a silver dollar, the amazing boy was this 1877.

[19:32] JP Walker: Did you live through the dust bowl?

[19:34] JP Walker: Totally.

[19:34] JP Walker: Um it it's uh it's old school theater vibes.

[19:38] JP Walker: But man, I mean I that I was bitten bitten early.

[19:41] JP Walker: So that's amazing.

[19:42] JP Walker: So when I went to Carnegie Mellon I sought out what I had heard was one of the best top you know drama schools for undergrad.

[19:49] JP Walker: I I wanted undergrad I didn't want to wait and go to grad school because I did wasn't interested in sort of a liberal arts education.

[19:55] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[19:55] JP Walker: Or taking any more math or science.

[19:57] JP Walker: Oh absolutely not so I went to Carnegie Mellon and um did my four years and then straight to New York.

[20:03] Jayke Workman: Did your was that part of your uh sort of like familial plan?

[20:08] JP Walker: Like did your f did your parents know and support that they totally knew and supported that um because they were there all along the way as I was I mean I ended up doing maybe a dozen shows at Yale so it was like they kept calling me and saying hey we got another it was incredible.

[20:22] JP Walker: I mean 'cause the way the rep worked, at least in those days I think it's still true, is that they would basically get their grad students and they would bring in professionals from New York.

[20:31] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[20:31] JP Walker: And so that they so that the grads could work with the pros, you know and um so I mean as a kid to be around that world and and observing so much uh you know just great actors.

[20:45] JP Walker: I mean just amazing actors.

[20:46] JP Walker: And and the other great lesson that it taught me really early on was that you could be a sort of middle class actor.

[20:52] JP Walker: I mean in other words it showed me that there were these guys and women of course living in New York who were not famous actors.

[20:59] JP Walker: They were not like you know, 'cause when you're a kid you just think, Oh, if you're an actor, it's like you're whatever.

[21:04] JP Walker: At the pinnacle or nothing on TV or or Paul Newman in a movie.

[21:07] JP Walker: That's what I'm talking about when I was a kid.

[21:09] JP Walker: But so it kind of showed me that you could have a working career as an actor and not necessarily be like a big famous person.

[21:15] Jayke Workman: Totally so it made it seem much more accessible and possible and not just like this crazy which didn't mean that I I did have ambitions for like being on the Johnny Carson show and I mean and you know me too.

[21:26] JP Walker: Right.

[21:26] JP Walker: Um and so but yeah it was just a really wonderful early in intro to theater.

[21:33] Jayke Workman: Wow.

[21:34] JP Walker: I mean I my I did my very first show when I was nine.

[21:36] JP Walker: Yeah.

[21:37] JP Walker: So I definitely um and it w I'm not that I was at Yale, but it certainly opened my eyes to what it meant.

[21:47] JP Walker: Yeah.

[21:48] JP Walker: It wasn't just like I did I mean it was a community theater production which then led to regional gigs.

[21:55] JP Walker: I was in Kansas City um and so I worked professionally as a kid.

[22:00] JP Walker: So I remember thinking I've done it.

[22:03] JP Walker: Like I've made it.

[22:05] JP Walker: Yeah.

[22:05] JP Walker: I was like I'm thirteen years old and I have five credits.

[22:08] JP Walker: Amazing.

[22:09] JP Walker: I'll you know and then it was well and then you grow up and you're like I that was nothing right.

[22:14] JP Walker: Um or not nothing but I'm yeah you know what I mean.

[22:16] JP Walker: It's it's a start.

[22:17] JP Walker: But yes, so then when you did enter into the world of professional theater, like post grad and everything you hit the ground running in New York did you know that uh T V and uh like film work was also gonna be on your horizon.

[22:35] JP Walker: Certainly hoped so.

[22:36] JP Walker: Okay.

[22:36] JP Walker: I knew that you know in those days there was a lot more in LA so really if you were thinking T V and film you kind of moved to LA.

[22:43] Jayke Workman: Right.

[22:43] JP Walker: Back then I think it's not the same anymore.

[22:46] JP Walker: Um, you know, there's so much T V and stuff that's film filmed in New York, but that wasn't the case when I was yeah first there, really.

[22:53] JP Walker: Um so I think I did my first pilot season where I actually like went out to LA, you know, a couple years after I got to New York.

[23:01] JP Walker: I I said, okay, I'm gonna and I drove out with a friend in my dad's Toyota Tercell.

[23:06] JP Walker: And we drove out to LA and I spent, you know, f a couple months out there and I got a I booked a gig on a T a sitcom called Empty Nasty.

[23:13] JP Walker: Yes, you did and I booked uh another little guest spot on Melrose Place.

[23:18] Jayke Workman: Yes.

[23:20] JP Walker: And um so, you know, so I got a taste of that early on too.

[23:25] JP Walker: But uh so I did yeah, I wanted to do all of it.

[23:27] JP Walker: I wanted to do everything.

[23:28] JP Walker: Yeah.

[23:28] JP Walker: But I wasn't really thinking music theater then.

[23:30] JP Walker: I didn't I didn't go into Carnegie Mellon.

[23:33] JP Walker: I went in as a straight quote unquote actor, not not music theater.

[23:37] Jayke Workman: Interesting.

[23:38] JP Walker: And because I just didn't really I don't know, it wasn't on my radar.

[23:42] JP Walker: I wasn't doing I didn't do like musicals in high school.

[23:45] JP Walker: I was doing plays um at the art school where I I went.

[23:49] Jayke Workman: And so were there things that uh musicals, I guess I should say, that inspired you to sort of to think about that.

[23:57] JP Walker: Yeah, ste step like a foot into those rooms.

[24:00] JP Walker: I'd always loved musicals.

[24:01] JP Walker: I mean I I did a community theater in New Haven.

[24:04] JP Walker: I did it like when I was thirteen, a community theater.

[24:06] JP Walker: This is actually a funny story, of the music man, um and it was the the the concept that the director had who also incidentally starred in the in the piece, uh it was the music man with an asterisk is a lady.

[24:19] JP Walker: Yeah.

[24:21] JP Walker: And so I think this I have a feeling that this guy who played Mary Aller Mary and M A R I O N the Librarian.

[24:29] JP Walker: Oh my god.

[24:30] JP Walker: It's like probably as a boy he'd he'd always dreamed about I want to play Mary and I want to sing the barbarian.

[24:30] JP Walker: I want to sing those songs, yeah.

[24:37] JP Walker: So he cast a woman opposite him as I forget what her like first name was Harriet Hill.

[24:43] JP Walker: As right, Harriet Hill or whatever.

[24:44] JP Walker: Uh and he was Mary on the librarian.

[24:47] JP Walker: And I and I just was the b a townsperson who my solo line was, I got a box of maple sugar on my birthday.

[24:55] JP Walker: Which of course I did like Kat Hepburn Kate Hepburn.

[24:58] JP Walker: Because you gotta do it like Kate.

[24:59] JP Walker: Of course.

[25:00] JP Walker: Um and yeah.

[25:02] JP Walker: But so anyway, I love musicals.

[25:03] JP Walker: I mean, I did.

[25:04] JP Walker: It was just like I didn't think of myself as like, oh, you know, that's an option that I could really explore.

[25:09] JP Walker: So it really wasn't until I was in my early thirties and I thought, you know, I'm missing out on there's all this work and I th I can sing.

[25:17] JP Walker: I mean I I felt like I needed to get a vocal coach to sort of just get the confidence to sort of go in front of people and audition and sing, you know, legit stuff or whatever.

[25:27] JP Walker: Um, which I did and I took some lessons and got my confidence up.

[25:31] JP Walker: But um so that was great because it it opened up, you know, a whole nother avenue to work.

[25:35] Jayke Workman: Mm-hmm.

[25:36] JP Walker: You know.

[25:36] Jayke Workman: So tell me about was was High Fidelity your first Broadway show.

[25:42] JP Walker: Uh technically no.

[25:44] JP Walker: I mean I I was in a production uh at the roundabout back in like ninety-two or something of a a play called Black White Liars Black Comedy.

[25:55] JP Walker: It was a it was two one acts by this guy, Peter Shaffer.

[25:59] JP Walker: And I was cast a as in an understudy position for one of the leads.

[26:03] JP Walker: But about I don't know, a few days in well, not a f more than a few days, but but um at some point during the run the this lead decided he didn't want to do the first of the two one acts.

[26:14] JP Walker: He only wanted to do the second one, which was much more physical and for whatever reason he just wasn't interested in the first of the two one acts.

[26:20] JP Walker: So he ended up essentially giving it not giving it, but he he just stopped doing it and they gave it, you know, I took over.

[26:28] JP Walker: Right.

[26:28] JP Walker: And they gave me my I didn't have an equity card at that point.

[26:31] JP Walker: So they they let me take over the role officially and I got my equity card um playing opposite uh what what was her name?

[26:39] JP Walker: She played the mom and the Sopranos who're probably better at names than me.

[26:42] JP Walker: But anyway this older actress who was incredible I mean kind of a legend and she played Tony Soprano's mom in the early seasons of Promise.

[26:51] JP Walker: But um so that was that was my first Broadway show.

[26:54] JP Walker: But in those days the roundabout was sort of technically Broadway but also kind of not they didn't they didn't really pay Broadway wages.

[27:02] JP Walker: They were I think now they've become much more actually Broadway like the American Airlines theater and all that but like then it was it was this strange space um right on Timesquare.

[27:11] JP Walker: It's really weird kind of hideous theater actually but um but but so after that High Fidelity was my first real kind of you know amazing at the Majestic.

[27:23] JP Walker: Oh my god at the Majestic and I was and I played Bruce Springsteen.

[27:27] JP Walker: Phantom yes I got to rise out of the floor.

[27:29] Jayke Workman: That's insane.

[27:31] JP Walker: So how do you go from not really like thinking of yourself as like the musical guy to playing Bruce Springsteen.

[27:39] JP Walker: Yeah.

[27:39] JP Walker: On the Majestic stage.

[27:41] JP Walker: I mean it was just it's just the way it rolled.

[27:43] JP Walker: I mean I j I I don't know how it happened but I just auditioned and I got the wrong and I was also covering Will Chase.

[27:50] JP Walker: I was covering the lead.

[27:51] JP Walker: Right.

[27:51] JP Walker: And actually, you know, right after we opened we got a really bad review in the Times which hurt.

[27:57] JP Walker: It was unfair.

[27:57] JP Walker: I mean the show really was wonderful I thought and um but we got a pretty lousy review in the Times and they told us that they were gonna shut it down.

[28:05] JP Walker: And this was right before Christmas.

[28:06] JP Walker: It's like here's a Christmas gift, guys.

[28:08] JP Walker: Jeffrey Seller, uh, you know, we we gotta shut this down.

[28:12] JP Walker: It's not gonna happen.

[28:13] JP Walker: And poor Will was was so upset, you know.

[28:16] JP Walker: And so there was one night when like in the first act, near the end of the first act, we're on stage together, but the action is happening elsewhere.

[28:24] JP Walker: Like we were sort of off to the side, and he leans over and he says, Hey, do you wanna do act two?

[28:28] JP Walker: And I was like, Um I sure, I guess.

[28:32] JP Walker: Because he was feel he was feeling physically ill actually.

[28:34] JP Walker: I mean, he got kind of sick.

[28:36] JP Walker: Yeah I mean, just I think all the pressure of it and then the bad review and the closing notice, it was just sort of too much.

[28:41] Jayke Workman: That's quite but so he so I I ended up open you know, act two, I was like a new actor on stage in the role.

[28:48] JP Walker: Ladies and gentlemen, the role will now be played by and the audience was amazing and Susan Strowman was in the audience.

[28:54] JP Walker: Stro!

[28:55] JP Walker: Uh and uh Cander, you know, uh John Cander was there with Stro.

[29:00] JP Walker: So they got to see me like take over halfway through shit.

[29:03] JP Walker: And they came back after and was like congratulating me and then I ended up doing Young Frankenstein a few years later.

[29:10] Jayke Workman: Yes.

[29:10] JP Walker: Okay, so tell me about young Frankenstein because that is one that uh kind of has like a cult following.

[29:16] JP Walker: Yeah.

[29:17] JP Walker: Did you know that you were gonna be like doing something that would have such an impact?

[29:23] JP Walker: I didn't really know, but I was as a little kid, I loved that movie.

[29:26] JP Walker: Sure.

[29:26] JP Walker: I I absolutely adored that film and was a huge fan of Mel Brooks all you know, growing up.

[29:32] JP Walker: So when I heard that it was happening, I was like, I I have to Yeah, you know, I have to I have to try to be uh involved with this.

[29:39] JP Walker: Totally.

[29:40] JP Walker: And um sorry, I'm making oh clean that up in editing.

[29:43] JP Walker: I'm drunk.

[29:44] JP Walker: Um, but so yeah, so I mean I I auditioned and and you know and covered uh Igor and Dr.

[29:55] JP Walker: Frankenstein.

[29:56] JP Walker: And that's probably the hardest acting gig I've ever had because there were there were times when like I'd be on for Dr.

[30:02] JP Walker: Frankenstein Tuesday night, then I'd be on for Igor Wednesday matinee, and then on for Frankenstein again Wednesday night, and you know, and they had scenes together and duets and so I'm doing two. It's just a giant monologue. You know, it was it was kind of insane on my brain pan. But was it ever did you ever have the like self-imposed feelings of like the pressure of I'm in uh I'm I'm on Broadway, I'm in this musical directed by Susan Strowman, and if I fuck up it's gonna they'll be held pen.

[30:36] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[30:37] JP Walker: You know, I I I didn't. I mean I Because I just have to say you just strike me as someone who doesn't have that type of energy, so it would be surprising to me to hear that you would be like I don't get too worked up generally. And the thing is they the the the sort of associate director, choreographer guy, I forg I'm blanking on his name, but wonderful guy who taught me my tracks. He's like it had been running. It it had opened and they were really they didn't have good c I had turned down they they like when they were gonna go out of town to Seattle, they were like, Do you want to do the understudy track? And I said, No, I do not know. Sure, sure. Okay. And so I wasn't gonna do it. And then it had opened and it it it had started running and I was actually working with a a uh do you know Paul Castry actor?

[31:23] Jayke Workman: That sounds so familiar.

[31:24] JP Walker: Musical theater guy, great guy. He he was helping me with an audition for some show, I don't even remember what it was, and he's and he was it he was in the ensemble of Jon Frankenstein. He said, You know, uh Roger Bart's back is really, really bad. He's been missing shows, he may not be able to even like complete his contract, we don't know.

[31:41] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[31:41] JP Walker: And the and they're not happy with, you know, the understudy. Yeah. And uh so, you know, I got a little moment of like my all about Eve moment where uh he was like, you know, I mean, I know they really wanted to. And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna go for it. So I basically called my agent and was like, if they're still interested, and they were like, Will you please come and and start learning the tracks for the show? Wow. But the great thing was I was gonna say is that they they were like, We will not put you on until you're ready. Like, we're not saying you have to learn these tracks and beyond next week.

[32:12] Jayke Workman: That's amazing.

[32:13] JP Walker: They were like, You will literally have as much time as you need, and when we agree, you and I agree that you feel ready. What then we deal did you make with which devil I don't know. It was it was it was incredible. So I literally had weeks and weeks and weeks of rehearsal with no pressure to go on. That's amazing. And I actually don't recall that that he missed any shows during that stretch, so like it wasn't as though they were putting people on and and you know, I think like the show was fine. Yeah. And and it just worked out, you know. Um so anyway, so so it was so I so that's part of why I didn't feel totally freaked out, is because I really was kind of ready to do it. I mean, it was still an out of body experience, especially the first couple times.

[32:54] Jayke Workman: Of course.

[32:55] JP Walker: It was sort of like, I can't believe I'm in the center of this ginormous show with a forty-eight piece orchestra. I mean, he they went all out. 'Cause it was following up the producers. So Mel was like, I'm the king of New York. Yes. You know, the show wasn't as obviously as successful uh by any stretch as the producers, but it was a great show. Wow. Andrea Martin. I mean I mean, come on. Megan Mullale getting it. I got to like dance with Megan Millalie. That's so insane. It was a delight. You know, do you uh are like in those instances, are those the type of relationships that like you look back on and you're like, That's Megan Malale?

[33:29] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[33:29] JP Walker: Like when you see her or people like her, you know.

[33:32] JP Walker: No, it's it was it was like it was like a dream. It was really so much fun and I loved it. You know, I loved that show and I loved getting to play those parts. You know, Igor was wasn't as f as easy a fit for me. Yeah. Like I could do it and it was fine, but like I loved playing Dr. Frankenstein. Totally. That was great. Well, switching gears a little bit, I would love to talk about your um shared experience as a performer with your partner and how it sort of has not shaped necessarily, but how it has like informed the way that you have gone about raising your kids and and how you just navigate like the day to day because it's not often I would say that two people who um are both creatives have such um fruitful careers in tandem and it's so exciting to see you guys sort of thriving in it and to continue to you know navigate.

[34:33] JP Walker: Yeah, and I'd love to know like how like first of all, when did you even meet Queen Hope? And like did you know that you guys were gonna have those similar trajectories?

[34:45] JP Walker: I mean, there was of course no way to know what our trajectory would be. In fact, the I mean they're never the first time we met, it was kind of a disaster. It wasn't a disaster, but we'd been set up by JP.

[34:54] Jayke Workman: We listen, I didn't do anything.

[34:56] JP Walker: I mean, I no, I literally didn't do anything. And that was the problem. I said hello, and then I said goodbye. I mean, we we we had been set up to meet at um this wonderful director Nicholas Martin, who passed away, uh theater director, um, who passed away probably 10, 12, 13 years ago. But so I had worked with Nicholas and Hope had worked with Nicholas, but never together. And she had gone through a divorce a couple years prior. I'd gone through a big breakup a couple years prior to you know, meeting him, working with him. So he set us up. I mean, he was like, You guys need to meet. I think you'd be great together, you'd be a great couple. And so we met at his 60th birthday party at Cafe Unduit uh in Townsquare.

And I got there late because I thought, you know, I was nervous, and it I thought it was like at a bar hanging around, like standing around with drinks. It was a sit-down dinner and I was like late and they were waiting for me, and there was like one chair left, and we're like fifteen, twenty people. It was very overwhelming. And so Nikki was sitting right next to me, Nicholas was sitting right next to me, and Hope was on the other side of him. So in a way it was an awkward position because I couldn't really like I wasn't facing her or sort of in a place where it was easy to chat with her. And I think she felt shy. In fact, I know she felt sort of shy and kind of weird about it too. So we we were introduced, we said hello, nice to meet you, and then the rest of the night, well, Brooks Ashmanskis was sitting across from me.

[36:17] Jayke Workman: Sure.

[36:17] JP Walker: So when you're sitting across from Brooks, that's gonna be the evening. That's the dinner that's I mean, yeah, and such a I love Brooks to death. And um at any rate, and then at the end of the night we were all getting up to leave, and she came over and said, Well, goodbye. It was nice meeting you and I said good goodbye. Fuck. And that was it. And so I thought, well, that's that's you know, didn't happen. The next night she was at dinner with a friend, Katie Finneran's actress, and Katie went had gone to Carnegie Mellon. So when she told this amusing story of this guy she met that was a total nothing happened, a nothing burger, um, Katie said you should call him. He's a nice guy. So she so she called me a few days later.

[36:58] JP Walker: She lied for you.

[36:59] JP Walker: She lied. Um because she knew I was desperate. And she was mad at hope. Right. Um so she called me and said, do you want to get a coffee? And I said, Yeah. So and we've been together twenty-seven years. That's amazing. Twenty-seven years. Wow. And so I mean, I think the dynamics of two artists, two creatives, but specifically two actors, yeah. Uh they kind of ebb ebb and flow I would imagine over the years and and where you guys end up and everything. But and maybe I'm totally wrong, but I'm like, as a giant homo, my experience with like partnerships with people who are in my field seem to be different than someone who would be in like a hetero couple where it's like there isn't you're not necessarily competing for the same roles.

[37:47] JP Walker: Right.

[37:47] Jayke Workman: Even if there are opportunities that you're like, damn, I would have loved to be part of that. Right. It's less about like what what you actually could do better than I think that could make it more com I could see how that would make it a little more complicated. Do you feel like like the longevity of both of your careers has been part of your um sort of like love for each other? Like like the way that you operate into because I guess what I mean, not not to say that it um contributes, but like how do you navigate it hindering or potentially hindering when you are so far apart having to be on a contract or like like how do you make sure that it stays We've been really lucky and you know, the it's like in a way uh the great thing about one of the things I actually just love about Hope is that she's she's not really that ambitious.

She's worked and she's had an incredible career, but it doesn't she just he's not like caught up in in being an actress. Right. Like it it's not like part of her identity in in a in a way that it I think it is for other people. Yeah. And and when I say actors, it could you know actors too that are like that. Yeah. Um but and I think I'm similar in a way. Like we have a similar vibe where we we love what we do and of course we want to work and need to work and and all those things but but it hasn't really been it hasn't really affected the relation. The relationship has somehow always felt kind of separate from whatever our careers are doing, whether we're working or not working. And we and we've just been very lucky in terms of balancing like raising children with we've oddly often had times where she's worked and I've been free so I could sort of watch the kids while she was really busy.

Like she was doing a play in New York and then like I'd been I was doing a show but she wasn't working. And so we it often worked out that it wasn't too crazy and we didn't have to like have babysitters coming over all the time and we're very lucky. We're very compatible and And so then did your children have to come out to you as non theater people Well my my youngest at one point was doing a show she was doing Shrek the musical a at at the the middle school and she came home one night and she said I hate act And we were like Yes Thank God. Ah we raised her right. Yeah. Um the other my eldest did want to for a long time expressed real strong interest in being an actor. In fact there were many Christmases for a period where I would get a separate li Christmas wish list uh from what my daughter would give to Hope.

And the one that she would give me always had an agent at the top. An agent. An agent is like Santa. You know, I want like, you know, uh game boy, whatever, and I want a doll and I want an agent. Um which I always thought was absolutely hilarious. I was like, darling, I need to get myself an agent. Get in line. Because do you have you seen the person I'm working with? Um but uh so but but now um my daughter Georgie is uh actually thinking about nursing school, so they've really switched gears and I couldn't be prouder. I mean, we'll see if that happens. It's not something set in stone, but but um I I think they've decided actually that you know, maybe maybe not, which I think is I I don't know, I feel like it's harder today than it was when I was younger.

I I don't really know that, but it is it? I mean uh it seems it certainly is, but I definitely think it's because of the the social media stuff and like you gotta have followers to get an agent, is that true?

[41:21] Jayke Workman: Sure.

[41:21] JP Walker: I mean they look at that, they must look at it. So layered. Of course, of course, that is uh an element of it, but I think honestly most of it now is just um accessibility. It's like nobody knew I've I've talked a little bit about this on the pod before, but like I'm a huge um what's the word like proponent? Is that like someone who roots for something? I'm a huge proponent of a bootleg. I love to be able to see videos from shows that I never ever could have seen before. And I I uh like think back to like I wore out my VHS copy of cats as a child because that I just was just like enamored. And it was was it a bootleg? It wasn't a bootleg. But I just mean in terms of like archival. There wasn't really that many shows that had the fortune of being archived like that.

Right, right. Um and so with the advent of phones and people being able to like and so now footage. Uh yes. And so it it reaches people in such a different way than it ever could have before. Where like if you didn't have the bug and if you didn't have the like uh the clue in, you kind of didn't know about it in the way that you are forced to now. Especially because with the onslaught of like theater being on TV and like theater being in movies, like Smash being a TV show that is now a Broadway show and like Broadway musicals that then were put on Glee and you know so all of like those little pollination totally in a way that it wasn't. I really do think it's it's much more difficult now, and because it's so oversaturated, everyone's self-taping that hasn't that become basically a hundred percent of auditions?

[43:05] JP Walker: It has.

[43:06] Jayke Workman: And there are pros and cons. I love self-tapes and I hate it. Like I love going into an audition room. Right. It I feel so alive when I get to just go in and collaborate and work with people, and it sounds so cheesy and nobody's like self-serving. But it's so different than the energy that you have to pull out of yourself to put something on your living room.

[43:24] JP Walker: Yeah.

[43:25] Jayke Workman: Yes, with like a reader on the show. But at least you can do twelve takes and get the one you like. And that's that's the upside. Right. But my perfectionist brain, I'm like, I'll do five thousand boottakes. Or one. I'm like, it's good enough. Fine. Right. Moving on.

[43:39] JP Walker: Print it.

[43:41] Jayke Workman: So I would love to ask you about the Hamilton of it all.

[43:47] JP Walker: Certainly, darling.

[43:48] Jayke Workman: Because you had the opportunity to play King George.

[43:53] JP Walker: The third.

[43:54] Jayke Workman: The third in the National Tour of Hamilton. And I love uh talking to people who have been in like these big sort of like machine legacy shows.

[44:02] JP Walker: Yeah.

[44:03] Jayke Workman: Because you get to put your stamp on it in your own way, as you know, specifically in a role like King George.

[44:10] JP Walker: Yeah.

[44:11] Jayke Workman: But you are also such a cog in a very uh fast moving machine.

[44:18] JP Walker: And I have felt that way with Chicago and I've talked to so many people in like Wicked and Lion King and everything, but like, how was it getting to uh put on that ridiculous costume and go out there and just I mean make a fool for it's fifteen minutes.

[44:33] JP Walker: It's a dream it's kind of a dream role in in so many ways. Obviously. And and to get to experience being in a show that was that much of a hit, it's like I've done so many shows that like, you know, weren't huge hits, and that's fine, you know. It's like it they they don't come along very often. And obviously a hit of the level of Hamilton is like literally once a century or whatever. I mean so it was it was just an incredible feeling to be in something that people were clamoring in every city we visited, every single night.

[45:04] JP Walker: Yeah. There was never a night where it's like, oh, the house is a little thin. No, obviously it was completely sold out every single night for the entire year and a half that I did it. And so just to experience that alone, um was pretty was pretty cool. And you get to be the fucking funny one. To be the funny one, it was definitely a joy. I mean, it really was. But also, and I think I've I've said this to you off mic, and what's the point of saying anything off mic? But I you know it was also a lonely track in a in a funny way.

[45:30] Jayke Workman: Yes.

[45:31] JP Walker: I mean it was so much fun, and really the audience was my scene partner. I mean, that's the way I thought of it. It's like the audience is my they're the person I'm sort of communicating with. I mean direct address, you're like direct address.

[45:42] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[45:42] JP Walker: And I would literally try to pick people out if I once I you know, the in the staging where it moves downstage. Um I would try to just just make some eye contact if it was possible through the through the lights because um because again it was a little bit of a lonely track in terms of the rest of the cast. I was always alone on stage.

[46:00] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[46:00] JP Walker: And um so over the year and a half that I did it, I mean I felt that a little bit, you know. And you're on tour, so that's like a completely different level of isolation.

[46:08] Jayke Workman: Exactly.

[46:09] JP Walker: Wow. So it had its challenges, but my god, I mean it was joy. It really was. Did you ever get to cross paths with any of the like powers that be at the Hamilton, like a Lynn Manuel Miranda?

[46:22] JP Walker: Absolutely. I mean, he was at the the very sort of first big rehearsal in New York. He came and spoke to us all and you know, uh hugged us all and was a total gentleman and so sweet.

[46:34] Jayke Workman: Wow, great.

[46:35] JP Walker: And then I think I don't know a year into the run, he came, I forget which town, like we were in the south, maybe New Orleans, but he came to see the show, and we knew ahead of time that he was coming, which was sort of like I kinda wish I didn't know till after, but yeah. And like threw us a party at this swanky, you know, rooftop restaurant and I mean he was just a total total gem of a guy.

[46:59] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[47:00] JP Walker: And uh, you know, Tommy wasn't he we didn't he wasn't doing a lot of like the the putting together of the show when we were learning it. Uh but but he he came he came around. I mean he was working on ten different things, I think by that point.

[47:14] Jayke Workman: Amazing.

[47:15] JP Walker: But you know, he was around and um uh the musical director blanking on the black Lackamall. Yeah, Lacamore, Lacamore, sorry. Uh he he was there much actually quite a bit. Uh and would and we'd come in and and and check on the show every I don't know.

[47:32] Jayke Workman: Are you doing it right?

[47:33] JP Walker: Yeah. I mean he he they really ran a tight chip and they really wanted the show to be very on point at all times. I'm not, you know, I mean it was it was they were totally devoted to keeping the level as I mean when it starts at that level, it's like exactly you you have to have someone to maintain it.

[47:51] Jayke Workman: Yeah, yeah.

[47:52] JP Walker: So okay, before I let you go, um I have to ask about your music, which I'm so excited to add to this episode and share with the world. Um, is this your first album that you have released?

[48:06] JP Walker: I have been making records for like almost fifteen years.

[48:10] Jayke Workman: Okay, what a stupid question.

[48:11] JP Walker: No, no, it's not it's not stupid at all. I mean I've just been putting them up by myself, you know, myself to self-releasing. I don't have like a record label or anything that I'm working with, but I've been working, you know, I've I've made a couple records in Nashville with, you know, top drawer musicians.

[48:23] Jayke Workman: Amazing.

[48:24] JP Walker: I made a re I actually recorded a song when we were on tour with Hamilton. We were in Memphis and I went to Sun Studios where like Elvis and all these people.

[48:33] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[48:34] JP Walker: I went as a tourist because I thought it was just a like a museum uh uh at this point, and this was in twenty nineteen. But when I was on the tour, the tour guide was like, and we are still an active studio at night and a little light bulb went off in my head 'cause I had just literally written a song f on the bus from Kansas City.

[48:50] Jayke Workman: Oh my god.

[48:50] JP Walker: and we m drove to Memphis on and on the bus I wrote a song called The Rented Tuxedo and I was like the I lo you know, I was excited about the tune and then I I heard that Sun was still a working studio and I said, I'm off this coming Monday. Is there is there availability? And there was.

[49:09] Jayke Workman: Of course you did.

[49:10] JP Walker: And so I booked I booked the the studio. Um I didn't have anyone to play with, so I asked the tour guide, because he had mentioned that he was a musician. I said, What do you play? He said, I play bass. I said, Would you want to play bass on this track on Monday?

[49:22] Jayke Workman: Right.

[49:22] JP Walker: And he was like, Totally. And then like a day later, I was out walking my dog and a guy was busking on the street, and I went up to him afterwards. He was great. He was like this blues guy, and I was like, Hey, d you don't play har blues harp, do you? And he said, Yeah, I totally play blues harp. And I said, Do you want to play on a track Monday night at Sun Studio that I'm recording? And he was like, Totally. What the hell?

[49:43] Jayke Workman: So it was just magic, man.

[49:45] JP Walker: It really was. And and so we recorded this song and that became the title track to an album I put out a couple years ago called The Rented Tuxedo and other songs. Um and then uh just this past December I put out an album called Simple Pleasures.

[49:58] Jayke Workman: Wow.

[49:59] JP Walker: And I would love to share with your listeners a track from from that song.

[50:03] Jayke Workman: I can't wait for them to hear it. Is there anything that like specifically inspired this?

[50:08] JP Walker: This album? Yeah. I mean, I'm just always writing. I I I kind of found my way, you know, I was in bands in high school and in college and was doing a little bit of writing and playing out when I was in New York in my early twenties. But then my career kind of got busier and then I met Hope and got married and had children, and so my my music uh stuff kind of just was was put to the side for a long time.

[50:31] Jayke Workman: Yeah.

[50:31] JP Walker: And it really wasn't until like my early forties that I uh through various things kind of rediscovered this this love of of of m of songwriting.

[50:41] Jayke Workman: Mm-hmm.

[50:42] JP Walker: And I ended up going to Nashville on a whim and recording just a single track that uh, you know, a friend of mine who lived down there invited me down and set up, you know, his musici musician friends to work with me, and it was the most joyful, like empowering experience. Because the thing about being an actor, at least for me, it's like unless you're producing your own stuff, right? Or writing your own material as an actor, you're at the mercy. You're kind of at the mercy.

[51:03] Jayke Workman: Of course.

[51:04] JP Walker: And that's just the gig and it's fine. But this was something that I thought, man, I can take control of this. I can produce this, I can write it, produce it, arrange it, record it, work with amazing people who bring their own ideas, and you know, it's not like it's this monomaniacal, you know, ego trip that I'm on. I'm I'm so delighted to to work with other people on this stuff. And but it's yours.

[51:26] Jayke Workman: But it's mine, and no one can tell me, you know, that I can or can't share it with the world.

[51:31] JP Walker: Hell yeah. So I've been doing that uh ever since, and it's really uh just fulfilled me in a way that that that that I that actually acting I don't think can. It's just it's another layer of like soul satisfaction that I get from.

[51:41] Jayke Workman: Do you think it's informed the way that you approach uh learning and working on m musicals?

[51:52] JP Walker: I'm sure it has. I'm sure it has because I think it's just it's deepened a certain confidence about just what I have to bring to the table, not in an egotistical way, not like I'm great or something, but just a sort of um com uh just comfort in my own with my own what I what I do have to offer and just kind of um yeah.

[52:16] Jayke Workman: Well, I would imagine too there's it like such a level or there could be a level of like being precious about something that's yours versus you know, when you are working in the theater world and you have written something and then it basically is you present it as like, okay, now thirty other people are gonna work on this. What are your thoughts?

[52:35] JP Walker: But like with music, obviously it's a collaboration, but you get to be like, no, no, I have the final the final say on what it sounds like and yeah, what I want it to be.

[52:44] Jayke Workman: It feels good.

[52:44] JP Walker: It's nice. It's just nice to be able to have that sort of level of control in one aspect of my creative self. So this new record, you know, I just I had a collection of songs that I loved, and I have this friend, uh Kirby Seibert, who I actually met when I was working on Peter and the Starcatcher in New York, uh ten, twelve years ago. New World Stages. And he was the uh fill-in uh uh follow spot operator. And he introduced himself to me on the subway platform because he saw me and recognized me. I never would have recognized him. He was running the follow spot.

[53:05] Jayke Workman: Right.

[53:16] JP Walker: But uh You were blinding me. Yeah. Uh young guy, and we ended up discovering that we were both musicians, and um, so he and I made this this new record together, and he's a a gem of a human being and an incredible musician. Um the uh this I guess which song do we wanna play? Do we want to play the title track or should we play the play the title track? The album's called Simple Pleasures. The title track was written for my wife, and uh what you'll hear on on there is I'm I'm doing all the vocals, the background vocals and the lead vocal, and I think everything else you hear is Kirby Seibert.

[53:50] Wow.

[53:51] JP Walker: Uh drums, bass, you know, a real drum kit, yeah, bass, electric guitar, uh organ. I think that I think it's all him. Not that wasn't the case on every track we did, but uh but he's he's a beast and uh just an incredible guy. So um I'm so excited to get to share it with you. So yeah, I hope you guys enjoy Simple Pleasures.

[54:13] Jayke Workman: Okay, well, I already said before I let you go, but one more thing before I let you go is that I have a series of rapid fire questions gotta ask every guest. Are you ready?

[54:24] JP Walker: I'm ready.

[54:26] Jayke Workman: Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Webber?

[54:28] JP Walker: Sondheim.

[54:29] Jayke Workman: Sweatpants or jeans?

[54:31] JP Walker: Jeans.

[54:32] Jayke Workman: Do you have a favorite musical?

[54:36] JP Walker: Um The Music Man.

[54:38] Jayke Workman: Do you have a lady?

[54:40] JP Walker: Yeah.

[54:42] Jayke Workman: Do you have a least favorite musical?

[54:47] JP Walker: Least favorite musical. No.

[54:51] Jayke Workman: Do you have a favorite play?

[54:54] JP Walker: Um. Favorite play. Peter and the Starcatcher.

[54:58] Jayke Workman: A good excellent choice.

[55:00] JP Walker: Are you a morning person or a night owl?

[55:04] JP Walker: Um, morning person.

[55:06] Jayke Workman: Could you think of the craziest thing a director has ever asked you to do?

[55:11] JP Walker: Make the hug more gay.

[55:14] Jayke Workman: Title of episode.

[55:17] JP Walker: Um I'm willing to expound on that story if you want to hear it.

[55:20] Jayke Workman: Of course I want to hear it.

[55:21] JP Walker: Anson Williams, who played Potsy on Happy Days. The actor played Potsy on Happy Days, but you probably don't even know Happy Days.

[55:27] Jayke Workman: Of course I do.

[55:28] JP Walker: But I grew up loving Happy Days and being obsessed with the Fons, and I ended up, I told you about Melrose Place. Yes. The episode was directed by Anson Williams, who played Potse, and he literally came up to me after the first take and said, Can you make the hug more gay? So that's the most ridiculous thing anyone.

[55:44] Jayke Workman: You did.

[55:45] JP Walker: And I did. I tried.

[55:46] Jayke Workman: Uh Golden Age or Contemporary.

[55:49] JP Walker: Golden Age.

[55:50] Jayke Workman: Do you have a favorite role you've ever played?

[55:55] JP Walker: The gay hugger.

[55:56] JP Walker: I'm gonna say. I'll just say King George the Third.

[56:00] Jayke Workman: King George.

[56:01] JP Walker: Can't help it. Uh, coffee or Tea?

[56:04] JP Walker: Coffee.

[56:05] Jayke Workman: What is the hardest show you've ever done?

[56:07] JP Walker: Young Frankenstein.

[56:09] Jayke Workman: Do you have a favorite costume that you've ever worn?

[56:12] JP Walker: King George.

[56:13] Jayke Workman: Tea.

[56:14] JP Walker: Obviously.

[56:14] Jayke Workman: Who is the silliest cast member in A Wrinkle in Time?

[56:19] JP Walker: Jake.

[56:22] Jayke Workman: That is not true.

[56:23] JP Walker: It's true.

[56:24] Jayke Workman: No, uh, okay, I'll take it. Um do you have any pets?

[56:28] JP Walker: I do. I have a dog named Jenny.

[56:30] Jayke Workman: Jenny!

[56:31] JP Walker: What a great name for a dog.

[56:33] JP Walker: She's the best. Um, have you ever missed an entrance?

[56:37] JP Walker: Nearly. And I came in in the wrong costume. The state I was downstage. This was it. Well, yeah, we're doing rapid fire, so I shouldn't put those stories. Never is. But uh, yeah, I was I was in the dressing room and and was about to miss an entrance, and the stage manager came running down. This was at Williamstown. We were doing a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. And I was supposed to have switched into this other costume, and I didn't have time, so I just ran on stage and did the number in the wrong costume.

[57:01] Jayke Workman: That's hilarious.

[57:02] JP Walker: I didn't I didn't miss it, but man, it was close. I was there. Um, well, my last question for you is a question I ask every guest, which is what is one thing that you would tell baby JP.

[57:13] JP Walker: Baby JP. Um just don't not to worry, you know, just to have faith in the journey and um to not be too preoccupied with like what's gonna happen next, what's gonna happen next? Is everything gonna be okay? Mm-hmm. You know, just to just to look at you now. Drop into the moment and just enjoy. Well, no, but just because like there's no point in that. And we all do it. And I still do it sometimes, you know?

[57:40] Jayke Workman: Totally.

[57:40] JP Walker: Of course, you know. So I I don't even have to tell I'm telling I'm telling JP now, this is what I'm telling. Not even baby JP.

[57:48] Jayke Workman: Regular JP.

[57:49] JP Walker: Yeah. Aged JP. Well, thank you so so much for coming on the pod. It's a total pleasure. This was so fun. I'll come back tomorrow.

[57:56] Jayke Workman: Please. Let's just do it again. Would you tell the listeners where they can find you?

[58:00] JP Walker: Um, you know. They can find me. I mean, I'm on Instagram, Jon Patrick Walker. And Spotify. And I'm on, you know, the music's on all the streaming services. So I hope you'll uh seek it out and let me know what you think.

[58:13] Jayke Workman: Hell yeah.

[58:14] JP Walker: Yeah.

[58:14] Jayke Workman: Yay! Thank you for being here.

[58:15] JP Walker: Pleasure. This was so fun.

[58:20] Jayke Workman: You guys, that's it for this week's episode of Oh My Pod, you guys. Before you scurry away, please stay tuned for a little sample of JP's newest song called Simple Pleasures, the title track of his new album.

[58:36] Jayke Workman: And thank you so so much for listening to Oh My Pod, you guys. You can rate, review, and subscribe anywhere you listen to the pod, and follow the show on Instagram at oh mypod, you guys. Talk soon. Bye.

[58:59] ♪ Musical number: "Simple Pleasures" — performed by JP Walker ♪