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[0:00] Eli Tokash: Hello everyone and welcome to episode 133 of Take A Bow.

[0:05] Eli Tokash: I'm your host, Eli Tokash, and this week is a very exciting episode.

[0:09] Eli Tokash: We have a Broadway star for so many reasons. Um he is a true, true, true triple threat, and he means a lot to me because he is uh he was the leading man in the first ever Broadway show that I'd ever seen, which was Mary Poppins, and uh just gives unbelievable performances in every show that he's in.

[0:29] Eli Tokash: When you go see a show, you remember certain things, you know, and he's always the character or part of the moment that you never that you kind of leave the theater with and and you remember forever.

[0:44] Eli Tokash: Um and that's none other than Gavin Lee. We have Gavin Lee on the podcast this week, and uh very exciting episode.

[0:50] Eli Tokash: Like I said, I have a history of, you know, my my little history, uh, because I just said it, but so many other reasons. It's such a fun interview, very unique interview.

[1:00] Eli Tokash: As someone, I feel like it's the first time ever where I'm interviewing someone from London that came to Broadway and kind of hearing that story and that perspective of the industry is quite uh quite interesting.

[1:13] Eli Tokash: And um, we had a blast. We we really did. It's a great episode. You're gonna love it.

[1:18] Eli Tokash: Um, but first, before we turn it over to that, as always, let's talk about some Broadway news.

[1:24] Eli Tokash: And by Broadway news this week, I actually have my own personal news to to announce this week, because uh it's just there's been a lot of uh take a bow stuff going on.

[1:33] Eli Tokash: So let's do a little take about roundup during to to start off our uh Broadway news uh kind of section or segment that we call here on our podcast here at Take A Bow.

[1:44] Eli Tokash: All right, so launch happened this week, y'all. Um it's been non-stop, and my voice is uh is not there, and I just did an episode today, probably the biggest one of the year, and it's gonna uh finish off our year of Take A Bow. Very exciting stuff.

[1:59] Eli Tokash: But uh, you know, my voice is feeling it. It's been a long week, not much sleep, but that's okay because we've been having so much fun.

[2:08] Eli Tokash: Thursday, since my last episode, we went to the opening night of Ohio State Murders. Very exciting, great time, freezing cold though.

[2:17] Eli Tokash: Um I got to talk to Kelly O'Hara, though, Andrew Keenan Bolger, and his sister Celia, and uh a bunch of fantastic people there.

[2:25] Eli Tokash: Um it was it was absolutely amazing, Kenny Leon and um I didn't talk to the cast this time, but obviously we do have the the cast um episode already, so you're not really missing anything there because we we just talked to people that were seeing the show, and uh we also it was a very, very historic night, and kind of the reason that I wanted to to go back and continue to do press with these folks here at Ohio State Murders.

[2:50] Eli Tokash: It was the first ever show to open in the it's weird because it's like not the first ever show to open in the James Earl Jones Theater, but it is because now it's named James Earl Jones Theater, even though they've had shows in there.

[3:01] Eli Tokash: But it was formerly known as the Court Theater. So I guess this is the first show that I was saying it's the first show that officially opened in the newly named James Earl Jones Theater.

[3:11] Eli Tokash: And uh yeah, it was just a historic night. And for that show to go in it with a black leading lady, a black playwright, a black director, producers, all the things in a theater named after and honoring a black performer and artist, James Earl Jones.

[3:27] Eli Tokash: It was monumental uh for Broadway, and it's a huge step for Broadway, and we talk a lot about that in these interviews. So it was wonderful, and we play a little game. Guessing how many Broadway shows?

[3:36] Eli Tokash: Um, okay, I I won't give it away, but um it was it was it was really fun. That's but that's not for this episode, so I'm not gonna give anything away.

[3:44] Eli Tokash: Anyways, moving on. Friday, we went to Kimberly Akimbo because we were going to support our friend Skylissa Friedman, big friend of the pod, who made her adult Broadway debut.

[3:56] Eli Tokash: Very, very exciting. She's a swing in the Kimberly Akimbo, and we've talked about that. And uh she's killing it. And uh she she was able to go on twice this weekend, actually. So very exciting stuff. Congratulations to her.

[4:08] Eli Tokash: Oh, and congratulations to everyone over at Ohio State Murders for their opening night. And then Saturday was a two-show day.

[4:16] Eli Tokash: Uh Saturday I had the day off from something that I'm going to announce here after this. Saturday I had the day off, so I what what was I gonna do in my day off? Not do school work.

[4:25] Eli Tokash: I went to uh I went to have my own little two show day. Um I went to go see Some Like It Hot and I saw Into the Woods, y'all. Some Like It Hot.

[4:37] Eli Tokash: It's it's hard to say this because I have so many friends in Kimberly Akimbo. It may it it may be my favorite of the year. Um, it was so good.

[4:48] Eli Tokash: Um it was you know, classic Broadway, and I don't use that term loosely, and I mean that term with such respect um for the you know classic Broadway. It it's just you it really takes you back, you know.

[5:04] Eli Tokash: Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman are are the composer and lyricists on the show here, and it's just so good, you know. Like it's a brand new musical. It's obviously adapted from the movie, but it's a brand new musical, you know.

[5:19] Eli Tokash: And um, and um what they were able to craft and make out of this was truly like it was unlike anything I've seen on Broadway in quite some time, and you know, I've talked to uh on this episode because I oh so Sunday I covered the opening of Sun Like It Hot surprise.

[5:39] Eli Tokash: I know for all of you um who follow me on Instagram and and and whatever, like it's no surprise for you. But for those that don't, Sunday I covered the opening.

[5:47] Eli Tokash: So when we were talking to the cast and the creative team and all that, you know, we really really talk about that, which was so lovely, and talked about, you know, this sort of how do I say uh modern Broadway and um new Broadway, I guess that we could say that we are seeing currently um with these new shows and and the type of songs and the type of dancing, and and you know, they're kind of getting away from the dancing and all that, but like this is like, you know, this is next level stuff, and it's wonderful to kind of throw it back a little bit and see this wonderful show.

[6:21] Eli Tokash: It's so fantastic. And Christian Borle, uh Jay Harrison Gee, and Adriana Hicks, and the entire cast. I mean, truly nicest people, and also some of the most talented people that I've ever seen on a Broadway stage.

[6:34] Eli Tokash: I mean, everyone is giving it at their all, they're amazing. And I was so thrilled for a friend of mine, Ian Campaño, who will be on this podcast soon enough, I'm sure.

[6:43] Eli Tokash: He is a swing over at Sun Like It Hot, and he crushed it and he went on the afternoon that I saw it because I did see the Madonna, and uh just blew me away just stepping in like that, and then he was able to open the show. Just so exciting for him.

[6:57] Eli Tokash: He's thrilled to be back on Broadway, and uh yeah, just great stuff. I will say the both opening nights, uh Ohio State Murders and Sun Like It Hot were fantastic, and they will be bonus episodes of the show.

[7:13] Eli Tokash: So we're not gonna be interrupting our our regular Thursdays, but uh keep an eye out on social media or just our regular podcast feed wherever you listen to these on.

[7:21] Eli Tokash: Uh just keep aware, uh keep an eye out for them because we are going to be releasing them midweek. We'll probably do one per week and kind of do like a three or four days in between each episode.

[7:34] Eli Tokash: Uh, because we don't want to overload it. I mean, four episodes in one week is kind of like a lot.

[7:39] Eli Tokash: So we'll probably do Sunday or Monday a release this week and the following week for these opening nights. And I will say, the Sun Like It Hot opening night is one not to miss.

[7:52] Eli Tokash: The conversations were very quick, and you know, there wasn't much to it. It's just an opening night again. But the people that we hear from are unreal.

[8:01] Eli Tokash: Um, I was just I was blown away the whole night. Uh, we do get to hear from the cast, and it was really, really cool to talk to them, and that's definitely worth the listen.

[8:09] Eli Tokash: And then we talk to, you know, the the composers and lyricists, uh, Scott Whitman and Mark Shaman, and we talk to the orchestrator, and we talk to the co-writer, uh, Amber Ruffin, and we talk to John Stamos.

[8:22] Eli Tokash: We talk to Martin Schwartz, and guess who freaking makes their take about debut? Of course it's on a freaking red carpet, but I was thrilled nonetheless.

[8:32] Eli Tokash: Matthew Morrison was on the red carpet and on Take About. I am so excited to bring you all that episode. Y'all, it was crazy to see him.

[8:40] Eli Tokash: It was so much fun. And uh, you know, he'll he'll come on here soon enough, I'm sure. I I I will make it happen if it's the last thing I do.

[8:48] Eli Tokash: Anyways, so that thing happened, and that was craziness. And then Monday, I know there was literally something every day.

[8:55] Eli Tokash: I promise I'm getting to the point. Um, Monday, Shit's Probe. I went to Shit's Probe.

[9:01] Eli Tokash: And that's the Sorry that I did not curse grandma, Bubba, and uh Mimi, who if you guys are listening to this, or my mom. But Shit's Probe was fantastic.

[9:12] Eli Tokash: It's for those of you who don't know, it's Josh Layman's who who was the first ever guest uh on here of Take A Bow and my dearest, dearest friend from Finding Neverland.

[9:22] Eli Tokash: He has a little improv group that he's in, and uh they fully make so a sits probe. I've had the here on here as like a drama dictionary word of the week.

[9:31] Eli Tokash: Uh sits probe is the first time you rehearse and perform with the band. So in a rehearsal room, you're you're only rehearsing with like a piano or whatever when you're starting to learn a show and you're mounting a show and putting it up, and then the first day you hear the band and uh get to sing with them is called a sits probe.

[9:50] Eli Tokash: Well, this is called a shit's probe because it's improvised, so um, it's a bit of a poop show. Um, and um it's the first time that they they ever do it, obviously.

[10:02] Eli Tokash: And they have a full-on band, you know, they have woodwinds and they have piano, they have drums, all the things. It's fantastic.

[10:08] Eli Tokash: And uh they literally improvise a musical, so songs, words, all the things, stories, and you you go, you sit down, and they all come out on stage and they're like, okay, uh, five minutes till show time.

[10:20] Eli Tokash: Uh we need a title. So give us titles, and and everyone shouting out titles and whatever they hear, they like narrow it down to like three or five or whatever, and then they end up picking one.

[10:31] Eli Tokash: And uh it was just brilliant. It was just such a wonderful time. My cheeks hurt from laughing.

[10:37] Eli Tokash: Um, and they do it once a month, and every every time they do the show, they bring in a Broadway star.

[10:43] Eli Tokash: Um, and this week's who who, by the way, have has never done improv or like improvised a musical. And so this month, uh, they had a wonderful guest, Katie Garrity, who's currently little red in Into the Woods.

[10:57] Eli Tokash: She's fantastic. She was hilarious. She played Pickles the Elf in Greased Polls.

[11:03] Eli Tokash: Uh, it was a little play off the North Pole for the holiday season. Well, that's what it turned into, I guess.

[11:08] Eli Tokash: I get it could have taken many turns. But yes, it was it was fantastic. It was hilarious. Shit's Probe. Go check it out. Go follow them, go to the next one.

[11:16] Eli Tokash: Hopefully, we can do something with them. I think it would be so fun for Take A Bow to do like a content piece with them.

[11:21] Eli Tokash: Anyways, so with that, we had another reunion with, of course, Josh Layman, but also Jackson Damont Hill.

[11:28] Eli Tokash: So, shout out Jackson, uh, who uh is now done it uh not done, but on break from school in UC Santa Barbara, I want to say, uh, University of Santa Barbara, and that's where he goes to college.

[11:40] Eli Tokash: And he was George in Finding Neverland, uh, so one of my brothers, and uh it was great. It was great to see him.

[11:46] Eli Tokash: I sat with him and his family, it was wonderful to catch up. And uh hopefully we'll have him on the show.

[11:51] Eli Tokash: And then Tuesday, I went to a Renee Rap concert. That was crazy. That was a last-minute thing.

[11:56] Eli Tokash: Love Renee Rap, uh, incredible stuff. And I'll get to um another Renee Rap section here. This is a long intro because there's just so much to talk about.

[12:07] Eli Tokash: Um, but Renee Rap's incredible, and her concert was amazing, her music is so great. For you, those who have listened to it, you know what I'm saying.

[12:16] Eli Tokash: You you you you get it. And then for those of you who haven't, go check it out because it's really good.

[12:20] Eli Tokash: Um, and I'm sure you've seen at least some bits and pieces on TikTok or whatever it is, especially if you are listening to this, you're probably on theater TikTok.

[12:28] Eli Tokash: So, yeah, Renee Rap's fantastic and so freaking talented. It's unbelievable.

[12:33] Eli Tokash: But while this was all going on, I would am thrilled. I I didn't know that I could release this or I would have released it last episode.

[12:42] Eli Tokash: I've been doing a reading for a brand new musical. And it's been so so fulfilling and so exciting to um be back in a room uh with so many talented people.

[12:52] Eli Tokash: I mean, we had Shoshana Bean, we have a we had Elizabeth Teeter, we had Matt DeAngelis, Andrew Cober, Effie, Lauren, all these wonderful people.

[13:01] Eli Tokash: And I know I'm sorry I'm not saying everyone's last name. I don't know how uh all the last names are pronounced, so I don't want to do them wrong.

[13:08] Eli Tokash: But I mean, everyone in the show is currently doing a Broadway show. Everyone is so freaking talented. It was unbelievable to be a part of.

[13:17] Eli Tokash: And then of course we had Jodi Picoult, who's a two-time Tony Award uh winner writing this the script.

[13:23] Eli Tokash: And then we had Kathleen Marshall, uh, who's a three-time Tony Award winning director uh directing the whole thing.

[13:30] Eli Tokash: So it was it was unbelievable, and it was so much fun, and I had uh uh the best time, and you all are gonna be hearing a lot of it come the new year, uh, because I'm gonna have a bunch of them on the podcast, and we're probably gonna talk about it because it was it was a blast and it was a whole thing, and that's why I'm a bit tired.

[13:48] Eli Tokash: But uh, you know, um I have a voice, so I'm doing it. And um, for those of you who don't know it, it's called Obsessed. It's the new musical, and it is a biopic uh again of the legendary songwriter Diane Warren.

[14:03] Eli Tokash: And um, you know, I I'm I'm not like against the whole biopic thing, and I I've said that, but like I do think Broadway is becoming a bit overpopulated of it, but that's also because it's this oh it's it's all the same, it's all the same thing.

[14:21] Eli Tokash: And you know, this particular show, and I don't mean to like knock anyone in it's because all of these people that they're making musicals about are all fantastic and absolutely deserve to have their story to be told. Everyone deserves to, you know, have people hear their stories. But um Diane Warren is something very unique, you know. There's not usually biopics or you don't really hear anything from writers, from songwriters, you know. Diane Warren wasn't a performer or an artist, like she was an artist, but she wasn't a singer, you know. So uh she was the songwriter who wrote all kind of number one hits for Cher and Steven Tyler and Leanne Rhymes and uh Tony Braxton and all these fantastic people.

And you know, just to hear her story as a female songwriter in the industry who is kind of behind the scenes, just to hear what she kind of went through is just it's a lot. It's a lot to say the least. And we don't see many of uh female artists here on Broadway. I mean, right now I can think of a bunch of like you know, Neil Diamond and all the things, and we did just have Tina Turner and we have Britney Spears coming, and we years ago we had uh On Your Feet with Gloria Estefan, but you know, they were all performers, and you know, their whole thing was oh, this is me on tour, and this is me, what it's been like during this time in my life, and blah, blah, blah. But now, like we right now, we have a bunch of male artists here and telling their story with MJ and Neil Diamond, and I mean, kind of almost famous, and so, like, to hear this kind of perspective, it's very, very, very cool.

And it's very uh different and unlike anything you'll you'll ever hear. I was blown away in these readings. I mean, my mouth, I knew what was coming, and my mouth would still like drop because the music industry is wild, y'all. Um, it's just so crazy. So, um, and then I got to meet Diane Warren, which was just so freaking cool uh after performing her songs, and she so it is a biopic and everything like that, but and they use some of her songs and whatever, but she also has created and written original songs for this show. So um, fingers crossed, you know, something happens with this, and uh we'll see more of this, and more people will be able to hear it. But we had our final uh presentation, we had our last day on Tuesday.

So, yesterday from the time that I'm recording this little intro, and that's right, and right after that, I ran to Renee Rap. So, just a wonderful, wonderful night. Getting to meet new people and working with more people was so fulfilling, and being back in a room, it I haven't been in a in a minute. I mean, I've been doing like little projects here and there, but like nothing that I can really like, you know, get my hopes up for or nothing that's gonna happen like long term, but I think this really is something that could uh have a future here on Broadway and um be something really special if it if something were to happen with it. So, anyways, that's my little rant. I am so so lucky to announce that I was doing that and doing a little project for the past couple weeks, and you know, it was just a blast.

Paul Alexander Nolan. I mean, the list went on and on of the people that are uh A gonna come on the pod and B that uh were just so talented in that freaking room. All right, so. So now 20 minutes later, um, now that I've stopped talking and ranting about my life, let's talk about some Broadway news, shall we? Y'all, if you don't want to hear it, you can just fast forward if you just want to listen to Gavin. I I no hard feelings, but I gotta talk about Broadway news because there's so much that's happened. And by so much, I really mean a lot of casting announcements. Um, but I want to give my take on it. So um, first I w before we get to the casting announcements, let's talk about the Tony Awards.

[18:14] Eli Tokash: So the Tony Awards made the decision that they are going to be moving. Every year the Tony Awards usually take place at Radio City Music Hall. This year and uh moving forward for the time being, it sounds like they are planning to do it at the United Palace in June. And for those of you who don't know, the United Palace is up in Washington Heights, and the United Palace is a theater that Lynn Manuel has been doing a lot of work with lately in trying to save the theater because there were talks that the theater was like being shut down, and he was like, Whoa, this is like my home theater. Like this is where I grew up. So he's been trying to revive it and you know, doing things to give back and you know, save the community and the theater of the United Palace.

So with that being said, if Lynn Manuel Miranda is not the host of this year's Tony Awards, I will be shocked. This is like his home, and I feel like he would not want to host anywhere else other than the United Palace. It would just be a missed opportunity. So I'm making the prediction here uh that Lin Manuel Miranda is going to be hosting the uh 2023 Tony Awards, which will be taking place and being broadcasted live uh from the United Palace, uh as I said, on June 11th of 2023. So everyone mark your calendars. Uh, I'm sure you all saw this announcement, but for those of you who didn't, there you go. June 11th, very, very exciting stuff. I'm very excited. I'm shocked because you know the Tony Awards happen in a much bigger theater uh often, and that's what they're used to.

So I'm excited to see how they uh make it work with a bit of a smaller space. I mean, it's not that small, but like anything compared to Radio City is pretty small. Um, so yeah, it'll be great. It'll be great. So there's that, and then we have some casting announcements.

[20:12] Eli Tokash: So we got the casting announcements for Sweeney Todd, the Mean Girls movie cast, the Wicked Cast, and uh Bad Cinderella cast. And some of these happened like last week on Thursday, of course, when last episode dropped, but I wasn't able to talk about it. So we're gonna talk about it. So very exciting stuff out of Sweeney Todd, just an absolute stacked lineup. Uh, not only do they have the already announced Josh Grove and Annalie Ashford, uh, but they also added Jordan Fisher, Ruthie Ann Miles, Gaiton Maderazo, and so many more freaking people. The full cast has not been um announced yet, but this cast is shaping up to be unfreaking real, and I'm so excited to see this production. And believe it or not, with this cast, when it's like a stellar cast like this, it's usually a limited run.

But there's been no word of whether this is a limited run or not. So um it seems like this is open-ended. Whether they are just planning on, you know, this cast being limited run and then seeing what happens with Sweeney Todd itself. Um it will be interesting to see. But uh yeah, for the time being, that's what the lineup is looking like, which is very, very excited.

[21:29] Eli Tokash: Um of course Jenna DeWall, Nicholas Christopher, uh John Rhapson, Jamie Jackson, Maria Bilbeo, um also were all announced that uh they will be in the in the show. For now, that's that's it for that. And uh then we got the leads of the Mean Girls movie cast, we incredible casting in in every sense of what it means to be a casting director. Shout out to whoever casted this. So Renee Rapp is going to be playing Regina George, who she obviously famously played on Broadway. She was so freaking good in that. So shout out to the casting director for realizing that and casting her in this movie. Uh, and of course, we have Jaquel Spivey or Spivvy. I'm so sorry if I pronounced that wrong, who's gonna be playing Damien, which is very exciting because Alihi Cravajo will be playing Janice, the two little best friends that uh will be on Katie Heron's side, of course, which will be played by Andre Rice, I believe is how you pronounce it.

But very exciting for this wonderful cast announcement, and I'm sure the rest of the cast is just gonna be uh fantastic as well. I'm so excited that they're doing uh movie musical as always. I'm always mentioned when I see Broadway in like a bigger um space, you know, like in a blockbuster movie. Um, it's always great for for the community and for the industry in general.

[22:53] Eli Tokash: So uh shout out to them. And then, of course, we had more wicked casting news with uh how dare they announce these two at the same time. Uh Kiala Settle and Bowen Yang are going to be in the wicked movie. Mind blown. My mind, I was just so thrilled. For anyone that listened to the Bo and Yang episode that I had of Take A Bow with him. You could just tell his love for Broadway. Um and how much he just wants to be a part of Broadway. And of course, like he's doing his thing over at SNL, and he's a comedic genius. But like, he's like loves Broadway, and he's a Broadway fan in every sense of the word. So I'm thrilled that he's actually gonna be doing like a Broadway-esque movie. Um, because you know, he's a movie and TV star now on all the things. So thrilled for him that he's gonna be doing this. And then they announced that Jeff Goldman will be playing the wizard.

[23:45] Eli Tokash: And then did I not know that Ethan Slater as Bach was not announced? I announced that like weeks ago, I think. Am I crazy? Because I swear to God, I I said that on here uh and I thought that it was uh out there, and I may have broken that news without even meaning to. So I apologize. Um, but if anyone can find that, please let me know because I can't remember what episode it was on, but that was crazy. I was like, they made it, Broadway World made it like a big post and an announcement for it. I was like, I swear I announced this like weeks ago, but um, sure, yeah, that happened. Um, and then of course, I want to say a quick congratulations. I'm not gonna break down everyone to uh Carolie Carmelo and Jordan Dobson, who are who announced that they will be uh starring in Bad Cinderella.

Caroline, obviously uh a Take A Bow guest and family member, and Jordan Dobson, who's going to be an upcoming guest here on the podcast, a friend of mine, and uh he's currently in the beautiful noise, the Neil Diamond musical. So he's killing it.

[24:50] Eli Tokash: Yeah, okay. That was so much. But I wanted to shout out all those fabulous people for all of the fabulous work that they've been putting in and you know, giving them the recognition that they deserve. Congratulations to all of you. And without further ado, sorry if I if you're sleeping already. Without further ado, let's turn it over to Gavin Lee.

[25:10] Eli Tokash: Gavin Lee, curtain up.

[25:16] Eli Tokash: Okay. Joining us today is a two-time Tony nominee. He has done it all while making sure to leave his mark on the stage with an unforgettable tap routine, leaving audiences in awe. He's a triple threat through and through, and I'm thrilled to chat with him today. Everyone, welcome to Take A Bow, Gavin Lee.

[25:36] Gavin Lee: Hi, Gavin.

[25:37] Gavin Lee: I'm glad to be here.

[25:38] Eli Tokash: Oh my god, I'm thrilled. I was telling you earlier, this is just like a full circle moment for me because Mary Poppins was my favorite Broadway show that I saw, and I was able to see you in it. So this is just an absolute treat uh to chat with you about your career in all of those times.

[25:54] Gavin Lee: Gosh, it just seemed it seems so long ago now. Like Mary Poppins closed.

[25:59] Gavin Lee: Um, oh my gosh, it closed 10 years ago in uh February coming up. So and I'm insane. Remember, I started it eight years before that.

[26:08] Gavin Lee: I was with eight years.

[26:10] Gavin Lee: So it does seem like a lifetime ago for me, but um it was such a long period of my life, you know.

[26:18] Gavin Lee: It was the of my 30s.

[26:20] Gavin Lee: Um I was in Mary Poppins somewhere in the world.

[26:24] Gavin Lee: Um and it brought me so much.

[26:26] Gavin Lee: It's the reason you know, I now live in America.

[26:29] Gavin Lee: Um I saw so many met so many amazing famous people and did so many amazing, fabulous things because of that job.

[26:39] Gavin Lee: Um, so it will always be very, very dear to my heart.

[26:43] Eli Tokash: Yeah, well, I mean, the way I usually like to start out with this is like asking you, you know, how did all of this start?

[26:51] Eli Tokash: Like, what got you into theater and what got you into performing?

[26:55] Eli Tokash: Was it dance? Was it just the performing aspect? Like, take me through your journey of becoming a performer.

[27:01] Gavin Lee: Yeah, so I grew up about two hours east of London, and uh I have one older sister, and she started going to dance class.

[27:09] Gavin Lee: Um, and I'm talking a very long time ago.

[27:14] Gavin Lee: This is like late 70s, she started going to um dance class, and I guess I wasn't very interested in what she was doing in ballet or in jazz or whatever, but then she started doing disco dance lessons.

[27:28] Gavin Lee: Oh she'd come home and I go, What did you do today?

[27:32] Gavin Lee: Show me, show me, show me, be this annoying brother, and to try and learn the routines off her.

[27:36] Gavin Lee: And then my mum eventually said, 'Where do you want to go? ' and so my very first lessons were um disco dancing, you know.

[27:43] Gavin Lee: I ran to myself as um John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, and then I used to do um back then they had these massive disco dance competitions.

[27:53] Gavin Lee: Um we used to travel down to London, and my mum would have made me some jazzy disco outfit.

[28:12] Gavin Lee: It's not like you have a routine and you get to do it so. Back then for the disco dance championships, you would get onto the dance floor, it would be in a big kind of ballroom, and you'd have an on your chest, and you just freak out doing your moves, and the judges would just come round and tap you on the shoulder when you were out. Oh my god. And so, yeah, yeah, you just use the music would start, you know, uh and you'd just go for it. And um I was pretty successful a couple of times, I think. Uh, but that was my first um experience of a performing and b competition, which the theatre is all about. It is kind of competition as in auditioning and hopefully getting the role and going through callbacks and things like that.

So uh maybe I uh enjoyed that. I don't enjoy it now. I hate auditioning. But then obviously there was something that made me go, no, I want to do next year's competition because I want to win. I want you know, I had that drive. Um, and then you know, the disco dancing then led on to um jazz and tap and ball, a bit of ballroom. Um initially when I was maybe 13 or so, my dance teacher was like, You if you want to do this, which by then I decided this is what I want to do, um, you've got to start doing ballet as well, because ballet is the basis for all dance. It gives you the strength, it gives you the technique. Um never never really enjoyed ballet, but knew I had to do it, and uh then at 16 finished school and went off to London to uh start training um in uh you know on a three-year course, um doing song dance and acting, you know, every day.

It was amazing. You know, leaving home at 16 and living in someone else's house and going to college, it was just mind-blowing, fabulous. And down just great. And from there, from there, lucky started auditioning and eventually got a job.

[30:07] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, absolutely insane just how you know the world kind of takes you where you're you're supposed to be. It's amazing.

[30:13] Gavin Lee: Yeah. Well, I am curious because it seems like you started as a dancer. When did Disco Gavin know he could sing?

[30:22] Gavin Lee: Do you know what? Um, so a year or two after, well, no, probably a year after I'd started doing these classes. My uh sister got into the in English called amateur dramatics, but here we're called community theatre. Um and so I was suddenly like thrown into that and just loved on the stage as one of the little kids. So I was probably uh eight or nine when I first set foot on a stage. Um, and then my mum got involved, and my dad was on the crew, and then within a year, my dad was in the show as well. So it was a real for about five years, it really was the whole family. Mum danced Friday nights was rehearsal, all day Sunday was rehearsal, uh, and then you know, the show week and things like that.

And so it was a very big part of my youth. Um, it was probably my it was one of my only hobbies, really, doing my dance classes and then doing rehearsals, just loved rehearsals for these for these different pantomimes and musicals that we used to put on. Um, and I guess just singing in those shows and doing harmony, you know, you know, the chorus do harmony and learning about harmony. I never I I I played an instrument a couple of for a couple of years at school, but was never very good. And I have to say, even now, I still can't really read music very well. Uh most musical theater actors have gone to college and they've done music class and they know how to read music and they can sight read.

That's not me. I'm always in rehearsal when they when we're doing harmony, I'm like, let me record it on my phone. Don't even ask me to do it today. Because then they go, let's go back to the beginning and see how we are. I'm like, I I haven't got any of this. I can't read immediately. But I'll go home tonight, I will listen to it for six hours and I'll come back and I'll be perfect. So um thank God for you know voice recorders and phones that can just record these days. Back in the day, it used to be uh uh a Sony Walkman.

[32:12] Gavin Lee: Yeah, so so the singing and the singing and the acting kind of came more when I went to college. Back then wasn't was primarily dance, and so I felt I was training to then hopefully be in the chorus of a West End show in London. That was the dream. Um, and I guess it was just through working in shows and getting to be an understudy and then taking a few singing and acting lessons while I was in shows, that then hopefully I learnt the skill of singing and acting. But definitely dance was where I started. Dance has been, you know, 95% of all the shows I've ever done. I've been dancing in them and generally with tattoos on as well. But I love, I do love the acting side. I love you know, um trying to find usually I'm trying to find the humor.

I like I like to try and be funny, I like to try the audience laugh. So most of the roles I've had, even if sometimes it's a leading role in something a bit say singing in the rain or crazy view, that isn't particularly the hilarious part. Right. And I I do really try to get humor in all my roles. Um and I'm playing Uncle Max in Sound and Music at the moment at the paper mill, and he is the guy with all the gags. And so it's been fun trying to get the play those lines to get the audience reaction. I just love it.

[33:42] Eli Tokash: Oh my god. Well, that's brilliant. You mentioned like, you know, at least doing tap in some form when you're on stage usually. But is that like your favorite style of dance, or is it just happen to be like taps what happens to just be on stage?

[33:58] Gavin Lee: I guess that was always my favorite. And the fact that all the shows I've been in uh almost, you know, uh I'm tapping. Um it's it's it's nice that sometimes, you know, people say, oh, one of the best tap dancers we have at the moment. And and I'm the first to say I am clearly not. Um I watch some I yeah, I watch YouTube and and Instagram posts of people's tap classes. I'm like, oh my god, it's so insane. I'm I'm not a rhythm tapper, I'm an old style um tapper, and and uh s so I'm known for doing lots of tap and tap shoes that we put tap shoes on, uh clearly. Um but I'm really not a brilliant tapper. I've I've I've kind of uh bluffed my way through uh all these shows. Um and I love it, and I feel very lucky that I'm now over 50 and touch wood, my knees and my ankles and my toes still aren't are still tapping because I I'm a very loud, stampy tapper as well. And um, so I can't believe that my knees haven't gone, nope, we're done. Uh so touch wood, I'm still very lucky that uh over 50, I can still put two tap shoes on and make quite a nice sound.

[35:17] Eli Tokash: Oh my god, I mean it's brilliant. Anytime I see feel like you have tab shoes on, it's just something amazing's about to happen. And and that was the case in Mary Poppins, you know. Like Bert, that's one of the most iconic, I mean, arguably the best part of the show when Bert is uh tapp, like going up sideways and then tapping upside down. I I just need to ask you after being a part, like I was in the second national tour of Mary Poppins. So, like being a part of that, like how did that come to fruition and how is that uh process made into the show?

[35:53] Gavin Lee: Well, the um one of the choreographers, uh Mary Poppins originally was choreographed by Matthew Bourne and Steven Mir. And Stephen Mir I've been friends with for years. We'd been in a couple of shows together. He's choreographed me in various shows. Um, he's a great tapper. Um, he was one of the people on the creative that was really pushing for me to get the role in the first place. Um and then, and so I knew Stephen Time was going to be a nice big tap routine. Um being Bert, I was gonna it's great. It was like very excited. I was gonna be, you know, probably slap bang in the middle for most of it, and it was gonna be great. Just watching the movie with Dick Van Dyke, how brilliant that number is in the movie, but it's not actually a tap number in the movie.

Um so my thoughts were like it's gonna be like that, but with tap shoes as well, it's just gonna be amazing. And before rehearsal started, um I was asked to go. You always get usually before rehearsal started, you might get asked to go in for a wig fitting or a very first get your measurements for costumes, you know. And the stage management called me up um just before rehearsals were gonna start and said, We need to call you in for a harness fitting. And fabulous. Because I'm thinking, well, of course, Mary Pommes is gonna fly. At one point, she's gonna hold my hand, and we're both just gonna rise up, you know, above the clouds and above London town. Um excited. I go to my harness fitting, and then they show me the harness, they put it on me and they measure me, and and they show me that on the hips.

Oh, you're gonna have these connections which can go 360 degrees 360 degrees. So then I'm why I'm am I just not gonna go up and down? And then the harness people were like, We don't know, but we have we fixed you with a harness that can spin. You're like, Oh, okay. And there's nothing in the script. I've got the script, and it doesn't say at this point Bert flies upside down or anything like that. And um, so then I get to rehearsals, and no one's really talking about me flying or anything, and then I'm asked to go to the Prince Edward Theatre. We're rehearsing in a rehearsal room. Prince Edward Theatre, they're getting the set in, and I get asked to go to Prince Edward Theatre, um, and Cameron Macintosh is there, and I wanted to just come and stand in the middle of the auditorium, and randomly the theater was having a refit, so they'd taken all the seats out, so it just looked really strange to me.

It was like I was walking into a giant kind of roller rink, like a sloping roller. There was the stage, but there was no seats, so it was just it was just surreal. And middle of the auditorium, and he said, I want you to watch this girl, and they'd got an aerialist in a uh uh a young um small little girl that not girl, a lady that I think was from the Soleil or something, and she was an expert with aerial stuff, and she just she was connected up, and here was the the stage, the the proscenium going like this, um side, and she walks to the proscenium arch and she walks up, and then she turns upside down and she gets traveled across the top of the theater upside down, okay. And she walks down the other side of the proscenium arch and my jaw just hit the floor, and Cameron goes, So, darling, do you think you can do that?

And I said, Well, I want to do that, I don't know if I can do that. It looks so spectacular. And she wasn't tapping, she was literally just kind of being a body, being taken by the wires and the computer and the machine to where you needed to go. And then I got up to the castle room all excited, and they built me this swing frame, um, like a swing frame without a swing on it, without the seat, just the two chains. So I could stand on a chair with my harness on, clip myself up to my hips, right, and then turn myself upside down, move the chair away, and then my feet would be on a platform at the top of the swing frame. And I they left me in a room. Stephen Meir and Matthew Bourne said, We don't know what you can do upside down with taps shoes on. So go into a room on your own and work it out.

[39:48] Gavin Lee: Oh my god. And as an actor, that you feel great that you are really part of the process of creating something. Yeah, you and a Matthew were very much like that, just the same as Chris Cotelli was in Spongebob with me having four four feet and four tattoos. He was like, I don't know what you can do with four tattoos, go into a room and work it out. So I've been very grateful to those choreographers for being so generous to the actor saying, Go and work it out and show me what you got. So I used to have about half an hour at a time in a room upside down, and of course, you can only you can only hang upside down for about a minute before the before all the bloods rushed to your head and you feel sick.

Right. So I'd be working something out, stamping upside down on this platform, and then I'd be woosy, so I'd flip myself back the other way, and I'd just hang there for a bit. And a member of stage management would be in the room and would hand me my water. And it was really sweaty, just hanging upside down and trying to put stuff out. I showed Stephen and Matthew the stuff and they loved it. And they they, of course, as choreographers tweaked it a little. Right. Then it then, of course, all that skill that I'd learned went out the window when suddenly you're not just on a swing frame in a rehearsal room, you're hanging 35 feet up in the air hard stage, 35 feet down on you know on the ground that could kill you if the wires snapped and all that, you know, that it all through your head.

And I'm, you know, I'm promised that each wire that's holding up holding me up can carry 10 times my weight. And if the power, I was like, what if the power fails in the theater and the wires just go and let me out and I just crash onto my head and crush myself to death. You know, that's dramatic about it. And they promised me that the way these um uh these machines work that roll, you know, with wires, they have locks on them, they're sprung loaded. So if the power goes, you need power to make the locks come off. So if the power the locks will just clamp those wires forever until there's power again. So that made me feel better. Right. And then yeah, it just took a good few sessions of hanging upside down and getting used to it and not being scared.

Um it became just such a brilliant highlight of Murray Poppins that and I was the lucky actor that got to create that. Um I feel so happy and blessed that they came up with this idea and and and it was Burlett that was going to do it, and I was the guy that got to be the first Burr. And um, so that's always something that I treasure that I made that up, you know, with that those steps up.

[42:21] Gavin Lee: I don't know whether now in future productions whether the bird has changed, but I know for the whole original run around the world of that show, it was that choreography. And I had a nice big part in creating that, and it's just fabulous. And of course, you can see it on YouTube. They've recorded it at the New Amsterdam at one point, so you can watch it on Disney somewhere, and it'll be there forever, you know, for my kids to see and things like that, which is really cool.

[42:50] Eli Tokash: Oh my god, it's one of the coolest things ever. Like that and like Mary Poppins going over the audience is like every time it happened, it's just like you at least heard one gasp in the audience, you know.

[43:02] Gavin Lee: It's amazing how the amount of people that said, "Oh, I saw Mary Poppins, and when I saw it, she flew right over my head." Yeah, and this is like everyone in the audience thinks she flew right, which is a great illusion if they felt that, but you know, her path up over the orchestra and then up past the two balconies, you know, it probably only went over about third heads out of 1600 people. She went right out of my head. And the amount of people said, "I had tears in my eyes," and oh yeah, it's a magical show. It was just magical to be part of and to get to do it, you know, in two different continents, in many theaters in America because I did the national tour as well, and so yeah, just a brilliant show that I was so lucky to be part of, and I managed to eke eight years of my life, you know, as a working actor, you never get that long with a show, you just pray that your show's not gonna close, you know.

[43:59] Eli Tokash: So it was an amazing treat to get—oh my god. I gotta ask you, super cow. Do you think you could still do super cow?

[44:10] Gavin Lee: Oh my god, that will never leave my body, yeah.

[44:14] Eli Tokash: Right? It's so real.

[44:21] Gavin Lee: Oh, see, I—oh my god, you still got it.

[44:25] Eli Tokash: It will get it, yeah. Never leave us, and when I do a concert occasionally, they always ask me to do a Mary Poppins medley and always finish with that. So I do actually do it occasionally, but like a year I just pull out that choreography, and I don't have to think about it, it's just there, and it was so fun working it out. When you rehearsed, whether they in the rehearsal room they put all the letters up on the mirror, you know, because you were still learning how to spell it, you hadn't learnt it S U P E, you hadn't learned the song properly, and they were all throwing choreography on you. So we had all the letters on all the mirrors that are down one side of the rehearsal room, so you could just follow the letters and go, "Oh, what position do they want me to make for the U? Oh, what position for the P?" And so we let—we only learned about five letters a day.

That's what we did at the end of the day. We would, a day of rehearsal, we're like, everyone together, we're all gonna learn this because at that point everyone was gonna do it in the finale as well. So every class member came together at say five o'clock, five till six o'clock was letters rehearsal, and we just tried to get the angles of all these letters perfect.

[45:36] Gavin Lee: And right, you know, it came about because Stephen Mears's boyfriend is deaf. He's a choreographer as well, a very talented award-winning choreographer. But Stephen just thought it would be fun to try and use deaf sign language, and then realized that those movements with your finger are, you know, to make those letters are far too small, so it then became, well, let's use a whole body. But that's where the idea of spelling out the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is, but it was just with your body came from.

[46:10] Eli Tokash: Oh my god, I had no idea. That's fascinating. And were those letters like the choreography was already there, like before you guys even started learning it, or was it kind of something you all kind of came up with?

[46:24] Gavin Lee: I remember no, the two choreographers and the assistant choreographer Jeff Garrett worked it all out, and they worked it all out in the mirror. And the weird thing is there's a couple of letters that because they worked it out in the mirror for the audience that actually backwards.

[46:44] Eli Tokash: Really?

[46:45] Gavin Lee: Yeah, like the S, the P. See, this P for me is the right way.

[46:51] Eli Tokash: Right.

[46:52] Gavin Lee: And in the mirror it looks the right way round. But for you now, this P that I'm making is the wrong way around. Yes, but it's because they did the mirror and they weren't thinking, and then we all started learning it, and then someone went, "Wait a minute, this P is the wrong way around," and they went, "Too late now."

[47:07] Eli Tokash: That's hilarious.

[47:09] Gavin Lee: Oh my god. Can't change it, right? Yeah, so I know, and then we all came in and we were just the guinea pigs, and we learnt it so slow, and they I guess they had no idea that we'd be able to then make those speed up, speed it up because, you know, as in the song, it just keeps getting faster and faster, and you can once it's in your body, you can do it as fast as you like, you know.

[47:29] Eli Tokash: Yeah, truly it's wild. I feel like that's like the only piece of choreography I remember from like any of my shows, but it's just that for some reason that stuck. Like I don't understand.

[47:39] Gavin Lee: It's so cool though. I Mary Poppins is so great, and it's just another classic. And then after a few years later, I mean, your most recent Broadway show was just another classic, you know, that everyone knows in SpongeBob. Yeah, you played Squidward, and you mentioned, you know, tap dancing with four legs, and just like what you did on that stage on a nightly basis is just incredible. What was that whole thing like with the four legs and figuring out, you know, what this is gonna be, even like let alone walking, like not even tapping, just like how did you figure out how to walk in those?

[48:18] Gavin Lee: Yeah, I mean, I had a kind of a rehearsal pair of legs, you know, that were really—they were just—they were, um, what were they? They were basically got two pairs of jeans and sewed them together and put fake foam legs in two of the legs, with a pair of shoes on the end, so I could put these jeans on and like put a belt on them, keep them really tight because they just, you know, the weight of them they just want to pull down, so you know you're really tight. And then I just worked for hours and hours with David Zinn, the designer of the set and costumes on how to make—because they made a first set of legs, and in the mirror I turned sideways and I'm like, they—the legs, the fake legs were kind of coming out of my butt.

They kind of came out of my butt. And you're like, "Oh," but then it looked like it was two legs coming out of my butt. It didn't look—I wanted it to look like I had four identical legs, like the car, like you know, Squidward in the cartoon, he has two tentacles as arms and he has four tentacles as legs, right? And so we just worked with the tape measure and trial and error to get those knee joints and the ankle joints and the thickness of the thighs exactly the same as my legs, so that when I did a slight squat in profile in front of the mirror, my legs and those back legs looked identical.

[49:44] Gavin Lee: And I always said, if I could have—my ideal was if I could have turned my torso 180 degrees, right? Those fake legs would have looked like my legs. I think, you know, it took a long time of adjustment, so many adjustments. Can we take this bit of elastic up half an inch? Can we put an extra bit of padding just behind here to push this bit of leg out? And then once we had these made, and you know, they were made of elastic velcro, back supports and things like that, and so that it was really tight and secure on my body. And then I just spent hours in front of the mirror just for the walk. Like if I walked normally and let those legs do what they wanted, they kind of—the back feet kind of tilted up a bit, and you could tell that, oh, I was walking and there were two random legs behind me.

I wanted it to look again like the four of them were doing the work, and if I could have turned my top half round, you wouldn't have noticed which were the real ones, which were the fake ones. It took a—the walk became a kind of always a slight demi-plie to walk a lot, and that turnout that you need to make the four shoes have be equal, you know, your body, just like the cartoon, you know. He like his feet, his tentacles kind of make a cross on the floor, and I wanted to make sure whenever I stood it looked like that. So it was a lot of me staring in the mirror and walking around a rehearsal room on my own. And then Chris Cotelli says, "And now I want you to tap." And he's like, "I want you to tap with four tap shoes."

I mean, you could just have t-taps on your front feet, but why don't you put taps on the back ones and see what you can do? And just like I said, like Stephen and Matthew in Mary Poppins, Chris, the choreographer, was like, "Go into a room, work something out and show me what you got." Which made me feel so happy that I was getting to create something that was gonna be there forever in the show. And I worked a whole routine out and he came and looked at it, and I made it too long. I was kind of like, "I want my solo to be five minutes," you know. And he was like, "That's good, just up to there. We don't need the rest of it." I was like, "Ah," and he, of course, as a choreographer, he tweaked it and changed it, said, "This angle's wrong.

Can you do this?" You know, because, you know, he's a choreographer, he's the expert. And yeah, we came up with this fabulous routine that I again, just like Bert in Mary Poppins, I was the lucky actor that got to do that fabulous step in time tap routine with all the other chimney sweeps and get to do the walk around the ceiling. I got to be the character, the actor that played this character that had a brilliant eleven o'clock number. You'd be waiting for Squidward to have his turn for the whole show. He kept getting shut down. Every time he said, "I tried to sing," someone came on and went, "Shut up." Then to this number that just grew and grew and became like the biggest Broadway number you've ever seen.

With big Squidward, you know, showbiz lights coming down and a chorus of singing enemies all with all these eyes and extra hands and feet and everyone tapping and bright brilliant showbiz, showbiz, showbiz. It was just an absolute pleasure and a treat that again I was the actor that got that given to me handed on a plate, you know.

[53:09] Eli Tokash: Right. And I will never have—I know I will never have that applause, that rush of absolute joy from the audience at the end of that number.

[53:20] Gavin Lee: Oh yeah, slamming on me and the rest of the cast that were in that number. It wasn't just me, you know, it was there was 15 of us on stage. But the applause and the cheers and the roar of approval at the end of that number, we used to have to hold that in position. Like on opening night and closing night, it was ridiculous. I think we held for two minutes.

[53:43] Eli Tokash: Oh my god.

[53:44] Gavin Lee: And just the cheers and to get us—sometimes we've got a standing ovation in the middle of the room. And I know that as an actor, I will never have that feeling that it was like a wall, a wall of energy would hit you at the end of that number because they were giving you so much back, the audience, because they'd enjoyed that number so much. And I'm like, I'm never gonna feel this again. I'm never gonna be given a role that has been written so well, and a song that has been written and choreographed so well, and I have to be in the center of that song and that part.

[54:20] Gavin Lee: So yeah, forever grateful. And to then the all the numbers you could have picked for the Tony Awards, they picked mine because it was the most spectacular. And so to stand there at the Tony's with all the audiences, all your peers, all the important people in the world are out there that could give you jobs or, you know, are wanting your job, you know, it's just like full of very important people. I mean, the nerves I had for, oh, I can't imagine, Bob performance at the Tony's were way, way worse than 11 years earlier when I did Mary Poppins.

[54:23] Eli Tokash: Really?

[54:23] Gavin Lee: Oh yeah, I think it's because I started all on my own. I, you know, I started with Squidward on his own singing, and I kind of felt I was more central to the number than the Mary Poppins routine did, which had everyone in it, of course. And so yeah, the nerves were awful that day, just awful. Oh my god, I felt so—why am I here? I don't want to be here. But of course I did want the Tony's, it was amazing, of course. And like you said, you know that rush, you just gotta get through it and it'll be the best feeling of your life. And it's that thing of when you're so nervous and so dry that your top lip sticks to the teeth, and there's one point you look close near the end of the number where I literally have to like prize my top lip off my teeth.

[55:46] Gavin Lee: Oh my words, my mouth is so dry. And but it was again getting to dance at Radio City Music Hall is special.

[55:55] Eli Tokash: Yeah, see, you are the actor that is just so brilliantly talented that gets the honor of playing the role first that everyone who plays the role after you just despises because of how brilliant you are and your skill set is and the way that you created the role.

[56:14] Gavin Lee: Like, I can't imagine being an understudy for Squidward and having to just like learn all of that over again and just like start from scratch, you know.

[56:24] Gavin Lee: It's just it's brilliant. Everything that you did with it, it was truly a performance, like to never forget. And that's the thing about it. Like you say the rush and everything. It's it got the most response because it was the one moment of the show where like everyone was watching. It didn't matter if you were 80 years old and had a didn't have a care of a world for what SpongeBob is or the story that it was telling, or if you were literally two years old, a baby. You were just mesmerized by your performance and what you were able to do with that costume and those legs. It was just absolutely incredible, seriously. So I'd say, you know, oh, I'm the lucky guy, I'm the lucky guy. But another thing is if you notice in SpongeBob, David Zinn's designs, you know, thank God he didn't put us all in like zip-up full skin costumes, like you know, it wasn't a square sponge.

I wasn't actually a squid. Yes. Thank God. You know, we were he was like, no, and Tina Landau, the director and creator of the SpongeBob musical is like, you're not you you just she's would say you have the DNA of the cartoon characters, but you are human beings, even though it might refer to you as a fish or an animal under the sea, you're the human version. And so with Davidson's costume designs, you know, SpongeBob looked like a 17-year-old kid who worked in a burger place. He has like the yellow teeth yellow shirt on and the pants that look like square pants, you know. But he wasn't actually a sponge, but I was the again the lucky actor that I did feel oh, for Squidward, he does need to have two extra legs.

So I'm the only character that has something abnormal on his body. Everyone else was purely human, you know. Even Mr. Krabs, he wasn't a crab, he was a human and he had giant red boxing gloves on. But I was I literally had two extra legs. And so again, I feel I was the lucky actor that had the memorable costume, you know? Yeah. So I've had a lot of luck in the roles I've played, there's been something about them that has made uh has stuck out in the show. So you become, oh, isn't Gavin Lee brilliant? But I'm the one I'm saying, no, the character I got to play and the things that character got to do were brilliant, and you have to remember that. Yes, I had to make that work, but how lucky was I that I got given the opportunity to tap dance upside down on the ceiling or to tap with four legs on. And so yeah, just feel very lucky with the roles I've created. I've always had something a little bit peculiar about them that makes people just remember them forever.

[59:11] Gavin Lee: So I'm curious, you know, like with SpongeBob too, like it was one of those shows that was just like a household name, everyone knew about it. And it's what like same with Mary Poppins, but Mary Poppins, you know, it already had music in the movie and everything, so people can see it as a musical. With SpongeBob, I feel like there were like lots of question marks going in, and then you guys were able to make something that was so brilliant and so much fun to just be an audience member and just watch. When you found out that you had an audition for SpongeBob and you were gonna play Squidward, like what was that reaction like? Like how is they make it a musical? And then what was the process of, I guess, like developing it and finding what works as a musical?

[59:54] Gavin Lee: Yeah, I mean, you know, I have to say, and a lot of people would say that, you know, when I when my agent said you have an audition for SpongeBob, they're gonna make a musical. I was like, oh, I roll. I was just like, this sounds awful. Right? Like then they weren't even calling it the SpongeBob music, it was just called the Tina Landau Project because she was the director and creator. Yeah. But you and they changed the names. Um, I think SpongeBob was called Bubble Butt. And I can't remember what my character was called, you know, Grumpy Pants or something. It wasn't that part of what it was. But I was like, I was like, called my agent went, is this SpongeBob? You know, uh and they were like, yeah, yeah.

But they're keeping it all very hush-hush quiet because I don't know whether it's feasible, whether it's something anyone wants to see, whether it can work. And so immediately I um because I wasn't really a SpongeBob fan, I've seen maybe one or two episodes, so immediately I pulled up SpongeBob on the TV and watched a few episodes to get the idea of the character and recorded his voice um on my phone so that then I could listen to his voice doing the TV show and then try and copy that to put that into the script I've been given because we weren't giving us we weren't given a script from a TV episode. The SpongeBob musical is a brand new script, nothing to do with any of the TV episodes. And I went in to my audition, and Tina Landau uh immediately made us all feel at ease because she said, just so you know, before you do your audition, I'm not looking for a carbon copy of Squidward.

I would like you to have the essence, but if you haven't got the voice at the moment, or I might not want you to do the voice at all. I don't know. Everything is up in the air. So immediately that makes you go, oh good, because I'm not an impressionist, I can't do a good impression of anyone. That's not too. So asked me to, you know, thank God they didn't say we want you to be Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. They didn't, they wanted to be my version, thank God, because can't do that, you know. I'm not an impressionist. So I did my thing, and um they also in the that first audition, they said, We'd like you to come in with a talent, which again made me eye roll because in the audition outside, you know, people had their guitar, they had all their instruments, someone had skateboard and rollerblades, and someone was juggling.

So anyone who had a talent, Tina wanted to see it. I ain't got no talent. I got thing extra. So I was kind of like, okay, well, I can I'll dance. I'll do if I'm a squid, I'll do a stupid dance. But I also didn't want to, I didn't want to finish my audition and have her go, okay, what's your talent? And then just have to do like a dance to no music looking like a but luckily my piece of script that I have for my audition is a piece of script that didn't actually make it into the show. Um, it was never script that I had in the end, but it was SpongeBob and Squidward sitting outside of an audition waiting to go in. And his SpongeBob was just annoying Squidward, and Squidward was like, Shut up, I'm trying to find my character and all this sort of thing.

And there's no way you're gonna get it, that sort of thing. And then the script ended with someone saying, Oh, Mr. Squidward or Mr. Grumpy Pants, um, would you would you come in now? So I was like, Oh, great. So I said at the end of my script, I'm gonna go straight into my talent. And they were like, okay, because I thought I can link it to the scene rather than just having to do a stupid dance routine, right? Link it to this audition, this audition that Squid was doing. So it worked perfectly. They, you know, the script ended, and I went into this ridiculous, stupid dance routine that I thought a squid would do. And it finished, and Tina, she stood up, she applauded me, which made as an actor and an audition makes you feel great that you're doing something right.

And she went, everyone else in the room. She went, that is exactly the sort of movement we're looking for in this show because they didn't have a chord for anything by that point. Um she went, that was perfect, brilliant. And so I left the room feeling really great. That and I think it was just the fact that she'd seen that I was willing to make an absolute fool of myself because the routine I did was just the most stupid moves I could think of. And then a you know, a couple of callbacks um and uh doing various different things, but then it ended up being offered the role, and um we of course did the tryout in Chicago, which brilliantly, and the show was brilliant. Um but then we had no theater to come into, so we were all told, even before we got to Chicago, while we were in rehearsals, we were told we're not going straight to Broadway because there's no theatre available, not enough shows had closed on Broadway for us to then take the theatre.

So we did Chicago, knowing that it was just gonna be Chicago, and then we had to wait a whole year, a whole year before we were all then getting our agent agents recalling, saying, It's happening, they've got a theatre on Broadway. You start rehearsals, you know, July, whatever. Um, and it was a it was a really long wait, and we lost a few people along the way because you know they got other jobs, um there were a few new cast members. Um, but then we were up and running and we opened on Broadway, and just like me with my original audition, audiences didn't really want to come in the beginning. I think audience really Broadway audiences thought it was a this what's this rubbish doing on Broadway, right?

And it was word of mouth, and it was brilliant um reviews that we got from we got nearly five stars from every single newspaper and outlet, you know. It was brilliant reviews, which made people go, Oh, oh, I'll go and see this SpongeBob thing then. And I guarantee you, 50% of the audiences that were walking into the theatre were thinking, What the hell am I doing here? This is not gonna be my thing. And I I'm guaranteeing 95% of the audience walked out going, that was one of the best things I've ever seen because it was just so creative and and and brilliantly done. And you were just sitting watching the cartoon, you were seeing a really creative piece of theatre for all ages, and we were just all so damn proud of it.

It was just yeah, brilliant. And and you know, the how then we got all these award um nominations, and the houses start filling up, and it was just amazing. And we basically just got kicked out of the theater because they had a clause in the contract that they you know, the palace theatre that we were in, it's still three years on from the show, is being raised, and they're doing a whole redevelopment with the theater, and so we kind of got kicked out of the theatre before our time. Um but you know, that's the way showbiz goes, and uh yeah, of course, amazingly, we all thought we were done, and a whole year after that, we all get an email saying Nickelodeon want to to remount the show and record it for Nickelodeon TV, and we were like mind blown.

And I think the best moment in that whole experience with for me was walking back into the rehearsal room a year after we'd finished on Broadway, and but everyone being there, and it's just going, Oh my god, we get to do it again, and we just all had two weeks' rehearsal to remember it all and do it all again, and we went and recorded it in the theater. Wow, Nickelodeon, and it was just an amazing experience. It was the show that just kept giving. It was like every year, like, oh, we get an email or a phone call saying, Do you want to do it again? And and so um, yeah, it again another brilliant experience for me.

[1:07:27] Gavin Lee: Yeah, who knows? Maybe next year you'll get an email saying, Hey, you want to do it again? They want to do SpongeBob on the moon. Do you want to do it? Yes, please. Oh my god, that would be brilliant.

[1:07:36] Eli Tokash: I have to admit, like, I was one of those people that were just like, Oh, I'm not like a SpongeBob fan to begin with, you know. Like, I'm not someone who watches the TV show or anything, and I was just like SpongeBob, the musical, blah blah blah. And and the only reason I went same was you know, all my friends went and said that it was a great time, and I was like, you know what? Probably should go see it because why not? And uh absolutely loved it. Probably went three, four times back just to see it again, and it was brilliant. I was able to see uh Curtis uh as SpongeBob too. That's another reason I went back, yeah. Like it's so much of it was just so brilliant, and Ethan and you and all the performances were just so uh like unforgettable. I mean, truly, it was just so brilliant. Your cast was so talented, and uh, yeah, it was ridiculous. I I'll never forget like the first time I saw Ethan, just incredible.

[1:08:31] Gavin Lee: Oh yeah, he's a very, very talented guy.

[1:08:35] Eli Tokash: Yeah, for sure.

[1:08:36] Gavin Lee: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, like, just like now, like thinking back, like with you starting out in England and that's where you're from and everything, like, was ever like moving here and performing on Broadway like ever in ever a thought for you, like no, no, no. Being being British, you know, I knew that you can't just come to New York and start auditioning, you know. There's immigration laws and visas that need to be got and green cards, which you know, unless you've got a special reason, you ain't getting a green card. So it wasn't even on the cards, it was just you know, growing up, I just wanted to be in the West End, which of course, for any of your listeners that don't know, you know, in London it's not called Broadway, it's called the West End.

Um, so but it's the same, you know. People say, What's the difference between Broadway and the West End? And I say, when you walk through the stage door, it's the same. There's the stage stage door guys still there, and the the crew, you know, some of them are happy, some of them are grumpy, some of the cast members are brilliant and have a great worth work ethic, and some of the cast members you're like, you don't deserve to get this job because you're lazy. You know, it's it's it's the same, it's the same. But um, my dream was just to be in the West End, and I was very lucky to I don't know, don't like seven or eight West End shows, and and then Mary Poppins, you know, getting Mary Poppins, which opened first in London, um, didn't wasn't even thinking that I could perhaps be taken to Broadway with it, you know.

Um but uh yeah, we were we were a year and a half into the West End run, and I knew that um auditions were happening on Broadway, and I'd say I would be interested, not thinking that thinking they'll just get a uh a whole American cast.

[1:10:28] Gavin Lee: Me and Scarlett Stralin, who was the second Mary Poppins in London, who's now lives over here as well and has done Broadway shows, a wonderful Mary Poppins. We were both told we were kind of the benchmark, and that if they found someone better or of equal talent, they would take them because they're American and they're in America easier. I came off from a show and I knew it was the final callbacks on Broadway, and as I came off all sweaty from the finale, my phone rang in the dressing room, and Cameron McIntosh was calling from New York, and he said, just wanted to let you know that we've decided we want to bring you to Broadway, and I was on the floor and I was like, Oh my god! Unfortunately for Scarlett, they'd found Ashley Brown, who was the original Mary Poppins on Broadway, who was amazing and a very good friend of mine. So I got to come all on my own with a brand new Broadway cast. Everyone else was new.

[1:11:31] Gavin Lee: But the amazing thing for Scarlett is me and Ashley did two years on Broadway, and then we both went out on the national tour, and then Scarlett got asked to come and do Broadway. So she did come and play Mary on Broadway anyway. But yeah, just originally I was coming, I had a year's contract to open the show on Broadway, and me and my wife, you know, my wife is American, but we lived in London, and she was in Phantom of the Opera at the time in London, so she had to leave the show because of me. Because we thought we were going for the year. We had a house in London, and we just had friends living in a house while we were away, and then I signed another year. Then me and my wife both went off on the national tour.

We were both in it on the national tour, and then yeah, we just ended up staying here. So we've been here since 2006, and I've been back, I did went back to London to do Top Hat in 2013 for a year, and I've just got back from London. I just did the brand new Disney production of Beauty and the Beast for a year.

[1:12:41] Gavin Lee: So I have been back a couple of times, but you know, our house is here. We live here, my kids go to school here, so even in the pandemic and everything, you were here too. Yeah, yeah, pandemic. We um yeah, no, I've lived here since 2006, apart from as I say, it's two years that I went back for a job. Amazing. And after the pandemic of not working for so long, this playing Lumiere in Disney's brand new production of Beauty and the Beast came up. So because I hadn't been working for a year and a half, I kind of had to take it. I was very pleased to take it. But my wife Em and the kids stayed here for the year. So it was a really hard year, but it was an amazing show that ended up at the London Palladium, which is kind of like the best theatre in London. Yes, and I just finished, and fingers crossed, you know, that production makes its way to Broadway eventually.

[1:13:39] Gavin Lee: I will be playing it. So nothing's set in stone, but keep your fingers crossed for me because it was a brilliant role to play. Oh yeah. Again, Lumiere is like those other roles I've played. You get to be the guy that actually has flames coming out of his hands. Right. You get to be the guy that fronts Be Our Guest, which is the best number in the show. And so it's again, I've been gifted these roles that have something a little bit special about them. So it's not necessarily me, it's just the role has it, and so I get to do it. And I mean, I don't know, because I feel like you have to have that special skill set, you know. Like there's a reason that it continues to happen to you.

[1:14:29] Gavin Lee: Maybe, maybe, but yeah, but yeah, Be Our Guest was a phenomenal number to it doesn't actually end act one, it feels like it should end act one, but then there's another 15 minutes after that. But you know, it's the best number in the show, and Matt West, our director choreographer just kept building the number and a bit like Squidward's number, it just kept building and building and get bigger and bigger, and it ended up with a kick line that absolutely killed me every night. But yeah, it was a brilliant year playing that role, and yeah, fingers crossed, I get to play it for sure.

[1:15:06] Eli Tokash: Yes, the photos of you on Instagram of you as Lumiere in that costume is absolutely incredible. I loved it. It kind of reminded me of like the Squidward costume in a way, so it makes sense that you're like, you know, with the cool costume with the flames.

[1:15:22] Gavin Lee: Yeah, with the extras. That's what we're totally see it.

[1:15:25] Eli Tokash: Well, Gavin, this has been unbelievable, and for anyone listening who's like, you know, a fan or whatever, like you all can go check him out right now. As he mentioned earlier, you know, he's currently in Sound of Music playing Uncle Max. Congratulations on that, by the way, because you guys just recently opened, so it's very exciting stuff. And yeah, I mean, this has been brilliant. How can people follow you to see, you know, if you end up playing Lumiere here on Broadway in a couple years?

[1:15:53] Gavin Lee: Yeah, I'm on Instagram. I'm at Gavin Lee Official, so follow me. I tend to only put stuff on there that's really about my career, about what I'm doing, about what fun I'm having in the theater. So yeah, I'd love people to follow me because I have an amazing time. I feel so lucky that I'm, you know, 30 years into this career that started off for me as a hobby, you know. Like nearly everyone that's in showbiz, they did it as a kid as a hobby. They did community theater, they did dance class, they, you know, right? I've managed to just keep going and it never gets any easier.

[1:16:36] Gavin Lee: You know, I'm finishing Sound of Music, you know, on January the 1st, and there's nothing really in the pipeline, you know, for next year yet. And it's so it never gets any easier, even though you get to originate some brilliant roles on Broadway and you get some award nominations and things like that. It doesn't mean that the jobs land in your lap, you know. Come January 1st, I'm unemployed again and I'm a jobbing actor, and it doesn't get easier, but it's still worth it because when I am putting my mic on and my costume on, and I set foot on stage, no matter what stage it is around the world, I just get a buzz and I love it, and I feel very, very lucky that I've been able to make my hobby as a kid my career. And so fingers crossed, it carries on until my friends, wherever that might be.

[1:17:25] Eli Tokash: Yes. Oh my god. You're absolutely brilliant, and you're so sweet. So I appreciate you coming on here today to talk to us, me and everyone listening about it all. So thank you, Gavin. You absolutely deserve to take a bow. This has been incredible.

[1:17:42] Gavin Lee: Thank you so much.

[1:17:43] Eli Tokash: Thanks very much. I'll see you later. Bye.

[1:17:45] Gavin Lee: Take a bow, Gavin Lee.

[1:17:48] Eli Tokash: That was so much fun for me to kind of, you know, I've actually never talked to Gavin Lee, I don't think. So to be able to do that on here and reminisce about the first time I saw a Broadway show was kind of the coolest thing I've ever done. It was really, really fun for me to do that. And hopefully you all enjoyed this episode because I've never, like, there are things on here that I learned in just talking to Gavin, you know, like he was so humble and so sweet about, you know, he's been very fortunate with the characters that he played and everything like that, because the characters themselves were given these talents and or these wonderful pieces and bits that they could do throughout their performance.

[1:18:32] Eli Tokash: And he was very sweet, and you know, you kind of forget that, you know, that there's so much luck that goes on to it, and there's so much, you know, fortune that you're so fortunate to be a part of that character and to be that role and to be right for that role. It's kind of cool to see how the stars align for you as an actor. And so just to talk to him about, you know, how Bert was created with the whole walking around the proscenium of the stage, which was so cool and so fascinating and something I never knew even as part of the show.

[1:19:06] Eli Tokash: And then talking to him about Squidward and how he filmed that and all the things, like, y'all, I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. And it was interesting because I actually didn't even get to talk to him about he played Thenardier in Les Misérables on Broadway here for quite some time actually. For about a year, maybe more. And he said afterwards, he said, it's interesting that we didn't get to talk about Thenardier. I know we ran out of time and everything, but people always ask me what my favorite character is, and you didn't ask me that. And I was like, Well, I try to stay away from those kind of questions. Like, I want to ask the questions that people don't usually ask.

[1:19:42] Eli Tokash: And he was like, Yeah, I noticed because you're, you know, anyways, we had a conversation, and he was like, But to answer that question, it's Thenardier in La Miz. And it's because he didn't have one of those flashy scenes. You know, he could kind of just be up there and he wasn't killing his body every night from dancing and being upside down and all the things, you know, as a performer every night, eight shows a week becomes a lot. So for him to share that, I wish we were still rolling and I had asked him about that on the air, but I wasn't able to, but that really stuck with me.

[1:20:22] Eli Tokash: And it was something that I thought would be pretty neat to share because you forget, you know, as an audience member, you see it once, or you definitely don't see it eight shows a week. So you kind of forget that they have to do that eight shows a week, you know. And so to just hear that perspective from an actor is pretty cool because he said, like, you know, that was his favorite, but it may not have been the most fulfilling for him as an artist because it didn't allow him to do all of his wonderful express all of his talents that he had. So it was a pretty interesting conversation, and he was very nice to stick with me afterwards and just chat with me.

[1:20:59] Eli Tokash: So everyone, go check out the Sound of Music over at the Paper Mill Playhouse because it looks like an incredible production, and so many friends are in it, and I'm definitely hoping to check it out before they close. So, anyways, that wraps up. I could continue to talk because I am rambling. But I think we should just wrap this up with the week's episode because it was a bit of a long one. So, with that being said, thank you all so much for listening to this week's episode of Take A Bow. Join us next week. We have another exciting guest.

[1:21:30] Eli Tokash: So I actually did two actors back to back. For those of you who really like to hear the actor's perspective on the industry and the conversations with all of that, feel free to, you know, continue to listen to these two episodes, or you know, go back through our other 130 plus episodes that we have out there. So next week, just to let you all know, the next two episodes that we have on here for this year, it's crazy that we're at the end of the year. The last two episodes rounding out this year is actually by two directors, and very exciting to share them all with you.

[1:22:06] Eli Tokash: And they're great episodes and really, really interesting conversations, especially next week. Very, very interesting perspective on how to direct and how to lead in this industry. And it's just a really, really, really important conversation to hear. And with these directors, for those of you who are actors and you're not interested in directing or anything, but it's really good to listen to these directors speak and listen to what these directors are looking for and think about and kind of what their thought process of the work is.

[1:22:37] Eli Tokash: It's really important to do that because you never know if one day that you end up walking into a room and you audition for them. And hopefully, by listening to this, you'll gain some insight on how you should prepare for that audition. And it's really great. It's really great conversation. So again, come back next week. I really hope to see you there. And as always, stay safe and hope you all are enjoying the holiday season. Until then, bye everyone. Have a great week.

[1:23:10] Eli Tokash: For this episode's curtain call, I would like to recognize a few people who also deserve to take a bow. This podcast would not be possible without the help of Dory Barenstein, Alan Seales, Kimberly Garris, and the team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Next in line to take a bow are our fabulous editors, Jessica Warren, who edits the audio of the podcast that you just listened to, and Tessie Tokash, who edits the videos and visuals for this podcast.

[1:23:33] Eli Tokash: And how about a bow for our executive producer, Chris Greiner? And our final bow are extra special to the patrons Brian Thompson, Pat McNamara, the listeners of PCC, as well as all of the other patrons for their continued support. If you're interested in becoming a patron, go to Patreon.com/slash TAB. If you enjoyed this week's episode, make sure to subscribe on the platform that you are currently listening to this on, or go check out our YouTube where you can watch the episode.

[1:23:59] Eli Tokash: You can also subscribe, like, and comment on there as well. If you're more into the regular social media and want to follow us, you can do that at Take A Bow Podcast across all social media platforms. The music of this podcast was made by Nikki Torsha and Cormac Collinon, and the logo was created by Giselle Bustos. And that wraps up this episode's curtain call. Thank you all again for listening to this week's episode, and I can't wait to see you next week. Bye everyone. Have a great week.