This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Eli Tokash: Hello everyone and welcome to episode 140 of Take A Bow.

[0:04] Eli Tokash: I'm your host, Eli Tokash, and this week we have a very exciting episode.

[0:08] Eli Tokash: We are officially in the month of February.

[0:10] Eli Tokash: It seems winter has finally got the memo that it's that time of year.

[0:15] Eli Tokash: We are starting to see a little snow and cold weather here in New York.

[0:20] Eli Tokash: I was wearing sweatshirts last week pretty much, no coats, and now I'm like, it's too cold for this.

[0:25] Eli Tokash: But nonetheless, it's gonna be great.

[0:27] Eli Tokash: And with that being said, it is February, as I mentioned, it is Black History Month, so I look forward to honoring black artists' stories and their journeys on how they made it in the industry.

[0:39] Eli Tokash: We have a very, very cool lineup that I'm very excited to share with you all, and I'm so excited.

[0:44] Eli Tokash: I'm really looking forward to it.

[0:45] Eli Tokash: So stay tuned for all of that and looking forward to this Black History Month.

[0:49] Eli Tokash: With that being said, I do want to announce this week's guest.

[0:53] Eli Tokash: As always, we have a very exciting guest.

[0:55] Eli Tokash: To me personally, he is literally the reason that I'm an actor and I'm still here.

[1:00] Eli Tokash: If it wasn't for him, I don't know if I would have, you know, left West Virginia.

[1:00] Eli Tokash: I don't know if I would have left hockey, I don't know if I would I don't know.

[1:09] Eli Tokash: There are a lot of ands if or buts, but this guy sat me down one day and kind of changed everything for me.

[1:16] Eli Tokash: So this is a very meaningful guest for me.

[1:19] Eli Tokash: I was in A Christmas Story with him, Dan Lauria.

[1:23] Eli Tokash: He was also in Lombardi on Broadway.

[1:25] Eli Tokash: He was the dad, Jack Arnold in The Wonder Years.

[1:28] Eli Tokash: But that's actually on Hulu.

[1:29] Eli Tokash: If you have never heard of it or never watched it and you're interested, it's a wonderful show.

[1:34] Eli Tokash: If you like Boy Meets World, that's kind of like more our age.

[1:36] Eli Tokash: If you like Boy Meets World, you will like The Wonder Years, I promise.

[1:40] Eli Tokash: It's Ben Savage's brother, Fred Savage.

[1:42] Eli Tokash: And actually, fun fact, Dan was on Boy Meets World, so he worked with both Ben and Fred.

[1:47] Eli Tokash: He was on it for like an episode.

[1:49] Eli Tokash: But yeah, he's had this wonderful TV and film career, and that's kind of what this episode really talks about.

[1:55] Eli Tokash: So it's got a bit of a new perspective, and I don't mean this in any bad way, but there is a bit of an age gap between this guest and our usual guest.

[2:04] Eli Tokash: So just to hear his perspective on the industry and just his knowledge and how much the industry has changed, you know, living in it literally for the past 50 years-ish.

[2:14] Eli Tokash: It was a wonderful conversation.

[2:15] Eli Tokash: It made for such a cool conversation, really focusing on the industry, talking about Broadway and talking about the difference between film and TV and Broadway and film and TV alone and what that industry is like.

[2:27] Eli Tokash: So it's got some crazy stories, and you all I think will really enjoy this episode.

[2:31] Eli Tokash: It's a bit he did not hold back.

[2:33] Eli Tokash: Um, I'll just say that.

[2:34] Eli Tokash: So fair warning, but I think you all will enjoy those stories nonetheless and kind of be interested and kind of be like surprised.

[2:42] Eli Tokash: So I'm very excited for you all to hear this one.

[2:45] Eli Tokash: So before we turn it over to that, though, let's talk about some Broadway news, shall we?

[2:49] Eli Tokash: I got there eventually.

[2:51] Eli Tokash: Um, there's some great Broadway news actually this week.

[2:55] Eli Tokash: A lot of it comes from like a casting perspective, like it was last week.

[2:59] Eli Tokash: Very exciting stuff is happening with Ragtime.

[3:02] Eli Tokash: There's gonna be a Ragtime reunion concert where Take A Bow family members Audra McDonald and Kelly O'Hara, it's so cool to say, are going to be returning to Ragtime and doing this little concert benefit alongside with Brian Stokes Mitchell and many more of the cast.

[3:19] Eli Tokash: But you know, I had to shout out some family members from Take A Bow that have been on the podcast and all the things.

[3:25] Eli Tokash: So congratulations to them.

[3:27] Eli Tokash: And I know Ragtime means so much to them individually, so I'm sure they're so excited to be returning to the show and you know, being able to revisit those characters and all the things.

[3:38] Eli Tokash: So very exciting stuff.

[3:39] Eli Tokash: Hopefully, everyone can go check that out.

[3:41] Eli Tokash: Ragtime reunion concert, it's gonna be amazing.

[3:43] Eli Tokash: Reprising roles and all the things so very cool stuff.

[3:43] Eli Tokash: Another announcement came from Parade they had amazing cast announcements where we had some Take A Bow family members in there too so I want to shout out Jay Armstrong Johnson I want to shout out Douglas Lyons and I also want to shout out Paul Alexander Nolan who has not been on the podcast yet but he will very soon become a Take A Bow family member and I'm very excited for it because I mean they're all fantastic and I've talked about how much I love Parade already and I've had Michaela Diamond who was already announced she's also a Take A Bow family member but some great casting announcements here a lot of the cast stayed from City Center no real surprises I guess I could say we obviously knew Gayton wouldn't be returning with the show because he's in Sweeney Todd and all the things like that.

[4:32] Eli Tokash: So very exciting great casting as always a great diverse cast which is wonderful because when this show was like originally made or and all the things you know they didn't have that sort of diversity and in the productions that I've seen you know that diversity hasn't always been there.

[4:50] Eli Tokash: So very very glad to see the diversity on Broadway and on stage it's gonna be great.

[4:54] Eli Tokash: Moving on Leslie Odom Jr. coming back to Broadway which is very exciting I did not see this happening Leslie Odom Jr. is coming back to Broadway in a show called Pearly Victorious a non-confederate romp through the cotton patch which is very exciting it's actually being directed by Take A Bow family member Kenny Leon.

[5:17] Eli Tokash: So very exciting stuff.

[5:18] Eli Tokash: I'm excited to see this.

[5:19] Eli Tokash: I don't know anything about the show.

[5:21] Eli Tokash: I think it'll be great.

[5:22] Eli Tokash: Very exciting stuff.

[5:23] Eli Tokash: Leslie Odom Jr. is one of the greatest performers.

[5:27] Eli Tokash: So I'm very excited to see it.

[5:29] Eli Tokash: Also, Gray Henson is returning to Broadway in the new musical Shucked.

[5:34] Eli Tokash: You know, it's the one previously announced with Alex Newell and a bunch of fantastic artists and performers.

[5:41] Eli Tokash: And he's gonna be added to that lineup, which is super exciting.

[5:45] Eli Tokash: And one more thing here.

[5:47] Eli Tokash: Take Me Out closes this Sunday.

[5:50] Eli Tokash: They did make his way back to Broadway after a bunch of success around the Tony Awards and all the things, but they already announced they were closing at that time.

[5:57] Eli Tokash: But they brought it back and they were able to do another run, which is fantastic and they incredible run for everyone involved.

[6:04] Eli Tokash: I kind of already like wish them a congratulations the first time, but I want to do it again.

[6:08] Eli Tokash: Happy trails to the company of Take Me Out and congrats to everyone involved.

[6:12] Eli Tokash: Seriously.

[6:12] Eli Tokash: I mean, it's not it's very rare for a show to come back, and especially a show like that with those high profile guests, you know, Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and all the things, you know, they usually do limited runs and all the things.

[6:24] Eli Tokash: So the fact that they were able to do two limited runs is pretty cool and pretty cool to do it back to back.

[6:30] Eli Tokash: So congrats to everyone involved.

[6:31] Eli Tokash: And I'm upset that I never saw the show, so I can't really touch more on that topic.

[6:35] Eli Tokash: So yeah.

[6:37] Eli Tokash: And then just really quickly before we end up, I want to give you all just two friendly reminders that I probably keep doing until the time has come.

[6:47] Eli Tokash: I mentioned last week that Kimberly Akimbo was going to be debuting a cast album release party, and they will be like debuting the cast album before it even comes out on February 10th at Woman Rink in Central Park.

[7:01] Eli Tokash: So if you're interested, come on by February 10th.

[7:04] Eli Tokash: Very exciting.

[7:05] Eli Tokash: The cast will be there.

[7:06] Eli Tokash: I'll probably be there.

[7:07] Eli Tokash: It's gonna be a lot of fun, and I'm excited for it.

[7:10] Eli Tokash: So Kimberly Akimbo at Woman Rink.

[7:12] Eli Tokash: We can go ice skate at Theatre Planet and talk Broadway and all the things.

[7:17] Eli Tokash: So come on by the cast album officially releases to like the public on February 14th.

[7:22] Eli Tokash: And while you're there, I believe you also get like a free CD of the show, of the cast album, and they're doing like little giveaways and stuff like that too for coming along.

[7:31] Eli Tokash: So if you're interested and you're around, come on by.

[7:34] Eli Tokash: And one last reminder it is still two for one Broadway week.

[7:39] Eli Tokash: So get your tickets if you can take advantage of this incredible offer.

[7:43] Eli Tokash: As I mentioned, I am seeing shows.

[7:45] Eli Tokash: I was oh oh my god, I saw The Collaboration last week, people.

[7:49] Eli Tokash: How did I not give you a little review?

[7:51] Eli Tokash: Oh my word, The Collaboration was amazing.

[7:55] Eli Tokash: This show, Jeremy Pope stole the show.

[7:57] Eli Tokash: It's ridiculous what he was doing in that show.

[8:01] Eli Tokash: I mean, it's literally not fair.

[8:03] Eli Tokash: I'm dying to have Jeremy Pope on this show.

[8:06] Eli Tokash: I think his performance in this show is worth a Tony and all the things.

[8:10] Eli Tokash: You know, I don't see plays often, so maybe I don't know the competition or anything like that, but I have seen more plays this season, and Jeremy Pope's performance was by far and away the best performance I've ever seen.

[8:22] Eli Tokash: Maybe even like some of these musical categories he could win.

[8:26] Eli Tokash: I loved the show and I loved his wonderful performance.

[8:30] Eli Tokash: It was just ridiculous.

[8:33] Eli Tokash: So with that being said, I'm sorry, I am rambling here, but it'll all make sense when I have Jeremy Pope on the show.

[8:40] Eli Tokash: No, I'm just kidding.

[8:40] Eli Tokash: Um, but hopefully.

[8:42] Eli Tokash: Um, it is true for one.

[8:44] Eli Tokash: So I saw The Collaboration, it was wonderful.

[8:46] Eli Tokash: The relationship between those two are fascinating, and just the mind of an artist and how it works and what goes on behind the scenes and what that collaboration was back then and what that meant to them and how it all came about.

[9:01] Eli Tokash: Wild, wild stuff.

[9:03] Eli Tokash: Both of them were everyone was fantastic.

[9:05] Eli Tokash: Chris Rodriguez was in the show.

[9:06] Eli Tokash: Everyone was fantastic.

[9:08] Eli Tokash: But the performances were ridiculous.

[9:10] Eli Tokash: The show is amazing, and apparently they're making a movie out of it.

[9:14] Eli Tokash: And I believe those two are gonna be in it.

[9:17] Eli Tokash: So I'm very excited for it.

[9:19] Eli Tokash: Everyone involved in that show should be incredibly proud and incredibly I don't know, like it just I it blew me away.

[9:26] Eli Tokash: And they should just be proud of the work that they're putting out there and telling that story.

[9:31] Eli Tokash: It's just wonderful, literally.

[9:33] Eli Tokash: And the way that it's done, it's so crazy.

[9:35] Eli Tokash: There's like a DJ on stage for when you walk in and at intermission to you know liven it up and kind of get you going and all the things to keep you invested and all the things.

[9:45] Eli Tokash: It's a very unique way.

[9:47] Eli Tokash: I've never seen a play done this way, and they've got panels on the side, not like a West Side Story exactly, you know, where they had like the camera on stage and they were able to show you what was happening on the background.

[10:00] Eli Tokash: Like there were actually a couple bits that in The Collaboration that had that, but it wasn't overdone and it wasn't in a distracting manner that I kind of found West Side Story to be in, but very cool nonetheless, very cool way that they did it.

[10:13] Eli Tokash: They have these panels on the sides, and they were showing up these projections and all the things, and they also like pre-filmed projections, so that was happening in the intermission and all the things, and you could kind of see their relationship develop further in those projections.

[10:28] Eli Tokash: It was just really, really cool.

[10:29] Eli Tokash: So, congratulations to everyone involved.

[10:30] Eli Tokash: The direction of that show was absolutely beautiful.

[10:33] Eli Tokash: So, everyone go check out The Collaboration if you can.

[10:35] Eli Tokash: Very exciting.

[10:36] Eli Tokash: Alright, that's all I have for you folks this week.

[10:39] Eli Tokash: I will not bore you with more of my talking and all the things.

[10:42] Eli Tokash: So, without further ado, I think we should just turn it over to Dan Lauria.

[10:46] Eli Tokash: So, Dan Lauria, curtain up.

[10:52] Eli Tokash: This week we have an all-time guest on the podcast today.

[10:56] Eli Tokash: Honestly, it's one of those guests that have just been at the top of my list since this whole thing began.

[11:02] Eli Tokash: And I'm honored to be able to have the chance to talk to him today.

[11:06] Eli Tokash: He is known as America's Dad for his role of Jack Arnold in The Wonder Years.

[11:11] Eli Tokash: He's played iconic roles like Vince Lombardi on Broadway.

[11:14] Eli Tokash: He was also Gene Shepard in A Christmas Story on Broadway, where I had the pleasure of listening and watching to him eight times a week, watch work his magic and all the things.

[11:23] Eli Tokash: He's been in a million TV shows, and he actually has a new movie coming out this year.

[11:28] Eli Tokash: It's the Reagan biopic.

[11:30] Eli Tokash: Very exciting, where he plays Tip O'Neil.

[11:32] Eli Tokash: And you can currently see him.

[11:34] Eli Tokash: I know he's done everything.

[11:36] Eli Tokash: You can also currently see him down at the Chain Theater in the Lyle Kessler's Deadly Sins and Other Tales, six one act plays, the little winter one act festival that's going on over at the Chain Theater right now.

[11:50] Eli Tokash: So you can currently see him there.

[11:51] Eli Tokash: So everyone, without further ado, it is my honor to welcome to Take A Bow, Dan Lauria.

[11:58] Eli Tokash: Well, let's start, let's go back.

[11:59] Eli Tokash: You know, let's go back to the beginning.

[12:01] Eli Tokash: And I'm curious because you had such an interesting, you know, like life.

[12:06] Eli Tokash: I mean, you need to like write an autobiography or something because you know, you were playing college football, and then you went to war in Vietnam, and then you became America's dad, you know.

[12:16] Eli Tokash: Like, how did you get into all of this?

[12:17] Eli Tokash: What made you want to be in the industry and tell stories and all the things?

[12:21] Dan Lauria: Well, I when I was younger, I had an aunt that my aunt Adele, who lived with us for a while, and I'd come home from practice because you know I was a dummy in high school.

[12:33] Dan Lauria: I never studied, I just played ball. She'd say, go to bed right after I ate, go to bed. And I didn't even question her. I would homework, forget it. And I'd go to bed, and at two in the morning, she'd wake me up and go, James Cagney. And we'd put on the late, late show. Television wasn't what you guys had. We only had three networks. There was no, you know, you couldn't rent films or anything. And we watched these old movies. So, you know, my friend, I would always be doing imitations and locker room, you know, and Bogart and Cagny. And so I always liked it. And then literally, I was in college, and my junior year, I was actually was sophomore year during spring practice. And a famous acting teacher, Miss Constance Welsh, she started the Yale drama.

She heard me telling a joke before practice. Yeah. And she tapped me on the shoulder pads and said, Would you like to be in a play? And I said, you know, I always wanted to try that. I love old movies. And she went, I knew. And I said, How would you know? And she says, because I'm the greatest teacher in the world. Come with me. Oh my god. After practice, I was she needed a big ugly guy to play Caliban in the so uh, but she brought me to a student production in the small theater. They were doing a thousand clowns, and it was Julian Schlossberg. He's one of the definitive writers of children's theater from Connecticut. We're still friends. And she made him audition me for the lead. And then he was very honest.

He says he's not the lead, but he'd be the greatest the older brother. And then I went from that play to Dukealaman, and I said, Wow, this is this is you know, I just loved it. Yeah. And then when I was overseas, she had a lot of famous uh famous actors who were also Marines, like James Whitmore. Wow. And when they were in World War II, she would send them plays. So when I was in the Marine Corps, she would send me a play every month, and I read it. And then I got out and I wrote something that won a grant to the University of Connecticut for playwriting. So my MFA is in playwriting. Really? Yeah. I can't. I I I got kicked out of every acting class. Stop it. No, I I went to the I have I'm the only one who has nice stories about Lee Straudsworth.

But I went to the least school east, you know, Actors Studio East, and they had everybody hold a cup, and then they said it's getting hot. I just sat there. And the guy Mitch Schnester yelled at me, he goes, What are you doing? I said, I put it down. Why would I hold a hot cup? I mean, the logic isn't all this, you know. And then of course, I had Charles Sterning from day one in the city because he was a vet. We had a group called Vet Go. We were all Vietnam vets doing play. He's the one who brought us to Joe Papp, and we got in over there. But uh, you know, and Charlie, um, you really want a story. I'll give me a story about yeah, give me it. All right, every every play Charlie ever saw me do, and he saw everything.

The world's the best, it doesn't matter. He would always put his arm around me and say, another 20 years you'll be an actor. Yeah, really, and I'd say, Yeah, all right, Charlie, I keep working, key word. So as time went by, and you know, we're in LA now, and we would go to dinner all the time. Jack Clugman from Oscar on the Odd Couple, Charlie Derning, Dom Delawise, and Peter Falk, Columbo. Yeah. And we would always talk about acting, and it's great stories. So Jack and I were doing a great play. We got nominated for everything in LA called The Value of Names by the House on American Activities Committee. Sure. So now, Jack, if you said to Jack we were good tonight, he'd go, We're always good.

That's not what it's about. So on a Sunday afternoon, Peter Falk, Charles Durning, and Don Delaware sitting in the audience, and Jack comes running in the room, and he goes, The boys are out there tonight. Don't do it for them, do it for that. And I'm going, Jack, you said we're always good. What do you worry about? We like and he goes, You're right. I said, What are you gonna do? Shave my head and send me back to Nam? You know, and he was like, Yeah, you're right, let's just do it first. So we went out, and you know, you're in the theater. We're always like Jack says, we're always good. I don't think we ever gave a bad performance of a Christmas story, but they're all special nights. And for some reason, that day we had a special day, and as we're bowing, Jack goes, We gotta call the boys, find out what the hell we did right tonight, you know.

That was a Sunday. We didn't have a show Monday or Tuesday, so Tuesday night we go to dinner, and it was stories about what causes that and everything. And Charlie, very emotionally, he put his arm around me and he said, All right, another 10 years you'll be an actor. Wow. It was like the biggest compliment in the world. But Jack Clugman, the great Jack Clugman leans in to the great Charles Nurning and says, Charlie, are you an actor yet? Charles Ernie looks at him and he goes like this. He says, Jack, I'm getting damn close. And Peter Falk reached over and said, I think you're there, Charlie. Oh you see, that's how they were. So when you say, Oh, you're still doing it, I'm you know, if you ask me what do I want to do next, I'd like to learn a little bit more about acting.

Yeah, you know, you just you just like Charlie, you get close, and there's those nights when you actually get there, but it's usually not followed by another one of those because you try too hard, you know. Yeah, exactly. So but it's it's always been fun for me, you know.

[19:01] Eli Tokash: Yeah, for sure. No, there's something special about you know, kind of putting yourselves in you can allow yourself to be someone else, and you can allow yourself to be a goofball. And we talked earlier, you know, like you can just have fun and allow yourself to be a kid again, you know. Yeah, like you forget about taxes and all the things that you have to do, you know. Like you just play, you know. It's wonderful, yeah. And it's fun watching, you know, people uh like you. A lot of times I'm I run into somebody new 20 years ago, a lot younger than me, and they go, I'm making a movie. I'm in 10 minute movie, I'll come do craft service. I'm in everyone. Yeah, exactly. That's the most fun I have now, you know, because the business changed, you know, with all these self-tapes and all that.

Most of the work I've been doing is for friends, even this one act play I'm doing now with Lyle Kessler. I've known Lyle since nineteen seventy-seven. Yeah. It's great. You wrote offerings. Oh, really? Yeah, and he called and said, Dan, I'm doing a little one act festival. You you are you free? I'm in. Yeah. I'm in. Yeah. Why would I act? Yeah, so let's talk about this. So this is over at the Chain Theater, and uh me and Alexia are gonna go see you. You start tonight. You got this your first performance tonight, right? Tomorrow tomorrow night. We're tomorrow. One act festival. So it's tomorrow night and Sunday, and then it's next Saturday and Sunday, right during the middle of the this Sunday doing the middle of the football games of commie pinko bedweather.

I could kill them for you. But it's a six good little one acts, and uh I'm in a very good one. And Lyle's been a great writer for years. And he wrote Orphans, which is the number one produced American play around the world. Yeah. Okay, that's when you think of Death of a Salesman and all those other great plays. So and the people who run this theater, Christina and and Kurt Perry there, they're you know, we need more people like this because they do new plays. And we started the conversation talking about how COVID uh forty percent of the subscribers did not come back to regional theaters. Most of these groups in the city that are surviving, they're surviving on the grants. Right. And we're and they're doing something that's absolutely terrible.

There um there's there it's a greater prejudice than prejudice towards black Americans, Hispanic Americans, gay Americans, Italian Americans, uh, you know, Asian Americans, Native American. And I say greater because it encompasses all of them. And that's the prejudice towards older people. I have a new play that's going to be produced this summer that I wrote. Yes. It's going to be produced in a Great Barrington and up at Shadowland Stages. And I can't tell you how many theaters. Theaters where I know the artistic director, theaters I've worked in all my life, will not read a play by someone 75 years old. What? And it's not, and and like my friend uh uh David Saint at George Street Playhouse.

I've done five plays there. They gave me award for raising money for him. I said, David, you gotta read play two-hander, and you know, I can get stars to do it. And he said, and and David very proudly gay, said, Yeah, even if you were gay, I cannot do this play. I cannot I cannot do a play by seven, somebody's seventy-five. He wouldn't even read it. Well, Lyle can't get his plays done. You know, he's older. So why do you think that is? I don't know, Eli. You'll have to tell me. I I know one thing. You can't defeat prejudice by being more prejudiced. Right. You know, and it does not change the words on the page. You know, so I'm not again I've you know me. I had for 10 years. I ran a reading service in uh in LA where we read a new play every Monday night for 10 years.

We got over 50 writers literary. I never asked anybody what their age was. Right. I never asked if they were gay or straight. I would take the play, and if I could get a star to say, yeah, I'll read it. We read it. Right. I I mean if everybody passed on it, I'd say, well, let me get somebody else, you know, because uh I was trying to get attention to their play. But this is crazy. So talk to me about your play in this, you know, six plays of one act plays that the festival that he's Lyle's working on here. Talk to me about what your show is and what your character is and what we can expect. I'm I'm very I I got a great I got a good one. I got yeah, I play um an Israeli defense minister who I I interrogation is the word on the script, but he's not really interrogating.

A young girl, Bahar Bahanti, who's absolutely beautiful, and uh she was going to commit a suicide bomb bombing, and she didn't. Wow. And it's just the two of us, it's about 20 minutes long. It's very insightful. It's how she lost the person she loved because of uh Israeli raid, and then I tell her I lost my son because of uh a bomb went off years ago. And they end up, they're so compatible. Sure. They have this ethos that surrounds both of them, and they're brought into this bubble. It's a very good play. Lyle's a good writer. Wow. I told Lyle, we were just actually talking uh about you know, he shouldn't stop here. There's more here.

[25:05] Dan Lauria: He could write a second act and a third act easily.

[25:09] Eli Tokash: Wow.

[25:09] Dan Lauria: Oh my God.

[25:10] Eli Tokash: That's amazing.

[25:12] Dan Lauria: I'm excited. I think it's gonna be awesome. Now with this, this is like considered like an off Broadway production. And I've heard conversations, I mean, just having a conversation with you, you know, the importance of new plays and new work and everything like that. I'm curious to know like your thoughts off Broadway and off off Broadway, because I've heard you talk about it before. And you know, with some people listening and some people in the industry, you know, they have this kind of stereotype of like, oh, you know, it's Broadway or nothing, and that's not like always the case, in my opinion.

[25:46] Dan Lauria: Yeah, it's totally. I mean, you know. Uh Broadway is now a lot of bells and whistles.

[25:55] Eli Tokash: Right.

[25:56] Dan Lauria: You know, and rightfully so, Eli. I mean, people are paying $200 too. You know, to see what you can see on your television screen.

[26:07] Eli Tokash: Totally.

[26:08] Dan Lauria: So, I mean, I think a perfect example of what's going on was um Hades Town.

[26:17] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[26:17] Dan Lauria: Now I saw that off Broadway. Off off is a totally different thing. That's experimental. That is never gonna change. Who's ever got 20 cents and believes in themselves is gonna find a basement and do a play. That doesn't like off changed a lot, like we talked about before because New Yorkers haven't come in back. But I saw Hades Town off Broadway.

[26:40] Eli Tokash: Wow.

[26:41] Dan Lauria: It was wonderful. It was at the old uh I forget the name of the theater now, but it was when I was younger, was the truck and warehouse play right across from La Mama. I worked both those. And Chris Sullivan, who was in uh Lombardi with me in This Is Us, the Big Guy.

[26:59] Eli Tokash: Yeah, totally.

[27:00] Dan Lauria: He was the guy, the devil's assistant, you know. And while he was singing these great jazz songs, he's moving all of set pieces.

[27:12] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[27:13] Dan Lauria: And it was great. It was wonderful. Now it moves to Broadway, and I hear Andre DeShields, who's 84, one of the greatest talents ever in American theater, is now doing Chris's park.

[27:25] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[27:26] Dan Lauria: How the hell is he gonna do that? You know, I know Andre. And I go see it, and believe me, it is wonderful. The Broadway production is wonderful. But now it had a chorus of eight people. They were doing all the moving. It was bigger. Was it better? No. Was it worse? No. But it was the difference between Broadway and Off Broadway. It's gotta be here. You gotta have more. I take another example, I think. Of course, the music was written by our composers, Ben and Austin. When Dear Evan Hansen, when I read the book of that play, I said, This is a good off Broadway play.

[28:09] Eli Tokash: Oh wow.

[28:09] Dan Lauria: Then all of a sudden it becomes this big thing on Broadway, and I thought that story is not big enough. Well, you go see it. They had things hanging from the ceiling, they had computers, they had to blow it up.

[28:24] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[28:25] Dan Lauria: And I have a feeling that it might have been better off Broadway.

[28:32] Eli Tokash: Interesting.

[28:34] Dan Lauria: And what would the advantage be? Well, okay, the investors aren't going to make as much money. But the advantage is maybe smaller theaters around the country would have done it more. And it could probably run a little longer. You know, you don't have to fill all of those seats in a Broadway theater. Oh, yeah. I did other people's money, it's where I met Priscilla Lopez. They were always saying it was such a hit. Let's move to Broadway. And I produced it, no. If we move to Broadway, we'll be closed in six months. It ran three years at the Manetta Lane.

[29:08] Eli Tokash: There you go.

[29:09] Dan Lauria: And I'm curious because we're on the topic of, you know, like Broadway compared to off-Broadway. And I want to do one more comparison with you and know your thoughts on it. Just like you obviously you have a large resume and a large history with the on-screen acting and you know the TV and all of that. But I know you have a mold.

[29:28] Dan Lauria: I got it. I got it. No, no, no. Oh my God, no. But like you look at your your you search up Dan Lauria and you've done like every TV show there is, you know, it's just it's insane. And then of course, you know, you have a love for the stage, and I know you have a love for the stage, and you always come back to it. So, like, what is it about the stage that you know brings you back, or what do you find the difference between the two is and all of that?

[29:53] Dan Lauria: Well, let me give you the first misconception. Yeah, we hear a lot of actors say, I like the camera, uh, you know, I bring it in, it's not it doesn't go that that's terrible. If you I would never tell a young actor like that. We I was very fortunate to work in these little hole-in-twall theaters where the front row is literally three feet away from me.

[30:18] Eli Tokash: Right.

[30:19] Dan Lauria: So when I got in front of a camera, Charles, when Charles Durning said, you know, I guess we gotta be smaller, aren't you? He goes, No, you're doing a play, and you're playing for the hardest art audience in the world, that crew. They've seen everything, they know what's good, they know what works. When you get on a show, you'll be able to see who in the crew knows what they're doing. And if you're working with a theater person, like I did eight Cagney and Lacey's with Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, they had people on their crew that they when a scene was over, they would I could see them looking at them. And if they got a nod, they knew they didn't need another take. But that was the day when we did three-minute scenes without a cut.

Now you guys do time. I don't even know, it's not acting, it's not directing, it's not I don't know what it is. So on the one day's, we had uh our cinematographer, and he did operate the camera a lot, Steve Confer. If we did a take and he sat there, and they called cut, and he sat there on the camera, you knew you weren't giving your best.

[31:35] Eli Tokash: Oh, really?

[31:37] Dan Lauria: And when they said cut, if he stepped off the camera, whether we had to do it or not again or not, he knew we were we were good.

[31:44] Eli Tokash: That was wow.

[31:46] Dan Lauria: Yeah, and we had Skip Cook or Head Grip. He'd been on many great movies, worked with great stars. If he gave you that nod, you know. So this stuff about, and I'll tell you, when you're doing it for the crew, it goes right to the camera through the audience. And I'm working with too many young actors. You run first of all, you can hardly get them to run the lines because they're always on the phone. And they seem to be okay. And then as soon as they say action, they start whispering. I'm an internal actor. And I will I tell them I'm well, I'm a human being, you know, and I'm old, so talk louder.

[32:22] Eli Tokash: Well, yeah, geez, right?

[32:26] Dan Lauria: I don't get it. I'm a little lost about it, you know. I mean, it's part of watching the old movies. They spoke faster, they talked faster, they didn't, you know, transitions weren't. Oh, you know, you could drive a truck through it. And when you get to the stage, you know, you can't get away with that bad acting.

[32:45] Eli Tokash: Right.

[32:46] Dan Lauria: Durning's best note he ever gave me was somebody, kid would say, You got any advice about acting? He would say, 'Yeah, don't act, don't get caught.' You know, you know, those nights when you did your best work, where you you were there was no editing. You weren't thinking in a line ahead, you weren't thinking, What did I just do? It was just going, it was just right there. And when you work with good people, that's what happens. But if you're thinking about I gotta be this, I gotta whisper again, and we're losing that.

[33:14] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it's so interesting to hear you talk about, you know, when you're doing on-screen work and stuff, you know, performing for the crew. I never thought about it that way.

[33:25] Dan Lauria: You know, I always felt like uncomfortable with like not like uncomfortable, but it was like so bizarre that there was just this giant camera like watching your every little move. But if you just block that out and just say, hey, it's just a play and you do it for the crew, it's quite interesting.

[33:39] Dan Lauria: Oh yeah, it makes it a lot easier for you.

[33:44] Eli Tokash: So, you know, I need that reaction. Now they can't act like they do in the theater, but they have ways of showing you. There's a stillness when you do a very dramatic scene. In front of a crew, you know, they're always quiet, they're professionals and all, but there's that stillness that you know you feel in the theater. Well, you feel it on stay on uh in front of a camera too. And when you do something really funny in front of a camera, when they go cut, half the crew is not to blow the tape, you know.

[34:17] Dan Lauria: Yeah.

[34:18] Eli Tokash: You know, you know for sure.

[34:21] Dan Lauria: Uh it's awesome. That's I like that. I'm gonna start using that for sure because you know, this all self-taped and everything, you know.

[34:29] Eli Tokash: I don't I don't know. It's clearly not my forte. It hasn't worked out too much.

[34:33] Dan Lauria: Well, I'm uh, you know, for young people that uh who are especially with COVID and everything, I understand why self-tapes are there, but in for my case and my friends, why people with 40 years, 40, 50 years of experience have to self-tape while they have offers out to bigger names who are not self-taping. Is just uh refocating on my career and on everybody else's work. They're just telling us nothing we did matter. And the compromise is so easy. I mean, I don't. The last time they put a pin in me, they I had a self-tape, and all they said, you're the first choice. And I was four days away from I signed the contract, they hadn't. And then they said they gave it to F. Murray Abraham. And I said, Yeah, F. Murray Abraham's Academy Award winner. He's a good actor. And he's a very nice man, very proper man. I have, I don't blame the producers for doing it, but why did they make over 30 of us self-tape?

[35:39] Eli Tokash: Right.

[35:40] Dan Lauria: And they could have just said to the agent, we have an offer out to this great actor, F. Murray Abraham. What a what clients do you have if he doesn't do it would fit the role? So they say, Dan Lauria, go, good, send his reel. Make him do a slate so we can you send my reel. They know us anyway. And then if F. Murray Abraham backs out at the last minute, the director who's being cut out in casting now goes to the casting director who's completely being cut out and sits with them, and the casting director says, I have these 20 actors, their agents have sent their reel. Which five or six do you you want to look at? So the director will pick, maybe it'll bring us just those six come in and self tape with a guarantee that whoever gets the role did self-tape.

[36:32] Eli Tokash: Right.

[36:32] Dan Lauria: You know, and then even then at the last minute, Robert De Niro walks in and says, I want to do it. Well, the producer calls the set as a human being, calls them and say, Look, it's just a business decision. We loved your tapes. We're gonna send you 150 bucks for your time. We'll keep you in mind for guest spots. But thank you. That would be the if you had any respect for the art, that would be the way it's done.

[36:56] Eli Tokash: There you go.

[36:57] Dan Lauria: But there isn't any. And if I'm gonna cut from your head to my head, they don't really need us because chemistry is that happens between two people. And as soon as I cut from your face to my face, we've cut the chemistry.

[37:12] Eli Tokash: Absolutely. And I think that that's something too that like I feel like that's a strength of mine, you know, just like walking into a room and and and talking to people and developing some sort of chemistry.

[37:22] Dan Lauria: Well, when I'm doing these self-tapes, there's nothing there. I mean, there's you can't really develop it with like anybody, like, and you're gonna look like everybody else because it's a head in front of a gray piece of paper.

[37:34] Eli Tokash: Right, yeah.

[37:35] Dan Lauria: So you didn't have any time to win over the room.

[37:38] Dan Lauria: Yeah, it's it uh this whole new way of auditioning is just like you know, it's tough. And I know it's more convenient for a lot of people, and it is even for me, like you know, I don't have to travel and do to an audition room, I can just do it at the comfort of my home. But in a way, it's like that space was that safe space that like I knew that I could explore, and I knew I could do it. Well, when I'm here, it's like you know, this is my home. Like it's not like I want to act in my home, you know, type of thing. And and your generation is losing out on something else that's really important, they're not aware of it because they haven't gone through it. I cannot tell you how many times I went in to a room, gave a really good audition.

Yeah, and didn't get the part. And three months later, that same casting director, the producer of the TV show, called you in. Sometimes you didn't even have to audition. They said, Look, you got a part, and you go, What do you mean? And they said, Oh, we loved your last audition. You were just too ugly. But this job, this part, we knew this was coming up. Well, nobody's gonna remember a talking head in front of a screen. Exactly. So there might be a part that, okay, you're not right for it, but you didn't have a chance to leave something with them that they're gonna remember or think about down the line. Exactly. Your generation's really losing.

[39:00] Eli Tokash: Yep. I I couldn't agree more. And it it frustrates me because, you know, like as someone who had a career as a kid, and you know, that's a lot of times how I did get the roles, you know. Like I I would be like, oh, you know, like I didn't audition for this, or oh, I don't even like recall reading the script for this. You know, it's just like, you know, something came in, and it and now it's just like it's like a whole new wave, and I've changed so much that people don't like remember who I am, you know, with my looks and new voice and all the things. So it's just like I I can't figure out a way to re-establish myself and really change these auditions and all the things. It's so bizarre, but uh yeah, and then you know, in the old days I would have said to you, Well, that's easy to re-establish yourself, do a play, but now casting directors don't go to plays, right? Send me this real or send me his send me a video, or have them do a self-tape of one of the scenes, they don't go.

[39:55] Dan Lauria: Yeah, it's just crazy how much, especially since the pandemic, this industry has changed, you know, every aspect of it from audiences to how the whole process works now, it's just completely different. Well, uh, somebody like Charlie Derning, he always emphasized this business, regardless of what you read, has never been about money, it's always been about power. It's always the artist fighting the money establishment. Sure. You know, people with the they spend a lot of money, they feel they have a right to demand what they want. You hire an artist, and he says, No, you hired me because of my vision, and this is my so it's always that. Well, what's happened is the people with the money have the definitive device, the editing machine.

[40:46] Yeah. No longer a director with an editor winding a wheel. That was a hard process to put a film together. Now it is so easy. And the rule of thumb on almost 90% of the TV shows and every movie I see now is have each line on a single. Yeah. Well, you're killing all the chemistry. I mean, the equipment is lighter, it's more efficient, and we're taking twice as long. We're doing 9,000 takes. I don't think I ever took a second take with Time Daily on Cagnan Lacey. Especially with Cooper, the old actor was directing. He goes, Oh, my two bosses are here. Let's shoot it and want. How do you guys feel? Pretty good. Let's go home. And Jackie and Jackie would get a pat on the back for finishing early and saving money. Now he'd get fired.

[41:38] Eli Tokash: Right.

[41:39] Dan Lauria: Literally. Oh my God. But I think it shows, you know, like these TV shows nowadays, you know, you can't compare them to the Wonder Years and these boy meets world and all those things. You know, the content isn't there, but the content isn't there because of the way that the process is now, and it's kind of everything's being altered for everything. You know, it's just it's it's too bad. It really is. But uh, you know, hopefully we go back to find a happy medium.

[42:06] Eli Tokash: Uh yeah, some kind of happy medium.

[42:08] Dan Lauria: But uh, I know Charles Sterning for him, he would have told you this all started long before COVID. It started with the movie Heat.

[42:15] Eli Tokash: Really?

[42:18] Dan Lauria: With uh Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. And Charlie was a tough guy. Uh-huh. And he called me and he said, You gotta come over here. He got one of the things they send from SAG, you know. And um, he was crying. I said, What's he goes, watch this? And I'm watching it. I said, I don't get it, Charlie. What's bothering you? He goes, There's not one frame where Robert De Niro says anything to Al Pacino. When they walk in the diner, they're not talking, they sit down at the diner. Both of them talked about it on inside the actor studio. You can check it out, Eli. They did like 25 takes.

[43:00] Wow.

[43:00] Dan Lauria: So Al Pacino says, Hello, how are you? And De Niro says, I'm fine, how are you? They cut from the third take to the 15th to the 12th and 9th. And Charlie, he said, I thought I would die before. I said, You realize what they're doing. If they're gonna do that to the two best, they don't need us anymore.

[43:21] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[43:21] Dan Lauria: You know, Charlie worked with Pacino a number of times on stage and on film, you know, dog day afternoon movies like that. And it just broke his heart. He said, You're gonna see it, television will be first, and then everything became the same way. A master that you used for the first line and the last line.

[43:39] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[43:42] Dan Lauria: So I do this lecture at colleges. Be glad to come up and do it for you. But I start by showing two minutes of argo, and I go, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut until the audience understands what a cut is. Uh-huh. And then I stop and I say, now yell cut, the next cut that comes.

[44:01] Wow.

[44:01] Dan Lauria: Twenty-seven seconds later, they yell cut. And I say, you've just seen the longest taken Argo without a cut. Twenty-seven seconds. And the director did not get nominee. And then I put on Carrie Grant and Rosalind Russell going around a desk and his girl Friday.

[44:27] Eli Tokash: Four minutes and fifty seconds later, applaud.

[44:32] Dan Lauria: Wow. And then I talk about having breakfast with Carrie Grant and what he's saying.

[44:37] Eli Tokash: There you go.

[44:39] Dan Lauria: Oh wow. That's wild.

[44:40] Eli Tokash: But it's so true. I mean, like, I literally, I was watching The Wonder Years. I mean, you made us watch it backstage in a Christmas story, but I was watching it, you know, when I found out that I'd be talking to you just to get like a refresh of it and everything. And it's so true. I was like, you know, the flow of these scenes. It's nothing like it is today, you know.

[44:56] Dan Lauria: Well, even that super super tight shut to be used much. Where if it's more than a two T, you get to use your body. It's body language meant something. Now it's all this, and I don't know what that is.

[45:13] Eli Tokash: Right.

[45:14] Dan Lauria: All right, Dan. So I I gotta talk to you about our time together in a Christmas story. I mean, just uh unbelievable opportunity and such an honor to work with you. And I know we talked about it before we even started recording here, but uh it was your first musical ever. So I'm curious, you know. I believe it's still the only musical that you've ever done. So talk to me about what that experience was like for you and kind of what you learned and some of the I guess what was that process like for you in general.

[45:44] Dan Lauria: When uh my agent actually told my friend uh Wendy Malik that I was gonna do a Broadway musical before he told me. Yeah, and Wendy sent me an email saying, I'm sitting on my porch and a pig just flew by. And the first day of rehearsal, John Randall, who I love. Oh, you know, he said, All right, Dan, you gotta come in on an eight count. And I said, Count slower.

[46:15] Eli Tokash: Yes.

[46:21] Dan Lauria: I went to her and I said, Lynn, I I don't know anything about music. I don't know what an eight count is. When you walk upstage, you have a look in the wing and wink at.

[46:31] Eli Tokash: Yeah, there you go.

[46:33] Dan Lauria: He was one of the few who was in both years that we did it. And every show, she'd wink and then laugh. And she never missed once, you know.

[46:44] Eli Tokash: So was that the first musical you've ever done?

[46:47] Dan Lauria: Oh, yeah, I can't I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't, you know. I sat there one day, it was just before the first preview, and I'm watching you guys, and I'm looked at John and I said, There's gotta be 50 people in this room, actors, musicians, you know, dancers, John Bolton, Aaron Dilly, you guys. And he goes, and I said to him, I said, There's 50 people here, and I am the least talented.

[47:15] Eli Tokash: Stop it.

[47:16] Dan Lauria: And John Randall went, Oh, oh no, no, no, Dan, you're you're you're wonderful, you're a great narrative. And about 10 minutes later, uh, Luke started dancing. John looked at me and said, You know, you may be the last at least talented.

[47:32] Eli Tokash: Stop it.

[47:34] Dan Lauria: I enjoyed it so much, you know, and I I enjoyed you know, just watching you guys. I, you know, because I didn't have I didn't grow up like that with the music. I had my parents were the greatest people in the world. But you know, we were we didn't know anything about theater or anything. And I just loved watching you guys. The energy was contagious, you know.

[47:56] Eli Tokash: Yeah, no, for sure. That being in that room, I that any musical, I feel like it's just such a different energy to any other type of media and art in the arts or whatever. It's it's so much fun. It's so you all feed off each other, and when you're with that, like I don't know. I feel like musicals you you really have to know all three things. You need to know how to dance, you need to know how to sing, you need to know how to act. And in a way, it's like those are gonna be the the most talented people in the room because they're not gonna be.

[48:38] Dan Lauria: Yeah.

[48:39] Eli Tokash: And uh I love Christine uh Westfall. Remember?

[48:42] Dan Lauria: Yeah.

[48:43] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[48:44] Dan Lauria: Oh yeah. I've kept in touch with her over the years.

[48:47] Eli Tokash: Oh that's wonderful.

[48:49] Dan Lauria: I kept in touch with a bunch of them. I actually had John Bolton on the podcast like last some point last year. And uh, you know, he's killing it. He's now in the wicked tour, you know, he's he's everywhere.

[49:01] Eli Tokash: Is he talented or what?

[49:03] Dan Lauria: Oh, so talented. Every time I see him, and he was good friends with uh the my wife on a one-year, Sally Mills, was married to Hors and Bean, and Orson and John Bulb were good friends. So you know, I had actually met John a number of times, even before uh Christmas story. And I had worked once with Aaron Dilly.

[49:23] Eli Tokash: Oh yeah, and Carolyn McCormick, you know.

[49:26] Dan Lauria: I mean, it was just see the talent was unreal. And I've seen Luke since he came out to LA. I went to see him in the play about the history of dancing.

[49:35] Eli Tokash: Oh, amazing.

[49:37] Dan Lauria: You know, and of course, when I do a play and you guys show up, it's always fun.

[49:41] Eli Tokash: Yeah, no, we we love it. And honestly, like I'll I've said it a million times, uh even on this show already, you know, talking to John Bolton and all those guys from the show. You know, you you were the backbone of that show. I mean, truly. I mean, you were the narrator, so you were the backbone during the performances, but even backstage, I mean, you kept you literally became like our like on stage grandfather in a way because you know, we were backstage.

[50:12] Eli Tokash: You know, no, literally chocolate and cookies. So I bought your loyalty. Well, well, that, but you also did a lot of good for us because I'll never forget, like we had this little room for the kids too, and we were playing video games and whatnot, and you'd come in during the shows to like check on us and be like, what are they doing when they're not on stage? And when you saw we were playing video games or something, you would go nuts. So I remember you bought us like a placemat or a postcard of all of the presidents, and you were like learn them and like you would do, and I still have all these things that you would bring in for us.

[50:49] Dan Lauria: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I swear to God, I just went through our storage unit the other day, and we were like, look at this. This is from Dan Lauria in A Christmas Story because he made us learn all the presidents and all it was just you did so much for us kids, and it was just a real treat to learn from you and the advice that you would give us and everything. You know, I still go by it. So I'm like in a debt of gratitude towards the city. I had, you know, two great mentors. I had Charles Durning and then later on Jack Klugman. And you know, Charlie was the greatest clown that ever lived. But he would always say to me, remember, it's called a play for a reason.

[51:25] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[51:26] Dan Lauria: Playing. You know, happening.

[51:29] Eli Tokash: Absolutely.

[51:30] Dan Lauria: So, you know, and I remember a great actor said to me once, he said, now that it's like he was very old, and he said, now that it's all said and done, I realize the only thing an actor needs is a little giggle in his heart.

[51:44] Eli Tokash: There you go.

[51:45] Dan Lauria: It's so true. You know who said that to me? Jimmy Stewart.

[51:50] Eli Tokash: Wow, really?

[51:51] Dan Lauria: Yeah, he was a tough guy too. You know, we were at the National Veterans Committee, and he was a general in the Air Force because he stayed in after World War II in the reserve. So he was a legitimate Air Force gentleman. He's, you know, tough guy. But he said, Yeah, and now that's all said and done. I realize all you need to act is a little giggle in your heart. And that's true, you know. I had fun with you guys. I had fun doing Lombardi. You know, these I have fun when we played villains. When are you gonna get to kill? If you're not you don't have that, and I think you saw it with your cast. You guys were having so much fun, it became infectious. You could feel at that last speech at the end, it went over so well because nobody wanted to leave.

[52:43] Eli Tokash: Yeah, exactly.

[52:45] Dan Lauria: Well, if you don't believe me, if you guys hadn't done what you'd done, my last speech would have sunk.

[52:52] Eli Tokash: No.

[52:53] Dan Lauria: No, it had to be built on something, you know.

[52:56] Eli Tokash: Yeah, no, for sure. That's totally fair and totally valid. Um, I'm curious because like we're on the topic of A Christmas Story, like, and this is more of a generalized kind of question, but I'm using it in A Christmas Story for an example since we're on the topic. But like, you know, you did it on Broadway the year before I was there, and then you came back the year after, and you did it on like this little tour and then a stint at Madison Square Garden. So, like, in this industry in general, like what draws you back to a piece or of like a work that you really believe in, like, what is that to you?

[53:31] Dan Lauria: Well, you know, I mean, I got the part because I was working for Peter Billingsley and Vince Vaughn. They were doing that TV series, Sullivan and Son. Oh my God, I didn't realize who else would put me. I had to have an inn, you know. Believe me, if I auditioned, I probably wouldn't have got it, you know. I would have said come in on an eight count, and I would have been out of there. But Peter and then we had, you know, I kept telling them, I said I had so much fun, and they actually made a lot of money on the late lamps than they did on tickets.

[54:08] Eli Tokash: Oh, really?

[54:09] Dan Lauria: Oh, all that paraphernalia people wouldn't buy just one or two, they were ordering 20, 25 for Christmas gifts.

[54:16] Eli Tokash: Oh, that's hilarious.

[54:18] Dan Lauria: So, Peter, after the first times, we were at rehearsal for the series. He said, you know what, we're gonna go back next year. It's gonna be bigger, we're gonna go to Madison Square Garden. You want to do it again? And I, you know, I was gonna, well, I don't know. I just did it. And he goes, Come on, Dan, the kids will miss you. And I said, Yeah, let's do it again. And then I realized only about what, a third of you came here because they grew up, you know.

[54:43] Eli Tokash: Right.

[54:43] Dan Lauria: And then we met you and the other people, you know. I'm still until like Jeremy calls. He's in the making films now and everything. He boy, he changed. He's slim now, you know.

[54:54] Eli Tokash: Oh, I know.

[54:55] Dan Lauria: Jamie Schinder, yeah, that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Wow. What a great group, though. Some problems when we were younger. Sometimes I have to pull them aside, you know. Now he's like you, he's energetic, he's a little self-effacing. He's great.

[55:11] Eli Tokash: There you go, there you go. All you need is a little Dan Lauria in your life. Don't whip your button gear. Don't worry. Well, I want to talk to you because you have a new movie coming out this year, right? You're actually playing former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill.

[55:27] Dan Lauria: Yeah, Ronald Reagan movie, yeah.

[55:29] Eli Tokash: Yeah. So I listen, my grandparents are of course going to be listening to this. Shout out to both my grandmas. Um, and this is totally up their alley. So I want you to tell them about it and tell everyone else about it too.

[55:42] Dan Lauria: No, it's uh it's uh Dennis Quaid was remarkable to work with. And you know, he, I'm a very, you know me, I'm way left, you know. And Dennis is a rather conservative Republican, not a Trumper, but a Republican, and he loved Ronald Reagan, and he, you know, one of the reasons why he was so behind us was he really feels that here were two people ideologically apart, but yet they could work together for the good of all of us, and he felt that's being lost. And I agree with him, that's been lost in our country. So he wanted to make this movie. And you know, one of the it shows they do our friends. My part's not real big, but it has some great scenes. And when Reagan was shot, this is a scene where Tip O'Neill stayed with him all night in the hospital and they prayed together.

[56:37] Eli Tokash: Wow.

[56:38] Dan Lauria: They were drinking buddies. They would yell at each other and do all that political stuff during the day, but at night, you know, like Reagan said, with two Irishmen having a beer, you know, and they got a lot done doing that, you know. And it's been true through LBJ got a lot done with Edward Dirksen, who they were ideologically apart, but they would open that bottle of bourbon and they'd get stuff done.

[57:03] Eli Tokash: Right.

[57:04] Dan Lauria: Yeah. So Julie, I heard Julian Bond talk about that. He said, I heard Everett Dirksen, he called the president every name in the world, you know, Senate floor. And then he calls ten minutes later and says, Can I see LBJ tonight? He said, My God, LBJ's gonna kill him. And then Stephanie, and as soon as he walked in the door, LBJ said, Edward, I wouldn't call a dog when you called me today. And every door said, Well, I took an old tell the truth, LB. Now what are we gonna do? He said, Well, okay, and they open a bottle of spots, you know, I need this, and you need that, and I need and they kind of got things done.

[57:42] Eli Tokash: Right.

[57:43] Dan Lauria: That is amazing. You know, let's you and I work together. And I think Biden's of that school because he was around, but he doesn't have the players with him that I don't think quite understand that.

[58:04] Eli Tokash: Right.

[58:05] Dan Lauria: Yeah. So well, I know you like your politics, and I know that this will be the, you know, you're it's close to home for you, and this will be I'm sure this role and movie means a lot to you, so I'm really excited for it to come out to see it.

[58:19] Dan Lauria: Yeah, yeah, and there's no makeup.

[58:22] Eli Tokash: Oh, cool.

[58:23] Dan Lauria: Right wig and putty, and I said, just dye my hair white. And then the director was great. He went, wow, looks like Tip O'Neill. So wow. One of the hardest things was he had a big laugh. But when he laughed, his teeth never showed.

[58:40] Eli Tokash: So that's amazing. Wait, so like, how do you do like a like a research on that? You know, like it's a famous historic person and everything, and you have to emulate him and you have to become him. So, like, how does that whole process work?

[58:59] Dan Lauria: What's the name? Wallace from MSNBC who just retired wrote. He was O'Neill's aide, and he wrote about Tip and Reagan and how they were together. So naturally I read really, but sometimes it's a lot. Plus, you have a lot of footage of O'Neill, so I could see it, you know. And but like with Lombardi, that was great because I'm, you know, an old jock, and I got to talk to the old players that played for him, you know, great Mark Starr and you know, Horning and Taylor, and you know they're all everyone I wanted to call. The NFL was so great, they put me on the phone. And I had a set question I would ask was if you come see the play, what do you want to see that's not in the books?

[59:46] Eli Tokash: Right.

[59:48] Dan Lauria: And uh Dave Robinson, whose character is in the play, who was actually with us through rehearsal, he was a pisser. He was the one who suggested if you ask that question, he said, I'll bet you more than half say his sense of humor. Everybody knows about the yelling and screaming.

[1:00:04] Eli Tokash: Oh, wow.

[1:00:04] Dan Lauria: When I went to Dave, I said, you know, Dave, you're right. I just talked to eight former Packers, six of them said his laugh and sense of humor.

[1:00:13] Eli Tokash: Wow.

[1:00:14] Dan Lauria: That's pretty put some laughs in the play, and you know, he was always had that little twinkle in his eye. He was competitive as hell, but you know, he always trying to throw a gag at you or have a he I think he needed the release.

[1:00:29] Eli Tokash: That show, too, you know, like Lombardi, that had to be such a cool thing, not only for you, because I know you love your football and your jock and everything, but like you had such a unique experience, first of all, at your Broadway debut, and then you were able to go to the Giants, and you were able to go and be at the NFL draft and all the things. Like, that's awesome.

[1:00:48] Dan Lauria: Yeah, so cool.

[1:00:50] Eli Tokash: It was fun.

[1:00:52] Dan Lauria: Yeah, it was fun for my friends from high school and from college.

[1:00:56] Eli Tokash: Yeah, there you go.

[1:00:58] Dan Lauria: They all came down, and usually there was somebody there from the Packers. I think that's awesome. Yogi Berra, who knew they lived near each other, you know, and Yogi used to work out with them in the offseason from the Yankees when Lombardi was with the Giants. Right. The offensive coordinator. So Yogi came one night with Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron.

[1:01:25] Eli Tokash: Wow.

[1:01:26] Dan Lauria: And they're sitting together. And Yogi was like in the middle because his wife wasn't there, but the other two of their wives were there. And in the first, the very beginning of the play, I have Lombardi's actual speech for the first time he saw the Packers. And then he says, We're gonna be the Yankees of professional footballer. And you know, was in a round, and you use the audience as the team. And I looked right at Yogi and I said, We're gonna be the Yankees of professional football, and Yogi. So when the play three of them come backstage, and Hank Aaron says, Thank God you didn't say Yankees again. Yogi almost killed me with his elbow.

[1:02:06] Eli Tokash: That's awesome. That'd be so cool. I mean, I'm sure you don't get starstruck, but like with you know, sports legends, I feel like that's just another type of you know, stardom, you know.

[1:02:18] Dan Lauria: I hope I never get so old that I'm not starstruck on it.

[1:02:23] Eli Tokash: Yeah, there you go.

[1:02:24] Dan Lauria: There's certain people I've met that I was just in awe of. And 90% of the time it didn't uh wasn't disappointed, you know. Yeah, I mean, you know, I said, Oh, geez, I'll never get to work with Tom Hanks. I think he's just such a great and sure enough, I didn't get to act with him, but he directed me in something. And you know, all the stories you hear about how nice he is, he's even nicer, Eli.

[1:02:48] Dan Lauria: Oh well, makes all of us actors look right, and other people who I did get to know, like George Clooney, I've never actually I've done readings with him, but I know him. Yeah, you know, just a gentleman, a real respect for what old Hollywood was. I think in his heart he hates where it's going. Yeah, you know, but he is so grateful for all the things. You know, he's a very wealthy man and great businessman. And he's very grateful for it, you know. Yeah. So you know, we only read about the bad stuff. Yeah. I work with such great, you know, Judith Light. Come on. Yeah. Wendy Malik, Priscilla Lopez. I've been so lucky to work with them. And they have fun to work with. Oh, for sure. Priscilla was in Pippin with me.

I love Priscilla. Oh, isn't she the best? Oh my God. She is. She's the only one in Other People's Money who did the play with everyone who played. The lead guy was in Greenwald. And when I went in, I only had two rehearsals. One with the study cast and one with the real cast walkthrough. Oh it was interesting night because they thought I was gonna drop lines, so they would say their lines and look like me, like who is he gonna remember? Right. But I did it a little differently, and I thought, oh man, they're gonna kill me. No. Priscilla was the first one in, and she came running to my dressing room. She goes, Are you really gonna play the character like that? And I said, It's all right with you guys. She went, Boy, are we gonna have fun? Oh, she's been one of my best friends ever since.

[1:04:34] Eli Tokash: Oh, that's amazing. I love that. I didn't realize that. That's so funny.

[1:04:39] Dan Lauria: Oh yeah. We did that the best kind of one-upsmanship, you know, the good kind, the kind of thing. Oh, yeah. You push each other.

[1:04:50] Eli Tokash: Yeah, yeah.

[1:04:50] Dan Lauria: So we had a big scene where she gives me a little bit of a lecture, a little bit of a shout down, and we're in the wings waiting to go out. She goes, I got one tonight. It's gonna bring down the house. I said, Oh, wait. She wouldn't tell me. And what happened was she's yelling at me for being lech, instead of talking eye, she talked to my penis. She walked right to my crop. Oh my god. The audience went nuts. And I said, Whoa. You gotta keep that, you know. It's great. So about three weeks later, we're in the wing. I go, I got one. She goes, What are you gonna do? I said, You really you're gonna love this. Oh no. And when they start, you know, started to come down. I slid my tie over as if it was so small that the tie was covering it.

Oh my god. Priscilla cracked up right on stage. Right on stage. We gotta keep them both, you know, and we did. We did. We had some fun. But Priscilla's, well, you know her. She's just yeah, I mean, that's another thing about this stage too, you know, like doing it with film and on the screen and everything, you don't get to really play with it every night, you know, and find new things, you know. You get that time to add things in and have fun and make it a little different.

[1:06:20] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it keeps attraction, keeps you loose.

[1:06:23] Dan Lauria: For sure. Well, I gotta say, just before I'm gonna let you go, but I gotta say, I truly mean everything that I've said so far in talking to you again in this podcast, but you know, you really did give me some of the best advice I've ever received, and you're someone that I've carried with me throughout my entire life ever since I met you. You don't know how much you mean to me and I, no, I'm serious, like you don't know what you mean to me and what you mean to my dad and I both. You know, like I'll never forget this one conversation that you had with my dad and I, and then like the next week we had pretty much the same conversation with Annie Potts and it was just, you know, you gotta go all in in this industry if you want it.

And like at the time, you know, I was playing ice hockey and I was doing all these different things and I was just being a kid, you know, and you were like, but if you want to do this, you know, like I think you can do this, but if you want to do this, you can't do everything else. You know you have to just hone in and, you know, not even like you don't even necessarily have to take acting classes because you got it, but you have to understand what you want and you just have to do this and you have to focus on this and do it for you and do it for everyone.

[1:07:38] Dan Lauria: Which I see is what you're doing. I mean, yeah, college, but it's focused on this business and you're, you know, the last line of my lecture at the colleges I tell the kids, look when I'm eighty and you come to New York and I'm your waiter, don't feel sorry for me because I'll have a flyer for the play I'm doing in my pocket.

[1:08:01] Eli Tokash: There you go. You gotta have that attitude.

[1:08:03] Dan Lauria: Yeah, for sure. You're glad you went to college, but I'm glad you stayed in the realm of our entertainment law because you're probably gonna end up being produced.

[1:08:13] Eli Tokash: Yeah, I mean listen, I want to continue acting. Acting is what I love to do. I want to be the one who's part of the reason that people are feeling a way that they're feeling, you know. Like I want them to cry with me. I want them to laugh with me, you know. That's what I think all of us actors want to do. But at the very least, I just want to be in this industry, and you know, I think that you having that conversation with you, it kind of solidified that for me, and just what everything that this industry brings to people, just whether it's movie, whether it is theater.

[1:08:44] Dan Lauria: When you produce, direct, and act in your own movie, call me.

[1:08:48] Eli Tokash: You know that you would be the first person I'd call. Honest to God. I mean, that would be to have the chance to work with you again would be an actual dream come true, honestly. I love that's where you get to see my play because we're gonna be up at Shadowland I think in June. So it is that's not too far from you. Right.

[1:09:11] Dan Lauria: Is that Dinner with the Boys? Is it that show play?

[1:09:13] Eli Tokash: Oh no, no, it's brand new.

[1:09:16] Dan Lauria: Okay, brand new one.

[1:09:17] Eli Tokash: I'm actually Priscilla to do it with me.

[1:09:21] Dan Lauria: Are you actually?

[1:09:23] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it's two old writers of comedy that have dementia. And each day they do that on the beach. I'm on a bench, and they write comedy and they fall in love.

[1:09:36] Dan Lauria: Wow.

[1:09:41] Eli Tokash: That's awesome. Well, I'll absolutely come check it out. You have to let me know when it is. I'll look it up even.

[1:09:47] Dan Lauria: Yeah, for sure. And I'm gonna come see this show with you at the chain theater. Trust me, Dan. I will be seeing you again for sure. I'm very excited. Can't wait to go check this out. And hopefully everyone listening goes to check it out and keeps an eye out on it because I think, like Dan said, it's a bunch of wonderful new works, and there's something really special in all of them. So I can't wait.

[1:10:13] Dan Lauria: Thank you, yeah. Thanks for the theater. Appreciate it.

[1:10:16] Eli Tokash: Oh my god, of course. Thank you, Dan. It's so great to see you again. Take a bow, Dan Lauria. Oh my god. As I said, Dan Lauria is someone who means the world to me. I'm so excited to be seeing him in this chain theater festival. I'm gonna go see it Sunday at five. Very exciting. Cannot wait to see him in person. It's gonna be lovely. And he's such a wonderful performer and full of knowledge, you know. Like he could totally write a book about this industry and about everything that he's learned. I mean, he's taught me so much in such a little bit amount of time. You know, we worked together for three months and he completely changed my life. So I appreciate him for coming on here and his willingness to talk to me on the show. Very exciting.

[1:10:58] Eli Tokash: When I started this whole podcast, you know, I made a list of people that I'd love to have on the show, and I reached out to them and said, like, hey, I'm starting this thing, please come on. And you know, he was up there at the top three. It was probably like Matthew Morrison, it was probably Diane Paulus, and then Dan Lauria, you know, like of people that just mean the world to me and folks that I'd love to have on. And it's not really just because of who they are, and sure, they're all fantastic people, and they are also knowledgeable in the industry, and they can all touch on so many things, but it's also just like what they did for my career. You know, Diane, I just mentioned this, gave me a bunch of Broadway shows, you know.

She kept me working, she liked to work with me. I can't repay that, you know. And then Dan, you know, he gave me this advice and really made this all happen, you know. You know, he told me that you have to go all in. You cannot do sports and this, you cannot travel back and forth every week, you know. Like we were told that before, but it didn't make sense. The way that Dan presented it just kind of made sense. And he was able to relate to us. So he was able to share his story with us and be like, this is literally what happened to me. And here's what I regret about it. And like all these things. So it was wonderful. And then, of course, Matthew, I mean, Matthew is self-explanatory. He was literally a dad to me for all those years. And hopefully, we get him on the show this year. So very exciting stuff.

[1:12:25] Eli Tokash: That's pretty much all I have for you folks this week. I hope that you all found this episode interesting. I'm curious to see how y'all reacted to it. It is probably a guess that you know, you all who normally listen to this show probably don't know, or maybe you're finding out about him. I don't know. Maybe I don't know if you all found this show interesting. I found it extremely interesting. Especially like when listening to the stories, you know, there were just so many stories that it's just like this guy's unbelievable. The career that he's had. As I said, he could literally write a book and I would not put it down. You know, he's worked with so many incredible people, and he dropped those names and the people that he's auditioning with and being offered roles with.

And it's just fascinating that he was able to share that stuff with us, you know, about being on hold and thinking you have the role, and then some big, you know, Robert De Niro or whatever comes in and says, Oh yeah, I'm gonna do it. You know, like it's crazy about what this industry does and what it is, and no one talks about it. So the fact that Dan was coming on here to talk to about his personal experience with all of that and you know the self-tape aspect and what it's like to be on stage compared to the screen and all the things. So it was a fascinating conversation, and I hope that you enjoyed it if you stayed around to listen to all of it. So um, with that being said, thank you all for listening to this week's episode. I appreciate you all as always, and I cannot wait to see you all next week. So, with that being said, bye everyone, have a great week.

[1:13:57] 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 from Dory Barenstein, Alan Seales, Kimberly Garrett, 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. 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 T A B. 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.

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.