This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:08] Grace Aki: Tell me a story.

[0:22] Grace Aki: And we're back. Okay, I hope that you laughed at that. If you didn't, it's fine, but it may be awkward between us now. Um, y'all, welcome back. It is a glorious Sunday, isn't it? I think so. Today, my guest is a stupidly talented composer, lyricist, funny guy, and all around gent, Drew Gasparini. It was just announced that he's doing the music for the Karate Kid musical. And if you were like, geez, do we need this? Um, yeah, you do. Because if anybody can turn a cult classic film into a tight bop and new musical, it's Drew. So trust. Trust him, trust me. Uh his music is actually just nonstop bops. Seriously, like even his ballads are bops. I don't make the rules, it's just how he is. You can stream or purchase his albums through Broadway Records.

Uh, it's I could use a drink, and it's like really good. And he did not pay me to say that. No one is telling me to say this. I am choosing to say this because I think it's a good album, and I think you should listen to it. Anyways, he worked on Smash. Famously, I was a hitless fan more than I was a bombshell fan. So Drag Me Musical Theater stands. He is releasing a new album called We Aren't Kids Anymore, and it just looks really, really good. Like I saw the voices that he's picked for this album, and I was like, oh, okay. Like it's gonna be really good. Anyways, you can find him on all social media platforms under his name. It's not hard. I was gonna tell you how to spell it, but you could literally just Google it. It's Drew Gasparini. Anyways, I'll just shut up and let you listen to him introduce himself because he could do it much better than I can. Here he is, Mr. Drew Gasparini.

[2:00] Drew Gasparini: Hello, my name is Drew. I wanna know if you would listen to my music. I've been working so damn hard on writing something worth a damn high. My name is Drew. If you like songs with just a hint of potty humor, and a pinch of what a brooding, bleeding heart might have to say. The right this away. If that was all about the fun side, if life was only focused on the joy ride, then we might never see all we should see. If laugh was all about the upside, avoiding every chance to take a nose dive, then we won't see the wreckage of the greatest parts of me. You're welcome.

[2:50] Drew Gasparini: Hi, thanks. Welcome to your home. Welcome to my home. Thanks for coming out here all the way to Queens. Dude, I when I was coming out here, I realized that like one of my best friends lives like two blocks away, and I was like, I'm gonna call her. Everybody that comes to my house says, you know, my best friend lives around the corner from you. Everybody lives around me apparently. Well, apparently she moved into Jay Armstrong Johnson's old apartment. Oh. So technically you live near J. Armstrong Johnson's old house. Amazing. I had no idea. Yeah. It's so funny how many friends I of other people that I live near, but none of my friends will come out here to visit me. Oh yeah. Everyone thinks that Queens is like another country.

You wanna feel like that? Come to Jersey. Jersey. You wanna feel like that, probably? You wanna feel like that? Literally, I'll be like, so it's um exactly 12 minutes from Times Square, and they're like, Yeah, fuck no. Yeah, no, it doesn't matter how the short the amount of time is, that's Jersey.

[3:45] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, and then have you lived in Jersey your whole time out here? No. No. I've lived, I've lived in Astoria. Okay. I've lived in Brooklyn. I lived in um Park Slope area. I've lived in I've lived in, I think, eight apartments. Eight apartments. How many years have you been out here? Five. Five years, eight apartments. That makes sense. That like tracks the way I think my out here living has been. Did you do gypsy housing? Of course, yeah. All my life would be without gypsy housing. So my goodness where would we be without that Facebook group? Uh homeless. Yeah. Honestly. I think I would have just bit the bullet and gone homeless. Remember when they did like artist housing back in the 60s? Yes.

Where the fuck is that? Did we ruin it? Did Andy Warhol's factory girls ruin it? Um I don't know, but he did ruin women and art. But that's not enough that's not this podcast, and I don't want to talk about that. We will do another podcast strictly about that because what a great prompt. Great prompt. Everyone's like, this girl's a fucking nerd. Okay. Um so I guess I want to start by talking to you, asking you to tell me a story about your early memories of performing.

[4:52] Drew Gasparini: My early memories of performing. Um, well, I did musical theater when I was a kid. Mm-hmm. Before I started writing songs and performing as a singer-songwriter. And uh my earliest memory of a musical I did was um Fiddler on the Roof. I was man number one. Oh and I'm not kidding, I gloated because I was not man number two. So to me, like Well, you were first chair of the show. Of sure. That's like that's how I like qualified it in my head so that I could feel better about the position. I didn'd get. I was like 11 years old, and the guy who played 10 was like 18, and of course I wasn't gonna be Tavia. For sure. He shouldn't have been either. Anyway, uh we're still shading this guy after like 15 years of like, nah, you know what?

Fucking. Man, I'll show him. Um anyway, so my line was it was a horse. Uh there's a memory for you. I remember really digging into the uh the text. Wait, is that the part? Because I don't know Fiddler very well, but is that the part in the show when the two the people have gotten married? No. And then there's a baby? No. This is right at the top during tradition, the opening number. Uh-huh. And two guys are in an argument about what this animal was, and man one goes, it was a horse, and man one says, It was a mule. And those were my lines. I said it was a horse twice. Wow. Yeah. Not bad, huh? Not bad. You're living the dream. I got almighty, and then I've just it's all been up up since then.

Um that's the early memory of performing. I don't know. I always had a knack for it's so funny, I was just watching um home movies at my parents' house over the holidays. That's sweet. And um one of the things that we watched was like, if I was in fourth grade or fifth grade, and I wrote a script of the Christmas Carol, like my version of it, and I directed all of my friends, and they were all like sports kids. They didn't even know what a play was. Like and I like forced them into costumes and this, that, and the other. And we performed it in my parents' living room. Like, we built like a little fireplace set, and like we just did this full on. And that was my first real taste of like creating theater instead of being uh told what to do.

And I think that was kind of the the early thing that got me to switch to a writer's point of view as opposed to a performer's point of view. But I always think that both sides of it kind of influence the other.

[7:18] Drew Gasparini: Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Don't you ever see? Can't you ever tell, like, when a writer is an actor as well? Or other way around. Like Alex Brightman is such a good example that he whenever I see him on stage, I go, Oh, I bet he's such a good writer. You know what I mean? And he is. Yeah. Uh but like that's what I mean. I think that's I was 11 years old when I first had that like split personality thing. It all kind of like informs the other thing. Yeah, definitely. Like I was watching the Steven Spielberg documentary. Have you watched? I love the Steven Spielberg documentary. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, I do. Literally, when he's like a kid getting all his friends to like do the thing and like make the silly sci-fi, and they're like, I don't fucking know what it is.

Yeah. But you know, like he had this vision, he was wrong with something. So when you want to create stuff, you can see it like very early on. Yeah, I'm just glad I followed the instinct to kind of like it's like ignorance is bliss a little bit. You don't know how scary it is when you're doing it. Oh, yeah. The older I get, the more like I don't think I should try that. But back then, when you're young and kind of dumb, you're like, I'm just gonna try everything. I'm gonna force my friends to do it with me. You know what I mean? But that's um Yeah, you can do that. And other stuff, like ear uh it was always my family. My family was so loud and so musical, and my mom was a music teacher, and my dad is uh a very loud, a big personality, and a Zeppelin-induced rock drummer.

Oh there's always music around and there's always performance going around. We're talking like Neil Part level, like where we're gonna be. I would say like John Bonham. Like, really, he was like a Led Zeppelin, like John Bonham is uh Led Zeppelin. He is very much influenced by that man when it came to drums. He hit hard, he rocked out, it was it was badass.

[8:51] Drew Gasparini: Damn. Yeah, it was okay. That makes sense. Your family is disgusting. Um yeah, thank you. You're you're I think it's all the boils on our bodies. Your family is so grossly talented that I don't I feel like the Von Trapp family is shaking. Well are are are they all still? They're not with us anymore. All of them some of them are dead. Oh man, Brigitte. Brigitte. Poor Brigitte. Oh god. Uh that's very nice of you to say. We've and luckily we all like each other, and that's a really cool thing, too. So I think that kind of helps uh influence the collaborative dynamic between all four of us. For the kids. There's two parents, four kids. Four kids. And three of you guys have a band. Uh yes. Me and my sisters, Casey and Chloe are in a band called St. Adeline.

And it's like a folk rock pop kind of thing. And it's uh it was a very consistent part of the career, but now it's like uh every once in a while when you're all together. We can find time because Chloe lives in Los Angeles right now. She's writing She's killing it. She's writing for Macklemore and like Dua Lipa and like Niall Rogers, and like she is getting cuts on albums and she's blowing up, and Casey's out here as an actress and she's working on every Tom Kit musical that ever gets written. And um it's it's it's kind of amazing that we are are all the types of artists that juggle multi pronged careers. I really like that about my family. But it might be that your parents also gave you permission to do all the things.

Sure they did, but beyond the permission, um it's it really was they like nailed in a work ethic. You know what I mean? There was I think my parents saw that instead of doing my homework, I was spending ten hours writing songs. I wasn't, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowd or doing drugs. No. I was like spending time working on this thing I really wanted to pursue. And I know a lot of parents who would say, That's insane, don't do that. You gotta get good grades, is that and the other. Yeah. They really allowed me to find this path to a career. Because they they could see that I could see it. And I think that was an important part of how they raised me. And they were very good at individualizing each of the kids.

You know what I mean? So it wasn't like here's how we're raising our family. It's like, yeah here's the attention Drew needs for what he wants to do. Here's what Danny needs, here's what Casey, here's what Chloe needs. You know, it was that kind of thing.

[11:08] Grace Aki: That's nice. Yeah, big shout out to Kelly and George right now.

[11:11] Drew Gasparini: Kelly and George.

[11:13] Grace Aki: Ah, the uh the Lord's work.

[11:15] Drew Gasparini: The Lord's work.

[11:16] Grace Aki: Um, wouldn't know my parents aren't together.

[11:18] Drew Gasparini: It is what it is.

[11:19] Grace Aki: I'm so um oh no.

[11:21] Drew Gasparini: If I was two and a half, yeah.

[11:24] Grace Aki: I'm not selling tickets to my show right now, Drew!

[11:27] Drew Gasparini: I don't have a show lined up right now. But if you were willing to buy tickets at me, uh just because my fucking podcaster.

[11:35] Grace Aki: I'm doing your podcast to promote you. Thanks so much.

[11:39] Grace Aki: Okay, I have to because you kind of brought it up before we started recording.

[11:42] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[11:42] Grace Aki: Um, can you can you talk about night shift?

[11:45] Drew Gasparini: Because I I know that movie because of a- I'm so glad you know the movie, because not a lot of people do. Here's the deal.

[11:51] Drew Gasparini: Uh huh. My friends and I, which you're welcome to come to when we have it again. Every year we have uh Ron Howard's birthday party.

[11:58] Grace Aki: Oh my god.

[11:59] Drew Gasparini: And we have a birthday party at my house. Or at at my friend's house, actually, near by your house, um, for Ron Howard. And so that transitions into night shift.

[12:08] Drew Gasparini: So Night Shift, which was a movie which was Ron Howard's directorial debut.

[12:12] Grace Aki: Right.

[12:12] Drew Gasparini: It was written by guys he worked with on Happy Days.

[12:23] Drew Gasparini: I mean, the list is insane. Multiplicity. I don't know if you know that movie with Michael Keaton, but that's like one of my favorite movies of all time. Uh, anyway, so Night Shift, which I believe was also Michael Keaton's first movie. It may have been. It's really early. It's like early 80s, 8182 or something like that. Warner Brothers uh hired me and the screenwriters Babaloo and Lowell to write the Broadway musical version of this. We're turner directing. Uh sorry. Kathleen Turner. No, not Kathleen Turner. Oh my god. Kathleen Marshall. I'm so sorry, Kathleen. I don't know why Kathleen Turner just came out of my face because it sounds like those two names. Well, it sounds like it's like War of the Roses time.

It's Kathleen Marshall, the amazing Kathleen Marshall, uh, directing. And uh we just we did a reading a couple years ago with Alex Brightman and um Brandon Uranowitz and uh Adrian Warren, and it was it was really killer. I was actually just listening to some of the old songs today. That sounds really good. It's it's really, really good, unfortunately. And I, you know, I don't know whose feathers might get ruffled by saying any of this, but uh because of how good I think the show is, I don't mind saying it. Okay. The show uh is really good, but because of the content of the show, it is about uh prostitutes, and it is about two men who become pimps on on assuming pimps. Yeah. They're like nebushy, like neurotic weirdos, uh, who do it to help a friend out and to get some money, and then these prostitutes become moguls and millionaires.

And uh, right, we were doing our readings and we had all this great traction and all this uh excitement from other theaters and getting it to Broadway and all that stuff, and then maybe a month later, I think is when the Harvey Weinstein thing happened, and then what we couldn't we couldn't really pursue a musical about uh prostitutes because it doesn't really empower women necessarily, especially when it's written by uh, you know, three white dudes.

[14:20] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[14:21] Drew Gasparini: Um but uh with Kathleen Marshall at the helm, I really thought we had a new way of telling this story that was actually very empowering toward women, and I'm sure there's a lot of people rolling their eyes that I'm the one saying this. But um it is still a show that I am so fond of. It is so funny. I mean, it's like the producer is kind of funny. It is so funny. Um and it's just and Ron Howard came to both of the readings, and he had nothing but good things to say about it, he had great feedback, he loved the songs. Tap on my back right here, whatever.

[14:52] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[14:52] Drew Gasparini: Um, and it was a really magical experience. It really, really was. And he was gonna be co-producer with Morner Brothers on the Broadway musical. Got it. And it's still an option. This still might happen one day. You know what I mean? It's not totally dead in the waters, so uh everyone keep their fingers crossed because it's one of the coolest experiences getting to work with Baba Lou and Lowell and Kathleen Marshall who is like when you see people do the role, do the thing that you know they're good at, when you see Kathleen Marshall direct, you're like your mind is blown. When you see Lowell and Baba Lou write, your mind is blown, and all of a sudden I'm the guy thinking, why am I a part of this?

How did I get into this? But you don't need that imposter syndrome because you're supposed to be at that table. I I really appreciate that, and of course, you know, over time my hit my brain gets there, but like in the initial process of getting these legends in a room and creating something with them, you're in awe half of the time, and the other half of the time you're having diarrhea because you don't want to ruin their property or ruin your first chance at a Broadway show, or you know, it was a lot of pressure on that. That was my first Broadway contract, so it I wanted it to be so good, and I'm really glad that it turned out so good. Unfortunately, we don't have a theater for it. We don't know where it's going next, but that's what I can say about Night Shift. It was a great experience.

[16:04] Grace Aki: So where we got it was a great experience.

[16:08] Drew Gasparini: But it was it was because I was like looking up all these other things you had done, and then I went, Wait, what the fuck? I don't know anything about this.

[16:14] Grace Aki: I love that you know Night Shift. Honest to God. I just well, I just picture also like this whole schlew of like movies that you wouldn't think. Let me say it. But like all these movies where you're like, I don't know how that would work as a musical, and then you can do it. Like, like, like you guys doing Weekend at Bernie's, for some reason, I just think about it often, and I'm like, you guys should just do that.

[16:23] Drew Gasparini: Like, I don't know why. If anybody could, Alex Brightman and I could.

[16:40] Grace Aki: That's what I mean, like of all the people, like you just cast your friends, and then you're like, okay, so we're just gonna get a group of people in New 42, and uh this is it. Watch those videos go viral, then watch it land on Broadway.

[16:51] Drew Gasparini: And then what and then that's the thing.

[16:53] Grace Aki: That's the one that goes into the Needle Lantern next.

[16:55] Drew Gasparini: I don't like what the f uh, ever since Newsies, it's been cursed.

[16:59] Grace Aki: Anyways, let's talk about um I gotta take a second and tell y'all about my personal training coaches, Steve and Rachel Payne at House of Pain. I've been doing their workout programs, let's say three years, and they shape bodies. And yes, they prepare people to compete in bodybuilding shows, which some of it's your jam, it's not my jam. What I love about them is that they understand the look that I want. Tone, fit, something that's sustainable for my lifestyle. They create a custom individual plan that includes my workouts, my cardio, and my nutrition. I do their online program, but when I'm in Atlanta, I do one-on-one training with them at their facility, and it kicks my ass. They FaceTime me whenever I have questions, alter my plan when needed, and no matter what stage you want to step on, competition, career, lifestyle, a red carpet, wedding, whatever it is, House of Pain personal training is the most personal training you can get. Visit their website, Train with Pain, T-R-A-I-N with P-A-Y-N-E dot com for more details.

[18:00] Drew Gasparini: Tell me. Tell me a story about Mark Summers because I just had dinner with him two nights ago.

[18:07] Grace Aki: Oh, were you sir?

[18:08] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, I I really did. He was here for I don't know, a split second, he's not here anymore. He just ended the he just had his farewell tour doing Double Dare Live. He's been doing Double Dare for 35 years. Um so I met Mark when I did a production of Greece at Surflight Theater in New Jersey. And I was it was basically I got cast as Mark in Rent with Justin Guarini. Oh since they saw me wearing glasses as Mark, they were like, You want to just stick around and play Eugene? That's like basically how that was. I was doing Greece with Mark Summers out in Jersey, and because he was Vince Fontaine.

[18:45] Grace Aki: Vince Fontaine, okay.

[18:46] Drew Gasparini: And I was Eugene. We had no stage time. We were backstage the entire time. I didn't talk to him for the first two weeks of rehearsal because I am an avid Double Dare fan and a What Would You Do fan and Unwrapped on the Food Network. And like I'm a huge Mark Summers fan. The sound, the cadence of his voice, I could hear it from miles away. That way he goes, I'm on Summers, which is like up and down down. That's the way he talks. And when I heard it through the corridors of the theater, I was like, he's here. Oh my god, I couldn't keep my composure. So after uh a couple weeks of being scared to talk to him, he was the most approachable guy in the entire world. We are, we've been like, he's one of my best friends, I would say, truly.

I'm not even saying that for any for the sake of this podcast, but for the sake of him, he is truly considered one of my best friends. He calls me to check in when he knows I'm down. He's uh he talks to my parents on the phone. I mean, like, he's just become immersed in my life, and I have in his. I know his wife very well. When I was in LA, I went up to Santa Barbara to visit him, and like I just love the man. He's been an amazing mentor to me.

[19:49] Grace Aki: Wow.

[19:50] Drew Gasparini: And we would just monkey around backstage at Greece all day and like put whoopee cushions and people's shit and like dirty jokes all the all the time backstage. We had nothing to do with you never on stage. Um he just ended his like his like reign of Double Dare, which had this reboot.

[20:07] Grace Aki: Yes.

[20:08] Drew Gasparini: Um, and now that's coming to an end, and he's uh looking for the next thing. And I think Mark Summers should start doing podcasts.

[20:15] Grace Aki: I was gonna say he should unwrap people.

[20:19] Drew Gasparini: How inappropriate. I'm gonna work on that pick art right now. I'm Mark Summers, and I'm gonna unwrap another person.

[20:27] Grace Aki: That was perfect.

[20:28] Drew Gasparini: It's the pause right when you said I'm gonna unwrap another person. I was I think it's weird that you said that about his voice because my bonus dad is a radio DJ, he's been a radio disc jockey for 30 years.

[20:39] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[20:39] Drew Gasparini: And so his I can recognize like that kind of like, you know, um vocal quality all the time, and so we would watch Food Network Unwrapped, because I like watch a little bit of Double Dare, but when I would watch Unwrapped, I was like a total nerd about learning how things happened.

[20:53] Grace Aki: Sure.

[20:53] Drew Gasparini: I didn't care, like I didn't actually eat candy, I would be like, but how did the NECO WAFER come to be? And like and I would literally see him on Sunday nights, being like, I'm Mark Summers, and this is about crystals.

[21:05] Grace Aki: Yeah, tell me about crystal.

[21:08] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, is good.

[21:09] Grace Aki: Is good.

[21:11] Drew Gasparini: And so when I read or heard about your show with him, I was like, this is not real.

[21:17] Grace Aki: Yes.

[21:18] Drew Gasparini: This has to be.

[21:18] Grace Aki: No, it is very.

[21:20] Drew Gasparini: So Alex Brightman and I uh we collaborated on writing a one-man show for Mark Summers. Uh we interviewed him for two years, just dinners and things like that.

[21:32] Grace Aki: Wow.

[21:32] Drew Gasparini: And Alex and I were like soaking in all these information. We asked him questions down to how did you lose your virginity? When and where like we got down to that kind of nitty-gritty, his relationship with his parents, which is super interesting, his battle with cancer, his his very first time doing stand-up in Los Angeles. The same the people in the bill with him were David Letterman and Robin Williams.

[21:52] Grace Aki: I mean, this guy has had a career.

[21:53] Drew Gasparini: Where was this laugh factory? Where was this?

[21:54] Grace Aki: This was at the comedy store.

[21:56] Drew Gasparini: But this guy's had a career that is so beyond what people expect or know of him that it seemed to Alex and I that it's appropriate that this guy has his own show. And he's Mark Summers. He's such a present, he's such an icon in front of the camera. So he starred his own one-man show. We've done a couple productions of it. We're still looking to do something in New York that is half the show and half a live, interactive Double Dare thing, like a physical challenge, take the physical challenge thing for the audience, which I think would be really funny.

[22:23] Grace Aki: I feel like you're just being like, I just want to do the physical challenge.

[22:26] Drew Gasparini: Yes, I do.

[22:28] Grace Aki: This seems like his physical pick the big nose.

[22:30] Drew Gasparini: Everybody wants to pick the big nose. Um so I really, I really do love Mark Summers, and I think we we have a beautiful show. Alex wrote the script, and I contributed the music, and I have a theme song I wrote about his wife that I'm really proud of. It's it's a really, really interesting show because he's a really, really interesting life.

[22:47] Grace Aki: Well, that's the thing.

[22:48] Drew Gasparini: It's like when you have all of that material, you're like, We we can come up with something.

[22:51] Grace Aki: Oh yeah.

[22:52] Drew Gasparini: Like he's got tons of stories. Truly you can come up with something. And he's a great actor, too. I mean, he was doing great in this show, it's awesome. Whenever it happens, people gotta come see it.

[23:01] Grace Aki: Yeah, we'll do another one of these and we'll promote it.

[23:03] Drew Gasparini: Well, there you go.

[23:04] Grace Aki: Um working on my range, Drew.

[23:09] Drew Gasparini: Um, can you tell me a little bit about Skittles?

[23:12] Grace Aki: Because let me tell you.

[23:13] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[23:14] Grace Aki: I I would have sucked a nut to be at that show.

[23:17] Drew Gasparini: Oh I.

[23:19] Drew Gasparini: You and a lot of people, it sold out in I think it sold out in like 15 minutes or something. I can't believe how many Skittle heads there are. And it's not, it's really I mean I know. Please believe me. But when the uh Smuggler was the company, the advertising firm that kind of brought us on to do this. And and I'll tell you how this all came to be. It was really, really insane. But when they kept on referring to fans of this candy as Skittle Heads, I was like, this isn't real. And it so is. It so is. There's like those if you follow Skittles on Twitter, they like they attack trolls who like shit on them for getting rid of the lime and making it green candy apple or whatever it is.

[23:58] Grace Aki: Oh, that's real.

[23:58] Drew Gasparini: They shit on the Skittles for changing up their brand and this and the other. These lifelong die hard, whatever. And the skeptics that came out when they heard that there was a Skittles musical as a Super Bowl commercial, it was we were pissing people off before the thing happened.

[24:14] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[24:14] Drew Gasparini: Then we did it. It was a giant success. It went on to win all these awards.

[24:18] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[24:19] Drew Gasparini: Uh called it the number one best Super Bowl ad in the country that year, and we didn't even air. It was a live Super Bowl event that you had to get a ticket to to see it.

[24:29] Grace Aki: Totally a publicity stunt.

[24:32] Drew Gasparini: No one saw this thing. Um, and it was it the whole thing feels like a fever dream to me.

[24:37] Grace Aki: Well, and it looks like an acid trip.

[24:38] Drew Gasparini: So it's funny. It really was. It was so insane. So, like, just to fill anybody in who's listening, the Skittles Broadway, the Skittles commercial musical is what it was.

[24:48] Drew Gasparini: The Super Bowl wanted Skittles to do a commercial. And the year before that, they did another publicity stunt with David Schwimmer, where they only showed the commercial to one person as opposed to like airing it. And that got so much viral buzz around it that they're like, how can we top that? They're like, let's just do a musical where people have to buy tickets to see our commercial. Right. Which is kind of a genius idea. It's anti-establishment at the same time as totally being part of the advertising monster. You know what I mean? Um and our anthem was a song called Advertising Ruins Everything. And um I auditioned for this job, and they basically said, write something that sounds a little bit like Dear Evan Hansen.

And I wrote some music that sounded like Dear Evan Hansen, and that's what got me the job. And I ended up working with this guy named Nathaniel Lawler, who is like one of the craziest geniuses I've ever met in my entire life. Yeah, and the playwright Will Eno, who is another immense genius, and someone I don't think if it weren't for Skittles, I never would have been able to work with these two guys. And they're so good at what they do. Uh Nathaniel wrote all those goofy like Old Spice commercials, those really funny ones. Oh, the ones where he's on a horse. Yes, like he wrote like a string of those. Oh, nice. Um, and Will Eno is, you know, he has got like a Pulitzer or something like that. It's like an insane play.

He's got one of those magnificent awards. Um, and then Michael C. Hall. I can't came on board. And I'm a humongous fan of Dexter. I'm a humongous fan of Michael C. Hall. And that was kind of the Mark Summers situation where I could hear his voice coming in the room and I didn't know how to keep my shit together. But I went right up, I was like, I'm Drew Gasparini, I'm the composer. He goes, Oh, I love the songs, man. They're sound great. I was like, oh, this is gonna go okay. Are you gonna murder me? Or am I sexually attracted to you? I don't know. It was both. It was definitely both. It should be because he tried to. Right. I can't. I must have seen, I won't say how many times. I must have seen him in Hedwig.

A lot of times. Was he your Hedwig? And like, is that the one you lost? He was the one. He was the one. Him and Lena Lizon. Um, because he was amazing. And I had always been kind of obsessed with him because I always thought he was like, Why aren't you doing a revival of Rent? Like, I was always like, You're that guy. Like, you should be that guy. Because like he did Cabaret and all that. I could go on. But he was great in Hedwig. And then he did the um David Bowie musical. Right. And New York. Right. And I won a lottery ticket the day Bowie died. Oh. And I went, oh no, I have to go. And their show that we I it was just, it was beautiful and breathtaking. So then when I saw he was doing Skittles with you and all these people, I was like, this that has to be the coolest room in New York right now.

It was, well, listen, I mean, it was high stress. It was no sleep for like, think about it this way. We performed it. The performance was February 3rd, and I got the job like maybe a couple days before Christmas. We had to write, rehearse, build sets, costumes, rewrites, record a cast album, and do a tech and the show all within like six weeks. It was no sleep. It was so absolutely insane. But we have a cast album. It's on vinyl. Wow. It's on vinyl. It's on vinyl. That's really cool. I have it in there. Oh, yeah. But it's on Spotify, I think. It is on Spotify. It was an amazing experience. It was one of the coolest resume things to put on my resume. No one else has that one. And I got to work with Michael C. Hall, who I really only knew as Dexter.

And now that I've actually seen him work in this process, let me just say on his behalf, there is nothing this man cannot do. You don't, you're like, I don't know if he's got the range, he's got such a low voice. And then he's like, such a tenor, good God. Really? He's got moves. And he's like, oh my, and he's such an earnest actor in the comedy part of it. It made the laughs even bigger. He is outstanding. The whole crew was so so good. It was stressful, but it was a lot of hugs and high fives when we pulled it off. It was really cool. I feel like you've had a lot of these like really great like wham bam, thank you, ma'am experiences. I have. Yeah. I I I don't think about them a lot, but now that I'm talking about them, I go, yeah, I guess I have.

This was great, and we had three weeks, and it's like, wow. Yeah, it's nuts. It's nuts. That's not nuts. And we had three weeks. Maybe I work better under pressure. May well maybe just up until this point, you've not had like the tenure of doing like a three-year-long show, whatever. But I I digress. So tell me a story about well, I I guess we can kind of talk about this. You create new things all the time. You're constantly doing it. Yes. Um, can you kind of tell me a story of how you even started doing that? Like after high school, did you just like run up to New York and you were like three bucks, two bags, one me? Kind of again. This goes back to the idea that ignorance is bliss a little bit.

I I say this all the time. If I had chosen now as a time to move to New York, I don't think I would have done it. Yeah. I think I had to be a little blind to how scary it is out here. And not to deter anyone from you know moving out here, it's a wonderful spot. Um, but it takes some getting used to. It is really hard. You do get cut down a lot, and on your road to success, you it's hard to see the success you're gaining. All you see is the failures and how long it takes to get to where you think you need to be. I think it was right after high school. I didn't want to go to college. Uh I went to college to kind of appease, you know, whoever thought I should go to college or whatever. And every all my friends were going, and it was kind of, you know, I'm 33 now, so this was 2004, 2005-ish, right?

And that was certainly a time when you that there wasn't even a question. You go to college after high school, that's what you do. And while I was in college, I realized that I don't need to sit through these classes to do better, to know any better, and stuff like that. Um creating new things is what I've always wanted to do, whether it's like a Christmas carol with my friend Young, whether it's writing songs with my siblings, whether it's writing songs for myself, and then once you kind of hit that wall in one of those realms, you go, What else? What else? And writing musicals was always something in the back of my head. And when I lived in Los Angeles, I went to school at the Musicians Institute for about five seconds before I dropped out.

Okay. Uh I wrote a musical. Uh I sent it to um Nymph. Remember Nymph? They just ended this year. Yeah. Like, no more. Uh, but they wrote I submitted it to Nymph. They wrote a handwritten letter back to me that's and I thought it was so important because it was handwritten. I was like, oh, these people in business, goodness. Uh it's probably because they didn't have like money or interns or whatever. So I I read the note and it said, your musical sucks, but the songs are pretty good. If this is something you you're thinking about doing, move to New York. We suggest that you meet some other composers and do that. And that's l I I mean like maybe days later I came out here. It wasn't it wasn't long at all before I was like, I'm just gonna go.

You just needed one excuse. That's all you need to do. I guess I'd be like to do that. You just needed the one piece of paper. Something I was always fascinated with Seinfeld. You're like if I could live on that corner, it's all gonna happen for me. Um you know, the false idea that Friends gives you about New York, and like Seinfeld gives you about New York, and Sex in the City gives you about New York. You kind of you build up this fantasy of New York in your head, and I was always a little scared, and I think I needed that little you should come here kind of push. And I it really got me out here. Yeah, been out here for I'm on 12 years now. Uh wow, so exciting. And I'm creating new things all the time.

And that means for me, I hope every writer here is this. If you're a writer and you write for yourself, and if you write musicals and and all that kind of stuff, you're really gonna plateau unless you start collaborating. I think collaboration is the heartbeat to art. I really do. I think it really takes more than one head to make something good into something great. I really, really do. And I I don't know that I would have allowed myself, because I had a certain level of success while I was in Los Angeles as a singer-songwriter, yeah, that I was maintaining all alone. And when I got to New York, the importance of being scared and needing the safety net of people around you kind of enforced this idea of collaboration into my life, and it has totally uh pushed my career into volcanic uh places I never thought it would go in a lot of senses.

You know what I mean? The skills thing was gigantic, yeah. And that was such a frighteningly collaborative, like shoulder to shoulder with Michael C. Hall, right? That small amount of time trying to make something good, trying to make something good. That's it. You're just trying to make something good. Yeah. Everybody's always trying to make something good, but if you don't have a collaborative person with you, whoever it might be, you're really kind of dead in the water. Anyway, I'm very excited about it. But no, no, no, but that's that's something that I don't but like that's the experience. Who cares about the color? I'm not held to anybody. Uh no, the thing is is that like I don't first of all, I didn't even go to like art school at all because I I was just so scared to do the thing, and I just needed one little push to come to New York and do that.

Absolutely. But they don't teach you in school, and I don't know about musical theater programs because I'm not in one, but from what I see, they don't teach you that you're gonna need to and learn how to collaborate. Uh you are correct. Let me go ahead and just record shit on some musical theater schools for you. I really don't think any musical theater school prepares students to come to New York. Not at all. Yeah. They give you the history of musical theater, they give you the skill set, which you already have to get into the school or for the case. And so, like, you can nerd out any day of the week. You know what I mean? No one knows how to get a survival job. No one knows what auditions out here are truly, truly like.

Yeah, no one understands that we gotta stop giving the idea of type, like stop telling girls they're this type, so those are the roles you should be going in for. Because that doesn't exist anymore. It really doesn't exist now, yeah. And I there I think it's good to go get your degree, and it's good to get an education. But if musical theater is really what you want to do, look at the program, look how much it costs, then realize quickly after that, you're not gonna be able to afford to pay those loans back with any theater job right away, at least. You might as well pursue this and get your education through the classes you can take in New York, through the one-on-one courses you can take, the coachings you can take with people like me or Tom Kitt, or like composers who want to do it.

Literally, Google any fucking person that you want to do. We'll teach you, yeah. You know what I mean? It's true. Anybody who has a career is here to coach. Lindsay Mendez coaches, and she's on goddamn television now. God damn it. You know what I'm saying? We love Lindsay! We love Lindsay! Yeah, I just I want people to see beyond college sometimes. And I think as a society, college is getting looked at with a really, really uh uh tight microscope and people are starting to have a different idea of it, especially with arts colleges. So to all of those college programs, as someone who has come to most of you and taught master classes, I am begging you, school your students on how to sing pop rock, not just golden age.

School your students on how to get a survival job once they leave the program. School your students on how to collaborate, and school your students how to do something else outside of the skill set they're majoring in. If they are a theater major, teach them how to do life. Teach them how to do costumes, teach them how to get involved with casting, directing, writing for the love of God. This is a big pool with a lot of people, right? So if these actresses who are going in for auditions, or these actors going in for auditions are going in for auditions and getting rejected and rejected and rejected, have another qualifying aspect within the field that entices you, it interests you to have your hand on the pulse of.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Don't just limit your dream to the one thing you like to do. Theater is magnificently widespread, broad, and there's plenty of room for everybody. And one career could lead to the next. A costume person could be in the right room at the right. You just don't know. Yeah. You know, that might all sound a little outlandish, but I'm telling you, as someone out here, I'm looking at the microphone as I'm saying this, as if I'm talking to someone else out there. Please, please, please inform your students that life outside of college exists and that the audition you have to get into the college is zero percent like any of the auditions you do in the real world. I hope every college listens to this.

I truly do. Anyway, sorry. I'm emailing Michigan. I'm calling them right now, CCM, all the things. Uh no, but it's just so funny because I always felt like I was missing something because I didn't have that degree from you know the colleges with you know that we're talking about, and then like that I didn't do juries and I didn't stand in front of a group of people in like a black little dress and like with pantyhose and sing Laryn's flirt.

[37:10] Drew Gasparini: Like I, you know, I thought, and now I'm just so thankful that like I've had people in my life to go like, you don't have to wait on it. You can just write for yourself. You can like do things. If the thing you want to do doesn't exist yet, make it. That's the best part about being in an artistic field. Yeah, it's been like the most liberating year. Literally. Here we are doing a podcast. You know what I'm saying? I think that's really cool. See? There's an entrepreneurial mind that every artist needs to kind of evolve into. I think. And I think that is part of what a curriculum in a college program that teaches theater should focus on.

[37:44] Grace Aki: Yeah, but they don't right now.

[37:46] Drew Gasparini: They don't. Maybe they'll hear this and be like, you know that your guest brings on to something. You know what? He gets it. We should have him come do a master class at our college. And then it's like banned from all of them. Can you just sing? Like, we're not, it's not a Q&A. Can you just sing? You've been yelling at us for a half hour. This is not a masterclass. We didn't sign up for this. It's like four girls. Um, and they're like, I loved I could use a drink, and you're like, you can't even drink. Um, anyways. Um, fuck, where was this even going? I absolutely freak out when it comes to singing harmonies. I hear someone sing a different note than me, and I assume I'm wrong. I've always looked for a better way to train my ear and give myself more confidence in my harmony singing ability.

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[39:11] Drew Gasparini: Oh, can you tell me about you have one day, and I'm 100% serious, I'm gonna have all the morons in one room.

[39:19] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[39:20] Drew Gasparini: And right now they're all like booked and busy, which is like fucking rude. Yeah, so sorry. It is what it is. Um, but I'm obsessed with like your friend group being your friend group and also like you guys meeting and collaborating and working together, blah blah blah. The meeting is all happenstance. For those who don't know, the morons are me, myself, Alex Brightman, who is playing Beetlejuice, Tony nominee, Alex Brightman, two-time Tony nominee. Alex Brightman, who's currently starring in Beetlejuice, uh, F. Michael Haney, who is currently starring as Olaf on the tour of Frozen, and Andrew Cobra, who has done every Broadway show for the last 100 years. Uh, he just moved out to Jersey where he's been doing all the paper bill shows.

[40:03] Grace Aki: Oh, really?

[40:04] Drew Gasparini: Yes, his life is very convenient. Married with baby, with dog, with house. He's very adult. He's the most adult.

[40:10] Grace Aki: I would it's he's also, I think, the tallest.

[40:15] Drew Gasparini: By several inches, obviously. So that might be it. Uh, I love Andrew Cobert. Anyway, we all met. I think we've all known each other about 10 years now. And we all met doing um just concerts back when like the new musicaltheater.com thing was such a big deal with like Carrie and Louder, Milk and Joe Iconis, and Ryan Scott Oliver, and how many times have you heard someone sing Quiet by Jonathan Reed Geld? You know what I mean? Like that only eighty-two. Only eighty-two times. Okay, interesting. Uh, so it was in the hype of that era and all these concerts are going down, and I was one of the new composers, and these guys were singing, you know, Andrew, Alex, and F were sitting in one of these concerts, and we all kind of met that way, and we just made each other laugh.

And I don't know what it was. You mentioned earlier before we started recording that it's kind of funny, we're all like straight white dudes, so maybe the bro about it all is what like hooked us together.

[41:10] Grace Aki: I really think that has very little to do with it.

[41:13] Drew Gasparini: Um, we're all not super bro-y dudes at all.

[41:17] Grace Aki: Oh I don't mean bro, it's in like a 40 girl. I mean it in the sense that you guys kind of it feels like you all have the same like tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and like.

[41:26] Drew Gasparini: Yes, we that's certainly what it is. Like if you're gonna get married to somebody, you want to make sure that you guys laugh about the same things. Otherwise, that's gonna be a really uh struggly. It's an awkward four years relationship. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Uh but these guys we click right away and we laugh about the same things, and we all have little isms that you know might rub the other one the wrong way, and I think we know how to navigate that as friends. And because we've known each other so long and so well, we hardly see each other anymore. We have a text thread that is endless and every day, and you know, we check in and this and the other, but our lives and our careers, our separate careers, have all taken us into so many different directions.

[42:09] Grace Aki: They're so different.

[42:09] Drew Gasparini: It's like once twice a year that we get to have breakfast. I mean, and it's like a it's fucking breakfast. Yeah, so it's like not even like drinks. I can get together at nine. Um yeah, well, he's got a kid, and Alex has got the show, and like so we all try to work around everybody's schedule when we hang out. But back in the day when we were kind of realizing what made us like each other was this sense of humor, we all started collaborating on this thing that was called the Morons, and then we didn't give ourselves that name. I think Mark Summers called us the Morto Raj once, and then it kind of evolved into the Morons, and we wrote a pilot called The Morons, and we did a variety show called The Morons Happy Hour at the Slipper Room, which is a burlesque venue on the lower east side. Uh, and I would do that every weekend of my life if I had my druthers.

[42:57] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[42:58] Drew Gasparini: Um I would love yeah, it's just hard to perform with them now. You can go on YouTube and find all sorts of crap about performing. And it's a lot of it is a little tongue-in-cheek, and a lot of it's borderline offensive, but it's all meant in good fun, and we're not trying to offend, we're really trying to be silly. And uh I don't know, I love those boys very much. It's just sweet, it's hard. When I moved up here, I thought that friendship was gonna come so organically, and then I realized that I came from a very small town. Yeah, I went to school with uh the same people my entire life.

[43:28] Grace Aki: Right.

[43:28] Drew Gasparini: I mean, my graduating class was like a hundred people.

[43:30] Grace Aki: Oh man.

[43:30] Drew Gasparini: Like, so I was like, oh yeah, friends, they're just gonna come. And New York is so big. I always tell people coming to New York is like going to kindergarten for the first time. You're like will you you want to get a drink? You want to get a coffee? You will you be my friend? It really does feel like that. So when you find someone you click with, yeah, hang on to them for fuck's sake. I mean, you don't know when the next one's coming along who actually clicks with you. York's got 11 million people in it or whatever, or something like that like that. It's cuckoo. Um and I said this to you earlier. They're literally like the last group of friends I actually feel like I made. I'm friendly with people, and I have a lot of people I care deeply about, but in terms of like friends that I've physically made, yes, yeah, and taken the time to like cultivate a friendship with these this foursome of ours is the last one of those.

[44:23] Grace Aki: Uh for me at least.

[44:24] Drew Gasparini: Yeah. Um and gosh, I love him. I miss F so much. He's on tour, I miss him. I miss them all the time. I think about them all the time. I got their pictures all over my wall, and like we're best pals. I love them. It's kind of fun. And Alex and I, sorry, it's getting a little romantic and steamy in here. Uh but Alex and I like through our friendship, this really goes to beyond like friends. If you're an artist and you find the friend that sees your vision, there's something beyond friendship there. There's a new marriage right there. There's a collaborative marriage, and all four of us collaborate very well. But Alex and I in particular, when it comes to writing, yeah, really spoke the same language and really finish each other's sentences. And we've written four musicals together at this point.

[45:08] Grace Aki: Wow.

[45:08] Drew Gasparini: And I'm more proud of the next one that we do. You know what I mean? It's like I don't see this as a collaboration that ever stops. It might slow down because we individually have our own stuff going on.

[45:19] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[45:20] Drew Gasparini: But we make good stuff, man. I'm not even trying to brag. Like he brings out the best in me, and I think that whatever I'm doing for the stuff that he's doing enhances what he's doing. I really think it's a rare collaboration in that way.

[45:33] Grace Aki: But I think you guys also just like listen to each other. Which people that say they're collaborating don't always actually do.

[45:38] Drew Gasparini: No, we do want to know like I do the book and like you do the music, and like that's what it is. There's a respect level that was that was right away actually. Actually, Alex and I in particular have a really interesting kind of like meet cute little story when we first became pals. I it was again we were doing these concerts, and it was like one of these concerts that was like at midnight or like Broadway Sessions, it was one, you know, what Broadway Sessions is. So it's really late at night. I think I was performing at one in the morning, and he had just performed like a couple songs, really drunk. He was really drunk on stage. I've seen YouTube videos of him at this point, but I'd never seen him live, and that was that YouTube videos I saw.

I didn't know him yet. I didn't know him yet at all. I was just watching him perform, and then I was like, oh okay, that's not the Alex Brightman I've seen on YouTube, but nice. Uh anyway, then I went on stage and I started, you know, pounding the piano like a chimpanzee and playing my songs, and he sat in the doorway and watched a bit, and then when I got home, he had sent an email to me, or maybe a Facebook message, I don't really know.

[46:38] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[46:38] Drew Gasparini: Saying, hey man, you don't know me. My name's Alex Breidman, but I stayed around for a bit of your set. I just want you to know that I'm a huge fan of what you do. I really like your stuff. If you ever need a singer, blah blah blah. It was like it was like that kind of thing. But again, I had watched him on YouTube for like years before this, doing Ryan Scott Oliver music. Yeah. And I was like, dude, I like in my head, I was like, Alex Bradman just emailed me. Like, I've been watching this kid on YouTube. You know what I mean? But because he came at me with a compliment and saying he liked what I did, there was this mutual respect right at the top of our friendship.

[47:01] Grace Aki: Right.

[47:01] Drew Gasparini: You know what I mean? And I think that's why it's so easy to collaborate with him. We know what we're capable of. We know that we have this big picture. Right. Uh, we do this thing called dad walks. Uh, you know how like moms go on walks together sometimes in the morning, like in the suburbs.

[47:22] Grace Aki: I like what you're doing.

[47:23] Drew Gasparini: You guys can't see, but he's doing the shoulder shrug, a la when Harry met Sally, Billy Crystal. Very much. And Bruno Kirby walking the streets of New York. Rest in peace, Bruno Kirby. Um but anyway, so we do these dad walks where we just talk about what our next separate or our individual next big thing is that we're doing, and then we kind of leap on to okay. So when are we gonna work on it's kind of a funny story? When are we gonna work on whipping boy? When are we? We talk about our projects, and then it's like we have a coffee, and then we're like, okay, I'll see you later. You know, it's really like a mom walk. But that's how but that's how you can get in your time.

[47:54] Grace Aki: Absolutely.

[47:55] Drew Gasparini: That's make time if you if you collaborate with your friends, that's how you get to hang out with them. You know what I mean? That you're working together, so you have to see them. I've been like FaceTiming my best girlfriend in DC, the one who's like the political whatever, because she's helped me work on another like writing project, and because she still has like that creative mind, and I don't want her to get lost in all this trump shit.

[48:17] Grace Aki: Yeah, dude.

[48:17] Drew Gasparini: Like, and so I'm like, hey, like let's keep working on this because I think it also keeps her spirits up and keeps my spirits up.

[48:23] Grace Aki: Absolutely.

[48:24] Drew Gasparini: You gotta do it. You have to do it. You gotta you gotta do it. You gotta just do it.

[48:27] Grace Aki: I was actually gonna you just plug for Nike, just do it.

[48:32] Drew Gasparini: Just do it. Best ad campaign ever. Because you said that, I feel like I need to show you. When Alex when I walked in that room when you guys were doing your um it's kind of a funny story, workshop. And Alex came up to me and I was like, Hi, um, uh, my name is Grace. Hi, nice to meet you. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, I know I'm Alex, I like I'm doing the thing, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know. But I um Yeah I had like half met him because you just said Ryan Scott Oliver.

[49:00] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[49:01] Grace Aki: I used to sing um that 35 millimeter um cut you a piece song that he did. I love this song. All the time, like in the shower, blah blah blah. Like that was my jam. And I made the mistake at the I think it's like the third preview of School of Rock. I was outside because I was surprised. I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was gonna be really bad.

[49:24] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, and I thought it was gonna be a good one. I think a lot of people thought it was gonna be really bad.

[49:27] Grace Aki: Yeah, yeah.

[49:28] Drew Gasparini: And I was like in the audience, and I was like, I am blown away.

[49:31] Drew Gasparini: This guy is the next, like, he's the next thing. And I was like so excited for him, like a freaking nerd. And I legitimately, this is a quote that my friends will tell you. I saw this. I was like, he needs to do like a Blues Brothers remake. Like he's that guy. And yeah, yeah. And so I was like, and I was like, he's gonna be our guy, like for sure. As if no one's discovered him, as if I have discovered him, like a fucking idiot.

[49:55] Grace Aki: You're giving yourself all this credit, I love it.

[49:57] Drew Gasparini: I'm like, here's what I'm gonna do for him. Like, I'm a casting director. I go to like the stage door because I was like, I just gotta tell him how great he is. And then he comes out, and I um I I got flustered, I guess, and I was like, hey, um, you were so good. I sing with you in the shower.

[50:14] Grace Aki: I sing with you in the shower.

[50:16] Drew Gasparini: Uh-huh. Yeah. And he was like, Oh, um, yeah, I don't think my girlfriend would like that. Or like just the way I was saying it, I was like coming on, I was like, no, no, no. Um, you're like, yeah, and then I was like, okay, well, like, let's take a picture, like an idiot. And then I can't find it, but I'll show it to you. I look like an absolute dweeb, and then I put in my Instagram thing, like, told him I sing with him in the shower, but it got weird or something.

[50:42] Grace Aki: I love that.

[50:43] Drew Gasparini: And so like, I just have always been like, don't ever run into Alex Brightman. You're a weird person.

[50:48] Grace Aki: No, he's a lovely guy. He's really nice. And of course, he meets like a million people. Like at the stage door. I think that we think when you're at a stage door, like everyone's gonna remember this interaction.

[50:57] Drew Gasparini: I bet he forgot about you that's it.

[50:59] Grace Aki: Immediately.

[51:00] Drew Gasparini: Which I and I hope he does. For your sake, I also have to work with him, and that's even better because you have to spend time in the room with him.

[51:09] Grace Aki: You know what's really funny about being any friends with any of us. I think we can all say this is like uh co uh Cobra and F, like F uh at the stage door frozen. Someone might be like, I listen to your song on Drew's album all the time, or something like that. Once people tweet at me like their stage door picture with Alex, I'm not in the picture, they just want me to like this.

[51:33] Drew Gasparini: But it but that's just such a strange thing. And at the same time, I'm like, I love that our friendship is bigger than we are. Do you know what I mean? Like people are so aware of our camaraderie and our friendship that they let the other morons know of their love for one of the other morons.

[51:49] Grace Aki: I think that's really kind of cool.

[51:51] Drew Gasparini: I think it's a family.

[51:53] Grace Aki: Well, right, right, right. I have my picture with Harry Styles, nail horn, whatever. I don't even know their names.

[51:58] Drew Gasparini: Those are the only two that famously hate British people, so that's why.

[52:01] Grace Aki: Oh, okay. Uh we succeeded. Like, we seceded. Like, we're not, I don't have to like.

[52:05] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, that's true.

[52:06] Grace Aki: No, we won.

[52:06] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, like I'm okay. But um DC Hamilton, okay.

[52:10] Grace Aki: Are you which I yes, I have, and you should go.

[52:13] Drew Gasparini: Oh have you seen it?

[52:14] Grace Aki: Yes, of course. I want it to do well. I just wanted to stay.

[52:18] Drew Gasparini: I get nervous when I see stuff like that because I'm like, it, you know, this could close any minute.

[52:23] Grace Aki: Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

[52:24] Drew Gasparini: Fucking this fickle industry. Okay, so this part. This is called short story.

[52:27] Grace Aki: Short story.

[52:29] Drew Gasparini: And this is the part of the show that everyone has to do, regardless of their comfortability on it.

[52:34] Grace Aki: So um some version of torture, that's cool.

[52:37] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, there's something there. Uh-huh. But basically, what happens is I will give you a word. And then you will have two minutes to tell me a story that reminds you of that word. You don't have to use the word. And it doesn't have to be a true story or okay. And it's it's okay it doesn't have to be a true story. What are the restrictions, I guess, is just it. It has to be two minutes and it has to revolve around the word in some capacity.

[53:00] Grace Aki: It doesn't even have to. The word is just a prompt.

[53:03] Drew Gasparini: Oh, gotcha. So yeah, yeah. I could have said giraffe and you told me a story about a panda, and I'd be like, oh true, you fit.

[53:08] Grace Aki: Yeah, it would be fucked up away. And what happens if one does fail at this? Is there some sort of like see now you should incorporate that in the next bunch of episodes?

[53:17] Drew Gasparini: If someone fails, incorporate some sort of punishment or I sound twisted.

[53:24] Grace Aki: Exactly.

[53:24] Drew Gasparini: Okay, so here we are. Short story. We are doing this live yet again. Okay. I'm gonna give you a word. I've been sitting on two words. Do you want to go first? You want me to go first?

[53:36] Grace Aki: Oh you give me a word or I give you a word.

[53:39] Drew Gasparini: Oh, we both do this.

[53:40] Grace Aki: Oh, that's wonderful.

[53:41] Drew Gasparini: Yeah, uh, okay. Uh let me let's you go first, and I'll give you a word then if that's if that's clutch.

[53:47] Grace Aki: I kind of want to see where your brain tan no no no, you know what? I want to go first.

[53:50] Drew Gasparini: Okay.

[53:51] Grace Aki: I've switched my mind up.

[53:53] Drew Gasparini: Okay.

[53:53] Grace Aki: Um your word is burp.

[54:00] Drew Gasparini: Is burp? This is kind of a crass story. Is that okay? Do your your viewers, listeners, do they mind that it's crass?

[54:10] Grace Aki: Uh my cat will love this. Uh this is partly based on truth and partly not. For the sake of anyway. So this is in I lived in Los Angeles uh in Hollywood, and uh something kind of tragic happened. So I lived on Hollywood Boulevard in Fairfax, which is a very residential area, kind of close to the base of the Hollywood Hills, West Hollywood, that area. It's each side of the street is covered with pine trees, okay? And I was sitting at home one day, we had a ground level apartment, and I was sitting at home with my roommate, his name was T-Bone, that's not a joke, T-Bone, and uh we heard no breaks, we heard a car just smash into one of these like literally unpenetrable trees. Like these trees don't fall down, like they are like buildings, like totally stoic and statuesque, and this we just heard this car slam into it, and we ran out there, and it was a really gruesome scene.

We saw the person, and uh, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of blood, a horrible thing. The person following behind them was a friend of the person who just got in the accident, and um they were young, they were underage, and they were driving home from the beach, and she was following her to make sure that she didn't get in an accident because I think they'd been drinking. And uh, so this accident happened, it's a really gruesome scene. And since we were at an apartment nearby, we said to the girl, we said, Why don't you come into our place and and you know, take a sec to breathe and while the police and whoever needs to get here get here? And uh something happened that night that changed my life forever because I'd never honestly heard or seen anything like this.

Uh, we're sitting on the couch, IKEA furniture, and we're watching like Family Guy or something like that, just to get her mind off of things, and she was a little tipsy herself. She should not have been driving. Uh, she said, I don't feel well, and she stood up and she burped and she farted at the exact same time, and my mind was blown. I'd never heard that sound before because it was basically a very low-end belch of a burp, but a very high-end squeak of a fart. So, like, imagine those two sounds simultaneously slapping out of a person. It was that's your two minutes.

[56:32] Grace Aki: Okay, well, that's basically the climax of the story.

[56:35] Drew Gasparini: So there you go. I love that like all this tragicness. And but honestly, that's the most tragic.

[56:45] Grace Aki: So now it is your turn, correct?

[56:48] Drew Gasparini: So I have to give you a word.

[56:50] Grace Aki: Any word at all.

[56:51] Drew Gasparini: Any word.

[56:52] Grace Aki: Okay.

[56:52] Drew Gasparini: Yeah.

[56:53] Grace Aki: Uh it might sound silly, but I mean it in earnest. It's not just fun to say. Pumper nickel.

[56:58] Drew Gasparini: Pumper nick.

[56:59] Grace Aki: Okay, that's weird because um in sixth grade, there was a boy named Skylar Hartshorn, and I was like, that guy is the guy, he's not. Um, but anyways, he works at a Filipino restaurant in my hometown, which like God bless, glad there's a Filipino restaurant in my hometown now. Shocking because we famously do not even consider other nationalities. So he Skylar Hartshorn works at that place. But in like sixth grade, we were all going around, and you know how everyone wanted to be the most interesting person in the world, and they still they still do. Uh, but I feel like in that time you're like, okay, so this kid has an allergy, they're pretty cool, and like that kid broke his arm. You know, and you're like that every every kid has to have a fucking thing.

And then there's like the kid, you know, you've got you you're allergic to peanuts, like you get to sit at a cooler table, like okay. Uh and then like I wish I had any of these. I little did I know I had a lot of problems, but I could not maximize and utilize them to my fullest marketing potential at sixth grade. Wow. And so everybody was like, What's your word? And like all the guys were like saying, like, dumb shit like and all this stuff, and I was like, my favorite word? Pepper nickel. Wow. And everybody like that year was like, Grays like knows cool words. Wow. And I was like, yeah, I pretty much do. Like, I have a lot of words. Um, much like Donald Trump. Uh but like so many words. He knows so many words, and I also knew so many words at sixth grade. Uh, and that's what makes me think of Pumpernickel. Yeah. There you go. Is that two minutes?

[58:25] Drew Gasparini: No. But that's all I can do.

[58:27] Grace Aki: It's all I can do. Um Yeah, I feel like that's how much of that was true.

[58:33] Drew Gasparini: That was all true.

[58:34] Grace Aki: Was that all true? They're they're usually all true when I do them.

[58:37] Drew Gasparini: Wow.

[58:38] Grace Aki: Because there's a lot. I'm amazed at how fast you like rocketed into Pumpernical. You're like, oh Pumpernickel amazing because you name this dude, you got there.

[58:47] Drew Gasparini: Oh god. Well, when when you go through a year of UCP. When you give them, let's say a thousand dollars over the course of a year, and then you're like, Well, what can I do with this?

[59:01] Grace Aki: Yeah.

[59:02] Drew Gasparini: And then you have this podcast, you're like, oh, that one thing we did every single week. This is the thing. That's my favorite thing to do.

[59:07] Grace Aki: This has been so great. I I I don't yeah, I feel like the more I ask you about these stories, the more you would like blow your other stuff. Like, are you Are you working on something new? Are you working on something right now that you don't mind talking about?

[59:25] Drew Gasparini: I don't mind talking about. Because a lot of your stuff is secrets. I know that you Yes. Well, there's two things that I'm working on that are actually really, really exciting for for the year of 2020. And one is a song cycle called We Aren't Kids Anymore, which is uh the album we have a cast album coming out with Bonnie Milligan, Lily Cooper, uh Raymond Lee, Nicholas Christopher, and Colton Ryan, all people who I think are like those are like my fave voices. You know what I mean? Um and so that's coming out in the spring. We were doing like, we're gonna try to set up a mini tour of that going on, and we're gonna license the rights so that other theaters and stuff can do it. It's a really, really wonderful show that I'm proud of.

Um and the other thing that I'm working on, which is like super big shit, is uh I'm writing the music and lyrics to The Karate Kid for Broadway, which is massive. Uh and the funny thing about that, actually, I and just to bring it back to Skittles for one minute. One of the cast members, when we were doing auditions and we were looking at tapes of people, was a girl named Julia Maccio, who is Ralph Macchio's daughter. And I thought that was so hysterical because the day that we started working on Skittles was the day I found out I got Karate Kid. So I met Julia Machio on the same day I got the job.

[1:00:42] Grace Aki: That's right.

[1:00:42] Drew Gasparini: And I isn't that so weird.

[1:00:44] Grace Aki: That is really at the closing at the when we had our little closing night party for Skittles, opening and closing night party. Yeah, uh Ralph Macchio was there, and I went up to him and I told him all about it, and he was like, Oh my god, this is so exciting. He's like jazzed as hell about this. Uh and it's really funny. And and here's what I'll say about it if anybody's listening and if anybody gives a shit. Uh Karate Kid the Musical is going to defy whatever you think that movie would look like as a musical. It really, really will. We have an amazing director named Amon Mayamoto, and uh he's a visionary genius. And I just think we got something special. So that's what I got going on. I'm really excited. And thanks again for having me on your podcast.

[1:01:21] Grace Aki: Yeah, you're welcome. I mean, you begged me, so this is a favor for your mom.

[1:01:26] Drew Gasparini: I like her a lot.

[1:01:28] Grace Aki: We're doing what we can with your career. Anyways, okay thank you so much for coming. And goodbye. And one time there's more to the story.

[1:01:40] Drew Gasparini: The kind of story we need right now.