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[0:00] Nella Vera: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the fabulous 54 Below. Before we get started this evening, just a polite reminder. Please take this moment to silence your cell phones and also there's no flash photography, please. Welcome to the 54 Below podcast. I'm Nella Vera, the club's director of marketing. Our guest today is Amanda Green. Amanda received 2022 Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for her lyrics for the recent Broadway production of Mr. Saturday Night, which starred the legendary Billy Crystal. She received a Tony Award nomination and two Drama Desk nominations for her music and lyrics for Hands on a Hardbody. In the same Broadway season, she co-wrote lyrics for Bring It On with Lin Manuel Miranda.

The show received a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical and a Drama Desk nomination for lyrics. Also on Broadway, she wrote lyrics for High Fidelity, additional book and lyrics for the 2019 revival of Kiss Me, Kate, and additional lyrics for the revival of On the Twentieth Century, starring Kristin Chenoweth. On October 24th, she returns to 54 Below with her solo show, Amanda Green and Friends. Amanda, welcome to our podcast.

[1:13] Amanda Green: Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. And of course, my solo show, Amanda Green and Many Friends, so it's not that solo.

[1:26] Nella Vera: Exactly. Um, we're so thrilled for your show's debut at the club. What inspired you to create this particular show?

[1:36] Amanda Green: Uh well, it's been, I haven't performed in a year, it's been, and I usually do it more often. I it's been a long time since I've gathered with friends. I've been working on a couple of shows, Mr. Saturday Night, as you know, and um a show I've been working on for a while, Female Troubles, and I'm really excited to get some of the songs out there. Uh performing them in cabarets is one of the purest, most enjoyable ways of performing my songs, I find. Uh, because you don't have to worry about sets, lights, costumes, even if the play as a whole is working or not working, it's just a it's a really fun way to showcase the songs. And I love performing and I love performing with my talented friends.

[2:22] Nella Vera: Oh fantastic. I just I saw I had a chance to see Mr. Saturday Night finally um last month, and I have to say, you know, it was everything that people said it was gonna be was fun and it was a wonderful night. And I also found it deeply profound as somebody who works in entertainment, and also my boyfriend is a writer, he's mainly a television writer. And the two of us just we were so moved because you know there was such uh truth to that character and his yearning and and we all know that writer, that performer. And I just felt like wow, you know, that that's really a show that captures what it is like to be an artist with all the insecurities and the bravado. And I I found it very profound, even though it was you know marketed as a kind of a a fun, you know, wonderful musical that you go to and you know for entertainment and to see Billy Crystal. And um, yeah, there was so much more to it.

[3:28] Amanda Green: I agree. I mean, it is the I think very profound, you know, about um aging, but still feeling like you have more to prove and uh being an imperfect family member and parent and spouse and and getting the chance to learn and grow no matter how old you are, and uh both him and his very grown daughter, you know, who also has a undergoes a growth. So I think it's about families, it's about a life in the entertainment and how that sort of ambition really never goes away. You know, I had my father was Adolf Green, who, as you know, and uh you may not know Adolf Green of Comedy, of course, you know, who wrote Singin' in the Rain and all these incredible things, and up until the day he died, I think he was always still the kid who wanted to make good, you know, who felt like he hadn't done it quite right yet, you know. And I don't think that ever goes away.

[4:22] Nella Vera: So that's so crazy.

[4:25] Amanda Green: Yeah, but it is so true.

[4:27] Nella Vera: Um, you know. Uh is that how you got started in composing? Because you had parents in the business or I uh certainly I I wanted to be an actor and I never thought of writing. Um that seemed I don't know why. I never thought of writing. But I I started out as acting, wanting to be an actor, and then I started writing songs, mostly pop songs, and then I um I joined the BMI musical theater writing workshop, sort of on a lark, and the first writing assignment, I something clicked, and I was like, Yes, yes, yes. This is this is where my conglomeration of eccentricities and talents and proclivities, like I felt like, oh, okay, this is a place I can where I belong, you know, because I wasn't quite sure where I fit in in the world of creating. I always knew I wanted to create because they made it look like so much fun, you know, their not the business, but their friends and the act of creating and the joy they got out of it when it was cooking and going right.

[5:34] Nella Vera: Of course, of course. And your mom, of course, was the incredible Phyllis Newman also. So was your house always filled with music growing up? I always wonder because I I did not grow up in a musical household. And I have this romantic idea of people gathered around a piano, you know, families having fun and just singing and you know, all those good times.

[5:56] Amanda Green: Yes, the 24-7, definitely not. 24-7, it was it was, I would say, like a typical household, except less typical because uh, you know, theater, so they woke up late and they did, you know, and um, but they uh when they had parties, it was people around a piano, it was legends around a piano, singing and performing, and it was an amazing place to be. So it was everything if you closed your eyes and imagined it, it was like that, but on special occasions, not all the time.

[6:28] Nella Vera: So growing up with luminaries like Cy Coleman and Julie Stein and Leonard Bernstein, were any of them uh an influence, you know, in particular in terms of your own writing?

[6:41] Amanda Green: Um, well, they all were. I mean, because I admired them all. I um my dad played me Pacific Overtures before it came out, and I it blew my little mind, and I had to memorize all the lyrics and I became obsessed, I think first with lyric writing when I heard Pacific Overtures because I was just blown away. And um, Steve Sondheim is someone who, like many others have said, I would reach out to from the time I was in my early 20s and send him songs, and he, I think when I was like 30, 30 or something, I sent him a CD of my songs, and he sent me something back saying, You're, you know, essentially, you know how to do this. You're really good at this. And it was like the yes of the, you know, of my life, you know. Um that's so I I, you know, of course, like everybody else, I framed it, it's hanging on my wall. And but um that was the big yes into this world, you know, I felt.

[7:43] Nella Vera: Oh, fantastic. And your brother's also a writer, right? I've seen his writing in Vogue and other places.

[7:50] Amanda Green: Um so you both cut caught that. Um that writing bug.

[7:56] Nella Vera: Yeah, it would be hard not to catch it.

[7:59] Amanda Green: It would be hard to go into any other business surrounded by these geniuses, as you said, Bernstein and Sondheim and Cy Coleman and Julie Stein and Arthur Lawrence and Mike Nichols. You know, it went on and on. The the parade of geniuses and Betty Comden and well recalled anyway. I could I'll just drop names for the next 20 minutes. But um they were all profound influences, yeah.

[8:26] Nella Vera: Um, I also read that you started your career in country music.

[8:31] Amanda Green: Yeah. Can you tell us about that? That's so fascinating.

[8:33] Amanda Green: I yeah, well, I again I was in my early 20s, I was writing pop songs, and I they were always funny. They were always, you know, what someone uh publisher in Nashville kindly dubbed as left of center. Um when I heard Lyle Lovett, he was incredibly, he is incredibly witty and dry, and I thought, I want to, I want to write songs like that I want to be able to write witty you know he his songs like you know god god will and um uh all of them have a sly sense of humor so i thought i could write those kind of songs so i went to nashville i had a day job but i would take my vacations and spend my time in nashville and just meet people and write with people and um so i kind of cut my songwriting teeth in Nashville I don't think I ever really belonged there because I was very New York quirky you know but um but I I met and wrote with tons of people and I learned so much and I had a great time doing it it's interesting because I think you know what I love about country music is that it they most of the songs do tell a story and it's it's really in a way theatrical and I'm still waiting for that kind of you know for more country musicals to hit our world because I just find the songwriting is so has so much storytelling in it.

[10:02] Nella Vera: Yes yes the best country songs are um tell great stories they do they can tell generational stories you can travel a hundred years in one story or uh take you on a huge emotional journey so yes I I though there'll be more and hands on a hard body is it was a country score that I got to yes it was it was wonderful thank you so much two of my favorite shows heart hands on a hard body and high fidelity being a Gen Xer. I just loved high fidelity so much. So it's so exciting to talk to you since you wrote on both of those projects.

[10:41] Amanda Green: Thank you. I know that you've written lyrics for original shows like Female Trouble and uh also have done you know several projects that are based off of movies. Um how you know can you talk a little bit about the difference between how you approach each of those projects?

[11:04] Amanda Green: Um, you know, or is there a difference? I think there's a difference on how you approach every project. It doesn't matter whether it's uh original or uh based on a on a movie or a book, because uh and for me particularly, and even not uh, but I go from collaborator to collaborator. I've worked with people on it uh serially. I've worked with Tom Kitt a number of times, Curtis Moore, who I'm working on female troubles with. This is our fourth musical, but it's different personnel each time, and it's a different uh problem to solve or something to figure out. Uh obviously, if you have a book or a movie you're basing it on, you sort of have that you'd have the characters, you uh you may have the structure, but you what you have to do in a if you're basing it on a movie or a book is figure out how to tell the story on stage as opposed to putting the movie on the stage.

You have because you know how it begins and you know how it ends, but how you get there, what the stakes are, you don't have as many um you can't just take the tent poles of a story of a film and and make them work for a musical because the demands are different. So that's what you're that's what your job is is to figure out what do you keep, what do you create that's not there? Um I the thing I do love about stuff pre-existing material is that if someone is a great character and has a turn of phrase I love taking a a phrase that someone says and going oh that could be a song you know uh like in high fidelity my desert all time top five breakups or it's no problem or and um you know enhance on a hard body if you can't hunt with the big dog stay on the porch with the pups or it's a human drama thing you know you find these phrases and they can excite and ignite you with an original story it's kind of fun because you can go what if there was somebody named blah and they went into the forest and blah you know and all of a sudden you can you can take your I find your silliest ideas my uh most outrageous ideas and stuff that crack you up in a room and and you go no we could never do that could we?

[13:21] Amanda Green: Let's try it, you know, so I do love the freedom of an original idea which allows you to do that.

[13:27] Amanda Green: Yeah, I love what you said about the turn of phrases, you know, because I think the fans kind of expect that. You know, jokingly, I was talking to somebody about the Karate Kid musical, and they said, "Well, there better be a song that's called Wax on Wax off." And we've been joking about it, but you know, it's kind of the tyranny of a very beloved piece of property that is par for the course. I mean, even Hands on a Hardbody, which was based on a pretty obscure but brilliant documentary, people are like, "Well, I hope you're gonna have this and I hope you're gonna have that." And you know, Bring It On, you know, they were like, "Is there going to be a song about spirit fingers?" And the minute someone says, "Is there gonna be a song about blah?" like my soul dies a little, and I don't want to write that song.

You know, you never want to write the obvious song; you want to come up with something that has a new angle. It's true, but you will somehow have to, you know, keep the fans with you and like not have that moment be a letdown for them, but at the same time, you know, make it fresh and new for them, and that’s such a challenge.

[14:44] Amanda Green: It is. The more beloved the movie or book or play that you're basing it on, the harder, you know, the more challenges that way too. But you have to, in one sense, you want to satisfy the audience, and in the other, you want to sort of block out what you think you should do and write what you think is the right thing for, you know, that will be fresh and entertaining and fun.

[15:10] Amanda Green: Yeah, that may not be the obvious. I love that the owners of 54 Below are also producing Back to the Future. You know, those discussions have been, you know, the main discussions, which were how do you stay true to the property and not have it just be the movie on stage, but be another step in the journey of the story? But also, you know, that particular film comes with a fandom that is very protective of it. You know, how could you not when you have Michael J. Fox, you know, looming over the production?

[15:49] Amanda Green: And so it's just interesting to me because just looking at, you know, the projects that you've worked on, they were very, in my opinion, very successful in that aspect, which was satisfying to a fan base, but also making it, you know, fresh and fantastic for the stage.

[16:08] Amanda Green: And when they, I remember when they announced Hands on a Hardbody, everybody was like, "How are they gonna do this?" I mean, well, neither of those were financial successes, but I still think they're wonderful, but they have, you know, followings now, they do, you know.

[16:27] Amanda Green: So I will say I also just wanted to say about Back to the Future too, because I haven't seen it, but that's a sort of almost another thing it sounds like, which is like how can we do all those things? Like that's the, it seems like a really fun challenge. You want to see a car fly, we're gonna show you a car fly. You want to see this, we're gonna show you that. So that sounds like fun.

[16:47] Amanda Green: Yeah, but back to exactly, exactly.

[16:53] Nella Vera: Are there other films out there that you have your eye on that you would love to adapt or just even if, you know, even if the rights aren't available, like do you have a project?

[17:05] Amanda Green: Always, always. Yes, I do. The rights are not available, but I don't know if I could tell them now or if I should tell them, but I have, you know, I want to feel a little protective of it. I think most writers would. But yes, I have my pie in the sky shortlist, yeah.

[17:23] Amanda Green: Dream properties, which may not be good ideas or and which may not ever, I may not ever get the rights. And actually, a funny thing is they, I love the movie Bridesmaids, and when it came out, you know, how was it like 10 years ago now or something? I refuse to believe that too, but I think so too. And I was dying to adapt Bridesmaids, and I just kept hitting brick wall after brick wall and not being able to get the rights made me write Female Troubles with my friend Curtis. And it's not about Bridesmaids, but it's called Female Troubles. It's about women's reproductive freedoms, and it's more, it's better. I mean, I'm not saying it's better than Bridesmaids, but it was like I wanted that humor. I wanted the female camaraderie, but then I could also synthesize it to something I care deeply about, and I was like, "Okay, so sometimes a no can turn into a better yes." That's what I want to say.

[18:22] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[18:22] Amanda Green: Yeah. And is now, did you start writing that show before all of this?

[18:23] Amanda Green: We started writing six years ago, so yes, but it's been bad for a long time, women's reproductive rights for sure.

[18:36] Nella Vera: Yeah, I know that people were quite shocked, but were we really? Because that's kind of what they were gunning for for so long.

[18:36] Amanda Green: I know, but if you would ask me, I don't know if we, I mean, when it got close to it, we did. But I mean, five years ago, I would never have believed that could happen. But you know, there you go. Quite shocking and more the more reason why we need a show like that and we need, you know, more art that addresses that.

[18:58] Amanda Green: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and I think just not even just the political part of it, but just, you know, how it is going to affect real people.

[19:20] Nella Vera: Completely.

[19:20] Amanda Green: Yes. Our show is not political, except that it is political, but it's really just about two women who find themselves unwed and pregnant. And it's funny. So because we also did make it funny, but you know, in 19th century England, and it's sort of the Jane Austen world.

[19:39] Nella Vera: Fantastic.

[19:40] Amanda Green: Yeah, so it sort of has all those tropes, but it's contemporary music. But it's really just about them and their lives and how it affects them and what they have to do to try to solve their female troubles.

[19:54] Nella Vera: I love it. And when might we see it upstage?

[19:55] Amanda Green: Oh yes, we're in the workshop stage. We might see it somewhere in the fall of 2023. We might. That's all I can say at this moment.

[20:10] Nella Vera: Exciting. Well, definitely we'll put that on my radar to look out for.

[20:15] Amanda Green: Okay.

[20:19] Nella Vera: This question was one of my staff members wrote this question. So your process when you're coming up with new materials, like what's that process like? Do you write the lyrics first or do you hear the music first?

[20:34] Amanda Green: It's so interesting to, it is different with each collaborator. With working with Jason Robert Brown, who I just worked with, a genius, it was all music first with him. Which I've never, I've never done a whole show music first. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't talk first, always it's talking first. It's the two of you talking together about what is the song moment, what's it about, what's the tone, what's the style, where does it take you? Where does it begin and where does it end emotionally or story-wise? Sometimes you don't always know where it's going to end. But, and then what it might be called or, so and then Jason would write some music and I would take the music and write some lyrics, and then it, you know, so that's the way that worked.

I have worked very heavily lyric first on other occasions. Usually it's a back and forth between the two of them, but it's always the idea first, and then I might, and then if you have a title, great, and that might be something that a composer could set, or it might be me going away and saying, "Here's an idea I have for here's some verse lyrics and some chorus lyrics," and a composer might take a few of those and go play with them and make something. So it's the two of you building something together.

[22:04] Amanda Green: In many ways doing that.

[22:10] Nella Vera: Incredible. How is there a one process that you like more that you find more, you know, easier or no?

[22:21] Amanda Green: I don't, honestly. What I like more is having a clear idea of what we're trying to do and really understanding it. Because, you know, as they say, measure twice, cut once. It's inevitable, but we have written the wrong song many times for a show. You know, you write the song and you go, "Nope, that's not it." So the best way, of course, is when you have a clear understanding of what you're trying to write, and then you can always make it better. But really, the hard part is coming up with where is the song? What does it serve? What's it about? What's the tone? You know, that kind of, if you have answered those questions, then you're well on your way.

[23:05] Nella Vera: Mm-hmm.

[23:07] Nella Vera: Do you have, you know, of all the projects that you worked on, do you have, I don't want to say a favorite, but do you have one that has special meaning or where you remember fondly, or it has, you know, a special moment for various reasons that you can talk about?

[23:28] Amanda Green: Yeah. I mean, of course I have many, and I love all my show children equally. I suppose the same thing when I asked it.

[23:39] Amanda Green: Yeah, I think of course. I mean, he and I, I mean, that was our first Broadway show, and the idea of just getting a meeting with the right people to pitch the idea of us doing this show, and that took us like a year and a half to get that meeting, and it was with Disney. It was with Tom Schumacher and Rick Ellis, who was then working at Disney, and we wrote a couple of songs on spec, and we went in and played them the songs, and they said, "Okay, yeah, give it a go." You know, so here we were, we were like BMI students, you know, and we're like, "Disney just said we could do this," and then, you know, neither of us had agents, and we called, you know, an agent's like, "Well, we just got the green light from Disney," so then we had agents, you know, so that was always pretty special.

[24:11] Amanda Green: And then we were, uh, performing the songs in cabarets that we did together because Tom was my musical director.

[24:34] Amanda Green: That's how we started out.

[24:37] Amanda Green: And, uh, the agent brought producers, and then all of a sudden we had produced, you know, so it was really kind of a magical way that it came about.

[24:46] Amanda Green: That was.

[24:46] Nella Vera: Oh, fantastic.

[24:50] Amanda Green: Yeah.

[25:04] Amanda Green: And oh, okay, and was working on it, like we he and I had been working on it for two years, and one day I got an email out of the blue and said, Hey Amanda, it's Nick Hornby. I hear you're doing a uh musical based on my book. I hope it's going well. Cheers, Nick. And I was like, no. I mean, if God, if God had written me an email, I wouldn't have been less like it was like, you know, a thunderbolt. It was so exciting. Oh my gosh.

[25:31] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[25:31] Amanda Green: How amazing. You know, I it's always amazing to work on a show, but particularly on one that you love already and that, you know, has particularly good associations and meaning.

[25:43] Nella Vera: Absolutely.

[25:43] Amanda Green: You know, it's not just work.

[25:45] Nella Vera: No, hardly, hardly.

[25:47] Amanda Green: They were all, you know, musicals take so long that it's doing it just for work is is I mean, unless it's a lot of money, which knowing musicals, it probably isn't up front, but uh but you really have to love it because it's as we know, you know, three years is lightning fast, seven years is you know, a little slow, but you know, they take yeah, labors of love, you know, completely.

[26:19] Nella Vera: In many ways, even for producers, you have to so believe in that project to be so persistent with In addition to your career as a lyricist, you have a performing background, which I actually kind of knew, but only remembered when I was reviewing this, you know, my notes for this podcast. Um how amazing is that?

[26:42] Amanda Green: So you started out wanting to perform, correct?

[26:47] Amanda Green: Correct. Came into writing second.

[26:51] Nella Vera: So does your experience on stage, does that you think that's helped you be a better writer?

[26:57] Amanda Green: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I I am I am a ham. Um I went to acting school after college, and I, you know, the usual my act I went from acting school to waiter waitering and you know, catering and watering and uh cabaret has gave me a way to employ myself and then start right singing my own songs after a while. Uh but I love interpreting a song. And if I write a song and I sing it to myself and I call bullshit, then I can't expect anybody else to connect with it. But if a song moves me, I I feel like I know it's gonna connect with an actor. And when an actor tells me that it's the words are hard to spit out, because you have to, they have to be, they have to be able to be sung easily, understood by an audience on the first listen.

So there's all sorts of rules about lyric writing, but I absolutely I feel like I I always I always step in the actor's shoes when I'm doing it. Not because I'm a wonderful person, but I can't help myself. Like if you see me at a show in the audience, I will nine times out of ten be mouthing the lyrics because I feel like I'm up, I feel like I'm up there flying the plane with them. You know what I mean? I'm like I'm in the moment. I'm acting the lyrics. So I I do think that affects me a lot.

[28:14] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[28:15] Amanda Green: And how I write.

[28:17] Nella Vera: Oh good. Um you're also the president of the dramatist guild.

[28:22] Amanda Green: Yes.

[28:23] Nella Vera: Right now. And the first woman to hold the position.

[28:26] Amanda Green: Yes. Uh amazing. And congratulations. But why did it take so long to have a woman president?

[28:36] Amanda Green: I don't know. That is an unanswerable question. Women, women have long played a very important part in the dramatist guild and have been vice Lisa Crohn was vice president. And uh, I mean, years ago, Mary Rogers was a member of the council, and um uh Lynn Nottage has been a the stronghold, you know, member of the council. We have so many strong women uh on the as members of the council, and it just I don't know, but it's about time, and um I'm you know uh humbled and fearful and uh honored to to be the president and I have an incredible my fellow officers who uh I feel like the four of us really do it together, and that's uh Christine Toy Johnson and Brandon Jacobs Jenkins and Christopher Diaz. Um so I I just think yeah, the more the the more the better, and um yeah, it's about time, but it's about time for a lot more representation.

[29:38] Nella Vera: So yeah, that's an amazing council. I love the energy.

[29:41] Amanda Green: I can even imagine that energy.

[29:46] Amanda Green: Oh, it's but also, I mean, on the councils, you know, Lynn Manuel Miranda and Steven Schwartz and John Wideman and Marsha Norman and Georgia Stitt and David Lindsay Bear. It's it's an incredible, an incredible group, and that's there's 20 more after that. Um, and council members from around the country as well. So it's it's an inspiring group to be part of, and um, I'm so proud of the the dramatist guild, because as I always say, um theater writers, you know, if you're lucky enough in my, you know, to if you're on Broadway or your plays get produced a lot, and you I have an agent and I have a lawyer, and they're fantastic, but they're looking after my health. But who is looking after the health of theater writers as in our industry?

And we can't union unionize, which is a very odd thing because we own our work, unlike uh people who write for the films, films or TV all have unions. We can't unionize because we're basically small business owners or gig workers. Uh, but we are a uh a collective and we care about writers and we care about copyright and we care about writers not being exploited and um making the theater more equitable and profitable and you know able to able to sustain yourself as a theater writer.

[31:05] Nella Vera: I guess it's a double-edged sword, you can't unionize, but you do own your work, and it's the one medium where nobody can change your work without permission.

[31:16] Amanda Green: And that's I know that that's extremely satisfying. I as I mentioned, my boyfriend is a television writer, and yes, and I have many friends who write for TV, and that is the number one frustration is not knowing what will uh get produced, you know, after you turn in a script. And I think what I just love that about the theater, that what somebody wrote is what you have to do, um, and that's it, or you're welcome to write your own script.

[31:45] Nella Vera: Absolutely.

[31:46] Amanda Green: Yes, we pay we pay for that privilege. Um and uh but it is it is something that even in even people like your your partner and uh very successful screenwriters love coming back to the theater because they can write exactly what they want to write and no one can touch it, and that is something precious.

[32:09] Nella Vera: What do you think um the biggest issue is right now facing our theater writers?

[32:14] Amanda Green: Uh I do think it's it's as they say, and it's not a it's not uh hilarious, but it's you can make a killing, but you can't make a living. So it's it's um uh I that has always been our uh our dilemma. Um gosh, there's all sorts of things. Access, um, don't get me started. There's so many things. But but it's also there's so many people working, and um people still want to write plays and young people still come and they want to write for the theater, and uh we want to make it a more welcome place for emerging writers. And I don't even like to say young, I like to say emerging because you can be 50 and emerging as a playwright or 60.

[33:00] Nella Vera: That's true.

[33:01] Amanda Green: Uh so uh it's still something that attracts people and it's still profoundly satisfying. And uh it's great because and and I think that's so important that work because every time you know a young writer has a hit and you see that they've been, you know, writing on a show or been given a deal in Hollywood, uh like I start to panic that whenever you see flavors.

[33:26] Nella Vera: Yeah, I'm like, oh no, leave Sam Hunter alone.

[33:29] Amanda Green: Like Will Arbory.

[33:34] Nella Vera: Like branded.

[33:37] Amanda Green: That's right. You know, end up like never writing for the theater. And it's, you know, that's the voice of an entire generation. And because I think there's so much product out there, you know, there's theater writers are in in well, you know, in pretty hot demand, I think more than they were, but when there were only three networks. Um they can they can borrow our writers, but they have to give them back.

[34:04] Nella Vera: No, if I, you know, yes, writing for TV, it would be it would be silly to turn your back on all these other avenues and and especially to make money and to and you know, this fantastic TV out there and fantastic films, but they they come back, you know, Brandon still writes for the theater, Doug Wright writes for the theater, Lynn, you know, writes for the theater. So yeah, you know.

[34:29] Nella Vera: Have you ever thought about writing for TV films?

[34:32] Amanda Green: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes.

[34:34] Nella Vera: I hope that happens.

[34:37] Amanda Green: Oh good.

[34:38] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[34:39] Amanda Green: Well, good luck with that.

[34:41] Nella Vera: Thank you, but I will always come back.

[34:43] Amanda Green: So last question.

[34:45] Nella Vera: Your show's titled Amanda Green and Friends, of course.

[34:48] Amanda Green: Yes.

[34:49] Nella Vera: You have amazing friends.

[34:51] Amanda Green: Amazing.

[34:53] Nella Vera: How did you put this group together for this show?

[34:56] Amanda Green: You know, um, I uh begged, and I know there were people who I uh uh they kind of speak for themselves. I mean, uh Shoshana uh Bean has uh was just a Mr. Saturday night, and I I just love her and I I would love to share an intimate evening of song with her. Uh Javier Munoz is also somebody I love and adore and um thrilled to have him sing one of my songs. I mean it's just it's really just a thrill to hear one of the perks of of getting to write music is is having it performed by these astoundingly talented people. So um I did several people were in a reading of female troubles, so they're gonna we're gonna do some songs from that.

[35:42] Nella Vera: Um that's exciting.

[35:44] Amanda Green: Yeah, so it's it's people who I uh I admire, I love they I just feel like yes, that's how I want my song performed, and you're gonna hear it, you know. Uh I'm so lucky to get to have these people who I just think nail my songs. And uh so that's how I did it. People who are fun to work with, people who are um excited to be there. Um, because it's hard work, as you know, and it's it's very kind of them to come and perform and uh and it's fun. We have a good time.

[36:15] Nella Vera: So what do you think? Um, what do you hope that audiences uh will take away from your show? Last question.

[36:22] Amanda Green: Oh, well, I hope they will have a fantastic time. I hope they will laugh their asses off and be moved. Um I hope they will have an appreciation of the craft of songwriting, be excited to uh see what happens to female troubles next. Um sign my mailing list uh through through bouquets. What else do you want?

[36:48] Nella Vera: Exactly.

[36:49] Amanda Green: All of it.

[36:50] Nella Vera: You want all of it.

[36:51] Amanda Green: Absolutely. Yes.

[36:53] Nella Vera: Well and Amanda, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been really fun to talk to you.

[36:58] Amanda Green: You too, Bella. Thank you.

[37:00] Nella Vera: I could not be more excited for your show. You can catch Amanda Green on October 24th at 54 Below with her new show, Amanda Green and Friends.

[37:10] Amanda Green: You may.

[37:10] Nella Vera: Thank you.

[37:11] Nella Vera: I hope you do. You've been listening to the 54 Below Podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.