This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Kevin Ferguson: 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.

[0:17] Kevin Ferguson: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Fine Science 54 Below podcast. My name is Kevin Ferguson, and I'm your host today. On October 25th and 26th, the Tin Can Brothers come to 54 Below with Spies Are Forever in Concert. Please, everyone help me welcome our guests today, Brian, Corey, and Joey, the Tin Can Brothers.

[0:39] Tin Can Brothers: Yay.

[0:42] Joey Richter: Crackles crazy. Hey y'all, what's up?

[0:46] Brian Rosenthal: Hey Kevin.

[0:46] Kevin Ferguson: How are you feeling today?

[0:48] Corey Lubowich: Hello.

[0:48] Joey Richter: Great. Nice to be here in virtual space with you.

[0:52] Kevin Ferguson: The virtual world, we have all had to come accustomed to it since 2020. I feel like a little bit more. If you were not really the most virtual person, I think 2020 kind of forced you maybe to get a little bit more tech savvy, would y'all agree, especially with your guys' career and everything?

[1:10] Tin Can Brothers: Oh, big time.

[1:11] Joey Richter: Yeah.

[1:11] Brian Rosenthal: It's been a little bit of like, welcome to our world.

[1:14] Corey Lubowich: Right, right. Cause it's like everyone's on social media now and everyone's doing content creating, but y'all kind of were ahead of it, which I feel like helped with a lot of what we all had to catch up with in 2020. Would you agree that you kind of had a little up hand on the whole social media game and everything?

[1:32] Joey Richter: Yeah, it's funny. It feels like in many ways, Broadway in the theater world caught up to a model that we've been doing since 2009. We've worked together over the years under a couple different monikers, StarKid, and now Tin Can Brothers. But we've been performing live theater, recording the shows, and distributing them online or putting them on YouTube for over a decade.

[1:54] Brian Rosenthal: So when the pandemic hit, we were like, we know what to do here. We're kind of prepared for this, just in terms of and our audience was prepared for it, just in the content we were able to put out and what we were able to kind of sustain through that time, which was awesome. But we are very excited to return to live.

[2:12] Tin Can Brothers: Yes.

[2:13] Kevin Ferguson: Okay, Joey. So for the folks that don't know the start and the history, first, let's talk about Tin Can Brothers and Team StarKid, what both of them are and how the names came about. And can you just walk us through that history of the beginning?

[2:28] Joey Richter: Yeah. Well, we all went to the University of Michigan with one another, where some of us studied theater performance. Corey was a design and production major, and we had all been involved with a student-run theater company there.

[2:43] Brian Rosenthal: Well, it was not even a company. Was it would you say it's a company or more of like a slate?

[2:48] Joey Richter: It was like it was a company, I guess.

[2:50] Corey Lubowich: It was like a club.

[2:51] Joey Richter: Exactly. Basement Arts, where students could produce their own shows and put them up. And one of those shows was a self-written Harry Potter musical parody show called A Very Potter Musical. We did it. It was super fun. A lot of folks showed up and came out, and it was like, wow, this is amazing. I guess it's over now. And then in an effort to make it easier for people to show their family and friends after, other than making like DVDs for everyone of the film show, they thought, let's put it up on YouTube. It's all history from there.

[3:25] Brian Rosenthal: Uh, it's just the show blew up virally. StarKid has been a production company for now over 13 years, just creating parody shows, original shows, live concert tours, all sorts of things. And Tin Can Brothers was created as kind of an effort because at the time StarKid was based in Chicago and we had all lived out in Los Angeles, and we were like, well, we would like to be doing things out here rather than constantly needing to be traveling to other places.

[3:54] Joey Richter: So we kind of created Tin Can Brothers almost out of necessity to keep creating things and keep the juices flowing.

[4:01] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah, and then we've been going for about nearly nine years at this point this year, in conjunction with StarKid doing our own things and different things, and it's been great.

[4:12] Kevin Ferguson: It's so inspiring too. I mean, how long y'all have been doing this? And Joey, I will say you are being very humble when you're talking about your YouTube views. I mean, y'all have over 300 million YouTube views, and that's just on YouTube. We haven't even got to talk about how you've charted iTunes and all of that stuff. So I just think it is so inspiring to see y'all as this trio of artist friends for so long. Y'all met here, but then it inspired you to go somewhere else and build this new thing. And I just think that's so cool and inspiring for other future trios of the musical theater world.

[4:51] Kevin Ferguson: Now, with y'all being a trio, how do y'all divvy up the responsibilities with y'all's projects? Corey, could you maybe talk more about that?

[5:01] Corey Lubowich: Yeah. It a little bit changes from project to project, but creatively, we are very much a trio, and that the work we produce does end up being like an amalgamation of like all three of us. We all sort of get our hands on it during the development and the writing process, which sometimes changes from show to show in terms of how we like mechanically write together and create stuff. But when it comes to actually producing, yeah, at this point we sort of is there a good way to like describe it. Like on the production end, often Joey and Brian are also performers in our projects and I often direct, but sometimes we direct together. It's sort of a project to project basis.

[5:44] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah. It's definitely a many of us wearing many different hats scenario at all times.

[5:50] Joey Richter: At all times that's the through line.

[5:52] Corey Lubowich: It's always it's about hats.

[5:54] Joey Richter: Yeah, the through line is it's a show about hats.

[5:54] Brian Rosenthal: It's a show about hats, trading off hats. Your friend wears your hat, sometimes you wear their hat. It's all about camaraderie and helping your brother out.

[6:04] Kevin Ferguson: That's so dope.

[6:06] Joey Richter: Yeah. And like we we've talked about like that before like when we do a film project, there are challenges always in like just the geometry of a of any sort of relationship that's like three people, but that it can really be beneficial to help each other out when you go, we're sort of like a three headed beast and you go, some department has a question, they can go to one of us who can like sort of speak on behalf of all of us.

[6:30] Kevin Ferguson: I think that's so dope. Okay, so with that being said, we're talking about group creative partners and how that comes together and how you stay together for almost a decade now. Let's talk about like as far as producing the crowdfunding campaigns that y'all have been able to successfully do. Like what's the strategy or how did y'all know how to go about those and what do you think was your keys to success with your crowdfunding? Brian could you talk more about that?

[6:58] Brian Rosenthal: We've just been incredibly lucky to have such a passionate fan base online all over the world who's willing to contribute both financially and emotionally and in a marketing sense, getting the word out and proselytizing. Maybe that's a little strong, but you know, like the Tin Can Bros content out in the world. But we like to look at it as anyone who contributes to our campaigns is sort of a producer in their own right. And for us, it's been really fun over the past nine years to like open up the process to the people who support us and bring them behind the scenes and just show them what it's like to create theater, short films, web series, whatever we're working on and bring them along for that ride and develop personal relationships with them outside of the content we're creating that they also have a relationship with.

[7:51] Joey Richter: And for us, producing our own work was sort of out of necessity in a way right out of college. We wanted to create stuff. You know, it's hard to get other people to produce your work, so we just started doing it ourselves. And we've learned some incredible skills along the way that I think have made us better creators as well, knowing how to work within a budget and to back into the constraints of producing your own work.

[8:17] Corey Lubowich: Yes. And I do think that where we were brought up, starting with StarKid and beyond, came from a place of accessible theater that didn't exist prior necessarily to what we had been all doing, you know, over the course of this pandemic, bringing so many things in digitally and having live streamed version of shows, it felt like so much of the industry was looking at these things and going, oh, how novel. And it's like, yeah, we've been doing this for like 10 years. It's pretty great when people feel like, oh, I can enjoy this and not have to fly just to New York or just wish and pray that a show will make a regional tour in my city or something. So I think our work being so accessible so early on adds to what Brian was saying of like this community of people who are helping build what we've built as well which is great and really wonderful.

[9:15] Joey Richter: Definitely wonderful and I love what both of y'all said I liked what you said about the accessibility Joey and Brian what you kind of alluded to of the idea of like when you are an artist and you want to be a part of a project if you might not be able to be a part of that project making your own work, making your own opportunity. And then you get to make the rules about how accessible it is. And I just feel like that is just such a word that people gotta hear. When you make your own stuff, when you have your own passion project, you get to make the rules of what audiences come in and see it and you don't have to go based off of producers who are higher powers that be you know what I mean?

[9:55] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah and I think that applies to the producing too I think early on there was a dream of like oh maybe someday there'll be like a producer comes along and then we won't have to do any of this kind of work anymore and then we could just be creative but I think something we've realized over the last decade is that though all this those sort of like nuts and bolts producing decisions are creative decisions. And so we do like having a hand in that in being able to sort of play both sides of that knowing that like okay we're gonna set these sort of like production constraints and then we'll like figure out a creative way to make that work for not just like adapt to it but like make that like uh essential to it and make it like feature it. We always say, if you can't fix it, feature it. So that ability to sort of work both sides of that line, I think, is something that we've really learned more and like developed over the years.

[10:45] Joey Richter: And now, like I don't know, we could see it any other way. And also we graduated college in 2011, and I feel like that's right when the entertainment industry at large was changing. When we were growing up, there wasn't really such a thing as an influencer, YouTube wasn't a thing, it was hard to distribute your own content. And then we kind of came out into our professional lives when everything was topsy turvy and changing. And you know, since then things change every two to three years.

[11:13] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah.

[11:14] Joey Richter: So I feel like one of the best skills we've developed is how to be adaptable and keep creating our own stuff.

[11:20] Kevin Ferguson: Yeah, that is the way. I mean, y'all are nailing it, because let's just talk, well, let's talk about Spies Are Forever. Let's just get straight to it. This show has had such success, sold out from LA to New York. You were supposed to do a show in 2020 at 54, but we all know what went down in 2020. But just the idea of y'all being able to make a cast album and it has charted on iTunes at number six. How does that feel? Like, are these just like kind of crazy moments to experience, or does it feel right? Are you like, yeah, this was supposed to happen?

[11:53] Joey Richter: Frankly, Kevin, it feels stupid.

[11:55] Brian Rosenthal: It feels actually.

[11:58] Joey Richter: Yeah, sometimes things just feel so crazy they feel stupid.

[12:02] Brian Rosenthal: But maybe that's it, it just feels right.

[12:05] Joey Richter: Well, Spies Are Forever was also like our first, I think, major project working together as Tin Can Brothers. Like we had prior to that done just kind of sketch comedy for several years, live sketch shows, but this was like our first big live stage musical project that we had done.

[12:24] Brian Rosenthal: Cause the original show we did in 2016. So it's been a minute. And that show taught us so much about how we operate and work as like creators. But what I think has been so exciting about it is that the enthusiasm behind it has only grown. It isn't like something that we did back in the day that we go, oh yeah, that old chestnut that we don't really talk about. We go, oh wow, this it's been like an amazing gateway for people to discover us. And it's like a show that we continuously feel very proud of. It was like I I mean definitely when we first scheduled these shows at 54 Below, it was the first Spies Are Forever new content that we were creating in at that point four years, and it was incredibly exciting and like felt really good that so many people were so enthusiastic and that the shows sold out so quickly. And I think two years later when we did it again, it was like, is this gonna happen again? And it did, it felt great, you know?

[13:28] Joey Richter: It did feel great.

[13:29] Brian Rosenthal: Can't deny that.

[13:30] Kevin Ferguson: I know it has to feel great. I mean, just the idea of it like using Brian's words, it's just so stupid, so silly.

[13:38] Kevin Ferguson: The idea of spies, a musical, like how does that come about? Are y'all big spy fans? Do y'all watch a lot of espionage movies? Why not a movie and a musical? How'd this happen?

[13:50] Corey Lubowich: I think the genesis of the idea came from the fact that we do love those sort of James Bond spy movies, and came from this idea of like, how would you do that on stage? Like it's a bad idea. Like there are so many of like the conventions and the tropes are film because that's where that sort of genre lives. And I think that was what was appealing and like what felt funny to us of like, oh, how would you do a car chase on stage? How would you do like a Mission Impossible style, like someone peeling off their mask to reveal they're someone else? And that I think is inherent in like the theatricality of the show where you go, oh, the movie version of Spies Are Forever is like a different thing because the theatrical version is about like how do you translate these like untranslatable tropes?

And so there's comedy there, and you get to sort of make fun of and like gently poke fun at the James Bond archetype or the story sort of like formulas, but like in a loving way, because we do love those movies.

[14:59] Joey Richter: Yeah, I mean, I think we all love those movies. That's why they keep making them, but no one's ever made one of those movies into a musical. And how exciting is it to see the guys who try to do it are getting great success already? You know what I mean? And do you feel like that great success was from the very beginning? You said it started in 2016. Was there a moment that you felt everyone like living for it, or was it right from the beginning?

[15:25] Brian Rosenthal: Doing the live show, I mean, we it was a show that was I felt like super well received when we did it, and then the way we kind of release things is specifically with YouTube and kind of our form from StarKid into Tin Can Brothers is two pronged. So we do a live run, which I think at the time was a four-week run in Los Angeles, and that was an awesome, successful, great experience. And then you kind of have this second wave of it in which we take the filmed version of the show, we edit it together, we kind of find new beats. You're able to finesse moments that maybe on stage, you're like, oh, if we could just trim the timing here or whatnot. And then you have this kind of filmed YouTube version that we release, and that becomes like a weekly episodic release of that show in its entirety.

That was obviously a big moment for our YouTube channel and kind of in our fan base because it's the moment when more than 400 people finally get to see the show in this other version of it. And I think that has only just grown as the years have gone.

[16:33] Corey Lubowich: It's always been gradual. I don't think we released it and went, uh oh, no one likes this. I think it's just something that continues to be a gateway for both us and like a lot of our fans. Yeah, it was well received on our front when we did it initially, but it's been like a sort of a slow burn, the like passion for it, and the people sort of more coming to it. Like literally every week we get comments on it and being like, I can't believe I'm just seeing this now for the first time. And in a lot of ways, it because again, like we did the show and it was online to sort of live there. That when we planned this initial 54 Below concert in 2020, that was like the first time where there was any sort of like tangible marker.

And like the album charting was like very exciting, but is like also sort of abstract versus like oh, like imagining 54 Below, like sold out, like that amount of people. That felt like the first time, like oh yeah, this is still this is like a thing that people feel very strongly about, and which is like very exciting. We're very grateful for.

[17:40] Joey Richter: Yeah, I think the entry point into TCB is different for different people, and you know, since Spies Are Forever, we produced plays and musicals in LA and off Broadway. And some of those shows are the entry point for people, and then they'll go back to our YouTube channel and rediscover this show from 2016. So I think people are just very excited now that it's back on our front burner and we're addressing it again. And for us, it's also been changing topics here a little bit, but really fun to revisit creatively something we did six years ago, and you know, maybe update some lyrics and finesse it a little bit.

[18:16] Kevin Ferguson: Yeah. Yep, I was definitely going to ask that. I mean, you felt the question coming to that conversation. I mean, COVID shut everything down. And every time I talked to another artist on this podcast about what their COVID year was, what 2020 was for them, they usually talk about how they were refining their craft. They just went back to just practicing what they were being studied to do and just waiting for basically the quarantine and everything to be over. With Spies Are Forever in that time, were ya able to find any moments to edit anything? Are there new moments that we're gonna be able to see at this concert? Or were you kind of just focusing on new projects during that time?

[18:53] Brian Rosenthal: We were lucky that we did have a lot of new projects in development at the time of planning to originally do Spies. So I think we continued to. I mean, we had a huge series and podcasts that we were in post-production on that honestly, the pandemic allowed us to really hone in and focus on that. And we had a podcast portion we needed to record, and it was like perfect. This is the one thing you can do during a pandemic that is easy to do in terms of producing. So we really pivoted to that, but then I feel like guys, let me know if it does feel like in the last year and a half, we have kind of shifted our work in a way where we've gone back and we have started to explore other projects in different forms.

We have this other show called The Solvent Squad, which is kind of a fucked up Scooby-Doo grown-up gang of mystery solving kids, or now adults, previously kids, who have like reunited as adults to deal with the trauma of their dog, their Scooby-Doo character who was murdered when they were kids. We did a play of that in 2017, brought that to off Broadway in 2018, and then like redeveloped it as an animated series and wrote some episodes for that. And now we're doing like a holiday show with those characters. And then we wrote another new musical with one of the composers of Spies Are Forever that we did a workshop version of a filmed workshop last fall that we're kind of looking to, and that has kind of brought us back again once to Spies Are Forever.

And we're now looking at that again as like, okay, what does the future of this show look like using 54 Below as kind of a jumping off point, which has been really exciting? Because we cross formats, we do stuff that's online, we do audio stuff, we do stage stuff, and we find a lot of joy in that and what each medium sort of can bring to a story, one of the kinds of stories that are best told in those mediums. And for obvious reasons, we'd been focusing less on the theatrical for a while, and it was in general, it's been really exciting to come back to it and revisit just our theatrical work in general, including Spies.

[21:04] Joey Richter: That's exactly what I was gonna say, word for word for betum. So there you go.

[21:09] Kevin Ferguson: That's cause y'all are a trio and the artistic flow, y'all already are connected, y'all already knew what each other were gonna say. You're like, bro, couldn't have said it better, my friend. Like I love that about y'all. I wanna be on the fly on the wall when y'all are doing the creative process of these projects. I mean, we're sitting here supposed to talk about Spies Are Forever, and now I want to talk about the Scooby-Doo project. And it's just it's just exciting because that's just one of the many things that y'all have going on. Anyone listening to this podcast, go to their Instagram, you'll see it. There's like a grunge show. This could be on Broadway. I mean, they have so many fun ideas.

I can't wait to see what else y'all do. But going back to Spies Are Forever, with that kind of being like your first big one. Do you think there is a specificity as to why this story resonates with theater audiences so much? You think everyone's a spy fan, or like is it just kind of just like more musical theater than it is spy? Like, what do you think it is?

[22:09] Brian Rosenthal: I think we also kind of like subvert the genre in many ways. So whether you are a fan of spy movies or not, there's something to like here, whether it's us trying to recreate a hang glider chase on stage with puppets or something, or like watching us poke fun at the genre.

[22:26] Joey Richter: Yeah, there's something for everyone. I also think in many ways, the way a musical theater show traditionally has a form to it, you're gonna get like the I Want song, you know, you're gonna get the eleven o'clock number. Spy movies are also very formula-like in that way. So it's just like this perfect pairing where those things complement each other very well. And yeah, I think the genre, the spy movie genre is the way in, but it's not necessarily why people stick around or keep coming back to it. I hope that's more like the character relationships and the comedy in the show.

[22:59] Corey Lubowich: Yeah, and I remember when we were writing it initially, I think we did a search was like, has anyone done a spy musical before? It seemed like a territory that it was like a bit of a gold rush thing where you're like, has anyone been doing this? This seems like a good idea. So like Brian said, I think that's a way in, but that the characters and the humor is like what keep people there, but our favorite thing to do is write stuff that is very silly, or like all the time we'll be writing something, but that's so stupid, meaning we have to keep it. Our favorite thing to do is like at the very end then pull the rug out from under you and like get very serious and emotional. Like that happens in Spies, and like I think there are a lot of comments on that video that was like, wait, I this was like fun and silly, and now I'm crying.

What's happening? The best stuff. That's the best kind of comedy. Catching people and making them realize, like, oh, I have cared about everyone this whole time. Like the me laughing through this has not just been an enjoyable experience in a funny way. It's like, oh, I have connected here and I found and I think that in terms of the genre subverting elements that Brian was talking about earlier. I think that Spies Are Forever is totally ripe for subverting a few key tropes about these characters that like really make contemporary audiences connect with them in like a much different and more profound way than they would, you know.

[24:30] Joey Richter: I don't know if we've said that it is a technically a period show. It like it's set in like the 60s like Cold War era. We're pretty fast and loose with some like anachronisms, but that's like the general setting for it. But yeah, I think we are obviously layering in sort of contemporary ideas and themes in terms of yeah, subverting those tropes of the suave debonair womanizing like Bond. What if he wasn't that? Like what if he like was like insecure and spoiler alert are you are you dancing around a potential spoiler, Corey?

[25:05] Corey Lubowich: Yeah for anyone who has an idea. Okay, I mean I want to say it briefly, so I guess suppose like skip ahead just a little bit if you haven't seen it. Yeah, skip ahead like a minute a minute. We won't spend too much long on it. No, but I'll say it now. But also like a queer lens on it too of like, okay, like what if he isn't this like womanizing like Bond character, and like in fact, is like a closeted gay man who has had like a relationship and that's part of his trauma. And I think that's also part of like the rug pulling that happens at the end of the show.

[25:38] Joey Richter: Oof, and we love a rug pull. These theater people, they eat up a second act rug pull. Ooh.

[25:44] Kevin Ferguson: That is quintessential theater, like 11 o'clock number. I'm so excited for this. I'm so excited for y'all. I think this idea is so out of the box. Is there a possibility when y'all came up with the name Tin Can Brothers in the very beginning? Did y'all see any of this happening? Like, what was the original plan with Tin Can Brothers?

[26:08] Brian Rosenthal: The name came specifically from the fact that Joey and I were living this is a silly story in an apartment building in Los Feliz in Los Angeles, and Corey moved to LA around 2013-ish and moved right into our same apartment building. Wow. And so we were working together at all hours of the day and night because we were basically extended roommates in the same apartment complex. And the joke was that we could string a tin can between our two apartments to talk about.

[26:36] Joey Richter: So that's where courtyard.

[26:37] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah. That's where Tin Can came from. And then at the time, also bros was just a really hip thing to throw at the end of a YouTube channel. Here we are.

[26:46] Joey Richter: Yes, and here we are. So what was the original plan though? I mean, y'all were neighbors, but was it always a spy musical? Was a musical always the plan? You went to UMich, so I didn't know if that was always part of the plan.

[27:01] Corey Lubowich: I think we grew up just all as fans of theater and musicals. And when we started working together, as we alluded to a little bit earlier, like we're kind of greedy little piggies where we love working in every genre.

[27:13] Corey Lubowich: We love making sketch comedy videos. We love making film, short films, web series, podcasts, theater. And this was just our first big endeavor into creating a musical together, but there was not really a plan necessarily to go in this direction.

[27:30] Joey Richter: And at the time our work with StarKid, StarKid had probably at that point done four or five parody slash original musicals. So also our fan base, too, was very attuned to the idea of like us doing a musical project.

[27:50] Brian Rosenthal: So I think it was like something we were always wanting to build towards. But definitely in those first two and a half years of us working together, I think it was just that was all we had done with StarKid and this effort to kind of like explore what our voice and what our comedic sensibilities were in sketch in various live shows and small little web series formats was like just kind of building towards finding our voice together as a group.

[28:17] Corey Lubowich: Yeah, there wasn't really a plan.

[28:20] Joey Richter: Yeah.

[28:20] Brian Rosenthal: I think it was mostly like, oh, let's do this, and oh, this seems like it would be fun. Let's keep doing that.

[28:28] Corey Lubowich: And like Spies was a huge jump in terms of like scale of what we had done. And I think we're a little more aware of it now. But in general, we're pretty good at like setting our sights like just beyond our capabilities and to like push us a little bit.

[28:44] Joey Richter: You don't want to go too far.

[28:46] Brian Rosenthal: That's danger territory.

[28:47] Corey Lubowich: Yeah, we're getting older now, so we're going like how we played a maybe a little more safe at different times. But it was like a big swing that I think also we're like, that sounds like it would be fun. And we were like interested in the idea, and we maybe like didn't know enough to be concerned.

[29:05] Joey Richter: Yeah.

[29:05] Brian Rosenthal: We're like, I don't know, let's just do it. Let's see what might happen.

[29:08] Corey Lubowich: Young and naive is what I was giving a little bit, just like so free that you weren't scared of how bad it could go because you were like young and just optimistic about the world. Would you agree?

[29:19] Joey Richter: We didn't know what we didn't know.

[29:22] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah, yeah.

[29:24] Corey Lubowich: Not to say that it all went perfectly and smoothly, like there were rough times, but like ultimately it worked out.

[29:30] Joey Richter: But we were like, it wasn't all sunshine and daisies. It was work.

[29:33] Kevin Ferguson: Okay. Listen, and you put in that grind and you put in that work, and look at where y'all are now. I mean, it's just very inspiring to keep going and to have friends with you while you're doing it.

[29:45] Kevin Ferguson: Now, I have another question. Have y'all made any like surprise famous friends through all of these projects? Has there been like a super famous person that might have reached out to y'all showing love or that you weren't expecting to appreciate it so much?

[29:59] Corey Lubowich: Well, one of the funny, one of the kind of benefits and just surprise experiences we've had over the years, both with like our work with StarKid and Tin Can Brothers, is like attending conventions. Like we've attended so many conventions around the world, either associated with Harry Potter or just fantasy and sci-fi based on like our work in kind of the genre.

[30:25] Joey Richter: And back in 2013, we attended a convention in Germany called Ring Con. That was like a Lord of the Rings centric convention that we were there because who knows?

[30:39] Brian Rosenthal: Who knows how we ended up there? It was great. But we kind of became friends with Sean Astin of Lord of the Rings, Sam Wise Gamgee, Goonies, Stranger Things, all of it.

[30:50] Corey Lubowich: And it's so funny in the years post that convention just kind of kept up conversations with him. And we had helped him film a video for a Kickstarter he was doing for like a podcast he was doing at one point.

[31:03] Joey Richter: And we just kind of kept up that relationship. And then when we were writing this web series that we released in 2020 called Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye, it's like about a podcasting sibling duo who ends up kind of a paranormal take on like Serial or S-Town, those investigative journalism podcasts, who end up going to the small town and discovering like there's a whole werewolf society subplot thing happening in this town.

[31:30] Brian Rosenthal: We had a role for Sean, and he was just so down to be a part of the project, and was amazing, and has kind of since been this friend figure who we occasionally call up and go, Would you like to work on something? And he's like, Of course.

[31:45] Corey Lubowich: So that's the big one that comes to mind.

[31:47] Joey Richter: Yeah.

[31:48] Brian Rosenthal: And also, like amazingly, we're reaching that point in our lives in our like mid-30s where we're looking around and being like, Oh, our peers and our friends who we like came up with are starring in Broadway shows and TV series.

[32:03] Corey Lubowich: So even some of the people who are in our concert for Spies Are Forever, AJ Holmes was with Book of Mormon for five years all over the world.

[32:12] Joey Richter: And Pom Koch was on Broadway in The Band's Visit. And to be like, hey, you're just like our buddies from college, but look at us, isn't this like wild that we're all here like doing the thing at this level that we have wanted to do our entire lives is just wild and amazing.

[32:30] Kevin Ferguson: I bet. I mean, I went to a theater school, I went to a performing school, and we always had mentors coming in and talking to us about their fabulous artist lives that they were living in New York, and now y'all could technically do that.

[32:44] Joey Richter: Like y'all could go back to school and teach a master class or a workshop. Have y'all ever thought about doing that? Have y'all been invited to do stuff like that for the next generation of writers?

[32:55] Brian Rosenthal: We'd say don't pay to go to theater school.

[32:57] Corey Lubowich: No, I was kidding.

[32:59] Joey Richter: I mean too much.

[33:02] Brian Rosenthal: It's controversial. It's kind of another podcast, but yes.

[33:06] Corey Lubowich: Yeah, we haven't like really done that. I think we'd be open to it.

[33:09] Joey Richter: I mean, the closest thing is that so the Solvent Squad was it's our like Scooby-Doo sort of stand-up play. And that was licensed by a high school in Los Angeles.

[33:20] Brian Rosenthal: It was the first time we've like licensed anything. And that was really cool. And to see that and then like talk with them a little bit after, like meet them afterwards.

[33:28] Corey Lubowich: What did y'all say to kids?

[33:29] Joey Richter: Like well, the show, the show, I mean, the show is not a high school friendly show. So that also presented its own new for like realm of challenges to be like, how do we edit certain things?

[33:45] Brian Rosenthal: And there was a really nice rapport back and forth where they were offering up suggestions and we would kind of tweak things with them and be like, maybe try this instead to kind of help keep it streamlined with like a vision we had, but that's just also opened up a whole new realm for us to explore regarding like, yeah, where do these shows that we've created go next after we like produce them?

[34:08] Corey Lubowich: Both do we do another product? I mean, I think a big goal for us with Spies would be to like do a future production, but then at what point do these shows become shows that other people can do and license because there's like a huge younger audience for these shows who I know like would love to do them.

[34:26] Joey Richter: So and for it's so off, like we all grew up doing high school theater, and you because of the nature of like Broadway has only so many theaters, only a certain amount of material gets produced every year, like the sort of what is available to these like drama teachers to produce is like their musical is like very narrow in terms of like do you want to do Oklahoma again?

[34:48] Brian Rosenthal: Or like I was or like we were in high school when um Honk, I was in high school when Seussical came out, and so my high school did Seussical, but like also I think I saw four productions of Seussical that year. Because everyone's like, oh my god, thank something new.

[35:04] Corey Lubowich: That's been exciting to think about too. It's like, oh, wait, there's like that could be material that obviously like the classics are great, but like could that new theater students like kids could get like excited about in a different way?

[35:18] Joey Richter: Like material that comes from like a different perspective.

[35:21] Brian Rosenthal: That's so exciting.

[35:23] Corey Lubowich: I just feel like, yeah, the kids of course are gonna want to do these shows, but also how do we how do we make it appropriate for the kids?

[35:31] Joey Richter: But is it appropriate? Because it's art, and you know what I mean?

[35:34] Brian Rosenthal: We don't need to censor the art with the kids.

[35:36] Corey Lubowich: It is a thin line.

[35:37] Joey Richter: You're right.

[35:38] Brian Rosenthal: I want to see a middle school do a production of The Wild Party.

[35:44] Corey Lubowich: Yeah.

[35:44] Joey Richter: We did shows we did in high school that I remember going, like, why are we doing this? Why are children doing that?

[35:50] Brian Rosenthal: Allowed this to be.

[35:54] Corey Lubowich: You did Equus and Chicago, like the suburbs of Chicago.

[35:59] Joey Richter: Well, it wasn't like full nudity, but yeah.

[36:01] Brian Rosenthal: That's brilliant.

[36:02] Corey Lubowich: Listen, I mean, it's a great story. I mean, he gets naked, so that's what Little had me a little jarred.

[36:07] Joey Richter: But it is beautiful.

[36:11] Brian Rosenthal: Like Solvent Squad going through like those lines being okay, totally understand the environment.

[36:15] Corey Lubowich: Like, some stuff is not gonna be appropriate for school, we can change it.

[36:18] Joey Richter: But then, like, how do we maintain the idea of it?

[36:21] Brian Rosenthal: It just got like really weird and nitpicky where they'd been like, okay, we don't want to say like Ambient. What if we just say melatonin gummies?

[36:28] Corey Lubowich: And we're like, no, it's not the same.

[36:31] Joey Richter: What about just ZQuil?

[36:34] Brian Rosenthal: I think ZQuil is funnier.

[36:37] Corey Lubowich: It's kind of like all of those rant junior productions that happen at high school or middle schools.

[36:42] Joey Richter: Oh, yeah.

[36:43] Brian Rosenthal: Where yeah, you want to have the spirit of the show still like maintained, but yeah, yeah, you understand.

[36:49] Corey Lubowich: Like it you have to adapt it a little bit.

[36:51] Brian Rosenthal: So it was really interesting to find that line.

[36:54] Kevin Ferguson: I don't know. I don't like to speak bad things for people, but I just feel like y'all are gonna have this problem a little bit more.

[37:00] Joey Richter: I mean, y'all are only getting more and more famous.

[37:02] Brian Rosenthal: The shows at 54 are sold out.

[37:04] Corey Lubowich: They were sold out before the pandemic.

[37:06] Joey Richter: They we brought you back, they immediately sold out again.

[37:09] Kevin Ferguson: Like, people are gonna just want so much more of y'all, and I'm just so excited to see the future of the Tin Can Bros.

[37:15] Brian Rosenthal: Like, this is so exciting. Are you guys excited?

[37:17] Corey Lubowich: You've been so nice.

[37:19] Joey Richter: Oh, yeah.

[37:19] Brian Rosenthal: It's unbelievable.

[37:20] Corey Lubowich: I'm from the Midwest.

[37:22] Joey Richter: No, I'm from the Midwest.

[37:23] Brian Rosenthal: We're the Midwest.

[37:24] Corey Lubowich: We're in the middle of the I went, I'm from Ohio.

[37:26] Joey Richter: Oh, and you guys said you missed.

[37:29] Brian Rosenthal: I know.

[37:30] Corey Lubowich: I tried to ignore this part.

[37:32] Joey Richter: Yeah, I don't care either.

[37:33] Brian Rosenthal: I was a theater kid, but I am from Columbus, Ohio, and they are very passionate.

[37:38] Corey Lubowich: I know.

[37:38] Joey Richter: I know.

[37:39] Brian Rosenthal: I tried to ignore this.

[37:41] Kevin Ferguson: You're right.

[37:41] Corey Lubowich: And the podcast theater.

[37:42] Joey Richter: This is what theater is about, though.

[37:44] Brian Rosenthal: Theater is about us just putting aside these very big issues and showing some art together.

[37:51] Kevin Ferguson: Honestly, there are gonna be some listeners who have no idea what we're talking about right now.

[37:55] Corey Lubowich: Yeah, we're gonna be able to do that.

[37:56] Joey Richter: In this in this sports moment.

[37:57] Brian Rosenthal: And that's okay.

[38:04] Corey Lubowich: It's a real thing, y'all.

[38:05] Joey Richter: It's a big deal.

[38:07] Brian Rosenthal: It's a real thing.

[38:08] Corey Lubowich: But honestly, Kevin, we're also honored to be like doing a show at 54 Below because it's just such a historic New York theater cabaret space.

[38:17] Joey Richter: And the people who have graced that stage, that list is just endless.

[38:20] Brian Rosenthal: So it's very cool for us, and it's very cool to reunite most of that original cast for the first time in six years to go to New York and do a concert.

[38:29] Corey Lubowich: And since we did our first Off-Broadway run in 2018, we've been wanting to get back to the city because producing a theater in Chicago and LA is wonderful, but New York is really the place to do it.

[38:41] Joey Richter: Yeah, as we all know.

[38:43] Kevin Ferguson: Well, we are excited to have y'all listeners October 25th and 26 at both 7 and 9:30.

[38:49] Brian Rosenthal: You got four chances to maybe squeeze and see if you can find a ticket because they're very sold out.

[38:55] Corey Lubowich: Get on that wait list.

[38:56] Joey Richter: Get on that wait list.

[38:58] Brian Rosenthal: They will love to have you there.

[39:00] Kevin Ferguson: Brian, Corey, Joey, this was dope. We gotta have another conversation.

[39:04] Corey Lubowich: This was so fun.

[39:05] Joey Richter: Let's I know you're super busy right now being the future of Broadway, but when we bring the next show to 54 Below, okay, come on, next show.

[39:16] Brian Rosenthal: Which maybe we will do sooner than later, if we're being honest.

[39:20] Corey Lubowich: So yeah.

[39:21] Joey Richter: We would love to have you.

[39:22] Kevin Ferguson: Do you have any models y'all like to live by or leave our listeners with, or you just want to say bye?

[39:27] Brian Rosenthal: Well, before we do that, I did want to plug like if you aren't able to see the show, okay.

[39:32] Corey Lubowich: Tell them about it.

[39:33] Brian Rosenthal: The cast album is available, Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you listen to music, and you can watch the entirety of the 2016 production on YouTube.

[39:44] Joey Richter: Okay, so if you don't get to see it live this time, they're telling you not all hope is lost.

[39:50] Kevin Ferguson: Aren't these guys amazing? They're giving you opportunities to still see them if you were too slow to get a ticket.

[39:55] Corey Lubowich: Yeah.

[39:56] Brian Rosenthal: And follow us, you know, on Instagram, Twitter.

[39:59] Joey Richter: We're just at Tin Can Bros.

[40:00] Brian Rosenthal: Get updates on whatever we're doing, new projects, left and right.

[40:05] Corey Lubowich: It's always fun to bring more people into the Tin Can fam.

[40:08] Joey Richter: And Kevin, I think you're our newest member.

[40:11] Kevin Ferguson: No, I'm a cousin for sure. I'm definitely in the Tin Can fam.

[40:15] Joey Richter: I don't know if I'm a brother. I don't want to take that title from y'all, but I'm definitely a cousin of the Tin Can fam, for sure.

[40:21] Corey Lubowich: Love it.

[40:22] Brian Rosenthal: Yeah.

[40:22] Joey Richter: No wisdom, just plugs.

[40:24] Brian Rosenthal: Okay.

[40:25] Kevin Ferguson: No wisdom, just plugs.

[40:26] Brian Rosenthal: All right.

[40:27] Kevin Ferguson: Y'all here. I'm here to promote y'all, okay?

[40:29] Brian Rosenthal: Listen, thank you again, y'all.

[40:32] Kevin Ferguson: Please stay in touch, and I'm so excited to see the show.

[40:35] Joey Richter: Yeah, see you in a couple weeks.

[40:39] Kevin Ferguson: You've been listening to the 54 Below Podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[40:44] Kevin Ferguson: Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.