This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:36] Jess: Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Musicals with Cheese, and I am joined by one of my closest and dearest friends, Emily Clark.

[0:44] Emily Clark: Hey everybody.

[0:47] Jess: Um, and this is an emergency episode because people have been catty enough about this on Twitter that I feel like we need to have a proper conversation. Emily, what are we talking about today?

[0:58] Emily Clark: Oh gosh. We are talking about, um, well, I guess we're talking about IPs and musical theater. Um, we're talking about the Bridgerton. Um, Bridgerton. We want to do a little bit about it. Um, because this is some crazy shit. Unprecedented shit. Like, I feel like we like it's it's I think I made a tweet about it because this week it's just been IP argument crazy with the Hamilton Christian bullshit going on and the Bridgerton bullshit. I'm wondering which lawsuit will happen first and bigger.

[1:34] Jess: Yeah.

[1:35] Emily Clark: Well, the Bridgerton one is really surprised not surprising. I guess like pure, pure hubris, I guess, in some ways. Like it it's kind of like these creators had to have thought they could get away with this, like charge $150 for a Kennedy Center concert of the full show that is not a parody and not protected under parody law. And it's actually pretty clear that they are taking whole chunks, characters, lines, scenes, verbatim from Bridgerton. At least that's what I hear.

[2:13] Jess: The thing is, is like I don't, yeah, because I don't know the Bridgerton musical because I've never seen the show. So I've always just like, okay, well, when I get to the show someday, I'll get to the musical. Also, I don't know, it just felt it felt very much of that like TikTok younger generation musical thing. Like, I just was kind of like, eh, that's for them. That's fine. And then I know people who loved it. I know people who didn't love it so much. And then I hear about this that they're being sued by Netflix. Um, the creators, Barlow and Bear. Great, great, great uh vaudeville duo name. Um, but it it it kind of is like you can't just do that. You can't just do that, especially when Netflix offers you a license and you decline it. I I don't know what I'm either their teams stirred uh sorry, either their teams steered them incredibly wrong, or they didn't want to listen to them, or they know exactly what they're doing, and they're doing this to stir up controversy.

[3:14] Emily Clark: Okay, there are two minds I have of this. So, um, my context for the Bridgerton musical, I did listen to all of it, and I watched I benched all of Bridgerton so I could listen to it for this podcast. We did it a few months ago, right after it won the Grammy.

[3:26] Jess: Yeah, see, you're so much better than I. That was like my because like it was curious. It's a curio. You you have to talk about it, or else someone else will do it and then they'll say that you ripped them off later. So yeah, we gotta avoid that. So I knew about the Bridgerton musical, and I kind of liked it. I was like, it's fine, my biggest problem, as I brought up in the episode, was the framing of it as a TikTok musical, as if these were two nobodies when they are two very established people in the industry, trained by Meghan Trainor and Quincy Jones, and one of them is like a pianist that has been on Ellen DeGeneres since she was six years old. Like these are professionals in the biz who Yeah, they weren't just people on TikTok, which is how the framing of this so what I my opinion of what they probably thought was best case scenario, Netflix just turns the other way.

Worst case scenario, they sue us, and we have so much goodwill earned by our fandom and all that, be and it would just look like a corporation's coming after the little guys. They were using that framing of them being these two TikTok creators as a reason that they can get away with anything. But I think that all died when they won the Grammy.

[4:37] Emily Clark: I feel like all that kind of goodwill for that kind of died as the minute you got that legitimacy. It is fascinating to me that they won the Grammy for a musical theater piece when uh I mean we've been expanding what theater is, especially in this COVID world, but the fact that it was essentially a concept album winning for musical theater is kind of, I mean, I don't know what's right and what's wrong. I don't know if there's a better choice or another, but it is unprecedented. And then the other thing I'm hearing is oh, they're very they're like 20 and 23, but it's like they're professionals in the biz. Like them presenting themselves as like humble TikTok artists is uh is an angle, you know. It's it it's the whole accessibility, yeah, relatable kind of thing. And the reason why their stuff was able to even pop up more on TikTok is probably because they had the resources to do that. Um better.

[5:38] Jess: You want to hear what were the other nominees for the 2022 cast recordings?

[5:43] Emily Clark: What were they?

[5:43] Jess: Invalid Weber Cinderella, um Bert Bacharach and Steven Sater's Some Lovers, Girl from North Country, which is a show everyone's forgot about by now. Late Miz, the staged concert, um, Steven Schwartz Snapshots, which is a bunch of his just old songs, and the unofficial Bridgerton musical. So those were its competition.

[6:02] Emily Clark: Okay, well, that makes sense. I guess it's because we also theater wasn't being produced in 2021, you know, in the same way, so the pool is very different. And then what were you gonna give it to Cinderella?

[6:14] Jess: No.

[6:15] Emily Clark: Um I'm not a good Cinderella, I'm a bad Cinderella.

[6:15] Jess: I'm a bad Cinderella.

[6:20] Emily Clark: Um so yeah, it just feels like they kept getting away with stuff. Um, and and now it's like they they just can't anymore. And I think this is like the difference between um like the Ratatouille musical, which was genuinely made by a community and never did a concert for money, they did a charity concert, and that was yeah, and it was approved by Disney. Like that was like a Disney held event in a way.

[6:42] Jess: Yeah, yeah.

[6:46] Emily Clark: And um, to just oh god, I heard uh uh to just kind of whole hog take it and then keep being in contact with Netflix according to the lawsuit, and them kind of going, okay, we'll let this, but but don't do that. Uh they I feel like they had they got to the point where they were like they had to do it. Like they had to kind of I think the agreement from what because I read all 25 pages of the Netflix lawsuit. I because you know what? I got nothing else better to go on in my life. The way they framed it is the agreement, like, yeah, we're happy to have you guys do this. It looks good for us, it looks good for you. We respect you as artists. But as long as you don't take away money that we could be making, we're in good we're all in good.

So winning the Grammy, we let you guys have your Spotify album and release it. Yeah, that's great, because we're not we have our own thing, but and there's not really an overlap there. But we have this Bridgerton traveling event, and we really don't want that to get confused with you because we could take away money from you. You guys could take money from us because people think it's that, and don't put on these live concerts and charge people. You can do because in the past they have done charity concerts, both at the Kennedy Center, and those are all for charity, which is different than for profit. And selling merch with the Bridgerton logo on.

[8:01] Jess: Yeah, that's that's dumb.

[8:03] Emily Clark: And then like I feel like what people keep getting lost in the conversation, or what what keeps getting lost in the conversation is Julia Quinn, who wrote the books, who owns the IP and didn't give her IP to Barlow and Bear. She gave it to Netflix, and so they fan works, you know. If big corporations or IP holders went after every single bit of fan work, it wouldn't be worth it. Um, but when you're at this level where you're so high profile, you want a Grammy, and you're just like pushing, pushing, pushing, and then it's like max tickets, 150 dollars, and then we're gonna do it again in the world. Yeah, that that's um that's really playing with fire. And it it cuts to a point where Netflix was like, we have to do something, because that's copyright law.

[8:52] Jess: Like, and the thing is, I, you know, being a little theater person and like at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and whatnot, I've seen a lot of unofficial shows. I've seen a lot of parody shows. Um friends working on one, and I've seen many uh iterations of that, and it's great, and he's very careful on how he's handling that. Yes, and um, they're usually original songs, which is good.

[9:16] Emily Clark: Yeah.

[9:16] Jess: Um I remember there was one season of Fringe where there were multiple Game of Thrones parody musicals. But I've seen like a Sex in the City one, there was like a Twilight one, there was there used to be this group called For the Record that would do these unofficial, like kind of cabarets on like kind of a director um or theme. Oh, like for example, they did one that was like the Breakfast Club, and it was basically the Breakfast Club in Cabaret with the characters kind of singing the songs from the score. And that they must have gotten permission to do that eventually because my friend did that like on cruise ships.

[9:50] Emily Clark: So um there there are also like things that are eligible, but like, so I'm gonna pull this specifically. Joe Iconis in his most recent album, just called Album. He has one song based in uh the world of what is that film, Death Becomes Her. One song from the point of view of Michael Myers returning to Haddonfield, one song in the point of Norman Bates, and like he doesn't own the IP, he just keeps it vague enough where it could be about that.

[10:19] Jess: So there are those options you could have too, but they decided to do none of those options with Bridgerton, and you whether we like it or not, the Bridgerton brand is the only reason why anyone knows that this show exists or knows who Barlow and Bear are on a national level big enough to win a Grammy. Um, that show is such a big hit. If they were smart, they would have used that and then been like, we have our own show that we're working on right now and immediately springboard that so they would have springboarded their own content as opposed to using anyone else's.

[10:49] Jess: As soon as they won the Grammy, they should have just been like, all right, here's our next project, and we are gonna perform demos of that here at the Kennedy Center, and maybe one song from Bridgerton to keep you guys happy. That would have been a very smart move on their part. But they wrote new songs for the Bridgerton musical and performed it start to end with actors like performing it.

[11:08] Emily Clark: Yeah, or like you do what um uh like fan fiction writers do when they want to get their work published, and you just like scrub the serial numbers off and like change some names, change some locations, you know, the Twilight.

[11:20] Jess: Few shades of gray fifty shades of gray, exactly. And then you make it transformative enough. Or, you know, take like a play like Dog Sees God, where it everything is implied that these are the peanuts characters, but they don't have the names, the actual names, and um they they kind of walk that line of um kind of referencing the characters and just kind of work off of our pop cultural knowledge of them to kind of infer things. Um that being said, what makes Barlow and Bear halfway decent um musical theater writer is is they write very specifically. They have written themselves. I know you haven't really dove into this, but these songs are written so specifically into a hole they cannot be about anything else other than Bridgerton said like the plot could not be adjusted to fit anything that isn't the musical Bridgerton.

[12:09] Jess: Yeah, and like let the songs you could in theory also let the songs live in some nature, like your best songs. Like again, that would be something that wouldn't probably Netflix would be fine with if you can like share the royalties or something with them. But like, you know, a lot of these would do well in like cabarets and whatnot, I assume, since they did well as standalone pieces on TikTok. But um But the con removed from the context, they would not get any hits. These would not be songs. And again, it's not a parody, it's not transforming it or commenting on it or making it so that like you would never mix it up with you know a Netflix production. Um, and this is the line a lot of creatives have to walk, but I know a lot of people who write musicals, and the first thing they do when they get an idea from something that isn't theirs is they contact the estate and find out if they can write this or the company or whoever holds the rights and find out whether they are allowed to do that or not.

[13:08] Emily Clark: But they're young 22-year-olds, they think they can do anything for everything. But they are in the biz and they should know better. They should have someone that knows better with the fact that they have like people and representation handlers and whatnot, uh they're professionals.

[13:26] Jess: I you I one of my favorite pastimes um is watching you argue with young people on the internet. It brings me such joy to watch it happen. Um I see that a lot of youngsters that just think that Netflix are the big bad guys in this situation, are coming at you. What are their biggest defenses?

[13:41] Emily Clark: Some of them are like, why did they wait till now? Um why did they promote you know their stuff before? And it's like, first of all, anyone who owns an IP can go after you whenever there's no like statute of limitations on that. And that's exactly it. Once it started making money, that's when it became a problem. A problem. If they just kept doing it for funsies online and not really making any money, then nothing nothing would have happened. Um, and that's just not how intellectual property and copyrights work. And there's a lot of arguments you can have about copyright law and whatnot, but artists have to create their intellectual property the full stop. Um there's no statute of limitations on that.

[14:29] Jess: Um I think there's also just a lot of people who just got very invested in the two of them in Barlow and Bear. They think I know I know a few people who have uh parasocial relationships with them. Um just kind of see them as one of us. And the uh that that bothers me too, but I'll let you continue.

[14:51] Emily Clark: No, I mean, like, and even if they're not, that's okay. You can still admire them and like them, but like they made it they they fucked up. This is a mistake. You can't just completely take someone else's stuff and just be like, eh, whatever. And they more or less admitted to the mistake by pulling out of the Royal Albert Hall performance. Shit, yeah. So there you go. Like they they can't do it. And I think it'll be interesting to see what comes out further in this lawsuit because Netflix in in that document, they they really kind of they were thorough. They spilled a lot of tea, like they they kind of uh told I I don't know. I think some people think that they're just lying, and it's like No, I I don't think so.

[15:26] Jess: I don't think so either. Just because uh when I have heard about this show and how it's still called the unofficial Bridgerton musical, I kept thinking like, okay, Netflix has to be involved in some way, or at least have given their permission in some way. And to find out, nope, nope, they just didn't, uh it is very um, it's bold. It's like, where do you get the where do you get the balls to do that? Like, ooh, it's the same with the uh the church doing that Hamilton that's a good transition um so these are the same issues and I I don't know if you saw this but I tweeted out like the Bridgerton lawsuit versus the Hamilton lawsuit dueling lawsuits and then someone's like how dare you even compare the two I was like they're they're about the same if you really think about it.

[16:21] Emily Clark: Yeah and and in this case it is the musical theater properties themselves that are being uh changed without permission and done without paying the rights like the big me as as a um educational theater person who directs middle school and high school productions literally the first thing I have to do is go to MTI or Concord or whatever and make sure my district has the funds because it is the biggest expense. This is Broadway is not where writers make their money folks I mean it helps but like they make their money forever from licensing these shows. And Hamilton isn't even licensable. You can't there's no junior there's no Hamilton Jr.

[17:04] Jess: Yeah there will be but no it's still running strong on Broadway. It's why my students will be like can we do wicked and I'll go no I can't get it. I can't get it they're still milking that they will milk that until they can't anymore. Until Cynthia Revo goes up in that movie and then suddenly those licenses will come out.

[17:20] Emily Clark: Yup yep yep yep so now here's the other thing is that um it's a church and churches have this way of being able to skirt uh taxation yeah, exactly. So they weren't profiting necessarily. Well, they I don't think they were charging tickets. Were they charging tickets?

[17:37] Jess: They put it out for free on YouTube stream. So I don't imagine they were charging for tickets.

[17:43] Emily Clark: Yeah. Well, and then to transform the work and make it about something that it's not.

[17:48] Jess: Yeah, or any of these ones. I saw the clips of them doing Beauty and the Beast and doing the same thing. You can't just you can't just do that. Like the it it's misrepresenting the author's intention. And obviously, you can have conversations with license holders and whatnot um creators with changes. Um the recent revivals of Oklahoma have demonstrated that. Um, where there's the one where they kept did it in Oregon where they um changed genders, um, had a trans character, you know, all that changed were the pronouns.

[18:25] Emily Clark: And then in this latest revival, every word is the same, but some of the orchestrations and the scoring are different and the and the dru um sorry and the directorial intent is different. Um, those are conversations. If you're gonna drastically change a piece like that, you have to be in communication.

[18:42] Jess: Um, I knew I was part of a theater company back in like 08-09, and they did Vita and they changed Che to be multiple characters. They wanted Chay to that's a choice, yeah. And so because they were like, Che didn't actually know of Vita, and it's like, yeah, that's not the point of why he's in the show, but whatever.

[18:59] Emily Clark: Um and and Rogers and Hammers, it was Rogers and Hammerstein at the time. Um, they held the rights and they found out the week of the show, and they said, You need to have a Che, or we're gonna cancel this production, we're gonna have to shut it down. And so they had to take one of the actors who was playing one of the Chays and kind of beef him up in in order to technically have the role.

[19:19] Jess: And they they were a pretty they're a pretty well known theater company. They're you know, they're not they've been around for a while, and um it was kind of that was a moment where I was like, that was bold, that was bold of you to do this without like asking them to design posters without a certain amount going to certain things uh even in your local high school oh yeah do you think that someone wasn't gonna go for you for making Hamilton say that he has repented with the Lord Jesus Christ and that is his legacy have you seen the clips of it my god this show's wild yeah and I feel bad for those kids because the kids want to do Hamilton they are always like they want to do shows like that they think it's cool they don't they're like 15 years old they don't know they don't know the deals with licensing rights or whether it's appropriate for their voices um or something they can handle and do in a respectful or or um even entertaining way it's up to the adults to be to be a little more aware it's so frustrating to me.

[20:20] Emily Clark: Yes and then it ends with uh LG anti-LGBT like sermon from their preacher like this ridiculous and the show obviously isn't really explicitly LGBTQ um in some subtext I suppose but it's more about kind of the racial diversity of it but if you think about the creative team or the actors who have been in it or just the blind man well of it all anyway like putting an anti LGBTQ plus sermon at the end is completely contradictory not just to Hamilton but like musical theater like in general um it it yeah and the thing is churches do this shit.

[21:00] Jess: They do this get away with it and get away with it. Like the Jenny Nicholson Easter videos that yeah, and those are those are funny, those are even more transformative, I'd say than than like kind of what this Hamilton thing was. Because it seemed like it was just Hamilton, but with these few Jesus-y things thrown in there.

[21:22] Emily Clark: Um, whereas, like, you know, I don't know, like the Avengers kind of singing pop songs. It's a little more like so good. Um, and you know, church, um, churches, uh, they do this, schools do this too. Like, I definitely all the major musicals and plays that I produce with my kids, I pay the rights and whatnot. But if they're doing like a review or if we're doing like a few songs from something, it's like that's a little different. Yeah, I'm not charging for admission. We're like a middle school, you know, no one really, no one would care about that. It's educational theater, like, and that's kind of a big thing about that is that no one's gonna go after like a public school for doing like a couple songs from your musical.

Um, they would if I mounted a full production, probably without the rights. That's a different story. Um, but then again, like you're not even then they might not be as litigious because you know, you're not making a huge profit from that. If anything, you're just keeping your program afloat. Just use Pirates and Penzance and put Jesus into it, because you know what? That’s basically you don't even need permission to do that one. No, yeah, find you some public domain stories and then just build a story off of that and you know, throw some stuff. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what Hamilton chooses to do. Well, Lynn made his a proper statement today saying that he's not happy with it. Yeah, but he was like, let the lawyers do their work.

So, and that's also what I'd say about the Netflix thing. Um, back to Barlow and Bear before we wrap this on up. Let what do you do you think this is gonna do a damage? Because I thought they were gonna have a meteoric rise. I thought they were gonna have like a track to like maybe like do some film or Broadway work after this, but now I'm thinking this has put a big sully on their reputation in a way that I doubt they even expected. Like I'm surprised at how quickly the internet turned on them.

[23:18] Jess: Yeah, I think if they, I hate to say this, uh, and pull this card. I think if they were men, they would be able to get away with it a little bit more. Um, we tend to, you know, when women do something wrong like this, they tend to get vilified a little bit harder.

[23:31] Emily Clark: Yeah. Um, but on the other hand, like th they did what they did. Like, uh, you can't deny that. I think it would be very smart of them to try to let this go and to settle that lawsuit as much as possible and try to put it behind them because they're obviously very talented and they have connections. Extremely talented, they have connections, even more so now. So I think like you were saying, if there was ever a time for them to use it as the jumping off point, they will be able to. But I think I don't know. I mean, some people, uh, some people might be willing to work with them again because they probably are not likely to make this mess up again. Do you know who's hanging out with them basically every weekend?

[24:12] Jess: Who?

[24:12] Emily Clark: Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber. They are like the, like on his TikTok, he's hanging out with Barlow and Bear a lot. So my first guess is that there's gonna be a Lloyd Weber Barlow and Bear collaboration where he's using their internet clout to try to make his shows look cooler, where they'll either be brought on as like lyricists or musical accompaniment. So I think that's where they're headed. And if that is where they're headed, lawsuits, this won't be their first lawsuit.

[24:45] Jess: Yeah, they might sue him.

[24:47] Emily Clark: They might sue him. Um, or he might be like, all right, so you hire Patti LuPone and then you fire Patti LuPone.

[24:56] Jess: Oh god.

[24:57] Emily Clark: Yeah.

[24:59] Jess: Oh, well, then they'll be fine. I mean, they'll if they're meeting, if they're hanging out with Andrew Lloyd Weber, he maybe he'll pay for their legal bills or something.

[25:08] Emily Clark: I don't know. I think that they're gonna be fine. And I don't mean that in a negative kind of like pithy, like, oh, they'll be fine, stop worrying. I think that they were gonna be fine whether Bridgerton hit, and it was a matter of when the exposure got out. Um, that being said, I think this did do a lot of damage to how fast they're gonna do their next thing.

[25:30] Jess: Yeah, and I think you're right. I think they really did misjudge how the internet would respond. Because while there are still just people who are like just Barlow and Bear stands and just gonna believe whatever they say, even though they haven't said anything yet.

[25:45] Emily Clark: Which also I think is a bad look.

[25:47] Jess: Yeah, it's not great. Um, but I think, uh, enough people are creatives, especially on the internet. Enough people create art of various across various media, and they don't want their work just taken by someone and have them profit off that. I mean, just look at anyone who gets who steals someone's art on Twitter and then just reposts it without um an attribution.

[26:10] Emily Clark: Propping out the watermark.

[26:11] Jess: Exactly. Like I think a lot of people, um, I think a lot of people genuinely understand that. And I think there were a lot of us watching this Bridgerton thing and going, when's the other shoe gonna drop? Because this is still going and and Netflix is just not saying anything.

[26:27] Emily Clark: Like, do you guys work with Netflix? I don't know.

[26:29] Jess: And then Netflix had to be like, nope.

[26:31] Emily Clark: I think Netflix were good to look away until the moment it stopped being good for them.

[26:37] Jess: Yeah.

[26:38] Emily Clark: Yeah.

[26:39] Jess: And it's fair. I'd do the same thing if it were me.

[26:41] Emily Clark: Exactly. It was only profitable for them at first because isn't in the best light right now either. They've got a lot of shit. But in this one fleeting instance, I think they're in the right to do this.

[26:54] Jess: Yeah.

[26:55] Emily Clark: I don't agree with you a lot, Netflix, but I think this was the right choice. I think it would have gone farther. And again, I want to bring it back to uh Julia Quinn who wrote these books something like 20 years ago. Like she she gets nothing, like nothing from any of this.

[27:10] Jess: Uh, that's like kind of shocking to me.

[27:13] Emily Clark: And the fact that they were offered a license and they just went like that license had to be really bad, or they just thought they could keep getting away with it.

[27:20] Jess: And that definitely is the hubris side of it.

[27:22] Emily Clark: Yeah. Yeah. Like they were like, it's not like these ladies were hurting for money. Um, they were both from the wealthier side of the tax bracket.

[27:32] Jess: Mm-hmm.

[27:33] Emily Clark: So I I don't know. So Emily, what I'm hearing here is that you and I need to start a Bridgerton rewatch podcast where we watch Bridgerton.

[27:43] Jess: God.

[27:44] Emily Clark: Well, I watch it where I watch it like for the first time.

[27:48] Jess: Um, yeah, sure. Let's do it.

[27:51] Emily Clark: I would love to. Um then we can compare to the musical.

[27:55] Jess: Hell yeah.

[27:56] Emily Clark: And then we can say which is better.

[27:57] Jess: You know what? If you want us to do this, let us know. I, I, any excuse to spend more time with Emily Clark is a welcome into my life. So if there is like enough love, I think I can convince her to do it.

[28:08] Emily Clark: Because I don't think I need the convincing idea.

[28:09] Jess: Ooh, tell us, folks, tell us. What else do you want to hear us bitch about?

[28:13] Emily Clark: Oh, yeah.

[28:14] Jess: New segment Jess and Emily bitch.

[28:16] Emily Clark: Jess and Emily bitch.

[28:18] Jess: Bitcherton.

[28:19] Emily Clark: Bitch or that's actually a great podcast title for a British.

[28:24] Jess: Bitcherton! Exclamation point.

[28:26] Emily Clark: The unofficial podcast musical.

[28:30] Jess: And then we can take a picture like Barlow and Bear like in that chair with the with the TR.

[28:36] Emily Clark: We just Photoshop our faces onto it.

[28:38] Jess: Talk to their faces.

[28:39] Emily Clark: There you go.

[28:39] Jess: There you go. And then we'll be like, what? It's transformative.

[28:42] Emily Clark: Yeah.

[28:42] Jess: Or Emily, Emily, we can record our own album.

[28:47] Emily Clark: Like that's just the Bridgerton album, but we just replace every character name with Emily and Jess.

[28:54] Jess: I'd go and be Jess.

[28:55] Emily Clark: And I'll be just change every fifth word to like poop or something.

[29:01] Jess: I burr and for poop.

[29:06] Emily Clark: There you go.

[29:08] Jess: Sold. We got it. We got a concept here, baby.

[29:10] Emily Clark: We got it.

[29:10] Jess: Um, yeah, we're gonna make the millions.

[29:12] Emily Clark: Andrew Lloyd Weber, call us.

[29:14] Jess: Yeah, give us a call. We're gonna be able to do it.

[29:16] Emily Clark: 22 Grammys.

[29:17] Jess: We got it.

[29:18] Emily Clark: 2023 Grammys. Let's go.

[29:20] Jess: Yeah.

[29:21] Emily Clark: No, no theater works to be seen in the musical theater.

[29:24] Jess: Uh oh, Ms.

[29:26] Emily Clark: was in there.

[29:26] Jess: Yeah, lame is.

[29:28] Emily Clark: They need another.

[29:28] Jess: You know what we need is another Les Mis album.

[29:31] Emily Clark: You say that, but I just saw that the touring production of Les Mis was coming to Detroit.

[29:36] Jess: I bought the first five minutes of the posting.

[29:39] Emily Clark: Because I am a basic bitch, Emily.

[29:41] Jess: Yeah, that's okay.

[29:42] Emily Clark: That's okay. It's a good show.

[29:44] Jess: You're allowed.

[29:45] Emily Clark: Yes.

[29:46] Jess: Alright, Emily. For those that don't know, promote your stuff so they can find you.

[29:50] Emily Clark: Oh, sure. You can find me at Stealing Focus on YouTube, and we have a Stealing Focus Patreon. And uh you can find me at Emily A.B. Clark on all the socials that are appropriate for a woman my age to be on.

[30:05] Jess: And also, you just released an incredible video on Diana, the definition of camp and so many other things with a lot of wonderful people, including yourself.

[30:15] Emily Clark: Including you.

[30:16] Jess: Oh, blinking you'll miss me.

[30:18] Emily Clark: No, it's the best.

[30:19] Jess: It's the best. You have to watch to the very end, though.

[30:21] Emily Clark: So yes.

[30:22] Jess: Um, you're not gonna get like I'm just imagining people halfway. He's not in this yet. Where is he?

[30:26] Emily Clark: Yeah, where is Jeff?

[30:30] Jess: No, no one's ever thinking that, Emily.

[30:32] Emily Clark: I am.

[30:33] Jess: Oh, I'm right here.

[30:34] Emily Clark: And right on right next to the cheese.

[30:37] Jess: Hell yeah. Um I can't wait to see you in person. It's gonna be soon. I feel it in my gut. Like, I'm gonna be hanging out with you, drinking wine, and we're gonna sing musical theater songs.

[30:46] Emily Clark: It'll be a good time.

[30:47] Jess: Done and done, baby.

[30:48] Emily Clark: Done and done.

[30:49] Jess: Alright, we'll see you next time on Bitcherton.

[30:52] Emily Clark: Bitcherton with Jess and M.S.

[30:59] Jess: Today.

[31:23] ♪ Musical number: "Dancing in the Same Room" — performed by Jess and Emily Clark ♪