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[0:32] Alright, on to the real show.

[0:37] Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Musicals with Cheese.

[0:41] In this podcast, I will be interviewing Ellen Winter and Chris Littler, the two creative minds behind the incredible podcast musical 36 Questions.

[1:03] This interview was recorded in late 2018, originally intended to be used in a video essay.

[1:09] However, this did not reach completion due to there not being very visual aids for a podcast musical.

[1:15] What was I thinking?

[1:16] Either way, let me give you some history about 36 Questions before we dive further in.

[1:21] 36 Questions is a podcast musical starring Jesse Shelton and Jonathan Groff.

[1:26] In this three-part podcast musical, a couple attempts to bring their marriage back from the brink of divorce using 36 revealing questions designed to make strangers fall in love.

[1:35] If you haven't listened to the musical before, please do.

[1:38] I highly recommend it, and I would rather you give it a listen before listening to this very spoiler heavy interview.

[1:43] So without further ado, let's get to the interview.

[1:46] This is Chris Littler and Ellen Winter on 36 Questions.

[1:52] And what’s true for you.

[1:56] Doesn't have to be true forever.

[2:02] Well, today I am joined by two super special guests that I'm gonna let introduce themselves, but really two incredible human beings.

[2:09] So please introduce yourselves.

[2:11] Chris Littler: Okay.

[2:12] Ellen, you want to go first or I'm gonna go first?

[2:14] Ellen Winter: We go first.

[2:15] Chris Littler: Uh my name is Chris Littler.

[2:17] I'm a co-writer, co-director, co-composer of a podcast musical called 36 Questions.

[2:24] Um, and uh my co-writer is Ellen Winter, and we are here to talk about uh 36 Questions and about making audio fiction musical thing.

[2:35] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[2:36] And I'm Ellen Winter, the co-writer, director, composer as well, and super stoked to go into the depths of our audio musical um brain savings.

[2:49] Chris Littler: Brain savings is better than thing.

[2:52] Ellen Winter: You went up to me yet again.

[2:54] Chris Littler: Oh sorry, you punched it up.

[3:00] Ellen Winter: Good punch it up.

[3:01] Chris Littler: Okay, so the first question is what is your backgrounds and individual like experiences with musical theater, and what made you decide to go into musical theater as an outlet for creative expression?

[3:13] Ellen Winter: Yeah, uh I grew well, I grew up in um Northern Virginia.

[3:17] I went to high school in DC at um like a performing arts high school kind of a thing, and actually theater was my first, was I would say my first love.

[3:26] Um, and musical theater was a huge component of that, and I'd been writing songs like basically all through growing up, and then in college I went to Sarah Lawrence, where I intended to go in to study acting and playwriting, but was very much like whole-time continuing to write songs and eventually like concept songs and concept albums and I realized that I was writing plays independently of writing music and like all I really wanted to do was like theatricalize the music I was writing and then I was like oh I wanna write musicals whole time um so that was like a I would say a big big revolution um that I had in my college years and I met Chris around that time and we started working together in a band um called Chamber Band that Chris started uh with a bunch of like concept albums based in fictional universes so I would say like terms of what came first like the love for podcast or musical theater I would say like podcast was like a lovely thing to blossom out of our love for both like indie music and theater like for me I really love working in new theater and new musical theater and um finding ways to like find the overlap between that and uh and new music.

[4:48] Chris Littler: So is it my turn?

[4:49] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[4:50] Chris Littler: This is me I'm passing that was the pass up okay cool.

[4:54] Ellen Winter: Is that what they call them in sports the pass up?

[4:56] Chris Littler: The pass-up yeah that's like a sports thing.

[4:58] Ellen Winter: Yeah I've seen it seen it anyway so I started my professional sports career um at the age of four playing soccer.

[5:06] Chris Littler: No I very similar to Ellen I I um have a deep love for music and songwriting that that started pretty early on and um I went to school.

[5:18] Uh not specifically for that.

[5:20] I went to school for screenwriting.

[5:23] Um, and throughout that whole process, I always like would come back to music because it's it's just inherently cathartic to write music.

[5:30] Um, sometimes it's like necessary to write music.

[5:33] Um, and Ellen and I were in Chamber Band.

[5:36] Um, and we wrote two full albums together.

[5:40] And um, but it was real, it was my um, I went to NYU for screenwriting, and it was my freshman year roommate Zach Acres, and our other friend went to NYU Skip Bronchi.

[5:52] They um they got into podcasting doing a show called Limetown.

[5:57] Their follow-up to that was 36 Questions.

[6:00] And so they brought that was the connection that got me there.

[6:03] And so this was kind of like being able to like fuse um storytelling and and music in a great way.

[6:09] And it was nice to do to be able to flex the theatrical musical muscle, whatever that is.

[6:17] Ellen Winter: Yeah, yeah.

[6:19] Chris Littler: It felt like uh um, it really felt like a dream come true, but it wasn't like a dream that I was actively chasing when it happens, and now it's like all I want to do is make more musicals.

[6:30] Ellen Winter: You caught it, you caught the bug.

[6:32] Chris Littler: I got the bug, baby.

[6:34] Ellen Winter: Let's do it.

[6:34] Chris Littler: Next up, Broadway.

[6:37] Ellen Winter: Woo!

[6:37] Chris Littler: So you guys started to working together on Chamber Band, right?

[6:42] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[6:42] Chris Littler: So at what point did you guys start considering the project 36 Questions or the project that would become 36 Questions?

[6:49] Ellen Winter: It was brought to us.

[6:51] Chris Littler: It was um so Skip and Zach had the original idea for 36 Questions, which is gonna be more like a Linklater-esque indie movie.

[6:59] Um, same concept uh of a couple who are on the rocks, maybe on the brink of divorce, using these 36 questions to resolve their differences.

[7:09] Um maybe.

[7:11] Ellen Winter: Um, and then they got it in their heads that they wanted to do a musical because that would be stretching the podcast form, which is what they're working in.

[7:19] Chris Littler: So they brought us into that idea, and from that point on, Ellen and I were working to basically come up with our version of that conceit um and building it from there.

[7:30] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[7:30] Chris Littler: And a lot of our uh like as as we were talking about, like we did those two albums together that we wrote, and those were both based in fictional worlds, and so we were kind of like towing the line of musical theater for a while, and it was very uh it it felt like in a weird way where the runway had been heading the whole time is like, oh, we're just gonna write a musical together eventually.

[7:57] Um and had like definitely exchanged and had conversations about like what musicals we liked, and when we kind of got into the thick of writing it in um well, Skip and Zach came to the came to us in late 2015 with the idea.

[8:12] Um, like around this time, I think actually.

[8:15] Ellen Winter: Oh, it's the anniversary.

[8:17] Chris Littler: Oh weird anniversary.

[8:23] Ellen Winter: Yeah, it was an early late 2015.

[8:26] Chris Littler: Um and we were just yeah, we were super excited by the idea of of raising that music storytelling to another level.

[8:37] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[8:38] Chris Littler: I was gonna say we're came up with a process too.

[8:40] Ellen Winter: Yeah, yeah.

[8:42] Chris Littler: A process that is not um typical, I would say, of most musical theater writing pairs.

[8:49] Ellen Winter: Which I didn't know going into it.

[8:51] Chris Littler: Yeah, neither did I.

[8:52] Ellen Winter: I didn't well, I you had written a musical by yourself.

[8:54] Chris Littler: I had written a musical by myself and like worked on musicals independently.

[8:59] Ellen Winter: So we didn't really like have a model for what the collaboration process should be aside from what we had already, which was like how we write songs together, which is very much like, hey, I have this idea and I want to bring it to you and let it go through your brilliant brain filter and see what comes out on the other end.

[9:16] Chris Littler: Um so that just works for us for both music and lyrics and scenes, which is fun.

[9:23] Ellen Winter: So your guys' writing process wasn't specifically like you're the music guy and you're the lyric guy.

[9:28] Chris Littler: It was more like a collaborative everyone on board process.

[9:31] Ellen Winter: No, we had music guy and lyric guy, we paid them at a party.

[9:36] Chris Littler: Yeah, yeah.

[9:36] Ellen Winter: So like Ellen said, it was it it's there's everything passes through us and the genesis of we can both come up with ideas for both sides, and it's usually comes down to once we have some sort of breakthrough, it's like what sounds the most fun to you.

[9:51] Chris Littler: How okay, I'll do this part and you do this part, and then we come back and it passes through and kind of like a DNA strand.

[9:59] Ellen Winter: You know, it's dumb.

[10:00] Chris Littler: Yeah, the DNA musical strand does this kind of thing.

[10:03] Ellen Winter: This is good.

[10:04] Chris Littler: Some good gift content right here.

[10:06] Ellen Winter: This is good.

[10:06] Chris Littler: Oh, you're right.

[10:10] Ellen Winter: Oh, that was great.

[10:13] Chris Littler: So what is your direct like musical influences to 36 Questions?

[10:19] Ellen Winter: I know you mentioned Linklater as like a structural influence, but this doesn't have like the casual musical theater like structure.

[10:26] Chris Littler: I mean, this entire show is like made out of the conditional love song.

[10:30] Ellen Winter: Totally.

[10:31] Chris Littler: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[10:33] Ellen Winter: Um, I mean, I think Sondheim and Alan Mencken are like big musical guideposts for us.

[10:40] Chris Littler: Um, I would also say like we each pull from different musical theater writers we like too.

[10:46] Ellen Winter: I'd say like that's our Venn diagram overlap in terms of musical theater.

[10:50] Chris Littler: But we also um I would say, like, obviously, uh I I like I really like Cesar Alvarez and Heather Christian, who are like new musical theater writers.

[11:03] Ellen Winter: Um and uh um yeah, what about you, Chris?

[11:08] Chris Littler: I'm trying to think of like who we were trying to musically emulate, but I I'm really coming up short.

[11:14] Ellen Winter: Well, I would say like musical, those are like musical theater structure humans, but musically we I feel like mostly pulled from like music we listened to.

[11:23] Chris Littler: Like we were looking at Alt J, we were looking at um Fiona Apple, we were looking at Sylvanesso, we were looking at I remember talking about Fiona Apple a lot because it was we knew we wanted it to be baby grand piano, and we knew we had Sam our drummer, our percussion dramaturg.

[11:43] Ellen Winter: So when it came to yeah, we knew what the components were and we just knew we wanted to keep it simple.

[11:48] Chris Littler: Yeah, right.

[11:50] Ellen Winter: It's all coming back to me now.

[11:52] Chris Littler: Yeah, yeah.

[11:54] Ellen Winter: I would almost say that like structurally and musically, we kind of uh pulled from different places with the faith and hope that it would distill into something that made sense.

[12:06] Chris Littler: Like we take these things that we all that we really love and feel very strongly about and kind of put all these different elements in one space, right?

[12:14] Ellen Winter: Uh let's like see how it plays out.

[12:16] Chris Littler: This like Linklater, Sondheim, Fiona Apple thing.

[12:20] Ellen Winter: Right.

[12:21] Chris Littler: But I mean, am I crazy to think that this I mean the songs are very much in your musical writing style, right?

[12:27] Ellen Winter: Like if they feel like very much of your, you know, cut from Ellen Winter cloth.

[12:33] Chris Littler: I mean, right?

[12:34] Ellen Winter: When they all like live on when all live on the same album together.

[12:39] Chris Littler: I think they live in the same world, but I would also say like they also are a result of our collaboration too, and just the kind of Oh, I was there.

[12:47] Ellen Winter: Yeah, no, no.

[12:47] Chris Littler: No, you're right.

[12:48] Ellen Winter: I was there.

[12:51] Chris Littler: It's like it's I mean it's it's the it's our style.

[12:54] Ellen Winter: I mean, I I like a couple of the songs came from stuff you had.

[12:59] Chris Littler: Yeah, that were like at one point.

[13:02] Ellen Winter: And then Chris was like, this would be great with a chorus.

[13:05] Chris Littler: I was like, basically what I do is I pace and say, let's add a chorus.

[13:11] Ellen Winter: Can it just go up here?

[13:12] Chris Littler: Just like make it go.

[13:13] Ellen Winter: Just literally, here's the hot tip.

[13:15] Chris Littler: Just go up an octave and you have a chorus.

[13:19] Ellen Winter: Just go up an octave.

[13:20] Chris Littler: There's science, there's science here.

[13:22] Ellen Winter: There's a New York Times article about it, Shrida.

[13:24] Chris Littler: It's cheat.

[13:25] Ellen Winter: Major cheat.

[13:26] Chris Littler: Go up an octave.

[13:29] Ellen Winter: I'm not kidding.

[13:32] Chris Littler: Isn't that why we're here to give the hot tips?

[13:36] Ellen Winter: Or up the fifth, you know.

[13:37] Chris Littler: Yeah, fifth.

[13:38] Ellen Winter: Do both.

[13:39] Chris Littler: Can't why not?

[13:40] Ellen Winter: Do you have it?

[13:40] Chris Littler: Find the highest key on the piano that you can hit.

[13:44] Ellen Winter: Oh reach that note.

[13:46] Chris Littler: That's a lot sustained.

[13:49] Ellen Winter: Long sustained notes.

[13:50] Chris Littler: Long sustained notes, like the long sustained answer to the question.

[13:57] Ellen Winter: Sorry.

[13:58] Chris Littler: Sorry, that was yeah, we got lost.

[14:01] Ellen Winter: What else we got?

[14:02] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[14:03] Chris Littler: You know, I'm just so happy to hear that this was never a point in this production process where it was an actual first date where they had to get to know each other using the questions.

[14:14] Ellen Winter: I'm glad it always started this way.

[14:17] Chris Littler: Right.

[14:18] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[14:18] Chris Littler: Um, I wonder, I think that's yeah.

[14:21] Ellen Winter: I don't know if it was based on reality, but certainly I know part in our process. I mean, we were we all we both did it.

[14:27] Chris Littler: We both did the questions with our significant others that we're still together with.

[14:33] Ellen Winter: Yeah, I think mine just got home.

[14:34] Chris Littler: Hi Simon.

[14:36] Ellen Winter: Well, yeah. Ask him one of the questions.

[14:39] Chris Littler: Ask him question 3018.

[14:41] Ellen Winter: Ask him question 18.

[14:43] Chris Littler: Chris.

[14:44] Ellen Winter: Chris.

[14:45] Chris Littler: I'll ask him that.

[14:47] Ellen Winter: It's a bad question to start with.

[14:49] Chris Littler: Oh, you're right.

[14:52] Ellen Winter: I know the first half really well.

[14:54] Chris Littler: The second half, I don't remember as well.

[14:57] Ellen Winter: Second half is like all of is basically just leading up to question 36.

[15:02] Chris Littler: Or or songified.

[15:04] Ellen Winter: Right.

[15:06] Chris Littler: Well, my next question is which song is the hardest to write? Like which one was the one you struggled the most with?

[15:12] Ellen Winter: And which one was the easiest to write? The one that just came out and you were like bam, bam, bam, bam.

[15:17] Chris Littler: That's a good question.

[15:17] Ellen Winter: That's a really good question.

[15:20] Chris Littler: Um I have a vote for hardest.

[15:23] Ellen Winter: Yeah, I have a couple, I have a couple of votes for hardest.

[15:26] Chris Littler: What's your vote?

[15:27] Ellen Winter: I vote that we both is the hardest was the hardest.

[15:30] Chris Littler: Yeah, it's the it's a it's a funky song.

[15:34] Ellen Winter: We both think you look great in a sweater.

[15:38] Chris Littler: We both enjoy an empty cafe.

[15:42] Ellen Winter: We both are the actual human beings to waiters.

[15:47] Chris Littler: We both are not totally strange.

[15:49] Ellen Winter: None of that. We had a lot of different versions of we both, which was like, I think ultimately, like the solution.

[15:56] Chris Littler: I mean, there was a whole other song that was gonna happen before that song.

[16:00] Ellen Winter: So like I was trying to justify that song.

[16:03] Chris Littler: And then Chris kind of was like, okay, hot take. Let's try, let's cut that song and then shmush this whole scene so that it exists within we both.

[16:15] Ellen Winter: And that was like a huge revelation as um I was hitting my head against the keyboard trying to figure out the other songs of that act.

[16:22] Chris Littler: So I remember very vividly you coming with the author, like, I'm figuring it out. Here's a crazy idea.

[16:28] Ellen Winter: And I was like, that's brilliant.

[16:29] Chris Littler: You've cracked it.

[16:30] Ellen Winter: It's always a good fix when it's always like, Hey, you know that thing you're working on? You don't do it anymore.

[16:35] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[16:36] Ellen Winter: So yeah, it's yeah, exactly. It's like everything you're doing right now is the effort's great.

[16:41] Chris Littler: I fixed it.

[16:43] Ellen Winter: Yeah, it's gone.

[16:43] Chris Littler: It's gone now.

[16:44] Ellen Winter: Um, but yeah, it's an it's an interesting song. It's it's um, yeah, it's it's it's um I think it's just so crazy that all the songs kind of fit into it.

[16:53] Chris Littler: I listen I listened to it on Spotify. I'm always like, do I want to hear all these questions right now?

[16:58] Ellen Winter: And it's just the right amount of questions, in my opinion.

[17:02] Chris Littler: Before you're like, okay, I don't know if I could do more exposition slash mute cute meet cutie stuff in the middle of the song.

[17:11] Ellen Winter: I think it manages to walk that line successfully.

[17:14] Chris Littler: I am H O.

[17:15] Ellen Winter: That's just an opinion.

[17:17] Chris Littler: Totally, totally.

[17:18] Ellen Winter: And what do we think is the easiest?

[17:20] Chris Littler: The truth felt like it was a really like even collaboration song, where like essentially we had some idea of like what that song was gonna be, and Chris had like one of the things that we'll do is Chris will like word vomit a bunch of lyrics and just be like, this is the movement of the song, and I'll be like, Cool, great, I get this emotional journey, and then like I'll basically do my brain music filter through that and see what comes of that and we I gave you a whole song though for that one I gave you a hokey song.

[17:20] Ellen Winter: Yeah, yeah you gave me a song let me let me throw out all your music make entirely new music.

[18:34] Chris Littler: The truth doesn't exist sometimes two sights.

[18:40] Chris Littler: I yeah, I was really I felt I was really nervous about I did I think I texted you and I was like so Chris like this is great but um please don't be mad I have an entirely different song idea today and I remember getting that and being like sick I was like can I keep going with this idea and you were like just keep just keep doing it but it came out like in an afternoon and then um it's wonderful and it was very much like using the lyrics that had been a part of that old song and just like finding a way to kind of repurpose them in this new like groove that we found.

[18:47] Ellen Winter: That was a that was an easy song because you did all of it.

[18:51] Chris Littler: So it was super easy for me.

[18:53] Ellen Winter: Thanks no you did the words we did the it was a it was a team effort.

[18:58] Chris Littler: Oh right right right right right and I swapped some things around for how they were gonna say they're in like I mantra at the end which is very yeah yeah yeah you're good you you give those that structure brain put that in there it's all up here baby oh yeah yeah Judith Ford was also very easy I would say.

[19:17] Ellen Winter: Um, Judith Ford.

[19:18] Chris Littler: Oh, right, yeah.

[19:19] Ellen Winter: So that was one of the ones that was like the Genesis was my tinkling on a piano.

[19:24] Chris Littler: Yeah, yeah.

[19:25] Ellen Winter: And that was like it's an anxiety song.

[19:28] Chris Littler: Uh-huh.

[19:29] Ellen Winter: That was easy for you because I did all the work on that.

[19:31] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[19:33] Ellen Winter: Okay.

[19:33] Chris Littler: Wow.

[19:34] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[19:34] Chris Littler: I was the lyric filter on that one.

[19:36] Ellen Winter: I was like, let's swap some of these, but generally but none of them were easy.

[19:45] Chris Littler: Came after usually like uh several days, weeks and/or months of feeling like it was not easy.

[19:51] Ellen Winter: And then it felt yeah, it just pops out.

[19:54] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[19:54] Ellen Winter: It's like bump.

[19:55] Chris Littler: Oh, that's the right thing.

[19:56] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[19:57] Chris Littler: And then hopefully you just forget all the agony that came before.

[20:00] Ellen Winter: All the other drafts.

[20:02] Chris Littler: About how many drafts did you have for each song?

[20:05] Ellen Winter: Oh numerically, it's impossible to know.

[20:10] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[20:11] Ellen Winter: It's just like pain.

[20:13] Chris Littler: Really?

[20:13] Ellen Winter: Well, like it was very much like only a couple of drafts.

[20:18] Chris Littler: Right.

[20:19] Ellen Winter: Before we like really got to it.

[20:20] Chris Littler: Like I would say Hear Me Out once we once we figured out what Hear Me Out was, Natalie Cook, all those first episode songs, we were like, it's like kind of like you were saying, they're all conditional love songs.

[20:31] Ellen Winter: They were all transactional.

[20:32] Chris Littler: It was all like this is the thing that I want, the thing that I need from you, and this is how I'm gonna get it.

[20:35] Ellen Winter: And we're also getting all the exposition about like why they are in the situation and why the stakes are the way they are.

[20:41] Chris Littler: So we were like, cool, we just get to like kind of color in this world.

[20:44] Ellen Winter: And then once we got to like act two and three, it was like, oh my god, okay.

[20:48] Chris Littler: So now what are they gonna do with all this information?

[20:51] Ellen Winter: Right.

[20:51] Chris Littler: And those were as those songs moved with the moving pieces of the show, the drafts just got like, yeah, probably in the definitely in the double digits.

[21:03] Ellen Winter: For sure in the double digits, yeah.

[21:06] Chris Littler: By the end, maybe triple.

[21:07] Ellen Winter: I mean, but like you're doing like a bunch of drafts a day.

[21:10] Chris Littler: Right.

[21:10] Ellen Winter: Yeah, exactly.

[21:11] Chris Littler: When you're in the thick of it.

[21:13] Ellen Winter: It really is the the hardest work is this is the is getting to the song.

[21:18] Chris Littler: Because once the song, like the game of the song has been figured out, forgive me if I'm overstating this, Ellen.

[21:23] Ellen Winter: But like once you figure out the game of the song, I feel like it's actually pretty easy just to put something on the page and come up with it.

[21:31] Chris Littler: Right.

[21:31] Ellen Winter: It's the like justifying itself.

[21:34] Chris Littler: Yeah, like creating the game that the song is gonna be the game, you know, putting that quotes.

[21:40] Ellen Winter: Yeah, like once we figured out that like one thing was like a cumulative.

[21:43] Chris Littler: Yeah, the listening.

[21:46] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[21:47] Chris Littler: Yeah, it's all stuff.

[21:48] Ellen Winter: You guys any sound effects.

[21:52] Chris Littler: A duck.

[21:53] Ellen Winter: A duck.

[21:54] Chris Littler: What?

[21:55] Ellen Winter: Well, you guys are also the rare musical theater writers that are also the book writers.

[22:00] Chris Littler: So was there any strategies that you use to ensure that the spoken word matches the sung prose of the songs?

[22:06] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[22:07] Chris Littler: You should say we have did we have strategy?

[22:09] Ellen Winter: Like things that you would say, like avoid these phrases because they're not Jace, or avoid this because it's not Natalie, that type of stuff.

[22:16] Chris Littler: Oh, like musical phrasings.

[22:18] Ellen Winter: Kind of.

[22:19] Chris Littler: I feel like the the thing that was actually I I wouldn't say that we were super cognizant of like musical phrasings, which is like maybe showing our hand, but truly it was for us, it's like so much I would say so much the lyrics inform the phrasing, and it was mostly like clocking the lyrics or like where through which like lens this emotional experience is being told through.

[22:43] Ellen Winter: Like there were a lot of versions of Natalie's Judith songs.

[22:48] Chris Littler: Uh where um I would take first, I would take a first hit at uh writing them out, and Chris would be like, Ellen, this is great.

[22:57] Ellen Winter: This is exactly what Jace would say if this was classic Jace pretending to be Judith.

[23:05] Chris Littler: And I was like, God, this is a Jay's song.

[23:08] Ellen Winter: I fucked it up.

[23:10] Chris Littler: And then could be like, let me take, let me take a hit at it, let me take a try, let's take a try, and then I would be like, Oh, okay, great.

[23:16] Ellen Winter: Filter it through.

[23:17] Chris Littler: Because it's like very much like um what we kind of discovered is like I identify with more of Jace, and Chris identifies more with Judith.

[23:25] Ellen Winter: So, and and the same thing happened vice versa.

[23:27] Chris Littler: So when we would write from our heart spot, sometimes, like, you know, we would do a Jace song that would come across as to Judithy and would need to like revise on that too.

[23:37] Ellen Winter: So we were kind of able to clock each other, and we had um Chris's then fiance now wife, who was our story consultant also come in.

[23:45] Chris Littler: She's like uh like knows a ton about like Myers Briggs stuff, has written books about it, like really knows people's personality, is really great at tracking character work and was a huge asset in making sure that all of our scenes and our songs like really tracked um for the characters.

[24:03] Ellen Winter: Yeah, that's kind of what that was like her main job, really, was just to be like, are you being consistent across the course of this narrative with these characters?

[24:12] Chris Littler: Are there and that was one of the first things we came up with.

[24:15] Ellen Winter: We came we came up with theme.

[24:17] Chris Littler: I remember throwing theme up on the board, and I remember creating like a t chart of these are the characters and they're gonna be opposites of each other, they're gonna have an endless reason to fight really because they're never gonna see eye to eye um on these things, or they're if they move, they move really incrementally.

[24:32] Ellen Winter: Um so we knew that if we ever got into a bind in which we got into lots of binds, um, when you're writing something, um, we knew that there was always gonna be an out because there was always gonna be a source of conflict.

[24:51] Jess: Hey guys, we're sorry to interrupt you in the middle of this really good interview with Chris and Ellen, but I gotta shill at you. Today's show is brought to you by Audible.

[25:00] Jess: Audible is offering our listeners a free audiobook with a 30 day free trial membership. Just go to Audibletrial.com slash musicals with cheese and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs.

[25:09] Jess: Download a title free and start listening. It's that easy. Go to Audible Trial.com slash musicals with cheese.

[25:15] Jess: Audible content includes an unmatched selection of audiobooks, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more from the leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, and entertainers.

[25:24] Jess: To download your free audiobook today, go to Audible Trial.com slash musicals with cheese.

[25:29] Jess: Again, that's Audible Trial dot com slash musicals with cheese.

[25:32] Jess: And also, while I'm interrupting you, I should let you know what websites Ellen and Chris are at. You can find Ellen at Ellenwintermakesthings.com, and you can help fund her upcoming album, um, every feeling I've ever felt. It is on coming, and I'm sure she'll appreciate any donation, so shoot her some donation.

[25:52] Jess: You can find Chris Littler at his website, Chris Littler.com, or where you will find all of his work from thirty-six questions to Limetown to Chamberband.

[26:01] Jess: They're both incredible people, and you should go out and support their work.

[26:04] Jess: Alright, let's get you back to the interview.

[26:19] Chris Littler: She was thirty three.

[26:22] Jess: So this show has the theme of truth, and makes an argument that there can be emotional honesty without being factually honest. I'm curious of your guys' positions on truth and its factuality versus emotionality.

[26:36] Ellen Winter: Or your personal definition of truth and honesty.

[26:39] Jess: Anyway, that was too hard of a question, so we gotta go.

[26:56] Chris Littler: That we were like, well, what is the highest possible stakes for them doing the questions?

[27:04] Ellen Winter: Basically, is what the game that we played, right?

[27:07] Chris Littler: We were like, well, what if their marriage or relationship hinged on these questions?

[27:14] Ellen Winter: And the only reason that one would be so motivated to do them a second time is to prove that they can that they were not maybe maybe they weren't truthful the first time.

[27:23] Chris Littler: Um and what that kind of unlocked for us was just you know everybody kind of it felt like something we could all kind of relate to in a weird way.

[27:32] Ellen Winter: I mean, on an extreme level, but like you know, when you first meet someone you like, you want to be the best version of yourself.

[27:37] Chris Littler: You want to like you're we're constantly thinking about like the narratives that we tell about ourselves, even through like social media.

[27:45] Ellen Winter: Like, what are you posting? What are you reading? What are you sharing?

[27:48] Chris Littler: Like, there's 90% of your life that doesn't exist on the like curated narration that you provide to the world.

[27:57] Ellen Winter: Um, does that make that any less true?

[28:00] Chris Littler: You know, like um, so it was it was kind of a thing like Chris and I often talk about like wanting to give ourselves a problem that neither of us have an answer to, like, and that being the heart of the thing we make.

[28:13] Chris Littler: Um, and this really felt like we were like, Well, I kind of get why she did what she did and why she continued to do it.

[28:24] Chris Littler: Um, and really like making it about personal truth, like that was important to us too.

[28:30] Chris Littler: About like really about what it is that the individual person was really going through in terms of the narrative that she was trying to tell.

[28:45] Ellen Winter: Couldn't have said it better myself.

[28:52] Chris Littler: No, that was perfect.

[28:54] Ellen Winter: That was exactly why.

[28:55] Chris Littler: I mean, yeah, it's the unsolvable problem.

[28:57] Chris Littler: And on a on any given day, I still don't know what side I'm on.

[29:02] Ellen Winter: Oh, yeah.

[29:03] Chris Littler: Shit follows you, man.

[29:05] Chris Littler: My personal definition of truth.

[29:08] Chris Littler: Does it lean more to the factual side of honesty or the emotional side of honesty?

[29:13] Ellen Winter: Um, that's interesting.

[29:14] Ellen Winter: I think it's I I really think I'm I'm very middle ground about it.

[29:17] Ellen Winter: I I don't think that I don't think that someone it's so funny.

[29:22] Ellen Winter: It's like, do people have the right to obscure the facts?

[29:25] Ellen Winter: Do people have the right, like if you cheat on your partner and you don't tell them, is that a kindness?

[29:35] Ellen Winter: Because then you are keeping, you know, like then you're like then the pain is not put on them, the pain is put on you, the person that perpetrated, you know, like it's so slippery for me.

[29:45] Ellen Winter: Like what because truth is subjective regardless.

[29:50] Ellen Winter: Like, like besides like science fact, truth is subjective.

[29:53] Chris Littler: Our lived experience is full of uh hypocrisies and infallibilities and things that we take for granted that are not necessarily so, right?

[30:02] Chris Littler: So, like just take that for the baseline of it.

[30:04] Chris Littler: Then we're just like then everything almost everything is just emotional.

[30:08] Chris Littler: Everything that it's the truth that I choose to share with you about who I am.

[30:12] Chris Littler: It's truth that we choose to engage in in every any given day.

[30:16] Chris Littler: I'm Chris Littler, I'm an American and I live in a an open democracy.

[30:20] Chris Littler: I don't know, I don't know for sure about what those things, you know, like what if that is actually true?

[30:24] Chris Littler: What or what is that the story that I tell myself just to get through this day?

[30:28] Chris Littler: I don't think I would have been as interested in this show if I had a neat answer for that question.

[30:34] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[30:35] Ellen Winter: Yeah, I feel like in my brain, I kind of see two different definitions of truth, which is like also tricky, but it's like for me, there's like the truth of like a literal fact, right?

[30:51] Ellen Winter: Like, or an event that is like seemingly objective, and then there is like the subjective truth.

[30:58] Ellen Winter: Um, but it is all about like I think it's yeah, discovering what that line is of like subjective and objective truth.

[31:07] Ellen Winter: And um, and I think particularly like in on like an emotional and personal way.

[31:13] Ellen Winter: I mean, it's just so funny, like, even like using that example, like the first thought I'm like, well, it really depends on like the two people in that relationship.

[31:19] Ellen Winter: It's like if your relationship is is is uh there are some people that like if that were to happen and you'd be like, oh, this thing happened, it would be totally chill, you know, that would be like a conversation.

[31:33] Ellen Winter: And then there's another where that would like, you know, if the motivations behind telling that kind of um confession were to relieve oneself of the guilt and put that on, you know, it's like there's so many different shades to it, really depends on like who's telling the story and like from what angle they're telling it from and like why they're telling it.

[31:53] Chris Littler: So truth is like yeah, I think that there's also like truth that we don't see about ourselves, but then that kind of becomes someone else's idea of the truth of your story.

[32:06] Ellen Winter: So it's like super messy.

[32:08] Chris Littler: Yeah, they put it on, they put it on you.

[32:11] Chris Littler: Um, but yeah, like Chris said, it's like I don't really know, and that's kind of why it was fun to try and figure it out.

[32:16] Chris Littler: Because I feel like I know I know what I my my gut instincts of truth when it comes to the world, or like, you know, but those are kind of my opinions that I hope are steeped in truth.

[32:29] Chris Littler: Um, but in terms of like a personal narrative truth, it's like every day I'm trying to like get to like the honest shit of like what what am I doing?

[32:40] Ellen Winter: What does that really mean?

[32:42] Ellen Winter: Those are some really fantastic answers, guys.

[32:45] Ellen Winter: Like, it's really really good.

[32:49] Chris Littler: Like thinking about truth over here.

[32:51] Chris Littler: I'm like truth philosophy.

[32:53] Ellen Winter: Oh my god.

[32:54] Chris Littler: I'm gonna go to bed after this.

[32:57] Ellen Winter: I promise there's nothing that heady coming up.

[33:01] Chris Littler: Got it.

[33:01] Ellen Winter: Got it, got it.

[33:03] Chris Littler: So this show has two leads that are very flawed and have very blatant Hamar shows.

[33:07] Chris Littler: So was there ever a worry that you made them too unlikable and had to pull them back or anything like that?

[33:12] Ellen Winter: Oh yeah, totally.

[33:13] Ellen Winter: We were like, how on earth do we get people on Judith's side when she just admitted to the line to her husband for two years?

[33:21] Ellen Winter: And how do we like Jace when he's like wants to punch her?

[33:24] Ellen Winter: I mean, like in a non-domestic and violent way, but like like metaphorically, figuratively punch this person for like pooping on his heart.

[33:32] Chris Littler: Like, you know, you don't like ultimately.

[33:37] Chris Littler: Well, those were that was the thing that we were just given in the first moment, right?

[33:42] Chris Littler: That's why Henry kind of came about, and that's why we give that moment of um those moments of them in love at the top of the show.

[33:50] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[33:51] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[33:53] Chris Littler: Other other things, Chris.

[33:55] Chris Littler: I feel like I just word vomited all that.

[33:58] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[33:58] Chris Littler: No, there's like you're so you're so 100% saying exactly what I would say.

[34:02] Chris Littler: I'm just staying silent.

[34:03] Chris Littler: So what I can say is that's exactly true.

[34:06] Chris Littler: It was it was endless.

[34:08] Chris Littler: It's endlessly you're endlessly being like, okay, how far can we push this character?

[34:14] Chris Littler: How do you remain truthful to this character?

[34:17] Chris Littler: And yeah, you sometimes you have old cheats, like a duck is a cheat, right?

[34:23] Ellen Winter: Right, because we were like, oh, we can show him being kind of rude to Judith slash Natalie, but then we have this adorable creature for him to show his kindness to as like instead of comic relief, it's like cuteness relief, it's like sweet relief.

[34:37] Chris Littler: We're like, oh, Jace isn't a monster person.

[34:40] Chris Littler: He's just has his heart broken.

[34:42] Chris Littler: Right.

[34:42] Chris Littler: He's taking care of this duck to try and make himself feel better.

[34:46] Chris Littler: Takes care of the duck better than he takes care of his own kid.

[34:49] Chris Littler: That's Jace.

[34:50] Ellen Winter: Oh man.

[34:51] Ellen Winter: Yeah, that was rough.

[34:52] Chris Littler: Yeah, I honestly expected the kid's name to be Henry in the end.

[34:56] Ellen Winter: So weird.

[34:57] Chris Littler: Which we name our son.

[34:58] Chris Littler: Um, well, I had a duck once.

[35:01] Ellen Winter: Oh, it was a crazy night.

[35:03] Chris Littler: Oh what a crazy, crazy night.

[35:08] Chris Littler: What a crazy night, though.

[35:09] Chris Littler: So, were there any songs that didn't make it into the final product?

[35:13] Chris Littler: Like any kill your darlings moments that you're just still sad isn't quite there anymore.

[35:17] Ellen Winter: Oh yeah, there's like some so many songs.

[35:21] Ellen Winter: There's at least four that I can think of.

[35:23] Ellen Winter: There's a four that were in an or the original version of the show, which is very different.

[35:28] Ellen Winter: And this one never came back around.

[35:30] Ellen Winter: Um and then there was a bunch of alts for the beginning of act two where we both went.

[35:39] Chris Littler: An impossible act two like blowout number.

[35:43] Ellen Winter: Right, right.

[35:44] Ellen Winter: The bun and yeah, yeah.

[35:47] Ellen Winter: And then there was like kind of angrier songs, kind of more that didn't fit.

[35:55] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[35:56] Chris Littler: Um I mean emotionally, I don't I don't think I mean if they were like fully written songs that like were like conveying a ton of heart and like getting crazy work done, and we had to cut them for time, that would be one thing, but we never were in that situation.

[36:13] Ellen Winter: No, I mean, even songs that were full drafts that we ended up cutting, we were just like ultimately this song isn't working.

[36:19] Ellen Winter: And that's and it and and like Chris and I a big part of our process is we just we have so much from being in a band together and from working on like a bunch of different shows now, like we just have archives and archives of like song ideas that we've kind of categorized and titled by different emotions.

[36:45] Chris Littler: Just weird titles, it's like sinister, yeah.

[36:48] Ellen Winter: Yeah, I don't know.

[36:49] Ellen Winter: Sinister Discount this man in the sinister discovery.

[36:54] Chris Littler: There's one song that's just called Tegan and Sarah right now.

[36:56] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[36:57] Chris Littler: Straight up like this is just a song that uh makes her happy.

[37:00] Chris Littler: This is just a this is just a rip-off.

[37:02] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[37:03] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[37:04] Chris Littler: So those songs go into our rip-off bin, our rip-off recycling bin.

[37:09] Ellen Winter: So we rip ourselves off in the future.

[37:12] Chris Littler: Yeah, because inventing is like, I don't know, inventing is uh you you gotta kind of be alone to invent, right?

[37:18] Chris Littler: I feel like that's like a big part of our process.

[37:20] Chris Littler: Like, you go over here or you over here, I'm gonna invent something.

[37:22] Chris Littler: It's very different from like being together and being like, all right, we got this, we need a song for this.

[37:27] Ellen Winter: Like let's just think about the songs we have.

[37:29] Chris Littler: Oh, it's just like it's more like collaging as opposed to inventing.

[37:32] Ellen Winter: So just nice to have all that that the inventing will sometimes come out of like jamming though.

[37:38] Chris Littler: Or like Yeah, that's true.

[37:39] Chris Littler: Like, what's the feeling?

[37:40] Chris Littler: Okay, what's the feeling of this moment?

[37:42] Chris Littler: Let's just, oh, that's a nice feeling.

[37:43] Ellen Winter: I don't know.

[37:48] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[37:48] Chris Littler: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[37:49] Chris Littler: I'm hooked, some hook, I'm hooked.

[37:53] Chris Littler: Chris, we should totally jam sometime soon.

[37:56] Ellen Winter: You want to jam?

[37:57] Chris Littler: You want to tell them my history of jamming and how I was like the worst about jamming.

[38:02] Ellen Winter: Yeah, we used to joke that Chris is just this like old lady who um I just always imagined you with like a wig holding like a can of jelly or like a jar of jelly, saying, No more jamming.

[38:16] Chris Littler: It's like no more jam.

[38:18] Chris Littler: Just jelly.

[38:19] Chris Littler: When we were in a band, yeah, and we would get too jammy.

[38:22] Chris Littler: Chris would be like, guys, we have this space only for like an hour.

[38:25] Chris Littler: We can't just like let's practice our set.

[38:28] Ellen Winter: Truly.

[38:31] Chris Littler: Well, someone's gonna be that guy sometimes.

[38:33] Chris Littler: You know, someone's gotta just be that guy.

[38:35] Chris Littler: Yeah, or that grandma, you know.

[38:37] Ellen Winter: Someone's gotta be that grandma.

[38:39] Chris Littler: Someone's gotta be that grandma.

[38:40] Chris Littler: Grandma is like the best case scenario for that.

[38:42] Chris Littler: So I'm glad that that's how you pick it up.

[38:43] Ellen Winter: Yeah, no, yeah, it was like a loving.

[38:46] Chris Littler: I think we only use a love, mostly.

[38:49] Ellen Winter: Mostly love.

[38:50] Chris Littler: Mostly love.

[38:51] Chris Littler: It's my autobiography.

[38:53] Chris Littler: It came mostly with darker feelings.

[38:59] Ellen Winter: So the end of your show is so mature, so intelligent, so well thought out, and I love it.

[39:04] Ellen Winter: But were there any other alternative endings that you considered um while writing the show?

[39:10] Chris Littler: Interesting.

[39:11] Chris Littler: Um we definitely had a lot of different variations on that ending.

[39:16] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[39:16] Chris Littler: Um, I think one of the mantras that we had really from the spoiler alert, I don't even cut this together, but we'll just say spoiler alert right now for ourselves in case three of us haven't seen it.

[39:29] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[39:30] Chris Littler: Um but like going back to that original like T section and like the original thing.

[39:35] Chris Littler: Ellen was talking about like the original like thing that kicks off the show of like I've been lying to my husband for two years.

[39:41] Chris Littler: I I feel like we were always like, there's just no way.

[39:44] Chris Littler: Like there's no way for them to be back.

[39:48] Chris Littler: There's no way there's no rever.

[39:54] Chris Littler: It's like you you want so desperately to come back from that, but for me, it never felt realistic to me.

[40:01] Chris Littler: It never seemed plausible to me if you really played it out.

[40:04] Chris Littler: So I feel like we were always trying to be hopeful and always trying to keep them um, we're trying to smash these two people together and and get them to be the best versions of themselves um together.

[40:16] Chris Littler: Just never seemed feasible.

[40:17] Ellen Winter: Right, right?

[40:18] Ellen Winter: Or was that not in your brain?

[40:20] Chris Littler: That's just me.

[40:21] Ellen Winter: No, no, no.

[40:21] Ellen Winter: I think we talked about that.

[40:23] Ellen Winter: I mean, it was like even the hopeful version of this where like they try.

[40:28] Ellen Winter: Like I I think we were like, you know, some people like some people some people listen to that ending and they think it's very ambiguous as to like what happens after that song.

[40:39] Ellen Winter: And for a while too, I was like, you know what?

[40:41] Ellen Winter: I kind of feel like maybe we wanted to leave it open-ended and ambiguous and like I actually, you know, I could there's honestly my opinions about it kind of fluctuate where like there's time where I'm like they totally gave it another try.

[40:56] Ellen Winter: You know, I think it didn't work out, but maybe they gave it a try.

[41:01] Chris Littler: Um but ultimately I think it's like what what we were talking about of like there is no there's no way to like recover from it.

[41:11] Chris Littler: When you imagine them trying are you just imagining them like they go drop off Cooper and oh it leaves like Cooper in the car and they go to a motel and just do it.

[41:19] Ellen Winter: Can you leave Cooper in a car?

[41:21] Chris Littler: No leave Cooper in the car windows down.

[41:23] Chris Littler: This is Chase we're talking about leave the windows down and they just go bone in a motel is that what you're saying?

[41:30] Ellen Winter: No.

[41:31] Ellen Winter: But that's I mean it's not far off.

[41:34] Ellen Winter: It's like adjacent to whatever yeah it's first draft first draft first draft idea.

[41:39] Chris Littler: I'm like you know he gets a babysitter they maybe like you know maybe they Uber home I don't know right now I didn't really think it through because we ended it where we did.

[41:50] Ellen Winter: So oh right only thinking through now yeah but I think ultimately though it was like what we didn't want in the story was like a neatly tied ending because we were like this they've been through enough.

[42:04] Ellen Winter: I think they're kind of the at the end of the day, we wanted it to feel like a realistic journey for both of them.

[42:10] Jess: So which we feel like we don't always see a musical theater as much as we love musical theater. Um sometimes pretty good at sad endings. Um Laland had a dance poem. I hold the belief that musical theater is at its best when it's very specific and specificity is very important, and you guys do that incredibly well with things like Settlers of Catan and Chase's Bomb. So I'm wondering where those came about from and whether it be your real life or just specific things that you thought would fit these characters. As well, what made you guys decide to make this a period piece? When did it become a period piece?

[42:50] Chris Littler: I guess uh when we knew that there was a time jump, right? That's what Yeah, well when we knew that we kind of figured out that um the study came out while J Swith was was with his like new lady, um, and through that time jump we kind of worked backwards and we're like, oh you know, it has to be on an iPhone. So we're in this generation. And the specifics are just pulp from our lives, really.

[43:20] Ellen Winter: Yeah, truly. I mean, that's whenever you're making a joke, right? Truth and comedy, it's gotta feel real to your co-writer. So you're like, why this joke? Like, because that's true. That's it's always the easiest offense when you make a choice.

[43:35] Jess: Yeah. That's real. That really happens, you know. Like in like um in a better version, did you guys run over a squirrel with your car? Or is that uh?

[43:50] Chris Littler: I I did not run over a squirrel, but we You're you're here first, folks. Ellen Winter did not run over a squirrel. But I do recycle more and enjoy cooking more. And the glass of water on the bedside table you inside a glass of water on the bedside table is mean is me and my partner.

[44:08] Ellen Winter: I remember you defending that. I remember I felt really strong.

[44:13] Jess: What does this even tell us about them? It means that they are thinking about their thirst news if they wake up in the middle of the night and they have a dry mouth because radiators really make his face dry, and you have to be prepared.

[44:27] Chris Littler: That's true. See, it feels real. It feels real. She's got I've got real stakes in these glasses of water. Um, but but um in uh Judith Ford, um Jay says, my celeb wife Charlie's Theron.

[44:46] Ellen Winter: That is true of me. Celeb wife, that is my celeb wife, Charlie's Theron. I know that it would never work. She's so different.

[44:55] Chris Littler: You guys are like so different.

[44:56] Ellen Winter: She's so different. Um in good ways. I mean, she would push me, like, but eventually we'd we'd break. It'd be too hard. Plus she traveled so much. Um I assume. Um, and then what was it? Um over Obama and over Rihanna.

[45:13] Chris Littler: Rihanna was originally Malala. Malala, but Malala was not relevant in 2007.

[45:20] Ellen Winter: Right. It's another specific, and but we are willing to change the specifics if it will create a time paradox.

[45:26] Chris Littler: Yes. That's that's our limit. That's our hard edge. So, what is the incredible success of this incredible musical brought you now that it's all been done?

[45:36] Ellen Winter: Um I can die happy. I don't know about you, Ellen.

[45:41] Chris Littler: Yeah. It's been pretty great.

[45:44] Ellen Winter: Whoa, whoa, I said I could die happy. You just said it's pretty great. What's going on? What do you what do you got cooking up that's gonna be so much better than this? Huh? Come on.

[45:56] Chris Littler: We've peaked, baby.

[45:58] Ellen Winter: I'm fine with peeking too.

[45:59] Chris Littler: No, we didn't peak. We're we got so much, but no, I I do feel like this was the culminate, like we were saying at the beginning, this is the culmination of like so many like weird skills that I have and that Elliots have. And like being able to make something like this is and to have people react to it, and the people that react to it are people that you would want to hang out with.

[46:17] Ellen Winter: I just yeah, that's been really cool.

[46:19] Chris Littler: Yeah, just creating something that's like we call it our horror's. It's like a bit of our soul that yeah, if someone likes it, odds are they're gonna like us. So we just have new friends all over the planet that we haven't met yet.

[46:32] Ellen Winter: And that is just now we have that for the rest of our lives, which is Yeah, and truly as a couple of extroverts, having new friends all over the planet that you haven't met yet is like peak extrovert uh elation.

[46:43] Chris Littler: Um yeah, I mean it's been crazy. We have we've had like a lot of um, it's it's a weird thing with a podcast because it is as performers and and you know, even as musicians, it's like I feel like I'm coming from a world of theater too, where it's like you're used to doing a show and then like seeing the people after the show, and then you talk to people after the show.

[47:06] Ellen Winter: And with this, it's been so crazy like releasing it in a digital platform because there isn't that kind of like instant we don't get to like meet people at the stage door or like see what the audience says.

[47:16] Chris Littler: So it's it's been kind of this wonderful um unfolding of uh people like you who like reach out to us and and those friends we haven't met yet, kind of a thing, um, which has been really cool, and it's and it's kind of a thing that comes out of nowhere sometimes because there isn't, you know, like I said, there's no stage door where we're like meeting people who saw the show.

[47:38] Ellen Winter: We're just kind of like get a text from a friend or like someone we knew from a long time ago or someone we don't know who who's listened to the show, and that's like that's really cool is like the accessibility, like you don't have to just be in New York to see it, um or to hear it.

[47:54] Chris Littler: Um yeah, and it's it was so fun to do, and it was truly like yeah, a culmination of so many things, and has put us on track for a lot of other opportunities that never would have happened if we didn't have this like incredible calling card that we could refer people to that as Chris said is very much like us in a musical.

[48:19] Ellen Winter: Like there's a lot of a lot of ourselves in the show.

[48:22] Jess: So, what are the biggest lessons you've learned from this musical? Like the things that you're taking away from this altogether giant experience.

[48:29] Chris Littler: Um I I've the value of partnership, honestly, the value of of Ellen Winter, the value of Kelly Teger, my now wife, Skip and Zach and Ruth and all these wonderful people that came together to make the show. The the collaboration. I mean, it is like something is hopefully as good as the people that make it, right? At least it's a fun experience. And like the hard times are hard, but also great because you value the people that you're with when you're making it.

[49:01] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[49:02] Chris Littler: Yeah. And Ellen, you can do it all. You got it all.

[49:06] Ellen Winter: You got it all.

[49:08] Chris Littler: I aspire.

[49:09] Ellen Winter: I aspire to be as talented as you are.

[49:12] Chris Littler: Oh my god.

[49:13] Ellen Winter: Wait, likewise.

[49:15] Chris Littler: Jeez.

[49:16] Ellen Winter: Yeah, partnership's a big one.

[49:18] Chris Littler: Partnership and um I learned a lot.

[49:20] Ellen Winter: I learned how valuable seeing the outside world is while you're writing.

[49:26] Chris Littler: Yeah, we wrote Hear Me Out Outside.

[49:28] Ellen Winter: Hear me outside.

[49:29] Chris Littler: Hear me outside.

[49:30] Ellen Winter: Oh.

[49:32] Chris Littler: We sat on the stoop on a sunny day. It was like, hmm, thank you, son. For this nourishment.

[49:39] Ellen Winter: A tannin song.

[49:41] Chris Littler: Yeah, partner partnership and like because but that also is like a result of partnership. Because you're like, Ellen, you're sad. Why are you sad? And I'm like, I don't know. And you're like, let's go outside. And I'm like, oh, okay, then.

[49:52] Jess: So what advice would you give to up and coming musical theater artists like myself and many others out there I know are listening?

[49:59] Chris Littler: I mean, mine's tied to the thing that I I learned. I feel like you have to have someone that you're talking to about it. You have to have someone that is invested in your idea.

[50:11] Ellen Winter: Um or is waiting to become invested, I guess.

[50:16] Chris Littler: Someone who can hold you accountable.

[50:18] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[50:19] Chris Littler: Someone that you have like a regular check-in about your idea, and someone who's gonna um challenge you and be honest about whether they like the things that you're saying, not just that they like that you have things to say, but that they actually like the things and can I mean this is all comes down to collaboration.

[50:36] Ellen Winter: Like these, it's just is so hard to just grow this tiny little seedling into a sprout.

[50:44] Chris Littler: Um the conditions of the world are so crazy. It's like you're on the surface of Mars. It's not it's not safe. You gotta have two people to cover it. Just keep it alive long enough so that it can be durable enough.

[50:56] Ellen Winter: Um, so yeah, you just gotta find that that person.

[50:59] Chris Littler: And that person can be a co-writer, it can be a composer, it can be a producer, it can be a friend. It just you know takes two.

[51:08] Ellen Winter: Yeah, teamwork.

[51:11] Chris Littler: Teamwork is good.

[51:13] Ellen Winter: Teamwork makes the dream work.

[51:14] Chris Littler: Dreamwork makes the dream work.

[51:17] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[51:18] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[51:19] Ellen Winter: I'm just gonna put mine, I'm just gonna put another, I'm just gonna double check what Chris just said.

[51:27] Jess: All right, here's the last question. Please just tell us about all of your upcoming projects and plug whatever you want people to go and see of your work.

[51:35] Ellen Winter: Just out there. We're working on another we're working on another podcast, which is a kind of an adventury podcast.

[51:43] Chris Littler: And um, we're really excited about that.

[51:45] Ellen Winter: And we're working on another.

[51:46] Chris Littler: It's not a musical.

[51:47] Ellen Winter: Yeah, and we are also working and not what?

[51:50] Chris Littler: Well, I was gonna say the adventure one is not a musical.

[51:54] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[51:54] Chris Littler: It would have music in it.

[51:55] Ellen Winter: It'll have music as an element.

[51:58] Chris Littler: Yeah.

[51:58] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[51:59] Chris Littler: Not forefront. And then we are working on another musical project.

[52:03] Ellen Winter: Yeah.

[52:04] Chris Littler: Maybe a couple, who knows? Any given day. It's like who knows.

[52:09] Ellen Winter: Uh we're definitely in the um fostering our tiny sproutlings stage right now, trying to get them to survive in this climate.

[52:19] Chris Littler: Um but uh keep an eye out 2020, you know, for a new I don't know.

[52:27] Ellen Winter: Wait, you have your album.

[52:28] Chris Littler: Really the thing that you like.

[52:30] Ellen Winter: I have, well, I have, yeah. I'm doing I'm doing I'm making an album that Chris is a producer on of uh a bunch of new original music.

[52:37] Chris Littler: So that's coming out in the spring.

[52:39] Ellen Winter: Um and we've been plugging away at that since April this year.

[52:43] Chris Littler: So it's it's coming together and that'll be out in yeah in March or April next year.

[52:50] Jess: I love it. I love this. I love the fact that I can just chat with artists. I mean, in no other universe would you like be able to pull up Steven Sondheim and just chat with them about like how much you like their show.

[53:03] Chris Littler: And it it is an honor to talk to people who made a musical.

[53:06] Ellen Winter: Oh man!

[53:07] Jess: Like it's surreal.

[53:09] Chris Littler: It really is because I right now I'm just trying not to like fangirl and keep my professionalism up.

[53:16] Ellen Winter: You're doing great!

[53:17] Jess: Great job.

[53:18] Chris Littler: Thank you, thank you.

[53:20] Ellen Winter: This is great.

[53:20] Jess: We we love talking about this show.

[53:24] Chris Littler: Yeah, and about musicals and yeah, teamwork.

[53:27] Ellen Winter: Teamwork musicals and 36 questions.

[53:29] Chris Littler: I mean truly, truly the best subjects.

[53:36] Jess: Well, that's all I had to say, unless there's anything that you want to cover that I didn't.

[53:40] Chris Littler: There was some sport stuff that we left behind.

[53:42] Ellen Winter: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[53:46] Chris Littler: So when you're doing a pass up.

[53:48] Ellen Winter: When you're passing up when you pass a quaffle, wait.

[53:51] Chris Littler: The quaffle.

[53:53] Ellen Winter: The wait, is it called a quaffle?

[53:57] Chris Littler: Are you being serious right now?

[53:59] Ellen Winter: Snitch?

[54:00] Chris Littler: Snitch. That's what it is.

[54:01] Ellen Winter: You pass it up to snitch, right?

[54:03] Chris Littler: Pass up the snitch.

[54:05] Ellen Winter: That's right. Total.

[54:06] Chris Littler: That's how you feel goal.

[54:08] Ellen Winter: And that's how you get sports.

[54:09] Chris Littler: Sports, baby!

[54:11] Ellen Winter: Sports, baby. That's the next show we're working on.

[54:14] Chris Littler: Sports on my god, whatever.

[54:15] Ellen Winter: And it's about a baby who invents a sport and becomes a multi-million dollar tycoon.

[54:22] Chris Littler: It's untapped potential.

[54:24] Ellen Winter: You can finally get the sports fans into new school theater.

[54:27] Chris Littler: That's so true. There's so many of them out there.

[54:33] Jess: So just thank you so much for talking to us, Jesse, and for reaching out. I mean, you guys are so insanely talented, and I'm so grateful that you gave me your time to like talk about this piece and elaborate more about your creative potential.

[54:47] Chris Littler: I'm so excited for what you're doing next.

[54:49] Ellen Winter: Yeah, truly a pleasure.

[54:50] Chris Littler: And let us know if you have any more questions about music making stuff and keep us in the loop of all your things.

[54:56] Jess: Oh, I will. Well, thank you guys for making 36 questions and giving me your time to talk about it. I hope you guys have a great night and you're awesome.

[55:01] Ellen Winter: Oh, yeah.

[55:01] Chris Littler: Thanks, Jesse.

[55:01] Ellen Winter: Have a great night.

[55:08] Chris Littler: Have a great night.

[55:09] Ellen Winter: And how you say goodbye, but you never said goodbye.

[55:09] Chris Littler: You never said goodbye.

[55:17] Ellen Winter: And I have on to our.

[55:25] Jess: And who I was with you.

[55:38] Jess: Tweet Ellen and Chris. Tell them how flipping amazing 36 questions is, because it truly is. Also, if you wouldn't mind while you're there, leave us a review on iTunes. Send us some love at Musicals with Cheese. Follow us on Instagram or on Twitter. All that jazz. We have a normal episode coming up this Friday, but we hope you enjoyed this bonus episode. Thank you for listening. I'm Jesse McInall, and we'll see you next time on Musicals with Cheese.