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[0:18] David Rigano: Hello and welcome to The Drama Book Show.

[0:21] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I'm Mark-Eugene Garcia, and this is episode 13.

[0:26] David Rigano: Lucky 13.

[0:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[0:27] David Rigano: It's about the coffee table book for the Tony Awards.

[0:31] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Which was really fun.

[0:32] David Rigano: It was a fun episode.

[0:33] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I feel like every time we're like, oh, this one is such a special episode because they are, in my heart, they are all so special.

[0:40] David Rigano: Um, we're not alone here.

[0:41] Mark-Eugene Garcia: We're not.

[0:42] David Rigano: We have a special guest with us today.

[0:44] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Our guest is Dylan Glick.

[0:45] Dylan Glick: Hi, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

[0:48] David Rigano: Dylan works with us at the Drama Book Shop, and it's been what, two years?

[0:51] Dylan Glick: Yeah, a little over two.

[0:52] Mark-Eugene Garcia: That is crazy.

[0:53] David Rigano: I still feel like it's only been a few months for all of us.

[0:56] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Dylan and I started, I think on the same day.

[0:58] Dylan Glick: I think we did too.

[0:59] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, that was really nice.

[1:00] Dylan Glick: I still remember we had just gone through a bunch of training and we were like let loose on the floor.

[1:07] David Rigano: We were told like help some customers.

[1:10] Dylan Glick: And there was this kid who comes up to us and goes, hey, I need some help finding stuff.

[1:16] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I think both of us were like, hit me.

[1:19] Dylan Glick: Alrighty.

[1:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Alright, put us in poach.

[1:22] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[1:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And they go, do you have the libretto for Into the Woods?

[1:27] Dylan Glick: So they lobbed us a nice soft ball.

[1:29] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And we were like, I think we can.

[1:31] Dylan Glick: I thought we're that is.

[1:33] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But Dylan, while we have you here, I'd love, because you had a very interesting introduction into the store. How did you Hello Al appear at the Drama Bookshop?

[1:43] Dylan Glick: Okay, so I at the time there was the Discover Weekly section of the store, which was just like a little, like a handful of plays on the back wall, and they had a little clear box where you could guess the running theme of the plays.

[1:58] Dylan Glick: I think the one that I got was animals.

[2:01] Dylan Glick: I guessed it right, and then I came in and I won a free play.

[2:05] Mark-Eugene Garcia: If you guessed correctly, you would win a play.

[2:07] Dylan Glick: You had the chance to win a play.

[2:10] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[2:10] Dylan Glick: You would be entered into the drawing and we would pick a person.

[2:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It just happened to be a chance.

[2:14] Dylan Glick: It just happened to be me.

[2:14] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[2:15] Dylan Glick: And so I came in, and I the theme of animals.

[2:20] Dylan Glick: I came in.

[2:21] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yes.

[2:22] Dylan Glick: And then I picked Cock by Mike Bartlett as my free play.

[2:27] Dylan Glick: And then I, on my way out, asked if y'all were hiring, which you were.

[2:31] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And you were, you said something about like in a few weeks we're gonna post something.

[2:35] Dylan Glick: We hadn't announced yet that we were gonna hire, but I knew we were gonna hire.

[2:39] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was such a process, but your application was so great.

[2:43] Dylan Glick: Thanks.

[2:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It's so sweet.

[2:44] Dylan Glick: My God.

[2:44] Mark-Eugene Garcia: The interview was so great.

[2:45] Dylan Glick: And so we're meant to be here.

[2:47] Mark-Eugene Garcia: You two watched the Tony Awards together, right?

[2:50] Dylan Glick: Yes, we did.

[2:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was a fun time.

[2:51] Dylan Glick: The impromptu party.

[2:52] Mark-Eugene Garcia: TJ, who also works here, sometimes we'll go to Curley's and watch the Tonys.

[2:56] Dylan Glick: And we got off so late because we got out of here at what, 7:30?

[3:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah, and we like walked right there.

[3:01] Dylan Glick: Yeah, and it was like we need somewhere to go.

[3:03] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, this is perfect.

[3:03] Dylan Glick: We couldn't get anywhere other than Times Square.

[3:06] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was fun little speed walk.

[3:07] Dylan Glick: Yeah, it was, and we were also listening to the first act that wasn't on TV.

[3:13] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Right.

[3:13] Dylan Glick: Like listening to those announcements as we were walking, and so we turned out this one got it.

[3:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, it was so nice.

[3:19] Dylan Glick: But it was fun.

[3:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was really fun, and we got to bond a little, I think, as a group, because a few of us were there.

[3:24] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[3:24] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And it was just a nice little Drama Bookshop outing where we got to play.

[3:29] Dylan Glick: It was fun.

[3:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Drink and eat, cheer on our friends and stuff.

[3:34] Dylan Glick: Yeah, and cheer on our friends.

[3:35] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Her episode's not out yet.

[3:37] Dylan Glick: Right.

[3:37] Mark-Eugene Garcia: You mentioned Shana Tao.

[3:39] Dylan Glick: Yeah, I know exactly.

[3:40] Dylan Glick: Became two-time Tony Award winner Shayna Tao.

[3:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: One amazing.

[3:44] Dylan Glick: So I was very much rooting for her.

[3:47] Dylan Glick: We had an event with her when her Twelfth Night and As You Like It got published.

[3:52] Dylan Glick: And I hope that Subs gets published and she comes back for another one because she was absolutely amazing.

[3:57] Mark-Eugene Garcia: You know what did it other than the work and the show and all of that?

[4:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But she mentioned Lynn Ahrens in her Tony speech.

[4:04] Dylan Glick: Your favorite.

[4:05] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I about started crying.

[4:08] Dylan Glick: So Eila Mell, who wrote this book, and she has a few different coffee table books in all different facets of the arts, particularly fashion as well.

[4:17] Dylan Glick: A few of which we have here at the bookshop.

[4:19] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And we were talking, and obviously, one of the things that comes up is favorite Tony Awards memories, favorite Tony Awards performances.

[4:27] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I wanted to ask both of you if you had any fate either from this year or from the whatever your history watching the Tony Awards is.

[4:36] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Do you have any favorite speeches or performances or opening numbers or anything like that?

[4:41] Dylan Glick: I definitely have a few, but I do remember that the very first time I watched the Tony Awards.

[4:47] Dylan Glick: I was flipping through the channels and found it.

[4:49] Dylan Glick: But I had just come home from our high school theater awards, and I had just won Best Actor for Into the Woods, and it was the first year I was ever doing theater, and I was so excited by it.

[5:00] Dylan Glick: And then I came home and turned on the TV, and there was more awards and musical numbers, and I was just in a, because I didn't know that was a thing.

[5:00] Dylan Glick: I didn't know that was something on TV, and I didn't know that that was something available, and I was just captivated, and I saw Titanic perform.

[5:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Uh huh.

[5:19] Dylan Glick: Now he's also having a magic.

[5:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But Titanic was performing and just being just completely enamored and speechless and taking over the TV, and my parents couldn't watch anything because I was so just focused on this beautiful thing.

[5:35] Dylan Glick: And it was a moment of, hey, I just did this today, and they're doing this now, and this is what I want to do.

[5:40] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah.

[5:41] Dylan Glick: I think my first Tony Awards was so I was I've been madly in love with Bernadette Peters since seeing Into the Woods on TV first broadcast in 1991.

[5:53] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And it all comes back to Into the Woods always, right?

[5:57] Dylan Glick: And my parents promised me whenever she's in something next, we'll take you to go see it.

[6:03] Dylan Glick: And that was The Goodbye Girl.

[6:06] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Ah, yeah.

[6:08] Dylan Glick: Book by Neil Simon, score by Marvin Hamlisch and David Zippel.

[6:13] Dylan Glick: And Martin Schwartz's Broadway debut.

[6:16] Dylan Glick: And so my first year watching the Tonys was the year that The Goodbye Girl was nominated, and I got to watch them do their performance of the love song from that show.

[6:26] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh, that's amazing.

[6:27] Dylan Glick: That's lovely.

[6:28] Mark-Eugene Garcia: I have to say, my favorite, and this was before that, but I think my all-time favorite Tony Awards performance has to be Grand Hotel.

[6:37] Dylan Glick: The We'll take a glass together with Michael Jeter bouncing around like he's made of rubber.

[6:43] Mark-Eugene Garcia: If I have ever seen that.

[6:45] Dylan Glick: If you've not seen, oh, you've got to see real the choreography for this dance is just so joyful.

[6:54] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And he was so good in Jurassic Park 3.

[6:56] Dylan Glick: LOL.

[6:58] Mark-Eugene Garcia: It was in Drastic, that's okay.

[6:59] Dylan Glick: I'm like, what are you gonna say?

[7:01] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Are you gonna mention his non-speaking role as Mr. Goldstone in Gypsy?

[7:06] Dylan Glick: Are you gonna mention his non-speaking role as Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street?

[7:16] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But he had a speaking role in Jurassic Park.

[7:17] Dylan Glick: Okay, a lot of it for him.

[7:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Telling me that's your I okay.

[7:25] Dylan Glick: So this is me coming out.

[7:26] Dylan Glick: I was late to the game in terms of watching the Tony Awards live.

[7:31] Dylan Glick: The first time I watched it live was in fact the year that Deaf West Spring Awakening was performed.

[7:36] Mark-Eugene Garcia: And I know, so I was very late to the game, but the first Tony performance that I remember seeing, which is probably one of my favorites, and also I'm gonna talk about Joyful Dancing in a second.

[7:44] Dylan Glick: Yeah, was Sutton's Anything Goes that whole enormous, oh my, I was in middle school, which is do the math, and I remember just, I don't know, it changed my brain chemistry to be completely that Kathleen Marshall choreography.

[8:01] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Oh yeah, absolutely.

[8:03] David Rigano: So we should probably dive into hearing what the experts have to say about the Tony Awards.

[8:08] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Let's do this.

[8:23] Heather A. Hitchens: Hi, what I'm Heather. Welcome, thank you so much for being here tonight.

[8:29] Heather A. Hitchens: Hello.

[8:29] Heather A. Hitchens: And right here between us is an honest to goodness Tony Award.

[8:36] David Rigano: May I?

[8:37] Heather A. Hitchens: We're talking about serious.

[8:39] David Rigano: Oh, it's to play with.

[8:42] Heather A. Hitchens: Let me turn it back so that's as satisfying as it looks on TV.

[8:46] Heather A. Hitchens: So you've got this wonderful book with the full history of the Tony Awards.

[8:51] Heather A. Hitchens: From the first year, it is full of the names of all of the winners, interviews with many of the winners, as well as interviews with friends and colleagues of people who have passed on.

[9:03] David Rigano: There is a name I think that we need to talk about first and foremost, and that of course is Tony.

[9:10] Heather A. Hitchens: So who was Antoinette Perry?

[9:14] Heather A. Hitchens: Antoinette Perry was an actor, producer, director, administrator.

[9:18] Heather A. Hitchens: She was a wartime leader of the American Theater Wing.

[9:21] Heather A. Hitchens: And when she passed away in 1947, the other founders of the wing decided to create the Tony Awards in her honor.

[9:28] Heather A. Hitchens: And I just want to say because sometimes we take ourselves a little too seriously.

[9:32] Heather A. Hitchens: And people say, oh, the Tony Awards.

[9:35] Heather A. Hitchens: Mary Harry.

[9:36] Heather A. Hitchens: Antoinette Perry was quite a character.

[9:38] Heather A. Hitchens: She gambled, she played the horses.

[9:40] Heather A. Hitchens: And one of the main ways she funded the American Theater Wing in the early days was playing the horses, which I think is so appropriate, because we've got a horse race going on this week, if you haven't noticed.

[9:52] Heather A. Hitchens: I would not be surprised if many people here have their ballots filled out and maybe even still money riding some of it.

[9:59] Heather A. Hitchens: So next time on Sunday, if we see anyone get up and go, this Antoinette Perry Award, Bill, we will all know.

[10:07] Heather A. Hitchens: Just say read.

[10:09] Heather A. Hitchens: She liked a good time.

[10:30] Heather A. Hitchens: So Isabel Stevenson, another great leader of the American Theater Wing, always used to do a paperback book every year that listed all the winners and the Tonys and included a little history.

[10:39] Heather A. Hitchens: And our 75th anniversary was coming around, and I was chatting with our chairman, the great costume designer of Illinois Sosa, who's here hiding in the back, and about what we could do, and we landed on could we do a new version of that book that had photos that had never been seen before?

[10:57] Heather A. Hitchens: And we were just originally gonna do winners and photos to honor Isabel Stevenson.

[11:01] Heather A. Hitchens: But once we dove down the rabbit hole, and I actually said that Amelia, do you know any writers?

[11:06] Heather A. Hitchens: He said, I do actually, because Project Runway, that's a connection, and of course, designing Broadway.

[11:13] Heather A. Hitchens: So he introduced and put this whole team together.

[11:17] Heather A. Hitchens: And as we got into it, Isla said, I want to interview everyone.

[11:21] Heather A. Hitchens: And so it is a great honor and an evolution of the Isabel Stevenson book, and we had to catch up for the 75-year history.

[11:29] Heather A. Hitchens: I don't know when we're gonna do it again because it would, but we will.

[11:35] Heather A. Hitchens: You all have a family preservation 75 years from now for the next video.

[11:39] Heather A. Hitchens: And I'm writing it.

[11:40] Heather A. Hitchens: I was gonna say somebody else will have to do it because I wanted to.

[11:43] Heather A. Hitchens: But that's really, and I think we, you were talking about our fans.

[11:47] Heather A. Hitchens: And I think what theater has is people that just love the theater more than anything.

[11:51] Heather A. Hitchens: They love everything about the theater.

[11:53] Heather A. Hitchens: They love going to the theater, but they love the behind the scenes.

[11:55] Heather A. Hitchens: They want to know how things happen, they want to know people's stories.

[11:58] Heather A. Hitchens: And we wanted to give the fans something they wanted.

[12:01] Heather A. Hitchens: And Isla did these amazing interviews, and so that is the story of this book.

[12:07] David Rigano: So Isla, when you were setting out to first just do your research and compile the information, and then you wanted to do some interviews.

[12:17] Eila Mell: Okay, so I'm just gonna back up a little bit because when the idea was brought to me, it was already the 75th year.

[12:25] Eila Mell: And it started.

[12:26] Eila Mell: So Heather and Emilio said, yeah, so we'll get it out by the end of the year for the phone.

[12:31] Eila Mell: Well, okay, we have other strengths.

[12:36] Eila Mell: It doesn't really work that way.

[12:38] Eila Mell: It takes six months just to print the book physically to print.

[12:42] Eila Mell: And get a huge televised award show out every single year.

[12:45] Heather A. Hitchens: Certainly to have your strengths.

[12:47] Eila Mell: Yeah, but that provided us a really great opportunity to make it as current as possible.

[12:52] Eila Mell: We actually snuck in the 76th year because we have the current, the most current Tony Awards included in the book.

[12:59] Heather A. Hitchens: Okay, so then getting, so then I felt, like Heather said, that we just weren't really telling the story unless we had people talking about their personal experiences.

[13:11] Eila Mell: Ian Weiss, who is here, he and I made many lists, and Ian really did so much work.

[13:19] Eila Mell: He contacted everybody because there was about 140 people interviewed in the book.

[13:24] Eila Mell: And Ian probably reached out to every single living Tony writer, which is way more than 140.

[13:32] Eila Mell: We wanted to represent people in the best way possible, which for sure was their own words.

[13:38] Eila Mell: That was really how it got started.

[13:39] Heather A. Hitchens: And of course, you also have a beautiful introduction to this book written by someone who has a couple of Tony Awards herself.

[13:47] Heather A. Hitchens: Audra McDonald.

[13:49] Heather A. Hitchens: Currently the record holder for the most Tony Awards of any performer in every category.

[13:56] Heather A. Hitchens: And in every single category that she's eligible in.

[13:59] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah, no slouch.

[14:00] Eila Mell: No, no, well.

[14:01] Dylan Glick: Oh, you only want the back.

[14:02] Eila Mell: And I do that she writes this such a gorgeous introduction that spoke directly to my experience and probably everyone in here's experience of being a kid and watching the Tony on TV.

[14:12] Eila Mell: There was the one year with the opening number where the—I'm gonna cry just thinking about it—where they said, because we were that kid.

[14:18] Heather A. Hitchens: James Cutton, yes, keep the Kleenex handy when you're reading Audra's introduction.

[14:23] Eila Mell: The introduction is really just like all the interviews, they're deeply personal, and they're not things that necessarily people had spoken about before.

[14:31] Eila Mell: They're not just the typical interviews about winning an award. We are gonna talk a little bit more about the writing of the book. We're gonna talk a little bit more about the history and the evolution of the Tony Awards, but I did want to open it up to all assembled. If any of you have any questions for our esteemed guests regarding the Tonys, the history, specifically putting together this passive book on the history of the Tony Awards.

[14:56] Audience Member: How are the nominees chosen?

[14:59] Eila Mell: Like how big is the group of people who make up the people who decide on the nominees?

[15:05] Heather A. Hitchens: The nominators, it's a group of nominators. They all have professional experience in the theater. It's about 66 people, I think that we—66 to 70, depending on the year. We have a massive spreadsheet. We take this very seriously with everybody's expertise. So we're like, do we have designers? Do we have music people? Do we have playwrights? Do we have the whole gamut? They serve three-year terms. Um, and they have to see everything, but much earlier than the voters have to see things. And so I'm really proud of this group of nominators. And we mentioned Emilio, Emilio's worked hand in hand with me and the Broadway lead to really come up with these are the top professionals in our field. And if you know what this spring was like with so many musicals opening at once, if you see a nominator, just say thank you. And maybe give them a granola bar.

[15:56] Audience Member: What was one of your favorite interviews? And what was maybe your most surprising interview?

[16:01] Eila Mell: All right. I have a few favorites. Judith Light is just incredible. Love her. She's so generous. Anytime I do any book, I always like to give the interviewee their interview to look at and approve. I don't have to, but I choose to. I think it's the right thing to do. And so Judith went back and forth a bunch of times because she just wanted it—she kept changing what she wanted to say. And I love that she did that because I know that it's exactly the way she wanted it. And so when the book came out, she emailed and just said, 'I'm so happy with the way I was represented,' so that meant a lot to me. But of course, Carol Burnett is a favorite interview, and Mel Brooks was incredible. Chita Rivera, it's just legend after legend. It was like I was doing this talk show by Zoom in my house every single day. The hardest to get guests. And some of these guests, sadly, it was their last interview.

[16:58] Eila Mell: Yeah. So we got Angela Lansbury, probably days before she died.

[17:04] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah.

[17:05] Eila Mell: Eugene Lee and Franny Lee.

[17:07] Eila Mell: Chita Rivera. What is it like? Like, what's that little rush like every time you hear that someone else said yes?

[17:14] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah, it's like you won the lottery every time because it's yes, we want to include this person so much. And so, and then when they say no, it's really bad.

[17:25] Heather A. Hitchens: Well, and then the challenge too is we have to publish this, so when do we stop? And there's only so many pages. So, unfortunately, we couldn't—there were so many more people that we wanted to include, but we just couldn't because any of the—going back to your question, did any of them really surprise you?

[17:43] Eila Mell: Yes, because they're all so different. The biggest surprise was everybody had such a different point of view and just such a different story.

[17:51] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah.

[17:52] Eila Mell: Awesome. Looking at the history, and I'm also curious to know like how much of this you knew going in, and how much was a surprise to you.

[18:00] Eila Mell: I know that the first year—and we looked this up, remind me, because we looked it up upstairs. The first year there were no nominees. It was just they said we're doing awards, and these are the winners and show up to a ballroom and get your award. It was the Waldorf Astoria on Easter Sunday, 1947. There were 11 award winners. And in the early days, we didn't have this Tony Award. We had money clips for the men. They're practical. And compacts for the women. When we honor people at our fundraising gala, we tend to give them a money clip. Sans the money.

[18:40] Eila Mell: And then of course it became a sterling silver medallion, and then it got mounted, and then the base grew over time. But then year two, June Lockhart got an award, and she had some bracelet or a locket.

[18:54] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah, they evolved different versions of the other.

[18:56] Eila Mell: Yeah, I remember reading the interview that you did, and so was—oh, I just put my Tony awards on my bracelet. I think we have Ingrid Bergman's compact and it has powder in it.

[19:08] Heather A. Hitchens: Wow.

[19:09] Eila Mell: Wow. And what was the year that—1956?

[19:13] Heather A. Hitchens: 1956.

[19:14] Eila Mell: So 10 years of no nominees before they finally said we're gonna make this a contest. We're gonna make you sweat purple and we're gonna do it.

[19:23] Heather A. Hitchens: Umbling the horse. And obviously the nominations as well, what the categories are, like not just whether there are nominees to find out who won, but the categories have evolved over the years as well.

[19:39] Eila Mell: Absolutely, and I think because this is a living art form, it's not a static art form, you can expect the categories will continue to evolve, or they should continue to evolve. So that's what makes it exciting.

[19:51] Heather A. Hitchens: One—oh, go ahead.

[19:52] Eila Mell: We do talk a lot in the book about the sound category because that's relatively new, and so we have a bunch of sound designers who talk about that, and it's really interesting.

[20:01] Eila Mell: One of my favorite tidbits about the evolution of the categories was in 1971, when they separated best music for a musical and best lyrics for a musical, both of which were won by Stephen Sondheim for Company, and then they just said, "Was it just—oh boy, that's probably gonna keep happening."

[20:24] Heather A. Hitchens: We just put them back together again.

[20:26] Eila Mell: That sounds about right. It's an inverted art form, and it's conducted by human beings that are trying to honor what's cool and interesting in front of them, and sometimes, like everything in life, sometimes you get it right. But one of the things I was always thought is make a decision, understand why you made the decision. If you make a mistake, fix it.

[20:46] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was very concerned about getting a category for orchestration.

[20:53] Eila Mell: Uh-huh.

[20:53] Heather A. Hitchens: So he talked about that in at least one or two of his acceptance speeches.

[20:58] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah. I—there are real fun YouTube compilations, and you can see him always thanking his orchestrators and his music directors.

[21:07] Heather A. Hitchens: Anyone else have—did you record these Zoom interviews?

[21:12] Eila Mell: I did.

[21:12] Heather A. Hitchens: Okay. So the Television Academy has their archive of interviews. My father was in the media. We should do this to create an interview archive of our industry and the people both on stage and the curators and others. I think would be a wonderful thing. I know that the Hoft Library has certain things, but it'd be amazing also for young people to see how great—like Eisenberg talking about general managing, not just—you know what's great is we can do that with the book, but obviously through our Working in the Heather program, which was originally on CUNY TV, we have all those old episodes you can see. We've cut them into classic clips to get people interested in that archive, preserving the archive, giving the next generation access to what people were thinking, what were they doing behind the scenes and the new Working in the Heather, which is a seven-time Emmy nominated docuseries. We have everything from lighting design to producing, taking it back to the behind the scenes. We believe very deeply in our in-person programming, but we know that digital content reaches people.

[22:20] Heather A. Hitchens: And but if you think about the Tony Awards themselves, having just gone through a strategic plan about what about all our programs mean, and of course, we said the Tony Awards are actually a source of discovery. They're a gateway drug, right? How many people say they watched the Tony Awards and said, "I can do that, I want to do that?" And then what's great today is they can watch the Tony Awards and say, "I want to do that." They can go to AmericanTheatreWing.org and to our YouTube channel, and they can go down the rabbit hole. I do think we have Manny Eisenberg talking about producing. Actually, and I do, and I think we have just an amazing archive, so I just encourage everybody here, go down the rabbit hole. It's not my fault if you welch on other responsibilities because there's just great content, and Ian Weiss, Yoana Nicolover here are digital people that make that all happen.

[23:09] Eila Mell: Amazing. If we have any theater students listening to this on the podcast in a few months, whenever this comes out, don't go to sleep tonight.

[23:18] Heather A. Hitchens: That's what I'm not gonna go to sleep tonight. And I certainly grew up watching Isabel Stevens and doing these panel discussions. And they're great, and if you look back at the old ones, there's so much great content there, and everybody was on those. And then when I came on board and then Ian and I started working on it, we thought we have panel discussions are great, but now that we have video, we could go behind the scenes, we could show people stuff.

[23:43] Eila Mell: And one that I will point out to you just because she's a goddess and we love her, is that Natasha Katz wanted to talk about lighting design, and she said it's so hard to talk about it. And I said, "What if I gave you a documentary crew and you went behind the scenes?" And Hal Binkley, who's not with us anymore, and Natasha went to the studio and PRG, there's a room there where you can show things, and this went absolutely viral of people watching about and learning about lighting design, and then the most incredible thing happened because you have to be it to see it. And through our Andrew Lloyd Webber program that gives scholarships to young people to study theater, the young girls started applying, and in their videos, we asked them what inspires you, and they started saying, "Natasha Katz inspires me because she lights all these shows, and I want to be a lighting designer," and that's what it's all about at the end of the day.

[24:33] Eila Mell: It's amazing the access that kids have now. I was teaching a workshop for the Pennsylvania Thespians, and it was a directing workshop, but I had a lot of tech kids, and I'm asking them all what they do in their high school. And I have kids going, "I'm the A2 for my high school." I was like, I didn't know what an A2 was until my friend was doing it on Broadway. And you're doing it, you're—it's amazing. Programs like what you've done and access on the internet has given to high schoolers and students of the theater to even know what these jobs are, to want to study them. And still, because oftentimes we'll meet a young person as an actor because that's still—and there's so many, there's so many stories. Amelia Sosa is an example of that. Somebody said, "You should hear some crayon, here's some colored pencils," and then he never stopped drawing. And so I think by introducing all these jobs, speaking of earlier, I think he had a question at some point.

[25:28] Dylan Glick: Oh, yeah.

[25:28] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[25:29] Dylan Glick: My question. Interesting. I think anyone that got away that you could get in the book that you wanted.

[25:39] Eila Mell: Well, there's some—you're a troublemaker.

[25:44] Eila Mell: Okay, okay. Yes, I really wanted Al Pacino.

[25:51] Heather A. Hitchens: Oh, well.

[25:52] Eila Mell: We got close, but didn't happen. I wanted Tommy Tune. There were some people who we sent questions to who said that they were going to send the questions back and just never did. Most of them were conversations, but there were a few people. James Earl Jones was another one.

[26:05] Eila Mell: Yeah, there's some people. Next book, we'll be able to do that. Volume two.

[26:11] Heather A. Hitchens: So something else that we were talking about upstairs that might be a little bit fun thing to do. And certainly, if you have more questions, keep those coming as well. But we wanted to talk about favorite Tony memories. Certainly, I've—and I wasn't around with this one, but I love that video of Stephen Sondheim winning his two Tony Awards back to back in 1971. Does anyone have any favorite Tony memories that they want to share?

[26:36] Audience Member: Yeah.

[26:44] Audience Member: First time it was on national TV and it opened up with Joel Gray doing "Gold Cons." I was just at the age that said, "Oh my god, I want that." You know, I was very inspired.

[27:00] Audience Member: Anyone else have any specific things that they went—oh boy, like I also mentioned that we were that kid. Anyone else have any?

[27:08] Audience Member: Yeah, I used to remember the '04 leading lady category, which was like powerhouse after powerhouse, on your pink bands and a Drist and Steph and Donna. And that I was 13 at that time in '04. So it was like a really impactful Tony Awards watching all of these women just—I don't know. It was—uh, always sits with me in that Tony Award specifically. That was a fun year too because you were sitting there going, especially you were like, "Oh, Wicked or Avenue Q, what's gonna—what's gonna happen?" And that was—I was also—I was in high school, so I was the—I'll say I was the target audience for Wicked. Maybe wasn't the target audience for Avenue Q, but I saw it and I loved it. And that was the first year that I had seen both of the big shows that were going head to head before the award ceremony.

[28:01] Eila Mell: And so I was sitting there going, Oh goodness, what like really feeling almost like an insider.

[28:06] Heather A. Hitchens: That's one of the biggest upsets.

[28:08] Eila Mell: Yeah, that was the dependent.

[28:10] Heather A. Hitchens: I'm not sure how upset wick it is.

[28:12] Eila Mell: I think they've played to the bank.

[28:15] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah.

[28:16] Eila Mell: With the movie coming out right now.

[28:17] Heather A. Hitchens: Yes, yeah.

[28:18] Eila Mell: I mean both of them I think did very well from that.

[28:22] Heather A. Hitchens: So you do all these interviews. What was the structure of finding the people and giving the interviews?

[28:30] Eila Mell: And then what was the structure of parsing those interviews into the book? Like I said, Ian really helped me get in touch. She put me in touch with everybody. And so then when you do the interviews, you don't know what people are gonna tell you. You have an idea of what you want them to tell you because you have a story in your mind of how you want, because you don't want 10 interviews that cover the same ground. So you want to ask people different subjects, but a lot of times they'll surprise you and they'll have a better story than you knew that they could have had. So you know, with that in mind, you change what you talk to the next person about. And so then I would do all the interviews, and then I would go back and listen to them.

And as I'm listening to them, I'm editing as I'm typing it and figuring the best way to tell the story in the most dramatic way. So the reader would also see a through line and a story from year to year. And obviously, the basic structure of the book is decade by decade.

[29:31] Heather A. Hitchens: Yes.

[29:32] Eila Mell: But you do have some fun little mini chapters in between.

[29:36] Heather A. Hitchens: It's to break up the decades.

[29:38] Eila Mell: So um we need to break up the decades. So Heather said something really interesting to me in a meeting when she said people love acceptance speeches. So I said, okay, let's give them acceptance speeches. You probably don't even know that you inspired that. But so I watched every single ceremony, even ones that weren't broadcast on TV. So from 1960 to 1967, they recorded the ceremonies, but they didn't broadcast them on TV. And so then I made I pulled out, they're not the full speeches, but they're the best parts to me.

[30:12] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah.

[30:13] Eila Mell: Of these speeches. And so I thought it would be more fun not to do those in chronological order, just putting little quotes here and there.

[30:20] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah.

[30:20] Eila Mell: So there are those are chapter in between palette cleansers.

[30:26] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah. When you were structuring the book and figuring out by decade, were there specific shows that you went in going, boy, I know I have to get some stories about this. I know I have to include. And were there any that until someone gave an interview, you maybe thought, oh wow, I didn't know that I was gonna talk so much about this show, but apparently this really meant something to people?

[30:53] Eila Mell: I concentrated more on the people that I wanted to include rather than the shows, but certainly there were shows like Hamilton, it was important. That's a big show. I really needed to include that history. I felt that was important, and other shows certainly.

[31:07] Heather A. Hitchens: We here at the Drama Bookshop feel that Hamilton was underscore, underscore underscore.

[31:15] Eila Mell: I do regularly refer to this building as the house that Hamilton built. But it really was more about the people, and then once I saw what they worked on that maybe I didn't remember, that sparked more ideas.

[31:29] Heather A. Hitchens: Was there anything that you found common threads of either people talking about the same shows or talking about the same people or performances that they saw or Tony performances that they saw?

[31:41] Eila Mell: Yes, the two Tony performances. People are either in one camp or the other among Tony winners. They either their favorite moment was either Jennifer Holiday singing, and I'm telling you, or Mike Bel Jeter doing Grand Hotel. Those are the two that everybody loves.

[31:56] Heather A. Hitchens: And wasn't spying eyes.

[31:58] Eila Mell: And then and definitely the opening number bigger. That's mine.

[32:01] Heather A. Hitchens: Yes, I have.

[32:02] Eila Mell: Oh, I'm right. I love that. And in the book, so it's what I really love is that I get Neil Patrick Harris talking about performing that, but then I also get Lynn talking about writing that number and what it was like. So we go and do a very deep dive into bigger.

[32:19] Heather A. Hitchens: I haven't gotten that far anymore. In my flipping through we were talking about this upstairs. It's such a great book for because most of the pages are you just have the list of the winners.

[32:33] Eila Mell: And it's such a great resource in that way to be able to just flip through and find things and see. I mentioned to you, I was so surprised to see how many years there would be a designer like Boris Boris Aronson just won for everything he did that season. And it felt like, hey Boris, you did a lot. Here's an award for doing three shows in one season.

[32:55] Eila Mell: Yeah, it was like that in the early days. Lucinda Ballard was the first costume design winner, and she too was for her whole season of work. It's such a great resource, but then to have these interviews, so in my preparation, that's what I was doing as well. I'm flipping through, I'm reading through the winners, seeing what I already knew, what would surprise me as you're all gonna do when you take the book home. And then also sometimes, oh, that's and I like put a little bookmark in. As I kept flipping through, I gotta come back and read that interview. Oh my gosh, I have to see your book to see what you highlight any more questions or memories?

[33:29] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah. Do you have speaking of the speeches as you were discovering them? Because some you watch on TV, you remember them, but did you discover any either you just didn't really know that you were like, wow, this one really stayed with you?

[33:42] Eila Mell: Oh, yeah, because I'm so young that I missed most of the speeches. So, yes, there were ones Clevan Little gave a speech that I never heard of, but I pulled that out, and then when I interviewed Kenny Leon, he mentioned that speech, and I was so excited because that was one of the ones that I pulled. And then Ken Howard, he gave a speech that I thought was great, and then I recently had a chat with Chip Sign, and he said that speech inspired him to become an actor. So it was just so I was so happy that the things that moved me also moved other people.

[34:17] Heather A. Hitchens: Do you as you're doing this exhaustive research and watching all of the awards, including ones that none of us got to can't even go on YouTube and find. Did you find any kind of trends in how the acceptance speeches evolve over the years?

[34:35] Eila Mell: Really? No.

[34:36] Heather A. Hitchens: Then my follow-up is what is it like to try and transcribe a Mark Rylance acceptance speech?

[34:44] Eila Mell: He gave some wacky speeches. I think he went three times. Do you think that's right?

[34:48] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah, that's right.

[34:48] Eila Mell: So the first two speeches were off the wall, but then the third was more of a traditional series speech. So his first one was the if you're in the woods and you're wearing uh something. Was that that's one of my Tony memories, also sitting in a and I always watch with my entire family, and that was the thing growing up, and I don't know how many of you all it was like a family tradition. This was like our Christmas. We also had Christmas, but this was like like our Christmas, and oh this book, what is he talking about? But also going, but I'm loving it. It's it's brilliant. It's like a performance in a thing.

[35:25] Heather A. Hitchens: Yeah. Any other questions about the creation of the book about the evolution of the Tonies and the other favorite Tony memories?

[35:35] Audience Member: Can you talk about the photo?

[35:42] Eila Mell: Poor Ian. But we run him through. But yeah, so we have. Do you know the number? Is it like 500 photos?

[35:51] Heather A. Hitchens: Something like that. It's a lot of photos. Some had been out there, but many were not. So Ian invited me one day to come and just go to the office and just literally go through actual photo albums that were Isabel Stevenson's. So that was amazing, and contact sheets that no one had ever seen. And so that's where we got a lot of our never before seen photos, which are the most exciting ones.

[36:13] Eila Mell: Yeah. It's me in the book. It was so hard to narrow it down. Because first of all, my first thought was I want a photo of every single person who won who there was a photo of. Then I realized that they were a lot of boring photos. So that wasn't the best way to do it. Unfortunately.

[36:35] Heather A. Hitchens: I didn't realize.

[36:36] Eila Mell: Like I just wanted to honor everybody, but really it didn't serve the book.

[36:39] Heather A. Hitchens: And I would say you do. You do honor every bag.

[36:42] Eila Mell: Thank you. We we have I tried these names. I think of people who I was noticing this especially. We remember the South Pacifics and the Fiorellos. I'm just going through the list of Pulitzer winners now, also, but I think that to have this document to documentation of plays that one of the best play of the year awards, some of which have completely faded from memory. So I just in putting them all in here, I think you are definitely honoring everyone.

[37:15] Heather A. Hitchens: Thank you. Because it's important. And something else that I just want to bring up that I was really I don't work for the wing. I so I just yeah, I didn't, but I was really so touched to see that the Tonies have really always been inclusive and diverse. Just the first year alone, Jose Fur was the first best actor winner and one eat a whole one very early on. And I thought that was encouraging because that's something that has always been important.

[37:42] Eila Mell: Yeah, and I discovered that as well and was very proud of that history. And if there was diverse content, it and it it got honored. And of course, there's always things that get overlooked, but over it, but when you look at that, it's really an honorable history. Now what we have to do is work on getting more diverse content on stage so that we can continue to honor that. And that is really about evolving. And that's the Telegram is evolving, but it's also about helping theater evolve. And I think that's really to be able to be part of that and to help push that forward is really the greatest honor of a lifetime.

[38:18] Heather A. Hitchens: I think you said this, or somebody who said this at the beginning about it really is one of the last places where we all come from a different place. We come into the same room, we take the same journey, and so important today. We get in somebody else's shoes for a few hours, and we develop that empathy, which we seem to have lost in the world. And theater is that one place where we can come together whenever, you know, whether whenever you believe, and just have be in somebody else's experience for a while. And that is something that's why I believe live theater will never go away. That's why I believe technology is our friend. It's a way to amplify and get people in the door, but that's why people want to be told a story.

And look, I think the world has changed through some of the stories that we've told people. Angels in America, we can go on and on about that. So that's I just want to make sure we keep moving forward that those stories get told. So we have people tell the stories that you told tonight and that other people told tonight. And that's really what I'm all about.

[39:18] Eila Mell: So I just want to close this out with two more questions for each of you. For each of you, do you have a favorite Tony memory from watching the broadcast before you were involved? And Ayla, do you have a favorite Tony memory that you learned doing your research for the book? And Heather, do you have a favorite Tony memory from your time working with the wing?

[39:42] Eila Mell: I don't, I can't pinpoint a memory of watching it. I think I was just inspired by the whole business and how theater really, I was a drummer, that's what I was trained in from the age of six, and then played in I got the theater bug by playing in the pit of a Vita when I liked in junior high or something. And to me, as somebody that was a drummer behind the scenes, I loved how theater brought music and choreographers and dance all together.

[40:09] Heather A. Hitchens: From my time here, I would say two things. One's a more fun thing, and one's kind of a serious thing. The fun thing is Cicely Tyson, first of all, being watching her performance of Trip to Bounce-Pool. And here's this 90-year-old killing it. Just the way she moved on stage. I had to let the whole theater leave and just sit with it. And just say, like we put so much on age and relevancy, and this person was just killing it. And then to see her win a Tony at 90. That's really was really special. And then to be able to talk with her. And we later honored her at the American Theater Wing Gala, which was so special. The serious memory is the year of Hamilton when the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened.

And as I arrived, I saw Ian on the red carpet, and he said something happened this morning, and you should just be aware. I don't know whether we should stop putting the red carpet up. I don't know what we should do. And we went into the rehearsal because it was really unclear totally what was happening. And during that time, my husband was following it on his phone. He said, You get you have to get up, and you have to go out and you have to figure out what you guys are gonna do. And we sat there, and it was Broadway League and the American Theater Wing and the NYPD canine dogs. And we sat around and said, Are we gonna have a Tony's? What is the message gonna be? And we remade the beginning of the show on the flight.

Only theater people can do that. And we said, we stand with for diversity, we stand for acceptance, and that's what theater is about. And that is the proudest moment that I could have had to see the community come together, forget that this is a contest, forget that this we're here to send a message of healing and hope.

[41:54] Eila Mell: And that's again what theater can do. Thank you for shooting. Um, and if you read in the book, Oscar Eustace talks about that, Culch Nightclub, and how he was doing Fun Home at the time, and how he brought Samantha Power from the UN, and she came and she brought colleagues, and um it affected legislature after that because they had been exposed to a show about gay people. So it made a difference in the world. So that's pretty important. And of course, Fun Home recouped and toured the nation, which is really I think says something. Yeah, not to ever underestimate our audiences. You forget the libretto and the sheet here at the John Shop. Do you have a couple of memories that you would like to share before ever doing this book?

Bigger was my favorite moment, and that's just so brilliant, I think. But now, after talking with so many people about their moments and what they went through at that very moment that they were winning a Tony Award, there are so many that I see differently now. David Alan Greer, when he won, what it meant to him, and how he other people were on his mind at that moment, and he got choked up telling me the story, and it's just it was so beautiful. He was so happy that Danny Burstein won that year because of what he had been through that year losing his wife, and that's what he was thinking when he was up there, which is incredible. What a generous moment for him. But there are so many. But one thing that I think was an important moment that I didn't realize because at the time it was a long time ago, but the year the Torch Song won.

So John Glines, the producer, got up and thanked his lover, and that was a first on TV that had never happened before. And many people told me, I talked to Harvey Firestein about that, about that moment and how important it was, and Joe Mantello was a kid watching at home, and he said that was life-changing for him. Um, he knew that he wasn't alone after that. And not just those two people. That meant a lot to so many people. So in such small ways, the awards are so important, but for reasons that we don't necessarily even realize. I think for my generation here, spray winning best score, and Mark Shaman and Scott Woodden kissing on the lips on TV. That's right. And I'm looking at Mark 2003.

2002, 2003, something like that. Which but also talking about not being able to get married. Yeah. Which has thankfully changed. David Alan Greer was funny about that story. Didn't he say, and I love all my fellow nominees, but I won tonight, so ha ha he made a decision. He said in that moment, when he was up there, he said, I can be serious or I can be funny. And he said he felt himself getting too emotional. So he made that joke. Thank you so much for bringing these memories. Thank you for making a Tony memory for all of us for this year. And thank you for this book. Once again, please help me be funny.

[45:18] Dylan Glick: That was a great time. Alright, so I thought we delved into a little bit of our own tea. Like what this past season, we just saw the Tony's. We still have Tony Fever.

[45:27] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[45:28] Dylan Glick: Always Danza.

[45:30] Eila Mell: Always.

[45:31] Dylan Glick: What are some hot takes? Anything specific this season that you can do?

[45:34] Eila Mell: Well, since you bring it up, this is not this season, but since you bring it up, justice for Honeymoon in Vegas.

[45:44] Dylan Glick: Oh my god.

[45:45] Eila Mell: Tony Dance. We love Betsy.

[45:46] Dylan Glick: What a love.

[45:50] Eila Mell: I love Betsy.

[45:50] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[45:51] Eila Mell: Love Betsy.

[45:53] Dylan Glick: Hot takes from this season.

[45:55] Eila Mell: I don't know. I was, I was just so full of joy for the for what was created and the diversity of what was created this season. There was so much. It was very like very much Oprah. Went to every theater. It was like, you know the music. There was so much. And there were so many. And Oprah, if you're listening, all three of us write theater. So he's giving out musicals. Give it out theaters. Please.

[46:27] Dylan Glick: No, but there were so many that got showcased at the Tony's. And there were so many that didn't.

[46:31] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[46:32] Dylan Glick: Those were some of the ones I really love. I saw Once Upon a One More Time a couple times. I had so much fun at that show.

[46:41] Eila Mell: I still have my bracelet.

[46:43] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[46:43] Eila Mell: And I still every once in a while will watch the video of Circus, which was my favorite, one of my favorite dance things I've ever seen.

[46:50] Dylan Glick: So here's my not so hot take, my tea when it got because I also saw Once Upon a One More Time and thoroughly enjoyed it. And my thing with as a writer of new musicals, my thing with jukebox musicals is the better they are, the more mad I am that they're not, that they don't have an original score.

[47:14] Eila Mell: Yes.

[47:15] Dylan Glick: Yeah. I sat there at Once Upon a One More Time having the just the most fantastic time, but wishing as fun as it was to hear the Britney songs and as fun as the wink and the nod when Justin Guarini would do another Oops, I did it again. Wow. I just sat there going, these are such rich characters and they deserve brand new musical theater songs that I and so that's my personal frustration.

[47:45] Eila Mell: I understand that because as a musical theater writer, I get very territorial about musical theater scores.

[47:51] Dylan Glick: I will say I'm the worst gay that there is, and I knew two Britney songs going into it.

[47:56] Eila Mell: So it was an original score to me.

[48:00] Dylan Glick: As a fellow gay person, when Justin Guarini did the choreography from the music video, Oops, I Did It Again, I was just like, oh my god, it was just so exciting.

[48:09] Eila Mell: And yeah, loved it. Also loved Lempica.

[48:13] Dylan Glick: Loved Lempica.

[48:15] Eila Mell: That's the real Justice for Lempica.

[48:17] Dylan Glick: Justice for Lempica.

[48:18] Eila Mell: I really wanted it to get a best score.

[48:20] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[48:21] Eila Mell: I loved that score to that show. I love the show. And it was a show that it was very polarizing. And they put it out there in the reviews as well. I had friends who did not enjoy it, and I had other friends who loved it. I didn't have anyone really in between. It was either just like no or yes. And I was a yes. I was at the end of Act One was just like, oh my god.

[48:40] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[48:41] Eila Mell: And I actually I met Matt Gould, who was the composer that the night that I saw it, and I told him that I was in particular impressed. I find that sometimes contemporary scores that lean heavily on contemporary style music, especially if they take place in a period. Sometimes they almost insult the period that it's coming from, as though you can't use the music from the period if you're gonna tell some like serious stuff. But and sometimes the fluffy songs will be very period and pastiche, but the serious songs, oh, we have to use contemporary music. And what I found with this score was that these songs were perfectly stylized and period and pastiche, and leaned really heavily on contemporary sounds and contemporary themes at the same time.

And I thought it was so wild to be sitting there listening to a score that was so clearly so modern and used a lot of modern musical techniques, and at the same time, I felt the Weimar when that was I felt the cabarets of Paris of the 20s when that's where they were, and so I admired that so much how he was able to let that score sit in two worlds at the same time.

[50:01] Dylan Glick: Truly, and it went against everything I was trained to do, and I think that's why people were like, you liked it? I was like, I loved it. But I think individually each aspect didn't work in my own head because I was trained otherwise, not because it didn't, because it worked, but because I was trained for that not to be what a musical should be, whether it's the time period at the choreography or any of that, it just seemed so different from what I was expecting. But it worked, and it was just oh, it was incredibly powerful.

[50:06] Eila Mell: I loved it.

[50:30] Dylan Glick: I'm so bad I missed it. I like I really should I know I could have listened to as well. And the big the biggest snub I felt from that was just that they should have had, and I'm not just saying this because I know his wife and we went to college together, but he really deserved a supporting actor nomination. He left it all on that stage.

[50:49] Eila Mell: Yeah, but we did get some great Tony Award nominated and winning shows.

[50:55] Dylan Glick: We got Socks.

[50:56] Eila Mell: Soviets, which was yeah, that was my biggest thrill.

[51:00] Dylan Glick: That was so great.

[51:01] Eila Mell: And Water for Elephants.

[51:03] Dylan Glick: Water for Elephants.

[51:04] Eila Mell: I loved that's my my friend Marissa making her Broadway debut. And I loved it. I love Marissa Rosen.

[51:10] Dylan Glick: Yes.

[51:11] Eila Mell: You love Marissa Rosen here at the Drama Bookshop. And I told her afterwards when because she plays very funny. She plays a dancer at the circus who's really having difficulty with what she has to do. And then about halfway through act one, the curtain comes up and everyone's in their circus costume, and she's just in the bright colors and the stripes and the little baubles on her shoes. And I practically started crying seeing her in her looking just so amazing and glamorous in her circus outfit.

[51:38] Dylan Glick: Yeah, we had Stereophonics.

[51:40] Eila Mell: Loved Stereophonic.

[51:41] Dylan Glick: I love David Adjmi, so I was thrilled for him.

[51:43] Eila Mell: Did you meet him?

[51:44] Dylan Glick: Oh, this is a funny story. David Adjmi, if you are listening, and if you came into the Drama Bookshop that day and you were not wearing your sunglasses, and I asked, Are you a writer? I'm so sorry for my long story short, David Adjmi came into the store. We think it was David Adjmi, came into the store, was not wearing his aviator sunglasses that I have usually seen him in, and was buying a book. It was like about playwrights being interviewed, that kind of stuff, talking about their work. And as he was checking out, I was like making small talk, and I was like, Oh, are you a writer? And he like laughs and turns red, and I'm like, uh and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, was that like tough subject or was that like touchy subject to ask about?

And he was like, No, it's just a me thing. And I was like, Oh, okay, cool. And then I turned around to our other manager, Milanovich, and I was like, was that David Adjmi? And they were like saying it at the same time, and I was like, Oh crap. So I feel like this was also like the day after the Tony's.

[52:36] Eila Mell: Yeah, and I was just like, I was like, and I after I I love Marie Antoinette. I recommend that play to so many people. And I, after I read it, I was like, oh my god, I have to thank David Adjmi if he ever comes into the store. And then he did, and then I was like, you know, are you a writer?

[52:53] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[52:54] Eila Mell: Write much?

[52:55] Dylan Glick: Shame.

[52:55] Eila Mell: Yeah.

[52:56] Dylan Glick: Um speaking of performances that that deserve Tony Award nominations, Dylan, you know, LOL.

[53:02] Eila Mell: That's very sweet.

[53:03] Dylan Glick: Are you a writer?

[53:04] Eila Mell: I am when I am a writer. I just finished a draft of a play, sent it out, it is done.

[53:09] Dylan Glick: Congratulations.

[53:10] Eila Mell: Thank you very much. It's big stuff. Thank you. It's called So No Head. It is a loose reimagining of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. You can check that out on my website, DylanMglick.com. Um, and then I have a performance coming up with it's being produced by dear friend Zach Faust, uh, who we all know and love.

[53:29] Dylan Glick: Dear friend of the store.

[53:29] Eila Mell: Dear friend of the store. We love Zach. He was at our little Tony party that evening.

[53:34] Dylan Glick: Shining in Misery.

[53:35] Eila Mell: He was at Shining in Misery. Lovely guy. He's producing a 54 Below sings the music of Scrubs.

[53:41] Dylan Glick: And so that's gonna be on September 1st at 9:30 p.m. Come on out.

[53:46] Eila Mell: And there's a few of you.

[53:47] Dylan Glick: Uh yeah, it's us and Aaron.

[53:48] Eila Mell: Yeah, Aaron's in it.

[53:49] Dylan Glick: Former guest Aaron.

[53:51] Eila Mell: Yes, Aaron, we love Aaron here.

[53:53] Dylan Glick: When is 54 Sings Scrubs?

[53:55] Eila Mell: Let me double check that real quick. So 54 Sings the Music of Scrubs is September 1st at 9:30 p.m.

[54:01] Dylan Glick: Alright, and people can get their tickets on the 54 Below website.

[54:04] Eila Mell: That is correct.

[54:05] Dylan Glick: I would assume okay.

[54:06] Eila Mell: Yes, it is.

[54:07] Dylan Glick: Alright.

[54:08] Eila Mell: So yeah, y'all, if you're gonna be in town, go see Dylan sings.

[54:11] Dylan Glick: Don't be a scrub.

[54:11] Eila Mell: Come see some scrubs.

[54:13] Dylan Glick: Well, I don't want no scrubs.

[54:14] Eila Mell: We don't want no scrubs here.

[54:15] Dylan Glick: Yeah.

[54:16] David Rigano: So, David, what's our next episode?

[54:19] Eila Mell: Our next episode is Selena's and Marisol Leva with the book that they wrote together called My Sister.

[54:26] David Rigano: And it is about both of their experiences with Marisol's coming out and transitioning.

[54:35] Eila Mell: And it was such a I'm really, I need to get a thesaurus. People claim that I'm a writer. Lies. It was a wonderfully joyous talk.

[54:47] David Rigano: It was a lovely evening. I definitely teared up quite a bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a yeah.

[55:08] Eila Mell: We had a beautiful conversation with them. I think that you're all gonna love the episode.

[55:12] David Rigano: I'm looking forward to talking about it. Follow us on Instagram at Drama Book Show Podcasts.

[55:19] Eila Mell: As always, all of the books that we talk about on the podcast can be found here at the Drama Bookshop.

[55:25] David Rigano: And so can we.

[55:25] Eila Mell: And we will see you at the bookshop.