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[0:00] Aaron Albano: You're listening to Smashed from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Aaron Albano. And I'm Mo Brady.

[0:23] Mo Brady: Happy New Year! Welcome back, listeners, to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is still the Broadway community's favorite TV show, Smashed. We're back, and thanks to all of your positive feedback, we'll be recapping the entire season. Seriously, thank you to all of you who wrote in saying how much you liked the series. We appreciate the feedback.

[0:43] Aaron Albano: And you may be wondering, why do Aaron and Mo sound like they're states away from each other? And that's because we are. To bring you the rest of the season of Smashed, Aaron and I are podcasting remotely with me in New York City. And Aaron, where are you this week?

[0:57] Aaron Albano: I am in Nashville, Tennessee. Come see Hamilton.

[1:00] Mo Brady: What's Hamilton?

[1:01] Aaron Albano: Shut up. Yep, folks, we are bringing you quality content from all across America. And yes, we are still talking about the NBC series that aired from 2012 to 2013.

[1:12] Mo Brady: Smashed was also an incredible glimpse into the theater community in the early 2000s, as many of the show's writers, actors, and dancers were played by real-life Broadway performers with real-life Broadway cred.

[1:23] Aaron Albano: But we wanted to go back in time to see how the show has weathered, what it got right and what it got very, very wrong. But before we get into it, a little note about how this is going to go moving forward.

[1:33] Mo Brady: From now on, we will be recapping and discussing Smash in four to five episode chunks and releasing the corresponding episodes of Smashed every other month.

[1:41] Aaron Albano: So this January, you'll be able to watch episodes six through nine with us, take a break for February, then join us again in March.

[1:48] Mo Brady: Great. Let's dive in and talk about season one, episode six, Chemistry. Aaron, give us the stats.

[1:55] Aaron Albano: Chemistry premiered on March 12, 2012. The episode was written by Jacqueline Rheingold and was directed by Dan Attias. It premiered live to an audience of 7.04 million viewers. The featured songs in this episode included two covers, Shake It Off by Florence and the Machine and Who You Are by Jessie J, and one original song by Shaman and Whitman called History is Made at Night. Oh yeah, and Karen Massacre's Hava Nagila, if we want to count that.

[2:26] Mo Brady: We definitely do.

[2:28] Aaron Albano: And what happens in this episode, Mo?

[2:30] Mo Brady: Changes to the script and score are being made during the workshop of Bombshell, with scenes and songs being moved. Our director Derek Willis isn't happy with the state of the script, but he's less happy with his leading lady losing her voice. Ivy Lynn's voice is inflamed but not infected, and while she's on vocal rest, Bombshell's creative team begins to contemplate asking Karen Cartwright to take on the part in the workshop's presentations.

[2:55] Aaron Albano: So much drama.

[2:56] Mo Brady: When Derek informs Ivy about this possibility, she takes her first dose of prednisone to help her ailing voice. However, she finds that it gives her night sweats and headaches. Even though she's not in good shape, she still attends rehearsal to prevent Karen from getting a chance at the part. But this makes her even more unwell, with side effects including the strangest musical sequence on the series to date.

[3:17] Aaron Albano: Accurate. So accurate.

[3:19] Mo Brady: Karen is daunted by the task of learning the role of Marilyn in a week, and yet she feels like she can do this. That confidence is bolstered when she crushes it as the entertainment at a Northport bar mitzvah, catching the eye of someone named Bobby Raskin.

[3:33] Aaron Albano: Our lyricist Julia Houston can't concentrate on making any edits to the show, though, because she's too distracted with her recent smooch fest with her leading man Michael Swift. But in the process of begging him not to flirt with her, she ends up topless with him in a rehearsal room.

[3:49] Mo Brady: Composer Tom Levitt is still trying to decide whether the boring but capable lawyer he's dating is enough for him. Eileen Rand is still on the hunt for $7 million in capital, but the workshop is being attended by Nathan Lane and the Nederlanders. But the buzz is good enough for her to lease an apartment on the 87th floor in the Lower East Side that costs $10,000 a month and buy Ellis multiple $7 martinis.

[4:17] Aaron Albano: All right, favorite performance by an ensemblist. Let's dive right in and talk about this fantastic ensemble. Now, we are seeing in this episode the ensemble of Bombshell, which is still Christine Bendel, Christine Covello, Keith Kuhl, Leslie Odom Jr., Vivian Nixon, J Manuel Santos, Eleanor Scott, Philip Spaeth, Wesley Taylor, Savannah Wise, and of course, Catherine McPhee. What was your favorite part?

[5:00] Mo Brady: I think it came back from commercial into this sequence where all of them are rehearsing. I think it's the mambo. Josh Burgas' choreo is so clean. I had to literally write down in all caps, fierce, so clean. It was wonderful. I was very happy.

[5:19] Aaron Albano: How much earlier before they filmed that do you think they actually learned that? I'm going to go with four seconds. Either that or they learned a four-minute dance sequence two days before and then when they got to set that day, they cut down an entire four-minute dance sequence to the four seconds we saw on camera.

[5:42] Mo Brady: Okay. Okay. It is one or the other, but nowhere in between. What was your favorite part?

[5:44] Aaron Albano: I think it was the partnering in History is Made at Night. So we saw it in the rehearsal room mostly. In the back, I think camera left, you'll see Christine Bendel with Philip Spaeth and Christine Bendel is an incredible veteran of seven Broadway shows. She's been on Broadway for 20 years and she's the kind of dancer that did like Moving Out and Swing and Come Fly Away.

[6:07] Mo Brady: Oh, she's legendary. Completely legendary.

[6:10] Aaron Albano: The Dance Dance Dancey Dance shows and she's just back there like with this incredible extension with incredible poise and stability. I was like, yes, of course. No one is watching you except for Aaron and me seven years later, but we are appreciating you. And that's what's so fun about watching this ensemble as well is that you actually feel like you're seeing the best of the best because it's that TV money and everybody wanted to be on the show, girl.

[6:36] Mo Brady: Everybody was on that show.

[6:37] Aaron Albano: All right. It is time for my favorite portion of this and every episode, El Bono Fact Checks. All right, here we go. Question number one, Mr. El Bono, what would happen if an actor like Ivy Lynn got sick in a workshop? Would she be replaced? What would they do?

[6:54] Mo Brady: Because what is it? They're like four days out, three days out, something. I mean, I feel like the first go to would just be, hey, let's change the keys. Let's drop the keys a couple of steps. The plan B would be drop the keys. My gosh, watching Ivy's insecurities be used against her the entire episode by Derek, who she is in a relationship with. It's so disgusting. And I'm just like, it's really unfair.

[7:22] Aaron Albano: I think that either you're going to tell that room either verbally or not verbally. You're going to tell the room at the workshop that this is your leading lady, and she's so incredible that it's worth your millions of dollars, or you're going to somehow.

[7:39] Mo Brady: We're gonna find a celebrity for this, and this person is a placeholder. None of those conversations are particularly happening, and so I can't tell what the production of Bombshell's stance on Ivy Lynn is.

[7:53] Aaron Albano: Well, that's what's so interesting about watching Tom and Derek after all, because they feel like the farthest extremes in their treatment of Ivy, where Tom's like, let's push it back, let's do whatever, let's make sure that she has everything that she needs, almost more to the point where he's like, ready to cancel the workshop if she can't do it. And then you have Derek on the opposite side being like, she coughed today, let's get a whole new person.

[8:19] Aaron Albano: Albato fact check, number two. Derek says that everyone in musical theater takes prednisone. Is that true? Also, what is prednisone?

[8:28] Mo Brady: Oh my god, this storyline was so problematic in this entire episode. Okay, so prednisone, they're steroids, they're used to suppress the immune system, decrease inflammation. Why would one take prednisone, Aaron Albano?

[8:43] Aaron Albano: Steroids are a funny thing. Because they aid healing. When you're under pressure, you will take them to get through a show or to get like, and I'm not condoning them or like saying everyone should be on steroids, because that's absolutely not true. But maybe I think a year ago, I had a wrist issue. And I was trying to heal it in the best way, like all the other ways, like wearing a brace and whatever, whatever, whatever. I went to the doctor. And they were like, what will take care of this and what will help it along is a steroid shot. Do you want to do that? And I was like, sure. And so I got a steroid shot in my wrist. I was out for like, a day or two more. And then I was back at work and it was fine.

The pill form of prednisone that I've experienced, it's like a tapering off where you like hits your system and like a six pill, then a five pill the next day, four pill, three pill, so it tapers you off. I've never experienced any of these symptoms, these side effects that they talk about in the show. But what you're saying is like any other drug, you build up a tolerance to it. And so the idea is that if you kept taking prednisone for your wrist problems that you would have to take more in order to deal with the, you would have to take more in order to deal with the pain, and then you would eventually become addicted to it. So the idea and what your doctor was saying is to take the prednisone shot, but will taper off quickly, not continue it as a long term solution to any wrist pain that you're having, right? And then also, if you do have these side effects, don't take them.

[10:22] Mo Brady: Okay, let's take a step back. Why does Smash need us, the viewers, to think that the world of theater is full of unhealthy people making unhealthy decisions? Why does the drama need to come from personality scuffles versus the drama of making theater itself? Critics or Broadway real estate? There's so much real drama that Smash could go into, and yet it's choosing to go into these personality stereotypes. Is it because that's more interesting, or is it because that's easier?

[11:06] Aaron Albano: As you've said in previous episodes, drama is better TV than a non-dramatic room. The problem of the television show is that Karen's side is level-headed and sane and has perspective, and Ivy's side is emotional and manipulated and manipulative. And that's just a lot more fun to watch as a television audience.

[11:31] Mo Brady: I do think that we are watching the trajectory of two women, and two women that are very opposite in this industry. And Karen is boring right now, and so we're watching... She's sort of not who we're talking about because Ivy is far more interesting right now.

[11:49] Aaron Albano: What do you think the significance of the title is?

[11:52] Mo Brady: I mean, I could just think about the significance of the title in terms of the series, that it takes chemistry in order to do show well. I'm learning more watching this that I'm thinking about Smash being Julia Houston's story.

[12:06] Aaron Albano: Interesting.

[12:07] Mo Brady: And Eileen Rand's story. And we're going to get to that in the next episode, but I think that our showrunner, Teresa Rebeck, is very interested in the chemistry that Julia is feeling right now, and the chemistry that Eileen is feeling right now. Neither one particularly has to do with Paul and Michelle, other than maybe... And the other side of it is that there's an extreme lack of chemistry going on in other parts of the show. There isn't chemistry between Tom and his boyfriend. There isn't chemistry between Ivy and Derek. We're going to see there's not really chemistry between Dev and Karen, but there's a chemistry or lack thereof. That's... Is it what I would have called the episode? Maybe not, but if I had to justify why the episode was called Chemistry, I might say that.

[12:56] Aaron Albano: I mean, because there's obviously the Julia Michael chemistry that we're talking about. There's the prednisone chemistry with Megan's system that's going on. The Frank is at a chemistry seminar or whatever, and he teaches chemistry.

[13:12] Mo Brady: How did you get there? You're paying so much attention.

[13:15] Aaron Albano: You know, doing my best. But the central theme of chemistry, and maybe I was just watching it wrong because... There's no wrong way to watch Smash.

[13:25] Mo Brady: I mean, but if we're talking about Julia's and Michael's, all of these titles or all of these themes applying to Karen and Ivy, but that might not necessarily be true if we are, in fact, focusing on the show. I think that right now, Smash is more interested in the story of Julia and that you and me are more interested in...

[13:48] Aaron Albano: In the show.

[13:49] Mo Brady: In the show.

[13:50] Aaron Albano: Yeah, fair.

[14:00] Mo Brady: All right.

[14:22] Mo Brady: Well, special thanks to Aaron Albano for joining us for this mini-series. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. Please help others find out about The Ensemblist by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. You can also download episodes wherever you get your podcasts or at theensemblist.com. Are you enjoying this Smashed mini-series? If you are, let us know. Specifically, slide into Aaron's DMs because he has low self-esteem and he really needs you to tell him that if you...

[14:50] Aaron Albano: How dare you?

[14:52] Mo Brady: I mean, you could let me know too, but mostly Aaron.

[14:55] Aaron Albano: Okay, you can also follow The Ensemblist on Instagram to see the latest posts from our website where we share the stories of talented artists working in theater ensembles. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time!