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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.

[0:22] Mo Brady: Welcome back listeners to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is television's most detailed depiction of the theater industry. And yes, we are still talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of a Broadway musical and all of the drama that ensued along the way.

[0:36] Aaron Albano: Theater fans like us had a love-hate relationship with Smash when it aired. While we were excited to see musical theater beamed into our homes week after week, the show wasn't landing with a wider audience.

[0:47] Mo Brady: So we're going back episode by episode to figure out why. We're diving into each episode to explore why something as emotional as creating a Broadway musical could land flat with TV audiences. So let's dive in and talk about Season 1, Episode 12, Publicity. Aaron, give us the stats!

[1:03] Aaron Albano: Here we go! Publicity premiered on April 23, 2012. It marks the return of our original team from the pilot and first few episodes of the series, Teresa Rebeck and Michael Mayer, who respectively wrote and directed this episode.

[1:16] Mo Brady: The viewership was up this episode, yay! Premiering to 6.01 million viewers, about 60,000 more than last week. Gotta be that Bollywood promo, right?

[1:26] Aaron Albano: Are you sure it's not all of those Teresa Rebeck and Michael Mayer stans that were like, the team is back?

[1:32] Mo Brady: Fair, fair, fair, fair, fair. Either way.

[1:35] Aaron Albano: There were three featured songs this episode, which may have been my favorite episode soundtrack of the season. One cover of Run by Snow Patrol and two original songs, the Bollywood-inspired original A Thousand and One Nights and Shadow Marilyn's ballad of Secondhand White Baby Grand, both written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. And I'm scared to ask, but what happens in this episode, Mo?

[1:57] Mo Brady: Derek calls Karen into rehearsal early to ask her to continue looking over the Leading Lady material, saying, I think you'd make a brilliant Marilyn. After rehearsal, Rebecca invites Karen to go out in order for Ms. Duvall to check out the competition. When Karen slays Snow Patrol's Run, singing it live at a club, Rebecca tells her, you're not an understudy, you're a star. But Rebecca Duvall continues to give notes on the Bombshell script and score, including to cut one of the show's only romantic duets, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. When Tom and Julia write a new song called Secondhand White Baby Grand, Rebecca says it should be given to one of Marilyn's shadow selves, Karen. Rebecca continues to integrate herself with the company, making smoothies with Linda the stage manager and becoming BFFs with Karen, taking her clubbing and giving her designer clothing.

[2:50] Aaron Albano: Everyone's having dinner dates. Ivy at drinks with Sam and Tom, Eileen and her bartender boyfriend out at BAM, and Karen out to Indian food with Dev and Rebecca, who end up passive-aggressively arguing about what Karen wants her future to look like. In her mind, Karen transports herself to a multicultural Bollywood, where Dev and Karen challenge each other to prove their love is longer than A Thousand And One Nights. The number features 30 dancers, including current Broadway performers Erica Hunter, Nina LaFarga, Katie Weber, and our own Aaron J. Albano.

[3:25] Mo Brady: LOL, get out of here.

[3:26] Aaron Albano: Okay, we're going to talk about you later. The fantasy sequence is performed at an Indian wedding venue as scores of multicultural dancers in tunics and saris pinch their thumbs and middle fingers together and push flexed hands toward the corners of the room. In curtained corners of the hall, Rebecca, Tom, Eileen, Julia, and the rest of our leading players pose in tableaus that reflect the song's quandaries. Back in reality, Julia's missing son turns out to be sleeping on a friend's floor, but the search for him causes Julia and her husband to come back together. Her son's return also brings Tom and Sam together, cementing their budding relationship with a sweet and subtle kiss. Ivy watches Ellis as he's relegated to making Rebecca Duvall's smoothies and concocts a plan to get both Rebecca and Karen in trouble by feeding them misinformation about the rehearsal schedule.

[4:18] Mo Brady: When Rebecca returns 15 minutes late from a 10-minute break, Derek lambasts her. But when Karen doesn't return to rehearsal at all, Derek gives Karen's new song to Ivy. Ivy crushes her first run of Secondhand White Baby Grand, which includes staging that rolls Rebecca Duvall upstage as Ivy's shadow self takes downstage center. But the moment the company applauds Ivy for her spectacular performance, Rebecca tells the room that she thinks Marilyn should sing the song herself.

[5:08] Aaron Albano: Favorite Moments by Broadway Favorites. I'm retitling the first section, not Favorite Moments by an Ensemblist, but let's widen the scope. Favorite Moments by Broadway Favorites. What do you think, Aaron?

[5:20] Mo Brady: Well, firstly, Michael Swift has been recast.

[5:24] Aaron Albano: He has. We finally have a new Michael Swift.

[5:26] Mo Brady: We have a new Michael Swift in Ted No Last Name, played by Tony Yazbeck, who sounds great.

[5:33] Aaron Albano: He did sound great.

[5:34] Mo Brady: He sounded so good and then disappeared from rehearsal yet again.

[5:37] Aaron Albano: Well, we didn't see much of rehearsal of our Bombshell cast. We saw a lot more breaks than we did rehearsal.

[5:44] Mo Brady: That's right. I love that Karen gives us a real fact check.

[5:47] Aaron Albano: Oh, sure.

[5:48] Mo Brady: Go, go, go, go.

[5:49] Aaron Albano: In a world where it feels like we're based in Broadway, but nothing is actually like it is on Broadway. The fact that she tells us the following, Linda told me that the stage manager rehearses the understudies after opening in case we ever need to go on, which we probably won't. And I was like, that's true.

[6:05] Mo Brady: The stage manager does usually rehearse the understudies after opening.

[6:10] Aaron Albano: There's a glimmer of reality in this fantasy that is Smash.

[6:15] Mo Brady: I don't know why it just made me like so happy.

[6:17] Aaron Albano: Can you just imagine Ann Harada just rehearsing with Karen, just going through the blocking?

[6:22] Mo Brady: Yes, I can.

[6:23] Aaron Albano: I actually really can.

[6:25] Mo Brady: Although here's my favorite thing. Have they, before this episode, because we've talked about it because we know the show, had they mentioned that this was for an out-of-town Boston production before now?

[6:41] Aaron Albano: You're making me realize I don't think there was ever an announcement. Like there was never a point where it says like, like we see the front of a newspaper. It says Bombshell going to Boston.

[6:50] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[6:51] Aaron Albano: They just snuck it in.

[6:52] Mo Brady: Which we just assume that there's a real production because they're rehearsing, A. B. that Rebecca Duvall would sign on to an actual production and not a lab. But that's us just assuming things, knowing our world and the show.

[7:07] Aaron Albano: They don't actually say that. Listeners, if you've caught when they tell us, announce that they're going to Boston, please let us know.

[7:13] Mo Brady: Let us know.

[7:14] Aaron Albano: Because I don't, I think you're right.

[7:16] Mo Brady: It was great. I loved Rami Sandhu in the number and before the number.

[7:22] Aaron Albano: I thought that was such an interesting choice to have him both in the number.

[7:28] Mo Brady: I guess he was the linking thread that goes from reality to...

[7:32] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[7:33] Mo Brady: But then he never like does anything in the number that references the fact that he was in the restaurant. And like no one else, like none of the Bombshell dancers are in the Bollywood number, right?

[7:45] Aaron Albano: I think it sort of depends on which rehearsal you're watching from episode to episode because Ricky Tripp was in the number, Eleanor is in the number.

[7:55] Mo Brady: You're telling me that if you were in Bombshell and also a person of color, then you were in the number.

[8:00] Aaron Albano: Okay. Possibly.

[8:02] Mo Brady: Okay. All right. And speaking of, let's get there. Firstly, Eleanor Scott is so good in this number.

[8:08] Aaron Albano: Tell us who Eleanor Scott is.

[8:09] Mo Brady: I actually, like I've never, I've never crossed paths with Eleanor.

[8:12] Aaron Albano: Oh really?

[8:13] Mo Brady: Okay. So Eleanor Scott, she was a dancer on So You Think You Can Dance. I feel like that was when she sort of burst onto the scene and then she, I really got to know her when she, she was the, she's been the associate choreographer for a lot of different Broadway shows. She was the associate choreographer on Cats. She associate choreographed Falsettos. I think most recently she choreographed, she associate choreographed Head Over Heels.

[8:36] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[8:37] Mo Brady: And she choreographed the off-Broadway production of Little Shop that's currently running.

[8:41] Aaron Albano: Oh great.

[8:42] Mo Brady: And so yeah, she's been, but before all of those things, she was a wonderful dancer on A Thousand and One Nights on Smash.

[8:51] Aaron Albano: You could see her off of Karen's right shoulder for pretty much the entire number.

[8:58] Mo Brady: And she's so good. Also in this number, my fellow newsie, Jess Leprado is in this number.

[9:04] Aaron Albano: I have so many problems with the casting in this number.

[9:09] Mo Brady: I have so many problems and I don't, I don't, I don't have a lens to look at the casting of this number with positive feelings.

[9:15] Aaron Albano: It feels like they are trying to embrace this multicultural Bollywood.

[9:23] Mo Brady: Okay. Let's, let's say I give you credit for that. Let's say, sure, we're going to see Tom and Julia and Ivy and everyone's going to be dressed in stereotypical or traditional Indian clothing.

[9:39] Aaron Albano: Where it really hit me was like anyone who was a person of color was like dancing closer to the leading characters.

[9:44] Mo Brady: And then they were like trying to like keep all of the Caucasian people like away from the center stage or the center of the screen.

[9:57] Aaron Albano: It feels, yeah, which I guess it's one of those things that make you go, Hmm, it's simultaneously trying to be very unconscious of race, but also seems very conscious of race at the same time.

[10:10] Mo Brady: Oh sure. Which was it? It was only eight years ago that we could, I think also this is thinking of the timeline in which this show sort of existed in the TV industry.

[10:21] Aaron Albano: It felt like it was yet another reaction to what was on TV at the time.

[10:26] Mo Brady: Like So You Think You Can Dance was on and I think they had just adopted more multicultural dance styles into their lexicon of dances and Bollywood is really popular.

[10:39] Aaron Albano: And up to this point, Raza Jafri didn't have anything to do and he's a musical dude.

[10:44] Mo Brady: My favorite thing when I was when I got the show, I was like, Yo, that's the original Akash from the London Bombay Dreams.

[10:52] Aaron Albano: Oh, I was like, Yo, I get to dance behind the dude who originated the part that I covered in the original production of the show.

[11:03] Mo Brady: So I was gagged for it. But I was like, What are you going to put him in?

[11:37] Mo Brady: It's related to the conversation that we have when we say should gay characters on Broadway only be played by homosexuals? Should trans characters only be played by trans people? It's related to that conversation. Should Indian musical sequences only be staged by people of Indian descent? It is just a hard nut to crack. On one side, we're all artists who are trying to embody other people and live in the world of someone else. We're never trying to be exactly who we are. We're always trying to represent somebody else. And then the other side of that is that as artists, we're always trying to bring the truest humanity inside of us into whatever role we're playing. So we're both trying to be someone completely different than us and also show our most vulnerable truths.

[12:40] Aaron Albano: Yeah. I mean, and I also think at that point, there's also an element of time is a factor here. As we learn more, we are responsible for more. And I will say until I'm dead, I am so happy that Bombay Dreams was my Broadway debut. But if that were produced now, should I have been in that show? Absolutely not. But I also can't change the past and can't change where the business was and where the industry was in 2004. And I don't know. And again, in that vein, I don't know where in that scale, episode 12 of Smash lies. Like, should we have come so far that this should have been different? Or is it far enough back that we excuse it? I don't know.

[13:41] Mo Brady: All right. So if we're not going to solve racism tonight, let's move on.

[13:44] Aaron Albano: Fair. Okay, let's talk about this entire concept of the Shadow Marilyns.

[13:50] Mo Brady: Oh, yes. Is this a real thing? Is this?

[13:53] Aaron Albano: Shadow Marilyns. You know what it sounds like? It sounds like a combination of having multiple actors play a role through various stages of their life and like a dream version of a character in a ballet, right?

[14:07] Mo Brady: Okay, fair.

[14:08] Aaron Albano: The first one is like having three women play Cher or having three women play Donna Summer. You're having multiple actors portray a character at different times.

[14:21] Mo Brady: Okay, I can buy that.

[14:22] Aaron Albano: But it's also more like a dream Laurie from Oklahoma because it's not about playing the character at a different stage in their life. It's about playing thoughts, the dreams, the wishes, the aspirations of a character. It's pre-Cher, it's pre-Summer, but it's sort of like the vocal version of a dream Laurie, in my mind.

[14:50] Mo Brady: That makes sense, actually, I mean, yeah. I don't remember hearing that ever happen in the musical theater canon.

[14:57] Aaron Albano: The idea that this is a device being used to cover the fact that your star can't sing. It's not a good device for the show, right? Like, I feel like people will see right through that.

[15:11] Mo Brady: It probably emotionally distances you from your leading character, which is like exactly what you don't want to do.

[15:17] Aaron Albano: I mean, it comes out perfectly clear with this secondhand white baby grand fiasco, which I love this song. It's like the one song outside of Let Me Be Your Star that I always remember from this season of the show. I love this song, but like them arguing about who's going to sing this song. And then when it goes to Ivy and she literally gets like trucked forward while actual Marilyn gets pushed back. It's terrible musical theater staging and amazing staging to watch in an episode of Smash.

[15:56] Mo Brady: Especially when she's like, wait, wait, wait, and just like, is confused that she's getting pushed back. Nobody told her, no stage. Linda did not tell her that the couch would be rolling upstage in this number.

[16:06] Aaron Albano: Do you think that's automation or do you think that's like a prophecy about how Broadway turns out in 2020? That all the ensemble just keeps moving?

[16:14] Mo Brady: Every set change is done so that it's cheaper to tour.

[16:18] Aaron Albano: Uh-huh. But yeah, I'm just like, if you have Shadow Marilyn Ivy being pushed out like at the bridge or at the second verse and real Marilyn get pushed back, Shadow Marilyn Ivy is still going to get the Tony nomination, right? Who did Derek and Tom even think they're fooling by implementing this device?

[16:41] Mo Brady: This is where Bombshell is not a musical. It is something in which 42 minute episodes of television are being put on. No one seems to be looking at this larger musical that we're creating and trying to do what's best for the show.

[16:58] Aaron Albano: No. And what's interesting, like in the end beat of the episode where Rebecca's like, I think Marilyn should sing this song. I'm like, me too, girl. She should be singing this song. Who is this Shadow bitch? Or at the very least, give the song to all three of the Shadows that are right there. But I'm just like, if this is a device you are trying to use to elevate your show, you're not doing a very good job of it.

[17:25] Mo Brady: Yeah, I'm questioning Derek's ability as a director in general.

[17:28] Aaron Albano: Right? But that's just...

[17:30] Mo Brady: Oh, Derek.

[17:33] Aaron Albano: How do you feel about Rebecca sort of taking Karen under her wing? Is this like a keep your enemies closer scenario? Or is she... Is it in order to get Karen to trust her? But like, why is it valuable for Rebecca to have Karen's trust, but not have the trust of any other people in the show? Like, why does she need the trust of her understudy?

[18:00] Mo Brady: Yeah, the only other sort of Marilyn treatment of Karen is from Ivy, who seems equally threatened by her, but then responds by pushing her away and alienating her. Where this seems like the opposite. Rebecca befriends her in almost such a way that I can't help but question her motives.

[18:22] Aaron Albano: I think we're totally supposed to question her motives.

[18:24] Mo Brady: Are we?

[18:25] Aaron Albano: And I don't know.

[18:26] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[18:27] Aaron Albano: But to what I don't know if we know to what end if... Here's a good hypothetical. If rehearsal had gone as planned, and Karen was on the plinth that was moving downstage, and Rebecca was moving upstage, do you think Rebecca would have still been like, I think I should sing this?

[18:45] Mo Brady: No.

[18:46] Aaron Albano: Why?

[18:47] Mo Brady: Yes, yes, yes. I think so. Because one of the tenets of Smash is that theater people are trash who cannot be trusted. And so I think that everyone is looking out for themselves. And so the show is telling us that Rebecca would throw Karen under the bus in an instant.

[19:01] Aaron Albano: So you think Rebecca would have flipped on Karen in that moment, even though she's the one who volunteered Karen to sing the song to begin with?

[19:16] Mo Brady: God, I don't know, Aaron. I don't know. I can promise you that no one else has thought about it this way.

[19:24] Aaron Albano: That is the point of our show. But like, because that's also what's interesting, because this was a device of her own making. Karen singing the song as staged, Rebecca would have been totally fine with. Why would Rebecca then react differently to Ivy singing a Marilyn song than Karen?

[19:45] Mo Brady: Maybe she thinks that Ivy, because Ivy actually played the role before, she's more of a threat. Maybe she thinks that because Ivy is a Broadway veteran and this isn't her first rodeo, that she could be more of a threat. Maybe she thinks that because Ivy was brought in the last moment that Rebecca might be being considered letting go. There's reasons why she might care that Ivy is singing the song and wouldn't care that Karen would.

[20:13] Aaron Albano: You know what I just thought of also? What if her tact to taking Karen under her wing is less about elevating Karen and more about being able to claim ownership of Karen? Because if she elevates Karen, and it's because of Rebecca, then Karen's a star because Rebecca made her a star.

[20:37] Mo Brady: Yeah. And so that's why Ivy swooping in and singing the song instead is like a wrench in her gears. Because that's what's so interesting about when Rebecca hears Karen. She's like, give her the song, give her da da da. And let's teach her how to be a star. There's almost this Regina George vibe to her where she is taking Karen under her wing and making her a plastic instead of reviling her the way Ivy did.

[21:05] Aaron Albano: You did it.

[21:06] Mo Brady: Does that make sense or did I just make that up?

[21:07] Aaron Albano: You did it. You brought it back to Mean Girls. I honestly think you cracked it.

[21:13] Mo Brady: Yes!

[21:19] Aaron Albano: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch episode 13 of Smash entitled Tech.

[21:26] Mo Brady: It's happening!

[21:27] Aaron Albano: Oh my gosh, we're in tech!

[21:29] Mo Brady: You can't get married because you're in tech!

[21:31] Aaron Albano: You can find Smash episodes on either the NBC app or at NBC.com.

[21:36] Mo Brady: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano.

[21:39] Aaron Albano: And me, Mo Brady.

[21:41] Mo Brady: Are you enjoying the Smash miniseries? Let us know by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, especially if you're clamoring for us to recap season two.

[21:49] Aaron Albano: You can also download previous episodes of Smash and find other great Ensemblist miniseries wherever you get your podcasts or at broadwaypodcastnetwork.com.

[21:58] Mo Brady: And be sure to follow The Ensemblist on Instagram or our website where we share stories of talented artists working in Broadway ensembles.

[22:04] Aaron Albano: Thanks for listening, guys!

[22:05] Mo Brady: Until next time!

[22:06] Aaron Albano: Woohoo!