This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Host: There's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, but one thing that is for certain is that musicals unite us, help us to learn about ourselves, and make us feel better about who we can become. That's why we've created this miniseries, My Favorite Musical, which is a chance to talk to some of my favorite artists about the musicals that have inspired them over the years. And I couldn't think of anyone better to join me for the first episode of this miniseries than our original co-creator, Nikka Graff Lanzarone. Back in 2013, Nikka and I created The Ensemblist as a podcast that gave people a look inside the work and talent that is involved in being in a Broadway ensemble. So much of the heart of The Ensemblist, so much of the advocacy that we work towards, comes from Nikka's spirit. And so it was a joy to be on microphone with her again and talk about what is her favorite musical, which is the 1975 seminal work, A Chorus Line. Here's our conversation.

[1:34] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: Hi! Hi! Would you introduce yourself and tell us what neighborhood of New York City you live in?

[1:39] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: Oh my god. I'm Nikka Graff Lanzarone and I live in Brooklyn Heights.

[1:44] Host: You are... I've been looking forward to this all day.

[1:51] Host: I have tricked you into coming and talking to me about your favorite musical. So tell us, what is your favorite musical?

[1:57] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: What do you mean you have tricked me? I don't think you tricked me. I was like, my favorite musical is A Chorus Line, which no one is surprised about.

[2:08] Host: No one is surprised about. But that means we have a lot to talk about.

[2:12] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: That's true.

[2:13] Host: In big swaths, why A Chorus Line?

[2:16] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: I think, I don't know, I feel like no other show and no other sort of way of storytelling more accurately, even though it's, even though we're 50 years out, our story is so universal. It's not even so much like the way we audition is super different now and the types of things that are being asked of us are super different now, but the feelings and the life stories are the same. And there's something really both incredible and sort of depressing, but mostly incredible about knowing that no matter how you might be feeling on any given day, there's somebody on that line who is feeling the way you're feeling or has been through the things that you've been through. I don't know. There's just like one long chain stretching back and stretching forward.

[3:15] Host: So did you see A Chorus Line first or did you hear A Chorus Line first?

[3:19] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: I heard A Chorus Line first and then I saw it, but I don't even really remember seeing it. Like I know that I saw some national tour that came in probably in the early 90s, but it was the hearing of it over and over. My father taped it for me off the record. Remember I had these like silver letter stickers because I was a little kid and I decorated the jewel case of the tape with the silver letter stickers and I wrote like A Chorus Line. And then I wore it out so many times that I think he probably had to do it more than once.

[3:54] Host: When you remember that tape, like what songs, what moments, like what parts of the score are like etched into your brain from that?

[4:03] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: I mean, obviously the opening because, you know, I live and breathe on this earth. So the opening of A Chorus Line makes me feel feelings. It's just like the entire thing. I know it's like so nerdy.

[4:16] Host: So between your youth tape and seeing it as an adult, how are you encountering with loving on A Chorus Line?

[4:27] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: No differently. And I think that's the thing that makes me like I feel like I am six or seven every time I hear that show or every time I see that show or every time I do that show. Like there is a part of me that is just a little kid who loves it so much it physically hurts. And like wants to do right by it so badly that it physically hurts in more ways than like it actually physically hurts. Because as people will tell you, it's not the dancing. It's the standing that kills you.

[4:59] Host: So did you like read books on it? Did you like see the movie? Were you like tell me the other ways you remember A Chorus Line in your childhood?

[5:08] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: I remember A Chorus Line in my childhood a lot because my parents were friends with a whole bunch of original company members. You know, there was a faction of people that moved out to L.A. around the same time that my parents moved out to L.A. and so they all stayed friends. And so I kind of got to hear the first-hand stories, both first-hand and second-hand and third-hand and to see to be able to connect actual human beings who I loved, who were the parents of children at my elementary school or who were just friends of my parents to know that they had gone through the same exact story that I so badly wanted to go through in a way.

[5:53] Host: Do you remember any specific stories like that?

[5:56] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: I remember Kay Cole talking about not knowing that what she was doing was really difficult. And like, you know, there are a few people that just like ruined belting for everyone. My mom is one of them and Kay Cole is one of them and then there's, you know, and then Patti LuPone. When people don't know what they're doing is hard, they don't know it's hard. So they don't know, they don't think that it's something to like think about or gear up for or whatever. It's just if you I'm belting this note because that's what's in my body and she just like ruined it for everyone who now has to belt at the ballet.

[6:37] Host: What's your first memory of seeing it professionally?

[6:42] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: A couple of good friends of mine went into the replacement cast like that first year when they replaced a whole bunch of people at once. And so I remember seeing it then and then there was just like this added level of pride and swelling of love of seeing people who I knew and had gone to college with on that stage doing that work having seen them go through everything it took to then get on that stage. I don't know it's that art imitating life imitating art imitating life thing. That's the one that sort of is indelible in my memory is the first time a whole bunch of us from school went that first day that the replacement cast had gone in and it was like I couldn't focus I was just like crying the whole time so excited.

[7:31] Host: So was the first time that you did A Chorus Line before that or after that?

[7:35] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: After that then I did it at Paper Mill was the first time I did it in 2012.

[7:39] Host: Oh my gosh yeah you must have had so much like history and thoughts and feelings and like readiness to be doing that show.

[7:48] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: Just like pouring out of me. I don't know it was like such a

[7:51] Nikka Graff Lanzarone: Perfect experience. A, it was Paper Mill. So it was like this big, because Paper Mill is so close to New York City, there are eyes on it in a different way. And our opening night was like a reunion. So there were like as many people from all of the companies as were available, like came to our opening night and did one on stage with us. And there is, no matter where you are in the world, if you're doing it, a really deep connection to everyone who's ever done it before you and everyone who originated all of these roles, there's something even more special about actually getting to be on stage with those people. And that's happened a couple of other times as well. And now I can't remember what year it was, but I did went around, this was like around Marvin Hamlisch's death, I think.

So it was like a salute to Marvin Hamlisch with this huge chunk of that we mostly just did Chorus Line in the middle of it. And so that was another, that was really incredible because they had found part of the narration of this evening was playing the tapes. And that was the first time I actually got to hear a lot of those words that we know so well being said off the top of somebody's head. So that was super cool as well, and just adds to the swell of emotion I feel whenever I think about it. I think it was like, I think it might have been Dance Around the Living Room with my arms up like this. I want to say that was Donna, but I don't know entirely. Is there a favorite part of the show to perform?

I mean, obviously the opening and the finale, like, duh. I think like the third montage, it's the end of Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello Love when there is a point where everyone is doing something different, and it's really cacophonous and everyone is moving toward one side of the stage and then jumps up and does something in unison. And it's those moments when there's a lot of cacophony and a lot of different groups of people doing things that all of a sudden come to a head and come together and everyone gets to do the same thing at the same time for one second before splitting back off. There are a whole bunch of those moments and those are always so super thrilling because you'll find that you make eye contact with somebody different every time or that that's the only place that you see this person during the show at all because you're all on the line looking out.

So there are a whole bunch of people that you don't see until you're in this wedge over here or that you're watching them out of the corner of your eye and it's the only time you actually get to see each other. And because you're above the line, which means everything is taking place in a fantasy world, so the line also marks time. So anything that happens downstage of the line is really happening and anything that happens upstage of the line is a flashback or a fantasy or something that's not moving in real time. So when things get to happen upstage of the line and you're not kind of bound to the relationships that you have to be bound to as your character and you get to hang out and play with other people, that's always fun.

Is there a character that you most identify with or have you kind of gone through characters over time? I think we all go through characters over time and I think that there are little bits and pieces of everybody that live in all of us. In the last few years there is a part of Cassie that I would understand as deeply as I do and that was a surprise to me because I've always sort of and I guess I'm known as being like more of a Sheila type, but the first time when I did it at a paper mill I played Bebe and that was very deeply a lot of my childhood and a lot of my young adulthood and even now. It's that when you feel like you don't look like everybody else and so much of what people think about you immediately is based on that, that hits in a different way.

And I remember having a really hard time at first in rehearsal getting through my chunk of At the Ballet because it just brought up so much gunk. Sort of the same thing with Cassie like having to do those sides a whole bunch of times and realizing that that's kind of where I was living in the not having worked in a while and not knowing what I was for and what to do and feeling like you know it's a combination of both really secure and really lost at the same time. And then of course like when I did Sheila I had to do literally no acting whatsoever because we know that I love a snappy comeback. But even like bits of Deanna the feeling nothing thing like I feel like I sort of I don't know when I close my eyes I don't see images like I don't see the things and I just sit there and I'm like you guys all this is like how you feel you can close your eyes and like actually picture something because I don't know what is actually what's happening.

I don't know there's a lot of like little bits. How about you? Because I was never like a dancer first like it's just not my show that I have this relationship with like I can tell you the names of characters but I can't define them in that way like it's just not like I know the women better than the men for some reason. Sure. I think I have more awe for a chorus line than like kind than like solidarity with. The last time I saw it professionally was at City Center and that was the first time I'd seen it kind of I think since I'd moved to New York. I just had so much esteem for the people on the stage it's sort of like you're watching two shows at once like you said when you watch the Replacement cast in the Broadway revival go in it's like you're watching you're watching characters who are people who are like people that you know and then you're watching people that you know who are like those characters play the characters that are like people that you know and so you're simultaneously like in awe of the story which feels so reminiscent to the community that we live in and also watching people that you like be good in a play and be playing roles with meat that those specific actors don't often get to play.

Yeah. Yeah. That's not that's not my favorite musical Nika. Well I know but I like but I like hearing what other people have to say about things Morgan. I know I know and you're a good you're you're a good interviewer so you're turning the tables on me. Well one more question like yeah if someone lived on the moon and had never encountered a chorus line before where would you tell them to start? I mean obviously I would say like go to Lincoln Center but if we were on the moon like we can't go to Lincoln Center on the moon also we can't leave the house right now so there's that but Spotify is on the moon.

[14:56] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Nika Graf Lanzarone for sharing her stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and the other one is by becoming a Patreon member. You can do that at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow The Ensemblist on Spotify on Apple Podcasts or at our home on Broadway Podcast Network where you can find us at bpn.fm and make sure you're following us on Instagram where we share the stories of talented artists working in theater ensembles every day. Thanks for listening guys. Until next time.