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[0:30] Moe Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome. I'm Moe Brady.

[0:42] Moe Brady: One thing that has become clear about the coronavirus pandemic is that it is not a sprint, but a marathon. We will be in this holding pattern for many, many weeks, if not many months, where we are not able to create theater in our usual ways. So I've been particularly intrigued by people who are finding new ways to create theatrical moments. One of those people is Robi Hager. He's a veteran of multiple Broadway shows and also the composer of a musical called Basic Witches. He is live-streaming a performance of that show this Saturday. And so I wanted to get him on the phone and hear about how the show was created and why he wanted to reshare it in this moment in time. Here's our conversation.

[1:41] Robi Hager: Hi, would you introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling from?

[1:45] Robi Hager: Yeah, I'm Robi Hager, and I'm calling in from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[1:50] Moe Brady: What is Basic Witches?

[1:52] Robi Hager: Basic Witches is an original musical that I wrote with fellow Broadway veteran John Tracy Egan, and it is a drag and trans musical, and it premiered here in Philadelphia in 2018 in October. It's just a super fun musical, fabulous musical, that I am going to be live-streaming on Facebook this Saturday, April 11th at 8 p.m. And it's on our Facebook page, the Basic Witches page. And a little bit about the musical. It's a musical about four famous witches that we all know about. So we got the Wicked Witch of the West, Ursula from Little Mermaid. We got the Snow White Witch and the Hansel and Gretel Witch. They are in a competition very much like RuPaul's Drag Race, and they're competing to be Supreme Witch of Halloween Hills.

And this is all, like, you know, guided through our amazing host, who we cast as Eric Jaffe, who is a fantastic drag queen. And they kind of guide the audience on, you know, the spells, and the magic, and the dance, and the whole competition. So within this story, though, we have a parallel story of our witch apprentice, whose name is Eddie. They are being trained to be a witch, and how they should look, how they should put makeup on, and all that stuff. But Eddie is trying to figure out whether they belong in this world as a witch or not. So they're trying to find their own identity. So a little bit that we touch on with this musical is how the trans community has been so marginalized, even within the queer community. But we do it in a very positive, fun way, where we teach a little bit about that, but at the same time, we're, like, embracing the queerness in our community.

[3:34] Moe Brady: Such a great idea. So how did you meet John Egan?

[3:37] Robi Hager: Well, it's... John Egan, I know him from so long ago now. The first time I met him, he and I went to, at different times, we went to the same high school. It was in Rye Country Day School in Rye, New York. And when I graduated, he received a Hall of Fame award. And there was this, like, this dinner that happens with all the seniors. He and I sang a duet version of Corner of the Sky from Pippin. Since then, we're like, oh, you're fun, and then you're fun, too. Let's have a drink. Let's catch up. And this is before I did anything in New York, any Broadway stuff. Actually, right before I started Spring Awakening, actually, we went for coffee and we talked about... I asked him all the questions, all about, like, agents, auditions, and all that stuff.

And he was awesome. He was the coolest mentor to me. He really opened my eyes on what to expect. You know, how there's a lot of rejection, but there's... the passion has to stay there. And it was so inspiring. And then we became really close friends when we both booked Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway. And from then on, the friendship just grew and grew and grew. Yeah, and, you know, the funny thing is that this musical, Basic Witches, is based on our kids' version, which is called The Real Wicked Witches of Halloween Hills, that premiered at the Westchester Broadway Theater, I think, like... And that's like a kid show. It's like a one-hour kid show. We thought, why don't we make a cool drag queen musical out of this? And then Basic Witches was born.

[5:02] Moe Brady: That's great. Okay, so you guys know each other for a long time. You happen to both do the Bye Bye Birdie revival on Broadway. When did you start writing Basic Witches together?

[5:11] Robi Hager: So Basic Witches started in 2018, in like January or February of 2018. Because then what we did here, we did a reading. I really just followed the protocol of the shows that I've done in New York, too, and how that works, because it works. So what I did, the first step was, let me get a reading with just the cast at stands, and I just presented it in front of people who would be potential investors and donors. And that was a hit. People loved it. So then what I did, there's a Fringe Festival here as well. That was the original intent, to just do the full production just for the Fringe Festival. But then our director, Steve Pacek, said, let's do a staged reading for the Fringe. And then let's keep raising more money to then do a full production for Halloween, since it's like a Halloween show.

So he convinced me, and I was like, okay, great. So why don't we do it at my house? So we had two or three performances, a staged version, staged reading of Basic Witches with all these edits that Johnny kept on sending from New York. We raised so much money for that. We had like 30 people, and we sold out for three shows, and we had 30 people each night. It crattered in my living room. And then from that, we kept on doing fundraising, and I met up with so many amazing people who donated to the show. And then we did the full production with lights, the whole design team. This is something that was so awesome for me to learn, to be in the producer's side. So then that was our final, like our world premiere, like the final of what we have so far of the show. And it even got nominated here for the Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Leading Performance. And it was just crazy how that happened so fast.

[6:58] Moe Brady: You've sold me. I'm already sold.

[7:02] Robi Hager: Right? So I'm like, I know tons of people who would love to see a staged version of Hocus Pocus, so why don't we promote it that way? Okay, so how did the idea of doing this live stream on Facebook this weekend happen?

[7:12] Robi Hager: Yeah, so our host, our lead, Eric Jaffe, they started doing these live streams of Drag Brunch. And just in their house, they're hilarious too. And they just started just doing a Drag Brunch thing. And then they did a couple like parody musicals that they also performed. So then they recorded it and they said like, listen, we're going to put this parody that I did live streaming and we're going to take donations if anyone wants to donate to all these people that are out of work. So many people signed up and so many people like donated so much money and then people were able to pay their rent. People were able to get groceries and get all this stuff. So they said, well, why don't I join on that too and see if we can raise money for even the people that were involved with our show who all of them as of now are out of work as far as I know, including myself.

So then I thought, let's follow in those footsteps that are like, I think hopefully more people will be able to do that to just donate. Even if it's just donate to Broadway Cares, donate to these organizations to help the artists with financial situations.

[8:21] Moe Brady: So what is actually going to happen on Saturday? Are you streaming a previous performance of it? Are people performing it in their homes? How's it working?

[8:31] Robi Hager: So what we're going to do, we filmed this version. We filmed the 2018 show. So I have it on film and I'm editing it. I've been editing it for the past three days. I'm going to put that up. It's really just putting that performance up so people will get to see what we did in 2018. So yes, I'm still trying to figure it. I'm figuring that out right now. I have a couple of programs that I can use to be able to upload that and live stream it through Facebook Live. But that's what people will be watching.

[8:58] Moe Brady: How are you raising money? Like how is the money specifically going to you? And then where is the money going?

[9:04] Robi Hager: So we are accepting donations via Venmo, which is just at Basic Witches. And you'll see our logo on our profile picture. And then from there, I will distribute the money to our artists. The other way people can donate is just to email me directly at contact at basicwitchesmusical.com and we can figure out other way, whether it's through PayPal, whether it's through a check or whatever that wants to be. But I'll collect the funds and then from me, I'll distribute it to the artists, all the artists that were involved with the show.

[9:33] Moe Brady: I admire your creativity. I feel like we're sort of in this new, I mean, we are in a new normal, but you can either cocoon or you can create. And sometimes you do one for a little bit and then you do another. But the idea that you're creating and helping other people at the same time is so admirable.

[9:49] Robi Hager: Thank you. I think, you know, it's funny because I also think it's good to relax and not feel like you have to be ahead of the game or productive during a pandemic. I mean, there's a meme that's been floating around. It's very true. That's like, we don't have to feel the stress of having to do things. You know, if you are creative in a moment, just do it for the fun of it and have fun doing that. I think a lot of people are feeling the stress of the crash of a routine that we had. I, as an actor, I'm very used to that. I'm very used to like, there's a moment where I'm unemployed and I have to come up with things to distract myself and create art. It's helpful for me in that way. And the other side of it is that people want to feel comforted. And certainly a drag show that is a little bit RuPaul's Drag Race and a little bit Hocus Pocus is a great form of comfort for people.

[10:37] Robi Hager: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I think they just like to see people laugh. I mean, I wonder how many people are like really hysterically laughing. There's so many amazing moments in this show that we just let our host just improv for a bit and it's just so funny. So I hope it brings some laughter, some ease to the situation to people during this time.

[11:04] Moe Brady: Special thanks to Robi Hager for sharing his stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways that 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 wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at our home of Broadway Podcast Network at bpn.fm. You can also follow us on Instagram where we share the stories of theater artists right now going through the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks for listening. Until next time.