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

[0:13] Aaron Albano: And I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:33] Mo Brady: Welcome back, listeners, to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is television's most detailed depiction of the theatre industry. And yes, we're still talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of a Broadway musical and all the drama that ensued along the way.

[0:48] Aaron Albano: We've been going back, episode by episode, to see how the supposed love letter to Broadway has held up over the past decade. In each episode, we're looking to find the answers to these three questions. Did it represent Broadway then? Does it represent Broadway now? And is it any good?

[1:04] Mo Brady: So let's dive in and talk about Episode 3 of Season 2, The Dramaturg. Aaron, give us the stats.

[1:10] Aaron Albano: The Dramaturg premiered on February 19, 2013. It was written by Larry Shaw and directed by Brian Goluboff, both newcomers to Smash as of Season 2. The viewership was 3.29 million viewers, which was 1.16 million down from the previous episode two weeks prior. We saw new material from both our up-and-coming shows this episode. We were treated to a brand new song from Bombshell called Our Little Secret, written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, and a preview of a song from currently-unnamed show soon to be known as Hit List called Good For You, written by Drew Gasparini. The episode also featured Megan Hilty singing a cover of Robyn's Dancing On My Own, as well as snippets of The Wiz's Soon As I Get Home, sung by Jennifer Hudson, and Katharine McPhee's mini-rendition of They Just Keep Movin' the Line.

[2:02] Mo Brady: And pray tell, Aaron, what happens in The Dramaturg?

[2:05] Aaron Albano: I will both pray and tell. Eileen demands that Tom and Julia meet with a dramaturg named Peter Gilman to make the quick fixes she thinks the show needs. Tom thinks Peter could be a shepherd for their play, but Julia is afraid dramaturgs are parasites, especially when he reads her for focusing on DiMaggio instead of putting sex appeal into Marilyn herself. Derek knows that new musicals take time to develop, but needs something now, something big. So he's burning the candle from three ends, staging a Bombshell number for potential producers, scheming with Veronica Moore to get his job back at The Wiz, and agreeing to meet Kyle and Jimmy about the plot that goes around their great songs. Ivy talks Smash's real-life casting director, Bernie Telsey, into letting her audition for a revival of Liaisons, but feels she has little chance of booking it up against real names like Jen Damiano and Jesse Mueller.

When she stops by Bombshell Rehearsal to ask Derek for advice about auditions, she realizes that she needs to start dancing on her own. Tom helps her to realize the Liaisons role is more like Marilyn than she had initially imagined, and that boost helps her win the part. Inspired or in spite of Peter Gilman, Julia writes a non-PG number for Marilyn and JFK called Our Little Secret. It loses Derek a job on The Wiz, but Eileen calls it the perfect direction for Bombshell. Jimmy continues to be his usual angry white man self, seemingly pissed off at every opportunity Karen and Kyle provide him to share his show with the world. When they finally meet up with Derek, Jimmy describes the story of their show, a young man who hates the world but has a treasure trove of mind-blowing music.

Stealing his songs to catapult her fame, a female fling gets addicted to the fame his music provides, and he lets her even though his love with her will destroy him. But Derek is intrigued enough to pound beers with the creative team of this new musical, and they begin their work on the show together.

[4:25] Mo Brady: First off, I want to talk about the title credits, the beginning of the show. I feel like this was the first time we'd seen...

[4:29] Aaron Albano: Oh, yeah, brand new.

[4:32] Mo Brady: Yeah, totally new. It was like exactly the title credits that Smash always should have had.

[4:36] Aaron Albano: It was beautiful.

[4:38] Mo Brady: It was gorgeous. I have no notes. It was gorgeous.

[4:43] Aaron Albano: I felt like it was an event. It made everybody seem like a star. It made it seem like this was a story worth telling, and it was going to be dramatic and exciting.

[4:54] Mo Brady: Title credits aside, how did you like the episode?

[4:57] Aaron Albano: Man, I feel like it's just going to go downhill before it goes uphill. Maybe it's because I'm waiting for my part, but I'm also... There's just so much of sort of like hemming and hawing required in a 15-episode arc where you're like, all right, Bombshell needs work. We all know it. Yes, okay, we need a dramaturg to help with that process.

[5:22] Mo Brady: Do you think they use this term correctly? Is Peter in the show what we'd colloquially understand as a dramaturg?

[5:30] Aaron Albano: No, he's what we would call a show doctor.

[5:32] Mo Brady: I think so too.

[5:33] Aaron Albano: A dramaturg, you don't hide in so much mystique, right? I mean, this is probably because we're coming from the actor perspective, but I think about the dramaturg as the person who gives you the packet at the beginning of the first rehearsal and is like, here's the historical context.

[5:48] Mo Brady: It's very scholarly. It's like a theater historian who will tell you everything you need to know about this existing show.

[5:54] Aaron Albano: Or about the historical context of the show. It's sort of like, how does the action of the play relate to the historical time period that it was supposedly taking place in?

[6:07] Mo Brady: Yeah. So why would they just say show doctor?

[6:11] Aaron Albano: I don't know, because show doctor seems sexier, doesn't it? The show doctor.

[6:15] Mo Brady: Yeah. Like, was it an attempt to add this sort of level of sophistication? But it backfired?

[6:24] Aaron Albano: I don't know.

[6:25] Mo Brady: I don't know. I totally hear what you're saying. And I did not think about it at all until this conversation.

[6:31] Aaron Albano: But that said, so term aside, Peter is the new show doctor on Bombshell.

[6:37] Mo Brady: Sure. Oh, that sounds so sexy. It's like he's wearing a lab coat and he's got like a pencil in his pocket.

[6:43] Aaron Albano: Especially when it's Daniel Sinjada. Holy crap.

[6:47] Mo Brady: Yeah. I think of Daniel Sinjada as Take Me Out, the original naked baseball player in Take Me Out.

[6:52] Aaron Albano: I didn't know that work. Yeah. Okay, great. Fantastic. Even better.

[6:58] Mo Brady: Stop ruling, Aaron.

[7:02] Aaron Albano: But okay, so Peter comes in as the new show doctor.

[7:05] Mo Brady: Right. Which we find out sort of in fits and starts, right? He's been hired, but then Eileen's like, just meet with him. Oh, yeah, he did see the show four times. Oh, he's already on staff.

[7:19] Aaron Albano: Unnecessarily sneaky. Where I'm like, hey, we know there's reviews. Like she knows the problem with the show from the public's perspective is the book.

[7:27] Mo Brady: Yeah. No one's questioning if the book wasn't good. The question is, can Julia do it on her own or does she help or kick in the pants to make it happen?

[7:41] Aaron Albano: Right. Yeah. And that's what I mean. But if that's the test, Julia fails miserably. Why? And it's something that I get into with like this entire episode with Julia. All I have written down is Julia's ego is overwhelming. Like this whole issue where she's like, I don't want to show doctor. People are going to think that the show's in trouble. People are going to think that I lost it. People are going to think that we can't do it on our own. People are already saying that, Julia. You have it on. You have receipts. People are already saying that. And if you want Bombshell to reach its fullest potential, wouldn't you at least entertain the idea that you might need help?

[8:26] Mo Brady: Right. Does Julia think that the show is good as is? Does she think it's great?

[8:32] Aaron Albano: She does. And it's not. It's not. And that's where it's revealing of Julia's sort of mindset. Because whenever she and Peter get into it, her definitions of why it's good is that, well, they stood up at the end. Oh, well, they cried when Marilyn died. Her entire gauge on quality is based on audience response.

[8:59] Mo Brady: It's because even this far into the process, they haven't settled on a strong point of view for their interpretation of a show about Marilyn Monroe.

[9:05] Aaron Albano: They don't believe that their show is good because they believe their show is good. They believe their show is good because people like it.

[9:15] Mo Brady: And because it's based on a great idea. And Peter says that when they're in Peter's apartment and drinking fancy coffee. She puts him on the spot and says, what's one thing you like? And he says, I think the subject matter is good.

[9:31] Aaron Albano: Maybe she's used to having a more hands-on director. I mean, Derek's a pretty bad director, you know, in terms of like rehearsal room behavior. But he also doesn't seem to be coming at Bombshell with like a strong point of view himself. Maybe she's used to On Heaven, On Earth and Two for the Road. I don't know. What's the other one called?

[9:50] Mo Brady: It was like Two of By Sea by whatever it's called. Three of By whatever. Yes, continue.

[9:57] Aaron Albano: Maybe those musicals had like a stronger director who had a stronger vision.

[10:01] Mo Brady: And so she was getting kind of guided more by someone else.

[10:07] Moe Brady: No one's steering the ship, but that's what's... because the show began with them.

[10:13] Aaron Albano: The show began with them, and the them meaning Tom and Julia.

[10:18] Moe Brady: And again, assuming that their rise to power in this version of Broadway is well-founded, at some point, they were doing very good work. And arguably, this is still very good work, but...

[10:27] Aaron Albano: Well, there are illusions that Heaven on Earth is a lark, right? That their first musical, whose name we can't remember, is a good first musical, but not great. That Heaven on Earth is a hit, but isn't necessarily a deep show, right? And then here in Bombshell, they're trying to create a more meaty piece about Marilyn Monroe. Maybe they're just not very good at depth.

[11:01] Moe Brady: So Bombshell is their attempt at a deviation from what they normally do?

[11:07] Aaron Albano: I think Bombshell is an attempt to create more serious in-depth theater than Heaven on Earth.

[11:13] Moe Brady: Fascinating. Okay, so that changes things. Because then that means that she's used to acclaim in a genre that she's not currently in, and is not equipped to deal with this kind of criticism. Because when they go at it on the street...

[11:32] Aaron Albano: Oh, I love that scene so good.

[11:33] Moe Brady: I love that scene. A, I'm like, I would listen to this podcast. If it was just Peter and Julia arguing about Bombshell, if they produced Bombshelled on the Ensemblist, I would listen to it. Don't give me any more ideas. We know that I'm creating too much content right now.

[11:49] Aaron Albano: Right. But listening to them argue about the show was thrilling. And I was like, this is... this goes back to my theory. It's like, let the drama be about the show and putting up the show, right? I don't need any of your sort of like, backstage romance, blah, blah, blah. The creation of a Broadway musical is exciting enough.

[12:12] Moe Brady: So Peter inspires her to create this song, Our Little Secret. And everyone's like, yes, that's the right direction. I was like, that sounds like a boring song that Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman wrote for Catch Me If You Can. That doesn't thrill me at all.

[12:31] Aaron Albano: Well, A, I was like, Peter's right. This isn't it. This was better, but this isn't it. And again, when they love it, Julia's like, okay, we're done. It's like, no, you're not. And why don't you want to make it any better? Even if it's good? Why are you like, great, onto the next problem? Why aren't you like, yeah. I feel like anybody who is a creator wants to keep making the thing better, even if it's good. That's the thing that makes us all crazy as artists is the fact that we can never be truly happy.

[12:59] Moe Brady: We can continually improve.

[13:01] Aaron Albano: Yeah. It's never good enough. It's always going to be good. It's never good enough. Guaranteed, Hamilton was fine on the page three years after Lin started working on it. He still worked on it until it was at the public, and then he still worked on it until he was at Broadway. Because he'll never be satisfied. Get out of here.

[13:23] Moe Brady: All right. I feel like it's time to finally talk about Hit List.

[13:29] Aaron Albano: Let's talk about Hit List. Go.

[13:31] Moe Brady: Okay, so we've been hearing about these composers, right? They write the songs, they write the great songs. And now finally, we get to hear the quote unquote plot of Hit List, which is just the worst.

[13:45] Aaron Albano: I wrote literally what I wrote at the end of the episode was, wow, this show sounds like a mess.

[13:51] Moe Brady: Right? The only things that really make sense in it are the direct parallels to the lead character in Hit List to Jimmy, and the lead female character in Hit List to Karen.

[14:03] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[14:04] Moe Brady: And then the rest of it is A Star is Born plus Hamlet plus a little bit of Romeo and Juliet.

[14:08] Aaron Albano: What does that even mean?

[14:09] Moe Brady: I don't even know what that means. Kyle has these horrible asides, which Andy Mientus sells, God bless. But his interjections of, there are all these other characters too.

[14:19] Aaron Albano: We'd assume.

[14:22] Moe Brady: What characters, Kyle? If they're important, if they're characters, tell us about those characters when you're telling us about your musical.

[14:32] Aaron Albano: And then we don't even have a second act?

[14:35] Moe Brady: Okay, so you don't have a plot.

[14:38] Aaron Albano: Here's a question. Do you think in any other world, this would have been a successful meeting? Had this happened in the restaurant like it was supposed to, would this have been intriguing enough for a show? And granted, neither of us have been at the beginnings of a show's process, so maybe this is enough, but...

[14:57] Moe Brady: Okay, so Bombshell, it's based on a good idea, right? Bombshell is based on Marilyn Monroe. And so you can bring in parallels of like, you can imagine someone being like, let's create a musical about Cher or Donna Summer or Tina Turner. And everyone's like, yeah, great. Those are great ideas for a musical. You can get invested by the concept and not have to worry about the inner details yet.

[15:21] Aaron Albano: So then the Hit List comparison is like The Wrong Man or A Strange Loop, musicals from relatively new composers that are based on great ideas, right?

[15:37] Moe Brady: I think people are intrigued at this idea with The Wrong Man of like, oh, this is a story that is interesting and has great music, right?

[15:47] Aaron Albano: Or A Strange Loop where you're like, oh, it's a musical inside a musical. That's fascinating. And it's about...

[15:51] Moe Brady: It's written by a guy who was an usher at the New Amsterdam, and it's about being an usher at the New Amsterdam. Like there's an intrigue sort of around the idea, right?

[16:01] Aaron Albano: There's like this meta element to it that's like fascinating. That's interesting and enough to be like, oh, that's an interesting idea for a musical. Let's hear more, right?

[16:10] Moe Brady: Yeah.

[16:10] Aaron Albano: Like they've got a good... Even if you think of not new composers, but I'm thinking about Soft Power, like a musical inside a play, it's a reverse King and I. I'm interested, right? There's your elevator pitch. They all have elevator pitches. This was a poor elevator pitch.

[16:24] Moe Brady: Yes. A Hit List has a poor elevator pitch, and that makes you wonder why would anyone believe that this is the next big thing?

[16:34] Aaron Albano: Exactly. And that's where I'm like, here's my biggest issue, especially with Jimmy, is that basically both Karen and Derek have been chasing down this dude who they've decided is brilliant, but clearly doesn't want anything to do with this.

[16:50] Moe Brady: And then when he does, he pretends like he wants it because of his friend. I'm just like, where? How?

[17:01] Aaron Albano: How does this even...

[17:03] Moe Brady: Yeah, I don't think you get anywhere in this business unless you actually want it.

[17:07] Aaron Albano: Want it? Yeah.

[17:09] Moe Brady: Like, I'm just like, they literally are continually chasing him down. Jimmy is blowing every single opportunity that he's given by both Karen and Derek, either by pissing them off or not showing up or just angrily walking away like, mer mer mer, the world's against me.

[17:25] Aaron Albano: I'm like, at some point, the people who are offering you the opportunity wash their hands of you and is like, bye.

[17:34] Moe Brady: I feel like it's this problematic message in their storyline where I'm like, you can blow all your opportunities and treat people like trash.

[17:42] Aaron Albano: If you're a white guy.

[17:43] Moe Brady: If you're an angry brooding white dude with a modicum of talent, people will just want you to succeed.

[17:50] Aaron Albano: There's no reason to root for them.

[17:51] Moe Brady: No. We're rooting for Bombshell, right? Whether it be because you want the show to succeed, or you want actors to succeed, or you've invested in it. Like, we want Bombshell to work.

[18:04] Aaron Albano: And there's no reason to want Hit List to work.

[18:06] Moe Brady: I wanted them to. Episode one, I wanted him to. There's an excitement about Kyle. There's a mystique about Jimmy.

[18:13] Aaron Albano: But then we're now three episodes in.

[18:16] Moe Brady: And what has Jimmy done? Just piss us off.

[18:18] Aaron Albano: Just like he's treated the other characters in the show like garbage.

[18:21] Moe Brady: He's basically, through proxy, treated the audience like garbage. And I don't want to root for him anymore.

[18:25] Aaron Albano: I'm like, you're going to act like this? Fine, forget it. I don't want you to succeed. I don't think your show's that good.

[18:32] Moe Brady: You were burned by some white straight men in your life, weren't you?

[18:37] Aaron Albano: That's for a different podcast.

[18:40] Moe Brady: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch season two, episode four of Smash, entitled The Song.

[18:54] Aaron Albano: Which song?

[18:55] Moe Brady: I don't know.

[18:56] Aaron Albano: We're going to find out.

[18:58] Moe Brady: You can find Smash episodes either on the NBC app or at NBC.com.

[19:03] Aaron Albano: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano.

[19:06] Moe Brady: And me, Moe Brady.

[19:07] Aaron Albano: 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.

[19:13] Moe Brady: And the second is by becoming a Patreon member, which you can do at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[19:19] Aaron Albano: You can subscribe to The Ensemblist on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or listen to all of our episodes on bpn.fm.

[19:26] Moe Brady: And they're all on one place.

[19:28] Aaron Albano: Yeah, you can.

[19:28] Moe Brady: Oh yeah, we have our own feed on Broadway Podcast Network now.

[19:33] Aaron Albano: You can look for Smash.

[19:34] Moe Brady: Look, Aaron, you're all grown up.

[19:37] Aaron Albano: You're a real boy.

[19:39] Moe Brady: And you can follow us on Instagram because, like, let's say you weren't following us on a podcast platform. We share all our episodes there.

[19:47] Aaron Albano: And you'd be like, oh, great. New Smashed episode.

[19:50] Moe Brady: There they are.

[19:51] Aaron Albano: Perfect.

[19:53] Moe Brady: All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time.

[20:07] Aaron Albano: Bye.