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

[0:12] Mo Brady: And I'm 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're talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of not one, but two Broadway musicals and all of the drama that ensued along the way.

[0:34] Aaron Albano: Today we have for you a very special episode in honor of The Actors Fund and their livestream of the 2015 concert of Bombshell.

[0:42] Mo Brady: For those of you who haven't spent the last six months watching Smash episodes like we have, this will be your perfect primer for remembering what Bombshell was all about. Throughout the episode, we will guide you through the most iconic moments of the Bombshell score, along with our thoughts and critiques of each number. Enjoy!

[1:10] Aaron Albano: We fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame, a face, and a name to remember. That face is Catherine McPhee, and that name is Karen Cartwright. She's singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow in an audition. A team of writers, Tom Leavitt and Julia Houston, are tipped off to a subject for a new musical by their assistant, Ellis. Ellis says, I think Marilyn Monroe would make a good musical. Julia is intrigued by Marilyn as a subject, saying there's just something about her, how much she loved and wanted to be loved. So the team gets to work on a demo. Ivy is currently an ensemblist in Tom Leavitt's Broadway production called Heaven on Earth, but she confides to him that, you know, I love the show, I love you, but the ensemble not so much. She says she just wants a part. And the episode ends with both Karen and Ivy vying to let me be your star. What did you think of the episode?

[2:03] Mo Brady: I remember loving the pilot, and I feel like a lot of New York did.

[2:06] Aaron Albano: Great.

[2:07] Mo Brady: I mean, the buzz around Smash was so high. It really gave us what we wanted.

[2:11] Aaron Albano: Right. I think it's definitely set the stage for what we ended up seeing for the next two seasons. Like, for whatever came afterwards, I think people saw that and they were excited about what was to come.

[2:21] Mo Brady: Just in this portrayal alone, you get a very distinct idea of who these two people are.

[2:27] Aaron Albano: Sure. Who takes a taxi to an audition in a fur coat?

[2:32] Mo Brady: Oh, right.

[2:33] Aaron Albano: Like, no one would do that except for maybe someone who was like, always on and always a little bit extra.

[2:39] Mo Brady: Well, I mean, and especially her conversation with her mother at the end of the episode where she's like, they want me to play Marilyn when she didn't have the job yet.

[2:44] Aaron Albano: Right.

[2:47] Mo Brady: Like, just automatically jumping to that. I wrote down, Ivy, a cautionary tale of investing in a project that isn't yours yet. And I was like, that's Ivy.

[2:58] Aaron Albano: Right. And that was sort of the setup that they wanted her to have to contrast her to Karen, who I think in watching again, Karen is absolutely the every woman for the people who aren't in our business.

[3:11] Mo Brady: Right. And she was the one that, for lack of a term, laymen and laywomen were supposed to latch on to as who they related to.

[3:18] Aaron Albano: Yeah, sure. And Ivy was much more dramatic. And yet watching it the first time, I was like, well, of course you're going to give it to Ivy. Ivy's the professional. Ivy knows what she's doing.

[3:27] Mo Brady: Right.

[3:28] Aaron Albano: And versus watching it now, I'm like, Ivy's a bit of a drama. I cannot pass the subway entrance at 43rd and Broadway without thinking of Smash.

[3:41] Mo Brady: Wait, why so?

[3:42] Aaron Albano: Because Karen comes out of it.

[3:43] Mo Brady: Because she comes out on that one.

[3:44] Aaron Albano: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, let me be your star. And maybe they were showing commercials and stuff, but that definitely to me will forever and always be the Smash entrance.

[4:11] Mo Brady: After three commercial breaks, we finally meet Angelica Houston as Eileen Rand, who wants the project and wants to connect them with a hot-tempered director named Derek Wills. They all agree to set aside their differences in part due to a spectacularly staged number on spec called The National Pastime.

[4:31] Aaron Albano: That baseball number, which included Thane Jasperson, was in there. I saw Alex Wong, Ricky Tripp, Manny Santos, Chris Meyer. It was a million people.

[4:42] Mo Brady: Oh, yeah. Justin Prescott, Curtis Holbrook, Spencer Liff.

[4:46] Aaron Albano: Yeah. Right. I think that was also one of the things that excited us as the community was like, oh, that is a really great musical theater number.

[4:54] Mo Brady: Oh, for sure.

[5:07] Aaron Albano: In the final auditions, Karen performs a full staged version of 20th Century Fox Mambo, surrounded by ensemblists, which Derek justifies by telling Eileen, Tom and Julia, oh, guys, the song was just so good that we went ahead and staged the whole thing. So in the second episode, we have this work session for Karen. She's learning some of the choreography.

[5:31] Mo Brady: Right. And she's learning with four dancers.

[5:35] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[5:38] Mo Brady: And who? Because I knew Philip Spaeth, Eleanor Scott, Ricky Tripp, but I didn't know who the last one was.

[5:40] Aaron Albano: Oh, it's Christine Covello.

[5:42] Mo Brady: Oh, OK. She was fantastic. I mean, they were all fantastic.

[5:44] Aaron Albano: Right. I didn't know her.

[5:45] Mo Brady: No, she lasted on The Town was her last Broadway gig.

[5:48] Aaron Albano: Oh, nice.

[5:49] Mo Brady: I think she's a new mom. We also got to see the women in the dream sequence.

[5:53] Aaron Albano: Oh, my God.

[5:54] Mo Brady: The opening of the show.

[5:57] Aaron Albano: Like the opening where they're kind of brainstorming what that would look like.

[6:02] Mo Brady: Right. First off, that section of the show, when they introduced that as the opening, I was like, I could be on board with this opening of the show. Who was in there? It was Katie Webber, Savannah Weiss, Jess Golden.

[6:10] Aaron Albano: And then the two.

[6:11] Mo Brady: Yes.

[6:12] Aaron Albano: The one thing I thought was like Savannah is stage left and she's like, like in a pose with one leg out or something.

[6:18] Mo Brady: And I was like, that would be a really uncomfortable pose to be in. Take after take after take after take. When you're on stage and you're doing a tableau, you're like, oh, this is you. You want to pick something that your body can do kind of like eight times a week for however long you need to do it.

[6:33] Aaron Albano: Yeah.

[6:33] Mo Brady: But when you're doing something on set, it's like, I just need to pick something that I can do for six hours today.

[6:42] Aaron Albano: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

[6:43] Mo Brady: What I think is interesting is that we're seeing the same dancers over and over again.

[6:47] Aaron Albano: Oh, for sure.

[6:48] Mo Brady: Part of that is obviously just the production of Smash has these people in their back pocket. They know their phone numbers. They know whose agents to call.

[6:58] Aaron Albano: Right.

[6:58] Mo Brady: But what's cool from sort of a meta point is we are building an ensemble.

[7:03] Aaron Albano: Oh, for sure.

[7:04] Mo Brady: I mean, it's definitely like a subconscious nod to the way this business works. These people are Derek's people, and that he's going to carry with the show from beginning through if he trusts them.

[7:29] Aaron Albano: Let my heart be the teacher, no one here to disapprove as we review the lessons you've been missing.

[7:43] 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. 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.

[8:04] Aaron Albano: What was your favorite part?

[8:05] Mo Brady: 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 your seat, Christine Bendel with Philip Spaeth. And Christine Bendel is an incredible veteran of seven Broadway shows. She's been on Broadway for 20 years.

[8:24] Aaron Albano: And she's the kind of dancer that did like Moving Out and Swing and Come Fly Away.

[8:29] Mo Brady: Oh, she's legendary.

[8:30] Aaron Albano: Completely legendary.

[8:31] Mo Brady: 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...

[8:44] Mo Brady: 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. It's another opening of another show for the cast of Bombshell. The company makes the journey from New York to Boston for the show's pre-Broadway tryout.

[9:14] Aaron Alvano: So what did you think about the like, quote unquote, bad acting scene between Bobby and Jessica? This is the scene that Tom sort of writes on the fly because Julia's not there. And it's like, it's very much like an in one interstitial scene where they're like, I don't know who she is, but she seems like she's gonna be a star. What's her name? Marilyn Monroe. What did you think about that moment?

[9:45] Mo Brady: As a moment, I loved it because I was like, what's happening? This is so rich, which is what it was supposed to be. And I thought Savannah and Wes played it beautifully. But all I could think was, wow, this show is a rough show to be out of town. Because then the next scene, like literally the cutaway is Tom being like, I'm not a writer. I was just like, um, except you kind of are. And if you have any legitimacy in this business whatsoever, you have better instincts than this.

[10:41] Aaron Alvano: After closing the pre-Broadway run of Bombshell, producer Aileen Rand assembles her growing team to announce her goal of booking a Broadway theater by the end of the week. Introducing the new song Cut, Print, Moving On, it was very clearly serving as an opening number for the episode. Like it was basically a big recap of what's happened. But it's also like telling us like, okay, Smash is moving on. And it's also like saying, okay, we're going to leave some things behind like Frank and Dev. Like we're going to show you, we're going to show you Chris Rodriguez for approximately eight seconds. The song did a very good job.

[11:19] Mo Brady: Yeah. And it's not like it was a song that came out of nowhere. We were watching a song from the closing night performance, which where do you think this happens in the show? By the way, I was thinking about this the entire time since we've seen the whole show, basically. I'm like, so there's another song we haven't seen? Another big ensemble song we haven't seen.

[11:39] Aaron Alvano: But a sweeping ballad. One of our problems with so many of the songs in Bombshell is that they don't move the story along. And you would assume that a song that literally has the word move in the title would be about moving on. So that I was like, okay, this song at least has like a trajectory and purpose. It's not like the steam room number or the baseball number.

[12:04] Mo Brady: Yeah. If I had to put money on it, I was like, I bet you this is like the act one closer. That feels good. It feels like this hopeful propellant into intermission.

[12:16] Aaron Alvano: I love that. Moving on because then you're getting your $17 cocktail at the bar and wondering what's going to happen next.

[12:23] Mo Brady: Where is she moving on to? Literally. Yeah. I was like, okay, this is a good number in the show and serving the episode. I was like, all right. What did you think of public relations?

[13:00] Aaron Alvano: The big splashy act two opener. My favorite thing about public relations was because it was Tom Levitt's fantasy act two opener. The first thing I thought of was like, all right, where's the tap break? If he says knowledgeable of Broadway act two openers as he pretends to be.

[13:22] Mo Brady: We need to forget about the boy. Uh-huh. We need a King of New York. I feel like it's theater lore that every good act two opener is a tap number of some kind. And so I was loved it when the tap break showed up in the middle of the number.

[13:37] Aaron Alvano: Well, let's be honest. When you see Philip Atmore, who's like a noted Broadway tapper in an ensemble, you're like, uh, there's going to be tap shoes in this thing. It was great. And I actually really loved the tap number. I love the number. I thought the number was great.

[13:53] Mo Brady: If we were going off of our theory that cut print moving on was the end of act one, I thought it led perfectly into public relations opening of act two.

[14:04] Aaron Alvano: Yeah. In Bombshell Junior, when schools are doing the one act version, it will be a great transition from cut print moving on.

[14:13] Mo Brady: Bombshell Junior. The moment I enjoyed the most was actually the sort of back and forth that happens with luggage carts, like jumping from cart to cart. Like I love, I love this choreography where Marilyn is basically just like carried around and by men. And like, we sort of like follow her all over the stage.

[14:35] Aaron Alvano: By different versions of Christian Borel.

[15:09] Mo Brady: But at last I found my lease. Derek, Eileen, Tom and Julia are arguing about how to move forward now that Rebecca has left the production. But in Derek's mind, he continues to see Karen as his Marilyn. So he makes the decision to put Ms. Cartwright on as Ms. Monroe. The day is spent putting Karen into the show, altering costumes and updating her on rewrites. But as the rehearsal progresses, Karen proves herself adept to the part. However, even while she is being put in, there are whispers that Ivy already knows most of the show. And most notably, those whispers come from Ms. Lynn herself.

[15:45] Aaron Alvano: And with that, we are back to the evening preview with Karen shining as Marilyn Monroe, debuting Tom and Julia's new ending to the show, a stirring ballad called Don't Forget Me. You know, if it was just the last five episodes of the season, I think Smash would have been just like a triumphant hit. It found its stride. We like put on a musical. We chose a champion. I like these last few episodes. I've really enjoyed.

[16:11] Mo Brady: Yes, agreed. I'm convinced Bombshell is one of those shows. All I could think of was like, this might be so horrible. All I can think of is like, it's a show like Sideshow, where the show has a really strong opener and a really strong ending. Everything in the middle is garbage. But because it has those two, you're fine with it. All you do is walk out of the theater seeing that finale and being like, that was a great show.

[16:44] Mo Brady: To keep up to date with our recaps, you can watch Smash episodes on either the NBC app or at NBC.com. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady.

[16:54] Aaron Alvano: And by me, Aaron Alvano. There are two great ways you could be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and the second is by becoming a Patreon member. You can do that at Patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[17:08] Mo Brady: You can follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at Broadway Podcast Network, bpn.fm, as well as following us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time.