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

[0:11] Aaron Albano: And I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:26] Mo Brady: Welcome back, listeners, to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is television's most detailed depiction of the theater industry. And yep, we're still talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of not one, but two Broadway musicals and all the drama that ensued along the way.

[0:43] Aaron Albano: We've been going back episode by episode to see how this 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?

[0:59] Mo Brady: So let's dive in and talk about Episode 5 of Season 2, The Read-Through. Aaron, give us the stats.

[1:05] Aaron Albano: The Read-Through premiered on March 5, 2013. It was written by Liz Tichillo and directed by David Petrarca, both in their Smash debuts. The episode premiered to a viewership of 2.68 million this week, down 0.36 mil from the previous episode.

[1:22] Mo Brady: Nobody wants to watch this show.

[1:24] Aaron Albano: No, they don't.

[1:28] Mo Brady: We didn't have a whole lot of music this week, despite hearing the read-throughs of two different shows. We saw a Bombshell fantasy Act 2 opener, complete with tap break, called Public Relations by Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman, and a snippet of Hit List's Caught in the Storm by Pasek and Paul, Jeremy Jordan rendition. We also saw a fantasy sequence to a cover of Some Boys, originally by Death Camp for Cutie.

[1:50] Aaron Albano: And read through that synopsis for us, Mo.

[1:53] Mo Brady: I see what you did there.

[1:55] Aaron Albano: Yep.

[1:56] Mo Brady: Bombshell has booked the Belasco. In a walkthrough of their new home, Tom imagines a new second act opener for Bombshell called Public Relations, which looks remarkably like a song from Catch Me If You Can, down to the plainset and the stortuses. Now finishing each other's sandwiches, Julia and Peter stroll in late to the walkthrough, but thrilled with a new draft of their script they've created together. Despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations, Derek still has friends in high places, well, high enough to get Hit List a spot in the Winter Fringe Festival.

[2:31] Aaron Albano: But with the festival in just two weeks, Karen and Anna rally Bobby, Jessica, and the rest of their ensemblist cohorts for a read-through, where they learn that while Jimmy's music is great, Kyle's dialogue and the characters aren't. However, after their failed reading, Jimmy, Kyle, Anna, and Karen crack the code that could turn the show into a success, scrapping the book scenes and making the show sung through.

[2:56] Mo Brady: A week into rehearsal for the Broadway revival of Liaisons, Ivy finally meets her co-star, Terry Falls. But Terry doesn't even know his stage left from his stage right, turning a real drama into Spamalot. However, Ivy will have none of it, refusing to stoop to conquer and teaching Terry how to act in the process.

[3:18] Aaron Albano: Ahead of a reading of the new Bombshell script, Julia hears rumors that Peter has purposefully upended other shows by feeding the writers bad ideas, bad enough to be fired. But despite those rumors, this reading goes off swimmingly, with all parties impressed by the rewrites, so much so that Derek halts his plans to take Hit List to the fringe after all.

[3:40] Mo Brady: It's an artistic triumph, but their new producer, Jerry Rand, says it's not commercial enough to be a financial hit. With a hung jury of creatives, Jerry, Derek, Tom, and Julia leave it up to Eileen to make the decision about which Maryland musical to bring to Broadway, a sexy, provocative, insightful musical, or a lush, dazzling spectacle.

[4:01] Aaron Albano: As when I'm alone, I can pick up the phone, cause the cold, the stink is always around!

[4:10] Mo Brady: Yes, it's just a good, wandering place!

[4:14] Aaron Albano: Let's talk about the Belasco Theater.

[4:16] Mo Brady: The Bombshell's going to the Belasco!

[4:18] Aaron Albano: Now, the Belasco Theater is one of the four theaters on the east side of Broadway, right?

[4:26] Mo Brady: The majority of Broadway theaters are all west of Broadway. I think there's the Belasco...

[4:33] Aaron Albano: The Sondheim, the Court, the Hudson, the Lyceum.

[4:39] Mo Brady: The Lyceum, that's what I was thinking of, yeah.

[4:41] Aaron Albano: Yeah. My favorite piece of history is that the producer who built it, Mr. Belasco, had a, like, pocket door put into his office, which is on the top floor of the building, so he could watch rehearsals.

[4:48] Mo Brady: Wait, that's fascinating!

[4:58] Aaron Albano: He had it put in so he could make sure that his wife, who was the star of all of his shows, wouldn't be philandering with directors on stage during rehearsals.

[5:08] Mo Brady: Oh, how appropriate! How appropriate for Smith!

[5:12] Aaron Albano: I know, what a good story.

[5:14] Mo Brady: Now, the Belasco has its share of hits and flops?

[5:19] Aaron Albano: It does. I was looking this up, and what was interesting about the Belasco's hits, because they have had hits.

[5:24] Mo Brady: Two things recently. One was the Hedwig revival, right?

[5:30] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[5:31] Mo Brady: That was sort of like a year and a half.

[5:33] Aaron Albano: And the other one was Network, the Bryan Cranston show.

[5:40] Mo Brady: So both of those shows, I think, were commercial hits.

[5:43] Aaron Albano: However, they were also both shows with, like, one star that got people to buy tickets and come all the way over to the other side of 7th Avenue.

[5:54] Mo Brady: Yes. What I noticed is that even with its hits and supposed flops, every year, I think since 1999, they've had at least one show in it every year.

[6:09] Aaron Albano: So it's not a home of any long-running shows.

[6:12] Mo Brady: No. The longest run they've had in the past two decades was Hedwig, which ran from April 2014 to September 2015.

[6:23] Aaron Albano: Yeah. It's not like a Gershwin or an O'Neill or a Majestic.

[6:30] Mo Brady: It's no St. James.

[6:32] Aaron Albano: And we should say now that it is currently home to Girl from the North Country.

[6:39] Mo Brady: Yes.

[6:40] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[6:41] Mo Brady: What did you think of Public Relations, the big, splashy Act II opener?

[6:46] Aaron Albano: The first thing I thought of was, like, all right, where's the tap break?

[6:49] Mo Brady: Oh, sure.

[6:50] Aaron Albano: I feel like it's theater lore that every good Act II opener is a tap number of some kind.

[6:56] Mo Brady: And so I loved it when the tap break showed up in the middle of the number.

[7:01] Aaron Albano: 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.

[7:11] Mo Brady: And it was great. And I actually really loved the tap number.

[7:14] Aaron Albano: I loved the number.

[7:15] Mo Brady: I thought the number was great. If we were going off of our theory that Cut, Print, Moving On was the end of Act I, I thought it led perfectly into Public Relations opening of Act II.

[7:27] Aaron Albano: Yeah. In Bombshell Jr., when schools are doing the one-act version, it will be a great transition from Cut, Print, Moving On.

[7:36] Mo Brady: Bombshell Jr.

[7:39] Aaron Albano: No, I liked the number, too. The moment I enjoyed the most was actually the sort of back and forth that happens with the luggage carts.

[7:50] Mo Brady: I love this choreography where Marilyn is basically just, like, carried around by men.

[7:56] Aaron Albano: By different versions of Christian Borle.

[7:59] Mo Brady: Yes.

[8:00] Aaron Albano: I did have a question about the sort of, like, racial stereotype Christian Borle.

[8:05] Mo Brady: It certainly felt very Broadway.

[8:07] Aaron Albano: But I was like, would we do this today?

[8:10] Mo Brady: Like, is this dated?

[8:12] Aaron Albano: Oh, today?

[8:14] Mo Brady: I mean, I think the show gets away with it because it's his fantasy sequence.

[8:21] Aaron Albano: Like, during the number, all I could think of was, does Tom Leavitt just want to be in the show?

[8:26] Mo Brady: Because he keeps putting himself in the show.

[8:29] Aaron Albano: Oh, sure. This is his fantasy.

[8:30] Mo Brady: So Tom just wants to do it all. He wants to direct. He wants to write. He wants to star.

[8:35] Aaron Albano: You know what? Maybe Tom Leavitt's the next Lin-Manuel Miranda.

[8:39] Mo Brady: There it is.

[8:42] Aaron Albano: So I want to ask you about this whole idea of the Winter Fringe Festival.

[8:48] Mo Brady: Now, I know you're a Broadway baby and you probably don't really perform below 40th Street.

[8:53] Aaron Albano: How dare you?

[8:54] Mo Brady: But this idea that a musical would be developed at the Winter Fringe Festival, did that ring true for you?

[9:00] Aaron Albano: Well, okay, because here is a question, and maybe this is showing the truth of your dig at me. Is there a Winter Fringe Festival specifically?

[9:10] Mo Brady: No, there's no Winter Fringe Festival.

[9:11] Aaron Albano: This is a made-up festival.

[9:13] Mo Brady: So this Winter Fringe Festival is sort of taking the place of all the other theater festivals that actually exist.

[9:21] Aaron Albano: Like, it's just this placeholder.

[9:23] Mo Brady: Right, yes.

[9:24] Aaron Albano: And I think because this season two of Smash is going to take us up to the Tonys, they had to put it in the winter.

[9:29] Mo Brady: That makes sense.

[9:32] Aaron Albano: And so I think in terms of that, yeah, I think there are many shows that have come through the system, for lack of a better phrase.

[9:41] Mo Brady: The most recent one off the top of my head is Title of Show.

[9:45] Aaron Albano: Title of Show is literally about them going to the Fringe and then going off Broadway and then going to Broadway.

[9:51] Mo Brady: Yes, I agree with you.

[9:53] Aaron Albano: And then I'm going to add a caveat. There are other shows that have come up from the Fringe or these other festivals, right?

[9:59] Mo Brady: You're in Town, Alter Boys, Next to Normal.

[10:02] Aaron Albano: However, I feel like the last time we really saw that was around this time of Smash.

[10:08] Mo Brady: Can you think of a show in the last eight years that had this festival trajectory?

[10:15] Aaron Albano: Is this something that dates the show?

[10:18] Mo Brady: Because when I watched it, I was like, I don't feel like this is real.

[10:27] The Ensemblist: Welcome to The Ensemblist, where we celebrate the performances and careers of ensemble performers on Broadway.

[10:52] The Ensemblist: In today's episode, we're diving into Season 2, Episode 5 of Smash, titled "The Read-Through." This episode premiered on March 5, 2013, and was written by Liz Tuccillo and directed by David Petrarca, both making their Smash debuts.

[11:17] The Ensemblist: This week, the viewership was at 2.68 million, which is a drop of .36 million from the previous episode. Interestingly, we didn't have a whole lot of music this week, but we did get to hear the read-throughs of two different shows.

[11:37] The Ensemblist: We saw a Bombshell fantasy Act 2 opener called "Public Relations," written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, which included a tap break. We also heard a snippet of Hit List’s "Caught in the Storm," performed by Jeremy Jordan, and a fantasy sequence to a cover of "Some Boys," originally by Death Cab For Cutie.

[11:57] The Ensemblist: Exciting news for Bombshell: they've booked the Belasco Theatre! During a walkthrough of their new home, Tom imagines a new second act opener for Bombshell, which looks remarkably like a song from Catch Me If You Can, complete with a plane set and stewardess.

[12:17] The Ensemblist: Meanwhile, Julia and Peter stroll in late to the walkthrough, but they're thrilled with the new script draft they've created together. However, despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations, Derek has friends in high enough places to secure Hit List a spot in the Winter Fringe Festival.

[12:37] The Ensemblist: With the festival just two weeks away, Karen and Ana rally Bobby, Jessica, and the rest of their ensemble cohorts for a read-through. They discover that while Jimmy's music is great, Kyle’s dialogue and the characters… aren’t quite there.

[12:57] The Ensemblist: After their failed reading, Jimmy, Kyle, Ana, and Karen come up with a breakthrough idea: scrap the book scenes and make the show sung through.

[13:17] The Ensemblist: In the meantime, Ivy is a week into rehearsal for the Broadway revival of Liaisons and finally meets her co-star, Terry Falls. However, Terry doesn’t even know his stage left from his stage right, turning "a real drama into Spamalot!"

[13:37] The Ensemblist: Ivy refuses to stoop to conquer and takes it upon herself to teach Terry how to act in the process. Ahead of a reading of the new Bombshell script, Julia hears rumors that Peter has been sabotaging other shows by feeding the writers bad ideas to get them fired.

[13:57] The Ensemblist: Despite those rumors, the reading goes off without a hitch, impressing all parties involved with the rewrites. So much so that Derek halts his plans to take Hit List to the fringe after all.

[14:17] The Ensemblist: It’s an artistic triumph, but their new producer, Jerry Rand, says it’s not commercial enough to be a financial hit. With a hung jury of creatives, Jerry, Derek, Tom, and Julia leave it up to Eileen to make the final decision.

[14:37] The Ensemblist: Stay tuned as we explore more about this episode and the dynamics between the characters.

[14:57] The Ensemblist: We’ll be right back after this short break.

[15:27] The Ensemblist: Welcome back! Let’s dive deeper into the character arcs and the themes presented in this episode.

[15:47] The Ensemblist: One of the standout moments was Ivy's determination to not let Terry's lack of experience hold her back.

[16:07] The Ensemblist: It really showcases the resilience of ensemble performers and how they often have to step up in challenging situations.

[16:27] The Ensemblist: Another interesting aspect was the tension surrounding the Bombshell reading and the rumors about Peter.

[16:47] The Ensemblist: It raises questions about trust and collaboration in the creative process, especially in a high-stakes environment like Broadway.

[17:07] The Ensemblist: As we continue to unpack this episode, let's take a closer look at the music featured and how it contributes to the storytelling.

[17:27] The Ensemblist: The fantasy sequences, particularly the tap number, really highlight the show's musicality and the talent of the ensemble.

[17:47] The Ensemblist: It’s a reminder of the unique contributions that ensemble performers bring to the theatrical landscape.

[18:07] The Ensemblist: Now, let's discuss the implications of the decisions made by the characters and how they reflect real-life challenges in the industry.

[18:27] The Ensemblist: The struggle between artistic integrity and commercial viability is a theme that resonates deeply with many in the theater community.

[18:47] The Ensemblist: We’ll be back shortly with more insights and analysis on this episode of Smash.

[19:07] The Ensemblist: Thanks for joining us as we celebrate the unsung heroes of Broadway.

[19:17] The Ensemblist: Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review!

[19:27] The Ensemblist: We appreciate your support and look forward to sharing more stories with you.

[19:37] The Ensemblist: Until next time, keep celebrating the ensemble!

[19:47] The Ensemblist: Bye for now!

[19:57] The Ensemblist: This has been The Ensemblist, part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[20:17] The Ensemblist: See you next week!

[20:37] The Ensemblist: And remember, every performer matters.

[20:47] The Ensemblist: Thank you for listening!