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[0:00] Jackson Klein: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out.

[0:10] Jackson Klein: Welcome, I'm Jackson Klein.

[0:18] Jackson Klein: Whether it's your first Broadway show or your sixth, closing a show is an emotional experience. You're saying goodbye to a creative journey, a community of artists, as well as stability and a paycheck. When the company of Broadway's Frozen was asked to move out of the St. James after the show closed during the coronavirus pandemic, we reached out to members of the cast to tell us about visiting the theater for the last time. Here's what they had to say.

[0:43] Nina Lafarga: Hi, I'm Nina Lafarga, and I was in the original Broadway cast of Frozen. As you may know, we got our closing notice about a couple of weeks ago, and we didn't know when next we would be able to go into the St. James theater to get our things. A few days after getting our closing notice, we found out that there would be one day that we could go into the theater and gather our things. We were told that if we didn't feel comfortable going on that day, or we were out of town, that the next option would be to wait until the show was being loaded out of the St. James theater, and that there was no definite date at this time as to when that would happen. So many of us, myself included, chose to go on this one day that we were given to go in and get our things.

[1:58] Robyn Masella: Hi, Mo. It's Robyn Masella. Okay, so here's my thoughts that I've gathered about moving out of the theater. So as everybody knows, we received word that Frozen was not going to be reopening after this whole pandemic is over, which was devastating news on a lot of levels. It was a light at the end of the tunnel that we were all looking forward to one day getting back on stage and being together with our Frozen family. I know it was definitely keeping me going during this time, so that felt very cut short and deflating. And of course, just the idea that we didn't get to have our final show together and be together and celebrate together what we've done over the last couple of years. It was an experience I definitely have never had before.

We were given half-hour time slots because it was being offered to the entire backstage cast and crew. So the theater was only going to be opened on this one day between certain hours, and we had to sign up for a half-hour slot. I believe there were about five or six people that were allowed backstage at one time, and we had to make sure that we didn't sign up for a slot with someone that shared our same space, our dressing room.

[3:16] Robyn Masella: I have to say it was really strange because as I was getting ready to leave and go to the theater, I live not far from the theater, so it only takes me a few minutes to get there. And as I was getting ready to leave, I just kept thinking, this feels so strange. I feel like I'm getting ready to go do a matinee. But it also felt really strange because I hadn't done a matinee in over two months. But just that familiarity of knowing that I was getting ready to get dressed and ready to go to the theater felt familiar in that way. It was a very hard day. It was extremely sad. I for one haven't been in Manhattan for the two and a half months of the shutdown so far. So pulling up into Times Square and Midtown area and pulling up to the St. James Theater was already emotional for me.

Immediately, when I was walking down the street, I was struck with the fact that our marquee was black. The video, we have a video marquee, and it was turned off. And that was the first time that I had seen that since this whole thing started. Like I said, I live in the neighborhood, so I've walked past the theater, seen our marquee up, and it's given me some happiness. So that was jarring to just see black on the screen.

[4:31] Robyn Masella: As I arrived, I saw stage managers that I loved and cast members and crew that I love. And we all had to have masks on, of course. And everybody was just in a bit of a hurry because we were only given a half hour, which is very little time, especially in my case, I'm an original cast member. So I was living at that theater for over two years. That was my second home. In many cases, I was there more than I was at my own home. So the amount of things you accumulate over that time, you move into a theater, you make it your home. I mean, from opening night gifts to posters to just everyday necessities, you gather a lot of things. So a half hour was a very short amount of time to grab everything.

So you know, it was quite a rush, you know, I ran into the dressing room and was throwing things into large suitcases, and it was tough. So our stage manager was out front with a list of names, and as well as some other cast members that seemed to be lingering around and not wanting to leave. I signed in. And usually when we go through the St. James, there's two stage doors. There's our main stage door, which is kind of closer to Eighth Avenue, that brings us around back. And there's another stage door, which is connected to the Ju Jampson offices, where we can cut in and either go straight downstairs to the basement, or you can cut across the stage. And they were letting people in through that entrance, which I think just made it all that much harder, because instead of walking through backstage and down into the dressing rooms, in order to get to the dressing rooms, we had to cross the stage.

[6:08] Robyn Masella: So I walked in and immediately went on stage into the wings, and that was just kind of surreal. I hadn't been on that stage in two months, and everything was where we left it. It was sad, and seeing all of our costumes, and just looking in the dressing room and having all these memories come flooding back, I mean, we left everything in the theater thinking we were going to be back in a month. And it was just as how we had left it. I mean, all the memories and the joy that happened in our dressing room and in that theater. So I walked onto the stage and took a few moments, definitely had a few tears, and looked out into the audience, and it was very quiet. There was a ghost light on the stage, and the lights were up, but nobody else was around.

And just kind of took it all in. I took a few moments to take some pictures, just of myself on the stage, of the theater, of the props. On that stage that I spent so much time performing the show, rehearsing the show, in put-ins, all of the excitement from opening night came rushing back. Every person that I brought on the stage after the show backstage, every time I went on for a new role that I covered, every exciting moment, every scary moment, every funny moment, every moment of immense growth, everything came back to me. And it was very emotional standing on that stage and having to find closure and say goodbye to that in a very short period of time.

[8:01] Robyn Masella: I spent time staring out into the house and just really soaking in the gratitude and the magnitude of what it is to perform and work on a Broadway stage and look out into a house. Something I've never taken for granted, and if I get the opportunity again, I certainly never will. I headed down to my dressing room. I just started to slowly pack up my things. Once I finished with that, I actually headed up to the seventh floor because that's where the swings dressing rooms are. It's funny. I joined the company two years ago, July will be two years, as an immediate replacement and was really only supposed to be there for about six weeks, but joined and was in an onstage track. And then right after that finished and the person came back, I swapped into a vacation swing role where I was a swing for a long time.

And then for the last five or six months, I was back on stage covering for maternity leave. So I kind of felt like I had to say goodbye to two different dressing rooms up on the seventh floor, the swing dressing room where I spent a lot of time, but also the current dressing room, the ladies dressing room and my station that I had been at. So after I finished downstairs in the basement, I went up to the seventh floor where the swing dressing rooms were just to see if there was anything I had left. And a couple of the fellow swings were there cleaning things up and packing things up. So I got to spend a little bit of time socially distanced from them, helping pack things up and just kind of say goodbye to the room.

[9:39] Robyn Masella: As we did that, there were some other members that were in and out of the building that we could hear and just kind of waving to each other from the stairwell or going down to say hi and just catching up because we hadn't seen each other in so long. It was a tough, tough day. The whole experience has been tough, but it certainly was hard. It was strange. It kind of felt like nobody wanted to leave. If we could have, we would have just set up camp outside the theater all day and just hung out and caught up and spent some time with each other. So it's definitely a very sad time. I do hope that when loadout happens, I can get back in there just to just to say one last goodbye because it doesn't really feel real right now.

I walk away with gratitude, with so much love for my fellow cast and crew and management and so much love and gratitude to Disney and to everyone involved in Frozen and I will cherish every single moment that I had on that stage and backstage at that theater.

[10:35] Jackson Klein: Special thanks to Nina Lafarga and Robyn Masella for sharing their stories with us this week. The Ensemblist was produced today by Mo Brady and me, Jackson Klein. 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. The other is by becoming a Patreon member 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. Thanks for listening. Until next time.