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[0:00] 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 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. 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? So let's dive in and talk about Episode 7 of Season 2, Musical Chairs. Aaron, give us those stats, baby.

[1:05] Aaron: Musical Chairs premiered on March 19, 2013. It was written by Becky Mode and was directed by Broadway's very own Casey Nicholaw. The viewership was down again from the previous week by about a quarter million viewers, amounting to a total of 2.66 million. We saw two full original songs and two excerpts this week, which means no pop covers.

[1:27] Unknown speaker: No covers.

[1:28] Aaron: No covers. Our in-home team of Shaiman and Whitman wrote Liaison's Ce N’Est Pas Ma Faute. Does that sound right?

[1:38] Unknown speaker: I just called it It's Not My Fault.

[1:40] Aaron: It's Not My Fault, sung by Sean Hayes, and Bombshell's The National Pastime, sung and tapped by Katherine McPhee and the Bombshell ensemble. From Hit List, we heard a reprise of Heart-Shaped Wreckage from last week, and a new opening song called Rewrite This Story, written by Pasek and Paul. And how goes this episode, Mo?

[2:02] Mo: Well, now that Derek is signed on to direct Hit List, Scott Nichols of Manhattan Theatre Workshop offers the theatre's 80-seat underground space. He is afraid that it doesn't have as much of an overriding theme to appease to his main stage subscribers, but he will consider it if Stubborn Jimmy and Agreeable Kyle are able to reinvent Hit List by this Friday.

[2:25] Mo: Taking over the direction of Bombshell is harder than Tom anticipated. It's like Tom and Karen are speaking different languages. In the absence of any legal agreements about using Derek's concepts in Bombshell, Tom is forced to reinvent the show. And in the absence of Derek's choreography, Tom's staging of numbers like The National Pastime turned Bombshell into a sugar-induced headache.

[2:48] Aaron: What the show also needs is to get rid of Jerry Rand as a producer.

[2:52] Mo: Yes, it does. The silver bullet comes in the form of a contract Eileen signed with the Marilyn Monroe estate for the use of her journals, which heavily influenced Julia's book. In a hostile takeover, the women of Bombshell force Jerry to sign over the show to Eileen.

[3:10] Mo: At Liaisons, Ivy has cemented her talent as the Terry Whisperer, but she and Terry both hate this "meh" version of the show and make a pact that it might as well go down in a blaze of glory. With an over-the-top version of a Terry Falls-helmed number called It's Not My Fault, Liaisons announces that it will close at the end of the week, making Ivy a free agent.

[3:35] Mo: The musical chairs between Bombshell and Hit List come to a head at the opening night of Liaisons, where everybody wants what they can't have. Jerry and Karen want Derek to return to Bombshell, while Derek wishes he had a book writer like Julia and a star like Karen. It's unclear what Jimmy wants, other than to not write a new opening to his show.

[4:00] Aaron: Karen starts the musical chairs in motion, acknowledging to Tom that she's not his Marilyn, Ivy is. Derek also admits to Kyle and Jimmy that he believes in Hit List so much he will even direct the show in an 80-seat black box. But it turns out he doesn't have to, when Jimmy writes Hit List a banger of a new opening, called Rewrite This Story.

[4:17] Unknown speaker: Nice.

[4:18] Aaron: Oh, are we finished?

[4:36] Unknown speaker: So it's musical chairs. See? The musical chairs. Everyone's switching positions.

[4:40] Aaron: Is that what musical chairs means?

[4:42] Unknown speaker: That's what I assumed musical chairs meant, that they were all, like, sort of standing up and everyone sort of shuffling around. Okay. So Ivy was in Liaisons, and now she's in Bombshell, and Karen was in Bombshell, and now she's in Hit List.

[4:54] Aaron: Oh, got it. Okay.

[4:58] Unknown speaker: Everyone stand up and move down.

[4:59] Aaron: I'll buy it. I'll buy it. I couldn't, I didn't know why it was called musical chairs otherwise.

[5:03] Unknown speaker: So were you waiting for a musical chairs themed number in Bombshell?

[5:07] Aaron: I didn't know what I was waiting for. I was just like, normally the titles are a little either way more straightforward, or way more thematic. And this was neither. So I was like, I don't know why we're calling it this.

[5:19] Unknown speaker: Well, while we're here, can we pour one out for Liaisons?

[5:22] Aaron: Oh, cheers, Liaisons.

[5:25] Unknown speaker: So before we say goodbye to Liaisons, what were the standout moments of the show for you in this episode, Aaron?

[5:30] Aaron: I mean, in this episode, the one song that we saw, the French name that I can't pronounce, I liked the number. It didn't seem like a number that was sort of reinvented on the fly, like that Ivy was telling Terry Falls to do like in the 11th hour. It seemed like it was very well rehearsed for being so...

[5:50] Mo: Right, we didn't, we don't know what it looked like before.

[5:53] Aaron: So it was a valiant effort to look out of control. But I was like, this is a very in control number, projecting that it's out of control. But what about you? Did you like any, did you take anything away from Liaisons?

[6:09] Mo: You know, I think I had a hard time seeing the trees for the forest with Liaisons. I was just ready for it to end.

[6:17] Aaron: Okay.

[6:18] Mo: From the beginning.

[6:19] Aaron: So was Ivy.

[6:20] Mo: I am here to see the story of Bombshell and Hit List and anything that was Liaisons, I was like, okay.

[6:26] Aaron: Get me to the next scene, yeah.

[6:28] Mo: Let's just get Ivy back into Bombshell. So even the number, I was sort of, especially because they were like, nothing matters with Liaisons anymore. Let's do a number. I was like, okay, I'm not. I did love, I did love seeing Heather Lang, who was in the ensemble of the Liaisons number. And Heather Lang is currently in the company of Jagged Little Pill. She's a statuesque woman. She is, if you've seen Jagged Little Pill or seen photos, she sort of plays the drug-induced version of MJ in the song Uninvited. So if you've seen like photos of like this woman dancing like around a couch or jumping on a couch or sliding down a couch, that's all Heather Lang.

[7:13] Aaron: She's such a powerhouse.

[7:14] Mo: She's such a powerhouse and she's so uniquely her. I don't know. And she's also like a little, she's also very weird. I'm not going to say a little weird. She's very weird. And so in this sort of over-the-top number that felt like really in style with what I think Heather does very well. And so in the moments where you could see Heather in the number, I was like, I'm okay. I'm happy now.

[7:34] Aaron: Nice.

[7:35] Mo: I'm happy that I'm here. I came for the Ivy Lynn and I stayed for the Heather Lang.

[7:41] Aaron: Nice. What a review.

[7:43] Mo: Okay, so let's talk about Bombshell and Tom's direction.

[7:46] Aaron: It was a doozy.

[7:48] Mo: He's not a good director.

[7:49] Aaron: No. He's okay. I mean, this was definitely the episode where we sort of see him horribly get his sea legs. But so watching him sort of flounder in this room, in this job that he's never done before, it was painful, yo.

[8:07] Mo: And it didn't really seem like he had any allies in the room. Everyone just sort of like let him stand in the middle, you know, like Julia wasn't really helping him out. And I mean, wasn't really helping him out. And Karen wasn't really helping him out. They're all just sort of like, yeesh.

[8:19] Aaron: Oh, and Bobby wasn't helping anything, just standing in the way.

[8:23] Mo: Did Tom just give Karen a line reading?

[8:27] Aaron: Bobby says to Jessica.

[8:29] Mo: When that happens, because he did, he straight up did. I was looking down writing another note and I looked up and I said, no, no.

[8:39] Unknown speaker: So why are line readings taboo?

[8:43] Mo: Because it's, because it's not directing, because it's not direct, at least in the form that actors appreciate, because it's basically telling actors exactly how to do something instead of allowing them the freedom and creativity, which we thrive on, to develop it ourselves. It's not the mark of a skilled director.

[9:03] Aaron: It's this performative, like you do it better than I do. So you just do it.

[9:13] Mo: And that's the second thing we see. We see Tom say to Karen, let me be you.

[9:18] Aaron: Oh God, he's trying to explain how to do some choreography.

[9:21] Mo: My second look up to the screen, I was like, no. And that's when I texted you saying, kill me now.

[9:29] Aaron: A skilled director will possess the tools that will allow him or her to guide their actor to what they want ultimately, but they're also able to allow their actors the creativity and the collaboration to develop something new.

[9:47] Mo: If you hear words like, let me be you and line readings, that collaboration is gone.

[9:53] Aaron: Do you think Tom has a strong vision for Bombshell?

[9:56] Mo: No, no, not even a little bit, not even remotely. And that's, I think that's also where it's hard to watch him as a director because I don't see it. Do you see it?

[10:06] Aaron: I think Tom has a vision for the show, right? He's saying, I want to go with the sort of big glam version, not the darker version in the rewrite that Julia did with the dramaturg.

[10:18] Mo: I guess, but what does that entail story wise? Like he doesn't have, I guess that's a better vision. Like he has a vision for the show. He doesn't have a strong vision for the story of the show. Like he can't back up his thoughts about where he wants to go with the show.

[10:36] Aaron: We watch him bargain with Julia about this mom scene that we, I guess we'll see eventually, but Julia's here giving concrete reasons why it should be in the show. Tom apparently disagrees with those, but instead of disagreeing with them, he's like, because I love you and because you want this, I'm going to put this back in the show. Not because it's best for the show.

[11:02] Mo Brady: Those are the interactions that I've seen him have with the show itself.

[11:06] Aaron Albano: That I'm like, you're not here as an expert storyteller, you're here as a theater fan who wants to see what he wants to see.

[11:13] Mo Brady: He's the Kyle of Bombshell.

[11:17] Aaron Albano: What a segue. So let's say goodbye to Bombshell, just like Karen.

[11:24] Mo Brady: Karen's journey with Bombshell comes to an end.

[11:27] Aaron Albano: To Karen Cartwright as Marilyn Monroe. We're doing a lot of pour-outs today.

[11:31] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[11:32] Aaron Albano: Okay, I see why it's called Musical Chairs now. Okay, fine. I got you. Did it feel like the right decision to you for Karen to leave Bombshell?

[11:41] Mo Brady: It's unrealistic, but it's nice. It was a good moment.

[11:45] Aaron Albano: I know, it's such good TV.

[11:47] Mo Brady: It is good TV. And I will say it's the most mature thing that I feel like I've seen her character do thus far in this season because she's able to recognize that her director is gone.

[12:00] Aaron Albano: And this new director has a vision with someone else, and always has.

[12:06] Mo Brady: And so she's like, I'll bow out. This is Ivy's time, which I think is respectful. Respectable.

[12:14] Aaron Albano: Yes. So that being said, Karen's behavior is totally aspirational. This is not real.

[12:20] Mo Brady: Oh, yes. You'd write it out. You'd be like, nope, there is already production happening.

[12:27] Aaron Albano: We've already taken production photos. We've already done press interviews. Costumes have been made. Tens of thousands. Then the show is booked to the Belasco. We're moving in, people. There is so much cash that has been spent at this point.

[12:40] Mo Brady: Oh, yeah.

[12:41] Aaron Albano: You can't just pick up and leave.

[12:43] Mo Brady: Oh, yeah. It's definitely this idealism. Throughout the entire show, she has been Iowa. She's been the idealistic artist that moved to the city and values her morals over what New York makes all of us into, right?

[13:01] Aaron Albano: And so I think that's the interesting aspect of Karen is that, God, I wish I could be comfortable enough to quit my Broadway debut star turn to do something that I believe in.

[13:16] Mo Brady: Okay, so Karen is moving into Hit List. And as part of that move, we get a new opening number to Hit List, Rewrite the Story.

[13:25] Aaron Albano: Yeah. Is Rewrite the Story a good opening for Hit List?

[13:29] Mo Brady: Yes. Yes, because of the journey that our characters make over the course of this episode. What do I mean by that? They learn what goddamn storytelling is. Because what made me crazy during this episode is watching—surprise, surprise—watching Jimmy not understand—

[13:52] Aaron Albano: As much as you love Jeremy Jordan, you hate Jimmy Collins.

[13:57] Mo Brady: I despise Jimmy Collins.

[13:59] Aaron Albano: You hate Jimmy Collins.

[14:00] Mo Brady: I truly do, because it's—and maybe it's just the privilege of it all. I don't know. But watching him fight tooth and nail to not include the theme of his show in his show, and just expecting people to be like, I mean, they get it. I'm like, no, they don't. That's the problem here. Thank God for Jesse L. Martin taking them to school over what storytelling is. Guess what? We need your theme, bro. And so we get to watch all of these people, Derek included, be like, hey, I have an idea. Tell the audience what your show's about, and then maybe you'll have a show.

[14:49] Aaron Albano: Yeah, I don't quite know what Jimmy likes, other than drugs and Karen sometimes.

[14:58] Mo Brady: Well, yeah, and that's what's—he likes drugs and he likes Karen, and again, thinks his work doesn't stink.

[15:05] Aaron Albano: Smash has not given us a realistic enough reason for Jimmy to want to put Hit List in commercial theater.

[15:15] Mo Brady: Yeah. And maybe this is us as insiders looking at how an outsider tries to break into the business, and so maybe we're inevitably biased.

[15:26] Aaron Albano: No, I love an outsider coming into the business. I think that's fantastic, but outsiders breaking into the business, they want to break into the business, right? They're not dragging their feet.

[15:40] Mo Brady: If you're going to go on this journey of getting your show to get a production, whether that be at Manhattan Theater Workshop or on Broadway, you have to actually want that.

[15:54] Aaron Albano: And it doesn't seem like Jimmy wants that, which I don't think is Jeremy Jordan's problem, because I think Jeremy has got a really heavy lift here.

[16:02] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[16:02] Aaron Albano: I think it's the writing's problem.

[16:05] Mo Brady: I think it's the character of Jimmy where we're meant to believe that he's this wronged individual that the world is just against, but the only thing we're seeing that through is his perspective on the world, and the world hasn't been doing that to him, at least this world that we're watching.

[16:25] Aaron Albano: Actually, this world is handing him everything on a platter, and he's still bitter and angry.

[16:30] Mo Brady: And I'm just like, okay, this world that we've fought so hard to break into is handing you things on a platter, and not only are you not grateful for it, you don't look equipped to hang.

[16:46] Aaron Albano: Right.

[16:46] Mo Brady: And I think the intended audience for this show is people who love theater, in big swaths love theater, right?

[16:54] Aaron Albano: And so we are not going to support an anti-hero who doesn't love theater.

[17:00] Mo Brady: Yes.

[17:00] Aaron Albano: Right?

[17:00] Mo Brady: Yes, yes, absolutely.

[17:03] Aaron Albano: And I'm just like, if you're gonna be this tortured artist who, even if you don't love theater, is good at theater, be good at theater.

[17:12] Mo Brady: Because yes, there are shows and there is art that has broken all the rules. There is art that doesn't, like they don't spoon feed you their show, or they don't spoon feed you their art.

[17:25] Aaron Albano: Jimmy can't articulate that this is one of those shows.

[17:29] Mo Brady: He just says that it's one of those shows without telling us why, and when people question him about it, his answer is, you don't get it.

[17:39] Aaron Albano: He can't defend his show when people scrutinize his show.

[17:43] Mo Brady: And that's where I just can't get on board, because I'm like, there are basics here that you don't understand.

[17:49] Aaron Albano: And I'm a big proponent of like, if you want to break the rules, you have to know the rules first.

[17:55] Mo Brady: Sure.

[17:55] Aaron Albano: Like, let's think about Jimmy Collins in connection to Dave Malloy, right?

[18:00] Mo Brady: Dave Malloy wrote Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, among other things, right?

[18:06] Aaron Albano: The vision was so clear with that show, and the team that assembled around that show, that they were like, we're not doing it in a theater. We're going to have a tent, and we're going to serve you pierogies, and you're going to sit around little tables, right?

[18:18] Mo Brady: And when it came to Broadway, yes, it did break the mold, but it also played by the rules, you know?

[18:27] Aaron Albano: They said, how are we going to do this? Okay, well, our show is meant to be in the round. Well, then we're going to change the imperial, and we're going to make it in the round space.

[18:36] Mo Brady: Or octet, you know, octet plays with the rules of what a musical is and does it really successfully, but it's still sort of like, respecting the guide of what makes an emotional story that audiences want to go on.

[18:53] Aaron Albano: Yeah, because it doesn't seem like Jimmy even wants that.

[18:57] Mo Brady: He doesn't, because he doesn't know what those are.

[18:59] Aaron Albano: And that's what you, what I feel like we get to when everyone's asking him to make these little changes to make his story clearer.

[19:08] Mo Brady: Like, have you, here, have you ever heard of Howard Ashman's lunchtime lecture at Disney Animation Studios?

[19:16] Aaron Albano: I have, but remind me.

[19:20] Mo Brady: Like, during the advent of, for lack of a better term, the new Disney order, which started at Little Mermaid, they brought in Howard Ashman to give this lecture to the animators at Disney.

[19:33] Aaron Albano: And his basic premise was what Broadway has figured out, and you guys have not, is how to tell a story in a musical way.

[19:43] Mo Brady: And he goes through Little Mermaid, the structure of Little Mermaid, every single number, he breaks down and tells them, this is what music in musicals is supposed to do.

[19:56] Aaron Albano: And especially, he tells them the value of the I Want song, which he illustrates in Part of That World.

[20:03] Mo Brady: Part of Your World. I think the original version is Part of That World, and then the reprise is Part of Your World.

[20:09] Aaron Albano: Whoa. Mind blown.

[20:13] Mo Brady: But, like, so he says that, and he tells them, like, this is why it's here. This is why we need this song in this position of the show, because that's how we understand how to root for the main character.

[20:26] Aaron Albano: Every show has a form of I Want song.

[20:30] Mo Brady: And the fact that Jimmy needed schooling as to why, because Rewrite the Story is their I Want song? It's the opening number, but it's also the I Want song.

[20:41] Aaron Albano: Yeah?

[20:41] Mo Brady: Right. The fact that he needed schooling to understand why that's important means he doesn't know what he's doing here.

[20:49] Aaron Albano: It's hard to root for him.

[20:50] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[20:52] Aaron Albano: And everyone should just watch The Howard Ashman.

[20:54] Mo Brady: Oh my gosh, if you can, it's so good.

[20:57] Aaron Albano: There are clips of it all over the internet.

[21:06] Mo Brady: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch season two, episode eight of Smash, entitled The Bells and Whistles.

[21:13] Aaron Albano: Are you going to know what it's about, Aaron, if there are not specifically bells or whistles?

[21:17] Mo Brady: You know who's to say.

[21:18] Aaron Albano: We'll find out.

[21:20] Mo Brady: You can find Smash episodes either on the NBC app or at NBC.com.

[21:25] Aaron Albano: The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Aaron Albano.

[21:28] Mo Brady: And me, Mo Brady.

[21:29] Aaron Albano: There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now.

[21:32] Mo Brady: One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcast, and the second is by becoming a Patreon member at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[21:41] Aaron Albano: You can subscribe to The Ensemblist on Apple Podcast, follow us on Spotify, or listen to all of our episodes at bpn.fm.

[21:47] Mo Brady: And be sure to follow The Ensemblist on Instagram, because there's a wild and wacky world out there, folks.

[21:52] Aaron Albano: Yes, it is.

[21:54] Mo Brady: All right, thanks for listening. Until next time.