This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:22] 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 still 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.

[0:37] Aaron Albano: We've been going back episode by episode to see how this supposed love letter to Broadway has held up over the last decade. In each podcast 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 8 of Season 2, The Bells and Whistles. Aaron, give us the stats.

[1:01] Aaron Albano: The Bells and Whistles premiered on March 26, 2013. It was written by Noel Valdivia and directed by Craig Zisk, whose work was last seen by Smash audiences in the second episode of this season, The Fallout. Viewership was up 0.39 million from last week, bringing the total of people watching to a moderately high number of 3.05 million. Yay, moderately high.

[1:25] Mo Brady: Yay, moderately high. We had four featured songs this week, two songs and a reprise of the original variety and one cover, that cover being Beyonce's If I Were a Boy, performed by Krista Rodriguez. Shaman and Whitman delivered the party pumper Let's Start Tomorrow Night, sung by Leslie Odom Jr. with help from Wes Taylor and Savannah Weiss, and yet another reprise of Let Me Be Your Star. Our newest writer for Hit List comes again from the pop world. Andrew McMahon gave us I Heard Your Voice in a Dream, sung and danced by Jeremy Jordan. And ring in that synopsis, Mo.

[2:01] Aaron Albano: Rehearsals for Hit List have just begun, and already Jimmy and Derek are butting heads, not only over the direction, but over who gets to creep over their leading lady, Karen. Jimmy's afraid Derek wants to add too many bells and whistles to their small and simple show, and he's got both Karen and Scott Nichols of Manhattan Theatre Workshop on his side. Queen Ivy is back leading Bombshell, and the company is gagging over her.

[2:27] Mo Brady: Yes, they are. Tom wants to value the cast's creative opinions, so the obvious answer is to invite them over to his apartment for drinks. Around the piano, Tom's old flame, Sam, performs a trunk song of his and Julia's called Let's Start Tomorrow Tonight, against Julia's wishes. Tom wants to use his directorial pull to create a role for his former beau in Bombshell, but in the end, Tom grows a pair and tells Sam he can't put him in the show.

[2:55] Aaron Albano: When Tom and Julia drop by Hit List Rehearsal to ask Derek's advice, the two men end up having their first heart-to-heart of the television series. Tom is in awe of the harsh way Derek speaks to actors, which he explains as having them respect you is more important than having them like you. The front stoop chat makes Derek realize that Jimmy's arrogance reminds him of himself as a 24-year-old, and that Jimmy's ideas might be as brilliant as Derek's were at his age.

[3:22] Mo Brady: The result is my personal favorite choreography of the entire series, Voice in a Dream. Employing an ensemble of dancers, including Carla Puno-Garcia, Sky Maddox, and others, Derek choreographs a twisting, turning, storytelling dance piece about Jimmy's character running into obstacles as he tries to reach Karen's character. If you watch only one song from Smash, I implore it to be this one.

[3:48] Aaron Albano: At a bar after rehearsal, Anna finally gets the balls to go after what she wants, playing the diva in Hit List. Dancing on the bar, singing If I Were a Boy, she clinches the part. And there's some new casting at Bombshell as well. Eileen has cast Ivy's mom, Lee Conroy, to play GLaDOS.

[4:26] Mo Brady: Everyone's favorite role, GLaDOS.

[4:30] Aaron Albano: How did they not already have a GLaDOS?

[4:34] Mo Brady: I know, I know. We're gonna get to it.

[4:35] Aaron Albano: We'll get there. Alright, the bells and whistles. Do you understand why this episode was called?

[4:39] Mo Brady: Mo, I got it. Mo, I got it.

[4:41] Aaron Albano: I'm so proud of you.

[4:42] Mo Brady: I have some questions, but I got it.

[4:44] Aaron Albano: Last week, I was confused about the title. This week, I am no longer confused.

[4:49] Mo Brady: Right. Jimmy doesn't think his show needs bells and whistles. However, that's sort of Derek's go-to. He wants to add sets and costumes and lights and lots of fancy smancy things.

[5:01] Aaron Albano: Everyone out for the LED screens, man.

[5:03] Mo Brady: Man, we are... Broadway's go-to for bells and whistles. Just LED screens everywhere.

[5:09] Aaron Albano: Do shows need bells and whistles? Do you think Derek is right?

[5:13] Mo Brady: You know, honestly, I hate that I'm even saying this, but I was on Jimmy's side this time. Despite me not knowing what his show was about until he literally told me today, once you have a strong theme, you don't need all the glitz and glamour and the razzle-dazzle.

[5:31] Aaron Albano: I mean, here's the question, though, because bells and whistles are valuable and a time-honored tradition of Broadway, I guess. You want to see your money on that stage, yo.

[5:43] Mo Brady: Yeah, and they are part of the commercial success of Broadway. But there is something to be asked on whether the bells and whistles are augmenting your show or if the bells and whistles are distracting from your show.

[5:57] Aaron Albano: Sure. I think what Derek's saying is an accurate representation of some people about Broadway, right? If audiences are going to spend $140 to see a show, they want to see their money on stage, right? They want to see a flying carpet. They want to see a helicopter. They want to see a barricade. They want to see a falling chandelier. They want to see a room draped in red with monogrammed Moulin Rouge windmills, right?

[6:22] Mo Brady: Sure, but therein lies the issue. That's his go-to because he's been working on Broadway for so long. Scott and Jimmy are both literally like, this isn't Broadway, bro. We're going to blow our entire budget. We don't want to do that. This is not what that show is. And Karen says it, too. And so I guess the question is, was that Derek's go-to from a storytelling perspective, or was that Derek's go-to because it was what he's used to and was not necessary?

[6:53] Aaron Albano: Well, I guess the real question is, why did Jimmy and Kyle choose Derek as their director if they didn't like his sort of style of direction, right? It doesn't seem like Jimmy and Kyle have really thought about the kind of director that Derek is, only that he is a director.

[7:12] Mo Brady: He is a director. Yeah, fair.

[7:16] Aaron Albano: Derek is a win for Hit List, right, because he's a big Broadway director, but he's not necessarily the right director for this show. And maybe that's where all of these problems are lying in the communication styles between Jimmy and Derek. It's not that one of them is right and one of them is wrong. It's that they don't really see the same trajectory for the show yet.

[7:40] Mo Brady: Well, and I guess what the interesting thing is, too, is what was Derek's argument for needing the bells and whistles? Did he have one?

[7:48] Aaron Albano: That audiences like bells and whistles.

[7:50] Mo Brady: That's the only reason.

[7:52] Aaron Albano: I think so.

[7:53] Mo Brady: So, yeah, so Jimmy was right. Do you disagree that audiences want bells and whistles, want to see their money on stage, want to see something sort of visually exciting, whether it be on Broadway or off-Broadway, Aaron Albano?

[8:07] Aaron Albano: Yes, I think they do. But I think there's an honest question on when those things go wrong, because that's the joy of live theater. Sometimes things go wrong. Does the show fall apart if those bells and whistles fall?

[8:22] Mo Brady: Right. The show still has to be good enough to work in a rehearsal room, essentially, on a blank stage.

[8:28] Aaron Albano: I mean, we saw a number where it didn't need the bells and whistles. What was nice about watching this new number was that in every other version of numbers from Hit List, we were watching Derek's perspective with all the bells and whistles. And this was the first number we saw with no futuristic imagery.

[8:50] Mo Brady: There was no fan. There was no projections. There was no Pepsi-Cola sign. And we saw that the number held up. In part, thanks to it being the best number in the Smash catalog. All right, I'm doing it. I'm going in.

[9:04] Aaron Albano: Let's go.

[9:06] Mo Brady: Okay.

[9:07] Aaron Albano: Okay.

[9:08] Mo Brady: Voice in a Dream. It's just the best number. And I've been thinking about why. And it is because it tells a story.

[9:13] Aaron Albano: I mean, before we get to even the story, it's Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate.

[9:18] Mo Brady: I don't know what that means. So tell me.

[9:20] Aaron Albano: So you don't know what... Okay. So Something Corporate was a band in the early 2000s. And they came in as alternative rock, angsty teen rock. It was at the peak of that time. And Something Corporate, all of their music sounds like this.

[9:36] Mo Brady: Constantine was... Listeners, if you want to, it's a nine-minute song, but it's great. I listened to it for a week straight back in 2005. It was so great. And so why you like the song itself is because of Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate.

[9:53] Aaron Albano: Yes. I think it also sort of, if listeners remember, I like Rent, I like American Idiot, like it sort of lives in that style, right? There's something about it that is very much of that sort of scrappy, dirty storytelling.

[10:09] Mo Brady: I hear you and I get you. And then on top of it, it tells a good story.

[10:13] Aaron Albano: It tells a story. Think about it. National Pastime, which is sort of the other kind of brilliant staging that I think of when I think of Smash, right? We all watched the pilot and we were like, oh my God, that baseball number was so great. There's no story. It's just a number. Public Relations, Marilyn doesn't come off the plane and convince anyone that they should be gaga over her. She just comes off the plane, everyone's gaga over her, and then they move her around on luggage carts. No song in the Smash canon so far has told a story, had a beginning, middle, and an end for visual movement. And here we got one, right? And it blows your mind when you're like, oh, look, we can use movement to tell a story in a really interesting visual way.

[10:58] Mo Brady: It's beautiful. I mean, the dancers themselves are gorgeous dancers anyway.

[11:03] Aaron Albano: Okay. Two things.

[11:04] Mo Brady: Yes, there are men and women are both great. I'm going to give a shout out to the men because they're all, I think they're all Spider-Man dancers. Like I think they were all on Spider-Man at some point because they're all like kipping up and, you know, doing very athletic. Yes, it's a very athletic movement. But then, anytime you can get Sky Maddox and Carla Puna Garcia in the same space. These are two of Broadway's best dancers and they're at their prime and they are just fantastic. I am gaga over both of them. They're and they're really dancing, right? Not like we haven't seen great dancers. There's other great dancers in this season. But there's something about this movement that's more contemporary.

It's a dance vocabulary that we haven't seen on the show yet. And it's so refreshing. And so it's so nice to come away from the—I hate that I'm using this word—but Broadway style of movement that this show has now used as its vocabulary for a season and a half. Now we're watching the future of Broadway in this more contemporary style. My only qualm is, can you imagine Derek Wills just demonstrating any of these steps? No, I was like, these steps did not come out of that person. And in that amount of time, he's like, "Oh, I need to stage a number." Like that was a really hard number to stage. It was an intricate number, right? Each of those people is doing different things at different times. A lot of contact improv went into that number.

[12:31] Aaron Alvano: Oh, for sure. And I don't think Derek Wills has those tools in his wheelhouse. Okay, here's a question for you. Derek says having actors respect you is more important than having them like you. Do you agree with that statement, Aaron?

[12:43] Aaron Alvano: For a director? Yes, I do. Someone needs to lead. The best directors have the actors like them and respect them.

[12:54] Mo Brady: Sure. We don't see that on this show. It does seem like it'd be possible. Yeah, we have the show we see to one director who is a pushover and a people pleaser and wants everybody to like him so much that he invites them over for drinks on a school night. And then you have the other one who yells at everybody and creates a horrible work environment.

[13:18] Aaron Alvano: Yeah, who doesn't actually seem to direct as much as yell.

[13:23] Mo Brady: Yeah. But that said, one looks like they're on their way to a viable product and the other one is still casting. So is it one or the other? Not necessarily. But in this conversation between Derek and Tom, yes, actors need to respect their leader even if they don't want to go have drinks with him tomorrow. And Tom, he's new. He's new, which is fine, growing pains. But the entire series we've watched Tom just want to be Ivy's best friend, just want to make good by Sam, just want to like please Julia, all of these things that don't translate into leadership well. And we see it in this episode because you watch his best friend be like, "Hey, pull up." You watch his other friend walk all over him or try to walk all over him. And you see his ex-boyfriend be like, be very betrayed by him because he wasn't able to follow through on a promise that severely affected his life.

[14:25] Aaron Alvano: Yeah, let's get into Bombshell. Let's get into Tom's quote unquote leadership at Bombshell.

[14:33] Mo Brady: Right. Well, you know, we do need to be giving more people opportunities in the theater. And so I'm so glad that a cis white gay man was given the opportunity to direct a Broadway show. That's exactly the kind of opportunities we need in our industry.

[14:43] Aaron Alvano: Yeah. What bothers you more, Aaron, that Tom as a director is a people pleaser who wants everyone to like him, that he has a sloppy cast dynamic, or that he hosts the party on a school night?

[15:03] Aaron Alvano: I mean, is there D all of the above? All of it's a mess. It all goes back to the fact that he doesn't have a vision.

[15:11] Mo Brady: No, he doesn't. And I can't even believe I'm like using this like bachelor rhetoric, but like he's not here for the right reasons. Or I'm just like, you're not here to tell a story. You're not here to like to lead a show. Because that's what you want to do. You're here because he just wants to be one of the cool kids. This is not RuPaul's Best Friend race. No, this is a Broadway musicale. Literally. And it's—and he's blowing it. He blew it. He blew it. And especially gosh, I was so upset when he and Julia watched it from a mile away. Not a mile away. She was standing right next to him. But when he offered Sam—or thank God. I mean, it was nice that we got to see Leslie Odom Jr. again. Oh, I was happy to see him back on my screen. But to watch Tom offer Sam a role and then have Sam like uproot his life. And then Tom be like, "Sorry, I can't make it happen." I'd be just as pissed.

[16:16] Aaron Alvano: Oh, sure. The justification for Sam being mad is incredibly true.

[16:25] Mo Brady: Yes. Although, I mean, let's be honest. You don't quit that job until you see that contract come in and you sign it, right? Am I right? I mean, and you also can't quit from vacation. So right? Yeah, it's like, the authentic details aside, like your ex-boyfriend screwed you again. And that's—that is not a good look. Why would you? Why would you want to screw over Leslie Odom Jr.? He's such a doll.

[16:50] Aaron Alvano: Okay, I have the biggest problem with Tom's statement earlier in the episode where Tom tells Sam, "There's a spot for you here." And then Julia says, "You can't offer Sam a role. There's nothing left except Gladys. Even our swings are hired." I have so many problems with this statement.

[17:07] Mo Brady: Okay, I have so many questions.

[17:12] Aaron Alvano: Yes. So many questions. So many questions. Okay. First off, it's like Tom doesn't realize that Sam was unhappy on the Book of Mormon tour. It's like, were you not texting? It seems like that was a clean break. It seems like they didn't talk at all. The idea that he didn't know that Sam was unhappy on tour. I mean, even if there was a clean break between Tom and Sam, Sam and Ivy are very close. And Tom and Ivy are very close. You don't think he's gonna keep tabs? Like, I'm sure Ivy was having her own stuff to do with liaisons. But as self-focused as Tom is, you would assume that he'd still be asking about Sam, right?

[17:54] Mo Brady: Okay, this was our first mention of Gladys, who then comes back full force at the end of the episode. We'll talk about that a little later. But I was like, who's Gladys? We've never in a season and a half heard about a role of Gladys.

[18:07] Aaron Alvano: Well, very clearly, by the end of the episode, we know that Gladys is the mom, to which the mom and Marilyn scene was of very high contention over the past two episodes, right? The second that it was in the show, maybe you should have had like, I just realized, if she wasn't already in the show, why are you adding characters in the middle of rehearsal? And if she was in the show, she should be cast already. Who's covering this role? Who in that ensemble is covering Marilyn's mom?

[18:42] Mo Brady: Literally, literally, there's no one. You're just gonna put a gray wig on Nina LaFarga and cross your fingers?

[18:49] Aaron Alvano: That's exactly what they're gonna do.

[18:50] Mo Brady: That is exactly what they're gonna do. Okay. You know, I got mad when Julia said, "Even our swings are hired," as if swings are the last thought or even the last thing to be hired. All y'all listening to this podcast know that swings are the most valuable team players, and often the most talented people because they have the most things that they have to take care of. So you're not casting your swings as like an afterthought, as like the people who didn't make it into the ensemble. And especially, hey, guess what? If you are using Derek's choreography, and he's no longer in the room, guess who knows the show the best in this room right now? Your swings. Come on, Smash, get it together. Okay.

And then, and then, like, so yeah, all of that aside, Tom offers Sam a track in the show. Where's this money coming from? Like, you didn't have to like check in with the producer who then had to pay this person and then make costumes for that person. Then that's where I'm just like, yeah, Tom, you're not thinking. Tom is the perfect example of when someone wants the acclaim for a job, but doesn't actually want to do the job or knows how to do the job.

[19:59] Aaron Alvano: Right. He's watched a lot of directing.

[20:02] Mo Brady: Yeah. Or poor directing.

[20:03] Aaron Alvano: Poor directing. I mean, and luckily he makes, after his like heart to heart with Derek, which I actually thought was a very good scene.

[20:09] Mo Brady: Oh, yeah. Wasn't that interesting?

[20:11] Aaron Alvano: I actually thought it was a very good scene. Like, I was like, "Oh, you guys are friends now? Okay, cool." But good wisdom came out of it. Moderately good wisdom came out of it. But Tom makes us 180 and all of a sudden now knows exactly how to direct. And again, we see from Julia that like, just because you lead well, doesn't mean you're going to lose friends. He was like, "Hey, Julia, I need you to do the scene." Julia was like, "Cool." He was like, "By tonight," she was like, "Cool," because they're at work.

[20:45] Mo Brady: No, we're all just like fun, free artists to like feel things and like drink and then sleep with each other. That's who Broadway actors are. If you've not, if you don't know that, then you haven't been paying attention.

[21:00] Aaron Alvano: I apparently haven't been doing Broadway very well.

[21:03] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[21:11] Mo Brady: To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch season two, episode nine of Smash, The Parents. You can find Smash episodes on either the NBC app or NBC.com. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady.

[21:24] 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 at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist.

[21:36] Mo Brady: Please follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network.

[21:46] Aaron Alvano: You can also follow us on Instagram.

[21:48] Mo Brady: Thanks for listening, guys.

[21:49] Mo Brady: Until next time.