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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. And I'm Aaron Albano.

[0:22] Aaron Albano: Welcome back, listeners, to our tongue-in-cheek recap of what is television's most detailed depiction of the theater industry. And you better believe it, 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.

[0:39] Mo Brady: We've been going back episode by episode to see how the supposed love letter to Broadway has held up over the past 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? Is it any good? So let's dive in and talk about episode 13 of season 2, The Producers. Aaron, give us those stats.

[1:06] Aaron Albano: The Producers premiered on April 27, 2013. It was written by Becky Mode, whose last episode of Smash was season 2, episode 7, Musical Chairs, and was directed by Trisha Brock, whose last episode was season 2, episode 9, The Parents. The viewership dropped again by 20,000 viewers to a total of 1.89 million.

[1:26] Mo Brady: That's what you get when you don't put me in the episode. I'm just saying people didn't see it in episode 12 and they were like, we need more Gabe and Lexi. If Gabe and Lexi aren't there, the viewership drops. It's scientifically proven.

[1:38] Aaron Albano: If they learned that, there'd be a season 3.

[1:43] Mo Brady: Yeah, there you go. We had a lot of music this episode, mainly from Hit List. Our one song from Bombshell was an excerpt of Shaiman and Whitman's 20th Century Fox Mambo, performed by Megan Hilty and Kathie Lee Gifford. And our one cover was Jeff Buckley's The Last Goodbye, sung by Andy Mientus.

[1:59] Aaron Albano: The remainder of our songs come from Hit List. We hear excerpts of Pasek and Paul's Rewrite This Story and Joe Iconis's Broadway Here I Come. Two new songs were another by Joe Iconis called The Goodbye Song and Don't Let Me Know, written by Lucy Silvas and Jamie Alexander Hartman.

[2:14] Mo Brady: And what happened in this episode, Mo?

[2:17] Aaron Albano: Without much competition for new musicals on Broadway this season, Bombshell is poised to make a splash at the Tony Awards in June. But with its slow ticket sales, Eileen is going to have to pray for a miracle to keep Bombshell open until then. So she's whoring out Ivy for press events right and left, anything from the Today Show to an appearance at the Brighton Beach Senior Center.

[2:40] Mo Brady: Adding insult to injury, producers Daryl Roth and Kevin McCullum are duking it out with ten other producers ready to write a check to move Hit List to Broadway this season. But there may not be a show to move when Jimmy shows up late and high for photo calls and performances. Derek attempts to solve the Jimmy problem by hiring former Bombshell ensemblist Sam Strickland to understudy him.

[3:04] Aaron Albano: Things are looking up for Julia, with the announcement of her new non-musical version of Gatsby going to Manhattan Theatre Workshop next season. But now that Tom isn't in line to direct the City of Angels revival, he wants Julia to create a show with him. The conflict comes to a head at one of Ivy's many press events. Julia feels Tom told her under no uncertain terms that he only wants to direct, while Tom believes Julia is only interested in being a writing partner when she gets her way.

[3:33] Mo Brady: I hate Tom. We'll get there.

[3:36] Aaron Albano: With tonight seeming to become the most important night in Hit List's life, Derek gives Jimmy an ultimatum. Shape up or ship out. But Jimmy doesn't take the threat seriously, showing up late to call, late on stage, making up choreography, and causing an onstage accident that leaves Karen with a bleeding gash. The performance is the last straw for Derek, firing Jimmy on the spot. But the journey for Hit List may be dead in the water anyway, as any potential investor is scared off because the show isn't financially viable enough to make it to Broadway.

[4:11] Mo Brady: Alternative titles for the episode. I had many of these. Two of them included Fire Jimmy.

[4:36] Aaron Albano: Second one was Tom is an Asshole. I hate Tom. I hate Tom so much. Both of these titles came from my notes that I wrote over and over and over again. Alternatively, in the second title, I wrote Fuck Off Tom, because fuck off Tom.

[4:52] Mo Brady: Entitled White Men could be a good alternative title that encapsulates everything. Selfish White Men?

[5:01] Aaron Albano: Both of them. Get out of here. Go away. Like, I was just very upset by both of them. More so, if I had to choose though, more so Tom than Jimmy, because yo, I got hives every time Tom was on screen, because the nerve of him.

[5:16] Mo Brady: Tom is an asshole, and I think that Christian Borle does a really good job of humanizing him. Like, you can see that Tom doesn't think Tom is an asshole.

[5:26] Aaron Albano: Okay, okay, I can get on board with that.

[5:29] Mo Brady: He's not a villain.

[5:31] Aaron Albano: Isn't he though?

[5:33] Mo Brady: Maybe he is. Jimmy doesn't seem to have any sort of, there's no real redeeming quality about Jimmy's actions, right? The only thing that is good about Jimmy right now is that he is a good songwriter, supposedly a good actor, and that we might need to feel bad for him because his parents abandoned him.

[5:56] Aaron Albano: See, but I think that's where they pull at our sympathies more, because the Jimmy situation is, I'm who I am because of my past, and you are getting glimpses of my past, and so I'm a product of my past.

[6:11] Mo Brady: Tom is just this dude who tried to leave his partner behind, and then life didn't work out the way he wanted it to, and then expected his partner to just accept him back with open arms, despite him screwing who over royally.

[6:29] Aaron Albano: Can I ask the elephant in the room, maybe this isn't the elephant in the room.

[6:32] Mo Brady: Go.

[6:33] Aaron Albano: So, in thinking about does it represent Broadway then or now, we're in a big conversation about racial representation. This is just so many white people, and I just like, I can't imagine producing this show in 2020 with all of these characters being white.

[6:49] Mo Brady: I thought that in season one, when the entire creative team and the entire...

[6:54] Aaron Albano: Oh, Jamie Sapero, isn't he the only person of color in season one?

[6:58] Mo Brady: Basically, I mean...

[6:59] Aaron Albano: In terms of series regulars.

[7:00] Mo Brady: Yeah, of the series regulars, yeah.

[7:02] Aaron Albano: I mean, and then once Leslie got on the scene, then yeah, him too.

[7:06] Mo Brady: Leslie...

[7:07] Aaron Albano: That's it.

[7:08] Mo Brady: And then in that big season two image, they put Jennifer Hudson in there, and I'm like, you're cheating.

[7:14] Aaron Albano: You're cheating, Smash.

[7:15] Mo Brady: She's not a series regular.

[7:16] Aaron Albano: Yeah, I mean, this is definitely a product of 2013, where Bombshell and arguably Hit List are both tokenized shows. It's not a good look for representative Broadway now, and arguably not a good look for representative Broadway then, but that's how it is then and arguably now.

[7:33] Mo Brady: Yeah.

[7:34] Aaron Albano: So...

[7:35] Mo Brady: But we do see some representation in our stage managers.

[7:38] Aaron Albano: Let's talk about our cameos.

[7:42] Mo Brady: We saw Montego Glover.

[7:44] Aaron Albano: She's here.

[7:45] Mo Brady: I honestly forgot she was on the show, and I spent a lot of time on set with her, but she showed up. I was like, oh yeah.

[7:51] Aaron Albano: Only a few weeks ago, we were like, where is Hit List's Linda? We're going to talk about Marissa and her pre-show announcement later, but let's talk about maybe the most perfect casting of all perfect casting, which is Carolee Carmelo as Kyle's mom.

[8:05] Mo Brady: A, I can fully believe that Carolee Carmelo is Andy Mientus' mom.

[8:12] Aaron Albano: Yeah, and she's so supportive.

[8:15] Mo Brady: She's so supportive. She's like, you should live in this moment. This moment is yours. And all the concern for Jimmy in the world, but also don't let him hold you back. What a mother. Bravo, Carolee Carmelo. Bravo.

[8:30] Aaron Albano: Producers in attendance at Hit List. We have so many producers, which I guess is why...

[8:35] Mo Brady: Some of them by name, but some of them showed up.

[8:37] Aaron Albano: Derek tells Scott. He says Scott Rudin's going to show up. He says Daryl Roth's going to show up. He says David Stone's going to show up and Kevin McCollum's going to show up.

[8:47] Mo Brady: Is that everybody?

[8:49] Aaron Albano: Aside from Aileen, because Aileen shows up too.

[8:51] Mo Brady: Yes, Aileen Rand.

[8:53] Aaron Albano: Although, can I tell you one of my favorite things that happened?

[8:56] Mo Brady: Yes.

[8:56] Aaron Albano: So after the show, when Daryl Roth and Kevin McCollum are just kind of kiki-ing about the show, and then Daphne Ruben Vega walks up to talk about the show, and then Jesse L. Martin shows up to ask them to drinks, I was like, look at this little rent reunion talking about edgy cult shows right in front of Manhattan Theater Workshop. It made me so happy.

[9:19] Mo Brady: I mean, especially with the cliffhanger at the end of this episode. Smash is really trying to give us rent vibes with Hit List.

[9:27] Aaron Albano: It was, but it was still insidery enough that it wasn't like, look, it's all these rent people. It was like, if you knew that these were rent people, that would put a little smile on your heart.

[9:40] Mo Brady: It allowed people like us to be like, hey, everybody. Hey, look. Hey, look, hey, look, hey, look. Hey, I know things.

[9:49] Aaron Albano: Will you take us through, I love, one of my favorite moments is when Daphne Ruben Vega as Agnes sort of takes us through the current Broadway season. Will you lead us through those?

[9:58] Mo Brady: Oh, sure. This happens when she's in the press office with Eileen, and she's like listing out the shows that are or are not coming to Broadway, and she says, well, Bombshell's already there, but apparently Bombshell's already on TKTS ever since they opened, which is not a good sign. Moonstruck is not coming because Marisa Tomei got injured.

[10:21] Aaron Albano: And she broke her knee.

[10:22] Mo Brady: Like, is that what happened?

[10:23] Aaron Albano: Okay.

[10:24] Mo Brady: Do you know Moonstruck?

[10:25] Aaron Albano: I don't know a thing about Moonstruck.

[10:26] Mo Brady: I don't know either. I'm actually wondering now if Marisa Tomei is correct for the leading role in Moonstruck.

[10:33] Aaron Albano: I actually, I don't know the answer to this question. Apparently, there's a show called Imitation of Life, which is open, but apparently dead on arrival. A show called Lloyd Webber is closing soon.

[10:45] Mo Brady: And I can only assume that's like a review type show, like Prince of Broadway or Jerome Robbins Broadway.

[10:53] Aaron Albano: And then what she doesn't mention is Remember Liaisons? That was this season also, and that was a musical.

[11:01] Mo Brady: That's funny that she doesn't mention Liaisons.

[11:03] Aaron Albano: I mean, I guess—

[11:03] Mo Brady: No one mentions Liaisons anymore.

[11:06] Aaron Albano: Sorry, Liaisons.

[11:08] Mo Brady: But here, when she gave this list, this is the one thing that I had a question about, just like in terms of watching the show as a viewer. There's a whole sort of assumption that Hit List is on the road to Broadway or not on the road to Broadway based on how good it is. And what I found interesting watching this episode now was taking all of this into context, is that apparently this is a bad season, or quote unquote, this is not a very lucrative—like there's no Hamilton of this season. There's no Dear Evan Hansen of this season. It's 2014 when A Gentleman's Guide to Love or Murder wins the Tony Award for best musical. Tony awards in 2014 were not as competitive as—

[12:21] Mo Brady: They're not talking about whether Hit List is good or not. They're talking about whether Hit List can be a financially lucrative investment, right? All anybody ever talks about in terms of the quality of Hit List is that it might be too dark for Broadway. And I was like, okay, what does that mean taking the Broadway season we have? Liaisons, which is pretty fluffy. You had Lloyd Webber, which is a pretty, which is a review show. You have Bombshell, which is pretty fluffy. And then the other two that are apparently, one's not coming in and one's not good. It wouldn't be a bad season to come in. It also maybe feels like sort of, let's think about the Tony Award winners for Best Musical in the early 2010s. I'm going to look.

Okay, we had Book of Mormon in 2011. We had Once in 2012. Right. Memphis in 2010. These are all sort of bigger shows, right? This was sort of pre when you had the three in a row, Dear Evan Hansen, The Band's Visit, Hadestown. So maybe there is a difference between Broadway then and Broadway now. When you thought about what would be a best contender for Best Musical at the Tony Awards in the early 2010s, we were thinking about bigger musicals, right? And now, if the last three years have taught us anything, it's actually that smaller, maybe darker musicals actually are more.

[13:53] Aaron Albano: Well, that's so interesting, too, because is there like a sort of ebb and flow of that trend? Because I mean, if we think back to like the late 90s, when like Rent was here, like that was a small cast. Was that just a fluke in a generation of big shows? Or was there a trend of small shows at the time, then it moved back up to big shows?

[14:18] Mo Brady: I think there maybe is more ebb and flow. I mean, you look back at history in the last 20 years, and there are both big shows and small shows. You know, Hairspray wins in 2003, followed by Avenue Q, the quote unquote upset in 2004.

[14:34] Aaron Albano: Oh, totally. Yeah.

[14:34] Mo Brady: You know, Jersey Boys wins in 2006, Spring Awakening in 2007. But I do feel like you look at things like 2008, you had In the Heights, and you had Passing Strange. In the Heights is the bigger, more traditional show, right?

[14:52] Aaron Albano: Yes, that's true.

[14:52] Mo Brady: 2009, Billy Elliot and Next to Normal. Billy Elliot wins out over Next to Normal. Okay, yeah. So I guess there is... But then you can flip that on its head, and you can say Once was the small show, and Newsies was the big show in 2012. Maybe it ebbs and flows more, but I definitely have clocked that the last three best musical winners are all small shows.

[15:19] Aaron Albano: Yeah, fair.

[15:20] Mo Brady: I'm making all of this up.

[15:21] Aaron Albano: So am I. This is what we do on this show. This is what happens.

[15:25] Mo Brady: Okay, I want you to ask me all the questions about Hit List, and I will try to answer as many as I can.

[15:31] Aaron Albano: Oh my god. Okay, firstly, we saw two numbers. Well, no, we saw practically the whole show.

[15:38] Mo Brady: I know, lots of numbers.

[15:40] Aaron Albano: We saw a lot of the show. I have no idea what Hit List is about. I have no idea.

[15:45] Mo Brady: There's sort of two levels of how I don't know about what Hit List is about. A of all, when you are working on a television show, you usually only get the pages that you are in.

[15:59] Aaron Albano: Yes.

[16:00] Mo Brady: Right? So like, I never saw a full script because I never sat down for a table read of any of that. Sure. So I had filmed the bookend opening, right? But I didn't know anything else that happened in the show or the episode between that and the injury. And so it's like, I don't know how big of a stakes this are. I didn't know that Jimmy was wandering around in the other number. I didn't know that Jimmy showed up late for his call that night. Like, none of this stuff is being told to me as an actor to be able to react to in that moment. So we got two full songs in the number that we saw. We saw the goodbye song, which was the finale. And we saw Don't Let Me Know, which we lovingly refer to as the chair one.

[16:44] Aaron Albano: I was like, I don't know the name of this song. You're in Don't Let Me Know, right? Are you in? Are you in the chair song? You're not in the chair song. Okay.

[16:51] Mo Brady: So that's also the weird thing about this musical, right? It's like Gabe and Lexi are supposed to be dancers in this show. And yet, because neither Philippa and I are dancers, I think it may have just been like sort of more financially lucrative to not include us in things. Or maybe Josh Bergass, the choreographer was like, I don't want to choreograph them. I've got Sky Maddox and Carla Garcia who can actually dance.

[17:22] Aaron Albano: How did you like the numbers as a viewer and not as a cast member?

[17:26] Mo Brady: I like these numbers. Again, Don't Let Me Know tells a story. This is a song. This is staging that tells a story, right? When we got to Voice in a Dream and Hit List, I was like, oh, look, we're using movement to go from a beginning of a journey to an end. That's exactly what Don't Let Me Know is. You see Karen at the piano, and then she's at the coffee shop, and then she's in the recording studio, and then there's the fans at the concert with the eye masks. I was like, look, progression of story. We're getting it. Which I will say, while I was watching it, I was like, yo, the ensemble makes Hit List. This is an ensemble piece. This is the Hamilton ensemble before the Hamilton ensemble. I was like, fight me.

This is great work. If it were just Jimmy and Karen, I feel like that song would have gone nowhere, but the ensemble is what made that song come to life. I was like, all right, good job, Don't Let Me Know, even with your chairs. Aside from the chairs, my favorite prop in that whole thing, Apple iPads. They're so expensive. This is fierce, but I was like, this is no... I was recently interviewing Hope Easterbrook about the Hamilton film, and she was talking about how her track was so prop heavy in the show, the woman take track. She just feels like she's constantly like moving around quills and chairs and feeling very afraid about putting the right thing in the right time. I can tell you that the most frightening thing to me would have been being the dancer that had to do the final swipe at the end to get to make Karen's face with all the iPads.

I was like, I don't want that job. I don't want that job. Could you imagine? It was beautiful though, but I was like, this is Derek getting his way for the high budget Broadway stuff. Here's where I feel like Hit List sort of like dips its toe into this idea of technology, but isn't really about technology. I think because Hit List is trying to be this like cool, edgy, contemporary show, like, look, we've got iPads. Look, we have a pre-show announcement from Marissa who says the use of cell phones is not only permitted, but encouraged. That announcement. Record the show in its entirety for all we care. We don't own it any more than you do. I was like, wait a second.

[20:03] Aaron Albano: But like, why? Also, I'm sure Actors' Equity would not allow that, like a thousand percent. None of the unions would. Like, come on. I mean, arguably, Jimmy and Kyle are not part of the Writer's Guild, but still, like that? Absolutely not.

[20:09] Mo Brady: Again, I think it's a moment that heralds to a Broadway before that moment, right? Because it's trying to sort of live in the rent world, right? Everybody's lined up in front of the theater waiting for the rush tickets, like, right?

[20:17] Aaron Albano: Before we go, I want to ask you about, first up, let's raise a glass to Kyle Bishop.

[20:24] Mo Brady: Raise a glass to Kyle Bishop.

[20:27] Aaron Albano: How do you feel about this moment in the show? Do you feel like it was earned?

[20:32] Mo Brady: No, not at all. Not at all. Not a thing. It is not earned because we're not invested in Kyle at all. Until that episode where they were storyboarding, Kyle was a non-character. Until the opening night party for Bombshell, where he like, chooses to hook up with Tom over that's like the first time that Kyle really makes a decision. No, I guess Kyle makes a decision to not wait for Jimmy to do the storyboarding. The first moment he gets where he stands up to Jimmy and he's like, I'm good at this now. This is the right choice. It's not about your song. It's not about Karen's song. It's about what's good for the show. That was, I feel like, his first moment in independence, for lack of a better word.

But I can't decide, and I honestly don't know, and I can't decide if it's, if A, that was a little too late. B, if that was enough to make me care. Because I also think in this episode specifically, we got a lot of like, playing catch up. Like hearing Carolee Carmelo talk about all the achievements that Kyle's done and how proud of him she is. I do wish that sort of all of that like, Kyle molding would have happened earlier in the season. Because I do think we get to a relatively sympathetic place with Kyle. I just don't know if it was enough for me to be outraged that he's died. And knowing roughly where this show goes, because I haven't watched ahead yet, but watching eight years ago, I don't know if the amount that I've invested is worthy of the momentum that it elicits next episode.

[22:17] Aaron Albano: Right. We're going to use Kyle's death, spoiler alert, as a catalyst for Hit List to move to Broadway this season. And I don't know if I can decide whether Kyle's death is a big enough thing for Hit List to move from Off-Broadway to Broadway. I think the next episode is actually called The Phenomenon, right? And that's sort of about him passing. But what I can tell you is that from a viewer of Smash, it's not enough. To keep up to date with next week's recap, be sure to watch season two, episode 14 of Smash, The Phenomenon. You can find Smash episodes on either the NBC app or NBC.com. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. And by me, Aaron Albano. 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. Please follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network. You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time!