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

[0:10] Mo Brady: Over the last six months, we've been mourning the loss of theater as we know it. And yet, theater is being created by artists all over the country in new ways. One of those artists is Will Blum, recently of Broadway's Beetlejuice and also host of a miniseries here on The Ensemblist called Stupid But Trying. He recently created an online piece of filmed theater. The film features three numbers from the musical Floyd Collins, filmed entirely in his home thanks to an innovative collaboration with noted music supervisor Andy Ihorn. I spoke with Will over the phone recently about the impetus for creating it, how he actually created the video itself, what it means to be missing theater in this time. Here's our conversation.

[1:22] Mo Brady: Noted theater visionary Will Blum, you're back on the podcast.

[1:27] Will Blum: I am. I am. Thank you for having me.

[1:29] Mo Brady: Oh my gosh, in this moment where we feel like we can't produce theater, you went and produced theater. Congratulations.

[1:38] Will Blum: Thank you so much for even calling it theater. That's the compliment.

[1:41] Mo Brady: Oh my gosh, it's very much theater. Can you sort of describe it for somebody who hasn't had the chance to see it yet?

[1:47] Will Blum: I built a one hundred and twenty five foot long cave in my apartment in Harlem and did the first three songs from the musical Floyd Collins, where he's exploring this cave for the first time. And yes, it was a wonderful collaboration with Andy Einhorn and Joel Wagner as music director and fiddle. And my friends Austin Reagan and Kendall Hartsey helped me shoot the second part. It moves time to go as cinematographer and director of photography.

[2:18] Will Blum: So I think what struck me most is about watching the piece you created was that it didn't feel like it felt like even closer to the truth of the piece than I can imagine it being on stage. I can imagine a stage feeling really open and full and you imagine that the audience is on their side and they have lots of air above them and you can watch somebody on stage and you think, oh, there's lots of space around them, even though they're supposed to feel very confined. And yet the circumstances of what you created felt very confined.

[2:53] Will Blum: I think it was initially part of why I thought it would work on film is because it's one of those moments on stage that I still have never seen. I didn't see the original production, so I don't know what they did. But every time I've seen it staged, and even when I did it, you know, we did it in a very abstract way and I moved around this very abstract set, but there was no ceiling above me. There was no, you know, this is something that could be actualized, you know what I mean, through film. And I'm so, we can't have theater in its form that we have it now. If we really, and I really just accepted that and said, okay, what is theater without the form we know it in? What is it, you know? And I tried to do all of the things that one would do, you know what I mean?

I made sure that even I knew who the camera was for both parts. It's still, you know, I mean, it's like, but I will say the happy accident part of it is that I didn't realize how claustrophobic it would really feel on film. And when I was watching it with friends and seeing everybody's reaction, when you get to the bigger cave, everybody just leans back. Everybody just exhales in this beautiful way that I'm just like, it's amazement and so glad to be out of that claustrophobic atmosphere, you know, and that that was the goal to find a way to make this work on film, but still let it feel like theater. It was I was trying to tackle like 1000 different things. And I'm like, I'm actually proud to say like, I think I succeeded at a lot of them, you know.

[4:22] Will Blum: I do think it's super interesting, because it does feel like theater, even though it is on film, it feels more like theater than any sort of zoom concert I've watched yet. And I'm wondering why that is.

[4:34] Will Blum: I was very clear that this was my attempt for theater for film, not filmed theater. You know what I mean? I know that that might not be a big difference. It's theater because it's boxes. I did not paint the boxes to look like a cave. You are very aware that I am in a world of make believe the whole time. And you're so aware of it that I think you get swept up in it by the end. And that's theater to me. That's to me, that's what you the curtain rises. And I know what I'm seeing is not real. But I'm gonna believe in it for however long you stay, you know, you take me on it. And as the cave goes along, you see less logos, you see less labels, you see less, you just see tape, you just see the insides of boxes, and then going into the big room, where it's just the inside of the boxes and the splatter, you know, from, you know, my super, I stole them from my, my super, I think he used them to paint, you know, catch the paint splatter.

But they are beautiful little Pollock pieces that, you know, ended up being, you know, such a wonderful sort of visual moment of that cave. So I didn't even catch that, that they start with labels and start with, well, good, that's the whole point. It's not it's supposed to, if there's not seven layers of metaphor in it, I'm not doing it. And this is like, it's I even knew that people would think I was crazy for the first minute, you know what I mean? Because it's crazy. And then I just slowly strip away the things that that make it seem crazy. And then I even put in places where I knew you'd think, surely this can't go on anymore, that you have to come out into something where I'd put a piece of white or I'd show the piece of the white wall.

And then it just keeps going. You know what I mean? So there are things that I very consciously knew where I was just like, you're not gonna believe this. But here it is, again, you know what I mean? And this part's even bigger, I made sure to not get lazy when I was making the cave in that. Oh, it'd be just easy to make it this. And it'd just be that night was just like, let's make it an extreme. And because I did the dry run, I knew exactly what lyrics I was singing at what part of the cave. So as I was building, I knew what I was singing. So I knew that I wanted to be standing. The only part I'm standing in the whole time is the stars could be so fine. You know what I mean? I knew for that note, I just wanted to stand it's my face.

It's like, to me, the emotional climax of the call. And I was like, Oh, just let me stand there, you know, and I even I even poked holes in the top. So there was like, call it the planetarium. You couldn't catch it. I couldn't catch it on film. But it was like demo or for me, it was just like, this is I could create it, I could create a planetarium for the lyrics, the stars could be so fine. You know what I mean? And I just didn't, I didn't limit myself. And because I have so much love and respect for this material, it just needed to be perfect. I'm, I'm already a perfectionist. But like, to me, this is, and I acted like somebody gave it to me, but I give it to myself and still wanted to treat it wholly that, you know, that this is this is sacred material to me.

And it's the subject matter in the music, I think is is almost divine. Being alone in isolation, I think that we're thinking about like, what can I be creating to sort of keep myself sane and inspired? But what were you hoping that other people would take away from it?

[8:07] Will Blum: I've had to accept a lot of things about myself during this time. I think I think everybody's kind of had to empty out their metaphorical and literal closets. And I even it's even part of doing stupid, but trying it's just like, I want to do something. But like, what do I do? You know, I know. And the best advice I got was pick a lane, pick a lane. And I know what I sell is heart. And I know what I sell is joy. And I know that people need that in this time, more than anything. And I understood why I chose this part of a show about death, which has nothing to do with death, has so much to do with my struggle with not being able to be with my father who has early onset Alzheimer's, and understanding that this was so much about trying to focus on the glory of a human instead of the tragedy that ends their life.

There's so many people. And I think I mean, it, it started with the COVID deaths, and then it was George Floyd. And then it was all it was so many, we just kept on piling on all of the all of this death. And I, I wanted to think about who they were before something tragic happened, replay a moment of glory, you know, over and over and over again, instead of ringing the bell of tragedy, you know. And maybe that's denial. And maybe that's perpetual optimism. And maybe it's hope. I've had a lot of people say that it's inspiring. And even friends, you know, who just start writing or just start doing something like right after they saw it. I'm just like, that's it. That's more than anything. I broke myself out of out of a box of just waiting for somebody to cast me in something I said, Okay, theater's gone.

You're your producer, stack your season, what do you want to do? And I was the one who always I played Floyd Collins in school, and I went from playing Floyd Collins to Horton the elephant in my professional career. And I started making the joke while I peaked in college, because nobody will ever let me play Floyd Collins again, because who's gonna believe I can fit through a hole in the cave. And I was the one who said that about myself. And during this time, more than anything, I'm proud to show the growth that I can say, you are Floyd Collins, I am Floyd Collins. And you can fit through the hole in the cave if you make the fucking cave yourself, literal and metaphorical, you know, just, you just can't limit yourself anymore.

I refuse to. I know I can do comedy. I know in the world knows that I can be this wonderful clown. Dear God, there's just so much more to me than that. And I'm really proud to sort of expose that. In any sense, I'm not waiting for theater to come back anymore, where I do believe it will. But I'm not going to sit around and wait for the job to come in general anymore. Even when it does come back, I'm going to keep making art for myself and for the people who enjoy it. You know, it's not it feels like the playing field has been leveled. But not everybody has realized that yet. I did love when I this weekend when I could sort of watch it through other people's eyes for the first time, you know, watching specifically like it moves.

I was like, this is like sleep no more. You know, I'm just you're just like walking around this person who doesn't see you. You know, it's like I just loved it. It was really weird to say like, I love the art. I mean, but I did. You know, I mean, that's half the point. It feels really weird to it's like buying a gift for somebody that you're gonna play with yourself. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm so glad you enjoy this. But this is mine too. You know what I mean? Like, this is this is for my enjoyment. I made a theater piece I made that affected me. You know, I mean, that's the whole point is just to see if I can move myself. You know what I mean? With it, if I that's the sort of litmus test for me in a way of just like, does this pass?

[12:17] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Will Blum for sharing his stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can 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, which you can do at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow The Ensemblist wherever you listen to podcasts on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or at vpn.fm, the home of Broadway Podcast Network. Thanks for listening. Until next time.