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[0:00] Michael Fatica: Hi, you're listening to The Shows We Need from The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. I'm Michael Fatica.

[0:44] Michael Fatica: This week we are talking about a musical that my middle school self would have lived for, SpongeBob SquarePants. Now, I know what you're thinking, that musical is for kids. I'm here to tell you, well, A, I'm an adult and I loved it and it's full of incredible stagecraft and video wall free theater magic, but also B, musicals that expose kids to truly important learning moments are shows that we need. I talked to Oneika Phillips, Ensemblist from SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway, and we chat about fake news, racism against squirrels, all sorts of goodies. Here's our conversation.

[1:23] Michael Fatica: Hi, can you please tell me your name, your preferred pronouns and where you're calling from?

[1:36] Oneika Phillips: Hey, hey, I am Oneika, O-N-E-I-K-A. I am calling from Brooklyn and my pronouns are she, hers, her.

[1:47] Michael Fatica: Let's talk about SpongeBob. It was obviously based on a cartoon, but can you tell us what the musical stage version is about?

[1:55] Oneika Phillips: Sure. We're all living happily in Bikini Bottom with our nutty, weird, wacky hero-to-be, SpongeBob, who just sees the world in rainbows and stars and glitter. And suddenly there's a rumble throughout the whole city. And as it turns out, Mount Humongous, this volcano in the distance is going to explode. And the entire Bikini Bottom is in danger of being destroyed by this volcano. In the midst of this comes Sandy, who happens to be a squirrel who lives under the sea. And she decides that she can figure out how to save the town. But as it turns out, because she's a squirrel, there's some pushback. You're not from here. You don't know us. We don't know you. What makes you think we would listen to you?

And why should we trust you? And all this distrust is built. All this xenophobia is built up. Eventually, her and SpongeBob, they all go on this quest to complete this mission to save Bikini Bottom regardless. But in the meantime, in between time, there is the conversation of how the media portrays this tragedy that may happen and how the governmental bodies are handling this terror.

[3:23] Oneika Phillips: So although it's based on a story for kids, there are some really big topics in here. What was your experience like signing on to such a well-known sort of fluffy property?

[3:34] Oneika Phillips: I have to talk about my first day with the show. That was the end of summer 2017. And we're sitting in a circle with Tina Landau, the director in the middle. And she asked everybody, you know, how are you feeling today? One word, just one word. And I remember my word was tentative. So she picked a couple of people. And my introduction to the show was the Broadway run. Some of these cast members have been together for years. They had done the Chicago run. They had done like a workshop run and really had dedicated so much of their artistic lives to the show. And my coming to SpongeBob happened to be after a year off hiatus after spinal surgery. And in that time, Donald Trump was elected into office.

Barack Obama was leaving office and all that hope and change that had come with him had sort of felt like it had been beaten into a corner. And then there was the conversation of black men and women being killed by police. So, you know, the women's march in opposition to Donald Trump and his sexism. And so it was all it was this politically charged environment happening outside my window as I healed. And I couldn't see any correlation between this sort of strange, funny, weird Nickelodeon cartoon and what was happening outside of my window. I just couldn't. Fast forward. So here I am in the room and I offered very honestly that I was tentative and she asked me why. And that's the story I told her.

I was just like, there's so much happening outside that I'm not sure like a Broadway show about this cartoon is where my artistic mind wants to be. And she said to me, I'm just going to ask you one thing to trust me. And I said, okay. And what she did so brilliantly, gosh, Tina is, is just a genius is she took the silhouette of the show, literally and figuratively of SpongeBob SquarePants, the cartoon and managed to insert all these themes that were happening outside into our show. Right? She, she did it brilliantly. She did it tacitly and, and she did it with, with a true sense of wanting, not just the general audience to get it, but for young people to get it. Young audiences who she knew would be our main attendees, like our main fans.

And I remember in one rehearsal, Tom Kitt saying, this show is a bridge for young people to have conversations about xenophobia, about women in STEM and how they're viewed about women's voices and, and leadership about government leadership, about, about, about news and the conversation about the media and how the media utilizes information about community and coming together about the conversation of fear and what fear breeds. And she managed to do this using SpongeBob SquarePants.

[6:49] Michael Fatica: You just mentioned a few really important things, but I want to ask about the element of fake news in the show or how the media can dramatize facts and how leaders can create distrust around those. How was that utilized in this story?

[7:04] Oneika Phillips: The interesting thing about fake news is that you can think like, Oh, what's being told to you is false, but it's more nuanced than that. Perch Perkins played by the awesome Kelvin Moonlow is a very deep voiced reporter, right? And he's telling the truth. There's a volcano that's threatening the town and it could be a very dangerous outcome, but the way that he's doing it, the how of it, it's just like the intent is to drive fear into everyone in Bikini Bottom. And what fear tends to do is breed chaos. And what chaos tends to do is breed separatism and tribalism, right? And this is what happens. This is exactly what happens as the show goes on, you know, as we go further and further and further, the sound of his voice and his own dress, like he's coming apart and he's becoming more frantic and, but he's still delivering this news.

And in the show, eventually it leads to us like literally pounding on each other and beating each other and screaming in the streets. And the mayor is blaming the news and the news is blaming the mayor. And it, it kind of all falls apart because there isn't any sense of cooperation from the powers that be like from the media and the government and things just fall apart. I mean, that's almost literally what the coverage and reaction to the coverage of COVID-19 has been like.

[8:38] Michael Fatica: Yes. In prep to talk to you, I watched the live-filmed version of your show on Amazon, and watching that happen in the show, I was pretty triggered. And I did not expect that to happen, but I was emotional. But I'm going to ask you more about Sandy Cheeks, who believes in science, hallelujah, she's a strong female character played by an actress of color, Lily Cooper, and she is actively discriminated against because she's a land mammal. There's even the sign that says, mammals go home. That's how extreme it becomes. Right. How important do you think the presence of this kind of a role in a musical is, in a musical that a lot of young people will see?

[9:56] Oneika Phillips: Again, I thought that was one of the most brilliant choices that Tina made. So in the show, Sandy Cheeks is a brown squirrel, and she wears her oxygen mask, which forms this big circle around her head, right? And what they did, again, in the conversation of silhouette, is they took that and they made it this gorgeous, giant afro, which I thought was perfect. So brilliant. It is specifically cast so that young people can have the conversation about women, women in leadership positions, women in STEM and STEAM, and Black women, right? So each time it goes, the category gets more and more and more and more and more marginalized. And Sandy, as a particular character, is in a space that so many young Black girls and women are trying to get into, but they're constantly denied.

They're either not accepted into the institutions, or they don't have access to the pre-education that's needed to get into those situations. So to see that statement, it's becoming overused, but sometimes overuse and cliché, it has its role, but representation matters. And the fact that it is a Black woman, a Black woman who is an engineer and a scientist, having this conversation about what can be done, but at the same time, Tina using the storyline to address subjects of racism and xenophobia and tribalism, I think that is probably one of the most brilliant directing initiatives that she could have done in the show, is to cast Sandy Cheeks as being played by a Black woman. I think it's brilliant.

[12:04] Michael Fatica: Can you talk a little bit more about the community aspect you mentioned and the power of this mob, for lack of a better word?

[12:06] Oneika Phillips: You have the elements and the aspects that very quietly sneak in there and start to pull that community apart, right? The sardines become fanatics because they're looking to religion to save them, right? So it's just like, Patrick Starr is going to save us. And that's their focus. And they're just like, this starfish is going to be our savior. And it's almost like cult-like, right? You have the plankton dancers that kind of represent that insidious intrusion that he has into that community to pull people apart. And then again, the media and the fear-mongering, and then the mayor just kind of trying to cover up the truth of the matter by saying there's nothing to worry about. And suddenly this community that was bright and loving and did depend on each other, it's now falling in, right?

The whole thing is falling in on each other. And it takes SpongeBob, it takes him going on this epic adventure with Patrick and Sandy and his realization that all of this was for this town that he loves so much. And he knows, he knows we do too. He knows the community does too. And that is when he just kind of comes outside of himself and he's just like, stop, what are you doing? What are you doing? We know each other. We love each other. We're all at risk. If we're going to perish, we should perish together in love. And I think at the end of it, that's how we all go. In our final moments, we don't want people standing over our beds, pointing at each other, talking about who gets the money. The person who illuminated that, I very, very clearly remember, was Danny Skinner.

He said it in the room. He was just like, this is the moment where you realize this is my last, last breath on this earth. And I don't want to go out in fear. I do not want to go out scared. I want to go out surrounded by love. And every night, every night when we did that countdown before the glorious bubble moment, that's what I would think of. And it would move me each and every time, each and every time.

[15:59] Michael Fatica: That is beautifully said, truly. My last question, do you think kids are getting it when they see SpongeBob? Do you think these lessons are landing?

[16:05] Oneika Phillips: You know, here's a moment that I remember. There's the point where Sandy goes into the jellyfish area, right? And that's her place of reprieve, and she's hiding from the mob. And there's this moment where she said, they don't want my help. They don't want me here. And just out of the darkness, like just kind of out of the darkness, and this would happen every now and again, you know, this one little kid was like, why don't they like her? You know, why don't they like her? And it's, the question is so simple. And then when, when you do the exponential exercise, and you bring it to the conversation of racism, that's the question, like, why don't you like these people? And as soon as you, you start having those conversations, you start to realize a lot of that lives in bias, in misunderstanding, in a lack of being taught history, in a lack of understanding cultural choices and behavior. So that was one moment of like a question that in the talk back later that night, spurred a fantastic discussion on xenophobia and racism and the question of other.

[16:59] Michael Fatica: I guess that kid was listening. And let's hope that many more were. Onika was amazing. And we talked for a long time. That's just a snippet. SpongeBob is literally a scary reflection of where we are right now in the world, hidden underneath Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. Genius. You can luckily see this show right now on Amazon video. And if you're a parent listening to this or a bored adult, I urge you to go watch. That's all for now. Special thanks to Onika Phillips for sharing her story with us. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Michael Fatica, Jackson Klein, and Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can help 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 us wherever you can find us. And if you want to learn more about the Ensemblist, at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at bpn.fm, the home of the Broadway Podcast Network. You can also follow us on Instagram. Thanks for listening. Until next time.