This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jamie DuMont: I'm Jamie DuMont.

[0:01] Rob Russo: I'm Rob Russo.

[0:02] Jamie DuMont: And this is The Fabulous Invalid.

[0:04] Rob Russo: We were gonna say it together.

[0:05] Jamie DuMont: Oh it says, Jamie, I'm following the script.

[0:08] Rob Russo: Oh Rob, you're so good that I follow the rules.

[0:11] Jamie DuMont: Well we didn't we're not saying it together.

[0:13] Rob Russo: Okay.

[0:28] Jamie DuMont: Hi.

[0:28] Rob Russo: Hi.

[0:29] Jamie DuMont: We're at Orso tonight.

[0:30] Rob Russo: We're back at Orso, our favorite little haunt.

[0:33] Jamie DuMont: Can probably hear the people, the dishes clanging.

[0:36] Rob Russo: Hear the people.

[0:37] Jamie DuMont: Hear the people.

[0:37] Rob Russo: What is that?

[0:38] Jamie DuMont: That sounds like a song.

[0:39] Rob Russo: It does sound like a song.

[0:40] Jamie DuMont: Make them hear you from Ragtime.

[0:42] Rob Russo: Oh, yeah.

[0:42] Jamie DuMont: I don't know.

[0:43] Rob Russo: Well.

[0:43] Jamie DuMont: Speaking of our hearing songs.

[0:45] Rob Russo: It's pretty crowded for a wintery night.

[0:49] Jamie DuMont: It is.

[0:50] Rob Russo: We should also say that the lovely Jennifer Smart is actually not with us tonight.

[0:55] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[0:55] Rob Russo: And the fabulous Leslie Kritzer is back, but she is traveling, and hopefully we will see her in the new year.

[0:55] Jamie DuMont: In the new year, yes.

[1:03] Rob Russo: Fairly early on.

[1:03] Jamie DuMont: Very excited to have Leslie back on the show.

[1:05] Rob Russo: Yeah, we didn't talk about going down to DC and seeing her in Beetlejuice, did we?

[1:08] Jamie DuMont: We didn't, no, no.

[1:09] Rob Russo: Jamie and I snuck down to DC for the pre-Broadway engagement of Beetlejuice last month in November.

[1:15] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[1:16] Rob Russo: It was and it was such a delight to see Leslie.

[1:19] Jamie DuMont: First and foremost.

[1:21] Rob Russo: Um and I always love catching a show pre-Broadway.

[1:26] Jamie DuMont: Um especially one that you know is definitely coming to Broadway because there's that opportunity to sort of compare notes in a couple months' time.

[1:34] Rob Russo: Um things that may or may not be the same, right?

[1:37] Jamie DuMont: So on and so forth.

[1:38] Rob Russo: Right, exactly.

[1:38] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[1:39] Rob Russo: I just love the excitement of a show in a city that's not New York.

[1:43] Jamie DuMont: You know, there's something really exciting about another town wrapping its arms around.

[1:50] Rob Russo: And DC has really become in recent years a real test lab for Broadway, you know, like it used to be in the old days in the 50s and 60s.

[1:59] Jamie DuMont: But the past couple years you've had Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Mean Girls, and now Beetlejuice that have all done their tryouts in DC.

[2:08] Rob Russo: What show will be next?

[2:09] Jamie DuMont: I know, right?

[2:10] Rob Russo: Well, Dave the musical was at Arena Stage over the fall, but I haven't heard anything about Dave making its way to New York.

[2:16] Jamie DuMont: Oh right.

[2:17] Rob Russo: That was Mamie Paris was in that, wasn't she?

[2:19] Jamie DuMont: I believe so.

[2:20] Rob Russo: And I wanted to see that.

[2:21] Jamie DuMont: Me too.

[2:22] Rob Russo: I'm a big fan.

[2:22] Jamie DuMont: I think she's terrific.

[2:23] Rob Russo: DC in the summer's rough for me, though.

[2:25] Jamie DuMont: I lived there for nine years.

[2:26] Rob Russo: It can just be.

[2:27] Jamie DuMont: I was there this summer.

[2:29] Rob Russo: So hot.

[2:29] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, I was there with you.

[2:32] Rob Russo: We went to Signature Theater in Arlington.

[2:36] Jamie DuMont: That's right.

[2:36] Rob Russo: Our second or third episode of the podcast.

[2:38] Jamie DuMont: Oh, yeah.

[2:39] Rob Russo: Jamie, don't get old, because it's really tough on the mind.

[2:42] Jamie DuMont: The highest grossing week of the year, every year on Broadway, is the week around Christmas.

[2:48] Rob Russo: Um folks are paying premium prices to see Broadway shows.

[2:51] Jamie DuMont: You know, just across the board, almost everything is sold out.

[2:54] Rob Russo: And then you reach that high, and then of course, there's the Valley After the Peak coming in January.

[3:00] Jamie DuMont: Oh, I know you're going with that.

[3:02] Rob Russo: You know where I'm going.

[3:02] Jamie DuMont: I'm winding up.

[3:03] Rob Russo: Because on January 6th, there are three musicals closing on, well, three plays, three shows, I should say, closing on Broadway.

[3:11] Jamie DuMont: Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song.

[3:13] Rob Russo: Which is terrible.

[3:15] Jamie DuMont: So sad.

[3:16] Rob Russo: No, yes.

[3:17] Jamie DuMont: Oh, that sounded so bad.

[3:19] Rob Russo: It's terrible that it's closing.

[3:21] Jamie DuMont: Yes, that's what I meant.

[3:22] Rob Russo: I'm not quite with it tonight.

[3:24] Jamie DuMont: Once on this Island, the acclaimed revival that won the Tony Award last year, is closing at the Circle in the Square and Head Over Heels, which is played at the Hudson Theater, opened last summer, and to the credit of their producers, has you know, they've really put money behind that show to help it have a longer life than its box office would have otherwise dictated.

[3:47] Rob Russo: They really had a healthy ad campaign.

[3:49] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, oh yeah.

[3:50] Rob Russo: They were everywhere.

[3:51] Jamie DuMont: Um those three shows are closing, and the Donna Summer musical is closing December 30th.

[3:57] Rob Russo: Um reminds me that there's a rhythm to every season, there's a rhythm to Broadway.

[4:08] Jamie DuMont: And shows open and close, another opening, another show.

[4:14] Rob Russo: Um that doesn't sound as good.

[4:16] Jamie DuMont: Doesn't it fun stuff?

[4:17] Rob Russo: Cole Porter would not approve.

[4:19] Jamie DuMont: No.

[4:19] Rob Russo: Um but someone tweeted the other day that, and I wish I had written down who it was.

[4:24] Jamie DuMont: I have a habit of not writing down who tweets things that I want to repeat.

[4:28] Rob Russo: Um so not giving proper credit, not giving proper credit, but um we should celebrate when shows close instead of being all mournful about them because it's amazing that anything ever even opens, given the amount of stars that need to align for a show to open on Broadway in terms of the capitalization, the talent, getting a theater.

[4:48] Jamie DuMont: I mean, that alone is like, you know, striking out.

[4:51] Rob Russo: Not to mention the competition.

[4:53] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[4:53] Rob Russo: A lot of fierce competition out there.

[4:55] Jamie DuMont: This hasn't always been the way Broadway worked.

[4:58] Rob Russo: Not at all.

[5:03] Jamie DuMont: You know, shows didn't have to line up to wait for a house.

[5:08] Rob Russo: And I think there's an argument to be made that the shows that were running possibly did better in those days because there was less to choose from, right?

[5:16] Jamie DuMont: So you would see something that you may not have seen otherwise.

[5:19] Rob Russo: Absolutely.

[5:20] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[5:21] Rob Russo: That's definitely.

[5:21] Jamie DuMont: That all changed in the what, the nineties?

[5:24] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[5:25] Jamie DuMont: 80s, 90s, yeah.

[5:26] Rob Russo: Yeah, I think.

[5:27] Jamie DuMont: Really the 90s, really the nineties.

[5:28] Rob Russo: It's.

[5:29] Jamie DuMont: I remember when I moved to New York in '95 or '96, I think it was '96, actually.

[5:34] Rob Russo: There were empty houses.

[5:35] Jamie DuMont: I mean, there was nothing ever was in the late nineties.

[5:37] Rob Russo: The Lyceum wasn't a desirable house.

[5:39] Jamie DuMont: The Belasco was, I worked on several flops in the Belasco.

[5:43] Rob Russo: Now it's one of the most desirable theaters.

[5:44] Jamie DuMont: Well, because it's one of the most beautiful theaters.

[5:46] Rob Russo: Gorgeous.

[5:47] Jamie DuMont: I don't have to sell the Belasco on you.

[5:50] Rob Russo: But the point is, yeah, it was a very different time.

[5:54] Jamie DuMont: And you know, we have this conversation often.

[5:57] Rob Russo: There is a need for more theaters on Broadway, and I just don't know how that theater's gonna get built.

[6:03] Jamie DuMont: What's gonna happen.

[6:05] Rob Russo: Because there seems to be talk every few years, and then it falls through for whatever reason.

[6:09] Jamie DuMont: I don't really know the backstory or whatever that is.

[6:12] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[6:12] Jamie DuMont: Well, you know, it must just be the tremendous cost of building anything in New York City, let alone a theater.

[6:19] Rob Russo: Um, you know, it's a tremendous undertaking.

[6:22] Jamie DuMont: There might also be a fear that this is a temporary thing, and that in ten years' time or five years' time, there won't be such a demand for theaters, and then you'd be stuck with real estate.

[6:32] Rob Russo: It's not called The Fabulous Invalid for no reason.

[6:34] Jamie DuMont: That's very true.

[6:35] Rob Russo: I like how you reworked it.

[6:37] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[6:37] Rob Russo: I always try to work it back in, you know.

[6:40] Jamie DuMont: But that's exactly what this raft of closing reminds me of, is that you know it's the fabulous invalid.

[6:45] Rob Russo: I don't remember the exact quote, but it's always in decline and always in resurgence.

[6:49] Jamie DuMont: I don't know.

[6:50] Rob Russo: Yeah, that's not the quote.

[6:51] Jamie DuMont: We could see the book.

[6:53] Rob Russo: Um but it's so true because behind each of these shows closing is another show that has booked their theaters.

[7:00] Jamie DuMont: Right?

[7:01] Rob Russo: So they're all gonna be, you know, all those theaters will be full, and there'll be more actors working and more ushers ushering and more ad firms doing ads, and you know, the industry goes on.

[7:19] Jamie DuMont: It is about to start.

[7:21] Rob Russo: You cross your fingers and hold your heart.

[7:25] Jamie DuMont: It's curtain time and away we go.

[7:29] Rob Russo: Another opening, just another opening of another tonight.

[7:43] Jamie DuMont: We are delighted to introduce a man who has called New York Theater home for nearly four decades.

[7:48] Rob Russo: With Marshall Brickman, he co-wrote the book for the smash hit Jersey Boys.

[7:52] Jamie DuMont: He also wrote the sensational Peter and the Starcatcher.

[7:56] Rob Russo: This season you can see him work wonders once again with his book for The Cher Show.

[8:01] Jamie DuMont: Please welcome my friend Rick Elice.

[8:03] Rick Elice: Oh well, that was very well done, James.

[8:06] Jamie DuMont: Oh, I didn't know.

[8:06] Rick Elice: And I it was very, very well done.

[8:09] Jamie DuMont: One would almost have thought you were reading.

[8:13] Rick Elice: Um I just want to make a slight amendation.

[8:16] Jamie DuMont: It's almost close to six decades because I grew up here, I was born here, and I saw my first Broadway show when I was three years old.

[8:25] Rick Elice: My mother, with whom I was just talking outside because she has a colonoscopy tomorrow.

[8:32] Jamie DuMont: Because, you know, just to indicate that I'm not gonna hold any punches back.

[8:36] Rick Elice: Um my mother took my brother and me to see My Fair Lady when I was three at the Mark Hellinger, now Times Square Church Theater.

[8:46] Jamie DuMont: And I've been going ever since.

[8:48] Rick Elice: So it's way more than four decades.

[8:51] Jamie DuMont: I'm sorry to say we're only four decades.

[8:53] Rick Elice: I think I was referring to your professional career.

[8:55] Jamie DuMont: How else are you talking about that?

[8:56] Rick Elice: Oh, that, oh, sorry, professional.

[8:58] Jamie DuMont: There's an argument to be made that from the age of three you have been working in the theater.

[9:03] Rick Elice: Well, I've been working in the theater.

[9:09] Jamie DuMont: Punctuation's very important, right?

[9:10] Rick Elice: You know, that tells the story.

[9:11] Jamie DuMont: I know I should I just dive in with a vague minutiae and trivia?

[9:20] Rick Elice: Well, I'm curious if you have any recollection of seeing My Fair Lady.

[9:24] Jamie DuMont: You know, I do.

[9:25] Rick Elice: And many years after I saw My Fair Lady, I was doing the advertising for Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews, whom I saw in My Fair Lady at the age of three.

[9:36] Jamie DuMont: And I got a chance to tell her what I will now tell you.

[9:41] Rick Elice: I have three distinct memories.

[9:45] Jamie DuMont: And this was, you know, we sort of very valiantly and proudly sat in the very last row of the very last upper section of the Mark Hellinger.

[9:56] Rick Elice: That's a big theater.

[9:57] Jamie DuMont: Uh, you know, I never ever sat in the orchestra until I was working at Sereno Coin.

[10:04] Rick Elice: I didn't know that I would even be allowed.

[10:06] Jamie DuMont: It would, I imagine somebody was gonna tap me on the shoulder and say, I'm sorry, you have to go back upstairs.

[10:10] Rick Elice: We, you know, my parents are also from New York and they courted, you know, going to the theater.

[10:10] Jamie DuMont: Going to the theater was cheaper than going to movies in those days.

[10:21] Rick Elice: So off we went to the Mark Hellinger on some Saturday matinee, much to the chagrin of everyone sitting around us, I'm sure.

[10:29] Jamie DuMont: My brother was six, I was three, and my mother said it was the first time I sat quietly in three years.

[10:36] Rick Elice: And um, so she decided after that that, um it being cheaper than a babysitter, she would take me to the theater as much as possible because I would be quiet.

[10:46] Jamie DuMont: I remember the rule about being quiet given to me when I said those books are painted, because the bookcase in Higgins' atelier were a painted drop, a cloth drop.

[11:03] Rick Elice: I didn't know anything about paint or cloth or drops.

[11:06] Jamie DuMont: I just knew that they weren't real.

[11:08] Rick Elice: And I wanted to demonstrate even then that I could see things to um and my mother said, No, we we don't you don't get to speak until the lights come back on.

[11:19] Jamie DuMont: And so I was quiet.

[11:21] Rick Elice: And then when the lights came back on at the intermission, I spoke about my second recollection, which was Julie Andrews or whom whoever that woman was, in a nightgown on a green divan, a word I did not know.

[11:41] Jamie DuMont: Um, an oddly shaped sofa.

[11:43] Rick Elice: My dad was in the furniture business, so I knew from sofas, but I'd never seen a sofa shaped like that one.

[11:49] Jamie DuMont: But there she was, and she was singing, and she, and it was I could have danced all night, and she hit this note at the end, and I'd never heard a human being make a sound like that, which I thought was really extraordinary.

[12:01] Rick Elice: And then at the very end of the act was the Ascot number, and a stagehand got caught behind a piece of balustrade scenery and crouched for the whole time, and from all the way upstairs, you could clearly see a man who was dressed like nobody else on stage, like a normal person.

[12:25] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[12:25] Rick Elice: Dressed like I was dressed, you know, or if I had been an adult.

[12:30] Jamie DuMont: And he was crouched there the whole time, and I got so excited because I thought he was gonna spring up and surprise her or something.

[12:36] Rick Elice: I didn't know that he wasn't part of the show.

[12:38] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[12:38] Rick Elice: And those are my three memories of my first theater experience.

[12:43] Jamie DuMont: I love that one of them has something to do with books, because you are an avid lover of books and a voracious reader.

[12:51] Rick Elice: Yeah, I will well I would be a voracious reader, except now I'm a voracious writer, so I don't get to read as much as I would like to.

[12:58] Jamie DuMont: Because I have because I'm a slower writer than I am reader.

[13:03] Rob Russo: You have just sort of finished work on The Cher Show. Is that an appropriate way to put it?

[13:09] Rick Elice: Well, you know, Jerome Robbins said you're never finished, you just run out of time.

[13:12] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[13:12] Rick Elice: Yes.

[13:13] Jamie DuMont: So you feel that way?

[13:15] Rick Elice: Uh well, I personally I feel like I ran out of time many, many decades ago, but I we worked, let's just say, and this is unusual, which is why I'll mention it.

[13:28] Rick Elice: We had our last change and our last blocking rehearsal was at 4:30 on Monday afternoon a week ago.

[13:38] Jamie DuMont: Can I say the date? Is it relevant?

[13:40] Rick Elice: Yeah.

[13:40] Jamie DuMont: Uh today is Monday, December 10th.

[13:42] Rick Elice: A week ago, December 3rd, we opened, and at six o'clock, and at 4:30 that afternoon, an hour and a half before opening curtain, we put in our last change and blocking change.

[13:55] Jamie DuMont: Wait, but what about critics?

[13:58] Rick Elice: Well, you may ask.

[14:00] Jamie DuMont: Because hadn't the critics already been?

[14:02] Rick Elice: Yes, they had, but Cher had also already been, and she said, I want you to do, I want you to try to do one more thing for me.

[14:10] Jamie DuMont: And um, she's Cher.

[14:13] Rick Elice: At the very beginning of our relationship, which dates back to just about three years, October of '15, I promised her that I would do everything I possibly could.

[14:28] Rick Elice: And I was very unpopular last Monday when I reminded the cast that I said I would do everything I possibly could, and that meant all of us would do everything.

[14:39] Rick Elice: I was speaking on behalf of whoever would be involved in the enterprise because they've got to say it.

[14:44] Rick Elice: Well, it was really maybe three and a half lines of altered dialogue. But there was a blocking change, and it was a substantial blocking change, and it just gave her some peace of mind, and as she was, you know, about fifty feet away changing into her opening night frock, right? I thought it would be best to try to accommodate her, and the director, our wonderful director Jason Moore, agreed, and the cast eventually agreed.

[15:16] Jamie DuMont: That seems very unusual to put in a change after the show.

[15:19] Rick Elice: Unheard of, say, or frozen.

[15:21] Rick Elice: Well, we were frozen. But this was a show where the usual rules did just not apply.

[15:31] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[15:32] Rick Elice: Which is probably the only way that you could get The Cher Show up is to not follow all the rules.

[15:38] Rick Elice: Oh no, we would have gotten it up. It just would have been a different show.

[15:42] Rick Elice: The show was always in a state of flux, and now it's actually no longer in flux. Now the audience just gets to come and see it and enjoy it, and the actors get to come and perform it.

[15:55] Jamie DuMont: And settle it to go home.

[15:56] Rick Elice: Yes, and settle it.

[15:57] Rick Elice: So I was fortunate enough to see this change because I saw it after you opened.

[16:01] Jamie DuMont: That's right.

[16:01] Rick Elice: Well then you saw it. And I'm gonna have to come back to see it with the change.

[16:07] Jamie DuMont: When you do, let me know when it is and we'll go out afterwards and see if you can spot it.

[16:12] Rick Elice: I would love that.

[16:13] Jamie DuMont: I would love that.

[16:14] Rick Elice: So how did The Cher Show come to you? What was the—how did that happen?

[16:19] Rick Elice: You mean the—how did the idea occur to me? Or how did the project?

[16:24] Rick Elice: I was sitting at my desk one day and the phone rang. This is how everything has come to me. I'm kind of—in that the Russians used to call it a dre horse, you know, a worker in the Chakovian sense of we must work, cost you, we must work. You know, I've always equated work with sustainability. And invariably, the phone rings and somebody says, I would like you to do this, and along comes the next work. In that sense, I've been a pinball in my life, you know, just being shot from side to side and never really having a plan. I just wanted to work in the theater. I've had every job, I think probably every job you could have in the theater, from sweeping the stage, pulling the curtain, you know, running a light board, designing, directing, writing, acting, singing, dancing, advertising. There hasn't been much I haven't done.

[17:35] Jamie DuMont: Oh yeah, for sure.

[17:37] Rick Elice: I just wanted to be inside those rooms. And once again, the phone rang. It was about this time four years ago. And I picked up the phone innocently enough and said hello, and I heard, "Hi, it's Cher" on the other end of the phone. And I, like anyone would, I assumed it was Christian Borle. Because the day before he had called pretending to be, you know, Obama.

[18:14] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[18:14] Rick Elice: So I thought—so I said, I'm sure I said, "Oh Christian, I'm busy." And then the voice on the other end of the phone said something else, and I thought, wow, that's a really good Cher impersonation. And it dawned on me after a moment or two that it probably was Cher. And she said, "I want you to write the show of my life." And I said, um, you don't want me. I'm the wrong guy. Let me give you Harvey Fierstein's phone number or Paul Rudnick's phone number. They've probably written it already, and you could get it on right away. And she said, "No, no, why don't you want to do it?" And I said, because I—I really did say this, which can—can we use language on this show?

[19:06] Jamie DuMont: Oh yes, go for it.

[19:07] Rick Elice: I—you know, I said to her, look, I'm kind of an asshole. By which I mean it's hard for me to lie. I spent 20 years in advertising, which meant that I lied for 20 years. So I wanted to—I—it's now my effort to speak the truth. My truth is, um, I think you're swell, but I'm, you know, I've never been—I’ve never particularly been a fanatic. You know, I don't have any of your records. I've seen your films. I think you're a good actress, I think you're a good singer. I feel like without having made any effort, I know everything about your life. It's so well documented. So what could I possibly tell an audience that they don't already know? If I know it, surely all the people who are your fans—and I'm sure their legion must know everything already.

What—and she said, "Well, there's lots, there's lots for people to know." And I said, uh oh, okay, but let me give you one other piece of information. My husband has just been diagnosed with brain cancer, and my life is in turmoil right now, so it's difficult for me to plunge into a project. And she said, "Well, you know, I don't take no for an answer usually, so I'm gonna call you back." And that was the end of that. And that was—the beginning of that was in the fall, sometime of 2014. And then in May of '15, about two weeks after Roger dropped out of The Visit, which Rick Miramontez, you may have heard of him, was doing the press for. My sweet dear husband, with brain cancer and two brain surgeries, was performing eight times a week in a Broadway show until six weeks before he died.

And he dropped out of the show in the middle of May, and at the end of May, the phone rang, and it was Cher again, and she said, "I'm in New York, and I want to—I think we should meet." And I said, I can't leave the house. My husband is gravely ill, which he was by that time, and she said, "Well, where are you? I'll come over." And she came and she stayed for four hours.

[21:18] Jamie DuMont: Were you reluctant to have her come over at that time?

[21:21] Rick Elice: I was. I didn't know what I was—

[21:23] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[21:23] Rick Elice: I wasn't thinking. I know that was not an easy—I think just to get off the phone.

[21:28] Jamie DuMont: Right, it's easier to say come over.

[21:30] Rick Elice: Because I thought she's never gonna come over. She's never gonna come over. Well, the next thing I know, she's sitting in my living room, and we're talking, and I mean, really, she's talking. And she said some odd things to me, and I questioned her, and she said, "There, you see, I say those things all the time, and no one ever asks me about them."

[21:51] Jamie DuMont: Like what kind of odd things?

[21:53] Rick Elice: That when she told Sonny she was unhappy with their business arrangement, and he told her it wasn't gonna change, that she thought about suicide. And then she—but she said it en passant and then continued talking, and I said, "Well, wait a minute. Wait, wait a minute. What do you mean you—you know?" And she said, "I stood on the balcony and I thought I could just jump off the balcony." And I said, "But you were a mother," and she said, "Yes, I don't know that I would have jumped off the balcony, but I actually thought about it." But you know, what's interesting is nobody's ever asked me, and I tell this story all the time. You're the first person to say, stop. And I said, "Well, that just means you've been talking to the wrong people. I mean, who are you—who have you been talking to? Get better friends." She said, "People just have always made up their mind about me, and that's why I want you to do it." And I said, "Cher, look, look at my life."

[22:50] Rick Elice: And you weren't saying yes to her.

[22:52] Rick Elice: I was absolutely not saying that.

[22:53] Rick Elice: That had to have played a big part in her—

[22:57] Rick Elice: Well, you know, when somebody asks you out on a date and you say no, it doesn't usually—it just makes them want to go out even more.

[23:02] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[23:05] Rick Elice: Now I'm not suggesting that she thought she wanted to date you.

[23:09] Jamie DuMont: No, she absolutely did not want to date me.

[23:13] Rick Elice: But I think she was intrigued because she's a—when you're famous on that level, you actually don't hear no a lot. She said, "I want you to do this." This was the end of May when she came over. And I said, I can't—I can't think about even, you know, what I'm gonna have for dinner. And I thought that would really be the end of it. Because I was reasonably emphatic.

[23:38] Jamie DuMont: Was there any thing in your back of your mind saying this might be something I need to do? Or that Dr. Theater might help me get through what I'm saying?

[23:49] Rick Elice: I wasn't thinking. I wasn't even having that kind of a rational process at that time. I was just thinking about Roger and death and, you know, really just helping him get through the end of his life. You know, it's awful when—it's awful as a sidebar. It's awful when you're told that the person, you know, that you've loved all your life is going to die, and there's no way that's not going to happen. So it was devastating, and he was devastated, and I was devastated, and I wasn't thinking about work at all. And then in July, Roger passed away, and at the end of September, Cher called again. And she did something so sweet, she said, "I'm not kidding." She said, "I've read everything that's happened.

I know everything you've gone through. I've waited a discreet amount of time, and I think it's now time for you to get on a plane and come out to California, and we should get to know each other. You have to rejoin the human race." And I said, "Cher, you're actually quoting Thornton Wilder." And she said, "No, I'm quoting Hello, Dolly!" And we laughed, just like that. And she said, "I bet that's the first time you've laughed." And I said, "Yeah." And she said, "So don't you think you should come? We'll talk about Roger as much as you want." Which was just so sweet. She was so sweet. And I really hadn't been out of the house, you know, and I really felt like I was dead too, you know, and she gave me this—this stranger threw me this lifeline, so I got my ass on a plane and I went out to California, and I spent 10 days hanging out at her house. And for the first two days, all we did was talk about Roger, whom it turned out she knew from the mid-60s when they were like hanging.

[26:02] Rick Elice: You know, I mean, we traced that over the course of the—

[26:17] ♪ Musical number ♪

[27:17] Rick Elice: I went out to California and hung out with her and got to know her. And at the end of my time there, I pitched her an idea and she said, "Okay, great, do that."

[27:31] Jamie DuMont: And is that the shape of the show now?

[27:35] Rick Elice: I said I was gonna do the Terry Gilliam variety show of her life.

[27:39] Jamie DuMont: Did she know what that meant?

[27:41] Rick Elice: Well, she didn't—she doesn't see a lot of theater, so I couldn't use theater references, but she's sort of an expert on cinema.

[27:52] Jamie DuMont: Oh, I did not know that.

[27:53] Rick Elice: So I thought, oh well, here's what she'll know, you know. Variety show, because variety shows were so much part of her life and the way people think of her. But the Terry Gilliam part, you know, a boy could open his closet bedroom and a pirate ship would come out. Right.

[28:12] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[28:12] Rick Elice: And she said, "I totally get it, I totally get it." And I said, and I want to use more than one actor to play you.

[28:20] Jamie DuMont: Why?

[28:21] Rick Elice: She said, "Well, because, um, well, first of all, so that it's performable, because one actor couldn't sing a show about you eight times a week. It would be too much. Your songs, you're famous as a solo and as part of a duo, you know, but you're also famous as a film actress, you're famous in so many different ways. I would like to represent you by more than one person so that I could write you as a girl group. And that way I won't have to resort to a narrative voice like we used in Jersey Boys, and that's been used, you know, in other of these musical biographies. This way you can argue with yourself, you can support yourself, but you know, essentially when you're, you know, when you get out of the tub in the morning and you're combing your hair and putting your makeup on and you're having a conversation with yourself in the mirror, I want to dramatize those conversations because I think that's a fun way of presenting you.

[29:20] Rick Elice: And then songs that we've always known as solos, we will be able to hear as solos, duets, trios. The variety of it I think is kind of exciting. And it also means that we are not, we won't be subject of an impersonation. You know, when you're doing the story of Frankie Valley, you can say this guy is Frankie Valley, and nobody knows what Frankie Valley's like, so they go, okay, that guy's Frankie Valley. But nobody's gonna accept one person doing you. Or it need or it would need to be a female impersonator, and I don't I can't write camp, it's not in my skill set. I would do a really shitty job. So if you want a camp show and you want to go that route, then you should go that route, but I'm not your guy.

And she said, No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do camp. And I said, okay, well that's good because I I would be bad at it. So, but I would do, but this I could do. And this would be interesting to write, and it would be interesting to act and be interesting, I think, for an audience to see. So she said, okay, do that. And I went to the airport, and when I got home, I turned my phone on, and my phone was like exploding because she had tweeted, and she's got you know as many tweet followers as Trump does. You know, oh, this is what we're doing. We're doing three shares, and we're doing and Rick Ellis is writing it, and it was gonna be like the Terry Gilliam variety show of my life.

And I called her and I said, Cher, Cher, this is like the definition of premature. You know, uh, what do you mean? I said, Well, you like you only get one bite at the apple. We should announce this when we're ready to announce it. And she said, Cher gets as many bites as Cher wants. And I said, and Cher also talks about herself in the third person. Noted, right? It's really, really healthy, right? So now it's gonna be like a Tennessee Williams play. It also just proved your point of why you should have three shares. I thought when I was telling her I didn't want to do it, one of the things I one of one of the things I said a lot to her was, you're always going to say that's not the way it really happened, that's not what I really said, that's not what I really did, that's not who was really there, that's not what I was really wearing, that's not when it took place, and I don't care because we're not doing the Ken Burns documentary about your life.

And if that's what you want, I'll give you Ken Burns' number. You know, the and go and do that. But the this is theater. It's not a documentary. It's a it's theatrical. So you have to allow me license to conflate characters, to expand moments, to ex to have principles of inclusion and exclusion, because the thing can only be two and a half hours long. Right. And an hour and 15 minutes of that two and a half hours is going to be music. And 15 minutes of that two and a half hours is going to be intermission. So that gives me a little under an hour to tell your story. The story I'm telling is about a woman. A woman who wasn't the original pioneer, but was a pioneer in how in a man's world, and the James Brown song, It's a Man's Man's, Man's, Man's World, was in the show at that time, which she loved actually, and I loved, but we couldn't get actually licensed because somebody's doing a James Brown musical.

But you know, in a man's, man's, man's man's world, how a woman, and we're talking about in the 60s and in the 70s and in the 80s, was constantly having to pick herself up from losing everything and start over again. And over and over and over. And over and over and over again. And how do you do that? And I said, that's the story I want to tell. And I want to tell it. I yes, I'm a man, obviously, but I want to try to tell it. This was before the Me Too movement. But not really for me, or for any of us who are feminists, and I've always been, you know, I'm a I was raised in a New York liberal, left-wing, Jewish intellectual household where feminism was taken for granted. We were, we were feminism, we were feminists before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique.

You know, I was raised to believe that. So I said, I want to represent that for you in some way that's authentic. But it may mean that aspects of your presentation are not authentic, but they will feel authentic. And I said, look, you know, Julie Tamore never went to Africa, but the Lion King feels authentic. So it doesn't matter whether it's what really happened, as the great Aaron Sorkin said, art isn't about what actually happened, it's about what you do with what actually happened in order to tell a story that resonates. What we're talking about brings me to my favorite moment in the show, which is in the second act when you do the beat goes on. And you tell her entire film career in one song.

Because by the time that very early in the second act, Robert Altman comes out, and anybody who knows Cher's career goes, Oh, I know where we are in her life, right? It's come back to the five and dime Jimmy Dean. And that scene is dynamite. And how am I gonna get home by midnight? Right tonight if we're just it, Bob Altman coming and auditioning her. Right. And then something brilliant happens. Well the Bob Altman scene actually was a case in point. She said, don't you know that was a play? I never sang at that audition. So there can't be a song in that scene. And I said, Cher, trust. You have to trust. This is a first of all, it's a musical. Second of all, it's not important. I'm never gonna say come back to the five and dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, because while I saw it, and incidentally, she was playing at the Martin Beck Theater when Roger was playing at the Plymouth Theater in Nicholas Nickelbaby.

Oh, you're cool. And she saw Nicholas Nickleby. Did she go up into the balcony like all the other actors? No. And watch the second act or something? No, I think I did a litter and was taken down to the you know I don't know. I don't know what she but I remember, but she said, Oh, you know, I she said, I I I I know I know Roger from Nicholas Nickleby because we were both on Broadway at the same time and I went to see it. But I think I know him from years before that, and let's figure out where that is, and that's why we went on that sort of you know ride back to 1970. The club days, but um uh I said Cher, the point is that the the Altman scene isn't supposed to be um verisimilitude. I um what I want to do is I want to s I want to use that scene to tee up the idea that you actually were a natural and that Altman recognized it, and what I so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to have him say, if you're dyslexic, don't worry about reading the script, sing to me, and I'll be able to know whether you can act or not.

The next thing that happens in the show is her movie career. Right. Because of course, whilst she was doing Come Back to the Five and Dime one matinee, Mike Nichols knocked on her dressing room door, she opened the door, there was Mike Nichols standing in the door, and he said, I have a movie for you. And Silkwood happened. Right. Well, Five and Dime changed her changed her life. Absolutely. The thing I the thing actually, if you were to say, Rick, what is the thing you're most proud of in the share show? I the thing I'm most proud of, I think, because it's my it's the thing I love most that musical theater can do. And we do it in the share show. And it's that seven minutes. Yes. In seven minutes, we covered her entire movie career, essentially.

Which is the first one. With one number, which is a signature. Well, it's it's 1982 to 1988. Okay, so it's a decade. But it's a number that has nothing to do with the 80s. The Beat Goes On, written by Sunny, a big hit for Sonny and Cher. It was their theme song on the on the variety show. And we've been teasing that song for the the you know the two hours up to that point. And now here comes one of the shares, the least likely, to take us through her movie career with some surprise, special guest appearances by some iconic Bob Mackey outfits that help us also place it in time. And that are famous enough to actually be part of the storytelling. Right. And in those few minutes, we we do what in the movies is usually sort of a slow-motion montage sent to a piece of music where you know you traverse a long period of time.

And we know what that's like in the movies because we see it all the time. But in the theater it rarely happens, and it's a great, it's just it is everything that musical theater is. And it was it was really, really exciting to write and to bring to Darrell Waters, our music supervisor, because I actually wrote it on music paper. Did you? Because it was going to be the song with lyrics that were rewritten specifically to tell this story. And then a few lines of dialogue in between. And it was all a tribute to those great sequences that Jack Cole used to do or Bob Fossey used to do. Where you would, you know, you would like show your stuff choreographically. So it was an opportunity for the actress who is literally a teenager to sort of become a star, which is what's happening to Cher in that period of time.

And it and also an opportunity for us to really consolidate some storytelling and jump forward to cover a lot of the stuff that the audience knows very well, like Silkwood and Mask and Moonstruck. They we know she won the Oscar, we know that she did Silkwood, we know that she was great in movies. She thought, well, where are the scenes from the movies? She said, and I said, I don't want to recreate scenes from the movies. I want to tell the story of what happened to you as you were on this ride up, because shortly after you were on the ride up, everything collapsed again. So, you know, it's part of the roller coaster experience of your life to bring you really, really, really, really slowly up, up, up, up, up the roller coaster because we're about to go woo woo-woo woo-woo all the way down and around and over and up.

And that's gonna give the audience that wonderful sense of being on the trip with you. So this number is the slow ramping up to the very, very, very, very, very, very top. Um, it's a it's a it's a wonderful um opportunity for Michaela Diamond, our 19-year-old chair, who was in a high school. I didn't realize she was that young. Oh my gosh. She was in high school up until like last year. Wow. Um LaGuardia, the high school performance performing arts. Yeah. That has, you know, given us Ansel Elgort and Timmy Chalamet, and now Michaela Diamond, you know. Um, she's wonderful. Mackie gave her an original Mackey to wear. Wow. And uh and we have the full ensemble, so it was a great opportunity for our brilliant choreographer, Christopher Gately, to show off his take on those great old Jack Cole Bob Fosse sequences.

And at the end, this kid ends up holding an Oscar in her hand. And she's the one who, you know, had the dream from a very early age of wanting to be an actor, wanting to be famous, wanting to be a star, and she actually by God has become one against rather impossible odds. With these little cameos of Stephanie J. Block, our uh one of our other brilliant shares, um appearing in these iconic Mackey outfits at these historic points in that period of time to sort of be thwarted or praised. Oh yes, penny, thank you. I'm having penne, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Um and uh and then and then it's over, and we're on to the next section. And uh it's the thing that I love the most uh for for for all those reasons.

It's very exciting as an audience member. It really is. I have to say, you know, I I saw the show with a friend of mine who had already seen it. And when we walked out of the theater, the first thing we talked about was that sequence. I wish you wrote for the New York Times. I well, you know, you and me both. No, actually, I think the critic from the New York Times talked about how awful it was. Right. Because why would you want to consolidate the most famous part of her life into one number? Why why aren't there scenes from he asked the same question she asked, she who you know was asking it because she doesn't know about the theater. One would hope. But I think you make a very good point. Why do we need to see what we've already seen on screen?

Right, or be told what we already know. Right. Well, that's instead, this number tells us something much more personal, which is we see somebody. We see the private share delighting in the things that are happening to her, even the disappointing things that are happening to her, because she's finally living the dream that she's had since she was six years old, right? And I think that it's great, and we offer it with no apologies, and I'm thrilled that you guys like it because I sure do too.

[43:15] Rick Elice: Yeah, well, you just said you'll offer it with no apologies. The thing that struck me about it is that it so clearly had the imprint of Cher. It felt like "The Cher Show," but it's also something that you could only do in the theater. There's no movie version of that.

[43:31] Jamie DuMont: Oh, of course not.

[43:32] Rick Elice: Yeah, that's what I love about it. I told her we would try to do a theatrical version of her life, and this is in microcosm exactly what the whole show is—like a theatricalized sort of acid trippy version of her life, not told in a "and then this happened and this happened" different way, but in the context of a "here it all is, and I'm so famous that everything I do is kind of a show."

[44:03] Rick Elice: And that's of course why we called it The Cher Show. Um, not because we couldn't think of a better title. It's the perfect title because her life is a show. Right. We can't, none of us can. She's so famous. She's not famous like the famous people that we know. She's so famous that it's not, you know, there's maybe ten people in the world who are famous like that. Right. You know, and it's a different sort of existence. And to represent that somehow also is, you know, part of the whole assignment here. She's not famous in an ordinary way, she's famous in an extraordinary way. You don't, I mean, she is an icon, she's actually an icon. She's actually been famous for 60 years almost. I mean, that's just different from, you know, Kristin Chenoweth or Sutton Foster.

I think it's also you said something a little earlier about the device of the three Chers and how that was the only way to really tell this story. And I think you're absolutely right. The fact that they can all talk to each other, the fact that they can experience this story with one another is the thing that keeps it from feeling campy. It's the thing that grounds the whole experience. You know, we, I think that's very smart of you to say, and every major each time we did another presentation, the thing that landed best most powerfully, I should say, with the audience. The music, of course, but it was the scenes with the three of them, right? And I so I kept doing it more and more and more and inviting the audience to see those sort of, they're actually written as one, um, what would you call it, like an interior monologue.

You could join them all up and it would be coherent as a monologue. It's psychological though, right? You're completely, it's somebody talking to herself, right? And there are opposing points of view and there are supportive points of view and there are differing points of view and there are challenges and there are complacencies and there are placations and support systems and defenses and offenses. But it's an art, in other words, it's an argument, right? And I think great that we give life to that argument so that the audience is watching an actual argument as opposed to one person doing all of that.

[46:53] Rick Elice: Right. I'm not sure how that would work, but I know that it would be really, really hard to find the one person who could do that and sing right 40 numbers. We have 40 numbers in the show. Was it a tough sell? Was what a tough sell? The idea of having the three Chers? Were you constantly fighting? No, I have to say that the producers were on board immediately. It became somewhat irksome, I guess, when Scott Rudin decided to present Three Tall Women and then when Des McAnuff decided to do Donna Summer. But I, with the best will in the world, and completely honestly, I can tell you the decision to do it with The Cher Show was before any of that happened. And what are you gonna do? You know, I, you know, you can't own a thought process.

And as I said, the idea of having multiple actors portraying the same role is much, much older than Albee or Des McAnuff, or even Albee and Des McAnuff added together. There's a fourth star of The Cher Show, and that is Bob Mackie's costume.

[48:12] Rick Elice: Oh, well, yes. Yes. They are a character unto themselves. Well, and that's, you know, that's Cher. I mean, Bob Mackey wouldn't have taken my phone call. Cher told Jason Moore, I mean, we had originally thought we want with that Mackey, we would ask Mackey to design a dozen or something, couple looks for the iconic looks. And then someone else would do the rest of the show. And Cher said, well, if you want Bob Mackey, I'll get you Bob Mackey. And she got us Bob Mackey. So we got Bob Mackey. I love that idea of just, I'm Cher. I can have what I want. I'm not told no. Well, there's that ultimate comeback line at the end. I think it's towards the end of the show, but mom, I am a rich man, right?

Well, that's, you know, I know it's very late in the show, but that's every night when I, it gets exactly the same reaction every night. The audience laughs and bursts into applause. This, what she's responding to is her mother, who has throughout the show suggested that it would be good if she settled down and married a rich man, says, you know, I still wish you'd settle down and marry a rich man, and she says, oh mother, I am a rich man. Now, there's something heartbreaking about that.

[49:23] Rick Elice: Right. Of course. It's an acknowledgement and wonderful in her self-knowledge. The audience applauds, I think, the fact that Cher has always told it like it is, and she, you know, and it's something that she could say, but it's, I think the applause happens also because it's true. Yes. A woman in her generation at that time did have to become a rich man in order to function successfully in the world that she wanted to function in. Hopefully, now the women, the young women in the audience, are leaving thinking, well, maybe I don't have to become a rich man. You know, um, and maybe I don't have to settle, as Jane Wagner wrote for Lily Tomlin in Search of Signs of Intelligent Life. Oh, if I'd known how hard it was going to be trying to have it all, I would have been willing to settle for less.

Hopefully, she won't have to settle and she won't have to be a man. She'll be able to be a woman and still have it all, or whatever that means to her, and she gets to decide what that means, and she gets to decide how to go about it. And what's exciting to me is the women who leave the show and say, I feel so empowered. You know, yes, I'm a guy. I wish that, as the author of The Cher Show, that I weren't. Because I know it's kind, it looks a little, you know, it looks a little odd. Because I'm really trying to write a piece about women and represent something that may not be authentic in the way that Cher originally wanted it to be authentic, which is like sort of factually authentic, but authentic in terms of its emotional impact on women in the audience. I would like her to be that kind of an icon, somebody who lights the path for the next generation.

[51:21] ♪ Musical number: "Strong Enough" — performed by Cher ♪

[52:25] Rob Russo: Rob here with You May Be Wondering. We just finished chatting with Rick Elice, who, as we discussed, wrote the books for Jersey Boys and The Cher Show, two very prominent jukebox musicals. If you've never encountered that term before, you may be wondering, what is a jukebox musical? If you have, and chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have, you may be wondering about the history of the jukebox musical as a form of entertainment. Well, at its most basic definition, a jukebox musical is a stage musical that features the pre-existing songs of a popular musical act in its storytelling. By my estimation, they usually take one of four forms. The first and most obvious is just a straight-up review, like Smokey Joe's Cafe, which uses the songbook of Lieber and Stoller, or the 1978 Tony Award-winning best musical Ain't Misbehavin', which used songs from the Harlem Renaissance era, mostly those of Fats Waller.

The second form is that of a biographical story about the musical act itself. There are tons of examples here. From Jersey Boys and The Cher Show to Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story, The Boy From Oz about Peter Allen, Lennon about John Lennon, Fela about Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti, Motown, which was about a whole bevy of acts, Beautiful, the Carol King musical, On Your Feet about Gloria Estefan, and Donna, the Donna Summer musical, to name a few. The third form is one that takes an existing story, whether a play or a book or a film, and adds the songs of a particular musical group or period, sometimes ones associated with the original work itself. Examples here are the stage adaptations of Saturday Night Fever and Xanadu.

Hot Feet used the music of Earth, Wind and Fire to retell The Red Shoes. And this season's Head Over Heels takes a 16th-century play by Sir Philip Sidney and adds music by The Go-Go's. Even 42nd Street, the 1980 musical, adds songs from the expanded Dubin and Warren songbook that were not in the 1933 film. The Gershwin musicals, My One and Only, and Crazy For You, did the same thing.

[52:36] Rob Russo: A fourth form is a jukebox musical with a wholly original story, often reverse-engineered to interpolate songs from a musical group. The best and most successful example is Mamma Mia, using the songs of ABBA. But there's also Good Vibrations using The Beach Boys, Escape to Margaritaville, using Jimmy Buffett, and Girl from the North Country, using Bob Dylan. Beyond these four types I've outlined, there are, of course, other forms, like the dance musicals, Movin' Out, The Times They Are A-Changin', and Come Fly Away, or American Idiot, which took an entire album of Green Day's and dramatized it on stage. While jukebox musicals often get a bad name, seen by some as lazy recycling aimed more at making money than making art, jukebox musicals have been around as long as the term jukebox itself.

We just didn't recognize them as such. And that's because they mostly started as movies. That's right. Classic movies like Singin' in the Rain, The Bandwagon, and An American in Paris all featured original scripts that were built around pre-existing songs. To get real meta about it, all three have since become stage musicals. You may be wondering if jukebox musicals are increasingly a more common type of show. And you're right for thinking that. The trend on stage started slow in the 1970s with shows like Beatlemania and Ain't Misbehavin'. Bob Fosse's Dancin' in 1978, like Susan Stroman's Contact, more than 20 years later, also used pre-existing songs. The trend remained at a trickle, though, until the late 1990s, before exploding in the past 20 years.

The first major success was Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story, which started in London in 1989 and ran 12 years. While it was less successful on Broadway, it proved to producers and creative types alike that the model of telling an artist's story on stage using their songs could work. Now, just about every season on Broadway features one, if not several, jukebox musicals. The Cher Show just opened. Ain't Too Proud about the Temptations opens this spring. The timing of this phenomenon is no coincidence. The cornerstone of what makes jukebox musicals work is nostalgia. From the 1930s to the 1960s, songs for musicals were popular American music. That changed with the advent of rock and roll. And so, more than 50 years later, the canons of great artists and groups are being repackaged for audiences to enjoy in any of the forms that I outlined.

Unless we think that nostalgia belongs only to baby boomers, millennials are also getting on board too. Alanis Morissette's 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill, is now a musical. And a jukebox musical of the 1995 film, Clueless, is currently enjoying a sold-out run off Broadway. Love 'em or hate 'em, jukebox musicals have been around for over 80 years, and they're certainly here to stay.

[57:05] Rob Russo: Rob here, that's our show. Thanks for listening. The Fabulous Invalid is a production of OM, etc. and The Fabulous Invalid LLC. Our theme music is by Lucky Chops. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Aaron Kaufman. Find us on iTunes and online at thefabulousinvalid.com and on social media at Fabulous Invalid. And be sure to tune in next Wednesday.

[57:26] ♪ Musical number: "Dark Lady" — performed by Cher ♪