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[0:00] Peter Lawrence: My name is Peter Lawrence, and this is the Fabulous Invalid.

[0:15] Jamie DuMont: Welcome to the Fabulous Invalid, a Broadway centric podcast where we take a 360-degree view of the theater through interviews with actors, writers, directors, designers, and everyone in between.

[0:25] Rob Russo: I'm Theater Savant, Jamie DuMont.

[0:28] Jamie DuMont: And I'm Rob Russo, writer and theater critic with Stage Left at NYC.

[0:31] Rob Russo: Hi, Rob.

[0:32] Jamie DuMont: Hi, Jamie.

[0:33] Rob Russo: Theater savant.

[0:34] Jamie DuMont: Jamie DuMont.

[0:34] Rob Russo: I know you rhymes.

[0:36] Jamie DuMont: You've switched it up.

[0:37] Rob Russo: Well, that's your new title.

[0:38] Jamie DuMont: Hey, Playbill said it, so I'm going with it.

[0:41] Rob Russo: That's right, that's right. We were very honored to be noted among the 12 podcasts of the Broadway Podcast Network that you should check out on Playbill.com.

[0:49] Jamie DuMont: Absolutely, yes, as part of the Broadway Podcast Network, as you just said, right?

[0:52] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[0:53] Jamie DuMont: Jennifer got Tony nominee.

[0:55] Rob Russo: I got theater critic, you got theater savant.

[0:58] Jamie DuMont: Well, I'll take it.

[1:00] Rob Russo: I'll take it.

[1:00] Jamie DuMont: I know, right? It's pretty funny.

[1:03] Rob Russo: Um well before we dive into our um interview, something I've been wanting to get off my chest for some time now, and I've been building up the the um the sh the the courage to lay my cards out there.

[1:14] Jamie DuMont: This is a safe space, Rob.

[1:15] Rob Russo: It's it's a very safe space.

[1:17] Jamie DuMont: I feel very safe right now.

[1:18] Rob Russo: I have for a long time been having this little debate with myself about the proper word to use when talking about describing the experience of going to the theater.

[1:28] Jamie DuMont: Do you see a show or do you watch a show?

[1:32] Rob Russo: And it's a semantic thing, totally, and I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. But I will say that I still sort of have a I like, you know, I sort of sit up a little straighter when someone says watch.

[1:46] Jamie DuMont: Because I always say see, like 95% of the time, I see a show.

[1:51] Rob Russo: I watch a movie, but I see a show.

[1:53] Jamie DuMont: I was just gonna say that same exact thing.

[1:56] Rob Russo: Swapped with your bills, late with your rent.

[2:00] Jamie DuMont: Watch Betty Davis run out on George Brent.

[2:05] Rob Russo: See Fred Astaire.

[2:07] Jamie DuMont: Step in and style when everything's dark and upset.

[2:11] Rob Russo: Go calling a clock and clause.

[2:13] Jamie DuMont: Just go to a marvelous movie and slide.

[2:18] Rob Russo: I've never thought about this.

[2:20] Jamie DuMont: But I do watch a movie and I see a show.

[2:23] Rob Russo: Yeah, I don't know. There's something about the fact that it's live, maybe that you see something that's live, but you watch something that's prerecorded.

[2:30] Jamie DuMont: I don't know. I mean, I what what's tripped me up about it is that I every once in a while I will say watch. Like, well, I was, you know, I was sitting there watching, you know, Katrina Lang do something, or you know, was watching.

[2:44] Rob Russo: Isn't that just good grammar? Because you wouldn't say I'm seeing Katrina Lang.

[2:48] Jamie DuMont: Well, you're right. I don't know. So that's why I'm saying maybe it's semantic and it doesn't matter. Anyway, got it off my chest. It's a tiny little point.

[2:55] Rob Russo: You don't get to walk away from this so quickly.

[2:57] Jamie DuMont: What so quickly? What prompted this?

[3:00] Rob Russo: No, I it's just something I've noticed. Um, no, no, there has to be a specific trigger. Why did you why did you notice it?

[3:04] Jamie DuMont: The moment I first thought of it, but I in in conversations with people, in reading people's writing, or um listening to other podcasts where people talk about you know the experience of going to the theater.

[3:21] Rob Russo: Um, every once in a while someone will say, you know, you know, I'm I'm I'm going to watch Slave Play tomorrow on Broadway. They'll tweet that. And I'm like, watch? I don't know. You do you do you watch Slave Play or do you see Slave Play?

[3:33] Jamie DuMont: You see.

[3:34] Rob Russo: Right? Well, yes, I think.

[3:35] Jamie DuMont: Slave Play sees you.

[3:37] Rob Russo: Well, yes, that's that's real. You know, but I don't know. So it's something I've thought about. I mean, if there's anyone listening to this show who is like a linguist, then can actually, you know, instruct us as to whether or not it is something that actually, you know, if there is a real distinction there.

[3:51] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, please tweet to us or do you tweet at us?

[3:54] Rob Russo: Well, that's a whole, you know, do you get inline or are you online? You know, I mean, that's a whole thing.

[3:59] Jamie DuMont: Oh, we could do this all day.

[4:00] Rob Russo: We really could. But today, uh, what we are doing is talking to Peter Lawrence.

[4:04] Jamie DuMont: I'm so excited.

[4:05] Rob Russo: I am really excited. Um is Peter Lawrence, Rob.

[4:08] Rob Russo: Well, I'm glad you asked, Jamie. Um he is um like the reigning sort of dean of of Stage Managers on Broadway.

[4:18] Jamie DuMont: Quite literally, because he teaches at Columbia.

[4:20] Rob Russo: Well, there you go.

[4:21] Jamie DuMont: There you go. I like that. Um, no, so I mean, he has a career that has spanned over four decades uh in the theater. Um, he's stage managed over 30 shows on Broadway.

[4:31] Rob Russo: He served as an associate director. Um, and his credits range, you know, from you know, doing five Neil Simon plays, which is pretty remarkable. Um, you know, the revivals of Zorba, Ain't Misbehavin, Annie Get Your Gun, and Ragtime, the original productions of Sunset Boulevard, Spamalot and Shrek, um, the 2012 Revival of Annie, which I know is a show very near and dear to your heart.

[4:53] Rob Russo: Um, and most recently, just this season, uh Seawall alive on Broadway. Um, so I mean he's he's done it all. He's done plays, he's done musicals, he's worked with the greats. Um He literally wrote the book.

[5:04] Jamie DuMont: He did.

[5:05] Rob Russo: Uh his book is called Production Stage Management for Broadway from Idea to Opening Night and Beyond.

[5:11] Jamie DuMont: Um I haven't finished the whole thing, but I've been reading it in preparation for this interview, and oh my god, I have learned so much. If you are even mildly interested, Google it.

[5:19] Rob Russo: Um, you know, go on Amazon and buy a copy. Uh Production Stage Management for Broadway. It's incredible.

[5:24] Jamie DuMont: He also is a 2013 Tony honoree for excellence in the theater.

[5:29] Rob Russo: Um, so it's you know, one of the exciting things about doing this podcast is that we get to sit down with like the experts in the field, right?

[5:37] Jamie DuMont: So uh as part of our mission to give a 360 degree view of the theater.

[5:41] Rob Russo: This is the first time we're sitting down with a stage manager.

[5:44] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, I'm excited.

[5:44] Rob Russo: Yeah, well, let's do it.

[5:46] Jamie DuMont: Great.

[5:51] Rob Russo: Peter, thank you so much for coming down today.

[5:54] Peter Lawrence: Um our co-host Jennifer Simard, who you know well couldn't be with us.

[5:57] Rob Russo: Sadly.

[5:58] Peter Lawrence: So sad about it.

[5:59] Rob Russo: I know, because you guys have worked together. Is there a funnier human being?

[6:01] Peter Lawrence: No.

[6:02] Rob Russo: Absolutely not.

[6:03] Peter Lawrence: No, I agree with that.

[6:04] Rob Russo: Yeah, I agree with that. I just saw her recently in Mean Girls.

[6:07] Peter Lawrence: I caught up with it, which I hadn't done before.

[6:08] Rob Russo: And Simard was so wonderful.

[6:11] Peter Lawrence: Yeah.

[6:11] Rob Russo: Yeah, there's there's we we've mentioned this on the show several times, but there's a moment at the end of the show where her character, the teacher, Miss Norberry, belts out a note, and you can hear the whole audience go, whoa, she's singing too.

[6:24] Peter Lawrence: They knew she was funny, right?

[6:26] Rob Russo: But they didn't know that she had this unbelievable voice.

[6:29] Peter Lawrence: There is nothing she can't do.

[6:30] Rob Russo: Yeah, I agree with that.

[6:31] Peter Lawrence: Yeah, I we're we're big fans. And she's sorry that she couldn't be here and says to says says hello.

[6:36] Rob Russo: Thank you.

[6:37] Peter Lawrence: Um, before we get started, you are a production stage manager.

[6:41] Rob Russo: Um, tell us a little bit about what that is.

[6:45] Peter Lawrence: Production stage manager really refers to the head stage manager who originates a production. That's where it sort of comes from. Now, production stage manager is used sort of interchangeably to say the head production on any show. That is, you could be the fourth replacement and still be called the production stage manager. But it basically now means the head stage manager.

[7:05] Peter Lawrence: There's a guy named Charlie Blackwell, a name you might not even know, but he was the first black PSM for uh on Broadway. And um he worked for David Merrick, and he was the one who was first given that title, production stage manager.

[7:19] Rob Russo: Wow.

[7:19] Peter Lawrence: So it dates back to what, the 60s?

[7:22] Rob Russo: The 50s.

[7:23] Peter Lawrence: That's right.

[7:24] Rob Russo: Wow.

[7:24] Peter Lawrence: So production stage manager obviously that job stays throughout the show, but you, for example, don't stay with a show for its entire run, correct?

[7:33] Rob Russo: Right.

[7:33] Peter Lawrence: What's what's interesting about the term as well? Uh Actors Equity doesn't have the term production stage manager. There's no such word in the rule book. But um I started um using that.

[7:45] Peter Lawrence: I mean, as soon as I could. I've got a story about that. Well, I did, I started off doing dinner theater, and um my grandmother came to see a dinner theater production for which I was the stage manager, and she said, Peter, I couldn't find your name in the program. So I started getting title page billing, and I always call it my grandma clause.

[8:05] Rob Russo: I love that.

[8:06] Peter Lawrence: And production stage manager looks good also on the billing. The weird thing is that as production stage manager, when you leave the production, you can no longer be billed as production stage manager because you are not, in fact, a stage manager on the show. So I started calling myself things like production supervisor, I was often associate director. I've been a number of different things on the show in order to retain my billing.

[8:26] Rob Russo: You know, it's funny because I noticed that when I was going through your credits at a certain point, production supervisor popped up, and I made a note Oh, I've got to ask him if that's a different role.

[8:33] Peter Lawrence: That's why.

[8:34] Rob Russo: That's why.

[8:35] Peter Lawrence: That's why. And also I really learned from my grandma, of course, get your name on the title page because then people will remember you.

[8:42] Rob Russo: So I do.

[8:43] Peter Lawrence: Solid advice. Grandma knows what's best.

[8:46] Rob Russo: Well, it's interesting. I think that um people who are sort of casually involved in theater or are just fans, might not have um an accurate idea of what it is that a stage manager or production stage manager does on a daily basis and and what the sort of lifespan of the involvement with the production is. Someone might think that once the show is in the theater, the production manager shows up and just runs backstage, right?

[9:10] Peter Lawrence: But from reading your fabulous book, um even I learned a lot that I didn't realize about how the production stage manager is with the production far before it arrives in a theater.

[9:22] Rob Russo: Could you talk us through sort of the the timeline of how a production stage manager is involved in a show?

[9:27] Peter Lawrence: Sure. Often I'll get a call for a job, and that job won't actually start me on contract for two or three years.

[9:34] Rob Russo: Oh wow.

[9:35] Peter Lawrence: Because there's a lot of early involvement. Sometimes it involves being involved with the um design of the show. That is, for instance, on Spamalot, I was heavily involved with Tim Hatley, who was the designer on the show. We had many meetings with Gino Donovan and Tim Hatley, just working out how that show would work.

[9:52] Peter Lawrence: Uh, later with the lighting designer and even with the costume designer on the show like Shrek. So there are early meetings that have to do uh mostly with schedule. So how long it's gonna take to do this thing. Cameron McIntosh had this great, I worked for Cameron for five years, and he had this great um sort of way of looking at a production that it had to be 12 months from the moment in which he committed money to the show until the opening night on Broadway.

[10:18] Peter Lawrence: That is, it couldn't be any less than that. And so often what I will do is a producer will say when they want the show to open, and I'll work backwards and say, okay, if it's gonna open on this date, you go backwards through previews, through rehearsals, through out of town, through building the set, through rehearsing, through designing.

[10:40] Peter Lawrence: And so I can usually give a fairly accurate date on when they would have to start designing the set in order to make a certain Broadway opening. So scheduling has a lot to do with what I do. In rehearsal, I schedule all the rehearsals according to what the director and the choreographer, if it's a musical, what they want, and the musical director, and then I'm responsible for getting the actors there on time and being set up to do the thing that the director wants to do.

[11:05] Peter Lawrence: During technical rehearsals, then I'm really the one who coordinates all the elements of the show together. That is, the I've worked out with the scenic designer and the director the way in which the scenery will work and how long it will take to get from one scene to the next scene, and we'll let the musical director know how much music we'll need, you know, in terms of timing.

[11:28] Peter Lawrence: So I'll tech the show. As soon as the show is tech, then of course the director takes over again, and there's an enormous amount of rewriting and uh sort of honing the show. And then uh, same thing during previews. We rehearse all through previews. But once the show is open, generally the creative team leaves.

[11:46] Peter Lawrence: Um, off I worked with a lot of British directors, and so then I've been in the country a lot of the time. So then my job switches entirely from being a scheduling and technical person to being the surrogate for the director.

[11:59] Peter Lawrence: And so I sort of act in loco parentis, you know, for the director and uh do cast replacements, casting according to what I think the director would want. And I'm, of course, I'm in constant touch with the director during all that. But that's sort of it. Often I'll direct the national tours.

[12:16] Peter Lawrence: Um, so it's a it's kind of a long arc job.

[12:20] Rob Russo: Are you putting people into the show at what at that point when you're taking over and you're casting and supervising all those things, you're actually putting the actors into their tracks?

[12:30] Peter Lawrence: I'm actually directing the actors.

[12:31] Rob Russo: You're actually directing the actors.

[12:32] Peter Lawrence: And quite often, it depends. Um, I worked with Mike Nichols, as you may know, for 23 years.

[12:38] Peter Lawrence: And uh Mike would always come back at the end when the actor was ready to go into the show, have a look at the rehearsal, and say, Pete, I'd like you to change these things, and I would.

[12:48] Rob Russo: Um, sometimes if um I'll be putting people into a show, and the director is nowhere to be found. They're off doing another show or something like that.

[12:57] Peter Lawrence: So I'll simply get in touch with them, say, This is what I found. Are you okay with this casting?

[13:02] Peter Lawrence: Um, I keep extensive casting notes that I also distribute to all the creative teams. So I can say, look on January 25th, 2019. Remember that person we auditioned, and here are your notes on that person. Are you okay if I hire them for that track?

[13:16] Peter Lawrence: There are a lot of things, but you know So you wouldn't even have to audition them again? You would already the the work had already been done. It's just a matter of referring to your notes and saying and if it's close enough.

[13:24] Rob Russo: That is, if it's if it's not if it'd been two years or something like that, of course, we would see the person again.

[13:28] Peter Lawrence: Or sometimes the director will insist, I need to see that person again. So the director will come in and we'll schedule the audition for them. But whatever I work for the director, that's my job.

[13:37] Peter Lawrence: And so sometimes they're available, and sometimes they just want me to go ahead and do it, and I'll do whatever it is they need me to do.

[13:44] Rob Russo: Did you ever have an experience with Mike Nichols, for example, where you put somebody into the show and he came back and looked at it and said, perfect, done. Or did he always have something to add to it?

[13:51] Peter Lawrence: It was great. When I put together with Casey Nicolau, we did the London production of Spamalot together.

[13:59] Peter Lawrence: And uh Mike came over to see the show. And uh in previews he saw it, and we're sitting together, and Mike, literally the greatest human being I've ever known.

[14:10] Peter Lawrence: And uh he put his hand on my shoulder during the show and he said, Pete, it's perfect. And I thought, okay, I can just go to heaven right now.

[14:21] Peter Lawrence: But usually, of course, the directors have things they want to put their own stamp on it and should. And also the actors want the director. I'm not the director, and they want the famous director. They want Gene Saks or Mike Nichols or Sam Mendes to put their own stamp on it. And they deserve that.

[14:38] Peter Lawrence: But I would imagine that one of the things that made you successful with Mike Nichols is the fact that you understood how he operated. You knew, or any director for that matter, you know what they want, right? So that's so it's a synergy that you get with a director where you can kind of expect what he may be wanting out of someone, an actor, or just the show in general. And that's how that working relationship builds and is so has such longevity.

[15:03] Peter Lawrence: I think so. I also take extensive notes.

[15:05] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[15:05] Peter Lawrence: And I'll ask them if I'm not sure. I mean, I'll call the director and say, this is what I think, you know, on this. And also, Mike, especially, actually, any good director, is always always wants that actor to inhabit the part. That is, it's not replicating, it's making sure that the idea of the part, the idea of the character, um, is uh properly embodied by the actor who's doing it. So Mike always wanted it to be fresh. Um, Mike had this great thing that he would say. He said, Um, he'd come in for notes and he'd say, Okay, throw away all your babies, everything that you love in the show, don't do it anymore. Let something else come in to replace it. Mike was the greatest that way. On Spamalot one time, he literally came in with the original cast.

We've been running, I don't know, three or four months. And he said, and we're getting tremendous laughs on the show, and it was really a big hit. And Mike came in and he said, All right, I see that you all love the things you're doing. Tonight, I don't want you to do anything. I don't want you to inflect anything. I don't want you to do any of your bits of business. I don't want you to do anything. Just say the words. You're not funny. The script is. People did it that night, and we never in our lives got more laughs than we did that night. You're kidding. We didn't do it. It was, and Mike would always say, it's the script that's funny. You aren't. So my job as the you know, the associate director, the one who's standing in for the director, is to give that spirit to the show.

You know, Mike, anyway, Mike, I won't, I promise I won't quote him too much, but but Mike said to do that. Mike said to me a number of times, he said, P, it's the job of the director to give the actor back their first impulse. The greatest thing you can ever say. So I took extensive audition notes. Mike would always say, too, the auditions will tell you who the characters are. You'll learn. So the auditions will tell you who the characters are, not the actors, the actual characters that they're auditioning for.

[17:12] Peter Lawrence: Yeah, they'll come in and they'll say, uh, I'll show you how to do this. I'll show you how to do this. Neil Simon, whom I did a lot of shows with too, he said, actors always claim their parts. So they'll come in and say, just sit back, I know how to do this, and they'll put you at ease. So it's really incredible to hear how closely the stage manager works with the director.

[17:31] Rob Russo: Oh, and how, you know, I think uh the perception that I alluded to earlier that, you know, that the stage manager's just calling cues, just, but you know, he's backstage calling cues is like a fraction of of the show up, especially of the totality of the role.

[17:47] Peter Lawrence: Yeah. Um, I was struck in reading your book about how much of it is um is about leadership and tone setting and sort of almost you know the politics of it all, not to use politics in a in a crass way, but you know, sort of knowing how to manage people and how to set an example.

[18:06] Rob Russo: Um can you speak to how how that you bet.

[18:09] Peter Lawrence: Yeah. You bet I can't. You know how that comes into play. Well, the American-style stage management is different from how they do it in England or Australia or any place else. Stage managers in England, the production stage manager actually works the deck. That is, doesn't call the show at all. And it's entirely a technical job. So often when I work with British stage or British directors, they're hesitant to speak to me about anything artistic. Um in America, the idea was always that everything upstage of the proscenium arch was the purview of the stage manager. So not only technical, but artistic and also the social and um union welfare of the actors. So I've always taken that as my marching orders.

So I think that I'm responsible for everything upstage. So if the company is getting uptight about things or exhausted, I'll throw a margarita party. You know, if they're if we're having understudy rehearsals and that there are just too many understudy rehearsals, I'll bring a pizza. If there's a fight to be had um with management, I don't want the deputies going to actors' equity. I want to have that fight with management myself. I represent them. I'm an actor's equity member. I'm they're my that's my union. So I want to take care of literally everything that happens upstage of the proscenium arch. And I think that's my job.

[19:31] Rob Russo: Wow.

[19:33] Peter Lawrence: But artistic, technical, social, you name it.

[19:36] Rob Russo: Yeah. It's so funny because they're very different things in a lot of ways, right? There's the technical aspect of your job, and then there's their artistic aspect. And if you look at it rationally, for lack of a better way to put it, they don't seem like they should go together. But of course, they have to, because that's how the that's how theater is made. But I don't think people know that.

[20:02] Peter Lawrence: Well, then they should buy my book.

[20:03] Rob Russo: They should absolutely buy the book.

[20:05] Peter Lawrence: It's very interesting. Um it's also filled with great stories.

[20:07] Rob Russo: You certainly have known.

[20:11] Peter Lawrence: Well, I mean, you can't spend time with the the people you've spent time with Mike Nichols, Gene Saks, Neil Simon, Cameron Mackintosh. I mean, those are just to name a few.

[20:21] Rob Russo: Sam Mendes.

[20:22] Peter Lawrence: Sam Mendes. Yeah. Talking about a legendary British director. I mean, you can't work with these people and not um absorb a lot from them, I would imagine.

[20:33] Peter Lawrence: I'm a lucky man. You know, I may I'm I'm not a trained stage manager at all. I made this up. So I think I say that in the book, don't I?

[20:41] Rob Russo: You do.

[20:42] Peter Lawrence: But for the people who have not read your book, um tell us how you actually got into this business.

[20:47] Peter Lawrence: Well, my MFA is in directing. And um I got it at the University of Hawaii, and I went then. It's a long story.

[20:53] Rob Russo: So you're from Hawaii or you're not sure.

[20:55] Peter Lawrence: No, no, I'm from Ohio. I'm from the most boring place on earth. But we all left, you know.

[21:00] Rob Russo: So um Hawaii's quite a jump.

[21:02] Peter Lawrence: It's quite a jump. Anyhow, what happened was I applied to Michigan State, uh, Stanford Rep, and Hawaii for all different reasons. Uh, Michigan State, because Phoenix, the Phoenix Company, was in residence there, Ellis Rabb's Company from the 60s. So they were in residence there. Stanford had a great repertory company, and I was very interested in Asian theater, and the University of Hawaii had the best English speaking Asian theater department in the world. Um, so I got accepted at all three, Stanford Rep folded up, the Phoenix left Michigan State, and I thought, well, I guess I better go to Hawaii. So I went, uh, got an MFA, and I founded a theater, co-founded a theater company with five other people.

It's still running there. It's called the Manoa Valley Theater, and it's still running there. And then I thought, um, I think I want to be a drama critic. So I applied to the morning newspaper. There are 30, at the time, I thought there were 38 theaters on the island of Oahu, none of them professional, semi-professional. And I was their drama critic for the morning paper for a year. So um I was gonna leave Hawaii, I put together a book of my reviews. I thought I'm moving to New York and I'm gonna be a drama critic, you know.

[22:04] Rob Russo: So well, I was too dumb to know it doesn't work that way.

[22:07] Peter Lawrence: Right now. So uh anyhow, I moved to New York and I was I had a survival job um in the box office of the old Mercer Arts Center, the one that fell down in 1973.

[22:16] Rob Russo: Literally fell down?

[22:17] Peter Lawrence: Literally fell down. It was the back half of the Broadway Central Hotel. And until the World Trade Center came down, it was the biggest structural collapse in the history of New York City. Anyhow, um That's really the fact, by the way. This stage manager named Harvey Medlinski, who had been Mike Nichols' original stage manager on beginning with Barefoot in the Park, and was now um had fallen on hard times and was stage managing the off-Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He came into the box office and said, I need a stage manager for a chain of dinner theaters that I'm doing and working with me, and we're gonna go around and uh do all these shows. And I said, What does it pay?

And it was more than I was making in this box office, and I said, Oh, I'm a stage manager. So I made it up as I went along. And um, I worked with Harvey for a number of years, and um one thing led to another. Uh dinner theater led to stock, and stock led to off Broadway and off Broadway led to Broadway shows. I did my first Broadway show in 1977.

[23:14] Rob Russo: So I just have to stop you right there because I think we're we're we're missing a very important part of your story or glossing over it, which is that you had no experience in stage management at all.

[23:25] Peter Lawrence: That's correct.

[23:25] Rob Russo: And you got the job and took the job.

[23:27] Peter Lawrence: That could never happen today.

[23:29] Rob Russo: Well, could it?

[23:30] Peter Lawrence: I don't depends on what level you're talking about. I mean, I didn't begin as a Broadway stage manager. This was dinner theater, and it was because of my directing experience that I got this job. Because Harvey and I would do a new show literally every two weeks. And I would I would cast it. There were no casting directors, I would bring in everybody, and I would call it's great in those days. I would call the agents and say, All right, I've got two $300 a week jobs, two men, I've got two $400 a week jobs, and they would send me their $300 or $400 people, and we would cast. That's how we cast.

[23:59] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[23:59] Peter Lawrence: I was the casting director too. And then I would restage it for Arena Diprcenium and things like that.

[24:04] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[24:04] Peter Lawrence: So it just happened. I don't know how to say the thing about stage management, I believe, it's just about keeping your eyes open. I think uh most rational people, if they want to do this job, and I think you have to love actors and you have to love the theater, you just have to love it. If you love it and you keep your eyes open, you can do this job.

[24:24] Rob Russo: Do you think you said earlier that you know you're you take extensive notes, notes, and I would assume you're a list maker and a planner and all of those things.

[24:32] Peter Lawrence: Calendars.

[24:33] Rob Russo: I would assume that's essential to what you do.

[24:37] Peter Lawrence: It is right.

[24:37] Rob Russo: Right. And that goes for anybody who wants to be a production manager.

[24:41] Peter Lawrence: I mean, you have to take notes, you have to be organized on this on this level, correct?

[24:44] Peter Lawrence: You do. And I'm also a bit of a control freak in that way that I like to control the whole event. That is, many production stage managers don't do their own, for instance, calling script, the script that you do to figure out how to call the show, right? And those are extensive documents that you do. Some don't do their own calendars, some don't do their own um weekly schedules and um their weekly reports and things like that. I do all those things myself because I think my job is to stand astride the event. Artistically, managerially, technically, everything.

[25:18] Rob Russo: What does a call script look like?

[25:20] Peter Lawrence: I there's an example in the back of the book. I've got, I think I've got Annie in the back of the book, and um example on that, for which, by the way, I got permission from Martin Charnin and Tom Meehan to put that in the book. Um in in and buy the book and look at the call script. But but if you were to tell me what it looks like, like it's a document that literally writes out every single thing that happens, correct?

[25:43] Peter Lawrence: No, every there are two different documents. One is a blocking script, a staging script, in which it in a margin or however you choose to do it, you're going to put every move that's in the show, what every actor is doing at every moment. And usually at the top or at the bottom of the page, I'll put in what the emotional temperature of that scene is, too. That is what the director had said about it. A calling script is a different thing. All it is is every technical cue that's in the show. Um, uh set moves, lighting, sound, often prop moves, often wardrobe moves. But all those things are in the script in a way in which you're following the script, and those cues are on different words in the script, and you're calling all the lighting cues, all the set moves and everything. But it's all there in the script.

[26:30] Rob Russo: Is that is that a standardized note-taking system?

[26:34] Peter Lawrence: In fact, I just thought it was really interesting up at Columbia. Um, I just did a whole course two-day, two uh session course on how to write a calling script and in the computer, because I believe that you have to be able to email that thing to people. And also, I used to have this fear before, because I go back before computers. I used to have this fear that you because you did it in pencil then, that I would lose that script. So I would obsessively like make a Xerox of the of the script, or sometimes have somebody make a pencil copy of the script. But now with um to I do it in the computer, and so I can, it's always there.

[27:07] Rob Russo: You have your old handwritten or your old typed out call scripts, do you not?

[27:12] Peter Lawrence: I do.

[27:12] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[27:13] Peter Lawrence: I do. The um I have one, I did Timbuktu, which was the Black Kismet.

[27:20] Rob Russo: Of course.

[27:20] Peter Lawrence: That Jeffrey Holder directed in Corey.

[27:22] Rob Russo: Oh, yes.

[27:23] Peter Lawrence: Oh yeah.

[27:23] Rob Russo: Whom I love.

[27:24] Peter Lawrence: Saw it in Chicago.

[27:25] Rob Russo: Did you really?

[27:26] Peter Lawrence: I did, yes.

[27:28] Rob Russo: The Airy Crown, yes.

[27:29] Peter Lawrence: I did that.

[27:29] Rob Russo: In like 77 or 78?

[27:31] Peter Lawrence: 78, that was me.

[27:32] Rob Russo: Really?

[27:32] Peter Lawrence: Oh, yeah, that was me.

[27:41] Rob Russo: With some magnetic in the beginning of the you remember the curtains would not fly, they would draw.

[27:57] Peter Lawrence: Is it the Airy Crown?

[27:58] Rob Russo: I do.

[27:58] Peter Lawrence: So um the first performance we did, which was our opening night, they drew the curtain off, it wrapped around my call desk and ripped it right out of the floor and off stage.

[28:08] Rob Russo: It's unbelievable.

[28:09] Peter Lawrence: Oh, I love doing that show. But anyhow, that was in pencil.

[28:12] Rob Russo: Oh, wow.

[28:12] Peter Lawrence: Because that was for me pre-computer. My first computer was in 1985. I was doing a play called Rumors, a Neil Simon play. Trying out in uh San Diego at the Old Globe. And I thought, I want to learn how to operate a computer. So I bought a computer, a zenith, which had a huge hard drive of 20 megabytes.

[28:33] Rob Russo: 20 megabytes.

[28:35] Peter Lawrence: Can you imagine this? You know, our phones couldn't operate on this now. So and I taught myself Microsoft Word, typing the entire script into Microsoft Word. And I made all my mistakes, I forgot how to do it.

[28:47] Rob Russo: Wow.

[28:48] Peter Lawrence: Yeah.

[28:48] Rob Russo: That's incredible.

[28:49] Peter Lawrence: Well, I, you know, you've you've mentioned at this point in the interview like a dozen different theaters. Um, and over the course of your 40 years doing this, I'm sure you've probably been in every type of theater that you can imagine.

[29:00] Peter Lawrence: Um I haven't done cruise ships.

[29:02] Rob Russo: Okay, all right, all right.

[29:02] Peter Lawrence: So there's one one bucket list that I'm left to do. Uh one thing that that struck me uh going through your book was how much of the job also entails managing space and how you know uh precious space is, especially backstage. If you've if you've ever been backstage at a Broadway theater, you know it's very, very tight. Um, of the Broadway houses that you've worked in, uh, do you have a favorite? And um what makes one better than another in terms of backstage space?

[29:29] Peter Lawrence: First, it's a really good question. No, I really mean it. That was a really smart question. The my favorite theater has nothing to do with backstage, it has to do with the the house rake. The because people have to be able to see or they get restless. The best house rake in New York City is the Ethel Barrymore Theater. You don't know that, but that's my favorite theater. I'm always ready to be a little bit more than a little bit of a. And Nichols was the first one to point this out to me that what a great house rake that is.

[30:00] Peter Lawrence: And since the renovation, it's also one of the most beautiful in New York City. But I really love, I just I love that theater. Because in a way, it almost doesn't matter what your backstage space is because the designer is going to design to that space. So you know long before you go into rehearsal or have the set built what theater you're going into, and it's designed to that space. The hardest thing is when you go out of town, right? And you're in like um the opera house at Kennedy Center, right? And you have football fields on either side. What I always do is lay out the walls of the theater we're going into backstage, and we never go outside those walls. I don't want to store anything outside those walls. I, you know, we have to solve the problems within that box. So you redefine the space in whatever theater in to make it manageable for whatever you need to accomplish.

[30:53] Jamie DuMont: That's right. And if you're on the road, if you do a national tour, of course, you're playing 50 different things, you know, in a couple of years. So you always send, uh, usually I do it myself to the production carpenter, production electrician, and myself, will go around and visit the next few theaters ahead. We will send a tech package which says, these are the our minimum requirements for the show. If you don't make those minimum requirements, we can't do the show there. And sometimes they lie. So you get there and it's not nearly big enough. And often I've had to on the National Tour of Annie, which I did, um, and I did Zorba on the road too. You we had to leave pieces of scenery sometimes on the truck because there wasn't enough room to do it. So you just simply leave something out of the show because you had no choice.

[31:38] Rob Russo: Wow. That's incredible. Um, is there a wide variance in terms of the backstage space, at least on Broadway?

[31:44] Peter Lawrence: Oh my god, yes. You know, you think about one of the great theaters is no longer a theater, the Mark Allenger Theater, which is you know where the the church is. Yeah. We snuck in to Play. Isn't it beautiful? Because that's where I picked up Tim Buck II. I just I ended the Broadway show there. That's right. Uh it's a magnificent. Magnificent and magnificent lobby. Yes, the lobby of the theater is spectacular. That's one of the deepest theaters in New York City. My memory is 55 feet. But they actually added a section of grid um to it to extend that stage. But and by the way, the church has done a beautiful job of keeping it up. They really have.

[32:20] Jamie DuMont: They have. I think it's gorgeous.

[32:21] Peter Lawrence: They have. So when we get that theater back, someday it will be in good shape. I flew beside that minister years ago, flying to LA, and uh for some reason I was flying first class. I don't know why, but I was, and I was sitting beside the minister. He asked me, you know, theater and blah, blah, blah. And it came around to he was the minister of that church. I said, Well, we want it back. And he said, We're happy to give it back. What we need is a space between 34th Street and 59th Street, between Fifth Avenue and 8th Avenue, which will seat 3,000 people.

[32:51] Rob Russo: Yeah. That's fine to stand, you can have it.

[32:53] Peter Lawrence: Yeah. Wow. I I've actually heard that before.

[32:56] Jamie DuMont: Yeah. Um he's got he's got that line down.

[32:58] Peter Lawrence: Right. I mean, it's the impossible dream. I mean, everybody wants that.

[33:02] Rob Russo: Oh my God. Michael Benagno tried to buy it.

[33:04] Peter Lawrence: Yeah. Why he didn't, I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot of yes. That's it's a well, anyway, um, it's a beautiful theater. They they vary radically the depth of these theaters. Most of the theaters are between 30 and 35 feet. They can be as little as, ugh, and I'm not gonna remember it, but there are many that are just shy of 30 feet. Oh, until they blew out the back wall of the same or frozen. I think that was 28 feet. Wow. I think it was. But they vary radically. Also, the width varies radically, and it it depends heavily on sometimes there's no space stage, right? Sometimes it's cavernous, sometimes there's no space stage left, sometimes it's cavernous. So a designer has to design for that space.

[33:50] Jamie DuMont: In terms of what I'm doing allocation of properties.

[33:54] Peter Lawrence: That's a good question because there's no set answer to that. It's the designer's responsibility to do it. Okay. But also I always have opinions. Like, for instance, on when I did the revival of Annie at the palace, um, David Corinne's wonderful, he designed Hamilton, a wonderful designer. He wanted the designers always want to use all the space stage for their set, and they should. Um, so it went right to the back wall. And I said to Dave, we have to have a crossover. And uh he said, Well, you can't have one. And I said, We have dogs in the show. And he said, Well, they can go through the basement. I said, It's a spiral staircase on stage left. Dogs don't go down spiral staircases. And so we he put in finally a crossover. But having that knowledge, say, you know, there are things like that that I that I do. It's just not just going to look, keeping your eyes open. You go and look at the space and you say, All right, that can't work.

[34:46] Jamie DuMont: You you learned the dog spiral staircase thing though from the Annie Tour, correct?

[34:51] Peter Lawrence: No. Or did you just know that?

[34:53] Peter Lawrence: No, well, I knew I had dogs. And I've never seen it. Have you ever seen a dog go down a spiral from the dog? No, I don't ever think of that. I mean it never occurred to me. But yeah, I guess I guess you're not. So anyhow. But and David was I mean, everybody's reasonable. The great thing I gotta say about the theater, there are very few people doing these. I mean, in terms of number of people in any given production, there aren't that many people. And everybody can sit down in a room and has hash things out. I did a television series with Nichols one time called The Thorns, which is a huge failure. And there would be like it seemed like hundreds of people, you know, but I love the theater because you can sit like reasonable people like we are and talk about it.

[35:31] Rob Russo: Well, also, what would be the point of hiring somebody with your expertise and your years of knowledge and then not listening to you?

[35:37] Peter Lawrence: Well, I feel like, I mean, yes, of course, of course, as I said that and I heard the words come out of my mouth. But I feel like in the theater, when you're talking about a small group of people trying to put on, you know, this impossible task, really, if you think about it, of course they're gonna they're gonna listen to you and they're gonna build a pass through in the back and do all the things. I wish I wish it were true. And I but I have a wonderful girlfriend named Pam Remler, and who's also a dancer and now a stage manager, but she always points out to me that I have to be careful about who how forceful I make my opinions, because sometimes people don't want those opinions. Right. You know, so I'm I'm careful now.

You know what I mean? I'm also very careful with people who some people have more knowledge than others. And sometimes you run into producers, especially, you know, who are relative novices in the theater. They they don't want to be told how to do things. Right. So I'm very careful about that now.

[36:30] Jamie DuMont: Well, I would imagine as Hollywood creeps into Broadway a little bit more with all of the uh film adaptations that are becoming musicals and big corporations come in. I would imagine there's a dance that you have to do with with those entities because they are new to the theater.

[36:43] Peter Lawrence: And as we were saying earlier about the politics of the job, that's part of the politics of the job. Then it's what I want to do is not so much be right, but I want to make sure the show works. Right. That's my job. Yeah, you know, it doesn't matter what I'm right or not. Right. Which is it just it just helps that you're right most of the time, right?

[36:59] Jamie DuMont: Well, I think I'm and I would imagine the part of that is um surrounding yourself with people who you can trust and who you know and building that team. And so does the PSM have authority in terms of pick picking the personnel who are backstage, or is that is that someone else who makes it?

[37:19] Peter Lawrence: I always choose my own assistants. That is, it's really part of my not necessarily my, it's not written in the contract, but when I'm talking about the job, I have to be able to hire my own assistants. There's a fellow named Jim Woolley that I started working with on Tim Buck too, on the road, 1978, because he knew more than I did about stage management. And so the person to hire.

[37:39] Rob Russo: Exactly.

[37:40] Peter Lawrence: He was my first assistant, and we worked together, we still, the last one thing we did together was Brigadoon at City Center last year. So we're still working together. I think we've done 18 or 19 Broadway shows together. But I work with people that I trust. And um a lot of times, you know, you grow people too, from production assistant to second assistant to first assistant to replacing you on a show. And that's the idea. You want to grow people. So yeah, I'm I have to have people around me who also tell me the truth about things. I don't want people to be like, I can't say that to him. I want people to say everything to me.

[38:11] Jamie DuMont: How many people are typically involved behind the scenes on a nightly basis for a Broadway show?

[38:19] Peter Lawrence: More than on stage. There are always more people backstage than there are on stage. On a musical, there are three or four stage managers on a show. Three is the minimum on a musical, two is the minimum on a play. And um there's a house crew, you know, which is always four or five people. And they work for the theater or for the production. The house crew works for the theater. They're responsible for the building. And then usually have what's called the pink contract crew, which are the the crew heads who are responsible to the production. And um and the house heads then hire the local stage hands. But on a show like uh Manny Eisenberg always said, you know, on a musical, there are usually 250 people working on a musical.

And but that includes the press department, too. You know, it includes everybody, wardrobe, front of house staff, it includes everybody. But I would about and Manny was always loath to close a show because I said, I'm gonna put 250 people out of work. But there are there are always more people backstage than there are on stage.

[39:13] Rob Russo: And they're the sort of the unsung heroes, right?

[39:16] Peter Lawrence: Because they don't get to take a bow. Well, I'll tell you what, anytime somebody disses a stage hand, I will point out to them stagehands will risk their lives for the show. They're the only ones who will do that. And I've had a number of times in my career when stagehands have done things unbelievably dangerous just to keep the show running. And there are it was when I was doing Sunset Boulevard in uh LA, the the original one, the um some of the the actors were very dissy about stage hands, especially our pink contract crew. So I was having a um a meeting with everybody, the casting crew one time, and I said, Oh, by the way, how many master's degrees do we have here? And almost the entire pink contract crew put up their hands. And I think one or two actors did. I said, Okay, we'll move on now.

[40:04] Rob Russo: Wow. Oh yeah. That put them in their place.

[40:08] Peter Lawrence: That's hysterical. I just wanted them, we have to respect the people we work with. Everybody. We have to. I mean, this theater is the theater business is about respect. And if we can respect each other, then we can tell the story. If people don't respect each other, we can't tell the story.

[40:23] Jamie DuMont: That's well said. Well, it seems to me that on a nightly basis, um, you're almost uh doing a high wire act, right? Because there's a million things that could go wrong, and there's a million things you can't account for. Um I imagine that can be very stressful.

[40:37] Peter Lawrence: It can, but I I sort of look at it the other way, because it can also be unbelievably satisfying. I just did this little play called Seawall of Life. Yes. With uh Jake Joan Hall and Tom Sturridge, and it was so satisfying, I can't tell you. Every night I watched that show. And those two men, each one alone on the stage, dealing with an audience as their acting partner, did things that moved me more than I can tell you. You know, and I think about um I did Sunning the Power for George also with Jake, that revival. I was so moved by that. And I played um the you know, uh Move On, you know. I played that for my mom one time, who at the time was 95 years old, and she said, that's my story. And she, anyhow, the theater to me, it is my church.

I I have gone places in the world, I've read books, I've met people, I've done things that could never possibly happen if I weren't in the theater. So I understand that there are stressful and difficult things sometimes, but to me that's not what it's about at all. It's about it's given me back much, much more than I have ever taken from it. And I'm grateful.

[41:49] Jamie DuMont: I'm curious, um, over the course of your career, from the time that you started to the present, what are the biggest changes that you have observed in the way that productions happen?

[41:59] Peter Lawrence: You guys both asked very good questions. Because that's that's I think every five years in the theater, my perceptive perception is I have to reinvent myself every five years because the business changes so radically. Right. 2008, when the market crashed and you know everything went wrong, suddenly the big money people came into the theater. And I have to say, I think the artists lost control for a long time. It was all about the money people dictating terms. And we have some very good money people in the business too, but also some, as I said, novices who just want to dictate the terms. I was very happy when Hamilton happened because I think it the the pendulum is swinging back. That the artists, I mean, Lynn Manuel, you can't find a better artist than Lynn Manuel.

He's it as far as I'm concerned. And he is an artist who has taken charge of the theater again. And I think more and more we're going to see that now because this artist and other artists are making money for people. You know.

[42:55] Jamie DuMont: In in a show like Hamilton, where I expect everybody said he was crazy, right? You're crazy to like who wants a hip-hop version of this. Like I but he's proven to the world that that that it can be successful, which is what you're saying. So hopefully we'll see a lot more of these kinds of uh.

[43:14] Peter Lawrence: Artist-driven riskier project. Correct. I hope so. I I really hope so. You look at Slave Play, for instance, which to me is not only a great play, but a great experience in the theater. And I'm still talking about it with people. Yeah. So this is an artist, Jeremy O'Harris, right? Yep. Who this is an artist who is now changing the conversation on Broadway. And I really hope that John Tiffany, I think, is changing the conversation on Broadway. Uh, you know, you look at Harry Potter and you look at some of the things that he's done. Really, anyhow, I hope. When I got into the theater, it was um, you know, it was all about um, you know, Bob Fossey and uh Michael Bennett and and you know, everybody, Tommy Toon, the artists were in charge.

There was no question that the artists were in charge. And I think the pendulum is starting to swing back. But in answer to your question, um, I've had to adapt myself according to the people with whom I'm speaking. Because um I grew up with Manny Eisenberg, was one of my mentors, Manny, Mike, Gene Sachs, Pete Feller, a name that nobody knows anymore. But at Manny's office, we would get into the room and argue about how to do the show. And then Manny at the end of it would hear everybody and say, Okay, thanks everybody. Here's what we're gonna do. And it was great. We all got it off our chest. Nobody wants to argue anymore. Everybody wants to be nice about things. And so I'm nice now. You know what I mean?

Because people don't want it. They think you're being a jerk if you want to argue a point. But I enjoyed that sort of theater. And, you know, so did Mike and Gene Sachs and all those people that I love. So does Sam Mendys. He loves to argue a point, you know. And good playwrights, Neil Simon loved to argue points.

[44:59] Peter Lawrence: He was, Neil was so great. I couldn't say enough good things about him. We'd be working on a scene, Gene would be directing the scene, and Neil was always in the room. And if Gene was having trouble with a scene and trying it like ten different ways, funny, Neil would stand up and say, "This is not your problem, this is my problem, I'll go home and rewrite it. I'll be back tomorrow." You know, everybody took responsibility for their own part as opposed to saying, you know what he did? You know what that person did? If we did this. So I'm always adapting. And I encourage my students up at Columbia that the theater that I'm preparing you for now won't exist in five years. So you have to keep looking at what's around you if you quite want to keep a career going. You look at Madonna, whom I admire almost as much as any human being on earth. She's reinvented herself so many times. You know my Madonna story?

[45:44] Jamie DuMont: No?

[45:46] Peter Lawrence: But please tell. I did a flop called Rock and Roll the First 5,000 Years at the St. James, like 1983 or something like that. I have the window card.

[45:55] Jamie DuMont: Do you really?

[45:56] Peter Lawrence: So do I. The guitar?

[45:57] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[45:57] Peter Lawrence: Anyhow, it's the statue of David holding a guitar. Anyhow, um, huge flop. And um, it was nine people who had to sing all the great rock and roll songs from Bo Diddley through at the time, the Plasmatics and the Police. So, and um, play the musical instruments. The hardest things to cast were the two swings. The male swing was a guy named Rich Hebert, with whom I've worked a number of times since. The female swing was a um, a woman named Madonna Chocone, who lived on Riverside Drive at the time. And I was working for Marvin Krause, who's the general manager, and because it was not an equity show, I was doing the signing of the contracts. So Miss Jacconi came up and she said, "Peter, I can't take the show. I got a manager now, and he wants me to come out to California to do this cover record." I said, "Are you crazy? You're gonna give a Broadway show as a swing to go out and do some cover record."

[47:09] Jamie DuMont: Well, like a year later, I'm walking down Bleaker Street and I walk past a record store, and then it says, "Madonna."

[47:15] Rob Russo: So if Madonna had listened to me, she could be a swing on Broadway today.

[47:19] Peter Lawrence: Exactly. Right. She'd be a cater waiter.

[47:22] Rob Russo: She might have swung her way out.

[47:24] Peter Lawrence: Uh, you know. But I admire her because she's reinvented herself all the time. I think the great people in the business, those who last reinvent themselves. You have to. And it sounds to me like, I mean, a repeated theme as you're talking through all the different facets of your work is perception and being open to perceiving both, you know, technical issues, but also human resources issues, and being receptive and perceptive of new information and technology advancing.

[47:54] Rob Russo: So much of what I'm hearing is that how key that is to the success of the world.

[47:59] Peter Lawrence: It's all the same thing. It's serving the event. What you're doing is serving the play and the event that's going on on stage. And whatever way you can serve it, you have to do it. So sometimes it's technical, sometimes it's artistic, sometimes it's, it's as you say, human resources. Right. You know. And sometimes it's just arguing with the house manager about a leak backstage, you know. It's all those things. But it's serving the event. And that's what keeps it so interesting. And interesting for me. Right. It's a selfish thing. I'm very interested in what I do. I really like it.

[48:28] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[48:30] Peter Lawrence: You know, I'm old now. And so I'm aging out of the business. And it isn't that I'm not okay financially, but I like it. And so I want to keep doing it as long as I can because I actually like it.

[48:45] Rob Russo: Well, you you've touched on something just now, um, and that is sort of the physical strain of the work, right? I mean, if you really think about it, everyone who's involved in a show, you're working at night. Uh, your, you know, your most intense time of the day is between, you know, eight and 10:30, if it's a musical, all right?

[49:03] Peter Lawrence: Yeah.

[49:03] Rob Russo: Um, and that, you know, has a certain effect on your social life and your non, you know, how you live the rest of your life. Um, but also with rehearsals during the day, I mean, I imagine as a stage manager, your day can be 16 hours easily.

[49:16] Peter Lawrence: That's right. Well, in production, you think when you're in production, we're usually there at nine in the morning when you leave at one in the morning.

[49:21] Rob Russo: Yeah, and that can go on for four or five weeks, right?

[49:23] Peter Lawrence: You know, like that. So I do take care of myself.

[49:25] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[49:26] Peter Lawrence: I mean, I think about my stamina, and I test myself with my stamina all the time to make sure that I can still do the job that needs to be done. But I do, I talk to my students about this all the time. You have to take care of yourself. You have to eat well, you have to get enough sleep, you have to, you know, and have a life outside the theater. You can't, it can't be 100% theater or you'll burn out pretty quickly.

[49:44] Rob Russo: But you it's funny, you you anticipated my question.

[49:46] Peter Lawrence: So you know, you really have to almost train in a way.

[49:49] Peter Lawrence: Well, I do exercises every day, I stretch every day. I eat well, I do, you know, I do all those things. Also because I want to have a social life in addition to, you know, having a work life. So it's hard because the theater can be so involving that you don't do anything else. You have to be very careful about that because it will, you know, that'll burn you out pretty quickly.

[50:11] Rob Russo: But I also think it goes back to what you said a moment ago, which is you really love what you do, right? Not everybody can say that in their life, right? Not everybody loves the job that they go to every day.

[50:22] Peter Lawrence: Most people don't, I think.

[50:24] Rob Russo: If you were to pull the average person, they work because, you know, we all have bills. But you genuinely love what you do. And I think that must help with the day-to-day, you know, grueling aspects of what you do. You genuinely love it, so you figure out a way to make it work.

[50:39] Peter Lawrence: Right. There are moments, of course you hate it. You know, when things don't, there are moments where you hate it. But in general, I really like it. It's so interesting, I can't tell you. My job is never the same day to day, ever once. And so it's interesting to me. You know, I get there and I think, okay, I need to figure this thing out. And I really like it. I also like the people I work with. I really respect actors. I really respect the whole creative process and the creative team.

[51:05] Rob Russo: Right.

[51:05] Peter Lawrence: It's great. The only time I have trouble is when people don't respect the process or the team. Or people who are disrespectful.

[51:10] Rob Russo: Right.

[51:11] Peter Lawrence: I really don't like it.

[51:12] Rob Russo: Well, you it's interesting because I think I, until we sat down and chatted, I didn't think of a production stage manager or stage manager as being a particularly creative job, but it's a very creative job.

[51:25] Peter Lawrence: It is exactly, it's just another piece of the creative total of putting up a piece of theater. And I think that's fascinating because I don't, I don't, I never thought of it in those terms before.

[51:37] Peter Lawrence: I actually, this is gonna sound slightly pretentious, but I think of it as a design function because what you're doing, in addition to just the just the calling script that we're talking about, the way in which you choose to lay out the show to call it is a design function that is, it can be done literally a hundred different ways.

[51:54] Rob Russo: Right.

[51:55] Peter Lawrence: And a design function sense that you are setting the tone for how the show is going to operate backstage, and it makes a huge difference. Like, for instance, I don't believe that people should feel that they're in jail backstage. So there are a lot of equity rules about how many personal days you can have, things like that. I'm very flexible about those things because I want people to feel they can have a life, and then they'll stay.

[52:19] Rob Russo: When you're a theatergoer, do you um, can you sense or get any idea of what's going on backstage from just sitting in the audience?

[52:29] Peter Lawrence: I don't want to. Um, I love going to the theater. I just went last night to go see uh one in two.

[52:37] Jamie DuMont: Yes.

[52:37] Peter Lawrence: Oh my gosh.

[52:38] Rob Russo: We saw that together.

[52:39] Peter Lawrence: Did you?

[52:39] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[52:40] Peter Lawrence: That's remarkable. Anyhow, I had no sense of anything. I didn't think about anything until the blood went on the walls. And then I thought, oh boy, that's gonna be hard to get off. But then I had to like get myself out of that for a second. I don't want to think about all I want is to have the experience that the creative team wanted to present to me. And I love it when I don't think about anything else. The great thing about Hamilton for me, the great thing was that I was overwhelmed with how beautiful, thrilling. It was everything to me. I thought I've also now gone back, and I think I've read every Neil Chernow book except for the Warburgs. I haven't read that one, but I mean it put me onto Neil Chernobyl.

[53:26] Rob Russo: Yeah, yeah.

[53:27] Peter Lawrence: But uh, I don't want to have that experience. I don't want to be judgmental. I often am judgmental, but it means that the story's not being told properly. It's a sign of the success of the production that you're not thinking about how it's being made. But I don't go in trying to think about those things. I don't. I don't want to be judgmental. I want to be a theatergoer.

[53:48] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, yeah.

[53:50] Peter Lawrence: I have the same experience, you know, as somebody I, I read about the theater as you know from a critical standpoint. Uh, and every once in a while I say that I'm I'm attending the theater as a civilian, meaning I'm taking off my critic hat and I'm here to just enjoy the show and not to have to write about it.

[54:03] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[54:03] Peter Lawrence: So I I can relate to that idea. Because going to the, you'd be surprised how many professionals don't go to the theater. You'd be surprised. Many of my colleagues don't go to the theater. I go all the time. I love going to the theaters. The reason, listen, I got an MFA so I could go back and teach in Hawaii. I wanted to go back and teach the University of Hawaii. I can never leave New York. I mean, how can I give, you know, you how can you give up the theater? You can't.

[54:24] Rob Russo: I'm curious, and you you've you've alluded to a couple of things, which could be the answer, but what would be the advice that you would give to someone who is younger and wants to sort of do what you do?

[54:35] Peter Lawrence: Well, if you could do anything else, do it. Because I think this is not the theater is not for, Charlie, you like that one, right? Uh, the theater is not for everybody. Um, it's hard and it's often cruel. There are a lot of cruelties that happen in the theater. But I think the for me, the the pleasure of it, the the love I feel for it overwhelms everything else. And so I think people who want to get in the theater to make a lot of money, don't do that. You're not going to. People get into the theater because they want to be famous. The chances are you're not going to be. And if you are famous, talk to a famous person and see how great that is. It's horrible. You can't go anywhere, you can't do anything.

You know what I mean? You have to get into the theater because you like the theater itself. It has to speak to you in some way. Look, we're all misfits, right? There's everybody in the theater is a misfit as far as I'm concerned. This is where we belong. We misfits belong here. And once you find that you belong in that in that place, in that theater business, in whatever it is, whatever area you're going to go into, you don't have a choice then. You know? This is I'm I actually believe that the theater taps people. You come with me. You come with me. I believe that. I know it sounds sort of crazy when I say it. So you might want to cut this part out. But I think that most people don't belong in the theater. But those who do don't seem to have a choice. And I'm grateful I didn't have a choice.

[56:09] Jamie DuMont: Doesn't sound crazy at all.

[56:10] Peter Lawrence: Not at all.

[56:10] Jamie DuMont: Um, we have one final question, and that question is uh, was there a show or an experience that made you want to work in the theater when you were younger?

[56:18] Peter Lawrence: When I was about five, I grew up in Ohio. We were living in Cleveland at the time, and I went to Kane Park, the outdoor theater there, and I saw a production of, I think it was Hansel and Gretel, and there was a girl in it who was so pretty, I thought, wow, I want to do that.

[56:37] Rob Russo: Wow.

[56:37] Peter Lawrence: It's always a pretty girl, isn't it?

[56:39] Rob Russo: It is.

[56:40] Peter Lawrence: And I also thought in college, I started out to be a lawyer because my dad was a lawyer, and I thought, well, I'm just not interested in this. And then I thought, oh, the theater. Yeah, okay. Well, I could sleep late. That's where all the girls are. You know, the parties seem good. Well, you know, I had, and I'd always done things like that, you know, since in grade school and things like that. But then once I got into it, I found how interesting it actually was.

[57:00] Rob Russo: It's funny, you're you're not only you're sitting across from a uh uh theater critic, but you're also sitting across from a uh trained lawyer.

[57:06] Peter Lawrence: A trained lawyer.

[57:07] Rob Russo: Oh, is that right?

[57:08] Peter Lawrence: Yeah, yeah.

[57:11] Rob Russo: Yeah, well, the theater calls you, is what you said. It picks you and you picked you.

[57:13] Peter Lawrence: It's a real thing. But the show that just I have to say it, the show that changed my life was Hurley Burley because I'd been doing um, uh I had two, I have four children, two marriages, both divorced twice. Um, that's the other problem with the theater sometimes because you don't have time. But um, I had two kids in college and I was on tour with Zorba, which is a miserable experience for me, and I quit the show um just because I couldn't stand the some of the circumstances on the show. Anyhow, I got a call from Peter Newfeld, a general manager, saying, I got this show for you, and uh, I want to see if you're interested. It goes out of town to Chicago to the Goodman Theater, pays $300 a week.

There's no per diem. The show can't come into New York, it's five hours long and has all these movie stars in it who are gonna be really problematic. And he's and I said, "Why would I take a show like that?" He said, "Mike Nichols is directing it." I said, "I'll take it." At Hurley Burley, and Mike Nichols changed my whole life.

[58:11] Jamie DuMont: Wow.

[58:12] Peter Lawrence: And you went on to work with Mike. How many times?

[58:14] Rob Russo: I mean.

[58:15] Peter Lawrence: I was trying to count on the way down. I think eight or nine, including the television show. But I I'm not really sure. I should actually add it up sometime. But Mike changed my whole life.

[58:26] Jamie DuMont: Incredible.

[58:27] Peter Lawrence: Well, what a good person to change your life.

[58:30] Rob Russo: And thank you for being so generous with your time and sharing with us so much insight.

[58:35] Peter Lawrence: You guys ask good questions.

[58:37] Jamie DuMont: Thank you.

[58:39] Peter Lawrence: Because sometimes it's not fun.

[58:41] Rob Russo: Yeah.

[58:41] Peter Lawrence: Well, we try to make it fun. I mean, we love theater. You know, we it's what you're doing.

[58:45] Peter Lawrence: Well, we all share that, don't we?

[58:47] Rob Russo: Yeah, why else?

[58:47] Peter Lawrence: Why else would we be here?

[58:49] Jamie DuMont: I have no idea.

[58:50] Peter Lawrence: That's very true.

[58:51] Jamie DuMont: Well, thank you.

[58:51] Peter Lawrence: Okay, pleasure, fellas.

[58:59] Rob Russo: That's our show. Thanks for listening. You can hear us anytime on iTunes. The Fabulous Invalid is a production of OM, etcetera and the Fabulous Invalid at LLC, and a proud member of the Broadway Podcast Network. Our theme music is by Lucky Chops. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Aaron Kaufman and Charles Van Kirk. Find us online at the Fabulous Invalid.com and on social media at Fabulous Invalid and on iTunes, Spotify, and wherever you find your podcasts. And be sure to tune in next Wednesday.