This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeanine Tesori: I'm Jeanine Tesori, and this is the Fabulous Invalid.

[0:13] Jamie DuMont: Welcome to the Fabulous Invalid, Broadway's podcast where we present essential conversations with a curated roster of the best, most important, and innovative theater makers working today, from actors to writers, directors, designers, and everyone in between.

[0:27] Jamie DuMont: We took our name from the title of a 1938 play by Kaufman and Hart that has since become a loving nickname for Broadway itself.

[0:34] Jamie DuMont: Always deemed on the verge of decline, yet always bouncing back, the fabulous invalid.

[0:38] Rob Russo: I'm Rob Russo, writer and theater critic with Staged Left.nyc and Stage Left the Podcast.

[0:46] Jamie DuMont: Hi, Rob.

[0:47] Rob Russo: Hi, Jamie.

[0:48] Jamie DuMont: Well, today feels a little bit like Christmas.

[0:51] Rob Russo: Oh my gosh, Christmas in April.

[0:54] Jamie DuMont: Yes.

[0:55] Rob Russo: Well, hey, why not? You know, time's We need a little Christmas, right?

[0:58] Jamie DuMont: This very minute.

[0:59] Rob Russo: I have been saying that for five weeks now.

[1:02] Jamie DuMont: Um revival.

[1:05] Rob Russo: Okay, well, that's all that's a whole nother that's a whole nother podcast.

[1:10] Jamie DuMont: Yeah, absolutely.

[1:11] Jamie DuMont: Um, but today we get to continue our shared obsession with Soft Power, the innovative new musical within a play that ran at the public theater last fall following engagements in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2018.

[1:26] Jamie DuMont: And this week we are joined by the show's composer and co-lyricist, the extraordinary Jeanine Tesori.

[1:33] Rob Russo: Ugh, I love her.

[1:35] Jamie DuMont: I know I'm Jeanine.

[1:37] Rob Russo: I'm actually hold on. I just have to say, I'm almost more excited for you than I am for me.

[1:44] Jamie DuMont: Wow, so generous.

[1:45] Rob Russo: Um, uh that's because Jeanine is widely recognized as one of the most talented and prolific composers working in the theater today, uh, with five Broadway musicals and five Tony Award nominations under her belt, finally winning in 2015 for her score to Fun Home.

[2:02] Rob Russo: Uh, her other major credits include the scores to Violet, uh, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center, the smash hit Tony Award-winning Thoroughly Modern Millie, uh, her extraordinary collaboration with Tony Kushner on Carolina Change, uh, which we have to talk to her about, um, and 2008's Shrek the Musical.

[2:20] Jamie DuMont: Um I I have to stop you there.

[2:23] Jamie DuMont: The fact that the score to Thoroughly Modern Millie came out of the same brain as the person who wrote Carolina Change. I don't know where that talent comes from.

[2:31] Rob Russo: I don't understand how someone can be that brilliant.

[2:37] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[2:37] Rob Russo: Well, that's why I love um her work, because like I I always think of her as as the chameleon of the musical theater, right?

[2:44] Jamie DuMont: I mean, totally right.

[2:46] Rob Russo: I mean, Shrek, she wrote Shrek the musical, right? And then Carolina Change or Soft Power, right? I mean, or Fun Home, right?

[2:51] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[2:54] Rob Russo: You know, I mean, such a diversity of um of talent and skill and subject matter. Um, and yet, you know, it all has that same artistry behind it, which is what's so amazing to see someone have such a diverse musical palette, you know.

[3:11] Jamie DuMont: I don't even have to listen to Fun Home to start crying. I just have to think about it, and I weep.

[3:16] Rob Russo: Oh, what a perfect musical. Truly, truly just a perfect musical from start to finish.

[3:22] Jamie DuMont: We've wanted Jeanine on the show since before we even started doing this show.

[3:27] Rob Russo: In fact, I remember seeing Soft Power in San Francisco before we started our first recording. And what did I I think I texted you immediately, and I was like, we need to call Jeanine Tesori and David Wong and get them on the show.

[3:40] Jamie DuMont: Because I have to talk about Soft Power now.

[3:43] Rob Russo: Right.

[3:43] Jamie DuMont: Um, that didn't quite work out at that moment in time, but thank God it has. And this is like now full circle moment for us to finally talk to Jeanine.

[3:53] Rob Russo: Totally, totally. And you know, and we were fortunate to have a good reason to ask her again, and that was the release of the cast album for Soft Power just last week.

[4:02] Jamie DuMont: I think I'm on listen number 12.

[4:04] Rob Russo: Oh my I've lost count of how many times I've listened to it.

[4:07] Jamie DuMont: It might be more. I I've lost count. Because there I I there was a moment where I uh I go back and I listen to certain things several times in a row, then I move on.

[4:16] Rob Russo: Totally, totally. Uh well, we're gonna talk through the entire score with Jeanine to get her insights uh into the craft behind it all.

[4:26] Jamie DuMont: Maybe we'll get some stories uh that folks might not know. Um but first, you know, in case you miss Soft Power in its prior engagements, um, we thought we'd give a brief overview of the show since we're gonna be talking so much about the nitty-gritty of it in this episode.

[4:41] Rob Russo: Well, Jamie, tell us what the show is about.

[4:43] Jamie DuMont: Well, um, I I am not going to deign to have the brilliance to describe it in a in a pithy way. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna quote David Henry Huang, who, as you alluded to, we had him on the show uh in 2018 and then again in 2019.

[4:57] Jamie DuMont: Um, and we asked him to describe the show, and he gave to date what I think is the best description of it. So I I will read what he said, uh, which is Soft Power is a play that becomes a musical. The first 20 minutes is a comedy that takes place in 2016, and then the show jumps a hundred years into the future, and the incident that we saw has since been mythologized and become the source material for a beloved East-West musical in China.

[5:22] Rob Russo: So, what we're watching for the rest of the show is a future Chinese musical, which celebrates from a Chinese point of view how China stepped in to lead the world when America collapsed after the 2016 election.

[5:33] Jamie DuMont: Only David Henry Huang could string together that paragraph.

[5:36] Rob Russo: Oh, no one else.

[5:37] Jamie DuMont: Right.

[5:38] Jamie DuMont: And we should add that the substance of the incident he's alluding to is a Chinese film executive attending a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, who's then running for president. And then that becomes mythologized as like a reverse version of the King and I, where Hillary Clinton and this Chinese business executive uh film executive have a relationship that teaches them both about America and China and themselves.

[5:58] Rob Russo: And of course, we should mention that David is a character in the show, um, since it's in part inspired by his own harrowing experience being the victim of a hate crime uh walking down the street in Brooklyn. Um, he was stabbed to the neck and almost died, which is horrifying.

[6:13] Jamie DuMont: It is horrifying.

[6:13] Rob Russo: And if that description doesn't make you want to see this show because it needs another production on Broadway, or listen to the album, which is available now and much easier to do, I don't know what will, because it's really it's really brilliant.

[6:29] Jamie DuMont: And and as we've referenced, we we had David and Lee Silverman, the director on our show, joined by uh Lise Allen Lewis, who plays Secretary Clinton and Francis Zhu, who plays David Henry Wong in the piece.

[6:44] Rob Russo: And um, it's definitely worth listening to because it's a really interesting conversation that I think you will enjoy.

[6:51] Jamie DuMont: Yeah.

[6:52] Rob Russo: A good companion piece.

[6:53] Jamie DuMont: Okay, so let's get to our chat with Jeanine.

[6:56] Rob Russo: Let's come to the American.

[7:06] Jamie DuMont: Welcome!

[7:10] Jamie DuMont: Welcome to America. Janine, thank you so much for joining us today.

[7:15] Jeanine Tesori: It is a pleasure.

[7:17] Jeanine Tesori: I had the great pleasure, speaking of pleasure, of uh tuning in to the public theater's uh virtual listening party that you guys had uh last Friday to celebrate the launch of the album.

[7:28] Jeanine Tesori: Um, which was so fun. I felt like I was in a chat room with like all my friends, but my friends just happen to be all these great theater writers and actors, you know.

[7:36] Jamie DuMont: Um but you texted something in that chat uh early on that I thought was quite poignant. You wrote, um, theater disappears, but it doesn't disappear in your memory or on a cast album.

[7:48] Jamie DuMont: Um and we both adore Soft Power. Um so it certainly lives on in our memories, but we're so thrilled that there's now a cast album to supplement that memory. Um as a composer with a prolific number of works, how does it feel to have your work memorialized in a cast album?

[8:05] Jeanine Tesori: Well, I think part of the reason I was so glad that you were on that chat too. It was really fun bantering with you. It was a bar without the noise, and I mean it was really that was really fun and um brought us together.

[8:19] Jeanine Tesori: I I think a cast album for me is that what's hard about it is you it's it's a little bit written in stone. And I remember when I was a young music director and I would listen to the album and I think that's what they did. They held that note for this long, and I would take all these notes against the score, not realizing that you know, yes, it's definitive in a way, but it it's it's it's not as calcified as as that. These are works that according to the audience, they're in there that the audience is a scene partner with uh with a a cast.

[8:51] Jeanine Tesori: So um, yes, they're definitive in the in terms of the interpretation because we all agree upon it, but at the same time, um, that is the the way that we did it, how many every years ago? So that said, I'm so glad that people can listen to that work.

[9:09] Jamie DuMont: But before we talk through the the album, and we we want to kind of go quickly track by track, I'm just curious how your process for writing the score, uh how you and David worked together, or how how the whole thing started.

[9:22] Jeanine Tesori: Well, the you know, the whole thing started. David had come over to my studio to ask me about teaching at Columbia, and then on his way out, and I will never forget this, and this was way before the election, and way before he was the victim of a crime, he said, you know, I'm I have this idea, and and then he told me the idea, and I thought that's a golden idea. That is a really amazing idea. That will be really hard.

[9:47] Jeanine Tesori: And so it took a little while. He had um a version, of course, that was before the election, and then the election happened, and then stabbing happened. And I I wasn't sure the the lens with which we were going to see the work, or or that I was going to figure out, you know, in a way we were both playing Chinese authors. I was playing a Chinese composer, and then I thought, oh, if there was a way that they could use the musical as inspiration because it was in the future, but not quite get it. That was my way in.

[10:23] Jeanine Tesori: And it's so amazing because um, you know, the the songs do grow so organically out of the scenes, it's all so integrated. Um, and yet, as you alluded to already, you know, it's a rather difficult concept. And you know, we are obviously as the audience have the benefit of seeing the finished product, but you started with a blank page.

[10:40] Jamie DuMont: So I'm curious from uh from a composition point of view, what was the first piece that you tackled in terms of writing the score?

[10:50] Jeanine Tesori: Oh wow, that is such a good question. I'm not sure what exactly the first one was. I know that I am was definitely up there because we were trying to figure out our own voice and the voice of these two Chinese artists.

[11:12] Jeanine Tesori: And that's what was so difficult. Um so I would I was trying to find out, you know, so not everything wasn't a pastiche in a way that we were really using our our own hearts and our own voices to uh to get in there.

[11:31] Jeanine Tesori: And also my love of the form, the form of American musical theater is very difficult to wrangle. And I I love that these two writers, you know, and um that they're giving it a try. And and it comes from a deep love of it. That I think was the foremost that we weren't mocking it, that we were really saying, you know, we're trying something on in a way, it's an appropriation.

[11:59] Jamie DuMont: And it's such a fascinating task for you as a composer, I would imagine, to also be playing a role, because that's not typically the case, right?

[12:08] Jeanine Tesori: Um, you know, you you had to assume the identity of another writer in order to write the score, right?

[12:15] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah, yeah. It was a it was a maybe one layer, you know, it's a very ambitious, it's a very ambitious premise. And um, I it it it it forced me to look at work in a in a new way, and usually it's just through the character that you're thinking, yeah, and everything you write, you're in you're in that character somewhere.

[12:35] Jeanine Tesori: But this was your writing as another writer writing for a character. So it looked it is a lot of you know, if it were um a pastry, it would definitely be a croissant.

[12:46] Jamie DuMont: I think a croissant that's filled with something.

[12:48] Jeanine Tesori: Right oh, I like it.

[12:51] Jamie DuMont: Well, let's dig into the album. I think obviously the place to start would be with the overture.

[13:27] Jeanine Tesori: Did you always intend to write an overture or was there a moment where you debated whether or not to do it?

[13:33] Jeanine Tesori: Always, always an overture, always. I love overtures, and I I um you know the last overture I wrote, because overtures are not in style anymore. Right now, the last one was Millie, and I had to do a lot of versions before that one.

[13:48] Jeanine Tesori: I think the Millie overture is successful, but man, it took me a while. And there are those great overtures that just say, sit down, you're here, be here now, and then the horns go boop, boop, boop, boo, and it's so delightful.

[14:25] Jeanine Tesori: But now it's just dun d-da-dun dun dun, b-da-da. You know, how does it? You're just right in. So if I do it now too. You're just right in. Right. So uh it was really fun. I wanted to use the overture as a juxtaposition against something. The tuning for me has always been very mysterious. It's all filled with anticipation as every player, and we had 23 people. So their version of what an A is and finding the A. And as you know, um in Chinese uh a Chinese orchestra when I was there in China, and you have a section of Air Who, and deciding on an A is not the thing. Much like their language, the pitch information goes all in a spectrum. It's not like A 440, which used to be in Bach's time a different number.

So that was the tuning to me was a great metaphor of the whole thing of yes, can we find one note? Does it matter? I don't know. Wow. And and I I'm curious, I imagine the overture was probably something you wrote um after having a sense of the full score, right? So you could pick which theme would be the one, or is it something that you write as you're going along?

[15:41] Jeanine Tesori: Well, when we were putting this together over a series of many readings, I it used to be that the monologue was actually in juxtaposition in a very ironic way about what was happening. So he'd say, and I was stabbed, and then the orchestra would say, and it was it was competing. So we we dropped that. That was an idea that was what I call the playbill note, where you'd have to really read about it. It wasn't working in real time. It was an interesting idea that didn't work. And I I did want the orchestra to usher us into the different time, into this other space through the tuning, and then uh and then you know, literally sound the portal through which this character is going. And it turns out he's going deep into his unconsciousness.

And what better way to do that than with a string section? When we had Lee Silverman on the show last year, um, she kept on saying that the Wizard of Oz was your North Star. And I I love that idea of stepping into a different world, and it's so clearly, you know, happens in this with this one piece of music.

[16:50] Jeanine Tesori: Yes, it's true. Yes, I am dutiful. Yes, you are dutiful. I get it, I am beautiful. We are Chinese. So moving on to the sort of, I guess you would say opening number, the first uh song piece in the show, uh, which is dutiful, um, both the overture and this song to me instantly evoke um sort of the sound and the sensibility of Rogers and Hammerstein, um, which I know, you know, you as and the whole writing team took as inspiration for the show as as being sort of a reverse king and I. Um, I'm wondering if if that is something that you were thinking about, if it was deliberately in your mind to be sort of quoting Rogers and Hammerstein, or is it all just sort of you know musical theater and and it all the inspiration sort of melds together?

[18:04] Jeanine Tesori: I it was definitely golden age. We were trying to um that's what we were aiming for, and we're certainly aiming for the sound. That's why I wanted the orchestra when there were budget concerns, which I understood, and I said in non-aggressive way, it has to be with an orchestra or it won't make its point. If you don't want an orchestra, let's not do it, which I'm fine with. Because it you have to have a string section. You can't have 12 pieces, it's not chamber. South Pacific with 12 pieces is very different than with the sound of you know the omniscience of an orchestra so with something like dutiful, and I was also looking at the tropes of of you know the ship coming into port and and the plane and the idea of a child who is afraid, or the of a teaching song, the adult, but we're completely reversing them and yet evoking a time where that kind of music, all of those composers, so many of them, Vincent Humans, Richard Rogers, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, they had a deep classical knowledge. And so we were trying to write in that vein.

[19:36] Jeanine Tesori: Stop and think of your grandpa and the sacrifice he made for family. Now dry your tears and smile. Papa, I'm afraid.

[20:16] Jeanine Tesori: Moving on to Welcome to America, now, which is a very different uh type of song thematically and musically. It um it's it's a rap song in many ways. Was that the first time you ever wrote a rap song?

[20:29] Jeanine Tesori: I I guess it's a rap song. We were just trying to figure out how um, you know, rhythmically to change and to have had listened to again a lot of versions. These were these were people like what I was doing with the golden age, they would be doing with the modern musical. So it was people looking back at people looking back with all of these. Uh and uh we I I just wanted something, and I was I was saying to someone in in in the cascan, anybody is anybody really comfortable with spitting, and and then Gina said, Yes, I can do it. And so we just wrote something for her on the spot. It was totally, she was, she just did some stuff, and then we wrote it uh on there. Just really, it was more to again just to carry us from one place to another.

But it also to me, it really sounds like you're setting the tone for this America that that's been created, correct? Like stylistically, that moment beautifully sets up this not characterization of America, but this heightened sense of what of what people think America is.

[21:39] Jeanine Tesori: Yes, we also wanted to. I know, and I we we talked about our experiences all the way through. And because it was a predominantly Asian American cast and crew, orchestra, uh creative team, the we we had that point of view. They were in the room. And and yet we were all when we talked about flying into JFK, that feeling of just being assaulted. You know, you just don't. I still, when I I f well well, when we used to fly in there, that it's like I don't ever still know where are you going? Where am I going? Where are the cabs? It's now you have to take a plane to a train to a you know, arrows on the floor and an elevator and an escalator to get to a cab. And I think if I were coming from another country, I would be absolutely lost.

I'm already lost and I live here. So it's that emotionally feeling like, especially before there was that crackdown about people saying, You want to ride? You want to ride? Cab, cab, and you know, that that was the experience there. So we wanted to bring that to the forefront.

[22:41] Jeanine Tesori: Need a ride or so! What a roll like home, need a guide! Yo, yo, welcome to our crazy fucking country. But you know, I will protect you. I see you're not light, but you know I will respect you with your gold bill fold. So let me be your guy. You know I can see in all directions, 'cause I'm round eye, bang, bang! Dirty hairy bang bang, I'm your ride with my crucifix and gun off holy in your side. Bang, bang, dirty, hairy, bang, bang. To the head in the land of the free and the home of the dead.

[23:11] Jeanine Tesori: Uh well, moving on to uh Fu Sheng Park. This to me is another song that really demonstrates the value of having that full string section. Um, you know, it's so sweeping and beautiful. There's a particular melodic theme in this song that shows up elsewhere in the score. That um and I, you know, uh as a someone consuming a musical, you know, there's a lot going on in a musical, so you don't necessarily pick up on that the first time that you see it. Um, you know, and it and it's operating, of course, right, on you, and you might not be able to figure out, you know, what exactly is happening. Um, but I I've noticed that, and I'm wondering if you could speak to that particular theme itself, and um, you know, why why it does show up elsewhere in the score.

[23:56] Jeanine Tesori: 10,000 baby more chin that seemed to stretch to the sea. You are children, free.

[24:39] Jeanine Tesori: I did it a cultural exchange, you know, when I was in my 20s, I I produced a hundreds and hundreds of hours of world music. It's it's part of how I was trained. And you know, just in the studio and in China and in different countries and in the South here, and symphonies, front porch, peepau players. Um when I was in China, uh I remember this just the I remember the feeling of it, and also the beauty of the flutes and um this some of the sparse way that they would play in in octaves and and the flutes would sort of dip down, the Tai Chi, hundreds of people doing Tai Chi in the streets, and uh the pentatonic, and you know, that that um those those movements and the sparseness of it is for me was so evocative, it had beauty and sorrow and longing, and um, and yet when you put it starts the overture, gung, gung, gung, gung, kaboom, dung, dung, dung, dung.

So it could be anywhere. And then when you when you have it in a different orchestration and it's sparse and people are slowly moving across the stage, I thought it was it would it would um dramatize the pull of an Asian American to his home country.

[26:07] Jeanine Tesori: There's also something that I've noticed um about the the score, um, you know, sort of um thematically, it it seems to me, and we'll certainly get more into this uh with the next song, um I'm with her, um, that uh uh so many of the uh moments that are more sort of grounded and and an earnest um and poignant um are the songs that are in exchange between characters who are in the reality of of the piece Asian American or Asian, um and then the songs sort of anchored by the white people, um, you know, who were played by Asian American actors uh for the most part in the show, um are more ironic or satirical. Um was that just you know, stepping back from the whole piece, was that uh you know uh the a choice that you all made, or it is it just sort of came from the the situations?

[27:03] Jeanine Tesori: I think it did come from the situation, but I I think you know, hearing you say that I think that that is that feels correct. And I think because the protagonist or the shared protagonist path is uh uh these two men who sort of for me are the split between where where your family came from and where your family is, and the idea of the perpetual foreigner and the pain that I've heard so many people are cast mostly because we heard them speak so often about what it's like to, as David would say, go around with this face, and this face being a signifier of being the other. And I of course don't have that. I have the uh a different journey, and and yeah, it didn't occur to me until I really stopped and listened. So I think we wanted to, and I wanted to really concentrate on my most authentic voice for their for um Shui Xing and for DHH.

[28:13] Jeanine Tesori: Well, moving on to that next song, I'm with her. Um David credits you with coining the term uh delivery system uh to describe how musicals operate.

[28:24] Jeanine Tesori: Um and this show obviously very clearly demonstrates this idea, but so does this song in particular. I feel like it, you know, it's the first sort of like up tempo classic kind of musical theatery song that you really you know experience. Um, and of course it's anchored by the Hillary Clinton character, um, who um, you know, is a rather you know heightened uh personality as well. Um I'm wondering, you know, when you went about writing a song like "I'm with her," um, you know, is it challenging to quote musical styles without them sounding like parodies? Because you mean you already alluded to the fact you didn't want to write pastiches, you wanted to write songs that authentically felt like they were embodying the style.

[29:04] Jeanine Tesori: Yes, exactly. I mean, I think that people have always said that about my work. Some people love it, some people really do not. I mean, it's been made clear to me both ways, and then the beauty of age is that you give less and less of an expletive here. Um but I I do I think that I have, and maybe it's because I didn't go to graduate school, I studied music, but I've always felt like I've been chasing music my whole life. My grandfather was a composer and died so early and couldn't make a living as a musician. And I, you know, he died pumping gas, and I do feel this real pull from him, and I always feel like I'm just chasing something. I never quite feel, you know, I think that people always say, Oh, you're so strong and confident.

And I think you have no idea. You have no idea. I mean, I've worked really hard and I've tried to learn as much as possible, but there is the chase of this form. This form is like a slippery fish. And so when when there are these tropes, I so love that's what that's what the great fun of this was. I thought, I don't care what people think. I want to just dive head into the things I love about musical theater and the reason I think they work, just on a rhythmic scale, or uh, or the the way that you the rapture of them and the way that you can go into these, just take a moment, or when that you need a shipy cigarette break, or we when you need this, and and just sort of delight in it. And that was the great fun about and dun dun.

And she's talking about data, and you know, we do it in electoral college, which it was really important. We had to take a stand because there was a lot of pressure to cut that, and I was like, I'm not cutting it. I'm not cutting it, because it's really important to me that we keep that in, and and David as well. And it's that delivery system about you put something, it's that old joke of your sister Rose is dead, and it's funny because the singing telegram has the there's the content, and then there's the way your sister Rose is dead, is delivered. That makes it funny.

[31:19] Jeanine Tesori: Hello, voters. We got promo blood. We got complicated problems all across our nation. Bank reforming, global warming, too much. Militarization. I made up my plans. You can read them now or later. I provided some divided off with critical data. The thing I love about "I'm with her" is the dance break and how it goes from, you know, as you said, like a music man, very, very sort of um golden age musical, and then there's disco in there, or and I didn't even hear, like when she says pose, and the music changes, for the first time today on my ninth or tenth listen, I heard a little bit of like disco or a little bit of like Marvin Hamlish 70s musical, and it was so delicious to to be able to, it's like it's like peeling an onion. Every time I listen, there's another layer that you get to, and it's just a delight.

[33:28] Jeanine Tesori: I think that what we decided about these writers, where there is there, they were sort of at the beginning of writing musicals when you tend to just be you know spitting out things that you have you have in your ear before you develop and you synthesize something and then your own voice comes out. And so it was it's just this buffet of like this and that and that, and then you just write, and and so we we caught them at this moment that they were they they just without even knowing that they were writing in the styles of all of these writers. There's also a really uh incredible metaphor at work in that moment, right? Because she's she's um you know doing her campaign pitch, right? And she's switching styles, she's sort of code switching to appeal to different sectors of the electorate, right?

So first it's swing, then it's hip-hop, uh, and then she does a tap dance, you know, and it's it's entertaining and it's funny, uh, but it also reveals you know something so true about our electoral system, which you know is later directly said it's all a big big show, right? And how how a politician sort of has to schizophrenically be all things to all people. They have to tap dance and rap and and do swing.

[34:44] Jeanine Tesori: Correct, correct. And also I think because it's so, as you said, it's become so performative, and there are these, that's why I think watching Hillary or any woman, but particularly Hillary is when you see early in her career what she was asked about um in Arkansas, we're about to table settings. You you there's there's one reel where you see question after question after question about table settings in particular, and that was in so painful for me. Then there's also the allusion to code switching that happens when with Asian men, you know, the the uh Asian American men, there's an emasculation that I think that happens, and and they have to constantly a lot of people have to code switch. Uh, a lot of people of color have to code switch in this country for the comfort of other people.

You know, black men in particular have to do, they have to do something with their anger so that it's digestible for other people, otherwise it's too much. And uh so we we watch her go through the same thing, but it's manifest in different styles of music, as you said.

[36:10] Jeanine Tesori: Moving on to "It Just Takes Time," um, you know, that song is is another, you know, really clear manifestation of the idea of a reverse king and I, because here you have um, you know, Shing teaching Hillary something, which are you know the the tones of the Mandarin um language. Um during that uh virtual listening party that we were both talking about, um, someone asked you uh directly if it was challenging incorporating the Mandarin tones into the composition of the music for this song. Um, and you responded very candidly, uh, quote, it was a nightmare. Um you said uh mostly because I can't learn it. So I was just writing what was impossible for my ear to hear. I was wondering if you could expand on that idea of writing something that you can't hear.

[36:56] Jeanine Tesori: Well, it it didn't have to, um, the writing of that song actually flowed pretty well because I cannot, cannot to date say Shui Xing properly. And every time I say it, the the you know, people are like they look at me, I can't, it's not in my ear. It's like German. I cannot speak German. I lived there for a year. I it it's and I have a pretty good ear, but I can't hear it. And uh I I I think it's maybe because I play a well-tempered instrument, or I I don't know. And and so it was so frustrating, but I really loved turning it, you know, dumb bum bum bum, which is the opposite of bum bum bum. Let's start at the very beginning.

[37:42] Jeanine Tesori: In Chinese, there are four tones. Each tone changes the meaning of the word. The first tone is flat, high pitched and floating. How lovely not to talk about voting. Shing, sing, sing, sing, sing, shing, sing. No, that's not really it. When you see how Americans have just not ever, for me, considered ourselves citizens of the world. I feel like this the United States of America are not united. They're the states of America. I feel like every state feels like a country. And so when when you really look at who we are with everything, and I feel like we're patriots, we fight for this country. But when you really look at it, it's it's so jarring to see someone teach an American how to speak. It was really great because it's absolutely true.

We we do not push people to be bilingual or trilingual here. And there's so many of our European friends speak three, four languages because there is a fluidity there. Um and and not here because we've we've sort of been isolationist. Um so it was it was hard to do because I I had to get the the the you know, learning about the tones. I also had to feel like, oh wait, that's wrong, and then organize it. Organizing it was the nightmare.

[39:16] Jeanine Tesori: Let's start at the very beginning of very good place to start. When you read, you begin with A B C. When you sing, you begin with Doré Me. The first three notes just happen to be me. Come, I'll make it easier for you. Listen. I also find just you know, personally, because I, you know, I we talked about this, um, but you know, I I know Hillary Clinton and I I've worked for her for 12 years. And I loved this moment in uh because a leader, you know, who was uh sort of open hearted enough and to to want to learn something and to witness her struggling with it, um, and you know, have her her outbursts, um, but ultimately, you know, getting it and learning something, you know, and having that cultural exchange.

I thought it was a very, it was part of, you know, to your earlier point about not wanting to make fun of the the characters or the form you know I feel like the song is a perfect example of of you achieving on that goal because it humanizes both characters and is also such a celebration of of the form itself.

[40:43] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah I I feel like what we wanted to do especially with Hillary is I I do think that part of me died that day that she lost that that night I would say I mean it it just I I feel like there's a part I will never get back and um and I still hear the cries of my daughter sobbing. I've never heard the sounds coming out of my daughter two years ago when she was 20 and she came in and it wasn't just about Hillary and it was completely about Hillary. It was about something we thought was possible and perhaps perhaps Ms. Clinton knew on some level that they were never going to give it to her. And um and so I just felt the ceiling lower and that is just a reality check of like oh right that thing here it is and so I I didn't want anybody to be there was no mocking there was an idea of of underneath what we want from our politicians this perfection we ask of the women in charge the way that we want to no matter in bipartisan or not you're wrong it's like okay I might be wrong about that let me check and this this this desire to publicly shame people to bring them down a notch.

I find it so insufferable. And um, and so I I I feel like that was really behind our desire to say this woman has been at the service, like her or not like her, or any politician, except for the politicians we know who are absolutely corrupt and and you know, make up their own facts and the leadership of this country. But you know, you the service, the years of sacrifice, you can't I can't even imagine being in the public eye like that.

[42:35] Jeanine Tesori: Is that one of the reasons that it was so important that you keep election night and not cut it? The reason that, um, the election night for me, and that, you know, we each had our sort of flags to fly, and that was definitely mine. I just I remember saying to a couple of really smart people, I said, I just I've cut more work. I'm like, if I were a pie maker, there'd be crust all over my floor. But nobody understands how the electoral system works in this country. Nobody, even the people understand it for me, they cannot explain it to people in a way. Like I wish that Governor Cuomo would explain it because he would be like, I loved his explanation of the federal and the state level. He's like, the federal is like a paint roller, and the role that you just roll the paint, and then at the state level, you come in with a brush on the corners.

That's the state. And I thought, you just explain everything to us. Really? You know, he's so delightful with that, but it is impossible. It's impossible. I know that there was a desire not to have direct democracy, but it is ludicrous as a system. And so I just had to hammer home that during this umpa umpa umpa, that there is this incredibly dense, impossible, it should be able, it should be understandable, comprehensible, and it is not, and we have to have it. Each of the 50 states receives a number of electors equal to its total number of senators and representatives. Electors are pledged to vote for the candidate of the party, unless they choose not to watch the winner, the majority of votes in each state take all the states elected, it'll winner take all system why the electoral college ensured that smaller and rural states had a disproportionate say in selecting a president which in the leading of our great nation ensure they could keep their select.

Hail hail the word of the ballot, hail hail the word of the ballots. And the next president of the United States is the word of the ballot, not Hillary Clinton. It's very well, you've done a very good job of explaining it. You really have.

[45:04] Jeanine Tesori: But I also love, you know, sort of musically how you're bopping along to this, you know, really delightful, fun song. Um, but if you pay attention to the words, it's like, oh yeah, this is actually really quite demented. Um, and then when you shift to the portion where it's now on to the college, the electoral college, suddenly the melody isn't as hummable, right? Suddenly it becomes a little more discordant because what you're describing becomes so much more inexplicable and confusing. There used to be this section, and we had to cut it because it didn't quite work, where he would do that whole section and then throw it to them, and there would be 30 seconds of everybody trying to repeat it.

And I loved it, but it didn't work. So we had to cut it. But it was to your point, we're trying to dramatize that is not something that anyone could ever sing unless you really studied it for a very long time. And then we move on to I am, uh, which you know closes out act one. And you mentioned earlier it was one of the earlier pieces that you had that you had written. And this song to me, you know, sort of echoes back to dutiful, which started act one in that, you know, that the lyric being, I am uh I am Chinese, um, you know, I am American, is what he sings, but he also, you know, is embracing that that two-faced nature that you were talking about, having to sort of straddle those those two identities. I don't have to play a role. I'm not too house. I'm wrong. Enough just as I have. It's something to be parallel. I guess that's why. I guess that's who I am. I am Chinese, I am American.

[47:19] Jeanine Tesori: The last 10 years, but specifically the last two years, I've been really interested in the precision of language in musical theater and the idea of what justice really, what it really means. And you know, I took a law course there so I could understand because the justice system works in metaphor the same way that theater works at, you see, two lawyers presenting your story, your narrative, to a little audience of 12 people and letting them decide like as an audience what your fate is going to be. And this idea of being from one and being from another and the state of limbo. And when I took a course called Dismantling Racism, they were saying that one of the costs of however, if you consider yourself a white American, is this isolation, this you're divorced from your culture.

So that and I feel that as an Italian American, I have memories of people speaking Italian and memories of all the kinds of cooking. Can I make it? Can I speak it? I cannot. And along the way, we lost a lot of that. And so I think there's a feeling about floating in the sea, and how does one integrate one's culture and become, quote, an American. And I think that is the state of limbo that that song addresses.

[48:58] Jeanine Tesori: I am afraid. Emotions mustn't guide you. Feelings always pass. They always America. Why do I cry for America?

[50:05] Jeanine Tesori: So moving on to Act Two, you know, begins with the entree act, which of course is another convention of musical theater that I assume you knew you had to have, you know, um an entree act. Um, and then Song of the Campaign, which we already talked about, you know, sort of your motivation behind wanting to address the way that women are perceived in politics. And that's to me is what the song is really about. I wanted to um, you know, also following the the panel, which was to me my favorite part of the show. I wish we could have recorded it. But I, you know, I was I've always been interested that they call it the campaign trail. So the, the again, the trope dung dun dunk, dun dun, dun dun, dun, of what must it feel like to be in six cities in one day?

It's like, what must that feel like, you know, to just be like slogging it out and what you have to do, and how exhausted you must be when you even start to lead the amount of money that's been spent and the time spent persuading people. I mean, it just I I don't under I don't understand it, but that's the feeling I wanted to evoke when that was just the hardship.

[51:15] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah. Well, I um you know, I I worked on that campaign and I experienced it. My particular job was doing the briefing book for the secretary. So I was very much talking about the trail, you know, I was living each day with her, and then it became all the other super surrogates who were on the trail as well, which was a whole other challenge. But um putting it lightly, um, but um thank you for for speaking to that because I, you know, for me as someone who was on the inside and then now, you know, obviously is experiencing a work of art that's reflecting it back to me. Um it's very it's it's so satisfying to see the recognition of the work because you know, I sat back from the 2016 campaign and thought we worked so hard, we did so much, we poured so much into this, and then it was just gone in you know, in a flash, and much like the theater, it it was so ephemeral.

You know, there was nothing tangible that you could really, you know, carry forward. Um but um in particular with the song, I I want to share with you because I I shared this with Elise when we talked to her. Um, you know, I I know the secretary didn't get a chance to see the show while it was at the public. Um, but we talked about it, you know, because I saw the show and I wrote about it and we had them on the podcast. Um, and I told her about this particular scene. This was the one that I wanted to tell her about. And I said, Well, you know, she's she's singing the song while eating pizza and ice cream, and you know, it's this whole, it's this whole visual, you know, thing you can experience.

And I sat back and I was like, I don't know if that's you know, if that was the most accurate thing. And she laughed and said, well, not far from the truth. You know, so that's fantastic. You all tapped into something there that um, you know, is you know, not only perhaps true for her, but also just so universally human, right? That like any one of us is suffering a setback. What do we want to do? We just want to sit in our you know pajamas and eat ice cream, you know. I mean, it's so human.

[53:10] Jeanine Tesori: I think the human thing also is, and it's one thing that we wrote about so much of the time in Fun Home, is that just the need to be parented. I don't care how old you are. I think the state of being alive is the need to be led well. That's what we look to our leaders. I think that our leaders were looking to them to be parented well, and that's not about to be placated or or or or patronized. It's to it's to be organized and to be true and to do the best you can and to set a tone. And so I could feel that because one of the things that I wanted to have her having comfort food, because one has to be comforted in that time. And um, so I'm I'm glad that that got that response.

[53:58] Jeanine Tesori: I haven't washed my hair or changed my clothes in 10 days. Of Hillary Mick statement. Your Hillary, we were so damn sure, Hillary. Now you are just like Gore Hillary, poor Hillary, poor Hillary, poor Hillary, poor Hillary. No more interviews, no more photo ops, because I'm never running for president ever again. I wonder, however, if the secretary can sing while eating ice cream as well as Elise can. I don't know. I would love to have a challenge.

[54:41] Jeanine Tesori: Amazing. So the next song is Happy Enough, which is another really beautiful moment. And here, um, you know, sort of for the first time, you see the character of Hillary having one of those um moments I spoke about earlier of, you know, sort of the the earnest um non-ironic, non-satirical, you know, exchange with um Shui Singh. Now I'm now saying his name wrong. Um I was wondering if you could tell us about um, you know, sort of the the way that this moment dramatically comes together, and then obviously with the song.

[55:21] Jeanine Tesori: Well, um we when I was listening to it was it was extraordinary being uh around uh having so many Korean American, Japanese American, uh Vietnamese American, Chinese American, Filipino American, everybody, um, and and sort of sharing what the the culture, Asian American parents, Asian parents, and um and the commonality that can, you know, what they had in common, and this idea of what you I think the farewell did it. You know, the this idea of of what's performative, of of what's the distance between what your interior, uh what you are in your essence, and what your identity is. Joseph Campbell talks about that all the time. And and so their identities have met. She is the stronger. He is the strong Asian, you know, the courage and no emotion and that, and then their essences meet.

And they, in telling each other what's happening behind that, behind the wall, in a way, that becomes love that when you really know the the way that someone is authentically operating. And so that, yeah, that was really the motor for that song. Your people, they never get to see this side of you. This part I keep for myself.

[56:53] Jeanine Tesori: Now we both know what we hide from the world. And isn't that love? Is that love? Isn't that love? Is that love to lose your face? And open your heart.

[57:36] Jeanine Tesori: And I love too that the love that they share is that complicated and deep and profound. It's not a silly romance that gets mythologized. It's an actual relationship that, you know, has depth to it.

[57:55] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah, it's uh, I think again, the delivery system, you know, R and H, um, but I love them what they wrote that they wrote about in South Pacific and Carousel, they wrote of their time and ahead of it, and now when you look back at that time, you know, of course there are issues with it, because I don't, except for Hamilton and 1776, there are very few musicals that pay specific attention to history, and um, so one shouldn't look at learning history from The King and I, uh, but I think when you look at the exchange in inside the love song, and still it's with that romantic sound of two people that have a mutuality.

[58:45] Jeanine Tesori: That to me is where the dissonance is. It's like wait, they're both giving and taking. It's not one character saying, you know, love him no matter what, he'll leave you, he'll like ignore you, he might hit you. You love him, and I think I don't want to write that.

[59:26] Jeanine Tesori: He has a throng call through that should not. Moving on to uh the White House uh with good guy uh with a gun. Um you and I had a little colloquy about this during that virtual listening um party. Um but the song begins with a very clear ode to Aaron Copeland um and later directly quotes uh Simple Gifts.

[1:00:04] Jeanine Tesori: Uh I was wondering if you could talk to us about the decision to incorporate those references in this song in particular.

[1:00:27] Jeanine Tesori: Uh I think the exuberance that uh I, you know, I anybody who is on the far right and waving the flag of family, of values, and then it reminds me of when I was raised a Roman Catholic, and remember the priest saying, it's one thing to be in here and listening to me. And then I see a lot of you in the parking lot just not treating each other well as you stream out of here. If you're going to live it, live it.

[1:00:57] Jeanine Tesori: That, you know, I didn't listen a lot when I was younger and in church because I was just dreaming about not being in church.

[1:01:04] Jeanine Tesori: But in right, it's like when you take yoga and they say it's not about the mat.

[1:01:11] Jeanine Tesori: It's not about sitting in the pew, it's about living those things.

[1:01:14] Jeanine Tesori: And

[1:01:14] Jeanine Tesori: And so uh I think it was the same way that I know that for the Second Amendment that there are people who really stand by their need to bear arms. I get it, but.

[1:01:30] Jeanine Tesori: But in this country, it has, as we all know, developed into something that is horrific. It's horrific what has happened. And it's behind the banner of don't you take away my, you know, don't take it away. It's like, oh my God, that was from a different time and place. And now it does feel so late.

[1:01:52] Jeanine Tesori: And I've heard it quoted that saying, you know, when something horrific happens, and someone will say, well, that's the price of freedom. I think, is it the price of freedom? So and yet when you listen to people who are defending it, they feel and consider themselves to be absolutely good guys with a gun.

[1:02:11] Jeanine Tesori: That's a quote. That's a quote that David used from a politician. They feel that they are correct. So we didn't want to, you know, it's we it's to me it's not about mocking it. It's about someone who actually might share that ideology and think that's right.

[1:02:28] Jeanine Tesori: That's right. That's how you defend your home. No American would throw away his gun. Come on! Good guy with the gun. Good guy with that gun.

[1:02:46] Jeanine Tesori: That's why no Eric can withdraw away. That's why the Rick would go. Bang! Correct me if I'm wrong, but um in an earlier draft or iteration of the show as you were developing it before the 20 before the outcome of the 2016 election, um, was there more of a focus on guns and gun violence in terms of the storyline, or am I just it was everywhere through there?

[1:03:34] Jeanine Tesori: I don't know, I think that you know in LA for sure, everybody had a gun, everybody pulled out a gun, and I think we were reacting to the fact that I we all felt that everybody was just pulling out guns all the time and killing people.

[1:03:50] Jeanine Tesori: And there was there were there are hope, I don't know where we are now because we're in a in a new world, but there were many, it seemed like confused and angry young men, particularly young white men who had no like a place to place their aggression and confusion, apprehension, and they had an opportunity to have a weapon and um and make people pay for I I guess what they couldn't metabolize.

[1:04:25] Jeanine Tesori: I'm just guessing at all of this, and I feel like we were trying to put that into the show, but but then there was a feeling that, and I think it was true that it was upstaging a lot of the other messages going on, and it's not a show about gun violence, it's it's a show about um America.

[1:04:45] Jeanine Tesori: It's interesting though, as the show progressed from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then to the public theater, and with that course of time, over you know, that period of time, and as you continue to work on the show, it's amazing how at this moment in the show, the the from good guy with a gun to the end, how much clearer and sharper your message became.

[1:05:09] Jeanine Tesori: And moments that I didn't remember feeling as ominous in San Francisco felt much more ominous at the public, and moments that I don't remember being as hopeful felt way more hopeful at the public. So it's interesting how it it it the message became so much sharper as as the piece went on.

[1:05:27] Jeanine Tesori: I mean, the the work on the piece. I I'm glad I mean it's really gratifying to hear you say that because I think that's what we were really trying to do with something that's it's very ambitious piece, and trying to match the skill with the ambition is is hard.

[1:05:41] Jeanine Tesori: And as Sunheim always says that clarity, clarity, clarity. And we wanted to uh end with a for me, it's the moral imperative to end with hope, because I'm not really interested in something that doesn't make me want to either go write or read more or ask something or talk with the person next to me about what I just saw.

[1:06:01] Jeanine Tesori: The fact that it activates something in a in a Brechttian sense, I feel like Brecht, I I'm not a Brechttian scholar, but the feeling I've always gotten from Brecht is that you left there and you felt like there was there was work to do.

[1:06:14] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah. Like Tony Kushner, the The Great Work Begins. And so I I feel like we wanted to do that, and we wanted to, you know, as with always in a musical, it's a house of cards.

[1:06:25] Jeanine Tesori: How Prince always said that it was so true. I think it's Jenga, naked Jenga.

[1:06:29] Jeanine Tesori: And naked Jenga. Naked Jenga.

[1:06:35] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah. Well, the song The New Silk Road, um, you know, which sort of carried, you know, as part of the squashendo towards the end of the show, um, to me has only become more poignant in the months since the show played at the public.

[1:06:48] Jeanine Tesori: I mean, it's like you with this pandemic and and obviously, you know, uh US-China relations just sort of continuing to escalate in this war of words and you know this idea of us coming together and learning from each other, you know, like it has only come into higher relief.

[1:07:06] Jeanine Tesori: I you it was such an interesting the press briefing today with Cuomo, and at every time they were saying something about the escalation that I'm testing, or he was like, Well, the chemicals are made in China. Yes, those swabs are, you know, you we it China kept being mentioned, and I thought, boy, that you know, President Trump better be very careful about the language he uses about China right now because we seem to be depending on them an awful lot.

[1:07:33] Jeanine Tesori: And I don't know if you saw The Economist, there's this idea that after this will, I mean, China will clearly I I don't know if it's it's clearly, but it's arguable that they will be leading the way forward.

[1:07:47] Jeanine Tesori: Well, I mean, you know, the show was called Soft Power for a Reason, right? And you know, that notion of how a country can expand its power non-coercively, but through other means, you know, one of those means is through the economy, right?

[1:08:01] Jeanine Tesori: Um, and um that we're certainly experiencing that. Um, you know, there's another um musical quote that I couldn't help but hear at the end of this song, which I don't know if it's intentional or maybe I'm just fantasizing it.

[1:08:14] Jeanine Tesori: Um but it is there uh sort of an allusion to you'll never walk alone from Carousel.

[1:08:19] Jeanine Tesori: Yeah, there is.

[1:08:20] Jeanine Tesori: Oh, only you would get that. It's that raised fifth bomb bomb bomb.

[1:08:53] Jeanine Tesori: And I wanted to do it in this Beethoven way in the um a cappella section because I nationalist music is always super uncomfortable for me.

[1:09:04] Jeanine Tesori: And what's happening? And it's so beautiful. And when I you you look at um Nazi Germany and some of that music, and you're like, please make it stop. Because the beauty you and the revelation of the evil and the way that those two things meet, it's it's so uncomfortable.

[1:09:34] Jeanine Tesori: Let's come together. Let us help forget what we are walled. Walk beside us, walk beside us, walk beside us, walk beside us.

[1:10:16] Jeanine Tesori: Well, getting back to the note of hope, um, democracy, which uh obviously is first sung by Hillary and then um in the reprise sung by the the full ensemble.

[1:10:26] Jeanine Tesori: Um I I had to laugh. Sam Pinkleton called this the love on top of musical theater uh in that in that listening party.

[1:10:34] Jeanine Tesori: Um how many modulations are there in this song? Is it possible to know?

[1:10:42] Jeanine Tesori: Uh well, what strikes me about this song, other than the fact that I'm just obsessed with it, is that um a rather stark departure from the rest of the entire score.

[1:10:53] Jeanine Tesori: Um, it has sort of an R&B feel to it. And I was wondering why you decided to use that idiom for this moment in the show.

[1:11:02] Jeanine Tesori: I think because I feel like Secretary Clinton is a super badass. And I wanted her to sing like a super badass. Yeah. And I wanted her for one moment to be able to go to church, and I wanted her to just like be sexy, and because I think she's sexy, and she's a woman. And I think the desire for us to make a masculine being out of her makes me very angry. Um I just that's it more, it came more from a feeling of how I wanted that moment to go because I do think that it's a plea, I think it's a prayer. I think it comes from a deep place. And I, you know, I think of theater as church and um and the theater of politics and the idea that it's coming from a deep belief. I think it's a deep, deep belief. I believe in it. Um it's very hard to put together with what's happening and try to predict what will happen to it. But at its best, if we can really imagine a way that democracy could work, I think that's where it comes from.

[1:12:21] Jeanine Tesori: I swear I'll give it up before it downright kills me, then it comes back again with promises that thrill me. And I forget what I really should know, and I forget that it's just a big, big show. And I dream, oh, I dream of all it could be, and once more, I believe, I believe, I believe in democracy. Democracy. And there's an idea expressed in the lyrics that for me, you know, being as despondent as I was, and I imagine everyone else, you know, to have been in the wake of the 2016 election, um, you know, when I heard the song in LA, um, and the words in particular, it was it was, in fact, one of the first times I felt hope. Um, because of the very clear articulation of the idea that um we have the power, right?

There's it's so easy to get swept up and to feel powerless and um particularly to be made to feel powerless but what the song expresses to me at least is that idea that um democracy means us right and it takes all of us and if we want to change it we're the ones who have to do it um and and for Hillary Clinton to be delivering that message right the person who should be the most cynical the most upset the most willing to walk away and say you know what screw all of you for her to say I still believe in democracy right is so is such a powerful moment uh both in in you know the words and the delivery of it and then to have that full ensemble sing those words you know an entire cast of Asian American actors facing the audience and saying those words um is incredibly powerful.

[1:14:38] Jeanine Tesori: It was you know the um when we first we had a small listening party of course with just the orchestra and the cast and that was right when it just we had just Matt Stein had finished mixing and uh it was the start of as you know some a new wave of xenophobia and racism um some of our cast had been spit on yelled at and um to see them together in that song and then as it ended it was the first time the 7 p.m clapping in Manhattan started and I just thought those are those beacons that you look to, whatever one believes, that's the the idea of of uh of morality of the ethical imperative to your civic responsibility, you know, the the good and bad, those those ideas, boy, they really um those are when I think the fundamentals and really look to those of treat people well, treat yourself well, treat people well and fairly, repair reparations with all that all that looks like, and looking at all of their faces.

[1:15:55] Jeanine Tesori: Well, in the in the wake of that, it was right after he Trump had called the um virus the Chinese virus, and it's so the recklessness with which he uses language, language matters, and it really mattered that day. Well, you you alluded to this answer a moment ago, but I feel like since we asked David and we asked Lee and Francis and Elise this question, although it meant something different in November of last year. Um, I have to ask you, do you still believe in democracy?

[1:16:31] Jeanine Tesori: Oh, absolutely. I do. I do because I can't, I do it's it's one of the reasons I didn't want to leave New York City. I didn't leave New York City after 9-11. I'm not leaving now. I feel like when you really, Tony Christner said this to me when we were, he was stuck in, I think he was in Ireland after 9-11, and I was sick about it. I was so worried about so many things, but him, and I'm so worried now. And and we were talking about leaving, and he said, You can't leave, you have to stay in the conversation. And the way he said it, it it it wasn't um, you know, it wasn't in a punishing kind of way. He was like the wrestle, the the wrest with it, but the imagination, imagining a time, imagine what democracy looks like.

For me, that's the whole point. It's a messy system. And I think when people would like it to be really neat, but um, I don't uh, you know, uh, do I stand by what's happening in this country right now? I do not, but I also look to the people who are taking a stand, and this next generation and the people who I know who are activating something incredibly important, and I do imagine a better time, so I do believe in it. Look, this country is a disaster in so many ways. But we have the power. We have the power. We have the power to change.

[1:18:07] Jeanine Tesori: That's why I can leave. I know, I know, I know, I know. I believe. Oh, I believe, I believe in democracy.

[1:18:36] Jamie DuMont: Well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and talking through the entire uh album to Soft Power for us. Um, I have to say, before we let you go, um, you just mentioned Tony Kushner, and we cannot have you on the show without talking ever so briefly about Carolina Change, um, which is one of our absolute favorite musicals, speaking for both of us. We were so thrilled when Roundabout announced that they were going to um push the revival that had been scheduled for the spring uh to next season. Um, just very briefly, what can you tell us about this new production and what it's been like returning to the show 17 years after it began at the public?

[1:19:12] Jeanine Tesori: The beauty of this production, and I'm so pleased that it's not canceled and postponed, is it's so different from the first production. And and uh it really is Michael Longhurst's uh version of it. And and that is delightful because I feel like what the original cast, what Stuart Seabolf did, what all of those designers did was what was very, very specific. And along comes Michael Longhurst, who's never directed a musical before. And it's this interpretation of this piece that I, you know, I think it's really wonderful, and yet still at the source is this this relationship and what happens when you tarnish a relationship that is already complicated with an economic obligation. And it's I mean, what when Tony came to me with that idea so long ago, it was like when David said that idea that day, and I thought this is gonna be really hard and worth every minute.

[1:20:16] Jamie DuMont: Well, thank thank goodness um that you did write that show and that we will get a chance to see it again um in the very near future. Um and in fact, I I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit because I think um Rob and I are gonna want to do another show on Carolina, an entire show on Carolina Change. So we might be calling you again.

[1:20:36] Jeanine Tesori: Count me in. And also, I do know there was an agency, and they had you know, in one of the Zoom parties, it was a theme, and everybody came as their favorite character of a musical, and a very prominent agent came as the washing machine. And I have a picture. And it makes me laugh every day. It's delightful and very specific.

[1:20:56] Rob Russo: All right. Well, that that steals the thunder of my Halloween costume, which is pocket change.

[1:21:01] Jamie DuMont: Um so lastly, and we ask every single person, including Secretary Clinton, this question. And that question is what was that thing that made you want to do what you do now? Was there a specific show or moment that made you want to compose music?

[1:21:19] Jeanine Tesori: Well, uh there were there were two moments they're related. One was when I, you know, I was in music really early, and then I left, and then I came back, I went to Stage Door Manor. And the moment I walked into it was what we called the barn. And and it was it was that's why I think I feel like theater is a little like church. And I remember this feeling of being home, and I thought that's so weird. I don't know how I know how to do this because I haven't been, you know, I quit music for four years, and I don't know why I feel such an ease with doing theater because I'd never done it before. So that was absolutely the moment I remember it. And the other one was when my mother gave me the music of my grandfather, and and the wooden um his music stand and his baton. And it was again a feeling of being tied to something, about being tethered to something real. And and those those two moments is when I knew.

[1:22:16] Rob Russo: Where is the music stand at Baton now?

[1:22:18] Jeanine Tesori: They're at my mom's.

[1:22:20] Rob Russo: Oh, excellent.

[1:22:21] Jamie DuMont: All right. Well, thank you so much. This has been a delight, and we are we are so thrilled to get to continue to listen to this magnificent and powerful score that you have created.

[1:22:33] Jeanine Tesori: Your enthusiasm and support for this uh is really I'm I I'm I'm gonna need it in the coming weeks, and I appreciate it from both of you.

[1:22:43] Rob Russo: Well, we look forward to seeing another production of it soon. In fact, we we had actually talked about this with Lee and David, which is to see it in rep with the king and I. And that and that would be, I think, really interesting. But um we'll see.

[1:23:01] Jeanine Tesori: That had not been discussed. Now that's really interesting. I got I got I've got so many ideas.

[1:23:08] Rob Russo: Uh good.

[1:23:09] Jamie DuMont: All right. Well, thank you so much, and um be well.

[1:23:14] Jeanine Tesori: And I forget what I really should know.

[1:23:18] Jeanine Tesori: I forget that it's such a big big show.

[1:23:23] Jamie DuMont: Jamie here, that's our show. Thank you for listening. At this difficult time, please consider making a donation to the Actors Fund at ActorsFund.org. The Fabulous Invalid is a production of OM etcetera and the Fabulous Invalid 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 Charles Van Kirk. Find us online at thefabulousinvalid.com and on social media at Fabulous Invalid and on iTunes, Spotify, and wherever you find your podcast. Be sure to tune in next Wednesday. Stay well and be safe.

[1:24:06] Jeanine Tesori: America. Look, our country's a disaster. In so many ways, but we have the power.

[1:24:15] Jeanine Tesori: This is America. This is America. This is America.

[1:24:37] Jeanine Tesori: Be your whole fool. Good fortune will follow if we somehow survive.