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[0:00] Josh: And tonight we are.

[0:10] Josh: Hey Queens, what's going on? It is Josh here. Welcome back to the Queendom Podcast. We are here for another amazing week of chatting to some amazing people from the world of SIX. And this week we are heading to the US once again to chat with Eliza Ohman, who is one of the associate choreographers on SIX: The Musical for the Broadway audition. You guys would know Eliza from such shows as Hamilton, just a little tiny show, King Kong as well, and she's done a whole host of other amazing things, and I am really excited to sit down and chat with her. I have been such a big fan of Eliza's for so many years now, so to get this time to have a chat was really amazing. Another big thing that's happening this week, guys, is that TFTV, TheatreFans TV that I am helping produce, we have just launched subscriptions.

That's right. This week is our first full week of content. We have a Monday moment, which is our weekly interview session with Mariah Rosefaith. Taylor is running that one from Mingles. We also have this week joining us for our first Wednesday set list, which is our weekly concert. Athena Collins is dropping by from SIX. She is doing an amazing concert. I've put that one together and got to listen to it, and she is absolutely fantastic. So make sure you guys head along and check that out. It's £15 a month, and you'll be able to find subscriptions on theatrefanstv.com. But for now, we are gonna get stuck in with our episode with Eliza Ohman, live from New York. Here we go. It is time to get down. I'm the Queen of the Castle. Get down, you dirty Ross to get down.

[0:12] Josh: Hey Queens, and welcome back to the Queendom Podcast. I am here today with Chipotle Connoisseur and Double Chin Master, Eliza Ohman. How are you going, Eliza?

[1:56] Eliza Ohman: Hello, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[2:01] Josh: Anytime. I am so excited to have you here. For you guys that have been listening to this podcast for a while, you will have heard me talk about Hamilton a little bit. And Eliza was kind of in my original founding times of Hamilton. She was like a part of the cast that I kind of came into Hamilton on. So Eliza holds a special place in my heart when it comes to Hamilton and SIX now. So this is exciting times.

[2:32] Eliza Ohman: Oh, I'm so honored.

[2:34] Josh: Man, and if you guys haven't heard of Eliza, you're missing out because even if it's just for her stories and a dog, Brewer, like that should be enough.

[2:46] Eliza Ohman: Brewer is kind of like the dog of Instagram.

[2:50] Eliza Ohman: Yes, I'm actually I regularly get requests of starting a TikTok account so that I can make Brewer like internet famous. And I gotta be honest, I know my personality too well, and I just know that if I get a TikTok, that will be all I do. And I would like to still do other things and not be on my phone that often. But Brewer is definitely like a highlight in my everyday, I would say.

[3:16] Josh: 100%. So to start things off, what's your favorite sports team?

[3:23] Eliza Ohman: My favorite sports team. I'm gonna go with the Denver Broncos, but just underneath them would be the New Orleans Saints.

[3:30] Josh: Oh, I'm so glad you said the Saints just then, because we were gonna have an issue if it was just a Broncos. So okay.

[3:35] Eliza Ohman: Oh my goodness, you have opinions about the Denver Broncos.

[3:39] Josh: Wait, I'm not a Broncos fan at all. I mean, I just am very loyal. I grew up in a sports family. I'm from Colorado. I've grown up watching Colorado sports since I really can remember. But my father is from New Orleans, so we also grew up watching the New Orleans Saints. Like my grandfather actually had season tickets to the Saints when they first built the new stadium, and it was so they're a huge part of our family.

[4:05] Eliza Ohman: No both.

[4:13] Josh: I would second that.

[4:15] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. What's your favorite downtime activity?

[4:19] Eliza Ohman: Well, I love reading. So I try to read about a book a week. But otherwise, I'm also in the last year been trying to teach myself how to play guitar. So I spend about 30 minutes a day trying to learn the guitar, and I actually feel as though it's a special skill that you can spend so much time actively learning something and still be god-awful. It's ridiculously hard. Like I've literally got one sitting behind me and I can like play like basic chords, and that's about it. I'm like, I mean, I slay a G chord. No one plays G better than me. But um F is a different situation. It brings out a lot of other F words, in fact.

[5:00] Josh: 100%.

[5:01] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. As soon as you get to those points where you've got to stretch fingers further than they've got to be stretched, you're like, uh what? Like, how does it be? And I've discovered I have sort of like hyper-extended fingers or something, like they're very bouncy. And so sometimes I tried to change chords, it's like I'll be holding a G, and then I try to switch to C, but my middle finger is like doing a weird thing, and like my pinky bounces. So I think, but I'm committed. I'm gonna get there. But it's been a longer journey than I anticipated.

[5:29] Josh: This is wonderful. Um, what's your favorite food?

[5:33] Eliza Ohman: Favorite food. I'm a sucker for dollar pizza. I think I'm one of the only people that crave dollar pizza when they're not drunk or hungover. I'm on that when I'm in New York, like find me dollar pizza anywhere. I'm there, like it is oh one of the best spots. Now I'm gonna tell everyone, and then perhaps I'll never be able to go again. But the best dollar pizza spot in my opinion, or one of the best. I won't say the best because I'm always open to finding something new. But one that I frequent is right next to the Colbert show. It's on Broadway between what is that 54th and 55th? Yeah. Right in the middle of the street on the west side of Broadway. That one is probably my most regular go-to.

[6:17] Eliza Ohman: I will second that. They do have amazing pizza.

[6:20] Josh: I have it's delightful. Oh man, I'm like, we're just gonna go down a hole here. Musical theater in New York. Like, we're just mixing my two favorite things together to go. Speaking of New York, what's your favorite thing about the city?

[6:35] Eliza Ohman: Hmm. Oh, I love that question. Mostly because I have such a love-hate relationship with New York, which I feel like is a sign of being a true New Yorker. Yeah, I've been here for 11 years now. Um, and I love to hate New York, but I also really love it. Um my favorite thing about the city. Actually, weirdly, what I think I surprised me the most about the city and offers the most like solace for me is that there are parks everywhere. It's so simple to find a park and feel like you've escaped the city for a moment, and I really value that. That's what baffles me is that you can walk down a street or walk into like a certain area and then feel like you're not in New York anymore. Like you just kind of transport into another world, and you're like, uh, hi, uh, how do I get out of here?

[7:25] Josh: 100%. I get lost in New York fairly regularly because I just love taking a turn whenever I see a pretty street and just kind of letting that lead where I go, and I'll always discover a new restaurant that I had no idea existed. Um for my whenever I walk Brewer, I mean not in the summer because he's such a ham, he can't handle the heat. He gets like six blocks and that's it. But in the fall, I would say 65 degrees is his ideal weather. So in the fall, we get some really nice walks. And in our neighborhood that I've lived in for seven years now, I still am finding new places. I'm like, when did this always been here?

[8:03] Eliza Ohman: Yeah, and like I've been to New York like three times, and I've always stayed at the same hotel, um, the row in the theater district.

[8:10] Josh: Oh sure, right on eighth.

[8:12] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Um, and my last time I was there for the Moulin Rouge Benefit concert down in Soho.

[8:20] Josh: Oh, cool.

[8:21] Eliza Ohman: So I walked from that all the way down to Soho, and I was like just discovering things left, right, and I was like, this is sick. Like, how did I not know about this? And like, oh yeah, it's a fantastic city. Um go if you haven't been and yeah, if you don't like it, add me.

[8:40] Josh: Um let's talk about you and the arts because your resume is ridiculously long, um, ridiculously stacked. Um, and I love it to pieces. So, how did you get into performing and theater?

[8:58] Eliza Ohman: Well, I've grown up dancing. I've been dancing since I was three years old. Um, I tell this story a lot, but the thing I just always loved movie musicals. I just loved seeing any celebration of dance in any capacity. And we would rent Singing in the Rain on VHS from the library and then just renew it on a weekly basis, or sometimes we'd have to return it, but then we'd get to re-rent it and then you know, go through the whole renewal process. And they finally gave us the copy because we were pretty much the only ones that checked it out, and they I don't know, knew that I loved it so much. And these sweet librarians in my small town in Colorado just gave us Singing in the Rain. Um, so I've just always been drawn to any sort of celebration of dance, the communication it offers, the percussiveness of it, the excitement of it.

I just love it, and I always have, and I enjoy all forms of really music and how you can move to them. It's always been a really exciting journey for me to figure out what I feel like the music is telling me to do from a movement perspective. Um, but then I didn't go to college for dance. My degree is in media culture and the arts. So I studied art history, cultural studies, philosophy, political science, how all of these things sort of intersect. And then my last semester of college, I felt like I was ready to get back into dance. I had sort of gone through this self-discovery journey of realizing I had no idea who I was apart from dance. And I think it can be really dangerous if our identity and our value is wrapped up in something that we love, because even though it's a part of me, it's a gift, it defines part of who I am, but it is not the thing that says this is why I'm valuable as a human being.

[10:14] Josh: Yeah.

[10:14] Eliza Ohman: And I felt like I didn't know that, and I needed to take space from dance and really find myself in order to be a better artist. And so I got back into dancing my last semester of college. I went through this program at Broadway Dance Center that transferred into my university for I think it was 12 practicum credits, and then I was still taking some classes on campus and working two jobs, and I'd signed with my agency, and I was also planning a wedding. I was just telling my friend this the other day. Like I actually don't know how I was functioning because I say all those things out loud and I think, when did I sleep? Because I had homework to do and I was starving all the time. Like I was ravenously hungry from taking like 40 hours of dance.

I mean, it was a mess. But it happened by the grace of God, it all happened, and I graduated and I had my agents. Um so yeah, from there is when I just started. I didn't grow up doing theater. I didn't do it at my high school, I didn't do it in New York. I really honestly just blindly fell into this career knowing I love to dance, but having no idea what it was really gonna look like or require. And so my first few years of dancing, I was doing Radio City and I was doing gigs for SNL and for the Tonight Show when America's Got Talent, uh, or like spots for different brands. And then I kind of just found myself itching for musical theater and feeling curious about it. Um, so I just started auditioning.

I started, I was non-equity, I just started going to local calls and seeing who when you know, it's I always call being non-equity is being part of the Hunger Games. It's so, and it's just gotten worse. I mean, like, people are hungry for jobs, and so you're just waiting for hours hoping to be seen, and you feel like you're a leper in the room because the equity women are trying to warm up, but the non-equity women are in the room just trying to like see if their name gets called or if they've made an announcement, but it's also that room is like so crowded, and it's the theater speak of like, oh well, what have you been doing? And instead of people saying what they've been doing, they're like what's actually going on in their life, they're like, Oh, well, I did summer stock and it's going really well, and it's just like it's exhausting in every level.

You've been up since six in the morning, you're just hearing everyone trying to prove themselves, you're trying to be warm, and you're trying to be positive, and it's a nightmare. But anyway, finally I got a show, and my first musical theater job was Kiss Me Kate at Shakespeare Theater in DC. And it was with this all-star cast. It had Robin Herder in it, Clyde Alves, Douglas Sills, Christine. I always say Sherrill, but I think it's actually Christine Cheryl. So sorry, Christine. Um, and then all of the ensemble were really experienced performers. Um, Brandon Bieber was in it, and I got a chance to work with him recently on Fosse Burden, and it was such a special reunion. Um, Monette McKay, I mean, just superstars.

[13:42] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. And that was my first like being thrown into musical theater, and I just got such an itch for it, and I loved it, and I was really excited at the chance to keep working in theater. I sat in the wings and I would just watch Robin sing, you know, that second number. Oh my god, she's unbelievable. She is dreams. She is everything that I hope to be as a performer. She's so spectacular and so special, and she and Clyde and their son are just the most delightful human beings. I'm so grateful to have known them and got a chance. You learn so much by watching people in a job. Yeah. And having the opportunity to see them at their best. And for me, it was so inspiring. And I felt like I was just hungry.

It made me hungry and it made me want to do more. Which is the same thing as being hungry. I've now just said it in two different ways. Um, but yeah, that's how I got into it. And then when I came back from that show, because it was N DC and we had so many New York people in it, a lot of casting directors and friends had come down to see it. And so when I came back to New York in January after our run, I felt like my agents were saying the same thing. Like there was just a little bit of a buzz because no one really knew who I was. And so then I started getting called in for stuff instead of having to wait at ECCs. And so that was a huge game changer for me of just getting into the room is half the battle.

And then once you're in the room, it's like God knows what I can only do what I can do. So you just hope you're standing in the right place at the right time, in the right color with the right hair. Like you never know. But you just gotta show up. And so that's what I did. I just kept showing up until someone hired me.

[15:24] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. See you guys, 100% what Rosie and I went through last week with um casting. It's it's pretty much getting your name out there, who you know, not what you know. Just kind of try and get your name out there. Um before we dive back into theater, let's talk about your TV credits because your television credits are incredible. Um, you mentioned Saturday Night Live uh tonight's show. You've done Last Week Tonight, America's Got Talent. Um I saw you were a finalist in So You Think You Can Dance. Um, Flossy Vidong. Yeah, that's a long time ago. They're incredible. Like, what's it like to work on so those live shows like the Tonight Show, Last Week Tonight, Saturday Night Live, what was it like to kind of get in there and get to perform on those shows?

[16:16] Eliza Ohman: Live television is terrifying because you have I can picture what 1,200 people look like because I've worked on Broadway, and I can picture what 50,000 people look like because I've seen a game at Yankee Stadium, and I can picture what a hundred thousand people look like because I've been to a college football game. But the idea that there are 12 million or 18 million or any millions of people watching something at once, I cannot fathom. And so you feel at SNL, what's great is it's a live studio audience, so you're not just performing to in no man's land where you feel totally separated from the world. But there is a it is a different energy to know that whatever happens right now, everyone will see, versus I get 20 tries to do the best version, and then hopefully in post they pick the right clip. So live television is horrifying.

[17:22] Eliza Ohman: And Danielle Flora um has choreographed all the stuff that I've done on SNL. She is just one of the most delightful people to work with because she's so high energy. She stands behind the camera and is like cheering you on and like dancing with you the whole time. She's delightful, and it's fast-paced, and she's really great with comedy choreography. Um, but we did our dress rehearsal because you always film the dress rehearsal in SNL because if something goes wrong, whether it's the power goes out or whatever, they have something that they could potentially air at night if they needed to. I think it's only happened maybe twice in the history of the show. But regardless, the dress rehearsal is the real show, so you just treat it as such.

And we did our number, but we were in boots. Um, and there was a moment where we did a double turn down to our knee, flicked back into some sort of layout, came back up to our knee and popped back up. And it was fine, it's not very difficult, particularly in flats. But after the dress rehearsal, they called us over and they're like, Oh, girls, we want actually want to make an adjustment to your shoes. I said, Oh, sure. I'm always a game player, happy to try anything. And so I said, Great. And so they showed us the shoes, and it was this um five-inch pump with a one-inch platform. And they said, We just think this will look better because we were in these disco jumpsuits. And I said, Great, sure.

And then they were like, Well, let's see which one works. And I was like, uh-huh. So I put the shoe on, and then they were they said, How does it fit? And I was like, it fits great, it fits perfectly. And then they walked away, and I was like, Oh my god, what am I gonna do? Freaking out. So me and the other girl that were doing it is um D Thomasetta, we're practicing over and over again because I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna feel I'm like sweating profusely, and I'm just thinking, I'm gonna be on live television and I'm gonna do this thing on this the freeze stage, and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it. Freaking out. Um, but you know, it's all fine. It all worked out. No one fell flat on their face, and it's so exhilarating.

I mean, you're shaking for like two hours after you've done your three-second bit. I mean, it's a little bit longer than that, but it feels like an eternity and also the fastest thing you've ever done. So I would say live television is terrifying, and I think probably I will never be over the fact that it's terrifying.

[19:42] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Um, but just film shows like when we did Fossy Verde, those days are long, and you're doing the same thing over and over again, and you're having to bring show level energy out of your performance to a bunch of people that are standing in a room staring at you while they hold a device. And so that's a really weird experience that if you're accustomed to performing in theater, you don't realize how much energy you get from the audience and what a difference that makes. And so that's sort of like a really helpful learning process of what kind of energy do you want to be on set, so that you're always in the right mindset to produce whatever they're asking of you, but then also an opportunity to observe the type of leadership around you and how that makes a difference for how the set is run.

So when we did our Fosse episode, uh our number was choreographed by Andy Blinkenbuhler, but Susie Meisner was our point person on set because she at that point Andy had already gone back to London for a film, and so Susie was taking over for the rest of the season. And so he had literally flown to New York for our rehearsal day. The next day was in DC for the Kennedy Center honors, and then the next day was back in London. And so we met Susie on set while she's blocked, re-blocking and kind of fixing our number, but she was so great, as was everyone on set that day, and that also really helps set the tone. But you know, you're just cold, you're doing things for long periods of time, you're standing, you're in your costume for a long time. It's hard. It's basically it's like being in a tech day, but having to do the show full out every single time you run it.

[21:24] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. And you know, actors are notorious for complaining about tech. It's like, oh, my feet hurt, I'm so exhausted. Oh, I put on sneakers, but I'm still so tired. And it's like, there are worse things. Also, you're paid to be here. So there's that.

[21:40] Eliza Ohman: All right. Let's jump into another cool category. Um, your film and music video credits because you've got some pretty cool people that you've worked with on this side of things. Um, I think was Drake's beef SNL. Yes. Yeah, cool. I like topped it up and I was like, I'm pretty sure this is an SNL skit. It is an SNL skit. You look at Drake, Kylie Ray Gibson, Tom Hanks, Justin Baber, Lonely Islands. What's it like to kind of be around those people in that setting? Like you were the uh assistant choreographer with Kylie Ray Jepsen's music video with Tom Hanks and Justin Baber, and you got to kind of walk through choreography with them. So, what was it like kind of going into that?

[22:27] Eliza Ohman: Yeah, what I think is so interesting about working with different people from different industries is that you so quickly learn how everyone processes information, and it's that's really all it takes to be able to teach someone anything. I always say in an audition, I know I can teach anyone with enough time to do exactly what I need them to do, but only if they're willing to try. And so what was delightful in that day on the music video with like Carly Ray Judson and Justin Bieber and Tom Hanks is that they were just all game to do it and they were game to rehearse. And as long as people are willing to work hard and don't mind being outside their comfort zones, I mean, life is a dream. It's so simple.

And so Tom Hanks kept our energies up. It was the coldest day on record in 2016. It was, or was it 2015? 2015. And it was I think it was 2015. That was around like the blizzard time, wasn't it? Like that was yes, it was shortly, it was after a blizzard, but it was, I think a high of maybe 11 degrees that day. But we were there on set really early, like four or five in the morning. Um then we were there until about 7 or 8 p.m. And so you're just outside for long periods of time and music videos are kind of new to the sag world. And so the consistency of having a tent space and having warmers and things like that weren't really a thing yet. And we were shooting outside. And so Tom Hanks, bless his heart, just wanted to practice over and over again, keep us moving.

He would call a penguin huddle so that we could all just be close and have body warmth from everyone around. Um it's just lovely when you see hyper talented people who have seen major success also continue one to value excellence, but more importantly to value humanity.

[24:39] Eliza Ohman: Yeah, I love that. That's a perfect little bit of gold to take away from this episode. Um, and we've still got more gold to dig. Um so let's jump back into theater. Um theater credits are stacked with huge shows. Like you start off with Kiss Me Kate and then you go into 42nd Street. Um 42nd Street, I love purely because of like the just the she is and um just amazing choreography. So, what's it like to what was it like to work on that show?

[25:14] Eliza Ohman: 42nd Street was a really exciting moment for me because as a kid I had grown up being in a pre-professional tap company with my mentor, Professor Robert L. Reed, who passed away about five years ago. And so it was just so exciting to finally be in a show that really celebrated tap dance because I had always been drawn to it as a kid, and it just felt really special in a way to honor what he'd given me and sort of carry on that legacy. And exactly what you're saying, 42nd Street is that era of musical that the story doesn't really so much matter as let me let the story exist so that we can do another huge dance number. So as an ensemblist, 42nd Street is such a blast because you're just constantly moving, you're constantly getting to do different things.

Um, and it's really playful. So I loved that. And there's something so spectacular about that finale moment, you know, it's filled with such genius, the build of the music, the visual of the cast coming up and over the stairs and working their way down and just seeing more and more of them, and then that piece building, and then we had a little a cappella section in the middle of it, and then it went right back into the end. And so it just really, I think an invigorating piece to do. And I got to work with Dennis Jones on that, who I had been auditioning for in the city, but that was our first time really getting to work together. I loved seeing his process and sort of how he ran a room. I call the Muni like adult summer camp, which I never got to go to camp.

So for me, I had like the time of my life, and you're just outside the whole time doing fun things with fun people, and then at night you get to do a show. So it's really, and I don't know if you've had a chance to ever go to St. Louis and see something at the Muni. Not yet. And like because a lot of the Hamilton guys had performed at the Muni as well, because I remember that coming out a ton um on social media. So it's like somewhere that I really want to go just to be able to see a show there. Oh my gosh, I highly recommend it.

[27:18] Eliza Ohman: It is truly a magical place. I got to go back a few years ago for their centennial gala and this immaculate celebration of theater and all that the Muny has done. I mean, giants have performed on that stage, but even just that evening, we had Tommy Tune and Chita Rivera and a host of other people a part of it, and getting to just be in their presence and see them work, oh, we had such a blast. But it's a—I think it seats 12,000 people, and then there's an additional thousand seats that are general seating, like on the grass beyond the Muny. And so it's just this spectacular outdoor amphitheater. They've just done a huge renovation on it. So I think the work that they make next summer is gonna be—there's gonna just be so much life there.

One, because of how much we've waited, how highly anticipated it is to get back to theater, and then that space is really—there's so much history there, it's such a rich history, and so it's really—I was very honored to get to be a part of it, and to do that show again was just a true blast.

[28:21] Josh: Yeah, 100%. We're gonna pull apart a couple of shows. Let's start with King Kong.

[28:26] Eliza Ohman: Okay.

[28:30] Josh: Because you were part of the lab for this show as well, not just the Broadway production, which I didn't know until today. So talk me through the labbing a show. What is that process like?

[28:46] Eliza Ohman: King Kong is the only lab I've ever participated in, and then I also got to see it through to its end stage. So I can only really speak to—aside from what I've heard from other people—what my experience was with that specific show. But what I was excited about in participating in a lab was getting to develop the work really from the beginning and get to see all of its iterations and really flesh out what's essential about this story and how we can tell it better and more clearly. Drew McConey is a choreographer that really comes in with a lot of ideas, so he's not saying, "Oh, come up with a phrase for two eight counts, everyone will present their phrase and then we'll create like a mishmash of stuff."

He has a pretty clear idea of what he wants to execute and create, but then he's also, like anyone, I think inspired by what he sees in the room and what he's observing from people. And so for King Kong in particular, there was such a vision to make sure that because we had a nonverbal character, being a 2,000-pound puppet, it was important to create a language of nonverbal vocabulary. And so he really wanted to focus on choreography and making sure that it was something we always saw, and also ensuring that the choreography had sort of an animalistic, primal quality to it that also really celebrated strength because it's also in a city and it's also to kind of push against maybe some of the—I don't know if you've ever read the novella of King Kong, but it's probably one of the most misogynistic pieces of literature I've ever read.

It's pretty difficult to get through, actually. And so there was also an idea of wanting to kind of push against that, but sometimes that also means you have to present ideas in a choreographic manner and in a storytelling manner that display that perspective because it is part of the story in order to show the difference of other characters that are the antithesis of that. And so it was a three-and-a-half-week rehearsal process from 10 to 6, Monday through Saturday, where we just blocked out from the beginning of the show to the end of the show all of the major sequences that didn't involve the puppet for the lab specifically, because again, I don't know how familiar you are with 2,000-pound puppets. I certainly wasn't prior to working with King Kong, but they don't fit in elevators that are at New 42.

[31:20] Josh: Oh, really?

[31:20] Eliza Ohman: Nor do their apparatus that supports them.

[31:23] Josh: I couldn't even imagine them trying to get it through the door at New 42.

[31:26] Eliza Ohman: Exactly. Yeah, there's no freight elevator that's gonna handle that situation. So we really just explored, it was a lot of partnering, it was a lot of playing around, and he was always—we had, I mean, in that lab alone, I think I partnered eight different boys, and there were only like six or seven of us of the women in that ensemble. But we were just being thrown around all over the place. But one of the biggest things we discovered in the lab was that, sort of what I touched on earlier, in an effort to establish Anne's independence and her strength, what ended up happening is a lot of the time the women weren't being used to our full capacity. And so what I appreciated about the lab is that we all sort of felt that way, and we had created a space where they welcomed our feedback.

And so we asked our associate choreographer, who is Eleanor Scott, if it was possible to talk a little bit more about it. She shared it with the director, and then we got to have a full meeting with some of the producers, the entire creative team, the associates as well, as women in the company, how we felt about how we were being represented. And it's just one of those things where sometimes if your eye hasn't been open to something, you're looking at it from a specific lens and you haven't even realized maybe something else that you've not taken into account. And so the journey of creating that show on Broadway was sort of a continuation of that dialogue. And I think like any piece of work, it always depends who's the final say and what's the goal of the piece and what's their focus.

You don't necessarily get to see all of the things that you would wish to see. When you're working on something from the beginning, you know every ounce of its potential. And so sometimes that's maybe all you see. But it was a really spectacular lesson of just the value of the environment you create as a company and also the importance of collaboration and open discussion. So it's really—I learned so much on that show.

[33:29] Josh: Yeah, amazing. I have always wanted to talk to someone that's been in a lab because like I sit here and watch the YouTube videos of say like Newsies and all of those early labs with like Greatest Showman and all of that, where it's kind of just sing-throughs, and you kind of see everybody in the room that—like the Greatest Showman. I know Brian Terrell Clark was in the lab for that. Seeing those faces, you're like, you weren't in the movie, but like I know you. It's totally interesting to get that experience, like that insight to what actually happens through there, and then following that through to being on stage. What was it like to kind of see the final production come together?

[34:14] Eliza Ohman: Well, what you're saying about the lab is—or workshops and readings, staged readings, whatever it is—is that sometimes it's just a matter of they need to hear some of the songs. So we also did a reading of King Kong later on in the year that included people that were never gonna be part of the show. There was no expectation, but the MD at the time knew people that were available that had the voices that they needed, and we didn't have everyone, and so it was like, oh, this is an easy moment. And so a lot of times in New York, we as performers get the opportunity to see work in its developmental stage, knowing we're never gonna be a part of that production, but also getting to just hear and see what goes on for it.

So then when you get to see it in its final iteration, it's kind of exciting, like that example you gave of Brian. So yeah, seeing the show to its completion was again a really interesting journey because the show, even in the three weeks of labs, changes so much. Even songs are still being written, work is being redone, but they film that process, and then from there, the creative teams and the producers go back and they sort of go through the editing again of, okay, and what's the next draft going to be like? And so you come to that first day of rehearsal, I don't know, eight months after the lab concluded, and you get to learn new songs, you get to maybe relearn your harmony that you'd forgotten.

But then once you hear it, you're like, oh yeah, I remember how this goes. But then sometimes they just cut off one bar, and that one bar is harder to remember than it is to learn a completely new six-minute song. So there's little things like that. And then even then you go through the journey of the four weeks or five weeks in the studio, and then you go to tech, and again the show gets completely stripped down. You're at this point, I don't know, seeing the eighth or ninth version of the show. Because once you see it on stage, a totally different thing happens because all of the technical elements are being involved, and you realize maybe the smallness of something or the bigness of something, where the focus is and where it shouldn't be, things like that.

And so you're constantly waiting and stopping, and then all of a sudden, in the middle of that process, costumes get incorporated, and you realize, well, that change is never gonna happen. So then again, things are being cut around all over the place, but costumes have been designed to accommodate certain things. So it's just—you again, we went through, I don't know, it felt like 50,000 versions of the show. I'm sure it was probably closer to 30, but maybe not. I mean, we changed a lot, and like most shows do. But like we had one weekend in previews where we had scrapped the opening of act two and the finale of act two. The song, the choreography, the costumes, the whole thing got booted. And then one weekend it went into the show.

And it was bananas. We were so exhausted. And you're just doing the show at night thinking, is this right? And like certain words changed so many times that sometimes you can't remember what the word was or is or isn't. I mean, journeys happened. So again, it's just—it's a long process, it's a hard process. You are exhausted by the time the show opens, which is a bummer because it's also, you know, press has been at the show for the previous four previews. And at that point, the show maybe got frozen, I say in quotations, a night before. And so you're still thinking no one's giving their best performance. The last weekend of previews before you open, no one's giving their best performance on opening. People give their best performances on closing.

[39:59] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Always closing a show is the most magical experience because you watch everyone and think, yes, this is the show that we were trying to get. This was the show that you're doing to respect the integrity of the work, to be gracious and generous with your fellow performers. That's not for anyone else except for you, your company, and to honor the material. And that's when it's really the best because people have relieved themselves of so much pressure of being in their head and trying to remember what's next or do everything right. They're just listening on stage and being present. And that's when the show is fantastic. That's when a show that's already great becomes excellent. But even shows that are fine become wonderful in that moment because the performers are there and they're present.

So all that to say, bringing King Kong, I loved getting to see it through every iteration of its journey from pre-pro to lab to readings to pre-pro again to opening to closing. It was really spectacular. But it was exhausting, and we went through a lot, and we really learned how to work together as a company and how to take care of each other and how to speak up for each other, how to call each other out if we needed to. It was a special show. And I actually am gonna be catching up with the female ensemble from that show later tonight. Like we're very much in regular contact.

[40:06] Eliza Ohman: My first audition for Hamilton was in March of 2016 when they were looking for an immediate replacement for the woman two track on Broadway. And I made it all the way to the end. It was between me and two other girls. Hope Easterbrook ended up getting it, and I was obviously super bummed. And then at the same time, shocked because it never in my wildest dreams did I think I would even be called in for Hamilton, let alone be in the final stages of Hamilton. And so I was just thrilled. I think auditioning is free class, and it's an opportunity to just hear from someone who's not teaching as regularly, explore that world in a really focused way. And so I always really love that opportunity because let me tell you, class in New York City is very expensive. I think with a union discount, it might still be $20 a class, which is crazy.

[41:05] Eliza Ohman: So after that audition that I did not get, um, and that audition, I'll say was also like three separate days of auditioning and long days. If you audition for an Andy Blanky Bueller show, one day of audition is still like six hours long, and you learn all kinds of things and you do it over and over and over again. Um they're long. But after then that night, actually, my agent called and said, Hey, I you didn't get the role. We've already talked about that. However, Telse, who's casting the show, just called, and you're being invited to be part of a Hamilton boot camp. And I said, Great. What the heck is a Hamilton boot camp? Um, it was sort of the first time they were doing anything like that.

They had hired 10 of us, five women and five men to learn specific tracks in the show. So that there's four female ensemble dancer tracks and four male ensemble dancer tracks, and then they had two people learn the like swings for the boot camp in this first iteration. Now it's a science. Then we it was still kind of like we no one was really quite sure what was happening. Um but it was two weeks of paid rehearsal. We learned a track, so we learned the staging, the choreography, the vocal line for that track. Um, and we learned I don't know, maybe 10 or 12 numbers. And the whole time it was we it was obviously an extended audition, but they were also framing it as this is a way for us to sort of potentially have a group of people that already know some of the biggest numbers, so that if we need immediate replacements, we'll have a pool of people that we can grab and it'll be a little bit quicker to put them into the show.

[42:54] Eliza Ohman: That's cool because they had never the show was 50 numbers long. I mean, it takes like a lot to safely put someone into the show for a while, it took about five or six weeks if someone was coming in when the show's already up and running, just because of how long it takes them to become familiar with the work to then get them used to the turntables, and then you're like dancing in corsets or these like uncomfortable wool coats. There's a lot of elements. Um, it's a little bit faster now, but at the time, and that's a long time. If someone is only giving you two weeks' notice, it's a lot of strain to put on your swings to be holding one track while we're training someone else to be ready while other people are still exhausted from the three hour musical, they're doing eight times a week.

So the swings also need to be doing other tracks. And it's not like any track can be cut in that show. Um, which in most musicals you can, you just do what's called a split track, and people perform the essential moments for any particular track, but otherwise spacing in things it doesn't really affect, but everything is affected in Hamilton for this. One person's out, the show is out. Um anyway, I did this two-week rehearsal process. The creative team was coming in almost every day. The producers swing would swing by, and we're just learning the show from Stephanie Clemens and Michael Balderama was learning it with us. Um Andy was teaching us a good portion of the material. Alex Lackmore, I mean, like we were learning from everyone, and they were all coming and watching and you know, doing like the whisper thing is very uncomfortable, but also incredible because again, this time it wasn't even free class.

I was being paid to take class, so it's a blast. But then the whole thing ended, and we were like, So what next? Okay. Did I get it? I don't know. So then I went back again in May to audition, and then I had to do this like private vocal session with Alex Lackamore in July because they wanted me to be a universal swing, but Alex had hesitations and wanted to just explore my voice a little bit more. He was right to have those hesitations. I'm not a super trained vocalist. Um I feel like I've everything I've done professionally, I've been like learning on the job. Um, and I I think I'm leagues above where I started. I'm always willing to try though, and maybe that's like what helps me get through because I'm not generally the best in the room at anything, but I'm always the most willing, and I just try to be quick and listen.

[45:22] Eliza Ohman: So I had my session with Alex Lackamore, he was very kind to me. And about 20 minutes or 30 minutes after they were seeing one other person that day, my friend Christina Gler. And so maybe 30 minutes after her audition, I my agents called me and said, You're gonna be the universal swing. And I said, Amazing, what is that? I was just about to say, let's unpack Universal Swing. Because I'm friends with Magic. So, like I Oh my gosh, I love, love, love him. We had done Radio City together. And so when he walked in and I found out he was my male counterpart, it was like instant joy, and I felt so much safer having him by me. Yeah. So I caught out with Magic. Um my not my last trip, the trip before, and um, we went out for a drink, and he kind of unpacked universal swings for me, and my brain kind of just exploded all over the bar. Oh, we were in. Like so, do you want to explain what a universal swing is?

[46:24] Eliza Ohman: I'll do my best. I will say, I just want to preface this with that magic did far more as a universal swing than I ever did. As a universal swing, I really got like the bougie end of that stick because I had it the easiest of all of us that have been universal swings. So Magic and I were the first ones that were hired to be that, and a universal swing, the way Magic describes it is like a super swing because you are a swing for every single North American production, and you can be flown to any of those companies with as little as 24 hours notice, and you would arrive to that company and then perform with those people, possibly even that evening, depending on how extreme the needs are, which magic has definitely been in that circumstance.

Yeah. Um, the what makes being a universal swing tricky, and also, let me just say, I had never been a swing before, and so to have my first swing experience be that was unbelievably terrifying. I just went to bed every night for weeks, so unbelievably overwhelmed and stressed and terrified that I was going to discover that I was not good at being a swing. And I thought, what a terrible way to discover you're bad at something, to be on a dream production and then just fail miserably in front of all of your like heroes in the business. So how Stephanie Clemens realized or felt comfortable trusting me with this, I will never know or understand. But boy, am I grateful because I've never learned more from an experience.

[48:11] Eliza Ohman: So back to being why it's really particularly difficult is that every single company, not just of Hamilton, of any show, is not a carbon copy. They're all different. And the differences vary. So even the ones that aren't giant production numbers, you're still doing little things that involve like props and handing them off to principals. And that's is the kind of stuff that messes with people's performances. And as a swing, the greatest fear is that you're gonna take someone out of their performance because you've done something in a way that distracts them or causes their brain to have to focus on something else. At the same time, being a swing also taught me how to be really gracious towards swings, because it's, I think, also really important as an artist and in a show to be flexible and to be willing to listen.

Because even people that do the show eight times a week are always doing something slightly differently. You're just used to them changing it and the differences happen in incremental ways. So sometimes you don't realize that eight weeks later, the whole blocking has changed tremendously in a way that it shouldn't have. And so there's just a lot of things like that that are teaches you. Yeah, honestly. And people are like, what do you mean? I've always done this. And you're no, that's really incorrect. Oh, oh crap. All right. Yeah. I'm like, I I know that you believe that you've always done this, but in fact, you have not. And we have to put it back now.

[49:58] Eliza Ohman: Um, so anyway, all the shows end up being quite different from each other. Some of those things are intentional. So, in our experience, when they set the Chicago production, which was the show that Magic and I learned first, because we went through the whole rehearsal process with Chicago, um, they were making Andy was making some choreographic adjustments and they were doing some clarifications, some little cleanups. And then also sometimes with certain features, they want to spread out the wealth a little bit more, or certain individuals they think are more suited for it because the reason a particular track originated that was because of their energetic quality and their training. And so they might see someone as a vocalist who is a Charles Lee, but as a dance feature might represent more of what Ephraim Sykes did, who was the original man three.

So then you have this mashup of two tracks existing in this company, and that kind of develops over time in all of the companies. Because what's spectacular about Hamilton is that they really want to celebrate the individual and make sure that people are always being true to themselves because the work isn't good if people are kind of distracted away from that because it's asking you to be an individual in the midst of an ensemble.

[51:17] Eliza Ohman: So anyway, the quick way to say that is the show is different in Chicago than it is in New York. And it's different in small ways, like you cross downstage of in front of someone instead of upstage of someone in satisfied. But then also in large ways, like in the end of room where it happens, about three quarters of the way through the number, all of the women shift into in Chicago different positions than they do in New York. And so because I learned Chicago first, when I learned the New York version of the production, which I'd actually learned originally because I learned Broadway's version when I did the boot camp. So I had to like rewire and then rewire again. Um you organize the information of like, okay, I'm dancing woman one right now, but in another company, this is woman three.

And so you're just sort of like always doing a little bit of a jigsaw puzzle. Um, and then some of the harmony lines are different, and you get in the habit of attaching, for me at least, the way my brain organizes information is that I organize the vocal parts because the women and the men are constantly changing lines in the show. I I organize that with like where I am on stage and what I'm doing physically. And so then to go to another company and think, okay, at this point in this number, I'm singing the alto one line, but I'm still dancing what I would typically associate with the Soprano 2 line. And so it's just a lot of little things like that. Um, but again, I like really could not have had it easier as a universal swing because I debuted in Chicago for a track that I was not watching as my first track, and I debuted on the last preview, and that's like a whole separate story.

But I have been with them the whole time, right? And then almost like two weeks after we opened, I was sent to New York to fill in for a track because Carly Betty All had just left the company. So I was filling in her role for about seven or eight weeks until her replacement was ready. And that was to alleviate any sort of pressure from the swings so that they would be available to actually be swings. So I functioned just in a particular track. And then after that, I had to go back to Chicago, I think three other times. I did end up performing all of the roles in Chicago, but I never had a 24-hour notice trip. I was almost always based in New York. And within about eight or nine months of being with the show, I had become an assistant dance captain in New York.

And so I was still a universal swing, but I was dance captaining in New York. At that point, it didn't really make sense to have me continue to be a universal swing because I was gonna become a co-dance captain and they needed me in New York to be training people. And so then I just got off the hook and I just ended up sitting in New York. Meanwhile, Magic was in Chicago for months. We thought we were gonna be there for maybe three months. He was there for like nine months. He came back to New York.

[54:35] Eliza Ohman: And that's the thing is you're just subject to wherever the greatest need is.

[54:38] Eliza Ohman: What's great about being a universal swing that's different from a vacation swing, which can also function in that capacity, is that no matter what, you're always on payroll because you always are going to the New York theater unless you're out of town.

[54:54] Eliza Ohman: So you're coming into work every day as a regular swing and like that's what you're paid to do.

[54:59] Eliza Ohman: The added issue is that you might also just have to travel.

[55:02] Eliza Ohman: But it's kind of amazing because when you travel, you're put up there, you're on per diem, you're just basically on a little bit of a vacation, a slightly stressful one, but still very hot.

[55:14] Josh: I love that.

[55:15] Josh: Oh what's your favorite?

[55:20] Josh: What was your favorite part to perform in?

[55:23] Eliza Ohman: Oh, not track, but like song to perform in Hamilton.

[55:27] Eliza Ohman: Oh, favorite song to perform.

[55:29] Eliza Ohman: I have like seven, so I'm not even gonna restrict you don't know.

[55:33] Eliza Ohman: Yeah, it's so difficult because it's like on any given night, depending on what's going on in the theater and also um on stage, certain numbers are just so electric, and the way you get to play with certain individuals in certain numbers is really spectacular.

[55:49] Eliza Ohman: Um, as a dancer, I definitely always really love getting to do um Yorktown or the room where it happens.

[55:59] Eliza Ohman: They're just such invigorating numbers.

[56:02] Eliza Ohman: And in a show that really lives in a tension um based energy where you're constantly keeping the pot or keeping the lid on the pot of boiling water and just kind of suppressing that those bubbles and that thing to have those moments of full release is so exhilarating and so those two numbers really have that sort of climax which is really exciting as a performer there maybe though the most fun one for me is actually nonstop yeah I think it that one is really it's just a well crafted number there's so much variety in it you're getting to do a lot of storytelling it has some of my favorite choreographic moments I really enjoy it in each track the female ensemble has a really lovely moment um right after we call it Burr's chorus which is right after the sequence of Alexander Hamilton approaching Aaron Burr asking him to defend the constitution yeah and it goes into that sequence where Burr leaves under the stairs which we call Burr's house and then continues on and the female ensemble participates in a piece of choreography that I think is so genius and also just really thrilling to get to do.

[57:21] Eliza Ohman: I just I something about the tempo of it and the musicality of it and the physicality of it really appeals to me.

[57:29] Eliza Ohman: And then I love the final entrance um when Eliza is speaking to Hamilton right after he's agreed to accept the position as the treasury.

[57:43] Eliza Ohman: Yeah when Eliza is like calling to him and he's saying, I have to go, and the ensemble re enters through the alcove, and they're doing this split step that sort of has this like gargoyle Tetris effect.

[57:56] Eliza Ohman: And I really love that choreography too.

[57:59] Eliza Ohman: I don't know why I love it so much, but every time I got to do it at night, I could like feel it in my whole body.

[58:04] Eliza Ohman: Um, so yeah, I think that is my favorite number to perform actually, even though I love what you get to do in the other two.

[58:10] Eliza Ohman: They're like very satisfying as a dancer.

[58:13] Josh: Yeah, I love that.

[58:15] Josh: Oh, Andy is a legend.

[58:18] Eliza Ohman: Oh, he's a genius.

[58:19] Eliza Ohman: It's actually really aggravating.

[58:21] Eliza Ohman: He's unbelievably brilliant.

[58:24] Eliza Ohman: As is Stephanie Clemens.

[58:25] Eliza Ohman: I mean, they are and she's such a wonderful choreographer in her own right, and then a really brilliant um interpreter and like communicator.

[58:35] Eliza Ohman: I feel like I really learned a lot from her, and any job I've done since then of dance captaining or being an associate is modeled after what I observed in her and how she approaches communicating material to people, maintaining the material, understanding someone else's brain.

[58:54] Eliza Ohman: I mean, she's just really spectacular, and them as a duo is pretty brilliant.

[58:59] Eliza Ohman: To wrap things up on Hamilton, um, because we are here to talk about six and I'm talking about that.

[59:05] Eliza Ohman: Um, you then got to help with the auditions for the float company.

[59:10] Josh: So, what was that?

[59:11] Eliza Ohman: That was like another whole chapter in your Hamilton kind of book.

[59:17] Eliza Ohman: Yeah, so while I was a universal swing, we were setting the Angelica Company, which is the first national tour.

[59:28] Eliza Ohman: And I had asked if I could go to those rehearsals because having come from Chicago and then joined Broadway and learning tracks there, I was very uninterested in the possibility of showing up to another company, having never met that group of people and not learning that version of the show.

[59:46] Eliza Ohman: So because I was in New York and it was happening, you know, four blocks from our theater, I just wanted to be in the room and hear the differences because of course there were differences that were separate from the other two companies I knew, and I just wanted to be around.

[1:00:00] Eliza Ohman: And I was also curious how much more I would glean from the process after having the context.

[1:00:07] Eliza Ohman: It's sort of like watching a movie for a second time where you know what's happening, and so you suddenly pick up on things that you didn't previously see.

[1:00:16] Eliza Ohman: And in a show that's as full of information as Hamilton, I continue to still learn and see things for the first time.

[1:00:23] Eliza Ohman: So I wanted to be part of that process.

[1:00:25] Eliza Ohman: And then because a few months later I became a dance captain, all of the auditions for any of our North American productions in general, um, when they're in their final phases, take place in New York.

[1:00:38] Eliza Ohman: And so I started assisting in those auditions um shortly after I became a dance captain.

[1:00:44] Eliza Ohman: And then sometimes because our team was always out of town, having to run them either on my own or with another dance captain, um, and then being there as we get into the final stages.

[1:00:56] Eliza Ohman: And so there was a time where I had been a part of there really wasn't a single person in any of our North American productions that I hadn't seen in an audition, been part of their rehearsal process or taught them the show myself.

[1:01:10] Eliza Ohman: And so that was like a really interesting experience to get to see so many iterations and versions and how different people bring the material to life and how different people learn it.

[1:01:21] Eliza Ohman: Um, but right after we finished the King Kong lab was when the Phillip company was starting rehearsals.

[1:01:28] Eliza Ohman: So at that point I was no longer a universal swing.

[1:01:31] Eliza Ohman: I was just a dance captain for Broadway.

[1:01:34] Eliza Ohman: But I also realized that I really enjoy the process of teaching material and felt like, you know, there's maybe somewhere down the road in my career separate from performing where I might want to do something like this.

[1:01:47] Eliza Ohman: And so I just asked if it would be possible for me to assist andor observe the process of setting a company not from a learning perspective of, oh let me keep track of the female ensemble, but what does it look like to teach the principles this material and set a 50 number show on a group of people in four weeks, which is like such a mammoth of a task.

[1:02:12] Eliza Ohman: So yeah, I was just in their rehearsal process really like in the trenches, learning the material Michael Balderama set that company and so it's just observing him and being a resource to him and being a resource to the cast kind of so much information is thrown at you in that rehearsal process is almost impossible to retain it all.

[1:02:31] Eliza Ohman: And so you need kind of a team of people to be available to answer questions whenever because there's a lot of them and not very many of us.

[1:02:43] Eliza Ohman: And so just getting to see how different people process information and observing on a run through how Stephanie would note it, how Michael Balderama would note it to see can more consistently not just in a show process what we maintain but in a rehearsal process the things that we try to make sure we get across at what stage of the process.

[1:03:05] Eliza Ohman: Um, because you can't give someone a note if they're not ready to receive that note.

[1:03:09] Eliza Ohman: And so just making sense of how do I train my brain to observe what's most important and when it's most important, and what are the things that make it really click for people?

[1:03:20] Eliza Ohman: Because I think it's easy to get caught up in, especially if you're in charge of cleaning a show and maintaining a show, it can be really easy to get caught up in the specifics of how high is the shoulder and what count do I look and things of that nature.

[1:03:35] Eliza Ohman: However, what I think most effectively in my experience maintains those types of details is if you remind people of the intention.

[1:03:44] Eliza Ohman: So if I tell people why they're doing something, a lot of the physicality just naturally happens.

[1:03:49] Eliza Ohman: And then the only thing I have to clean is what count they get there or like the speed at which they get there, but the shape is already there correctly because their mind and their spirit are participating in the right idea.

[1:04:01] Eliza Ohman: And so our bodies know how to do that already.

[1:04:04] Eliza Ohman: And so a lot of the time it was just learning and seeing the language that's used over and over again to communicate certain numbers, because every choreographer has those things that make them tick and those ideas that are sort of the through line in any of the material.

[1:04:20] Eliza Ohman: And so setting helping set that company and observing that was just a huge learning curve for me that I just wanted the opportunity because at that point I was again continuing to run quite a few auditions and constantly teaching replacements in the show.

[1:04:37] Eliza Ohman: Um, so I kind of wanted to learn it and help because of how it would help me in my current position, and also for what I thought maybe down the road, you never know what's what you're gonna do.

[1:04:49] Josh: So that's very cool.

[1:04:51] Josh: Great segue.

[1:04:52] Josh: Six.

[1:04:54] Eliza Ohman: Yeah.

[1:04:55] Eliza Ohman: Um, so coming out of it was out of King Kong into six.

[1:04:59] Josh: Am I correct?

[1:05:00] Josh: Cool.

[1:05:01] Josh: Timelines, guys.

[1:05:02] Josh: Go team.

[1:05:03] Josh: Um, how did you find out about the show?

[1:05:07] Eliza Ohman: Um, I had known about the show because I met Carrie Ann when she was learning the show with the Angelica company, and so that was how we had met each other.

[1:05:17] Eliza Ohman: And I wasn't a dance captain at that point.

[1:05:20] Eliza Ohman: I was just us, I was just there doing my job, trying to like not get fired and be ready should I be sent to this company.

[1:05:28] Eliza Ohman: And I never ended up being sent to, um, but just in case.

[1:05:32] Eliza Ohman: And Carrie Ann was like in the studio learning the show alongside because the most effective way to learn any show is just to pick one role and learn it the entire way through.

[1:05:42] Eliza Ohman: And once you've done that, then you go back and you learn another one, and it just speeds up your process.

[1:05:47] Eliza Ohman: So I just answered her questions and we got on so easy and so quickly, which is not really to say anything about me because Carrie Ann is so delightful, she'll get all get along with anyone, you'll always have a good time with her.

[1:06:00] Eliza Ohman: She's just a remarkable human being.

[1:06:02] Eliza Ohman: Um, but that was how we met.

[1:06:04] Eliza Ohman: And so we just stayed in touch, you know, we would send voice memos over WhatsApp and talk on Instagram.

[1:06:10] Eliza Ohman: So I'd seen that she was associated with the show, I kept hearing about it in different capacities.

[1:06:15] Eliza Ohman: I'm not one to listen to soundtracks unless I've seen something.

[1:06:19] Eliza Ohman: So I didn't really know anything about it except for the basic premise, and then that Carrie Ann had choreographed it and got nominated for um an award.

[1:06:27] Eliza Ohman: And so we're just kind of keeping in touch.

[1:06:29] Eliza Ohman: And then out of the blue, about eight weeks before King Kong closed, she sent me the most random voice memo saying, Hey, I don't know how you're doing, and like what's going on.

[1:06:41] Eliza Ohman: I know you're still performing, but I'm working on this show, and she gives me the little synopsis.

[1:06:46] Eliza Ohman: She explains they're in Chicago right now, but it's gonna come to Broadway next year.

[1:06:51] Eliza Ohman: And would I be interested?

[1:06:53] Eliza Ohman: She just needs a US associate.

[1:06:55] Eliza Ohman: I was the first person she thought of, and would I ever consider doing that?

[1:06:59] Eliza Ohman: And it just like again, it was so random.

[1:07:03] Eliza Ohman: So I sent her back and she sent me all the info, and she's you know, wonderful.

[1:07:07] Eliza Ohman: No pressure, it's just if you want to, and I'm happy to answer questions.

[1:07:12] Eliza Ohman: And I was just honored that she would even think of me, and also like mind blown because it never crossed my mind that that's something that I would be doing.

[1:07:21] Eliza Ohman: But then I don't know.

[1:07:22] Eliza Ohman: So I wrote, I sent her a voice memo back and was like, honestly, this is so out of left field, I don't even know what to say.

[1:07:30] Eliza Ohman: Let me like give me a few days, let me think about it.

[1:07:33] Eliza Ohman: And you know, it like took a long time, lots of discussing with agents and with um mentors and also general management and figuring out logistics.

[1:07:42] Eliza Ohman: But the more I thought about it, I just felt like this is the most random, incredible opportunity that's literally being handed to me if I just am willing to put my hands out and grab it.

[1:07:54] Eliza Ohman: So why would I not?

[1:07:55] Eliza Ohman: It just felt so irresponsible to ignore that opportunity, and so yeah, I just said, okay, let's do it.

[1:08:06] Eliza Ohman: She sent me an archive from the London production, and they we had a general sense of the timeline.

[1:08:12] Eliza Ohman: Um, and so again, I and I had some apprehension about it because I'm still very much interested in being a performer, and I had this fear that if I accept this role, does that mean people will think that I'm done performing and they'll only ever see me as an associate or as someone who maintains work and isn't kind of creating work.

[1:08:35] Eliza Ohman: And I felt a lot of tension about that. And then at the same time, I think there are lots of people who do both. And there's no reason why I can't. And if people for some reason get it in their head that I'm something that I'm trying not to be, it's not my job to be in charge of what they think. My job is just to be worried about myself and what I want to do. And this is an unbelievable opportunity in a season as a performer that I wasn't super excited about. And I thought, why would I not do this? I'm gonna learn so much. And so that December, what was that, December of 2019? Um, they sent me to London and I was there for maybe 12 days. And at this point, you know, like my contract hadn't been signed, and I'm so I'm not a superstitious person, but when it comes to work, I never think that anything is a sure thing or is happening until you're actually in the room and it's happening.

So even when it's been announced online, I still have a certain level of hesitation. Like I don't really talk about it until I feel like it's real. Um so, but anyway, like I hadn't even signed a contract, but I was being sent to London to go learn the show from Terry Ann and one of her associates, Melanie Sinclair. Um, and yeah, in about five days I learned the show, and then the last five days were going and watching the production and just hearing again for me, the way I organize information is hearing how the choreographer and the team processes it, what's important to them, why it's important to them, what do you notice when you see the show so that I can train my eyes and my ears to be reflections of what's important to them.

Because in that kind of position, it doesn't really matter if what I think is important isn't happening, if it's something that they don't think is important. So it's kind of always like learning how to train yourself to see things in that way, bring up things as you see them, but always deferring to them first and foremost.

[1:10:38] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Um so then we started rehearsals, and then I became an associate choreographer on Broadway, which was like a kind of a what the heck is happening is this real life moment.

[1:10:52] Josh: Yeah.

[1:10:53] Eliza Ohman: And going back to New 42, you've been there for Kong, Hamilton, now to be back there six in a different role. What was that like to kind of be there on the kind of other side of the rehearsal room?

[1:11:06] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Well, going to New 42 always feels a bit like going to like your old friend's house that's like, oh yeah, I know where everything is. It feels really homey. You know the people that work at the front desk, you know, like which bathrooms are the quickest, because for a space that has so many people in it, there's not enough bathrooms, and there's always a line. So it's like there's certain things like that that's so familiar, which is really cool because then it just always feels safe and comfortable as you're going through any process. Um, but it was really weird to get there and like, oh, I have a table and I have a chair, and like here's my outlet. And I set up my computer now and I observe, and you're it's like honestly, it's kind of exhausting to not like physically exhausting, but when you're up on when you're learning a show, you're up on your feet the whole time.

So you never have to like adjust and move around to go learn something because you're already in the space doing it, and the process of being at the table and like diligently taking notes while Carrie Anna's speaking, but then also like, oh, I have to get up now, but like there's not quite enough room because there's never enough room in those spaces, and so you're like making more noise than you want to, and you're sort of tripping over the table, getting up as quickly as you can because you don't want to hold anything up because you don't want to be the person that holds it up. So it's just funny, like the thing I was like, oh, this is like all new and weird and awkward. I like didn't I've never experienced the side of things, and then the days are a bit longer because you get there earlier to prep for the day, and then you stay there later to recap and to set the schedule for the next day.

[1:12:52] Eliza Ohman: Um, and then you have a lot of homework at the end of the day to process what happened as well as to prepare for the next day. Whereas as a performer, I feel like my responsibility was really just to keep track of what I did that day and make sure that I was ready and prepared so that when I show up the next day, everything I did yesterday is like locked in there so that I'm just ready to learn whatever is new. So it's kind of it was definitely an interesting shift.

[1:13:22] Eliza Ohman: Also, it's very tiring. I'm a personality I get very tired if I sit for too long. I used to always fall asleep in class. I'm like, I'm an unhealthily good sleeper. I have no trouble falling asleep in ways that probably are indicative of some rare form of narcolepsy, and so sitting at a table after lunch, taking notes and watching, I found myself slow blinking often. And I was like, oh my gosh, I gotta drink some water. I gotta, I would like stand up any break, I would do playings or like balasana just to kind of get blood flowing again. Everyone thought I was a weirdo.

[1:14:02] Eliza Ohman: Also, it was so strange because everyone else behind the table had been a part of the production either since the UK for the UK creative team, but all of the other US associates had really been doing the show since the Chicago production at Chicago Shakespeare and then like the Four City Tour. And so there was such a rapport and a dialogue and a familiarity that I was just so not a part of. And not to say they're all so lovely and so gracious, but it's always kind of awkward to be the new kid. It's like when you move and everyone knows each other, and you're all going through the same experience because you're all in like your sophomore year of high school together, and no one's ever done that before.

But most of them know each other except for you. And so there's a certain level of quickness of information that you feel like you're constantly playing catch up because I didn't really I felt like I was very much still learning the show, and I was learning a show that was already fully set, that the performers already knew, that we were just making minute changes, and so I was trying to keep track of what I'd known as well as what's new, not always necessarily knowing what's new because perhaps I've forgotten. So it's just I always felt like I never had the answers, and I never really knew what was going on, and I was just sleepy at the end of the day.

[1:15:30] Josh: Oh, that's great.

[1:15:31] Eliza Ohman: Um, so coming into the show, um, heading to New York, it kind of had that Hamilton hype kind of feel about it, and being in the city before previews, like I definitely felt it once the um marquee went up and everything, like there was it was very much you could feel from the American side of things, it was that Hamilton-esque kind of vibe. So, what was it like for you feeling that about this show before it had even kind of even gone into previews, and we'll chat about BroadwayCon after this because that was kind of the epitome of it for me. But like, what was it like seeing it for this small scale show compared to Hamilton?

[1:16:16] Eliza Ohman: Have that same level of oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Yeah, what's so unbelievable about six and is such an exciting thing about it, and really makes me feel honored to be a part of it in any capacity, is that there's such a connection. Like I love that it's called the Queendom, um, and that things like your podcast exists, and that there's such a familiarity between our fans because they feel so connected to the material and connected to each other and the way they get to engage. It's just really spectacular. And again, I've my only context of seeing that level of fandom exist is Hamilton.

[1:16:57] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Um, so then to see something, I couldn't believe how many people knew about the show when I would mention it to them. I was very, oh, I'm gonna be working. Like BroadwayCon and that. Like, I was expecting that kind of to be like an introduction, and I get to BroadwayCon and I'm like, I'm walking around with my jacket on, and everyone's like, oh, six six. I'm like, huh. No, it was like the show of Broad. We were the cool kids at Broadway Con. I had no idea. And it really blew my mind. There was, I'm not sure, it might have been Michael Paulson actually, who recorded at Broadway Con that sing along event. And there was like the front row of like it. How many people were there? It looked like it could have been at least 1500.

[1:17:44] Eliza Ohman: Oh no, no, it was close. There was mirrors at the back. It was close to about 300.

[1:17:48] Josh: Oh, okay.

[1:17:49] Eliza Ohman: It looked like it was so many people. I couldn't believe it.

[1:17:55] Eliza Ohman: It was great.

[1:17:56] Josh: Okay.

[1:17:57] Eliza Ohman: It was probably 300.

[1:17:58] Eliza Ohman: Oh, actually, probably close to 400, because there was the upper level as well. Um, so yeah, probably close to like 400 people just in the case. But the fact that you had that many people in a room singing all of the lyrics to these songs for a show that hasn't even had a single performance in New York City. That blew my mind. I really just had no idea the level of excitement around it. And I think it's really it's such an interesting commentary that really taps into what we as a society really crave, and that's to hear new voices and to celebrate people that are different and people that we've kind of silenced in throughout history.

[1:18:40] Eliza Ohman: And that's just tapped into this in a really fun and playful and positive way. Like we talk about this a lot on as associates on the team of just what we try to honor as we're going through the audition process because throughout quarantine, we've actually still been seeing people via um self-submissions, like video submissions, in addition to Zoom sessions and having giving feedback and then letting them try again. So we're still casting what will be our Chicago sit-down whenever that happens. But something we've talked about a lot is just wanting to really honor what Toby and Lucy created, and what they value most is the kind of human being that you are, and they've created something that is so unbelievably positive in the midst of recognizing some really tough realities about our history as human beings and in English history.

[1:19:37] Eliza Ohman: Um, but the power that we have to retell those in a new way or to share them in a different way, and to focus on the silenced and sort of celebrate those victories as well, and what we have to learn from that. Is because these wonderful lights have created a work of positivity that's also unbelievably catchy.

[1:20:03] Josh: Yeah.

[1:20:03] Eliza Ohman: Those songs are so fun, and you love them immediately. You don't even have to really know they could all stand alone as just hits on a pop chart because they're so fun. You just love them and you want to listen to them. And so, and they also I always say it's like the fandom or six is like young teenagers that are really into musical theater, gay men that loved girl groups, suburban moms that love like dance cardio, and then everyone else.

[1:20:38] Eliza Ohman: But it's like we have three major categories that are huge money makers and like loyal fan bases, and then also everyone, like my husband listens to the soundtrack. He loves get down. He thinks it's so fun. It's like I don't want to work.

[1:20:55] Josh: Yes, yeah.

[1:20:56] Eliza Ohman: Totally. It's just a fun, it's a fun piece of work. It's such a positive piece of work. And I think it really elevates um women in a really empowering way.

[1:21:10] Eliza Ohman: Um that's honest and has a sense of humor about it. And I think that's really essential.

[1:21:16] Josh: Yeah.

[1:21:16] Eliza Ohman: But it always leads from love, and I really appreciate that about the show.

[1:21:20] Josh: Yeah, 100%.

[1:21:21] Eliza Ohman: And bringing it back to Broadway Con, um, what was it like? Like I was in the room, and the workshop that you and Carrie Ann did was like oh my gosh. That was an incredible hour. Like just it was talking through your experience because obviously you were kind of leading it because Carrie Ann was injured at the point. Um but like what was it like to kind of see the passion of I think there was like 50 odd people wanting to learn the choreography for this show?

[1:21:54] Eliza Ohman: There's nothing more exciting than getting to work with people that are excited with whatever you have to share, because you're spending so much of your energy giving back to them, but you get all of your energy from whatever they give to you, and so to be in a space with these young people who were absolutely ecstatic to just be in a space and listen to the music together, let alone getting to do the material. I don't, it was really electric. That space, it the hour flew by. I couldn't believe that it had been one hour. They learned so much. They were so quick. Like we really threw a lot of choreography. Yeah, we did the whole finale basically. Um with like a small, we cut out the breakdown because the girls just stand there.

But we really did from Cleves's moment in six, we did it all the way through to the end. Um, and just watching people, I love watching people come out of their shells in a space. And I am obviously, maybe not obviously, but I'm gonna guess obviously with a really loud personality and really playful, and I tend not to take myself too seriously. Um, and I really appreciate when I watch people who are maybe they have a lot of excitement but are also a little bit nervous to let themselves be true to who they are and show that excitement to just watch those little um walls kind of break down, and then that pure joy, the essence of their spirit really comes out. And I think that happens most often through the arts, which is one of the many reasons I think the arts are truly essential to our society, but especially to education.

Um, and then beyond that, watching them feel confident because they've let themselves try something and try it proudly and free themselves of any preconceived ideas or expectations of how it's supposed to be or what they're supposed to do, but rather just being present in that moment and freeing themselves of all of that is such a really like humbling thing to watch in other people. And that was what that room was for me. They were, it was such a exciting group of people. They were, they had such joy coming out of them. They knew the words better than I did. I'm like notorious for not knowing the words for shows that I'm in until unless I'm in the number. And even then, I never know the words out of context.

So, like I appreciated that so much about them. But yeah, the room was just on fire. I couldn't believe the joy that was coming out of them and the difference of the nervous energy at the start and then getting to like the unbridled joy by the end. Like switch where it was just like, yeah, everyone just was like, and it was like, oh, okay. Yeah, you feel that temperature shift. You feel that energetic explosion in the room when people just really activate the space with their breath. You know, you can hold your breath the whole time in any experience or an interaction, and it causes a lot of internal turmoil, essentially, because you're like putting yourself through unnecessary suffering. Your body is just doing everything it can to function, and you're literally depriving it of the thing it needs to function, which is your breath.

And so the moment you just like take a deep breath and release that into the room, all of a sudden you can see all the particles in space just totally shift and their energy shift, and like that moment was instantaneous. And I think again, it's such a testament to Carrie Ann's leadership because the leader sets the tone for what the space is going to be, and she leads from such a place of humility and compassion and love and generosity that just exudes out of her. And that immediately transcended any sort of nervousness that everyone in the room felt. And then we just got to have fun for an hour doing this silly, uplifting, sassy number. It was so fun. And again, it was that moment for me of realizing, oh, this is a huge sensation.

[1:26:07] Eliza Ohman: Speaking of, to wrap things up. The stage door pictures were coming out of the first previews and everything of six were very much on par to Hamilton. So, what was it like walking out of the Brooks Atkinson to crowds five, six days for this show? Um, well, for me, you know, no one knows who I am when I walk out the stage door. So I usually get the like, oh never mind. So it's really easy for me to walk out of the stage door. Um, but it is again, you're exactly right, that parallel of the level of commitment that people and connection that people feel to the show and wanting to express their love for a performer because that performer represents their love for the show, um, is something I'd only ever seen in Hamilton.

And so getting to see it in six, these like just young people, but really people of all ages of all races that feel seen and feel represented and just feel such love for something. There's nothing, it's the same when you meet someone on the street that you don't really know, and then you discover that you have a mutual friend or and you like the same thing, and all of a sudden, you know, like boom, conversation happens and it's really easy, it just flows naturally. And so whenever you have a shared experience with someone, it makes things so much simpler because you really see past a lot of other things. And so to have this whole group, especially our first preview was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Carrie Ann and I were really overwhelmed because there was so much joy in the room, and the show stopped a few different times, and people were on their feet immediately, and people were in the audience singing along at the end of the show, which is exactly what we want them to be doing and waving their hands. I mean, it was so magical. So then to come out of the stage door and see that same level of excitement, you get that the gratification because on stage you don't always get to really connect with people in the same way. And so then to see these people and have a chance to not just have them say why they love the show or whatever, but to get to say thank you back to them. Because we don't have anything if we don't have people that also care about the thing we're making, right?

And so I never take for granted how unbelievably blessed we are at six to have this loyal fan base who just share it with their friends and with their family and connect with us because it's so rare. You never know what's going to be successful in theater. It's such a like, don't invest in theater if you're trying to make money. You never know what's going to be popular. Um, you make it because you love it, and if you get the satisfaction of also finding other people that love it, amazing. And if you get the unbelievable privilege to not only share it with some people that enjoy it, but a huge group of people that can't get enough of it, there's like nothing more humbling than that. Because that's why we do it is to connect with those people and to tell stories and to encourage empathy in every single individual.

Like that's what art does. That's the kind of culture it creates. And so that first night and every night after, it was just unbelievable the amount of love that was just pouring into this space. And I hope that every single one of those people also felt all of the love that we are pouring back out because the gratitude is just through the roof. I can't say it enough.

[1:29:43] Josh: Yeah, one of my friends lives literally next door to the Brooks, and he's like messaging me. He's like, So six. I was like, see it. He's like, You sure? I was like, 100% see it. I think he went three or four times, and he's like, Yeah. Crap. And it's I mean, it's 75 minutes. Right. That's a freaking game changer. Which is I was like done with the show. So surprised that it is killing it on Broadway because like New York is kind of one of those cities where it's either loved or it's gonna last a short period of time. And I was like, I really didn't know how the New York community was gonna react. And when I saw those first couple of nights, I was like, oh damn, here we go. Okay. That's the thing, it's like even if you don't want to like it, you can't help but like it because it's just so fun, yeah, and so it's just a bop.

And again, I'm I'll never be over the 75 minutes. Yeah, that is a life changer. Like, I as an associate after notes would still be out of the theater during previews before the swings are released from Hamilton, and they leave the show like 35 minutes early. It's just life-changing.

[1:30:57] Eliza Ohman: Yeah. Um that's a perfect note to wrap things up on. Um, what a chat, guys. I'm like fully fulfilled. I am like, this is fantastic. I've had the time of my life. Um, if you guys, yes, we win. Um, if you guys don't follow Eliza, please do, even if it's just for Brewer. Um, I 100% guarantee you will sing. But honestly, go follow Eliza. Her links are down below. Um make sure you check my pages out if you don't already. Ozqueenum, the Queen cast. To wrap things up, final note. Out of the show six, what was your favorite song to kind of learn or see get kind of reshaped?

[1:31:48] Eliza Ohman: Ooh. I really loved watching I don't need your love get reshaped so that it really brings, you know, what's so special about the show is each queen really gets her moment of um glory for lack of a better word, where we really get to celebrate her and what she did. Um, but in the original version of the show, par is obviously like loved and and well received and a lot of people's favorites, but I don't think really got the full closure that some of the other queens get because the end of her song is also with all of the other queens riffing behind her and going crazy, and it's sort of this huge party like girl power moment, which is par and what she represents, but you also want to make sure that par as an individual is celebrated.

And I think the adjustments that they made in the um instrumentation for that number, some of the choreographic changes we made, what they played around with in the music department, I think it really now solidified that this moment is par bringing everyone together, but it's about that par is the unifying factor in that. And I think it's just such a brilliant adjustment. I think it reads really well in the house. People feel that and it gets the reaction that you really want it to get when we reach the remix. Um, and I just loved for me. I love process, I love the journey. And I for this show, there were so few moments where I got the full experience of that. But that was a number where I was like, oh, I've really seen us fine-tune this, explore this, and now we've and watch it get the payoff that everyone wanted to find.

Because in theater, you never know in anything. You never know if you're like, did we do it right? We'll find out. I hope so. Um, but we did do it right, I think. Um, and it was just oh, it's beautiful. And I I really adore that moment. I love what that song represents, but I also love the changes we made. I think they're so so smart. I say we, I was not responsible for those changes. I watched them happen and I took diligent notes while the brilliant people around me made those changes, and so that's the one I think that I'm most excited when people see the show because it's also different than what you've been hearing on the album.

[1:34:11] Josh: Final question. I just thought of this off the top of my head. Emergency cover. Eliza Ramon gets a call. What track do you choose to cover?

[1:34:21] Eliza Ohman: Oh my god. First of all, I would have a full panic attack because I definitely do not know the words in any of the scenes. So it would be the most paraphrased show in the world. Lucy would be horrified. Um this, I think Carrie Ann is very much on this team. I think I'm a Bolyn. Okay. I think that's my track.

[1:34:45] Josh: You've got that chaotic energy.

[1:34:46] Eliza Ohman: 100% yes. You know what? You're not wrong. I I will accept that. I think that's pretty on brand whether or not for better or for worse, that's who I am.

[1:34:57] Josh: And Queens, on that note, that wraps us up here. Thank you for coming and joining us for this wonderful week. Eliza, thank you for coming and hanging out with us.

[1:35:00] Eliza Ohman: Thank you.

[1:35:06] Josh: Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. Anytime Queens we'll be back next week with brand new episode of the Queendom Podcast. See you later.