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[0:00] Robert Driemeyer: Excited that December 1st.

[0:03] Robert Bannon: Yep.

[0:03] Robert Driemeyer: You are gonna be singing, telling jokes, and serving drinks.

[0:09] Robert Driemeyer: Yes, a boozy brunch on Sunday, December 1st, and we're gonna tick all those boxes.

[0:15] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[0:16] Robert Bannon: Uh where what do you do, Robert? How did you learn how to make a drink? What makes you a bartender?

[0:22] Robert Driemeyer: Well, Broadway Barfly, not to go back too far, was my COVID project. Um, everything shut down. I was here at home wondering what am I gonna do with myself? And I put a video up on Facebook actually to start with, where I talked about anti-mame and the cocktails featured in it. I made myself a sidecar, showed people how to do it, and it got a little bit of traction, and I thought, well, I'm gonna do this. So, uh I kept doing these videos of show and cocktail pairings. Eventually I moved it on YouTube, and once the theater started happening again, um I worked with my friends at Boundless Theater to um make a show that we could put up. So, to your question, how do I become a bartender? I started out as a hobbyist, a cocktail enthusiast, and then I taught myself.

[1:20] Robert Bannon: So can I ask you, do you have a signature drink?

[1:24] Robert Driemeyer: Um not particularly, not like a Broadway Barfly cocktail. I have my favorites, you know. Like I do um, I drink a lot of Manhattan's on my own, and I guess I did make kind of a signature spin on a Manhattan. I did a video of it, I call it my Black Forest Manhattan, where I add Luxardo cherry syrup a little bit and chocolate bitters. So yeah, I can call that my signature cocktail.

[1:49] Robert Bannon: Do people come over to your home? Are you like even in your house?

[1:52] Robert Driemeyer: Well, if I came over for dinner, you're gonna be mixing up a drink like this has become your thing. I have a liquor cabinet that would put most to shame at this point because I've just collected the bottles for the things, and I've gotten to a point where I've had some people send me bottles of stuff to use. So yeah, I'm pretty well stocked. I there's very little that I could could not make for you. No required a syrup or something I needed to make in advance.

[2:21] Robert Bannon: It sounds like a party to me. I love that the show is on a Sunday. I love the show is at one o'clock. And I love the show is at Green Room because I think they have fun food and they have good drinks there as well. So you you have the option that you can have a flight of drinks. So how did that come about? What is what is being served? What can you tell us about this whole entire event?

[2:42] Robert Driemeyer: Well, the the show itself is structured like a traditional cabaret show, but it's built around telling the stories of vintage cocktails that actually come from Broadway or New York nightlife in some way. Um, for example, just a little for example, a Floridora was named after Floridora girls, which were the chorus line of an old turn of the century musical, and it's a cocktail that's stuck around. Uh the Rob Roy. A lot of people think it's um named after the Scottish folk hero, but it was in fact, and at least this is sort of apocryphal, but people say it's true, was served at an opening night party of an operetta called Rob Roy at the Waldorf Astoria. Uh the old Waldorf Astoria. So the show's built around these stories.

And the cocktail, you can purchase a cocktail um tasting flight where you can sort of drink along with the shows. We talk about them. We do mixology demonstrations via video. I don't actually do it on stage, but we do them by video the way we do on YouTube. And then as we get to the end of this section, if you've ordered the flight, the taste comes right out on the table, and you drink along with the show. It really is like a perfect storm of all kinds of things for people who love nightlife, which from your introduction, it sounds like you do. And boy, there is not a show that is not made better by Two Drink Minimum, I'll tell you that.

[4:04] Robert Bannon: You know, my friend Robbie Rosell calls his band the two drink minimum. I think that's like the perfect.

[4:08] Robert Driemeyer: Yes, that is what it's about. So um I'm I I'm all about it. I think this is for people in New York City or looking for something fun to do, especially as we hit the holiday months, as especially as we hit what are we supposed to do on a Sunday at one o'clock. We're tired of the same brunch spots, we're looking for something new. And this is a unique, uh, a very unique thing. But we talk about the drinks, but you also are gonna sing. So, what what you were talking about? The press release from my friend Dan says that you're literally singing from Cole Porter to Katy Perry.

[4:41] Robert Driemeyer: Yeah. Um, so each there are basically four sections to the show. I won't bore you with like the mechanics of it, but some of the songs are sort of traditional nightlife kind of songs you might expect, Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter, but we you we basically use them as a structure to tell the story. You know, it's not necessarily me singing in a traditional cabaret act, it's a little bit more. I like to say it's a little bit more like Elaine Stritch doing her zip number, sing, tell a story, sing, tell a story, sing, tell a story. So it's a lot of that. Um, yeah, Katy Perry does make a a little I'll I admit that's almost a little bit of a punchline uh when it comes up, but yeah, we do it for real.

[5:22] Robert Bannon: So can you tell us about who's with you? Because you have a music director, you have yeah, so tell us a little bit about my my music director is an old friend of mine, Brad Vieth. Um he's no longer in the city full-time, but he used to be. And I met him when he conducted the tour of 42nd Street I was on, so we go way back. Uh um, so he's my musical director. We are negotiating with a guest star right now. When we premiered the show at uh last year, we had a guest star, uh Bianca Mara Keen from Broadway, Chicago. She has she's in Chicago or will be, so she's not available. So we haven't made that announcement yet, but there we will probably have a guest star uh who makes an appearance and does their shtick and you know livens it up at a time when I need to rest.

[6:12] Robert Bannon: Okay.

[6:13] Robert Driemeyer: I'm I'll uh and uh maybe some special guests will swing by, or maybe you'll just have a flight and you'll get up and start to sing. Who knows what's gonna happen out there? You know, your career is interesting reading about you because you've done I don't know, 30 plus musicals and toured and and been around in theater all all over and did a bunch of things, but you're you do improv and you do comedy, and how do you describe yourself? What who are you, Robert?

[6:35] Robert Driemeyer: I have done a lot of things over the years. I wear a lot I've I've worn a lot of hats. Rarely do I wear more than one at a time. As a kid, I started out as a singer-dancer, musicals, that kind of thing. Um, I guess I kind of saw the writing on the wall, you know, this was gonna be a a character man sooner or later. So I started doing stand-up comedy. Um, and that's kind about that time I was doing improv. And I kind of fell into producing um kind of by accident, but for the past 10 years I produced some plays off Broadway, and I've also taken that co-producer, associate producer role where you help finance some bigger projects. And what I guess that kind of brings us up to now, once COVID happened and those things closed, um I started mixing drinks and so it's it's just you know, it just I kind of go with the flow, you know. If the opportunity's there, I I go and try and keep it exciting for myself.

[7:39] Robert Bannon: Is comedy improv or stand-up or telling jokes and all of those things, like is it as it sounds so scary to me. I'll sing a song, I will tell a joke and a cabaret show, but the idea of trying to make a room full of people laugh is terrifying.

[7:57] Robert Driemeyer: I'm well, you never get over being terrified, but I'm no longer afraid of bombing, which is I think what a lot of people get mixed up with. And I'm guessing you know these places. I really cut my teeth at the duplex downtown. They did a they still do an open mic every week. Poppy Kramer, God rest her, she's no longer with us here, but she hosted it for a long time every Wednesday night. And it was down in the bar, and I'm sure you know the duplex, you're in a fishbowl right out to the street. If you can make people laugh in that room during happy hour, you're on your way. You know, you're on your way. And you really have to learn how to to control the room. And fortunately, down there, a lot of professionals came by, you know, you're a lot of up and coming people, so you were always with good people.

And I also did a number of shows. This is a while ago, at Don't Tell Mamas, when they used to do Ron Pool's variety shows, and uh, so I was on a lot of those, so I got to be on stage or on lineups with other good people, and you know, I bombed plenty. Uh but you know, the fear of that goes away. And the thing that I love about comedy, and and really solo performances all is you can't blame anybody else. If it's not funny, it's up to you to make it funny, and then you do and you carry on.

[9:22] Robert Bannon: So I'm sure you're besides making drinks and showing videos of making drinks and drinking drinks and singing songs. I'm sure you're gonna have a couple of jokes sprinkled in, and it's gonna be a fun time to be at your Broadway Barfly event.

[9:34] Robert Driemeyer: Yeah, this is not a somber affair at all. It's very lighthearted. I think it will surprise people, I hope, how interesting some of it is, though. Um, it's it is light hearted, but there's a lot of information in it, which has what that's what's kept me interested in doing this because somebody at the beginning, when I was doing like a show in a cocktail, somebody said you're gonna run out of ideas, or like there are only so many references. And I was like, maybe, but then you just keep digging and digging, you know, alcohol has been around a long time.

[10:09] Robert Driemeyer: Yes, people have been drinking for a long time. Theater folks really like to drink and have been drinking for a long time, and so there's really a lot of information that and people have written books about it. Actually, there was a book, you may know it. Um, I'm not gonna get the name right, but like some professor at NYU, I think, just wrote a book recently during this COVID period about alcohol and cocktails that shows up on stage.

[10:38] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[10:39] Robert Driemeyer: Really? That's so I know a lot of people who are alcohol aficionados who love uh a night owl. So this is perfect, a perfect event for you. I find it so interesting. We talked about comedy, we talked about singing, we talked about making drinks, and then you also say you're a producer. Um, producer folks with like Shear Madness and Forbidden Broadway and things like that have run for you know eternity.

[11:01] Robert Driemeyer: Um, was that a decision you know, I don't know. What makes someone want to be a producer?

[11:07] Robert Driemeyer: Well, that was initially that was born out of being an actor. Um, a friend of mine, actually David Parr, who is part of Boundless Theater that is actually the producer of Broadway Barfly. I'm not wearing the producer hat solely on this one. Tommaso Cartia and David. Anyway, he wrote a play quite a while ago that there was a role in it for me.

[11:28] Robert Driemeyer: And uh sort of Mickey and Judy, let's put on a show, did a showcase, and then we got a little bit of attention. We took it up to Provincetown, and all of a sudden I was a kind of a producer, but I realized I didn't know what I was doing. So there was an organization called CTI, which you might know or have heard of, Commercial Theater Institute. I think they're defunct or in limbo right now, but I got accepted into their program.

[11:52] Robert Driemeyer: And so for 14 weeks, um, you go to these classes once a week, and you're mentored by like the top echelon of Broadway, you know, Kevin McCollum and David Stone and folks from the Niederlanders and the Schuberts and all that. And so that's kind of how I got into the producer category.

[12:14] Robert Driemeyer: Um, my first show, kind of I won't go into the whole story because it's not about Broadway Barfly, but I had an opportunity to be a lead producer on a Tennessee Williams’ play that had played in a little theater in London called the two-character play. And there were they were going to be doing it in Provincetown, and through an odd series of events, which I won't bore you with, it landed in my lap.

[12:37] Robert Driemeyer: Do you want to produce it in New York? And I thought, well, it's a little tiny show. It's Tennessee Williams’. Let's see how hard it is. And boy, did I learn? But we ended up uh it we ended up having to recast it because of some equity things. But we had Amanda Plummer and Brad Dourif and Tennessee Williams’ off Broadway. We were New York Times critics pick, which is about 10 years ago now.

[13:01] Robert Driemeyer: So all of a sudden I was a producer.

[13:06] Robert Bannon: Who would have thought?

[13:07] Robert Driemeyer: You were a producer, and now you're a producer and you can produce and you can wear all these hats. And you said you wear a bunch of hats. I love the idea. So when Broadway Barfly came out, and you started over COVID and you started the YouTube channel, and then you started to gain a little bit of traction. Did you ever think it would turn in?

[13:25] Robert Driemeyer: Like when did you have the idea like this can be a live event?

[13:29] Robert Driemeyer: Early on, when I when I was during during the COVID time, when I was posting, people were actually watching these videos sort of in real time because nobody had anything else to do. And so I would do like a show in cocktail pairing, like for example, company and well, you know which cocktail comes from company, the Von.

[13:40] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[13:40] Robert Driemeyer: And so I would do like a little pairing video of that. And then I would do two accompanying videos. One where I would do sort of an alternate cocktail video, and I showed how to make a homemade creme de menthe that you could just make at home because people weren't going out to the stores all that much, or maybe didn't have money to spend on lots of liquor.

[13:54] Robert Driemeyer: And then I would post a video clip of something from the show of God bless a friend of mine who has an enormous video library, just opened it up to me and let me post these things. So once I established that pattern, I thought, well, this could make like a nice little corporate event or something where like a musical Mondays or something, which I think they're reviving now at the bar at Yotel, right?

[14:36] Robert Bannon: Green fig.

[14:37] Robert Driemeyer: Yeah. And it's cute there, and you should go check it out. And so that I so early on, I kind of thought maybe this is something that could be put into a live experience.

[14:51] Robert Driemeyer: And though these have not been available to the public yet through Boundless Theater, I have done some corporate tasting events. We do them for Zoe Clubhouse, which is a Tishman Speyer Company at Rockefeller Center and at the Spiral. So they have their corporate tenants and that come in and we set up a big video screen.

[15:09] Robert Driemeyer: And uh we're doing one actually three days after the show at 54 Below, 42 or 42, the other numbered name. And so we'll be doing like a holiday thing there. We're doing a flight of cocktails to all have a special liqueur that maybe people haven't tried before. And we show some video clips of the shows, and we there we do like a live mixology demonstration.

[15:34] Robert Driemeyer: It's very loose, and their staff serves the drinks and that. So yeah, it's all kind of kind of come about.

[15:42] Robert Bannon: So it's so cool. It's such a great idea. It's something so creative and original and new I'm I'm excited about it. And I know people can watch these videos and they could follow you. So can you tell us so we can put it below us and you can, if you're listening to us on Broadway Podcast Network, look in below us and and find out, Robert, where can we find out more information?

[15:51] Robert Driemeyer: Well, more information about everything I do is at BroadwayBarfly.com that's your one stop shopping all the links to social media are there the YouTube channel you can get to from there also tickets to the the Green Room 42 show are there you can booking information about how to book a live event with this there so yeah um one stop shopping BroadwayBarfly.com so BroadwayBarfly.com and then you can find everything else that you need.

[15:51] Robert Driemeyer: Yeah, I'm on I have a I'm most active on Facebook as far as because that's where I started um I also post on Instagram and I've just started doing mixology demonstrations only on TikTok little 30 second videos so you can find those there too it's that's I'm sure TikTok is going to eat up you making BroadwayBarfly.com there it is BroadwayBarfly.com then you can go subscribe to the YouTube channel go to Facebook go to Instagram go to TikTok buy your tickets to the show get yourself a drink on December 1st that's where that's where I want to meet everybody in person yeah and then cheers to that.

[15:51] Robert Bannon: So if I'm hosting Thanksgiving do you have a uh I is there something I should serve do you have the perfect holiday drink?

[15:51] Robert Driemeyer: I have one in particular that I think a lot of people like it's uh a Thanksgiving cobbler where you may use some cranberry juice and cognac there's a video so you can see how it's done.

[17:31] Robert Driemeyer: It's not my original one, but it's a good cocktail. And there's another one. I haven't posted the video yet, but I'll give you a preview.

[17:38] Robert Driemeyer: It's a madras mimosa. So if it's cranberry, you can figure this out on your own, even without the instructions. Cranberry juice. Well, you know what a madras is orange juice and cranberry juice and vodka. Um, so this is start with about two ounces of cranberry juice, half an ounce or so of either Cointreau or triple sec, and then top it off with cognac, and you'll have your have yourself a little madras mimosa.

[18:07] Robert Driemeyer: It's good.

[18:08] Robert Bannon: That's perfect for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

[18:11] Robert Driemeyer: Have that watch the parade and be asleep by dinner.

[18:15] Robert Bannon: I think that's perfect.

[18:16] Robert Bannon: Congratulations on this idea. Congratulations on all this fun creative stuff. You have that producer hat and that artist hat working together to make something really unique and fun, and we're here for it.

[18:26] Robert Bannon: And I hope that December 1st, you can go ahead over to Green Room 42 right there at the Yotel Hotel, go up to the eighth floor and have a good old time. Thank you so much for being here.

[18:36] Robert Driemeyer: For having me.

[18:36] Robert Bannon: Yeah, come on back anytime. Teach us how to make a drink anytime.

[18:41] Robert Driemeyer: Hey, I am up for that. Just say when.

[18:43] Robert Bannon: That's a deal. Happy holidays and enjoy every second.

[18:48] Robert Driemeyer: Thank you.