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[0:14] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World or over here on the Broadway Podcast Network. I was in New York and I saw an amazing show. I love Rent. And I was Roger in Rent, and I said 92% of the words right in Rent. The other 8%, there's a lot of words in that show. And I love TikTok Boom. And I love everything about our next guest. And you know, her husband was here not too long ago. And we are just fans of this whole family and their experience. And I can sing music that's created by Joe and Lauren for days because they know what they're doing. And now she's honoring someone else that the theater world loves and adores, which is all things Jonathan Larson and the Jonathan Larson Project, which you need to get your tickets for. And Lauren has been with this for a minute and has a personal relationship to all of this too. So I'm so excited, Lauren is here. Lauren Marcus, welcome to the show.

[1:05] Lauren Marcus: Hi, welcome. Thank you for having me.

[1:08] Robert Bannon: Thank you. I'm so excited to talk. You know, you can sing your face off.

[1:11] Lauren Marcus: Thank you.

[1:12] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[1:13] Lauren Marcus: Uh yeah. It's a funny thing to say. I think I react strangely to that because I think a lot of times within musical theater land that I'm known much more as an actor who sings. I don't really have the type of voice that's like very popular right now that God I wish I did. But what's so cool about this show is I actually get to sing the way I can sing. And so it's new to hear that, and people seem to be saying that, and it really makes me feel nice. So thank you.

[1:45] Robert Bannon: Do you feel that pressure? Do you feel like you have to fit in a musical theater box?

[1:49] Lauren Marcus: Oh, yes. You know, Lauren? Yes. Yes. Um, I think there's something that's just really popular right now that again I am jealous of. Like I cannot do this, is like the big belt, the loud high belt, sort of like an American Idol pop type of voice. And that's never something I could do. I didn't even learn how to belt until I was 31. So like I was a late bloomer in that regard. Um, and it's been a challenge, and sometimes I joke that I've invented my own way of singing as I've learned to belt and you know what works for me. I'm definitely a soprano. So it's been a crazy, crazy road down this.

[2:32] Robert Bannon: But I hear you because you are a songwriter. Like you're a songwriter, you're an artist, not that musical theater, but I mean you're writing and creating and doing concerts.

[2:42] Lauren Marcus: Yeah, I think a lot of that started because I wasn't, you know, I thought that was me. I thought I was gonna leave college and be like a musical theater superstar, as most musical theater grads who don't, you know, who are new to the biz, they should also you should, because the confidence is the only thing that like lets you keep going. Um, but it did not happen that way. And so I started writing, which had always been a passion of mine, but more in an effort to do things my way and to be like, this is how I can sing, this is how I like how I sound, these are the things I want to say, and it's then actually the biggest gift. I never saw that side of my artistry. Wow, I think I hate saying that, but I never saw it coming.

I loved it. I think it's so apropos and so true. And then look, for all of that insecurity and doubt, which we all have as artists, especially when we're young, Broadway has come, movies have come, work has come, residency singing has come. You worked. You know, I think it's, yeah, I've created work. I've made really good friends, and I think it's the truest thing. It's like if you have one person who believes in you, that's it. That's what you need. You just it's like if you can kind of weather the storm and keep going, the opportunities will show up. They will, they might not be constant, it might not be every day, but they'll show up and they'll be better because they'll be with people you care about and love.

[4:06] Robert Bannon: I love that. That's beautiful. So how did you come? How did you come to the— we're talking about the Jonathan Larson Project, everybody? And while we're talking about the Jonathan Larson Project, I would love everybody to please go to the website, buy your tickets, see the show, because you got a bunch of people up here who also can sing their face off. You can go to the Jonathan Larson Project.com and get your tickets while the show is running. It's open, it's off Broadway and it's a night. So how did the show come to you? I know you have experience with his work.

[4:35] Lauren Marcus: Yeah. Well, what's weird is I didn't before the Jonathan Larson Project. So I'll tell you, so um Jen Tepper, a good friend, collaborator, she was the conceiver of the Jonathan Larson Project, which originally started as a concert in 2018, um, that we performed at 54 Below for I think 12 performances. So she had spent years going through um like boxes of his work that was in a museum in DC, and she kind of picked her favorite tunes that she wanted to see presented and um I think show like the biggest scope of what we didn't know he he'd written. And she cast that herself. And I think she did an excellent job of matching performer with material. Andy Miantis, who is in um the show with me right now, he also was a part of um those 54 Below concerts.

Um so we did that run of them. And then what is so weird is I happened to, I knew that tick, tick... BOOM!, the movie was being cast, and there was one tiny teeny tiny part um that is essentially the character of a woman, her name's Donna in the movie, but Victoria Lee Cock Hoffman, who is a very close friend and collaborator of Jonathan's, and I'd met her and gotten to know her, and she's so lovely during um the Jonathan Larson Project because his family and friends had been around them for that whole run. And I was like, I could do that. Like a few lines, I know this woman, I know I could do that. So I reached out um to one of the producers, uh Julie O, um really, really nice, smart woman who had also seen the concerts and asked to audition, and that's kind of how I got my shot with that.

It's just so funny because I never I don't think I'm ever gonna be in Rent. You know what I mean? Again, I don't think I have that type of voice necessarily. So maybe I'm being a total asshole to myself. I don't know. But I just didn't see Jonathan Larson's work being sort of in my world, and then this whole world opened up because somebody found all these things he'd written that we didn't know about. He wrote character charactery soprano songs, he wrote pastiche songs, and then because of that, tick, tick... BOOM! happened, and then several years later now we're doing the show. You just never know. You never know how life is gonna unfold.

[6:57] Lauren Marcus: You get to sing some of these hidden treasures that you don't know exist.

[7:01] Robert Bannon: Oh my god. I think I've I don't know if I'm ever gonna get to do anything this good in my life. Uh ever. Um it's such a beautiful show and his story and what the legacy that he leaves, and everyone of a certain age, my age, I'm 42, everyone of a certain age remembers when the show when Rent came out and the juggernaut and the folk tale and the fable and the whole story of the whole thing. But now to hear it and and put it together and hear the songs you know and songs you've never heard before, it's really special. It's moving. I just think the songs like uh they sound as cool slash cooler than most of the things I get like asked to do readings of. It sounds more contemporary, even the stuff that you might consider dated because it's like a 90s pop song.

I'm sorry, it still sounds really cool. Like it feels very contemporary. Um, and certainly the things he was saying back in the 80s and 90s feel very eerily um applicable to today politically, like it's wild. Everything old is truly new again.

[8:05] Lauren Marcus: And shout out to Jen, who lets your husband and y'all destroy her venue every single year.

[8:14] Robert Bannon: Yes, she does quad blaster. We do a Christmas show every year. I'm in it, but it's Joe's show. Like he is running the ship there, and um, he brings in like 60 to 90 people, and uh, we take over the space, and they're so nice and let us. We use every inch of that cabaret club. There are people everywhere, they'll be on your table, literally, like they're everywhere.

[8:36] Lauren Marcus: I go on tables, yeah.

[8:38] Robert Bannon: Yeah, see. Um, speaking of, you know, your inspiration, your Broadway. We talk about Be More Chill, we talk about the work that you've done, we talk about the work you've done with Joe, and we're trying to honest everybody and we and you brought away people you know, and you and Hunter Thompson musical that you guys all did and all the work that you do. What's what's it like when you do a show about a creative and you are a creative and you live with a creative? And how does the inspiration of Jonathan Larson lead into your home and your artistry as a family?

[9:05] Lauren Marcus: I think everyone might roll their eyes because well, first of all, when Joe came to the concerts in 2018 and he hadn't been part of the process, he came and he— I'm gonna cry. He wept through everyone. He's and he was sitting in front row mouthing the words like a groupie uh by the end of the we joke that he would be the swing. Um he was just so moved by the work and by the writer and the man and his story, but also just mainly by his writing. It's so good, and he was so prolific. So he was more than invested when we found out that I was going to be doing this run of it. We discuss it too much, we talk about it all the time. We both feel it way too hard. And um, that is the truth. I I it's it's we're not cool about it.

Nobody is like, oh, it's just a show. We're like, this is life. It's not cool. It's this is like because you're both writers and Jonathan Larson as a writer and what you're doing and and his journey and the tick, tick... BOOM! the whole story about like failing and and keeping going and and and breaking your heart, making the agent scene is the that's the best part of the whole movie. It's um it's heartbreaking, and that's what it is. Why am I so emotional today? That's what it is to do this. You just have to be prepared for everything to go to the worst version of itself to and then to like dust yourself off and just start again. You keep going.

[10:35] Robert Bannon: While we're talking, everybody, you can follow Lauren on Instagram as well, and click the link, and then you can see the music and the dates and the concerts and get tickets to see the Jonathan Larson Project as well. Do you I wish I had a dollar every time you've heard Michael in the bathroom? That's all I want to say.

[11:07] Lauren Marcus: My favorite, my favorite thing I haven't thought about this in a long time was at one point. Oh, it would just get to the point where we'd be hearing it. I feel like this was maybe in off Broadway. This feels familiar. You could hear like other people on Mike when they weren't on Mike. I don't know how to explain it, but everybody would sing in harmony at the end of "Michael in the Bathroom." So you would hear like eight cast members singing eight harmonies. And it was very fun. I love it. You all have worked. So for the and speaking of work, can you tell us a little bit about the cast? You have some woof. Tell us about the Jonathan Larson Project cast.

[11:42] Lauren Marcus: The cast is stupid. Um, so Andy Miantis is returning from the concert version. He has one of the best voices I've ever heard in my damn life. Like he'll sometimes him and Taylor truly sometimes will be like, I'm feeling a little under, and it never sounds less than full out and perfect. It's like I almost challenge them, you know what I mean, to not sound that way. Um, so Andy is returning. Um, Taylor Amon Jones, who I didn't know personally before this, one of the best voices I've ever heard in my entire life. Uh Jason Tam, truly one of the most talented, selfless, funny, um, and like beautiful people on a stage. And I don't just mean physically, I mean like you see his soul in a weird way up there.

Um, and then Adam, who uh Chandler brought who I also didn't know before this, who I think is my new soulmate. I kind of like we met, and I was like, it's me, but a different version. Like um, maybe my soulmate in Neurosis, Neuroses, um, and he's just oh god, he's such a nuanced, gorgeous actor. Um, and then our covers, Jesse Hooker Bailey and Gilbert Bailey, who are also married, um, and they're amazing. They both went on our first week. They went on, I think two performances together, because we had two people out, and they killed it. They're so great. Yeah. You have to, you really have to, you have to check it out. It it's an undertaking. The show is an undertaking.

[13:14] Lauren Marcus: It is. It's it's like you hear 90 minutes and you're kind of like, oh yeah. I wasn't vocally, I was not quite expecting. Even now, like I'm talking, I got a laryngeal massage today. Oops, I hope I didn't flash everyone. Like, I wasn't quite expecting um it to be so demanding, but there's only five of us. We sing a lot. We all have about two to three solos of big numbers, and then I don't know, like half the score. We're supporting each other and singing back up. Um, it's a lot in addition to out there and moving and you know, um, it's a big, it's a big thing.

[13:48] Lauren Marcus: Yeah. Big thing. Yeah, big anything, Jonathan Larson is a big thing. It's a big thing, and a lot of words, like you said, which I love, but oh my god. Yeah. Well, it's funny, not that I not that this is anything about me, but my first audition for a Broadway show, when I got called in at 18 to be a replacement in RENT to be Roger, and had to sing one song "Glory" pre pre YouTube, pre-print the lyrics, you know, back in 1998. Whoa, how'd it go?

[14:16] Lauren Marcus: Terrible. I changed my major in college the next day. I thought it was such I was like, I can never I will never do this. I'm not ready. I can't do it. And 10 years later, um a production was done. Uh and they I went in, I was like, and they called me in and I said, I'm not gonna any part but Roger. And the callback was for Roger, and I booked Roger, and it was almost like for me, the show means so much to me because it bookended my fear and having to face the fear. And I think something about his work, no matter what show you do, will change you as a person. His words, his story. That's I mean, that's why his work is so enduring. I mean, he I always say he was a writer who wore his heart on his sleeve. It's impossible. You would have you really have to have a heart made of stone to not let it touch you in some way. I I I can't, I I don't understand how you can sing this and not be affected by any of it.

[15:10] Lauren Marcus: I was validated because Adam Pascal came on this show and said he kept the words to one song "Glory" on the stage. So there we go. So I felt like I was vindicated. Listen, I was having panic attacks until recently with one of my songs in the show, and I've been singing it for six years. So yeah. How do you describe the creative process when people see the show uh that that you mix up the stuff that you know if you're a musical theater RENT head or you're you're a tick tick BOOM fan, and the stuff that you know that's already been out, and how does it weave together so that you're gonna go in there and hear stuff you know and new stuff?

[15:39] Lauren Marcus: I I always joke that I think people secretly think, even though they know it's not RENT, that they're secretly gonna go think they're gonna go see RENT. You know what I mean? And look, there's a song that he kept trying to put into RENT. It was um Daphne Rubin Vega is actually her callback song. Um, and she sang it as Mimi and it got cut from the show. There are a few songs that are definitely RENT like and reminiscent, um, which is a fun way in for people who already love that show. And then there are songs that you would never suspect would be written by Jonathan Larson. I joke sometimes that I think I have the weirdo track. I have a couple of those songs. Like I have a song a very pastiche song to start and you're like what and then I have this seven minute Sondheimian crazy song.

Oh yes that is it's like a it's it's like a soprano-y charactery patter Sondheim song that also requires vocally a lot a lot of singing you know it's not just talking pattern like um and I don't think either of those would be songs people would peg as a Jonathan Larson song. So I I'm I would be interested if I if I didn't know the show because it's like what else did this man do? What else was in his scope like what what did we miss out on hearing potentially you're not just gonna rock and roll your way through 90 minutes. There's some real colors in oh no you're you're gonna sit and lean into some acting as well.

[17:05] Lauren Marcus: Oh yes oh yes or I don't know what you're doing there. So absolutely right so you know you're you're interesting uh your career is amazing because like I said your concerts in New York were were a thing are a thing and were a thing and have sold out on it but yeah sometimes are they I was gonna say we're ready for you to do another residency and be back out here. Well when you're done b with this whole I would I would love that and I'm actually sitting on an entire album that I have to release, which is a whole other story, and I need help. But but yes, would love to get another run of shows and release that album, ASAP. And that's gonna happen. And then your your journey, like you're you're a lot of students. I'm a teacher, a lot of students watch all this, and um and your journey, like you went to fancy schools, you went to school in Europe.

[17:49] Lauren Marcus: I did. I went to Scotland for a year just for straight acting. Um and that was cool. I mean, I had a good time. I did Shakespeare there. I wanted to concentrate specifically on acting, and also I would be completely lying if I didn't tell you. So Joe and I have known each other a long time. We've dated, we've broken up for like three, four years in there. I would be lying if I didn't say part of it was like, I have to get out of the city. I can't be near Joe Iconis. And um, so I kind of wanted to study acting and wanted to be out of the city, so I went away, you know what I mean? And did you learn uh because one of the hardest things I think in the world is to learn how to act, and then another thing is to learn how to sing, and then the hardest thing is to put those two things together and do musical theater.

[18:32] Lauren Marcus: Well, I think that I've I think that I've always been an actor first. Um, and I wanted to go sharpen those skills for sure. Um again, because I don't have a voice that I think is considered I think it's it's been called unique a lot. Um and I feel like because of that, maybe it's it's just been an insecurity of mine, but I've really glommed on to the acting side of things and known that that is gonna be my specific track. Um, that'll be the the thing for me that kind of makes my storytelling through song stand out. Does that make sense?

[19:16] Robert Bannon: Sure.

[19:16] Lauren Marcus: So I feel like I I've while I've while developing both, it's almost like the acting has been the heart of it for me. Well, buy a ticket, everybody, and and or listen to her album, and you could hear that she can sing, and then she'll go there and she'll make you uh know that she can act as well. And it's you want to feel something, you know, you want people to feel something when when you're singing a song, and yeah. Well, we're fans, we're fans of the whole experience that you have in your house. We we love all of the work that's done. This show I went with my friend Mike, who who's been around, he had the VHS bootleg RENT that was like someone recorded with a camcorder in his pocket back in the day.

[19:56] Robert Bannon: Did he have a good time?

[19:57] Lauren Marcus: He had the best time.

[20:00] Robert Bannon: That makes me happy.

[20:01] Lauren Marcus: I it's funny because a couple people like Jason and Andy at the top of my head were RENT heads, like they know every single word. And I was very late to the RENT game, actually, when I was younger. Um, so I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to catch up unless I take a year off of my life and like abandon my child and decide that this is what I'm gonna do. Um, and I love it. I just was late to it, so I I'm I'm not like a diehard. Um so it's fascinating to me the people who are, but the reactions have been really lovely.

[20:29] Robert Bannon: Beautiful.

[20:29] Lauren Marcus: He he loved it. With tears and eyes and um and nostalgia and and and and uh a whole nother that's yeah that makes me so happy. That's the point. So when you come to New York, everybody, or you if you're in New York and you're looking for something to do this weekend, next weekend, and you do on a Tuesday night, whenever you are out and about, come on in.

[20:46] Lauren Marcus: Come on in. All you gotta do is go go get your tickets, go to the Jonathan Larson Project.com. We have Monday shows too.

[20:52] Robert Bannon: Oh, that's right.

[20:54] Lauren Marcus: You have a show now, you gotta go do a show.

[20:55] Lauren Marcus: I got a show tonight.

[20:57] Lauren Marcus: Yeah. Yeah, I got a lot, a lot going on. But look, I'm like combining everything. I'm like good, doing my vocalese, you know.

[21:08] Robert Bannon: Well, we're gonna follow you, and we're gonna stay up to date because she's got an album in the works that's already done. She's got more things coming down the pipe. You know, I and and we're just gonna keep rooting and cheering for you.

[21:18] Lauren Marcus: Thank you. Please send love to Joe. Please send love to your beautiful cast. I am and please have the best time uh singing this music and and keeping this legacy alive.

[21:27] Lauren Marcus: I I am. I can assure you I do not take a minute of it for granted. I'm loving it. Thank you so much. You're so fun. You have the cutest, sweetest personality. Like your energy just bounces.

[21:38] Lauren Marcus: Thank you. I appreciate that. This is this is fun. Thank you.