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[0:14] Robert Bannon: 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 mean, you know, we one of our favorite things we do is to talk about original voices, new works that are coming to the stage. And I'm so excited about our next guest. So what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about the space and Iron Dale as a show that it's at the space from Iron Dale. It's a show called Well, I'll let you go. Man, I didn't want to mess it up because I didn't want you. You know what I'm saying? The show is at the space, and you just get a ticket, everybody. It's from July 29th till August 29th. You have the whole entire month.

It's an all-star cast, all star director, all star writer. You may have seen the writer on Broadway. You may have seen the director's work. He's gotten all sorts of nominations and he's very you're very fancy now, Jack, since you've been here. I think it's I think it's us. I think our interview was the quintessential moment that changed things for Jack. Bubba, welcome to the show, Jack. Welcome to the show.

[1:10] Bubba Weiler: Thank you. So good to be here.

[1:12] Robert Bannon: A horrible host that I've just taken full credit for all of your successes, but I just did. I can only imagine what's gonna happen to both of our careers at what once this airs. This is it. Academy start looking at real estate.

[1:25] Bubba Weiler: Well, it's that perfect.

[1:27] Robert Bannon: Bubba, you are fascinating when you read about your career and your journey because you're a Broadway baby, you're you're an actor's actor, you're a nominated for a whole bunch of awards. Millions of people have seen you on stage, and now you lend your voice and you're taking on a whole new role with this show. Congratulations.

[1:45] Bubba Weiler: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's very exciting for me.

[1:48] Robert Bannon: So when did the idea start that you wanted to write?

[1:53] Bubba Weiler: I've been writing forever. Um, I I like was sort of secretly writing plays in my bedroom since the time I was like 12 years old. Um I I grew up a a child actor in Chicago. Um, and what was one of the things that was so great about that is um Chicago, you know, is making all of this really exciting new work. Um so I have been doing new play development, or I've gotten to see new play development since the time I was like 10 or 11 years old. Um so it's sort of always been in my bones, always something that I've wanted to do. Um I just wasn't really sharing that work with anybody um until I started sharing it with Jack.

[2:34] Robert Bannon: So Jack, how did you and Bubba meet? And how did this idea come about to get this show on its feet?

[2:41] Jack Serio: Well, Bubba was my playwrighting TA at NYU when he was a senior and when I was a freshman, he uh was the TA to Max Rubin at Playwrights Rise in theater school where we both went. So I have known Bubba since then and weirdly have always known that there was a kind of interest in writing, um, but had never read any of his work. Um and then Bubba a little over a year ago, uh shared a play with me, a different play, um, that I kind of immediately fell in love with, and we spent last summer workshopping, um, which I hope will will still happen. Um, but while we were working on that play and trying to figure out how to make that play happen, he very sheepishly was like, There's also another play um that I want to share with you, and that was Well I'll Let You Go.

Um, and yeah, I I I just kind of totally fell for it um and its scope and uh I've been excited by it's like a much bigger play than the other play of Bubba's, and there's been something exciting that we've actually gotten the kind of more substantial ambitious project up first. It's been uh exhilarating.

[3:46] Robert Bannon: Uh Bubba, it sounds really exciting that you got to share this work and these pieces are going on at the same time. That that like you have as an artist, you've been an actor and you've been working and then you've been writing, and then what's it feel like to now get one of your words out with a full run? I mean, a full run in New York, a full run a month long to see a show, it it is quite a feat in of itself. How's it feel as you go you're in rehearsals right now and this is marching towards opening?

[4:12] Bubba Weiler: Um it I just feel so incredibly lucky. Um it is you know, like sort of crazy for you know uh a great director like Jack and these great producers that we have to take a chance like this on a writer whose work has never been on stage before. Um so the fact that they put like their faith in in this play, um and I think sort of largely in Jack if we're being honest, but um, but uh is it's just like so moving and so exciting to me. It um it it it is something that I totally don't take for granted. Um, that my first sort of opportunity um in this realm is something as big and as as realized as this.

[5:01] Robert Bannon: Well, I'm uh yeah, let look I'm well before Jack speaks. I just want you to know that let you go nyc.com. You have to get your tickets to start at 49. And you can't even get, I don't know, uh a sandwich in Brooklyn for 49. Or a kabucha. I should say that. That's more Brooklyn to me. Or you could go get let go NYC. Let you go nyc.com is where you can get your tickets.

[5:23] Jack Serio: I just want I wanna push back on on Bubba's response there. I I feel uh I've done a lot of uh plays with kind of actors with whom I've had pre-existing relationships, and and there are a few people in this large ensemble that I've worked with before, but it's largely all actors who are new to me and that I've admired for a long time. And and they are absolutely here because of uh Bubba's play. Because I mean, my without giving too much away, there's how can I say this? There's a way of reading the play, um, where one may think that the role that Michael Chernus is playing is smaller than it actually is. Uh and uh Michael, when we sent him the offer, uh mistakenly thought he was only in like one scene, that he only had like a five-page scene and was still good, maybe gonna do the play.

He was like, it's so good. Michael Chernus hasn't been on like the New York stage in 11 years, and even when he thought he only had a five-page scene because he was misunderstanding something about the play, uh, he was still maybe gonna do it. Um so it speaks it speaks to the the caliber of the the play that that Bubba has has written. Um I've never seen so many. I don't think um I like to work fast. A bunch of projects I've made have come together very quickly that that Uncle Vanya I did a few years ago. We kind of had the idea for it in like March, April, and we were in rehearsals for it by May. Like it came together very quickly. Um so I I'm used to working that way. And Bubba sent me this play in October, and we didn't really in earnest try to kind of set it up until March, April of this year.

Um, so it was it was a very quick turnaround, and that was only possible, I think, because everyone that's read the play and encountered it has um shared my enthusiasm and and belief in it. Um, you know, there's a I feel I feel like there's a belief that you can't get people to go see theater in New York in the summer because it's slow and we go on vacation and and we're doing this play in Brooklyn and and that feels like mentally hard for people to get to. Um but I think even with all those kind of like faux hurdles in our way, um everyone has just been kind of like so enthusiastic and so gung-ho, and um shared my ambition for this project and wanted to push it forward in the same way. So I think that it speaks to what Bubba wrote. Um and also um Brooklyn is not very far to get to for all your listeners. We're right by Bam, we're right by Tefana, we're right by the Barclay Center. It's a beautiful thing.

[7:48] Bubba Weiler: Some of them might even live in Brooklyn.

[7:50] Jack Serio: Yeah, right.

[7:51] Bubba Weiler: We all do.

[7:52] Jack Serio: I was gonna say, we all do. They probably do.

[7:55] Robert Bannon: Yeah, we live there.

[7:56] Jack Serio: Yeah.

[7:58] Robert Bannon: Tell us of what how do you describe the show? What is this show about?

[8:03] Jack Serio: So we are finding that it is a show that um the best experience of the show does require you to know to sort of go in a little blind, right? Like that's that that's sort of the most exciting way to answer. Um, but that being said, so if you want that experience, turn Karen off. Um there well, because there is something about the show that that is sort of like um there's there's a bit of a a sort of slow burning mystery to to the show, and there's a feeling that we want that the show takes you on that that um the show the show sort of slowly turns into something else as it as it's going on, right? So you do kind of want to walk and being like, what am I what what am I watching here? You know.

Um but it is mostly to me about a a marriage that is built on the ideas of a of a life in a country that has sort of like shifted beneath their feet. You know, sort of everything everything that they they believe that they are that they, you know, sort of should have been able the life that they should have been able to live and achieve together has has changed.

[9:28] Robert Bannon: Well I'm hooked. I'm I was hooked by just the pick. I mean if you just look at the artwork and and what the press release has said and the things that you who are these people what are they doing? What I want to know the story. I want to know what's going on. And then when you read about it and you see this cast, it's gonna make you want to go run out and get a ticket um especially when you when you hear who's in this show. Jack tell us who's in this show how did you get these people to do a show as you say all the way so far out in Brooklyn.

[9:53] Bubba Weiler: This is really kind of a dream project for me and the kind of things I love to make, which is that the play is gorgeous on its own accord, but it's also a hello—sorry, that's Broadway calling to transfer the show to your listeners. That's—we're moving.

[10:12] Jack Serio: That the show is extraordinary in its own right it is also a vehicle for a remarkable cast and a true ensemble and a way for us to kind of string together this pearl necklace of New York theater greats. So it stars Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Tony Nominee, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, who I've grown up, you know, seeing on every major stage in this city and just in awe of. Michael Chernus, who has not been on stage in 11 years, but was a kind of stalwart of off-Broadway and was in, you know, all of Adam Rapp's early plays and Annie Baker's The Aliens and these incredible original productions, and has since been kind of filling it on film and TV and in Orange is the New Black and Severance. Emily Davis, who gave like one of the all-time great performances in Is This a Room?

Connie Shulman, who threatens to run away with the show, Amelia Workman, Cricket Brown, Danny McCarthy, and Will Dagger, who was in my production of Uncle Vanya and just finished a run on Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway opposite George Clooney. So it's just really if I forget anyone, Bubba, that's everyone.

[11:23] Bubba Weiler: No, that's it. Um, it's this really extraordinary company of New York theater actors. And you know, when I first moved to New York in 2014, I'll be here 11 years next month, the environment was different. It felt the not-for-profit scene was more robust and healthier, and you could go and see ambitious new writing by first-time playwrights with really big extraordinary casts. And post-COVID, there's just been a bit of kind of contraction around that kind of programming because no one has any money. And all these not-for-profits, whose job it is to kind of do ambitious work that doesn't necessarily need to make a profit to just kind of serve the artist and the writing, are finding themselves with fewer and fewer resources, and you're seeing kind of an influx of solo shows or shows with really small sets or really small casts.

And it feels exciting to return to a kind of playmaking that was really prevalent when I first moved here, which is like big, sprawling new American plays with great casts. You know, these people are all stars to me, but there's not like a big movie star in the cast, which also feels like the only way you can make a new play now in the city is like some big person in tickets or $500. So to do a play with great theater actors in a gorgeous, gorgeous space. If your listeners have never been to Irondale, it is truly like one of the most beautiful spaces in the city. It's absolutely singular. It feels very personally exciting to me and a return to the work that I first fell in love with when I moved here.

[13:04] Jack Serio: I think that's like such an eloquent, beautiful way to... that's it, people buy a ticket so you can support works like this. Bubba, you guys have known each other for a moment, you are friends. Now you work together in this creative way. These are your words, this is your baby, and now Jack is at the helm of directing this. So, how do you guys navigate that relationship between the writer?

[13:25] Bubba Weiler: It's honestly been like so dreamy. Um, you know, Jack asked me for opinions on some design over text the other day, and I gave them back, and he was like, it's like we're in each other's heads. Like we, like Jack always has the note I'm trying to formulate in my head, like two seconds, he'll say it before it's like clicked for me. Um, so it's really like kind of spooky. And um, but it's been like we're having so much fun. Um, you know, I've got like a lot of I had like a couple coffee dates before I started this process with, you know, sort of more experienced playwrights, um, mentors and friends, and everyone told me, you know, sort of how scary it was gonna be. Uh and um, you know, to just like just to know that that was going to be part of it, that it feels so vulnerable and um and scary and will feel and it will feel like you're not seeing your play for a long time, and then you will.

Um and like I have to be honest, I haven't had that experience yet. I have felt so weirdly calm and um I'm like sleeping. I'm having so much fun. Um, I think it's because I have so much trust in Jack and the cast.

[14:45] Jack Serio: Bubba, are you sleeping? Do you feel the same sentiment?

[14:49] Bubba Weiler: Yeah, I may be sleeping a little less than Bubba. But I yeah, I but that's my way. I uh that that's my way. Um yeah, I it's funny. I this is not my first play. Um, but you do it it feels maybe like what people experience with childbirth, which is like while you're making something that's like unbelievably painful, and you're like, I can't believe I've ever made something like this before and it hurts so much and I'll never do it again. And then you're like as soon as it's done, you're like, I want another one. Um but no, I I uh I get you know debilitatingly nervous and self-critical and anxious, and I'm I'm pretty good about hiding that. Um but I also think that's probably healthy. There's there's probably like I I I would be nervous if I was too complacent.

I would I'd be nervous if I was like, it's all going great, and there's not gonna be any problems. Um I I think I I will feel that kind of relief once we get it open, but I I feel good. I I know there's no emergencies. This feels I feel um my usual amount of anxious. Um but you yeah, that's a good sign, I think.

[16:00] Bubba Weiler: Yeah, it's gonna be amazing. I I'm so excited for people to check this show out and see. Bubba, for you, what do you hope people walk away? Who should go see the show? What's your audience?

[16:10] Bubba Weiler: Everyone should go see this show. Um first of all, you know, I wrote this play structurally without giving too much away as a showcase for actors for great theater actors. Um and so I know that people will walk away loving actors and just being blown away by these performances. I don't think there's a way that you're gonna leave the show and not be so impressed with the performances that you've just seen. Um and then, you know, this play takes on sort of like a big scope and wants you to think sort of largely about kind of like how to spend your life and who to spend it with. Um and what sort of things really add up to a meaningful life in this country, this I guess any country, but particularly this one, I guess.

[17:21] Jack Serio: Yeah. Well, I think it's important. Go ahead, Jack. Please tell us.

[17:25] Jack Serio: No, uh, that's just so right. And I just want to add on to that, you know. I hope people that maybe haven't seen a play in a while will be tempted to come out. I feel like I'm always making theater for people that think it's not for them or have been disappointed by theater in the past. I always kind of say that I have so much love for theater and I see quite a bit of it, and I find so much of it kind of lets me down. Um and then every, you know, every once in a while you have an experience that reminds you why you fell in love with it in the first place, and I feel that way about Bubba's play. And I feel, you know, we're staging it in a somewhat unusual way, um, that I think is really gonna invite the audience in and they're gonna feel a part of it.

Well, there's not any sort of audience participation lest anyone get nervous about that. But I do think it'll feel um a bit like you're attending kind of a community meeting. And um I think the assemblage of people we find in Fort Greene every night, which is also like people who want to like have a nice summer night out, should come see this play because there's like the best restaurants in New York are like right around the corner and it's such a beautiful area. But I do hope people that maybe, especially about plays, if they've been disappointed by plays they've seen or felt like something hasn't been for us or they've been bored, um I think this is maybe a play to give a shot. I love the schedule, I love the website, I love the accessibility for people to get a ticket.

I mean, I was just checking it out. Some shows are almost sold out already, so you better get a ticket. You're not gonna want to be left out. Wait till the show opens and people the word is spread, you're gonna not want to be left out in the dark for this show. Um and I'm excited. This sounds like an exciting new chapter for both of you, and an exciting new chapter for New York Theater, and we're here for it all. LetYouGoNYC.com is where you can get your tickets. Go, don't, don't spoiler alert. Don't go into a message board or look it up. Just be go in blind and find out what you're about to experience. Congratulations, Bubba. This is such a show. You know, your words up here on stage in New York City for a run is so exciting.

And Jack, I I'm after this, I don't know, pull a surprises and that's it. You'll have to come back for your acceptance speech. We'll be ready for it. Congratulations for the amazing work that you do, Jack, and the amazing work you put on stage.

[19:50] Bubba Weiler: Thanks, Robert. Um, go get your tickets, everybody, and break legs. Have an amazing run. Thank you.