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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 over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify. And can we talk can we talk for real? You know, a legend, the legendary, the one and only icon that is Joan Rivers growing up. My first job was selling tickets at the John Harm Center for the Arts in Englewood, New Jersey. Joan would come every year. And what I loved about her so much working in the box office is that if anyone brought her a gift, if someone brought her flowers, if somebody was kind or thoughtful in any way, she would invite people backstage. She was always kind to the staff there. I wish I found my picture.

I think it's at my mom's house of me and Joan when I was a little kid. The fact that there's now a show about her life with an incredible cast with an incredible director. Ty's been here, the whole entire crew of this show have kind of been here on the round table. And when I tell you, they brought out the tippity top of the top. And Nicole Parker, are you kidding? Why are you not up in the Cape? Why don't we know Eric Rosen? Eric Rosen is here to tell us all about what he's doing up there in Massachusetts. Eric, welcome to the show.

[1:23] Eric Rosen: Thank you very much.

[1:24] Robert Bannon: We're talking like this. We're using our singer voice.

[1:28] Eric Rosen: I know.

[1:28] Robert Bannon: I could be deep too, Eric. I could you talk Joan Rivers.

[1:32] Eric Rosen: You always be Joan.

[1:34] Robert Bannon: But how long have you been up there? And what is your job up there at the Cape?

[1:39] Eric Rosen: My name is Eric Rosen. I am the artistic director of the Cape Cod Playhouse, and this is my second season. So I began working here in August of 23, but my first season was summer of 24, and we're ending my second season with Joan.

[1:55] Robert Bannon: How did the show firstly? Where are you from? How did you end up there?

[1:58] Eric Rosen: I live in New York with my husband and son. My husband's the actor Claiborne Elder. My son is my son. We live in the city during the year. I come out here for the summers. And yeah, but before this, I ran Kansas City Repertory Theatre. I was artistic director there for 10 years, and before that, I was founder and artistic director of Chicago's About Face Theater, which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary, which is not possible since I must have been 12.

[2:28] Robert Bannon: I could completely understand where you're coming from. And shout out to your husband. We all love the Gilded Age, and we all love all of the fun Broadway shenanigans that he has been a part of in your family. You know, I'm not to suck away from Joan, but I just finished adoption foster class with my husband. And when I hear about beautiful same-sex couples that have families, it like my heart flutters because I'm scared as him. No best in your leverage you by a lot. It's amazing. Thank you, Eric. So shout out to send love to your husband and back to you and your family. So this show, you as artistic director get to pick what's on your stage because your second season. How does a show like Joan come across your desk? And what was your thought when you read it?

[3:14] Eric Rosen: I actually sought it out. Danny Goldstein is the playwright, and Danny and I went to school together, and I saw that he was doing this. It started at South Coast last year, about this time last year, and I was like, I play by Joan Rivers, we should do that. And so I reached out to Danny, and it wasn't available, and it was a whole thing. And then I pursued it as I'm want to do, and it really been so jazzed that we are a part of the development process. The Playhouse has historically not done a lot of new work. I spent most of my career developing new plays and musicals and sending them out, you know, Broadway, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. So the chance to bring that energy to the Playhouse is really cool.

We've never done it. So I was excited to be on board with the new play, and then also to create a separate production. This is kind of a concurrent production with the Barrington Stage South Coast Rep production. Ours is directed by Ty Blue, which was my first thought was let's get a rising comedy star into the seat and see what they can do. And he was able to assemble this extraordinary cast, and it's so fun. What a great show.

[4:33] Robert Bannon: Well, if you know any people watching don't know about Ty, if you saw Titanic, if you saw even casting director for Drag Race and Reality, I mean Ty has done it all, has been a little bit of everything, and he's absolutely brilliant. And then he gets Nicole Parker to jump in, who is, I mean, a woman of a thousand voices, literally. We love Nicole. I'm so excited to have her on stage. I remember back from the mad TV days. Yes, she's the funniest person on that show, and I love that she's doing this. It's really well, she was here. I told her, and I had to try to do my bad impersonation of her doing impersonations. So you gotta get your tickets. Cape Cod Playhouse.com is where you can get your tickets.

The tickets are on sale, and they're probably gonna go. So the run is going to be from September 3rd to the 20th, and it's written by Daniel Goldstein. So, how do you explain what exactly this show, what story of her life is it kind of is it a biography? Is it from her whole life? Well, how do you describe it?

[5:29] Eric Rosen: Yeah, I mean it is the story of her life from trailblazing years in early comedy through to the tragic suicide of her husband and covers all the bases as you'd expect it to does it in a really interesting way. Danny's created a four-hander in which Alex Finky and Nicole trade-off the first half. Nicole is Joan's mother, and in the second half she's Joan, and Alex is young Joan, and then she plays Melissa Rivers in the second half, and it's really theatrical and interesting. I think Danny's crafted something that isn't it is a biography, but it captures the spirit of Joan in an interestingly theatrical way. It begins, I love that it begins in the Laurie Beachman Theater where Joan tried out material.

I got to go down to the Laurie Beachman a couple months ago and see like where she there's a book, there's this little vestibule between Manhattan Plaza and the tiny little basement theater, and that's where she used to change clothes, which I love. So you know it's both a love letter to Joan and a love letter to the theater and to comedy and to what it means to want to tell your story and to how we integrate our lives into what we do as artists. While the best thing of it is that Melissa Rivers is a producer on the show. So Danny had access to every single joke that Joan Rivers ever wrote. And so you know it's really authentic. It's not made up Joan, it's like her actual voice. And you can feel it and you can hear it.

God, what a legend, what an icon, what a filthy, filthy mouth. And I love everything about all of that. So you know, if you watch if you're a Joan Rivers fan and you got to see her stand up and you saw her on television, which everyone has, and this is a national treasure truth. But her documentary about her life was so fascinating because she kept piling cabinets of jokes of index cards, and she worked to the bitter end like a full calendar of I mean, she would perform at the opening of a 7-Eleven. I mean, she liked a full calendar. She was so driven and hardworking. And I'm sure that is replicated in this. What did you learn about her after you read it? Is there things that maybe you didn't know about her and her life or got a different sense of her as a person?

[7:48] Eric Rosen: You know, the thing that surprised me the most is in pop culture in our culture now, the degree to which Mrs. Maisel and Hacks are about her, they're indebted to her. I don't know what the creators if they were thinking that, but the trail she blazed and what she did against all odds to survive in a man's world of comedy. You know, think about like she was sharing jokes with Lenny Bruce and creating something wholly original and no one had ever done what she did, and now it's very common. But every female comic certainly owes a debt to her, but all comedy does. She would push every single envelope there was, including like taking tragedy per life and turning it into comedy, is something the show really examines and the way she incorporated her family into her comedy with her daughter and her mother, and it's just really interesting, this kind of portrait of an artist taking her seriously as an artist. And I think that's we would do well to understand her as a real major thinker of 20th century comedy, that that's what she was.

[8:59] Robert Bannon: What I love so much about this show is that Melissa Rivers is a part of it, and then you have this incredible all-star team. So this is not like an unauthorized, salacious. This is coming. This is coming. This is not a, you know, a kitty whatever the those those not those famous you know biographies where all this this is this is Joan's works, Joan's jokes, Joan's story told with the conjunction with her daughter Melissa, and it's gonna be something special. What you do so well, firstly, your playhouse, I've never been to Cape May. I was nervous that it wasn't even in Massachusetts. I had to brush up on my state abbreviations before you said Cape May, which is in New Jersey. Don't go to Cape May.

If you want to come to the theater, don't go to Cape May, you'll be in the wrong. I carry my jersey with me everywhere I go. I'm from Jersey, so don't go to Cape May, because there won't be the Joan show. Go to Cape Cod, where I'm not trying to be shady to New Jersey. Cape Cod is quite gorgeous, and your theater is pretty freaking gorgeous. What is the history behind it? What's it like to see a show there?

[10:02] Eric Rosen: This place is so magical. It was founded in 1927, which means that we in on July 4th, 2027, we will be a 100 years old, and we're the oldest continuously operating summer theater in America, and one of only like a handful I can find 10 theaters that will reach its 100th birthday. And if I don't screw it up, we'll get there. But that's why I'm here. I mean, I'm so excited to get to run one of these places at on the precipice of this major anniversary.

[10:31] Eric Rosen: The history of the place is incredible. Like Betty White got her start here. Um, I love this. Margaret Hamilton was doing a show here when Wizard of Oz came out. So the first screening ever of Wizard of Oz was at our cinema. We have a cinema on the property, which is incredible. Thornton Wilder, the year he wrote Our Town and won the Pulitzer Prize, came up to do Our Town on our stage, and it's the same stage. From Betty White to Bette Davis, Gertrude Lawrence to Tallulah Bankhead, the walls are covered in the names of these iconic 20th-century stars. Henry Fonda did his first plays there and then came back to show with Jane, and she allegedly crashed her car on campus, which I loved. It's this iconic theater in a beautiful place on this 20-acre campus.

So it's both incredibly quintessentially New England, and we're creating work. It's always been where Broadway stars go, but now our generation of Broadway stars are coming, and I'm able to attract, luckily, that's my world, and also get some amazing people to come up and share really, really high-level work in this beautiful, beautiful place.

[11:42] Robert Bannon: Fine, Eric, fine young actor, fine. I will come up there and work too, Eric. Thank you for making me the offer. I'm ready to come up. What I love about young actors, and a lot of young actors watch the show, and a lot of them, you know, die for summer stock, die for equity credits, die for being able to work and make their weeks. You put together quite a lineup this summer in particular. I mean, your season ranged from the Betty Holly story to Rent, Anastasia, to Come From Away, and then Joan. As the artistic director, as Joan is about to be up and on the boards, are you already thinking about next year?

[12:16] Eric Rosen: Oh, it's almost done. I mean, it has to be because we start selling, you know, at the end of November. We're already talking about 2027 because that's the big anniversary season. So it's a multi-year process. Like we're all, because there are always this, you know, the 20 or 30 plays that we should be doing that will hit our sweet spot. Then, you know, negotiating down to the end of, like, to us, the success is a show that will get people off the beach in the summer and that will attract top-level Broadway folks, and that will provide opportunities to young artists who are at the beginning of their careers, either backstage or on stage, and that will be fun for me to do. It's increasingly a small set of things that we could possibly do.

But it's a blast. And you know, the most amazing thing is the Playhouse is in this incredible renaissance. I know so many theaters are struggling. We've had 44 sold-out shows in a 540-seat theater this summer. Come From Away is at 100% capacity; you cannot get a ticket. It keeps happening, and we're booming. The budget has almost doubled in two years. We're growing so fast; the staff has doubled. I'm really, I forgot the, my foot to the gas 100% to get us ready for this anniversary, and the whole community is rallying around it, and that's really fun.

[13:39] Robert Bannon: Well, while you're, you can't come see Come From Away if you're up on the Cape, but you can get tickets to go see Joan, and they're gonna sell out too. I'm sure your number is not gonna be 44 by the end of this summer.

[13:49] Eric Rosen: I hope not. We'll see.

[13:50] Robert Bannon: What you do do well, though, while looking at prices, is that their tickets are as affordable as 50 bucks. Like, you're not gonna go see Broadway caliber performers in New York City anymore for 50 dollars, and you make it accessible for everybody to really be able to have a special night out with their family or loved ones.

[14:05] Eric Rosen: Yeah, it really, it's important to us that it's, you know, that the best seats are, you know, expensive, but that we maintain there are almost always these affordable seats. The theater is tiny; it's 540 seats, but it feels like a 300-seat theater, so there are no bad seats. If you're sitting in the back row of the balcony, you're closer than row M in a Broadway house. And they should be cheap; you know, families should be able to come. I've got a kid, and I can't go see Broadway as a family, so we come here. And there's stars. I mean, it's, husband’s a star, y'all; it's a Broadway TV star, and they can't, you can't, yeah, it's not, it's not a, is this the opportunity for you guys to see that?

And also, I know that at the Cape also does incredible stuff for children over the summer as well. You guys really do have an all-inclusive performing arts center going on all summer long for people that are in that area in one of the most beautiful places in the country, so why not come visit? Why not come visit? So I may have to come up. I'm a bad gay; I have not been to P-Town. I've not watched Island. Don't judge, Eric, don't judge me. I have not been up to the Cape. I'm gonna get my, they're gonna take my pride flag away from me in this conversation.

[15:16] Eric Rosen: So for people who want to be a part of this and want to be behind the scenes or on stage, do your auditions, your job postings, all of that stuff, is that stuff that we could find at KPlayhouse.com or keep an eye out for it?

[15:31] Eric Rosen: All the audition notices are on there, and I really encourage folks, especially if you are a Massachusetts-based actor, to come to our EPAs. I know a lot of people think that's silly, but we actually do cast from them. We've cast principals from EPAs. I believe in it; it's really important that everyone has a chance to get in the door. Pro tip: if you're a Massachusetts person or can get to the Cape, coming to the local EPAs that we do on Cape Cod in February, God help us, those are less well attended than the New York EPAs, which are, it's tough to get a spot. But if you want to take a road trip in February to Cape Cod, who doesn't?

[16:10] Robert Bannon: You know what's funnier? When I got my equity card doing theater over the summer, I got my job at a local EPA, taking the ride a couple of hours on a Sunday. It was Palm Sunday. I told my mom I cannot have turkey with you on Palm Sunday, and my little Italian grandmother, I need to go up to do this audition and not booked the job because you may be more memorable. People may see you; you may have more of a chance to audition than you would if you're at Ripley or Pearl or wherever your open jar, wherever you are gonna be in the city. So it's a great, and then when people get booked and hired by you, you're not gonna make them sleep, you know, 24 people to a room with no running water in some summer hut somewhere.

[16:52] Eric Rosen: No, we've abandoned our huts. The artist housing is pretty amazing, actually. We're committed to making sure that every artist that comes here feels like I want them to go back to New York or Boston or wherever they're from and say this is the best place to work; you have to get there. Because we can't pay very much, but we can pay this experience, which is that, you know, the theater is a 12-minute walk to the beach. It's so beautiful here, and it's like, you know, people bring their families; it becomes sort of a vacation for them while they're working, and that's really important to us. Even the crew has pretty good housing. And those, I should say, if you're interested in getting involved backstage, there are lots and lots of apprentice, internship, and early career opportunities for young people, and that's part of the ethos of this place.

I was an apprentice at the Westport Country Playhouse a long time ago, and that's honestly why I do this. I loved it so much. I learned how to run theaters by sitting in the business office at Westport.

[17:55] Robert Bannon: So, all right. So when Joan opens on September 3rd and the show runs the 20th, and you get people from the Cape showing up after Labor Day, and they're the people hanging around the beach and trying to enjoy their last moments of the summer, what do you hope they take away from? What is the mission of putting this show up on your stage?

[18:13] Eric Rosen: I would love it if people, I believe there is a huge future for this show. There's a great plan for it; there's a market for it. Whether that's on tour or on Broadway, I'm not sure. But to think of the Playhouse as a place where you're not only seeing iconic Broadway shows revived, but also as a place that you get to see something before it goes to Broadway is, I think that's pretty magical. And a time of year in which being here feels really special. September is my favorite month up here. It's still really warm; the water's warm; it's not so crowded, and the people who come are, you know, people who have time in September to be away. Our last show is always different than the rest of the season.

The nature of what we do, you know, all the college kids who work here go back to college. Usually, it's a smaller show; it's a smaller staff. So it's a little more intimate for everyone, and I think to the audience that's true as well. So I think that's, you know, hopefully, it's a big hit for us and a big hit in the future and begins a new tradition for us to try and step out.

[19:14] Robert Bannon: I love it. KPlayhouse.com, everybody, get your tickets. Make sure you see and honor the legacy of the incredible Joan Rivers with Joan, a brand new play with all the jokes produced by Melissa Rivers, starring the incredible Nicole Parker, directed by the incredible, you know, I met Ty doing press day for Titanic on a boat in the Hudson River where no one heard of this show. Marlowe was dressed as Celine Dion. I went with my cousin when I first showed up. I said, What in the world is this? And by the end of the press day, I said, This is going to be a monster. And it was a monster, and that's all thanks to the incredible writing team, which is Ty, Marla, and Constantine. And now Ty goes on to be a big giant director, and you grab them up at the Cape. So this is the next big thing for them all. So you need to get your tickets and make sure you see it before it lives on. And Eric's bringing it to you right there in, you know, the backyard.

[20:08] Eric Rosen: I'm bringing it.

[20:09] Robert Bannon: He's bringing it. Thank you so much for spending time with us. I can't wait. I promise you, I'm gonna do the checklist. I'm gonna come up there one day, and I'm gonna take you to lunch.

[20:20] Eric Rosen: Maybe I'll take you to lunch.

[20:22] Robert Bannon: Oh, you know the spots. Perfect. I've got a budget, and I've got a budget, you know.

[20:26] Eric Rosen: Oh, even, oh, this is a legitimate business expense.

[20:29] Robert Bannon: Actors.

[20:31] Eric Rosen: Everyone else has no budget.

[20:32] Robert Bannon: Everyone's got money to burn up there at the Cape.

[20:35] Eric Rosen: At least for one lobster roll.

[20:37] Robert Bannon: Everyone gets one lobster roll. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. Great legs.

[20:42] Eric Rosen: Thanks, Robert. Appreciate it.