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[0:14] Robert Bannon: Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to this on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify. And listen, I don't care where I live, I don't care where in the world I travel. I am a Jersey boy, Jersey at heart. And you know, one of the best places to see theater, one of the fanciest places to see. See, I wasn't smart enough to go to Princeton, but I was able to buy a ticket to go see a show at the McCarter. The McCarter is doing some of the best, most amazing pieces of work ever in the Tri-State area. And they have done some of the most iconic pieces of work up on their stage. There's a brand new musical called I and You.

It's from September 13th till October 12th. How do you do a show with only two people? How do you learn all those lines, all of that music? What is it like to put this baby together? Well, who better to talk about it than the stars of the show? Jasmine Forsberg, Benji Santiago, Broadway superstars are here. Welcome to the show.

[1:12] Jasmine Forsberg: Superstars. That's so kind of you to say.

[1:14] Robert Bannon: Well, can before we talk about it, can we just talk about the receipts? Can we talk about the receipts? Jasmine, you just came off of old friends.

[1:23] Jasmine Forsberg: I did. That was wow, dream come true. In our WhatsApp group chat this morning, Lea Salonga was just texting saying she got us belated opening night gifts from Manila. So that was my morning.

[1:36] Robert Bannon: She's casually working with my idol for sure. Just the casual name drop there. I loved it so much. You know, she was and and and Benji, I absolutely adore that and saw you in The Notebook. And I think that is one of the most beautiful, beautiful scores ever existed. And then you just came from The Muni where you performed In the Heights for I don't know, 80,000 people a night. And um and and now you jumped into Jersey and you're over at the McCarter. So, Benji, how did this show come to you? Did you audition? Did someone reach out to you? What's the journey been like?

[2:10] Benji Santiago: Yeah, um I mean I auditioned like anybody else. Um, but I actually did work with our composer lyricist Ari a year before um at Lincoln Center. Uh at a program called Songwriting in the Schools. We were both performers. Uh she wrote some of the songs, so we were both performers. And uh it was it was then uh which a year ago now that I uh caught wind that she was writing uh I the annotation of I and You. And I'm I've been a big fan of the play for a couple of years now. Um so I was kind of trying to like sneak my way in there somehow, like drop little hints of like, oh, you know what? I love this play, like I and you, I don't know. Oh, you're doing your writing music, oh that's so cool.

[2:49] Robert Bannon: Plant those seeds.

[2:49] Benji Santiago: Yeah, and then so a year later, you know, after doing a couple of things that I did, you know, I got the call to audition and it was a great room to walk into. And yeah, and that was it.

[3:02] Robert Bannon: And Jasmine, how about for you?

[3:04] Jasmine Forsberg: Same vibe. I have not had uh an attachment to anybody on this team, but I remember going in for my audition, where was it? NCC uh in New York City and lugging my giant guitar case around because I only have a hard shallow one. I don't have one of the nice little travel ones you can wear on your back. And my gosh, my hands were hurting, but I walked in and I the room was just so warm, and I feel like that's been the experience thus far here in New Jersey, here in Princeton. It's just been, I mean, we're three, we're into our fourth week of rehearsals now, and it has been just a joy. It has been so challenging, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done um with it being two people and all.

But since the beginning of meeting Lauren Gunderson, meeting Ari, meeting Sarah, like this team has just been so warm and so they've embraced us with open arms and are so collaborative. And it's been really great from start to finish. I've well, who knows? Who's to say where where this goes from here? But um from the beginning it's been so just a joy.

[4:05] Robert Bannon: Yeah. Benji tell us what it's like to be able to sing the music of Ari. If people don't know Ari, uh she's written some of the most amazing musical theater songs. So how do you describe the sound and what's it like to get an original score and have to learn all the m it's just the two of you.

[4:21] Benji Santiago: Yeah yeah I know it is yeah I mean I like I said you know I I worked with Ari before and I you know I was I was fortunate enough to sing some of her songs uh a year ago and so when I got the demos for I and You I just like text her I was like this is like this is so good. Um and yeah it's really great. It's like super uh contemporary it's like right up both of our alleys I'd say there's like a major jazz influence to this score as well which I I find super interesting and like um challenging but in like a really really good way because I'm a huge jazz fan uh but I don't have so much experience singing uh in that genre so yeah it it it's it's really cool. Ari's the best our dear music director as well Sujin Kim Ramsey she's just when she noodles on the piano it is jazz brilliance.

I swear it is just so fun to be able to play um in such a a space that is continuously evolving, and mm the changes that we have received. I feel like we started the show and it was one show, and now it is completely different show. The phones were always there, but um it's been it's been a whirlwind experience for sure.

[5:33] Robert Bannon: Do you know how many songs are in it and how many of them are duets and how many you have individually?

[5:39] Benji Santiago: We used to have like upwards of like 18, 19 songs, or at least like with a lot along with underscoring, and now it's it's cut down. I think it's 15 now, 14 or 15 and a solid amount of duets. I feel like there are only like maybe two true solos in the show, and then everything else we do we tend to, you know, whether it whether it be a couple lines or true duet where we're sharing sharing the entire piece together. Um, yeah, there's a nice variety of it.

[6:07] Robert Bannon: Well, I'm excited. So so obviously Jasmine is Caroline in the in the show. If you don't know about the show and and and the character of Anthony is Benji and Jasmine, there is some physical impediments, ailments. There's there's a there's a health issue at the heart of the show. And we read the press if you read the press release, Benji's got, I don't know, some good old books and some waffle french fries. I hope you get to eat real waffle french fries.

[6:33] Benji Santiago: I think that's the plan. Count me in though.

[6:37] Robert Bannon: That is all the rage on Broadway right now. If you go to Hell's Kitchen, they're cutting up carrots. If you go to outsiders, they're eating food at the end of the night. We need some real food up on stage. So Benji, how did you find your way into this character? The play has been out, people have read it, it was it was a big thing. So, how did you find your version uh uh the character that you play, your version of Anthony?

[6:57] Benji Santiago: Yeah, I'm uh I mean a big a big theme of this show is um uh this idea that we all contain multitudes as explicitly written in Walt Whitman's um Leaves of Grass. Uh poetry is a big is a big theme. And and I I think exactly that of Anthony that he does contain so many multitudes. He's a student athlete, he's also a poet, you know, he's a he's a romantic, and so exploring all those different avenues have really helped. Um, specifically, he plays basketball. My sport in high school is baseball, so I I'm like tragically bad at basketball. Um, so I I bought I bought one at the beginning of this uh rehearsal process, and I've been like going out and shooting hoops and like trying to get better, and it really does help like to just like drill around before rehearsal, sort of get in that space, and then and then yeah, and then it was you know, just kind of doing a deep dive into Miles Davis, Bill Evans, uh John Coltrane, that sort of jazz, like that's been my sort of soundtrack for this rehearsal process, um, which is not like super far off from uh uh subsect of my music taste, so I've been really enjoying it, and then yeah, and then just like dissecting the the Whitman poetry, all of that.

It's it's really it feels really great. I mean, Lauren did an amazing job of like creating these very you know specific characters or giving us you know as as actors these specific things to sort of latch on to. That I mean, there's like so much um in those worlds, so yeah, just just kind of focusing on that.

[8:29] Jasmine Forsberg: What has been so beautiful, yeah, yeah. What has been so beautiful um is that while this is absolutely pulling from the foundations of Lauren Gunderson's original play, it is also a new piece. Like we we're making it a musical, we are elevating it. Music inherently opens up different emotional worlds that you don't get with just text, which is really special. And so while Caroline on first glance, like the the major headline, I suppose, is she has a chronic liver disease that she deals with, she has multitudes as well. And it's been so fun finding these gold mines of information of you know, at one point she dyed her hair purple, she knows a little bit of French, like things here and there, but also finding my own ways into this piece.

[9:18] Benji Santiago: Um, and in the play, her big thing was photography, but now she's a songwriter, and I'm a songwriter, and so I find that like there is a huge overlap of you know, while I don't necessarily have Caroline's prickly energy, I would say she and I are equally passionate dreamers, very much so. And so it's been really cool to find our own way into the piece. So even if you've never heard of the play or seen it, it's been done over 200 times, it was a rage and all of that. This is it lives on its own, and you need to definitely check it out. Benji, for you personally, where did the journey into musical theater start? Was there a moment? Was there a school play? Were you like the tin man in fifth grade? Like, where was the click that said, I want to do this for my job?

[10:05] Benji Santiago: Yeah, yeah. I'll try not to get super tangential because it's kind of a funny story. But um, I didn't really come into theater until a bit later. Um, I was always sort of fascinated by acting and performing, so I would, you know, do skits and stuff in elementary school and take acting classes in middle school, but it wasn't until around my sophomore year of high school that I was convinced sort of tooth and nail to do Peter in the Star Catcher. And um, I had a couple of friends who were seniors, and I thought I just looked up to them so much, and they were like they saw me in the acting class and they were like, you really care about this even if you pretend that all you care about is baseball and I was like ah Troy Bolton yeah so they caught me and yeah and you know I auditioned for that show and the I will I will tell this story.

So Peter and the Star Catcher is a play with music, there's a couple songs in there and there was a moment in rehearsals for that show where they were my director was like casting the song within our cast and she was like Benji do you want to like sing something for the cast like to see if we can put you in the song and I literally said to like a room full of people beater kids I was like I will never ever do a musical in my entire life like I said that with my full chest but I'm and then the next semester um this girl asked me she was like are you auditioning for the musical theater class and I was like yeah for sure let's do it um and the rest is history yeah that's so that's kind of how I don't know we fell in love.

[11:00] Jasmine Forsberg: Yeah and the rest is history. How about you for you Jasmine? I have a bit of a different experience but if you didn't know Benji and I come from the same city in Orlando Florida, we're both central Florida kiddos and um growing up in Orlando I'd always been involved in the arts whether it have been you know dance classes or piano lessons or singing lessons so it really did feel like only it was a matter of time before musical theater somehow came into the mix, and my first production was a youth theater production of 101 Dalmatians at Magic Curtain Productions in East Orlando. And I I think that was some added puppy. Like the name didn't even exist. I was but but here we are, we live to tell the tale.

I just I fell in love with theater, and it was one of those things where you know I played T-ball for a year. The nickname was Speedy Gonzalez, but that didn't stick. But the you know these legs, they really get a move on. Um, but I it was I just loved going to rehearsal as a little girl, and I didn't at the time think that it was something that I would pursue for life. It's just something that I absolutely loved. But it wasn't until I was about 16, I believe. I was a junior in high school, and I had just done a Florida State summer music theater intensive, and I was like, Yeah, no, this is this is what I want to do. And I'm so lucky that I got the support of my family to continue on this journey because the Florida, the Florida New York City pipeline is very strong.

[13:21] Benji Santiago: Pipeline is crazy. Let's talk about it for one second because like there's so many Orlando people here.

[13:26] Jasmine Forsberg: Yeah, yeah.

[13:27] Benji Santiago: Yeah, it feels like a really small world, a home within a larger home, perhaps.

[13:32] Jasmine Forsberg: No, no pun intended small world Orlando reference right there from Jasmine. You know, do you do you all I asked the question because for me, what moves me about it is that at this university there are students who are studying musical theater and they're going to check out the show. They're gonna kids are gonna buy tickets to the show. It's the rage, it's new, it's a new score, and they're gonna see you all, and you're gonna inspire the next generation of musical theater greats by the work that you're doing, and the fact that you're making it and did it is like winning the lottery because y'all are so damn good. That's why.

[14:10] Robert Bannon: Thank you, thank you, Robert. It feels like a gift to be able to share this both with the students on campus here at Princeton but also with the local Princeton community as well I know that we have a couple like at least one student matinee's cute little 1030 performance a Met to warm up the voices for that one but it'll it'll be so wonderful. I think I grew up um at the Orlando Repertory Theater now called Orlando Family Stage doing theater for young audiences and so knowing that we have the potential to impact young artists is so deeply special and it's so important. There's never been a better time to and a more important time to be telling meaningful stories on stage that have the possibility of impacting you know the scene of America and the scene of the world truly so yeah we need it more than ever.

[14:48] Benji Santiago: So, who's this show for if you're if you're out here if you're in in Jersey near Princeton if you're in the New York area you take the train out down there why should we what why should we go get a train why should we come check it out why should we head into the sticks of Jersey and make sure I joke but I love it up down there it's gorgeous. Why should we make the effort to come and see y'all?

[15:21] Benji Santiago: I mean I think there's I mean the audience it's really for everybody as cliche as that might sound it's for anyone that craves real human connection on day to day anyone who's who is even slightly a romantic anyone who even slightly sees the poetry in little things um even specifically that we are on a college campus it's for young people that like desperately want everyone to know that we contain multitudes and that there's more going on underneath and that like you know we can we can deal with very serious things and we can also be unapologetically wild and so I think we show a huge range of all of that so there's really something in there for anyone that's gone through anything you know.

[15:21] Jasmine Forsberg: That was so beautiful say it Jasmine. I hear that I haven't seen it but there's some surprises I mean it's gonna leave you on the edge of your seat your this story gives you some twists and turns and that's all I'll say I'll leave it there Robert I'll leave it there you need to head to Jersey see two of Florida's best you know people in Pittsburgh see say that Carnegie Mellon has the best theater people I'm in Detroit right now and the U of M people they say oh you know we are the best theater people Florida's showing out y'all they're coming for you we've got some tunes going on tonight it's a party and it's gonna be a party everybody as they go on I and you the musical it's September 13th through October 12 you can get your tickets at McCarter.org or look we cut her right out Jasmine's out the the musical is out you go to mcarter.org and shout out to everybody at the McCarter because they make affordable tickets you can get tickets for an affordable price they are not gonna make you mortgage your house like you'd have to go see a show in New York City right now you can get a ticket and bring your entire bring a date bring a friend have a girls' night whatever you need to bring your family it is the place to be for the month of September go support new original works and these amazing artists I'm so excited that we got to spend some time with you.

[17:31] Robert Bannon: I can't wait to come home and check you all out. Thanks so much for having me, Robert.

[17:35] Benji Santiago: My pleasure.

[17:36] Jasmine Forsberg: You guys.

[17:37] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[17:38] Robert Bannon: All right. Come on, let's go. I'll take you out to some Jersey pizza and a bagel. I'll teach you some Jersey accent, you know, tailor ham and bacon, egg, and cheese on a salt pepper ketchup roll. You know, that's what we do here.

[17:50] Benji Santiago: Okay, fair. Let's go, Robert. Thank you for being here.