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[0:00] Robert Bannon: It was gorgeous. Greeting cards have all been sent, but the Christmas rush has just started, and you need Stephanie J. Block's brand new holiday album to get you through these days. Stephanie J. Block, welcome.

[0:10] Stephanie J. Block: Hello.

[0:10] Robert Bannon: First of all, six years old and the boy from Oz.

[0:14] Stephanie J. Block: I was 12 years old.

[0:15] Robert Bannon: 12.

[0:16] Stephanie J. Block: Okay. So sixth grade.

[0:17] Robert Bannon: There it is. I was like, that content's pretty heavy for a six-year-old.

[0:22] Stephanie J. Block: 12. Makes more sense. And my I know that Jersey held and holds a near and dear place in your heart. And we're right here in the fifth grade classroom in North Bergen on lunch to talk to you. And what a joy and honor it is to have you here. How incredible.

[0:36] Stephanie J. Block: Yeah, my daughter is a born almost raised, born and raised a little bit a Jersey girl. She will always be a Jersey girl.

[0:45] Robert Bannon: That's it. And now you coming from the West Coast, you have so many students who are in love with you. I have a Sophia Billings, saw you in Into the Woods and came here and said, Stephanie J. Block is who I want to be when I grow up as an artist. When you were in California, at what age and stage did you know I was I'm doing this forever?

[1:04] Stephanie J. Block: I kind of knew really early. I knew that I had a big voice. I didn't know what that voice was gonna do. I just knew that it kind of made people sit up a little taller and get this expression of where's that noise coming from? And so I felt like and that happened at about seven or eight. And then I started taking voice lessons privately when I was 11. That voice teacher who is in California, her name is Jill Goodsell, is still my primary teacher and mentor 40 some years later. But yeah, for a long time, don't laugh. I wanted to be a nun, and then it wasn't, and I thought, well, I could be a singing nun because I was raised in sort of this in Catholicism in a Catholic grade school, and my nuns were awesome.

Like they just were all about celebration of life and joy and connectivity and love thy fellow man type thing. And that to me was amazing. And you know, I can remember my principal, she had like a velvet painting of John Wayne and Elvis behind her desk, and she would play the guitar. And I just thought, who is cooler than Sister Sarah? I want to be Sister Sarah. And then it wasn't until I got the performing itch, the non-secular performing itch. And that happened about 11 or 12, and then that was it. It wasn't, I didn't catch the bug, like it was it was over. That's what I wanted to do.

[2:27] Robert Bannon: I kind of understand. I mean, I'm a good little Italian Irish Catholic boy.

[2:31] Stephanie J. Block: Oh wow.

[2:32] Robert Bannon: You know, my grandmother, like we had the last supper in Velvet everywhere in my house. So I get it.

[2:39] Stephanie J. Block: Yeah. The move to New York and the idea to come here. Was that something that you were just dying to do? Was it scary? All of the above.

[2:49] Stephanie J. Block: So I did it. There was a two-part answer to your question. So I had originated at Disneyland. I was like one of I was the first singing dancing bell on the main stage. That was in, I don't even know. I think I was 19 or 20 years old. Our director and choreographer, Rob Roth and Matt West were the ones that were then gonna take it to Broadway and kind of recreate this little 23-minute Beauty and the Beast that we had at Disneyland, obviously expand it and make it a full-blown musical. And that was Disney Theatricals' first go was Beauty and the Beast. So I auditioned in LA. I was flown out to New York. It got down to Susan Egan myself and a gal by the name of Kim Huber, who I know really well.

And so that was my first kind of introduction going to New York. While I was there during that audition process, I saw The Who's Tommy, I saw A Kiss of the Spider Woman, and I saw Crazy for You. And those three shows being so different, but so remarkable that I sat there in awe and went, oh, I have to be here. Like I have to make theater that looks like that original content.

[4:09] Stephanie J. Block: Okay, so a couple of years pass. I'm still at Disneyland, I'm still like making my living through amusement parks and dinner theaters and community theaters. But I am being flown out every now and again to for final callbacks in New York City. So I knew that I was getting close to something. And then at the age of 22, I was doing Will Rogers Follies in Branson, Missouri. It was a non-equity presentation with Troika, and we were doing 12 shows a week. And one of the Will Rogers girls, I know 12 shows a week, full, full shows. And one of the gals, her name was Kelly. She and I looked at each other and said, We're gonna do it, we're gonna move to New York. So I moved to New York with this, of course, tons of expectations, but also a little bit of knowing what my limitations were.

And it wasn't necessarily in the vein of, oh gosh, I don't have an agent, or oh gosh, I'm not in the union. Those were all true to a certain extent, but I was willing to do the work, but I didn't realize what your spirit had to be, like how fortified you need to be as a human to take that all on. So a lot of events happened that just kept knocking me off my center. And after about nine months, I thought, I'm not made for this. I'm intimidated by the city, by the competition, I'm losing my sense of self. I'm losing my excitement in this art. And so I went back home. And that trip back home again wasn't about I need a heftier resume. I need, you know, all of the business aspects to fall in line. It was, I need to figure out who I am, that no matter what happens, I am not knocked off my access because I know what makes me special.

[6:09] Stephanie J. Block: And you need to lean into that. So I was finding myself in New York at every audition, sort of shape shifting as to what I thought they wanted me to be behind the table, all of the decision makers. And with every shape shift, I just was losing my ground. I was losing my footing. So that's when I came back home. And I stayed maybe, maybe too long, if we want to put that in air quotes or how we ever wanted to find that. But it was really, I know everybody hears it's all about timing, but kind of it is. And it wasn't until a very random phone call from Steven Schwartz. And he was in Los Angeles developing a new musical. And he had gone to dinner with a handful of his pals that were out on the West Coast.

And he was talking about this thing that he was developing and a type of voice and a type of person that he was looking for just to kind of sing through some of the songs and present them to Universal Pictures. And apparently, like four out of the five friends that he was with said, Oh, that sounds like Stephanie J. Block. That sounds like Stephanie J. Block. She might be great. And with that sort of dinner recommendation came the phone call, which started the journey and my relationship with Wicked. And then I moved back to New York with that project. I know. Random and wild, but all the while you go, it's not random. I had worked from when I was 12 until I was 27. It took me 19 years to get to Broadway.

[7:38] Robert Bannon: There's the green lady herself.

[7:43] Stephanie J. Block: Um 19 years in, and to talk about get to Broadway. Yeah. Talking about this show, not as my on my introduction. Um what a journey to Broadway it was and is. We have a couple memory lane photos before we talk about holidays, you know, mysteries, and we have I love the nine to five.

[8:04] Stephanie J. Block: Oh my gosh, what an experience that was. I loved every second. And anything goes, yeah, and of course, you know, the Tony winning performance in Cher. You are no stranger to taking on a diva and bringing them to life if it's Cher, if it's Liza, if it's working with Dolly and nine to five, iconic performers. When you're around these kind of performers, and now as a recording artist, do you see any through line to what they've shown you about their career? What is there a trick? Is it their authenticity? Is it their talent?

[8:39] Stephanie J. Block: All of the above. I think authenticity, yes. I think resilience, and I think strength. So, you know, Cher always used to say there were a whole lot of setbacks and no's and betrayals in her life, and she calls herself a bumper car. So she'll hit the wall and just bounce right back and then find another direction. I think Dolly similarly, and you know, it was interesting because even though Dolly was part of our process far more than what Cher was, my time with Dolly was very much about the project at hand and eating her delicious peanut butter fudge and talking about certain things. You know, she's on my first album, my debut album, This Place I Know We Do a Duet. And everything was about talking about what we were creating in the moment.

But in doing homework on her and watching her documentary and learning about her life, yeah, I do see similarities. Cher, I got the great privilege of getting to know a little more. Because the story of the Cher show was obviously about her life, we got to dig deep about her triumphs, her tragedies, her all of the things that we think we know about Cher. And then you dig a little deeper and you go, oh my gosh, that is such a human tender hurt that she's allowing us to portray. But there is a through line between Liza and Cher and Dolly, and that is, like you said, authenticity, they are all singular voices. Nobody, and in saying yes to take on these divas, I'm using your own words. I always knew that there was never going to be like a true representation of them because I think it was Judy Garland whoever who said, you know, why be a second rate of someone else when you can be the first rate of you?

So I knew I was never gonna be Liza Minelli or be Cher, you know, there's only one. But if I could find similarities within myself that was a mirror and a window to all of these women, then I thought that I could do justice and telling their story and also infuse a lot of who I am and what we share in our personalities.

[10:57] Robert Bannon: Well, you didn't just do them justice. I mean, you and now Cher and you both have holiday albums. I mean, can you believe it? I had no idea this was coming. You know, I think one of the last times we spoke with each other was via text, and she ended, she did she loves her emojis, right? We all know she loves her emojis if you follow her on Twitter or whatever. So it was a lot of emojis, emojis, and then a little bit of silence in between, and then I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like we will be bonded forever, or our bond is forever. And I was like, oh my god, this is me now being Cher. When the Christmas album came out this year, I was like, Well, there it is, there's our bond. We're gonna keep so I'm praying to goodness, me too.

I have my little album here. Hers is sensational and so like just dripping of who she is and what her musical sensibility is, and it's very different than mine. But I was like, holy cow, who would have thought that we'd both release albums on the very same year.

[12:02] Stephanie J. Block: Is this her first Christmas album too?

[12:04] Robert Bannon: Yes, it's her first Christmas album.

[12:05] Stephanie J. Block: Right. So in 50 years, she decides to do an album on the same season I do. Well, your album is stunning, it is a beautiful cross between the secular, the non-secular, the religious, the classics, the originals. It's streaming wherever music is heard. Club 44 does beautiful work. What a great team.

[12:26] Stephanie J. Block: Thank you. And this is very personal because not only is there a beautiful duet with your husband, who is no slouch, Rent, Wicked, Madam Secretary superstar.

[12:36] Robert Bannon: Yeah, he's done enough. He's been out there working, and your daughter.

[12:41] Stephanie J. Block: I know. And she, Robert, she took it so beautifully. The responsibility. First of all, she looked at it as a gift. She was super excited to share the song, the album, she calls it our album, um, with mama. But then when I told her what she was going to be doing, she was so diligent about like writing out her lyrics, memorizing her lyrics, knowing when to come in. Um, and she recorded her part first, and then I did mine. Uh, we were in Nashville at the time. And so, you know, just to be eight and walk into a recording studio in a state that she'd never been, right? In a space that she had never been, doing something for the first time. She was so filled with grace and sweetness. And I will say this though, once she was done, she looked at my husband and said, Daddy, can we go outside?

And he's like, Yeah, we can. And she walked outside and she immediately burst into tears. So I think she was holding a lot of pressure, maybe a lot of what she thought my expectation was going to be, an expectation for herself. And so once she had done it and everybody had said, Great job, you did it, then she was able to like release this pressure cooker and just sob. It was as a mom, it broke my heart, but it also I just swept her up and said, You did a great job. I could feel all of those little emotions inside your spirit when you were recording. And I bet you all of the listeners will also feel in that in your very sweet, innocent, tender voice that there's something, you know, percolating underneath. And that was all of your sweet, sweet emotions. So yes, it is very personal, very personal to me.

[14:26] Robert Bannon: Well, the album is from Ohio Night, which is so gorgeous. The arrangement is gorgeous.

[14:31] Stephanie J. Block: Thank you. Thank you. Merry Christmas, darling, winter white, songs you know, and then again, originals.

[14:37] Robert Bannon: Right. Something that me and my partner Darius have done is that we make Spotify playlists of songs that remind us of each other. And we just put them in there together. And we made a Christmas one. And I just added, when you hold me in your arms, it's Christmas to the playlist because the lyric of that song is so tender and the duet of you both, you could just feel love and warmth. It's beautiful.

[15:02] Stephanie J. Block: That was written by um Wayne Hahn, who's also one of the major producers and arrangers on the whole album, but he wrote that with David Zippel. And David Zippel, as you know, is a prolific composer and lyricist in the musical theater world. So he really understood that language. It was supposed to be just a solo, right? It was just supposed to be me. And I said, you know, with these lyrics, I think it could be a great duet. And so we had to futz a little bit with keys as to what sat right with Sebastian and myself. And then when I got into the studio, I was like, do you guys mind if we just ad lib a little bit? I am such a Christmas, you can blank this out, a Christmas whore. I love it so much.

I celebrate it like all year round. I have an entire storage unit filled with decorations. Like I just, I've loved it my whole life. And I think if we have this patter in the in the front of the song and even in the body of the song, it's gonna be a little like hearkening back to Steve and Edie or any of these two like married personalities where the chemistry you can feel it right away. So nothing was written on the page. I just went in there and started chatting. We had different versions of what the conversation would look like. And then Seb walked into the booth and started responding in a very normal marital, you know, conversational way. And I was like, well, this really works. It's like it was always written to be that way. It's so cute from the second it starts. It's just because it's again that word, authentic. It's just real. It's us.

[16:34] Robert Bannon: Yeah, thank you. It's so cute. Well, you say you're a Christmas whore freak. How did you whittle this down? So that you must have had a list of Christmas songs.

[16:42] Stephanie J. Block: I did. I had a list of Christmas songs. So then once I started to find my favorites, right? And the list was long. It was probably songs like we were hitting 30 different tracks. We knew that wasn't going to be possible. Then I started to look up how many different recording artists have done these different songs. So that started to shave away some of my favorites, because obviously then they were other artists' favorites. Then there were just some that I thought, I bet you I could stay true to what people love, but give it enough of my own sort of spin or my own sort of um warmth of my voice, which will lend something a little different to it. For example, I wanted to sing the Christmas song, which is a melt, melt or may, right?

Everybody knows it as chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but it's called the Christmas song. And um again, that one I loved so much, but it was head to head with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. And when I saw how many people had actually recorded the Christmas song and how few, although indelible with Judy Garland's voice in our head, but very few recorded it with the intro. You know, Christmas future is far away. And I thought, golly, if I could do that, then that will satisfy me who loves MGM, who loves Judy Garland, and maybe introduce kind of a new generation to the beginning, the opener of that song. Well, that immediately went into that we have to record. And so it kind of went like that.

That was the formula. I love this one. It's a similar ballad to this one. Let's do a little homework and see if we can add something new or see how many people have recorded it, and then we'll decide. And that's how we came to this list. But don't get me wrong, Christmas album number two literally could happen anytime because our vision is clear now, both with myself and Club 44 and Wayne Hahn and Joel Lindsey and all these fabulous musicians that we found. Um I would love to get back into the studio. Not right away, but we certainly have a cornucopia of music that we could pull from.

[18:54] Robert Bannon: Well, we're ready. We're ready for when you're ready. You can stream Merry Christmas, darling, wherever music is heard. So in your Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which is beautiful, do you keep the Judy lyrics or did you change the lyrics once?

[19:07] Stephanie J. Block: I do both. I give you both.

[19:09] Robert Bannon: Yeah, I do muddle through, and then I also do the alternate because you're right. That is there are camps. In fact, I think Broadway World did a review of the album and said something like, I would have given her five rainbows, but we had to do a half a rainbow because she didn't sing muddle through somehow and keep it authentic to Judy Garland. I was like, I gave you both.

[19:36] Stephanie J. Block: I've gotten a rainbow taken away for having uh lyrics on a stage before. It's okay.

[19:41] Robert Bannon: Oh man, the way they take those rainbows away. Dang it.

[19:49] Stephanie J. Block: I am so excited for anything and everything that you have up your sleeve for us, recording stage screen, and everything that you do. I wish everybody to go stream Merry Christmas, darling, wherever music is heard. Follow Stephanie on Instagram at StephanieJBlock so you can keep up to date and up to speed on the next shows, the next events, the next recordings. And um, thank you for being such a light and giving such you you take time away from your daughter and your husband to give art to us. And I know that that is a big sacrifice, and I want to say thank you.

[20:23] Stephanie J. Block: Oh my gosh. It is my privilege, and I'm so grateful for this time. And wherever you are, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and just find the joy in every day, my friends. Every day.

[20:35] Robert Bannon: Thank you so much, Ms. Block. Well, there you have it. Tony winner, Stephanie J. Block. Listen to her album. Find her on Instagram, look at her website, stay up to date with everything she does. She is a class act through and through. Speaking of class acts, not me. We could join. You could join me every day right here on the Roundtable in the Broadway Podcast Network. Look for our channel on YouTube. Follow me at Robert M. Bannon on Instagram and go to RobertBannon.com. Come see me live. Listen to my Christmas music, my album. Yeah, sometimes we need a trashy jersey moment. Till next time, everyone, the best is yet to come. I'll see you again right here on the Roundtable.