This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Joe Carroll: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals. Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[0:06] Dan Tracy: Wait, wait, is that, that's not, is that's what happened? That's what happening, Dan?

[0:11] Joe Carroll: What's going on? This is three guys who liked musicals today.

[0:16] Dan Tracy: This is the Guys Who Like Musicals double feature kind of, right? Yeah. The trifecta.

[0:23] Joe Carroll: I have no idea how we're supposed to start this. So I guess we started.

[0:27] Dan Tracy: Yeah, that's what I've done. We started it the way we usually start, which is, you know, we didn't tell you at all. We didn't ask you what you wanted to do.

[0:39] Joe Carroll: I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

[0:41] Dan Tracy: Shoot from the hip.

[0:42] Joe Carroll: Shoot from the hip. That's what it should be. Yeah. So for those listening, welcome to a very special, strange and weird crossover episode.

[0:57] Dan Tracy: So is this, is this like, like the Simpsons and Futurama right now? Can we equate ourselves?

[1:04] Joe Carroll: Can we put ourselves on that level?

[1:07] Dan Tracy: Right. Rick and Morty are about to make their appearance.

[1:10] Joe Carroll: Yeah. It's like, it's like the universe of the, of SVU and Chicago Med Fire, PD.

[1:18] Dan Tracy: It's the Dick Wolf crossover special.

[1:21] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. Or, oh, better yet, the what's the one up in that are Carlos is on the flash.

[1:27] Dan Tracy: It's the flash and arrow and Supergirl. Yeah, it's the Dave Rappaport universe.

[1:35] Joe Carroll: But also while we're doing this, is he frozen?

[1:38] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. Alan's video is frozen. You'd think that after a year of this nonsense that like it would get easier, but like we still don't know how to use any of these platforms that we're using to make a living.

[1:52] Joe Carroll: I'm sorry, we.

[1:54] Dan Tracy: I mean, you're the one that just had a mic issue for 20 minutes before we started this.

[1:58] Joe Carroll: For the first time. That's true. That's true. You can.

[2:01] Dan Tracy: This must be a good day for you. John wins this one, everyone.

[2:04] Joe Carroll: I know. Exactly. That is part of our show, Alan, that we continue to Dan and I, you know, treat each we rib each other constantly. So we love each other very much, but it might sound like we hate each other.

[2:16] Alan Seales: Well, how do you how did you guys meet? Tell me that story, because you don't have any Broadway credits the same, right?

[2:22] Joe Carroll: No. Yeah, no. Not yet. Not not yet. We we met in college. Dan was a year below me at the University of Michigan. And honestly, we were we were friends. We were friendly, but it wasn't I feel like we didn't really become tight until like my senior year, almost going out of my senior year where like we became we were like we really sort of hit on at least how I remember it. It was golf. Golf was one.

[2:53] Dan Tracy: We used to play golf. We were kind of friends. Kind of. But it was the, you know, kind of friends. Also, like, you know how musical theater programs are. We were always doing the same track. We were there. We're like in the same pigeonhole that we were supposed to be the same person, which is hilarious now looking back because we couldn't be more different. And then it was driving to the Muni for auditions for the Muni. Yes. My junior year. And we were in the car, Alan, and we were talking about the future of content and entertainment. And I was pitching Joe on how I believed that there was not going to be any cable networks anymore. Everything was going to be streaming. Netflix is the future. And I pitched him on this idea that I have for a not for profit, which I won't get into here. But and he was like and that was the first time that we basically that was like our essentially our first writing session.

[3:47] Joe Carroll: Yeah. It was like us kind of coming together as like one mind and being like, oh, OK, we actually have a lot of the same ideas about the world. And then from then on, we were like really close friends. That was spring of his senior year.

[3:57] Dan Tracy: That's really. Yeah, that's exactly it. I remember that it was a long drive. Nine and four hour drive. Alex was asleep in the backseat and we are up in the front seat. And basically the whole idea stem. We don't need to go into it too much, but it was we basically were both obsessed with Joe Papp and the his legacy in the theater. And so we were talking about like why we couldn't do something like what Joe Papp did for theater, but do it for television and film. And so we're trying.

[4:30] Joe Carroll: That's gave away my idea, Joe. No, that gave away nothing. That is my million dollar idea that he has just given away on the Internet. What what have we learned in our writing, Dan? What do what we what we know in our writing is that no one can make the idea the way you can make the idea. We need to pitch all of our ideas constantly. And then Alan can sit here and be like, hey, guys, I don't get it. And then we can say, listen, here's OK, no one's going to steal our idea. Is that fine? It's it's your personal touch that makes it work. Otherwise, otherwise it's just not going to happen.

[5:07] Dan Tracy: And OK, so so driving access to the backseat, everything's fine. You come back and you start writing. And and so coming to New York and everything, what did you did you guys keep in touch? I mean, obviously you did. But were you close or was that the point after college when you're like, you know, Joe, you came to the city like I'm a BMOC now. I'm the big man. You know, hire me. And I mean, when did the past start to reconverge or did they ever diverge?

[5:29] Joe Carroll: I don't think they ever diverged. They never really didn't after that, because we we kept in pretty constant touch. And I will say that Dan was the person who I have always had and had a had a block as far as a creator of things. I like to be an interpreter. I like for somebody to give me a script or give me a song and I'm going to do my thing. That's where I'm the most comfortable when I have to make my own things. I am uncomfortable. I don't like it. It's incredibly vulnerable. And Dan has always been the guy who's like, let's do it. Let's write the thing. Let's make the thing. Let's do it. Let's make the podcast. Let's write the script. Let's do the thing. And I am also here being like, you know, OK, so what's cool about looking back on it is like that that was that never stopped. Dan would always he'd call with ideas. Hey, what if we did this? What if we did that? What if we and that has been a constant in our life for the last nine years, nine to 10 years of just.

[6:32] Dan Tracy: Yeah, we never really disconnected.

[6:34] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I think Joe went and worked on his first Broadway show right out of school. And then he came back and we had lunch in some restaurant on Main Street.

[6:45] Dan Tracy: Joe, not Main Street. It was like the street off of state. It was like the one that you went east and north and south. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It was some restaurant on Liberty. And you told me that you booked Romeo and Juliet from an EPA and you bought my lunch. And I was like, this guy's great. He bought my lunch.

[7:07] Joe Carroll: So basically, I have been working as a video freelancer. I'm kind of building out my video production business as we speak. And Joe is actually helping me with that. So now we have like nine businesses together, which is hilarious and and funny, which is why we're always making fun of each other on the show, because we can't stand each other most of the time. But I had all of this gear because I was shooting all of these videos for people. So I had a similar cardioid microphone to the one you're using, Alan. And I had a pencil microphone that I was using to do my like boom miking for video work. And I had these two things sitting around and I had actually had an idea for a podcast in 2016. I interviewed Jim J. Bullock in my hotel room on my voice memos on my phone about his career because he was a very successful sitcom actor in the 80s. And he was in Kinky Boots with me.

And I was like, you know, I don't really know. I like didn't even know what podcasting was at that time. I don't know why I did that. But I think back on that now and I'm like, I should pull that out of the woodwork and see if that would make a good episode or somehow.

[8:06] Dan Tracy: But the idea for the podcast was mine. But you came up with the name. Is that what we've decided?

[8:12] Joe Carroll: Yeah, that's what that's what we've settled on. That's how the story goes. It was that you came to me and you were like, I want to start a podcast. I have the gear. It was like a chicken or the egg conversation. It was like, I have this stuff. So if I have this stuff, let's do something. And we were coming up with what could we do? And I was like, Dan, we're just a couple of guys who like musicals. What if we just talked about musicals and called it guys who like musicals? And Dan was like, I think you wanted it to be something more important. You wanted it to sound like, like, you know, the backstage experience, that, you know, the Broadway behind the curtain. We had a list of words. It was like Broadway, talk, podcast.

[9:06] Dan Tracy: Yeah. You know, it was trying to put all those things together. And guys who like musicals was just too good. It was like told you exactly what it was.

[9:11] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Which I think is the best title.

[9:20] Dan Tracy: Yeah. So. So that's how it was born. Mine's even more generic and lame.

[9:24] Joe Carroll: No, it's exactly what you want. It's exactly what it is. If you want a theater podcast, you go to Alan Seales' theater podcast. Like, honestly, like that. Did you have to, like, fight people for that domain?

[9:30] Alan Seales: You know, that's one of those things. It's like, I can't believe this didn't exist already.

[9:34] Joe Carroll: No, no. And that's why I chose it, because I was looking. I was like the curtain call pocket. No, that exists. All right. Backstage. What up? No, that's taken. Spotlight. You know, I was looking for all these theater related sort of things. And then I was just like, OK, the theater podcast. And I registered both theater, T.R.E. and T.E.R. There were both available.

[9:58] Dan Tracy: Mm hmm.

[10:04] Alan Seales: And I was like, I guess that's my name. Guess that's my name now. But it's great now.

[10:09] Joe Carroll: Yeah. So that's what I'm that's what I'm sticking with. And and I'm finding myself sort of at a at a an existential crisis that that I don't know if you found yourself in being that you are guys who like musicals, but you're also, I suspect, guys who like TV shows and guys who like movies and other things. Right. So now I'm getting into interviewing people who are more than just Broadway people and from a press perspective. Right. It's like, how do you have a TV star on the theater podcast? So I'm I'm like, do I change the name? But it's branding, but it's years of work. And I'm just I, you know, I lose sleep over this sometimes.

[10:46] Dan Tracy: How did you start yours? Like because I would love just because this is the Riverdale crossover episode. You interviewed me for your for the theater podcast back when I was doing Frozen. We met back doing a Google talk for Bandstand. How did all this start for you?

[11:05] Joe Carroll: Oh, gosh. Well, how far back do you want me to start in my origin story? I got a computer science degree.

[11:10] Dan Tracy: Your parents went on a date and I assume so.

[11:19] Joe Carroll: My mother, when I was when I was in high school, my mother whips out a photo of me or a photo of her. And she's like, you're about a day old or a day old inside inside me in this picture. And I was like, oh, mom, mom, mom, mom. That means the day before you.

[11:27] Dan Tracy: Yeah, we got it. I know. That's why you make it.

[11:38] Joe Carroll: I was conceived on a road trip in Washington state.

[11:45] Dan Tracy: Yeah, that's about as far back. That's as much as I want to know.

[11:53] Joe Carroll: Anyway. Yeah. So I'll leave out some unimportant stuff.

[11:55] Dan Tracy: Unimportant. Well, my blood type is.

[12:02] Joe Carroll: So I grew up in in North Carolina, was always doing chorus singing, acting, dancing as much as I could. But I always had this other half of my brain that was that just couldn't stop taking apart things and building and the electronics engineering side. So my parents gave me some advice that I listened to, which was you can act with a computer science degree, which can't do computer science with an acting degree.

[12:24] Dan Tracy: Wow. Wow. That's good. That's a good one.

[12:38] Joe Carroll: And wow. That's a good one. That hurts. Yeah. I'm like, oh, yeah, right. Yes. Like like for ninety nine percent of your listeners, that sounds really. Oh, how wise your parents were. Wise for the two guys you're talking to. They want to go jump off a bridge.

[12:50] Dan Tracy: But it's funny. It's funny. You brought up Google Talks, right? So. So, okay. Skip over some stuff.

[12:55] Joe Carroll: So computer science degree. And then with my computer science degree, I got out of college and became a professional actor with said computer science degree and then moved to New York in 2007 during the writer's strike, fell back. I did my fallback, went back on computers. And then that's when I actually moved to New York was during that time. And I was doing regional theater until then and have never auditioned a day in my life in New York. And I've been here coming up on 13 years, I think just hit 13. So and then in my computer career, worked for Thompson Reuters for a while, did some post-production work at a studio in there. I was running their IT department and then found my way now at Google as an engineer.

And then the talks at Google program, which is like internal TED talks for for Google, I ended up I found myself running that program on a global scale. And one of the things I wanted to do was bring in Broadway cast because no one was doing that. And one of the literally the first one I brought in was Cinderella with Santino and Laura Osnes. And then from there, it was just the snowball effect and and ended up bringing in Bandstand, which Joe was in. And that's when we met. And that was years and years, years ago. So through all of this, my I found the love of bringing information to the world and educating the world and and peeling back the layers of people that in exposing things, not in a bad way, but just stuff you didn't know about individuals, like getting that out there was so appealing and so satisfying to me. And it became a bit of a catharsis in a therapeutic sort of way for me to like share problems with people that, you know, you don't normally think of them as.

[14:39] Alan Seales: Humans, everybody poops, but you don't talk about pooping, so why not talk about pooping?

[14:44] Joe Carroll: Right.

[14:44] Dan Tracy: Not literally, but metaphorically.

[14:46] Joe Carroll: Yeah, the metaphor. You could have picked anything, but like, you know, that's a pretty popular children's book, I think, right?

[14:56] Alan Seales: So, in growing the Talks program, the more I grew, the more I led, the less day-to-day I was involved with, which meant the less moderation, less planning of events, and I sort of started to miss the whole face-to-face like this and having long-form conversations. And so I was just, I couldn't sleep one night. And, and I was, it was like, it was literally like three in the morning. I couldn't sleep. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna try this podcast thing. It was a couple years ago. And I couldn't find any podcasts. I was just searching for Broadway in Apple Podcasts, and I couldn't find anything that was actively releasing anything that was new content. So I said, all right, I guess, and this is literally all within a span of like, 15 minutes.

I was like, okay, well, maybe, oh, I know people now through, through all of this, maybe I'll, I'll start my own. And so that's when I, when I go daddy on my phone, I was looking for domain names, thinking of names. And that's what I found. The theater podcast.com was available. And I was like, I guess that's the name of my podcast now. And then I just texted a bunch of people that I knew, and Andy and Orfeh were literally my first interviews, and Wes Taylor and some others that I had met in the years of being in New York and being, you know, in this industry, and, and the way it went. So that was, gosh, Ariana DeBose was my first published interview. Andy and Orfeh were my first actual interviews timeline wise. And yeah, it's just been a roller coaster ride ever since. So through that is how I met through, through is how I met Dori Berenstein, which is how the Broadway Podcast Network all came about.

[16:42] Joe Carroll: Right, right. Yeah. Which you guys put together in 2018.

[16:42] Alan Seales: We, so I interviewed her, I interviewed her for my podcast, December 2019, by January 20, no, no, no, sorry, December 2018. By January 2019, we were already up and running off on our business plan, started secretly, not secretly, just, you know, you don't announce things yet. We were building the network and building the website by early summer, October 2018. At launch, that was our official big launch. We had a big old party at Sardi's. And then yeah, so that was that was October 2019. Everything's going super great, getting stuff and then the global pandemic hits. And here we are. And here we are. And here we are. Broadway shuts down. You know, we were tracking it live, tracking it crazy.

[17:35] Dan Tracy: Right. That is that is crazy. And you know, I haven't actually gone back and listened to the people that we were talking to, Dan, around, you know, February and March of this year, because I know that one of the things that we talked about this on our show is that we felt so handicapped to so many people did to create content. We were like, we don't want to go to our friends because because I mean, these are all friends and colleagues. Like we're not we don't want to say like, hey, do you want to come on our show and talk about why you love music musicals when there's no musicals in sight? You know, right. So that was that was a really that was a learning thing over the summer, for sure. But to get to track it and to get to track like how people are dealing with it and where they are.

And I mean, I remember when we talked to Robin Hurd or Dan before she was nominated for a Tony, there was still this feeling of like, you know, they were just their bodies were recovering from doing Moulin Rouge eight times a week. And they were still. And so she was like, you know, their time, you know, time with my son and my you know, I'm able to heal because my body is is is being destroyed. And that was, you know, I forget exactly when we did that thing was June. I think that was May, you know, we may have released it in June, but we did the interview in May. Yeah, we did. Yeah. We're still thinking the end of summer. Yeah. At that point, you know, I mean, I wasn't. But Dan was Dan wasn't. I have been king pessimism.

I've been the minute I found out this was happening, I was like, OK, it's going to be a year and a half. I might as well find another career. I remember what I did be two weeks. Right now. Yeah, it's mostly two weeks. I saw I saw the last preview of six on March 11th. They were supposed to open March 12th on the 12th. Right. Yeah. March 12th is when Broadway shut down. Five o'clock on the 12th is when it was announced. So three hours before their opening night. Crazy.

[19:28] Joe Carroll: That's yeah. Yeah. Insane. And then yet, Dan, like you were you've been in Frozen. Frozen decided just to close up in the middle of all this.

[19:33] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Which was wild. I I was wild. I felt when I've talked about this a bit, but like Frozen was one of the best jobs I've ever had because everybody on that show was just a total pro. They there was a lot of people who, you know, who had done a bunch of shows and they had families and lives and stuff. And so we just had a great working relationship. Everybody worked hard and everybody went home. It was just like one of the best jobs that I've ever had. And then I I was not asked to resign. Patty and Casey were not asked to resign. They were going to change over the cast, which long running shows do sometimes. And when they let us know that was painful in the moment because it was like, you know, hey, maybe I you know, maybe I would want to stay in Frozen for another year, you know, or whatever. But it was like, no, you know, this conversation was happening. So March 12th probably shuts down. So when is the contract renewal discussion happening?

[20:34] Joe Carroll: Well, so this was before. This is way before. So this was back probably in November or October of the previous year. So they they came to us and they said, hey, we're going to start looking for some people. Thank you so much for your time, but we're not going to renew your contract. End of February was when our contracts were up. And we you know, so we're like, oh, you know, that was sad. But like we had a great time. And Patty and Casey were obviously very emotional because they had created the whole thing. But then we're leaving and we know that we're leaving at the end of February. And when you're leaving a Broadway show and you know that it's closing, you just start you go into hibernation squirrels with the nuts mode and you're just saving as much money as possible because you have no idea when your next job is going to come.

So we just like batten down the hatches. My wife, Alex, was in Come From Away. She left Come From Away in November. And we were just like, OK, we're going to try to save like, you know, we might not have a job for six months. So all of a sudden, Broadway shuts down and the new cast had done two weeks of performances, two and a half, two and a half weeks of performances. And everything shuts down. I we were in such a grateful position because we had been preparing for some type of we weren't preparing for a year and a half of no income, but we were preparing for six months, you know. So we got there. We're OK. We're keeping our heads above water. But it was like that was a that was a wild, a wild gift in all of this.

When you just look at like the little gifts where you're like, I can't believe that this in the midst of all of this horror, anything positive that has come from this, just the fact that like Alex and I had a couple of months to prepare was like should not have happened. You know what I mean? And so many people in our community don't have that. So, yeah, I felt the same way that I'd done two years at Waitress, like leading up to this. And like I had some friends who had just made their Broadway debut in Frozen. Right. And hadn't saved any money. Right. Right. Hadn't gotten it. Like I had all this health insurance leftover. So many people didn't have that. And here we all are now a year later. That's the part that really is upsetting.

[22:38] Alan Seales: Well, what did you pivot to? You said you started a new career. Are you doing more of a full time video production?

[22:45] Dan Tracy: Well, it's a lot of things. Joe and I first kind of like dug back into our writing. We started writing together in 2016. Joe was on a hiatus between shows, one of the only periods of his career where he didn't have kind of lots of jobs lined up. And we were trying to figure out. And I was used to that. I've always had, you know, a year and a half between big jobs. So I'd gotten used to kind of finding my own path. And we fell into this writing project. We had no idea what we were doing, but we ended up kind of putting something interesting together. It was a TV show about a couple of kids at the University of Colorado Boulder who start a brewery in their basement. And in the pilot, this whole like thing happens, this undercover police break into their house.

And they use it as a marketing opportunity to build their brand. And it's like a Silicon Valley for the everyman is kind of the idea. And it's about like kind of the beer industry and stuff. And that was our first project we wrote together. And we ended up pitching it to Comedy Central in 2016. And then we didn't do anything else. We didn't write again for four years. And then a global pandemic hit. We had built a podcast at that point and done some video projects here and there together, but nothing really substantial. And then we jumped back into it in 2020 and started working on another television show, which we've talked about now a couple of times on the podcast, but is still in its development phases. And hopefully, we will actually make at some point.

[24:21] Joe Carroll: Oh yeah, it's going to happen. But then also Dan has become a full-time... I mean, listen, we do...

[24:28] Dan Tracy: Full-time part-time. It's like that's...

[24:29] Joe Carroll: Full-time part-time.

[24:30] Dan Tracy: We actually have a t-shirt that says full-time part-time.

[24:32] Joe Carroll: Full-time part-time.

[24:32] Dan Tracy: That is me.

[24:33] Joe Carroll: Yes. Dan has probably a solid eight to 10 jobs that are like...

[24:42] Dan Tracy: I think eight is steep, but it's definitely five.

[24:45] Joe Carroll: Definitely five.

[24:45] Dan Tracy: It's definitely five what could be full-time jobs.

[24:50] Joe Carroll: And I've come up with this phrase where it's just like we're cobbling together in existence. Like we're just... It's like, wait, you want to give me a thousand bucks to do a concert? Great. You want to give me a couple thousand bucks to do this thing? Cool. Can we make a podcast? Yes. And then eventually at the end of the year, we are above the poverty line.

[25:12] Dan Tracy: And starting to actually pay our bills, which is really nice. I mean, you get it, Alan, because you have this full-time job and then you have your side hustle. You're still working with Google, right?

[25:22] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[25:23] Joe Carroll: So you get like kind of the multiple hustles and now you have BPN. It's just kind of like that's how the business world works. You have kind of like different entities that are all getting pushed together. But my newest one is just real estate. So I'm kind of building a real estate business. I got my real estate license. I'm really interested in like getting into the investment property space, kind of like a way to funnel any money I could make as an actor into something, maybe doing like a network of Airbnbs or something like that. Not necessarily in like being a real estate agent, but it does fit into all of the other things that I can do, like video and marketing and that stuff.

[25:57] Dan Tracy: You know, Ryan Serhant from Million Dollar Listing New York, that guy? He's a failed actor. Self-proclaimed failed actor. He moved to New York to act and be a hand model. Both of which didn't work out, lied his way into Million Dollar Listing and now is making multi-million dollar deals. I did an event with him the other day. He actually told a story of on his wedding day was a major deal fell through. So he was like before his wedding on his phone, trying to salvage a deal that wouldn't hold together. And that, be careful of that, because that is not the life I want. And I hope, I do not wish that on you.

[26:40] Joe Carroll: No, but you know, I think about this a lot because work-life balance is a thing that is like really important to a lot of people. And, but not me.

[26:47] Dan Tracy: No, I mean, that's where I'm headed. That's where I'm headed. Because listen, like I actually, if my days like when I have my free time, I'm doing other business stuff. Like I don't know how to not, like I'm budgeting future projects while I'm watching TV. And I'm texting Joe, like bugging him because he wants to have a work-life balance. But I just don't know how to do that. So like, I don't want to be texting on my wedding day. But there is, there is such a thing as like, I mean, you know, if it works, it works. Like happiness is your own happiness. And if it, you know, you manage your own schedules, I guess. I don't know. That's kind of...

[27:32] Joe Carroll: I mean, I don't, I don't have a good work-life balance. I don't, are you kidding me? Like you and I are texting at seven o'clock in the morning and then we work and then you're, I'm like coaching until 11 and I've canceled every single vacation I've ever planned because I get an audition or a job. Like I don't, what do you mean work-life balance?

[27:54] Dan Tracy: But I also think it's so arbitrary. Like why, why should somebody tell us what our work-life balance should be? You know, it's like whatever you want.

[28:01] Joe Carroll: It has to be. And that, that's the thing. You have to have it be whatever you want it to be. And like, you know, you know, Alan, you have, you have two, two kids, one, one, two kids?

[28:10] Alan Seales: Yeah, two, a four and a six year old. Yeah.

[28:12] Joe Carroll: Yeah. And, and, and I'm married and Dan's in a long-term serious relationship too. Like you, you, we prioritize those people above anything. They are, they are like my, my wife is my, is my whole world. You know, so if she comes to me and is like, you got to stop texting Dan at seven o'clock in the morning, then that's how I know that the work-life balance is out of whack, you know? Then it's gone too far.

[28:39] Dan Tracy: Exactly. It's gone too far. You know, we have had those conversations. But, uh, I don't know, how do you, I don't know that now that we got on work-life balance, but Alan, how do you deal with, with, I mean, you have two kids in a pandemic and you have 14 businesses going, what the, what the hell?

[28:55] Alan Seales: Yeah. Um, uh, therapy, if I'm being honest. So before, before a couple of years ago, I just started seeing a therapist a couple of years ago. Um, and that has helped me realize my motivation for overworking because Dan, Dan, I'm a lot like you in, in that I'll be on my, I'll be watching TV with some.

[29:19] Dan Tracy: I care about, and I'm like, okay, well, hold on. I'm thinking about this other thing. I gotta get this email out or whatever the case is. So I'm always trying to now consciously be in the moment, be present with who I'm with, right? But that goes to the larger picture of why I'm overworking. So to answer your question, Joe, it's really just setting boundaries. And actually, Google is really good about this. They give us extra days off that weren't corporate holidays before the pandemic, but they're like, every couple Friday, every other, this is like every third Friday, I think, we just get it off. And it's like, just, they're not calling it a day off, just go do whatever you want. And I got over, I mean, Google sort of sets the bar for company culture in the first place in the tech world, which other companies now are starting to follow in line with.

And like, Dan, you've been, Joe, you've been there. It's like, there's nap pods all over the place, and couches, and free food, and places to hang out. So you're not expected to be there and work the entire time you're there, because that leads to burnout, and that leads to being unmotivated. And so I had to get over the fact that I felt guilty. Like, I'm working at home, and literally, like, I'm one floor above my bedroom, and the bathroom's right there. And like, I can sit right here where I am for 14, 16 hours a day. And I don't realize what time it is. Jumping from, you know, Googling the day, and BPN, and doing these podcasts, and whatever, and everything else that's going on, and watching the kids, and getting them ready for school.

So actually, it's nice for me to have one thing, to have the multiple things to jump to, because jumping from one thing to the next gives me respite from whatever I was doing previously. And especially with the kids, like, Monday comes around. I've been with the kids all weekend, and they're inside this past couple weeks because of the freaking snow. And so we can't go anywhere, and the pandemic's, everything's closed, the museums are closed, everything. And so like, Monday comes around, I'm like, get your asses out of the door, get on the bus, get to school. I just want to go up to my room, and I want to go to my room and be quiet for a little bit. And now I get on Clubhouse. I just listen on Clubhouse.

There's a lot of crap on Clubhouse, but there's a couple gems in there. So I'll get on there and just listen. I like trying new stuff. I just got in on Clubhouse today. It'll be another eight months before Joe gets on Clubhouse. So we'll address that when the time comes. But I'm excited to check it out. There's a very active podcasting community. And as somebody with an established podcast, you're already ahead of other people on there. Because there's a lot of people on there that are just like, how do I start a podcast? I don't know how to use my at home equipment. How do I monetize? I don't have a podcast yet. I'm going to make millions tomorrow. Like Joe Rogan, right? No.

[32:20] Joe Carroll: Oh, Jesus. We're not allowed to say his name on our podcast. I might have to bleep that out.

[32:26] Dan Tracy: Roe Jogan.

[32:29] Joe Carroll: Oh, gosh. That is too funny. Alan, what are the future plans for VPN? What are you guys looking at down the barrel?

[32:38] Alan Seales: Oh, goodness, goodness. Well, gosh, I'm trying to think of when this is going to air, what I can talk about. Yeah, right now we're finding a lot of success with original programming. As the Curtain Rises, completely homegrown, original soap opera. It's a radio play soap opera. It is one of our best ones now, most downloaded. And it's all starring... Well, next to Guys Like Musicals, of course.

[33:04] Dan Tracy: Guys Like Musicals is first.

[33:06] Alan Seales: Number two.

[33:06] Dan Tracy: That's right. Great, great, great.

[33:07] Alan Seales: Right, right. Of course, number one. Yes, yes. And yeah, we're finding a lot of people love this stuff. And even from a production standpoint, Homecoming on, I believe it was Wondry. I forget if it's Wondry or Earwolf. One of the other networks made this podcast, this original radio play called Homecoming that then I believe it was Amazon.

[33:29] Dan Tracy: It was Gimble, wasn't it?

[33:30] Alan Seales: It was Gimlet.

[33:31] Dan Tracy: Gimlet.

[33:32] Alan Seales: Yes, Gimlet. Yes.

[33:34] Dan Tracy: Yeah, that's sold to Spotify. Exactly.

[33:36] Alan Seales: Right. So Gimlet, somebody came to them and they turned it into a series on Hulu, I believe. Or no, Amazon.

[33:45] Dan Tracy: Amazon, right.

[33:46] Alan Seales: So that whole thing... So we're eyeing the creation of more original content that can push the boundaries and be later converted into either a stage production when theatre comes back or just straight up, you know, like Netflix now, right? Like Dory, the co-founder, she's got a relationship with Netflix through The Prom and Ryan Murphy. So like that, those conversations are starting. And it's an exciting time for podcasting in general, because I don't know if anybody, and this might be the most boring thing in the world for those listening right now, but there were 17,000 podcasts launched a week in 2020. A week, 17,000.

[34:32] Dan Tracy: So pandemic hit.

[34:34] Alan Seales: People be bored.

[34:36] Dan Tracy: People be bored. The average 30-day download for a single episode in 2020 was around 130. Full stop. Not thousand, not hundred, 130.

[34:51] Joe Carroll: So...

[34:53] Dan Tracy: We're better than that, Joe.

[34:55] Alan Seales: And that's all the time we have, bud.

[34:58] Dan Tracy: That's 50th percentile. But like the wealth gap, the top 1% are responsible for like 99% of all the podcast downloads, right? Like Joe Rogan and Jack Shepard.

[35:11] Alan Seales: It's like the daily and...

[35:13] Dan Tracy: Yeah. So now it's this thing, and I'm sure you're experiencing this too, is how do you break outside your own echo chamber? How do you get new listeners that are not the same ones you're preaching to on your social media channels day after day? And as a network, that's a challenge.

[35:33] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off. As a network, you find that you're having to continue to push the boundaries?

[35:40] Alan Seales: Yeah, as a network, that's a challenge too, because we're sort of like we were talking about a while ago with your guys who like musicals, and I am the theater podcast, and we are the Broadway podcast network, but we're so much more than that. And so there's more to it. We've got video content that we're about to launch. We've got some new technology, like some iOS app technology that we're about to launch. And all of this is going to be out soon, so I'm okay talking about it. And we've got more original content talking about, but we're always trying to think about how do we reach that person who didn't know about us before? How do we get to that person who was, like me, three years ago, up at 3 a.m. and searching for content that they can't find?

And what kind of content are they looking for? How do we bring that to them? So I would love, if anybody from Roku is listening, I want to make a Roku app, so we could have a Roku channel of VPN content. Right now, we haven't launched it, but it's been out there for about a week. I quietly just rolled it out. If you go to our YouTube channel, there's BPM Radio that's 24-7 episodes playing right now of our content. So it's a 24-7 live stream right now.

[37:00] Dan Tracy: Wow.

[37:01] Alan Seales: So we'll throw some Guys Who Like Musicals episodes into the mix. That way, obviously, people who can stumble through the live streams will find that stuff. They can listen to it in real time. Because YouTube, amazingly, being a visual platform, people still go there for audio-only content.

[37:18] Joe Carroll: Right. Crazy.

[37:20] Dan Tracy: Right?

[37:21] Alan Seales: I go to YouTube for everything. I'm a huge fan.

[37:25] Joe Carroll: Yeah, that's interesting. You bring up an interesting point there. I'm really curious to see how, because there's only a certain amount of people who listen to podcasts, too. When you think about it, there's so many that were started every week, but there's still only a certain percentage of the population that actually listens to podcasts. The potential market share of podcasting is much larger than it is right now. Future generations may or may not actually be engaged in it. I described it to one of our clients as just on-demand radio. They were like, I don't know what podcasting is. I was like, well, it's just a radio show on demand. You can just watch it whenever you want. Listen whenever you want.

[38:02] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[38:02] Joe Carroll: I think it's interesting to try and figure out how you can break down barriers of who listens to podcasts, who listens to theater podcasts, and at the same time, kind of keep up with taste. I know personally, I listened to a certain podcast for six to eight months, and then I'm kind of like, okay. That did its purpose.

[38:28] Dan Tracy: I say a lot to people. I say people come to a new podcast, they come for the guest, they stay for the host. You want to get your guest to promote you. That's why hopefully what we're doing right now with this episode, our listeners who didn't know about each other are going to start subscribing to both of us, and then everybody's that much happier. Because we can talk to the same person. We've each talked to Patti Murin, and we've had completely different conversations. Everybody who talks to the same guest can have a different conversation. I think there's a lot more to be told from different podcasters. It's just number of time in the day. But to your point about saturation, I forget these stats, but it's like so the majority of podcasts, like 60% of podcasts globally are consumed via Apple devices.

And the next closest single consumer is Spotify at around 8%. And then below that, I believe is Stitcher at like one or two. So there's a big discrepancy. Apple still got the lion's share of the way people listen. And the reason behind that is because from the beginning, near the beginning, Apple always had iTunes built into their phones. So you got an iPhone, you had immediately a way to listen to a podcast. Whereas Android devices, the majority of the world, the more of the world has Android devices than they do iPhone devices. But because Google has yet to put a default podcast player into Android, you still have to take that extra step of understanding what you're doing and downloading Google Podcasts or CastBox or whatever other player, Spotify, whatever other player you're going to use.

So that's why Apple has that leg up. And I think it's in their very best interest to maintain that leg up. And I don't think they're doing a good job of it, if I'm being honest, because Spotify is chipping away at them. Every month, there's a little bit more. And I don't know if Spotify is going to get back their investment, especially with Joe Rogan investment, whatever that exclusivity deal was. I forget what it is. But the business side of this is huge because the market share for people who A, don't have iPhones yet. B, those who have iPhones, only 10% of those iPhone users have ever used their phone to listen to a podcast. So there's the remaining 90%, however many hundreds of millions of people holding their podcast player in their hand who have never listened to a podcast.

And then there's the Android users on top of that, that have never downloaded a podcast app. So the potential for growth is tremendous right now. And so we're kind of at the precipice of this massive shift in on-demand radio content and radio play. So right now, 2020, because of the pandemic, this is what I was going to say, is people had time to take a step back and say like, what am I doing with my time right now? I just lost my job or I don't have to go to work or I'm working from home, whatever. So people, 17,000 people a week started a new podcast. So I think in a few months, maybe a year, the majority of those are going to be dead because they're not going to be the overnight sensations they expected to be.

And then all of a sudden, we're going to be back to, you know, there'll be some good ones that come out of it, I'm sure. But I think that the number of people, new people that listen to a podcast for the first time every day is rising at the same rate, whereas we've seen this massive spike of content that's just going to fall off again. So I don't know if you've seen your numbers flatline or maybe even decline in the last few months because more people are trying out other podcasts. But as those go away and don't remain, people are going to come back to the old tried and true stuff. I have gotten the sense that you and I are simpatico in the way that you talk about people who are quitters and people who want to be successful fast.

It seems like you have that spine in you that just wants to keep pushing. Like, what's that about? Have you always been like that? Like, how do you push yourself to kind of keep staying motivated even if you don't see results? Or how do you focus on results?

[43:38] Joe Carroll: I think it's a willful ignorance for failure. I just refuse to think that I can fail. Or when I do, I'm like, oh, well, now I'll do it again, and I'll do it better. Because the root of all of this is I need to be liked, and I need to be appreciated. And I feel internally, and I know this isn't true, my rational brain is like, you're an idiot. This isn't like this. But the same thing that makes me need to be on stage and get applause from standing on stage in front of thousands of people says, if you do good things, people are going to like you more. And so I feel like a failure means that people won't like me. Therefore, I won't allow myself to fail. So even if I do not meet a goal, I will go back, learn from what I did wrong, and then go do it again.

So that's my internal struggle. It's the angel and the demon, right? And the demon is always like, you're not good enough. You're hanging out with these Broadway people. You got this podcast people listen to. You got these...

[43:59] Joe Carroll: You're working at one of the greatest tech companies in the world. You're really a complete failure though. That's my struggle, pretty much daily.

[44:02] Dan Tracy: Same. It's interesting because what you do is that you take responsibility when something doesn't work. You also take responsibility in a way that may not be totally healthy to an extent. I think it's the masochistic actor thing. Even though you've now transitioned to podcasting and to working in tech, it's like, no, we all still put our hand back on the fire over and over and over again. Even if we fail, we rationalize ourselves away from... So it's not failure. No, it's like, I didn't get that job. I didn't want that job anyway. And now we're moving through life. But I don't know. I think that creates an opportunity, like you said, to just learn and move forward as opposed to get paralyzed by fear of failing.

[44:54] Joe Carroll: Because you said earlier that What's His Nuts from Million Dollar Listing is a failed actor. And I don't think there's such a thing. I adamantly believe that, that there is no such thing as a failed actor. Because if you go out and you do one show, then you go out and do one thing, you're an actor and you've succeeded in a way. If I quit tomorrow, I'm not going to be a failed actor. If I had quit back right after I graduated, if I never went to musical theater college, if I didn't... I just don't... I don't know.

[45:35] Dan Tracy: I agree with you, Joe. I think that line of thinking comes from a different generation. And that's a generational difference between people being defined as their careers. And I don't think... Personally, obviously, I think that's bullshit. I have eight careers. There is no such thing as a failed actor. You're an actor now. You may be an actor later. But you're just doing different things. Someday you might be an actor again. Acting is not going anywhere. And we don't have to define ourselves in this one title.

[46:04] Joe Carroll: I had this teacher in high school who... He was the physics teacher. And he was... In his life up to being the physics teacher, he had been a lawyer. And he had been a commercial airline pilot. And now he was the physics teacher. And I was like, but you're a lawyer? And he was like, no, I have a law degree. I was a lawyer. And I have my pilot's license. Wait, so you're a pilot? No, I wasn't. I am a pilot, but I'm not. You know what I mean? And we don't think that's crazy because we're all singer, dancer, actor, blah, blah, blah. But you have 14,000 hats you have to wear to just get health insurance. But for normal people, it's like... I think that, Dan, you're so right. This being defined by your career thing, I think, is not... I think we're breaking away from that.

[46:54] Dan Tracy: Yeah. I think we're totally in the world now where everyone... My thing for actors right now is my best advice. And the things I'm starting to make videos about on my YouTube channel now is you need to find your side hustle. And if you can find a side hustle that's not in a restaurant, you're going to be better off because you probably can find a way to be a little bit more fulfilled than just serving and waiting tables, which is definitely a respectable life and a respectable future. But it doesn't work for everyone. And it isn't the only option. You can definitely go and build something.

[47:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah, we come out of school thinking a lot of times that's the option.

[47:28] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of... I mean, restaurant is such late hours most of the time that you can't get up. You just don't have the energy. Or when you do, you're just dead for those 6 a.m. EPAs.

[47:36] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Dan and I worked together. Another one of the jobs that... We catered together between jobs. And there were two... Well, there was one night... First, working in restaurants, I've worked in a million restaurants and catered my whole life. My mom had a catering company for a long time. And I have such respect for that work across the board. The two most fun nights that I ever had catering were with Dan. One, we were bartenders... I had lots of fun. No shortage of fun we had. We were bartending at an Alexander Wang Fashion Week event. It was a party. And we were just there to like sling... It was like an arena show. There was like... Kendall Jenner was there. We were slinging drinks at the main bar. I always tried to get the main bar. Go ahead, Joe.

[48:32] Joe Carroll: No, but it was one of the best nights ever. And then the other time, we were bartending... Or like Dan was bartending and I was cleaning the toilets for... It was a dinner for Tom Hanks. And... Yeah, it was dinner for Tom Hanks. And Leon Bridges performed.

[48:54] Dan Tracy: Leon Bridges performed.

[48:57] Joe Carroll: Oh my gosh.

[48:57] Dan Tracy: It was the Wall Street Journal Awards dinner. And we should have gotten fired. But we stood there. Do you remember, Dan? We're standing behind this bar. We're not supposed to be there. We're supposed to be working somewhere else. And Leon Bridges is up there playing River by himself with his guitar. And I was like, I don't care if I get fired. I'm gonna watch this man sing this song. This is one of my favorite artists. And he's up there. He's this close to me. And the captain was coming around like, what are you guys doing here? And it was like, we're getting glasses for this bar. And the captain was like, you're not supposed to be doing that. I said, don't worry, John. He's with me. He's with me. We'll be fine. We'll be right with you.

[49:41] Dan Tracy: Oh my God. Yeah. I did a lot of catering. I had a lot of catering stories.

[49:48] Joe Carroll: Oh my God.

[49:49] Dan Tracy: Yeah, I catered. Actually, it's funny. Now I served my biggest catering. Did you work the Ralph Lauren birthday party, Joe?

[49:55] Joe Carroll: No, I don't think so.

[50:00] Dan Tracy: No, I think you were. I think you were out of town, maybe doing that show. You did Alabama.

[50:09] Joe Carroll: Because of when Dixie.

[50:09] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Because of when Dixie that Duncan Sheik wrote.

[50:15] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. I served Ralph Lauren's birthday party at the main table. It was Jessica Chastain, Anna Wintour, Ralph Lauren and his wife and Armie Hammer. Oh, my goodness. And I said, do you want the vegan option? And he said, absolutely not. So...

[50:38] Dan Tracy: No, that was a joke. That was a joke. Not to make light of that.

[50:42] Joe Carroll: Jessica Chastain was vegan and she's really nice. I feel like, yeah, catering was it was an interesting way to make money, but also not. Am I allowed to laugh that hard at that joke? I don't think so. We might have to cut that.

[50:55] Dan Tracy: Dan and I are guys who like musicals and we've always been guys who like musicals. The point of this show, I think for us in the long run, is that there's a lot of guys who like musicals, who don't have anything to do with musicals, who like them. And growing up, we were the guys who played on the hockey team who also liked musicals. And that was weird. And but when we told the people that like, oh, we also like this is a part of us that is that is real, they would say, oh, that's kind of cool. Like I saw Les Mis one time. That is the only qualifier that like gets you in the club of someone who likes musicals.

[51:32] Joe Carroll: So my hope is like in my perfect world someday, I would love to talk to Barack Obama about why he chose to bring Hamilton to the White House, why he loves musical theater, like that sort of thing. There are millions of people in the world who sort of like or super like musicals that don't happen to be in it. What's fun about us about our show right now, I find is like we're still talking to our friends. We're talking to our colleagues. We're talking to people we've worked with or people that are one degree of separation away from us. But that's my hope is that the show becomes guys who like musicals. And then they're like, why is Hillary Clinton on the show? And it's like, well, yeah, because I don't know.

We're big and fancy enough that like we call one Hillary Clinton's perfect because she loves musicals. Yes. And like she came to see Frozen and couldn't have been nicer. But like, you know, that's sort of stuff that I that I see us, you know, I want to go to a place and I agree with you that I think that that that there's a lot to explore there.

[52:33] Dan Tracy: And I want to get into this is the nerd side of me into the psychology behind why people like musicals, like somebody like a neurologist, like like like talk to talk to like that kind of understanding. I don't know. Like I this is this is actually something where I've wanted to do some more research. And if anybody listening has any suggestions, write me at feedback at the theater podcast dot com. Let me know, because I want to talk to some people who are into the science behind behind why we are so addicted to music and performing, because there's a vibration to it. Right. But what is the science behind that? What's what's going on chemically in our heads? Why do we why? Why are some people relate to Hamilton and some people relate to Cinderella and some people can't get enough of Wicked or, you know, I want to there have been no studies that I am aware of as to why people chemically are addicted to these shows. Like what is the dopamine response to sitting in the third row, watching an opening night performance of blah, blah, blah.

[53:34] Dan Tracy: Right. Right. Yeah. It sounds like a really good documentary.

[53:37] Joe Carroll: It really does. And and so our brains.

[53:41] Dan Tracy: And you want another job. He's like, he's like, wait a minute. We have the.

[53:48] Joe Carroll: Yeah, we'll talk later. Does anybody know a behavioral psychologist?

[53:52] Dan Tracy: Yeah, seriously. Seriously, I love that because the logical is a lot of stuff. I had a conversation with my dad about my dad loves country music and has always loved country music. And he loves show tunes. And one time we like put the pieces together. He's like talking to me. You know, he's like fully embraced my musical theater nerdiness and he's like fully paying for the tuition for musical theater college. And he's like, you know, I love this theater song and this and this and he's always liked country music. And I think that there is something in theater where like there's that crossover just to have a beginning, middle and end. I started here. Something happened. Something else happened.

And now I'm changed, you know, in that story, that true story that like exists in in Arlo Guthrie and, you know, all those Grand Ole Opry people, you know, and like the music of that era, I think, was so story driven that I think there's a real crossover there that people don't even realize. But yeah, I would love to. I want to hear that interview with your behavioral psychologist about me, too. Why people like musicals.

[55:02] Joe Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. And when when COVID hit, actually going back to something we were talking about earlier with like numbers overall because of lack of commuting, podcasting as an industry, the numbers went down and we were very aware of that. But BPN actually saw double digit growth during that initial shutdown. Not a big deal.

[55:20] Dan Tracy: Well, people wanted it relates to what we were just talking about in BD. We were people wanted the arts. People immediately were feeling those chemical withdrawals of not being able to go see shows and not being able to connect with these performers. And so they were turning to the first thing they could get their hands on, which is they're in there, you know, they're on demand in their hands.

[55:40] Joe Carroll: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Literally in their hands, their podcast with their favorite actors and actresses and creatives and whoever the case may be. So that's since leveled off as as things have sort of normalized here in this weird, strange time we now find ourselves in. But it was really, really interesting to us. And that's that's sort of where I got the idea for all of this to go down the behavioral science route and the chemical route of just, you know, we know we care people. Sometimes people feel it in their bones, like I just have to be on stage. I have to act. I have to sing. But that comes from something. We are just organic beings that are a bunch of molecules bouncing around inside, you know, our physical body. And what is it about that that makes us have to be on stage?

[56:32] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. The have to be on stage one, I think, is a is a more question about just like insurmountable egos. But there is definitely there is definitely a question. I mean, I have had a chemical response to musicals in the form of head to toe chills when I really connect or feel in like impacted by a musical since I was in the fifth grade, like since I can remember. I've I when I really connect to what's happening in a musical, I get goosebumps from literally head all the way down my back. So there's got to be something chemically there. So I'm hooked. I think that's an awesome idea. I I'm in. Let me know if we can.

[57:16] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I think there's something I think I think there's something to like just the the spectrum of addiction, addiction and like addictive personalities as far as performing is concerned, because it is it is an absolute drug.

[57:33] Dan Tracy: Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure. And I think I think that, you know, I was listening to to the I mean, Dan and I both love Smartless and that podcast that came out this year. And they were talking to Brendan Shanahan, the former the hockey player, Brendan Shanahan, talking about like how athletes have that athletes have this singular focus and they get their their rush and their, you know, their drive from this one singular thing that when that thing is taken away, a lot of them can fall into destructive tendencies because they don't have it anymore. And so I think that that happens with artists and actors, too. It's like when you know how to perform, you know how to sing, you know how to play your instrument or paint or whatever.

And then if that's taken away, what do you fill that gap with? You know, what do you fill the space with? And hopefully it's something good for a lot of people. It's not, you know, I don't know. Maybe that goes back to the failed actor thing, because you're feeling the depression, you're feeling anxiety, however you internally manifest that. And you feel like a failure, whether you are or not from the outside, you still feel like you're not getting what you want.

[58:38] Alan Seales: You feel like you failed. Right. Right. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting into some science about this. I want to know, Alan, what's your, do you have a favorite interview that you've done? Favorite person you've talked to?

[58:49] Alan Seales: Oh, goodness. Um, well, Joe Carroll, Episode 21. Of course. Nice. This one. This one. Yeah. Um, no, I actually, I like lots for different reasons. Um, Patty, Patty Murin was, is one of my favorites because that was the first time, um, that was the first time I talked with somebody about like, as openly as she talks about anxiety, her own anxiety and like having panic attacks on stage and stuff. That was the first time that I allowed myself to go somewhere, uh, a lot as deep as my guest was going. Um, cause I have OCPD, which is obsessive compulsive personality disorder, not OCD, completely different things. So basically it's can't see the forest through the trees and I'll, I can get so hyper-focused on some detail, on a detail sometime that I just don't see the big picture.

And like, I'll find myself hours later, like, wait, why did I just spend all that time on that? That's not a big deal. And so that's part of the therapy and whatnot. But so that was the first time I'd ever publicly talked about that was with Patty cause she made me feel comfortable enough to do it. And so that still sticks out as one of my favorites. Um, Isabella Rossellini, just because it's Isabella Rossellini, that was super, super cool. Um, right as COVID hit, uh, I started the Quarren Queen takeover. So I interviewed all the six Queens. That was super, super cool. Cause they're just like, that's a show where so empowering. They're all friends. They all like each other. And you can tell by watching it.

Did you, did either of you get to see it? No. Like you can watch when you watch them on stage, they're there to support each other. And the story is a support is a female empowerment story where they're all supporting each other. And you can tell when they're together and when they talk about each other, that there's genuine love for one another. And it was just really cool to see all that come out. Um, that's awesome. Yeah. So, and then outside of that, back in December, I interviewed Matthew McConaughey for Google and that, that was a lot of fun.

[1:01:04] Joe Carroll: All right. All right. All right. All right. What about you guys? He had a really good smart list episode. Joe, did you listen?

[1:01:08] Dan Tracy: No, it was Dax Shepard. It was Dax Shepard. He was an armchair expert. Yeah. And that guy is a freaking character. Um, Dax is my, Dax is my real quick, Dax is my, my people like, who's your ultimate guest? Who would you love to have? Dax is my number one guest. I would love to interview.

[1:01:19] Alan Seales: Yeah, totally. That'd be cool. Who is your favorite interview that you've done and who is your most, who is your most coolest person you'd like to interview? Favorite, favorite so far and dream interview.

[1:01:35] Dan Tracy: Got it. Um, I think the day, I mean, for me, the day we got to interview Gavin Creel was cool for us because Gavin was kind of this, uh, guiding light for the two of us. Uh, especially for me. I mean, I've been listening to him like regularly since 2005 and to have him then on my podcast in my living room was a crazy day and we acted like a bunch of idiots and it kind of felt like it gave the show some legitimacy that was, that was over just over a year ago. And now like, you know, now where I'm like teaching him how to self tape, the whole world is just upside down. And, and I can kind of like thank the show for just kind of giving me an outlet for that. And, and that's, you know, that has, I thank Gavin for coming on and Shoshana Bean came on really early and like all of that kind of friends doing friends favors was, was really helpful for us.

But there have been some really great ones, some surprising guests that, you know, you really like end up having conversation that you didn't expect. Like we just, we just released Nick Blamire and Nick has been a mentor to us as a writer and, and he's just like a very deep person. So I always like the deep conversations. That's usually like where I gravitate. Um, I think for me top of list, I don't know, Joe, who is your favorite guest? And I'm gonna think about who my, yeah.

[1:03:03] Joe Carroll: I, my favorite, I w I would totally agree. And we've talked about that before that, like the Gavin episode was completely surreal. It made us feel legit. He is the warmest human being on the planet and made, we, we still feel like imposters on a daily hourly basis. And, and he just made us, he, he made us feel like equals and, and really, I think empowered us to to keep going to this point because now we're like, okay, cool. If we can talk to Gavin Creel, we can talk to anybody. Um, and, but my favorite, honestly, I had two, one was Robin Herter because she's such a D she became such a dear friend to, to me after my general. Yeah. After my experience, uh, working on Moulin Rouge, uh, off, uh, in Boston and, um, uh, in the workshop, we just became like absolute buddy homies and, and I, I love her.

And so that was really fun to just connect with her cause I hadn't seen her in a long time. And she was so funny. And I think she had like two, she had like two long Island iced teas while we were talking to her. She sure did. And I'm going to make another one. This is really fun. Let's just keep talking. So that was great. Um, and I liked it. I liked the goofy. I really go. I liked the, I love getting deep with people, but I really love when we can laugh and have a good time. Um, I, and so I love those episodes. And then my, when Dan and I, um, argued about the music man, Oh, that's a good one. We had that episode. We did a segment for, uh, uh, previously we did a segment where we just broke down our favorite shows.

And we were talking about like the shows that made us want to do this and what we love about them. And we talked to Matt Doyle about company and we talked to Ben Whitley about into the woods. And we just had an episode where Dan was like, the music man is the greatest musical of all time. Fight me on the week. The week prior we'd done, we had Will Burton on the show for the second time. We talked about the hello Dolly movie. Cause we, we found the same thing. We were like, we want to kind of talk, talk about stuff on the show that, that doesn't focus on the pandemic. So let's just talk about movie musicals. Great. So we started like a movie musical segment. We talked about hello Dolly with Will Burton, and I do not like the hell hello Dolly and Joe and will think it is the best shit that has ever happened on the planet.

And so sure enough, the next week we went to my favorite musical, which was a music man. And I was like, be careful. That's how I started the episode. Be careful because we're about to fight. And we just had like an absolute battle Royale because Joe thinks parts of the music man is stupid. And I think he's stupid. So that was a, that was a, that's a good call. Joe, that was a great episode. It was so fun. We may have to do like a musical theater Smackdown live show. I think that's got to be in the cards for us at some point. It's like having guests on to fight about what their favorite musical is head to head, I think would be a funny, like almost like a burn book kind of thing. Just differing opinions.

[1:06:02] Dan Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. Like, like to, to throw out, like, you know, the, you know, the issue on the table is, you know, whatever, but, you know, you got Les Mis and then somebody on the pro side, somebody on the con side and just fight about it. And I think it could be really funny. So we want to do that. Um, and I think that dream guests for me, like, like I, this is, this is going to sound stupid. I already said Barack Obama. And I said, Hillary Clinton, the mountain that's about the top of the mountain, but I want to talk to people like that. Anybody who I think that people who have spent their life in public service for one particular party are the, are just, I, I'm so, I'm so in awe of what they do.

And so I just would love to like actually get to interview somebody who is like that because like, I, yes. So that's, that's, that's, that's what I would love. And then somebody in the same ilk, like to get to interview Patrick Mahomes, to get to interview Sidney Crosby, to get to interview, you know, Tiger Woods or something like people, I don't know. I just like people who have absolutely nothing to do with what we do, who happened to be like, oh yeah, like I kind of watched, you know, the into the woods movie a bunch when I was a kid. Okay, cool. Sidney Crosby. Great talking with you. Like that. I don't know. That's, that's me.

[1:07:27] Joe Carroll: That's good. AOC, she's local. Yes. AOC for sure. I'm sure she likes musicals. I, yeah. I think like for, for depth, Jim Carrey. Oh, for musical theater royalty, Hugh Jackman. Oh my God. The original guy who likes musicals. Hugh, Hugh should be doable, especially when they, when they need to do press for, for music man. There you go. Whenever Broadway comes back, you can be like, we're not going to mention Scott Rudin, but you, Hugh, you like musicals and the music man. Uh, I Dan, that is such a good idea. Yep. And also he's best friends with Max Clayton and we're best friends with Max Clayton. So that we can, we are, we are one degree of separate separation away from the president of musical theater.

[1:08:18] Alan Seales: That's right. I, along those lines, I'd like to have NPH. Neil Patrick Harris would be a lot of fun. I think. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Neil Patrick Harris. Of course, Lynn, if Lynn wanted to be on mine, I'd be like, all right, let me pencil you in, but he's too busy working for Disney now. He, you know, he's, he's tied up. He's got an overall, he's got, he's got too much to do, but it would be cool to have him. He's, he's also a genius. I really, I've really loved that show on Netflix that breaks down the song. Yes. That he did. Um, I don't know if you saw that, but if anybody hasn't seen that yet, I don't know what it's called, but it's a documentary show that breaks down, uh, songs by artists and they did one on Lynn and it's Lynn and Tommy. Uh, no, it's Lynn and, um, Alex Lackmore. It's really good.

[1:09:04] Alan Seales: There's three questions. I normally ask people to end my interviews. I want to ask you one of the three, cause it should be a short answer. If you could see any musical, any, sorry, any show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want. What would you say?

[1:09:16] Dan Tracy: Sunday in the park with George.

[1:09:21] Joe Carroll: Passing strange. I think, I don't, I don't remember what you said, Joe. I should go back and listen to it and see if you give the same answer now as you did in episode 21.

[1:09:24] Joe Carroll: I I'm, I'm pretty sure that I would have said passing strange. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, probably. Yeah. Dan, Dan, why, why Sunday?

[1:09:32] Dan Tracy: I think that Sunday is about the, the condition of an artist, not the human condition, but the artist condition, what it means to be a creative person and to be so dedicated to it's actually thematically very similar to Hamilton. There, there are like ties to this idea of being obsessed with your art and having it like not get in the way of, or being obsessed with the thing that you do and having get in the way of how the rest of the world functions for you. And that show kind of confirmed for me at a time when I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to keep pursuing this professionally, that show kind of turned, turned it around for me and I could listen to it forever. See it forever. That could, that, that tie into Hamilton.

That was awesome. The connection between I'd never put that together. I'd of course, of course, Hamilton is inspired by Sunday in the park with George. That was great. I think it has to be. I don't think I know what absolutely has a second, but it totally is a hundred percent. Yeah. You're so right. And then, yeah, for me, it's a passing strange was the show and the mood that the Spike Lee filming that, that took me from questioning whether or not I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. When I was a junior in college, I saw that show and I was like, that is what I want to make. It is also a show about the artist experience and art getting in the way of relationships and how, you know, only love is real anyway. We did a whole episode on it. So I think most people know how I feel about that show. What about you, Alan?

[1:11:08] Alan Seales: I, I'm, I think I'm going to have to go with, and this is pretty cliche. I think I'm gonna have to go with Rent. Yep. Because it was what turned, it was so new and so different for me that I was into musicals before that. Like I listened to Chicago and Phantom Soundtrack and I grew up watching Singing in the Rain, Music Man and West Side Story VHS tapes. But then Rent is when I, the first time I ever got obsessed with something because again, that was something that spoke to me and I still don't quite know why. And that's the chemical thing that I would love to know. So whenever I, I think back on Rent with a nostalgia of, you know, especially now as a parent looking back at my kids and seeing the things they enjoy, I look back at that nostalgia that, that of a, of a time when things were just good and things were just easy and I didn't have to worry about adulting, you know? You could just, you could sing about what it's like to not pay your rent but not even know what you were talking about.

[1:12:10] Joe Carroll: Exactly! Exactly!

[1:12:15] Dan Tracy: That's amazing. Alan, thank you, thank you, thank you for, for our, for everything, for including us in BPN. We, you are, you are the OG theater podcast. We are following in your footsteps. We love you. For our listeners, check out his. For the listeners of the theater podcast, come check out ours, please.

[1:12:31] Alan Seales: Yes, yes, please check out Guys Who Like Musicals. There will be links in the show notes of, of the feeds. I've loved this conversation. This has been, this has been so different for me and I really appreciate it. Thank you both for taking the time to do this.

[1:12:40] Joe Carroll: Us too, man. Thank you for everything. Make sure to find me online on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast. Find me on the web at thetheaterpodcast.com. Please leave a rating, leave a review, share the podcast with a friend of yours. That's how this podcast grows. Everybody, please subscribe to Guys Who Like Musicals. Special, special thanks to Joe and Dan for such an incredible and interesting conversation and to give us all a little bit of something different here to listen to. Everybody have a wonderful day.