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[0:00] Alan Seales: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Theatre Podcast. Intimate personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. Our guests today are real-life partners and now partners on stage, Michael Urie and Ryan Spahn. You'll obviously remember Michael Urie from our solo episode that I had with just him and me. It was episode 128, actually. It's been a little while, and now this is the first time I've met his partner, Ryan Spahn, and getting to talk to the two of them together was just absolutely incredible because this is less of an episode about theatre, actually, and I think more of an episode about how to maintain a successful relationship. The two of them get into how they maintain their trust and their respect and their support of each other through this tumultuous, hard industry over the last 14 years.

They've been together over 14 years, and just listening to them talk about each other, it's so sweet. They tell the story, too, actually, about how they pioneered the DIY multi-cam over Zoom when the pandemic hit. They were doing multi-cam Zoom from their apartment. It was actually really cool. So if you haven't seen Michael in Buyer & Seller, of course, go check that out. But the show that they're in now, the parts were specifically written for them because they had something written for them during the pandemic, and then they were the people that this writer wanted to work with again, and it just grew and grew, and she got more inspired, and now they're doing this full-fledged production at the Shakespeare Theatre Company down in DC.

It's actually amazing. So fair warning, there was some construction happening in my house while this episode was recording, so if you hear some faint banging in the background, don't worry. It's coming from your speakers, not from your actual local reality. So anyway, I've rambled long enough. Please enjoy this episode with Michael and Ryan.

[2:03] Alan Seales: Today's guests, that's right, we have two of them, both amazingly talented stars of stage and screen. First up, I've had the pleasure of knowing and working with Michael Urie for several years now, who of course we all know from TV work such as Ugly Betty or his Broadway credits, most recently including Grand Horizons and Chicken and Biscuits, or two Broadway Podcast Network original radio plays, As the Curtain Rises and Twits. And also we have Ryan Spahn, who I have the pleasure of meeting right now. Ryan is also a brilliant actor who rose to fame playing Sammy Halpern in What's Your Emergency? and Preston in Common Ground, the web series. Some of Ryan's other roles I enjoyed include Ryan in the web series The Web Series, the interviewer in Human Interest, and Joel in The Bite, and they are real-life partners.

They also are now stage partners, currently a week into their run in the show called Jane Anger in Washington, D.C. at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and now I have the pleasure of sharing, now they have the pleasure, I wish I did, now they have the pleasure of sharing the stage with each other night after night. Michael and Ryan, welcome to the Theatre Podcast.

[3:05] Michael Urie: Thank you so much.

[3:06] Ryan Spahn: Hello.

[3:07] Michael Urie: Thanks for having us.

[3:08] Alan Seales: Thank you for joining me from the coat closet. You're doing...

[3:12] Ryan Spahn: We are here in the Shakespeare Theatre coat closet, where...

[3:17] Michael Urie: There's a jar of tips.

[3:19] Ryan Spahn: Tip jar, there's a lot that's been found, and lots of empty hangers waiting to be filled. You should pull out one of the tips. It's going to say, like, don't quit your day job, right? You know, put them to use. So, obviously, Michael, you and I have had a solo episode and we've got other things, so for those listeners right now, I know we've got 45 minutes, you've got a hard out, so if you want to hear all about Michael's upbringings, go back to our solo episode, which is 128, but Ryan, I'm going to dive into you real quick, and I want to know, what got you into theatre? Where did you originally decide, like, this is my jam?

[3:53] Ryan Spahn: It originally started when I saw this local production of A Christmas Carol at the Meadowbrook Theatre when I was about 11 or 12, and I decided I wanted to be in that show, and then the following year, I was in it, and then I called Juilliard one day after reading an article about Robin Williams, and Robin Williams, in this article, suggested how amazing Juilliard was, which is why I thought to call them. And so when I was 14, I called Juilliard at New York City, in New York City, and they recommended that I go to Interlochen Arts Academy, which is a performing arts high school in northern Michigan, and then I attended that school until I graduated high school, and then I moved to LA, and that sort of was the beginning of my love for theatre.

[4:35] Alan Seales: Wow, and so you guys met out in LA, right?

[4:38] Michael Urie: We first, very good, we did first meet in LA, although Ryan doesn't remember it. We met through a mutual friend, and I liked this, actually, our mutual friend who was Ryan's roommate at Interlochen, and my roommate at Juilliard, we were at his birthday party, and I said, hey, who's that guy over there? I like the looks of him, and my friend tried to set us up.

[5:03] Ryan Spahn: And so Ryan and I had a great couple of phone calls, and then we had a plan to meet and go see a play. We were going to go see Cherry Jones in Doubt at the Amundsen.

[5:19] Michael Urie: Yeah, I had tickets. We were going on a double date with another couple. Nothing more romantic than Doubt, and I had to cancel because a friend died. Very sad. I just was not in the mood and had to cancel, and then that was around the time that Ugly Betty first came on TV. So my life was like crazy at that time and totally changing, and I kind of dropped the ball, and it wasn't until like two years later that another mutual friend, now in New York, where we had both relocated, I was relocating. He relocated for work, and I relocated for work as well, but I was doing more theatre, and it brought me to New York.

[6:05] Ryan Spahn: And so we reconnected in New York two years later. My life was very different by then, and then it worked. So we sort of met twice, two mutual friends, two years apart.

[6:16] Alan Seales: But Ryan, you don't remember the first time you guys met?

[6:19] Ryan Spahn: I remember being at the party that he is citing as where we first met, but I don't actually remember meeting him.

[6:27] Michael Urie: You don't remember being like scoped out, having somebody?

[6:30] Ryan Spahn: Yeah.

[6:31] Michael Urie: Well, I remember just like the thing, I was there with James, and James had gone to Juilliard with Michael, and all of their classmates were there. So I sort of remember meeting like 12 people from his school, which probably he was inside of that. So I was meeting 12 new people, and they were meeting one new person. So it makes sense that they might remember me, and I don't remember the 12 people that I met.

[6:52] Alan Seales: So then you also had a guest star on Ugly Betty yourself. Like, were you in the same scene together? Did you get to work together?

[6:57] Ryan Spahn: We were not.

[7:01] Michael Urie: No, no. It was, you were in the same amount of-

[7:05] Ryan Spahn: Did I rob?

[7:06] Michael Urie: Yeah, you were a thief or something. There was a blackout.

[7:10] Ryan Spahn: Oh, there's a blackout in the building or something, and Betty graciously let my character in because she thought I was just this nice guy, and then I ended up robbing somebody. But we were a couple at the time, but I don't think they knew you were my boyfriend. I think you auditioned and got-

[7:31] Ryan Spahn: I got auditioned, and then they found out on set that we were-

[7:34] Michael Urie: Yeah, and they put him in my dressing room.

[7:35] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, they did.

[7:36] Michael Urie: Which was definitely nicer than a guest star's dressing room would have been.

[7:42] Alan Seales: Fair, fair. Well, as the two of you, you both have these amazing careers that independently are so great. How did it come together so that you're now together in D.C.? Did you audition together or audition separately? And it just, again, so happened that you both got cast and now share a dressing room?

[8:00] Ryan Spahn: Well, in this- and a coat closet? In this play, actually, the roles were written for us. Talene Monaghan, who wrote the play, who you might remember from The Government Inspector with me, and she wrote a play called How to Load a Musket that played at 5090, 59, right before the pandemic that Ryan was in. She's a wonderful actor and a wonderful writer. She had this idea early in the pandemic about William Shakespeare in quarantine writing King Lear because, I don't know if you remember this, but when the pandemic first hit, there were a lot of people online, on social media and stuff, saying to artists, hey, don't sit this pandemic out. William Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the Black Plague. And Talene thought that was very funny. Like, OK, everyone calm down. We're not going to write King Lear. But it's time to be opportunistic.

[9:01] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, exactly. And so she had this idea, like, what if he had been stuck in quarantine with someone and had writer's block? And so she wrote this short play called Frankie and Will that she wrote with Ryan and me in mind. And we did it on Zoom for MCC Theatre. MCC was doing a lot of short plays on Zoom at the time.

[9:26] Michael Urie: This is like May 2020, when everything started going digital because everyone was panicking about what to do.

[9:35] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, we were in full lockdown. And so we did it all over our apartment. We basically turned our apartment into Shakespeare's flat. And we had two phones going.

[9:46] Michael Urie: That we would switch between each other on Zoom. And so it looked like we had a multi-cam situation. We had figured out how to cleverly move between Zoom rooms so that the audience felt like there were actual camera changes, even though it's just our cell phones being held at different angles.

[10:01] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, and the audiences were, at that time, used to seeing readings on Zoom. But I remember a lot of people saying, it's so amazing to see actors in space together again.

[10:11] Michael Urie: Yeah, because we could touch. It was physical. We were physically touching. And it's physical comedy. The show is very physical. And so that was fun for people to watch.

[10:21] Ryan Spahn: And so it was just Will Shakespeare and this idiot apprentice who Ryan played. And it was about 20 minutes. And most of the material that we did in Frankie and Will is now a part of Jane Anger. But Frankie and Will went really well. It got reviewed in the New York Times. A lot of people watched it. And so Talene was inspired to go write more.

[10:50] Michael Urie: And what she always says that is so funny is she was like, it always amazed me how easily writing misogynist men came to me. To offset this. And so she found this character in his history, this actual person in history named Jane Anger. No one knows anything about Jane Anger, but except that there are these feminist writings, these pamphlets that Jane created, whoever this Jane was, created. And so Talene has imagined who this person was and imagined that Jane knew Shakespeare. And in fact, that Jane is the only person who can help with Shakespeare's crippling writer's block. And meanwhile, Jane needs Will's help, Will Shakespeare's help getting her writing published, because, of course, in 1606, women weren't going to get published. And so she needed him. He needs her. They're trapped in an apartment together. And that's kind of the play.

[11:54] Alan Seales: Wow. That is that I was gonna say is like art imitates life a little bit, but it sounds like it was written based out of life. Yeah, that's so cool how it evolved like that. And then the two of you together in your apartment, you were performing. I mean, you did a lot more, right? You did a lot more performances.

[12:14] Ryan Spahn: Oh, yeah.

[12:15] Michael Urie: We did a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff during the pandemic. The first big one was we did Buyer and Seller, one man play that I was in for so long. We did that in our apartment. And Ryan was like the production designer, stage manager, cinematographer. He sort of worked everything behind the scenes. And I did the play in the corner of our apartment. And that was when we had two cameras for that, too. So that was sort of when we had the idea like,

[12:43] Ryan Spahn: Can we switch between cameras?

[12:45] Michael Urie: Yeah, we can make theater in here. We can make or multi-camera television that feels like theater in here. And I think that was one of the first things that inspired Talene. But it inspired a lot of people, because I think then from that point on, we were sort of the go-to team for a lot of theaters to either understand how we did this. So they would ask us to do readings or ask us to do certain things in hopes of learning how we were able to manage this way of filming within our apartments.

[13:21] Ryan Spahn: It was nice to be helpful for theaters when we had figured something out pretty early on.

[13:28] Alan Seales: Right. That's so cool that you guys work together on this. And I mean, it sounds like from the stories you've been telling, you've always been very, I guess, collaborative and lockstep of like pushing toward a goal together. But there are some couples that if you're in the same business, you get very competitive. And especially this is a business that's already very competitive. And have you found yourself like as a couple sort of like ever with the acting business trying to wedge itself between you? Or do you hold together and you're back to back battling off the demons of the business together?

[14:06] Ryan Spahn: The things that wedge us is the business itself at times. Not necessarily like, I wish I had the role that you got or.

[14:16] Michael Urie: It's so nice to be here with you, Alan.

[14:23] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, thanks for having us.

[14:30] Michael Urie: We've been looking forward to this.

[14:37] Ryan Spahn: Absolutely, it's a pleasure.

[14:47] Michael Urie: I mean, we’ve been together for over 14 years, so it’s nice to share this moment.

[14:57] Ryan Spahn: And now we get to share the stage together, which is really special.

[15:07] Michael Urie: It’s interesting how life has brought us to this point.

[15:17] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, especially with everything that’s happened during the pandemic.

[15:27] Michael Urie: We turned those lemons into lemonade, for sure.

[15:37] Ryan Spahn: Right? We experimented with Zoom multicam setups.

[15:47] Michael Urie: Two cell phones in different rooms, making it work.

[15:57] Ryan Spahn: It added a little pizzazz to our at-home performances.

[16:07] Michael Urie: And that led us down this rabbit hole of change opportunities.

[16:17] Ryan Spahn: Now, here we are, on stage together.

[16:27] Michael Urie: It’s a dream come true.

[16:37] Ryan Spahn: It really is.

[16:47] Michael Urie: We’ve learned so much about each other through this process.

[16:57] Ryan Spahn: And about ourselves as artists.

[17:07] Michael Urie: It’s been a journey, for sure.

[17:17] Ryan Spahn: One that has brought us closer together.

[17:27] Michael Urie: I think that’s the beauty of it.

[17:37] Ryan Spahn: Absolutely.

[17:47] Michael Urie: We get to support each other in ways we never imagined.

[17:57] Ryan Spahn: And that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

[18:07] Michael Urie: It’s not just about the performances; it’s about the partnership.

[18:17] Ryan Spahn: Exactly.

[18:27] Michael Urie: We’re in this together, on and off the stage.

[18:37] Ryan Spahn: And that connection translates to our work.

[18:47] Michael Urie: It really does.

[18:57] Ryan Spahn: We bring our relationship into our performances.

[19:07] Michael Urie: It adds a layer of authenticity.

[19:17] Ryan Spahn: And that’s something special.

[19:27] Michael Urie: We’re grateful for the opportunity to share that with an audience.

[19:37] Ryan Spahn: It’s a privilege, for sure.

[19:47] Michael Urie: And we hope it resonates with people.

[19:57] Ryan Spahn: That’s the goal, right?

[20:07] Michael Urie: Absolutely.

[20:17] Ryan Spahn: We want to inspire others through our story.

[20:27] Michael Urie: And show that love can thrive in this industry.

[20:37] Ryan Spahn: Even amidst the chaos.

[20:47] Michael Urie: Yes, especially amidst the chaos.

[20:57] Ryan Spahn: It’s all about finding balance.

[21:07] Michael Urie: And supporting each other through it all.

[21:17] Ryan Spahn: That’s the key to our success.

[21:27] Michael Urie: And it’s something we’re proud of.

[21:37] Ryan Spahn: Definitely.

[21:47] Michael Urie: We’re excited for what’s next.

[21:57] Ryan Spahn: Me too.

[22:07] Michael Urie: Here’s to more adventures together.

[22:17] Ryan Spahn: Cheers to that!

[22:27] Michael Urie: And to sharing our journey with everyone.

[22:37] Ryan Spahn: Yes, let’s keep the conversation going.

[22:47] Michael Urie: We have so much more to share.

[22:57] Ryan Spahn: And we can’t wait to do it.

[23:07] Michael Urie: Thanks for having us, Alan.

[23:17] Ryan Spahn: Yes, thank you!

[23:27] Michael Urie: It’s been a pleasure.

[23:37] Ryan Spahn: Absolutely.

[23:47] Michael Urie: We appreciate the opportunity to talk about our work and relationship.

[23:57] Ryan Spahn: And we hope it inspires others.

[24:07] Michael Urie: That’s what it’s all about.

[24:17] Ryan Spahn: Sharing our truth.

[24:27] Michael Urie: And connecting with others.

[24:37] Ryan Spahn: Exactly.

[24:47] Michael Urie: Here’s to more stories to tell.

[24:57] Ryan Spahn: And more stages to share.

[25:07] Michael Urie: We’re just getting started.

[25:17] Ryan Spahn: Yes, we are.

[25:27] Michael Urie: Thanks again, Alan.

[25:37] Ryan Spahn: Thank you!

[25:47] Michael Urie: We’ll see you soon.

[25:57] Ryan Spahn: Bye for now!

[26:07] Michael Urie: Bye!

[26:17] Ryan Spahn: Take care!

[26:27] Michael Urie: Until next time.

[26:37] Ryan Spahn: Yes, until next time.

[26:47] Michael Urie: We’ll be back.

[26:57] Ryan Spahn: Definitely.

[27:07] Michael Urie: Looking forward to it.

[27:17] Ryan Spahn: Same here.

[27:27] Michael Urie: Thanks for listening, everyone.

[27:37] Ryan Spahn: Bye!

[27:47] Michael Urie: Bye!

[27:57] Ryan Spahn: Take care!

[28:07] Michael Urie: See you soon!

[28:17] Ryan Spahn: Bye!

[28:27] Michael Urie: Bye!

[28:34] Michael Urie: Half jokingly said, well, if you got that job, and you have to miss performance, I'll just go on for you. And it never happened until it happened. And now I hope it never happens again. Because it was terrifying. It was really fun. I'm so glad we did it. I'm so glad you got to go beyond that show but, whoo.

[28:53] Alan Seales: How much rehearsal did you have?

[28:56] Michael Urie: I had like three hours.

[28:58] Alan Seales: That's it?

[28:59] Michael Urie: Yeah, he had like four days notice. So he did have lead time to at least get familiar with it. I was out of town. So I was I had to come back into town. I was out of town.

[29:09] Alan Seales: And you were in DC doing...

[29:11] Michael Urie: I was here doing a photo shoot for this play. And I just did and I was traveling and and so I wasn't like I could go and watch the play three times to like, I know. And the first time I mean, thankfully you had seen.

[29:23] Alan Seales: I had seen it. Yes, I had I had already seen it, thankfully. But no, I was just trying to learn in a vacuum. And I had the wrong script. And the show went on. And it was it was really fun to do. And it was a beautiful play. But that's like, like, like my worst stress dream, where it is literally an actor's nightmare dream come to life. I have legitimately had this recurring dream and the show changes every time. But the most recent I was, I was attending Moulin Rouge, the musical, and over the God, Mike, they're like, Alan Seales, we need you to come to the stage door. And so I went around and they're like, All right, we have nobody to cover this swing role, we need you to go in and stand over here and learn the dance number, learn the dance number while the show is happening.

And so this and I literally I wake up and I'm stressed and I'm angry all morning is I'm like, Oh, God, oh, God, they know I suck. They know I didn't know the role. And like, I have those actual stress dreams that you just went through. And this is giving me like shivers just thinking about the pressure that you were under in those four performances.

[30:30] Michael Urie: I've had that I've had that dream, not with Moulin Rouge, but I've had the dream where I'm in the audience and I'm supposed and I can't find the stage.

[30:40] Alan Seales: You're like, you're supposed to be on stage and you just can't find the stage and I can't get the entrance. I'm like watching the show and I'm like, I don't know where the door is. I don't know how to get back. My entrance is coming up and I don't know how to get there.

[30:55] Michael Urie: Oh, my God. Yeah, that actors, actors, anxieties. That's that's what the union should be called. Actors, anxiety.

[31:04] Alan Seales: And then also, can we talk about shrinking?

[31:06] Michael Urie: Yes, we can talk about shrinking.

[31:09] Alan Seales: OK, so Apple TV's shrinking. Michael, you're going to be seen alongside Jason Siegel, who serves as writer and executive producer. And this little guy, he's on the up and up called Harrison Ford. Jessica Williams, Christina Miller. Geez, dude, like what? Tell us about this. What was that like?

[31:27] Michael Urie: It's so good. I've watched like nine episodes and he's excellent on it. The show is so excellent.

[31:34] Alan Seales: Thank you. That's so sweet, Ryan.

[31:36] Michael Urie: Thank you. I had major imposter syndrome when I got there to be working with all those people. It's created by Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein and Jason Siegel. Bill Lawrence is the co-creator of Ted Lasso and Brett Goldstein is on Ted Lasso and a writer on Ted Lasso. And so I love that show, Ted Lasso. And it's, as you may know, a big hit. And so suddenly here I am with Jason Siegel, who I also have loved. Harrison Ford, who I literally had action figures of. And I'm like, are they sure that they did they mean to cast me? It's the first time I've ever really had imposter syndrome. And the first month of being there, I was like, I can't I didn't know any of them. You know, I made an audition.

Ryan helped me go on tape in our bedroom. And so he owes me 10 percent. I owe him 10 percent. And then and then when I got the job, like it was I never met. I just never met anyone. It was the first time I'd ever done a job where I didn't know a single person. And it was it was terrifying, but very cool. I mean, really warm and happy place to go to work. And, you know, working with Harrison Ford, he's a he's a good man. He's a sweet he likes to pretend to be cranky, but he's so he loves working and he loves being there and he loved. And he's really good at the show.

[33:06] Alan Seales: Yeah, he does such good work. It's just a great show about loss and sort of when the anchor of a group of people is removed from that group of people, how that entire group moves on and how it affects and changes the dynamics of all the different people. And they use a lot of like bittersweet humor to sort of move through very difficult things. And I think it's a very effective show.

[33:34] Michael Urie: Yeah, it's about mental health, really. It's about mental health and people trying to connect. And Jason and Harrison and Jessica play shrinks. That's what's called shrinking. And the ways in which they interweave mental health is so clever. And, you know, you get to the end of an episode and you're like, oh, that was an episode about trauma or that was an episode of PTSD or or about, you know, about about loss. It's a lot of loss. Brett Goldstein, that dude, I didn't realize when he said the name, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. And then I just Googled him. I was like, oh, yeah, fricking Roy, Roy Kent, like Roy's the best. One of my like the best character, I think, other than Ted Lasso himself, I think, is Roy Kent.

[34:20] Alan Seales: Oh, 100 percent. And, you know, he was a writer on Ted Lasso. I didn't know that before he was cast as Roy Kent.

[34:28] Michael Urie: Really? Yeah. Read the part in the writer's room. And they're like, you know what? You should play the part. Yeah, that's how we got out. Well, if you guys can put in a good word for me, I have a podcast that I think he'd be great as a guest on.

[34:37] Alan Seales: We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[34:52] Alan Seales: So let's let's wrap here. I know you guys have a hard out. So, Michael, I'm going to ask you these questions again, too, but we're going to alternate. I don't so I don't know if you remember your answers the first time from Episode 128, but you're welcome to give new answers.

[35:08] Alan Seales: OK, so, Ryan, let's see. The first the first standard closing question that I ask everybody is just what motivates you.

[35:15] Ryan Spahn: What motivates me? I get very inspired by new new writers, new things that I like, new television shows, new art that comes out. And I think that the fact that things are getting, you know, like a play like that we're doing right now, like a Jane Anger, the fact that this was born out of a very dark place and it outgrew this beautiful, fun, lively, exciting, funny show. I get inspired by the fact that, like even in the darkest of times, there's still a path towards creation that can inspire other people.

[35:53] Alan Seales: That's beautiful. And Michael, is your motivation changed?

[35:58] Michael Urie: I don't know if you remember what you said, but his motivation is Ryan's. Now, my motivation is Ryan's fun and money. No, I don't know. What was it? Do you remember what it was?

[36:07] Ryan Spahn: No, I may go back and listen, but I haven't. I didn't listen to the old episode.

[36:13] Michael Urie: But I this might not. This might be different now, but I would say I'm much more excited, especially post pandemic about post pandemic. I put an air quote about new work as well, because I was like, you know, it's especially in the theater, like when you're just when you're dreaming, when you're when you're dreaming in the theater. You sort of always dream about the old plays because, you know, I mean, I'm not a writer, so I don't come up with new plays. But but there was always a, you know, like a like a do this old play or what about this old player or dream role? What's your dream role? And and I've been very lucky. I played a bunch of my dream roles already. I got to play Hamlet. I got to play Prior Walter.

I got to play Arnold in Torch Song. And like the truth is a dream. The now when I think of dream roles, it's something that hasn't been written yet. It's you know, I didn't know that William Shakespeare in Jane Anger was going to be a dream role until Talene Monahan wrote it. And truly, like I would much rather be doing this part in this play than whatever was next on my bucket list, because, you know, this was never on my bucket list because I didn't know it existed. And it's fun to imagine the people who are witnessing this play going, that is now my dream.

[37:33] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, that's good. And that they get to think about a revival of this or doing it in a class or doing it at wherever it gets, you know, produced regionally and getting to play the role that they are now imagining as their dream role.

[37:47] Alan Seales: I love that. All right. So, Ryan, what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[37:54] Ryan Spahn: I would say make sure to take care of your mental and physical health as early as possible and really protect it. I think people put it off and don't or neither are scared of it or aren't acknowledging it or don't realize that it's a big part of what we battle because we we have so much time spent in our heads, either when we're crafting a role or when we're dealing with rejection or, you know, dealing with success. And it all sort of creates this mental space that we all live in. And I think that if as early on as you can, try to come to peace with it and try to understand yourself inside of that. And I think that that is advice I would have given myself at it if I could talk to myself.

[38:45] Alan Seales: All right. So now both of you, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life, you can see it as many times as you want. What would you see?

[38:51] Ryan Spahn: Oh, like a play, play musical or even you can watch a sitcom if you wanted your choice.

[38:58] Michael Urie: Oh, boy. I mean, if it was a sitcom, it would be it would be Schitt's Creek or television show would be probably I don't know. Golden Girls for me.

[39:09] Ryan Spahn: Schitt's Creek would be mine.

[39:10] Michael Urie: That's what you said the first time, too.

[39:13] Ryan Spahn: That sounds very familiar.

[39:15] Michael Urie: No, I I also this is this is maybe blasphemous, but I think I would have maybe said Into the Woods. But I got to say, I'm getting tired of Into the Woods.

[39:25] Ryan Spahn: Blasphemy.

[39:27] Michael Urie: I've seen it so many times. I've seen it so many times. And the Broadway production is incredible. I saw it twice. I loved it. There's a production happening here right now. Everyone's like, it's so good. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to.

[39:39] Ryan Spahn: Well, I think I think it leans into what you said earlier, which is now there's such an excitement and a wonder about what's to come versus what has been. And I think like I don't know what play I would want to see over and over again because I don't think I'm interested in the plays that already exist as much. I'm more interested in like I bet this play, Jane Anger, I would have probably wanted to see multiple times if I had been in the audience.

[40:02] Michael Urie: You know, I think I think it's it's that probably plays into why you're less interested. Well, I also, you know, like Into the Woods, like the original Into the Woods that they filmed for PBS is is imprinted in my brain. I saw it so many times as a kid when we were courting. We would lay in in bed and watch the PBS.

[40:23] Ryan Spahn: Yeah, we watched it together when we were dating.

[40:26] Michael Urie: And I just know everything, every single second of that thing. And so I can't watch Into the Woods without hearing the original cast as good as, you know, as amazing as these new casts have been. I still always hear them. And and so I guess, you know, I guess it's like I don't want to see into the woods over and over again, but I want to see that version of it. Well, I've seen it. I don't need to see it anymore because I know it so well.

[40:50] Alan Seales: What's yours, Alan?

[40:51] Alan Seales: Mine. Mine is I've I go to rent because that was my touchstone that got me into theater. And it's something that like for the same reason, it makes me feel that nostalgia and that love and that attraction to the stage that made me fall in love with the craft. So, yeah, that's that's a really good. I listen to that soundtrack. I'll tap into that soundtrack. It's got everything. That show has everything.

[41:17] Ryan Spahn: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, everybody, please go see Ryan and Michael and in Jane Anger down at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, D.C.. Thank you both for this lovely conversation. I'm lovely to meet you, Michael. Lovely to see you again. You guys are so amazing. I've loved watching your kids get bigger between the the radio plays we did and these podcasts. I've gotten to see your kids pop in and it's really sweet.

[41:48] Michael Urie: That was the little one that popped in earlier. He's six and a half now.

[41:52] Ryan Spahn: Yeah. Can't believe it.

[41:54] Michael Urie: Wow. A baby. I mean, you know, like he was a baby when we were when we were first doing As the Curtain Rises early in the pandemic, which is we're promoting it again because Avatar 2 just dropped.

[42:07] Alan Seales: Oh, right. We saw it.

[42:08] Michael Urie: We just saw it. Yeah.

[42:10] Alan Seales: So everyone go see As the Curtain Rises or listen to As the Curtain Rises. You'd find more of me and these episodes at thetheaterpodcast.com. Show your support for the podcast at thetheaterpodcast.com/patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Find me on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, wherever you're listening now. Please leave a rating, leave a review. It helps others discover the podcast. And thank you to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music.

[42:36] Alan Seales: All right. Thank you. Thank you both. I know you got to run. I appreciate this so much.

[42:40] Michael Urie: Thank you. So great talking to you.

[42:41] Ryan Spahn: Great to see you. Beard looks great.

[42:43] Alan Seales: Thank you.