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[0:00] Alan Seales: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and our guest for this episode is Katie Rose Clarke, who just began previews right as this episode drops. Formerly, we roll along the much-anticipated Sondheim revival. She is from Texas, has an amazing story of finding her love in theatre pretty late in her young life, and then going off to college and almost not even graduating before setting the record, which I believe she still holds, for the longest person to play Glinda on Broadway. So, lots of great story to share. Find me online, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok. Please leave a rating and a review wherever you're listening, whatever platform you're using now.

And so, everybody, please, I hope you enjoyed this episode with Katie Rose Clarke. Today's guest made her Broadway debut in The Light in the Piazza, holds the record for the longest person to ever play Glinda in Wicked the Musical, originated the role of Helen in George Takei's Allegiance, and brought Ellen to life in the 2017 revival of Miss Saigon, and is involved in the development of The Heart of Rock and Roll, a new musical based on the iconic songbook of Huey Lewis and The News. On TV, you may recognize her from CBS's The Good Wife, alongside Julianna Margulies and Michael J. Fox, and in the digital comedy series Relevant. Starting with previews this September 19th, we're going to see her alongside Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez in Merrily We Roll Along. Katie Rose Clarke, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[1:50] Katie Rose Clarke: Thank you. It's so good to be here.

[1:52] Alan Seales: I realized that the wording is like, you hold the record for the longest person to ever play Glinda. It sounds like that's a record for being tall.

[1:59] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. It really does. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that has been fact-checked. I think it's the longest-running or most performances of Glinda on Broadway. I'm thinking it's the longest-running Broadway Glinda, but I'm not even sure.

[2:16] Alan Seales: I don't know. I've heard that across a couple different places, which I think is really cool. And do you know Brett Shuford? Did you ever overlap with him?

[2:27] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, yeah. Not in Wicked, but I do know him. Yeah.

[2:30] Alan Seales: Yeah. So Brett, he made a comment to me. He's like, it's hard to leave a show like Wicked because you get that Wicked money, right? It's knowing that you have a contract that essentially is open-ended more or less, right?

[2:43] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah.

[2:44] Alan Seales: Was that part of the decision to stay? Did you love the show? I guess that's a good place to start for us is when you're doing new work or developing new work or even staying in the work that you've got, what's coming into play about like, do I renew my contract again? Or do I take a chance and try something new? Where does that mindset come in?

[3:05] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. For the principal contracts, there is an end date on our contract. So it is a set term. So I was kind of at the mercy of if they invited me to come back or offered me another contract. So that kind of helped my decisions. But truly, I mean, goodness, it was a long time to do one role and a role that is so physically and vocally demanding. I did get quite exhausted of it, you know, in the process of it. But really, it's such an amazing show. I really was, I felt so lucky to do it. You know, I was in my 20s. I was trying to just, it was really the show that I cut my teeth on. You know, I got hired to do Glinda when I was 23, you know, and I kept doing it. Yeah. So I really, I learned a lot of my skills and sort of how to be a professional doing Glinda and Wicked, which is like a wildly privileged thing.

I can't believe that that is my story. So yeah, I mean, I get the idea of like, yeah, you want to move on and do other things would be, you know, you know, sort of diversify a little bit artistically and creatively. But I mean, also, I felt pretty fulfilled in that show in a lot of ways as well. And then, yeah, it's a great contract financially. And in other ways, too, you could really kind of establish yourself. Yeah, I feel like I've talked to a lot of Glinda's and Elphaba's and I feel like it's a club, right? It's not a club. It's more than a club. It's like a sorority.

[4:38] Katie Rose Clarke: Sisterhood. Sisterhood. That's what I was looking for. It's, I mean, the understanding of having to maintain that level eight times a week, right? These are roles. I mean, everything you've done so far and even coming into Merrily, I feel like the expectations around all of this are just huge. But I feel like that's sort of you now because you replaced Kelly O'Hara in Light in the Piazza, right? So replacing someone like Kelly is a lot of pressure. And then stepping into Glinda on the first national tour of Wicked before hitting Broadway, again, pressure, expectations. Wait, wait, wait. So you said 23, you did Broadway or was that the first national tour?

[5:27] Katie Rose Clarke: First national tour.

[5:28] Alan Seales: Okay.

[5:28] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. Yeah.

[5:30] Alan Seales: So then how long did you do the tour before hitting Broadway?

[5:33] Katie Rose Clarke: Just under two years. It was like a year and it ended up being like a year and 10 months altogether. And then I had a couple of months off and then I joined the Broadway company.

[5:44] Katie Rose Clarke: And then it's the same. I did it two years in the Broadway company. And then they asked me to do a short stint in LA, kind of like an LA sit down, short sit down in LA, which actually was the national tour again. But they were sitting down in LA for like, I want to say it was like two or three months. I can't remember. It was a while ago.

[6:05] Alan Seales: Wow.

[6:05] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. And then I came back to Broadway. I mean, it was just, I was all over, you know, and thank God. I mean, I really, again, like I said, I really cut my teeth on that show.

[6:15] Alan Seales: Was it harder to do the tour or the Broadway run? Or did it not make a difference?

[6:21] Katie Rose Clarke: You know, I think I was always so, I mean, the role for me was so vocally challenging and physically challenging that I found it just no matter where I was, I had to kind of, I really had to learn how to keep myself healthy and in shape to do the show. And I definitely made every single mistake in that area along the way. But yeah, definitely sitting down in the city is easier. You don't have the added pressure of, you know, picking up and moving and getting used to a new city and getting resettled in to a new city every, you know, couple weeks or a month. And honestly, the tour for Wicked was amazing because you sit down in a city for two weeks, at least usually. I think there were very few one week sit downs for me when I was on the tour. And the tour was relatively new when I joined it back in, you know, 2007.

[7:09] Alan Seales: Is it harder, some people like this and some people don't, but is it harder for you as you're traveling on the touring side to hit different theaters? Because there's different, I mean, literally just aside from the different dressing rooms and the different sizes of the wings, the stages are different. And like, are set pieces always exactly a certain distance apart when you're touring? Or like, is there things that have to cut because of stage size? Or do they not even go to certain places because the stage isn't big enough?

[7:36] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, that's how it was when I was on the tour back then. We had our own, our show was like it had its own footprint and we just like set it in there. So if theaters couldn't accommodate the size of our footprint, then we couldn't go there. And I think that was ending, that ended up being why they ended up doing the second national tour was so that they could accommodate different houses. I think they made adjustments to it so that they could fit in more houses.

[8:01] Alan Seales: Interesting. They shortened the name too, it was just called Wick.

[8:03] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah.

[8:06] Alan Seales: Smaller size.

[8:06] Katie Rose Clarke: They shortened the name, they made it smaller. They shortened the show, it was only two hours. It just went straight to Defying Gravity and that was it.

[8:14] Alan Seales: It was a 90 minute, no intermission.

[8:17] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, yeah. Well, then back up then to, I guess, little Katie Clarke. Where did you grow up? Like, where did you cut your teeth as a kid?

[8:26] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, I grew up in Texas, in a town called Friendswood, which is kind of right smack in the middle of Galveston and Houston on the Gulf Coast of Texas. And yeah, that's where I grew up. My family still lives there. My parents still live there. My brother lives there with his family.

[8:48] Alan Seales: There's a lot of people, tons of Broadway people that come from Texas. Why is that? What do you think?

[8:52] Katie Rose Clarke: Gosh, I mean, it's a big state. I don't know.

[8:56] Alan Seales: I know, but there's other big states, but Texas specifically produces so many Broadway people.

[9:03] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. Well, like, who else are you thinking of?

[9:07] Alan Seales: I can't. Now you put me on the spot.

[9:09] Katie Rose Clarke: No, I was like, well, no, Kevin Cahoon is from Texas, I think.

[9:13] Alan Seales: Well, yeah, yeah. And Brett Shuford, speaking of Brett, is from Texas.

[9:16] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, yeah, Brett Shuford, of course. And Jeremy Jordan is from Texas.

[9:20] Alan Seales: Yeah. Like, there's a lot of people who are from regions of Texas. I don't know if, like, they just need to get out of Texas. New York's the only place they could get to that makes sense.

[9:29] Katie Rose Clarke: I don't know. But what was it then about your childhood when you started performing? Were you dancing, singing, acting, all of the above?

[9:38] Katie Rose Clarke: I was singing. I took piano lessons all growing up, and I never really got, you know, that wasn't my outlet, you know. And then I started singing. And in high school, I started taking voice lessons with this voice teacher named Lainie Carlin, and it was her who introduced me and my sister, both of us, to musical theater. And, gosh, I mean, she would give us her CDs of soundtracks of shows, and I would take it home. And, you know, the little booklet that comes inside that you can follow along with the lyrics. And there's those tiny pictures in there.

[10:16] Alan Seales: Oh, the liner notes used to have lyrics.

[10:16] Katie Rose Clarke: The liner notes, thank you. I remember the days. Yeah, yeah.

[10:18] Katie Rose Clarke: Pictures and all the lyrics. And I would just, from beginning to end, listen to the CDs that she would lend them to me and let me keep them for a while. And I would just learn these shows. And that's how I learned Miss Saigon and Secret Garden, Les Mis. I mean, all the great ones in those days. I mean, and I fell in love with it. And I just remember, I'll never forget going through Les Mis and reading, you know. And Miss Saigon, I think it's because those are fully sung, so you can kind of really get the full story just from the soundtrack. You know, whereas it's not just like selections from the show, it's actually the full show. So I just remember sobbing through this cast album of Miss Saigon and Les Mis, these soundtracks.

[11:08] Katie Rose Clarke: And then, yeah, I kind of had that. And then I started doing, she ran a community theater in my hometown. So I started doing shows at her community theater. And that was all in high school.

[11:17] Alan Seales: Oh, wow. So you didn't even get into it until high school. And was there a concrete turning point you remember where you're like, I guess I want to try doing this as a job? Because until that point, I mean, kids, right now, my kids, times they are changing. My older one who's just started third grade is like, I want to be a YouTuber, which didn't exist when we were kids.

[11:36] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, my gosh. Hilarious.

[11:44] Alan Seales: Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast. Today, I am thrilled to be joined by Katie Rose Clarke, who is known for her incredible performances in musicals like "Wicked," where she holds the record for playing Glinda the longest. Katie, thank you for being here!

[12:14] Katie Rose Clarke: Thank you for having me, Alan! I'm excited to be here.

[12:34] Alan Seales: So, let's dive right in. You’ve had such a remarkable career. What has it been like for you to portray Glinda for so long?

[12:54] Katie Rose Clarke: It’s been an incredible journey. Playing Glinda has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The character is so beloved, and every performance feels like a new opportunity to connect with the audience. It’s challenging, of course, but the joy it brings is unparalleled.

[13:24] Alan Seales: I can only imagine! What are some of the unique challenges you face in a long-running show like "Wicked"?

[13:44] Katie Rose Clarke: One of the biggest challenges is maintaining the energy and freshness of the character night after night. You have to find new ways to connect with the material and the audience, which can be tough when you’ve done it so many times. But it’s also what keeps it exciting!

[14:04] Alan Seales: That makes sense. I’ve heard that you auditioned for "Merrily We Roll Along" while you were nine months pregnant. What was that experience like?

[14:24] Katie Rose Clarke: It was quite the adventure! I was determined to audition, and I remember being so nervous. But it was also a beautiful moment, as I was about to embark on motherhood. It added a layer of emotion to the experience, and I think it made me more resilient.

[14:44] Alan Seales: That’s such a powerful story. You’ve also been involved in the development of "Heart of Rock and Roll" with Huey Lewis and the News. Can you share a bit about that process?

[15:04] Katie Rose Clarke: Absolutely! Working on "Heart of Rock and Roll" was a dream come true. Huey Lewis is such a talented artist, and collaborating with him and the creative team was inspiring. We really got to explore the music and the story together, and it was a joy to be part of that development.

[15:24] Alan Seales: It sounds like a fantastic experience. Balancing a career in theatre and being a mother of three must be quite the juggling act. How do you manage it all?

[15:44] Katie Rose Clarke: It definitely requires a lot of organization and support from my family. I try to prioritize my time and be present in both my career and my family life. It’s not always easy, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[16:04] Alan Seales: That’s such a great perspective. Do you have any advice for aspiring performers who might be listening?

[16:24] Katie Rose Clarke: Yes! I would say to embrace self-acceptance and self-compassion. Trust your journey, and don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone’s path is unique, and it’s important to honor your own experiences.

[16:44] Alan Seales: Wise words! I love that. I also heard you played a game of Fishbowl with your co-actors, including Daniel Radcliffe. What was that like?

[17:04] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, it was so much fun! We had a blast playing together. It was a great way to bond and let loose, especially during the intense rehearsal periods. Daniel is such a great sport, and we all had a lot of laughs.

[17:24] Alan Seales: That sounds like a memorable experience! Thank you for sharing all of this with us, Katie.

[17:44] Katie Rose Clarke: Thank you for having me, Alan! It’s been a pleasure.

[23:29] Katie Rose Clarke: Like, I had her in my head as, like, that is what I need to get to. That's the trajectory. And I wish I had just been easier on myself and just, you know, and who does at 21 just, like, accept yourself for where you are and give grace for where you... nobody. I don't even do that now at the age I'm at now. But yeah, I think giving, being at peace with where you are and giving yourself grace, that's hard for me now even. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm... what year are we in? So, I'm about to be 43 next month. Yeah. And I still struggle with that every day.

[24:06] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah. Same.

[24:07] Katie Rose Clarke: I struggle with that every day of, like, well, I mean, was I a good parent? Was I a good podcaster? Was I a good New Yorker, right? Just, like, legitimately going around and trying to spread kindness forward. This stuff's freaking hard. And then to be kind to yourself, I think, is one of the hardest things people can do.

[24:26] Alan Seales: It is. Gosh. And parenting brings that to, like, a whole new level, doesn't it? Like, the pressure to do, you know, and I have great parents and I have so much pressure on myself to just not mess them up. But I'm human, you know? You're not going to do everything perfectly. And, yeah, it's just, it brings it all to a whole new level. But I can be very hard on myself.

[24:49] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. Well, How Then, How Then is merrily going along those lines. So, like, there's so much hype around the show because I think, well, this is the first, yeah, this is the first revival ever on Broadway.

[25:05] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it opened, gosh, opened November 16th, 1981, directed by Hal Prince, opened to widely negative reviews and closed after 16 performances and 52 previews, but it's been extensively rewritten.

[25:17] Katie Rose Clarke: Yes. So, how is that going pressure-wise for you? And I really don't mean to cause, like, anxiety and make this a whole, like, therapy session.

[25:31] Alan Seales: No, let's do it. I go deep. Let's go deep.

[25:35] Katie Rose Clarke: But, like, there is a lot of attention on this show in a very exciting way, in a very good way, because people have wanted this for a long time. So, like, are you feeling this? Are, within the cast, have you guys all, like, huddled up and, you know, high-fived and elbow-bumped and been like, all right, we got this, we got this, we can crush it? Like, how's that going internally?

[25:53] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. I mean, I just, Dan says, you know, I don't have any baggage with this show because I didn't know it before this iteration of it. So, I don't know any of that history. And that's not the version I think of. I just think of our version. And I'm actually pretty similar. I didn't know the show really at all. I mean, I knew some of the songs from it, but that was it. So, coming into Maria's vision of it was like, wow, this really is a, this is an amazing piece, you know? So, I only really have that as well. But it is just so fun. And, you know, Lindsay Mendez and I have been friends for, you know, since we were Elphaba and Glinda together on Broadway years ago. And we have kids the same age.

And so, just being in a room with one of my best friends. And I've known Jonathan since I did Piazza and he was in Spring Awakening. And I mean, it's just, it feels like a little work family. So, it's just a pretty happy environment. And I don't think anybody really thinks about the pressure that's on it. Or at least I don't. I mean, that's not really the energy in the room. I think we're just grateful to be able to do a show and feel so, we feel moved by it every time we do it, you know? It's a really tremendous story. And the fact that it works in reverse, and you tell the story backwards, that you still leave doing the show with this very hopeful, anything is possible sort of feeling. And it is, I mean, it's a real gift of a piece to be able to do. And honestly, I think if you ever get an opportunity to do a Sondheim show, you just leap on it because it's like, really, I mean, just a treasure.

[27:43] Alan Seales: So anyway, I could gush about it on and on. But as far as pressure of making it to be something or writing a past wrong, you know, or trying to fix something that was a flop. I don't know that in my view, as just Beth in the show, I don't feel that at all.

[28:00] Alan Seales: What's it like, I mean, you said that you've known Jonathan, you've known Lindsay for a while, but working with Daniel, working with the rest of the team, it just, I mean, all the press, all the promotion that's coming out around it, everyone just seems genuinely happy to be doing this and like real friends. And you can see it in the eyes of the photographs of the production photos that are coming out. Everyone seems like really freaking excited just to be doing this and to be happy and hang out with each other. So yeah, you said it's like a work family, but what's it like as a whole? And actually, before you answer that, I want to acknowledge too, that you said you guys don't really feel the pressure as a cast, which I think is a testament to the creative team doing a great job of letting you guys be in a creative safe space and be able to fully express yourselves without any worry of anything like that, so.

[28:53] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. So what did I just put a pin in? What did I say we'd come back to? I forgot the question I just asked.

[29:04] Alan Seales: Just about how we get along and it's kind of a happy place.

[29:04] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it the rehearsal environment, the exploration of your characters and your relationships? What is that like with the established personal relationships you have with the rest of the cast, right? So you're not coming into a room of strangers, you're coming into a room of real friends and now creating your characters on top of that.

[29:29] Katie Rose Clarke: I think it's such a luxury that we had the time off-Broadway together. So the people that we didn't necessarily know before doing the show together, we got to know and we had the off-Broadway run together. And then we've had a few months since then, and now we're coming back together. So it feels like a reunion of sorts. And those of us that have kids, they get excited to see how much they've grown. And we bring our kids up between on dinner breaks and things and the kids play together and play. And I mean, the cast plays with kids. It's just a real treasure of an environment. And so, yeah, I think that is the starting place, is that we kind of had this time away and now we're coming back together again.

But it's also a luxury just in the work so we can really deepen what we've... The groundwork we laid off-Broadway now is just the starting point for Broadway. Like at New York Theatre Workshop, that was just the starting point for what we've started in the rehearsal room for Broadway. It's like, if it could have gotten deeper, it did, which I think at the time, I didn't think it was possible. But it's just more nuanced. It's deeper. It's really thrilling. And we're just kind of mining more out of the material.

[30:48] Alan Seales: Great. Yeah, I love the idea of being able to really stand it on its feet. You work it, you work it, it goes off-Broadway, and then it's working so well there, but then you get to even fine-tune it that much more. And it's the same concept behind doing out-of-town tryouts. But I love the shows that come from the New York Theatre Workshop, especially because New York audiences are unlike any other. And they're critical, unlike any other. And so you get... I think you can fine-tune it. You get a magnifying glass. You get to explore the things that can be improved in a way. When you're doing the out-of-town here in New York, you get to improve it in a way that is different. So I'm really excited. I'm very excited for that.

[31:34] Katie Rose Clarke: You first got involved with the workshop last year. So we're in 23 now. That was 22. So did all of this come onto your plate post-pandemic or during the pandemic? And what was that like, I guess, without the work at that time?

[31:49] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, post-pandemic. It was my first show post-pandemic and post-having all my kids. And so actually, Lindsay was living in LA at the time. And she and I would send... We're still old ladies that use Marco Polo. I know that's not what the kids use anymore. But we would send Marco Polo, because she was LA and I was New York. So we would send Marco Polo just updates almost every day of our kids and just what was going on in our lives. And she was sharing with me about Marilee. And I was like, this is going to be your job, Lindsay. This is like the perfect role for you. And the more she talked about it, I got so excited for her. And then I was like, I want to be in that show. I was hugely pregnant with my third baby at the time.

And I emailed my manager and my agent and I said, I don't know if there's which part could maybe be for me. There's two other female roles. And I was like, but I want to be seen for one of them if possible. So sure enough, they got on the horn and I got an audition and I went in nine months pregnant and did my audition for the team. And I had my callback at the end of that week. And then two days after my callback, I had my daughter, my third baby. I was in labor. So I wasn't supposed to go into labor with my third baby. They wanted me to go to the hospital before I went into labor for just a few different reasons. So my husband and I, the night before my callback, we were timing contractions to make sure that we didn't need to go to the hospital. So wild, yeah. So I was in these auditions just fully having contractions and hoping I didn't go into labor right there.

[34:01] Alan Seales: Holy cow, that's amazing.

[34:01] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, jeez. Yeah, the Braxton Hicks are no joke. That's rough. But I wonder if anybody out there is listening and knows of anybody who's water broke during an audition or a callback, I'd love to know about it. I would love to know about that. I'd love to hear that story.

[34:10] Alan Seales: We're going to take a short break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[34:16] Katie Rose Clarke: I was definitely in early, early stages. It was like definitely I had to keep an eye when my contractions were really consistent. We were really having to watch them. I don't know if any of your listeners know anything about labor or birth.

[34:26] Alan Seales: I do.

[34:26] Katie Rose Clarke: You do? That's all that matters. Yeah, we were definitely like keeping an eye on it. It was a wild thing. Wild, wild, wild. And then I had my daughter and I kind of thought that it just went away. It didn't go my way. And then, but two months later, they wanted me to come in and do a read with Jonathan, chemistry read. And Jim Carnahan, the casting director comes into the waiting room and he gets me and he's like, you look different. He's like, you've got to bring pictures of the baby in with you for this. Everybody's going to want to see him. So I brought in pictures of my little, my kids and my brand new, my Mabel, my daughter. She was two months old when I had my chemistry read. And then we found out at the end of the week that I got it. And then two months after that, I started rehearsals. It was wild.

[35:08] Alan Seales: That's so cool. That is very, very cool.

[35:14] Alan Seales: And then, so, are you still involved with developing The Heart of Rock and Roll, with the Huey Lewis and the News musical? Or is that on the back burner now, or is that on the side? Like, how do you have time to be a mom of three, and develop a new musical, and rehearse for Merrily, and, and, and, and, and? You've just got everything going on.

[35:34] Katie Rose Clarke: It seems like that, probably from the outside. The Heart of Rock and Roll, I just did a developmental workshop of it, right before we started rehearsals for Merrily. It was over the summer. And I'm kind of waiting to hear when they're moving forward. And I do believe they are moving forward, but I don't have enough information yet. But yes, if they ask me to move forward with them, I absolutely will. That team is awesome. And I've been with the show from the very first table read. I created the character alongside them. And, you know, by the end of the process, the most, you know, the last workshop we did, this last developmental thing, I just really felt just like a collaborator with the team.

And Gordon Greenberg is the director, and he's so dear, and he's such a good friend. And he's so funny that we would just, you know, talk about ideas together. And that's a real special thing as an actor to have that kind of rapport with the creative team. And I felt really lucky to be a part of that and to have that with them. But I haven't heard what their timing is, and if it will line up with my Merrily dates. So I'm just kind of waiting and hoping. Gordon, I've known Gordon for a while. We did Dracula, Comedy of Terrors, which is about to open in New World Stages, right? Yes. But we have it on Broadway Podcast Network here. We have it as an audio drama that we created at the beginning of the pandemic. So it's the same script. It's probably been modified, you know, since then. But love, love, love Gordon. Such a great guy. Gordon and Steve Rosen.

[37:13] Alan Seales: Yes. Oh, they are. They're hilarious. Some of the funniest people I know. I mean, really.

[37:17] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I was gonna ask you about... Oh, yeah, I was just gonna say Huey Lewis is all on my mind now because, you know, Back to the Future. He's all involved with Back to the Future as well. But did you get to work or have you worked with Huey as part of the process? Is he involved or not?

[37:32] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, he's very involved. Yeah, he's really hands on and really is such a champion of it. You know, he loves musical theater. You know, he did Chicago on Broadway.

[37:41] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was Billy Flynn. Yes, I remember now. I remember.

[37:46] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. So anyway, he's a big... He loves musicals. He loves hard rock and roll. He loves the show. Yeah, he's a real champion of it. And he's so... I mean, it is wild. It's a very pinch me moment. Like he just comes in the room and, you know, he's just, you know, hugging everybody and he's great. So yeah, he's definitely involved.

[38:16] Alan Seales: Oh, I think... I believe it was Huey Lewis. That was... I'm about to say it. I'm second guessing myself. But wasn't he the father on One Tree Hill, like 20 years ago? He played one of the dads of the main characters. Anyway, I think it was him because I had a scene with him as an extra on One Tree Hill.

[38:33] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, okay. I'm going to have to look it up. I don't know. I've never watched it.

[38:38] Alan Seales: Neither did I.

[38:45] Katie Rose Clarke: Okay. We'll get to it. You know, I'm in there somewhere. I've been in like two different scenes. Yeah, they filmed in North Carolina where I'm from, Screen Gem Studios, or I guess what was Screen Gem Studios in North Carolina there. Yeah. So it was Dawson's Creek was replaced by One Tree Hill. So yeah, just like if you're a New York actor, you have to be something on Law and Order to like, as a rite of passage, you have to do... The Screen Gem Studios TV shows were the same North Carolina version of that.

[39:17] Alan Seales: Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. Okay. Well, now I'm going to have to go look it up.

[39:22] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. I did one scene with Sophia. What's her name? I can't even get like, this is how little I remember at this point. Anyway, it's been so long. Okay. Three closing questions that I use to end every episode here. Just the very first one is what motivates you?

[39:39] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh my gosh. I think, you know, my kids now.

[39:46] Alan Seales: That's interesting. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[39:49] Katie Rose Clarke: It's hard. I mean, it's hard to, you know, I go, because as an actor, we're in and out of work. And when we're in work, it's kind of intense. And then when we're not, it's where I'm just a full time stay at home mom. And that can feel like whiplash going between the two. It's so hard.

[40:05] Alan Seales: Yeah. But I think it's so worth it when they can come up and kind of get context for where I go every day and what I do. And it's something that their little brains can understand. You know, I just kind of go and play pretend for a living, you know, and sing songs, you know, and they know Aunt Lindsay and, you know, so they come up to work and Eleanor is at an age where she really gets excited about it.

[40:31] Alan Seales: Oh, Eleanor Mabel, you said was your youngest one?

[40:34] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. Eleanor Chapman and Mabel.

[40:36] Alan Seales: I love those names. Those are beautiful names. Yeah. Speaking of YouTube, this hasn't happened yet because I don't think any of your kids are old enough, I suspect, but mine are, you know, going to second or second, third grade now. And they know how to put my name into YouTube. And so like stuff gets stuff gets returned and they're like, Daddy, you're famous. You're in YouTube. Oh my gosh. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how YouTube works. I am not famous. You know, so one of these days, you know, you got to like expectations that with the kids, right? I'm just saying like, you might find me on the internet and it doesn't mean anything. It's just, you know, it's funny the way that they perceive things. So we're trying to get perspective.

[41:21] Katie Rose Clarke: Wow, that is so wild. Okay. I'll be, yeah, cautiously waiting for that moment.

[41:28] Alan Seales: One day they're going to Google you and be like, oh, mommy's on the internet.

[41:33] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah. Okay. Next question then. What advice would you give to your younger self? We sort of covered this earlier, but what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[41:41] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh gosh. I echo exactly what we said earlier. Just be gentle with yourself and trust that you're enough and don't try to push yourself beyond just exactly where you are and who you are.

[42:00] Alan Seales: Beautiful. Okay. Hardest question. Now, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[42:04] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh my gosh. I could never answer this question. What's your answer?

[42:12] Alan Seales: Rent.

[42:12] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh, good one. Because that was my touchstone. That's the show I saw where I was like, oh, musical theater is for me. Because I'm not a Piazza voice. I'm not a Les Mis voice.

[42:25] Alan Seales: That's the style that spoke to me. You're a Rent voice. I gotcha.

[42:30] Katie Rose Clarke: Probably then that's making me think of what mine was, which it was all the soundtracks of Miss Saigon and Les Mis, but actually, actually in college, it was Thoroughly Modern Millie.

[42:41] Alan Seales: Nice. And Seton Foster.

[42:44] Katie Rose Clarke: I was about to say, have you gotten to work with Seton?

[42:47] Alan Seales: No, I would shrivel up into a ball of tears and cry in the corner because I'd be so starstruck. I mean, I've met her in passing, kind of, but she's one that I just, yeah. I would have zero chill.

[43:03] Katie Rose Clarke: That's so funny. That's funny because you're literally on stage with Harry Potter, and Seton Foster is the one that's going to make you shrivel into a ball and cry.

[43:13] Alan Seales: I know. I didn't really watch Harry Potter, which Dan knows that now. I've told him many times I'm very unfamiliar with his body of work. I didn't see him in How to Succeed. I didn't know anything that he's really done. I mean, joking, of course. I know he's a huge celebrity, international celebrity.

[43:32] Katie Rose Clarke: Nothing like knocking him down a peg to really, really make a good bond.

[43:38] Alan Seales: Well, it came up because we were playing a game between shows off-Broadway. We were playing, do you know what Fishbowl is? It's kind of like Celebrity where you-

[43:46] Katie Rose Clarke: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[43:47] Alan Seales: We were doing that, and as a cast, we would do that between shows off-Broadway. Dan and I were on the same team, and I was going through, and you have to go through, if you don't know something, you get one pass. I saw this thing, and I was like, I have no idea what this is, so I put it aside. So it was my one pass, and at the end, you kind of tally up the ones that your team guessed correctly, and Dan was going through them and looking at them, and he was like, oh, such and such. I still don't remember what it was, but he's like, oh, such and such, and I was like, yeah, sorry, I don't know what that is. He's like, it's a character from Potter, and I was like, okay, sorry. So this is the moment where I tell you that I didn't see any of your films. I thought we would get through this whole contract together without me having to tell you that, and it was just a really funny moment. So now it's kind of a, you know, he knows. He knows I haven't seen him.

[45:41] Katie Rose Clarke: Well, if he was Paul Rudd's character in Only Murders in the Building, then he would have a party where you have to watch all of his films back to back, right, because you have to stroke his ego, but he doesn't seem like that kind of guy.

[45:50] Alan Seales: Was that in Only Murders? Are you an episode ahead of me?

[45:55] Katie Rose Clarke: No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying that Paul Rudd's character is so egotistical that if he found out that somebody had not watched his films, like Cobro, then he'd be like, all right, we've got to sit down and watch this. We're watching this until you understand me.

[46:10] Alan Seales: Yeah, totally. Yeah, that is the polar opposite of how Dan is. He's probably just the most humble person on the planet, as famous as he is. But yeah.

[46:20] Katie Rose Clarke: That's super cool. I did read some of the books, the Harry Potter books, and I know what my house is. You know, back when I was reading, I read the first three books, and I'm a Hufflepuff.

[46:33] Alan Seales: You are a Hufflepuff. I can see that. Yeah, I read all the books. I used to live in Washington Heights, so I would have, you know, before early cell phone days when, you know, you still didn't have a signal in the stations. Remember those days, kids?

[46:44] Katie Rose Clarke: Oh sure. Yeah.

[46:45] Alan Seales: There was no signal downstairs that, yeah, I read all the books on my commutes to and from work in the early days of New York.

[46:57] Katie Rose Clarke: You did? Did you watch the movies as you read the books?

[46:59] Alan Seales: I did. That's what I was doing. So I saw the first three movies. That's a lot.