This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Lili Thomas: Hi, I'm Lili Thomas, and welcome to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales.

[0:11] Alan Seales: Hey, everyone. Welcome to an all-new episode of The Theatre Podcast. I'm Alan Seales, and this is Intimate Personal Conversations with the industry's biggest names. Our guest today is Lili Thomas, who is making her Broadway debut as Mama Morton, the first Asian American to ever play the role. And not only is she making history for the show, she's making history for herself. And it's all becoming full circle because Chicago was the show that she was listening to as a child that got her into loving musical theater. And then to make her Broadway debut in the show that got her into theater and make history at the same time, it's just this perfect storm of amazing, awesome sauce. So there you go.

Something super fun that she mentions is because the show is such a machine, it's been running for so long, and now with Phantom having closed, it is the longest running show on Broadway right now. It's a machine that cycles people through all the time on purpose as casts are changing. And she was saying that she met some of her castmates for the first time while on stage for her first show. Kind of insane, but just a testament to how good these people are. So I'll let her tell this story. Before we get into it, find me on the socials and connect with me, leave a rating and review wherever you're listening. And now I hope you enjoy this episode with Lili Thomas. Here you go. One, two, three.

[1:41] Alan Seales: Our guest today, most recently, just ended her leg of the Dear Evan Hansen First National Tour, playing the role of Cynthia Murphy. Before that, she appeared in Dave Malloy's pre-Broadway run of Octet and has other off-Broadway credits, including We're Gonna Die, The Hello Girls, and Only Human. She is now making history in her Broadway debut, being the first Asian American to play the role of Mama Morton in Chicago on Broadway. Not Broadway in Chicago. I don't know. Lili Thomas, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:09] Lili Thomas: Thank you for having me.

[2:14] Alan Seales: I think I saw, I can't remember, one of the very, very, very first shows I ever saw as a little, as a little lad. My mom took my brother and me to see Chicago in, I want to say Toronto, but then we also saw something in Chicago that I'm like, I get it all confused. I can't remember if I saw Chicago in Toronto or a show called Toronto in Chicago. You know, there's so many casts. There've been so many casts of Chicago. They've mounted the show, like, all around the world. So the chances are that you saw it somewhere.

[2:48] Lili Thomas: Oh, it's been going on forever. And yes, I mean, I guess that's actually probably, well, okay, no, I was gonna say it's a great place to start, but no, I don't want to start there because we're going to get into that. So this is actually, our conversation right now is actually like conversation part two, because I had the very, very fortunate pleasure of interviewing you already back in February when we were still doing Dear Evan Hansen, the tour, because I was, it was on my other podcast, with myself and co-host Heather Vickery. Love her. For those listening now, Was It Chance? is the name of the podcast, episode 34, released February 28th, 2023. So go back and get even more Lili, because it's really-

[3:32] Lili Thomas: I'll try not to repeat myself.

[3:34] Alan Seales: Well, I was listening to the other episode to prepare for this one, and I was like, there's so much we could cover again and dive into. But just real quick, I know we already went into this in the other episode, but just for the listeners here who haven't heard the other one yet, let's real, real quick talk about, give us the abridged summary of growing up with your two very successful musician parents.

[3:50] Lili Thomas: Well, it's actually four, because they divorced when I was young and remarried other musicians. So I have four musician parents. No, and it's funny, because I said this, but it's sort of like musical theater was the big rebellion, because they're classical musicians, you know? So like, this was as wild as I could get with, like, still staying in the world. I guess rock and roll. I could have gone that route. But, you know, they wouldn't let me listen to it enough for me to have enough inspiration. No, but my mother's a pianist. My father's a cellist. My stepmother is a violist. She's the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic. And my stepfather is a renowned French horn player. We had a lot of music in the house, and they are just insanely supportive. My youngest sister is also a cellist, who actually, just after I did the podcast with you guys in February, ended up joining us on the tour.

[4:48] Alan Seales: Really?

[4:48] Lili Thomas: Yes, as our cellist for Dear Evan Hansen, because we were losing our cellist. I said, oh, wait, I know one. And she had been on tour with Waitress, so she knew the whole, she knew what she was doing. And it was so amazing to have my sister come join me. She's also a musical theater composer. So we've got a lot of music in the family.

[5:07] Alan Seales: That's cool. That is very cool. And it was interesting, because you said your mom, I think it was your biological mom, grew up, came over to the US when she was 15, on a scholarship and everything. And never learned to ride a bike, because that would jeopardize breaking fingers.

[5:24] Lili Thomas: Her fingers. Yes. I mean, she also was here by herself. And it was at that age, to be given the special permission to leave a country, which at the time, you really did have to have special permission to do. She was just a diligent student. I mean, every extra hour that she had was spent practicing. And they would drive her, she went to a boarding school in Connecticut, they would drive her personally into the city every weekend to go to Juilliard Prep.

[5:51] Alan Seales: Wow.

[5:51] Lili Thomas: She only applied to Juilliard, did her bachelor's there and her master's. And she just sort of, there were moments when I was growing up where she said, oh, well, I never did that. So we have the cross-cultural element there, but also this element of extreme discipline, sort of just ingrained in her.

[6:10] Alan Seales: Was it hard for you? And I'm taking this question from, I'm going to jump around, I'm taking this question from this wonderful feature of you in Playbill, right? So I'm looking at the Chicago Playbill. Yeah. And you've got this full, this whole full page thing with questions and stuff. Because one of the questions you were asked was like, tell me about a job opportunity you really wanted and didn't get. And I'll let you go into the details of it. But to summarize, it was like, basically, it was based on just looks, things you can't practice, things you can't control to an extent, right? That prevented you from getting what you really wanted and coming from this. So I want to talk about that for a second, but then relating it to your mom and your parents who were just like, they could practice all this waking time was like perfecting a skill to be judged and prevented to get what you want based on something that is completely unrelated to a skill. How did that sort of work into your psyche and shape where you were going?

[7:15] Lili Thomas: That was really difficult, I think, because I don't think I was so much taught to work hard as I just saw it exemplified in my parents. And it was just sort of to feel at the end of a road where there was nothing that you could do, you know, because it's always just like, we'll work harder. Well, make more connections. Well, do these things. And it also came at a time where I was having a lot of difficulty, or maybe not difficulty, but it was a new time for me in terms of coming to some sort of understanding of my racial identity. And I think that being at this crossroads or crossroaded dead end, I guess, if we're gonna go with that analogy, to feel like my appearance and my looks and my race and my identification in a way was a part of this dead end, when I had just known the world to be like, well, if you work hard, you can make anything happen.

It was a very complicated thing to deal with at such a young age, and really started a very much a much needed journey of sort of self racial exploration, if you will, you know, and not all of those dead ends or those no's came with something to do with race, you know, some of them were body issues, or some of them were, you know, I've always had a little bit of a older air. And I think, based on the past few parts, it's safe to say it's still there. You know, I think being younger and not being able to not really being an ingenue type and being more of a older mature type was also, you know, something that I wasn't anticipating. So lots of like, different ways, things that happen that made me look at myself and say, Okay, wait a minute. So what, what am I appearing like from the outside? And that, that is, you know, a place that's not that's sort of uncomfortable for anybody to live.

[9:19] Alan Seales: Did you talk about that with your parents at all? Or with your mom specifically?

[9:24] Lili Thomas: No, I didn't. I feel like she would come, or I guess, coming to America. And what was this? This was in the 70s. Yeah, right. Come to America in the 70s as an Asian, a 15 year old Asian girl. Yes, there had to have been so much stigma and issues that she had to deal with.

[9:45] Alan Seales: Of course. And, you know, I think that it's, it's interesting thing that I've talked to some other people that I know whose parents are, you know, who's who people like me, who are first generation, whose whose parents or one parent is somebody who came here from another country. There, especially during that time, there was this like, extreme desire to Americanize, you know, and, and so I think that there was also subconsciously a little bit of a neglect for the culture that she came from. And I'm sure also, you know, coming over here to be a classical musician there, that's the stigma right there, too, you know, so like, living in that, um, you know, I think that she came here, she married a white man, and she wanted to be American, she wanted to soak up everything and every opportunity, she did not go back, she did not want to go back.

There, you know, her other, she's one of five, her other siblings are over there, her family's still there. She actually just got back from Korea today. And, you know, but but there was, I think, in terms of the life she wanted to build for herself, she really wanted to embrace being American and take advantage of this opportunity. And in doing so, subconsciously let go of maybe passing down those traditions and relating to identifying as a Korean woman.

[11:01] Lili Thomas: So, you know, I mean, it was also, it was really hard for me to put into words, to be honest, until I read this book, Crying in H Mart. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's this unbelievable book that has been turned into a major motion picture. I read this book, and I thought to myself, Oh, my gosh, this, this girl who grew up in Oregon, who has a Korean mother from Korea, and a white father from America, is explaining exactly what my childhood was like, I don't speak English, I kind of understand these words, I don't necessarily know how to translate them, but I understand what they mean. And it happens to like, I need subtitles to watch Korean show on Netflix. But there are many times where I'll look at the subtitles, I say, Oh, that's not what that means.

That's not really what that means. I don't know what the right words would be. But it's like, there are certain things that I noticed now. Oh, I think I'm a little more Korean than I gave myself credit for being just, you know, by absorbing things. But my mother, you know, there wasn't much conversation at home about identifying as a mix.

[12:27] Lili Thomas: I grew up thinking I was white until I was maybe like 16, you know?

[12:34] Alan Seales: Wow. Wait, so what region did you grow up in?

[12:41] Lili Thomas: I grew up in New York.

[12:45] Alan Seales: Yeah, so I guess around here you sort of had that melting potness of this area, right?

[12:51] Lili Thomas: Yeah, there wasn't so much of like, oh, I look different because there were a lot of, you know, I don't know, really. Also, this is like the 90s. We didn't really talk about it so much, you know, like the conversations my kids are having at school now. I'm just fascinated by how aware they are.

[13:02] Alan Seales: Oh, absolutely. And it's completely normal and commonplace to my kids, too. They're like, they're in kindergarten. There's affinity groups now for like, they're encouraging kindergarten for second graders to be like, if you want to be another, the opposite sex from what you were assigned at birth, go for it. We support you. All these conversations that would blow my mind to have when I was that age. And even like in high school would have blown my mind to have, you know, I mean, it's just it's crazy.

[13:33] Lili Thomas: So I think it's a combination of the times and also, you know, having a mother who really, really embraced her transition into becoming an American.

[13:40] Alan Seales: Do you talk to your kids about race and being partially Asian?

[13:47] Lili Thomas: We do. And also, especially because they're a quarter Korean. But I have, you know, I think in my older age, embraced a lot of my sort of identity as a Korean woman at home in terms of cooking and in terms of the way that we, you know, treat our environment. And so I think that my kids identify more as Korean than I did at their age. But the actually the interesting issue that we've run into is that they have to explain how and why they're Korean because they look so white. It's just like this opposite issue that they come home with, where, you know, Annabelle, my daughter was told, Oh, but like, you know, my this question was for an Asian kid. And she said, Well, I'm Asian. And some kid told her basically that she wasn't Asian enough to be considered Asian. And that was the big heart hurt of the day. And I just thought, wow, this is really amazing. This coin has flipped.

[15:00] Alan Seales: Yeah. And actually, very, I guess, apropos to talk about, you know, that situation we were talking about a little while ago about, you know, you not getting the roles when you're at this pivotal crossroads in your life, too, because you were saying in this Playbill article that you were down to three different callbacks for three different Broadway shows, all of which for one reason, because you were either like you didn't, you weren't thin enough, or you weren't Asian enough, or you weren't something enough.

[15:30] Lili Thomas: Right. So now, so that's career, right? That's actually life changing. I guess I'm not saying that words aren't life changing. Of course they are. But your daughter being not being able to answer a question is a little bit less, I guess, of course, less high stakes. The stakes are a little different, you know, middle school, Broadway.

[15:45] Alan Seales: But yeah, so do you talk to her then about that? You're like, listen, this is what you're gonna have to go through probably your whole life?

[15:49] Lili Thomas: I don't know if I've actually, I don't believe that I've told my kids that story, because I think that the industry is different now. I'd like I really would like to believe that that is something that they won't face.

[16:07] Alan Seales: I hope so.

[16:07] Lili Thomas: And I have to say that I'm seeing it in casting. You know, I'm seeing this, you know, a lot of people call this a shift. And I sort of like to think of it as like a breaking down of walls. And I'm seeing the proof in the pudding. So how long that's gonna stick around? Is it gonna grow? Is it gonna dissipate? I don't know. But I just feel really lucky to be around for it and be a part of it. And especially as someone, you know, I just got off of Dear Evan Hansen with a lot of younger actors. And this is the world that they're coming into. They haven't faced, you know, the decade of suppression that I feel like I faced. And so there's part of me that's sort of like, oh, they had no idea how bad it was.

But there's also part of me that's like, wow, I'm so lucky that I experienced both. So I can really appreciate what's happening now. You know, like this, this thing, getting cast in this role in particular means so much more to me, because of the way that I was limited beforehand, you know?

[17:19] Alan Seales: I absolutely agree with that, too. And I think it's sort of a double edged sword is that you have this generation now, that the criticism of this generation, come, you know, these young people that are like, they go into the world and expect everything to be handed to them.

[17:34] Lili Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[17:35] Alan Seales: Which is bad in one sense, good in another in that they don't hold themselves back based on things like, like how they look. They're just like, all right, give it to me now. This is what I want. And I think they're again, double edged sword. Yes. Take it for what it's worth. Everyone needs to work hard. Okay? Yeah, have a good work ethic. But no, don't let your appearance hold you back. Because don't just in like, you know, don't judge yourself. There are enough people in this industry judging you.

[18:02] Lili Thomas: So sometimes I look at these younger performers, and I just admire them so much for their sense of self and their identity. Man, I had none of that. Because I was just like, oh my god, what can I do to get you to like me or see me? Whereas, you know, they're here and they're like, this is who I am. It's amazing.

[18:27] Alan Seales: Yeah, the kids right now, they're just like, this is who I am. This is great. You know, I'm gonna go.

[18:30] Lili Thomas: Because there's a place for everybody right now, you know, and the communities that have come out to support everybody and every choice you're going to make, you know, it's sort of like, oh, it makes me wonder, like, what kind of gut instinct would I have gone with about myself at one point if I felt like somebody else saw me?

[18:45] Alan Seales: Yeah, exactly. And now the kids in like, you're gonna, you're gonna get to a point where, you know, you're a coach, and you're a teacher, too. So you're gonna start making, I mean, if you haven't already been like making casting choices that are, are colorblind and gendered. What's the word? Genderblind? Is that a phrase? What am I looking for?

[19:07] Lili Thomas: Irrelevant.

[19:07] Alan Seales: Yeah, it's just irrelevant. Like, you know, why can't in Hamilton, why can't some of the Founding Fathers be women? I would love to see that.

[19:17] Lili Thomas: Totally. You know, absolutely.

[19:19] Alan Seales: But Chicago, I want to go back to Chicago, because I remember you saying in our other interview, that it was the, it's the show that you fell in love with that made you want to do Broadway? Yes?

[19:30] Lili Thomas: Yeah.

[19:33] Alan Seales: So this is all full circle now that you're making your Broadway debut and your first love of Broadway?

[19:38] Lili Thomas: You know, my, I had a cousin who called me when I got the job, and he was like, wait a minute, Lil, like, that show that you made us listen to all summer? The summer of, you know, like, 97? The whole summer that you did cell block tango in the living room every day? He's like, that show you're gonna be in? I'm such a Kander and Ebb girl. I love Kander and Ebb. I love Fosse. You know, I used to dance a lot. And Fosse was always just fascinating to me. And Damien Gies was actually the first Broadway show I ever saw. And I just sort of fell in love with that traditional, and it's so vaudevillian too, which is such a great introduction to theatre. I just loved everything about it. These, these like murderous broads, these, these no limits, no rules, women, you know, I'm sure like subconsciously, there was something there of like these, these women who don't even need their men that they kill them.

Like, I just, I loved it. And when I got this call, when I got the submission request, I was like, oh, I don't I don't know. I don't think they have the right person. You know, I did ask my agent, I was like, was this? Was this for me, actually? Because especially Mama Morton, I was like, oh, I, I don't think that you want me for that. And I just have been having so much fun with her. And especially when, when my agent said, No, no, this is accurate. And like, don't try to be anybody else or what you've seen before. And just kind of like, say, what would Lily do with it? And to have that kind of freedom with such an iconic character and such an iconic show, which also like, you know, I've been listening to the music for years, and I've heard a million different renditions of so it's I sort of had to like, wipe it all from my memory drive and think to myself, okay, what are like, just at the base? What are these qualities in this character? And how does that align with me? And that was fun. That was the fun part.

[21:48] Alan Seales: Hang on, everybody, we're just gonna take a quick break.

[21:52] Lili Thomas: All right, now we're back.

[21:54] Alan Seales: Well, okay, dive into that, then, because obviously, Mama Morton's got some questionable values. But obviously, I would say she cares very much about her and her, her renters, her tenants, her chickies.

[22:07] Lili Thomas: Yeah, like, where did you find the common ground with somebody who, again, has questionable moral values, but seems to be like, they think they're doing listen, everybody in the show has questionable moral values. So we kind of have to like, put that at the baseline of everything and say, Okay, from there, where did these characters live? You know, there and to go back to the, to the Asian woman, you know, stigma that we were talking about, there is something about being the first Asian woman to play this part in particular, that was really fun to me for me. And that is that most, most character leading characters that have been either written as Asian or open to being cast as Asian, have sort of fallen a little bit more in line with with the Asian female stigma in theater, which is more of an ingenue, more polite, more demure, a little more soft spoken.

And, you know, I never really felt like I fell in that I remember, years and years ago, maybe it was the revival of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster. And I remember thinking to myself, Oh, God, like, you know, I'd love to play that role. I was, I just graduated college, you know, it was just like, a little dreamer. But I did go in for Hope. And I thought to myself, Well, that's not me at all. You know, why would they call me in for Hope? And I think it's, that's just a great example of like, the type of character that was starting to open up to Asian American actors that didn't feel so like, in line with the kind of performer I am. Mama Morton is brassy. She's sassy. She's got this like, really lower growl, well, my version, at least, really lower growly, deep voice.

She's in charge. She's assertive. She's all these things that kind of play a little bit against that stereotype that we're more used to seeing. And that was just to be able to just to be given that permission to like lean into my ethnicity and my heritage. In combination with those characteristics. I just felt like that was the first time that I was really handed that on a platter and told to play and told to go for it with that combination. And that was has just been so much fun and continues to be fun as I explore the character. I actually really, really enjoyed that.

[24:40] Alan Seales: And I think it's very cool that, you know, you're kind of given free reign to bring yourself to it without playing a stereotype. Like you're playing, you're playing the character. The character is strong. The character is brass, brass.

[26:54] Lili Thomas: It doesn't even have the opportunity to get stale, because there's some new quality brought to each character every time somebody comes in. When did this revival open? It was '97, I think?

[26:59] Alan Seales: '97 at Encores! and transferred, and it is the longest running revival in history.

[27:05] Lili Thomas: Well, now that Phantom closed, it's the longest running show currently on Broadway.

[27:12] Alan Seales: Currently, yeah. How does the translation work? I guess, you know, communicating the same thing over and over and over again as a game of telephone, but now, like, Bob Fosse obviously is no longer with us. You don't get to get, you know, a put-in with the original director.

[27:23] Lili Thomas: Or a put-in, period, but yeah.

[27:26] Alan Seales: Really? They're just like, all right, go, and action, go?

[27:31] Lili Thomas: You know what? It's such a well-oiled machine. They really know how to put people in and out of the show. But you rehearse by yourself with the stage manager and the dance captain, and then you get to your opening day, your opening night, and like, 45 minutes before rehearsal, you run through your scenes with the few people you interact with, and that's it.

[27:49] Alan Seales: What?

[27:50] Lili Thomas: So like, my opening night, I'm sitting on stage watching, you know, we both reach for the gun, and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Oh crap, I gotta actually be present. But like, you don't see any of that move around with those bodies on stage. It's incredible. I mean, it is a whirlwind. But yeah, that opening night, your first performance is a first of many.

[28:09] Alan Seales: Do you remember? I mean, I guess you remember your opening night, right? I mean, you have to, but that opening night where you're getting to watch the show, because everyone's basically on stage, you know, on the sides of the stage, the entire show, in the chairs. So you're getting to watch these other people that I didn't realize you hadn't previously seen.

[28:29] Lili Thomas: I hadn't even met half of them, you know? Like, I'm on stage with them. I was like, hi, what's your name?

[28:34] Alan Seales: Really? Wow, I had no clue. Okay, so you're on stage, you're watching the show that was the reason you got into Broadway as you're on stage making your Broadway debut. Did any of this click in the moment?

[28:49] Lili Thomas: Oh, completely clicked. And just like, you know, knock me out. I think I just, I was, I do remember it as a full event. But there's, there's some I also had so many people there. And I was like, I can't believe you're watching this show. This is like just me trying to get my shoes on here. But it was just so exhilarating. Everybody was so supportive. You know, and they've the ensemble, especially has done this so many times. Because the ensemble doesn't change as frequently as the principals do. And so, you know, a little hand on the back to help you get in the right place a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Everybody is amazing. And there was a little bit of Lily. And you know, I have to say every night when I watch Charlotte do Roxy, there is like a full Lily Thomas geeking out over what I am witnessing that close.

She is incredible. It's like a masterclass every night. So, you know, I mean, like, of course, I stay in character, but I just enjoy watching the show. It's so good, you know, and, and just to be able to put all of this experience with like, all of this history of love for the show together has been, you know, just, you can't, you can't make that up. You can't buy that.

[30:04] Alan Seales: That's really cool that it's all come together. And, and you're right, being able to watch someone like Charlotte, that close up, right. And, and I think it's kind of cool when, when people get to watch others, like in when you're staged in a way where you are literally just sitting and watching and you have to like sit there and watch in character, but they're still like, you know, you can sort of take the wall down a little, little bit as Lily. It's sort of like a half character because it's kind of like this, like this troupe kind of Pippiny idea, you know, where you're, where you're all up there, just sort of like giving that focus, but you're not in the scene.

[30:55] Lili Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's cool because everyone's like, I guess you're given the blocking to either like in this scene, there's specifically you're paying attention or you're ignoring them, right? Because—

[31:07] Alan Seales: Like in Amos's, in Cellophane, we're all instructed to turn away.

[31:12] Lili Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

[31:13] Alan Seales: So that nobody has noticed him.

[31:15] Lili Thomas: Yeah. And I told—

[31:16] Alan Seales: Even the people on stage.

[31:17] Lili Thomas: I was noticing that it was like, everybody, everybody just turned away. You know, looking down and doing that and paying, not paying attention to Amos.

[31:25] Alan Seales: Right. That's when I introduced myself to people on the opening night.

[31:29] Lili Thomas: Really?

[31:30] Alan Seales: Hey, we're on stage. I'm Lily.

[31:32] Lili Thomas: Yeah, pretty much.

[31:34] Alan Seales: That's cool. Real quick, too. I just want to, I want to shout out my love for Terrence Mann as well.

[31:40] Lili Thomas: Incredible.

[31:41] Alan Seales: Charlotte's husband, the two of them, the two of them together are such this power couple.

[31:46] Lili Thomas: Really?

[31:47] Alan Seales: I'm in love with Foundation right now on Apple Plus, Apple TV.

[31:51] Lili Thomas: Oh, you know, I really have to watch it. It's, it's, it's hard to like have enough energy to watch a whole episode or something when I get home. But, but I've got to watch it because I hear it's amazing.

[32:01] Alan Seales: It is. It is. It's good. And Terrence, of course, is awesome.

[32:05] Lili Thomas: Of course.

[32:06] Alan Seales: But yeah, that, that's so cool. So the, the way that the, the casts rotate through, I guess, the leads rotate through and are you sort of in favor of this now? Because, well, I don't know what I'm trying to go for. Because when tourists come, like tourists are the ones who really keep musicals going, I think. Because local New Yorkers are going to see a musical once and they'll, but they see every play because they're a local and they can and plays are limited runs.

[32:29] Lili Thomas: Yeah.

[32:30] Alan Seales: And, but musicals, in theory, you want to run forever. And because of the cast album, people come with an idea of what the character should sound like and who they should be, right? And so for something like Chicago that has had so many iterations and been going for so long, is there, I guess, are you finding that people are, I guess, well, there's two parts to this question. First one is, are you, are you finding that people are expecting something different based on their preconceived expectations and maybe even the movie? And then the other part was, what I was getting to originally was like the fact that shows like Into the Woods in Chicago and things are doing this like sort of leads rotation on a more frequent basis. Do you think that's a good thing?

[33:12] Lili Thomas: I think that it depends. I think that with a musical that's been around for so long, that that aspect of refreshing it and reinventing it and keeping it new is a good idea because it keeps the whole piece fresh. You know, I mean, anything staying stagnant will get stale at some point. And so I think that it's fun. I also, you know what I was saying about being able to sort of like add layers to the characters depending on who's come in. And I'm sure there's subconsciously things that I've seen from previous Mamma Mortons that are just ingrained into my brain of a characteristic that really is in the play somewhere that I probably can't find in the script, you know? So I think it's this thing of like continuously having these opportunities to add to these characters into the art.

That's really fun. I think that it's, but that doesn't necessarily apply to like a new show. You know, I think a new show coming in, having that one year contract and having that whole year to really like develop what the piece is, you know, Chicago had that. And these pieces that have constantly revived, why are they revived? You know, like, what are we doing that's new? What are we saying with the material that's new? That's why you revive something, right? Just to make a point and to say something important. So it does sometimes take those new, those fresh eyes on something. And in that case, I'm absolutely in support of it, you know, to continuously collaborate on a piece with different people and explore every little crevice of the piece. Like, oh, that's like, you know, gold for an actor. We love that.

[35:17] Alan Seales: Sure. Hang on, everybody. We're just gonna take a quick break.

[35:22] Lili Thomas: All right, now we're back.

[35:24] Alan Seales: I guess, well, as an actor, though, as a professional who's doing this to earn a living, is it, I mean, the year long contract, obviously, would probably give you much better peace of mind than a four month or a six month contract or whatnot. And so how does the business side of this play out?

[35:39] Lili Thomas: Well, you know, I mean, it's like, and I think that this also goes into, you know, my whole journey to where I've been, because I am a mom and I'm a single mom. It's like, okay, I got to work. And yeah, so this piece, I would love to do this project. And it's heading to Broadway. And it's this, this and that. But like, you know, I got to take this other job, or even like, I got to go take this regional job, because it pays what I need to make. And I can't make nothing in the reading workshop situation right now, because that's not an option for me. So those are some of the limitations that like, I personally just feel as a single mom. But like, we all love a steady paycheck. Balancing your job as a Broadway performer, I think is really hard when it's also like, you just have to be a smart parent and say, well, what does my family need right now?

Those are two different things. Some people have the luxury of not having to, to like, you know, Venn diagram those two things and to just do what they love. And, and some people are in the complete opposite place where it's like, nope, I just got to, I don't even, I'm not even going to do theater, because I'm just going to do commercials. And I'm going to do this, this and that, because that is what my career is now. And, and it's just different for everybody. I think that I fall somewhere in between. But like, everything comes with, with the balancing act of saying, does this work for me as a, as a job, not like an opportunity or this amazing, luckily, you know, New York things for me, that's where I want to be. That's what I want to do. I don't, I don't like leaving my kids, you know, we talked the last time I was on tour, and I was like, Oh, I haven't seen them in months.

[37:21] Lili Thomas: Yeah, legitimately a year-long tour.

[37:23] Lili Thomas: Yeah, 13 months. A little over a year.

[37:27] Alan Seales: Your kids are not like 18, where they can just be on their own. They still need supervision.

[37:33] Lili Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

[37:33] Alan Seales: That's tough.

[37:34] Lili Thomas: So then, you know, working all of that into that, working child care, what kind of hours here, it's a complicated puzzle. But something like this also, it's just like, I don't care how the contract was, my answer was going to be yes. You know, like, there were so many reasons why this was such an amazing opportunity for me, particularly.

[37:56] Alan Seales: Yeah. So you were saying when you were younger that people treated you as older, right? And you didn't have that, I guess, ingenue spirit, that ingenue energy of being like the bubbly, right? That I would cast as like you're going against stereotypical tropey ingenue.

[38:12] Lili Thomas: Right.

[38:13] Alan Seales: But now are you coming off of 13 months as Connor's mom, and now Mama Morton is a matronly figure. You're taking care of your cell block, right?

[38:25] Lili Thomas: Yeah.

[38:25] Alan Seales: So is this something that you enjoy getting into now?

[38:31] Lili Thomas: Of course, I love it. But you know, I have to say I had this agent when I was in my, I guess, like younger to mid 20s, who I had, you know, kept missing out on a couple things, and I was just kind of bummed. And then I got pregnant when I was 26. And I was so afraid of telling my agent. And I told her and she said, Oh, great. That's great. That's perfect timing. And I was like, What? What are you talking about? And she said, Oh, honey, like, I'm here for the long run with you. I'm here to see what you're going to do in your 30s and your 40s. Like, so she said, If you want another one, do it right away, get it out of the way. And then you can actually have the career that probably people in this industry see you having.

I didn't quite understand that at that age. And I think I'm experiencing exactly what she was talking about. You know, I kind of, I guess I took her advice. But yeah, because Jack is two years younger than Annabelle. And that's sort of what I did with my 20s. I became a mom and I started my family and laid the foundation. And I think that I'm now able to use so much of my experience as a mom in these roles that I'm being cast in. And I think to myself, Oh, so that's where I was supposed to be going. You know, I love these roles. I loved being Cynthia. And I thought she gets kind of a bad rap in that show. But I really just found so much in the character and especially being away from the kids, you know, and playing a mom of a girl and a boy.

Just so much to relate to. And Mama Morton doesn't have kids, but she does run a tight ship. And that's what I do at home. You know, and it's like, she's got to be on it. She's got to, even if she doesn't know what she's doing, she has to appear like she does. She has to diffuse situations. It's just like, you know, 7am getting ready for school. I mean, questionable moral values of Mama Morton, but still like she wants everything to run and she wants her girls to be taken care of.

[40:43] Alan Seales: Yep, yep. And we all listen, as parents, too. We all are put in those positions where we have to make a decision. Sometimes we make the wrong one. And often you gotta stand, you gotta stand by it. Yep, nope, I said the wrong thing. But don't second guess me now, children. Don't tell anybody.

[41:02] Lili Thomas: Yeah, but you said I know what I said. No, I'm saying it differently. Get over it.

[41:06] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My kids, I think we were talking about this after the show the other night. Yeah, my kids are second and third grade now. And especially my third grader is just like, Dad, what you said doesn't make sense to me because logically, it's not going to be beneficial for all of us. I'm like, where are you coming from, man?

[41:25] Lili Thomas: Right, right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, the things that they must tell each other at school that we said, they all cross reference and then they call out the ones who are faking it, you know?

[41:34] Alan Seales: Yeah, well, then my younger one, he's just like, he's second grade, very young. I think he's the class too, which is a big deal in second grade. And his mentality is, I got hit in the balls.

[41:50] Lili Thomas: Oh, my God.

[41:51] Alan Seales: So that's the difference. They're 20 months apart, but it's a big 20 months in second and third grade right now. Okay, let's transition into three closing questions. I like to ask on my little solo pod here that I ask everybody. The first one very simply is just, what evades you?

[42:06] Lili Thomas: Oh, like, I don't really need to come up with much because I just, like, such a musical theater nerd. I love it. I love everything about it. I always have. I can fall in love with any piece, which is, you know, obviously a double edged sword. But I just love, I love going into, like, if I'm reading a new script or something, just visualizing everything, looking at all the material and saying, like, where can you go with this? It's just like what I was saying before. It's just like the gold. And I don't know what motivates me. Like, it all motivates me just like getting being material. Material motivates me. I love getting my hands on new material. Even it's just a side for an audition. It's like, it just piques my interest.

I was so curious about it. How did somebody come up with this? And who came up with it? Who collaborated? And, you know, I love like, just looking at the whole creative team and then looking at the material and like, hypothesizing how it all came to be. It's just, I used to, I love casting. I love like, in the end, looking at who people chose for what and thinking why. I used to sit in, in like my sixth grade French class, completely spaced out and like, would choose a show and write down all of the characters in the show, and then try to cast the show from who was in class with me. That was like my version of misbehaving. That's what I did in class when I was, when I was checking out. But yeah, new material. It's always so fun to see.

[43:46] Lili Thomas: The teacher intercepts the note you're trying to pass to your friend and they're like, what is this? We're going to read it out loud. Timmy is a bye-bye pretty dream cast. What?

[43:58] Alan Seales: Yeah, that was for sure. I love it.

[44:02] Lili Thomas: Yep. I get it because I didn't dream cast, but I would dream sing. I was zoning out.

[44:08] Alan Seales: Yeah. I love that.

[44:09] Lili Thomas: Okay. The other, next question. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[44:17] Lili Thomas: You know, I think that that was also a question in that Playbill article. I don't know if it made it into that edited version, but let yourself be you. And because I feel like I was always trying to fit myself into a box that already existed. And I'm at this, I'm experiencing something I never thought I would experience, which is the permission and the encouragement to create my own box. And I wish that I sort of knew that that's where I was going to end up earlier. I wish I knew that earlier so that I could have maybe explored a little bit of who I was rather than trying to be something all the time. So I'm seeing that in a lot of younger kids today. And I'm really happy to see that in my students and in the younger performers that I get to work with. And yeah, that's when I get a little jealous. I'm like, oh, I wish I was that age now so that I was a little more encouraged to be myself.

[45:18] Alan Seales: I think you'd make a really good Mary Jane Healy in Jagged.

[45:23] Lili Thomas: Oh, thank you. I did.

[45:26] Alan Seales: Oh, gosh. I mean, Elizabeth Stanley, phenomenal. I can see you doing it really easily.

[45:31] Lili Thomas: Amazing. And Heidi, I would love to see her version.

[45:34] Alan Seales: I saw Heidi too. Yeah, I saw it twice.

[45:35] Lili Thomas: You did?

[45:37] Alan Seales: Oh, I would have loved to see her.

[45:40] Lili Thomas: Yeah, they were both just phenomenal. But yeah, you could nail that. You would nail that. Great character. Well, like that kind of thing. I remember seeing that and thinking to myself, all the things about that character that aren't in the script, and I just start coming... That's the stuff that is... Oh, yeah. What a great character. But thank you. I appreciate that. Somebody listening, cast me.

[46:01] Alan Seales: Last question then. 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 say?

[46:05] Lili Thomas: Oh, God. Does it have to be currently running right now?

[46:12] Alan Seales: No, no, any show.

[46:14] Lili Thomas: Oh, that's a really hard question.

[46:18] Alan Seales: I only ask the hard-hitting questions here.

[46:20] Lili Thomas: I know. I'll say that we all as kids had those shows that changed... Chicago was one of them. But those movie musicals, before I started seeing live theater, I was really, really obsessed with the movie musicals. And the one that I watched all the time, too, that I've been... I kind of have come back to, and I'm listening to a lot now, is Music Man. I love Music Man. And I didn't see this last version because I was on tour. I just think that... I know it won the Tony the year that it came out. And I keep thinking to myself, what that must have been like to have a musical come out like that at that time. Sort of like Hamilton, you know? I mean, it's like this industry-changing musical. And there's so good in so many ways, and so many opportunities to keep reinventing it. So I don't know. That was just kind of at the forefront of my mind today. But I could think of probably 10 more.

[47:25] Alan Seales: It's funny you say that. When I was a kid, too, the VHS tapes I watched over and over again were West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, and Music Man.

[47:31] Lili Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Mine were West Side Story, Music Man, and Sound of Music.

[47:41] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah. I never got into Sound of Music.

[47:43] Lili Thomas: That was like... I was really young. But I usually only watched VHS one. It was a double VHS, you know?

[47:51] Alan Seales: Right. It's a long one.

[47:52] Lili Thomas: It's a long one. And the second act has the wedding, and the Nazis, and things that a three-year-old maybe doesn't think are the most interesting things in the world.

[48:03] Alan Seales: Oh, to that point, real quick. I want to go back to Chicago for a second, because you loved Chicago as a kid. But that's not very appropriate for a kid.

[48:12] Lili Thomas: No, but I was in seventh grade.

[48:15] Alan Seales: So you're starting to explore that side.

[48:17] Lili Thomas: Yeah. That was a little bit of like, ooh, when we all got our hands on Rent, and it was like, oh, I don't want my mom to really hear what I'm listening to. It's just a musical, just a musical. But it was the... I definitely knew I was listening to something I probably shouldn't be listening to. Maybe that was part of the fun.

[48:37] Alan Seales: I love it. That's great. All right, where can we find you on social media?

[48:42] Lili Thomas: I'm at TheLilyThomas on Instagram. And yeah, I'm kind of like a one social... I've got the mind space for one social media platform.

[48:57] Alan Seales: Me too, which is a problem, because I have many, many more. Yeah, I'm on Instagram, and threads, and TikTok, and Facebook, and I'm horrible at all of them. So I'm so sorry.

[49:09] Lili Thomas: I know. I'll open Facebook, and I'll have 10 messages from long family members. I'm like, oh, this is why I keep this is to keep in touch with the family. But I'm not good about keeping up with it.

[49:22] Alan Seales: No, I'm not good at keeping up with the Kardashians or Facebook. Either way. Yeah, so wherever you're listening now, leave your rating and a review of the podcast. Find me online. Find Lily online. Thanks to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music. And Lily, thank you for chatting again. I always love talking to you.

[49:40] Lili Thomas: So good to talk to you too.