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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest names. This is the continuation of the interview with Alex Brightman. Of course, this is Part 2. So, if you haven't heard Part 1, pause and go back and listen to the previous episode because it'll put all of what you're about to hear into much better context. Please visit me online at ttp.fm, ttp.fm slash patreon to show your support. And now here is Part 2.

[0:33] Alex Brightman: I was gonna say like not remakes, not adaptations. And so like Beetlejuice is not either as a stage adaptation of a musical. Yeah, but it's also what we're doing. Yeah, what we're doing at Beetlejuice that I think a lot of people were hesitant at the top to like go see is that they thought like everybody, like me, when I first heard it was happening before I was cast, I was like, great, here we go. Another carbon copy of a movie on stage with special effects that are going to wow you in a book that's going to be lame and music that's going to not drive the plot forward. Like a lot of adaptations that are happening, or have happened or closed, just closed. Yeah, but like, I mean, but it's gone on for years at this point.

And it's almost nobody's fault, except everybody's fault that was involved and nobody went, hey, what if we did something more fun? What the guys at Beetlejuice decided to do is to tell a story, and to rewrite it and to adapt it. And I think a true good adaptation has a point of view that the movie didn't have, or the book didn't have, it has a take on what's going on now. And that's what our show does incredibly, I think it really caters to a now audience. It feels timeless, because it is done in an old musical theater way. Our audiences are the proof, is that we have people in our audiences that have never seen a Broadway show before in their life, and they're 30. Or we have dads coming up to the stage door going, I don't even like theater, more or less musical theater, but I'm obsessed with this musical.

And this is not me trying to sell anybody on the show. This is all what's going on. But it's because we did the thing. For lack, I mean, for like, for really, if you look at, if you strip everything away from Beetlejuice, we're sort of an original musical, we're telling a different story. We're using the characters, but we aren't really telling the same story the movie did.

[2:23] Alan Seales: Well, it's focused on Lydia, not the main cast.

[2:25] Alex Brightman: Way more, yeah. And the characters are different, and their objectives are different, and these storylines don't really mix the way they do in the movie, and I think for better.

[2:34] Alan Seales: Oh, I totally agree, yeah.

[2:36] Alex Brightman: Yeah, and it's a real, it's a fully fledged, fleshed out book musical with heart. And I don't, I would never say that if I didn't feel that way about it.

[2:48] Alan Seales: Yeah, when I was talking with Alex Timbers, and he was saying that.

[2:52] Alex Brightman: What a hack. Can't do anything right. He was saying that, same thing, is that they, that he, when someone suggested it to him, the first thing he said was, hmm, let me think about it.

[3:04] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[3:05] Alex Brightman: And so they wanted to figure out, he wanted to figure out, how can we make this different, and not just an adaptation.

[3:11] Alan Seales: Right.

[3:11] Alex Brightman: And I think it is brilliant the way that the set, the set is a, is its own character.

[3:18] Alan Seales: Yeah, for sure.

[3:19] Alex Brightman: You know, because the set, it's the same set, it's like a one set show, but the set itself changes so dramatically. It breathes, it evolves.

[3:28] Alan Seales: It literally moves up and down stage.

[3:29] Alex Brightman: Yeah. It's incredible. It continues to kind of gain character as we go through, which is kind of fun for us as performers, because we get this high budget pretend land. Nothing, nothing makes it easier to pretend than having a budget like this, too. Like, I just, like, it's so great that they really leaned into the idea that this is not going to be a show. I guess you could do it in a black box theater, but truly this is one of those shows that needs to be a spectacle, too.

[3:54] Alan Seales: No, no. It's like, not unlike Wicked. I think Wicked has its own, like, heart to it that you could do. The reading of it would make you feel something, for sure. You'd, you'd, you'd see it in a reading setting with fluorescent lights, whatever, and you'd still feel something. I think the same is with Beetlejuice, but what it makes it so exciting is the spectacle of it.

[4:11] Alex Brightman: Well, it's, it's got to be, it's got to feel real while still being in an imaginary land.

[4:15] Alan Seales: It absolutely has to be grounded in some type of reality.

[4:18] Alex Brightman: It doesn't have to be this reality, but it has to be grounded in a reality with rules. Because there's actual, there's real illusions in the show.

[4:24] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah.

[4:25] Alex Brightman: Yeah, there's actual, actual illusions, you know, accompanied with, with amazing puppetry.

[4:30] Alan Seales: Yes, and the thing we figured out in DC, which we had a lot of puppetry, a lot of illusion, a lot of great magic, and a lot of hilarity, a lot of great, filthy humor, and it worked. But what we were missing was this beating heart thing. And we figured that out for New York. And that's what I think turned the key in the right direction. It was like, oh, this is what's make, this is what makes it Wicked. This is what makes it, you know, something that is a bit more timeless. Because it is a story that you can really latch on to. Everybody has lost somebody. And that idea of like, how, what's the right way to mourn is a fundamental question in our show. And I think you'd never expect a musical when you just hear that there's going to be a musical of Beetlejuice to go, I bet it has heart. But it does. On every page, there's heart, which I think is the good step we all made from DC to New York. And we even want for Beetlejuice too.

[5:24] Alan Seales: Well, that's good. That's, that was really well, carefully crafted for this New York production is that we wanted you to feel for somebody who is lonely and he's invisible, literally and figuratively. He's never been seen. And everybody can latch onto that feeling of not feeling like you're being seen. In Beetlejuice's case, it just happens to be literally. But I think that's what makes him so endearing that you sort of forget until about three quarters or even five eighths of the way through that he's the bad guy.

[5:53] Alex Brightman: Yeah. Which is great. That's, that's a magic trick on his own that I think we've pulled off.

[5:58] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[5:58] Alex Brightman: And audiences don't realize what they're watching either.

[6:00] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[6:01] Alex Brightman: And that's, I think that speaks to the success of the show too. I'm thrilled about it because I like doing it so much that I'm so happy we're not only running, but thriving.

[6:10] Alan Seales: Yeah. Are you, do you get tired? And I know like people have asked you ad nauseum about, about the voice.

[6:16] Alex Brightman: But first of all, let me answer that first question. I'm perpetually tired. I'm never not tired. I'm all, I've been tired for 10 years. I don't think there has been a time, even on my honeymoon, that I was like, oh, I feel rested. I don't think I'll get it back after all, after all this. But the voice thing is, uh, the least tiring thing I do.

[6:36] Alan Seales: Really?

[6:36] Alex Brightman: Yeah. Cause it was a trick that I learned over the course of a year, uh, very carefully done with people in the medical field with a pathologist, uh, and an ENT and a vocal coach who really, truly took good care in making sure this was going to be sustainable. Otherwise, to be frank, I don't know if I would have done it.

[6:59] Alan Seales: How, so it took you a year.

[7:02] Alex Brightman: About a year off and on. One day you will leave the show and the show will continue and someone will replace you and even your understudy. What are they going to do? What are they going to do? How do they do that? The, it's a much easier, if you think about it, like two seconds, it's like a much easier answer than cause it, the job requirement is not to do this voice. It's not a job requirement. Beetlejuice is a demon. He is a thing, which means it can be anything. So the voice I'm doing sort of sounds like Michael Keaton, but not really, not even close in my opinion, but some people see like the similarities when I get that, but like two of my covers have already done tons of rehearsal in their own voices.

That doesn't hurt them. I told anybody who wants to like do this role. And I mean, anybody, because Beetlejuice is not a him. Beetlejuice is not a her. Beetlejuice is not a they. Beetlejuice is a thing. Beetlejuice is, can be played. I hope that one day it's played by a trans person and played by, you know, that's my hope. A woman plays the role for a couple of weeks here and there. Like, I just think it would be so cool to watch the thing because Beetlejuice in itself is not human.

[8:11] Alan Seales: That'd be incredible.

[8:12] Alex Brightman: I agree. I think that is what we've shaped it up to be too. There isn't really anything that really says other than here and there I'm referenced as a he, but it's because I'm a he. I think it's a very easy script change to make and it would be great. But the beauty of it is they can have their own whatever voice fits them.

[8:29] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[8:29] Alex Brightman: As long as it's a character voice. I just can't be like, hey, what's up? Hey, how's it going? I'm Beetlejuice. I think that would be a little jarring, but I do think that if they add to it and both my covers have completely different Beetlejuice voices and they both work.

[8:41] Alan Seales: You have two covers?

[8:42] Alex Brightman: Two covers. Well, one's on stage every night. One is a standby. It's the same standby. His name's Will Blum. He's brilliant. And he stood by for me in School of Rock.

[8:50] Alan Seales: Oh, really?

[8:50] Alex Brightman: Yeah. And he's incredible. And his job is to wait upstairs for me to break.

[8:56] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[8:57] Alex Brightman: I mean, literally, that's his job. It's kind of a miraculous, like, Minuteman sort of job that you have to kind of always be ready to go. Picture him upstairs, like...

[9:04] Alan Seales: I mean, he can't.

[9:06] Alex Brightman: That's why I find it to be so stressful. I was like, I don't know if I could be a standby because I'd have to always be warming up.

[9:12] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[9:12] Alex Brightman: Like, just in case. And he has gone on. I mean, he went on, like, mid-show. He's done that. Has he?

[9:16] Alan Seales: Really? What happened?

[9:17] Alex Brightman: No, not Beetlejuice, but we did it in School of Rock. You know, you blow out your voice or... Because he stayed on longer than I stayed on, I think. I can't remember. But even the other standbys, you just have to kind of be malleable and ready to go. And I think those guys, the standbys and swings...

[9:32] Alan Seales: Oh, agreed.

[9:33] Alex Brightman: Unsung heroes of a show because they never know, not only when they're going on, but what they're going on for until a minute. They're, like, handed a costume. Or if they're going to start the show at the same role that they ended it. I mean, that's it. Like, it takes me that long to do the show. If I have to, like, step into an emotion, I would completely shatter. I wouldn't know how to do that because I'm not a sociopath. I don't know how to just throw on an emotion. That doesn't just happen.

[10:00] Alan Seales: Right, right.

[10:02] Alex Brightman: So does the... Well, I guess on that note, does the emotion that you have on stage, is that, like, if you're in a show where you were playing, like, a horribly depressed character, would that carry on through, like, off the stage for the whole time you were in the contract?

[10:15] Alex Brightman: It hasn't for me. I can separate... I don't really do the, like, Daniel Day-Lewis-y, like, I'm in character in the wings. But I think it's only for this one, especially, it's because I've spent so much time in the character that turning it on and off is super easy for me. Like, I feel like, you know, the best way to know that you've done right in a character is that if you've woken up out of a nap, you could do it. You don't have to be like, where am I? You know, you can just go into the character and it's a skin that you're wearing. I haven't found in any of the characters that I've done that it's really, like, affected my life. I'm... Beetlejuice is a perfect role and a perfect character.

[10:55] Alex Brightman: Yeah, just walk, you know. I do like roasting people like, friendly, but I think you have to love the people you roast. Beetlejuice on the subway. Beetlejuice ordering coffee. See, but that means I have to be in more makeup, and I think just the amount of makeup I'm in now is just enough.

[11:44] Alan Seales: You're all scruffy. Are you supposed to keep the scruff out, or are you just not shaved, or sometimes you're clean-shaven, or what?

[11:49] Alex Brightman: They'll, I'll be in the, they're gonna shave my face. They'll, what do you call it, they'll buzz my face to a certain length tonight, once a week, just to keep it level. But yeah, I keep the scruff for the show. Gets painted on, powdered on, and all that, and I get my nails painted twice a week. Other than that, it's a lot of maintenance, because the makeup takes about 30 minutes, and then wigs, and then it's a whole thing, but I've gotten very used to it, and I really like it, because there's, the benefit is that once it's done, there I am, and there's nothing easier than looking in the mirror going, oh, okay, that's who that is. You feel it. Big time. It's the ultimate, like, Halloween syndrome.

You're like, I am Superman when I have this cape on. I definitely feel like a different thing when I have the suit on, and look in the mirror, and I don't look like myself, and I get to complete the look by pulling faces on stage every night, and I don't feel any shame doing it. You know, like, you're like, this, you don't comment on the idea, you just live it for two and a half hours, and later you deal with it.

[13:13] Alan Seales: I imagine you have some people come dressed as Beetlejuice, though, don't you?

[13:18] Alex Brightman: A lot. There's a lot of cosplay. A word I learned from this show.

[13:23] Alan Seales: Oh, really?

[13:26] Alex Brightman: Yep. I'd heard the word, I didn't know what it meant. Tons of people dressing up, tons of people wearing makeup. There's so much of a following for Beetlejuice, in general, that what we're thrilled about is that the purists have come see the show, because they were, like, coming to hate it, I think. You know, or they were just careful, or they were anxious, and they love it. And not everybody loves every show. I'm sure there are people that are disagreeing with me as I'm saying this, but for the majority, most people have come up to us and were like, I love both. Like, they exist in the same world for me, but they're two different things, and I think you guys did a careful job at making sure that the purists loved it, but that's because, and I think Rob McClure said this, and I agree, we were all so worried.

We wanted to take good care of it, because we liked it. That's the thing people don't understand, I think, is that we weren't just like, what role is this? Yeah, okay, I'll do it. We carefully wanted to be in this show, and auditioned our asses off to get here. So to ruin it for ourselves is masochistic.

[15:15] Alan Seales: Has anybody ever stayed at the stage door to tell you negative things?

[15:20] Alex Brightman: Not on purpose. There are people that are like, oh, you look skinnier on stage, which is not a compliment. Or, you know, here's the compliment that I would love to never get anymore, and it's, I understand why people say it, they're just saying it wrong. When people say, boy, you just have a natural gift for this, it's not true. So much work has gone into this, and everybody has done so much work to do the thing that we're doing, that it may look natural, and it may look effortless, but for someone to say, boy, God gave you a gift, I said, if musical theater came naturally to somebody, that person is a crazy person. To go up on stage in a costume and pretend to be somebody for two and a half hours is not natural, by definition.

So to say, when people are like, it just comes so effortlessly to you, I go, it doesn't. That discounts the years and hours of, like, arduous hard work that we put in on and off stage, at home, in my bathroom, making faces in the mirror for this, that I know what you mean, but stop saying it. Just say, you make it look effortless, or just, you know what, say good job. I take that as a compliment. You don't have to be clever with your compliments. We like, nobody hates to be liked. If you're doing the thing, if you're liking somebody, you've done it. But there are, there are like, every once in a while, there's like a fan that will be like, I saw you messed up a line tonight, which is like, kind of, it doesn't insult me ever.

It's just kind of like, oddly kind of cool. I was like, wow, you really pay attention. You've been there a lot. And part of me just wants to be like, save your money, because like, you know, I want you to make sure that you also love your life. Thank you for coming to see my show 19 times, but the sort of Jewish mother in me also was like, make sure you have enough money to eat as well. But again, thanks for coming.

[17:20] Alan Seales: That's fun. And the generational gap I find very interesting. Like you're saying, the purists are probably of a certain age, and then all the people who are just now seeing the show for the first time, have never seen a Broadway musical, or finding it on social media, or they like the soundtrack, whatever the case is. Or this is their very first version of Beetlejuice, and the movie comes second for them, which is also kind of fun.

[17:40] Alex Brightman: Right, which is weird to me. Like, I grew up, you know, I was, I was the age of movie. Yeah, I mean, I think I was, was it 1988? Yes. Yeah, I think it was. I think it was 88. I was born in 87, so I watched it as a kid, but not when it came out.

[17:55] Alan Seales: Right, right.

[17:56] Alex Brightman: But yeah, it is weird to be like people's first Beetlejuice, because it's like, it's been around for so long. But it's fascinating. That's how, that's why I think we're a good adaptation. I just think it's like, people don't need to, someone's like, I don't even want to watch the movie now. I'm like, all right, well, that's your own decision. But like, it's cool that like, this satiated you enough as a property, that you don't, that you feel like this is the one you want to hold on to. That means a lot to me.

[18:20] Alan Seales: Well, you're standing on your own.

[18:24] Alex Brightman: Yep, that feels nice. It is, it's the same concept, different story.

[18:29] Alan Seales: Yep.

[18:30] Alex Brightman: Yeah.

[18:31] Alan Seales: So, shifting gears, TV and film.

[18:34] Alex Brightman: Yes. You still, you do some of that. Do you, are you doing any at all now? Or did you take time away from the show to go audition or film things?

[18:42] Alex Brightman: Now that we've been running for like, I think almost six months, around that, that sounds about right. We have something called outs, which is like, you get in your contract, which is, you can, if you book a movie or a TV show or a guest star on Law & Order SVU, you can, you have outs for a certain amount of days that have to be cleared by the producers. But you can do it. And that's nice, because we have a lot of our days free. So, why not continue trying to work? So, I've done a little bit of that. I mean, documentary now came in a nice gap. So, got to do that, which was, again, like, fantasy camp for comedy actors, like myself.

[19:14] Alan Seales: Right.

[19:15] Alex Brightman: But mainly, what I do in my off time, is I write. And that's become sort of a second part of my career, is that I write plays, books for musicals. And I got really fortunate, and I got a, I sold a show to NBC two years ago, and developed it over the year, and then never went to pilot. But it was such a fascinating world, that I've now sort of joined that world in a very, very low, amateurish way, currently. But the benefit is, I got to meet all these great people that are involved in that world, and now, every fall, right this moment, going out to pitch shows, to hopefully get a pilot on the air. And that's been a blast. And my wife and I will write together every once in a while, which is super fun.

And my writing partner, Drew Gasparini, and I write musicals together, one of which just did its first workshop with Second Stage, and Universal Theatrical, which was an adaptation of a novel and a movie, called It's Kind of a Funny Story, which is the other Ned Vizzini property. It's like the Be More Chill guy wrote this really, really, really heartfelt, funny, bracing account. And semi-autobiographical, he sort of fictionalized the account that he really lived through, of him checking himself into a mental institution for five days, because he was thinking about killing himself.

[20:27] Alex Brightman: The great thing about this musical is that it's really pertinent. It's like, there are a lot of kids that need to hear the message of this musical that we wrote, which is, it's not, it's all right to be not all right, that you don't have to use that as a criteria to leave. Like, life can be overwhelming, but it's not a, it's not a reason to leave, it's a reason to live. Like, overwhelming is part of life. It's part of the life thing. Just because you feel wrong doesn't mean you shouldn't live. So that's this, like, big part of this musical, and unfortunately, Ned Vizzini ended up committing suicide. That's, like, the really tragic irony of the thing, is that this is a very pro-life, I mean that not in the abortion sense.

It's very, like, yay life novel and story, and he ended up not being able to hang, and not being able to, you know, hack the life thing, and it's devastating. And having lost somebody, a couple people, but really recently, somebody very close to Beetlejuice went the same way, and it just, this is a story. Not necessarily the musical we wrote, you know, I'm not saying this is why we need to do this musical, but it's stories like this that need to get told, because this is the way people's lives get to change. If someone sees or hears this musical, they get to go, you know what, maybe life is not as bad as I think it is. And if it is, if it is as bad as I think it is, there are ways to get help.

I think there are, we're just on the cusp of, like, finding what I'm gonna say, for lack of a better word, that are important musicals. And I don't say, like, it's important because it means something, it's important because it's something that not a lot of people talk about.

[21:10] Alex Brightman: Beetlejuice discusses death a lot, and a lot of people find that subject to be taboo, with their kids, with, you know, where did grandma go? The big question, right? And we don't think about that a lot, but our musical, Beetlejuice, allows you to go, wasn't that fun? But also, now that we've experienced it, why don't we talk about it? That's happened with our musical. And now, with It's Kind of a Funny Story, as a writer, it's really fulfilling to have, see people watch it, have an emotional response, and also go, this reminded me of my son when he was going through mental trauma. Or this reminded me of me, when I was feeling like I wasn't gonna be able to make it. So I think just that alone, at this workshop, was any indicator. I think it's a musical that people are gonna want to see.

[21:50] Alex Brightman: We're really making big strides to make it authentic so it doesn't feel that like depression and anxiety is this whimsical thing that you can get over. Certainly not the point. It doesn't go away. And that's a big part of our show. That is a big message of our show. It's a big thing. But I do think it's going to be great. I do. I, you know, I'm a little biased because I wrote it, but I do think that it is going to be something that people are going to want to see. It's something I'd want to see on stage. And it'll take time. It's not one of those things that needs to rush anywhere. I think good musicals don't need to, just because it's good, don't put it up, you know, let it work. Let it go up when it needs to go up.

[22:29] Alan Seales: Yeah. I was reading that you're writing two original musicals. So that's one of them. Do you have another one?

[22:36] Alex Brightman: Yeah. I mean, we're writing. So Drew and I wrote a musical. The first thing we ever wrote was called Make Me Bad. And it was this musical about a serial killer that I believe truly, by the way, was ahead of its time. And I'm saying that with no irony, I think that it was just hard to read, hard to listen to, hard to watch. It got produced. And it was sold out. It sold out and extended at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. And it is very gritty telling a totally original story of a girl who, you know, a woman in her 30s who has lived in Montana, hasn't done a lot with her life and has taken care of her mom. That's sort of her job and has not done anything for herself. And she works at a diner and she meets a guy that changes her life.

Except we know as an audience that this guy is a serial killer and they genuinely fall in love with each other, except the fact that she doesn't know anything about him. Right. And you kind of watch those events play out and it becomes this sort of no winking at this genre at all, a very true thriller horror musical with real danger. The first five minutes of it take place in complete darkness and you're just listening to two guys that have been trapped. Wow. So we're trying to get that off the ground somewhere. Like it's just a thing that was like, it isn't all that commercial. You know, it's like, you don't want to bring your family of four to the murder musical. So there's that. We have we're adapting this children's novel called The Whipping Boy, which is a Newbery Award winner and big, fun, bombastic, wicked, you know, scale type musical about a king, sorry, a prince who is a jerk.

And you can't, the whole rule of the kingdom is you can't hit him. And so they've hired a kid from the streets that they hit instead. He's the whipping boy. And it's a jerk. They take a journey outside of the castle where they kind of both realize outside of castle walls, they're just two 10 year old boys and their roles have been given onto them. And they sort of learn and there's, you know, bandits and all that kind of thing, but they, it's a fun, it's a story about, you know, who we really are when we're not dressed the same.

[24:51] Alan Seales: Oh man, you got a lot of depth in you.

[24:54] Alex Brightman: I have depth in me. Can I tell you really quickly about that? Here's how much depth I have in me. Hey, this is the two plays I wrote aren't the two plays I wrote. And the one I'm working on are none of them comedies. One of them, which I'm extremely proud of all of them. I just think that they're all just interesting enough stories, especially now. And it's weird how when you finish something and then the world takes a turn and you're like, wow, this is the play I wrote. One of them is about five guys who come back to their sixth friend's funeral and decide to dig up a time capsule. They buried it senior year of high school. They're now in their late thirties. And inside the time capsule is all these fun things, but also a rape accusation that it was became a cold case many years ago in their last night, last week of senior year.

And they have to suss out what the hell is going on. What, why is this in there? What's the deal? And it takes the place over the course of about an hour and a half over the same night, in the quad of their school where they dug it up. Yeah. And that's titled, we left it here. And the other one is called everything is fine, which was about the second year anniversary of a mall shooting and the mom, dad, and son of the brother who committed the shooting and how they, if they are able to move on and defy their new identity as that kid's family, can that even be possible? This kid's now, this younger brother is now applying for colleges with the same last name as the kid who is now synonymous with murder.

Right. And I just found it fascinating the idea that we always interview the families of the victims. We never sort of see the other side of it. And I, and maybe rightly so, but I thought it was a fascinating idea to just see how you could possibly defy an identity you never asked for and that you spent your whole life cultivating one identity. And in seconds, now you're not, you're not, you know, Alan, you're that guy's friend. And I thought that was just a subject that hadn't been discussed. There was a play that just opened, I think at the roundabout underground that sort of discusses a similar topic, which is, I can't remember what it was called. It was called a clean place. I think it was called something like that.

But I'm glad these things are happening. And then the third one, again, not a comedy and also not a musical, it's called slow children and it's about a middle school. It's essentially like a morality, like 12 angry men type play where it's a board of a middle school meeting because a month ago, a kid with down syndrome walked outside of the school grounds and was involved in a hit and run where he died and the car sped away, but there was no stop sign or speed bump. So the idea is, do we spend school money on a commemorative, on a, you know, a memorial speed bump and stop sign to prevent further accidents seems simple until you find out everybody's thoughts on the event and, and who's to blame and what's the, you know, and it becomes very like God of carnage, a very simple event, except it's so not simple when you think about it.

[27:59] Alan Seales: Dude, you, you have, you have so impressed me.

[28:02] Alex Brightman: Oh, thanks. That's all I wanted to do is impress you. But I just like, I think when I mentioned these things, it's not to gloat, it's to like, I really like, and my wife and I are, this are very similar in this respect. We like to encourage people to continue doing things like when you're bored, right? When you're bored, read when you're bored, don't just sit on your couch going, I'm bored, especially now. And like, we help a lot of writers, like young writers that want to write. We, we're the two people that go do it. There's so much, well, there's so much ability to be distracted that I think it's hard for people to focus now.

[28:37] Alan Seales: It is. I get that. And that's why people like my wife and I, I think exist in some people's lives, which is like to go to say, Hey, how's that thing you're working on? If only to make them feel embarrassed that they hadn't because then they'll work on it. And there's nothing in your friends. Dude, I counted. I'm so good at accountability with my friends when they, I always say, don't tell me you're writing something unless you are, because if you're not, I will check in on you with, Oh dude, dude. I'm saying, I'm like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. If I tell you, I will help you. I will help you. Rob McClure is writing a novel and it's this really cool thing. And I'm not going to just for the sake of, I don't know how much he wants to put out there.

What it is. It's just very cool. And it's fantasy and it's based on something it's adjacent world of something. And I'm thrilled about it. And when he told me the idea, I was like, you have to do that. I mean, it's, the idea is so good. And throughout the course of like going to DC with Beetlejuice and rehearsing it, he always saw me on breaks writing. And he said, this is his words. He's like, I started doing that. And then I would also come in and be like, where's that thing you're writing? I want to read it. I want to read more. And so by virtue of that, he's like knee deep in writing it. And it's, I'm so excited to read the whole thing. I'm so excited for everyone to read the thing. And it couldn't be more Rob McClure.

If you know Rob McClure, the property he's dealing with couldn't be more up his alley. I like leaving you in the dust a little bit with that because the mystery, and now I've said it on a podcast. So now Rob has to finish it. Ultimate accountability.

[30:13] Alan Seales: All right. Well, we have to get you to your show tonight. So we're going to get to the wrap up here. So there's three standard questions I ask everybody to end the episodes. The first one is what motivates you?

[30:26] Alex Brightman: Money. No, no. What motivates me is the people that haven't seen the thing I've done yet. So I owe it to them to be as good as the thing they were told about.

[30:37] Alan Seales: Next question then, what advice would you give to younger self and younger people now listening out, starting out down a similar path that is different from don't decorate your dressing room?

[30:42] Alex Brightman: Yep. Don't think about Broadway. A lot of people ask, how do I get to Broadway? And that is an unanswerable question. It's different paths. It's different people. My thing, it's the most cliche thing you're going to hear over the course of your career. But I'm telling you this literally live in the moment. The thing you're doing right now, remember that you're doing it. If you're doing a show that is a weekend long, two performances over Saturday and Sunday, don't think about the next show you're going to do. Think about the show you're in, make eye contact with the performers you're doing it with. Otherwise, when you get to a certain age and you are on Broadway, hopefully with any luck, you will forget all the things that brought you there.

I wish I knew more of that. I started doing it pretty early, but I wish I did it even earlier. So really, truly like live in the moment. And I don't say that as an aspirational quote or an encouraging quote, actually live in the moment.

[31:33] Alex Brightman: Okay. So then the final question, if you can only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as who's Tommy.

[31:37] Alan Seales: All right. Hands down. Who's Tommy every time.

[31:44] Alex Brightman: Okay, sweet. So we can find you online on Twitter, a bright monster at a bright monster. And you can get more of me, the theater podcast.com show your support at the theater podcast.com slash Patreon. Get me on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast. Listen and subscribe. Tell your friends, leave a rating. I read the reviews. They're so much fun. This is produced by Jillian Hockman, edited by Matthew Hendershot. Thank you to jukebox the ghost for the intro and outro music.

[32:09] Alex Brightman: I love jukebox the ghost. Do you?

[32:13] Alan Seales: I love them. Well, you will hear them when you listen to yourself. Now. They played my wife in in my that's the song. One of their songs played my wife and I as the first couple into our wedding.

[32:24] Alex Brightman: Really? Yes. Fred Astaire.

[32:29] Alan Seales: Wow. Yep. I love I love the jukebox the ghost. Yeah, I love I love those guys.

[32:32] Alex Brightman: Yes. Well, thank you jukebox. You have influenced everyone's life. And Alex Brightman, thank you for being here. This is wonderful. My man.