This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to the Theatre Podcast. Intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest names. I am your host, Alan Seales, and this is the final episode of June, which means it's the end of our Bleeding Love takeover. If you haven't listened to it already, please visit bpn.fm slash Bleeding Love. It's an original musical podcast set in a post-apocalyptic time about a bunch of people who can't go outside because it's too dangerous. Art mimics life. And this was written years ago, long before our current pandemic. So it's actually very apropos that we're listening to this now. So in case you didn't hear about it, singles from the show have actually dropped on Spotify and iTunes and Google Music and everywhere.

So if you just search for Bleeding Love everywhere you stream your music, you should be able to find a couple singles. And at the point I'm recording this intro, there's actually a full podcast album in the works, but you can get a couple singles out now. So just look for those. This episode is with Arthur Bacon, Harris Doran, and Jason Schafer, who are three of the primary creative forces that have brought Bleeding Love to life over the past couple of years. And if you listen to the last episode, episode 98 with Tony Vincent, I asked him, I said, why did you do this? Why were you part of this project? And he was like, I love passionate people. I love passionate projects. And he was referring specifically to these three, Arthur, Harris, and Jason.

And in this conversation, in this episode, you hear it, the love and the passion that they have for making art and for creating and for bringing this to life is just, it's unparalleled. I really, really enjoy this conversation and I know you will too. So before we get into this, as always, please visit me online at theater underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Visit me on the web at thetheaterpodcast.com. Please show your support in this difficult time through ttp.fm slash Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And now everybody, please enjoy this episode with Arthur Bacon, Harris Doran, and Jason Schafer.

[2:19] Alan Seales: I have the pleasure today of interviewing not one, not two, but three of the creatives that recently collaborated on the podcast musical Bleeding Love. They each have extensive careers in their own right, which we will get into, from award-winning indie films to GLAAD Media award-winning television series to Clio Awards. From best original music, Arthur Bacon, Harris Doran, and Jason Schafer, welcome to the Theatre Podcast.

[2:49] Arthur Bacon: Thank you for having me.

[2:50] Jason Schafer: Thanks.

[2:51] Alan Seales: So just so we can identify your voices and associate that for other listeners, let's go through, start with Arthur. Introduce yourself and explain how you're connected to Bleeding Love.

[3:01] Arthur Bacon: I'm Arthur Bacon, and I wrote the music to Bleeding Love.

[3:06] Alan Seales: Yes, the music. Music is what we've got in crowds. Okay, Harris.

[3:13] Harris Doran: I'm Harris Doran. My voice is a little raspy because I'm having terrible allergies, and I wrote the lyrics. Lyrics and directed it and edited it.

[3:22] Alan Seales: Oh, the podcast, yes, yes, the podcast. Yes, and Jason Schafer.

[3:27] Jason Schafer: I am Jason Schafer, and I wrote the book to Bleeding Love.

[3:31] Alan Seales: All right, so the book of Bleeding Love. I want to start there because Bleeding Love is a podcast that, I mean, is a musical that existed years and years ago that now we've recently turned into a podcast radio play. And the story behind it is very eerily similar to the world we live in right now where it's set in a place where it's not safe to go outside. And obviously this existed in your mind, Jason, long before COVID. So where did this actually start, and how long ago did it start?

[4:04] Jason Schafer: So actually, you know, I had a friend... It's hard to talk about. It goes back quite a ways, I will say. I had a friend who actually just recently listened to the podcast who remembered me telling her a version of this story when I was an undergraduate, which was a while ago. But how it started for me was I wanted to write a story that had kind of a strong emotional center, a strong emotional pull. That was my kind of objective before I knew anything about it. And I just started by doing a list of a bunch of items that had kind of emotional power in my life. And I assembled quite a long list and started using that list to create a story. And one of the elements on that list was an Oscar Wilde short story called The Nightingale and the Rose.

And so I took kind of the thread that lies in that piece, but then started to see how I could incorporate a bunch of other elements. And I don't know how, but I kind of led into... That's a fairy tale, and I think the post-apocalyptic setting lent itself to some of the fairy tale aspects in that story. But then obviously, I kind of paired it with some kind of darker elements as well. So it kind of took me in this direction. It was not a quick process. It was something that actually evolved over a number of years that was kind of a back burner project of mine through a lot of other things. So it's been going for a long time. And if you want to say fortunately or not, now we're in a time where life mirrors art, and it's getting a lot of attention very deservedly because it's a great story.

And then on top of the story, there is of course the music and the lyrics. And so Harrison and Art, when did you two get involved? And which came first? The chicken and egg for me, do lyrics come first or does music come first? How does that process happen?

[6:34] Harris Doran: The omelet came first. So I knew Jason for a long time back in my acting days. I was in some of his work and I was always a huge fan of his and a friend. And so Jason came to see a musical that Art and I had written called Salvage that had this big concert reading at New World Stages, which then was called, what was it called back then?

[7:12] Arthur Bacon: Hire?

[7:13] Harris Doran: No, no, not the musical. The New World Stages was called something else. Anyway. And so after seeing that, Jason was excited and talked to me about working together. And he told me about this story. And at the time, I wasn't sure that that was the right piece for Arthur and I to be working on next. And then we were working with these producers on that show and blah, blah, blah. I came back to Jason and was like, what was that story with the rose? And then we started working on it. And that was 2010.

[7:52] Jason Schafer: And wow, that was 10 years ago. Yeah. And yeah. And then, I mean, Arthur and I, we don't have a specific music or lyrics. First, I think there are different pieces in here. It came different ways. And Arthur and I tend to write sort of in the same room together. So there's a lot of sort of back and forth. But some songs started music, some songs started lyrics. And yeah.

[8:29] Arthur Bacon: Yeah, it's a great mixture of it's every different way. But when we get together, it's a little we get together and something always happens. We just jam.

[8:34] Harris Doran: You're like improv. I just grew up playing with my older brothers, just jamming every day. So it's like an extension of just like getting together and having fun and jamming. And sometimes you have a melody already and sometimes you have lyrics. But a lot of times just getting together and there's that kind of combustion that happens.

[9:04] Alan Seales: It's interesting to me as somebody who doesn't write any music and is like I can sing, but I don't like I can read enough music to like get by. But in terms of making things up from scratch, like that always just blows my mind how people can do it. And for me to listen to a script or read a script or listen to a reading and then say, oh, okay, so here's the melody that comes out of that just is beyond my level of understanding. So the two of you, you know, Art and Harris, like when you guys sit down, I'm like, Jason, are you there? Were you there as part of the process of like, oh, that has the right feel or that this this is too upbeat for this scene?

[9:36] Jason Schafer: I think this was a very smooth writing process for the most part. I mean, in general, how it would work is Harris and I would meet and we'd talk about the dramatic moment. And sometimes we zero in on the subject in some way. But then they would go off and write. And then usually it wasn't even that long that within a week I'd get an email like Harris is a great vocalist. And so they were Harris performed all the demos that I would get the Harris demo a couple of days after after that meeting. And like, as I recall, I know we tried an opening number that I wasn't happy with. And I said, like, I think we need to look at that, but let's just move forward. But then they kind of after that, they just kind of hit it after the park song after song.

It was like Bleeding Love, Plastic Rose. Up there, I mean, just like those were the next three songs that came into my inbox and they were phenomenal. And there's a there's like an amazing thing I have to say that happens to someone who like lived with this story. And then it's in in my head and then you bring people into it or they they step into it and it becomes another thing. And that's a that's a challenging and kind of scary part of the collaboration because when it's just a vocal agreement, no one knows what's going to happen. But certainly I think when Bleeding Love came back, I was thrilled and and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is a new thing. There was that thing, but now it's turning into this new thing. That is the thing that the three of us are building. And then that kind of kept up with song after song.

[11:44] Harris Doran: Yeah. And sorry. And I would say, you know, so from the conversations that Jason and I would have, you know, for me, since my background is as an actor, when Art and I were working together, it was just about like part of the improv is like acting the moment. Right. And so because it was clear what the moment was supposed to be, then Art and my improv is sort of like, how do we activate this action? What does the character want? It all comes back to like foundational, you know, playwriting more than it is like, oh, what is the melody or what is the lyric? It's more like, well, what is the what is the what are we trying to achieve here? What is the character trying to achieve here? Right. And so so it all was connected, you know, like all three elements as like a singular thrust.

[12:33] Jason Schafer: And I would say just to add to what Harris said, though, the emotional rightness of the music in all the places was huge and something that sometimes when I see shows and a song starts up and it's not emotionally where you are in the story or something. And I mean, that was what the songs were nailing, which which was thrilling. And that's and all of a sudden it kind of amplifies the story in in ways beyond expectation. Well, you want to care about the characters and the more emotionally invested in audiences in a story, the more they're going to want to see it again and listen to the music over and again and tell their friends and all of that.

[13:21] Alan Seales: So it's, you know, the three of you together are like the Triforce, if we want to go to Zelda, right? Zelda, yeah. You guys make the Triforce of this perfect musical. And it was originally written, obviously, as a stage production. It had readings. It had a demo. And then there was, so of course, then the cast came in. And, you know, Jason, you were saying it became something else when more people come in. But there's the creative team. And then there's the actors that then come in and put their own life into all of the characters that maybe didn't exist before. So who was responsible for the casting? Did any of you do the casting for the original demo?

[14:11] Jason Schafer: We did all of it. I mean, they were all, the original demo were all people we knew. Yeah, we, so Sarah did it at NAMMT, which was the, Sarah Stiles, who plays Bronwyn. She was with it at NAMMT, which was the very first time it was presented anywhere. Annie Golden did a workshop with us prior to the demo. So they all kind of came on board at different parts, and then a few of them showed up for the first time at the demo. But yeah, all of it was us reaching out, predominantly Harris, although Sarah, I think, was my call originally. But yeah. The cast is phenomenal. Sarah Stiles, Taylor Trench, Tony Vincent, Mark Kudisch, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Annie Golden, in no particular order listed, all amazing.

And it's this ensemble cast that carries everything and sings it very well. And it's, full disclosure to those listening, I was one of the producers on this and was the audio engineer. So we recorded this, the dialogue, entirely in quarantine too, which was new for me at the time. Now it's become the norm. And strangely, which I guess parallels very much Bleeding Love, if they were making their own radio play. But so we get, we have the cast. All right, I'm trying to, I'm getting ahead of myself. There's you guys creating this thing, and it's being staged. It has a demo. It actually gets stage legs in Denmark, yeah?

[15:55] Harris Doran: Yeah, because we were in NAMMT with the show. And so from NAMMT, a lot of opportunities came. And one of those opportunities was Soren Moeller, who was the head of this theater in Fredericia, wanted to do it and did the world premiere of the show and did a stunning production of it. And he was the one who produced our original demos with this cast. He recorded the orchestra in Denmark during the production, then brought it over here, and then we used this American Broadway cast. And that's how the demo came about. So then at what point did someone say, you know what, this needs to be a radio play podcast?

[16:43] Jason Schafer: When the world fell apart. It was actually a bizarre coincidence. So Katie Rosen, who's one of the producers, is someone that I've known for years. And she came on to the project last summer, because I ran into her, because I was a judge at Nymph. And then we caught up and she listened to it and was like, let's do this. And so then, I believe a week before COVID happened, she had a meeting with this guy, Alan. And Katie brought the idea of doing a podcast, because, you know, so by that point, we had brought on Katie Rosen, and then Kent Nicholson, who actually was originally someone who helped us get into NAMMT way back when.

[17:49] Harris Doran: Because we missed the deadline.

[17:51] Jason Schafer: We missed the deadline. Yeah, so my buddy Jason Raitt, who had listened to the project, he was like, you know, you guys should apply to NAMMT. And I was like, oh, when's the deadline? We looked it up, and it was like, oh, it was last week. So we missed it. So then he got in touch with Kent, and then Kent listened to it. And Kent was like, I'll sponsor you and send this to NAMMT. And then we got in. So coming back around, Kent is now a producer on the show. Because Katie and I were like, let's just meet people, let's meet up, let's talk to producers. And so I was like, hey, Kent, do you want to get together? And while we were talking, I was asking him advice, and he just was like, I want to produce this.

And I was like, oh, okay. And then my buddy Steve Saperito, who is one of the producers on Hedwig, who I actually met through politics, you know, I was talking to him, and then he also was like, I want to work on this. And so then we had these three producers, and one of the questions was, how do we get this going again? Because basically, after Denmark, there was no next step that happened after that. And so it was this idea of what do we do to reignite it? And so we talked about doing a concert, you know, 54 Below or at Joe's Pub. And so when Katie met with you, Alan, then she brought back this idea of doing a podcast. And so it was just kind of a question mark. Then the next week, less than a week later, so it was three days later, the world fell apart.

And we were like, hey, why don't we do that podcast? And so we immediately went into action. So Katie called you and you guys said yes, and we were thrilled. Because we were like, well, I guess our show's about this. So this is the moment. This is the moment. And yeah, and you guys said yes, and we were thrilled. And so then we just moved forward and, you know, called Sarah.

[20:02] Harris Doran: A week later, if I remember correctly.

[20:04] Jason Schafer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Called everybody. We were fortunate enough to get all of the original people from the demo, you know, the cast that you hear now are the same people they heard on the demo. They were shockingly available.

[20:18] Alan Seales: It's very interesting to me, something that Tony Vincent said in the episode that is released previous to this one. I asked Tony, I said, why did you get involved with this? Because he's in Nashville and he's got the kids now and he's this indie recording artist and kind of left his theater roots behind more or less. And he said that he loves good music. He loves people who are passionate about music. And if the music itself is good, even better. So working with the three of you and singing the lyrics with the music, like it was just a no brainer. He said he had to do it. And he's the nicest guy. He's the nicest guy. And Alan, my little brother, Nick, was in the band with Tony. My little brother plays guitar. So he had played with Tony in the past.

[21:19] Harris Doran: Oh, really?

[21:20] Alan Seales: Yeah. So before Tony sang on this, he was like, oh, I know your brother. Rebecca and Tony knew each other from American Idiot.

[21:25] Jason Schafer: Yeah. And I know Rebecca from my apartment because she was my roommate for two years.

[21:31] Alan Seales: The theater world is so small.

[21:33] Harris Doran: Yeah. Her aunt's table is still in my kitchen.

[21:38] Alan Seales: Well, so then in podcast form, Jason, did you go back and tweak things? And so the final script that we ended up working with, how did that change from the stage production?

[21:44] Jason Schafer: Yeah. So I had to do kind of this slam bang adaptation. And the show is incredibly visual. And that's something that they actually realized marvelously in Denmark. And so all of a sudden, you're being robbed of a lot of the visuals. So there are kind of two categories of changes. And one is just tweaking dialogue to make sure that any action that's covered visually is represented in some way. And then the character played by Mark Kudisch is a narrator in the prologue and the epilogue of the stage show. But there's no narration through the huge middle of the piece. And so that was kind of just a natural extension to write that stuff. And fortunately, I'd written it, I have to say, already in a slightly elevated style. So it wasn't much of a leap to kind of pare down the things that were already in the script. But it did take a reimagining to make sure that it was something that was a listening experience and not just a stage show recorded.

[23:05] Alan Seales: Did you, as the book writer, did you go in and add in cues for sound effects or ambient music or anything? Or like Harris or Art, did you guys look at the script and say, oh, we need a sound effect here? Or Harris, as the audio editor, did you add things that even weren't in the script?

[23:23] Jason Schafer: I think there were lots of layers of that. There were stuff that was already suggested by the action and stuff that was already in the script. And so those I left in. But then Harris, in his process, and he can talk about this, but he obviously found things that weren't actually indicated in the script that are in the sound design of the piece.

[23:47] Harris Doran: You had gone through the script and put, there were a bunch of indications that were really helpful that Jason put into the script to begin with. And then, you know, the process of editing it, because everyone was in quarantine, you know, everyone recorded at the same time, but, you know, the timing was not there. So it was basically getting like a bunch of mush, like acting mush, you know. And so I was sort of recreating the intention of the performance by re-editing everyone's timing to come together, to feel like what they probably were doing. And so the way that I was able to do that was to basically act them. So I did the timing based on, like, I would become them and I would time it based on being them.

And so then that, in terms of the sound design, was sort of the same thing. Oh, they're walking here. How is the scene staged? It was a very visual, mentally visual process of editing the sound, which is how the sound design came about. And then I brought on my buddy, Rick Schnupp, to do, to really make the sound design real. And he does films and he did Midsommar and won an Emmy this year for free solo. And so he and he had someone who was working with him and they did like Foley and added other things and added like a gloss over all of it to make it, you know, mastering to make it sound sensational like it does. And that's Rick. Like I definitely did a lot of work, but then the reason it sounds so good is Rick.

[25:34] Alan Seales: So I have done, I've done some other audio only projects and I've done plenty of TV and film projects in my experience. And what surprised me about the process for Bleeding Love is that we had a day prior for recording for rehearsal. We did like front to back rehearsal and got everybody in a Google Hangout and we had everybody on screen faces and tried to get cues as much as we could. And then for recording too, you chose as the director, you chose to do the same thing. So why not just say, oh, Annie's available tomorrow. Let's do all of Annie's lines or Rebecca's available on Saturday. Let's do all Rebecca's lines on Saturday. Like why choose to record this as a comprehensive, like we recorded it as if it was being put up on stage. So, you know, I think that it's not the same, you know, recording just by yourself. These are actors who act off of each other and are inspired by each other and would laugh at each other's performances.

[26:43] Broadway Podcast Network:

[27:13] Broadway Podcast Network:

[27:43] Broadway Podcast Network:

[28:13] Alan Seales: Art and Jason, the two of you, when you heard the finished product, was it what you expected or different or beyond?

[28:33] Jason Schafer: As a writer, having my baby and my music being sent off to a director and a bunch of actors and this guy you've never heard of who has a microphone in front of his face to create these things and pull them together, I don't know what I would have expected. And then hearing the finished product, I was blown away. I thought it was great.

[28:53] Harris Doran: Oh yeah, well, they're Jason's words, so I'll let him get, like, I was completely blown away.

[29:00] Jason Schafer: Yeah, so this is, yeah, I was blown away by the product. Absolutely. And it's, we've learned with this piece that there are certainly actors who, like, dive in and get it and Harris is really, really good at pushing them there. And certainly, like, this cast is just, like, unlike a cast that we probably would have been able to get on the stage all at one time, all free schedules. And so to hear them is extraordinary. And Harris and Art and I have been living with this piece for so long that it's nice to hear the rhythms of the scenes done properly and the right emotional states, which this is something that's vulnerable, I think, for an actor, because they are being asked to go so far with it.

And all of these actors kind of just delighted in that. And some, like Annie, just automatically will go so far with everything. And then even, like, Tony, from when we did the demo five years ago to Tony now, like, Tony got it in a way, I think, from that experience. And he's wonderful on the demo, but then here, he just knew how to charge into the scenes. And so, yeah, it's amazing to hear. I'm really also glad that Sarah Stiles, at least in recording, can still play a teenager. Because I'm really happy to be able to listen to her performance as Bronwyn. But all the performances, I am really pleased with.

[30:59] Harris Doran: Yeah, Art, what about you?

[31:01] Arthur Bacon: Oh, exactly the same. I feel I was completely blown away by it. And there was a lot of work I did on the key songs, demo-wise, you know, there was just to make them better. But in terms of hearing the piece as a whole, all put together was amazing. It's quite an achievement. And I don't know, Harris really has such a gift for directing and editing. It's amazing.

[31:25] Arthur Bacon: It was fun to me to hear the finished product, because even when we were recording, you know, Harris was like, oh, we'll just extend that vamp, or we're going to put some underscoring here. So imagine that you're talking over this music here, so we would have the actors play the track back in their headphones, and sometimes sing a little bit, and then sometimes do the dialogue on top of it. And you're like, don't worry about it. Okay, now let's do it in the clear, which means nothing underneath it. And so we'll just extend the vamp. And to see it, to hear it all come together at the end was truly phenomenal. I mean, the talent the three of you have together is really incredible.

[32:12] Alan Seales: Thank you, Alan. I want to also say, though, what's interesting is, you know, musicals are not realistic just by nature. And so there's always a...

[32:27] Jason Schafer: You don't break out in a song over breakfast?

[32:30] Harris Doran: Well, I do.

[32:32] Jason Schafer: But so there's, and this piece in particular has a heightened style to it, or a unique style that's not really like anything else. And like, we compare it to a bunch of things to try and equate it, but it has a style. And having an audio-only version of it is an amazing thing, because you will get people who see it on the page or hear the demos, and they're like, wow, that's kind of big, and they're going for something. But to hear the entire piece performed at this level, recorded at this level, where there's like no excuses. This is the show. This is what the show is. I mean, I think it's a great way for musicals going forward to present themselves. I think in lots of ways, it's stronger than the workshops and some of the other things that the industry is doing.

[33:36] Arthur Bacon: I completely, 100% agree, which is, putting on my Broadway Podcast Network co-founder hat, is why this was a no-brainer to sign on with. Because, I mean, following up on the success of Percy Jackson musical and Be More Chill, and even Beetlejuice, the popularity that the soundtrack, that the audio only brings to these shows, which, you know, Beetlejuice was already on Broadway, but the other two were brought to Broadway because of the love for the music and for the soundtrack. And when I read the script in its original form, and then when I heard the demo music, I was like, yeah, this is so easy to do and so easy to stage. I put in air quotes because it's all audio. But we worked hard for a very short amount of time.

It was a sprint, and now we've taken a rest, and now it's back into marathon time because we're working on, I think by the time this episode drops, then I guess we can announce it here, but the music will be out on Spotify and Apple and all the other places. So we're going to, you know, the music will be available for streaming very publicly. And there's other things we can't talk about that are going to be landing, hopefully, whenever the world starts producing content again.

[35:10] Jason Schafer: But this deserves to be, or it lends itself to be so many different types of media, in addition to a stage project, because it could be animated, it could be cartoonish, it could be, you know, like Sarah Stiles plays a kid in the Steven Universe.

[35:31] Arthur Bacon: Yeah, she can.

[35:34] Jason Schafer: Yeah, so there's a lot of opportunity here, and I'm really excited. I'm excited to be a part of it. I'm excited to work with the three of you going forward.

[35:44] Harris Doran: We're so happy to be working with you and Dory. It's been such a gift.

[35:50] Arthur Bacon: Yeah, Dory Berenstein, one of the other producers and co-founder of VPN. Yeah, it's been wonderful. We skipped over one of the things that I normally ask everybody on the podcast at the very beginning, because we got right into Bleeding Love, but I want to ask the three of you kind of to tell your, in a nutshell, your story of what brought you into the world of performing and theater in general, what made you love the arts? So Art, let's start with you.

[36:17] Arthur Bacon: Yeah, well, so I grew up in northern Westchester, and my mom, she played guitar and piano, she wrote songs, and she was a published writer, and she had six kids, I was the fifth.

[36:30] Alan Seales: Wow.

[36:31] Arthur Bacon: And we all were just a musical crew, and there was a church right down the street, and she was the head of the children's choir, and we'd just always sing pop and rock and Beatles. So I think it's just from like four or five years old, every day she would play songs from West Side Story on the piano, and Godspell, and what's the other big ones? Oh yeah, Jesus Christ Superstar. So I was, you know, that guy, hearing that every day when you're a little kid, I just was like drawn into that, and then when I really started studying piano when I was 10, with a great jazz pianist named Lou Stein, and every week he'd have me play a standard song, just write the chords out in melody, or just show it to me, because I learned at first just by watching him.

And besides all the pop and rock, there was always a standard song I was playing, so by the time I was like 12 or 13, I probably played so many songs, I didn't know what musicals they were from, but they were all Cole Porter and George Gershwin. So I knew eventually I would be writing a musical, I knew that, it's just there were some other things I wanted to accomplish first, which were like being in a signed band, writing a hit song, and those things have to happen by a certain point. Writing musicals you can keep doing when you're in your 30s and 40s, you know.

[38:04] Jason Schafer: 90s, near 90s, yeah.

[38:06] Arthur Bacon: There's time for that, but I wanted to do some other things first, and I did those other things, and I wasn't so fulfilled with them, they were still like an empty spot, and I had a friend who was going to Juilliard, my best friend Darren, and he said, you just have to write musicals, you have to write musicals. And he kind of pushed me, and I got into the BMI workshop, and I met Harris, and then it was like, oh, this is writing music for stories and characters, there's just nothing like it. In our musical, Salvage, there was no other feeling like it when I saw that. So that gave me the greatest fulfillment, and it makes me feel very fulfilled and whole, but I still write songs for Pop and Rock, I have a publisher in LA, but this is my thing I really focus on, and it takes just about all your focus.

[39:06] Alan Seales: I want to add to your credits a little bit, because aside from composing music for Bleeding Love, you said you were in the Rock R&B musical, or you composed for Salvage, and Billy Sleepyhead, you've written songs for Joey Lawrence and Marion Raven, and Latin Supergroup CD9, you've won two Clios for Best Original Music, and you have two singles out by recording artist Jackson Penn, as well as upcoming Spencer Lee Band, you're in the Pop Rock, the big scene that, you were saying, I got to do this and this and this before I can do these other things, which is funny, because you're doing all this, you've written for, what is it, over 100 commercials?

[39:56] Arthur Bacon: Yeah, national television radio commercial spots.

[39:59] Jason Schafer: Yes, I've been really fortunate and privileged to, when I landed in New York,

[40:05] Jason Schafer: And my partner Ari and I got picked up by, we became head songwriters at Lippin Company, which was one of the big jingle companies in New York, right at 22nd and Fifth. And every day we just, you know, would write in the first couple months. I think we wrote to two different Pepsi spots that won Clio awards. It was like, whoa, I guess it's like, it's a lot easier than playing Rachmaninoff, I'll tell you that. I was like, oh, I think this is gonna, this is a little more up my alley. Like, okay, I can do this. So yeah, you just, if you're doing it every day for years, they kind of accumulate. And then a wonderful thing about New York, it's so small and you meet everyone very quickly, especially if you're doing something that, you know, you can pay people with for, you know, and so all the great musicians would just come in and you get to know them pretty quick. All the names you see on records growing up and all of a sudden they're there and you're working with them. So yeah, it's been, all that led me to musicals.

[41:17] Alan Seales: Yeah, it's just phenomenal to me. I mean, and Jason, I'm gonna go to you next here. You wrote the acclaimed indie hit, Trick from on Fineline Features and premiered on Sundance Film Festival. Like you've been a staff writer and a co-producer for Showtime's GLAAD Media Award winning Queer as Folk. And of course you've written for Warner Brothers, Paramount, ABC, Fox Television, and tons and tons of film credits that it's too long to list here. I'll put it in the show notes. But like, so you've got the TV and the film and whatnot, but yet you still come back to theater. And it's, I love, and I still don't really know how to explain it. And Art, you kind of touched on it just a second ago too. And Harris, I'm sure you all have a similar story as well. But having the love for theater and musical theater specifically does not leave you no matter how much TV and film you're involved with. And I can't explain why.

[42:24] Jason Schafer: Yeah, I mean, I'll just say for me, I fell in love with theater. My grandmother took me to plays as a little kid along with my cousins and like theater was magic. And it has a magic that doesn't get replicated in the other mediums. And no matter what else you do, it's like, oh, theater is something else. And I think theater was my first love. And no matter what else I do, it still holds a power for me that the other mediums don't. I think it's, yes, I think it's a chemical thing. And I've said this before in the podcast is the neuroscience behind all of it. And I think it was Tanya Pinkins who told me that the center of the brain that practices empathy, is responsible for empathy, cannot be trained without experiencing things in reality.

You can't imagine it unprepared for it, right? So seeing people go through traumatic experiences on stage or even happy experiences or whatnot, like as the brain is reacting to that, even though it's not real, it is real to the brain in that moment. And I think that's why people chemically sort of fall in love and have these reactions, these serotonin, endorphin, oxytocin releases with characters and songs and people on stage. Because they're reliving these memories and these feelings in a way that chemically, they don't realize it, but it's like, you smell something and you remember these old memories. I think you hear a melody and it's just kind of the same thing.

[43:50] Alan Seales: That's amazing. That is amazing. Tanya's amazing.

[43:54] Jason Schafer: Tanya is amazing. So Harris, gosh, you've worked on projects forever. Rachel Chavkin, Taylor Schilling, Evie Falco, Laura Benati, Cynthia Nixon, Alicia Rainer. The people you have worked with and directed and been involved with, your resume too is super, super long and you're in pre-production for your next film called Atticus Brown is Still Here. So even in the midst of all of this, you're still doing TV and film. But like for you, what is it that brings you back to this medium?

[44:40] Harris Doran: So it's so funny because I think there's something about theater that is truly heartbreaking. Like theater breaks your heart and you can't help but keep coming back. And I think that I've tried to run away from it throughout my life and especially musical theater to run away from it and to be like, I'm just doing straight acting. I'm doing Shakespeare, I'm doing film, I'm doing TV, but it always calls you back. And there's something of where the last bunch of years of my life have been mostly film and TV. And then the last year or so, just life has come together to pull me back into musical theater. And now I'm like, all right, here's an idea. Like, should we write this musical? We should write these 10 next new musicals.

Where like, you're just like, it brings me back to being a kid. There's something just that was so pure and innocent and me just like acting out roles. I mean, Annie Golden specifically. So I grew up on like the Assassin's soundtrack, right? And I would sing Unworthy of Your Love with Annie Golden in my bedroom. And then I grow up and become an adult and she and I sang that live together twice.

[46:04] Jason Schafer: Wow.

[46:05] Harris Doran: Yeah. And so like, and she's been in a bunch of our projects and it's sort of like this weird thing of how life comes around and it brings you back to like the innocence of your childhood in a way that is really emotional. And I think like, I mean, the world right now is very hard. And I think that there is something that draws you back in a like a purity, a love, an innocence to it that is magic. And you look at, I mean, surviving COVID, I mean, art is how people are surviving COVID, right? Film, TV, podcasts, music. Without art, people would be mentally really messed up. Right? But this is how it's surviving. And it just goes to show you the power of art, the power of music in a really, really tangible way. And so I think that's why people are drawn to it and back to it is there is a like emotional cleansing and an emotional catharsis.

[47:14] Alan Seales: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I agree with that. And that's, I mean, I acknowledge, I want to acknowledge, actually take this moment to acknowledge that, outside our windows right now is all of the protests and the movement for Black Lives Matter, which it shouldn't be a movement. It should just always be there. And some people have stopped recording completely. Some people aren't releasing episodes. And I've personally decided to continue releasing with the caveat that, I acknowledge what's going on, but exactly what you just said, Harris, that art can bring us together and art can heal. And art is, I think, a necessity for everybody to come together in general. I mean, even music is one of the oldest forms of communication. And there's a reason for that. Before you could write, you could dance. You know, babies, babies get to, you know, they're doing their groovy thing and moving around us. Like—

[48:09] Jason Schafer: You guys are missing this dance that Alan's doing right now.

[48:10] Alan Seales: Yeah. I can feel it.

[48:12] Alan Seales: Okay, this is fresh in my mind. Yeah, like people love to move. They love to just feel that rhythm pushing you inside. And if the lyrics are just that extra layer of love and affection towards something, it's just, and then, you know, layer that on with a great story to wrap it all together. And, you know, like that's perfection right there. So I'm really happy that you guys got together, that you knew each other, and that you're bleeding love because it's affecting a lot of people in a very positive way. So thank you all for that.

[48:46] Harris Doran: Thanks, Alan.

[48:49] Jason Schafer: Thank you.

[48:50] Arthur Bacon: I'm blessed to know Jason and Harris and have gotten to work with them. It's been an incredible experience.

[48:56] Alan Seales: Cool. So we will wrap up this episode with three standard closing questions that I ask everybody on the podcast. So we'll take turns. We'll take turns, and each of you will get a chance to each answer the question. So no cheating, but you can't help but cheat because you'll hear, two of you will hear me ask the other one first. Okay, so we'll start with Jason for this one. First question is what motivates you?

[49:19] Jason Schafer: Creating.

[49:20] Harris Doran: I'm going to steal Jason's, creating.

[49:23] Arthur Bacon: That's the same.

[49:24] Jason Schafer: Yeah. It's the same, creating, absolutely.

[49:30] Alan Seales: All right, so Art, we'll start with you for the second question. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now, starting out down a similar path?

[49:39] Arthur Bacon: There's time in the day to do everything. There's time. Just make time to do it all and go fearlessly, go fearlessly forward.

[49:57] Jason Schafer: I like that.

[49:58] Alan Seales: All right, Jason?

[50:00] Jason Schafer: I think what I've learned most is like, when I try and write what I think other people want, no one cares. And weirdly, when I write for me, those are always the projects that seem to have some sort of life. And so that's what I would recommend. Don't waste your time writing for other people.

[50:21] Harris Doran: I think because they're real and authentic, because you care about it and that shows.

[50:29] Alan Seales: Okay, Harris?

[50:30] Harris Doran: Great advice. I would say be yourself, that trying to be what you think society or the business wants you to be in order to achieve things is not worth the sacrifice of yourself. Be yourself and you'll find your way.

[50:51] Alan Seales: I like that. All right, so Harris, we're gonna start with you on this last question. If you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you could see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[51:02] Harris Doran: Oh, God. I mean, the first thing that came to my mind was Sweeney Todd. I'm not sure what that says, but.

[51:08] Jason Schafer: So many people say Sweeney Todd.

[51:10] Harris Doran: Really?

[51:10] Alan Seales: That's the first thing that came to my mind.

[51:11] Jason Schafer: That's crazy.

[51:12] Alan Seales: So many people, yeah.

[51:13] Jason Schafer: That is by far the majority.

[51:14] Harris Doran: Wow. It's just the first thing that came to me.

[51:16] Alan Seales: So many people.

[51:20] Alan Seales: Art, what about you?

[51:21] Arthur Bacon: Is this only musical theater or can it be film as well?

[51:25] Alan Seales: Anything, anything you want.

[51:27] Arthur Bacon: Oh, I guess Wizard of Oz.

[51:28] Alan Seales: Oh, good one.

[51:30] Jason Schafer: Ooh, all right.

[51:31] Alan Seales: Jason?

[51:32] Jason Schafer: Yeah, I think Art kind of wins with that. You know, I go through, I deconstruct everything until, like anything that has magic over me, I deconstruct it. I watch it, I live it, I breathe it. Until that magic is kind of destroyed and then I have to wait years to find it again. So it changes by the moment. I have a very weird one right now because I'm fascinated with a particular show that I've never been fascinated with before and that's Flower Drum Song. So it's just my moment right now. I don't think it's one of my favorites of all time, but it's certainly something I'm learning from in this particular moment in time.

[52:16] Alan Seales: Wonderful, all right. So let's start with Harris again. Where can we find you online?

[52:20] Harris Doran: HarrisDuran.com and HarrisDuran on Twitter and Instagram.

[52:26] Arthur Bacon: Art?

[52:29] Arthur Bacon: Instagram is ShedLove87.

[52:32] Alan Seales: ShedLove87. All right, Jason.

[52:34] Jason Schafer: You can't find me online.

[52:35] Alan Seales: You're not a social guy?

[52:37] Jason Schafer: No.

[52:39] Alan Seales: Oh, believe me, Jason, I went kicking and screaming into Instagram, so.

[52:43] Alan Seales: You can find more of me at thetheaterpodcast.com. Yeah, you can find me too, Harris. You can find more of me at thetheaterpodcast.com. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast. Please leave a rating and a review. Turn to your neighbor and say, hey, I just listened to this great podcast with these four great guys. You need to check it out too. This is edited by Matthew Hendershot. Thank you to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music and Jason Harris and Art. Thank you guys so much. This has been so much fun.

[53:14] Harris Doran: Thank you, Alan.

[53:16] Jason Schafer: Thank you.

[53:17] Arthur Bacon: Thanks, Alan.

[53:19] Alan Seales: Thank you.

[53:20] ♪ Musical number ♪