This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Ebony Vines: Welcome to Theatre Geeks Anonymous, the podcast about Broadway flops, scandals, and new work.

[0:09] Pamela Shandrow: I'm your host, Pamela Shandrow.

[0:11] Ebony Vines: And I'm your host, Ebony Vines. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Theatre Geeks Anonymous Podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network and all your favorite podcast listening apps.

[0:24] Pamela Shandrow: Thank you.

[0:28] Pamela Shandrow: And also, Ebony, I just need to, I can't wear my mask.

[0:32] Pamela Shandrow: I can't breathe through it. And if I breathe through it, then I'll get CO2 poisoning. And how will I live through that? I'll die. I'll die if I wear a mask. I can't wear a mask and I won't wear a mask. It's my freedom. It's my right, my body, my choice.

[0:46] Ebony Vines: How was that good?

[0:51] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, the accent. It was just that little bit of extra that was just really on point right then.

[0:56] Ebony Vines: I just really New England.

[0:58] Pamela Shandrow: Little New England.

[1:00] Ebony Vines: So pretentious.

[1:01] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, I summered in Cape Cod every summer with my parents.

[1:09] Ebony Vines: Martha's Vineyard.

[1:10] Pamela Shandrow: They should call it Pamela's Vineyard. I was there so often.

[1:18] Ebony Vines: This is funny.

[1:21] Pamela Shandrow: Oh my gosh.

[1:22] Ebony Vines: Oh Lordy.

[1:24] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, so needless to say, a lot has happened. Oh, my sister was actually just diagnosed with COVID.

[1:29] Pamela Shandrow: And she's doing okay. She says that she's got this kind of nagging cough, but she was just mostly achy and really tired. But it's like, you know, we might not have the death toll that we once did, but people are still dying from this.

[1:44] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[1:45] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. And the hospitalization numbers keep going up.

[1:50] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[1:50] Pamela Shandrow: Well, and that's what made us have to shelter in place in the first place.

[1:54] Ebony Vines: Right.

[1:55] Pamela Shandrow: Back in March, because the numbers were so much that the hospitals could not accommodate them. And that's when we ran into this emergency situation. So just saying.

[2:09] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[2:11] Pamela Shandrow: But we're not gonna talk about COVID. There's some cool stuff. Okay, so we're gonna talk about HOLLER If You Hear Me, but it's not.

[2:19] Ebony Vines: So it's actually HOLLER If You Hear Me.

[2:22] Pamela Shandrow: Oh right. But when I say it, it doesn't, it sounds very white.

[2:30] Ebony Vines: It's like me trying to say, bring in denoise, bring in defunct.

[2:35] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[2:35] Ebony Vines: It doesn't sound good. So I'm just gonna say you.

[2:38] Pamela Shandrow: Which we also talked about, uh, because that was that in the Reddit.

[2:43] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[2:45] Pamela Shandrow: I'll talk about it here, I think a little bit too. Because it was at the same time that all of this was kind of happening.

[2:51] Ebony Vines: Oh, okay.

[2:52] Pamela Shandrow: It was also at the same time. Bring in denoise.

[2:56] Ebony Vines: Anyway, yeah. That's what we're gonna talk about today. This will be exciting because there's a lot of information, and I'm sorry to say that a lot of it I couldn't find um sources about or like you know, more information through, but it is really interesting to kind of delve into. And because it's a more recent show, there's loads of videos that you can watch and loads of interviews that you can watch that were videotaped, and so like that was really fun to kind of fall down that rabbit hole.

[3:28] Pamela Shandrow: So HOLLER If You Hear Me is a jukebox musical written by Todd Kriedler featuring the rap music of Tupac Shakur.

[3:35] Ebony Vines: Shakur?

[3:35] Pamela Shandrow: Shakur?

[3:36] Ebony Vines: Shakur?

[3:37] Pamela Shandrow: Shakur.

[3:41] Ebony Vines: As I was typing this out, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna make a fool of myself. But Tupac. Um actually I will say, because I'm not um rap music is not the first thing I go to listen to.

[3:55] Pamela Shandrow: Right, right. But I can, you know, there's an appreciation for it. So I was listening to some of Tupac Shakur's stuff while I was doing this.

[4:04] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[4:05] Pamela Shandrow: His lyrics are really phenomenal. I mean that I mean, that is you cannot deny that. He he the way he was a wordsmith, the most artful wordsmith.

[4:17] Ebony Vines: So uh having said that um it was uh directed by Kenny Leon, who we've talked about on the show before, and with musical staging and choreography by Wayne Salento.

[4:29] Pamela Shandrow: These are hard hitters. I don't what else is Wayne done?

[4:33] Ebony Vines: Wayne Salento choreographed Wicked, but he and I'll get into detail, but he was most famous or best known for originating Mike on Broadway in A Chorus Line.

[4:45] Pamela Shandrow: My goodness Broadway legacy, right?

[4:48] Ebony Vines: Yes, Kenny Leon as well. I'll go into detail about these two guys, but like these are heavy hitters, yeah. These are not you know brand new to theater, like maybe I'll write a show. Like these people know what they are doing, right? And they have been in the business for a very long time.

[5:05] Pamela Shandrow: So just reading that first sentence on Wikipedia, I was like, huh, interesting. You've got these hard-hitting, amazing, uh talented director choreographer, and lyricist, if you want to can include Tupac in that. And I didn't really do any research on Todd Kriedler, but you know, if he's writing the music to Tupac's lyrics, then obviously he's also very talented.

[5:30] Ebony Vines: He's game. Why didn't it succeed?

[5:35] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. So just to go into a little bit of detail, I know that we've mentioned Kenny Leon before, but his weird house is directing color-centric pieces like Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, Radio. Oh, August Wilson's basically all of his shows. So you've got Gem of the Ocean, Radio Golf, and Fences. He has numerous Tony and Drama League nominations. And in 2014, actually won the Tony for Best Direction of a Play for Raisin in the Sun. That was the one with Audra McDonald and Sean Combs.

[6:08] Ebony Vines: Oh, yes, yes.

[6:10] Pamela Shandrow: P Diddy.

[6:11] Ebony Vines: Or Puff Daddy or Puff Daddy.

[6:14] Pamela Shandrow: It was Puff Daddy before, but now it's P Diddy.

[6:18] Ebony Vines: I mean, he was Sean Puffy Combs when I when I was growing up.

[6:22] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, same. Same.

[6:23] Ebony Vines: And I think when he did that, yeah.

[6:26] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. Um and then he, I mean, he's represented or was represented this year on Broadway in A Soldier's Play.

[6:34] Ebony Vines: Yes.

[6:34] Pamela Shandrow: And so that'll come up too here. He directed, he actually directed the NBC live musical events of The Wiz and Hairspray.

[6:42] Ebony Vines: I didn't realize that he did Hairspray.

[6:44] Pamela Shandrow: I knew that he had done The Wiz. So that was cool to find out. And then most recently, as you just said, he directed the Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Soldier's Play, starring Blair Underwood, David Alan Greer at Roundabout Theatre Company.

[7:00] Ebony Vines: So this guy.

[7:02] Pamela Shandrow: And he's also like super attractive.

[7:04] Ebony Vines: He's really nice too.

[7:06] Pamela Shandrow: Oh.

[7:07] Ebony Vines: Well, sure, that's true. We went to see um Maria and I went to see um Children of a Lesser God.

[7:13] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[7:14] Ebony Vines: And he was standing at the back of the theater.

[7:16] Pamela Shandrow: Cool.

[7:17] Ebony Vines: Very cool. And I was like, I was like, I ha I have to just talk to him. Can I just touch the hem of your suit?

[7:25] Pamela Shandrow: I mean, really. It was like that. But he just, like, you know how some people have like resting bitch face. He he doesn't. He just like, he just feels like a kind person that you can.

[7:37] Ebony Vines: So I was like, I just have to. So I did. I went around. I was like, I just, I love your work so much.

[7:43] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[7:43] Ebony Vines: You know, and he was just so nice.

[7:45] Pamela Shandrow: He's the nicest.

[7:46] Ebony Vines: That's awesome.

[7:48] Pamela Shandrow: Like, he's really attractive.

[7:54] Ebony Vines: Anyway. I'm getting a little warm.

[8:02] Pamela Shandrow: So now Wayne Salento. As I mentioned, he's best known for originating the role of Mike in the Broadway show, A Chorus Line, and the Bob Fosse revue Dancin', for which he received his first Tony nomination.

[8:15] Ebony Vines: Oh wow.

[8:15] Ebony Vines: He did loads of other shows, both great and not so.

[8:18] Pamela Shandrow: But in the early 1980s, Silento started building a career as a director and choreographer.

[8:23] Ebony Vines: Some of his full-scale musicals included the Jerry Herman review Jerry's Girls with Cheetah Rivera and Baby, which earned him his second Tony nomination.

[8:32] Pamela Shandrow: Uh, and his choreography profile increased again when he won both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for the musical The Who's Tommy in 1993.

[8:42] Pamela Shandrow: I know. He recreated Fosse's style in the revivals of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. That was in '95.

[8:49] Ebony Vines: Okay.

[8:49] Pamela Shandrow: Um, and Sweet Charity. It didn't have a date attached to Sweet Charity, but they seemed like they were together. So it probably was right around that same time. It's not the Christina Applegate one.

[8:59] Ebony Vines: Exactly.

[9:00] Pamela Shandrow: I think that it was the one prior to that. Uh and also he staged two new musicals, which aren't new anymore. They were Aida and Wicked.

[9:09] Ebony Vines: Oh wow.

[9:11] Pamela Shandrow: I know. According to Playbill, the musical build, HOLLER If You Hear Me, the world inside Tupac Shakur's music and lyrics, blazes to life in a non-biographical story about friendship, family, revenge, change, and hope.

[9:25] Ebony Vines: Inner city lives struggle for peace against the daily challenges they face in this entertaining and original musical. And through the poetry of one of the 20th century's most influential and culturally prominent voices, we are given a window into realities of the streets still relevant today.

[9:42] Pamela Shandrow: The synopsis on the HOLLER website reads, the world inside Tupac Shakur's music and lyrics blazes to life in this non-biographical. So it's basically the same and just kind of tells you about revenge, hope, change. I mean, it's and I didn't do a lot of research on Tupac because I think I mean exactly. He died tragically in a drive-by shooting when he was very young still.

[10:07] Ebony Vines: I think still in his twenties.

[10:09] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, he was. Shouldn't have happened, but it did. Uh so he had so much that he was, you know, had to offer. Um, and I think I wrote this later on, but if I didn't, I'm just gonna mention it now because it was really interesting. That when they went to go and ask his mother if they could do this show with his music, she actually gave them all of his unpublished writing.

[10:36] Ebony Vines: Oh wow.

[10:36] Pamela Shandrow: I'm like, here you go. Here's everything he's ever written. I think they had like handwritten notes too. Like they could really a completely generous and really amazing thing for her to do. But she was just so excited because she I think I did write this later. She wanted that's or she said that he wanted to be on Broadway. Like this was what he was like aiming for. Like he wanted to write for Broadway and write for TV and like be a part of that kind of um conversation.

[11:06] Ebony Vines: So yeah.

[11:09] Pamela Shandrow: The principal roles in the original Broadway cast, and this was sourced from Playbill Vault and also Theater Mania, included Saul Williams as John, Christopher Jackson as Bernice. He's amazing. There's this great video, and I'll oh I'll talk about that later. Um I don't know if I'm pronouncing this name correctly.

[11:40] Ebony Vines: Okay. I think that I said it correctly, but if I did not, I'm so sorry. Um, Joshua Boone played Darius, Dylan Burnside played Anthony, John Earl Jelks played Street Creature, Tanya Pinkins played Mrs. Weston, Ben Thompson played Griffey, and Yahee Kears, and I don't know if I pronounced that one either correctly, played none.

[12:02] Ebony Vines: The critical response, um, I'm just gonna start reading some of the excerpts uh from different um critiques. Marilyn Stasio in her review in Variety wrote, the true believers won't care about such pedestrian matters as the predictable book and clumsy characterizations. The music is terrific. Of course, but the performers, I know this is what she says, but the performers are so overly mic'd that the lyrics are almost unintelligible. The other major drawback is that the story told in Todd Kredler's book isn't the story we want to hear. It's not the life of Tupac Shakur. It's this generic tale of a thug named John who comes out of prison determined to go straight, only to be drawn back into the violent gang culture of the neighborhood by friends who demand his undying loyalty to the clan philosophy of life as war.

[13:00] Ebony Vines: In another in uh, let's see, the Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney wrote, critical response to the show was lukewarm. While many reviewers appreciated the attempt to stretch the jukebox musical format in new directions, going beyond the safe parameters of baby boomer hits, most found the story of racism, poverty, crime, violence, community, and redemption mired in plot clichés and stock characters. It was apparent from the outset that not only was the show's marketing not working, but also that producers had made a mistake in bypassing the developmental opportunities of an out-of-town tryout and the fine-tuning window of a longer preview period, which we have talked about before.

[13:42] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. A lot.

[13:43] Ebony Vines: Yep. So here's where it may have gone wrong. There's actually a few reasons. Okay. I'm gonna say it again. No out-of-town tryout. It arrives at the palace with just two workshops under its belt, one direct. Yes, I know. Which is probably why the mic situation was so bad.

[14:04] Ebony Vines: Um, one of those workshops was directed by Mr. Leon and featured. Do you know the answer to this?

[14:13] Pamela Shandrow: Lynn.

[14:14] Ebony Vines: Chadwick Bozeman.

[14:16] Pamela Shandrow: Oh my buddy.

[14:18] Ebony Vines: Yes. And this is what I was alluding to before. There is a video in rehearsal. Chadwick Bozeman and Christopher Jackson doing this number together. And it is. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. It's really remarkable because the acting, those two are just they are beautiful performers. And to watch them is just pure art.

[14:46] Pamela Shandrow: Why didn't he get the part?

[14:48] Ebony Vines: Well, he ended up doing a movie instead.

[14:51] Pamela Shandrow: And that's why they yeah.

[14:52] Ebony Vines: So I mean, there's a he had a legitimate reason. We did. And honestly, I guess I'm grateful, you know, like that we have uh we have it all on screen, like captured now that he's gone.

[15:06] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, and I Chadwick at that point, Chadwick, we're on a first name basis.

[15:12] Ebony Vines: Um he had already had one movie, and I can't rem it's the movie that he was a baseball player, but I can't remember.

[15:18] Pamela Shandrow: Oh 42, you play Jackie Robinson.

[15:20] Ebony Vines: Yes, thank you for I couldn't remember the name of it. So he had already done that before doing this workshop, and he fully intended to go to Broadway with this show, but he was offered Get on Up, and that is what he decided to do.

[15:35] Pamela Shandrow: And that was the last movie I saw with my mother.

[15:38] Ebony Vines: Oh my god, yeah.

[15:40] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, I love him. I'm gonna cry.

[15:43] Ebony Vines: This is the best. And that ultimately, I mean, that's what made him that's what started his career. I mean, if you really want to look at it that way. So as much as I think we would have loved to see him in HOLLER If Ya Hear Me, and who knows what kind of benefit that would have had to the actual show itself. Um however, Saul Williams was, you know, he was an up and coming artist. He was living in the UK at the time that they um uh uh confronted, not confronted. When they confronted him nicely about uh joining the company. What am I thinking?

[16:20] Pamela Shandrow: Uh you're looking for gosh.

[16:25] Ebony Vines: Word is that you're looking for, but you like you they're not proposition isn't good either. It's a terrible okay, it doesn't matter. You guys know everyone knows what we mean.

[16:36] Pamela Shandrow: Yes.

[16:37] Ebony Vines: When they confronted him nicely. Um but he was he was a performer, writer, and recording artist all on his own, but uh Saul Williams, so he stepped into the lead that way. Um the mus okay, so this is also where it may have gone wrong. The musical had a five-week workshop in the summer of 2013, but nothing else. I think they did have another workshop that it said, but I couldn't find any information about when or where.

[17:04] Pamela Shandrow: I know.

[17:04] Ebony Vines: So this five-week workshop was the one with Chadwick Bozeman in it. I don't know if they changed anything. I don't know if they had like active audiences or if it was just like a performance and then you leave, but they didn't act, you know, like you know, some workshops will like take um audience polls or like reviews at the end and you know, people will write down what they liked and what they didn't like. I don't know if that was the case here. So it's all just kind of up in the air.

[17:31] Ebony Vines: Also, the musical began previews on Broadway at the Palace Theater June 2nd, 2014. And they officially opened June 19th. So they only had a few weeks of previews.

[17:55] Pamela Shandrow: No.

[17:55] Ebony Vines: So they opened on June 19th and then looks like two weeks. Yeah. They closed on July 20th.

[18:03] Pamela Shandrow: So one month.

[18:04] Ebony Vines: They were open for one month for 38 performances. I mean, who's to say really what it could have been? There is one of the producers, Eric L. Gold, who kind of had envisioned telling Tupac's story, but it just wasn't to be because one of the rapper's chroniclers had already secured the biographical rights for his book.

[18:25] Pamela Shandrow: Oh.

[18:26] Ebony Vines: So now the producer had access to the music, but he had to tell a different story. Yeah. That's kind of what Mr. Gold thinks was the issue. But also he says, um, this is also from Eric L. Gold. He blamed the show's closing on financial burdens of Broadway at that time. This was 2014.

[18:46] Pamela Shandrow: So I don't know. I didn't know what specifically he was talking about. Maybe you can shed some light on that.

[18:51] Ebony Vines: Um, but he says I was unable to sustain the production longer in order to give it time to bloom on Broadway. Mr. Gold also recently told Variety that he made a rookie mistake by underestimating the amount of capital necessary to keep the 8 million show running.

[19:08] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, yeah.

[19:09] Ebony Vines: I'm it was such a breath of fresh air to read that because it was like reality. Like he wasn't he wasn't saying, no, I don't know what it was, these audiences, it was these reviewers. Like he actually took responsibility for his part in the show not being able to run longer. I mean, the show definitely had mixed reviews.

[19:31] Pamela Shandrow: So he was a new producer.

[19:34] Ebony Vines: I don't think he was.

[19:35] Pamela Shandrow: Because he's a rookie mistake.

[19:38] Ebony Vines: Well, he made a rookie mistake in this, but I don't I think he had had prior experience. Um I think I read it somewhere. I just don't have it written down here. But let me Google it right quick. Because I I'm just curious, like if he didn't know how much it was gonna cost per week to run.

[19:57] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[19:57] Ebony Vines: And it's like if you don't if you don't make your running costs even, you have to have a lot of money in reserve to keep you open.

[20:06] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[20:07] Ebony Vines: Um until audiences come. You know, and in some cases, you know, Beetlejuice is a rare, a rare story where you know it's yeah, bound its audience well into the run.

[20:22] Pamela Shandrow: Totally.

[20:22] Ebony Vines: And then started running at a million a week.

[20:27] Ebony Vines: Okay, so Eric L. Gold did a lot of film producing.

[20:31] Pamela Shandrow: Okay.

[20:32] Ebony Vines: He actually did Don't Be a Menace, which I believe didn't that have Tupac Shakur in it?

[20:37] Pamela Shandrow: Uh yeah, don't be a Menace to Society while drinking produce in the hood.

[20:41] Ebony Vines: Yes. Yes. It's always a longer title than but yes, and I believe that that uh maybe I'm wrong. Didn't that have let's see? But anyway, so um he was he also let's see.

[21:00] Ebony Vines: Oh blah blah blah. Let me go back. Um, Major Pain, Scary Movie, Bulletproof.

[21:08] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[21:09] Ebony Vines: And these were all well before HOLLER If Ya Hear Me. The thing is, though, is that, and I I know this is something I heard from um one of the producers of Jagged Little Pill who comes from television and film, and he was just like, the way Broadway does does things is so backwards.

[21:29] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[21:29] Ebony Vines: And so that adjustment of figuring out okay, I have to have all this capital and all this money in reserve on the front end because it, you know, it's just so different than well, total of the the running costs of a movie is negligible. It's just renting the theater, basically.

[21:50] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[21:51] Ebony Vines: And so the running cost of a Broadway show is that you have to make a million dollars per night just to break even. If you make above that, fantastic, you get to pay off your investors, but if you don't make that amount, it's like, well, we'll never make it.

[22:06] Pamela Shandrow: I mean a million a week.

[22:08] Ebony Vines: Yeah, oh no, a million per night.

[22:11] Pamela Shandrow: No, a million per week.

[22:12] Ebony Vines: Yes, you said per night twice.

[22:14] Pamela Shandrow: Okay, sorry.

[22:17] Ebony Vines: I was like, I think she means a million per week.

[22:19] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, yeah.

[22:20] Ebony Vines: It did. But it's like, you know, just to put this in perspective, to move Phantom of the Opera, the national touring of Phantom of the Opera, to move that from one theater to another, one million dollars. Just to move the show.

[22:35] Pamela Shandrow: Bananas.

[22:38] Ebony Vines: So that means that the next theater had to have at least a million dollars just to bring the show there, and then also what it was gonna cost for everybody to be paid for four to six weeks. It's crazy. Just up front. And I'm sure he thought that, you know, it'll it's gonna hit the ground running. We've you know, this is Tupac Shakur we're talking about. So like that's name recognition right there. There has to be an audience for that. But I will also I'm just gonna say the thing is that m Broadway like marketing is such that they're really crappy at, you know, because we talked about this when we're talking about Stick Fly one day, and just how terribly, you know, new the marketing for shows are, especially when it comes to people of color and audiences that are not like your traditional theatrical audiences.

[23:37] Ebony Vines: That's exactly what I was gonna say.

[23:39] Pamela Shandrow: Was that you know, the audience that you want for a show like that, A cannot afford it.

[23:45] Pamela Shandrow: It is prohibitively expensive to come to a Broadway show, and they've cultivated their audience to be old white rich people or middle class people.

[23:53] Pamela Shandrow: That's you know unapologetically, that is what has happened.

[23:58] Ebony Vines: Right.

[23:58] Pamela Shandrow: So if you are any other demographic, you are either have to stand in line to get a cheap seat and maybe don't, or you spend as much as you can, which is back of the house, top of the balcony, yeah, where you can't really, you know, enjoy the show anyway.

[24:17] Pamela Shandrow: And especially at the palace, which is so big.

[24:20] Ebony Vines: It's enormous.

[24:21] Pamela Shandrow: It's enormous.

[24:22] Pamela Shandrow: That was a terrible place for that show.

[24:24] Pamela Shandrow: It needed to be a much more intimate house.

[24:26] Pamela Shandrow: It needed to be a rent style house.

[24:29] Ebony Vines: Like that's you know, it needed to be that kind of feeling where you know, you are you are a part of the action.

[24:37] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[24:37] Pamela Shandrow: Because and I I do understand, you know, the critics said it, so did Eric Gold, and I'm sure it had been said by other critics as well.

[24:48] Pamela Shandrow: Um, that you know, because you couldn't tell the actual story of Tupac Shakur, that you had to kind of tell this other story, and they probably just went the easy route and and did pick kind of these stock characters.

[25:05] Pamela Shandrow: So you've got the just out of prison, wants to make better for himself, but can't because he keeps on getting pulled back in.

[25:12] Pamela Shandrow: Then you have the best friend from before prison who's the one that's pulling him back in.

[25:18] Pamela Shandrow: Then you've got these other two thugs over here, and I actually do think they were they were uh spoken of as thugs, like thug number one thug number two.

[25:27] Ebony Vines: No, right?

[25:28] Pamela Shandrow: Who uh, you know, something so heinous happens to one of them that you know the whole story, you know, like that's where the redemption comes in because now he doesn't want to be part of the life anymore because of the you know this happening, and then you've got this poor, long-suffering mother who raised her child not to be a thug.

[25:46] Ebony Vines: I didn't I didn't raise you to be this way.

[25:49] Pamela Shandrow: Was it was Sonia Pinkins in this?

[25:50] Ebony Vines: Sonia Pinkins, yes, that was her, yeah.

[25:53] Pamela Shandrow: And you know, and you don't God, there's so much there, they're so I agree, and I was just thinking, you know, I had watched um the Donmar Warehouse trilogy, the Shakespeare trilogy where they did The Tempest, uh Henry and I can't remember the oh Julia Caesar.

[26:17] Ebony Vines: Okay, and it the whole thing, it takes place, so the setting is a women's prison.

[26:25] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, and so they do all three of these shows with this with the same group of women, and they're all in a women's prison, and they they the production did it in conjunction with a real penitentiary in England.

[26:40] Ebony Vines: So they incorporated some of the stories from the women in the penitentiary.

[26:45] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[26:46] Ebony Vines: I I'm just like, why?

[26:48] Ebony Vines: Okay, so you can't use Tupac's music, but think of all the real individuals with real stories that you could have been telling.

[26:57] Ebony Vines: And this could have been like this could have been, what am I thinking of?

[27:01] Ebony Vines: I I thought of the Donmar warehouse, but also thought of um you uh like sort of a vagina monologue style, sort of like uh uh working style sort of thing where you where you tell real stories, you have people playing real people telling their stories, yeah, and you can incorporate Tupac's music into it because it's about real life.

[27:27] Pamela Shandrow: Or you could have even got like, you know, if he worked on Don't Be a Menace to Society while drinking your juice in the hood, like why didn't he get the writers who worked on that?

[27:27] Pamela Shandrow: Why didn't he get there's so many black writers out there who write really good stories about about life life um, you know, in in these neighborhoods and and what like yes, that's what you should have done.

[27:56] Ebony Vines: Absolutely.

[27:57] Ebony Vines: And also, you don't you don't have the rights to Tupac's story, right?

[28:02] Pamela Shandrow: But you had access to his mother.

[28:04] Ebony Vines: Right.

[28:05] Ebony Vines: I mean, that could have been the center point of your whole show, right?

[28:05] Pamela Shandrow: Right, right.

[28:09] Pamela Shandrow: Tanya Pinkins is no schlub.

[28:11] Pamela Shandrow: Like she's amazing in her own right as well.

[28:13] Ebony Vines: Tell her story.

[28:15] Ebony Vines: Tell her story of raising this black man in a black society where you are systemically, you know, there's systemic racism still at even more so because it wasn't at the forefront of anybody's mind back then.

[28:28] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[28:28] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[28:29] Ebony Vines: And then seeing him make these choices, not because he wanted to, but because it was the only option he had.

[28:35] Pamela Shandrow: That's right.

[28:36] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[28:37] Ebony Vines: Powerlessness, and then see him go off to jail and be completely abandoned and alone and frustrated.

[28:44] Pamela Shandrow: And then to see him come back and see that he wants to change his life, but he can't, because he's still living in the same place that you have no idea of how to get out of.

[28:55] Pamela Shandrow: There's your story.

[28:56] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[28:57] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[28:59] Ebony Vines: It and it's a beautiful story, and it needs to be told.

[29:02] Ebony Vines: And there it doesn't matter what I want to hear that story, and I don't have any connection at all to living in in any kind of race uh um oppressed society.

[29:15] Pamela Shandrow: Right, right.

[29:16] Ebony Vines: I'm filled with privilege, but that is the story you want to hear because I need to know what's going on in this world if I'm to help and be an ally.

[29:25] Pamela Shandrow: That's right.

[29:26] Pamela Shandrow: I hope somebody like take you know, it's like with working where Steven went back and re-worked on the book.

[29:34] Ebony Vines: Like it would be wonderful if somebody would take this show and be like, okay, let's work on the book and get ourselves like a real, a real story.

[29:44] Pamela Shandrow: I did actually read though that Kenny Leon may have been involved in a restaging of it just recently.

[29:52] Ebony Vines: Okay.

[29:53] Ebony Vines: Didn't write it down.

[29:54] Pamela Shandrow: Because I also thought I also thought, like, what about just doing like a concert at New York City Center?

[30:01] Pamela Shandrow: The way that working was done a few years ago.

[30:03] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[30:04] Ebony Vines: Restaging hauler.

[30:06] Pamela Shandrow: Let me do a if yugd be awesome.

[30:13] Ebony Vines: That's a that's a show we really, really need right now.

[30:16] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, totally.

[30:18] Pamela Shandrow: That would unite us more than anything right now.

[30:21] Ebony Vines: Telling you.

[30:22] Pamela Shandrow: Oh no, nothing's coming up right away.

[30:26] Pamela Shandrow: Everything is from 2014.

[30:27] Ebony Vines: So maybe I didn't read that.

[30:30] Pamela Shandrow: Well, maybe we find it and we throw it up in an intermission.

[30:34] Ebony Vines: If I do, I definitely will.

[30:36] Ebony Vines: But uh if you if you get a chance, Google, I think Chadwick Bozeman in a workshop for Broadway.

[30:43] Ebony Vines: I think it's what that um article is called, but it comes up with a uh, and I think actually Wayne Celento was the one that tweeted it, but that video, so it's good, it's good.

[31:00] Pamela Shandrow: That's wild for Broadway.

[31:01] Ebony Vines: Yeah, I can't believe it.

[31:03] Pamela Shandrow: Oh Christopher Jackson, I love him so much.

[31:06] Ebony Vines: I do too.

[31:07] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, yes.

[31:08] Pamela Shandrow: I do too.

[31:09] Pamela Shandrow: He's just he's oh he's artful.

[31:14] Pamela Shandrow: He comes from a place of just complete honesty, and like this that's him.

[31:19] Ebony Vines: You are watching him on stage, yeah.

[31:21] Ebony Vines: And it's completely believable that he's another person.

[31:24] Pamela Shandrow: Like, he's so good.

[31:26] Ebony Vines: He's great.

[31:27] Ebony Vines: I love good actors.

[31:30] Pamela Shandrow: I do too.

[31:32] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, I love I love him too.

[31:34] Pamela Shandrow: And then um, well, you've seen Hamilton now on Disney Plus.

[31:38] Ebony Vines: But like, there's there's something extra about watching him and Lynn there because like Lynn has always sort of seen him as a big brother.

[31:49] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[31:51] Pamela Shandrow: And Chris has always taken on that role.

[31:54] Pamela Shandrow: And then when Lynn was writing it, he was writing the part for Chris.

[31:58] Ebony Vines: I love that.

[31:59] Ebony Vines: Um Lynn was reading it and they were still doing heights.

[32:06] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[32:07] Pamela Shandrow: And they just started calling him George.

[32:09] Pamela Shandrow: Or they just they just started calling him Mr. Washington.

[32:12] Ebony Vines: And he was like, Well, I guess I'm thinking he wrote in the heights for him as well, right?

[32:16] Pamela Shandrow: Or at least with him in mind.

[32:19] Pamela Shandrow: Uh maybe with him in mind, but like uh I don't I don't it was with Washington, it seemed like Oh yeah.

[32:27] Ebony Vines: I mean, that was definitely that was yeah, that was definite.

[32:31] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[32:32] Ebony Vines: I love it.

[32:34] Pamela Shandrow: I do too.

[32:36] Pamela Shandrow: Well, that was great.

[32:38] Ebony Vines: Thank you.

[32:41] Pamela Shandrow: My pleasure.

[32:45] Ebony Vines: Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

[32:48] Pamela Shandrow: Another first, the first jukebox musical based on hip hop music.

[32:53] Ebony Vines: Yes, yeah.

[32:54] Pamela Shandrow: Thank you all for listening.

[32:56] Pamela Shandrow: We've talked about this on recording, but like the first jukebox musical was Mamma Mia, and both of us have really decided, well, we both discovered about each other that neither of us liked it.

[33:07] Ebony Vines: No, sure don't.

[33:08] Pamela Shandrow: As much as I love ABBA and the that they have created.

[33:13] Pamela Shandrow: Don't like that show.

[33:14] Ebony Vines: Is awful.

[33:15] Pamela Shandrow: And it is because they took this wonderful music and then just kind of threaded through some they just kind of threw a storyline at it.

[33:24] Pamela Shandrow: Like that's basically what they did, but because it caters to the audience that Broadway has already cultivated.

[33:31] Ebony Vines: Yeah it succeeded.

[33:33] Pamela Shandrow: And it shouldn't have.

[33:35] Ebony Vines: And then there's now two movies, like Meryl.

[33:38] Pamela Shandrow: It's the only time I was ever disappointed in her.

[33:41] Ebony Vines: Come on.

[33:41] Pamela Shandrow: And she says it's like the most fun she's ever had.

[33:44] Pamela Shandrow: And I was like, it might have been fun, but it was terrible.

[33:48] Ebony Vines: Like, you should everyone should know that this is a terrible show.

[33:51] Pamela Shandrow: Like, just let's do a concert version of it.

[33:54] Ebony Vines: That would be fun.

[33:55] Pamela Shandrow: But like, don't worry.

[33:57] Pamela Shandrow: Just give me ABBA on stage.

[33:59] Ebony Vines: I don't need this.

[34:02] Pamela Shandrow: So I don't know if that's controversial at all, but that's whatever.

[34:07] Ebony Vines: I know I don't care.

[34:08] Pamela Shandrow: Listen.

[34:09] Pamela Shandrow: We're not taking any prisoners anymore.

[34:11] Ebony Vines: No, we're done.

[34:15] Pamela Shandrow: So that's the end of the episode.

[34:17] Ebony Vines: Call her if you hear me, and we don't like Mamma Mia.

[34:22] Pamela Shandrow: I don't know what to tell you.

[34:25] Ebony Vines: All right, guys.

[34:26] Pamela Shandrow: Bye geeks.

[34:29] Ebony Vines: Thank you for listening to our podcast, Theater Geeks Anonymous.

[34:34] Pamela Shandrow: You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at T G A B Way.

[34:40] Ebony Vines: And on Facebook at Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[34:43] Pamela Shandrow: And if you want to tell us how much you love us, or you have a great story about one of the shows we've talked about, drop us a note at T G A B Way at Gmail.com.

[34:57] Ebony Vines: Until next time, geeks.