This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Ebony Vines: Welcome to Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[0:02] Pamela Shandrow: At this time, we ask that you turn off all cell phones.

[0:06] Ebony Vines: Unless, of course, you're using them to listen to this podcast.

[0:09] Pamela Shandrow: In which case, please keep it on.

[0:11] Ebony Vines: And please refrain from any flash photography as it is dangerous to the performers of this podcast.

[0:17] Pamela Shandrow: Please be advised that this production may contain strobe effects, loud or sudden noises, nudity, and but probably not.

[0:27] Ebony Vines: And now sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

[0:36] Pamela Shandrow: Don't you see? It's so simple. Step one. We Google the biggest flops on Broadway. Step two, we find the crazy stories behind them. Step three, we see how they lose millions of dollars. Millions! Broadway isn't cheap. A lot of fancy people want to be producers. Step four, find out why the show won't go on. Step five, end this episode and head to Times Square.

[0:59] Ebony Vines: Times Square! That'll never work. Only Broadway successes are in Times Square.

[1:04] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, yeah, little faith. I don't know how this is gonna go, so this will be fun. Forget which episode. RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( and anything about the show.

[1:17] Ebony Vines: Good, because I didn't either. Welcome!

[1:23] Pamela Shandrow: Hey, Theatre Geeks!

[1:25] Ebony Vines: Hey Geeks!

[1:26] Pamela Shandrow: It's Pamela!

[1:27] Ebony Vines: And it's Ebony.

[1:28] Pamela Shandrow: Welcome to Theatre Geeks Anonymous, where we talk about Broadway flops, scandals, and new works.

[1:34] Ebony Vines: Who sues, who fails, we tell their story.

[1:37] Pamela Shandrow: We tell it. I am gonna tell it today.

[1:41] Ebony Vines: Because today we got a doozy. But what have you been up to?

[1:45] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, I have a story for you.

[1:46] Ebony Vines: Okay, tell me.

[1:47] Pamela Shandrow: I know I mentioned this to you before, but I felt like it was an interesting enough story that I thought I should tell it to our audience as well. So the other day I was over at Ebony's house and we were recording one of our podcasts, and I left for the night. And as I'm leaving, I noticed that there's like a little cat that's just about to cross my path, but you never know. Some cats are really skittish, so I never want to scare them. And then like there's other cats that are totally feral that will just completely attack you if you come anywhere near them, even if you don't have ill intent. And I don't. I'm like, kitty, kitty, come here. I wouldn't touch you. Um, but so I gave it some space, and then I realized it was not a cat, it was a raccoon.

And so then I was like, oh, I'm glad I gave you some space. Because he had just come from a garbage can and he like sauntered in front of me and just looked at me in the eye the whole way, and then he like trust started to climb up a tree, but kept the eye contact as I passed him. And I was like, please do not attack me. I do not need rabies. No. That is the last thing I need right now is rabies.

[2:47] Ebony Vines: Oh, gracious sake. Do you know what I do need though?

[2:50] Pamela Shandrow: What?

[2:51] Ebony Vines: Another dose of musical theater.

[2:56] Pamela Shandrow: All right, so tell me what today's show is.

[2:59] Ebony Vines: The title of today's show is RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( and Don't You Ever Forget It.

[3:06] Pamela Shandrow: I love that title. It's the whole thing is that title, and I love it so much that I have to say it every single time we're talking about. I have to say the entire thing. Not just RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM (, not just RLR, as I was putting in my as I was saving it in my computer. It's a very long. No, it's RACHAEL Lily RACHAEL Lily ROSENBLOOM and don't you ever forget it. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.

[3:32] Ebony Vines: Um, this was a show that is written and starring Paul Jabara. I'm just gonna say his name is Jabara. I was gonna say maybe it was Yabara, but I don't know. It's spelled Jabara, that's how I'm gonna say it. If I'm wrong, please let me know. But it's not like I can do anything about it, because we're gonna do the whole episode, and I'm gonna say Jabara.

[3:52] Pamela Shandrow: So the story goes. This is the synopsis of the show. It is a convoluted plot that revolves around already. It is a convoluted plot. Okay, okay. It is a convoluted plot revolves around the misadventures of the title character. Uh, in this is in parentheses, whose name sports the extra A dropped by Barbara Streisand. You know how Barbara Streisand Barbara's first name is B-A-R-B-R-A instead of B-R B-A-R-B-A-R-A. It's usually there's that extra A. Barbara doesn't have that extra A. So RACHAEL Lily ROSENBLOOM added an extra A into RACHAEL. So it's like RACHAEL. Stop it. Not kidding. So it's uh R-A-C-H-A-E-L. So there's the extra A in her first name that she stole from Babs. Holy bad. I know, I know. And her journey, RACHAEL's journey from a Brooklyn fish market to fame as a Hollywood gossip columnist, and then a career culminating in an Academy Award nomination, and a nervous breakdown.

[5:05] Ebony Vines: I I don't know what to say about this so far. It gives me life.

[5:10] Pamela Shandrow: It is meant to be. This Broadway show stands as the only intentionally campy musical in Broadway history.

[5:23] Ebony Vines: Okay. This is how they wrote it. It was meant to be complete camp. Much like Evil Dead, which they have now made into a musical as well, or they made it into musical a while ago, but like it's just meant to be complete camp. And like that was how it was marketed. That was they they made no excuse about it. It was camp. And it is.

[5:51] Pamela Shandrow: I live. So it opens like this. I gotta talk like this because I feel like that's how they would have talked on stage. It opens like this. An actress made up to resemble Barbra Streisand strides on stage to present the Academy Award for Best Actress. She reads the nominees. Angela Lansbury for the Rosalind Russell story. Goldie Hahn for Via Galactica. Diana Ross for the Angela Davis story. Angela Davis for the Diana Ross story. Stop it. And RACHAEL Lily ROSENBLOOM for Cobra Goddess on Pink Flamingo Road. I you can't I keep making faces. And I wish to see them. That's every time I laugh is a face from Ebony. It's very funny.

[6:44] Pamela Shandrow: So that opening basically sets the tone for all of the splendor that is RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM (. And don't you forever forget it.

[6:54] Ebony Vines: It's and don't you ever forget it. Holy jeez. So let's meet the cast of uh creatives. The producers include Robert Stigwood, who is famous for producing hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin. He managed a little a little tiny group that you may have heard of, or maybe not, the Bee Gees. Oh, wow. As well as another band called Cream, which featured Eric Clapton. I'd never heard of Cream, but Eric Clapton, obviously.

[7:26] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, of course. Okay. And then another man was the other producer. His name, and please forgive me because I'm gonna butcher this name, Amet Ertigen. Uh I don't know. I'm just gonna say it and say it with confidence. Uh he was the co-founder of Atlantic Records, and he wrote several songs that were made famous, like by people like, I don't know, BB King and Pat Boone and Aretha Franklin, to name a few. These guys were like major heavy hitters, and they were wholly entertained by a man named Paul Jabara, who was a performer in both Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. They looked at him as their own personal court jester. So when Paul Jabara told them about this new project he wanted to write, Stigwood and Ertagen put up $500,000 to indulge his whims, which included playing one of the leads.

[8:21] Ebony Vines: I live! Wow.

[8:25] Pamela Shandrow: But unfortunately, when all was said and done, all of that $500,000 was lost.

[8:31] Ebony Vines: Of course.

[8:32] Pamela Shandrow: Of course. So RACHAEL was, or should I say RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( and Don't You Ever Forget It, was originally written as a vehicle for Bet Midler. That was who Paul had in mind when he wrote this show.

[8:47] Ebony Vines: But when they see I would have seen it, I would have tried to probably before I was born.

[8:51] Pamela Shandrow: She would have made it.

[8:52] Ebony Vines: Oh, of course she would have.

[8:54] Pamela Shandrow: But she declined.

[8:55] Ebony Vines: Oh no.

[8:56] Pamela Shandrow: She passed on the project. And the lead actually went to a cabaret performer at the time, Ellen Green. Yes, that Ellen Green. From Little Children from Little Child Overs. But who at the time, though, had RACHAEL Lily Rose and Bloom and Don't You Ever Forget It, and then another show called Little Prince in the Aviator on her resume. And she has the singular distinction of having created the female leads in two musicals that closed during previews.

[9:24] Ebony Vines: What a distinction to have.

[9:26] Pamela Shandrow: But we love her.

[9:27] Ebony Vines: We do.

[9:28] Pamela Shandrow: We do. We love her. Ellen Green. And you you know what? She was probably very good in this.

[9:33] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[9:34] Pamela Shandrow: Um so in addition to Green, the cast included Paul Jabara, Wayne Salento, who did the choreography for Wicked. Uh, yeah, and was really very he did a lot in the 70s. He was in a lot of shows. What year was this?

[9:48] Ebony Vines: This was oh, I knew you were gonna ask. 73.

[9:51] Pamela Shandrow: Okay. Uh uh Anita Morris, Tommy Walsh, who I'll talk about later, and Andre DeShields.

[9:59] Ebony Vines: Wait, why is his name familiar?

[10:01] Pamela Shandrow: It is familiar. You know what? And I looked him up before. Let me look him up again because I had the same question. I was like, I shouldn't know that name. Why do I know that name? Uh some of you are listening and you're screaming at us right now. I know you are. Oh, the whiz.

[10:17] Ebony Vines: I apologize.

[10:18] Pamela Shandrow: That's why. Friggin'! I knew it. I sorry, guys. I knew you were some of you were screaming. The wiz! The wiz! You two don't know anything! You guys call yourselves theater geeks. You don't know anything.

[10:34] Ebony Vines: I'm sorry.

[10:35] Pamela Shandrow: I know more than you do because I knew he was in the wiz.

[10:41] Ebony Vines: Sorry.

[10:42] Pamela Shandrow: Sorry. Uh yeah, it's Andrew DeShields was in the whiz. And among a lot of other stuff, but that's the one.

[10:47] Ebony Vines: That's the one that popped up, and I was like, oh yeah.

[10:49] Pamela Shandrow: So, okay. Going back to now more of the creatives involved. Tom Ion, who was a writer known for camp epics, was brought in to help with the book and to replace the original director, Ron Link. Grover Dale was to come in to supervise Tony Stevens, who was the choreographer, and the result was a mess closer to the shows that Ian and Drag Queen Jackie Curtis were doing than off Broadway or off off Broadway is what it says, than to a Broadway musical. So basically, I mean they came in to make it more campy, but ultimately it was not the right kind of camp. It wasn't Broadway camp. It was Drag Queen Camp, which is also very funny, but it just didn't work in this scenario.

[11:34] Ebony Vines: There were flashes of potent dirty humor, but by the end of eight previews, it was obvious to all that the show was woefully out of place on Broadway. The production began previews on November 26th, 1973, and within days it was obvious it was beyond repair. On December 1st, a small notice in the local newspapers announced the show would be closing that night prior to its official opening. The demand for tickets was immediate.

[12:02] Pamela Shandrow: This is what I love about New York and what I hate about New York.

[12:05] Ebony Vines: Wait, wait, wait. One question.

[12:07] Pamela Shandrow: Yes.

[12:08] Ebony Vines: There were no tryouts, were there?

[12:10] Pamela Shandrow: You know what? It never mentions tryouts.

[12:12] Ebony Vines: So there were no tryouts.

[12:13] Pamela Shandrow: Probably not. I mean, this was just a common theme. This was like Paul just saying, gosh, that'd be really fun if we if I wrote this show and I started.

[12:21] Ebony Vines: Put it off Broadway.

[12:22] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. That's what he should have done.

[12:24] Ebony Vines: Yeah. It might have actually done really well.

[12:26] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah in the off Broadway setting. But that wasn't his dream. So they put the closing notice in the paper, and the next day, tickets were sold out immediately. Theater buffs who revel in the calamitous as much as the classical were determined to see what was destined to go down in the Broadway annals as one of the all-time biggest flops.

[12:48] Ebony Vines: When the curtain went up that night, the cast was facing a sold-out house. Can you imagine? Like how sad that must have been.

[12:56] Pamela Shandrow: What was the other show we talked about that that happened?

[12:59] Ebony Vines: Was that Kelly?

[13:01] Pamela Shandrow: No, it was Carrie.

[13:03] Ebony Vines: Yes, it was Carrie.

[13:04] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. It's the same thing, same situation. And I don't have it written down here, but I think that I read actually somewhere that they didn't tell Ellen Green that that was the case. Like it was either that they didn't tell her that they were closing or that they didn't tell her that they had a sold-out house because they didn't want it to affect her performance.

[13:23] Ebony Vines: Well, the I mean, you can't not tell her it was closing, otherwise she was gonna like read about it. You know, like poor Jill Pace did and Rebecca.

[13:32] Pamela Shandrow: I know, right? Yeah. But anyway, I but I don't have that written down here, so I don't want to I'm gonna say it with confidence, but I'm not actually confident about that. But I think that's what I read somewhere. But you know what? I'm reading all this stuff about all of these different musicals, and they all just start to blend together after a while. Some of the problems are exactly the same.

[13:49] Ebony Vines: Yeah, it's true. There's a through line here of mistakes that are made.

[13:54] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, Frank Rich, who we speak about often because he was one of the critics for the New York Times back in the 70s, noted that the musical had a small hardcore group of fans who had followed its evolution from the very beginning and already had seen it several times. Uh he is quoted as saying, in scattered pockets throughout the otherwise shell-shocked house were clacks of theater goers who sang along with the musical numbers and gave many standing ovations at the end of most of them, which is adorable.

[14:22] Ebony Vines: I live. Like that's why I live. Because I feel like there have been other shows like that where there's just like this certain percentage of people that will just go and go and go, and they love it so much that they know all of the words and they have all of the swag and all of that stuff.

[14:38] Pamela Shandrow: It's not swag, it's swag.

[14:40] Ebony Vines: Swag.

[14:42] Pamela Shandrow: Schwag.

[14:44] Ebony Vines: Um swag. They have all the swag, and they have, you know, they just love it so much that they want to support it so that it continues, but it doesn't continue.

[14:52] Pamela Shandrow: Because they waited too late.

[14:54] Ebony Vines: Well, and not necessarily that as much as because this didn't last long. Um it doesn't say how many buttons ran to it after they found out it was closing, right?

[15:04] Pamela Shandrow: Yes, but like literally for one performance.

[15:06] Ebony Vines: Right.

[15:07] Pamela Shandrow: It didn't even open officially. It was still in previews.

[15:09] Ebony Vines: Oh, jeez.

[15:10] Pamela Shandrow: So it just it it there were too many other issues, I think, at hand. Um, it just didn't fit the mold of Broadway theater at the time. Um, and there were just there were too many cooks in the kitchen who all had differing opinions, I think is what it all kind of boiled down to. So it it didn't have a chance really, unfortunately.

[15:29] Ebony Vines: Um, there's a sidebar because I mentioned Tommy Walsh before, who was one of the original company members. In 1975, Tommy Walsh was invited by choreographer Tony Stevens, who choreographed RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( and Don't You Ever Forget It.

[15:44] Pamela Shandrow: Right. Um well, no, that was Wayne Salento. He was one of the other guys, but Tony Stevens was the choreographer here. He invited uh Tommy Walsh and several other Broadway dancers to participate in a series of frank conversations about Broadway, about dancing and about their experiences, hopes, and dreams.

[16:03] Ebony Vines: And the result of that a chorus line.

[16:06] Pamela Shandrow: Yes, a chorus line in 1976, in which Tommy Walsh originated the role of Bobby. Have you ever seen Every Little Step?

[16:14] Ebony Vines: The documentary.

[16:16] Pamela Shandrow: Okay. I mean, it's definitely worth seeing, but let me explain because I'm sure there are other people who have not seen it either. Every little step is a documentary about the making of chorus line. And it is the casting process of the revival, but they'll also go back to these tapes that Tony Stevens put together with the original company members talking about their Broadway dancing experiences.

[16:42] Ebony Vines: And a lot of the tapes will be word for word what the music is in the in a chorus line.

[16:50] Pamela Shandrow: It's really spectacular. I mean, it was like this really kind of we're sitting in a room all together and we're just chatting about musical theater and about what we hate about it and what we love about it and how difficult it is and how there's no other option because this is what we were born for.

[17:12] Ebony Vines: Right. And all of these people that were in the room end up being characters in a chorus line. It's just really kind of it's really cool. Historically speaking, it's really cool.

[17:24] Pamela Shandrow: I need to I I when I saw that when it was coming out, it's been years now that it first came out. It was at my favorite tiny little old theater in Maryland. I was like, Oh, I have to see that. And it's I still haven't seen it.

[17:39] Ebony Vines: It's terrible.

[17:39] Pamela Shandrow: I think it's on Netflix.

[17:41] Ebony Vines: Okay, I think we's not a lot of people saw it out.

[17:43] Pamela Shandrow: Well, I guess that's what I'm going to be watching as I go to bed tonight.

[17:48] Ebony Vines: It's definitely worth it.

[17:50] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. Um, Paul Jabara, it actually is interesting to note that he went on to write several disco and RB songs, including It's Raining Men and Last Dance for Donna Summer, which he won the Grammy for in 1979.

[18:07] Ebony Vines: Huh.

[18:08] Pamela Shandrow: So everyone that was involved in this show went on to be huge successes, despite the fact that they did this show. I mean, this was kind of um and when I was trying to do research, because that's all there is. That's all she wrote.

[18:24] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[18:24] Pamela Shandrow: But when I was trying to do research about this show, you know, there's little blips on everybody's radar about this show. So you really had to delve into like I was on Wikipedia, and then every name that was mentioned, I would go down the rabbit hole of that person's name and discover more information. But it was really um an interesting thing to discover that these people were completely unaffected by the unsuccess that RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( and don't you ever forget it was.

[18:55] Ebony Vines: Except for the people who were out the money.

[18:58] Pamela Shandrow: Well, yeah, but they they were like, I mean, $500,000 to those guys probably wasn't much of anything.

[19:03] Ebony Vines: So the entire budget was $500,000?

[19:06] Pamela Shandrow: That's what it led me to believe. But again, like the research that I was doing. I who knows. I wonder though, like, I wonder if at any point, like if Bet Midler had said yes, would it have been better? If they instead of going to Broadway, had done either tryouts or had just gone to like a cabaret theater. Like, I think, you know, going to a cab ray style theater or doing it off Broadway and then Bette Midler being in it. Like I would have wished that I was born early enough in life to have seen that.

[19:45] Pamela Shandrow: But as it stands, no, it should have never been on Broadway. Like it just should like it was just a fun little like let's get together and do a show type project. It was like that. Unless you were gonna do something, you know, more along the lines of um, you know, sort of those one offs, you know, like how Kristen Chenowith just came and did her like set of cons like a one-woman show.

[20:06] Ebony Vines: Right. Yeah.

[20:07] Pamela Shandrow: Like if you were gonna just do it as sort of one of those type special performances, you know, maybe it could have worked, but to have it as a long running show, I just don't think that I agree.

[20:20] Ebony Vines: Yeah. Well, and there's something also to be said about kind of stepping out of the comfort zone that is Broadway. Uh, and this was pre-Corus line. We had spoken about this previously, but a chorus line kind of revitalized theater in a way that made it okay to use different kinds of music other than the traditional musical theater that we were used to hearing by Oscar's Oscar and Hammerstein and Rogers and Hammerstein.

[20:47] Pamela Shandrow: Right. His name was Oscar Hammerstein, his partner was Rogers. Anyway, I'm sorry. Um, you know, that we were used to, and so this was just slightly before then. So I think people were unused to hearing anything other than the traditional. So when you throw in a disco song into a Broadway musical, it just doesn't make sense. Like, so I think in that respect, I can see that the audience might have been like a little like, ooh, and then you know, add to it that it's a very niche thing that you're putting on that stage.

[21:19] Ebony Vines: Yeah, that you know, I I I it makes me think of John Waters when I think about this musical.

[21:28] Pamela Shandrow: Right. When Pink Flamingo and Crybaby and Hairspray, yeah, they were not immediate successes. In fact, they weren't successful at all. They were B movies for the longest time, but they had this cult following.

[21:40] Ebony Vines: That's right. And I feel like if this musical had lasted just a little while longer, that cult following may have made it so that it would have been like a regional success or an off-Broadway success, but I still don't think that it would have succeeded in the Broadway realm.

[21:58] Pamela Shandrow: Right. I mean yeah.

[21:59] Ebony Vines: Hairspray, my mom introduced me to. She loved she loved that movie.

[22:04] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[22:04] Ebony Vines: And I loved Crybaby.

[22:06] Pamela Shandrow: Did you loved it?

[22:08] Ebony Vines: Loved it. It's just, I mean, it's so campy and funny. But you also, like, if you don't know that it's camp, if you don't know that it's supposed to be funny, like it's just supposed to be whack-a-doo, and you're just supposed to laugh at it, then it's not good. And I can see it from both sides.

[22:27] Pamela Shandrow: Well, the musical Cry Baby didn't it didn't do well.

[22:31] Ebony Vines: It's so sad.

[22:32] Pamela Shandrow: Too I was so expecting good things because hairspray had been such a success. But I think though there's something, there's something in hairspray. Like, because even though it has a campy factor, it has an underlying realm of like truth. Like truth is like the through line for the show, really. About just being yourself and embracing who you are.

[22:49] Ebony Vines: Right.

[22:55] Pamela Shandrow: And not letting other people put you down.

[22:57] Ebony Vines: That's right. And so I think I think because of that through line of truth like that's what helps hairspray stay and that's what spoke to people who watched it absolutely I think that you're absolutely right in that but you're right Cray Baby doesn't really have that but it is so funny it's so funny and I feel like too I mean and I'm I'm not saying that I think that Bette Midler is a drag queen.

[23:23] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[23:23] Ebony Vines: But Bette Midler has the same kind of charismatic energy and personality that Divine did. And so I feel like if because it was written for her specifically for her I feel like if she had had a you know a hand in it that it may have turned into a completely different show.

[23:42] Pamela Shandrow: Can we Google and see what Bette was doing at the same time because this is of interest to me like I love her and I really want to see her in uh Hello Dolly.

[23:51] Ebony Vines: I also want to see Donna Murphy so I think I'm gonna try to go twice.

[23:55] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah yeah because it's on today ticks for like under 40 for um to see Donna Murphy.

[24:01] Ebony Vines: Oh wow yeah it's pre-sale for 39 bucks okay so I'm gonna but uh Bet is like she's like I think most of us grew up watching watching her movies and um I mean I don't care what any of you say but I like Beaches and that industry song where she's like uh uh and also auto tit sling.

[24:31] Ebony Vines: Oh, those oh I love those. Those scenes are so great. I saw it first without my mother actually, and then it was I want to say a year and a half, maybe two years before my mom passed. We were having, I was home visiting, and we were having one of those afternoons where she's retired at this point, but she would still be like, go to the TV guide channel or the info channel, and I would sit there and scroll and find something for us to watch.

[25:01] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[25:01] Ebony Vines: And so um I was uh scrolling through and Beaches popped up, and I said, Mom, have you ever seen Beaches? And I had seen it a fillion times by this point already. She was like, No, what's that? And I was like, So we watched it, and my mother was notorious for falling asleep while we were watching a movie. It is mad to turn it off or change the channel.

[25:29] Ebony Vines: Yeah, no, they wake right up. And then they're like, Wait, what happened? And I'm like, I am so tired. I've told you three I've had to catch you up three times. So, but she we sat there in the living room and we watched Beaches, and she cried at the end, and she laughed at the auto titling part. She really liked it. And I was like, the apple does not fall far from the tree. I knew she would because I like it.

[26:01] Pamela Shandrow: That's awesome.

[26:02] Ebony Vines: Yeah. Okay, so I just looked at this up, and it looked like in at the uh in 1972, she released her first album, and at the end of 1973, she released another uh self-titled follow-up album.

[26:16] Pamela Shandrow: Okay.

[26:16] Ebony Vines: So I think probably at the time that this was all going on, she was more interested in working on her recording career um than anything else, and maybe even, you know, moving into the whole TV and film.

[26:31] Pamela Shandrow: Um yeah.

[26:32] Ebony Vines: Okay. But it is also kind of interesting to note. Remember how I told you that one of the producers was the co-founder of Atlantic Records?

[26:39] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[26:39] Ebony Vines: Atlantic Records was the one that released her debut album.

[26:42] Pamela Shandrow: Oh.

[26:43] Ebony Vines: So maybe Paul Jabaro was like, hey, Ahmed, can you ask Bet if she went me on the show? I don't know that that's true. This is all conjecture.

[26:51] Pamela Shandrow: Well, I mean, if he wrote it for her, this is the one thing I don't under I don't understand. And I really would love it if somebody would email us and like tell me if they have any insight. But when you when when a writer decides they're going to write a musical for a certain person, shouldn't they be on board before?

[27:14] Pamela Shandrow: Right. Because I'm thinking it takes years to write a musical.

[27:19] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[27:20] Pamela Shandrow: So if you've decided I'm going to write a musical and I'm writing it with this particular person in mind, have you spoken to them already before you do it? This is like a really an honest question because I've heard that so many times and I just don't understand. And before, you know, in uh another episode we were recording, we're talking about Marie Christine and how Michael John LaChiusa was writing Marie Christine for Audra McDonald. And you know, she But she was fully on board.

[27:53] Ebony Vines: Right.

[27:54] Pamela Shandrow: And so that's why it wouldn't have been like I'm writing this musical for Audra McDonald and then ring ring ring. Hello. Hi, Audra I wrote this musical for you. I'm sorry, I'm really busy right now.

[28:03] Ebony Vines: Right, but that's the thing is that's why I don't understand. Because I hear a story like hers and where she was on board and knew that this was happening. This I when reading this story though, I mean, it really doesn't give me much detail about how long it took to write. All it feels like this was like a oh, I want to write a musical. What should I write? Like a burst of it was just all kind of like, oh, let's do this. You know, kind of like this podcast is working out to be.

[28:36] Pamela Shandrow: You've been thinking about a podcast for seven years, though.

[28:39] Ebony Vines: That's true. It's been a while. So that it's not but the I mean, as far as like figuring out that this was the podcast that we were gonna be you know what I mean. Like it's so that's kind of what it seems to me. And he was just like, uh, you know, after wrapping up Jesus Christ Superstar, was just you know, hanging out with with Robert Stigwood and and on that urtigen and saying, Hey, you know what I really want to do is write this musical based on this, and Bet Midler's gonna be totally amazing in it. And they were like, Okay, cool, that sounds fun. Here's five hundred thousand dollars.

[29:11] Pamela Shandrow: So I don't know. I mean, it's they were obviously very talented people, everyone that was involved, even Paul Jabara. I think his only mistake is not really knowing the audience, not really knowing the venue. That's that's I've said that so many times. Know your audience.

[29:29] Ebony Vines: It's true. But he was I mean, he had experience in in theater, in musical theater. He had done, as I mentioned before, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, but he took over for Tim Curry in Rocky Horror Show when Tim Curry went off to do the movie.

[29:45] Pamela Shandrow: Okay.

[29:45] Ebony Vines: So, like he, I mean, he had a lot of experience doing musical theater and being on the boards, but there is something very different about treading those boards and working backstage.

[29:56] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[29:56] Ebony Vines: So, and he didn't have a lot of guidance from his producers because they had no musical theater experience at all. They just kind of wanted to be like, oh, actually, no, that's not the case at all. Because Robert Stigwood produced Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, uh, Oh, Calcutta, lots of other shows.

[30:12] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[30:13] Ebony Vines: So I don't know. So I think it was just like a let's do this next weekend. What do you think? But seriously, if you all actually know if there's anyone listening who, you know, was doing theater here in New York City in the late 60s, early 70s, and you have insight into this, like please contact us because it's really fascinating. We love this kind of stuff.

[30:38] Pamela Shandrow: Because I don't I mean, it's so funny. We when Ebony and I were first putting this podcast together, when we first got the idea to do a show about Broadway flops, scandals, new works, you know, it all kind of started with Rebecca. But we wanted to really make sure that we weren't doing it to denigrate, that we weren't doing it to gossip and be mean and to undermine people, but just to tell the story because stories are fascinating. That's why we love theater.

[31:05] Ebony Vines: Right.

[31:05] Pamela Shandrow: Is because you can never gainsay a good story. So it we really just truly want to find out why and how, and you know, what what were these inner workings? What was it like to work with the people that were in this? You know, how much how much of what went wrong was because of fate or because of fluke or because of complete inexperience. Like we, you know, that's just really fascinating to us.

[31:33] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[31:34] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. So mentioned it before, but T G A B Way at Gmail.com, you can email us directly and let us know your thoughts.

[31:44] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[31:44] Pamela Shandrow: And stories that you might have. Personal, um, personal or otherwise. If you've just heard a tidbit of gossip and you think it might be interesting to us, which it will be, um, send it along. If you have any corrections, because we are not we're not experts.

[31:59] Ebony Vines: No.

[31:59] Pamela Shandrow: This is all coming from the internet.

[32:01] Ebony Vines: It's come from the internet and books.

[32:02] Pamela Shandrow: And books, yeah. So and this is, you know, we're not we're not claiming anything other than lovers of musical theater. We're not at we're not theater historians.

[32:10] Ebony Vines: No, we are not.

[32:12] Pamela Shandrow: No.

[32:14] Ebony Vines: I don't think I would have the patience for that.

[32:17] Pamela Shandrow: I don't know. It sounds like fun.

[32:19] Ebony Vines: Does it? Like what the kind of stuff, okay. So, like, uh my butchering Jennifer Ashley Tepper, who wrote the untold stories of the three books. And they have a show, she and someone else, and I can't remember his name right now, at 54 Below.

[32:35] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, so well, they did so the the two gentlemen who host um Behind the Curtain, which like what Pamela said, that's the entire reason I listened to that podcast, is because they interview Broadway legends.

[32:51] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[32:52] Pamela Shandrow: And so a lot of these shows that we talk about, like some of them I get the idea from listening to the podcast. And uh Rob Schneider and Kevin David Thomas don't actually delve into the inner workings and like what happened and where the breakdown was. So that's what we do here. We try to delve into the inner workings and what we find is the most fascinating.

[33:16] Ebony Vines: But what's fascinating about that show is they will, you know, they interview the legend. So sometimes we'll get information or you know, you get extra insight by listening to people who were actually there.

[33:29] Pamela Shandrow: Straight from the horse's mouth.

[33:30] Ebony Vines: And so um Rob Schneider, who's one of the hosts of Behind the Curtain, um, hosted a night with Jennifer Ashley Tepper named called uh Broadway Bound. And so these were all stories that didn't find their audience. And, you know, some of the ones that we'll be talking about on the podcast were uh there at the concert at 54 Below. But Rob and Jennifer trying to do more of these, and Jennifer had actually done a few with another friend that you can watch on YouTube. The ones that I'm talking about.

[34:03] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, yeah, you see.

[34:04] Ebony Vines: I can't remember. I think it's just like just look, um, just do a search for Jennifer Ashley Tepper. Yeah, and it'll come up. But like RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM ( is one of them. And what they'll do is they'll tell the story uh behind the scene, behind the curtain, and then they'll have an actress or an actor sing one of the songs from the musical. And sometimes they were actually in the show.

[34:25] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[34:26] Ebony Vines: So uh that's kind of cool.

[34:27] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, it is really cool.

[34:29] Ebony Vines: It's cool. It's fun. It's worth looking up. I mean, that's another rabbit hole that you could follow.

[34:33] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, it's on it's on YouTube.

[34:35] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[34:36] Pamela Shandrow: Yep.

[34:38] Ebony Vines: All right. So uh iTunes, rate, review, subscribe.

[34:43] Pamela Shandrow: Please. We're fledgling here. We're starting out fresh. We need all the support we can get from you guys.

[34:50] Ebony Vines: No pressure.

[34:51] Pamela Shandrow: No pressure. But if you don't support us, we'll we'll disappear.

[34:54] Ebony Vines: Hopefully not.

[34:55] Pamela Shandrow: We don't want to close before our opening.

[34:58] Ebony Vines: I know. Please help us not be a flop.

[35:02] Pamela Shandrow: Please.

[35:03] Ebony Vines: Yeah. Um, you can like, share, and follow us on Facebook at Theatre Geeks Anonymous. Or you can follow us on Twitter at T G A B Way.

[35:14] Pamela Shandrow: That's my favorite thing in the whole entire world. And it just goes through my head like I can't I cannot say, physically say B way without singing it now. It's just a thing. I like to sing. I don't know if you've noticed.

[35:26] Ebony Vines: But I like to sing.

[35:34] Pamela Shandrow: Really close to the mic.

[35:36] Ebony Vines: So I don't have to project.

[35:42] Pamela Shandrow: Oh gosh.

[35:44] Ebony Vines: All right. Good stuff. Well, that's it. Good stuff.

[35:46] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, is that it?

[35:47] Ebony Vines: That's it.

[35:48] Pamela Shandrow: That's RACHAEL Lily Blow.

[35:51] Ebony Vines: Holy crap.

[35:52] Pamela Shandrow: Rachel.

[35:55] Ebony Vines: Okay. RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM (.

[35:58] Pamela Shandrow: And don't you ever forget it.

[36:00] Ebony Vines: Jinx.

[36:02] Pamela Shandrow: Bye.

[36:03] Ebony Vines: Bye, everybody.