The Ensemblist

Hosted by the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Broadway for Black Lives Matter Again is a three-part forum for the Broadway community to heal, listen, and hold itself accountable to its history of white supremacy.

Day 3, Day of Accountability, was a space to begin examining accountability with the Broadway industry - rooted in its history of individual and systemic racism. This was a time to collectively manifest an anti-racist theatrical landscape, while exploring the steps towards realizing that dream. Here is BAC co-founder Christian Dante White.

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Hosted by the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Broadway for Black Lives Matter Again is a three-part forum for the Broadway community to heal, listen, and hold itself accountable to its history of white supremacy.

Day 2, Day of Listening, was a space to center the experiences of black industry professionals, while challenging white allies to bear witness and reflect on what it means to dismantle implicit bias as it related to institutional and internalized racism. Here to tell us more is Broadway Advocacy Coalition co-founder Chrisitan Dante White.

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“Musical Chairs” premiered on March 19th, 2013. It was written by Becky Mode, and was directed by Broadway’s very own, Casey Nicholaw! The viewership was down again from the previous week, by about a quarter-million viewers, amounting to a total of 2.66 million.

We saw two full original songs and two excerpts this week, which means, no pop covers! Our in-home team of Shaiman and Whitman wrote Liaisons’ Ce N’Est Pas Ma Faute (It’s Not My Fault) sung by Sean Hayes, and Bombshell’s The National Pastime, sung and tapped by Katherine McPhee and the Bombshell ensemble. From Hit List we heard a reprise of Heart Shaped Wreckage from last week, and a new opening song called Rewrite This Story, written by Pasek & Paul.

Now that Derek is signed onto direct Hit List, Scott Nichols of Manhattan Theatre Workshop offers the theatre’s 80-seat underground space. He is afraid it doesn’t have much of an overwriting theme to appease his mainstage subscribers, but he will reconsider if stubborn Jimmy and agreeable Kyle are able to reinvent Hit List by Friday.

Taking over the direction of Bombshell is harder than Tom anticipated - it’s like Tom and Karen are speaking different languages. In the absence of any legal agreements about using Derek’s concepts in Bombshell, Tom is forced to reinvent the show. And in the absence of Derek’s choreography, Tom’s staging on numbers like “The National Pastime” turn Bombshell into a sugar-induced headache.

What the show also needs is to get rid of Jerry Rand as a producer. The silver bullet comes in the form of a contract Eileen signed with the Marilyn Monroe estate for the use of her journals - which heavily influenced Julia’s book. In a hostile takeover, the women of Bombshell force Jerry to sign over the show to Eileen.

At Liaisons, Ivy has cemented her talent as “The Terry Whisperer,” but she and Terry both hate this “meh” version of the show and make a pact that it might as well go down in a blaze of glory. With an over-the-top version of a Terry Falls-helmed number called “It’s Not My Fault,” Liaisons announces that it will close at the end of the week, making Ivy a free agent.

The musical chairs between Bombshell and Hit List come to a head at the opening night of Liasions, where everybody wants what they can’t have: Jerry and Karen want Derek to return Bombshell, while Derek wishes that he had a book writer like Julia and a star like Karen. It’s unclear what Jimmy wants, other than to not write a new opening number for his show. 

Karen starts the musical chairs in motion, acknowledging to Tom that she’s not his Marilyn - Ivy is. Derek also admits to Kyle and Jimmy that he believes in Hit List so much he will even direct the show in a 80-seat blackbox. But it turns out he doesn’t have to - when Jimmy writes Hit List a banger of a new opening called “Rewrite This Story.”

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It’s difficult to even fathom what the next three months will feel like. As Broadway waits for the green light to start performances, the performers in those shows are waiting as well.

However, that waiting comes with knowledge that even when Broadway opens they may not have a show to come back to. On March 12, there were 457 ensemblists working in Broadway musicals. But as Beetlejuice and then Frozen posted closing notices, 50 of those actors found out they would be out of work even when performances resumed. That’s in addition to the postponement of Caroline, or Change, Flying Over Sunset, MJ… and whatever is announced in the coming weeks and months.

And when Broadway performances finally resume, what will the experience be like? Will audiences be temperature checked on their way into the theatre? Will they be required to wear masks that stifle their laughter? Will the actors be willing to partner each other in lifts or embrace on stage?

I reached out to friends in the Broadway community about what they think the reopening of Broadway will look and feel like. Throughout the episode you’ll hear from six performers who were performing in new musicals when Broadway shutdown: Zach Adkins, Kyle Brown, Britney Coleman, Kaleigh Cronin, DeAnne Stewart and Ricky Ubeda. Here’s what they had to say…

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“The Fringe” premiered on March 12, 2013. It was written by Julia Brownell, and directed by Dan Lerner, two more newcomers to the Smash family. The viewership was up this week! Up 220,000 from the previous episode, “The Fringe” was seen by 2.9 million viewers.

We saw three songs and a reprise this week: one of which was a cover of “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies, sung by the Hit List cast. The other two and a half were original songs from all three of our musicals! Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman delivered us a reprise of “Never Give All the Heart” from Bombshell, and a Glitter-and-Be-Gay inspired number from Liaisons called “A Letter From Cecile.” Lastly, from Hit List we got a new song called “Heart Shaped Wreckage,” written by Julian Emery, Jon Green, James Lawrence Irvin, and Lucie Silvas.

Hit List has booked a spot in the Winter Fringe after all! It’s only two presentations in shoebox, but Jimmy is convinced Hit List is good enough to outshine the venue. Which is good because the show gets picked up by Time Out and “a bunch of theatre people RSVP’d!” 

Back at Bombshell, Eileen has decided to produce the dynamic, technicolor fantasy that Tom and Jerry prefer, much to the schgrin of Julia and Derek. Karen is all lined up to star in Hit List, but Jerry can’t be “introducing Karen Cartwright” if she’s already been introduced at the Winter Fringe, which leaves Jimmy, Kyle and the rest of the Fringe crew understandingly ticked off about Karen’s backing out. 

At a coffee klatch in Madison Square Park, Ivy tells Derek that Terry Falls continues to derail Liaisons into a farce. But he replies that standing out as good in a bad show is a time-honored theatre tradition and to follow her instinct. She spices up the production’s press preview by adding her own brand of humor, but her good work threatens Terry Falls. Only in an 11th hour company meeting does Terry have the balls to invite the company to 

Bombshell’s new producer Jerry Rand continues to meddle with Julia’s script, suggesting they cut the intellectual downer of a song “Never Give All The Heart.” He and Eileen give Tom a challenge: change it into an uplifting song that makes them feel something in the next 24 hours. The composer puts a new spin on the song, making it a cautionary tale, empowered instead of wistful. But Tom’s direction puts Derek over the edge, quitting the show and storming out of rehearsal. And Eileen loves the work enough to crown Tom Bombshell’s new director.

Derek’s departure from Hit List frees up Karen to perform in the second night of Hit List at the fringe, as well as making him available to watch her in it. Derek is taken by the show and the performances of both Karen and Jimmy. Scott Nichols, artistic director at Manhattan Theatre Workshop says the show is actually the kind of project he is looking for. 

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This was meant to be a celebratory week for the New York theatre community. We were meant to be seeing our dreams come true. We were meant to be exhausted from the weeks of two-show days and press events. We were meant to be cheering each other on while we gamed award ceremonies. We were meant to be celebrating the power of coming together. But instead, we are home.

This pause has been touted as “only intermission” for the theatre industry. And yet, we have no real sense of when we will be able to return to our seats and start Act II. We were first asked to hold for four weeks, then twelve weeks and now 25 weeks. Half a year of sheltering in place without a clear sense of when we will be able to feel the energy of coming together to tell and hear stories.

On the list of what makes a healthy and thriving society, no one would place musical theatre at the top. In a world where PPEs, testing and vaccines are scarce, there are more important things for our society to tackle than the health of the theatre industry. And yet, the arts are what make life worth living. As we’ve sheltered in place and quarantined at home, it is music, dance and storytelling that has kept our spirits up.

But what about the spirits of those who tell the stories? As storytellers are asked to find new and unknown ways to share their time and talents, how are they coping in these uncharted waters? Of course, the path that our performing arts community is on stroon with disappointments. But there must also be glimmers of hope along the path - those worth celebrating in their own way.

I reached out to friends in the Broadway community who were meant to be performing in new musicals this season about how they’ve coping with disappointment and finding moments of hope. Here’s what they had to say...

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On March 11, 2020, 457 performers were employed in the ensembles of Broadway musicals. Across the companies of 24 musicals, these artists had come to the Main Stem to pursue their dreams of working on Broadway. One of the last to join these ranks was Tony Neidenbach, who made his Broadway debut just ten days earlier. 

We asked Tony to share the story of his Broadway debut as well as his experience moving out of the St. James Theatre last week. Here, in his own words, is Tony Neidenbach. 

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Whether its your first Broadway show or your sixth, closing a show is an emotional experience. You’re saying goodbye to a creative journey, a community of artists as well as stability and a paycheck. When the company of Broadway’s Frozen was asked to move out of the St. James Theatre after the show closed during the Coronavirus pandemic, we reached out to members of the cast to tell us about visiting the theatre for the last time. Here’s what Nina Lafarga and Robin Masella had to say…

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“The Read-Through” premiered on March 5, 2013. It was written by Liz Tuccillo, and directed by David Petrarca, both in their Smash debuts. The episode premiered to a viewership of 2.68 million this week, down .36 mil from the previous episode.

We didn’t have a whole lot of music this week, despite hearing the read-throughs of two different shows. We saw a Bombshell fantasy Act 2 opener, complete with tap break, called “Public Relations” by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, and a snippet of Hit List’s “Caught in the Storm” by Pasek and Paul, Jeremy Jordan rendition. We also saw a fantasy sequence to a cover of “Some Boys” originally by Death Cab For Cutie. 

Bombshell has booked the Belasco! In a walkthrough of their new home, Tom imagines a new second act opener for Bombshell called “Public Relations” which looks remarkably like a song from Catch Me If You Can, down to the plane set and stewardess. Now finishing each other’s sandwiches, Julia and Peter stroll in late to the walkthrough late but thrilled with the new script draft they’ve created together. 

Despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations, Derek has friends in high enough places to get Hit List a spot in the “Winter Fringe Festival.” But with the Festival in just two weeks, Karen and Ana rally Bobby, Jessica and the rest of their ensemblist cohorts join for a read through where they learn that while Jimmy's music is great, Kyle’s dialogue and the characters… aren’t. But after their failed reading, Jimmy, Kyle, Ana and Karen crack the code that could turn into a success: scrap the book scenes and make the show sung through. 

A week into rehearsal for the Broadway revival of Liaisons, Ivy finally meets her co-star Terry Falls. But Terry doesn’t even know his stage left from his stage right, turning “a real drama into Spamalot!” However, Ivy will have none of it - refusing to stoop to conquer and teaching Terry how to act in the process. 

Ahead of a reading of the new Bombshell script, Julia hears rumors that Peter has purposefully upended other shows by feeding the writers ideas bad enough to be fired. But despite those rumors, the reading goes off swimmingly with all parties impressed by the rewrites. So much so that Derek halts his plans to take Hit List to the fringe after all. 

It’s an artistic triumph, but their new producer Jerry Rand says it’s not commercial enough to be a financial hit. With a hung jury of creatives, Jerry, Derek, Tom and Julia leave it up to Eileen to make the decision about which Marilyn musical to bring to Broadway: a sexy, provocative insightful musical or a lush, dazzling spectacle...

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For many theatre artists, there’s the show that changed everything. A musical that - for the first time - reflected a part of the artist that they had never seen before. A show that gave that young artist a glimpse into their future - into an industry and community they would inevitably be a part of. And while that experience is by no means unique, it is often the kernel of why they’ve made the theatre their life’s work.

So for The Ensemblist’s 300th episode, we are turning the tables. Today, I’ll be interviewing The Ensemblist’s co-creator and host, Mo Brady, about his favorite musical: the 1996 Broadway phenomenon Rent. Here’s our conversation…

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