FULL INTERVIEW: Kenny Leon & Tory Kittles Discuss Broadway's 'Home,' & Their Roles As Director & Actor + More

Kenny Leon & Tory Kittles Discuss Broadway's 'Home,' & Their Roles As Director & Actor + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's Up Its way Up with Angela Yee, and this
is very exciting for me. We had producer and director
Kenny Leon here Hey of Home but also many other
projects as well, Tony Award winning and nominated. And then
we also have Tory Kittles who is Cephist. He plays
a character Cephis, but also an actor many other accolades
as well from Home. But thank you guys for joining

(00:24):
me today, thank you for having us.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Man.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
When I tell you, I want to go see the
play with my friend Kim Osorio, and she and I
both like we love going to Broadway plays together, and
so when we first sat down at the Roundabout Theater
to see this play, we didn't know what to expect
because I'd never read the play before, and so I
like to go in sometimes and not really you know,
read about it or know about it until I sit down.

(00:46):
And when I tell you, we were absolutely blown away
because in the beginning we were trying to figure out,
like where is this going? But as everything started to
catch up, I really feel like I need to go
see it a second time now that I know what's
going to happen at the end of catch maybe some
things I might have missed, you know, but this is
a revival, so let's talk about that for a second.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
What drew you to this play for Kenny? For the director, well,
number one.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Thank you for being there. It means a lot for
you to show up in that space. But sam Mark Williams,
the writer, you know, I'm getting ready to do two
shows for Broadway in the next few months coming up. Yeah,
you know Thorn Wilder America, one of America's you know, greatest,

(01:31):
wrote Our Town and then you know there's Shakespeare who
wrote Othellow. But sam Mart Williams is every bit every
bit as talented as Shakespeare and Wilder. His poetry, his
development of character, his his his style. You know, he
can put multiple styles in one. He engages the imagination.

(01:53):
You know that is there's a corn field in a
tobacco field, but basically no walls, no furniture, no problem.
And you have three wonderful actors who play forty different characters,
I mean, anchored by this guy. So it's that's why
you do it. You do it because Samuel Williams, And
unfortunately he passed away three weeks ago and he didn't

(02:16):
see the production, but we talked about it and so
we do this play in his honor. So the reason
you do play forty years after they've been written is
to introduce it to a new generation. So I love
sitting in the theater and you have thirty year olds
coming in there, twenty year olds and eighty years and
all of us sitting in there. And then you know,
and the black folks come up in there and they

(02:38):
just said, I didn't know we had anything like this.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, we got it all we can do.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
We're not a monolithic group.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Not at all.

Speaker 5 (02:45):
A lot.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
And for you, Tori, for you doing theater, because I
always feel like this is just such a different way
of showing your art because as an actor there there
is just a whole nother beast.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
Well, this particular play is a whole.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Nother I mean it was intense. I was like, first
of all, how is he doing all of this?

Speaker 5 (03:04):
Because I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's also straight through ninety minutes, straight.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
Through the backstage.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
But you know, for me, it's unlike doing the Equalizer, right,
you can shoot Equalizing, shoot a page.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
At a time for a couple.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
You got to be one ninety minutes.

Speaker 6 (03:20):
Yeah, straight ninety minutes. But you know, I said, yes
to this play. Before I ever read it, Kenny called
he said, hey, this is what I'm doing in the spring.
And I said, if you're doing it, I'm doing it.
You know, because Kenny is responsible really for a lot
of things in my life and my career. Kenny is
how I met Queen Latifa to be able to do
the Equalizer. We did Still Magnolia's the remake first, so

(03:41):
that was the first time I met Queen, and then
we did Bessie and then you know, went on to
do Equalizer. But when Kenny called and said, hey, this
is what I'm doing in the spring, it actually worked
out timing wise with the Equalizer schedule, and so I
went to Queen and I said, I said, hey, I
have this opportunity and she said, oh, no.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
You're doing that. You know what I mean. She was like,
you're doing that?

Speaker 6 (04:00):
Yeah, absolutely, And so just timing wise, it worked out.
And then I had to read the play and then
I was like, Okay, what did I signed up for?
Like it was like who It was so beautiful and
so poetic, and you know, but it's just it's like
such a it takes you on such a journey.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
What were your thoughts the first time you read through
the play, Oh.

Speaker 6 (04:19):
That ending shook me up. It snuck up on me,
you know, because God for that ending.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's all I'm going to say. Yeah, I don't know
if I would be able to rest easy.

Speaker 6 (04:28):
Yeah, yeah, no, because you're reading all this beautiful poetry
and and this. You know, this farmer who's like fish
out of water gets thrown in the city and he
can't really handle the city and sort of choose him up.
But then you don't know how he's going to get
out of that. And he's warring with his faith, he's
warring with so many different things. But these people just
keep coming along in his journey to carry him, you know,

(04:48):
just to pick him up.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
You know.

Speaker 6 (04:49):
That's saying like, if you just keep crawling, somebody'll come
pick you up.

Speaker 5 (04:52):
And and so.

Speaker 6 (04:53):
He's this is Cephas's life, you know, but he really
is trying to get back to.

Speaker 5 (04:57):
Where he began.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
North Carolina, North Carolina.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, Crossroads, North Carolina.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
You know what I was thinking too. I also I
took a lot of different things from this play. And
part of it is as we talk about you know,
we talk about people who end up going to prison
and then when they come home, they're not given the
opportunity to be able to make money, get the housing
that they should get even after they've went, you know,

(05:23):
did their time, paid their dues, did everything they were
supposed to do. Because and this is not really a spoiler,
but you end up, you know, dodging the draft and
not going to fight in the.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
War, well not dodging, taking a stack, taking a stand conscious.
You know, Muhammad Ali took a stand. This is not
you know, for me, because he doesn't believe, he didn't
believe in killing killing people, you know, which is a
very righteous stand. And yeah, he loses everything, but because.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Of that, but that's not a reason why you should
come home and not be able to have a job.
And that's something that you know, have been going on
that we have discussions about today when you think about
people who have paid their debt to society and a
debt that I don't even feel like should have been paid, right.

Speaker 6 (06:03):
I mean that there's so many parallels you can get
into the whole marijuana discussion exactly. You know, it's corporatized
and it's big business now years in person for dimebags
here and there.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 6 (06:15):
So so, but that's you know, so he's getting punished
for standing up for his principles. But principles are only
principles if you stand up for him when it's inconvenient,
and he learns that. You know, there's a cost that
comes with standing up for things that you believe in.
It doesn't always work out the way you want it to.
But if you stay the course and you keep doing,
you keep the faith, you know, you keep the hope,

(06:37):
sometimes it will work out for you.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
And that's what Sefist learns in the.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
End, and for Kenny.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Do you get emotional like when you watch the play,
because I know you end up having to see it
a whole.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I see the emotional No.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
I get mad.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
They want to say this place he's got to be
like eighty nine minutes, you know, so every every extra
breath they take, or every moment where they're overacting or
they're you know, those moments.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Are those moments are rare.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
But I'm sitting there when I go to see the place,
I hold my head down and close my eyes and
I listen to their rhythm because it's music to me.
And so it's like like a grade three piece jazz musicians,
and I can hear when it's off. So and three

(07:28):
is the number. That's the first time you can harmonize.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
You know.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
If one person is a solo and two is it,
you know you got a little douet. But three is
the first time you can really harmonize. So if you
metaphorically put that into acting, it's like somebody's always plan to.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Plan the solo.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Somebody's on drums, somebody's on pims, somebody's waiting to come in,
you know, so they have to literally breathe together, all
three of them. I have to ride that together. So
I'm always I'm a little nervous because they're like, okay,
get it together, because if one person steps out, we don't.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Have right And I would never notice any of that.
But obviously, because everything felt perfect to me when I
was watching it, audience right.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
You asked it earlier, like when you what do I
see when you.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Get the script?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
If you read that script, it doesn't give you any
instruction as to how to present it to the public.

Speaker 5 (08:18):
So I had to say to the actors and get
everybody on the.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Same page, just say okay, look, we're gonna use as
little props as possible. Yeah, So sometimes you might go
and say, oh, I think I need a hat, I
think I need No, No, all you need is that scarf.
Let that scarf be be your hat. Let that scarff
be your dress. You know, all you need is this.
So I said, the less we use in this play,
the more engaging it would be for the audience.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
And there's only three actors and you guys play over
forty different characters. And when you say no props, I
mean there were things happening that I could visualize, like
cleaning off the bar with no bar there and nothing,
but you can see everything. That's a different type of
skill to be able to have. How was that for you?
Because I know you've done Broadway before once, right.

Speaker 6 (09:03):
Yeah, I cover back in twenty ten. I think it
was twenty ten. It was a play and I covered
Anthony and Mackie play called Behanding and Spokane, but I
never went on.

Speaker 5 (09:12):
So this is officially actually my Broadway debut.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
As well as Brittany Inge and story Aid, all three
of you, and I can't say enough about the two
of these women. Every night they are so incredible and
they kick off the play and they have such energy
and joy and they drop me right into where I
need to be.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
But Kenny, you know, in the room, in.

Speaker 6 (09:32):
The whole rehearsal process, he's about making everything truthful and authentic,
you know, and he does not let you get away
with anything. So we talked about that bad acting. He
got some of the bad acting out of the room,
you know, all.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Of it, all of it all challenging part for you.

Speaker 6 (09:47):
Then I think, you know, the idea to get your
ego out of the way, Like the play is the
thing that you always have to come back to that
like the first time you read a play WMS like this,
your imagination, your creativity that comes alive. But then you
have to you know, mow that into what the vision
of the play is. And Kenny was so specific about

(10:09):
what the vision of it was. And he you know,
like he knows me so anything that I could get
away with normally I couldn't get away with with him,
you know, like he helped He held my feet to
the fight, He held my feet to the fire, and
and I so appreciate him for that, you know what
I mean. Like he asked me to go into uh
into different areas and to be completely exposed, like all

(10:32):
three of us up there every night, we are exposed,
like you say, we have no props, but you can.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
See the props, right, you know.

Speaker 6 (10:38):
And that's the thing that's like when the acting is
really real. If we can make you see that and
we don't actually have that, that means we believe it.
And if we believe it, then you believe it. And Kenny,
you know, ushered us into that space. And it wasn't
always easy, you know what I mean, because he demands excellence,
but but you know, when you're trying to get to
not something that's just good.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
You know.

Speaker 6 (10:59):
I was was reading something the other day and I
think it was why Will Smith was saying, like there's
ninety percent and everybody thinks that that's that. To get
to ninety percent to one hundred percent, like it's such
a big jump, you know, And Kenny was asking us
to go to that hundred percent. So, you know, I
think the first couple of weeks of rehearsal, like we
were in a solid space. We knew what it could be,

(11:19):
but Kenny saw something greater for us all and so
he continued to push us and and you know what
you see up on the stage is is really because
of this man right here, Kenny Leon.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, we definitely got into the world. It's kind of
like when I do read Shakespeare. It takes an adjustment
period to feel like the language, but then when it
starts flowing, you're really in there, you know what I'm saying,
Like you really feel the rhythm of everything. And you
also did A Raisin in the Sun as well twice, right, Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
First Broadways showing It is my Then ten years later
I did another production.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Sheesh, watching that is a It was great.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, that's amazing to have all it like when I
tell you the accolades that you have. You also did
start your own theater company.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah. I ran the Alliance Stadia in Atlanta, and i
started a company called True Color State of Company. And
I've done shows like Still mcny is. I've worked with
Avid Dune on the Colden Kaepernick thing. I've done Gossip Girls,
the whole damage I did. I did all of that,
but I've done I'm most proud of the this year
of Mark seventeen Broadway shows. That's not to say I'm
just patted myself on the back. That means that there

(12:24):
should be more room for black women and black men
to direct on Broadway, so they still have a ways
to go, just so that everybody's stories are on those stages.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
I do see more diversity when that is, but not.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
Still not enough.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
It's definitely not your twelve percent of the population. We
should be twelve percent of the work.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, Listen, every time something comes out, I'll try to
make sure that's why this was really important and special
to me. And even taking my friends, a lot of them,
I've taken them to their first ever Broadway play, you know.
So I went to go see for Color Girls, and
I felt like that didn't have a long enough run
because it is hard to market.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
It's hard, especially you opening a player at this time
of year, like right right before the Tony Awards coming up,
which I'm nominated for Best Director for Perly Victorious.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
You saw that play, but it's Leslie Oldhams Junior and
Carrol Young. They were amazing.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
So but anyway, and the fact that all of them
came to see him, they came home, so.

Speaker 6 (13:22):
I was as I was inspired by I saw what
they were doing and Pearly and I actually I text
Leslie and I was like, oh, you're gonna make me
do a play, you know what I mean? And then
Kenny called with a play. It's like it's sort of
like we feed off of each other, you know, Corey
Hawkins who came the other night, and top Dog Amazing.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
The other night and support and top Dog. Yeah, so
it's like we got to uplift each other.

Speaker 6 (13:42):
And that's like, you know, like I get energy from
like seeing other great artists perform and do things that
are inspiring and educating and entertaining as well. So I
think you can do all of those things, and Kenny
always does that, you know. I think Kenny is like
a you know, I can't go on and no, like
I can go on and on like forever about this
because he means so much to me. But I do
think Kenny is a a as a chondur of spirits,

(14:04):
Like he's a great connected between the past and the present,
you know, and like sort of pushes us into the
future with his art.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (14:10):
Like we talk about like this particular play, why right now,
you know what I mean? But there is something like
really special about the energy that this play is creating,
but also how it connects to Sam Mart's transition. At
this particular time, you know, we had el Scott Carwell
who and Michelle Say who were in the original Broadway

(14:32):
production with Charles Brown, the late Great Charles Brown, who
is Yvette Cole Brown's uncle. I was was her uncle,
and so she came out to see the show, you know,
and she gave us the greatest compliment.

Speaker 5 (14:43):
She's like, I could see my uncle up there with
you guys. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
I take this so serious, you know, Like I've been.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
I was working with Arabella Fonte before he passed away,
like three weeks before he died, of sitting in the
room with him and listen to him give me knowledge
and instruction about to be a better artist. And so
I'm still dedicated to telling his story.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
You know.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
I've been in the same space with Sidney Poitier, you know,
Sydney on one side.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
And Denzel on the other side.

Speaker 5 (15:08):
I've been.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
I did Tony Morrison's opera, you know, I've been, I said,
Davis and Ruby d you know, so I was like, Wow,
I met all these people.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
I work with all these people.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
So it's it's my responsibility to take their teachings to
this generation so we can lead this leak forward with
this younger generation into the future, you know what I mean.
So I feel, you know, I feel the responsibility to
to Bellefonte and to Sydney into Ruby, to August Wilson,
who you know, had blessing to spend the last five

(15:40):
weeks you know, of his life and doing his work.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
You know, So we need to play about you, you know.
That's what it's feeling like.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Lee.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Well let me you know, as we're talking about all
of this, I saw an interview where you said seventy
percent of plays do not recoup, and so the reason
that you do this is, you know, because this is real,
all right, But I want to talk to you about
that because when plays don't recoup, then you know what,

(16:10):
like what happens?

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Because I don't know the business of.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
This, they have impact.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
It's like percent of the place don't recoup, but they
still make money in different ways. You're branded that that show.
So like, even if we don't make all the money
for Home at the box office, more people know about
sam mar Williams now they know.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
About the place.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
So you can go to impact small theaters in Atlanta
or in Tennessee or in California.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
They're going to do this play. Now they know about it.
Same thing.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Parly, Victoria's hadn't been done in sixty two years, but
now they know about it.

Speaker 5 (16:45):
You know.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
And I have a quick story when I did the
Tupac Musical for Broadway and we ran for maybe three
months or so. And it's also one of the Chad
Boseman did the workshop of that play before he.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
Was Chad Boseman.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
But anyway, so I remember the show closed earlyer than
I thought because I had been I believe, oh man,
we need to have a long run. And I saw
mister Bella Fonte getting out of a cab with Cornell
West and they.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Said, how you doing, brother Leon.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
I said, yeah, the show is closing, but I really
appreciate you going back and talk to those young people.
Some of those young people don't even didn't even know
who Arabella Fonte was. And I said, but I'm so
disappointed we were closing. He says, what are you talking about?
All the doors you open? You got to remember you
were presenting afrocentric work on our eurocentric stage. Wow, So

(17:35):
you got to forget it's not always box office. It's
about passing our stories, forward.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
And thinking about who's coming behind.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
We don't do those stories. They're not gonna get done.
So that put me in check a few years ago.
So everything I do now, everything I do now, I'm
just passing.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
I'm just doing.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Like I told my mother, she said, she said, thank
you for everything you've introduced to me, to so many people.
I said, Mom, if you were born when I was born,
and I was born when you were born, you would
be the Broadway director.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Wow, that is so honestly, And I do like the
reason why I do this because I know a lot
of times we have had different people up here, you know,
talking about plays, and I've gone to see off you know,
off Broadway plays as well. But I want to make
sure that everybody is realizing like that theare is a
great date night, great place to take your family.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Oh you know what, and if you're a guy, two
thirds of the people in the audience are women are women.
So if you are a man interested in women or
even it was kind of like woman woman man, woman, woman, woman,
that's a place, you know, come on, guys, go to
the theater. It's a good you know, good things will
happen if you if you bring someone.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
To home, good things will happen for you.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
It make you feel like I got to take care
of my man too. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
So guys, bring your woman to go see home because
she'll be like, I got to make sure he's good,
you know, because it was like coming home to everything,
you know, the way that this play kind.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Of circled circled back.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
I mean, honestly, if that play didn't have the ending
that it had, I think, you know, they always talk about,
like with movies, they might have to change the ending
because people were disappointed and whatever. I was like heartbroken
while I was watching. It really took me on a journey.
I walked out and I was like, lord, I don't
know if I could have handled it.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
But a beautiful ending.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's why I think it's a play we need that.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
It's for everybody.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
It's like, you know, if you know two men want
to come together, two women want to come in, it's
a play for because it's a play about not betraying
your core value right, you know, and if you get
knocked down and you're still alive, there's still room to
get up and love sometimes look different. You want it
right now, but that love may show up twenty years later,

(19:50):
you know, stay focused on your core values and what
you want.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Well, let's talk about one relationship in here that I
want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
You already feel like.

Speaker 5 (19:59):
You already know you know this is going I think so.
I mean, but he was.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Shacking up with a woman, shocking with and she was
there for the money, you know, because he was making
good money for a period of time, and as soon
as the money left, she was.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Out the door.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
Yeah. Yeah, sometimes sometimes things look good and they can
be distracting, right.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
But the purpose of her though, because it did like
what would you say was her purpose in Cephas's life
at that time? Because I always look at things when
I'm watching it happen, like there's got to be like
a deeper meaning to this too.

Speaker 6 (20:32):
Yeah, there's always a deeper meaning, like every experience if
you really, you know, take the time to look at
it and dissect it and reflect on it.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Like he needed that.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
He needed to see what it was like to that,
you know what I mean, Because he gets sort of
this dream is like proposed to him, like, hey, go
to the promised Land.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
You go to promised Land, you.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
Know, New York City, Baby, you got these beautiful women,
you got, these drugs, you got all of these different things,
these choices, these options, you know, but then they become
this old, overwhelming thing that he's not suited for. To
get back to your core values and his core values,
you know, they come in the form of his first
true love, right, you know. But I think sometimes you

(21:11):
have to experience those heartaches to understand what the truth
of that real love is and to really be able
to appreciate it. Sometimes you got to get knocked down
to really understand, like, oh no, that's not for me.
This is the thing that's for me. And I know
that now better than I would have if I wouldn't
have had that experience.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
The human part of that is that sometimes we look
at the wrong places to become whole. Yeah, you know,
we're just trying to we're just trying to behold and
we think we need this, we need this. I just
want to want to be whole, And then later on
you discover that was that was the wrong places to
look to be whole. So let me return to home,

(21:49):
let me return to those core vidues, and maybe I
can find.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
That whole less.

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Yeah, It's like it's like the paradox of choice.

Speaker 6 (21:56):
Right, we have all these different choices now, but sometimes
theless thing is the thing that's right for you, but
you don't necessarily know that.

Speaker 5 (22:04):
If you don't make.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, the grass is greener on the other side,
and you think you want something and then it's not
the right thing.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Be careful what you wish for.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
What choices did he have? You know too, kids, they
made that story. Made a good man.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
Seemed like he was crazy because of what the world
said about him. No, he was a good man.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
He was he was circumstances paying him as a Now
he's a homeless guy.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Now he's a lazy guy. Now he's a guy. Now
He wasn't any of that.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
He was just a guy that got lost.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, And that is something that also makes you think
like you don't know people's backstory. You might be walking
past somebody on the street and being like, Oh, this
lazy person you know, just out here begging for money,
but you don't know the backstory of how they got
to where they got to. That sometimes is completely out
of their control. Taking a stand having your core value
can put you in a situation where you lose everything

(23:03):
and then people judge you based off of that not
knowing how you got to and any of us could
end up there. Absolutely, you know that's the thing as well.
Anybody could end up in that situation. And you did
such a good job. I felt like you stunk.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
You like, yeah, yeah, it's speech. He said about smell,
and we talked about smells.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
We talked about smell, and you know, like literally said
in the rehearsal room like, if y'all do this right,
they will be able to smell you.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
I was like, how is anybody going there?

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Him? I know, I know he is funky, Yeah, but you.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Know, I just want to encourage everybody to go see home.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Now.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
How long is this going to be in there? Because
I know it is a limited Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
We run into July twenty first, trying to get it
in before this fellow has to go back to Equalizer.
Oh man, so yeah, July twenty first. Every day except Monday,
some Tuesdays maybe, but mostly every Win through Sunday, sometimes
two shows every day.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
I don't know who could play this role now, me either,
after seeing you.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
It's a great compliment, No, honestly, Like I can't even
imagine what that would be like, but congratulations on that.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
You know, just what a record.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
He does not smell in person, but the acts is
self phenomenal that you can actually see that.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
And congratulations to you.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
It isn't honor, you know, to have both of you here,
but congratulations.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I hope you win.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Thank you for the support.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh, thank you for all Yes, yeah, Sunday should be interesting,
but thank you for all the community work that you
do and just you know, just letting people know or
open our eyes, giving them better options in terms of
what to do when they get.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Out in the world. So I appreciate, appreciate what you do.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Oh well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
And oh you know what, I also wanted to ask
you about these live action plays that have been happening
on TV right because I feel like that's also like
been a new opening for people like Pearly.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
On PBS, which is great because so many we did.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
That, and you know, I love that because I did
The Whiz live and I directed Hairspray Live, so I
did like and people don't know who the same guy
did The Whiz Life did Hairspray Live. They don't figure
out that that was a black guy that did Hairspray Live.
But I learned a lot when those things first came out.
And now we did great performances of Pery Victorious and Hamlet,

(25:19):
which I directed in Central Park. So you can see
both of those on PBS this summer.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
All right, Well, thank y'all so much. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Yeah, thank you, Thanks tull y'all.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Check out home.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
You know, you have a limited amount of time because
unfortunately to I.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
Got to go back to you know, that's actually an
announcement right there.

Speaker 6 (25:34):
Everybody has been speculating on whether I was coming back
or not to season five of the Equalizer.

Speaker 5 (25:39):
So I'll let you know right now that I'll be
back next season.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I'll be back good, all right, but thank you. It's
way up