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April 21, 2023 42 mins
On today’s episode, Maddy and Julian speak with the amazing Tommy Kail, the award-winning director and executive producer, and all around mensch.

They talk about his role in the creation of the show, how the music was intricately woven in with the storytelling, and what’s so special about creating a musical television series.

They also talk with John Reynolds, who plays Derek, Lindsay’s super cool trust fund baby non-boyfriend about negging Mae and his future as a broadway singer.

Plus, they chat with actors Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes, choreographer Sonya Tayeh, and songwriters and creators Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez in our song segment.


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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hout Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
That was something that we thought was really funny because
it just was the antithesis of making musical where the
last thing you do is make a cast album. We
recorded all the albums you know on day one. Hi,
my name is oh, Hi Mago to see you can
you go in the booth and sing the song from
episode seven where You're really heartbroken and she could.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Welcome to the up Here down Low, the official companion
podcast to Who Lose Musical rom com. Up Here, we're
your hosts, Madison Cross.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
And Juline Goza, two friends and theater kids.

Speaker 5 (00:35):
You're the Baker to my Baker's wife.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
And you're the Roxy to my Velma.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
No, I'm Velma.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
We'll talk about this.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Later, and we're here to look behind the scenes with cast,
crew and creators on making musical TV Magic.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Musical TV Merche I told you not to sing. On
today's episode, Mattie and I speak with the amazing Tommy
Kleeard winning director and executive producer and all around bench.
We talk about his role in the creation of the show,
how the music was intricately woven in with the storytelling,

(01:08):
and what's so special about creating a musical television series.
We'll also talk with John Reynolds, who plays Derek, Lindsay's
super cool, trust, fun baby non boyfriend, about negging May
and his future as a Broadway singer. Plus we'll hear
from actors May Whitman and Carlos Valdez, choreographer Sonya Taye,
and songwriters and creators Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez
in our song segment. This episode is stacked stacked, But

(01:31):
first let's start with a little recap. Good on the
Shoes to tap its time bow thecap episode five of

(01:52):
up Here titled label Labels, Do that one more Time?

Speaker 5 (01:54):
At the same time, Sure Labels, I'm keeping that in.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
So Lindsay's just gotten dumped by migl.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yes, although the thing in her head says, you can't
get dumped by someone that was just your friend, but I.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Think that you can, oh for sure. That's like the
bulk of my relationships. It always ends with the dumping.

Speaker 5 (02:18):
And then we're introduced to this new voice in her head,
the mean.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
Girl whose name is Liz probably yes, which hilarious.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Hilarious because they are all named Liz, and she's the
mean girl who she really doesn't know, but Sawa party
ones and is that like cool girl vibe the girl
that's just like sitting in the corner, like doesn't give
a shit about anyone or what they think.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
And the only thing that Liz probably has ever said
to Lindsay was Dikoca's oppression in a can Do you
have a Liz by the way, like, do you have
that girl that like said maybe tops one thing you
and You're like.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
No, like, for sure, I mean so many girls I
grew up in La, so like there were so many
cool Yes, there were so many cool girls. And I
think I mean I related to Lindsay in the fact
that it's like the amount of things that you pretend
to be to try to come off as like, oh,
I don't even care, like I don't give a fuck
about anything, which is kind of this whole episode is

(03:14):
her realizing that like, not giving a fuck about anything
isn't who she is. And also we as we get older,
we all learn that like that's not really cool to
like not give a fuck about anything.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
No, but I still default to it if I'm nervous
around a guy, Oh for sure, you know. I hope
to un learned that one.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Day but yeah, I definitely had girls that said things
to me that I don't know. I will never forget
this girl, Julia saying in like the sixth grade, being like,
are you not wearing a bra?

Speaker 6 (03:43):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (03:44):
And I was like no, because that's in the sixth grade.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
She's like, you need a bra And for the rest
of my life uncomfortable with my boobs and how they look.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Oh wow, Oh the great rack, great rack. I'm looking
at him right now. Everyone. My earliest Liz, by the way,
while still on the subject, please Liz, I was at
a Halloween party and I was like six or seven,
Like my mom had like taken me to like a
friend's house and we had apple bobbing and everything. And
this when I was in a Fred Flintstone like tunic

(04:13):
and the girl walks up to me. This girl walks
up to me, goes, let me gass Fred Flintstone And
I was like, yeah, like that did such a number
on me?

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Was that like your costumer?

Speaker 3 (04:25):
She just was she she just said what you were
and forever you.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
But there was the tone she was like, let me guess,
like just like so like I'm so over everyone's costumes.
Like it was that connotation of like another Fred Flintstone.

Speaker 7 (04:40):
It was the early nineties.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
We were all dressing like the Flintstones. So Liz and
Lindsay have actually really fun like Lilith Fair. I thought
it was like a very Lilith Fair vibe.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
You thought that she was going the other way, You
thought she was lessing out, which she does, I guess
in her threesome. She ends up having a threesome with
this guy, goes home with him and this girl, and
then we cut to three months later and we see
Miguel's at this wedding fancy Gatsby theme for his co
the guy, the threesome guy guy, the guy that wanted

(05:11):
to jerk off with Miguel.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
Yes, yes, oh, And someone says like, oh I heard
they tried to fuck you. Oh, it's just hilarious.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I love that there's like no shame in this group
of people, like, oh, yeah, everybody knows what Jerry looks.

Speaker 8 (05:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
I love that trial fucking That gives me twenty twenty three,
where it's like we're all Polly.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah exactly, but and surprise, surprise, she's there. But she's
there with this jerk guy, Derek, who's the groom's cousin,
groom's cousin.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah, and she at first when we see her, we
both were like gagging over that dress.

Speaker 5 (05:41):
Loved it very nineties, very yes, but it's not on theme.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
It's not on theme, and Derek, being a dick, is like, yeah,
I'm not going to dress for the theme.

Speaker 5 (05:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
So then heard Miguel talk and he's not thrilled with
whatever person. He's like, I don't even know who this
person is because she's being all like she's just to
be mister cool girl and that's not who she is.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Yeah. I do like Derek's mustache obvious. He was giving
like one of the Italians from White Lotus verious moment
and at one point someone like drags him for his
lack of costume and he's like, fuck you, I'm a
vagrant from the nineteen twenties. They and I turned to Maddi.
He was like, you know what, that's that's perfectly it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
So they have this moment on the dance floor. They're
dancing and talking through things and realizing that they really
did not communicate well because she thinks that he dumped her,
and he was like, well, you wanted to be with
other people, so you didn't even want to be with me,
and they obviously both of them are trying to be
the people that they're not. He was trying to be
cool and act like he wasn't falling in love with her,

(06:42):
and she was trying to be this like free spirited,
badass bitch fuckinger.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
This is a long time to commit to that bit,
even though I've been committing to it for.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Thirty I was going to be like So they kind
of get into it, and then Miguel's also like trying
to make a good name for himself at work because
his boss is there.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
He wants to pitch his juice company with Juice bro.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yes and is trying to come off cool, but can't
help but be distracted by the fact that Lindsay's there. Then,
at one point, Derek points out to the other guys
that they've been calling him the wrong name and is
saying like, that's definitely racist.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Which we love contradictions and characters, we do.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
But I saw Miguel's reaction as saying, like, you're being
a jerk. You could see that his friend had no
idea and felt really bad. But then also Miguel like
that takes away his power of being able to be like, hey,
that's kind of racist and bothers me. And I felt
bad for him there because that's yet another thing of
where he's like trying to be this man who's like

(07:42):
standing up for himself and he's badass, and this motherfucker's
even taking away like being able to say what's racist
and what's not about him, you know.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah, And it turns out Derek is like a trust
fun baby, so that does kind of reinforce us like
entitlement to like other people and stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, and he thinks that he's, you know, the coolest hippist, right,
He's like I'm woke and yeah, so it girl snaps
at him and that sours the pitch with mister Monopoly. Yeah,
I'm just calling the gun.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
Totally. And in the cumber bund.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yes, yeah, totally sours things and they say, don't come
to this like bachelor thing in the woods.

Speaker 9 (08:22):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Then he storms off, but Lindsay follows him and he's
like I was falling in love with you, but not
this person. And she's like, oh my god, I'm not
even this person, and so she dumps maybe Liz the
voice in her head that's like this cool girl, because
she's like, we're not friends, I don't even know you.

Speaker 5 (08:40):
I'm nothing like you, which is true.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
So you think this is her like being is now
accepting that she should be vulnerable in her relationship with me.

Speaker 8 (08:48):
Girl.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
I think that this is her accepting that, like this
version of herself who's having threesomes and writing a horror
manifesto or whatever she was writing, being this badass girl
is just not who she is.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Even though she does look good in a smoky eye.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
Looks great in a smokey eye. But you can have,
you can get.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, I got some questions you.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
It's time for the interview.

Speaker 10 (09:21):
Derek is like a rich, pretentious little slob and he
has romantic ideas about who he is, but he's not
very self aware or aware of anyone else around him,
and possibly due to his privilege, and that's it. Just
sort of like a rude, emotional boy.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
This is John Reynolds. You might know him as Drew
from the show Search Party or Officer Callahan on Stranger Things.
He plays Lindsay's terrible but cool and super cash No
Label's boyfriend, Derek.

Speaker 10 (09:55):
Well, I think someone else was supposed to play Derek,
but then they had a con click and then May
texted me and asked if I was in New York
and I said yeah, and then I came and worked
on the show and that was it. I didn't really
know anything coming into the project. It was truly like
again May texting me, and then I was on set

(10:16):
like the next day, so I had no idea what
I was going to get into. But yeah, pleasant surprise,
and it's been really fun watching the show. And I'm
so glad there's a cancelation, because yeah, it's a blast.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
I love the idea of May just entire casting the
entire cyf and she could do it so totally.

Speaker 5 (10:37):
We had a great chat with her.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
She was we were talking about trying to copy May
and just laying She was just laying down on a
bed in a hotel room with like one eye open.

Speaker 7 (10:46):
Yeah that sounds yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
I was like, keep us humble, and I know you
don't have any singing involved with your character, but were
there any nerves around being in a musical? I mean
concidering that that is presumably out of your outside of
your wheelhouse, you know.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
Although we don't know, he could be like an incredible
operatic singer. I don't know.

Speaker 7 (11:04):
No, you've presumed correct.

Speaker 10 (11:06):
No, I can't sing for shit, and that was maybe
one of the first things I asked. But May said
it was a musical, but I didn't have to sing,
and I was like, all right, that's cool, because yeah,
I notoriously have an issue with that. And yeah, I
used to work for the touring company of the Second
City in Chicago, and whenever we had any music to sing,

(11:27):
I just absolutely couldn't do it. And I would like
ask the piano player if he could just match what.

Speaker 7 (11:32):
I was doing, But that's how that works.

Speaker 10 (11:38):
But yeah, no, there there was I was gonna have
to sing, but it didn't come to fruition, thank god.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
So we all agree your character isn't the best guy
in the world, whereas in a lot of your other
projects we've seen you be the nice guy. So was
was that exciting to lean into something different? How do
you bridge that gap between being a nice guy and
then playing what is essentially a dick?

Speaker 11 (11:59):
You know?

Speaker 10 (12:00):
I feel like, yeah, I always play sort of the
pseudo nice guy, like he seems nice on the surface
but has maybe not the best intentions. But yeah, Derek
was definitely a heightened comedic version of a person, and
that was definitely very exciting for me, because yeah, I
feel like I get cast a lot as sort of
the meek boyfriend, but it was nice to sort of

(12:22):
be on the offensive in this one and be sort
of the pig. There were some takes where I was
like hitting her on the arm and being like it's
very rude and saying like let's go, or like eh,
and then people being like, yeah, maybe like just be
a little bit nicer, like okay, yeah, totally. So I
think it was just having fun with them al gro
test to make therek and yeah, I was just having

(12:43):
a last sort of negging May and being rude.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
There's also something so specific this is off our script,
but the fact that you had your hand in your
shirt the whole time is like such a funny specific
choice that like I was like I know that.

Speaker 10 (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, the show takes place in ninety nine obviously.
And during the fitting that was really fun because I
think we were both really on the same page, Like
me and costuming. I wanted my character to look like
like the really hot guy from Never Being Kissed, you know,
the very skinny guy with his like open shirts and
the moody boy, and I was like, that is the
look I'd like it to be. And then yeah, figuring

(13:22):
out the right amount of buttons and jewelry was good.

Speaker 7 (13:27):
So yeah, I appreciate you noticing.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
Yeah, it was such a good specific choice.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Do you think that Derek is like genuinely that kind
of person or is he just trying to be cool?

Speaker 10 (13:40):
I think he's trying to be cool. He's got like
a romantic sense of what an artist is, but he
can never be an artist obviously.

Speaker 7 (13:47):
I mean you've seen.

Speaker 10 (13:48):
Him, but yeah, I love the line where they talk
about the trust fund and then you see sort of
like the cracks and him, you know, he like started
getting drops his Like I was doing a lot of
whisper acting kind of be like very moody with my whispers,
and yeah, that moment he sort of breaks the cracks
and talks and arms like.

Speaker 7 (14:08):
Well, no, you know, I don't have control of it.
But yeah, we.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Love a moody whisper.

Speaker 12 (14:12):
We do.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
I was gonna say, this is kind of a fun question.
You were talking about, like the right amount of buttons
and stuff. Are there any staples from nighties fashion that
you really embraced at the time, Like I, for one,
had a like a Nike tracksuit that was lime green
and black to where my teacher called my mom and
was like, you need to get him more clothes because
he wears this every day. Yeah, so we paint the

(14:35):
picture for us. What was John wearing in nineteen ninety nine?

Speaker 10 (14:38):
In nineteen ninety nine, I had a goosebumped shirt on
and spiky hair, and I wore air walks and I
had bagging jean shorts with.

Speaker 7 (14:49):
Like painters pockets.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Nice. So do you think we'll ever get the pleasure
of seeing Derek again?

Speaker 7 (14:54):
I hope so.

Speaker 10 (14:56):
May and I have talked about it, but I can't
tell if we're both joking or not. But I would
love to see him come back to be a blast.

Speaker 7 (15:04):
Yeah, it's so much fun playing him, so I would
love it.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Maybe we'll put in a good word with the lopezz
and we'll get to hear that beautiful voice of yours.

Speaker 7 (15:14):
Please do it.

Speaker 10 (15:15):
Yeah, he told me to take singing lessons and I
would honestly do it, so we'll see.

Speaker 7 (15:20):
It could be good. Add a weapon to my arsenal.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
There you go. If you're hungry for more John Reynolds,
more of that mustache you can see on the new
season of Yellow Jackets on Showtime. We're going to take
a quick break when we come back. We talked with
award winning director and executive producer of up Here, Tommy
Kle So multiple people told us that you were really

(16:00):
pivotal in the early development of the show. Can you
tell us about how you first got involved and how
the creative team all came together.

Speaker 7 (16:08):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
April of twenty twenty, back when we were washing the
mail as I like to say, leave it outside for
thirty six hours, don't even look at it, and as
we were all just trying to figure out collectively what
to do what was happening, and also for those of
us that make work, that was often an environment where

(16:32):
the people telling the story were sitting in the same
space as the people that were receiving the story. That
became the most dangerous thing in the world. And so
as theaters shut down, I started to try to figure
out how I wanted to continue to find things that
could access whatever skill set I might have, and to
collaborate with my friends and to be with people an

(16:55):
informed community, and that's something that obviously we all do
through our work. I just started thinking about who, said
who do I want to be with? Kristen and Bobby
and I had been friendly and friends and just kind
of known each other from around campus over the last
I don't know, ten to hundred years, however old we are,
and I thought, oh, they would be, you know, maybe

(17:15):
people that might be able to take the skills that
we have in this other place and bring it into
the television world. It's not hard to introduce people to
Kristin and Bobby because they're like, you mean, Kristen and Bobby.
And so I called them and said, do you have
anything that you've been working on or you've been dreaming
about or have made in the past. They could work
in a streaming format, and they had a couple ideas,
and I think the first one was up here, and

(17:36):
I just said, that's the one. And then we immediately
called Stephen Levinson. So I often start with the who,
and this is certainly one that came from that. And
then Danielle was someone I had also worked with, and
her name kept on coming up as a person I
think that could bring what she can do and in
synthesize our modest talents and see if we could make

(17:59):
a tell vision shout of it. So that was really
the first you know, a couple of months was just
putting the group together, and then after that it was
continuing to build out the group. And that's that to me,
is as exciting as any part of it.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
So you're credited as the director for the first two
episodes and obviously stayed on as you're producing it and
developing it, and like lots of TV shows, then other
directors are brought in. How did you go about setting
the tone for the series and what was your role
day to day?

Speaker 2 (18:29):
You know, once we once we've moved into production, I
was I was making the first two episodes, which we
shot in a block and I guess if anybody has
seen the first two episodes, it's the two of you
and maybe listening to this, we really saw them of
a piece, you know, just you know, the way that
they were constructed initially it really was was always something
that we felt we saw them as this unit. And

(18:51):
so my job there is both in hiring the crew
with our line producer and finding these department heads with
the rest of the EPs, is made making sure that
we were all telling the same story in the same
way and that's really what you're trying to embark on
when you begin anything, and the fact that television is
such a relay race, and you're passing a baton to

(19:12):
a baton to a baton, and within the batons there
are more batons being passed. I knew I was going
to do the first quarter of these episodes, and we
were going to have other directors come in. Three directors
would each do two episodes, and so I wanted to
try to set the language visually for what the show
could be, and then have a template so we could
continue to expand into all that as the episode and

(19:34):
as the music and as the story would take us
to different places. Because clearly what we did in episode
four with I Am Not Alone and Magooch was completely
distinct from what we were doing in episodes one and two.
But content dictates form, So whatever the music was asking for,
whatever the moment was asking for, we would try to
set ourselves up to have at least created a vocabulary

(19:57):
to move into different kinds of language, but still have
it be coherent. And then once once you're not directing,
you're deep in the edit. So I was editing, I
was working with the other producers. Once the other directors
were on set, I would be there to support in

(20:18):
any way that I could. Obviously at that point you're
sort of bouncing around, you're continuing to cast the show.
So the casting continues because you're still prepping episodes seven
and eight while you're shooting three and four and cutting
one in two and also prepping five and six. Which
is why having many directors is really fun, because it
just allows the division and labor to work in a
way that I think can really function because the model

(20:38):
of one person doing everything, which completely is feasible, it
just requires a different kind of prep because you really can't.
You can't do all four of those things at once
the whole time unless you want all of your hair
to change color. And so then once we were on set,
you know, I would try to be there whenever I
could for the musical numbers, for sure. Was there a

(21:01):
ton day to day on set also just to you know,
whether it was to answer questions, to be there for
the actors, and I would sort of be floating, you know,
in between the departments and then continuing to go to
meet with Sonia with the rest of the EPs and
see the number for episode five and then talk to
the director about that could be and just again make

(21:21):
sure that everything felt coherent and consistent throughout that Again
we could be surprised, but that everything felt like it
was coming from the same wellspring. And that's really what
you're trying to do, whether you're directing one episode or
the first couple episodes. And I think that we found
really wonderful collaborators to come in for those those last
six episodes.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Well, and going off of that, how is developing this
show different from some of the other shows that you've
worked on. How does your role vary depending on the logistics?

Speaker 2 (21:48):
We kind of joked that it was a little bit
like a musical upside down cake, because you record the
entire cast album before you've shot a single frame of
film and before you've really read through anything. Whereas when
you you're making a musical on stage, you're doing readings,
you're sort of building it incrementally, maybe thirty minutes here, Okay,
now let's do the first hour of the show. Okay,
now let's do the second act, and you're sort of

(22:10):
accumulating that information as you go, and songs are coming
in and out, whereas when you're making a television show.
We did our darndas to have all of the scripts
done because we knew all the music was going to
be done, and we got really close to that before
we even started shooting, which is a rarity and a
credit to our writing team. And then we recorded all
the albums, you know, on day one, Hi my name is, Oh,
Hi me good to see you. Can you go in

(22:31):
the booth and sing this song from episode seven where
You're really heartbroken? And she could? But I think that
was something that we thought was really funny because it
just was the antithesis of making a musical where the
last thing you do is make a cast album. I'm
actually right now at a room right next to the
recording studio. We're making an album for Sweeney Todd and

(22:53):
it's the last thing we've done, right And the show
has written many years ago. So the fact that you know,
Bobby and Kristen built a booth there, you know, in
their office, and that's where Carlos in May you know,
and the rest of the company stepped in and started
to tell the story before Ashley or our DP had,
you know, even stepped on set. So that was something
that was really sort of inverted in terms of the process,

(23:16):
but you just like you embrace it like you do
anything else. Rehearsing is rehearsing. Talking to actors is talking
to actors, talking to designers. All of that is immediately analogous,
like that's the same thing. The difference really is you
feel the clock so profoundly when you're on a set
in a way that in theater there's an iterative process
that allows you to say, you know what, that's as

(23:37):
close as we can get today. Let's come back tomorrow
and pick it up. You lose the location. You're not
ever going back to that place. You're on Seventh Street,
it's twelve o'clock at night, and this is the time
to get that shot because you're not. You're not coming back.
You lose the location, you lose the actors, you lose
the you know, the folks. And so I always feel
like it's the second you walk on a television set,

(23:57):
you're immediately forty eight minutes behind. You're like, oh, come on,
I just got here. How are we already forty eight
minutes behind? And so I think I'm aware of the clock.
And if you've seen anything that I've ever made awareness
of the clock is a really big theme for me,
so I've made lots of shows about running out of time,
so it really goes right to the center of my core.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Was there anything that surprised you when putting the show together?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I think what I was so pleased by and was
the way that we understood that the music was going
to be absolutely part of the fabric of the show
and something that needed to feel that the entrance and
the exit ins the music needed to feel seamless. Is
a lot on the design, the department heads who were

(24:42):
absolutely a plus. Nikki who actually came from the theater
was doing our costumes a meter and did our production design,
Ashley who shot it, you know, and Sonya our choreographer,
And how do you give those clues in the world
of the experience that don't make it feel dying, allow
it to allow it to be as graduated as it

(25:04):
needs to be to get in Because I think that's
what bumps a lot of people with musicals. It's like, oh,
now we sing, and it feels like it's not earned.
And when you have script that allows it to elevate
in the way that feels natural. Chris and Bobby can't
write a song if it's not honest. I mean, they're
skillful enough to do it, but it really needs to
be connected to truth into character, and I think they
they were really incredibly ameshed in the room that Steven

(25:27):
and Danielle were running, and I think that was a
really smart plan and something that helped us a lot.
That this was not writers in one pod and songwriters
another pod. There was a ton of overlap with ideas,
and I think we kind of made the brill building.

Speaker 9 (25:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
We always said, like downstairs, Sonya was working on a
dance and with text and say I got something to show.
We'd all make our way down, all the designers, we'd
watch it, actually would shoot it on an iPhone, and
then we'd have somebody to talk about that night and
kind of go back. And that's how we created our
ability to iterate. So what I was pleased by and
surprise by, I guess in that sense was that we
were able to take a lot of the tenants and
the constructs of the theater, which allows us to all

(26:04):
be in the same tent at the same time, which
is quite distinct from film and television where some I'm
meet people that worked on the post production that have
never set eyes on anybody, even though they've been staring
at them for six months, until you go to like
a party at the end and the editors are all
just kind of looking at everyone really intensely, like, all right,
you've been staring at those faces and you've never met them.
So theater brings us all into the tent at the

(26:25):
same time, and we tried to as best we could
borrow from that in our building process.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
That's yeah, I arguably, well, that is my favorite thing
about theater. It's just the community that you need to
actually pull it off, you know. Absolutely, It's time for
another quick break. Don't worry. We'll hear more from Tommy
Cale and future episodes. When we come back. We'll talk
about the songs in episode five you got to Be
You and I feel like I've always known you, with

(26:53):
songwriters and creators Christian Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez. Plus
we'll hear from our two leads, May Whitman and Carlos
Valde and choreographer Sonya Taya about telling a story with
movement the auto dance. Hold on to your phone. It's

(27:19):
time to talk about somes.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
So You've got to Be You. We got cool girl Liz,
something we can all relate to.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
A Liz played by the amazing MICHAELA Diamond who who
is cooler than all of us, Like she has the
best products for her hair to get that great definition.
She she sent me a whole email after I was like, Okay,
what are you using?

Speaker 8 (27:51):
Yeah, and she she just killed it in parade. She
she got the Review of the Century. She's going to
be the next Bernandett Peter.

Speaker 5 (28:00):
I can't wait to see it.

Speaker 8 (28:01):
We knew we knew her when yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
We knew. I was like this, this person's going to
be a phenomenal and she was so lovely to work with.
But yeah, the impulse for this is when you see
somebody and I had this in college, where somebody who
you don't know at all, but you think they are
the embodiment of everything cool that you aren't, and that

(28:26):
becomes a voice in your head, like that person speaks
up when you are getting ready to go out, when
you are breaking up, you're in the middle of a breakup,
and you're like, I'm going to reinvent myself. He broke
up with a self that I don't like. Real me
is that cool girl from from college.

Speaker 8 (28:46):
She can't fire me because I quit.

Speaker 9 (28:47):
Yes, I'm running belly Man in the mac. Can't playing
for what we do?

Speaker 1 (28:58):
You got to Bay.

Speaker 8 (29:19):
Yeah, and we had a cool Girl character that was
named cool Girl in the original stage play. But I mean,
here's the genius of Stephen Levinson and Danielle Sanchez witzel
to say, like, let's not just go let's not create
abstract characters that symbol lives. Let's go to the real
past and what it really is like to be human,

(29:41):
to be touched and scarred by people from your past
that then you carry around for the rest of your life.
This girl was mean to Lindsay a couple of times
in college, and Lindsay idolized her and never forgot her,
never knew her name. But there she sits on her
shoulder for the of her life. And we thought that

(30:02):
was just a hilarious idea. And to be able to
write music.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, the music of back in college in nineteen nong
or something. But it really was all Lilith Fair. It
was all this amazing like girls with guitars.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
We literally said that to each other. We were like,
this is evoking Lilith Fair.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yes, yes, and it's right out of the Lilith Fair,
which was everything I was listening to at the time,
telling me to be to be freer and to let go,
but with not not like any clear instruction other than that,
So I couldn't figure out how to get from the

(30:42):
Girl in the Sweater set to the Doc Martins and
the Flannel. But but the music was helping helping me
feel that way anyway. So yes, we're evoking Alanis and
Fiona and Annie and Joan Osbourne who is a friend
of ours, and all of all of the ladies who

(31:06):
helped us start to find our authenticity. It's even so
hard to say.

Speaker 8 (31:13):
And I was completely unfamiliar with this style of music.
It was such a joy to immerse myself in it
and figure out what made it tick. I had the
most fun writing this one because the court I was
able to a lot of it relates to John Lennon,
the way he used chords on some of his some
of that mid late Beatles stuff. I feel like a

(31:35):
lot of it was was inspired by by that kind
of music and that I could get I could figure out.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
And the day filming was also so much fun. We
were in like a cool club in Williamsburg, and just
watching May and michaela riff and have and just live
their most like badass wild lives up dancing on the
bar super fun.

Speaker 8 (32:01):
The guy that played Derek was the favorite of everybody
and the whole like he was just everybody's favorite.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Oh yeah, Derek is Derek is the hero of episode five.
We love Derek.

Speaker 11 (32:12):
You know them faster than you sho and the smallest
thing may make see.

Speaker 7 (32:20):
Feel infinitely good.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
You're like a catchy song.

Speaker 7 (32:27):
Haven't known you very long, but I feel like I've
always known you.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
There's two versions. I feel like I've always known you
Wedding and I feel like I've always known you Woods,
but they're definitely in dialogue with each other.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
Was that in the original stage play?

Speaker 8 (32:48):
This was yeah, good good instinct there because it was different.
It was a different lyric and it had different to
had a different chord progression, but it was very similar
to the Woods version, the thing they sing in the Woods.
Stephen got the idea that maybe that emerged from this
moment during the rehearsal dinner, that there's there'd be a

(33:09):
wedding singer singing an old standard song, and that that
song kind of sink into them and then they'd sing
it to each other. Later they're not singing to each other.
They're really in their own minds having a similar moment
to each other. And that's why you don't see their
lips moving at the end. But we took our old
song and we had to make it kind of like

(33:29):
all of Me or a no Regrets old jazz standard,
kind of like a Billie Holliday. And that's why the
chords changed. We wanted to make it feel like a
jazz song, and then we found these cool new chords
and put them into the old version.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
And Aisha Jackson, who was the understudy for the original
Broadway Ona and Frozen, agreed to come be our wedding
singer and just blew us away. Came in, like learned it,
she got it like the night before, came in and
just gave like ten perfect gorgeous takes. And if you

(34:08):
get the chance to work with Ayisha Jackson, she's also
one who I just can't wait to watch or help
her get to the pantheon of legends.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
She also got to make out with Derek.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
In a universe. All of this is very tricky. There
were so many people going down with COVID and and
we were all being tested every single day. It was
always very tricky, like will you will you make out
with Derek.

Speaker 8 (34:44):
Once they saw Derek, they were like, yeah, yeah, it's
worth the COVID.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
I was gonna say, he's like very much type that
my therapist, just like, this is why it's a problem.

Speaker 8 (34:54):
Oh, I just wanted to say one more thing about
the woods. The way we recorded that, as you know,
we wanted to experiment with getting very close to the
microphone for some of the songs, especially this song where
they're really just thinking these things in their head. Their
lips aren't even moving. We wanted it to feel like

(35:14):
like like as just like writing your ear, making the
hairs in the back of your neck stand up a
little bit, and give a sense actually what the real
thing was like, give a feeling of what it's like
to be that person having that feeling. So we played
with the distance of the microphone.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
And we often turned down the lights and had all
these little candles and crystals around to sort of give
everybody this feeling of like you're allowed to be You're
allowed to be magical right now, You're allowed to no
one's watching you. Just give us that feeling.

Speaker 7 (35:52):
Stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
I'm with you and I'm moment and I see Cavl
always hi.

Speaker 7 (36:04):
Ival always perfect.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
I feel like Gival always. There's some pretty impressive choreography
in the show, and sometimes it's packed with lifts and spins,
like in the last episode, and other times it's intimate
and more about the story. Here's Carlos Valdez and May Whitman.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
You know, I went to school for musical theaters, so
like I have. That's not a flex.

Speaker 7 (36:37):
I don't know why you're acting.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
I was just taking a Britain and breath.

Speaker 9 (36:40):
That's so wrong.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I'm not allowed to breathe.

Speaker 7 (36:44):
So yeah, so I'm you know, I have.

Speaker 11 (36:46):
I had like some experience like picking up choreo and
and that kind of stuff, and so when I was
working with Sonya, you know, we work together to find
some choreo that could really like tell that story and
stay faithful to who Miguel is and.

Speaker 6 (36:59):
Where he is in his process. And so yeah, it
was a lot of fun, but it was also really
scary because Sonia. Sonia's style is like very unique. It's
like it's it's less like Jerry Mitchell and less like
you know, the musical theater vocabulary that we're used to

(37:21):
seeing from like blockbuster musicals and more like in the
Twilt Tharp Rhalme, where it's like a little more organic
and fluid and like, I don't know, naturalistic, intuitive totally,
And so the process was very experimental.

Speaker 12 (37:38):
She was like, I don't know if this is possible,
but if we could just like flip you upside down
and then carry you at full speed over to the
other side of the of the of the stage. And
I was like, Okay, I guess we're trying it. I
guess we're doing it, and like it was scary, but
you know, I felt really safe with her and with
those dancers. I'm telling you, those dancers they do anything.

(38:01):
They could literally do anything, and they were game for anything.

Speaker 9 (38:05):
I mean it was like and things changed all the
time and they were down for the changes and.

Speaker 6 (38:09):
Yes, and they were beautiful people inside and out.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, we made some wonderful friends.

Speaker 9 (38:14):
But it is also I think to comment on Sonya
like talk about feeling safe while also being able to
access vulnerability as someone who's like not a natural dancer.
She was like, I got there, and I was like,
I was a cheerleader in high school you may toss
me in the air as high as you want. You
can throw me around. I can, you know, do a plank.

(38:36):
I can do the splits like just you know. And
she really like played to my abilities, my comfort level,
and it really was never I'm actually fully like mistress,
I'm like, I don't do choreo. I'm like, I can't.
I don't understand it. It's too fast, it's confusing, and
it was like another way of acting. It was like like,
I remember we when we had our number the I

(38:57):
feel like I've always known you, you know, when we
were choreographing that, you know, we sort of were doing
the moves and she was like, no, she was like,
you are when you put your hand on his heart,
you are giving your heart to him and you are
saying I will take care of your heart and you
can trust me. And I was like, oh, She's like,
you're not just putting your hand there. And you know,
we would turn the lights down and we would have

(39:17):
group huddles and hugs and she was she would grab
you and look at you and it was so like
it's so intimate the relationships that we cultivated in there,
and I think that was that's A big part of
this is it's not like all of a sudden, you know,
we're tap dancing down the you know street. It's more
just the bringing out the genuine emotion and movement of

(39:38):
what these people are inside.

Speaker 11 (39:41):
You know.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, I felt your prices, Moon Perkin.
Right now, you're that description. Here's choreographer Sonya Taye expanding
on that idea.

Speaker 13 (39:55):
It's not a long process, so you've got to go
with your gut instinct. Also, when you have collaborators like
Ashley and all these incredible people behind the lens that
want to celebrate the movement and understand that these bodies
can tell a narrative story and it's such a big
hearted musical that when I was in rehearsal, I would

(40:18):
video on my iPhone and then we had such a
great bond and all the collaborators would I would text
everybody and say, Okay, I have this idea, come down
and see and I would record how I think of
filming it, or where those heartfelt moments lie, or where
the dynamics are, and we would all just gather in

(40:40):
the space and they would look inside of my ideas
and then we would go from there and just it
was such a beautiful collaboration inside how to capture the
heart of it, how to capture the wonder of it,
and how to capture what's in the mind of these
characters and the life that they wish they had and

(41:01):
they hope they have, or the light that they see
and what is being put pulled against that reality.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Do you believe in that thing they're talking about? Like
it feels like I've known you forever, Like do you
believe in that sort of kinship and connection?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
I will say the people and like that have really
done a number on me. I'm always like, oh, we
have like we had unfinished business or like we had
we were like in a past life.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
So I was going to say, I feel like friendship too,
Like you and I have been pretty kismet and like
it feels like, you know, when we met, it's like
immediately like a spark hits and you're like, oh, I've
known you my entire life.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Souls were like both of like Warhol's factory or something
in the sixties. It's like, oh, and you were named
Donna and yeah, and they me betep classic Warhol factory
person name, and I had the same mustache that I
have right now. Thanks for listening. If you want to

(42:10):
reach out to us and share a moment where you
could have burst into song, email us at up Here
at straw hutmedia dot com. If you like the show,
please rate, to review and share with your friends. See
you next week.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Up Here down Low is a straw Hut Media production.
It's hosted by Madison Cross and Julian Goza. The show
it's produced by Ryan Tillotson and Maggie Bulls. Our associate
producers are Lydia McMahon, Javier Salas, and Jean Lee. Our
editor is Daniel Ferreira. Big thanks to everyone at Hulu,
including Kristin Anderson, Lopez and Bobby Lopez for their help

(42:48):
putting the show together.
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