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Broadway's Back at the State Theatre: 'Dear Evan Hansen' Takes the Stage · Jersey Arts Podcast

0:03
Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is Gina Marie Rodriguez and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast.
0:07
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The six-time Tony Award-winning show, dear Evan Hansen, is bringing its North American tour to the State Theater in New Brunswick, new Jersey.
0:15
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show boasts music and lyrics by EGOT winners.
0:19
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's an Emmy, grammy, oscar and a Tony Benjamin Pasich and Justin Paul.
0:24
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Dear Evan Hansen offers a score that will have you whistling the tunes on your way out of the theater.
0:30
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show tackles some sensitive topics in a way that audiences have been connecting with deeply since its Broadway premiere in 2016.
0:37
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The musical focuses on lonely high school student Evan Hansen, who always feels like he's on the outside looking in.
0:44
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Evan finally gets what so many of us are like he's on the outside looking in.
0:46
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Evan finally gets what so many of us are searching for the chance to fit in.
0:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: What follows is a poignant, funny and powerful musical about how, even though it can be hard, we can find each other and ourselves along the way.
0:58
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Now I would be remiss if I didn't offer a trigger warning for today's chat.
1:02
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Both this episode and the show itself will touch on child loss and death by suicide.
1:07
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Please listen with care.
1:09
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That said, my conversation with cast members Brie Cade and Caitlin Sams allowed for an introspective discussion about what has been a groundbreaking and deeply touching musical.
1:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Take a listen.
1:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's nice to meet both of you.
1:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thank you for taking the time.
1:26
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I appreciate it, sure.
1:28
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, thank you Take a listen, enjoying it.
1:31
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm actually yeah, it is.
1:32
Bre Cade: We're having really nice reception here, and it doesn't hurt that the weather has been very nice, like unseasonably nice, in the time that we've been here, so I think we've been spared from some of the more typical cold temperatures, definitely.
1:59
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think that's great.
2:00
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, let's just jump into the show.
2:03
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Let's start with Brie.
2:04
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you wouldn't mind just telling me a little bit about your character and what you appreciate about this role?
2:09
Caitlin Sams: Oh sure, so I play Heidi Hansen, evan's mom, in the show.
2:13
Caitlin Sams: She is a single mom.
2:14
Caitlin Sams: She's working, she's putting herself through school, you know, and doing a lot of different things to try to just be a good mom, all while trying to connect with her young high school son, and that's been really hard too.
2:29
Caitlin Sams: What I really appreciate about playing this role is that, with all the roles too, they're very grounded, real people, and especially Heidi.
2:36
Caitlin Sams: She can kind of come off a little bit as a mess, but I think that she's just doing her best and she's very real and I think that, you know, you can really see yourself in in her character and it's fun to play her.
2:50
Gina Marie Rodriguez: She's relatable.
2:51
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I get that Definitely.
2:52
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And Caitlin, how about you?
2:55
Bre Cade: So I play Cynthia Murphy, who is a mom who, on the surface, looks like she should have it all together.
3:02
Bre Cade: She tries so hard to be the perfect wife, be the perfect mom, and things just aren't going as well as she had hoped.
3:11
Bre Cade: She's pretty estranged from, like, all of the members of her family.
3:14
Bre Cade: As much as she's trying to keep it all together, she's really at odds with all of the members of her family and and her family really is at a crisis point.
3:25
Bre Cade: Um, that then like tips over when her, her son, kills himself, um, and that is sort of the inciting incident of the whole musical.
3:34
Bre Cade: What I do appreciate about playing her I mean she's she's in a heavy place in her life, certainly, but what I appreciate about getting to play her every night is it's been surprisingly sort of therapeutic for me to play her every night, because it's there is this time every day that I am just supposed to stand on stage and like be in touch with my own sadness, which is a difficult thing to do, but it's, there's a, there's a freedom in it in a way to have that, that time set aside every day to just like cry about things that you need to cry about.
4:11
Bre Cade: And I've.
4:13
Bre Cade: I've come to find that I like I tend to feel better at the end of the show because I it's just sort of this emotional exercise that I have to go through every night.
4:22
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Talk about a catharsis.
4:24
Bre Cade: Yeah.
4:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I was going to ask, and I think you sort of just touched on it, but I'm going to ask anyway.
4:30
Gina Marie Rodriguez: For me, I think, anything about a musical is difficult because I can't sing.
4:34
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But from an emotional standpoint I'm wondering what for each of you, is the most challenging song or moment in the show and whether that is, you know, vocally speaking, as tied to the emotion.
4:48
Gina Marie Rodriguez: We can talk about that too.
4:50
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But because it's such a heavy show, like you mentioned, I'm wondering at what point it was most difficult in prepping for.
4:58
Caitlin Sams: I would say, for me personally, doing one of the songs in the show is called so Big, so Small that my character gets to sing and I love it.
5:05
Caitlin Sams: It's such a beautiful song but it's a little bit different than the other songs musically.
5:10
Caitlin Sams: It's a little bit more naked with the orchestra, it's not as full and as loud and it's in a very vulnerable place emotionally, physically, and where it's written for my voice and I love doing it.
5:25
Caitlin Sams: It.
5:25
Caitlin Sams: But it's so hard to not just break down and cry during the song.
5:28
Caitlin Sams: We, I mean, have plenty of times during rehearsals and some shows, of course, but it's really more about her son and not so much her.
5:36
Caitlin Sams: So you know you don't want to take away from that, but, um, yeah, it's, it's hard to not cry through that one.
5:41
Caitlin Sams: So that's, that's been a little challenging, but it's a song I love.
5:43
Caitlin Sams: I really love performing it and the audiences have been great and it's just such a beautifully written song and such a wonderful scene.
5:50
Caitlin Sams: So I really look forward to that every night.
5:53
Bre Cade: There is kind of a tipping point, I think at several points in this musical, where you can cross over a sort of threshold with the emotion, where, like it can, it can overcome you and it has happened to to several of us at some point where, like you're not doing your acting or you're singing anymore.
6:11
Bre Cade: You just are like working through the emotion and luckily the story really supports that.
6:18
Bre Cade: Like there's there's there's no pressure to ever like that you're going too far with your feelings but at the same time, like it is a musical and like you're trying to sing the songs as they are written as well.
6:31
Bre Cade: So I mean, we definitely went through a lot of that in the rehearsal process.
6:35
Bre Cade: Now that we're like well into our run I think everybody has it in their bodies to a place where, like we can find that happy balance between having the emotion but still like showing off all of our, our well-trained talents that we're, you know, trying to put to use totally yes, that exactly I'm always amazed at how singers are able to control their voices when they're overcome with emotion, and it's almost a relief to hear that sometimes you give in to that emotion.
7:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, it's a very it's a very human response, and I think sometimes or at least for me as an audience member sometimes I forget that the humans on stage aren't perfect and and they will also react to what's happening.
7:19
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And this is a show about anxiety, depression, suicide.
7:23
Gina Marie Rodriguez: These are really really heavy things, yeah.
7:26
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I suppose that also leads me to ask you has it influenced your personal outlook or approach to life when you are off the stage?
7:37
Bre Cade: I definitely think that, like I, it reminds you, it reminds you every day, it reminds you, it reminds you every day and this is like you know, I think.
7:48
Bre Cade: I think there's a sense of this that people, people understand.
7:50
Bre Cade: You know sort of the phrase you don't know what somebody else is going through.
7:54
Bre Cade: But I think that is like when you you kind of look at this story every day, I do, I do try to keep that in mind as I go through my daily life.
8:03
Bre Cade: And obviously, like we're on the road all the time, we're out of our element, we have like a lot of high, there's a lot of high-stress things about the job that we're doing and people all just handle that differently and we know one another really well to a certain extent.
8:18
Bre Cade: But also like we don't know what we all have like our own individual lives back home.
8:22
Bre Cade: There are things that are going on and, um, we all have to like show up at the theater and like do this hard thing every day and you never know, like what people are arriving to the theater I mean that's with one another or our audience members too.
8:35
Bre Cade: Like we don't know what they are.
8:37
Bre Cade: They are arriving to the theater with, you know, on their shoulders.
8:40
Bre Cade: Um, so I think that's the thing that I just try to keep in mind and then always give give people grace and grace and space to, you know, be, be in the place that they are.
9:06
Caitlin Sams: Yeah, exactly, I totally agree with that and especially the whole like element in the show with the relationship between the parents and the children too.
9:13
Caitlin Sams: It's, you know, I don't have kids, but I have people, you know, moms, dads, all sorts of people coming up to me every night at the show.
9:18
Caitlin Sams: Our parents are all just, you know, grown up children.
9:22
Caitlin Sams: In a way, they're just big kids and everyone has these feelings and goes through something and doesn't know the perfect way to handle things and they're just trying to do the best that they can do on a daily basis too.
9:32
Caitlin Sams: So I think it's interesting that it raises these questions and these conversations, that between parents and children, which is really cool.
9:39
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Grown up kids.
9:39
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I love that and I actually remember being a teenager and coming to that realization for the first time that my parents were just people who didn't know what they were doing.
9:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And whoa was that trippy?
9:51
Caitlin Sams: Yeah, yeah, they're just.
9:52
Caitlin Sams: They're doing it for the first time.
9:53
Caitlin Sams: It's like we expect so much of them and then we realize, wow, they haven't done this before they didn't, like you know, read a book about.
10:03
Bre Cade: I mean, maybe they did, but that doesn't mean that it's gonna be perfect.
10:05
Bre Cade: I think about that all the time with, um, the character Zoe, who plays my daughter, and like she really kind of comes for Cynthia at certain points and I'm like god, I know, I did this to my mom.
10:12
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I know I love the dynamic between the parents and the children in this show.
10:18
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And, brie, you said you don't have kids.
10:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Caitlin, do you have children?
10:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't?
10:22
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Great, so all three of us are in the same boat.
10:24
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I wanted to ask you if, having played a mother, it has opened up conversations with your own parents or with the parents in your life, maybe your friends who have kids?
10:38
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Has it expanded your mind or your viewpoint when it comes to raising children?
10:44
Bre Cade: I think I mean, I'm pretty, I'm, I'm already determined that there I won't be having kids in my life.
10:50
Bre Cade: So it doesn't.
10:50
Bre Cade: It doesn't make me think any differently about um, like myself in you know that aspect Um, um, but it definitely.
10:58
Bre Cade: It definitely makes me think about, like, how we all have kids in our lives, whether we're parents or not.
11:03
Bre Cade: There are there young people in our lives and just thinking about, like, how can I be a supportive person and and an asset and an ally to, to the young people in my life and although, and the parents, you know, the people that I love, who are doing their best to like raise healthy, well-adjusted children, how can I be a support system for them?
11:23
Bre Cade: Because you really can't do it alone.
11:26
Bre Cade: It takes, it takes a village.
11:29
Caitlin Sams: Yeah, that's so true.
11:30
Caitlin Sams: My sister I don't you know my sister has a bunch of kids and I see what she goes through and she just like she is just the strongest person.
11:38
Caitlin Sams: She's such a great mom.
11:39
Caitlin Sams: She just does it all for her family and it's really incredible and you kind of like learn a new lesson every week having kids, and I'm sure my mom can attest to that too.
11:48
Caitlin Sams: My mom and my youngest sister saw the show together and it was kind of like a quick hi and goodbye.
11:52
Caitlin Sams: They came out of state and it was really nice and I could tell they really loved it.
11:55
Caitlin Sams: And then when we're in Jersey in a couple weeks which I'm very excited about I'll have a lot of people coming.
12:01
Caitlin Sams: So I'm sure I'll be having many discussions with my in-laws and family members and you know my parents and things like that, and I'm fortunate where I actually live, right next door to my parents in New Jersey.
12:11
Caitlin Sams: So once this contract's over, I'm sure I'll be going over there having dinner, having coffee, and we'll be talking about the show for months, which will be, which will be, interesting.
12:19
Caitlin Sams: My parents have some cool perspectives and they always surprise me with with some of their, their viewpoints, which I can really appreciate.
12:26
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's fantastic For me, caitlin.
12:28
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I also have decided that I don't want children, so it's I approach shows like this.
12:34
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I approach art about the parent-child relationship very differently, but it does make me think less about well.
12:44
Gina Marie Rodriguez: No, I won't say that I do think about the children in my life, of course, and I want to be a supportive person.
12:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I really want to learn how to empathize with my own parents or with my own mother and think, oh gosh, I guess I was difficult.
13:00
Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know just, I wasn't a difficult kid, necessarily, but I think having a child is difficult and I used to be so mad at her as a teenager and getting older now and seeing someone else portray a mother is easier for me than actually looking at my own mother somehow and trying to understand what she was going through.
13:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Does that make sense?
13:22
Bre Cade: Yeah, that totally makes sense.
13:23
Bre Cade: I definitely feel it.
13:25
Bre Cade: Now that I've over the last five years, I start getting to these kind of milestone ages that I remember my mom being and then and then you just like it's very you know you kind of trip out a little bit being like damn, I, yeah, like this this is the point that my mom was at and like look at what she was dealing with, like at that so trippy.
13:49
Bre Cade: Yeah, but it does, it does.
13:51
Bre Cade: I think it's made me more empathetic, I think in a good way.
13:55
Bre Cade: So I'm definitely appreciative of that.
13:58
Gina Marie Rodriguez: For for sure the same empathy.
14:00
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Empathy is a big one In that vein, I think I think, bree, you mentioned it before that there are people who come up to you after the show and share their experiences with you.
14:10
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So have there been any that really stick in your mind, interactions or reactions that will stay with you?
14:18
Caitlin Sams: Oh my gosh, so many.
14:19
Caitlin Sams: Yeah, it's, it's.
14:22
Caitlin Sams: It's crazy how it affects people and it's just so beautiful and I, you know I can put myself in their shoes, having been audience members and certain shows, and it just like touched you so much.
14:31
Caitlin Sams: Recently, though, I my husband and I have a friend who's going through some health issues, and it's been pretty scary and we don't know what's going to happen.
14:41
Caitlin Sams: Unfortunately, and right as we found out, an audience member in Mesa after the show told me that his mom went through a pretty horrible cancer battle.
14:53
Caitlin Sams: It was stage four.
14:54
Caitlin Sams: It wasn't looking good and luckily she's okay, she recovered and she's looking good.
14:57
Caitlin Sams: And you know, luckily she, she's okay, she recovered and she's doing great.
15:00
Caitlin Sams: And I it was so strange, I like needed to hear that in that moment, you know like it needs to give me that little spark of hope, or that you know what's the what's the chance that someone would say that to me, and I told my husband and we had a good, good cry about it.
15:12
Caitlin Sams: It's one of his good friends, so it was just like kind of a cathartic thing, but little things like that happen all the time, and it's especially touching to like seeing dads come across like you know, we're playing moms, but when dads come up and say, oh my God, when you sang that song at the end, that was, that was me and my son, or me and my daughter I'm a single dad and blah, blah, blah, it's interesting because we don't hear so much, so much of that.
15:32
Caitlin Sams: You know that.
15:40
Caitlin Sams: You know what I mean, um, but uh, yeah, there's just so many different stories and and so many different people from different places that that share their experience and you could tell, really appreciate it.
15:46
Caitlin Sams: It's very touching.
15:47
Bre Cade: Caitlin anything that stood out for you.
15:49
Bre Cade: Um, someone came up, brie, I think you were there just even the other day.
15:53
Bre Cade: Um, here in St Paul, a woman, a woman came up and she was.
15:57
Bre Cade: She was impeccably dressed too Like.
15:59
Bre Cade: She looked like a Cynthia, like she had like a beautiful white coat and like a really good haircut.
16:03
Bre Cade: And she came up to me and she was like I saw this show in in 2016.
16:09
Bre Cade: Um, like, like the original company, and that was right after my son had died.
16:13
Bre Cade: And she said she's like it's, she's like I'm so happy to now like come back and see it again 10 years later.
16:21
Bre Cade: And she was like that's my daughter over there, that's my Zoe, um, and she's like, and we're just in like a different, it's such a different place now and like that that is.
16:28
Bre Cade: It's so, so touching to hear like I don't know, I just that you can have, that.
16:33
Bre Cade: You can have this like piece of theater, that like um, that you can like come back to and it still is impactful in a way.
16:40
Bre Cade: But like that's the thing, like our lives move on and so a piece of theater can mean something to you in one time in your life and then just be like so different a decade later.
16:53
Bre Cade: But I do think it's.
16:54
Bre Cade: I'm always really impressed how young people still really seem very drawn to this show, like I can see it was so popular when it was first on Broadway, and with good reason.
17:04
Bre Cade: But I'm I am always really impressed to see that like there are still like high schoolers and young adults who are drawn to it, just because, I don't know, like trends move on so fast, and so I'm.
17:15
Bre Cade: I do find it really touching that this show seems to still have, like, the resonance and the staying power.
17:20
Caitlin Sams: Yeah, it's incredible.
17:22
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's one of the things I love about art how it can bring together people that you wouldn't necessarily expect to relate to one another, like single dads approaching you.
17:31
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's something that we're not all thinking about all the time, because we understand, as women, how difficult it is to be the mother, and it's sad that sometimes we overlook the single dads.
17:44
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I'm glad that the show is speaking to people and that they're they feel comfortable coming up to the actors and talking about it with them, by Pasig and Paul, and I'm personally a fan of their, their music, their style.
18:01
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm going to ask the taboo question of do you have a favorite song?
18:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I'll say you know what I'll.
18:11
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'll broaden the scope Do you have a favorite Pasig and Paul song?
18:13
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Doesn't?
18:14
Bre Cade: even have to be from the show.
18:15
Bre Cade: Maybe that'll save you.
18:17
Bre Cade: That gives you the out it's hard to pick.
18:19
Bre Cade: I mean you, that gives you the out it's hard to pick.
18:22
Bre Cade: I mean, I'm also I I'm also a fan?
18:23
Bre Cade: Um of this.
18:27
Bre Cade: I mean, I think the score in particular, like it's just so, it's catchy in that way that you like want a contemporary pop musical to be, but the, the I just love singing the harmonies every day.
18:33
Bre Cade: Like they're so, they're so good and they're so like rich um and the orchestrations.
18:39
Bre Cade: I think in this show, like the like the strings are just like oh, there's so much longing and yearning and like it's so it really all.
18:47
Bre Cade: Like there's no element that has not been so carefully curated um in this show, which is, I think, why people respond to it, because they're like, even if you don't know why you like it, there's something about it, it swells within you, it gives you that Broadway feeling that you really want when you're sitting there.
19:08
Bre Cade: That being said, I do think so Big, so Small is just one of the.
19:11
Bre Cade: It's just such a well written song.
19:16
Bre Cade: Like just the lyrics and the, the, the story of it Like you don't cause you could hear that song and not really need to know anything else about dear Evan Hansen, to get a sense of what that, what this moment is going through in that moment.
19:30
Bre Cade: And then, of course, brita such a such a bang up job, singing it every night.
19:35
Caitlin Sams: So Thank you, that's funny.
19:37
Caitlin Sams: You say that I love so Big, so Small, of course, but I was going to say Requiem, I think is so gorgeous.
19:43
Caitlin Sams: It's one of the songs that Caitlin as Cynthia and Larry and Zoe the family sing together the three of them, and it's so beautiful and it's so interesting because the three of them are all in three different places, like physically and emotionally, and they're all kind of coming together and singing some of the same words, maybe with different meaning, and the harmonies are so gorgeous and it's just, it's such a powerful song and I always say there's like so much power and stillness too, and the three of them, just the way the picture is finally, having seen the show and the lighting and everything about it is just, it's so gorgeous.
20:13
Caitlin Sams: I love getting to hear that every night.
20:15
Bre Cade: The one that gets stuck in my head the most, though, is Sincerely Me.
20:18
Bre Cade: That is the one that I like singing to myself.
20:22
Caitlin Sams: That's the hit, that's the bop.
20:23
Caitlin Sams: The kids love it.
20:25
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If I had to choose and I mean nobody's pressuring me to do so, but I'll tell you, anybody have a map.
20:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean we were talking about relating to our parents, right, and trying to understand and be empathetic so that one really struck me and it wasn't the one that I thought would stick with me, but I, I really enjoy that one.
20:47
Gina Marie Rodriguez: And then, second, if I had to choose a second, waving through a window, because I mean and everybody knows that one, I think, even if you haven't seen the show, I think everybody's heard that at some point, but I love the.
20:57
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I think I'm at a point in my life and maybe it's in your mid to late 30s you start realizing that friendships are harder to come by.
21:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Loneliness is a new experience that you have to define later in life and I think waving through a window speaks to that.
21:17
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So you don't have to be a teenager to relate to that song.
21:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I guess all of these songs are relatable.
21:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: You don't have to be a teenager or a mom.
21:23
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Everything is relatable.
21:26
Caitlin Sams: Map is great and it was the hardest song for me.
21:28
Caitlin Sams: To learn that I'm still finding things every week to perfect with that song.
21:34
Caitlin Sams: Rhythmically it is so deceiving and so hard.
21:37
Caitlin Sams: I had no idea it's so.
21:39
Caitlin Sams: It's so wild to me that it's the first song in the show and it doesn't start off the show.
21:43
Caitlin Sams: I kind of think it's so cool, like it's not a typical musical where the show starts with a monologue and then map happens and you see these two worlds between that you know evan and his mom and cynthia and her family and kind of crossover, singing the same song but with totally different scenarios happening even though they're still very similar.
22:01
Caitlin Sams: It's very interesting.
22:03
Caitlin Sams: But man, is that a hard song.
22:05
Caitlin Sams: We drill that one a lot.
22:06
Caitlin Sams: It's very tricky.
22:08
Bre Cade: It is a typical opening number, for sure.
22:10
Bre Cade: They always talked about like our directors and our creative team always talked about how the start of the show needs to feel like you were dropped into the world of these characters and which.
22:22
Bre Cade: But that is like a good way to start a musical, especially one like Durham Enhanced, where, like the, the world that you're in is like like visually not super clear, like you're, you're like you know, you know you're in like somebody's house or whatever, but like we have build, there's not like there's not an elaborate set or anything around us to tell us like here's where we are.
22:42
Bre Cade: So it does need to be the storytelling where, like you just kind of like flash up and you are inside these families worlds.
22:50
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I might regret asking this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
22:53
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Has either of you seen the movie version of the musical?
22:58
Caitlin Sams: I have not.
22:58
Caitlin Sams: I've actually never seen the show live until our production when I had my swing out.
23:03
Caitlin Sams: And yeah, I saw that a couple weeks ago for the first time.
23:06
Caitlin Sams: And then I never know, I'd never seen the movie.
23:09
Caitlin Sams: I really I didn't even really know the score that well before I auditioned.
23:13
Caitlin Sams: I knew waving, of course, but I don't know how the show missed me.
23:16
Caitlin Sams: I knew it was on Broadway and I always meant to see it and I just never did.
23:20
Bre Cade: It was the same.
23:21
Bre Cade: I had never seen it either.
23:22
Bre Cade: Before I saw our production.
23:25
Bre Cade: I had listened to the cast album back when it was really popular, but I didn't see the movie because people talked about how it wasn't very good.
23:32
Bre Cade: And then, even when we were in rehearsal, the encouragement was to not watch it because it was not necessarily going to be helpful.
23:38
Bre Cade: Um for us and um, and of course the, the broadway team other than than the crossover of ben platt, like the, the creative team that was responsible for the broadway production, didn't necessarily have that big of a hand in what was happening with the movie.
23:52
Caitlin Sams: Maybe I'll watch it someday just for fun yeah, maybe at the end we'll have a viewing together, all of us, yeah.
24:00
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That could be fun.
24:01
Gina Marie Rodriguez: That could be fun.
24:02
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, I'm glad our audiences can't see the faces I was making.
24:05
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I will say this I did not get through the whole movie.
24:12
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I gave it a try because I was curious and I actually haven't seen the show yet the stage show I just listened to the soundtrack because, thank God for YouTube, I was able to listen to the whole soundtrack opening.
24:41
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It clicked for me why I think the movie didn't work for people, because they didn't really drop you into that world in the same way where you're forced to immediately make assumptions about people.
24:48
Gina Marie Rodriguez: They kind of tried to.
24:50
Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is not a review of the film and I shouldn't do it, but I feel like they were spoon feeding and I think that your creative team advised you well in in staying away from it.
25:01
Gina Marie Rodriguez: However, I do think it could be super fun for you to, once the show wraps, all watch and critique yeah, I mean just the wig alone, that's.
25:10
Caitlin Sams: That's the only image I have in my head is that?
25:12
Bre Cade: yeah, that curly wig.
25:13
Bre Cade: I'm very curious.
25:14
Bre Cade: I know that.
25:14
Bre Cade: Yeah, what's the?
25:16
Caitlin Sams: wig budget on these sets.
25:17
Caitlin Sams: I don't understand.
25:19
Bre Cade: That's the thing, like, sometimes, when I see a musical, like movie or on the stage, that doesn't necessarily work.
25:25
Bre Cade: It does give me an appreciation, though, for like it's so hard to make a successful musical Because you have like they were set up for success with that movie.
25:34
Bre Cade: You have this smash Broadway hit and then you're you're using the star that was like so associated with it, and you have other acts like Amy Adams.
25:44
Bre Cade: You know you have like Academy award winners and yet somehow it doesn't quite come together, so that I don't know it does.
25:49
Bre Cade: I still think there's value sometimes in watching those things, because because that's the only way that we, like you just never know, you never know what the thing is that it's like really gonna knock it out of the park.
26:01
Caitlin Sams: Totally.
26:02
Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's true when done well, everything looks really easy right, and it's not until you see something done poorly that you go oh, all right, Maybe there was a lot of work that needed to go into that.
26:14
Bre Cade: Right.
26:15
Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I'm unfortunately going to have to wrap up, as much as I love talking about this and I'm looking forward to the show, but do you have anything you'd like to say to your New Jersey audiences, who are looking forward to you at the State Theater?
26:27
Caitlin Sams: Get your tickets if you haven't gotten them yet.
26:29
Caitlin Sams: And I cannot get you tickets.
26:31
Caitlin Sams: I love everyone, but I cannot get you tickets.
26:33
Caitlin Sams: I don't work at the box office.
26:34
Caitlin Sams: I don't work at the box office.
26:35
Caitlin Sams: I don't have a bunch of tickets in my backpack that I'm just selling on the streets.
26:39
Caitlin Sams: I think people think that sometimes, but I'm very excited.
26:43
Caitlin Sams: I cannot wait for the State Theater.
26:45
Caitlin Sams: I am so, so psyched.
26:47
Bre Cade: Same.
26:47
Bre Cade: We'll see you there.
26:49
Bre Cade: You know I don't have a ton of people coming to Jersey, but if Bree is any indication it's going to be a rowdy, rowdy weekend any indication it's going to be a rowdy weekend.
26:56
Bre Cade: Looking forward to it.
26:59
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Dear Evan Hansen tour will stop at the State Theater in New Brunswick this March 28th through the 30th.
27:04
Gina Marie Rodriguez: For tickets and more information, be sure to visit STNJ.
27:09
Gina Marie Rodriguez: org.
27:10
Gina Marie Rodriguez: If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe and tell your friends.
27:14
Gina Marie Rodriguez: A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts.
27:20
Gina Marie Rodriguez: com.
27:21
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986.
27:28
Gina Marie Rodriguez: The show was co-founded by and currently supported by funds from, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
27:33
Gina Marie Rodriguez: This episode was hosted, edited and produced by me, gina Marie Rodriguez.
27:38
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez, and my thanks to Bre Cade and Caitlin Sams for speaking with me today.
27:46
Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast.
27:49
Gina Marie Rodriguez: Thanks for listening.