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Exclusive Interview: Stephen Michael Spencer & Casey Shuler of 'Music City' · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  Music City opens later this month at St.
• 0:01
  Lucas Theater, and today we're talking with two of the cast members from this production, Casey Shuler and Stephen Michael Spencer.
• 0:06
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 0:08
  Thank you for having us.
• 0:08
  Thank you, Brian.
• 0:10
  So you're about currently two weeks out from previews.
• 0:12
  Casey, how are we feeling so far?
• 0:14
  I am feeling so excited, so ready to start.
• 0:18
  We I feel like we've been working on this for so long that this has just felt like a long time coming.
• 0:23
  So it almost doesn't feel real, but I'm very excited.
• 0:28
  But how long have you been working on it?
• 0:30
  How long has that that process been?
• 0:32
  So this this run, we've been working on this run for a few months, uh, since March.
• 0:39
  Yeah.
• 0:39
  Yeah.
• 0:40
  Yeah.
• 0:40
  We had a sort of start and stop.
• 0:42
  but then together Steven and I have been working on this for three years.
• 0:48
  Around two or three.
• 0:49
  Three summers ago.
• 0:50
  Yeah.
• 0:51
  We had our first work We had our first workshop and then I was like this play has been in process for the last decade.
• 0:58
  The playwright and the songwriter
• 1:00
  have known each other for a long time and have been developing this.
• 1:02
  Um they had one full run in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
• 1:07
  Um and then you guys did a a run of or like a short run of it at in twenty twenty one.
• 1:12
  Yeah.
• 1:13
  And then I joined late um l the little sort of last edition and and and so this this company has been together since last two seasons ago.
• 1:25
  Yeah.
• 1:26
  Yes.
• 1:27
  Long winded.
• 1:28
  Yes.
• 1:28
  That's the one.
• 1:30
  if you even think about it, you know, y you say, you know, you came on kinda late Stephen, but it still has a long time to be with a show.
• 1:36
  it is.
• 1:36
  I mean, I you know, I I come from a rep theater background, so I am used to running plays for a long time.
• 1:43
  So I'm I I think that um
• 1:46
  there's a joy in doing something way too many times to where you you sort of you know, you don't you don't get into not not I'm saying you get into a routine or like a you sort of
• 1:55
  you sort of settle into something and have enough time to marinate to where you don't have to think about what you're doing as much as just sort of respond and you earn that on long
• 2:05
  runs as opposed to, you know, we get three weeks to
• 2:09
  run a play and you figured it out by week two and then you've got one week before you close.
• 2:15
  we have played this play many, many times and in m many different spaces now.
• 2:19
  And so now at this point in time as of today, we've rehearsed this play in like five different locations.
• 2:25
  Yeah.
• 2:25
  And every time we've gone to rehearse it, like something has shifted a little bit as far as like a platform being in a different place.
• 2:32
  And so it's it's fun.
• 2:34
  Like we know this play intimately well.
• 2:36
  Like we've done it, we've played it.
• 2:38
  We've played it to success.
• 2:39
  We know it.
• 2:39
  We love it.
• 2:39
  We know it works.
• 2:40
  And now we're having this opportunity to sort of shift things around.
• 2:43
  And even just moving one platform three feet to the right has like, wait, but now I'm understanding the play so differently.
• 2:50
  Um and that's just a joy of getting to remount something that we love and and that worked.
• 2:55
  And we get a chance to sort of say, Okay, that worked.
• 2:58
  What else might?
• 2:59
  Yep.
• 3:01
  It's kind of like, you know, when somebody codes into your house and they move a piece of it, you know, and that you're just like, you know that it's not right 'cause you've just
• 3:07
  done it for so long.
• 3:07
  It's like that.
• 3:08
  Yeah, exactly.
• 3:09
  Yeah.
• 3:09
  And like it's like everything in my body knows it should be there 'cause that's what it's always been.
• 3:13
  the muscle memory has been the biggest, the hardest part of this for sure.
• 3:17
  Right.
• 3:18
  This particular one.
• 3:19
  Yeah.
• 3:20
  Yeah.
• 3:21
  Which would make sense because it sounds like you're you know, you've lived these characters, you live this story, but like you've inhabited this world for so long that
• 3:27
  naturally that's when it takes over, you're like, I'm supposed to walk here and then you hit you stub your toe or something, you know, like you know, it's like, wait, what what
• 3:33
  happened?
• 3:34
  you know, there and I'll I'll speak a little bit to like I think Eric Tucker's direction and, you know, how he works as a as a as a creator is really freeing for actors because
• 3:43
  um, you know, we there th we get to make our own rules and so we've been able to sort of put aside
• 3:52
  second guessing or judging kind of weird off the beaten path choices and Eric sort of gives us that bravery 'cause I don't know if you're familiar with any of Bedlam's work,
• 4:00
  but they do a lot of um reconfiguring and re envisioning classic work.
• 4:05
  And so this obviously isn't a classic piece of theater and it's a musical, which I don't Casey is a musical theater actor.
• 4:11
  I am not.
• 4:12
  I I am a f I'm a fraud.
• 4:13
  I am a imposter.
• 4:15
  Um but I I play music and I we're both we're all you know, most of the people in this play are connected to music in a way in their life.
• 4:21
  But
• 4:22
  And you I don't I don't think Eric is part, I don't considers himself a musical theater person.
• 4:27
  I you know, like so so like we're we're we're there's a lot of different eyes on this.
• 4:31
  We have a choreographer who is exceptionally gifted at musical theater choreography, and then we have a director who is a classical theater um, you know, uh actor director.
• 4:40
  We've got musicians that are playing actors, we have actors that are pretending to be musicians in the Shakespearean.
• 4:45
  Yeah.
• 4:46
  And so like I think we're all speaking a lot of different languages, and so we have this really cool.
• 4:52
  new style of musical that feels like to me you probably feel differently but like a play with music a play with a shit ton of music.
• 4:59
  Um but it still feels like it feels like a story um that music is a character in it.
• 5:06
  Mm-hmm and and like that to me is is why I keep why I keep coming
• 5:10
  back to this thing is it it it matches something that I feel in myself as an artist, musician, actor, writer, whatever it is.
• 5:18
  And Casey and I both write music and have have lived, you know, lived some not not these lives, but you know, parallel to this story in a way that I feel I think for both of us
• 5:27
  feels very personal because it's a story about reaching for success and like we're not success, reaching for something that like, you know, as creators and as as as actors
• 5:37
  living in this town, um, we know what that feels like.
• 5:39
  And in Nashville
• 5:40
  you know, you lived in Nashville and know what it is to be singing on Broadway, so you can speak more to that.
• 5:45
  But there's you know, there's a there's an urgency and like a need and and also a very, very, very small window of opportunity for anything to happen for for for emerging
• 5:55
  artists, for indie artists.
• 5:57
  And and um so for me living in this town, New York City, and having been in this industry for as long as I've been doing it and and to some success, it feels
• 6:07
  It just feels really cool to be playing a character that um is telling that story in a way that also is like this is Steven, but also 23 and and and TJ.
• 6:19
  Like so like where the actor and where the the story meet is is is is sort of I think what makes this thing work really, really eas work seamlessly and easy.
• 6:30
  It's like easy.
• 6:31
  Yeah.
• 6:32
  Well, you know, to an extent.
• 6:34
  What do you think?
• 6:38
  I mean, I agree.
• 6:39
  I mean that is you said it so well.
• 6:41
  That's exactly what it is.
• 6:42
  It's all very blended.
• 6:43
  It's hard to see where it ends and begins, which I think is what makes art so cool.
• 6:47
  You know.
• 6:48
  You know, when you t you know, Steven kinda mentioned, Casey, about how this is like a play with music, which I seem to s see a lot more happening, I feel like, with shows
• 6:56
  lately.
• 6:57
  Do you think that part of that is that it's like it's it's putting the story first before the music or like or in that way?
• 7:03
  Yeah, I think what makes it because technically, you know, if you see any like critique of the show, they say it's a musical.
• 7:13
  So technically it's a musical.
• 7:16
  But I think what makes it very different coming from a musical theater background and you know, doing a few musicals, I I feel like with a musical, everything
• 7:29
  Most of the time, not all the time, surrounds around when's the next.
• 7:33
  big song gonna happen.
• 7:35
  When's the eleven o'clock number?
• 7:36
  When's the big showstopper?
• 7:38
  When's the tap number?
• 7:39
  When's this and that?
• 7:40
  I feel like with this one, it's very much the opposite where a song comes out of a moment.
• 7:46
  Uh that's hard to explain.
• 7:48
  But do you yeah no totally because I think it's true to the it's like a it's a it's it's a singer songwriter musical.
• 7:53
  So it's like the mu you I think what do they say like a musical like they they talk until they simply can't, they must sing because they're you know and I I think that that when
• 8:01
  that works in musicals, it works really, really well.
• 8:03
  It's beautiful.
• 8:04
  And the thing that I think works so good about this is that it's a story about people that write music.
• 8:09
  And so you get to see the process of them writing music, of of the evolution of how that song changes and shifts throughout this relationship.
• 8:16
  And you see what the relationship between writers can do.
• 8:19
  Because I have friends that in and you have friends in Nashville, and like I it is so much more a writer's town than it is a star-driven town.
• 8:26
  Now there's stars there, obviously, but there's like percentage-wise, one percent star, 99% songmakers.
• 8:33
  Right.
• 8:33
  And and the majority of people that go down there and have voices that can blow you out of the water and like
• 8:39
  are writing songs for Kenny Chesney and all you know and for all these people, like they just as easily could step up and be the front person doing the show, but they just happen
• 8:49
  to be the writer that gave the song to Miranda Lambert and so like there's like something to the every man, every person-ness of this play where we're just we're just people trying
• 8:58
  to like get yeah through
• 9:01
  the banality of life through the lens of songwriting, which is the thing we've attached ourselves to.
• 9:06
  And then it just happens to be the day that the right person is in the right place and offers up an opportunity.
• 9:12
  And then your world changes.
• 9:13
  And like how many times for artists does that happen?
• 9:15
  And we live in this like TikTok world where it takes like one viral video and somebody goes from on Broadway singing like Broadway, Nashville, not this Broadway, but like off
• 9:24
  Broadway, you know, on the streets of Nashville singing on a guitar to being at the Grand Old Opry.
• 9:29
  And and and it can happen like that.
• 9:31
  And like we all see it happen all the time.
• 9:33
  Yeah.
• 9:33
  And like, why not me?
• 9:34
  Why you know why what it what and what is it?
• 9:36
  What is that that sort of magical chemistry?
• 9:38
  And I think like the thing I love about Music City is that I
• 9:42
  I've always thought that music is magic.
• 9:44
  Like it is the whole the way it works is magic.
• 9:46
  Like there's 12 notes and there's all these people that can just put them together and like we make this thing.
• 9:50
  Yeah.
• 9:51
  And and like that, this room has got musicians, it's got actors, it's got singers, it's got and we've all come together and are like learning to sing the same songs.
• 10:01
  And it's it's fucking magic.
• 10:02
  And yeah.
• 10:03
  And like we we took two months of a hiatus and we're back in this n again, new venue, new rehearsal hall.
• 10:08
  We haven't touched this material in two weeks, but we plug in.
• 10:11
  And sing these songs that I mean, we didn't write them.
• 10:16
  They're JT Harding's music, but it feels like we have so much authorship of the thing we created.
• 10:21
  Well, I think too, what I believe is that with musicals as well, what I love about musicals is that there is this kind of suspension of like you just look at the musical and
• 10:35
  you just kind of have to forget that.
• 10:38
  they're singing in the middle of the street.
• 10:40
  You know, you just kind of have to make it all know the same dance.
• 10:43
  Yeah, it's like that.
• 10:44
  And there's not a there's a few moments like that in this show, but it's more often than not, you just it would make sense for that person to be singing there.
• 10:54
  I think that's another good way to put that.
• 10:57
  Yeah.
• 10:57
  always think of and this is this is maybe just aging me a little bit, but I always think of Glee where they like try to like the story they make the s story fit the s music where
• 11:06
  this sounds like it the music fits the story.
• 11:08
  Yeah.
• 11:09
  we are in a di like you walk in and you're in a bar where music is the primary purpose, you're there.
• 11:14
  Right.
• 11:15
  And there is you know, you don't know what you're gonna see.
• 11:17
  You might see the greatest songwriter that's just has a night off and is in the room, literally won a Grammy the night before.
• 11:22
  This happened to us at West End that the what was their name?
• 11:24
  The There's Old Dominion.
• 11:25
  Old Dominion wanna wanna Grammy the night before.
• 11:28
  They went yeah, they won a music CMA won a CMA and then they're at our open mic night the following night.
• 11:34
  Because they're friends with J T Harding.
• 11:36
  And so and that like my time in Nashville, that's what Nashville was to for me when I was there.
• 11:41
  It's like I'd go to a backyard singer songwriter round and I'd see like, that's the person who wrote uh, you know, I dug my keys into the side of his four wheel You what I mean?
• 11:49
  And and it's not who you think it was.
• 11:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:52
  It's like it's like a three year old dad and his friends wrote that song.
• 11:55
  Yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 11:58
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:59
  So yeah, it there there's
• 12:03
  I have I have I've spent my entire career as an actor playing guitar in plays.
• 12:11
  And they're always like, you know, there's like that one moment where the character comes in with a guitar, and like, great, okay, they're the musical character.
• 12:16
  It's often Shakespeare Plays, whatever it is.
• 12:17
  And it always feels like um it not gimmicky, but it just always feels like a thing that's sort of.
• 12:24
  I I am a guy that can play guitar so I I have to do it in plays all the time.
• 12:27
  That's it's a g it's one of my good it's a good thing and it's also like, god, I'm gonna guess I'm gonna have to play guitar.
• 12:32
  Yeah.
• 12:32
  Th this thing is like special skills for but like the first time I've ever done a piece of theater that like I get to use both sides of my creative brain.
• 12:41
  Right.
• 12:42
  because even even when I'm playing guitars in Shakespeare plays or whatever, it's it's not this.
• 12:46
  It's not folky four chords of the truth.
• 12:49
  It feels like the guitar is an extension of you.
• 12:52
  Totally.
• 12:52
  And in this character, like he has a guitar all the time.
• 12:55
  And Steven, Michael Spencer, all three of us, like that's me.
• 12:58
  Like I I get to do the thing that I do when I'm not acting.
• 13:01
  Right.
• 13:02
  But like with a little bit of acting.
• 13:05
  Yeah.
• 13:07
  And the music too.
• 13:08
  Didn't that make sense?
• 13:09
  And that's another thing too that I'll say about
• 13:10
  it.
• 13:11
  I'll say about it being, you know, you know, people I uh for me when I hear like jukebox musical, I go, god, Lord, it's gonna you know what I mean?
• 13:19
  I I it I g it has some sort of connotation to it where it's like gonna be gimmicky and like, here's another like honky tonk dance along.
• 13:25
  It couldn't our show could not be further away from that energy.
• 13:29
  And I think people often find themselves surprised by knowing the songs like the song will start, but it lives in a different tone or tenor uh
• 13:37
  As the record is in the on the radio, and all of a sudden they find themselves tapping along.
• 13:41
  They're like, shit, I do know this song.
• 13:44
  I know and like that to me, like this this whole musical, this whole story, this community we've built feels familiar.
• 13:50
  Like you should walk in and feel like, oh, I've been to this bar, I've seen these people.
• 13:55
  They're everybody.
• 13:56
  They're not, they're not, you know, Miranda.
• 14:00
  I can't keep going back to Mirandal Lambert but they're not, you know, though those those sort of like
• 14:05
  Yeah.
• 14:05
  We're not pretending to be anything.
• 14:06
  We're not.
• 14:07
  We're in a room.
• 14:08
  It's a dive bar.
• 14:08
  There's cheap beer, hopefully.
• 14:10
  Um, it smells a little, you know, there's some seedy characters.
• 14:15
  Yeah.
• 14:16
  And and then you know what?
• 14:17
  There's a band that will rock your freaking pants off.
• 14:21
  And we're all gonna do it in this like low ceiling church basement.
• 14:24
  It's very unique and um I feel like has the spirit of Nashville.
• 14:29
  Like that sort of idea.
• 14:31
  Yes.
• 14:32
  You gotta have fun.
• 14:33
  That's the whole point of life, Brian.
• 14:34
  For sure.
• 14:35
  For sure.
• 14:36
  No, I totally agree.
• 14:37
  As a psychologist, I can attest to that.
• 14:39
  If you don't have fun, what's the point of doing this?
• 14:42
  Casey, so you're playing twenty three, and having been in with the show for so long, who do you feel like twenty three is to you?
• 14:51
  Like, has it changed over time?
• 14:53
  Or like who is twenty three?
• 14:55
  Good question.
• 14:56
  Um I want to know the answer to this.
• 14:59
  Yes.
• 15:00
  So when I got the audition for this show, I was living in Nashville playing on Broadway, down not the Broadway in New York City, the Broadway downtown Nashville Bachelorette
• 15:13
  Capitol.
• 15:15
  And I was playing that full pretty full-time.
• 15:18
  And so I when I got this audition, I had actually kind of put musical theater on the back burner and
• 15:25
  my agent at the time said, I know you're kind of taking a little bit of a break, but maybe you just maybe you go ahead and take a look at this one because this one I think you're
• 15:35
  living this life.
• 15:36
  Because I had been very upfront with them about how I was gonna head to Nashville and 'cause at the time we were pre we were mid um shutdown during COVID and I was kind of
• 15:48
  Looking for a safe way to still sing.
• 15:50
  And I was like, well, I could write songs so I could move down to Nashville.
• 15:53
  And then when I moved down there, everything started opening up.
• 15:56
  Um and the bars started opening up.
• 15:58
  And so I I started singing down there.
• 16:02
  she at that time when I read the script, I remember I cried for 20 minutes after I read it.
• 16:08
  23 minutes.
• 16:09
  23 minutes after I read it.
• 16:11
  And I said, I have to audition for this, yes, because she is me and I am her and we are one.
• 16:18
  That was how it felt.
• 16:20
  as I get older, and I've I've been doing this role off and on for five years now, that that's half a decade.
• 16:32
  As I get older, the more I see the
• 16:39
  Youth of her, and it's really beautiful.
• 16:41
  And I love that there's some impulsivity, there's some charm, and and she's really sweet, but she's also figuring out her life with her family.
• 16:50
  And you'll see, I'm not gonna give too much away.
• 16:52
  But her and her mother have this beautiful connection, and the older I get, the more I look at her as this.
• 17:02
  She's stronger than she was when I started with her.
• 17:06
  When I started with her, she was very young and naive and excited and impulsive and thought, oh, I get an Opry gig, I get to go play, yay.
• 17:17
  The older I get, now I see that you have to kind of walk into things with a strength, knowing that sometimes some things might not come true the way you thought they would.
• 17:26
  Sometimes dream I also have faced a lot more rejection as time has gone on.
• 17:30
  I've faced a lot more heartbreak as time has gone on.
• 17:33
  I've seen a lot more as you do as you get older.
• 17:37
  And so she I think she's just more well-rounded.
• 17:40
  She's just turned into a much more almost grounded version of the character, which can be kind of difficult to deal with because in the beginning she it's hard to find all of those
• 17:52
  nuances, which I'm really lucky because Eric is so great about.
• 17:56
  walking through them with me and our director Eric, he's been with me.
• 17:59
  We came onto the project together.
• 18:01
  So that we've both grown for five years in this one.
• 18:05
  But yeah, that's what I'd say she is.
• 18:07
  She's just she started as a child, in a way, not a child, but as a young girl that felt like 24 years old is old.
• 18:15
  And now she is much more well-rounded with some subtleties.
• 18:22
  I remember when I was twenty four, I thought twenty four was old too.
• 18:25
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  I really did.
• 18:26
  I really did.
• 18:27
  Oh my god.
• 18:29
  And then by the time you get in your thirties, you're just like, wait a second.
• 18:32
  Twenty four sounds great.
• 18:33
  I c I could not believe I thought but that's what I felt.
• 18:36
  I thought, twenty four is old and then, you know, twenty eight, you die, and that's it.
• 18:41
  And so I think there's just she just naturally has grown with me, I think.
• 18:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:49
  Yeah.
• 18:49
  though again that having lived with this role for so long that you've there's so much to her that's like not written in the script that you get to find like that.
• 18:57
  Like it's going to mature when you kinda have a different view.
• 19:00
  You know, you said five years, that's a long time to look back and be like, wow, you know, optimistic to maybe a little more realistic.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:07
  We're gonna age out of these parts if we don't want to get going here.
• 19:09
  Gone through some Botox, you know
• 19:14
  And Steven, you're playing T J so what do you feel like same question I guess is how do you feel he's changed with you over time or how what do you feel like who he is as as a
• 19:25
  character or as a person?
• 19:26
  Yeah.
• 19:27
  I mean I think
• 19:29
  You kinda can't get away from it, it's like Casey's saying, I think that just because we have had the opportunity to be with it and it it already has had this life that we had a
• 19:41
  full, you know, four weeks of rehearsal and then ran it for four or five months and
• 19:47
  inside of runs like that, you can't help but continue to learn.
• 19:49
  If you if you're doing it the right way, you're learning every time you do it and you're you're continuing the play is getting deeper and and you're discovering more.
• 19:57
  I I mean I pulled I I think the the and then you take a pause and you leave it.
• 20:03
  And like when we left this play, when we closed at the West End Theater
• 20:06
  It ended and we were all I sort of like felt it slip out of my hands a little bit.
• 20:09
  I was like, Oh god, it's gone.
• 20:11
  Where did go?
• 20:11
  Um I wasn't done yet.
• 20:13
  And taking that year off, and then somewhere in the like seven month area, it was like, hey, this might come back.
• 20:20
  And start so you start thinking again and you start laying in bed at night being like, yeah, that play, that guy.
• 20:25
  And I go think about him again.
• 20:27
  And like you're saying, it was like I, Steven, am in a very different place now that I
• 20:34
  When we started the whole thing across the board, like where I feel like I fit in my own personal life, where I feel like I fit in New York, where I am with my family, where I am
• 20:45
  with my own music.
• 20:47
  Because my relationship to my music has shifted in the time that I've done this play since we started.
• 20:52
  So like all of that stuff is changing.
• 20:54
  And so then you think, great, I get to come back to this play again.
• 20:57
  And so you can't it can't it has to be us.
• 20:59
  Like it's in Eric Eric doesn't have any tolerance for like us bringing in anything that's not like
• 21:04
  you know, like what are you like what do you like just do it like be the thing let's do the thing we're doing and so like we this is you know one of the easier on stage chemistry
• 21:15
  I guess the you know chemistry relationships that I've ever had with anybody because I think we are just sort of greeting the people as we are as Casey and Steven are.
• 21:26
  um So he, you know, I feel like as I have this gift now to come back to it
• 21:33
  I know the things that Steven is working on as a human being and I know how I want that to reflect into T J and I think uh to be specific for me it's like stillness 'cause I'm like
• 21:46
  I'm a hundred and twenty five percent in all the time.
• 21:49
  And like while that does serve my work.
• 21:53
  It does, and it's it does serve my work.
• 21:54
  But there's something about um
• 21:57
  Cause you know, the thing that these two characters do for each other in the play is unlock each other's potential.
• 22:05
  And so there's like these two people on this course alone.
• 22:08
  And then once they come together and figure out, like you you lift me here, I lift you here, they just, you know, iron sharpens iron.
• 22:17
  And and so like I think that um like uh
• 22:22
  stepping away from the entire thing as a whole is I I can see that the the entirety of that picture more.
• 22:27
  So I wanna be more intentional about the TJ that begins the play and the TJ that ends the play, as opposed to how I think you have a line of things like not to give too much away,
• 22:36
  but like you went away a kid and came back a man.
• 22:39
  You know, it's like very stereotypical, sort of like young kid.
• 22:43
  Yeah.
• 22:43
  Yeah.
• 22:44
  And but like there is something I want I ha having come back to this play again, I wanna ru I wanna feel that.
• 22:50
  Yeah.
• 22:52
  by the end of the play.
• 22:53
  So like that's been my I think the difference is I want we have the luxury of all this time and all this marination period and now we're back in the thing and we know the music
• 23:01
  and we know you know we know the play and so now we're it's we get to go a little deeper and that for me is the journey.
• 23:07
  So I want to leave the play in a different place and I start the play.
• 23:10
  Yeah.
• 23:10
  So Casey Steven was kinda talking about the connection between twenty three and T J.
• 23:13
  Why do you think these two characters connect so quickly in Music City?
• 23:17
  I think there are a few reasons, but I think the biggest reason is 23 is so in a way grounded from the beginning.
• 23:30
  I think that so much has been taken from her, and that's giving again, we're not gonna give too much away.
• 23:38
  But
• 23:38
  Uh so much has been taken from her, and she's seen so much heartbreak already as a young person that I think she just kind of comes into every situation with this calmness of what
• 23:50
  else could go wrong, in a sense.
• 23:53
  And I think there's this, even though TJ has been through so much as well, I think there's this almost boyish charm that honestly Steven brings to it that I I is kind of new, but
• 24:05
  it's really fun.
• 24:06
  And he
• 24:09
  TJ is so boyish and fun and exciting, and she is so just she's taking on the world, you know?
• 24:18
  And so I think the two of them, he kind of helps her in a way have more fun.
• 24:23
  And she helps him in a way ground and get things done.
• 24:29
  So I think that's kind of where the two, and then what's really sweet about it is at some point.
• 24:35
  23 finds out that you're not just a kid, you have these real world issues and things that are going on, and she realizes that she can have fun too because he is and he's been
• 24:47
  through a lot as well.
• 24:48
  I think that's like the biggest connection, and you can really I feel like in real life, you can read in people when they have kind of been through the same things you've been
• 24:56
  through, or they can kind of pick up something that you drop, you know.
• 25:00
  Yeah.
• 25:02
  Yeah and just to jump on that and this is this this is a such a helpful conversation for us to be having as we as we walk into rehearsing.
• 25:08
  But there's there's there's an element of like,
• 25:10
  con consequence, like choices having consequences that I think TJ hasn't had to deal with in his life as much.
• 25:18
  Like I could, you know, TJ could could fuck up and it doesn't it doesn't it put somebody else out.
• 25:23
  Someone's not relying on no one's relying really on TJ.
• 25:26
  There's this my brother in the play, TJ and Drew are are a unit and they survive from each other and they kept each other alive for their lives.
• 25:32
  And that's that's his unit.
• 25:34
  Um but i I
• 25:38
  I I think the thing that TJ gains m most from 23 outside of like, wow, we're gonna be famous songwriters because we can't not write bops together.
• 25:47
  Um, but boyish charm.
• 25:50
  But but uh but learning learning a very, very tough lesson in real time in the play about consequences and that like your choices have to have consequences and what you do as a
• 26:00
  person, whether it is intentions or good or bad, or whatever the intentions are, you are responsible for the outcome.
• 26:08
  And that is a lesson that I think T J has to learn in the play in order to uh make amends for something.
• 26:16
  I it's like two whatever.
• 26:18
  Keep it there.
• 26:19
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:19
  Keep it at amends.
• 26:21
  Because you it's not all Sunshine and Daisies in a country musical.
• 26:23
  It's gotta have some heartbreaking.
• 26:26
  But yeah, so
• 26:27
  two characters are like changing each other?
• 26:28
  Do you feel like they're helping each other become who they already are?
• 26:31
  I think that that I think that I at least will speak for T J 'cause I advocate for him.
• 26:37
  And it's similar to Steven because I have a very good woman in my life and I would not be at my potential without that person.
• 26:42
  And I fully believe that.
• 26:44
  That I don't think that that TJ, you know, we all have the ceiling.
• 26:49
  And uh and I don't think TJ would even come close to reaching his ceiling without the support of 23 in and the support of his brother in the play as well.
• 27:00
  I think that we the the two dudes in the play are very much so the lost boys.
• 27:05
  Sure.
• 27:06
  And and when
• 27:07
  And we get the we get the the uh what is her name, Wendy?
• 27:11
  Yes, Wendy.
• 27:13
  But no, but really, I mean I think and and it and that's true for my life.
• 27:16
  Like I I without my fiance, I I you know, I learned I learned how to establish Liora.
• 27:22
  Yeah, what's up, Liora?
• 27:23
  I mean, both of us have very, very exceptional partners in life.
• 27:27
  And and I know for a fact that I wouldn't reach my ceiling without that.
• 27:30
  And so I feel like again, art in life imitating each other, like here we are in this play.
• 27:35
  I I think that T J would stay at the Wicked Tickle, which is the name of our bar, um, on the east side of Nashville.
• 27:41
  He would stay in that bar and he'd be playing the same he'd be playing the same set until he is in his fifties and then he'd probably develop a drinking issue and then, you know,
• 27:49
  continue writing songs that no one would really hear outside of the Wicked Tickle and that would be the end of life.
• 27:54
  And like that's fine, but the ceiling is very high for these people.
• 27:59
  And and I think that he wouldn't reach it without twenty three.
• 28:02
  Yeah.
• 28:03
  I think they help each other become who they in in a way become who they should be.
• 28:10
  Perfect.
• 28:11
  Then one final question for you because I know you have to get to rehearsal, but with there being the kind of blend of like some darker aspects, you know, with with also
• 28:19
  finding the light in the story, what do you think that Music City ultimately says about hope?
• 28:24
  Mm.
• 28:24
  Loaded.
• 28:25
  So with that one was church.
• 28:27
  sometimes that psychology degree still just comes out.
• 28:30
  gonna say I can tell the difference between psychology and acting, fine line.
• 28:33
  Yeah, right.
• 28:34
  Very fine line.
• 28:40
  Um I will say I think sometimes when things feel dark and hopeless, it is really easy to just succumb to that darkness.
• 28:51
  It's easy.
• 28:52
  Misery loves company.
• 28:53
  That's one of my favorite.
• 28:55
  It's very easy to just
• 28:58
  Enjoy being a little sad and to let yourself just kind of feel that hopelessness.
• 29:03
  And I think there's this really beautiful message.
• 29:06
  There's a lot of messages in Music City, but I think one of the most beautiful messages is we can't reach hope, true hope, without community and good people around you.
• 29:22
  In my that is something that Music City pushes.
• 29:25
  I think and sometimes when it's really easy to succumb to that dark place, having people that can help you come out of it in this pl in this show, a a band, a really cool band,
• 29:38
  how having these people help you come out of that dark place, I think that helps you reach hope.
• 29:44
  Yeah.
• 29:45
  Yeah, I I think I'd say similarly, I think I'd say like without
• 29:50
  Without community there isn't hope.
• 29:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:54
  Yeah.
• 29:54
  You know, I think without I think we have to have
• 29:58
  It's what we do, right?
• 29:59
  Like we as actors, we like or as any any theater maker, we we we have a theater, we have a church, we have a steeple, you know, the the arch, the proscenium, we have a congregation,
• 30:09
  the audience, we have a message, the story.
• 30:12
  Um, but at the end of the day, like that all ends and like we the people put on our regular clothes and walk out onto the streets and live our lives.
• 30:19
  Um, but the the when what you walk out to is community with community to the people.
• 30:25
  And so like I think that the play has this
• 30:28
  really like the the the the kernel of hope and light is is the people.
• 30:33
  Um and and I think that's a testament of like the thing we're doing because like here we are three it's been a it's been a crazy it's been a crazy process getting to where we are
• 30:44
  here and like there's been days where it's felt like this isn't you know like the hope has been hard for us as a as a company of actors that you know having to lose a space and gain
• 30:52
  another one which talk about
• 30:54
  putting your hope and and in and like your faith into something that like we lost a space that we thought was perfect and gained a far more perfect space for us.
• 31:03
  Like that, you know, one door opens, one closes or one closes, three open, whatever they say.
• 31:08
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  Um but yeah, I think that like at the it's it's it's the people.
• 31:15
  Yeah, it's the community.
• 31:17
  Well, perfect.
• 31:17
  Thank you so for you two for being It's been such a pleasure talking with you.
• 31:20
  We are so excited for the show.
• 31:22
  Yay.
• 31:22
  We can't wait to and you come and sing an open mic song for us.
• 31:25
  Because we have an open mic.
• 31:26
  Every show starts within a real live open.
• 31:30
  You we do.
• 31:31
  Yes, we do.
• 31:32
  Yeah.
• 31:32
  We have you you don't you don't have to be great.
• 31:35
  It actually will make us sound better.
• 31:36
  You can't go wrong.
• 31:40
  No, but really we do have a live open mic on the show.
• 31:45
  Thank you.
• 31:45
  I can't be up there embarrassing myself in front of the audience.
• 31:48
  That's
• 31:49
  fair enough.
• 31:49
  If you come early, the audience might not fully trickle in yet.
• 31:52
  So you could sing first.
• 31:53
  So True.
• 31:54
  We'll let you off the hook, Brian.
• 31:56
  So Music City begins performances on June fifteenth with opening night on June twenty fourth.
• 32:00
  So get your tickets now and we'll see you at the show.