Latest / The BSB Podcast / Exclusive Interview: Nuverre Naami and Caitlyn Shea of Planet Ant's 'Jurassic Park The Musical'

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Exclusive Interview: Nuverre Naami and Caitlyn Shea of Planet Ant's 'Jurassic Park The Musical' · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  Things are about to get prehistoric once again at Planet Ant as Jurassic Park the musical is returning.
• 0:04
  Today we're talking to Nuverre Naami and Caitlyn Shea about this production.
• 0:08
  Thank you both for being here.
• 0:09
  Thanks for having us.
• 0:10
  having us.
• 0:11
  So congratulations.
• 0:12
  I'm bringing back Jurassic Park for another run.
• 0:14
  When this was here last year, I just heard so much about it.
• 0:17
  Everybody was raving about it.
• 0:18
  Everybody was talking about this.
• 0:19
  uh What is it like to bring it back?
• 0:22
  Thank you.
• 0:23
  ah It's exciting.
• 0:25
  You know, we had such a fun time putting it up last year and we were so blown away by how much people did enjoy it.
• 0:33
  ah people have been asking if it's coming back, clamoring for it.
• 0:38
  And so to get the opportunity to do it again doesn't come often.
• 0:41
  So ah it's a lot of work, but it's definitely rewarding and it's different kind of experience this time around as well,
• 0:49
  Caitlyn, for you, what is it like kinda bringing this back?
• 0:50
  I mean, like she said, this is one of those great shows that everybody, I'm talking about everybody, I heard this in my professional life, my personal life, everybody was talking
• 0:59
  about this show.
• 1:00
  So what is it like to bring it back?
• 1:03
  I mean, it's definitely, you know, a lot of times if there's a remount, it's not like the year, like the next year ah after.
• 1:10
  So it's cool to bring it back, like almost to the date, like a year later.
• 1:14
  And, you know, ah I feel like I just got the songs out of my head and then we started rehearsals again.
• 1:21
  It was like every morning I'd wake up with a different song in my head.
• 1:25
  So I feel like, you know, it was like the perfect time.
• 1:27
  They were just leaving my head and people that saw the show only once would be like, I'm still thinking about.
• 1:33
  they would sing a part of the song.
• 1:34
  I'm like, wow, that really stuck with you.
• 1:36
  So it's cool, because it was seen live and that was it.
• 1:43
  Nuverre, so where does the idea like this come from?
• 1:45
  Like this is, like Jurassic Park obviously is a very known property.
• 1:49
  Everybody loves Jurassic Park.
• 1:50
  I know that's kind of like a great place to start, like where did this kind of be like, you know, we should turn this into a musical.
• 1:56
  Yeah, I mean, I think we came together, um you know, two December's ago to talk about what we wanted the show to be.
• 2:03
  And we knew that we had a lot of seats to fill in the venue that we perform at.
• 2:09
  We perform at the Ant Hall.
• 2:11
  uh And so part of it was, there is there an idea that kind of helps get, you know, people interested and kind of take a little bit of that pressure off?
• 2:22
  But ultimately, the idea itself, you know, I've always loved
• 2:26
  personally like just parody and then parody musical on top of that.
• 2:30
  ah A few years ago I wrote another parody musical on Grease It was called Greece and it was...
• 2:37
  uh
• 2:39
  a parody taking place in ancient Greece.
• 2:42
  And so I had kind of the itch personally to want to kind of dive back into that.
• 2:48
  And then the group of writers that we had connected with, Caitlyn being one of them and three others, um a couple of us had been big Jurassic Park fans.
• 2:57
  m And it was sort of like the idea just sort of came together.
• 3:02
  um It originated, though, specifically with Jurassic Park earlier that year in the summer.
• 3:08
  ah
• 3:09
  we were hanging out at friends cottage and I think we were just sort of like singing the lyrics to the Jurassic Park theme and just having like a lot of fun around a bonfire and
• 3:22
  we kind of joked like let's just do Jurassic Park the musical next year and the idea for me personally just never left my head and I was just really grateful that I actually got a
• 3:32
  chance to kind of scratch that itch.
• 3:34
  And Caitlyn, with this being so many different, like there's so many co-authors on this, so many people working on this, what was it like to kind of develop this musical?
• 3:43
  I mean it was a fun process.
• 3:45
  was, you know, there were five of us that that worked on it together.
• 3:49
  So, you know, having like the cadence that we had of meeting up and just talking about it and then just kind of like slowly starting to like see it come together, whether it was
• 4:00
  like one scene or a song and just like some of the songs having like already like a melody or things like that and like, you know, how it went from there to how it ends up.
• 4:13
  you know, as a finished product was I've never been a part of writing a musical.
• 4:17
  So that was really fun to kind of watch it turn into like this small seed into like this like booming flower with all this.
• 4:28
  you know, it just it's very fun.
• 4:30
  And, you know, the themes around Jurassic Park.
• 4:35
  are very topical.
• 4:37
  ah So it was a very easy thing to kind of write a parody when like I just feel like life in itself is becoming such a parody.
• 4:46
  uh Yeah.
• 4:52
  And it was like the I had been a part of group writing processes before but um
• 4:58
  never like with like specifically like like ever like we were all like friends beforehand and all of that sometimes you become friends in the process of that and things like that
• 5:08
  um so it was just like essentially like a designated time for our friends to hang out and come up with silly what ifs
• 5:20
  It seems like, and this is such a collaborative approach, I really know this is about Planet Ant too, it's like there is such a collaborative approach when comes to the writing
• 5:27
  and bringing these characters to life and the people that are on stage.
• 5:30
  Is there really a change to how you approach this then with that process?
• 5:34
  Because you're also directing the show.
• 5:36
  Yeah.
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  um
• 5:38
  You know, I think with something like a show, Jurassic Park, you have a story that it's based on.
• 5:45
  So where the collaboration and the fun comes in is like, how do you reimagine and imagine that?
• 5:51
  So you kind of have a little bit more liberty with the interpretation than you do.
• 5:56
  I don't think too many people would like the show if we completely changed like the actual show content.
• 6:03
  Now, we do take a lot of liberties with it in the show, but I think I think it's all in sort of
• 6:07
  like the right sort of tone that we're after and we sort of the common theme is kind of poking fun a little bit at some of the absurdity when you think back about the movie while
• 6:19
  also honoring like what an amazing like masterpiece and classic that it was and so we really also aim for like we have to hit some things for what we call the JP heads or
• 6:32
  Jurassic Park heads the people that like will write about you in blogs if you forgot
• 6:38
  a character or you gave somebody else a line that somebody else said in the movie, all the way to people that have never even seen the movie.
• 6:47
  We discovered in our writing process that one of our writers, Courtney Kamen, uh had not actually seen the movie before uh we all got together to watch it together.
• 6:57
  But what's a testament to why I think this sort of stands on its own is that you don't need that frame of reference to enjoy the show or enjoy the songs.
• 7:07
  enrich it if you do have that sort of novelty in that background, sure, but you don't need it.
• 7:13
  It's still kind of entertaining.
• 7:15
  And she was sort of like our barometer for like, is this still a good show if you're not a JP head?
• 7:21
  And I think we found that there's a lot of people that like it, whether or not you've seen the movie or not.
• 7:27
  I think that's so cool that there's, well first off, that there's somebody that hasn't seen it yet, because I feel like Jurassic Park is one of those ones that we all grew up on
• 7:34
  in some form or another, so it's cool to have that.
• 7:36
  also, that is a good gauge to be able to be like, is the general audience who maybe doesn't know Jurassic Park, are they going to enjoy what we're doing?
• 7:44
  And it sounds like it's been received very well in that way.
• 7:47
  Absolutely.
• 7:48
  I mean, I had my young nieces and nephews age like 12 to 20 come see the show.
• 7:55
  They had never seen Jurassic Park and they loved it and they loved the music especially.
• 8:01
  And so
• 8:03
  being sort of like a older millennial, I was like, hey, we can even speak to like the younger generations with what we put up here.
• 8:10
  And yeah, I think it's just really awesome to just be a part of something that is revered the way that it is, because we work really hard on it and you don't always get that.
• 8:22
  And so I just like love that we've been able to sort of create this thing that people can talk about and that you can feel really proud to be a part of.
• 8:31
  Now, with being the director, you feel like from the writing process to like directing the show, Does that vision change almost through that lens of a director?
• 8:43
  um It does in some cases because when you put things down on paper, you don't think about all the time, how are you going to get this up on stage?
• 8:52
  And so you let your imagination go wild in that initial writing process.
• 8:58
  And then once you actually start to block it is when
• 9:01
  reality starts to set in of what is possible and what is not.
• 9:04
  And it's always fun to push those limits.
• 9:06
  I think we push the limits in this show.
• 9:08
  I think we went through our script and very little of what we actually set out to do was scrapped, right?
• 9:18
  And we do some crazy things and we've got some, I think we've got the most spectacular looking low budget props that you've ever seen.
• 9:26
  um
• 9:28
  We somehow made low budget props, I think, look sexy.
• 9:31
  so all of that goes into the production value.
• 9:35
  But yeah, it starts on paper.
• 9:37
  And then when you get to the stage and you're like, how the hell am I going to get this giant prop through the backstage doors?
• 9:45
  And uh as uh Dr.
• 9:48
  Malcolm says, life finds a way.
• 9:50
  So we did.
• 9:52
  So, Caitlyn, with this being a remount, how do you feel like it's maybe changed or grown since that first initial run?
• 9:58
  Well, I mean, I think like there's always the like, oh, like we just did it.
• 10:03
  It's fresh in our heads, like all of that.
• 10:05
  And to an extent, like I didn't I was pretty surprised at how quickly I still remembered my lines and things like that.
• 10:13
  But like, I think this time around, there was so many moves.
• 10:17
  There's still so many moving parts, right?
• 10:19
  But like the moving parts that were happening were
• 10:24
  at a very different pace last year.
• 10:28
  And now being settled into we already have the props, we already have so many things that we didn't have last year, we're able to really take the time to like, refine and settle
• 10:37
  into these characters way more.
• 10:41
  So while the show is the same, there are going to be a couple of changes, we have some other folks playing different parts that weren't a part of it last year.
• 10:51
  And just for us to kind of take that beat back of like,
• 10:54
  Okay, let's really think about like this, this and this and Nuverre's been really great at.
• 10:59
  kind of being that director in that sense of the writer and director of just like, okay, like, let's really think about like, we're saying it this way, why and, and kind of taking
• 11:07
  more of that time to like, let that stuff breathe.
• 11:11
  We're, you know, not all of us are singers.
• 11:13
  This was, I had like joked around and saying a couple of times like karaoke or like whatever.
• 11:19
  um I'm not a singer, but um I definitely feel more confident going in this, this run singing these songs, ah you know, even in rehearsals
• 11:29
  last year it was like the most mortifying thing to get up there and sing and now I'm like, I fucking care less now I'm just gonna do it.
• 11:37
  ah But I don't think I've ever been that nervous the night that we opened and each of ours are opening solo.
• 11:43
  ah I pretty much like blacked out.
• 11:48
  So this year, I still want that sense of.
• 11:52
  excitement and urgency but will be way more locked in and settled I think this this time around and you know I mean I think there's also the the stress not stress but you know you
• 12:03
  want to do a good job and you want people to come and see the show so there is a little bit of that you know pressure of like you know we we want it to do well and we want to do
• 12:12
  well and and we want people to know about it I think some people being like I wish I would have known
• 12:18
  ah You know, I hope that those people find out about it and are able to make it this year Yeah, yeah So I play dr.
• 12:32
  Alan Grant um and then I do make a small ah Guest appearance as a raptor
• 12:44
  mainly just doing some one scene ah maybe with some talking and then uh I do find a chance to really uh dance my heart out uh as a raptor as well.
• 12:59
  I love that.
• 13:00
  um With the role of Dr.
• 13:03
  Alan Grant, you know, this is an iconic role, so many people know this.
• 13:07
  How do you kind of put your own spin on a character such as that?
• 13:10
  Um, well, like Nuverre said, we're really taking these characters and, you know, kind of putting a magnifying glass on them a little bit.
• 13:21
  um So it's kind of that like, if that, then what type of like, with a lot of them.
• 13:28
  So, you know, he's a very ah arrogant kind of guy.
• 13:34
  And I think we really expand on that.
• 13:37
  I'm really trying this year to double down on that a little bit more.
• 13:42
  um You know, just be more of a man in this show of just, you know, as a woman, it's, know, I like to make myself small in spaces sometimes.
• 13:54
  So trying to let myself feel a little bit bigger.
• 13:57
  being polite.
• 13:57
  She's being polite.
• 13:58
  Alan Grant is definitely just overconfident and self-absorbed.
• 14:05
  uh And really there's nuggets of that in the original character.
• 14:10
  mean, there's an Xfinity commercial now where they poke fun at something not being smarter than Alan Grant.
• 14:16
  And that's precisely kind of what we're going for here is just someone that thinks that they are a little smarter and better than they are.
• 14:24
  And quite honestly, that's kind of the common theme.
• 14:26
  for almost every single character in the show.
• 14:28
  ah Everyone breeds and exudes extreme overconfidence in situations they should not.
• 14:37
  And that ultimately just is the demise of, you know, Jurassic Park is kind of playing in these zones that ah you think you have control over or that you think that you...
• 14:48
  ah
• 14:49
  or you don't think, you you're just not really thinking.
• 14:53
  And so we find ways to find the funny and all that because to Caitlyn's point, these days, sometimes you're like, is it funny anymore?
• 15:02
  But um I think we have to laugh at it.
• 15:04
  I think we have to stay true to this is absurd.
• 15:08
  And that's why we are parodying it, not accepting it actually.
• 15:13
  Yeah, because you think after like six movies they would, you but they all are very arrogant in the way that they kind of portray themselves of like, we can control dinosaurs
• 15:20
  and ultimately they can't.
• 15:23
  Yeah.
• 15:24
  Yeah.
• 15:25
  Nuverre who are you playing?
• 15:27
  I have the honor of playing Dr.
• 15:29
  John Hammond in the show.
• 15:31
  um And when we first set out to write this, I didn't know if I was going to be in the show.
• 15:37
  When we wrote the script, it was still kind of up in the air.
• 15:41
  I knew I was going to be directing it.
• 15:43
  oh We knew it was a huge production, just putting on the quality and just like everything, you know, the music, the dancing, props.
• 15:51
  And so ah it was kind of unclear.
• 15:54
  And then
• 15:56
  when we were close to finishing the script.
• 15:59
  The cast was just like, you know you have to play John Hammond, right?
• 16:02
  And I was just like, okay, yeah, I think I need to.
• 16:06
  um And so I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to also perform in the show and to play this very iconic character and put the spin on it that we've decided to cast on
• 16:16
  him.
• 16:16
  um I love to play a bad guy and get away with it.
• 16:21
  um I don't know what to make of the fact that people thought that I needed to play this character, but I'm gonna take it as a confidence
• 16:28
  in my ability to just play what I'm not in real life.
• 16:33
  And they know the comedy.
• 16:34
  They know that you're comedic gold here, so they're like, you have to play this role.
• 16:40
  But no, it's honestly like the part of a lifetime.
• 16:46
  And I go full John Han...
• 16:48
  I mean, our costume designer, Dersoe, we have to give a big shout out to because she's just been amazing.
• 16:57
  And she sourced me an actual like real hair, beard and mustache.
• 17:06
  Yeah, and like she's guided me through it the whole way and so I have put a lot of glue on my face over the past year and um yeah I just I love being able to transform into that
• 17:17
  character and um it's it's a lot of fun.
• 17:22
  So how do you feel like this show has challenged you in your respective roles as writer, director, actor, comedian?
• 17:29
  Gosh, I think it's challenging in so many good ways.
• 17:32
  um think in this re like last year it was about like, holy shit, how did we do that?
• 17:38
  You know, we started writing at the beginning of January and the show was up uh at the end of April.
• 17:45
  And in between that, it was props.
• 17:49
  Well, writing the show, getting together with musicians, having them take what we put together as our songs and our melodies and then actually transforming that into music.
• 18:00
  getting a cast, getting us to learn it, building props.
• 18:03
  So it was like an amazing feat that we got it done and that we put it up with the quality that we were able to.
• 18:08
  And so this year it's really just about like we want to
• 18:12
  from our mistakes, want to apply our lessons learned, want to settle in like Caitlyn said, but it's really about like, we know what it takes to put on a production that people are
• 18:24
  talking about and that you're like, that is such an amazing thing to hear and feel at the level that we're doing this at here locally, right?
• 18:31
  And so that just that inspiration, that motivation has to keep us going because the remount, you can't be complacent, right?
• 18:38
  Like you don't know if those people are going to come back.
• 18:40
  You don't know if it's all going to land the same
• 18:42
  way.
• 18:43
  So your heart has to be in it a different way and you have to be extra motivated to say like apply what worked and you know you can't let up.
• 18:54
  And Caitlyn, for you, you kind of mentioned that like it's, you're playing this role and you have to kind of have the overconfidence and stuff and how that's kind of challenging.
• 19:01
  Do feel like that's been the biggest challenge or the biggest way you've had to grow in your role with this production as well?
• 19:09
  I would say yes and no.
• 19:11
  feel like, um yeah, I feel like it is a little more difficult for me to play the like cocky, arrogant uh person.
• 19:24
  um But you know, there is also something um
• 19:31
  Once I put like the khakis on and like have the like, definitely like transforms you when you like have it.
• 19:38
  like even yesterday we were rehearsing and I was like, I feel like I might just like have to get into costume early.
• 19:44
  Cause it does like bring out like a different part of you when you're in that, I don't know.
• 19:50
  There's something about those chinos ah and you know, the belt and everything that I wear that definitely helps me get in that.
• 19:59
  ah
• 20:00
  that mindset.
• 20:02
  But I think like overall, you know, I wrote and directed a show the year before Jurassic Park and that was my first time doing all that on my own.
• 20:11
  think it gave me a lot of confidence and just like really wanting to like stick to to uh working on like everything and involved in the show.
• 20:23
  So I think uh Nuverre and I are very similar in that way that we really want
• 20:29
  to do a lot, we painted the stage on Monday.
• 20:34
  We're doing a lot of stuff.
• 20:37
  So I like to wear all the different hats uh and wear the Alan Grant hat.
• 20:46
  Yeah, I it comes down to like, got to get stuff done and we all take pride in our work.
• 20:51
  um you know, you want people to leave that show and say that was worth, you know, our prices have gone up, you know, everywhere across the board.
• 21:00
  Right.
• 21:00
  And so you want people to feel like what they're paying for is worth it.
• 21:05
  If you're a family and you got to get a babysitter to come out, you want to feel like it was worth that.
• 21:10
  If you're a comedian, you want another comedian's sort of like not approval, but you
• 21:16
  want them to laugh at your work because we share in this sort of common theme.
• 21:21
  And so when there's trees that need to be rebuilt, you got to step in and flex whatever skill you want there.
• 21:29
  ah You know, like I jumped in to help with props last year.
• 21:32
  I'm jumping in this year.
• 21:34
  Caitlyn keeps us fed and we get snacks in our long rehearsals and stuff.
• 21:40
  And so uh it truly does take the community to put these shows on.
• 21:45
  most of
• 21:46
  us don't do it because we're you know we're making money or this is like our jobs we do it out of the love of the art and wanting to preserve that and especially at a place like
• 21:55
  planet ant theater where so much history of just quality art has been produced like you want to
• 22:04
  want to be able to say I was a part of that legacy as well too and it's I think all of us that are a part of this production have felt that and we want to just do that again this
• 22:13
  year for those folks that saw it or didn't see it um and even just for us we you know we know what we've got here and we don't want to take advantage of that.
• 22:22
  And what I love about that too is that the, you have such a talented community around you, all supporting you, but all, I mean, the love that is being put into it just from talking
• 22:31
  from the two of you, like there's so much love for this project that, and so much talent in this project that's locally right here in Michigan that I think sometimes people forget
• 22:41
  is right in their backyard.
• 22:43
  Absolutely.
• 22:44
  mean, we worked with three local musicians.
• 22:47
  uh You know, we met with them after we wrote most of the script and the songs.
• 22:54
  My advice, if you're out there and you do want to write a musical, get with musicians way earlier than that.
• 23:00
  uh But, you know, that process was so cool, too.
• 23:03
  You know, we took our lyrics, we took these melodies that we had and that we hummed for them and they recorded them on like a, you know, like on the iPhone and then took that.
• 23:13
  and like went and like turned it into our vision.
• 23:17
  um So much so, know, the music's a testament to all that.
• 23:21
  So many people involved.
• 23:23
  And when people saw the show and were like, I need that recording or I want to be able to listen to it, you know, the past couple months, we actually did get together and we did
• 23:33
  record with our original cast a CD that we are going to be having available for purchases, part of our merch during our run.
• 23:41
  uh
• 23:42
  And it's a very vulnerable thing and it's also like one of the coolest things that we've done and are so proud to be a part of.
• 23:48
  And that was, again, our community.
• 23:51
  I got to give a shout out to John Duffy, a local musician and teacher out there who just gave his time and energy out of the love of what we did because he wanted to be a part of
• 24:03
  it and also...
• 24:05
  was so geeked at what we produced.
• 24:07
  So ah yeah, we couldn't have done it without the community, you know?
• 24:12
  And I think that that's what makes it like an incredible journey to be on,
• 24:20
  So then one final question for the both of you and Caitlyn, I'll start with you.
• 24:22
  It's just, are you hoping audiences take away from this production other than the love and the care and the awesome dinosaurs you have?
• 24:29
  I mean, I think it's just like, you know, it's a bit of a spectacle and that like people can do it and you know, they can, you know, I just want people to enjoy it.
• 24:41
  I want people to feel inspired.
• 24:44
  You know, a lot of hard work goes into a show like this and...
• 24:50
  um
• 24:52
  you know, just kind of showing that it is something that people can do and you don't have to be in New York or LA or Chicago.
• 25:01
  Like, you can do it anywhere and you can do it right here in Michigan and, you know, the props were all made here.
• 25:08
  Like, you get to see things that you see in a movie on the stage.
• 25:14
  Like, Nuverre's cane that she has.
• 25:17
  I mean, it's so cool to see in real life.
• 25:21
  a mosquito in a piece of what you know it it looks so real and it's so fun and cool to see so as somebody who loves movies and loves
• 25:32
  theater and loves it all.
• 25:34
  think it's a really great showcase of like, look, can have a set, can have, you can ball on a budget.
• 25:43
  Like you can have these high quality things at a reasonable ah cost with the talent that we have around here.
• 25:52
  um the world is your oyster.
• 25:57
  Nuverre how about for you?
• 25:59
  What do you want audience to take away from this production?
• 26:02
  Yeah, I we've said a lot of things so I don't want to repeat.
• 26:05
  will plus one a lot of what Caitlyn said at the end of the day.
• 26:08
  I want them to laugh and I want them to walk away and say that was that was one of the best things I've ever seen.
• 26:15
  um
• 26:18
  I think the world needs that right now and I think that uh this has the potential to have that be what happens.
• 26:27
  ah That's always going to be my goal and then even better if it actually happens.
• 26:34
  Come laugh, forget about the world and remember what it was like to feel good again and feel excited about just what's happening.
• 26:48
  Thank you both for being here and thank you for talking about this wonderful production.
• 26:52
  We are so excited and we hope that people show up and they enjoy it.
• 26:55
  Thank so much.
• 26:56
  us.
• 26:57
  so Jurassic Park, the musical, arrives April 24th and runs through May 9th.
• 27:01
  So get your tickets now, and we'll see you at the show.