The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

We're eating breakfast one more and just sitting at the breakfast table.

Her and I, minding my own business.

Senator, you know, honey, could you pass me the butter knife?

Foo!

Now I'm thinking something must be bothering buttercup.

So I said, shut mine your mind buttercup.

She says I'm fat.

She married man in this room, knows you can't respond to that one, boy.

A twitchity eye could get you killed right here.

You ever hear your wife say she's fat, you better become mannequin man.

And she says we're joining a health club.

Did you hear what I said?

I think I heard you say you're fat and we're joining a health club.

That was the wrong answer.

Spoon!

I joined a health club.

We're lazy people.

We've woken our children up to get the remote for the television.

And last month, she made a cellular phone call from our driveway.

To me and the house.

Asking me to bring her her purse.

What do you do with that call?

Hello, get my purse.

What are you in the attic?

I'm in the driveway.

I'm going to the health club and I need my ID.

How lazy are you?

Hey, go get your mother's purse and bring it though.

The heat is on.

On the street.

Inside your head.

On every beat.

And the beat's alive.

Deep inside.

The pressure's high.

Just to stay alive.

The heat is on.

That's a statue of that guy in Arizona.

I think it's in Mexico.

Standing on the corner.

I think it's Glen Fry's got a bronze statue there on the corner.

Route 66.

There's Glen Fry.

There's that statue.

I think it's Glen Fry.

I think it is.

It's a statue of the standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona.

People take a picture with Glen Fry.

I don't know what he looks like, so it could be a statue of anybody for that matter.

I'm Don Rosen, 709 WRGN Radio, hometown radio refreshed to civic media station.

Right now, we're going to talk to theater for you people who are stuck up to theater.

We're going to talk about Thespians in the theater.

There's the director of the latest production of the Racine Theater Guild called Star Girl.

It's not about a space thing.

It means like star like movie star, like singing star type of thing.

No, not even quite that.

It's actually probably more like out of space.

She's just not from this world.

Oh, really?

She is from the world.

It's just metaphorically.

She's very unique compared to any other students.

But it's a chosen name that she chose for herself.

Well, I just got my season tickets for next year as well.

I go to every show.

I've been going for decades.

We can't wait for Star Girl.

And this opens up when.

This opens up next Friday the 12th.

You nervous?

No, I'm not nervous.

I'm not the one on stage.

That's right.

You're not the one on stage.

The show didn't do well.

The actors are all crazy.

Where's Nathan?

Oh, he left on the...

He drove out of town about an hour ago.

We can't find him anywhere.

Last time we checked the at a credit card charge in Indiana.

So he's out of here.

Now, is this all kids in the show?

No, there's.

Any thoughts?

Yeah, there's one adult.

But they're all working really well together.

But mostly, yeah, it's mostly a kid-filled cast.

I mean, kids, we say kids, but we're talking.

And we're going to adult high school age.

Oh, that's kids.

Yeah, it's still kids.

Yeah.

But, you know, I work with them every day.

So I'm used to it.

Yeah, okay.

Give us a little background because you said you do work with kids

in high school as a drama club, right?

Yeah.

So I'm the theater teacher at Case High School here in Racine.

This is my third year this year.

And then previous to that, I worked at UW-Parkside.

And their theater department.

And then previous to that, Kenosha Unified

and their theater arts department.

And kids.

Yeah.

I mean, kind of.

I mean, you know, it's interesting because we say that

and they are in their high schoolers.

But they're kids.

Yeah, but they're knocking on the door really

of being college-level kids, right?

So my philosophy has always been to sort of hold them

to the same type of standard that I would any other actor

that I work with, right?

Well, and you know, when you look on TV,

even the show Two and a Half Men,

where the kid grew up on the show to an adult.

But he started off as like six years old on that show,

seven years old, memorizing lines.

And I've seen behind the scenes stuff on Two and a Half Men

with that little kid on there.

Yeah.

And he'd know all his lines.

He never had their retake.

I mean, they laugh occasionally.

And, you know, it's amazing when you see a child actor,

even McCulley Culkin in Home Alone.

I'm trying to think of all the child actors out there.

I just did a thing on the greatest child actors of all time.

Charlie Temple came at number one.

And she carried the movie she was in.

I mean, she carried all those movies.

Yeah.

I mean, she was the star.

If she wasn't there, there'd be no movie.

Of course, Judy Garland was a teenager in the Wizard of Oz.

She was only like 16 years old in the Wizard of Oz.

You'd never know it by watching the movie.

But yeah, a lot of these kid actors.

And are you watching that series now quiet on the set?

No, I heard about it.

I knew it was going that direction.

You know, I'm interested in it.

But when I have a little bit more time,

I might dedicate some time to it.

But yeah, I mean, a lot of stuff is coming out about child actors

and how things are as they're growing up.

I mean, that's a hard life to spend most of your time

in that environment.

Especially when people are fawning all over you.

I mean, you know, you want anything that's people to do

everything for you.

Where when I was a kid, you know, go pick up your own toys.

Go do this yourself.

Go do that yourself.

But when you're a child actor,

there are people doing everything for you.

Unless you have good parents that say, you know,

you're going to do your homework,

you're going to clean up your room,

but some parents don't treat their kids like that

because they're the breadwinners in the family.

Now they're bringing in all this big cash.

But the show quiet on the set is kind of shocking.

Yeah.

See what went on.

It's on the ID channel.

I think the fifth episode,

the fifth chapter comes up on April 7th.

They're going to have the next chapter in that show.

There's just releasing episode by episode then.

Well, it's on the ID channel.

Oh, okay.

And so you can watch them.

Somebody told me about it.

And I watched it on, on demand.

The first four chapters, my wife and I,

we didn't give a little peek and then get engrossed in this thing

about what went on of the Nickelodeon channel

with these pedophiles there.

But you know what?

It doesn't last forever for most kids.

And they can't handle that.

You know, it's related in a weird way,

but I have a five year old.

And so obviously,

Bluey is half of our life, right?

But I can't believe I only know that show

from going through the listings every day.

And I see Bluey on there.

Yeah.

What it is.

Well, you know, it's funny,

because it's a kid show,

but in some ways,

it's almost a love letter to parents, really.

But what they did really wisely is

you can't find the listing on who

the child voice actors are.

So they purposefully removed their names from any publicity

or credits after the show,

and I think to still maintain their childhood identity

throughout this whole process.

Because the show is obviously really big internationally.

And I think that was a smart choice,

because now these kids still have some privacy,

some anonymity that they wouldn't have otherwise.

So there are some companies and production companies

that are making really smart moves

when it comes to that stuff with child actors.

I've listened to a lot of old-time radio shows

all day from the 40s, 50s and, you know.

And there was a guy I'm trying to dick whatever,

I can't remember his name.

He was an adult.

He was like 30 years old,

but he had the voice of a child.

So he was used as the child actor on all these shows

like Gunsmoke and Dragnet and, you know,

all these yours truly Johnny Dollar.

He was always the child voice on their suspense.

I think I was in his 30s.

Yeah.

He sounded like a kid.

So he was able to handle all this stuff

because he was an adult, right.

But on radio, I mean, you didn't know.

You know, I was,

I read this the other day,

but I knew this.

Somebody brought it up on Facebook.

And I need to talk about it.

We'll talk about more about Stargur or just a moment here.

But we have a whole hour,

so I'm going to get to it.

And there was an actor named,

oh, he was in the Bobby Driscoll.

Okay.

Bobby Driscoll was in a ton of Walt Disney movies,

so dear to my heart, song of the South,

Treasure Island, the Walt Disney version.

He was also in a suspense thriller called The Window,

which was a big movie in the 50s, The Window.

And he was the most sought after actor

because this little kid could act.

He was great.

But then he aged out of everything.

Yeah.

And nobody wanted no Bobby Driscoll's name

because he was a cute child actor.

But now he's a teenager, 18, 19 years old.

And of course, he turned to drugs and alcohol.

And eventually he died in an apartment.

I guess he was a squatter in the apartment.

He just died.

They didn't know his name.

They didn't know who he was.

So they buried him at Heart Island in New York.

Right off the...

Right off the Manhattan,

there's a popper's grave there.

And they buried him in a one grave with all these bodies.

And they didn't know who he was.

Later on, they found out up at that time.

It's too late.

He's buried in this mass grave.

They can't dig him out.

Yeah.

And his mother came forward

and said, that was my son, Bobby Driscoll.

So he's in an unmarked grave at Heart Island.

They didn't move him.

They still...

They can't.

It's a mass grave.

He's buried with all these other people.

You know, they just buried them.

That's sad.

It is sad.

He was one of the most highest paid actors of Walt Disney at one time.

Wow.

And here he is.

He died in complete anonymity.

You like the fact that he said anonymity?

Yes, nice.

I went to college and I learned that word.

Four years of college paid off.

There you go.

You got a word out of it.

That's good.

So, you know, it just...

That's the way it happens with some kid actors.

Yeah.

Some people grow up and became big actors like Leonardo DiCaprio.

He was a child actor on a Facebook TV show.

But look at him.

Look at Ron Howard.

Yeah.

Little Opie on the end of Griffith's show.

Six years old.

Six years old.

When he was...

His daughter too.

Yes, Bryce Howard.

Yeah.

Bryce Dallas Howard.

And he was in the music man, the movie.

Mm-hmm.

He's one of the greatest directors in Hollywood.

Well, even recently you got Daniel Radcliffe, right?

Who's doing these stuff?

Yes.

He's really young too.

Now he's doing stage shows.

And stage shows, musicals.

Yeah.

So it, you know, it works out occasionally where child actors do turn into adults and become

great actors.

Right.

But the sad side is the other side.

Paul Peterson, who was on the Donna Reed show, put together an organization.

I forget the name of it.

But it's for child actors who are struggling in adulthood and they can go to him and kind

of work things out mentally and so forth and find different lives.

It happens and it's sad when it happens, but what do you do?

I mean, you know, people need children in Hollywood and they'll do anything to get those

kids to be in their movies and then they, when they're done with them, you know, we don't

need you anymore.

Yeah.

You, you, you, I'll grow the, you aged out, you know, of these roles.

We're going to talk about something more positive in this coming.

I'm all depressed now.

So the star girl is opening next week at the Racine Theater Guild next weekend.

This weekend or next week.

Next weekend.

So it's not in the 12th.

Yeah, okay.

I always get confused when we say next and, you know, you know, coming in next.

Yeah, this comes in three days when I was opposed to, okay, star girl coming to the

Racine Theater Guild.

One great production after another.

One of the greatest things I've seen there was the last one now and then I had Bob Benson

in here.

And I, we were talking about it from the next day or two after we saw it.

And, you know, you get these productions occasionally.

You never heard of before and all of a sudden you change your lives and hope star girl's

one of those.

I'm pretty sure it will be coming to the Racine Theater Guild.

We'll talk more about that with the director Nathan Stamper coming up at just a moment.

719 WRJN Snow and Rain mixing on early today.

I'm near 30.

Oh, hi there.

41 right now.

It's 34 degrees of WRJN.

They came in nightly for your behind shadow to run the ground.

Oh, nobody knew where I'm finding it.

I know where they didn't twist my arm.

I never know where they're buying it.

But I'm crying and I believe in it.

Wait, never meant to do anything wrong.

It's gonna get worse if they wait too long.

Yeah.

And if you lose my number.

Cause you're not anywhere.

But I can find you.

I love you.

Do you lose my number.

Cause you're not anywhere.

But I can find you.

Oh, no, no, no.

So, just do the day and tonight.

We go to the subway, right?

We ain't alone.

parity gun.

We gonna know where they didn't understand.

Danger the rastin' wide.

Get out of my way and hang on.

Then I'll find you, right?

Get out of my way and hang on.

Now, get out of my way and hang on.

Get out of my way and hang on.

Get out of my way and hang on.

Okay, I'm gonna find you, right?

Get out of my way and hang on.

Got seven, twenty-two at WRGN.

Nathan Stamper's here with me.

And he is the director of Stargirl,

the receiving theatre girl.

Let's talk about that now.

Well, we're at Micah area, high school.

And we have the general student body, right?

We have a few of our students.

And there is this one girl who goes by the name Stargirl,

who shows up and sort of disrupts the status quo, if you will.

It's interesting because the title of the show is Stargirl,

but we joke around it actually being Stargirl,

the tragedy of Leo Borlach,

because as much as Stargirl is the titular character,

Leo is such an important character in that story

because he's the one that has the most to change throughout.

And in true tragic hero style,

he realizes the error of his ways,

but he realizes it too late.

And by the time he makes that change

to really accept who he is

and be comfortable regardless of what anyone thinks,

she's already gone.

And so it's too late.

Oh, it's a cry to remission.

I think it has a sad but hopeful ending.

But it is more a tragedy of a secondary character,

which is an interesting adjustment, right?

Because I do cry, it shows.

Oh, good.

Well, then that's right.

We'll bring an extra box of tissues for you then.

You know what it is?

When I saw Les Mises on Broadway, I cried.

Yeah.

Especially at the end when the father,

the angels come back and they're in the white robes of the bride.

The big crowds of music does for you though, right?

I mean, it evokes different types of emotions especially.

Do you see Les Mises?

I saw it in London.

Did you cry in London?

I can't own up to it, but yeah.

But I think it had as much to do with the environment

as it did the show.

Yeah.

I've cried of the couple of shows.

The biggest weeping was when I saw

field of dreams, the movie.

Oh.

At the end, when Kevin Costner's father takes off his mask,

come back.

Yeah, well, you know, that's the weird,

like I said, I had a five-year-old.

And so whatever happened, once I had him,

I cannot watch a dad movie and not lose it.

Oh, a dog movie too.

Yeah.

I made the mistake of watching this movie.

Oh, what was that was the dog?

I forget the name of the dog movie.

It was a couple of years back.

Dear bud.

No.

No.

No.

No.

And I cried and I cannot go watch it.

My wife won't watch an animal movie.

Yeah.

First movie ever cried at was a challenge to Lassie.

This is an old Lassie movie from the 1940s.

It's a deteriorated thing about it.

Lassie's owner is murdered.

And Lassie every night goes to the church cemetery graveyard

and lays on the owner's grave.

And some officer there doesn't want that dog in the cemetery.

And the dog keeps coming in.

And he, you know, eventually the courts get involved.

What are they going to do with his dog?

And Lassie comes when he hears the military trumpet sound.

Lassie always runs to the grave and lays on it.

So Lassie's about to be sent to a pound or wherever.

And he, she, she, he, she is actually a he but she hears the,

the trumpet sound and she crashes through the window

in the courtroom.

And they find her at the church cemetery laying on the grave.

And the judge says she is going to now be the official dog of the cemetery.

And as punishment to that officer, he's got to conduct tours of that cemetery

and show them Lassie.

And there's a line of people going four blocks long.

And Lassie spends every night on her owner's grave.

That'd be great, except if you're in Wisconsin,

you can only do that for half the year and then dogs just going to freeze.

Not Lassie.

Lassie won't do that.

So this is going to be one of those shows I get teary ideas.

You can at the end.

Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, there's definitely a, a heart to it.

And, and that's what we've been working really hard to find that it isn't just a surface play,

that there is some serious connections, right?

Do you find yourself, you know, when you work at high school,

you work at a flat stage with the curtain coming down

and the curtain coming up.

But the theater guild, well, you know, what's odd is,

is cases high school theater is actually laid out very similar to this.

Is it really?

Yeah, it's got that three quarter thrust.

And then you have your perceive that's further back on the thrust.

So the layout, it's actually pretty similar.

But people had never been to the routine theater guild.

You got to go, it's not a theater in the round.

More like a horseshoe.

But there's no curtain.

Everything is done right in front of your eyes.

And they've got to make set changes and everything right in front of your eyes.

Now they do blackouts where, you know, everything.

And then people are wearing black clothing.

And you can't, you can see them, but you can't really see them.

But during the show, all the props are there for the most part.

Everything, all sets there.

And the actors, it's so well done, where if the actors,

when I saw the cemetery club there, the actors are in the living room in the back.

But given they move stage, the front of the stage is a cemetery there.

So the cemetery is there the whole time,

but the lighting is so well done, where you don't notice the living room anymore.

You notice the cemetery, probably, the grape stones.

Yeah, you know, and that's what we teach the students to,

is that like, in film, you know what to look at,

because the camera tells you what to look at, right?

But in theater, you're looking at it because of the staging,

but also extremely because of the lighting.

Yeah, and why do you have to look?

Absolutely.

The people of the theater guild, I don't know who does their stage,

the building of the sets.

That's Jane, I'm going to mispronounce your last name.

So I'm sorry, but Jane Schnerk, I think Schnerk Schnerk,

I'm sorry, Jane.

Jane, yeah, it's amazing how they do that,

because it's, it looks so complicated.

It looks like they took years to build this thing,

but it's not, even when they did Swini Todd,

they had to build a trap door above the stage.

Yeah, I saw that.

And it was so good.

I'm so amazed by what I see on stage,

if they were seeing theater guilds.

That's half what we do, so make things look like other things.

Right.

Just don't look on the backside of it,

and then you'll see all the...

And they have to rebuild that stage every time,

the actual flooring.

It must be 30,000 layers of paint.

That's always fun when you read,

when you completely tear apart a stage,

and you see the levels and layers of paint

that build up over time.

I love that place.

I grew up going to Broadway shows,

and from New York City, and I grew up going,

my parents always took us to Broadway shows,

and never been to a Broadway play, though.

I've been to Broadway musicals all my life.

And I'm going to tell you something.

The scene theater guild, the acting there,

is on par with anything I've ever seen on Broadway.

I mean, these actors there,

I mean, we had Bob Benson in here,

and I told him,

you're on par with anybody

I've seen on the Broadway musicals.

Nice, yeah.

Well, I think Racine doesn't fully realize

the gem that they have,

at least as far as performing arts go.

And cities are size.

We have a number of opportunities

for people to watch live performing arts.

Well, I just incredibly comment.

I just renewed my season tickets for next year.

It'll be a great season too.

729, Nathan Stamford's here.

We're talking about the Racine Theater Guild

production star girl coming up.

Not this week, next week.

Try and eat healthy.

I drink the bottled water.

I feel kind of...

And it makes you go to the bathroom every 10 seconds.

But, you know, I feel kind of silly buying the bottled water.

Maybe I'm just too midwestern.

Every time I go in a store, I'm always like,

hey, how you doing?

Yeah, I know I can get water,

free from any faucet.

But I want to pay for it.

I'm just curious.

Too many air back there.

Can I buy your garbage?

It is water.

How did we get to the point

where we're paying for bottled water?

That must have been some weird marketing meeting

over in France, you know?

Some French guy was sitting there

and he was like,

how dumb do I think the Americans are?

I bet you we could sell those idiots water.

Look, here the Americans are pretty dumb,

but they're not going to buy water.

Oh, yes they are.

Let's just tell the Americans

the waters from France.

I feel a hunger.

It's a hunger.

Chosen people may look alike.

Are you in love?

Yeah, they are.

Yes, I'm in love.

I feel a hunger.

I'm in love.

They're not.

I feel a hunger.

It's a hunger.

Chosen people may look alike.

Are you in the Bueno?

Yeah, they are.

Yeah, they are.

I feel a hunger.

Yeah, they are.

they are.

Yeah, they are.

They are waiting on me.

They are waiting on me.

Yeah, they are."

They are bereaved.

Yeah.

They are waiting on me."

Yeah.

They are waiting on me.

Yeah, they are waiting.

Yeah.

Yeah, they are waiting on me.

Yeah.

Yeah, they are waiting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They are waiting on me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

And also gets stirring on that song is Ronnie Specter

from the Run-Edge.

She's doing a famous lineB.

My Baby from the Big Hit singles.

But there's then husband Phil Specter.

Who's

Strange world we live in out there.

738 WRG and hometown radio refresh to civic media station

with me is Nathan Stamper, director of the new production

star girl to receive theater guild.

How'd you get into all this stuff?

Would you love a theater company?

Well, so in this part of the reason why I have a

love for educational theater is I took an acting class

in high school because I needed an easy art credit.

I loved math and I didn't want to I don't want to

want to sing.

I didn't want to play instrument.

I didn't want to paint.

And I thought I'll just take an acting class.

I can get that art credit all the way.

That'll be nice.

And I kind of fell in love with this environment where

anybody can be anybody and they just sort of accepted you

for the weirdness that you had.

And so it was sophomore junior year in high school.

Then I found out you can go to college for this,

which, you know, it's still questionable whether that was my

the best decision I ever made.

But I think in the long run it turned out that way.

And I ended up going to college by accident because I was a

first generation college student and I got accepted to

Parkside and I took a tour and at the time you showed up

into a room and you put the classes you were interested in.

And I thought I was just filling out like a survey about

classes I might like.

And at the end they printed me out a schedule and they said,

well, here you go.

I went, well, I guess I'm going here now.

But it turned out really well.

It was a fantastic theater department where I made lifelong

friends and colleagues.

I met my wife.

I made a strong connection with a number of theaters that I've

worked with since then.

And it's sort of changed who I was.

So it's that idea that you don't always get to choose the doors

that open to you, but you get to choose whether you walk

through them or not.

Well, I like that.

Yeah, you like that?

You don't get to choose.

What's in there again?

You don't get to choose the doors that open.

You get to choose whether you walk through them.

I like that.

You know, every day my wife and I send a thought

for the day to each other.

She had to work early today so I didn't get to her.

Then I write a thought for the day for her.

Well, I love that.

You can, you can, you can coin it.

We don't get to choose which doors open, but we get to choose

which doors we walk through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, I mean, I'm going to call you tomorrow because I know I'm

going to forget that.

Nathan, I got it.

Wait a second.

My wife wants to go ahead now.

How'd you say that again?

I'll listen on the podcast.

Well, I'll give it to you for free today.

Tomorrow, I'll have to charge you for it.

What do you think of my ass cap?

I've got to pay for the rights of this stuff.

Did you make that up?

I think so.

I don't know.

I mean, if I didn't do it, it's it's somewhere in the past

in the back of my brain somehow.

So I wanted to get involved in drama in high school.

Yeah.

And we had a great drama teacher, Nick Ficaro.

Of course, I didn't call him Nick then, but Nicholas Ficaro.

He was really good at this stuff.

And he got along with the kids well, but he was a good director.

He was like the director you see in the chorus line,

sitting in the audience.

What?

What?

Like that.

And we did plays.

We didn't do musicals.

We did plays.

And I tried out.

And even by my standards, it was awful.

It was really bad.

But I wanted to be involved.

So I became the stage manager.

And then, you know, managing the stage.

And then the lighting and stage.

I did all of that.

Yeah.

And I did that for three years in high school.

And that a good time.

I mean, I really did.

I knew I couldn't act.

Yeah.

So I let everybody else do what they do.

And I did that.

And for three years, I worked in Mr. Ficaro.

Now, I saw his picture recently.

And I'll tell you where he saw his picture.

Are you familiar with the Gilgo beach?

No.

Serial killer.

This was all of the news.

I mean, it's probably a good thing that I'm not.

Well, 2020 in the date line did a whole thing on this guy.

And it was all over the news the end of last year.

This guy from Massa Peak, where I'm from.

He was a serial killer.

He killed at least four women they know of could be more.

And he was an architect in New York City, Manhattan.

They arrested him and charged with all these crimes.

And when 2020 did the report on ABC one night,

they showed a picture room in high school.

And there he was with Nicholas Ficaro.

Oh, man.

He was in the drama club in Nick Ficaro.

Wow.

And I'm looking at this.

I mean, if I had to have my phone, I'll show you later during the break.

And there he was.

And he said, ah, this guy only lived 10 blocks from me.

So you could have gone either way then.

Wait, I mean, you could have gone to radio or serial clean.

You just said the choice, man.

Thankfully, you chose well, the door.

But this guy was, whoa, now he was a little younger than I was.

But he didn't go to high school the same year that I did.

But wow.

Yeah.

Have a high school serial killer in your high school.

And he was with Mr. Ficaro because he was in the drama club.

I think I can honestly say I don't think any of our students are serial killers.

No, no, no, no.

You know, I, I mean, truly, I don't know what they do behind closed doors.

So do you ever, you never acted though?

Um, no, no, not professionally.

You know, I spent most of my time in educational theater.

Um, and then, uh, uh, technical theater.

Are you a teacher now?

I'm a teacher now.

So what do you teach?

I teach theater at case high school.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I went to college, I went to the Hofstra University.

And I took a course in, I wasn't theater.

But I took a course where you were required to go to some of the productions.

From their theater company in Hofstra had a big theater.

I mean, it looked like a Broadway theater.

And they put on the fantastics.

It's a good show.

I loved it.

I mean, I loved it.

It's, it's the longest running show in the history of Broadway.

It's like 40, 50 years.

It's been running off Broadway, not on Broadway, well, Broadway.

And I said, wow, this is great.

And I was a teenager at the time.

Now, he had been for Broadway shows growing up.

My parents took me to Hello Dolly, 1776, 42nd Street.

I went to Miss Saigon, went to Williams, went to God spell off Broadway.

I was only off Broadway show ever went to.

And I was surprised because in intermission, the actors came up and offered wine or grape juice to the audience.

Yeah, it's all Broadway.

It was in the 70s.

Sure, sure.

And ready for hippies and so forth.

Yeah.

But I used to love going.

The only thing I didn't like about going to, I went to a chorus line too.

And fandom of the opera.

The theaters are so old there.

Yeah.

They're about 100 years old.

And they have an update of the seating.

And there's no legroom.

Yeah.

No, we're big guys.

It's not, it's not comfortable.

You think it's bad flying on a plane with no legroom.

Go to sit for two hours at a Broadway show.

And then somebody wants to go get up out of their seat.

Oh, yeah.

You've got to get up.

It's not like now where they have the barcillons or recliners at the Marcus theater.

Right.

Pull them back.

They watch the movie and take a dose.

You know, snooze during the intermission.

They're just terrible.

But the shows were so good.

We saw the whiz.

Another whiz, the wicked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just love that show.

Yeah.

That's the first time in Chicago.

I saw Joseph in Chicago with Donnie Osmond.

I thought that was great too.

And Jersey boys.

Yeah.

You know, I saw Donnie Osmond in Joseph years ago, when I didn't even realize I was watching

Donnie Osmond in Joseph.

Right.

When he was in Chicago for the pre-Broadway run.

Yeah.

He is great in that show.

You know, people, you know, don't give him credit for being a musical performer.

But he is great in that show.

I have the actual DVD of the one of the performances they actually put out.

They made a movie out of it, but it's more of a staged, you know, movie.

Yeah.

But, you know, and I was talking to somebody who's in the movie biz.

And I said, you know, it's a shame that they don't make a lot of Broadway musicals anymore.

This is years ago, a couple of years back.

And they said, they do.

Disney makes them all the time.

Disney makes Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Polka Hunt.

They're making Broadway musicals all the time.

But they're right.

They're cartoons.

And then they started coming out with a few of them.

Chicago was a big hit at the movies when the Academy Award.

But far and few between.

And one of my favorites, they just came out with not too long ago.

What's the kid with the arm?

Evan Hansen.

Yeah.

Do you have an Hansen?

I love that show.

I saw the movie.

The movie is with the same people on the Broadway stage.

I love that show.

Yeah.

Well, it's, you know, it's an interesting world right now post-COVID because streaming services

have become so prominent.

But in some ways, it's made theater more accessible.

You just, obviously, just like everything you got to find it.

But we've got streaming sites like Broadway HD, National Theater at home.

And these sites have now moved towards streaming a lot of their productions

because they had to do it for, you know, sustainability reasons during COVID.

Well, now they're just doing it regularly.

So you can still see a lot of well-recorded streamed shows

that you would not have otherwise been able to see live

because how many people can just pack up and take a trip to New York or London, right?

Or even Chicago sometimes.

It's just, it's exposure, right?

And that's half of what we're doing in school with these students.

It's just trying to expose them to as much good quality theater as possible

so they can be theater sustainers as they grow up.

I think most people, once they see a well-preformed musical or a show,

they'll, you got them for life.

It's something different between watching a movie and watching someone

that you could reach out and you could touch on stage.

And I think storytelling is in our nature.

It's who we are as a species.

And that will never change.

And I think that there is something that changes you when you watch

a really great live performance with another human being on stage

that you could connect with.

There's a different level of connection than putting you between a screen

and that other person.

I don't think I'm going to like his wickedness coming out the theaters.

Part one.

You got to wait a year for part two.

What?

I don't know what the purpose of that is.

I think it's money.

I think generally it's money.

So you're going to stop at intermission and then wait a year

for the intermission to come over.

You're looking to sell two tickets to people now instead of one.

I don't, I'll pay twice, but give me the whole movie.

I don't want to, and I've seen the show.

So I know the, I know the whole basic plot of it.

But that's terrible.

Doing that now with Tom Cruise made a movie not too long ago.

They're part one and two.

They're doing that now.

They wait a year.

You'll see the rest of it.

Well, what if I'm not alive?

Right.

Right.

I'll go to my grave not knowing what the ending is.

And it's hard because it's not, it's not the same as live theater.

Right.

You know it's a show.

Yeah.

You get the idea of the show, but you don't get to stand there.

Well, Elphaba is being raised up by obviously a crane in her,

in her dress swoops down towards the audience.

And she crescendos the song and your hair pops up on your arm

because you're just taken by it.

Right.

You don't get to do that in the movie.

We saw a chitty, chitty bang bang on Broadway.

Not the movie, but the musical.

We saw it on a 40 seconds free theater.

A car flew above the audience.

Yeah.

I can't tell you what that was like.

Back to the future.

Back to the future of the musical.

Yeah.

They're doing that too.

Oh my god, I saw that in London.

It blew me away.

I didn't want to see it, but my friend.

Yeah, I shot it.

Yeah, I shot it.

Gosh.

You know, the whole time I'm thinking,

yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Oh, I'm a dead man.

Nathan Stamford's here.

And we're talking musicals.

We're talking shows.

And we're talking Stargirl.

Coming to the receiving theater guild.

Keep it right here.

WRJ on a civic media station.

hometown radio.

Refreshed at 749.

Oh, can't wait forever.

Even though he won't meet you.

I can't wait forever.

To know that you can't meet you.

Time won't let me.

Time won't let me.

Time won't let me.

With them along.

Can't be seen.

I've waited too long.

Nathan Stamford's here with me.

Director of Stargirl opening up next Friday at the receiving theater guild.

What's it?

12th?

12th.

And I was telling you, this was the first song I ever played on the radio.

The outsider's time won't let me.

Never forget your first girl.

That's the first song I ever played.

Do you see Hamilton?

I have not seen it live.

Obviously, I've seen it through Disney Plus.

That's what somebody gave me a copy of it through Disney Plus.

Yeah.

I mean, it's tough, right?

Because you go online if you try to get tickets, you're talking a couple hundred dollars or so.

Right?

And if a theater girl or such or myself takes pause with that price, I can't imagine what general public does.

Well, I'll just go see a movie.

Right?

I hated it.

You did?

I didn't mind your thing.

No, I went with such great expectations.

My brother saw it on Broadway and loved it.

I saw it on the Disney Plus thing and I just, I didn't get it.

Yeah.

I didn't like the rap music in there.

You know, there's an old axiom.

If you leave the theater humming a tune, you got to hit show.

I didn't, I didn't know how many tunes.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I mean, it's different people, different shows, right?

You know, like or dislike the style, the men, well, Moran has really changed the direction.

I think of musical theater in general.

And brought a lot of young, young children interested in it and it began, which was nice.

I think Andrew Lloyd Weber changed it for good.

Yeah.

He took the dialogue, no dialogue in his shows.

Yeah.

You know, no dialogue.

We just saw recently, Joseph, I had some people over with what Joseph.

And he says, no talking, is there?

No.

There's no spoken words in all of Joseph.

It's all sung.

Same thing with Les Mizz and all the other shows he did.

There's no talk.

So he changed it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the opera, there's no talking.

So he kind of changed it for good.

There was something I was just going to say to you.

And now I forgot what it was.

It said Hamilton.

I got a backtrack here.

Hold on.

Hamilton.

Oh, this is what happens when you get old.

If you don't, I write it down.

I write everything down on the piece of paper.

I didn't write this down.

I was going to say something before Hamilton.

And that just stuck in my head.

We were talking about, do you have enhance and I love that?

I can't think of what I was going to say now.

So you're doing Star Girl.

Yeah.

Is this your first, we're seeing theater girl production?

No, this is my fifth.

Oh, really?

Yes, this is my fifth.

Thank you, brothers.

Oh, man.

All right.

So the last one I did was just before COVID hit.

We opened in January in February.

And February, obviously, 2020 is when it really developed worse.

But it was on golden pond.

Okay.

And then before that, some of the shows were exit laughing.

One slight hitch.

And things my mother taught me.

Oh, wow.

Well, there I was sort of doing the slot every now and then

in January, February, because I worked best with my schedule.

But now I was thankful to come back because it's a lot harder now when

you teach in a public school to find extra time in the evening to direct

at a place other than your school.

Do you have a drag kids from your high school?

Well, actually two of them from case are in this show.

Look at you.

All right.

Two students are from case.

One is home schooled and another is from Horlick.

And then the fifth one is from Mosquigo.

Trace was all the way from Mosquigo.

Mr. Zigfeld here bringing.

Yeah.

Oh, I know what it's going to say to you.

You mentioned ticket prices.

That was what I was going to say.

When I first started going to shows, my mother's so funny girl on Broadway

with Bob was trying to send tickets for bucks.

Yep.

I remember when he saw Hello Dolly.

And it was out of seven dollars to see Hello Dolly.

Mm-hmm.

And then take her eight.

Now when we saw Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang was $125.

And now that's cheap.

Well, that's why you go to London instead of New York

because the ticket prices are so much cheaper in London.

So it's not cheaper just to fly and pay that money up front

and then pay for the tickets at less than 50 or 75%

the cost of New York tickets.

And they're filling up theaters with that kind of price.

Yeah, they are.

But they also have a lot more sustainable support and funding.

Now what I do is on my phone, I've got...

You're a parent of IMDB.

Oh, yeah.

Well, there's a Broadway version of that.

Is there?

Oh, yeah.

I got on my phone right here.

The Broadway version is called...

Hold on a second here.

I'm not quick on this stuff.

Okay, IMDB is...

IBDB.

IBDB.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That's the Broadway version.

And also I have the grosses, the Broadway grosses.

I look at this stuff.

I don't know why I look at it.

This doesn't affect me at all.

But they list all the grosses and Broadway grossed just last week alone,

$37 million.

Yeah.

You know, that was tough when we came back from the pandemic

and theaters really needed help.