Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, everyone.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Welcome to the Actorzilla podcast. I am your host, James Larson. And today on the show, we have DJ Salisbury.
Hello, everyone.
DJ is an amazing director and choreographer and writer. And I know he was. You were an actor as.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: Yeah, right out of.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: That's.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: That's where I started.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we were just talking about.
DJ just put up kinky boots at the Riverside theater, and he was talking about, like, what the protocol is of a show fresh from Broadway, like, when it's done regionally, that it can't be like a repeats of the exact. Like you were talking about Jerry Mitchell, how you can't do his staging, right?
[00:00:50] Speaker C: That's right. You can't replicate someone else's work. Just like any form of plagiarism, you can't do it verbatim. You can make references. And of course, the script and the score, they are the same. But, for example, the theater has licensed the right to do the words and music.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: They have not licensed the right to do the original director and choreographer's staging. There are some, I mean, like Susan Stroman, I think she may have been one of the first, and maybe Robbins was in there around the same time to license her. Crazy for you. So if you do. Crazy for you and you want to do Susan Strowman's choreography, you can license it. And they give you this giant bible with all the steps and everything.
And Robbins does that with things like the hat dance in.
Actually, all the dances, I think, in Fiddler are licensed or licensable. You don't have to do them, and you have to pay if you do do them. So for me, as a regional theater director, when I do things, my joy is finding a show, figuring out a show through my lens. So I don't have desire to replicate someone else's work.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: But I was saying to you before, the strange thing is, sometimes there's an expectation on the part of the audience and on the part of even some actors, if they have seen or done the show before they go, well, you're going to be Jerry Mitchell's staging. Like, no, again, it's not legal. No, not legal. And again, just like you as an actor, I wouldn't ask you to replicate someone else's performance.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:25] Speaker C: You will find your version of the character. And that's the fun. Right? That is the fun of rehearsals is like discovering together how this story in this moment will be told. The play doesn't change, the music doesn't change. But what changes are the artists who are creating together, collaborating at a given moment to make it uniquely this production.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Is there any instance where you're like, oh, my God. The choreography and this number on Broadway was absolutely perfect.
And I want to use as much as possible, you know what I mean? There must be a line of being inspired by versus.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: Yes, that's right. There's a line now. Interestingly, kinky boots. We can use that example. There is a sort of expectation now, because of the original staging, that there will be a number using conveyor belts, treadmills.
I will just tell you, we rented some treadmills that are sort of miniature.
They were smaller than the Broadway versions. They were less powerful than the Broadway version.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Like hamster small or like kind of hamster small.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Yeah. But what we had to do was, you know, there was no way I could replicate what Jerry Mitchell had done choreographically with those particular devices. So we found our choreography using what we had. But even still, I come back to that expectation that there is a treadmill number. Well, sometimes you just wonder, do I have to honor that? Is the audience really going to notice if we do a different, completely different idea?
Two, I've done Will Rogers Follies ten times, and I was assistant to Jeff Calhoun on the original. Jeff was the associate choreographer, working hand in hand with Tommy Toon. And, of course, the famous number, the campaign number, what some people refer to as the patty cake number, where all the ensemble women are sitting across the stage with will in the center doing this fun thing, mostly with their hands and sometimes with their legs. There is an expectation that that number is going to be in the show. When I do it, I do a variation on the same, but also in that instance, I feel like I have the privilege because I have worked with Jeff and Tommy. I put in the program based upon the original choreography by Tommy Toon. Jeff, that's what I will do because I have a relationship with them. But the rest of the show is my choreography. The rest of the show. I've recently, most recently done a production where there were no full stage steps. And in my ten productions, I've done it in the round twice. There cannot be full stage steps.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Sorry, what does that mean, full stage steps?
[00:05:07] Speaker C: In the original production of Will Rogers pollies, the set was literally one giant staircase that went from the wing stage right to the wing stage left and all the way upstage. There were originally, I think, 16 steps on tour. They went down to 14 steps, and they were skinnies and fat. So one step was an average step width, and the next step was danceable. Like, more like two and a half feet. So they were skinny, fat, skinny, fat is what we call them, skinny steps and bat steps all the way up to the 14th in the tour and the 16th in the Broadway. But when people think of world war, just holidays, they immediately think of that big metaphor. And I will say about Tommy Toon, that's why I love his work. He chose that particular image as a metaphor for Ziegfeld spectacle.
But what I knew, that was his choice, and it's a great choice. But what I knew, even working on the show is like, that's his choice. It's not the only choice that will work. And having done it in the round a couple times, actually three times, and also in a new production that was presidium, but not having those full stage width steps, it works beautifully without them because it's a good show, right? It's just a good show. So it is interesting that I like to step away from some of the original staging concepts. If I have an idea, right? If I have an idea, it's like, I think I know how to tell the story using my own. Let's call it a gimmick, my own metaphor. Whatever I choose, I can tell the story without that, as long as the audience is willing to go on the ride with me and say, I don't expect full stage steps, I don't expect treadmills.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: So that's the fun of being a director and choreographer, is like, how am I going to tell this story?
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like that makes it more fun too.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: Completely.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: No one gets into this industry to just be a robot copying other.
[00:07:07] Speaker C: No, just because it's fresh on my mind.
I love Stephen Hoggett's work, the choreographer.
And interestingly, if you read up on Stephen Hoggett, he didn't come from dance. He was an actor with, I think, a get in the van and tour through England actor and developed this way of incorporating movement that people often refer to as pedestrian movement. But it's choreographed and it's two counts, but it's essentially real people gesture choreographed. So anyway, I determined that for this kinky boots, I wanted the factory workers to have a movement vocabulary distinct from the angels. Those are the drag performers that you meet with Lola in the club. I wanted their movement to be pedestrian movement in the Stephen Hoggett style, and then see those two worlds bump into each other in terms of movement vocabulary.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: And I'm very happy with what we came up with for the factory workers in this production. It's much more kinetic than even was the Broadway show for the factory workers, right?
[00:08:15] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: How does it work for a director in pre production? Do you have these ideas, or do you mostly work them out in rehearsal? Or. I know some choreographers they hire or they have friends that they workshop stuff pre production.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: Certainly if you're doing a Broadway show or even a high end regional show, you may have budget to rent studio space wherever you're based, New York or wherever, and pull in some friends and do some pre production to look, to explore some movement vocabulary before you get into the actual rehearsal process in regional theater, certainly in Summerstock. That doesn't. That there's not that budget, right? There's not that line item in a budget, right. I was grateful to say I worked with Lauren Latero on an out of town production of between the lines, which then went to off Broadway, and she did pre production in New York City because that particular regional theater had been enhanced. It had the money to give her to set up a couple of days of pre production. Doesn't usually happen. So that usually means this guy, this person is in the hotel room or the housing the night before going like, what am I going to impart tomorrow? I'm sometimes able to do things well in advance, but I really thrive on seeing the actors in front of me.
Having cast them, I know they're, to some degree, they're capacities for movement, but I really love building it on people.
Again, which is not to say I'm not prepared. I just prepare sort of here in the head.
Sometimes on paper, I will do.
If it's about moving a lot of bodies through space, a big number, like in 42nd street, where you're moving a lot of bodies through space, then I will come in like, here are the steps. Here's where you are on stage. But for example, with kinky boots and the factory workers, I wanted to see those people and see how they were going to move together as a group, and that's about being in rehearsal. So sometimes I do pre production on my own, and sometimes I look at the people in front of me and design.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: That's cool. I didn't really know how that worked.
When you look for actors, when you're casting them, what do you look for? I mean, obviously, some of the shows have different. Every show has different requirements. Like, they need to be an excellent tapper or they need to be a musician or whatever.
Is there any through line that you found, like, oh, I really am drawn to actors that blank.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Oh, it's always about storytelling. If I see an actor come in the room and have a point of view in whatever material. So, of course, you may see them do their own material first, and then in callbacks, you see them do the material from the show. But if I see them doing their own material with a real point of view, telling a story, I'm drawn to that. I'm not so interested in the people that come in and just show you the high notes.
It's not very interesting to me. It may be useful. Like, if you're doing the production tenor in the producers, you need somebody who can hit those high notes.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: But why don't I keep looking for somebody can hit those high notes who's also just an interesting person because they're delivering some choices beyond hitting the high note. So, yes, the through line for me is I look at the characters.
I have students in audition technique, and I always tell them I want to find an essence in the character that then when somebody walks in, I go, is that essence a match for how I see the character? Now, that's subjective because it's my version of the play and the character that I'm filtering, right. Filtered through that. So it's not the end all, be all of this character must be, but it's how I see it. So if somebody comes in the room, going back to kinky boots, when one of the actors came in for the role of Lola, and I just saw an honesty. So it wasn't simply performance, because Lola is big and flamboyant and is asked to do a big first number that you see Lola do is land of Lola. So it's a performance number, but I wanted to see, is there a human beneath that fabulous performer? I need to see the human and the heart and the vulnerability. And so when this actor came in, like, oh, there's the vulnerability. Has all the tickets in terms of performance. Just all the tickets. But the vulnerability was that quality that I was like, if Lola doesn't have that for me, I don't know if the audience will be on board with the storyline.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: There must be some form of identification with what Lola wants and needs. And I saw the vulnerability in this actor, and we cast him in fantastic, like, as good as it gets.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Kind of curious because for musical theater performers, obviously everyone has an audition book, right? So they may have hopefully not too many songs, because that's a lot. But if they come in with seven to ten songs, but that can't cover the entire breadth of.
And you're an actor as well, do you just bring the essence? How do you change the essence of a song to match, you know what I mean? Because you can bring different energies to the same song. I feel like, yes. What's the way to translate that to if you're going in for kinky boots or a different show?
You know what I mean?
[00:13:52] Speaker C: Well, I like to think that if you have seven to ten songs in your book, you're covered for a first audition.
You're going to be covered.
If they're looking for something else, well, that's on them. Because inevitably your book should be a collection of songs. I say this to my students, a collection of friends. These are friends that you enjoy visiting so that when you get in the room, if they say what else you got in your book, you go, oh, great, I get to visit another friend. You never want something in your book. It's like, oh, I haven't done this one in a while. Because there should be an experience of being in the material that is fun for you, the actor, because we will see that.
We will see that you love crafting this particular musical material and bringing yourself to it and that just to kept on that the bringing yourself to it is the most important part. Now, again, it changes in callbacks. Then you've got specific material. Then you are being asked to at least point toward what you would do with a character. That's a different craft, right? That's a different craft. At the first audition, I want to see human beings that engage me because they're engaged with their material. I'm engaged because they're engaged. Then also I go, what do I think it would be like to work with this person? So those are the things that I'm weighing in the first call.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Do you not even worry about when an actor comes in? Do you not worry about pointing it towards the show in general? I mean, as close as you can or is it just about, here's my expression. I hope you're interested in me as a performer more generally.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: More generally in a first call for like, just because it's fresh kinky boots, we want to pop rock. You're not going to come in and sing golden age material for kinky Boots unless you choose to do it in a very rock and roll way. What is this? You could do that.
So there's a sort of expectation, like you want something that suits the genre of the musical score in what you sing for the audition. But you don't have to be so specific.
You don't have to sing a Cindy Lauper song to audition for Kinky Boots.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: But you want to deliver what they're likely to be looking for in terms of the basic sound, particularly if you were auditioning for Amalia in she loves me, you're going to sing something soprano in the soprano range. You're going to. Right. But it doesn't have to be from the show, and it actually could be something more contemporary in terms of contemporary musical theater. And it will be okay if you're knowing that you have beautiful soprano quality of your voice and you can act and you're making choices.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Do you have any advice for people that are kind of early career actors? Maybe they've graduated from a college in musical theater or just acting in general and want to move to New York City?
[00:17:03] Speaker C: Get there quick as soon as you can.
I just had a young woman who auditioned for me by video.
I cast her in as Natalie in next to normal. She was 16. The character in the show is 16, and she lived in rural Tennessee and auditioned by video. Now, she had credits. I mean, she'd done Jane Banks because she was young. She'd just come out of doing children's roles. Right. But she's just gifted. And I told her parents, because we had a great experience with next to normal, and I told her parents, like, maybe she should just go right to New York. Maybe she should not do the college program. They're not poo pooing college programs. But she has a skill set already. And what really matters in the long run with New York is people coming to know you and your talent and being able to get you in front of the right people, I. E. Casting directors and other directors. So I've used her three times since then, and she literally is now 18 and now lives in New York City, based upon my advice, because she can still get her associate's degree in whatever she wants, but she's meeting casting directors. She's getting good auditions already because she had the skill set. And she's also very young, which puts her in a particular category.
It's a small pool of very young, very talented actors. The bulk of the talent pool will be between 20 and 40. Right. That's the bulk.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: She's in a young category anyway, so that's what I suggest. Get there as soon as you can and get in front of people.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Right. Show up.
[00:18:45] Speaker C: Really? Yeah, show up.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Show up.
[00:18:47] Speaker C: Go to auditions you may. Don't type yourself out.
Do not type yourself out. If there's something specific, it says, I need somebody who's 45 and you're 20. Okay? Right. That's okay. But if you think.
I don't know. Just try not to type yourself out. If you want to go for something, go for something. If they say you're not in the ballpark, okay, that's okay. It's not on you.
Yeah.
That's why I say get in front of people as often as you can. That can be in the form of these casting director workshops. Do it.
Because here's the deal. They're people, too, and familiarity is comfortable. If I've seen you, James, four times as a casting director, then I feel like. I feel like I know you, whether I know you or not, where it's only because you've come in the room four times, but those four times matter the fifth time.
And this is what always, I hear so frequently in auditions, oh, they're not right for this show. Whether it's the director, but it's often the casting. They're not right for this show, but I'm going to pull them in next week for my Jesus Christ superstar. You know what I mean? They collect people and put them in their little. Again, using their filters. Put them in the box of like, oh, that's a perfect person for this show. That's a perfect person for this show. We're seeing them for a show they're not perfect for.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: But they remember, and that's why you get in front of people.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
I've always been curious about the whole networking side of things because people are like, there's different advice about, I don't know, go to networking events, all this stuff. But at the end of the day, you have to show them your work.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: That's it. I'm not sure I'm a fan of just the mingle networking. I'm a fan of showing them your work, letting them put you in their roster, somewhere in their files again and again and again.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: There's a lot of theories about how to make. Like, you touched on it earlier about auditioning and making active storytelling choices. And being clear, do you have any questions that an actor should ask themselves about their material? I mean, obviously, you said connect with it.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Choose material. Not that you don't choose material because you like it. You choose material because you know you can do it. You know you can deliver a clear point of view through it. So that's sometimes a trap. People go, oh, I love that song. That Alphabet sings like, great. But are you going to bring to it your whole self and make choices that have me forget about Shoshana bean's version or whatever.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Right?
[00:21:33] Speaker C: Are you going to make choices that, let me be with you right now, because I'm not interested in hearing your favorite song.
That's not interesting to hear your favorite Broadway song. I want to see you, be you through some material, so find material that you feel like I can bring my whole self to. I can use my acting work, pressing on intentions, objectives, whatever words you'd like to choose so that I'm engaged, because then you will be engaging.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: I'm kind of curious about your journey because you came from an acting background, and then now you're doing all this amazing work as a director and choreographer and writer.
What has your journey been like?
[00:22:15] Speaker A: How would you describe it?
[00:22:16] Speaker C: Well, I'm old as dirt, but I'll tell you the quickest version of the story. So I went to college to be a veterinarian, and I did a year of premed. And my acting teacher, my dance teacher is like, you might think about this as an option. It's like, okay, I can always go back and get my doctorate as a veterinarian, but I never did because I did find, I felt like, oh, this is what I'm here to do. I'm a storyteller. Let me do this. So I would then end up at a university in Kentucky. My home state finished my degree program, and right away got a job as a singer dancer at Epcot. I now live in Orlando, but in that era, it's like Epcot hired me. I was hired out of Nashville, Tennessee, at one of their national calls, and did that for a year. Flew up to audition for Pittsburgh civic light opera, and got a show there. And they have. I think it's still true that if you do a show at Pittsburgh civic light opera, you automatically become equity. So even right out of college, I became equity pretty quickly. So I did not do the EMC program, which I think maybe doesn't exist anymore. I don't know. Things have changed so much.
But what I learned was getting my equity, two things. I'll share this with your listeners. Getting my equity card early because I can dance, and I was a singer dancer actor, but getting my equity card early as an ensemble member, as a dancing singer, a singer dancer, as a dancer singer, was maybe not the best idea. And I learned because I might have had the opportunity more summerstock, non union summerstock, and do acting roles. Now, that did come later, and I'm not at all unhappy with the work I did as an ensemble member, but because I was a strong dancer and singer, I was not looked at as an actor early on. That makes sense. Yeah.
And that happens. People want to put you in boxes. That just happens. So that's one recommendation. It's like, maybe don't take your equity card until you feel as if you've had really good opportunities to be on stage in roles. If that's your goal, if you're an actor, if you're an ensemble member, that's no shade. If you know that acting is not really your forte, then great, get your equity card and get into Broadway shows as an ensemble member. It's all great. What else would I say? So back to my journey. I wrote a show in college for credit. They produced it the next year. So then I started writing and also was doing choreography for the university's dance company. And it became like, okay, this is what I really want to do is write and direct and choreograph. But if I can make my living as an actor, singer, dancer, I'll do that and learn. So I got to learn from Tommy Toon. I worked with Susan Strowman on a new musical at Paper Mill, and I've worked with Jerry Mitchell on the original production of Jekyll and Hyde in Houston. So I got the opportunity to work with great people as an actor. But I was watching to learn how to be a director choreographer and also in the new pieces to learn how do new shows become shows? How do they find the way through to make it work? Which, let me tell you, I usually like to say I went to Tommy Toon university because watching him work on Will Rogers Follies was the greatest gift of my life.
So that's sort of the journey. I kept working. I did four national tours, one Broadway show, and then stopped performing entirely in the year 2000. I said, that's enough. I'm going to be a director choreographer. I don't want to confuse people. I will just be a director choreographer. But that's when I stopped.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: What made you realize that you were drawn to the other side of the table?
[00:25:56] Speaker C: Well, if I go back even earlier, believe it or not, James, I grew up in a small town in Kentucky.
Shy child.
I had puppets, and my puppets were my actors. And so I was making up stories as a child, usually for me, meaning I had no audience, it was me. But in my room, me and my puppets, I would make up stories. So I think that's where I developed my skills as a storyteller. So it was kind of always there from childhood, right? But again, because I could sing and dance and act, I was hired to perform. And I love performing, but I knew it was just the avenue to getting back to being a director, choreographer and a writer.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Speaking of putting people in boxes and everything, how do actors approach that in the theater world specifically? Because obviously with film it's a little different. But for theater, if you have a skill that gets you hired, but you know that you have other skills that you want to highlight or have as a longer term, like you said, you wanted to have more acting roles supposed to the ensemble.
Should you get known for one thing first and then try and branch out, or do you just. You know what I mean? How do you navigate that? Or what is your opinion on that?
[00:27:14] Speaker C: I think the idea is capitalize on that, which is that commodity that is getting hired.
I have a college roommate. College roommate. I won't say the name, but great, great fella. College roommate. Five. Five foot five. So imagine as a person of that stature, the box you want to put that person in is Toby and Sweeney Todd, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe jacking into the woods, but youthful, young, and he is good with comedy. So maybe Mickey Rooney style roles as he gets older.
But he had the ability to sing like a gospel singer. Like this huge, fabulous high tenor riffing voice. Like amazing.
Where do you put know? Well, cut to. He was hired by Disney World to be one of the first quasimodos in their stage version of Hunchback of Notre Dame. So there was finally a match of his other skills. In addition to being the sort of cute little sidekick guy, they found this role was a perfect match of the other things he could do. That doesn't mean he wouldn't still play Barnaby in.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Right?
[00:28:35] Speaker C: You know? So I say embrace what you are as a commodity, meaning what will be sold, what the directors and theaters think they can sell, that you bring. That's great. There's no shade about that. It's all good. If you have other skills, find your avenue for that self expression. If you have skills or talents and desires, find an avenue. Cabaret.
Write your own show.
That's what I would say. But don't resent how you are seen and the commodity that makes you a worthwhile person to hire.
It's all great. I'm 63 and I'm old now, but I have a baby face. So as a younger singer, dancer, actor, I was not being cast as leading man until as I got into my near 30. Then I was a Cornelius hackle in hello, Dolly. Because the baby face, the quirky face that I have was a match.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: And that's just the way it is. Those boxes are not bad. If you can just see, the boxes are not bad. Do they make you money?
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Great, right?
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Coming from the actor musician world, it's kind of similar in that I have a friend who's an amazing trumpet player, and he's like, I only do this one show. And I'm like, you do this one show, man. That's amazing.
[00:30:03] Speaker C: And get your fulfillment. If that doesn't fulfill you, get your fulfillment. Make your own fulfillment somewhere else.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Right, good.
And this kind of goes into your writing and making your own content, basically. I think it's never been a better time to make your own stuff and get it out there. And I think it's a whole nother hustle as far as making it work. So it's a challenge. But do you have any advice on that, too? Because getting your work out there, James.
[00:30:34] Speaker C: I will say I have a new piece that I'm releasing an album tomorrow, and the album is of a new musical that's an immersive musical, so the audience are really involved in the story.
And this musical whisper darkly. Oh, my gosh. I had no idea that nowadays you are not only a writer or director or choreographer, you're also a marketing person. You're also a press agent.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: Producer.
[00:31:04] Speaker C: Producer, yeah. Producing this album. My fabulous collaborator, Andrew Gerrila, he went over to Sicily because our ranger is in Italy. So he went over to Italy three times. So there's a lot of things that one must do to sort of like get something heard.
But in the end, that's what we want. Get it out there, get it heard, get it seen. So you do whatever it takes.
It is interesting in this world of social media and just media, media, media to try to have something cut through is know the good news about that is you can. You're no longer dependent upon somebody tapping you and saying you're going to be Britney Spears. You're no longer dependent upon some outside producer you can break through, but it's a whole job. It is a your.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: What are your goals with this show in particular?
[00:31:58] Speaker C: My goals with this show, it was an experiment of can a musical be delivered in the immersive theater format?
It was an exploration. I didn't know if that was true, because typically what you get with immersive theater is pieces and parts of stories without necessarily having every element. You need to have a satisfying beginning.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Middle, and like not asleep no more. Is that what you're.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Sleep no more? If you know that it's based upon Macbeth, you know it's based upon Macbeth. Do you have to know? No. And will you get every portion of the story of Macbeth when you go there? Probably not. So it's just that was their launching point, their riff.
But you get a really cool experience regardless.
You may not get some sort of sense of beginning, middle and end story. I wanted us to know, because a musical.
I want song. Good old I want song. You want to follow a specific character and see if they get what they're after. That's kind of the boiling it down.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: Follow a central character. Do they get what they want? Do we want them to get what they want? That's it. And in an immersive thing. Well, if you miss pieces of their journey, of what they come up against, you may not have a satisfying end when they get it or they don't. I wanted to make sure the audiences have a satisfying journey. So we set it in a place where we more readily control what they're looking at. They are patrons of a speakeasy. They can look around the room at what's going on in the room. There is a floor show, and the floor show songs reflect what's going on backstage.
And also we scrim through to dressing rooms so we actually see what really is going on backstage. Then at a certain point, giving this away to your listeners. But I'm giving it away. There is a police raid in this speakeasy in 1928. And all of the audience, the entire audience, is separated into thirds and go into other spaces with some of the cast in each of those spaces. Then in those spaces, what happens there is they are asked to engage in a cooperative puzzle, figuring something out that lets them get back to the main space to complete the story. So that's where it gets much more immersive.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: But we really make sure they get all the story points along the way so nobody will come out saying, oh, I didn't get that. I don't want confusion. Confusion is anathema, in my opinion, to good musical theater. Confusion is not good.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: I don't want to say an escape room, but is that puzzle room?
[00:34:42] Speaker C: We might call it a puzzle room. Yeah. So it's escape room.
So one of the rooms is they follow the Shantus, who's returned from Paris. We've come to know her through the show. She goes immediately to the bottle locker, which was a typical thing in speakeasies, where famous people would have their own private stash of liquor with a key. It's a locker, literally lockers of booze. And she takes a group of people into that room. While there, she knows one of her good friends has delicious bourbon they have to figure out how to get the bourbon. So they have to find the key in the room. They find the key, and then when they share the bourbon in that space, in that event, she then sings a reprieve of the song she sang earlier with dirty lyrics.
It's an experience, but if you don't get that experience, you will not be left behind in the story.
When that group comes back in the room with the two other groups, they've each had very distinct experiences, but they will not lack anything. They need to continue the different.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: I've seen different kinds of immersive experiences. Like, one is New York classical theater. Basically, the entire audience follows everyone in. Sleep no more. Obviously, you can go off anywhere.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Anywhere, yeah, sleep more is anywhere you want to go.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: So whisper darkly is kind of a meld between those.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: Again, the patrons come in, they have to know the password to get in. In the best of all possible worlds, we know this is not a proceedium theater show. There's a space in London we're looking at. That was a horse hospital. I'm not kidding. It was a horse hospital in Victorian England, and it's now a venue, but you can build inside it whatever you want to build. And it seems like a really great opportunity for us. They did a version of Peaky Blinders, the tv show. In that space, there was a peaky blinders, an immersive experience.
Anyway, we would have, like, storefronts. False storefronts. More than one. And when you buy a ticket to the show, you may get some clues and go into, like, a candy store, for example. And there might be a phone booth in the candy store, and you might have to interact with the person at the counter to get a number to call on the phone. And then that person on the phone will give you the password at the hidden door that leads you into the club. So we want to create from the get go. We want it to be like you are having a speakeasy experience when you're in the club. Then you're seated at tables and chairs, being delivered your drinks by some of the performers, like the wait staff, are also the performers in the floor show.
And then we guide where your eye goes. There's a scene that happens at the bar by two actors, and they will be facing a mirror. So they're seated with their backs to you, but you see them in the mirror behind the bar, and they have this, and the lights will come up on that scene, so you know where to look at an a given moment. So it's more guided than some immersive experiences.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:50] Speaker C: But then at the end, near the end, police raid. You are. Come with me, come with me. It's melee. It's a chaos. And fun. So much fun.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Is there any difference between how you approach that versus a proscenium kind of show?
[00:38:06] Speaker C: Yes.
In the round is similar. It opens up the possibility when the actors are actually weaving through tables and chairs.
As a director, I have to really know what need they be looking at. If your eye can go anywhere, and that's like sleeping war. You can do anything, go anywhere. But we need to make sure that the story points are landed. So as a director, I have to know what's going to draw their eye most.
So in the open number, I have an actor that pretends to be a contemporary person because it's set 1928, but they will be in contemporary clothing. I'm giving away all the secrets now, James. Not all the secrets. Couple of secrets. So that contemporary person starts hitting on one of the actors who's seated at a table as if she is a patron. That night he starts hitting on her in his contemporary clothes, and the doorman throws him out behind the audience. And how do we know that? Because we might see this subtle interaction and he's this drunk guy hitting on this woman, and you might see that. But there's a number going on on stage. What you will see or hear is when he gets into the back door and then it starts to become a shouting match. It causes one of the actors in the number on stage to forget her lines.
Right? So we know something's happening. So what's happening back there? They're shouting each other. And then finally the doorman throws the guy out and slams the door. People will look, right? People will be aware. So that's my job, is to make sure they're capturing the moments we have to have them capture in order to follow the story.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:50] Speaker C: That's the task. As the director. In any sort of environmental experience, did.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: You conceive of the show to be immersive from the beginning, or did it turn into that?
[00:40:01] Speaker C: No. Yes. It was conceived to be immersive because, like I said at the top, I wanted to explore. Can a musical with a beginning, middle and end work in this genre? And we did a workshop in Orlando with a full cast. The cast is 14 people. And we found a dance studio that was going out of business. And we made it our speakeasy, our hush club. And it had, as a dance studio, it had dressing rooms that were our alternate spaces. So it was kind of a miracle that we happened upon it and we discovered audiences really wanted to. Some person said to me, you usually hear when somebody says, I want to see that about a show. Oh, I want to go see that show. They literally have said to me over and over, I want to do that because it is a do.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: You're actively involved.
[00:40:52] Speaker C: Yeah, you get to be involved. I want to do that.
I think that's why I'm drawn to immersive experiences, because I know I'm going to be involved.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Obviously, sleep no more was a huge hit.
Well, it's closing soon, so I'm going to try and see it.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Do go if you can. I'm trying twice. I loved it.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Do you think it's the future of experiences, the more that we get into this VR world?
[00:41:21] Speaker C: Maybe is my answer. I think, again, being involved, having a unique experience is very sexy and juicy to people when it comes to theater in general, and it is a form of theater. But when it comes to theater, musical theater, the challenges become, where are you going to do it?
Especially in commercial theater, where are you going to do it? Where there's enough people in any given performance that will keep your show open financially.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:50] Speaker C: You may be aware there's a beautiful venue created for the great Gatsby experience in Manhattan, and they had done it for seven years in London and England. Throughout England and London. Seven years success. Right. Came to New York, couldn't make the numbers work.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:42:09] Speaker C: And it was in a ballroom of a hotel on 7th Avenue, and they couldn't make the numbers work. So that's the big challenge with immersive. I know you know that cabaret is coming in, and it's from London, and it's still more immersive than even the Sam Mendes production, which was more immersive than the original. Right. And so there, I know in the London production, you entered the back of the theater and went through the basement or something and saw the actors, meaning the characters in the kit Kat club getting ready for their show. So that was part of the immersion aspect. But then I think once you get to the show, you're essentially getting the cabaret.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:49] Speaker C: It was all of that extra element that made it unique. But that's hard to do in a proceeding house. It's just really hard to do at a proceeding house.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: I wonder, because how it's done regionally, obviously, if you only have a theater and you only have one space, do you think it can be successful there, or is it really space dependent?
[00:43:12] Speaker C: I think it is space dependent. Some theaters have a black box or theater companies around the country here in the States can look into alternate spaces and just be the promoter or the face of an immersive experience. But maybe have a warehouse that's across town. Right.
We've talked to some people regarding whisper darkly in Vegas, and there's a space there called Area 15, which was built to be about immersive experiences, art and theater, and all forms of immersive experience. And it's cool. If you ever go to Vegas, you got to go. Pretty amazing space. This big, giant, rectangular building with no windows, so it's fabulously imposing in its own way, but inside, they have various spaces that can become whatever.
And so we've talked to them about the possibility of Whisper. They're building one in Orlando. As a matter of fact, they're building an Area 15 in Orlando. I think that's not a secret.
It's not a secret. They've already bought the property, so they're planning.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: That's really cool. What inspired that show for you to write that show?
[00:44:24] Speaker C: Whisper darkly.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:27] Speaker C: That. I love immersive theater. Now, I will say sort of what I didn't know.
I didn't know I'd fall in love with the characters as much as I have. It's an original piece. So it's about Topeka McShane. She's very, very loosely based on a famous speakeasy proprietor of the 20s called Texas Guinan, who was, like, this large in the life. Toast to the town. But she was in the business of running illegal businesses. Right. She was in speakeasy world, but she would be closed down by the police and literally open another one three doors down on the same.
Know the next a. What a time. Right? What a time. So Topeka is loosely based upon Texas and another character that's a central figure, the woman who comes to sit in the audience to watch her friend Topeka's show is visiting from Paris, and she's loosely based upon Josephine Baker. We discover in her song that she left the United States as a black woman because she kept hitting a ceiling. She kept hitting a ceiling about.
The opportunities were, as we would guess, limited. Whereas in Paris, she becomes a big star. And so now she comes back to visit her friend Topeka, and she has become an international star. So that's one character, and then the young other character, Evie, has come to New York. She's only been there two weeks. She's learned the floor show. Her aunt is Topeka, and we get information. I don't want to reveal too much but we get information about what was happening in Kansas, that she was escaping, and what she thinks she'll find in this new world of the speakeasy. And inevitably, she makes a decision about, does she belong here, or does she?
It's a. I love these characters. I love them. I love them.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: That's what I discovered in the writing of. It's like coming to feel them become more three dimensional.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: When you're directing this, do you direct it as an actor? Do you approach immersive differently, or is it just about the optics of my back is to the audience, and they can see me through a mirror and I have to be allowed or whatever. Is it just about the technicality of it, or is there something fundamentally different?
[00:46:48] Speaker C: No, I think it's the technicality, and I learned a bit of the same when I worked in the round in Sacramento music Circus and West Virginia public. I think those are the only two theaters who have done it in the round.
There are techniques about, example, being in the round. If you're on one side of the circle, like on the edge of a circle, you don't face the small portion. You don't face the direction where you're standing. You face the biggest possible audience. You face across so that more people are seeing your face. Especially in musical theater, seeing mouths move is very helpful for people getting the words. So there are techniques like that that you don't put your back to the largest portion of the audience. You put your face to the largest portion of the audience. And that's useful in immersive as well. But like I said, if there are noises or other things like the door slam, that forces an eyescope, what just happened, that's the things that you employ those little techniques to make sure they're looking where you want them to be looking.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: It just struck me now that it's almost like a film where that we're, like, directing the camera. The audience is like the camera that needs to see where it is. And instead of having cuts, we like sound and movement and all this and lighting. And these are all different tools that we can use.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah.
When the floor show will have a certain level of light over the audience, when they're doing numbers on stage, because you would still be lit in a bar. Right. But when we go to scenes that happen backstage and we scrim through to those scenes, the level of light will dim much darker in the seating area. So that, again, my eye is supposed to go where the light is.
So those are the techniques.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: This kind of goes back to what you were talking about with this actress, young actress that you were impressed with, and she sent a tape in.
Is there anything about self tapes that technique wise, that can help actors to step up their game? Sometimes I wonder about, do we calibrate our performance to where the show might be? Like, if it's a big Broadway stage and we're doing a scene, do we play it more like a film scene, or do we play it like we're in theater?
[00:49:11] Speaker C: It is a tricky balance, and I have great compassion for all actors who in the last several years have just had to, by necessity, lean on self tape, because it is that, am I doing a stage performance or am I doing a film performance?
I guess my answer would be, it probably wants to be somewhere in between. I don't enjoy getting self tapes where it's like, just neck up. Because I'm like, well, then I don't know what you do with your whole physicality. I want to see at least waist up. That's me, my preference. I want to see you from the waist up. So I see what you might look like as a presence on a stage, but in terms of volume and all those stage techniques, you can't blow out your mic, so it can be more intimate. And that's okay in terms of volume level.
Yeah, it's tricky. People have asked me before about, what do you look for in a self tape? Again, it's what I look for in the room. Is this person communicating? Do I believe I tell my students what we do is all fantasy, it's all pretend, but we are attracted to the semblance of reality.
The semblance of reality is what we're getting. And if I can buy into you having. Doing something, like, if you're berating somebody or you're soothing somebody, and I can see that that's what you're actively doing, then I believe it's real, because to a degree, you're doing that. You're actually doing that, right? Yeah.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Do you have any advice for people that are writing shows or maybe writing their own content to maybe show different sides of themselves if it's a solo show or cabaret or whatever?
[00:50:59] Speaker C: Yeah, well, what I have essentially done in my career is, like, I write things I want to see.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:11] Speaker C: That's all I want to do.
Now. I won't lie and say that. Whisper darkly. I didn't have the idea of, like, hey, this might be on trend. An immersive theater piece. It might be on trend, but in the end, I wanted to tell a story that I. A story that I'd want to see whether it makes me money or not. It can't be the impetus because it just takes too long. It takes so long. Right. I just had a production of my moonshine and mistletoe, which is an appalachian music piece and set in the Great Depression in rural Kentucky. I mean, let's just put it out there. Probably not Broadway fodder.
And yet it was beautifully received, and it's just a lovely, simple story. And it was the story I wanted to tell. That's all story I wanted to tell, right. Because I would want to see it. Not everybody will. We had very good sales. I don't want to poo poo the production. We had very high sales. But I wrote it because I want to see it. And that's what I say to anybody.
If you don't have passion about the story you're telling, you won't keep going.
[00:52:19] Speaker B: It takes too long and too much effort and too much.
[00:52:22] Speaker C: Exactly. Hustling, you'll stop. If you don't have passion about the story you're telling, you will just stop. You will give up because it's a hard, hard road.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:32] Speaker C: And I have a little list of, like, I want to adapt this and I want to adapt this, and I want to adapt this very short list that I've collected over a lifetime, because I love this story and I want to put it on stage, and I'm in the process with several of them, but I have no guarantee that they'll ever see the light of day. All I know is I have passion about telling the story, and that's what I say to anybody.
Whatever you're passionate about expressing, and then that's in cabaret, what you want to express, do that, right? Because your passion will carry you through to the finish line.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: I've been writing some shows, too.
[00:53:11] Speaker C: Great.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: One of them is a musical, one of them is a play. And I totally agree with, like, I totally can relate to that because it's like, what do I love? And also, but sometimes when I was younger, I'd write these plays and they were so terrible, I'd be like, no one is ever going to produce it, nor should they. But for some reason, I feel like I've been an actor and a performer and just involved in this industry for so long that I feel like I have a grasp of what might work commercially, but also might meet my artistic that I'm interested in.
[00:53:47] Speaker C: Great.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Perfect. And I feel like maybe that's the sweet spot and that's kind of what you were talking about. Like whisper. It's on trend, and it's something that other people want to see as well as you would want to see.
[00:54:00] Speaker C: Yes, but the passion is what will carry you through the process.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: Right?
[00:54:04] Speaker C: I mean, we can have an idea like, hey, this story might sell. That's great. But if you don't have passion, also turn back. Wrong road. Wrong road.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: And that, it's like not every production, like you said, not every show needs to be on Broadway, and you can't control the destiny of a show.
As much as you might want to.
[00:54:26] Speaker C: Jump in, sorry to jump in, but I know people that think I have a Broadway show here. It's like, well, if that's the goal, I wish you all the luck in the world. But for me, the goal should be tell a great story, right. That then people say, I want to put my money behind it and play it wherever Broadway, regional, summer stock, wherever. That people say, I believe in this. I want to share this story with the world. Do that. Because if Broadway is the only, what is it? Brass ring, it's just hard.
There's a lot of disappointment in that kind of expectation.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: From what I know of Broadway shows, they usually take pretty long to gestate.
[00:55:12] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Usually ten years is the average kinky boots, which I just did. That's interesting. That was the one that was pretty short because the movie was 2005 and it was on Broadway in 2013. So that was a pretty rapid development. But there, let's just be clear, why was it a rapid development? Cindy Lopper, right, because the name recognition of stardom that was already there had money come to it. Money just came to it. And that's part of the industry. You can write it, whatever you're going to write, but you inevitably will need money to get it up anywhere.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Do you think about that? About getting people attached to it? That might help the trajectory of your.
[00:55:55] Speaker C: That's exactly why the album of whisper darkly is coming out tomorrow.
The show is electroswing. I didn't say that before, but the score is electro swing, and I'll send you stuff, James, so you can hear it. But it's a new genre of music, and it's the first time that we're aware that it will be used in a musical theater piece. And we knew that because it's a new genre of music, not usual to the musical theater realm. Making the album would have people get it. They would understand this is what it sounds like, because you can say electro swing and people like, or if they know, they'll go, that's great. I love to dance to it. Well, this is that and musical theater.
[00:56:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:36] Speaker C: It's really a combination of the two things. So we needed people to hear that. And this album will surely, at the very least, have people understand what it sounds like and hopefully then go like, ah, I want to invest in that. It's exciting to me. I get it now.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:55] Speaker C: And so it took money and time to get the album up as a marketing tool.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: And in marketing. In marketing your show, what are your techniques? I mean, obviously, making the album and looking at spaces and doing productions.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Is.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: There any other thing that you do to get it out there?
[00:57:16] Speaker C: You get it out there. That's the phrase. March 6, we're doing a concert of several songs in a speakeasy in New York City.
We are also doing a music video of one of the songs because there, too, the visual connector to the electro swing is, like I said, electro swing is a dance genre. And there are a couple of numbers in the show that are going to be fabulous. Big dance numbers. So we want to show. What does that look like? Does it look like the Charleston from the, looks like a hybrid of the Charleston from the might see in Moulin Rouge or other contemporary dance musicals.
We want to show people, we don't want you to assume, you know what this is going to be. We're showing you what it's going to be.
[00:58:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:58:04] Speaker C: As a way to have people. It's a marketing tool. So now I know what it is.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Do you have, like, a dream venue in New York, if it ever came to New York?
[00:58:13] Speaker C: Well, it's saw. I don't know if you said, you see, I didn't. It was. And great comment. I saw both. And those were the quote unquote immersive musicals that have been on Broadway. It's so tricky to try to make a Broadway theater feel like something other than a Broadway theater. I think heroes love did a great job of retooling the space, and yet we want our audience to be in a speakeasy. We do believe that we need to find a venue like the horse hospital in London, where within the walls of that space, we have actually created a speakeasy so that when you walk in, you're not in a.
It's, that's in New York City. We would probably end up finding something like a mean, the places where, who knows? This will work with the armory is a place that's kind of an empty shell.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great space.
[00:59:10] Speaker C: That's a place where you could, within those walls, build all the things you need to build.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:15] Speaker B: And that could start even in the cool lobby place they have with all the history.
[00:59:21] Speaker C: So there are spaces. Brooklyn has some spaces out there, but Manhattan is just really hard. Like, what is left that is an empty shell space. Not many things. I mean, actually, I just saw. Here we are. Did you see here we are?
[00:59:38] Speaker A: I did. Yeah.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: That venue is kind of all configurable.
[00:59:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:43] Speaker C: So that's an interesting. Of the New York venues, they're just the few where they're shells that you get to put in them. What you.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:59:53] Speaker C: But our show is built that way. It's not built for proceeding.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: Awesome. DJ Salisbury, amazing. Director, choreographer, writer, performer, and human being.
I like to ask people too, in your off stage life, I'm just curious what your hobies interests are these days. Do you have any passions that you're pursuing besides stage?
[01:00:22] Speaker C: My goodness, is mostly theater stuff. That's what I'm pursuing. I love my dog.
[01:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, you were saying you were studying to be a veterinarian, like, curious about animals then.
[01:00:34] Speaker C: Tidbit. I lived in rural Kentucky growing up, but even over the course of my life there, we had five monkeys as pets.
[01:00:42] Speaker A: What?
[01:00:42] Speaker C: Really? I know. Ridiculous. How did that happen? I can't even tell you. My dad was world curious, and I don't know, we had five monkeys. And so where I said, I'm going to do that, I'm going to study great apes, that was my plan.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:00:56] Speaker C: But now I still just love storytelling however it comes out of me. That's what I'm still focused on.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, well, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.
[01:01:06] Speaker C: It's good time with you.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you too.
