The Journey To Opening Night Of “Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical”

Jeff Madoff: This is Jeffrey Madoff, and welcome to our podcast called “Anything an d Everything”, with my partner, Dan Sullivan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Today it’s going to be everything about an anything, and I have Jeff Madoff here.
 
I’m very excited about this week, so I think Jeff is 10 times more excited about this week. And so his Broadway play, and it’s already been labeled as that in some of the reviews, a pre-Broadway premier of the play and it starts in Chicago. The previews, the previews start—tell me what the previews, Jeff…
 
First of all, say hello to everybody.
 
Jeff Madoff: Hello everybody. Yeah, and anybody. Turn up the volume on your computer and open your windows. We’re saying hello to everybody.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yep, and finish your weed. Stub it out.
 
But preview week, I’ve, kind of dress rehearsal and that sort of thing, but preview is an interesting stage of a new play opening.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, it is. You know, you start off going through rehearsals, and the rehearsal start with a table-read, which is literally just sitting around and hearing the story for the first time, hearing the other actors’ voices, all of that. And, you know, sort of dipping your toe the water before you’re really submerged during rehearsal.
 
Rehearsal is the time where not only do you get the lines, you’ll get notes from the director and myself, the choreographer, and the musical director. And it’s all broken up into different kinds of segments, you know, like this particular person or group might be working from 10 in the morning ‘till one on harmonies for the songs, you know, where the choreographer is breaking down the dance bits.
 
And it’s all quite fascinating, ‘cause you realize it’s all kind of a mosaic, and the different things come together. So if you’re seeing a two-minute dance number, you know, that two-minute dance number is a bunch of little segments put together to all work together.
 
In our dance segments, especially in the opening number, it’s very acrobatic. There’s flips, there’s pulls through the legs, there’s, you know, over, leg over somebody else’s head, and all this stuff. So also safety is a big deal, you know? You need to keep your cast safe. ‘Cause we have a we have a physical therapist on staff, just because you know there’s bound to be pulled muscles or sprains or stuff and you want them taking care of immediately.
 
So all of these different things are coming together, then also layering in the nuance with the actors in terms of them not only learning the parts, being off-book, which means they aren’t holding the script. And all of that comes together, and then you start doing run-throughs, just the first act. Then you do run-throughs of the second act. And then you do full run-throughs.
 
To me, like any, any creative project, the process is what’s so fascinating. And I know you, Dan love that, as you call it, backstage part of just how does it all come together? And it’s really cool.
 
So that’s the rehearsal period. What happens after the rehearsals in the rehearsal room, you move into the theater, which we just did this past Friday, and it’s a whole other thing, because if you’re in a rehearsal room, you know, it doesn’t have the steps it doesn’t have, in our case, the second floor of set, and there’s a whole different scale, because the stage is much bigger than the rehearsal room. So although they may know that they exit right where the arrow is on the floor in the rehearsal room, that could be a 30-foot 40-foot walk across the stage.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it requires different pacing.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. And different pacing, not just in the physical movement, but you may find that-
 
Dan Sullivan: Timing is different.
 
Jeff Madoff: Exactly. That’s right.
 
So that all gets re-oriented, and that’s really interesting. And so the first rehearsals are just kind of blocking. And tech rehearsals. And I wish you could see the tech rehearsal. You saw the sound-check. But, like, the tech rehearsal, we have about 70 people there. And it’s programming the lighting board, finding out at each point where the actor is physically, how we want to light them.
 
We’re using, like we did in Malvern, we got this state-of-the-art sound system. Our sound designer, Rob Kaplowitz, is a Tony Award order. He got this company in Denmark, that—I believe it’s from Denmark—where they put these sensors around, and you can literally make the sound appear to originate from wherever you want, which can be behind the audience, or it can be they turn on the radio and it seems to come out of the radio, or if Young Lloyd, who is miming playing piano, our piano player and musical director Shelton Becton, his sound seems to come out of that piano, and it’s really cool. It’s really cool. And in a bigger theater like this, bigger than what you saw when you came to Malvern, that sound and aural spacing is really immersive and really interesting.
 
And then cueing the projection, and on any given moment you’re cueing the projection and cueing costume changes, wig changes, lighting changes, line changes—everything. It’s interesting, because the tech rehearsals are, not ‘interesting,’ in that every step takes quite a while. I find it fascinating, because it’s just an essential part of the whole process. And you realize how much stuff goes into these things that we see. It’s just incredible. And all of the people that we’re working with are just so talented in their own ways that contribute to the whole. That’s absolutely fascinating. It’s really cool.
 
And so once you get all of that done, ‘cause you have to make sure, like you mentioned, timing. You have to make sure they have enough time to change costumes.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: Can they make the travel and exit stage right? Because they’ve got to re-enter on stage left upstairs, you know? And it’s all of that stuff. You know, and of course, the audience should take it for granted. It should seem absolutely seamless. But there’s a lot of seams that need to be stitched together in order to make it happen.
 
And then we get to previews. Now we start previews ‘cause we haven’t done any costume run-throughs or full show run-throughs or dress rehearsals yet. That’s all this coming week.
 
Dan Sullivan: What you’re describing here is not unique to this play, right? Except this is a premiere.
 
There’s a Great American songbook, but there’s a great Broadway musical, South Pacific, you know, I mean Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Kern, Larner and Lowe. And these are like operas, you know, it’s like they come back. But, you know, there’s a lot of wisdom, there’s a lot of organizational wisdom that goes along with these plays. All the organizational wisdom about this play had to be created as the play was created.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. But you’re also correct that, yeah, these are the steps that all musicals go through. You know, all of these things, it’s not unique to us.
 
What’s really interesting is when you mentioned some of the classics, they didn’t have computerized programmable lighting boards.
 
Dan Sullivan: They also didn’t have microphones.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. That’s right, you know. It’s “Project to the back of the house!”
 
Dan Sullivan: You had to have a good voice back in those days. You know, yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. There weren’t the little microphones on them. You’re absolutely right.
 
I mean, I think about that because it’s probably harder, you know, it was hard enough. You couldn’t, literally could not execute the kinds of things we’re doing back then. You couldn’t have as many lighting cues or sound cues as we have, as modern plays have, because no human could pull that off. You know, it just couldn’t happen.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, you also have the set here. It’s very, very clever because when you come out, I mean, it’s open screen, at least it was in Malvern, it was open screen. I mean there’s no curtain that goes up. Is it the same here?
 
Jeff Madoff: No, we actually have a curtain, so there’s going to be that—which I love—that magical reveal when the curtain goes up and you see the set and all of that. And in our case it starts off, as I’m sure you remember, with all the dancers lit dramatically, frozen in a position. And that begins Lloyd’s memory play, as Lloyd starts walking through the dancers, and then it comes to life.
 
But yeah, we’re going to be opening a curve.
 
Dan Sullivan: But the other thing is because the set designer has these slats, basically I don’t know how wide they are on a big stage, but there’s slats, and you said, “Gee, what’s this all about?” And then all of a sudden you realize he can create almost a movie-like quality to the play with the slats, you know, and you do different things with the set that’s there, and the musicians they were on stage. Are they in the pit?
 
Jeff Madoff: No, they’re onstage.
 
Dan Sullivan: Which is great. That’s totally appropriate for this particular play, you know?
 
Jeff Madoff: All of these things we’re talking about, all of these elements that have to come together, and then you realize that these things have to come together eight times a week, live. The respect that I have for everybody involved in terms of their ability to do that.
 
You know, if you’re making a movie and something screws up you stop and do another take.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: In theater, you make a mistake your scene partner, or if you’re on stage alone, you gotta recover so nobody knows you made a mistake. You now, but hopefully the audience doesn’t. You know? And that’s something—you know, you mentioned earlier about the nightmares that actors may have. You can understand why.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: You know, it’s cool, but our our set designer that you you mentioned, David Gallo, he’s a six-time Tony award-winning set designer. He and I met, and then he did my class. As I listened to him talk about how he did what he does, I found it so fascinating. I said to him, “You know, David, I’m doing this play. I would really appreciate it if you would read the script. I’d love you to do the set design, if it resonates with you.”
 
And he red the script, and he called me, and said, “I’m in.” And, really, he says, “Yeah, this is right in my wheelhouse. I’m in. I want to do this.” And he said, “I’m telling you now, because you’re going to hear it from your executive producer, that my agent doesn’t want me to do it, but I’m doing this play. I love this.”
 
And he’s been fabulous. And his work, as you saw, is innovative. And those slats you’re talking about are these LED screens that are, like, tall, thin, looking like slats, if you will, like you said, and we can do a lot of the different kind of transitions.
 
Dan Sullivan: On a big stage, I don’t know how many there are, but you know the human eye just fills in the spaces. The interesting thing about the human eye, first of all, our brain fills in most of what we see. We only see about 10% of what we’re actually looking at and the brain fills it in from memory, you know, what you’re not seeing. But here, he’s really, he’s really having the human brain do its tricks because you sense that it’s a full screen.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. You’re right.
 
Dan Sullivan: But it doesn’t overwhelm the actors on stage. You don’t go into television mode with it, it just plays into what the actors are actually doing.
 
Jeff Madoff: Right.
 
And and by the way, another thing that didn’t exist in the era of those classic plays, there weren’t LED screens, you know? But of course, there was great theater done.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah, they’re great stories. Yeah, there was great talent and there was great [cross-talk].
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. I mean, it’s the same thing in movies, you know, the non-linear editing that came about around 30-some years ago. That didn’t exist. People sat with razor blades, cutting film on Steenbeck and, you know, cranking their reels. When you think about wow, what they had to go through to execute an idea, you know, but everybody had to go through that just like.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, remember the movie Cinema Paradiso? Yeah, where the parish priest in the small town, Italian town. And every week the new film would come in and the priest went down and went through with the projectionist. And he razored out everything that was, kissing was too long, hugging, everything that could possibly inform his parishioners what he wasn’t enjoying, the priest. And then there was a little boy who helped out the projectionist. And then the story goes on. But it’s some of the most gorgeous background film music that’s ever-
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, I was going to say that. Yes, fabulous theme. I mean, so evocative and emotional.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah, and he’s only a guy who did about 150 movies, and you know, I mean this guy, the composer, he must have knocked out a score every month for 50 years or something like that.
 
I mean, this one was just perfect for the, and have sort of played and suggested itself all through the movie in different settings, and everything like that and the thing is that great stories don’t depend upon technology, but if you’re using technology to do great stories, the technology really has to match the power of the story. And you started with a very powerful story. The music was already written, the music was already famous, but the story was not known. And that’s what you’ve done here.
 
And that’s been suggested, even I get that the reviewers so far don’t really, really get how pioneering Lloyd Price was.
 
Jeff Madoff: Oh, that’s right. By the way, I love your distinction because it’s so correct. In terms of it all starts with story. The technology has to be in service of the story.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: You know, I was fortunate enough, I worked with Vilmos Zsigmond, who was one of the legendary cinematographers. We did some projects together. He was fantastic.
 
And so I said, “How do you approach what a film’s going to look like?”
 
And he said, “Well, I read the script. I talk to the director.” But he said that, “You have to understand everything I do is in service of the storytelling.” And that’s true with costume design. That’s true with lighting design, but in film the the lighting designer and the cinematographer are same person.
 
It’s really just because there are people who are talented but they don’t know how to deploy their talents in service of something. They just want to be their own fireworks display. And that’s true in business, too, you know? Are you going to align with people that can make the whole much greater than any of the parts? Or are you just going to try to show off, you know?
 
I’m working with such a great group of talented people who are into this story, fortunately, and you know that “in service of,” and what you’re in service of is a huge point in what you said about the technology. The technology can be a good facilitator if it’s in service of the story.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.
 
Well, one thing is we’re talking on a Sunday, and Friday five days from now is the first preview. So tell me about the first preview.
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, the first preview as you said is June 2nd.
 
What happens in previews, and preview times vary. Some shows you have very few previews simply because of budget, you know, everyone would like a longer preview period. That’s expensive, and the idea is that you put the show in front of paid audiences. Preview tickets are discounted; they’re not the full-price tickets, because people know it’s not necessarily exactly the way the audience is going to see it after opening. But the purpose of the previews is to get the audience response.
 
Dan Sullivan: It’s a shakedown too, right?
 
Jeff Madoff: How do you mean that?
 
Dan Sullivan: They have shakedown cruises, you know, the boat goes out for three or four days. As someone who goes on cruise ships, when they have a new ship and that they’ll have passengers on so they can see what meals are like, they can see what entertainments like. It’s called a “shakedown cruise”. So this is a shakedown week.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes, I mean during rehearsal period.
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, your writer’s pen is always fully exercised, right?
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right.
 
Through rehearsals then as we go into previews, like our previews run from June 2nd to June 13th, and we open on the 14th. During the whole preview time, not the whole preview time but when an audience, a preview audience is there, you see do the jokes land? Are they wowed by the dance numbers and the music? Are they listening to the serious monologues and the fun monologues are in a fun dialog, and you gauge audience response and see, you know, “We thought this was working, and it’s falling flat. We gotta do something.” And you do that, and that’s what preview period is about.
 
The other thing that preview period is about, to me, and this is something that I learned, because the buying patterns have changed since COVID. But unless you’re doing something that’s a star vehicle, very limited run, they’ll buy in advance, but otherwise, people are buying much closer to the event. So that’s very nervous-making for people who are financially at stake. Because you can’t do the same kind of projections you used to be able to do. It’s much closer, within a couple of weeks or so, sometimes within the same week in terms of purchases being made.
 
So I look at the preview audience is also marketing megaphone: If they like it, they’ll tell people about it. And you want to get the word out.
 
Dan Sullivan: How are they chosen?
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, two things. There’s people that just buy preview tickets, because, you know, it’s more affordable and that’s fine.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And it’s kind of like having part of a backstage experience.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes. And then you have, there are groups that come in during previews, cause you know, school groups, church groups, civic groups. We have a group salesperson, so she accommodates them, and if they’re someone who wants to go to a preview just because it’s more affordable for their group or whatever—and a group is anything over eight people, in our case, and you know. We have groups of 100 people booking. We have groups of eight people booking. We don’t choose them, but they have the options of attending previews, you know, or whatever.
 
Dan Sullivan: I wonder if it’s people like influencers too, who would come. People depend upon them to check things out and they check it out and-
 
Jeff Madoff: No, and that’s another interesting point because-
 
Dan Sullivan: Like Tony, D’Angelo is a very, very big influencer. Like, he’s got a a vast audience, you know? And he said great things about the Malvern.
 
I think he was there the night we were there too. I mean, I think he may have come before that, but he was-
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, I think he came twice. Then he came with your group and then he came the very first night of preview. And it was funny because I was there in the audience, they were just trying to let people in, and the guy comes up to me and says, “Are you Jeff Maddoff?”
 
And I said, “Yes, I am.”
 
And he said, “I recognize your voice. I listened to you and Dan Sullivan’s podcast.”
 
So I thought, “Oh, that’s fun. That’s cool.” Nice guy.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, there’s an “anyone.”
 
Jeff Madoff: But what you might not know about the previews is that, in our case, since our last preview is the 13th, the show is locked, at the very latest, the show is locked on the 12th. And if you can, you lock it sooner. The reason is that you don’t want any changes in the last two days. Those are the final full run-throughs before the show, and when you make changes, whether it’s a change in timing which changes the music cue, which then changes the actor’s cue, which then changes the other actor’s cue, you know, it’s a whole throwing a rock in the water. It’s very disorienting. And if you edit the line and it changes the cue point for the other actor on the scene, you know, you really realize—again, I have tremendous respect for actors and I love working with them.
 
Dan Sullivan: They adaptability of these peoples must be enormous.
 
Jeff Madoff: Enormous.
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, you gotta adapt in a matter of minutes. You in some cases, you know?
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. And when there is a flurry of changes, like, going on during rehearsals and they’re having to get their new pages and they’re getting the pages at 10 o’clock and they’re starting that scene at 10:10. You know, no joke. It’s like that. So some will want that even though they got the whole thing, they’re off-book, they’ll need that page just to remind him that there has been a change.
 
And, yeah, that adaptability, again, a great thing for any business, to be able to be adaptable and flexible in those things. I have such tremendous respect for the actors and for the dancers, and all of those people, because you know, there’s the old tropes about how crazy actors are and so on. They’re professionals, and you’re really appreciate the professionalism and, exactly what you’re talking about, that adaptability that’s so quick. And they’re able to embody that change and move forward so quickly.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, but everybody who’s backing up the actors has to be as adaptable.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s correct. That’s right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Because there might be music, slight music changes, could be big music changes. There might be lighting changes, there might be dance changes, you know?
 
Jeff Madoff: No, that’s right. That’s right.
 
And then there’s the other stuff you find out, like everything seems to be going well, like, right now we’re just seeing them in costume, and and we’re doing transitions in and out of different things, and seeing some of the costumes for the first time. They’re not finished yet. But you know, you’re getting an idea of what it is.
 
And the wigs. Ad ann interesting thing about the wigs is that because we are true to the times, there are those black wigs that are processed, you know, where the hair was all smoothed out and so on and and made wavy. And then there’s the naturals. And our wig designer, Jared, who’s phenomenal, does all the Broadway shows. Really good guy. He did my class also, and this was fascinating. There’s an interesting business point about it: He’s a physicist, and by accident he started doing this wig design, and-
 
Dan Sullivan: Good career move, by the way.
 
Jeff Madoff: It was, you know. He said that you can very quickly be making well over six figures, well into the six figures, because it’s a craft that fewer and fewer people are going into. It’s like plumbing, you know, and you can make a really good living, very creative in a pretty neat setting, you know? I’ve worked with him and he’s done every major Broadway show.
 
Dan Sullivan: Safe from ChatGPT.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right.
 
Well, I think the whole live experience is safe from that, you know?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Any kind of hand-skilled thing is gonna be safe.
 
I mean, there’s a lot of people who are educated to change the world, but they can’t change a tire.
 
Jeff Madoff: Right, right. Well-put.
 
It’s really interesting because something as primitive theater, because that goes back to, you know, when I think the first time there were two people together, one of them was acting, you know, and for whatever reason. And I think it is future-proof because we are, at our essence as humans, need to connect, and the lack of connection can cause lots of emotional problems.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, it’s interesting. There was a front stage Wall Street Journal yesterday and it was a guy who’s a AI specialist, you know? He knows the world that’s suddenly emerging, and he goes around, he gives talks. And he said, “If you want to be safe from AI, be more human.”
 
Jeff Madoff: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that.
 
Dan Sullivan: That right, he said, “Just watch everything that makes humans human and do more of that.”
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes, I so agree.
 
I mentioned that book, which I thought was so tremendous, the God, Human, Animal, Machine, which is very much about that. It’s fascinating. I mean, I think, you know, that’s why people go to plays. That’s why they go to live concerts. That’s why they go to sporting events.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah, comedy clubs. You know what I mean?
 
Jeff Madoff: Exactly. That’s right, that’s right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Why they watch street performers.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. Absolutely.
 
You know, I was just watching CBS “Sunday Morning” this morning. I love that show because they tell really good human stories. It’s wonderful. And there was this street musician, this woman, who was an astounding clarinetist. And she plays down in the Basin Street on the street, on a corner there, and they call it her corner ‘cause she attracts crowds because she’s so extraordinary.
 
When she was interviewed two years ago on CBS “Sunday Morning”, the correspondent said, “So where would you love to play?”
 
And she said, “Kennedy Centre.”
 
The head of the Kennedy Centre saw that segment, called her up. She is now doing a Kennedy Centre engagement, and it’s sold out. And it’s so wonderful. And she’s extraordinary. She’s absolutely extraordinary. But it’s so wonderful. I mean these dreams, these fantasies can come true, but you also have to realize that, you know, she has been playing on a street corner for probably 25, 30 years.
 
Dan Sullivan: Speaking of the actors and the adaptability and the difference between amateurs and professionals, I read a ton murder mysteries, you know, a lot of international intrigue, and I like that, but the authors have real gems. There’ll be like a paragraph, because to be plausible they really have to understand the history of places, the geography of places and, you know, how things actually work behind the scenes. And this one, you just made a reference about amateurs and professionals, and he said, “Amateurs are people who practice till they get it right.” And he says, “Professionals are people who practice till they can’t get it wrong.”
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s great. I love that. That’s really great and it’s true.
 
Dan Sullivan: Not getting things wrong, it’s not an event. Not getting things wrong is a capability. Like what you’ve talked about right from the beginning of your stay in Chicago is everybody in the production getting to the things where they can’t get it wrong.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah. And it’s really interesting, because different actors have different processes and ways to get there. So our lead, who is extraordinary, we’ve got such a great cast. I’m so excited for you and Babs to see it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the other thing is that you had cast members who were also, they’re basically on-stage coaches. They’re on stage, they’re directors, because one of them’s been with it since the original reading.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes. Stanley Mathis, who plays Logan, he’s so good.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, and he’s like an anchor. He’s having, personality-wise, he’s like an anchor.
 
Jeff Madoff: He is.
 
Dan Sullivan: He kind of like an anchor, actually.
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, what’s so cool about Stanley is he’s a, he’s been a constantly working Broadway actor for 35 years. And he said to me—and I love this—he said, “This is the part I want to play.” He turned down other work to do this. Because he was, he worked all the time. And he just loves this part, because he said, “It’s the closest part to me I’ve ever played.”
 
So he has, as you said, been doing it from the beginning. And what’s so cool about that is, so he was at the 29-hour, he was at the workshop, he was at Malvern, now he’s with us here, he is still experimenting. He is still peeling back layers. He’s still finding nuances. And he may do something on Monday when we’re doing his scenes, and then Wednesday he’s got another take on that, like a jazz musician, you know, and he’s constantly exploring. And what’s so cool about it is what you’re saying, in terms of not getting it wrong, is that he knows his lines so well that he can play with them. He’s not going to forget anything. He’s not going to go up on the line. He has that capability, which gives him the opportunity to explore and he’s not going to get lost.
 
Dan Sullivan: OK. Just occurred to me not getting it wrong means that afterwards you think you did 80%, but the audience thought it was the best 100% they’ve ever seen.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes.
 
Dan Sullivan: Because in the eyes of the audience, whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong.
 
Jeff Madoff: Just like, you know, we’re saying earlier about if you make a mistake in theater, chances are the audience doesn’t know. And if you have a good scene partner or you’re adept yourself, you can cover it, and they don’t know that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. And that’s another sign of being a professional because an amateur freaks.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, this is a question, because we both were born in the Forties and grew up in the Fifties.
 
To what advantage is the fact that speech in general has become more informal over the years? To what degree does that give you a little bit of flexibility for people being able to make things up on the spot when they’re off-track, because we’re used to it with people.
 
And what I mean is that you were taught to speak properly—and that’s a very, very loose concept these days. I mean, you and I have our, you know, 1950s standards of what represents, you know… Actually it was, I still have the ruler marks from first and second grade, you know.
 
You know, I was metaphorically beaten. I wasn’t physically beaten, but I was metaphorically beaten.
 
But the big thing about it is we’re kind of used to a certain, you know, people coming at it one way and then coming in the same conversation, you know? I’m just wondering if that gives a certain amount of flexibility when you’ve not done it right, but you can do it and the audience hearing is, you know, it’s kind of normal. Well, I hadn’t thought of the idea before, you know, I just brought it up.
 
Jeff Madoff: If you go up on the line, which means you’ve forgotten your line, and you improvise something quickly to get you out of the jam. That’s a one-time experience, hopefully. The one-time occurrence. In film, what you’re talking about happens much more.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, because it can be added. You can do retakes.
 
Jeff Madoff: And, however, in theater, the writer is king. The script is king. So, you know, there’s a scene where the actor was adding some stuff in it and-
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, it was the young boy, wasn’t it?
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, he was concerned about a very talented young actor who was green. And it takes either an old soul or wisdom to realize that there’s a power in being quiet. And when he was supposed to be quiet, he would try to fill it in because he didn’t feel like he was doing it. And that was a problem. And he had to get his head around the fact that there is a power in silence, that you don’t fill it in, and so it’s you need to stick to the script.
 
Don’t feel like, “Well I don’t feel like I’m doing anything.”
 
I said, “You are, but you need to be quiet”, you know? Yeah. “And let the silence inform the audience of the tension of that moment.”
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Well, the other thing is he didn’t understand the context that he’s the introduction to the older Lloyd.
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, that’s true too. You have to be in service of the character you’re playing.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, but what I mean is the one from the workshops where you very kindly invited Babs and me to the workshops. I thought he was more in alignment with, you could picture him as the older—there was much more of an abrupt shift that you had to imagine the jump in Malvern between that actor and Saint, you know.
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, that’s right. That’s right. Now, John Michael Lyle, who was there for the 29-hour and the workshop was a much more seasoned actor. Very, very good.
 
So you learned, or at least I learned, some of the real distinctions between an actor who was very talented—you know he could sing, he could dance, he could act, but—there’s a nuance that you need to understand that it was important to me, and important to Sheldon.
 
Dan Sullivan: I think it’s a teamwork. It’s a teamwork-
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, you’re right, you’re right. But it it’s funny because, you know, Saint was about, I think he’s about six or seven inches taller. And it was funny, because I said to Sheldon what we’re talking about, suspension of disbelief. Now, first of all, we all know that that guy didn’t go up to be Saint. You know, we all know that.
 
Dan Sullivan: That theater really shows you the flexibility of the people in the audience. We can make that jump, you know.
 
But I would say it’s one of the harder things to do in theater is to show someone young and then show them older and have it be plausible and believable.
 
Jeff Madoff: Plus, there’s, even physically there are things you can do in film. And you can even go to green screening their face, and, you know, like Benjamin Button.
 
Dan Sullivan: You can take the present day and you can de-age them out with CGI.
 
Yeah, it’s very interesting. I gave a tip to a plastic surgeon. The doctors that we have in Strategic Coach are all, where they’re getting paid electively, you know, it’s not insurance. Cosmetic surgery happens to be mostly elective, you know? There’s no insurance. I mean, there is for disfiguring entries and that-
 
Jeff Madoff: Like burn victims.
 
Dan Sullivan: But not for not for beauty purposes. But they have, like dentists have, they’ll take a picture of you and then they’ll show you what it looks like after you’ve been through their process, you know? It’s a picture now and maybe three months down the road, a year down the road.
 
And I said, “You know, the real trick that you ought to do is to do what the FBI does when there’s a missing child who’s been missing for 20 years.” They show what the child looks like, and they now have, I think they’re using CGI, and they’ll show what the person likely looks like 20 years later, 25 years later. They do that with young criminals. And I had a plastic surgeon who contacted the FBI and found out—it wasn’t an FBI technician who had created it, it was a private technician, and he got it.
 
And so he said, “Well, I just want to tell you, we’re starting on a path here and it’s not a six-week path. It’s not a year path. But I want to show you what you look like if you go through my process 25 years from now and I want to show you what you look like if you don’t go through my process.”
 
Jeff Madoff: But you still avoided having cosmetic surgery, I’m assuming.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh no no. But the really good ones, it’s not like some of the actors who can’t even go out in public anymore, they’re so grotesque. The worst thing to double down on is Botox.
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, you know, the interesting thing is that-
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, yours is barely noticeable.
 
Jeff Madoff: No, I appreciate that. I had my hairline, you know, my hairline is actually here, but I had it artificially receded just to give me a sense of—because I look too young for my age.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, authority.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. That’s right. Right, and looking too young gonna have its problems. I was still getting carded going into movies. And you know the wine store, and so on. So I figured, “OK, I’ll age myself a bit.” Yeah. So I I did that.
 
It actually takes longer to age yourself. ‘Cause you have to live longer in order to accomplish it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Peters Zeihan, I mention him on some of our podcasts, but he’s a geopolitics expert, and he was just talking about that, you know, of 80 of the more-populated countries, you know, who are advanced and everything like that, and Bermuda would be one of them. It’s kind of like, you know, not a official country, but it’s a significant place. And he said that there’s only about six countries who are what are considered in the advanced world right now who 10 years from now will have a bigger population. Everybody else is gonna go through a population loss.
 
And he said the key is how many people do you have, that’s birth to 21 and then 21 to 60, because, he says, that tells you where your consumers are going to be 10 years from now, that tells you kind of where your consumers are, and kind of tells you where your workers are going to be.
 
And he said, “You know, if you don’t have enough 21-year-olds, that’s a problem, because it takes 21 years to get a new one.” Yeah.
 
So the interesting thing about the tricks of theater, and I bought into it immediately because the story and the music hold it together. You know the story and the music actually hold the play together.
 
But anyway I had more problem with the second one than I did the first one. And part of the reason is I met him backstage at the party and I talked with him, you know, and he’s a very nice guy and I didn’t with this one, but I got a feeling there was a tension between this one and his role. You told me that you have solved it big time, so I’m looking forward to that.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, it’s really interesting, because what the public doesn’t realize, that most of the public doesn’t realize, is when you do the show out of town, the purpose is of course getting it in front of the audience, getting it on its feet, so to speak, which means how the audience responds, making sure everything works. But then you also manifest certain cast changes, and the cast can change on a number of reasons. Maybe you want somebody different. Maybe the person who we had, like what’s happened with our original Lloyd, was no longer available.
 
You know, there’s all kinds of things that, you know, you have to be adaptable towards because you’re giving people’s schedules and because it’s live, they got to show up. You know, there’s no negotiation if they’re not available. It’s not like, “Well, we could pre-shoot this and then we can then shoot the pick-up shots…” No, you can’t do any of. You know?
 
So all of the work out of town is to get that show to be the best as possible. You’re taking a huge leap from Malvern to Chicago, which is the second-biggest theater market in the United States.
 
As we were talking before we started recording, Chicago is such a cool city. I love it. It’s, I think it’s really beautiful. We’re going to take the architectural tour when my wife and kids come in on the day off after the opening, to take that boat tour, which I heard, I’ve heard from a number of people, Chicagoans and others that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I’ve been on it twice. Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, just it’s wonderful. And so, you know, it’s really interesting because there’s a whole process and in that process, like all good creative processes, are discoveries. And you discover what works and what doesn’t work.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, I had high confidence because I’ve been monthly in Chicago for the last 30 years, and you know, I kind of know the city. And I said, “You’ll get more attention in Chicago than you will in New York,” because New York’s connected to the far universe, Chicago’s middle of the United States.
 
And I remember the first summer we were there, we started off in November, but the first summer that we were over there, and you know, and we’re walking the Michigan Avenue, you know the prime shopping district and everything else. I said to Babs, I said, you know, I made an allusion to Chicago and New York, but there’s one about Toronto and people say Toronto is kind of like New York run by the Swiss. You know? “Chicago,” I said to Babs, I said, “Chicago’s kind of like New York, but with normal people.”
 
Jeff Madoff: Well, I guess I’m living in the right place. New York
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: Neither Swiss nor normal.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, you appreciate it because you’re an Ohioan. In Ohio, you really have to produce to get noticed. I mean you, you have to have the real goods.
 
So anyway, it’s a real thrill and we’re going to get this one together right away and get it out to everybody.
 
Give us the actual data now, the dates. It’s a 12-week run, right?
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes, yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: The first is, I think, on the 14th.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yeah, the opening is at—well, previews are from the second to the 13th and then-
 
Dan Sullivan: And there’s always tickets for previews, right, usually?
 
Jeff Madoff: Usually, yes.
 
Dan Sullivan: It’s 600. I think the theater is 600, Studebaker’s, Studebaker.
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes, and one of the things that’s great about the theater. I’m excited for you to see this theater. There were no bad seats. You know, I was moving around dur-.
 
Dan Sullivan: No posts.
 
Jeff Madoff: No posts, and the overhang of the balcony, it’s substantially over maybe a third or so of the audience. So arguably the first few rows in the balcony are very prime. They’re great seats. I was moving around all the different seating areas in the theater to see what the show would look like from different angle and so on.
 
I was with Adam Hess, my executive producer. I said, “These, God, these seats are great!”
 
And he said, “Yeah, they really are cool.”
 
So, you know, works out.
 
Dan Sullivan: One balcony? Two balconies?
 
Jeff Madoff: One.
 
Dan Sullivan: OK. Do they have side boxes and-?
 
Jeff Madoff: Yes. Yeah, whether we’ll open those up for sale or not depends on how high demand is.
 
You know, I mean, one of the things about theater and the business of the business is you can establish all kinds of different business models that if you sell 85% of your seats at full price and you’ll gross this much, and then if you discount that much for the remaining all this stuff, none of it means anything. Until you actually put tickets on sale, you have no idea whether you’re going to sell 100% some shows. This is probably only true in theater, like Hamilton will sell 107%. How do you sell more than 100%? Well, it’s because you’re selling standing room. So your 100% is your seat-fill, and then they’re standing room.
 
And and the thing is, for a new play, which is what we are, always the big concern is “How long will it take to ignite word of mouth?” Which happened pretty quickly in Malvern, where sales really go up. You know, so there is, like in any business, an initial burn rate when you’re introducing it and you’re not generating enough to cover all the costs yet.
 
Dan Sullivan: I think your time period is going to be short on this one.
 
Jeff Madoff: I think so, and I certainly hope you’re right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And, you know, that and$7.25 will get you a latte. You know. I mean, I don’t know what it is.
 
I have to tell you about ticket prices. I went to one of the Outward Bound schools. I don’t know if you know what they are, but they still exist and I went to the first one where you could be over 20 years old and go and I was 20 in 1964. There isn’t time for the story, but I went to Stratford. I got there for about two weeks before the Outward Bound course started in Scotland, so I had to go to Scotland for it. But I was in. London and, you know, London was dirty. It hadn’t really recovered from the war at all. You know, all the buildings were black because they burned coal and burned wood back then, and they hadn’t put in the laws and it’s clean.
 
But anyway, I went to Stratford and they were doing the history plays in order the week that I was there. So historically you started with Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry IV. And then they went on. There’s a Henry, I think there’s a Henry VI.
 
Shakespeare had to be, you know, to be a playwright those days you had to really be a suck-up to the present administration, you know? So. But ticket prices were 4 shillings and it was 56 cents if you were standing. And at the first break there were always seats available. So at first break, the ushers were very, very accommodating. They’d take you down, and you know most nights or most afternoons, eight plays a week just like yours, but they just take me down, you know, I get second row in the middle and everything like that. A shilling was 14 cents in those days, so it’s 56 cents. But then I was there with a book, England on $5 a Day. And I said, “I don’t know, do I have the 50 cents?”
 
But I saw Vanessa Redgrave in her first season. I saw Ian Holm in this first season. Yeah, there was a lot of very, very famous talent.
 
Jeff Madoff: Oh God yes. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Very famous talent there. Yeah, it was just amazing.
 
I’ve said this on a previous podcast, but just regarding adaptability of actors and what it takes to be an actor. In England, only one actor is buried at Westminster Cathedral, and that’s Laurence Olivier, OK? He was famous for on the hundredth night of a run he was as fresh as the first. Somebody that goes 100 nights is a big deal. But he had a technique that he did before the play, and they had those—remember the spy-holes in the curtains? They would have spy-holes and he would go and just look out through one of the spy-holes. And he had this sort of mantra that he did, and it was. “This is not last night’s play. This is not last night’s audience.” You know? “It will not be last night’s responses. I am not last night’s character. My fellow actors are not last night’s…” And he would just scare himself into first-night motivation.
 
Jeff Madoff: And that is the goal of every good actor who’s doing theater is that the audience should feel that they’re seeing something nobody else saw. That it’s that fresh, what they’re seeing, and keeping it that fresh. And that’s a challenge. You know, it can never become a job. It has to be just what you’re saying, which is why, you know, when you see great actors—I saw Vanessa Grave in England also. And, not that play, she did Mother Courage. I saw Maggie Smith, another—I saw Maggie Smith on stage in England. And you see somebody who can can go like that [snaps fingers] and the audience is in the palm of her hand, and she’s just—every gesture, every move, every word, you’re just totally hypnotized by her presence. And that’s the thing, as much as I love movies, you don’t get that from a movie.
 
It’s really interesting.
 
I want to inform our audience because I didn’t—as usual, we go off on our anything and everything tangents, is that the show itself is running from, after the previews, the 14th is our opening, we will be offering a very limited number of tickets for opening, as it’s pretty much full. And then we run through September 3rd. So and I’ll be back and forth to Chicago during that time.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, we’re going on the 16th, which is day three after, you know, there’s the opening night, then the 16th. So we’re there on a Friday night and we have, you know, we have some Chicago people. I mean, the thing is that people plan their summers, and June is, you know, kids are off for school and, you know, and everything else. But we’ll keep putting out the word because we have hundreds and hundreds of clients coming into Chicago during June, July, and August. And you know, I’m gonna. I’m gonna push it, and I’m gonna-
 
Jeff Madoff: Thank you. I’m grateful for.
 
Dan Sullivan: That I’m excited for your excitement.
 
Jeff Madoff: And thank you. Thank you.
 
And I’m very grateful for the support that you and Babs have had pretty much just the beginning.
 
Dan Sullivan: Not just moral support, either.
 
Jeff Madoff: I love that you like that distinction I made when we talked about it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Moral support is a guess. Financial support is a bet.
 
Jeff Madoff: That’s right. That’s right.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Wishing you well, you know? I mean, I tell people when somebody’s, you know, had a tragedy or something, you don’t say if there’s anything you can do, you know? And I said, “God, what a terrible thing to do to a person. They don’t have enough to think about, and now they have to think up a role for you.”
 
I said, “Ask them one thing: ‘Is there anything I can do for you right away? Is there one thing I can do for you, right away?’” And they’ll say, “Could you pick up my dry-cleaning?” But that’s the type of thing-
 
Jeff Madoff: Right. No, that’s right, an answerable question.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, not only that, and then do it and say now, is there one more thing? And if you do over three or four weeks and you do 15 things for them, but you didn’t do anything for them, you did a particular thing for right… Yeah. Yeah.
 
Jeff Madoff: Right, that’s that’s a great distinction.
 
I remember when my mom was in the hospital, and my Aunt Ida, who you never met. My mom, was being wheeled in to prep for surgery, and my Aunt Ida said to my mother, “Lily, I am not at all worried about you”.
 
And my mother said, “Ida if I was standing where you are and you were laying where I am, I wouldn’t be worried about you, either.”
 
Yes, things not to say when you’re visiting somebody in a hospital.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, a lot of clichés shatter when they encounter reality.
 
Anyway, I’m here again next week. And if you are, I am.
 
Jeff Madoff: I’ve got, I think, a preview matinee, which is the 4th next Sunday. So I’m not available. But to be continued.
 
Thanks for joining us today on our show, “Anything and Everything”. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.
 
For more about me and my work, visit acreativecareer.com and madoffproductions.com. To learn more about Dan and Strategic Coach, visit strategiccoach.com.