Here it is… my last interview from the Festival! I met with the fantastic Jen Tepper, historian behind The Untold Stories of Broadway, Director of Programming at 54 Below, and Assistant Director of the Broadway musical TITLE OF SHOW!! When collecting stories for The Untold Stories… she is the one doing the interviewing, but I got to turn the tables and ask her some questions about her work and her love of theater. We started off with her awesome job interviewing Broadway legends (and legends-to-be) but got to talking about our favorite musicals, the future of women in theater, and what theater we plan on living in.
Karma: In the spirit of what we’re doing right now, can you tell me a little bit about how you start the process of interviewing someone?
Jen: Do you know, I’ve never been asked that before. That’s so crazy! I try to have a diversity of people from different backgrounds, different jobs, and different ages. When I start the process for each person, I write down all of the theaters they’ve worked in, exactly what years they were there. Everyone kind of gets asked the same three or four very basic questions like what was the first Broadway show you ever saw? Do you remember what theater it was in? A couple of basics like that and then the questions that are specific to their shows and times that they’ve been there. So I usually walk in with about 15 questions that are specific to them.
Karma: Do you get nervous when you interview people you’ve looked up to for a long time?
Jen: People’s voices start to get me. I did an interview with Christian Borle and I’ve listened to him in cast recordings from so many shows and he was talking to me! Even though he’s so chill and friendly. I wouldn’t even say that that has gotten better, it just kind of depends on who it is. There are people who I think are brilliant, but who I’ve had enough interaction with in my work and life that I’m not intimidated – like Jason Robert Brown, even though he’s a genius, because I’ve experienced him, like, drinking a soda. So, sometimes it just takes seeing them as people to not be intimidated.
Karma: Do you think your other work in theater has lent itself to writing this book?
Jen: Yeah, definitely. Actually, there are people who have played 54 Below because I’ve met them through interviewing. And there are people who I’ve interviewed who knew me from 54 Below. But for sure, everything I’ve done in the theater has given me knowledge that allowed me to write the book.
Karma: Speaking of 54 Below, where you’re the Director of Programming, can you talk a little bit about what that job is like? Are you like a producer?
Jen: It’s definitely a lot like producing. The club is owned by Broadway producers, whose dream was to open a place for the community of Broadway to gather and spend time together seeing each other’s shows. My job is to get everything that is on stage, on stage. We do about 16 shows each week, and we have a 7 pm, 9:30, and 11:30. It’s my job to figure out what should be on stage, get it on stage, and also figure out how to negotiate peoples’ contracts. And because we’re a restaurant, it’s also a lot about, you know, “Should this show be at 9:30 because people would rather drink or eat?” It’s fascinating and never-ending and really a wonderful place to work. It’s definitely become a Broadway community.
Karma: How long has it been open?
Jen: Only two years.
Karma: Wow! When I’ve been there, I’ve been so impressed that the people around me know their waiters and were so comfortable! Changing the subject a bit: how do you think more women can get into the type of leadership positions, like directing and producing, you hold at 54 Below and have held in the past with TITLE OF SHOW and The Untold Stories…?
Jen: It has truly been my experience that no one who is actually in the theater is discriminatory. But I feel like, for some reason, not as many women grow up wanting to be a stage manager, or something like that; I don’t know if they think that’s something they can do. There are actually stories in the book [The Untold Stories of Broadway] about more women’s stations and more women in the orchestra pit. I think we need more programs for female conductors; I don’t think people are hesitating to give women opportunities, I just don’t think as many women are going after certain parts of the theater. I think it takes someone encouraging that person and mentoring that next person to continue. The director/choreographer field I really feel is evening out and will do so even more soon, but for other backstage positions, it takes someone mentoring someone else and then that continuing.
Karma: I just thought of this question – it’s completely off topic – but is your goal in life to buy that penthouse apartment in the Lyceum and just watch the shows from up there? Because that is personally my goal, and how I will spend my old age.
Jen: [Laughs] That’s a great question.
Karma: I don’t know how I’m gonna get it from the Shubert Organization, because it’s currently an archive, so first I’m assuming I’ll have to buy the Shubert Organization, and then take the room for myself.
Jen: I feel like I would prefer to buy one of the ones that is totally abandoned. Although maybe that would feel haunted. Maybe not.
Karma: That’s a good point. I feel like more than I want to live in the Lyceum apartment, I just want to live in a theater.
Jen: Yeah!
Karma: I would live on the stage and use the curtain as my bedroom door.
Jen: That’s a good idea. The Ambassadors has a good one – they have an abandoned penthouse, so that could be a new goal.
Karma: I didn’t know that!
Jen: The Belasco one is too haunted to speak of, but there are a couple of penthouses you could get, because of course the owners all used to live above their theaters. The Shubert Offices are also above the Shubert.
Karma: Can we talk a little bit about your love of “underappreciated musicals” – or flops, as people tend to call them?
Jen: Well, every year, so many shows open on Broadway and if all of them ran forever, there would be no new shows! My friend Nick Blaemire says there are not good musicals and bad musicals, there are musicals that you love and musical that somebody else loves. I loved A CHORUS LINE and that happened to be a hit, and I loved MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG and that happened to not be a hit. There’s a lot to love in every underappreciated musical.
Karma: Do you think that reviews have a big impact on the lives of shows? Do you think it’s changing as people read less newspapers?
Jen: I don’t think people are reading less reveiws – I think people still click on the NYT review online. Reviews affect shows a lot, but so do other things. HONEYMOON IN VEGAS just got great reviews and I hope that does great things for them, but also, they’re opening in the middle of the winter, when not a lot of people are going to the theater. If they were getting that review in April, in Tony season, that New York Times review would have a lot of power.
Karma: I feel like more shows are opening on Broadway this year than ever before! Every day, a new show is getting announced.
Jen: Well, I think the weird thing is that, two months ago, half of them weren’t announced. Part of this has to do with shows circling theaters, waiting for one to become free.
Karma: And a few musicals came out in the winter, which is a bit unique. It’s so great that so much new work is happening.
Jen: What’s your favorite under appreciated musical?
Karma: Definitely MERRILY… And I think my favorite play is ACT ONE.
Jen: We have all the same favorites!
Karma: I can remember being in tears at the end of the first act when all of the marquees came down from the ceiling. I thought to myself: “How can I get this set in my bedroom?!”
Jen: I just put an ACT ONE poster up in my office! I love ACT ONE.
Karma: I was sad that it wasn’t in the Vivian Beaumont portion of your book!
Jen: It almost was! The James Lapine interview couldn’t happen before the book deadline – that happened with a couple of shows, where I would try to map it out and then the deadlines were so specific that I ended up not having what I thought I was going to.
Karma: When these books are finished, there will need to be another one, an add-on.
Jen: Totally, future editions will have to have what has happened since.
And with that, our conversation concluded! Thank you SO MUCH Jen for taking the time to talk with me. I can’t wait for the third volume of The Untold Stories… and everything else you’re doing!
Goodspeed Geeks 