iTunes Exclusive Episode An American In Paris

You
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Atoos is gluesa baby!
Welcome.
The 258, one of these things.
Climbing that mountain bro, climbing that mountain.
My name is Rob, I am the Executive Producer of the Clubhouse podcast, so let me go through
the list.
Is it?
Check.
rhythm.
Check.
My gal.
Check.
I'm good.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode, joining me across the desk as he tends
to do is my co-host and a man that can probably deal with the rhapsody and blew a lot
better than I can, but I got personal reasons behind that.
He is chat.
Welcome, sir.
That is true.
I am a fan.
Also joining us is the official fact checker of this show and a man who is a merchant.
You may know it was fun.
Don, go.
But his mom and even Don Ford, I'm going to call him Don Ford, welcome to you, sir.
You mean Montana's part of America?
It is Mark.
I thought it was a poor country.
Whatever do we do, one of these bad boys, it is to review something.
This is no exception.
We're going to the stage today, people, because we are reviewing the stage version of
your best picture winner for 1951, featuring the music of the Gershwins.
It is an American in Paris.
For a short, this whole thing.
Yes, sir.
We got to think the man.
Francisco, down somewhere, musicals.
You want to talk about a dude that is a lot better to us than he ever has had to be.
And everybody involved at DSM are so wonderful to us.
We love them all.
And he's always so impeccably dressed.
And let's frame this properly.
If you go back, let me get you an exact episode number on here, because this is important
people.
This is important.
Francisco, where suit on you, won't you?
That dude will wear a suit on you.
You may know Mr. State.
I want to know who his tailor is, because he's good.
Yeah.
If you go back to season 7 episode 11, where we were at music hall of fair park for
North Texas giving day, that show runs two and a half hours.
We interviewed a lot of people that night.
Yepers.
Every single one of those people, we asked the same question.
New season coming up, what's the one thing you're looking forward to?
Every person that sat down with us, and you can fact check it if you want us.
It's true.
Said an American in Paris without even thinking about us, like they were on autopilot
when they said it.
Well, then let's get to the other shocking thing about this.
I thought that this was just kind of like the King and I, it's just kind of something
that's always been there.
And to it, oh no, a contrairement frayer.
This didn't even hit the stage until 2015.
What?
No, it hit the stage in 08.
I did do a little bit.
Okay, but it's not been a whole thing.
But yeah, had made like a touring.
The original Broadway cast recording of this in 2015 was nominated for a Grammy
last.
That's saying something, especially in this day and age, because 18 month run on Broadway.
Basically a claimed one awards all over creation, believe four Tony awards if I'm not mistaken.
I believe so.
I believe so.
Yes.
No big fact check.
I believe choreography, stage design, that kind of stuff.
The two leads love the production so much.
They said, you know what?
We're doing the tour too.
We're sticking with it.
So when you're here, it's right here in the Dallas area until February the 12th.
Whether it comes to your city, your two leads.
You're actually seeing the Broadway leads at our performance, uh, gearing, scribener.
I hope I got that right.
And Sarah at S.D.
They did the leads on Broadway and they're in the touring company now and boy does
it show.
But we'll get to that later.
All right, so let me set this up for you.
It's just after World War 2.
I mean, literally like the in the third Reich has just fallen.
I mean, that's the first thing you see pretty much.
And Jerry Mulligan, sometimes he likes to do stuff over.
You see what I did.
Uh-huh.
Oh, the Bullshit.
He decides he's not going home.
Missed my trade.
I'm staying in Paris.
He's an artist.
He loves the city.
He loves its culture.
And he just wants to stay there.
Doesn't speak a lick of French.
Rips to take it up and says, nah, I'll make it go.
So he winds up at this bar restaurant of some form and meets up with a young man by the
name of Adam Huckbert at our performance paid by E.T. Benson, who I'm not sure.
Maybe that's a surname.
Maybe he's using a numb diply, if you will, because I could swear that was Paul
Rudd.
You're real fast.
Really?
Strike me as a Jonathan Silverman.
What?
Four Tonies.
Three outer circle critical words.
The drumming award, two theater world awards, four drama desk awards, three fed in
Adele.
A stair award.
That'd be Fred.
Adele was a stair.
That's what I said.
And the ACCA award.
Yeah.
So it's got to cut.
It's got some hard wins on the wall.
That's a hard one.
Yeah.
So once he meets up with Adam, he finds out Adam's a composer.
He also a fellow American.
So they kind of get along.
And then they meet.
I'm going to do my best Alex Trebek here.
On the rebound.
And then they parked it.
Oh, oh.
Who is an aspiring stage performer?
Didn't want his parents to know though.
No.
No.
Because they're upper crust and frown on this.
So they become the three best friends.
And then you can never have.
But what they don't know is that they've all followed and loved with the same woman.
Because they never say her name.
So they're all.
They're pursuing this woman.
They're talking about how happy they are.
Well, here's the problem.
It's the same girl.
And her name is Lisa Dessin.
I'm probably screwing that up too.
I think that's what we all you need to know about the storyline.
It is the storyline from the 1951 film with the great Jean Kelly.
Yeah.
We were discussing that last time.
Yeah.
Do you feel like?
Because neither one of us had seen it.
I haven't seen the films as I was a kid.
I have seen the film.
But it's been decades.
Oh, you had.
Okay.
See, I never had.
Because when I talk about in my written review.
www.theclubhousepodcast.com, which is our website.
I talk about how when I was a kid Saturday afternoons was always some kind of a blank
blank theater, whether it was Tarzan, theater, or Western theater.
But they also had a musical theater where they would play the old Fred Astaire and Junior
Rogers films or singin' in the rain or something of its elk.
I've seen this.
But I do have been like seven or eight.
So I need to go back and watch it again because I'd like to see that they say there
are differences between them.
This is a bit of a different kind of production because another thing I said in my review
was this does for ballet, what 40-second street does for tap.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You wind up watching a ballet without even realizing it.
It kind of sneaks up on you.
And that's a good thing.
It really is.
And plus, you know, you understand what they're saying, which is kind of like, yeah.
Actually, that's more operative than it is ballet.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just going to say it.
This is phenomenal.
Brilliant.
This is like...
I rolled out of this thing?
First of all.
Could you have better seats than they gave us for us now.
Maybe, you know, two feet over, but that's about to be here.
Yeah.
But...
If we were any closer, we'd be in the orchestra.
Yeah.
We could smell the orchestra at a leader's colon.
Unbelievable seats we were given for this.
And again, we cannot think our friends' DSM enough.
It's like they wanted me to play a few of the old,
play a viola to pit right down on the way.
Don did ask, and I made sure that he didn't do it.
I mean, especially for a show that was being talked about so far and advanced by so many
people in my absolute.
We'll be lucky to even get in the building, you know.
This, there wasn't anything about this film that didn't absolutely film or production.
I'm so flustered about this because it's so wonderful.
It was filmic.
I mean, there's, yeah, there's nothing about this that just didn't absolutely melt
my brain.
When you look at the, I don't know that we've been to a production that had dance numbers
that were as long as the ones in this particular, yeah, you and kid, and when you think
about that, when you have dance numbers that last five to ten minutes, that's a lot of
choreography.
There's the climax, which is about 17 minutes.
I mean, that's what it's all based around them.
I mean, that was the genesis of the film.
Yeah.
That was the genesis of the production.
What in the film version?
That's pretty much the end of the film for the most part.
There's a little bit after, but there's no dialogue in like the last 24 minutes of
the film itself.
Really?
The choreography in this absolutely amazing.
Oh, it's my numbing.
That was one of the tonies that it won.
Correct?
Oh, I just find that.
I mean, it's got to be.
It's, it's got to be the artistry of this cast.
Just like it hit me where I live and more than once in this particular production.
On it runs about two and a half hours plus a twenty minute admissions.
I'll be aware of that.
I went out.
We're not down to breaking down individual performances yet.
So I'll save it.
Whatever you want.
Well, there was a point where you and I were speaking.
And I'm like, is it just me or is Garen's gribner who played Jerry Mulligan, channeling
Gene Kelly and at the time, I wasn't even sure.
I was waiting for him to start dancing with Debbie Reynolds and Jerry from Tom and Jerry.
I mean, it was, it was so uncanny.
It was frightening.
He totally channeled Gene Kelly and this and that's not a bad thing.
No, because I didn't know that Gene Kelly was the lead in the original.
A lot of people were here that and go, oh, he's just imitating.
No.
Totally not.
Like he is, there is a grace to him.
There is, and I even put this in my written review that there is a fluidity fluidity
was the word that was going to be his dancers, whether it's the leads or the ensemble.
Everybody involved with this thing.
There's just, it's so awesome.
I can't even, I, as the kids like to say, I can't even right now.
Okay, this is what it was nominated for 12 Tony's.
Good Lord.
It won for best choreography.
There you go.
Okay.
That's sliding design of a musical, best orchestrations and best design
in a musical.
They'll be scenic design.
That's what I said.
I mean, talk right into the microphone.
We can hear it.
There you go.
Okay.
See the sign.
Okay.
So that's the fourth one.
The, the things that they were doing with, on, on, from a technical standpoint,
from the projection screens and the slats of the piece of the sky was pretty awesome.
Was, was, was, what I really liked about that is there were moments where I
kind of got lost because the way the projection screen would bring things into the
frame at certain points looked like the same way they were doing with the slats.
Yeah.
So I was like, oh, wait, no, that's on the screen.
Yeah.
And I mean, and that's a choreography all on to itself.
Opening sequence alone is, is very, very, it grabs you.
Yeah.
I mean, and it moves and it's not one of these things that like, okay, I'm going
to read my program.
The opening sequence from this production, you have to watch it.
Yeah.
This establishes the tone of the entire piece.
Yeah.
Here's where I come into the whole, the whole frame, I think.
This is where I'm really conflicted.
Okay.
Yes.
This thing is two and a half hours.
It is.
And it is.
And it's, and it's seemed long to me.
Yeah.
And here's my, this show had, it's okay.
This is the one thing.
I mean, we'll get into the, the acting, the singing and all that.
I mean, it's incredible, the, the, the dancing, pure ballet, pure, the acting, everything.
Okay.
The sense, the music, the, the, the, the, the, you know, wanted to try not the other
between the singing and a music and everything like that.
But my issue was that it just, the pot seemed in a way too simplistic.
It, it, it, it, it was a very slow-moving drag.
It's just about what I called when my renovator, www, that's the clubhouse blockhouse.com.
Oh, so I was like, uh, the, well, pit to God.
Now it's a little trying.
No, there's five people involved.
Yeah.
Okay.
But it's basically, that's the basic part about these three guys who like this lady.
But they give me a best example.
There are so many scenes where they, they just rushed the plot.
There was one scene where he's designing stuff and they just, whoop people actually look
section and they throw it out.
It's like, put some pot into this.
That wasn't my big worry.
They rushed.
See, I just, I, I, I read that, I know, I read that in a written review.
I just, I didn't see that.
I did.
That's what I mean.
And that's your opinion.
Well, I haven't even because it felt like kind of like when they have like a montage scene
in a film.
But it was very reminiscent of that.
I could see that though, but when I think on something like this, all they, they cared
about was the dancing and the singing, but who cares about the plot?
Oh, by the way.
Let's add a little plot.
Well, here we go.
To me, it's, it's just, it's establishing the tone of what is going on without bogging
it down with unnecessary dialogue.
I mean, I understand that tough, but I, I just, that's where I felt a little conflicted.
It did seem long.
I would say that.
It did not bother me either.
It didn't bother me either.
I mean, but everything else, I thought was incredible.
I just saw that rushed plot thing.
That's what China was.
I was with Chad on that word.
To me, it was more like a montage in a film of its era than it was anything else.
And to know that the, when you watch some of the style in here, and you realize that this
was 1951, where to me, it more is more reminiscent of somewhere around 63, 64 with some
of its imagery.
Uh-huh.
That was kind of weird for me.
Well, I think maybe they were trying to put the push, the idea that he was so far ahead
of his time, artistically, yes, that he was pushing the envelope before the envelope
was even invented, sort of, so to speak.
It felt so, it dates itself right off the bat because of the setting of it.
Agreed.
But that, to me, was the only time that it felt like it could have, is the only thing
that it didn't make it feel timeless.
Because that could have taken place two weeks ago, as far as I could say, the bulk of this.
And you talk, you talk about the leads in this thing.
I was exhausted watching them, especially her, I was about to, I can't wait till we talk
about her.
Sarah, Sarah S. The, let's just go right to it.
These two are amazing, and I'm sure, I mean, the, the person that's going to play the
role of lease in a couple of the performances.
Because again, how do you keep up that kind of energy for that many performances?
That's her twin sister.
Well, yeah, and who's also in the ensemble, which is, it's mind blowing to me.
My shoutout role actually goes to, um, Vincent, who plays Adam, because he's high-benset.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because there was like, what's he did?
So like, did this kind of take dating and advice from me?
You know, I mean, you know what I'm talking about?
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah.
It's like, yep.
That's done right there.
That's like that kind of, I'll tell you who melted my brain.
Yeah.
And that's going to be one Emily.
I knew it.
I knew it.
So you played Milo Davenport, who's kind of, the, the catalyst that keeps the story
moving.
Yeah.
She's kind of like the, the, the cornerstone of everything.
And can I say first of all, how are you doing, Dan?
Okay.
But.
I'm a single.
Great performance.
She to me was the most natural within the character.
Yeah.
It didn't seem like he was, where it, it did feel like overreach at all.
Right.
But scripting her in SD.
They're in the roles, but she seems most comfortable in a non-leading role, but that hasn't
been playing that role for years and years.
It didn't feel like she was acting.
Right.
Yeah.
Everything very natural with her.
And her chemistry with scripting her, I thought, was very, very good.
Yeah.
It was palpable.
You could, you could feel it.
And also great turns by, uh, Gaten Scott and Don Noble playing, Henri, as parents.
Very, very funny, very, and some of the great reveals in this thing that keep the story
moving to eight.
Well, I think I'm really presbyed with the sense of how they transitioned in that backdrop.
I thought, what do you call that thing that's screened a bit?
Which is the projection screen.
The projection.
But yeah, that really, they went from location to location very well.
I thought.
It's very innovative.
Not opening the opening shot alone, where they go from the fall of the third
right to the, the French flag.
That was dope.
That was like, well, yeah, I mean, that was the beginning.
That's your, that's your first reveal in this production.
And you're like, this is how this thing's going to start.
Gosh, when we go, the props look like they could have been used in the film because
they aged them so well.
Mm-hmm.
I think I've seen where she's so perfume.
That looked real.
Oh, beautifully done.
Where she, yeah, where he goes to tell her, look, they're making a, they're making a ballet
about you.
You get to quit your job.
That whole number was incredibly well choreographed.
And when you can do a 10 to 15, well, you would you say, Don,
17 minutes at the end, you don't say a word.
And you've got, you can hear a pin drop in that musical.
That's brave.
It's brave.
It's bold and it works.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I heard people drawing their breath on several occasions.
This, this, the Sarah S.D. as, and her sister Lee Ann, are some of the most accomplished
dancers I've seen since Miss D. Copeland.
It's, it's, it's, it's beautiful to watch.
If you have any appreciation for any, any dance and any former interpretation, these women
make it look, actually no, they don't make it look easy.
They just make it look effortless for them.
I'd for a list for them.
That's well-plot.
Is there anything else we wanted to, do, to further discuss before we do the final analysis?
I mean, I mean, the tradition on the show is we're going to do it.
We got to do it.
All right.
Here's how this works.
We're not going to give you thumbs-up thumbs down, letter grades, numbers.
We're not going to give you, you know, flags.
Nothing like that.
French fries.
Mm-hmm.
French fries.
And ketchup.
Not my mayonnaise.
The way this works is we're going to ask two questions.
Question number one is would you see this production again?
If the answer is no, then we're done here.
The answer is yes.
Since this is a stage production, our rankings are a little bit different.
I want to know because the empire wants to know.
Where do you want to sit?
That dictates how much you want to see this again.
Donna, I'm going to start with you.
Would you see this again?
Yep.
Where do you want to sit?
Let's say it balcony.
You know, because I would say I want to get view of everything, maybe write below average
for you.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's three hours almost with the intervention.
You know, that was my little thing.
But beyond that, I mean, I want to sit back because I want to be able to look up and
see the sets in that backdrop.
That's fair.
You know, that's why.
That's my big thing.
I want to be a book and back.
Chad, do you want to see this again?
God.
Yes.
Were you sitting?
Love to where we were.
Can't complain at all, but I wouldn't mind being a little closer to the center
so I could take in the entire, you know, the entire set because there are some parts
of it.
I just couldn't quite see.
But I would love to see this again.
I want to sit dead center, maybe four rows from the walk across aisle.
Yeah.
For sure me, beautifully beautiful position, just to be right there.
So I can take it all in.
And by the way, if you, even if you're not a wrestling fan, listen to the opening five
to 10 minutes of our last episode episode, season seven episode 28, we're because what we
did is we talked about the announcement of DSM's new season and you want to go back.
If you don't know what's coming up over the next two to three years with DSM, they rolled
out a huge announcement that I couldn't get to my phone fast enough to text these two
gentlemen.
Go did you guys really?
Yeah, it texted me.
I did text you.
Go eat it.
Man, I got them three, but I did.
Okay.
Oh, well.
But no, I saw two.
I'm like, oh.
Yeah.
DSM bringing it.
Oh, man.
You ain't even.
That's just it.
The art scene in Dallas over the next couple of years, bringing it.
There has probably not been a better time to be alive and a fan of the arts in this
town than right now.
It is an American in Paris, the stage musical.
For the other thing, we got to think, Francisco, and everybody at DSM, we love you guys.
You guys are doing so, you guys treat us so well.
We're looking forward to seeing you guys very, very soon of a couple of big events that
we're going to help out with DSM this year and a couple more coming up real soon.
And support the arts people, support the arts.
This is going to be playing at Dallas, at Fair Park musical from now until February
the 12th, it's a nationwide tour.
If you miss this, you're going to be kicking yourself for days.
Yeah, it goes to Fort Worth after at least here.
So it goes to the best.
People are going to stay in an opportunity.
People in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, you've got plenty of opportunity to see this.
Yes.
So for the next couple months, they go about, yeah, anybody that's cut that hears this
no matter where you are in the world, it this comes anywhere near you book this ticket.
You will not regret it.
Let's do the plugs.
Let's do it.
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We're going to mention it again.
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Follow me if you'd like.
Pick me feel better about myself.
All of my social media is yes to that Rob Irvin that is spelled ERV-I-N.
I am at Chad in VG69 on Twitter.
I'm at Bond.
Don't go in.
You can email me at Dalin at the Clubhouse Podcasts.
Back home.
Email Dalin for information on how we can come to a live show like we've done for DSM.
We love those guys.
Love doing live shows.
You can email me if you'd like questions, comments, concerns, somebody to go
to www.theclubhousepodcast.com, I am Chad in the Clubhousepodcast.com.
Sherlock Parker is on Pinterest and verdicts from Jewelswama, who was there with us last night.
She was just as enthusiastic as we were.
Our normal show is every Sunday night, 7 Eastern, 4 Pacific, your one-stop shop for all
things pop culture.
Or, you can just keep subscribing on your favorite podcasting app and you get to hear
us talk about this stuff too, because that's how we get down.
So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is close, Brittany Palmer, ballet shoes, come on, get it done.