iTunes Exclusive Episode Hood

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Did you get that out of both channels when I said that?
Okay, some's gone wrong with my headphones, I guess.
My name is Rob.
No, it's fine now.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast where fighting through some technical issues
today because we do it for you.
And a little bow and arrow every once in a while.
I mean, just as long as there's nobody in front of me because that's just dangerous.
I'm just saying.
Well, I'm not alone for this particular episode joining me across the desk as he does
is my co-host and a man who's probably a lot better at archery than I am just on general
principle.
He is chat.
Welcome, sir.
Have your headphones failed this podcast.
No, my headphones are failing this podcast, but it was weird because I could hear
myself out of both sides, but the echo only came out on one side.
So if I do this, that's, that's, yeah, okay, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, I only get it in the right.
That's weird.
I don't know what's going on there.
It's fixed that.
I heard it, but I only got the echo on one side, so yeah, I see what you're definitely
going to have to fix that.
So.
And I don't know why to do that.
We just won't be using it very often.
We're a whole person.
All right.
Hecky, what's this we used up for you, the other one that you just said.
I am the technical director too.
Go figure.
Whatever we do one of these, this is our 303rd one of these.
Whatever we do one, it is to review something.
This is no exception to that rule.
A brand new, and when I say brand new, I mean brand new world premier musical has
joined us in our fairburg.
It is called hood, and we want to take just a moment and thank everybody at the AT&T
Performing Arts Center, Katherine, everybody over at the Wiley Theater for having us out
for this.
Check this out.
Don is out on assignment, so he could not make it.
So we went ahead and wouldn't saw this, so we could tell everybody about it.
By the way, sold out shell.
Yeah, the place was packed.
Sold out shell, literally on this deal.
So we're excited to tell you all about it.
It's a musical tale of Robinhood, which has been tried before.
More than once.
I mean, do we need to go any further than that?
It's a musical about the story of Robinhood.
And if you don't know the story of Robinhood, first of all, welcome back from the cave.
He's still from the right.
She gives it to the poor.
He wants to save his lady love from the evil sheriff of nodding ham.
And he hails from the same nick of the wizard my wife does.
So there you go.
So that's kind of cool.
And you know why?
Don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't
because it's not like that for like it.
No, they really don't.
Well, one of them actually is.
Thank you ESPN.
ESPN agrees with me.
Just saying.
ESPN is a little bit of a throwing of lies.
The world premiere, they've been having rehearsals for probably about a week before we saw
this thing.
If there were any technical difficulties, I sure as heck didn't see it.
No.
This was strong.
It really was.
I didn't know really what to expect going into this because we knew it was a musical
and it was about Robinhood.
But I mean, that's really all we knew about this.
We couldn't go any further into it.
I knew that it was a musical about Robinhood.
And there was puppetry elements involved.
See, I didn't even know that.
Yeah, I remember that in the press release.
Now, when you, if you want to click that one more time.
OK.
If you live locally, which we do, and you see the TV spots for this, you would swear you
were about to see a spin off with Oliver Queen in it, but it's, you have failed this
force.
Which he never said.
Which kind of bums me out.
But given his, the way he appears physically, the way he's dressed, it really
wouldn't have worked.
But you, you have a naive notion of what you're about to experience.
And I know that you and I discussed this at length while we were there.
There are so many elements of Robinhood's past that we are fond of for better for worse.
You know, all kinds of references are made.
There's a really cool intro to this that I'm not going to spoil.
Just even when you walk in, the way they set up the quote unquote curtain is cool.
And it is the explanation of that curtain that the cast starts to do, that is the thing
that I won't spoil it.
And the curtain itself, I mean, it's a conversation piece.
Because when you and I sat down, OK, there's that.
OK, this is over here.
I'll look at it.
And all of a sudden, the thing starts.
And it's still not what you expected, so the way I see this.
And I mean this in the highest complimentary sense.
And I think you'll get where I'm going when I say this.
If you lived in a small town and that small town was going to do a Robinhood musical with
the people in the small town, that's what this is.
And I think it's that way intentionally.
It is that way unapologetically.
And it's brilliant.
Yeah.
Point out to you when we saw the nights when Prince John's nights came out and we were
looking at their chain mail.
And I went, are those bottles?
OK.
It's kind of like, and the set looks like you're in a barn, basically.
It comes off as very Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland today.
Let's put on a show, everybody.
And it works.
And it does.
It works incredibly well.
It's part of the charm of the thing.
I agree with you.
This is so much fun.
It's a, you start off in a felt a little hokey in the beginning.
But then when you realize, that's what it's supposed to be.
Yeah.
It's very, how would you say it?
It settles.
Once you settle into that, you settle into it quickly.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say it's self-deprecating, but it's on a certain level at kind of it.
It knows what it is.
And it doesn't attempt to take itself seriously at all.
And I think the most obvious question that you have to ask when you see this is fourth
wall, what fourth wall.
This is the deadpool of Robin.
I just want to know without, without all of its deadpoolness.
I want to know how many times this cast had to go through this script and could get through
without laughing.
Because even some of the stuff they do, you know that, I've got to fight this off.
It's, like the cast of SNL could not pull this off.
I'm just saying no, there's a chasing.
It's very muddy Python-esque in this.
That's putting it lightly.
That I was like, you know, it just can end right now when I'm happy.
And what I was like putting it lightly again in the highest complimentary way possible.
It was brilliantly done.
It's, it's so simplistic, but when you see, you're like, okay, that's just damn funny.
There's a live band-on stage, a sharp one, a great live band-on stage, that a couple
of them have little cameos that if you're not paying close enough attention, you
don't realize that's who they are.
Yeah, yeah.
Which I think is kind of neat.
And let's talk about this cast, you know, Robin or Robert of Luxeley, Nick Bailey, very,
very, very funny, very engaging, sells the bit very well.
For me, I was a huge fan of Ashley Park playing, made Marion.
Yes, yes, as was I.
What I loved about her portrayal of it and the way the character was written is, is she
a damsel in distress?
It's technically yes, but she's got her own thing going on that you know that she's
not just a damsel in distress.
She's got a head on her shoulders and she knows what she's doing.
She's a damsel in distress as, and as much as Princess Leia was a damsel in distress.
You know, that's a fair point.
She needed rescue, but she doesn't necessarily need your help.
And you don't, we don't back down from a Star Wars reference show, so yeah, no, I think
that's a perfect representation or like a Dale Arden almost.
Yeah.
If you want to go a little bit deeper.
She was a little bit more of a shrieking pilot, but but this girl, nah, very, I don't
know that there's a member of this cast that I didn't enjoy.
They all were supposed to get a raven wood in a Dale Arden.
Oh, very nice to see what you did there.
I really and everybody I felt was cast well.
Um, I know you want to get to Jacob and weld more.
Yeah, or Woodmore.
We'll scarle it.
How do you even talk about this without spoiling it?
It's my whole thing with this.
How do you even talk about this character?
And because we stay spoiler free as much as we can on this show.
I can't talk about this character and not spoil it.
So I'm just going to go ahead and say, be ready.
That's all I can tell you is be ready for this performance.
Because you, you will not see it coming.
You will not see it coming.
And when it happens, you'll know that it's happening.
What did I say to you somewhere Christian Slayer just all of a sudden went?
I feel weird.
I'm going on that.
I mean, he jumped into that row with both.
And it is brilliant and there's, there's not a lot of scenery change.
They do all the scenery really themselves.
That's what I said, you got to film you were watching it in a barn.
Yeah, it's like a hunting lot.
But it a really good way.
It doesn't feel bushly or anything.
It feels, it's done really, really well.
And these are the same people that brought us moonshine last year.
And it did have that kind of saying feel to it from a framework standpoint.
Yeah.
That you didn't have to do a lot of scenery change.
Most of the scenery was done by the cast themselves, especially when you're opening
act too.
Yeah.
And we're bathing.
All I'm saying, this is so much fun.
You really see that the talent on display here, like you were mentioning some of the
players are actually part of the band on stage.
You'll see them kind of weave in and out.
Beth Lipton's really impressive in playing both sides of that fence, Lady Anne.
Oh, yeah, it says this, yes.
But Meg, Alicia Humphress, good, God, and heaven.
How you doing?
That woman's a powerhouse.
She's great.
I want to say, isn't the guy that played Will Scarlet the same person that played
the couple in the carriage?
Oh, yes.
Oh, absolutely.
Oh, the very first people that the ones rob it, rob it, obnoxly becomes Robin Hood.
The first carriage he approaches.
The second is, I think it's, I think it's the first time.
That's the first time.
Because remember they all explain what their bits are.
And then they all do their bits when the carriage pulls out.
Right.
What Woodmore does in that, because he plays both the husband and the wife in the
carriage, you were half expecting all cried out to kick on.
I was like, well, I'm done, but I am spent right now.
And that was what the 20 minute mark.
And you're like, man, I hope it's not the last we see of that guy.
Yeah, it ain't really, really buzzing.
And Austin Scott, channeling his best Alan Rickman as the sheriff of
not.
I was ready for him to cancel Christmas.
I'm just saying.
He was, he played that role with a lot of relish.
It's just everybody.
And again, in a good way.
Because you go to certain musicals and you can tell people are just like, dude, I'm
just doing this because I have to do it.
Right.
When you watch this, you watch this and people, you go people are like, I'm doing this
because I love this and I'm doing this because I love them at cereal.
It's the labor of love from everybody.
And they did, like, all around.
You can tell the love that went into the set design, which a couple of set pieces
that moved were a little surprising to me.
Yeah.
The movement, the choreography, especially, I can't get over that chasing.
Just overall, not just the money Python asked part of it.
And it's quite simplistic, but it's brilliant in its execution.
The slow motion.
The slow motion that they incorporate into some of the fight sequence.
Yeah.
You're watching something from the matrix.
They utilize live action bullet time.
So just peek.
And we haven't even gotten in.
We mentioned something you mentioned earlier, the puppetry.
Prince John has a puppet.
Some of the older people in the village are the best.
Yeah, the bishop.
Oh, I gotta say is, big gulp, huh?
Well, see you later.
Never have I wanted Andrew to be a part of the audience.
Or I just somebody to say that, just like that.
Big gulp, huh?
See you later.
That's why you can't let me write these things because I would do this all day long.
You go off.
I would hate a modern day Zucker Brothers.
But that kind of homemade look to some of the people, made it that much more
for lack of a better turn casual.
Yeah.
Well, the whole barnyard.
Yes.
Play aesthetic that we're talking about.
I mean, it's obvious what they were going with.
They wanted this thing to, you know, there are parts of it that look like they
spent quite a bit on the wardrobe budget and there were parts of it where it could
you cut out into a convenient store and give me a couple of this and a couple of that.
I'm purpose.
Yeah.
It didn't look like it was a budgetary.
Like this was done this way intentional and proliferate.
And it's done in an obvious manner that you know that that's the bit because it doesn't
come off as cheap, it just comes off as clever and it's funny.
Yeah.
That was, that was my favorite thing is how funny this was.
You know, I thought that when we saw something rotten, I was like, okay, all right,
you got me, this is in that ballpark of on the level of funny.
I mean, it's, it's not quite as polished as something rotten.
There's a couple of rough edges here and there.
But that, that'll take care of what time.
Yeah.
Because again, this is, this is, yeah, it's, yeah, it's like, no, it's to be, it's to be expected
that there's, there's a couple little bumps in the road.
But it's nothing that will take you out of it completely.
I mean, you could see that there's still kind of, they're still trying to become completely
aware of the space that they're in.
And I would love to see this thing come back.
Well, once it's maybe hit the road and, and, and, and, and gone and played other venues.
Oh, absolutely.
And then come back here and see how much how much it's evolved and how it's changed.
But I'd hate to imagine that anybody in the cast would have been replaced because they're
all great.
I've, I've already feel some sort of an attachment to everybody involved in this thing.
All right, anything else we're going to do for you to finalize now, this, let's
let's break this down.
I don't even do the final analysis on this show.
We're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down.
We're not going to give you letter grades, numbers, arrows, which by the way, look around
the theater, there are arrows and speakers, that's all I'm saying, which I didn't even pick
up on.
Uh, we're going to ask two questions.
Question number one, is would you see this production again at the answer is no, we're
done here.
The answer is yes, then we have a secondary question, which is, for a stage production,
where are you willing to sit because that's going to dictate how much you want to see
it again because the closer you sit, the more you pay.
Chad, would you see this again?
Oh, yeah.
How far do you want to go?
I loved where we were.
We were like on the, on the front row, we were, is that stage that's audience left, right?
It's, it's, it's, on the, on the theater kid, I never get to spray.
According to the ticket, it's orchestras, uh, orchestra, orchestra left.
Yeah.
Uh, but being down front, wouldn't suck because, you know, there are certain things
that we're going on just, just shy of the wings on the left side that we couldn't
see that, you know, we were just slightly obstructed from you.
So I would, I would like to be dead center as close as humanly possible.
So I'd pay top dollar to see this again in other words.
I agree with you.
I really would see this again.
Uh, again, this is one of those just getting the building because that's what's, uh, unique
about the widely, especially in the bigger theater where we saw this, uh, there's not
a bad seat in the whole place.
No.
And this has got a heck of a run to it.
This up, apparently in my house agrees.
This is running to August the sixth.
Wow.
So we've got plenty of time to see this.
I don't care what you have to do get in the room to see this.
We cannot thank everybody at the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Katherine, everybody at the
Wiley.
We cannot thank you guys enough for letting us come see this so that we can share with
the empire our thoughts on hood, the Robin Hood musical adventure.
Shall we do the plugs?
Let's do it.
All right.
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Show the parkers on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.
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Wish she could have been with us because I know she would have enjoyed it.
Yes.
Yes.
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Clubhouse is closed and if you need an understudy for made Marion, might I see just
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I'm just saying it's kind of how I roll.