Julia Murney Takes Spelling to the Cape!

0:00Hi y'all, this is Kristen Chenowick. Hi, I'm Gloria Saffon. This is Sarah Burowis. Hi, I'm Patty LePone. This is Lynn Menwar Miranda. You're listening to the Broadway podcast network. Are you ready? It's the round table with me, Robert Vannon. Well, hello everybody. This is the round table. My name is Robert Vannon. You're listening to some Broadway world of Broadway podcast network. IHR Spotify, wherever artists talk about art. I don't think I've known our next guest since I'm... I mean, have you ever seen her of the Wild Party by Andrew Lippa? Have you ever listened to that? If you did, you will never have forgotten her. Her voice is incredible. She's worn green a lot. She's flown around Broadway in this country. She's done a bunch. I saw her in between the lines. So great. Voice singing down and around. And now she's up in the cape, back in the cape. After her run in Gypsy. And now she gets to be put on a spelling bee.

1:01You do a little memory. Welcome to the round table. Thank you. I've seen you on stage. I've watched you on YouTube videos of people secretly recording your incredible voice. It's so nice to have you here. It's so nice to be here with you in... Well, not really in the flesh because... Here we are. You know, I've been yelled at. But in the flesh-ish. Ish. Verge. Yes. It's here there. Was it Basin? I don't know. There you go. I've been yelled at all summer long by all of your cast made Claiborne and the people who've done the shows before you that I've never been to the cape. I've never been to P-town. I've... And I'm a gay. I've never been to the cape. Well, that card is getting revoked very soon. I'm not saying. That's it. What is going on? What's it like there? Well, I am going very, very soon. Because we have a day off coming up. And so, now, understand the...

2:01I would say, let's see. The gentleman in my company who are also going are going to have potentially a very different experience than I am going to have. And that's beautiful. That's a beautiful thing. It's very lovely. I love the cape. My college boyfriend was from down the road from where I am right now. So... And my parents are both new Englanders. So, I've spent some time here and have several friends who have houses out here, which is glorious. And it's... I cannot recommend it. Where are you at? Where are you now? Are you in New York? Oh, minute. I'm... Okay. So, this is complicated. I'm right now I'm in Detroit. My husband's from Detroit. So, we go from Detroit to New Jersey. New Jersey? That's a very common commute. I've heard about that commute a lot. Yeah. But... Is it a city? Where are you from originally? Fortly, New Jersey. Okay, girl, then there's no reason for you not to have come to me. There's... I've never been to fire.

3:02I've never been to pizza. I've been to Palm trees. Do you hate freedom or... I love... You know... I'm not a prude. I just, you know... I'm gonna say... I'm sure this is not what you wanted to discuss. I came out late in the life. Juliet. I feel like I gotta give you my insurance information. I'm so glad you did. I'm so glad. And I'm married to a beautiful husband. Here's the thing. And you have a husband. Yes. I've been straight my whole life and I don't have a husband. So get it done. Robert, you understand what I'm saying? Okay. Where have you been my whole life? Yeah. Where have you been? So the cape, my uncle, Bob. Hi, Uncle Bob. My uncle Bob. I was just down the shore with my uncle Bob. And he is a straight man. And he went to the cape and has gone to the cape forever. He might have been the only straight man at the Audre McDonald concert in P-town. He might have been the only one. And I told him. I saw this Broadway lady sing. And she was doing a show and she was very good.

4:02I said, what's her name? He said Audre McDonald. I said, um, yes. Like this is new to you. Okay. Besides the point, he says it's gorgeous. So people, everybody can be vacationing and having a good time in the cape and go to the cape playhouse. Please go to the cape playhouse. And then I mean, if you came to see spelling bee, for example, I'm just saying 25th annual Putton County spelling bee running through September 19th, you it's going to take a two whole hours out of your day or evening. That's it. And I believe if I may say so, you will be wildly entertained, and tickled, and maybe a little moved. And then you just get to keep vacationing on the cape. If you gentlemen in Provincetown are hearing this, you know it's but an hour's drive. It is but an hour's drive. You can get down and the shows at the evenings are at 730. It's done at 930. You can ski dad along back and go out and party.

5:02See that's the thing. I want to see a show and have one have dinner with you. And then I want to go home and be in my bed by 11 o'clock. I think that's fair. So I think this is the perfect night because if you want to start the night and party it up, you go to the show and then you're free to go out. If you want to have dinner at 5 o'clock and then go see the show, bring your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, friend, dog cat, grandma, whomever. This show has a little bit of something for everyone. Why did you say yes? Why did you feel like making a fun? And the world is on fire. That's exactly why. That's exactly why I said yes. Because Claiborne Elder, who is our director, and his husband, Eric Rosen, who is the artistic director of the Cape Playhouse, I have known a very long time. They used to live in my building. I sang at their wedding. And yeah. And so when this opportunity came up, I was like, oh my god, I get to go back to the Cape. I get to go back to the Cape. And it's just it's wonderful. The stuff that Eric has done. He's been there, I think, three years now as artistic director.

6:06The Playhouse looks gorgeous. And Cla is just the best. I have to say the Assemblance. Is that a word? It is now. I'm saying it. The Assemblance of the cast and the creatives, Jeffrey, our choreographer, Anna, our music director. And this cast is like, is just, am I allowed to curse on this? Yes. God damn delight. They're a god damn delight. It's what a god damn delight. You know, they're stars. And then there's new and up and coming future stars. And everybody is converged together to make just joy. It's that's and that's why I said yes. Because what else was I going to do? Sit on my couch and I won't get into it. You know, watch nonsense and blowviating and feel devastated by everything. No, I would rather go spread joy and love. Otherwise, I'm just going to eat pizza and cry. That's right. Oh, let's be clear.

7:06I'm still eating pizza and still sometimes crying just for fun. But I also get to do the show. So what? Are you from New York? Yes. Because you went to LaGuardia. I did. I said to some reason. There's a little threat of decency to this show. Minor. So you went to LaGuardia. Why? What did you see? What was it that moved you to say? Did someone tell you you had a voice? Or did you? It wasn't me. It wasn't me. No. In my junior high, I was 44. I mean, I grew up in Manhattan. And the choir teacher at IS-44, a bunch of my friends in sixth grade, when we all moved from the elementary school to the junior high, we're like, we're going to do choir. And I was like, oh, OK. I had no, I mean, I liked to sing. The way a kid likes to sing, sort of, in my dad's and actor. So it was a very familiar notion to me, the whole thing. But and Miss Morris, Josephine Morris,

8:07she was the choir director. And she was extraordinary. And she challenged us really hard. We sang songs in other languages. And we were a bunch of just like Yahoo's in a public junior high. But she challenged us and also would play and give us free rain. And she was disciplined, disciplinarian, for sure. And one of the smartest smart things that she knew how to do was that, in terms of auditioning for LaGuardia, she made us all sing a song from this book called 24 Italian Songs and Arias, where I think the majority of the eighth graders who are auditioning to be vocal majors at LaGuardia are singing pop or Broadway tunes. And we walked in singing Italian. And that book is sort of like, at least at the time, I don't know about anymore. But at the time, it was like the the Bible of the voice majors at LaGuardia. And so she was using her noggin.

9:08Because it's not like every the the student body there is so large that I think a lot of the acceptance rate is sort of, oh, you can carry a tune. Great, come on in. You know, it's a public school. And and a bunch of us got to go there. It felt like because of her. And that I never did a show musical rather until a summer after my freshman year, I went to a summer camp called Stage Door Manor. That is, do you know the movie camp? Yes. It's that's the that's the that's stage store. It's made by a station grad, grad, and I and I basically went there under protest. My parents were just I wasn't old enough to work at a regular job. And my parents like, you cannot hang around the city again. They put all the names in a hat and pulled one and that's where I went. And and it totally changed my life.

10:08And the first show I ever did was at that camp. It was very appropriately a pause. Sure, yes, yes. I was I was third chorus dancer from the left. And I thought it was was a thrill. And there's actually this year is Stage Door's 50th anniversary. And they're doing it and a lot of Mucky Mucks have also attended there. And they're doing a big concert at Town Hall in September, something or other. I'm singing in it. I don't even know when it is. Yes, you are. That's professional of me. I don't know when you're perfect here then. Hopefully I'll show up. But yeah. And then the movie. People should see the movie. Can Nathan Lee Graham is so funny and can't both see the movie. Yeah. And the only musical I did in high school proper. They only did one my whole four years. It was my senior year. Another very appropriate show. It was Follies. A show about older people looking back on their lives.

11:11High school. Yeah, I sang I'm still here. I was 17. So. Look, at least your parents were in this business. I wanted to be an actor and a singer. And I begged my parents to take me in audition from New Jersey to New York. And they took me to the Boy's Harbor Conservatory. And the show was ain't misbehaving. Which apparently there's no role for me in it. Oh, sugarplum. There is not. Well, my parents were lost in the sauce. They had no idea. They had no idea. So. So for you. Didn't get the part, by the way. For you. When when you. I'm not for you that you didn't. Thank God. Thank God. So when you when you when you decided to go to Syracuse and you went to school. When why when did you fall in love with fear? You only got to do one show in high school. So was theater always the goal? It was staged or honestly going to that. Because I did I went there two summers. I did. All the shows then five shows, maybe total. And um. And then. I mean, I wasn't like.

12:14I knew especially from that camp. There were a lot of campers there who had headshots and managers and agents. And like some of them had been on. I was very appropriately all my shows were very appropriate as a child. I was definitely Anita in West Side Story. Hey. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And my my Maria had been one of the orphans in Annie on Broadway. She basically belted Maria and it was amazing. But I also recently discovered. Shayna Taube. Everyone's favorite Tony winner at least mine. She came to see Spelling Bee and we were chatting. And I went, are you a staged or girly? Because there are some 50 years and you know, if you didn't fall at the same time and she is, we discovered we both played Anita. There is nothing that's correct about that. So. Apologies to all. It was a different time.

13:15It was a different time. Yeah, so luckily it was a time before video. So you know, it was, you know, horse carriages and gas lamps. So we were fine. It was not Julia. When you when you make it and go back to New York, I'm assuming. And now you're going to start hitting the pavement. Is there a relief? Do you remember the first real, real job like the first, I mean, you've got the nominations and stuff of you. You've done a lot of work before Broadway. I believe if I'm not right. Before Broadway proper. Yeah. Yes. Most of them are it's not been Broadway. Most of my work is off or off. What's it like to get that call where you know, there's a lot of, there's doubt like, am I going to make it? Am I good enough? Am I going to or maybe there was no doubt you were hell bent and let's go. No, there's, there's doubt right now. What time is that? Of course. There's doubt right now. And I get to do a show in a few hours and it's still doubt. Can you explain that because I think people think I said once that this is the only business where I think where the the mountain keeps growing.

14:16So maybe you want, I'm on a book of off-Broadway show. I want a book of regional show. I want a book of tour. I want a book Broadway. Then you, but I want to be the lead. I'm Broadway. I want to be original. I'm Broadway. I want it. The goals keep going. It's never like I'm a plumber and I'm just going to go to work today. Here's, here's my, my analogy for it. You can stand at a pond and you can see all of these beautiful lily pads spread out in the pond. And each lily pad could represent something that's meant a lot to you or an achievement inside of this business. However, you want to define those things. And then if you decide and they're beautiful and they can make you feel really good. And then if you decide, oh, I need to get to the other side of the pond. And you decide to take all the lily pads and stack them up so you can step on them to, you know, get over to the other side. They will sink under your foot. They are not solid. They are not, they're not, it's not that they're not real. But they're not, um, finite and they're not rock.

15:17And that is just what it is. And as much as I can impart that to somebody younger or whatever or someone who's asking for advice, it's advice I have to consistently remind myself of too. I mean, the older I get the more I, I can bounce and also be like, all right, fine. That's okay. That was not for me or whatever it is. But it's, it's definitely obviously getting the call of like, it's yours is far better than the call that's like, so it's not going to go any further. And you're like, and that happens. The, the latter happens much more often than the former, no matter who you are, no matter who you are. And, and you could talk to anyone. And I guarantee like whoever your favorite is, I guarantee you, they will tell you a version

16:18of the same thing. Absolutely. I think that's such incredible truth. And that's what's incredible about what you do. And then people, when they come to see you is because all of the hard work, aside from the blood sweat and tears truly, every single night, there'll be a thousand plus people that are going to go see your show tonight. And they're, they've saved their money and they've bought their tickets and they're going to be entertained and enjoyed. And I, and I hope you realize the gift you give us and we owe you a thank you. Thank you to be fair, it will not be a thousand plus people. This is a sweet little play. Okay. But you're right. But, but I will say to that, and I am so, I can't believe, for example, with this show, when I was learning it, the, I love you song. I don't know if you know the show. Yeah. Sure. I mean, I had only seen the show twice. I'd seen it on Broadway originally and I'd saw the revival that's happening right now. And, um, and I didn't know it super well, but listening to the, I love you song again with

17:19my sweet Celia singing. And, um, I was, oh my god, I can't believe I get to sing this song. Now, would I have also enjoyed getting to sing it in New York? Sure. But turns out there is a revival of it happening right now and they're closing. And so there is no room for me to be like, oh, could I throw my hat in the ring for that? But at least I get to do it. Yeah. And yes, it's not on Broadway. Broadway is lovely. Broadway is awesome. Broadway is capitalism with jazz hands. And that's the bottom line. And I find as soon as you, the more you understand that, the more you can be like, okay, so that's what that is. But I have had the opportunity. I got to play mother in rack time. I got to play Rose in Gypsy. I get you know, like, would anyone have ever let me do that on Broadway? I don't know. Probably not, but I got to do it. They should. No, I mean, but like that's a whole other, you know, like, it's just

18:24but you did it. Yeah. When I came to Detroit, what moved me growing up like you, very close, I was across the bridge in New Jersey and you were in New York, is that I took for granted the arts at my fingertips. When people go to vacation at the Cape, or when I come to Detroit and I go to the Fisher Theater and the show rolls in, that's the only show in town. There are people who love art and culture. But when you do what you do there, everyone around the world deserves art. Everyone around the world deserves to experience live music and theater. I'm 100% 100%. Absolutely so. And I mean, the thrill, when I toured with Wicked, it was the first time the show was hitting any of the cities it was hitting because it was so long ago. And I mean, those audiences were banana pants and those theaters are easily twice the size of any Broadway theater. So it's so many people and they're screaming like, Taylor Swift is on stage, not Taylor Swift. But they've been born then. But you know what I mean?

19:28It's really exciting and it's exciting to feel their excitement. That is, you hit a very good point, that's especially very true when you're dealing with tours or regional singers or summer stocks. It's just that people, for example, yesterday we had two shows and it was a gorgeous day. And in between shows, if you've just went to have lobster rolls over, over at some like picnic tables by the water, it was delightful. And this lovely gentleman came over at one point and he was like, I don't want to intrude, but my wife and I just saw the show this afternoon and we just loved it so much. And he was very, very sweet. And they chose to take, let's say two and a half hours, whatever out of a gorgeous day to come inside. And they did. And that's not lost on us that they chose to do that.

20:32And it's, so we better try our damnedest to give them something. You're going to give them something in a few minutes and hours and give them something into a September as the summer closes. This is the perfect place and time. It's a great time to go up there because it is beautiful. The weather is getting a little, a little, it's still gorgeous and hot. And it's perfect right now. It's perfect. It's perfect. I love this show. I love that this theater keeps ticket prices affordable. I love that this ticket makes it a mission to be able to 100 years next year. Their season and they've been here for 100 years and keep art and culture in the cap alive. And I love that you are spreading the look. If you have to listen to our album, everybody, listen to her voice, listen to her music, go back in the archives, find the music in the song, search her name, listen to one of the best voices to ever hit the stages here in New York and around this country. That is huge, Julia. And we really, we're so lucky to be able to spend time with you. Thank you, Robert. You are very sweet. I'll pay you later. Thank you. I have them,

21:36Ozil. Okay, wonderful. You got to get your tickets, everybody. Make sure you see this. And you're my kind of people. You're a good time. I try my best. We were we were we were a mess. We were a messy fun. The best interviews are the ones who come to play and you are you are on my team, girl. Let's go. Let's go. Follow her. Stay up to date to see what's up with this and then what else is up her sleeve. And when she's in concert, if she's doing a symphony gig, if she's back on stage, make sure you do not miss a moment with you, Julia. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Hey there. I'm Alan Seale, host of The Theater Podcast, a weekly podcast that takes you behind the scenes with intimate personal conversations that include the biggest stars on Broadway, TV and film. My podcast is over 350 episodes with guests including Stephanie J. Block,

22:39Carrie Butler, James Monroe, Eigelhart, Andrew Barthfeldman, Alex Brightman, Paddy Lapone, Rameen Caramlou, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and even TV stars like Isaac Bizrahi, Ariana Maddox, Michael Yurrie, Eddie Isard, and literally so, so many more. My guests have spilled secrets, told coming out stories, discussed their fears and successes, and even had huge epiphanies live in the episodes. So you're bound to hear some things from my guests that you've never heard anywhere else. I've also got many deep dive takeovers on the podcast, which are consecutive episodes dedicated to cast and creatives from a single show. Like the outsiders, back to the future, and Julia, Wicked, Beetlejuice, Hades Town, Frozen, six. I could go on. Can you tell I like theater? I've definitely got something you're going to enjoy. So go ahead, search for your favorite star and listen to their episode. You can find all the info about the podcast at bpn.fm slash ttp on the Broadway podcast network or anywhere podcasts are found. If you need that leak again, it's bpn.fm slash ttp. Take your deep breaths, make the world a little colorful.