BACK ISSUE
In Our Theater Kid Era
On a very special episode of Back Issue, our beloved host Josh Gwynn comes down with a mysterious illness. He cannot stop breaking out into song! Alongside guest host and Real Doctor, Matt Bellassai, Josh takes a journey through the world of musical theater. When did it become so central to the zeitgeist? Why do we inevitably cry at the song before intermission? Can Lea Michele read? And along the way, with the help of special guests, Josh will try to diagnose his ailment.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Back Issue Intro: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross. Ho, but make it fashion. I don't get no sleep because of y'all. It's Britney, bitch. We were rooting for you, Tiffany. We were all rooting for you. But I ain’t one to gossip… Who said that?
Josh Gwynn: Welcome to the Adele Dazeem Memorial Theater. Please take a moment to silence your cell phones, pagers, babies, hacking coughs, anything that could make noise during the performance. Photography during the show is strictly prohibited. And while we do not actually have police on premises to enforce this rule because fuck 12, we do have Patti LuPone standing by in the wings, ready to berate and humiliate anyone who violates this protocol. Lea Michele, if you are here, we do have ushers on standby who are available to read your playbill aloud to you.
Producer Voice: Can you just... It's going to be Matt-
Josh Gwynn: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Producer Voice: …. Hugh Jackman.
Josh Gwynn: Mm. Got it. Just a casting note. For this evening's performance, the role of co-host will be played tonight by Matt Bellassai, who's standing in for Hugh Jackman. Now sit back, relax and enjoy Back Issue presents In Our Theater Kid Era.
Back Issue Intro: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross. Ho, but make it fashion. I don't get no sleep because of y'all. It's Britney, bitch. We were rooting for you, Tiffany. We were all rooting for you. But I ain’t one to gossip… Who said that?
Josh Gwynn: Welcome to Back Issue, a weekly podcast that revisits formative moments in pop culture that we still think about. This week, call me Rodgers and Hammerstein's Music man because I got 99 problems and 76 trombones. Help. It's a lot of trombones. How am I supposed to carry this many trombones? This week, we're talking about musical theater. I'm Josh Gwynn. Joining me today will be comedian and Dreamgirl scholar, Matt Bellassai, and actual Tony Award-nominated Broadway star, L Morgan Lee.
Announcer Voice: All doctors do the ER.
Josh Gwynn: Hey, I have a 2:30 appointment for a, well, I guess I'm not exactly sure what it is. There's this music that just keeps following me, and it vamps like it's trying to tell me to start singing.
Receptionist: Uh-huh. That sounds really annoying. I hope it's not contagious.
Josh Gwynn: It's really weird because I get this internal push to give in and start singing
Receptionist: Well, I mean, that didn't sound half bad. Still really, really annoying though.
Josh Gwynn: And every few hours, these voices in my head, it's like they're on a PA system and they're telling me to silence my cell phone and stop taking pictures. But it's not in a very live, laugh, love kind of way, you know?
Receptionist: Yeah. You can go wait in the office just up the hall on your left. Room 205.
Matt Bellassai: Hi, Josh. Oh my God, it's so good to see you.
Josh Gwynn: Wait. Matt, you're my doctor?
Matt Bellassai: Yeah, I'm a doctor.
Josh Gwynn: A licensed doctor?
Matt Bellassai: Yes, I am a doctor.
Josh Gwynn: Huh. Okay. Congratulations.
Matt Bellassai: So what seems to be going on here with you?
Josh Gwynn: Dr. Matt, something crazy is happening. I woke up this morning and there was this voice in my head like those PA announcements before a Broadway show.
Matt Bellassai: Like, "Turn off your cell phone," that kind of thing?
Josh Gwynn: Right, right. And the rest of the day has just been so odd. I keep hearing this cheesy music vamp. It feels like there's this harsh spotlight on my face like main character syndrome, but more uncomfortable.
Matt Bellassai: Mm-hmm.
Josh Gwynn: Occasionally, I've been breaking into song.
Matt Bellassai: Yikes. That sounds really uncomfortable for you.
Josh Gwynn: And overall, it's just like the stakes of my day have been so magnified. Every second has this unusual gravitas.
Matt Bellassai: Mm-hmm.
Josh Gwynn: You know what it feels like? It is that moment right before intermission where everyone's songs come together.
Matt Bellassai: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Josh Gwynn: You have the I want song and you have the establishing song, and all of the harmonies melt together into this new song and I cry every single time. That's how I feel in life.
Matt Bellassai: Okay, okay. So it sounds like you've got a classic case of Rodgers and Hammerstitus.
Josh Gwynn: Of what? Of who?
Matt Bellassai: You're trapped inside of a musical, Josh.
Josh Gwynn: I'm what?
Matt Bellassai: Listen, I know the name is scary, but this is totally treatable. So has anything been going on in your life that might've prompted this? Any inciting incidents?
Josh Gwynn: You mean other than the trauma of just being alive?
Matt Bellassai: Right. Other than that.
Josh Gwynn: I guess the proliferation of musical theater as part of the zeitgeist is something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: I just feel like musicals are everywhere right now. I'm thinking of that Lea Michele Funny Girl drama.
CLIP: Lea Michele is causing quite the stir after she was announced she would be replacing Beanie Feldstein in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, taking over the lead as Fanny Brice. This marks Lea's return to the spotlight after facing backlash in 2020 when several of her former castmates came out and accused her of bullying in addition to accusations of racism.
Matt Bellassai: I saw Funny Girl with Beanie Feldstein.
Josh Gwynn: Oh, I'm sorry.
Matt Bellassai: And we left halfway through.
Josh Gwynn: Oh my God. Is it that bad?
Matt Bellassai: I would've stayed till the end, but to be fair, I was with a friend who is a very hardcore Barbara Streisand-
Josh Gwynn: Oh, like purist?
Matt Bellassai: ... fan and purist and defender and insisted that we leave.
Josh Gwynn: Oh.
Matt Bellassai: So my apologies to Beanie. She was just trying her best. But I do want to see it
with Lea Michele.
Josh Gwynn: Is this for my medical chart?
Matt Bellassai: No. I mean, it's just for me. But go on, go on.
Josh Gwynn: I'm afraid I have the same disease, Dr. Matt, as Ariana DeBose at the BAFTAs.
CLIP: (singing) Angela Bassett did the thing, Viola Davis, my Woman King, Blanchett Cate, you’re a genius, Jamie Lee you are all of us
Matt Bellassai: She won the Academy Award last year, right?
Josh Gwynn: Yeah, For Anita in West Side Story.
CLIP: ( West Side Story singing)
Matt Bellassai: I appreciate that she is truly embracing the musicalness of the moment. She could've just been a normal presenter but no, she chose to make it a musical.
Josh Gwynn: Mm-hmm. I just keep ruminating, Matt. I lay down in bed and all I see is that girl with the red beret from the Matilda musical dancing down the hallway.
CLIP: (Matilda singing)
Josh Gwynn: Over and over and over again in my mind.
Matt Bellassai: I can say as a medical professional, the number of people I have seen afflicted with musical-related conditions is on the rise.
Josh Gwynn: Yeah.
Matt Bellassai: I mean, Cats the musical the movie contributed to a lot of psychosis in our country.
CLIP: (Cats singing)
Josh Gwynn: I feel the lines in my brain breaking down because everything was once original and then brought to the stage as a musical version, and now it's being brought back to film as the film version of the musical version, like The Color Purple.
Matt Bellassai: Mm-hmm.
Josh Gwynn: What is going on?
Matt Bellassai: Mean Girls.
Josh Gwynn: Mean Girls.
Matt Bellassai: Mean Girls: The Musical the movie.
CLIP: (Mean Girls singing) My name is Regina George…
Josh Gwynn: The movie musical of the stage musical of the film adaptation of the book.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah, it makes my head hurt.
Josh Gwynn: I try to self-soothe. There are certain times where I find myself at 1:00 in the morning watching Anything Goes, but comparing Sutton Foster's version of Anything Goes-
CLIP: (Sutton Foster singing)
Josh Gwynn: ... to Patti LuPone's version of Anything Goes.
Audio: (Patti Lupone singing)
Josh Gwynn: And just looking at the differences. And damn, Sutton Foster's a good tap dancer.
Matt Bellassai: She's blowing Patti LuPone out of the water.
Josh Gwynn: Well hey, LuPone's is the one you will go to if you want a vocal performance.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah, and if you want to be verbally abused.
CLIP: (singing) Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop taking pictures right now. You heard the announcements. Who do you think you are?
Matt Bellassai: But love it.
Josh Gwynn: And then it keeps going because I saw Jonathan Graff doing Sutton Foster's version of Anything Goes. Everything's too meta right now. I can't, I can't.
Matt Bellassai: The musical theater world is bleeding out into our real world.
Josh Gwynn: Yeah.
Matt Bellassai: Okay, so all this context, super helpful for me as your doctor. Your condition, I would say it's unusual, but it's not something I've never seen before in all of my years of practicing.
Josh Gwynn: In all your years of... Where did you get your medical license, Matthew?
Matt Bellassai: Just don't worry about it. Okay, what I'm saying is there's precedent here. I'm going to give you a few possibilities of what may be going on with you based on my medical expertise. And from there, we'll try to narrow it down to what the problem might be.
Josh Gwynn: Sounds vaguely scientific. Let's do it.
Matt Bellassai: Okay. Yeah. So typically, the way a doctor like myself would assess someone in your condition is by reviewing some archival texts.
Josh Gwynn: Okay, sure. What kind of texts are we talking about?
Matt Bellassai: Grey's Anatomy, for example.
Josh Gwynn: Okay, like the 19th century reference book on human anatomy.
Matt Bellassai: The what? No, no, no. Not that one. The Shonda Rhimes show.
Josh Gwynn: Did you watch Grey's Anatomy?
Matt Bellassai: Yes.
Josh Gwynn: Okay.
Matt Bellassai: For at least 15, 20 years, but dropped off. Have you seen the episode where Che Diaz, sorry, sorry, Sara Ramirez, they get into a heinous car crash and then they start singing as an angel outside of their own body while doctors try to save both Che Diaz and the life of their unborn child?
Josh Gwynn: No.
Matt Bellassai: And then the rest of the hospital starts singing as well. And it's not really explained, but it's clear that it has something to do with Che Diaz being nearly dead.
CLIP: (singing) Is she breathing? Her... Stimulating suction. And get some access.
Matt Bellassai: Right. So according to this firsthand medical text, we have the cast of Grey's Anatomy performing surgery on Sara Ramirez's character on the table in the operating room. Also, why are all the doctors still wearing their masks if they're singing? We need to see your lips.
Josh Gwynn: I'd rather keep it on. No Valentina, no RuPaul.
CLIP: Take that thing off of your mouth.
CLIP: I'd like to keep it on, please.
Josh Gwynn: You're at the table read and you get the script. And they're like, "It's a musical."
Matt Bellassai: So yeah, this character's going to be on the table lying there, losing their life, and a Glee chorus is going to come in.
CLIP: (Glee singing)
Matt Bellassai: Yeah, so this is not a perfect example because the singing isn't really explained, but it is one source I might look to as I begin the process of diagnosing your condition.
Josh Gwynn: Mm-hmm.
Matt Bellassai: Or do you remember in Scrubs where a woman has an aneurysm and everyone starts singing?
CLIP: You okay, ma'am? (singing) How many fingers do you see?
Josh Gwynn: You think I had an aneurysm?
Matt Bellassai: I don't want to jump to any conclusions. I'm just providing some possibilities.
Josh Gwynn: I can admit it now that I'm on the other side. I was in love with Zach Braff. Like, in love. I mean, maybe the Zack Braff crush is proof that I had an aneurysm.
Matt Bellassai: That is probably the clearest indication yet that you have an aneurysm and you're seconds away from death, but I don't want to jump to conclusions.
Josh Gwynn: Mm-hmm.
Matt Bellassai: There's probably several possibilities, but that's one of them. Have you come into any contact with demons lately like Buffy?
CLIP: (Buffy the Vampire Slayer singing)
Matt Bellassai: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is delivering her best music video impression. She's wearing the Beyonce coat, the blood rain coat…
Josh Gwynn: Oh, from Jealous.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: Yes. It looks like a scene from Rent with music by Meat Loaf.
Matt Bellassai: As sung by a Britney Spears impersonator. It's important to note that every character is getting involved in the action here. We have multiple voices that are crescendoing together. I don't really know what vampire is getting slayed here, but they're doing important work.
Josh Gwynn: But the vocals.
Matt Bellassai: They're slaying the vocals.
Josh Gwynn: They're slaying the vocals.
CLIP: (Buffy the Vampire Slayer singing)
Josh Gwynn: I could've never seen this ever, and I would've known exactly what Sarah Michelle Gellar's singing voice sounds like. That's just exactly what I pictured.
Matt Bellassai: I think that Auto-Tune is doing some heavy lifting.
Josh Gwynn: Wait, Grey's Anatomy Scrubs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Matt, are these so-called texts you're referring to just the one random musical episode in various non-musical TV shows? Are you diagnosing me using the conceits that writers invent to justify their characters breaking into song?
Matt Bellassai: No. I mean, surely I can't do that because some of these episodes don't even have conceits. Do you remember the Daria musical episode?
CLIP: Oh, me oh my. A lovely day is dawning. Oh, what a joy. I didn't wake up dead.
Matt Bellassai: Yes. Go, girl. Give us nothing.
CLIP: …sleep in class instead of in my bed.
Josh Gwynn: Is Siri in this musical?
Matt Bellassai: I do appreciate that they did not try to make up a conceit at all. It was just "Hey, they're going to be a-singing."
Josh Gwynn: They're just going to be a-singing.
Matt Bellassai: You know what? Maybe you're fine. Okay? Maybe I'm the problem, like in the Even Stevens musical episode. Maybe I have the flu and I'm hallucinating everybody singing.
CLIP: (Even Stevens singing) We went to the moon in 1969…
Matt Bellassai: So famously, Christy Carlson Romano as Ren Stevens is delivering a presentation about the first time we landed on the moon.
Josh Gwynn: And I remember because this was very out of Ren Stevens's character because usually, she was the one that was super prepared for everything.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah. She was the type A Rachel Berry.
Josh Gwynn: She was the Rachel Berry, but she got sick and didn't prepare. She had a fever.
Matt Bellassai: A fever. And produced what I probably would call the most famous of all musical episode numbers.
Josh Gwynn: I mean, definitely the most educational. Because you know how Gwen Stefani taught an entire generation how to spell bananas? Ren Stevens taught me when we went to the moon.
CLIP: (Even Stevens singing) in 1969
Matt Bellassai: Exactly. You will never forget it.
CLIP: (Even Stevens singing) not 1970, but a year sooner
Josh Gwynn: But is it misinformation?
Matt Bellassai: Yeah. One thing is certain. While Ren Stevens is dancing around with all of her classmates in the middle of a science classroom in a high school somewhere in California, she is not addressing the rumors that we faked the moon landing on a studio lot.
Josh Gwynn: You see that smile? She knows the truth.
Matt Bellassai: She knows the truth. She's being paid off by NASA to keep her mouth shut. Right, so I'm going to go ahead and write you a prescription
Josh Gwynn: You can do that?
Matt Bellassai: Oh, I have an honorary doctorate, media studies specializing in television anthropology from Johns Hopkins University.
Josh Gwynn: Excuse me?
Matt Bellassai: It's not a big deal. This isn't a sure thing, but I've seen it work before and I really want you to talk to a specialist. There's something meta happening here where you're making a podcast about musicals that is itself a musical about musicals. You're trapped in a vicious cycle, Josh. A loop, as it were. And not to do a HIPAA violation here, but I know, because of our platonic non-patient doctor relationship, that you recently saw a musical to this effect.
Josh Gwynn: You're right. I did see A Strange Loop, and I really didn't know how to feel about it.
Matt Bellassai: Right. I think perhaps it's best if you talk with someone who was in that show. Maybe they can help you unpack your reaction to it. Maybe you have some feelings bottled up that are coming out in all of these unusual ways.
Josh Gwynn: The fact that this is the best you can offer says a lot about the state of American medicine.
Matt Bellassai: You're welcome.
***MID-ROLL AD BREAK***
Josh Gwynn: Back Issue. And we're back. Dr. Matt Bellassai, who assures me that he is a real doctor, put me on a pretty intensive treatment regimen: scales at the piano in the morning, hot water with lemon and honey to keep my vocal chords healthy and a conversation with Tony-nominated actress L Morgan Lee. A Strange Loop, the show that L Morgan starred in, recently ended its run after about a year on Broadway. The reviews were rave across the board. On top of a Pulitzer and two Tony Awards, the New York Times called it, quote, "radical" and, quote, "a show that allows a Black gay man to be vulnerable on stage without dismissing or fetishizing his trauma." Sounds like it was created specifically for me, right? Actually, I had complicated feelings about the show. And so I took Dr. Matt's advice and talked to L Morgan.
She's the first openly trans performer to ever be nominated for Tony. That's not a sentence that I expected to say in 2023, but here we are. First ever in history. Let's see if our conversation can get me out of my own strange loop because right now, I feel like I'm doing a soliloquy, and that can't be a good sign.
L Morgan Lee: I am certainly a musical theater dork by all means.
Josh Gwynn: Ooh, good start. L Morgan's love for musical theater began pretty conventionally: crisscross applesauce in front of a boxy, antennaed television watching classical movie musicals like The Wizard of Oz and Funny Girl. But it's landed her in a pretty non-traditional space. I asked her to tell me about the boundary-breaking run of the show, A Strange Loop.
L Morgan Lee: A Strange Loop is about a Black gay man who is fat and the journey that he is taking writing a musical about a fat Gay black man who is writing a musical about a fat gay Black man and all of the obstacles that he faces in a world that challenges his identity.
Josh Gwynn: Mm. So your character has the best name, Thought 1, but it's T-H-O-U-G-H-T, not T-H-O-T. You literally play a thought in Usher's mind, the main character.
CLIP: Usher, as supervisor of your sexual ambivalence, you can rest assured that I have sealed the gates of your body and mind so that nothing can get inside your shitty butt hole until you give the word.
Josh Gwynn: Can you tell me more about your character?
L Morgan Lee: I like to think of Thought 1 as being the dose of hope inside of the rage. In the Broadway incarnation of the show, she's the only woman on stage. And in a show where Usher has so many complex feelings about women, which is a whole nother conversation/podcast on its own, in particular with Black women, it is interesting that Thought 1 is the one who instills hope into Usher. Thought 1 was the one who asks him the questions of who is this for? And why does this piece need to be in the canon of musical theater? Why does this thing need to exist?
Josh Gwynn: Yeah. I had a lot of questions in regards to who is this for, what audience is this playing to.
L Morgan Lee: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Josh Gwynn: When I went to go see the show, I remember looking around and seeing three other Black people. And I remember having the thought, "She might even recognize me because I was at the show." But there's a lot of overlap that I feel like I have with Usher in terms of being a creative occupying a bigger Black queer body. And so there's this double thing that was happening for me where I felt super seen, but super exposed. And I remember Usher made a joke at one point, and this white man behind me laughed. And I was thinking, "What are you laughing at, Ethan?" How did you navigate the content of the show and the audience that you were performing it in front of?
L Morgan Lee: I think that was one of the largest obstacles for me personally. I think that that became more of an obstacle the further into the thing we got. And night after night, eight shows a week of doing that show, which I love that you put it that way, that it feels like you are exposed or exposing an element of a conversation to a group who primarily does not look like you, there is a very particular nuance to trying to fight resentment about why are our audience is not looking more like us. And that's a big conversation that's sort of happening all around.
But I think the questions for me that arose became look, maybe the people who are seeing this is who this is for. Maybe the idea that I want it to be for other people is about me and not about the actual piece itself. And then how do you navigate those questions coming to mind then, where this piece might not be necessarily for the people that you want it to be for? And it is complicated and it is layered.
Josh Gwynn: It is, and it made me feel connected to that conversation that was being had in the show about the Tyler Perry of it all.
CLIP: (A Strange Loop singing) Tyler Perry writes real life…
Josh Gwynn: So Usher, who's the lead of the play, he spends a lot of time grappling with these ideas around capitalism and art and how they interact specifically for Black artists. His parents send him to NYU. For them, success is capitalistic. It's money. It's Tyler Perry. But for Usher, it feels like the point of art is less about the money. And there's this question that runs through the show about what happens when you're making art and it's being consumed by maybe not your intended audience.
L Morgan Lee: Sure. And at the end of the day, it's also being seen on Broadway, which is a primarily white demographic of people. So if we are looking to bring more seasoning to Broadway, then-
Josh Gwynn: More sazon
L Morgan Lee: Then what are we then asking people to come to?
Josh Gwynn: Right.
L Morgan Lee: Has the work in those projects been done to truly be creating a piece that is for these people? I think that's a big part of what we're seeing, is we're asking, we speaking in the term just the Broadway community itself, are having these major conversations about Black shows opening and closing and what does that mean. And people going on social media saying things like, "You all need to support these Black shows." Well, wait a minute. Are we really screaming, yelling at white people that they need to be supporting Black stories? Is that what we're we're doing? Because we could also be going, "Well, wait a minute. Why are we not reaching out more actively to Black people and bringing Black people in?"
Black shows do extremely well when we are included and we know about them. Black people will go to the theater. We have seen that happen before. So what is it that Broadway is not doing to reach people? And so a lot of that is we have to feel seen. We have to feel considered in the making of the thing. If you sit a group of Black people in front of a show that they don't feel like was made for them, they're going to let you know. It doesn't matter if the people on stage are Black.
Josh Gwynn: It's crazy because it's also a loop, because it's like the content informs who feels seen in the work, which informs who shows up for the work, which informs the experience of receiving the content.
L Morgan Lee: Yeah, and it's its own strange loop.
Josh Gwynn: You were nominated for a Tony which sis, congratulations.
L Morgan Lee: Thank you.
Josh Gwynn: But I was super surprised to learn that you were the first openly trans actor to be nominated in queer-ass, Broadway-ass history. What's getting that information like?
L Morgan Lee: Well, it was crazy getting that information. It was certainly something that I had always dreamed about. And the thing is, I always dreamed of being nominated as an actress.
When I was a kid, when I was starting to think that, I was like, "Well, that's never going to happen. But I can dream it all I want to." So to be nominated in a way that felt affirming and beautiful and exciting, that's the dream. But the conversation is so layered.
You can have the greatest intentions in the world. You can want to see this diversity and want to see all this inclusion. But if you haven't prepared your house for the people that you're inviting inside of it, then it's not a safe space for those people.
And so in order for it to be made into a safe space, you have to actually have conversations with those people. You have to talk to your neighbors before you ask them over for dinner. Because once we get inside of the room, we might find things that are not so great or things that you don't know are offensive or harmful or triggering to us. So you have to ask me what's going to make me feel comfortable. You have to ask me how you can welcome me into your home.
Josh Gwynn: Right.
L Morgan Lee: I did a reading of a project where the director, on the first day of rehearsal, he was mesmerized that there were enough trans people to be able to be in this particular project. Said in the room, "I understand that this story's interesting and that we need this sort of different group of trans people, but where are we supposed to find these people? Where are they?"
Josh Gwynn: Is there a shortage?
L Morgan Lee: And I'm like, "Honey, it's not that people are not here. It's that you don't have access because they haven't been in the room already." So to me, that idea of being the first, it makes sense because people don't necessarily see where there's a lack. They don't see where there's a void.
Josh Gwynn: Well, how do you think that your role in the show fits into this conversation about Broadway and queerness?
L Morgan Lee: My role in the show, there is this idea that because L Morgan is a trans woman and we now know that she's trans, then oh god, it's just so wonderful to see a trans character on stage. Thought 1 is not trans.
Josh Gwynn: Right.
L Morgan Lee: For me, it was actually cool on the nomination situation because I was nominated for a track that is not trans-specific. One of the things that we are fighting so hard for is to simply just get to be, to get a chance to not have to put a trans flag or a label across our forehead-
Josh Gwynn: Or trauma.
L Morgan Lee: ... in order to tell a story. Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: Mm-hmm.
L Morgan Lee: It's like we shouldn't have to do that. If I want to play Dot in Sunday in the Park with George, if I want to play Belle in Beauty and the Beast, I've only got a few more years, but if I got a chance to play Belle in Beauty and the Beast, she's not suddenly trans.
Josh Gwynn: Right.
L Morgan Lee: It's like I am playing Belle. And in this moment, I am Belle. For me, it's if a trans person in the audience sees this and they need her to be trans, then she is.
Now, I'm not crazy. My being trans does bring really beautiful nuance to her story. My experience of being trans colors when I as an actress say something like in the town where I'm from, they see me as different. That adds another layer to the way that the story is being told for me as an actress and for those who need to hear that. But to the average audience member, this is just a Black woman on stage getting a chance to play Belle. Or rather, just a woman on stage getting a chance to play Belle because she's also then not suddenly, "Oh, here comes Black trans L Morgan Lee as Belle in the..." Because even that language is then centering whiteness in a way that-
Josh Gwynn: Exactly.
L Morgan Lee: We don't have to do that. We keep doing it, but it's not a necessity. And the thing that's crazy about it is, is I don't know that people even understand that. Because people know because I'm openly trans, "Oh, and this show is queer. Oh, so it's a trans character." I was like, "No, no, no. I could've very easily had a cis woman understudying me."
Josh Gwynn: Absolutely.
L Morgan Lee: And actually thought that would've been a really incredible actual forward step for our business and for the understanding of trans people and for lots of things to see a cis woman covering a role that was originated by a trans woman because the role is simply a woman.
Josh Gwynn: Right. The show just ended its run. How are you processing that? How are you going to look back at this particular time in your life?
L Morgan Lee: Mm. I feel free. There are things tethered to this show that I've been ready to part ways with for a while.
Josh Gwynn: Mm, mm-hmm.
L Morgan Lee: I've said I've grown a skin I never wanted to have to grow.
Josh Gwynn: Ooh, what does that mean?
L Morgan Lee: I think of the kid who was sitting looking at these movie musicals and all these things. And you have this dream of what Broadway is, and then you get your ticket to get inside the door. And then I'm standing inside of the door and I realize there's a lot of unpacking that has to be done in this room in order for me to feel truly welcome. I wanted to be able to go to Disney World and just be joy and light and naivete all the way, but-
Josh Gwynn: And twirl.
L Morgan Lee: And just twirl through the hallways and just fly. It's like, "But the reality is, is this is a business."
Josh Gwynn: It's a business.
L Morgan Lee: It's a business first. And so you can make a room where that's possible, but you've got to make that room. We don't check in on the firsts.
Josh Gwynn: Right.
L Morgan Lee: Because we're just celebrating that you made it over the finish line. We didn't take a look at your body to see all of the scarring there. Because I'm someone who's like, "I want to help equip the folks that are coming in behind me." It's not going to do me any good to just stand inside the room and look out the door and say, "Come on in. Oh my god, y'all. Come on in. I'm in here so you can be in here," only to not tell them that my feet have been burned. And when you step in, your feet are going to get burned too. It's like I want them to be able to know to wear the right shoes so they can walk in and they can get a little bit further.
Josh Gwynn: Right. L Morgan, thank you so much for your time.
L Morgan Lee: Thank you.
Josh Gwynn: L Morgan Lee is a Tony Award-nominated actress.
Matt Bellassai: Oh. Hey, Josh. You're back.
Josh Gwynn: Hey, Dr. Matt.
Matt Bellassai: Has your Rodgers and Hammerstitus improved at all?
Josh Gwynn: I'm actually shocked, but yeah it has. I'm a Capricorn, and big Capricorn energy forced me to go online and study my affliction. And in my search, I found this clip of composer Stephen Sondheim explaining at what point in a musical his mentor Oscar Hammerstein would make characters break into song.
CLIP: What constitutes the point during a play that a song becomes necessary?
CLIP: Well, Oscar's principle was that when the emotions bubble up to the surface and seem to be too passionate for speech, that's when you should come into song.
Josh Gwynn: So Hammerstein's principle was that the characters sing when the emotions are so high, so overwhelming that the only option is to express those feelings through song.
Matt Bellassai: Okay.
Josh Gwynn: So I think I was just feeling really emotionally bottled up, specifically around some of the ideas that A Strange Loop explores, and my conversation with L Morgan helped me express those feelings, such as questions of the intersection of Black art and capitalism, the intersection of queer art and capitalism. Sometimes diversity and representation in art fall short of liberation, and it was really cathartic to see that all the times where I was feeling weird about A Strange Loop, some of the performers were also feeling weird about performing this in front of non-Black, non-queer audiences. And whose gaze is focused on who? It wasn't just isolated to me. L Morgan was feeling it too. I feel like watching the show led me to think about Broadway as the space that's only nominally dedicated to telling more Black stories. But without institutional support, without the right political ends or the right Black people in the space to make those tellings and those stories possible, how is that going to happen?
Matt Bellassai: Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: I still can't make it past the fact that L Morgan is the first trans performer to be nominated for a Tony, and Broadway is supposed to be the queerest place ever.
Matt Bellassai: Yeah.
Josh Gwynn: That was what I was just thinking, was like, "This is supposed to be, out of all the different types of media, the most progressive, the most queer, the most accepting of everybody." And not only do the stories not reflect that a lot of the times, but just the institution as a whole, it's not very accessible to a lot of people.
Matt Bellassai: At all.
Josh Gwynn: And musicals are a thing I really, really love, and that made it really difficult for me to see this musical, A Strange Loop, and feel so removed from it. But also to see it and see it so celebrated and not have the same sort of reaction, it was just my own version of A Strange Loop, I guess.
Matt Bellassai: Mm-hmm. So are you saying what I think you're saying, Josh?
Josh Gwynn: What do you think I'm saying, Matthew?
Matt Bellassai: Josh, don't you see? I cured you.
Josh Gwynn: I guess you pointed me in the right direction.
Matt Bellassai: Am I good doctor?
Josh Gwynn: You barely have a doctorate, Matt. I don't know if I'd call you a good doctor.
Matt Bellassai: Maybe anyone can be a doctor if they just believe.
Josh Gwynn: Okay. Well, I'm going to head out now.
Matt Bellassai: Leave me a positive review on ZocDoc.
ENDING CREDITS: Back Issue is a production of Pineapple Street Studios. I'm the host and senior producer, Josh Gwynn. Back Issue was created by myself and Tracy Clayton. Our producers are Janelle Anderson, Xandra Ellin and Ari Saperstein. Our editors are Leila Day and Emmanuel Hapsis. Our managing producer is Bria Mariette. Our executive producer is Leila Day, and our intern is Noah Camuso.
Today's episode was produced by Xandra Ellin and edited by Emmanuel Hapsis. Our sound engineers include Sharon Bardales, Davy Sumner, Jason Richards, Jade Brooks, Marina Paiz, Pedro Alvira and Raj Makhija. Art Design by Cadence 13, and original music by Raj Makhija and Don Will. Executive producers for Pineapple Street Studios are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky.
I'm on Twitter and Instagram at @RegardingJosh. You can follow the show on Instagram at @BackIssuePodcast, and you can use the hashtag #BackIssuePodcast on Twitter if you haven't made the decision to leave that godforsaken hellscape yet. You can subscribe to this podcast wherever free podcasts are sold. Please leave a review. I'll see you next week.
Matt Bellassai: (singing) I’m not gonna leave ya….
Josh Gwynn: (singing) There’s no way….
Matt Bellassai: (singing) And I am telling you…. I’m not feeling well, I’ve got pain
Josh Gwynn: (singing) Effie we’ve all got pain