Christopher Ashley
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
She's like, here's 30 people that we think would be fantastic to consider. So we all bat them around, champion various names until we winnow that list down to, I think we ended up with six people. And then you start figuring out, okay, who's actually available now. to come and join us in a month. And then what do you do? You send the script to all of those six?
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
No, no, no, you very much go one at a time. And most of those six, someone in our group has worked with before, and all of us have seen many, many performances by them. It's a very known group. You're not just basing this on an audition, you're also basing it on a body of work. And very, very excited that we're being joined by Ivan Hernandez as Lincoln. Tell me about Ivan.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
For La Jolla Playhouse aficionados, he was the Zhivago in the La Jolla Playhouse production of Dr. Zhivago about 20 years ago. If you Google him, you'll see him all over film, all over television, and all over theater stages. He's stunning. Super smart, beautiful voice, has a kind of center of gravity that I think is a necessary part of Lincoln. Looks good in a top hat.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
I have not tried him in a top hat yet, but I did draw one on a picture of him to sort of see what he looked like in my imagination. And what number was Ivan on that list? I can't tell you that, but he was high.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
He's got Lincolniness, which is a hard thing to define, but you know it when you see it. Can you describe it at least? What do you mean by Lincolniness? It's a gravitas. It's intelligent acting. use of language in rehearsals. I was like, yeah, he's really capturing something about Lincoln. And then we put the costume on and I thought, wow, he's really Lincoln.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
And then we did a last thing, which is he'd been rehearsing with a beard and mustache. And we just shaved the mustache, which is unique to Lincoln, right? You don't see a lot of beards, no mustaches in the world. And there was something about like all of the work that he'd been done in creating the character suddenly with that tiny gesture got all the way across the finish line for me.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
I'm Christopher Ashley, the artistic director here at LA Playhouse, also the director of the show. Thank you for your patience tonight. We're about to get started. So tonight is our very first public performance of This World for Dear Musical. What that means is you are the first audience for this musical ever, and we are delighted to meet you.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
I do think there's something about the process that is insane and also the most satisfying thing you can possibly do with your life. It's intensely collaborative, the process of making a new show together. Every day you say something and then someone does something with that thing you've said that is better and richer and more exciting than you had in your head.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
And that keeps on taking the process forward. further, higher, and deeper into the center of the story. Once you've had that experience, it's a little bit like crack and you don't want to give it up.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
As we're speaking now, we're just starting day one of the second week of Two Weeks of Tech.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
I did systems analysis in foreign exchange, which I enjoyed for a while until I realized, oh, actually my job is to figure out how to shield people's money from tax liability. And I was like, that doesn't seem like a way to spend a life to me.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
I was a freelance director for most of my 20s and 30s. It felt like dating audiences all the time. My interaction with them was two hours long, and then they would move on and I would move on. Part of why being artistic director for me was I didn't really want to date audiences. I wanted to have a relationship. I wanted to talk to them across six plays in a season.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
That's a much richer, fuller conversation about the world than one play for two hours.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
There are a bunch of hats on my desk. You're totally right. Together with Debbie, we run the theater. Artistic directors are kind of the – primary responsibility for programming and figuring out what's on the stage. At La Jolla Playhouse, it's also very much intended that I direct there, and I do one or two shows a year. All the education and outreach also falls within artistic director purview.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
So we're out in the schools with a new play every year, which is an amazing experience to watch eight-year-olds see their first play, just like the flight of imagination that is happening in their heads. And then I also produce, along with our artistic producing director, each of the individual shows.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
It's maybe a little bit like being a general in a war. You're not making the individual decisions on the battlefield, but you're saying what the goals are and what the strategy is.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
We have two weeks in the space to add the technical elements. How the set moves, all the automation and actors moving chairs and tables around the scenery that you've practiced in the studio, you add all the lighting aspects. Lighting designs are tremendously complicated technical feats with these lights that move and change color. Everything is computerized, right?
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
So if you stand on the stage and you look back at the house during a technical rehearsal... You'll see 40 people up lit by their computer screens. There's a lighting desk. There's a sound desk. There's a stage management desk. There's a separate desk where all the scenery and props folks are.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
It's full of technicians, all of whom are simultaneously watching the show and building the technical structure.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
You painstakingly, moment by moment, work things out. Let's do these three seconds. All right, now we know what those three seconds are. Let's do the next seven seconds. It's very incremental. It's very layered. It's very stop and go. And then by a week later, hopefully you can run a number of And by the end of the two weeks, the goal is that you can actually run the show.
Freakonomics Radio
631. Will "3 Summers of Lincoln" Make It to Broadway?
We were fortunate enough to have Brian Stokes Mitchell in each of the three readings and workshops that led us up to the first production we're about to start. And then he had personal circumstances that didn't allow him to be part of the La Jolla Playhouse production.