Terry Gross

You've been in off-Broadway shows.

You were in one Broadway show.

And you sing.

And I want to play an example of you singing because you have a really nice duet with Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere.

And this is from, I think, the first episode where you get her to sing at this basically like—

cabaret that you've created at night in church when no one is looking because you have the key, because you're the pianist for the church.

And everybody has a great time there.

And you kind of force her up to the microphone to sing.

And you duet with her on the song Don't Give Up, which Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush had duetted on.

So let's hear that, and we'll pick it up in the middle so we get to you right away.

That's a really great duet.

You both sound so good.

She's got a great voice.

So you have a great story about auditioning for Stephen Sondheim.

And I think this would be a good time to tell it.

You write about having a midlife crisis when you were 40.

What was that about?

I want to ask you about your mother because she sounds like such a wonderful person.

She died in 2016.

Yeah.