(upbeat music)
- Broadway's biggest shows, Broadway's hottest tickets,
they're all right here
along with Broadway's brightest stars.
I'm Tamsen Fadal.
This is The Broadway Show,
so let's get going.
- I love this city.
♪ They're cheering for me now. ♪
- [Tamsen] It's time to be a part of it.
"New York, New York" now open on Broadway.
We hit the red carpet opening night.
- That's right, Tamsen.
"New York, New York" is a big splashy Broadway musical
celebrating the greatest city in the world.
I'm here on opening night to talk to all the stars.
(audience applauds) (audience cheers)
It's opening night of a Kander and Ebb musical,
and you're a part of it.
You wanted to be a part of it.
- I wanted to be a part of it, "New York, New York."
I write love letters to New York in everything I do.
I famously love my neighborhood.
I famously love this city,
and it was another opportunity to do that
in a different time period
with one of the greatest composers in our art form.
So it was a joy. - [Paul] You guys are playing
Francine and Jimmy.
This is a big deal.
This is an entire musical,
not just based on a song but based on
this beautiful love story.
It says like, "Leave your New York cynicism outside,
and come in and enjoy this with us."
- [Colton] Well, I think it's lovely 'cause actually
it invites both dreamers and cynics in because
- Yep. - It shows all four seasons
of life, not just in this city but
in romance and love and heartbreak and all that.
And I don't know, I'm really proud of it because it is
like you're saying, so unapologetically a capital R romance.
It's also lovely that I think both of us get to play it,
in metaphor, with the city itself.
And so, the audience gets to watch and just, like,
choose your avatar, which whenever you kind of,
whatever you fit a little better with
and you get to feel out your own personal love story
with this city because if you don't have it,
then you're probably going home, it's too hard.
- [Paul] It's interesting capturing New York on stage to
such an emotional, extra emotional,
especially for New Yorkers.
- Surprisingly emotional too, I mean, every day they,
during the curtain call we see people bawling.
You don't know how things are gonna hit people.
All you can do is put it out there and then however it hits
somebody is what it is to them.
And I think that's what's so unique about now is that
we're coming out of this pandemic and those of us who stayed
in New York during the whole time we have some things
we need probably to deal with.
And if this show in some way illuminates that
or illuminates what you still love about the city
and what what the city, how the city endures
then I think that we've done an amazing job.
- [Paul] What is it like having, doing something with that
sort of extra emotional layer?
- It's like the Super Bowl of art, if you will.
It really does not top this,
for an artist, for somebody, you know trying to have a
career here in the city, it's incredible.
It's the best of the best and everybody has a super level
of humility to them and it's incredible.
- [Paul] I feel like New Yorkers are really getting to
like bask in it right?
What's it been like?
- [Robyn] Yeah, it is so thrilling.
I mean, I feel like a fan girl.
I just love that people are coming to see this
and it's it's the perfect show for someone who's like,
"All right, we're going to New York.
We've never been here before.
We wanna see a Broadway show,
but we don't know what we wanna see."
This is what you need to see.
- [Paul] You're in a new Kander and Ebb opening in 2023.
- I'm just excited to see something new.
My dresser Julian,
who we've done eight Broadway shows together,
he's dressing Colton
and so he's so I haven't seen him so excited,
this is like his 28th Broadway show.
Oh my God.
And I haven't seen him so excited about a show
in forever.
He's like, "I mean your shows are fine
but this one's really great."
I'm like, "Okay great."
I think to be living in a time where we're getting
to see like a new Kander and Ebb is just like,
"Pinch me, all the stuff
of my childhood musical theater dreams.
- [Paul] That New York emotion that we all sort of felt
that one time.
Sometimes we still feel it.
We can still feel it -
- Moving to New York.
That energy that we all have when we come here,
it never goes away.
- Be part of it, always.
- Yes, exactly, it's still in us all.
- New York, New York, the city so nice
they had to name it twice.
- [Paul] I'm a fan of the movie.
The movie has, the movie's its own thing.
It's very different than what we're seeing on stage here.
Much more of a beautiful quilt of New Yorkers
in the musicals.
- [Paul] So talk a bit about that and what it's like to be a
part of sort of the jump that this story
is taking to the stage.
- The fact that they're showing the tapestry of the city
in this way is, we're all having these
kinds of conversations now and I think it's important
to show the truth of what it's like to live here
and that people from all over the world live here.
I am so honored to play a Cuban mother on a Broadway stage.
- I am guilty of not ever seeing the movie.
- [Paul] That's okay, it's very different.
- It's fresh eyes.
- That's the best.
- And I live in New York.
- Have you heard the song?
- No, how does it go?
♪ New York, ♪
♪ New York. ♪
- [Paul] What is it like to be up there to see those faces
in the beautiful St. James Theatre,
to get to sing those lyrics and that music?
I mean, what is it like to experience a moment
like that on Broadway?
- The song for me is about my gratitude for this city.
This place offered me something I couldn't get
anywhere else.
And so I'm just saying thank you and I'm looking
out at a bunch of New Yorkers and thanking them
for being here and thanking them for building up this city,
the one that I got to live my dreams in.
That's all, as simple as that. - We all know the lyrics.
- Oh, we all know the lyrics.
- We all know the emotions of it, right?
I mean, we've all lived it.
- We've all lived it.
It's one of the things that inspires you
to come to this great city.
It's one of the things that helps you stay focused
when you're down on your luck.
It's very aspirational and very inspirational too.
So it's great.
- [Paul] Can you remember when you first were exposed
to this song?
Talk about the power of it.
- Well, yeah, I think I was first exposed
to "New York, New York" and Kander and Ebb's music
every time the Yankees played at Yankee Stadium
because Bernie Williams is from Big Alta, Puerto Rico,
which is my dad's hometown.
And so we would go and try to get seats
as close to third base as possible
to scream his name
and see if he would turn around.
So yeah, Yankee games was my introduction
and I was at a Yankee game a couple weeks ago
and I was like we have the same closing number
in our show that the Yankees do every time they play.
- [Kander] I'm just very grateful that we wrote it.
- Do you still have those emotions about New York City?
Do you still?
- Absolutely
and the lousier the rest of the world becomes,
the more I'm glad that I'm here.
(upbeat music)