(upbeat music)
- Heading into winter, Broadway is back
and it is hot as ever.
That's why we're always excited to bring you
another awesome episode of The Broadway Show,
I'm Tamsen Fadal.
"Flying Over Sunset," just touched down on Broadway
and it is a trip of a lifetime.
"Flying Over Sunset" is a work of fiction,
but it's inspired by a trio
of incredible historical figures,
all coming together at a crossroads in their lives
and all dropping acid. Paul's here now with the story.
- Thanks, Tamsen. Carmen Cusack is starring
as socialite Clare Boothe Luce in the trip
of a new musical "Flying Over Sunset."
We sat down here at Lincoln Center Theater
to chat all about it.
You are playing Clare Boothe Luce.
All I know about this woman is the play, "The Women."
And basically it was like "The Sex In The City" of its day.
That's what I know about her. It was a big Broadway hit.
You know, a lot more about her, than I do.
- I hope so. I mean,
I didn't know anything about her until I did this project
and I thought, why didn't I know about this woman?
Why don't we all know more about this woman?
'Cause she really was like that woman,
a proper trailblazer, she did everything.
She was a journalist, she was a playwright,
She was an ambassador for Italy,
She was an ambassador for Brazil, I think for three days
and then she said, "I don't want to do this anymore,"
but she just did everything,
and you know, in the 1950s, when most women
were at home cooking and nose in their
Betty Crocker book or whatever,
she was out trailblazing it for all of us.
My favorite thing about playing her is her wit
and her just freedom to just say whatever she was thinking
and the strength that she had at that time,
at that day and age, women were so, you know,
very careful about what they said,
but she wasn't careful but at the same time
she was incredibly smart and people were attracted to her
from all walks of life, all ages were,
and she was an attractive woman and she was just fearless,
fearless lady.
♪ Flying over sunset ♪
♪ Crossing Hollywood and vine ♪
♪ Flying over sunset ♪
- She did everything including LSD.
- Including, and she had some very hard life lessons.
She lost her mother, and then six years later,
she lost her 19 year old daughter.
I think she was trying to find her way past the grief
or maybe trying to find it and then just move on
or just think she really wanted to search her soul,
and she felt that acid was going to help her do that.
- So "Flying Over Sunset" is a brand new musical.
I'm assuming there's something probably
very theatrical about LSD trips.
And what about this story and this combination of stories
lends itself to this form?
- Well, I love the fact that this is not sticking
to a musical formula in a sense it's taking you on a trip.
And the only time we really ever sing is in,
once we've taken acid.
- They always say that characters and musicals should sing
when the emotions are so much that they can't speak anymore
for this one, it's like when they're high enough.
- When they're high enough to really express themselves
in a different way, because they were all a bit tight,
tightly wound, and so they needed to take a drug
to finally go, whoa.
Now I can sing.
- This is a title that people don't, they walk in.
People don't know what "Flying Over Sunset" is,
which is always really attractive to me as a theater goer,
but a lot of people might be like,
what the heck is this? What do you tell people?
- Well, this really came to me.
I think when we finally got
went through the whole show and did a run of it
by the end of it, I just thought, oh my God,
it just felt like a warm embrace.
And it just, it was just a reminder that
we're all in this together and you're gonna be,
it's just you're okay because we're all connected,
everything, everything we're all connected
and no matter what we're going through.
It's okay.
(soft upbeat music)