♪ On the outside, always looking in ♪
♪ Will I ever be more than I've always been? ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass ♪
- Hey guys, welcome to "Behind the Stripes"
with Andrew Barth Feldman.
That's me!
This is my Broadway.com vlog
and I'm very excited about it
and it's going to be very silly.
I'm gonna show you guys what life is like back here
just as so many great Broadway.com vloggers before me
have with their shows.
I'm gonna show you what it's like behind the stripes.
So this is my dressing room.
I'm already in costume.
It's Thursday, October something or other,
it's almost six o'clock
and we have a seven o'clock show tonight.
I'm already in costume
because I have to put the cast on at 6:30 every night,
half an hour before the show.
Oh, let me show you my dressing room a little bit.
Welcome to my dressing room.
So the first thing you'll probably notice
is the colored light bulbs.
These are Philips Hue light bulbs and I love them.
And a Bloom lamp over here, lots of cool stuff.
And I also have lots of Disney knick-knacks.
So these are called Vinylmations
and you can get them in the Disney parks.
And there's some "Star Wars" Pop! Funkos,
some more Disney stuff.
Here's some more Disney parks stuff.
I'm a big fan of the Disney parks, if you couldn't tell.
My Hufflepuff banner because I am a Hufflepuff,
Evan is a Hufflepuff, it works out.
And this is the couch that's been here
since the era of Ben Platt, Sir Ben Platt.
He's knighted now, I don't know if you heard.
This is some notes, I get a lot of notes.
Everyone here gets notes
because this is Broadway and you gotta keep it up,
gotta keep being good.
This is my little bathroom,
this is where I just took a shower just now.
I take a shower every day before the show
to get warmed up.
It's a little bathroom, it's nice.
I have purple towels 'cause I like the color purple
and they said, "What's your favorite color?"
And I said purple and then they got me purple towels.
I appreciate it.
This is the famed Bloomingdale's Blue Room.
This is where we greet fancy guests.
It was Audra McDonald's dressing room in "Shuffle Along,"
so that's all you need to know.
So this is Michael Lee Brown, my alternate,
and Asa Somers, he's the Larry understudy.
This is their room and--
- Tell Broadway.net what you really think.
- [Andrew] Wait, wait, hang on guys.
Sorry, Dan, what are you doing?
- Oh, it's just an interview for Broadway.net.
- Hi, I'm Asa Somers.
I'm interviewing with Broadway.net--
- [Andrew] Stop, stop!
- So anyway, I just wanted to--
- [Andrew] Stop!
- Anyway, I've been--
- [Andrew] You knew that I was doing the Broadway.com vlog.
You knew that I was doing
"Behind the Stripes" with Andrew Barth Feldman
on Broadway-- - Behind the stripes?
What does that even mean? - Oh my God.
It's 'cause the polo, jeez.
- Yeah, I was just in the middle
of my Broadway.net interview
and we rudely got interrupted.
- Rudely, yeah. - All right.
- Yeah, I'll call you later. - Okay, listen.
- That was my manager, he is not happy.
- [Andrew] Okay, we can keep this cordial
as long as our vlogs don't get in the way of each other
over the next eight weeks.
Can we agree on that?
- I can make no promises.
- Yeah, me neither.
- [Andrew] Okay, can we all do our best please?
Because "Behind the Stripes," it's gonna hit big.
- Okay (laughs), sure. - Great, thank you.
Okay, great.
This is Sky Lakota-Lynch's room.
♪ Hey Broadway.com ♪
- [Andrew] This is Ivan Hernandez's room.
- Andrew Barth Feldman, how are you?
- [Andrew] I'm good, how are you?
Say hi to Broadway.com.
- Hello Broadway.com.
- [Andrew] I'm gonna annoy you so much.
(Andrew laughs) - Oh, fantastic.
- [Andrew] Okay, this is very exciting.
This is Meg. - Hi guys.
- [Andrew] She's the hair and wig supervisor for the show
and the cast falls under hair and wig supervision,
why, again?
- Because it is a skin application
so it falls under the IATSE 798 contract.
- [Andrew] This is what happens, she puts the cast on me.
So they do the sleeve,
they do the sleeve first
and then the cloth goes over the sleeve.
Look at this, she's a pro at it now.
So the cloth goes over the thing
and then the sleeve, you pull it over the cloth.
(Meg and Andrew laugh)
And now is the important part.
So this towel goes on my lap.
(Meg and Andrew laugh)
And Meg puts water in the bowl
and she puts the gloveys on.
- As to not get plaster all over my hands.
- [Andrew] She's gonna put the gauze in the water,
so it gets wet.
- (chuckles) Does water make it wet?
Is that how that works?
- [Andrew] (chuckles) Shut up.
And then it goes around my arm and then it hardens,
so I can't move my arm for a little bit.
Here we go. (whistles)
This is it.
This is the important part.
It's real, it's a real cast.
I tell this to people and they think I'm joking.
- [Meg] No, real cast.
- [Andrew] It's a real cast.
- [Meg] You have to leave plenty of wiggle room
in that thumb--
- [Andrew] Lots of wiggle room
'cause I have to tie a tie in the show.
- [Meg] Spoiler alert.
- [Andrew] Spoiler alert, Evan knows how to tie a tie.
Some nights he does. - And button buttons.
- [Andrew] Yeah, so gotta have an opposable thumb.
Bada bing bada boom! - That's it!
- Now I can't move my arm for a little bit
and then I won't be able to move my arm anyway
'cause there'll be a hard cast around it.
(Meg laughs)
Okay, I'm gonna do a show, bye guys!
- [Meg] Bye!
- Whoa, what?
- [All] Andrew Barth Feldman!
Andrew Barth Feldman! - Oh my God.
Oh, no, stop, please. (all laugh)
This is the understudy room.
These are all the John Nouse portraits.
There's a really nice one there of Josh.
And Sky is breaking the law.
(Andrew laughs)
- You forgot one shining member of our room,
right over here, right over here.
(all laugh)
- [Andrew] It's Alex Boniello.
- Oh, it's happening right now.
- Wow, what a glamorous introduction.
His presence looms long after he is gone.
"Stranger Things."
Every night the cast either gets sawed off or I rip it off.
Tonight I'm gonna try and rip it off.
For Broadway Cares season we saw it
'cause we sell them.
Let's see how I do.
See, I've just been crying from the show.
Oh, oh, okay, so now we have a problem.
- Is it stuck?
- Wait, I know I can do it.
Oh, oh, hey!
- Oh, it's a good day! - Thank you, ladies and gents.
It's Comic Con.
There's Steven Levenson, our book writer,
Alex Boniello's back,
and Stacey Mindich, our lead producer,
and I am also here.
- He's certainly got-- - Wow, Comic Con, so exciting.
It's Ron Weasley, he's Rupert Grint.
We're in a tiny elevator.
Secret Comic Con walk.
(audience cheers) (audience applauds)
- [Announcer] Hello everyone, how's it going today?
Today is going to be a great day here at Comic Con.
I have with me some creative team members
and the cast of "Dear Evan Hansen" on Broadway!
(audience cheers) - Wow, people are so excited.
Wow, look at this.
Comic Con!
Hey guys, welcome to my Comic Con vlog.
Look at all these people, bunch of nerds.
We're nerds too, it's okay.
We're here at Comic Con.
We're gonna go to the floor. (laughs)
This is where there's comics, particular comics.
Gabby! - What?
- [Andrew] How's Comic Con going?
- It's comical.
- Oy. - Oh.
Who are you next to?
- Drew Gehling.
(Gabby and Andrew laugh)
We're leaving Comic Con now.
Hey guys, so I was gonna record this outro at the theater
but I'm home with a sinus infection,
which is not fun at all.
It's like the most important thing in this business,
to take care of yourself,
and there's been a lot more talk about it recently
which is super cool.
And it's actually the first time
I've been sick my whole run,
so I hate it a lot.
As much as I wanna be at the show every single day
and every single moment that I can,
as much as I wanna be Evan for as much time as I can,
sometimes you get sick and you gotta make choices.
And this was a pretty easy choice to make
'cause I can't really do the show with a sinus infection
but a lot of people have harder choices to make
about how they're feeling mentally,
how they're feeling emotionally,
and just how they're feeling physically,
about whether they can deliver
the best performance they can tonight
and whether they're the best fit person
to play the role that night.
And it's not fun not to be the best fit person
to play that role for that night,
but you have to make the right decision for yourself,
to take care of yourself, to stay healthy,
and for the show,
to make sure it's the best show
and you're not sacrificing the quality of the show
for your ego
or the fact that you just really wanna be there
even though you can't even sing, or something, you know?
So that's something I've been thinking about a lot,
because (coughs) I'm sick (chuckles).
At some point over the next eight weeks
that I get to spend with you guys,
we'll do a Q and A.
So Tweet your questions at me,
tag me, I'm @AndrewBFeldman,
and you could hashtag it with #behindthestripes,
and ask me your questions
and I'll try to answer as many of them as I can.
It's gonna be a really fun eight weeks.
Also, before I go,
tag me on Twitter, #behindthestripes,
let me know what you wanna see here.
I know a lot of the vloggers say that
and so I'm saying it now.
Let me know what you wanna see on the vlog,
what behind the scenes stuff you're interested in.
I'd be happy to show you guys around
and show you as much of this really, really awesome life
that I'm getting to live as I can.
And also we could just have a lot of fun.
Okay, that's all, bye guys.
Bye!
♪ On the outside, always looking in ♪
♪ Will I ever be more than I've always been? ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass ♪