the
them
Patrick Harris how did you find your way to
to to head we could you have you seen the the show in any return earlier
I had I saw John do it I think I saw John do it twice
a the change tree and I'm had been friends with him on my very first
theater going experiences was a
I would come maybe once twice a year to New York when I was younger doogie
howser days
and I would the have a few months of
and I don't see 10 shows in eight days and I just plan at all and I'd
go to the newspaper and plot it all out and one of the shows I saw a secret
garden which was a big giant fan out and so I went and I saw a matinee
up secret garden and I wait waited backstage
and said hello to everyone in john came out and was very nice and kind and said
lol going to lunch come have lunch with us
so John took me to lunch I'm seeing what rebecca luker and Howard McGill and
on camera that's real waiting with Italian lunch and it was just
magnificent i mean I had never in my life
I was so starstruck by all these people and then afterwards looking back he said
whatcha eating tonight I said I'd
I'm not saying showing someone to watch the The Secret Garden
in the wings so I yeah it's just that
and the but lately illegal
you invite hollow I got to live to see Gardner show that I absolutely love the
new every word
yeah you know rate you know it wasn't as on the wing
5 rain I'll and I was like really into
his boys and that show and then I got to see it that's a very same day after
having hung out with the cast and seeing that they were real people
from the side and see and and and witnessing the stagehands putting
together the solar powered subs
set and putting them on and off in the screams and through your beautiful show
so I was so connected to John in a very
far away way everything I was appreciative that he did that
and it was such a great moment for me and then so I just kinda followed his
trajectory around
and then they started meeting with directors and and got Michael Mayer on
board and
and asked Michael who they thought should play a Michael suggested me and
they said we would let me know but he's not free
for another year and a half and Michael facility in half but
and they said really
I am speaking out looking for you guys but that was kind of the story that I
will withhold
I wanted to start Stephen and and John
a.m. with a little bit of that have your version at the the origin have had week
story but and how this character in the show
and this music in this story came together
I think the two of us were were equally frustrated
with our careers but probably more me than
on because I had nine I know could be frustrated with
um but we're both looking for something to do that was
that was that was bigger than what we had done
me just gigs and we just kept running into each other
arms start going to film started hanging out he arm
I was dropping Flyers my band and he finally came to see my band that was
really into the band I want to see him into play
on a musical and I thought it was amazing and you
like was do something together and John had an idea for
a sorta autobiographical
um arm play that was sorta organized around
Plato's symposium in it was and was in remember it was you were looking
it was a character based on you was looking back at other lover
lovers other have other happy times whether have some who was it
arm pan over them and
arm and you asked me to write the song became more to love love
your base and our stuff the story in Plato's symposium and
and then we were kind of stock if I remember correctly
right and then one day
john tells me this story about a babysitter that
had summitted babysat for his brother and
and sat on the story are you want us to it was very was you told a perfectly the
time but it was
it was that am very old yes but armistead
I was like well we're trying to get some material into this amazing story about
going to this
a woman's trailer and John issues
also oh you're sheep with the the the bus the setup
he was our babysitter choose our babysitters use a divorce
army wife of Germany a woman and
my friend Brandon I from next door would loved her cuz she was extremely
one-year an- at a savoir faire and
she's german you now all these French things in your shoes German she
you the you through it this shit but she didn't
have anything house at how can someone be so we go with nothing
an we would act out
songs like copacabana and lionize we created like performance pieces: for her
to disallow
and smoke too but
an issue by issue a trailer shit a different date every night
she didn't know what they were gonna look like
for they came up the driveway to pick her up issues like
I'll someone's coming psych
she saw popular no a
so years later my friend Brenda said she might have had another job
a saddam tells me this story basically just like that
Hamza and and unlike I catch up
you have to do that character and then with her talking but
John doing this character as a drag character and the deposit down other
half as a possible other half for this Rockstar
and with the bring it under Squeezebox mechanic or fail performer
and john major trends and we did which started wrong stuff on
got her this gig and then she became very popular
Hedwig the character I exists in a way in her own
mind and and her own memory
and yet also is standing before us kinda
ad libbing miss story of her life and and these
these songs I mean how did how did you
how are you do you build that performance i mean i i think thats
different I would imagine from other kinds a performance that you
you've done yet yeah I feel like an
mmm in many ways this from me has been the most
um foreign I've ever felt
I the most out of place I've ever felt on justus
a myriad of different levels and so just the actor in me is having to
act more like a sponge then be able to use
actual memories that a I have had in my own experience
I did not grow up with punk rock in with David Bowie in with that kinda music I
grew up listening
to the finger guard
the a
but I
and so even even just now when you guys are telling me that their origin stories
about all
I'm still like trying to take in what that means as
for me I watched Squeezebox that they did a documentary
on a movie at that so I'm they know that I was watching that trying to just
take from it what that must have been like and what that feels like and I'm
reading books on things and watching documentaries on things in
learning about Germany and you know I'm
like having to learn a lot about a lot of things to the core
values that had big its is seeking
I i think is pretty universal I relate
and respond to that idea that the notion that you
would only be more blank
if this one thing had just happened differently
right so it it could be looking for the other half the other person
or it could just be are if I had just if I had just
not spelled that word wrong in the seventh grade spelling bee
and not gotten second gotten first then I would have done what
Samantha did which was went to dat thing and got that and then I would be like so
many like I think everyone
to some extent lives in those
in securities at like me and that and this would have happened and that's her
whole world
is this 3 instances in who lives where as that had something been different
than it would have all been different and Tommy knows this is obviously the
the massive one that's just staring at her a block away she can hear him
just right there and I'd love that everyone can feel that
and so that's at its core and then you just cover it with
with armor and a and it's just so beautifully written that a lot
ad libbing that seems Adelaide is almost uniformly not
I mean that there's a couple moments where I get to ad lib if I want and
frankly there's
a lot of performances where I'm just opting to add live because I don't wanna
feel like I'm just doing the same show
because if jokes are landing in their strong I just don't know I just don't
wanna do the same joke over and over
and that is okay in fact
I dare say that some of the most interesting part to the show
yeah and so that its own danger right because you don't want to just rely on
it being
different for the sake of being Connecticut but it's really been fun for
me to see that
when I'm sweaty and gross and when like it's not working well and my voice is
cracking in many ways that
morehead big and more appropriate to the show
then if I'm good and good and on point and always being
good and that's been an interesting sort of journey for me within it
because and thankfully these two are here and part in the show
and you know are so supportive yeah in
your in of billiards in my small failures on stage
I about that through though
John how it how is it is it been for you to see you're not only the
the the author up the the head with a book but you are of course
a.m. the first headway
we don't really try to control it you know other shows
the authors are always know how dare you
you know but but but make that character you know
played that male characters a woman whatever's like
whatever anyone wants to do I'm fine as long as they're trying to
in not messing with I don't want adding
things a key moments for psych not missing the Scriptures songs
so for me it's very very exciting to see
Neil who
you know there were other people to talk to but it was weird huh
everybody thought of him partners you know it was just something about inside
never to rock and roll is never done drag you know
earlier in I'd in the rehearsal process is like
I don't know if I have a girl in me I'm like T
you know this a
like I know she's there
nation's air everyone's got a logger or a little boy
and its X-eighty it's thrilling
and he it feels strapped in
and elevated I for a ride
much them
them