- All right.
We are back and I'm here with Abigail and Emily
of Barlow & Bear.
They're the creators of the unofficial "Bridgerton Musical".
We didn't talk about that last time, but Barlow & Bear,
I don't remember talking about that's the coolest name ever,
Barlow & Bear.
- It just worked. - Yeah.
- It works well.
I would, yes.
You could see it on everything, merch, and everything.
Next week, Broadway welcomes its newest star,
When Talia Suskauer takes center stage
as Elphaba in "Wicked".
It's a role made famous by Idina Menzel.
Talia was so stoked when she first found out,
she decided to surprise her vocal coach
with the news in a video that's
since gone viral and you'll see why,
take a look.
- [Talia] I'm gonna be Elphaba on Broadway.
- Whoa, whoa.
Whoa, golly
I told you when you were 12.
- I know you did.
- Oh my God.
I'm so happy for you.
- Thank you.
You're gonna have to come to New York.
- Oh, I will now, for sure.
- I love that.
After that video, we had to bring them on.
Please welcome Talia Suskauer,
and her vocal coach, Craig Wick.
Now give it up!
(audience cheering)
- I love that video,
meet the girls.
- I'm huge fans of you all.
- Congratulations. - Congratulations.
- We'll be seeing you. - On Broadway!
- It's a very musical show thus far.
Yes. I love this.
Well, congrats on the new role.
It's kind of a new role.
I mean, you've been in the role for a while,
but it's now you're on Broadway in the role.
- Yes.
Yeah, which is wild.
I mean, this is really a dream come true for me.
I saw the show when I was nine,
- [Kelly] Oh my God.
- on Broadway.
That's how long the show's been around.
I was always into musical theater,
and always very theatrically inclined,
and started taking voice lessons with this guy here,
Craig Wick.
- Way to go Craig! - Way to go, hey!
(audience cheering)
- And when I was like 12 years old,
we started singing the music from "Wicked",
and he told me you're gonna do this role
on Broadway someday.
- Oh wow.
- And I kind of held that dream in my heart,
and with a lot of hard work,
went to college musical theater,
and started playing the role
on the national tour of "Wicked",
summer of 2019.
And obviously we had a pandemic in between, but
- Some things happened.
- Some things happened and
- Life shut down
- Life shut down, and yeah.
- So you were surprised, but you kind of weren't,
cuz you kind of knew she was gonna always do this.
- Well, Talia came to me like most young girls
they they're pressing the voice to produce these belt sounds
and we had to take the pressure off.
Get her to develop flow foundation,
and what happened was
she had this phenomenal operatic voice,
which most people don't understand.
She could be an operatic star at The Met.
- Those are the best singers then that are able to do that.
- Yeah, then once you stabilize that larynx,
then you just adjust the different harmonics.
So she took two, it belt her tunes to the second,
third and fourth harmonic.
So she figured that out,
and she was brilliant.
And we did a define gravity one day in the studio
and I just looked at her, my jaw dropped.
I said you were going to do this on Broadway, but I knew it.
I knew, I knew it.
I've told the story to many people, thousands of times.
And I knew it.
She knew it, you know?
- I love that.
Well y'all have seen "Wicked", obviously.
- Oh my yeah.
- Well, I don't know you haven't seen "Bridgerton", yet.
(all laughing)
- Maybe you're a little late to that game, too.
- Oh, don't come for us.
- Barlow & Bear,
I see you down there.
I don't mean, that was amazing
That was well, I am not the only one
who's totally moved by Talia's video.
There's someone backstage who wants to wish her good luck
on her Broadway debut.
So will that person come out?
(upbeat music)
(audience cheering and clapping)
- Oh my God.
- You're beautiful.
- You're such a good teacher.
- I just missed you at the Gershwin by like a week,
couple weeks.
- I'll come back, I'll come back.
- Please.
- I know I brought all those smelly, prepubescent
boys to the show.
And you missed that.
I'm so happy for you.
And the advice that I would give or
that Kelly might give as well is make sure you
wear the black opaque tights underneath.
- You got it.
- Just in case you're drinking a lot of water,
and someone makes you laugh and you have a,
and you pee in your pants.
It sops it up really good.
And then you can just go right out there and fly.
- Can I just say the amount of times
I have like sung to you in my car?
It's just like, it's crazy.
- I'm just gonna hang out with you.
I love that her whole body turned towards you,
like a whole, no stay turned, stay turned,
you have your moment, ma'am.
You stay turned,
I'm just gonna come join you.
Cuz Chris is like,
you're out there on an island.
- I was like, no, I gotta say,
I gotta ask her.
Do you remember your first time?
Like when you heard you got the role.
- Oh my God, yeah.
- And you didn't actually know the gravity haha, to find,
yeah, I didn't even mean to do it.
You didn't actually even know that you keep your posture
to face that way.
No, I was messing with you.
I was messing with you.
No, do you remember that moment, you know?
Cause you didn't know how big it was gonna be.
You didn't know what was going on.
- Oh my God,
I yeah, no, it was incredible.
We didn't know what it was going to be.
It was different.
But I just remember auditioning,
and working on it with my ex-husband actually,
who was my best friend and I was learning to find gravity,
and I just knew, I said, this is something
it just made me wanna cry when I was practicing at home.
And then when I got it, I just
I felt like, yeah, it was
you just know when you're gonna be a part of something.
You don't know how big it it's gonna be
or whatever, but yeah.
I'm so just glad that you're here,
and you're going to extend, what am I trying to say?
- You know, you know what,
it's such a big role, right?
Do you ever, do you feel pressure?
There's been some Elphaba's, right?
Do you ever feel that pressure
or you know what you should,
- Do you feel like you have huge footsteps to fill?
- Well, what I actually feel is the strength
of all of the women that have played the part for me.
- Optimism, I like you.
- It's true, cause I get asked a lot, like,
you know people are coming to the theater,
they're expecting you know, to hear the cast album,
and I'm never gonna be this incredible person right here
but I can be me and I walk in the footsteps
of all these incredible women that have played this part
and bring their unique strength to this.
It's just incredible, so yeah.
- Yeah. Ah, empty chairs, empty table.
See, it's another big song for that one.
So "Wicked" is playing at the Gershwin Theater,
in New York City.
If you haven't seen it yet, shame on you
you should go see it.
It is so amazing.
You can see Talia Suskauer
in the role of Elphaba, starting May 24.