Chris Lanceley: Hello and welcome to the brand new season of Mischief Makers podcast. I'm your host Chris Lanceley. I've been with the off Broadway production of The Play That Goes Wrong since it opened in 2019 playing Chris Bean. This season of the Mischief Makers podcast will focus on the incredible nine years and counting run of the play that goes wrong here in New York City. And what better way to start this season than with our first guest, Kevin McCollum, the incredible producer who's brought you some of your favorite shows, Rent in the Heights Avenue Q, and of course, The Play That Goes Wrong. Thanks for joining me.
Kevin McCullom: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you having me for for having me. Um, and two having me, which is a new term, very mischievous when you are two halved. Uh, which means I come in pieces. I'm not quite sure.
CL: Well, let's hope not.
KM: All right.
CL: Well, my first question, I'm going to start kind of broad. Um, how do you view uh your role and responsibilities as a producer um in New York?
KM: Well, you know, The Play That Goes Wrong is is a unique um show for me because I typically uh work on shows from the very beginning in the inception and the development and I love the development process, but once in a while there is a show that is just so special uh that I see somewhere around the world.
CL: right.
KM: And it just hits me, you know, right in my gut uh because I'm busting a gut. And when I saw the show, I just I didn't laugh a lot because I was doing the math of why it was so funny. And that happens a lot to me when I when I see something because I am listening to the psychology of the audience and the contract that is made.
CL: Right.
KM: So I just want to say that that I have to give a lot of credit for whatever success we have in this country uh to Kenny and Mark the original producers and of course the Mischief company who grew up together wrote together went to school together. I'm sure they did many other things together and as a result created this wonderful, wonderful play that allows us to, sort of, reflect in the in the foibless of the human condition in the most classic theatrical way which is falling on your face, and theater against all odds, you know. And um the logic of that contract and that storytelling uh was just so compelling. I needed to do everything I could to be a partner and bring the show to America. And so what does a producer do in that situation? And we can talk about the differences, but in that situation, I really felt like I'm a Sherpa. I have this group of wonderfully amazingly talented producers, designers, and artists.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And I'm going to get them all together and take them through this new territory and climb the highest peak there is in commercial theatrical landscape. The ridiculousness of Broadway.
CL: Right.
KM: At a time when comedy was a bit out of fashion. Many people who heard that I was looking at bringing the show here um were like, "Uh, it's so British." And I'm like, well, it's laughter. And I think laughter crosses every border. And I also think it, the Brits and the Americans like to say we're (especially in the theatre), we're a culture separated by a common language. But the one language that I think doesn't separate us is when we're laughing together. And so I I really feel in this one I'm a bit of a sherpa. And I want to make sure no one dies in the frost of Broadway.
CL: That's such a lovely way to talk about it. I kind of I'm curious at what point in the show's development did you see it for the first time?
KM: I had heard about it and I actually I was producing a musical called Something Rotten and it was like 2015 and I was just going through around this time of year a Tony campaign. We had opened and it was, we were already, sort of gone through a Tony sort of situation when we were planning what would happen and I got this letter from SOLT during the Olivier’s of the same year and the Olivier’s you know just happened. So, the Olivier's happened in early April and it was a week before the Oliviers and it was this letter from the Mischief and The Play That Goes Wrong to all the voters when I was, I'm a voter at the Olivier and basically it was a letter like, please do not vote for our show. It is a terrible show. Um, we are embarrassed. Will you even have to waste your time? And I had heard about the show already and I was figuring out when I could go see it. And I thought to myself, this is my sense of humor because I was doing something. I had worked with the authors to call a musical Something Rotten. It was really called Shakespeare's Omelet. The first the authors first came up with that. And we just sitting around working on the show. And I said, "What happens if we could we get away with calling a musical Something Rotten?"
CL: Yeah.
KM: I mean, that's it has a lot of confidence. And and so I loved the confidence of the humor to disparage voting for them.
CL:It's kind of the natural conclusion of that –
KM: and I think and I think the end of that story is they won. They won that.
CL: I imagine that helps.
KM: Well, actually, you know, the Olivier is helpful, but it's not a gamechanger just like the Tony's are not a game changer. Again, separated by a common language. It's a very interesting dynamic between the two territories when you're producing in both territories. how one award might be much more important in in a certain territory. And the Oliviers are important, but you know there the Tony's really do move the needle from an economic standpoint.
CL: When you're watching a show, do you watch it as a patron or do you watch it as a producer?
KM: I really I mean I think one of the things I am you know, one of the I one of the things I think that is perhaps separates me a little bit um because I used to be a performer and I used to write lyrics and I have an artist's heart and so I know the creative process and I'm comfortable. I've always looked at you know sort of money as a tool and the families you build as the destination. So this also is a show about in the fiction of the show uh you know this this amateur theater company um and yet the non-fiction is that this is a theater company that grew up together doing a show about a fictitious theater amateur theater company and I loved that um I loved that dynamic and I always want to be a part of those groups you know from when I was a performer and I still have that you know deep in my soul. So I go to have a good time. I go to be surprised. And when I see a show that I see the contract is made with the audience and then the audience feels safe which is really so important in any musical or plays like does the audience feel that they are in good hands that their time is not going to be wasted and they usually form that opinion within the first you know five to seven minutes.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And the pre-show, which was great, which all of a sudden they're comfortable with the audience. You're seeing they're doing this for the first time, even though it's routine probably in 12 different ways. It comes from improv, but yet nothing could be better thought out or planned. I just loved it. And so I'm a fan, but I'm also have to be economically rigorous on how you take care of not only protecting the authors who would give you their copyright to figure out how they can make a living in their sleep in London while they give you the show to figure out how to produce in this territory, but also how I also take care of um the theater and all the other stakeholders. When you do a Broadway show.
CL: Is it a challenge to find investors or find other partners when you're pushing a show that is designed to be a failure?
KM: Yes. I mean, I think I think I think I'm all about differentiation. So, if I if I can explain to an investor or myself because I'm usually the first investor. What people don't know is producers have to usually put a lot of money up front before they've even created the paperwork to go and find um their investors. So what happens is I have to first decide is this something I can talk about in a in a in a way that why I got excited.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And then it's easy. I always say you know money is a tool, people are the destination. So, I if I can say we need this tool to make this happen and I'm putting up this much money and I always have some money in my shows or or it's very hard to raise money and I'm surprised when people don't have any money in in the shows they produce and that happens less and less because the real producers who last usually have some of their money even though the conventional wisdom is other people's money but to get other people's money in today's world people want to know and it's all very transparent, you know, it's all it's a security, so you have to disclose and the list of investors are there. So, you can't pretend you have money in a show you don't have money in.
CL: Yeah.
KM: So, yeah. No, I I find if I can tell the story of why I'm telling the story and create the philosophy, then then the money is just it's there.
CL: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you have found clearly the key to to making a show last.
KM: Yeah. I mean, I came from booking. I was an actor, but then I started a company called the booking office. It's now called the booking group. I'm still a part of it. But what is interesting, it comes from distribution. And I always said, if you're going to make it once, you better figure out if it works, then what do you do? And uh you know, producing isn't like I'm just going to produce the show. No, you're people are relying on you to have a plan so that it has a life beyond its initial production. And that's what that's also what I think about. And I have a history of doing that because I've just lived it since I was, you know, basically 28 years old.
CL: Yeah. I mean, it's essentially a startup kind of whenever you
KM: Every show is a startup and you're trying to make a cottage industry out of it. Absolutely.
CL: And as it as it years go by on a show, how does your role shift as as the producer?
KM: I think the hardest thing um you know it it doesn't really you know Broadway the commercial theater just opened a show on Broadway and off Broadway is similar with a little less, basically, how to say, a little less of a Rubik's cube with you know Broadway is like 16 unions and or 16 union contracts with 15 different unions.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And off Broadway you might you might have five unions, right? It's a little different. And therefore, you know, I'm not anti-UN at all. I'm anti-infficiency. So therefore, the rule work rules are a little easier and a little looser off Broadway. Um and your crew might be 11 on 11 or 12, 13 on Broadway, which is a typical crew of a of even a play. And then off Broadway, you might have a crew of four. And therefore your ticket price can come down. Unfortunately, people are paid less because we have less seats to sell. So my role doesn't really change in just monitoring that and making sure the show can stay open and planning how we advertise and making sure we understand the trends like you know we know the holidays are usually very, very buoyant for the industry and you know February you know can be bleak except for Valentine's Day and you know Easter's tough and we're now ramping up into a time that Broadway is going to get a little frothy because the season has ended. We're right now sitting, you know, at the end of April and we're going into the Tony push of 2026. So, people are now going to write and pay attention to the shows. So, you know that the Wraps will come up. So, you're constantly monitoring that. But the stronger Broadway is, sometimes the weaker off Broadway is because a lot of attention is now going to the Tony's. So, this is now a quieter time.
CL: Yeah.
KM: - in off Broadway, even though I like to say where the play that goes wrong is now playing, um, we are Broadway adjacent. We are just raw Faith Avenue and you know we ran two years on Broadway and then you know we moved to as you know to the new world stages and we haven't stopped since.
CL: No it's been it's been fantastic. I mean and at what point during that Broadway run do you think this can have a life elsewhere? This can work in a in a smaller space um with a smaller crew and and all of that situation.
KM: Yeah. I I always say I'm not really a Broadway producer.
CL: Yeah.
KM: I'm a producer and some of the shows I get involved with go to Broadway.
CL: Right
KM: So, Broadway is just another platform of live storytelling. So, you know, we could have a situation where, you know, when I saw the show at the Duchess in London, um, there's 400 seats. You know, it's fascinating that actually off Broadway we have 399 and so we're basically the same size as the venue in London.
CL: Yeah.
KM: Our economics are a little more expensive of course, but, and they've enjoyed 10 years and they're the original production and, but it it it's the same role whether it's Broadway or off Broadway as a producer. You just have to keep it going. The hardest thing for me actually is on long-running shows when people come in and out is remembering the names. And that really gives me great anxiety because it's like I'm a producer. I care about the and it's like I I just my brain also at my age now of 64 I mean when I was producing Rent and we had you know five companies around the world at one moment it was I prided myself I knew everyone's name that would be almost an impossible task right now uh and that's just what happens but that that that is the sad thing because it's hard to be everywhere. So success has its own, causes a certain anxiety if you can't be as hands on as you like to be. And I think again I like being in the room and and making sure everyone is sort of nurtured in a way of you got to show up for each other. That's the great thing about our business.
CL: Yeah.
KM: Because it's fragile and if you're a producer who doesn't show up, things can fall apart pretty quickly.
CL: Right. And it's it is a family over there off Broadway in our New World stage as home. We have a WhatsApp group of all of the alumni of the show that just keeps growing year on year. It's been great to be there personally for those seven and a half years with that and meet such wonderful people throughout.
KM: Well, you are you are the Deuteronomy, old Deuteronomy of the show.
CL: Yeah. And it is increasingly weird to me that I've been there so long that
KM: But at the same time it's the kind of show that I and again I don't want to speak for you but everyone who's played the role because the contract is with the audience and the audience is a new personality each and every performance you're not you're actually interacting with the audience in a way where you are truly in in dialogue creatively.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And that's when I was a performer, I used to love improv and I used to love, you know, breaking the fourth wall and we break a lot of things in the show and the fourth wall is one of them, which again is the kind of show that you can come to again and again and it's a different experience. So for the listeners, if you've seen it once, see it in another territory, see it again. Every performance is unique.
CL: Yeah, we it's amazing that you say this is a show that where the audience feels safe. And it is it, it absolutely is that that that pre-show and it's remarkable that the audience can feel safe despite the fact that a character breaks the fourth wall and screams at them halfway through the show yet everyone's laughing at it and enjoying it and it's just I think it's a real testament to what the piece is.
KM: I like to say um what you know Mischief Company has done so beautifully all of them not only the writers but those who who created the the foundation of the first company they truly love working without a net and there's a generosity of spirit and they show the bones.
CL: Yeah.
KM: They show you know it's like it's like Penn and Teller who are great magicians. They love to show you how the trick works and then you're still amazed.
CL: Yeah.
KM: That's what I love. You really can show the bones on this. These are these are people just trying to tell a story against all odds and everything's going wrong. And whether you're someone who's just trying to drop, you know, your kids off at daycare or buy a bagel in a crowded bodega, it's like, why is everything have to be so hard?
CL: Yeah. Yeah.
KM: You know, and I think that's what this show celebrates. It's like it's that vulnerability that we all share of trying to get through our day as a metaphor and literally in a play about just trying to tell a murder mystery.
CL: Yeah. You find the audience is is rooting for you as long as there there's life in these characters and personalities and something to root for. That's what I enjoy the most.
KM: Yeah. Exactly. And you know, I will also say when I saw the show, I did tell, you know, Mischief and the whole team, there's a couple of tweaks I want to make for America. And they, you know, they felt they they didn't resist, but in that British way, they made me feel like they were listening to me. Yeah. And then in –
CL: I've not been listening this whole time.
KM: Please, please. And I know that you're not really British, that you're just from Connecticut and that's an accent that you use to get work. Um, so –
CL: Not very effective.
KM: No, clearly you've had one gig for seven and a half years. Something's wrong.
CL: Yeah. Yeah.
KM: Now, are we going to talk about the career that went wrong with you? Is that don't audition?
CL: Well, yeah.
KM: No, it's not true. You're you're amazing, Chris. So, there was a couple of logical things where I said, you know, I know the British music hall tradition is you can just kind of do something silly, you know, for silliness. And because the British culture grew up on murder mysteries, Americans, we don't have that as much as a format. So, we don't know the rules of a murder mystery structure. So, if you just do something silly in a place that's just silly and it's not rooted to the logic of trying to tell the story of the play, the Americans are amused. They're not as engaged. So there was a couple of moments where I felt um there needed to be just a more logical reason of why something was happening, especially if the character of Chris Bean is trying to get through the show, right? And we found those and and it was great to work with them early on, on those.
CL: And it's interesting you say that because what I found in the seven years of playing the role and others in the show is that um making it as honest and real and as genuine as possible um and really trying to dedicate yourself to the murder mystery as much as possible and get back to that is where the show finds the most success with the audience.
KM: Because, because we know the contract. You're trying to you you say we are going to do this play.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And then things, you know, happen through just, you know, out of their control. And so a character facing a tough situation or a character just being, and I'll use the word stupid about something, it's not as effective if it's just they're dumb. It has to be their misunderstanding the situation.
CL: Yeah.
KM: At all times. But it there's a logic. There's And that's the brilliance of the mischief comedy. There's logic under the comedy.
CL: Totally.
KM: And and I'll just say because I also produced Peter Pan Goes Wrong Here, that show was easier to be silly for sillier sake because we know the Peter's Pan story. We know the A to B much better than we know a murder mystery A to B.
CL: And I imagine Christmas Carol, which is heading to the Al.
KM: Yes. And that's a very different incarnation, too. I think that's what I love about Mischief, too, for anyone who who's a fan of the Mischief world as creators are always trying to reinvent what they've done before. They're not trying to do the same show again just with a different title. So, that's what I really admire about them.
CL: So, I I have I'm going to push to break in a couple of moments, but I have a repeated question that I have a a mischievous question that I'm going to be asking everybody that I interview. And uh your mischievous question is um would you rather have the original 1996 cast of Rent perform the Play That Goes Wrong or the original 2017 Broadway cast of The Play That Goes Wrong perform Rent and Why?
KM: Um I'd like to I'd like to leave the building for both of those. No, I think listen I think either could be kind of amazing. But I think probably the original company doing mischief would be probably the right casting. I don't think there's I don't know. I guess Sandra would have to play Moren and also play Mimi and Joanna. I It would be a lot. It would be It would be It would be mischievous either way. Um but um you know Rent is such a uh just sort of a a touchstone of of sort of how we moved I think the musical theater form forward a little bit and that's what I always try to do and um I will say that uh the emotional truths uh are are important to tell any story well. So, but I think I think uh I think if you've been in Rent for a while, it might be great to have a few laughs and and fall down a little bit.
CL: Yeah, I can imagine. All right, we'll be right back.
CL: All right, welcome back everyone. Um I'm going to start with a question. JJ Abrams, how on earth did that happen?
KM: Well, clearly he lost a bet.
CL: Yeah.
KM: And he had to do this, I guess. The only thing you can imagine. Oh, actually when I first got that letter about when I talked earlier about please don't vote for us.
CL: Yeah.
KM: I got a call from CAA the next day for some reason and uh I thought it was about an actor and something rotten or something and the agent said um do you know J.J. Abrams? And I went yes. He goes, "Well, there's a play in London called, you know, the play that goes wrong. He really likes and um he'd like to do it, but he's also the kind of guy who knows that, you know, he's doing a lot of film and television and he's loved theater and you know, he asked us who he should talk to who might be a good partner for him in the theater." And your name came up and I went, "Oh, I'm very flattered." And and I asked I said, "So, what what did he see?" And they said, "The Play That Goes Wrong." I said, "It's funny. I'm scheduled to go and see it." Yeah. and he goes, "Well," he saw it and um I said, "Well, I'm going to go next week." So, let me go and I'll call you, you know, I'll call you back and tell you what I think. So, I went and I loved it, as you know. So, I called the agent back and I said, "Yeah, if JJ wants to talk, let's talk." And I had also spoken to Kenny Wax when I went over to see it because I'd known Kenny and I had been, you know, I called him so he kind of knew who I was and my interest and it was very, very special. He's an amazing guy and he runs a big operation. And especially at that time there was so much going on in his world and um we decided okay let's do this play together and see what happens. So, we made an arrangement and the authors were thrilled. Kenny and Mark were thrilled and we said, "Okay, will shepherd it here and we uh we immediately started talking about it. He agreed with my notes and he had some great notes as well along the similar manner like we don't know murder mysteries. We have to really do this." And he's a lover of theater which makes him a great producer of theater because he's not someone from Hollywood who just wants to say I'm also a Broadway producer. No, he he grew up going to the theater, loving it, and knows his knows his stuff. So, that was just fantastic. And we made the arrangement and the funny thing was is I we did do a press conference and I we did joke about and I'd like to, you know, introduce JJ Abrams who clearly lost a bet and we played that out that actually he did, you know, you know, he owed me some money and so we had to do it or something. I can't remember exactly, but we just played with the public about it and it put us on the map, but it wasn't enough to because no producer sells a show. There's been a lot of very famous people above the title. The two things JJ did that a lot of those people don't is that he actually worked on the show. He helped us cut our commercial. He had a lot to say about our advertising and he spent a lot of time with the authors just as a person going out to dinner getting to know them. He didn't helicopter in. He was he was really in the trenches with us and it was great and we're friends to this day and you know he's a big fan of mischief. So it was a serendipitous and real relationship that we share to this day.
CL: Sounds like a great foundation for a relationship that he a shared passion and love, but uh he knew he didn't know what he didn't know.
KM: Yeah.
CL: And he knew that a sherper like you could a sherper. Yeah. Kind of fill that void for him, right?
KM: Listen, if I was making a movie, he'd be the guy I'd call.
CL: Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. So one thing that we deal with on a daily basis at the play that goes wrong is the kind of degradation of the set and uh you know cast turnover and crew turnover as you continue your journey with this show is that something that you as a producer kind of manage as well that you try.
KM: I mean, I don't know if you remember, but you know, we did win a Tony Award for the show, and it was for best set.
CL: Yes.
KM: And I have to tell you, ever since ever since you you're going to exactly where I was going, ever since the set one, that she's been very hard to work with. I mean, lazy. I mean, you know, everything she's always breaking and, you know, and it's like, you know, before a Tony, you know, she would be, I'm fine. you don't need to you don't need to polish me. And now it's like, oh, we have to polish her. It's like, you know, nothing worse with a than a set with an agent. I jest, but that's the hardest thing. I mean, in producing, just like anything, if you run your home or anything, it's never free. You always have to say okay you have to pay for everybody and all that but then you also have to put an accrual aside that you know your floor is going to last x amount of years you know that that hinge is going to you know have to be looked at and there's a lot of safety issues because things do go wrong. Nobody has died but injury is always possible. And if you're lazy or there's a prop that there's an edge that didn't get sanded Ed, right? Or anything like that because it's a game of inches and sometimes millimeters. We're throwing things at each other. We're slipping. We're falling. And um we just have to make sure no one no one perishes during the show. That's really the producers’ job. And again, the sherpa, no one dies, you know, and of course um I'm being hyperbolic here, but when I say dies, I mean, you know, when someone gets their thumb jammed, you know, you we go back and like, okay, what happened there?
CL: Yeah.
KM: Was that was that the actor error or is there something on the set that is not in place and that has to be constantly repaired?
CL: That's interesting because I mean you you're talking about predicting the unpredictability by putting money aside and being aware that certain things will last a certain amount of time. My question I suppose like what I'm moving on to I was always your knowledge seems to be quite granular of what the set is and all these things and I was wondering I've always imagined there's a threshold where people go oh we got to call Kevin on this one.
KM: Well, you know, it's wonderful. The team, first of all, doesn't call me a lot on that. Carl White, who is our current general manager, we've had three different chapters of different general managers, just as the show has evolved um from Broadway to touring to off Broadway. And you can't work on a show without understanding how to read plans and drawings and how it works in the theater and how HVAC works. I mean, what a lot of audiences don't know, if you have a curtain and you have the wrong HVAC setting, all of a sudden that curtain doesn't raise correctly or falls into can get on a piece of furniture and rip and it's a it it's you're really creating an environment where safety first. So, it's very similar. before we start a show, um, we'll come in and we'll make sure often times we have work calls every week where we tighten all the lights and all that because we have a show where lights do fall down, but that's on purpose. But, uh, we have to make sure that the actual rig is solid and we spend a lot of time on that before and after. And there's always a continuity call after where things have to be cleaned up and the set has to be made sure that did the set didn't get damaged during the show about a set being damaged. Um, so there's a lot of diligence and you have to know what you're doing.
CL: Yeah, that's very reassuring on my end.
KM: Yes, absolutely.
CL: I was wondering I I've noticed this from my perspective um on stage. It seems like the release of the script to schools and to the to the public has had a a really positive impact on um attendance to the show.
KM: I think so. I'm a great believer. I'm a great believer um you know we don't come into your living room for free like television and even though if you pay cable I it's not free but you don't have to do anything things can be delivered to you for film and television they become popular there was a conventional wisdom when I was starting producing in the in the early 90s late 80s where oh you know you got to do the Broadway thing and then don't release anything until you've finished and I as a theater kid growing up. And I was born in Hawaii. We never got the tours. So, we would get the rights released to I went to Punoho, which is a school, actually I went to school with Barack Obama. He was a year ahead of me. Yeah. We were on fifth and sixth grade student council.
CL: Oh, great.
KM: He did well there.
CL: I'm sure.
KM: And, for a sixth grader, he was pretty on it. I really felt as a kid growing up in Hawaii, we would get we'd hear about a show on Broadway, there'd be an album that would get to us and then it would be the next season in the college or the high school because they've got to release it to Hawaii. No one's going. So what we did with Mischief first in this country and we also did it with SIX another show I did with Kenny Wax is you know we released you know high school and colleges first and then um after we left Broadway we've also had you know regional productions and things because we can do the what we call the replica production which is the original production with all the bells and whistles. A lot of the other and so they might come in touch with it and love it or see it but then want to see the actual replica production of the original and that's really special what we have at New World Stages.
CL: Totally.
KM: And also on the West End.
CL: Yeah. It's a story I hear time you know people be at the stage door telling us oh I played Chris and I played and oh brilliant. They'll show us pictures of them which has been all over our social media as well. Pictures from other people's productions all over the country. It's brilliant.
KM: Well, I think I think this is the other thing about this show and about Mischief and why we have a podcast. There is such a generosity of spirit from the artists that created these plays. Yeah. Because they were kids in school just wanting to put on shows and be with their friends. So that ethic is a part of The Play That Goes Wrong because when you make something with your friends, it's an expression of love and it's also makes you feel safe that you belong to something bigger than yourself in the world. And all of us who go to the theater and love the theater. I think the magic of the theater is that we are involved in in in an art form that evaporates the moment you make it. And we are choosing to use our treasure and the most important treasure is not money. It's time. So when you are a young person learning about how to put a show together and make people laugh and get a reaction, you are actually connecting in a time of a lot of division. And I think it's one of the reasons why the play gets stronger and stronger. One of the um reasons is a very unfortunate reason that people miss being together, feeling safe, and laughing. No matter where they come from, no matter what their political point of view is, they are all human beings trying to figure out what this life is in an art form that evaporates while you're living your life. And um that is not lost on me. And it's keeps uh me very tethered to the ground and very humbled and grateful that I get to toil in the short time I have on this planet in something that is created and leaves immediately. So we all die a little every time we do the show, but we also breathe so much life into the time while we're dying.
CL: It's interesting. My final question to you is going to be um what you see as the Goes Wrong brand's greatest contribution to the New York theater landscape. And I'm not sure if you just answered it with previous question.
KM: Maybe um don't take yourself too seriously. Yeah, we are all only here for so long and you can't hold on to it. But what you can hold on to while you're breathing is the memory of a great laugh with strangers that then become a family.
CL: Yeah.
KM: Yeah, that's what's so wonderfully delicious and mischievous.
CL: I think that goes for all of us backstage as well. We laugh together. We laugh on stage. Not all the time hopefully as Chris Bean, but we really have become a family. Um and the show is kind of what brought us together. It's lovely. Finally, it's kind of my final thought. You see yourself as a sherpa um in the kind of theater world. But I really want to kind of herald your role as a job creator as well. In the nine plus years this show has been here, so many people have felt security in in their career that they hadn't felt before. I know I am one of those people who has felt that. In the last seven and a half years that I've been with the show, I've been allowed I've been able to feel safe enough to start a family, to buy an apartment out in Queens. I've had consistent health insurance. I've saved for retirement. All of these things that I wouldn't have been able to do without such a consistent, long-running job in my life. So I suppose a sherper would kind of fit that role, but you provide safety to people that may not otherwise have had it through your gift of finding a hit and that longevity in a show and maintaining that um through the years. So, you know, thank you for doing this podcast with me, but also thank you for that.
KM: Well, well, thank you. But I also want to point out none of that happens unless you say I'm going to devote my life to trying to change other people's lives. And that's what you do. And my job is to give you an environment to show the world your talent and have your talent continue to grow. So my friend, you found me because of you and your talent and your gifts. And it's a pleasure to be able to provide a space where those gifts can be shown to an audience. But also to yourself and for you to grow and for us to grow together as we continue to figure out how to tell these stories in real time.
CL: Thanks Kevin. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you. Join us for the rest of the season of Mischief Makers podcast as we explore the incredible nine years and hopefully more of the play that goes wrong here in New York City. Lots of exciting episodes to come. Um once again, thanks Kevin and I'll see the rest of you soon.
