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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:08] Mo Brady: Hey guys, it's the morning of Friday, March 13th. I'm recording from my home today in this new pursuit to bring you a daily update of the lives of artists in the wake of COVID-19. So I'm going to try to speak to a different artist every day, talk to them about what they're experiencing right now and how the coronavirus outbreak is affecting their work. Today I got on the phone very early with fellow parent Jessica Rush. Jessica is in the cast of Tina, the Tina Turner musical on Broadway. And she called me from her home in Inwood. And we talked about how she found out about the Broadway shutdown and her concerns about how it's going to affect our industry. Here's our conversation.

[1:09] Mo Brady: Good morning.

[1:10] Jessica Rush: Hi, good morning, Mo.

[1:12] Mo Brady: Will you introduce yourself and tell us what neighborhood of New York City you live in?

[1:16] Jessica Rush: Oh yes. I am Jessica Rush and I live in Inwood.

[1:22] Mo Brady: And we're speaking on Friday morning.

[1:24] Jessica Rush: We are. It's Friday. My kid has gotten on the bus to go to school, Elliot, and I am here and twiddling my thumbs.

[1:33] Mo Brady: Because what is your job usually? What was your job earlier this week?

[1:37] Jessica Rush: I am in Tina, the musical. I play Rhonda Graham in Tina, the musical.

[1:43] Mo Brady: When was the first time you guys started talking about coronavirus at work? Like a company meeting, a stage manager coming by and being like, hey.

[1:48] Jessica Rush: I would say last week, people started sort of talking about it. And then after that, well, here's the thing. Let me be honest. I, well, I'm a mom clearly. And so I've already been paying attention to things. I'm immunocompromised because of medication that I'm on. And so, and also just in general, I like to know things. So I've been like keeping track of it for a while now and thinking this can't keep, this can't go on. They're going to have to do something. I'm the person who, when we got to the theater on like Tuesday, people were like, do you think they're going to cancel Broadway? And I said, absolutely. Absolutely. It's a matter of, I said, we will not be here by the weekend. I guarantee it.

And then, you know, but I, we didn't have any official, we had official emails starting last week, you know, from company management just saying, this is the, these are the precautions we're taking. We had a company meeting last, I believe Friday at like five. No, it would have been a Thursday, like at five fifty. We had a company meeting with David Roth and general management and just saying, you know, this is what we're doing. We're disinfecting the armrests and the back of the seats between every show. We are not allowing backstage guests. There's no line at the stage door and, and anyone who's traveled, you know, vendors aren't allowed backstage. So they were trying to keep it really separate front of house and, and, and behind the curtain just so, cause we can control us, you know, anyone who feels sick, don't come to work.

In fact, on Sunday I had a sore throat and a cough and normally I would have gone to work, but I thought, well, I don't know. So I called out, you know, cause I was like, I had a sore throat Saturday and then a cough on Sunday and I thought, well, who knows what this is? So I called out on Sunday.

[3:41] Mo Brady: Gosh, when did you hear about the usher at the booth and the Brooks Atkinson?

[3:50] Jessica Rush: People, I have to say, there's a bit of like a J rush signal. You know what I mean? Like I send out like the bat signal. I've been around a long time, basically. The kids at my show know this. So, you know, they start to hear rumors and then they asked me about it. And then I send out texts to the people that I know and I say, what do you guys hear? So we actually didn't hear about the usher until Wednesday. I mean, that was Wednesday morning. And so that, or Wednesday at the matinee, I guess, you know, so then there was this rumor and then I sent out my texts and got back, yeah, this is for real. There's going to be an announcement later today. And that's when we heard about the usher. And I think that sort of made it all very real for everyone all of a sudden, you know, much more so than it had been.

It felt like, oh, it's here. It's on 45th Street and we're on 47th or 46th. You know what I mean? It's like, what other shows was he at and who else has he come in contact with? And I think that once that happened, the snowball of it all just was like, oh, it's coming. It's coming. This is not, this isn't going to last much longer. That's when I literally was like, you guys, I actually, in fact, on Wednesday night, I, as everything was being canceled, NBA season, you know, Houston Rodeo, I have relatives in Texas and they're like, the Houston Rodeo is canceled. All these things are being canceled. And Wednesday night, I went around at work and I was like, y'all might just want to take home anything that you would want to have at home if you can't come here for a couple weeks.

And they're like, what now, Jess? I was like, I'm telling y'all, you should pack things up. I was like, I'm going to be the mom here and tell you, take home what you're going to want. And looky, looky, look what happened. Who was right?

[5:42] Mo Brady: Um, so when was the last time you went to work? Was it Wednesday night?

[5:47] Jessica Rush: Oh my gosh. Because then how did you find out? Well, I am actually the principal deputy at my show, principal equity deputy. So, uh, my phone, I, I went back to bed after I put Ellie on the school bus yesterday and slept a very long time. Actually, I woke up at like 11, which never happens. Clearly I was tired. Uh, probably just anxiety.

[6:10] Jessica Rush: Exactly. It was the anxiety. I mean, it was definitely, my body was like, you got to shut down for a minute. Um, but I woke up and my phone had exploded with texts from various company members, principals saying, this is what's happening. Have you heard this X, Y, Z? Uh, so I called Kristen Harris, our stage manager. Cause I, I woke up and I had gotten an email also from Kristen earlier or like late Wednesday night saying that, um, we were going to change the entrance for hero. So in our show, when we sing, we don't need another hero. We enter from the house, um, and walk down the aisles and they were changing that and we were no longer going to enter from the house and we were going to come on from the wings, um, to try to cut down even more.

And, uh, so I had already known that was happening, but when I started getting all these texts from people, people not feeling well, or people concerned that why are we going to work when all this is being canceled? You know, and not that we were banning together to be like, we're not going to go to work because you know, the show must go on. And also it's our job. Uh, there was real concern. And so I, I called Kristen and we talked about it and she was like, I haven't heard from anyone yet today. But, uh, then word started to, I started to get the text from other people in the, in the community of like the league is in a meeting or I'm at a final callback for XYZ and the director was just pulled out on the phone and I think they're going to cancel Broadway shows.

Like this was all coming in throughout the day. And, um, so I sort of felt like maybe we won't, we, we won't even go to work today, you know, and lo and behold, there it is. I mean, it's, it is a massive call to make. I mean, that is, I knew it wouldn't be taken lightly and I knew they would try to get by as long as they could because what it means for the economy, what it means for us, what it means for shows that haven't opened also just tourism in general, what that puts out to the world. But at the same time, New York City, you know, everything they keep talking about, uh, is the community spreading and, and populations where it's really dense, you know, like areas with density and my God, there's nowhere more dense than Manhattan, you know, in the United States, I think.

So, um, that was just, that was something that I knew. I was like, they have to call it. They have to, I did not expect a month to be honest. I expected a couple of weeks. I was like, okay, well a couple of weeks and then we'll come back. So a month was when I got that text yesterday when, um, the, the news broke that they were in a meeting to talk about a month long, you know, stoppage. I was like, Oh, that's, that's definitely intense. That's intense.

[9:01] Mo Brady: Because what do you know about your paycheck? Do you know anything?

[9:06] Jessica Rush: We don't, no, we don't. I do know that, you know, I mean that the, because the government is ordering it, that means insurance will kick in for all of these shows. Um, but as far as our pay, I know that our union was in the meetings yesterday along with the league and, um, I'm sure Cuomo's office or de Blasio's office. Um, and they're trying to figure that out, but we don't know yet. I mean, we're still in a holding pattern and my husband's show, Eric is in La Jolla doing fly and they canceled the rest of their shows as well as of yesterday. So that's done. However, they do know La Jolla is paying them the rest of the run the other two weeks.

[9:44] Mo Brady: Okay. So, um, one last question. What are you doing now?

[9:51] Jessica Rush: Well, um, we actually are going to, uh, Elliot and I are going to fly to California tomorrow and we're going to hunker down in San Diego with Eric and we have family out there and relatives and friends and, um, we're going to do that because we, you know, it's, uh, I'm torn about it all about flying and traveling, but, um, I think that being in the sunshine and the warmth during this time and with my husband, we'll do, uh, wonders for our soul and it's needed. So, um, we're healthy and hopefully we'll stay that way. And we're going to, uh, get out West as soon as possible and, um, and be there for a while.

[10:44] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Jessica Rush for talking to us this morning, talking to me this morning. Uh, the Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady at my dining room table. Uh, you can follow the Ensemblist on Apple podcasts on Spotify. Um, we are grateful to be part of Broadway Podcast Network. You can check out all of our podcasts at bpn.fm and make sure you follow us on Instagram, where we share the stories of talented artists working in theater ensembles. And if you have a story about being an artist right now, um, we'd love to hear it. You can slide into our DMs or email us at info at the ensemble list.com. Thanks.