This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Rick Kuperman: Hey, I'm Rick Kuperman.

[0:02] Jeff Kuperman: And I'm Jeff Kuperman. And welcome to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales.

[0:18] Alan Seales: Well, hello there, listener. This is Alan Seales, and you found me at The Theatre Podcast. This episode is with Rick and Jeff Kuperman, who just the other day received a well-deserved Tony nomination for choreographing The Outsiders here on Broadway. Speaking of which, this episode continues our current takeover from The Outsiders. So make sure to go back and listen to the previous episode with director Danya Taymor if you haven't already, and keep following the podcast for more episodes with the cast of the show as well. So, Rick and Jeff, two brothers who decided they create better projects when working together than separately, have poured the last few years of their life into bringing the movement of The Outsiders to life.

One of my favorite moments of this episode is when they were describing to me how they developed the fight choreography for the rumble, which, as they put it, is really just dancing with a partner, a way of approaching a fight scene that I never really thought about until that moment. So I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. And now, without further delay, here is Rick and Jeff Kuperman.

[1:18] Alan Seales: Our two guests today are brothers, a directing and choreographing team that has many projects that you've seen on stage and screen. Recent highlights include co-directing and choreographing the immersive show from the producers of Sleep No More and choreographing a new musical adaptation of The Outsiders, which just opened, of course, a couple days ago as we're recording this. Of course, choreographing Alice by Heart. Let's see, they've worked on Cyrano with Peter Dinklage and Phish at Madison Square Garden. They've choreographed the feature film Dicks the Musical, which you can find streaming online and I've watched that. That is funny. That's got Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally, Megan the Stallion, and other people named Megan.

Other camera work includes Living With Yourself with Paul Rudd and Silent Retreat, all from Miramax. They've got shorts, they've got stage direction. These bros don't quit. Jeff and Rick Kuperman, let's just dive into it. Welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:30] Rick Kuperman: Thank you. It's great to be here.

[2:32] Alan Seales: And is that the proper way to say your last name, Kuperman, or is it Cooper-muh? I don't know. Are you with French, Italian? What is that?

[2:41] Rick Kuperman: Yeah, so our parents were born in Odessa in the Soviet Union, modern day Ukraine. But yeah, Kuperman is the correct way to pronounce it.

[2:49] Jeff Kuperman: I think we may be related somehow, distantly. My ancestors are also from Odessa, which, little known fact, I don't know if you knew this, so is Billy Crystal's. So maybe we are, I mean, the three of us kind of look alike, if I may say so. You guys much better looking than me.

[3:08] Rick Kuperman: And Billy Crystal, he could say that he looks like us too. Okay, we'll go with that.

[3:12] Alan Seales: All right, so not as far back as Odessa, but far back to the Little Coops. Where did you guys start getting into performing, dancing, directing? Did you want to be actors at one point, singers? Where did the love for theatre start?

[3:24] Jeff Kuperman: So we grew up dancing together in Toronto, and we also studied martial arts pretty seriously. We didn't get into theatre until probably high school, did a show here or there. And then we went off to college, separate colleges. And we would come together in the summers, and we would work with this off-Broadway theatre company called Sightline. And we would perform in these physical theatre productions and end up choreographing them as well. After we graduated, it kind of organically unfolded that we would try this crazy, insane business, and it kind of took off from there.

[4:12] Alan Seales: Did you always want to do the directing choreographing side, or did you want to be on stage as performers first?

[4:17] Jeff Kuperman: We did perform for a while, and Rick did a little bit more than I did. I would say pretty early on, we gravitated towards the other side of the table, the other side of the camera, so to speak. I'll also mention that we started directing music videos soon after college. And we've kind of been building, not divergent, but sort of parallel track careers on stage and behind the camera as well.

[4:44] Rick Kuperman: You know, I would just add that a bit of it is of how the cookie crumbled in terms of when we were creating, when we were performing, actually has to do with the immigration system in the United States. So, as Jeff mentioned, our parents were born in Odessa, and Jeff and I were born in Canada. We came to the States to study for college. But if we wanted to stay in the United States, we'd need to play the immigration game. And a big part of making your petition to the immigration authorities is about letters of recommendation. You're submitting between 10 to 20 letters of rec from well-known people in the industry. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to perform the work of some amazing directors and choreographers.

And we were focused really primarily on that because it was much more, it was possible for us to get the audition, get the opportunity to perform and develop this relationship, and then get the letter. That was actually easier than going to a basement somewhere and maybe creating something amazing in that basement that nobody saw and no one could write to, you know, in terms of the performance versus creation question. So, that was definitely our focus when we were first getting started to help us get to the US to begin with.

[6:10] Alan Seales: That's crazy. You mentioned coming here for studies too. I want to read, I don't remember where I pulled this from, but something in writing. Okay. The bros are grads of Harvard and Princeton, third degree black belts in Kenpo karate and Canadians with US green cards. I love how that was part of the official pitch, the official bio that was included. Like, it's important. We can work here.

[6:35] Jeff Kuperman: We can work here. We can work here. We don't take it for granted. We're very grateful for that.

[6:40] Alan Seales: Yeah. So, did you both go to Princeton and Harvard or one go to Harvard and one go to Princeton?

[6:50] Rick Kuperman: We studied simultaneously in two different locations. No, Rick went to Harvard and I went to Princeton.

[6:56] Alan Seales: Okay. Okay. So, still impressive nonetheless. I was going to say like, well, you guys are just bouncing around together, but well, all right. Then have you always been working together and was that intentional? Thinking about working with my brother, I would want to throw him off a cliff. I love my brother, but I can't work with him like that.

[7:20] Jeff Kuperman: Totally. Well, so as Jeff mentioned, we grew up in the studio together performing. So, we spent a lot of time making stuff together and then we went off to different schools and we would work on our own separate productions in college, but we'd come back together during the summer times. And what we realized was that the outcome of what we were making, the product was better when we did it together. But maybe even more importantly was that the process, we had more fun doing it than when we were alone. And so, that was the origin of why we said, you know what, let's see if we can make this something.

[8:34] Rick Kuperman: Yeah. To your point about how we work together, it's a muscle. It's something that you have to work on. I'm sure if you interviewed any of the folks that we worked with when we were first starting out, they would have stories of us almost throwing each other out the window and butting heads. And to us, it was just part of our creative process, just arguing it out until we find the best idea and the way forward. From the outside, it might have looked a little bit more conflicted. So now, I guess it's been a decade plus of working together and we've managed to find a way to make sure we're on the same page before we work with our performers, our actors, our dancers to make sure that there's a singular vision and a singular way forward.

[9:12] Alan Seales: Well, what did you both respectively at Harvard and Princeton, what did you go to school for? Was it directing? Was it choreographing or something else?

[9:19] Jeff Kuperman: I studied English with a degree in theater. So, I actually, I danced and choreographed extracurricularly, but my focus was more on the dramatic arts. And I ended up writing and directing a lot more than I was choreographing.

[9:50] Rick Kuperman: I love that reference. I studied psychology. I studied moral psychology. And then I did a minor in the dramatic arts as well, taking a bunch of classes.

[9:57] Alan Seales: Wait, wait. Sidebar. What is moral psychology? Your honor, may I approach the bench? Sidebar. What is moral psychology?

[10:06] Rick Kuperman: Absolutely. Yeah. Moral psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology that asks the questions about how we make decisions about right and wrong. So, it's a little bit of philosophy with some neuroscience, some fMRI to try to understand what's going on in the brain when we make a decision about what's the right thing to do.

[10:18] Alan Seales: Well, no offense to anyone in the room with BAs in English, but a degree in moral psychology seems like a more widely applicable or maybe not. I don't know. I don't have degrees or experience in either. But again, so moral psychology and English leading you both to come back together and direct and choreograph. I guess, where was that moment where you're like, we're not going to go off... Jeff, you're like, I'm not going to go to English. Rick, you said, I'm not going to go do psychology. Let's just throw all our eggs in this directing choreographing basket.

[10:34] Jeff Kuperman: It really was after school that we even learned that it was possible to build a career in the arts and entertainment. Harvard had some kind of programming. There's an organization called Harvard Wood, actually, that has a bunch of alums that are in the arts and entertainment world. It was useful to start to hear some of their stories and started to open my eyes personally to what might be possible after graduation. But certainly, when I showed up at school, I had no idea that I could personally make a career in show business. It's just about, I guess, for me, it was about being curious and just canvassing opportunities and trying to figure out what was possible.

[11:30] Rick Kuperman: Anyone who talks about a start in showbiz without mentioning luck, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical because there's a huge amount of luck, especially in this, I would say, in life in general, but certainly in show business. There was a producer who saw some of the work we were doing with this company, Sightline, that Jeff mentioned. He offered us a small commission, basically said, hey, we would love for you to develop a full-length show. Here's a bit of money. We said, well, someone's going to pay us to do this? This is crazy. What we made was garbage. But what we learned was that it was possible to start to build a career. It was a pivotal moment.

[12:06] Jeff Kuperman: I'll just echo what Rick, you said that luck is so important and things lined up pretty fortuitously for us. Our agent ended up being someone who Rick knew back in school. One of our first opportunities was at the ART that Rick was connected to from Harvard. The smallest windows and the smallest doors, you put your foot through and then the windows become bigger and the doors become a little bit easier to open if you have the patience to continue down that path.

[12:43] Alan Seales: That's a good analogy because people always say you have to break into show business. By sticking your toe in and then you're literally breaking into the house that is this walled garden of show business, yes. Climbing your way in.

[12:54] Jeff Kuperman: Climbing your way in.

[12:55] Alan Seales: Yeah, and then things that you don't think will make a difference end up making a difference 10 years down the line. You work on a show that you think no one sees and then a producer or a director will be like, I saw that show 10 years ago and I love this one thing that you did that you can't even remember and it leads to The Outsiders, for example.

[13:17] Rick Kuperman: Well, that's what I was going to ask. I said, what was it that brought the two of you onto this project because I think it's been going, is it six or eight years since it's been conceived?

[13:27] Jeff Kuperman: Yeah, they've been working on it for a while. I think it's close to a decade, but Rick and I joined the project about two years ago at the same time as director Danya Taymor. We had met on a general meeting a couple of years ago, realized that we really liked each other and we would find something to work on together. She had seen a show that we had done years ago. We clicked right away and we joined around the same time that she did.

[14:05] Alan Seales: I guess, yeah. How did you get involved with her, right? Because she came in and we're going to get into the Danya Taymor of all of it because her approach to directing and captaining the ship of a production is something I have never heard of before and I talked with her already for one of these episodes, so I've got her side. But first question, then going back to what I was saying, the two of you already knew Danya beforehand, so when she came on, she brought you on or did the three of you sort of come together?

[14:23] Jeff Kuperman: We had met. We had met and we had shared a lovely, lovely conversation and realized that there was sort of kindred spirit there. But when The Outsiders...

[14:38] Alan Seales: Fell on her lap and she sent it our way. We continued the conversation and realized that, yes, indeed, we three could make something great together, hopefully. And we went off to the races. Something that the two of you told me, it's probably two months ago at this point, where we did that press junket inside the rehearsal space at Open Jar Studios. The two of you had told me at that point, you were the first to tell me that Donya encouraged the two of you and all the other creatives to go outside your lane, to purposely do not stay in your lane for the two of you specifically, would be just being choreographers. And we keep making the joke like, more tires, more tires. You said you need more tires.

But as a choreographer, that's a set designer. That's more planks, more tires, whatever. So set design or director choices or whatever usually are going to have that sort of thing. But I guess, yeah, speak to the process of working with Donya and working with Justin Levine and Adam Rapp to bring all of this together and what we see now, because something that I love and appreciate so much about The Outsiders is that I realized after I was done seeing it, that it's not like, here's a scene, here's a song, here's a scene, here's a song. It's this never-ending cohesive show. And it's been a long time since something's worked together this well. And I think it speaks to how Donya captains the ship and how the two of you interacting with everybody else and how you're encouraged to stay outside your lane. So I'll shut up, let you both speak to that.

[16:18] Rick Kuperman: I think it's a tremendous compliment to Donya and to the whole show. I mean, Donya is an extraordinary and a brilliant leader and director. And the ability to hold so much space for so many distinct ideas and to allow the best to rise to the top and to be reflected on that stage is, it's a form of like, for me, a kind of heroic approach to making theater because there is a radical openness and radical willingness to be a vessel for the story and for the creative team at large. So it is pretty incredible to witness in the day-to-day, and it's a huge honor and privilege to have been a part of the creative team that has created this piece. I mean, Donya talks about a mind meld, and she really set the tone for the collaboration where it was important to her that the creative team would go up to Adam's place in Bearsville, New York, and to cook for one another and to share a glass with one another and to work on this show as true friends and collaborators and not to show up in a fluorescent studio in Midtown Manhattan and punch out the clock, like to really get people fully invested in the piece, not to mention that her artistic instincts are extraordinary. So it's been amazing.

[17:52] Jeff Kuperman: Yeah, and to speak to that, when you're reviewing tape from La Jolla as you prepare for Broadway, for example, on The Outsiders, with the entire creative team, and you're looking at a sequence and you're trying to diagnose what's working about it or what's not working about it, if you only pull the lever that you have as a set designer or a choreographer or a book writer, then you might not be pulling the optimal lever. But if you can discuss it as a team and say, actually, we need to pull back some choreography here and add a line, or actually, what we think is give us four more counts of eight, we'll tell it visually, and we don't need this scene anymore because the story is coming through in this way.

The ability to do that is not a given. So like Rick said, I really echo and admire the tone and the room that Danya set for the team to be able to do that. We had a workshop early on, about two years ago, soon after we got on board. We had some rolling cubes, a few key props here and there, but it was essentially an empty studio. We staged it the way that Rick and I used to stage stuff when we were 23 years old in a black box theater in downtown New York, with a lot of sound design, minimal lights, minimal props, but we did it. We got the thing on its feet and we discovered a lot about how it moved. The ethos of that kind of downtown theater ended up trickling into the design process when we stepped into the room with Amp, our wonderful team of set designers. That direction is that seed of what we did in the Daryl Roth in poor man's theater, so to speak, is at the heart of even what's on stage on Broadway, and that's pretty special.

[19:50] Rick Kuperman: It worked beautifully, and that's something that I've seen a lot of people talk about, heard verbally, or seen written, is that what works so much about the show is the absence of light or the absence of props. I don't think there's anything that flies in and out from above. There's one piece of automation, and the rest is just artistic ingenuity and brilliance.

[20:16] Alan Seales: Time for a quick commercial break. Hang on a second. Welcome back to the episode. Legitimately, I cannot say enough good things about The Outsiders, and this is not me doing this because you're here. This is me because I genuinely love that, love this show. It's awesome. And I want to get into the style of the choreography, the language, the tone, because right off the bat, I know who every character is because of how they move, and whose idea was it to use the rubber gravel on the stage?

[20:53] Jeff Kuperman: I'm not sure. It might have been Danya. It might have been Amp. It might have been Christine, Brett, or Tatiana, our set designers. I actually can't remember where that came from.

[21:03] Rick Kuperman: Yeah. I'm sure maybe spoiler for those who haven't seen it, but the little shredded, recycled rubber tires that usually you see on kids' playgrounds is blanketed all over the stage. That's what the bottom of the stage is. And so the choreography, the movement, you guys are kicking it, you're throwing it, it's moving around. We know as the audience that we are dirty. And something that I really loved about the dances is that so much of it is hunched over, shoulders up, down and dirty in the ground. And I guess, is that sort of style, is that unique to The Outsiders? You're both smiling, so I don't know if I struck a nerve or nailed something. I hope I nailed it. Was that specific to The Outsiders or do you normally do sort of the, I don't know, kind of shoulders up, head down sort of thing? And then also, is that reflective of your background in karate? Because I think that sort of plays in a little bit too, right?

[22:08] Jeff Kuperman: Sure. I mean, when we were thinking about the way that the Greasers moved versus the Sochas, certainly we were trying to figure out how to delineate these groups without totally making it just kind of red group versus blue group. So, they do have a shared vocabulary and at the same time, you can tell who's a Greaser and who's a Soch. One of the challenges of choreographing The Outsiders is making sure that the dance feels authentic to the people that are doing it. And so, we leaned in a lot to the specific instincts and creativity of our cast members. And it's kind of like a chicken and egg thing. We would give it some steps, they would take it, interpret it a little bit, and then we would say, okay, how about we do it this way?

And then, here's a count of eight, do your own thing, and we'll put it in formation. And so, the style of, say, the first number Grease got a hold or one of the first numbers Grease got a hold is totally a collaboration between us and the performers. And that kind of groundedness down in the dirt ethos is a result of that.

[23:30] Rick Kuperman: It just works. God, again, I'm just watching. I'm watching everything. I remember viscerally how this show makes me feel, and I can't wait to go back and see it again. But yeah, the choreography. And then, I guess something too, I remember asking you both, when we first talked, was like, where do you approach, it was kind of a softball question, where do you approach taking this literature and turning it into dance and movement? And then, you were just like, oh, the rumble. You have to start with the rumble. And now, after seeing the show, I know why. That sets the tone, the movement tone, for the whole rest of the show. And I guess if you follow any of the cast on social media, you know that they come off soaking wet after the rumble.

But the marketing, side note, the marketing for this show is genius. Let's promote them all as a boy band, because that's what they are. But they're coming off, oh, look at my abs and my soaking wet muscles. Oh, God, being an actor is so hard. Good job, marketing team. The rumble, talk about that, because that alone should win all the awards. It's the culmination of the show. And yet, it's one of, individually, all the elements together are some of the simplest elements. And it really is a simple, at the crux of it, I think it's a simple scene. Um, the way that you have choreographed it, it doesn't require, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I know there's probably, it's a fight scene. So you have lots of, you have to be in certain places at certain times. But it's, like, again, lack of light, lack of music, which I think is brilliant, because you hear...

[25:15] Jeff Kuperman: There is actually quite a complex set of lighting cues in the rumble.

[25:23] Rick Kuperman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's like, they're tableaus, I think you're making, yeah?

[25:27] Alan Seales: Right. Yeah.

[25:28] Jeff Kuperman: Yes. Go ahead, John.

[25:31] Alan Seales: Well, I think what I'm hearing, and you're right, is that the scene can function spectacularly on a Broadway stage with rain and light and whatever. But if you see it in the room, without any of those elements, it's still a pretty exciting moment. And that goes back to the workshop that we did in the Delroth, which is that we didn't have a lot to play with, except for sound. And so there is no music. But one of the things that was a first principle for us as we were creating the rumble was that we were looking at film and how fight scenes and violence on film feels so much more visceral than it does on stage often. And we realized that it's because we hear the violence on camera so much more.

And that's what impacts us. If you see a fight scene on camera before the foley is added, it's kind of laughable. But once you get all those punches, reverberations, exaggerated sounds of violence, that's when it impacts you in a real way. So we started from there, and we discovered ways to cue actors with thunder and make sure that they're safe as they're moving around the stage. But then adding the sound was a huge learning for us. And also, when you're doing a fight scene on stage, you're not fighting an enemy. You're actually dancing with a partner. You're making it look like you're fighting an enemy. But actually, there's so much care involved in those moments. And so you can't really go 100% because you might actually hurt your partner.

Once you divorce the two components of the fight, the two partners in the fight, you can sell the violence in such a more heightened way, in such a more realistic way, because you're just receiving the violence. All that stuff, you don't have to worry about hurting yourself anymore. And that was another learning that was key to us from the Daryl Roth.

[28:20] Rick Kuperman: That's really cool. I love that you compare it to your dancing. I mean, literally you are. It's choreographed movement, which arguably you could call dance. Yeah, you're dancing with your fists and blood packs, which are hidden who knows where, because every time they turn around, there's more blood dripping down. I'm like, this is incredible. But yeah, we were experimenting with how much blood and where and when. And there was one run that we did, it looked like we were at a teen slasher flick. Everyone was just like, blood everywhere. That's a little bit too much. Let's tone it down a little bit.

[28:41] Jeff Kuperman: Yeah, blood packs are part of the choreography, for sure.

[28:43] Alan Seales: Oh, yeah. That's really, really cool. And pulling all of the elements together, right? So when you're coming to, I guess, walk me through the first time when you're presenting the idea for the Rumble. I mean, who do you present it to? Do you present it to Danya? Do you present it to Adam and Justin? And who gives the green light to say, all right, let's start applying this to actors?

[28:59] Rick Kuperman: It was like we were in the room. We talked about it with Danya, like, here's our idea. And she's like, okay, great. And then we're in the room and we just start building it. And I have no idea how it's going to go. We're at the studio, we make some movement, we go home, we start scoring it. I'm a video editor, so I'm making an audio score in a video editing software. We do it once in rehearsal, and it's awful and sloppy and bad. But then Danya looks at us and she's like, you're onto something. So...

[29:17] Jeff Kuperman: Keep refining, we keep refining, we keep refining. And at the end of it, people are like, this is going to be good. This is going to be cool. So that's how I remember it. I don't know, Rick, if I'm missing anything.

[29:27] Rick Kuperman: No, I think that's totally right. That's totally right. It was an iterative process. I think, you know, Jeff is a very skilled technician when it comes to sound. And that's a huge thing to be able to create movement and sound in tandem. Actually, just as a piece of trivia, I have on my desk here, I'm still like cleaning up from after the opening, but I have some notes here that I think this could actually be fun. So this is like is the score of the rumble. And each of those squares is a count. And each of those highlighted squares is a trigger for a light cue or a sound cue or a special effects cue. Both of these things are true, which is that the rumble in the studio with sound and choreo alone is a very cool thing to see.

And the way that all of the elements, special effects, the lighting, the set, they all come together in the theater is also such a cool and unique experience. So, yeah, Jeff, very skilled in video editing and Rick, very skilled in spreadsheets. That was impressive. Very, very impressive.

[30:49] Jeff Kuperman: Ricky is a wizard at spreadsheets. But see this guy with spreadsheets. No, it is helpful to have some of those technical skills when you're coordinating across so many different departments and trying to get all of like, I think about it as entropy, right? Like theater and movie making. You're trying to organize a huge amount of energy and chaos into one vision of how all these departments can work together. And yeah, that's where we were able to see with the rumble. It was awesome. Was the final piece just this? It's not even a rain curtain. It's not one line. It's like the whole stage. It's upstage to downstage. It's just it's rain. It's not a rain curtain. And was that the final piece? You can't rehearse a rain curtain like an open jar studios. Someone's not above them dumping out a couple of water on their hands like I'm wet now.

[31:47] Rick Kuperman: No, no. So we were working with Jeremy Chernick and Lillis Meese, who's an incredible special effects company, J&M, incredible technicians. And we would go to J&M and we would get rained on. They would create a mock system of what they thought it was going to be. And at first it was it was Rick, me and a few other performers. We were testing out different types of mud, different types of blood, how it interacted with the rain, what it would do to our vision, what it would do to our grips. And so we would start with a small team. And then we did we brought in like we did another workshop where we brought in a lot a lot more performers and we did a little mini rumble in that studio. And we realized that, hey, it's you know, it's it's great.

It's a little bit harder, but it's not undoable. And we were very lucky that we were able to work out some of the technical challenges at La Jolla. So by the time that we got to Broadway, it wasn't really a scary thing to tech anymore. We kind of knew what we were dealing with at that point because we had done the research and the producers had invested the time and resources to make sure that it was safe and repeatable and doable. And we're really grateful for that.

[33:17] Jeff Kuperman: Is it heated? Yes. The water is heated now. Good. OK. OK.

[33:21] Rick Kuperman: The water is heated. And when it's not, if there's a problem with the heater, we're the first to know about it. So it absolutely is heated.

[33:29] Jeff Kuperman: Good, good. For everyone out there wondering, warm water. Good, good. I mean, it's heated, but, you know, hats off to Brody and all the Ponyboys and sodas and Daryl's because they're they're out there even after the rain, they're out there in wet clothing for like 20 minutes. And that's, I'm sure, an ordeal. So, you know, they pull it off very well.

[33:53] Rick Kuperman: Whenever I see water on stage, I'm always like, oh, God, the microphones. That's the first thing, especially when you're wearing a mic on your head and you get dunked underwater. Like there's the tire of water that's that's downstage. Right. So I get so scared as someone who's watching the microphones. I'm like, no, is it going to hurt the audio? I guess we it took it took a few weeks, but we're finally getting pretty consistent with with our methodology for clearing water out of the mics at the end of the rumble. But certainly there was a few moments where I'm like, ah, that's good, though. Now it's good.

[34:30] Jeff Kuperman: Well, I guess that speaks again to the need for everyone to work together. Right. Because you can't just choreograph. All right. No, get dunked on over here. And the sound designers like I hate you guys. You keep messing up my microphones. I mean, you can't just go ruining mics every show. That's expensive. You got to you got to make it sustainable equipment wise and budget wise to otherwise bankrupt your show with choreography.

[34:48] Rick Kuperman: Totally, totally. Yeah, we're lucky. Well, firstly, Cody Spencer, the sound designer on the project is a wonderful collaborator, super talented. And also so much of the gear on that stage is actually waterproof. Yeah, because these days you can get, you know, the monitors on stage are waterproof, the microphones, et cetera. So it's all good. They just got to make sure they flick the water out surreptitiously. Just, you know, look, look, look for the head flick after the rumble.

[35:17] Jeff Kuperman: That's what you're saying. Well, don't don't look for it, but you might see it.

[35:21] Alan Seales: Well, now I'm going to look for you to go back and watch Brody flick his forehead. Yeah. Time for a quick commercial break. Hang on a second.

[35:31] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode. Let's see. So I want to go to the other fun facts that I was reading. OK, so I love again, Canadians with green cards, dot, dot, dot. Rick likes Key and Peel podcasts and navel gazing.

[35:45] Jeff Kuperman: Navel, navel, like you like navel as in the fruit or you just like looking at belly buttons.

[35:53] Rick Kuperman: He likes looking at his own belly button. Yeah. Navel gazing is just a way of saying that I, I like to pretend that I'm a philosophy student and I've taken a philosophy 101 at some point. That's all. That's all that means. I like to think that's all.

[36:11] Alan Seales: So you don't just stare at people's belly buttons in a slightly creepy way?

[36:16] Rick Kuperman: No. You know, I think I'm trying to remember where the term actually comes from. I think there was this tradition in ancient Greece of like some kind of meditator or, you know, early, early philosopher that found a lot of solace in just sitting and watching. I think their own navel honestly is where it comes from. So I love that. It's you reading it back to me. It's just a beautiful way to hear how it sounds outside of my head. But yeah, it's just my way of saying that we like to pretend we're philosophers every now and then.

[36:53] Alan Seales: You're an introspective dude.

[36:55] Rick Kuperman: Exactly.

[36:57] Jeff Kuperman: It seems like we got to change our bios because I think we wrote that when we were like 24, 25 years old and haven't updated it yet.

[37:07] Alan Seales: Well, if it's still accurate, you know, go with it.

[37:10] Rick Kuperman: It is. It is. I'm not shy. I am a navel gazer and I approve of that label.

[37:16] Alan Seales: So you listen to podcasts about Key and Peele and then get introspective about it. That's what I'm reading.

[37:22] Jeff Kuperman: Exactly. That's my idea of a Saturday night.

[37:24] Alan Seales: That's perfect. Perfect. All right. And then Jeff likes Russian literature, paella, and literally nothing else.

[37:33] Jeff Kuperman: Yeah, I was a little bit more of a misanthropist back in my mid-20s, but now I've learned to love all humanity.

[37:39] Rick Kuperman: Not just Russian literature.

[37:44] Jeff Kuperman: Yeah, I've expanded my taste beyond paella and Russian literature at this point in my life.

[37:52] Alan Seales: I love how the both of you just put that out there in general because I think it speaks to just who you are about not wanting to... What's the word I'm looking for? There's a lot of people who want to very much craft, I need to be this, not put on a pedestal, but they don't want to be seen as sort of real humans. And the two of you with... And I'm making light of this, but I think deep down it says that you want to be seen for who you both are. And so you're opening up the window a little bit more so that all of us can get a better idea of just what you like outside of choreographing. I think it's smart.

[38:33] Rick Kuperman: I appreciate it. I think at the end of the day, all of us are working in highly collaborative art forms. Whether you're making a movie or you're making a Broadway show, there are hundreds of people that you're going to need to work with to make that happen at the end of the day. And so that alchemy, that chemistry between people is probably the most important thing.

[39:01] Alan Seales: All right. Well, then I want to move into a closing segment now that's new on the podcast called Plot in 60 Seconds. You'll give me a number, which corresponds to a list of modern musicals I have on my screen here. And so then once you give me a number, I'll tell you the name of the show. You have 60 seconds to give me the plot. Do you want to do one together or each do one separately?

[39:17] Jeff Kuperman: Eric, I think we should do this together because-

[39:21] Rick Kuperman: Yeah, of course.

[39:22] Jeff Kuperman: With our powers combined, maybe we can get past this.

[39:24] Rick Kuperman: Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. We got to call Jack Bertel or Justin Levine, who's an extraordinary historian when it comes to Broadway, but we'll do our best.

[39:35] Alan Seales: Okay. So 60 seconds on the clock. Give me your number one through 10.

[39:39] Jeff Kuperman: Seven.

[39:40] Rick Kuperman: Seven.

[39:40] Alan Seales: That's exactly what I was thinking.

[39:42] Jeff Kuperman: All right.

[39:43] Alan Seales: That, are you ready to go? That is Rent. Go.

[39:47] Jeff Kuperman: 60 seconds remaining. Okay. A group of bohemians in New York City are trying to make ends meet while exploring their own artistic sensibilities and-

[40:02] Rick Kuperman: 45 seconds remaining.

[40:03] Jeff Kuperman: Coming to terms with the finality of life and dealing with the HIV epidemic in, I guess, the early 90s, late 80s, and trying to find glory in the form of artistic achievement, while also sticking it to their parents and having a lot of vegan meals together and drinking heavily. And-

[40:31] Rick Kuperman: Beautiful.

[40:32] Jeff Kuperman: And there's-

[40:33] Rick Kuperman: 15 seconds remaining.

[40:35] Jeff Kuperman: Navigating relationships and undergoing extreme heartbreak and tragedy and losing loved ones and staying resilient at the end of it. Dealing with grief and coming out on top.

[40:48] Alan Seales: All right. All right. I don't know if that would get me to see the show, but it was a valid attempt. Valid attempt. Good job, guys.

[40:56] Jeff Kuperman: Oh, I didn't know we had to sell it, too.

[40:57] Alan Seales: Oh yeah, yeah. No, this is the, you got 60 seconds in an elevator and you got to make me see the show. Okay.

[41:03] Rick Kuperman: This is like you're a producer and, okay, okay. Very different.

[41:07] Jeff Kuperman: Oh, sorry. I didn't give you full context. You'll do the next one better.

[41:10] Alan Seales: Okay. But it's still funny. Okay. Now, the three standard closing questions I have asked everyone on every single episode here. And Jeff, let's just start with you. What motivates you?

[41:21] Jeff Kuperman: Finding new ground, breaking new ground, and telling stories truthfully.

[41:28] Rick Kuperman: Yeah, I think connecting with younger theatergoers and introducing them to this art form that's been around for as long as humans have been around is really fulfilling.

[41:40] Alan Seales: All right. Rick, you're up next. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[41:47] Rick Kuperman: I would say, make sure you really love it. And if you decide you really love it, then patience is a very important virtue.

[41:56] Jeff Kuperman: Don't wrap your identity into what you do. And also find ways to support yourself outside of your craft.

[42:08] Alan Seales: All right. So, let's see. The last question, I guess we'll randomly, Jeff, I'll go back to you. If you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[42:17] Jeff Kuperman: The Lehman Trilogy.

[42:24] Alan Seales: Heavy. Great answer.

[42:25] Rick Kuperman: I would say Mnemonic by Complicite. It's a meditation on memory. And it's made by one of my favorite theater companies of all time out of the UK.

[42:36] Alan Seales: A meditation on memory in a stage show?

[42:39] Rick Kuperman: Yes. Yeah. It's incredible. I highly recommend it.

[42:42] Alan Seales: Cool. Cool, cool, cool. All right. Well, where can we find you both? Online, on social media? How can we connect with you?

[42:49] Jeff Kuperman: I think the only channel that we actually use is Instagram, at Cooperman Brothers.

[42:54] Rick Kuperman: Are you both on there? Or do you post individually?

[42:58] Jeff Kuperman: I post about my girlfriend's birthday every year on my personal channel. That's about all I do.

[43:04] Rick Kuperman: So, Cooperman Brothers is probably the best channel to connect with us on a substantial level.

[43:11] Alan Seales: On the Instas. All right. I am, too, on the Instas, on the Tiki Talkers, on the Threads, on the Facebookers. Leave a rating and review where you're listening now. Tell your friends about this podcast. Tell your friends about The Outsiders. They've got to go see it. It's incredible. And Rick and Jeff Cooperman, thank you, guys. This has been such a pleasure.

[43:31] Rick Kuperman: Thank you. What a great conversation. Thank you.

[43:34] Jeff Kuperman: Oh, what a pleasure, man. So good to chat, as always. And thank you.