Hue Park & Will Aronson — MAYBE HAPPY ENDING

Welcome back to the present stage, Conversations with Theater Writers. My name is Dan Rubens and I'm a theater critic composer and arts non-profit leader. And I am so thrilled today to be introducing an episode that I have long been hoping would come to fruition ever since I first saw maybe happy ending the Broadway musical at the Blasco Theater in November when it opened. We happy ending is a story of Oliver and Claire to helper bots living in 2060's soul in Korea. In this futuristic society the helper bots have been retired and abandoned by their owners and they are dealing with the most human experiences of facing their own mortality as they prepare for their battery to power down for good. And they are trying to understand what it means for them to love for the first time. And maybe happy ending has a gorgeous score now captured in an album which recently came out from Ghostite Records. There will be a CD coming out in May and a vinyl coming out in June and I was so thrilled to have joined me on the podcast today. New Park and Will Aronson, Hugh Park is the lyricist who wrote the score not only in English but also in Korean simultaneously which we'll talk about in great depth. He also co-wrote the book with Will Aronson who in addition to working on the book also composed the music and the orchestrations and as you'll hear sort of as they said sort of polished the English lyrics in collaboration with Hugh Park. So it's really a thrill to have the F2 creators on today talking about translation, the interconnected pieces of making a show like this over a period of time how the orchestrations book lyric music all hang together so successfully in a piece like this. So without further ado this is going to be a long one because I had about twice as many notes as they normally do. Will Aronson, Hugh Park may be happy ending. Hugh Park and Will Aronson welcome to the present stage. Thanks for having us. I wonder if you could start by introducing each other and in doing so I'd love to hear you share sort of one special piece of writing or composition some moment in maybe happy ending whether a line or a melody or something that you feel hasn't been celebrated or appreciated enough in your in your collaborators work on the show. Well, that's an amazing first question that really is typical to actually start with the introduction anyway that part is simpler so we're introducing each other right. This is Hugh Park, an amazing all around artist. The person who had the original idea for maybe happy ending my collaborator on four shows so far and just an amazing all around artist and person Hugh Park, ladies and gentlemen. Oh my god that feels so weird. This is Aronson, the cool book writer, cool Marxist and the composer and the orchestrator of maybe happy ending on Broadway. He's also one of my closest friends and my friend of me. Exactly. Right and pieces of work, well, I gosh, I mean, yeah, that's a really tough question. What about the bonus track on the cast of them? Yeah, but does that reflect your or my work particularly well what I love about the bonus track is it has an incredible trumpet solo by John Bailey, can we just celebrate someone else? Well, so I, well, hey, what I think this is a great point to make that we have an incredible band on maybe happy ending including several really great jazz players and of course jazz is one of the themes of the show and in the middle of the show Oliver puts an LP on underneath the scene when he's just talking to Claire and we actually included that track on the cast album and it has an actual improvised solo by the trumpet player. You know, he just improvised that in the studio like as if it were a real jazz session and we love it and it's probably the part of the album we sing the most is his improvised solo on why love live and Amsterdam represents our personality that we are talking about that bonus track, you know, you know, even so picking something else, right? Well, I have a lot of detailed questions about the score so as we go through if things come up that you want to praise each other for feel free to feel free to insert wherever. Speaking of praise, I usually try to be a little coy in these interviews about my opinions about the show so as not to create as any sort of hierarchy about sort of how I feel about the work of the creators I'm talking to. In this case, I was fortunate enough to be one of the critics who had the chance to review maybe happy ending back in November so I feel like my admiration and enthusiasm for the show was already part of the public record so I won't be shy about that and I've really enjoyed getting to immerse myself in the album as well over the last couple of weeks. And I'm curious because the critical reception was so sort of unanimously a few things in a way that I as a critic haven't really been part of before and it actually felt as I've talked to other critics about feeling like there was a sort of collective movement to support this work. I'm curious sort of how your relationship to criticism has changed or your thoughts about critics have changed in the last six months through that experience. Maybe you haven't read reviews at all. So first of all, I try not to read any reviews but I don't know if you know about this but we were not selling enough tickets in advance so when the reviews start to come out, like you know, good reviews start to come out, everyone was so like relying on good reviews to sell. So for that reason, including our producers and some of the cast members, they were all so happy to read those reviews and they were sending us those reviews so I read them. And one thing that I like about, you know, the culture of like, you know, these like reviews in theater here in New York is that Korea doesn't have that, you know. In Korea, our shows, even though have been running for many years, you know, I was always kind of thirsty to, you know, I have this like thirst to read, you know, more in depth, you know, like writings about our work because we don't have as strong review culture in Korea. So it was in a way fun to, you know, read this very professional, good writers, you know, right. You have all these books of film criticism on your shelves. I mean, it seems like that's one of your hobbies is like reading criticism. So to have criticism that's actually about your own work is, yeah, because I'm a very critical person. You probably, you ever write essays back when you were younger about, all right? Oh, actually I grew up reading a lot of also western film magazines, you know, like reading reviews. Those are one of my favorite, you know, things to read. Yeah. Well, I mean to echo a lot of what you said that we, it's really the reviews and the early audiences who saved the show and are the reason it's happening. I mean, if the critics and those early audiences hadn't sort of gotten together and had a secret meeting to sort of explore this show, you know, we left for Korea the morning after opening night. We had another show opening there that was sort of overlapping. So we had this amazing rehearsal process. We just loved everyone in the company. But essentially opening night, we're like, all right, goodbye. Probably see you again, never because we all thought it was going to close really quickly as so many new musicals do and, but then I think because people rallied around it, the community sort of kept the show open, which was incredible and we were really grateful for that. So yeah, saved our life. And I know that the show has had many years of successful productions in Korea and I'm curious to ask you more about those and the productions in China and Japan as well. But I wonder how much of a feeling now that you have the Broadway production up and running, the cast album out, do you feel like the show is done in terms of your work on it in a way that you, I know that there was a lot of continued work for the, for the Atlanta production and the, and the Broadway production. Have there been a moment where you've sort of come to terms with the idea that you're, that you're done with it? Are you done with it? How do you, how do you feel about that now? It does feel like a really nice ending, no pun intended. I mean, we would love to be able to go to other countries like, for example, you know, the UK or, you know, like Germany or Australia, if that's possible. Yeah, it definitely does feel like a nice like a but you know, so like a finale to me. - Yeah, although I mean, I don't know what this says about me, but I was already talking about, as you know, what I wanted to change from, if there's ever a London production or a film or TV adaptation, because there are things that I mean, I'm thrilled with how it everything ended up, but you know, as with all musicals, right? It's like a rush to the finished line. You're discovering things for the first time, putting it in front of an audience in previews. And yeah, there are still things where I'm like, I'd love another crack at this, if we ever get to do it again. Like, yes, this is this version and I love it. But there are things that I still want to try another variation on. - Well, we love with that. - Yeah, I get some on my own. - Last month when your in town was running at Encore's, I had Greg Kodis and Mark Holman on the podcast, talking about that show. And we talked a bit about sort of their initial elevator pitch struggles with the show, trying to explain what the show was about. And obviously, maybe happy ending, at least I don't have a title that makes people raise their eyebrows immediately. - Or does it? - I mean, I'm curious sort of what your, I guess my question here is sort of what your experience was or has been in sort of the elevator pitch of the show, whether the basic premise of musical about robots falling in love, has made it challenging to sort of advance the material and sort of how you found the right people to respond to the material in the right way. - I mean, we really struggled with the slide, you know, slightly quirky premise of the show along the way, including our director Michael Arden. Everyone thought that this premise sounds kind of crazy and you know, it is very hard to find investors, especially for Broadway productions, when a new title, like not based on anything already, you know, or pre-existing already well known, is very hard and on top of everything, like, you know, like it has that foreignness, like, you know, even the title sounds slightly grammically wrong, maybe happy ending, 'cause it kind represents, you know, our Korean sensibility. So it was difficult and I felt really sorry for everyone. I was like, sorry that I can't read your title, sorry that in future South Korea, sorry it's like, you know, sorry the protagonists, I mean. - Yeah, well, but so I think I want to separate two things, which was early on getting people on board. That actually was easy because we didn't have to pitch it to people that we were lucky enough to have already had a successful show in Korea, and we had a nonprofit organization that gave us money for readings both in Korea and in New York, which meant that we weren't pitching it to anyone, we were inviting people to see something. So both in Korea and in New York, we had a reading that Hugh, in his infinite wisdom, actually insisted that we have a string quartet at our first readings in both countries, which I don't think I would have had the confidence to ask for, but he felt that it would not be clear what the tone of the music was without having that string quartet, because if you're just hearing a piano, it's really leaving it up to you of like, well, there's supposed to be drums, and like, is this, you can't really tell, and Hugh said string quartet definitely. And I think because of that, we actually had a surprisingly good response at that first Korean reading, and you know, the first American reading, which preceded the first Korean production. So those readings went well because people could see them, but then from that point on, we're trying to get investors or theaters or-- - And then keep putting the readings on our act, right? - So you're essentially, then it starts relying on pitches, and that was really hard, 'cause robots in love just kind of sounds like a horrible idea. If you just hear robots in love, you're like, beep, boop, boop, what are these emotions, right? You know? - Since you mentioned the string quartet, I want to jump ahead to a question I have a few pages down, which I just wrote, strings writing, where did you learn to write that way? Question mark exclamation point. 'Cause listening to the orchestration, just the tenderness with which the strings are treated in the score just stands out, especially some of those like solo violin lines are sort of the heart of the album in a lot of ways. And I'm curious sort of, do you will have a strings background yourself, or do you just love the sound of violin? - I'm honest. - I'm honest and a pianist originally, but people often say that that trauma bonus and viola players often end up getting really interested in orchestras and orchestration, 'cause you're not playing that often to your wife. - I was playing. - You know, you're just coming in the big client most of the time you're sitting going, it's interesting, what are they doing over there? Oh, that's interesting, what are they doing? In jazz, you get to play a bit more. But yeah, so I think it was more that one, I love instruments that are interested in them, but I also, we had strings involved in our musicals from early on, even the little fun songs we wrote before we started writing musicals had strings, which meant I think with anything, it's like the more you get to try stuff, you gradually start to understand how to write better for the instrument. So, you know, by the time we did happy ending, I had done maybe three shows where I'd use strings and surely not necessarily very well, but like, oh, that's not how I thought it would come out on, and then you get to try again, and by now I had had some experience. Plus, I just want to give a shout out to Michael Sterebin and Bruce Coughlin, our wonderful orchestrators, who I met through William Finn, because one of my early jobs was as a vocal arranger and dancer arranger for William Finn, and they were just super generous of like, letting me look at scores that they'd written. You learn one kind of orchestration maybe in school, which is writing for a symphony orchestra, but it's a totally other thing to write for a tiny group that has to sound big, and so people like Bruce Coughlin and Michael Sterebin have all these unbelievable insights and ideas and maybe tricks and you could call them, and they would share them with everyone, share them with students and, you know, would answer questions and let me look at scores, so, which I think is really amazing that, you know, 'cause they could just like hoard all their secret knowledge, but they shared with everyone, which was, I think that was really helpful. - Yeah, I had the pleasure of getting to sit in on the first orchestral rehearsal for Seth's that Michael Sterebin orchestrated, and just seeing the way that every decision is made so tightly integrated with the storytelling, even though, of course, in that case, he wasn't also the composer, was really amazing and tied into a lot of the questions that I wanna ask you about orchestration later on. Hugh, you talked about sort of the Korean sensibility of the piece, and I'm curious sort of, it sounds like you always conceived it as being something that would be for Korean and English speaking audiences from the beginning, how did you, was that something that you'd done before in your collaborations, or was what sort of, let you down that path and sort of, how did that shape the way that you collaborated? Because, you're kind of writing two shows at once in a way. - Right, maybe half-handing was our second show that we wrote together. Our first show, which happened in Korea, was based on a famous Korean film. So, after working on that show, because I wasn't really coming from musical theater background, I was very encouraged, I was like, oh, people seem to like our collaboration, but because of that, we were sort of like, brought into that project by the producers. It wasn't really initiated by us, our first show. So, when we came back from Korea, after working on our first show, I was like, okay, I wanna do another one. And this time, I wanna do something original, like not based on anything. So, I could do whatever I wanted to do. That was a motivation. And then luckily, we were commissioned by this nonprofit organization based in Seoul. The producers, they're loved our first show. So, they just approached to us, asking like, what else are you guys writing? So, the idea for maybe half-handing was one of the two shows that I pitched them. And because of that, it was not based on anything. It was very natural for us to mix our personalities, our sensibilities, which is half Korean, half American. - Yeah, and I guess so, the initial support came from that Korean organization. And we did write the first draft in English, but it was for a first reading that was going to be in Korea, 'cause we already had that set up. They had also planned for a New York reading, but that was going to be some six months later or something. So, we were like, wrote the script in English, but finished it for the first time in Korea. All the lyrics, everything, complete draft. And then after that, based on our first reading in Korea, lashed out the final English version and then did a reading in America, I think the next summer. Yeah, so it was always kind of bilingual, I guess. - Yeah, I was doing a little research last night on Broadway musicals, new Broadway musicals, with Kevin. past the small as four people. And I, with the exception of some jukebox musicals, there was story of my life in 2009, which had two actors and ran for five performances. And glory days in 2008, which had four actors and ran for one performance. So very quickly, you became the longest running small, small cast and brought new Broadway musical of the century. And I'm curious obviously, small chamber musicals are a rarity. There are some with six people, eight people, whatever. But what was the conception always to keep the show small and how did you navigate? Something that's fairly unusual in the major musical landscape size-wise. Well, I mean, even the moment that we came up with the idea for this show, we were always imagining the show to feel at least emotionally intimate, very sincere. So I guess that's why we were always imagining just like this rather smaller cast. But that didn't mean that we were always thinking like a small production only. Because it's sci-fi. So yeah, we were picturing the, oh, it could be as spectacular visually or physically production-wise. But you know, book and lyric and music wise, yeah, we were just going for the intimacy, do you want to-- Yeah, I mean, well, you can disagree with me. I feel that the reason we chose this idea over the other one that you would come up with, which did require a giant cast, and did require a giant orchestra, was that it could be produced in a black box. So that we intentionally wrote a show that was the first little tryout production in Korea was essentially in a black box. And later productions, even though they were in bigger theaters, all are on a single set. There's no set transitions. Which is to say, I do think the intention from a really practical standpoint was to write something producible. Luckily, the idea naturally fit with that. Meaning, it wasn't something that was grafted onto an idea. He's like, I have two ideas. One requires small resources. One requires big. So that's why we did it. I think that clearly the Broadway scale-- I mean, a lot of it, I haven't seen these other shows necessarily. But the spectacle of Michael Ordin staging is certainly, I don't know. I think it's as spectacular as any choreography, otherwise. Like, the choreography is the-- Yeah. Is, you know, and it's extremely musical. Meaning, it's not a spectacle where you go, oh my gosh, they got a real horse on stage. It's sort of a spectacle of like movement and musical gestures and emotions. Meaning, the set is doing all of that, not just, yeah. Yeah, so I think that that adds a Broadway-sized element. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot one, could I get say, about that. Yeah, where do you-- Yeah, I mean, I've had a number of conversations on the podcast with playwrights of two person plays, and we've talked about sort of the challenges of keeping the ball in the air, because there's only so many conversations that two people can have. And I'm curious, since most of the show is the two person musical with these other side characters, how did you think about how to keep the story moving while Claire and Oliver are for most of the show, the only two pieces that you have to move around the chessboard? This is a very interesting question. Well, I don't want to get to a technical or something. So I'm going to say something that's probably a little bit off topic. But again, this was our first original musical, and we literally set down together and then wrote the scenes together and then wrote the dialogue together. And I'm very much like Oliver, but at the same time, I can be like Claire. And we were just tossing materials back at each other. I feel like the process was really organic, even though it's essentially a two-person show. We all come up with a line that I would respond to that. Then that becomes a conversation between Oliver and Claire, for example. So I felt like other than structuring the story, all the scenes and all the dialogue came up very organically. And then we didn't have to struggle too much to feel up the story. Because we were having a lot of materials in terms of dialogue and scenes that we were coming up together, if that makes sense. Yeah, we ended up cutting. I mean, the main journey of revision in Korea was just cutting, cutting, cutting. First reading in Korea was two hours and 15 minutes with no intermission. And then we had to keep slicing it back. I mean, I think that because we felt that by making robots the protagonist, we could talk about just like all these parts of the life cycle and the cycle of a relationship. It meant that there were all these things we were interested in. We were just like, OK, the first time you take the risk of leaving your room, what's that like? OK, well, then there's this moment, what's that like? And in a way, there was a lot more available to us because of that distancing device. If we didn't have the robot thing, I think it would seem like almost too broad or a canvas or two, I don't know. Simple, I'm not sure what the word is. But by looking through this other lens, we were able to get super excited again about all these like really fundamental elements of the human experience. So yeah, like Hugh said, it was like being set loose in a candy store and we just kept having these little moments that we would write. Yeah, and I do think when I've seen smaller scale musicals, or chamber pieces, one of the challenges is sort of how do you keep sort of re-energizing it. And I think because you are also doing this world building where you're introducing us to a sci-fi universe, even if there aren't characters who are doing that new characters to introduce that, the audience is constantly being fed new information about a sort of imagined world that they didn't know anything about. So we're gaining, we're sort of always being sparked by these new lenses into this world. Going back to this question of writing a musical in two languages, I'm really curious about the lyrics and how you approach that. I found this YouTube video that has, I think it was broadcast during the early COVID that has about like 45 minutes of material from one of the Korean productions with English subtitles. And I was really curious to read the sort of literal translation of the Korean lyrics and sort of how they're often like a verse of a song is the same idea as the English lyrics, but the imagery or the precise order of ideas might be quite different. So I'm curious sort of how much you thought about the two versions of direct translations of each other and how much you thought about it as writing different songs that would get to the same idea. Yeah, I mean, Korean and English that are-- those are very different languages. They are very far from each other. They're not related at all. So first of all, I think I know which video you're talking about that you watched. I've seen it before. The English translation is terrible. So that's not a good way to judge the Korean lyrics. The Korean lyrics sound so much better than that. You do say something, but it's cool. I can verify it. I'm coming from K-pop background, actually. I majored in writing in Korea. But I started writing lyrics while I was a student. So writing lyrics is very much my first and biggest passion. Can I tune your heart about why I just wanted-- he's not going to say it, but he did have a top 20 hit as a lyricist in K-pop. Like two decades ago, no more. So it doesn't matter, but thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, so we are not-- when we are not writing a new show, because we do everything together, we first, we talk very much in depth about what each song moment should be like, and what the lyrics should be like. And then after writing, so like a rough first draft in English, I would go away, and then I would disappear for like a week. And then I write like Korean lyrics. Wheels Korean, at this point, is very impressive. So he would give some comments, even on my Korean lyrics, and I would revise them. But then when we translate the Korean lyrics into English, wheels very much in charge of polishing it, because my English translation of the Korean lyrics are not necessarily always in the song form. Because when you translate lyrics into different language, they wouldn't rhyme themselves. What I mean, rhyme? is not very much a thing in Korean writing. I think it's always changing, like, you know, conventions of their writing in any languages, but, you know, traditionally, Koreans didn't care about rhyming them much. So, I don't know. There's something that we'll always was so, like, in charge of, is there anything else you want to add? Yeah, no, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head that it's not a direct translation that it's funny that my feeling is that if you look at the two, often the first lines are exactly the same. And then they get wild because it's like, yes, we're going to start here. All right, well, now we're already off on a different path with a scansion and the rhyming. And we really wanted them to work, not feeling like translations. Now, we did want them to still sound a little, I don't know, foreign is the right word, but like, well, to use an example in, there's a song where you belong, where there's a flashback, slash projected future, where Oliver is with his former owner, James, and he says something like, oh, the post has all been sent. Now, the mail has all been sent, scans exactly the same. I mean, you could just say mail, but we were trying to keep a little bit of a sense that, like, this isn't quite here and now. So, things like that, I think, aside from wanting to sound, foreign in the sense that this is in the future, it's not New York City in this year. Other than that, we wanted it to sound very natural, which meant that by definition, we had to get far off just direct translation. Yeah. And I'm curious in terms of, in rhyme scheme, are there sort of direct attempts to sort of have the same rhyme scheme at moments? And I'm curious sort of having studied lyric writing in the U.S. sort of how that practice maybe influenced like the Korean lyric writing going back into the book. I mean, the answer is because I know you're always afraid to weigh in on something that we're not scholars, but I like have no problem making a theory. And then being sure, go ahead. I'm just going to dive in here. This is what I would have said in an unguarded moment. So, rhyming in English, I would say goes beyond simply being a choice, which is to say, if you don't rhyme a song, you are making a bold choice, because ear just expects that there will be rhymes. Now, they don't always have to be end rhymes, but there are certain things that just suggest rhyming, right? In Korean lyrics, you can throw in some rhymes if you want, as like one color that you choose to do, but there is no structural rhyming. It's like not even on like, that's just not a component of lyric writing, which is to say like, with American lyrics, if you didn't have rhymes, it could dangerously start to just sound like talking and not a lyric, right? I mean, there are again other ways to do it, but in Korean, there's a long history of other types of things, picking the right metaphor, the right tone, the right. I mean, also finding unusual ways to say something mundane. I feel like the biggest beauty of writing in Korean language or being poetic in Korean language kind of means that you find a different way to say something, which means it could sound a lot more like a ambiguous or abstract sometimes, but that's also the beauty of listening to lyrics in Korean. So when I was writing in English, I always had to fight with this urge, if something's too specific, even mentioning the character's names, that sounds kind of too coarse and too direct in Korean. So I was like, am I really allowed to do that? And then, you know, I was like, yes, because that's what people, how people write in English. Yeah, so I feel that the rhymes make it artificial in English anyway, so then you want to counteract that by actually having lots of like down to earth specifics, right? It's that like mix, but in Korean, because you're not using structural rhymes, if you just fill it with all these specifics and then don't rhyme, it's like, again, it's just talking, it's not a lyric. So I think for that reason, this is my little theory I've built that couldn't be wrong. But it seems like for that reason, Korean lyrics tend to be more quote abstract rather than being filled with words like socks. Like again, you often have pointed out that that's the kind of thing where we have a lyric and have any of, oh, we forgot our socks were wet, which which you're like, oh, that's so like so specific. Does it make it non-learical? But I think the argument goes in English, the rhymes are providing the like artifice anyway. So you want to ground it somehow. Yeah. And that leads me into a question, a very specific question, speaking of specifics that I had, um, for, um, in the, in the, um, song, what I learned from people, which I was one of my favorite moments of the score, I had been listening to the Korean version of it for a while before the, the English album came out. And one thing that I noticed is that almost all of the rhymes in that in Korean seem to be on open vowels. Um, and, or, or the, and that the end phrase, the end of phrases lead to open vowels. And almost every rhyme in English is with a closed consonant. And it does, to my ear, make the, make the song sound quite different, because you don't have sort of the line leading into a vowel in the same way. So it does sound like more, I mean, I don't speak Korean. So, um, I might have a different impression than, but it does make the song sound more conversational to me or the voice sound more conversational to me in English. And I'm curious if things like that, both on the lyrics side and the music side are, are factors that you thought about. And in, in writing and languages that just sound very different. Wow. I mean, first of all, there's amazing that you know, I think this is true. I think, you know, um, even though we don't really try to, uh, you know, rhyme, uh, you know, when, when we, when I write, uh, you know, Korean lyrics, uh, like we do in English, but there are certain, like, ways, there are certain ways to make, uh, them sound more, so like, unified. If that makes any sense, like, you know, the end of the sentence, uh, you know, each sentence, like, I would choose a word that sounds slightly similar. So it could be, I guess I, we could call it sort of like a, kind of, like a near rhyme, um, but not actually, it's just a way of, so like, way of speaking, if they make any sense, um, yeah, other than the, what else? Yeah, well, but you're right. I think that we did want things to sound conversational in English. I mean, part of the original conception of this was that, well, these robots are essentially us. They're like disconnected, only modern people. And I think because of the high concept nature of the premise in a certain way, we were striving, you know, even in Korean in its own way, but certainly in English to give it a conversational down-to-earth quality rather than, say, you know, poetic for lack of a better word. Are there ways in which the use of the language actually impacted the music? Are there, are there ways that in a translation or in, in different productions, you, you felt like the, the language was causing you to make a change in what the music would sound like? I actually mentioned something about what I learned from people. It's one of these guilty things where I didn't solve something. There's actually, yeah, notice this, the melody is a little different in the Korean version there. It's much easier because it's, it starts off at the beginning of the song, but, and in English, that first note is gone, and it just starts, it's very hard to find that note. It would be much easier to start on this note, which is in the band, and then leaping up to this other note, but we just could not find something that was the right number of syllables with the right scale. Yeah. And that was like simple and direct enough that it could be this little stand-alone thing that kept coming back. And I mean, up to the last minute, I was like, oh God, is this really okay? Also for the poor singer. Now, of course, Shell, Helen J. Shen is like just incredible. So, of course, she makes it sound easy, but it's like incredibly difficult to pick that note out of the air. And so the Korean version, because of the lyric, has an extra note, which is musically a lot better. I mean, in the Korean version, it starts with young one, and like, so young one, the first two notes are actually one word. Young one means forever. So, it's not really the perfect sketching, but at the same time, in Korean language, we don't really care about them much, or at least I don't really care about it, and people seem to be okay with that. Yeah, so that sort of thing can happen actually in the reversed way. Sometimes I would have to, because we actually often write music first, like we would come up with music first, and I write Korean lyrics to that. Sometimes I would have to ask, can you modify the melody a little bit, because I really cannot set this in Korean? Yeah, we have a lot of cases where you know this famous story about Westside story, was it one hand, one heart? Where the melody that Bernstein wrote was done, and San and I was like, I mean, come on. Right. So they ended up compromising and like adding some repeated notes there. Yeah. So that's where they make a var. I love that. I haven't heard that story. Yeah. I think he's, he had some jokelier at first that was like one bar, one note. My word, your note. I don't know. This is in his book, but it may be feel better. Okay. People have been struggling with this for ages. We, most of the time, work music first, but there will be things where I get to some part where it's supposed to take off. And I'm just putting like no syllables in. Right. Like sometimes you actually find a way to make it work, but often we'll be like, you know what? I think this would be better if you break it up more. I mean, I'm very much used to, you know, like work music first and the lyric second, because I, again, like, you know, I started my career as a pop lyricist in Korea and it's 100% music first. So there'll be a song, there'll be almost like 80% complete demo, you know, the record labels or producers who send out to like Zillion's of lyricists. And then I would get like only like 48 hours to work on my lyrics and then pitch my lyrics. And I didn't get paid for those, in most cases. So I was very used to, you know, just like working with pre-existing music. And I was really happy when I was start to work with Will, because I was able to talk to the composer directly like, hey, this is, yeah, this is just not enough, you know, syllables. Right. Can we make, can we add a little more, you know, a few more notes here? So yeah, that's good. That's true. Yeah. And there were cases where I was like, when I remember being resistant, but then later when we had to do it in English, I was like, I'm going to go back to the original melody and then realize it was impossible in English. And I would like more notes to try to, yeah. I think my last question about translation is about the Japanese and Chinese productions, which were, I assume, were performed in Japanese and Chinese. What was the process like of working with those translators, having already done your own translation where you could sort of work in good directions? Well, both, you know, first Japanese language, Japanese production and Chinese production in Chinese happened in 2020. So we were not able to go there for the rehearsals, you know, for the process. I mean, they would send us, you know, back translation in English, like, you know, whenever they need to make some tweaks or something to localize them. But that was all. I mean, we were really sad that we were not yet, you know, getting more. Yeah, I would have been great to see it in person. But luckily, you know, Japanese and Korean, more so than Korean and Chinese, the grammars are very similar. And like the structure, you know, is very similar. So it's less difficult than, you know, translating from Korean into English, for example. Yeah. One interesting thing about those productions was that the Japanese production was set in Korea, just like the Korean production and like the American production. The Chinese production localized it. So it actually was sent China. And they were going to some special Chinese location from Chinese cities. So that was sort of interesting show that there was a lot of possibilities, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting. One question I have, I have sort of a series of questions included working through the album that I'll try to like breathe through. But the one question I had about orchestration in general was sort of where that fit into the process because so much of the orchestration feels so essential to the storytelling. And I wonder how much of that was a conversation like here, this character will say this and then the horns will do that. And how much of that was will you kind of like going away in the corner and orchestrating later on? Well, I would say first, as I mentioned before, Q was the one who insisted we have live in the first thing and specifically a string quartet. I mean, at the time we were like, and I remember for like one week, we were like, and we'll have a bunch of brass. Yeah, I remember within a few days, I was like, the reading is in like three weeks. We're still writing it. I cannot orchestrate for like a 10 piece band. So we went with the string quartet, but well, also at that time, the concept was that the string quartet was going to be on was going to be on stage. They are on stage the whole time in the Korean production because they represent the other helper bots. So that they sing back up on some songs and like that was part of the conception from the beginning, that too. But also, I mean, there's so many things to say about this. There are a number of wordless sequences that were also, again, part of the conception that was part of why he insisted on having the band was that even this first reading had the touch sequence chasing fireflies, the memory sequence. Those were all part of the conception because we thought, gosh, these robots, because they have a bit of a cap on their emotions, they can't just be belting their faces off all the time. But our quote, power ballads could be these big musical sequences where there's no talking and no singing, but they kind of have these big climaxes and the whole pantomime. So I think all of that being there from the beginning suggested certain things about the orchestration. We also talk tremendously about what the concept is going to be, what the sound is going to be. Look at models, send each other things where I'll be like, oh, here's a little fragment of some John Williams score. See that thing they're doing. They're like, wouldn't that be kind of cool in this scene? Or he will be like, oh, there's this great band that listened to the orchestration here, how that, you know, this, some of you wouldn't expect happens. And I go, oh, I love that. And you know, then we kind of, yeah, just to give you a little more little more context, we were really close friends before we started to write together. And we became good friends by sharing each other's, you know, basically, you know, favorite music, you know, favorite bass and things like that. So, yeah, we were always just like, you know, telling each other like, have you listened to this? Like, for example, like, you know, we were both big bands or bandfalls. There are certain albums that we listened to a lot together and, you know, bands like White Music. So, yeah, I think the orchestration was so like an outcome of like our long conversation about like what we like, what we like is to sound, you know, even before we start to write the show. Yeah. To sort of launch my speed through of my 15 minutes of speed through. Well, you can, if you promise to edit down our long and family, you can take as much time. If you're happy to, if you're happy to stick around, I'm like, I, you have these, these four so guilt-brently diagetic songs that are supposedly sort of jazz standards that Oliver and James both love. And I'm curious, sort of, I'm sort of my personal sort of obsession and musical theater construction is sort of the interplay between diagetic music and non-diagetic music, music that takes place within the world of the show and not. And I'm curious what your approach to those songs and that music was, obviously, you're sort of playing on different types of jazz standards and how you sort of, it seems like there's a lot of enjoyment taken from creating those and would love to hear more about what that process looks like. Well, that was your concept. I will admit that I was insecure at the beginning. This was something Q had wanted in the show. Again, his first pitch for the show involved like one of the robots plays trombone in the parking garage late at night below their, you know, apartment, which is to say, like, jazz was going to be a major component. And he said, and we can write some pastiche jazz numbers to like weave through. And I was like, pastiche, no, my own voice, man, you know, we're creating a piece in serving the story. And I also love that kind of music. I mean, that whole era. So he essentially gave me permission to just, you know, press my love of that through writing pastiche. I mean, I think that every song that Gil Brantley sings was supposed to comment on the action in some way, obviously that the first song suggests the whole question of the show. In fact, Green, that was the original title of the show. Gil Brantley's first song, which in, well, why love in Korean, Woody Wave. Yeah, it'll translate directly as why did we love? Why do we choose to love? Yeah, there was actually our working title for the show. So they were always meant to express the themes. I mean, Jenny is not in the Korean version. There's a different song there, which also comments on the action in its own way, which that song is all about being home when you're not at home. So like, it was like, you know, wherever I go with you, it's like I'm at home because Oliver, as we know, has brought his entire room with him and is like setting it up in the hotel. In America, it became about keeping a secret, which was also an element of the plot. And we wanted to give, I think, Gil like one really big belty number. Yeah, yeah. And then also personally, I wanted, I wanted the show to have as many standalone songs as possible. It was just one of my, you know, I don't know, one of my like, it was more like my taste at the time. Right, right. It's opposed to a lot of our other shows have very long musical sequences. Yeah. Like eight-minute musical sequences. And he's like, how about this time, they are like songs like, you know, three-minute song. Of course, our songs are actually still very tied to the action, which is to say they're hard to excerpt after all. The whole certainly in writing, the inspiration was to try to make them more accessible. contains. Yeah. And what's interesting there, what I found so interesting about sort of those three, the the Y love and then Jenny and then sentimental person sort of climax in, then I can let you go, which is originally presented as non-diogenic is all of her singing. And then sort of enters this, which is the kind of thing that I get really excited about in musicals, sort of enters this in between space, where it's both their genuine expression, but it's also a song that this jazz singer knows, or they know, they know his song, he knows their song. And it's sort of like once their love is expressed, they enter into this kind of jazz album themselves, which is just a cool, cool development of that series of his, of his character. Yeah, I'm so happy that you're pointing it out, you know, we were very, yeah, that's what we wanted to sort of create, you know, by that point in the story, Oliver, Oliver becomes very much like a human being, you know, so at the by the point, like, you know, all the things that Oliver had learned from this old school, you know, jazz singer, jazz crooner, like almost become has become like his own story. That's why we wanted to we wanted that song to be like that. Right, and I don't know if this comes across, but in the Korean version has a different song that is much longer, but it's the same idea. They sing something and then the jazz singer comes in and then they sing as a trio at the end. But we tried to do is that the verses are not really in a jazz style. I mean, we could have had a total jazz number there that Oliver singing from the beginning. But of course, he is still himself in the moment and is singing it. Yeah, and both the Korean version of the song and then I can let you go, the verses to me do not really sound like jazz. There's some jazz chords, but both orchestrationally and even like melodically, they're not really jazzy. And then the bridge happens and then we're in that jazz world. Yeah, try to really mix the two. And again, I don't know if that really comes across, but that was sort of what we were Yeah, no, I think it does. Yeah. I think going back towards the top of the score, I wrote out a number of notes about the world within my room. They're more admiration that I will just share with you. But I love just at the on the on the on the verse where Oliver is singing about watching the crowds, watched from the window. They're sort of an overarching sort of violin and cello duet where the violin has more of a like soaring line, which kind of like him overlooking it. And then this very busy cello line, which seems to be like the people rushing below. And I think that's the sort of like orchestral detail that makes the score so much of a joy that sort of spend a lot of time with because you sort of notice how that intertwines. I don't know if that sort of deliberate way you were imagining, but sort of is very much communicated or yeah, well, great. I love that you're sitting on this level. I mean, we'll say it's the viola. We got to give a shout out. Sorry. Yeah, we're just line Orlando are really all a player is doing that soaring line in the middle. But yes, I'm thrilled that you notice. And I also and I also just really enjoyed the the a place to recharge when I need it because it sort of immediately is the is a human metaphor like we say I need a place to recharge. But it's later he's also literally recharging and sort of introducing from the beginning that's that sort of these are robots, but there also us of that you're thinking all this stuff out. Yeah, I'm not to hit that too hard, right? Right. Yeah. And then the last note I had here, which is maybe even maybe too too specific is the last section of the song has these rhymes that move from in to own to own where we have between routine and tune and soon and own alone and just to let my ear that progression. It just sounds really good. And it from your face, it seems like you didn't notice that. But but it oops. But it's only 100% intentional. Yeah. But I in doing this sort of close reading really enjoyed. And I think that also speaks to like, I mean, I think often my sense is good lyric rating sort of happens organically. And you just hear it, even if you're or don't not doing an intention to say, I mean, I've ever since we've started working together, I'm a much bigger believer in like the unconscious and sort of inspirations and letting things come in that are not always entirely conscious. I actually think I used to think that was very like fru fru and like that even a word. This is like, you know, like, oh, it's not a real thing. And it's an excuse to not be specific or something. But now I think sure, there's a lot you want to do consciously and you want to work really hard. But also you have to make a lot of space for sort of the unconscious and inspiration that can't be spoken or can't be named or really put in consciously. I think they're both important. Yeah, a little more subtle implications, maybe. Yeah. So anyway, I love that you caught that and can't say unconscious things. So you talked a little bit about these instrumental sequences that are where a lot of the emotion of the show happens. I think the charger exchange ballet is one of my favorite. Oh, the tracks on a musical theater album, because there's so many orchestral colors happening with the the pizzicados and the strings. And then these like muted horn like stars later on that are like the jazz sting that that comes in. And I and I when I was listening to the album last night, I wrote down that it sort of reminded me of the of the instrumental sequence in the music man, where Harold and Marian are walking together early on and he was trying to ingratiate himself with her, which sort of is mirrored in Claire being so sort of gregarious and Oliver being standoffish. And then I looked back at my review and I had actually compared Oliver to Marian Peru in my review as well. And didn't remember that. So there's some and I think I mean, I don't know if how how much you're passionate about the music man. But I feel like there's a similar sort of warm like kind of obsession with music and the value of music in both shows that isn't necessarily using music as metaphor, but it's just like music itself is so powerful and meaningful. But I'm curious sort of how much you how you kind of how much you think about the the instrumental texture and character and sort of for a piece like that, where those sort of sonic choices come from. Well, again, this comes back to our early discussions where we had a lot more minimalism like on our early playlist, we always make playlists for each other. There was a lot more sort of, you know, the minimalist Philip Glass, Steve Reich stuff, because it was John Adams, like, well, there are machines, there are robots, a lot of those have these machine like textures, but a lot of that fell away because as we got more into the real, you know, well, these characters are us, they're not really robots, but traces of those inspirations, I think are still all over the score. Certainly in things like charge exchange, world within my room, way that it has to be even where you belong a little bit, dot, dot, like they a lot of them have the repetitious vamps. Yeah, room has the dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, you know, and way that has to be the pop up, pop up, pop up, so all of those influences, I think stayed in there, but they got a little bit buried. Yeah, your exchanges won though, especially on the album where no one's singing and there's no dialogue, because in the show, there is singing and dialogue over on the album, I think some of those come out more little dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, all these slightly mechanical yet acoustic, you know, austenotic vamps and yeah. One question I had can sort of as as as we sort of go through the the show as the as the relationships between helper bots and their owners becomes clear or and this sort of complicated throughout the show. I'm curious sort of, I feel like maybe more so in the United States than Korea, sort of hearing humanoid people describe having owners is kind of a loaded concept. And I'm wondering sort of how you thought about that dynamic, especially when you have Oliver, who's like, so certain that his role in life is to be of service to his owner. And he will and describe some as his friend too, but sort of how you. I think you handle the idea of these helper bots being humanoid who are sort of subjugated people in the sense with a pretty light touch. And I wonder sort of how you kind of found the right balance to sort of have some acknowledgement or allow the audience to have some acknowledgement that like we might be more or less comfortable with that sort of hierarchy or without sort of having that having that kind of overtake the the story in the narrative. I mean, okay, well, I'll try to dive into that. I mean, I guess, again, our inspiration for writing the piece from the very beginning was not about AI or robotics or future moral implications of having turbines. It was essentially how do we feel and how do we live? We're disconnected. There are Hikikomori, which was this phenomenon we were interested in, where people don't come out of their rooms. And this is all to say, our inspirations were really taking the robots as us right to begin with. So then, of course, we built the world around it where we do want there to be enough of a concrete world, right? We are building a world where no, they really are robots in this story, you know, but at the same time, I think that light touch was born of we never wanted it to start to tip over into feeling like it actually was about robotics. Because the moment you're like, what are the moral implications of having ascension creature that worked for you? It puts you in a different headspace where the metaphor is no longer the dominant resonance. thing that these are us, right? And so I think that for, I mean, this is the answer I'm just making up on the spot. I mean, for the first time. But I would say that probably is why that was done with a lighter touch. Certainly, we never wanted to tip too far into that. Yeah. Is that resonating with the humans? Yeah, right. Because again, you know, it's really about humans, not about, you know, the robust. So, yeah, we do, you know, accidentally step into that ram of like, like, you know, kind of like a hard hard core site by because that's not really what we were trying to achieve. Right. And even the things where there are references to how they could be caught. But I do remember to question you asked earlier about, well, did you ever think about scaling it up? It was going to get on bigger stages. Certainly early on when it got picked up after our first reading for a Broadway production, these questions did pop up. Luckily, no, no one was pressuring us in any direction, but certainly like, well, should the whole aspect of them being chased by the police be like a bigger aspect of it. You know, and luckily, everyone kind of was on the same page, ultimately, if not going in that direction. Yeah. Really isn't what the piece is about. And you risk losing sight of what it is about once you start adding those things. So, yeah. Yeah. I, I'll just sort of point out a couple things for listeners to listen to that I, that I, and I mean, I just enjoy getting to bring up to both of you sort of moments that really stood out to me. I mean, I think just the like precise character work that's done in one in hitting the road part two, where I think we're ready. I'm feeling not at all scared. As a lyric, just like does so much work to tell us about Oliver and Claire and their contrast in such, in such few words. And I feel like, yeah, there's just a precision there. And also the brass fanfares that sort of come in under them in, in part two is, is really delightful. I also want to point out in the rainy day we met in this, I went because that track came out as a single before, before the album. And I played it for a few people and told them to listen for the, I think they're like the drum brushes in the second verse, which are, which I just think like animate the piece so much. And I, I, I had a few conversations with people were like, listen to the drums come in. It's so cool. It's so gentle. Um, yeah, that was a big conversation. I mean, I have to say that has been a series of running jokes because, I love that you love them because, uh, you know, Josh, Samuels, our drummer, had even said when he heard he goes, you're going to raise those, right? Like those are going to be loud. Yeah. To actually know what we're hearing in the house, but in the show, they're also extremely soft. Uh, you know, we've, like probably more than he realizes, right? Because he's playing in a certain volume, but we were in the house and, you know, we, yeah. So I was just like, keep those below X, like this volume. Sorry. And I remember Deborah Abramson, our brilliant music supervisor who had been our music director, but, uh, she had a show of her own that was actually happening out of town. So she couldn't be there for the whole thing. But she had said, at one point, when maybe I'd mixed it a little even too low, she was like, yeah, it just sounds like there's a lashing being unwrapped. It's, like, it's too ambiguous. And I was like, okay, you're right, you're right. So we settled on just this, where, right, when I love that you like where we, I think, I think that you found the right level because I think that what it does for me is this, this sort of like, surging thing that neither of them can acknowledge and it can, can, are, it's low enough that they could dismiss it and be like, that's just a sound in the background, but it's something that's happening for them that, that's sort of not fully present. Um, I think, yeah, so much discussion went into this because, like, talkingly low for a drum coming in. Yeah, I, I felt like it had, it was like, had to be capped there and, right, hey, but it was worth it because, you know, I know. Also, right, that we do want to kind of hear it, like, not have a, yeah, a loss. Um, and how, and how to be not alone. One of my favorite things on the album, too, is this like eerie, high violin line that comes in on the second verse and kind of transforms the, like, feel of the song, and I'm curious sort of why, why you chose to have that, that moment instrumentally happen. Um, sort of, what your thoughts about that moment are. So actually, I have an answer for that. I mean, it was kind of specific because I remember when we were writing this, I'm just, I'm going to say that because it was an influence that I remember loving how, uh, the composer Gabriel Tahane was arranging his strings on, I think just around the time of the ambassador. Yeah. And I just remember loving that he often uses them without vibrato. Essentially, in this way, that is not how you think of strings, which is usually like, it's romantic and people love to use words like, yeah. And I was like, was that, that wasn't actually, that wasn't with why music though. Although there were some people from why music made me evolve. But in any case, it was this very, you know, no vibrato, dry strings. And I thought, oh, that's so cool. Like, like, that's actually as if not more emotional than the obvious types of things that strings often do. So I know that that was like in my mind, having recently discovered that that's such a cool thing. So I often thought of that as like, my attempt to capture some of that, uh, energy that he was putting into his arrangement. So, you know, credit where credit is due. Yeah. And another, another thought that I had listening to that song is, I, one of the things that struck me watching the show back in November was, um, that I feel like often musical theater lyricists sort of strain hard to get laughs. Um, and they're often set up because a line is set up to be of punchline. But I think there are so many moments in maybe happy ending where the, the joke or the laugh is situational or just character based and isn't sort of, uh, it's, there's not, there's not a crash landing on, uh, on a joke. Um, and just in the, in, in, um, how to be not alone when clarify. So yes, it's hard indulging him when he's describing his LPs or conversing with his plant. You get two laughs in a, in such a succinct amount of time because the he's in LPs is like a surprise rhyme, but it's so specific and we've just experienced that with her. And then the plant line, which isn't a rhyming line, is just sort of a surprise additional thought that we're like, that's the weird thing that he does too. Um, and I'm curious just if you have like how much in, in talking together about sort of lyrics and laugh, is that, is that something that you sort of plan for or, or did they just sort of emerge from character and then the audience responds how the audience responds? Well, definitely emerges from character, but I mean, things like that we know, like we think they're funny when we're writing them. Meaning we're not getting this dead serious. Oh my god. Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, right that our taste generally is situational. There is one thing though that I did not know was going to be a laugh that line that you wrote about inertia and fear of being alone. Does that work mentioning? Because that, I don't think you thought of that as a laugh line nor did I. No, I was. We thought it was very serious. So there was a moment. Do you want to describe the moment or? Oh no, you're going. Yeah. Well, basically, um, where Oliver is trying to sound like he really knows a lot about relationships and says, well, you know, love only lasts the maximum of four years and then it's just inertia and fear of being lonely keeps people together. Now when Hugh wrote that because like that you would hear that like in a study somewhere that you thought was really funny, but we thought it was like, oh yeah, it's amusing that Oliver is acting like he knows stuff. Like that's an amusing moment, right? We didn't think of it as like a big laugh line. And in Atlanta, when they said it, it got like this huge laugh and continues to get a big laugh. And I remember we were so shocked by that because again, just situation and character without being a smile to your face, but had no idea that it would actually provoke a laugh. Right. Um, to sort of shoot forward all the way to Jeju. We, um, I want to ask you about the transition from from the chafing flyer fly sequence, which is one of those instrumental moments that where so much happens emotionally, especially with this staging, which I don't want to give away on the podcast. Um, this is an extraordinary moment of bicarbonate and it's direction. Um, but the transition from that into never fly away, which is kind of this like very light delicate, um, pizzicato driven tune. Um, how did you think about how did you land on that being the transition because you don't have Claire and Oliver singing sort of lushly about the beauty of fireflies and transcendence. It's this kind of one of the sort of, yeah, as I said, the most delicate pieces in the in the show. Well, it just always was that way. I mean, I think that again, I was trying to capture that that in our conception of it, we knew that these robots were sort of like mellow, disconnected people that yes, they're falling in love. They're having emotions, but they don't become pop stars. So for some reason, it just, it never occurred to us to give them the big musical moment. It was like the moment will happen. Right. That's fascinating. And then they'll have an intimate moment where we really we think of that as like the moment, you know, they're kind of singing to each other in some ways. It sounds like, you know, never fly away a little robot. So it's like this little intimate moment where their love is kind of, you know, it's like now that Oliver, it was sort of a love triangle where Oliver had James, but now James is out of the picture. So he's sort of it's like, it's like the ex relationship is now ended. Yeah. The divorce papers are signed. So now it's ready to move on to the next thing and sort of feel like it's been there all along. Like all along, they've been falling in love, but he wasn't able to see it because of James still being in his life. And so that moment just seemed like it needed to be intimate. I don't remember us putting a lot of like that's just what it was yeah, that was in the for free. Yeah, naturally. Yeah, yeah. To sort of move all the way to the ending, I guess. The. You have in the last sort of sequences of the show, there are more sort of dissonant moments, especially in the strings writing. In the good by my room or prize, there are these sort of dissonant swelling chords against the the vibraphone playing the world within my room theme. And then in the memory sequence, there are these sort of like really sort of disturbing strings collapsing applications and I wonder sort of how. That that are all sort of more sort of driving from like classical string writing sound sort of how did how did you sort of find at what point to get like really crunchy and sort of lean into the sort of unusual sound that aren't typical to musical theater storytelling. Well, I'll say I do rely on you for this that I that I'm so used to over the years, there'll be things where he will say no getting earlier because he knows I like to do crazy right because like you have a great players do something crazy, but it's not always appropriate right. So I think in this case we got to hear the strings from the first reading and maybe there'd be something where I stuck a toe in something and he go no, no, that's like go further like that's great. I certainly rely on my collaborator to tell me when it's working emotionally and when it's like I've actually imposed something that's not there. So certainly anything that that remained in the show after those first readings was because we both felt that they were well suited to the moment, but that's certainly a collaboration. You know, sounding kind of like a, you know, I don't know, shallow answer or something, but we really just wanted to write something that we would like to listen to, there was, you know, there was just like the first, you know, reason that why we, you know, came up with this type of music for the moment. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like clusters like we like stuff in contemporary classical with clusters and I think we look, there's another at the end of when you're in love, there's a big cluster core that sort of. Same world as that moment you're talking about and goodbye, remember, please yeah, we just kind of looked for moments where they seemed appropriate and like it wasn't a stretch that it actually served it instead of us just like imposing something on the material. And then I want to ask you a question that I'm sure you've gotten before about the very ending of the show. It's sort of your decision to keep the, to keep Claire's decision ambiguous or sort of up to the audience and thinking about it more I was sort of realizing that kind of both, both interpretations are still within the maybe happy ending category because no matter what. The audience member decides has happened it's still not a completely happy resolution, even if they have decided together or simultaneously to choose us upcoming sorrow over sort of ignorant bliss. So I'm curious sort of what went into the decision to. To have have a maybe have a maybe ending. Yeah, so our very first reading we made it a lot more explicit that they both did not, you know, erase their memories spoiler alert but. But yeah, after the first reading we we feel like we just didn't have to you know be that you know clear also like what you were saying either ways maybe happy ending and then we felt like that's very much what life is like you know there's no clear answer other than that I mean was there any like there's no real like. I just remember us thinking I don't actually remember if it made it to the first reading I know it was in our first drafts now it's so I can't actually remember now but the point is our first impulse was to have that they both like. Yeah, I think we just looked at that and felt like it was a little too wrapping it all up in a bow. And it was a cute it felt like like you what you were left with was a feeling of cuteness rather than actually like the implications like you said it's not even clear which the happy ending would be it's not like happy this is not right and I think we just felt that it was true to the characters first of all because Claire is more advanced that whether she erased or not it would seem like she. Yeah right so that given that that's true for the character well then it's also good for us you know in the overall conception of the piece if it seems like she has made this choice and he has made the other yeah of course it's impossible to know because she's yeah and in reading the script last night and I when he says. I help her but five is our better improvisation it occurred to me like if she was faking it she'd be better at that exactly right yeah that's exactly. And I think as she as he sings in the title song and she says before the ending is not the most important part which I think is funny realizing that sort of applies to the show too that that fixating on sort of what happened at the end is not the most important part of the show and it is what they've shared. And come before that is actually where the meat of the show is that's a great point and the end the thing that I think you alluded to this as well that let's say they both did erase their memories but now they're going to go on this adventure again as if for the first time haven't many of us thought like it would actually be nice to like. See a show again for the first time you know to get to have the first time yeah it's a second time meaning is that inherently not a happy ending given that they are meeting again you know so I think that the may be happy part sort of depends on it's like. Your interpretation of what would constitute a happy end yeah. The chance to. Yeah what is even one happy ending. As we near the happy ending of this episode I have two very brief questions left thank you so much for being so generous with your time one of them is a silly one i'm curious who wrote Kwa Boone's Play Bill bio, which is very funny and alludes to his path performances in little shop and as it being stuck into the woods and in the secret garden. It was a collaboration, but I do remember that the secret garden was assuredly Michael, because I remember him on his phone across the room. He's probably had Googled something. I don't know why, but then he goes ensemble of secret and it was died laughing. I remember I was keeping things in. Carly, our SM, who was one of the original Justin contributed things. I think maybe thanks to Ma Boone might have been, I don't want to, the point is a whole, everyone was contributing ideas, so I don't want to miss a tribute. Just in our stage manager was involved, Carly, our SM, who also had been the sort of the Hwa Boone whisperer on Instagram for a while and she's hilarious. And Michael of course, and us as well, but yeah, anyway. And then my final question for each of you is as Claire and Oliver contemplate what it would mean to sort of delete their memories and what they want to hold on to. I'm curious for each of you from this process or decade-long plus process of creating the show, what's kind of the last memory of the work on maybe happy ending or your collaboration that you would want to hold on to till the, till the last moment. Wow, that's a very interesting question. I'm a type of personality that I don't keep really anything that I create. I hate, you know, taking pictures. So I don't really, I don't know, I guess I just love the feeling that when I create it something together, even just a sense of, you know, that, I think that's enough. I don't need to remember anything more than that if I have to choose. That's a great answer, is it? Yeah, I mean, well, gosh, I don't know. I mean, certainly I remember how special the moment was when we put it up in front of people for the first time and realized that people were engaging, you know, you put your heart into something and you're always afraid of being really embarrassed. Like you put it all out on the line and then people watch it and go like, you thought that like was emotional. Like, that makes you cry. I think that's like embarrassing. So I think you're so uncertain too. You know, so yeah, we really didn't have to make any compromises. You know, especially when we start to write it in the both languages. So maybe that's the answer. Like, you know, the fact that we were able to do whatever we wanted to do and that freedom. That's, yeah, there's something that I would really cherish forever. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that speaks to what audiences and critics that everyone has responded to with this sort of uncompromising vision of the show that is unapologetic about what it is and what it wants to be. And that really cuts through and is really clear on stage. So. And can I give a shout? I know we're wrapping up. But then the shout out on that point is that other people have pointed this out that our whole company was telling the same story. And I think that's like super rare. That the direction was incredibly ambitious and uncompromising. The performances are incredibly ambitious and you know that they're taking huge risks. But everyone's like taking risks in the same direction somehow. And that was I think really unusual. So yeah, even though we had this like a crazy, you know, elevator to pitch. Everyone was so like on board and like, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's go further. Right, let's go further. Even imagine. so it's really been great. - Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast. Thank you so much for this show. - Thank you. - Thank you. - And out the shears trimmed down our extremely long ram. - And have a wonderful day. - Thanks you too. - Bye. - Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the present stage conversations with theater writers, with Hugh Park and Will Aronson talking about, maybe happy ending. You'll be pleased to know I did not take out the shears that was the unabridged version of our conversation. If you liked what you heard today, please share this episode with a friend if you've listened to 80 minutes of a conversation about maybe happy ending. I bet you have a friend who would also like to hear about maybe happy ending. If you are able to please leave a five-star rating or review, you can subscribe wherever you stream podcasts. You can follow the present stage at the present stage on Instagram. If you want to hear the album of maybe happy ending, you can also stream that wherever you stream podcasts and the CD will be coming forth from GoSite Records in May, the vinyl in June. I may get a record player so I can get the vinyl this summer and in the meantime, keep seeing theater, keep listening to the present stage and we'll see you next time on the present stage. [BLANK_AUDIO]