Interview: BETWEEN BROADWAY is Pioneering the 'Talk-aret' Game Show Concept at Don't Tell Mama

BETWEEN BROADWAY is an hour and 15 minutes of pure fun. Designed to fit neatly into the space between a matinee and evening show, it's a new series at Don't Tell Mama where theater lovers can grab a bite and some drinks as an add-on before or after a show (or just as its own thing). I spoke to co-creators Dave Christensen and Sarah Ziegler, and producer Bill DeSimone, about the show, some of their favorite aspects of it so far and what we can expect on their next show, which is Saturday March 9th at 5:30 pm.

RK: Do you want to tell me a bit about the show?

SZ: Our show is a series. We've now done three in this series, so we like to think we're very well on the road to calling it a series [laughs].

It's called Between Broadway. We’d like to think we've created a new a new beast of a performance that we like to call a “talk-aret,” meaning it's a cabaret and talk show hybrid.

So we have a combination of everything you would imagine from a cabaret, right, which is singing, of course, people singing their little hearts out, but also blended with interviews that you might see on a talk show to really get to know our guests. So we always have a few guests each show, and we can tell you more about those guests as we go on and in the style of like a fun sort of Kelly Clarkson or any kind of a late night talk show, we like to play some games and get the audience going and get the guests being really silly.

We call it Between Broadway for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, it's between Broadway, literally, between the matinee and evening shows on Broadway. And that way we can ask performers currently in Broadway shows to come join us for maybe 15  or 20 minutes out of their dinner breaks and come promote themselves, promote their shows, sing a song and have a little fun.

So it's between Broadway in that respect. We also like to celebrate the uncertainty and limbo that is the theater business. So we like to have people who are between gigs, you know, people who maybe have been on Broadway and maybe are looking for their next gig right now. So they're between jobs.

We like to bring on some newbies every show. People may be fresh out of college. We like to say they’re between their education and the rest of their lives, so they're certainly in a state of limbo. And yeah, so we like to think we provide an hour and 15 minutes of pure fun and entertainment that hopefully builds the theater community and brings people together in a fun and slightly different way that we call the “talk-aret.”

RK: Can you give me an example of one of the games that you play?

DC: Yeah. These are always so fun to come up with. Sarah and I get to live out our late night talk show game dreams. One fun one that we just did was when we had Matthew Mucha on the show, this last one on January 20th. And he is currently in Harmony, the musical with music by Barry Manilow on Broadway. We gave him some really great questions. The game was called “Barry or Berry?” It was Jeopardy style answers and he had to guess whether or not it was a berry, as in the fruit, like a blueberry or a strawberry or Barry Manilow as in the person who had written his show. And so there were some really great guesses that he had. And we also learned that avocados are berries, fun fact. We did not know that. So the audience got some really fun trivia on that one.

SZ: People didn't know they were missing out on Barry Trivia until they came to that evening. Some of the answers were both Barry Manilow and berry. My favorite question was “This Barry is very popular among women of a certain age.” And we like to think both avocados, the berry, and Barry Manilow are indeed popular among women of a certain age.

Our producer, Bill DeSimone, has a lot of fun researching all of our guests. He learned so much about them. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. And so he often helps to handcraft these games, to really tap into these individuals’ quirks and interests. And so hopefully these games are not only really silly and fun, but also a way to get to know our guests even more intimately.

RK: So it's a bit of a Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me type show, but for Broadway.

SZ: Yes, absolutely. That's a great analogy.

RK: Who came up with the concept for the show?

SZ: I think it was very much a group effort. Bill initially came up with this concept of offering theater lovers a show that takes place at the very reasonable hour of 5:30 pm on a Saturday so that people feasibly could go to a matinee and then our show for dinner and then an evening show [and] so that performers could be in a Broadway show that's running currently and still make a segment on our show.

So that's where the initial concept came from. Plus, we love that alliteration of Between Broadway. We just really dug it. And from there we kind of all joined together and delved further into what does Between Broadway mean in terms of that celebration of different stages of people's careers and the uncertainty of theater. And we all sort of developed this idea of this hybrid, sort of like you said, this “Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me meets cabaret for the Broadway community” kind of creature that we are creating here.

DC: We also had the word “between” rattling around in our heads a lot before Between Broadway came about. Sarah and I had written a show, “Just Between the All of Us,” that  Bill was working on with us as producer. And I think that was something that we were carrying around in our heads a lot. And so the “between” theme really has been with us for a long time.

RK: How do you guys know each other?

SZ: Well, Dave and I have a long history. We actually met back at the Boston Conservatory when we were both there studying as musical theater performers. So I mostly knew Dave with his tap shoes on back at the back at the BoCo.

We reunited at another musical theater game show that I don't think exists anymore, which is really sad because it was fantastic. It was called Tune in Time at the York Theater, and it was a musical theater speed writing game show where they would pair a lyricist and a composer together who'd never met. You would spin a wheel and get your genre and the theme, and you'd have like, 15 minutes I think, to write a song and then perform it in front of your live audience.

And it was so much fun, so terrifying and ridiculous, and Dave actually was paired with my husband, Kellen Blair. And Kellen Blair happens to be a lyricist and book writer as well, and he also happens to be part of our writing team for Just Between the All of Us, the other musical that all four of us [Bill, Dave, Kellen and Sarah] are working on together.

So David and Kellen met on Tune In Time, and I'm sitting in the audience going, Wait, I know that guy. He usually has tap shoes on. And I believe Kellen and Dave won. Did you not win?

DC: We did. We won a $15 gift card to Duane Reade.

SZ: Yes. Very exciting. [laughs] They gave gifts and prizes along the lines of the prizes we give at Between Broadway, like we gave a strange little potato to Sami DeVries this last round because her name actually means potato farmer or something. And she's a big potato fan. But the point is we all give classy prizes.

RK: Do you have any favorite moments from the show so far?

SZ: In our first show, our favorite moment was when a brand new recent college graduate, Jenna Robinson, got to sing an impromptu duet with Nasia Thomas, who was currently starring in Six at the time. And the two of them just brought the house down. They were reading the lyrics off their phones and it was the most incredible performance I've seen in ages. It was really special. [Between Broadway is] a chance to see a blend of people you won't see anywhere else and really feel a part of the theater community.

DC: I think what was so spectacular about the Jenna and Nasia Thomas performance was that they were not scheduled to sing together. As Nasia and Jenna were talking before the show, I forget who but somebody, I think Nasia, had said that she always wanted to sing this duet and, does anybody know the other part? It was the Barbra Streisand duet “Happy Days Are Here Again.” And so Eli Schildkraut, who's our music director and accompanist for the show, he can play anything, so he was like, just send me the music. And Jenna Robinson just said, my gosh, I love that song. I’ve always wanted to sing it. And that's just how it happened. And they nailed it. And it was so awesome being able to give an opportunity to somebody right out of college to sing with a Broadway star and to have that on their reel and just to make that connection was so great. I'm so happy that we were able to facilitate that.

SZ: Absolutely. I also just want to shout out Eli Schildkraut one more time. The show couldn't be possible without him. He can improvise absolutely anything. He creates really funny musical moments and really adds a great dimension to the show and can play anything right off the bat off the top of his head.

RK: Is there anything else that you want to add about the show?

DC: One of the things I would want to let people know is that it's a way to have, obviously, more entertainment in between your shows. But we also would like to tailor it to people who are visiting New York for a two show day, to have a very concrete plan and to know that they're going to go to one show and they're going to go to Between Broadway, where they can actually have a more intimate but still fun, relaxing time. You can have dinner and drinks and then you'll get out in time for your next show. You don't have to stress about where you're going to eat or dinner reservations and you get to just really have an hour and 15 minutes of pure fun. Some sketch, some games, some improv, some interviews, just an opportunity to have like an intimate conversation with people and to show off their talents.

SZ: Yeah, we like to think maybe we're the intimate hors d'oeuvres of your Broadway evening. Some lighter fare but really nice and cozy and intimate with some really amazing Broadway stars, some really big names as well as some up and comers and bringing those people together, bringing people from all different walks of life in their theater journeys.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Tickets to the next Between Broadway on March 9th are available on Don't Tell Mama's website.

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