The

The Hello everyone and welcome back to Next Best Theater.

I'm your host Michael Schwartz, and I am joined by my co-host Dan Bayer. Hello everybody. Cody Derricks. Hi. And a very special guest all the way from Next Best Picture podcast. You know him, you love him, Mr. Ryan C. Showers. But do you really love me? I don't know about that. It depends what we're talking about. Before the show starts, we could say we love you and reassess

a little later. For now, you're on good terms with us. Gotcha. So, everybody's doing well.

How's everything going? Everything's good, man. Oh, boy. Any news, any Broadway news,

anything since we last met? I don't think so. Any shows? I mean news? Anything since we last met?

I don't think so.

Any shows? I mean, there has to be some sort of Broadway news, even if you haven't seen something.

Has there been anything that's...

Oh, oh, oh. I finally saw School of Rock, which is closing in January, and absolutely adored it. I think it's the best thing

Andrew Lloyd Weber has done in, I don't know, in like year, in decades. Is it better than cats?

Yes, it's better than cats. And I like cats, so.

The first school of rock, what was the last great show he had?

Probably cats.

Avita?

I can't think of anything.

I know he had the one in, like, 2005 that I'm blanking on the name, Nicole loves.

Women in white.

Yes, yes. So, yeah. Yeah, there was that bit. Was there anything else of substance since... Sunset Boulevard's fine. Yeah, Sunset Boulevard was 93, 94. 95. That's right, 95. It was in London before that. So, all right, so you saw School of Rock. Cody, what's going on in Chicago? Any good theater happening there? I've done nothing. I'm so poor. Okay, well, does anything look good? Is there

anything like you want to see but haven't been able to? We had the out-of-trial and try-out of Tutsi,

which I didn't get to see, but I heard shockingly good things about. Yeah, I was pretty confused about that. Yeah. I guess it makes sense that they took it out of a soap opera setting and now it's about theater actors. Yeah, and I've heard they've kind of, I haven't seen it again, and I wouldn't say the original is regressive, but it made it, you know, kind of 2018 appropriate, apparently. Yeah, well, I can't wait to see that once it comes to Broadway. You know, Tootsie is one of my favorite movies, so seeing how they do it here, I hope it doesn't end up like one of these forgettable film-to-stage transitions, but, you know, we'll see. I believe in the team behind it. Yeah, I trust David Yazbex, you know, show selection, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he's just off of a high here with the band's visit. So, and for someone to go from dirty rotten scoundrels to the band's visit and not Tutsi, that's a talented guy. It's a lot of range. Ryan, I know you are not as Broadway savvy because, you know, you're more of our film

person here, but, you know, tell our listeners a little bit about any Broadway history.

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