Rappaport To The Rescue

Saturday Night Live favorite Ana Gasteyer joins Jill Rappaport to celebrate her Tony Award nomination for her acclaimed performance in the Broadway musical Schmigadoon—and legendary animal trainer Bill Berloni drops by with some very exciting news about the 50th anniversary of Annie and the search for the next rescue dog to play Sandy!

Ana looks back at her six unforgettable seasons on SNL, including her famous Martha Stewart impersonation, and talks about building a second career on Broadway. She shares what her Tony nomination means after nearly 25 years in theater, why Schmigadoon has become such a joyful Broadway experience, and what it's like playing the deliciously wicked Mildred Layton.

But Ana's other great love is animals. She introduces Jill to Gloria, her spirited rescue terrier mix who came from New York City Animal Control with a little help from Bill Berloni, and talks candidly about Gloria's separation anxiety and whether adding another dog to the family might help.

Then Bill Berloni makes a special announcement: for the 50th anniversary revival of Annie at the theater where it all began, he's launching a search for one or two shelter dogs to become the next Sandy. Bill explains how he identifies rescue dogs with the temperament to perform on stage, why every animal he adopts becomes a permanent member of his family whether they perform or not, and how the search is being documented to show the remarkable journey from homeless shelter dog to theatrical star.

Ana and Bill also discover an extraordinary connection dating back nearly 50 years—when a young Ana Gasteyer attended a White House Christmas party and watched members of the original Annie company perform with Sandy, never imagining that decades later she and Bill would become friends and colleagues.

It's a joyful celebration of SNL, Broadway, the Tony Awards, Annie, rescue dogs and the remarkable second acts that can happen for both people and pets.

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Listen to Episode #84 Now:

Transcript:

Welcome to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Jill Rappaport and have we got a great show for you today. Our guest is the beloved star of stage and screen.

Big and small, she's done it all. We first fell in love with Ana Gasteyer from her six seasons on SNL. Of course, I'm talking about Saturday Night Live.

Who didn't love her Martha Stewart impersonation or talking sweaty balls with Alec Baldwin? Well, she has also been brilliant on Broadway and is taking the Great White Way by storm again, currently playing Mildred Layton in the acclaimed musical production of Schmigadoon. And Anna just received the coveted and very much deserved Tony nomination for her role as that evil character. And incredible talent aside, she is an absolute animal lover and has a very special connection to our beloved trainer extraordinaire who also happens to be a Tony winner, Bill Berloni.

And he will be joining us in a few minutes as well with a very special announcement. So stay tuned. Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue.

I'm Jill Rappaport. Anna, I am so excited to have you here again. Do you remember it was literally August 2020 and you were one of our first guests on this podcast when we kicked it off almost six years ago? I do remember.

I didn't remember that it was during the pandemic. That's so funny. It's all such a blur now.

Yeah. And you were such a bright light with your humor and you really brought such a great energy and such a scary time. Thank you.

Thank you. Our animals did that, didn't they? They absolutely did. They saved us as they always do.

And first of all, congratulations on the much deserved Tony nomination. Everybody is talking about you. This show is one of the most lauded productions ever to hit Broadway.

How do you feel? So great. It's such a joyful show. It's a joy that celebrates Broadway.

It's a really happy company. It's very analog. It's old-fashioned singing, dancing.

Even the sets are hand-painted. The music, there are 14 pieces in our orchestra. It just feels like an old-fashioned Broadway musical.

We have kids. We don't have dogs, unfortunately, but that would really take it over the top, wouldn't it? But it's really incredible because when you came on the scene, everybody was excited about this show, but did you even anticipate the outcome? No, we didn't at all. I think if anything, there's always that, especially born of recent Broadway transfer, it's like, oh no, it's another TV adaptation.

The truth is though, Schmigadoon was written, Cinco Paul, who wrote it, originally conceived of it for the stage and then it was sold and packaged as a television show, which I have to say as a person who hops between both genres, I was really sort of validated by the material because it really happily and joyfully lives within the context of musical theater. I think the emphasis on TV is like, oh, isn't musical theater boring or don't we want to escape it? But really by having it back on stage, there's really this sense of like, oh, I want to go live in Schmigadoon as opposed to I want to get out of Schmigadoon. So for me, it's amazing because I feel like it occupies the best of both sets of talents.

It allows for the speed and the community nature of television, which is the writing process. It's a very collaborative experience and comedy sort of rises to the top and then to bring it back to stage where pure discipline and hard work and repetition bring it home. And Chris Gatelli is, you know, the master.

So that's a word salad. But what I'm trying to say is, I don't think anybody expected it to be, I think we all knew it was really special. And I think we all knew it was really joyful, but everybody's afraid to hope for anything these days.

So I think the result has been a really pleasant surprise for people. Mills And when they announced your name, that Tony nomination. Zane Crazy, crazy.

I know, I really didn't expect it. Obviously, you don't go about your business expecting it. I was sort of stunned and really excited.

And it's just a really huge honor, honestly. And people say that all the time. But I've been working on Broadway for 20, almost 25 years now.

Mills Weren't you in six different shows on Broadway? Zane Yeah, my debut was 2001 in Rocky Horror Show, I replaced Joan Jett. And then I really put the hard work in after I left Saturday night to try to establish myself as a musical theater performer in particular Broadway performer in general, theater performer in general. And it's just so validating to have to put in the time and have your peers recognize you.

I don't really have words for it. It's really special. Mills And it's very unique, because how many people go from a live TV experience, a super hit on a super hit show SNL to Broadway? Zane I mean, where there's quite a few of us who now work back and forth Rachel Dratch, my dear, dear friend is also nominated and she's an SNL Maya Rudolph is in Oh, Mary right now.

And there's a bunch of us that have worked Terran Killam, but I probably the only one who's like, so like wholesale made the life out of it, you know, and, and the voice lessons and the you know, the cooling down and the warming up the sort of rigor and discipline of it is a real way of life. I mean, Rachel's now on her second nomination, which is incredible and totally deserved. But it's just, you know, it's funny.

It's like that when I first started doing theater, it wasn't like a thing people did from television. Really, it was like occasional stunt casting, maybe. Yeah, that's what I meant.

It was an unusual Yeah, I had to really kind of earn my stripes, you know, and I felt that from the community. I was like, they were like, Yeah, let's prove it. So I did Wicked and I did Wicked in Chicago.

And I did the Three Penny Opera and I did out of town shows like, you know, Passion and I did all my benefits and my encores and you know, I just kind of kept at it. And sooner or later, I've done a bunch of television musicals I've done. So I've ended up, it's wild to suddenly look back and say like, Oh my god, I have a whole career in this, you know, that I always dreamt of.

And plus, you're one of the most beloved characters ever on SML. Me? Yes. Are you kidding? You're Martha Stewart impersonations I mentioned in the open sweaty balls.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. And and what's crazy is Lauren Michaels is one of the producers on Schmigadoon.

So everything kind of coalesces. But I do love because Schmigadoon has sort of the snappiness of like TV comedy. It's very, very funny.

The modern jokes are extremely savvy. There's some comedy jokes in there. I mean, I'm a professional comedy writer.

Like I'm like, wow, that is a great joke. I can't believe nobody thought of that before. So it definitely has all that.

But it also has this super joyful, innocent adulation of the golden era musical. So I feel like it's operating on two levels. It is both an old timey musical and a modern musical.

And it has all of the sort of emotional satisfaction of when you go to a musical and you want the two characters, their romance to work out. And, you know, there's a real kind of super story happening at the same time. And all the people who live in Schmigadoon, my character being the villain, of course, are kind of innocent in their intention, which is really, really fun.

There's no commenting on it. No one's making fun of it. We're just living inside of it, which is really, really fun.

And I get so much time with the ensemble. This ensemble is insane. They have, I think, 115 shared credits across the body of the ensemble.

We figured it out the first day. They are legitimate triple threats. They all act, they all dance their butts off.

They all sing incredibly well. Sometimes we have shows where we have a singing dancer or a dancing singer, you know, like a sort of novelty character. They're all of it.

And we all spend a tremendous amount of time together. So it's just from the standpoint of like the day to day of it, incredibly fun. Oh, and Mildred is so deliciously devilish.

She's terrible. She's just the worst person on earth. And she's so incredibly fun, because she's really sure of herself.

And she's really sure that it's her way or the highway, you know, and that I think I'm such a like, I'm just a people pleaser that it's really fun to play somebody who's just that shamelessly. Well, she says her first line is I make sure we all feel shame. So she's there to like, really, really, you know, hold people's feet to the fire on moral rectitude.

So it's very fun. And the number itself is super challenging. It's a patter song and a belting song.

The entire arc of the character kind of happens at the end of Act Two. So it's a very interesting and fun project. Well, I couldn't even believe you had a few minutes for us today, because your work schedule is incredibly busy.

It's been a little crazy. Yeah. But it's nice.

I'll do anything for Bill. I love him. Oh, and we're about to be joined by the wonderful Bill Berloni.

But before we go to Bill, I have to say, obviously, your connection is you're a huge animal lover. And you have a super senior in your home, don't you? Well, she's eight now. I don't know.

That's senior. Is she a big dog? She's small. She's small.

She's only about 40 pounds, I would say. She's just a little too big to get on an airplane, unfortunately, up front or, you know, like in the seats. She's a terrier mix.

Rescue? Rescue, for sure, via Bill Berloni, because he helped connect me. Actually, it was Bill and Seth Rudetsky, who are both, as you know, huge animal rights people. And we got her from Animal Control here in New York.

Yay, HCC, yep. Yep. And she was a puppy.

She had been surrendered. I don't know, well, she was very sassy. But, you know, for whatever reasons, we got her.

She's a true terrier mix. I mean, I grew up with Scotties and, you know, different terriers in the 70s. And she's really got that stocky kind of square butt and a beard.

And I love her. She's very emotional. Oh, like mama, like puppy? Yeah, right.

So many dogs who went through COVID, you know, that was really stressful for her when everybody went off to work again. But now she's really, there's always somebody around. My husband has her at work right now.

And yeah, she's delightful. She's very, very spirited. That would be the word.

She's very smart, which, you know, sometimes I wish she was a little dumber and more lazy, but she's just delightful. And she still, she still has a lot of food. She ate a mucinex yesterday.

That was the drama of before I went to work, my son called. Yeah, so she's, she's keeps us busy, though, right? Totally fine. It was the completely plain mucinex.

It didn't have any cough syrup or anything in it. So it was totally fine. So on that wonderful note, raving about your wild and crazy dog, we are so happy to be joined by Trainer Extraordinaire.

And I mentioned in the intro, Tony winner, Bill Berloni, and you two have such a special relationship. We all did the show, as you remember, Bill, six years ago coming this August. Yes, I can't believe time has gone by.

No, me neither. And the two of you have worked together. And I know Anna, he's given you incredible advice about training and picking the right pooch, all of those things that are so important.

Well, he didn't guide me ahead of time to meet Gloria. He may have advised me against it, frankly. But he did turn me on to some of the people at Animal Control when we were looking for a dog, which is exactly where we should go and which is exactly where we ended up.

But and he's let me know over the years that she would not have made a great show dog. Oh, that's disappointing. She photographs well.

But Bill, you have such exciting news for us today. You are on location and you're breaking big news here on Rappaport to the Rescue. Tell us about this latest project involving our beloved Sandy.

Well, you know, it's hard to say, but this is the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Annie at the theater where it originally started, the Goodspeed Opera House here in East Hadwell, Connecticut. And I was the young apprentice who was tasked with finding a dog to play the role. I ended up going to the Connecticut Humane Society and finding Sandy.

So they're doing obviously an anniversary revival. And I thought instead of just using one of the dogs I already have trained, why can't we use this as an opportunity once again to rescue one or two dogs and promote animal welfare? And people should know, Bill, the minute you rescue them, they immediately become part of the Berloni family forever. Oh, yes.

We have a lot of unemployed actors right now, canine actors. Well, welcome to the group. As anybody should, we give them a forever home, whether they're performing or not.

And we have the beautiful home up in Connecticut where currently we have our 23 dogs. Oh, my gosh. It's incredible.

So what's going to happen today? Yeah. So tell us about the new Sandys. What we did today was we sent emails to all the shelters in Connecticut and New York City saying, we're going to do a search and setting up a website where they can now send pictures and resumes of dogs that are up for adoption.

So exciting. So today was the kickoff and as the time goes by, I'll start temperament testing them and going seeing these dogs. But it's also exciting because we're filming it for a documentary.

I think to show the process of how these dogs are abandoned and then become stars, I think it's important. It's amazing. That to me is the most important thing and the most important lesson you can teach people.

Yep. The lesson I say, somebody will meet my dog and go, oh, that dog is so sweet. And I went, you could have adopted this dog the day before.

The dog was sweet before I got it. So reminding people that the dogs in shelters aren't all damaged, they're homeless. But I'm sure Ana agrees with me.

Bill, what is it about you that you're able not only to find these incredible rescue animals, but turn them into stars of stage and screen? Do you have what it takes? As Ana probably knows, everything is about casting. Not every person could be on stage and not every dog could be on stage. So being able to identify a dog that's outgoing, that likes people, that is food motivated, and wants to be in the middle of all this action are the dogs we pick.

You can't take a shy dog and put them on stage or a dog with a behavioral problem. So it's the casting. And unfortunately, shelters are so stressful.

So if I see a dog there and they're taking all that stress in, chances are having a dressing room on Broadway and doing eight shows a week isn't going to be a problem for them. Well, you are a legend, Bill. And I even heard Ana talking with Amy Poehler, singing your praises on her incredible podcast.

Bill breaks the mold because of everything he just said. I mean, I don't want to disparage his competition, but he's really a humane trainer. He has a personal connection with animals.

And again, it's funny because it is rooted. I know you work in all the mediums, Bill, but theater people tend to really have a true sort of discipline and connection to what they're doing day in and day out, and that sort of rigor. And it's funny because the animals that you work with are so good at that.

Bust, one of the prop master at, I think you just worked with him on Fear of 13. But anyway, he was telling me that, I think it was Bust. Anyway, one of the guys that works on my show was telling me, him and Scott Pask was talking about corgis on one of the- The audience.

The audience with Helen Mirren playing the queen. And he was with Helen Mirren. And he was saying that he had to build a special, the corgis legs were too short to go to their dressing room.

And so they had to build like a special little dumb waiter, corgi dumb waiter. Is that right? Yes. I'm sorry.

That was like out of left field, but it made me laugh. No, I love that. Like corgi dumb waiter.

Well, and you know, Anna, in the old theaters, there's six stories high. That's a lot of stairs if you're a corgi. I know, with little legs.

But the thing about Bill, Anna, and I know you know this, he doesn't care what humans he's working with. The animals come first. Their needs and the care of those animals is number one priority with Bill Berloni.

They're usually nicer than some of the people you meet. With Sandy, I'm curious for your national search. I'm super excited about the documentary, by the way, that is like my idea of a great television show.

Do you have like aesthetic? Are you staying with the standard Sandy aesthetic sort of from the comic book and original Goodspeed production? The comic book character is not a real dog. And you know, we never were able to match that. Yeah.

And the beauty of it is that the creator said to me, as long as it's a medium sized Sandy dog, we're okay with it. So, you know, I've had a lot of different looks, you know, until we weren't set in one, when one sort of... Diverse casting? Yeah, I like it. We have a lot of females playing the male role and nobody seems to care.

No, that luckily nobody cares. That's really very open minded of you. And Bill, how do you keep topping the Sandys? I mean, they've all been so incredible.

They are all incredible. There's nothing I have to do about them. They just get shown in different spotlights here, you know, every time.

And that's what we hope to do. What's the largest number of performances one Sandy has done? The original Sandy did 2,333 performances on Broadway. Wow.

And never missed a show. And then he went out on... We did stock and, you know, other things. So we probably did close to 4,000 performances.

Wow. You know, again, as you know, Anna, if you're in the wings and you don't want to go on stage, nothing could force you to go on stage. And so for him to have wanted to go on stage all those times meant he was having a good time.

Yeah. Unbelievable. I'm sure he knew what he was doing.

By the way, Anna, you ask great questions. Forget Broadway and SNL. You should have a show doing this because you're fabulous.

I just want to talk to Bill all day because he has so many interesting stories. Isn't he incredible? And what I love the most about him is how they become part of the Berloni family and the love. And if you've been to his, as I call it, Noah's Ark, his amazing home, his farm with his beautiful and wonderful wife, Dorothy, it's just heaven there.

Truly. I'm sure. I'm sure.

So how soon will you start meeting Sandys? And also, can I come with and meet some? We'll start checking the website tomorrow morning and start meeting them. And there's going to be a lot of dogs that aren't going to be necessarily right for the show. And we're going to post those dogs up on the website saying, you know, this dog is in show business, but love a good home with- Nice family.

Yeah. Again, to bring them a little more spotlight. Yeah.

So how do you find those dogs? Are you reaching out to local shelters? Are you putting out an announcement to dogs come from other states to audition? That's what today was about. It was a press event and we've already sent out the emails. And so hopefully people will start responding and sharing it.

And we'll just keep looking. If you find any duds that would be really good with a spicy black and white terrier mix and maybe just mellow her out, let me know. Be careful what you wish for.

I could do that in 24 hours. I know. She could really use a larger dog to sit on her sometimes.

Okay. Are you in the mood? Are you ready for another one, Anna? Bill could find you one. I do feel like she would feel, I mean, I feel like she would be very, she's not great with other dogs, but every blue moon she falls in love.

And when we find that mix, and it's often a bigger dog, she's lonely a lot. So I just, I would like, like I said, the COVID thing. I mean, I think a lot of people experienced this, that they had an animal around a lot.

All the family was around. And now she's just, her anxiety is so terrible with entrances and exits. It's really terrible.

Like when anybody leaves and it's the saddest thing. My husband will go to the trash room and she'll sit by the front door waiting for him to come back. So I feel like if she had a dog companion that might help, I could be wrong, but we could just end up with Julie, everyone.

Here's the expert to ask. I mean, nothing will replace you, Anna. Obviously, you're probably on the film gigs aren't away as much as you are now, right now.

So it'll help, but it won't replace you. It'll attach to their family. So Bill, you don't think another dog would do the trick? You think the dog is still going to feel anxiety no matter what? I think it would help.

Okay. A lot of people will say to me, oh, my dog needs a companion because they're too lazy to spend any time with their dog. And I don't think that's appropriate.

But in Anna's case, where you have a stable home, but the family is growing up and going in a different direction, a companion for that dog probably would help. Interesting. She's also eight.

So it's like keeping them sort of active. And she's very active and puppy-like. She's one of those eight-year-olds who's very sassy.

I wonder where she gets the sassy from. She came in with it. Trust me.

I've told you she's a cute asshole mix. That's her DNA. Bill, I don't know.

I think eight years old, it's good. I think when you bring in another one, a little younger, it keeps them younger and living longer. That's been my experience.

Keeps me younger. That's for sure. A younger dog can motivate a senior dog to get more active again.

But the other way. You have an older dog and you bring in this young dog that's getting all the attention. The older dog's getting depressed.

She's already on Prozac. She takes more Prozac than I do, Bill. I love it.

That's hysterical. Well, I'm telling you, I am so excited. First of all, Bill, you are on such a roll.

We're not allowed to talk about another show because we could give away the theme, which we're not allowed to do. But you've done so much in television recently. You're everywhere.

And Ana, oh my goodness, this is so exciting about the Tony nomination. What a great time for both of you. It's awesome.

It's been really, really wonderful. I'm so thrilled for you, Ana. I'm so glad you're on Broadway.

We need you. We need people like you to come. I love it.

It's my home. Thank you, Bill. That means a lot to me.

Somebody just posted some weird things come out of the woodwork. So much of my career was pre-social media, so to have things start to pop up. Somebody just posted from Annie that we did out the Hollywood Bowl together.

And I was like, wow, that was really, really fun. I love playing Hannigan. So yeah, just classics.

Did you share with Jill how we were actually in the same room together 15 years ago? I think we talked about it last time, maybe. Yes, our first show when we were all together six years ago. Tell us that story again.

It's mind-blowing. So a person of a certain age, Annie is, of course, the most significant musical, as it is for, well, we were talking about Amy Poehler. I mean, so many girls my age, boys my age, people my age, it was so influential.

It was sort of what woke them up to their excitement about theater and Broadway and things like that, especially theater kids. And I happened to be in an after-school gifted and talented program with Amy Carter, who is the daughter of President Jimmy Carter. I grew up in Washington, DC.

And so we were invited as classmates and friends to various events at the White House. And one of them was Annual White House Christmas Party, which was in the RIP East Ballroom. And the featured performance was a couple of numbers from the original Broadway cast.

Would have been 77, right, Bill? Yeah, the Christmas, December of 1976, actually. Wow, are you serious? So the show, what time of year did the show open? It premiered in 76 here in Connecticut. Then we went to Washington.

And before we opened, we did the Christmas party. Are we talking 50 years that you met, 50 years ago? I mean, this is like unbelievable. That's insane.

I forgot that it was in Washington first. Right, that's the whole sequence. And I mean, it was pretty exciting, but I was whatever, 9 years old, 10 years old.

But to imagine being in the same room as a 9 or 10-year-old with the orphans and Andrew McCardle and Sandy, it was like, I have the clearest memory of it. And Bill was there, and we talked about it later, all those years later at the Hollywood Bowl. And Bill has photographs that commemorate the situation.

Incredible. And then I also, I might have told you this, although it's a sadder story, but any proximity to Annie was like, it was like next level deity, the whole idea. I remember we were at The Vet in Washington.

Now, I think this was later. So they went to Broadway, then they came back on First National to Kennedy Center again. And first of all, I remember I walked, I don't remember why we were at the Kennedy Center, but I remember I walked by a bunch of orphans were playing jacks in the hallways at the Kennedy Center.

And then we were at The Vet in Georgetown, and it might have been you. There was a dog that had been injured, and you were at, somebody was wearing an Annie jacket, and I could hardly breathe. I was so excited.

But it was a sad story because the dog had been injured. And I remember there being anxiety about whether or not the dog was going to be able to perform again. I'll tell you an inside theater story.

When we opened Annie on Broadway, I was 20 years old. And when they decided to do the first and second national company, they thought I was too young and couldn't handle it. So I did not do that company.

The dog that was injured was not mine. Well, it was that jerk's fault. Well, as a result, they called me back to do the third and fourth national companies.

And I've done the entire 50 years with the director set. I believe that. That's amazing.

That is an incredible story. And wouldn't you love to hear that today? No, you're too young to do that. Quite the opposite of what I'm hearing now.

That's so interesting that they thought that. And here you have built a whole career out of it. That's amazing.

But I was just a kid from Connecticut and got lucky. And then look what you've gone on to do. I mean, really, I can't think of anybody that has achieved what you've done with these animals.

And how they've gone on to live the most beautiful life with you. So it's such a great message for people, because these are animals that need a home. So at the end of the day, that is, to me, the best part of what Bill Berloni does.

Yeah, of course. Thank you. Well, first of all, Bill, I can't wait to hear and see the final Sandy.

And I would love to see the audition process as you're meeting these wonderful pooches and where they end up. And as always, you are amazing. Continued success.

I'm so honored to have you as part of this show and my dear, beloved friend. And Anna, just to get you back on the show at the height of your career, I want to know, do you have an acceptance speech prepared? You know, I don't. I mean, no, I was on it.

Like I said, I was so shocked to be even nominated. I was so excited. And people have been so wonderful and generous.

And I have heard from people I just didn't even think would care at all about the Tony Awards. So I've been really touched. I said to my husband, if I'd known how much everybody cares about the Tony Award, I've been really upset when I didn't get nominated.

But yeah, it's just thrilling. There's no other words for it. Like to have been at it for 24 years and feel like that matters.

For so long, as Bill knows, I mean, and as I said, I feel like I was kind of living these two almost like alter egos, like my TV personality and my theater personality. And it's so cool to see those things come together into one. It's a very fulfilling feeling to feel like the whole... Bill, your career is like this too, in the sense that it was something you didn't, I'm sure, know you were building.

And now you look back and here's this incredible legacy that you've made. And I just feel really lucky, frankly, more than anything else that I've gotten to do what I do. And I've gotten to work across the two mediums that I work in with so many incredible people who've challenged me.

That somehow I had this blind faith of just keep working at it and keep trying to get better and keep trying to improve and say yes to opportunities. And here I am. I still don't feel like I've been at it a long time in some ways.

I feel like a lot of it's still just happening for the first time. Theater is hard. It's hard and you don't make a lot of money.

But certainly for me and probably as a performer, as you're doing it, you're getting your audience response back. And there's nothing like that. For people to see my 2000 people to see my dogs act and do something in real time is really, you know, moving for them as opposed to just seeing them on film.

It's so much more moving live. It's the everything about it. The symbiosis with the audience is such a contract.

And it's such a obviously is great and fun. And it's wonderful, for example, to be on Saturday Night Live and have someone mention a sketch that they loved a long, long time ago, but in a daily way to have a relationship inside of a really sacred space like a theater audience, you know, they're committing to whatever, you know, 90 minutes to three and a half hours of being together and agreeing that we're all doing this together. There's something so intimate about it that's just irreplaceable.

And to see an animal perform with sort of cohesion and dignity inside of that community is so powerful. It's some of the most awe striking moments in the theater and theater has a lot of them. You know, those kind of penny drops often happen around the work of an animal, which is incredible.

Yes, that was so beautifully put. And I couldn't be prouder to know both of you and to say congratulations to both of you on this great times in your lives. And listen, we're rooting for you.

But I think it's in the bag. I don't know if we're allowed to say that. Should I just say break a leg? What do I say? You say break a leg.

That's fine. There's a lot of time. Well, I mean, that's what's so funny.

By this point, like the contest, it's like they're everybody is so good. One thing I will always say about Broadway in my experience is like the losses that I've had, sort of the roles I haven't gotten, always go to somebody good. It's not like film and TV, where, you know, whatever.

A lot of that is out of your control. Some executive wants someone to look a certain way. And of course, that's true on Broadway too.

But generally, I mean, I would say 95% of the time the role is lost to somebody who's seriously talented. So I mean, I'm just like I said, to even have that trust placed in me by the community for the Tony nomination is like, I feel like I've gotten everything I want. Definitely.

It's true. You know, I'm very invested in this search for the next Sandy. Yes, we all are.

Bill, this is going to be so exciting. Can't wait to see what happens and all of the darling, adorable doggies you're going to come across. And I thank you both so much.

Anna, your time is so limited and so rare to take out the time. My pleasure. Truly my pleasure.

"Rappaport to the Rescue" Theme Song Written & Produced by Mark Winter
© Copyright 2020 Such Fun Music (ASCAP)