Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. We are going to Broadway kind of, We're like a few blocks from Broadway. Yes, all right, Emily Grafeo has got it. We are speaking with the Tony Tony Award nominated director and choreographer Tim Jackson, who's nominated for Best Director for Two Strangers Carry a Case Across a Cake Across New York. Tim directs better than I Can read. And also with us is Chris Rouser from the Bloomberg Pursuits team, where he's Editor at Large.
The romantic comedy follows a brit who lands in New York for his a strange father's wedding. He's picked up by Robin, the sister of the bride. They have an adventure through New York City. Tim, did I get it right? Did I summarize it?
Yeah? That's perfect And you haven't given too much away. So that's exciting.
Okay, good good.
Well.
First of all, congratulations on the nomination. That's really really cool. The award's coming up this Sunday. Just talk to us a little bit about your approach in creating a musical that has such wide appeal.
Well, from the second I got the script, I sort of knew it could have wide apprial appeal because the characters are so relatable. What's brilliant about the two of them is Doogle and Robin are seemingly quite ordinary people who are leading quite conventional lives and then they're thrown into this orbit with each other and then have this
wild forty eight hours in New York together. So, I mean, the show is a love letter to New York, and so my focus always was to make sure that they were having the most playful and fun and exciting adventure through the city that they could. And with the two actors that we have, that's been very easy because they're so funny and so brilliant, and yeah, they bring a lot of joy. Let's put it away.
So the show is a love letter to New York, but it's not from New York. It started in Ipswich in Northampton. Can you tell us story of how you came to be a part of this show and word originated?
Yeah, So I was brought on board in twenty eighteen as a dramatague. So I was brought on to help develop the writing and to work with the two brilliant writers Kit Bucking and Jim Barn to sort of finesse it and give it some shape, and then after about three workshops, we were doing a sort of presentation and their producers said, we feel like maybe you are the right person to direct it. So at that point I was brought on to do these regional productions and then
it's been on an epic journey. So we did it in these two theaters that you've mentioned, and then we brought it to off West End to a theater called the Kilm Theater, and that's where Sam Tutty, who's now
on Broadway joined our process. And then we took it to the West End, and then we took it to Art in Boston where we did more rewrites on it, and we gained our Broadway leading lady Christianni Pitts, who joined us there and we did lots of rewrites then, and especially having an American woman play the role of Robin, who is an American character, sort of opened up some doors for us. And then yeah, final few bits of tweaks, and then we were on Broadway.
So no one is a New Yorker, No one is.
A New Yorker. We have all the way through sort of made sure that we involve as many Americans in the creation of it as possible. My husband is American, which is helpful, and yeah, we've sort of made sure one of our producers is American, and so we've sort of been doing as much homework as we possibly could. But a lot of the show is sort of seeing
New York through the perspective of an outsider. And so what's actually been really lovely about the response to the show is quite a lot of people have said, who are native new Yorkers have been like, oh, this show has made me sort of refall in love with New York again, because you sort of get to see it through those fresh eyes and feel the excitement of what it's like to arrive into the city for the first time and see all the secrets and treasures that are sort of hidden.
Tim how did you approach, you know, doing homework, learning about kind of the essence of New York to fulfill this director role.
Well, I'd been very lucky that two years ago I choreographed a musical on Broadway called Merrily Roll Along that it did okay, right, yeah, all right, yeah, and so I'd got to be around that for the duration of the show and then I stayed in New York for another six months after that, and so I really I got sort of time to fully immerse myself and I went to the different locations where the show was taking place.
Because because of this other show, the Two Strangers had been in development since twenty eighteen, I already knew I was doing it. I didn't necessarily think we'd get to Broadway, but at the time, I was like, well, I'm here, so I should make sure I've been to Flatbush, I've
walked the roots, I've walked the roots around Chinatown. I've sort of experienced it as much as possible to try and make sure things were authentic, and took lots and lots of pictures to share with the writing team and the designers, etc.
So New York is notoriously tough, and that's partly what the show is about. But Broadway is notoriously tough, especially for a new musical. And you guys went from the West End to the US pretty quickly. My understanding is you had a pretty strictly limited run in the West End. Why come so quickly to the US when it is so dicey for new musicals.
Yeah, Well, I'm glad that we did, and well done to our producers for making it happen, because it is brave. I think we had recorded an album in the UK that had really caught fire and lots of people were streaming it in America, and we were able to see
that there was an appetite in New York. And we've since then recorded another album with the Broadway cast and that's going bananas as well, So I think we knew that there was an appetite and the song, the opening song of the show New York, had gone viral and we were getting a lot of love from America and
people saying please bring over, please bring it over. So I think there it certainly is a risk for our producers, but one that seems to be paying off so far, because I think a lot of shows opened just before the Tony's, but ours was open well well if before the end of last year, so we've sort of we've been doing pretty pretty good business, I think. And the nicest thing is that you can feel that there's a buzz,
there's a build in a buzz. I feel like people are talking about the show more and more, which we're obviously thrilled about because we started off this show in tiny studio theaters which seat thirty people, and now we're at the Long Acre. So it's an exciting evolution for the piece.
We're speaking with Tim Jackson, the Tony Award nominated director and choreographer of Two Strangers Carry a Cake across New York. Tim. The North American tour will start in fall of twenty twenty seven, and I'm wondering about a couple of things with regard to going from doing this in London to then doing this on Broadway and then taking it across North America on tour. Does the experience Is the experience different or will it be different than somebody seeing it on Broadway?
I can't tell until we get there, I suppose. I mean, my intention is to make it as good as it can possibly be, and I wouldn't want it to be any lesser than watching a show on Broadway. I think there's something about seeing a show come into your local theater that's really exciting because you sort of watch that space transform as another little gema rives into it. So
I think that's exciting. I think we'll still be aiming for like the most stella casting and the elements will be the same, so you'll be seeing the best version of the show that we can have going around the country. So yeah, that's certainly the we're so excited about the tour because we want to connect with as many people as possible, and we feel like it's a very relatable show for all of America. It's not just for it's not aimed at Broadway audiences. It's aimed at every person.
I'm really passionate about making theater for anyone and everyone.
It's also a small show, which makes it easier for it to transfer around the US. For at the Tony's, you're up against some huge shows that were capitalized for three four times as much as you guys meant to put the show together. How does it feel to be kind of like the small but mighty contender in that space?
It feels lovely. You know. What's nice is that I think all the shows in the categories are quite individual and quite discreet from each other, and therefore we just have to get on and do our own thing. I think it's nicely you've described it as small as smaller mighty, because I think that is how we feel about it.
It has two characters in it, but unanimously. It feels like when people leave, they were like, oh my gosh, it's so much bigger than I thought it was going to be, and there's a feeling of scale and epicness.
I think Suture Gilmour, who's our set designer, who's also nominated for a Tony Award, has done the most beautiful job at creating a space that's sort of ever evolving and we're on a double turntable, so it's always moving, and especially towards the end of the show, it gets the visuals become bigger and bigger as we go through, which so I think the nice thing is we feel like we're delivering in terms of scale and a sense of bigness I suppose, and people come out the other
end of the show and are like, oh, I sort of forgot it was only two people, and I sort of felt like I had connected with everyone in the room. So I think the sort of connectivity between strangers is something that sort of bleeds into the auditorium and sort of lifts the piece. And yeah, and it means that you can't really compare any of our shows in the different category and in the different in their best musical
category I think they are. They're really different, and I think they're all brilliant and yeah, so we just have to get on with it and just make sure that what we're doing at the long Acre is the best that we can make happen.
So two people on stage eight Tony nominations. This is your first time directing on Broadway. Yes, yes, and your first time directing on Broadway. You are nominated for a Tony. How does that feel?
It feels wild. It feels absolute wild. It feels so exciting, and I do you know, I was so nervous on the day of the nominations, but not for me. I just really wanted it for Kitting Gym, the writers, and I really wanted it for Sam and Christiani and everything else that came along is a blessing. And I'm very happy for Suture and Lux Pyramid, who's our orchestrator, because I think he's done an amazing job. But I just I was just rooting for them, and so when that
news came through, it was so exciting. And then the fact that I got a nomination to I was surprised and delighted. And I'm actually in rehearsals for another show at the moment, I'm doing this musical something Rotten in the UK, and I had to go back into rehearsals after finding out and sort of pretend that nothing had happened. But my brain was slightly elsewhere that afternoon. But yeah,
I feel really proud and chuffed. And I watched the Tony Awards from the UK on YouTube as I was growing up, and I was always very admiring of it, but I didn't really think I would necessarily be part of that nominated gang. So I am, yeah, I'm chuffed to bits.
Well, we are chuffed that you joined us here on Bloomberg Business Daily, So thank you so much for doing that, and congratulations on the musical and on the nominations too, Tim Jackson, Tony Award nominated Director in Choreography of Two Strangers Carry a Cake across New York in our own Award winning Chris Rouser from the Bloomberg Pursueds team. He is a theater officionado and he I'm always grateful when you join us on the program, Chris, so thank you for coming today.