Just mentioning the fact that Saturday Night Live alums Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch are on Broadway at the same time is enough to send Rudolph and Gasteyer into song.
“Come on, take it Dratch!” Gasteyer says mid-intro of “On Broadway.”
“She immediately gave up,” Rudolph laughs.
But all three agree that the occasion calls for a celebration – one they’ve been trying to schedule, but have not yet been able to get to amid the demands of Tony Awards season and the exhaustion that comes with running around stage in a weighty hoop skirt, as in the case of Rudolph.
Rudolph makes her Broadway debut as the latest Mary Todd Lincoln in Cole Escola’s twisted comedic history of the former first lady, following in the footsteps of Escola, Jane Krakowski (who gave her tips on the skirt), Jinkx Monsoon and more.
Gasteyer, who has five prior Broadway credits under her belt, is Tony nominated for her role as Mildred Layton, the uptight mayor’s wife in new musical Schimgadoon!, which parodies Golden Age musicals. In her fast-paced patter song, fashioned in the style of The Music Man’s “Ya Got Trouble!,” Gasteyer tries to both win over and reprimand the townspeople, while delivering the show’s 11 o’clock number.
Dratch returns to Broadway as the narrator in Rocky Horror, who not only walks audiences through the fantastical plot, but also deals with the majority of the show’s audience callouts, which she responds to, in character, with a mix of improv, dry wit and humor.
They have all made a big impact this season, with Rudolph’s debut breaking box office records, and Gasteyer and Dratch receiving Tony nominations. And while they have not yet had celebratory drinks, their fellow SNL alums, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, have commemorated the occasion by making custom t-shirts for all with the three show names placarded across the front. Fey and fellow alum Paula Pell have also attended all three shows.
The three self-professed theater kids (who all high-fived at the mention of the musical Annie) spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in studio about how SNL does and does not prepare you for Broadway, why Rudolph was “fucking terrified” about the first performance and why they’re only looking for “joy-forward” roles now.
We have two Broadway veterans and Tony nominees this season as well as Maya making her Broadway debut. How does it all feel to be on Broadway at the same time?
Ana Gasteyer: Magical.
Maya Rudolph: Fucking amazing.
Rachel Dratch: We haven’t celebrated yet.
Rudolph: We immediately got to work. Everyone got to work.
Gasteyer: It’s so hard! There’s a lot of daily [text] exchanges regarding how hard it is. So that’s nice, and it’s nice to have fellowship and to see one another’s shows, which is the best.
Rudolph: It is pretty crazy. I really underestimated how insanely tiring this is. It’s really hard. Ana’s like my godmother. She’s done this so well before that when I was getting sick, when I was saying, “It’s rehearsal, and I don’t know my lines,” she really truly walked me through everything and it makes you feel so much better to have a friend who understands this is the process of it, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever done before. Especially because I think everyone thinks that we know what we’re doing on Broadway just from Saturday Night Live, but they’re different animals.
Gasteyer: They are different animals. I said this to Maya, but I really realized it in this process for Schmigadoon, that SNL training, the kind of person, the kind of weird mutant skin that we all share is incredible with regards to the live audience and feeding off it. But it’s really mostly about the speed with which you think and work and trust your instincts. So there’s a lot of choicemaking that’s really fast. And that is true when you replace [in a role]. But the process part of Broadway, which is much slower and more cautious, like when we were both going through previews in Schmigadoon! and Rocky Horror is actually the uncomfortable space for our kind of performer.
Rudolph: I don’t even know. Someone just said like, “Do you want to join the NBA?” And I just started dribbling. That’s what it feels like. It feels insane.
Do you have an idea of what or when your eventual Broadway celebration will be?
Rudolph: I’ll be done way before they are, so I’m ready to party July 5.
Gasteyer: When we get to the other side of the Tony Awards, just because when you’re working during the day with press and promotional stuff and then doing the show at night … And for me, because I scream so much, and I have a patter song, and I’m singing. And you scream a lot too [Maya], I would imagine.
Rudolph: Yeah, but I don’t have a patter song. That song is insane.
Gasteyer: Yeah, you have to be focused. It’s a weird track too because it putters along all of act one and all of act two and then it explodes. It’s like being shot out of a canon.
Dratch: And then she blows the roof off the joint.
Gasteyer: It’s just a big explosion, sort of, at the end of the track. So you have to calibrate your adrenal glands.
Rudolph: Is that what happens when dogs go to the vet?
Gasteyer: Yes, exactly what happens. But what about your track [Dratch]?
Dratch: I sit in a chair much like this and talk to the audience.
Gastyer: I feel like you hustle around stage.
Dratch: I hustle a little bit, but it’s not as physical as, of course, an Oh, Mary!
Gasteyer: And the dress. Is the dress heavy?
Rudolph: The dress is heavy. I started working out and lifting weights specifically for the hoop skirt and I’m in LaDucas, like in dance heels. And it’s a loose corset. It’s a lot. And also just moving for 80-straight minutes is exhausting.
Gasteyer: But you have to manage the audience every day, [Dratch].
Dratch: So my alert thing is when you just go in and do a show and you can just go kind of on automatic, but for this, the audience is shouting out different things every day. So I have to be vigilant.
You do handle the brunt of the Rocky Horror callouts, of which there are many. Have any stood out to you?
Dratch: Usually it’s the same callouts that everyone knows, and then occasionally it’s one that’s like hurr? I mean some I can’t even repeat here. There was a real doozy a couple weeks ago. Last night, someone yelled out about the Spanish Armada, which was this Jeopardy moment that’s about me, not the character. Sometimes I get a little thrown, but it’s fun.
Rudolph: I bet the audience is trying to be funny too, for you.
Dratch: I want to make them feel like it’s OK to shout out, but also I have to still be driving the bus.
You talked about Broadway being very different from SNL, but were there things that SNL has helped prepare you to do on Broadway?
Dratch: We all started doing theater actually before SNL. These guys were in the Groundlings and I did Second City. So we were in front of audiences every night, like reading a comedy audience, for many years and then SNL takes that and blows it up into another thing. So it almost feels like going back to before SNL, for me, anyway. But I think SNL gives you the experience of just, I don’t know … the chops. I’m going to say the word chops. I hate that word, by the way.
Gasteyer: I think it’s just the immediacy. It’s sort of the high skill set of just making the choice quickly and really practical things like quick changes and wig prep and stuff like that. But I don’t feel like the audience experience of SNL is at all similar to the audience experience of Broadway. I feel like the fourth wall of Broadway is much cozier and there’s more connection and it’s sustained. There’s no commercial breaks, there’s nobody pulling you out of it. The creative process is very intimate at SNL, but I feel like the public facing camera part is what ends up on Saturday Night Live. So it’s funny that there’s a lot of people who say, “Oh, you’ve done live before,” but there’s something about a camera that changes the way you’re doing it.
Dratch: Well, also at SNL, you have that one shot and then [here] you can hone it, figure out what works. But SNL, you’re really just going off that night’s instincts.
I was wondering if going through SNL helps with the nerves of doing Broadway.
Rudolph: It’s different I think.
Gasteyer: Were you nervous?
Rudolph: Fucking terrified. Because there’s no tightrope, and I really didn’t know my lines on opening night.
Gasteyer: Now you’re going public to say that?
Rudolph: I mean, I’ve been saying it for a while [laughs]. And the beautiful part is the support of the cast and this happens to be an incredible cast who knows the show so well and they all said it individually, “We’ve got you, don’t worry.” And it was true and they know the show so well. That’s the thing is that people have you. I know we’re comparing a lot to SNL, but we read from cue cards so we’re actually not really looking at each other when we’re performing and that connection’s totally different. And now when I really lock in and focus on the other actor, I’m so much more present and clearer and I’m like, “Wow, I’m really acting.”
Gasteyer: SNL, the reason that they have cue cards, and I want to say this because a lot of people don’t know this, they think it’s a laziness move, but because of the nature of live television and the fact that it contracts and expands with the audience, there are rewrites that are happening in real time, which is why the cue cards are happening to begin with. So you are really married to those cards, even if you wrote the sketch because it could be changing. There were times where somebody on the ground is literally rewriting your lines as it’s happening.
Were you all big theater kids growing up?
Rudolph: Honestly, I think the truth is I have always wanted to do this since I was a little kid. I thought I was going to be in Annie the minute I fell in love with Annie [Ana high-fives Rachel and then Maya] and then if not, it was going to be some version of Grease and then the movie Fame, if they ever decided to make that a Broadway musical, which is not a bad idea. But those were my three, like that’s the trifecta of greatness.
I saw some high fives for Annie. Are you big Annie fans?
Rudolph: Who isn’t?
Dratch: It’s like you saw it when you were the age of the people in it, so then you’re like, how do I get up there?
Gasteyer: And I sang “Tomorrow” in Salute to Broadway. I don’t know if you guys remember, Salute to Broadway? Fifth grade? And Lisa Bolman’s mom said that she thought I could probably do it on Broadway.
Rudolph: You’re so lucky. That’s a childhood dream come true.
Ana, you’re playing the uptight mayor’s wife, but you also have a somewhat villainous arc. Are you enjoying playing a villain?
Gasteyer: Oh, for sure. I mean, I obviously have always been playing villains because I just project that to people.
Rudolph: It’s called character actors.
Dratch: Wait, can I just say what I love when Ana does, aside from the song that, like I said, blows the roof off the joint, but then later you notice her, she’s on the sidelines and she’s getting all bent out of shape at the town and she’s just off in the crowd harrumphing, and it just killed me.
Gasteyer: She’s definitely like a person who really knows right from wrong and I’m such a people pleaser, so it’s fun to play somebody who’s such a tight ass.
Maya, you said that you found your way into the character right before opening. How did you find it?
Rudolph: Honestly, I had seen the show and so when I first started rehearsals, I started speaking with a voice that I thought was Mary because I’d seen it on stage and I was probably doing Jane [Krakowski] or whatever I’d seen first, and then slowly I realized through rehearsals, “I don’t know about this voice. I feel like it’s not…” And then the director looked at me and said, “You can bring your own voice.” And I feel like it just, everything just completely flooded out of me. All the things that I can make it mine, because then I feel like I’m not trying to fit into something that’s already existing. I am part of something that’s already existing, and then I feel like I belong there.
It’s interesting because you were talking about the villain a second ago. I was thinking like Mary is the villain, which is such a crazy thing because as a character actor, I’m never the star. I’m always the villain and that’s the most fun. That’s the best friend with sassy lines or whatever, but to be the lead and be the villain is the most delicious meal.
What made these the right roles for you, Ana and Rachel?
Gasteyer: Dratch and I also counseled each other on our two existing jobs, which I love. You called and said ‘Should I do Rocky Horror and I called you and said, ‘Should I do Schmigadoon?’
Dratch: And we both said yes.
Gasteyer: Yes
Rudolph: In unison?
Gasteyer: They were separate times, but yes. It’s so nice because we have this sort of council of elders that we can confer with and I really inherently trust the taste of my girlfriends.
Dratch: Well for me, [director] Sam Pinkleton, I knew him a little bit and then he just emailed me like, “Would you want to do this? ” And I wrote back immediately, “Yes.” It was just my gut response and then I asked Ana and she said yes too.
Gasteyer: My Broadway debut was the last revival of Rocky Horror. So I knew the show and I was like, “You’re going to crush it.” It’s so fun. It has such a huge fan base.
Dratch: And it’s just also like, in the now. I feel like it’s just fun to do something that’s such a party and so kind of subversive.
Gasteyer: Rachel’s such a joy-forward person and in our friend group, so good about making choices that are about the happy thing to do. I respect her for that so much. And so equivalently, she was like, “You’re going to have fun if you do Schmigadoon! The music’s fantastic.” And P.S. we do all say no to lots of things. So it’s very validating. I trust her instincts around joy.
I do think that we’re pretty good at making people happy, and I love that we’re in this era where it’s much more about like, let’s just do the part that’s truly about being joy-forward and having fun. I don’t know about you guys, but my manager’s always like, “I think you should read for this dramatic part.” And I’m like, “Aghhh. It’s too late.”
Rudolph: It’s too late. Well, you get to a point in life where you want to enjoy what you’re doing and also you have proven yourself and you know what is moving for you and exciting for you to do.
Gasteyer: I mean, I find Schmigadoon! plenty moving in a hilarious way, but I think, generally, it’s harder and harder to access joy every day. The only thing is that I don’t have enough time to have drinks with Uncle Dratch, but I will soon.
Dratch: That’s how you’re going to really access joy.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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