Were you ever at any stage thinking, how are we actually going to convince these people to do this? I know they read the script, but was there any moments, because there are some very brilliant scenes um like outtakes and everything particularly the one with nathan lane just going how have i how did i get here but was there any moments that they were just like

what are we doing here Many, many.

But but as far as your question of like, could we believe we got them weirdly in a way that is maybe confidence masquerading mental illness? We always knew these people.

We were like, I feel like these ones are going to say yes.

They were all of us.

It sounds pat.

They were all like our first choices.

We just got Megan for the movie.

Okay.

She was doing an interview and she was doing some quote about the crossover to the United States, and she basically was like, "Back, you know, in my home country, everybody...

I walked down the street, 'Shakira, Shakira, Shakira.' I come here, I walk down the street, people come up to me and they go, 'Who are you? What are you doing?'"

Oh.

But I think it would be funny if we did, like, an iconic R&B song.

Like, one of the ones that has one of the, like, speaking monologues, you know?

Start free at joinhomebase.com. Homebase, built for small businesses that do it all.

To bring it back to UCB, it was so funny how much of that space was these comedians in their twenties doing the most sort of nerdy PG version of that, where you were like, compared to other comedy, you were the Gigi Allen, but it was a lot of just being like, how can we do this crazy fucked up late night shit, you know? I remember I used to host this comedy show for years that was like the experimental showcase at UCB.

So it was trying to be like the shit that doesn't fly at the rest of this experimental theater, really.

It was like a late night show and everything, every month would be like themed and we'd usually find something to tie it all together.

And we were doing some show where it was like about, um, I'm sure it was Halloween.

It was about like conjuring the devil or whatever.

And so I decided, though I'd never done it, that I was like, oh, it'd be fun at the end of the show to say I need to do like a blood sacrifice and blade myself like the backyard wrestlers do.

What's it like preparing for a show where you know you got to deliver a similar sort of show every single night versus like an improv thing where you kind of go in and you know it's always going to be exciting and different for you.

You

are so right.

So what you know about them is sort of tapping into when the Grateful Dead ended because Jerry died in 95.

Phish, who was already like a really burgeoning popular band, had started to like play arenas, became like mega successful because their fans were like, we need to flock to them.

But actually, they're rather different.

They're very similar in cultures, but different in musical construct.

They both improvise.

Yeah.

Mm.

Like, the crowd was with me the whole time, and the energy was electric, and some, like, unique, like, of-the-moment, in-the-room things happened, and I was in my absolute bag.

And then I went down there, and all the producers were there in a way where I was like, "Usually one of y'all come, not all of y'all come." And then they were like, "You crushed." And I was like, "Dude, we crushed.

That's the show." And they went, "Good news, that was the night The Times was reviewing us."

Yeah.

But I have become increasingly convinced too that it's like you have to be... process over product, by which I mean, of course you need to be like, "I believe in this thing.

I want...

I stand by it.

Oh.

And he's like, "You basically must have been like, your body was just sort of, like, violently trying to not drown.

Like, you were just, like, choking on water violently to not drown." [laughs] And it didn't totally work, and then, and then luckily this woman saved me.

So it was just like my voice was fucked up.

A- actually, now I'm finding myself getting, like, feeling feelings about it.

'Cause it's weird to talk about these things where I was like, I don't have memory of this thing that happened in my body.

Do it again.

Josh Sharp: Ta-Da! now running at the Greenwich House Theater of immersive Sweeney Todd fame in New York City, July 7th through August 23rd.

And one stall.

Well, luckily when it closed down 'cause Erin and I went like early in the week as soon as we heard, but then I was out of town for the weekend and I was like sort of sad to miss the final festivities, but then I realized if you had told me, "By the way, Barracuda closed a month ago," I'd be like, "I put in Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours there."

Oh, Jeff.

And I, I feel that in a big way too of like when you were saying like, "Oh, you taught." I'm like, "Yeah, but then when y'all were doing what you were doing, it allowed me to be like, oh shit, there's parts of myself I'm not accessing and not leaning into." It's all cyclical, you know what I mean?