Once on This Island

She was amazing.

Nikki Renee, who was Andrea in Once on this Island.

Just these amazing...

I could name them all, Kathy Meloche, all of these people.

But historically, we've done a lot of new work that is like right out of New York.

So we do shows like some of our most popular shows have been Fun Home or The Prom or the Scottsboro Boys, Once on this Island.

But then we also do plays that are pretty heavy hitters, too, like The Inheritance or Ain't No Mo or Jaja's African Hair Braiding.

So, yeah, we kind of do a little bit of everything.

yeah um listen it's not a perfect show and i i can see that the book and stuff is troubled but to see it in concert it was yeah gorgeous yeah

do you know the last concert i saw was once on this island

with alex new yeah

yeah i have no words yeah i have no words for that one actually no words

Yeah.

So it was really nice to like see all of them, people that I've known or worked with from different things.

be so different in the way that they normally are and i think as an actor i bet it was so refreshing as well to do these like one like like concerts and stuff so yeah shout out to once on this island you love to see it

Michelle, thank you for

Oh, I feel like, hmm.

I love, like, Once on this Island.

So, like, I'd love to do, like, a Tamun, maybe.

Yes.

Even the smaller, you know, smaller scale things.

I saw once on this island at a theater that was, I think, I can't even really, I don't even know if it was regional, but it's just a lower tier, lower budget or theater, smaller house.

I think it was no more than a hundred seats, you know? So, but it was one of the best productions I have seen.

And they brought so much Aboriginal culture to the show.

And it was the most beautiful, I saw it twice.

Wow.

production of Once on this Island since the Broadway show that I've seen.

That's awesome.

I couldn't see it.

I just missed it, right? That said, I produced the revival of Once on This Island, directed by Michael Arden, genius director, nominated again for a Tony Award this year.

We won the Best Revival of a Musical.

And when Michael and I talked about the show, I could see exactly what his vision was, and I was like, "This is gonna be great, no problem." We did a workshop of it.

Yeah

... again, artistic message and marketing message combined.

I brought a goat on the red carpet of the Tony Awards for my production of Once on This Island.

That's because we featured a goat, and everyone was talking about the goat nonstop.

I think-

And [sighs] so there is a little bit of sadness there for me at the end in the fact that, have you ever, um, watched the play or, or read Once on This Island?

No.

Okay.

I was in a production of Once on This Island once upon a time, and long story of that play short, a, a girl fall, a, a girl who is in a different socioeconomic status and of a different race falls in love with a man of a different socioeconomic, economic status.

He's rich and she is not.

And they fall in love deeply, and at the end- Uh, he ends up going for another rich girl-

but they'll have some kind of consciousness.

And the more it is in the rounds, the more you have your audience around it, the more the audience gets sucked in, which is something that happened to me with every production that I ever saw on the round.

Not only Cats, I saw, I had that with the last revival of Once on this Island, the same.

I was just, I was in the story.

I was on top of the people.