Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Now we're going to take a trip to a town called Muddirt, the setting of Bigfoot! A New Musical co-written by my next guest, Amber Ruffin.

[MUSIC - Bigfoot: Muddirt]

Muddirt, Muddirt's a hell of a town.

What's mostly wet and gross and smelly and brown.

Whose population is steadily going down,

Whose happy face is a slightly smaller frown.

Muddirt, Muddirt, a hell of a town.

Alison Stewart: Muddirt is the home of the musical's titular character, played by my guest, Grey Henson, who lives there on the outskirts of town, which is situated somewhere between a chemical plant, a toxic river, and a hill with an imminent mudslide. Bigfoot's mom, yes, he has a mom, is Francine, a normie played by Crystal Lucas Perry. Bigfoot grew up in the woods because his mom feared how the townspeople would treat him. That fear turns out to be warranted when a corrupt mayor uses Bigfoot as a boogeyman to stir up an angry mob in town, where he pockets the money from a brand new water park.

If that sounds like a zany plot, it is. It also happens to be hilarious and carried by a great musical score and some seriously talented voices, with Tony nominees all over the place. Bigfoot! A New Musical, is running at New York City Center now through April-- What is it? April 26th. April 26th. I don't have my glasses on. Amber Ruffin, Crystal Lucas Perry, and Grey Henson are with me now. Thank you for coming to the studio.

Grey Henson: Yay.

Amber Ruffin: Yay. Thank you for having us.

Alison Stewart: I love that "yay." That's excellent. You started writing Bigfoot in 2014?

Amber Ruffin: That's right. We started writing it in 2014. That's 1,100 years ago, if my math is right.

Alison Stewart: Why did it take 12 years to make it to the big stage?

Amber Ruffin: We really were like, "Hey, we did it. What a great show." The end. Then the world started becoming the plot of Bigfoot. Then we were like, "Well, it might be time to revisit this." I feel like every day the real world becomes more like Muddirt. I'm sorry if I'm a prophet of some kind.

Alison Stewart: Grey, when you heard about this idea of a musical about Bigfoot, how long did it take you to say, "I want to play Bigfoot?"

Grey Henson: Not very long. There was a reading of it that I couldn't be a part of, and I was super bummed because I think it's so rare to find new material that is this funny and with music that is this catchy, and so, yes, I jumped on it the moment I heard I was invited to the party.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting to look in your eyes because the last time I saw you were in a big, giant fur suit.

Grey Henson: I know, I [crosstalk].

Alison Stewart: Your eyes are very expressive.

Grey Henson: Oh, thank you. Thanks. That's good to hear that it breaks through, because I do worry that I get lost in the fur.

Alison Stewart: No, you don't get lost in the fur at all.

Amber Ruffin: Lost in the fur is--

Grey Henson: It's the memoir.

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: The behind the scenes, lost in the fur.

Amber Ruffin: Lost in the fur.

Alison Stewart: Crystal, you've done all kinds of theater. I saw you in 1776. You were amazing in that. You've done Shakespeare. What is similar about this show compared to the other shows that you've done?

Crystal Lucas Perry: Oh, goodness. I would have to say the commitment is still there. I mean, you have to go full force in. We've got some great characters in the show that Amber and the team have created. Leaning all the way in so that you can feel something at the end of the night is what brings it all full circle. Yes.

Alison Stewart: You've worked on Broadway before, obviously, Amber-

Amber Ruffin: Yes. Some [unintelligible 00:04:00].

Alison Stewart: Like The Wiz. Yes. Those are both great shows.

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: How did working on those shows help you develop Bigfoot after the 2014 version of it, and had to continue to develop the show?

Amber Ruffin: Working on those shows helped me develop Bigfoot because the development process for TV, for a movie, for a podcast, all of it is so wildly different than the process for a Broadway show. Really getting in there at night after every show and then writing however long it takes, and then waking up and getting to work, that is like unheard of. That's nowhere else. There's nowhere on earth that requires you to be awake at midnight talking about what rhymes with fart. That never happens.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Do you like that? Do you like that work-around-the-clock energy?

Amber Ruffin: Oh, yes. I thought it was very fun. I'm from late night, so if you have more than an hour, you're a rich man. I really did. I liked it a lot.

Alison Stewart: Grey, you were in Shucked, Elf, a Tony nominee for Mean Girls. What does Bigfoot have in common with those shows? Then what's a little different about it?

Grey Henson: It's funny. I was just talking about this. Because I feel typecast. I mean, I know obviously Bigfoot is very different from Buddy the Elf or Damian Hubbard in Mean Girls, but there's a through line of sensitivity and Honest goodness that I think I tap into through years of work on anxiety and growing up as a little gay kid in Macon, Georgia. Yes, I think that's the similarity for me.

I also just love musical comedy. I think when you can do it well, there's nothing like it, because especially in a show like Bigfoot, which I'm sure people write off as being, "Oh, that's a silly new musical, 90 minutes off Broadway." It's got a lot of intelligence and smarts, and I think when humor can teach you something, that's like when it's working at its best. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Part of the show, which is a great part of the show, is it's broad. Broad comedy. What is the key, Crystal, to making broad comedy work and not come off as corny or cringy, but really make it laughable, make it just enjoyable?

Crystal Lucas Perry: Yes. I would say a big thing is pace, not sitting too much in it, but also the discovery, the final character in our play is when the audience is there. We learn so much from them. We learn so much about what's landing, about what people are picking up. Also, we had a really lovely, long tech process which allowed us to be able to really throw things up on the wall and see what sticks and see what we need and what we don't. It's a lot of listening, it's a lot of trust, and it's also just about the assembly of the people in the room.

We've got the right people in the room to really make things work. When you combine all of those things together, that allows for the things that need to come to the surface and reveal themselves to take place, for sure.

Alison Stewart: Amber, what is something that just slaps in the room once you got the audience saying, "I didn't know that that was going to be as funny as it was?"

Amber Ruffin: A joke that hits hard consistently. Well, listen, I don't want to ruin any of them, but you said slaps, and that makes me think of the-- I don't know. I feel like they're all 11th--

Grey Henson: There are slaps in the show. The actual slaps.

Amber Ruffin: Oh, that's true, there are actual slaps in the show.

Alison Stewart: There are actual slaps.

Amber Ruffin: That's a great-- Good job. Good job, Grey. There are multiple actual slaps in the show. They're not real, everyone. It's staged slaps. That joke hits really hard. Pun intended.

Grey Henson: Yes. There's a lot of physical comedy in the show.

Amber Ruffin: It's more physical comedy than I thought.

Alison Stewart: Oh, really?

Amber Ruffin: I feel like one by one, we realized everyone was capable of it, and so then it just got more and more out of hand, and that's where the show is. It's out of hand.

Grey Henson: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with writer and creator Amber Ruffin and actors Crystal Lucas Perry and Grey Henson about Bigfoot! A New Musical that's running at the New York City Center through April 26th. I have my glasses on now. Okay. The town is called Muddirt. It's surrounded by toxic chemicals. It's got a super corrupt mayor. Where did you draw from to get Muddirt? What town and experience?

Amber Ruffin: Thanks for assuming that. Nowhere. Nothing. We just wrote what we thought was the silliest thing we could think of. Real life creeps in, right? We just thought, how far can we go while still being believable? You know what I mean? How silly can it get before people are like, "No, thank you." I feel like that's where the show resides, is at the edge of silliness, and you can still care about these characters, which is not at all what you asked, but that's where we've ended up.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a little bit of Muddirt, and we can talk about it on the other side.

[MUSIC - Bigfoot: Muddirt]

We're all up at the crack of dawn,

Depending on what kind of crack we're on.

The devil had himself a spawn,

And that's where we live.

That's where we live.

We try so hard to do our best,

Nearby towns are not impressed.

They do well, we stay stressed.

A hell of a day.

Muddirt, Muddirt, Muddirt, Muddirt,

Muddirt, Muddirt, a hell of a town.

Muddirt, Muddirt, Muddirt, Muddirt,

Muddirt, Muddirt.

Muddirt, Muddirt.

Muddirt, Muddirt.

Have fun in town, y'all.

We want a hell of a time.

Alison Stewart: Yay. What are the people like of Muddirt? What are they like, Crystal, the people who live there?

Crystal Lucas Perry: Well, there's so many of them, and they share a mind of a sense. I think that they're curious to the point where, hey, what one thinks is what they all think, I think. It's tricky because they get to expand on that, and they learn a little bit more. It's only when they are challenged and pushed to the end of where their thoughts begin and where they actually make their own discoveries within the town and with the outskirts of town, AKA Bigfoot, that they actually start to shift and evolve. They are complex, and they become more knowledgeable throughout, I would say.

Alison Stewart: What does Bigfoot think of Muddirt? How he looks at the town.

Grey Henson: Oh, he loves it. It's Disney World for him. It is the place of his dreams, and it's because he's not fully accepted there. The through line with Bigfoot is he just craves humanity and connection, and he is more human than anyone, which is the butt of the joke of the show is that everyone else is the monster around this big perceived monster. For him, Muddirt is nirvana, it's everything, but it represents connection and just what we need as beings on this earth.

Alison Stewart: Amber, this is set in the '80s?

Amber Ruffin: Yes, baby.

Alison Stewart: Aside from some great suits on Alex Moffat. [laughs] There were jokes about Reagan in the script. Why did you decide to set it in the '80s?

Amber Ruffin: Girl, first of all, we did it because we couldn't stop making jokes about Hulk Hogan. This show was just a vehicle to get jokes about Hulk Hogan out. Then he died. Then we were like, "Oh, God, we got to pivot," so we cut all the Hulk Hogan jokes. I guess it's set in the '80s-- Now, that is real. It's also set in the '80s because it was a extremely fun time. After we wrote a couple songs for the show, we were like, "This is the '80s," because of the way the show ended up sounding. I think it's to the show's benefit, because when I think of '80s, I go, "Oh, yes, that was fun." Especially from 2026. The '80s, was it?

Alison Stewart: '80s were good.

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Remember them well. Bigfoot and his mom are really close, Grey.

Grey Henson: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: What do you-- How come they're close? She sent him to live in the forest, but they remain close. Why do they remain close?

Grey Henson: I think he just craves the comfort that you can only get from a mother. She has protected him his whole life. I guess it's a naivete, but it's also just umbilical. Yes, there's a lot of sweetness in that, but it not infantilizes the character, but it makes him the sweet innocent, which I think you need when someone just needs their mother in that really youthful way. Yes, she represents warmth, comfort.

Alison Stewart: Francine, why does she send her son to live in the woods by himself?

Crystal Lucas Perry: Oh, gosh. Francine just wants to protect her son. I think one of the beauties of Francine is that she is able to see the heart in others and also see through things in a way that both elevates and lifts them, and also just appreciates. I think, again, the one person that teaches Francine as she's trying to teach the town is her son. The way that she's constantly surprised by him, the way that she's constantly just in awe of how he's able to literally have his huge presence make such a huge impact on people in the way that you wouldn't expect. Is something that she catches onto very early on. That's her baby. That's the one she loves. She'd do anything to protect her son, the same way her son would do anything to protect her.

Alison Stewart: Amber, how did you come on the voice of Bigfoot? Because he's naive, but he's also the smartest person in the room.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. I really felt like this is what would happen if you were living alone in the forest. You'd be extremely smart because all you'd have to do is read, and you'd be extremely kind because once a month or every two weeks, when people see you, they're happy to see you. Everything you ingest would be laced with joy. I do think that that's-- as silly as the show is, that, I think, is the realest part of the show, is how happy this guy is. I think you would have to be happy if you lived in the forest.

Alison Stewart: When you play Bigfoot, how do you find that balance between being emotionally mature but also being naive and wanting to see others, to have connection with others?

Grey Henson: Yes. When I think of kids and children, they are oftentimes smarter than adults because you just aren't weathered by the world. I guess, in a way, there's a lot of intelligence in purity. I think that's also why I think the show works so well, and also why it's set in the '80s. This is, like, pre-Internet, and so you only know what you see. I think Bigfoot just comes from such a great, honest place of realness and intention and connection.

Alison Stewart: He's such a sweet guy.

Grey Henson: Yes.

Alison Stewart: He's also a smart guy.

Grey Henson: So smart.

Alison Stewart: That's the thing I got from it. Just so smart.

Grey Henson: Yes. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Amber, this could be just really funny. Joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. It also has really good music-

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: -in it as well. Tell us a little bit about the composer.

Amber Ruffin: Our composer is David Schmoll. He and I have written a total of-- Excuse me, a total of four musicals together. Two--

Alison Stewart: I didn't know, four.

Amber Ruffin: Girl, two are excellent, and two are very bad. [laughs]

Grey Henson: This is one of the bad ones.

[laughter]

Amber Ruffin: Schmoll and I met at a theater called Boom Chicago in Amsterdam. That's a lot like the Second City, except it's way more short form. Schmoll worked there for a thousand years. Every show at Boom Chicago has multiple improvised songs in it. I would always be put in the improvised songs. I worked there for five years alongside Schmoll. Together, we've improvised 100 million songs. Schmoll is, of course, a talented musician and composer. He can play any instrument, but he's the world's best musical improv accompanist-

Grey Henson: It's a hard word.

Amber Ruffin: -of all time.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:17:31]

Amber Ruffin: If you are making up a song and you look over and it's Schmoll on the keys, you're going to win. It's not even close. Second place to Schmoll is nowhere close because it was his full-time job for decades, and he had to do it multiple times a night. He's untouchable. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Out of the two that turned out to be good, what did he bring to the table? What did he bring to your score?

Amber Ruffin: Well, hey, to be clear, the two bad shows, the music still rules.

Alison Stewart: Okay.

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Amber Ruffin: The songs out of those two bad shows, we will take those, all those songs, and then make like a third musical. He really is-- There is a reckless abandon that you improvise with that people don't use musically. We all do at Boom Chicago and at that theater. Because the singers will do it, the musicians will do it too, because it's their full-time job. You know what I mean? Most musicians, their job is to open up sheet music and play what they're told. When you're without that for so long, it's just he lives in this wild area where comedians also live. Yes, it's really natural.

Alison Stewart: Crystal, Francine gets to sing this-- has this beautiful moment when he sings about her son. Can you describe what that scene is like for us, and then how you get in the mood to sing that song?

Crystal Lucas Perry: Oh, yes. Well, again, there are many things that are going on in the show, which I'll leave for the show. At this point, Francine is in a place of hope and in a place of dreaming for her son with her son. When you have a child who's in the forest because of who they are and because the town isn't perhaps ready, even though you know that they would love him, you find yourself painting pictures and creating an ideal life of what is to come.

I think one of Francine's biggest fears is what happens if I'm not there to to be there to take care of Bigfoot. Throwing out wishes, wishing on stars, thinking about what things lie in store for him, but also knowing just how incredible he is, and knowing that no matter what, he will be fine. Also, hey, maybe there's more for him.

Alison Stewart: Bigfoot also has a really heartfelt song called Day to Day, and we're going to play a little bit of a clip of it. Would you set it up for us?

Grey Henson: Yes. This is Bigfoot's I want song that happens towards the beginning of the show. It's him alone after he just got a visit from his mom and the doctor. It's just what he longs and hopes for, which is to belong and to have a normal life, to be a simple, everyday-- not person, I guess, thing, being, creature.

Alison Stewart: Being.

Grey Henson: Being, creature. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen.

[MUSIC - Bigfoot: Day to Day]

Can you imagine a three-bedroom ranch,

Plain white picket fence,

Linoleum floors,

A refrigerator full of expired condiments.

I'd make a sandwich, clean my lint trap,

Have a mediocre cup of tea and everyday humdrum life.

Sounds so good to me.

I long for the mundane.

Give me that day to day.

If it bores you, I'll adore it.

You won't hear me complain,

I promise I'd survive it.

I'd thrive with joy to spare.

I take myself to Kmart,

And buy breathable underwear.

Alison Stewart: I'm not kidding. This song got me. This song truly got me, like, just like the day to day, the little bits of life that you should pay more attention to and be thankful for.

Grey Henson: Yes, it's a great song.

Alison Stewart: When you were writing the songs and the music, did you follow the pace of musicals like The Eleventh Hour and the I Want songs?

Amber Ruffin: This show was written in 2014 as a part of a series called Serial Killers, where five shows enter, and three shows get voted on to next week. We wrote this show 10 minutes at a time. Every 10 minutes of the show are 2 songs that we hope will get enough votes to vote us through next week. That's why there are so many Eleventh Hour songs in the show, like darn near every song is an Eleventh Hour song. We're just--

Alison Stewart: Just keep going. Just keep going.

Amber Ruffin: When we ended up with the show, I was like, "How come every musical doesn't do this? Why are we got to wait on one good song?"

Alison Stewart: It's interesting.

Amber Ruffin: "Why can't every song just be a hit?"

Alison Stewart: That's interesting.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. We didn't want any vegetables in this mug. Every--

Alison Stewart: You broke the mold a little bit.

Amber Ruffin: Yes. Every song has gotten candy for sure. Yes.

Alison Stewart: All right, Amber, you told NPR, our friends, you said, "Bigfoot in my mind is a Black woman." Then I was like, "Bigfoot in my mind is all LGBTQ." Then I was like, "Bigfoot is an immigrant." That's a lot to take in.

Amber Ruffin: Girl, that's how long it's been. Wasn't 2014 a long time ago?

Alison Stewart: It was a long time ago.

Amber Ruffin: As you're looking at the show, Bigfoot becomes whatever way in which you are othered, likely as you're watching it. As I was writing it, it's crazy because I was like, "Well, Bigfoot's mother is going to be white because I don't want a Black woman worrying about the safety of her son." Then I was like, "Well, Bigfoot's going to be Black because there's no way that Bigfoot can be anything other than Black because of how severely Bigfoot is othered."

Then just like, everything came crashing down the past 10 years. Then I was like-- I went around and around in circles about it, and then I thought, "Let's just have the people we love the most be everything." Then that's why everyone's cast in what they're cast in.

Alison Stewart: Bigfoot gets a happy ending, Grey.

Grey Henson: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: Were you happy to see that it has a happy ending?

Grey Henson: Yes, of course. I think we're all rooting for that. I think we all want to belong in some way.

Alison Stewart: Why do you think audiences are ready for happy endings?

Amber Ruffin: It's really hard not to make a joke about happy endings. Audiences are ready for a show that ends joyously.

Alison Stewart: Public radio, because-- Public radio.

Amber Ruffin: I didn't say anything. Because we're really all hopeful that that's the way America is headed. We think that we are in-- Hopefully, every day I wake up and go, "Maybe this is the worst part of this administration." Then tomorrow I'll wake up and go, "Maybe this is the worst part of this administration." I remain hopeful. I think that very few things are honest about how bad it is, and hopeful, and this show is both. I hope that that combination is healing to people.

Alison Stewart: When you wear the suit, do you feel different?

Grey Henson: I really do. I feel different when I look in the mirror. Then it's so funny, I forget that I look like that, which I think is what's so beautiful about the character. Bigfoot's like, "Oh, what do you mean? I'm normal?" Then he sees how other people see him through their eyes. That's the beauty of it, because I also get lost in it. I forget. I look and move around like a massive person. I'm hitting people, and I don't even know it. Yes, I had that realization the other day. I was like, "Oh, yes, this is Bigfoot. He doesn't know he's a weirdo freak?"

Alison Stewart: Your eyes. You can really see your eyes.

Grey Henson: Oh, that's so good that it reads. Also, that's why the space we're in is so perfect. It's, what, 300 seats, maybe? It's intimate, and it needs intimacy. This show.

Amber Ruffin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: The name of the show is Bigfoot! A New Musical. It's running at New York City Center through April 26. My guests have been Amber Ruffin, Grey Henson, and Crystal Lucas Perry. Thank you for coming in.

Grey Henson: Thank you for having us.

Crystal Lucas Perry: Thank you for having us.

Amber Ruffin: Thanks for having us. Yay. Go see it. It's fun.

Grey Henson: Yay.