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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. For today's show, since the Tony Awards are coming up this weekend, we thought we'd share some of our conversations about the incredible live theater shows that are nominated this season. Later this hour, we'll hear about the revival of Cabaret with Stars Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, along with Director Rebecca Frecknall. Then we'll get into the musical Hell's Kitchen, inspired by the New York City-infused childhood of Alicia Keys.

Now, we'll roll along with actors Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, who joined us here on All Of It to talk about the revival of Merrily We Roll Along. The story of the 1981 production of Merrily We Roll Along is legendary, almost infamous. With a score by Sondheim and a book by George Furth and Hal Prince directing, what could go wrong? Well, everything. It flopped. Audiences left during intermission. It closed within two weeks. Sondheim and Prince didn't work together for years. When brave souls attempt to tackle this story of friendship through the ages, there's always the question of, will it work?

Seven Tony nominations at this year's awards suggest that this revival did, in fact, work. Nominee Jonathan Groff plays Franklin Shepard, an earnest composer who sells out to make movies. Much to the chagrin of friend and creative partner, Charley Kringas, a tightly wound wordsmith, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Tony Award winner Lindsay Mendez stars as Mary, a once-celebrated novelist turned theater critic turned alcoholic, who's always been in love with Frank. The play starts at the height of Frank's fame, and in some ways, pain. His real friends can't stand him. He can't stand himself.

Not that the hangers-on at his LA house notice. From there, the show goes backwards in time from the 1970s to the '50s to show the audience how it all unraveled, and how the beautiful friendship between Franklin and Charley began. When Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez joined Alison on the show in 2021 when Merrily We Roll Along first began its run at a smaller venue at New York Theater Workshop, she started by asking Lindsay what conversations she remembers from Director Maria Friedman about where the potential pitfalls of the original production lay and how this production was going to avoid them.

Lindsay Mendez: Maria, really from the get-go, always really 100% stood behind the words and the story that came to us. I think when we looked at it right from the get-go, we thought, "Oh my gosh, there's so much pain in this story, and there's so much that we all see after having the life that we've had under us." I think thinking about the story initially being done by kids, there's just more than half the story is about not being kids. We all bring our history, our pain, our experience to the roles. I think that was Maria's big discovery and what she really wanted and got with this piece and with bringing us to it.

I think that was a huge part of it. I think we fell in love with the show immediately and the story and felt it really deserved its due. By treating it like a play, which is how we pretty much treat it, these songs just end up being these little gifts in between. We all just, I think, believe that it's so, so special.

Alison Stewart: Daniel, how about for you? What questions did you have going into this?

Daniel Radcliffe: It's interesting because the only production I've ever seen of this show was this production in London in 2013, where it also worked and was brilliant. I found out about, "Oh, Merrily has a problematic history or a pitfalls history or whatever," after having seen a version that works spectacularly. I didn't have as many of those worries. In terms of what I've heard about people talking about other productions and other things, I think we focused very much as a production on it being about the friendship rather than it being a comment on selling out and commerce versus art and those things.

They're there, they're a part of the story, but they're not, I think the thing that gets you hooked into these people and their love of each other. I also think we are making this in a very different moment than it was made originally and has been made for you. Just in terms of what we think sell it. As you said in your really brilliant recap, by the way, I definitely couldn't summarize the story that well, Frank just wants to make movies. It's not a crime. I think it's much less a story about one guy doing something wrong and the other people in his life berating him for it. It's just like people going in different directions and no one's wrong in this story. Everybody just wants each other but also wants different things at the same time, which, I think, makes it so painful.

Alison Stewart: Lindsay, how do you think this being incubated, especially here in New York, in a small theater, in that great theater on East 4th Street, has helped the show, has helped the show find itself?

Lindsay Mendez: Oh gosh. Well, to start with, just having the support of the New York Theater Workshop specifically. They are just an incredible home. They have made us all feel so warm and welcome and given us everything we could possibly want to be able to love coming to work every day. I also think that the audiences of the workshop, they're super sophisticated. They're used to seeing all sorts of really different theater, and they were all so excited to be there. I also think, and the three of us have talked about this a lot, I've never been in a show where I haven't even started rehearsals and the run was sold out.

To know that people are super excited to be there when I get to the theater every night. To have that and know how much people love this show and want to see it and want to support it and want to support Sondheim, it's such a gift and gives us so much energy and life to come in and say like, "Oh, we're going to give our absolute best at every opportunity because every show feels like this kind of rare event to us." It's been really wonderful, and to have the safety net and support of that little space has felt quite lovely, though, yes, very tight.

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Alison Stewart: Daniel, what do you get creatively out of working in a small space?

Daniel Radcliffe: I love it, but I really enjoy chaos. Just because in terms of the backstage track, because, for example, there's an upright piano and a baby grand piano, and they have to be got on and off the stage multiple times every night without wings, really, with a very, very tight space in there. It means we're all in there together and it's great. On a personal fun level, I really, really enjoy it.

There is also something to being able to do something so intimate as this show can be with an audience that's that close to you. I think there's something about you can just really feel reactions sometimes, and when you hear the audience on mass connect with a moment, it emotionally supercharges you through the scene. It's really cool.

Alison Stewart: Daniel, your number in the show, Franklin Shepard, Inc., Charley is just engaging in a live on-TV tirade against Frank for not being fully dedicated to this work. It's got the super-fast lyrics, the sound effects, a lot of energy. You said you love chaos, but as an actor, just in terms of the work you have to do, what are your first steps in getting that in your grasp before you can even add any embellishments or any creative stuff to it? How do you wrestle that one down?

Daniel Radcliffe: First of all, just listening to it for hours and hours and hours until it's just in you, and then at a certain point, you have to stop listening to it because you're listening to other versions. That was something I was like, at a certain point, you have to just be able to do it without the music as well, so to check it's memorized on its own and not just with the aid of having the music playing. It's just repetition. I know it's a really boring answer, but it's basically just huge amounts of repetition.

Alison Stewart: Then when does the chaos come in?

Daniel Radcliffe: When you start building it, then it's, how active can you make it, and where can you find things to do, and how quick can you make the transitions between those things? The chaos comes in obviously how fast it is because there is always a risk of it going wrong, which is quite exciting, but terrifying, but hopefully also makes it exciting for an audience in the same way that--

When I was doing How To Succeed, the only other musical that I've done, there was a big dance number at the end of that, and I always thought watching dancers do that is great, but watching somebody who absolutely isn't a dancer do it and might screw up at any moment, I think, adds an element of fear and excitement for an audience. I'm hoping that that's true of Franklin Shepard. It's an incredibly exhilarating number to get to do, so it's a real privilege to do it.

Lindsay Mendez: One of the things about being on stage with Dan and Jon is, I think for the first time ever, I feel very open to anything happening, and that we'll just take it as it comes because there's so much trust between us that I just feel very-- it's not always going to be the same, all sorts of things happen, but I feel so safe with them that we're going to navigate it together through the night. That's a really wonderful feeling to do a show with two other people rather than carrying a show by yourself on your back a little bit. This show really is special in that way that we have each other.

Alison Stewart: As someone in the arts, Lindsay, is there one character you can particularly relate to who's trying to pursue their dreams?

Lindsay Mendez: Oh my gosh, I think all of them because I think you look at Frank, Jon's character, who's just trying to be a success and trying to make it and keeps seeing the next prize and the next prize and it doesn't matter if someone looks at him as selling out or taking something cheap. It's like, "I want to live. I want to get to the next level. This is fun." As opposed to Charley, Dan's character, and Mary saying more like, "Don't sell out. Only do the work that inspires you and that says something and that means something."

I think as artists, we-- I know, I've gone through that many a time in my career where I'm like, "Oh, no. Do I want to do X and Y jukebox musical? What is the message? Do I feel like I'm standing behind something important?" But also like, "I have a child, and I have to eat and support myself and keep a career going." Those questions, I think, we're constantly asking, "Why did I become an artist? What is the goal here?" When you become an artist, you want to do great art and you don't always learn that, "Oh, you have to get insurance and pay your bills and keep up a life too." I feel so close to the story in all of these characters' struggles with that.

Alison Stewart: How about for you, Daniel? You've made some really interesting choices in your career. Lifespan of a Fact, loved seeing that.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh, thank you very much.

Alison Stewart: When you could have stayed in a much more commercial vein, you've made some interesting choices that it's a little meta in the show in a moment or two.

Daniel Radcliffe: Right. I definitely think I was put in such a rare position, both professionally and financially, by the Harry Potter films that I was so freed from the need to do-- I could say, at 2021, "The most commercially and financially successful thing you have ever done is done and is behind you. You will not do that again. What do you want your career to be now? What do you want out of this?" I really like being on film sets and being on stage and just doing this stuff for the sake of doing it and getting to work with the people that I work with.

I relate to Charley's argument a lot of just like-- because I don't think he's saying, "Don't make money, don't be successful." He's just saying, "Do the things you love that you want to do." Obviously, he does have probably more strident views on selling out than I certainly do, but I just think I was freed from a lot of those pressures and was able to do the things I love, which is an insanely lucky thing to happen to a person.

Alison Stewart: Also, I think Charley is afraid of losing his friend, right?

Daniel Radcliffe: Ultimately, everything comes back to just like, "I like spending time with you and we're not spending time together and the way we know how to spend time together is by making shows and working, and we haven't figured out another way of doing it."

Alison Stewart: For a story about friendship and about why we love each other and then why we turn on each other, what do you think works about the plot going in reverse time-wise, Lindsay? How does that help us understand these people a little better?

Lindsay Mendez: I just think if it played forward, these people would be completely intolerable. Seeing them at their worst and letting the story unfold where they redeem themselves and go back and you see how the friendship got started, I do feel like it does lay out some sort of hope in this cautionary tale. I think that the telling of it backwards just really allows the audience to take in and love these people and see their pitfalls and understand. All these reveals happen in reverse that are super cool. I just think it couldn't work the other way personally. Dan, I don't know.

Alison Stewart: Yes, there's this idea that we meet them when they're not at their best.

Lindsay Mendez: Oh my god, they're all three horrible.

Daniel Radcliffe: Oh my god, yes, the opening scene is so toxic. I'm glad every night that I'm not in it.

Lindsay Mendez: That was awful.

Daniel Radcliffe: I completely agree with Lindsay. I think it would be really, really hard to take if this story were told in a chronological order. Lindsay mentioned them, but the reverse reveals are some of the most satisfying things to hear every night. Listening to an audience put things together is just so exciting. I think it's an interesting device and makes you take things in, in a different way and work maybe a little harder.

Lindsay Mendez: As actors, it's been a really interesting exercise for us to do as well. It's been really challenging too. Also, because these scenes just jump cut, they just end, and then you're in a different time immediately, and so you have no time to reset or live in a moment, you're just like, pow, you're from absolute devastation to complete joy in two seconds. It's wild.

Alison Stewart: I'm not going to spoil the ending for those who've not ever seen Merrily We Roll Along, but there's a lot that remains unresolved, and it's sort of bittersweet in those last few moments. Daniel, what conversations would you hope someone who goes and has drinks after seeing the show, or coffee, has about the show?

Daniel Radcliffe: Honestly, I hope it makes them think about friends and about friendship. Definitely like, we have been working on and doing old friends for a couple of days in rehearsal and I was like, "I have an old friend I should call." I think it just makes you think about people and time. My personal feeling is that this play is not as sad as everyone thinks because the implication being that if you-- the only way it's not sad is if everyone is friends until their actual deathbeds. I feel like things can have still a lot of meaning even if they end in a way that's less than ideal.

Kousha Navidar: That was Alison Stewart's conversation with Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez about their Tony-nominated performances in Merrily We Roll Along.

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Up next, the immersive revival of Cabaret has earned nine Tony nominations, including Best Musical Revival. I talked with its stars, Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, along with director Rebecca Frecknall, who discuss bringing the Weimar Republic KitKatClub to life.

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