00:00I'm Maggie McKim, so excited to be talking with Rachel Simone Webb.
00:04She plays Juliet in And Juliet.
00:07Welcome.
00:09Hi, Maggie.
00:10Thank you so much for having me.
00:12I'm excited to be here.
00:13Yay.
00:14So the Amundsen is going to be having And Juliet.
00:18That's coming up pretty soon, August 13th through September 7th.
00:23And it's sort of the story, correct me if I'm wrong, of what if Juliet didn't end it all and went on with her life.
00:32Is that right?
00:33Absolutely.
00:34This is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
00:38He is a character in the play as well as his wife who comes in and basically rips it apart and says, no, we're going to do it a new way.
00:46She makes it a musical and then everything that you see from there is just a comedic, exciting way for Juliet to grab her power back.
00:56I love it because you know what?
00:58These days we need all the comedy we can get, right?
01:00No, you're so right.
01:01Especially in theater.
01:03I mean, I saw some good theater last few weeks, but it was heavy.
01:06And I'm like, bring on And Juliet, please.
01:10It can't get here fast enough.
01:11In fact, I read a great review.
01:12It said it was as if six Something Rotten, Head Over Heels, and Moulin Rouge all had a baby.
01:19Hey, that's so beautiful.
01:22Isn't that funny?
01:23So, And Juliet has been on four continents?
01:26Yes.
01:27Have you been in every production of that?
01:30I haven't.
01:30I was in two of those, well, two countries, but all in North America.
01:37So, we started out, my journey started out in Toronto.
01:41So, we did Toronto 2022 in the summertime, and that was our North American premiere.
01:46We had no idea we were going to Broadway, and then we got a call, and our producers were like, we're going to Broadway.
01:53And so, I started that original Broadway cast in the ensemble, and I understudied Juliet for about a year and a half.
02:00And you're no stranger to Broadway and successful productions.
02:07You've worked with Kristen Chenoweth, for goodness sake, right?
02:11I mean, my gosh, tell us a little bit about your background.
02:15So, I grew up singing gospel, jazz, and R&B.
02:18I'm from Dallas, Texas, and my whole thing growing up was music.
02:24And so, I was given so many opportunities to perform on stage, which I'm very grateful for.
02:31Then, when I got to high school, I started really liking musical theater.
02:35Yeah.
02:36And, you know, just sometimes you go to a musical in your local town, and you're just like, oh, I don't really know if this is what's for me, but I love this style of music.
02:46For instance, Dreamgirls was my favorite musical.
02:48And then, we did Hair the Musical in my high school.
02:53Oh.
02:54In Texas.
02:55Very weird that we did, like, the month.
02:58You know, it was a really striking, risque type of musical to do in high school in Texas.
03:04But, we did it, and someone said, go to school for musical theater.
03:08So, then I did that, and I learned the art form of theater, and I learned a real passion.
03:16So, I gained that love for musical theater and theater proper at Texas State University.
03:23Oh.
03:24Pandemic happens, you know, I didn't get a real proper showcase, which is what everybody does.
03:29But, I was able to do a music assisting, a music, excuse me, a music admin assisting job.
03:38So, I wasn't, like, playing piano or anything, but I was the music director for Kristen Chenoweth's admin assistant.
03:48Nice.
03:49How fun was that?
03:50It was really fun.
03:51I loved it.
03:52I was not good at it, but I liked doing it.
03:55You probably were.
03:57Come on.
03:58So, this opened on Broadway in 2022, right?
04:01Yeah.
04:02And, ever since, it's been breaking records.
04:05What do you think the allure or the attraction is?
04:09I mean, that's three years later, and people, you're breaking records with the amount of people who have seen it and continue to.
04:16So, what is it about Ann Juliette?
04:18I think people come in not knowing what they're expecting, because it's hard to market the heart of the show.
04:27You market what it is and how pretty it is, but when you go see the show and you see the inclusivity and you see the happiness at the end
04:37and the joy that everyone ends up basically telling at the end of the story, then you're like, oh, okay, I'm really glad that I came to see this show,
04:46because it made me think, it made me feel, and it made me laugh.
04:50What's the most fun part about playing Juliette?
04:55Um, she has this big diva moment at the end.
04:58And, I feel like I get to speak to myself in that moment.
05:03I get to say, you know what, let me, let me decide to be a diva today.
05:08Sometimes you don't always feel like a diva when you wake up.
05:11I get to do that sometimes.
05:13That's so fun.
05:15I can't wait to see it.
05:16Tell us about the soundtrack, because this sounds pretty intriguing to me.
05:19It's really fun.
05:21Okay, so, you know, these are the, the pop soundtrack for the last 30 years is what Max Martin, he's the one who wrote everything.
05:27He wrote everything, composed everything, and collaborated with all of these incredible artists.
05:32So, you know Katy Perry's name, you know Demi Lovato, you know Jesse Jay, Ariana Grande.
05:41These are the artists' songs that you're hearing, all written by Max Martin.
05:47And Max Martin is a part of the team, so he's in charge of making sure that it sounds the way that he wrote it.
05:55So he, it's, it's, it's a high level singing opportunity.
06:01So, are those songs weaved into the story, or are they just the background soundtrack?
06:08Oh yeah, they are storytelling agents.
06:12So, in the middle of a scene, you might see someone in a proper musical, because you know, it's a musical.
06:17You're going to see someone in the middle of speaking, start singing.
06:19I love that.
06:22It really is the best part of it, because you can move the, the, the scene forward, or the story forward, because we're singing a song.
06:30We can't, we can't just talk about it.
06:32We have to sing about it this time.
06:33And it's clever, because the story actually does make sense with these songs that are not connected at all.
06:41Wow.
06:41That's so fun.
06:42It's like a puzzle.
06:43Whoever put it together.
06:44You're saying Max put it together?
06:46So, he collaborated with an incredible script writer named David West Reed, who you may know from Schitt's Creek.
06:54Oh, uh-huh.
06:56Okay, right there.
06:57You know it's going to be funny.
06:58Have you ever performed at the Amundsen before, Rachel?
07:01No, I've never performed at the Amundsen before.
07:03I've never been to the Amundsen.
07:05I think I went to Los Angeles once or twice, but not for a very long time.
07:10And I'm very, very excited to go to the Amundsen.
07:12It's a beautiful theater, and the audiences are awesome, because we're in L.A.
07:18Not that I'm biased, but what do you hope audiences leave with?
07:23What kind of feeling, or what do you hope they remember?
07:26Well, I hope that they remember that love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love.
07:30I'm sure that L.A. has a lot of, like, you know, everybody knows that love is love, but I hope that they leave knowing that love can be seen in so many different forms.
07:41Honestly, because everyone is represented on stage.
07:44So, that means, like, we've got non-binary characters on stage who are falling in love.
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