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Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
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Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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I want to introduce you to Adrian blake Ensco. He
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is currently starring in swept Away on Broadway with music
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by the Avid Brothers, and he is also one third
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of the group Bandits on the Run. But we'll get
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to that later because swept Away has an interesting story
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besides being you know, connected to the Avic Brothers. Hugely popular,
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suddenly came news that the show was shutting down on Broadway,
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and then, by overwhelming demand and selling all these tickets,
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you were given a reprieve. So we're trying to see
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if swept Away is the little engine that could. So
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Adrian welcome. What's it like for you on Broadway. I
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know you've done off Broadway, but I mean you are
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the star of a huge Broadway musical.
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Ah sucks. Thanks Shelly for having me on. Yeah, i'd
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done a couple off Broadway musicals before.
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I truthfully never really thought that I would be in
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a Broadway musical.
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I don't have like a what I would call a
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Broadway voice.
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I spent most of my time since graduating a conservatory
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touring with an indie folk band, and I thought that
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that was where my pocket was.
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And then came along this, this project.
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Which is the perfect project for me, and I think
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a bunch of people in the cast, who you know,
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we're all kind of misfits for Broadway in a really
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beautiful way, we've found a home here in this very
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unique piece. And yeah, it's I mean, it's been, it's
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been a wild ride. We after opening to a lot
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of glowing reviews and New York Times critics pick, they
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were middling ticket sales over the holidays, and so they
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announced that our six month at least run was going
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to be cut to December fifteenth, basically like three weeks
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after we'd opened, and the outpouring of support was incredible.
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I mean people immediately just started filling the houses because
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people were like, I'd been I wanted to see this,
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I just hadn't gotten a ticket yet. And you know,
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the way that Broadway is built right now, the model
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makes it very hard to.
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Go on without full houses.
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For if you don't sell all the tickets for a
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couple of weeks, then you're in serious jeopardy.
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I don't think everybody knows that right now, so.
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Exactly, there's a feeling and I felt this before I
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got to Broadway, and kind of when we were opening,
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I was like, Oh, we're here, we made it, we opened,
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we can breathe easily. And I think we were all
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kind of it felt like the carpet had been snatched
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from under us when we all found out the news.
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But it has been so heartwarming and soul filling to
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feel the upswell of support that has come from people
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being like, no, there is a place for this on Broadway.
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I do want to see this. I want to make
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space for it. And you know, within three days we
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had sold out the rest of the run, and you know,
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money talks, so there was kind of no other choice
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but to extend it for another two weeks to give
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people one last chance to see the show. A lot
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of people are flying from all over the country, from
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even other countries to come see this show because there's
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nothing There's been nothing like it on Broadway up to
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this point.
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Okay, what makes this show swept away different from the predecessors?
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I mean the one that changed Broadway was Rent, really,
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I think, but there have been so many others. After
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there was move An all there was American Idiot. What
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makes Swept Away different other than the music by the
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Avid Brothers.
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Well, we do share some of the same genealogy to
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American Idiot. I mean we have John Gallagher Junior and
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Michael Mayer and Stark Sands. Johnny and Stark are my castmates.
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Michael is our director. And that was a I guess
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not a jukebox musical. It was like a concept album
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staged and that actually kind of inspired our producers that production.
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American Idiot inspired our producers Matthew Maston and Sean Hudock
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to try to make a show based on this album
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Mignonette by the Avi Brothers. But I would say, what
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we're doing. What the script that John Logan has carved
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out using pre existing, largely pre existing lyrics from the
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Avia catalog is like a jukebox musical at the highest
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form of art. Like he I picture him as like
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a conspiracy theorist, almost like with all the post it
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notes every lyric, like drawing connections with yarn and being like,
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how what are the characters? And he came up with
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this incredible story based on the story that inspired the
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original Avid's album Mignonnette that really gets I mean, it
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delves to the bottom.
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Of the human experience.
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You really you see adventure and also like falling to
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the lowest lows, and then there's redemption and hope at
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the end.
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I think something that.
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Really sets it apart though, is the fact that these
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lyrics are not they're there. They have that folk quality
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of being specific and universal at the same time, and
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it feels like a true folk musical because John Logan
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has also invented a story that captures that we have archetypes.
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I play Little Brother, He's not a named character, and
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it kind of makes it universal and specific at the
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same time. And I feel like a lot of people
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are able to read their own relationships and read themselves
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into the four principal characters, read their own stories of
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their own lives into the arc of great hope and
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promise and then desolation and then redemption.
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So I think what.
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We're doing is stands apart because because it is, it
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has that honesty and authenticity and it is not afraid
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to be different from everything else.
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I am speaking with Adrian Blake Enscow. He is one
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of the stars of Swept Away with music by the
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Avit Brothers. They were suddenly given the news that they
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were supposed to be closing on the fifteenth of the month,
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and then by overwhelming demand and sell out crowds, it's
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been extended for two weeks. Tony Winter, John Gallagher Junior
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of Spring Awakening An American Idiot, also stars Tony Nominee
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Stark Sands of Kinky Booths American Idiot, and Juliet and
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Stage Green star Wayne Duval, who starred in one of
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my favorite movies, I mean, just one of a kind. Oh, brother,
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where art thou?
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Yes?
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I mean absolutely all right. So now is there like
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a there's a there's an end date, But is there
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a certain date you guys are moving toward where you
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will hear oh you get another extension? How does this work?
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I mean truly, the poetic justice of all of this
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is that we're living out a Broadway production that parallels
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the story of our characters.
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It feels like there's.
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A there's been a shipwreck and we are, uh, we're
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enacting story of survival. So every day we're going in,
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we're doing everything that we can to pull people in,
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to like promote the show, to get out the word
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like come see it, because we don't want This is precious.
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And it might not last forever.
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And so much of the assumption is that, oh, if
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it's on Broadway, you're gonna get your ticket in a
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couple of months, and that is just not true for
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a show like this. This was never a surefire bet
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for Broadway, and the fact that it's even made it
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this far is a huge success story. So we don't
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have we have no knowledge of what the future might hold,
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so we're just encouraging people to come and see it
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while they can. That said, you know, if people fill
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up the houses and we get to experience that altogether,
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the existential arc with paired with this existential journey of
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the of the Broadway production, it's I mean, it has
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become electric and people are seeing that and feeling it,
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and as performers playing to these packed houses and really
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like singing for our lives, singing for the show's life,
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that has become like the next incarnation of the show.
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It was always it always meant something very deep to us,
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but now it's like the next level.
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It's like, oh my.
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God, this is this is truly truly a survival story
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for us and if people are coming and it's and
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that energy is present in every other show that we do,
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every last performance, I think it will be undeniable.
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That there's a future for this show. I mean, we just.
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Put out the Broadway cast recording today, or US track
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from the Broadway cast recording, the song Ain't No Man
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and h and it's doing when people are spinning it.
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The whole records coming out in February, that will be
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something that lives on no matter what.
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But we all have our fingers crossed that there is
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a future for this work because I don't think there's
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a single person involved that that wouldn't make space because
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this has been such an incredible moving experience that all
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of us are so committed to.
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Is there any talk of a national touring version of
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Swept Away?
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I mean, I think people are dreaming about it.
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There's As an actor, I feel like I always get
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the information the last so I don't know what our
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producers are talking about when it comes to that.
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I would hope so.
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But I also think it's really important if you want
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to see the show and you have the means to
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just come out and see it, because this really could
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It's life is like that life is precious and ephemeral
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in there are moments that can just pass by like that,
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and we sing about that on stage every night. So
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if you are on the fence and you're like, well,
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maybe there will be a tour, don't wait, because they're
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also very, very truly may not be a chance to
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see this.
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Again, Adrian, I hear you're developing a stage musical for
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What's Eating Gilbert Gray.
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Well, I can't take full credit. I'm doing it with
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my band Banits on the Run and a very dear collaborator,
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Christopher Sears, who is also he made his Broadway debut
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in Cult of Love last night. He's an incredible actor, instruments, songwriter,
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built an opera.
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A folk opera with him and my wife and his sister.
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And yeah, we're working with Peter Hedges, who wrote the
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original book that the movie was based on, and also
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the screenplay for the movie. So that kind of just
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came about as like an incredible little spark of inspiration.
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We'd been on the Bandits had been on Peter hedges
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radar for a while. We'd played at his birthday parties.
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He knew about Sydney and Regina. My bandmates because he
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went to their school years earlier.
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And he one.
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Night was taking the subway, the G train and saw
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our friend Christopher playing on the on the subway, and
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he was haunted by this by his voice, and he.
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Was like, how do I find you? And Christopher like.
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Shouted across the subway platform Christopher sears just look me up.
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And Peter, on his way home, was googling found music
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videos that Christopher had shot where Sydney and I are
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featured because we're in his band, and he was.
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Like, Christopher knows the bandits.
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This is a sign we have to do something together.
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And so we started kind of was just like a test.
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He was like, what would happen if you guys wrote
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some songs for this? He gave us all readers copies
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of the book, and the book is beautiful. It's written lyrically.
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I would say, it's very easy to just kind of
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take lines from the text and make them into songs.
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And so we started working on it and within like
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two months we had forty songs and we just kept
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bringing them to Peter in these little salons.
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We would make dinner and play some songs and he would.
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He's like, raw would be on the floor every single time,
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and it was just clear that we had something really special,
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so we started showing it around. Eventually we showed it
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to the people at MCC Theater Company, which is an
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off Broadway theater on West fifty second Street, and they
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were really interested in developing it. They actually been a
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theater company when Peter was writing the original book, and
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he had done the book early versions of the book
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as a monologue. So they were like, this is the
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perfect place to work on this, and they're they've committed
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to developing it with us, and that's that's in the works.
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We did a workshop over the summer. We were aiming
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another workshop.
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It's an actor instrumentalist piece right now, so we are
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the band and we're.
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Also the family.
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There are a couple other people that that we've added
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to the fold, the deer collaborators or people that have
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become collaborators, but everyone's playing instruments and we're jamming together.
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And every single time we take those songs out and
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play them. Because it is an actor instrumentalist piece, we
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can play them in clubs and venues as part of
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bandit shows, part of Christopher Sears shows, and people, I
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mean people The response has been overwhelmingly positive and glowing,
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and people are like, I can't wait to see the show,
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so I'm excited about that, and you know that's definitely
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like in the wind approaching.
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Okay, we only have about a minute. Let's go back
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to Swept Away with music by the Avid Brothers. Adrian
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Blake Ensco. Drum up some support here. Get people to
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buy tickets and to see the show before it closes,
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because there is an end date now, although it was
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extended two weeks go.
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You got a minute. Yes, please you well regret it.
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You people that come.
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I talked to them afterwards in the playbow line and
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the signature line, and people are always saying I can't
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wait to come back, I can't wait to bring my brother,
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my sister.
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It touches people deeply, so come. You will not regret it.
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Okay, thank you so much, and happy holidays Adrian Blake
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Ensco and the best of luck with Bandits on the
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Run and your upcoming musical What's Eating Gilbert Grape? So
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much going on?
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You've been listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
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of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
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three
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Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
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Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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I want to introduce you to Adrian blake Ensco. He
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is currently starring in swept Away on Broadway with music
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by the Avid Brothers, and he is also one third
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of the group Bandits on the Run. But we'll get
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to that later because swept Away has an interesting story
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besides being you know, connected to the Avic Brothers. Hugely popular,
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suddenly came news that the show was shutting down on Broadway,
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and then, by overwhelming demand and selling all these tickets,
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you were given a reprieve. So we're trying to see
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if swept Away is the little engine that could. So
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Adrian welcome. What's it like for you on Broadway. I
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know you've done off Broadway, but I mean you are
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the star of a huge Broadway musical.
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Ah sucks. Thanks Shelly for having me on. Yeah, i'd
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done a couple off Broadway musicals before.
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I truthfully never really thought that I would be in
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a Broadway musical.
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I don't have like a what I would call a
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Broadway voice.
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I spent most of my time since graduating a conservatory
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touring with an indie folk band, and I thought that
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that was where my pocket was.
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And then came along this, this project.
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Which is the perfect project for me, and I think
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a bunch of people in the cast, who you know,
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we're all kind of misfits for Broadway in a really
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beautiful way, we've found a home here in this very
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unique piece. And yeah, it's I mean, it's been, it's
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been a wild ride. We after opening to a lot
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of glowing reviews and New York Times critics pick, they
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were middling ticket sales over the holidays, and so they
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announced that our six month at least run was going
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to be cut to December fifteenth, basically like three weeks
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after we'd opened, and the outpouring of support was incredible.
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I mean people immediately just started filling the houses because
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people were like, I'd been I wanted to see this,
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I just hadn't gotten a ticket yet. And you know,
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the way that Broadway is built right now, the model
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makes it very hard to.
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Go on without full houses.
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For if you don't sell all the tickets for a
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couple of weeks, then you're in serious jeopardy.
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I don't think everybody knows that right now, so.
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Exactly, there's a feeling and I felt this before I
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got to Broadway, and kind of when we were opening,
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I was like, Oh, we're here, we made it, we opened,
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we can breathe easily. And I think we were all
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kind of it felt like the carpet had been snatched
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from under us when we all found out the news.
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But it has been so heartwarming and soul filling to
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feel the upswell of support that has come from people
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being like, no, there is a place for this on Broadway.
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I do want to see this. I want to make
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space for it. And you know, within three days we
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had sold out the rest of the run, and you know,
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money talks, so there was kind of no other choice
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but to extend it for another two weeks to give
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people one last chance to see the show. A lot
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of people are flying from all over the country, from
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even other countries to come see this show because there's
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nothing There's been nothing like it on Broadway up to
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this point.
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Okay, what makes this show swept away different from the predecessors?
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I mean the one that changed Broadway was Rent, really,
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I think, but there have been so many others. After
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there was move An all there was American Idiot. What
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makes Swept Away different other than the music by the
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Avid Brothers.
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Well, we do share some of the same genealogy to
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American Idiot. I mean we have John Gallagher Junior and
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Michael Mayer and Stark Sands. Johnny and Stark are my castmates.
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Michael is our director. And that was a I guess
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not a jukebox musical. It was like a concept album
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staged and that actually kind of inspired our producers that production.
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American Idiot inspired our producers Matthew Maston and Sean Hudock
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to try to make a show based on this album
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Mignonette by the Avi Brothers. But I would say, what
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we're doing. What the script that John Logan has carved
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out using pre existing, largely pre existing lyrics from the
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Avia catalog is like a jukebox musical at the highest
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form of art. Like he I picture him as like
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a conspiracy theorist, almost like with all the post it
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notes every lyric, like drawing connections with yarn and being like,
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how what are the characters? And he came up with
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this incredible story based on the story that inspired the
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original Avid's album Mignonnette that really gets I mean, it
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delves to the bottom.
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Of the human experience.
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You really you see adventure and also like falling to
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the lowest lows, and then there's redemption and hope at
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the end.
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I think something that.
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Really sets it apart though, is the fact that these
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lyrics are not they're there. They have that folk quality
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of being specific and universal at the same time, and
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it feels like a true folk musical because John Logan
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has also invented a story that captures that we have archetypes.
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I play Little Brother, He's not a named character, and
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it kind of makes it universal and specific at the
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same time. And I feel like a lot of people
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are able to read their own relationships and read themselves
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into the four principal characters, read their own stories of
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their own lives into the arc of great hope and
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promise and then desolation and then redemption.
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So I think what.
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We're doing is stands apart because because it is, it
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has that honesty and authenticity and it is not afraid
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to be different from everything else.
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I am speaking with Adrian Blake Enscow. He is one
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of the stars of Swept Away with music by the
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Avit Brothers. They were suddenly given the news that they
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were supposed to be closing on the fifteenth of the month,
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and then by overwhelming demand and sell out crowds, it's
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been extended for two weeks. Tony Winter, John Gallagher Junior
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of Spring Awakening An American Idiot, also stars Tony Nominee
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Stark Sands of Kinky Booths American Idiot, and Juliet and
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Stage Green star Wayne Duval, who starred in one of
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my favorite movies, I mean, just one of a kind. Oh, brother,
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where art thou?
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Yes?
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I mean absolutely all right. So now is there like
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a there's a there's an end date, But is there
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a certain date you guys are moving toward where you
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will hear oh you get another extension? How does this work?
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I mean truly, the poetic justice of all of this
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is that we're living out a Broadway production that parallels
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the story of our characters.
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It feels like there's.
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A there's been a shipwreck and we are, uh, we're
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enacting story of survival. So every day we're going in,
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we're doing everything that we can to pull people in,
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to like promote the show, to get out the word
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like come see it, because we don't want This is precious.
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And it might not last forever.
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And so much of the assumption is that, oh, if
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it's on Broadway, you're gonna get your ticket in a
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couple of months, and that is just not true for
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a show like this. This was never a surefire bet
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for Broadway, and the fact that it's even made it
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this far is a huge success story. So we don't
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have we have no knowledge of what the future might hold,
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so we're just encouraging people to come and see it
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while they can. That said, you know, if people fill
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up the houses and we get to experience that altogether,
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the existential arc with paired with this existential journey of
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the of the Broadway production, it's I mean, it has
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become electric and people are seeing that and feeling it,
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and as performers playing to these packed houses and really
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like singing for our lives, singing for the show's life,
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that has become like the next incarnation of the show.
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It was always it always meant something very deep to us,
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but now it's like the next level.
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It's like, oh my.
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God, this is this is truly truly a survival story
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for us and if people are coming and it's and
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that energy is present in every other show that we do,
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every last performance, I think it will be undeniable.
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That there's a future for this show. I mean, we just.
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Put out the Broadway cast recording today, or US track
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from the Broadway cast recording, the song Ain't No Man
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and h and it's doing when people are spinning it.
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The whole records coming out in February, that will be
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something that lives on no matter what.
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But we all have our fingers crossed that there is
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a future for this work because I don't think there's
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a single person involved that that wouldn't make space because
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this has been such an incredible moving experience that all
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of us are so committed to.
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Is there any talk of a national touring version of
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Swept Away?
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I mean, I think people are dreaming about it.
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There's As an actor, I feel like I always get
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the information the last so I don't know what our
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producers are talking about when it comes to that.
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I would hope so.
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But I also think it's really important if you want
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to see the show and you have the means to
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just come out and see it, because this really could
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It's life is like that life is precious and ephemeral
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in there are moments that can just pass by like that,
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and we sing about that on stage every night. So
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if you are on the fence and you're like, well,
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maybe there will be a tour, don't wait, because they're
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also very, very truly may not be a chance to
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see this.
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Again, Adrian, I hear you're developing a stage musical for
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What's Eating Gilbert Gray.
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Well, I can't take full credit. I'm doing it with
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my band Banits on the Run and a very dear collaborator,
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Christopher Sears, who is also he made his Broadway debut
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in Cult of Love last night. He's an incredible actor, instruments, songwriter,
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built an opera.
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A folk opera with him and my wife and his sister.
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And yeah, we're working with Peter Hedges, who wrote the
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original book that the movie was based on, and also
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the screenplay for the movie. So that kind of just
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came about as like an incredible little spark of inspiration.
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We'd been on the Bandits had been on Peter hedges
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radar for a while. We'd played at his birthday parties.
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He knew about Sydney and Regina. My bandmates because he
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went to their school years earlier.
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And he one.
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Night was taking the subway, the G train and saw
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our friend Christopher playing on the on the subway, and
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he was haunted by this by his voice, and he.
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Was like, how do I find you? And Christopher like.
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Shouted across the subway platform Christopher sears just look me up.
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And Peter, on his way home, was googling found music
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videos that Christopher had shot where Sydney and I are
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featured because we're in his band, and he was.
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Like, Christopher knows the bandits.
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This is a sign we have to do something together.
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And so we started kind of was just like a test.
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He was like, what would happen if you guys wrote
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some songs for this? He gave us all readers copies
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of the book, and the book is beautiful. It's written lyrically.
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I would say, it's very easy to just kind of
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take lines from the text and make them into songs.
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And so we started working on it and within like
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two months we had forty songs and we just kept
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bringing them to Peter in these little salons.
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We would make dinner and play some songs and he would.
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He's like, raw would be on the floor every single time,
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and it was just clear that we had something really special,
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so we started showing it around. Eventually we showed it
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to the people at MCC Theater Company, which is an
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off Broadway theater on West fifty second Street, and they
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were really interested in developing it. They actually been a
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theater company when Peter was writing the original book, and
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he had done the book early versions of the book
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as a monologue. So they were like, this is the
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perfect place to work on this, and they're they've committed
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to developing it with us, and that's that's in the works.
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We did a workshop over the summer. We were aiming
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another workshop.
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It's an actor instrumentalist piece right now, so we are
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the band and we're.
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Also the family.
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There are a couple other people that that we've added
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to the fold, the deer collaborators or people that have
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become collaborators, but everyone's playing instruments and we're jamming together.
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And every single time we take those songs out and
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play them. Because it is an actor instrumentalist piece, we
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can play them in clubs and venues as part of
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bandit shows, part of Christopher Sears shows, and people, I
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mean people The response has been overwhelmingly positive and glowing,
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and people are like, I can't wait to see the show,
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so I'm excited about that, and you know that's definitely
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like in the wind approaching.
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Okay, we only have about a minute. Let's go back
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to Swept Away with music by the Avid Brothers. Adrian
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Blake Ensco. Drum up some support here. Get people to
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buy tickets and to see the show before it closes,
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because there is an end date now, although it was
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extended two weeks go.
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You got a minute. Yes, please you well regret it.
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You people that come.
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I talked to them afterwards in the playbow line and
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the signature line, and people are always saying I can't
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wait to come back, I can't wait to bring my brother,
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my sister.
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It touches people deeply, so come. You will not regret it.
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Okay, thank you so much, and happy holidays Adrian Blake
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Ensco and the best of luck with Bandits on the
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Run and your upcoming musical What's Eating Gilbert Grape? So
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much going on?
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You've been listening to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
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of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
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three
