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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 Greasy Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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I want to introduce you to Rebecca Blake. She is
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the producer of what she calls her baby, Rolling Thunder.
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It is a musical. It is off Broadway. It has
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opened at the New World Stages and we've been giving
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away tickets all week long and so we're very excited
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about this show. So when you say, Rebecca, this is
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your baby, what do you mean.
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Well, it started back in twenty fourteen, and I had
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always worked in entertainment, marketing of shows, and I had
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always worked in you know, with Fleetwood Mac Rolling Stones.
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Neil Diamond.
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I used to do music as in rock concerts, and
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so I've always been a huge fan of music and
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my partner and I at the time were looking at doing,
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you know, a collection of songs from the late sixties
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and seventies, and that's my genre. I was born in
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the sixties and it kind of grew from there. We
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commissioned to writer Bryce Hallett, who's a journalist from Australia,
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and he did some interviews with veterans and it just grew.
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And so the stories you hear in the show are
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from interviews that we did with veterans and their families
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and it's just special.
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You know.
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It combines this amazing iconic rock songs that we're even
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and out of these stories and we have projection and
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it's a real insight to that era. I mean, people
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come to the show and they don't know what to
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expect and they all walk out with wow. If anything,
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I learned a whole lot of stuff today about what
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went on in the late sixties.
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So we're talking about obviously the Vietnam War. Yes, so
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tell me some of the stories that Brace uncovered and
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what is an Australian journalist doing doing the Vietnam War
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where the United States was so heavily involved, and you know,
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it just changed the whole generation, myself included Rebecca.
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Well, we get asked this question a lot, and we
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were in Vietnam with you. We have fought every major
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battle with you since World War One. And people don't
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know that Australia and New Zealand were in Vietnam War.
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No. No, And it's.
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Amazing because we were you know, our soldiers got home
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and were treated badly. It was almost like mirrored of
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what happened here, happened in Australia and in New Zealand,
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and so.
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Believable, and that I didn't know that. And you know,
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like I said, this is my era, this is part
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of my growing up. How many Australians and New Zealanders
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did we lose in the Vietnam War?
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Look in comparison to what you lost, we lost five
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hundred and twenty one soldiers and you know we went
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with fifty eight thousand troops. That was Australia compared to you.
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Your loss was you know, approximately fifty eight thousand and
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nine million people served during that time from the US,
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so in comparison, but for us being a small population,
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it still.
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Treated with respect in Australia.
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And when I found that we were putting this show together,
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the veterans were a big part of it. They contributed
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to the landscape, to the photography, the warm l and
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Australia and Canberra got behind it. We found that the
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veterans really embraced this show from day one, and we're
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finding that here that every night since the previews started,
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we have vets in the audience and we actually thanked
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the veterans at the end of the show, and I
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think for you know, you're a very patriotic country compared
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to what we are used to in Australia. And I
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think in Australia when we did that, everyone was blown away.
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And this shows not just for veterans, it's for people
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of all ages. We had schools come, we had teachers,
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we had grandparents bring grandchildren, you know, we had teenagers
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and they all said, wow, this is so cool because of.
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The music factor.
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I mean, this music's universal and it was written by
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Americans back when all this turbulence was happening. So that's
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a big part of our show. But yes, we participated
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in Vietnam and here we are. You know, it's been
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a long journey. We've done three or four subsequent tours
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in Australia. And you know how I got here was
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in twenty three a veteran saw this show and said,
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I must I vowed to help you get this to America.
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US audiences deserve to see this show. And in Australia
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it was very raw, it was very simple, and it
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was told from the Australian perspective. So we then adapted
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the script from American audiences. The storyline is still the same.
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Johnny meets Linda, they fall in love, they get engaged.
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One of the characters is a boy from Nebraska, Johnny,
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who works on the land and is quite adventurous and
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excited to go to Vietnam. Then we have two other
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boys in the show that play soldiers once conscripted and
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he's still working out why he's there. And then one's
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the son of a US marine and he's trying to
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make his dad proud. So all in all, we you know,
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we found that we we have this show and it's
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audiences are loving it, getting immersed in the stories, and
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we're just thrilled to be here. You know, I was
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only told ten weeks ago we had a theater, so
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you can imagine how quickly we had to turn this around.
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I'd been coming backwards and forwards to the States for
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the last eighteen months. My daughter was a student at
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Columbia University, so I had family here, so that was
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lovely for me to come. But you know, I have
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a great American director, Kenneth Farron, and the musicians. You know,
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everyone in the cast is American. Musicians are American, and
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it's really special. As you can see, I'm very passionate
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about it, and I just love this show. Hence I
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call it my baby because it's like that. There's been
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times when I've thought maybe I'm too close to it,
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but it's been born out of love and I still
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am in awe of it every night. I don't ever
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get sick of seeing it night after night. I'm speaking
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with Rebecca Blake. She is the producer of Rolling Thunder.
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It is a musical off Broadway.
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It is now open and the closing date is September seventh,
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but of course we're hoping it goes on far longer.
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It's at the New World Stages. You have a component,
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don't you, where there are to try to get more
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veterans to see Rolling Thunder.
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Well, We've partnered with American Legion and a percentage of
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our merchandise goes back to American Legion. We want as
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many veterans to see this show. I mean, what we
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found astonishing was in Australia, and I'm sure it's going
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to be the same here. A lot of vets can't
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talk about their experiences. They all suffer from PTSD and
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they come to the show and they hug me, they
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thanked me. They're eternally grateful for this show. It seems
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to have, you know, their wives come up to me
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and say, my husband hasn't been able to talk about
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this experience and thank you, thank you for bringing this
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to the stage. And it's also an era we don't
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want to forget. It's in our curriculum in Australia. You know,
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students that are the age of sixteen seventeen have to
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learn about all the wars that we participated in. And
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I'm sure that's the same here. But you know, nineteen
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sixty eight for the US was a very turbulent time
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and we cover a little bit of that in this show.
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We don't want it, you know, we try not to
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get too political, but we do touch on Martin Luther
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King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, LBJ, you know, we Nixon,
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you know, Walter kohnkright, They're they're all featured in this show,
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and I think for a lot of people that see
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it's it's a little maybe down memory lane for them.
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And you know, there are times in the show when
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it does become sad, but then by the end of
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the show, everyone's on their feet dancing. I always describe
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it as joyous and this era was when you think back,
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we always say, out of this ugliness, this music of
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beauty appeared and we featured twenty iconic songs in it.
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From Killing Me Softly helped me make it through the night,
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Magic carpet ride, people get ready, all along the watchtower.
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It just it's, you know, a bridge over troubled water.
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It's amazing the songbook that we've got in the show.
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You know, you had such a wealth of music to
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pick from, so how did you choose.
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Well, all the music has strategically been chosen to be
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placed in the story, so every song you hear in
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this story has a meaning. Look in Australia, part of
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my journey with this show was getting the rights to
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the music, and that would take me two years sometimes
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because every time I did the show, I'd have to
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go for the rights again. Here, I haven't had to
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do that, And you're right, there is such a wealth
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of music that we can choose from. There were a
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few songs we couldn't get, which was sad for me,
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but then we replaced them songs from Bob Dylan, hard
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Rein's going to fall the stones give me shelter. So
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at the end of the day, you're right. We can
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always replace the songs if you know. We had to,
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and we had to replace about three coming here this time,
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but they all have a place in the storyline, so
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it's great.
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What are your hopes for Rolling Thunder moving forward? I mean,
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I know you're in the thick of it. You just
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opened and you know you're you're on It's running at
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least through September seventh, So what are your hopes for
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Rolling Thunder?
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I'd like to take it around America and do a
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national tour. I think you know, this show has always
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been ground roots. You know, we came to New York
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because it became available, but we know that we're probably
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never going to recoup in New York. But it's a
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good place. It's a stepping stone for this show because
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if New York audiences can feel something for this show
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and it's got heart. I mean for those people say, oh,
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can you compare it to any other show that you've seen,
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the only other show I can really compare it to
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would be Come from Away.
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I saw that, Yes, it has heart, So leave you leave.
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The show feeling inspired with more humanity and hope. And
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I think my hope for this show is for as
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many US people to see it as many veterans, and
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I'd love to tour it all over the country. But
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this has turnaround's been so quickly, and you can probably
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hear it in my voice.
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I'm a little tired.
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You know.
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We only stopped teking last week and previews last week
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and opening on Thursday, and it's.
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Not a long time.
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We're here for word of mouth to kick in, and
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we don't have the huge budgets to be competing against
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the Hamilton's and the Wickeds here on Broadway. So it's
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about finding a voice, finding an audience and hopefully word
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of mouth or get us through to September seven and
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then we can look at the next chapter.
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How would you.
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Entice younger people to come see Rolling Thunder?
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Well, younger people were in the audience the other night.
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My daughters have all seen it, and my son, and
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they're all in their late twenties.
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I think it's very cool.
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Our band in an Australia that performed with this show
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every night. If you can think of the Bruce Springsteen
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E Street Band, our band was equivalent to that, and
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they played with John Farnham for many, many years and
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they would, you know, play this music in their sleep.
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But they said to me, this show is the coolest
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thing we've done. And it is cool. And if you're
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into music and you want to come and hear some
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performers sing the best versions of these songs, I urge
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you to see it. It's and young people are all going, wow,
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that's really cool. A little eleven year old boy was
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tugging on his mum's skirt on yesterday, saying, I loved it, Mum,
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can we come back again?
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Oh?
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So, I think it.
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Has everything or something for someone out there that's thinking
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about seeing a show. What show should I see? It's
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it's a great show I'm passionate about.
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Sorry, we're out of time. I'm sure you could go
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on and on. Rolling Thunder. It is now at the
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World the New World Stages off Broadway. And yeah, so
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you're going to be hearing our music, the music you
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hear on Q one O four point
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Three if you've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio,
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a production of New York's classic rock Q one O
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four point 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 Greasy Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
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I want to introduce you to Rebecca Blake. She is
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the producer of what she calls her baby, Rolling Thunder.
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It is a musical. It is off Broadway. It has
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opened at the New World Stages and we've been giving
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away tickets all week long and so we're very excited
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about this show. So when you say, Rebecca, this is
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your baby, what do you mean.
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Well, it started back in twenty fourteen, and I had
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always worked in entertainment, marketing of shows, and I had
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always worked in you know, with Fleetwood Mac Rolling Stones.
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Neil Diamond.
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I used to do music as in rock concerts, and
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so I've always been a huge fan of music and
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my partner and I at the time were looking at doing,
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you know, a collection of songs from the late sixties
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and seventies, and that's my genre. I was born in
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the sixties and it kind of grew from there. We
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commissioned to writer Bryce Hallett, who's a journalist from Australia,
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and he did some interviews with veterans and it just grew.
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And so the stories you hear in the show are
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from interviews that we did with veterans and their families
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and it's just special.
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You know.
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It combines this amazing iconic rock songs that we're even
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and out of these stories and we have projection and
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it's a real insight to that era. I mean, people
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come to the show and they don't know what to
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expect and they all walk out with wow. If anything,
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I learned a whole lot of stuff today about what
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went on in the late sixties.
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So we're talking about obviously the Vietnam War. Yes, so
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tell me some of the stories that Brace uncovered and
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what is an Australian journalist doing doing the Vietnam War
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where the United States was so heavily involved, and you know,
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it just changed the whole generation, myself included Rebecca.
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Well, we get asked this question a lot, and we
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were in Vietnam with you. We have fought every major
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battle with you since World War One. And people don't
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know that Australia and New Zealand were in Vietnam War.
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No. No, And it's.
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Amazing because we were you know, our soldiers got home
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and were treated badly. It was almost like mirrored of
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what happened here, happened in Australia and in New Zealand,
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and so.
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Believable, and that I didn't know that. And you know,
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like I said, this is my era, this is part
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of my growing up. How many Australians and New Zealanders
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did we lose in the Vietnam War?
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Look in comparison to what you lost, we lost five
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hundred and twenty one soldiers and you know we went
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with fifty eight thousand troops. That was Australia compared to you.
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Your loss was you know, approximately fifty eight thousand and
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nine million people served during that time from the US,
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so in comparison, but for us being a small population,
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it still.
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Treated with respect in Australia.
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And when I found that we were putting this show together,
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the veterans were a big part of it. They contributed
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to the landscape, to the photography, the warm l and
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Australia and Canberra got behind it. We found that the
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veterans really embraced this show from day one, and we're
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finding that here that every night since the previews started,
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we have vets in the audience and we actually thanked
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the veterans at the end of the show, and I
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think for you know, you're a very patriotic country compared
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to what we are used to in Australia. And I
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think in Australia when we did that, everyone was blown away.
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And this shows not just for veterans, it's for people
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of all ages. We had schools come, we had teachers,
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we had grandparents bring grandchildren, you know, we had teenagers
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and they all said, wow, this is so cool because of.
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The music factor.
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I mean, this music's universal and it was written by
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Americans back when all this turbulence was happening. So that's
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a big part of our show. But yes, we participated
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in Vietnam and here we are. You know, it's been
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a long journey. We've done three or four subsequent tours
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in Australia. And you know how I got here was
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in twenty three a veteran saw this show and said,
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I must I vowed to help you get this to America.
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US audiences deserve to see this show. And in Australia
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it was very raw, it was very simple, and it
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was told from the Australian perspective. So we then adapted
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the script from American audiences. The storyline is still the same.
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Johnny meets Linda, they fall in love, they get engaged.
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One of the characters is a boy from Nebraska, Johnny,
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who works on the land and is quite adventurous and
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excited to go to Vietnam. Then we have two other
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boys in the show that play soldiers once conscripted and
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he's still working out why he's there. And then one's
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the son of a US marine and he's trying to
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make his dad proud. So all in all, we you know,
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we found that we we have this show and it's
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audiences are loving it, getting immersed in the stories, and
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we're just thrilled to be here. You know, I was
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only told ten weeks ago we had a theater, so
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you can imagine how quickly we had to turn this around.
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I'd been coming backwards and forwards to the States for
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the last eighteen months. My daughter was a student at
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Columbia University, so I had family here, so that was
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lovely for me to come. But you know, I have
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a great American director, Kenneth Farron, and the musicians. You know,
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everyone in the cast is American. Musicians are American, and
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it's really special. As you can see, I'm very passionate
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about it, and I just love this show. Hence I
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call it my baby because it's like that. There's been
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times when I've thought maybe I'm too close to it,
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but it's been born out of love and I still
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am in awe of it every night. I don't ever
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get sick of seeing it night after night. I'm speaking
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with Rebecca Blake. She is the producer of Rolling Thunder.
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It is a musical off Broadway.
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It is now open and the closing date is September seventh,
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but of course we're hoping it goes on far longer.
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It's at the New World Stages. You have a component,
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don't you, where there are to try to get more
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veterans to see Rolling Thunder.
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Well, We've partnered with American Legion and a percentage of
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our merchandise goes back to American Legion. We want as
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many veterans to see this show. I mean, what we
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found astonishing was in Australia, and I'm sure it's going
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to be the same here. A lot of vets can't
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talk about their experiences. They all suffer from PTSD and
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they come to the show and they hug me, they
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thanked me. They're eternally grateful for this show. It seems
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to have, you know, their wives come up to me
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and say, my husband hasn't been able to talk about
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this experience and thank you, thank you for bringing this
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to the stage. And it's also an era we don't
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want to forget. It's in our curriculum in Australia. You know,
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students that are the age of sixteen seventeen have to
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learn about all the wars that we participated in. And
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I'm sure that's the same here. But you know, nineteen
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sixty eight for the US was a very turbulent time
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and we cover a little bit of that in this show.
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We don't want it, you know, we try not to
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get too political, but we do touch on Martin Luther
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King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, LBJ, you know, we Nixon,
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you know, Walter kohnkright, They're they're all featured in this show,
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and I think for a lot of people that see
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it's it's a little maybe down memory lane for them.
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And you know, there are times in the show when
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it does become sad, but then by the end of
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the show, everyone's on their feet dancing. I always describe
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it as joyous and this era was when you think back,
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we always say, out of this ugliness, this music of
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beauty appeared and we featured twenty iconic songs in it.
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From Killing Me Softly helped me make it through the night,
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Magic carpet ride, people get ready, all along the watchtower.
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It just it's, you know, a bridge over troubled water.
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It's amazing the songbook that we've got in the show.
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You know, you had such a wealth of music to
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pick from, so how did you choose.
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Well, all the music has strategically been chosen to be
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placed in the story, so every song you hear in
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this story has a meaning. Look in Australia, part of
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my journey with this show was getting the rights to
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the music, and that would take me two years sometimes
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because every time I did the show, I'd have to
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go for the rights again. Here, I haven't had to
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do that, And you're right, there is such a wealth
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of music that we can choose from. There were a
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few songs we couldn't get, which was sad for me,
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but then we replaced them songs from Bob Dylan, hard
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Rein's going to fall the stones give me shelter. So
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at the end of the day, you're right. We can
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always replace the songs if you know. We had to,
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and we had to replace about three coming here this time,
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but they all have a place in the storyline, so
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it's great.
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What are your hopes for Rolling Thunder moving forward? I mean,
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I know you're in the thick of it. You just
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opened and you know you're you're on It's running at
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least through September seventh, So what are your hopes for
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Rolling Thunder?
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I'd like to take it around America and do a
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national tour. I think you know, this show has always
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been ground roots. You know, we came to New York
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because it became available, but we know that we're probably
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never going to recoup in New York. But it's a
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good place. It's a stepping stone for this show because
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if New York audiences can feel something for this show
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and it's got heart. I mean for those people say, oh,
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can you compare it to any other show that you've seen,
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the only other show I can really compare it to
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would be Come from Away.
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I saw that, Yes, it has heart, So leave you leave.
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The show feeling inspired with more humanity and hope. And
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I think my hope for this show is for as
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many US people to see it as many veterans, and
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I'd love to tour it all over the country. But
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this has turnaround's been so quickly, and you can probably
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hear it in my voice.
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I'm a little tired.
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You know.
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We only stopped teking last week and previews last week
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and opening on Thursday, and it's.
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Not a long time.
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We're here for word of mouth to kick in, and
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we don't have the huge budgets to be competing against
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the Hamilton's and the Wickeds here on Broadway. So it's
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about finding a voice, finding an audience and hopefully word
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of mouth or get us through to September seven and
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then we can look at the next chapter.
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How would you.
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Entice younger people to come see Rolling Thunder?
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Well, younger people were in the audience the other night.
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My daughters have all seen it, and my son, and
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they're all in their late twenties.
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I think it's very cool.
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Our band in an Australia that performed with this show
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every night. If you can think of the Bruce Springsteen
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E Street Band, our band was equivalent to that, and
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they played with John Farnham for many, many years and
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they would, you know, play this music in their sleep.
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But they said to me, this show is the coolest
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thing we've done. And it is cool. And if you're
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into music and you want to come and hear some
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performers sing the best versions of these songs, I urge
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you to see it. It's and young people are all going, wow,
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that's really cool. A little eleven year old boy was
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tugging on his mum's skirt on yesterday, saying, I loved it, Mum,
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can we come back again?
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Oh?
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So, I think it.
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Has everything or something for someone out there that's thinking
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about seeing a show. What show should I see? It's
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it's a great show I'm passionate about.
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Sorry, we're out of time. I'm sure you could go
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on and on. Rolling Thunder. It is now at the
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World the New World Stages off Broadway. And yeah, so
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you're going to be hearing our music, the music you
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hear on Q one O four point
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Three if you've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio,
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a production of New York's classic rock Q one O
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four point three
