Exclusive: Back to BOOP! with Erich Bergen

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It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Well, Broadway, World Family, happy Friday

Welcome for being here. My name is Robert Bannon. You're here in the Roundtable, and I'm excited about our next guest

I've seen our next guest. You know our next guest really can dance and sing like Michael Jackson

Did you know that? Because if you know that, then you know that you go back to his cabaret days

and I have seen his cat. I know Eric Burr. I've seen him on television. I have seen him on Broadway

I have seen him. He's produced 172,000 benefits with every celebrity in the entire world

He doesn't know that he just found his next virtual host for the next benefit

right here on Broadway World. See, everybody, he's going to be back on Broadway

in his spare time. He's opening a big, giant Broadway show in his spare time

We're talking to the one and only Eric Bergen is here. Welcome to the Roundtable. Thanks for being here

That is an intro. That is, I did not think my Michael Jackson impersonator days were going to come up

at least not brought up by me on this broadcast. That came from you is, you know, I'm just very impressed, Robert

I wanted to do the deep dive. I wanted you to know that a lot of people say a lot of things

but I brought receipts, Eric Bergen. Oh, good. Great. Well, I've seen your show, Michael Orlin, and going back in the day

and Michael and your singers and everything you did, you're a show men like you put on a show well thank you that is uh yes i i have always uh whether i'm

performing on stage or behind the scenes the goal has always been to uh leave the leave the audience

uh entertained i'm uh that's kind of my big my big goal with everything that i do is is entertainment

with a capital e and it is uh i always want people to feel

like they had a good time, whether they realize that's because of me or something else

I just want the experience to be great, you know, no matter what I do

So thank you for noticing that. Yes, my heroes were definitely showmen

My heroes are people like Michael and Sammy Davis Jr. And Barry Manilow and anyone who

anyone who knows who put on a show with a few sequins here or there is my hero

Same. I mean, I grew up obsessed with Sammy and I'm a fan of low. Like, I don't know

I've seen Barry 20. I don't want to even say how many times. I'm with you

I get it. You are opening a big giant Broadway show. The word in Chicago was that it was a blast

The word coming to Broadway is that it's a blast. How was your journey to Boop

Boop coming. I mean, come on, Broadhurst Theater. Come on. You're the first one that I've never seen the play bill yet

Look at that. Wow. Fantastic. There it is. Look. Ta-da. Done. So, yeah, it's been kind of unbelievable

It's been kind of unbelievable. I was friends with David Foster, friends with Jerry Mitchell, friends with Mark Johnson, who is one of our lead producers

And I got invited to a workshop performance of Boop. And I helped them a little bit with some of their video marketing materials when they were getting ready to kind of go out with the show and find investors and things like that

and I went to go see this workshop production of it, and I thought it was incredible

I mean, I thought it was fantastic, but I never saw myself in it. And I said the same thing when I went to go see Jersey Boys on Broadway

in the fall of 2005. My dad, I remember my dad kept saying to me

you be so good in that part as Bob Gaudi. I said, that doesn't seem like a good part for me

Turns out my dad was right and I was very wrong because it worked out. But same thing here

I didn't see myself in this show at all. There was a part of Raymond Demarest, who was running for mayor of New York City

And in the workshop, it was played by my friend and the brilliantly talented Andy Carl

who was also a Jersey Boys alum. And half a year later, a few months later, a year later, I don't remember exactly the timeline

But Mark and David and Jerry called and said, you know, Andy is going to do

wants to do something else. So this part is open. in and do it. And I thought, I am so not your guy. That seems weird. And then I thought, well

maybe. I said, really? You think of me as this kind of like evil, swarmy guy? And they said

yes. And I then I had more questions. But then I said yes. And we went out of town to Chicago last

year. And the audiences there are incredible. I mean, they are, I mean, they really showed up for us

And we had a great time. And the show, we We made changes

Jerry Mitchell makes changes all the way to the afternoon of opening night We put in a new finale two days before opening night I think that the finale the one that currently in the show

our actual finale, we put in, the opening night was the third time we performed it, I believe

So over the course of the year, Bob Martin and David and Susan Birkenhead and Jerry

you know, have worked on it and made it even better. And that's the show that I'm not

sure when this is airing, but tomorrow night is March 11th, at least in this world

And we start previews tomorrow night. And so this is up on Friday, the end of the week, previews are open

You can go see the show in previews. Then what I should say at this point is previews are amazing

They've been going so well, and the audiences here have been screaming

Screaming. Yeah. Because it's boot themusical.com. I mean, you think about this

Boophthemusical.com, get a ticket. When you talk about a cast, I saw your Betty Boo

I saw the rest of your cast. You talk about Faith Prince. You talk about people up on stage singing and dancing

And then this creative, you talk about David Foster writing a score. And you talk about Dary Mitchell

It doesn't get more iconic than that. No, it's definitely iconic. And more than iconic, it's good

I think that there's this thing. I don't, you know, there can be a stigma sometimes about people coming from the pop world

writing for Broadway shows and, you know, have they done the work to, you know

really understand how Broadway musicals work in terms of the music? David Foster has done it and then some

And Susan Birkenhead is, of course, someone we know whose work we've known, you know, for so long

You know, her work on Jelly's last jam is legendary. But the two of them together have, I think these are

are songs that are standards now. I think these are songs that, you know, that, that, that, that

that science of writing a pop song for the ages, um, and that, you know, mastering a hook

mastering that segue into the chorus, you know, David's one of the masters of that. And he has brought

that talent to the showtune world. And Susan's lyrics, which are, she knows Broadway musicals

inside and out, you know, connecting that with David's music, you have songs that you're convinced

when you sit in the audience and you listen to them, you're convinced that you've heard them before

not in a bad way as if, oh, this sounds just like that other famous song. It's just that they

feel warm and familiar and you want to hear them again. I keep saying some of Betty's songs

are going to be sung in, you know, audition rooms for years to come. It's really, these songs are really

special and they're not they're not songs that you forget when you leave the theater

They are songs that stay with you. And that's been one of the biggest highlights of this

Oh, I'm so excited. I mean, just the pictures, just the colors, just the joy, just the musical theaterness of it all

Yeah, that's the meaning the non-color, by the way. That's my, that's, I don't get a color for the finale

So you'll know exactly where Eric is on stage. He's the one with no color to his costume

That's right. We need a joy bomb. in this world. We need some, some razzle, dazzle, and some showmanship out here

And Jerry Mitchell does Joy Bomb better than anyone. I mean, truly anyone. When you look at

his roster of shows, kinky boots and legally blonde and hairspray and catch me if you can

and on your feet, I mean, these are shows that, you know, live in 3D. They come off the stage

and they stay with you forever. I tell him all the time, I was in the audience at the final

preview of hairspray back in the day. And that energy was, it was that moment that I said I want to do a

Jerry Mitchell musical. It took me a little while, but I got there. And it's he, he, I don't know

I don't know what his trick is, but he can see, first of all, the speed at which he gets these shows up

He knows exactly what he wants. He gets it up. He lets it live there. And then finds a way to

get creative and start to play with it, make it even better. But he is kind of a master at giving the audience what they came for and then some

This isn't a show where anyone is doing anything for themselves. This is a show for the audience

This is a show where we see the audience. We speak to them and we have to listen to them throughout the show

and we give them something to leave with. So he really has mastered the entertainment word

that I was talking about earlier. Well I hope you guys are going to march right to June through awards season and onward here on this season Like we said boop the musical And if you while we watching you can follow Eric on Instagram and Eric Bergen so you can save up to date on all the things

Because he's done a lot of things. Your career is fascinating. Yeah, well, yes, it is

Maybe I thought it was only fascinating to me, but I'm happy to hear it. It's fascinating because you do everything

Like you have done the television and seasons and seasons. I didn't, reading about you, you did, you were in every episode

of Madam Secretary. Yes, I think I'm one of three actors from the show who did all 120 episodes

That's a lot of craft service lunch. That's a lot of, that's a lot of time

I don't know what to do in the kitchen. Thank God my girlfriend knows how to create food that just appears

I don't know how it works. But before I met her, when I was on the show, I literally, even if I was released for the day

I would stay later so that I could get the dinner service to bring home

It was the greatest thing ever. I get it. You got to get that food

And then Broadway came, Broadway calling your time and waitress. I saw you in waitress with Shoshana and a bunch of, like, you've been with some great

some great Jenas, some great as the doctor in the show. And then also the iconic Billy Flynn

Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. But that all sounds makes sense. But then, Eric, you transitioned during COVID

Like, you're a producer of producer. You're not just, I remember the Rosie fundraiser

I remember hearing you were going to do the Clive event. I remember you were going to do multiple clive events

I remember you talking about the President Obama events. And now you've transitioned to in-person, actual street night

no more stream yard Zoom only. Like you are, you have a whole company

Yeah, you know, it's truly by accident. I had always, when I was a kid, I had always dreamed of, you know

making the show happen. I didn't know what that meant, but I used to sit in class and make dream

set lists for fantasy concerts of my favorite artists. You know, I would see whether it be Michael Jackson or George Michael or any of the artists

that were kind of, you know, in my face in growing up in the 80s, watching MTV and VH1

any of those artists, I would sit and make fantasy concert set lists and think, no, that

song should really go into that song and no, you know, you need an uptempo here

And I would like fix the concerts that I would see on TV in my head

I had no friends. And I think that that stayed with me

the idea of wanting to make the show and I had produced little things here and there over the years

But when COVID really shut everything down, which is like, you know

we're about a week away from five years in, which is crazy. You know, and we did that first

that first Rosie O'Donnell, you know, night and, you know, it kicked off kind of everything

It was really the first of the celebrity virtual fundraisers that were live

And my phone started ringing the next day from places I never thought I would get a call from

everything from S&L to late-night talk shows on all the major networks saying

how did you do it? And they were asking me technically how I did it

But I think they were also asking me, like, how did it come together

How were you able to make this entertaining still on this platform

And that's where I was able to kind of use my just instinct to kind of do what I could to make this platform entertaining

And for about a year, I became very employed by, you know, nonprofits who were looking to bring their annual gala fundraisers to the virtual world because we were

were stuck at home for a year. And then from there, it started to transition out. And we started to

do things in the real world. And, you know, one thing led to another. And I was able to produce some

TV specials, some big in-person gals that I do kind of every year now. I think it falls under the

same umbrella as my onstage work, which is just, you know, I'm always thinking about the audience

I'm always thinking about what's going to be the best thing for the people watching this

What is going to be the thing that makes whatever the call to action is, if it's to donate or if it's, you know, to laugh

You know, I'm always trying to be in service of what that specific goal is not to make things, you know, bigger or look really cool

Like I just want to, I want to be of service for the, what is the goal here

And yeah, it's been about five years of doing a lot of producing and working with names that I never thought would come up on my phone, on my caller ID

So it's been, it's been very cool. It's amazing. And it amazing how for people out here that you know your career can transition and it can and then it all can happen at once Like you have you producing you on Broadway you have projects going on and you making it all happen It such an inspiration that like we could pivot change for a season bring all the things we learn and keep going Just march on Keep going You do No one no you never defined by by anything You never defined by you know I look at people like Alan Cumming I mean Alan Cumming who been a friend for a long time and and and you know I I I I I I I I I

I love him. And one of the reasons why I really love him is because as a performer

this is someone who can do the Scottish play, a one-man Scottish play on Broadway

Obviously, the MC and cabaret, you know, opens and runs and hosts a bar downtown

is the host of a reality game show. And there's no limits, right

He just kind of does what he thinks is cool. And I try to take a little bit of that, you know, approach to things because we're artists

We're not defined by, you know, the title in front of that

We're artists and entertainment makers. And I think that that is what I subscribe to

And I think that applies to anyone in any life. You are more than the, you are more than your past success and failures

So that's what I believe. So do you said it. Amen. You said it perfectly to think that

Look, there's nobody else here who's going to be dancing and singing on Broadway tonight, you know, tell him Barack Obama what lighting cues he should make on a virtual call

And then talking to Clive Davis about what order a song should go in a concert. So talk about building a set list

You might as well build a set list with Clive himself. I mean, it all kind of comes. I did. I've done it a few times

I mean, he's the master. And you have to kind of, you know, it's Clive, right

And you, you, same thing with when I was working. with President Obama, which is that he wasn't in his light, and he and I were in a Zoom

like a breakout room, I think they used to call them, and I had to get him ready to bring him

on to the main stage for this thing. So it was just the president and I in a Zoom room

and his lighting was off, and I had to tell him, but I had this moment where I had like 60 seconds

and I was like, do I say this out loud? Am I going to tell the president right now that he

doesn't look great. Like it was, you know, and I had to like help him with his settings. And the same

thing with Clive, right? Like Clive was working on something and, and I, I thought I had a, a better idea

for where a song should go. And I thought, am I really going to tell Clive Davis right now what song

should go there? And I just got the, I don't know where it came from, but I just said it. And he said

oh, you're right. Put that there. And those are the moments where you go

So, all right, maybe I kind of know what I'm doing, at least today

You know, it's, there's a lot of those weird moments. There's been a lot of them

I think you do because you've studied. And that's why I respect what you do. And that's why I said your career is fascinating because you respect the craft

You studied the craft. You spent a lifetime being a pop culture, entertainment, singing, dancing, a connoisseur

And now you get to do it on Broadway eight shows a week and then help other people do their best job, producing their work

And that's a beautiful thing. It's so beautiful. I'm here for the whole experience. You got, you got that mute button down

You know how to shut off that audio and bring it back on when you're talking

You don't need a producer. You're a self-producing. Eric, but you don't see me behind the scenes

Who do I have a tantrum to throw in front of it besides myself? Who am I going to be a diva with

I need a producer to do that. You'll find people. There will be people who will take your divaness

It will happen. From your words, I can't wait to be over

I need to see your show. I'm so excited for Boop the Musical. Congratulations, everybody

It's the Broadhurst Theater. are on sale. You better grab them now because when an opening night, you're going to have some opening night. I could already tell already in my head. Talk about producing. It's going to be glitz, glam, celebrities. It's going to be the talk of the town. It's been fun listening to the cast all talking about what they are going to wear on opening night because everyone's kind of, you know, Betty inspired. And it's great. We had that in Chicago, too. Not on opening night, just every night there were people dressed up as her in the audience where they wore her, you know, like a patch or a backpack or something. I mean, it's really interesting how much Betty Boop has kind of

gotten into the, the, I didn't realize that she was still such a, an important figure in people's

lives. And people really, and of course, now that I'm in the show, I see her everywhere

Everywhere, I'm sure. Yes. So get your tickets, everybody. Go to boop themusical.com

grab a ticket. And then, of course, we're going to follow Eric. Go to, we're at Eric Bergen, and you can find information. And then you're, you know, if you want a big gala, you know what to call

You want to do a big. Who's watching? I don't know who you are. You're ready to throw a big, come on

He's ready. Thank you. It was so nice to talk to you. I was such a fan of your work, and it was such a pleasure, and I'm excited to come on down and see you in the show

Thanks, Robert. Appreciate it