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Video: ALMOST FAMOUS Company Gets Ready to Make Music on Broadway
May 17, 2024
Almost Famous is now in previews at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, the new musical featuring 15 Broadway cast debuts, with a book and co-lyrics by Academy Award® winner Cameron Crowe, based on his iconic film. The production will continue in previews with opening night set for November 3, 2022. The cast just met the press and BroadwayWorld was on hand to catch up with the whole team in this video.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. The new musical Almost Famous
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which is based on Cameron Crowe's beloved film, is in previews here at the Jacobs Theater
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where we drop by to meet the company before their November 3rd opening
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You're about to open on Broadway, my friend. How does it feel? It's wild. My heart is just thumping away here. I'm just still blown away when I walk into the theater and see what's happening here
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Okay, so it was your mom who introduced you to the theater in the first place
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She did. What was that like? Was it the old globe? It was the old globe in San Diego
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We lived right across the street. And, you know, she would say, like, come on, we just walk across the bridge
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It's going to be as you like it. It's wonderful. It's Shakespeare. I'm like, can I stay here and listen to my contraband rock records
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Do I really have to go to the theater? Oh, you'll brag about it one day
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She took me to many plays. And years later, as life can sometimes be, the ironies were deep when they said you can open
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do your, you know, out-of-town tryout with almost famous the musical. like here or here or Boston or or San Diego. I'm like, where in San Diego? The old globe. I'm like
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okay, okay. You know, I used to go to Shakespeare at the old globes. Totally bragging
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How did this all come about for you to write Tom Well thankfully I got called in to meet with Cameron and our producer Leia Vallic and I was just looking forward to getting in the room and telling Cameron what his writing is meant to me Of course I wanted the job but it a conversation that I been dreaming of having
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And I joke, thankfully, I said enough good things that I was hired
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And we hit it off immediately. I think one of the first emails he sent me was up traveling in Canada and was at Neil Young's house
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And I thought, I'm really working with Cameron Crow. This is unbelievable. You mentioned this room at the Sony building, the red room, the picture of Glenn Gould on the wall
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We wrote a number of songs in our first session. That first meeting happened in the summer of 17
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So in the winter of 18, we wrote five, six, seven songs that are still in the show
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still in the show to this very day. We are so excited. It's like coming home
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It's like we've waited so long to finally get to make our way here after the out of town in 2019
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And like the stalled plans of like, you know, pre-pandemic. and then after everything that happened to have, like, come back last fall with Waitress
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and then to finally, like, get to do a brand new Broadway show in a Broadway theater
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is just the frickin' dream. It's just, it doesn't get better than this
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There's nothing like having people in seats giving tactile feedback. The second you say something, the second you feel something
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I missed it and I was craving it And I mean the Jacobs is such a phenomenal space because it so intimate feels like we all together in the story telling and it incredible I mean I couldn pick a better show to be my first
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Broadway show. That's it. Broadway debut. This story about the love of music but also about family
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to be the mom or as I'm known in this building almost mom to everybody I have so leaned into being the mom on stage and
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off and also I'm a mom in real life now. That has been an extraordinary, it feels so even serendipitous
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the sort of motherhood of it all, and the beautiful, like, symbiotic nature of doing a show
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where if I wasn't a mother off stage, I wouldn't be able to be as good a mother on stage
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And then how much this show, oddly, the size of the role, the support of the team and stage
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management and the producers have so supported me being a mother in my real life, that that has
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been unbelievably special. I'm having the time of my life, man. I honestly, I cannot believe we're finally here
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All of the last four years of work that we've done to develop this show are finally
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coming to fruition. And I'm just so honored to be able to share it with the world finally
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I mean 10 out of excitement it just such a privilege and a pleasure to go from a conversation with Leah the producer in 2015 I think where she said what do you want to do Here are all the films that I got at Sony And me say hey how about it almost famous
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And he was like, funny you should say that. I'm talking to Cameron right now, but he's not quite sure how it would go
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And over the next few months, we got together, we had such a great conversation, we really connected
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And so here we are in the Jacobs during previews for this show
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that's been so beloved. The process has been so far. fantastic. All of the challenges have been great opportunities and yeah, here we are. We're sharing it
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with the audiences. They're rewarding our hard work. It's great fun. I am beyond excited. I mean
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I feel like I keep on having these conversations with my 13 year old self being like, we did it
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We actually did it. We're here. And, you know, we were thinking that this was going to happen in
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November of 2020. But now I'm kind of with the way that I feel and how selfish shirt I feel and how ready
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and I feel like I have so much support from the Broadway community on a whole
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I feel like it couldn't have come any sooner or any later. Like it feels like it's happening right on time
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and I just feel like the luckiest girl in New York. It has been a really surreal experience
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I mean, it's just so many dreams coming true at once. Like, obviously the dream of, you know, always wanting to be on Broadway
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but, like, I also get to kind of be at the helm of it, and I get to work with a lot of heroes of mine
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It's just everything all at once
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