Video: Amanda Green & Curtis Moore Unpack the Timeless Message of REGENCY GIRLS

Well, I'm Eleanor Benton, and I'm Hamed Dabney, and we are in a delicate situation

Let me guess. You ran away to get here in a desperate plight

Your family doesn't know you came here. Am I right? Right. You'll be thrown on on your own if you grow big

Yes. And I can't leave my house unless I'm wearing a wig

Ladies taught the names of five different folks But still led to believe that babies come from stalks

They don't? The crowd is out there shouting almost every day Do their best to scare you so you'll turn away

Saying that I'm even spouting shameless lies I've heard them say I'm baking babies into pies

Learn how to swim into my wicked den Can you believe this shit's still happening in 1810

How long? How long? Will these men wage this holy war? How long? How long

Well, at night they sneak their wife and mistress to my door

They know I won't say a thing But here inside I'm hollering

Can you believe this shit's still happening in 1810? Good God, it's 8-in-10

Sit, sit. Women have been doing this right all the time. This is basic health care, baby, not a crime

If your mind is made up that it's right for you, there's no need to worry

I know what to do. Can you believe this shit still happened in 1810

It's like the 1750s all over again. How long? How long? How long

How long? Just be glad you came to me How long? How long

How long? How long? In men and wombs you know they'd make abortions free

Young girls being preyed upon Treated like the s of Babylon Can you believe the shifts are going on

In 1810? So, one night of romantic indulgence doesn't have to ruin my entire life

No. And even though I'm poor, I get to make my own choices about my own body

Yes. Wait, what about me? I want to fulfill my wifely duties without..

Increasing your motherly duties. I can help. I love you. And you

Oh, no, I'm perfect. I don't need anything. Uh-huh. If we could go somehow 200 years from now

When women will be equal at last They'll plan each family And cheer people like me

And all the shit will finally be A thing of the past

In the future we will get the care we need To fill our lives with hope

Accessible and safe and free And sanctioned by the bull How long, how long, how long, how long

Before we get the right to choose How long, how long, how long

Till they get the hairy claws out of our goose Even when a queen is king

Seems we never learn a goddamn thing Can you believe this shit's still happening

In 1810, how long, how long In 1810, how long, how long

In 1810, how long, how long? I'm never gonna rest until

I'm never on free will Cause this shit's still happening In 1810

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

The new Broadway-bound musical comedy, Regency Girls, has just opened to rave reviews at the Old Globe, and it has already been extended through May 11

This raucous and daring romp tells the story of Eleanor Benton, who was in a predicament

She's pregnant, unmarried, and living in 19th century England. What's a young woman to do

Facing certain ruin, she gathers up her best friends and sets off for an ultimate road trip

to find the one woman who might offer a chance to change her fate

It is a riotous adventure of love, rebellion, autonomy, and self-discovery. And my guests are the show's composer and lyricist

Please welcome Amanda Green and Curtis Moore. Thank you, Richie. Just for clarification, I'm the lyricist

Curtis is the composer. Oh, I know. I totally knew that. But, you know, I said to myself, how should I do this

And I was like, oh, wait a minute. But I like to always, you know, address the lady first

But I should have said lyricist. Thank you. Don't worry. No worries. But like I said, here I am with Amanda and Curtis

I adore you, too. I have read everything about this musical. First of all, we just watched an incredible exclusive musical number given to Broadway World

Tell us the title of this song and sort of where it fits into the show

I'll jump in. And Curtis, you called How Long in 1810. And it is sung by a character named Madame Ristel, who is a midwife

And our heroine, she's a midwife who promises cures for women with female troubles

And our heroine has female troubles. And as we find out, so do some other people with her

And they have gone through hell and high water to get to her in London

They've run away from home in the countryside. And they finally get to her door

And they're too intimidated and scared to tell her why they've come

And so she steps in and takes over and says, let me guess

And then she sort of blows their young minds by telling them that what they want to do and what they're feeling and what they're going through is absolutely normal for every woman

Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself. Great, Amanda. Thank you, Curtis

Well, first of all, I want to talk about your collaboration first, because I know you've written together before

How much fun was it writing this musical together? Oh, I mean, I adore Amanda, and we have worked together for a very, very long time since

And we, I mean, it's just a joy getting in the room with her

We sit and we try to come up with what the story of the song we're going to write is

and it often involves us bursting into laughter. And that's my favorite place to be

It's just a joy to be working with Amanda. And I feel the same about Curtis

We met at BMI at the Musical Theater Writing Workshop. And this musical is extra special for us

because we dreamed it up in my living room eight short years ago

I came to him with like, I was like, this is the worst idea for a musical ever

We were like spitballing ideas. And I was like, I'd had this idea, abortion, the musical, a comedy, go

And he was like, Amanda, that is a terrible idea. But what if we, go ahead, Curtis

Well I said that basically it was like that sounds like the most unproducible musical you could probably come up with And so I said well what if we set it in the past and we make it something in the Jane Austen sort of era And that would allow us to be a little bit more

anachronistic with how we sort of tell the story. And it's also just, it's an easy way for us as

writers to step back from the everyday normalness of setting something in present day time and

really comment on it from a lot of different angles, which is what we've been able to do

and which has been really most of the fun of this has been doing that. And that's the song that we played, you know, How Long in 1810 is, you know

Can You Believe This Shit's Still Happening in 1810, about how terrible it is for women in 1810

And of course, that applies today. So it has been a joy to work with Curtis

Really just, you know, this is our fourth musical, but it had been several years since we'd worked

together and then bringing aboard and and getting to meet uh jen crittenden and gabby allen who are

two of the funniest smartest uh writers uh it has been our privilege to work with um and the four of

us were in a room going no no no no we can't do that and the more we laughed and the more we said

we can't do that then we knew we were on the right track so at any moment we would say wait is this

is this dumb we're like yes and here we go and here we go definitely um yeah no because i love

that it started with your idea first with the score then you brought the two writers in like

i said collaborations are really important and they're very very special talk about the

collaboration the four of you had like how did you all write together you said do you meet in

the room do you meet over zoom combination with the both yeah and we're sorry go ahead a minute

thank thank you curtis we did we met uh well first they're in la we're in new york but we

you know, we had a basic idea and the four of us got together and we really created the story and

the characters and the beats together. We would get in a room, you know, with our note cards and

you know, and we would get together for two or three days at a time and, you know, work really

intensely together. And then we would go off in our corners and go like, okay, we're going to

write that song and like we're going to write that scene and um and then you know and reshuffle the

story and go you know and we've been working together and and workshopping it for so long

that it's gone through many iterations but uh it really is an all hands on deck um

we we have a high level of trust between the four of us which is wonderful and um and right now and

now we have such a shorthand that we can you know just churn things out together or apart

Yeah, it's very true. It's a, you know, every collaboration is different

This one is no different than that because it was very different

But what was great was, as Amanda said, just putting the story together, all four of us, kind of figuring out what it's going to be

allowed us to put each of our minds into each of these characters and their each moment that they go through

And that was a really fun thing to be able to do. That's not always the case

yeah and i i mean i've written a lot of musicals and but many of them have been based on ip or you

know a book a novel a documentary but to the fun and joy of just like well what if they do this

you know what where does that take us and uh so that's been a lot of fun as well well the show is

just open to rave reviews and like i said you've already been extended at the old globe how excited

to the two of you. I mean, very excited. You know, it's

I don't know how to say, you know, we've, Amanda, we've all had shows

that have been less well-received or, you know, and to have something

that comes out with such a bang. And this is the very first time

we've ever staged this show. So, you know, we've got, we still got work to do on it

We still got some things we're going to fix and change. I'm not. I'm done

Amanda's done. I'm done. But, you know, so I think it's been it's just really encouraging

You know, you never know what an audience is going to do or what reviewers are going to think of something

And it's great in this case where both the audiences and the reviewers are feeling similar things

And that's very, very lovely and not common. So, yeah, we I mean, we care deeply about reproductive freedoms and and and women and people's autonomy

and we're four really funny people and four, you know, passionate artists

And so to be able to combine our deep silliness with something we care about

and have it be both funny and moving and trenchant and speak to the times

which also goes to prove that, I mean, you cannot write, you know, we've been working on it for eight years

We didn't know where we would end up, you know, but it's something if it's, I guess it's evergreen

Sadly, it's evergreen. I mean, that's, that's what we just heard in that song. She says

you know, it's, it's, can you, you know, it's, can you believe this shit still happens in 1810

It's like the 1750s all over again. And then one of my favorite moments in the whole show

one of my favorite lines is Amanda's lyric, if we could go somehow 200 years from now

and fantasizing about what life is going to be like in the present, you know, and you're just sitting there thinking it didn't happen you know we're still there we're still in 1810 it's still

the 1750s all over again which is a sad place to be but um but uh hopefully by by laughing at it

uh we can sort of bring some awareness to it and change some hearts and minds you know what i mean

just to take a tangent you know we've been having some great response from the audiences um you know

but every once in a while I'll hear someone, you know, I'm walking out of the theater and my favorite comment so far was someone

said, Oh, you know, the songs were great. The lyrics are so funny and it was such a fun show

I just wish it wasn't about abortion. And you're like, well, okay, at least we're doing our job

If they're having fun, you know, we're going to hopefully change hearts and minds. And that's exactly what we set out to do with this piece

Or if not change hearts and minds, at least go like, Oh, I feel so heard

Yes. That's the way it is. Oh my God. thank you for, you know, or not thank you, but, you know, so

This was such a repressed society, yet the show is funny, and it's also very heartfelt at the

same time, you know, with everything that was going on. So how did you find that fine balance

of, like, you know, doing the funny and doing the seriousness? Totally, how did you come up

with that? Is that a difficult thing to do? Yes, I think so. And I think we're still working it out

You know, I mean, it's definitely something we had a lot of discussions about, you know, things like how comedic can our lead character be

We knew our secondary characters were going to be funny. And, you know, figuring out the tone of how Eleanor would behave was something that really we spent a lot of time working on and, you know, still tweak

And they're still talking about, you know, we're still talking about several of the characters. Tone is a really tough thing when you're doing a comedy about something very serious

Um, and yeah, we had a, we have a couple of ballads and one, um, you know, it's a, it's

a beautiful ballad. Well, I mean, I thank you. As she said, it was a beautiful ballad

Um, she said modestly, but we were like, well, we need to, we need to pierce this with some

humor and we did. So we found, you know, a couple of, uh, you know, a funny line was just like, you know

relieves the moment and, and, but it's still, it's not, it's not untrue to the moment, but

it's funny. And then we tried to put a funny moment into our 11 o'clock number and it was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. It does not belong. So, you know, you experiment and see, you know, how humor and earnestness can live together

Yeah, and with that in mind too, I think this show, comedy is really hard, as everybody

knows but because you just know how what a joke whether a joke gonna land or not And you know working with Jen and Gabby they such comic geniuses And they so used to doing this that they really are brain surgeons when it comes to this

And they sit there and they just intricately tweak and modify and fix and cut and alter so quickly

It's kind of amazing. But also we've had the great privilege of luck, good luck and bad luck in developing this

because of delays in production, because of COVID, because of theaters, you know, turning us down or

being shut down or, you know, it's taken longer than I think we had hoped, you know, I mean

although seven years is not that long in theater world at all, you know, we had hoped that we'd

see a stage a little bit earlier. But the plus side of that is it gave us a little bit more

opportunity to do readings and workshops more than I've ever done on any show. We've had so many

you know uh 20 hour readings and workshops and it's all useful but at a certain point we're like

let's get this thing let us pile all the music stands on a pyre and burn them

never want to see my that show at a music stand ever again

so you finally have this incredible production out there i want to ask you about a moment in

the show. Tell me about what is a Regency era road trip. Talk about that section you wrote

which I cannot wait to see put on stage. Well, it's, you know, they have to, our lead

just, you know, realizes that she has to run away to London to seek the services of this midwife

And her best friend and her sister insist on coming with her and her servant mysteriously

totally insist on coming with her and they go on a carriage trip and uh so that's this that's the

that's the as daring as they can go on a carriage trip by themselves two of them dressed as men so

they're not raped or worse the subject of gossip um and uh you know at a you know breathtaking 15

miles an hour so i mean that that gave us a big chuckle too you know there's a joke that you know

like like after nine hours one hour one character goes oh look i can still see my house you know so

it's it's thrilling it's thrilling to hit the road but you know carriage trip is slow but they

get to you know dress as men and and go to a tavern and and have their opinions heard you know

and respected by men because they're dressed in pants and and they get to drink and carry on and

And do man things and be away from the repressive stricture. I mean, one of the wonderful thing, as you said, Richie, and Curtis about setting it in a Jane Austen novel is all those rules that they have to, they're confined by and being able to bust out and the kind of freedom that gives them

It just sounds so funny. I mean, like you said, it's serious at the same time, but, you know, we need laughter now with dealing with everything we're going through

And like you said, the great thing about art is, like you said, people walk out of this show and they think about other things saying, oh, I should be thinking about abortion

I should be thinking about, oh, my gosh, this was in the Jane Austen time period

And it's even worse now. yeah I always like to say also like some of my favorite musicals like Fun Home and and

God bless Bill Finn and March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland is that I it I fell in love with

the characters and the story and uh I I hadn't thought about it before I went to see March of

Falsettos but I was like gay people have to be able to have families and have you know I mean

And it changed. I wasn't anti it. I just didn't know about it. And Fun Home, I was like, God bless that little lesbian girl. I just want her to get that, you know, in the ring of keys. It's just so in that way, if you fall in love with characters, then you understand what they're going through, no matter what you feel about issues, you know, with a capital I

they're human beings going through something and if you laugh so much the better and you're

entertained and yeah you know when you're writing a musical is the hardest thing to write songs for

the audience to fall in love with characters you know i'm trying to figure from a from a musical

standpoint because what i've heard about your show is everybody falls in love with every single

character in this show and follows their journey and wants to know everything about them so is

composers and lyricists when you're creating numbers for a character do you think about that

do you think about the audience or how they'll perceive or you know is this the best number for

them like what was like one of the easiest numbers for you to write what was one of the most difficult

numbers for you to write for a character sort of a big question i've just asked you i've asked you

like five questions in one oh god that's that's a tough question i mean yeah i mean writing for

characters is is what we love what we love best i mean i don't want to speak for amanda but it's

what i love best i think she loves doing too it's it's it's so great to kind of embody them and and

try to express what they're thinking and feeling and i always approach it with amanda you know we

always we always you know when we song write we're always talking about story first that's how we

start something and the story is you know a song needs to be about something specific it needs to

be about something very important to that character, or there's no reason to write it

And I think those are the ones that are, when there's a very specific, deep need for something

to happen with a character or something they really want, or they really need, then it's

not that hard to write. I think then we just jump in and we figure out what it is

What they need is usually what the title of the song ends up being, or what they want

And then we jump in and we write it. Those are some of the easiest songs

I think when a song is hard to write, I'm going to flip the question around

Amanda, you jump in if you disagree. But when a song is hard to write or you're finding it really difficult, a lot of times

it's because we probably haven't figured out exactly what the character needs or wants properly

And so it happens that way, that sometimes songs are really hard because it's not the

right song or it's not the right moment or it's not the right angle. And, you know, until we step back from that and a lot of times just have to restart, you

know, the songwriting and rejigger what it is. And then suddenly you're like, oh, that's what it is

And then the song's easy to write. Correct. Yeah, I agree. I, the first, I think the first song we

wrote for the show is, is the 11 o'clock number, A Woman Knows. And that was very clear for us

because even before we knew the whole story, we just knew like the thesis, which is that

a woman knows the having to terminate a pregnancy is like, it's, it is instinctual. It's like

this can't be, it's not. And then the same woman two years later can be like, I must have this

child. You know, there's like a thing that is bone deep that, you know, people talk about and

from all sides of the fence, women just, it's like this thing. And, and we want to represent

both sides, because both sides are equally true. And they could be, they're two characters singing

but it could be the same woman at a different time in her life, where it's like, this thing

this thing that has happened to my body, it cannot be. And then there was a thing where like

I will do anything to have a child, and I must have this child. So we felt like that was the

song we knew we wanted to write. And it came out pretty quickly between the two of us. And then

And there was another song that we've changed titles of three or four times, and the four

of us talked about it endlessly, because it was about where this character, where our lead

is in the journey, where the secondary lead is in the journey, where the character's love

interest is in the journey and what encapsulates where they are And it took the four of us having many conversations before we were like okay that the moment And the song called What Does That Make Me The title changed many times I was going to say that exactly right The song she was talking about is a good point

where we, you know, in that case, the story was changing around the song and that happens a lot

you know, and so the song had to change to fit the moment. And we were also discovering

what we wanted the character, this is going back to the tone question, what we wanted the

characters at that moment to be revealing to us, the audience, you know, what were they learning

from themselves and what were they revealing to us? You know, the audience is, we always talk about

this, the audience is another, is like the additional character in your writing, right

So, you know, there's a lot of times when the characters will know something before the audience

does. And then there's a lot of times the audience will know something before the characters do

And then hopefully most of the time you and the characters are finding something out at the same

time but we play with that all the time there's something fun you know a good suspense obviously

is when we know something the character doesn't but a good a good surprise is when the character

knows something we don't know what they're going to do and then we're waiting to find out yeah i forgot yeah we wrote that song two years ago but we did the last rewrite a day before opening

because we decided oh no we don't want people to know that until until after this song so let's

change that you know so it's yes so that definitely happens and and there's still more you know i mean

And I feel like we are, for having written this for seven years, you know, we had a glorious, like, eight previews, I think

But we were still, we could have gone on. I mean, someone had to take the paper and pencil

In our case, I'm being, you know, that's metaphorical. I'd take our computers out of our cold, dead hands because we would have just kept rewriting

And there's still more to do. I'm excited to kind of, you know, it was great to, like, let this version live and see the audience's reaction

and I can't wait to sort of jump in and, and, and do some things that I'm like, Oh, now that I've seen it, I want to fix that. You know what I mean

Like there's a few little things that you want to go in and tweak and alter. And, um, you know

Although as I've said, I'm done, but Amanda's stuff that needs to be fixed

No. Yeah. We all, we all did. As you know, the audience is the last ingredient and you're like, Oh, okay

So we've, we've been learning a lot. Yeah. No, but that's the exciting thing about writing a new musical

Cause you add the audience into the mix and then you see so many, of your things and then you add an incredible director choreographer which we have to give

yes to josh rhodes shout out shout out big shout out what's it been like working with him and look

at the cast you put together for this show names i'm like wow i mean you know i'll just amanda

interrupt me but like when it comes to josh like it's really wonderful to watch him work with these

with this production and with these actors we write everything we use all the tools we have

which is writing and music, right? We have text and music and we can write what we think

is going to happen on stage and we do and we can say these things will explode and this will start to flip around

but Josh actually makes it happen and it's really amazing to watch

Musical stager. He just keeps everything flowing and every day when we watched him stage

we were like, wow, wow! It's great with that. And it was exciting, yeah

in the visual medium to like take, you know, the lyrics and the music

like of the opening number, let's say, and like, oh, okay, now he's brought in this

So that, oh my God, that helps the storytelling so much. Now everyone will definitely know that plot point

that we kept trying to put in, you know, in lines and lyrics, like we don't have to

Well, we do, but it's like, there it is visually. They'll get it, you know? And he just moves people so well

And everybody is telling the same story. Everybody is in on the same joke

It's been wonderful. And these actors are funny, moving, expert. Izzy McCalla is a dream

Ryan Redman, Kate Rockwell, Christina Alabato, Sav Sousa, everybody in this cast

Nick Walker, Gabe Gibbs. There's 20 people and they're all gems. And just so funny

And watching them invent on their feet and play with each other and try not to crack up on stage

I don't know how they do it because I am laughing. They don't do it. I've seen them

What's really great is the four lead women really get along on stage and off

and you sense that and they're having the time of their lives in the show

and they're really enjoying it. And I love watching them do it

it's just, you know, and the way the show is structured, you know

not to give too much away is, you know, you follow those four women, but the men by nature of what it was, this is very intentional, you know

we don't spend a lot of time with them, you know, it's, it's, it's, and it's kind of a breath of fresh air to have a show that is just really so

focused on, on these women. And, and they, and they will come back at playing various characters throughout the show

And it's very funny to watch. They make their mark though. They definitely make their mark

And how could I forget Janine Lomano, who tears the house down on 1810

And in the first act, too. And in the first act, yeah, she's also the villain and the hero

See, that's what's great about an original musical, because you get a group of actors together

and you create on them, and you create it for them with their input

There's nothing like, listen, replacement casts are incredible. We've seen everybody. But there's that initial cast as creators

You're like, oh, my God, Janine does this. is you know she does that and you can sort of write with their strengths and everything else

and it all melds together to these incredible performances with an original cast right right

yeah so my final question for you is audiences are already falling in love with this show

what do you hope audiences take away after seeing the show as creators

that's really i mean i think in a way you know amanda said something really interesting earlier

that I love, which is, you know, we hope people both come away from this feeling empowered and

heard and like, yes, someone is telling our story. And I also hope people will come and say

wow, I didn't, you know, I didn't think of things this way. And now I'm thinking of them differently

You know, and then on top of that, I just hope people have a really good time, you know, and

laugh. We need to laugh. Above all, we want people to have a good time. We were thrilled

Gabby was telling us this morning, actually, that her friend brought her husband, who's like a

golfer. He's like one musical, Book of Mormon, and he loved the show. He had a great time. So

it wasn't like, here's your medicine here. You know, I mean, because people who don't like

musicals, people who don't like, like they hear feminist and they want to run screaming, you know

I, you know, loved it. So we want people to have a great time. Women in particular, just go

oh, my, you know, in like, are you kidding? Are you shitting me? To use a phrase from our show

but also like, yes, yes, yes. And we want women and people to feel heard who care about this. And

And yeah, theater can galvanize you. It can entertain you. It can maybe change hearts and minds

but we really want you to have a great time. Well, people already are, and that's what the arts do

It makes people, you entertain people and you make people think, and boy, do we need that now

Well, once again, the Broadway-bound musical Regency Girls is currently playing at the Old Globe

It's been extended through May 11th. For tickets, go to theoldglobe.org. I want to thank both of you for dropping by Broadway World today

and sitting with me. Raging you the best. Thank you for... Have an incredible run

and we'll see you on Broadway. Everybody, we'll see you at the theater. Take care, everyone