Video: Go Inside Rehearsals for SPAMALOT on Broadway
May 16, 2024
Once in every season, there comes a show like this! Rehearsals are underway for the Broadway revival of Spamalot. In this video, watch as we check in with the cast as they rehearse!
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This is Richie Ridge from Broadway World reporting here at the new Spam-A-Lot Revival Broadway Press Day
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Come and see the show. October 31st, we start previews. November 16th, we open at the St. James Theater on Broadway
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This is Richie Ridge holding the Broadway World microphone. What's it like living in this world of Monty Pipe on Spam-a-Lod as a director choreographer
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Oh, God, it's amazing. It's an honor. You know, it's so well
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written. The original creators did such a good job with this. It's just so well done
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that it's just my job to bring it up and again let these
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actors take it, but also honor the piece as it is. It's just a glorious musical comedy
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It's just a, it's not just funny. It also has beautiful heart and it has one great
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tune after another. So for me to get to usher that in
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20 years later is a huge honor. Huge. You are returning to Broadway in Spamalat. You've just joined the company, right
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I just joined, yes, a week ago. Yeah, they just, I found myself here, and I was walking through Gibney Studios, and they were like, Chris, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm getting a costume fitting for something else. And then they dragged me in, and now I'm playing Patsy
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How exciting is this seriously being a part of Monty Python Spam Alot returning to Broadway
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It delightful It really is It like it such a synthesis of amazing material that is both kind of skewers Broadway and just celebrates it in such a perfect way
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You know, these songs are, they just lift. They just lift, it's so fun to do
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And then to work with just such great people that are all on the same page
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And I'm telling you the rehearsal process is really really rehearsal process is really like, we, you just can't really go wrong because everyone's just
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throwing stuff out there and it's really fun just to pick up the ball and go. So it's like
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it's just a great synthesis of all those things. It's like how lucky I feel very, very fortunate, yeah
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And for you, sir? I'm having a ball. I mean, I got to do this, you know, in D.C. with some of my
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friends here and then all of a sudden to meet guys that I've always wanted to work with like Chris Fitzgerald. So the fact that I'm here with him and we get to do King Arthur and Patsy
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together. That's a dream. It's like, oh my God, I get to work with some guy I've always admired
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but also to get to do it in a show like this, which is absolutely insane. And I can't wait for the
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folks to check it out. What's made this so special for both of you? I mean, the material is perfect
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The music is so infectious. The script, the book is airtight. But, like, I think it's the people
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We laugh so much in rehearsal. We spend all day giggling, making each other laugh, trying not
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to laugh on stage It pure fun We just goofing We just having best idea wins It thrilling Fun Literally everything you said I mean Michael and I play wordle every morning on We text each other
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our wordels and our connections every morning. I mean, we, I've just made some lifelong friends
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already. And all of the new members who are joining us who weren't with us at the Kennedy Center
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are incredible. I'm in love with all of them already. So in addition to it being a really, really well-crafted
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musical, it's, the people are just the best. What's the rehearsal room been like, because you're all clowns
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Oh, we totally are. We're goofballs. It's, like, there will be a show that happens eventually
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We will get the show happening and it will make sense. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait
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for it. But, you know, right now, it's just literally, James, when he came in yesterday, he
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body checked me. That was his hello. And that's kind of the baseline
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for all rehearsals. I'm surprised there's not a fart machine in the room
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There will be. Oh my God, idea. Yeah, idea. Big Bang. With a remote. It's kind of ridiculous
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I think, you know, we were talking about how, like, you know, it's like best choice wins
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Everyone's pitching gags and constantly doing gags. So, like, when we're on stage and, you know, in the rehearsal room, we're all doing as many gags as we can
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But then when we're off on the sides, we're helping each other and having a great time. And it just, it's a really fun world to be in
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It's a very weird world to be in. It's, like, surreal and..
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many ways but that makes it it makes it such a blast And it also something that like yes that the film does it in one specific way but spam a lot as opposed to Montepiton on the Holy Grail Like it something that you can only experience in the theater
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There's something like really live and exciting about it. And, yeah, come to the St. James, you know
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And they're really, they're upping the wattage for Broadway. This is a true Broadway spectacle
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This is sequins and glamour and castles and ladies coming out of water with fish raps
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wrapped around their ways, like, it's magically absurd. And that's the great thing about Monty Python is like
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their humor is such an intelligent absurdity that it has lasted and remained timeless
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But what made them so strong was that they were a unit
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It was the six voices coming together. And just speaking for the principals
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who we've spent a week with, it is eight voices coming together to make the best show possible with talent
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I think, at the highest level. So I could not be more honest. honored to be a part of the show
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And the only downside of being in it is I don't get to watch it. You've seen your front of the house at the St. James yet
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Have you walked by? I may or may not have, you know, stopped by 44th Street a couple times just to check it out
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see my faith. When I was a kid and I was doing community theater, I used to hang out
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You know how they put the head shots out front? I would just like stand there after the show, be like, you all see me
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Like, I was in it. And that's kind of maybe what I've been doing as a grown man outside the 44th Street, St. James
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So I'm so sorry to the security out there that I'm just hanging out there randomly
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Yeah, it's nice. Yeah
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