Video: Kelli O'Hara & Brian d'Arcy James Are Getting Ready to Return to DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Following a critically acclaimed sold-out run of the Atlantic Theater, the new musical Days of Wine and Roses is coming to Broadway's Studio 54 Theater

and we drop by Sardis to catch up with a company led by the show's two stars

Kelly O'Hara and Brian Darcy James. You're about to return to Broadway in this glorious musical

How excited are you? Oh, my gosh. I will always be excited to return to Broadway

but especially something that is this connected to me. We've been working on this for 21 years

Well, yes, Brian and I had just closed a little show called Sweet Smell of Success

and I met Adam doing a workshop of The Light and the Piazza, and I asked him to write this

And he did. He got the rights, and over the next many years, worked on it

We would get together and do a small reading here, a small reading there. But I wasn't ready to do it then, and I couldn't have known that, but now I know that I'm ready

And I wanted to tell this story with Brian, and in a way that I could sing it in the deepest part of my soul

So for me, this is sort of a career high. To be back on stage with Kelly in this particular story I mean it really it very demanding piece and I think you know kind of jumping off the cliff Butch and Sundance style with Kelly is as a real treat

It's rare that you get to do something like this at all that we did at the Atlantic Theater

It's even more rare when you get to kind of take that experience and then do it on a Broadway stage, which is what we're about to start to do

So it's thrilling because the nature of the show, the nature of the people, the tech

talent involved, and the story that we're telling that we're all so invested in

It's a gift. The idea that Kelly and Brian are actually playing these parts, and I wrote them for them

is not common. And I think the show really benefits from that

I just know how they sound. I know, you know, I mean, they're both glorious singers

And it also benefits from the fact that they are beautiful friends. I mean, they've been friends for a long time

And that chemistry fills in a lot of the detail that we don't have to and don't have

time to cover, you know, in the book and in the songs. You work with some of the greatest performers on stage

What has been like working with Kelly and Brian creating this? It's been like working among the greatest performers on stage

The skill is extraordinary. The courage, the bravery is extraordinary. The openness the commitment to truth to just wanting to tell the truth in with all of its challenging aspects there no shying away again from the highs the exhilarating highs and the horrific lows of this beast

And the places that the two of them go is quite extraordinary

And to be able to be the editor of it, because it feels like that's what I'm doing

As with many great performers, you're not there to push or inspire

They're inspired. The material is inspiring them. It's taking them places. I get to shape things

I get to edit things. I get to remind people about what a long journey might be

But it's truly a privilege to be a part of their process

And I mean, all four of them. I mean, you've identified four extraordinary artists

When I started to talk to Mark Cortali, who's my producing partner

who actually brought it to me, and then we got Joey, Amanda, and Lorenzo Tione to join us

We're like, okay, let's see what happens to the Atlantic. We think this can do it

And sure enough, sold out very quickly. Nobody saw it because there just weren't any seats

And so he said let try to get it to a bigger venue So the roundabout gave us the theater we really wanted Studio 54 We felt it that kind of a place given its history of I think there was some alcohol consumed in that area in the 70s and 80s

And let's say, let's do this at Studio 54 and really bring something very different to Broadway this

season. Just being back on Broadway again, what it means to you. Yeah, you know, I mean, gosh

for so many years, I just went fast and furious, and then I had my kids. And so I haven't been

back on Broadway since Kiss McCade, which was now 2019. So this feels, there's a daunting nature to the schedule

There's also a great thrill and adrenaline rush to it because it is home for me

It's what I know and it's where I love to be. So I'm so happy. And you're coming back to Broadway with Kelly

How exciting is that? It's very exciting. Yeah, I mean, you know, the more I do this

and every chance that I get to be on a Broadway stage

is I am so grateful and I feel, I hope I never take an ounce of it for granted

You know, when I go see a show, when I'm in the audience, I know that feeling that I have of excitement and like

and I've been doing this for a long time and I know probably 80% of the people that I'm watching

but there's that feeling of wanting to have an experience that is unlike anything else on Broadway

So I know what that feels like for me, and I feel so lucky that I get to be on the other side of that

and hopefully deliver for the people that came to have a great experience