Different. Because you see us in the first way, its impossible to see us in the second way. Rose the urban pen exhi pigs at the metropolitan museum of art. We talk to jeff rosenheim. He understood the page of the magazine and how a picture would sit in, inc. H in the magazine and demanded it stop traffic and by doing so he applied all the training and art to the challenge. I mean, she was basically a vogue photographer for over 60 years. Most of his pictures in the show were seen there and, yet, he was able to make prints on his own that have other qualities. Thats the art. Rose theater and photography. When we continue. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose dear evan hansen is running at the music box theater here in new york, following a High School Student with severe anxiety getting caught up in a social media fueled movement after a fellow classmate commits suicide. The New York Times writes ben platt is giving a performance not likely to be bettered on broadway this season. Dear evan hansen is nominated for nine tonys including best musical. Hears a look. When youre in a forest and theres no one around do you ever make a crash or a sound when youre falling in a forest and theres no one around do you ever crash or make a sound will i ever make a sound on the outside always looking in will i ever be more i try to speak nobody can hear so i wait for an answer to appear waiting through a window can anybody see is anybody waiting is anybody waving back at me waving waving whoa oh. cheers and applause rose joining me is star ben platt nominated for best actor in a musical and writer Stephen Levinson nominated for best book of a musical, pleased to have them both at this table for the first time. Welcome. Great to have you here. Thanks for vugs. Rose who is evan hansen . A really lonely kid. Teenager in high school. He is incredibly isolated, has trouble connecting to other people and that is heightened by the hyperconnectivity of social media and the fact with young people, everything theyre doing online is instantaneously judged and looked at, so he feels under deep scrutiny which makes him retreat anymore and he cant find a place to belong and be heard and feel connected to anyone or anything. And through this sort of rather terrible lie that he tells about a fake friendship with a kid in his class who has committed suicide, even grows very close to the grieving family of the kid and helps them to heal in a wayened finds a new voice and confidence and a place to be important and belong and finds a new confidence and starts to come out of his shell although its all predicated on this fabrication. Rose is it also a critique of social media . When we started working on this, ben, justin and i and my fellow writers and composers of the music, we initially talked about it as more of a frontal critique on social media, more of a parody or satire and, as the show evolved, i think what we really bam interested in was exploring, yes, how social media was promote this kind of false idea of who we are and were all kind of performing on there. Rose and do we belong. Yes, exactly, but, at the same time, there is Something Real that happens on there. There is a sense of belonging that people find, a sense of connection, and, so, it really is this doubleedged sword. Rose when you thought about this, when you guys wrote this, was it based on a newspaper headline youd seen or a story youd seen . These things actually happen. Absolutely. It was based originally on one of the composers in high school had a classmate who died of an accidental Drug Overdose and he was someone who was a real loner, an outsider, no friends, and in the wake of his death, binge watched as his fellow students watched to say i was friends with him, our lockers were close to each other. Everyone wanted a part of the tragedy. Benj stored it as way as troubling. Benj went to college, met justin paul and they both discussed the story. We all knew people who had written college is says about their place in 9 11. Social media, that kind of insertion into tragedy seems only to escalate and get crazier until any kind of catastrophe in the world became a way for people to talk about themselves. Then when the three of us began working together, that was really where we began. Rose what was the average age of the three of you. The average age, we were all, i believe, 27, maybe 28. No, wait, thats not true. We have been working on this for so long. We were, like, 26. We were really young. Rose still are. Thank you. Rose you have to make sure that we explore him and all hes done and the lies hes telling yet at the same time make him a character that people dont reject. Certainly. I think that was always from the beginning of development, i came on board three years ago, was the focus on my part and stephen and i together was making sure that the audience understood at every turn why he was making the decisions he have making and you were seeing it was all coming from a place of Good Intention and wanting to heal and help people and i think one of the most effective things about the show is the first 12 or 15 minutes when you get to meet evan and see him give his first monologue and sing his first song, you get an idea of the kid and how deep a hole hes in and how in need of a savior he is so you understand why he false into this light because its so perfectly presented to him. Rose is he a savior at some point. I think on some level it ends up being a savior and forces him to connect in a way he never has but also a dark side in facing his demons and not liking who he sees in the mirror, but at the end of the day it starts a conversation with him and his mother. It seems to bust the door open for conversations. Thats what it does for even. Rose congratulations on the nomination. Thank you so much. Rose when you write the book, what does that mean . It means essentially my responsibility is partly to structure things, to kind of come up with the road map, and then all the dialogue. What it meant in this case because we had no source material. Often you have a book or a movie. Benj, justin and i came up together with the rudiments of a sterned some characters, then i went off and wrote the first act as though it were a play and left spaces where the three of us had decided songs might go. Then i sent them that draft, and they looked at it and said, okay, well, here, where we thought there would be a song, actually i think the song comes earlier so the scene needs to be shorter or longer. So its a lot of its kind of building the skeleton. Rose how do you explain the resonance it has other than great acting i think it accurately without filter or lens depict the contemporary world and the way people are connecting and the way social media plays into that and doesnt make too harsh of a judgment on it, just sorts of presents it how it is and how we connect as humesens. I think even as a universallality as far as his loneliness and his desire to reach out and be reached out to. I think everyone in the show can go on this journey with him not only because its beautifully written that he has selfeffacing humor and has beautiful songs and a beautiful character but people find themselves in him. Rose this is what your mother talked and the New York Times. She says i contemplate bens emotional state every day and how much time he spends alone. Hes only 23 and should be with friends. How proud can a moth were. Shes the most beautiful human being on the earth. This is a demanding role. I take it seriously, the responsibility to curate this evening and to create it eight times a week and give the same kind of emotional intensity and make sure the audience is having identical experience as possible and that requires a loft me as far as sacrificing social life and my lifestyle gets really affected but, of course, this is the kind of piece that is so beauty any written and so deeply felt that you want to give yourself to it and make the sacrifices to it because they dont come along all the time especially musical theater. Rose you have been working with the same actors for years . Yes, in the First Reading four of the actors were in it. Rose has it cause to change the writing . These actors helped shaped the material, absolutely, especially ben with this character. I think part of the reason the show resonates is bens per force is so specific and its that strange paradox of specificity. The more specificity, the more universality. Ben and i have had conversations where hell do something, i respond to it in writing and h he response in performance. Thats been a pleasure. Rose . One of the things stephen does brilliantly is finding things in ourselves that were not noticing and they wind up beautifully flushed out in the writing and really taking advantage of the performers he has and what comes naturally and honestly to them. Thats what i feel makes the characters feel beautifully honest is he uses the seeds of that to create a big idea. Rose i feel as long as i do this role, everything i have to do is to be in the servicer of that. I dont want a Single Person to leave without getting what i have the to offer. I dont feel anything can be so jen or powerful that is not taking a toll. I am definitely willing to take the toll, whatever it might be. Is there a toll . Is the endurance of doing it and the requirements of singing that much and the demands on you to perform at the center of this . Sure. The literal toll would be the physical and vocal demands and the physical therapy lessons. Theres an emotional toll to go to such a dark place eight times a week and make it as real as possible is not always the easiest thing to do particularly if its an audience thats a little bit less responsive or a day thats a little lower on energy. Rose you can foal that if theyre less responsive. Sure, the beautiful piece about the piece is people go on a journey every night. By virtue of anything from the weather to whats going on in the world to the age of the people in the crowd sometimes it takes them a little longer to get on the ride and theyre not as vocal. Rose what do you do if you sense that . Try not to push. I think the instinct is always to sort of go harder and to try to win them, but i think the great thing is the material is fantastic and its specific and beat to beat and so if you lay back and let the show do its job and sort of not try to slam on the acceleration then they come to you eventually. Rose thats a very good way of putting it. The cast singing you will be found. When you need a friend to carry you when youre broken on the ground. You will be found. So let the sun come streaming in you open your eyes again if you only look around you will be found you will be found you will be found you will be found. Rose yeah, i asked whats the average age of the cast you said somewhere in the middle. Weve got five people in there early to mid 20s playing teenagers and then we have adults most of them in their mid 40s playing the parents. Rose you never show him in therapy, though, do you . No. Rose why not . You know, i think we wanted to get to know eve evan with him especially. Thats the way we want to get to know the character and the lens through which we see him. Therapy tends to be boring to writers because theyre so reductive in a way. Its sort of like writing an interview, you know where, you have one character whose job is to really just say, and how does that make you feel . So whereas with his mom or his peers, theres a level of unpredictability that forces evan rose and a higher level of engagement, too. Absolutely, yes. Rose it runs how long . Indefinitely. Tilt end of the world. Rose yes, its indefinitely. Does it give you any time to do anything else . Not really. We have mondays off. Rose this is not a theme on my part. laughter we have mondays off, i try to spend that doing restful, nice things. But, you know, this is a really exciting time and its i love being inundated in it, its obviously temporary and i want to take it as it comes. Rose because its become such a sensation here, are you getting advice from other people who have also conquered the new york musical stage . Sure, we have a lot of actors that come and ill get to see them afterwards and theyll offer their pieces of rose their congratulations. The thing about the show is people are moved at the end and feel really opened up. So when i get to interact with people whether other actors or people at the stage door, everybody is so effusive and wanting to be old with me because they feel weve had a shared morguesle experience so thats my favorite time to talk to people. But also to do selfcare so i can be a human being. Rose only us eevan singing with his girlfriend. It will be us it will with us and only us and what came before wont count anymore you and me e thats all that we needed to be and the rest of the world falls away and the rest of the world falls away rose congratulations. Thank you very much. Rose this is terrific. Thanks. Rose glad to have you here. Stephen, thank you very much. Thank you. Rose well be right back. Stay with us. Rose Cynthia Nixon is here. She is an emmy, tony and grammyaward winning actress currently starring along lawyeria lenny in a revival of the little foxes on broadway. Nixon and lenny alternate in the lead role of regina and supporting role of birdie. Birdie performance earned nixon her fourth tony nomination. Heres a look at her in that role. Aunt birdie. Why did you marry uncle oscar . I dont know. I thought i liked him. And he was so kind to me. And i taut that was because he liked me, too. But that wasnt the reason. Ask why he married me. I could tell you that. Hes told me often enough. Miss birdie, dont. Y family was good and the cotton on the fields was better. Ben hubbard wanted the cotton and Oscar Hubbard married it for him. He used to be nice to me then. He used to smile at me. He hasnt smiled at me since. Everybody knew thats what he married me for. Everybody but me. Stupid stupid me rose nixon also stars in terrance davids new film a quiet passion as Emily Dickinson, the renowned 19t 19th century poet. Pleased to have Cynthia Nixon back at this table. Welcome. Thank you i. Rose i only saw this once before in true west when actors alternate roles. But that was a twoperson play. Eyes, and there was a big 19th and early 20th century of two actors doing a fellow and alternating. Not so much anymore. Rose laura lenny comes up with the idea. Yes. Rose and say what do you think of this. Yeah. Rose and you bought it right away. Right away is that why . Because of the challenge . Well, i love the play. Ive always loved the idea of playing regina, but as laura, i think herself felt, birdie was a treasure of a role albeit a smaller role. Ive worked with laura on television but never on stage, so the chance to work with her on this play with dan sullivan and in this tremendous theatrical experiment which i think women dont get to do very often, men more. Rose part of it is a challenge. Yes. Rose there was a thing about you in college, did two plays at the same time. I did. But this i mean, i think even people who arent intending to come twice, often they come and see it one way and then they say, well, i have to come back because the roles are so different, once you see us in the first way, its sort of impossible to imagine us if the second way, and i think there are also because the play is so meaty itself and so many people dont know the play before they come, giving the audience a chance to hear it twice, i think they absorb a lot more of the nuances of it. Rose did you think you were going to play birdie first . Was that your first instinct . No. When they called me, it was with this offer. Rose oh, i see. Yeah. So. Rose when you watch her yes. Rose in a role that youve just played yes. Rose do you see insights into the character that maybe you hadnt seen. I do. I see things i can steal and i steal them when i can. And i think it was harder for us both when we were first rehearsing it, but now i think that we have our own characterizations and were more secure in them. Again, still i find Little Things like, oh, thats interesting, either i can take it or it helps me understand another dimension of the character. Rose which character do you identify with most . Well, its hard to identify with regina. Rose yeah, of course. You know, birdie is a much more empathetic and sympathetic character, albeit a sadder one. So i think birdie is easier to relate to, which is, i think, part of the reason laura came up with the idea in the first place. She said i understand birdie and i can relate to birdie. Regina is kind of foreign territory to me. Rose this is what the New York Times said. In most roles, ms. Nixon has a steely quality. Ms. Lennys effect is more yielding. Ms. Nixon plays reginas deviousness from the start which is a treat, but ms. Lenny keeps it concealed for a while which makes a stinging surprise. When it comes to melty mush silly, birdie, bullied and beaten by her husband, ms. Lenny uses her sweeten to effect while ms. Nixons heartbreaking twitters and fluters, layering birdies pain with a complicated selfloathing. Sounds pretty good. Sounds pretty good. Rose do you recognize that, though, when they say that . I mean, i think thats one of the things that i feel that birdie, you know, you want to think that birdie had this very happy childhood and then was hoodwinked into marrying this man whos very cruel to her, but i think the roots of her insecurity and her pain come in her childhood. She talks about her mother and has only really great things to say about her mother but she always talks about what a ninny she is and how her mothers always laughing at her, and i think that feeling that birdie has right from, you know, the beginning about, oh, im so silly, so dumb, whatever, i think she got that message from her mother early on whether she knows it or not. Rose how do they view each other . I think one of the sort of disappointing things about our experiment is they dont deal with each other much. We dont have a lot of scenes together. I think, in effect, they dont really matter to each other. I think there are certain things that each admire about the other, but i think there are air aias of disapproval of each other are greater than their areas of approval. Rose when did you make the Emily Dickinson a quiet passion . Two years ago, we made it in belgium. We recreated the dickinson home s. T. D. In a antwerp i never thought i would get to play Emily Dickinson. It was daunting to play such a brilliant person, but i think ive always felt a lot of identification wi