From Broadway's "Rent" to TV's Emmys: Behind the Curtain with Billy Aronson
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Cathy:Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to late boomers. I'm Kathy Worthington, and I'm here with my cohost, Mary Elkins. And we are welcoming a new guest to our show today, Billy Aronson, who is a prolific playwright and lyricist and author of the book Out of My Head, as well as the winner of five Emmy Awards.
Merry:And I'm Mary Elkins. In 1988, Billy conceived of a musical based on Puccini's La Boheme, which eventually became the Broadway musical Rent, and he later went on to win four Tony Awards and become, and it became a major motion picture as well. And we will delve into that story with him and hear all about the many ventures many other ventures and plays. Welcome to late boomers, Billy.
Billy Aronson:I'm thrilled to be here, Mary and Kathy. Thanks for having me. Great to introduction. Gosh.
Cathy:It's so special. Well, please tell us about the early days of your career and creating the concept for Rent.
Billy Aronson:Well, okay. I'll go very quickly through the early days because that was like when I was a toddler. I was just always Oh, Always in my head and always making up little songs or little plays for my brother and sister. And I guess I found in college, in the beginning of college, I just needed to start writing plays because my heart had been so broken by a romance. Aw.
Billy Aronson:And I had all these Aw. Aw, yeah. But I suddenly saw the world in a different way, and I needed to scream about something. It was a joyous scream, and it was a scared scream. It was everything.
Billy Aronson:But I didn't I couldn't do it through music or acting, which I'd done before. I needed to write a play so I could have control of the whole universe, And that became my obsession. And I did it all through college. I would make my friends be in my plays somehow during exam period and write them and and sit there and watch the audience not get them and learn from each failure each year. And, and then I went right on to drama school at Yale Drama School, and, that was hard.
Billy Aronson:I think the main thing I learned at Yale Drama School was not to listen to everything other people tell you to do. That in the end, you have to decide for yourself what you need to do and be your own best critic.
Merry:That you learned it then.
Billy Aronson:Know. Yeah. Yeah. It's a hard lesson, because I really always wanted people to just tell me what to do. Tell me what to have all these wise people sit around and listen to your play.
Billy Aronson:It's very hard not to think, oh, if I do what they say, it'll be great. But we're all so unique. You know, in the end, we're just so different that the correct answers are different for each of us. Mhmm. So when I went to live in New York after drama school, I kinda started again just questioning everything and going to see everything, and I saw lots of opera, because I lived in Hell's Kitchen, in a teeny tiny apartment where I had no room even to daydream, because I didn't really have my own bedroom.
Billy Aronson:My room was the living room which I would sleep in. So no privacy, but I would go up to the Metropolitan Opera, which was a few blocks away, and watch, and for a low sum like 3 or $4, get standing room at the Metropolitan Opera, and I'd have five hours of free time to daydream. Anyway, so I saw lots of plays and operas and started writing everything and knocking on every door at all the theaters. I thought if there was a theater that I liked, I would let them know about me, and some doors started off. There was some interest, and I started getting readings, but it wasn't going fast enough.
Billy Aronson:So like at one point, I'd written a play, a bunch of theaters were reading it and considering it, and I could write another play, but why? I mean, it's just I was already begging every theater I knew to do this last play, so I decided to try working on a musical. And after seeing La Boheme at the Met, one of my favorite operas, which is about, of course, starving young people in Paris, I related to that, but thought, my gosh, it's so luscious, their world. Franco Zaffarelli had designed this set, and was gorgeous, and they're singing these gorgeous notes, these arias about being in love, even though it's cold and it's freezing and you have to burn your own plays for heat. It's So very romantic, and I loved it, but on the way home, this was in the mid eighties, it was just so bleak, and people were dying in the streets, and money was in fashioning.
Billy Aronson:You wanted to be was material Material Girl was the pop song, and you wanted to be rich, and nobody thought you were cool for being an artist. So I wanted to write my version of that story, but set it in New York now with rough, noisy music that matched the time warp.
Cathy:Mhmm. And hopefully, we've all seen it.
Billy Aronson:I hope so.
Cathy:I've seen it a gazillion times.
Billy Aronson:Oh, I love
Merry:Oh, yeah.
Billy Aronson:You're my best friend. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for sending my kids to college. But anyway, yeah, so I mean, there was a long distance between my having that thought and your seeing the show.
Billy Aronson:Most of it, because Jonathan Larson, I met up with him. I was introduced to I was recommended to two composers, actually. He was one of them, and the most excited about the idea that I had. And so we worked on it for a couple years, and we didn't quite know where to take it. We had three songs we were really excited about and a basic structure, but we went on with two separate projects because theaters weren't grabbing at it, and we didn't want to waste our time with something that was just gonna be sit there and have readings.
Billy Aronson:But eventually he said, Can I go ahead on my own? And I said, Sure. Those were good songs. Do what you can. As I got busy with my other plays and raising a family and all that.
Billy Aronson:And, of course, he did get it made beautifully, and that was quite an adventure. But, anyway, luckily, had something in writing, so I I still get the credit for original concept and additional lyrics, which I'm very proud.
Merry:Well, how did it how did it change your life? And other than what you said about the lesson you learned in college about not listening to other people's ideas, what was the lesson you learned as part of the process of actually helping to create rant? Rant.
Billy Aronson:So much. Well, I learned how not to collaborate because I did everything wrong, and I think in a way Jonathan did. We both wanted it to be exactly what we wanted, and we didn't if something wasn't exactly what we wanted, I mean, you know, each of us is in control of our universe. The pleasure of making art is that finally there's something you could control, and so when two heads come together, it's exciting because right away, all of a sudden I've got this cool music that I can't write, and all of a sudden he's got these stories that he couldn't have come up with.
Merry:Mhmm.
Billy Aronson:So it's a thrill, but then when you start working, you say, He writes music for something that I wrote. It's like, But I wouldn't have written exactly that sound. That sounds melodramatic to me, and then all up for him. Yeah, but he doesn't want the story to go where I'm sending it, so it's very frustrating, but of course you have to talk. You have to really talk it out.
Billy Aronson:You know, it's like in a marriage. Harder I think, because it's so often in my marriage, Lisa and I go our separate ways, and she does what she wants with the carpet, and I do what I want with the speakers, you know? But with a musical, can't really do that. It's all every word I would write is controlled by his music and vice And we didn't talk very well. Either we would love, just love what the other person had done, or just get and just say something mean about it, And then eventually go ahead.
Billy Aronson:Go on.
Cathy:I didn't wanna interrupt you, but I wanna tell you I was privileged to see the original cast of, the Broadway cast of Rant in the early days when it opened, and it opened up a whole new section of Broadway that people had never seen before. And everything was different and new. And I know you did the lyrics to the song Santa Fe and the song I Should Tell You, which is really a turning point in the show. But was it did it feel like a great sorrow to you to not do the others? Or or did you feel still feel that you were involved at the time it opened?
Billy Aronson:All of the above. It was a great disappointment not to be involved with this meteoric smash success Yeah. That would make billions of dollars, that won Pulitzer Prizes and those Tonys you mentioned, you know, so I wasn't a part of that. But I never you know, and I felt everything. I felt proud to be associated with it, jealous, angry when people tell the story without me, embarrassed when they tell the story with me.
Billy Aronson:Mean, it's just been very emotional for a sensitive guy, but I wouldn't have changed a thing because it's his musical. It's very much a Jonathan Larson musical with my little contribution, and and that's
Merry:And your
Billy Aronson:idea, successful. Yeah. That worked as it is, so I wouldn't change a thing because, why push it a little in any direction? I I don't generally think about what if and what changing, you know, because why?
Cathy:That's healthy.
Billy Aronson:And it's not because it's not not my thing, in the end, I don't look at it and say, that's Billy Aronson. There are little parts I do. I never felt like I wished it were half me or something. Mhmm. Anyway, I'm just so glad to be working on my own stuff, and I'm so proud of my own stuff, and it's nice to have that income and that credit and to get to meet people like you through it.
Billy Aronson:So
Cathy:That's great.
Billy Aronson:I'm very grateful for how it worked out.
Merry:Yeah. Well, talk a little bit about the lyrics of of the songs that you wrote, such as Santa Fe and I Should Tell You.
Billy Aronson:Okay.
Merry:What did they mean to you?
Billy Aronson:Okay. Well, I wrote the part that I wrote that is in Rent was written in a rather quick burst of inspiration. After some frustrating tries to get started with Jonathan, I finally said to him, look. I just have to do it my way. I can't argue with him, but I can't try to explain it to you what I'm trying to do.
Billy Aronson:And so I sat down, and I wrote the first song Rent, and then Santa Fe, and then a couple more songs, and then I should tell you rather quickly. It was a few days, I guess, a couple weeks, but just I just let them come out of my heart, and I wanted them to be as pure and as unsmoothed out, rough
Cathy:Mhmm.
Billy Aronson:With the rhymes of them, but like an angry rhythm or a very specific rhythm, a specific personality that was original and different than what you usually hear. So the first song Rent, he changed a lot, but it's still the structure that I wrote. How are we gonna pay this month? You know, over and over again. Yeah.
Billy Aronson:Bitter irony of that. And then Santa Fe just, I wanted it to be cool. Because I was inspired by my philosopher friend Larry Vogel, who had in drama school. When I was in drama school at Yale, he was doing philosophy there with his interpretable thesis, and we and our other grad student friends would get together and say, what are we doing here? Why are we killing ourselves to get these jobs that won't even pay money, etcetera?
Billy Aronson:And we would fantasize about opening up a restaurant. I'd been to Santa Fe the summer before, and it seemed like, wow, this is just beautiful, and people are friendly here, and and and there's a great arts community. So although I never wanted to leave New York, really, it was it was a fun conversation that we would have late at night when struggling with our writing. Anyway, so and it Larry is very voluble and says speaks in a cool way, and so I wanted it in contrast to the opening song with all the noise, I wanted it be kind of smooth, and so that's that's what that lyric came out of. And then I should tell you, at the time, of course, everyone was you had to ask everybody as soon as you considered romantic entanglement, Whom have you slept with lately?
Billy Aronson:This is the mid-80s. Who
Cathy:has 80s? It
Billy Aronson:was terrible. It was a terrible, terrible tragic disease, and having to deal with that in a romantic situation was weird. And just generally And
Cathy:can I just say I love the way the song dances around that and never says that because that is what they mean they should tell each other? But they keep talking about the candle. The I blew out the candle. The candle burned my you know, whatever. Yeah.
Cathy:You're talking about the candle, but they they really mean to tell each other that they both have AIDS or she has AIDS, I guess. They both do. Everybody does.
Merry:Don't
Cathy:they? Everybody in the whole show, I think.
Billy Aronson:Pretty much. But, anyway, so, yeah, that that song was it was also because as a playwright, I'm often it's it's embarrassing talking about your life, you know, the way that that Rodolfo and the opera sings, I'm poor, but I have friends. Mhmm. I was try I try to say that to people, but it was very money was so important, and there was depression and anxiety around all this stuff. The whole thing with opening up was not, was awkward, really, and they have these little phrases where they try to say things to each other, but eventually they get carried away in this, and they come together with their awkward little phrases.
Billy Aronson:So that's that song. Yeah.
Cathy:Yeah. Beautiful.
Merry:Talking about your life, talk about your book a little bit, Out of My Head. It's a fabulous blueprint for young creatives looking out to to craft a career in the arts. But can you talk about the advice that you have for someone in midlife too or beyond who's looking to embark on an artistic endeavor.
Billy Aronson:Oh, and we should. We should always embark. Yeah. The book is about, at all ages, how you need to constantly reinvent yourself. For example, when I had a play one time, finally a play at Playwrights Horizons, this glorious New York theater, I finally got to that pinnacle, and it wasn't reviewed well.
Billy Aronson:So suddenly, no, after all these doors had opened, they all closed. So I had to redefine myself. I said, okay, now this one theater that wanted to do my plays wanted to do one so I wrote a lot of one acts. That became the new me. And then when I was when I was tired of writing plays, like, just didn't have ideas that excited me anymore.
Billy Aronson:Should I try to write another play because the theater wants one? No. Then the opportunity came along to do children's television, which sounds like a completely different thing, and guess what? It wasn't at all. The better it got I found writing for television sometimes could be just money, mainly for money, or like an intersection between what I love and what somebody else wants.
Billy Aronson:But the the children's television show I got to create with my friend Jennifer Oxley, who's an artist, was as artistic as anything I've ever worked on. PBS was a great client, and they let us express ourselves and our art. It was educational, but I think all art is educational. It opens your eyes to the world around you. And at any rate, it was a glorious, I guess ten years even, we spent making this show, we built a company, and this was late in life, relatively.
Billy Aronson:Mhmm. Well, they used to die at 35 when Mozart said, so I find it's it's sort of timeless now. I'm 68, but I just feel like I feel new, and I feel like after writing the book, I still feel like I'm trying everything is new, and everything's an adventure and ridiculous. In the arts, it has to be new. You don't wanna do the same thing over and over again.
Billy Aronson:Always have to be questioning and thinking, okay. What else can I do? What else is interesting?
Cathy:Well, speaking of new
Billy Aronson:I love this.
Cathy:I am falling in love with your new show that you've developed with the fantastic composer. How do you say her first name?
Billy Aronson:Ji Hae Lee.
Cathy:Ji Ji Hae Lee.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. She's Korean American.
Cathy:So And it's called Love War.
Billy Aronson:Love War.
Cathy:I fell in love with the demos that are on her website. Just love them.
Billy Aronson:Yeah.
Cathy:And for that, you developed the concept of taking Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida of all things into modern day and her music is fantastic as are your lyrics.
Billy Aronson:Oh my god. That's nice.
Cathy:I was in Troilus and Cressida at UCLA and it's sort of relatively unknown as Shakespeare plays go. I mean, it's a little it's dry and super long.
Billy Aronson:Yes.
Cathy:Yes. Very long. Yes. Excruciatingly long. Yes.
Cathy:This I'm sure this won't be.
Billy Aronson:That's what attracted me to it. Excruciating no. I'm kidding. I I don't want excruciating, but we've
Cathy:But will it be difficult for this project to launch, and how is it going so far?
Billy Aronson:Well, so far, a couple of theaters are interested in doing it next year. The Prague Shakespeare Company and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Players. Actually, it's the Prague Shakespeare Players, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company are doing a coproduction that will have two openings in Prague and Cincinnati. So, you know, to my delight, it seems that there are people willing to take it on, but I will say, and they loved the Shakespeare play, but I agree with you, in a way it's hilarious that anyone would try to make a musical about Twilight and Cressida because it's so nasty.
Cathy:It's nasty and dry and it's warm.
Billy Aronson:Dry and long and they talk a lot. Oh my gosh.
Cathy:When I was in that show, I had a small part and there were lots of people with small parts, And we all played cards backstage because I went on in act two scene two, and then I had about two hours till I went on in act five scene three.
Merry:Oh, jeez.
Cathy:I mean, it is the longest and we would play hearts and and a lot of the actors were in the exact same boat, most most of the other ones were guys.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy:And, you know, it was a riot.
Billy Aronson:But Well, the cast of this one won't have a chance to play hearts. It's much Oh, good.
Cathy:And it's
Billy Aronson:a it's a musical, it's much more direct and right to the Not that we're trying to be better than Shakespeare, but just that I found something in that amazing Shakespeare play that I think is sort of hidden, because it's so nasty, but I think truly these people, even if they love poorly, even if Troilus just lusts and doesn't know how to love this young woman, and even if Cressida is acting a lot to protect herself from these crazy men all around her, they're still they still want very badly to love, and it still hurts when it doesn't work out a lot. And even if these guys are, these animal, their leaders are fighting this stupid war that they don't even know why they're fighting, and they just keep fighting, they keep making up bullshit, they're still trying to be more than apes. They still think they're better. So we tried to capture that, and also, I decided to write it after around 2020, I guess, when the Capitol was being attacked, and language had seemed to mean nothing. It just seemed words could mean the exact opposite of what they meant before.
Billy Aronson:Mhmm. So I thought this is true. I was impressed with that. It's a crazy world, and ultimately, what gives it a lot of heart is the young people who are stuck in this trying to find something better. So
Cathy:Yeah, and I love the logline that after ten years of war, they don't remember what they're fighting for because obviously if you're young and you came in up in that as a baby, you wouldn't remember ten years. If you're only 20, you don't know what they're fighting about. Right?
Billy Aronson:That's true.
Merry:That's true, and it applies to today too.
Billy Aronson:Yes. To the conflicts of today.
Cathy:Contacted the voices you used on the demos, those actors are fantastic.
Billy Aronson:Oh, thanks. Thanks. Yeah. We we spend a lot of
Cathy:love those. Available just to hear little bits. I love those.
Billy Aronson:Oh, thank you. Thanks so much. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, it's been a lot of fun to work on, and a lot of challenges lie ahead with it. I'm sure as we develop it, it will we'll have to change a lot.
Billy Aronson:Talking about challenges complicated.
Merry:Talking about challenges, like all pursuits, the creative life is filled with a lot of ups and downs. So when it comes to weathering those periods of frustration and and upset and wanting to give up and sadness, what are what are your most valuable words of wisdom for playing the long game in the arts? Mhmm. Lot of people give up.
Billy Aronson:Well, a lot I have a lot of advice for those people. K.
Merry:Love to hear that.
Billy Aronson:One thing is
Cathy:Take notes.
Billy Aronson:I particularly say this to young people. Try to enjoy your life. Try to enjoy your even though you don't know where you're going. This is any age, I guess. Even though you don't know that it's gonna work, have a little faith.
Billy Aronson:I I have the example of a play I wrote, an opera I was working on with a composer in the nineties, that we could not get produced. No one would do it. We loved it, but it was done in workshops at schools and churches, and finally we just gave up. I said, okay, I guess it's a stupid idea after all. I just put it aside.
Billy Aronson:Then thirty years later, was contacted by a theater in Sweden that does operas on a huge stage, one of the largest stages in Europe, with a big budget and a 45 piece orchestra, and they flew me out to see it, and it was glorious. So in other words, even I, when I despaired it, you can't despair anymore. Why would you despair? You don't know what's gonna happen with your work. It might be after you're dead, you know?
Billy Aronson:So you have to believe in it. Put your heart into it. Make it so you're so proud of it, because you've got to be your own toughest critic. I never ask anybody to look at something if I think, Well, I'm not sure. I've got to be sure.
Billy Aronson:It's great. Then and then put get it to people, and then move on, because you don't know. You've you've made something beautiful. Keep going. Keep making something There's nothing wrong with taking a break from it.
Billy Aronson:If you need to take a break to make money or just because you're tired of it, your art will be there. I talk to a lot of people who say, well, I was a playwright, but I'm not writing writing now, but you're building potential energy when you're not writing. You know, you're living, you're learning, you're suffering, you're longing, and that can all pour into a work, maybe a novel or a painting or something. So I'm a very positive thinker, and I think you need a positive attitude. You need to schedule.
Billy Aronson:For me personally, I need to get up on Monday morning and be working, or I feel bad. So I'm always working on something, even if it's just reading. Question? Ah.
Cathy:Well, you know, you've written so many plays too. Do you have a favorite you'd like to discuss or maybe a great story about one of the openings or the runs of them?
Billy Aronson:Yeah. Okay.
Cathy:Does something pop out?
Billy Aronson:Pop out? I'm thinking of what pops out. One very exciting opportunity I had was to do a play, a new play that opened in two cities at once, like I guess we're talking about this next one will. But this was a non musical play in 02/2009, sort of a farce, that was done the the eighteen twelve company in Philadelphia, they do all comedy, and the SF Playhouse in San Francisco, that's sort of the art theater in San Francisco. So I could fly back and forth and learn about it in stereo.
Billy Aronson:And because the productions were both really good, I could see how different audiences and different situations completely changed the feeling of things. For example, there was a it was just a bigger theater in Philadelphia. It was a really big theater, and so there was a bunch of physical business on a couch that takes place, and in San Francisco, you were really close to those people on the couch, and it was powerful. In Philadelphia, you were far away from them, and it was charming but not as powerful. Whereas in Philadelphia, when somebody started laughing, they would all start laughing, it was hundreds of people in the balcony, and that big audience, everybody laughing, it became like this group, It's like a circus or an orgy or something with elf something wonderful is what I'm trying to say.
Cathy:A circus Really,
Billy Aronson:and an exhilarating. That many people laughing at the same moment. You just feel like, wow, I don't know you, but we're all human at the same time. They got the laughs in San Francisco too, but there was an extra thrill about it with a big audience. So advantages to both both settings, but that was a cool learning experience, being able
Cathy:to And appear like what play was what was that called?
Billy Aronson:It was called The First Day of School. It was sort of a farce about married parents who are at that stage where they're letting their kids go to school for the first time, and they suddenly realize, wow, there's more to life than just raising kids. What's happened to us? And so they have a little bit of a sexual escapade adventure sort of comedy. It's a bizarre play, but people seem to relate to it at least on the two coasts.
Cathy:Oh, that's interesting. Think that's a great. Anything else that stands out about a special opening or something happened that you were maybe not thinking it was going gonna be that way and it came out different?
Billy Aronson:Everything comes out different in the theater.
Merry:Every night?
Billy Aronson:I'm trying to every night it's different, but especially opening night. There was a play my first one act that was done in New York was bad. I made mistakes. It was a mess. And having a sentence or two in the New York Times that was not nice about you, it really hurt my feelings.
Billy Aronson:So more than it should have. And so the next a couple years later, I had another one act being done in New York, and I was sure the same thing was gonna happen. Oh. I was sure that I was gonna find some mistake I'd made, even though spent a long time crafting this play, looking at it from every angle up and down. It was called Light Years, a one act about four college students who were just starting college.
Billy Aronson:And I checked it so carefully, and then as we were watching rehearsals, was where is the line that's going to ruin it all so they'll call me an idiot again in The New York Times? You know, I really These couldn't say actors were so charming, and they were so funny, and I would bring in friends to look at it, they'd say, oh, this is so good. I was like, I can't fail this time, but then like there was one line, the last line of the act, one act, it's all serious, then all of a sudden someone picks up the phone and they say, my father died. And it's a serious line, which I thought when I was writing it, it seemed really cool to have funny, funny, funny, odd, funny, then odd. And yet watching it in rehearsals, I thought, oh my god.
Billy Aronson:This is so pretentious. What a stupid idea. As the audience gets closer, I get more neurotic, you know? Then what was I thinking my father that's insane. This is a comedy.
Billy Aronson:Who are you to put this pretentious heavy line in there? And I took it out, I had the actors try something else, and some my father's dying, had them try a comedy, take out you know, have them do something farcical and fall down at the end. None of it worked. And finally, when someone was watching a rehearsal with my father's dying, they said, why don't you just have my father die? It's more complete.
Billy Aronson:So I left it the way I'd originally had it. The audience came in. I was terrified, and people laughed throughout the whole one act, and at the end with the last line, there were guests. My father died.
Cathy:That's what I saw.
Billy Aronson:Probably good, right? That's probably good, and the critics singled out that line as being great. It's so powerful. It's intense. It's thrilling.
Billy Aronson:It's moving. It's original, and they finish. You won't believe the climax. Wow. What did I learn from this?
Billy Aronson:I learned that I can't make creative decisions when the audience is on the way. You know, if you're too close, I just can't you can't write defensively, I guess, should say.
Cathy:Oh, right.
Merry:And you surprised yourself.
Billy Aronson:I surprised myself. Yeah. Learning how to sense of yourself is part of it. Yeah.
Merry:Yeah. Yeah. Talking about television again, you you won Emmys for writing Peg and Cat. Can you tell us a little bit about that show and what those wins mean to
Billy Aronson:you? Well, about the show, I loved working on it. As I said, my partner Jennifer, we, unlike Jonathan and me, Jennifer Oxley and I had a great collaboration. She's the visual person, right? She knows direction of animation and what we should be seeing, and to design the characters, and to block them where they should move.
Billy Aronson:She also she really understands the other aspects of it, but she did her thing, and I did my thing. We put our heads together and created some characters who would go on adventures that were sort of acting out math word problems. So it was physical comedy, it was wacky, and a lot of heart. And creativity reigned as far as we were concerned. The visuals could be anything, and I experimented with the writing to it, ending things in different ways and changing, messing with the form.
Billy Aronson:Anyway, so it was lots of fun. There was the responsibility of running a company. When you're working for PBS, you have to have your own company. You don't just live at PBS and work for them. Oh.
Billy Aronson:So with a lot of responsibility, figuring out what to pay people and where to put the money and that sort of thing, which was challenging, but making something with people that you love. Jennifer knew a lot of the people, I knew a lot of the people that we brought in to animate it and to do the music, and to design things, and to come up with the props, and to produce us. Working with a team of people that you admire, and who respect what you're doing, and who love their jobs, who look it's such a great feeling. You know, it's a high. And to be able to create with that many people, and you're all working on one thing, and we did have a power structure, so Jen and I were at the top, it wasn't like they could do whatever they wanted, but within our instructions and within our, the thing, the scripts and the outlines we gave them, they seemed to work creatively and to be able to put their own heart into it.
Billy Aronson:That was How
Cathy:many episodes did you do of that show?
Billy Aronson:Okay. The first season was 60 was a hundred and thirty eleven minute episodes, which means sixty five half hours, but that means a lot of 130 stories, many of which I had to write, all of which I was responsible for. So yeah, that was when I needed to start getting medicated for anxiety. And then Aw. Also, yeah, it was charming.
Billy Aronson:But I'm so glad I was because I loved the job. It was worth it. Then Yeah. The second we had a second season, but it wasn't that many, but it might have been 90 more stories or something. Anyway
Cathy:Oh, yeah. What what was it?
Merry:What did you
Cathy:The Emmys.
Merry:Yeah. What did you tell me
Billy Aronson:thrilled. Well, I'll I'll honestly, I can objectively say I think they're silly. I think all these prizes, their shows are silly, but there are there's something arbitrary in their popularity contests, and the main thing is the joy of making what you make and being proud of it and knowing it's good even if nobody notices it, nobody agrees. They have the disadvantage of honoring some people in a show instead of everybody, so there are terrible things about them. But if you win, I love them.
Billy Aronson:I just love My my my Everybody does.
Cathy:Otherwise, it's very safe to put them down.
Billy Aronson:Right. Right? We all do.
Merry:So is the show in syndication at all? Does PBS show it around the world?
Billy Aronson:Yeah. It's streaming. It was around the world on the air. I don't know which countries are airing it now in which ways, but now everything is sort of when you make it, it's still there. You know what I mean?
Billy Aronson:Mhmm. So kids still watch it. They stream it. They put it on their phones and their devices that I don't even know what the devices are. So it's still out there, and they can't To take it
Cathy:expand a little on that, can you talk about how writing for TV, stage, and film for adult and kid audiences helps you flex different artistic muscles and keep your work fresh and exciting.
Billy Aronson:Well, does that. Sure, well, one thing about writing for the children's television, I got to write a lot of stories. Writing for the theater, you spend years with one story, which is great. You know, you're struggling to get it right.
Cathy:Oh, right.
Billy Aronson:And make sure it works, and make sure the actors are right and the directors are right so that it plays, and the audience will appreciate what you've done. At least for me in TV, was very fast and lots of stories, and I loved writing lots of stories. We chose a format that, you know, with problem solved, problem established in the beginning, solved in the end, and a tight format so that it was like jamming at the pia someone was jamming these chords that you recognize, but you can play all different solos to it. In fact, when you get comfortable, can do anything you want with those chords. You can turn them inside out.
Billy Aronson:And I love the chance to write stories where Peg and Cat could go anywhere, our heroes. So they could be helping Romeo and Juliet get from one person's window to the other using parallel lines, you know? Or they could be in ancient Egypt. They could be helping Albert Einstein. What fun to write those stories for a Superman parody.
Merry:And what a learning experience for kids and for you.
Billy Aronson:Yes. And for me, always for me.
Cathy:I think always Because maybe it's their first introduction to Romeo and Juliet or any of Yes. The other
Billy Aronson:That really was fun and surprise and as you say, I learned a lot through it. When you do something and it works, boy, that's a good feeling. Something you don't Did
Cathy:you really get need any to feedback directly from children? Did you ever get to meet some of the audience?
Billy Aronson:Sure. They would do official testing at different stages where you'd bring in a bunch of kids, and an expert would ask the kids questions after they watch an episode of the show. For me, I learn the most, as I do in the theater, just from watching the audience. So watching kids watch the show, I could learn a ton. I think it's really not that hard to tell when someone is interested in what they're watching or when they'd rather be somewhere else, especially with kids.
Billy Aronson:But even with grown ups who think they're so sophisticated, when they're watching a play, you can kind of tell if they're breathing in time with the thing or if they're just sitting back and and they don't get it. It's like when you're talking to someone in a conversation, you can tell if they're bored or not. When you're dancing with someone, you can tell if they like you or not, generally, if you're honest. For me, did test it a lot with kids, and I loved talking to kids about it. What did you like?
Merry:You remember any comments?
Billy Aronson:Oh, sure. Well, they loved the one especially where the pig there was one special we did where the world was about to be crushed beneath the behind of a gigantic planet sized pig. They really like talking about that. They always said cool things, and if they could sing the songs, to me it's more you know, they're not they don't need to be critics, and neither I think do adults. Just like if the kid can sing the song, they like it.
Billy Aronson:That's good. If the kid laughs at something, that's good. If they imitate it, that's great. You know, if they imitate a character, that's great. And sang with grown ups.
Billy Aronson:Could, you know, if they're singing your songs from Rent, they like the song. Yeah.
Cathy:That's
Billy Aronson:strange. If you ask someone to criticize you, they might get in their head a little bit. I mean, they might say something useful, but it tends to be more cerebral and less visceral.
Merry:Yeah. And probably not great advice anyway.
Billy Aronson:Well, you have to be careful with that.
Merry:Do you so do you think young people today are more or less drawn to the to careers in arts? And also, do you see any trends in new playwriting today or anything on the horizon?
Billy Aronson:Sure. The first part, in my neighborhood, least in Brooklyn, a lot of people are in the arts, but they're they're a little bit scared to slash traumatized by what's happening economically and money being taken away from the arts, and it's always hard in the arts. I mean, there's never a time when the world says to you, come on, follow your dreams, we'll pay you. Mhmm. So you have to be tough, and it's hard, especially when you're in your twenties, say, to you feel like your whole life is waiting on whether you succeed today or tomorrow.
Billy Aronson:That's a tough time. So I talk to a lot of young people. Parents put pressure
Cathy:on the kids.
Billy Aronson:Parents. Even hip parents. Even parents of themselves wanted to be in the arts. Yeah. You know, get a job, and I can understand that.
Billy Aronson:And you do have to find a way to make money, so you you don't have to worry all the time. But I still think if you're an artist, you're an artist. It's not something anybody should or could or should try to stop you from being. If you need to dance, if you need to sing, if you need to make beauty in a certain way, you're gonna do it, so why not enjoy it, and why not have the parents at least emotionally support you? Why does it have to be so hard at the family at Thanksgiving when you say what you're doing and they say, I'm a playwright and say, oh, thought bubble, what's he really gonna do?
Billy Aronson:How long is this gonna last before he know? Becomes a And often they would say, when are gonna become a lawyer? But anyway, you gotta be tough and deal with that, but the other question, you had two questions.
Merry:Any new trends in playwriting or musical?
Billy Aronson:I would say, I think actually musicals right now is an exciting time, more than in the theater. I think the most exciting works, new works in my lifetime, at least during my career, in the last twenty, thirty years, have been new musicals, Rent and Spring Awakening and things like that. They're just much more adventurous and interesting drama with hip music, sophisticated music, and that relates to now and that young people can relate to, and I think that's great. In the theater, I've seen less there's not a new movement. I mean, there's a wonderful diversity in the in the authors themselves.
Billy Aronson:Mhmm. So we're seeing experiences told about all kinds of backgrounds, which is great. But as far as a new, you know, form in the theater or a new writer who's so exciting that people are gonna come back to the theater to see this person, I'm not sure I see that yet.
Merry:Yeah. Mean, Lin Manuel Miranda kind of started a new trend, and now everybody wants to do that. He's
Billy Aronson:great. That's true. There's a lot of does
Cathy:it like he does it. No. He does it. You can't copy.
Billy Aronson:He's so good. Yeah. Right. It would not be useful. Yeah.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. But you could be inspired by him. I think we all are.
Cathy:Oh, yes. We read so much about the loneliness crisis in young people and across age groups in America. So how can the arts help moderate these feelings of isolation for folks of all ages?
Billy Aronson:Well, it's true for me, being an introvert, at first writing a play didn't take me right out of that because it allowed me to be comfortable with myself, but very soon I was having to present it to somebody, so there I I had to get out of my shell to beg people to be in my place, to pass them to theaters, you have to talk, and it's it's so it becomes a comfortable and a wonderful thing, think, just being able to talk about what you're doing. You're telling the truth. This is why I'm doing it. This is what I love and why I love about what you're doing in the theater, and why I wanna work with your theater. So there's that aspect of it getting out of your loneliness.
Billy Aronson:And I think that seeing a work of art that touches us as an audience, even if we all come alone, we're together by the end of it. It's thrilling for me when I go to the theater, like I just saw John Proctor's The Villain in New York. Man, it's an angry play, and I think everyone in the audience felt like you'd been through something together. You'd all been harassed together, and you groan together, and you cheer together, and I feel like something very intimate was shared with all of us. We're all a little bit naked with each other when we watched that play.
Billy Aronson:And others there are other there are plenty of others like that, where I go away talking like, wow, did you see that? Is your family like that too? You know?
Merry:Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.
Billy Aronson:That's I think art it's a great time, an important time for art. Not easy, but a very important time for the arts.
Merry:Yeah. And what do you what do you say to the older people who are trying still to be artists after many, many years?
Billy Aronson:It starts now. It can start any day. You never know when your career can start. If you read a lot of people, a lot of histories, some of them start near the end. Some of them write this one great work near the end, and it's remembered long after.
Billy Aronson:You know, it's not even discovered till after they're gone. It's beautiful, write it down. Kafka was I don't think was ever known during his lifetime as a writer. At least, and in often cases, people's best work wasn't known until after. So start today.
Billy Aronson:If you need to do it, do it. Do it now. You've got plenty of time. There's enough time. Just make
Cathy:it And make sure you tell somebody where the manuscript is.
Billy Aronson:Right. Right. Right. Right.
Cathy:And don't put it under the mattress. Right.
Billy Aronson:No. No. I would not you know, if you love it, get it out there. That's I don't know if people are shy about that, but you gotta share it with people. Rejection is okay.
Billy Aronson:I get lots of rejections. I always have.
Merry:It's so hard to get it out there. It really is because you are giving a piece of yourself, and it's it is difficult because it's it's like you said when you did the play, and they hated it. Yeah. That hurts. That hurts.
Billy Aronson:You gotta come back. You've just got to because if it's good, they'll find they'll get that. You've got to keep trying. I, you know, I I get rejections all I mean, nobody knows how many rejections Rent got, because theaters that that accepted it and worked on it talk about that a lot. The theaters that rejected it don't talk about it.
Billy Aronson:Every other theater in New York that did musicals rejected it. New York Theater Workshop had never done a musical. It was a big risk. So you've got to get rejected. I mean, Jonathan got mean, that's one thing I learned from him.
Billy Aronson:You know, believe in yourself, know that it's great, and and fight for it. Fight. And then people don't get it or if you screw up with one, try again. Try the next one.
Cathy:Yeah. There was a movie about his early days.
Billy Aronson:Yes. Yes.
Cathy:It was streaming on Netflix or something. It's about
Billy Aronson:three years ago. Tick Tick
Cathy:Boom. I couldn't remember what it was.
Billy Aronson:I thought Yeah.
Cathy:That was really enlightening, him sitting around the living room writing with his friends and just doing pieces of things, and
Billy Aronson:Yeah.
Cathy:That must have kind of torn your heart a little bit, right?
Billy Aronson:Well, I'll tell you the truth, I didn't see it because I saw it. It was originally a one act play that Jonathan did himself that I did see. He after we put Ren aside, he wanted to work on he wanted to try to tell that story all by himself of the artists, so he did something he could have complete control over, just him. He wrote it all, music words, lyrics, everything, book, and he acted all the parts, so in that version of it. So that was exactly his story of what his original rent.
Billy Aronson:And I thought it was very so I've heard that it's good, the movie of it, and that the play he's done play versions of it too, but I'd rather just see that. It does get a little emotional.
Cathy:Right. It's emotional.
Merry:I'd love to talk about writing your book, and also when people think about writing, it often conjures up the solitary pursuit with nobody else around, which is true. And yet, as you said, you have to go and present it to people. So how have you found community in writing in the theater other than presenting it? And what lessons can we learn from that?
Billy Aronson:You're saying in the community other than in the theater?
Merry:Well, found a community with the theater and with writing. Yeah.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. Friends. You know, I I find when you do a play with people, that's like being in the trenches together. I've become friends for life for those people. Even if I don't see them a lot after the play, they always wanna work with you.
Billy Aronson:They always wanna hear what you're up to next, usually, and I share my writing with everybody. I do a lot of yoga now, and I have a lot of young friends, That's so I love good. Yeah, I like young people. But yeah, there is the need for community and the longing for community in the arts. That is always a thing.
Billy Aronson:You're right. Some people join writing groups. I don't. I've joined writing groups at times, but I generally am so sensitive about knowing exactly what I want to do with my stuff that I don't need other people to tell me what they hear when it's not finished.
Merry:Yeah.
Billy Aronson:But I do have, you know, a loose community of friends in the theater, and a lot of my friends are writers somehow. In fact, all my friends in New York are working on something right now, so that's it's like a community.
Cathy:Yeah. Well,
Billy Aronson:that's It's a better question than I had an answer for because it is it is about having a community.
Cathy:But that is a good answer. I gave a great answer.
Merry:I guess you created your own community.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. I won it, I guess, is is the incorrect grammar. Wait a second.
Cathy:And how has the use of humor in your work then injected joy into your life and the lives of others?
Billy Aronson:Oh, humor is what it's all about in the end. Yeah? I didn't think about that. When I was first writing my plays in college, I was surprised when people laughed. But the only if there would be like a minute of a play that's good out of the whole play, people would be laughing at it.
Billy Aronson:So whenever I noticed, whenever something worked, this whatever I was trying to do, this quirky look at reality, at love or politics or power, whatever it is, if I got it right, people would laugh. It's it's sort of how I am, and I think it's it's very important because if I try to take that out, if I flatten it, it's not me anymore, and it's not good. It's it's that balance between looking at something very serious and intimate, but with a little perspective. You can see it in a fresh way that might make you laugh. Laughter is so great.
Billy Aronson:It's and I just love it. I don't like I worked for Comedy Central on a show for a while, and the idea of having to make people laugh, don't like, and I'm not good at it. I don't like the feeling of someone, like when they start, here's a joke. Don't wanna have to laugh at this, but
Cathy:kind
Billy Aronson:of when being led along, being told a story about people or people I care about and their quirks and how hard it is to be alive, to me, it's funny. I guess that's sort of my ultimate thing is I wanna capture the the weird how how funny and hard and scary at the same time it is being alive. It's just this strange, bizarre, formless thing, and it's hilarious at the
Merry:Are same now, you writing I hope?
Billy Aronson:Yeah. I'm writing it. Well, that's this new musical I'm working on is is very much that. Yes.
Cathy:Love more. Love more.
Billy Aronson:Yeah. It's
Cathy:Yeah. I can't wait.
Billy Aronson:It's about this you know, it's basically about the the end of the world, and it's strangely funny. Not jokes, not a bunch of silly jokes about Oh, this is
Cathy:not love war.
Billy Aronson:No, this is love war.
Cathy:This is love war. Oh, okay. Yeah. Truthless
Billy Aronson:and It's about yes. It's the war, the Trojan War that can end the world, end their world.
Cathy:Oh, I'm gonna come to the opening night. I can't wait.
Billy Aronson:Oh, okay. You'll be there?
Merry:Yes. I'll come
Cathy:I'll come too. Yeah. We'll come together.
Billy Aronson:Okay. Two comes.
Cathy:We'll a late boomers field trip.
Billy Aronson:Yay. That'd We'll be so much
Cathy:be to the New York the New York opening.
Billy Aronson:Okay. Absolutely. I don't
Cathy:to come to the
Merry:New York opening. Here we come.
Billy Aronson:That'll be fancy. All right.
Merry:So, Billy, talk about AI, what your thoughts are on that and how it's impacting the artistic life Yeah.
Billy Aronson:Now it's so weird. AI is just freaky. I don't have the answer about what it's gonna be, but it's I don't know. I was working on a project, an animated project recently that someone said they didn't have much money, but they could do it because the animation would be done by AI. In other words, we write a script that says in the same direction, she walks across a desert, and it comes up with a girl walking across a desert, and if you don't like it, you could change her, make her darker or lighter or talk.
Billy Aronson:To me, this is just my opinion, not the official word of late boomers, but it creeps me out. When I saw those characters made by AI, they don't have a soul, I don't think. That's how I feel. You know, a year from now, AI might be correcting me and saying, See, I do have a soul, jerk.
Merry:You have to infuse it with soul.
Billy Aronson:Right. From what I've seen, AI is I don't think it would replace animation or writing or music composition. I mean, great art, Beethoven, will it ever do something that refreshing and new? I can't imagine it, but then maybe I'm old, and so what do I know?
Cathy:Yeah, because people are using young people are using it to build new businesses and create new things, so you never know where it's gonna go.
Billy Aronson:Well, sometimes when I used to Google a question, I now find that it's going to AI, and you know, the answer's pretty good, but I will still then go further down and Google and see what an actual human's if these facts came from humans at some point. Don't think most people do that, though.
Merry:You ever use it in your writing?
Billy Aronson:No. I have never written using AI. I did, for fun, I was making a pitch. Actually, the pitch for the I needed a blurb, a one sentence or one paragraph blurb for our musical, and some Broadway producer said, Just run it through AI. See what they say.
Billy Aronson:For a Broadway musical with this story, what would it say? And I, you know, again, I I just don't think it would say anything useful to me. It said what a generic machine would say. Is it gonna pitch a If you want to pitch a show, it's got to be original. You want to surprise someone with your humanity and be funny and shock them.
Billy Aronson:People want something new. Why
Cathy:But pick something that's then AI, you can say make it new, make it funny, and it will adjust everything, so you never know. Yeah.
Billy Aronson:I don't know. That's true. I do not know.
Cathy:We don't know what we don't know.
Billy Aronson:I don't know what
Merry:I We don't don't know.
Billy Aronson:In fact, what I do know, I don't even know most of anymore. But we learn it frequently. Yeah.
Merry:I feel the same way.
Cathy:And, Billy, did we miss anything you wanted to discuss? And also, tell us what you'd like our listeners to have as a takeaway today.
Billy Aronson:Wow. Well, I hope people get my book. That is if you can get it out of my head about learning to affect people, to reach people through the arts. That's how I did it, and it's a lot. Mean, takes on all different topics.
Billy Aronson:So I write a lot, for example, about anxiety and depression, just dealing with that, or about writing for television, for children's television, about reinventing yourself, etcetera, redefining your mission. So if any part of it is interesting to you, maybe it'd be worth checking it out. And also, there's a lot more about Jonathan Morrison. I know he has fans out there, the guy who wrote Wren. So and you can get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and other than that, you guys have done an amazing job of talking about everything that I would want to talk about, and then some.
Billy Aronson:So
Cathy:Oh, okay.
Billy Aronson:I can't think of anything that I that you have that you missed.
Cathy:Oh, know, there is one there is one thing I think we Go ahead. You mentioned raising a family. Did you raise a while you were doing the arts all through this?
Billy Aronson:It's hard. That's a great question. Yeah, and that's a challenge. In fact, that sort of dictated why I did not want to keep doing shows that were not gonna get made when we were working on Rent, because my wife was moving to New York to be with me from Boston. She had a great job up there, and she So I really wanted to make it worth her time, make it worth her while, and make her proud of me, and make an income that would allow us to have a couple kids.
Billy Aronson:Is I that what
Cathy:you have? You have two children?
Billy Aronson:Yeah, they're 31 and 33, but they're still kids, Yeah, of course,
Cathy:of course.
Billy Aronson:But, so at that point, I started writing for TV a lot, and while while still doing my theater, which was hard, but I and you can make a living in the arts. In fact, I I write about that in the book. Using your craft, there are lots of ways to make money. Mhmm.
Cathy:So wow. That message. I love that message. Thank
Merry:you. Do too. I have I have one question about your kids, though. Are they in the arts too?
Billy Aronson:They're wise. So they're both artists. My son is an amazing jazz player, but he has a real job in branding, and my daughter also does a comedy at night in Chicago. She does improv comedy, but she teaches full time during the day, which is a lot of acting. She teaches second graders.
Billy Aronson:So they both have really creative, cool jobs. My son's job is he can do branding using music. He creates a sound for our company. So they found ways to mix the arts and life and have stable lives and great partners, romantic partners, and so I'm very proud of them.
Cathy:Oh, bravo.
Merry:Oh, yeah. That's terrific. Wow.
Cathy:Yeah. Thank you.
Merry:Well, we're looking forward to hearing more from you, Billy, and to seeing your new play and to reading your book out of my head.
Billy Aronson:Great. And don't forget, the opening night on Broadway, you guys are gonna be there. Right?
Merry:Yeah. We will be there.
Billy Aronson:Something sparkly. Okay. Good.
Cathy:Okay. I will.
Merry:Absolutely. Sequins and bright colors. How's that?
Billy Aronson:I want that. Good. I'll look for the sequence.
Merry:Alright. Thank you, Billy. Guest today on Late Boomers has been playwright and lyricist Billy Aronson. Billy's website and links to all his songs and press is Billy Aronson dot com. And next week, we will bring you another exciting guest.
Merry:Thank you so much, Billy. You're the best.
Cathy:Thank you for listening to our late boomers podcast and subscribing to our late boomers podcast channel on YouTube. Listen in next week when you'll meet another exciting guest, songwriter Dennis Welch. You can listen to Late Boomers on any podcast platform and look at our new website, lateboomers.us, where you could find all our episodes and descriptions of them. Please follow us on Instagram at I am Kathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins. And at late boomers, thanks again to Billy Aronson.
Billy Aronson:Woo hoo. Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at late boomers dot us. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
