Ethan Slater & Tom Kenny Chat About THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL on DVD

Hi, how are you guys doing today

Hi, Sarah. It's so nice to meet you. I'm Sarah. I'm from Broadway World TV and Film

Are you in New York? I'm in Philadelphia, actually. Oh, okay, cool

Thank you for talking to me today. This is so cool. So my first question that I have for you is if you could talk a little bit about introducing the show to a new audience

in the context of DVD and streaming, but also just in the context of the pandemic and the loss of

theater in general. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really incredible opportunity to add to the

accessible live theater thing when live theater isn't really a possibility. I think that what's

really exciting about this DVD and this film version of the show is that I think we really

thanks to Tina Landau, who directed it, and Glenn Weiss, who directed with her for this, for this

filmed production, I think it's really captured the liveness while still being filmed. And that's

something, you know, that that will never replace sitting in a live theater, but it is something

totally new also and exciting. So I'm hopeful that this not only sort of satisfies that need in some

way during pandemic, but also is part of igniting a generation of theater goers and people who

once we can go back to the theater, are going to be like, I want to be in the audience for

the SpongeBob musical. You know, I want to be in the audience for it. And I know that that's

what this is going to do. So I'm grateful that we are part of that wave

Yeah. And of course, when we filmed this, there's no way we could have known what was

what was coming down the pike, you know, and we'd be talking about it like this

that this would be literally like kind of a stopgap, you know, a pin in live, you know, theater going

and that this would be not a replacement, but some sort of a hopeful somewhat substitute

for going to see the show live. And my daughter, who's 17 in, you know

her drama class, stage pro class or whatever, is her favorite thing in the world you know distance learning in the room right next to me

uh they were supposed to see the spongebob musical uh you know as a field trip for their class like

like in and when it came to la and i'm like hey does your teacher know that i'm you know she's

like god no i didn't i don't tell him that you know so good you know so yeah i think they just

picked it at random as something that they thought these kids this spongebob generation of kids would

dig seeing a musical of which which it is but but but yeah it's it's uh wow it's it's funny like we

just we were talking earlier like i know that live performance is going to come back stronger than

ever because there's going to be this intense voracious hunger for it right like i mean people

are like geez i hope live performance comes back i hope you know live bands you know come back

like are you kidding me if it comes back you know this is a deep inner human need species wide need

right like there you know we were like wrapped in woolly mammoth skins you know putting on shadow

shows and stuff like like like like we need this now the problem is where are the venues going to

be at are they going to be able to stay open and that's that's where you know I really really hope

that some kind of assistance you know federal assistance in a big way uh comes along because go fund me and people giving you know 20 bucks or whatever they can afford here and there ain going to cut it for this

long-term thing. And, you know, but I think if the venues are there when we come out of this

and when there's a vaccine and people are able to go out safely and everything, people are going to lose their freaking minds. It's going to be awesome. You know, but, you know

it's it's uh get getting there the gap in between is really is really hard obviously i mean you

we all feel it absolutely yeah um so how much did you guys have a chance to work together to

create the stage character eat each other i mean obviously ethan was a generation spongebob kid but

but yeah they did uh put us together for some brainstorming sessions yeah i mean they're like

there was a lot that was that was just sort of uh inherent me learning from Tom and just trying to

uh take in as much as possible um and I I think that it was it was this experience of like

he created this character right like this is this is his other persona or this is other personality

and so um and so it definitely was this process of like trying to download as

coming from as possible and then take my own angle on it and

which does more justice to him than trying to do an impression you know oh yeah that would

have been a disaster if anybody in the show was merely doing impressions of of these cartoon

characters are just a whole different medium obviously like yeah nobody needs to see that you

know and nobody wants to no actor wants to just be that it's kind of be kind of unrewarding so

everybody in the show uh uh danny skinner with patrick and and everybody you know just uh

you know really took the the cartoon characters as their jumping off point for this whole other

version of the characters and that was what was really exhilarating for the cartoon boys cast to

watch when we saw it on broadway was that it you know it wasn't just somebody doing an impression

it was it was you know it was plus plus plus plus and that that was really uh that was really cool

you know just yeah just just so much fun and good vibes and and hopefully that will translate you

know when people watch it you know on dvd is that that the the show kind of traffics in good vibes

and and you know uh scary things happen sometimes but but we're all in this together and we'll see

it through and we all gotta uh you know i mean not to be too kumbaya about it but it's true you

know spongebob's right spongebob's right so it uh you know it's it's uh

again no way could could was any could anybody foreseen that you know what i mean it's like wow

this this like show just gets more and more applicable to current times you know as as as

the more things proceed yeah i feel like the best theater does yes absolutely you're so right yeah

you exactly right you exactly right sarah exactly um so the one of the cool things that i noticed watching this is you guys both kind of got the chance to open half of it so Ethan you open act one and Tom you open act two so like what was the

energy in the room like for those moments where you got to just like come on oh yeah that moment

of just coming on stage and feeling the audience with you and and ready to start the journey or

ready to continue the journey uh it's it's um it's the it's the best i don't know i don't know

that i think that for me um there's like a ton of fear right before that moment and so um it's just

you know the the relief combined with the exhilaration is just it's really wonderful

um but that was one of the special things about spongebob every time we did the show

every performance and when we filmed it you know that that excitement and energy was going both

ways we could feel it from the audience and we were giving it out just as much um so it really

was special i don't know was that is that your experience of uh opening act two well i you know

to what you were saying like like when i saw it in previews in chicago and then on broadway

a couple of times it um to me that was such a great moment was where you know after a year you

know after a couple other aborted attempts to bring spongebob to the stage as a musical or

whatever that just didn't didn't go the distance and probably uh deservedly so then this one that

does it right you know is there but there's still that thing of like wow you know looking at the

kids in the audience are they going to accept these human beings as these characters that they're

they're used to to seeing like you know in the forms like behind me and to me that welcome like

once they welcomed that iteration of the characters like and the kids were welcoming it

you know then it was like it was pretty instantaneous and and really heady like really

sitting in the audience like wow cool they're totally buying these actors they're accepting

not buying accepting these actors as these personalities this is great it's that's that's

the hardest that's the biggest hurdle that that you you'd probably have and once that once that's

cleared it was like wow but uh yeah I mean my job is usually to vocally embody SpongeBob you know

just to be his voice and then you know I know you know I've seen the storyboard and I I know what

what it's going to look like afterwards I know the animators and what they're going to do

uh you know been doing it for a long time so but really I only have to be really worried about this

and also servicing those drawings, plussing those, making those drawings live. And Ethan had to do that

plus transcend the laws of physics and what a body can do

So, you know, part of me was going, wow, that's amazing. Another part of me was going

damn, I'm glad that's not me. But, you know, it was fun being patchy. John Rua was patchy on Broadway

But it was fun. I got to be in a flying harness and get lowered down. And I'm not a Broadway performer, surprise

I'm not a Broadway guy at all so it was really on it was unfamiliar territory for me and a little bit

scary and exhilarating you know maybe the way that being Spongebob was for Ethan early on in the

stage process and so you know it was really fun and they were so beautiful and supportive and

such a great team unto themselves like like by that time they had done the Spongebob show by the

time it got filmed it was like they were like this pit crew you know like at the indie 500 like they just they just it was beautiful machine like just ultra stylized you know just the greatest yeah

um so the i think the show does an amazing job of making politics adjustable for kids

how do you think it will resonate differently now than it did when you were performing it live

or do you think that it will um really really good question i mean i think to your point that

good theater always feels um of the moment i think that this show always has felt of the moment i

think there was already sort of this bend towards like believe scientists this bend towards like

let's like it's it's really dangerous to scapegoat a member of your community it's really

important that we respect everyone and we love everyone and we try to lift up everyone and save

everyone as opposed to uh you know casting aspersions and like blaming um and that felt

really important when we were running it's always feels really important it feels it felt

unfortunately uh prescient and of the moment i think now we have the added bonus of um everything

feels more extreme and so all of those things are hitting home in a in a way that feels bizarrely

more acute um little things like everyone has to stay inside because of mountain humongous

feels like oh i guess that wow i guess um i guess we were on to something no it just it feels weird

it is crazy it is crazy and and it's funny though like i hadn't thought about this before but

I think if you were, if you saw this show in the sixties or the seventies or the eighties or the

nineties, you'd probably feel the same way. Like, like, like, you know, there, there was a lot of

social upheaval and, and, uh, things going now. It does seem more extreme now acute, acute to use

Ethan's word. And, but, but it's been a long road to, to where we're at now. Like, like it didn't

you know, everything happens incrementally. And, you know, I mean, I graduated from dating myself

I graduated from high school in 1980 and I could, I could see a change happening. You know what I

mean? Well, there you go again. Yeah. You know, I could see the change happening and, and then

and then I've seen it just get more and more extreme to the, to where we're at now, where

we're all locked in our houses and screaming at each other and denying science and and um uh

it it yeah it did seem it does seem like a a show that's of its time but you know when Spongebob

was being created as a cartoon and when the Broadway show was being formed all that stuff

was in the ether already like it didn't just happen so you know it's it's a it's it is quite

amazing how how it does feel very of the moment even though it's been in the incubator for years

yeah yeah well that's all the time i have but i really appreciate you talking to me today

have a great rest of your day thanks sarah yeah i love philly bye me too bye