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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. City Center's Encore's Off Center kicks off their new season with Jason Robert Brown's breakout musical, Songs for a New World, and we drop by the rehearsal room to meet the company
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I met a man and didn't know which stars to thank. And then he asked one day if I would be his wife
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And I looked up and all that I could think of was the life I had dreamt I would live
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And I said to him, what will you give? Is it like living in the world created by Jason Robert Brown
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Oh, that's my favorite world to live in. he and I have a very special relationship connection personally and musically so for me
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I mean I feel like he the type of composer who allows me or gives me the opportunity through his music to be 100 authentic and myself I don ever feel like I shifting to try to be something I not And one of the greatest gifts of his music is that I can tell a story
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Like every one of his songs is its own epic novel from beginning, middle to end
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So singing Jason's music is like putting on a Cinderella slipper. It's like the perfect fit
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I'll give you cars and a townhouse in Turtle Bay and a fur and a diamond ring
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And we'll get married in Spain on my yacht today and we'll honeymoon in Beijing
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And you'll meet stars at the parties I throw at my villas in Nice and Paris in June
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And I thought, okay. And I took a breath and I got my yacht and the years went by and it never changed and
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it never grew and I never dreamed and I woke one day and I looked around and I thought my God I never have the moon
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You know, the experience at Encores is sort of like being shot out of a cannon
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It's over before you know it. So the whole time you're just trying to get as much joy and figure things out as fast as possible
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And there's something really wonderful about that because it is spontaneous and you don't get a chance to second-guess yourself
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You just throw it up on stage and let an audience enjoy it. This is a dream. This is a dream role
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I've loved it ever since I've heard it for the first time and the idea that I'm singing the same songs as Billy Porter and Ty Taylor
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it just feels nuts. It feels amazing. How did working with this cast
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Oh, my God. I lucky because I have some friends in the cast and I have people who I always admired in the cast and then being able to work with Rennie and his dancers and doing adding something new to the piece it makes it feel like it a new work so that exciting for me Oh my gosh it a dream come true I always
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to be able to like be in the same room as Jason Robert Brown singing his music having him play I
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mean my god that's just so many bucket list moments I get to check off and I've always loved
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this show in particular. So this is a huge... Dream come true sounds cliche, but it's true
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What I love about the piece is that each song embraces the moment where a major life decision happens
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And to me, there's something really exciting about exploring that musically and also just working with Jason
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and the idea that this is a piece that is obviously very personal to him
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It's his launch piece. And so he has a kind of real mastery
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of what he wants to say on each piece. And he also has a lot of flexibility
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because he knows it so well, and so he's excited about different interpretations
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One, I love musicals. Mainly, I just love to go see them myself. And so being here and going through the process of it
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and watching how it all unfolds and how it all comes together, that's new, so I'm so excited about that
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And I'm really, really loving the score, the music, the whole nine
