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00:00Welcome, Todrick.
00:01How are you doing? Thank you for having me.
00:03Of course.
00:04So, first off, congratulations.
00:06You clearly have a huge hit on your hands with Midnight.
00:11How are you feeling?
00:12I feel on cloud nine.
00:14I mean, this is any composer or creator's dream.
00:16I came up with these characters in my imagination.
00:20And to find enough people to help me bring this to life,
00:23my manager, Karen, and I have gone
00:25and we've raised every dime that it's taken to do this show
00:28and to bring the characters to life
00:30and to watch people gravitating towards it
00:32and coming back to see the show nine, 10 times.
00:35We have people that have gotten up to the double digits
00:38of seeing the show again and to be extended to January
00:41is just like, it's more than I,
00:44it's not more than I could have dreamed
00:45because I want to get to Broadway.
00:47That's the goal, but it feels very surreal
00:49and I'm trying to make sure I remember that every day
00:52before I step onto the stage.
00:53So, I've seen the show twice, mind you,
00:56and you can't escape the conversation on social media,
01:00but for those who may not be familiar, what is Midnight?
01:04Midnight is essentially a fairy tale
01:07that's told in the 19th century and antebellum period.
01:11It's a story about 12 people whose lives are a lot more similar
01:14than they ever could have possibly imagined.
01:16And it centers around my character, Rail, who falls in love.
01:21It's more than a love triangle.
01:23I would say it's a love square of four people
01:26who fall in love with various people.
01:28And our stories intertwine and there's a big twist in act two.
01:32And it's really a story that focuses on humanity
01:35and offers people a cup of empathy
01:37and holds a mirror up to people to,
01:39if they are willing to suspend disbelief and go there,
01:42it gives them the opportunity to imagine where they are from,
01:46how they got to where they are and where they could have been.
01:48So you created the show, you conceived the show during the pandemic.
01:53Yeah.
01:53You were in an interracial relationship at the time.
01:56You're watching the Black Lives Matters protests and marches,
02:00and you decide that you want to write a play
02:05about an interracial love story during an opera, a musical opera.
02:09There's 35 songs, right?
02:11Something like 35 songs.
02:11Yeah.
02:12And you write a story.
02:13You knew that this would be provocative.
02:15Yeah, I think that my mind thinks about things
02:19from a very different point of view.
02:20So while I did think that it would cause conversation,
02:23it was not the conversation that it had sparked.
02:25Yeah.
02:26But I'm also grateful that it has sparked any conversation.
02:29I've gone to see so many musicals.
02:31My partner and I saw like 178 musicals together
02:34in the few years that we were together.
02:36And so many times we left and we're like,
02:38okay, we're going to go to Red Lobster or Applebee's.
02:41Like, it didn't make us want to sit down
02:43and have like thought-provoking conversations as human beings.
02:46And it didn't challenge us.
02:48And there's a space for that.
02:50I love those type of musicals.
02:52But I really like musicals like Hairspray that had like the bops in it,
02:57but it also made you think.
02:59And I love Disney movies so much.
03:01But Zootopia is one of my favorite shows,
03:04Disney creations, because it tackles homosexuality,
03:07misogyny, homophobia, all of those things.
03:10But in a through a lens that you're looking at animals experience
03:15something that humans experience.
03:16And sometimes you have to like step away from something
03:19to learn a lesson that was right there in front of your eyes the whole time.
03:22Well, what did it provoke for you while you were creating this?
03:25Because it is such a unique and nuanced subject to tackle the way that you did it.
03:30It made me have so many emotions.
03:32Some people said, you know, what is the story is about?
03:36Is it about homophobia?
03:37Is it about racism?
03:38Is it about classism?
03:40And every day that I wake up, I'm queer and I'm black.
03:43I don't know what it's like to experience the world through somebody
03:46who might not have any issues or might only have one obstacle
03:49culturally to overcome because I have to face both of those every day
03:53and face them in different ways.
03:56But AIDA was my gateway into the world of musical theater.
03:59It was the thing that inspired me the most to want to sing and dance.
04:02And that was an opera that was turned into a musical that Elton John wrote,
04:06but where Heather Headley's character fell in love with Adam Pascal's character.
04:09And it was the show that I got a job at Dallas for musicals.
04:12I watched it like 19 times.
04:14And the humanity and the fact that two people who could not be more star-crossed
04:19could fall in love in a world where it was an unimaginable romance
04:24is to me a story worth telling.
04:26Beauty and the Beast.
04:27I've done like 8 billion parodies.
04:29I did it at Disney World.
04:30I did a national tour of it.
04:31And she is somebody who is captured by the beast and falls in love with somebody
04:37who is so unlovable.
04:38And he's an animal, you know.
04:42But somehow, some way, there's a way that they find, they see each other's hearts.
04:48And that's what really speaks to them.
04:50And that was what was so fascinating for me to unlock.
04:53And part of the controversy right now is that people are saying that that's an impossibility.
04:58But I think humans have always been able to love other humans.
05:01There's a song on Broadway that says you have to be carefully taught to hate.
05:06You have to, we are not by nature creatures that hate each other.
05:11We have to be taught that.
05:12It has to be passed down.
05:13And eventually that hate path is broken.
05:16But it takes people who are outside thinkers, people who think on their own, and people
05:21who are willing to shut down everything, all of the noise that culture and society and
05:26pressure throws at us to say, I see you.
05:30And even though everything in me and everything my parents have taught and everything in history
05:34has said that we shouldn't love each other, somehow, some way we do.
05:37And I am a person that's such a hopeless romantic that I believe that that exists now and has
05:42always existed.
05:43Right.
05:44But, so you play Rail, as you mentioned, you play Rail, who is the slave who falls in
05:48love with a slave owner.
05:51What was it about that character that you connected with?
05:55Well, just to be clear, the character that I fall in love with is not a slave owner.
05:59I think he's a person who hires people.
06:01And in the show, we depict his staff that's half white, half black.
06:05He hires them.
06:06He doesn't believe in slavery.
06:07And I specifically set the story in 1865 because where our story ends on April 4th
06:12which just happens to be my birthday in 1865.
06:15Two months later, what we now know would have been Juneteenth, the slavery was abolished
06:19and half the country was at odds about this.
06:22White people were the ones that were going to be solely voting on this.
06:25And half of them were very, very specific that they did not want to be slave owners,
06:29which is why in history they say this person was a slave owner because that kind of helps
06:33you to understand that some people were fundamentally against that.
06:37But I think that he is my neighbor and he's somebody that I am very apprehensive in proceeding
06:44with caution with him.
06:46But through the things that we experience and the behavior that I see him exhibit towards
06:51other people who are standing on what I think is the wrong side of history, I allow myself
06:56to take down my defenses and give this person an opportunity to show me who he is.
07:01Why was it important for you to tell this story in the context of slavery in that time period?
07:08I think for me, you know, there was there were there were so many factors, but I think in
07:15order to understand where we are now, we to me, it's always best to like like Maria says
07:21in Sound of Music, let's start at the very beginning.
07:23And that is the place where we were at the most divided that we've ever been.
07:27And the seeds that were planted then are still in existence today.
07:31And I think sometimes we try to go back to the 1960, I mean, where we place Hairspray or
07:39where we place Memphis.
07:40But the root of it is in the 19th century, where we were as divided as we ever were.
07:45And when the conversation started to happen, should we treat these people with human dignity
07:50that we all feel that we deserve?
07:52And that's why it was important for me to put it at that place.
07:55And the last moment of the show where we talk about the things that have happened and how
08:00how long it would have been before today, I did that because while it seems like it's
08:05the dinosaur days, like it wasn't that long ago that this all happened.
08:09It's very recent history.
08:10It wasn't until the 60s that black and white people could even marry.
08:13A lot of people aren't aware that that happened.
08:16It was legally not allowed for us to be married.
08:19And obviously, you know, it was just a little over a decade ago before GATE marriage was
08:24legalized.
08:25And they've tried multiple times to retract that.
08:28So I think that it's important for us to see where we came from and how we got to this
08:32point to even have an idea of how we're going to change it for future generations.
08:37You mean, you literally are the Jack of all trades.
08:41You wear so many different hats.
08:44I love hats.
08:45Clearly, you wear many in this show.
08:47It's kind of hard to keep up because you really want to watch every single performer and their
08:51performance.
08:52And you are the director, producer.
08:55You wrote it.
08:56You wrote the score.
08:57You wrote the music.
08:58You're starring in it.
08:59How challenging is it to wear all those different hats day after day, night after night?
09:06It wasn't challenging to me because I've always been a person who had to, if I wanted to go
09:12on tour, I had to create that tour.
09:13If I wanted to make YouTube videos or a visual album, I did all of those things.
09:18So I've been studying, you know, on social media.
09:21And I think that Broadway is in a weird territory right now where we don't really know where
09:26we're going and everything is evolving.
09:28I remember going to Blockbuster back in the day and then there was like a Redbox phase.
09:31And then all of a sudden, everybody got on Amazon and Netflix and all of the streaming
09:35services.
09:36And I think to stick your heels in the ground and not evolve how we're making art and to
09:41be thinking about what is this going to do for social media?
09:44What kind of conversations is it going to spark?
09:46How do you get an audience of TikTok people that get their resolution in a minute and then
09:51they move on to the next thing?
09:52How do you keep them engaged?
09:54And I'm starring at ADHD, the musical H.O.S.
09:57a week on top of doing midnight.
09:59I'm like all over the place.
10:00That's the way my brain works.
10:02So I tried to make a show that for this new generation of people who would potentially
10:06fall in love with the score of Midnight, like I fell in love with Aida and with Hairspray
10:11and with Brooklyn, the musical and all those things.
10:14How do you, and Wicked was my number one show.
10:17How do you keep them engaged to the point where they would want to watch this and listen
10:21to it from top to bottom, learn the score, commit it to memory, reenact the characters,
10:26find the person they would want to be, dress up for them for Halloween.
10:29I mean, I think about everything from a brand's perspective and it's actually more difficult
10:33for me to write a song and not know how it's going to be choreographed.
10:37But right now, when I'm writing a song, I know when someone's going to point, when they're
10:40going to kick, what that kick is going to look like with certain fabric.
10:43And that helps me to paint one cohesive picture, potentially.
10:48But when you're on stage every night, you know, when you're like watching the other
10:51performers, I'm assuming you're trying to also pay attention to your show.
10:54And you're trying to pay attention to the other performers while you're also performing.
10:57Like, how do you do that?
10:59I kind of compartmentalize and I'm on stage.
11:01I'm like crying and snot's running out of my nose.
11:04And then I run off stage and then my assistant, Tyler, who's also dressing me, I'm like,
11:08Ayanna needs to be on six when she says this word, you know, giving notes when I come off
11:13stage.
11:13So I'm micromanaging and doing both things at the same time.
11:16But I've always wanted to be a parent and have like six kids.
11:19So this is your baby.
11:21Yes, that, but also I think the ability to be able to micromanage is like a must if
11:25you want to have like an army of, you know, little Todrick and Todrinas running around.
11:31So I think that that kind of helps with that, you know.
11:34What was your creative process like when you were actually creating it over these past five
11:39years?
11:39I'm assuming there were probably various iterations throughout that time.
11:43How did you, how did that work for you to walk us through that?
11:46I just, you know, started writing it.
11:48And originally I didn't know that I would be able to write an opera that was going to
11:51be comprehensive.
11:52I was like, this is a huge behemoth of a task to take on.
11:55It's an original story.
11:56There's no existing IP for me to take from to know what is the start, middle and end of
12:00this.
12:00But I also just wanted to challenge myself to see if people could understand the characters
12:05and know who they were, if it was all musicalized.
12:07And so I did that and we did it in Austin with young college kids and high school kids.
12:12And I was like, how are they going to respond to this?
12:14And they loved it.
12:15So then we did it in my living room in L.A.
12:17We performed the first act of the show in my living room.
12:20And then I went to the U.K. because I knew a lot of new work was being created there.
12:23And I wanted to be like spoiler free.
12:26And I wanted to, you know, get to try it out on a new audience because hopefully this show
12:31will eventually be on the West End as well.
12:33That's my goal, crossing fingers.
12:35And in every iteration, I learned new things about myself.
12:38I watched a lot of historical documents.
12:40I watched movies.
12:41I read books.
12:42I watched documentaries.
12:43But I also wanted there to be a level of whimsy because that's just so innately who I
12:48am.
12:48I love fairy tales.
12:49I love like things that are, you know, fantastic but real at the same time.
12:56The Green Mile was a huge inspiration because it's an epic film that feels like it could have
13:00happened.
13:01But there's a level of magic that exists.
13:02And I love stories that test like the human ability to like imagine what goes beyond like
13:10this experience on this planet and this dimension that we're living in right now.
13:14I love Black Mirror.
13:16And I was just consuming all this content that all I put in a blender and made like a musical
13:20smoothie of a lot of things that were interesting to me.
13:24And I just love that there's a level of fantasy in this time period piece.
13:28I read that you were around Taylor Swift a lot when you were creating it.
13:33In what ways does she inspire your creative process?
13:36I think she is just somebody who's a master at what she does.
13:39And she is so insanely creative, not just with her lyricism and the pictures that she
13:45paints with words, but how she puts like little Easter eggs.
13:48Like if Taylor Swift were here, she would have brought like a little clock or mouse or something
13:52to put it in the background just to get people in the comments talking about it.
13:56She's like a chess player, not checkers.
13:58And she's always thinking of the next move and the next thing.
14:01And so I planted a lot of Easter eggs in act one that help, you know, what that helps
14:07sort of like guide the twist that happens in act two.
14:10And people who come back to see the show for a second time say, I appreciated it so much
14:14more the second time because I knew what to look for and I knew what was happening.
14:17And I got so many surprises from that.
14:20And I designed the show to hopefully be viewed more than once by people who come to see it.
14:24So, you know, we've all read the headlines that you reunited with Scooter Braun.
14:29He's a producer on the show.
14:31How involved is he with the show and what's your relationship like with him now?
14:36I think that the situation with Scooter has always been like a very tricky one for me as
14:41somebody who was managed by him for over half a decade.
14:44But I think during the healing process of all of this and the pandemic, when everybody was
14:48posting black squares and talking about Black Lives Matter and he reached out to me and he
14:53said, there are some things I want to talk to you about.
14:55And he I went to his house and we sat down and we broke bread and he apologized to me
15:00for things.
15:00I apologized to him for things.
15:02And I walked away from it being like, what would how beautiful would the world be if everybody
15:06was able to go to somebody who they once looked at as an enemy?
15:10Because it takes a lot of energy to hate someone, to loathe someone, to avoid somebody that was
15:15such a huge part of your life.
15:17And I was just so grateful that I was able to, like, not look at that chapter as a completely
15:23negative chapter, even though there were negative aspects.
15:25But the entire book as a whole wasn't negative.
15:28And I wouldn't be who I am today without that chapter, even with all of its flaws and thorns.
15:34And and so when he found out I was doing this musical, he was like, not only am I proud
15:38of you, but I would like to be one of your first big investors because I always knew you
15:42could do this.
15:42And I've never seen Scooter cry.
15:44And he came to see the show and he was crying backstage and it was nice.
15:48And he's not somebody that I talk to every single day.
15:51I don't know how much trust there will ever fully be with somebody that you have such distrust
15:58with.
15:58But I love the fact that we are both making a concerted effort to try to be better humans
16:03than we were six years ago.
16:04That's the point of humanity.
16:05I've seen a lot of change in him, a lot of growth in him.
16:08And he said the same about me.
16:09And I am really grateful that we're that we're able to, like, collaborate on something.
16:14What I really appreciate about you, Todrick, is that you don't you don't shy away from
16:19criticism at all.
16:20In fact, you approach opening week tackling it head on, actually talking to your critics.
16:27Why is it so important for you to address the conversations that are people people are
16:31having about this show so publicly and to be so vulnerable?
16:35Yeah, there's a Black Mirror episode that is about social media and how real the effects
16:39of it can be.
16:40And I personally, seven years ago, went through a really, really scary time on social media.
16:46And I felt like I was like like I had handcuffs on me because everyone around me was saying,
16:51don't speak about this.
16:52Don't talk about it.
16:53It will go away.
16:54And the reality is that it never went away.
16:57And that narrative still existed.
16:58So when this happened, this is my baby.
17:01I'm never going to actually birth a child of my own.
17:04I'm never going to carry a child.
17:06And so I just want to protect this with everything in me.
17:09And I think it's a show that deserves to be heard.
17:12And so when I heard criticisms, I was like, I'm absolutely not going to repeat what I did
17:16in the past.
17:17I'm going to stand up and respectfully try to give my opinion.
17:22I don't want to argue with someone or try to make them like something that they don't
17:25because there are people out there that don't like Beyonce, which I think is crazy.
17:29You know, but when I hear that, I'm like, there's nothing out there in the world that
17:34everyone universally likes, you know, and so I'm okay with that.
17:39But what I'm not okay with is someone going on social media and declaring on behalf of
17:44everyone who exists on the planet that's black, that a musical is not for them, that it is not
17:49for their people, because I'm watching in real life every night, black people, brown people,
17:55white people, Asian people, old people, young people, queer people, straight people,
18:01all types of people coming into this room.
18:03And last night on the second row, there was this beautiful black lady who was like sobbing
18:07and this white gay couple gave her tissues and they were holding hands.
18:11And I was like, I wonder how they got here and how they know each other and met them after
18:14the show.
18:15They never met before each other, before that night, they were fellowshipping and I have
18:20a weird relationship with religion.
18:23But this show, people have said, feels like a form of church.
18:27It feels like what church is supposed to feel like.
18:29People who would never have thought they'd be in the same place next to each other aren't
18:33just coexisting and sitting next to each other.
18:35They're holding hands and touching each other and wiping tears off of each other's faces.
18:40And that's why I became an artist.
18:42And that's what art is supposed to do.
18:44We might have forgotten that, but that's the point of art.
18:48So, Tadric, what are the critics missing?
18:51I don't want to diagnose and say what they are missing because maybe to some people they
18:56come in and see something and they feel like, you know, people have come in and they said
19:00that even the opening image of the show is triggering and traumatizing to them.
19:05But I see beautiful antique mannequins with gorgeous, like lush costumes hanging off of
19:10them.
19:11And I don't think that people would be flippantly posting these images if they were triggering.
19:16I think that people have a desire to put things in a box that's black and white.
19:20And as we know in life, most things are gray and some form of gray.
19:24And if you can't recognize what's gray and what's clear and what's sepia and what's
19:28static and what's houndstooth and it just needs to be black and white to you, then maybe this
19:33wouldn't be the show for you.
19:34But I most certainly in 2026, when there are not a lot of musicals written by black people,
19:40most of the most iconic moments in theatrical history have been sung by gorgeous black actors
19:47and actresses, but they've been at the hands of white composers and they're singing gospel
19:51music that is translated through a white creator.
19:55So I might not be everyone's cup of tea creatively, but I think if you're a black person that supports
20:00musical theater, if you're a person just in general, we've extended till January 3rd.
20:05I think that you should never allow someone on the internet to think for you.
20:09The same discourse happened around the color purple when it came out and the NAACP got on
20:14board and said, this is not something that we should be supporting.
20:17And now, 40 years later, you can't meet a black person on the street and say, you told
20:22Hoppo to beat me and they not know exactly what you mean.
20:25It's such a huge part of who we are as a culture.
20:28And I think that everyone needs to think and experience art for themselves.
20:33And the tickets were really expensive before we knew that we were going to have this extension.
20:38But we have rush tickets every day.
20:40There are so many ways to get tickets to the show.
20:43And I think everyone should see it and come experience.
20:45It's incredible what's happening with the show and the response to it and the conversations
20:49around it.
20:49I've had a lot of conversations around it.
20:51I've had friends who have seen the show.
20:52And I have to ask you this because my friend told me to.
20:55He just so happens to be black and queer and in a interracial relationship.
21:00And he couldn't get down with the show, to be honest with you, because he thought that
21:05it was too whimsical in so many words.
21:07And he said that he didn't appreciate the revisionist history of slavery and how it seemed
21:14so fantastical.
21:15What do you say to someone who's seen your show and believes that?
21:20I believe that two things can be true at once.
21:24And I am a person who has always loved Disney and magic.
21:28And that's such a huge, like, in my DNA, if anybody's watched any of my artistry, there's
21:34always a level of whimsy and pixie dust there.
21:37I believe in magic.
21:38I believe in wishing and thinking of things that are out of this world.
21:43And the first introduction to me for that was Whitney Houston saying, but the world is
21:47full of zanies and fools who don't believe in sensible rules.
21:50But because these people exist, impossible things are happening every day.
21:54And I am living proof that someone who even believes in magic, whether that is there or
21:59not, I have believed coming from the small town of Plainview, Texas, that if I dreamed
22:03big enough, I would one day get to New York.
22:06I could one day have a show on Broadway when statistically it would be an impossibility.
22:12And so while I do think that there are some people who would rather the story be based
22:18in realism, there would be critics on the other side that would say it was too real.
22:23And in real life, these things could never happen.
22:26We're taking a lot of artistic liberties and licenses on things that could have happened
22:30in that show.
22:31And some people see O'Mary and they're like, this would have never happened.
22:34And some people say this would have never happened, but it's incredible to imagine if
22:38it could have.
22:38So I think people need to come in, if you come in with an open imagination and realize
22:43that there is a level of fairy tale that exists in that, even though it's based in a very
22:49real time and a very dark time in American history, if you're somebody who thinks you
22:54can appreciate the duality of those things existing in one place and one stage, I think
22:59that you would enjoy the show.
23:01What are you learning from the conversations that you've been having around your show?
23:04So one thing I'm learning is that the internet is the internet and reality is reality.
23:10And what I'm experiencing in the Daryl Roth theater every night is, is magic.
23:14I know that we were just talking about magic, but it is a form of magic.
23:17What's happening there is something, it's like an energy that can't be described.
23:21If you allow yourself to come in and be open to the pixie dust affecting you, you know?
23:26Um, but I'm also just learning that you have to understand that once you release art, people
23:33are going to interpret it 8 billion different ways.
23:35I'm a very picky eater and there are certain things I just don't like and some people can
23:39chug it, you know?
23:40Like, um, so I'm just learning that I have to ignore all the rules because I think the
23:46rules is what has, is what has been restricting Broadway as opposed to allowing us to be like,
23:52this is the wild west right now, nobody's making global successful hits like Hamilton
23:57was a decade ago.
23:58So we need to rewrite this playbook and imagine what Broadway can look like, what it should
24:03look like, what it will look like in the future.
24:05And if I'm a person that has to be respectfully disruptive to the system, then it'll be Todrick
24:11Hall.
24:11It'll be Todrick Hall.
24:12And some kid in the future will be like, Todrick Hall did this, what Jonathan Larson did,
24:17what Lin-Manuel Miranda did, what Stephen Sondheim did, what Andrew Lloyd Webber did when
24:21he brought Cats, which was the most preposterous concept that you could have ever thought of.
24:25No one would have thought that would be the successful hit that it is today, but it was
24:29because he believed.
24:30We know one part of your show, it's actually before the show, that really makes me smile.
24:34So Whoopi Goldberg, she comes over, you hear her voice welcoming people into the theater,
24:39and she makes it a point to say that you're seeing an original play by an African American
24:44queer artist.
24:45How does that make you feel every night, before you hit that stage, hearing Whoopi Goldberg
24:50say that?
24:51It makes me be full of joy.
24:54And there was a moment where I was like, maybe we don't need to say that I'm queer, because
24:57is that important to anyone?
24:59But I think that queer people and people of color both have to jump over hurdles that some
25:04people don't have to.
25:05And I am a double minority, I am both of those things.
25:08And I'm so proudly both of those things that I felt like it was really, really important
25:12to say.
25:13And it makes me feel really excited, because I think people come in and they watch the
25:17content, and they sort of sometimes forget that this battle for me to get from inception
25:22to this stage has been an insane journey.
25:25And I do think that if it was an easier story, or if I were a person who looked different,
25:31there
25:32are some doors that I could knock on that would open up more quickly.
25:34But people are apprehensive, and that's not something that my team and I are afraid of.
25:39We know what the hill is that we're climbing, but the art is undeniable.
25:44The ticket sales, the response from the audience is an undeniable, tangible thing.
25:49And we're not quitters.
25:51We're made for this.
25:52We are people who are very, very strongly and adamantly fighting to make sure that this
25:59gets on Broadway and that the world hears this story and its message.
26:02And it changes hearts and minds, because I think right now, in the political climate
26:07we're in, there is enough fluff on Broadway, and I think that there needs to be art with
26:12meat on the bones.
26:13It makes people leave, whether it's an uncomfortable conversation or a gushing one.
26:17It's a conversation, and that's more than we can say from some art that we sometimes
26:21see.
26:22And like I said, I think there's a place for all of that.
26:24But I hope that in the midst of it all, that Broadway finds a place for Midnight.
26:30As an African-American queer artist, what do you want black and black queer theater goers
26:37to receive from Midnight?
26:40How do you want them to receive it?
26:41How do you want us to receive it?
26:44I don't know that I want them to receive it in any way other than just to say, look at
26:49the sheer amount of work that has been put into the show to minimize something that has
26:54such intricate melodies and story arcs and characters and twists and turns.
26:58And what we have turned this bank into is such an experience that I don't want it to be put
27:05into a box.
27:06I want people to come away from it.
27:07And if they don't like the story, they can say, you know what?
27:10I like his story.
27:12But it inspired me as a queer black artist to write my own story because the world is
27:17wide open for you to write whatever story you think the world needs to hear.
27:21It's not for anyone to say, I don't think this story needs to be told at this time.
27:25This is the story that I, in my heart, artistically felt I needed to tell at this time.
27:30And there are a lot of people who agree with that.
27:32But I hope that it, that my story in some way, shape or form, not just the story I'm
27:37telling on story, but my story is Todrick Hall, a person who has faced so many obstacles
27:42in my career and has been tried to be put in so many boxes.
27:44I've been called a drag queen, an influencer, a Broadway performer, a villain.
27:51I've been called so many things, but I'm an artist.
27:54Well, how are you evolving?
27:56How have you evolved as an artist and a person?
28:01I think that I have just learned to take things a little bit more slowly.
28:05Like I used to try to crank out six videos a week and try to have so much content and
28:10like put me in coach type of person.
28:12And it took a lot of patience for me to sit down for five years and say, I believe in
28:16this show and I'm going to write every inch of this score, every stanza, every lyric,
28:21every internalized rhyme with, with love, you know, to, to write music for our people
28:27during that time and we didn't have an extensive vocabulary was a struggle for me.
28:32And then I found a way to write poetry to what I consider poetry for the black characters
28:37to write with the knowledge that they would have had at the time.
28:39And that was such a huge obstacle, but something that felt so rewarding once I got to the other
28:44side of it.
28:45And now I think that both sides speak just as beautifully.
28:48It's just a different texture on the musicality that they present.
28:52And I also have felt like so many times black people are on stage just to do the Whitney
28:59Houston, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Holiday thing to get up and screw out for the gods to be
29:04the Amber Riley of Glee.
29:06And this show allows, as you know, with its twists and turns for black people to, an actor
29:13to be able to be a villain and an ingenue, to be able to give Jennifer Holiday in the first
29:19act and Audra McDonald in act two, to show all of the colors and they're like vocal Rolodex
29:24and vocabulary.
29:25And that's just not something that we see often.
29:28The meat on the bones that the actors get to take on every night is so fun for the audience
29:33to watch, but also for the actor to partake in.
29:37We don't oftentimes get roles that challenge us in the way that this show does.
29:42So that's why even, you know, the actors are exhausted, but they're like, I'm not calling
29:45out.
29:46I want to be here every day.
29:47They want to be at work.
29:48And I think you've seen it twice.
29:49I think you can tell that everybody's like, I want to leave everything I have on this floor
29:53because the score is so fun for us to sing and the choreography is fun for us to do.
29:58And at the end of the day, like if we're changing minds and hearts and we're also having a great
30:02time bringing this story to life and telling the story every night, then there's just no
30:06better gift that, you know, that we can have as actors and nothing would make me prouder
30:12to have written.
30:13It's midnight living up to your expectations.
30:16And beyond, to be honest and beyond.
30:19I'm so happy looking at the controversy sort of in the rear view mirror.
30:25It's still here and people are still making content, but I'm happy that people are talking
30:29about Broadway and some people are coming just because they're like, I heard what this
30:33was about.
30:34I'm going to come there and make my mind up.
30:36And I think that we all like being black is not a monolith.
30:39We should all be thinking for ourselves.
30:40We should never let anybody about any subject matter skew our viewpoint and our opinion about
30:46what art is going to be.
30:47And so I'm really, really happy that it has been a gateway for so many beautiful black and
30:52brown kids that are like singing pretty eyes and wanting to come to New York.
30:56So many people have traveled to New York to see their very first musical off-Broadway
31:01because this show exists and has gone viral on TikTok.
31:04I mean, what more could you ask for?
31:06Our audiences are super diverse.
31:08I look out at the sea of people and I'm like, I haven't seen an audience this diverse in
31:12any theater I've been into in a very, very long time.
31:15And I'm just, I couldn't, I can't find the words to articulate how proud I am of that.
31:21Yeah.
31:21All right.
31:21Well, Todrick Hall, you can see Midnight at Daryl Roth Theater.
31:26It's running through January 3rd, 2027, hopefully hitting Broadway.
31:31Let's hope.
31:32And what are those conversations like right now?
31:33Do you know?
31:34They're happening.
31:35And that's, that's, that's all we can hope for.
31:37I don't want to get in trouble and say too much, but the Broadway's, their, their,
31:40their ear is perked up and hopefully we'll be back here doing this again, but talking
31:44about the Broadway experience.
31:46All right.
31:46Congratulations, Todrick.
31:47Thank you for talking to me.
31:48Bye-bye.
31:49Bye-bye.
31:49Bye-bye.
31:49Bye-bye.
31:49Bye-bye.
31:50Bye-bye.
31:50Bye-bye.
31:50Bye-bye.
31:50Bye-bye.
31:51Bye-bye.