[intro music]

ELYSA GARDNER: Welcome to Stage Door Sessions, by Broadway Direct. In this podcast, we have in-depth conversations with Broadway’s brightest, bringing you what’s new, what’s noteworthy, and what’s coming next to a stage near you.

I’m your host, Elysa Gardner, and this season we’ll be speaking with some of the artists and insiders who are continuing to help Broadway rebound and thrive after the shutdown. Today I’m joined by a couple of actors from Second Stage’s much-acclaimed revival of Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out, currently on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater.

One of the actors joining us today is Brandon J. Dirden is returning to Broadway after appearing in Skeleton Crew, Jitney, All the Way, Clybourne Park, Enron and Prelude to a Kiss. He also won Obie, Theatre World, and AUDELCO Awards for his performance in an off-Broadway staging of another August Wilson classic, The Piano Lesson. And Brandon’s other off-Broadway credits include productions of Julius Caesar, Peter and the Starcatcher, The First Breeze of Summer and Detroit ’67, and he’s been on TV series such as “The Good Wife,” “For Life,” “The Get Down,” “The Quad,” “The Accidental Wolf,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Americans,” where he played Agent Aderholdt.

We’re also joined by Eduardo Ramos, is making his Broadway debut with Take Me Out. His previous theater credits include productions of Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike and Bodas de Sangre, for which he was awarded the Premios ACE for best new actor by the Association of Latin Entertainment Critics of New York. Eduardo’s TV credits include “Alternatino with Arturo Castro,” “The Deuce,” “Kevin Can Wait” and “Inside Amy Schumer.”

Brandon, Eduardo, thank you so much for joining us today.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Oh, it’s our pleasure. Thanks for having us. 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Thank you for having us Elysa. 

ELYSA GARDNER: So I’ve been starting episodes by asking everyone what these crazy past two years have been like. I believe this production of Take Me Out was originally supposed to open in the spring of 2020, and then of course the pandemic hit. So tell me a bit about that and what followed at that point. 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Wanna start Eddie? 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Sure. Yeah, we came together in February of 2020, and I got to say that there was chemistry right from the start. Again, I might be romanticizing a little bit because it’s in our past, but the room felt good pretty much right off the bat. And we had a great three weeks of rehearsal together. We were really looking forward to making this happen. And throughout that whole time, there was the lingering joke about, about coronavirus and, and all that. And sure enough, as we got into March, the virus was starting to spread, things were shutting down and I want to say maybe like the 11th of March or 16th, around then, our wonderful theater director, Carole Rothman, came into rehearsal and said, “Hey guys, unfortunately, this’ll be our last rehearsal. We think we’re going to take about a two-week break and let this virus simmer down and we’ll see you in two weeks, we’ve spoken to your agents. Everyone’s cool with pushing everything back two weeks and all right, let’s get back out there.” [chuckles] And, and then two weeks became two months and then two months became, “Guys, we don’t know when this is going to happen, but we really want this to happen and we want all of you to be a part of it, and c’est la vie.”  

ELYSA GARDNER: Mhmm! [chuckles] Brandon, do you have any memories you’d like to add? 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting and I think it was probably a godsend that we had, we had started this before the pandemic shut us down because it kept all of us having something to look forward to on the other end of this thing. I know so many actors who were just out of work with nothing to look forward to and no prospects and just the uncertainty. But this theater, Second Stage, and Scott Ellis, our director, in particular, he was so communicative the entire two years and we have a text chain with all the guys on the text chain. And so, if you scroll through our text chain, you see, you know, some of the cast members had children during the time and other major life events. And so it was just really nice to have this extended community, even though we weren’t able to share a space together, that we were still in constant communication and just full of hope that one day we would be able to bring this incredible story, you know, back to Broadway whenever the time was right. You know, it feels like divine timing, actually that we’re back here. The story, I mean, since we shut down, so many things have happened in our country – in our country, so many reckonings, so many questions that the countries had to ask of itself, you know, during that time that we were all in quarantine, you know, through, you know, the racial strife, the, you know, just the questions about our democracy at large, how we treat one another, the questions of xenophobia. And so what’s happening is I think Richard Greenberg, in his imminent brilliance and prophetic wisdom, has given us a play that is lockstep with some of those questions that we had to wrestle with during quarantine, it’s brought here to the stage, you know, through America’s greatest pastime in baseball. So it, it really does feel quite divine that we’re opening the, you know, this play at this time. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. I mean, it feels incredibly topical right now, the premise of this superstar athlete coming out as gay, I’m referring to Darren Lemming, the baseball player played by Jesse Williams in your production. I don’t think it was exactly shocking at the time, but certainly, this was before some advances in civil rights that were made in years that followed such as the legalization of gay marriage nationally, but, you know, the struggles continued, the ones you’ve mentioned and the law and politics are fluid as we were reminded very recently with a certain Supreme Court leak.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Oh boy.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. So how do you think the play either, obviously it still resonates, but speaks to people differently today, and was that something, it does seem to be something you addressed, with the director Scott Ellis and Richard Greenberg, the playwright? 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah. And I just want to be clear, how does this speak differently today than it spoke 20 years ago? Is that the question? 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. Or, or how does it, how does the resonance continue? And, you know, also, you know, what, given how prophetic Richard Greenberg was, you know, what, what that’s like, how that strikes audiences, you know, 20 years on, cause I’m sure people are seeing this play, some people seeing you are seeing it for the first time. 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah. You know, I use the word prophetic and, and I think that, you know, that might be accurate. But I think as, as I think about a little bit more, Elysa, I think what makes Richard remarkable is, is not this necessarily, this, this, this gift that is beyond as in the gift of prophecy or say, but it’s really the gift to be paying attention to the essential questions. And when you’re paying attention to the essential questions and whatever moment we’re in, I think those questions will have resonance for years to come. And so I think that’s what he was more so tapped into, is like the essential nature of what it is to question a superstar athlete like Darren coming out as gay, and especially a biracial thing. So what is, how does race factor in our relationships here in America, right? And I think what he’s saying is if we don’t pay attention to these things, if we don’t really interrogate these things, then they’re always going to be a problem for us, right? If we are afraid to interact with these ideas. And so, I think that it’s always timely because the questions that this play poses are just essential to our makeup as, as people in this country. And so now looking at it, I was, you know, I was lucky, actually, this was one of the first Broadway plays I saw 20 years ago, I saw the original production…

EDUARDO RAMOS: Oh cool.

ELYSA GARDNER: Ah!

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah, and I was in grad school and I just, it was amazing. It was so – I went out and I bought a copy of the play right after I saw it because it’s just, the acting was so great. I thought people were just making it up, I said, “there’s no way this was written, people up there just freestyling.”

[laughter]

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: And so I bought a copy of the play then and I just was just struck by the clarity of thought and ideas and, and, and that there are no easy answers in the play, but I just, you know, more questions for us to, to ask of ourselves and of each other. And I think that’s where real progress is happening. And so coming back to it 20 years and how does it sit with me and hopefully audience members now in one way, it sits with me saying, “oh, you know, what, I was asked these questions 20 years ago and what have I done in those 20 years to address these questions?” And so it’s, in one way, it’s more of a, a kind of a check-in for me to say, am I learning the lessons? Am I doing the work necessary to, to try and move humanity forward? Right? And then again, you have audience members who – of another generation who didn’t see the original, who are seeing this for the first time and now get to be in conversations with them and they get to be in conversation with our past and our present and hopefully have, you know, make better choices for the future.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. Well said.

EDUARDO RAMOS: Yeah, well said. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah, did you have something to add Eduardo? 

EDUARDO RAMOS: I think Brandon did an incredible job of breaking that down. I guess one of the things, it almost, not that it means more now because it was, from what I understand, it was extremely impactful when it came out. But now 20 years later, a lot of the topics that are discussed in the play are in our news, are in our, in our conversations constantly, I feel like, and to be able to bring that together into a, in sport…

ELYSA GARDNER: Mm.

EDUARDO RAMOS: …which is another layer of, of constant conversation amongst, you know, amongst friends, amongst people. So when you mix social issues that pose big questions also with, with sport and what that does and how sport brings people together and then how topics that may be, might be uncomfortable for some people, but yet you come together to play, to play this game or to watch the game or to enjoy the game. And can you, almost stand by your athletes…

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Mm.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah.

EDUARDO RAMOS: …and what they’re going through? Because one of the main things about Darren, in the play is that he is such a good athlete. he is essentially the best player in the league and for him to come out as gay it also, it poses a, is it a problem for the, for the team, the New York Empires or for major league baseball that he is so good that they can’t… he has to play, he’s, he is the face of the league. And will the league stand by that, will his team stand by that? And I think that’s huge and I think that that’s something that moving forward is, will be interesting to see if we get to see that in our lifetimes. An athlete who is so good at their sport, who is completely comfortable with also coming out, if that is what their, their sexual identity is…

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah.

EDUARDO RAMOS: …to see what that does to the, to the playing field and what, how that affects people’s thoughts about it. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah, no, I’m glad you mentioned sports, cause that’s obviously a big part of the play and it also occurred to me, you know, you all played baseball players, members of the team, even though your character is on a different team, Brandon, and this is very much an ensemble play and you have a director in Scott Ellis, who’s overseen many classic ensemble pieces from 12 Angry Men to Company. So I’m curious, did you get into any of the parallels between team sports and that kind of comradery that you have as actors that theater can also demand in a piece like this?

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Oh yeah. You know, actually, Elysa, that was our first week of rehearsals was, was training camp.

EDUARDO RAMOS: [chuckles]

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: So it was quite literally, we got into those parallels. There was a, there was a, a fundamentals indoor baseball camp, I think it’s on the Upper West Side if I remember correctly. 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Yeah, yeah.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: That we spend about, what is it, almost a week, right?

EDUARDO RAMOS: Yeah, we did that first, those first five days we were, we were at the training facility.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: And that’s how we really got to know each other, not through the text, not through acting, but through us learning the fundamentals of baseball and some of us becoming or reminding ourselves of the fundamentals of baseball. And so, you know, we took batting practice, we took fielding practice and talked it up with some baseball coaches who had been professional athletes. And so just really getting a sense of, of, of that world more so than the world of the theater. And so that’s that, that was our foundation. I thought that was a brilliant move by Scott because it kind of put us all on a, on a level playing field, you know, within our cast, we have so many different degrees of experience in terms of the Broadway stage. We have people like, I don’t know, myself and Ken Marks and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who’ve done multiple Broadway shows, and then you’ve got fantastic actors, like Eduardo on this call, who’s, who’s making his Broadway debut or Jesse Williams is making their Broadway debut, right.

ELYSA GARDNER: Mm.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: And so, and so there’s varying degrees of comfort level in terms of on this Broadway stage, but we were all kind of on ground zero, [chuckles] you know, in the, in this training because none of us are professional athletes. Eduardo happens to be one of the better athletes on the team.

EDUARDO RAMOS: [chuckles]

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: He actually played, you know, sports. I think he was mentioned to YOU earlier that he plays lacrosse…

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah!

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: …and so we’re all jealous of his athletic prowess in those early days, but it was still kind of an even playing field that none of us are these professional athletes and it was, I think it was just a great way to, to just lean into our insecurities, all of us, you know, together and form a team and do a lot of bonding. It was a, it was a really special experience that I think gave us a great groundwork and foundation for the relationships that you continue to see every night in the Helen Hayes Theater. We really are a team. 

EDUARDO RAMOS: A hundred percent. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah.

EDUARDO RAMOS: It was, it was a genius idea by Scott, because for example, for me who, have zero Broadway experience but have pretty a thorough athletic background. It was, for me, it was just such a beautiful experience because it was also how I, how I discovered theater. It’s how I discovered acting. I discovered it through sport. And then when I first began studying acting, I really realized how similar it was, to team sport training. I mean, when you’re getting ready for a play, you have a group of individuals coming together with one common goal of producing a product of displaying, of expressing your art of telling a story. And when you’re on a team sport and your objective is to come together as a team with individual roles to produce a product of a victory essentially, and come up with a plan and execute that plan. So the, the comradery is, is really similar. And, I also, I also really enjoy literature, so I’ve really found acting in theater itself just a great mix of my aptitudes and interests…

ELYSA GARDNER: Mm.

EDUARDO RAMOS: …and then to be able to do a play like this, where I can bring some of my natural physicality from, from athletics and also my love of baseball. I, my, my family’s Cuban and Cuban culture is, is rich with baseball.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah.

EDUARDO RAMOS: And that was, I mean, my memories as a child are going to Yankee Stadium with my dad, with my parents, those dynasty Yankees that the play is somewhat taken from is, that’s when I was really watching baseball. So to have that all come, be presented as something that I get to perform is just incredible. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah, yeah that’s great. It’s nice to be able to bring that all together. I’d love to address your individual characters just a little bit. Brandon, you play Davey Battle who is Darren’s best friend, though you play on a rival team. I have to say I found your character’s evolution pretty chilling. [chuckles]

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: [chuckles]

ELYSA GARDNER: You are extremely charming and charismatic with just that hint of judgment or even a little menace, that becomes more than a hint. I won’t say any more than that, for those who haven’t seen it. And yet, you know, clearly, he’s fought his own battles, with no pun intended.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: That’s right.

ELYSA GARDNER: Is it a challenge to play this role without revealing him to be just unfaithful to his friend or simply villainous? Because you know, he is so much more complicated than that and your performance certainly reflected that.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah, thank you so much for that. It’s not a challenge when the, when the writing is this good. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Right. 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: You know, and I think the structure of the play, and this is not a giveaway, but some of the scenes take place out of chronological order. Right. And I think that is a great strength of this play, is that it’s a, it’s a puzzle. It’s almost, it’s a mystery, it’s a whodunnit almost. What Richard Greenberg does is challenges, our perceptions, the audience’s perceptions of who these people are. We think we know someone and then things are revealed later. Even if they add a sequence, things are revealed later to say, “oh,” and then we have to rewind and replay moments in our head through a different lens. And I think that’s probably more accurate to life, right, than just a straight narrative and showing you the whole cards right up front. And you’re thinking, “okay, I know that person is and how they behave.” I think life is just more nuanced and more complicated. And that yes, we operate to the best of our ability with the information given, but it’s to say that we don’t know everything. And so we have to leave some space for curiosity, right. In order to, in order to be in relationship with people. We can’t assume that we know someone fully. We can’t ever assume that, no matter how much time we spend around them. And I think we, we always must remain, I guess curious, and I think that’s one of Davey’s, my character’s, that’s probably his Achilles heel, that he thinks so much of himself and, and in his perception and the way he can read people that he makes a great miscalculation about who his friend Darren is, right, and what their relationship is. And I think, you know, all great plays, are cautionary tales in my opinion. So when you ask, is it difficult, it’s difficult because of the, some of the conversations that we have to have in this play. And some of the places that I have to go to, cause I feel like, you know, Davey feels like he’s betrayed as well, you know, just as much as anybody else in this play. And so that is difficult to be able to render that truthfully. But what I take from the evening, you know, the totality of the evening and my character’s arc and how it fits into this play, I take great satisfaction in knowing that hopefully we’re challenging someone else’s, in the audience, somebody’s idea of what they thought is the truth, and to make us more open to constantly being exploratory in our understanding of humanity. So, and it’s more joy than it is labor. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s a great point you make that he feels he’s betrayed, you know, I mean, I thought that was very palpable, and that made him even more human and sympathetic to me. Eduardo, your character Rodriguez is a Latino who speaks Spanish and he has some very funny moments on stage…

EDUARDO RAMOS: [chuckles]

ELYSA GARDNER: but he’s also an outsider, he’s another outsider, which is reinforced by another character who’s bigoted, uses bigoted language to refer to him. And he seems closest to another Latino character on the team, which gives you a, a sense that, you know, perhaps they’re also alienated in some way or that, you know, certainly they’ve been subject to the kind of, different kind of bias and bigotry that is experienced in different ways in this show. Were those factors that you and the director discussed a lot? 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Yes. The, you know, when you glaze over it at first, what you see is Rodriguez and Martinez, we kind of play more of, into the comedic relief of the play.

ELYSA GARDNER: Mhmm.

EDUARDO RAMOS: And then as you start to peel the onion back, you, you start to see really what it’s like inside, what a clubhouse of a professional baseball team would be where Rodriguez and Martinez we’re, we’re Latin ballplayers, I, I’ve chosen since my family is Cuban, that my character is from Cuba and Hiram Delgado’s character Martinez is from Puerto Rico because he is, he’s Puerto Rican. So, you know, two people from two different countries who speak the same language, who don’t speak the language of the majority of the, of the players on the team or the country are here to do a job and they’re here to win and play baseball. And you also have someone like Kawabata who’s played by Julian Cihi, who is a Japanese ballplayer, he’s a Japanese pitcher.

ELYSA GARNDER: Right.

EDUARDO RAMOS: and he’s also completely isolated from everybody because whereas, Martinez and I, we have, we have that comic relief and that brotherhood together within the team, Kawabata is completely alone. And since we don’t understand what he’s going through, as Martinez and Rodriguez, we don’t understand what’s going on in his mind, we’re just pissed that he’s not performing the way he should be performing. And that also, that creates another layer of conflict within the play and essentially is what calls up Michael’s character, Shane Mungitt. So we’re all flawed individuals really and we’re all, we’re all very human. We have, we have our struggles and we make our mistakes. And some of these mistakes unintentionally or intentionally cause great havoc throughout the story.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. Have either of you gotten particular feedback from audience members who either relate to your characters or on the other hand have issues with them maybe?

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: [chuckles] Yeah, absolutely. You know, I tell you, I don’t go through the, main stage door cause I’m afraid of being pelted by rocks and beer cans. Let’s just say we have an audience, a fan base who is very territorial when it comes to our lead actor, Jesse Williams [chuckles]. No, I’ll tell, you know, it’s, I think our audiences have been certainly appreciative of the, of the story and the evening of theater that they witnessed and they have very strong feelings about it. And, you know, I get the comment, “oh, I couldn’t – you, you, you know, you just ripped the rug right out – I couldn’t stand your character at the end. I just, how could you do that to your friend,” and this and this, and it’s, you know, and I’m, I’m, it makes me smile secretively inside that, you know, they had a journey. And I think that’s what the theater is about. And I think, yeah, you know, you spend all this time and money and you want to go on a ride. And I think that’s what this play does. And just the feedback has, has been so robust and one thing that I’m constantly proud of, is it, it totally, it exceeds expectations. I think there’s a, a certain sector, we could probably say this truthfully, that there’s a certain sector of the audience members who come for something in particular, you know, they heard it’s going to be a couple of shower scenes [chuckles]

ELYSA GARDNER: [chuckles] I’ll ask about that.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah, you know, those gentlemen they do deliver, but what they, what they leave with is so much more than what they bargained for, right. I mean, it’s a, it’s a real doozy of, of a, of an experience. And so the feedback has been pleasant in that they want to engage more about the topics of the play and the questions of the play, as opposed to just the low-hanging fruit and the salaciousness of seeing a nude body on stage. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. And Eduardo with your character?

EDUARDO RAMOS: It’s beautiful to see the diversity that this play brings out from our audiences and the multi-cultures that, that we get. It’s always wonderful to speak to audience members who A. who understand what, what Martinez and I are saying…

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: [chuckles]

EDUARDO RAMOS: because we are, we are speaking in Spanish [chuckles] so there are quite a few people who do not know what we are saying. But, you know, when they do it, it’s wonderful. And to have people, you know, just give you a shout out like that and say like, oh, you know, it’s, it’s wonderful to see Latin actors on stage speaking Spanish and representing their cultures. And, you know, that’s one of the beautiful things I think about, about Latin ethnicity, it’s multi, multicultural, and it’s got all different kinds of flavors and, you know, we are sprinkling two different types of that flavor on the stage and it’s great to get some feedback from that.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: You know, what I love about that in particular too Eduardo, is that Greenberg, like a lot of this, the dialogue that you all speak, you and Hiram speak, that it’s not, we don’t get subtitles or we don’t get a translation for it, right. And I love that so much, right? They say that, I mean, language is, is such an important idea in this play in particular, how we communicate, who has the right to communicate, who has access to things because of the way they can communicate, or who’s denied things because they can’t communicate in a certain way. I mean, Richard Greenberg is just such a verbose. His language is as muscular as the athleticism of these men and of the sport.

EDUARDO RAMOS: Hundred percent.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: And I love that we have to come into your world without explanation, right. And it says, that’s part of the culture too, that’s part of America too because this country is for, and it’s built by and it is, it contains a multitude of things and not everything you’re gonna – you don’t have the entitlement to understand everything, but you must accept that this is a vital part of, of who we are and I just love that we don’t have to explain things in order to justify it. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. Oh, that’s, that’s a wonderful breakdown of the play in a broader sense, you know, with all it does, in addition to all it addresses in addition to being really funny and entertaining. So, I feel a little silly asking you a question that, Brandon, you mentioned a shower scene earlier, I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times and I don’t think Brandon, I think you’re spared this part of the show. 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: I am indeed – no, I think the audience is spared.

[laughter]

ELYSA GARDNER: But a lot of attention has been given to the fact that there is some nudity on stage when players are showering. I don’t know whether to ask you if this was a challenge or if you’re sick of being asked about it, you can choose whichever question you want to answer. 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Well, again, first, I’m going to, as Brandon has been doing, I’m going to give Richard Greenberg here a quick shout out, because although we are completely naked on stage, the amount of feedback that I have gotten about the shower scene, how great the scenes are, that they’ve, the audience finds themselves watching us, listening to us, and watching our interactions versus, as we could say, the, the low hanging fruit. [chuckles] Yeah, so, and that’s, that’s, that’s because of Richard and, and also because of Scott. Scott knows what, what the play’s all about. They created a scene there where, although we are front and center, that people are listening and they’re, they’re focused on what’s going on and how the story’s moving along. And I just think that’s wonderful. And I guess in the beginning when we were getting ready, it was certainly a whole lot of adrenaline, especially during tech rehearsal, when you’re nervous about the water temperature…

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: [chuckles]

EDUARDO RAMOS: if it’s going to be, if that water’s cold, especially when the theater’s cold and it’s still like 20 degrees outside in the beginning of March and, you know, all those nerves. And then showtime! [laughter] But I feel like a lot of the nerves were, were kind of pushed out of the way during tech and, and that first week. Something that helps too, is that the, the lights are so bright in that scene that you can’t really see the audience. You can really only see the guys in, like, as if it were, you know, the, the locker room showers. Like that’s all you can really see.

ELYSA GARDNER: That’s interesting.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: You know, and to that Elysa, I think about being an actor, right? You gotta have some kind of an ego when you’re an actor or you’re just not going to do well in this business. [chuckle] And if you want, if your goal is to be seen and have people pay attention to you, then what better way? [laughter] I mean I look at those guys on stage and say “they win.” And this way, if your goal is to have somebody pay attention, you win…

EDUARDO RAMOS: [chuckles]

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: like it’s undeniable.

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah. And it, it does feel, as you said, very natural. I mean guys talking while they’re showering, you know, that’s what athletes do. So it feels very real. It doesn’t feel gratuitous. Well, listen, since I haven’t gotten that out of the way, are there any other projects that you’re working on at the moment? I know you guys are always multitasking. You both do stage and screen work that you want to mention before I let you go?

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: You know, it’s, I’ve had a pretty jam-packed schedule. I also, I teach acting at NYU’s grad acting program and these last nine months getting back online, post-COVID with this show coming up with, you mentioned Skeleton Crew earlier, it’s been pretty jam-packed, so my next project is to work on being a husband and a father who actually, you know, sees their wife and child sometimes. [chuckles]

EDUARDO RAMOS: There you go.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: I’m going to try and take this summer off. I also direct, maybe in the fall, we have a couple of projects that we’re looking at directing and then back to school, but whatever it is it’s gonna, it’s gotta be great cause it’s gonna pale in comparison to this experience that we’re having with Take Me Out. 

ELYSA GARDNER: Mmm.

EDUARDO RAMOS: Yeah, I would, I would agree with Brandon. I, I have a five-year-old daughter and I am really excited to spend some more time with her because prior to the show, we’ve, I mean, it’s beautiful the amount of time we’ve gotten to share, especially during a pandemic, quarantining and all that. So I, I definitely want to be more present as a, as a father, these, these next couple months. Also now auditions are starting to trickle in because I made it clear that I didn’t want to audition for anything that was shooting during the run of this play. And, so I’ve, this morning I auditioned for, a cartoon, did a little voiceover work there, and did my first self-tape last week. So yeah, slowly but surely we’ll, we’ll see what comes. 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah, listen, I have no doubt that Eduardo’s dance card is going to get real packed real soon.

EDUARDO RAMOS: [chuckles]

ELYSA GARDNER: Yeah, yeah.

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: Yeah, and if you have any doubts, come on now to see Take Me Out at the Helen Hayes Theater, and you can see, you know, his work and especially in the shower scenes.

[laughter] 

EDUARDO RAMOS: And come to, come to the show, you can see Brandon and his tremendous baseball swing. My man really knows how to hit a home run! 

[laughter]

ELYSA GARDNER: We’re getting deep into metaphor territory here. Well, that’s a good way to wrap things up. Thank you so much for joining us and, you know, enjoy your time with your family and good luck and everything and please stay safe and healthy. Thank you! 

BRANDON J. DIRDEN: You as well, Elysa, thank you so much for your time it’s been a pleasure. 

EDUARDO RAMOS: Thank you very much, Elysa, yeah it’s been wonderful.

ELYSA GARDNER: For all things Broadway, and to find tickets to your next show, visit BroadwayDirect.com. And if you liked our show, please follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And don’t forget to share and rate Stage Door Sessions so that other theater fans can find us too. This podcast is produced by Broadway Direct and the Nederlander Organization with Iris Chan, Erin Porvaznik-Wagner, and Paul Art Smith, and hosted and produced by me, Elysa Gardner. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to seeing you again on Broadway.

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