Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #618: Broadwaycon, Part 1

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

My eldest daughter, Rachel, and I traveled to New York to go to a convention about New York theater. This is part one of a two-part series about that trip.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay, so I just got back from a trip with my daughter, Rachel. We went to BroadwayCon, which a lot of you might not even know is a thing. So Rachel is now at school. She's in college, and she's studying theater. And if you've listened to my podcast, you know in previous years that she and I went to something called VidCon, which was a convention all about video makers, YouTube stars and stuff. And this year we switched it up.

This year we went to BroadwayCon. So one of the things I enjoy, and I've done podcasts on our VidCon trips, is I like going to other conventions and seeing what I can learn about a completely different topic about magic. Because one of the things that I find very interesting

is conventions tend to be built around groups with an interest. And there's a lot of parallels between communities and the magic community. You know, the people that are very invested in something, they act similarly in a lot of ways.

And so one of the cool things about going to a convention is sort of what can I learn from my job from seeing a different group of people who care about a different thing, how they function, and how does that group interact with its fans and stuff. So that is always interesting for me to learn. Okay, so a little background before I get into the actual convention itself is I've always been a bit of a fan of Broadway, of musicals, of plays.

In high school, and that's not just high school, in, I think it was fifth grade, fourth grade, I played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I played Huckleberry Finn in Tom Sawyer. Anyway, I did a lot of theater from being a young kid. I actually, when I was, during my junior years and high school years, I went to a thing called the Cleveland Playhouse Youth Theater,

which I think still exists. I know the Cleveland Playhouse still exists. And I, all throughout my high school, I did all the acting I could. And I did a bunch of playwriting. Anyway, and I've always been really interested in musicals and plays. And, you know, I grew up listening to a lot of stuff. So this is an interest I share with my daughter. My daughter, Rachel.

I have two daughters, my oldest daughter, Rachel. And Rachel and I definitely, you know, so, for example, last year, Rachel and I, was it last year or was it two years ago? Actually, it must have been, no, no, no, it was, no, sorry, it was two years ago? Actually, it must have been... No, no, no. It was... Sorry. It was two years ago. Two years ago, when we went down to VidCon, we started by

doing a college tour, which actually I did a podcast on that too. And the college tour, one of the things we do, we were driving around Southern California. And while we were driving around, we were playing show tunes and I would let her listen to musicals that I liked, and she would let me listen to musicals that she liked. One of which, by the way, was a musical called Be More Chill. This will come up later in our story. I let her listen to my favorite musical, which is Little Chapel Horrors, and then she let me listen to one of her favorites, which was called Be More Chill.

Interestingly, thematically, they overlap a lot. But it was, so Be More Chill was this musical that had been done in New Jersey, I think. It had a limited run, and then it ended. And the actors were able to record an album for it. So they recorded an album, and then the show shut down and it was done. And the internet picked up this album,

and the real brief premise of the musical, for those who have no idea what Be More Chill is, is there's a boy who's very unpopular, and he learns that there's a pill he can take that is like a little computer, and it'll talk to him and help him make the right decisions to be more popular.

And so, of course, he takes the pill. I don't want to go too much, but obviously it wouldn't be much musical if he just... No, I'm not going to do that. Anyway, he takes the pill and all the stuff that comes out of it. And I think it was a play that was a little bit more modern. It was about technology. It had a sci-fi element to it. It was about high school.

Anyway, the internet really took it and grabbed it. My daughter being one of the people that got really invested in it. And so much so that the play eventually came back to New York in Off-Broadway. And it was successful enough in Off-Broadway, it's going to Broadway. So starting in like a month from when I record this, it's going to be on Broadway. Oh, real quickly. Something I learned that I did not know. The term Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway.

I've heard of the terms before. Rachel, we were actually walking one night, and Rachel said to me, what differentiates Broadway from Off-Broadway? Because the term had come up, and I'm like, I don't know. So we looked it up. So it turns out that Broadway means

you're in a theater that there's 490, I'm sorry, 500 or more seats in the theater. And I think there's 41 theaters in New York that show up in New York City. And then if you are in a 100 to 499 seat theater, you are off-Broadway. And if you're in under 99 seats, you are an off-off-Broadway. That's the designation. So mostly Broadway means you're just in a bigger theater versus off-off-Broadway. Anyway, so Rachel shared with me that, and as you'll see, Be More Chill will come up again a couple times.

Okay, so Rachel's in school. She came home during the winter break, and it overlapped with BroadwayCon. So Rachel had talked about BroadwayCon, and so we decided this year, instead of going to VidCon, we'd go to BroadwayCon. Okay, so Rachel, by the way, had never been to New York City. I'd been to New York City a bunch of times. I think I'd been to New York City once or twice, not for Magic, and then I'd been there, you know, eight, nine, ten times for magic. So anyway, so we show up. So the convention

takes place in Midtown at the hotel. What was it? It was like the Hilton, the Midtown Hilton. And the convention itself was inside the hotel, so it was very convenient. So Rachel actually had come, and she was dressing up every day as different characters from different things. So on Friday, she was Donna from Mama Mia. On Saturday, she was a gender-swapped Evan

from Evan Hansen. And on Sunday, she was a gender-swapped Evan from Evan Hansen. And on Sunday, she was a gender-swapped Elder Price from Pokemon. Anyway, okay, let's get on. So, now, on Friday. So the first panel we went to on Friday was about stage managers. So for those who don't know, I'll do a little background. A stage manager is a person that coordinates everything. I mean, there are actors acting stage manager is a person that coordinates everything. I mean, there are actors acting,

there's a director that directs, and someone wrote the play, and there's costume designers and stage managers and lighting people. But there's one person that kind of ties it all together, that's overseeing the whole thing. And as they explained in their panel, they do nothing.

That's how they joke. They do nothing. Their job is to just make sure that everybody else is doing their job. That's how they described it. That was funny. And so anyway, one of the things is Rachel is very interested in theater and very interested in directing. But she wants to learn about all the different roles. So we went to a stage manager panel. It was a little more about stage managers and what it was like to stage manage. And they shared a lot of tips that these people had obviously worked on many different

Broadway shows and they shared stories about different crazy things that happened at different shows. Um, but anyway, uh, it was very interesting. And one of the things that I'm going to do for each of these is talk about how, what I took away as a, as far as for magic, right? Because this is the magic podcast. So it was interesting because in some ways, a set designer is a lot like a stage manager. I mean, there's creation in set designer, but there's a lot of coordinating a lot of other people. Like, design in general is you need to go talk to lots of other groups. I mean, this is

also true for vision. It's just more true for set design because set design happens later when more pieces come in. But like, when you're doing set design, you're leading a set design, you're making sure you're interacting with the creative team. You're interacting with the editor. You're interacting with the creative team. You're interacting with the editor. You're interacting with the people that are going to do the printing. You're interacting with the digital people. They're going to have to take it and make it work in digital. You're talking with organized players.

They're going to run tournaments with it. You're going to do it with marketing. There's all these different parts of the company that are doing these things. The equivalent of a stage manager, I guess technically, is what's called a product manager, whose job is to make sure that all the different components are happening. That's the more direct equivalent, I guess. But there's a lot of skills of sort of understanding how to interact with others. And like, one of the things about magic is, and very true about theater, is it's a collaborative process. You know, when you put on a major Broadway production, it is not just a few people doing it.

It is scores and scores of people. And all the different people have their different responsibilities. You know, like one of the things that I did back when I was sort of learning theater stuff is, like, for example, I spent some time learning lighting. You know, I worked on a lot of stage crews, and I was interested in learning all the different facets, much like my daughter is now.

And, like, lighting, for example, is a very interesting part of theater, but it is not that well understood, and there's a lot of things about it that aren't even obvious. Like, one of the biggest things about light is that light works different than paint. So, for example, if you mix red paint and green paint, you end up with brown. But if you mix red light and green light, you get yellow. And just understanding sort of how light works and, I mean, it's just a different animal. Anyway.

But anyway, that was a good panel. So the next panel we went to was all about Chicago, theater in Chicago. So Rachel obviously is going to school in Chicago. One of the things that's happening is Chicago is known as Second City, and one of the reasons is that it is, after New York, number two in theater. It's got a giant theater community.

One of the reasons Rachel actually went to school in Chicago was it was a really good place to study theater. Already in her first semester, I think she's been to like 10 different theaters, and there's like 100 or something. There's a crazy number of theaters in Chicago. I mean, some major, some minor, but lots and lots of different theaters. And because it is a little bit less commercial, there's a lot more experimental theater in Chicago. Anyway, we talked to a bunch of people who all came from Chicago, most of which actually currently live in New York, but people who had their roots in Chicago.

And it was an interesting panel to talk about kind of the importance of having different markets. You know, that Chicago is a place that you can do some stuff that's hard to do in New York. Then New York is a little more cutthroat, and a little bit more about the money on some level, where Chicago, there's places to be more experimental. And a lot of Chicago is being used as testing ground, like, for example, Pretty Woman, which just opened on Broadway, had tested in Chicago. Tootsie, which is opening soon, had tested in Chicago.

I think Rachel and Sauce had seen Chicago. She really liked it. Anyway, the interesting thing here was the takeaway the idea that one of the interesting places for you to learn is to go to some place that's a little less. That is not that...

My takeaway is I find it really interesting to pay attention to some formats that are smaller formats because there's a lot of interesting things you can learn. You know, we focus a lot on standard, on limiting and sealed and draft,

a bit on commander, but it's interesting, like, taking from, like, Pauper or something and saying, okay, how do we, how do I, as a designer, do things that maybe will be helpful for Pauper or something and saying, okay, how do I as a designer do things that maybe will be helpful for Pauper or for Canadian Highlander or, you know, just pick different formats

that are out there that are smaller formats and try to think about, you know, I find when you think about formats and what helps those formats, it can help you sort of approach what you're doing a slightly different way and make different kind of cards. And so, I mean, my big takeaway from this one was the idea of there's value in sort of trying things out.

Oh, the other thing is supplemental products don't quite have the restraints that standard legal sets do. That's a good place to be more willing to try things out. And I think that an attitude I've had lately is looking for supplemental products that can let us push in new directions that allow us to sort of be testing ground. I've always talked about how unsets, to me, are very much testing ground. I'd like to see us do, in general, more of that with supplemental products, especially the innovative product, where we really are using it as

a space to play around with before ideas go to the big leagues of the standard legal sets. Okay, next so Rachel, there was an exhibition hall a two-story exhibition hall and they sold items and there are lots and lots of things that were connected in some way to Broadway. Some of it were people that were teaching things, you know, teaching you to act or to sing or to dance. Some of it was merchandise you could buy. Some of it was just various

non-profits tied to Broadway. There was a bunch of, there was trading cards, by the way. One booth was all about trading cards for Broadway, which I thought was really interesting. Anyway, while she was there, one of the places did this thing

where they had this little tent and they brought in these Broadway stars and then they would text people when they were there. They would Instagram them

or whatever. And then Rachel managed to, like, come and meet someone a woman named Betsy Wolfe who's from Falsettos for the Broadway fans out there. And then Rachel managed to come and meet someone, a woman named Betsy Wolfe, who's from Falsettos for the Broadway fans out there. And it was an opportunity

for her to come, and it was really interesting watching the social media. They did a little story on Instagram, and then Rachel watched it and then came. Again and again, by the way, all during the weekend was really this voice of and I'll get this whole panel on this coming up about how important the internet and the audience, the interact with the audience is.

Next, we did a signing with Caitlin Knunen, who is in The Prom. She's the lead in The Prom. For those that don't know, The Prom is a musical about a girl who asks another girl to prom and all the chaos that ensues. And Caitlin plays, I think Emma's her name, plays the main, the girl that asks the girl to the prom. Anyway, it turns out that we got an autograph session with her. She actually comes from Seattle.

In fact, Rachel had taken some lessons at a thing called, I live in Issaquah, and there's a village theater is there. And they have Village Kids is their theater program. And Caitlin had actually been in the, you know, there's two connected theaters, one in Issaquah, one in, where's the other one? There's two connected ones, I forget what the other one is. Anyway, they're local. The person we were interviewing with had gone through our local theater. She'd been from here.

And so Rachel had brought a Rachel had recently seen a play at the Village Theater, or maybe the Village Kids Theater. And they had talked about notable alumni, people that had gone through the Kids Stage program. And Caitlin had been in there, and she had never seen it, and so Rachel had her signed, and they talked a little bit about what it was like, and some shared thing, but it was really interesting on how there always is this connective tissues, you know, here's

someone who's a big star on Broadway, but, oh, we grew up, you know, or we, Rachel grew up, I guess I grew up somewhere else, but, you know, Rachel grew up where she grew up, and took the same acting lessons she did, and, you know, or Rachel grew up. I guess I grew up somewhere else. But, you know, Rachel grew up where she grew up and took the same acting lessons she did. Anyway, it was very interesting. Okay, next we tried out for a game show. They did two Broadway game shows. One was more trivia-based, and one was a family feud. We'll talk about the family feud in a second.

Anyway, Rachel tried. A lot of people tried out for it. It was interesting watching them, because I've done magic trivia at different conventions. It's interesting watching them. What they did is they had people come to auditions, and then there was about 70 people that tried out, and from them, I think they picked a handful, not a lot.

Rachel did not get picked, although the person that Rachel tried out with did get picked. So, interesting. Okay, then we went and watched the cast of The Prom talk. The cast and crew. So, once again, The Prom is a new Broadway show. It just opened this last week. Not last week.

Last month. No, not last month. Last year. Opened up in, I think, September. The Prom, it had been in the news recently, the prom had been on Thanksgiving, the

Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, one of the things they'll do is they'll bring in Broadway shows, and they'll have them perform, usually they bring in Broadway musicals, and they have them do a song. So there were a bunch of, you know, current musicals that came, one of which was The Prom. And The Prom, I think, did

their big finale number. And at the end of it, Emma and her date, is it Eliza? I don't remember her name. Anyway, at the end of it, they kiss. And that was a big deal because it was the first I'm not sure, that was a big deal because it was the first,

I'm not sure, the exact first, but it was the first maybe female-on-female kiss on live television or something. It was something new that hadn't been done before. Anyway, it made a lot of news. If you haven't heard of that, that's a show I'm talking about at the prom. Anyway, so we talked to them.

And the interesting thing about, whenever you hear anybody come and talk, they always talk about the history of it. And so this musical was something like seven years in the making. And they had done it and workshopped it. And then they did a run in Atlanta and then eventually got to come to New York, to Broadway. But along the way, one of the things that was interesting was them trying to sort of find its feet. And, like, there's a lot of making a musical that's kind of like making a magic set where everything is not exactly the way you want it when you first begin.

That you try stuff and you sort of, through iteration, slowly figure out what works the best. You know, what are the things that are doing, you know, that are in the working, like how to improve it such that it's making it to be the better thing. Anyway, they talk to the cast and, you know, there's a lot of interesting information behind the scenes of a bunch of actors in the play a bunch of Broadway actors come to the

town to help him out and the parts the actors who were the the actors who played the Broadway actors are obviously our Broadway actors and they wrote the parts with them in mind so it's really interesting where you know it's one of the things where like oh we want to write a part and so we're going to write it specifically with these actual Broadway actors in mind um and they talked a bit about that um the one thing that really stuck with me is they talked with a woman that plays the mother so Emma's date's mother I think her name I think the date is Eliza, but not 100%. Mrs. Green

is the mom. And she is the antagonist in the show. She's the one that doesn't want her daughter going to the prom with another girl. And the... There was a really telling story that the actress that played

the part said about how she was... They were doing the Atlanta, they were doing the show, how somebody had come after the show and had said how much that the part had meant to her because she, the woman, had once been Mrs. Green. And that she said the show was important because she realized the mistake she had been, having been in the same situation.

And the interesting thing is the actress talked about the impact that it had and really reminded her sort of the impact you have. And the thing it brought to me is I did this thing where I asked people to send in letters. I did a column to say how magic has impacted them. Um, and I got an outpouring of letters that was, um, I mean, one of the things that really made me realize in working and doing something is that people get passionate what you do and that people need outlets and passions. And, you know, I've read so many really touching stories about how magic has impacted people. And really, you know, like I said,

you can go, I forgot what I called it. I wrote a whole article on it. It was like 8,000 words of letters. And it was really amazing. And I couldn't even print all the letters because I got so many letters. But anyway, listening to them talk really sort of connected and made me realize, just keeping in mind, of one of the reasons to do what we do is it can have a real impact in a real profound way for people. And there's a lot of things that we do that I think are important.

And anyway, hearing somebody else kind of have that same epiphany in a different field was very interesting to me. Okay, next we watched Rodgers and Hammerstein go pop. We actually were waiting for the, we had watched the prom and we were waiting for the B-1 Chill panel. In between them there was Rodgers and Hammerstein are celebrating their 75th anniversary. They are composers, writers and composers that did Oklahoma, Carousel, Sound of Music,

South Pacific, Cinderella, anyway, they've done a whole bunch of stuff. Those are probably the more famous ones. Anyway, they were bringing back Oklahoma for the 75th anniversary and they did this little thing where they had famous Broadway actors

do more upbeat versions of classical songs. So what they did is they took classic Roger Hammerstein songs, which are obviously 50 to 75 years old, and had them reinterpreted by modern-day Broadway stars with modern-day arrangements and stuff. And then they're doing this thing where, I guess, every week or something, they're putting up videos and stuff.

Anyway, it was cool. You had a chance to see a lot of Broadway stars singing songs, you know, pretty famous Roger Hammerstein songs, but it was a modern twist, which was kind of cool. Then we saw the Be More Chill panel. So the Be More Chill panel was really interesting. It was the whole cast and the writer, director, the guy with the songs.

And really their journey, like I said, I explained a little bit at the beginning, was about this about this opportunity to, they hit a nerve of something, and really the success of the show had been they'd done something and the internet really took something

that would have just never been seen from again and brought it, you know, brought it back from the ashes, because it had such universal themes and really connected that the internet was able to sort of make it something really powerful. And they talked a lot of stories about that.

And it's really interesting in Broadway in some ways is a little more behind the times. You know, the average Broadway audience is a little bit older and they are a little slower to embrace some of the new technology. I mean, they are, and I've got a panel we'll get to where they do that. But anyway, it was very interesting in sort of hearing about how what they were doing and how they did it was shaped so much by the impact it had on the audience. And in some ways, Be More Chill has become

kind of the poster child for we're in a new age. Hey, Broadway, we need to come into a new age. And it is interesting. One of the things that I really relate to in listening to them talk is... One of the things that is interesting is sometimes you pitch ideas at work, and sometimes when the idea is a little bit out there,

it's a little, you know, it's very easy to do something you've done before. It's a little harder to do something you haven't done before. And one of the challenges is trying, like I do a lot with my social media to try to interact and understand what you all want, what the audience wants. And that I think there have been a bunch of victories

that I've had where I was able to sort of demonstrate through social media a desire by the audience. And Commander is a perfect example of... Commander was a format not made by us. We did not make the Commander format. It was made by a bunch of judges originally as something to do after a long day of judging. And it was this kind of grassroots thing that slowly started to

build. And, you know, we were aware of it. And, you know, we were doing once a year, we do an innovative product where we try out new things. And, you know, we decided to, okay, you know, there seems to be some audience for this. Let's do we'll make some decks for it, we'll make a product for it. And BAM! It was so popular that it became as soon as we were able to, we made it a yearly thing. And it's interesting watching Commander in that, Commander's a good example of sort of the be more chill of magic, that it was something that the audience so loudly sort of the be more chill of magic, that it was something that the audience so loudly

sort of said they were interested in, that it really started to shape, you know, the popularity of Commander has shaped a lot of decisions about magic. I mean, we're more now we make a Commander product, but even in the regular product, we think about Commander. We definitely,

you know, if we're making a legendary creature, for example, it's not that a legendary creature, for example, it's not that every legendary creature is optimized for Commander because there's some people who want them that are Commander players, but we do think about it. We are aware, and most of the legendary creatures are optimized for Commander. Not all, but most of them are. Or even looking at some of the kind of themes,

like the Council of Colors, for example, has done a lot of investigation on how to branch out certain colors, red and white specifically, to make them more Commander-friendly. Because one of the problems in Commander is the nature of the format kind of works against some stuff that red and white do naturally. Because they were built around this balance of one-on-one magic, red especially. on one magic, red especially, and once you sort of get the mix of higher life totals or more interaction, we've had

to rethink how the colors work. And that's just a good example of how, I mean, that's just one element of something. You know, it's really one thing talking about, anyway, it's just one thing talking about how impactful that's been.

Okay. So, next panel. It's the last panel of Friday. So, interesting, by the way, I did not think this was going to be more than one show. But I'm realizing as I'm going through it that there's... Anyway, I'm enjoying this. I don't know. We'll see whether or not this is one or two. This might be two podcasts. I'm going through it. Anyway, I'm enjoying this. I don't know. We'll see whether or not this is one or two.

This might be two podcasts. I'm not sure. Okay, Disney Stars panel. So the next one was... So Disney Theater, Disney Broadway, this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Very reminiscent because last year we were celebrating our 25th. So in 1994, Beauty and the Beast came to Broadway.

And the way it came about is somebody high up in the Disney organization said, you know, Beauty and the Beast would make an awesome musical. And so they went to the head of Disney, I think Michael Eisner at the time, and said, you know, this would make an awesome musical. And he's like, okay, let's do it. Make it. I mean, Disney's a big company. So anyway, they ended up making a musical. And it was so successful that now, 25 years later, they've made 10 musicals. 10 Disney musicals. And in fact, on Broadway right now, Frozen's on Broadway, Aladdin's on Broadway, and I

think Lion King's still on Broadway. Um, and I might be forgetting one, but, uh, I mean the 10 that they did. So they did those three. They did Beauty and the Beast. They did Little Mermaid. They did Tarzan. Um, they did Newsies. They did Aida, which was, uh, something made by the team that made Tarzan.

They did Mary Poppins. Oh, Mary Poppins might still be on Broadway. And then, I'm not sure if I lost one. Oh, and they did Peter and the Starcatcher, which was a Peter Pan prequel. So they did those ten. So what this panel did is they brought people, basically Broadway stars, that had starred in each of the shows.

I'm sorry, there's six stars. So they brought, I'm not going to remember the names because I didn't write these names down. They brought an actress that was the very first Belle in Beauty and the Beast. They brought an actress that starred in Tarzan and Aida. They brought an actress that starred in Tarzan and Aida. They brought an actress that starred in Mary Poppins. I think it was the first Mary Poppins.

They brought in an actor that was in Peter and the Starcatcher that played... I forgot the name of the character. There's a character that... I don't want to spoil this here, but eventually becomes Captain Hook. Then they brought in the first genie from Aladdin. And then they brought in the woman who's playing Anna right now in Frozen on Broadway.

And so what they did is they talked to them all about sort of what it's like doing Disney shows. And the thing that really struck me, though, I mean, I couldn't get by the fact that this was the 25th anniversary and that kind of what this was doing was doing the celebration of 25 years of Disney Broadway, much like we had done 25 years of Batman. We spent the whole last year really playing up and having fun and doing all these different things and celebrating our history. And so it was neat seeing somebody else sort of doing a very similar thing. And so it was neat seeing somebody else sort of doing a very similar thing. And one of the things that was fun as they shared stories is that there's a lot of fun behind the scenes things that go on. And it made me realize that one of the things that I do in my social media is, hey, doing the behind the scenes stuff. Like it was really, so for example, the woman who was Mary Poppins, like, told this really interesting story about the night where she was really sick,

but, you know, it was so early in the run, it was in previews, that the understudy didn't even have costumes, the costume yet. And so she had to go on while sick. And, you know, it's a very funny story of her, like, trying to do the show while, like, literally throwing up in the wings,

like, you know, really, really sick, and, you know, and getting through it. trying to do the show while literally throwing up in the wings. Really, really sick. And getting through it. Anyway, it was one of the things that made me realize. Some of this is stuff I already do. So sometimes it's nice to see. It's nice to be on the other side. Like, as someone who is a fan of Broadway, it was neat to hear these stories of the behind-the-scenes things, how compelling and important that was, and made me realize, like, I mean, not that I don't do this, but kind of the importance of it. One of the reasons I think that, obviously, this podcast is pretty popular is

a lot of what I'm doing is telling stories that no one else is telling because I'm behind the scenes. And, you know, that if you really enjoy something, it is fun. You know, what's the equivalent to the set behind the scenes where we were throwing up in the wings, you know, where some tragedy happened, but you wouldn't know it because we came through. You know, like I told the whole story about Scars of Mirrodin, how I came close, closest I've ever come to having someone else lead it. Like, it wasn't working, and, you know, Bill said to me,

look, you got to make it work or I'm replacing you, you know. And I made it work, obviously, but, you know, that was a low point, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from Scars of Mirrodin coming out. It was a very troubling and hard design, and that's the kind of stories you don't... It's kind of neat to share some of that stuff, to learn about the Trolls and Tribulations. And also, like I said,

one of the things that was really interesting to me of being on the other side is the... How... Even the smallest minutia is very interesting. A lot of the stories they would share, like, for example, they did this one thing where they were just talking about mishaps. And usually the mishaps weren't necessarily major mishaps.

It was just, like, this little tiny minor thing. But, you know, it's funny of, like, you know, the way it works on Broadway is you do the play eight times a week, I think. So basically, you do two shows on the weekend. You do Maddenay on the weekend, as well as a nighttime show. And then you have Monday off.

Monday's off in theater. And then you have a show Tuesday through Friday. And so, you have eight performances a week. And they will do this for many years. So there's thousands of performances. And so a lot of times the stories are,

here's the quirky thing. Yeah, it went right a thousand whatever times. But one time, you know, this little tiny thing. And it is neat. I really did enjoy being on the other side of that. And it only reaffirmed, I mean, at some level, It is neat. I really did enjoy being on the other side of that. And it only reaffirmed, I mean, at some level, a lot of what BroadwayCon did for me is made me realize the things I already do, I need to keep doing, and the value of them. Not that I didn't recognize the value, but it's interesting.

As a fan of Broadway, being there, sharing with my daughter who was a fan of Broadway, it was really neat in that it made me realize a little bit of cross-generational magic, of people who play magic and then teach their kids to play magic, and they share that with them. I've had a lot of fun interactions of talking with parents who magic was a bonding thing for them,

a way that they and the kids really sort of connected, especially during troublesome teen years and stuff. And it was kind of fun for me to be on that side, and that was really cool. So anyway, I am almost to work, and I just got through Friday. So I'm going to make this a two. I did not expect it. My previous podcast that I've done, like my VidCon, have been one. But I'm having fun here and

whenever there's content. One of the things about like I said, the show's in the 600s now, is I'm always looking for content. So I've learned that when a topic can be more than one podcast, let it be more than one podcast. That's one of my, early on I would rush to cram things in and then later I'm like, why did I rush through that? It was like early Lessons Learned podcast. I would like go through multiple sets and I would burn through like six, seven sets and now I'm like, you know, now like, oh, how about I just, you know, let me just do Lessons Learned from a singular

thing and not, you know, it's one, I'll do Lessons Learned from one thing I did and not burn through a whole bunch at once. Same when I was doing a lot of the evolution of magic. I've slowed down a little bit. My big takeaway is when there's material, use the material.

Don't rush through it. That is Friday. At the end of Friday, we were exhausted. That was a long day, by the way. My daughter and I then went out. Actually, the day we got there on Thursday, we actually went to Times Square, which is not far from our hotel. We saw Times Square, and then we got some New York-style pizza. Because when we were in Chicago, we got Chicago-style pizza. But I wanted to teach my daughter the right thing.

So I wanted her. So I actually went online, got a lot of tips of where to get good pizza in New York. And then Friday night, we went out and got deli food. Because that's another thing to do in New York when you're there is go get some deli food. So anyway, trying to show my daughter New York on multi-levels. Anyway, let me wrap up for the day. When we come back, we have Saturday and Sunday. I'll talk about that next time.

There's some other really big lessons that I learned, or really big things that hit me. So we'll talk about that next time. But I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. And this is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.