FREAKY FRIDAY with Emma Hunton

A Musical Theatre Podcast

Host Jeffrey Scott Parsons sits down with Emma Hunton to discuss her experience originating the role of Ellie in the musical Freaky Friday.

Key takeaways

• Emma Hunton transitioned into Freaky Friday after completing the first national tour of Wicked.
• The musical's score by Tom Kitt is praised for its ability to write melodies that are specifically suited for female voices.

Main topics

• Origins of Freaky Friday
• Emma Hunton's career trajectory

Notable quotes

A girl can be a good girl without ever being weak.

Conclusion

The episode provides a heartfelt look at the collaborative process and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo. And you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit bpm.fm to discover more. Speaker 1 (0:15) I think when people hear Freaky Friday, the musical, they think, oh, this is going to be a children's musical. Like they automatically tag the word junior on it. Speaker 2 (0:23) Sure. And Speaker 1 (0:24) the reality is, is that it's really for everybody. I find it's really hard these days to find something that is family friendly without it being geared towards children. Speaker 2 (0:36) Freaky Speaker 1 (0:37) Friday was, is that musical. I think we've all at one point or another. after we've grown up have realized just how little our parents actually knew and that we're all just flying by the seat of our pants. Speaker 2 (1:01) Welcome everybody to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff. Today, we are discussing the musical Freaky Friday, a listener request from a few of you, including Michael, who said he's been nervous about an upcoming audition for it. Break legs, Michael. So sweet. And Oliver, who said, quote, the show is so fun with some memorable music. And of course, there's plenty of folks from different generations with memories of the movie versions. I would love to tune in to an episode for it. Unquote. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. And I hope you're ready because I'm so excited about our guest. Emma Hunton has spent some time being wicked. She's been next to normal. She's found herself in a lot of good trouble on Speaker 1 (1:54) Freeform. Speaker 2 (1:55) She also just so happened to originate the role of Ellie in Freaky Friday, immortalized on a terrific cast recording. Everyone, please welcome to the podcast, the amazing Emma Speaker 1 (2:05) Hunton! Yay! Yay! Hello! Speaker 2 (2:10) Emma, thank you for being here. I need to dig right in because there's so much I don't know. Yeah. No, Speaker 1 (2:16) let's do it. Speaker 2 (2:17) Okay. I'm not totally sure about the chronology of your career. So when Freaky Friday comes around, are you already working professionally? Has Next to Normal already happened? When did you meet this show? Speaker 1 (2:28) Next to Normal's already happened. Wicked's already happened. For Speaker 2 (2:32) real? Okay. So then take us back. Speaker 1 (2:34) Yeah. So I was already living in LA. I moved back to LA after I had ended the tour out in LA. And my family's out here. So I was like, it's probably a good time to just like, Los Angeles, the first national tour of Wicked. Okay. Speaker 2 (2:50) Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (2:51) So I got a phone call from my agent. Christopher Ashley was the director of Freaky Friday. Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkie wrote it who I've worked with before on Next to Normal. And they were going into final callbacks for Freaky Friday. And she was like, they asked if you were interested, would you be willing to fly out and audition? And I was like, all right, but I got to fly myself out and I got to put myself up. So I'm only going out there if this is like a 50 % at least like sure thing. Like, and she was like, I think it's like a 70 % sure thing. So I was like, all right. So I packed my stuff up. I went to New York for like 24 hours, auditioned. And by the time I flew home, I knew that I had the job. And at this point, it was just a two-week workshop that we were doing in New York. And it had been floating around for a couple of years. It had a different couple of writers sort of with the music and books. So by the time I was involved, Tom and Brian and Bridget were already like knee-deep in rewrites and building the show that we know and love now. So I did it. two-week workshop with anna gasteyer playing catherine holy Speaker 2 (3:56) cow i Speaker 1 (3:57) know that was really wild i Speaker 2 (3:58) hope she didn't i i hope she for you she Speaker 1 (4:02) wasn't she was on her best behavior then um good Speaker 2 (4:05) to know so Speaker 1 (4:06) uh yeah so then and then after that you know because we were doing a a quick little um copro tour um anna rightfully did not want to go on tour she had her kids were younger than yeah Speaker 2 (4:18) um Speaker 1 (4:19) And so when she backed out, Heidi then stepped in and the show became what we know it to be today. Speaker 2 (4:25) Okay. Okay. Thank you for the catch up, first of all. Speaker 1 (4:28) So Speaker 2 (4:28) when did you first work with Christopher Ashley? Which, by the way, for everybody who doesn't know, Tony Award winner, iconic director of Come From Away, longtime artistic director at La Jolla Playhouse. Anyway, Christopher Ashley, we love. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:42) So my first show with Chris Ashley. was a show called Chasing the Song. It didn't go anywhere, but they were doing a workshop of it in La Jolla, and someone, their lead actress, had backed out because of a family emergency. So much like most of my career, I was in New York at my friend's house, and I got a phone call from La Jolla Playhouse, and they were like, can you be out here in 24 hours? Speaker 2 (5:06) Why are you always on the wrong coast, Emma? Always on Speaker 1 (5:10) the wrong coast. I can't figure it out. Speaker 2 (5:12) You better be getting points on some sort of credit card for these flights. Speaker 1 (5:17) I have so many flyer miles, which is great. That's why I can fly at the drop of a hat. Amazing. So they asked me to come out to La Jolla, and that was my first time working with Chris Ashley, and Speaker 2 (5:26) it Speaker 1 (5:26) was such a wonderful experience. And La Jolla is, I always say there's something in the water there because the way that they treat their cast and their crew, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn't return to La Jolla Playhouse just to do even a bit part. because they just are so wonderful there. So Speaker 2 (5:44) I'm a teaching artist there. And I can say that even on like the educational side of things, they treat you like a million bucks. We have like a little retreat tomorrow and there's going to be a sound bath to try and help teach self-care for the teaching. Like how sweet is that? It's a great organization. Well, Speaker 1 (6:02) they're one of the few people that recognize that, you know, this is your job. And it's not just like something you're doing for fun and they, they pay you and treat you, you know, as if you're surviving off of this. And I think that's just, you know, everyone should model their, their process after La Jolla Playhouse. Cause it's anytime they call. Yeah. Anytime they call, I say yes. And Chris had asked me after that, you know, I had a great working relationship with Chris and he brought me in a couple more times and some readings and workshops at La Jolla. And so by the time Freaky Friday came around, he was like, you know who acts like an adult but looks like a child? Speaker 2 (6:42) So how old were you at this point? Speaker 1 (6:45) This was 2014. So I was probably, I think I was like 24, 25. Not super, super old, but definitely older than Ellie. Speaker 2 (6:56) Okay. Speaker 1 (6:56) Yeah. Cool. Speaker 2 (6:58) Because, yeah, I just Speaker 1 (6:58) finished Wicked. I was 23. So, yeah, that makes sense. Speaker 2 (7:01) That's young to be doing Wicked on tour, man. Good for you. Speaker 1 (7:05) Yeah, it was. It was. I think I'm still still to this day, the youngest Elphaba to have been in an English production of Wicked, which is wild. Wild. I'm like, that's got to go in like a Guinness book somewhere. Speaker 2 (7:21) Put it on the Wikipedia, everybody. That was Speaker 1 (7:23) hard. Speaker 2 (7:29) Let's talk about Freaky Friday then just in general as an IP because I first of all I'm so glad that this was turned into a musical. In its DNA is musical theater. People might not know. Freaky Friday started out as a novel in 1972 written by none other than Miss Mary Rogers who we all love because she wrote Once Upon a Mattress first of all. Already a musical icon as a composer there. But if that wasn't enough, she's actually the daughter of Richard Rodgers. So Rodgers and Hammerstein. There are not many musical theater dynasties. In general, this art form works. like mentor to student, you know, Hammerstein teaching Sondheim, Sondheim teaching Lin-Manuel Miranda. That's more of how things get passed down. It isn't really father to child. And yet within the art form, there is one dynasty and it's the Rogers dynasty, Richard Rogers to Mary Rogers to then her son, Adam Gettle, who wrote Light in the Piazza. That is kind of our, you know, Speaker 1 (8:29) it's our royalty. Speaker 2 (8:31) It's our royal family musical theater, 100%. But as I was prepping for this episode, I was like, you know what? I've seen all of the films. Just kidding. I don't want to lie. I haven't seen the Shelley Long one. Oh, I have. With Gabby Speaker 1 (8:44) Hoffman. Have you? Speaker 2 (8:46) Yes, of course, Gabby Hoffman. Another young person who acts like an adult. That started Speaker 1 (8:51) my love for combat boots. Speaker 2 (8:55) I mean, that's a milestone. I know. It was a Speaker 1 (8:58) very important moment in my life. Speaker 2 (9:00) That's fantastic. I've seen most of the films, but I had never read the original book. Speaker 1 (9:05) I had never Speaker 2 (9:06) read this novel. So I went to the library and I checked out 1972 Freaky Friday. It starts just like the musical. You're not going to believe this. Nobody ever believes me. You know, that whole little monologue from the lead character who in the book is named Annabelle, Annabelle Andrews. I'm sitting there reading it and it's not a children's book, but it's like, you know, a first kids novel. Speaker 1 (9:31) Yeah. You know, Speaker 2 (9:33) first stab at that. And in fact, as I got through the book, I kept seeing little doodles from kids who had checked it out of the library. And there was like a heart around some boy's name. Like it was actually very cute. Oh my God, that's so cute. Isn't that so sweet? But as I'm reading it, I'm expecting, okay, this is all from Annabelle's. point of view, at some point, we're going to switch to mom, because they've switched bodies, right? So we can find out what's happening in the other. It never happens. It Speaker 1 (10:03) doesn't happen. In the Speaker 2 (10:04) original book, it doesn't happen. It's all from the daughter's point of view. And it's not until maybe the last fourth of the book that she even realizes that her mom is in her body. She just kind of was walking around assuming that mom had disappeared and she was living in both. bodies at the same time. Speaker 1 (10:23) Yeah. It's Speaker 2 (10:24) actually a really beautiful story when you read it in that context, because you see this girl seeing herself from the outside, that kind of self-awareness that happens when you grow up, as well as seeing the world through someone else's eyes. So the empathy, it's a lovely little symbolic moment of growing up for this one person. The other thing that popped out to me, and this is bringing back to Once Upon a Mattress, Annabelle and Winifred really let you know what kind of a person Mary Rogers was growing up. Speaker 1 (10:58) 100%. I mean, you can Speaker 2 (11:01) imagine her growing up in this, once again, royal family. And if you know anything about the Rogers and the Hammersteins, I mean, they were New York elite, you know, and I'm sure that... I'm sure that Dorothy Rogers had every curl in place and every speck of dust off of the carpet. And here comes Mary Rogers feeling like Princess Winifred. I swam the moat and not really feeling like, you know, the perfect woman that her mother was. And she spent. so much of those early years of her career kind of exploring who is this girl? Who is this girl who doesn't feel like quite a woman yet? And what is the process of figuring that out? It's a really cool corner that she explored there in the 1970s. Speaker 1 (11:51) Well, and I think about all of the films and literature that we wouldn't have if Freaky Friday didn't exist. Like there would be no 13 going on 30. There would be no 17 again. Like she really created this. Sort of vehicle. It's almost a genre. Yeah. That, that exists because of Freaky Friday that I just don't think anyone else would have tapped into because she was brilliant. Speaker 2 (12:13) Absolutely brilliant. And funny. So funny. Speaker 1 (12:17) And I believe, I don't want to misspeak, but I do believe that like Bridget and Tom and Brian had sent her a draft of the script and she had like given her stamp of approval. Speaker 2 (12:27) oh before yeah like i Speaker 1 (12:29) don't want to like i i feel like someone told me she came to a reading one time like before i was involved in it so i'm like i i do know that like it was on her radar at the very least and that she had given her stamp of approval which is very exciting because you know you always Speaker 2 (12:43) want Speaker 1 (12:43) to get like the originators approval before you sort of take over their story Speaker 2 (12:49) their ip yeah yeah their story i know that was so corporate of me to be like ip no i almost said there's Speaker 1 (12:56) but they're Speaker 2 (12:58) they own it right it's like their intellectual property it came it came out of them you were talking about how we wouldn't have any of these things and i always i think maybe wrongly assumed that she was and this is going to sound horrible just a composer Because she is listed on Once Upon a Madress as the composer. But when you read Freaky Friday, you realize, oh my gosh, so much of this humor, so much of the character, so much of the voice really is from Mary Rogers. She was a smart, smart cookie. Speaker 1 (13:29) Oh, for sure. Yeah. Take no prisoners smart. Speaker 2 (13:33) So then 1976, just four years later, she writes the screenplay for the first Disney film. I'd Speaker 1 (13:40) like to be you for a day. Speaker 2 (13:44) Which I love. I still watch the OG Freaky Friday, Jodie Foster. I Speaker 1 (13:49) love Speaker 2 (13:49) Jodie Speaker 1 (13:49) Foster. Was it Barbara Harris? Barbara Speaker 2 (13:51) Harris, Speaker 1 (13:52) who once again, Speaker 2 (13:53) musical theater royalty. She was in The Apple Tree, which we'll probably never get to cover on the podcast. But such a funny, funny actor and a great... Oh, yeah. Speaker 1 (14:03) And then the movie with Gabby Hoffman and Shelley Long. I remember Disney Channel back then would... play a lot of different kinds of movies and not just their original movies. There was a time in the 90s. I'm old. That's Speaker 2 (14:18) how I saw Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand. I recorded it off the Disney Channel on a VHS. Speaker 1 (14:24) First time I saw Hocus Pocus. So they Speaker 2 (14:26) would Speaker 1 (14:27) play those movies a lot. And I remember always, always sitting down to watch that and The Parent Trap. Those were like my movies growing up. Speaker 2 (14:37) Are we talking Lohan, Parent Trap? Speaker 1 (14:40) No, we're talking. Okay, Speaker 2 (14:42) Hayley Mills. Let's get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:44) yeah, yeah. Why don't you and I combine? So I grew up watching all of those movies. So when this audition came around, I was very sure to not revisit any of it. I didn't want any of it influencing. anything that I was bringing to the table because it was already intimidating enough to be a part of that canon. And like, I understood the responsibility of it. So I was like, well, I'm not going to go in there. And all those performances are so different that I was like, I'm just going to go in and do my own thing. And I'm not going to even the winks and nods to every like previous sort of thing. I'm definitely going to go in there and try to remember to forget all of that and just bring my own thing to the table. And it thankfully worked in my favor. Speaker 2 (15:33) Because each one is its own thing. The characters always have different names in every iteration, including the musical version. I remember, like I said, I didn't see the Shelley Long version, but I do very much remember the low-hand Jamie Lee Curtis version. Yes. I mean, I feel like that was