The King and I at Drury Lane Theatre

Betsy Morgan is the first person I've interviewed twice in this format. (That interview is posted here, if you haven't already checked it out.)

I don't generally want to interview someone more than once, especially in this format, because my interview style in this format doesn't condone itself to repeats. I write the questions with the expectation that it'll be the only time I get to have them answered & I request as long as I think it'll take to get them answered.

But that's not the only reason. The other is this section. Whether I interview someone once, twice, or more, I'm worried that the same things I said the first time will still be what I have to say the second time, with not much new to add--not much new worth writing, anyway.

Luckily, in this instance, that's not the case.

Betsy Morgan and Adam Jacobs were the first in-person interviews I've done in a while.

COVID, of course, killed a lot of opportunities, and, even before COVID, I'd taken a bit of a hiatus from interviewing. So it'd been while.

But, with Betsy's time, Adam's time, the time of everyone working for/with Drury Lane who helped setup and coordinate the interview, and the time of everyone working on my end, there's no time to warm up in the field. You just have to hit the ground running. Doing otherwise is unfair to a lot of people who expect you to get in on time, get out on time, and do the job well enough that the time they put into it was well-spent.

The interview window here was 20 minutes, originally for a joint interview with Betsy & Adam together. But I really don't like joint interviews where the interviewer asks a direct question to one participant that only they can answer, while the other participant(s) have to stay on camera with nothing to contribute.

So, I decided that I had enough questions for Betsy & Adam individually that I'd split the 20 minutes into 3 segments of roughly 6 minutes each in length.

I'd, of course, interviewed Betsy before. So, for her segment, I wanted to follow up on some topics we discussed during the prior interview & discuss her return to the Drury Lane stage (which, I suppose, also counts as a follow up, as it was one of my big questions the last time).

With Adam, whom I hadn't interviewed before, I decided to do it like one of my standard interviews, covering a few topics, but as a speedrun. Regular visitors will notice that I didn't open with my usual "What got you interested in performing?" That question provides a great lead-in and generally yields excellent insight into the person I'm interviewing, which is why I ask it pretty much every chance I get, but, to do it justice, the answers usually have to be long. Not wanting to lose most, if not all, of my ~6 minutes to a single question, I opted to forego it & jump in with the hodge podge of topics themselves.

The goal of the joint interview was to ask questions they'd both be able to answer, mostly about this production of "The King & I". Well, this production of "The King & I" and their shockingly similar backgrounds.

That last thing was a very..."Mike" thing to bring up. My guess is that most other interviewers wouldn't bring it up. Actually, my guess is that most others wouldn't notice it. I did, so I did.

I knew Betsy's credits and background from the prep I did for our last interview. As I was looking through Adam's credits & background to prep for this one, it got my attention.

"Les Mis", on tour, then Broadway. "Mamma Mia!" on tour. The lead role in a Disney on Broadway production.

Then I remembered the local news stories I'd seen when the "Aladdin" tour was kicking off in Chicago mentioning Adam had, at the time, just moved to (and still lives in) Chicago.

It felt a lot like a career overview I'd seen before, but in the pretty much exact opposite order.

Betsy started in Chicago, performing at the Marriott Theatre & Drury Lane. It was after that when she took on the role of "Ariel" in Disney on Broadway's "The Little Mermaid". Then, after that, "Les Mis" on tour, then Broadway.

Adam did "Les Mis" on tour, then Broadway. After that, he took on the roles of "Simba" in Disney on Broadway's "The Lion King" and "Aladdin" in Disney on Broadway's "Aladdin". After that, he moved to Chicago, where he's since appeared on stage at the Marriott Theatre, and, now, Drury Lane.

They both did the same "Mamma Mia!" tour, though, as Adam noted in the interview, it wasn't at the same time.

Both had, of course, done more than just those few roles, but, it was more than just 1 small blip on their overall career trajectories.

As I said, it's a very "Mike" thing to notice and bring up, but, at the same time, what's the point of me doing these interviews if not to be Mike?