A Conversation with Julie Klausner
On Sondheim, Schmigadoon, and so much more
“Read everything Julie Klausner writes and listen to everything Julie Klausner says. She is hilarious, wise, and smarter than you. I adore her.” So said Amy Poehler about this week’s guest—and after spending an hour with Julie Klausner, I could not echo these words more whole-heartedly. Klausner is perhaps best known for creating, writing, and starring in Hulu sitcom Difficult People—and among her many other TV writing credits is Schmigadoon!, which I was so thrilled to talk to her about. She also happens to be a lifelong Sondheim devotee, and her love and respect for his work shines through every word of this conversation. Might there be a Sondheim-related future project hinted at for the first time below? I promise you, it’s worth reading on…
It’s so great to meet you. We all have our own routes into musical theatre, and into Sondheim too. Sometimes those two things happen at the same time, and sometimes the latter comes much later. Did those two stories intersect for you?
It’s a great question. I had the privilege of growing up with parents who introduced me to Sondheim very young, so Stephen Sondheim being a genius was something I learned very, very early in my life. My parents would play his records for me, whether they were West Side Story or Sunday in the Park with George, and so I was brought up in a very Sondheim-positive household. I imagine if you had a family that was very literate in the art world, you would know to be reverent around Picasso before you even really understood why he was brilliant. That was my childhood.
And I did love all kinds of musical theatre. I was lucky enough to be from a suburb of New York City, so I was able to see Broadway shows at a very young age that impacted me more powerfully than if I were to see them later in life. And I loved Singin’ in the Rain and all the great musical comedies I was exposed to, but I was always told when Sondheim had his fingerprints on something. I remember my dad rented The Last of Sheila for me before I was 13, and he made sure that I knew who had written it. It was something that was very important in my education. And then on top of that, yes, I did love musicals very much, but it was always very clear who the king was.
And in your career now, you’re so well-known as a writer, and for your work on screen. Are there particular moments in your own work where you’ve found yourself thinking about Sondheim’s writing, about his characters, or perhaps about these great works of theatre you were brought up on more generally?
I think about him constantly. Somebody once said that Steve’s oeuvre follows you throughout your life the way those eyes in a painting would follow you around the room. It’s true. The things that get you when you’re younger are completely different than when they get you later. I have related not only to his shows and his works as a creative person, or a person who is trying to make a semblance of a living in terms of balancing commerce and art, or as a person dealing with getting older, having parents that are getting older. But I’ve also thought about not just his work, but his life.
And I am probably most impacted, at least in this moment of my life, by the convergent stories of what went into making Sunday in the Park with George, and Sunday in the Park with George itself—meaning I’m so inspired and moved by Sondheim’s reaction to Merrily We Roll Along not succeeding traditionally on Broadway, and his reaction from his peers that was so brutal that he almost quit doing what it’s clear to anyone who loves him knows he was put on earth to do. And I am so moved—I might actually start crying just thinking about it—at the miracle of him coming out of that darkness with a new collaborator and a newfound appreciation for the art of making art. And not by doing a piece that was so self-contemplative that it was autobiographical, because Steve would never. That would be too pedestrian for him. But his complicated valentine to the struggles of the work is so much more meaningful knowing the story behind it.
And then the work itself… To me, there is nothing more beautiful than when Dot asks if George is working on something new. He says no, and she says, “That’s not like you, George.” And now, knowing the circumstances under which he wrote that beautiful turn of phrase, that love from one character to another as an inner voice, I am just overwhelmed by that beauty.
That's beautiful, and it makes me think of how he ends the first of his two collections of lyrics, Finishing the Hat: “And then I met James Lapine.” I saw a tweet of yours back in 2021 about diving back into those books in the weeks after his death. Was there a certain kind of comfort in revisiting his work on the page at that moment in time, rather than, say, listening to all the recordings?
Absolutely. When Sondheim died, I reread the Hat books. I had to wear magnifiers. I have no idea why that print is so small, but I loved being in the company of his work and his commentary. There was something that wasn’t eulogizing or deifying him. It was just him. There was something so pure about seeing the work presented, as you said, on the page without musical accompaniment, so it didn’t quite strike a nerve as sentimentally, because I don't know if I was yet prepared for listening to those opening chords. But I felt very comforted in keeping his company.
And some of those commentaries are catty. Oh my gosh. He would only spill tea on the lyricists who were no longer with us, but when he spilled, it was just everywhere. But then you also have those wonderful stories about Cole Porter jumping out of his chair. It was extremely comforting. I needed to spend time with the span of his work—and that included everything that was nascent, to see him go to where he went from whence he came.
I also wanted to mention that when I reread Finishing the Hat, I had a newfound respect for Dick Tracy. I went back and listened to the songs he wrote, because I didn't realize that he had written that score for Reds, for Warren Beatty. They had a really funny interaction around Reds, and then Dick Tracy for him was like, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write pastiche. That would be fun.” And I have spent more time in the last two years listening to the song “More” than pretty much anything else. There’s this one twist in the lyrics at the very end, when she says “Once you have it all, you may find all else above, that though things are bliss, there’s one thing you miss, and that’s—” And it’s supposed to be “love,” because it’s meant to rhyme with “above.” And she waits a while, and she goes, “More!” It’s this little joke that was hidden in the lyrics, and it took me—what is it?—34 years to find. And I think that’s going to keep happening, because this guy hid these gold doubloons in these buried treasures, and we have lots and lots of time to dig up even the ones we’ve gone through a million times and enjoyed, and still find these incredible, precious objects.
You struck me as the perfect person to ask about a different aspect of Sondheim that I’ve been curious to get more of a sense of. He pops up in all sorts of places on screen, in cameos, blink-and-you-miss-them references, or when his songs pop up in, say, Marriage Story—or when Daniel Craig sings “Losing My Mind” in Knives Out. You work with so many artists across so many different fields, a lot of whom might not primarily consider themselves “musical theatre people.” What’s your perspective on the way Sondheim’s work has spilled over into the culture more widely?
Oh, he’s everywhere. He’s everywhere. It’s like when you lose someone, how you see them everywhere. There are things that he's responsible for that people use and they have no idea that they can all be traced back to him. The fact that “everything's coming up roses” was not an idiom, for example. He created something that was meant to sound like something that had always been there, and he succeeded in doing that. And in the process of doing that, he was so mad that he didn't write the music. And also, because of not just the depth but the breadth of his career, and the span of his impact, there are cultural contributions that he made that people will never really be able to measure. And I love that.
There are also these measures of… I wouldn't say self-deprecation, but self-awareness around how Sondheim fans are crossword puzzle fans—in the sense that they’re very into being what they are, and they’re almost hyper aware of it. But the populist impact of his work is already so felt. And I think going forward, it will only increase. I'm sure he knew that while he was around to some extent, but he was so wildly not just influential but felt. It's not quite like that Velvet Underground thing of, “Well, nobody bought the album, but everyone who did started a band.” It’s bigger than that. It's more than that. And he did start out when musical theatre was more of the voice of popular culture. It wasn’t a niche or an elitist notion. It was what the popular form of entertainment at least came from when he was growing up. So I think that his impact has yet to be measured fully, and that it already is so huge is really a testament not just to his talent but to his taste and his predictions for what would ultimately be things ahead of all of our time.
I’d love to ask about your work on Schmigadoon! That show celebrates so much about musical theatre, of course—and in the second season in particular, we got to see so much Sondheim in there. I’d love to know a little about the process of putting that show together, because I recommend it to everyone I meet. And obviously, I’m still holding out hope that there might be more to come one day…
Oh boy, we wrote a whole third season, and it was Into the Schmoods. I hope one day it exists beyond the page. First of all, thank you so much for the kind words. It was such a happy, pleasurable experience to write for that show. I loved working for Schmigadoon and writing for it. And it has to come from love. There are certain art forms, I think, that you can send up with minimal knowledge of the thing. I think Mel Brooks is really good at that, when you look at having come from Get Smart, and also Spaceballs, which is clearly not a genre that he loved the way he loved those Universal movie monsters with Young Frankenstein, but they work on their own accord. With something like musical theatre, if you don't love it, you are doing the wrong thing. You're not in the right business, because you've got to be all in.
I originally met Cinco [Paul] and Ken [Daurio], who is his writing partner, early on. I guess they had just got a series pickup, and I had read the pilot. I met with them and I said, “I love this and I love musicals, and I really like calling out the point of view of one character who doesn't like musicals because they’re so inorganic.” I hate it when people say, “Oh, I hate musicals. They just break out into song.” And those are always the people that like Marvel, or other crazy stuff that is crazy for its own reasons. They really liked that point of view, and they thought that was a good embodiment of those two characters, the couple of Josh and Melissa. So they liked that take.
And then as we got to know each other, it was just such a great match. I actually spoke to Cinco earlier today about something else that we're working on together, because he's one of my favorite people. I absolutely adore Cinco Paul. I think he is so brilliant and so talented and one of the kindest, biggest-hearted people. I don't know if we would ever have met if it weren’t for Schmigadoon because we’re very different, but we both love musicals—so that was such a wonderful chance meeting, and I’m just so lucky to have worked on that show. Every time I see a joke I wrote or a reference I made, I’m just so proud. And yes, everyone who worked on it, it all came from love—and we were very careful in the room to pay tribute and not keep any distance.
Are there particular moments in that show that you just you almost can’t believe came together in the way that they did? Anything that particularly sounds out as, “Oh my God, we actually did that thing in that way?”
Cinco had thought of the combination of Annie and Sweeney Todd, where this Mrs. Lovett/Miss Hannigan character gets together with the Sweeney Todd character and they plan to kill and sell the children as meat. And I remember thinking, “Oh wow, that’s really dark.” But it was pulled off. I don't want to say we pulled it off. I was a passive voice, because I can’t take responsibility for how great that number “Good Enough to Eat” was. But when I saw it, I was just gobsmacked. The references to “Turkey Lurkey Time” and the choreography, the tap dance between Kristen Chenoweth and one of those orphans, she and Alan Cumming just eating each other up with their eyes… It was wonderful.
I’m always delighted to write for Jane Krakowski. She is one of the great dialogue masticators, and she also can do absolutely everything. So I was able to have my name on the “Bells and Whistles” episode, which is fabulous and crazy. She got that amazing little Company moment in the middle of the song, which she could probably do in her sleep. I think of Jane Krakowski in the same breath as Madeline Kahn. I think they're both just these inimitable, comic, musical comedy geniuses. So to be able to put gasoline inside of that magnificent racing car was a huge privilege.
I bet. And something that people maybe don’t talk about as much as they should with Sondheim is how funny so many of the shows are. Do you think that a show like Schmigadoon! almost gives people more permission to enjoy those aspects of his work when they then see them in theaters?
I hope so. I love that question. I think Sondheim was really funny, and I think that his work is more accessible than how it has sometimes been presented in the past. I don’t know about Britain, but in America, I think the number one thing people can’t accept is pretentiousness. I think pretentiousness has a particular stench in this country, and I have always been a little touchy about Sondheim being associated with things Mostly Mozart and Shakespeare and Tanglewood, and things that might denote elitism. Obviously I love PBS, and they were kind enough to do a beautiful filmed version of Into the Woods and Sunday. But there was something very staid. The camera was always mounted on a tripod. And it was like, “We now present something that's good for you.” Sondheim shouldn’t be in the vitamin pile. He was absolutely as entertaining as anyone else.
I think one of the things about him that made him him is he never once underestimated either the intelligence or the attention span of his audience, which means that he was constantly towing that line of, “When does this get boring? When does this get self-indulgent? But also, I’m going to assume that you guys are smart, so let’s have a good time.” And that’s what you do when you have someone that you're playing a game with who’s about as good as you are, or maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, but the game has to be fun. So I think that when he was writing for these audiences, he would think about games, which is to say, “All right, let’s assume that my partner is going to keep the ball in the air.” And for that reason, you do have work that is not universally accessible. But I tell people who are not fans, nor are they experts on Sondheim at all, about the show Assassins. I told someone, “Oh yeah, there’s a song that John Hinckley Jr. sings with Squeaky Fromme, and it’s really beautiful,” and they go, “What?” There are things in his shows that are brilliant and outrageous and crazy. And yes, in the case of Sweeney Todd, hilariously funny. You wouldn’t necessarily know that from the Tim Burton imagining—which I’m not saying is bad. I actually quite like it. But it’s certainly not a comedy.
Sondheim is by no means someone that we should think of as stuffy. If anything, he’s just completely out there. His last work was not only ambitious beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but it was fully surrealist. I was watching Jodorowsky’s Dune last night, the documentary about Jodorowsky trying to make Dune. Talk about ambition. But the idea that Sondheim would adapt two Buñuel films. First of all, even adapting one… what are you doing? Just enjoy Connecticut and your dogs! But no, he’s going to actually combine these two stories. That's cutting-edge art stuff, and it is simply not boring. Whatever you want to call it, it’s not boring. And it doesn’t hold you in contempt because it doesn’t say, “I'm better than you.” It just says, “This might be interesting to think about.” And I just love that about him. But again, he’s not for everyone. He's never tried to be.
In terms of future projects, as you look at the arc of your professional life, are there more musical theatre-related things in the works? It’s clearly a world that means so much to you.
Absolutely, and I will give you the scoop. I have written a play that deals with Sondheim very prominently, and it’s in the process of being produced. And obviously, that takes a really long time, so there’s nothing to buy or nothing to do right now! But stay tuned. I’m so proud of it and I love it so much. It comes from such a place of love that it is overwhelming, because the research that I hadn’t already done was such a pleasure. I wrote this about a year and a half ago. Sondheim had already gone, so to revisit every biography I could read, to listen to interviews, and to read Finale, his last series of interviews, was really overwhelming. And it was challenging too, but I loved every minute of it. I strongly recommend, if an artist that you love passes away, to immerse yourself in research about them, at least for a period of time. It really is marvelously curative.
But yes, I would love to do more in the musical theatre space. I'm also very careful about it because I do respect it so much. I would never take it for granted. I would never say, “Oh yeah, I’ll just do whatever,” like the way people used to talk about web series. I would want to make sure that what I did measured up to the best of that form. Yes, I would love to do more of that. So, there is this play that is hopefully coming to your eyes soon that I think you’ll really appreciate, knowing that it came from love.