A Conversation with Katie Kawko & Sophia Rubino
We speak to the producers of 54 Below's The Stephens: Sondheim and Schwartz
Katie Kawko and Sophia Rubino are the producer and associate producer of 54 Below’s The Stephens: Sondheim and Schwartz, which takes place on October 4th (and is being livestreamed for those not in NYC) and features a whole host of fantastic performers. I was keen to find out what goes into putting on an event like this, and about Katie and Sophia’s own routes into the work of these two Stephens. Our conversation begins below:
Hi! We're speaking a couple of weeks before your The Stephens event at 54 Below. Tell me a bit about the genesis of this idea. Is it something you’ve both been dreaming up for a while?
Katie Kawko: I had this idea at 2am, and I texted Sophia the next morning being like, “Hey, what if I do this? Would you mind reading the pitch for me?” Sophia and I have worked on projects together before, but since she's at school, she's always like, “Oh, I can do this, but don't make me an associate because I'm technically not doing everything.” But I asked her, and she said yes, and we've been planning it since March. It's crazy that it's September already.
And how did you first meet each other?
Sophia Rubino: We met through my high school friend Hannah. Her 21st birthday was happening last year, and I remember her telling me, “Oh, my friend Katie's coming. You guys would really get along.”
KK: I met Hannah through Twitter, but Succession Twitter. I actually didn't end up going to that party, but Sophia and I remained Instagram friends. And from there, we’ve been besties. Sophia actually helped me with one of my 54 Below shows in January by helping me with the set list, looking over my script—because we have a future journalist in the room, so I trust her with all my writing. And then from there, we've just been trying to figure out when to do a show together—and now it’s happening.
We all see the word “producer” on programs, playbills, all sorts of things—but I think for many of us, we’d struggle to articulate precisely what the role involves. How do you think of it, particularly as it relates to this show?
KK: The way that I explain the role of producer to everyone is you're in charge of basically everything to get the show up and rolling. You are in charge of finding the people, finding the music director. And if you're lucky enough, your music director will say, “I can take over and do all the band stuff.” That takes one thing off my plate. With a Broadway show, for example, in most cases they have a social media team and stuff. Here, me and Sophia are the social media team too. We work together on stuff like that. We do all the emails. We do all the tasks that a big team would usually help with, but it's just us two.
Amazing. And Sophia, is this your first “official” 54 Below project?
SR: Yeah. I have helped Katie, like she said, with set lists and scripts, but this feels like the first official one. It was maybe imposter syndrome at the beginning a little bit, just because I was helping mainly behind the scenes—but now I can actually feel the fruits of my labor. I've been putting in so much, and it's so rewarding to be able to also have Katie lead me through this—because if I was doing this on my own, I would be so lost. My idea of a producer was so different from what it is at 54, so to be able to work on that and have Katie beside me, it's been such a journey and I'm so grateful.
And you’ve found some amazing performers to be part of this show. When you were assembling them, were there specific types of voices you were looking for, for specific numbers, or were you very much led by what people wanted to sing?
KK: I knew we should get some people that have been in a Sondheim or Schwartz show before. And then from there, we wanted to bring in some people that I've worked with in the past, like Ashlyn Maddox. She was in the Parade Revival, same as her costar Erin Rose Doyle, and I just knew they would be a perfect fit for this show too. So we have people who have just recently been on Broadway, and then people making their debuts too. It’s such a great group of performers.
SR: When Katie and I reached out to people for this show, we would offer them a song that we had in mind for them, but we always gave them the option to discuss with us a different song to sing. It’s about finding that balance of, “Oh my God, this is my favorite Sondheim song. I've never had an excuse to sing it. Can I please do it for this?” and the fact that we're also putting on a show, so you have to do certain iconic numbers that everyone's expecting to hear. So yeah, it was really about finding that balance. We want to make sure that we're honoring the wishes of the people who are in the show as much as possible. So if they weren't comfortable with it, we were like, “Yep, just give us options. We'll make something work.”
KK: And we’re doing medleys as well. Our MD, Aidan S. Wells, told me and Sophia, “Just pick the people and I'll do the rest of the work.” He’s just like, “Okay, give me the setlist. Just let me know who's singing it and who will be at rehearsal.” That's it. That's all he needs to know.
Rehearsal-wise then, do you put it all together on the day? How will that side of things work?
KK: A normal 54 Below rehearsal would be like, you walk in, you go through your song. Past music directors, which I love, have done this. They've just been like, “This is great, but let's tweak this part.” Because overall, the rehearsal is for the performer to feel great about it. And I have said to everyone, “This is your one rehearsal, but if you want another one, let me know and we can make that work.” Because at the end of the day, I want everybody in the room to feel comfortable. That includes my music director and the band that he gets.
Are there songs here that you’re particularly excited to include, maybe because they’re performed more rarely or that you might be introducing people to for the first time?
SR: I am obsessed with Godspell. “Beautiful City” was the first song from musical theatre that I ever heard, and it got me hooked so bad. And I feel like I know a lot of people who don't listen to it or shy away from it because they think it's going to be all about God, or if they're not religious themselves, they just won't listen to it. So I was fighting real hard to get some Godspell in the setlist because I think that it's really important for people to have that introduction. So many people just know Stephen Schwartz from Wicked, and to be able to expand their knowledge of him, that's one of the best things about this concert for me was just being able to introduce people to less popular things that these people have done. Because I think some people don't necessarily seek that out, so we can give them an excuse to just listen to everything now in one place. I think that’s been one of my favorite things about doing this.
KK: I'm also really excited because every cabaret I've done, I try to do something fun. Let's just say we have some games that we're really excited about, that super fans will love and probably get the answers of, and then people that are just getting into Stephen Schwartz and Stephen Sondheim will be like, “Wow, I didn't know that.”
And I’d be fascinated to know what your own routes into Sondheim were.
KK: Throughout my life, I heard different bits of Sondheim, but the first thing to really stick with me was the Encores! production of Merrily We Roll Along. I listened to that album for the first time obviously as a kid, and kids are not going to understand the full meaning of Merrily till they get older, but I just loved it so much. And then Six by Sondheim, the documentary, they really did a great job with how they did Merrily and showed it off there. And I was like, “The day this show comes back to Broadway, I will be there.”
So I went to the revival, and I graduated directly a year before the day that I saw it. I was in tears next to this old lady. She literally was like, “Oh my God, my grandkid cries like this at shows too.” The revival itself was just such an important show to have. For someone in their twenties, I needed that. Because there are times in your career that you think you're not going to go anywhere or you're just so lost, but just being pulled backwards with that mindset, I walked out of there feeling so reassured that life has these bumps in the road, and we never think about them until they happen, because life isn't perfect. And that is how Sondheim got into my life for good.
SR: I feel like I was a little bit late in the game, as far as a lot of other people my age, to have a musical theatre education. I started doing theater when I was 10. I talk to a lot of people who started when they were in diapers, and I feel like I didn't start learning a lot about theater until I was 13 or 14. I came across the 2006 production of Company and I was like, “Oh my god.” Especially because the performers were also the pit, they played the entire time they were singing, and I had never seen anything like that before. The production itself, I could talk about that, but Sondheim's words especially taught me so much about love and grief. When he died, I felt so weird. He gave me the words for how to feel, and then I didn't know how to feel after he died. Especially as a young person, to have that formative experience of learning how to live through Sondheim's eyes… I couldn't put into words so many things until his work came into my life.
And then I went down the rabbit hole. I listened to everything that he had ever done. And I felt like I was learning not just about musical theatre, but how to be a person. And that was such an impactful thing for me to have, because a lot of the newer musicals that I was growing up with revolved around fan culture or they were based off of things, but Sondheim was so original and spoke a lot about the human experience. And I think to grow up on that is a privilege. I will never, ever forget how lucky I am to have access to all of his work. I feel like there's a lot more of us out there who have that, luckily. There’s an army of people who are living life through Sondheim, and hopefully carrying his messages forward.
That's beautiful. And turning to the other Stephen, there’s real depth and so much wit in Schwartz’s lyrics as well. Was that part of the appeal of presenting these two writers alongside one another?
KK: Yeah, that's definitely one of the reasons. And also just because I just love their work and both of them have meant a lot to me. Granted, they don't know who I am, but they've done a lot for me over the years. And I think it's really cool to see the difference, because they're both so talented. And just seeing side by side how one works and how the other works—it's going to be so awesome for people to see that.
And obviously, you’re both still towards the beginning of your professional journeys. I’d love to get a sense of your hopes for the future. Is there a particular aspect of what you're each doing now that you'd love to take forward and do more of?
KK: For me personally, I would love to be a director. It doesn't have to be on Broadway. Off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway… I just want to spend the rest of my life directing. I also went to school for television and film, so I would love to get back into that field as well, to see if there's a way that I can bring my love for theater and film and television all together, and make something come of it. Because overall, I just want to tell stories, as corny as that sounds. I just want to tell stories.
SR: I am in school right now for journalism. I want to be a theater critic. I'm currently writing for a magazine called Curtain Call, so I've been able to go out and review shows on Broadway. I'm so obsessed with consuming art. When I was 16 years old, we had to do this aptitude test at my high school where they ranked our character traits, and my top trait was appreciation of beauty and excellence. And I really think that that sums up my professional pursuits. I just want to be able to appreciate the beauty and excellence of theater, because I love it so much, but also because it has so much to say.
For more information about The Stephens: Sondheim and Schwartz at 54 Below, and to buy tickets (either in-person or livestream), simply click here.