A few weeks ago, I received something I wasn’t expecting. 

An email. Someone we hadn’t expected to hear from. Someone I thought was a long shot.

Very interested. And their team is very interested.

I put the phone in my pocket and kept walking. And I let myself feel it for about thirty seconds . . . because that’s how you do it. You take the small win. You feel it. And then you get back to work.

That’s been the rhythm of these last few months on the Griswolds. Nothing I can put in a press release. Nothing that’s going to make the trades. Just a steady accumulation of small, real things that tell me we’re on the right road.

Before we really dive in here . . . if you want to go deeper on any of this (the casting process, the color debate, all of it)I recorded a full video update that’s worth a watch. Check it out here.

How Broadway Casting Actually Works

Let me pull back the curtain for a second, because I think this is useful for anyone who’s never been inside it.

You start wide. Wildly wide. Your casting director gives you a list that runs from “you’ve never heard of them” to “that’s one of the biggest names in entertainment.” It’s not a curated shortlist. It’s a possibility list. And the job is to sift.

Then our director, Donna Feore, the authors, David Rossmer and Steve Rosen, and I go through it together. Someone says, I saw them in an off-Broadway thing three years ago and never forgot it. Someone else says, that celebrity wants to do a Broadway show – is it worth an ask? You mark the ones that make the room light up, and you move.

Then the casting director does what’s called checking interest and avails. They reach out to each actor’s team. Are you available? Are you interested? Is this the right moment? And the answers come back fast . . . or they don’t, which is also an answer.

We sent ours out. We got a very good response back. A lot of genuine interest, and a lot of it fast.

That’s not nothing, folks. That’s a signal that we’re building something people want to be part of.

The Color That Kept Me Up at Night

Here’s the other thing that’s been on my mind: key art.

My marketing director and I have been going back and forth on color for the show. And it got to a point where I had to stop myself and say hold on. I’m not buying a ticket to this show. Neither is anyone else in this office. We are the absolute wrong people to make this call passionately.

So we put it online. We showed the options. We asked.

And the audience picked blue.

My instinct was red. Bright, funny, loud – everything I thought this show should feel like visually. But the response came back overwhelmingly blue, and then someone said something that landed: blue sky. A family in a car. A journey. That’s actually the show.

It was clearer to the people looking at it from the outside than it was to those of us who’ve been living inside it for months. That’s what happens when you stop asking the room and start asking the audience.

Every time.

The Gap and the Gain

I’ve been studying with an amazing coach named Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach, and he has a concept called the gap and the gain.

The gap is the distance between where you are and where you want to be. The gain is the distance between where you are and where you started.

My downstairs brain (the emotional one) lives in the gap. I want to be in rehearsal right now. The ideas are ready. The energy is there. And I don’t have a theater yet.

My upstairs brain has to keep stepping in and saying: look at the gain. The script is better. The casting process has momentum. The audience is engaged. You are further along than you were six months ago.

That’s the real work right now. Not the show. The headspace.

The Text That Fueled Me for Weeks

Recently I almost bought a loft bed for my daughter from someone in my building. 

I went up to take a look. Afterwards, I got a text.

“It took me a second to realize you look familiar. I follow you on Instagram. We are obsessed with Broadway.”

That family is exactly who I’m doing this for. And their kids are the future audience. The future performer. Maybe a future choreographer. And they’re already there, already obsessed, already waiting.

So here’s what I know: the passion for Broadway right now is stronger than I’ve seen it. The odds are harder, yes. The financial pressure is real. But people are still getting on the bus, still moving to New York, still writing shows and raising money and believing it’s possible. That fuels me in a way I can’t really explain.

If your project is stalled, get everyone in a room. Schedule a table read. Send the email today. Make something happen that you can point to tomorrow.

The road to Broadway is long . . . and it’s made of exactly these kinds of wins.

What small win is keeping you going right now?

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