Musicals Without The Music

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

It's time to play a game with our very important puzzler. So let's bring back Sutton Foster.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Now, Sutton, this doesn't always happen. You have brought with you your own competitor.

(LAUGHTER)

SUTTON FOSTER: I did.

EISENBERG: And who have you brought with you?

FOSTER: I brought my husband, Ted.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Ted Griffin, screenwriter, we know your movies - "Ocean's Eleven," "Matchstick Men," "Tower Heist."

TED GRIFFIN: (Unintelligible).

EISENBERG: No?

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: No?

GRIFFIN: No, yes. But let's stop at two.

EISENBERG: All right.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Ted, did you guys decide what's going to happen depending on who wins or who loses?

GRIFFIN: No, we haven't. You want to right now?

FOSTER: You have to walk Mabel (ph) for the rest of her life.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: That's our dog. No, that's terrible. That's like...

EISENBERG: That's your dog? I was like, if that's your kid, that's a little...

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Ted, are you competitive?

GRIFFIN: I'm very competitive.

EISENBERG: Yeah?

GRIFFIN: Yeah.

EISENBERG: When you're hanging out at home enjoying time off between projects, do you do board games, Scrabble?

FOSTER: We used to play Words with Friends but I had to stop 'cause he spends, like, too much time. Like, I'm like, oh, there's a word, and I put it in. And then he comes back with, like, a 126-point word, and I'm like (unintelligible). So I stopped playing with him.

GRIFFIN: We also play a game where she shows me that she's better than I am.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: All the time.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: Oh, here are...

FOSTER: That's, like, my favorite game.

GRIFFIN: Here are two Tonys.

FOSTER: I know.

(LAUGHTER)

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: Yeah, that game, count the Tonys?

GRIFFIN: Count the Tonys, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: I like to play count the Tony losses.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Wow, the gauntlet. Someone's going to cry tonight.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: This is going to be perfect.

FOSTER: (Laughter) OK.

EISENBERG: OK, so you're against each other. Obviously you're well versed in musicals. And Ted, as a screenwriter, you should also know a lot about Oscar winners and Oscar history. So we thought we'd combine your strengths, two areas of expertise, into one stupendous quiz about movie musicals that have won Academy Awards.

COULTON: We're going to dramatically recite lyrics from a well-known movie musical.

FOSTER: OK.

COULTON: Whoever rings-in first will tell us the name of the movie.

FOSTER: OK.

EISENBERG: And if you want to show off, you can also give us a song title. But that's just, good for you, like, that's not an extra point.

FOSTER: OK.

EISENBERG: Start the car. I know a whoopee spot...

FOSTER: I'm pressing the thing and it's not working.

EISENBERG: That's 'cause you've got to wait till I'm done with the clue.

FOSTER: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: I thought you could, like, just go.

COULTON: Do you want to sing the rest of the clue?

FOSTER: I just thought...

EISENBERG: Yeah, if you want to ring-in now, you can sing.

FOSTER: (Singing) Where the gin is cold and the piano's hot (unintelligible) and all that jazz.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: And the name of the...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Sutton.

FOSTER: "Chicago."

EISENBERG: "Chicago." That is correct.

FOSTER: Toledo. No, "Chicago."

EISENBERG: Toledo, (laughter).

COULTON: That was quite a power play, Sutton. I think you frightened him.

FOSTER: I'm ready. Sorry.

COULTON: I wouldn't have to work hard, yuh-be-dibby-dibby-dibby, dibby, dibby, dibby, dah (ph), if I were a bitty bitty rich, idle deedle didle didle (ph) man.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

COULTON: Ted.

GRIFFIN: "Fiddler On The Roof."

COULTON: You are correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Here we go, your next clue. Skyscrapers boom in America. Cadillacs zoom in America. Industry boom in America. Twelve in a room in America.

FOSTER: Oh, that's...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: (Laughter) Ted, you are a monster. Ted looked...

GRIFFIN: What's my favorite line from this musical?

(Imitating "West Side Story" character Anita) I know you do.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: (Imitating "West Side Story" character Anita) I know you do.

FOSTER: Is that your favorite line?

GRIFFIN: Yes, it's Rita Moreno...

FOSTER: OK.

GRIFFIN: ...Who won - as did George Chakiris - in 1961 for "West Side Story."

EISENBERG: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: But I want to back up a second. What's the act-out that you were about to do?

GRIFFIN: It's just a line that...

FOSTER: (Imitating "West Side Story" character Anita) I know you do.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: I don't know, I've never heard that that's your favorite part of...

GRIFFIN: We do this thing where she plays Anita and I play Maria. And...

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: (Singing) A boy like that will kill your brother. A boy like that - go find another.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: I'm going to let you imagine my part.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I'm going to have some weird dreams tonight.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: No, no, no - no way. No, no, no, no way I'm living without you. Oh, I'm not living without you. Not living without you. I don't want to be free. I'm staying. I am staying. And you, and you and you - you're all going to love me.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Sutton.

FOSTER: "Dreamgirls."

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Do you want to go for name of the song for a little...

FOSTER: (Singing )And I am telling - and I'm telling you, I'm not going.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: This is your last clue and it's a duet. Ready, Jon?

COULTON: Yeah, I'm ready.

EISENBERG: Undescribable sights, indescribable feeling, soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through a endless diamond sky, a whole new world.

COULTON: Don't you dare close your eyes.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: A 100,000 things to see.

COULTON: Hold your breath. It gets better.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: I'm like a shooting star. I've come so far. I can't go back to where I used to be.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

FOSTER: Oh.

EISENBERG: (Laughter).

FOSTER: I'm sorry - "Aladdin," right? Is that "Aladdin?"

EISENBERG: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

FOSTER: What?

EISENBERG: But we did the kidnapper version.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I thought that was coming across as sexy. Did it come across as creepy?

(CROSSTALK)

COULTON: It happens all the time.

EISENBERG: Fantastic - happens all the time.

COULTON: Happens all the time.

EISENBERG: Puzzle guru Greg Pliska, how did our VIPs do?

GREG PLISKA, BYLINE: Well, I have to say, Mabel is the big winner because Sutton has won our game.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Of course, you are both winners in our book, so we are going to give you both an ASK ME ANOTHER Rubik's cubes...

FOSTER: Yay.

EISENBERG: ...Which, of course, you can put right by your Tonys.

FOSTER: Yay.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

FOSTER: Because there's two (laughter).

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Big hand for Ted Griffin and Sutton Foster.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.