Grey Henson

As I mentioned in the interview, I’m a big fan of two of Grey’s musical performances: Mean Girls and Shucked.

In my reflection for my interview with Erika Henningsen last year, I mentioned how I first saw the show in Chicago and was moved to buy the CD on my train ride home.

It was an interesting situation (for me, at least), because I didn’t know anything about the show besides what was in the original movie until I saw it.

Shucked was the exact opposite.

I was introduced to Shucked when they performed at the Tony Awards.

The only show that year that I was familiar with going in was Kimberly Akimbo, about which I later interviewed Betsy Morgan and Chris Fenwick, regarding both their experiences on the Broadway production and Chris’ work on the tour.

I hadn’t even heard of Shucked yet—being from Chicago, it’s hard to keep up with what’s hitting Broadway until the show performs at the Tony’s or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or they launch a tour and get on the local schedule.

So the first thing I’d ever heard or seen was this performance, which I’ve linked for your viewing pleasure.

Just watch that and let it sink in. Especially the corn kickline.

Everyone who knows that when something piques my interest, I can talk about it until the topic is long past dead. So believe me when I tell you that was all I could talk about the next day.

What really sold me was the move where they’d cross the corncobs going down the line.

When most people think of a kickline in this day and age, I think most of them picture the Rockettes. At least, I do. My parents even took me to see them twice as a kid.

While I think everyone is generally entertained by their famous ability to kick in unison, but I was always more fascinated by the move where they’d turn and cross their ankles down the line. It always felt reminiscent of falling dominoes.

I think this was probably the first time I’ve seen someone do a less than serious kickline and incorporate that move into it. To me, that indicated a level of sincerity underlying this seemingly silly show.

Looking back, that’s honestly probably what sold me. It’s also why I asked Grey if he visualized it as a kickline while he was doing it, because, looking at it, all I could see was the Rockettes.

Well… Maybe that sold me about 90%. There was definitely a level of curiosity about what the show was actually about and why they were telling me to bring corn to a bris. I’m not entirely sure that’s actually good advice, but if I ever find myself at one, I’ll certainly take their word for it and try it.

Like I told Grey, I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that year to see them perform again, and I went to see the tour when it got to Chicago.

With Mean Girls, as I said, I knew the general characters and plot from the movie, but none of the songs or musical based specifics.

With Shucked, I walked into the theatre owning (and knowing every word to) songs like Corn, but very little about what the show was actually about beyond the details offered in the Corn (Reprise) track (which was less of a spoiler than I expected).

Even though I did it in the opposite order of Mean Girls, Grey is still who I picture when I think of the show, for the same reasons: the Tony’s, Macy’s, Tiny Desk, the cast album are all the Broadway cast.

And it was great to get to talk to Grey about those shows, as well as his overall career in theatre.