Interview: Go Behind the Casting Table with the Creators of Hit Web Series-TURNING THE TABLES!

Following last year's hit debut season, BroadwayWorld is excited to bring you even more Turning the Tables! Featuring Ellyn Marie Marsh, Andrew Briedis, Andrew Chappelle, Julia Mattison, and created by Marsh, Turning the Tables caught fire in 2016 with a season devoted to Broadway's hottest casting directors getting the tables turned on them by the actors. The improv based series featured your favorite casting directors such as Rachel Hoffman, Bernie Telsey and Tara Rubin.

Season Two features a brand-new and unique take on the series and if you missed the premiere, you can click here to catch up and find out what the twist is all about.

While we wait for Episode 2 (airing Tuesday, April 25), the cast is opening up about the exciting new season...

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How did you get involved with Turning the Tables?

Julia: It's all Ellyn's fault.

Andrew B: I was lucky enough to be directing Ellyn's second solo concert when she came up with the concept, and she was unlucky enough to be directed by me in her second solo concert when she came up with the concept.

Drew: This whole concept has been Ellyn's brainchild, but the basic premises of the series has been brainstormed over text, voxer, and a few afternoons at the Hirschfield.

Ellyn: I created Turning the Tables because I love laughing at what we as actors put ourselves through, willingly, day in and day out.Our first season was all about 'turning the tables' on the casting directors by making the casting director audition for the actors. The idea came about because sometimes the sheer hilarity of what we are asked to do in an audition can only be conveyed in an over-the-top manner, but with a very earnest approach. I pitched the idea to the casting directors to have some fun and laugh at this business we call show, and they were surprisingly all game and found it hilarious. I think most of all, I just confused them into saying "yes," and showing up to the shoot date! But they were all wonderfully gracious and we ended up having a blast .

Then I somehow conned three of the funniest people I know to be a part of the series. I've always been a fan of Julia and her dry delivery. I love her character (Ruby Mange) that she portrays at 54 below. Andrew Briedis and I have collaborated on my one-woman shows, and he really knows how to structure a joke. He's also the first person to say, "Don't use that, that sucks." Self deprecation is essential to comedy. I became a fan of Andrew Chappelle after he released this birthday video that I probably watched over 100 times on YouTube (if you haven't watched it you have to) and we just became pals from there. I think his delivery and vocabulary is just hilarious. And I knew Drew, and he can play and do anything. Those were really the only people I saw in those other spots. Mostly, I got them drunk enough one night to say "yes."

How did you guys come up with the twist for season two?

Ellyn: After we auditioned the casting directors, we had to think of another way we could 'turn the tables.' So, I thought, "What if we were the only four people who didn't know who someone like Sutton Foster was?" They live in this unexplained parallel universe where they can look at someone who won a Tony for a role, ask them to audition for that role, and then decide that to them, they were just not right. I really loved that idea. Furthermore, we needed people who were not afraid to laugh at themselves. And we got the BEST! I'm so excited for the season to unfold in the most uncomfortable way for everyone.

What's it like with the four of you when you shoot the series?

Julia: I honestly don't know if I've ever been a part of a cast that has fit together so quickly. I definitely haven't improvised with a group that easily, without spending some time together. It should be mentioned that all of season one was captured in one day, and that one day was the first time that some of us had ever met. I did not know Andrews Chappelle or Briedis yet, and that whole season was captured with the four of us essentially as strangers. We didn't even really talk about our characters? All I remember is showing up, saying nice to meet you, and then the cameras started rolling and we just began. It was the weirdest thing. Now I look forward to doing it whenever we get the chance. Every one of these idiots makes me laugh very hard.

Andrew B: We break a lot. I think I break the most. I haven't done improv since high school, and was not prepared last year for how hard those three were going to play. I feel like I am a little more "experienced" now, but I still just barely try not to laugh. Ellyn, Andrew, and Julia each bring a very specific and different type of sense of humor to the room, and I think we got very lucky with the kind of chemistry we've happened upon.

Drew: I am so grateful that I have the piano to duck and hide behind. I would not make it out in the open with them, I would seriously ruin every take.

Andrew C : I'm usually crying laughing between takes. Julia KILLS me.

Ellyn : We shoot about 30 to 45 minutes of material for each person. Our ideas go from completely insane to very dry and subtle. Amy Poehler once said that if 5% of what you do is funny, you're successful. We all agreed that anything goes, and since it's an improv based show, it's a circus. There is a lot A LOT of breaking, and because of its improv format, we never know who's going to say what at anytime. Most importantly, the whole team is on the same page. Our season two director, Mark Ezvoski, just learned our timing and style and hopped on the crazy train real fast.

You guys build the series as an improv web series is the show completely improv?

Julia: The entire thing is completely improvised, but sometimes if someone says something new that we all like, we'll go back and capture it a few times and get some options. It's very fun to shape it as we go along.

Andrew B: Yes. In fact, each audition is filmed almost like a 30-45 minute performance art piece, because while we may break to laugh, we don't actually break character or the scene. Someone will come in, go through the entire audition, and then leave. When Bernard Telsey came in for his "audition," it was a solid twenty minutes of us being in character, and I was just a complete monster to him. I shamed him for not being prepared. I made fun of his agent at CAA. I asked him why he assumed he was "offer only." And then he left. And that is how I met Bernard Telsey.

Without giving any of your future guests away what are some of your favorite moments are one-liners from season two?

Julia: It's so hard not to scream out all of the names of future guests right now. Hmm... I don't know about one liners, but there's a whole saga about Glass House Tavern that I love. Also, we make a very distinguished, legendary, brilliant Tony Winner say "Daddy" a lot.

Drew: There's a particular episode with a Tony winner, who after singing, the creative team incorrectly insists on the location a musical is set, which leads to another song from their book, a one-liner about Beyoncé's classical voice training, a fundraiser for the Naples, Florida underwater city crisis, paying someone to sing them to sleep every night in their apartment, and more hilarity than I can remember at this point. I'm lucky I made it out alive on that one.

Ellyn: It's so hard to say without giving too much away. We do ask a very funny performer to sing her song an octave down, and that produced some interesting sounds. OH! and someone threw their audition binder at us -- which was really art imitating life.

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Click here to watch the Season Two premiere of Turning the Tables. Season Two is directed by Mark Ezovski and edited by Michael Hunsaker and features musical direction by Drew Wutke. It's produced by Ellyn Marie Marsh and Two Avenue LLC.

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