All Episodes

February 12, 2024 • 12 mins
Michael Riedel and Christine Nagy chat with Casey Likes, who stars as Marty McFly in BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL. He reveals the advice Michael J. Fox gave him on opening night and how he has not watched the movie since he started rehearsals. BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL plays at the Winter Garden Theatre.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
iHeartRadio Broadway presents Inside Broadway, thepodcast about everything theater. It's where you
hear what happens from the ticket windowto the stage door, with the stars
and creative forces that make it allcome alive. Here are your hosts,
wo Rs Michael Riedle and Light FM'sChristine Nagy. All right, Michael,

(00:24):
people are having so much fun atthe Winter Garden Theater. Back to the
Future the musical is playing and everyoneis loving it, but especially loving the
star Casey likes. Who is MartyMcFly and is with us today? Hi
Casey? Hi, Well thanks forsaying that. That's very nice. Well,
it's very true. Well, welcomeaboard getting rave reviews. By the
way, I hear that Car isa real diva. Yeah, really upstages

(00:47):
me all the time. Yeah,yeah, what do you do? What
do you do about that? Well? I don't know. I I we
have talks when when the lights godown. That's right, to get her
into shape, I have to havean understanding. So, Casey, I
first saw you in Almost Famous onBroadway and you were just so so wonderful.
Thank you so much. And thatYeah, I loved it. It
was a great, great experience.Man. It was just it was short
lived, but I mean just sucha special show to all the people who

(01:11):
were in it and all the peoplesaw it. Right, Cameron Crow,
I feel you know, his heartand soul was in that show. Oh
yeah, Cameron's the best. Imean, he's like the best person on
earth. So it's just, uh, it's it's special to to get to
play him and to learn from him. And yeah, so you have that
experience, which is an iconic movie, and then you jump into another show

(01:34):
coming from an iconic movie, Backto the Future. Yeah, he's going
to be in Casablanca next. YeahsBlanca. I'm trying to I was saying
earlier, I gotta I gotta finda nineties movie because I've done I've done
sixties, I've done seventies, I'vedone eighties, and I got to do
it. Yeah. So, sotell us about Back to the Future.
How close to the movie does it? Does it track? Pretty dang close?

(01:57):
Man. It's all the moments thatyou know and love and a little
bit more, which is great.You've got a lot of original music in
it, right, Yeah. Yeah, it's about seventy percent original music,
and then there's about thirty percent ofsongs that you know and love from the
movie Have We've Got Johnny b.Good and Power of Love and Back in
Time. But the score is writtenby Glenn Ballard, who's a Grammy Award

(02:20):
winner. He actually wrote Man inthe Mirror, and Alans of Estrie,
who wrote the score or the movie, is also working on it with him.
Wow. Wow, and you're reallyyou know, Broadway's had some of
its struggles, but this show isdoing incredibly well, and you're really caught
on I think with the tourist crowdthat's coming to New York because they know
the title so well. Yeah,yeah, the tourists and the families specifically.

(02:44):
Oh yeah, families really really reallyare into it because I think people
like introducing their kids to this inthe way that their parents introduced them.
Well, I guess not even theirparents. A lot of these people are
we're uh, there was their firstdate. Yeah, it was their first
date. Or it's a kind ofmovie that people went back to to see

(03:06):
many times. Yeah, any times? Exactly How did you see it?
Were you familiar with it before?Oh? Yeah, a million times when
I was younger. Yeah, cameout before you were born. I would
think a little bit before. Yeah, about about twenty. We'll just gloss
over that part. So well,yeah, so I don't have to feel
old old man, old man inthe sea over here. Yeah that one,

(03:27):
but that's okay. But yeah,I watched it a million times because
it was my mom's first date andshe she just h it was one of
her favorites. And yeah, incasey I know you come. Well,
it's a Broadway lineage, right,starting with your mom. She was on
Broadway. Yeah, yeah, shewas on Broadway and Lima's Ram and she
was a double cover, which she'san understudy for Eponine and Cosette in the

(03:53):
original production. In the original Broadwayproduction, she was, she was,
she was an original cast but sheshe was in that original production. Yeah.
Terrific, terrific. So how didso you started out? What what?
When you're three years old? Yes, three years old? My uh
my, my mom introduced me intothe world a little bit, and uh
fortunately I fell in love with it. Did some commercials, did a good

(04:15):
Will commercial, Subway commercial production ofChristmas Carol that lasted five years. So
you weren't one of those cars forkids, were you? No? No,
no, not not. I missedthat one. But a Christmas Carol,
were you tiny, Tim? Didyou really? Yeah? I was
signed Tim all five years. Inever got I never got beyond tiny say
that for a while. No,no, no, not in those eight

(04:39):
years or five years. But yeah, man, So how was it coming
into this show? Because we didsee when Michael J. Fox went to
the theater to see the production,and how exciting was that? Oh my
gosh, unreal. I mean,like, it's it's a certain privilege to
be able to meet the person thatyou know you're you're embodying or trying to

(04:59):
embod, or the person who originatedit. But it's a it's even more
special privilege that it was him becausehe doesn't go to these things often,
he doesn't go to anything often withhis Parkinson's and it was just amazing to
have him be there to support.It felt like a pat on the back
and just like probably the most unforgettableexperience of my life. Uh. Next

(05:26):
two uh being with Cameron Crow andJonny Mitchell on almost famous, But those
two, those two would be thetop two probably of life. Yeah,
and you're just getting started really yeah? Yeah? Yeah, well but I
can I think I was gonna sayhow much Filer are gone from there.
Yeah, so now when you sorry, when you do a movie like are

(05:46):
you do a show like Back tothe Future and also almost famous and you
know the movies backwards and forwards,is a moment there where you got to
put him out of your mind becauseyou're creating something totally different. Yeah.
Yeah. The last time I watchedBack to the Future was before I started
rehearsals. I haven't watched it since. And uh, I actually even before
the audition, I didn't catch upwith it since my childhood. I I'm

(06:08):
sure I've watched it sometime in thelast five years, but I really wanted
to go off of what I remembered, right and what was because that's what
most people are doing. Most peoplearen't, you know, catching up in
the movie and then seeing the musical. They're they're going off of their memory
of the show and how it madethem feel. And uh, and that's
what I did. Five minutes beforethe callback, I did. I tried

(06:31):
the voice for the first time,the Michael J. Fox kind of a
raspy, uh, cracky thing,and and it was somewhere deep within me
because that movie is like a partof me at this point, It's part
of everyone at this point. It'sit's just that that place in our culture.
I was wondering Michael J. Foxif he had any words of wisdom

(06:53):
for you. Yeah, yeah,he said, uh, five minutes before
because I met him before. Ididn't get to talk to him after,
but right before or we were doingpictures in front of the Marquee and I
asked him if he had any advice, and he just said kick ass and
if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, which is
a line from the movie. Sodid he tell you how to handle the
car? No, No, hedidn't. He didn't, although there are

(07:15):
some really funny bloopers of him wherethe car door just opens in the middle
of him doing a scene because Delorianswere not exactly uh the most well but
bell car at the time from whatI understand, so they were just falling
apart. Do you have any mishapswith the car on stage? Oh yeah,
Oh yeah. It's the biggest technicalshow I think, maybe maybe one

(07:36):
of the biggest ever done, butdefinitely the biggest I've ever done. But
uh yeah, we we have somesome moments that are quite fun. One
of the wheels fell off the otherday, which was kind of funny.
You have to get out the direIron. I mean we started in Roger
and I do a lot of improvwith each other, right, and he
just looked at the wheel and we'relike, how are we gonna continue?

(07:59):
We we know in five minutes wehave to I have to drive this thing
away. So fortunately they held theshow and they fixed the wheel so it
didn't require Roger and I get inthe ti Iron. But uh next time.
The greatest technical mishap I ever sawwas the musical Titanic. Oh Wow,
And at the end of the showfirst preview, they couldn't sink the
ship, oh, which is novelshow about the Titanic where it's changing history.

(08:22):
It would be nice. It's likeTarantino's take on on uh on the
Titanic changing the entire actually exactly.Well, what's the vibe in the theater,
because I imagine people are excited andthey like the kind of yelling back
at you oh yeah, oh yeah, cheering. They know the lines,
right, there's so many lines thatthey must oh yeah, they know the
lines. They know the lines,they know the beats. They also just

(08:45):
get behind these characters, man,I mean George spoiler alert if you haven't
seen the movie George dex Biff atthe end of the show, and uh,
they just scream. Sometimes recently hada very large profanity, but sometimes
but most of the time it's justlike oh yeah George, Hell yeah George.

(09:09):
And it's just like this great.It's just like I've never it's like
church for like the like cut likelarger like pop culture landscape. Just people
are just yelling out whatever they theyfeel, which is just like so different
famous too. No, No,that one's more of a not more that
that's responded to in a different way, you know. That's kind of like

(09:31):
very like cerebral and very like thinkypiece emotional. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so I think people responded in theway of like seeing us at the
stage door and sending messages of likeGod, this piece is like so deep
for me. But this one isjust like fun. This one's just like
they're just gangbusters every night, youknow, just screaming, laughing all the

(09:56):
things. Right now, are youa strictly musical theater? Would you do
Shakespeare? And I've you know,I haven't. I haven't touched Shakespeare yet.
But now that Tom Hollans announced hislittle thing into Shakespeare. I guess,
I guess I should get a moveon, or or at least book
Spider Man. But but no,I haven't. Juli version no killed Well,

(10:18):
you know, hey, Reeve Carneyis h it was pretty great in
that so uh yeah, yeah,Reeves, that's I I love him.
But yeah, I do films aswell, and I've I've gotten to do
a few cool films over the pastcouple of years. I just played Gene
Simmons in a film called Spinning Gold, uh with a fellow musical theater actor

(10:39):
Jeremy Jordan, and then a filmcalled Dark Harvest. Super cool. I
think a lot going on, butwe can still catch you in this show,
right, You're going to stick aroundfor a while. Oh yeah,
I'm there. I'm there for awhile. It's Back to the Future the
Musical. It's at the Winter GardenTheater. Case he likes, such a
pleasure to meet you than pleasure.Pleasure talking a car works tonight, yep,
me too, yeah always yeah,yeah, So, Michael is such

(11:01):
an amazing show. Back to theFuture the Musical. All of my friends
have seen it and are just ravingabout it. So it's a big hit
too. Yeah, it's a hugehit for Broadway in casey was just incredibly
sweet. But I think I textedyou as soon as we heard the news,
the sad news that Cheta Rivera hadpassed. Yeah, ninety one years
old, one of the last ofthe great Broadway stars of that era,

(11:24):
the golden age of Broadway with people. I can't think too many who are
left. Actually John Candor still withus, the author of the right composer,
I should say, of Cabaret andChicago. But Chee it was great.
I knew her for a long,long time fixture on Broadway Original Anita
and Westside Story, of course,and she was in Bye Bye Birdie.
The last time I saw her onstage would have been her show at fifty

(11:48):
four below. She had a greatand she was hitting eighty seven then and
she could still extend her leg wayup into the air and amazing knock out
all those great songs. And shewas really terrific. And I don't know
if you saw her years ago nowof nine the music, I didn't know
she was great in that. Iso wish I had seen her. I've
never seen her on stage. I'mreally so glad that we had the interview.
The interview with her when her memoircame out, and that was not

(12:11):
too long ago, right, thatwas last spring, No, it came
out, Yeah, it came outlast spring, co written with a friend
of mine, Patrick Pacheco, andhe pushed her to be honest about her
life because she was a very privateperson. You know, if you read
interviews with her, she never reallytold you everything that was truly going on
in your life. And he said, of this memoir is going to be
interesting, You've got to deal withyou got to deal with things, including
she had a really super super touredaffair with Sammy Davis Junior when they were

(12:35):
doing some show together, which shedidn't want to talk about, but Patrick
Push could talk about it. Oh, she's just incredible. So Broadway the
theater community will be dimming the lights, yes they will February. Yeah,
for a minute in her honor.All right, well, take care,
I'll talk to you next tek Okay, see you next time.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

The Breakfast Club
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Decisions, Decisions

Decisions, Decisions

Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.