Everyone knows Rodgers and Hammerstein and the legacy that comes with their collaborations, but many forget the brilliance and heartbreak of Rodgers and Hart. The applause roars for one man while another slips quietly into the shadows. Fame and failure share the same stage tonight, divided only by a curtain call. That’s the haunting pulse of “Blue Moon,” a story of creative partners colliding at the peak of one’s success and the edge of the other’s undoing. Over one fateful Broadway night, a composer stands in the light of his newest triumph while his lyricist drowns in the darkness just beyond the spotlight. It’s a breakup told in music, memory, and smoke.
On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo pairs conversations with Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater and Andrew Scott, weaving their perspectives together on collaboration, rehearsal, and the human math of loving someone you can’t fix.
Nine collaborations deep, Hawke and Linklater’s shorthand remains less code than continuum. Hawke said, "The changes are pretty invisible to me. It feels like one long collaboration, one long conversation." Linklater added, "I met Ethan in 1992. We went out later that night, we were at a bar, and we talked all night. We’re still talking. That's what it feels like." Scott, reflecting on their dynamic, noted that the film itself “is about two people who’ve been through so much together that their chemistry almost becomes a language.”