I was fortunate enough to sit down with songwriting duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez about their new project, Up Here, a brand-new musical romantic comedy set in New York City in the waning days of 1999, following the extraordinary story of one ordinary couple, as they fall in love – and discover that the single greatest obstacle to finding happiness together might just be themselves – and the treacherous world of memories, obsessions, fears, and fantasies that lives inside their heads.
Up Here is written by Steven Levenson (“tick, tick…BOOM!”, “Dear Evan Hansen”) and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (“The Carmichael Show”) with songwriting duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (“Frozen,” “WandaVision”) writing original songs. “Hamilton’s” Thomas Kail directs and executive produces the series alongside Levenson, Sanchez-Witzel, Anderson-Lopez, Lopez, and Jennifer Todd. 20th Television serves as the production company alongside Kail’s Old 320 Sycamore Productions.
Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez Talk All Things ‘Up Here’
An edited transcript of the interview can be found below:
Josh: Hi, guys. How are you?
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Hi, you have Olaf behind you!
Josh: Oh, I had to. It’s an absolute honor speaking with you both, but I’ll get right into things. I have to ask you something. What was it like transitioning from from stage to screen with Up Here? How fun of an experience has it been?
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Oh, it was a thrill because we obviously love musical theater, but we also really love the streaming genre, especially like the half-hour comedy streaming series. It had always been on our bucket list to do this. But then when you get to do it with someone as talented as Tommy Kail, Steven Levenson and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel who are all experts in both musical theater and TV themselves, it was just so exciting and a great adventure.
Robert Lopez: We were game. We were really actually very happy to throw out most of what we had done for the stage Up Jere and really start over with such incredible collaborators. Because honestly, we wanted it to be, you know, essentially a streaming series musical and not feel like something adapted. So every episode is its own little musical. This is something that we all kind of figured out as we went along that every episode had to feel like a musical that had a beginning, middle and an end where the main moments were in song. Then the whole arc of the entire season, eight episodes, would feel like kind of a larger musical. I think it worked in that even when you listen to the soundtrack, it it’s sort of the same size as the Broadway soundtrack of a Broadway cast album and it feels like you’re hearing one story.
Josh: Obviously speaking about the soundtrack, you’ve got so many different styles of music. What was that like finding the inspiration for so many genres of music? IWas there was one in particular that you really wanted to to sort of have in the show?
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: I would say that one of the things that inspired score is that we had our own courtship and met each other in fall of ‘99, right before Y2K, and the music you were listening to during that time. We were both obsessed with the Magnolia soundtrack and obsessed with the singer songwriters of the 90’s. We also both obsessed with musical theater and Sondheim and William Finn. So we were kind of pulling in our own things that we loved at that time, and that’s why underneath it all there’s a little bit of like an indie band kind of connecting it all. We never use like a huge, huge orchestra ever. This is all something that could be done in a small studio.
Robert Lopez: Well, we and Justin Ward Weber, Tom Kitt and Scott M. Riesett have had a blast. We basically got together this amazing band, which is the core sound of every single song. And sometimes we add strings or, you know, brass here and there throughout the soundcheck. But mostly it is this band.
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Or an 8-bit mini opera!
Robert Lopez: That’s right. Yes, we did. We did one song that was completely voiced in 8-bit Nintendo sounds, and that was a lot of fun too. The theme for all this music is our feelings, mostly unexpressed gigantic feelings that we need to deal with somehow as people. Most of us, especially guys, tend to just sort of ignore them or push them aside or deny them. But it’s really the theme of the show in that is two characters who belong together need to get me to get around these feelings, figure out how to deal with them directly in order to be able to to be together.
Josh: Finally, one last question I asked Thomas before, if there was one person you’ve collaborated with that you could see as one of your inner voices. Do you know who that would be?
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Well, this is such a good question. I would say Patti LuPone. There’s something that Patti represents that’s like an irrepressible female spirit that lives inside of my brain who’s like, begins singing
Robert Lopez: Zoom censored you honey!
Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Oh it did? Zoom said “Don’t sing that loud or high”.
Robert Lopez: For me, anyone we’ve collaborated with, I would say Tommy Kail. He’s such a genius communicator. He’s able to distill exactly what you’re thinking and what he’s trying to say, in sometimes sometimes one, sometimes to three words and he’s lightning fast. I really admire that and I really admire his is the scope of his vision.
Up Here is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Check out a trailer below:
