Rhombus Rota

We had the opportunity to speak to Morgan Gregory, who plays Humanity in Hot Mess, about joining the production, developing the character, the challenges of performing an entire show with just one other actor, some of his favourite moments and mishaps from the run, and more!

Gonzalo: How would you describe Hot Mess to someone who hasn’t seen the show?

Morgan Gregory: Hot Mess is the telling of the billion-year love story between our planet Earth and our race, humanity. We span over 3,000 years in our show, and it’s basically a rom-com. It’s funny, it’s sexy, it’s witty at times, and it just explains our relationship and how it might have started off flirty and friendly and exciting, and how quickly it’s become a little bit toxic.

It’s an exploration of how we’ve been a little bit blinded by all the things we want and the things we take and exploit, rather than listening to the planet we love and the planet we live on.

Gonzalo: What made you want to join this production?

Morgan Gregory: I watched the production at the Southwark Playhouse last year, and I’ve worked with Ellie [Coote, book and direction] and Jack [Godfrey, music, lyrics, and co-orchestrations] before. I’ve been a big fan of their work since I worked with them, and I’ve followed them throughout their careers.

So, when I watched the show at the Southwark Playhouse, I watched it mainly for them, but then I came out thinking that it had been amazing! I love the way that they can intertwine such a powerful message almost without you even realizing what you’re watching.

You get halfway through the show, and you go, “Oh my God, actually, this is the most bonkers idea, but actually it makes so much sense. How has no one ever told it this way before?”

I think my initial reaction was just, wow. And then when I saw that it was coming back, and that the role of humanity was available, I did send Ellie a text message and said, “Hey, look, I really think I could do a great job, and I’ve got an understanding of the story we’re telling and also of the character”.

Sometimes you read a script, and you go, “Wow, okay, I feel like I know who this guy is”. So, I think coming into it, and just before the opportunity was even there, I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of.

Gonzalo: Do you think seeing Hot Mess before joining impacted your way of portraying Humanity?

Morgan Gregory: I think watching the show gave me an understanding of the language we were using in the show and understanding its vibe. Sometimes when you’re doing a show, you’re doing it eight times a week and you don’t get to sit and watch what’s happening from start to finish, especially in a show like this where we’re on stage the whole time. There’s rarely a time you’re off stage, and when you’re off stage, you’re quickly changing your shirt or your jeans.

I think being able to watch it in that iteration last year gave me an audience perspective of what’s going on, which I think is so important in something like this, because the audience is almost the character of our story. We’re telling our story collectively. So that third-person view is really important.

Gonzalo: Have you tweaked your portrayal of Humanity as you’ve gone along?

Morgan Gregory: I think so, yeah. Ellie is so great at running a room. I think what’s nice about Jack and Ellie is that they’re protective over their material, but at the same time, they want to get the best out of everything. We would sit in a rehearsal room and we’d go, “Okay, today we’re going to do scene one”. And we’d sit there and we’d read through it. We’d read through it four or five times, and then Ellie would go, “Okay, I want to change that,” and we’d rewrite this, and she would go, “Now, how about this?” And I’d go, “Yeah,” and then she’d go, “What do you think?”

I think it was constantly evolving. Even now. I think both me and Danielle are not creatures of habit. We like to constantly find new beats and find new things. So yeah, I still think it’s changing every night.

Sometimes, especially towards the later scenes, there’s a lot more freedom for us to kind of find this rhythm. And it really depends on how we’re feeling that day, on how that story is told. Obviously, there are certain beats that you hit, certain lighting cues and music cues, but especially in those scenes with a little bit more dialogue, we’re constantly finding new things and finding new ways to tell this story.

Gonzalo: Humanity is a very interesting character. He comes across as very charming and all smiles, particularly towards the beginning of the show. But there’s also this narcissistic and dangerous side that comes along towards the end. Was it challenging to portray these two very different sides of your character?

Morgan Gregory: Yeah. A lot of the comments I get from my friends and family that come to watch it are [regarding the ending] “Whoa, I’ve never seen you like that before”.

It is challenging to unlock that, but it’s also extremely exciting to be able to unlock it in a way where we all trust each other and we feel deeply about the story that we’re telling.

And coming into that last third of the show, we really wanted to ramp up the intensity and the toxicity, to really kind of hammer this home and to see that switch of [the audience] going, “No, I’m not just enjoying this guy and finding this guy funny. No, he’s telling our story and we’re not being very nice”.

And I think for us to tell that and for it to be successful, we had to really go there. During those first rehearsals, it just felt icky. It’s not nice to shout, it’s not nice to do things like that, but I think it’s important for the story that we’re telling.

It was tricky, and it’s icky, and it sometimes feels a bit gross. But as an actor, those are the parts you get. Playing a villain is amazing because you get to be so far from who you are. Especially, playing a villain that is us. We are the villain of this story.

So it makes it very meta, but certainly an exciting challenge as an actor.

Gonzalo: Hot Mess is very different from many other productions because it’s a two-person show. What would you say are some of the challenges and opportunities of doing a show with just one other person on stage?

Morgan Gregory: There’s many [challenges]. In rehearsals there was almost a weird feeling that there’s no one coming to save you. If one of us goes off track, if one of us drops a line, there’s no ensemble coming in for a musical number in thirty seconds.

In rehearsals, that was certainly difficult, because it is just us, and the workload is intense. In those three weeks of rehearsals, normally, in a normal production, you might do your one scene and your one song and then you have time to sit on the other side of the room and maybe look at your script, or you might get a morning off. Whereas the main challenge for me in rehearsals was, no, this is it. We’re in rehearsal from 10 to 6. We’re delving into the characters; we are delving into the story the whole time.

The workload was really intense, and it still is intense now. We start a show and while I see Dan [Danielle Steers, playing Earth] the whole way through the show, we don’t [really] see each other. I’m not chatting to Dan, I’m chatting to Earth as Humanity. So we get to that last bit where we bow, and we both hug, and we’re like, “Phew, okay, wow”.

On the plus side, it is only [the] two of us, and there’s a lot of trust there. We’ve developed that relationship on and off the stage so that we can work any kinks out. We can go through all this motion, and we know where A is and we know where B is, so we can work out our own way of getting there.

But I mean, it’s still hard. For me, the biggest challenge of this whole process is just the workload. You get on that wave, and it’s non-stop for an hour and a half. And in that sense, it’s definitely up there with one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

But then when you push yourself to those limits, it feels really rewarding.

Gonzalo: What is your favourite moment from the show?

Morgan Gregory: I’m a big fan of Danielle Steers. I think she’s fantastic. So, when we get to “My House”, the payoff is so great, and I get to become an audience member during that number.

And yet, my character is fearful, and is regretful, and has so many things, so many emotions rushing through my head, but that’s one moment where I kind of fall to the floor and I’m looking back at her, and I just get to watch her be amazing.

So that, for me, is a particular highlight. I love that point in the show. I love just getting to watch how fantastic she is, almost from an audience perspective. I’m down with you guys, and I’m living and breathing that moment.

So yeah, I do love that bit. And the reaction from that every night is amazing. And it’s also weirdly rewarding to give her that reaction, because I think we get to a place where you do “What Did You Expect?” and you expect maybe a remorseful song and Earth to go, “Okay, you’re right, I take you back”. Whereas, no, she turns around and she’s like, “Get the f*ck out of my house”. And it happens and you’re like, “Oh my God, thank God, thank God she did that”.

That for me is a highlight of the show.

Gonzalo: Have there been any funny mishaps during the show?

Morgan Gregory: Yes. I recently had a bit of a blank on stage There’s a section before “Better With Time (Reprise)”, where we kind of go back into this kind of rap with the mic, as we’re ramping into the 21st century. Humanity’s energy is all over the shop, and he’s kind of said, “Look, everything’s gonna be fine”. But he’s getting so overwhelmed with all these new opportunities and all these new, exciting, shiny things. You really see how his brain is working, and he’s just so greedy.

And I just had a blank. The rap starts with me going, “Greener energy,” and I literally went [mouths gibberish].

And then we kind of just lost it, but we were both looking at each other going, “What is going on?” And then it took, felt like five hours, but it was ten seconds of us just panicking.

And then we came off, but then we couldn’t laugh about it, because we’re going into an intense scene. So then afterwards, backstage, we’re like, “Oh my, what just happened?”

So that was a really funny mishap that happened fairly recently. I want to say it was last week.

Gonzalo: If you had to audition for Hot Mess again, which songs, from the show or from outside of the show, would you choose for this audition?

Morgan Gregory: Oh, that’s a good question. What would I choose? I’m trying to think of stuff that inspired Jack’s writing. You know what’s a good one? And I think it is the vibe of “Can’t Get Enough of Me”, is something from McFly. That kind of boy-band-y but a little bit grungy. Maybe something like “It’s All About You” from McFly would be a good one.

Especially for that first kind of chunk of introducing who Hu [Humanity] is, or who we think Hu is at the start of the relationship, “It’s All About You” would go down well.

Gonzalo: If you were to swap roles for one night and you were to play Earth, what would you bring to that character?

Morgan Gregory: I mean, what’s there left to bring? I don’t know. I think I would just try and match Dan’s sass and the way Dan works a stage. I think it’d be a great challenge, especially that first number. It’s like seven minutes, it’s a marathon in itself.

I think I would just try and bring that sass and that Danielle Steers energy. That bad-b*tch energy. That’s what I’d try and bring.

Gonzalo: Just to close, is there anything you’d like to say directly to the fans of Hot Mess, or to the people who are unsure about watching the show?

Morgan Gregory: To the fans, thank you for supporting us. I think getting a new British musical over the line is really difficult. I think getting any new writing over the line at the moment is a difficult feat in itself. So anyone that’s come and supported it and come and watched it and enjoyed it, thank you. We really appreciate it.

And to anyone that hasn’t come watch, what are you doing? There’s no better time to watch Hot Mess, and especially in a summer like this, the story feels all the more poignant, and it’s a fantastic night at the theatre. It also leaves you thinking that a conversation has started in your head. And if we can start a hundred conversations over this piece of theatre, that’d be amazing.

So yeah, it’s been a fantastic summer, and I love Hot Mess, and I hope it runs for a hundred years.

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We’d like to thank Morgan Gregory for taking the time to chat with us. It was great fun to get some insider insight into Hot Mess and hear more about the show from behind the scenes.

Hot Mess is now in its final weeks, so if you haven’t seen it yet, there’s still time to experience this funny, chaotic and heartbreaking love story between Earth and humanity for yourself. If you need any additional motivation, here is our review of the show. Catch the show at The Other Palace until 6 September. As Morgan said, “there’s no better time to watch Hot Mess”.

Gonzalo