If Schmigadoon!, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and Glee had a group hug, it might look something like Up There, Hulu’s robust, vigorous, and downright imaginative new musical romantic comedy. But take note: While Up Here shares some of the ideals of some of its creative siblings, it’s thoroughly original as tracks its two leads—Mae Whitman (Good Girls) and Carlos Valdes (The Flash)—contemplating love while also having to battle the fears, memories, obsessions, and fantasies that—wait for it—live inside their heads. Let’s break out into song and dance, shall we?
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. Thomas Kail (Hamilton) directs and executive produces the new series with Levenson, Sanchez-Witzel, Anderson-Lopez, Lopez, and Jennifer Todd.
The musical comedy is set in New York City during the waning days of 1999 and tracks Lindsay and Miguel (Whitman and Valdes), as they fall in love and discover that the biggest obstacles standing in the way of their happiness is their own inner critic. Toss in some Mommy and daddy issues, peer pressure, and, well, life itself, then cue some music and perform enterprising dance numbers, and you’ll pretty much be down for Up Here. Katie Finneran, Andréa Burns, Sophia Hammons, John Hodgman, and Emilia Suárez costar.
MovieWeb caught up with costars Finneran and Burns, and some members of the creative team—Levenson, Sanchez-Witzel, and Kail—to learn more.
Those Voices Inside Your Head
Throughout the series, viewers will notice that other characters appear with Lindsay and Miguel. Most of those characters exist in the characters’ minds, showing up at the most, well, comedic, moments—just to toss in their two cents. Fun all around. Finneran and Burns play Joan and Rosie, Lindsay and Miguel’s mothers, respectively. As a side note: The fashion styles of the late 1990s have never been so aptly depicted here. Deep down, though, the actors strongly feel Up Here will stand out in the very populated streaming universe.
“What I love about doing musicals, especially right now, is that there’s been a lot of… sort of winking to the camera—like, it’s a musical, it’s silly, but what I love about our show is the musical moments are just sort of an extension of the acting, but with bigger feelings,” Finneran shared. “And so many of us come from a Broadway background, that we just feel very at home in that world. And it’s going to be really exciting to bring it to a whole new audience on the small screen.”
The show does an effective job of touching on themes of self-esteem, courage, heartache, love, and hope, too. Burns pointed out the show is designed to tug on the heartstrings and make everybody feel good.
“I think we need to surround ourselves with the people who love us—love is the vitamins we need,” she said. “And while we need to notice the voices in our heads, we also need to stay connected to our hope when those inner voices want to drown out the good things. I hope people feel less alone with this show.”
In the exclusive MovieWeb clip below, the stars candidly share more about their experiences on the series, particularly playing the mothers of the two main characters, and how they would love for folks to refer to their characters.
The Team Behind the Magic
To be sure, Levenson, who brought tick, tick…BOOM! and Dear Evan Hansen to life, is downright imaginative. Teaming up with Sanchez-Witzel (The Carmichael Show) paid off here creatively. Their intent was to create an unforgettable and thoroughly imagined series.
“We want the show to tell a love story that really asks: ‘Are people capable of moving on from their pasts? Are we capable of moving on from our own insecurities, our own blind spots, and really seeing another person, and letting ourselves be seen by somebody?’” Levenson said. “And that’s an ongoing, open question in the series. I think in all of our lives, it’s sort of… how transparent can you be with somebody else? How willing are you to let them see the madness that’s really going on up there?”
Sanchez-Witzel added that she and Levenson were inspired by Robert Lopez (The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the duo who co-wrote the Oscar-winning song “Let It Go” from Frozen. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez teamed up on the book, music, and lyrics of the stage version of Up Here, and Sanchez-Witzel wanted to capture the magic in a streaming series.
“We were inspired, obviously, by the Broadway musical, but we really made it its own,” she explained. “We took themes from the stage show, but we gave it its own characters and its own story. The theme of… can you ever really know someone or can you really be known, came from that. It was a big overarching theme we wanted to use in the series. We want people to know that they’re not alone—like, honestly, you know, I think the concept of having characters in our heads is quite relatable. There are voices we have telling us all of these things. We wanted to tell a story about getting out of your own way.”
Kail (Hamilton) directs and executive produces Up Here. When asked what his biggest challenge was getting everything to sync up creatively, he said that, ultimately, he kept leaning into his desire to make an original musical on television.
“It provided us the exact challenge we were looking for because many of us worked in TV, and a lot of us worked in theater, and the question of how we could take those skills and see what translated was part of why we dove into this,” Kail shared. “Ultimately, the storytelling in a musical is one that allows the elevated emotion to be expressed musically. So that’s exactly the same as onstage. So, one of the big, practical challenges here was that we didn’t have the process of rehearsal, where you’re going to work, you know, Monday through Saturday, basically in the theater, and you’re sort of layering it slowly. So, we were always hearing the ticking clock.”
“Generally, we did a song and dance number in half a day, which is, which is really fast,” he added. “And some of them are big numbers. Our wonderful choreographer would do a lot of pre-production. Then we would come in, watch it live, then shoot. We were prepared to get in there on the day and still let inspiration happen and capture that elevated emotion. It was really all about taking these little mini-musicals and seeing if we could add them up to a larger musical.”
Stream Up Here on Hulu, beginning March 24.
