Song Beneath The Song ~ Calzona
Shonda Rhimes, Writer, ‘Song Beneath The Song’| Grey’s Anatomy 07x18
“…I stood backstage at this concert and I listened to members of both of my casts sing…Sara Ramirez closed the benefit. And when she opened her mouth, she brought the house down. I know people say that – brought the house down. It’s a thing people say. But Sara Ramirez (who has a Tony of her own) BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN. She’s a superhero. Singing is her super power. …most of us have super powers. But not a lot of us have super powers that involve opening our mouths and having God come out. I’m not a big God person but that’s really the only way to describe what happens when Sara sings. God, or whatever you want to call the magic of the universe, comes out.
…Then at the very beginning of Season 7, I said to the writers that Callie should get pregnant with Mark Sloan’s baby and that it should be complicated and horrible and really upset Arizona. And suddenly, I knew what the musical episode should be about. Sara Ramirez was the one who gave me the idea that we should sing the songs our show had made famous. Tony Phelan was the one who directed the episode. The entire writing staff helped me make the script make sense. Bossy McBossy Rob Corn never once complained about how overbudget we were. The crew went all in, leaping off this crazy cliff of music with us. And every single member of the cast got excited and came together like the family they are to do this right.”
OTHERS ~
SINGING -
CHYLER LEIGH: “It literally brings me to tears when Sara Ramirez sings. She’s unbelievable.”
ELLEN POMPEO: “She won a Tony for Spamalot so she can really sing, so she does the bulk of the singing.”
PATRICK DEMPSEY: “Sara does a great job with it. It’s a great opportunity for her. For the people that don’t know her, she won the Tony, so she has a great voice. She’s really beautiful in it.”
KEVIN MCKIDD: “There’s a musical episode in Season Seven, which was great fun to work on. It’s meant to act as a love letter to the long-term fans of the show, and there’s a gripping Calzona storyline in the episode that’ll get you”
JESSE WILLIAMS: “It’s totally in line with this season and these characters (Callie and Arizona). And it’s just incredibly moving. I don’t even think this should be called a musical. It’s just a regular episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ that’s just super-heightened, really intense, incredibly well-written and there’s singing in it. Music is a big part of our show anyway, right? We break artists all the time.”
SARAH DREW: “I think you’re going to cry a lot; there are multiple moments to cry. I think what the musical really adds is a level of gravity and gravitas. It’s also a love letter to our fans, I think. The songs that we are singing are all iconic Grey’s Anatomy songs from seasons one and two. I think people will love hearing our reinventions of these songs, and they are all interwoven into the stories, so the lyrics really make sense with what’s happening in the story… Sara just kills it, it’s insane.”
JESSICA CAPSHAW: “I sing a duet with her (Sara Ramirez), and I sing bits and pieces of other songs. And I think it’s cause I am more comfortable with her than others that I am less intimidated (laughs)”
TONY PHELAN: “Well, it’s intimidating, knowing you’re going to be singing next to a Tony winner. Kate Walsh and Ellen Pompeo were both very hesitant. But we won everybody over eventually. We found out Chyler Leigh has a great voice, and thank God Eric Dane and Jessica Capshaw can sing, because they’re so integral to Callie’s story.”
STORY LINE -
ERIC DANE & CHYLER LEIGH:
“Mark has wanted a kid since Addison I think. And now he’s having one with his best friend, which is not the pretty package he would expect to have but that’s life. And what’s 'Grey’s Anatomy’ without a little bit cheating and dying?” “…He’s kind of freaked out and shocked.” Dane added,“Arizona and he will finally have a common ground in this episode. And there’s finally some 'Slexie’ to look forward to” Lexie will be there to support him during this troubling time. “They have a moment where they can just be together and it’s OK to cry,” Leigh says. “You just know that you’re with somebody that you love, somebody that you trust, and somebody that you can break down in front of.”
JESSICA CAPSHAW:
“I think that the proposal is something that is 100 percent heartfelt, but it’s just something that she sees as an answer to not feeling legitimate in this new arrangement,” says Jessica Capshaw, who will sing KT Tunstall’s “Universe & U” with Ramirez. “So, before you can even figure out why it is that she asks Callie to marry her, they’re in this horrible situation.”
One of many outcomes of the accident: Somewhat ironically, Arizona and Mark will grow closer as the events of next week’s episode unfold. “The traumatic circumstance leads to them having a greater understanding of each other and then appreciation, and then need for each other and desire to be in each other’s lives,” Capshaw previews. “They come to care, I think, for one another.”
SARA RAMIREZ:
“Our loyal Calzona fans have stuck by us through thin and thick. It’s exciting to be working with a show that takes risks. When I see fans getting upset about what may happen—not that we want people getting in a panic mode, but at the same time, it’s great that people are talking at all, whether it’s negative or positive. That they care enough to have a conversation about it. It’s fantastic.”
“It’s like a dream I didn’t even know I had coming true,” says the actress, who won a 2005 Tony Award for her Broadway run in Monty Python’s Spamalot.
“It feels like everything in my life and career has been leading up to this moment.”
While the details of Callie’s ordeal are being kept mostly under wraps, Ramirez reveals to the TV magazine that her character experiences “a life-altering event that [allows her] to process why her life with Arizona is worth fighting for.” So, at hour’s end, will the doctors paying tribute to the music of Grey’s be singing lullabies or the blues? Ramirez advises coming prepared for either scenario.
“Have a Kleenex nearby,” she says. “Just in case it gets to be too much.”
“I don’t know how anybody survives that,” Ramirez tells the site. “But, I’ll tell you something: It’s a wake-up call of epic proportions for Callie. What lies in front of her [after the accident] is more than just glass. It’s an opportunity to fight for her life and to make sense of why her life, and her life with Arizona, is worth fighting for"
FAVOURITE MOMENTS: TPTB
BETSY BEERS: The Story
“You know a mother’s first instinct is always her baby. It’s sort of what we call a mother’s sixth sense that always thinks about her baby first. Yet in that moment (The Story), the singing Callie (played by Sara Ramirez) is enraged & willing her body to wake up so she could say 'yes’ to Arizona’s(played by Jessica Capshaw) proposal. Which is what her first instinct was, her calling, what brought her out of coma.”
Herbert Davis:
“Sara Ramirez is god in this episode, we all know that. But Jessica Capshaw people, she’s the dark horse. Our sweet bubbly, perky Arizona in one of Greys most emotional installment ever. And Eric Dane people, yes, he can lay it even with his shirt on. Arizona is the most sensible one in our favorite threesome. And you have to know why Arizona’s fighting so hard for Callie & the baby both. The answer to that is in our previous episode. It’s in the fact that Callie told her first hand that this baby is her dream. So that’s why you see what you see, she’s fighting for both Callie & the baby, Callie’s dream. And in the end she’s the one who saves it”
SUSAN VAILL: Running On Sunshine
“This is the most epic episode I ever got to cut… This episode have a flashback dream sequence. …it’s just so simply epic that even if we would have ended the episode here, you would still have known that Callie’s answer to Arizona was 'yes’, because that what’s her dream is about”
SHONDA RHIMES: How To Save A Life
“In that moment we wanted to show what makes Callie and Arizona, 'Callie & Arizona’? What is this connection everyone roots for?[…] So when Tony talked about the semi - crescendo 'How To Save A Life’, I said I want that moment here. So we had this very pure moment where the singing (soul) Callie is touching Arizona’s hand and for a split second Arizona feels it.”
