Clyde and Gracie Lawrence of the band Lawrence talk with Leo Sidran about their creative philosophy, their use of humor, their approach to honest songwriting, and how that sensibility brought them to All Out On Broadway.
Lawrence, All Out, and the Broadway Show That Refuses to Sit Still
Broadway generally is designed for consistency. A show opens, it freezes, and from that point forward the goal is reliability. All Out on Broadway is built on the opposite idea.
The show follows last year’s All In on Broadway, which centered on the music of The Magnetic Fields and a rotating cast of what the show boasts are “the funniest people on earth” reading stories by Simon Rich (one of the youngest writers ever hired at Saturday Night Live and a relentless creator of absurdist humor).
Like its predecessor, All Out is a limited run with a rotating lineup drawn from comedy, theater, music, and film. The show is intentionally unstable. What you see tonight is not guaranteed tomorrow.
The point is not the cast list on any single night or week, but the feeling that something current and un-rehearsable is happening in real time.
At the musical center of that experiment is the band Lawrence, which is the only fixed piece in a show where the cast is constantly shifting. All Out almost plays like a Lawrence concert that is punctuated by Simon Rich’s spoken pieces, rather than the other way around.
The band is led by siblings Clyde and Gracie Lawrence; for them making music a family business, which they make explicit on their most recent album.
The band has deep New York roots and a following that still carries a sense of ownership. Fans often feel they discovered the band early, and that feeling hasn’t disappeared even as the audience has grown.
When I spoke with Clyde and Gracie for The Third Story podcast, they talked about success as something incremental. “For us it’s never felt like, this is the moment,” Clyde told me. “It’s always just felt like a gradual ascent.”
That outlook fits comfortably inside All Out. This is not a show that pretends to be finished.
Since our earlier conversations, both siblings have expanded their reach. Gracie has appeared on TV and in films, and in Just in Time on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination. Clyde has continued to build a parallel career behind the scenes, writing and producing for other artists. As he told me, “I always thought I’d end up producing or writing for other people. I didn’t really see myself as a front person.”
Lawrence takes their music and their craft seriously, but they have never shied away from humor and schtick. Their songs are often funny without tipping into novelty, and their live shows rely on timing, banter, and self-awareness as much as groove. That sensibility runs deep and often connects to a Jewish comedic tradition rooted in observation and understatement. In our 2020 conversation, Clyde described it this way: “Growing up we were aware that we had this kind of like the Seinfeld of bands vibe.” The humor isn’t an add-on or a wink at the audience. It’s built into how the music communicates and how the band connects in the room.
That instinct matters in All Out, where comedy and music share equal footing. The band is not just accompanying jokes or underscoring scenes. They are part of the rhythm of the night, responding to what unfolds and helping hold together a show that is designed to stay loose.
Gracie’s vocal prowess and physicality on stage are undeniable, but when it comes to writing, she values honesty over flash. “I really try to just be super authentic and write about things I actually care about,” she told me. “I don’t want to compromise that out of fear of how an audience might react.”
So while this may not be the moment of arrival for Lawrence, All Out on Broadway is a meaningful stop along the way. “The wheels are turning now,” Clyde told me. “I’m not stressed about getting them to turn anymore.”
“The wheels are turning now,” Clyde told me. “I’m not stressed about getting them to turn anymore.”
All Out on Broadway runs until March 8.
