When Andrew Rannells hired a bunch of stage favorites to appear in the upcoming Season 2 episode of Modern Love—his directorial debut—he knew filming would go swimmingly. Among those in the theatre-stacked cast are Nikki M. James, Kathryn Gallagher, and Larry Owens, Jr.

“It turned into a bit of a summer stock experience of all these NY actors now upstate in this small town, living in the same hotel, all eating at this one outdoor restaurant...it was such a joy to get to do. And I hope that it shows in the work,” the Tony nominee told Playbill

Even the Amazon executives were blown away. “I told them, when you cast theatre actors on TV or film, they come very prepared. And I think they were slightly skeptical—I made them do 8 or 9 pages of dialogue in one run, and they said ‘are they going to be able to remember that?’, and I was like ‘yah, they’re going to just fine!’... I was very proud of the theatre folk.”

Check out the entire interview above. Rannells’ episode, “How Do You Remember Me?,” is based on a Modern Love column he wrote in The New York Times in 2017. All of Season 2 is available to stream August 13 on Amazon Prime Video.