Dionne Gipson Is All Fired Up…

Being cast as Madame Montague in the new musical Invincible is not the first time actress/singer Dionne Gipson has been asked to play a role in a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. As part of For the Record: Baz Luhrmann she was asked to sing Prince’s When Doves Cry from the filmmaker’s Romeo+Juliet.

Now she’s singing the words and music of Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo in Invincible – The Musical which is having its world premiere at The Wallis in Beverly Hills and will run through December 18th. The book is by Bradley Bredeweg and the show is directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene.

Gipson has been with the show throughout its development. As Madame Montague she plays a widow who advocates for peaceful resistance against the Capulets who are running Verona. She has an extraordinary voice and a stage presence that anchors a show mostly performed by younger actors.

Last month, a few days after the first previews, I spoke with Gipson via Zoom about the show and her role in it. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full conversation, please go to our YouTube channel.

Before we get started talking about Invincible, I want to ask you about Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Why do you think this play about star-crossed lovers has inspired so many artists to create their own variations of it and why do audiences eat up this tragic story?

Romeo and Juliet is the classic story of everybody’s ideal of what love is to them. I think most of the world comes from backgrounds where there’s some obstacles that prevent them from being with each other. They have to do everything they can to fight to be together – which is the story of most teenagers. Parents usually don’t like the other person or there’s something that makes it hard for a lot of teenagers who really love each other to come together. I think this hits a lot of people and their experiences of how love happens for them.

I think a lot of people use this story because you can insert so many things into it. You can put a Black person with the white person, the Indian with an Asian person, a short with the tall. Opposites that are supposed to be together get to come together. Romeo and Juliet allows every diversity whatever it is gay, straight, Black, Hispanic; whatever the differences may be, they can come together despite them.

In Invincible there is no Mr. Montague and there is no Mr. Capulet. There is only Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Capulet. So tell me about the role you’re playing, Madame Montague, and what she takes on the way the show is structured. 

This is postwar and Madam Montague represents a sign of, I would say, Martin Luther King sort of peace where she’s trying to teach her son about how to fight and stay in the fight for equality by using the philosophy of non-violence. Her husband has passed in the war so people are looking to her unofficially as a leader.

The same on the Capulet side. She’s not really in charge. But, since her husband was the one that was in charge, everybody kind of looks to her as well. These are two women who have are running each sector of Verona with unofficial leadership.

They have their way of doing things. Madam Montague is the peaceful way. The Capulets are about a dictatorship and the Montagues are about democracy and having equal rights. So my goal in this story is to teach my son to fight for what’s right in the world and your place in the world without being violent.

How does this music work in telling the story? 

It’s amazing how they did it. Bradley Bredeweg is the book writer on this and I think he’s been working on this 12 years. Pat and Neil came in and they made this beautiful, wonderful piece. Jessie Vargas, who who did all the music for the show, arranged so many of the songs. You still know what the songs are because they’re Pat Benatar and they still have the melodies. But the way he arranged them to underscore the falling in love is just simply amazing. They sing We Live For Love. It’s a little bit faster when she recorded it, but Jessie slows it down. It’s a moment when they’re falling in love with each other and realize that this is what we live for. People try to keep us apart and wow, look at what we’ve just found – something so beautiful.

I sing a song called Let’s Stay Together. I’m trying to reason with Romeo about not getting out there and trying to fight the physical fight with any of these Capulets because they got more weapons than us. They’ll take us all out. We don’t need any more war. Be peaceful. Do your protest. Stand up for yourself and don’t listen to all that craziness with all your friends out there. Stay right here. Remember the love. Let’s stay together.

What role, if any, did Pat Benatar and her music play in your life?

Being from Peoria, Illinois, we had one rock radio station and two country music stations. When I was 13 – I’m telling my age – but I remember going to one of her concerts and there were two girls in my neighborhood that turned me on to Pat Benatar. To see somebody like Pat come on TV, feeling the angst that we felt as kids, and being strong and powerful and being tough, you didn’t get to see that in female artists at the time. So she was kind of coming in to change the whole landscape of how we thought about who we are as women.

The very first time I got to be involved in this show was probably five years ago when they did their very first workshop. It was amazing. I couldn’t even believe it. She’s very involved in the show. She’s there every day, all day, her and Neil. If it’s not her, it’s Neil or both. They are hands-on in the process. Even from the start with the first workshop she sits down and talks to us individually. Telling us why she wrote this song, what it means and where she was in her life. I just want to pinch myself that it’s Pat Benatar and Neil Geraldo that I’m getting to talk to and have dialog about their songs and their life.

How do you think this show will resonate in a country that is so polarized? Where people have to put those they don’t agree with in a separate area so as not to be bothered, not to be spoken to, not to be listened to?

I’m sure Bradley thought to be inclusive because this is what Bradley Bredeweg does. Every story that he’s ever done has always been about inclusivity and bringing everybody in. I love the storyline and the cast is so diverse. Romeo is an African-American boy. Juliet is a Filipino girl. Madame Capulet, Sharon Leals, is part Filipino and part Black. I’m a Black, African-American woman. Benvoglio is non-binary. Mercutio is gay. The girl who plays Nura, she’s, I think, part Japanese, part white. Even our director is an African-American woman. So many diverse [artists] in the cast and crew. 

You and I became acquainted through the For the Record series. Anybody who was in Los Angeles who saw For the Record Tarantino or Baz Luhrmann, Scorsese, or the rest, knows you from those shows. How much did those shows inform who you are today as an actor, as a singer, and how are you able to apply those skills to something like Invincible?

I can’t say enough about For the Record. That’s my family. I was resurrected during that series. I had been in L.A. doing mostly television film and hadn’t been in the theater a lot. I would sing here and there at different things. I got into For the Record at the most amazing time. I came in the beginning when they first started.

With For the Record you better know how to do everything very fast because at that time they were putting shows up in like two weeks. I grew as a singer in the series. I didn’t even know I had that range like that, that I can hold notes. Now I’m soprano. I used to be alto, low alto. Now my range is increased. I’m not afraid. I feel like I can be thrown anything and I can deal with it. I can do any part because in For the Record I got to play a man. I got to play Sam Jackson. I’ve gotten to play so many diverse roles because that’s how For the Record started. It didn’t matter.

In her memoir Pat Benatar wrote the following, “I’ve enjoyed every age I’ve been and each has had its own individual merit. Every laugh line, every scar, is a badge I wear to show I’ve been present, the inner rings of my personal tree trunk that I display proudly for all to see. Nowadays, I don’t want a ‘perfect’ face and body. I want to wear the life I’ve lived.” Without going into any specifics about your age, as you get older, do you feel the same way Pat Benatar does that you want to that you want to wear the life you’ve lived?

Sometimes you feel powerful when you can achieve something as yourself. Like getting cast in this role as a mom of a son. It’s a powerful role and I get to instill something to my boy. I went into the role for this audition as myself. No makeup, just my hair and my voice and what I brought in. When you’re validated by getting a role as you are, then you love who you are when you make those accomplishments as you are.

When you don’t get something or you don’t achieve something because of something about yourself, then you start looking and question those things about yourself. Am I really good enough? Is my voice too big? Is it too small? Was it the tone of my voice? Did they not like that? I always have to go back and look at what I’ve accomplished in my life as Dionne. I’ve never gotten any plastic surgery or anything like that. I think about everything that I have done. I go, you know, I was hired because of something in me they love. So you appreciate that.

I totally agree with Pat on that. When you see her she looks so beautiful. She’s so happy. Her relationship with Neil, it’s so magical. You see what the key is; why she looks so good; why both of them look so good, is because the happiness that they have with each other. That really keeps you happy inside you. You have somebody who wants you, who loves all those things of you.

Looking at what she’s accomplished and kind of comparing it to myself, I would say the lessons I would get from that is being who you are and accomplishing things. Being the authentic person that you are will help you as you grow older to appreciate everything that you have. 

To see the full interview with Dionne Gipson, please go here.

Main Photo: Dionne Gipson and Aaron Alcaraz in “Invincible – The Musical” (Photo by Sean Daniels/DVR Productions – Courtesy The Wallis)