One of South African writer/director Lara Foot’s earliest memories of being creative is of staying up late after seeing a movie and rewriting the story in her mind to have a happier, or at least a better, ending. That instinct for storytelling at such a young age has no doubt served Foot well as she has had a remarkably successful career in the theater.

This week her adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel Life & Times of Michael K, written by JM Coetzee, opens at The Wallis in Beverly Hills on November 21st. She uses only the first half of Coetzee’s story of a young man’s journey through his war-torn country to return his mother to her home before she dies. Michael K must come to grips with his mother’s imminent passing and find a place for himself in this dystopian world.

Rather than a traditional play, Foot collaborated with Cape Town-based Handspring Puppet Company to create a different way of telling this story through puppets.

Foot is the head of Cape Town’s Baxter Theater. She has written multiple plays and directed even more. But Life & Times of Michael K is special to her. I learned this when speaking with her recently about the play, her instinct for storytelling and whether or not we can rewrite our own story to have a happier ending in our troubled times.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: I love the idea that as a young girl that you would stay up trying to rewrite a better or happier ending for the movies you saw and wouldn’t be satisfied until you figured out how to do so. That had to allow you develop a great storytelling skill. How does that way of thinking still live within you? Not just with the work that you do, but how you live your life? 

I’m fascinated by biography and what you bring with you. What you bring as an actor to the stage, how you relate to other people, how you relate to family, are essentially biographies. Who you are. And when biographies meet, then drama happens. I would rewrite movies in my head from when I was probably 4 or 5. Frame by frame. Not only for happy endings, but also because sometimes I didn’t find them credible. So that is who I am. How we change, how we are affected by our context, our politics, all that might change your path – which fascinates me. 

Which would make Life & Times of Michael K a perfect story for you, because the protagonist is trying to figure out his place in the world and how to change his story, isn’t he?

Yes. I mean, he goes on a journey through this dystopian war-torn country. He works his way through this country as a refugee, which, of course, resonates worldwide. And really trying to find his freedom or a semblance of freedom. So not having to live under somebody else’s rules on either side of the fence and find a little piece of land where you can live and grow vegetables. So this is searching for his purpose; the place we can live, finding his own freedom in this war-torn country. 

When you read through the book, you must have been a little bit surprised when you came across a passage that says “Your past does not define your future. You have the power to rewrite your story.” It’s as if he tapped right into what you’ve been thinking since your youth?

I didn’t think of it in that way, but you’re absolutely right. When I started adapting it, it’s a thin book. It’s not even probably 200 pages, if that. I thought I’d do it quite quickly. I knew what I wanted to do with it. It took me so long because these layers of philosophy and so much can happen within sort of five or six lines. What to keep and what to let go of was really difficult because of the denseness of his thinking.

Coetzee wrote about his lead character in the book, “He did not seem to have a belief or did not seem to have a belief regarding help. Perhaps I am the stony ground, he thought.” How does a description like that inform how you go about adapting and creating this work and bringing this life to the stage? 

That’s the magic of a puppet – especially a puppet carved by Adrian Kohler [of Handspring Puppet Company]. You can imbue a puppet with philosophy in a different way to say how an actor would have to deliver those lines on stage. It might be not that credible or self-conscious from an actor, but when it’s spoken through a puppet, the audience leans forward and starts to imagine and engage in these thoughts in a very different way. It’s almost like the landscape of Coetzee is etched into the puppet and he into the landscape.

What is the art of getting that total expression of a character through the combination of the puppets and the actors who bring that character to life?

The most important thing is breath. So those three puppeteers on Michael K have to breathe pretty much at exactly the same time so that they work in unison. You know, I’m a theater director. I’m not a puppet director. Well, maybe I am now, but I wasn’t. I have puppeteers that are also very good actors and there’s a sense of imbuing the puppet with real feeling and character. So it takes some time.

That was a big challenge for me when I was directing it because a scene that could take me half an hour to create on stage with actors might take a full day to create with the puppet. So it’s very painstaking in terms of how detailed the movement is. Then the puppeteers understanding the body of the puppet like where do they hold weight and where do you hold feeling in your body. There’s a lot of synergy and working together, but always breath because a puppet is only alive when it’s breathing. Of course, it’s the puppeteers that breathe life into the puppet. As you let go of the puppet, it’s dead. It doesn’t live. 

I read an interview that Coetzee gave in 1983 about Life & Times of Michael K. He said about his novel, “It didn’t turn out to be a book about becoming, which might have required that K have the ability to adapt more of what we usually call intelligence. But about being, which merely entailed that K go on being himself, despite everything.” It feels like there’s a good lesson to be learned in that basic approach.

It’s really about essence, you know, and how little one needs to survive. Really cutting through the greed and politics that’s out there. The darkness kind of leaning into the darkness as well, which Coetzee always does. But I think in our play it’s the way we hold the darkness that gives us a little glimmers of hope around humanity – although it’s hard to find these things.

In an interview that gave Sarafina Magazine in 2016 you said you “believe very much in storytelling as a means to healing, as a means to integration, and I suppose some sense of a healthy society in the future.” One could argue that the society that you grew up in and came out of certainly required healing. You could also argue that the society we live in now – and we’re having this conversation the day after the presidential election in the United States – that we’re maybe globally reaching some really unhealthy moments. What do you see as your main priority in a world on fire, to develop and present stories that can do precisely the healing you talked about?

We go back to biography. I’m telling you stories. We had the Truth [and Reconcilliation] Commission [in South Africa] after democracy. It was an extraordinary thing. There’s some criticism of it. But the ability to come and tell your story and also to look into the eyes of your perpetrator, that’s empathy. That’s empathy from the storyteller. It’s one thing to say I will forgive, but, you know, you can’t really forgive. It’s not in your power to forgive and everything will go away. But you can have empathy. 

I’ve talked with some academics about maybe finding a different voice for the future where we combine academic research with storytelling in a way. That we try and articulate things differently because we have so many academics doing research papers that might be on violence or crime, war or rape. Then we as artists to do plays about that. They’re frustrated that the world is not changing and we’re frustrated that the world is not changing. Maybe there’s another way to articulate what we feel.

Michael K cuts ties with the world. He doesn’t want to deal with what the world has become, particularly after the death of his mother. There are a lot of people who don’t want to deal with the world now. They don’t vote as in yesterday because the voting [numbers were] down considerably in this country or they don’t want to worry about it because it doesn’t affect them personally. Do you think there is an additional layer of topicality that this story is going to have now, particularly in the United States, that it might not have had the election gone a different way?

I would think so. When we started [the play] the war in Ukraine just started. That resonated when we came on the stage, especially internationally. And something else will resonate now, that’s for sure. Just in terms of our group, who’s telling the story, that’s going to be interesting, I think. This search for freedom…There’s slogans from the Democratic campaign that you hear in the play, not because we wrote them in. It’s just this search for freedom, although he doesn’t necessarily use the word freedom. It’s more a concept around freedom. Free from all the gatekeepers. Free from being a servant or being told what to do by somebody, anybody. [Michael K] was judged so badly when he was a child for having this hairlip that he has to find a freedom from that cruelty.

Given everything we are facing down as we near the start of 2025, how do you think we can collectively rewrite the plot of our lives right now and come up with a happier ending than it appears we’re facing as a possibility right now? Can an artist, can the arts, help us get there?

One has to pray to whoever you pray to for empathy. Only when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes can you feel the cruelty all round. Until people can see themselves in others. It’s a miracle what happened in South Africa, you know, absolute miracle. It wasn’t just Mandela. Somehow there was a bigger sensibility or a vision. Such an extraordinary vision of what hope looked like, of what the possibilities looked like. It wasn’t just verbalized. It wasn’t just a slogan, but put into practice. Thought through.

We’ve still got major issues with poverty. But there was a philosophy that everyone worked towards and it was about goodness. It wasn’t about the other. It wasn’t about division. It was about coming together.

When I first saw plays at the Market Theater when I was 17, I didn’t know what was going on in our country. I saw these plays and I was like, okay, I’m a part of it. I’m part of making something better. So I think that it does do that.

To watch the full interview with Lara Foot, please go here.

Life & Times of Michael K runs November 21st – November 24th at The Wallis. For tickets and more information, please go here.

Main Photo: Craig Leo and Carlo Daniels in Life & Times of Michael K (Courtesy The Wallis)

The post Lara Foot Brings “Life & Times of Michael K” to Life on Stage appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

PACIFIC OVERTURES – East West Players – Los Angeles, CA – Now – December 8th

This remarkable production of Stephen Sondheim’s challenging musical is not-to-be-missed. IF you can get a ticket. I have heard that the run is entirely sold out. THIS JUST IN: East West Players has added one more week! Get your tickets immediately and/or check the website to get tickets that may suddenly become available.

Set in 1853, Pacific Overtures looks at the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and how his being there leads to the opening of very isolationist Japan.

Jon Jon Briones, Gedde Watanabe (who was in the original production in 1976), Scott Keiji Takeda, Brian Kim McCormick, Adam Kaokept lead an outstanding cast. Tim Dang directs,

Having seen the Roundabout revival in 2004, I can tell you this intimate production is vastly superior.

For tickets (fingers crossed) and more information, please go here. 

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS WITH MATIN CHALIFOUR – Los Angeles Philharmonic – Los Angeles, CA – November 19^th

Violinist and Principal Concertmaster of the orchestra will be featured and celebrated in a chamber music concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

On the program are works by Astor Piazzolla, Amanda Harberg and Beethoven. There is also the world premiere of Duo by Celka Ojakangas.

Joining Chalifour for this concert are Kaelan Decman (bass) Mak Grgić (guitar); Taylor Eiffert (clarinet); Dahae Kim (cello); Evan Kuhlmann (bassoon); Joanne Pearce Martin (piano); Amy Jo Rhine (horn); Jenni Seo (viola) and Ben Ullery (viola.)

Chalifour is retiring at the end of the 2024/2025 season. This should be a great send-off for a very talented musician.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K – The Wallis – Bevelry Hills, CA – November 21^st – November 24^th

If you fell in love with the puppet horses in War Horse or were enraptured with Little Amal, you’ll want to check out Life & Times of Michael K. It is based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by JM Coetzee and features the incredible work from the artists at Handspring Puppet Company and Cape Town’s Baxter Theater.

Lara Foot adapted the novel and directed the show which is centered on one man’s efforts to bring his mother back to her hometown in South African before she dies. Critics have stumbled over themselves trying to find new superlatives to describe the magic of this production.

I haven’t seen it yet, but have seen numerous excerpts from it and it is truly incredible. Please go HERE to read my interview with Foot.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

SCAT!…THE COMPLEX LIVES OF AL & DOT, DOT & ALZOLLAR – Mark Taper Forum – Los Angeles, CA – November 22^nd – November 24^th

Dance company Urban Bush Women celebrates its 40^th anniversary with this show inspired by director/creator/co-choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s experiences growing up in Kansas City’s Black neighborhoods. Vincent Thomas is co-choreographer.

Urban Bush Women’s main focus is on the stories of Black women. The work goes backwards and forwards in time. The story has its roots in the Great Migration and is not fully autobiographical. Scat! had its world premiere in June at Bard SummerScape.

This 90-minute work is having its West Coast premiere and features live music composed by Craig Harris. The website describes it as a “dance-driven jazz club experience,” so music will be key here. Zollar told the New York Times this would be her final work for Urban Bush Women.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Scat! will be performed at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York February 5th – February 8th.

Urban Bush Women will also be at the 92^nd Street Y in New York City for two performances showcasing the company’s 40-year history. For tickets and more information for those two events on December 6^th and 7^th, please go here.

BROADWAY OPENINGS: SWEPT AWAY – Longacre Theatre – New York, NY- November 19^th AND DEATH BECOMES HER  – Lunt-Fontanne Theatre – November 21^st

Two new musicals open this week starting with Swept Away, a musical written by The Avett Brothers and starring John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening), Stark Sands (Kinky Boots) and more. The show is directed by Michael Mayer and has a book by John Logan (Red).

This is a rarity for Broadway: a musical that is not based on a pre-existing work, but is wholly original.

The show is currently booked to run through May 25, 2025.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

The 1992 movie Death Becomes Her is the inspiration for this musical with Megan Hilty (9 To 5), Jennifer Simard (Company) and Christopher Sieber (Company) in the roles played on screen by Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis.

Julia Mattison and Noel Carey wrote the  music and lyrics. The book is by Marco Pennette and the show is directed and choreographed by Christopher Gatteli. 

The show is also currently booked to run through May 25, 2025.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

That’s my list of the Best Bets: November 18th – November 24th. Have a great week!

Main Photo: Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in Death Becomes Her (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The post BEST BETS: NOVEMBER 18th – NOVEMBER 24th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

One change of note for New In Music, I am limiting the list to no more than the ten best releases of any given week. 

Here’s my top pick for New In Music: November 15^th:

TOP PICK: CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: LAND OF WINTER – DONNACHA DENNEHY – Nonesuch Records

The late actor John Hurt once told me that the best time to visit Ireland would be in May or late September. I hadn’t thought of his recommendation in quite some time until I heard this arresting new album from composer Dennehy.

Land of Winter is a 12-part composition with each part reflecting a month of the year. The composition begins in December and ends in November.  The first video is from July (the eighth section.) You can watch it HERE.

I wasn’t familiar with Dennehy’s music prior to hearing Land of Winter. I was, however, familiar with Alarm Will Sound and Alan Pierson who perform on this recording. They are masters of performing new music.

You don’t often hear of tone poems anymore, but Land of Winter is, to me, a contemporary tone poem. One that makes me want to book my trip to Ireland regardless of what month I go. I hope you’ll book time to hear this record!

Here is the rest of New in Music: November 15^th:

CLASSICAL MEETS JAZZ:  BEETHOVEN BLUES – JON BATISTE – Verve Records / Interscope

This is the first of two releases this week that has one feet in the classical realm and the other in jazz/blues. Pianist/composer Jon Batiste brings his unique musical expression to the works of Beethoven.

These are all solo piano variations on Beethoven’s music including such popular works as Für Elise (ask any piano student which composition that is), Ode to Joy (from the 9^th Symphony); Moonlight Sonata, the 5^th Symphony and my personal favorite of this collection, Waldstein Wobble which takes the Piano Sonata No. 21 as its inspiration.

It isn’t uncommon for musicians to re-imagine classical works. Amongst my favorites is the way pianist Marcus Roberts put a new spin on George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on his Portrait in Blue album.

Batiste is a fine musician and a smart composer. This is a thoroughly enjoyable album that will be a safe space for people who are afraid of classical music. The hope is once they are engaged with Beethoven Blues they might listen to some of the originals. Which may be Batiste’s goal in the first place.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL:  PLAYFAIR SONATAS – ETHAN IVERSON – Ulricht Audiovisual

This is second of two new releases that blurs the lines between classical music and jazz. Iverson, long known primarily as a jazz musician (and one of the most intelligent jazz musicians), composed works within the sonata form.

There’s a violin sonata , a marima sonata, a sonata for clarinet, one for trombone, another for alto saxophone and yet another for trumpet. Almost all are instruments strongly associated with jazz.

To further his playing around with genres, Iverson (who plays piano on this recording), called on classical musicians to join him: Miranda Cuckson on violin; Tim Leopold on trumpet; Mike Lormand on trombone; Carol McGonnell on clarinet; Makoto Nakura on marimba and Taimur Sullivan on saxophone.

The album cover makes you think this will be a playful album. And I suppose on some levels it is. But it’s also a solidly written, produced and performed addition to the contemporary classical music canon – one filled with plenty of references to legendary jazz musicians which you can hear throughout. And if you can’t, he’s written notes to explain each piece and its inspiration.

Playfair Sonatas is an album I will return to over and over again.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: NGWENYAMA: FLOW – TAKÁCS QUARTET – Hyperion Records

In the opening 30 seconds of Flow, I was questioning whether or not I would be able to go with the flow of Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s music. But go with it I did and I couldn’t be happier.

This is an incredible composition performed brilliantly by Takács Quartet. This is a short recording. It’s just under 22 minutes. But I strongly recommend listening to it with no distractions. Just put on the music and let it wash all over you. I guarantee you’ll be surprised by how compelling and beautiful it is.

You can watch Takács Quartet perform the third movement from Flow HERE.

JAZZ:  CHASING SHADOWS – ZACC HARRIS – Shifting Paradigm Records

Guitarist Harris is one of the most revered jazz musicians in Minnesota. But the rest of the world caught up with him upon the release of his album, Small Wonders. 

This tight album of eight original tracks finds Harris joined by Chris Bates on bass; Pete James Johnson on drums; Bryan Nichols on piano and Brandon Wozniak on tenor saxophone.

The absolute stand-out tracks for me on this album are Worlds Apart which truly showcases all four musicians and the last track, This Day, a beautiful ballad.

JAZZ:  CITY LIGHTS: THE OSCAR PETERSON QUARTET – LIVE IN MUNICH, 1994 – OSCAR PETERSON QUARTET – Mack Avenue Records

Who doesn’t like a comeback story? This album is documentation of pianist/composer Oscar Peterson’s comeback after a stroke the previous year which left him unable to use his left hand.

Like any hero of a comeback story, his persistence and countless hours of physical therapy allowed Peterson to return to live performance. This 78-minute recording was his second concert after his recovery.

The album opens with There Will Never Be Another Year in a performance that is lively  – to say the least. No sign of weakness here. Amongst the remaining 8 tracks are five original Peterson compositions.

Peterson is joined by Martin Drew on drums; Lorne Lofsky on guitar and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass (who composed Samba Petite which appears on the album as a solo for him.)

I love the theme to Rocky, but I’ll take Peterson’s redemption as much more inspiring.

MODERN OPERA:  THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE – KATE SOPER – New Focus Recordings

Composer Soper sums up her opera best when she said that it “is a good receptable for the messy complexity of the human condition in general.” This is a work that grabs you by the throat with all the trials and tribulations that being alive offers.

Joining Soper, who sings the role of “Shame,” are Ty Bouque, Phillip Bullock, Ariadne Greif, Anna Schubert, Devony Smith and Lucas Steele. The Wet Ink Ensemble (of which Soper is a member) also performs.

Certainly, this is not going to be a recording for those who aren’t willing to go there. Soper asks that audiences go there from the outset of most of her works. This first video, Meet Shame, is no exception.

But those who do will understand why Soper is one of the most daring composers working today and why she receives accolades and commissions on a regular basis. 

MUSICAL ADJACENT:  AMERICAN RAILROAD – SILKROAD ENSEMBLE with RHIANNON GIDDENS – Nonesuch Records               

This isn’t a musical. But it is a song cycle performed as a sung-through work by the Silkroad Ensemble. One that tells a specific story about the building of railroads in America and the people who did that work – people history doesn’t remember.

It’s a deeply powerful work that, I believe, is more successful than many a musical. You can watch them perform Mahk Jchi HERE.

Contributing to American Railroad are newly commissioned songs by Suzanne Kite, Wu Man and Cécile McLorin Salvant. The rest of the recording came from various members of Silkroad Ensemble and Giddens.

Hearing this recording makes me regret not having seen the show when I had the chance. Simply put, this is not just great music, it’s important work.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: November 15^th.

Enjoy your weekend!

Enjoy the music!

Main Photo: Album art for Ethan Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas (Courtesy Ulrich’s AudioVisual)

The post New In Music: November 15th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Briones is starring in the East West Players new production of Pacific Overtures. The show also features Gedde Watanabe, Scott Keiji Takeda, Brian Kim McCormick, Adam Kaokept and Kerry K. Carnahan. Tim Dang directs.

Stephen Sondheim said his musical was, “The most bizarre and unusual musical ever to be seen in a commercial setting.” His certainly untraditional show, which opened on Broadway in early 1976, tells the story of Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s arrival in Japan in the mid-19th century and how his efforts to open up the isolationist country are experienced – through the eyes of the Japanese.

Charles McNulty, writing in the Los Angeles Times, raved about East West Players’ revival saying, “The new revival of Pacific Overtures may be the most impressive production I’ve seen anywhere all year.”

The path to get there was one filled with questions for Briones that didn’t always possess easy answers. This was amongst the many things I learned in my interview with Briones. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: We know that many of Sondheim’s musicals were not always well-received when they were originally produced, but that time and audiences have caught up to those shows. Do you think time has caught up with Pacific Overtures? Are audiences maybe more open now to what this show is than they have been at any other point?

I think so. When they mounted this show in 2004 it didn’t last very long on Broadway. I think it’s still hard for the general audience members to to appreciate something that they think they won’t get or won’t relate to because…This might be controversial, but it’s all Asian. The King and I has that really main character that is Caucasian. Pacific Overtures, Sondheim and Weidman, they wrote something that they wanted. I think they thought they were trying to be true to the culture. The music is beautiful, but it’s really something different. Even to me, I go, what is the meaning of this? I understand it better now, but I have questions.

I read in an interview you and Gedde did with Pasadena Weekly that your first reaction was one that a lot of people have; that you didn’t fully understand it and that there were a lot of questions. Having worked on it now for as long as you have prior to opening, have you been able to sort out a lot of those questions? Do you understand more about what this show is doing, what it’s saying and how your character, The Reciter, plays a role in that?

I’ve reached that. In my career if I don’t really understand something, I try to understand it the way I would and believe it and stick to that so that I can I can grab on to my reality. I think that’s what I did right now. My understanding of it is maybe different from the original idea of Sondheim and Weidman. But I’m sticking to that because I think my understanding of it is something beautiful, kind of universal.

I would assume that, like many actors, you’re intrigued by the things that scare you. How much did being part of Pacific Overtures scare you?

Petrified! Especially the way Tim wants to do this. He wanted to be true to the original vision of Sondheim and Hal Prince, which is Kabuki. And I’m not Japanese. And Kabuki, they’ve been studying this since they were children. So it’s something set and there’s truth in how they do it. I told Tim this. I don’t want to do something generic because I might offend people. But he said, you know, just find yourself. Find whatever is true with a hint of that. I think we found a happy medium there. 

You were born in the Philippines. There is a lot of dialog going on about whether people have to have lived-in experiences to play a character. I understand that intellectually, but practically, aren’t we negating what actors do? 

That was one of the things that I been struggling with, especially when opportunities opened up for Asian actors. We kind of limited ourselves after that because they’ve been saying Japanese stories should be told by Japanese people and Chinese stories and Korean stories should be… And I get that because the opportunities are so few and that they wanted it to be done properly. I get that. But if it is in English, I think that should not be the case. We’re not speaking Japanese. We’re not speaking Cantonese or Korean. It’s in English. And we can bring in our own experiences because all experiences are relatable. They happen to everyone in China and in Japan and in Timbuktu. They’re all the same. It’s human experience and we all have that and it should be valued.

What discoveries did you make about this story and your journey to get to opening night and about the character of The Reciter? 

That’s a good question. I’ve discovered about how to tell a story of an experience that happened a long time ago. And making it entertaining. But at the same time valuing the journeys of each character. And telling stories of so many characters. I asked Tim, why am I telling this story? What is the purpose of this? And then he said, Yeah, that’s a good question. Who do you think is telling this story? Are you Japan? Are you the emperor? Because the emperor back then was a one-year-old baby. He goes on to add that this story is about change and how the changes got to certain people. It got violent. It was funny. It was scary. And all of those things are helpful information to get to the finale of the storytelling.

That makes me think of Someone in a Tree, which is different perspectives on the same story being told simultaneously. Sondheim said that was his favorite song he ever composed. What about that song resonates most with you?

I saw an interview or something that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote that one of the inspirations for In the Room Where it Happens [from Hamilton] was Someone in a Tree. There is always a a bystander looking and observing and they have an opinion of what happening. Which is so interesting because that’s why there are so many versions in history. Who is a witness to your history? Even if they don’t have a firsthand account, it’s going to be out there. It’s going to be told. That’s why I love the power of storytelling.

If we if we look back on the history of East West Players, Stephen Sondheim and Pacific Overtures are inextricably linked throughout its history because East West Players was founded by Mako, who originated the role you’re playing in the original production of Pacific Overtures. I know that Sondheim invested in East West Players and multiple productions of Sondheim’s have been done there. What do you think it means to the company, and what does it mean to you, to be bringing a new production of this musical that is so intricately tied to the history of East West Players? 

That even though Sondheim is not here, he still has a very loud voice. That he is still making things happen from where he is. He wants this because I read that he was not really satisfied with everything. It’s an unfinished symphony. I think maybe he wants us to discover it and make it better. This is what I found out about him. He is not precious with this work. Gedde [who appeared in the original production of Pacific Overtures] had stories he was telling us. He is open to two things. If you want to cut that scene short, cut that scene if you want to. You want more of that? Sure, I’ll write some more of that. He will never be satisfied with his work because nothing is perfect. Art is never perfect and he embodied that.

In the last song in Pacific Overtures, “Next,” the outsider says “There was a time when foreigners were not welcome here, but that was long ago.” In light of the elections this week in America, where anti-immigrant sentiment was a huge part in motivating people to vote for one candidate over another, what power does Next have in the show that may be different than it would have had if the election gone differently?

To me, it’s very hopeful. It came from the people who historically went, No, don’t! We’re fine here. Don’t. Don’t bring that. But because of the forceful and kind of violent interaction from the West, you can’t really stop progress. You can’t stop betterment. You can harness it, you can manipulate it. You can, you know, make it better. But it’s going to come. That is why I think even though a lot of people are heartbroken, it will get better. In Pacific Overtures, they made it Japan. It was given to them. Violently. But they brushed themselves up and started all over again. And they made it better. We can make this better. We can learn something from this. We can overcome this because we are resourceful and we know ourselves. We know what we can do. If only we think a a community, as a country, together as one, we can accomplish anything and we can be better than before.

Pacific Overtures runs at East West Players through December 1st. For tickets and more information, please go here.

To watch the full conversation with Jon Jon Briones, please go here.

Main Photo: Jon Jon Briones on Pacific Overtures (Photo by Teolindo/Courtesy East West Players)

The post Jon Jon Briones Recites His Passion for “Pacific Overtures” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Here are this week’s BEST BETS: November 11th – November 17th:

A WONDERFUL WORLD: THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG MUSICAL – Studio 54 – New York, NY – Opening Night November 11^th – May 4^th

James Monroe Iglehart, who won a Tony Award for his performance as the Genie in Aladdin The Musical, takes on the role of legendary musician/singer/actor Louis Armstrong. He’s also the co-director (along with Christopher Renshaw and Christina Sajous) of this musical.

Armstrong’s life and career is certainly worthy of a musical.

He was a truly groundbreaking artist on so many levels. I hope this musical does him justice.

Aurin Squire wrote the book. Branford Marsalis and Daryl Waters did the arrangements and orchestrations of the music.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

CALIDORE STRING QUARTET: KORNGOLD’S COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS  – Zipper Hall/Colburn School – Los Angeles, CA – November 12^th Livestream Available                

Composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold is perhaps best known for some of Hollywood’s greatest film scores. This includes The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row and Captain Blood.

But like many an early immigrant film composer, classical music was also part of his writing.

At this concert audiences will get a chance to hear all three of the string quartets composed by Korngold.

Calidore String Quartet began its life at the Colburn School 14 years ago. They are: Jeremy Berry on viola; Estelle Choi on cello; Ryan Meehan on violin and Jeffrey Myers on violin.

For more information and in-person tickets, please go here. For livestream tickets, please go here.

GEORGE CABLES QUARTET “80^th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION” – Smoke Jazz Club – New York, NY – November 13^th – November 17^th Livestream Available

Pianist George Cables, who was Art Pepper’s favorite pianist, performed with Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughn and so many more, celebrates his 80^th birthday with 12 sets at Smoke Jazz Club.

Joining Cables are Essiet Essiet on bass, Craig Handy on tenor saxophone and Jerome Jennings on drums.

Cables remains an active artist and has two new singles released recently: Echo of a Scream and You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To. For those who don’t know Cables, I strongly suggest you check out these shows and his recordings.

Both the 7 PM EST and 9 PM EST sets on Friday, November 15^th, will be available for livestreaming. They will remain accessible for 48 hours after the performance.

For more information and in-person tickets, please go here. For livestream tickets for the 7 PM set, please go here. For livestream tickets for the 9 PM set, please go here.

TAMMY FAYE – Palace Theatre – New York, NY – Opening Night November 14^th – March 30^th

If you’re like me, you wonder who wants to see a musical about Tammy Faye Bakker. You then wonder who would write a musical about her.

Then you read a little further down and realize Elton John and Jakes Shears (Scissor Sisters) have written this new musical which prompted Matt Wolf, writing in the New York Times after the show debuted in London to rave, “Praise the lord for Tammy Faye…the show has a heart as big as the title character’s bouffant hairdo.” If anyone can put an entertaining spin on the late evangelist, it would be Elton and Shears.

Katie Brayben once again plays Tammy Faye. Christian Borle plays Jim Bakker and Michael Cerveris plays Jerry Falwell. Rupert Goold directs and the book is by James Graham.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

NOON TO MIDNIGHT: FIELD RECORDINGS – Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, CA – November 16^th

The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s  annual festival of new music does live up to its name – it runs for 12 hours. Within those twelve hours is a full day of contemporary music performed by a wide range of artists.

Curated by Ellen Reid, this year’s festival will include performances of music by Doug Aitken (sold out), Raven Chacon, Ted Hearne, Annea Lockwood, Marc Lowenstein, Missy Mazzoli, Andrew McIntosh, Angélica Negron, Andrew Norman, Tomeka Reid, Gabriella Smith and dozens more. There will also be a tribute to composer Sarah Gibson who passed away in July.

All events take place in and around the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

That’s all for Best Bets: November 11th – November 17th. Enjoy your week and go out and see a concert or a show!

Main Photo: George Cables (Photo ©Roberto Cifarelli/Courtesy George Cables)

The post BEST BETS: NOVEMBER 11th – NOVEMBER 17th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

THE LAST SHIP: 10^th ANNIVERSARY REUNION CONCERT – 54 Below – New York, NY – November 4^th

Rock star/composer Sting is joined by members of the original cast of his musical The Last Ship for two reunion concerts at 54 Below. Tickets for both events sold out long ago. But you can live stream the event at 7 PM ET/4PM PT and catch all the action.

Amongst the cast members joining Sting are Michael Esper, Jamie Jackson, Sally Ann Triplett and Rachel Tucker.

A portion of the proceeds from the concerts and the livestream will benefit Project ALS. Aaron Lazar, who originated the role of Arthur Millburn, announced he was diagnosed with ALS aka Lou Gehrig’s disease earlier this year. These concerts are a celebration of him as well as the musical itself.

For livestream tickets and more information, please go here.

WAITING FOR GODOT  – Geffen Playhouse – Westwood, CA – November 6th – December 15^th

Samuel Beckett’s classic play is once again on stage in Los Angeles. This production, produced in association with Gare St Lazare Ireland, finds Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi starring as Vladimir and Estragon – two men waiting endlessly for the arrival of Godot.

Joining them are Conor Lovett as Pozzo and Adam Stein as Lucky.

The role of Boy will be performed by Lincoln Bonilla and Jack McSherry (they will alternate performances). Judy Hegarty Lovett directs.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

ROUVALI LEADS JULIA WOLFE, STRAUSS & SIBELIUS  – New York Philharmonic – New York, NY – November 7-November 12^th

Life’s journey has inspired many a composer. This concert focuses on three different works that explore explorations of life at various ages.

The program opens with Julia Wolfe’s Fountain of Youth. By its name you know what part of life this represents.

Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs, a powerful work, makes it clear what stage of life Strauss explored with this work. Soprano Miah Persson will sing this incredibly moving work.

The concert closes with Sibelius’ celebration of his own 50^th birthday in his Fifth Symphony.

Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts these four concerts.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

MUTI & THE CSO – Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Chicago, IL – November 8^th – November 9^th

Works by Chabrier, Donizetti, Falla and Verdi are on this program. But what makes these two concerts compelling is the world premiere of the Megalopolis Suite by Osvaldo Golijov. This is a suite of music from his wonderful score for the Francis Ford Coppola film Megalopolis.

Audiences didn’t exactly flock to see this movie, but they missed out. I personally loved the film and have played the score multiple times since seeing the film.

Golijov is a terrific composer and this CSO Commission will certainly showcase that to all who attend these concerts. This is a score that deserves attention and will hopefully find some love during awards season.

Riccardo Muti conducts.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

ISAIAH COLLIER & THE CHOSEN FEW – Soka Performing Arts Center – Aliso Viejo, CA – November 9th

Saxophonist/composer Collier is an artist who deftly joins jazz traditions with a unique blend of other styles including soul, gospel and funk. This concert will be focused on his latest release The Almighty – a 63-minute album that explores the role of spirituality in his life and by extension our own. It’s a terrific album that should be even more alive when performed live.

The chosen few joining Collier for this concert are Richard Gibbs III on piano, Jermain Paul on bass and Damien Reid on drums.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

This concludes our Best Bets: November 4th – November 10th. For readers in the United States, don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.

Enjoy your week!

Main Photo: Rachel Tucker and Aaron Lazar in The Last Ship on Broadway (Photo by Joan Marcus)

The post BEST BETS: NOVEMBER 4th – NOVEMBER 10th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

In November of 1947, a new play opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, CT written by Tennessee Williams. That play was A Streetcar Named Desire. On December 3rd of that year the first of what would become (so far) nine Broadway productions opened. The play has proven to be catnip for actors and directors all over the world.

The economics of producing a play has made new productions of A Streetcar Named Desire more and more out of reach for all but the biggest of actors and most important directors. The result is the limiting of opportunities to bring Blanche DuBois, Stanley Kowalski, Stella DuBois, Mitch and the rest of the characters to life for less-famous, but no less-worthy actors.

Enter actors Lucy Owen and Nick Westrate who felt passionately that the language of the play and good actors was not just right economically, but also right for the play. Their production of A Streetcar Named Desire is produced in unique locations without using a set and without using props. Owen portrays Blanche and Westrate directs. They are both co-creators.

Their Streetcar Project has been staged in a variety of venues. Tonight they conclude the last of three nights in an old airplane hangar in the Frogtown area of Los Angeles. On Friday they will open in a 3-night run at an artists workshop in Venice. Additional performances will be announced for the East Coast soon.

Last Friday I spoke with them about their production, how it celebrates Williams’ language and how audiences find themselves listening and using their imagination to enter the world of three very haunted people. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Artistically, what made A Streetcar Named Desire the play for which this kind of setup would work? 

Owen: It just came out of a desire to work on this play and work on the character I’m playing, which is Blanche. Streetcar has been a favorite play of mine for a long time, like it is for a lot of people. And Blanche has been a favorite character of mine for a long time. Nick and I frequently refer to her as the female Hamlet. I just had a desire to work on her. And it came out of the pandemic, a dry time for a lot of creatives. We developed this slowly together out of necessity and out of what was available to us.

Westrate: The main thing we had available were these actors, their voices and their bodies. What we ended up finding out was that it’s a great language play. The characters say a lot. They tell you what they’re feeling. They tell you what they want, what they need, what they desire. And we started treating it like Shakespeare. You see Shakespeare performed a lot on a bare stage with nothing. So we started wondering what if you did that with Williams?

Q: How much of what you two are doing is motivated by the commercial demands of what theater is or how it is defined presently, not just in New York, but around the country?

Owen: Theater is changing so much. The demand for it is changing so much and getting and it’s quite expensive to make. Many theater companies rely on a star model. You have to have a famous person in one of these roles in order to make it viable financially, which is really understandable. But what it means is that working-class actors, of which I am proudly a member of that class, don’t get an opportunity to engage with this poetry. That’s just such a shame to me because there’s so many good actors who I want to see play the big, good, gorgeous roles. I don’t only want to see the same ten or so incredibly famous actors play all the same roles.

Q: We’re having this conversation a day after it was announced that Back to the Future – The Musical is closing [on Broadway] in January. It was capitalized for over $20 million and is not recouping a cent. I understand the idea behind established products like a Back to the Future. But imagine if Tennessee Williams was living in a world where only already established IP was what was performed. How would a Tennessee Williams today ever find his voice or his feet in theater?

Westrate: It’s an amazing question. I don’t think he would. I think we’re in an era [where] there’s a lot of fear right now. And so people are reaching toward something that they think is a sure thing.

Owen: It’s so disappointing for all artists personally. Every actor I know has gone through periods. Really established actors are losing their health insurance, writers are losing their mortgages, and artists are really, really struggling. Working class artists are really struggling.

Westrate: We talk a lot about path dependency in the arts, and you never change the path unless you actually try something new. 

Q: Elevator Repair Service started doing staged readings of novels like The Great Gatsby. That seems like a great idea given how much people are listening to books on tape, but it isn’t necessarily what one would think of as theater. But it feels like there is at least a desire on artists’ part, if not also on theatergoers, to not be hit with the bombast that is usually associated with big commercial theater.

Westrate: We live in such a visual age. We’re constantly looking at screens that are showing, showing, showing. This production asks the audience to really listen and it turns on the imagination in a way that I think people have forgotten.

Owen: It’s been galvanizing to interact with our audiences as we do this, because it’s been a risk for us. I’ve never done theater quite in this way before. Our audiences get to engage with their own relationship with the play and their own relationship with the characters, partially because they’re listening and their imaginations are turned on. But also, and I’ve heard this from a few people, it is partially because there isn’t the most famous woman in the world, the most famous man in the world, playing Blanche and Stanley. So they get to focus on hearing the play instead of focusing on celebrity or something spectacular visually.

Q: It’s not like when A Streetcar Named Desire was first on Broadway it had the best known actor in the world as Stanley Kowalski. [Star Marlon Brando rocketed to fame after appearing in the play in New York in 1947.]

Westrate: He wasn’t at the time. For so many years I thought that this play was about a sexy guy. It’s really not what the play is about. It’s a play about two women. I’ve never seen a production, until this one, that we have a play about two sisters. That’s ultimately what it’s about, in my opinion.

Owen: I’ve seen some gorgeous productions. I’ve seen beautiful performances. But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Streetcar that was an ensemble. Ours is an ensemble. It’s about four people. It’s about their relationships. It’s about the devastation that they experience together.

Q: Given that you’ve had multiple audiences see and experience this way of telling A Streetcar Named Desire, how do you think the play is resonating that is unique to your production?

Westrate: Great writers like Williams and Chekhov were writing for the future. [They] were interested in the future. Tennessee Williams has a beautiful quote in the preface of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that “personal lyricism is the call from prisoner to prisoner, from the cells in which each of us are sentenced for our lives”. That’s a call that he’s making across the decades, across the generations. When you come to see the show, you’ll experience we’re really all just people in a room and a few people are going to speak. That’s the event. That’s what happens.

Q: Aren’t you basically sort of forcing the audience to see, not just in themselves, but in the other people in the theater, some parallels to what’s going on amongst these characters in the play?

Westrate: I hope so. I think it lets the play live right now. There’s this great dialectic between Stanley and Blanche in this play about realism versus magic, about the life of the mind versus hard facts about the value of imagination, about the value of art versus the wisdom of the body. Like there is this real conversation happening between these two people who have diametrically opposed worldviews that I think is very relevant today.

Q: You said the great playwrights like Tennessee Williams wrote for the future, not for the past. If we were to use A Streetcar Named Desire as an example of writing for the future, what do you think A Streetcar Named Desire has to say about our present, and by extension, our future?

Owen: A line is ringing around my head right now, “Don’t hang back with the brutes.” It’s a famous line of Blanche’s to Stella about investing in your better nature. 

Westrate: The line that immediately rings in my head, though I’ll say this wrong, is “deliberate cruelty as the unforgivable sin.” “The kindness of strangers” is the line everyone remembers. But there is a call for kindness and understanding. There’s a call for listening. I think the production calls for people to listen. And the tragedy of this play is watching these characters not be able to hear each other and the situation they get in because of it. So I guess Tennessee is asking us to listen to that call from other people, no matter how strange or bizarre or troubled they might be. We’re hoping to unleash some ghosts into America that will call all of our better natures forward.

To see the full interview with Lucy Owen and Nick Westrate, please go here.

Main Photo: Lucy Owen in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Photo by Walls Trimble/Courtesy The Streetcar Project)

The post A Desire for a New Streetcar appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Here are my Best Bets: October 28th – November 3rd:

JOAN – South Coast Repertory – Costa Mesa, CA – Now – November 24^th

Playwright Daniel Goldstein’s play, having its world premiere at SCR, is about Joan Rivers. The play looks at both the professional and personal life of the woman who made outrageous jokes and suffered enormous tragedies.

Tessa Auberjonois, who has appeared in nearly a dozen other productions at South Coast Rep, takes on the dual roles of Joan and Mrs. Molinsky. Andrew Borba plays multiple roles including Dr. Molinsky, Edgar Rosenberg and Johnny Carson. Elinor Gunn plays Melissa (her daughter) and Young Joan. Zachary Prince plays at least five roles including Jimmy, Blake, Harold and Chet.

David Ivers directs. Opening night is November 1^st. The show is recommended for audiences age 16 and older.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE – Frogtown area of Los Angeles – October 28^th – October 30^th/Venice, CA – November 1^st – November 3^rd

Tennessee Williams’ classic play has been performed more times around the world than one could possibly calculate. So there must be something unique about this production to warrant inclusion in our best bets. And there is.

Four actors, without a set or props, perform the unabridged text of A Streetcar Named Desire in unique locations. These are fully realized performances, not a reading. By all accounts of previous performances on the East Coast, this is a production not-to-be-missed.

Williams’ poetic language will be front and center in this production. Might it lead to a new understanding of Streetcar? There’s only one way to find out. 

Co-creator Lucy Owen plays Blanche DuBois. Brad Koed is Stanley Kowalski. Mallory Portnoy is Stella DuBois. James Russell plays Harold Mitchell. Co-creator Nick Westrate directs.

For tickets and more information for the Frogtown dates, please go here. For the Venice dates, please go here.

STRIKE UP THE BAND – MasterVoices – Carnegie Hall – New York, NY –  October 29^th

George and Ira Gershwin’s 1927 musical had a rocky start. It played in Philadelphia but didn’t make it to Broadway until 1930 when the original book, by George S. Kaufman, was revised by Morrie Ryskind. Many songs appear in both versions, but there are differences.

MasterVoices Artistic Director Ted Sperling has collaborated with writer Laurence Maslon to create a new version which combines “the best of the 1927 and 1930 version for the show.”

Joining MasterVoices are Shereen Ahmed, Phillip Attmore, Victoria Clark, Lissa deGuzman, Claybourne Elder, Christopher Fitzgerald, Bryce Pinkham and David Pittu.

This is precisely the kind of one night only events in New York that makes any serious fan of musical theater and/or the Gershwins wished they lived there.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS WITH DUDAMEL – Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, CA –  November 1^st – November 3^rd

Latin American music is on the program for these three concerts celebrating Día de Muertos. 

Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos’ Chôros No. 10, “Rasga o Coração” opens the concert. That is followed by Yanga by Gabriela Ortiz – a work that was commissioned by the LA Phil and had its world premiere performance in 2019.

The second half of the program, and my personal favorite, is La noche de los Mayas by Silvestre Revueltas.

Joining Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic are the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

LAND OF GOLD – PBS Great Performances – November 1^st (check local listings)

This is a behind-the-scenes documentary into the premiere of John Adams’ opera Girls of the Golden West which has a libretto by Peter Sellars. The premiere took place at San Francisco Opera in November 2017.

Appearing in this 90-minute documentary are Adams, Sellars and singers Paul Appleby, J’Nai Bridges and Julia Bullock.

The world premiere of any opera is a daunting task. This documentary allows viewers to get a sense of how demanding it is, particularly when you are putting a more honest spin on a part of history.

Check your local listings or go to PBS.org to watch Land of Gold.

That completes my Best Bets: October 28th – November 3rd. Enjoy your week!

Main Photo: Concept art for MasterVoices’ Strike Up the Band (Courtesy MasterVoices)

The post BEST BETS: OCTOBER 28th – NOVEMBER 3rd appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Beginning tonight, the LA Phil is performing An Evening of Film & Music: From Mexico to Hollywood. The program, curated by John Williams and Gustavo Dudamel, features primarily Mexican composers in the first half. The lone exception is the Tribute to Mario Moreno (Cantiflas) composed by Maurice Ravel (Bolero as it was used in the film El Bolero de Raquel).

The Revueltas music includes music from two film scores that rank amongst his most popular compositions: La noche de los Mayos which is from a 1939 film of the same name and Music from Redes, a 1935 film co-directed by Fred Zinnemann and Emilio Gómez Muriel. Zinnemann is best known for such films as From Here to Eternity and High Noon.

When listening to the music of Revueltas you hear, in my opinion, the future and the past of Mexico. You can hear references to the earliest people there, but also a reaching forward to something new. In both the orchestration and the composition itself, Revueltas offers a soundscape that is wholly original and unlike anything being used for film at the time.

In 1999, the Los Angeles Philharmonic released a recording of Revueltas’ music. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted. This is well-worth checking out as an introduction to Revueltas’ utterly compelling and fascinating music. Amongst the highlights are Sensemayá and Ventanas for Large Orchestra.

The second half features more familiar scores by George Gershwin (An American in Paris), Maurice Jarre (Dr. Zhivago), Leonard Roseman (East of Eden), Miklós Rózsa (Double Indemnity) and Max Steiner (Now Voyager, Casablanca).

If you find yourself at one of this weekend’s concerts and want to hear more of La noche de los Mayos, the entire composition will be performed by the LA Phil with Dudamel in Día de Los Muertos with Dudamel beginning on November 1st.

Also on the program is Villa-Lobos’ Chôros No. 10, “Rasga o Coração, a work for chorus and orchestra by the Brazilian composer. Immediately following that will be Gabriela Ortiz‘s Yanga which the LA Phil premiered in 2019.

Revueltas did not live a long life (he passed away at the age of 40). In addition to being a composer, he was an acclaimed violinist, he fought in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and he was a conductor. He composed over 40 significant works (much of which should still be recorded) ranging from piano solos, orchestral work, ballet scores and songs.

I hope this is the beginning of a greater exploration of Silvestre Revueltas and his music. There is so much here that is begging to be heard and there’s no better way to hear it than to hear it live.

I’ll be at each of these concerts and encourage you to do the same.

Photo: John Williams and Gustavo Dudamel (Courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic)

The post Do You Know Silvestre Revueltas and His Music? appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Since 1973, Lucie Arnaz has been, as they say, treading the boards. In those early days it was in Summer Stock (you kids can look that one up). But it wasn’t too long before she originated her first role in the musical They’re Playing Our Song. The 1979 Broadway hit had songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager and a book by Neil Simon.

Later in her career she originated the part of Alexandra Spofford in the musical adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick.

Throughout her career Arnaz has performed such roles as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Princess Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress, Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel and Berthe in Pippin. She’s had a vast career and it is precisely that career she is celebrating in her show I Got the Job! – Songs From My Musical Past which she will perform on October 22nd and 23rd at Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles and October 30th and November 1st at Feinstein’s at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. Between those dates she’s performing An Intimate Evening with Lucie Arnaz at the Purple Room in Palm Springs October 25th – 27th.

For those who don’t already know, Arnaz is the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. She grew up in and around showbiz royalty.

Recently I spoke with Arnaz about her stage career, the shows she’s doing and what the future might have in store for her – whether on a Broadway stage or elsewhere. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: I want to ask you about something your mother is quoted as having said she said, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” As you as you were putting this show together, what role did time and perspective give you in reviewing the jobs you got and the jobs you didn’t? 

It’s a good question, actually. You look back on it now – several decades after you’ve done some of these shows – and the choices I make, even to pick the material from the show, sometimes I picked songs that my character didn’t even sing because another song means more to me now. Or there’s a better story that goes along with it or something. In this particular show, I’m not 100% sure that it affected what I choose to sing.

It’s my most authentic show to me because it really is how I started and how I got from point A to point B by playing all these different characters. So each and every song is a little scene. It’s a playlist from that show, even if I do it in a little bit different way.

I want to take you back to when you were 22 because you appeared in two productions of musicals that are actually on Broadway now. You were Princess Winifred in Once Upon a Mattress, which was in Dayton, Ohio, and you were Sally Bowles in Cabaret in Flint, Michigan. What resonates with you most about that time of your life being in those two shows? 

Just the most amazing opportunity to really learn your craft here in regional theaters or what they used to call summer stock in those days. And you had to put a show together with a week of rehearsal. So you better come knowing your stuff. And I had been trained, you know, on live three-camera, live audience television, which we did sort of the same way. We had a week to put a show together and know everything you’re going to do and then perform it in less than a week – four days.

I guess Mattress was my first, and I just loved it. I loved that you had to work as a team and get that show on in such a short period of time. It was just fantastic training, really. I love it. I made a family of friends that I still have to this day because you’re all in the trenches together to get that to happen.

What is easier to put together that quickly: the comedic role of Princess Winifred, in the course of a week or to put together a Sally Bowles in a week? 

I think it’s equally challenging because, for example, using Once Upon a Mattress. There’s so much physical stuff to do in that show: the climbing and all of the pratfall. She was a real interesting character to play and you had to be really good at it to make it look really bad. To make it look foolish. And so they don’t have a lot of time to do that. I worked really hard to make her believable. That’s all I ever really want to do is make these people believable. It could be a comedy. It could be a drama. To me, it’s kind of the same.

My mother, you mentioned her in the beginning, she always was believable. Their writers were so good that they wrote situations that were crazy predicaments. You would think, how on earth? But they were so brilliantly constructed that you believed what they were going to go do. And as long as that’s written that way, then you can just fly with it and think this actually could happen.

Last year I spoke to Gavin Creel, who was doing Into the Woods. He talked to me about his time in Chicago working on Bounce with Stephen Sondheim. Hal Prince was director. He talked about what the experience was like to be in the room and watching people struggle to do the best work that they could for a given show. You’ve been in that situation several times. They’re Playing Our Song was one of them, where you got to be in the room with Marvin Hamlisch, Carole Bayer Sager and Neil Simon. What was that experience for you?

That is such a gift. I can’t tell you. It’s only happened to me twice in my life where I could be in the middle of the making of a brand new musical. And it’s always a little different. When I did Witches of Eastwick in London with Cameron Mackintosh and all those gals and stuff. It was a slightly different experience, much bigger deal, all the flying. It was Cameron Mackintosh and bazillions of dollars and whatnot. [With They’re Playing Our Song] we were doing a two character musical in Los Angeles. We had three weeks of rehearsal, Witches had four months. To watch these geniuses, people like Marvin and Neil, figure out what works, what doesn’t, and why.

One of the things I learned from [Marvin], which just changed the way I look at myself forever because we were rehearsing a number – one of the ballads – and I’m trying to find my way around the song. How am I going to sing it? Where am I going to breathe? And he stopped and he said, okay, okay, wait, stop. I think I want to lower the key here for you in this song. I was so devastated. I was so embarrassed. Many people heard him say that. I went, Marvin, I’m so sorry. I know I can hit these notes. I kind of go at it easy in the beginning. And then he goes, “Stop. Would you stop already? You think I’m married to these notes?” And I looked at him like, What are you talking about? He said, “Lu, I hired you for the sound, the quality of your voice. Every instrument is different.” I was a singer. A composer like Marvin Hamlisch wanted to write a song for me. It changed my life.

Then to watch Neil watch us try to stage a scene. He’s Neil Simon. He’s the most prolific comedy writer. He’s chewing on his glasses and he doesn’t look happy. I got really nervous as I thought, what if I get fired? What if he decides these kids are not the right kids for this? He got up and he left. I panicked and we finished the day. We still didn’t stage the thing properly. The next day he came in and handed us all new pages and said, “When anything is that hard to stage, it’s always the writing.” He just went home and rewrote it and he didn’t even rewrite it that much. Boom, it staged itself. I just loved that that he didn’t sit there and blame somebody else.

Let me ask you about something you posted on Facebook on October 9th. You said “It’s stressful times. Let Ron Abel [her music director] and I take your pain away for 85 minutes.” How does doing this show take away your pain and does that relief last longer than 85 minutes for you? 

This show is a feel good explosion of emotions all over the board. I focus a lot to do it. And I go into this other wonderful world, this memory world, and play a whole slew of characters that I have had the opportunity to do. I think for people who are, let’s just say a little anxious right now, it’s healthy because I truly believe in sort of a woo woo metaphysical way of looking at life. That we need to visualize what we want the new Earth to be like, the new planet to be like, the new politics, if you will. How are we going to care for one another? How are we going to learn to be kind again? When I watch too much of my favorite shows like MSNBC or CNN or whatever, or read too much of the New York Times, it can be very stressful and it’s not helping me visualize the alternatives. So these days I’m looking for Lucie Arnaz shows. I’m looking for places to go where people are going to take me out of this week.

I think people have to work hard right now to keep their batteries charged and don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. We’ll get through this together. There may be some turbulence along the way. It could be severe turbulence. Buckle up. But when we get to the other side, the dust is going to settle and it’s going to be a different, better scenario for everybody. That’s my feeling.

I’m going to ask you to go back in the time machine one more time, and that’s to September 17th, 1967. You appeared, uncredited, as the girl in the golf cart on the second episode of The Mothers in Law. What would you tell that teenage girl about what her life and her career would be?

That’s a good question. Really? If I could go back to me at that age, I would just tell her to just settle the hell down. I look back and I go, honey, I didn’t know who I was. I had this way of talking. It was just bizarre. I just had no idea what I was good at. I had no idea where I was going. My brother was already in a rock group and was a rock and roll star at 11. My mother had this great television series. My father was a producer, ran a studio. [He] had this band, he made all this gorgeous music. What is it that I do? I hadn’t found the theater yet. I would just say, Honey, know that you are enough. You will find your bliss. Find the thing that belongs to you and stick with it. That’s what I eventually did. But if I could get to her just a tiny bit sooner, I think I would have been a lot happier.

You do realize you’re describing what most teenagers go through which is not knowing what they want to do when they’re teenagers. Plus you were surrounded by a very different family dynamic.

I kind of knew I would be in the business. I just wasn’t sure how to do it. I always loved performing: a little theater, my backyard. I picked my high school because it had a theater arts department that was great. I kind of knew I was going to get there somehow. I guess if we could go to our teenage self, we’d say, settle down, you’re going to be fine. You’re good, just as you are, honey. Don’t try to be everybody else. You have to find your own voice, your own way of performing a song.

And indeed you have. That’s what you’ll be celebrating in these shows.

Indeed I will.

To watch the full interview with Lucie Arnaz, please go here.

All photos of Lucie Arnaz courtesy Catalina Jazz Club.

The post LUCIE ARNAZ IS SINGING HER SONGS appeared first on Cultural Attaché.