Orfeh made her Broadway debut as an understudy in Footloose. She went on to play the role of Annette in the Broadway musical version of Saturday Night Fever. In 2000, Andy Karl joined the show to replace Sean Palmer as Joey. It was there that he and Orfeh fell in love.

She went on to appear in Legally Blonde: The Musical. He appeared in that show as well as Rocky, On the Twentieth Century, Groundhog Day and they both appeared in Pretty Woman: The Musical.

Orfeh and Andy Karl have two shows this week at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s. They will be celebrating their recording and 2017 show Legally Bound which finds them doing duets and taking turns on such songs as Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, I’m Your Baby Tonight and Kiss. There are also songs from their Broadway shows.

Orfeh and Karl are bonafide Broadway stars, but they also know how to rock. Expect a combination of styles if you attend these shows on Tuesday or Wednesday at Feinstein’s.

For those of you in San Francisco, they will be performing at Feinstein’s At the Nikko on Friday and Saturday.

Photo of Orfeh and Andy Karl courtesy of andykarl.com

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At this point asking Minchin about his journey with the show seems redundant. Particularly since he articulated it so well in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald. Our conversation was predominantly about the use and role of satire in his comedy music and in musical comedy.

“I don’t think they are as different as people might think,” he says. “I guess there are a couple of distinctions. When you are writing to serve a narrative I think musicals work best when the songs are telling you something about the character, something about the story and telling the audience something about themselves. Every song should have that goal and how much you succeed is for other people to judge.”

He offers specific examples in Matilda. “’Loud’ is a social satire about opinion over information. ‘Quiet’ is about the need to find space. And ‘Miracle’ is about parents’ rose-colored glasses view of their own children. They have breaks, but you set the story as well. In comedy you just have to find something you are angry about and make it rhyme.”

Minchin laments the lack of use of satire in most contemporary musicals. “I think satire and wit is fundamental to what makes a good musical,” he offers. “Making musical theatre not mawkish or not saccharine is the first challenge. Wit is your first go-to thing to avoid mawkishness, to avoid over-sentimentality that, rather than making you care, makes you not want to. I think if you can get it right you can be incredibly disarming.”

Whether because of the success of Matilda or in spite of it’s success and the success of his stand-up work, Minchin can be self-deprecating. “I think my comedy is very manipulative,” he observes, “arguably not very funny. I’ve never read a book about the structure of jokes. I’m sure what I do is a fucking cliché and I’m sure I use the same tricks, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t ever unpack it until I’m having these conversations really. I’m quite good at getting my brain out of the way of stuff. I think to make art you need a lot of craft. You need some chops to take a great photo. To paint you need to know how to use paints and a brush. But once you’ve got some chops you need to try and forget about it. Pretend it’s not there. Pretend it’s an emotional and not an intellectual thing. Kind of suspend your disbelief a bit and try and write some version of the truth.”

Next up is a musical adaptation of the 1993 film Groundhog Day that will premiere next year in England. “Groundhog Day is in some ways more musically pop,” he says. “That’s a terrible phrase. What I mean is there are songs you could play on the radio that there isn’t in Matilda because they are so narrative and wacky and a bit dark. Groundhog Day is about how to live your life. I’ve thought really hard about how to reflect these stages of his life in music and what does that mean? What is he falling towards musically? What has he learned and how do you make that sing?”

After these first years of Matilda’s life, does he feel by doing interviews and attending openings like he’s in his own Groundhog Day? “Well if it is than I should be learning how to see things from a new angle without having to change my circumstance. I suppose that’s the lesson, isn’t it?”

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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