“I sort of made my name playing an alcoholic, broken down chanteuse. So it seemed inevitable that I would get an award for that someday.” That was the beginning of my conversation with Mx. Justin Vivian Bond when talking recently about Bond being named the first recipient of the Judy Icon Award at this year’s Night of A Thousand Judys at Joe’s Pub in New York on June 3rd.

This is the 12th year of the event that celebrates the legendary Garland while also raising money for the Ali Forney Center, an organization that provides housing and services to homeless LGBTQ+ in New York City.

Bond, who uses v as the preferred pronoun, is a transgender singer, actor, cabaret artist whose shows (including Rare Bird which premiered at Joe’s Pub in New York in early May and will be performed May 30th – June 1st at Feinsteins At the Nikko in San Francisco; Bond will debut Night Shade at Joe’s Pub June 20th – June 30th) range from the brilliant to the absurd in equal measure. V is also one half of Kiki & Herb with Kenny Mellman.

In 2021, Bond collaborated with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo on a show called Only an Octave Apart. The critically-acclaimed show was recorded and the album was released in January of 2022

Last week I spoke with Bond about Garland’s influence, whether having a legacy is important to v and the role of dreams in one’s life. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Bond, please go to our YouTube channel.

You are the first recipient of the Judy Icon Award at Night of a Thousand Judys. How did that feel when you found out?

I’m very honored. Justin Sayre is somebody who I’ve respected for a long time. The work that he has done in the queer community, his performances and what he has to say with his work has always been very important and inspiring. So, to be honored by him and the group of people that he works with on the show is very flattering, obviously. You know, to get a Judy award, that’s pretty fancy. 

I read an interview that Anthony Roth Costanzo gave to the New York Times in September 2021 when you were doing Only an Octave Apart. He talked about the process of working with you and said, “I’m always looking for structure. And Viv is always like, ‘Don’t box me in because it’s not going to be as good.'” That sounded like something Judy Garland would say. How much of an influence has Judy Garland been on you both as a as a professional and as a person? 

When I was a kid, as everybody who grew up the generation I did, every year The Wizard of Oz played on TV. And every year I was terrified by the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch and I identified with Dorothy Gale. Growing up in a small town as a queer person, you know that somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly, why can’t I? That was the question I asked myself when I was very young.

Of course, when you’re young and you see these sort of tragic stories play out, they’re very dramatic. But now that I’m 61 and knowing that I’m a decade-and-a-half older than she was when she passed away, it gives you a different perspective. But she has given me, I don’t know, fodder and intellectual inspiration, I guess, for my entire life.

Has the role she’s played as an influence in your own life evolved as you’ve gotten older and as you’ve come to understand that she was much more than just the character of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz? 

Yes. There’s no way that I think you could really understand fully what she experienced if you haven’t been in show business. I also feel like being a minority in show business, a marginalized sort of person, what people try to get away with because they feel like you are more powerless than they are, can be galling. But fortunately I have somehow managed to avoid that for the most part. I do that not by being in the mainstream, but by basically forging my own path. So I think maybe I learned that from her as a cautionary tale, as well as just the brilliance of her talent and hard work. 

In a 1967 interview that Judy Garland gave Barbara Walters on the Today Show she said, “I’ve gotten to the age where I rebelled, and I’m going to hit and hit back.” With all the political rhetoric that we’re facing right now, from all walks of life, about trans, non-binary people, what’s the best way to to rebel against that vitriol that accompanies these comments and actually inspires even greater vitriol?

My strategy, for the most part, has always been to put my body where it needs to be; whether it be on the street, whether it be at a protest, whether it be at a meeting or whether it be on the stage or sometimes on the screen. I feel like the most powerful thing that I can do as a trans person is live as full and rich and joyful a life as I can possibly live, in spite of all of that. I take a lot of comfort in knowing that the people who are coming after us are invariably much less happy and much less comfortable with who they are than we are. 

There’s that old axiom that success is the best revenge. But I think happiness is the best revenge.

I agree completely, and happiness is a skill that you develop and also something that you can’t be all the time. So if you aren’t happy at certain moments, you have to address them. I have a therapist who said, “Well, you are depressed, but you have a good reason for being depressed.” So work on getting through that, addressing it and dealing with it, and then hopefully it will pass. Sometimes it takes the medication, sometimes it takes therapy and sometimes it just takes time.

Kenny Mellman last year compared your level of fandom to Garland’s. “It’s as if Viv were a Judy Garland, but alive.” Of course, that sounds like a variation of your Whitney Houston joke. Your fans will know what I’m talking about, but what parallels do you see between your fan base and the fan base that Judy Garland has? 

They have, what was the line? Judy said they have good taste. I love my fan base and I’m proud of having a very intelligent, witty, and loyal fan base. I try to keep myself as fresh and invigorated for them as possible. It makes it easy because they’re so receptive to what I do and they’re willing to go with me where ever I may take them.

This year is the 55th anniversary of Judy Garland’s death. If 50 or 55 years after you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil somebody wants to prepare a Night of a Thousand Vivs, what would you like it to be? 

I couldn’t care less when I’m dead. I really don’t care. I don’t care if anybody ever remembers me after I’m dead or not. I don’t care about that, honestly. I just want to enjoy my life. That’s up to other people, too. I don’t have that kind of ego where I feel like, oh, I want to live on forever. I really don’t. I think that’s part of why I don’t make so many records, because I don’t really care. I’m not there when people listen to them. So I don’t get any pleasure out of them. You don’t make any money. 

I like singing live, and I guess that would be something also that I have in common with Judy Garland, because her live performances are so much more legendary, and the recordings of her live performances, than her studio records. There’s that chemistry that happens, the empathy and the relationship that you develop with the live audience, that you can’t really create. I think that’s also why working on Only an Octave Apart with Anthony in the studio might have been more powerful than doing solo records in the studio, because we were there together. We were performing for each other, and that, I think, ups the ante.

Even though there’s just a few weeks difference between when you debuted Rare Bird at Joe’s Pub and will now be doing it in San Francisco, does your relationship with the material change? Do you alter the show?

The material will not be the same because when I did the show here in New York, I did it with my full band. I’m coming to San Francisco with David Sytkowski, my pianist. He’s been with me at Feinstein several times now, but the only reason I ever wish I was more famous or more successful is so I could tour with my band because it’s so expensive. It’s impossible. But that doesn’t make the show any less interesting. I spent an entire career and it was just Kenny Mellman and I – pianist and singer on stage. I don’t feel like the audience is losing out on anything. But because of that, I have to work a little harder and come up with a different set list that has a lot of the same material, but some of the things just sounded better because you had background vocalists or just little things that technically wouldn’t work as well.

You’re going to Joe’s Pub for nine performances in late June which will be a completely different show.

Yes, that show is called Night Shade. It’s about how queer people exist at night and songs about nighttime and songs that you would listen to at night. I haven’t completely narrowed down the setlist yet, but I’ve been having a lot of fun picking it out.

When you said Night Shade, I thought, oh, it could be just the crap, the shade, we throw at each other. 

It could just be what we do with eggplant emojis.

You appeared in Desert In, which is a video series that Ellen Reid and James Darrah and christopher oscar peña did. I love how unconventional that series was. What stood out to you most about being part of of that? How much do you think projects like that and Only an Octave Apart, are going to inspire people to explore other ways of presenting music that may not be conventional, or may not even be music that they’re used to listening to?

That was an amazing experience and I felt so lucky to be able to do that during the pandemic. And I have to say, Ellen James and Brad Vernatter who’s the [General] Director at Boston Lyric Opera, found a way to pivot and keep all of these artists engaged and working throughout that pandemic. It was so great because each scene was written by a different composer. It was a huge amount of people and it was so much fun. James is a terrific director. It was a wonderful way of working that I would encourage more people to try because it really appealed to a lot of people.

I think the same thing with Anthony and I. You know cabaret is not one of the top genres in popular entertainment. But I’ve always tried to stay relevant because I just tell the truth. And the only truth I can really tell is my own truth. So working with Anthony and somehow contextualizing all of this opera music that he sings, which is so beautiful…But, you know, I went to his show Orfeo ed Euridice [at the Metropolitan Opera], which premiered last week. I turned to my friend after the show and I said, “The only problem with these operas and they’re all very old – the music’s beautiful, but the characters are all idiots.” You can’t believe how stupid these characters are. So I really love contemporary opera because contemporary opera, a lot of it appeals to a much broader audience because it’s hard to sort of take these things seriously if you’re there for a story because the stories are kind of simple.

During the pandemic James created videos for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra that took classical music off of the concert stage and put it into our day-to-day lives and I feel like Desert In is part of that as well. That’s the way people are going to get seduced by the art form.

It was an interesting story that was kind of provocative. It had queer tales, it had heterosexual [tales], it had diversity and the writing was fantastic. Yeah, that’s what we need.

In André Breton’s Manifestos of Surrealism he wrote, “I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence, and attaches so much more importance, to waking events than to those occurring in dreams.” You have spoken throughout your career about the role dreams play in your life and their significance. Is Breton right? How much does that perspective inspire you?

When I lived in San Francisco, I went to the Jung Institute and I did therapy there when I was in my 20s. When I moved to New York, I found an analyst who worked at the Jung Institute here. So dreams are very informative. Whether they’re waking dreams or just keys into what’s going on or your own anxieties, or how you relate to other people and how they appear when they’re in your dreams. So I think dreams are important. Also being in my 60s now and having had a lot of my dreams come true and finding out, you know, sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it’s not as exciting as you thought it would be. I think it’s important to never stop coming up with new ones.

It’s always important to realize, even when you have reached your dreams, that there are still more dreams.

Yes, absolutely. Because then if there aren’t, what’s the reason to be alive? My mother passed away last year and I told her the last day of her life how I was so fortunate to have her as a role model because she did not stop growing as a person. Becoming more open to new things and learning things and changing until the very last day of her life. And I hope that I can be that way as well.

Could you have dreamed that you would have this career, that you would be at this place in your life? 

Oh, yeah. And now I have to come up with new dreams. When I was in high school, I used to love The Merv Griffin Show because he had amazing people that were in New York that I had never heard of before. One of them was Alberta Hunter. She was this jazz singer who was successful in the 20s and 30s and into the 40s. But at a certain point, she stepped away from show business and became a nurse and she lied about her age. So when she was 70 or 72, they thought she was 65 and they forced her to retire from nursing. Then she was rediscovered and she put out a few albums and she had a residency at this club here called The Cookery every Monday night for years. And I thought, that’s how I want to end up.

I want to be an old lady who has a residency and a cabaret in New York and I can go sing my songs every week and never stop working. And that’s what I’m planning on. But I want more things to happen between now and then.

UPDATE: This story previously stated the the Joe’s Pub shows were sold out. They are not. Cultural Attaché regrets that error. There was a a link built into that paragraph where you can click co to purchase tickets and get more information.

To see the full interview with Justin Vivian Bond, please go here.

Main Photo: Justin Vivian Bond (Photo by Ruben Afanador/Courtesy Justin Vivian Bond)

The post CONGRATULATIONS: Mx. Justin Vivian Bond – 2024 MacArthur Fellow appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

I want to pick up with something else Tommy Tune told me. He feels that he is now obsolete and that there isn’t a place on Broadway for him. He also can’t bear to work without his regular collaborators who have passed away. How do you handle loss and what do you do differently than Tommy?

I just stay. I keep my eyes and ears open and say yes. I look forward to tomorrow. I absolutely do. It keeps me young and in it. It keeps my laughing. it keeps me a part of it. Freddy is gone [Fred Ebb – lyricist for Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman] but his lyrics have not. His memory is not. If the opportunity comes, why not if you are asked to? Why not? Why not seek another view or way of doing things? I’m always hungry for new things. And I’m loaded with old things. And they are good. You know listening to scores you love that they are still relevant. They are still exciting, beautiful and moving.

With YouTube a lot of people can see some of your old television and stage appearances. For example, I watched you perform “I Got Plenty O’ Nottin'” on Judy Garland’s show. How do you feel about that?

With that hair? Have you ever seen so much hair in your life? You’d think there would be three little people underneath all that hair! I think it’s fabulous. It’s wonderful. I’m not really a part of this new age. I don’t do all that Facebook and all that stuff. It’s great, except sometimes people think they are critics and they are heard now and they kind of go crazy with their opinions. People aren’t nice enough today. They think criticizing is far more interesting than adoring or liking something. They think that darkness is more valuable. I don’t. I think the light is far more interesting and alluring.

Whatever happened to class?

Freddy had it absolutely right But mind you, they are two murderers who sing that song. That’s what’s funny about it. That they had the audacity to ask, but they are the least classy people to ask. But yes, whatever happened to class.

Can you believe the revival of Chicago is still running?

I’m so glad it’s running now and I’m so happy for the kids. But it just doesn’t compare with Tony Walton’s original sets and the show the way Bobby [Fosse] directed it. It just doesn’t compare. You just sort of wish people had seen it in its original state. That big elevator that Velma came up on. Amazing design.

Speaking of class, as a Puerto Rican, I have to believe you are less than impressed with the US Government’s response to Hurricane Maria.

Oh please. [She lets out the biggest sigh.] I made a promise I would wake up every day and not turn on the news. I think it’s disgusting and disgraceful. I’m embarrassed and ashamed and I’m angry. And you know who I’m angry at. I don’t even like to say his name. I don’t understand. I don’t understand that or the people who put him there.

One time when I spoke with your Sweet Charity co-star Shirley MacLaine, she said “I’m so old. But I’m current. If there audience is with you, there’s nothing like being on stage.” Do you agree and, if so, do you still feel that way?

That’s exactly right. I totally agree. I guess I would add with her…it’s just that age brings a whole other fantastic bit of, what can I say, we bring our adventures, our knowledge and our history with us. And so we have a double thing going. We’re current because Shirley is not going to give in. She’s not going to go anywhere. She’s going to go with what’s going on. She has to know. Just like I am. She’s a bit more curious than I am. On top of the years she has been here she has all the other lives before. She’s got a bag bigger than anybody’s. She was the cherry on the top of my adventure of doing the film of Sweet Charity. That’s what’s nice about having all these fabulous people who are my friends. I still have them and I will always have them.

Ever the pro, Chita knew exactly when our allotted amount of time was up. But she one more thing to say which surprised me.

I had an interview just before you. I could not have been more bored. I thank you for saving my day. You have a wonderful sense of humor and great background and questions. Thank you.

Even if I didn’t know what you ask someone who has been so peppered with questions her whole career, I guess it didn’t go too badly after all. Thank you Chita!

Chita Rivera and Seth Rudetsky appear on Thursday, May 10th in two performances of Broadway @ The Wallis: Chita Rivera.

For part one of our interview, please go here.

Main photo: Chita Rivera in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Photo by Martha Swope. Courtesy of the NY Public Library.

The post R.I.P. Chita Rivera Part 2: “I Look Forward to Tomorrow” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

THIS IS THE THIRD OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: On April 19th of this year I spoke with Tony Award-winner Stephanie J. Block about her upcoming show with Seth Rudetsky at The Wallis. She was on tour at that time with Into the Woods. But the show with Rudetsky was postponed. It has since been rescheduled for this Sunday at The Wallis. Instead of just one show there are now two.

I held the interview you are about to read until closer to the rescheduled shows. Which means some of the conversation we had is less timely now that it was in April. Discussions of Into the Woods, Funny Girl and her performance as Norman Desmond in Sunset Boulevard at the Kennedy Center aren’t as topical today as they were then.

But Block is not just a great performer – as her roles in Falsettos, The Boy From Oz and The Cher Show (for which she won her Tony Award) can attest – she’s also a great interview. So though slightly dated, this is one thoroughly entertaining conversation. What follows are excerpts from that interview that have been edited for length and clarity. I strongly encourage you to go to our YouTube channel to see the full interview.

You’ve sung on stage with Cher, you sung with Dolly Parton, and of course, you have your Tony Award. When you were tackling the very intense roles of Fifer, Belle, Ariel and Mary Poppins at Disneyland, is this what you imagined your career would be?

First of all, damn you! Secondly, as the story has it and it is true, my mother forged my birth certificate so that I could audition for the Disneyland Summer Parade. I wasn’t yet 16, so she had to forge my birth certificate. So that already tells you enough of what you need to know about the loving show mother that embraced me and encouraged me. But I was serious even back then.

I went to the Orange County, which was the High School of Performing Arts back then, and everything had that high level of stakes and intensity and discipline. So whether I was Fifer the Pig dancing down the parade route at Disneyland, I took as much pride in that as I did with doing Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

You were referred to at your church as the little Ethel Merman when you were seven years old. You have since had the opportunity to play Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, which is a role that Ethel Merman originated. Are there other Ethel Merman roles that you would like to do?

I think with a lot of the classic musical theater pieces there might have to be some reworking. Would I love to play Annie Get Your Gun? Absolutely. I’d love to play Annie. But I think someone like Larissa FastHorse might have to go in there and change a lot of the lines in the material. But does the music still hold up? Yes. Does the sort of crackle in her performance and the indelible performance that she’s left for us still hold true in my heart? Yes. Because in my heart, I’m an old MGM girl. You put on one of those old movies – anything with Judy Garland, anything with Ann Miller – and it just changes the whole course of my day.

I saw you in Falsettos, and frankly, I think you were robbed for the Tony Award because that performance, that whole show, was one I will never forget. I saw 9 to 5 in Los Angeles. I saw The Boy from Oz and I recently saw Into the Woods before it closed in New York. And the first time I saw you was in Crazy for You at La Mirada. 

Oh, my gosh.

Those shows, absent Crazy for You, are a mix of huge successes and less successful shows. Something Hal Prince said that I thought was really interesting was how much he learned more from the shows that weren’t successful than the ones that were. Is there a difference between the lessons you’ve learned on shows that were successful versus the ones that were not?

I think we just have to say that 75% of most Broadway endeavors would be defined as quote unquote, failures. So right off the bat, three quarters of every show that gets mounted is not going to last [long enough to] get their money back. I can’t speak to the producer end of it. I can only speak to the actor end of it. Yeah, I do learn a lot about myself when things don’t go as I hoped, prayed or wished. I will say I always enter a piece 150% because I think you have to love the project with that much in order to dive in.

When it starts falling apart, I’m also very much aware of that. I like to drink the Kool-Aid, but, all of the flags start going up. Or you go, Oh, this may not be going to Radio City to collect all the Tonys. But somehow I look at these artists that always start from scratch, begin again, are willing to put their vulnerable selves on the line for show after show after show. That, to me, is the biggest statement of most artists I know. That we really are willing to accept three quarters of it as failure and a small one quarter as success, and we keep jumping in headfirst.

Your performance in Falsettos of I’m Breaking Down, strikes me as a three-act play in 4 minutes and 48 seconds. What was the process of creating the ever increasingly intense breakdown over the course of that song?

You’re exactly right. You’ve got to have a beginning, a middle and an end. I find it so interesting that [composer/bookwriter] William Finn wrote essentially an 11:00 number in the first half hour of the play. That, in and of itself, is so out of form that it’s kind of wild. [Director/bookwriter] James Lapine said, I’m going to give you your space. I’m going to give you a couple days by yourself with our choreographer. I’m going to give you a whole host of props that you would find in your kitchen. I’m going to let you play and then I’m going to come in to see what you have created. For James, it’s very much simplicity defines mastery. Believe it or not, that epic song had more crap and props and movement to it than what you saw in its final version on Broadway. But I approached him and he said, How do you see this song? And I said, I think I see this song is like Carol Burnett having her own culinary show. And he goes, okay, well show me what you got.

This is Carol Burnett-slash-Trina trying to put on a very composed culinary show. Little by little, her inner voice, all of her demons, just start taking over. I actually went too far and he had to bring me back. Now we’ve got to find the balance between humor, angst and a conversation with the audience. So that was the balancing act.

Carol Burnett has to be a huge influence for you. While you were doing Sunset Boulevard you posted on your Instagram account a picture of Gloria Swanson side by side with Carol Burnett and said that your performance was going to be a combination of the two. How important is Carol Burnett in your life?

She’s wildly important to me. She, to me, being able to stand up as her and have a conversation with her audience to break that fourth wall and to be secure enough to say this is who I am as Carol, let’s banter and talk, then to embody a character in some of the most dramatic things I’ve ever seen. Then to embody humor and to not be so serious about herself that she could absolutely make fun of herself in the middle of a full skit. She’s a genius. I knew that if I could even do a fraction, if I could do one quarter of what Carol Burnett was doing, then there was a place for me in this world. 

Regarding Into the Woods, you said that was a dream role, 30 years in the making. What inspires you most about this show in general and more specifically about the role of the Baker’s wife?

In the beginning of my career I wanted to wear characters as like a costume and take on their shape, their form, their sound. Now as I get older, the goal is to bring myself to a character. To bring my story, my shape, my sound to these characters. The Baker’s wife is very much that. I am playing opposite my husband [Sebastian Arcelus]. So the baker and the baker’s wife couldn’t be more true than I feel is being portrayed now. My husband and I had quite a journey to get a child. It took us well over five years. As you can imagine, from Chinese herbs to shots to geriatric pregnancies, all of the above. When we tell that story, we are them and they are us.

The themes that are interwoven in this piece: it doesn’t matter if you’re in high school or you’re 80 years old or you’re a middle-aged woman, or you have a child, don’t have a child. Everybody’s journey personifies a different stage in someone’s life, and that’s what you’re going to hear. That’s what the audience is going to be attuned to. So right now, my journey as the baker’s wife and having a child is far different than me wanting to play the baker’s wife, like you said, 30 years ago.

You met Sebastian when you were in Wicked together. You got married before a performance, I think it was six years ago, and then you just went on stage. What do you remember most about that performance, particularly when you were singing As Long As You’re Mine?

Any time a couple, regardless of what stage it is in your relationship, when there’s a secret that just two of you hold, there is that sort of butterflies in the belly. There is sort of the giggle and the unspoken. We know something that nobody else knows. So that excitement certainly carried through. I’m sure we had smiles. [Elphaba] isn’t supposed to smile through the whole show, but internally I’m sure I had an extra sparkle in my eye and a smile that was underneath that green make-up when we did As Long As You’re Mine. It was a defining moment, certainly in my career, because all of those words took on a completely different meaning as husband and wife.

I saw one of the interviews that you did around The Boy From Oz and you said you weren’t doing the Liza Minnelli that we all know and love. This is Liza who was 18. It was before her fame had come to her. If 30 or 40 years from now, somebody wants to do a musical about somebody with whom you collaborated and an actor was going to take on the role of the young Stephanie J. Block, how would you like that character to be portrayed?

I would like her to be hopeful. I would like her to be silly. I would like her to be brassy because I was big and brassy. And I think always kind. Always kind, but ready to play. Those would be the words that I would infuse into the actress. It would be, I think, much like Liza, very difficult to watch that portrayal. Especially if somebody was to play young me but span 35 years of me in 45 minutes. I would feel like there’s a lump in my throat going, Oh, but there’s more. Oh, but you forgot to add that. But I think I would also have an open heart and the grace to accept it and receive it and hopefully lovingly support it.

In a 2006 interview you did with BroadwayWorld, you called the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl your “favorite regional theater role.” You went on to say, “It’s time to bring her back to Broadway. What a powerhouse role for any actresses. Producers interested can call 555-Stef!” which I thought was terrific. Fanny is back on Broadway now in a production that has had more rollercoasters than Disneyland. What does this production tell you about the challenges of producing contemporary musical theater and the pitfalls that have to be avoided? 

If I’m going to answer this, my disclaimer is I am taking great liberties because I have no horse in the race as a producer. But what I would like to see happen is that we cast a part based on the merit and the truth and the marriage of an actor and a piece not based on what could possibly sell tickets because of the pedigree of one particular person or one particular thing. It is a collaboration and a marriage and they all have to meet up.

I think we also have to entertain the idea of thinking outside the box. Then step into rehearsal. And then if it doesn’t go as planned, that there is the open-heartedness and the grace that I just spoke about to say, okay, great. You are monstrously talented. Perhaps this is not the vehicle that we all thought it was going to be for you, and that’s not going to service you or the piece. Let’s rethink. How do you feel about that? Let’s re-engage the conversation.

Much like art, live theater, is a living, breathing thing that I wish the creation of a piece can continue to be that without looking at the bottom line. That something is being created for artistry’s sake, and that within that landscape or ecosystem, things change or mistakes were made or gosh, this isn’t working out the way we hoped, or my God, this is working out even better than we hoped, right? But that the conversation can still happen and that grace can surround that. That’s what I feel.

Reviews and audience response to the Kennedy Center production of Sunset Boulevard means you’re giving us all optimism that there might be a Broadway revival. Do you have any new ways to dream, shall we say, about a Broadway production in which you play Norma Desmond?

I have 25% chance, maybe 50% chance, that there will be new ways to dream. The timing is not the timing I would like. There is a project that is in the works for cinema for Sunset Boulevard. That is ALW’s [Andrew Lloyd Webber] focus. That’s The Really Useful Group’s focus. And I can understand that as a business woman. As the artist, I would have loved to have seen a momentum and a transfer.

When I was asked by [Broadway Center Stage] Artistic Director, Jeffrey Finn of the Kennedy Center, what would you like to do in the next year, and I came out with this, I had no idea that this part and I would embrace each other in such a way that it affected me. It affected the audience. It affected the whole piece to be looked at in a completely different way. That was not my goal. But that was one of those times where we were all jumping in headfirst with no expectations, just wanting to create something different. Timely. I am of the school now that if you are going to revive, there needs to be a why. So we shall see what the next couple of years might bring. I’d like to hope that there’s space for it back on Broadway. We’ll see.

There was a Tony Monday last year or the year prior where you posted a video saying to your friends who were or were not nominated, that regardless of that the story continues to be told. What’s the story that’s most important for you to tell through your work today and through these evenings you have with Seth Rudetsky?

For me, right now, the word that is screaming in my head is connection. Absolute connection. If you are putting something out there and it is not being received and then digested and something is being thrown back at you, that’s my ultimate goal. Whether I am playing a part, whether I’m myself, whether I’m beside ridiculous, monstrously talented and smart Seth Rudetsky, for me, the evening was not a win if I did not connect and communicate with my audience. So that’s always the goal.

I certainly think we’ll do that at The Wallis. These intimate nights and spaces, they’re a joy to me. They really fill up my artistic bank. And much like Carol Burnett, it does feel like I’m standing there in my own skin wanting to meet them and wanting them to meet the real me. 

To see the full interview with Stephanie J. Block, please go here.

Main Photo: Stephanie J. Block (Courtesy The Wallis)

The post Bo23: Stephanie J. Block: From Disneyland To The Tonys appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

This annual event is a fundraiser for the Ali Forney Center which serves LGBT homeless youth. You don’t need to make a donation to watch the concert, but donations are obviously encouraged.

The line-up of talent for this year’s Night of a Thousand Judys is stellar: Tony winners Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and Alice Ripley (Next to Normal) are joined by Tony nominees Beth Malone (Fun Home); Eva Noblezada (Hadestown), Adam Pascal (Rent). They are joined by Ann Hampton Callaway, Spencer Day, Natalie Douglas, Nathan Lee Graham, Ann Harada (Avenue Q), L Morgan Lee (A Strange Loop), George Salazar (Be More Chill), Billy Stritch, T. Oliver Reid (Hadestown), Jessica Vosk (Wicked) and Bright Light Bright Light.

Justin Sayre is the host for Night of a Thousand Judys. He’s the executive story editor and writer for the television series The Cool Kids and 2 Broke Girls.

What can you expect from this show? Each artist will put their own stamp on a song recorded by Judy Garland. Think The Wizard of Oz, The Harvey Girls, A Star Is Born, Summer Stock and perhaps a song or two from her Carnegie Hall concert.

Whether you are a friend of Judy’s, a fan of Judy’s or just want to enjoy some good music, Night of a Thousand Judys is an annual tradition that we will all get to see this year! Or as Judy sang in her most popular song, “The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

Photo of Judy Garland is a publicity still for The Harvey Girls.

The post Night of a Thousand Judys appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The anniversary about which she was speaking was when Judy Garland brought her Carnegie Hall concert to Los Angeles on September 16th of 1961. This won’t be Luft’s first time on the Bowl stage. Not only was she there when her mother played there, but she appeared in 1993 as part of a tour of Jerry Herman’s Broadway where she sang two songs from Mack and Mabel.

When Luft called me last Friday to talk about her upcoming performance, the role of the Hollywood Bowl in her family’s legacy seemed like a logical place to start our conversation.

Your family has a long history with the Bowl and many of those performances are the stuff of legend. Why do you think the Bowl is a perfect fit, historically, for your mother, your half-sister Liza Minnelli and yourself?

The Hollywood Bowl, the London Palladium and the Palace Theatre in New York, that’s where all three of us have performed. That’s a pretty great thing to be able to say after all the theaters we’ve all performed in. But the Hollywood Bowl, I’ve always been incredibly excited, scared, it just does so many things to you. It’s still an OMG moment. I’m incredibly grateful.

You’ve done a number of cabaret shows and live performances, what’s on tap for the Bowl?

I am celebrating the 58th anniversary of my Mom. I’m doing “Rockabye Your Baby” and “The Man That Got Away.” Then I’m doing some special material called “Born in a Trunk” which are my children’s voices and me about their grandmother. It’s an incredibly special piece that goes through her entire history of her movies and her work in song.

You steered clear of your mother’s songs for the longest time. When did you finally come to terms with her legacy?

It took me a long time to come to peace with my mother’s legacy because it was so big. When you have a parent who is a star, that’s one thing. But a legend is totally different. Like I wrote in my first book, something comes in the room before you and leaves before you do. I made the choice to go into the family business, but I had to find my own footsteps. 

When you are doing that in your 20s you are looking for sand to leave a footprint. In your 30s you have children and ask what am I going to tell them? In my 40s and 50s I had to make friends with the ghost and that’s what I did. The first person I called was Barry. I honestly thought I’d get a 40-minute long speech. He said, “It’s about time.” It’s like I have this wonderful older brother that I can go to who just happens to be a musical genius, but he also happens to have wonderful taste. Whenever I do anything I call him first.

Barry recently did an interview with Rob Tannenbaum of the New York Times where he said he never has a good time performing and that he thinks about walking away from performing every night. Does that surprise you?

I didn’t read that article. He and I have been best friends since 1972 and he is the most extraordinary performer. I know for a fact that Barry loves being on stage. He loves doing what he does. He makes everyone feel like he is singing to them. That is a gift very few artists have. Sinatra had it. My mother had it.  

You participated in the 50th anniversary of Stonewall as part of Worldwide Pride. Why is this important to you  and what was your experience being there?

We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. And we mustn’t ever forget that we must treat people with dignity and we have to treat people with kindness. Until not one person is left on this earth that is not going to be treated in a completely honest and wonderful way, I will fight for them.

Being on the Stonewall Float was extraordinary. As we passed by the Stonewall Inn the entire group of people in front of the bar and along the streets started to sing “Over the Rainbow.” Did I  lose it? Yes, I cried. I didn’t expect it. It was like somebody (and then she gasps)…nobody gave them a cue. They just get it.

The old adage says that with age comes wisdom. What makes you wiser today than you were when you first  performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 1993?

Oh my God. I think I’m wiser. We all have a journey that we have  gone on. I was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago and I battle every single day and I’m here. I’m here and I’m so grateful. I live every single day in the moment. I think that’s the lesson I  learned. I don’t call cancer a journey because to me a journey is Neiman Marcus. My journey is shows and handbags. I call it a ride. I can’t think about what’s going to happen tomorrow. I can’t think about what’s going to happen in an hour-and-a-half. I tell my children all the time that’s the only way you are going to feel what I feel with age. That’s how you get through it.

For tickets for Friday night go here.  For tickets for Saturday night go here.

Lorna Luft  will also be performing  at Martinis Above Fourth in San Diego on September 18th and 19th. For tickets go here.

Unless otherwise noted photographs courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

The post Lorna Luft Lives in the Moment and With the Past appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Directed by Stephen Kijak, the film explores the often tumultuous relationship between the two. Even though he had played a major part in the resurrection of her later career, theirs was not an easy relationship. Though his involvement with the star yielded some of her best work and her television show on CBS.

As Kijak told the San Francisco Chronicle in June, “You’re aware of the greater perception of Sid Luft out in the world, especially in Judy-world, and this film was by no means an attempt to rehabilitate him,” Kijak says. “What this movie does is put you in their world together in their time. We wanted to show that this was a complicated relationship, personally and professionally. I find the making of ‘A Star Is Born’ endlessly fascinating because of the complexities around it.”

Luft and Garland divorced in 1965 – four years before her death.

Actors Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight) read letters written by Luft and Garland that come from Luft’s archives.

Sid & Judy will premiere on Showtime on October 18th.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Judy Garland courtesy of Showtime

The post Sid & Judy – OUTFEST appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

O’Hara is an up ‘n’ coming singer whose rise to fame threatens another rising star, Jennifer North, and legendary star on the descent, Helen Lawson. In the midst of it all is a legal secretary, Anne Welles, who falls in love with an attorney Lyon Burke. Pills, alcohol, affairs and more swirl around the characters in both the novel and the film.

Patty Duke played O’Hara in the film. This isn’t Cruz’s first time in the crazy world of actress Neely O’Hara. He first played the part in a reading in 2001.  When I spoke last week with Cruz about this new reading, we talked about the appeal of this cult film to audiences, how his perspective on the character has changed in 18 years and what Judy Garland might have been like had she not been fired from the role of Lawson.

What was the experience of doing this reading in 2001 like for you?

It was a wild ride. What I remember most about it is the camaraderie between all the actors. We didn’t expect the response to be as overwhelming as it was. We were just having a good time. There was no expectation. It was a bunch of actors hamming it up. I guess we’ll recreate that sense next week.

Michael Kearns, who played Helen Lawson in that reading, wrote for the LA Weekly in response to an audience of mostly gay mean howling for 90 minutes, “what is so fucking funny?” If he asked you that question, how would you answer?

I didn’t know that’s what he wrote. What was so funny? I think it was just how ridiculous that script is. It’s all of the tropes of Hollywood, the cautionary tales and worst-case scenarios you can think of in one script about Hollywood. For me, it is the outlandish and ridiculous things that come out of these people’s mouths. 

You’ve lived a lot of life in the 18 years since you first played Neely. How do you think your approach will be different today than it was then?

It’s funny. I was just thinking about that. When I initially did this reading I remember identifying with the climb, Neely’s climb, this ambition she had. Time has passed and I’ve had a career with its own ups and downs. I can relate with the pressures of staying relevant; being in touch and having your ear to what’s culturally interesting and relevant at this moment as opposed to when you first started your career. The pressures of continuing to work and build a career and the things you are willing to do in order to make that happen. That’s far more interesting to me now than it was nearly 20 years ago.

When were you first exposed to Valley of the Dolls?

I think I saw it as a young gay, when I was a twink. I had older gay friends who were kind of my mentors; who helped me get the lay of the land. I remember there was a series of movies I needed to know of. One was Valley of the Dolls and there was Mommie Dearest. I remember seeing it back then – say early to mid-90s.

Do you think young gays who don’t have mentors as you did are going to miss out on learning about our past, our icons and our history?

I don’t want to be the old gay on high dictating on how to live your life, but I think younger LGBTQ people would find great value in reaching up to older generations and learning a bit about what their experience was. Especially those of us who are still here who can relate a lot of history of how we got to this place where we enjoy the rights we do and why the struggle was so difficult.

Speaking of our icons, Judy Garland was fired from Valley of the Dolls and replaced by Susan Hayward in the role of Helen Lawson. Had Garland done the role how do you think the film would be different?

Well, the songs that Helen Lawson performs might have been better! I don’t know. Hopefully Judy had a good day when she did it. There’s something about Garland’s performances at the end of her life and career that were so raw. They were too raw and too real and too painful to watch. I wonder if she would have added an element of that to the film. It would have been darker and more painful. What’s painful to hear in later recordings is how aware she was of what she missed out on. What that career stole from her. At the end of her life she was not ignorant to that.

Jacqueline Susann thought the film was “a piece of shit.” What do you think her reaction would have been in 2001 or this year to the readings you are doing?

I would hope that she would laugh, right? That she would at least be able to look at it and go, “Okay, it’s not exactly what I intended it to be, but it does serve a purpose in bringing people some joy.” That’s really all we’re trying to do is have a great deal of fun with a great campy classic and raise money for a good cause.

The complete cast of Valley of the Dolls is Steve Bluestein as Ted Casablanca/Claude Cardot; Wilson Cruz as Neely O’Hara; Joely Fisher as Narrator (Fri); Mo Gaffney as Bellamy; Robert Gant as Kevin Gilmore; Tom Lenk as Mel Anderson; Greg Louganis as Tony Polar; Alec Mapa as Anne Wells; Laraine Newman as Narrator (Sat); Sheryl Lee Ralph as Helen Lawson; Gordon Thomson as Lyon Burke; Joan Van Ark as Miriam Polar; Bruce Vilanch as Jennifer North and Marissa Jaret Winokur as Miss Steinberg

For tickets go here.

The post Wilson Cruz Can’t Get Out Of the Merry-Go-Round appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

This means that you’ll get The Man That Got Away and Evergreen and Shallow all rolled up together. Blake McIver is the creator and director of A Star Is Born³. He also takes on the role Kris Kristofferson played in the 70s version. Tal Fox, who produces with Emerson Collins, plays the Streisand character.

For the 1950s version of the story, the roles played by Judy Garland and James Mason are played here by Mary Lane Haskell and Gil Darnell. And for last year’s version, Briana Cuoco and Zach Zaggoria take on the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper roles.

jackbenny serves as the band for the show. Jack Lipson is the musical director.

The show started as a one-off performance, but the response was so strong they added two more performances. Tonight’s show is the last announced performance, but producer Collins told me they are hoping to find additional dates.

If the idea of a mash-up of Judy, Barbra and Gaga sounds like nirvana, this show is for you.

For tickets to A Star Is Born³ go here.

All photos by Abel Armas.

The post A Star Is Born³ appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Not for Harris. Enter his new show, Stripped. This show is simply Harris singing with accompaniment from his long-time musical director Todd Schroeder on piano. That’s it. No band. No dancers. Harris will be performing Stripped on Friday at Saturday at Catalina Jazz Club. It’s a venue he knows well having performed there several times.

Earlier this week I spoke with Harris about the show, his approach to singing and lyric interpretation and the perfection that is the Harold Arlen/E.Y. “Yip” Harburg song, Over the Rainbow.

You previously did a show, Sam, that had the same format (piano and voice only) as Stripped. What makes this show different?

Every show I build is different and it depends where I’m playing and what I’m doing. With a venue like this, which is intimate, there’s a lot more leeway. I build them like a theatre piece because that’s my background. With arcs and ups and downs and comedy. Also it’s a different time and I’ve had different experiences. I keep things current musically and from my perspective. I’m sure there are common songs, but it’s a completely different show.

When you did HAM at the Pasadena Playhouse you did an interview with Broadway World where you talked about singers on television today not understanding that “why” of singing lyrics. How important is that to you personally and how do you explore songs and their lyrics?

Every lyric is a personal statement. And why you sing it, which can be from a character perspective or more likely those elements of my life that give me the need and the reason to have to say that thing. They are all monologues. I’m an actor first and a storyteller. And that’s what songs are – stories. One of the things I love to do most is when I do a song is infuse it with whatever is happening at that time in my life. I’ve sung Over the Rainbow forever and ever. That song can be joyous or triumphant, about loss and hope. It can be so many thing and has represented so many things to me.

Scholars considered Over the Rainbow a perfectly structured songs because the notes follow the concept of dreaming of going beyond the rainbow. But the person in that story never gets there until the very end. What makes this song so perfect for you?

I think that says it very well. There’s a sense in the melody and lyric that it’s an indefatigable hope. It doesn’t have a triumph. It leaves you with the question: “Why oh why can’t I?” It doesn’t say “I arrived or made it over the rainbow.” I think within that there is the interpretation of triumph, the determination of “why the fuck not me? I will get through this.” And it can also be, as originally sung by Judy Garland, “if they can do it then don’t I have a chance?” 

You told NPR in 2014 of going to church when you were younger and hearing people there “singing with this sense of celebration and pain.” Do you think that describes how you sang before coming out?

Yeah. I pretty much say everything myself through music and writing and talking. At that time of my life there was definitely a cry that came from suppression. And I was able to express it through music. There’s a celebration in that of this is who I am, but I can’t really tell you everything. Now there’s no hiding pretty much anything. I don’t care how happy we are or how much we celebrate our lives, there’s always pain that needs to be uncovered and experienced. That’s what cements us.

You are a father. Obviously bullying is a big deal for not just kids, but everyone today. You wrote a song about it called Don’t Yuck My Yum.

How do you protect you son, Cooper, from people yucking his yum?

I don’t protect my child from getting his yum yuck’d. I try to teach him how to stand for what he thinks and he believes. While your feelings will be hurt when someone tells you are wrong and that will hurt and you can let it hurt, your yum is still your yum. I can’t protect him from the world, but I can give him the tools to deal with the world.

Star Search was over 35 years ago. What’s the one piece advice Sam Harris today would give Sam Harris back then that he most needed to have heard?

That’s really hard. I’m not somebody who believes in regret or doing anything over. I think we’re all on the path we’re meant to be on. But I think I had such a fear about being homogenized that, to a degree, I was afraid to completely let someone guide me. I’m not a great business person. It pisses me off that I’m supposed to be. Can’t I just be creative? Do I have to be talented and have a business mind? I think that if I had allowed someone to direct and guide me then I think it would have been less terrifying and more focused.

Ella Fitzgerald once said, “It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” Where are you going next?

I’ve never been one of those actors who sits and waits for the phone to ring. When that happens it’s fabulous. I just finished my second book – which is fiction. We shot Ham and now we have to sell it. I wrote a pilot we are now shopping. I’m developing these projects and I continue to sing. And I’m directing my kid’s talent show at school and my son isn’t even in it! My priority is being a parent and I try to build things with and around that.

The post Singer Sam Harris Gets Stripped… appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

What makes the show controversial is its depiction of both her drug use and the men in her life. Die-hard fans and others who have heavily studied Garland’s life think the show is inaccurate and unfair. There are others who believe that Quilter depicts Garland’s life as it truly was.

Whatever view you take, theatre-goers get the opportunity to hear such classic songs as “Just in Time, “The Man That Got Away” and, of course, “Over the Rainbow.”

Michael Matthews, who directed the recent production of Cabaret for Celebration Theatre, directed this production. It played at the La Mirada Center for the Performing Arts earlier this year.

Photo by Amy Boyle Photography

The post End of the Rainbow appeared first on Cultural Attaché.