Since then Williams has appeared on Broadway in The Color Purple as Sofia, Porgy and Bess, Waitress, Tina and more. It is her role as the bandleader of an all-female band in need of two additional musicians that opens the musical “so the good times can begin.” Williams gives a performance of such energy that Jesse Green in the New York Times said Sweet Sue “gets a brace of hot jazz numbers that NaTasha Williams…knocks out of the park while incidentally introducing the show’s freedom-for-everyone philosophy.”

Earlier this week I spoke with Williams about the show, the Billy Wilder film on which this (and the 1972 musical Sugar) is based and a life-changing phone call she made to her mother during that performance of Ragtime. What follows are excerpts from my conversation with Williams that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Billy Wilder is quoted as having said, “Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own instead of someone else’s.” At what point in your career did you learn to trust your instinct, and how did any mistakes you may have made lead you to the stage of the Shubert Theater in New York appearing as Sweet Sue in Some Like It Hot?

I really feel like I’m still learning that now. But I definitely began to celebrate who I was and not try to fit into other people’s mold. I think right when I took my first Broadway show, which was the original The Color Purple, I was very aware of other people’s demands on me. I was always constantly trying to do what I thought they wanted. That was the first time I said, Look, I really want to be in this show. Let me just do what is best for me. Ater that it just sort of took off.

I’ve certainly made some mistakes. I think a couple of times I chose to not take a job ,or take a job, based on somebody else’s needs. So I think any time I made a mistake, it was always because I was making a choice for someone else as opposed to something that I deep down really thought was best for me.

Why do you think this film – this very unique mix of music, love story, gangsters and cross-dressing – has inspired audiences from the time the movie first came out to now a second Broadway musical? 

The movie has those devices, those ideas, those personalities that resonate with people today and resonated with people in 1959. I think the genius of everyone involved in the movie speaks for itself. That is why the movie has stood the test of time as one of the best movies ever. I think the musical has the challenge of not only honoring the movie and all of the people that love it, but also making it current and coming into the day.

Do you think there’s something at the heart of this story in terms of wanting love and wanting to find the perfect person? 

I think we all want to be loved and needed and appreciated. That’s a very basic human need. Every character in the story, not just the two guys who are running for their lives, has those issues and those desires and are pursuing them. Whatever your need as a human, as an audience member, you can find it in the show.

Sue has decided to leave working for somebody else, start her own band and make it happen, even though she needs investors and all this stuff. But she’s decided I’m not working for anybody else anymore. Let me get a band together. Let me go.

As you get to know these characters everybody in the audience can identify with one or more of them in terms of the need to be loved, accepted, to be successful, to be safe, to be appreciated for who you are at the very basic point of who you are, to be accepted for who that is.

I was looking at the character of Sweet Sue in the film and I think her screen time in the movie is shorter than your opening number What Are Your Thirsty For? How is Sweet Sue, from your perspective as the artist bringing her to life in this musical, different than the Sweet Sue that we see in the film?

Well, it is very different. When I got to audition I went back to watch the movie again. I was like, wait a minute. Where is she? What is she doing? They’ve given me these songs so clearly she’s going to be doing more than she was doing in the movie. She’s a combination of Sweet Sue and the manager in the movie [Bienstock]. They combined those characters and fleshed out a little bit more.

We made her be a great big sister, mother figure, auntie figure, for the band. And she gains a lot from that as well. She’s not just giving orders, she’s gaining a family as she takes them on the road. My interpretation of her just became someone who was nurturing, who’s in charge, who wants to make decisions that help herself, as well as the group that is supporting her. So I just took that and ran with it.

There was an interview that co-writer Matthew López gave the New York Times and he talked about Sweet Sue. He said, “Sue always felt to me like a character out of a jazz age movie, except in a way she would never have been depicted at the time.” Do you agree with him? What, if any, conversations have did you have in rehearsals with him or with director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw about how this particular part has been adapted for a modern time?

I think our creative team has been very intentional about the direction that the show has taken in the writing. We are set in the 1930s. I am a Black woman running this band and working and traveling throughout the country. Mostly toward the West so that it is a little safer, but it is still dangerous. It is still during this very challenging time, a time that sort of resembles a lot of what we’re seeing today in terms of racial challenges that we’re having in our country. So I do agree that she would not have been depicted this way.

There are some scenes and some moments where I have to really navigate how I’m going to speak to certain people and still maintain the safety and joy in the particular scenes that we’re having. Because of the intention of our creators, Sue travels a road that is difficult, but she’s navigating it very well and not offending people and educating people as to what is possible.

There were a couple of musicals that were based on very popular films that featured men in drag in the last couple of years. There was Mrs. Doubtfire, which did not do well, and Tootsie, which also didn’t do so well. I talked to numerous people who said maybe men in drag is just not that interesting anymore and not that funny. Maybe it’s a tired old trope. This show is succeeding. You are entertaining audiences. You’ve gotten the reviews. What do you think makes the way Some Like It Hot tells its story work in ways that those other musicals were not able to accomplish?

I think it has a lot to do with not making it a trope. Making it just be what these two people had to do in that particular situation. So the jokes don’t come from I’m going to put on a dress and I’m going to sway a certain way. I’m going to talk a certain way to depict what I think a woman is or what I think a man is dressed as a woman. What I think a drag performer would do. None of the scenes are like that.

They’re all about the truth of the situation when they put on the drag. They’re trying to save their lives, first of all, and then it becomes their life. So it’s not poking fun at it. We haven’t made the jokes about the dress. We’ve made the jokes about the truth and the life of what would happen if this happened.

In looking at some of your costumes – and I don’t know if this was the inspiration – but I thought I was looking at a female Cab Calloway. 

There were a lot of Black female bandleaders. [Lyricist] Scott Wittman told me that they patterned this woman after Victoria Spivey. Gladys Bentley always wore tuxedos and pants and stuff like that so it was patterned after her. But Cab Calloway was also a person I watched and there were several female conductors that I began to look at during that time who danced a lot and were very showy and moved around. So we put a little bit of that in our show as well.

You were an ensemble member of the touring production of the musical Parade which is back on Broadway at the same time that you’re in Some Like It Hot. Why do you think Parade may be resonating now with audiences in a way that it didn’t 25 years ago? 

I think it has a lot to do with all of the social injustice and racial injustice that we are experiencing. Not that it wasn’t always there. But the awakening of it and the realization, really since George Floyd’s murder, I guess people are more aware of some of the disparities in our society. I think any story that will tell the injustice of any particular group of people will probably resonate a little bit differently now. I’m hoping that is the case. I’m hoping that it is a part of the shift of people recognizing that we all have a story to tell. I have a space to take up and that doesn’t negate space for anyone else. It just means that there’s room for everybody’s story to be heard. So I’m hoping that’s what the shift is for Parade because it’s a beautiful story, a heartbreaking story.

In 2019 you did your Broadway bucket list video where you sang songs from Caroline, Or Change, Porgy and Bess and Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Four years later has your bucket list changed? Does success in a show like Some Like It Hot give you a new perspective on what’s possible for you and what you might like to do now?

Oh, yes. Certainly the success of Some Like It Hot and being this character has inspired me to to think bigger. But also the shift in our country has certainly inspired me. I am a part of Black Theater United, which is a group that is very interested in protecting Black artists lives – not just in theater, but also in the world, in the community. So my shift is basically learning how to be more like Sweet Sue in making decisions that affect other people; going on journeys that empower people.

I’m not really sure what that means artistically, other than maybe I want to write more. I want to create more and create more vehicles and stories that will tell some of the unsung and untold stories of Black people and of other people disenfranchised groups. 

There is, of course, the title song Some Like It Hot, but would some like it Tony as well? 

Oh gosh, who wouldn’t like that? In the last two months the things that have opened up have been very exciting. I’m so glad that Broadway’s back, first of all, and that it is back with so many choices. I’d be crazy to say we don’t want Tonys. Of course we do! But if we don’t, the work that we’re doing is great work and I’m very proud of it: the music, the costumes, the story, the book, the actors, the dancers. Everything really is wonderful and hot.

We say to the audience and those that come in, come commune with us. Because we can gather in a space together, we can laugh together and there’s space for you inside this theater and in the world. So go claim your space. I’m hoping we get lots of Tonys. But even if we don’t, I’m hoping people come in and they get that message. I can take that away because that’s what’s blessed me. There is space for me, for my talent, the space for a full-figured woman, an older woman. There’s space for multigenerational groups in this particular show. We get to see all of that diversity, all of that equity. That’s what is most important. I hope the Tony people see that and say, Wow, there’s something very special about this production. 

I want to take you back to the end of the first act of Ragtime in 1997, when I believe you made a phone call to your mother. You said, “Oh, my God, this is what I so want to do. I know I’m in the right place.” 26 years later how do you feel at the end of each performance of Some Like It Hot? I’m assuming you aren’t having second thoughts about this being the right place for you.

I feel like I am literally living my dream every day. It hasn’t always been as wonderful and as fulfilling as it is right now, but it has always been the goal. If I could make that phone call to my mother right now, which I can’t as she has passed, but every day I feel like that little girl 26 years ago making that phone call.

I got to meet and work with [Ragtime lyricist and composer] Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty years later at Dessa Rose. Ragtime changed my life. I moved here to be a performer. There wasn’t a question prior to or how I was going to make it happen. That afternoon in the theater certainly solidified it for me. I knew that whatever I had to do that on that stage was where I wanted to be. The fact that I’ve gotten to do that is a gift to me. It’s something that I don’t take lightly and I’m forever grateful. No change of plans. That’s where I want to be. It fulfills me in a way that nothing other than maybe motherhood has done. I’m just grateful. Just grateful.

To see the full interview with NaTasha Yvette Williams, please go here.

Main Photo: NaTasha Yvette Williams at the opening night of Some Like it Hot (Photo by Chad Kraus)

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The film had seven songs written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, the duo behind the Broadway musicals Ragtime and Once Upon a Time in America. With the number of Disney musicals successfully making their way to Broadway, it was only a matter of time before this film would also find its way there. Anastasia, which ran at New York’s Broadhurst Theatre for 808 performances, is now touring and is currently at the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Costa Mesa through November 17th

Starring as Anastasia is Lila Coogan. In the role of Dmitry, one of the two con men, is Jake Levy. Vlad, the other con man, is played by Edward Staudenmayer. The Dowager Empress is beautifully portrayed by Joy Franz. Her assistant, Countess Lily, is played by Tari Kelly.

In the film, the ghost of Rasputin was trying to track Anastasia down and kill her. Rather than employ a ghost, the musical has created the character of Gleb, a loyal servant to the Russian government. He is played wonderfully by Jason Michael Evans.

Darko Tresnjak (The Ghosts of Versailles; A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder) directs with choreography by Peggy Hickey. The book was written by Terrence McNally. Flaherty and Ahrens have expanded their songs for the film and added many new ones to make this a fully-fleshed out musical.

For tickets to Anastasia go here.

Main photo: Lila Coogan in “Anastasia.” All photos by Matthew Murphy/Courtesy of the Hollywood Pantages Theatre

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I discussed with him the first part of that ascent where he was talking about people like Joe Mantello, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, Kelli O’Hara, Jason Robert Brown and more. It should be noted that each and every one of those people has at least one Tony Award. So in his young career he’s keeping some pretty heady company. Which is precisely where we will pick up our conversation.

You realize that you have already worked with some pretty heavyweight Broadway talent. Do you ever just stop and let it sink in?

I’m very aware and I pinch myself constantly with these experiences I’ve had. Just coming off Anastasia and working with Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, Terrence McNally and Darko Tresnjak, I’m just grateful they saw something in me in the audition room and had the willingness to work with me. [It should be noted that they are all also Tony Award winners.]

Even though I didn’t have musical training in college, the experiences and people I’ve worked with has been invaluable. I learn and I continue to learn. Having these role models to learn from…I’m the luckiest guy.

You’ve done two productions of Diner. The show is based on Barry Levinson’s film and features songs by Sheryl Crow. Tell me about the music and why this show hasn’t made it to Broadway.

The music is beautiful. It’s a tricky show and it’s a tricky movie to translate to the stage because it is such a character-driven and relationship-driven show. Incorporating that musical element to that and to find the ebb and flow of the plot line from the movie was a challenge. 

Barry had rewritten [the book] for the show. I know they are still fiddling with it. Hopefully Diner will have a life on Broadway. Sheryl’s music is so beautiful and is written to period. Watching the way she translated all these iconic characters and gave them a musical voice was fun to watch. That was another experience to watch her work and her work with Barry specifically. It seems like such an odd pairing. Strangely enough they worked well together and produced a great musical.

Does new work excite you more than revivals or going into long-running shows?

There is a privilege you get from developing new material. The writers, in a way, are writing the role to fit your skill set and abilities. So if something is feeling wonky or you’re having trouble with it, they are open to tailoring it to you. 

Another really cool aspect is you get to do the cast recordings. You get to make that piece of history. Everybody grows up listening to these iconic albums and the voices they idolize listening to those records. To be a part of that is kind of a dream come true.

In 2014, Stephen Holden of the New York Times called you a dead ringer for the early 70s Richard Carpenter [of The Carpenters] and he continued to say that you are, “so boyish that his baby face virtually sparkles with morning dew.” That almost sounds like the kind of comment that would take years to recover from. How did you feel when he wrote that?

Oh I remember that one. I’ll take it as a compliment that I look youthful. That’s great if I can still pass being a younger self. I do look for roles that will mature with my age and I’ll get to demonstrate that more. As I grow I’m looking for more complex characters to do on stage. In Jagged Little Pill I’m a younger character, but he’s experiencing a lot of life experiences on that stage. I don’t take it as a negative right now.

Jagged Little Pill got rave reviews in Boston. What excites you most about the show and its upcoming opening on Broadway?

I’m very grateful we’re not re-telling Alanis Morissette’s life. Alanis has, and always had, such a strong perspective on the human condition. Whether or not and/or why people make the decisions they make, what experiences we have that cause us to make those decisions…What we do in Jagged Little Pill is almost put the audience on the spot and ask the hard questions. We spotlight really relevant questions that open up the conversation about today.

Our biggest goal is that at the end of the night, no matter what political party you are part of, whether you are rich or poor or somewhere in between, if you walk out and it sparks a conversation about one of the topics we address – we’ve done our job. The last song illustrates what we’re trying to do. You fall down, you make mistakes, you grow as a person. The most important thing you can do is strive to be a better person. Especially today.

For tickets to Saturday’s show at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood go here.

For information and tickets for Jagged Little Pill (previews being November 3rd at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York) go here.

To see part one of my interview with Derek Klena, please go here.

Main Photo:  The company of Jagged Little Pill/photo by murphymade

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That was almost twenty years ago. Flash forward to present day as Duncan now finds himself playing the role of Coalhouse Walker in the Pasadena Playhouse  production of Ragtime. The show, directed by David Lee, has its official opening on Sunday and will run through March 9th.

Ragtime was written by composer Stephen Flaherty, lyricist Lynn Ahrens and book writer Terrence McNally and is based on E.L. Doctorow’s acclaimed novel. Ragtime weaves together multiple stories at turn-of-the-century America and includes both historical figures (Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman) and fictional ones. The fictional Coalhouse Walker is the heart of the musical.

“Doctorow was inspired by this German novella, Michael Kohlhaas [written by Henrich Von Kleist in 1811],” says Duncan in a conversation on a day off from rehearsals. “Doctorow did a really genius adaptation of that plot. What’s great is in addition to the bureaucratic frustrations and barriers he faces, there’s the added level of the racial discrimination which works really well for the story. He’s this unstoppable, persistent and tenacious juggernaut and you get the sense he’s mysterious and someone who created himself.”

In both the novel and the musical, Walker is a Harlem pianist introducing ragtime music to the public. He finds that in spite of his race, this music brings people together. The song New Music showcases the impact this new sound has on people of all races.

“Coalhouse’s music fills the house and transforms everybody,” Duncan says of one of his favorite sequences. “I think when you consider it was the hip-hop music of its generation. It was new and radical and dangerous. Coalhouse, being a black man in this well-to-do neighborhood and family and to be able to have that effect with this new and dangerous form of music, it just shows that no matter what culture you come from, there’s something about art and music and love, to sound corny and clichéd, that transcends all barriers.”

Over the course of Ragtime, Walker falls in love, finds himself fighting very serous battles and making some decisions that aren’t truly in his best interest. It is some of those choices that have given Duncan challenges as an actor.

“He’s such an intelligent guy. The biggest challenge is the naiveté actually. Some of the plot points are difficult to negotiate. What’s great is you have these great songs you can pour your emotions into and you have these tight book scenes you can bring to life. Even though it’s a tragic figure, it’s actually a lot of fun.”

Coalhouse meets a woman named Sarah (Bryce Charles) and becomes infatuated with her. He shows up every day calling on her in the musical until she finally agrees to talk to him.

“If you go digging into ragtime and ragtime pianists,” Duncan says, “they were hired to play in bordellos. He paid for his piano lessons and education by working. My idea is he becomes haunted by Sarah because she’s so different. They speak the same musical language and she gets him in a way no other woman has. And she is the reason he’s inspired to be a better man.”

Last year Duncan starred with Anika Noni Rose in a revival of the rarely-produced musical Carmen Jones – an adaption of Bizet’s Carmen with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. In a New York Times story, Duncan said that musical possessed a “crudity” that was a product of the times. I wondered if either Doctorow’s novel, which is 44 years old, or the musical, which is 23, had similar problems for the actor.

“I can’t think of anything I would find crude about Coalhouse. He’s educated and self-made. It goes back to the ability of art to transcend. I tell young people that if you read old plays and old novels, cultures change, but what drives us fundamentally is the same stuff:  we want to fall in love, we get angry and jealous. I tend, for myself, to focus less on race these days and more on culture. Ragtime is about different cultures and what we do. The attention to detail and sensitivity to those cultural differences helps bolster one of the central constructs of the play: America is a multi-cultural society and what does it mean to be an American.”

If Ragtime allows us to understand the similarities we share with one another, what does Duncan hope people will understand about him through the characters he plays?

“Wow, that’s a deep question. One of the things I pride myself on is being a character actor who sings. I have no illusions about my level of importance, but at the same time I totally embrace my role as an entertainer to give them something they haven’t seen before. As far as the men that I play, I had a friend who once said, ‘actors don’t choose roles, the roles choose them.’ My approach is always about how can I make this person human and relatable. When I was doing Ruined  I was in my own little funk. One of my mentors said to go to a museum. I saw these sculptures from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I was brought to tears because of the amount of vision and craft and artistry  that went into creating these sculptures. The skin looks like skin. The clothes look like clothes. This is a connection to humanity and what we’ve been going through since human history began. That’s what it’s about to me. We’re all in this together.”

Update:  This post has been updated to revise the closing date to March 9th as the Pasadena Playhouse has extended the run of “Ragtime”

All photos courtesy of the Pasadena Playhouse

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This musical, set at the turn of the 20th century,  tells multiple stories that include such historical figures as Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit and more. But the anchor for all of this is the story of Coalhouse Walker (Clifton Duncan), his passion for a new form of music and his love for a woman named Sarah (Bryce Charles). Together they hope to prosper on the wheels of the American dream. But change didn’t come so easily to America as this story of immigrants, politicians, musicians and lovers will attest.

Ragtime was nominated for 13 Tony Awards and it picked up several including one of Audra McDonald‘s 6 Tony Awards (for Best Featured Actress in a Musical), Best Score and Best Book of a Musical. The show also made a star of Brian Stokes Mitchell.

It also makes for a much better musical than it did a movie. The songs in Ragtime, though inexplicably not standards, are stunningly appropriate, thoughtful, entertaining and amongst the best composers by Flaherty and Ahrens.

David Lee directs Ragtime with choreography by Mark Esposito.

Go here to read our interview with Clifton Duncan.

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