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.

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Reprise, or rather Reprise 2.0 as they call themselves, is LA’s answer to New York’s Encores. Musicals that don’t get revived very often, or perhaps have not been seen since their original productions, are performed in a semi-staged presentation that has the orchestra and the cast all on stage. There is some choreography, but it isn’t the same as a full-production would offer. When Reprise was looking for someone to launch the 2.0 version, they went straight to Marshall. Amongst the shows she has directed and choreographed are revivals of Anything Goes (with Sutton Foster), The Pajama Game (with Harry Connick, Jr. and Kelli O’Hara), and In Transit.

I spoke with Marshall by phone after casting of Sweet Charity had finished and prior to rehearsals beginning.

When you tackle a musical like Sweet Charity, a show that comes with the intense imprimatur of Bob Fosse, what are the challenges in making it your own, yet something audiences still find familiar in certain aspects because his work is so strongly identified with it?

Obviously we’re not fully choreographing everything. We’ll do what we can in the limited time we have. To me it’s about honoring the time period as much as it is honoring Bob Fosse.  It’s the mid-60s in terms of style and filtering that through our contemporary lens. I know. I choreographed The Pajama Game [Fosse choreographed the original 1954 production] and I’ve been down this road before. His style was so unique. The other thing you have when you do a Fosse show is because he was such a genius the dance arrangements and orchestrations are fantastic. So even though you are creating new vocabulary and steps, the road map to a really well laid out production number is already there in terms of how it builds and finishes because you have a master.

Many critics of the original production said that it was Fosse’s choreography that brought the show together and not the score and book. Do you agree with that assessment?

At Reprise the first thing you are doing is serving up there score. You are doing a cutdown version of the book and a sort of blueprint of the staging in some ways. I think the score holds up. I haven’t read the original reviews, but I think the score is fantastic.

Sweet Charity did very well in an Off-Broadway production in 2016 (with Sutton Foster). It hadn’t been seen on Broadway since 2005. Why does Sweet Charity continue to have an appeal for multiple generations?

I think there’s that Charity, even though she takes her knocks, she’s an optimist who fights her way to sunshine and that joy is infectious. It has some real crazy catch songs and songs that make you smile: “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This,” “I’m a Brass Band.” These songs are like sunshine.

How much of the musical’s appeal has to do with the underlying source material of Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. Certainly Giulietta Masina’s performance is one of the best in all of film history.

The movie is more melancholy and tougher in some ways, but I think it’s a gritty world Charity lives in. To try to change her situation is a challenge for her. So I think for me, and we’re going to have a basic look at the show, it’s a gritty New York 1960s feel as opposed to a vibrant 60s Laugh-In pop-flavored show. It’s not a sort of Peter Max bit of colorful world. It’s a tough business in a tough neighborhood in a tough time.

Two other figures looming large over any production are Gwen Verdon, who starred in the original Broadway production, and Shirley MacLaine who starred in the feature. When casting the title character what made Laura Bell Bundy the right person to step into those shoes?

I think because she is, besides being an incredibly skilled musical theatre actor/singer/dancer, she is immensely likable and you root for her. You have to have a Charity you root for, will find love and will find her joy. And I think Laura is amazingly appealing and winning in the way.

How insane is the process of putting together a show like this?

We’ve got ten days of rehearsal on Sweet Charity. You can never do a Reprise process for a new musical. You’re doing something already tried and tested. There’s no way you could put a new show together on that crazy schedule. You might do a workshop with minimal staging for a small invited audience. It’s true that musicals take a longer gestation period than in the 50s and 60s when you could write a new show every season.

Charity goes through a roller coaster ride of being loved and then ignored and loved and ignored. On a professional level can you relate to her journey?

I think Charity is so hopeful and she goes into everything. Like theatre you go in with great hopes it will be successful and you don’t always have control of the results. That’s true that no matter what. You have to pick yourself up and start the next project.

And Marshall already has her next project in place. Once Sweet Charity is done she will make the trek down to San Diego to direct a production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Globe. Performances of that show begin August 12th. Sweet Charity opens on June 20th and continues through July 1st.

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This musical, which had its Broadway debut in 1966, was based on the Federico Fellini movie Nights of Cabiria. The show was conceived, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. Starring as Charity was his wife and muse, Gwen Verdon. Fosse went on to direct the 1969 film version starring Shirley MacLaine. The musical was revived in 1986 with Debbie Allen. Another Broadway revival was mounted in 2005 with Christina Applegate. In 2016 an off-Broadway production was presented with Sutton Foster in the title role.

Sweet Charity tells the story of a dancer-for-hire who dreams of leaving her dance hall days behind and falling in real love. Laura Bell Bundy (Legally Blonde) plays Charity in these shows and Barrett Foa (NCIS: Los Angeles) plays Oscar, the man who might just be the perfect match. Kathleen Marshall, who has three Tony Awards for her choreography for Anything Goes, The Pajama Game and Wonderful Town, directs and choreographs this production. Look for our interview with Marshall here.

Photo by Tom Drucker

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“What I love about this is it is completely spontaneous,” she says from her home in New Mexico. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, what I will feel like or what the audience will do. I say a meditation before the show ‘Don’t let me know.’ I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know who is there, how many people. I want it to be a complete experience in the present. I like not knowing what I’m going to do. I think I like that about the whole day.”

MacLaine appeared in a similar show last year at the La Mirada Center for the Performing Arts. While she was solo there, at this appearance George Pennacchio from KABC News will be the moderator. “I don’t know what I’m going to be asked. I said ‘anything you want, I will answer it.’ I guess it’s the feeling of not being secure. I enjoy that.” Audience members will also get an opportunity to ask some questions.

This feeling of spontaneity has spilled over to her recent film work. MacLaine just finished shooting Wild Oats with Jessica Lange in the Canary Islands. “I’m having experiences I’ve never had before: What it’s like being older and not having as good a memory. I’ve noticed that I’m more spontaneous with the acting. That’s what Marlon [Brando] used to do. He’d never remember the lines. He’d put them on lampshades and people’s heads. That in-between-ness that he had when he acted, it was absolutely captivating. That’s how we are in life.”

In addition to Wild Oats, MacLaine will star with Christopher Plummer in the film Elsa and Fred opening later this year. Directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino) the film, which opens November 7^th, tells the story of a widower played by Plummer whose life is turned upside down when he moves into an apartment building and encounters MacLaine. “Plummer is so wonderful. He’s a darling, and I think it’s a good movie.”

Having worked with everyone from Jack Lemmon to Jennifer Aniston, no doubt some of MacLaine’s many friends and collaborators will be discussed at her show. I asked about three of them.

Billy Wilder who directed her in The Apartment and Irma La Douce
“Billy was like a staff sergeant. He was funny and brilliant and very discerning, but he was a sergeant. I don’t think he was too wonderful with women when he directed them. I think that was one of Marilyn’s [Monroe] problems. He didn’t have much use for her but knew she was magic on the screen. He was scientific and would say ‘Do this scene again and take out 13 seconds.’ And we would. I don’t know how that happened.”

Bob Fosse who directed her in Sweet Charity and choreographed Broadway’s The Pajama Game
“At the time I was doing Me & Juliet [on Broadway] in the chorus, Joanie McCraken was one of the stars and she was married to Bobby. I used to see this strange little hunched over thin short figure in the back of the theatre on matinee days. He’d be there with his hat and his cigarette hunched over and experimenting with moves on himself. Nobody had heard of him. There was nothing like ‘Fosse time.’ We were all trying to figure out Bob’s problems and his talent, his women, his sexual addictiveness. I think that all of those issues were in every move he made in his choreography.”

Film director Andrei Konchalovsky (Runaway Train, Shy People) whom MacLaine calls a great love of her life
 “He was something else. He was a force of nature. Where is he now? I think he’s back in Russia now. He was doing work in London, maybe Eastern Europe. He just didn’t make it in America.” Shortly after this interview, Konchalovsky was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Postman’s White Nights.

Having played so many different characters is it tough for MacLaine to be herself on stage? “I don’t know how to be any other self. Of course, I have so many ‘selves,’ I’ll never blow it. One thing I’ve learned in these shows and a friend said it best, you allow the audience to be themselves. When you give them the opportunity to speak, that’s what’s fun. I never know what’s going to be asked. I’m so old. But I’m also current. If the audience is with you, there’s nothing like being on stage.”

Photography via Wikimedia

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