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)

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If Cilento’s name sounds familiar to you it is perhaps because you know him as the original “Mike” in A Chorus Line or as the choreographer of the musical Wicked.

His latest role is as Director and Musical Stager of a revival of Dancin’ which now has the name Bob Fosse’s Dancin’. The show is running at The Old Globe in San Diego through June 5th. The production has already announced it will open on Broadway at a theatre and on a date yet to be determined.

Cilento appeared in the original production of Fosse’s dance-musical Dancin’. The show ran for 1,774 performances and was nominated for seven Tony Awards including two for Fosse (he won Best Choreography) and one for Cliento as Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

Recreating Fosse’s work and bringing into a 21st-century focus was an enormous undertaking for Cilento as he revealed when we spoke via Zoom earlier this month. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

For seventeen years Fosse’s daughter, Nicole, has been trying to get a revival of Dancin’ off the ground. Why did all the pieces come together now?

I think maybe it’s probably the best time after the pandemic; celebrating him in a different way. My whole approach was getting him back out there the way he was as a dancer, what inspired him and what drove him to create what he created. So I did a lot of research and I went back. I know that Dancin’ was something that was out of the ordinary in 1978. He did it in a dance format, three acts, which was unheard of. There was no plot and no storyline and no particular reason to do it. But he wanted to explore and express different styles of choreography and music. I have to hand it to him. It’s a rough thing to do.

If anyone could do something like that it could only have been Bob Fosse.

Exactly. He was always pushing the envelope. Always looking for something new and fresh and innovative; pushing buttons, politically, socially, whatever. Just do it.

Even though you were in the original production, re-assembling his work from 44 years ago must have been an enormous challenge.

I can’t tell you how complicated it is. The big thing with this show was reconstructing Bob’s work. And it wasn’t about me as a choreographer or anyone as a choreographer filling in pieces and making the show work. It needed to come from Bob’s work and I was adamant about that.

Without any complete film of the original production to rely upon, how much did your own personal muscle memory allow you to recall what you had done before?

I was in every number in Dancin‘. It was very complicated. But there’s parts of my body that will just fall right into it. I didn’t do Crunchy Granola, so I have no body awareness. I sang it so I knew what I did up on the ladder, on the sides. I did Percussion, too, so I know what that was. I didn’t know the specific steps. Christine Colby [Jacques], who was in the original company, helped reconstruct all of the dancing material.

Then there’s a whole other part of this show that I wanted to insert viewers in this 21st century kind of world. So we can update it and lift it up into a place where, if Bob was doing this today, what would he do? So that was going on in my head. Corinne McFadden Herrera is my associate and Lauren Cannon is the assistant dance captain/assistant choreographer. They got into it and did the reconstruction, like looking at film work and looking at pieces of choreography and figuring it out. It’s such a long process. So first you have to identify what we want to reconstruct.

Did Fosse leave behind any archives with material you could access?

No. We’d identify the pieces that I wanted to dig into. The girls went and they pulled out the work and started. Then we started picking out pieces of the choreography or steps from the pieces of choreography that we want to string together to represent the number without doing the whole number. Needless to say it’s a very complicated job to take on. But when it’s done correctly, it’s completely rewarding because it’s the essence of him and the essence of his work as a choreographer and as a performer. I hope I managed to capture that and put it on the stage.

The original production was notorious for how strenuous it was on the dancers. There were countless stories of injuries. Is Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ just as difficult to do as the original?

I didn’t water down the the project at all. But the choreography is the choreography. And the dancers today are amazing in their training. They’re so rounded in technique: street dancing and hip hop and all of that stuff. I think their capability of picking up stuff is a little bit faster and easier for them. It’s just the specific style that slows them down because he’s very unique. He had a posture. He was very technical, but yet he wasn’t turned out like a ballet dancer. He was turned in. He wore a hat. He wore his head down, which brought you his vocabulary. He was a little bit hunched over, so it rounded off his shoulders. He had a built in mechanism that kind of like identified his style. It depended how far he wanted explode and how far he wanted to really pull it in.

The revival of Chicago has been running for so long, is there a built-in expectation amongst dancers that what that show presents is textbook Fosse?

It’s very successful and Annie [Reinking] did a really great job. But again, her building was in the style of Bob Fosse. Does that mean that’s Bob Fosse? Kind of, but not really. I think she created a format and a style within Bob’s style. And it became very specific. And I think the derbies and the black clothes and very exaggerated, beautiful body posture moves and stuff like that became iconic in itself. I think it misled a lot of people in thinking, oh, that’s Bob Fosse. This is what he does. And yes, he does that. But he also does 100 other things. And he’s an explosive dancer that wants to fly and he flies. And that’s a complete contradiction to what you see in Chicago. Everything’s very still, very isolated, very perfect. It’s beautiful, but that’s a different part of him.

If A Chorus Line gave an identity to the dancers in a Broadway show who heretofore didn’t have much of an identity, what did Dancin’ do? 

What Michael [Bennett] did was an idea from dancers that I danced with like Tony Stephens and Michon Peacock. They were at a point where they were disgusted that we as ensemble dancers in the show do production numbers, the thing that is carrying the show forward. It could be a horrible show, but the choreography could be amazing. So they wanted to do a show about dancers and they got Michael involved with that to get some dancers in a room. And I think he did an amazing job, too. To have dancers have a voice and a life and a history; where we were coming from and how we got to Broadway and were auditioning on the line.

I think what Bob did with Dancin’ was he made 16 of us principal dancers that were going to do an evening of dance. And we did everything. We sang, we read, we danced. We held the whole show together. So he put us up on another level. When Annie [Reinking] and I got a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actors in a musical that was completely unheard of. But that’s what he did. He made the world recognize that we were as talented as principals in Broadway shows. We were a principal in a Broadway show, so he really pushed it over the edge for us.

I urge you to watch the full interview to hear stories of how Wayne Cilento got cast by Fosse in Dancin’, the big name star (and former collaborator with Fosse) whom he left to join the show, his experiences performing one of the most emotional parts of Dancin’ – “Mr. Bojangles” and how he chose to reinterpret that number for the new production. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

Main photo: The company of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (Photo by Julieta Cervantes/Courtesy The Old Globe)

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Gravitte will be joined by friends of hers who will join for conversation and song. Monday’s guest is composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin). On May 9th she’ll be joined by composer Marc Shaiman (Hairspray; Catch Me If You Can) and on September 12th her guest will be Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy; Kinky Boots).

Gravitte finds that all three of her guests have something in common.

“These first three people I’ve asked happened to be all incredibly wealthy, famous Jewish men,” she said during our recent Zoom conversation. “I know them personally. I’ve experienced things with them as as friends and in business and I think that they feel comfortable with me.”

Though she’s never appeared on Broadway in a show created by any of these three men, she has had other working relationships with them.

“Stephen and I did concerts before Wicked opened. I was like the first person who sang Defying Gravity,” she revealed. “Of course I did Godspell because I think every human being who’s ever done a show in their life has done either Godspell or Pippin. And Marc Shaiman, when I met him I think he was 17 or 18. We were both really young and he was already playing for Bette Midler because his talent is undeniable. It’s just crazy. He did the orchestrations and arrangements for my first cabaret show. And then Harvey happens to live in my town in Connecticut. We’ve become buddies. I was doing a show at a local theater here and I asked Harvey to come and we sang Do You Love Me from Fiddler [On The Roof]. So we sort of performed together.”

When asked about opportunities she’d like to have with Schwartz, Shaiman and Fierstein, she doesn’t hesitate with her dream roles – one of which is surprising.

“I’d love to be Elphaba. Although when I first took my children they turned to me, I think they were like 10 years old, and said, ‘Mom, you are so perfect for this show. You’d be the perfect Glinda,’ because they think I’m funny. So I’d love to do Elphaba, scream my lungs out and fly. Wouldn’t it be glorious? And with Marc, I’d like to be the lead in Catch Me If You Can. I’d like to sing Live in Living Color. That’s not going to happen. And I think that I’m in the perfect role with Harvey because we’re friends.”

For all of her experiences on concert stages, Broadway (including Zorba and Chicago) and cabaret venues, it was a suggestion years ago from a former late-night talk show host/comedian that inspired Debbie Gravitte Plus One.

“I was opening for Jay Leno years ago in Atlantic City. This was right after I’d won the Tony Award. I had all my dialogue written out. It was so scripted. And he says to me, ‘You know you’re really funny. Why don’t you just talk? Which is why I’m doing this series. I’m very comfortable just talking.”

As Gravitte was when we she told a great story about being in London with lyricist Fred Ebb (Cabaret; Kiss of the Spider Woman) and composer Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!; Mame).

“I’m trying to breathe basically thinking about how rich these men are and how incredibly famous they are and their bodies of work. This was before Chicago had its second life on Broadway for Fred. Jerry walks away and Fred says to me, ‘God I wish I was as famous as Jerry Herman.’ What is he talking about? He’s Fred Ebb of Kander and Ebb, and I just realize that it’s very relative. It’s just part of life; the grass is always greener.”

For Gravitte, who grew up in West Los Angeles, being around people like her guests or Ebb or Herman wasn’t necessarily what she thought her life would be.

“I don’t think so, but I think I always hoped so. Who knows what you’re thinking as a girl growing up in L.A.? Literally my house overlooked 20th Century Fox. It was really up high on a hill. I could literally see 20th Century Fox; movies, movies, movies, movies. And all I ever wanted to do was Broadway – to be a Broadway star.”

She achieved her dream and is fully aware of how privileged she is to have done so.

“I was doing a concert one time and this woman came up to me. I guess she was of a certain age. She was older and she came up to me weeping. ‘I always wanted to do what you wanted to do.’ Then I’m saying, ‘Well, you can do it. You can still do it. You can sing in the shower.’

“When I am standing on a stage and am fully present and people are gazing back at me with that look of expectation, I absolutely feel like I am the luckiest human on the planet. I get to do what millions of people wish they could do. You know me, I wish I could build bookshelves. We all have things we want to do. I’ve never gone ‘I am an actor. I’m a dancer. I’m a singer.’ I’m an entertainer. I want to entertain people.”

To see and hear the entire delightful conversation with Debbie Gravitte, please go here.

Photo: Debbie Gravitte (photo by Bill Westmoreland/Courtesy of Birdland)

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So this column is dedicated to anyone who might want to go on Jeopardy! one day, or anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge of musicals, musical-comedy and the men and women who have created them.

Option #1 is The Contemporary Broadway Musical being offered by the Pasadena Playhouse.

This is a ten-class series presented by Broadway producer Adam Epstein. He’s a five-time Tony Award nominee who took home the trophy for Best Musical when Hairspray won in 2003.

Here is the schedule for the ten classes:

February 22nd: High Flying Adored: Eva Peron delivers a Broadway coup de thé·â·tre; Gower Champion dies

March 1st: Michael Bennett’s Dreamgirls vs. Tommy Tune’s Nine

March 8th: The Empire Strikes Back: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh and the “colonization” of Broadway: Cats, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon

March 15th: La Cage Aux Folles and Into the Woods

March 22nd: Americans vanquish the British (again!): City of Angels, Crazy for You, and the return of the musical comedy

March 29th: Falsettos: William Finn and his Tight Knit Family move uptown

April 5th: Broadway in the 1990’s: Disney conquers Broadway; Rent and Ragtime conquer hearts

April 12th: From Celluloid to Greasepaint: The Producers, Hairspray and the changing face of Broadway in the 21st century

April 19th: Avenue Q and Wicked: a theatrical tale of David and Goliath

April 26th: Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and the future of Broadway musicals

All of the dates above are the live presentation of each week’s topic. However, those who sign up for the classes can catch up even if you start halfway through the series. The classes will remain available to you beginning 24 hours after the conclusion of each live class. The 10-series course costs $179. (Members at Pasadena Playhouse receive at 20% discount).

Option #2: What Makes It Great?

Gershwin. Berlin. Arlen. Rodgers. Bernstein. You don’t need to add first names to the list of composers in this title. They are all legends whose work has catapulted them to the upper echelon of composers.

Rob Kapilow, the author of Listening For America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim, is conducting a five-episode series of classes called What Makes It Great? Celebrating the Great American Songbook beginning on February 23rd and running through March 30th.

Kapilow has teamed up with the Kaufman Music Center and JCC Thurnauer School of Music to lead explorations of these five men and their work. The classes stream on Tuesdays at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST and include a live Q&A afterwards. For those for whom that schedule doesn’t work, the classes will remain available through April 15th.

Here is What Makes It Great‘s line-up:

February 23rd: George Gershwin

March 2nd: Irving Berlin

March 9th: Harold Arlen

March 23rd: Richard Rodgers

March 30th: Leonard Bernstein

Tickets for the five classes are $50.

There is a bonus attraction on April 6th. Kapilow will be joined by Nikki Renée Daniels (the upcoming revival of Company) and Michael Winther (the upcoming Flying Over Sunset) for a performance called What Makes It Great? Stephen Sondheim. Tickets for that show are $15 and will allow ticket purchasers to watch the show through the middle of April.

With either or both of these classes, I assure you you’ll not just learn about musicals. You’ll also improve your trivia games, impress your friends who thought you knew nothing about the subject and more importantly you’ll know the difference between August Wilson and Stephen Sondheim when it’s your turn to play Jeopardy!

Photo: Broadway’s Shubert Alley (Photo by Christopher Firth/Courtesy New York Public Library Archives)

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Coming together to celebrate Schwartz are three performers: Nikki Renée Daniels, Sean Hartley and Gabrielle Stravelli.

Daniels was just about to open in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company when the pandemic forced the closing of theatre. She appeared as Clara in the 2012 production, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and has also appeared in The Book of Mormon and the 2011 revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.

Hartley is the producer and host of Broadway Close Up and also serves as director of the musical theatre division at Kaufman Music Center. He’s written lyrics for multiple musicals including Love and Real Estate with one of my favorite composers, Sam Davis.

Stravelli is no stranger to my columns at Cultural Attaché. She’s a wonderful vocalist and jazz singer whose old soul and song stylings betray her age. She’s insanely talented.

In addition to his theater credits, Schwartz has composed songs for Disney’s Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He collaborated with Alan Menken on both films. A stage version of Hunchback has been for several years with a well-received production at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse in 2015.

With songs like Meadowlark, Magic to Do, Day by Day, Popular and Colors of the Wind, there will be plenty of material to choose from and opportunities for the cast to shine.

Tickets are $15 and allow for viewing for 48 hours. After the performance there will be a Q&A with Hartley.

Photo of Stephen Schwartz by Ralf Rühmeier/Courtesy StephenSchwartz.com

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“I mean it couldn’t be more opposite,” he said by phone last week. “I literally finished on a Sunday and started this on the Monday. I had to wipe the slate completely clean. Whizzer is strong and knows who he is, but Gideon is working class. He can’t control his emotions or doesn’t know how to function with emotions.”

In Sting’s musical, currently finishing its run at The Ahmanson Theatre, Gideon Fletcher leaves town and his girlfriend, Meg (Frances McNamee), behind. Years and years go by before he returns to Wallsend where he hopes to rekindle his relationship with Meg.

“He was a young lad,” he says of Gideon, “growing up on a shipyard and not wanting to do what generations have done before him and having this absolute urge to leave and then leaving. Then asking what do I do now? What brought him back was his dad’s funeral. He realized he was doing the wrong thing.”

Even as a last-minute addition to the show (when the actor who had done the UK tour was not available), Savile has had a front-row seat to seeing how Sting works as both a co-star and as someone constantly working to get The Last Ship just right.

“Tomorrow we’re taking a song out and in a couple weeks it might go back in. It’s trying to tell the right story. Sting is generous and his music is the heart and soul of this show. I get to sing  5-6 songs of his. And he’s watching from the wings. People say you shouldn’t meet  your heroes, but he’s absolutely an exception. You forget who you are working with.”

There comes a point in most shows when they are frozen – meaning that no new changes will be made. That clearly hasn’t been the case here.

“I think of it as a bit of a gift really,” he says. “When do you ever get to be on a show when it’s constantly changing and people are trying to make it better? We’ve done four weeks in Los Angeles and we’ve got a few cuts and a whole tech rehearsal in the afternoon. Sting says art is an ever-evolving entity. Why should it stay the same?”

Being in America as England figures out Brexit and America tries to figure itself out has proven to be interesting timing for Savile and the show.

“It’s a great time for the show to be over here. It’s really relevant now and for both our countries. There’s a lot to learn from the show about sticking together and community and whoever is in charge at the top. It’s terrifying really. We don’t have much say, but what we do have is each other.”

In addition to The Last Ship and Falsettos, Savile has appeared in Wicked, Cats, Les Miserables and Company. But he’s hard-pressed to figure out which show is most like him.

“I never been asked that before. To be fair, none of them really. Fiyero was a bit of a cocky prince. Enjolras decided to lead a revolution.”

At that moment I could hear a suggestion from someone else in the room.

“My fiancé suggested Rum Tum Tugger. A bit of a showoff I bet.” He then let out a very big laugh.

As I did with his co-star McNamee, I asked Savile about Sting’s quote, “Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I’d probably choose success.”

“I’d have to disagree slightly. Friendship has been a sort of springboard, not to my success, but to my well-being, which has lead to my success. My friends are very important to me and that includes my fiancé and my dad and my friendship group. I understand what he’s saying, but I’ve never felt that. I’d like to think I surround myself with people who want me to be the best I can be.”

The Last Ship continues at the Ahmanson Theatre through February 16th. The show then moves to the Golden Gate Theatre  in San Francisco from February 20th to March 22nd. Additional stops are scheduled in Washington, D.C., St. Paul and Detroit.

Photo: Frances McNamee and Oliver Savile in The Last Ship. (Photo by Matthew Murphy/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group)

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The show is advertised as songs from Stephen Schwartz to Lin-Manuel Miranda. Given that Gonzalez played “Elphaba” in Wicked, that helps guide what the Schwartz component will be. Obviously the two Miranda shows are signposts for what that aspect of the show might offer. What happens in between…who knows? But it will be good!

I saw Gonzalez perform last year at Feinstein’s at the Nikko in San Francisco. She’s utterly charming, makes interesting song choices (maybe you’ll get to hear Born to Run, too) and she sings like an angel.

Joining her for these two shows is an alumnus from Hamilton: Javier Muñoz. He made headlines when he was chosen to replace Miranda as the title character in the musical. That wasn’t the first time he had assumed a role Miranda had played. He also took over the role of Usnavi in In the Heights.

Gonzalez and Muñoz are good friends. Which is very clear in this backstage video they posted while he was in Hamilton.

Good friends. Good chemistry. Hugely talented.

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Besides winning the Tony for his performance in the original production of Pippin, Vereen has appeared in the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar, Grind and most recently Wicked. He was also one of the stars of the original miniseries Roots where he played “Chicken George.”

The challenges he’s faced include the death of his 16-year-old daughter in a car accident in 1987. Then in 1992 he had the worst trifecta of a day possible. He hit a tree with his car. Later that day he suffered a stroke while walking on Pacific Coast Highway and veered into the street. Vereen was hit by a car driven by music producer David Foster. Last year he had to apologize after accusations of sexual harassment from 2015 became public.

But he’s still here. Last month I spoke with Vereen by phone about his ability to maintain a positive attitude.

One thing that has always been a hallmark of your point-of-view is gratitude. When you hear people saying how grateful they are on a regularly basis, do you think there is more genuine gratitude today or has it become a platitude?

That’s part of this particular show. I’m looking back. How many songs did we sing about growing older and now I am older. And that Beatles song – When I’m 64 – I’m passed it, but I’m grateful to be. The whole idea of this show is let’s have gratitude for life. Let’s show how great this can be. All the aches and pains, which will come to you, but we’ll show you how to deal with it. This is how I’ve lived for so long. I’ve learned gratitude over the years. You don’t just wake up with it, you learn it.

You’ve been through such radical highs and lows. How do you maintain that positive attitude?

I don’t know that I’ve had lows more than anyone else, but it’s how you maintain the attitude. You can choose the good or the not-so-good. I sit in meditation and if I get to a place where I’m rattled, I stop. I go to a place of gratitude and move from that perspective. At any point I could have said, “I can’t go on, this is too much.” The Creator doesn’t give you more than you can bear. Myself it’s about spirituality and the breadth of life and the gift of life. Stop taking it for granted.

I watched your performance of Everything Must Change from earlier this year. Why does that song resonate with you and how does that choice of material reflect your way of looking at the world today?

Because everything must change. We must go in the way of that change with an open heart and realize life is about changes. That’s how we grow. If everything was the same, we’d be stagnant. I’ve never been stagnant.

You regularly did post-Pippin nightclub performances in the 70s and you said in one that “dance is moving through space to the rhythm of life to the beat.” That was 40 years ago. What is your definition of dance today and has your perspective changed?

That statement is true. If that stops we’re finished. In the beat of the heart is the rhythm of life.

If I had known what I know now. Would I go back and change some things, I probably would, if I had that gift. First of all I wouldn’t be here because I would have been wiped out on the highway. (He follows that statement by letting out a big laugh.) I can laugh at it now. I don’t remember that accident. All I remember is the recovery.

There’s one more thing about dance, once you learn how to dance. Bob Fosse (director of Pippin) told me “you learn this way you’ll dance it the rest of your life.”

Speaking of Fosse, did you watch Fosse/Verdon?

I have not yet and I will. I’m too close to it right now. They missed the kindness from what I’m hearing; him as a character and as a person. He was strict, but he wanted the best out of you. That’s the thing, it’s about the work. It’s not about who he slept with. The man was a genius. He gave us style. I guess television has its way of doing what it does. 

Joe Gideon, the character played by Roy Scheider in All That Jazz, meets his maker to the tune Bye Bye Love which he sings with your character, O’Connor Flood. If you could, as Fosse did, stage your own farewell, what would it look and sound like?

Wow…Wow. Hmmm. That’s a good question. What would it sound like? What would it look like? It would have a love of Fosse in it for sure. That’s a good question. What comes to mind if Life’s a Bowl of Cherries. As I say when I sing it, don’t forget to spit out the few pits. But the cherries sure are sweet. Just don’t swallow the pit.

For tickets on Friday go here.

For tickets on Saturday go here.

Main photo by Isak Tiner.

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Since 2013, Chenoweth has appeared on Broadway in a revival of On the Twentieth Century. She recently appeared in the second season of Trial and Error. She also performed her show My Love Letter to Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 2016. It is that show that will partially serve as the basis for her concert on Sunday, as she told me when we caught up by phone earlier this week.

What do you remember most about your debut as a headliner at the Bowl?

Six years ago? I was only twenty… (she lets out a big laugh.) Time has flown. Oh gosh, probably my parents flying in and my family being there. Just standing in front of that 100-piece orchestra and singing songs I love. Looking up and seeing stars. Music is such a healer, it’s so amazing.

At that concert you pulled up voice teacher Sarah Horn to sing “For Good” from Wicked with you. How much did her talent surprise you?

I loved it because no one expected it, least of all me. She just did so well after that and I’m so proud of her. It doesn’t always work – that’s even better actually. A lot of times people say, “I’m a performer” or “I know the song very well.” Then you see the nerves take over. But you want to see the switch happen. I want someone to have an experience, whoever that may be: child, boy, girl, teacher, accountant. Who knows who I will pick. I don’t do it a lot.

How much of this concert will be based on My Love Letter to Broadway?

Some of it will definitely be there because I haven’t done that show here. There’s new stuff and I’ll be doing songs I have to do or I’ll be killed. I have a new album called For the Girls coming out September 27th and I’ll be doing two songs from that. I want to give people a taste. It’s a little bit of the last record (The Art of Elegance), new stuff and stuff from the new album. 

The Art of Elegance is the kind of album you don’t get to hear very often. How difficult is getting an album like that made?

It’s so difficult to get an album like that made. Especially with a full orchestra. On the next record a lot of it has been fully orchestrated with songs, but not songs you’d expected to be fully orchestrated. From Dinah Washington to Carole King to Linda Ronstadt to Eva Cassidy. This is my wheel house and these songs changed my life.

You’re going to be back in Los Angeles for New Year’s Eve at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I assume that will be a different show.

It’ll be mostly stuff from For the Girls. It will be different. And you never know what kind of guests I might have and all.

Wicked was the last new musical you appeared in. Does the reality of Broadway make it tougher for you to star in new musicals?

I’m in development for two Broadway shows right now. I’ll never stop going. That’s where I made it. That’s where I cut my teeth. The truth is if I have the right audience, whether on a Broadway stage or a concert stage, I’m home. I’m attached to Death Becomes Her based on the film and I’m attached to a Tammy Faye Baker musical. It’s a race. Whoever gets there first, I’m in.

[No current information exists on the creative team for Death Becomes Her. The Tammy Faye Baker musical is being written by David Yazbek and Robert Horn – the duo who wrote Tootsie which is now on Broadway.]

You’ve been a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights. A lot of Christians believe that Leviticus is the final word on homosexuality. As a Christian do you get pushback from people when you speak so openly – as you recently did with Matt Easton*?

Yes! Of course! That’s okay with me. I would expect people to push back because that’s what they’ve been taught and it’s ingrained. I don’t want to be judged for my belief. I don’t judge others for what they believe. I would like that respect in return. Whether you believe in Jesus as the Messiah or not, all he talked about was love and loving one another.

Speaking of love…what challenges did you have to overcome to love yourself and fully accept who you are?

I had to learn to accept that I am petite at 4’11”. I had to learn to love I had a unique speaking voice. I had to learn to love that not everyone is going to love what I do. As long as you remember that, that all you can do is do the music that speaks the truth for you. If you speak or sing the truth, really people can’t get too mad at you.

*Easton came out during his valedictorian speech at Brigham Young University in April.

For tickets go here.

Photos of Kristin Chenoweth by Gian Di Stefano/Courtesy of Kristin Chenoweth.

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Megan Hilty is best-known for her role as Ivy Lynn on Smash. She was one of two actresses hoping to get cast in a new musical about Marilyn Monroe on the short-lived series. On Broadway she’s appeared as Glinda in Wicked, as Doralee Rhodes in the musical Nine to Five (the Dolly Parton role) and in the most recent revival of the play Noises Off. She received a Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for Noises Off.

Other significant roles for her were in limited run productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Annie Get Your Gun and a one-night only presentation of Bombshell (the musical being put together on Smash) on stage.

The show will undoubtedly feature songs from Smash (“Let Me Be Your Star” is in the promo above) and her Broadway musicals, but you should also expect songs she enjoys that are not from the stage, but run the gamut from pop songs to the Great American Songbook.

On May 28th, Hilty will be performing at City Winery in New York with her husband, Brian Gallagher. They are performing a new musical called Brownstone, based on his concept album released earlier this year.

Cheyenne Jackson and Hilty will be performing together in January at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills and at the NSO Pops at The Kennedy Center in February.

In April she will return to Southern California for three concerts at the Samueli Theatre at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Photo by Jenny Anderson/Courtesy of PBS

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