By Andrew Gans
15 Jun 2007
Question: You were also part of one of my favorite shows, Titanic.
Blazer: I'm glad you liked Titanic.
Question: The music in that show was so beautiful.
Blazer: It's lovely, isn't it? It really evoked that atmosphere, I thought.
Question: What was that experience like?
Blazer: In Titanic I had a leading lady role that I had trepidation about because the way she was written was rather uneven, and I had my questions as to whether she worked. Sure enough, she didn't. My whole song got cut, and the scene got cut, and Don [Stephenson] and I had this big duet, but they couldn't make the scene shift, and there were too many ballads. And then they wrote us a new song, which we had to do on alternate nights in previews. . . . So as great as the show ended up, it wasn't [what I thought it would be for my character]. I like to use my chops. It's like if you go to the gym to do a workout I never go to the gym, so I don't know why I'm using this analogy but it comes to mind. You go to the gym or a dance class to do a full body workout, and you end up just working your feet. And if you have to do that everyday, the rest of your body starts to die it starts to atrophy. And that's what happens for me with my high energy if I don't really fully use what I have. . . . So I think Titanic was thrilling in that the show was powerful. The cast was unbelievable, and can I tell you, we all loved each other. Forty-four people in one small building, and we had such respect for each other, and we were constantly doing things together!
Question: It was an exciting year, too. I remember the cast was on "Rosie" a lot
Blazer: Yeah! Well, thanks to Rosie and really, only thanks to Rosie that show not only stayed open but won five Tonys. I don't know if you remember, but our reviews were not good.
Blazer: I'll tell you what one of my favorite things is: watching Annie Morrison. Annie Morrison is an old Broadway veteran like me. She did Merrily We Roll Along she was the original Mary. I've known Annie through the years. We did some recording together in England, and we rekindled our friendship a couple of years ago when she was doing a piece in Philly. Watching her she has even more tracks than I do, absurd little characters that don't speak. We have names for all of them. Frequently I'm onstage with her or I'm off to the side watching her. I will tell you that is one of my biggest kicks in terms of moments in the show, is just watching her create these absurd, wonderful, diverse little characters. And also Rachel Ulanet who, can I tell you, my father Bat Mitzvah'd! How insane is that? My father was also a cantor at a temple in New Jersey by the shore . . . . So, Rachel was Bat Mitzvah'd by my daddy, and here we are in a show together. It's so delightful.
I [also] like my "Nanna's Lied" on the stairs everybody laughs and calls it my 16 bars. I enjoy singing that. That music is very me. . . . I have to be honest: mostly, I change wigs and clothes. [Laughs.] That's really what I do in this one, but the backstage humor is constant hilarity, and that's fun. Oh, and the Pimp "Tango." I love doing the Pimp "Tango" that's definitely my favorite besides "Nanna's Lied."
Question: It's not a light piece. How has audience reaction been?
Blazer: Very mixed. People are, at times, confused by where the story is going, but they are nonetheless enamored by it. In other words, they're moved, but they don't always know why. They come out of sheer fascination and leave with that, but it has this sort of ephemeral quality that people can't quite articulate.
Question: You're also doing a concert on the 18th?
Blazer: Yes! Me and the gay men love it! I'm just so thrilled about that. We did a radio show the other day, Joanna Gleason and Darius de Haas, who is probably one of the loveliest men on earth. Aside from being extremely talented, he's just such an elegant, sophisticated, warm person, and Joanna Gleason is my new favorite woman. I really just met her, got to talk with her for this radio interview. She's directing it, putting it together, and she is just the smartest, coolest woman. I've always loved her work, everything she does I love. And, ironically, her husband Chris Sarandon was in Piazza, and I wrote a lot of the Italian for Piazza.
Question: I didn't realize that.
Blazer: Yes. I wrote the Italian lyrics to the boy's song with Adam [Guettel]. . . . It was never intended to be in English. He had an idea of what he wanted to say, and so we did that. It was great fun. I loved it. Anyway, that's my association with her. I'm very excited about it, the music of Billy Strayhorn. They tend to do interesting gay artists of yesteryear and their music, but they've done more noted ones, and Billy Strayhorn is really an interesting story of a man who was always in the shadow of the greater people like Duke Ellington. But the Duke himself admitted that he couldn't do what he did without Billy Strayhorn.
Question: So what songs will you be doing?
Blazer: I'm definitely doing "Satin Doll," which I love. [Joanna] said I get to be the tomato of the evening. [Laughs.]
Question: You also mentioned you're working on some readings? Anything you can talk about?
Blazer: Yes. I've been working on a piece called Lady on a Carousel. Susan Schulman is directing, and we've done a couple of workshops of that, and we're doing some more. I think they're trying to bring it in.
Question: What's that about?
Blazer: It's very, very dear. In short, a kid from Bronx Science High School is encouraged to do his project with photography shadow and light. He goes to the carousel in New York to take pictures, and he meets a woman that he doesn't realize is Marilyn Monroe. He befriends her, and his little school buddy, a little girl played by Natalie Paulding Meredith Patterson has been playing Marilyn Monroe plays his little sidekick, and she says to him, "This is Marilyn Monroe." And, so, it's all about their involvement with Marilyn. I play the boy's mother, and what I really like about the role is that when we see her, she's in a mental hospital. She's in a hospital for depression. It's around 1960, so depression was very differently regarded then, and she's getting shock treatment, which is how they dealt with it back then. This is how we see her. She's one minute very, very up and manic, and the next minute she's completely catatonic. This is how he knows his mother, but his father ends up explaining to him at a certain point in the show, he says, "You don't know who this woman was." And it turns out she was a baseball star in the women's league, and so there's a huge baseball number.
Question: Is it a musical?
Blazer: It's a big musical. We'll see where it goes. I know that they're working on it and, ironically, Marty Bell and Chase Mishkin are producers on it, and they're producing LoveMusik.
Question: What's the next plan with it?
Blazer: A reading in the summer. . . . I'll do the reading of Lady on a Carousel, and I'll sort of be hanging around with my mom a bit, and then I'm going to Cape Cod to do Lend Me a Tenor.
Question: So, you're busy!
Blazer: I'm good, I'm good. And, then I think I'm probably going to produce two readings at the end of September. I've been working on directing a show called The Deli, which we're going to try to get up. So it's kind of an eclectic career, but I like it that way. A friend of mine once said, "It's harder to shoot a moving target!"
[LoveMusik plays the Biltmore Theatre, 261 West 47th Street; call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.telecharge.com for tickets. Take the A Train will play the Nokia Theatre, 1515 Broadway at 44th Street, June 18 at 8 PM; call (212) 307-4100 or visit www.ticketmaster.com for tickets.]
FOR THE RECORD
"No One Is Alone" (Barbara Cook, DRG Records)
Barbara Cook, who will celebrate her 80th birthday in October, remains a wonder: Not only is her voice in top form, but the Tony-winning actress continues to perform in venues around the country. In fact, a quick glance at her official website lists concert dates through July 2008! She has also just released a beautiful new CD on the DRG label entitled "No One Is Alone."
If Cook's thrilling soprano isn't quite as rangy as it once was, her interpretative skills have only grown over the years. Just listen to the way she delivers Stephen Sondheim's "No More": She imbues the Into the Woods ballad with a dramatic intensity that makes the listener realize Cook truly understands the complications of a life filled with "witches," "curses," "wolves" and "giants." When she implores, "Can't we just pursue our lives/With our children and our wives?," it is extremely touching. There are also moving versions of "No One Is Alone" and "I Wish I Could Forget You" as well as a beautiful medley of "Long Before I Knew You" and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." The latter is especially poignant. She also tugs at the heartstrings in a pairing of two Sondheim gems: "One More Kiss" (from Follies) and the little-heard "Goodbye for Now" (from the film "Reds").
The 13-track disc also features a host of tunes that utilize Cook's natural sunniness and optimism, including the West Side Story favorite "Something's Coming," a syncopated version of Oklahoma!'s "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" and a toe-tapping "Nobody Else But Me." The disc, which features musical direction, several arrangements and piano accompaniment by Eric Stern (with John Beal on bass and Jack Cavari on guitars), concludes with Leonard Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow." Cook is joined by The New York Virtuoso Singers and Broadway actors Kelli O'Hara and Sebastian Arcelus for a soaring version of the Candide anthem.
Curtains (Original Broadway Cast Recording, Broadway Angel)
Curtains, the new murder-mystery musical that received a 2007 Tony Award nomination for Best Musical, was recently released on CD on the Broadway Angel/Manhattan Records label. The musical comedy not only boasts a score by John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (with additional lyrics by Kander and Rupert Holmes), but also features a top-notch cast led by Broadway favorites Debra Monk, Karen Ziemba, Jason Danieley and new Tony winner David Hyde Pierce.
There are many treasures on the 22-track disc, the first new cast album of Kander and Ebb show music to arrive in a decade. Highlights include "Thinking of Him," a lovely trio for Ziemba, Danieley and Noah Racey; the triumphant ode to theatre, "Show People," that says, "It's an honor and a joy to be in show business"; the touching David Hyde Pierce-Jill Paice duet "Coffee Shop Nights"; the upbeat "Thataway"; and Debra Monk's show-stopping "It's a Business."
The score's most beautiful offering, however, may be "I Miss the Music," which seems as much a tribute from Kander to his late lyricist Ebb as it does a song about composer Aaron Fox (Danieley) missing his writing partner Georgia Hendricks (Ziemba): "I miss the music/ I miss my friend/ No need to ask me/ What I prefer/ I choose the music/ I wrote with her."
DIVA TIDBITS
Tony Award winner Betty Buckley, who received raves for her recent "Singin' for My Supper" program at Feinstein's, will return to the Blue Note later this summer. The celebrated singing actress will play the famed Manhattan jazz club July 17-22 at 8:30 and 10:30 PM each night. Buckley will be backed by a trio that features musical director Kenny Werner on piano. There is a $20 cover charge at the bar and a $35 cover at the tables. The Blue Note is located in Manhattan at 131 West Third Street; for reservations call (212) 475-8592 or visit www.bluenote.net.
Hyperion will publish Julie Andrews' autobiography in April 2008. Variety columnist Army Archerd reported earlier this week that the Andrews tome will chronicle the Academy Award winner's life from childhood through age 27, when she began filming "Mary Poppins." Archerd says the book will be an open and honest account of her young life, as Andrews "unveils a childhood with abusive, alcoholic parents and her upward climb."
A concert version of Sweeney Todd will be presented next month to celebrate the reopening of the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall. Directed by David Freeman, the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler work will play four performances July 5-7. Welsh opera star Bryn Terfel will head the cast in the title role with Olivier Award winner Maria Friedman as the pie-baking Mrs. Lovett. The cast will also include Adrian Thompson as Pirelli, Daniel Evans as Tobias, Steve Elias as The Beadle and Phillip Quast as Judge Turpin. The production will also feature the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Stephen Barlow, the Maida Vale Singers and the chorus from the Guildford School of Acting. For ticket information visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk.
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.
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