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DIVA TALK: Chatting with Emily Skinner Plus Maureen McGovern on CD and News of Buckley
By Andrew Gans
09 May 2008
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Emily Skinner
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News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
EMILY SKINNER
Emily Skinner, the versatile singing actress best known for her Tony-nominated performance as Daisy Hilton opposite Alice Ripley's Violet in Side Show, will make her solo New York cabaret debut June 1 and 8 at Feinstein's at Loews Regency.
Skinner, who is blessed with a powerful Broadway belt as well as a lush soprano and wonderful comic timing, told me earlier this week that "over the years different people have asked me to do a cabaret evening, and I just really haven't had the time to do it. Feinstein's asked me a couple months ago, and I thought, 'Why not? I could probably do that in June.'"
"I've done a lot of concert work in the last two-and-a-half, three years, mostly outside New York," Skinner adds, "but that's not the same thing as cabaret. In cabaret you're in a little room with people right next to you, so this will be a totally different thing for me. . . . But I'm my mother's daughter. I like to talk, so I'll just blabber away, sing some songs and blabber some more!"
Skinner has titled her show Broadway, Her Way but says, "There's no fantastic theme. It's just me singing a bunch of Broadway music. It's all theatre material. It's not me singing Joan Baez," she laughs. The gifted performer — who will be backed at the posh nightspot by musical director Ross Patterson on piano — promises tunes by the Gershwins, Stephen Sondheim, Alan Menken and Bill Russell and Henry Krieger, among others. Audiences can expect a few songs from Skinner's acclaimed musical theatre outings as well as material new to her repertoire.
To prepare for her cabaret bow, Skinner recently caught the Feinstein's engagements of Lainie Kazan and Tovah Feldshuh. "I'm enchanted with the room," she admits. "It has a nice feel to it and a nice intimacy. I'm really looking forward to [performing there]."
Within the past year's time, Skinner has also been part of two high-profile theatre projects: the New York City premiere of Jerry Springer — The Opera at Carnegie Hall and the American premiere of The Witches of Eastwick at the Signature Theatre Company in Arlington, VA.
Of the former Skinner says, "It was terrific — Jason Moore directing, Stephen Oremus [music-directing]. It was a wonderful group of people to be in rehearsal with for a month and great, fantastic music to sing. I had a fabulous time." When asked whether she thinks the controversial musical — about television personality Jerry Springer and his outrageous talk-show guests — will have further New York life, Skinner says, "I don't think so, [considering] the fact that it got so much negative press when it aired on the BBC. And, even here, we were [the subject of protests] by the Catholic League. There were picketers around Carnegie Hall for really no reason: 'Do you even know what you're protesting? You haven't even seen the show.' It was ridiculous. There's nothing [any more] offensive in that show that you haven't seen on 'South Park.' It's absurd, but I think any potential investor would look at that and think, 'No, I'm not going there.'"
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Skinner in Witches
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| photo by Scott Suchman |
Skinner was equally fond of her experience in the Signature's Witches of Eastwick, which cast her as the artist-sculptor Alex. "It was a sort of a radical deconstruction of that show," she says. "You wouldn't even have recognized it from the London production. It's such a different show now. In fact, they took our version of it — what we sort of came up with — and they're launching a new U.K. tour of it. Everybody who came and saw it said, 'Oh, this is how it's supposed to be.'" Skinner thinks a New York life for Witches is possible: "I don't know if it will happen anytime soon, but I think it certainly would do really, really well in New York. They made it a little darker, a little less campy, a little more faithful to the book than the movie. It works really nicely now."
Skinner has also directed a few concerts for Scott Siegel's acclaimed Broadway By the Year series at Town Hall. "I've been doing these concert things for awhile now," she says, "so I feel like I have a good grasp on how to present a concert, how to keep a flow of a concert going well. I'm not going to bust out and be directing [Broadway] shows any time soon," she laughs, "but I certainly have fun directing concerts, and I feel like it's something I'm good at."
As for future plans, Skinner will direct and appear in The Broadway Musicals of 1979 (June 16 at Town Hall in Manhattan), she will join Mark Jacoby for a concert version of The Music Man (June 28 at the Eisemann Performing Arts Center in Richardson, TX), and she will share the concert stage with Broadway actress Lauren Kennedy (June 5 at the Long Wharf Theatre Gala in New Haven, CT).
And, one final question: How does Skinner feel about news that Side Show is being revisited in a New York workshop by the Roundabout? "I've always felt that Side Show was a piece that never really got its due," she says, "so I think it's fantastic that it's getting another re-look. It absolutely deserves it!"
[Feinstein's at Loews Regency is located in Manhattan at 540 Park Avenue at 61st Street. For reservations call (212) 339-4095 or visit feinsteinsatloewsregency.com or TicketWeb.com. For Emily Skinner's complete concert itinerary, visit www.skinnerripley.com.]
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Cover art for McGovern's "Road"
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Continued...
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