By Andrew Gans
01 May 2009

Faith Prince

News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.

FAITH PRINCE
Last season, Guys and Dolls Tony Award winner Faith Prince offered what might have been her most powerful stage performance to date. Cast as a severely unhappy 1950s Bronx housewife who pins her hopes on a lavish wedding ceremony for her daughter, Prince was sarcastic, comedic and supremely moving in Harvey Fierstein and John Bucchino's short-lived A Catered Affair. One of the most affecting moments in that show featured Prince, alone on stage, letting out a life's worth of frustrations in a lengthy sob. It pierced the heart and reminded audiences how gifted a performer the singing actress is. Now, one of our Broadway treasures is back onstage in a wholly different role, playing the evil sea witch Ursula in the newest Disney offering, The Little Mermaid. Prince gets the chance to belt out such Alan Menken tunes as "I Want the Good Times Back" and the show-stopping "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in the musical at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, and she recently spoke with me about her latest Broadway outing; that interview follows.

Question: Is your family here in New York with you?
Faith Prince: We're going back and forth for awhile. We'll always have a place out [on the West Coast], but my son's going go to school here next year.

Question: How old is he now?
Prince: He's almost 14. The time has just flown by.

Question: What's it like being mom to a teenager?
Prince: Oh, lovely. Somebody said, "Isn't it a horror?" and I went, "No, I'm sorry. It's not." [Laughs.] He's my favorite person besides my husband to hang out with. He's a love, I have to say. I really got a good one.

Question: Does he perform at all?
Prince: He's a great musician. I always told him when he was little and I tell him this now, he's Harry Potter. He's a wizard and doesn't know it yet. He's got all the comic timing and dry sense of humor, but a lot of performers' children don't act because the parent does. I wouldn't be surprised if, in his late-20s, he went into it. He's a very good student, so I told him, "Keep all your options open!" [Laughs.]

Question: Now getting to Mermaid, how did this role come about?
Prince: You know what? Honestly, my agent . . . he is the one who, when he saw it, he thought, "You know what? Faith would be an interesting Ursula." [Laughs.] He's the one who put the bug in my ear and went, "Hey, what would you think?"

Question: What was your first thought when he said that?
Prince: Luscious. I had never played a villain like that before. I had played a couple of murderers on television shows. The first one, and I'm dating myself, was "Remington Steele," and then I played this woman on "Monk." When my mother watched it, she said, "Oh, my God, I wouldn't have known you were my child," and I said, "Well, mother, that's the point." I killed my husband in a bathtub. I threw a radio in the bathtub. So I had played murderers before, but it's so much fun being a villain, I have to say. It's really a blast.

Question: What was the rehearsal process like? I know that sometimes, when you step into a role, you don't get as much time as one might like.
Prince: Well, it is different. There's no way around that. I've done it a couple of times. I stepped into King and I for Donna Murphy. I went into The Dead after Blair Brown, and I went into Little Shop after Ellen Greene. I've done this a few times. I don't know if it's because I'm sort of an analytical person in a way, which most people wouldn't think about me, but I just look [at it like], "This is the game. This is the chess game." This is what you have to accomplish. In this case, I've never experienced anything more technical. You always want to contribute something, otherwise why would you take on a role? And, you also don't want to reinvent the wheel. When you do a new production of something, whoever that person is [who is] starting it, they've really sort of excavated the ground, I like to say. You can put your curtains in and your carpeting, but the structure is really there at the beginning. You can't go beyond that, but you can try to contribute within that. If I could write about that process, it might help other people just understand it and see if it's something they'd ever want to do. I find it thrilling, but I'll tell you that first night was like, "Whew!" Those tentacles and the weight of them and maneuvering them along with singing is really quite something.

	Faith Prince in The Little Mermaid
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: How long does it take you to get in and out of that costume and makeup?
Prince: From beginning to when I actually enter the stage, it's about an hour and 22 minutes.

Question: Do you find that as you're putting on your make-up that it gets you into character?
Prince: I have my make-up done, which I've had before. When I started out at Cincinnati Conservatory a few years ago, make-up was a part of your craft. But there are times where you really need a make-up artist for consistency and just for relaxation, because it is a lot of make-up. I think certain productions provide that. I actually had it in King and I, I had it in Bells Are Ringing, I had it in Little Me, so I've had it in a few productions. But [in Mermaid] it's quite the art. Tiffany, who does the make-up over there, is just magnificent, and Angelina Avallone, who designed it — that, with the hair, is quite extraordinary. So I just use it as my Zen-out time to breathe. It's a beautiful thing. Hey look, I'm a lucky girl. But sometimes I get strapped into that pod and I go, "Well, it's a living!" [Laughs.]

Question: What did you think the first time you had the make-up and the costume on and you looked in the mirror?
Prince: Honestly, I really thought my face was suited to that kind of thing. [Laughs.] I have a very "theatre" face. I have what they call a wide mask. I probably would have been a big film star in the '20s with the silent films where they used a lot of key lighting, and make-up carved out your face. That's why I've always loved the theatre, because you're not hard-pressed to see what I'm thinking in the back row. I just have that kind of face. This is really a unique kind of feeling. It has a bit of opera in it. Sometimes out there with that cape, I feel sort of what Renée Fleming must feel like. It has that flair to it. I feel like a diva in the opera. Not that I've ever experienced it, but I've certainly seen it. It's really exciting. It's another chapter.

Question: How would you describe Ursula?
Prince: Oh, let's see. I had a few suggestions for her: girl gone bad, misunderstood, bipolar, off-medication. Evil is an interesting thing. It's never just evil — it's always complex. And, usually they're the people you want to be in the room with, quite charismatic. What I love about her is [that] she changes nightly. Something that she would have screamed at somebody about, she finds hysterical and the opposite happens. That's what's luscious about the character.

Question: Do you have a favorite moment for her yet?
Prince: Actually, honestly, I love the demise scene when she dies. I think she's hit her sort of maniacal state. I have to say, that's not something — I don't think people, when Faith Prince comes to mind — I'm not sure that would come to mind. It's really fun to go there. You know what I'm saying? [Laughs maniacally.] You're out of your mind in front of people, and then you die.

Question: How vocally demanding is the part? There's quite a bit of singing.
Prince: It is. In fact, we've been tweaking. What I've tried to do is get the speaking and singing in the same range. She's quite a bit lower than I am, and I wanted that because I want to be able to scream something. I find, for my voice, if I have to place it somewhere for singing, the voice doesn't like that huge flip. I've kept it in the lower range just so I can really go all over the place as far as dynamics.  Continued...

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