By Andrew Gans
07 Jul 2006
Q: The Tarzan CD is now available. Do you enjoy the recording process?
Gambatese: I have to say this was the first time I had fun recording. Partially, I think again, that was Disney's foresight. They were really generous, and we didn't have to do it completely in one day. We had two-and-a-half days, which made a big difference. Also, you have Phil Collins, and obviously he knows what he's doing. And, also, Paul Bogaev, our musical supervisor, and Chris Montan, he's the head of Disney Records, so I felt like they were so cool, calm and collected that it was easy for me to be as well. And, I'm really proud of it — I think it turned out quite nice.
Q: I know you have a small part in the film "The Good Shepherd."
Gambatese: A very small part!
Q: Would you like to do more film work? Where would you like to see your career go from here?
Gambatese: I would. That was my first film that I'd ever done, which was great because it was a small part, but it was a big film, so I got to see how it all works. I don't even know if my lines are actually audible. Matt Damon is reading my lips in the scene. [Laughs.] But there I was watching Matt Damon work and watching Robert De Niro direct. It was really, really enlightening, but it was also just a very different process from theatre. It's radically different, so I would like to do it more. I've been thinking about it, and I think I'd really like to get into television. I think that what I have learned and developed in musical theatre would lend itself really well to sitcoms. I know how to find the funny — I know how to pace things and time things, and I think I would enjoy the schedule of TV. I know they work very hard as well, but those film sets, those are really long days. TV — you have your weekends. TV seems really conducive to starting a family, which is my other goal.
Q: How long are you contracted with Tarzan?
Gambatese: I'm contracted through March (2007).
Gambatese: No, right now I'm just really enjoying settling into this [show], and I'm engaged [to actor Curtis Cregan]. We have a place up in the Catskills, so I've just been enjoying my life. On Monday we reroofed our porch. [Laughs.] I've been hammering shingles into the porch roof, and I'm having fun. It's just nice to do normal things.
[Tarzan plays the Richard Rodgers Theatre, 224 West 46th Street. For tickets call (212) 307-4747 or visit www.tarzanonbroadway.com.]
FOR THE RECORD: Karen Akers' "Like It Was"
For the bulk of her cabaret career, Karen Akers has wrapped her dark, rich, silky contralto — which throbs with an emotional intensity — around the songs of Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf and Craig Carnelia as well as a mix of current and up-n-coming songwriters. In the past few years, however, Akers — whose Broadway outings include the original productions of Nine and Grand Hotel — has turned her attention to the Great American Songbook, probing songs by the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter with equal intelligence and depth. And, Akers now preserves many of these standards on her newest solo recording, "Like It Was," on the DRG Records label.
Akers begins her program with Rodgers and Hart’s playful “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” followed by a pairing of the little-heard “Just a Memory” and the Gershwin classic “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” The singer-actress has fun with an upbeat version of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ “You’ve Got Possibilities,” and then finds the right notes of anger and despair in a medley of “Falling in Love with Love” and “I Fall in Love Too Easily.” One of the disc’s highlights follows, a touching rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s “I Get Along Without You Very Well.”
Two Stephen Sondheim offerings also provide high points: “Like It Was,” the bittersweet ballad from Merrily We Roll Along, and Passion’s “Loving You,” which paired with Kern and Hammerstein’s “Why Was I Born?” underscores the sense of longing in each tune. Akers celebrates love in Irving Berlin’s “I Got Lost in His Arms” and delivers part of Charles Trenet’s “I Wish You Love” in her flawless French. She explores the blues of “Stormy Weather” to dramatic effect and concludes her 15-track disc with the torchy “As Long As He Needs Me” from Lionel Bart’s Oliver!
Visit www.drgrecords.com or www.karenakers.com for more information.
DIVA TIDBITS
Former Evita Florence Lacey, who was part of the Off-Broadway musical Under the Bridge, will star in The New York International Fringe Festival's production of Trouble in Shameland. Lacey will portray Virginia Carson in the musical, which will play the Festival Aug. 11-27 in a production directed by Bryan Putnam. The company will also feature Brad Standley, Garrett Eucker, Mary Mossberg, Carole J. Bufford, William Day, Sarah Kinlaw, Frederick Heringes, Ryan Andes, Katie Hale, Christopher Michael McLamb, Jana Ballard, Robyne Parrish, Liz O'Donnell, Matthew Hardy and Eric Zutty. Tickets, priced $15, are available by calling (212) 279-4488 or (888) FRINGENYC. For more information visit www.fringenyc.org or www.troubleinshameland.com.
"Summer Evenings of Cabaret" is the title of a new concert series that will be presented this summer at the Caminito Theatre, located on the campus of Los Angeles City College. The series will begin July 14 and 15 with Susan Egan of Beauty and the Beast and Thoroughly Modern Millie fame. Heather Mac Rae, seen on Broadway in Hair and Falsettos, will follow, playing July 21 and 22. The Caminito Theatre will welcome Three Men and a Baby . . . Grand! July 28 and 29. The trio, which will perform Broadway and movie favorites, comprises Brian Lane Green, Lee Lessack and John Boswell. Kevin Spirtas, who played Corny Collins in the Las Vegas mounting of Hairspray, will go it solo Aug. 3, and the series will conclude with Jason Graae (Aug. 4) and Linda Purl (Aug. 5.) All performances will begin at 7:30 PM at the Caminito Theatre, located at 855 N. Vermont Avenue in Hollywood, CA. Tickets, priced $25 (or $100 for all six concerts), are available by calling (323) 953-4000, ext. 2990. Visit www.lacitycollege.edu for more information.
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.
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