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DIVA TALK: Chatting with Nancy Anderson Plus News of Peters, Butler and Carmello
By Andrew Gans
07 Sep 2007
Question: Tell me a little bit more about Yank!
Anderson: Yank! is a World War II show in which the central characters are a gay couple. Yank! is actually the name of an enlisted man's magazine that used to be distributed during World War II. It's really beautifully written. David and Joe Zellnik are among the top writers that I've ever worked with. Similar to Steve Lutvak, who wrote Kind Hearts and Coronets, which is a show I've been attached to for awhile they just don't let it out of their sight until it's right. I believe that the mark of a good writer is somebody who can look at what's on the stage or look at what's on the page and say, "You know what? I can do better!," and they scrap it and they write something else. If the writer has the guts to do that, then they have my allegiance. David and Joe really have that ability, and, as I say, they wrote an entire show of standards. When I say standards, these songs sound like the best of the standards. They don't sound like some hackneyed, old-fashioned music. It's really sort of sweepingly romantic. In a beautiful way, it treats the central love story as a real love story. It's not a love story of gay people or straight people it's just honest and unexpected. The show has a really wry sense of humor and quick pace. . . . It's truly a work of art that show.
Question: Where do you think your affinity for music of that era began?
Anderson: I go into that in depth in my show at Birdland. I think it stems from when I was a little girl, and I was home sick all the time. I would listen to these Disney Storybook albums where you'd turn the page with the story, and the album was like a book. I was listening to the "Snow White Storybook Album" once, and I was like, "I can do that. I can imitate her." So, at the age of ten I started working on an imitation of Snow White. And Snow White, in fact, has that very distinct '30s sound. I think that's where I first heard it and became fascinated by it . . . . In college I used to drive this ancient Saab that had no working radio, so I had a boom box on the dashboard that only played tapes. And then the boom box broke one day, so I had to go and buy a new boom box. I decided to pick up a tape, and for some reason I stopped in the Big Band section and I picked up a tape called "The Best of the Big Bands: Artie Shaw." I didn't know anything about Artie Shaw or Big Band, and that album became my favorite album, and it spurred me on to this fascination. The woman that sings on that is a singer called Peg LaCentra, and she really has that great '30s girl band singer sound. I think I just became obsessed, and I started collecting records. Everybody was changing over to CDs at that time. Record stores were unloading their records for a dollar a piece, so I was picking up all of this vintage stuff and David Zellnik, who wrote Yank!, was my roommate then. We would collect records, and we would sit around and listen to '20s, '30s and '40s singers. I also grew up only watching videos. I didn't know musical theatre past about 1965. I knew all of the old MGM musicals, all the old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers [movies], and I watched them over and over and over again. But I was never drawn to the later stuff, except for Sondheim. I don't know why exactly. Sometimes it makes me believe in reincarnation. [Laughs.]
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Nancy Anderson in A Class Act.
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| photo by Joan Marcus |
Question: I wanted to talk about some of your Broadway work, too. I was a big fan of A Class Act, and I was wondering what it was like being a part of that show.
Anderson: That show was such a gift to me. [Director and co-star] Lonny Price and [producer] Marty Bell, I think, saw something in me that I know I didn't see. I certainly didn't see the sexpot in me. I had never played a sexy character before that. I remember going to Lonny during one of the readings and I was like, "Lonny, actually I'm not really right for this part!" [Laughs.] I had this long conversation trying to talk him out of casting me. My agents at that time used to say that whatever I said, they would do the opposite. If I said, "I'm not really right for that," they'd be like, "Okay, we're submitting you!" [Laughs.] I told Lonny I wasn't right, and he was like, "No, you are, you are." Then we started doing the show, and that song "Mona" was actually a trio. In the first few previews, I think, it was a trio. Then they decided to make it a solo for me, and the choreographer did all this crazy "Austin Powers" choreography on the piano with those go-go boots. I couldn't have asked for a better Off-Broadway and Broadway debut. But I remember people coming up to me Off-Broadway and saying, "You're doing a great Joey Heatherton imitation," and I'd never even heard of Joey Heatherton. I went to the Museum of Broadcasting, and I got all of these '60s variety hour broadcasts. And, in fact, I was doing a Joey Heatherton impression! I just didn't know it. When I watched those videos, I couldn't believe that they were allowing her to get on primetime family television and roll around the couch in a teddy, with boys dancing around her singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." The kind of sexuality that was allowed on television in primetime in those days, to our eyes today, was really shocking. . . .
I just feel lucky about [A Class Act] and that music is incredible, isn't it? Those songs are awesome, and that cast! The success of that show was really the cast. Everyone was able to take that material and make it so personal and so grounded, and I think we all loved each other so much. . . .
The opening night of A Class Act Off-Broadway, I went to the party, and I met a new boy that I ended up starting to date. My roommate at that time was Kirk McDonald, and I came home and I was telling Kirk about opening night. Marty announced that we were moving to Broadway that night, so it was going to be my Broadway debut. I went home, and Kirk and I were giggling and laughing about the new boy and Broadway and all this stuff and looking up reviews online. I was up until 5:30 in the morning. I was like, "Well, it doesn't matter. I don't have to be anywhere the next day until 7:30." So I went to bed, and three hours later my phone rang and it was [the late casting director] Vinnie Liff. Apparently, Roger Berlind had seen our opening night, and the last day of auditions for the tour of Kiss Me, Kate was that day. They were ending at noon, and they asked if I could be in at noon. In those days I didn't have enough money to have makeup and hair stuff at the theatre and at home. We didn't have wigs, so everyday I would bring my hair dryer, my curling iron, and all my makeup to work every night and bring it home every night. Only we had the opening-night party, so I didn't want to haul it to the party with me, so I left it at the theatre. At 8:30 in the morning I called the stage manager, and she called a custodian, and I showered and put my dress on, then I ran up to 66th Street and did my makeup and my hair, and then I ran back down to Chelsea Studios, and I didn't make it. It was like 12:15. I poked my head in, and they had their heads together. They were casting. This was the first time I had ever met Kathleen Marshall, Michael Blakemore and Paul Gemignani. So, I walk in there, and I didn't even know the show I had never seen it; I had seen parts of the movie and I sang "Orange Colored Sky," but I sang it kinda sexy, because I was like, "Oh, that character's sexy, I think!" And I had just learned how to be sexy. [Laughs.] Then I sang "But Not For Me," and Paul Gemignani says, "Well!" And Michael Blakemore says, "You've seen the show, haven't you?" And I said no, so they gave me the script and he said, "Do you want to go outside and study it?" And, you know how you are when you've had three hours of sleep and you're on a roll. I was afraid that if I went out in the hallway, I might just crash. I was in there and I was doing well, and I looked at it and the character from the lines [I read] was exactly the same as this character that I played in Jolson & Co.. Even though that show was written in the '40s, the script writing is really stock '30s. And, so I looked at the first three lines "Bill you've been gambling again
" and I was like, "Oh, my gosh! That's Ethel, Al Jolson's second wife." I just read it cold, and they gave it to me.
Question: How long were you in the London cast of Kiss Me, Kate?
Anderson: I was there for a year. There were great things about it. Michael [Berresse] and Marin [Mazzie] and Brent [Barrett] and I lived in this incredible housing. I lived in a Mews house all by myself in South Kensington. It was gorgeous, and the theatre stars there are like movie stars here. You can call up fancy restaurants and get reservations. [Laughs.] It's kind of hilarious. It was definitely a thrill to be over there. We had the opportunity to go home after six months or to stay, and, of course, I stayed. London is a world-class city, and it was really a lot of fun. . . .
Question: You were last on Broadway in Wonderful Town and eventually took over for Jennifer Westfeldt. What was that experience like?
Anderson: Wonderful Town was a real gift, and I think that Roger Berlind helped give me that gift. My sister was dying at that time. She had a brain tumor. It was a very, very small one, and they caught it but it was the deadliest kind, and it killed her in a year. My mother moved to town. My mom and I were taking care of her, and I had been out of work for six months or so. I was doing some concerts my album wasn't out yet but I was focusing on my sister a lot. And then I was running out of cash I had saved a lot of money from London and I really didn't want to have to think about my career. I just wanted to be able to help my mom take care of my sister. And, all of a sudden it really seemed like a gift from God I was called for this audition, and then two weeks later I was cast, and two weeks after that I was in rehearsal. And the special part about that was [that] the part I was originally given was a real walk in the park for me. I didn't have to sing or dance. I just went onstage, said a few lines here and there, acted dopey and walked off. I had the wonderful Ray McLeod, who played opposite me as the Wreck. We just went out and had a ball every night, and I really didn't have to focus on me. So I could be with my sister all day she lived two blocks away from the theatre and I would jump over to the theatre and do the show. So it was a real gift, and then to replace Jennifer was great. It was very sweet of them to ask me to do that. I don't feel like it was a part that I was made to do . . . but I was very happy to do it. I enjoyed it, and I got to do it with Linda Mugleston because both Jennifer and Donna [Murphy] left at the same time. So all of the sudden we were just there. So I got to do it with Linda, who is one of my best friends in the whole world. We met each other on that show, and playing onstage with Linda was just spectacular.
Question: Were you there when Brooke Shields came in?
Anderson: Yeah, Brooke and Jennifer Hope Wills came in. I was only there for three weeks. I left three weeks after they started to go do She Loves Me at Paper Mill. But that was really fun they are two of the sweetest girls ever, and it was fun to just relax and go back into my fun little part and watch them take the reins.
Question: Do you have a favorite theatrical experience so far?
Anderson: Well, certainly doing Kiss Me, Kate with Michael Berresse. It just doesn't get better than that. Michael and I, as Michael says, we're on the same page. That stage chemistry was unlike any I've ever had. Although close to that was doing Crazy for You in Salt Lake City, Utah, with Stacey Todd Holt. He and I starred in that show together. I love doing the song-and-dance girls. That's my favorite thing to do. Because of watching all of those MGM movies, it's the style I most understand. When I get to play that girl, that's what I love.
Question: Do you have any other projects you're working on? It sounds like you're pretty busy.
Anderson: Well, I've got these three Birdland shows and this Piper show and the Yank! show. I'm happy about that because all of these little projects are keeping me around to continue with Steve Lutvak's Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Question: What's happening with Kind Hearts?
Anderson: It's looking like we may have some producers on board. Everything's a little bit unclear right now, but I'm hoping that we're going to do a more full-fledged reading of it, some sort of workshop/reading this fall.
Question: What's the basis of Kind Hearts?
Anderson: This show is the best show I've ever done in my life! And, it's not just because they wrote me a really great part. [Laughs.] It's based on an Alec Guinness movie called "Kind Hearts and Coronets." It's written in 1949. It's an old Ealing Studios movie. Alec Guinness plays eight different members of [a Duke's] family, and there's a bastard child. The mother married out of the upper classes, and she was disowned. Then she died, and her son was left believing that he should ascend to the Duke seat to be Duke. So, he sets about to murder everybody in line to the seat so that he can be the Duke and it's a comedy. [Laughs.] We did it at Sundance last summer with Raul Esparza and Robert Petkoff and Judy Kuhn. There have been various cast shifts over the couple of years that we've been doing informal readings of it. I think that we'll really be putting it together this fall.
[The Piper will play Sept. 1829 at the Theater at St. Clements, located at 423 West 46th Street in Manhattan. For tickets and further information visit www.nymf.org. Yank! - A New Musical will be presented by The Gallery Players at 199 14th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Oct. 20-Nov. 4. For tickets, priced $14 and $18, call (212) 352-3101 or visit www.galleryplayers.com. . . . Anderson will play Birdland Sept. 23, Oct. 28 and Nov. 25. Birdland is located in Manhattan at 315 West 44th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. For reservations call (212) 581-3080 or visit www.birdlandjazz.com.]
DIVA TIDBITS
Two-time Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters will perform the role of Melissa Gardner in an upcoming benefit of A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. The Sept. 24 evening at New World Stages will benefit Opening Act, the non-profit organization that "provides free after-school theatre programming to New York City's most under-served public high schools." Michael Mastro will direct the 8 PM performance; Peters' co-star will be announced shortly. New World Stages is located in Manhattan at 340 West 50th Street. Tickets, priced $40-$100, are available by visiting www.openingactnewyork.org. A 7 PM reception will precede the performance.
Great Women Salute a Great Woman: Betty Comden in the words of Comden and Green is the title of the upcoming memorial tribute to the late Betty Comden. The free afternoon, which is open to the public, will be presented at the Majestic Theatre Sept. 18 at 2 PM and will feature the talents of Lucie Arnaz, Judith Blazer, Carolee Carmello, Barbara Cook, Christine Ebersole, Lypsinka, Audra McDonald, Phyllis Newman, Elaine Stritch, Mary Testa, Leslie Uggams and Lillias White. The one-hour memorial tribute sponsored by The Family of Betty Comden, ASCAP, The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc., MGM and The Shubert Organization will be directed by David Zippel and Lee Mindel with musical direction by Paul Trueblood. The Majestic Theatre is located in Manhattan at 247 West 44th Street.
The stars of the new musical Xanadu will be seen on the small screen within the next few weeks. On Sept. 12 Kerry Butler and Cheyenne Jackson will appear on ABC-TV's "The View." Butler and Jackson, who play, respectively, Clio and Sonny in the musical at the Helen Hayes Theatre, will perform "Suddenly." "The View" airs in the metropolitan area on WABC-TV, Channel 7 from 11 AM-noon; check local listings. Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa, who plays the roles of, respectively, Calliope and Melpomene, will make an appearance on FOX-TV's "Mike & Juliet Show" Sept. 25. The comedic duo will perform "Evil Woman" on the morning chat show, which airs on Channel 5 at 9 AM ET.
Stars from the Broadway and Los Angeles companies of Stephen Schwartz's Wicked will take part in Broadway Unplugged @ the Ford, a benefit for the Valley Musical Theatre. The 8 PM concert will be presented at the outdoor John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, CA. Among those scheduled to perform are Eden Espinosa (Elphaba - Los Angeles), Kristoffer Cusick (Fiyero Los Angeles), Shoshana Bean (Elphaba - Broadway), Jenna Leigh Green (Nessarose Los Angeles), Julie Reiber (Elphaba - Standby, Los Angeles), Emily Rozek (Glinda - Standby, Los Angeles), Adam Lambert (Fiyero Understudy, Los Angeles), Melissa Fahn (Glinda Understudy, Los Angeles) and Linda Kerns (Madame Morrible Understudy, Los Angeles) as well as Broadway friends Sean McDermott, Jack Noseworthy and Chad Kimball. Gerald Sternbach will be the musical director for the "unique, acoustic, up-close and personal production." The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East in Los Angeles, CA. Tickets, priced $30-$100, are available by calling (323) 461-3673 or by visiting www.fordtheatres.org.
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.
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