Question: This role is so different from your last Broadway outing in A Catered Affair. Prince: [Laughs.] I don't think you'd find any of the same woman, which I love. That's why I got into this.
Question: That's what I was wondering. Do you like that kind of change? Prince: Of course. And that's why you can't compare it to anything else. Catered Affair was its own entity, and I've always been like that. I'm a person that really loves diversity. Probably one of the reasons I chose it is because it was so different from Catered Affair. I love it when people think, "Oh, is that who she is now?" No, honey. It's like when I did Adelaide, they'd go, "Do that Adelaide thing," and I'd go, "Well, that Adelaide thing is Adelaide. That person's gone." [Laughs.]
Question: Speaking of Adelaide, is it strange to you that Guys and Dolls is back on Broadway already? Prince: You know, it isn't. I don't know why, for some people, that's been hard for them to accept. Gypsy's been done, I think, three times since Guys and Dolls. I say to people, "Look, La Boheme is done all the time, all over the place." You kind of have to think of musical theatre that's our contribution to the world, like opera was from Europe. It's funny, [director] Francesca [Zambello] and I had this discussion the other night. She said, "I don't want to do any revivals right now. I only want to do new works." I said, "You know what, that's great because we need that. But we also need our classics done well." I haven't been able to get over there to see it, but I think it's grand. I remember when Little Shop came out again and everybody said, "Hey, are you gonna be Audrey again?" and I said, "Honey, I don't think you revive the revivals you've already revived!" [Laughs.] You move on and do something different, and I think the planet is big enough for all of us.
Question: Do you have any other projects in the works? Prince: What this has allowed me to do is to really set up some new things. I just did a new act in Palm Beach. I sing every year at the Royal Room for two weeks. I usually try out some new material down there, because they know me and they have me back every year. I did that right before I came, and then right after that I went to Orlando and sang with the Orlando Philharmonic. We did a concert version of Sweeney Todd. It was me and Davis Gaines.
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Question: How was playing that role? Prince: Oh, my God! What a great role. I just had a field day. I feel like just this year, 2009 I've been given the most outrageously delicious things to do. Catered Affair was 360 [degrees] delicious in another way. I've never experienced anything like it. It was like doing Death of a Salesman, just completely different.
Question: I really thought you were so powerful. Prince: Thank you. It was wonderful to do, and I love things like that. My thing is, I have so many things I love to do. I did a reading of a brand-new play the other day that this young playwright Aaron Mark wrote. He's 22, and it was brilliant. It was amazing how depthful it's about suicide, but [it's amazing] how much he knew. The roles three of us played three different roles throughout the evening. It was three vignettes. Just diving into something like that. Sometimes going to a space like Ursula that's an outrageous, bigger-than-life character allows you the space to go in and do something dramatic and funny-in-a-bizarre-way and dark. As I say in my act, most actresses just want to be young, young. It's all about youth. All I kept thinking was that I can't wait to be the age I am now, to play such different women.
Question: To really get to meatier stuff. Prince: You got it. I feel like I'm just getting started.
Question: So tell me a little bit about the new act. What songs are you doing? Prince: Down there, because they've known me awhile, I actually did a lot about my trip to London. I sang with the English National Opera. We did Kismet, and it was very funny. It was during the Iraq War, and one of my lines, I kept saying, "For those of you who don't know Kismet, think of 'Arabian Nights' seen through the eyes of Henny Youngman." ...For some reason they had put the women in burkhas. Usually it's done like this cheesy 1940s musical. I was playing Lalume. We were on this Germanic set that was sort of something out of Das Rheingold. I was thinking billowing curtains and cushions to lie down on. It's all about sex, you know? [Laughs.] It just was gone awry. All I could think of was here I am, the only American, during the Iraq war, in the middle of London, singing, "Baghdad! Don't underestimate Baghdad!" It was quite hysterical. That was probably a fourth of my act. I did a couple of numbers from Kismet and told these stories about arriving in London. It was very funny, and then I did a couple of numbers as Ursula and Mrs. Lovett. We just did so many different things. That's why I love an act, because you can go all over the place. I told my Liza [Minnelli] stories, meeting Liza and her being my first role model growing up and getting to meet her and being with her at the Helen Hayes. I kind of did a whole Liza section, which most people don't know about.
Question: Would you ever think of developing the show to do it here? Prince: Definitely. I started out doing my first one, Leap of Faith, at Joe's Pub. That's the one I recorded. We're due to do it again. I've done three [shows] since then. I've taken them to Australia and all over the place.
Question: How long will you stay with Mermaid? Prince: I'm contracted for a year. That will allow me to do a lot of other things: develop projects, read a play Terrence [McNally], I did his project [Unusual Acts of Devotion ] in Philly, and I loved that play. They're going to do it again out in La Jolla.
Question: How is the play? Prince: I loved it. It's beautiful. I think it's one of his best works. It's quite something. I was sad to let that go. They took it out to La Jolla. I didn't know when they were going do it again because they had talked about doing it next spring.
Question: It's probably hard with scheduling when you have to give up something. Prince: You just can't do everything. I'm such a big fan of Terrence. When I was in Carousel down at the Kennedy Center, this was in 1986, he's the one that came up to me and said, "You know what? You can really act." And I was like, "Really?" He was the one that put me in Manhattan Theatre Club, and I did his Bad Habits, and then he wrote Man of No Importance.
Question: I was sorry that show it didn't transfer. Prince: Me, too. It was a beautiful piece, and I did Andre's Mother for him. When he wrote Unusual Acts, I went to Philly. Richard Thomas and I did that and, I am telling you, I love Richard Thomas so much. He and I have so much chemistry. That was a loss for me to not be able to do it in La Jolla, but you never know. . . . [When] somebody's offering you this delightful part for you to scare children every night, how can you turn that down? [Laughs.]
[The Little Mermaid plays the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Broadway at 46th Street; visit DisneyOnBroadway.com for ticket information.]
Karen Ziemba
KANDER AND EBB REMEMBERED, PART II
Last week Debra Monk, Terrence McNally and Chita Rivera offered their memories about the famed songwriting team John Kander and the late Fred Ebb, who will be saluted in the Come to the Cabaret: A Celebration of Kander and Ebb, a one-night Broadway concert to benefit The Acting Company.
Directed by Tony Award winner John Doyle (Company, Sweeney Todd), with Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Company, The Addams Family) as music director, the May 4 evening will be held at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The one-night-only event will boast the talents of Monk, McNally and Rivera as well as Raϊl Esparza, David Hyde Pierce, Tom Wopat, Karen Ziemba and Liza Minnelli artists who have been attached to musicals by the creators of Cabaret, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Chicago, among others.
This week we feature two more Kander/Ebb memories. . .
Karen Ziemba
"Both John and Fred were instrumental in starting my career. It happened 20 years ago can you believe it? with the original And the World Goes 'Round in Montclair, NJ, at Olympia Dukakis' Whole Theatre. The production, with some cast changes, moved on to The Westside Theatre in NYC, and I received my first Drama Desk Award for that performance. However, when you're performing anything Kander and Ebb wrote, you have an 'edge' their songwriting is that good. I continued to collaborate with them along with colleagues such as Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman, David (Tommy) Thompson, Joe Stein, Walter Bobbie and Annie Reinking on Steel Pier, Curtains, The Skin of Our Teeth and Chicago. I've sung in many tributes over the years for the pair, and try never to miss the opportunity. My first impression of them is the most vivid in my mind. It was my first audition for John and Fred and the creative team of And the World Goes 'Round. I knew them both by name and fame, but not from ever meeting them personally. Well, I never remember being treated with such respect in an audition before. I was treated as an equal, like they actually were glad I showed up. John stood and came from around the table, shook my hand, introduced himself, told me I sang beautifully and proceeded to ask me to sing the song in a higher key. (He was checking for those soprano notes.) Nonetheless, he was a gentleman and took the time to get results by making me feel comfortable and appreciated. Go figure?! Anyway, I still hold them in high regard, not only for their kindness and generosity to those in our profession and those wanting to enter it, but for their amazing work as songwriters. Fred was a gentle poet crossed with a stand-up comedian, and John is still working on one of his and Fred's last collaborations, The Scottsboro Boys. John can still play the piano better than ever...and those melodies...he's awesome!"
David Hyde Pierce
photo by Joan Marcus
David Hyde Pierce
"In Curtains I got to sing the first song Kander wrote both music and lyrics to 'Coffee Shop Nights.' (The first time I'd heard the song, it was a demo recording of John singing and playing it, and no one will ever do it better.) The first time I sang it, in rehearsal for the workshop, Kander was trying to convey to our music director David Loud what the accompaniment should feel like, and decided to play it himself to demonstrate. So suddenly, there I was, singing Kander's beautiful song, with John himself at the piano, and I thought, 'Somebody kill me now, because life doesn't get better than this.'"
[Tickets for Come to the Cabaret are priced $100, $125 and $250 and are available through Telecharge.com or (212) 239-6200. Premium tickets at $500 (performance only) and $1,000 and up (performance plus Patrons Dinner with the cast), are available through The Acting Company at (212) 258-3111.]
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.
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Bea Arthur
This week's column is dedicated to the one and only Bea Arthur, who lost her battle with cancer April 25 at the age of 86. Was there anyone who delivered a one-liner funnier than the singing actress, who won her Tony Award for her performance as the boozy Vera Charles opposite the Mame of Angela Lansbury? Most times a talent like Arthur also the original Yente (the matchmaker) in the 1964 staging of Fiddler on the Roof leaves the Broadway stage to pursue a career in television, that loss is lamented. Yet, Bea Arthur went on to portray such memorable characters on screen that we can only be grateful that she was able to share her talent with the world. In fact, Ms. Arthur created two of the more memorable female characters in television history: the women's liberation champion Maude in "Maude" a character she first played on "All in the Family" and the divorced substitute teacher Dorothy Zbornak on "The Golden Girls." Whether she was deadpanning "God'll get you for that Walter" or gleefully warning, "Shady Pines, Ma?" Arthur was a force to be reckoned with, one who will be missed greatly.
