By Andrew Gans
04 Dec 2009

	Montego Glover with Chad Kimball in Memphis
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: Tell me about working opposite Chad Kimball. You two are the thrust of the show and have both been working on it for so long together.
Glover: He is a tremendous talent. He is so fearless and gutsy and physical and committed as an actor. He's very, very smart. It's been great creating these roles together so that, over the course of time, we've been able to develop a shorthand that exists between us, and we can really communicate on so many levels. Because he's so open and so collaborative, we've been able to inform one another about the work. These people come from different places, but they live in the same time and they fall in love in the course of the play. We've really been able to inform one another about our respective lives. He's got a great sense of humor, we enjoy working together, and what's lovely is, the more you get to work with the same actor over time, you get to go away from the project and come back to it. Over that time, as a young man, he's grown up some and, as a young woman, I've grown up. We've been able to bring that new life experience back to the role every time. It's done nothing but improved our working relationship and improved the quality of the work that we're doing together. I'm so thrilled that he's the guy that I get to work with because I think he's the perfect match.

Question: Since we haven't spoken before, I wanted to go back a bit. Where were you born and raised?
Glover: I was born in Macon, Georgia, and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Question: When did you start performing?
Glover: I started performing at 12. I was studying acting at 12. The program that I was in, the first two years you didn't perform at all. You observed, you helped build sets, you did all those things. And then a couple of years in, you got an opportunity to have a few lines in the play.

Question: Were there any artists when you were younger that you admired? Any singers or actors that influenced you?
Glover: I got to have it both ways. I had normal childhood stuff like listening to Top 40 pop on the radio. So any Top 40 artist from Madonna to Duran Duran. Michael Jackson I was totally into. Then on the flipside was this whole world of art. I remember being enthralled in front of the television, watching Public TV and watching ballet or plays or the symphony orchestra. I went to acting school and studied Stanislavski and Strasberg… So I was this total normal kid with her jelly shoes and hairsprayed hair being sucked into the world of art and acting in that way.

Question: When do you think you knew it would be your career? When did it change from a hobby to knowing that this is what you were going to do?
Glover: I didn't discover musical theatre as an art form until I was 14 or 15. We were doing a play at school, and it had music in it. We were taking bows, and I thought, "This makes me the happiest. This is the thing I most love doing." All the hard work and the time you put into the show and doing it and having the opportunity to greet your audience at the end, I thought, "That's exactly the thing I love to do." It so happens that I loved dance, I loved music, both played and sung… I loved acting. I went in search of programs that let me do that, and it turned out that [musical theatre] totally existed. [Laughs.] Honestly, I was like, "Oh, my God, I've found this thing, you guys! You can totally act and sing and dance, separately or at the same time. It's great!" It was such a revelation, and it was really exciting. At that age you don't want to give up anything. And it turns out, bless the Lord, that I didn't have to.

Question: When did you get to New York?
Glover: I got to New York eight years ago.

Question: What got you here?
Glover: I had been working for Walt Disney company for three years. It was a tremendous experience, a perfect job to have before coming to New York.… I think every aspiring artist has to come to this place. Once you decide to come from wherever you are to New York City, you gotta have a bit of a plan. You come here for a reason... It's a place that has a lot to do with focus and emotion and action. I decided that I did not want to come to New York and get my butt kicked. I wanted to come here and be able to stay. For me, that meant being emotionally and physically and spiritually and financially ready to do that. Otherwise, I just didn't see that I was going to be able to serve my art. If you're worried about, "I don't have any food to eat," then the audition doesn't matter. You have to survive. [Laughs.] And while your art, in part, can live on auditions, your physical person cannot. So that was the deal. I was living and working in Orlando, FL. I was working for the Disney Company for three years. It was a wonderful opportunity. From there, I made the move here.

Question: How long were you here before you got to Broadway?
Glover: I joined the Broadway company of The Color Purple in 2008.

Question: Do you remember you first night on a Broadway stage?
Glover: Yes, I do. You never forget it.

Question: What was going through your mind?
Glover: It was one of those things where I joined the company of The Color Purple as a standby. I got word shortly after I joined that I was going to be going on for the first time for Celie. I was the standby for Celie and Nettie. Those were both my responsibilities. It was my first Broadway show, and it was the lead role. I thought, "Oh gosh, maybe the first time I go on I should not tell anybody." Do that one for you and sort of get it out there. I stopped myself, and I thought, "Really, have you worked this hard this long to get to this place only to back down? Is that what you're gonna do?" So I invited everybody. I invited my agents, I invited my family. They came up from the South. Everybody was here. I thought, "Here's the time." Because if you're gonna fail, you have to be ready to fail in front of everyone. You're headed in that direction. You're headed toward what I believe is a world stage. Broadway, to me, is one of the world stages. You have to grow to a point where you own that, whether you do well or you don't. So I invited everyone and did the show. I remember the entire company had taken their bows, and I was standing behind the curtain, and I was just breathing and breathing. Celie was quite a role. [Laughs.] I was taking nice deep breaths. The act curtain went up and the light shone on me and the spotlight hit me. I lifted my head and the sound of applause was enormous. I remember thinking, "I'm so glad everybody's here!" I remember being so glad that I had the courage to invite everyone. I walked downstage… magically. [Laughs.] I don't know how my legs moved. But I walked downstage and bowed, and it was tremendous. I wanna cry right now. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Question: How long will you stay with Memphis?
Glover: Oh wow. I've never worked on a project like this in this way. In so many ways, Felicia Farrell and Memphis and the whole world of it is so personal to me. I don't know the answer to that. I will say that our producer said, "We really have to have you for the first year of the show!" [Laughs.] So I can say that I won't be going anywhere anytime in the next… it's not like, "Oh, I just gave my notice." I really don't know. I've never walked this path before. I will say, though, over the course of my career, what I've been very proud of is that I always know when to go. I'm always clear about that. It's never a terrible thing or something that destroys or leaves debris in its wake. Something in me, that divining rod in me in the artist's heart, always says, "Now you're okay to go." Until then, I've dreamt of being in this place with this role for such a long time. I'm happy.

[Memphis plays the Shubert Theatre, which is located at 225 West 44th Street; for reservations call (212) 239-6200 or visit Memphisthemusical.com.]

Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.