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DIVA TALK: Chatting with Tony Winner Faith Prince Plus News of Friedman, Eagan and McDonald
By Andrew Gans
04 Feb 2005
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Faith Prince
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News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
FAITH PRINCE
Faith Prince has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in her acclaimed solo act, Leap of Faith, but the Tony Award-winning actress had, surprisingly, never toured. That all changed last month when the multi talented performer began a limited tour with Tom Wopat celebrating the music and the centenary of Harold Arlen. Entitled Over the Rainbow, the tour continues through Feb. 20 when it plays its final evening at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, CA. It's been a busy year for Prince, who recently relocated to California with her husband and nine-year-old son. Since her arrival in Los Angeles, the Broadway belter with the impeccable sense of comic timing has already landed a recurring role on the new Showtime series "Huff" and has also appeared on USA Network's "Monk" and FOX-TV's "House." I recently had the chance to chat by phone with Prince in the midst of a hectic tour schedule that moves almost daily to a different city. It was a pleasure to speak with Prince, who sprinkles her conversation — and that inimitable, singular voice — with much laughter. That brief chat follows:
Question: So, where are you now?
Faith Prince: That's the question of the day! [Laughs.] "What day is it?" is more like it? [Laughs.] We're in Greenville, South Carolina.
Q: How is touring going?
Prince: [Laughs.] Oh my God! Who booked this is what I want to know? They've never been on tour, and they don't have a singing voice. [Laughs.]
Q: Have you toured before?
Prince: No, I never have. I've never even done a national tour.
Q: And, you don't even get a week in each city.
Prince: Are you kidding? I travel in the bus at night to get to the next city. I feel like Rosemary Clooney in the 1940's with the band in the back. [Laughs.]
Q: How did the Over the Rainbow tour come about?
Prince: It came about a year and a couple months ago. Columbia Artists was booking it, [and] they somehow hooked up with Festival Productions. It had a few different incarnations. It was originally put together for Tom Wopat and myself. We had done a couple of shows together — we get on and have great chemistry. We did Carousel at the Kennedy Center — he did Billy Bigelow and I did Carrie Pipperidge. That was years ago, and then he replaced Peter Gallagher in Guys & Dolls. So you file away those experiences when you work well with somebody and they're great to be with both personally and professionally. Our agent at the time came to me and said, "How would you like to do something with Tom," and I said, "I'd love to." Then it . . . became a jazz thing, which is exciting for me because I've never done anything like that. I hold down the Broadway standard line, while I have all these jazz artists around me. I'm sort of soaking that up. I feel like I'm in jazz school, which is fun. And, I'm going to make an album at the end of May, early June, out in L.A. with a great big band writer named Gordon Goodwin. He has his own big band called the Big Phat Band, and he scores films. He worked for Johnny Mathis. He's done lush [arrangements]. I had this idea to do a big-band symphonic album, like what Linda Rondstadt did with Nelson Riddle and Natalie Cole did with "Unforgettable" but all Broadway stuff.
Q: Do you know what label will make the recording?
Prince: Actually, I've got a private person investing, and we're going to do it ourselves, and then I'm going to maybe take it to somebody just for distribution — or not. Now, with iTunes and the internet you don't have to [have a label]. I'm going to play it by ear, but I have a couple of people interested, but I really wanted to see my vision come to fruition and not get a million cooks in the kitchen.
Q: Had you always been a fan of Harold Arlen's work?
Prince: You know, I have, but I've never done one Arlen song. Isn't that weird? I literally learned like 15 tunes in two weeks. They do things very differently in the jazz world. [Laughs.] I'm like, "Guys, where's the script? Where are the arrangements?" So, it was put together in a jazz way. I just allowed myself to enter their world. My husband's a jazz trumpet player, but he also plays sessions. Nowadays, you have to do everything, but I'd been around that world somewhat, but it's really funny. For the first couple performances — I'm not used to whether it's going to be an eight-bar solo for the saxophone player or the guitar player or the bass player. And I was like, "Is it four, is it an eight?" I thought, "How does anybody tell?" So I had five musicians looking at me, shaking their heads, "Not yet, not yet!" [Laughs.] They're all kind of clueing me in.
Q: What are the some of the songs that you are doing?
Prince: I do "Get Happy," "Down with Love," "The Man that Got Away." We do a "Wizard of Oz" set, and I came up with idea of doing Glinda, the Good Witch, so I start with her and then go into a jazz version of "the house began to pitch . . ." It's really fun. That's one of my favorite segments. Then I do "Lydia [the Tattooed Lady]," the Groucho Marx number, so I get a little of my humor in there.
Q: How do you find doing a concert versus doing a musical? Do you enjoy more of the freedom that you have in a concert?
Prince: I think I just look at it as a different . . . it's like reading. I like comic books, I love incredibly intense novels. Whatever I'm into at the time is the thing I invest in. I think this has been an incredible experience. It was given to me right before I do this album, so I'm soaking up the different styles that there are out there, even though they're standards.
Q: How do you go about trying to protect your voice with this tour schedule?
Prince: Honestly, eight shows a week for 20 years has prepared me for this. I'm kind of a warhorse. [Laughs.] I have my little ways of tweaking. When you go down to Florida, it's the mold, so you bring your products for that. And you go up to the cold, and you bring your products for that. It's little tweaking because it's your instrument. It's just taking care of it.
Q: You recently moved to Los Angeles. What spurred that move?
Prince: Well, I have a nine-year-old son, and, honestly, he really got tired of me doing eight shows a week all the time. I would definitely go back to Broadway to do something specific and great. But what happens is Manhattan Theatre Club would call me in for a reading or I'd do something at Lincoln Center. He would just say, "Mom, could you put to me bed?" And, I was like, "I hear you." I had also been wanting to do more television and film. It used to be you could get your pilots from New York, and it was no problem. But the business has really changed in the last few years. I had gotten a pilot the year before I moved out that didn't go with Delta Burke called "Sweet Potato Queens." And I thought, "You know, I think I really need to be out there for this." So, we moved out. And, it's funny, I do my concerts — I toured with the Boston Pops this summer. I did the Philly Pops. I've done the New York Pops. I do my own show, Leap of Faith, in a lot of different performing arts centers. And, now I'm going to do this album and have a whole different program, but this is my live fix. I have that as my staples throughout the year, and then I'm freed up to be able to pick TV and film when I feel it's the right thing for me. I came across a show called "Huff."
Q: You have a recurring role in that now. . .
Prince: Yeah, and I was [originally] just a weekly guest person. [Creator and executive producer] Bob Lowry came up to me at the end of it, and I said, "You know, I really like your show, and I'm so glad to be on it." He just looked at me, and he said, "I have an idea!" Well, Lord knows, what came out of that little character and where it's gone and where it's going is so funny. . . . It's a great show. It's incredible writing. It's dark, but it has great comedy. Continued...
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