VICTORIA CLARK
Victoria Clark, the dynamic singing actress who brings dramatic depth, flawless comic timing and a rangy, powerful soprano to all her work, returns to the City Center stage this month in the latest Encores! production, Joseph Stein and Marc Blitzstein's little-known 1959 musical Juno.
Juno — which runs March 27-30 and co-stars Celia-Keenan Bolger, Michael Arden and Conrad John Schuck — marks Clark's third Encores! outing. Her debut with the famed series came in the 2004 staging of the Michael Stewart-Charles Strouse-Lee Adams musical Bye Bye Birdie. "I've known [casting director] Jay Binder forever," Clark recently told me, "and I adore him. He called me up and said, 'Will you do me a favor and play Walter Bobbie's wife [Mrs. MacAfee] in [Birdie]?' He said, 'Someday we'll find a nice [role] for you, but . . . I need you to come in and be funny.' I love Jerry Zaks, and Jerry was directing it. I thought, 'You know what? I love Walter, I love Jerry.' We had done Guys and Dolls together, and I thought, 'Gosh, I haven't seen Jerry in ages. Let me just go do this.' And, I had a ball. Jerry's really brilliant with these things — he works really fast. He gave me one piece of direction, and I just ran with it. It was a lot of fun."
Clark, who won a Tony Award for her beautiful, moving performance as Margaret Johnson in The Light in the Piazza, is equally enthusiastic about her second Encores! production, which cast the Tony winner as the vulnerable, emotionally fragile Sally Durant Plummer in last season's thrilling mounting of the classic Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical Follies. "The funny thing with Follies," Clark says, "is that I thought I was too young to do it. I thought Sally would be in another ten years. It's absolutely age appropriate to me right now, but in my head, since I've worked on it since college days, it was always the 'someday' role.
photo by Joan Marcus |
Clark says the key to succeeding in Encores! productions, which are rehearsed and presented to audiences within a two-week period, is preparation. "You can study the script," she laughs. "Just because you're not in the rehearsal room [yet] doesn't mean you can't [prepare]. It's really like summer stock in New York — really fancy summer stock!"
photo by Liz Lauren |
Juno, which is based on the Sean O'Casey play Juno and the Paycock, is described in a press notes as the chronicling of "the disintegration of an Irish family in Dublin in the early 1920s during the confrontation between the Irish Republican Army and the British." O'Casey's play, Clark explains, is set "in 1922 right in the middle of the Irish Civil War, which is a piece of Irish history that is very tricky. It's very tricky because there was a War of Independence that they sort of won against England, but then there were some factions who wanted a treaty, who wanted to make concessions to still be connected to Britain, and others who didn't. So there was a Civil War that broke out. The play is set during the Civil War, and the musical is set a few years prior to that during the War of Independence. It's a politically hot issue. O'Casey was right in the middle of it. He was very politically involved himself. To musicalize something like that would, of course, appeal to Blitzstein, who went right after all those hard topics. [With] Cradle Will Rock he was right in the middle of the WPA commission and bucking the system right and left."
photo by Joan Marcus |
Clark says it has been particularly interesting approaching a score that was written for non-singers. "It was sort of a brilliant idea to ask Shirley Booth to do a musical," she says. "I love the concept of that, but then ultimately they had to move keys. We were exploring the keys for this show and realized [that] when you get to certain point in my voice, it sounds kind of romantic, and is that really appropriate for the character? . . . The keys were set for a non-singer, but in the end it's appropriate that they sit a little bit lower — that they sit in more of a speaking range — because of who she is and her job in the family is pragmatic."
Although Encores! presents only five performances of its shows, Clark approaches her roles in the City Center productions with the same intensity and dedication she would give to a part in a Broadway run. "I'm serious about this stuff," she says, adding with a laugh, "I don't play around. I think the world of Encores! I think what they do is really important. . . . You can't just get up and read the script. You have to bring as much as you can. As an actor, I feel like it's my responsibility to bring everything I can, body and soul, to these things. Otherwise there's no way you can see what the piece really is. Originally the shows went through full rehearsal periods, and the actors really had time to live with these [characters.] You just can't do it in a week. There's no way."
"I do take [my work] seriously," Clark adds. "Maybe I take it too seriously, [but] I feel like God blessed me with a good brain, and if this is what I chose to do, then I'm going to treat it as seriously as possible. Not that I'm not going to have fun, but I'm going to put the same amount of work that I would put into it if I were a lawyer or a physician or anything else. I'm going to treat it seriously, and I'm going to use the gifts that God gave me, and really see what's behind this material, and that's what I try to teach my students to do, too. You can use your intelligence to be an artist. You don't have to abandon all of your intelligence just because you're doing something that you enjoy." To that end, Clark even journeyed to Ireland to meet with Juno director Garry Hynes, who Clark says is "unbelievable. I'm obsessed with her!"
As for future projects, Clark says there are few items she can't yet discuss, but "there's always stuff keeping me busy — a lot of teaching going on and some other new projects that I'm spearheading. . . It's always the grass is always greener. When I'm in a show, I wish I had more time with my family, wish I had more time with my son, and I'm exhausted all the time. And then when I'm not in a show, I'm thinking, 'When's the next big show going to come? Do I really want a show or maybe I should be doing more film and television?' And then you get a film and you're like, 'Oh, but then I can't do this show,'" she laughs.
"I think the secret to being happy as an actor in New York," Clark concludes, "is to just absorb part of it and accept it and stay open to the creative opportunities and not see a long period of unemployment as a bad thing, but that's the time when you're supposed to be resting and planting seeds for your own creative work. I'm not the kind of actor who can just go from one project to the next. I really have to rest, and I have to think about what I want to say. I really have to know what I'm saying as a person. I just can't get up there and show people the same tricks I did in the last one. It's not appealing to me. I'm just too old for that," she laughs.
[Show times for Juno are March 27 and 28 at 8 PM, March 29 at 2 and 8 PM and March 30 at 6:30 PM. City Center is located in Manhattan at West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Tickets are available by calling (212) 581-1212 or by visiting www.nycitycenter.org.]
photo by Michael Lamont |
There is lots of buzz surrounding Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress, which is currently playing an extended engagement at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse through April 6. The acclaimed production — which was penned by Rivers, Douglas Bernstein and Denis Markell and stars Rivers, Tara Joyce, Emily Kosloski and Adam Kulbersh — has scored a slew of rave reviews. Variety said, "[Joan Rivers] serves up a self-portrait that's a compendium of eye-opening views, insights and reminiscence….You bet it's funny, and in its best moments truthful as well." And, the Hollywood Reporter stated, "If anything, this might be the funniest show Rivers has ever put together. But it's also the most searching and revealing. Rivers takes us into areas she's only skimmed before, and she does it with the skill and audacity we've come to expect of her." Several New York producers have been out to catch Rivers' latest stage outing, and Rivers told Playbill.com, "It would be wonderful to bring the show to New York. Isn't it every actress' dream to be able to work at something you love right in your own hometown?" The Tony-nominated actress also joked, "I was all set to take it to Broadway with one producer — who shall remain nameless — until I found out that the Broadway he was talking about is in Newark, NJ!" Stay tuned for more. . . Don't Quit Your Night Job — which was a downtown favorite at Joe's Pub before playing an extended run at the HA! Comedy Club — will return to the Zipper Factory March 27. The 11:30 PM performance of Night Job, described as a "late night happening of improv, music, sketches and stories," is scheduled to feature co-creators Dan Lipton (The Coast of Utopia), Steve Rosen (Spamalot), David Rossmer (Nerds) and Sarah Saltzberg (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) as well as Randy Aaron, Derrick Baskin, Norbert Leo Butz, Sutton Foster, Jordan Gelber, Alexander Gemignani, Asmeret Ghebremichael, Rick Holmes, Andrea Martin, Charlie Pollock, Sandy Rustin, Christopher Sieber, Alicia Witt and George Wendt. The performance will benefit Wendy Wasserstein's Open Doors initiative. The Zipper Factory is located in Manhattan at 336 West 37th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. Tickets, priced $20, are available by visiting www.thezipperfactory.com or by calling (212) 352-3101.
Academy, Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner Rita Moreno will play a brief engagement at Feinstein's at Loews Regency in April. The award-winning actress will play the posh venue April 1-5. Feinstein's at Loews Regency is located in Manhattan at 540 Park Avenue at 61st Street. For reservations call (212) 339-4095. Visit feinsteinsatloewsregency.com for more information.
With a Song in Our Heart is the title of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus annual gala, which will be held April 14 at Manhattan's Warwick Hotel. Comedian-interviewer-actor Scott Nevins will host the evening, which will boast performances by Ann Hampton Callaway, Liz McCartney and Sharon McKnight. The evening, which begins at 6 PM, will honor longtime Chorus friend and supporter Norman Hanson as well as R Family Vacations founders Gregg Kaminsky and Kelli O'Donnell. The Warwick Hotel is located in Manhattan at 65 West 54th Street. Tickets, priced $100, are available by visiting www.nycgmc.org.
© 2008 Idina Menzel and WBR |
Scott Siegel's Broadway By the Year series will continue April 7 with The Broadway Musicals of 1954. The concert, hosted by Siegel, will feature Little Mermaid co-stars Sierra Boggess and Sean Palmer as well as Emily Skinner, Noah Racey, Cheyenne Jackson, Kendrick Jones and Scott Coulter. Coulter will also direct the 8 PM performance, which will feature musical direction by Ross Patterson. Audiences can expect to hear songs from such musicals as The Pajama Game, Peter Pan, The Boy Friend, Fanny, The Golden Apple and House of Flowers. Town Hall is located in Manhattan at 123 West 43rd Street. Tickets, priced $45 and $50, are available by calling (212) 840-2824 or by visiting www.ticketmaster.com. For more information go to www.the-townhall-nyc.org.
And, finally, singer-actress Jil Aigrot — who voiced many of the songs heard in the Oscar-winning "La Vie En Rose," about the life of the late French chanteuse Edith Piaf — can be heard on a new CD on the LML Records label. Entitled "Words of Love," the 19-track recording features Aigrot's wonderful renditions of such tunes as "Mon Dieu," "La Vie en Rose," "Non je ne Regrette Rien," "Les Mots D'Amour," "Bravo pour le Clown!" and "La Foule." Visit LMLMusic.com for more information.
"Diva Talk" will be on vacation next week but will return Friday, April 4.
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to [email protected].