a random snapshot

i have three songs to learn for a musical theater audition on saturday. when i got stuck and couldn't find anyone to plunk out a particular melody for me, i called a blactress and thanks to her, i reconnected with a pianist who had my back when i found myself lost somewhere inbetween an audition and a callback a few months ago. he's a nice midwestern white boy from kansas city who lives a few blocks away from me. and that's exactly where our story would end -- in kansas city where he's visiting his folks until monday -- if it weren't for his quick thinking.  a flurry of emails ensued and ka-BOOM -- i've got mp3s of the melody and the chords without the melody, so i can sing along to it and practice.  unfortunately, i won't be able to go into that room with a pianist but i will go in ready. you really can't get much better than that.

is this guy a gem or what.

i don't feel bad when i don't get the gig.  i feel bad if i did a lousy audition and i don't get the gig. usually, there's at least a million reasons for not getting the gig and hardly any of them have anything to do with talent.  but that's really difficult to explain to people who have these weird ideas about what it takes to make it in the entertainment industry because they watch way too much pop tv and they think that talent matters.

ok, enough with the beating of that dead horse. back to learning these songs, guitar practice, p & g tips, pilates and the grace that gets me through all of it.

derailed!

i wish i could write something pithy but i got derailed last night preparing for today's audition. it was for a musical that's heading to broadway this spring. the songs were familiar enough for me to not really know them at all. so i basically crammed for the exam.

when i find out how i did, i'll let you know.

another tv star starts his theater career on broadway

the latest famous person to join the "i-don't-do-theater-but-i'm-going-to-be-on-broadway" category is mario lopez, star of saved by the bell. he's also known for guest stints on soap operas and tv shows like nip/tuck that allow him to show off that rock-solid backside of his, and of course dancing with the stars. most recently, he hosted last season's randy jackson presents america's best dance crew on vh-1 and the entertainment news magazine extra. busy guy.

they're picking him up today in a chorus line. he'll be there all summer -- just in time for the tourist season. i saw a chorus line when it was in previews and i thought it was so cool that there weren't any famous people in it -- just really talented musical theater performers. oh, well. when ticket sales sag, getting a name in there that middle america recognizes (because seemingly enough, that's who goes to see broadway shows in this town) is what raises revenue. and sometimes, it's getting that name in there when the show is cast initially is what allows it to open in the first place.

Ned Beatty sums it up...

not to put too fine a point on it, but i think ned beatty rather succinctly sums up the state of broadway shows and the hollywood/fame star power deemed necessary to run them effectively in this new york times article.

it's more than a notion that there's a movie star-studded all black revival of cat on a hot tin roof that's up and running right now with terrence howard making his broadway debut as brick, the male lead. the reviews have been interesting, to say the least.

now that puffy has had his moment in a raisin in the sun on broadway (his first play and consequently, his broadway debut -- but of course you already guessed that, if you didn't know) and on television and india. arie is slated to appear this summer in for colored girls, who's the next star to grace the broadway stage to hone those acting chops and "stretch out in another direction"? 50 cent?

hm...he did make several movies recently...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Movie Stars Onstage: Big Daddy Speaks Out

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: November 25, 2003

They say you need sexy young movie stars to sell Broadway shows these days, particularly when it comes to long, literate plays like Tennessee Williams's ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.'' The current revival of ''Cat'' meets this requirement with Jason Patric, in silk pajamas that reveal his hairy chest, and Ashley Judd in a form-fitting slip.

But it is a slightly rotund, largely nondescript, highly experienced 66-year-old actor who critics say makes this ''Cat'' worth seeing. Ned Beatty is a movie star himself, though not the big box-office kind. And he says Broadway has come to rely too heavily on celebrities, thrusting them into challenging roles they do not have the acting chops to handle.

Tucking into a plate of shrimp scampi after a recent matinee -- hold the angel-hair pasta, per the Atkins diet, please -- Mr. Beatty engaged in a candid assessment of his co-stars. He said he very much liked his glamorous colleagues personally: Mr. Patric, best known for the film ''After Dark, My Sweet,'' and Ms. Judd, who starred in ''Ruby in Paradise.'' He simply thinks, he said, that they are ill equipped for their parts: Brick, a brooding, boozing former athlete mourning his friend's death, and Maggie, his long-suffering wife who craves his attention.

Mr. Beatty said of Ms. Judd: ''She is a sweetie, and yet she doesn't have a whole lot of tools. But she works very hard.''

And of Mr. Patric: ''He's gotten better all the time, but his is a different journey.''

Mr. Beatty had no similar criticisms for Margo Martindale, a veteran stage actress who was also praised by critics in her role as Big Mama. When asked whether she agreed with Mr. Beatty's perspective on their co-stars, Ms. Martindale said, ''These are lovely people, and I don't share his view.''

Ms. Judd and Mr. Patric did not return calls seeking comment. Mr. Beatty says Broadway is wasting the talent of better-trained anonymous actors all over the country. ''It's interesting to have people from film and television who can bring people into theater,'' he said. ''But the reality is, we have a lot of actors out there doing theater.

''In theater you want to go from here to there, you want it to be about something,'' he continued. ''Stage actors learn how to do that. Film actors often don't even think about it. They do what the director wants them to do, and they never inform their performance with -- call it what you wish -- through-line, objective.

''I think we've got those actors out there, and I think Broadway could be richer if it exploited that.''

Mr. Beatty seemed nostalgic for the cast of the revival's original London production. He was nominated for an Oliver Award there for his performance as Big Daddy, the bullying yet tender Southern plantation owner. ''I lucked out because I drew Brendan Fraser the first time,'' he said, speaking of the actor who played Brick. (Frances O'Connor played Maggie.) ''He's great at stagecraft, knows how to go from the beginning to the middle to the end.''

''I must tell you, that can be lacking in what we're doing.''

At the same time, Mr. Beatty said, his two young colleagues were giving him as good as they had. ''Nobody goes out onstage in front of people and does anything but their very best,'' he said. ''You just use it. That's what's there.''

Critics have hailed Mr. Beatty's performance as a high-water mark. ''What Mr. Beatty does better than any other Big Daddy I've seen is to convey without caricature the monstrous, exhilarated egotism of a man who believes he has outrun death,'' Ben Brantley said in his review in The New York Times.

Mr. Brantley also said: ''From the moment Mr. Beatty first shows up in the play's second act, he brings with him the invigorating breeze of passionate, scrupulously detailed acting.''

By contrast Mr. Brantley called Ms. Judd's performance that ''of a self-conscious pupil in an elocution class'' and said Mr. Patric ''appears to have spent many hours watching Marlon Brando and James Dean movies'' and ''takes Brick's self-anesthetized state to sometimes exasperating extremes.'' Similarly Entertainment Weekly called Ms. Judd's Maggie ''more of a fashion lynx than an alley feline'' and said Mr. Patric ''compacts Brick into cement.'' Even critics who liked their performances put Mr. Beatty's in a different category.

Anthony Page, who directed ''Cat'' in London and then New York, also suggested his own disappointment, saying that had he not had to leave for London to direct another play, he might have improved the performances of Ms. Judd and Mr. Patric. ''I think they're growing just by playing it,'' Mr. Page said. ''I wish I could have stayed in New York longer.

''I've been very happy with it certain nights,'' he added. ''It's not always completely consistent.''

Asked whether he agreed with critics who said that the production seemed lopsided because of Mr. Beatty's strong performance, Mr. Page said: ''It's been very helpful to have someone who's very much at home on the stage -- which Ned is -- to be in the center of the production.''

Mr. Beatty is, indeed, at home onstage. Although certainly best known for his career-defining performance in the 1972 film ''Deliverance,'' he spent much of his early professional life in regional theater, including eight years at the Arena Stage in Washington.

''I was probably averaging through a lot of my younger days 13 to 15 shows a year onstage,'' he said. ''And one time I figured out I was onstage more than 300 days most years.''

A poor student and weak athlete from Louisville, Ky., the young Mr. Beatty thought he was going to be a singer. But when he couldn't get cast in musicals, he started doing plays. ''I got lucky,'' he said. ''Theater was always lucky for me.''

He said he was never that picky about roles. ''Shoot, somebody offered me a job,'' Mr. Beatty said, ''I took it.''

Mr. Beatty made his Broadway debut in ''The Great White Hope'' with Jane Alexander and James Earl Jones, which originated at Arena Stage and moved to New York in 1968. Mr. Beatty rejoined the cast a few months into the run. He had not been back to Broadway until now, and said he was not particularly excited about it.

''I've done better theater other places,'' he said.

Mr. Beatty isn't crazy about New York. ''New York is what it is, a haven for millions of people,'' he said. ''My game plan for the rest of my life is not to live my life with that many people.''

He's been busy in his career making more than 100 movies, among them ''Network,'' for which he received an Oscar nomination; ''Nashville''; the first two ''Superman'' movies; ''All the President's Men''; and many for television. He also spent three seasons on the series ''Homicide,'' had a recurring role on ''Roseanne'' and has starred in various television specials.

It is Mr. Beatty's natural quality that made Mr. Page decide to cast him as Big Daddy.

''Not being highly educated or bred, Big Daddy came to the plantation in the Depression with no money or background,'' Mr. Page said. ''Ned himself has this terrific instinctive wisdom that makes him salt of the earth.''

Squinting through thick glasses to read his menu, Mr. Beatty did seem as human as the other imperfect souls twirling pasta in his midst, a regular guy with thinning hair who regrets his third divorce though he is happy in his fourth marriage; who says he does not see his eight children enough; who hasn't quite managed, despite the best of intentions, to stop working.

The role scuttled his plans for retirement, to spend more time cooking in front of ''Emeril Live'' on the Food Network in the new house he designed himself in the Sierra Nevada in California. Mr. Beatty had played Big Daddy in a summer stock production when he was 21. He liked the idea of going back at it.

Now, Mr. Beatty said, he plans to revive those retirement plans. For an actor who has done everything from Shakespeare to ''Showboat,'' enough is enough.

''Anthony keeps asking me about doing 'Lear,' '' he said. ''But I've done it. I've played The Fool.''

random sightings from the gym

i ran into cameron at NYSC in harlem yesterday. we were working out next to each other on those machines that are like long distance ice skating. when he heard my name he balked and reached out to grab me. how sweet!

cameron and i did a production of the wiz in the round at the arena theater in houston, texas some time ago. i was addapearle. i was in the show for probably all of 15 minutes -- the beginning and the end, really, with one hot number to make me really happy. i heard that it might go to broadway, so i did the part because i wanted to be a serious consideration if that happened. george faison choreographed/directed this one. i'd heard the stories about him and how crazy he is, and somehow instinctively i knew that if i was funny, he'd leave me alone. and he did. we had something outrageous like 3 weeks to rehearse and that he got the whole thing choreographed and up on its feet in 9 days.

when cameron told me that he was still doing theater, i told him to stop. on-camera work pays so well, i'm not so sure i'll ever do theater again -- unless it's something that i'm writing/developing, or something that i can originate. we talked about our options on broadway and otherwise. cameron told me that india.arie is going to star in the broadway revival of for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf as the woman in purple, with whoopi goldberg producing it. i had no idea she knew how to act. if you are a musician with little or no theater experience, is broadway really the place to learn? especially if you're doing an iconic black feminist play? hm...

i remember when molly ringwald did her star turn on broadway. and christine applegate. and john stamos. and deborah cox. and toni braxton. and p diddy. these people don't originate work. they guarantee ticket sales, bolster sagging box office reciepts and give themselves a little credibility. but at what price for the rest of us? at what price for broadway?

and therein lies the irony: for actors like cameron and i who want to originate work, it's a bleak scenario for us because we haven't done lots of film/tv. we're not famous musicians. not yet, anyway. as far as the acting stuff is concerned, all we can do is keep auditioning. all we can do is stay in a constant state of readiness. all we can do is wait our turn.

well. this isn't a waiting room situation for me. i don't like to wait for the phone to ring, so i'm doing all this other stuff -- like writing another one person show or making another CD -- while all of that acting stuff does whatever it's going to do.

of course, none of this has anything to do with being talented or being good enough. go figure.

garland is right

garland farwell has fallen in love with the southland -- and it's the deep south, surprisingly enough. he says he's really blown away by the place, the vibe, the people, the food, all of it. not surprising, actually. its very beautiful there. he says it's like soho in the 70s except people are "all spread out and tripped out on jesus and earth spirits and shit. there's craftsy artists everywhere." he's got a residency at coleman center for the arts in york, alabama and is working on a project regarding the work of the folk artist mose tolliver. sounds interesting.

what's cool is reading about his adventures via his blog and seeing the beautiful pictures. at one point, he says that the south is the most beautiful place this side of heaven that he's ever known. and it's true, it's so true. it's so sweet to see that he's figured that out. but you have to go there to see that, to understand that. you have to get past your preconceptions and all those misnomers and stereotypes about the south and its history, just let it go and embrace the beauty of it all. most people can't do that. like there wasn't racism anywhere else -- certainly not up north, in places like brooklyn or out west in san francisco. like the klan wasn't everywhere.

in his last missive, he told me what i'd known to be true for quite some time: that new york city is not the center of the world anymore, and that with every olive garden and applebees and pottery barn, it's becoming more and more generic. the city is dying and no one seems to care. "you can make art anywhere," he said dismissively. that depends entirely on exactly what kind of art you want to make. you can't do broadway if you live in omaha. then again, with stuff like the little mermaid up and running, and a julie taymor-directed spiderman coming to the great white way, who cares?

i'd rather bankroll my record label with commercials and film/tv work, sequester myself in graduate school and wait to originate something cool onstage. and you know what? garland is right. i don't have to be in new york city to do any of that.

if you haven't seen this...

...then you really can't understand what the big deal is. and you probably still won't get it if you don't like musicals. and of course this is theater, so to feel the true impact of the performance, you'd have to be in the audience. still and all, the power of Jennifer Holiday's voice and the emotional velocity in her intent is enough to blow your hair back whereever you are in the world, even though she's only singing to you online via YouTube.com from more than 20 years ago.

Oh, and another thing. Unlike movie folk who can do it over and over again and lip synch when the moment arrives because they sang it down once in the studio, Ms. Holiday had to bring it eight shows a week on Broadway, week in week out for four years running.

Enjoy.

dream, girls

i do believe that it was my brother Damon who gave me a rather contrite explanation for the way things worked in new york city's theater world if you happened to be black. I recall that there was an amen corner of performers present: hard-working industry professionals who had achieved a measure of success and who knew exactly what they were talking about. A few of them were real triple threats, not the fake ones that they churn out in the media to give the illusion of an abundance of talent. At that time, I had just arrived in metropolis and I didn’t know anything about the way things worked – so when they collectively spoke, I listened.

“Pay attention and you’ll see for yourself," he intoned. "when it comes to broadway, they give us one great big splashy musical and one serious play at a time and that’s pretty much it." The amen corner agreed wholeheartedly. "You won't ever see a half-dozen or so black plays and musicals at once," someone else said flatly. "We don't have a shortage of talent," this one dancer said. "or material," said another.

the stats certainly supported everything they said but frankly, i didn't want to believe it. I thought that if someone was genuinely talented and if they did a great audition for a role that was right for them, they'd get the part. That’s how naïve I was. *sigh*

My unwavering belief that talent was what you needed first and foremost extended to every genre except film, in part because I’d seen way too many people get way too much for having little more than relatively natural good looks and/or a great set of (handcrafted) tits. Theater, I reasoned, was where the rubber hit the road. Unless, of course, you are famous. (question: why do film stars do theater?)

The more work i got, the more theater i saw, the more real those words became. it was insidious, really: the invisible (white) powers-that-be, tentacles outstretched in every genre, forever deciding what gets produced, who gets the part, what gets the public attention, what won't see the light of day. The message was clear: If you can make yourself into what they think you should be (whatever that is), you’ll work all the time. Being at the mercy of such inner workings is one thing but having to subjugate oneself to a system that denigrates you at almost every turn – and carries an ugly historical precedent of vilifying you – is something else. Any step in the right direction seems almost radical – which is a part of the reason why it’s so politically incorrect to say that you don’t like the movie Dreamgirls.

Well. You know what? I didn’t like it.

Yes, the costumes were fabulous. Yes, Beyonce looked beautiful. (They all did, really.) Yes, Jennifer Hudson sang. Yes, it was genuinely entertaining. Yes, it was wonderful to get a glimpse of the system in the music business that makes or breaks stars. Yes, the whole cast was strong. But you know what? I thought it was one cliché after another after another. I thought the songs were good but they weren’t up to (Motown) scratch. I thought that Eddie Murphy’s dramatic turn was a serious version of Velvet Jones (with a little of his James Brown impersonation on the side), a character he brought to life in the 80’s on Saturday Night Live when he was 19 – and that his Oscar nomination is for his past work on that show (which was nothing short of astonishing for a teenager), his reputation in Hollywood (his movies have grossed something like 3 billion dollars) and the fact that he’s attempting to do something “different.” I thought that almost every time Beyonce sang, she was singing at me and not to me. it's all about melisma with her. Stop hollering and screaming and just sing, i thought. maybe she doesn't know how.

I thought that it was a shame that everyone thinks that this is a thinly-veiled retelling of the rise and fall of The Supremes and Diana Ross in particular. It’s history, this one exceedingly effeminate latino (with bad skin and a Marlo Thomas flip-up ‘do, of all things) told me as I stood in line with my “admit one only” SAG pass (because you know I was saving my pennies to see Pan’s Labyrinth). It’s poetic license, I thought. Florence Ballard died broke and alone in the ghetto at 32. Payola will probably always be alive and well.

Mostly though, I kept wondering what Dreamgirls would have been if it had been written by black women instead of gay white men.

At one point, i looked around the theater and realized that it was mostly black women. clearly, the one that was seated next to me was as excited to see something of ourselves on the big screen as i was. how often does it happen in a major release that a black woman has the lead role? how many major releases are black films?

The underlying message is that back in the day, you had to accommodate white people and make them feel comfortable with your muted down blackness before they would accept you and buy your music. Crossover appeal. The real point for me is that nothing has changed – but they don’t really get into that. Too bad.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Jennifer Hudson’s performance. It was very good overall but her version of “And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going” is something of a revelation. It’s so much more than a wonderful voice, singing. This is an iconic song that absolutely everyone – from the diva that’s doing yet another regional production of the musical to the tired drag queen lip-synching it up with campy spasmodic gusto for that weekend crowd at the cabaret – knows a little too well and loves a little too much. Except me. Call me nutty, but I was never completely comfortable with a black woman singing, “I don’t want to be free,” no matter what the context. Hm.

It takes a powerhouse to sing it, but a strong voice doesn’t ever guarantee a moving performance. Believe me, there are plenty of black women out there who have the vocal chops to nail it to the wall. (Try any sanctified black church on any given Sunday morning. i mean, really.) Too many people worldwide are personally invested in that song at this point because Jennifer Holiday gave such an emotionally blistering Tony award-winning performance. In theory, it seemed an insurmountable task: an American Idol reject with no film experience, no successful recordings under her belt and no real name recognition to speak of not only stars in a movie version of a beloved black musical alongside bona fide system-built box office black stars, she sings the song that everyone showed up to hear. And she nails it.

What’s bizarre is that the arc of her performance of that song is basically the five stages of grief. She moves through each moment with so much conviction that i was compelled to move through them with her and as i did, i completely forgot about the original version and got lost in what was unfolding before me. I don't know if she deserves an Oscar. She definitely earned a nomination.

It's hysterial that Beyonce believes that the only thing that stood in the way of her having Jennifer Hudson's part was weight gain. She's got 9 Grammies and she can sing and she's beautiful -- but she's not an artist. she's a product. she may not know it but her parents do. especially her father.

things aren't anywhere near as bad as they used to be for us in this business. i know that i'm a product when i present myself as an artist but real change happens when we -- as artists, not products -- write and produce our own work. in other words, don't think beyonce -- think dave chapelle.