When this improv artist—he created Freestyle Love Supreme with Lin-Manuel Miranda—received a guitar from his wife, he was eager to play at bedtime for their two young daughters. “They were like, ‘Could you stop? Could you just cuddle?’” The ups and downs, but mostly ups, of a performer’s life. Continue reading »
Forty years ago, she became a star in Dream Girls, when she was only two years old or perhaps slightly older. She’s developed some surprising ideas since then, including the belief that you should cheat at golf. Under certain circumstances. We talk Broadway and the back nine. Continue reading »
She won a Tony for the musical The Life, an Emmy for Sesame Street, and is the voice of Calliope in Disney’s Hercules. She’s just wrapping up a Broadway run—at age 70—in Chicago. And this: “They put me up on top of the dining room table, and I would sing and dance for my family.” In 2017. No, no, no: as a … Continue reading »
When he set out to become an actor, this Broadway great—Rent, Wicked, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels—was opposed by his conservative Catholic family. But they came around, even his Fox-watching father. “He loved Rent. My homophobic dad would come to Rent, probably once a month.” Tales of reconciliation. And show tunes. Continue reading »
Having won the Pulitzer Prize for his play A Strange Loop, what will he do next? One possibility, move to Wyoming. “I’d get my house somewhere, get my shotgun, if I needed it, and sit on my porch in my rocking chair.” An eastern sophisticate contemplates the West, Tori Amos, and soap opera. Presented with Federal Hall … Continue reading »
This actor and singer won a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Tony for The Color Purple. She played Harriet Tubman in Harriet and Aretha Franklin in Genius. Is there anything she can’t do? “I will not be releasing an album of Hawaiian guitar music; I don’t think I can nearly get good enough to do that.” Hey, if she turned her … Continue reading »
I expected this writer-director, executive producer of the Apollo Theater, to be insightful about theater and film, and she is. I did not expect her to mount a staunch defense of comic books. If she’s not entirely persuasive on this topic (to geezerly me), she’s thoroughly intriguing. Continue reading »
“I identify as a clown,” he says, understating his range as a performer, having portrayed George on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf and Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street in Elmo’s World. And yet even a career as luminous as his has its disappointments: “I once asked John Cleese to play Pozzo in Waiting for Godot. Wouldn’t it have … Continue reading »
Admired for both comedy (30 Rock) and drama (Streetcar), he is an astute observer of other actors and once wrote a fan letter to Tom Courtenay for his work in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Courtenay replied, “How odd that you would take the time to write this to me about this film I did so long ago.” No … Continue reading »
She has produced more than 90 plays on and off Broadway, from The Normal Heart to Kinky Boots. Producers open shows and close shows. She enjoys the rare distinction of having unclosed a show. “I went to the theater one night, just quietly by myself, before half-hour, and I walked over to the board where the closing notice was posted, … Continue reading »
This celebrated Broadway actor–-The Secret Garden, The Music Man, Mary Poppins–-much admired for her glorious voice, sees parallels between cooking and theater. Both are ephemeral. A recipe is akin to a script: neither is the thing itself; each provides instructions for creating the thing. None of this contradicts audience etiquette: no eating during the performance, … Continue reading »
She is the author of The Detroit Project, a three-play cycle, and the Broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud–The Life and Times of the Temptations, another kind of Detroit story. Even at its most ferocious, her work is suffused with love. “Love is not approval or agreement or acquiescence. Love is challenge, love is provocation, agitation, and pushing us toward … Continue reading »