Since childhood, Alexandra Billings has longed to travel over the rainbow. Like many LGBTQ youth, she saw her journey in Dorothy’s, ill-suited for sepia-toned Kansas and thrown into a technicolor landscape. She learned to empathize with the Wicked Witch of the West, unjustly maligned after the untimely loss.
But despite her Oz obsession—or perhaps because of it—Billings has never seen Wicked. “I don’t know what I was thinking. They’re going to take away my transgender card,” she jokes. “I hold The Wizard of Oz in high esteem, so when it came out, I was suspicious.” Now, she has the chance not only to see it, but live it, taking over the role of Madame Morrible beginning January 20.
“A hero is never a pure hero unless there are villainous attributes,” she says, clarifying her familiarity with the musical’s premise. “We are born out of a chaotic universe, which is full of darkness and light. Elphaba and Glinda are both of those things. Madame Morrible is certainly both of those things.”
Though Morrible’s grand malapropisms (and wigs) elicit laughs, her darkness becomes the driving force behind Elphaba’s persecution. Still, her duality “makes perfect sense” to Billings.
“It truly is our story,” she says. “Being a mixed race trans person, I live in a world that continues to be a place for a specific kind of person. My whole life has been about survival and trying to be seen in a world that does not acknowledge my existence. For me, that’s true of Morrible. She has risen in a way no other ‘otherized’ human has, and she recognizes Elphaba from the beginning: ‘There’s something in this human I need to tap into so that we can survive.’”
The Transparent alum, who appeared on Broadway last season in The Nap, makes history as the first openly trans performer to play Morrible, on the heels of Pose’s Mj Rodriguez claiming a similar distinction as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. Neither role was written explicitly as trans, but that doesn’t mean they’re cisgender. “You have to look at the history of theatre,” Billings reasons. “Art was not the reflection of the human experience; it was the reflection of the male experience.”
Rather than allow that to limit the roles available to her, she asserts: “I couldn’t care less about their history. Trans or not, if I’m playing the role, it’s going to be trans, because I’m trans. Times change and humanity changes. What we’ve learned is that art is the reflection of the human experience.”
Billings is ready to bring her experience to her beloved Oz: “I love this world. It makes sense to me; it always has.”
A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) of Connecticut will present a modernized, re-imagined interpretation of Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell February 6–March 8.
Directed by Danny White, the cast will feature Jaime Cepero (Smash), Florrie Bagel (The Rose Tattoo), Katie Ladner (Wicked), Andrew Poston (Kinky Boots), Trent Saunders (Evita), and Emma Tattenbaum-Fine (Netflix’s Explained).
ACT Founder and Artistic Director Daniel C. Levine’s concept for this production followed the April 2019 burning of Paris’ famed Notre Dame Cathedral. Says Levine, “I thought to myself, what if I set the ACT of CT production in an abandoned church? What if this church was in midtown Manhattan and was slated to be demolished tomorrow to make room for condominiums? What if nobody had stepped foot in this condemned holy place for a decade, save for a group of homeless who had been squatting there for six months?”
Schwartz gave Levine permission to alter the show, including removing the song “Tower of Babble.”
Conceived and originally directed by John-Michael Tebelak with music and lyrics by Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin), Godspell‘s Tony-nominated score features “Day by Day,” “Turn Back, O Man,” “Learn Your Lessons Well, “Prepare Ye the Way,” and “Light of the World.”
The upcoming production will also have choreography by Sara Brians, scenic design by Reid Thompson, costume design by Brenda Phelps, and lighting design by Jack Mehler.
If we’re being honest, we can probably count on one hand the number of viewers who went to see Tom Hooper’s ill-advised movie version of Cats for the music. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music has never really been the appeal of Cats it’s always been the visuals and the brand more than anything that allowed it to become an iconic piece of theatre pop culture. As you probably expect, the soundtrack for the movie does very little new, but dutifully recreates the score with a talented all-star cast.
This is post #28. Part 3 in a short series on Character Development - this one cautioning against creating a character who is only there to serve a plot purpose - also known as “FIFTH BUSINESS”.
This is another in my little mini-series on character. I want to talk today about something called Fifth Business. I first came across this term— it’s the title of a novel by the Canadian novelist, Robertson Davies, and I know how he defines it.
I have in the years since tried to find other places where it is defined in the same way, and I have not necessarily been able to find anything to back this up, but it’s still a term that I use because I think it’s very useful.
In Robertson Davies book, which was about a theatrical troupe, Fifth Business refers to a character whose sole function in a play is to deliver some kind of information that is necessary, but they have no other plot function, and therefore no character development.
This is the person who shows up in the penultimate scene to deliver the letter that brings the news of the inheritance that saves the day for your lead character. That character has no reason to exist in your play except to deliver that letter.
Now that’s a very overt example of Fifth Business, which I still would strongly encourage you NOT to put in your play. But there are less overt examples of Fifth Business where if you take a look at the job that a particular character has in the piece, you might realize that you only need them in the story so that they can help this other thing be accomplished, or another character.
There’s nothing wrong with the fact that you need them for that, but I would encourage you to challenge yourself to figure out: “Now that I know I need them to do that, how can I make them integral to the story in such a way that that’s not the ONLY reason they’re there?”
I would encourage you to look to see if you have characters who are operating as Fifth Business, and see if you can find a reason for them to exist in your world. Or, in a more crass sense, a reason for your producer to hire them and pay them a salary when your show is being produced. Other than just to facilitate the plot
So keep an eye out for Fifth Business and try to make sure that your characters are more than that.
