Read on for some recent theatre headlines you may have missed in today’s news.
Live at the Lortel Interview Series Announces January Lineup of Guests The virtual conversation series hosted by Eric Ostrow with co-hosts Joy DeMichelle, John-Andrew Morrison, and Daphne Rubin-Vega will welcome director Whitney White and actor Peter Mark Kendall (creators of Capsule) on January 4, 2021, playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith January 11, Phillipa Soo (Hamilton, Amélie) January 25, and Krysta Rodriguez (Spring Awakening, First Date) February 1. The live interviews take place at 7 PM ET, with podcast episodes released the following week. For more information or to join live, click here.
His Dark Materials Renewed for Third Season BBC One and HBO have ordered a third season for the television series based on the Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials book series. The third season will complete the trilogy with series following the final novel, The Amber Spyglass. Showrunner Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) are writers are currently working on scripts, with filming expected to begin in spring 2021. Season 2, which features Lin-Manuel Miranda as a series regular, concludes on HBO December 28. The fantasy series stars Dafne Keene as Lyra, a brave young woman from another world on a quest to find her kidnapped friend.
Marty & Marissa Remind Us That “Puppies are Forever, Not Just for Christmas” Marty Thomas (Wicked, Xanadu, The Secret Garden) and Marissa Rosen have released a music video for their cover of Sia’s “Puppies Are Forever,” a track on their recent album Marty & Marissa: The Award Winning Holiday Album. Look for cameos from some Broadway favorites and their best friends, including Kristin Chenoweth, Jessica Vosk, Alex Brightman, Lesli Margherita, Andy Karl and Orfeh, and more.
And while we have you, take a listen to this sweet and timely song from composer/music director Caleb Hoyer, titled “At Least There’s Christmas,” as performed by Broadway alum Mary Callanan (Bandstand, Mamma Mia!). Have a safe holiday!
Tony winner Lea Salonga and Telly Leung, who co-starred in the Broadway musical Allegiance, reunited virtually to cover the George Michael holiday tune, “Last Christmas.”
Watch the duet above.
The duo is backed by arranger Larry Yurman on keyboards, Jack Cavari on guitar, Kevin Axt on bass, and Sean McDaniel on drums. Christopher Hewitt mixed and mastered the recording, and the video was created by Olivia Oguma.
Salonga, who shot to fame in the original London and Broadway productions of Miss Saigon—winning Tony and Olivier Awards for her performance as the ill-fated Kim—was most recently on Broadway in the Tony-winning revival of Once On This Island at Circle in the Square Theatre, while her other Main Stem credits include Les Misérables, Flower Drum Song, and Allegiance.
Leung, who played a 20-month run in the title role of Disney’s Aladdin, has also been seen on Broadway in the new musicals In Transit and Allegiance, the revivals of Flower Drum Song and Pacific Overtures, and the final Broadway company of Rent.
Lea Salonga, George Takei, Telly Leung Bring “Gaman” to Broadway in First Pics From Allegiance!
As the temporary shutdown of Broadway and theatres around the world continues, Playbill is reaching out to artists to see how they are physically and creatively responding to a changed world.
The series continues with Ali Ewoldt, the first Asian-American actor to play Christine Daaé in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. She has also been seen on the Main Stem in The King and I and Les Misérables, while her other theatrical credits include Anne of Green Gables: Part I, The Fantasticks, and West Side Story: In Concert.
Ewoldt can currently be seen as Rose Smith in Irish Repertory Theatre’s Meet Me in St. Louis: A Holiday Special in Song and on Screen, which is available for streaming through January 2, 2021. For more information click here.
What is your typical day like now? Oof, it really depends! Definitely one of the challenges of this time has been a lack of consistent routine. I try to do an online yoga class (thank you, Yoga with Adriene!) once a day. I have my wonderful dog/fur-child Mia Belle to take care of, so we walk at least three, if not four times a day. We live close to Riverside Park, so it has been lovely seeing the seasons change. Oftentimes I’ll have some sort of video to put on tape, and that requires a lot of rearranging my studio apartment to set up, so that can take some time. And, I’ve been spending great amounts of time texting/calling/Zooming/Face Timing/etc. with friends and family or seeing them outside in person if possible. Also, a lot of Netflix.
What book/TV show/podcast/film should everyone take the time to consume during this period? There is so much wonderful content out there. It’s so baffling to me that we as artists have to keep insisting that our work is essential while just about everyone has used art to try to stay sane during this challenging period. It’s not new, but if you haven’t seen 13th on Netflix, please do so immediately. I’ve recently been enjoying I May Destroy You, The Crown (season 4), Schitt’s Creek, The Great British Baking Show, and Dash & Lily, just to name a few. I recently read Untamed by Glennon Doyle, which was incredible. Podcast-wise, I’ve been enjoying Code Switch, The Daily, and my personal dorky favorite, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.
During this time of reflection and re-education regarding BIPOC artists and artistry, particularly in the theatre, what do you want people (those in power, fellow actors, audiences) to be aware of? What do you want them to consider further? I would love all of us to continue to examine what we think it means to “be American” and how all of our biases inform those thoughts. For example, should I not be considered an “all-American type” because even though I was born and raised here, my mom immigrated from the Philippines? And then to think about how these biases (many of which can be unintentional) reflect how we cast people in shows and what stories we are willing to tell. And then to realize that if we expand this casting and these stories to better reflect the people of this country (and the world) that we could create even more incredible theatre and art that could make the parts of our population that have been historically under-represented feel included and inspired.
What advice would you give to someone who may be struggling with the isolation and/or the current unrest? This is a very difficult time—there is no shame in struggling right now, and there is no one correct way to deal with a global pandemic. Try not to compare yourselves with the curated lives others are posting on social media. And, please reach out to loved ones or professionals if you need help. You are not alone.
Ali Ewoldt Courtesy of the Phantom of the Opera
How, if at all, are you keeping your creative juices flowing? Has that been helpful to you? I find that my creativity and bandwidth to do projects comes in spurts these days. I spent four months at my parents’ house (the house I grew up in) in Westchester County from March to July, and while I was there I felt inspired to do creative projects for my sanity. I organized our entire block to do a Les Misérables sing-a-along and drove all over town to sing with local performers and friends. Lately, I’ve been channeling my creativity into making traditional Filipino Christmas decorations with friends over Zoom!
Are you working on any theatrical projects during this time? I recently completed a 10-day shoot of Meet Me in St. Louis with Irish Repertory Theatre from home! It was a brand-new experience for all of us and quite the adventure. The Irish Rep provided us with green screens and lighting/sound equipment, and we listened to our directors and fellow actors over Zoom while imagining them in the space around us. The cast was absolutely incredible, the company was so kind and generous, and it was quite heartwarming to be telling such a classic, optimistic story during this time. While it’s not quite the theatre we all are accustomed to, I am very grateful to have done something theatrical during this time!
What organization would you recommend people learn more about or donate to during this time of change? Oh goodness, there are so many! The Okra Project and Southern Poverty Law Center are wonderful. I just volunteered with God’s Love We Deliver through BC/EFA, which was wonderful. And, I’m a Broadway Ambassador for Broadway’s Babies, which is doing the incredible work of bringing music education to children who otherwise would not have access, from New York City to Haiti to India and beyond!
Spend a Two-Show Day With Ali Ewoldt in Phantom of the Opera
Spend a Two-Show Day With Ali Ewoldt in Phantom of the Opera
See what it’s like to do a double-duty day at the Majestic theatre.
38 PHOTOS
Hello! Ali Ewoldt here. As you can see from this photo, Mia Belle (my pup) and I aren’t really morning people…but a two-show Thursday awaits, so we’re getting up…I promise… Ali Ewoldt
First order of business: taking Mia for a walk in beautiful Riverside Park. Ali Ewoldt
Breakfast of champions! The battle against allergies and sickness is real, folks. Also, RX Bars are awesome! Ali Ewoldt
I usually warm up in my bathroom because of the acoustics…though I’m usually not taking selfies while I do it… Ali Ewoldt
The Strand kiosk is my oasis in Times Square- most of their books are 50% off! I manage to resist the temptation today, but there’s always tomorrow… Ali Ewoldt
And here we are on 44th Street, with our awesome neighbors Hello, Dolly! and Anastasia. Ali Ewoldt
It has always been a dream of mine to have a picture outside of a Broadway house! Here are Rodney Ingram and I looking wistful. Ali Ewoldt
Stage door, here I come! The blue doors on the left lead to the Jacobs Theater and the Red doors on the right lead to our theater, the Majestic. My dressing room is the window on the second floor, so I can often hear what goes on in the Jacobs. Since I’ve joined Phantom, I’ve had the privilege of listening to both Cynthia Erivo and Laura Osnes sing their incredible eleven o’clock numbers (from Color Purple and Bandstand respectively)!! Ali Ewoldt
Our fabulous stage managers Greg Livoti, Jim Athens and Jillian Oliver chat with our publicist, Michael Borowski, and prep posters to sell for BC/EFA. Ali Ewoldt
In my dressing room and ready for my second breakfast, a “chia pod” and a yummy ginger drink. The dolls at my station are fan presents from past shows: Cosette from Les Misérables and Minnie Mouse dressed as Maria from West Side Story. Ali Ewoldt
Both Colman Domingo and this interviewer are guilty of referring to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as a play when talking about the new Netflix film. It’s an easy mistake, given the source material from playwright August Wilson and the theatrical aesthetic of director George C. Wolfe.
Domingo, a Tony nominee for The Scottsboro Boys and a playwright himself, takes on the role of saxophonist Cutler in the screen adaptation. Like the play, the movie explores the exploitation and commoditization of Black artists through the lens of a recording session with blues legend Ma Rainey (played by Tony and Oscar-winning Wilson interpreter Viola Davis). As band leader, Cutler navigates that as both a Black performer and a proxy for white gatekeepers—territory all too familiar to Domingo.
In the interview below, the actor discusses drawing on his musical and theatre roots, the responsibility of a band leader, and a century of code-switching.
What influence has August Wilson’s body of work had on you as both a playwright and performer? Everything. I didn’t realize how much August Wilson has affected my work as a playwright. I wrote my play Dot before I directed Seven Guitars, but there are a lot of similarities. Mine is a Philadelphia story about a family, and there are seven members of the company. Seven Guitars is seven members of the company, set in Pittsburgh. I realized our shared experience when it comes to all these Southerners from the Great Migration living in northern cities and all the things they’re seeking. All the conversations they’re having seem very similar. I was tapped into something I didn’t know I was already tapped into. It’s something August Wilson has laid bare in his Century Cycle, which is incredible. I think that’s why every African-American actor would love to be able to do an August Wilson. You feel like you’re close to your family; you’re closer to yourself. You don’t have to go so far outside of yourself to do the research and detail the work. All you have to do is go into your family photos, your stories, your history of migration. My mother’s side of the family came from Alabama and Georgia, and I have a lot to mine from there. That’s why I was able to go there as Cutler, knowing where he was from in Georgia. I have a lineage to that and to that experience. It’s a tremendous honor to do an August Wilson work, and I know he’s had a profound impact on me because I know I like to tell stories that are complex about African-American life. It’s the idea that they don’t have to be heroes; they’re ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
Colman Domingo
The idea of African-American artists having that shared complex history to draw on reminds me of the essay you wrote back in June, where you said these injustices have always been present, but now we have cell phones and the technology to capture them. And at times it does feel like this movie is using that cell phone to capture something we’re still talking about, the commoditization of Black artists, taking place 100 years ago. This film feels like it’s a part of that. It’s a cinematic telling of a legendary blues singer who, even in 1927, was fighting the same battles we’re fighting right now. She’s asking to be seen as human and saying, “If you want my talent, have all of me.” You have to take all of me. You can’t just have the talent and discard the rest, which is something I know I feel as an artist. I’ll say this, since this is Playbill. I have been part of We See You White American Theatre and making sure we’re moving the dial when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusional practices. This is the time to deconstruct these racist institutions—on the corporate level, in theatre, in music, wherever you are; it’s time to take a sledgehammer to all of it. African-Americans, we do know our contribution to the country, but do we get paid our worth? Do we get the respect? Do we have the longevity? The same access as our white counterparts? I think an examination in a film like this around a formidable force like Ma Rainey is truly exceptional to have this year to look at. All summer, I’ve been engaging with conversations of, “What can I read? What work can I do to know more?” Because surprisingly, my white counterparts didn’t know there was a systemic problem. I feel like this is yet another tool. Examine everything. Read everything. August Wilson is your playwright as well. I read O’Neill, I read Pinter, I read Shakespeare. You read August Wilson as well. You read Robert O’Hara. You read Jeremy O. Harris. Those are your playwrights as well. Why? Because they’re American writers. We should know each other’s history.
Do you feel those types of conversations informed your portrayal of Cutler? Oh, yes. Cutler is the bandleader. He’s Ma’s proxy when she’s not in the room. He’s also a member of the band. I have always been the leader of any acting company. “Who’s the Equity deputy?” It’s me. So it makes sense that I was cast in this role in this film. He does feel like he’s code-switching and navigating many systems. I think Ma respects that he’s up to the task. Because it’s a very large task. But it has to be done with grace, and with a sense of humor and a sense of compassion. I think I’m able to navigate that with Cutler in this film because he’s the only one who navigates all the different worlds. He’s able to have access and have audience with Ma alone. He’s also the first person the white institutions see. They deal with Cutler.
How does that code-switching manifest in Cutler? I wanted to make sure that the subtle code-switching was just ingrained in him because of the systems in the world. My 6’2″ body frame probably gets a little smaller and hunched when speaking to Mr. Irvine. It’s something he’s not even conscious of. I think that’s a great exploration for white folks to see. Black folks do this all day long. It’s something that’s been codified in our spirit. It’s interesting to see how much more work we have to do just to have a complex, strong existence.
Was that something important for you to explore with [director] George C. Wolfe? Yes. The beautiful thing about George is you sit with him and you dissect your character and talk about what makes him tick. You build it from the inside out and the outside in. I did the work of finding out what his spiritual core is and what was his operating system, which is in direct conflict with Levee. When I first showed up, George said, “How old are you?” I said I’m 50. He’s like, “You look too young. You gotta look older.” So I know what to do; I’m a character actor. I can change my body, I can change my face and the way I carry myself and my voice. That’s the joy of working with George and doing an August Wilson play. You want to bring a fullness to a character. Colman falls away, but also Colman is underneath every part of it at the same time.
Playbill talked to you recently for the anniversary of The Scottsboro Boys. I’m thinking about some of the plays you’ve written, including the book to Summer [the Donna Summer bio-musical] and [the Nat King Cole-focused] Lights Out. And now we’re talking about Ma Rainey. Do you see music as a throughline in the stories you tell? It’s wild. I didn’t realize that. People know that I’m a musician. I don’t play the trombone, but I was willing to learn and make it appear that I play very well. It was a part of having an appreciation of musicianship, the way music tells a story. I guess that’s why it makes sense to me, the idea of being the bandleader. I don’t know why, but it does.
What did being that bandleader figure off-screen entail? The first thing I did as a bandleader was organize a dinner. We’re all workhorses, so everyone was working then going home and doing the work at home. And I was like, “We need to have dinner. Let’s have dinner together this weekend.” So I found a really nice restaurant and I made sure it was just myself, Michael, Glynn, Chadwick, and Viola. And I knew that was a strong part of it. As you know, I come from the theatre, and you go to the pub, you have a drink, you have a meal, that’s the way you get to know one another. That’s where trust is established, because you get to know a person’s heart, their soul, their insecurities. You know how to hold space for them eventually. That’s what I knew was part of my job.
And what did you find was the way to hold space for them? I needed to make sure the room was malleable, gracious. The beautiful thing is [producer] Denzel [Washington] made me the custodian of [Unity’s] Daily Word, where I would read some text every day to my men in the band, and we would talk about it. Daily Word is spiritual, but also just some food for thought about how to be in the world. Denzel is very much a man of faith, and he wants to make sure that we have a spiritual core that will allow us to go to these places we need to go through in the film. So I would sit there every day and I would read to these men and we’d think about it, so we were almost having our own prayer circle in a way. It’s the same thing I had with The Scottsboro Boys. I was always giving words and testimony. I’m a spiritual guy. I’m not religious, but I come from a long line of preachers, and I realize in my life that my preaching is through acting and writing and directing. So, I’m always willing to take on that role, who needs to help guide the soul of an experience. I’ll do it.
A First Look at Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman
A First Look at Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman
