the craptacular

I’m just gonna get right on out with it—one of the stars of this show looks like a young Patrick Wilson.

That should sell tickets on its own.  I mean.  He’s handsome.  And so alarmingly Wilson-esque that you notice it the SECOND he steps on stage.  You can’t stop noticing it.

But Mr. Wilson-esque (real name: David Beck) is hardly the only thing worth recommending about The More Loving One, now playing at the Soho Playhouse as a part of the Fringe Encores Series.  Primarily focused on two couples debating the institutions of love, sex, law and family one uncomfortable evening in a college town plagued by a sex scandal, the play has distinct notes of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Still, it brings a surprising freshness to material we’ve all seen and heard before.  Plus, it earns more than a few hearty laughs, at least a handful of them thanks to Preston Martin who is giving a pitch-perfect performance as Henry, one half of the play’s gay couple.

The More Loving One won the 2011 Fringe Overall Excellence Award for Best Production of a Play before earning its spot in the Encores Series this month, and appears to have a bright future ahead of it.  We’re looking forward to seeing where it lands next.  In the meantime, you can check out one of the final four performances this month.  Snag tickets here.

Tickets provided by the production.

Cross-polination between Broadway and pop music isn’t exactly a new thing. Songs written for the stage have been covered by pop stars since forever. Frank Sinatra made a Guys and Dolls song his signature tune. Let the Sunshine in topped the Billboard charts. Sometimes, though, we come across some that make our brains warp a little – in good ways and bad. Here are some of our favorite Broadway crossover performances from recent-ish years. And yes, there are Jonas Brothers ahead…

The Jonas Brothers: “Poor Unfortunate Souls”

We don’t know. Honestly. We just don’t. But it exists. And yes, we’d rather hear Sherie Rene Scott sing this song, too. But given the fact that these Jonas kids got their start on Broadway, and Nick—at the least—is slated to return, we thought we should share this video of ridiculousness. Go ahead, have a derisive laugh.

Celine Dion: “Memory”

Diva extraordinaire Celine Dion, shown here in her pre-megafame years singing “Memory” from Cats, is having some issues in this video. There’s a language issue and a shoulder pads issue and an issue of general taste and sanity. So of course, this is the most genius thing we’ve ever seen. Unfortunately it does not contain any chest beating. We’ll have to settle for some brusque gesticulating and four-foot bangs instead.

Judy Collins (With the Muppets): “Send in the Clowns”

Yeah yeah, Stephen Sondheim had one of his only pop hits thanks to this version of “Send in the Clowns” by Judy Collins, blah blah blah. Everyone knows that. But we kind of love this crazypants performance from The Muppet Show, which shows Judy split-screened with some mournful dancing clowns. Charming? Yes. Super literal and moderately confusing? You bet.

Jay Z: “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”

Don’t lie. The first time you heard this on the radio in 1998, you nearly drove off the road. In one of the most badass, unlikely combinations of showtunery and hip-hopery we can even think of, Jay-Z sampled the main chorus from Annie’s opening number, and voila – all parties involved got a little bit cooler. Jay-Z’s comments about the sample were equally cool. In the eponymous album’s liner notes, he wrote, “If you notice the chorus, they’re not singing like they’re sad. They’re singing like, ‘Yo. It’s a hard knock life,’ just lettin’ people know. It’s a beautiful thing.” Jay, we could not agree more.

Ben Jelen: “Wicked Little Town”

Remember Ben Jelen? Yeah, we don’t either, except to briefly recall his pretty hair and general cuteness, which enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame in 2004. But his cover of “Wicked Little Town” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch had us smiling. The song was a no-brainer for Jelen, whose smoky voice has a kind of theatrical quality to begin with. Plus, the smooth transition from the stage to the concert hall, in this case, had us feeling pretty good about the state of modern theater.

Sinead O’Connor: “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”

Oh Sinead. Hairless and political and prodigiously talented, she always pulled out some crazy shit onstage that made you happy to have her around. Her idiosyncratic cover of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” works shockingly well. Both vulnerable and assured, this version doesn’t make us miss or wish for Madonna in the least.

Whitney Houston: “I Loves You Porgy/ And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”

No. You are not on drugs. Or having a fever-induced hallucination. That is indeed Whitney Houston singing a medley of “I Loves You Porgy” and “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” which then transitions super smoothly into “I Have Nothing” from The Bodyguard.  And yes, that is Bobby Brown holding infant daughter Bobbi Kristina at around 5:43. And yes, it is ten full minutes long and it is now the best thing that you ever have, and possibly ever will, see on the YouTube.  You are welcome.

The Beatles: “Til There Was You”

The Beatles featured this song from Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man on their 1964/64 albums With The Beatles/Meet The Beatles! and Paul McCartney has been quoted saying he didn’t even know the song was a show tune initially. Regardless, this may in fact be the most important pop recording of a Broadway show tune ever, given that The Beatles are the most important pop band ever. Bonus points go to the band for such a pure, beautiful rendition that didn’t screw with the song’s original beauty. And even more to Sir Paul for being so goddamn cute.

Luther Vandross: “A House Is Not a Home”

Featured in the 2010 revival of Promises, Promises where it was performed by the inimitable Kristin Chenoweth, this Bacharach/David song solidly counts as a show tune.  And this beautiful performance by Luther Vandross—which even brought Dionne Warwick to tears—makes us cry every time we watch it.

Aretha Franklin: “I Dreamed a Dream”

What even is this? We don’t know for sure, either. Okay, we do. Its Aretha Franklin singing a show tune like only Aretha Franklin can.  Actually…she’s singing Les Miz, which is like… so many layers of crazy that we don’t even know where to start. Maybe with the fact that Aretha is so badass she can even change the words to one of the world’s most famous musicals at will? To reflect Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speech? Or that the song is almost 100% unrecognizable and yet it STILL gives us chills? We fucking love it. So does Bill Clinton—this was at his inauguration, after all.

It’s Friday again, though given the fact that Labor Day weekend is now long past, summer is semi-officially gone, which is kind of a letdown.  Thank goodness there was some theater news this week, otherwise… we’d be completely desultory all weekend. A girl needs some things to talk about while drinking herself silly and pretending its still beach season!  Potential topics include…

• You know what’s awesome? When Broadway becomes an effortless, unintentionally hilarious parody of itself. In related news, Adam Pascal will replace Chad Kimball as Huey Calhoun in Memphis.

• And in news that sort of made us want to throw a phone at someone, Russell Crowe will play Javert opposite Hugh Jackman’s Valjean in the upcoming Les Miz movie. And proving that God is at least somewhat merciful, Hugh is saying that the film will not be through-sung. No word on whether all the song lyrics will simply be spoken like dialouge, but since Joel Schumacher isn’t directing this film, that probs won’t happen.

• For those of you who were gutted (or maybe that was just us?) because you missed out on tickets for the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary Concert, rest easy. The show, which will star the intensely beautiful dynamic duo of Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, will be recorded. So you can do exactly what you did with the Les Miz anniversary concert: Download it and watch it every waking hour of your life so it feels like you’re doing really, really awesome drugs.

• Turns out the rumors about Joe Jonas replacing Darren Criss in H2S were untrue. Instead, it’ll be his younger brother Nick stepping into Ponty’s smarmy shoes. Which, frankly, sucks balls.  Sorry Nick. We know you’re really awesome at singing while… looking… over there…  But your big brother is more our speed.  While you may be slightly cuter, Joe is about 800 times more interesting.  And honestly, at this point, we’re just in this for some booze-fueled backstage scandal. Joe seems like a better candidate.

• Last year we thought we might have to pony up for premium channels to catch The Miraculous Year, but then the (hot/talented/amazing) rug got pulled out from under us, and HBO never picked up the pilot. So up until this week we tried really hard not to get over-excited about Aaron Sorkin’s new pilot.  This time, though, HBO didn’t fail us and thank god for that. We can now freak out and go insane for cerebral-love-of-our-life Johnny Gallagher on our TV (in Aaron Sorkin!!)! We’ll spare you the capitol letters and keymash, but you should know it’s happening.  And our cable bills just went up right along with our body temperature.

• Big Fish the musical sounds… kind of crazy and maybe awful and potentially amazing.  Perfect material for The Craptacular. This is extra true if Michael C Hall takes the lead role—he’s rumored to be getting ready to sign on—because he’s at least 50% real live ginger (look at his beard!) and we think NYC always needs more hot gingermen.

Nick Jonas it is.  Jailbait will succeed Darren Criss in How to Succeed.

Twitter blew up with a useless debate about whether or not this was a stunt casting. And whether stunt casting is ugly or necessary. And like… all this other dreary stuff.

We here at The Craptacular could not give a flying fuck.  Why, you ask?

Because we have more important things on our minds, of course! Per usual, obviously.

We’re currently debating who’s the hotter J Pierrepont Finch, and we want your input.

So.

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Photo: JustJared.com, NickJOnline.com

Sorry for the delay, dear reader. Lucky is on the road in Hawaii, where Broadway news arrives at a more relaxed pace, and The Mick was having a battle extraordinaire with the Almeida Theater ticketing site all day Friday.  But fear not!  We have not forgotten there are some extremely important theater things that happened this week which need to be recapped.  For your perusal:

• Stuff we love seeing? Theaterpersons on our TVs. This week we learned that handsome, square-headed Will Chase will join SMASH in the fall, undoubtedly as someone’s handsome, square-headed boyfriend. Meanwhile, Raul Esparza will undoubtedly cause your television to overheat from Broadway-related hotness when he joins Patrick Wilson on A Gifted Man. If someone can’t figure out a way to write a Defying Gravity duet into this supernatural medical drama, we quit TV forever.
• Broadway composer and unintentionally hilarious rockstar-type person Billie Joe Armstrong got his ass kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight this week, because he was… showing too much of his ass, which was apparently spotted somewhere outside of his saggy pants. Frankly, we sort of love Billie Joe’s ass, but apparently a testy flight attendant disagreed. We also loved BJ’s immediate reaction to the attendant, which was quoted as, “Don’t you have more important things to do?” Thank goodness the answer was no, because we really needed to be entertained for that particular 15 seconds…
• Remember when we said that there’s never a good reason for Hugh Jackman not to be on Broadway? Well, he heard us. Us, and the deeply personal yearnings of your soul. His solo show starts October 25. Get in line for tickets now. And start placing bets on whether the Tony committee will reinstate the Best Special Theatrical Event award next year.
• Riedel also reports that The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess may not make the jump to Broadway this season.  Producers are apparently freaking out in the wake of Stephen Sondheim’s New York Times meltdown, which drove Brantley to Boston to cover the story and resulted in a less than stellar review.  We’re hoping this is an overreaction based on a bit of bad news and that everyone will calm the fuck down and change their minds.  But whatever the case, we are already tired of the debate over who’s to blame for Porgy getting derailed.
• Yet another gem in Riedel’s column?  Rumors have begun to circulate that the Donmar Warehouse could send its Jude Law-led production of Anna Christie stateside.  In general, we like to look at Jude and his beautiful blue eyes, so this is pretty exciting.  But we’re also hearing that Law and his co-star Ruth Wilson have some pretty scintillating chemistry, which makes the idea of this production all the more alluring.  We’ll be front and center.
• The first pictures have emerged from the Paper Mill Playhouse’s Newsies rehearsals and our hearts and lady bits are all aflutter.  We’re almost certain that lead Jeremy Jordan’s big voice, beautiful biceps and glowing, uneven smile could save not only the Newsies themselves, but also possibly the entire universe.  Like.  He could solve a climate crisis or something.  We’re smitten, to say the least.
• Matt Bomer and Bradley Whitford join the cast of Dustin Lance Black’s Proposition 8 drama, aptly entitled “8.”  We’re not entirely sure what Josh Lyman is going to be doing in the courtroom—threatening the opposition with dead fish a la Rahm Emanuel?—but sources say Mr. Bomer will be playing Cheyenne Jackson’s husband.  This obviously makes them the hottest imaginary married couple ever.  Anyone know who we have to sleep with to get tickets to this thing?
• You know what’s happening to The Craptacular in October, right? No, you don’t. Because we haven’t told you yet. We’re hopping across the pond to see some stuff in London town! We’re excited! Got ideas about what we should see once we get there, besides the bottoms of several dozen pint glasses? Tell us! We’re all ears.

As the fall season bears down upon us there’s a lot on our minds.  Like how we’re going to fit in all the shows we want to see while continuing to stalk Jonathan Groff around the island of Manhattan until he becomes our BFF.  And all the awesome actors we can’t wait to see again, like Hunter Parrish leading the cast of Godspell and Harry Connick Jr., treading the boards in On A Clear Day.  But despite all that awesome news we couldn’t help but think about all the other famous people we’d love to be seeing on Broadway right now.  Below, a selection of the people we’d love to see…

Anne Hathaway
A self-professed theater fangirl, Anne Hathaway seems like the perfect choice to star on Broadway. Every time Hollywood stages a show that requires singing and dancing, she’s their go-to girl. In fact, there were even rumors that she was slated to star opposite Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises in 2010, before Kristin Chenoweth’s name was in the mix. Anne’s upcoming gig as Catwoman in Dark Knight Rises might put a damper on her aspirations to the Great White Way… for the moment. But hey, if Daniel Craig can figure out how to star in Major Motion Pictures while giving tiny Broadway some love, we’re guessing that Anne can, too.

She could play: Lola in Damn Yankees, Velma Kelly in Chicago

Jim Sturgess
Remember that time, before the whole world knew what a crazy mess Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark actually was, and there was this reading where Jim Sturgess played Peter Parker and for a hot minute you thought all your fangirl dreams were coming true?  Yeah.  That was glorious, right?  Which is why Mr. Sturgess should be on Broadway.  Also.  He can sing, and he looks good in basically any kind of costume you can dream up, and he acts real good, and he has absolutely mesmerizing brown eyes, and…

He could play: We wouldn’t wish Peter Parker on our worst enemy, so… how’s about… Jude in our fantasy stage version of Across the Universe? Or any soulful, sensitive lover fighting to get his girl back.

Hugh Jackman
There’s never a good reason why Hugh Jackman is not on Broadway. Handsome, big-singing, and capable of elevating even the most heinous material to workable decency, Broadway has never needed Hugh more. His one-man show in San Francisco in early 2011 had many speculating that he’d take it to NYC, but no one’s confirming a thing yet. In the meantime, we’ll just watch Oklahoma! on DVD and save our pennies. If A Steady Rain taught us anything, it’s that we’ll need a lot of patience to catch Hugh on stage again… and a small fortune.

He could play: Whatever the hell he wants

Lady Gaga
Sure, she’s too famous, and too hung up on her own thing right now. But give it a couple of years, and we don’t think Gaga will be too big for Broadway. Plus, if Billie Joe Armstrong, Dee Snider, Reba McIntyre and Sebastian Bach can put aside their rockstar personae and take on a character for a few hours a night, we’re guessing that she can, too. She has the pipes and the personality. And hey, maybe a really talented director could get her to speak like a normal person. Barring that, there’s always sung-through musicals. Here’s hoping.

She could play: Eva in Evita, Fantine in Les Miserables

James McAvoy
This talented young Scot has some real theater cred already; he starred in Three Days of Rain on the West End in 2009. Now if we could only get him to cross the Atlantic for half a hot minute between blockbusters. Known for being an actual actor and not just cute and lucky, McAvoy would make a splash here, we think, given the right role. The only negative we can foresee is that it would be hard to see his pretty blue eyes from up in the balcony.

He could play: Youthfully idealistic lawyers, handsome young husbands

Michael Fassbender
For those of you who saw X-Men: First Class and are also obsessed with Broadway (all six of you), you didn’t think we’d list McAvoy without Fassbender, did you? We’d never break their epic bromance up!  Plus, Fassbender can fucking ACT HIS FACE OFF.  In fact, we’d say he acts like Magneto moves bridges, which (in case you didn’t know) is like a BOSS.  Also, once he directed, produced and starred in a stage adaptation of Reservoir Dogs, which is too badass for words.  Plus he’s got an Irish accent, and ginger hair, and a rockin bod.  And we’d like to see him on stage on this side of the pond stat.

He could play: Anyone in a Martin McDonagh vehicle, your mom, McAvoy’s boyfriend.

Idina Menzel
Why can’t you figure this out, Broadway? She sings like a dream. She’s beautiful. She’s an actual star. And yet Idina Menzel has not set a foot on Broadway since 2005. This woman went from creating the most iconic musical character of our times to various second-tier stupidity on Glee, and that’s not cool. It’s probably partly her choice. (There is the small matter of having a child and stuff…) But we’re guessing that no one has created a role that’s great enough for this great lady. We challenge some rockstar composers (Duncan Sheik, Michael Friedman) to get on that shit immediately. In the meantime, we’ll be listening to the Rent cast album and weeping for shame.

She could play: Cleopatra in the fake musical we just invented in our minds

Joe Jonas
Stop it. You stop rolling your eyes and groaning right this fucking minute. Because this is an AWESOME idea. And not because he’s famous or he was once in a band with his brothers that sold a lot of albums.  It’s because Joseph Adam Jonas started out his musical career in… a Broadway-ified opera. Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème, to be exact, where he was part of the children’s chorus.  And that wasn’t an accident.  He can sing.  His acting is… okay, we’re not sure how well he can act on a stage.  But there are plenty of roles where being cute and sort of vapid is useful.  Like J. Pierrepont Finch—the one he’s rumored to be stepping into this spring.

He could play: Handsome, shifty young men like Finchy in H2$ or Fiyero in Wicked.

JC Chasez
Last we saw Chasez act he was in MMC, and it wasn’t great.  (Though come to think of it… he must be a good actor, since he pretends he doesn’t hate Justin Timberlake to death every single day of life…)  But boy can SANG—his beautiful, powerful pipes could blow the roof off the St. James, or like… another big Broadway house 8 times a week, for sure.  If we’re honest, though, we just want the chance to hear his lovely voice again (and again, and again, and again), and Broadway seems like it’s the only place that might happen any time soon. …Also, we’re pretty sure there’s got to be some way to work this amazing move into a musical. (Sort of like the BBAJ lap dance, only, with tongue.)  So, quick, someone find JC a role and a pile of cash to tempt him into it!  A big one!

He could play: Jesus, because he has the same initials. Or like… Radames in Aida? Or Andrew Jackson in a warp universe BBAJ that involves licking a girl every night of the week?

So, remember that time when Stephen Sondheim decided to bitch about some people in theater? Yeah, that was crazy. In fact, that was last week. And still, days later, I am not feeling quite calm or satisfied with how that all went down.

Sondheim’s rant, which was published last week by the New York Times, concerned Diane Paulus’s revival of Porgy and Bess that began previews in Boston this week. Or rather, it concerned some comments that Diane Paulus made about her revival of Porgy and Bess in an interview. Sondheim’s concern? That the director was making some poor choices with the material and ignoring the authors’ original intentions for the work.

Uh… yeah.

Just so we’re all clear: Sondheim was not commenting about the production itself, because at that point in time, the production did not exist yet. It had not played a single performance. Talk about reviewing a show in previews.

While some cheered Sondheim’s response, and his apparent interest in stopping the backslide of American theater into the pit of wicked modernity and horribleness, or something, I just kind of wanted to vom. For 8,000 reasons, but mostly for this one: His response was really unfair.

To see a show and comment on its merits and shortfalls is one thing. To lose your mind in the New York Times because of something someone said about a show, and to extrapolate about the quality of the show from there? That’s… not cool. Sondheim acknowledges and explains this in his piece, but that doesn’t make it logical. And while I appreciate that his status as a Living God of American Theatre wins him a couple of get-out-of-jail-free cards, that doesn’t mean that it’s OK to ignore the basic rules of fairness.

Plus, who knew that Sondheim held such a depressingly narrow view of how old shows should be revived? Per his comments in the Times, it’s clear that he believes that this revival of Porgy and Bess should do what the original show did, and communicate it in the same way. But why is it necessary to adhere to the authors’ original intentions? The story of art right now is the story of the riff, the spin, the adaptation. The Grey Album, Back to Black, kids lip-synching on YouTube. Some of the most compelling stuff happening right now is a re-construction of old stuff. It doesn’t demean the original. It just means that there is room in the world for multiple ideas of art to exist at the same time.

And is it possible to stage Porgy and Bess in 2011 without some significant tweaking? For a show that has been interpreted as solidly racist, some kind of adaptation is clearly necessary for a modern audience.

You’d think that Stephen Sondheim would have some sensitivity about race, and about the uncomfortable idea of outsiders interpreting an entire culture, as the Gershwins did with Porgy and Bess. But this is Stephen Sondheim, remember, who never wrote a single role for an African American actor, and whose interpretations of other cultures have felt an awful lot like Stephen Sondheim’s culture.

And was there no one else to slag in American theater last week? Was Christopher Ashley in the Hamptons? How about Frank Wildhorn or Bono? Those guys are doing some shitty things in American theater right now that, I would argue, solidly compromise the quality and integrity of the American musical as an art form. How about the 38 producers of Memphis, who were presumably sober when they decided to sign the checks that funded that show, or Floyd Mutrux, who keeps doing jukebox musicals that are wildly bad, hugely distortive of American history, and make no sense? I know that Sondheim sees these people as being beneath, and unworthy of his criticism. He’s noted with some distinct pride that he’s never criticized Andrew Lloyd Webber.  (And Diane Paulus is no fool. She undoubtedly knows that getting taken down by Stephen Sondheim is a weird kind of complement. Hence her non-engaging statement following Sondheim’s letter. ) But with all the distressing stuff happening on Broadway, Sondheim decides to pick on… Audra McDonald?

In fact, Sondheim condemned her statements about Porgy and Bess and, in the same breath, mentioned that she’s a lovely singer. Condescending much? It’s as though he’s saying, “Stick to singing, lady. And let the smart people interpret the work.” Because, you know, Audra McDonald has no experience whatsoever interpreting complex, classic work.

Frustrating as Sondheim’s comments were, they made me kind of sad, too. For someone with such an intelligent world view, I wanted him to be more open minded. I wanted him to recognize that the dullest, crappiest revivals of his own shows are the ones that simply mimic what came before.  Or I at least wanted him to wait a week, see Porgy and Bess, and then write his review.

In the real world—and not, say, in the Literature Department at Trinity College in Dublin—a James Joyce obsession is not something a girl has many regular opportunities to celebrate.  There’s Bloomsday every June.  And then… well.  That’s kind of it.  There’s not a lot of sitting around and analyzing the Penelope Episode of Ulysses, or regular, vociferous debate over the best lines in Dubliners.

So you can imagine my delight, being the sort of girl who has a painting of Joyce hanging on her bedroom wall, when I heard about Araby.  Playing at this year’s Fringe Festival, Araby is billed as a “chamber musical re-telling the short stories of James Joyce’s Dubliners,” which is actually fairly accurate, though right now it’s much more of a song-cycle in development than a fully-fledged production.

I ain’t mad at it, though.  And trust me; no one is more willing to be critical of something that fucks with the master than I am.  It’s just… there’s something there, you know?  The kernel of something great, a seed.

For each of the 15 short stories in Dubliners there is single song, performed by a small orchestra and a handful of vocalists with a bit of blocking thrown in.  For me, the stories I’ve always loved best—Eveline, The Dead—often made for the most powerful songs and performances, but I was shocked by how much I loved other numbers like A Little Cloud and After the Race, both based on stories I’m less attached to.

Other wonderful things:

• Moments of Joyce’s original text interspersed with the songs are beautifully realized.   My favorite was in The Dead where haunting vocal rounds brought to life the image of snow “falling faintly…faintly falling” all over Ireland.
• Carlos Ponton and Nancy Magarill are giving standout performances.
• The excitement of realizing you’re witnessing the development of something that could be truly great.

I can’t imagine what will happen with Araby next, but I hope for so much more.  And if you love Joyce, or Dubliners, or literature and music in general, there are three additional performances this weekend that you can check out.

Photo: Rick Jungers

The lovely and talented Sierra Boggess has played some badass leading ladies, from Ariel to Christine Daae. Now, in this season’s revival of Master Class, her character is going toe-to-toe with one of the formidable leading ladies of all time — Maria Callas. Sierra chatted with us about her co-star Tyne Daly, the rewards and perils of singing opera, and her Pound Puppy collection, among other things…

L: How’s Master Class going so far?

Sierra: It’s awesome. It’s so great to get to work with Tyne Daly and get to do a role that I never imagined I would be doing, and singing in a style that I had never learned before. So it’s been a fascinating learning experience and I’ve been enjoying myself so much.

L: Was there any intimidation factor working with Tyne Daly? Clearly, her character in the show is supposed to be intimidating.

SB: The play definitely sets that up, but Tyne Daly and Maria Callas — well, Callas how Terrence McNally has written Maria Callas — are two very different people. She is so loving and so supportive, and not threatening at all. I was just excited to get to work with someone who is so on her game. The hard part for me was that the character I play immediately goes up against Callas. So I was kind of like, “We just met, Tyne. But I’m gonna yell at you now.” That was the only thing that took some adjusting.

LM: What was the prep like for you? Have you sung opera before?

SB: No, I’m not opera trained at all. I have a natural coloratura, and I’ve always been interested in opera. But I never imagined I would sing opera, let alone do a Verdi aria, which is quite difficult. Our director Stephen Wadsworth has directed with the Met, and he teaches at Juilliard. So I got to work with a man at the Met and I got to work with two different teachers at Juilliard, including Stephen. And then I have an amazing voice teacher who I’ve been studying with since I was 17 years old. So I just took a lot of lessons and really worked on it. I had a dialect coach for the Italian. It was like being back in school again. And I was terrible in school! I was not good at the academic stuff. I loved drama class and did really well in that, but other than that — no. So going back to school was so great, especially to be in a place now where I’m like, “Yeah, I want to learn.”

L: Is the immediate prep, at the theater, different than if you were in a musical?

SB: I don’t ever do massive warmups, but with this I just always make sure that my my highest notes are there. But the intention of the aria — because the character singing it is Lady Macbeth — sort of takes care of the gusto all by itself.

L: Have you ever taught master classes yourself?

SB: Yes, I love teaching master classes. I’ve done a lot of them, actually, and it’s one of my favorite things to do. I have such vivid memories of my own master classes. I met my voice teacher in a master class when I was 17 and it changed my life. It’s the reason why I’m on Broadway. That’s such a vulnerable age and having her believe in me at that point in my life was the thing that launched me forward. And I’ve also had some bad master classes where the teachers were frustrated actors who weren’t doing what they want to do, and were threatened by the kids in the class. They’d tell you that the world is really rat-infested and that New York is the most difficult place ever. I’d never would want to teach a class like that. I’d never want to discourage people from their dreams. So [teaching] is something that I really enjoy.

L: Besides your voice teacher, do you have any other teachers who inspired you in your life?

SB: My high school drama teacher. I honestly believe that drama class saved my life. It was so difficult for me to want to be in school. To have an outlet in my drama class, was the best thing in the whole world. That teacher’s name is Nancy Priest, and she was the drama teacher at the high school I went to for thirty years. She was the most extraordinary teacher and I think she probably saved a lot of kids.

L: So you’ve been Christine Daae twice – in Vegas and London. How were those experiences similar and different?

SB: Playing Christine was the first leading lady role that I did professionally. It was an amazing experience to originate that particular company because I go to work with Andrew and with Hal Prince and the original creative team from The Phantom of the Opera. It was a brand new production in Vegas, so that was really thrilling. And I’m going to go back and do the role again for the 25th anniversary concert. It’s been so fun working on that. I haven’t played Christine from the original Phantom in so long, and now after having done the mature version of her in Love Never Dies, I have to remember who this frightened, 18 year-old girl is. So much has happened in my life since then, so I hope that brings more colors to the part. But I love Phantom. I love that show, and Love Never Dies, and singing that music.

L: Having done Master Class, do you think you’ll play Christine Daae the opera singer differently?

If I was going back into Love Never Dies, maybe. I believe that’s how I booked Master Class, because I was playing someone who’s become a real opera singer – a star. That’s how I learned about Callas. I knew who Callas was, but Jack O’Brien was my director for Love Never Dies, and he spoke often about Callas. I would listen to her a lot and I would watch her on YouTube and see how amazing this woman is. So I’d bring Callas into my Christine in Love Never Dies. I would like, invoke her to be there with me. Because I’m faking it. I’m all fake-it-til-you-make-it. I’m not an opera singer.

L: What was it like playing Christine in Vegas? That must be a completely different kind of audience than NYC.

I didn’t have anything to compare it to at the time, but I think if I was maybe doing a show like Mamma Mia out there, which was playing at the same time, they might have a different experience. But because it’s Phantom, you already have a certain kind of audience that comes to see that show, no matter where it is. So I didn’t really notice a difference. It was the only theater in Vegas where they didn’t have cup holders in the seats. Maybe people were less drunk. Living in Vegas was really surreal experience, though. I loved doing the show out there, but living there was something else. You never see real life. It’s like living in a fantasy world.

L: What was your reaction when you found out that you might be playing Ariel in The Little Mermaid?

SB: It was one of those moments, not where you jump up and down and scream, but you take it in and you want to cry. Because you say to yourself, “Of course I get to do this, because I’ve wanted it so much.” You don’t think, “Of course I’ve got to because I’m the best.” It was like realizing the most beautiful childhood dream. I love that it’s not forgotten. People that I see at the stage door still mention it. I’ll always get to be the girl who originated the role of Ariel on Broadway.

L: What is your dream leading lady role?

SB: There are so many I would love to do, but right now, because I’ve just been in London, I want to be Eliza Doolittle.

L: What was your most spectacular onstage mishap in any show?

SB: I had a huge mishap when I was in The Phantom of the Operain Las Vegas about three weeks after we had opened. I fell into a trap door on the stage and I was literally hanging. I had to go to the hospital and my understudy had to go on. She had never gone on before. It was crazy.

L: What are some words that you think you use too often?

SB: I say “love” a lot. I love this, I love that.

L: Love is a nice word to use too often! How about words you don’t use often enough?

SB: Any big words, I could probably be a little bit better at.

L: What was the last book you read?

SB: The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer

L: Do you have a favorite mid to late 90s pop song?

SB: Any Whitney Houston song, but probably “Run to You” from The Bodyguard.

L: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal when you were a kid?

SB: Pound Puppies! I still have them. I’m staring at them right now. They’re the old classic ones. My sisters and I had the big ones, but I have about 10 of the little ones. I love them.