Posted: 4/19/19 at 4:20am
Here are a few notes from the SAG-AFTRA Conversation with the stars of Kiss Me, Kate held at the tiny Robin Williams Center stage across the street from Studio 54 on Thursday. I think that they invited non-members for fear that the audience would be too small for this 90 minute event hosted by Richard Ridge.
At 4:30 Kelli O'Hara, Will Chase, Corbin Bleu, Stephanie Styles and Amanda Green walked up to the stage and took their seats. Amanda Green was a little out of place with the actors, but the others and especially moderator Ridge fed her questions to keep her involved.
The first question was how they had come to be involved in this production. For Kelli and Will it began with the one night concert version that they had done in December, 2016 for a Roundabout benefit. Just going through it once, they didn't really pay much attention to what parts of the script may have been problematical for a full scale production. When the time came for that, there were many areas which they thought would conflict with the sensibilities of today's audiences. Many changes were made, although both the Porter estate and the Spewack estate pushed back in many cases. Kelli said, however, and I think I have this pretty accurate, that she wanted the audience to just come in and enjoy the music and the dancing and therefore they had left some objectionable material in. She did not specify.
Stephanie was glowing in a bright yellow dress. In answer to that first question she said, "I auditioned." Turns out she had flown from the West Coast to New York on the day of the Tony awards. sat through the presentation, stayed up all night, and auditioned very early the next morning. She was asked if she could return on Wednesday, which she did. After pretty much repeating the audition of the first day, she was told to go down and meet the choreographer Warren Carlyle. Here my ignorance of theater comes in. Apparently for two hours her dancing skills were put to the test, but I'm not sure by whom. She left that day without being told anything, but the next morning the call came in that she had gotten the job. It was a bit of an ordeal for her, but director Scott Ellis now says that she had the role the first time she walked into the room.
Corbin Bleu had a difficult choice to make. He was invited to reprise his role in In the Heights, a role that would have paid more and taken place in exotic Melbourne, Australia. He chose to stay in New York and lose about eight pounds of sweat eight times a week pushing his dancing skills to their highest level. He said that perhaps the major reason for doing Kiss Me, Kate was the chance to work with stars of the magnitude of Kelli and Will.
They were next asked about their director, Scott Ellis. Kelli, first to answer as usual, said that he really listened to the comments and complaints of the actors. This did not mean that he let them have their way more often. But Kelli also brought out that Ellis treated previews as previews. A work still in progress. If an actor came up with a reasonable alternative in a particular scene, Ellis would tell them to try it out in the preview.
Kelli, it probably won't surprise you to hear, received a lot of what she called "notes" telling her to play Lily as more of a diva. She put it to Scott and he said to play it that way in a preview. This she did, moving about aggressively and barking at her dresser and I suppose showing Fred more contempt.
But Kelli didn't like Lilly that way and I thought she made a good point when she said that Lilly would really not be feeling like much of a diva at this point in her life. Lost her movie contract, forced to go back to the little acting troupe to be under the direction of the former husband with whom she was still in love.
Kelli and Stephanie spoke about two little tributes to Marin Mazzie that they had placed into the show. The green cap that Kelli is wearing, I think she said, on her first entrance, is the same one that Marin wore. Also, she and Stephanie early in the first act are fighting over a dress. Not in the script. This was a dress that Marin wore in the show, possibly in the last climactic scene and the two conspired to get it on stage. The cap I don't remember seeing. Possible misidentification on my part or I wasn't paying attention at the start of the play. The incident with the dress even I couldn't miss.
Kelli brought up something a little offbeat for me. When she first enters, and then sits down while the "Another Op'nin" number goes on around her, her eyes often fill with tears. In any theater where she's about to begin a performance, when she just walks out on the stage and stares into the dark rows of seats she cries. Stephanie backed her up on that, saying that this was her reaction, one of tears, when she first walked out on the dark stage of the theater in which she would make her Broadway debut.
All of them asserted that the Broadway stage was the most loved venue for them. If they left for a while for the somewhat lighter schedule and heavier pay of films and television, it would only be temporary for being on the stage was the most satisfying.
Much of the last half hour was devoted to discussion of, or more like worship of the dancing in the show. A lot of this reflected on Corbin of course. I wish I were better able to understand what they were saying and what it meant, as the panel of them just lost it in joint hilarity a couple of times. Kelli blurted out at one point that the reason to see the show was for the dancing. Will said that the ensemble was the best collection of talent that he had ever been associated with on Broadway.
I'll leave off here, although right after I log off something will come to me. The ninety minutes went quickly and it felt like almost a privilege to be around all that talent, united together as a Broadway family.
Updated On: 4/19/19 at 04:20 AM
