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Grease on Broadway Forum -> Rydell High Forum -> "Broadway’s Test-Tube Babies"
Post Info TOPIC: "Broadway’s Test-Tube Babies"
Laura4Broadway


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"Broadway’s Test-Tube Babies"
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There's 3 pages of interview AND a wonderful new picture! biggrin

http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/34974/

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reniefran


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It's a newsy article but I can't tell if the reporter likes or doesn't like Max and Laura. It seems like he doesn't hold out much hope of Grease being a success. Well I have every confidence that Max and Laura will prove him and everyone else wrong!smile

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Edwardian


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There's more discussion about this article under the "Reviews" topic.

Ed

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Laura4Broadway


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oh geez, I didn't see it there. ohmygod.gif If anyone knows how to... feel free to delete this thread.

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Edwardian


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No problem, L4B!

Ed

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Mrs N


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More "test-tube babies"?

TheStar.com - entertainment - Don't chase stardom, say Broadway icons
Broadway veterans Joel Grey, Chita Rivera offer sage words to reality show contestants
July 23, 2007
Richard Ouzounian
Theatre critic
There's a song called "It," which John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote for Chicago, that never made it onto the stage or screen, but Chita Rivera sang it for me in a rehearsal hall of the National Ballet School.

"It, you gotta have it," she croons in that husky voice familiar to anyone who saw her in the original Toronto run of the Kiss of the Spider Woman. "Without it, you might as well quit."

The 73-year-old dynamo stops singing and looks up with those dark, blazing eyes that have been captivating audiences for more than 50 years."What did they mean by `it,' baby? Spirit, pizzazz, genius that stuff you can't learn, but have to be born with."

That's just one of the lessons Garth Drabinsky brought her to Toronto to share (along with Tony- and Oscar-winning star Joel Grey) in a master class for the final 12 candidates on his new arts reality show, Triple Sensation, now in production for a fall debut on CBC Television.

Drabinsky's Rolodex has certainly gotten a workout putting this program together. Besides a "marquee" panel of judges that includes Marvin Hamlisch, Cynthia Dale, Sergio Trujillo and Adrian Noble, the former Livent mogul has seen to it that the young artists who make it past each successive cut work with some of the finest acting teachers, vocal coaches and dance instructors available in North America.

But most of their names aren't recognizable to the average audience member and Drabinsky has always been savvy enough to know you need a little "razzle dazzle" (to quote another Kander and Ebb lyric) to give your project sizzle.

So on this particular day, he's produced two of the finest veterans of Broadway musical theatre to teach a dozen wide-eyed young Canadians about what it takes to make it in show business.

Grey was 34 when he became an "overnight" star as the leering Emcee in Hal Prince's original 1966 production of Cabaret. But that followed 25 years of work across America that began when he was 9 in a production of On Borrowed Time, where he learned "from some hard-working actors about the ethic and the honour of being in the theatre."Grey's advice on how he survived that first quarter-century (and the 41 years since) is that "you must need it to live in order to do it. It's got to be that desperate and important to you; otherwise, to me as an audience member, I don't want to see you. I want to discover that spark, that magic I've never seen before. When you spend $100 a ticket, you don't want to see ordinary things."

But while Grey and Rivera both stress the necessity of having something unique to set the world on its ear, they both have lost their patience with the current crop of young performers who want it all to happen too quickly."Today in our society," laments Grey, "people don't want to become actors, singers or dancers. They immediately want to be become stars."When I started out, I never thought about being a star. I just wanted to tell the story and be as good as I could be."

Rivera allows herself a touch of world-weary anger as she snipes at "all these other competitions on TV." "Everybody is on their own kick. The kids are far too young to know about all the things they're pretending to sing about. They have to understand the craft behind what they're doing."They want to be frigging stars. What is a star? I always say Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are the only two real stars because they're unique and can never be replaced. The rest of us?" She shrugs.

When asked how he's going to sum up his 66-year career to the Triple Sensation finalists, Grey pauses, offers one of his crooked little smiles and says, "The life of an actor is complicated, thrilling and definitely excruciating."

And Rivera's concluding message to the supernovas of tomorrow is equally to the point."Get the craft, then become a fabulous performer and just keep doing it whenever and wherever you can. Then, if you deserve it, the audiences will make you a star. They're the ones who finally decide."

-- Edited by Mrs N at 17:23, 2007-07-23

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charmstheword


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I was checking out information from the British type version of the show, the one where they picked the lead for Joseph, called "Any Dream Will Do." The reviewers/critics were for the most part very kind to Lee Mead, the winner. (There is a message board that has links to all of the reviews for his show.)

Here is a the video on Youtube (about 8 minutes) with Lee performing in his dress rehearsal, comments by the vocal coach and judge of the show, and it includes Lee in his loincloth!

The connection to GreaseonBroadway is the comments from the vocal coach, "The first performance in front of an audience is very much like the finale on the television show. Those boys were both so nervous." (paraphrased) If Laura and Max could make it through that nerve racking ordeal, it will help them tonight.

I can imagine how nervous/excited Laura, Max, and the other "rookies" are today.

Hope you enjoy video and I will add here to the Grease cast, "Break a leg!"

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