DIVA TALK: Chatting with Stephanie D'Abruzzo Plus Spring Awakening on CD
By Andrew Gans
News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage. STEPHANIE D'ABRUZZO Supervising producer Debra Fordham, who penned the musical episode, told me earlier this week that she thought D'Abruzzo would be perfect for the role after catching her performance in the Off-Broadway musical I Love You Because. "I needed an actress that was equally adept at comedy and drama and could make the switch between them instantaneously," Fordham says. "Stephanie had this great moment in I Love You Because where she did just that. It was a completely underwritten moment where she had to make this sudden discovery all on her own and without dialogue that she was in love with her sex buddy. That moment really stuck with me. So when it came time to write this script, Stephanie immediately came to mind. She's a brilliant comedienne with pitch-perfect timing who can turn on a dime and instantly break your heart. And that's exactly what I needed to make this episode work. She was a perfect choice in every way." After working with D'Abruzzo, Fordham says she is now even more an admirer of the singing actress, who is terrific in the "Scrubs" episode, which is funny, clever, melodic and ultimately touching (I was sent a rough cut last week). "I already knew that she was a wonderful actress, singer and comedienne," Fordham says. "What I didn't know is that she is also the most likeable and accessible person on the planet! She completely charmed everyone on the set actors, grips, transpo guys, you name it. So in those final scenes, when our cast is rallying around her character, there was definitely an extra layer of emotion because it was Stephanie, the person, on the operating table. I think it was Ken Jenkins who made the observation that whether or not this episode works depends on whether or not we, as an audience, invest in Stephanie's character. Well, I'm here to tell you that we not only invested in Patti (her character), the entire company of 'Scrubs' was and is completely invested in Stephanie." Fordham adds, "This really is a deceptively difficult role. A good deal of her time was spent simply reacting to what's going on around her. And if you think that's easy, you've never had to do it! Stephanie found her own throughline and developed this whole arc for how her character responds to the singing. There's an actual progression to it that was neither directed, nor scripted. Then, to make the role even more challenging, after spending most of the episode off to the side, she has to suddenly take center stage and make the whole story mean something! It really was a lot to ask, but Stephanie absolutely nailed it." Coincidentally, the episode happens to feature songs penned by Avenue Q Tony winners Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. "I wrote the role for Stephanie in July," explains Fordham. "Then, in August, Zach Braff overheard me asking our producer if it would be possible to get actual Broadway composers to work on the episode. It was Zach who then uttered the immortal words, 'Hey, we should get those guys from Avenue Q.'" Other songs were written by Fordham, Jan Stevens and Paul Perry. The "Scrubs" episode which is simply titled "My Musical" also boasts several other Broadway connections. Tony Award-winning orchestrator Doug Besterman arranged two of the songs featured in the situation comedy: "Welcome to Sacred Heart" and "Everything Comes Down to Poo." Another Tony winner, Karen Ziemba, makes a brief cameo in the episode, and the director of this special episode, Will Mackenzie, played Cornelius opposite Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!. Several of the series regulars including Ken Jenkins, Judy Reyes and Sarah Chalke also boast many theatre credits. Last week I had the pleasure of catching up with D'Abruzzo, who was thrilled to get the chance to appear on "Scrubs," which happens to be among her favorite television programs.
Question: How did "Scrubs" come about?
Question: Did you have to audition?
Question: How many songs did Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez write for the show? Debra actually wrote the lion's share of the lyrics. As the writer of the episode and I remember in an early draft she shared with me what she basically did was she had written her ideas, which she thought would be temp[orary] lyrics and a lot of them were temp lyrics, some of them changed. She worked very closely with Paul because Paul was in L.A. with her. And then the same thing happened with Jeff and Bobby, only it was mostly over the phone. But there was less immediate collaboration with lyrics. It was more [that] she gave them her stuff, they tweaked, and then some of it was hers, some of it was theirs. But I should definitely mention that Deb not only wrote the episode but [also] wrote [many of] the lyrics. Because as she said, there's not a lot of speaking outside of the songs in the show. There's about, I would say, 19 minutes of music. And the show is 23 minutes long, and it's going to be a super-sized episode.
Question: Had you been a fan of the show before you were cast?
Question: What was the rehearsal process like for "Scrubs"? Did they send you the songs before rehearsals began or did you learn them there?
Question: You recorded the vocals first, and then you lip-synched to them?
Question: What was the filming experience like? To have an opening number where there are five cameras in the parking lot and on a crane, and 50 dancers, was unprecedented and par for the course all at the same time. This is a show that I've seen have hundreds of extras charging a hospital and then body surfing Zach Braff. This is a show where I've seen, many times, people flying off the roof of that hospital. They have incredible stunt people on it. . . . I did my own little [stunt] when I faint in the park. I did my own fall, and [stunt man] Noon [Orsatti] taught me how to do it correctly because I wouldn't have known how to do it correctly! They're very careful, but this is a show that really does a lot of wonderfully outrageous things and likes continuing to challenge themselves. . . . . What that rehearsal time did for me was figure out exactly what my arc of reactions should be. Because the reacting can get really old very quick, and it depends on what you're reacting to. The challenge for me as an actor was [in] not speaking and not having lines but trying to get across a character, and not knowing when that camera was going to cut to me.
Question: Tell me a little bit about the character you played.
Question: Have you seen the final version?
Question: How did this compare for you with working in theatre? Would you like to do more television? Theatre, you obviously have much more time to hone and to perfect, almost to excess sometimes. [Laughs.] I think sometimes you get tired of rehearsing. But you have all those weeks of rehearsals and all those weeks of previews and trying it out in front of an audience, and that's something you don't have in TV. I always say, in TV you know you're doing something right when you can make the crew laugh! Because they've seen everything . . . they have seen it all and done it all, and so if you can make your crew laugh, that's wonderful. There are also the obvious differences of a smaller performance and a more focused performance in television as opposed to theatre, which has to be much bigger. But also, really, when you're in theatre, I think it's the one time where you are pretty much in total control of your performance from beginning to end. Whereas in television, if the camera's not on you, the camera's not on you. And so whatever you're doing as a performer is gone. So those are some major differences, but I loved working with that cast and crew. Those people could not have been more welcoming to me, and I don't think it hurt that I came in telling everybody what a fan I was of the show. When you work on a television show it was this way on "Sesame Street" and I'm sure it's this way for them you work in a vacuum, and you don't know who watches the show. . . . So I think they were just happy to have someone there who watched the show. But at the same time, because I had seen the show so much, it was so comfortable to be there, and everybody top-to-toe was kind as could be.
Question: Who are you planning to watch the episode with when it airs?
Question: So what's next for you? Do you have other projects in the works? This summer I did theAtrainplays, and so I'm hoping that if there's another installment of that, whenever that may be, I'd love to do another one of them, especially while not being in another show. I did that while I was in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and that was probably not smart. Atrainplays is a staggering amount of energy that's required to do it, and yet it was the most exciting thing I'd ever done. It was one of the few things that I can honestly say that after I did it, I was a better performer. After those 24 hours, I came out of it a better performer. I also recently guest-starred as a puppeteer on two episodes of "Jack's Big Music Show" on Noggin. I play a scatting cat named, appropriately, Scat Cat, in one episode, and in the other one, I play Gertrude the Groundhog opposite the one-and-only Jon Stewart that will air on Groundhog's Day, of course.
Question: Have you ever been back to see Avenue Q?
Question: Would you consider doing a non-musical?
Question: Hopefully "Scrubs" will bring you to a wider audience. ["Scrubs" with guest star Stephanie D'Abruzzo will air on NBC Jan. 18 at 9 PM ET; check local listings. Visit www.nbc.com/Scrubs for more information.]
FOR THE RECORD: Spring Awakening The Decca Broadway recording of Spring Awakening opens quietly with the haunting "Mama Who Bore Me," sung in simple, clear tones by Wendla (Michele). The mood, however, quickly shifts as the rest of the teenage girls offer a rock version of the same tune that says, "Mama who bore me./ Mama who gave me/ No way to handle things./ Who made me so sad." Composer Sheik has written a host of truly beautiful melodies, some that express the longing and questioning that infuse teenage life ("All That's Known," "Touch Me"), while others speak to the despair and rage that can come from living in such a repressed environment ("The B**** of Living," "Totally F*****"). The musical also tackles a host of topics not usually addressed in musical theatre: masturbation ("My Junk"), incest ("The Dark I Know Well") and suicide ("Left Behind") as well as teenage sex, abortion and homosexuality. If Sater's lyrics at times create a mood rather than advance the plot, he has crafted a new, often-poetic vocabulary that evocatively captures young love. In "The World of Your Body," the characters sing, "O, I'm gonna be wounded./ O, I'm gonna be your wound./ O, I'm gonna bruise you./ O, you're gonna be my bruise." And, in "My Junk," the cast sings, "I try to just kick it, but then, what can I do?/ We've all got our junk, and my junk is you." In addition to the aforementioned Groff and Michele, the musical also introduces another great voice, one belonging to Lauren Pritchard. As Ilse, Pritchard gets to wrap her rich, folk-flavored voice around the haunting "Blue Wind." It should be noted, however, that although Spring Awakening addresses difficult subjects, things are not entirely bleak. There are songs of hope and renewal, including the first-act finale, "I Believe," where Melchior and Wendla give in to their passions; and the stirring, uplifting finale, "The Song of Purple Summer," where the entire cast sings, "And all shall know the wonder,/ I will sing the song/ Of purple summer."
DIVA TIDBITS Tony Award winner Lillias White will be part of the cast of the Off-Broadway premiere of Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde's musical Blind Lemon Blues, which will be presented by the York Theatre Company in February. Performances of the production, which features more than 60 Blind Lemon Jefferson songs, will begin Feb. 15. The limited engagement will play through Feb. 25. Babatunde will head the cast as Blind Lemon Jefferson. He will be joined onstage by Tony winner White as well as Benita Arterberry, Cavin Yarborough, Alisa Peoples Yarbrough, Walter Fauntleroy and Liz Mikel with guitarist Sam Swank. Babatunde is also the show's director and choreographer and wrote musical arrangements with Cavin and Alisa Peoples Yarbrough. The York Theatre is located at St. Peter's at 54th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. Tickets, priced $35, are available by calling (212) 935-5820 or by visiting www.yorktheatre.org. Two-time Tony nominee Kelli O'Hara will be Eliza Doolittle opposite the Professor Henry Higgins of "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer in the New York Philharmonic's upcoming semi-staged concert performances of My Fair Lady, which will play Avery Fisher Hall March 7-10. Rob Fisher will conduct the famed orchestra, which will be situated onstage with the actors. The starry cast will also boast Charles Kimbrough as Colonel Hugh Pickering, Brian Dennehy as Alfred Doolittle, Marni Nixon as Mrs. Higgins and Tim Jerome as Professor Zoltan Karpathy. Tickets, priced $65-$245, may be purchased by calling (212) 875-5656 or by visiting www.nyphil.org. Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com. Send questions and comments to the Webmaster |
|
|