Loose Lips
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH
Having abandoned Westchester for sunny California last year, Faith Prince has finally made it back to the East Coast. She and her former Guys and Dolls co-star Tom Wopat are bringing their Over The Rainbow tour, which celebrates the music of Harold Arlen, to Hershey, Pennsylvania (February 11); The Tilles Center in Greenvale, New York (February 12); and the New Jersey State Theater in New Brunswick (February 13). “I feel like I’m back in school,” says Prince of the six-week tour. “I’ve never sung Arlen before, so I had to learn 15 songs in two weeks. Now I love singing his songs, like ‘A Sleeping Bee’ and ‘The Man That Got Away.’ The program is jazz-oriented, which is a very different format for me. I’ve never toured before — and, let me tell you, I would’ve routed this differently or at least asked more questions! But Tom and I get along so well that doing this was really a no-brainer.”
While it’s not part of the tour, Prince and Wopat will be performing on Monday night at Carnegie Hall in a star-studded concert titled Harold Arlen — A Centennial Celebration; the lineup also includes Ann Hampton Callaway, Maureen McGovern, Lea DeLaria, John Pizzarelli, and Jessica Molaskey. “It will be great to be onstage with so many of my friends,” says Prince, “and you never lose the thrill of playing Carnegie Hall. I know that Tom and I are duetting on ‘Let’s Fall In Love’ — and I’m singing ‘Lydia, The Tattooed Lady’ because I heard they needed some humor.”
Does she mind that she’ll be spending Valentine’s Day away from her husband, trumpeter Larry Lunetta? “We can take care of that when I get back home,” she says with a laugh. “Larry was going to do the tour with me but we realized that it was too hard for both of us to be away from our son, Henry. He’s in the fourth grade and he’s got way too much homework that he needs help with. Henry’s such a hoot, though. One night in San Francisco, he decided he wanted to come on stage with me, and after I said yes, he asked how I was going to set him up. I promise you: At age nine, I did not know about being set-up! Anway, he came on, did a joke and some yo-yo tricks, and he was great. He also has a nice voice — we harmonize sometimes — and he plays piano, but we told him that he can’t be in the business professionally until he’s 18.”
When Prince returns home, she’s got a lot on her plate, including picking out selections for a new album of Broadway standards to be done in a Big Band style and learning the role of Lorelei Lee for a concert presentation of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Lucy Lawless and The Seattle Men’s Chorus, May 13-15. “It’s not a role I ever thought of doing but it should be a lot of fun,” she remarks. And, before year’s end, she’ll start shooting for the second season of the Showtime series Huff. Prince so dazzled series creator Bob Lowry that he turned her one-episode guest shot into a recurring role. Now, her character, Kelly — a blowsy, 40+ salesgirl at Best Buy — is pregnant by the alcoholic, drug-doing Hollywood agent Russell Tupper (played by Oliver Platt). “When Bob told me that plot, I said to him, ‘You know, I’m not a spring chicken,’ ” Prince relates with a hearty laugh. “Kelly is such a fascinating character, and Bob really knows how to write for me better than anyone in television ever has. What’s so much fun is that the show changes from comedy to tragedy in a second. But I don’t let my son watch it; I don’t even let my mother watch it!”
LONG’S STORY
Jodi Long had many good reasons for taking on the role Katya, a liberal television talk show host, in the Roundabout’s production of Stephen Belber‘s new drama McReele — but one particular reason stood out. “I get to vent all my frustration about the Presidential election, and I couldn’t get it out in any other way,” she says. Politics plays a big part in the show, which focuses on a crusading journalist (played by Michael O’Keefe) who sees the death row inmate whom he helped free (played by Anthony Mackie) become a leading politician. “The play is full of issues that we’re confronted with everyday about the media and how they use spin and sound bites,” Long tells me. “I go insane when I watch FOX News. There is a lot of B.S. out there; people really have to start thinking about what they’re being fed by the media.”
Politics aside, Long’s other reasons for accepting the role include getting the chance to work with award-winning director Doug Hughes. “He really has a way of distilling the script to its essence,” she remarks, “which I think has to do with his parents” — the great actors Barnard Hughes and Helen Stenborg. And there’s one other big plus to the part: “I finally get the guy in the end,” she laughs. “Michael and I were just talking about how this doesn’t happen to us very often.”
Long has starred on the small screen in Miss Match and All-American Girl. Though she wouldn’t mind returning to television, her biggest wish is another crack at a Broadway musical. (She was one of the standouts of the recent revival of Flower Drum Song, in the role of Madame Liang.) In fact, she has a particular show in mind: “Someone recently suggested I should do Gypsy! It’s not that far-out an idea; my dad was in vaudeville and he knew plenty of Asians. Now all we need is someone to give us $12 million.”
OH, KAYE!
Mamma mia, Judy Kaye is having a busy year! Having recently won rave reviews for the York Theatre run of Souvenir, which will play the Berkshire Theatre Festival this summer and then possibly return to New York in a commercial engagement, Kaye is already working on two new projects. On February 16, she’ll team with old pal Jason Graae for Fats and Fields, an evening devoted to the work of Fats Waller and Dorothy Fields, at Merkin Hall. Then on March 4, she’ll begin a two-week run as the Old Lady in the New York City Opera production of Candide. There, she’ll be reunited with her On The Twentieth Century co-star (and fellow Tony Award winner) John Cullum, who’ll play Dr. Pangloss.
COLOR HER BROWN
It’s hard to believe that 16 years have passed since Ruth Brown gave her Tony Award-winning performance in the musical revue Black and Blue. In fact, it seems like time hasn’t passed at all when you listen to this powerhouse vocalist at Le Jazz Au Bar, where she’s reigning through February 27. Among the highlights of the amazingly youthful 77-year-old singer’s new show are her brilliant rendition of her show-stopping number from that Black and Blue, “If I Can’t Sell It”; the 1942 Dinah Washington hit “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman”; and a soul-stirring version of “God Bless the Child,” sung in honor of the late great Billie Holliday, who would have turned 90 this year.
THEY GET AROUND
Were Raúl Esparza, Scott Wittman, Marc Shaiman, and Trading Spaces designer Doug Wilson having a ball at the February 2 performance of Good Vibrations? I don’t know, but I do know that Barbara Cook and Harvey Evans definitely enjoyed Jane Krakowski‘s February 1 American Songbook show at the Allen Room. On February 4, Dessa Rose co-stars LaChanze and Norm Lewis plus Julia Murney, Amanda Green, Paul Castree, Seth Rudetsky, André De Shields, and jazz great Andy Bey all heartily applauded Darius de Haas‘s concert at the same venue. And on February 8, cabaret faves Tom Andersen, Barbara Brussell, Heather MacRae, and Lumiri Tubo led the cheers for KT Sullivan and Mark Nadler at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, where the duo is celebrating the centennial of Jule Styne through February 27.
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[To contact Brian Scott Lipton directly, e-mail him at BSL@theatermania.com.]
