Loose Lips

If you think Sam Harris’ voice sounds a bit different on some cuts of his new CD, Free, which is being officially released on July 22, it’s not just that the popular actor-singer is going for more of a pop-rock sound than before. It’s that some of the vocals were recorded after just a few hours of sleep, courtesy of Harris’ three-month-old son Cooper Atticus Harris Jacobson. “I was always such a disciplinarian in my work that on a day I would sing final vocals, I would sleep late, eat properly, do all the right things — but now I just went ahead and did the songs, no matter what,” he says. “And I found that I’ve been overprotecting myself all these years.”

Harris’ many fans will have their chance to hear these tunes live when the singer appears as part of Broadway at Birdland, July 30-August 2. “It’s a little terrifying to do them live for the first time in New York, but since I wrote them, I probably know the lyrics. But I might use a music stand — not for the lyrics — but to hide my baby weight,” he says. Among the songs he’s most proud of writing are the politically-themed “Change Is on the Way,” and “War on War,” and, especially, “He Is,” a male-to-male love song. “A lot of people told me not to do those songs on the CD, and other people said I was brave to do them, but I think it would be cowardly not to do them. With ‘He Is,” I hope some 25-year-old will hear it, and it will make a difference in his life. Or with ‘Change Is on the Way,’ which I wrote for the Obama campaign, it will hopefully get someone to get out and vote. I also find sometimes by writing and singing these types of songs, it gets me to practice what I preach, which I don’t always do.”

The CD only includes two covers: John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me (If You Don’t),” a searing ballad made famous by Bonnie Raitt. “We did that one in just one take — though we added a cello later — probably because I’ve performed it on stage so many times. One of the reasons I included it on the CD is that so many people have asked me to record it, and it’s one of the few songs I never get tired of singing. It’s such a great lyric — like a little monologue — and I always can find new things in it,” he notes. “But it also really fits into the concept of ‘Free,’ because freedom is not always a good thing. It can mean feeling alone or unattached.”

While Harris has far from abandoned the idea of returning to Broadway — he’d particularly like to return in a play — he’s currently in negotiations to host a daily talk show. “It’s really the exact job I want right now; I don’t have to travel, I can spend time with Cooper, and I can boss people around,” he laughs. “Plus, with this economy, as much as we need live entertainment, a lot of people are just going to find it easier to stay home and watch TV.”

THEME AND VARIATIONS
Mary Testa hasn’t spent much time this month in Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater, where she plays Xanadu‘s evil muse Melponeme — but for good reasons. The versatile actress has just finished filming a role in Four Single Fathers and has now headed up to Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to prepare for Sleepless Varations, her music-theater piece that will play there July 31-August 3. “I’ve been working on this show for a really long time — I did a concert version at Joe’s Pub in 2006 — but it’s always evolving,” she says. “It’s about the kind of thoughts you have when you can’t sleep — lost loves, regrets, what ifs. I think most people don’t think about happy things when they can’t sleep; instead, you go to places you wouldn’t normally go in the middle of the day.”

She and her collaborator (and old friend) Michael Starobin are committed to a very specific format for the work. “It’s not the kind of show where we want people to applaud after every number,” she says. “But the most important thing is that we’re trying to use the work of different songwriters to create this character’s story. One of the things that I really like is linking very different music to see how one writer’s style goes into another; for example, Bjork’s ‘Unraveled’ fits very well into Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘If I Loved You.’ I’m using the work of a lot of pop/art composers, like Ricky Ian Gordon, Arnold Weinstein and William Bolcom, and Michael John LaChiusa, who wrote me a ‘what if’ song in just two days. And I’m really excited to include two songs from my [late] friend Rusty Magee that no one has ever heard before.”

Naturally, Testa’s hoping the show will have a life after Barrington — especially in New York. “I really think it belongs in a theater rather than a cabaret,” she says. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a Broadway-type show, but I’d love to perform it in an Off-Broadway theater like the Vineyard.”

Until then, she’s more than happy to return to Xanadu, in which she’ll be paired for a few weeks with Whoopi Goldberg. “It’s really wonderful to be in a show that delights so many people; they’re just exhilarated when they leave the theater. Some nights I’m just bowled over by the laughter,” she says. “So to all those naysayers who said we wouldn’t last, all I can say is ‘nyah-nyah-na-nyah.'”

COURT AND SPARK

In the new Off-Broadway comedy Flamingo Court, veteran star Anita Gillette gets to play three very different Floridians: Angelina, a sixty-something former New Yorker lying to a possible beau (played by Jamie Farr) about still being married; Clara, a seventy-something woman about to be confined to a nursing home by her loving husband; and Chi Chi La Boom, an “old white hooker” who’s sent to service an octogenarian on his birthday. “It’s basically sketch comedy, and my job is to go for the laughs. And I know people will laugh, because there are a lot of funny lines,” she says. “But even when you’re doing this sort of comedy, you have to find the truth of each character. I want to make each of these women a real person for the audience.”

While none of the women are singers, Gillette, whose Broadway credits include the musicals Mr. President, Cabaret, and They’re Playing Our Song, will get to show off her still-strong voice at the show’s end when the cast — and audience — comes together for a song called “Old Is In.” “The funny thing is that at some point in my career I had to make producers forget that I sang in order to be a steadily working actress, and now I have to remind everyone I can sing,” she says. “So I’m hoping to do a cabaret act soon; in fact, my friend Penny Fuller and I — we always get mistaken for each other — may do one together if our schedules work out.”

Gillette, who has appeared on such television series as The War at Home, is also hoping to return to the small screen soon. She would especially like another shot at Margaret Lemon — the mother of Tina Fey’s character on 30 Rock, in which she appeared last season. “Tina is just the greatest person to work with, as is that whole cast, and I would love it if she wrote me back in,” says Gillette. “At this point, I’d also be happy to be a regular on a series, because I’d just love to have the visibility.”

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
The ultratopical musical revue Political Idol returns to Triad for a four-week run on July 23; also that night, the film Horrible Child, starring Mike Daisey and T. Ryder Smith will be screened at Williamsburg’s Brick Theater. Richard Poe will headline a special stage version of Farenheit 451 as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn festival on July 24. Cabaret favorites David Gurland and Brian Farley will celebrate the songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein on July 24 and 31 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, while on July 25 Steve Ross, Daryl Sherman, and Ronny Whyte will be among the jazz stars at the same club paying tribute to fellow singer Barbara Lea. Red Bull Theatre will present a workshop performance of the play Don’t Fuck With Love at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, July 26-27. Broadway star Celia Keenan-Bolger will perform with siblings Andrew and Maggie Keenan-Bolger on July 28 at Ars Nova. Finally, the hilarious Jason Graae will present his acclaimed show Graae’s Anatomy at the Caramoor Music Festival in Katonah, New York on July 30-31.

ROOMS SERVICE
One would think that Doug Kreeger is playing the alter-ego of composer-lyricist Paul Scott Goodman in his autobiographical, two-character musical Rooms, which begins a six-week run at Virginia’s MetroStage on July 24 before moving to Rochester’s Geva Stage on September 19. But one would be wrong. “Paul is really Monica, who’s being played by the crazy-talented Natascia Diaz, and my character of Ian, who’s this hard-drinking rocker, is really based on a friend of Paul’s,” he says. “But I’m not really worried about how my Ian lines up with history; I’m actually basing him on a tour driver I met when I once visited Scotland; this Scotch-drinking, craggy sort of guy.”

The show is set in the 1970s and 1980s, which has afforded Kreeger the opportunity to do some interesting research. “I found this great copy of Spin magazine that outlined what the New York music scene was like in 1977, as well as this amazing interview with Iggy Pop about people who didn’t get the punk scene. Plus, I’ve been listening to a lot more of groups like The Clash and The Sex Pistols,” he says. “I’ve also had to learn to play the guitar better — I learned how to play three Bob Dylan songs for The Times They Are A-Changin’ but that was about it. And of course, I’m working on my Scottish accent. It’s kind of a marathon for an actor.”

Adding to the challenge, Kreeger was just recently in a different part of Europe — stagewise anyway — when he co-starred in the Signature Theater’s production of The Visit. “I wasn’t originally going to try out for the show; I was just the reader for two days of auditions,” he says. “And I didn’t quite get it at first; like I didn’t realize that two of the characters were really eunuchs. But then they asked me to audition, and I have to say when John Kander started playing the piano for me, it really blew my mind.
And to get to do a show with such heightened emotions in an intimate space like the Signature — to hear the audience gasping and breathing — was amazing. Meanwhile, we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that it comes to New York.”