Phylicia Rashad will soon be going from William to Williams. She’s currently playing the evil queen in Lincoln Center’s production of William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, and in February, she’ll co-star as Big Mama in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by her sister, Debbie Allen. But right now, the Tony Award-winning actress — who has also recreated her award-winning performance in A Raisin in the Sun for the ABC-TV version airing on February 25 — is focusing on the joys of the holiday season.
“I have so many holiday memories, and they’re all beautiful,” she says. “There was always a wonderful dinner at my grandmother’s house, and at midnight we’d go to a large church. I loved the music. Even now, I love hearing a choir. And once, I was a shepherd in a pageant, and my mother wrapped me in a large blue shawl.”
Meanwhile, Rashad plans to celebrate both Christmas and New Year’s Eve this year “quietly.” And she isn’t the least concerned with getting presents. “It’s gotten a little weird lately, with people lining up at midnight to wait for stores to open at four in the morning,” she says. “I tell my children: ‘You don’t have to do that. I don’t need a thing.'”
It’s been quite a year for Michael Longoria, who recently took over the role of Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys full-time, having first originated the role of Joe Pesci then understudying John Lloyd Young as Valli and doing the role at matinees. “It’s been quite a journey to keep stepping up in the show and I’ve had a good time doing it,” he says.
Longoria, who was born in Los Angeles, definitely has a favorite holiday memory. “When I was seven or eight, my parents, two brothers, and I would go to my Grandma Juanita’s,” he recalls. “She served great homemade tamales. We were allowed to open one present at midnight, and we’d poke holes in the wrapping paper, trying to pick which gift to choose.”
This Christmas, Longoria plans to reintroduce at least part of that tradition. “I’m going to get together with my friends, and I’m trying to get the recipe for those tamales, so I can introduce them to the New York scene.” He’ll also spend New Year’s Eve with his friends, but he won’t be having any champagne at midnight. “I’m inviting everyone over for some ginger ale. I can’t drink alcohol, because it’s bad for my singing.”
The holidays are definitely a family affair for Broadway and cabaret star Karen Mason, who will be performing her show Christmas in the City at Symphony Space on Saturday December 22, with her good friends Liz Callaway, Gregg Edelman, and the Accidentals. Included in the show will be one of her husband, Paul Rolnick’s, songs: “It Will Be Christmas Before You Know It.”
“My favorite Christmas is the one when Paul proposed to me,” she recalls. “He’s Jewish and was proposing to a Catholic girl. Plus, he had never celebrated Christmas, and it was the first time I was celebrating with someone I was in love with. We were at his place and I was opening presents. One was a bagel cutter; I tried to not show my disappointment. Then I opened the last gift — and that was the ring! I went full tilt that year. I put up a tree and lights all over the place.”
On December 24, Karen and Paul are flying to Chicago to spend time with her family. “Paul likes them very much — he calls us ‘the Loud Masons’ — and they like him,” she says. “Unfortunately, my dad died two years ago, following my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. It’s very tough on my mom. But then you watch my little nephew, who’s four. I feel very lucky to have a family. It’s going to be a lovely time. And this New Year’s Eve, I’m not working, so I know we’ll have a great time.”
Shuler Hensley has already won one Tony for playing a monster, the evil Jud Fry in the 2002 revival of Oklahoma!, and he could win a second one as the monster who’s brought to life in the hit musical Young Frankenstein. But underneath that green mask is one of the nicest guys on Broadway.
So it’s not surprising that the Georgia native has particularly fond memories of the season. “Every Christmas morning, my brother and sister and I would line up behind the door to the living room. My dad would turn on his old floodlight from his camera, and when we saw the light, we could go in and get our gifts,” he says. “Cut to two years ago. I was behind the same door with the same floodlight, and turning it on for my father, brother, sister, and their families.”
This year, he’ll celebrate Christmas with his wife Paula, and their seven-year-old daughter Skyler and three-year-old son, Grayson. “They believe in Santa Claus and send him e-mails,” he notes. Meanwhile, on New Year’s Eve, Hensley and his wife “will go out somewhere and cause a little mischief.”
It’s taken a while, but Jimmi Simpson is finally a Broadway star. He almost made his Broadway bow in the 2000 revival of The Rainmaker, but withdrew during previews “with the director’s blessing” to accept a lead role in the film Loser. Conversely, he withdrew from a second lead in the film Live Free, Die Hard, “after two days into shooting,” because a production delay created a conflict with the Old Globe premiere of Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention, in which he now stars on Broadway as Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television.
Born in Hackettstown, New Jersey, Simpson, who is the youngest of the three sons, fondly remembers holidays during his childhood, “I’d go sledding on the big hill in the neighborhood with my brothers.” This year, he’ll celebrate “with my wife, [actress Melanie Linsky, whom he wed in April] who’s flying in from her native New Zealand. Then we’ll drive to New Jersey to see my mother.”
On New Year’s Eve, Simpson plans on “popping open some champagne with my wife and some loved ones, and watch my well-worn DVD of Caddyshack.”
