Theater News

Loose Lips

Debra Monk moves to Chicago and beyond, while Miracle Brothers Tyler Maynard and Clifton Oliver put their best feet forward.

Debra Monk
(Photo © Michael Portantiere)
Debra Monk
(Photo © Michael Portantiere)

MAMA MONK

Seeing the original Broadway production of Chicago was an eye-opening experience for young Debra Monk, fresh off the bus from Ohio. “Not only was it my first Broadway musical, but I was really shocked to see those women onstage in their underwear,” recalls the Tony Award winning star. “In fact, I think it was the first time I had ever seen a black garter belt, or any kind of garter belt other than my mother’s white, stretchy one. I just sat there with my mouth open.”

Little did she know that, 30 years later, she’d be performing in Chicago — although not in her underwear — as the lascivious, tart-tongued Mama Morton. One of the main reasons she took the role is the opportunity to work with old pals and with some other people whom she has long admired. Says Monk, “I thought Brooke Shields [who just took over as Roxie Hart] was so funny in Suddenly Susan, and she has this reputation for being one of the best people to work with. Then, after she leaves, I get to work again with Charlotte D’Amboise, who is one of my closest friends. Right now, I’m thrilled to share the stage with Christopher McDonald, who is such a wonderful actor — and then Huey Lewis comes in to play Billy in November. I am such a huge fan of his; I use his album Sports to work out with.”

Audiences around the country will be seeing plenty of Monk on both stage and screen in the coming year. She and Andrea Martin are the featured “little old lady investors” in the film version of The Producers, due out in December. “It was too much fun, even with being in the make-up chair for two hours,” Monk tells me. “The scene I’m in is such a valentine to New York; we filmed it on Fifth Avenue, in Central Park, and in Shubert Alley. But I didn’t get to make out with Nathan Lane. They decided to let a real 85-year-old lady do that.”

Meanwhile, Monk has two very exciting stage projects on the horizon: “I’ve been working with James Lapine on this show about Mrs. Miller. She was this woman in the 1970s who recorded all these pop songs in this sort of churchy, warbly voice, and we may get that up in the spring. And in May, I’m doing Curtains at the Ahmanson in L.A. with David Hyde-Pierce. It’s a musical murder mystery with songs by Kander and Ebb. David plays the detective, and he’s such a wonderful guy — so funny and so moving. I play Carmen, a tough-as-nails producer. I am so happy to work for [Centre Theater Group artistic director] Michael Ritchie; I would really do anything for him.” Even live in L.A.? “I don’t mind living there when I’m working,” says Monk, “but if I’m unemployed, I definitely want to be in New York.”

NOT-SO-SIMPLE SIMON
Summer is over, which means that it’s time to give up those trashy “beach books” and move on to some more substantial reading. How about John Simon on Theater: Criticism 1974-2003, which begins with Simon’s review of the Chelsea Theater Center revival of Candide and ends with his comments on the National Actors Theater production of The Persians? If you’re looking for a trilogy that makes Tolkien look like a day at the beach, you’re in luck: Applause Books is simultaneously issuing John Simon on Film: Criticism 1982-2001 and John Simon on Music: 1982-2001. Together, these tomes total nearly 2,000 pages, which should you keep occupied until next summer.

Tyler Maynard and Clifton Oliver in Miracle Brothers
(Photo © Carol Rosegg)
Tyler Maynard and Clifton Oliver in Miracle Brothers
(Photo © Carol Rosegg)

MIRACLE WORKERS

Being cast as the title characters in Kirsten Childs‘ new musical Miracle Brothers was a learning experience for leads Tyler Maynard and Clifton Oliver. While the pair end up as human half-brothers in 18th-century Brazil, they start the show as — get this — dolphins. “At the beginning of rehearsals, we had a few days of ‘dolphin workshop’ because it really is a whole new vocabulary for them,” says the show’s choreographer, Mark Dendy. “We also watched this amazing IMAX film, Dolphins to get them into character. I even thought about taking them to the New York Aquarium, where there are these dolphin-like whales, but you can’t really look at them from above.”

Dendy was so committed to the project that he even considered changing his summer vacation plans to observe these sublime sea creatures. “I was going to go to the Bahamas,” he says, “which is only one of two places in the world where you can swim with wild dolphins; the other is in Japan. But I was nervous about all the tropical storms in the Caribbean, so I went to Maine, where I did a little whale watching instead.”

Oliver and Maynard also needed to learn capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, since it plays a significant part in the show’s plot. Fortunately, Dendy’s old friend, Jelon Vieira, a 52-year-old Brazilian native and one of the world’s foremost capoeira experts, was around to share his knowledge with the guys. “The movement itself is like dance but it was designed to camouflage the fact that you can kill someone with it,” Williams says. “For slaves in Africa, their hands and feet were the only weapons they could carry. It’s not a weapon to be misused; its real purpose is to give oneself discipline and control. It’s meant to be a defense form, not an attack form, but it depends on the teacher. It’s like training a Rotweiller; you can make it sweet and gentle, or you can make it fierce and scary.”

LADIES OF THE EVENING

One won’t have to try to remember this kind of September, for it will be one unforgettable month thanks to a slew of lovely ladies. Donna McKechnie and Liz Callaway will strut their stuff in solo concerts at the Provincetown Theater on September 10 and 17, respectively; the one-and-only Elaine Stritch is set to make her long-awaited cabaret debut on September 10 at the Café Carlyle; the divine Andrea Marcovicci will serve up her new show just love, September 14-17 at L.A.’s Gardenia Room; and the great cabaret singer and songwriter Amanda McBroom will bring her new theater piece A Woman of Will to the Daryl Roth Theater on September 15.

As the month continues, B.J. Crosby, Mary Bond Davis, Sutton Foster, Julia Murney, Christiane Noll, Alice Playten, Emily Skinner, Mary Testa, and Barbara Walsh will sing their siren songs — unamplified! — at Broadway Unplugged at The Town Hall on September 19. Moving forward, multi-award winner Rita Moreno will light up the Empire Plush Room in San Francisco on September 20; the wonderful Christine Andreas will kick off the cabaret series at Philadelphia’s Prince Music Theatre on September 21; and the fine young vocalist Maude Maggart, after finishing up her West Coast stint at the Gardenia on September 10, will alight at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room for two weeks, starting September 27.