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Lea Salonga Hears the People Sing
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Mich
Mar 21, 2012, 9:45:35 PM3/21/12
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Source: http://www.theaterjones.com/features/20120319131444/2012-03-21/Lea-Salonga-Hears-the-People-Sing
Lea Salonga Hears the People Sing
The Tony-winning actress, who'll appear in Do You Hear the People Sing at American Airlines Center on Friday, on making the arts more accessible.
by Mark Lowry
published Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Dallas — On Friday, the Dallas POPS brings an unprecedented musical theater event to town: Do You Hear the People Sing, a tribute to Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer and lyricist for Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Pirate Queen, and many other musicals. Both men will be here (they're in town now, in fact). The show features Tony-winning musical theater stars Lea Salonga (who originated the role of Kim in Miss Saigon) and Brian Stokes Mitchell (Ragtime, Kiss Me, Kate), as well as Terrence Mann (the original Javert in Les Mis on Broadway) and Stephanie J. Block, who starred in The Pirate Queen, has been in Wicked on Broadway and on tour and is currently in the revival of Anything Goes on Broadway (she's taking a break for this event). It also features the Turtle Creek Chorale, other area choirs and the Dallas POPS Orchestra.
Salonga won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Miss Saigon, and has also appeared on Broadway in the revival of Flower Drum Song and Les Misérables. She spends much of her time at home with her five-year-old daughter in the suburbs of Manila, The Philippines, but also has an apartment in New York, and stays with family in Los Angeles when she's there. She can also do that in Texas, as she has an aunt in Lubbock and family in Austin. They'll all be coming to Dallas this week.
TheaterJones caught up with Salonga on phone while she was at her home in the Philippines, to talk about this project, getting work as an Asian actress, and the concept of arts events happening at sports stadiums, which is new for North Texas.
TheaterJones: You've done "Do You Hear the People Sing" a few times, including with the Indianapolis Symphony. Is it fun working with Alain and Claude-Michel again, and with this cast? And do you do parts of the show that aren't Miss Saigon?
Lea Salonga: It was a lot of fun, putting that whole thing together. Everybody was so much fun. It really feels collaborative as we're working on this. You really fight for what you feel is correct, and that feels different. It's nice. I do a little bit from Martin Guerre, a song called "In the Land of the Fathers," everybody's in it. Then I do some Les Mis.
Were you close to Alain and Claude-Michel when you first did Miss Saigon, and has that friendship been maintained?
We were not super-super close, because I always had the feeling of reverence toward them, because of who they were when I met them, and how young I was when I met them. Now I'm 41 and I'm different. I can be a smart-ass. Last year, Claude-Michel said "Lea I've never heard this kind of tone from you." I said "it's called growing up." He thought it was funny. We had a glass of wine together.
When you did Miss Saigon, could you chart your growth in the role from when you began to when you left?
I could feel the difference from when I left the show at 21 to when I went back in when I was 27 or 28. It was seven years of living life and doing more shows and falling in and out of love a few times, and traveling and experiencing a lot of different things. Doing it when you're 18, there will be some growth, and it became much more physically easy to do.
Emotionally, it felt more charged for me when I went back into the show. And a lot of things made more sense. "Oh, now I understand why this woman is like that…Now I understand why the world is that way." I was able to relate to it more. It became far more fun than it ever was. I held so much more pleasure for me when I was older. When I was 28, I was like "what was I worried about it back then?"
After Miss Saigon and winning a Tony for it, was it difficult to be cast on Broadway as an Asian actress? I know you also did the revival of Flower Drum Song, and also Les Misérables.
I don't know if it's broken a lot of barriers. I was cast as Eponine and Fantine [in Les Mis], and I wanted to prove to everyone that I got those roles on merit and not out of the novelty of casting non-traditionally. I wanted to sing Eponine, in my mind, better than anyone had sung it up to that point.
I probably worked harder on those roles than I did with Kim. With Kim, all I had to do was pretty much be me and open my mouth and sing. I was cast precisely because of how I looked. For Les Mes, I was an 19th century French women, uneducated, headed to certain death.
The second time Les Mis came to Broadway it was much more diverse, it was about the best voices and not about "oh, there were no black people or Indians [at the French Revolution]." It was about people who had the best voices. At the end of the day, that's all that's going to matter. Obviously there are shows where casting is very specific, and I understand that. In a show where the playing field is equal, such as Les Mis, then nontraditional casting can work.
But my ethnicity doesn't always translate to a multitude of roles on Broadway. I've been on Broadway four times and two of those roles were Asian. I totally understand the commerce side of it, and I get that producers want to cast someone based on their "pulling" power. It is what it is. It is a business at the end of the day.
I've been fortunate that I've been able to create a nice reputation for myself not just in musical theater but as a concert artist in America.
Texas, of course, is huge on sports. "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a musical theater event happening at the arena in Dallas where the NBA champions Dallas Mavericks, our our hockey team, the Dallas Stars, play. Then, in April, the Dallas Opera is simulcasting its production of The Magic Flute at Cowboys Stadium. That event is free and they've had more than 20,000 requests for tickets.
I think it says a lot about the audience, that there is such a clamor for seats for a Mozart opera which is hundreds of years old. It's not just about the big hair and football and sports, there's a level of sophistication and there's an actual desire to see it. How many jocks would actually volunteer and go "hey you wanna go to Cowboys Stadium and watch The Magic Flute?" I don't know how many people would think to do that, even if it's the most enticing seat in the house where you can wear your sweats and eat a hotdog or whatever. I guess there must be an audience for the material.
Do you think this is a trend to try and get new and different audiences at arts performances?
I think it's just a matter of finding creative ways for the perceived stuffiness of the art form to reach out to a broader audience. If you think about it, Shakespeare's plays were first written for the masses, they weren't written for kings and queens to be performed in the Royal Court. They were performed for executioners and butchers and barbers. If you think about how common a lot of the arts, in their days were, it's easy to see that they actually are accessible.
You can relax with a beer and turn off the thought. A lot of the classical arts were created for what was mass consumption back in the day.
Musical theater is incredibly accessible; it's like watching a movie but with living, breathing people performing in front of you. There's an excitement to live performance that's always wonderful for me, as a performer and as a member of the audience, when you see someone open up and spill their guts out in front of you. It's an amazing experience. Because it's live you never know what's going to happen. There's a certain degree of unpredictability. It's like sports. You don't know if that quarterback is going to make that Hail Mary pass or not. You just don't know.
It does seem like producers are trying to lighten up and find ways to make arts events more accessible. You've heard about "Tweet seats," and I'm noticing that a lot more theaters, small and large, are allowing food and drink in the theater. You can bring drinks into the musicals at Winspear Opera House here, for instance, where the Dallas Opera performs.
I think there are a lot of concessions being made. There's a musical on Broadway called Rock of Ages, which is so much better enjoyed with alcohol. You've got people going up and down the aisles taking drink orders, while the show's happening. I have taken advantage of that. I don't know how many amaretto sours or cosmos I've had watching that show. It's the '80s, a decade of excess, big hair and shoulder pads and alcohol, and the audience gets to partake in that. It's fun.
Lea Salonga Hears the People Sing
The Tony-winning actress, who'll appear in Do You Hear the People Sing at American Airlines Center on Friday, on making the arts more accessible.
by Mark Lowry
published Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Dallas — On Friday, the Dallas POPS brings an unprecedented musical theater event to town: Do You Hear the People Sing, a tribute to Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer and lyricist for Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Pirate Queen, and many other musicals. Both men will be here (they're in town now, in fact). The show features Tony-winning musical theater stars Lea Salonga (who originated the role of Kim in Miss Saigon) and Brian Stokes Mitchell (Ragtime, Kiss Me, Kate), as well as Terrence Mann (the original Javert in Les Mis on Broadway) and Stephanie J. Block, who starred in The Pirate Queen, has been in Wicked on Broadway and on tour and is currently in the revival of Anything Goes on Broadway (she's taking a break for this event). It also features the Turtle Creek Chorale, other area choirs and the Dallas POPS Orchestra.
Salonga won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Miss Saigon, and has also appeared on Broadway in the revival of Flower Drum Song and Les Misérables. She spends much of her time at home with her five-year-old daughter in the suburbs of Manila, The Philippines, but also has an apartment in New York, and stays with family in Los Angeles when she's there. She can also do that in Texas, as she has an aunt in Lubbock and family in Austin. They'll all be coming to Dallas this week.
TheaterJones caught up with Salonga on phone while she was at her home in the Philippines, to talk about this project, getting work as an Asian actress, and the concept of arts events happening at sports stadiums, which is new for North Texas.
TheaterJones: You've done "Do You Hear the People Sing" a few times, including with the Indianapolis Symphony. Is it fun working with Alain and Claude-Michel again, and with this cast? And do you do parts of the show that aren't Miss Saigon?
Lea Salonga: It was a lot of fun, putting that whole thing together. Everybody was so much fun. It really feels collaborative as we're working on this. You really fight for what you feel is correct, and that feels different. It's nice. I do a little bit from Martin Guerre, a song called "In the Land of the Fathers," everybody's in it. Then I do some Les Mis.
Were you close to Alain and Claude-Michel when you first did Miss Saigon, and has that friendship been maintained?
We were not super-super close, because I always had the feeling of reverence toward them, because of who they were when I met them, and how young I was when I met them. Now I'm 41 and I'm different. I can be a smart-ass. Last year, Claude-Michel said "Lea I've never heard this kind of tone from you." I said "it's called growing up." He thought it was funny. We had a glass of wine together.
When you did Miss Saigon, could you chart your growth in the role from when you began to when you left?
I could feel the difference from when I left the show at 21 to when I went back in when I was 27 or 28. It was seven years of living life and doing more shows and falling in and out of love a few times, and traveling and experiencing a lot of different things. Doing it when you're 18, there will be some growth, and it became much more physically easy to do.
Emotionally, it felt more charged for me when I went back into the show. And a lot of things made more sense. "Oh, now I understand why this woman is like that…Now I understand why the world is that way." I was able to relate to it more. It became far more fun than it ever was. I held so much more pleasure for me when I was older. When I was 28, I was like "what was I worried about it back then?"
After Miss Saigon and winning a Tony for it, was it difficult to be cast on Broadway as an Asian actress? I know you also did the revival of Flower Drum Song, and also Les Misérables.
I don't know if it's broken a lot of barriers. I was cast as Eponine and Fantine [in Les Mis], and I wanted to prove to everyone that I got those roles on merit and not out of the novelty of casting non-traditionally. I wanted to sing Eponine, in my mind, better than anyone had sung it up to that point.
I probably worked harder on those roles than I did with Kim. With Kim, all I had to do was pretty much be me and open my mouth and sing. I was cast precisely because of how I looked. For Les Mes, I was an 19th century French women, uneducated, headed to certain death.
The second time Les Mis came to Broadway it was much more diverse, it was about the best voices and not about "oh, there were no black people or Indians [at the French Revolution]." It was about people who had the best voices. At the end of the day, that's all that's going to matter. Obviously there are shows where casting is very specific, and I understand that. In a show where the playing field is equal, such as Les Mis, then nontraditional casting can work.
But my ethnicity doesn't always translate to a multitude of roles on Broadway. I've been on Broadway four times and two of those roles were Asian. I totally understand the commerce side of it, and I get that producers want to cast someone based on their "pulling" power. It is what it is. It is a business at the end of the day.
I've been fortunate that I've been able to create a nice reputation for myself not just in musical theater but as a concert artist in America.
Texas, of course, is huge on sports. "Do You Hear the People Sing" is a musical theater event happening at the arena in Dallas where the NBA champions Dallas Mavericks, our our hockey team, the Dallas Stars, play. Then, in April, the Dallas Opera is simulcasting its production of The Magic Flute at Cowboys Stadium. That event is free and they've had more than 20,000 requests for tickets.
I think it says a lot about the audience, that there is such a clamor for seats for a Mozart opera which is hundreds of years old. It's not just about the big hair and football and sports, there's a level of sophistication and there's an actual desire to see it. How many jocks would actually volunteer and go "hey you wanna go to Cowboys Stadium and watch The Magic Flute?" I don't know how many people would think to do that, even if it's the most enticing seat in the house where you can wear your sweats and eat a hotdog or whatever. I guess there must be an audience for the material.
Do you think this is a trend to try and get new and different audiences at arts performances?
I think it's just a matter of finding creative ways for the perceived stuffiness of the art form to reach out to a broader audience. If you think about it, Shakespeare's plays were first written for the masses, they weren't written for kings and queens to be performed in the Royal Court. They were performed for executioners and butchers and barbers. If you think about how common a lot of the arts, in their days were, it's easy to see that they actually are accessible.
You can relax with a beer and turn off the thought. A lot of the classical arts were created for what was mass consumption back in the day.
Musical theater is incredibly accessible; it's like watching a movie but with living, breathing people performing in front of you. There's an excitement to live performance that's always wonderful for me, as a performer and as a member of the audience, when you see someone open up and spill their guts out in front of you. It's an amazing experience. Because it's live you never know what's going to happen. There's a certain degree of unpredictability. It's like sports. You don't know if that quarterback is going to make that Hail Mary pass or not. You just don't know.
It does seem like producers are trying to lighten up and find ways to make arts events more accessible. You've heard about "Tweet seats," and I'm noticing that a lot more theaters, small and large, are allowing food and drink in the theater. You can bring drinks into the musicals at Winspear Opera House here, for instance, where the Dallas Opera performs.
I think there are a lot of concessions being made. There's a musical on Broadway called Rock of Ages, which is so much better enjoyed with alcohol. You've got people going up and down the aisles taking drink orders, while the show's happening. I have taken advantage of that. I don't know how many amaretto sours or cosmos I've had watching that show. It's the '80s, a decade of excess, big hair and shoulder pads and alcohol, and the audience gets to partake in that. It's fun.
Mich
Mar 22, 2012, 3:32:27 PM3/22/12
to
Do You Hear the People Sing comes to Dallas – Lea Salonga and Claude-Michel Schonberg Interviews
http://pearlsnapdiscount.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/do-you-hear-the-people-sing-comes-to-dallas-lea-salonga-and-claude-michel-schonberg-interviews/
**Please click the link above to visit the webpage. You'll find the article, photos, and videos of the interviews there. Enjoy! ~Mich~**
http://pearlsnapdiscount.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/do-you-hear-the-people-sing-comes-to-dallas-lea-salonga-and-claude-michel-schonberg-interviews/
**Please click the link above to visit the webpage. You'll find the article, photos, and videos of the interviews there. Enjoy! ~Mich~**
Mich
Apr 8, 2012, 8:07:33 PM4/8/12
to
Hello all!
Below you'll find the link to a website selling the souvenir "Do You Hear the People Sing" t-shirts from the one night only Dallas concert at the American Airlines Center.
http://www.americanairlinescenter.com/about-aacenter/merchandise_details.php?pid=16
"Do You Hear the People Sing T-Shirt
Do You Hear the People Sing at American
Airlines Center on Friday, March 23rd
made Broadway music history. Purchase a
piece of this historic event with a Do
You Hear the People Sing t-shirt.
Reduced Shipping to just a PENNY!"
Buy them while you still can.
~Mich~
Below you'll find the link to a website selling the souvenir "Do You Hear the People Sing" t-shirts from the one night only Dallas concert at the American Airlines Center.
http://www.americanairlinescenter.com/about-aacenter/merchandise_details.php?pid=16
"Do You Hear the People Sing T-Shirt
Do You Hear the People Sing at American
made Broadway music history. Purchase a
piece of this historic event with a Do
You Hear the People Sing t-shirt.
Reduced Shipping to just a PENNY!"
Buy them while you still can.
~Mich~
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