December 2003 Archives

Jim Dale is jumping for joy. Literally. He rushes from the single digit temperatures and Artic winds along 34th Street into the warmth of his Theater at Madison Square Garden dressing room and shakes himself down. It may be downright frigid outside, but Dale is filled with holiday warmth and having a Dickens of a time. Even if he is playing that bah-humbug of a scoundrel Scrooge in the musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

"Can you believe how popular this show is?" he asks. He's just been told by the company manager that in spite of the [December 5] blizzard the show is sold out and the house is full.

ACC, in addition to being an earful [favorites are "A Place Called Home" and "Nothing To Do with Me"], is quite an eye full. The Victorian-era costumes are elegant and colorful and must have cost a fortune. But the real deal is Tony Walton's 350' set of a very picturesque London. It must be the biggest set ever assembled, and, like an Advent calendar, elements open to reveal scenes within scenes.

If the advertising is correct and this is the 10th and final year for ACC by Alan Menken, Lynn Ahrens with a book by Ahrens and the late Ockrent [who also was the original director], Dale will, on December 27, be the last of a list of impressive Scrooges that have included Tony Randall, Roger Daltrey, Frank Langella and Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham.

Dale, however, is the first Sir to play the role. "I'm not a sir!" he corrects, after being honored in November by Queen Elizabeth. "It's an M.B.E. [Member of the Order of the British Empire]. I was saluted by Her Majesty for being a member of the British Empire! You don't have to bow or kiss my ring - unless you wish to. That's your prerogative. It was quite a wonderful thrill. Now I can put those initials on my note paper, calling cards, even on rolls of my toilet tissue. You know, Her Majesty is quite considerate. She not only sent photos but also a video! That should be memorable, because I made the Queen laugh - out loud."

He quickly adds, "Seriously, to be among the nearly one thousand chosen by Her Majesty from every nationality throughout the world, is, indeed, a great honor."
The line of those before the Queen receiving knighthoods and titles was about 200, "so the norm for each individual is ten seconds. Of course, if she really likes you, you get about twelve seconds."

If not exactly old friends, Dale and Her Majesty are well acquainted since Dale appeared before her and met her after a [1973] Royal Command Performance [when he was starring with Millicent Martin on the West End in Sir Cameron Macintosh's first musical production, The Card].

"Even though we'd met," says Dale, "you do have to wait to be spoken to, and she asked, ëWhat have you been promoting in the America?' I told her about creating all the voices for the Harry Potter audio books. She asked, ëHow many voices do you do?' And I told her one hundred and thirty-four and she let out a great roar of laughter. My son Toby was in the audience and I could her him tell my son Adam that I made the Queen laugh."

The Queen didn't say, but she probably also knows Dale from his appearances in the long popular Carry OnÖ movie series as well as his stage roles, which most recently included Fagin in a revival of Oliver!

It's been quite a year for Dale. Not only was he Drama Desk-nominated for his performance in the hit Off Broadway revival of Comedians, but he's just been nominated for a Grammy Award, in the Best Children's Audio Book category, for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is his third Grammy nomination. Dale won a 2000 Grammy in that category for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Dale, in addition to being a multiple Tony and Drama Desk-nominee has also been nominated in an Academy Awards category one might not associate him with: Best Song, for his title tune Georgy Girl. A prolific tunesmith, Dale's written hundreds of songs.

Scrooge in ACC is a good fit for Dale. "I'm bringing to the character what Dickens would have wanted had he musicalized it - someone who's been brought up in the tradition of the English music halls, which would not only include musical theater but also pantomine. This is, after all, A Christmas Carol, The Musical, and that implies that you have to present it in a different way."

That "way" allowed Tony-winning choreographer/director Susan Stroman [who was married to Ockrent] the leeway to compete, in a manner of speaking, with the great Christmas prize, the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes. In ACC, there are the "Carolettes," not quite the long line of leggy dancers as Uptown but they are an impressive ten tappers and singers.

Dale says he does not play Scrooge as a clown but as a serious character. "Going with Dickens' own words about Scrooge - ësteaming, scraping, scheming, cold as ice inside.' When he sings: ëPeople wanting this/People wanting that/Spreading bloody cheer/Plucking at your sleeve/Holding out the hand/Singing in your ear/Well, you can take Christmas and stuff it with bread,' you must make the audience believe that he a real bah-humbug. You go through that negative thread in order to realistically make him melt for the finale - forever changed by revelations by the various ghosts of Christmas into a loving human being."

Except for 30 seconds, Dale's onstage the entire 90 minutes. "With two, three and four shows a day, I'm blessed to be appearing with a fantastic company. They look after me and I look after them. They're a jolly good bunch! And we all better be good and ready. We have five thousand folks to please at every performance. [Tickets are $35-$99.]

Dale almost didn't make the Sunday, December 7, performances. Earlier, he fell on a metal setpiece and, it was revealed that he had a hairline fracture on one of the ribs. Until about five minutes before the curtain, he wasn't certain he could go on and sing. But, trouper that he is, he carried on.

Dale began training for his orbit at age nine, studying tap, ballet, acrobatics and martial arts. In his early teens, he was already a veteran of amateur shows. After service in the Royal Air Force, where he entertained troops, he became a successful pop singer. In his 20s, he was hosting the top British TV rock ën roll show. The legendary George Martin of Beatles fame took him on to produce his records. In 1966, Dale was "quite taken by surprise" when he was invited to do Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Festival.

Four years later, at the personal request of Laurence Olivier, he joined the British National Theatre and played leads in a host of classics. From there, he went to the Young Vic, where he first played the title role in Scapino, which he co-adapted with Frank Dunlop. That led to movies and the West End and, in 1974, to Broadway where Scapino became one of the season's biggest hits.

It's been non-stop movies, TV and stage roles here and over there since. Dale's received his share of theatrical accolades: 1975 Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for Scapino; 1989 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Actor in a Musical, Barnum; 1985 Tony nomination for Best Actor and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, Joe Egg; 1995 Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Best Actor, Travels with My Aunt; and a 1997 Tony nomination for Best Actor, Musical, the Candide revival.

Dale's been through it all. "I've always said I'd rather stay out of work than do crap. Unfortunately, that's often been the case. I've been sent up for a lot of much crap and I won't touch it with a ten foot pole. It won't bring me any good. I'd like those kind folks who've followed me for years and years wherever I've gone to always be proud."

He does admit there was one job he was less than pleased with, the Hal Prince-directed Candide revival. "Basically, I wasn't being me but being asked to fill someone else's shoes. That was frustrating."

He says he can't look back on anything he's done and say it wasn't quality. "That's why I chose what I did and surrounded myself with the best people. And it couldn't get any better than it was with Comedians [which also starred Raul Esparza]."

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Karen Ziemba is known on Broadway for her versatility in tripping the light fantastic. A sort of quintuple threat, she's adept at singing - what pipes! - acting, slapstick comedy, drama and dance. Then, there's that infectious smile. Ziemba's been doing "the show biz thing - live theater, musical theater, dancing, singing," as she puts it, a long time. So never gonna dance are the least likely words you expect to be associated with her.

And yet here she is co-starring in Never Gonna Dance.

The musical is based on the 1936 Astaire-Rogers film Swing Time, with music by Jerome Kern [Show Boat, Very Good Eddie], which, in pre-production was titled Never Gonna Dance. It was re-titled to take advantage of the swing craze sweeping the nation. The film was the fifth teaming of A&R, in what many consider their best starrer.

The principle writer was playwright/producer Howard Lindsay. Set against a New York backdrop, it tells the story of Lucky [Noah Racey, late of Thoroughly Modern Millie, where he was assistant choreographer; Follies], a vaudeville hoofer with a lucky quarter who, to prove he's worthy of his fiancÈe, makes a bet with her anti-show business dad that he'll earn $25,000 in 30 days by any means - except dancing. He keeps repeating the mantra, Never gonna dance, Never gonna dance. But, no sooner than he arrives, the rhythms of New York - "the beat of the subway, the clink of the sidewalks" -- permeate him and Ö well, you know.

In a series of convoluted happenings, he meets dance instructor Penny [Nancy Lemenager, late of Kiss Me, Kate]. Love's in the air and strikes Mabel, the Swing Time Studio pianist -- played by Ziemba - a wiseacre "who," as she points out, "has been around the block a few times." An off-kelter romance develops between her and a "slightly older" Wall Street broker decked by the Depression [a part invented for the show and hilariously played by classical actor Peter Gerety (also, Fu**ing)].

For Lucky and Penny, the Astaire-Rogers prototypes in the lavish musical, their dancing runs the gamut from ballroom to tap to jazz. It's the replications of those A&R floating-on-air routines that soar. "Noah Racey and Nancy Lemenager are amazing," notes Ziemba. "They can do anything!"

Though maintaining the famed Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields songs: "A Fine Romance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Pick Yourself Up" and "Never Gonna Dance,"*, NGD interpolates music by the composer and lyricists such as Hammerstein and Harbach ["Who"; Sunny], Mercer ["Dearly Beloved" and "I'm Old-Fashioned"; the film You Were Never Lovelier] and Hammerstein, Fields and McHugh ["I Won't Dance"; the film Roberta]. Also interpolated is the classic Kern/Fields "I Got Love," from a long-forgotten 1936 movie, I Dream Too Much, which had an interesting starring duo: Lily Pons and Henry Fonda!

As much as director Michael Greif, best known for Rent, seemed an odd choice to direct an old-fashioned musical comedy with cornball wisecracks and elegant choreography, you might say that Jeffrey Hatcher, who adapted the book, was, too -- given his work [Three Viewings, Scotland Road, Sockdology]. Even with some changes in plot device and names, he pretty well follows the film plot.

And talk about the unexpected, in NGD Ziemba doesn't get to do the knock-about dancing she did non-stop for about a half hour in Contact. In fact, she's in only three numbers.

"The story doesn't evolve around Mabel," explains Ziemba. "She's sort of Penny's older ësister.' She gives her advice about love and life. She's responsible for bringing Lucky and Penny together. Mabel's the type who's always ready with a comeback, and makes the joke before other have the chance
to."

She drew on the film Mabel, Helen Broderick [mother of actor Broderick Crawford] for inspiration. Broderick starred with Astaire in the stage production of The Band Wagon and had a lucrative film career from 1924-1946 playing "dames" [Top Hat, Rage of Paris, Naughty But Nice, No, No, Nanette]. "Other role models, she says, were Rosalind Russell and Eve Arden, two actresses who were quick with the quips and snappy dialogue who were among the women Ziemba admired growing up, sitting through countless hours of movies.

And, boy, can this gal foxtrot - and shimmy. Ziemba really gets to break out in "Shimmy with Me," a show-stopper where she teaches a dance class how to shake their booties - or chasses - to the black-influenced "jive" rhythms of the ë20s dance, which Mae West later took from the minstrel shows into the mainstream.

"It was a time when jazz-age people were much more open with their movements and getting a little looser," explains Ziemba. "The shimmy was able to be enjoyed and executed to the fullest when women started taking off their corsets and girdles. I really get to be a red-hot mama! It's a blast, and we have a good time." The number is from the revue The Cabaret Girl. Today, it's hard to imagine that Kern and P.G. Wodehouse, who created the Jeeves books, could get a little down and dirty, but, says Ziemba, "it came from a time when Kern and composers like Irving Berlin were writing rags."

[Speaking of loose, NGD has a sensational scene-stealer: rubbery Peter Bartlett, who plays dance studio owner Pangborn. This may be Hatcher's inside joke, but cinema buffs will immediately get the homage to Franklin Pangborn -- imagine a flamboyant Jack Benny - or just Benny's onstage persona]. He specialized in "camp" roles from 1926-1957 in over 200 films. Most memorable: Hollywood Halfbacks, Rough House Rhythm, Flying Down to Rio, Strictly Dynamite, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Never Give A Sucked An Even Break, George Washington Slept Here.]

There are a couple of spectacular dance moments in NGD: the Act One finale, "The Way You Look Tonight," is set atop an unfinished skyscraper [a stand-in for Rockefeller Center] and Racey, Lemenager and later Ziemba and Gerety, knock about in the clouds on "steel beams"; and then there's the incredible cast quick-change for the memorable black and white, top hat and tails finale.

Ziemba says that NGD's dancing, choreographed by Tony-nominated choreographer Jerry Mitchell, "will really leave audiences breathless. It's thrilling, the kind of ballroom and tap I did in 42nd Street and Crazy for You. Steel Pier[which as about marathon dancing and for which Ziemba was nominated for a Tony] and Contact [for which she took home Best Actress Tony and Drama Desk Awards] had classically-based ballroom partner dances. Coming from a ballet background, I learned partnering very early. The secret is to make that contact seem easy, smooth and ultra romantic."

Costuming helps, she adds, "and William Ivey Long [Tony and Drama Desk-winning costume designer] doesn't disappoint. Another great thing about the show is having Harold Wheeler's orchestrations. They're really swing. It's quite stunning what he's done. These classic melodies have a new vitality. The music makes it such a pleasure to come to work. I love standing in the wings and listening to our overture! It's exciting and gets me in the mood. That's the feeling audiences are going to walk away with. This show is timeless and incomparable and infectious!"

Ziemba worked with Jerry Mitchell before -- in the 80s in the workshop of Goin' Hollywood, by Jonathan Scheffer [EOS Orchestra] and David Zippel, which never got to Broadway. "Hopefully, that will happen someday. It's a great show. Jerry and I were in the ensemble. All the gals wanted to dance with Jerry because he was this tall, good-looking hunk who could lift anything and who could dance as smooth as silk."

[Trivia: Small world. Mitchell grew up near Lake Michigan "just down the road" from Ziemba. "He's from Pawpaw and I'm from St. Joseph. But we never met until New York."]

The NGD choreography is the type we've never seen from Mitchell. "He hasn't had the opportunity to execute this type of dance," says Ziemba, "because of the types of shows he's choreographed, Hairspray, The Full Monty [not to mention Broadway Bares, and there is a little taste of bump and grind in NGD], which didn't call for this type of male/female partnering. His choreography is just brilliant in how it propels the story forward."

Growing up watching countless movie musicals, Ziemba knew that NGD would be the type of show that would be dear to her heart. "There were a lot of musical influences in my family," relates Ziemba. "My grandmother was Winifred Heidt, who sang with City Opera in the 50s. Mom wanted to be a dancer, but got married and raised a family."

Fascinated with dance, "I started taking lesson when I was six." And she was soon putting on shows. "I had no sisters," she laughs, "so I pulled my three brothers into my little scenarios. They played all the characters, including the women. I made them don tights, masks and wigs. And play instruments. They loved me!" hers, one younger. e girl and really fascinated with dance."

By junior high, she was performing with a ballet company. In her sophomore year, she won her first musical lead, none other than Maria in West Side Story. "It was a wonderful and learning experience," she states. "When you're singing a score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, not to mention speaking Arthur Laurents' words, you discover that there're many ways to express yourself. I was bitten by the bug, but wanted to do more than just dance. I wanted the whole shebang."

Not long after college, she headed to New York, where she made her Broadway debut in A Chorus Line in 1982. Ziemba says she'd have a difficult time naming her favorite role, "but it would be hard to top my first Broadway experience and being part of a show about surviving as a dancer in theater. To start with one of the best was incredible. Every performance, I couldn't wait to get out there."

She went on to play Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street ["the best part was working with Jerry Orbach, from whom I learned so much about comic timing and consistency onstage eight times a week"], Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Chicago, a revival of I Do! I Do! [Drama Desk nomination] and to great acclaim in New York City Opera's 110 in the Shade and The Most Happy Fella.

She made her first impact in the Off Broadway Kander and Ebb revue And The World Goes ëRound [Drama Desk Award]. More recently, she's been more dramatic, doing Lucy in Three Penny Opera and Shakespeare.

Ziemba's dance roles have kept her in tip-top shape. "Eight shows a week makes you feel you don't have to go overboard at the gym," she says. "So, when I'm working, I cut back a little. Contact was a major perspiration happening and mentally draining, but at the end of the week I want to feel I've earned my exhaustion. That's where the satisfaction comes in. Playing that role was duly joyous and sad. Joyous, for what I did onstage; sad, because my character got to run the gamut of emotions. She had a very deep well. And then receiving the Tony! That was the icing on the cake."

Perhaps one reason Kiemba is popular with her peers is that she's not afraid to open herself to be there for the other actors. "If you expect to be listened to, you have to listen when the others are speaking. Listening is the key. It's not so much about what you're doing when someone else has lines, but about your commitment to hearing what they're saying through your stillness and groundedness."

Says director Greif: "Karen has rapport with audiences because she has rapport with those onstage. She's brought a wealth of experience to the show and is always ready to experiment."

NGD is Peter Gerety's first Broadway musical. He further complements Ziemba: "Karen's been been performing on Broadway for two decades. She's a great teacher. I've been on a fast learning curve because of her, and I'm very grateful. She's taught me that if we don't realize we're having fun, the audience won't."

It's all because of the familial bond that develops in a show, "especially," claims Ziemba, "a show with partner dancing. When you're in the arms of a man, you trust he's not going to drop you and that he's going to make you look and feel wonderful. It about more than physical contact. It's about knowing that person and not being just out for yourself. It's about being there for somebody else, too.

"When you're onstage in an ensemble situation," she continues, "you're depending on everyone doing their part to help each other. They're not there to sabotage you, so why not do unto others? What two characters give to each other is what propels the writing and story. If you're not getting across what each person feels about the other - not what you think, but what the playwright is saying - then you're not doing your job. I can tell you that through the years with that prospective, I've always come out looking better for it."

For more on Ziemba, visit : www.KarenZiemba.com
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* "Bojangles of Harlem," a tribute to the great African-American tap dancer, was cut. In the film, it was a blackface minstrel production number, which would be deemed politically incorrect today. In it's place is a spectacular number, "She Didn't Say Yes, She Didn't Say No" [Kern, Harbach] danced by veteran Broadway "hoofers" Eugene Fleming and Deidre Goodwin [who recently exited Chicago as Velma] as rival Harlem dancers.

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