May 2011 Archives

You can take the boy out of Scotland, but...Euan Morton has not forgotten whence he came. Having received a Theatre World Award as well as Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama League Award nominations for his Broadway debut role of Boy George in Taboo, and having subsequently shone in several other shows on and Off-Broadway, Euan returned for a visit to his homeland last year after an absence of six years.

That trip inspired his new CD, Caledonia: The Homecoming; and the selections on that CD will serve as the basis for his upcoming show at Birdland on Sunday, May 29, at 6pm. Euan recently spoke with me from his new home in Washington, D.C. He was an hour late for our interview due to cell phone problems, but he apologized profusely when he finally got through, and here's what he had to say.

********************

BROADWAYSTARS: I'm glad technology finally allowed us to connect, Euan. We can do the interview now, if you'd like

EUAN MORTON: That's great. I was panicking. I thought, "He's gonna be pissed at me, he's gonna shout at me!" Thank you for not shouting at me.

STARS: It sounds like your show at Birdland is going to be wonderful. Will it mostly consist of songs from your new album?

EUAN: Yes, but not with the band that's on the album; it will be the band I've been working with ever since I started doing concerts at the Zipper. I wanted to give a modern sound to the traditional Scottish songs.

STARS: You've done very well in America, but it's great that you're musically exploring your roots.

EUAN: I've met so many people in this country who have a connection to Scotland. Being Scottish in America certainly opens more doors than being Scottish in England. So many people here have family history there, and their pride in their Scottish heritage reinvigorated my own patriotism for my homeland. It was very fortuitous how the album came about: I'd been wanting to sing and record these songs, and a backer appeared who was willing to pay for the album, so I thought, "Let's go ahead and do it."

STARS: Tell me, do you pal around with other famous Scottish performers like Alan Cumming and John Barrowman?

EUAN: I don't know John very well, though I've met him a couple of times at various events. Alan and I have spent some time together because we're both involved with the Only Make Believe children's charity. Still, I don't see him very often. He's really, really busy.

STARS: And John doesn't live here, so I guess it's pretty rare that you see him.

EUAN: It's funny, a lot of people don't know that John is Scottish, because he always uses his American accent. I say, "He's really Scottish, you know." They say, "No, he's not!" I say, "Yes, he's a proper, kilt-wearing Scot!" It's so bizarre. Everyone's so used to him sounding American that they think he's putting on the accent when he does the Scottish thing, but it's actually the other way around.

STARS: I was wondering, have you ever been in, or would you someday like to be in, a production of Brigadoon?

EUAN: They did a benefit concert of it last year [in New York]. They asked me to take part in it, but I couldn't. So I guess my chance to do Brigadoon has passed me by. Unless they bring it back again...

STARS: A few years ago, there were plans for a Broadway revival.

EUAN: I remember that. Something went wrong.

STARS: I think there were money problems. Would you say that Scottish people generally have a favorable view of the show, or do they see it as an ersatz creation?

EUAN: I think it's probably a little joke amongst real Scots, but that's true of anything of that sort. Brigadoon plays into stereotypes, but there is an element of truth in stereotypes. And we Scots are really good about laughing at ourselves.

STARS: Your last Broadway show was Sondheim on Sondheim, with Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, and Tom Wopat. I interviewed Tom recently and he spoke very well of you. He says you have the voice of an angel.

EUAN: What a nice man. The rest of us in that show were kind of satellites to the planets that were Tom, Barbara, and Vanessa, but Tom always had an open door. He always brought his guitar to the theater and played it in the dressing room. He really made us feel like we were part of a family he was creating.

STARS: One of your castmates, Matthew Scott, is now in Side By Side By Sondheim at the Signature Theatre in the D.C. area. Last year, you played Anatoly in a very well received production of Chess there. Tell me about that experience.

EUAN: I love Benny and Björn [Andersson and Ulvaeus, who wrote the score], and I've always wanted to do the show, so this was my chance to check another dream off the bucket list. We had a wonderful cast. Jill Paice was fantastic, and Jeremy Kushnier was great. He rocked "Pity the Child" every night. I could not have done that.

STARS: Well, I wish you a great show at Birdland on Sunday. It's Memorial Day weekend, but I hope you get a good audience.

EUAN: There weren't many dates free at Birdland. The only other opening was Tony night, and obviously that wasn't going to happen. For me, it's just about having a chance to get up there and bring the album to a live audience. I know the house might not be as full as it would be on another night, but I'll have a lot of friends there. It's going to be a great concert.

Danny Burstein and Christian Delcroix were both in the brilliant Lincoln Center Theater revival of South Pacific. Danny, a New York theater stalwart who had been Tony Award nominated for his work in The Drowsy Chaperone, played Luther Billis and earned a second Tony nom for his efforts. Christian, a fresh-faced kid who made his Broadway debut in SP, started off in the ensemble and then was bumped up to the featured ensemble role of the Professor about 14 months into the show's two-and-a-half-year run.

Now, the guys are together again -- and, in a sense, closer than ever -- in the Kennedy Center production of the legendary Stephen Sondheim/James Goldman musical Follies, which opens officially on May 21. Danny plays middle aged Buddy Plummer, whose wife, Sally (Bernadette Peters) is desperately trying to rekindle a decades-old romance with another man; Christian plays Buddy's younger self, before disillusionment with life and love sets in. Given that the cast also includes such names as Jan Maxwell (as Phyllis), Ron Raines (as Ben), Elaine Paige (as Carlotta), and Linda Lavin (as Hattie), our guys are in excellent company. They found a few minutes to speak with me by phone during the final week of rehearsals for a production that has already created a huge amount of buzz.

********************

BROADWAYSTARS.COM: Danny, I'm hoping you'll repeat what you told me you said to Christian when he was cast as Young Buddy.

DANNY BURSTEIN: What did I say to Christian? (To Christian:) Didn't you call me?

CHRISTIAN DELCROIX: Yes. I let him know [that I'd be playing his younger self], and his response was, "Great, you can look forward to becoming an old, balding Jew."

DANNY: That's right. I told him I felt sorry for him, because that's what he has in his future.

STARS: Since you guys are playing the same character at different ages, have you observed each other in rehearsals to try to copy each other in terms of body language, etc., to a certain extent?

DANNY: Yes. (To Christian:) I don't know whether you know that, but I've been watching you and trying to mimic things you're doing. And you the same?

CHRISTIAN: Yes. Danny has a very specific way of standing and holding his arms and his body.

STARS: Would you care to expand on that?

CHRISTIAN: Well, for one thing, he doesn't seem to hold any tension in his shoulders, which is completely different from me. I always have this tension, and I've been trying to relieve that.

DANNY: You know, the funny thing is, I've noticed that you look more relaxed on stage than ever before.

STARS: Do you guys have any funny stories from backstage at South Pacific?

CHRISTIAN: Countless.

DANNY: It was a bunch of guys just hanging out, so a lot of horrible things happened. Lots of antics.

CHRISTIAN: There was a lot of gas being passed, onstage and backstage.

DANNY: But I don't know if you want to publish that.

CHRISTIAN: I think Danny and I had a good rapport onstage.

DANNY: A great rapport. It's perfect that Christian and I are playing the same person in Follies, because we both have the same stupid sense of humor. We're always telling stupid jokes, and nobody laughs. It's true, he's like the younger me -- only better looking.

STARS: Have you guys gotten together to discuss Buddy Plummer's back story?

DANNY: Yes, we have, and I think we're on the same page. [Director] Eric Schaeffer encouraged all the principals to do that with their younger selves.

STARS: Would you care to share some of the decisions you made about him -- how Buddy met Sally, and so on?

CHRISTIAN: We set where he was from, and his background, but we didn't do a lot of work on his early life. Just the essentials of what kind of guy he is, what he does for a living...

DANNY: ...where he went to school, how he wound up in New York, how he wound up backstage at a theater with Ben. All those kinds of things you have to make up for yourself, so you have something to hold onto. It hopefully makes the character richer and deeper for both of us.

CHRISTIAN: It's fun for us to talk about Buddy offstage, because we have no interaction onstage, even though we're playing the same character. So we can't bounce ideas off each other during the scenes or the songs.

STARS: Danny, you've worked with some major stars in the past; Christian, obviously, not so much. The Follies company includes several big names. So, Christian, are you star struck?

CHRISTIAN: At the first rehearsal, I don't think I introduced myself to any of the stars, because I'm kind of shy. But when we sat in a circle and did the read-through, it was incredible; I looked around, and it was just one star after another. They're all such incredible performers. When all the "divas," as we call them, stood up to sing "Beautiful Girls," it was amazing. It gave you chills.

STARS: How are you both enjoying D.C.? What are you doing in your free time?

CHRISTIAN: Going to museums, trying to find new brunch places. I've been golfing a couple of times. Me and the guy who plays young Ben are going to go kayaking.

DANNY: And I've been working! Rebecca [Luker, Burstein's wife] came down, and we literally had one day to walk around the mall. We walked everywhere -- to all the museums, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial. I love being here.

STARS: How well did you guys know Follies before you started rehearsals?

DANNY: Both of us are shaking our heads; neither of us really knew the show. I had never seen a production of Follies. I really wish I had seen my pal Casey Nicholaw's production for Encores! because I heard it was wonderful. I knew most of the songs, but there are some I really didn't know -- like "Who's That Woman," which is a show stopper.

CHRISTIAN: I didn't know "Live, Laugh, Love" or "Lucy and Jessie."

STARS: But were you aware of the whole mystique of the show?

CHRISTIAN: Totally. We learned about it in musical theater history class in school [at Florida State University], how a lot of people consider it some of Sondheim's best work. I definitely knew the pedigree of the show.

STARS: What do you think happens to Buddy and Sally, and Ben and Phyllis, after what we see in the show?

DANNY: Well, every actor has his own take on that. Personally, I don't think the couples stay together, but you may get a different answer from Ron, Jan, and Bernadette. To me, after Buddy has gone through the hardships of being married to Sally for 30 years and then finally has the courage to tell her it's over, I think that's it. In order for the character to have any integrity at the end of the show, I think he has to realize that. But the first time our costume designer, Gregg Barnes, saw a run-through, he said he thought the couples do stay together. It's exciting that people continue to talk about the characters after the curtain goes down, because they're so real. The audience relates to their situation in many ways -- but, hopefully, not in too many ways.

STARS: How about Young Buddy and Young Sally? Christian, do you think she ever really loved him, or was he just a fall-back because she couldn't have Ben?

CHRISTIAN: My arc in the show is just a small sliver of Buddy's life. Toward the end of the show, he definitely has doubts about his relationship with Sally; he sees her with Ben and knows there's something going on, even if he doesn't know the full extent of it at first. But when you're young, I think you have so much optimism about love and relationships that you're willing to let more slide by than when you get older.

STARS: One last, specific question: The number "The Right Girl" has been staged very differently in various productions, sometimes as a solo for Buddy, sometimes with Young Buddy dancing in the background as a sort of ghost. Can I ask how it's been staged for this production?

DANNY: Well...there is someone else in the number besides me. We can't say who, but we can tell you that Christian is not in it. We tried him out, but it just didn't work.

CHRISTIAN: I failed.

DANNY: Of course, we're kidding. It's not true at all, so don't publish that!

Even the most well established cabaret/club performer can benefit greatly from a little television exposure, especially when it comes to scoring gigs in major NYC venues. Tom Postilio has been a presence on the concert and nightclub scene since the age of 20, when he began touring internationally as the featured vocalist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. This was followed by his debut in the Chestnut Room at Tavern on the Green, for which engagement he received both a MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Award and a Backstage Bistro Award. Then came bookings throughout the country and an 18-month stint in the Off-Broadway show Our Sinatra.

Over the past decade, Tom has worked up a second career as a real estate broker, and his faccia has recently become known to the public at large in his guise as a star of the HGTV reality series Selling New York. I spoke with him about that experience and his upcoming return to cabaret at one of the toniest rooms in town, Feinstein's at Loews Regency, where he'll be in residence May 17-21.

********************

BROADWAYSTARS: Tom, it's been quite a few years since your last show. Are you enjoying your work on this one?

TOM POSTILIO: Yes. I'm just learning my last bits of patter and going over the songs that are new to me. The crunch is on! But it's been fun. I've been away from it for a while. The last thing of any notoriety that I did was Our Sinatra, about 10 years ago. I've sung here and there since then, but my last solo show in New York was at Arci's Place in 2000. Do you remember Arci's?

STARS: Yes! In fact, it came up in conversation just the other day. That was a great room.

TOM: It was. Lately, I've had a handful of gigs around the country, here and there. In January, I was invited by Michael Feinstein to sing for the opening of his performing arts center in Carmel, Indiana. And I've done some private events, corporate events. I've been pretty selective about only taking gigs that paid decently and let me use my own band.

STARS: Can you talk a little about Selling New York, for those who may not have seen the show?

TOM: Sure. It's just one of those strange twists of fate in life's journey. I've been in the real estate business for about 10 years; I'm with a small boutique agency in Chelsea, called CORE. About a year ago, we were given the opportunity to be part of this new reality show on HGTV. We got involved with it, and I took to it pretty well. I'm fortunate to have had the show business background, because when the cameras roll, you're really just looking at bullet points; there's no script, per se. I was able to roll with it and make it up as I went along, which is basically how reality TV works. The show has been running for about a year, and it's wildly successful, to everybody's great surprise and happiness. It's one of the top three rated shows on HGTV, and they've just started airing it in, like, 60 different countries around the world.

STARS: I don't imagine you've had a chance to display your singing talent on the show?

TOM: Actually, one of the episodes that's going to be coming up in the next few weeks will have me showing my background as a singer; I invited all my clients to this big event, and I got up and sang with a band. That kind of sparked the idea of doing a show at Feinstein's. An opening came up there, and I'd been itching to get back to club work. So, in a sense, the TV show catapulted me back into singing.

STARS: This will be your debut at Feinstein's?

TOM: Yes, and I'm taking it very seriously. I'm working very hard to put together an entertaining show with standards and some songs that are off the beaten path. We're calling the show "This Time Around," which is the title of a lovely but little-known Peter Allen song. I adore Peter Allen, and we thought that title was a nice sentiment for a show that's sort of a return for me -- the idea of coming back to something that you did once before.