With the Tony Award-winning show “Memphis the Musical” opening at The Rep this week (Sept. 5), we knew we wanted to sit down with some of its stars to get the scoop on this infectiously fun and powerful show about love and music in the Civil Rights Era.
What we didn’t quite expect was the thought-provoking, compelling exchange that unfolded, reverberating with laughter, excitement and a thick passion for “Memphis” that left us scrambling to get tickets.
The show opens at 8 p.m. on Sept. 5. For more information and tickets, click here. In the meantime, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy our conversation with Lynn Kurdziel-Formato, Brent DiRoma, Jasmin Richardson and Ann-Ngaire Martin of “Memphis the Musical.”
Tell us a little bit about your role in Memphis.
Jasmin: I play Felicia, the love interest for Huey. The way I describe Felicia is she’s a big dreamer. She has this hope and aspiration of becoming this recording artist and Huey opens the door for that opportunity to be realized. The thing that draws me personally to Felicia is that she’s such a strong woman. Very vocal, independent, driven and I relate to that.
Brent: Huey is me if I would’ve left hight school my freshman year. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s dimwitted, but he’s dimwitted. He’s also a dreamer, so much so that it gets in the way of his periphery sometimes when it comes the knowledge of the two cultures.
The black and white cultures in the ‘50s were not separate to him. He was very much touched by the music that the black couture produced in the 1950s. He felt it in his bones and his mind and soul and heart.
Huey is close to my heart because he sacrificed everything to do exactly what he loves, and gave himself to love and what he loves, to the idea of using music to unite what was then separate. I love that man.
Ann: I play Gladys, Huey’s mother. Gladys is really the white woman’s journey in that time period in Memphis: a bigot who learns through her son and the love of her son that music transcends everything. She has a big heart and you might not agree or like her in the beginning, but she does take the journey and come out the other side a better person, and I think that’s what speaks to me the most in this show.
Lynn: I’m the director and choreographer for the production. I’ve wanted to work on this show in come capacity since I heard the first downbeat on Broadway. The music is phenomenal. It is based in rhythm and blues, early rock and roll, gospel. If you did nothing but listen to the music, especially being sung live by this incredible cast, it’d be worth the price of admission alone, but it’s also a really great script with a lot of terrific dancing.
It’s a really remarkable cast. I was very, very, very lucky. They’re true triple threats: the actor who sings and dances. We have these magical productions that happen every now and then in this business, and for me, this is one of them. The show has a message, and I think the message imbues the people who are involved in the show with a different take on how to go about the work.
B: From the first day, with a few quotes from Langston Hughes, it very much humbled us all into realizing that this is more than a thing, it is a piece of art that, when we get here, lies on a piece of paper. Literally, just a book. It blossoms onto a stage with help from every corner of the room, especially at The Rep, which is such an awesome theater to work at and casts such awesome people and has such awesome directors on board. It’s a recipe for greatness, and it’s cool to be a part of that with these people.
L: Live theatre is great because the audience does connect with the performer in a very different manner than you do when you are watching a movie or television. There is this sort of electricity that goes from performer to audience and audience to performer that, especially with a show like this, it’s like nothing you feel anywhere else. And with the size of The Rep’s house, it’s wonderful because it is a very intimate theatre, even though it seats a number of people.
A: And this music… I defy people to not get up and dance. I have to glue myself to my seat at rehearsal sometimes. You just want to move. It shakes the house. It’s awesome.
Obviously this music phenomenal, so what is it like working on a show where it’s such an intrinsic part of it?
A: It moves you. It really moves you in ways you can’t explain.
B: It’s a very tangible experience. It’s in your face, but just enough to make you go “come here.” It’s the kind of music that seduces you.
L: The blues came about for a reason. It was either to release sometimes mournful, horrific experiences or at a funeral to celebrate a life, but it also was to help elevate you above that which if you did not elevate yourself, you maybe could not find a way to live through it. It was born for that purpose. It came from a people that needed that because they had nothing else.
J: There’s a song that I sing called “Colored Woman.” It’s very relevant for me even today. This job is hard sometimes, but when you get a show like this, you’re just clinging to every creative fiber of the show because it allows you to express yourself.
Whenever I’m aching or in pain, sometimes it’s hard for me to verbalize, so I sing through it. The show is driven by the music. You sing through the pain. That’s how musical theatre is. There are no words, so therefore, there’s a song.
L: But it’s not just a show full of pain. There’s a lot of relatable humor in the show, there’s a lot of beautifully driven dramatic scenes between people that have a lot of fire to them. It’s a really well-balanced show and a really amazing representation of both populations in the segregated South.
It’s that kind of show where we’re laughing and crying, that there’s also a for-real history lesson that is actually very salient because of what’s happening in today’s world, Ferguson being the first thing I can think of.
There’s a lot of heavy stuff happening in this show. How have you personally connected to that?
B: My generation is a very self-promoted generation. We use everything to put eyes on us. Whether it’s Instagram or the music we listen to, we use it as a form of “here I am” as opposed to “here-we-are.” The music in this time was very much communal and we forget that.
That really strikes home for me. I grew up in the music world, I learned to sing from Otis Redding and I play guitar because B.B. King taught me how. My mom was a kind of person that I never understood why there was any sort of question as to how someone was not equal to me or anyone else.
It’s still prevalent. We’re still experiencing some really serious downright racism all the time, and it’s across the board. We thought we had control over it, and it still finds its way to sort of burst out, always in these incredibly violent outbursts, and we then realize, oh, we’re not done with this yet. This is still something we’re working on, and we’re still a really young county. We’re just now hitting puberty.
J: Huey has a line about people marrying who they want to marry, and it’s very specific if you look at the words they chose. It wasn’t a man and a woman, it wasn’t a white man and a black woman, it was people. Two adults. The show is so relevant and so poignant that you just can’t avoid a look in the mirror, to look at what’s around you
L: It’s a great show. I think it’s one maybe a lot of people haven’t seen. It’s a regional premiere and it’s very exciting. When they release the rights to regional theaters, they don’t just release them to anybody. They choose certain theaters to start with. One of the Broadway producers is onboard and supporting the production. He’s sat in on full evenings of rehearsal.
A: I can see him in rehearsal sitting there reciting with us. He knows every line.
L: He’s been very generous about it because we are not doing a replica production. He loves what we we’re doing and said this was going to be so special and close to his heart. People really should come see it.
A: And it’s the blues! Come on!
B: If nothing else, blues is just a badass way to sing about hurt. I’ve never heard someone sing the blues and thought, oh, what a pansy. I listen to someone singing the blues and go, oh, you better tell me more about how that sucked.
A: It’s American. It’s a true American art form. It came from the African American slavery-gospel realm and all those rhythms and things and it came and burst into the blues. And Beale Street is fascinating.just
L: For many of the aspects of the scenic design, we looked at actual architecture in Memphis and on Beale Street. We took elements from different things and they’re in the set.
B: The set is awesome. Its’s like a jungle gym for actors. It’s a playground.
A: And the costumes are pretty stunning.
Let’s talk about that a bit. Let’s get out of the heavy stuff for a second and take a breath with the visuals.
A: Eye candy! The costumes, that always infuses me as an actor. It completes the character for you in many ways. Like gloves! Women wore gloves to go outside, a hat to go outside. It’s different. Makes you feel different.
J: Felicia’s color palette starts off kind of dark, bronze, grounded, underground. As she grows, especially in Act Two, you get these vibrant pinks and reds. I feel like it’s kind of her opening up musically, in her life and exploring this relationship. It’s a little bit more structured in the beginning, and as it goes, I don’t know, I just feel beautiful and like a lady. It definitely enhances the way I carry myself on stage, the way I hold myself. It just makes you feel like you’re embodying that character that you’ve developed.
L: And with [Co-Costume Designer Rafael Colon Castanera] l at the helm of the design team and wardrobe and makeup, they don’t ever just go half way. Each outfit has different shoes. There’s not a lot of regional theaters that do that, that actually color them and match their outfits as opposed to just throwing a pair of tan LaDuca dance shoes on somebody.
The wigs are all ventilated, lace front wigs, which have to be done by hand with each individual strand of hair tied in. Many, many theatre companies do not spend the time, the money, the energy to do that. They are phenomenal.
J: You’ll leave the theatre uplifted. That’s what’s so great about it. It has very important, relevant themes, but it’s not to break you, it’s just to make you think.
L: The show throughout is uplifting and inspirational, even when there’s conflict. No one is going to find a dull moment.