11-17-2015 Audio Interview with Ben Vereeen

Ben Vereen is an icon; star of stage and screen, he is an internationally known and loved performer. Although he was singing and dancing in church and entertaining at churches and hospitals by the time he was four, Ben had no aspirations to be a performer; he thought he was going into the military. It took a very perceptive school principal to insist that he try out for the school of performing arts, and another perceptive teacher to see though his “bad audition.” Listen to the ironic way life conspired to help him find his passion. And once having found it he grabbed on and hasn’t let go. His credits include Wicked, I’m not Rappaport, Chicago, Hair, Jelly’s Last Jam, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Christmas Carol and winning the Tony and Drama Desk awards for his performance in Bob Fosse’s Pippen. His movies include Idlewild, All That jazz, Sweet Charity, and Funny Lady. TV; How I Met Your Mother, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Intent, Armstrong. His latest film Time out of Mind costarring Richard Gere opened in September. He’s been inducted into both the Theater Hall of Fame and the Dance Hall of Fame. Hyper aware that his generation “failed to make good on its promise to create a safer more humane world,” Ben has re-imagined the iconic musical Hair and directed a very young cast at the Venice Theater in Venice FL in a production that will run Dec 13th. He hopes that by bringing this version to a current audience he will jump start a renewal of the spirit contained there. Listen to this serious, funny, self-deprecating, man talk about his life, his hopes for his version of Hair; and hear Sharon Leslie’s review as well as several songs from the show.

2014-03-23 Audio Interviews

These are two interviews I did last year but didn’t get a chance to air. They are with two incredible performers both of whom created remarkable performances in the 2013 season at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota FL

Michael James Leslie fell in love with music and singing very early in his life, for which he credits, among other things, The Supremes. But although he had an extraordinary voice and a passion for performing, he was also a loving son who, like his siblings, honored their mother’s wish to use their brains, and became a lawyer. After passing the bar he took a job which made him feel that the law was not for him (listen to the poignant way he discovered this). He took a break and went to New York City, where as he prepared to take the NY Bar Exam, he fooled around with being a performer. Then in the most ironic way (another fascinating story) Michael found himself on Broadway in the first revival of the musical Hair and “never looked back.” Listen to Michael talk passionately about the importance seeing each other’s similarities instead of differences and the joy of living your life based on something you love – instead of what believes most people are doing which is “living dead.”

David Breitbarth has been a member of the prestigious Asolo Repertory Theatre Company for 17 years and is last year’s winner of the Lunt and Fontanne Ten Chimney’s Acting Fellowship to study with Alan Alda. Ironically David had no interest in acting, or in fact, any idea what he would do with his life until attendance at a “progressive hippy-dippy boarding school, where students were expected to try everything, put him up on a stage.” Listen to this thoughtful, interesting man talk about his career and what it’s like to be a “rep” actor, for whom it is essential to make the others on stage look good, and how that differs from being an actor who must constantly look for the next job. And come to see him in The Grapes of Wrath currently running at the Asolo Repertory Theatre.