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DIVA TALK: Chatting with Traffic's Klea Blackhurst, Hair on CD and News of Peters, Minnelli
By Andrew Gans
14 Aug 2009
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Klea Blackhurst
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News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
KLEA BLACKHURST
Klea Blackhurst burst onto the cabaret scene in 2001 with her critically acclaimed Ethel Merman tribute, Everything the Traffic Will Allow: The Songs and Sass of Ethel Merman, which she has gone on to perform around the country and in Europe. Since that time the intelligent vocalist with a wry sense of humor has also offered shows that salute the work of Vernon Duke (Autumn in New York) and, with Billy Stritch, the songs of Hoagy Carmichael (Dreaming of a Song: The Music of Hoagy Carmichael). Blackhurst — who can be heard on the Ghostlight Records discs "Everything the Traffic Will Allow, "Autumn in New York" and "Dreaming of a Song" — is also an experienced actress; in fact, next month the Utah native will head to San Francisco to portray the "Hostess With the Mostes' on the Ball," U.S. Ambassador Sally Adams, in 42nd Street Moon's production of Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam. But, for now, audiences can enjoy Blackhurst's reprise of her wonderful Merman tribute, Everything the Traffic Will Allow at the Snapple Theater Center through Sept. 5; my recent interview with the candid, thoughtful Blackhurst follows:
Question: How did you originally get interested in creating a show about Ethel Merman?
Klea Blackhurst: Well, basically I've been in New York a long time. I moved to New York to be in Broadway shows. That's my thing. I'm like that kid from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Question: What year did you get here?
Blackhurst: I can't tell you, but it's been a couple of decades now. It's a good, honest, fair attempt. It wasn't my time. You know what I mean? I got sort of antsy around 2000 and 2001, and I thought, "I'll write something and give myself the starring part." [Laughs.] So another kind of old-showbiz legend played out. Everyone's like, "Write what you know." At that point that's what I felt I knew. I've just always loved Ethel Merman since I was a little kid and grew up with my mom's show albums. I'd been exposed to it as a little kid. If you like musical theatre and you like original cast albums, those are the ones — Gypsy and Annie Get Your Gun — that right out of the gate were transcendent. And my mom is a community theatre actress in Salt Lake as well, who is a big belter. I just thought that's how women sound. That was sort of the genesis of [the show], and people really responded to it. A lot of people were like, "Don't do that, you don't wanna be in the Merman world." I said, "Well, wait and see how I'm gonna do it. I don't play her, I don't impersonate her." It's just me paying tribute to the greatest theatrical personality, in my opinion, of all time.
Question: Did you do a lot of research for the show?
Blackhurst: I did tons of research. And Merman's really almost embarrassingly easy to research. Her career actively on Broadway spans 1930-1970. And then, of course, she lived until 1984 singing with orchestras and all those television appearances late in her life. But in terms of theatre, in terms of the American musical, she's right at the center of the storm of every important person: from George Gershwin to Cole Porter to Jule Styne to Stephen Sondheim. Name a star or a personality and somehow it connects through her. I did a lot of my research — I live right by the Strand annex. I would go in there and look at books, buy them most of the time, but even if you look at an index of almost anybody in the 20th century that is involved in theatre, you can find two to 20 entries for Ethel Merman. And then you cross-reference them. Eventually, if Ira Gershwin tells the story this way and Vinton Freedley tells it this way and Ethel Merman tells it this way and George Gershwin tells it this way, by the time you put all of their versions together, you can usually arrive at what I think is the truth.
Question: Have you changed the show over the years?
Blackhurst: It's pretty much the same. It's just kind of a rock-solid script. Over the years we've developed some different versions of it. There's been a theatrical version that had an intermission with a new opening and closing of Act One and Two. For the most part this version that we're doing now — it was just meant to be, in a way, for me. We opened it early in 2001, and I think that night there were two things actively that I changed. I had "Gee, But It's Good to Be Here" as the second number, and I told a really long story about Dody Goodman that people just didn't laugh at. It took me awhile to figure out why. I would tell this story in real life, and people would laugh uproariously. I told it in the show, and they just didn't laugh. And I think it was because by that point in my show, they liked Ethel Merman. It was a thing where I was telling a story on her, and they just didn't like it: "Wait a minute, we like her. Don't make fun of her right now." So I cut that story down to nothing, and I took out "Gee, But It's Good To Be Here" because I just didn't think I needed it. With those two exceptions, with the reaction of the first-night audience and my experience, from that second time on, it has just been what it is, and it works. It's really fun. Arguably she introduced more standards than anybody. Maybe Fred Astaire in the films beats that number, but otherwise all that you have to do in a straightforward way is present that material and you've got priceless stuff.
Question: Was there any song that you wanted to include that you just didn't have time for?
Blackhurst: Listen, there's about five evenings worth of stuff! There really are. I love "Eadie Was a Lady." I love that song. I kept trying to put it in and put it in, and then I just decided that "Sam and Delilah" from Girl Crazy fit what I needed a little bit better. . . . Right now I'm going to go star in Call Me Madam in San Francisco in September and October. So I'm working on that score, and I think, "Oh this song is so brilliant," or "this song would be so cute!" What I did is say, "I'm going to put one song from each of her 13 Broadway shows." And she was the last Dolly in Hello, Dolly! so I put in one of the songs Jerry Herman wrote for her in that. I cheat on that rule a little bit. There's both "I Got Rhythm" and "Sam and Delilah" from Girl Crazy. For the most part it's just kind of keeping myself to the one song from each of the 13 shows. They're all great, so I just picked the ones that made the most sense to me.
Question: How has the show been going at the Snapple Theatre?
Blackhurst: It's going fantastic. I love having a tribute to Merman in a theatre first of all. It's just right. And the fact that it's right there on Broadway doesn't hurt my illusion that the tribute's in the right place. Audiences respond so warmly to this show, so it's just great to have it back. We haven't really had it in town since 2001, so this is kind of its big comeback. I do it all over the country, and I've done lots of things in between, but somehow if I've never performed somewhere, this is the show they want. Once I've done it, they'll sort of open their minds to the other stuff I can do. I stopped resisting that. I thought, "There's a lot worse that can happen to me than that I have this Merman connection." I sort of paraphrase — she said, "Broadway's been very good to me, but I've been very good to Broadway." I try to kind of live the same thing with her: "She's been very good to me, but I feel like I've been very good to her." . . . I am sort of a 21st century Merman. In other words, I can use a microphone and be kind of quiet when I need to be. It's evolved a little bit from just that planting your feet centerstage and being heard at the back of the house. There's a little more nuance than that because that's what our time requires. I'm not her, that's the main thing. I don't try to [imitate] her. I'm just Klea Blackhurst doing my thing. [Laughs.]
Question: What do you think would be Merman's reaction to your show if she were still alive?
Blackhurst: I used to think she'd smack me and say, "She's alright if you like talent, but get your own songs, kid!" [Laughs.] Several very close friends of hers have come over the years, sort of snuck in to hate me, and they always end up revealing themselves and saying, "I think Ethel would've really loved this." She was not a really complicated woman. When I tell stories about her and when I talk about her, I like to think that she would enjoy the way I tell the story. I try to walk this line — I don't really comment on the [stories.] I tell a story about Stephen Sondheim and Ethel Merman and Gypsy. She's not greatly nuanced in her understanding of things. I chose to tell all the stories from the point of view that if Merman were sitting there watching it, she would enjoy it. But if you're in the know and you have sort of another sense of her, you will also enjoy this story. They kind of walk the line but are always very respectful to her, as she deserves. For me, when you come out doing a tribute to somebody, that's not the moment [to bring the person down]. I don't have an ax to grind with her, and I don't want to make fun of her. That's a whole other show that I could do after 11 almost any night, Ethel Blue or something. But this isn't it. This is just my valentine.
Question: If you could go back in time and see one Merman musical, do you know which one it would be?
Blackhurst: It would have to be a toss up between two, because time travel is so fascinating. It would either have to be the opening night of Girl Crazy in 1930 or it would have to be Gypsy. I just think they must have both been absolutely fascinating. The orchestra for Girl Crazy has Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller — this is the pit band of this show! She comes out and sings "I Got Rhythm" and we read about four, five encores. The audience is going absolutely crazy for her holding that note over the chorus. I can't even imagine that. I can't imagine what that would have been like that night. If I could go all the way back to there, I'd see that. And I just think Gypsy must have been a real tour de force, a priceless thing. And to think that her career goes from that range — from 1930 to 1959. You've gone from when shows were these quaint, creaky little things that set up the songs to this fully integrated modern musical. It's just an interesting life.
Question: You've also focused on the work of Vernon Duke and Hoagy Carmichael. How do you go about choosing a composer or a person to focus on for a show?
Blackhurst: In 2003 I did a little centenary tribute show at the Algonquin, and it had a number of people in it. I think it was Sammy Fain and maybe Bronislaw Kaper . . . . and Vernon Duke was one of those names. I just kind of went around and thought, "Well, I'll put a couple Vernon Duke songs in this." Some of them were easy: "April in Paris," "Autumn in New York." The big ones. "Taking a Chance on Love." I put that together, and it was a one-night thing and it was fine. Through the course of that, I just fell in love with Vernon Duke, and I fell in love with the idea that here's this brilliant guy and all the songs that were famous of his came from enormously unsuccessful, giant disastrous flop Broadway shows. That's the kind of hook that can really get me going. He just sort of emerged that way, like, "Oh my gosh, he doesn't need any help from me, but this is a fascinating career!" [Laughs.] So I just went through his life and did that. Continued...
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