← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
'Gypsy' with Audra McDonald and Joy Woods
00:33:47
Actors Audra McDonald and Joy Woods discuss starring as Rose and her daughter Louise in the acclaimed Broadway revival of "Gypsy," running now at the Majestic Theatre.
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- [00:00]
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WNYC Studios
Listener Supported WNYC Studios.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll hear from Richard Price, the author of the novel Lazarus Mann, who recently joined us at this month's get lit with all of it book club event at the New York Public Library. Along with jazz musician Anthony Hervey, we also have debut novelist Erin Caffel. She'll be here to talk about her new book, all the Water in the World. That's the plan. So let's get this started with the one and only Gypsy. Take it away. Audra McDonnell.
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Audra McDonald
I had a dream, a dream about you baby it's gonna come true, baby they think that we're through but baby, you be so well you'll be great Gonna have the whole world on the plate Starting here, starting now, hon.
- [01:57]
Alison Stewart
Gypsy, based on the true story of a momager who wants stardom for her two daughters, is back on Broadway, this time starring my Next guest, Audra McDonald and Joy Woods. Audra plays Rose. She's tough as nails with dreams of getting her girls on the biggest stages during the Great Depression. Joy plays her sweet daughter, Louise, who stays in the background until she discovers that exotic dancing is her way to becoming one of the biggest burlesque stars of her day. That's what Rose wants, right? Maybe not. With a book by Arthur Lorenz, music by Julie Stein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Gypsy is filled with classics from together. Wherever we go, roses turn and let me entertain you. Gypsy has been on Broadway five times, but this time with black actors in the lead roles, it adds a whole new layer to the script. The reviews have been stunning, and we're pleased to welcome Audra McDonald back to the show. Hi, Audra.
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WNYC Studios
Hi, Allison. How are you?
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Alison Stewart
I'm doing well. And Joy Woods. It's really nice to meet you, Joy.
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Joy Woods
Nice to meet you, too, Allison. Thanks for having me.
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Alison Stewart
So, Audra, when did the park come to you?
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WNYC Studios
Well, it first came to me, not in any official capacity, but a friend of mine, a late Gavin Creel, who just passed away this fall, very dear friend of mine was over at our house for Thanksgiving about eight years ago. And after Thanksgiving, when he walked in, he said, honey, I want to talk about something. And then after dinner, he dragged me into my garage. He's like, honey, okay, here's what I talked about. I think you need to play Rose and Gypsy. I think you need to do it. You just need to do it. It should be a black woman. It should be a black woman. It should be you. You need to do it. You need to do it. And he just was. He just had had a vision and was just absolutely determined, and that's what kind of got the ball rolling. And then conversations began shortly after that with the Estate States to make sure that they were interested. And they were. And Stephen Sondheim was alive at the time. And he said, I think that's a brilliant idea. And then it took a while to figure out who the right person to direct it was. And I knew in my heart that it needed to be George. And the estates agreed. And that took eight years, but here we are.
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Alison Stewart
Gavin was such a sweetheart.
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WNYC Studios
Yes, he was.
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Alison Stewart
Joy, you were working on the Notebook when you realized that this, this was going to be you, your job, you win, you win the audition. What was it like to work between the two shows?
- [04:27]
Joy Woods
I think the most difficult thing during that time, rehearsing the show during the day and doing the other at night, probably was just getting enough sleep to show up and be present for both.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah.
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Joy Woods
But it was, it was definitely the first few phases of that process was finding the similarities between the two and then trying to separate them as individual people. Ally and Louise, because they're both young women that have a moment in the show where they have a self actualization moment and come into their adulthood or just personhood. And. And yeah, it was very interesting to go from one chapter of your life to the next in such a way. And, you know, sleep and eating and water are important. So definitely the main thing.
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Unnamed Speaker
What did you learn about yourself as you had to go between these two shows?
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Joy Woods
That I don't sleep enough. I don't know. But other than that, George C. Wolf, who directed the show, made it very clear often throughout the process that I needed to work on taking up space and just was very kind and gracious about giving me words of encouragement and self confidence. So I know that it's something I have to continue to work on throughout our career, as any of us do as insecure artists that rip their wrists open and bleed all over the stage for people and hope that they like it.
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Unnamed Speaker
It's so interesting you should say that because Audra, I follow you on Instagram and you had this great speech that you gave for. It could be for anybody, but I think it was for women mostly about not necessarily being liked.
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Alison Stewart
Would you share a little bit about that?
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Unnamed Speaker
I was going to get this later.
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Alison Stewart
But this is just too good.
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WNYC Studios
Yeah, no, I had, I had some people come to see the show the night before and it was a group of people and they were, we had them in the front couple of rows of the audience after the show and they wanted to chat about it and one of them said, you know, my, my husband just, he didn't, he just, he said, he just. I don't really like her. I don't really like this character. And in the moment I said, yeah, well, you know, that's, that's valid, you know, but Rose is who she is. And what I was saying on Instagram, the reason I felt compelled to talk about it was not to shame the person who made the comment, because it's a perfectly valid comment. It's not the first time I've heard that comment either. But it was more about what happened to me in that moment and in the hours following when I went home. In the moment I thought I immediately defended her and just said, well, she is who she is. And when I went home that night, I started thinking, wow, I'm glad I'm not 25 year old Audra, whose 25 year old Audra would have totally been like, oh God, what am I doing wrong? I gotta make her more likable. I gotta make her more likable. How do I make her more likable? And because of the fact that I had the incredible opportunity of working with Zoe Caldwell years and years ago in the play masterclass and she became a mentor and a friend, a very, very dear person, important person in my life. And she had come to see me do Marie Christine, which was a musical version of Medea written by Michael John Lachiusa and of course the great Phil Caldwell, who had won four Tony Awards and was one of the greatest Medea's of our time. Great classical actress, Shakespearean actress. She came because I asked her to come early in the previews and she came backstage afterwards and after being very lovely, shut the door and stuck her finger in my face and said, stop trying to make the audience like you. And it was a huge, huge, huge lesson for me. She said, the point is not for the audience to like Nadia, it was for them to understand why she does what she has to do. And so I wanted to relay that, you know. You know, you meshed in this lesson with what had happened a couple nights ago at Gypsy. You're not meant to like Rose. You're meant to understand why she does what she does. And it's. It's interesting. I'm not going to go there, but I. In sort of way, I will go there. You don't ever hear people saying, gosh, I just don't like Beth. You know, King Lear, he's just an unlikable character. Because honestly, you know, given that it's a patriarchy, we're not. It's not. It's not supposed to be a problem if you don't like male characters. Like, well, they're just doing what they have to do, But God forbid it be a woman, you know, and all of a sudden it's like, well, I just don't like her. She's not smiling enough. Whatever. It's like, neither did Macbeth. Neither did Lear, neither, you know, did Richard iii. You know, half of these people, you know, and we learn about ourselves as human beings. We learn about our own humanity through all types of behavior that are shown to us on stage. That is the point of view. The Greeks got it right. The Greeks knew. This is how you're going to get this out so you don't end up doing all these horrible things. You're going to learn about who you are on the inside. And it's our jobs as actors to understand who these characters are, defend them to the hilt, and play the role.
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Alison Stewart
All right, Joy, you listen to what Audra said. My guests are Audrey McDonald and Joy Woods. We're talking about Gypsy. Joy, when we meet Louise, what do you think is important to her?
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Joy Woods
Keeping peace, keeping the kids in check when mama isn't around. I think when we meet Louise at my age, it's just before her birthday, and then we see her on her birthday, and they ask her to make a wish and blow out candles. And I have a very specific picture of what I imagine in my mind when I go to blow out those candles and what I want from that day. Just one specific thing. And I think the rest of the show, she's trying to get that picture. It's like, you know, your kid. A kid wants to be an astronaut someday, and it's so far away, and it seems so out of reach, but they still wish for it. And in Louise's mind, it's just mama standing behind her, showing her what her dreams are and Louise being included in that. And it's sort of just her wishing to be included in other people's dreams. So I think that's where we meet her and that's where we see her fight for and then slowly release the need for that to be happy in the show. That's sort of coming into herself that I think Louise goes through.
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Alison Stewart
Audra, when we meet Rose, what is the most important thing to her?
- [11:51]
WNYC Studios
Finding a better life for herself and for her children. She's running them around to all these little kiddie shows and performances, and performances at her father's lodge hall and what other, you know, there. If you want to look at it historically, there were black lodge halls too, at time. And I think the other thing that Rose wants, and that's a lot of hers, throughout the entire show, she wants to reconnect with her mother. Her mother isn't dead. Her mother just has moved on. And I think part of Rose wanting to make sure that these kids have something and become something instead of some girls who cook and clean and sit and die, which she says especially because they're black girls, she doesn't want that for them. She wants more from them, therefore, for herself. And in doing so, she might get the recognition of her. I feel like she has this dream of her mother coming to see June at a show on the Orpheum Circuit somewhere and saying, this is my granddaughter. This is my daughter. These are my girls. And so I think there's that wound that Rose very much once healed. And at any rate, she understands that on this particular day at the Uncle Jocko show, and she. She just goes, I. We cannot stay here. This is going to. This is staying here, sitting and dying here is going to be nothing but, you know, death. It's going to be death for me and for my girls, in a figurative sense. Death of a dream, death of the ability to thrive. And I'm not. I'm not going to do that. She says, I'll be damned if I'm going to let them sit away their lives for me. I said Saturday. And she. And the thing is, Rose has done all the things that a good woman at that time should have done. She did get married. She did have kids. She got married. That didn't work out. She had a kid and then that husband left her, got married, had another kid, had this super. Supernova, you know, first this supernova that is June, that husband left her, got married one more time, still didn't work. What she does know is these kids could be that ticket and they have something special. She's got this Supernova in her, in her care. What is she going to do? To thrust that upon the world and make them shine and thrive and move beyond. So that's what she wants at the beginning of the show. She doesn't even know how she's going to get it. But what's very interesting and what Arthur Lawrence and Stephen Sondheim and Julie Stein with the way the music is created, basically everything she says in that first scene shootings happen. Every single thing. I'll get that money somewhere. I'm going to get my kids out and they're going to be stars, damn it. Yeah. And I'm not going to sit. We're not going to sit here and die. You're not going to do it. And everything that she says and speaks into existence. Monster fluition. For better or for worse.
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Unnamed Speaker
Joy, you were talking about that scene where it's Louise's birthday and she's off to the side. I guess it's stage right, left. And she looks very sweet. She's got, like, her lamb and her toys and she's singing Little Lamb about. And she's singing.
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Alison Stewart
It's so beautiful. And it's such a soft song.
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Unnamed Speaker
What does that moment tell us? Tell us, the audience, about Louise.
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Joy Woods
What does Little Lamb tell the audience about Louise? I think what that song is meant to. The message that the audience is supposed to get from that is that she is not okay with the happenings that go on that don't include her. Yeah, she wants. She has all those stuffed animals and the gifts that she got from her birthday and sings to them as if they're her friends because they're inanimate. And they can sit and listen to her and engage with her in ways that the actual people around her don't seem to have the time for. And at first it's a happy thing. But I think in. In the song, there's a turn where she's asking one of the inanimate objects, you look sad. Is it your birthday, too? Because I'm also very sad. And it's my birthday and I thought today would go differently and my wish did not come true. And that sort of just moment of trying to remain happy, trying to make it work, and then that facade sort of cracking and you seeing that it actually has affected her deeply. And then the next scene, she moves on. She's happy. She's doing something for Mom. She's holding another animal and just sort of being okay with what goes on. I think that's a very wonderful beginning to Louise's journey. And to see a sort of foreshadowing of how she has to rip. She has to grab people by the collars and say, look at me.
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WNYC Studios
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
So, Audra, there's a whole other layer to this show with the leads being black. It adds a. It's incredible actually, because as you really start to think about what it means for Rose, it means for her to take care of her children during this period. What is a decision that you made for your character, that you made for considering that this Rose is a black woman, she makes?
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WNYC Studios
Well, there's so many different decisions. I can, I can, I'll, I'll speak to two of the decisions that she makes. One is a decision, I think, made out of incredible sort of luck, kismet, convenience, whatever you want to call it. She meets Herbie, you know, and is like, she, she. I don't think she. We play it in the show that by the time we get to this particular theater where Mr. Webber, she keeps sort of hounding the theater owner there and he's just trying to get her out of his face. I don't think she thinks she's going to be very successful with that, but she's going to keep trying because she doesn't have an off button. So she knows she's going to keep trying, keep trying. But then Herbie comes into the picture and she sees that he has. He has. She sees that he sees her. That's the first thing. Mr. Weber doesn't see her. That's just. He sees a tornado, a black tornado. He's got to get out of the way and try not to have an altercation. Herbie sees Rose and because he sees her, Rose seizes upon that opportunity. Right, right. And she's taken aback by the fact that he sees her and still wants to be in her presence, even though she is a black woman, which makes her think, huh, what's, what's that. That all about? And I see you seeing me, I'm gonna grab on in whatever way I can. So that's one decision that she makes as a black woman, you know, seeing that she's being recognized. Another one, which is very, very harsh is what she chooses to do with the little black boys in when they start to grow up, that she decides to make the act look like an all white act. Up until that point, you don't see, you don't see where they're performing, really, because then we just have June in the front, who's this very, very light skinned black girl who could pass as well, white. And these Little black boys behind them. And, and that was not all that unusual. And you know, in different places and, and, and vaudeville theaters that they could have performed not on the orium circuit. Because, you see, they're not on the Orpheum circuit yet. Herby comes into the picture and those kids start to grow up. And Rose realizes that if she can make the act look more, quote, the radio, trying to give air quotes. But quotes we got you palatable to a mainstream audience. Get her on the Orpheum circuit. She's got to switch it up. And so because there's. There's only. There was only one Bert Williams. There was only one Ada Overton Walker. There were very few opportunities for black people to actually get on the orium circuit. Usually it was just one act. Her show, whatever. So. So the very harsh choice that she makes to yank those black boys out of the show and replace them with white boys and basically step over into these are all white kids. All American white kids. You know, I've got. I've got my little white girl. Quotes, quotes again. Dressed up as the Statue of Liberties, you know, belting hide seas. And I've got one kid that looks like, you know, Franklin del Roosevelt. No, not fdr, the other one, Theodore Roosevelt. You got one looking like Abraham Lincoln and I and George Washington. I'd done before with my little black boys when I thought that was cute when they're growing up. So I got to make them all white. So now. And then the other harsh thing she does is she takes Louise, pulls her out of the actual and puts her in the rear of a cow. So she's now hidden. So this is now, for all intents and purposes, a white act. And then what's the first thing that we see happen to them after it becomes a white act? They get on the orium circuit. So those are harsh, harsh choices that Rose has made that she felt she needed to make again in her mind, all for her kids. Even when they auditioned for Mr. Granziger's Palace Theater and the secretary was saying, well, yes, all he wants is June. And you, mother, you also have all these wonderful lines of that's the mother, that's her. Whereas it may have had certain. I'm sure it had layers when it was just a white woman playing it, saying she's annoying. That's the one I was telling you about. But if a white act comes in and then all of a sudden this black woman comes in and is not the maid or not just the help, but no, that's the mother that's the one I was telling you about. So the first thing they try and do is separate her from this. And so, you know, once again, Rose makes a really harsh decision. Maybe it's rash to call him out on it and blow up an opportunity.
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Alison Stewart
We're talking about Gypsy now playing at the Majestic Theater. It stars Audra McDonald as Rose, the mom who wants stardom for her children, and Joy woods as Louise, the wallflower.
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Unnamed Speaker
Who makes it big in burlesque. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it.
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- [23:31]
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- [24:00]
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- [24:47]
Alison Stewart
This is all of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are Audra McDonnell and Joy Woods. We are discussing Gypsy. All right, Louise in the first half of the show has got like sort of takes backstage. She's not a showstopper like June. But in the second half, Joy, you are a bombshell. You come out. First of all, how do you hide your talents in the first half of the show?
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Joy Woods
I think the show was written well enough where it isn't something that I have to hide. I think there's a distinct difference between singing as an internal dialogue, singing out Louise, singing out into the real world. Um, so I think the material does a great job at distinguishing between the two and what is what. And the same goes for the dancing. What's happening in her head versus what's happening in real life. And I guess that means I just am able to use a little less technique, I guess, and try a little harder to send a message that she's finding her bearings and getting into her body. Because these kids are growing up, they're going through puberty.
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Alison Stewart
Sure.
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Joy Woods
They're probably having growing pains, their bones hurt, they don't know how to use their limbs. And I'm pretty sure that Louise is no exception to that. So that's more so of what is played into when she's growing up and coming into herself.
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WNYC Studios
Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Audra, I wanted to ask you about the book because this is often called the great book for musicals. What is something that you as an actor would understand about the book? Why it's considered a great book that we non musical people wouldn't necessarily understand?
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WNYC Studios
I think I can best answer that by telling you what we did on the first day of rehearsal.
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Alison Stewart
Sure.
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WNYC Studios
On the first day of rehearsal, we were all gathered and after we did all the introductions and whatnot, George sat us all down, big tables where we were all facing each other, and he said, okay, we're going to read this, but without music. But we're not skipping any of the lyrics when we get to the songs. You're still reading it. Read the lyrics. And so we read the whole thing tip to toe, as if it were only a play. And joy. What do you. I mean, it.
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Joy Woods
We could have put that thing up that day.
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WNYC Studios
Interesting. Seamless. It is seamless, the way the dialogue goes into these songs. And that's what's so brilliant about the book. I mean, it's almost. I mean, except for the fact that it's these legends of being Arthur Lawrence and Steve Sondheim and Julie Stein, you almost cannot even see the connective tissue. And a lot of when they are singing in the show, they are actually singing in real life. That's also what makes it so wonderful. So that's what I would say. But then if you wanted to look just at the scenes, if you were to look just at the scenes, the stuff that is not sung, it's very lean. This is a lean, lean machine as far as a book is concerned. So you are given very little dialogue and very little time and amount of lines in which to convey an emotion, to get to a thought, to. To have an idea, to react to something that has happened. Arthur Lawrence has made this very, very, very, very lean. Which means there's not a lot of time for, I guess, doing obnoxious, actory things. You got to get to it. Get to it. Yeah. The amount of time that Rose and Herbie meet and find that they have an attraction and mutual interest. All of that is two pages at the most. It's so quick, interesting, and. And also because the right writing is so beautiful, they've done all the work for you. You know, it's that great Tim McNally line of follow the composer. The composer is God, you know, playwright. Apply in many ways, the work has been done for you. He really has.
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Unnamed Speaker
Audra, the last time you were on the show is for the Ohio State Murders by Ajahn Kennedy. And it's a very serious and a very somber role. And in this part, you really get to show off your comic timing. Is there any secret, is there any trick, is there anything people should know about comic timing?
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WNYC Studios
I mean, I don't know that I'm the person to ask. The thing is, what I do know and what I have learned is that you're not. If you ask for the laugh, you're doomed.
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Unnamed Speaker
And, oh, wow, that's smart.
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WNYC Studios
Don't ask for the laugh. There is a great story. I don't know the name of the actors that were doing this, but basically I want to say it was Maggie Smith, but maybe it wasn't Maggie Smith. And then maybe it was, I don't know, some other British actor. And anyway, someone said they kept in the scene, they were supposed to ask for the tea, but there was a laugh that they were getting and they stopped getting the laughter. And the actress said to the actor and says, because you stopped asking for the tea, you're now asking for the laugh. So there is truth in comedy. There is truth, truth, truth in comedy. So as long as you are staying in your truth, the comedy can come from that. So the reason Rose runs on stage in the middle of their number, the kid's number, while they're auditioning is because she's freaked out that they don't necessarily think that it looks like a train. So she runs out and says, woohoo, watch this. It's a train. She's really wanting to hammer home that this set piece that they have is a train, but she's doing it at a ridiculous moment. And Rose's mind, she's like, oh, God, is he gonna know? Is he gonna know what? So she does the train, all that stuff, to try and telegraph to Mr. Grant Singer that that's what it is. The audience laughs, but in Rose's mind, she's not trying to get a laugh. She really wants to make sure he understands that's a training.
- [31:07]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
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WNYC Studios
So you understand what this big Dramatic finish is about. That's truth. You know what I mean? Yeah.
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Joy Woods
Like, everyone has stomach problems but me.
- [31:15]
WNYC Studios
Yeah, yeah. This is the same thing. Rose is dead serious about this. How come I don't get stomach problems? It's a completely inopportune moment and selfish thing to say in this moment, but she's, you know. But if I say, here, let me get a laugh at this point, it'll never, ever happen.
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Unnamed Speaker
Joy, your character goes, this undergoes this transition from a nice girl, maybe a bit shy, to this, like, va va voom, burlesque dancer, as you said. She, you know, she's getting older. She understands her body now. What do you understand about burlesque training from doing this show?
- [31:52]
Joy Woods
Um, I think working a crowd, for sure. Gypsy is known for her gimmick, being working with an audience and talking to them. And I think I'm still definitely learning a lot and excavating what those strips really are, because they happen so quickly. I think I'm still getting into the muscle memory of how the actual changes into one costume to the next goes. And so by the time I get out on the stage, I'm like, oh, my God, I made it. I made it. Let's just get to the next one. And I'm in the process of learning how to slow down and be where I am in the moment. But I think the most that you can do in burlesque is less and just pay attention to what's happening out there, because it's a conversation smart. Yeah. So learning how to listen to them and respond in that way rather than just be a thing and show them a thing. Yeah. It feels like actor 101, but it's where I'm at right now.
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Alison Stewart
It's all good. It's all good. Audra, what is something that your director, George C. Wolf, told you that you bring with you onto the stage every night?
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WNYC Studios
Oh, that. How long is your show? I mean, that's the great thing about George. You get so many. I tell anybody who's about to work with George for the first time, I was like, either try and write down everything he says or record it all, because they're all just this incredible gems and. And little nuggets of, like, nuclear truth that you just want to, you know, hold on to forever. I mean, there's one. I'm good. I don't mean for this to be funny, but this is the one that's in my head right now, because as you start to run a show, you have to find different veins to open. Yeah. To get the emotion out night after night. Because we're doing it night after night after night. So sometimes you can dry up. And George has a famous thing that he says. He says, remember, there are two pauses in the play and neither one of them are yours.
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Joy Woods
Yeah, I like that.
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WNYC Studios
Which is great, because what he's basically saying is, don't. Don't luxuriate in anything that's happening. You don't have to try to cry. He says, you just have to use the language there that has been given to you, the great language, to get across what you need to get across to use that. Don't pause. And he says you have to quote Zora Neale Hurston, you have to go there to know there. So don't feel like you have to find all the emotion first and then say the line. That's really powerful. He's like, that's what that language is there for you to do. And that's scary as an actor. Like, well, I'm not feeling weepy yet. And yet I have to say this line of, I'm so sorry. Just say the line. Go there to know there. The pause is not yours. Don't take that pause and let the language do the work. Trust the language.
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Alison Stewart
This is not a Gypsy question. Are you going to be on the Gilded Age when it comes back?
- [35:24]
WNYC Studios
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm having a good time on that. Yes, yes. Even though the corsets are very painful.
- [35:32]
Alison Stewart
Very powerful Gypsy. It's at the Majestic Theatre. I've been Speaking with Audra McDonnell and Joy Woods. It was a pleasure talking to you.
- [35:40]
WNYC Studios
Thank you so much. Thanks, Alison.
- [35:45]
Progressive Insurance
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