A (3:29)

And we're talking about Sahilim Ali.

B (3:31)

Sahim Ali, our director. Yes.

A (3:33)

What was unusual about the rehearsal process?

B (3:38)

Well, I will start by saying everything was unusual to me because I've never rehearsed a play before. But I think what I found especially beautiful and challenging was, was to have to discover and defend ideas in the public arena. You know, we are all together in the rehearsal room, and this is, as I've learned, a perhaps unusually large cast, especially for off Broadway. There's upwards of 20 people in it, and we're all in the room together, discovering the language, understanding. Coming to an understanding of the language, and working together to figure out what our characters mean in this world. So I found that kind of strange. Honestly, I'm so used to working in a vacuum.

A (4:34)

Did you like it?

B (4:36)

No, at first, because it's very exposing and it's very vulnerable. You know, I want to say, okay, I've been trying this thing in my bedroom, and, like, can I try it now with maybe just the director or, like, my scene partner? But you've got to. You have to stage it immediately, and you. You have to be bold. And so at first, I was very uncomfortable, but I came to love it because it really pushed me out of my shell. And I must say, everyone in this cast, in this production, everyone, you know, they're all acting veterans as far as I'm concerned. They've been very welcoming, supportive. Very, very, very supportive. Yes.

A (5:19)

And that's a good sign.

B (5:21)

It is a good sign. I mean, it's a great crop of people. But I think everyone comes here. You know, the theater, the public theater is there because we love storytelling and the written word. And also maybe we're all looking for a bit of community as well. And so it is an incredibly supportive and curious environment. And everyone's encouraged to bring their ideas to the table.

A (5:45)

When did acting become part of your ambition? Because you've been an idol and you're in Maxine as well. When did you decide acting was gonna be for you?

B (5:54)

Well, I came to it quite strangely. I never grew up thinking that I wanted to be an actor. I was never particularly curious about it, but I am really vigilant about listening and watching for the signs. And so I really felt like as I began my career, I kept getting these kind of signs from the universe that I should get into acting. I just had this feeling. And when the pandemic started. I at some point just heard a very clear voice say to me, if you were to pursue this, you'd have a shot at it and you would learn something. And I was just like, I don't really know what this is, but let's see. So I started taking an acting class on Zoom.

A (6:43)

On Zoom? Really?

B (6:44)

Yeah, from my house. It's the only acting class I've ever taken. Just like on Zoom with a bunch of people around the country. Most of them were in la and we're doing scenes every day in our living rooms and bedrooms and offices. And so I took that class for about a year. It's a class that my friend, the actress Tasha Smith put together through her school. And then I had auditioned for Euphoria and I didn't get it. But what was strange was that I almost got it and that kind of surprised me. And the director, Sam Levinson, was just like, I love you as an actor. And then a year later, that audition actually occurred the first week of my acting class. And so a year later, he called me and was like, hey, I've got this new show called the Idol and I've written you a part in it and will you do it? And that begun the journey.

A (7:42)

What did you learn in that acting class that you still use?

B (7:46)

Oh, that's a great question. Well, you know, as much as it feels like it could be a lesser version of a class, because it was on Zoom, I actually learned a lot about the camera because I'm sitting in front of one like for hours a day, and I'm, you know, at times able to see myself and see how my emotions are registering. You know, you don't always know if you're portraying what you're feeling, but I got to get a really good, nice, up close sense of what emotions I'm portraying. Now, that doesn't necessarily translate to the theater because you have to be much larger for people to understand what you're saying. But I think the thing that I learned the most is that it is so, so important to have an internal monologue. Thoughts, as we all do. Some of us are plagued even by thoughts and thinking, but your thinking the actions of the character. And I think that that is a big thing that I learned in that class.

A (8:47)

My guest is singer, songwriter and actor Moses Sumney. We're talking about his role as a singing jester, Feste and Shakespeare's Shakespeare in the Park. Twelfth Night is what is running now at the Delacorte Theater through September 13th. So the fools in Shakespeare's play, they tend to see the truth in many ways. What do you think Feste has insight in this show that the other characters don't realize?

B (9:14)

Well, I think Feste is a performer, but he is first and foremost an observer. And so while everyone thinks that they're witnessing him perform and he might be entertaining them, he's seeing the ways in which everyone is performing. And Twelfth Night, which is a play that's particularly interested in gender, has a lot to say about gender. Performance, performance, and the performance of what society puts on us or what we think we need to do in order to get something from society. So I think that is the wisdom that he has, is that, like, you're all performing something, you're all putting something on in order to get something. And I think Feste, more than anything, is able to hold a mirror up to the people in the play and the people observing the play.

A (10:07)

What do the people around Feste, what do they want from him?

B (10:11)

They want to be entertained. They want a song and a jig. You know, they want a nice tune. Sing us a song. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna sing you a song. And the lyrics are going to be about the love that you have always wished that you had. It's not always just like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, you know? Yeah, they want to be entertained, but they're getting a little bit more than that.

A (10:34)

Michael Thurberg did the orchestrations and the compositions for this production.

B (10:38)

Brilliant.

A (10:39)

He has this great mix of, like, sort of funk and classical music in his background and his pedigree. What was your collaborative process like with him?

B (10:47)

You know, it was really cool. So Michael started. I mean, the great thing about Twelfth Night, for anyone who hasn't seen it, there are songs in it, but there is no record of what the music might have sounded like in the 1600s. There is only a record of the text. And so it's up to each production to decide what the sonic world is. And Michael, you know, Sahim Ali, our director, has always said that when he was envisioning the world of this play, that my music was the sound of Illyria, whether I was going to be in the play or not. He always imagined that my music shaped the world, which is such an honor. And so Michael Thurber, our composer, arranged the music in the style that he imagined that I might arrange the music in, which is pretty bold. He's like, so this is what I think you would do.

A (11:35)

You sound like, yeah.

B (11:36)

And I'm like, oh, is that what I give off but then, of course, mixing in his own classical background and his interest in hip hop and soul and R and B and funk and even house music at times. And so I was able to then come in and say, this is beautiful. I would do it maybe a little bit this way. And, like, what if I did this a little this way? And so it was really collaborative. I got to come in and, like, stretch the arrangements and offer kind of new angles on a beautiful, beautifully thought out foundation.

A (12:06)

What did you want to stretch? What did you want to change a bit?

B (12:09)

You know, I think there's a second song in the show called oh, Mistress Mine. And with that, and I'm playing the guitar and this really funny hot tub scene, I wanted to really. The lyrics of that are so romantic. And it's talking about, you know, what it's like to be young and the urgency of love. It says, in delay there lies no plenty. And so I wanted to just really make it more romantic and, like, draw it out and really kind of play with the melody and let it rise and fall in a way that really spoke to the storytelling, I think.

A (12:49)

And we also said there weren't any hot tubs during Shakespeare's time, but there are in this show.

B (12:54)

There are no record. You know, documentarians have not found record of hot tubs, I will say. But there is a big one in this show.

A (13:02)

Well, that's sort of what's so great about Sahimali's direction is. Is how he brings Shakespeare to the present moment.

B (13:09)

Yeah, yeah.

A (13:10)

And he makes it very current.

B (13:13)

Yeah. I mean, all of the themes are entirely relatable. I don't think we've ever strayed from the same stuff. You know, we want to be loved, we want to be seen, we want to impress people. And then it's just up to the director and the actors to make that contemporary. But even by just doing it in this present day and saying, we are here now, we don't live back then, we live now. How is this relevant to us? It kind of does it itself, but anything can happen. There's tons of things in this show, if I'm not spoiling it. There's boxing. There's, you know, a bicycle scene.

A (13:47)

Right, right. There's cocaine on the side of the hot tub.

B (13:49)

You know, there are substances that might not have been around in the 1600s.

A (13:55)

What role do you think music plays in this version of Twelfth Night?

B (14:00)

Well, I think music is presented to both lift the spirits, but also speak to the condition of the soul, to be honest. Like the souls of These people in the play, they're very complicated. In this play, they're very tortured. Malvolio is literally tortured. You know, and so I think where the text, the music supports the text in wanting to expose how people are feeling. But I think the function of music in the play is really the function of music in the world. It gives us language when we do not have language. And of course, Shakespeare has so much language, but there are some things that can only be said with a note or a strum or song.

A (14:52)

Honestly, it's interesting you brought up Malvolio because his role takes his role. His story takes a darker turn towards the end, and you're involved in that. For people who know Twelfth Night, how did you handle the tonal shift from. This is really fun. This is really bright to like. This gets a little dark when he starts to get tortured.

B (15:16)

You know, I struggle with it every night. And we all struggled with it so much. I think in the beginning we were like, so what if he doesn't get tortured? Okay. What if he gets tortured a little less? And it's just like, no, he gets tortured. And that's just it. And it's a comedy and he gets tortured. And, you know, I think that life's just like that. You go from laughing and having fun and joy to getting terrible news or having something terrible happen to you. And you're like, why me? And I think the beauty of this play is that those things are rubbing up against each other always. There is no joy or happiness without misery or a sense of misery or having been misery. And there's no misery without knowing what you're missing out on. And you'd have to have experience to the joy to know that. And so I just accept that now. And for me, I do have to go in order to torture Malvolio, I have to go to a pretty dark place. But I just imagine all the people that deserve it.

A (16:22)

The story is also a story about gender fluidity.

B (16:25)

Yeah.

A (16:25)

We won't give too much away, but there's a fabulous ending. We'll say that.

B (16:29)

Indeed.

A (16:30)

What makes it relevant to this current moment?

B (16:33)

Wow. Well, it's funny to read the play even before seeing it. And you think, wow, this is just so. Feels really current in the way that they're playing with gender. And it's like, I think that it's so important for us to read and get into history because we have. You know, every generation thinks that they're the first generation to think of something, and we're just not. We just don't change that much as people. And so I think it's incredibly contemporary in which there is. In the ways that there is gender bending and there is, you know, the sexualities of some characters are very unclear and people are playing both sides. It's constantly acknowledging and demolishing the binary. One of the characters, the male characters in the play is played by a non binary actor. And of course, back in the day, all of the female characters and played by men. I think it's incredibly contemporary in the way that it deals with gender. But I think we have to stop thinking of gender, deconstructing the gender binary as a contemporary product. It's something that we've always been interested in because we want to be free.

A (17:47)

We're talking to Moses Sumney about Twelfth Night. It's Shakespeare in the park at the Delacorte Theater. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is actor Moses Sumney. We're talking about his role as the jester Feste in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Twelfth Night. It's running at the Delacorte Theater through September 13th. I saw it. It was the most cold, gorgeous night out. It was a beautiful evening. It was like a picture perfect. Mwah. Chef's kiss. What do you like about performing outside in the Delacorte Theater?

B (18:35)

Oh, I love feeling the air on my skin, honestly. There's a beautiful monologue in the play that starts, this is the air. And I'm like, yeah, this is the air. We got a nice little draft today. I love before the show, just getting there early and just like sunbathing in Central Park. It's such an honor. Sometimes you hear birds, sometimes you hear helicopters. But I'm gonna pretend you don't pretend you don't. You see the raccoons? It's just very.

A (19:04)

You've seen the raccoons? Have you seen them?

B (19:06)

Oh, Yesterday I saw 7 all at the same time. It was crazy. And I was trying to feed them and I was yelled at, but they like to eat too. But whatever, you know, I think it's just really. It's really beautiful. It makes it feel. It makes it feel so cool, colloquial, you know, like, we try to make Shakespeare accessible, but it feels even more accessible. Cause, like, we're all just chilling in the park.

A (19:29)

One of the things about Shakespeare in the park, which is great, is that it's free. It's available to anybody who Wants to show up and get tickets.

B (19:35)

Yes.

A (19:37)

What's a version of art? Whether it was books or music or a library that was free for you, that made a difference in your life?

B (19:45)

I mean, can we count all the music I illegally downloaded in the 2010 hello, Napster? It was free for me. Limewire was. You know, I'm sorry, but I'm just of that era. It really came through. And I grew up in Ghana. I grew up between Ghana and California. But when I lived in Ghana, it was very difficult to access, you know, contemporary music. And so I. Yeah, I downloaded a lot of stuff, and that was for you. But in terms of public accent, I love the radio, I gotta say. I really do. Even now, I listen to the radio all the time in my car. And, yeah, I think those two things.

A (20:33)

This is a very stacked cast in terms of both being great actors and superstars, truly. Lupita Nyong' O and Sandra oh, what have you been able to learn from them about acting?

B (20:46)

So much? And I love cornering people and being like, can I have some advice? And it's so cheesy and uncool, but a lot of people are just waiting to be asked, except Peter Dinklage, who I asked for some advice and he said, who am I? Surrey and McKellen? And I was like, to some people, yes, actually. But I've learned so much from watching them. There is a real, real dedication to process, to showing up early, to being at rehearsals, to doing it over and over and over and over again. And it's not about being cool. It's not about being famous. It's not about looking good or being pretty. It's about just getting down to the nitty gritty. And I've gotten some beautiful advice from a lot of the cast members. And I think maybe the best advice I've been given is that you have to just feel it in your body and show up really honest and connected to your gut. Which I was just like, yes, I need that for my life.

A (21:53)

Does it cross over for songwriting for you? Because you have your own expertise in songwriting?

B (21:59)

You know, I think it will. I haven't had much time to songwrite while we've been doing the play, but one of the reasons I wanted to do this is because I have my process and my way of being. And people who know my music know that it's very intimate, it's very revealing and honest. But I think it could be more honest. And I think that acting, if you're really dedicated to it, especially in the theatrical way, you have to really open yourself up and be vulnerable. And like I was saying earlier about being exposed in rehearsal in front of everyone, you just have to say, I accept that whatever I'm going through or whatever story I have to tell is not just mine, that however personal it might be, it is relatable. And so I think in songwriting, what it will and has been helping me do is just really open up and rip myself open and say, okay, fine, here it is. Here I am.

A (23:01)

Can we listen to a couple of songs you've recently released?

B (23:03)

We sure can.

A (23:05)

All right. It's a new single with Hayley Williams from Paramore. Love her. It's called I Like It. I like it. Why did you want to collaborate with Hayley?

B (23:15)

Well, because she's an icon. Hayley Williams, you know, from Paramore, was just such a big part of my growing up, my teen years, when I first moved to America, listening to K Rock in California and just being like, what is this band? So I've always really loved her. And our. You know, in 2020, we both released albums around the same time. We both released, like, double albums. And so we kind of started communicating. Back then, somehow she knew who I was. And then many years later, I ran into her at a thing and when I had the song, and I've. And, you know, Hayley Williams is such a soulful singer, and I think that there are a lot of people, especially black people, who, like, love her music.

A (23:58)

Honestly, she's on the list of songwriters and singers that black people love that.

B (24:04)

Love, like Kelly Clarkson. You can put that on the list. Oh, my gosh. Yes.

A (24:07)

Kelly Williams.

B (24:08)

Yes. Like, come, we're going to church. Yes. And we're passing you the mic. That's just the situation. But I think we've been waiting to hear Haley on something more soulful. So I DMed her on Instagram, and I was just like, hey, I've got a song. Would you consider singing on it? I was thinking about it for months before I did it, but I was, like, so afraid. So I found out it was her birthday, and I DMed her on her birthday because I was like, oh, there's no way she's gonna see it. Like, she's definitely not on her phone. So great. I did it. I did my part, and it's fine if she doesn't respond. And she responded immediately before I sent the song and said yes. And then I sent her the song, and she freaked out. So it's been a dream collaboration I loved. I flew to Nashville to record her, and it was brilliant working with her.

A (24:55)

Let's hear it. This is. I like it, I like it.

B (24:59)

It's not that I don't like it, baby it's just that I like it a little too much. A kiss on the cheek Every time that we meet I turn cactus when we touch, touch no matter what you say in the streets we're not in the sheets, bumping bags or bodies. Speaking of sweet I gotta make a little confession. You're a confection leaving me holy like tea. I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it too much I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it too much.

A (26:19)

Well done. Well done, well done.

B (26:22)

Thank you. Thank you very much.

A (26:24)

You've collaborated with so many artists from Sid to Sufian Stevens to Sam Smith, James Blake. What do you like about creating music with other artists as opposed to just going your own way?

B (26:38)

Oh, well, it really gives you an opportunity. It gives me an opportunity to show my diverse and broad tastes. And I think sometimes it's, you know, a songwriter, you get into your bag of tricks and it's hard not to just do the same thing over and over again. But when you work with other people, you're forced to consider new ways of being and singing and thinking about music. My song with Sufyan, for example. I've always wanted to make music like that. It's probably my favorite kind of music music, you know, finger picking folk music. And I hadn't had a chance to really fully show that until I did that with him. And, and so, yeah, I like the way it makes you just get outside of yourself.

A (27:26)

Any news about an album soon?

B (27:30)

Oh, yes. I mean, I will have an album next year for sure, but we're already marching towards the end of the year, so you'll probably hear about it soon. But I was finishing it. I was quite literally mixing it in London right before this process. And so I flew straight in to New York and had to just stop everything to focus on old Billy Shakespeare because it requires all of my attention. But yeah, I've been working on a new record and I'm so, so, so, so, so excited about it and I can't wait to share it.

A (28:08)

Well, I'll hope you come back and you'll share it here.

B (28:10)

Oh, I absolutely will.

A (28:13)

My guest has been singer, songwriter and actor Moses Sumney. You can see him in Twelfth Night. It's running at the Delacorte Theater through September 13th. Thank you so much for coming on in.

B (28:23)

Thank you. This has been a dream.

A (28:26)

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