Below is a series of quotes from our time at the 2017 Lucille Lortel Awards.
Interview with Paco Tolson, 2017 Lucille Lortel Award Nominee for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Vietgone, Written by Qui Nguyen, Manhattan Theatre Club)
Q: How was your experience in Vietgone and being part of a ‘breaking point’ for MTC (Manhattan Theatre Club?
P: It was an incredible honor to be a part of something that everyone acknowledged was the next plateau for a really, long-standing, well regarded, constitution. Institutes move very slowly, and that’s an understood part of the process, where you have a lot of money, and lot of people who all make decisions together. But, the world is also changing, everything is rushing to meet this diversity, parody, inclusion mandate. For us to be part of a show like that, at an institution like that (Manhattan Theatre Club), and be that first crack in the glass, was amazing.
Q: What was your favorite moment of the rehearsal process?
P: My favorite part of the rehearsal process was actually… we had a photographer from the New York Times come in, and take some photos during the middle of our fights. The ninja fights are my favorite part… I love it all, but I’ve never been able to stretch my legs as a fighter before. I had my picture taken with the two people punching me at the same time, and I was like, “THIS IS SO LEGIT! THIS IS REAL!”
Q: So, Wakey Wakey… it’s a dark show.
M: It’s good fun for a while, strange fun. Then it gets very sad.
Q: How was the rehearsal process for you?
M: It was pretty smooth. We all kind of knew what needed to get done from the get-go. And the play is short enough, that every time you rehearse, you did the whole play. It wasn’t like you could chop it up into scenes, like “Let’s do the funny bit for a while, and then the sad bit”…. cause once we got going, we would always run through to the grim end.
Q: What was something in the character and the world of Wakey, Wakey, that drew you into the project?
M: I think the language was so indirect, kind of a fractured poetry, of a sort… that makes sense in a way, alchemically, after you’ve listened to it. Or after you’ve read and thought about it for a bit… Nothing in it is normal…but he (Will Eno, playwright of Wakey, Wakey) puts that stuff out there, and later on you find that it’s gotten to you, and it adds up to something unexpected.
Q: How do you feel going into rehearsals next week?
K: I feel good. I feel nervous, but excited because we are already off-book, we’ve been asked to be off-book before we started the process.
Q: What it is about the character Horatio, that makes you most excited to play him?
K: I guess, part of it is… the most exciting thing, really? I’ve wanted to play this particular role for 27 years… I was scared to death of playing Hamlet, and you get to live to the end. I always loved the righteousness of the character, not a forced righteousness, he’s just a good guy. And there’s an earnestness about the character that I always embraced upon watching it, but I had no idea, I never thought this would happen. So, to be quite honest with you, it’s a nostalgia of sorts… that’s the biggest, most exciting thing for me.
Q: Seeing your career flourish right now, is incredible…!
S: It feels incredible… mainly because we closed four months ago. So when you are remembered with all of these new shows opening up, and these gorgeous new shiny things, you think “Oh well, perhaps we might have made an impression four months ago.” So to be recognized when that time has passed, is the best compliment, it really is.
Q: How was it working on that show in our political climate?
S: We didn’t know at the time, we were still going along with Barack Obama, and we thought we were telling one story with great focus. Certainly that all changed… it really was something, it really was something, how all of the lines took on different layers, different textures. Something about Will Finn’s music is that whatever is going on outside the walls of the theatre, somehow comes in to the theatre, and people take it on. Whether it is something about our climate, something that’s happening to them at home, it really has this way of morphing to whatever you need emotionally in your life, and that’s the genius of Will Finn.
Stephanie J. Block and Shoshanna Bean attend the 32nd Annual Lucille Lortel Awards at NYU Skirball Center on May 7, 2017 in New York City
Interview with 2017 Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Honoree William Ivey Long
Q: What has your first year away from The American Theatre Wing been like?
W: I get to work with the community in a different way, on the other side of the velvet rope as it were.
Q: What are you most excited about for this season?
W: Oh my goodness, this season, well you know, some people didn’t think we could survive after Hamilton… but we are. We are surviving, and doing, and making. The plays this year, and the musicals, and the revivals… it’s all very exciting.
Honoree William Ivey Long attends 32nd Annual Lucille Lortel Awards at NYU Skirball Center on May 7, 2017 in New York City
Interview with Rachel Brosnahan of Amazon’s new show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Q: How was working on such a fun piece (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)
R: It was so fun, it’s one of the first projects that I’ve ever worked on, that’s about a woman, being written, directed, and executive produced by a woman, as well as other people… but largely by a woman. This is Amy Sherman- Palladino’s baby, and it’s been extraordinary, and we start officially shooting on Tuesday!
Rachel Brosnahan attends 32nd Annual Lucille Lortel Awards at NYU Skirball Center on May 7, 2017 in New York City
Interview with Phillipa Soo of Broadway’s Amelie, and Hamilton
Q: How has it been originating three roles on and off-Broadway over the past three years?
P: I mean, it’s incredible, it’s kind of crazy to walk down the street and see these three shows (Hamilton, Great Comet of 1812, Amelie) running at the same time. It was more than three years of my life… the best thing is that some of my best friends and colleagues, who are the most talented people in the world, that I’m inspired by and look up to, are working on these shows, just a skip away.
