6 minute read
‘Tootsie’ Goes Hollywood
Dressed for the Occasion:
“Tootsie” the Comedy Musical Comes to Little Rock and Fayetteville for National Tour
By MAK MILLARD // Photos By EVAN ZIMMERMAN FOR MURPHYMADE
When it comes to dressing for the job you want, no one takes that advice as far as Michael Dorsey, a notoriously difficult actor struggling to book new gigs. When an opportunity does arise, Dorsey won’t be put off by the fact that the role calls for an actress. Instead, he takes on the performance of his life to become Dorothy Michaels, his feminine alter ego.
So goes the underlying premise of “Tootsie,” known to most people via the hit 1982 movie starring Dustin Hoffman. Now, the Broadway musical adaptation of that film, which debuted in 2019, is headed for The Natural State. The national tour of the comedy musical is making two stops in Arkansas during its second year on the road, playing Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall Jan. 13-15 before heading to the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville Jan. 17-22.
Assuming the role of Michael Dorsey/ Dorothy Michaels for the U.S. tour is actor Drew Becker. Becker is only the third person to play the role after Dustin Hoffman and Santino Fontana. Though both are big performances to follow – Hoffman was nominated for an Oscar and Fontana took home a Tony Award for his version – Becker has no qualms about making the character his own.
“I wouldn’t say I’m intimidated,” Becker said. “I’m just excited to be able to tour with the show. I didn’t feel any kind of pressure from the creative team to be the same as either of them. I’m really able to bring my own perspective, which I appreciate.”
Becker and the rest of the cast went through several rounds of self-tape auditions before meeting the creative team and producers over Zoom. For the 10th and final callback, the producers needed to see if Becker had the right look in person, so he traveled to New York for a head-to-toe Dorothy Michaels makeover.
“It was a little bit surreal,” Becker said. “I had seen the show in New York, and at that time, it didn’t even cross my mind that
I would ever potentially be a part of the production. All of a sudden, I was seeing myself in the same exact costume as the lead on Broadway.”
With the number of costume changes required of Becker to move from Michael to Dorothy and back, the actor has little time to stand and admire the look the way he did that first time. The backstage crew took notes from the show’s Broadway run and spent rehearsal time fine-tuning all those transformations.
“At this point, it’s basically like riding a bike,” Becker said. “But it’s funny; if you were standing backstage, what you would see is me running off and going into a little SWAT team circle. They stand around me with lights on their heads, putting nails on me, handing me lipstick, zipping me up in each of the dresses. I call them the Glam Squad. It’s a really talented group back there making the changes happen every night.”
Becker described Michael Dorsey as arrogant and self-centered, a person who “creates a little bit of chaos” for everyone he meets. Even Dorsey’s agent warns him he’ll likely never work again with the reputation he’s earned. “Dorsey’s friend [Sandy Lester, played by Payton Reilly] is auditioning for a brand-new musical continuation of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” Becker said. “They’re looking for Juliet’s nurse, so he creates Dororthy Michaels to go in and audition for this role. He books it, and then he falls in love with his co-star [Julie Nichols, played by Ashley Alexandra]. After that, he creates a little bit of hell for himself.” Throughout the show, Becker plays not just Michael Dorsey, but Michael Dorsey playing Dorothy Michaels. In addition to affecting the way he interprets his female persona, the extra layer complicates his interactions with the other characters.
“In every scene that Michael is playing Dorothy, there’s that added sense that this isn’t a separate character, but the same character that we’ve seen before,” Becker said. “I’m trying to think about what it is that Michael is trying to get out of the moment, what he’s experiencing and how he expresses that through Dorothy. I find that it’s about allowing yourself to be more in touch with your feminine side.”
Becker is drawing on several sources of
The cast of the National Tour of “Tootsie.”
inspiration to channel that feminine side. His Michael-as-Dorothy is a mixture of the different women in his life, but he’s also taking hints from more famous names.
“With regards to physicality, I was really looking at Anna Wintour, Michelle Obama, Kerry Washington and Meryl Streep. I made a picture board of the different ways they stand and tried to find my version of that,” Becker said. “Personality-wise, Dorothy is a little bit spunky, and she has a strength to her as well. I turned to the famous theater divas of our time, like Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters and Christine Baranski, and combined the physicality of those other four women with the personality traits of these three.”
“Tootsie” has been a hit with critics, with Rolling Stone calling it “musical comedy heaven” and Bloomberg praising it for being “packed with punchlines.” It can be difficult to make a comedy that travels well among different audiences across the country, however. With regard to taking the show on the road, Becker said every performance is a new and unique experience, an element which naturally helps the cast and crew keep things fresh every night.
“Each city has its own personality and sense of humor,” he said. “Some of the laughs are bigger in some places, some are smaller. Sometimes they’re laughing at places that we didn’t ever anticipate, where no one has laughed before, and other times it’s crickets where audiences are normally rolling,” he said.
“I don’t really know what it is, but there’s this collective energy that we’re interacting with every night. When you’re dealing with comedy and having to hold for laughs, and that is changing in each city, it really keeps us on our toes.”
Becker did point to one moment in particular that has been a hit with just about every crowd he’s faced. No spoilers but keep an eye out during the second act for a certain 15-minute sequence.
“It’s me in my apartment with three different characters coming in and out, and there’s this massive comedic payoff,” Becker said. “The audience will laugh for about a minute and a half, nonstop, every single night at that sequence.”
For those familiar with the movie, the stage adaptation changes enough details to be current. Even if you haven’t seen it, Becker has found that there’s a common thread connecting everyone in every audience: they end up having one of the best nights they’ve ever had in a theater.
“They’re saying that the show is so much funnier than they anticipated, that they haven’t laughed this hard at a show in a very long time,” he said. “When you come, expect to pretty much be laughing for two and a half hours straight.”
The message of the show, wrapped in about 150 minutes of hilarity, is a universal and touching one. It reminds the audience of just how different the experiences of men and women can be, from beauty standards to everyday social interactions.
“The idea of finding a kind of equality is really at the heart of our show,” Becker said. “And we’re able to point at that, to bring a little truth to that, while making people laugh along the way.” Drew Becker as Michael Dorsey and Jared David Michael Grant as Jeff Slater in the National Tour of “Tootsie.”
Drew Becker as Michael Dorsey and Jared David Michael Grant as Jeff Slater in the National Tour of “Tootsie.”
