8 minute read
The Biggest Shoes To Fill By Sherry Stern
Actors playing roles indelibly tied to megastars—Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Julia Roberts—take inspiration from the performers while making the parts their own.
THERE’S A MOVING scene in Funny Girl when the main characters, Fanny Brice and Nick Arnstein, kiss for the first time. In this intimate moment, Fanny reacts in a way that’s true to herself: She dances a little tap combination.
That time step is pure Barbra Streisand—one of many moves in Funny Girl where the actress currently playing Fanny senses Streisand’s personal touch, mannerisms now baked into the role that Streisand originated 59 years ago.
“For many people, Fanny and Barbra are one,” says Katerina McCrimmon, who stars in the Broadway revival’s national tour. It comes to the Ahmanson Theatre April 2-28 and Segerstrom Center for the Arts May 28-June 9.
“I’ll tell you right off the bat that I feel no pressure to be her. There’s no way I can be, so I never once thought, ‘How do I live up to Barbra?’ ”
The challenge is very real for any actor playing a role that’s singularly tied to a megastar, whether it be a Broadway actor, a pop singer or a film actress. Think Streisand or Michael Jackson or Julia Roberts. Then consider three stage actors with that exact challenge—inhabiting a persona indelible in audiences’ minds while making the part their own.
“My performance is going to be my performance. It’s very different from what Barbra did, and people are going to either like it or not,” McCrimmon says, on the road during a tour that takes her to 30 cities. “People’s perception is out of my hands. Of course, I respect what she’s done. Without her, there would be no Funny Girl.”
While creating her own Fanny Brice, McCrimmon says, she never forgets the original. In fact, in her spare time on the road, she has been listening to Streisand read the audio version of her autobiography, My Name is Barbra.
“I can’t just leave her out of the picture. I know her version of Funny Girl. It’s so beautiful and timeless,” she says; she hopes hers is, too. “I just lead with confidence, and I lead with my heart, and hope that that translates.”
Adding another layer is that the character of Fanny Brice was a real person—a comedic actor on stage, film and radio— as popular at the turn of last century as Streisand became after Funny Girl Ultimately, McCrimmon says she must channel Fanny, not Streisand.
“It’s been more of a Fanny-focused rehearsal process, not a Barbra one. We’re really inspired by the essence of Fanny and the essence of her story. But they took a lot of artistic liberties with the show. More than anything, it’s a star vehicle.
“I’m working with my essence and letting that shine through,” she adds. “And just having fun.”
WHILE MCCRIMMON’S portrayal doesn’t have to meet audience expectations of what Fanny Brice was like, that’s the challenge for an actor playing Michael Jackson in the Broadway hit MJ
The biographical jukebox musical explores Jackson’s creative process as he was prepping for the 1992 Dangerous World Tour, and flashes back to young Michael’s formative years.
Its lead must inhabit an incomparable performer. Roman Banks, who stars in the show’s first national tour, differentiates MJ from a tribute act.
“I’m not Michael Jackson. I’ll never be Michael Jackson, so I will never try to be Michael Jackson,” says Banks. He’s about halfway through a year-long run that comes to the Segerstrom Center March 19-31.
“What I am trying to capture is his essence and his humanity on stage. I think that is the way people are going to find themselves, feeling a presence of his spirit or his artistry.”
Banks made Broadway history in 2018 as the first Black actor to play the lead in Dear Evan Hansen, an opportunity he describes as a “huge dream come true.”
Then along came MJ, a role he was determined to play. Growing up in a house where his parents played the Jackson Five, and later discovering his uncle was a key dancer in the “Bad” video, Banks knew Jackson and his moves. “If there’s one thing I can do, it’s Michael Jackson’s stuff.
“I was obsessed. The moment I heard about it, I was like, ‘I have to do this.’ It was the music that I grew up with. I sung this my entire life.”
Banks says audiences shouldn’t expect an exact replica of Jackson—for that, he directs them to YouTube.
“It feels more like I’m submitting myself as a vessel instead of doing an impersonation,” he says. “If I can focus on the man, focus on his heart and focus on the energy that he brought to performance, the passion he brought to a performance and the level of detail ... the rest will follow.”
It’s a role that’s changed Banks as a person and a performer.
“I’ve been really trying to submit myself to the freedom of movement that Michael seemed to have on stage. That’s opened up a new avenue of energy that I feel.”
IN A NEW musical based on the 1988 romantic comedy Mystic Pizza, recently seen at La Mirada Theatre and other California theaters, Krystina Alabado plays Daisy, the role that made Julia Roberts a star.
“It’s this delicate balance, at least for me as an artist and an actor,” Alabado says. “There’s nothing that I can possibly do to ever be Julia Roberts as Daisy in the movie.”
When she first took the role, Alabado wasn’t thinking of Roberts. She was looking on her computer screen at the postage-stamp faces of the team creating the show. Mystic Pizza was developed on Zoom at the height of the pandemic, with actors lip syncing to ’80s pop hits. “Oddly, I didn’t even think about the craziness that I was stepping into this role that was Julia Roberts, because it was such a crazy development. I was thinking about the Zoom and recording these songs and wondering, ‘How are we going to do this?’ ”
Roberts, because it was such a crazy development. I was thinking about the Zoom and recording these songs and wondering, ‘How are we going to do this?’ ”
As the show became a reality, its premiere was set for late 2021 in Maine. “My first dive into understanding what shoes I was stepping into was really when we got to Ogunquit Playhouse, when I was embodying her in person for the first time,” Alabado says.
“As an actor, you’re always asked to be yourself, but then you are doing these iconic roles that were already established by true superstars of the world, Julia Roberts being one of them. I’ve been a huge Julia Roberts fan my whole life. What I can do is be inspired by her performance.”
She’s found that playing Julia Roberts play Daisy, in a sense, has changed her as an actress.
“Watching her in that movie fills me with the desire to be more confident and powerful. It’s all these beautiful things that I watch and bring into myself.”
Still, in the end, she says, “I really just find my own version of Daisy.”
Alabado can find inspiration from Roberts at every performance— onstage. Anyone looking closely at the pizza shop set will see a small photo on the wall of the trio of actresses from the movie.
“It’s nice to see her and to be reminded where this character came from.”
It’s not the first time Alabado has stepped into a role made famous by another actor.
She was a replacement on Broadway for the character of Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, originated in the movie by Lacey Chabert and on stage by Ashley Parks.
More recently, Alabado starred as Dot in the lauded revival of Sunday in the Park with George at Pasadena Playhouse, a signature role of another singular actress, Bernadette Peters.
As a young girl with Broadway dreams, Alabado would imagine herself in more pop-ish roles (think Rent) than as a Peters type in a Sondheim show. In fact, she’d never seen the musical until she was cast in the Pasadena revival; she then watched a video of the original with Peters and Mandy Patinkin.
“I wept through the whole thing,” she recalls. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. So, I take her and everything she did, and I put it in my heart and my body and soul, so that I feel like she’s with me somewhere in my creation of my own version of Dot.”
Though Alabado has her sights on creating original roles—she’s working with John Leguizamo on his musical Kiss My Aztec, which he’s developing for Broadway—she clearly relishes the opportunity to take on a renowned performer such as Roberts or Peters.
“I remember how powerful and fiery and confident Julia Roberts was in the movie,” she says. “It’s almost like taking the power that she has and trying to get a little bit of that into me. I felt similarly when I did Sunday in the Park and filling a role that iconically was done by Bernadette Peters.
“Just remembering these powerhouse women that I truly grew up with— I want to be like them.”
