When Stephanie J. Block asks me to “edit her brilliantly” at the end of our chat, I realize I’ll be unable to fulfill her request; for there is not a single word I want to get rid of, or change, from our conversation. What she describes as “talking too much” is in fact nothing of the sort, it’s more of a brilliant eloquence, with each of her comments proving to be insightful, heartfelt and very funny. Words that also happen to describe her work. The Tony-nominee has had a colorful career in which she’s shown her absolute fearlessness tackling everything from witches (Wicked) to men (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) to Liza! (she made her Broadway debut in The Boy From Oz).
Even though she’s been out of the spotlight for the past few months, after she and husband Sebastian Arcelus welcomed their first baby (congratulations!), the last quarter of 2015 sounds like a rather exciting time for the talented performer. She will be joining The New York Pops twice, once for a special fundraiser, and later for an all-star Christmas concert where she will be accompanied by Brian d’Arcy James. Ms. Block told me what we can expect from both shows with The Pops, and we also talked about her love of Netflix, the holidays, and how theatre needs to change to benefit women more.
You’ll be performing with Aaron Lazar in A Cabaret Evening with The New York Pops. What will you be singing?
Aaron will do the first half hour of the evening, then my band will come out and we’ll do the second half hour, and then Aaron will join me and we’ll do a few duets together.
Is it more intimidating to play for a smaller crowd than say do a Broadway show or Carnegie Hall?
Oh gosh, I love these intimate venues, this one in particular is going to be extremely special, because it’s more of a private party as opposed to fans and friends who buy tickets. This show has a purpose, and the purpose is for the people who are in the audience that night that have intimate connections to, or are part of the Ronald McDonald House. When you are able to use your talent for something like that, it always makes for a really special evening.
As someone who can’t sing a note to save his life, I have always felt like it would be so amazing to sing with a full orchestra like The New York Pops. Can you describe what this feels like in an adequate analogy for us non-singers?
What does it feel like? It feels like you’re standing on the front of a train. To have 80 pieces of gorgeous instrumentation behind you, literally propelling you forward is the only analogy I can think of. It feel like you’re being pushed along, lovingly of course, and supported at such an immense speed and excitement. The New York Pops is absolutely the finest, and of course, if you’re in front of a train, your conductor...hey! It works on so many levels! Your conductor works on a train as well as an orchestra, Steven Reineke is such a genius. What’s interesting about doing a Broadway show when you’re a singer is your instrumentation and your conductor are in front of you in the pit, so you can see the baton going up, you can see the tempo at which the song is going to be played, so there’s a real connection between you and the conductor because you can see him there. Steven has this amazing quality of standing behind you or beside you, and still you can feel his breath, you can feel his internal metronome. It’s really incredible to be under his baton. The train is not knocking you down, it’s pushing you forward!
Later this year you’ll be joining the Pops again for It’s Christmas Time in the City. While it might be too early to ask this, what are some of your favorite Christmas music memories?
The Rockefeller tree is always a big one for me, I’m a Christmas...I can’t use the word “whore” in this interview, can I? I’m probably about a quarter of the way down with Christmas shopping, when I lived in an apartment in Manhattan I had an entire storage unit just for Christmas decorations. Now that my husband and I have a home and a child, it’s gotten out of hand! I love Christmas so much, Macy’s at Christmas time, the luscious windows on Fifth Avenue...to be at Carnegie Hall and sing my favorite Christmas songs with The New York Pops, and perhaps to make an appearance with my newborn infant, is going to be an extraordinarily special, special holiday season for me this year.
That sounds absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to see that!
(Laughs) We have to see if she’ll have the temperament to make it onstage that night.
I remember squealing when you showed up in Homeland. I love that it’s become the new Law and Order when it comes to giving theatre nerds bonus pleasure. Are you a big TV watcher? I’m especially curious if you continued watching House of Cards even after Sebastian’s character was sent to prison?
These are great questions! Yes, I am an avid Netflix watcher, I love Orange is the New Black, I love Bloodline, we did of course love season three of House of Cards which is so interesting, because he was such an intrinsical part of the show, having been a regular cast member during the first two seasons, and then to kinda not know where the storyline would go this season, we watched it with completely new eyes. I’m not going to even pretend, if I have time and the baby is sleeping, I have a handful of shows that are DVR-ed and don’t miss, and three of those shows are on Netflix, so there you go.
Do you ever see yourself wanting to be on any of those shows you love?
You know, I’m not allowed to say anything, but just keep watching Netflix and who knows what next year might bring (laughs).
Having been in 9 to 5, do you find that the entertainment industry adheres to all the best practices when it comes to female workers? What things would you change if you got to kidnap the boss for one day?
I wanna be politically correct when answering this question because it is a serious topic. I think there is a handful of Broadway divas that have great respect, that have earned their place as “divas”, and are very well loved. I think in the Broadway world, especially in musical theatre, the women auditioning and the women that are talented and wanting these roles, their number far outweighs that of men. There are a lot of talented gals that wanna get into musical theatre, I don’t know the specifics of the ratio of women to men, but there are a lot more women. So I think that men have a greater opportunity; because there are fewer men in the industry contracts can be negotiated a little better, I think roles are offered to more men than perhaps women, and women constantly have to go out there and prove, or re-prove themselves and re-audition. I don’t know if the word “unfair” defines what I’m describing, but I do see that it’s kinda shifted in favor of men.
Having been a part of long running shows like Wicked and shorter running shows like The Pirate Queen, what do you think is the ideal run for a show to find its audience?
It’s not up to the performers and I’m sure a producer would give you a different answer, but I’ll be honest, I think if any show can hit a good two year run and the producers get their money back then it’s been a successful run. For an artist, we too have a certain longevity, sometimes you can play a role for two to three years and still be fulfilled and love singing the same songs and saying the same lines. With The Mystery of Edwin Drood, I could’ve played that show for a couple more years for many reasons, it was a beautifully staged show, it was such an ensemble piece and I loved being onstage with all these amazing performers, we broke the fourth wall so it was great to have a new audience every night, the nature of the different ending every night kept it fresh, so how this played out made us think “wow, we could do this for a while and still be gratified”. With The Pirate Queen I signed the contract for an entire year, and it might’ve been a blessing, it was such a heavy, difficult show for me, and after three months, even though I wanted the show to go on longer, physically it was really difficult. I could’ve maybe done six months of that. Wicked? I think that show’s going to play for the next twenty years, Mamma Mia played 14 years and it just closed...there isn’t a clear question on that either, I think if you’ve got a good year or two-year run that is very respectable. These days it’s so different than the 50s and 60s where a show would run for a year and then the star would go on tour with the show. So how do you define success in theatre nowadays? I think you’re going to get a different answer if you’re a performer, a theatre owner or an audience member.
I’m asking because I keep hoping they’ll do Little Miss Sunshine again soon!
We all had great hopes that would come to Broadway! With William Finn writing and James Lapine directing, and the cast we had, it was being nurtured to come to Broadway but for some reason it just didn’t take off. Whatever the flavor of 2013 was, it just didn’t make the move, but to me it was such a wonderfully intimate, quirky, perfectly built Bill Finn piece. That would’ve been great, I hope that your prayers become true, put it in pen and let’s make it happen (laughs).
I have to ask a very personal question. Looking back at your credits I realized you have never done a Sondheim show.
(Hushed tone) No, I have never done a Sondheim show...
What are some of your favorites and which would you like to do?
I wanna play most female roles in Into the Wood, I’d love to be the Witch, the Baker’s Wife and, even though I might not have the right looks or age, I’d love to sing Cinderella, her part in the score is fantastic. I love Company, I think maybe 15 years down the road if they’re ready to revive Sweeney Todd I’d love to play Mrs. Lovett. It just doesn’t end with Sondheim! I feel like as an actress who makes a living in the theatre, to say that I had a career on Broadway and not have done a Sondheim show, almost breaks my heart. It’s gotta happen, it’s just we’ve had a flux of a lot of his shows being revived in the last couple of years that I may have to sit around and wait for a little bit.
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