RR: I picked up “Leaving Home” last week, and I thought, “This is great! We should talk about this!”
RL: Good! I’m glad you like it!
RR: Tommy Krasker tells me you brought the cd to him…
RL: I did. It wasn’t originally a PS Classics conception. It was basically just sort of a fun… experiment, really. My producer, Chris McGovern and I… he’s always wanted to make sort of a folk/pop album with me. We had some time on our hands around December 2002, and he said “Let’s just lay some stuff down.” We put together this list of some original theatre stuff, some covers of stuff we liked from our youths and… you know, it turned into something that we like. I decided to take it to Tommy myself, and so we contacted him… I guess he had a window, and we’re old friends. It just worked out. I don’t think being old friends had much to do with it. It was him liking the project. It worked out somehow. He’s the only person I thought of going to with it, so… he’s the first choice, and it worked out for us.
RR: It’s an interesting departure for you, I think.
RL: Yeah… very different.
RR: Very different. You’re singing in lower registers than you are known for.
RL: Yeah, exactly. [laughs] Semi-belting, mixing. I’ve been doing more and more of that in the past few years. I could always kind of do that , but it was never what I was hired to do. It was never what I was called to audition for. Most people know me as the soprano thing. Middle to high… very lyric soprano stuff, which I am. So that’s what I’ve done. I grew up doing this kind of music, so I really am more familiar with this than anything else…
RR: Do you think it’s hard being a soprano in a belter world?
RL: Basically, if you look at it, it’s kind of half and half… Marin Mazzie can do it all, and Judy Kuhn can belt too. I’m just learning to belt the way they do. It’s very hard to do that belt the way they do, and I don’t really want to belt that way. It’s very hard to describe. I sort of mix more than anything. I can sing almost anything. It’s “Who’s willing to see me?” that’s the question. So, doing an album like this will hopefully get me out of the box a little bit.
RR: You’ve kinda moved from the squeaky-clean Maria in The Sound of Music to the darker stuff in the past few years… You were brilliant in Passion.
RL: Oh, thank you! I’m glad you got to see that. I love that show. The most gorgeous score, ever.
RR: That’s when I kind of went, “Wow. I didn’t know she could do this.”
RL: Aw! Well, I wish they’d write a few more roles for sopranos these days. It’s always hard. Sometimes I can’t get seen for soprano roles. There’s no guarantees that anybody’s gonna want to see anybody for anything, even if they are right for it. So, you just have to jump in, and try to be seen for whatever you think is interesting. That’s how I look at it.
RR: Your first solo album was Fynsworth Alley’s “Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker sings Cole Porter.”
RL: Right.
RR: Did you toss around a bunch of ideas before you landed on Cole Porter?
RL: No, actually. It was started by Bruce Kimmel. He called me to say, “Can you do a Cole Porter album?” And I jumped at that, because Cole Porter wouldn’t be something to do at that time, either. I thought he would say Richard Rodgers or Gershwin or something. But he said Cole Porter, and I said, “Great!” So Patrick Brady, the music director, and I sat down and went through every Cole Porter song ever written, and we came up with half obscure and half pretty well known.
RR: It’s a nice mix, I think.
RL: It IS a nice mix. He’s just one of the most brilliant arrangers I’ve ever worked with. We had a great time working together, and doing this album.
RR: Do you have a favorite track on the album?
RL: You know… [laughs] I do have several. One of them is “Don’t Fence Me In.” I had a great time doing that, and ironically enough, it’s one I didn’t want to do. Bruce said, “No, I want you do this one, and I want you to do ‘True Love’.” So I gave in on the two that he wanted me to do, and “Don’t Fence Me In” turned out to be my favorite one. I just felt like Bonnie Raitt doing it. I just felt like a country singer. I just adore it now. The final track, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” is also one of my favorites.
RR: That’s my favorite. It’s gorgeous.
RL: Oh, good… We changed the rhythm of it, too, to make it a little more… I don’t know what the word is. I think Cole Porter’s rhythm was a little squarer than we made it. We made it a totally different time signature that just makes it a little more languid and more beautiful. I have several. “Leader of a Big Time Band” was great fun, too… harmonizing with Emily Loesser and Sally Mayes. We had a ball. I really like all of them. They’re all very different arrangements and orchestrations. We did it very quickly, too, amazingly enough. We threw it together in about a week, if you add all the days together. Not even a week.
RR: When you went in with the orchestra?
RL: Yeah. It was pretty quickly done. A little bit longer than a cast album, but not nearly as long as I took to do “Leaving Home.”
RR: You do a lot of concerts. Do you perform material from either album in concert?
RL: The only one I perform is from the Cole Porter album. The duet I sang with Brent Barrett, “I Am Love,” I do that in a Broadway concert I do with Matthew Inge. We got permission to use this same arrangement. It’s a great duet for a soprano/baritone. Otherwise, you know… I perform these things here and there, but not too much.
RR: I was on your website, and I didn’t realize you didn’t travel as much as you do, doing concerts all over.
RL: Yeah… you know, probably every year I go on four or five of those things. I try not to do it, actually, I’d rather stay in town with my family, and work. I hate going away, and I hate leaving my family, and leaving the city. As long as it’s a three or four day thing, that’s ok. And they’re fun… these symphony things are fun.
RR: I’d like to talk about Nine a little bit. You replaced my friend Laura in it, which is kind of ironic, since she replaced you in The Sound of Music.
RL: I know! It is strange!
RR: You went in earlier than most of the replacements, which means you got to work with Antonio.
RL: I did, yeah. I went in about six weeks before they all left.
RR: Was this your first time replacing?
RL: I replaced in The Vagina Monologues, but those casts only did about three weeks. I guess you could look at it as I was one of the casts. So, yes. This was my first replacement in a major Broadway musical. I just had a great time. The women, every one of them, were fantastic. Just fantastic people. So supportive. And the director, David Leveaux , absolutely let me put my own mark on it. He’s one of those rare directors who can replace a role with someone entirely different. Different age-wise, different voice, different physically, different temperament. Laura and I couldn’t be more different, really. We both sing soprano. But we’re very, very different singers and different actresses. So he totally changed his conception. He said, “It can work this way, and it can work that way.” It’s such a great thing that he was able to do that. I went in, and had very little time to learn the show. But everyone was so sweet, and so supportive, that I learned it. I was sort of thrown on in front of an audience. I got my feet under me pretty quickly. Antonio couldn’t have been sweeter, and it was a great experience. It really was.
RR: Then you got to work with a whole new cast a couple weeks later.
RL: It was a wonderful way to sort of break it up… Learn to do it two different ways. It was a great exercise for me.
RR: You were the bridge between the old and the new.
RL: [laughs] I was the bridge! I guess I was! I ended up being one of the old-timers, by the time the cast came in.
RR: I saw you sing “Unusual Way” at Broadway on Broadway…
RL: It’s a great song. Such a great song. On top of that, I had so much fun doing an accent. It was so much fun to do something to not sound at all like myself! I wore a long, dark wig, so I looked nothing like myself.
RR: And the Inspector Gadget jacket…
RL: Yes! The Inspector Gadget jacket… which I actually liked. I liked that costume very much. I thought it gave me a signature. It made that character… stance that character in a certain way. It needed it. Otherwise, you’re just walking around in a black dress looking like everybody else. I think that character needed something like that. My agent wanted me to be blonde, but I just kept saying, “No! I’m Italian! I’m Italian! I have to look different!”
RR: And your new cd drops tomorrow.
RL: Yeah, exactly! It hits cd stores tomorrow! It’s actually on sale on the website now.
RR: Tommy tells me you added a song after you brought the cd to him.
RL: We did. In the first version that we gave Tommy, the last track was called “Sweet Appreciation.” It was by Rusty Magee, who we dedicated the album to. Rusty was Alison Fraser’s husband, and a composer. So talented. He died in the middle of the project. We felt so strongly about having one of his songs on there and dedicating it to him. In the end, we all agreed that there was another song that was more stylistically right for the cd, so we chose “Coming Apart” instead. I think it’s sort of the epitome of Rusty’s writing talent, it’s a great song.
RR: Now, having done concerts and Broadway… this is a cd you could build some kind of cabaret act around. Are there plans for that?
RL: You know what, to tell you the truth, I don’t really think so. I don’t think this cd is going to be that for me. Because I’m not interested in doing covers in concert. This cd is very tailored to being a cd, and not something to perform live. I think I’m gonna do that on the next cd.
RR: Have you already started thinking about a new cd?
RL: I have an idea of what I wanna do. I can’t really talk about it right now, it involves a lot of other people. But, I do have an idea of what I want to do, which I’ve talked to Tommy about, and he’s very much into. So, we’ll see how that turns out a little later.
RR: You’re married to Danny Burstein, who I saw in A Class Act.
RL: He was fantastic, wasn’t he? Excuse me for saying that, but I thought it was just a brilliant role for him.
RR: Do you find it harder or easier being married to a performer, being in the same field?
RL: Well, you don’t know what you’ve never had. I’ve always been married to actors. For me, I can’t imagine being married to A.) anyone else, or B.) someone who’s not a performer. So for us, it works out beautifully. We often have the same schedule, and Danny often helps me with the stuff that I do. We help out each other, so we understand each other’s schedules and stuff. So, yeah, it works out pretty well for us.
RR: You sing a duet on the Fynsworth Alley cd, “Everybody’s Getting Into the Act.”
RL: Oh right!
RR: Bob Ost tells me he jumped you in a elevator and said, “Hey!”
RL: [laughs] A long time ago. I think I was going to see Lizzie Borden, which Christopher McGovern wrote and Alison Fraser starred in. Yeah. That’s where I met Bob. I’ve done a few cd’s with him, a few songs on different cd's. Nice guy.
RR: You also sing “For Now, For Always” on “Believe: The Songs of the Sherman Brothers.”
RL: Yes… that was fun to do. They did some great stuff, didn’t they?
RR: I didn’t even realize the depth of their catalogue…
RL: Me either. Same here. It was very interesting to me.
RR: So, now that the cd’s out, what’s next for Rebecca Luker?
RL: Well, that’s a good question. I do a lot of things, professionally. I do some jingles. I do commercials on TV, I’m auditioning for pilots, and a musical here and there. Just tossing a bunch of lines in the water to see what bites. Right now, there are no concrete plans for me, except for the symphony concerts I have coming up.
RR: Ok, I love to ask this question… If the Weissler’s came to you tomorrow [Rebecca starts laughing], and said, “We’re gonna build a revival around you…” Just toss aside being right for something… is there a role that you think to yourself, “I want to play this…”
RL: I HATE that question! I never know how to answer it! I’d love to play Sweeney Todd. Gosh. A woman’s role. That’s so tough. I’d want to be the best friend, to get to be funny. Two fabulous songs, all the laugh lines. Cleo in The Most Happy Fella. Ok, that’s it. I want to do that role sometimes, to not have to do all the publicity, and have a life. To not have to put on fifteen costumes, and sing eight songs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Just, every now and then, it’d be nice to be the sidekick!
RR: Well, you got that in Nine…
RL: Yeah! I did! I got to wear the same costume… I had to change into one thing, and sing one great song. That’s great. Walk around looking sexy… well, trying to look sexy… I’m terrible at trying to think of those roles. But Cleo. Yeah.
RR: Well, I’m sure the new cd is going to do great for you.
RL: I hope so, I hope people enjoy it. I enjoyed making it.
RR: I look forward to see what’s next from you.
RL: Me too! I wonder what that will be!
RR: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me Rebecca.
RL: Robbie, it was wonderful to talk to you. Thanks so much.
Rebecca Luker: Hi Robbie, how are you?
