Michael Kantor: When you hear the word Broadway, when you think of the Broadway musical, what do you think?
Ben Vereen: Employment. Let’s say you are employed, and you’re in the show. When I think of the Broadway name, I hear the name Broadway for one who has a dream of being on the stage, has a desire and a passion to perform in this business. Broadway is the pentacle of the performer. It’s where he or she wants to shine, where their light can truly shine. You know, they say, you know, to be a light on Broadway was the whole idea. And growing up, you saw a lot of lights on Broadway. And everybody who was on Broadway’s like, a star. So you grew up wanting to be a star on Broadway, and Broadway is special. The Boards, I call them, the Boards. There’s nothing like the Board. You know there’s film, which is very important to us. TV. This is very important, but it all comes from the stage. Here is where it all is created. Here is when we get the ideas and we begin to water the seeds that grow here on the stage
Michael Kantor: What did opening night mean? Oh, remember your first opening night and the sort of pressure and excitement, speak to like what?
Ben Vereen: My opening night was nerve-racking. The reason why is because you want them to like you. And it can push you to the point of being sick, of actually throwing up. I remember Bob Fosse, you see in all that jazz, he would throw up before he would hear you audition. It was one of his wonderful pieces. I still get butterflies. I still. I can’t breathe sort of feeling. But in a way, I want that feeling. If I don’t feel, that means that obviously I’m taking for granted. And you can never take this business for granted, we’re blessed to come this way. So opening night, my first opening night was, whoo, when the pressure of it all hit and the cameras are there and the Broadway opening, it was unbelievable. I mean, they were from my, from my streets. They were not the critics. They were the people who come and the limousines and the whole look that Broadway has for you. And when I entered the first time, it was a little overwhelming. And I didn’t throw up, but I remember getting very, very sick. And then you walk through it. You walk through that fear. Someone wrote a book that said, feel the fear and do it anyway. And when you get on the other side of that fear… That’s when you fly. That’s you take flight. Now sometimes your flight may be a short one, but at least you fly for that moment. You fly. And all your work that you’ve done now is standing there to be criticized. To be, this is gonna make or break the show tonight so that pressure is doubled. It’s wonderful. There’s nothing like preparing for a show. Being here in the studio, working on the show, falling on your face, getting up, finding how to make it work. Then going, we used to go out of town, which is great. You go out a town, you try a show out. You have opening night out of the town, and you find out the kinks, and then you cut the show and fit it together, then you come to Broadway. And the feeling was heightened. You know, you’re ready, you are geared. You know, and tonight’s the night. It’s a good feeling.
Michael Kantor: There’s also that sense that, you know, starring with Ethel Merman since whenever, that that opening night can make you a star, can catapult you. Did you feel like Broadway made you a star with Pippin, or was there a moment where you felt catapolted, that Broadway took you to a different place?
Ben Vereen: Well, Broadway will do that, but understand something. I didn’t, you gotta understand something about me. I didn’t enter this business to be a star. I’m one of those actors who is very grateful and feel very blessed to be doing what I’m doing. The accolades that come along with it are added bonus to my work, but I’m in this business for the work. And so when The idea of stardom came along. I didn’t really understand what that was all about. All of a sudden, people were asking for my autograph. So I remember the first time I walked down the street. I was just coming from the studio. And some guy walks up to me and he says, give me your autograph. I said, why? He says, give me the autograph. You’re going to be a star. Give me your photograph. I didn’t know this guy. Here’s my first autograph. I ran into him some time ago. The point I’m making is that I didn’t know when that happened. So when it happened to me, and I found myself caught up in the madness of it, I had to somewhere down in my life stop and remind myself why I came this way. Because you can get caught up in the madness of stardom without the foundation of the star.
Michael Kantor: Put that in terms of Broadway. Broadway creates a madness of you.
Ben Vereen: Well, that’s where it all comes from. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking by Broadway. So that can spin you, so to speak. But if you’re rooted in the work, if you rooted in artistry, and if you surrounded by people who are of the arts, who are about the trueness of the boards, then you won’t spin too far.
Michael Kantor: Um, what’s it like to be dancing?
Ben Vereen: Oh, it’s like flight. It’s like it’s incredible. The dance, the jump across that stage, the spin, to just walk on stage is fantastic. I love it. You know, I can’t say, I… Dancing for a Broadway audience has got to be one of the most gratifying feelings that a performer can have. To be honest, I said to be on these boards and to move across the stage and to hear the audience gasp. It’s nice.
Michael Kantor: What do you trace your roots back to as a dancer or in terms of your performance energy? Is there someone who you felt like when you were coming along that you saw or tried to?
Ben Vereen: Emulate.
Michael Kantor: In some way or…
Ben Vereen: Anyone who’s employed. When I was coming along… I had some great teachers. It started off with three guys who had a shoeshine parlor across the street from me when I was a small kid. And I remember watching them dance. They used to be in Vaudeville, and they opened the, then, not now, but they had a shoe shine parlor on Chauncey Street in Brooklyn. And they were called Tip Tap and Toe. And every Sunday, they would play jazz music, and the deacons would come by to get their shoes shined, and they would plays jazz and tap dance and shine shoes. That was my first introduction to dance. I later was fortunate enough to, then I started making up my own dances. My mother couldn’t afford classes, so I had to make up my own dance. Finally, she put me into school. Called, it was a green dance studio in Brooklyn. And I started working out there and ended up in high school performing arts. And so dance became more a way of me to express myself, my inner feelings. And I loved it. And I love it today. I was a modern dancer. And in those days, we didn’t have too many African American black ballet dancers. So, but I ended up doing ballet. And it, I think I lost the question. What was the question? That was the questions. Yeah, so these, the dancers that I sort of like looked up to was people like Arthur Mitchell, you know, people like Alvin Ailey. Joe Joe Smith, Jaime Rogers, Lester Wilson, these are fantastic modern dances. Some of them were my teachers. Dance teachers like Norman Walker and David Woods, Helen Tamiris, to name a few, Gertrude Sher, to name few, that I looked up to, because I was, you know, I’m a kid from Brooklyn and from the streets, so those are my first, and then I started watching TV, and of course there was a wonderful Fred Astaire, you know. Then there was Sammy Davis doing his thing on TV.
Michael Kantor: When you think back to when you were starting out, the musicals in the 60s, do you think they were, I thought of Golden Boy in particular, do you think that they were in touch with their times? Was Broadway sort of struggling?
Ben Vereen: When I came along, Broadway was on the money. When I come along, we were just being introduced to social consciousness through theater. You had people like Tom O’Horgan, who was putting out shows like Hair. Shaking up a nation. Jesus Christ Superstar, bless for me, bless me. Inner City Mother Goose, Lenny Bruce. Rocking a nation’s consciousness, making them think hair was unprecedented. It totally changed the way a society looked at itself. It was right around the 60s, and we were talking about love, peace, happiness, freedom. It was a good time. And theater was right at the forefront. And in here, having done here, we were out there on the front lines protesting the war in Vietnam. We were out in the front line protesting injustice. So theater had a big, big part. What other show? There was Godspell, Stephen Schwartz’s show. So yes.
Michael Kantor: Recall for me what Jesus Christ Superstar felt like. I mean, I don’t know if you’re religious or what, but it certainly was.
Ben Vereen: I’m spiritual. It was controversial.
Michael Kantor: Set it up, Jesus Christ, I was in.
Ben Vereen: I was in Jesus Christ.
Michael Kantor: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Ben Vereen: I was in Jesus Christ Superstar. When I was in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway, it was a very controversial opening. I remember going to the theater one night, and nuns would be out the stage door, outside the stage, beating you, hitting you with rosary beads. You know, blast for me, blasts for me. But it was at a time when this young man by the name of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Had written a very controversial subject matter. They took the Bible and decided to put rock music to it. And got a group of young artists to sing these songs. And Tom O’Horgan came along and mounted it on stage now. It wasn’t just the fact that the show was controversial. We also had a set that was unbelievable. We had bone bridges. We had things people never even seen or heard of. We had, when you walked in the theater, the stage was flat. It looked like a wall. And then it proceeded to come down. And out of the middle of the stage would come a huge chalice. And Jesus would walk down that chalce. And Jeff Finhol would walk this chalace. And we see the cast look like little mice running up and down this thing. It was unbelievable. We had bone bridges. We had big, huge butterflies. I mean, it was just incredible. It was an incredible piece. But society felt that at that time, the church was up in arms. I dare you. But what they failed to recognize is the fact that at least our generation was recognizing the most important figure of the Western world, Jesus the Christ. And we were saying it in a way that was praising the name of Jesus. But they felt that that time was blasphemy.
Michael Kantor: I’ve seen the things where, well, the other thing is it’s using rock music in a way. There were, there were, the microphone cables were sort of costumed in some way.
Ben Vereen: Tom O’Horgan in Jesus Christ Superstar wanted the mics to be costumed. He wanted them to look like ropes. Details were very important to Tom. Tom is quite a visionary. He was beyond, before his time. He brought things to the theater that even Bob Fossey would say to me, I go to the theater to watch how Tom O’Horgan did that. And I say, why can’t we do something like that? He’s an incredible man. I remember when I first met Tom O’Horgan. I just came back from London doing a show called Golden Boy with Sammy Davis Jr. They were having auditions for a show call Hair to go out to Los Angeles. I came to the audition. Every singer, dancer, hippie, Panther, you name it. We were all online waiting to audition for the show. And I was fortunate enough to make the last cut and met Tom. And we went into a series of rehearsals like I’d never seen before, unlike any other theatrical show I think I’ve worked on. He wanted to make this show a family. We were a tribe. And to depend on one another. So we did a lot of exercises dealing with behavior, dealing with caring for one another, loving one another in order to be loving to the audience. It was a revolution for the mind to be whole.
Michael Kantor: What about Andrew Lloyd Webber? Did anyone have any feeling that he was going to sort of, from Jesus Christ Superstar, go on to do as much work on Broadway as he did?
Ben Vereen: Andrew Lloyd Webber is a very talented man. At the time, though, you didn’t think about the fact of, well, he’s going to go on to write a million Broadway shows brilliantly. We had that show to deal with. And it was so much going around in that show at that time. It was the 60s, man. It was in the early 70s. You know, we were all about changing the world, changing society. Making it a better place. Our words were about making it better place, and when Jesus Christ Superstar came along, and Tim Rice, who just wrote Lion King, who wrote the lyrics for the show, these two kids popped over in this country and just set a tone, and we followed along with the tone. And we’re thankful, because look at the giants that they are today, keeping theater alive.
Michael Kantor: Um, you know, when you think back to the early sisters, 60s, Fiddler, Hello Dolly, and so on, they’re not at all like later in the 60s. Was there a moment where you felt that there was this sea change with that hair? Was it cabaret? Or was it, was there some time where everything cracked open? Or, was it just a sort of, didn’t occur to people?
Ben Vereen: I don’t know, you have to talk to somebody who did those type of shows. I often say in my act, you know, I wanted my, when I first started in this business to do more traditional shows like Oklahoma, like Fiddler on the Roof. I wanted to do Fiddlers on the roof, but they said I was too short. You know, shows like that, but I came along and I got a chance to do shows like Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, these shows that had a rock feeling to them and talked about social change and consciousness. So I can’t answer that question accurately, but I can tell you that when I got into the theater and when we were moving about in those productions, you could feel the change. And you could see how society was opening up and then also you could the change when the colors begin to change and begin to get back, close back up. And we’re still opening up again today.
Michael Kantor: Yeah, you meant, you know, there weren’t, when I think of Broadway history, there weren’t t a ton of African American performers sort of making it on Broadway, or even throughout the whole history. Well, just put it in your own perspective. How did it feel? Did you feel like it was always tough to break through to get a certain role, or did you feel it was really based on whether you were talented enough to fit, or? I mean, it’s called the Great White Way, for instance. Is that a total misnomer?
Ben Vereen: Well, maybe one day it will be called the Great Universal Way. What a great God way, what a great spirit way. Um… I praise people like Tom O’Horgan, Bob Fosse. Those are the two that I worked with who had a revolutionary sense of change. Yeah, I must credit Tom O’Horgan. For standing up, Bob Fosse for standing up and taking roles that were traditionally white roles and making them African American or black, as you like to say. Um Although the tone may appear to have been unfavorable as the part of Judas, the betrayal of Jesus. But the point was one of us were there on that stage Now the idea is to support. That light and carry it onward. Whether it’s me or whomever that, that actor is any production on Broadway. The idea, it is still. And we must support the arts. And one day. One day, there will not be color barriers on Broadway. One day it’ll be theater for the people, by the people of the people and their expression of life. I used to kid Neil Simon and say, why don’t you write a production for me? It’s what I mostly write for, you know, what I’m related to. And I said, well, I can play a Jewish guy, you now? It just meaning, you what I am saying is that we all have situations that we have to deal with in our lives. And how we deal with that is what an actor brings forward. So. I know that most writers write and say, okay, this is a black situation, or this is the white situation. I’m looking for a day when it becomes a people situation, and the people support it. I think we’re getting very close to that now, with all that’s going on in the world. If not, we’ll never get there at this point. But I’m proud to have been a part. Of that trail, of blazing that way for a lot of people. Like before me, there was the African-American who blazed the trail before us. They looked at the situation and they said, okay, I’ll step into the flame anyway so that the ones behind me will make a difference. This almost goes all the way back to the fact of slavery. Yeah, I often say it was the An American woman who said. I’ll be what you want me to be, but don’t kill my male child, because I know if you don’t killed my male child, tomorrow that child will make it better for all of us. So by that actor who stood up and took the blade, took the ridicule, took the knocks, stood in the flames so that other actors could come forward, because of people like Sammy Davis, because of a people like Bilbo Jangles Robertson, because of the people like Steppen Fetchit, because of people like. Uh, uh, Mantan Moreland. We’re still, I’m sitting here today. And other actors, African-American actors, Denzel Washington. My God, Halle Barry. Are standing at the podium saying thank you because they blaze the way. They’re the trailblazers. And now it’s up to the people to support. To make it a reality. Oh man, look at, first of all, the times. It was the early 1900s. The man wasn’t from Antigua. He was a light expression African-American. From the stories that I hear, he was passing himself off as an Hawaiian in San Francisco, loved the business, but realized from beating up with his partner, George Walker, that the only way to make it on the stage in America during that time was to black up, ridiculed his soul, hurt him to the quick. But he loved this business, and he used it as a social statement. If you listen to his lyrics, and listen to this character that he portrayed, though he made people laugh, he made them think. And for that time, the early 1900s, that was unheard of. He was a part of a troupe called the Inter Homie. They had a show called Inter Homies that traveled all the way to Europe. He performed for the kings and the queens over there. When they asked him over in Europe, they said, what’s it like being a black man in America? He says, I’m proud of being a black man. He said, but in America, it’s an inconvenience. And that’s what it was for African Americans at that time. And he took the knocks. He took the blows. The man was praised. The man who was a star of the Siegfeld Follies. But we don’t know about that. We don’t about our history. We know about his history, but we don’t know about our history. Someone once said, it’s his story, and there’s my story, which is mystery. In the theater, it is a great mystery. We don’t what the African Americans, what they sacrificed in order to be up on that stage so that the monies that they receive could go back into the community in order so that other African Americans could have when they didn’t have, and to build schools, and to make things happen. And Burt Williams was right there at the cutting edge of all of that, very sad individual. But he went through it. And he should be praised. He should be applauded. He was forced, he was forced to wear blackface in this country of America. And it was strange because how I found out about Burt William’s, I was doing a show called Pippin, Bob Fosse’s show. And I happened to be at a bar one night And that was… Talk with a friend of mine and this gentleman walks up and he says, out of nowhere, he says well you know something that there was a time when the black man wasn’t allowed on stage unless he wore a black face, I said get out of here, he said that is true, I say get out of there, I’m already black, I don’t need to black up, he say oh it’s true, he said you weren’t allowed to be on stage, he’s like you’re lying, the next day there was a book at the stage door called Nobody, The Life of Burt Williams. And I read this book and it broke my heart. I said, I’m gonna do something about this because they should be remembered for what they did for us now. We should applaud them. We should remember the African Americans who came across on those slave ships, who bled, who paved the way, who died, who suffered. We can’t forget that. As my Jewish brothers and sisters will not let us forget the Holocaust, We cannot forget who brought us here today. And we must remember them. And so, I remember Burt Williams, because he was one of the key factors as to why we are here today.
Michael Kantor: Thank you, that’s amazing. It did, the one, when I thought back on your answer, the one thing that struck me was probably in his humor, he incorporated some of that pain, that idea of nobody.
Ben Vereen: Yes, but, yes, it…
Michael Kantor: What I have trouble conveying as a documentary filmmaker is that’s not a kind of humor that we have now so often. You know what I mean? That kind of melancholy, like, look at me, I’m having a tough time humor. I don’t know, it’s not as popular.
Ben Vereen: Well, Bert Williams, from what I know of him, and I’m saying I know a lot, but from what I know his material, he was social. He would talk about what was going on in society at the time, which was really unheard of. It’s an interesting thing. Someone wrote a play called, I think it was William Dumas, wrote a poem called We who wear the mask. And it talks about hiding behind the mask. And behind that mask, he could say anything he wanted to. That’s the thing they didn’t know about. They said, well, you all can’t go on that stage unless you all wear blackface. Because how this all started? Um, from what I understand. When the African Americans were allowed that one free day, which was Sunday, they would get together and they would entertain one another. They would go around from plantation to plantation, or they would be on their own plantations socializing and partying and just relaxing for the day. And they would often get up and do songs and do dances. A couple of white entertainers were walking down the road one day and saw these African Americans and said, I got a great idea. So what’s that? We’re gonna black up and we’re gonna do them. So they created the interlocutor. They created Tad Bones and Mr. Bones and that whole, they created the dialog. Y’all’s a boss, y’all, I just see them just like that there. Well, how you feels about it? Well, I did, don’t know about it. They were the ones who created rolling the eyes. Now they jump on Man-Tan Morelin for taking it and making an art form. They are the ones who created it. So now, now Lincoln’s supposedly freedom. You know, you be Blake Lipsch.
Michael Kantor: Okay, so, so there’s a moment where white guys have taken…
Ben Vereen: And they’re on stage, and they do it, and in the Africa.
Michael Kantor: With their white guys.
Ben Vereen: The white guys, these white entertainers, who’ve taken the black form of entertaining, blacked up, and they’re on stage doing the minstrel shows. They’re doing, they created the whole dialog, the whole dialog. African Americans didn’t talk like that, but they created this dialog. It became very fashionable. It became the in thing. So now the African-Americans are sitting out there looking at these guys, these white entertainers doing them. They go, wait a minute, I can do me better than they’re doing me. So they get together and they form a troop. They get up on the stage and they come out and they’re during their act. But the white audiences in this country of the U.S. Of A. Tard, feathered, lynched. Raped these entertainers and told them they said, if you want to be on our stage in this country, you better black up. We don’t want to see your black skin. And that’s where the menstrual show came from. And so, out of that, out that, behind that mask, genius was born. All those performers that had the mask up, they created an art form that was. Beyond, it was, what’s the word I’m looking for? It was fantastic, unmatched. It would turn and go, my God. They came with, when George Walker met Burt Williams, their first act and they teamed up, they called themselves the real Coons, the real coons. How embarrassing. But White America said, bravo, brabo. But meanwhile, behind that mask, they were lashing out at everything that they could. There’s a couple of actors. God, I wish I could remember their names. They created a thing called the endless dialog, where they would talk about things, but they would never end the conversation. And through that, they would throw daggers at the way they were being treated. As Bert Williams did in his sight, his satires.
Michael Kantor: How do you think Minstrelsy, and this is a tough question, fed into the musical? Broadway musicals really took so many different aspects of it. It’s almost hard to say. But our big problem is, in the first episode, we have all these different forms, Laudville and so on. And if you can help us make the link between some of the dances, the cross-dressing, the whatever, if you could do that. Got it.
Ben Vereen: God, I don’t know if I can. The minstrel shows vaudeville. They had to do it all. They had do everything. And I guess that’s what fed into the American musical comedy. I guess they had to take all of that wonder meant and find a way to put a story to it and make a musical. You know, I didn’t have the chance of seeing shows like Shuffle Along and Into Homie, you know, which are wonderful shows. In Shuffle along, you had people like Josephine Baker came out of the show. Yeah. And many, many, many others came out in the show, Apple Waters, you now, people like that. The link, I can’t really tell you how it married together, but it did. But the shows that are really praised. Are shows like… Porgy and Bess. Which is, you know, for the Gershwins, they say, wait a minute, we’re gonna do, let’s do something here. Let’s do an African-American, let’s deal with the situation and put music to it. Was a wonderful thing. But what about happens after that? The other musicals. I’m sure Duke Ellington wrote some fabulous musicals that never got put on. Matter of fact, he did. But it never got national recognition. Burt Williams was a star of the Follies for 10 years, and there’s a wonderful story that the Will Rogers was appalled that Burt William was a start, was a headliner. And the story goes that he went to Ziegfeld, Flo Ziegfel, and he said, why is the nigger’s name above mine? He said, because the niggas brings him more money than you. I’m using the n-word now because that was a dialog back then. Today, we say the Black, the African-American, brings in more than you. But that’s the way it went down back then. Back then, after finishing a show, Burt Williams and Eddie Cantor, who were very good friends. The story goes, they went out to a bar one night and the entertainers are sitting around having drinks and everyone’s buying drinks and Burt Williams goes to buy a drink. And the bartender tells them, your money’s no good here, we don’t want your money here, get out of here. He was quite hurt by that, he couldn’t even, he felt, he was, I’m entertaining for white, the white audiences, I, I am getting paid as much if not more. And yet and still I’m treated subhuman. That was a lot.
Michael Kantor: But again, help us understand what made him.
Ben Vereen: What made him great was the man’s timing. There was no one like him. Choice of materials, he wrote his own materials. He was wonderful, what can I say? And for that time and that period and for the social consciousness that was going on, he hit it right on the head. So once again, color disappeared. Now, for the people of that period of time, I’m sure they were sitting there saying, they felt safe with him in blackface for what he was saying, politically, socially.
Michael Kantor: Um, Bob Fawcett has jumped, like, decades. Whoa! Whoo! God! You know? Um… Who was above Farsi?
Ben Vereen: My friend.
Michael Kantor: He wasn’t obsessed. You get the sense that he was obsessed. What was he obsessed with?
Ben Vereen: Getting it right. He lived life. And he expressed it. He’s my friend. I could go to Bob when I had problems, he’d talk to me about it, starting out in this business. He was a taskmaster. He wanted the best out of you for your best. And that’s the way he worked, and that’s why he pushed you so hard. And as a result, we see his legacy living today. We see it in the film Chicago. We see in the show Fosse, which Ann Reinking so beautifully brought back. We see, we it everywhere. You see it fashion. You see on television. You see in commercials. You see people every now and then with a black head or so doing his style. You know, he was a man obsessed with life and couldn’t get enough of it. Couldn’t understand why he couldn’t, he felt that he could not perfect something. And so we look at his perfection. He goes, no, it’s not finished yet. But that’s the mark of a true artist.
Michael Kantor: Was there a particular song or show that you feel like somebody speaks most clearly to you?
Ben Vereen: When they put together the show. Fossey, Gwynne Verdun, Chet Walker, and Ryan King. And I don’t know who, I’m going to say, because I wasn’t there, I’m gonna say it was probably Gwyn or Annie who turned and said this is Bobby’s favorite song. Life is just a bowl of cherries. And I think that song sort of sums up his life and the way he felt about life. Don’t take it serious. You know, it’s just a bowl of cherries. Laugh and love at it all. And that’s where he lived his life. He lived his live that way.
Michael Kantor: So who revolutionized?
Ben Vereen: A lot of people will tell you that Bob did Fosse, but if Fosse was here today, he would tell you Tom O’Horgan. Tom O’Horgan is responsible for breaking the fourth wall. Never had there been a Broadway show where the cast dared leave the stage. It’s unheard of. Now he’s got these actors coming through the stage, through the house, singing in your face, sitting in chairs in front of you, moving around about you. The whole theater becomes the stage.” He revolutionized. Broadway.
Michael Kantor: What about, you know, Fosse versus Michael Bennett? Do you feel like you were working at a time where there were these two amazing guys and they were after different, how would you compare Fosse?
Ben Vereen: I didn’t know Bennett. I knew of him. I never worked with him. I worked with Bob. And working with Bob was special. Working with Bob was like being on a fast train to paradise. I don’t know what it was like with Bennett. I know out of Bennett came some wonderful performers. A friend of mine, matter of fact, was an assistant to him. A guy named Michael Peters, who gave you Michael Jackson. The moonwalk. That’s Michael Peter’s work. Now he and Bennett were very close. But I can’t tell you what it was like in Bennett’s camp. But in Fossey’s camp, you were. And you saw that in the productions and you see it today.
Michael Kantor: Fassi’s work was all about repetition in a way, wasn’t it?
Ben Vereen: Well, the work itself is not repetition. But the way you get there is the repetition. Because he’d want it right. If the finger’s supposed to be this way, he doesn’t want it that way, or this way. He wants it that. And you hit it that, way each and every time. And how do you get, there? Like you get to Carnegie Hall, practice.
Michael Kantor: What about, you know, the mid-70s, there’s this huge…
Ben Vereen: Oh God, the 70s, he’s gonna ask me that.
Michael Kantor: Oh God.
Ben Vereen: I went through the sixties, so I’m not responsible for the seventies.
Michael Kantor: There’s a resurgence of black musicals. There’s Bubbling Brown Sugar, A Misbehavin’, You Be Black and Blue, you know, on all that.
Ben Vereen: Yeah, the 70s, the seventies was a revolutionary African-American productions and bravo to it, and brava to it. Now let us keep it coming, let’s keep supporting it. I don’t know when it’s slacked off, but we need more. I’m laughing, because the production Lion King is considered an African-American production, but it takes place in Africa. The music is very African, and it’s wonderful. Then there’s Aida, which is about integration, in a way. It’s about Egypt and integration. But there are these great productions out there. Are not being heard. And I don’t know if fiduces are afraid of the risk. Of an all-black production. I know Bob did one, and the one thing I do regret about this business is that I did not do that show with him. He asked me to, and that was a big deal. It was a wonderful show. It closed, and there’s no film or record of it. You can see bits of it in Fosse. But he was one who came along and said, he approached me about it. He said, Ben, I… I don’t, each time we did a show, matter of fact, he would come to me and he’d say, I don’t wanna offend the African-American community. Is this right? Can I say this? Can I do that? And then he came to me one day and he says, I’m gonna do an all black production. It’s gonna be called Big Deal. It was a great show, but it closed. Snap in the face. Now, I’m not saying. But I’m saying that we need to support our African-American shows and artists, as well as our artists in general, the arts. But it’s a shame that show had to close. And so, like the 70s, bring it on. But while we bring it, bring on the support. And it’s really hard and difficult these days to raise funds, I realize that, for the theater. And we’re looking for real good work. And there’s real good work out there. Just give it a shot.
Michael Kantor: What do you think of the new 42nd Street? You’re sitting here on 42nd street, Disney came along and changed.
Ben Vereen: Yes, Disney World. It’s wonderful. It’s a wonderful people’s entertainment center. And I used to come here on 42nd Street when I was in high school around the corner performing arts. And I played hooky. And I’d come here and you could go see movies, B-movies all over down the street for 15, 20 cents. We’re going way back now, aren’t we? And I’ve watched it change over the times. I’ve watched it go. Completely down the drain. And Disney brought it back. And it’s wonderful to be able to see children coming to the theater on 42nd Street again. Families walking up and down the streets. It’s lovely. I can’t knock it. We could say, yo, we’re becoming Disney World. Who else is gonna, and who is gonna change it? You aren’t gonna change. So why knock it? It’s here, let us enjoy it. Let us support it. There’s lots of theaters here. Let us infiltrate those theaters with good shows and support those good shows. Yeah, you see, that’s important. The fact that when you think about 42nd Strait, you think Disney, and we don’t talk about the non-for-profits. That are putting and funding the theater here that made this whole thing happen. So we just look at the conglomerate, Disney, because it is a conglomorate. So you look at a big, but you don’t look at the fact that 42nd Street has a group of people, non-for-profit people, who have put up the money to fund this entire area. And we’ve gotta give them applause and stand up and cheer and support them.
Michael Kantor: The Broadway musical emerged here. It didn’t show up in Paris. It didn’t show up London. People think of it as uniquely American.
Ben Vereen: Yes.
Michael Kantor: Why do you think that is? What does it say about us as a people? What does is say about our culture or about?
Ben Vereen: We are people with a song in our hearts, and we’ve got to express it. We don’t just like, obviously we just don’t like drama. We gotta sing about it. I know as a kid. Before I could see a musical, before I knew what a musical was. I’d sing my days. I’m from the church. And I still frequent the churches. And in the church, there was a sense of expressing yourself musically. You used to have a thing called devotional service. In devotional surface, you’d find the topic of a song and you’d sing about it as a praise or testimony as to how you feel that day. You know, if you felt that your life was in shambles and you wanted to get out, you might sing, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shining, let is shine. Expressing yourself through a through dialog and I think the American theater has taken that tradition and put it on stage and we have the great writers who are following that suit. You know, I’m going to start with Duke Ellington and I’m going to bring it on up to George Gershwin and Richard Rogers and the likes. Stephen Schwartz, Frank Wildhorn, Tim Rice.
Michael Kantor: Up or is there some special Broadway moment you’ve had or song that you sing or there’s some?
Ben Vereen: But that’s a tough question, because there are many.
Michael Kantor: Something very close to your heart.
Ben Vereen: Yeah, there are many. And it’s like someone says to you, tell me a joke, and every joke you know in the world goes out of your mind. But there are songs that, and it changes from day to day, depending on the mood that one is in. Like one day I may do Cherries. Next day I might do Corner of the Sky. Depends on the mood.
Michael Kantor: That one’s in. Cut for one sec.
