BWW Interviews: Kinglsey Leggs of SISTER ACT - Art with Intention

"If you build it they will come. If you want diversity in the theatre, you have to build that diversity from the ground up. You can't just expect it to happen." Actor Kingsley Leggs is speaking with quiet intensity about his passion for theatre, music, and dance and his belief that theatre must not only please, but also educate and empower its audiences. These are beliefs he has honed in a long career which has taken him from his native St. Louis to Broadway, regional theatre, and television.

As he recounts his story, he is taking a break on what he calls "a three show day" at Maine State Music Theatre, where he is in the last week of performances of The Full Monty and set to open June 25th in Sister Act. He has just finished the morning rehearsal and will soon head over to the theatre for a matinee and evening show. For all the obvious demands of this schedule, he appears relaxed and animated. He tells the story of how he came to be in Brunswick this summer:

"I had been home visiting my family in St. Louis and doing a concert at my college, and when I got off the plane at Newark, I had an urgent message on my cell phone asking me to call my agent. It was after hours, but through Facebook I managed to reach him. He told me the Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, PA needed, by noon the next day, a replacement to play Horse in The Full Monty, the shared production which would then move to Brunswick in early June." Fortunately, Leggs was able to accommodate, though he cancelled a reading planned for the next day. "I unpacked, did my laundry, ran some errands, and got in the car and drove to Lancaster. I went directly to wardrobe, then re-learned the show that night - I had done it three times before - and went into tech the next day."

"They stay with you," he says of the roles he has previously played. "It's like a computer file. You just bring it back up." Leggs feels he has been "blessed" to get to repeat certain parts and develop them over time. This is surely the case with his second appearance this summer at MSMT as Curtis in Sister Act, which he had played both on Broadway and on national tour. "Every time a new group of people gets together they bring their own uniqueness and talent to the project. This time Donna [Drake, the director] is pretty true to the blueprint, but there are some changes, and she puts her own spin on the show. Though I've done Curtis quite a bit, the essential truth of the character remains pretty much the same."

Asked what that "truth" is and reminded of a remark he made while on Broadway in the role that "Curtis is a lot more than a gun wielder," he laughs and elaborates: "Well, he is a thug, but he is pretty successful at what he does. He owns his own club; he has three henchmen to do his dirty work, though they aren't all that good sometimes, and he has to get involved. I've played a number of bad guys in my career, and there is more to everyone than what you see. The bad guy doesn't think he is bad; he thinks he is good at what he is doing, what needs to be done. He is following his personal code. In Curtis' case, he doesn't have a big arc. His goal is to find Deloris and shut her down. He is trying to solve what he considers a problem. He gets caught and goes to jail. Whether he will transform while there is a question mark?"

Nonetheless, Curtis has some deliciously wicked moments of fun, such as in his big number and its reprise, "When I Find My Baby." "The song is brilliant in its construction," Leggs enthuses. "The lyrics are really clever and the tune is catchy; it masquerades as a love song, but he is singing all these horrible things like 'when I find her I am going to stab her, shoot her.' To sing it tongue-in-cheek and deliver those lines with a smile is a great deal of fun for me and the audience."

But for all the wit and smiles in Sister Act, Leggs believes it is a musical with a greater resonance. "Sister Act is show with a really big heart. We watch Deloris go through this transformation that happens when people from different backgrounds and understandings are forced to deal with - to acknowledge - one another. Deloris and Mother Superior come full circle at the end of the show, having walked in each other's shoes. Everyone learns from the experience; it is enlightening on both sides. That is what life should be. It's a lesson we need to learn as a nation. I sometimes feel we are going backwards," he adds ruefully.

Leggs began his association with theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. He recalls having always sung in choruses, played drums, and even worked at public speaking at a young age, but it was in high school in a performance of Carousel that he first discovered the magic of the stage. His voice teacher Paul Mabury encouraged him to pursue music, and Leggs enrolled in Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, where Mabury also taught, where he majored in classical voice, performing as a baritone and auditioning unsuccessfully several times for St. Louis' prestigious MUNY theatre. He also planned to audition for the San Francisco Conservatory, but a huge snowstorm forced him to arrive late to his Chicago audition and find himself "no longer in contention for the scholarship."

Instead, upon his graduation, he returned to St. Louis and found work with a small ambitious company of African-American actors, organized by Ron Himes. The Twenty-third Street Theatre, as it was then called, eventually blossomed into the prestigious St. Louis Black Repertory Company. "When I joined [c.1976] it was not an Equity theatre; they performed in a church and put on four plays and two musicals a year. I first got hired for the touring show and then the main stage productions. That's where I learned every facet of theatre. Just like these interns here at MSMT, I was involved in everything. I mopped floors, put up chairs and struck them." But for almost a decade he also polished his craft as an actor, appearing in numerous productions such as Ain't Misbehavin', Blues in the Night, and Five Guys Named Mo. "I was intrigued to find there were all these black plays, stories which spoke to my experience. There were virtually no black people in operas, so this was something new and special."

In 1989-90 Leggs moved to Chicago and spent seven years in the Windy City, where he says, his career "began to take off." Serendipitously for this Maine engagement, it was in Chicago that Leggs first met MSMT's Artistic Director, Curt Dale Clark, when they were both performing in First, a play about Jackie Robinson. Now based in New York, Leggs' artistic credits there, on tour, and in regional theatres have included Miss Saigon, Ragtime, The Color Purple, Porgy and Bess, and Two Gentlemen of Verona. He has also done a number of cabaret performances, toured Germany with a gospel group, created a one-man musical evening about Sammy Davis, and at his recent recital at Benedictine College performed a program that included arias and classical music as well. "I like to think that one of my best attributes is being versatile, so it was nice to prove that to myself," he explains. In keeping with this wish, he says one of his personal goals is "to work on the other side of this business" and that he considers going back to school for directing. "I could do it now, but I would like to learn what directors know and then develop my own style and approach." He also says he is eager to add to his list of television credits. "I have a real interest in the medium and a desire to do more."

Clearly, Kingsley Leggs is enjoying a multi-faceted artistic career, one which he hopes to continue to expand and enhance. He sees theatre not only as an avenue of expression for his own creativity, but also a vital cultural and social force for everyone. "Art should have an empowering message," he declares. "Commercial theatre has a mandate to please and is constrained by economics, but regional theatre at its core should have a mandate to push buttons, stimulate thinking, challenge people to think outside the box." He also believes strongly in the need to reach out to less traditional audiences and to improve the availability of arts education for children. "In African-American communities going to the theatre is not necessarily a tradition, so children must be taught the arts in schools, and theatres must actively seek new audiences. They have to create new ways of advertising to reach people of color and a more diverse public."

Asked whether he has seen opportunities for African-American actors change or grow over the arc of his career, Leggs replies: "There is more work for African-American artists because there is simply more work in general. But on Broadway much of those roles are in ensemble and supporting roles rather than as principal actors. Just like the country, we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. It is a process. It doesn't always happen in the time you want it to. But it does happen, I believe, when it is supposed to."

Photos courtesy of MSMT, Cliff Kucine, photographer

Kingsley Leggs stars as Curtis Jackson in Maine State Music Theatre's Sister Act, which runs from June 24- July 11, 2015, at the Pickard Theatre, Brunswick, ME. www.msmt.org