Tony Nominee Q&A with Gavin Lee and Rebecca Luker

Best Featured Actress in a Musical Rebecca Luker's Broadway credits include Nine, Music Man, Sound of Music, Showboat, Secret Garden, Phantom of the Opera.  Off-Broadway: Vagina Monologues, Can't Let Go, X (Life of Malcolm X), and Brigadoon. Concerts: American Songbook (LCT), Boys From Syracuse (Encores!), No, No Nanette, Trouble in Tahiti, Gay Divorce (Carnegie Hall). TV: "Cupid & Cate," "Law & Order: SVU," "My Favorite Broadway," "Evening With The Pops," etc. Regional: Passion (Kennedy Center). Recordings: Leaving Home (PS Classics), Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker Sings Cole Porter, Aria 1-3.

Congratulations!

Rebecca: It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm surprised to be here…  I thought as soon as I read the script that it'd be a wonderful thing to do and I worked really hard to get the callbacks come in. I think it's a miracle that you get a job in a show that's running that you like and people like and then a nomination is just icing on the cake…

How did you hear the news of your nomination?

Rebecca: I was at my weekend house in the Poconos and asleep because we don't get NY1 or anything, so I didn't get the news until the phone started ringing… Oh! Here's Gavin Lee… Gavin we're talking about how we heard the news…

Gavin: Mine was very boring. I was asleep, because I decided that I couldn't bare to be watching on TV and not seeing my name. So I thought it was better to sleep and either have someone call me, or if no one called me then I'd know what that meant too. As soon as I got a call and got the yes, I watched and said – yes! that was Jane Krakowski saying my name!

Rebecca:  I thought the same thing, if no one calls by 8:45, I'll go about my day and then I got the great surprise.

Seeing the show both in London and here it looks like the depth of the characters just increased and increased as the show made its way to Broadway.

Gavin: I'm very lucky in the way that the creative team wrote this script, because I think that they built the part of Burt up even more than the Dick Van Dyke role in the film. I'm lucky because I get to address the audience and therefore I can see how much people of all ages are enjoying the show because I get to see that and I get to break the fourth wall which is one of my favorite parts of the show. So I get to talk to you and with the actors.

How are audiences reacting here versus over there?

The American audience is so much more appreciative with noise. So when you come down for the bow, you're doing it to show off and when the audience cheers and stands up and goes crazy, then you just think YES, I love my job, and I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Rebecca: That's exactly how I feel…

Gavin: This whole Tony thing is a dream, because the dream was oh god, I'm going to be able to perform on Broadway. Because as a British actor to get to repeat your role here, it's very rare. Really, you're just talking about Michael Crawford in Phantom and Bob Lindsay in Me and My Girl and that's about it as far as I know. I'm sorry if I've missed anyone else. This is ridiculous and is even bigger than icing on the cake.

There are people that I've listened to on CDs or come to see in shows on vacation like Rebecca Luker and now she's up there on stage with me and I get to hear her live 8 shows a week, it's fantastic.

Rebecca: Oh stop!  It's a great group of people that we have on the show and it's a great company and cast with so much energy.

Gavin: It's a great story line there, and more so than the film and I think that it's really George Banks' story. I know that you've got the wife and Mary Poppins and things, but it's George Banks' story. I do kind of understand what they're going through.

It's really a wonderful story that was nourished both on screen and on stage for kids and for adults.

Gavin: This is not really designed a kids show, but it's dangerous to say that, and it's a fine line because you don't want to make it all for 5 year olds either.

Rebecca: Mostly it's not for them…

Gavin: So it's about getting the message that it's for the whole family, and making the show for the whole family too.

Rebecca: Exactly, so come see it, and make up your own minds…

Photo of Gavin Lee by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.; Photo of Rebecca Luker by Linda Lenzi