Interview: BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL at Lesher Center For The Arts Sings in Celebration of Life

Broadway legend Brian Stokes Mitchell firmly believes we could all use a little more joy in our lives right now, and he promises to provide just that with his concert at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Friday, February 25th. Part of the Lesher's "Headliners" series, this uplifting evening will feature a wide range of music, from American songbook to Broadway and contemporary tunes. Dubbed "the last leading man" by The New York Times, Brian Stokes Mitchell has enjoyed a one-of-a-kind career encompassing Broadway, film, television and concerts for over three decades. And to top that off, he recently gained widespread internet fame during the pandemic for his impromptu performances from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment in Manhattan. Drawing crowds for his stellar rendition of "The Impossible Dream," his serenading evolved into a nightly salute to essential workers that was covered by NPR, NBC and other news outlets.

Stokes (as he's known to friends and colleagues) has one of those theater resumes that just won't quit. He won Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Kiss Me, Kate, and also received Tony nominations for his performances in Man of La Mancha, August Wilson's King Hedley II, and Ragtime. His other notable Broadway shows include Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jelly's Last Jam, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Shuffle Along. In 2016, he received a second Tony, the prestigious Isabelle Stevenson Award, for his charitable work with The Actors Fund. That same year, Stokes was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

His extensive screen career began with a guest starring role on "Roots: The Next Generations," followed by a 7-year stint on "Trapper John, MD" and has continued with memorable appearances on everything from PBS' "Great Performances" to "The Fresh Prince," "Frasier," "Glee," and recent recurring roles on the buzzy TV series "Madam Secretary," "Mr. Robot," "Billions," and "The Good Fight." And of course there's his cameo as a Legend in the stunning "Sunday" sequence of Lin-Manuel Miranda's new film tick, tick...BOOM. Stokes has also enjoyed working with numerous charitable organizations from the March of Dimes to the USO. He is on the board of Americans for the Arts and is serving his 14th term as Chairman of the Board of the Actors Fund.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Stokes by phone last week from his music studio in New York. We chatted about his upcoming concert in Walnut Creek and revisited some of the highlights from his wide-ranging career. He chatted about his love of concertizing, his attraction to playing darker characters, the long and sometimes difficult gestation of Ragtime, his joy in working with the late, great Marin Mazzie, and the one role he would, um, kill to have another go at. (Any Broadway producers out there, please take note!) Stokes has worked with so many iconic figures from the theater world that our conversation naturally careened from David Merrick to Audra McDonald to Chita Rivera to Stephen Sondheim to Viola Davis and just about everyone in between. In conversation, he is readily warm and engaging, and quick to acknowledge the contributions of the many insanely talented people he has had the good fortune to work with over the years. And then there's his inimitable baritone voice, as resonant when he speaks as it is when he sings. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What repertoire do you have planned for your Walnut Creek concert on February 25th?

I am going to do a show very similar to one I did last spring at Lincoln Center. That was the time that we thought we were all "comin' out of COVID" so it's a celebratory show, full of joy, full of hope. Basically it's a celebration of life. Joy and play have always been huge parts of my concerts, but I'm especially focusing on those now because I think that's what everybody wants. We've been shut away for too long, and it's time to get out and find our happy spot again.

You're also a composer, so will you be performing any of your own music?

Not in this concert, no, but I arrange a lot of the tunes. I studied film-scoring and orchestration and conducting at UCLA many, many years ago. This particular concert will have some arrangements by me and also some by my pianist, Tedd Firth, and some that we did together as well.

Almost two years ago now, you leaned out your window in Manhattan to belt out "The Impossible Dream" and then that moment went viral and became this whole thing.

Yeah, who'd a thunk?!

What were you thinking when you first leaned out that window?

Well, I was just on the end of my recovery from COVID, from having had it. I was literally lying in my bed for days before that, and I could hear all this noise coming from the front room, and it was my wife and son cheering and yelling and clapping and screaming out the window. I called her and said, "What's going on?" and she said, "Oh, there's this spontaneous thing that New York has started where at 7 o'clock everybody stops what they're doing and they honk their horns or shout on the streets or bang on pots and pans, and I thought, "Oh, I can't wait to do that."

We were still kind of isolated as a family. As it turned out, neither my wife nor son got COVID, so obviously we were doing the right thing. But when I was feeling better, I got to my own personal window that overlooks Broadway and I was clapping and cheering. In the meantime, over the course of a number of days, I would come into my studio in the house where I record most of the vocals from my albums and I would warm up my voice. I had a very bad case of COVID. It didn't land me in the hospital, but the worst muscle aches I've ever had, worst fever I've ever had - it went up almost to 105 degrees. It was really terrible. I could feel it moving around various parts of my body, and at the very end is when it started moving into my lungs. The thing I was most concerned about was it damaging my lungs, being a performer and a singer, so I would come into the studio and vocalize and work my lungs.

Then one day at 7:00 when I went out to the front, and the cheering and the clapping and all that had died down I thought, "I think I can sing." So I just spontaneously started singing "The Impossible Dream" and I noticed everybody on the street stopped. It was my act of gratitude for my doctor who got me through, and all of the medical workers and subway drivers and bus drivers and the delivery people and the people working in supermarkets who were keeping New York going. And then at the end of that, the people on the street stopped and clapped. I wasn't planning on singing it more than once, it was just a one-off in my head.

The second day, I was getting ready to close the window and I hear somebody from the street yell, "Sing the song!" So that's what started me doing it for about two and a half months. The crowds just kept getting bigger and bigger and as you said it went viral and it was on every major news channel. If I'd known that to be famous and go viral all you had to do was open your window and sing out over Broadway, I would have done that a long time ago! [laughs]

Speaking of a long time ago, I'd like to touch on some of your career highlights. Oh, Kay! was your first leading role in a big Broadway show, but the publicity around it was somewhat overwhelmed by the shenanigans of its legendary producer David Merrick.

Yes! [laughs]

Did that affect you as a cast member?

Well, yes and no. I mean, I'm somebody who loves to observe and watch and pay attention. It was only my second Broadway show, and he and I got along quite well. The irony was this man, who was known for his rapier-like tongue that could cut anyone down in a matter of seconds, a few years before that had had a stroke. Basically, he could get out maybe one good sentence and then it was all just a jumble. But his brain still worked and he was still very sharp and he was up to his old tricks in all kinds of ways. Literally my only regret after the show was that he didn't have his power of speech. I would have loved to have gone to lunch with him and just sat down and listened to him tell stories from his point of view.

But what I realized is he was a showman (the "abominable showman" I think Howard Kissell wrote in his book). It was very calculated; the things that he did were to get publicity for his shows. And Oh, Kay! turned out to be the last show David Merrick produced on his own so I feel very honored to have been a part of his legacy in some way, and to see his shenanigans actually happen. And it's also the show where I met my wife [performer Allyson Tucker]; it was her first Broadway show.

I saw Kiss of the Spiderwoman on Broadway during Chita Rivera's final weekend with the show and she of course was amazing, but what really surprised me was your thrilling performance as Valentin -

Oh, thank you!

Having only seen you in the frothy musical comedy Oh, Kay!, I was amazed at your ability to get inside such an intense and even unlikable character. In retrospect, I feel like that role may have laid the groundwork for some of the more complex characters you've played since, like Coalhouse Walker and Sweeney Todd. Would you agree with that?

Yes, definitely. You know, I've always loved darker roles and complex people. I studied film acting and did a lot of television, but even the very first role I did on television, or second role, was a dark character actually. He was a sociopath on a show called "The White Shadow" and so I've always loved characters like that and been attracted to them.

And right before that [Kiss of the Spiderwoman] I did Jelly Roll Morton in Jelly's Last Jam. I replaced Gregory Hines in that show, and there's a dark character as well. I just love the complexity of people like Valentin and Jelly and Sweeney Todd. Cause we all have a piece of that in us. You know, we all have a little Mother Teresa and we all have a little - who? - you know whoever's the most awful person you can think of in the world, and that's different for different people. We are a combination of all of humanity in one person. We have those moments ourselves when you want to kill somebody, you know? And then you have great acts of kindness and everything in between.

It's what I love about performing. It's kind of the great equalizer. It brings us all together and helps us to understand each other, and also become more empathetic when we realize why people do what they do. Nobody does anything without a reason. We may not like the reason, or understand it at first, but one of the things that art does is let us get into the heads and hearts and minds of some of these people that we would normally do our best to avoid, you know, if we saw them walking towards us. And it helps us understand the complexity of the world and of human nature as well.

That is so apt for a character like Sweeney Todd.

Oh, I loved that character! That's the one show, if somebody said, "Hey, we're mounting a production of Sweeney Todd on Broadway with a full orchestra and would love you to do Sweeney," that's the one I would say, "Yes, I'll do that." Absolutely!

I saw your Sweeney at the Kennedy Center, and you were terrific opposite Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett.

And the performance you saw, that would be like being in previews. There were only 14 performances so by the time closing night came, I was just starting to feel like "Ugh, I'm just starting to get this guy." What I love about that character (and I think it's Sondheim's masterwork, personally), and all of the characters and the score, it's just so complex and so deep and rich. It's one of those roles I think that you could explore for a year.

Valentin is also one of those, Jelly Roll Morton is one of those, Coalhouse Walker. I've been very fortunate to play a lot of roles like that, psychologically complex human beings. It just gives you this wonderful kind of psychological playground to play in, and then in addition to that you have this incredible music of Stephen Sondheim or Kander & Ebb, some of the best composers of all time.

I saw you in Ragtime in LA, and then again on Broadway. The Broadway performance in particular remains one of the all-time best nights I've ever had in the theater.

Oh, thank you! That was a magical cast.

Yes, it was. I feel like Coalhouse is still probably your signature role.

Yeah, I think so.

Was that part written with you in mind?

Yes, actually. Garth Drabinsky was the producer of Kiss of the Spiderwoman, and about 6 or 8 months into that show, he came up to me and said [affecting a crusty producers's tone] "I've got a part for ya, a role I want ya to do." I said, "What is it?" He said, "I can't tell ya." I said, "Well - OK?" He said, "I'll tell ya when I get the rights."

And he would come up to me like every few weeks and say, "I've still got that role, and I want ya to do it." I'd say, "Can you tell me what it is?" "No." Finally about three months later, he said, "Now I can tell ya. The show is Ragtime and I want ya to play Coalhouse Walker, Jr." And I said, "Oh, wow, Garth. That's incredible. That's a great role." I hadn't read the book at that point, but I'd seen the movie and really loved the story. And I said, "Oh, that's just amazing! Thanks, Garth."

But that was on the outside. On the inside, I was thinking, "Coalhouse Walker?! I am so wrong for Coalhouse Walker!" But as it turns out, I have noticed now that's kind of how I feel about almost every role I've ever played. I always go, "Oh, I can't play that role." With just about everything I've ever done, I've felt that way. And hopefully, thankfully I think I've proven myself wrong, at least most of those times. [laughs]

Why did you think you were wrong for Coalhouse?

Just so many reasons. That complexity of the character, the time period... I don't know exactly. Howard Rollins had played him in the movie, so his performance was kind of etched into my mind, and I'm so different from him physically and in my acting style. I just loved what he did and his version was in my head, and I kind of had to exorcise that.

Actually the same thing happened with Kiss Me, Kate, for another reason. Because I'd seen other performances of that show, and I hated that show. Never ever liked it!

Really?!

Noooo! I had seen bad productions of it where I just hated the characters. I hated him, I hated Lilli, I hated the secondary characters, I hated everybody in the show. I thought they were just unlikable people. But I realized what was written in the script by Bella Spewack, it's really brilliant. The problem was, I found, that people I'd seen performances of were playing the words in the script. And Bella Spewack wrote the characters in the spaces of the script, not in the words. So they're saying one thing, but they're thinking another. And when I finally discovered that, that's when I said "yes" to the role. One of the luxuries I've had lately is that I don't have to take a role if I don't love it. And it turns out that's the one I won my Tony Award for, so it turned out to be a good decision! [laughs]

I'll say! When Garth Drabinsky kept telling you he had this great role for you but couldn't tell you what it was, did you take him seriously or did you just think he was just leading you on?

Oh, no, I took him seriously. At that point, Garth was kind of the pre-eminent producer on Broadway. He'd done Showboat, he did Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Fosse came a little bit after that. But he was the guy that was doing all the shows, and so I thought, "OK, if anybody could do this kind of show..." Cause I knew also it would be a huge show, the scope of the show was very, very large, and these are the kinds of shows Garth loved. And still loves - that's what Paradise Square is, his show that's coming in that I saw when I was in Chicago. He loves these big epic dramas, so I never for a second thought that he was not speaking the truth.

Shortly after that other things started happening, and I heard Stephen [Flaherty] and Lynn [Ahrens] were chosen to do it. And then I ended up singing "Wheels of a Dream" at the Lyrics & Lyricists seminar they gave at the 92nd Street Y. I'd already sung another song with them before for another benefit. It was the first time that I actually got to meet them, and I've always loved them.

It's funny, [years earlier] I was supposed to audition for [Ahrens & Flaherty's] Once on This Island after I did Mail, which is the first Broadway show that I did. And I said, "I don't know who these people are. I don't know anything about this show." They sent me the script, but the script doesn't read very well, because it's all about the movement and the choreography and the music. So they sent me a cassette tape, and I said "Well, I'll listen to the cassette tape, and then I'll decide." Cause I was already booked to leave town. I remember putting the cassette tape in and I pressed Play - and the cassette tape was blank. And I said, "All right, I'll take this as a sign." [laughs] Cause I had some other things I needed to get back to Los Angeles for anyway. So I didn't go in for the audition, but later on I saw the show and loved the show and fell in love with Stephen and Lynn, and I've been in love with them ever since.

For Once on This Island, were they wanting you to audition for the role of Daniel?

Yeah!

Oh, I think you would have been great in that role.

Although it's, again, a very unlikable character ultimately! [laughs]

Yeah, but he has to be charmer, too.

Exactly. And I would have had a great time, and it was Graciela Daniele who choreographed and directed that. I got to work with her of course on Ragtime. She's another one of those people I just have deep admiration and love for, her artistry and her heart and just who she is and what she is able to do on the stage with actors, performers, dancers and singers. She's just brilliant ten times over.

You're one of those rare leading men who is able to "play well with others." I mean, when I think of some of the amazing casts you've been part of, like Shuffle Along, for example.

Yes!

When you're sharing a stage with forces of nature like Audra McDonald and Billy Porter and Joshua Henry and Adrienne Warren and Brandon Victor Dixon, etc., how do you resist the temptation to make your own performance bigger just to sort of compete with all that talent?

Well, my acting coach I studied with for years and years, and thousands of hours, was a gentleman named Sal Dano. I started with him when I was about 16 years old and studied with him probably til the time I was 22. I would study with him three times a week, for six-eight hours a night, cause he would go very late into the evening. And one of the things that he drummed into my head is that the actor's first obligation is to the playwright. So that always stuck with me. It's about trying to help an audience see and understand the playwright's vision. It's not about ego.

One of the great lessons I had was from working on television, so many different television series when I was so young, but particularly Trapper John which ran for seven years. I saw all kinds of people come in and out, all kinds of personalities change, all of that. I was able to kind of sit and observe and say [to myself], "Do that, do that - oh, don't do that." Cause I could see the way it was affecting people around me.

Like I said earlier, I love to play. I mean, my last album is called "Plays with Music," and it's a triple entendre actually. Because I am a playful personality. I'm curious and I'm playful, and I love working with other people and getting ideas and inspiration from that. People that are doing their own thing and that are riding on their own ego all the time, I find aren't genuinely very playful people. They take themselves way too seriously. The fun of especially the theater is that it is this incredibly collaborative art. Films are similar in a way, but in a sense film is more isolated because you tend to come in and everybody's goes to their trailers and you kind of work on separate things and then you intersect when you're shooting a scene. Then it goes into an editor's hands, who really puts the film together, who you may not ever even meet.

Whereas the theater, everybody's in the same room, you're working together, you're there every day, you're watching people work when you're not in the scene, you're a part of everything. The designers are there, the director's there, the choreographer's there, the lighting people are there, the crew is there. It really is a collaborative art. And what fascinates me about it as well is that if any one person drops the ball, the whole thing falls apart, and that rarely happens in the theater.

I always semi-joke, "Washington, D.C., take note!" You know? It's amazing what human beings can do when we have an end goal in mind. Which for Broadway of course is putting on a show. You get all of these disparate people from all of these disparate professions and talents and skills and beliefs and political parties and parts of the world and whatever. But they all have their eye on the same thing, the same prize. And then something miraculous happens - you end up with a Hamilton or a West Side Story or a Ragtime or any of those brilliant shows. That's a testament to me to the power of collaboration and cooperation.

You co-starred with the fabulous Marin Mazzie multiple times on Broadway. What was it like working with her?

Oh, Marin's a force of nature. I mean, I feel so fortunate. I have worked with the best leading ladies - Chita Rivera, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, Viola Davis. I've had some incredible people that I've worked with all throughout my career, the list just kind of goes on and on. And what I love about all of these people I mentioned is they're also collaborative people that love to play.

Marin and I - it's interesting because Ragtime was not a good experience for a lot of people. I worked on that show for about two years before it actually came to Broadway. We opened up in Canada first, then all the sudden people [in the cast] started getting phone calls saying "Hey, am I right for your part? I hear they're opening a production of Ragtime in Los Angeles." And people were going, "What are you talking about?!"

Garth had said, "Well, we'll be in Toronto for just a few months and then we're gonna go to Boston or Los Angeles or somewhere like that, and then we're going to come in to Broadway." But that's not what he did. He ended up keeping that cast, which was the Broadway cast, in Canada for the entire year, and opened a separate cast in Los Angeles. What he had forgotten is that I had right of first refusal in my contract for Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

So that's how I ended up in [the] Los Angeles [cast]. Also I'd lived in Los Angeles forever, I had a house in Los Angeles, my family was in Los Angeles and San Diego. I wasn't going to turn that down. And it was what everybody wanted to do. What was insulting to the [Toronto] cast is, this Los Angeles company got the American premiere of Ragtime, and it's such an American show. Meanwhile, all of the people who'd been toiling with the show and creating these characters for years were stuck in Canada over a largely terrible winter up there, and [playing to] an audience that didn't appreciate the show as much as an American audience would and eventually did.

So when we got back together for Broadway, that cast was kind of beat up, and they were not feeling happy about Garth and the way things turned out. They weren't mad at me - and everybody still did their job, as you well saw. I mean, we loved the show and we loved everybody involved with the show.

When Kiss Me, Kate started, I said, "Marin, let's go out to lunch." Because of all the people in the Ragtime cast, Marin is the one that I knew the least.

Really?!

Yes, because those two characters were onstage at opposite times. We almost never saw each other in rehearsal because we were always in a different room. The one scene we had together in the show is the scene about "What's going on? Who are you?" where we meet for "New Music."

And then, Marin, like me, you know we go into our monk mode when doing a role in a show like that, so we didn't go out, we didn't party, we didn't go to dinners afterwards. We did the show and came home; otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the show. So we just didn't know each other very well. So [once we were cast in Kiss Me, Kate] we said, "Let's talk." We had lunch and we sat down and we were talking about what happened and the experience and the [Ragtime] cast being torn apart and everything.

But she and I just got along great. I mean, we always had, when we saw each other. We did a little pinkie swear to each other when we did Kiss Me, Kate. I said, "Marin, let's have the most fun ever on this show." and we did a pinkie swear. That's something I always say now, before almost any show I say, "Let's have the most fun ever!" And we did on that show. I just had a great time with her. She's the leading lady I've worked with the most. I think I've done four shows with her, Kismet and Man of La Mancha and Ragtime and Kiss Me, Kate. I've worked with her more than anybody else, and just loved her to pieces. We always had the best time together.

It's fascinating to me to learn that you didn't know Marin very well during the run of Ragtime. In the Broadway production, I thought your one scene together was actually the key turning point in the whole show. In that moment, I felt such a palpable connection between Coalhouse and Mother that I realized, "Aha! These people are capable of change." Which is what that show is ultimately about.

Yes!

So when you were both announced to star in Kiss Me, Kate it was like "of course!" I had assumed the two of you were best friends already.

[laughs] No, we weren't actually. We certainly liked each other and respected each other, but I wouldn't say we were best friends, just because we just didn't have the opportunity to spend enough time together. But we became that during Kiss Me, Kate, which ironically is the show where the lead characters hate each other, and she slapped me about ten times per show so... [laughs]

But yeah, she and that whole [Ragtime] company actually and that show is the most magical show I've ever done. When people ask, "What's your favorite show?" it usually happens to be the one I'm working on at the time they ask, but I always say the most magical show I've ever done is Ragtime. I could tell you a million stories on that. It was like the universe was constantly saying "Yes, you're supposed to be doing this." All of these bizarre coincidences and synergistic things were happening throughout the course of that show that made us all realize we were in the middle of something unusual.

After the first workshop I did of it, I remember talking to my wife and I said, "This show's gonna change my life. This is the show I've been waiting for." I also knew I needed to change my name, because I was going by Brian Mitchell then, which is the worst stage name in the world (though it's a fine regular name). I was gonna change my name totally, cause I realized "This show is the one that's gonna put me on the map." Even though I'd already been working. What I ended up doing was of course just putting my middle name in. But it turned out whatever I was feeling seemed to be correct.

Given that you're Chairman of the Board of the Actors Fund, I just have to ask: Is there any word yet on when the Actors Fund Ragtime reunion concert will happen? I still have my tickets in hand for that.

We're trying to make it happen. We've re-scheduled it twice. The first time unfortunately was because Marin Mazzie passed away and then the second time was because of COVID. It was early on in COVID when we were supposed to do it, and we kept thinking "Okay, we'll move it two months down the road or three months down the road," and little did we know at that point.

Now, the problem is just you know herding all the cats together, because everybody's doing television and film, so we're trying to find a time when we can do it. We're maybe looking at this fall to get it together. It's something we absolutely want to do. I talk to [Actors Fund President & CEO] Joe Benincasa constantly, and we just had a conversation two days ago about how can we make this work.

And the other thing is we're not clear of COVID yet. Almost! Probably by the fall I would guess that we will be as much in the clear as we're gonna be. It looks like life is getting back to normal. We're going to a Broadway show tonight (we've been going to a number of them) and it's nice to see Broadway come back. It's coming back slowly, but I think by the fall we should be back up full force, unless there's some bizarre turn of events again that we have not foreseen. So hold onto your tickets, and thank you for your faith!

I imagine you get asked this all the time, but is there any chance we'll get to see you back on Broadway anytime soon?

I don't know. I've been doing film and television and having a great time doing concerts actually. I mean, if I had to pick one thing that is my absolute favorite thing to do, I would say it's concerts. Because I get to sing, I get to talk to an audience, I get to perform sometimes with just a piano, sometimes with a jazz band, sometimes with a full orchestra, sometimes with a trio. I can create my own show, I get to make up my own patter, I get to go with the flow and riff during the shows. It's just an incredibly joyous experience for me. I love feeling an audience lift up and leave the theater happier than they were when they walked in, cause I know I feel the same way. So that's my favorite thing.

It really feeds me. And I love working with other musicians and doing my own arrangements and orchestrations when I want to as well. It's freeing and it's fun and I get to run the show. It's terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, because if a show goes great, I'm the one you know that's the reason for that, and if a show sucks terribly I'm the one that's the reason for that. [laughs] It's like walking a high wire, which I also learned to do many years ago. You've gotta be in the moment, you've gotta be on it, you've gotta be ready to go, and you've gotta be prepared. And that's what I love about it.

If the right [Broadway] show came along... I get asked every year at least two of three times, "Hey, do you want to do so-and-so, or such-and-such?" and nothing has made me go, "Yeah!" Honestly, the last like three shows I've done, when I was doing them, I was like, "Eh, I don't really love this." I loved the shows and I loved working with the people, but it wasn't filling me up like doing concerts does.

But there's nothin' like working with a Broadway company and theater people. I just love theater people, their hearts, their work ethic, their artistry. I just love that experience as well, so I won't ever say I've given it up. I don't think it's done. I always say, "Let's see what comes along."

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Brian Stokes Mitchell will perform at 7:30pm on February 25, 2022 at the Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Dr, Walnut Creek. For tickets and more information, visit www.lesherartscenter.org.