Tag Archives: Beauty and the Beast

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October 2, 2010

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Books, Film, It's Not Where You Start, Theater

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It’s Not Where You Start: You Must Love Me

Originally published on It’s Not Where You Start.

Don’t freak out, this isn’t a post about my love life. At least, not my romantic life. This is about my first love: musicals.

Within my general obsession with musical theater, there are a few areas I find particularly interesting, all of which can be grouped under the rubric of transformations. I am fascinated with the way stories are told and retold, and few storytelling arenas are as obsessed with retelling as musical theater.

I love to read/watch the books, plays, and movies that musicals were based on to see how the composers, lyricists, bookwriters, directors et al applied their craft. For example, my already huge admiration for Oscar Hammerstein II grew exponentially after reading Edna Ferber’s original novel Show Boat. The way that Hammerstein transformed the central metaphor of the book — Magnolia’s relationship with the Mississippi River — into the central metaphor of the show — Magnolia’s relationship with the musical stage — is genius.  Continue reading →

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January 16, 2001

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Fynsworth Alley, Interviews, Music, Theater

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Fynsworth Alley: Kenney Posey

Originally published on Fynsworth Alley.

Kenneth PoseyKenneth Posey, the current star of Jekyll and Hyde in Germany, recently released an album called If I Sing, which we’re offering for sale on the Fynsworth Alley web site under special arrangement. Before joining Jekyll, Kenneth performed in Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, several other musicals and a plethora of operas. To find out more about him, visit http://www.kennethposey.de, his official web site. Or just read on…

DL: So, I’m sure the first question you always get asked is how a guy from Houston ended up as a staple of German musical theatre. What’s your story?

KP: Shortly after graduating from high school, I left Houston to train as an opera singer. After chasing every teacher, every school, every chance – I ended up in Boston. Ironically, a result of my education was the realization that making a living as an opera singer in the US was almost impossible: too few opera houses and too many singers. It was 1990. The Berlin Wall had just come down, Germany was still in two parts but talking reunification, and I decided to go. I immediately got a job in a small opera house in eastern Germany where I guess you could say I completed my education – over 30 roles in three years! I then worked my way into the mainstream of the German opera world and spent a couple of years singing non-stop but living mainly in hotels. When a call came, inviting me to Switzerland for a new production of Phantom of the Opera – 13 months of living in one beautiful city – I accepted it without a thought. One Phantom led to another (Hamburg) then came another new production (Disney’s Beauty and the Beast) followed immediately by Jekyll & Hyde. Ten years after leaving the US, I’m still here and having a great time!   Continue reading →

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November 13, 2000

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Fynsworth Alley, Interviews, Music, Theater

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Fynsworth Alley: Interview with Susan Egan

Originally published on Fynsworth Alley.

Susan Egan

When you look up the word “multitalented” in the dictionary, you might just find Susan Egan’s picture. Sure, she sings, she dances, she acts, but in addition to her work on Broadway (which includes her Tony-nominated debut as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, the starring role of Princess Leonid in Triumph of Love, and a year-long stint as Sally Bowles in Cabaret), Susan has appeared in film, television, books-on-tape, cabaret, and symphony concerts, and she’s even been known to take on the role of producer every now and then. You can currently catch Susan every Sunday night at 9:00 on the WB on Nikki, and you can find her in cyberspace at http://www.SusanEgan.net.
DL:You’ve made the leap from musical theatre into just about every medium possible, including film, TV, books on tape, concerts… Is musical theatre still your favorite?

SE: No. I don’t really have a favorite. I knew musical theatre would be my foot in the door in the industry, because it was something that came really naturally to me. But it’s a bit of a smaller world, and I have a unique take on it, and I knew a lot of people aren’t going to hire me because I make ingénues very funny and a little off-center. I’m not your typical ingénue, I’m generally quirky. But I knew the people that liked that would get it and hire me. I still think I got Belle because I made them laugh, and I don’t think they knew Belle could be funny. I mean, I just think I had a different take on it that didn’t betray what people think of as Belle, it just added another dimension to her. And I think it’s because the ingénue roles never really interested me when I was growing up listening to musical theatre. You know, I would fast forward through those songs; I couldn’t wait to get to Miss Adelaide! Sarah Brown was boring, but then I grew up looking like Sarah Brown. To make it interesting for me, I really make them off-the-wall, and I started working a lot with that, from the moment I was sixteen. I figured out for myself that’s what I can do that’s different and unique. Not a lot of people do that, and that’s what gave me the clue. I knew I would go to New York, I knew I would work in New York, and that would be my foot in the door in the industry. And then from there I could do other things, and that’s precisely what happened.
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