\n<\/p>\n
Nobody doubted that Lea Salonga could sing.<\/p>\n
She had won a Tony Award at the age of 20 for her breakout role as the besotted Vietnamese teen Kim in \u201cMiss Saigon,\u201d and sung her heart out as \u00c9ponine, and later Fantine, in Broadway productions of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables.\u201d She provided the crystalline vocals of not one but two Disney princesses: the warrior heroine of 1998\u2019s \u201cMulan\u201d and the magic carpet-riding Princess Jasmine in 1992\u2019s \u201cAladdin.\u201d<\/p>\n
But could the singer handle Sondheim \u2014 a composer heralded for creating some of the most challenging, idiosyncratic work seen on the American stage \u2014 on Broadway? Could she inhabit a character like Momma Rose, the monstrous, pathologically ambitious stage mother from \u201cGypsy\u201d? Or Mrs. Lovett from \u201cSweeney Todd,\u201d the butcher\/baker who breaks down the marketing challenges of hawking pies filled with human meat, in a Cockney accent, no less?<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it\u2019s hard,\u201d Salonga admitted.<\/p>\n
But she is doing all that and more in \u201cStephen Sondheim\u2019s Old Friends,\u201d currently playing at the Ahmanson Theater here in Los Angeles after a 16-week run in London\u2019s West End. Scheduled to begin previews on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater next month, the show features more than three dozen songs from some of Sondheim\u2019s biggest musicals, including \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d \u201cGypsy,\u201d \u201cA Little Night Music\u201d and \u201cInto the Woods.\u201d The tribute revue also stars Bernadette Peters, who, no stranger to Sondheim, put her own indelible stamp on the character of Momma Rose in 2003.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Salonga, Peters said, \u201chas one of the great Broadway voices, and she just brings down the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Salonga, \u201cI\u2019m getting the chance to sing some of the most incredible lyrics ever written. I\u2019m getting to dip, not just a toe, but my entire body, into this incredible work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cNobody was surprised how terrific she was as a performer,\u201d said the show\u2019s producer Cameron Mackintosh, who also cast Salonga in \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d and \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real surprise was how funny she is,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere weren\u2019t that many laughs in \u2018Miss Saigon\u2019 or \u2018Les Miz,\u2019 obviously, so I didn\u2019t know that side of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show marks Salonga\u2019s return to the Center Theater Group in L.A., where she last appeared in David Henry Hwang\u2019s 2001 revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical \u201cFlower Drum Song.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many ways, that show was a leap of faith for her. The 1958 original hadn\u2019t aged particularly well, with its mail-order brides and a musical tribute to diversity titled \u201cChop Suey.\u201d And by that time in her career, Salonga could be choosy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThere was no one, particularly at that time period, who had achieved the combination of artistic and commercial success on Broadway that Lea had,\u201d Hwang said. \u201cWe were really lucky to get her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salonga\u2019s career has been like that: a combination of breakout performances (the first Asian \u00c9ponine and Fantine on Broadway) and leaps of faith, like \u201cFlower Drum Song\u201d and her recent role in \u201cHere Lies Love<\/a>,\u201d which recast the tale of Imelda Marcos as a disco musical.<\/p>\n \u201cI never thought I\u2019d see that story on Broadway,\u201d Salonga said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the process, she\u2019s opened doors for others in the theater, as both an advocate, speaking out against racial discrimination in Hollywood and on Broadway, and as an example.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s obviously been a big voice for diversity in casting from the very beginning,\u201d said Matthew Bourne, the Tony-winning director of \u201cOld Friends.\u201d \u201cBut she\u2019s also been an icon and inspiration for so many of the younger members of our cast.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On a recent morning, Salonga was in a restaurant overlooking the Ahmanson Theater, talking about some of her earliest days as a child star in her native Philippines, her breakout roles on Broadway, and her reunion with Mackintosh for \u201cOld Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cQuite a few of us had done \u2018Les Miz\u2019 for him,\u201d Salonga recalled. \u201cSo I think he just wanted the show to be populated with people he knew, and that he knew would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n Salonga first met Mackintosh in 1988, and was chosen to play Kim in the West End production of \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d after an extensive talent search. \u201cCameron likes to think he discovered her,\u201d Bourne said with a laugh. \u201cAnd in many ways, he did.\u201d<\/p>\n But Salonga was already a star in the Philippines by the time Cameron came calling, having appeared in \u201cThe King and I\u201d at 7 and as the star of \u201cAnnie\u201d at 9. Concerned about whether Salonga, then 17, would be able to handle the pressure of singing in venues like London\u2019s 2,000-seat Drury Lane Theater, Cameron asked her what sorts of crowds she had played for.<\/p>\n Three weeks earlier, she told him, she had opened for Stevie Wonder.<\/p>\n \u201cAt which point I said to myself, \u2018Cameron, shut up,\u2019\u201d Mackintosh recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d went on to become one of the world\u2019s most popular musicals, playing for 10 years in London and securing Salonga a Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a musical. But when the show was slated to come to Broadway in 1991, it ignited a firestorm for its yellowface casting of the Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce in the role of the Engineer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Salonga also came under fire from the Actors\u2019 Equity Association, which felt that the part of Kim should go to an Asian American.<\/p>\n In the end, Salonga and Pryce were brought over for the Broadway run, both winning Tonys in the process. Salonga became the first Asian actress to win the award. \u201cI was on cloud nine that night,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd after Jonathan Pryce\u2019s casting, which definitely was controversial, every single actor that got to play that role was of Asian descent,\u201d she continued. \u201cSo that was a big victory for Asian actors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the most vocal protesters against the yellowface casting in \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d was Hwang, who even wrote a play about it, \u201cYellow Face,\u201d which opened at the Mark Taper Forum in 2007 and played on Broadway last fall<\/a>. When Hwang asked Salonga to star in his revival of \u201cFlower Drum Song\u201d in 2012, it was with that history in mind.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut she was a very young actress who blew the part away both in London and the U.S. And none of my objections to \u2018Saigon\u2019 and the casting of Jonathan Pryce had a lot to do with Pryce personally, and certainly not Lea, so there wasn\u2019t much to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the good things we did<\/em> talk about was how \u2018Miss Saigon\u2019 created a cohort of performers of Asian ancestry who got experience on Broadway and learned how to command a Broadway stage,\u201d he added. \u201cA huge number of actors who we ended up casting in \u2018Flower Drum Song,\u2019 including Lea, had cut their teeth there.\u201d<\/p>\n A decade later, in 2021, Salonga teamed up with Hwang again for #StopAsianHate, an online movement that arose in response to an upswell of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember seeing the news about a Filipino lady who was attacked<\/a> in front of an apartment building in Manhattan, and the doorman didn\u2019t even try to help her,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I thought it was important for me, for all of us, to speak out when one of us is attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2023, the Broadway production of \u201cHere Lies Love\u201d offered Salonga the chance to tell a story close to her heart: the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos and the beginnings of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines. The show also marked the first time Salonga got to play a Filipino on Broadway, headlining an all-Filipino cast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve played Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, French twice,\u201d she said. \u201cNever Filipino. Our stories never made it to Broadway until then.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that year, Mackintosh called upon Salonga to co-star in the West End production of \u201cOld Friends.\u201d \u201cThere was only a handful of people I thought could possibly co-star with Bernadette,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSteve writes about the human condition,\u201d Peters said. \u201cSo you have to get to the heart of it all. But if you follow the map of what he writes, because he really has thought out everything so well, it\u2019s all there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Among Salonga\u2019s concerns: doing justice to Mrs. Lovett\u2019s Cockney accent in front of a house full of Londoners. She had performed the role of the serial killer\u2019s accomplice and romantic partner in productions of \u201cSweeney Todd\u201d in Manila and Singapore in 2019, but Drury Lane was something else.<\/p>\n \u201cIn London, I did not give myself any breathing room,\u201d she said. \u201cI needed to make sure I nailed it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a Londoner, and actually a real Cockney as well,\u201d Bourne, the director, said. \u201cAnd her accent is very good, and gets better and better. But that\u2019s Lea, though. She gets better and better at everything she does.\u201d<\/p>\n After her run in Los Angeles and New York, Salonga will return to the Philippine musical stage for the first time in six years to do, yes, more Sondheim, starring as the Witch in \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d a role she played there three decades ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting to do all kinds of Sondheim now,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I could just do Sondheim until the day I die, I\u2019d be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal isn\u2019t to be 100 percent perfect at everything you do,\u201d she continued. \u201cThat\u2019s not it at all. It\u2019s to be a good human, to be a responsible, disciplined, excellent performer. That\u2019s a reputation I like to think I have. And I\u2019d like to keep it that way! That I\u2019m someone you can rely on to put on a good show.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n