From the vault!
Celebrity Spotlight featuring Alex Newell premieres Oct. 8 at 7
Courtesy of Boston Gay Men’s Chorus
Even in a pandemic, the show must go on—and it will thanks to the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC). Despite being able to unable to perform live due to COVID-19 restrictions, the hardest working chorus in showbiz (a prospective auditionee once called their packed concert schedule “bonkers”), the organization continues to fulfill its mission to create musical performances to inspire change, build community, and celebrate difference with wonderfully moving digital productions.
Their latest offering is “Celebrity Spotlight,” a streaming mini-series that highlights the Chorus’s collaborations with Broadway and television’s leading talents and features previously unaired
concert footage from the BGMC vault. For an optional donation, viewers will be treated to knockout performances by Broadway actor Nick Adams (“Falsettos,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Priscilla Queen of the Desert”); Tony-winner Laura Benanti (“Gypsy,” NBC’s “Sound of Music Live!” “My Fair Lady,” “She Loves Me”) and TV and Broadway actor Alex Newell (NBC’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” FOX’s “Glee,” “Once on This Island”).
In addition to stellar performances, “Celebrity Spotlight” hosts BGMC Music Director Reuben M. Reynolds and Bill Casey, the Chorus’s executive producer (and Reynolds’ husband), share behind-the-scenes reminiscences of working with the stars and discuss their subjects’ career highlights.
The first episode drops at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 8, on the Chorus’s website and YouTube channel. It features Newell, (a native of Lynn), who shared the stage with the chorus in June 2014. See him raise the roof with performances of show tunes “I Am Changing” (“Dreamgirls”); “Meadowlark” (“The Baker’s Wife”) and “Falling in Love with Love” (“The Boys From Syracuse”); along with the hilarious and pointed “Random Black Girl,” by composing duo Kooman and Dimond. Unless you attended the concert shows, you haven’t seen these performances before, and previously released songs by BGMC featuring Newell have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on BGMC’s YouTube channel.
So how does a nonprofessional, nonprofit chorus attract the best of the best? By being the hardest-working group in showbiz, of course.
Said Casey, “We’ve heard through the grapevine a few times that the New York folks that say yes do so because they’ve heard from other performers that we’re a good group to work with. Our musicians have their stuff together, we treat them with respect, and let them put their voices out in the way they want to be heard and seen. It sounds like we have a good reputation in the musical theater community, and that goes a long way with top-tier talent.”
We’ll take it. See what else Casey and Reynolds had to say about “Celebrity Spotlight” in our interview.
Q: It’s so exciting when artists share rare or previously unreleased material from their secret stashes. You guys have been sitting on a treasure trove! Were you saving it for a rainy day, or more specifically, a pandemic?
RR: It kind of worked out that way, unfortunately, didn’t it? For better or worse, back when we started posting our performances online, we decided to primarily feature just the Chorus in those videos. So when we collaborate with soloists and special guests from outside the chorus, we’d leave out much of their performances.
When COVID-19 happened and we started producing more digital content, it hit us that we have all of these recordings of all of these soloists singing that we’ve never released. That became the impetus to put these “Celebrity Spotlight” programs together.
BC: And Alex, Laura and Nick all have devoted social media followings, and we knew their fans would love to see all of these performances that they’ve seen before. We got really excited about the chance to reach new audiences all over the world with this music.
Q: It’s always helpful to hear when good things come out of this sad time. The Alex Newell episode is spine-tingling. His voice is such a powerful instrument and he’s so much fun to watch. What was it like to work with him so early in his career? He was wrapping up his role as Unique on “Glee,” his breakout role.
RR: Well, Alex grew up in Lynn and he came home and actually spent a whole week rehearsing with us. It was so neat to have his grandmother, his aunts, and his whole family come in and watch him.
It was wonderful working with him so early in his career. I remember Michelle Chassé, our stage director and choreographer, giving him wardrobe advice for the song “Holding Out for a Hero.” She said, “Let’s rethink this wardrobe. We want you in something really light so you’ll pop in front of all those white horses.” And he was like “Oh, Girl why didn’t I think of that?”
Then to see him grow up and do “Once On This Island” in New York, and “Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist” on TV, as he’s gone further and further in his career, makes me so happy.
Q: He’s just so talented. For someone to be so polished at such a young age—
BC: And so professional, too. I said this in the episode, but one thing that really, really resonated with us is that Alex blew into the room with his gigantic personality and you didn’t know if he was going to be exciting or silly or funny or focused or on his phone the whole time. And once he got done with the greetings he was like, “Let’s get to work.”
Now, when you bring in a guest artist you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes they’re great and easy to work with and then sometimes they’re not, they’re a little more demanding or whatever. But with Alex, we just started staging numbers. We got it all knocked out in one night. He was quick, fast, professional, just an utter joy to work with.
Q: You love to hear it. So Alex is a powerful interpreter. How did you go about selecting his songs?
BC: Alex made them all. We collaborated on doing a couple “Hairspray” numbers because we knew that was a show that he’d been involved with. But one of his big points of identity as a performer is that he’s got this powerhouse instrument and he can sing like Patti LaBelle or Audra McDonald or Jennifer Hudson or any of the other great divas. So he was leaning on the big diva repertoire with songs that only the big girls and big boys can sing. So when he said “I want to do “Meadowlark” or “Falling in Love With Love” or “I Know Where I’ve Been,” we were like “Hell yeah, that’s your thing. That’s your jam. Let’s do it.”
Q: It’s even more awesome that he’s a young black, gay, genderfluid diva.
BC: Yes! It’s immediately obvious, the moment he starts singing “I Am Changing” from “Dreamgirls,” which is a huge soprano diva number, and here is, all of a sudden, a man changing, so all the lyrics take on a new significance.
Q: It’s as if these songs were written for him.
RR: It is, and Bill makes a good point in the episode when he talks about this tradition of Broadway divas wanting to cover the big diva numbers and make sure that they get their interpretation of it out into the world. Songs like “Meadowlark,” that are iconic and that you just don’t sing unless you can sing.
BC: He definitely makes them his own. For instance, he did “Falling In Love With Love,” from the stage musical “Cinderella,” which isn’t the most familiar song beyond musical theater geeks. It was a soprano song that was done by Julie Andrews in the original production.
Well when Alex was younger, “Cinderella” was reinvented as a Disney television production starring Brandy and Whitney Houston, so Cinderella suddenly became a real touchstone for young people of color to see themselves reflected in the musical theatre world. So he chose to do that song because he felt like that was part of his awakening as a young Black person. I’m using his words now, I’m not putting words in his mouth, that’s what he told us.
Q: That’s awesome. It’ll be interesting to see how audiences respond to “Celebrity Spotlight” and seeing these stars do their thing with BGMC. Is there anything else we should know about the shows?
BC: We’re very conscious when choosing which guest artist to work with about what their style is and how they like to perform. When you work with Broadway actors and performers who are used to working live, they really fit with the BGMC model really well. That’s the reason why we’ve had Sutton Foster, and Laura Benanti and Nick Adams and Alex Newell—those folks were reared in this world, and it works out.
Watch Celebrity Spotlight featuring Alex Newell on Thursday, October 8 at 7 p.m., on the Chorus’s website and YouTube channel.