I went to Minneapolis for rehearsals two weeks ago, as RESPECT is opening there August 10 at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Luckily, I have some good friends—Frank and Margaret Hetman–who live nearby and I was able to stay with them in their lovely home on one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.
The Chanhassen Theater is so well-managed, it blew me away. Artistic Director Michael Brindisi invited me to see Les Miserables, which he directed and which is playing in one of the other venues. Though I had seen the show four times, including twice on Broadway, I was really touched by this unique production. It was marvelous. Not only the show was fabulous, but the dinner was superb. The food was scrumptious and the service amazing. We had Nick as our server and he is a real treasure.
So I started to see how RESPECT is in competent hands. Our director is Tamara Kangas, who is also a choreographer and had worked on Les Miserables, too. I sat in rehearsals for three days and each day I grew to respect her skills more and more. Not to mention the musical director, Tom Mustachio, who is immensely talented. And the actors, are they great, or what? See a photo of them with me below (Andrea Uselman-Brandt, Emily Rose Skinner, Seri Johnson, Timotha Lanae). It is going to be a phenomenal show.
Because I used to live in the Twin Cities, I am really happy the show is opening there. Quite a few of my friends will be coming to see the show, and some to opening night, so all that is great!
While I was there, I had two interviews with journalists. One was with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s theater critic, Rohan Preston. It was such an upbeat meeting and Rohan had scheduled us to meet in the Gold Medal Park (named after the flour, because General Mills is an important part of the city) right next to the phenomenal new Guthrie Theater. I got a chance to see Noel Cowards’s Private Lives and I was so taken by not only the production, but also the beauty of the new facility. It is a real gem for Minneapolis.

Center and going clockwise (Everywoman!), playwright Dorothy Marcic, Andrea Uselman-Brandt, Emily Rose Skinner, Seri Johnson, Timotha Lanae

There’s a lot going on with three shows of RESPECT going up within two months in Detroit, Atlanta and Australia, all within February and March. My head is spinning! Not to mention Boston has been running now for over four months, going strong (listen to the recent radio interview).

The cast is phenomenal (see Kathy St. George in her power pose, as well as the three other singers wondering Where the Boys Are: Tiana Checchia, Dareem Castro and Amiee Collier). Next up, in early February at the Gem Theatre, is Detroit. The
whole process has been pretty exciting to me. Producer Bill Franzblau and I have been talking for a long time about him mounting a production of RESPECT. He told me early on that he wanted Hinton Battle (here is Hinton posing with me) to direct it as they two of them have worked together before and collaborate well. How could I not want this team? Both are Tony-level (Franzblau was nominated for Good Night, Gracie and Battle won for Miss Saigon, Sophisticated Ladies and Tap Dance Kid), which means they are enormously talented - and I have seen that with my own eyes. Not to mention Battle has a role in the new hit movie, Dreamgirls. Plus they are just nice people, easy to work with. Then Franzblau convinced Timothy Graphenreed, who scored the original Broadway show The Wiz, to do the musical arrangements. And they cast an incredible group of women (counter-clockwise from upper left: Shonka Dukereh, Marlyn Sanchez, Sarah Madej, Kelly Shook, and me). The result is so overwhelming positive, I just sit at rehearsals with my mouth open. In March, RESPECT opens in Atlanta, at the 14th Street Theatre. GFOUR will produce, as they did in Cleveland and Boston. Gfour’s principals, Alan and Kathi Glist , along with Kenny and Sandra Greenblatt, have been nominated for several Tony Awards and they’ve produced a LOT of shows. They are a highly energetic, talented bunch! And such great people! With both Boston and Cleveland, David Arisco directed and Barbara Flaten choreographed. Arisco is Artistic Director at the Actor’s Playhouse, in Miami, where Flaten worked for a number of years (now she works out of New York). Because Arisco’s had recent knee surgery (he actually had an accident during rehearsals in Boston), he was unable to direct the next one. So Atlanta will see RESPECT producer Seth Greenleaf direct, with Barbara Flaten still onboard. Seth has worked very closely with RESPECT for the past year, since GFOUR started producing it. He loves the show and is so committed to making it the very best it can be.

They are going to stick pretty close to the Boston show, with a few changes
here and there. Boston is an awesome show, so I am really looking forward to see the Atlanta production. GFOUR has this amazing marketing machine in each city they do. One thing I have learned in recent years is that no matter how good your show is, if you don’t have good marketing, you are wasting all that talent and creativity, because people won’t know about it and therefore won’t come to see it. Oh yes, Australia. GFOUR brought in James McPherson, one of the (maybe just THE) top producers in Australia, to do RESPECT. They have adapted the script to the Australian audience, and have hired the Hal Prince of Australia, Kellie Dickerson, to direct it and they’ve cast some of the top performers in the country. It opens in Brisbane in late March, will run for several months, then move on to Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney and then Auckland. Boston just had a celebration of its 100th performance, with a party that the whole audience participated in. Turns out it was also the birthday of producer Sharon Carr, so everyone sang a rousing happy birthday song to her. The girls in Boston are phenomenal and have shown their many talents in all the shows they’ve done so far. All this keeps me traveling a lot, plus I also have trips to visit my daughters in Israel and Ecuador, as well as a nice vacation with my husband, Dick Daft.