A last minute gig materialized for me to assist on a production in London, which is where I am writing from now. Fast-rising superstar Pa’Tina Miller, currently playing the starring role in the West End production of Sister Act the Musical, is a dear friend and was recently commissioned to create a one-woman cabaret. Pa’Tina was prominently featured as Dionne in Diane Paulus’s hit production of Hair in the Park (prior to its Broadway transfer), singing the iconic solos Aquarius and White Boys, and starred in John Patrick Shanley and Henry Krieger’s musical Romantic Poetry.
In London, she is one of the few leading ladies (and the only person of color) carrying a West End show on her very young shoulders, and the Sister Act marketing campaign really seized on her emergence, trumpeting on billboards, buses and talk shows that a Star has indeed been born. The ecstatic reviews and her truly star-making performances have led to an invitation to appear in Cameron Mackintosh’s high profile Live in the Delfont Room series.
Above, director Billy Porter next to a street-side advertisement of Pa'Tina's upcoming cabaret.
Without balking, Pa’Tina arranges to take a week’s vacation off from Sister Act, hires legendary singer-songwriter-director Billy Porter to direct the show and calls me up for some Assistant Director support, and before you know it, the three of us are sitting down to dinner at Momo’s hashing out the details of a sensational one-woman cabaret. Pa’Tina and Billy have created a set list that shows off the rich variety of her musical influences, ranging from jazz and blues to gospel and R & B to hip-hop and rap to classic musical theater. They previously collaborated on a gorgeous production called Being Alive (a melding of Sondheim standards and Shakespearean soliloquies through the lens of African-American music) that I was lucky enough to catch in its second production at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. It is now up to them to get three back-up singers (the “Black-Ups,” as Billy affectionately calls them) up to speed, arrange the songs for a dynamic band under the direction of regular Billy collaborator James Sampliner (currently also Musical Director of the West End production of Legally Blonde), get all the songs up on their feet and figure out the intimate interlinking confessionals that are the thread of the legendary cabarets. All this while Pa’Tina is finishing out the week performing in Sister Act! It’s going to be a wild, wild ride indeed.
Above, Pa'Tina and I on a swing at Sketch on Conduit Street, one of London's popular late-night hangout spots, minutes away from the Palladium Theatre (the home of Sister Act the Musical).
Above, the legendary Billy Porter with Pa'Tina Miller at Momo's, where we enjoyed a delicious Moroccan feast while discussing her upcoming cabaret!
(posted by Ed)
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