[Melbourne Showtuners] Faith Arrives Today!

Sun Jun 4 11:55:33 AEST 2006

Dear Subscribers, 

Faith Prince arrives in Australia today and will open in Melbourne at the
Sofitel Supper Club on this Saturday 10 June till 12 June at 8pm.  Tickets
are still available through the Sofitel direct or 9653 7744 or
www.ticketek.com.au <http://www.ticketek.com.au/>  

We include below an article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald last
Tuesday. It is a great article and we thought you would all enjoy the read.

At the shows this week we will be announcing the next sensational Broadway
star to hit the Sofitel Supper Club in August.

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.

Sincerely

David Hawkins, Nancy Cato and Martin Croft

<http://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=FAITHPRI06&searchId=98663
865-58b8-4c77-9f9f-0acd16ecc514> 

Attracting the spotlight a matter of Faith

May 30, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald
She's mastered brassy and is a dab hand at heart wrenching, too, writes
Bryce Hallett.

WHEN Faith Prince won the role of the perennially unwed dancer Miss Adelaide
in the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, she was barely known and
faced stiff competition from the go-getter leading man, Nathan Lane.

"I got the feeling from [director] Jerry Zaks that Guys and Dolls was going
to be Nathan's show," recalls Prince.

"But Miss Adelaide is such a vulnerable character and audiences can't leave
the show without caring about her. I soon realised that Nathan, like me, was
rising to the occasion and so it was never a question of who would defer to
the other. We were both considered to have an old-fashioned vaudeville style
and I learnt to stamp out my ground playing Miss Adelaide."

Prince made such an impression that she won a Tony award for best actress in
a musical and quickly became a darling of Broadway. She has carved a
vigorous and varied career in musicals, concerts, cabaret and television,
including regular appearances on Spin City, House, Law & Order and Huff.

The singer and character actor comes to Sydney and Melbourne next month to
present her show A Leap of Faith, an intimate cabaret that premiered at
Joe's Pub in New York in 1999. It enabled her to break free of the mask and
the grind of eight shows a week.

"I try to break my work up and not settle for any one thing," says Prince,
who grew up in Virginia. "I have played houses that are 1500 seats and small
rooms of about 100. It took me a while to do cabaret because I thought I had
nothing to say and what I would say would be boring. The Joe's Pub show was
a scary process but it taught me a lot about myself .

"I remember being petrified when I went on but by the end of the show I felt
10 feet taller. It came naturally to me and that surprised me. Doing cabaret
has made me a better actor, a better interpreter of songs, because it forces
you to look deep inside yourself ."

The role of Miss Adelaide, which has been played in Australia by Nancye
Hayes and Marina Prior, is such a strong, memorable part that it can lead to
a performer being painted into a corner.

"It was both a blessing and a curse," says Prince, who has also starred in
Little Shop of Horrors, Bells are Ringing, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, The
King and I, Falsettoland and Noises Off.

"I was never a brass belter when I started out but it developed later in
certain roles, including Little Shop of Horrors. The thing with Adelaide is
that you develop a comic persona and risk being typecast because of it. You
have to continually prove yourself and push yourself forward for 

A chance to erase the sassy New York persona came when the director of the
Australian production of The King and I, Christopher Renshaw, invited Prince
to take the lead in New York.

"Call me crazy, but I am the kind of person who wants to get on and read for
the director to determine if I am right for the part and can actually do
it," she says. "I was scared about doing the musical and I said to Chris
[Renshaw], 'You need to keep a tight hand on this and keep my performance in
check'. The last thing I wanted was to go for the joke and not convey Anna's
humanity, her lightness and dark."

Affable, self-deprecating and upbeat, Prince describes herself as "a
Southern girl who soaks up ideas and experiences like a sponge". Her musical
influences include Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, Larry Grossman and Stephen
Sondheim, and she's as much at home with bawdy honky-tonk as she is with a
heart-tearing lament.

"I had a musical family, not in a professional sense, but we all played the
piano. My dad was a nuclear engineer and a showman on the side and my mother
had the most beautiful voice."

A Leap of Faith is partly autobiographical and, just in case you're
wondering, Miss Adelaide gets in on the act. "Imagine not bringing her to
Sydney. She always comes along for the ride!"

Prince says she's happy to juggle television and stage.

"My music and my work on Broadway means I don't get pressured or anxious
when I audition for television roles. Early on I had a hard time and was
involved in two TV pilots which didn't get up but I have had great TV
experiences. Huff is probably the best-written job for me personally as it
shifts between comedy and drama. But musical theatre is incredibly demanding
because you have to make someone believable and sing. As a performer you're
spinning five plates instead of one."

The last time Prince appeared on Broadway was in Michael Frayn's farce
within a farce Noises Off, a boisterous show that co-starred Patti LuPone
and opened the night after the 2001 terrorist attacks. "We opened right
after 9/11 and it was difficult but we managed a nine-month run. It helped
that it was a comedy."

She recently did a workshop on a musical version of the film A Room With a
View. "I played the Maggie Smith role. Who knows what will come of it . Like
every performer I hang out for a great f---ing role," she says in a loud,
brassy tone that seems light years away from the shy Presbyterian girl from
Virginia.

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