ANDY DRACHENBERG – Let’s start at the beginning – What about Porgy and Bess as a work captivated you as something you wanted to work on?
DAVID ALAN GRIER – Well, Diane was directing it, Suzan-Lori Parks was doing the adaptation with the approval of The Gershwin Foundation, Porgy and Bess had not been done on the musical stage in years and years, it’s Gershwin’s 100th anniversary of his birthday, Audra McDonald was rumored to be playing Bess who I think the world of… All those elements – I thought it would be really exciting. Immediately, I contacted Diane and Jeffrey Richards, anyone I knew.
AD – Were you very familiar with the story growing up?
DAG – I’ve never seen Porgy and Bess. I’ve never seen the opera. I remember snippets of the film, but I haven’t seen the film since I started working on it. I’ve listened to it, though. Everyone has recorded Porgy and Bess, so I’ve listened to staged versions to get an idea about how certain sections go. I knew most of the songs from pop arrangements, but the way that they are done in the musical and the opera are different so those are revelations.
AD – Tell me a little bit about your character – Sporting Life. What was your first impression of him?
DAG – It’s real simple. He is a drug dealer and he’s a pimp. As an actor, I just try and use the information that the play gives me. The difference is, I come to this piece and, in particular, this role, with a pure and open mind. I remember Sammy Davis Jr.’s portrayal when I was a kid. I thought “Is he a magician? Is he like a magical fairy? What’s magic powder dust? Does it make you fly?” I didn’t really know. I didn’t come to it with an adult mind. Since, I’ve read about how the character is usually played, and what intrigued me more was the reimagining of the piece.
AD – Who is he in the world of Catfish Row, what are his relationships with the other characters, etc…?
DAG – He’s from Catfish Row, he probably grew up there… everybody knows him and everybody knows of him. Just like we all do – if I ask you ‘in your neighborhood who’s the good kid and who’s the bad kid,’ you would tell me. There’s always a spooky house… a crabby old lady… a guy we think is not right. That’s just a part of a community. On varying degrees, that’s my relationship to this community. There are some people who know of me from afar, a lot more of who know of me up-close. I sell bootleg liquor and drugs to a lot of people. I gamble. I socialize with all these people. Sporting Life entails the life of the party. You have to be to bring people in and seduce them into buying. He’s a salesman: ‘Sell your product.’
AD – Did you do any special sort research and/or undercover work to get to the heart of Sporting Life?
DAG – I researched a lot of audio and some documentaries about pimps and that way of life, what it entails. In the play, Sporting Life is a charismatic figure. You have to be because it’s about seduction. It’s the same with drug dealers. I knew people who were rumored to be drug dealers, as a kid I didn’t come from that environment, but I remember thinking about it. These were guys who had really flashy cars, beautiful flashy colorful clothes, their hair was always done. They were like rock stars. That’s one element, but the lifestyle is much more brutal. These are criminals. They have to live that way or else there’s no respect and they won’t make any money. That is simply the information that was given to me. And I am trying to play that real person.
AD – Tell me about working with the whole team on the show.
DAG – It’s a big undertaking. It should be communal, and that’s the way we are working. This is an exciting time right now, because this is where all the departments come together and we take all the things we’ve been working on separately – sets, lights, costumes, our characters, the space, Diane, the movement, the music – and it’s now all being thrown together. It’s our first time on stage. It’s our second day, seeing what works what doesn’t work, learning the design of the stage and our environment. Learning where we can walk, where we can’t.
AD – What are you hoping audiences experience with Porgy and Bess?
DAG – When you do a revival of what is now an American classic, it’s like going into the American songbook as a singer. There’s nothing more enjoyable and revelatory to me, as an audience member, to hear a song I know that I’ve heard a million times and all of a sudden a singer comes and reintroduces you to the song. It’s as if you’ve never heard the song before. That really would be the ultimate experience: to have the audience rediscover Porgy And Bess on a new, fresh level, as if they’d never seen it before. To reintroduce this wonderful and amazing American musical to the public would be awesome.
DAVID ALAN GRIERtrained in Shakespeare and received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. He has since received two Tony Award nominations and has been named one of Comedy Central’s “100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time”. Grier began his professional career on Broadway as Jackie Robinson in The First, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and won the Theatre World Award. He then joined the cast of Dreamgirls before going on to star opposite Denzel Washington in A Soldier’s Play, for which both actors reprised their roles in the film adaptation titled A Soldier’s Story. He appeared in Robert Altman’s Streamers and won the Golden Lion for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (1983). Recently was seen in David Mamet’s Race on Broadway and received his second Tony Award nomination. Grier’s television work is highlighted by a turn as principal cast member on the Emmy Award winning In Living Color (1990-1994) where he helped to create some of the show’s most memorable characters. He was a cast member in the series “DAG”and“Life with Bonnie” (Image and Golden Satellite nomination); wrote and executive produced a show for Comedy Central called “Chocolate News” in 2008, and appeared on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” in 2009. Grier’s first book, BARACK LIKE ME: The Chocolate Covered Truth was published in 2009, and he just wrapped filming the comedy We the Peeples, set for release in 2011.