LPT: LPT magazine reviewed your last show at Crazy Coqs with much admiration for your superb voice, sonorous and sometimes sultry. (Five stars from us). We’re very interested to know more about your history with Stephen Sondheim. How did it all begin?

I met Sondheim when I was cast in the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. Raul Esparza played George. I was Dot. I’ve told this story many times but it’s true – I was so young and so impassioned by the play that I suggested a change in the script, so that Dot, instead of primping by her mirror, was naked in the bath as she got ready for her date night with George. I thought that it would heighten her vulnerability to hurt and, as an art history major in college, I knew that Impressionist painting was packed with nude women in baths. I didn’t quite understand that this was…Sondheim…and you didn’t just gaily make suggestions to improve the show. But – this was Sondheim, a collaborator, and he liked the idea and was open to making a few minor lyric changes. So that’s how we began – me impudent and bare and singing in the bath

LPT: Sondheim is known as a great teacher, what did you learn from him?

Specifically? I learned the perpetual mentor’s lesson – that every detail matters and counts. During the Sitzprobe of PASSION, he insisted that I "sing the silence" in lines with apostrophes: Couldn’t, Wouldn’t…all of those – so that the audience would hear the apostrophe and not just a blur of sound. He was being playful, but serious too. I also learned that one can be generous and firm at the same time, as he always was. In recording, he always wanted me to sing the song he wrote, and then feel free to become a 'girl singer’ and take a few jazz liberties. And of course, the wisdoms within his songs are what I live by. 

LPT: It’s been said that a Sondheim song is like a one act play. Everything you need is already there for you. How true is that to your own experience?

Yes, that’s so – the songs all are scenes, and have dramatic arcs. But sometimes we can change the 'casting' of the scene a little without betraying his intentions. I did FINISHING THE HAT from the point of view of a woman artist on PBS’ POETRY IN AMERICA series. It wasn’t an idea he loved, since he saw it as written for one (male) character in one scene…but new piercing emotions arise when a woman sings “The man who’s willing to wait’s /not the man who you want to find waiting.” There are new plays to find in those songs, too.

LPT: Having corresponded with Sondheim, we would love to hear of some of the gems that you might be willing share. 

Oh, gosh. Well, two nice moments come to mind. Once, when he chided me for believing a story an actress had told me about auditioning for him, in one of my essays in the New York Times, I came back respectfully at him and said that her story was hers and had to be respected as such.   He came back gently: “You’re more generous than I am,” he wrote. And then there were the songs he recommended and that I learned to love – ISN'T HE SOMETHING from ROADSHOW was one. (Though I still think the idea of a mother singing to one son about preferring the other son isn’t something someone with actual children would have imagined articulating!) 

LPT: Which are your favourite Sondheim songs to perform and why?

Impossible to choose a favourite, but, if you insist... MOVE ON always moves me for its motivational message for artists – “Everything you do/let it come from you/then it will be new” – and CHILDREN AND ART is the story of my grown up life. That’s all I’ve got! Children and art…and then I got to sing it on his ninetieth birthday during the pandemic. Upstairs alone in the back-up bedroom, waiting to cook dinner for my own kids. And there was a book entitled 'Irish Erotic Art' on the bookshelf behind my head, which everybody noticed! (It’s a joke on the Irish; all the pages are blank.)

LPT: Please could you tell us a little more about your recently released album and your tribute to Sondheim.

My new album, a follow-up of sorts to my SONDHEIM SUBLIME of a few years back is called SONDHEIM IN THE CITY, and it is what it sounds like: an anthology of Sondheim’s songs about New York. It’s an outward-turning collection, where Sondheim Sublime was more inward turning, and what I’m really proud of is how many distinct Manhattan feelings and sounds it contains. From five am reverie in DAWN to nine pm bitterness in UPTOWN, DOWNTOWN. We let the songs escape from the shows they were written for, and I became a series of 'Sondheim women' – as many sided as the city. It’s my acting album! Fantastic arrangements by Tedd Firth and Rob Mathes, too!

LPT: How will Sondheim feature in your upcoming show at Crazy Coqs? 

I’ll sing from SONDHEIM IN THE CITY, and maybe snip a few off SONDHEIM SUBLIME as well. But it’s the Sondheim spirit that informs everything I do—a readiness to experiment and a commitment to never underestimating the audience’s intelligence. 

LPT: LPT magazine largely focuses on London pub theatres, but we review very widely and like to represent our wider readership. Have you come across pub theatre or had a relationship with similar venues in the US?

I’m not sure I know the difference between pub theater – oops, pub theatre – and American cabaret/concert. But to the degree I do, I know that there is no space in show business like the intimate one of a small room, a nightclub or a pub, to create emotion. It’s the riskiest and most rewarding of singing forums – you can’t cheat the feelings for a minute. I’m in awe of the kings and queens of my form – like Marilyn Maye, who, at ninety-five, is singing better than ever, and from whom I’ve learned so much.

LPT: Another question about your show at Crazy Coqs. We see that you are returning with guest singer, Isabelle Georges.  It’s a very complimentary and generous relationship. You’re both superstars, and we’re curious to know how it works? 

Well, that’s a sweet designation. We met over our mutual love of Legrand, of course – we were both among Michel’s ‘muses’ – and we hit it off with scary serendipity the moment we began to sing. We’re both tall ladies – Deux Grand Dames – and we both have a passionate side and a love of mischief on stage. We go from the Chaplinesque to the Piaf-ish easily. People tell me that when we’re together on stage the sheer fun of it is kind of overwhelming – we delight each other, and I think that delight radiates to the audience. And then we both can carry a sexy sequined gown! And we even have some brand-new special material. I can say with confidence that it’s a fun Franco-American evening.

LPT: Finally, will you be working with the excellent James Pearson Band again? The professionalism is excellent. Are there ever any hair-raising moments for any of you, coming together to perform as a unit?

We’re always finding it, losing it, searching for it, finding it again. One of the great gifts of this moment in my career is that I’ve plunged off stage and into the ‘jazz adjacent’ world, and to work with those kinds of musicians, the kind who swing everything and can play anything, makes me a better and more adventurous musician myself. I left the ingenue part of myself behind a while ago and can be a true femme fatale in their company!

Yes, I’ll be a surprise guest with James at the Lichfield Festival July 12. Shhh! It’s a surprise!!