Video: In Rehearsals with the Company of TAMMY FAYE

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Elton John returns to Broadway with the new musical Tammy Faye, which begins performances on October 19th at the Palace Theater

and we drop by the rehearsal room to meet the company, led by Katie Braben, Christian Borrow, and Michael Cerveris

Welcome to Broadway. How does it feel already? Amazing. I've been so welcomed

and the cast and everyone in the room have been so supportive. It's just been a dream, honestly, really

So collaborative. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was daunting at first because she's such an incredible character

Like, you know, she's, you know, she's not shy and retiring. She's like, she's there

And she's, you know, the most wonderfully in the moment person, which is also what acting is

You know, like you just have to be in the moment of things. So it, you know, and it forces you to do that playing her

Like, it really does. I just thought they were such extraordinary characters

and watching, like, deep diving on all of their videos online and then reading the biographies and stuff

I was like, wow, what a ride. You know, who wouldn't want to be involved in that story

telling that story? When this came about for you, what made you say, yes, I want to do this

It had a lot to do with the creative team. I saw Rubbert Gould's production of ink

with my pal Kevin Peres-o and that, and that was also written by James Graham, and also choreographed by Lynn

And so I think it was most of the same team, and I was just entranced by. it and then I read this script and then at the end of the day you have Elton John songs that blew me away

I don't think it is what people think it might be when you think Tammy Fayette musical at the

palace theater. It has a lot of incredible elements that you would expect. But it goes so much

deeper The story gets so much darker and so much more true There not a lot of camp factor to it It funny as hell throughout But it really got its eye on telling a big broad

Rupert used the word geopolitical story, and it is all those things

And also a musical. I think there were several things that made this really exciting for me

One, of course, was getting to sing new Elton John songs. Because I grew up with Elton's music

He just meant a lot to me. And actually, a lot of my favorite Elton stuff is the early stuff that I grew up with first

And he was kind of the British version of Americana, which is kind of what Luce Catlin and I are doing these days ourselves

So that kind of musically, it felt like a real great marriage. But also getting to work with Rupert Gold is really exciting to me

I've been a fan of his for a long time. actually more straight plays than musicals of his that I've seen

So getting the chance to work with him and just get into a room and figure things out

that's been really exciting. I love this show so much. And I was funny, I was looking through my Instagram and thinking, you know, of all the shows I've done

this is the one I just wanted to document the process and, like, you know, the technical rehearsals, the rehearsals

I love the actors. And I, you know, working with Elton and Jake and James, it's like a sort of, you know, it's amazing

we're a real team, you know, and you come in and initially you go, that's Elton John, you know, like how are we going to

talk to him? Let alone, like, you know, give him notes. But he also, you know, it was really fascinating

Is it such a kind of warm, vibrant, inclusive show? But actually, a lot of the work we did was during the lockdowns

actually, on Zooms. And I mean, I remember Elton was stuck in Australia, I think, when we had like three or four

new songs we wanted to get. And, you know, I remember being on a Zoom with James and Jake and Elton with these new songs He had just written Australia and going well how this guys And going the texting James and going this is amazing is amazing But it was funny that I think it was born out of that time when we all wanted to reconnect with each other

And then so it's so great, you know, particularly because I mean, I'm sure it's true over here as well

But our sector has been so devastated by COVID and the legacy of COVID

It's just great to be in a really vibrant, touchy, joyful musical, given where we started out

Talk about the musical styles of dance that you're using in this show

Yes. Well, I, as ever, love to be as varied as possible

but the songs that Elton has written has given me capacity to do musical theater

to do some tap, to do some real modern dance, to do some kind of kooky stuff, you know

which is kind of my wheelhouse. And so it's really across the whole gamut of styles

She was big in your life, because I followed her all on TV. was she was someone you sort of knew and followed, right

Oh my God, I mean, I was a very precocious child. And I was fascinated by her as a young child

I grew up in a Christian household. I think she always sort of reminded me of my own mom

And, you know, my mom is just one of those people who loves people. She's non-judgmental

She's so kind. You know, she's somebody who really lights up a room

And I always kind of associated. My mom has that thing that Tammy has

So in a certain way, this show is also about my mom. You know, so that's a deep connection

But also, I was a twisted little kid, too. So, like, when the scandal broke, when the media circus was happening

I was very plugged into it. And I was very, I mean, I found drawings and cartoons of all of it, like, as a nine-year-old

You know, so I was always really fascinated by this world. And the characters that populated it you know So I always felt really connected to it and just her sensibility You know she had there is a there a sensibility that is very distinctly hers

What I'm not the story for me, I think, was how impossibly relevant it feels

even though the majority is set in the 1980s. But it feels like, I think probably writers always say about this, about their shows

but it feels like it's the origins for where we are today in terms of how the boundaries

between church and state got a little confused, the emergence of the Christian right into the political sphere

We make no judgment of that. We just go, isn't this interesting that this happened? I guess also things like, you know

the Bakers were essentially the first ever reality television family way before the Kardashians ever were

way before desperate housewives. Jay Baker basically grew up on television, and that's remarkable

But I guess ultimately, in this, as you will know, this slightly difficult political, cultural moment

that we're living through, which is very divisive and very top. toxic. There's something about what Tammy represented, even three, four decades ago in terms of

love, compassion, tolerance, acceptance, celebrating you in all your complexity and your

authenticity and your idiosyncrasies. That was like such a modern, exciting, beautiful

progressive stance to have way back then that I think we've never needed, frankly, more than we do

in the moment we're living through now. What do you hope audiences take away here on Broadway

after seeing your mother's story? I hope people see both my mom

mother and father is just humans. You know, I was like, oh, I had a sponsor once tell me that I was haphazardly human

and I hope they were able to see, like, these were people who just trying to do the best they can

with the best message they could and got tied up in things and kind of became scapegoats for a lot

of the more conservative hellfire brimstone people. And, you know, I just hope they come out feeling like there's a human experience that was there

and they see the humanity there, which I really believe they will