Video: The Company of WHITE GIRL IN DANGER on Living in Michael R. Jackson's World
May 17, 2024
Watch BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge chat with the company of White Girl in Danger!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson is back with his latest musical called
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White Girl in Danger. Under the direction of Liliana Blaine-Cruz, it begins performances on March 14th at Second Stage
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and we drop by Haswell Greens to meet the company. How excited are you
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White Girl in Danger. I couldn't be more excited. I couldn't be more excited
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I feel like something of the utmost dangerous is going to happen, and everyone's going to witness it
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How excited are you to be a part of this? I am incredibly excited
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I've been a part of this show since 2017, and we were supposed to get a run early 2020
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but then the pandemic happened. So I'm just really happy to finally get
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people to see the show. How would you describe what this show is all about
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How do you describe White Girl in Danger? The question of the hour. I mean, it's a soap opera town called
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And Keisha, part of the black round, is trying to get into the center of it
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And so you literally are watching her move through thousands of genres
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as she tries to get to the center of the story. How did the idea come to you
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Did you love soap operas? Yes, I grew up watching soap operas as a very little kid
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Both my parents worked, and so before I was old enough to go to school, they would drop me off
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at my great aunt Ruth's house, and we would watch Young and the Restless at 1230
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Days of Our Lives at one, Another World at two, and Santa Barbara at three
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And I just began to get so engrossed in the world of that
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that I carried on even after I started school and as I got older and into college
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and into young adulthood. And I got the idea because I also grew up watching
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Lifetime movies and Monday Night movies, and I realized that they all had a common thread
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which was like, would it be a white girl or a woman who would be in some sort of peril, either of her own making or because of someone
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causing problems for her. And I sort of just came up with this funny little tune that goes, white girl in danger
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she's doing drugs but she won't do her homework. And it was just gonna be a spoof
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of sort of those narratives, but then these conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, representation
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started to really bubble up in culture and I started to think about my perspective on them
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as a black author because I sort of come at it in a different place because my sort of default
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consciousness is a black one, but I also grew up watching a lot of white things
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So I just sort of, the ideas of like this spoof of a soap opera and these conversations around inclusion
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sort of came together like H2O. And thus the story for white girl in danger was born
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which is a really sort of rip roaring, hilarious, but also sort of secretly deep dive into
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the very notion of the word inclusion. I was gonna ask you, what's it like
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living in Michael's world? I know how to do this. So because I'm the one with a little experience
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on the subject, I came to rehearsal a few days ago. I wasn't in a certain scene and I got there
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and everyone's eyes were just crossed and they were a little crazy and I was like, oh, I know where you've been. Yes
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Some people might think it's a bit of a fever dream of mind
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but I love it. I love Michael's mind and those words and they just kind of fit in my body
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and in my mouth really well. It's filthy. It is a filthy place to live in Michael R. Jackson's world
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It's brilliant and you can't like dip below 100% ever when you're in this play, which has been sort of like
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making me feel all of my joints and my bones in ways that I haven't felt in a while
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So it's actually really nice. Yeah. It's so clear to me that Michael is so much smarter
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than all of us and has somehow watched more television than any human being on earth
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It's really impressive and I'm envious. Yeah. The way his mind works is not only brilliant
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but it's very generous and it's expansive. So he's constantly getting ideas
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sharpening, refining, clarifying, and having way too much fun. You know, I tell him often like
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Michael, I worry about what you think about when you're alone, you know? But it's, and it's inspiring
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because it's so beautifully well cast and everyone is so lovely, genuinely beautiful humans
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And also everyone's so talented. So it's inspiring just working in inside his mind
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and seeing it, you know, vomited on the stage. I think the amazing thing about Michael
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is that he writes so specifically, but then as an artist and an actor
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when you inhabit the character, it's still so open to interpretation. And then he's open to what you interpret
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And then he implements it. And so it really is an actor's dream
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Like every actor should work on a new musical and work on a Michael R. Jackson musical
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Yeah, it feels like a big collaboration piece. Like he is such a genius
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but he also allows us to just like really find ourselves in the work, which I feel like it's a big playground
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And I've never, I feel like this is the first time I've gotten the opportunity to just like play
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and to like bring back the reasons of why we got into theater in the first place
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You know, like it's just a fun experiment. And I also love watching Michael watch his work
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Like he's on the side, like doing the lyrics. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
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And we're like, yes, I'm so happy. You love it so much. Like an artist in their love for their work
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is so admirable. Working with this group of actors, what it's like
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Such a joy. It's a joy to come to work every day. It's really not work
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I call it W-E-R-K, work. The environment is great. We laugh, we play, we dance, we cry
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We have circles and we breathe. It is absolutely by far the best experience I've had
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in a rehearsal room and with this group of actors. We've been doing various readings of this for years
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four or five years. And also, I mean, us personally, we've known each other for like 10 plus years, Michael too
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It's wild. It feels like a dream to be working on a show
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with so many people we know so well. It's a dream, yeah
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I'm just so excited. This group, everybody that's touched this piece has been brilliantly talented and fun
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And this particular group though is so game to do anything and everything and throw it against the wall
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And it's just rocks. It's so fun. What I love about what you write
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you're introducing a whole new audience to the theater that's never experienced theater before
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Young kids, older people, everybody's been coming to see what you do
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And you're introducing a whole new audience to the theater, especially the young ones, what that means to you
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It means a lot to me because I love theater and I love musical theater
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and I believe very much in the form. And so I want to get as many eyes on it as possible
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And I want to push the boundaries of what is possible in theater
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because that's what drew me to it in the first place was that I saw things that seemed impossible
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like a sort of unlikely inspiration on White Girl in Danger is the musical Showboat
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I saw Showboat when I was 13 years old and I had never seen a piece of theater
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that was that epic and that sprawling. And it was the Hal Prince 94 revival
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And I just felt deeply, madly in love with it. And I wasn't even thinking about being
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a musical theater writer at that time, but it's a show that stayed with me because of the form
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and sort of embracing the impossible. And I sort of come to White Girl in Danger
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with that same ambition
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