White pointed to other recent examples of cross-gender casting, which is having a bit of a moment on New York stages: Danai Gurira in the titular role in the Public Theater’s production of “ Richard III” in Central Park the original Persephone in “Hadestown,” Amber Gray, who left the production in the spring to play Banquo in “ Macbeth” on Broadway the all-female, nonbinary and transgender cast of the upcoming Broadway revival of the musical “1776.” “Eurydice’s pronoun is she,” Chavkin said, “but that shouldn’t necessarily limit the actors we consider.” A nonbinary actor, Yael “YaYa” Reich, is currently understudying the role of Eurydice and the Fates on Broadway.
The production team has had conversations about inclusive casting in the Broadway, West End and tour productions, Chavkin said. “We’ve long known that Hermes’s gender is not germane to the story in any way,” Chavkin said in a recent phone interview. Rachel Chavkin, the director of “Hadestown,” was thrilled by the idea. “As long as my voice can handle it,” she said, referring to Hermes’s vocal range, whose bottom notes are lower than she typically sings onstage. “I was like, ‘Why not?’” said White, who had recently returned to the role of the prison matron Mama Morton in the long-running Broadway production of “Chicago,” a character she first played in 2006. (“They have nice arch support,” she said.) She headed to a waiting SUV that would take her 10 blocks to the Walter Kerr Theater, where she was in her third week of rehearsals for the musical. It was approaching 11 a.m., time to start making her way to rehearsal, so White changed back into her clothes - a navy and white top with raw edges from Kutula by Africana, an African clothing store in Los Angeles, dangling gold-and-blue Sylverwear earrings, bluejeans and her white-sequined wedges. “It’s a graveyard,” she sang - a line from the show’s opening number, “Road to Hell,” - raising her legs and stomping her feet as she looked in the mirrors on either side. “I feel pretty,” she sang, grinning at her reflection. But then in a fitting, André De Shields, who won a Tony Award in 2019 for originating the role on Broadway, asked: Why is it rumpled?Īnd she had a surprise in store: After scrutinizing the V-neck of the jacket, which closed with a single button, she threw it open to reveal a gleaming black-and-silver vest. The original look for Hermes, who was conceived as a vagabond, was a brown rumpled suit and muddy boots, Krass said. Krass stepped out into the hall so she could change. Then it was time for the big reveal: The suit. “I got a pedicure last night,” she told Krass, flashing hot pink toenails peeking out from sparkly white wedge sandals, as Pam Brick, a draper, and Siena Zoe Allen, the show’s associate costume designer, arrived to assist. They should be no higher than two inches, so her feet wouldn’t hurt.
The first order of business was the shoes: White, who is onstage nearly the entire two-and-a-half-hour show, had put in a specific request for her boot heels.
#Hermes ties series#
Krass and Katherine Marshall, the owner of Tricorne, ushered her down the hallway, past racks of costumes for the Broadway musical “Wicked” and the HBO series “ The Gilded Age,” to a fitting room lined with a semicircle of mirrors.
0 kommentar(er)
