Tony Award winner Betty Buckley will perform her new show, “Story Songs,” at the Rrazz Room at the Prince Sept. 18. The cabaret act includes new songs from composers including Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Schwartz and Joe Iconis, as well as a cover of Radiohead’s “High and Dry.”
On the phone from Chicago, where she was on a break while filming an episode of “Chicago Med,” Buckley talked about her act.
“I do a new collection of music every year. People suggest songs for me. Joe Iconis is a composer I enjoy who wrote much of the music on ‘Smash.’ He was doing an evening at Feinstein’s 54 Below and he wrote me this new song, ‘Old Flame,’ a funny, wonderful, character song,” Buckley said. “I did an event with Martha Plimpton — Broadway folks doing karaoke —and she suggested Radiohead. I reached out to Jason Robert Brown. And I did ‘Defying Gravity’ in Australia in February where I sung the Stephen Schwartz song, ‘No Time at All.’ I am trying out all this new material. It is the first time I’ve done it in front of an audience.”
Buckley has been performing since she was a child, but for “Story Songs,” she like to find what she calls, “good character songs that have a good story, or speak to some issue or a character’s experience that I can share authentically.” She likens her process to “trying on clothes: Certain things fit at certain points in your life, or you discard them and go on to something else.”
The performer works closely with Christian Jacob, her musical director, arranger and pianist.
“I’ll say I like this song, and he’ll say yes/no/maybe. We have to love it together. We try a bunch of material to work on and discard and he thinks of motifs for the setting and I say yes/no and we collaborate,” she explained about their process, adding, “I find songs I’m interested in. Christian and I will have a take on it, and as I start collecting them, I start noticing themes they have in common.”
For “Story Songs,” one of Buckley’s criteria was that the songs “have to be a character or story I understand, that fits me, that you can believe that I know what I’m talking about. A personal setting like a cabaret or a concert [is different] than being hired to play a character in a show. I’ve always thought of myself as a storyteller in film, TV or concert work. This is a collection of songs, a series of short stories, whereas doing a musical is more like a novella.”
The singer may be best known for her Tony Award-winning performance as Grizabella in “Cats” and the song “Memory,” and Buckley has nothing but admiration for that song and its legacy.
“Elaine Paige had success with ‘Memory’ before it came to me, and Barbra Streisand released the song on her album before I opened in ‘Cats.’ I’m appreciative that people say ‘Memory’ is my signature song, and I’m fortunate and blessed to have played Grizabella. To do that was a way of coming through the doorway of my potential, and learning to sing the song to stop the show for an audience. It taught me so much. I think of Grizabella as my soul mate, and one of my great teachers. The lyrics by Trevor Nunn and the music by Andrew Lloyd Webber … [She pauses] There’s something universally exquisite about it, and it resonates for me. It’s not the same for me now as it was at age 35, tut Grizabella teaches me more and more about life.”
Buckley’s discussion of her craft and how music fits her character extends to her interpretation of the Jason Robert Brown song “The Stars and the Moon.”
“It’s sung as a statement of joy. A woman is looking back on her life and she trips herself up in the process and becomes more wistful. She tells her life story and thinks it’s one thing, but then feels something she doesn’t know she felt. That’s intriguing. There is a beginning, middle and end, and she makes a new discovery. Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Schwartz do that really well — and so does Stephen Sondheim. I love that discovery of something fresh that is immediate because of the story she’s telling.”
Buckley performed more story songs on her recent CD, “Ghostlight,” which she said, “is named after the bald light on a stand they place in a theater when the show is over. It keeps the ghosts company, and I’ve been intrigued by that atmosphere. Whenever I finish a show, I go to the stage when the theater is black, and that atmosphere of what just happened is a memory in the dark. That’s a title for my whole life.”
For fans who aren’t able to see Buckley perform in Philadelphia, the actress is putting the finishing touches on her role in local filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split” opening Jan. 20. She doesn’t discuss much about the film, except that “it’s a thriller, and I’m ecstatic to work with Night again. I did ‘The Happening’ seven years ago. I love Philly!”
Betty Buckley performs “Story Songs” at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sept. 18 at The Rrazz Room at the Prince, 1412 Chestnut St. For tickets, visit http://princetheater.org/therrazzroom or call 215-422-4580.