Lauren Kennedy

 

The Heat Is On
Michael Holloway

In the summer of 2005, acclaimed actress-singer Lauren Kennedy sowed the seeds for her vision of creating her own theater venue with her equally celebrated actor-singer husband Alan Campbell. Now in 2010, the bountiful harvest of this year’s summer crop promises to be a fruitful and highly entertaining one.

It is stated on the company’s website that The Kennedy Theater in Raleigh, North Carolina was conceived in an effort to “bring a smaller and more intimate professional theater to Downtown Raleigh. By having a strong group of producers who each have an extensive background in the arts, we are able to share an array of shows with our audiences by combining some of the best talent from both North Carolina and New York. From musicals to comedies to thought provoking dramas, Hot Summer Nights and its producers are proud to continue the excellence of bringing you our critically acclaimed summer series.”

Married To The Theater

Both Kennedy and Campbell have long and rich histories, together and separately, on the theater circuit, and have easily branched into TV, movies, and music, proving that although they are multi-talented on their own, together they are a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps their greatest production together is their daughter Riley, for whom they affectionately claim equal co-producer credit.

Among other projects, Campbell is also known for his portrayal of young attorney’s aide Derek Mitchell in television’s iconic Jake And The Fatman series which ran throughout the 1980’s and into the 1990’s.

He has also appeared in the following theater projects: Sunset Boulevard, Contact, Chris Durang’s Adrift In Macao, Lanford Wilson’s Book Of Days and AVOW, as well as Hayfever, Oleanna, Beauty And The Beast, Johnny Guitar, Bells Are Ringing, Of Thee I Sing, On Shiloh Hill, Boogie Woogie Rumble Of A Dream Deferred, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, I Love My Wife, and The Nerd. He has appeared in the following feature films: Tom, Dick And Harry and A Simple Wish. On television, beside the aforementioned Jake And The Fatman, Campbell has appeared in Three’s A Crowd, Another World, All My Children, Contact: Live From Lincoln Center, Red Flag, Law And Order, Law And Order SVU, Homicide, Facts Of Life, Throb, and Matlock.

As for Kennedy, among other projects, she has appeared in the following productions: The Ten Commandments: The Musical, Les Miserables, South Pacific, Sideshow, Sunset Boulevard, The Last Five Years, The Rhythm Club, White Christmas, Hot Shoe Shuffle, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Nine, 1776, Evita, Annie Get Your Gun, Chess, Good News, and Jekyll And Hyde In Concert. She has also appeared in the film Lost In Yonkers.

Tell Me On A Sunday

Four shows are currently in production for the summer season at The Kennedy, and while casting is still under way for many of the shows, Kennedy has quite happily cast herself in the title role of the much-anticipated musical Tell Me On A Sunday (directed by Matthew-Jason Willis) with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics by Don Black. The production is described as “a one-act musical that tells the story of an ordinary girl whose [life becomes a series of] romantic misadventures in search of love.”

What More Does A Girl Need?

There are three other projects which Kennedy and Campbell are producing simultaneously, including Neil Simon’s Barefoot In The Park  directed by Richard Roland, “which follows the life of a conservative young lawyer and his irrepressible bride who is struggling with marital discord after the ecstasy of the honeymoon gives way to the reality of setting up housekeeping in a New York City five-flight walk-up.”

Next we have The Great American Trailer Park by David Nehls and Betsy Kelso and is directed by Tito Hernandez (also the choreographer) which “tells the story of Norbert and Jeannie who have been married for 20 years. With little electricity left in their relationship due to Jeannie’s agoraphobia that keeps her cooped up in her trailer, Norbert’s attentions turn to Pippi the Stripper, who comes to town. His moral conundrum is commented by a colorful and comedic chorus of trailer park neighbors who share their trailer trash talkin’, astroturf lovin’ and spray cheese eatin’ life in The Park.”

Also on offer is the chilling thriller Death And The Maiden by Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman. Directed by Adam Twiss, this play “follows the story of Paulina, a woman who was once a political activist against the fascist party and is convinced a guest in her home is the man who once tortured her for the government.”

Ten Commandments: The Musical

In 2004, Kennedy was featured as Nefertari in the cast of Ten Commandments: The Musical opposite Val Kilmer (as Moses) in what is considered one of the great stage musicals of all time. At least the fans think so, despite what the short-sighted critics may have thought at the time. The show was filmed live at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles and was released on DVD shortly thereafter. Also in the cast are Luba Mason (Bithia), Michelle Pereira (Yokebed), Nita Whitaker (Zipporah), Kevin Earley (Ramses), Adam Lambert (Joshua), Nicholas Rodriguez (Aaron), Alisan Porter (Miriam), and Aharon Ipale (Seti).

Kennedy performs brilliantly, she personifies the sassy and bitingly sarcastic Nefertari, who is in love with Moses but forced by royal decree to marry Ramses. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she gives her husband all kinds of hell (often deservedly because of his often cold and callous nature toward her) yet she also plays the touchingly forlorn “star-crossed lover” whose affections toward Moses are reciprocated, but cannot come to fruition. Whereas Moses finds blissful love with Zipporah, Nefertari’s marriage to Ramses is anything but bliss.

When the Plagues of Egypt take the life of her and Ramses’ royal son, Kennedy’s transition into the bereaved mother is gripping, filled with heartache for the unfortunate child, yet at the same time spewing acid at her husband, and filled with animosity toward her true love whose ordained defection to God and the Hebrews’ plight has caused her great sorrow. When Nefertari sings the vitriolic Can You Do That For Me to Ramses in this scene, she scorches the stage and screen with her burning mix of emotions and this alone is a tour de force for her. “My only child has been taken away by the only man I ever loved” is one musical moment to reckon with because this verbal dagger twisted into Ramses’ back is felt also by the audience. Gone are the wistful romantic longing and the sassy but lighthearted sarcasm that Nefertari once felt or displayed, she is now dripping scorpion venom and it burns.

Other songs in which Kennedy participates include earlier scenes such as the brotherly rivalry of Moses and Ramses depicted in When We Rule The World, in which Nefertari insinuates herself into the machismo on offer and gleefully steals some of the brothers’ thunder for herself. Nefertari also shines in the plaintive Shadow On This House (which she shares with Bithia and Ramses) where Moses is exiled after killing one of the Egyptian guards to save the life of the Hebrew slave Joshua. A Love That Never Was is a haunting romantic ballad performed by Moses and Nefertari, and later reprised by Nefertari on her own. Indeed, Kennedy and Kilmer sing beautifully together and one wonders why they haven’t worked together in more musicals. Finally, Kennedy also appears in the Prayer For Life ensemble finale and curtain call.

The Music She’s Been Waiting To Sing

When Kennedy was trying to decide exactly what she wanted to produce for her first studio album recording, she had many ideas but not a lot of focus. She admitted herself that she gets sidetracked by her first love which is theater. She was thinking about recording anything from show tunes, to her own compositions, to pop, but could not decide on a genre. Then Kennedy’s Sunset Boulevard cast mate and friend Harvey Evans gave her a recording of a song called Stars And The Moon from a stage musical called Songs For A New World, penned by a new innovation in theater named Jason Robert Brown. She was captivated and thought “this is the music I have been waiting to sing! I want to be invited to that party! Here was a theater composer writing the kind of music I wanted to listen to and telling stories from the heart with such intelligence and wit.”

After this revelation, it was five years before Kennedy met Brown, but they immediately bonded over their mutual love of this particular style of music and soon collaborated on the album that would become Songs Of Jason Robert Brown, released in 2002, and available to purchase from Kennedy’s own website store.

Brown is always delighted to share his fond praise for Kennedy’s talents.

“Mark Simon, my trusted casting director, suggested we see Lauren for the leading role in a show I was writing called The Last Five Years. So she came in, and she was sensational – she was beautiful, she was funny, she could act all of the layers of the piece, she was heartbreaking, and she sang with such ease and brilliance that we were incapable of breathing for minutes afterward. Not being stupid people, we hired her to do the show, and she did it in Chicago and she was everything any of us could have wished for – the critics loved her, the audience loved her, and I loved her.”

According to Brown, he was later approached by Kennedy with the idea that they should produce an album of her singing all of his music. They both had trepidation, Kennedy had never made an album before this, and Brown had never placed all his eggs in one basket in regards to collaborations with a sole performer before. They decided the gamble had too much promise to be given up on, so they dived headfirst into the album. Brown and Kennedy wanted to make sure all the songs could stand on their own two feet in the context of the album and not have to be reliant upon the audience knowing the songs in the context of their respective shows.

Brown states: “We wanted every track to take you by surprise and bring you someplace different and unexpected. Every single performance Lauren delivers is one of consummate assurance and dexterity. You’d think she was born to sing this material. You’d think no one was more suited to do this kind of work than Lauren Kennedy. You’d think I was one lucky son-of-a-bitch to be this woman’s collaborator and friend. And you’d be right.”

Broadway Here And Now

In 2007, Kennedy released her second album, Here And Now, also available from her website store. Again, she was undecided as to which genre she might like to explore and spent much time procrastinating at Starbucks. Well, we all have to get inspiration from somewhere, and caffeine is a great stimulant. As it turns out, this wasn’t such a bad idea, in fact it was a great idea.

“I was sitting in Starbucks one day last fall, and it occurred to me it was high time I get back in the studio and make another album. But what, I ask myself? An album of all my audition songs? NO. An album of pop tunes done theatrically? NO. Ugggh. Nothing felt right. In a perfect world, I could just call all my up-and-coming songwriter friends and sing their songs. Oh, wait…

THAT’S IT!”

Although she jokes that she does not have all these folks on speed dial, Kennedy immediately got busy contacting all the new and aspiring theatre writers and asking if she could feature their works in a new album designed to showcase the new generation and take the Broadway musical into a future of new horizons. Kennedy began working with artists like Matt Sklar and Chad Beguelin, Frank Wildhorn, Georgia Stitt, Jason Robert Brown (of course), Andrew Lippa, Dan Lipton, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Josh Salzman, and Ryan Cunningham to name a few.

Kennedy asserts that “here are some young, creative writers you should get to know better, in an album that’s been an absolute blast to make. To me, this is Broadway, here and now.”

John Rando, director of many acclaimed Broadway productions, gives the highest praise to both Kennedy and these talented new writers: “So if you don’t know these new songwriters, then I can think of no female artist better to have you make their acquaintances, interpreting the great new Broadway composers requires a great new Broadway talent. As she sings with such glorious vigor and zeal in David Yazbek’s Here I Am, here indeed is Lauren Kennedy.”

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