MY MEETING WITH CAROLINE O'CONNOR AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
A Slice O'Minnelli/ End of The Rainbow
Mother and daughter (go with us, here) Caroline O'Connor and Rick Skye.
Brief encounter
THE SCENE: The glamorous sofas of the Assembly Rooms Club Bar.
THE CAST: Two divas - Caroline O'Connor, who stars in End of the Rainbow, about the final months of Judy Garland's life, and Rick Skye, who steps into the high heels of Liza Minnelli in his one-man tribute show, A Slice O'Minnelli. Caroline has just finished her show, Rick has just seen it.
RS: I love the show. I'm such a big Judy Garland fan. Even if you had approximated her, I'd be happy, but you've nailed it.
CO: It's a great responsibility. I feel like it's the biggest challenge of all time because people just love her so much. I will never be Judy Garland, there will never be another, but I don't want people to go away disappointed.
RS: I know what you mean. I approach it the same way, it's a long journey actually, to capture the essence. And my make-up takes probably a half-hour longer than yours!
CO: A lot of people do shows like this because they're fans. I was asked to do it, and then I fell in love with it.
RS: I'm an actor. I started writing my own shows several years ago, and did a show called Macabaret: A Tabloid Fable. There was one funny little bit which is a take-off on Liza, and it was the biggest hit of the show. People said I should expand it. What kind of research did you do?
CO: A lot. You have to start at the beginning, you have to know the journey it took to get to that place. You have to carry the baggage, everyone carries their baggage with them, that's who they are. I also have the Judy Talks CDs which were made when she was planning to write a book. It's heart-breaking. It's a tortured little soul really opening up her heart.
RS: I saw her in concert when I was maybe ten years old, my uncle took me. We sat in the front row. I just sold photographs I took to raise money to get to the Fringe. I saw her sing Over the Rainbow right in front of me. This was a time when women wore hats and gloves, and they took their shoes off and stood on their theatre seats.
CO: Oh my God!
RS: And her voice was amazing. You'd be laughing one minute and crying the next, without knowing why. It wasn't that she was acting, there was something in the sound of her voice that made people choke up. You got chills without knowing why.
CO: And now I've got to go on stage and try to recreate that. That's not fair!
RS: Sid Luft [her third husband] told me once that they were sitting at some function at the Plaza, and somebody said Judy Garland was there. She was just sitting there eating her cake, drinking a cup of coffee, and everyone started saying "Sing, Judy, sing!". So she wiped her mouth, got up and sang Over the Rainbow, a capella, then she sat down, ate the cake, drank her coffee. It was like she didn't have to do anything, she knew that the magic would come out.
CO: It was the one true, secure thing in her life, that she knew she had that gift, she could sing. And I always loved Liza Minnelli because of Cabaret. I did [Cabaret composer Kander and lyricist Ebb's musical] The Rink in London playing Angel [Minnelli's part] and I used to listen to her all the time for my influence.
RS: That's a great show, I have a video of her in it. There's a really terrifying part, though, where's she doing a scene with her [fictional] mother, and the mother is saying "Just say it's OK,", and she's screaming, "It's OK, it's OK!" There were issues there she had never dealt with.
CO: She's so talented, but look at her mother. As a daughter and performer, how hard must that be to have to carry around?
RS: I saw her at the Winter Garden Theatre when I was a little boy. And she was great, but then she still had to contend with audiences going "She sounds like her mother! Will she be as good?".
CO: On some of the early recordings she does sound a bit like her
RS: That's why she changed the way she sings, she had to get away from sounding like that. I think it stunted her growth as an artist a bit because she could never sing a sad song because people would say "Oh, she's singing like her mother".
CO: I had a great appreciation for all of those women, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Ethel Merman, Edith Piaf... I love the legacy they left behind because that's my legacy for my generation.
RS: I think people have forgotten what entertainment is. The reason they still go to see someone imitating one of these women is that it reminds them there was a time when people actually gave to the audience and entertained them, weren't just trying to shock them.
CO: They had great communication skills. Now we have to watch a lot of people being bad at things, so many television shows about music and skating and pop groups. I don't get the same kick out of watching someone be terrible on a talent show. I think we're educating people to enjoy other people's misfortunes rather than the gifts they're born with.RS: People say, "Do you get anything out of being Liza?" and I say, "Well, what musical role am I going to get as a man where I get to put everything into every song?CO: Yes, it's a challenge, but what a challenge! When you're an actor at heart, that's what we do, isn't it? We try to bring something to life.The Skye's the Limit
By sherry eaker
Publication: BackStage
Date: Thursday, December 7 2006This is the second of two interviews with New York–based producers at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.I always say that success in this business is based on a combination of talent, persistance, knowing the right people, and luck. Rick Skye is definitely cookin' since he has a perfect blend of all of these ingredients. That's why his show, A Slice o' Minnelli—in which he brilliantly portrays Liza—was such a hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this past August.A New York–based performer-dancer-turned–cabaret artist, Rick was often told that the type of shows he writes would do very well in Europe. The problem was he didn't know how to get his foot in the door over there. Lucky for him, a friend of his—New York publicist Laura Davis—was going to Edinburgh to head up the press office for one of the Fringe's prominent venues. She invited Rick to be one of the artists in a cabaret show she was putting together there.She also invited Rick to do his Liza show at the Theatre Museum in London for one night in June before the festival. Laura's producing partner, Neil Eckersley, liked Slice so much that he invited Rick back for a week's run in September."If I had known that I was going to perform this longer run in London, perhaps I wouldn't have gone to Edinburgh," Rick confides to me. "But now that I went, I'm really glad that we did it," he says of himself and his musical director, Michael Ferreri. "It got us ready to do this big high-profile run in London."Doing 40 shows in a row in Edinburgh was, according to Rick, "like going to the biggest, hardest theatre summer camp ever." First, Rick and Michael had to pare the show down to 55 minutes and still maintain its theatrical integrity. They made up flyers and posters, and Rick stood outside every single day—in costume as Liza—during the month long run. That can take its toll. A summer day in Edinburgh can be like a winter day in New York. "You're trying to get people to come to your show," he says, "and you're trying to get press and reviewers. Other performers whom I spoke to who produced themselves said that they would never come back as both performer [and] producer."Fortunately, his efforts paid off: Rick played to a practically full house every night. In another stroke of luck, he and Michael arrived in Edinburgh, rather naively, a week early, in late July, not realizing that the first week of shows is actually a preview week. The extra time gave him more of the press's attention. A number of articles were written about Rick having to sell some of his Liza costumes on eBay to raise money to come to the festival. By the time the festival's real Week 1 arrived, reviews of the show were already in.Rick notes that being away from New York allowed him to tap previously unknown confidence. He drummed up enough courage to crash an opening-day parade for the International Festival held for a children's charity. The police saw him dressed up as Liza Minnelli and thought he was part of the parade, so they opened up the way for him. Imagine Rick in heels, walking and dancing to the blare of disco music, for the five-mile trek, partly uphill, to Edinburgh Castle. Rick's people were passing out show flyers not far behind. Though he could have gotten into a lot of trouble, no one questioned him. In fact, the charity reps liked the idea of "Liza" promoting them, and as a result, Rick scored a front-page picture in London's The Independent."If that was in New York, I would have never even dreamed of going and trying to crash it just to get publicity," Rick admits. "But being away from home made it all seem possible. The producer in me came out completely. Even though I'm already pretty pushy, I decided that we've got to make the most of this or else we're going to lose tons of money."How much money did it cost Rick to bring the show over? He says that though he was told it would cost about $10,000, he spent almost $35,000. "But if I sang at a cabaret venue in New York, where I get practically no recognition, it costs $5,000 a pop for three shows," he continues. "So what I got in return for my investment in Edinburgh was amazing." He received 40 reviews, including all of London's top dailies (and, he states emphatically, he reads them all and learns from them; the show in London changed because of an Edinburgh review). In addition, there are bookings at the Dublin Theatre Festival, a one-night-only performance at London's Apollo Theatre on Dec. 16, and a run at the Adelaide Festival in June."I am now established in Europe as a talented actor and someone worth reviewing," Rick states proudly. The experience abroad removed any doubts about himself as a talent. "It just reaffirmed for myself that I am ‘of the theatre’ and belong to the theatre and that's where I am the happiest."When asked to pass on one piece of advice for those looking to produce their own shows abroad, Rick initially responds that performers should do their homework. Then he quickly takes it back: "Actually, I think it's better to go into this adventure blind like I did," explaining that sometimes it's easier to go with the flow instead of overthinking everything.And Rick's next big step? "I hated to leave London. I would like to turn the success that I had there to success here." With Rick's talent, persistence, knowing the right people, and luck, I'm sure he will.