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They Did It! Ambrose, Hadden-Paton and Company Celebrate Opening Night of MY FAIR LADY
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Nov 3, 2022
'Somehow it gets to your heart and your core and it effects everything. You just have shivers. You're trying to act, but you're dealing with the most beautiful score ever written.' That's what leading man Harry Hadden-Paton thinks about the score to Lincoln Center Theatre's revival of My Fair Lady, which just opened last night at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Lerner and Lowe's classic musical, My Fair Lady, has come to Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater
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Under the direction of Bartlett Sher, it stars Lord Ambrose, Harry Haddon Payton
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Norbert Leo Butz, and welcomes back to Broadway, Dame Diana Rigg. And we caught up with everybody just minutes
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after the opening night curtain rang down. I love that we're finally opening this show
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and I love that word, that we're opening. I wonder how we will continue to open now that it's open
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now that it's officially open. Just happy for us to celebrate this moment
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and enjoy this moment, enjoy the joy of it. It's always been a dream of yours to do a musical
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I'm thrilled you're doing one to do this one. How glorious is this to sing? It's, it's, my friend says that, my friend Camille says that singing is the, the fluidity of swimming and the, and the something of flying, the freedom of flying
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So it's, it's amazing. And with a 30 piece orchestra that Ted is, is conducting, gets to be on stage with us sometimes
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It's, it really is a dream come true. It really is. When Lauren walked down the steps in the ball this evening, I nearly couldn't stop myself crying
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Like, it is, with that 29-piece orchestra as well, it's incredible. And somehow it gets to your heart and your core and it affects everything
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And you just have shivers. You're trying to act, but you're sort of dealing with the most beautiful score ever written
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You know, it's wonderful. Working with this cast, what a phenomenal cast. Yeah, they're incredible
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I think Lauren Ambrose is a revelation She so smart so open Harry is the real thing you know and I could
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listen to him do, I've grown accustomed to her face every single night. I do listen to it
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in fact, and I marvel at Alan Jay Lerner's lyrical brilliance and Fritz Lowe's gorgeous
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melodic sense, you know. But Broadway is very special. You've got your special
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there's a special feeling to it. And the Americans, once you're in a success in New York
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the entire city celebrates that success, which is very American. It doesn't happen in London the same way
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And you can go to a shop and the shop assistant says, I hear, you know, your play, your musical is successful
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And it's very heartwarming. Because I've never seen My Fair Lady before
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And so my approach is from a textual standpoint. and so you know sometimes I lean into his more awkward side sometimes I lean into his earnestness
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and and I try to find a combination of all of those things to make him a real human being
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more than just a caricature you know I want him you want him to be a viable suitor for this
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beautiful woman and I think that's what he really wants to be with this woman because he's never
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quite experienced someone like her so to do the best I can to portray that has been a
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blast and a challenge and it's been great. Because this is a piece which is so iconic and to be part of something so iconic in itself is amazing but more than that especially the way Barth has directed it this seems like such a piece for today It so relevant The social gender equality issues are so important which
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Shaw was a huge feminist anyway. It's got this amazing score. It's got this amazing set. It's
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got everything, but it's also got real depth. It's about class issues. It's about equality. It's
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about all the things which in this 2018 state politically, it's a political piece actually
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Why did you want to do My Fair Lady? I love Shaw. I've always loved the movie
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It appeals to me in terms of its intellectual qualities and its design qualities. It gives
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you all the best things about a musical. Lerner and Lowe, at the time they did it
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took on an extraordinary piece of writing and they elevated it and they showed how a musical
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can take even the most complex pieces of writing and make them even greater
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And you know what? It's a really great comedy, so it's actually a damn good time
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What was the first musical number you worked on for this, and what was the last? The first was Loverly. We kind of just jumped in and made a sketch
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and then the last was Church. We went through 50 versions of Church
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because it's a hard nut to crack. You don't want to stay at the fair too long
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You want it to be satisfying. You want it to honor what was. You want to kind of give it a new spin
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You want to, you know, you have a, you know, do little like Norbert. And so, like, what do you do with that
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Because he's like, he's this like bomb of just, just he's an unbelievable actor, human being, everything
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I just, I can't say enough about him. And so that it took the longest, but it was worth the kind of noodling to get it, to get it there
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You're a favorite musical, right? Did you grow up on the album like I did the record Yes yes I listened to that record non and as I said to many I wanted to play Henry Higgins because I
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love those rhymes, I love those powder songs, and I know every word. And I think
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a lot of people do, actually. I really people sing along. It is a record or a show that people
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really love. Gosh, being a cast with Diana Rigg, Alan, Norbert Leo Butz, and
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then Lauren, Harry, Linda, Jordan, and then the entire cast. I mean, we have people in the
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ensemble who've done 15 Broadway shows, 12 Broadway shows, and that's like the mean must
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be seven or eight. It's amazing. I learn from them every day. This is such a special show that your husband and Frederick Lowe wrote and put together
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It's back now in this glorious new production. What does it mean now for an audience in 2018
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Well, I hope they start to appreciate how musical actually can be
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Beautiful, beautiful music, wonderful erudite lyrics, fantastic book, you know. And they don't exist now
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I mean, they've got, I adore Hamilton, don't get me wrong. But this actually gets you back to a book musical
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And when you have them as special as this, none come better than My Fair Lady
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It is so wonderful to see you. What was it like for you being here tonight at My Fair Lady
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It was such a thrill, and I just was so excited about coming here
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and to see these beautiful people doing this wonderful show. And you know what else impressed me
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The sets, the way that worked in this theater. It was just fantastic
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Everything was gorgeous
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