Reporting by J. Brenna Guthrie
John Raitt is one of Broadway's musical comedy legends. A native of Southern California, he got his start as Arthur Drake's replacement in the national company of "Oklahoma!" Rodgers and Hammerstein were so impressed with the young baritone that they cast him in the lead role of Billy Bigelow in 1945's "Carousel." In 1954, Raitt created the lead role of Sid Sorokin in George Abbott's "The Pajama Game, which he played in 1,060 performances, as well as the 1957 movie version with Doris Day. He has also starred in such hits as "Annie Get Your Gun," "Zorba," "Kismet," "Shenandoah," and "Man of La Mancha." In 1994 Raitt was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway. He is also the father of rock artist Bonnie Raitt.
Dorian Harewood is probably best known to television audiences as the character of Simon Haley in the miniseries "Roots: The Next Generation" and as Jesse Owens in "The Jesse Owens Story." Other TV and film appearances include Showtime's remake of "Twelve Angry Men," NBC's "I'll Fly Away," "Full Metal Jacket," "Sudden Death," and "Pacific Heights." He last appeared on Southern California stages in "Crumbs From the Table of Joy" at South Coast Repertory and also starred opposite Chita Rivera in the national tour of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." He is currently playing the role of Sid Sorokin in the Reprise! concert staging of "The Pajama Game," which runs through May 17 at UCLA's Freud Theatre.
Raitt and Harewood recently sat down at Hollywood's famed Musso and Frank to discuss "The Pajama Game," as well as their mutual love of singing.
John Raitt: Pajama Game was interesting, because Richard Bissell, who wrote the book 7 1/2 Cents, presented it to Hal Prince and Bobby Griffith, and they gave it to George Abbott to read and George said, "Well, if you boys like this one, why don't you produce it and I'll direct it?" And that's the way it started. And he said, "Who'd you like to get to do the choreography?" And they said, "Jerome Robbins." And they approached Jerry and he said, "I'm a bit tired from the picture I just did. I'll do it if I can take my assistant," who was Bobby Fosse. Bobby said, "I'd like to bring my assistant," Carol Haney. Then how about the leading man? So I went down to audition and got, "Thank you, don't call us, we'll call you." I think they had Van Johnson in mind, or Darrin McGavin.
Dorian Harewood: Is Darrin a singer? Van is barely a singer.
John: Bobby Griffith told me later that George Abbott didn't like the way I auditioned. Bobby said to George, "Why don't you bring John Raitt back and work with him?" So I called back and went knocking on the stage door after a matinee. And there's the Big White Father, as we called him, standing there. He said, "I guess you understand why I called you back." By six o'clock I was signed, but even then they didn't have enough faith in me to give me the run of the play, so I got just two weeks' contract, which means they can get rid of you after that. Of course, after that two weeks, they decided to give me the run of the play.
Dorian: Did they already have songs like "New Town, Blue Town"? For that song they really needed a singer.
John: Yeah. Frank Loesser wrote that song. George Abbott said to me after we had opened, "I never liked that song in the show because it was not written by the two composers [Richard Adler and Jerry Ross]. If it wasn't for the way you sang it, I would have taken it out." Abbott didn't like Charlotte Rae as the boss' secretary, and after about 10 days he got rid of her, but he absolutely loved Carol Haney, so he combined that part with a lead dancing part, which makes it probably one of the biggest payoff parts in the show. Carol won the Tony for her performance, because not very often does the female comedian also get the prime dancing part in the show.
Dorian: Was that the production Shirley MacLaine got her break on?
John: Shirley was understudy to Carol, and we opened on like a Monday, and after the Wednesday matinee--the first week the understudies haven't rehearsed it yet--Shirley comes in 10 minutes late and they say, "You're on."
Dorian: Ten minutes late, hasn't had a rehearsal, and she's on!
John: She had to do it because Carol had hurt her knees. Typical Bobby Fosse. Always hard on the knees.
Different Sounds
John: I was an opera singer. Basically the high lyric baritone is the best voice for the Broadway show because it's right where you talk. If I can talk, I can sing. Any time. You could call me at five tomorrow morning and say, "Don't say a word, sing." It may not be the same, but I can sing. It's as simple as that.
I give a lot of master classes around town these days, and the first thing I say is: You sing in spite of your singing teachers. They don't teach you to sing. People still come to me and say, "You've had serious vocal training, haven't you?" And isn't that the nicest compliment? That the art conceals the art. But opera singers--I can make the same sounds they can, but they can't do the other. Few singers came from the concert theatre. Most of them were singing actors.
Dorian: I studied opera for a couple of years, and I noticed right away that the opera singers were so rigid. It's not difficult to go over into opera, but it's very difficult for the opera singer to come over. When I was at the conservatory
John: Where did you go?
Dorian: Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. So I'm there and I'm trying to decide what to do. I'd gotten an opera scholarship, but I didn't know anything about it. I was just able to fake this sound and they liked it, so they were going to teach me something. I ended up switching to musical theatre.
One of the things that made me switch was when I talked with one of the other students who was an opera singer. I said, "The only thing about opera is, it seems kind of like ballet in that it's really so precise that it would make it difficult for me to do other things. I mean, I grew up singing popular music. I love popular music. I like the ability to have your own individual stamp on a song, as opposed to sounding exactly alike, which many opera singers do because you have to sound a certain way." And this guy said, "Oh, no, nothing's further from the truth. I'm an opera singer but I can sing any kind of pop music. Listen." And then he goes to sing this pop song and he sounded exactly like an opera singer.
John: He sounded like Placido singing John Denver.
Dorian: Yeah. And he said, "See, it sounded exactly like Stevie Wonder."
John: People always ask me, "How can you sing at your age?" Well, in the first place I never got out of shape. Same discipline I used as an athlete, the demands I put on myself. Someone asked me some years ago, "Who's your biggest competitor?" I thought a minute and said, "Young John Raitt is my biggest competitor. I've got to go out there and look somewhat like him and sing like him." The other day I got some old recordings out and put them on and I said, "They're good, but I can't sing like that today. I can sing in other ways." But tell that to an audience.
Dorian: It's like Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan can't slam dunk the way he used to, but he can still beat all the youngsters.
John: Make 42 points.
Dorian: Yeah, and he can still make his team win. So it's just a matter of the experience and using that and honing it. It doesn't matter how high you sing. It matters how well you sing where you sing. Look at Nat King Cole. He certainly didn't have that high of a range. He didn't have that much of a range at all, but he had a beautiful voice within that. BS