FAITH PRINCE IN AUSTRALIA

[rama]

The tony award winning Broadway star is coming to Australia and is doing concerts in Sydney @newtown on 7th and 8th June and apparently Melbourne is to follow.

Check out the info at Showtune's website
www.showtune.com.au

I saw Faith on Broadway in Guys and Dolls, Little Me and Bells Are Ringing and she is dynamite and should not be missed in these intimate venues she will blow your mind.

Total 100% dynamite, I had to see her three times in Guys and Dolls she was mangentic. Her Adeliade's lament is THE BEST EVER! all the character with that amazing belt... I can't wait to see her @newtown.



[

[Talissa]

SYDNEY: @newtown on 7 & 8 June. Bookings: [phone] or through Ticketek on 13 2849
MELBOURNE: Sofitel Supper Club on 10, 11 & 12 June. Bookings: Sofitel Hotel [phone]

Melbournians please note - Nancy Cato is starting an e-mail list for people interested in more information about Faith Prince's season, as well as future Sofitel Supper Club performers. If you would like to join the list send a message to [e-mail]

[Talissa]

The SMH had an article on Faith the other day.


Attracting the spotlight a matter of Faith
May 30, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald
She's mastered brassy and is a dab hand at heart wrenching, too, writes Bryce Hallett.

WHEN Faith Prince won the role of the perennially unwed dancer Miss Adelaide in the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, she was barely known and faced stiff competition from the go-getter leading man, Nathan Lane.

"I got the feeling from [director] Jerry Zaks that Guys and Dolls was going to be Nathan's show," recalls Prince.

"But Miss Adelaide is such a vulnerable character and audiences can't leave the show without caring about her. I soon realised that Nathan, like me, was rising to the occasion and so it was never a question of who would defer to the other. We were both considered to have an old-fashioned vaudeville style and I learnt to stamp out my ground playing Miss Adelaide."

Prince made such an impression that she won a Tony award for best actress in a musical and quickly became a darling of Broadway. She has carved a vigorous and varied career in musicals, concerts, cabaret and television, including regular appearances on Spin City, House, Law & Order and Huff.

The singer and character actor comes to Sydney and Melbourne next month to present her show A Leap of Faith, an intimate cabaret that premiered at Joe's Pub in New York in 1999. It enabled her to break free of the mask and the grind of eight shows a week.

"I try to break my work up and not settle for any one thing," says Prince, who grew up in Virginia. "I have played houses that are 1500 seats and small rooms of about 100. It took me a while to do cabaret because I thought I had nothing to say and what I would say would be boring. The Joe's Pub show was a scary process but it taught me a lot about myself …

"I remember being petrified when I went on but by the end of the show I felt 10 feet taller. It came naturally to me and that surprised me. Doing cabaret has made me a better actor, a better interpreter of songs, because it forces you to look deep inside yourself …"

The role of Miss Adelaide, which has been played in Australia by Nancye Hayes and Marina Prior, is such a strong, memorable part that it can lead to a performer being painted into a corner.

"It was both a blessing and a curse," says Prince, who has also starred in Little Shop of Horrors, Bells are Ringing, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, The King and I, Falsettoland and Noises Off.

"I was never a brass belter when I started out but it developed later in certain roles, including Little Shop of Horrors. The thing with Adelaide is that you develop a comic persona and risk being typecast because of it. You have to continually prove yourself and push yourself forward for

A chance to erase the sassy New York persona came when the director of the Australian production of The King and I, Christopher Renshaw, invited Prince to take the lead in New York.

"Call me crazy, but I am the kind of person who wants to get on and read for the director to determine if I am right for the part and can actually do it," she says. "I was scared about doing the musical and I said to Chris [Renshaw], 'You need to keep a tight hand on this and keep my performance in check'. The last thing I wanted was to go for the joke and not convey Anna's humanity, her lightness and dark."

Affable, self-deprecating and upbeat, Prince describes herself as "a Southern girl who soaks up ideas and experiences like a sponge". Her musical influences include Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, Larry Grossman and Stephen Sondheim, and she's as much at home with bawdy honky-tonk as she is with a heart-tearing lament.

"I had a musical family, not in a professional sense, but we all played the piano. My dad was a nuclear engineer and a showman on the side and my mother had the most beautiful voice."

A Leap of Faith is partly autobiographical and, just in case you're wondering, Miss Adelaide gets in on the act. "Imagine not bringing her to Sydney. She always comes along for the ride!"

Prince says she's happy to juggle television and stage.

"My music and my work on Broadway means I don't get pressured or anxious when I audition for television roles. Early on I had a hard time and was involved in two TV pilots which didn't get up but I have had great TV experiences. Huff is probably the best-written job for me personally as it shifts between comedy and drama. But musical theatre is incredibly demanding because you have to make someone believable and sing. As a performer you're spinning five plates instead of one."

The last time Prince appeared on Broadway was in Michael Frayn's farce within a farce Noises Off, a boisterous show that co-starred Patti LuPone and opened the night after the 2001 terrorist attacks. "We opened right after 9/11 and it was difficult but we managed a nine-month run. It helped that it was a comedy."

She recently did a workshop on a musical version of the film A Room With a View. "I played the Maggie Smith role. Who knows what will come of it … Like every performer I hang out for a great f---ing role," she says in a loud, brassy tone that seems light years away from the shy Presbyterian girl from Virginia.