A Chat with Craig Fols of Off-Broadway's MUSICAL OF MUSICALS
By: Joseph F. Panarello Mar. 06, 2005
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As it turns out, Craig Fols is just as exceptional in real life as when he's performing. His apartment is immaculately neat and tastefully decorated; he brews expresso in a manner that would please any Italian and is a gracious host who helps his guest on with his coat upon leaving. It's no surprise that he also proves to be affable and loquacious, discussing a myriad of topics--especially THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS.
Born in Lucille Ball's hometown of Jamestown, New York, Fols and his family moved to Medford Lakes, New Jersey when he was five. That's the area he considers home. It was there, at that tender age, that Craig started performing. He convinced his sister and cousins to join him in a play that he and his sister staged for his family. He chuckles and adds, "I've pretty much been doing the same thing ever since." He recalls writing a play about George Washington when he was in the fourth grade and that seemed to lead to community theater and even seven or eight performances a week in dinner theater when he was in high school. He went on to play summer stock and moved to New York City when he was about 19 or 20. "Basically," he muses, "I've been doing the same thing my whole life. Even in the last ten years, when I've started to write again I find myself acting in my own plays, so it's a long habit that I have."
There have been quite a few theatrical luminaries that the actor has worked with, but the one he holds in very high regard is Colleen Dewhurst. "I worked with her when I was very young and I still keep her picture in my dressing room. She was an incredible person.in my life and she still is an inspiration to me. It was the things she said or did and her over-all embrace of life and her values were so impressive; especially when she explained to me how 'gallant' actors are. I was about twenty when I worked with her and she continues to be a source of inspiration to me."
Prior to THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS, his most notable role in New York was as Kenneth Halliwell in Lanie Robertson's NASTY LITTLE SECRETS with David McCallum at the Primary Stages."It was a huge part and a high profile thing that The New York Post praised high and got a rave review from John Simon, but it didn't get such a rave from The New York Times so that's why you probably never heard of it." He's done plenty of stage work in quite a few different venues, but he's glad that his current endeavor seems to be settling into a long run. "We've been doing this show on and off for over a year and in a way my life has become almost prescribed...it's rather a like a monastic kind of existence. We have eight shows a week, with two performances on Saturday and two on Sunday. I like the discipline of it. When you're not working as an actor there's not very much structure in your life. With this show running, I try to take a yoga class every day and I feel it's a physical as well as a vocal warm-up because I'm working with my diaphragm muscles and all that. I have my routine. I go to church every Sunday morning and every other Monday I visit my nephew in New Jersey and I like that. I'll ride that for a while."
For those who are unfamiliar with THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS, it is Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart's brilliant parody of Broadway shows. Actually, it is five one-act musicals, each with the same basic four characters but each one written and performed in the style of different composers. The songwriters who get skewered are Rodgers and Hammerstein, in a segment called "Corn", Stephen Sondheim, in a section called "A Little Complex", Andrew Lloyd Webber in "Aspect of Juanita", Kander and Ebb in "Speakeasy" and Jerry Herman in "Dear Abby". "We've learned to be very grateful for the Jerry Herman section," says Fols. "I think this show appeals to people who are very knowledgeable about the theater, but also attracts people who don't know musicals at all. Many of these people come to the show and they're into the Rodgers and Hammerstein, but then we get to Stephen Sondheim whom they've never heard of and they just sit there in stony silence for the whole of that section. Then Jerry Herman comes along and picks it all up. Everyone seems to understand that part of the show." It was probably because of this Jerry Herman parody that Fols experienced "one of the most incredibly great things that ever happened to me" because Jerry Herman's Dolly, Carol Channing, came to see it.
"I say that I've seen the face of God and it's Carol Channing"
"It was at a moment when I was feeling a little underappreciated. I mean, I'm in the show along with the two people who wrote it and they seem to get the lion's share of attention...There had been an awards thing and I hadn't been nominated for any of the awards. We came out to meet Carol Channing after the performance and I was in sort of a vulnerable moment in this whole long process. Someone said something about awards and Carol turned to me and mentioned that I hadn't been nominated. Then she said. 'Now what can I do to make this better?' And then she gave this whole long speech in front of the entire company and the producer and everybody else about how I was the backbone of the show and that I had such belief in the material and that made it seem as though I didn't believe I was in a parody. Now here's Carol Channing giving me a tribute in front of everybody. It totally erased any feeling I had of being neglected. She was incredibly intelligent and perceptive, so I say that I've seen the face of God and it's Carol Channing."
Among the other Broadway names who have some to see THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS are John Kander, Hal Prince and Arthur Laurents. Having Laurents in the audience seemed to have a big impact on the actor. Laurents had been a big influence on Fols when he was in high school. He did a production of GYPSY,playingassortedsmall roles because other actors kept leaving the cast. He adds that "there was something about the writing of that show that made me feel I could do this. That was why I went to the BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) workshop and it was there I met Eric and Joanne."
He attended a concert and saw Eric and Joanne perform the "Corn" segment, which now serves as the opening section of the present show. He didn't know either of them, but loved the work they performed and realized that this was what he wanted to do. "I did nothing about it for the next however many years. It was being performed with just the two of them and was getting a lot of attention that way. The over the years I began performing at BMI in either material I was writing or things that people were writing for me and one time we were doing a concert at Merkin Hall and they were performing the Sondheim section there and I was doing something else. They asked me if I would like to join them because they were expanding their show into four characters. It was my dream, but I'd never done anything about it and I said 'Yes' of course. I was the one who called the York Theater at that point because they specialize in musicals."
When the people at York heard Fols' description of Rockwell and Bogart's material, they asked for it to be sent to them and that resulted in a reading for York, which was very successful. "Even then, it was a process of readings because the theater was having money problems and 9/11. Even with all that,it was a year or two after that before we opened the show at the York. I feel very happy that I did that and here it's turned into several years of employment and I've gotten to meet many of my childhood heroes. It was all because of a phone call I made."
Fols is quick to point out that he had nothing to do with the writing of THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS. That was strictly in the hands of Rockwell and Bogart. "There's a clear line between writing and acting. As a writer I'm always careful not to cross that line. If I'm a writer and I'm acting someone else's material, I put on my actor's cap and I shut my mouth. Obviously if someone asked me for my opinion, it would be a different story. However, I don't want them to even ask me because they are two different hats. The cast did have a lot of creative freedom about how we wanted to approach the material. I feel that a lot of the staging things and the "bits" or whatever, is stuff that we've come up with as performers. In terms of the actual writing, though, that was pretty sacrosanct".
THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS is a show that is performed on an almost bare stage. Fols feels that "the whole thing about theater is that it has to take place in the audience's imagination and sometimes all that 'production stuff' gets in the way of it. There had been quite a bit of discussion before the four of us started doing this [Lovette George fills out the quartet] about whether it should be this or whether it should be that, but the decision was made to do it as simply as possible and have it be about the material and the performers who are doing it." Quite obviously the concept works because the show flows smoothly from one scene to the next without a hitch.
The topic of people coming to see shows numerous times entered the conversation. There is much theater lore about the man who saw CATS every weekend during its extraordinarily long run and the people who saw JEKYLL AND HYDE so often that they became known as "Jekkies". Similar followings have developed around the current productions of WICKED and BROOKLYN. Has THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS attracted any "repeat offenders"? He stops short of calling returning audience members a cult, but says that the show has many loyal fans--many of whom have seen the show a dozen times or more. "Eric and Joanne made a number of small cuts when we moved from the York; maybe a line or two here and the biggest thing was re-arranging a song. You know, stuff that you wouldn't really notice unless you've seen the show before and many of these people got upset because they wanted the show to be exactly as it was before." There have been enough people who return to THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS that the website (www.musicalofmusicals.com) offers a "Frequent Flyer Plan" where free admission is given to people who have seen the show ten times.
The CD of THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS was recorded during the show's engagement at the York Theater. The album (Jay Records) was made under the time-honored tradition of getting the cast into a studio and recording the whole show in one session. The result is the sound of a show as it was performed in the theater. Listening to the recording gives one the sense of what is happening on stage with this show..."missed notes and all," adds the actor.
Beyond his current engagement, are there any other parts that Craig Fols would like to perform? "Oh, there are lots of parts," he responds. "One of the things about achieving a long-held ambition like playing this part in the show is that suddenly you have a lot of other big ambitions. I'd like working on new stuff and originating a part the way I did in this one. Eventually, though, I'd like to play Henry Higgins...I'm probably getting closer to the age where I can and do it well. I guess I'd like to do THE MUSIC MAN, but the part I'd really like to play in the future is Sweeney Todd. What I've come to is the desire to be acting in musicals and not being a singer and not being a dancer, but being an actor who sings and maybe dances and those are the parts where I continue to be."
There's very little chance that Fols will be taking on any of these desired roles in the near future. Possibly because of the "Frequent Flyer Plan", THE MUSICAL OF MUSICAL is doing brisk business at the Dodger Stages. Theater mavens should be beating a path to see his takes as Big Willy and the other roles he plays in this production. How many other shows that are currentlyon the boards enable a man of Fols' physical stature to take on the part of that Slutty Dancing Girl?
The MUSICAL OF MUSICALS (The Musical) is playing at the Dodger Stages , Stage 35, 340 W 50th Street, New York. Performances are Tues-Fri at 8 PM. Sat at 4 and 8 PM. Sun at 3 and 7 PM. Telecharge: (212) 239-6200. It was directed and choreographed by Pamela Hunt and is a joint production of The York Theater Company and Melanie Herman.
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