Interview: De'Adre Aziza Brings the Jazz Age to Life in PARADISE BLUE at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

BroadwayWorld sat down with Tony Award-nominee De'Adre Aziza to discuss her new role in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of PARADISE BLUE.

Paradise Blue tells the story of Blue (Underwood), a gifted trumpeter, contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit's Blackbottom neighborhood to shake free the demons of his past and better his life. But where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does it mean for the club's resident bebop band? When a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad (Aziza) comes to town with her own plans, everyone's world is turned upside down. This dynamic and musically-infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.

Check out the full BroadwayWorld interview with De'Adre Aziza below.

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Have you worked with Williamstown Theatre Festival before?

I have. I worked two summers ago. I did a musical called Johnny Baseball by Willie and Rob Reale.

So can you talk a little bit about PARADISE BLUE and what it's about?

Paradise Blue is about the Detroit Jazz scene in 1949, specifically an area called "Paradise Valley." This was in an area called "Black Bottom." It was rare in 1949 in America to have a place where you had a lot of black proprietorship and black wealth and a thriving black middle class. Keep in mind this is before the Civil Right's Movement. Black people in America were able to carve out this niche in Detroit. It was unlike any place else in the country. It was unlike New York, Chicago, it was very special at that time.

Dominique Morisseau, who wrote Paradise Blue, is just the new voice of American theatre and she is just spectacular. Also, Kenny Rampton who scored the piece does an amazing job with it. His score is just the cherry on top. We also have Blue's great Bill Sims, who is also a composer, he has been sitting in on rehearsals. So, it's just a great atmosphere to have all of these great jazz musicians in the room.

So how does your character of Silver fit into this world?

My character comes from New Orleans, Louisiana and travels around. She's basically looking for a piece of that "Black Paradise," which was hard to find at that time in 1949. It's unique because she is a woman traveling on her own at a time where women didn't do that. Women usually stayed with their husbands, their men, their boyfriends, there was a different mindset. She's independent. She wants to be a business woman. She's basically not putting up with any junk.

The cast of Paradise Blue is a very small cast. How is it working closely with this group of people?

It's wonderful. It's five of us. We really in a short time have created this spirited family. It's largely due to our director, Ruben Santiago-Hudson. He's just amazing and an actor himself. So, he enters the process with a better understanding of what it's to be an actor and what we need. Also he's just a fantastic director and a great creative director.

How is working on a show at the Williamstown Theatre Festival differ from a big, Broadway show like Passing Strange?

Well the great thing about being in Williamstown is that you just don't have the constant pulse of New York at your doorstep. There really is an ease up here. You can work two ways. You can work at a nice easy pace with a lot of breaths and a lot of air or you can work at a pressured pace, which sometimes works for people. We just don't have that pressure up here. Even though we have a short amount of time up here e surprisingly found that within two weeks we were doing full runs, off book, it was like, 'Oh wow! This happened pretty quickly.' I think because it's kind of an easy going atmosphere up here.

Does it give you more time to work with the book and really dive into the piece?

For me, it's more of a difference between a play and a musical. With a musical you have to learn the songs and sometimes you just don't have an easy connection with finding your way between the source material to the songs when it comes to characters. With Dominique Morisseau's writing, I mean she has drawn such sharp and specific characters that it makes it a lot easier to grasp the character and the words flow. I think that it has more to do with writing than being in New York or being with a big cast.

You've also had quite the jazz career yourself. Can you talk a little bit about how that came about? Does it influence your character of Silver?

Well, my character comes from a jazz background and a jazz family. I grew up with vintage jazz music and listing to it. I played piano when I was a kid and I was a musician before I was an actor. I used to do like smooth jazz jingles in New York City. I was always in that world before I was in the acting world. It always seems to come back to me in some way or the other.

Before Paradise Blue started I was actually in the studio recording my album, FINALLY. It's still not done but I'm like at least I laid down all the music and it's pretty a jazz centric, soul album. I've always had this trajectory of theatre and music but not necessarily musical theatre.

Do you have any key influences or role models for your jazz style?

Oh gosh! Oh wow! Where do I start? I really love Sarah Vaughan. Phyllis Hyman, who is known more as a soul singer, but she had a lot of jazz inflection in her voice and I grew up listening to. Ella Fitzgerald has like pure tone, she has pure beautiful tone. Billy Holiday like you can hear the pain in her voice. Nina Simone was just so unique in the tone and texture in her voice. I would say the most influential singer is Sarah Vaughan for me because she is just amazing, I can't even describe it.

De'Adre Aziza's Broadway debut, Passing Strange earned her a 2008 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Since then, De'Adre has also appeared in the Broadway musicals Women On The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, and A Night With Janis Joplin. The film version of Passing Strange made its debut at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. De'Adre has appeared in 2 other Spike Lee films, Miracle at St. Anna, and Red Hook Summer, and sang on the soundtrack for Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Aziza has also made her mark in the world of jazz, having won the New York's Sexiest Jazz Vocalist. Aziza has had the honor of performing at Carnegie Hall and The Hollywood Bowl in the concert series Ask Your Mama, featuring opera legend Jessye Norman, hip-hop legends The Roots, and jazz singer Nnenna Freelon.