BWW Interviews: Girl-Talk With Andrea McArdle

4 Girls 4: A Christmas Together

Andrea McArdle, Maureen McGovern, Donna McKechnie, Faith Prince; Music Direction, John McDaniel; Conceived by Wayne Gmitter; Producers, Matthew Lombardo and Rick Murray

Performance: Tuesday, December 2, 2014, 7:30 pm, The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont Street, Boston; Ticketmaster 800-745-3000 or www.thewilbur.com

4 Girls 4: A Christmas Together comes to the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on Tuesday, December 2, for one night only in-between visits to Hartford and Buffalo. Fresh from her back-to-back bookings on cruises to Canada and the Mediterranean, BroadwayWorld caught up with Andrea McArdle (Annie, Starlight Express), one of the four fabulous musical stars who will share the stage with Maureen McGovern (Little Women, Donna McKechnie (A Chorus Line, Sweet Charity), and Faith Prince (Guys and Dolls). Conceived by Wayne Gmitter and produced by Matthew Lombardo and Rick Murray, 4 Girls 4 is the 21st century version of the 1977 original show that ran for twelve years with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell, Margaret Whiting, and Rose Marie, and, in succeeding years, with a rotation of Kaye Ballard, Kay Starr, Martha Raye, and Barbara McNair. As in the earlier iterations, the act boasts entertainment legends performing their signature material and, fittingly, some music of the season.

BWW: Tell me a little about the show and how you got involved with it.

ANDREA MCARDLE: We're all managed by the same man (Wayne Gmitter) and he put this package together with John McDaniel. He's a fantastic musician and producer, a Grammy and Emmy winner, and he's an amazing maestro. It's the old Rosemary Clooney show, but conceptually speaking, we just modernized it. We come out and do a number together - "Wherever We Go" from Gypsy - and then each of us do about twenty-five intimate minutes with the band, introduce each other, then we sew it up at the end of the show. It's a nice variety, it moves so fast. We're having so much fun.

BWW: The cast seems to fluctuate at times.

AM: We are the 4Girls4, but since concerts with symphonies are booked sometimes a year and a half in advance, if we have single dates, we have fantastic girls who pinch hit. For example, we had Leslie Uggams come in and fill in for Donna at a couple of our shows. They're stars in their own right.

BWW: Have you worked with any of the others before?

AM: Well, Maureen and Faith and I - our paths would always cross at benefits, galas, Tony Awards, and things like that, but Donna and I co-starred in State Fair together. We did a year pre-Broadway tour, then six months on Broadway and I've known her forever.

BWW: This is running just three nights in three cities (Hartford, Boston, Buffalo). Where do you go from here?

AM: I go right on to the Kennedy Center two days after we end for my one-woman show. I'm actually playing Dolly in Hello, Dolly in Philadelphia and New Jersey in the casinos in the spring. Each of us does our own club dates. Maureen does a lot of symphonies and Donna has just been doing a bunch of symphonies with the Marvin Hamlisch estate, a lot of tributes. We all have our own dates, but we have so much fun together.

BWW: I'm always interested in knowing how an artist feels about their signature song: blessing or curse?

AM: Well, I definitely think a blessing and I tell a story in my act about Carol Channing when we were doing Jerry's Girls together. Carol heard me talking to the girls saying I'm so sick of it and if I never hear it again it'll be too soon. She came over to me and said when poor Leslie goes up for the Tony Awards to present, what is the band going to play? And I said, I don't know, Carol, and she said "Exactly!" In other words, you have a signature song, baby, you'd better treasure that. For some reason, that spoke to me, it made absolute sense to me, and I never complained about that song ever again. She taught me gratitude.

BWW: How is the experience of singing it as an adult, informed by "life," different than as child?

AM: You reinterpret it, it's more reflective. I was just 51 last week. I'm not afraid of an age, it's just a number. I'm a woman who's a mother, a long-term gypsy of sorts, and it does have different meaning to me. It's more about a philosophy and - like watching Donna, the minute she starts to sing "The Music and The Mirror," the rest of us girls are in the back. It's very hard for us to sing at the end of the show because we are all so emotional because we all remember those "aha" moments, seeing her do that and the fact she still works and sounds incredible, it's like an inspiration. We're backstage, we're crying, like an old coffee klatsch.

BWW: You're really lucky to be in that company.

AM: I am. I learn so much from them every single time we do a show. It is amazing.

BWW: Do you have any opinion on the new Annie tour directed by Martin Charnin, or the movie?

AM: I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's terrific. I'm excited to see the black version of Annie with Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz.

BWW: Are there any roles you have your sights on, a bucket list?

AM: I did Mame last year. Mame fit like a glove; Dolly's going to be more of a stretch for me. I'd really love to be in a Broadway production of Mame, with a lot of money behind it because it's very important to that show, the look of it, you can't...people know the difference. I was just in love with that show. But one of my biggest dream roles would have to be Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.

BWW: To show your dark side?

AM: Oh, yes. She's a real villain, a real manipulator. Angela made her so palatable. I saw that show three times with Angela, then went back to see my co-star Dorothy Loudon in it who was so different from Angela, but fantastic. That's the mark of a great show.

BWW: You can't really do better than Sondheim anyway, right?

AM: Nope! For an actor/singer or singer/actor, you can't get any better or more challenging.

BWW: Do you see much theater in New York?

AM: I don't as much as I'd like to, because it's literally up the street from my apartment and I sometimes could kick myself 'cuz once I go, I say I could go three times a week and be totally happy. It's not like years ago - I still sign ticket stubs and I look at their Annie ticket stub and it says $12.50 for a Saturday night. No wonder everybody loved it and no wonder people went to theater - now, it's do you want shoes and a handbag, or do you want to go to the theater? It's so expensive. I have been out of town so much, this year more than like four years put together - I just got back from Turkey, Greece, France, and Italy four days ago (a 10-day cruise), and right before that I was on the Rosie O'Donnell cruise to Canada, so I've been gone for like a month and a half. All my family goes to my parents in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, so I'm going to head down there.

BWW: Is the demise of Broadway greatly exaggerated?

AM: It is a little bit alarming, all the revivals and all the movie musicals that maybe shouldn't be made, but there's also a lot of incredible theater and incredible live performances all over the city and there are no barriers anymore. You can play the Gershwin one night and Carnegie Hall, a coffee house down by NYU - there are so many different types of venues here and Broadway's only one thing.

BWW: I could chat with you or anyone about theater for hours, but that concludes my list of questions and I appreciate your time very much and I certainly look forward to seeing the show.

AM: Oh, you're so welcome.

Photo: Andrea McArdle, Faith Prince, Donna McKechnie, Maureen McGovern

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