News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Tony Winner Cyndi Lauper Tells All in Reddit AMA; Singer to Re-Issue SHE'S SO UNUSUAL

By: Nov. 04, 2014
Get Show Info Info
Cast
Photos
Videos
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

Tony-winning Kinky Boots composer Cyndi Lauper just hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit this evening, during which she revealed she will be celebrating 30 years of "She's So Unusual" with a vinyl, CD box set and remix EP re-issue. Plus, her 4th annual HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS benefit concert is set for December 6th at NYC's Beacon Theatre.

Now scroll down for some fun Q&As from Lauper's AMA, including her Hogwarts house, her experience creating KINKY BOOTS onstage, her favorite superhero and more!

Q: If you could choose one person to work with, past or present, who would you choose and why? Also if I fall, will you catch me?

A: Well, first, if you fall, I'd catch you, but it depends on how big ya are, because if you're too big, we'll fall together, so it's kind of a not-good-prospect to catch someone bigger than you. I'd try, but I can't promise you wouldn't fall anyway... And who would I work with? Wow... Um... Well, I was thinking now about the people that I wanna work with, before they're not around anymore, and I really want to make a kind of blues kinda dance/trance thing with Charlie Musselwhite and any very open minded - in a kinda really open dance guy who can understand that kind of thing.

Q: How do you feel about Weird Al's "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch"?

A: I thought it was funny! You know. I liked "I wanna know where lunch is" Better but I thought "Girls just Wanna Have Lunch" was good. And I like Weird Al. I LOVED Like a Surgeon. I thought he was going to make MORE fun of Girls just wanna have lunch. But it wasn't hard. Because everybody thought I was an alien, I spoke funny and I dressed funny... Not hard to make fun of.

Q: Can you share a funny story about Captain Lou Albano?

A: OH MAN, there were so many. Captain Lou made everything I did... fun. And... I know a lot of people said "Well you being with him... it makes people not think you're as good a singer as you are..." and you know, I always used to think to myself "if they don't think I'm as good a singer as I am they are f-ing deaf, people with cloth ears will never hear you if you sing good enough."

I think my favorite moment was the first time we went out and I did an interview to promote my first album, and I had been watching all of the Beachcomber movies - you know, how they had the Great Kahuna. And I thought "We should have Captain Lou as the great Kahuna, he could be guiding us all, and that would be SO MUCH FUN."

So you know, little did I know - god bless Captain Lou - he was very religious. He had a crucifix on the outside of his door, the inside of his door, he was that religious. So when I did She-Bop, and I wanted him to be dressed as a nun, he didn't want to do that - Sisters Against Transgressors, you know. So we changed it.

And, um, we put something else - Suburban Wives Against Transgressors, I'm not sure- but to see Captain Lou singing with my Aunt Helen, my Aunt Grace, my mom and Aunt May - it was so amazing. I mean, in my videos, the thing I'm most grateful for was that I was able to put my family in it, and in all my videos, I'm able to see somebody - so I got to do stuff with my family, and they will always be my picture books of our lives together, besides our regular life.

Q: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin?

A: WHOAAAAAAAA. Wow. I do like Slytherin, because I thought that that guy - oh who's that fantastic actor, Alan Rickman - was SO fantastic. And then in the end, he was one of the GOOD guys, who wouldn't want to be there. And he was covert, too! You know! So you could be in the covert thing. So even though you don't win all the time, it's the spirit that counts. Although they had that other guy, Ralph Fiennes, he was nasty. It wouldn't be good to be associated with him then. It'd be different if he was in WUTHERING HEIGHTS, he was a good guy, well that's debatable - it turned south. But that happens in theaters and movies and stories and things. You just neva know.

Q: What was it like working on the Goonies?

A: It was pretty great. Dick Donner was great. And honestly, imagine - I had Steven Spielberg in my video. That was pretty cool. I remember when I first met him, and he told me Barbra Streisand actually sang to him, and I wasjealous. on so many levels. Like 1, I never even MET Barbra, and she sang to HIM, and I used to sing with her so much when I was little, and she didn't even know. And the fact that he wasn't impressed that i was there at all,hehehe! But he was actually in our video, and Dick Donner was really great. I really believe that during the 80s, I felt he was just one of the great directors, because his personality was SO awesome, and BIG. And he would tell ya stuff, and you'd get inspired to do whatever it was that he said.

When my mother was shy, he would have her say her lines and eat cookies, and I thought "WOW, add an activity, that is BRILLLIANT." Next time I get stuck, I'll be sure to have an activity! I thought he was great, and the whole thing was great. And meeting the kids - I always wanted - i did that because i wanted to go to Hollywood, and act on a Hollywood set, I mean, I guess it was just one of those things as a little kid I always wanted to do. So I got to do it.

Q: You've said that you are working on another Broadway show--can you share any details about that?

A: I really can't, because it's not up and running. And it's not, you know, it's still in the talk. And you talk about these things sometimes, forever. I hope that it actually does get going, because it's very interesting and very very different, from KINKY BOOTS. And just the total opposite. But I figa that's the only way I could learn, or grow.

Q: What's the most fun you've ever had?

A: Ya know, that must be like a gratitude list. Of writing down all the fun times that you've had, and trying to figure out which was the most fun. I've had a LOT of great times in my life, like a LOT of great times. One of the really cool times was filming The Goonies video. that was one of the- and I look back on that video, and I see my mother is there, and my mother is the hag - it's really rare to see GOONIES part 2, but it's fun, and I like to even look for it on YouTube, because there are lawn chairs on the deck of the pirate ship, and I just think everything about it is so funny, hearing my motha talk to me, Andre the Giant come in at the end to save the day- it was so much like OUR GANG it was one of the most fun times.

One of my biggest regrets was not doing SNL with all the wrestlers. Because i always wanted to see them do Shakespeare with me. I just thought Shakespeare, offa them and me, woulda been unbelievable. In so many ways. They could just be themselves and try to do Shakepeare.

Q: I absolutely LOVED Kinky Boots! One of the most fun I've ever had at the theatre (I'm listening to "The History of Wrong Guys" while typing this). Congrats on the Tony! 1. What was your favorite memory of working on the show? 2. Since you have a Tony and Grammy, any interest in going for an EGOT? 3. How does it feel when you go shopping or to a restaurant and hear one of your songs on the radio? Is it still exciting?

1) Oh my god! Meebee... when I had to sing... Step one in the basement of the theater - in Chicago - and they had to pull the piano out, and the bathroom was down there, and it was kinda stinky, something about the subterranean bathroom things was not good, but I sang this new song to them that I'd been working on. And I wasn't warmed up, but it was the most cookoo, and kinda real, throwback to the old music days, when they'd just pull out a piano and you'd just sing this song- you'd just pitch a song with a piano. That and the first time we did the music and a reading, and i Put together a jug bang, like with a conga, guitar, piano, and bass, and acoustic guitar, and I played dulcimer, and background singers, and that's how we kinda did it - I thought it was "wow" but Harvey Feistein couldn't get over that I was playing dulcimer, he doesn't like dulcimer, but now i think it's important to send him a dulcimer for Christmas. Or just sent a Christmas card with a dulcimer in it. Because I think the world needs more dulcimer. That and Darryl Roth, who was extremely fond of the dulcimer.

2) I gotta get-get-get- I got two Gs, and E and a T. if I get another T, and an O, I got a "GETTO". So I'm looking to get a GETTO if i can. but I have to work it out. Honestly, I just want to make new music and you know, continue to grow. Oddly. Because most people say - who are reading this - this thing I read, I gotta magazine AARP, and Cher's in it saying "I won't step aside," and I'm thinking "Why would anyone step aside? We need to grow and grow. I remember Ella Fitzgerald in her 80's. I saw that as a young girl, and I was like Wow, I wanna be like that." I mean, look at Tony Bennett! He did a duet with Gaga! I mean -am-a-zing!

3) It's weird. It's different, now. Because sometimes you could just be talking to someone bout something, and then GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN comes on, and you're like "Yea...that's me." Or you know, like my husband will go somewhere, away, or anyone of us leaves each other, you're working really hard, I was working really hard with Steve Remis, and then they are playing TIME AFTER TIME or GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN - they can't get away from me. I used to chase them with my notes, the poor things. Hehehehehehe! Well, I thought that the soccer team that was there was going to lift me up and carry me through anyways, so I thought rather than being lifted by the whole football team, I would just walk up there myself and do it! The airport was getting rowdy, there were no more empanadas, Come ON!

Q: Who's your favorite superhero?

A: Oh, I don't know. Let's see: Godzilla. Gets a little angry, gets it out of his system and then is able to move on!

Image Source




Videos