Here’s something to celebrate: tonight - and for the next several months, at least: the astounding Amber Gray will be leading “The Time Warp” at Studio 54 in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Richard O’Brien’s ‘The Rocky Horror Show.’
The production, which opened last week, is directed by Sam Pinkleton. Gray is playing Riff Raff, the role originated by the show’s creator - and, in this instance particularly, “playing” couldn’t be a better word. Gray’s Riff Raff is sneering, leering, and bouncing around the stage - noticing - and knowing - everything. It’s another magnetic performance from one of the stage’s absolute best.
Gray originated the role of Hélène in ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,’ and was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Persephone in ‘Hadestown.’
She’s my favorite. I saw down with her in New York at the end of last month.
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Sarah LaDuke: Amber Gray, I am an enormous fan of yours, and I'm so excited to get to speak with you about your current work and your career.
Amber Gray: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Sarah LaDuke: What does ‘Rocky Horror’ mean to you? What's your previous relationship with the story and the show? If you have one.
Amber Gray: I do. I first discovered ‘Rocky Horror’ as an adolescent with my theater friends. We went to the library and took out a CD of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ soundtrack and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ soundtrack and “The Who's Tommy.’ So, I thought that all musicals were rock operas when I was young. I didn't know their other genres, and I burned that CD to a tape, whatever it's called –
Sarah LaDuke: You dubbed it.
Amber Gray: Dubbed it. I never had the liner notes. You know, it was just me listening to it over and over again on this cassette tape, and I really fell in love with its main theme of don't dream it be it, and all the freaks are welcome here - it was very helpful to me as a young person who was shy and insecure and didn't really know who I was in the world yet, you know, was very inspiring to me. And then a couple years later, I saw the movie, and then a few years after that, saw my first shadow cast in Boston. So it's been in my life, a long time.
Sarah LaDuke: When you saw the movie - do you recall if there were elements of the of the plot, or visuals that surprised you, having only heard it up till then?
Amber Gray: Ooh, yeah. I mean, the costumes are really burned into my brain. The imagery is so beautiful, I think I was very pleasantly surprised, and also because I couldn't necessarily tell what they were saying. Just listening to it, a lot of the plot became more clear when I saw the movie for the first time,
Sarah LaDuke:And the, was the shadow cast production also an exciting and new thing? That's such a part of the, like, the lore and the legacy of all of it.
Amber Gray: Totally, yeah, I had no, you know, I've only done that a few times in my life. I had no idea what I was getting into. Like, people kind of knew the rules, like, what to call back, props to bring I didn't know any of that. It was just really, like, a very wild experience for me, kind of looking around being like, what is happening right now, this whole other relationship with the thing that I didn't know existed.
Sarah LaDuke: And now you are doing it. You are doing it at Studio 54 you're doing it on Broadway. And you're playing Riff Raff - which is so exciting and incredibly, incredibly cool. What about Riff Raff appeals to you? And how did you parlay your way into this particular role, I mean, and you know, people had to decide that you could do it … but of course, you could do it.
Amber Gray: Well. When I did see the movie, all of the aliens in the castle, you know, they're all very feral, and that really appealed to me as a young person, like they're sort of abandoned, in their ability to be wild, I envied it a little bit as a very shy kid. So I loved all of all of the aliens, and I went down a huge rabbit hole of Tim Curry movies when I was a kid, you know, it was like ‘Legend,’ ‘Clue,’ ‘Annie,’ ‘Rocky Horror.’ He's such a chameleon and so absurd. And that, to me, was like the essence of what a great actor was -- Tim Curry, you know. And I fell in love with Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff. And there have been a couple times in my life I've played Puck, and he's always sort of in my mind or on my vision board, if you will. Like, I do a lot of thinking on whatever I think Richard O'Brien is doing as Riff Raff. I try to tap into that essence when I played Puck a couple of times. Like, I just love all those actors in that movie, they're so wonderful.
Sarah LaDuke: The knowledgeable servant, assistant Puck … Riff Raff …
Amber Gray: Interesting. Yes.
Sarah LaDuke: Do you have things that you know, that they know that nobody else in the cast, no other character and nobody in the audience needs to know that Riff Raff knows
Amber Gray:
Absolutely. There are lots of secrets. There's lots of knowing, maybe before the audience knows. Yeah, they're both observers, I think both of those characters. And I love doing that work, I've been in lots of shows in my career where I never leave the stage. I just get to listen and observe, and figuring out those moments it’s really important to me as an actor. I had a brilliant acting teacher in grad school named Richard Feldman, who teaches at NYU grad Acting as well as Juilliard, and he really believed you figuring out how to listen to the other characters is more important than you figuring out how to say your own lines, and you teach the audience how to watch the play when you're on stage observing. So, it's a skill I take quite seriously, and it's something I love, and it takes time, right? Like, it probably won't be there for another couple of months before I really understand how to observe the whole play. Because right now, I'm still thinking about eight counts, you know, right?
Sarah LaDuke: And you're still in previews as we're speaking, changing things -- you're still rehearsing during the day and doing the show at night, which must be …
Amber Gray: It's exhausting, it's exhausting.
Sarah LaDuke: It has to be.
Amber Gray: It's really exhausting, but so fun. I mean, honestly, one of the hardest parts is the adrenaline after these early shows. It's very hard to come down like I find myself going to bed super late when I know better and I know I should be sleeping. It's just feels impossible. So much cortisol rushing through your body?
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah. I have that sometimes just after seeing a show. I’m like “that was so good – I can’t go to sleep!
Amber Gray: It’ll take time to get into that kind of perfect flow state, but we'll get there, and I can't wait. It's gonna be fun.
Sarah LaDuke: As you rehearse and develop the character, and when you've played characters that observe, I think that they also have had a lot of agency, like I've always found you on stage to be powerful and making moves, whether they be like trouble -- making trouble -- or taking care of things. Is that something that is in on the page, or something that comes from in you, do you think?
Amber Gray: It’s a very good question. I mean, I've originated a lot of roles so I kind of get to make them whenever I want. So, I do think some of it comes from me. And the other thing on the page, when the character doesn't necessarily do very much, and you do get to flesh out all those moments where you're observing that's all from your imagination, which I just love. I had a dresser once when I was doing ‘Macbeth,’ who was like, “You always play the magical character.” And I was like, “Ooh, I'm honored. Thank you.” I don't know that I would call it that, but sure -- you just said, yeah, agency.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, just a ton of power. We're constantly, my husband, I love ‘Comet,’ and listen to the cast recording a lot.
Amber Gray: Awesome.
Sarah LaDuke: And then when I told him -- well, let me do this. We saw you in ‘Oklahoma’ at Bard and ‘Comet,’ ‘Hadestown,’ the last Sondheim show The Shed.
Amber Gray: ’Here We Are.’
Sarah LaDuke: We're so excited to see this. When people come to you with this gooby energy that I'm coming to you with right now, and maybe without, you know, the professional opportunity of -- you know, here's a microphone. Let me tell you how much I love you. How do you -- how do you receive that in the world? Are people cool, mostly chill, or is it a whole thing.
Amber Gray: It's a whole thing, especially for roles you originate, right? That people get attached to and, well, playing Persephone in particular. You know this goddess, I always joke that my biggest fan bases are like the gay bears and teenage girls. And teenage girls, they're still figuring out how to be in the world and who they want to be. And I'm a mother. My kids aren't teenagers yet, but I have a lot of space for young people, they are fragile, and a lot of times they'll start crying and it's or shaking, and it's very intense. I'm like, you're okay. I try to have those interactions be limited to natural encounters around the theater district, though, like on the sidewalk, running into somebody the stage door is pretty intense for me, because I do receive a lot of that energy. You know, most actors are pretty empathic. It's like it's in a very intense vibration to receive every single show. It can be hard. I have gone out there a couple of times for ‘Rocky Horror.’ I'm sort of infamous for not doing the stage tour, but I've been doing it, and I find, you know, somebody used the term ‘music-cult’ for ‘Rocky Horror.’ It's totally a music-cult. Been around for 53 years, so that loving of the role in the show is like so greater than me has nothing to do with me, which I love. And there's a kind of a freedom and disconnect in that for me to engage with the people. And they're just like, such sweet, gentle nerds, all those people who come to the stage door, they're really, yeah, lovely. This round has been okay so far, but a lot of times I have, I have a very hard time taking it in.
Sarah LaDuke: The director of this production, Sam Pinkleton, who, of course, has been working for ages, but has a new gloss on him after the huge success -- deserved success -- of ‘Oh, Mary!’ Did you know him before this?
Amber Gray: Yeah, he's been my choreographer three times. He choreographed ‘Great Comet,’ starting in the tent. So, we did two productions of it in the tent, and then we moved to Broadway at the Imperial so he choreographed all three of those. He choreographed ‘Macbeth,’ and then he choreographed ‘Here We Are,’ and when we were together, and here we are, he said, ‘Amber, if I'm ever in a room with you again, it will be as your director.’ And I was like, ‘I'll hold you to it, brother.’ And here we are, which is pretty cool.
Sarah LaDuke: Very cool. And obviously I could have, I could have known those credits. What do you have in Riff Raff that you are still looking at, that you are still exploring, that you're still developing, that you're willing to share
Amber Gray: The thing about musicals is there are a lot of -- you have the director, we also have the choreographer and the music director, right, who want you to do certain things stylistically in your singing of it. So you have these kind of three different departments all giving you regular notes and who have their vision of how you're going to play the thing. So it's really kind of reconciling those three humans' opinions with my opinion. It's like just finding a way for all four to exist. Just -- that's probably the hardest work. There's so many numbers. I had no idea I'd be dancing in, like, I thought I would sing the ensemble parts in those songs, but I'm, like, actively dancing in a lot of songs and trying to figure out, like, what does this mean for my whole arc of this character? I'm still figuring that out, and sometimes I just straight up, don't know. I'm like, I'm just gonna do the moves and be here, but I'll know soon.
Sarah LaDuke: Your singing voice, your speaking voice as well. Your singing voice is an incredible, incredible power. It is just one of my favorite sounds in the world. Again, not to be so effusive. And when did you know you could sing? How did you learn that you could sing?
Amber Gray:
I mean, I grew up singing in kind of come-all choirs in church or in public school, you know, big old choirs of 50 people or smaller, like Madrigals with 12. And I was in a really cheesy acapella group for a while, were you saying, like, 80s pop songs? I didn't have a particularly strong voice. And actually, my high school theater teacher was incredible, and he really believed cast was a team, and that you gave the weakest link the lead, so they get better. And I had the lead three shows in a row, and one of those shows was Mary Magdalene and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ and I just straight up couldn't sing it like I could not sing a lot of her higher notes. And my voice would crack every night and go out --
Sarah LaDuke: And in high school, they don't transpose for you.
Amber Gray: They don't! So, yeah, it was humiliating. But this is what I love about the voices, how much stronger it can get. So and I tell people quite a bit -- young musical theater people who don't know what they're getting into, right? Or even when I go back to acting conservatories where they a little bit like, poo poo, the American musical it's like, not cool. They're wearing all black. And, you know, chain smoking on breaks, whatever, they're very different than the musical theater kids, and those are the people I trained with, right?
Sarah LaDuke: Yes, you’ve a foot in both ponds.
Amber Gray: It's why I'm shocked I ended up having a musical theater career. Did not expect it. Speaking of my teachers at grad school, Deb Lapidus is the singing teacher. Also an NYU grad in Juilliard. She really explained placement and the physicality of singing in a way that my brain just understood. It really worked for me, and I got a lot better in those three years. It's like having a yoga teacher who finally explains crow pose in a way where I'm like, I've never thought my body would do this. Sometimes you just need to hear it in a new way. She really worked for me. Deb Lapidus, and I got better in those three years. But even still, two years out of school is when I auditioned for a ‘Great Comet,’ and I botched that audition. I only learned by ear then, I can now read music. Dave Malloy had done the demos down the octave, so I sang ‘Charming’ down the octave, and he let me sing the whole thing. And he was like leaning on his hands, and when I was done, he said, ‘Amber, that was. So weird. I just wanted to see if you could get through it. Sing it up.’ Now, I knew Rachel Chavkin by then, and I had already done a musical Dave Malloy by then, at St Mark's Church. Like, this little, small, little show. And thank God because I got a second chance. Like, if it was in a big casting house, I would have been blacklisted and escorted out of the room, you know. Yeah. So I did get a second chance. I got the role because they liked me as the actor for that part, not because I could sing it particularly well, and I didn't have some of those notes in charming for a long time. When we did it at Ars Nova, I would have to warm up a ton. Some of those notes weren't always there, but then by the time we were doing it a year later in the tent and doing morning show presentations at 7am I could sing all those notes without warming up. That's how quickly the voice gets better if you use it every day.
Sarah LaDuke: It's muscle. And you know how to use it without breaking it apart.
Amber Gray: I learned how to use it with a teacher, but then I stretched into lower and higher notes over the years by just doing the work every day, which is really special to see and feel that progress.
Sarah LaDuke: When you have a song in your bones, in your in your larynx, in your lungs, in your diaphragm, do you ever sing the whole thing and then at the end go, huh? Like, did I say all the words in the right order? Because you're just gone,
Amber Gray: Totally Yes.
Sarah LaDuke: And is that exciting or scary or both?
Amber Gray: I mean, I really, I deeply trust that flow state, because you only get there once -- yes, the material is in your bones, and you can typically go on the ride, but yes, every now and then you'll be like, what happened? What did I just do? And you've always done the right thing. But there's also a phenomenon in long runs, like every three months or so, the entire cast will short circuit together. People will go up on notes or words or will trip downstairs because they suddenly think about, “Wait, do I take off my right foot or my left foot?” And they've never thought about it before, right? So they just tumble down the stairs. I find the whole cast kind of does it in a different way, and then you go deeper. And by the end of a year your last show, you look around, your peripheral vision opens up. You're like, “Wow, has that person always been there?” You just like, you notice more and more things the longer you do the show. And that last show, there's stuff you learn that you wish you had known in the first reading. It's like, it's just amazing how you can always get better at the job
Sarah LaDuke: When you're done with a year run, is there a post-show … adrenaline dump, depression?
Amber Gray:
Yes. Severe, postpartum, normally, yeah, yeah, especially if it was a long run, pretty severe. And it's just about aching for the people. I mean, a lot of performers in New York were hustling through life, right? Especially if you have a family, you only get to see your friends if you work with them, so it can be very heartbreaking. And ‘Comet’ in particular, those women are some of my best girlfriends, like I love them so deeply, and it was really painful to suddenly not be around them every day. Same was true with ‘Hadestown,’ and that was weird, because my new job was right across the street, like my new stage door exited to my old marquee right, and it was like looking through glass at my friends on the other side being like, “hey guys. You want to come out and play?”
Sarah LaDuke: And for a little while, your picture's still on the door. “Hi, me, from before.”
Amber Gray: I just really missed my friends. Can be hard that transition, yeah.
Sarah LaDuke: What kind of director has Sam Pinkleton proven to be, what's the method?
Amber Gray: I will say, having had him so often as a choreographer, he works in a very similar way, like I don't feel like I'm learning something new about him, per se, but he is very clear On his vision long before rehearsal start, which I find so impressive, like he kind of knew how he's going to do everything and and there's space for collaboration, which is a rare combo. I find a lot of directors are excellent, sort of curators of great artists, and they know who to pick, but they don't actually have an idea about how to execute the show, which is okay, but you have to be clear with your actors, like you got to do a lot of this work for me, you know? And yeah, it just doesn't always happen that somebody has such a clear vision, as well as being super collaborative and open to your ideas too. It's pretty awesome.
Sarah LaDuke: Has, and I can't imagine it wouldn't have, has having kids, has being a mother changed your relationship to the work, to your body -- your body in the work, I mean, I'm not just asking you about your own body, although we could talk about it.
Amber Gray: I understand. I understand. I mean, I had two home births, so that was very empowering. And never loved my body more after having those two children. I’m a very strong person physically, and that proved that to me. And then I was always able to use that in my work, you know, like, even if I'm like, I don't think I can do this, I actually know that I can.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, you have to remind yourself,
Amber Gray: Yeah, you're like, come on, you might not want to do it. That's something else. Yeah, I'm very impressed by what my body is able to do, and I don't always take the best care of it. You know, it's not like I revere it, necessarily. I'm pretty hard on my body in all ways. But, yeah, I love performing. I love how physical it is-- live performance, especially it is such an Olympic event. And I love that about it.
Sarah LaDuke: Do your kids know what you do?
Amber Gray: They do, they do know what I do, and they have seen me in quite a few shows.
Sarah LaDuke: What are their ages?
Amber Gray: 7 and 10. Yeah, yeah. I brought them to tech rehearsal the other day, and they saw one of the final dresses. We had two final dresses. Never. Has that happened? Ever.
Sarah LaDuke: What makes that happen?
Amber Gray: Normally, your final dress is probably your first run through with all of the elements. That's pretty typical. But the fact that we were ahead enough to do two nights in a row, final dress, I see, very impressive. So, my kids came to one of those, they've already seen it, and they, yeah, it's so fun. I love having them around for my shows. But my eyebrows are bleached right now, and they continue to think I look really ugly. And when they saw me my alien costume, they're like, “that was pretty cool. We don't think it's so ugly anymore.” Thanks. Babies.
Sarah LaDuke: Go alien for the kids, if nothing else.
Amber Gray: And they understood the plot in this way that blew my mind. They're like, “so you're the new master now, huh?” Understood the play completely.
Sarah LaDuke: That’s good! I mean, dramaturgs ahead.
Amber Gray: Yes, yeah.
Sarah LaDuke: You are wearing all green today.
Amber Gray: I am.
Sarah LaDuke: Which I observe, especially, because so many of your cast recordings and set designs have been red. So, I almost expected you to show up in red, even though Persephone does wear green.
Amber Gray: Fascinating – I hadn’t thought about that.
Sarah LaDuke: ‘Comet,’ ‘Hades town,’ ‘Warriors’…
Amber Gray: Touché, yeah, you're right. But I weirdly wear like acid green. And a lot of my roles, and it was a joke for a while that I had have to have a little bit of acid green somewhere, like something borrowed something blue, you know, for good luck on stage. That's why they put like green little gems on my pants for ‘Here We Are.’ I just like wearing sort of a color for the day, like a monochromatic it can be clashing colors of green, but yes, today is green – for Spring.
Sarah LaDuke: Speaking of ‘Warriors,’ were you involved in, like, a workshop? Thing that happened recently? [Gray nods] Okay, yeah. Are you not allowed to talk about it?
Amber Gray: I can talk about it some. I think.
Sarah LaDuke: Okay. Basically, just, like, was it as thrilling as I would think it would be? To record the record and to get back in the room?
Amber Gray: It’s INCREDIBLE. I'm obsessed with it.
Sarah LaDuke: I'm obsessed with it, too. Speaking of green to red -- when that album came out, I said ‘Brat’ summers over, guys – it’s ‘Warriors’ fall – it didn't catch on because I don't have, like, the reach, but I thought it was rather clever.
Amber Gray: So clever, yeah, we keep workshopping it and figuring out what we need to flush out from the album, you know, with book material or song material, but really just how to perform it, like, how to do a fight sequence for 90 minutes,
Sarah LaDuke: I did wonder if they'd go movie, not stage. I'm glad stage is the route. But I think having seen ‘Tick, Tick … Boom, and then John Chu’s ‘In the Heights’ -- like a movie could, could work, of course, but also ‘The Warriors’ is movie first. [note: it was a book first]. And I'm not in charge of this. I'm just invested emotionally.
Amber Gray: Baby, I'm not in charge of it either. Yeah, I will stay on the ride for as long as I can. Hold on. Yeah,
Sarah LaDuke: Ajax is fiending for a fight.
Amber Gray: Absolutely. yes.
Sarah LaDuke: And you get to sing, ‘Sick of Running’ -- that song is, I think - except that she does want violence - I think that's a protest song for the for the times -- and that's how I sing it in my car.
Amber Gray: Wow, oh my gosh. I love that. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the version we've landed on most recently isn't as much solo stuff from me, because we do have to figure out how I fight and sing at the same time. So yes, talk about physical feats? That show is gonna - I'm gonna be whipped into shape. Yeah, I'm stoked about ‘Warriors.’ Not exactly sure when but, it’s coming, baby.
Sarah LaDuke: I think we need it. How did you become involved in that? How? Where does the where does the ask? Where does the reach come from? Like, does Lin [Manuel-Miranda] just tap you?
Amber Gray: Oh, it's so funny. So, I've only lived with two men in my life. One is my current baby daddy, and the other man is Chris Sullivan, who goes by Shockwave, who is the beatbox in Freestyle Love Supreme. And so, I've known Lin since he was quite young. And yeah, I dated Chris in my 20s, and he's one of Lin's best friends. I've known him for a long time, and then I went away to grad school in Lin sort of just knew me as Chris's girlfriend. He didn't realize I was a good actor. And actually, the first thing he saw me in was ‘Comet’ in the tent. He was like, “You're a force of nature.” I was like, Oh, thanks, Lin. But I never really thought he would call me in for anything, just because, like, funny history there. It doesn't mean anything. I just put that in my own head. But, you know, I was there for the Off Broadway opening and the Broadway opening of ‘In The Heights,’ like, I've known him a long time, and he poached Pippa from us for ‘Hamilton,’ you know. So I saw all the versions of ‘Hamilton,’ and I just known him a long time. Then he was around, because he was close with Sondheim, he saw ‘Here We Are’ a couple of times, and he just texted me and was like, I have an opportunity for you call me back sometime. And I was like, Okay. And I called, and he was like, “it's just demos. It's just demos Amber.” I was like, “okay, cool.” And we weren't supposed to know what it was. We signed NDAs, of course, but as soon as I started reading it, I was like, Is this ‘The Warriors?’ And he was like, “Wait, how did you know that?” And I'm like, “I grew up with this movie, like, I love this movie.” So it was pretty cool. But long story short, we did those demos, and basically everyone fell in love with the Broadway gals, thank God, and we got to stay, which was really cool. And we get along like a house on fire. So I'm just so, so grateful. But I initially went in thinking I was only doing demos,
Sarah LaDuke: And that was okay with you. How often do you get called in to do demos for things? Is that, like part of, part of the what makes it all up -- the fabric of the job?
Amber Gray: Yeah. Totally, yeah. I do tons of workshops, of things. I do tons of demos. Sometimes I'll just record concept albums, like, I have a lot of weird albums in the world that it's not my art. I'm just singing on them.
Sarah LaDuke: I've seen an [album for] ‘Moby Dick’ that wasn't [Dave] Malloy’s,
Amber Gray: That's right. I mean, I think they're like three ‘Moby Dick’ musicals, and that is, yeah, called ‘Kill the Whale,’ and it's so good, it's such a good album. Yeah, I do that quite a bit, and I don't ever expect them to go anywhere. I'm having very happy to just sing in a studio. So fun, you know?
Sarah LaDuke: I don't -- but I bet.
Amber Gray: It’s very fun.
