I like to tell people that I went to school with Randy Graff and it's true, although we only overlapped for one year at Wagner College on Staten Island, and we never actually had a class together.
Randy is one of the most successful alums of Wagner's theater department. Among her many credits, she played Fantine in the original Broadway production of Les Misérables and won a Tony Award for her performance as the long-suffering secretary Miss Oolie in City of Angels.
She has spent the past few years in L.A. with her husband, Tim Weil, best known as musical director of Rent and currently working on Shrek the Musical. But now Randy's back in her hometown of NYC, playing the role of grasswidow Meg Boyd in the City Center Encores! "Summer Stars" production of Damn Yankees. I caught up with Randy after a recent rehearsal.
MICHAEL PORTANTIERE: Welcome home! Do you and Tim still officially live in L.A.?
RANDY GRAFF: No, we've moved back. We went out there almost two-and-a-half years ago; we just wanted to see what life and work would be like there. Then Tim got Shrek, so we came back. But I wanted to come back anyway. I like the weather and the easy lifestyle in L.A, but it's a very tough town to be unemployed in, because you don't feel connected to any community. What I really missed was the theater community in New York. So we moved back in April.
MP: What did you do while you were in L.A.?
GRAFF: I did some television. I had a recurring role on a show with Jennifer Westfeldt, called "Notes from the Underbelly," and then the strike happened. I went to L.A. at not such a great time. I did a little concert work, and we did a production of Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens as part of the Reprise! Monday night series, with Liz Callaway and Malcolm Gets. But it's good to be home. Damn Yankees sort of fell in my lap, like a gift.
MP: I don't know if you're aware of this, but Shannon Bolin, who played Meg in the original production in 1955, is still around.
GRAFF: I know! She lives in [musical director] Rob Berman's building. She's 91. I hope I get to meet her.
MP: Lola and the Devil are the showiest roles in Damn Yankees, but the emotional underpinning of the show is the relationship between Joe and Meg Boyd.
GRAFF: It's a different type of part for me. Some people assumed I was playing Gloria, the wise-cracking reporter dame. That's how I'm usually cast. But Meg is a wonderful role, and it's challenging to find out what makes her tick. I don't see her as a victim at all; I think she's very strong. She has a quiet confidence in her marriage. In the book that the show is based on, "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant," the letter that Joe writes to Meg when he leaves [to go and play for the Washington Senators] is very fleshed out. He says, "This is not about another woman. I love you, I'm coming back to you and when I come back, we're probably going to be rich." She's assured that he hasn't left her for good, and that really gives me something to play.
MP: You've got a terrific cast.
GRAFF: Yeah, it's a good company. And it's fun that P.J. Benjamin is playing my husband, because we did our first Broadway show together: Sarava. Some of the kids in this show are so young, they don't know anything about Sarava. I had to tell them how it was the joke of the industry and how I had to take it off my resume. But I still have that theme song stuck in my head!
MP: Did you watch the Tony Awards on TV this year?
GRAFF: Yes. I thought Whoopi Goldberg was really funny, and I thought Lin-Manuel Miranda was the star of the evening. He was so authentic up there, and he's a true genius.
MP: What are your memories of your Tony win?
GRAFF: I remember getting locked out of the theater and not being able to get back in. We were at the Lunt-Fontanne. I went offstage after I won the award and did the press junket next door in that restaurant. Then I went and knocked on the stage door, but they wouldn't let me back in. I literally said, "No, I'm Randy Graff, I just won a Tony! You have to let me in!"
MP: Damn Yankees is perennially popular. What do you think it is about the show that people love so much?
GRAFF: Its heart. I think 1955 was an incredibly happy time, because it was the year the Dodgers beat the Yankees. My father talks about that all the time. In the show, the Washington Senators are exactly like the Brooklyn Dodgers, with all those die-hard fans. That team had so much personality and so much heart, but they kept losing. They really wanted to beat the Yankees and they finally did. This musical came out right after that, and the audience went nuts. We're trying to capture all that heart.
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