Doo wop, Broadway, The Met. Larry Marshall is a veteran musical performer whose exemplary Broadway career began in 1968 with the musical Hair. 15 Broadway productions later, Larry appeared on Broadway and in the National tour of the recent musical Waitress.

Larry's many other Broadway credits include Two Gentlemen of Verona,The Full Monty, The Color Purple, The Threepenny Opera with Sting, and Mother Courage with Meryl Streep for the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park's Delacorte Theatre.

Larry has had many turns as both performer and director with the opera Porgy and Bess. He has toured in this show nationally, internationally, in opera houses and on Broadway. Larry eventually earned Tony and Drama Desk award nominations for his portrayal of Sportin' Life in the Houston Grand Opera's production of Porgy and Bess. His film roles include playing Cab Calloway in The Cotton Club and Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Superstar.

www.larrymarshall.net

At the end as a boat that's leaving soon for New York and Oregon best hitting that B flat Atlas scholar that to me was like a highlight of me of my career and turn as a singer to think of my B flat up there with all those greats, you know, and thank God it was a glorious B flat

Hey, this is Achim Nowak, executive coach and host of the MY FOURTH ACT podcast. If life is a five act play, how will you spend your FOURTH ACT? I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected FOURTH ACTS, listen, and to be inspired. And please rate us and subscribe on whatever platform you are listening on. Let's get started. I am so very happy to welcome Larry Marshall to the MY FOURTH ACT Podcast. Larry has had and continues to have an extraordinary career as a Broadway performer with 15 Broadway productions under his belt. his Broadway debut occurred in 1968 and the iconic musical hair. Most recently, Larry was a cast member of the acclaimed musical waitress, which he performed on Broadway and also on national tour. Larry has had many turns as both performer and director with the opera Porgy and Bess. He has toured in the show nationally, internationally and on Broadway. He eventually earned Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for his portrayal of sporting life. In the Euston grand Opera's production of Porgy and Bess. Larry's other Broadway appearances include two Gentlemen of Verona, The Full Monty, the color, purple and others. And he has performed on stage with legends like Meryl Streep, and sting. And I want to talk about both of those people. Marshalls film roles include playing cap Callaway and the Cotton Club. And Simon's allottees, and Jesus Christ Superstar. It is such an honor and privilege to have this conversation with you. Hello, Larry.

Hello, how are you? I'm well,

before we talk a little bit about some of the highlights of your career but also about where you are today at this stage in your life as a very accomplished performer and talk about so what's next? What I was thinking about is when you were a young boy, your teenager growing up, did everybody say the Gosh, you got to be a singer, you have this amazing voice or did you have some other thoughts about what you wanted to do?

I didn't have that kind of those kind of accolades at all. I was joined boys, choir, Soprano, as a kid in fourth grade from there got interested in doowop. And the first inkling of that this is what I wanted to do was when I heard Frankie Lymon and the teenagers doing Oh, yes, fall in love. I bought the 4578 at the time, I would carry it with me I would go to friends houses, I would play it all the time. I mean, it was I was just fascinated by that record and that group and Frankie lime and so we started fooling around with guys in the neighborhood we would put together group we run down to the subway station where there was an echo and try to work out harmonies Wow, that and passengers are running back and forth trying to get we are or we will go in somebody's hallway and saying it was that kind of thing. Then from there, I guess when I went to a high school in Queens for a year, and that's where I met the baseball player. Roy Campanella, who used to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers,

sadly, you know, this is where the German and in grew up in this country go. I vaguely know the name, but it has no other meaning to me.

Yeah, well, he was a famous and he's a Hall of Fame catcher. He was with the Brooklyn Dodgers and of course, they moved to LA got into a car accident and was crippled. But his stepson David Campanella was in school. So we formed a group called the Dell records, asked me to join and I did and we did the Martha Ray telethon who Martha Ray was a comedian to be a member of Martha ray. So Martha right. Yeah, no, and she had the telethon before Jerry Lewis. It's so we did that. I'm curious, how does a group of guys in Queens doing do up and up on Martha ratio like,

how do you go from here to there? How did that happen?

Well, that happened. I basically we, I guess, you know, the interests were because we had somebody like the name of Campanella, right. Behind us, George cafcass, who was the baritone his mother basically, it was kind of like our manager there for a while. We, they had connections, we don't know, we just went along for the ride, basically, because we were just happy to make the music because we were all still in school. We would do these mother a telethon. And then a look like we were one of the things attractions of our group at that time was they were talking about 1959, you know, around that time, and I will group was one I think, was one of the first integrated groups. It was three blacks to whites. And it was, we had a lot of interest in this. Unfortunately, we after we did the moderate telethon, then David did the Tonight Show, interview and advertising the group. So we watched that, you know, it was just David for that because of he was capping out as his son, the next morning, my best friend who was in the group, also our algae how call me up and said, Larry, go get the newspaper, that daily news and look on the back and I go, why he's it's good. Just go do that. Now. He was basically, on the Daily News was like, advertise sports, right? So I go out, I get the paper and look on the back page. And lo and behold, there is a picture of a paddy wagon. And looking out of the bag and wagon is David guy that was our valet. And it turns out that David had broken into this store, stole cigarettes, why he did that he had a check them on him. But it was one of these things where he was kind of like very being very rebellious part of a time there was the gang wars going on. He wanted to be all that. So that kind of mess that up. So the group broke up. We put together our own group, algae, and I called the CRS, and then we started to, you know, same thing. And during those days, you used to do live auditions. Yeah, this is done about 23 Auditions for different record companies. And we had gotten this our manager Joe D'Angelo, and he was setting this up and setting this audition up. And finally we landed an audition for Giorgio Goldener. Which a was like wow, that's really big. Because John had Frankie Lymon and the teenagers. Yeah. And then we recorded for his label called Gold. This. That was a great thing. We walking down the street, all of a sudden, we heard a song playing on the radio, and it was like, Well, how

old were you at the time when that happened? Well,

when I started with a David, I was 15. When we had our own hit after own hit, but made our own record, I must have been I think I was like 19 When that?

How do you because I'm hearing Dubois, but also know that you went to the New England Conservatory of Music, which I think of like, gosh, that's like really serious, classical, different kinds of singing. How do you get from doowop and singing on the street corners and the subways? Well, to their?

Well, how that happened. Like I said, I the group, the Sierras was the name of the second group. We had, you know, girl lead who decided that she didn't want to do that. I decided I wanted to know something more about music. I did. I grew up Catholic. I grew up in a boys choir. So in high schools. The after I left queens, I went to another school called Immaculata. I grew up singing in the church. But you hear a lot of people to start by saying I grew up singing in the church. Well, the church I grew up singing, we had Gregorian chant.

Beautiful Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Also the classics Palestrina masses, bird four and 543 and four, five part masses, all of these classical background music. So that's I had a kind of a foundation in that. I left the group went to Xavier University, first in New Orleans. Now Zevia had been was a Catholic school, but they hadn't been doing opera for like 35 years. Had a collaboration at that time with the New Orleans opera company. Nice. First off For that I really ever saw I was in playing Gastone and La Traviata. Then from there, I decided I wanted to come up north. And so I applied for New England Conservatory. Got in, in fact, one of my audition pieces was singing a Gregorian chant. So that's how I got to to New England. Yeah,

I'm going to attempt the impossible right now. Because you have such an incredible career and many stories to tell. I want to just take us to different periods in your life, because I also want to talk about where you are today as a performer who was continues to be on Broadway, who's 80 years old. And that's interesting to me. But but you know, I'm fascinated your first Broadway show was fair. And I have to chuckle because we just talked about Gregorian chants, and you are doing here on Broadway. And that's such a time capsule. For me, it's the late 60s. It's hippy, it's freedom. The show was radical, because there was nudity for somebody who doesn't, hasn't seen here or doesn't know here, from your experience as a performer. Being on Broadway in here, what stands out for you most? Like what do you remember?

I must say that hair, the songs were really just so well crafted, then the idea of being caught up into this peace, love, all of that was going on. I must say, I came basically because at the same time that I was doing hair. For a lot of people, it was the lifestyle and whatnot. For me, it was a job. Yeah, you know, I'm saying because I came out of it for me for my lifetime, I would have been more of the beatnik as far as opposed of the hippie. I mean, I was into like, being like, you know, kind of laid back cool, where this was like out, just explosion. But as you

say, that level I'm thinking because I saw here as a teenager, when I lived in Berlin, Germany, before I came to this country in German language, it was a huge success. But if I remember correctly, the end is almost like this happening where the audience meets the actors. And I think it was like one big party, which doesn't happen on Broadway musical these days anymore. So what was that? Like? Especially since you're saying that you will maybe

we've seen more reclusive? Yeah, we started out? Well, it took me a while to like, get into the flow of it. Because when I first got there, I asked them, I said, Okay, where's the book? I said the book. So you know, I can follow my track, and joke, and he's Oh, you must see this as a professional gig. And I started laughing about it. I mean, you started out with in the audience and meeting people getting into the mood, and all of a sudden, the belt, the chime would happen, and everybody going slow motion. And I remember, I played a couple of roles. I started out as HUD and I did burger. I remember sitting in front of this woman and going, Hey, lady, how about a handout? And you know, the whole bit that you have to do? And well, she got so upset, she started beating me with her program, right? Well, at the end, she was the first one up on the stage. It kind of changed people. They didn't know what to expect, you know, and then add to the flow of it and getting into what we were saying intensity of the message of the wrongs that were going on, at the time, the Vietnam War, and then you got drafted three times. I mean, I know what all that was about. But it kind of really, it lifted people out, yeah, with joy. And they will get up on the stage and the stage would be jam packed. And they would just be dancing with the bat. And it was fabulous that way. But I

appreciate you taking us there. Because most people who go to a Broadway show today or a musical don't have that experience you just described because their shows are just a little different. I'm going to ask you an impossible question because you want to take us to some specific experiences. But if you had to just pick one or two moments from your very big career and say, this is a moment that I remember as like a highlight a moment where I wow, go, Wow, I can't believe I am here in this place and this moment with these people from your professional career. Are there a moment or two that stand out where you go? Wow, I can't believe I was there. And this happened.

Yeah, there's I mean, the one that comes to me right off was at the end of there's a boat that's leaving soon for New York and Porgy and Bess, hitting that B flat Atlas. Carla, I was that, to me was like a highlight of me of my career and turn as a singer to think of my B flat up there with all those greats. And thank God it was a glorious B flat.

Well, I'm happy for you and the audience that it was,

you know, this idea of playing La Scala, you know, being at the Conservatory, also playing the met the first time with the Bernstein mass. That was it that night? Well, funny. It's situation with the Bernstein mask because the, my solo was the gospel, God said, Let there be light, you know that the way was staged and how it was doing it. Bernie used to come to me all the time and say, Larry, please, it's a mess. You can't get applause at the end. I say I'm not joking. But that, to me, it stands out, there was a couple of things that stood out with me with things that I did that I just really have been really privilege to have taken part of the mass is one of them, you know, putting that together.

And wondering as you're talking, you tell that wonderful little moment with Bernstein about the applause. Audiences in a place like Les Scala and the Met dear friend from a Broadway audience, or is an audience and audience regardless of where you are,

I think basically audiences and I feel audiences and audiences. There's that appreciation. That's the same as on Broadway. Some, I mean, depends on the particular play musical that you're doing. But the applause is the same. The opera bind and Aria, if it's glorious, that people Bravo, they break out they clap, is the same thing. You know, in Broadway, I will say the difference was doing it in Japan.

How was it different,

because you're used to singing, black headband, the audience does like this. In Japan, you go boom, but at least at that time you hit it by and it'd be like crickets. And they held their applause until the very end. You know, they just observe the whole play that musical that was going on. It seemed to later to change to be more Western, went back with Xanadu that they seem to have loosened up. But it used to be very stiff, 70s and 80s and 90s and 2000s. They kind of loosened up an adult and I guess that had to do with being exposed more or maybe traveling more the younger generation, you know, having traveled and experience theater and other countries.

I just want to spot check two of your credits. And then we're going to talk about touring and your life right now. But as a German fellow who ended up in theater, you know, one of the giants in German theater is Bertolt Brecht, and you ended up doing Mother Courage, Central Park and the della Corte, which is an amazing place with Meryl Streep, who many consider one of the greatest actresses of all time. So I want to ask a really stupid question. But it's really on my mind When you do a show with somebody like Meryl Streep, who has a who's just has it's just an a great acknowledged talent. Do you act differently with somebody of that stature? Does she make you feel comfortable? Is it just another performer? What's the dynamic like when you end up working with somebody who has that? That kind of status,

I had all the respect in the world and I had maybe one scene with her grandmother courage as the farmer, but she was amazing to watch. I've watched her build her character. I watch her with her build her mannerisms. For me, it was a learning experience. Watching her. I watched her the way she would walk. I could see her trying to feel the character out in rehearsal, trying to get in the walk, the mannerisms, the way maybe she laugh and little idioms here and then it was fascinating to watch.

I am sure and I'm thinking Mother Courage is a very primal character. It's a larger than life character to see somebody like Meryl Streep figure out how, how to inhabit that part. Yeah, she would imagine how interesting that would be for you as somebody who gets to act with her.

Yeah, no, yeah, she's dig into it, she would search for it and she would just get rough like as opposed to the use to seeing her some other way. So it was quite an experience to watch and to play off of her but she was amazing.

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Well, we it was a lot we had John Dexter directing. It was a lot of work, because it John, basically he kept changing things around. So you were constantly on edge trying to figure out where this piece is going. And it was off. It was more strain on May because I had been offered my first pouring, invest at the Met. This was like 89 and I was going to do it but then I turned it down to do Threepenny Opera. That too, I thought it would be a better chance, because you're always looking for that at the Met was only nine performances. I'm looking at the possible.

That's a wonderful dilemma to have, do I do Porgy and Bess at the Met? Or do I do Threepenny Opera with Sting? I say that's not a bad problem to be in just saying,

Well, the reason why I say that Bob Murad, who's was our stage manager, who was my first stage manager, when I got into the business, we were there for I don't know, maybe about five, six, almost a week, I think about a week without a director. So I asked Bob, I said, you know, where's John? And he said, Well, he's taking the QE two across, as I said, Is he afraid of flying? There's something he's, uh, now, I said, when he looked around, make sure nobody was listening. He says, he hasn't read the script yet. And I was going, Oh, no. I didn't turn down the man got to be in this mess. He came in and he and you know, at the time, John, I guess, you know, John was really ill. He felt like he didn't know exactly what to do with this piece. It was supposed to be a first all acoustic acoustical, no, amplifications you know, this real raw. And that didn't work. And then he had the sets. He didn't like the sets, he then decided we should all be like homeless kind of people in cardboard boxes and things like and that said, he broke down the set, and it was like, he would crack it's nothing seemed to work. And everybody was a sitting around, trying to figure out what's going on. And so staying had a birthday, and we were in DC. And close down this restaurant was myself out in Epstein, staying Georgia Brown. I forgot who else was there. We were sitting with Dexter. And John said, I have come up with the perfect solution to make this work. And Georgia goes all right, Governor, what is it you know? Unfortunately, I went to sleep before writing it down and I can't remember a thing and it was like, oh, no, here. No. It was like that. And then the headline in the Washington Post. It was the roughest ever seen of a headline. It said three Penny ain't worth two cents. Ouch. That was my experience with Threepenny Opera.

Yeah. Having been a director and an actor i I can only imagine how frustrating and challenging that would have been. You get told it beautifully later.

Oh, God, it was just amazing. It was amazing. And the other thing that you know, you would think, Kurt vile Foundation, they wouldn't let us I guess they didn't like stings voice or whatever. They wouldn't let us do a cast album, which pops probably would have sold which probably would have brought interest to the piece itself. Yeah. It was a lot of problems. Thank God the Met call me back for the next year.

Since you just talked about being on the road in no part of your or courier has been doing tours. Sometimes it means breaking in a new show, but you've done national tours. I imagine for me putting myself in your shoes. I think being on the road is really, really hard. And you're gonna be a road for a long time. But I don't want to project that onto you. What's it like for you to be on the road, especially for months on end? Yeah, I

think the reason I did it was it was fun in the beginning, you know, you're going places, you're seeing towns, seeing cities, you know, that you've been through, and you're you're being appreciated, you know, in particular shows that you're doing. I just when waitress came along, I auditioned. They had a 14, not a 14 week tour, and a 14 month tour. Wow. I said, Well, maybe this is one of the last chances I get to see America. I wanted to see how it changed. I signed up for it. What happened was first, they had me do New York, because they again, the original guy was leaving. So I did it for like three months on New York, and then I went out on the road, it was rough. I think what makes the road work for you is that if you have projects that you have, that you can work on in your downtime, because it's just so much of a city, you can see,

you have been in a over three decade relationship with a wonderful woman, performer, gifted singer. In many ways, Ginny Notice, also has done some international touring, but you live in together in Step nine. So for people who are not in show business, who are listening to us, like how do you make your relationship work, when your spouse is also a really exceptional performer? You both take off for long periods of time, like how does that work out?

Well, first, we stay in constant contact with one another, we will talk in the morning at nighttime, we will talk again. Thank God, there's a thing called Zoom now. So that's basic. And you know, we understand what each other what our skills are and what we do. So you have to give room for people to be who they are, and do what they do best. And that I've been fortunate to have someone like that in my corner, who understands that it can be hard. And then she comes out in time. We'll try to do a couple of days here and there because she has her own responsibilities. Because a lot of times as you know, she's an educator will be running a program in the school system. She's also a musical director for St. Mark's Church. So she has that it's rough, but we work it out because we want to

now you mentioned several times now a conversation about auditioning and auditioning is part of an performers life. It was very funny when you and I had breakfast a few weeks in New York and you had just auditioned for a show and that I just realized and hope to kiss a U turn to 80 this year. You have an incredible longevity and you are continuing to work which is stunning. What's your relationship to going on auditions? Because you've been going auditions for what? 60 years? 70 years? Yeah, like a long time, right?

Yeah, and I still get nervous. I, you know, everybody wants to be accepted. But you realize that there are some roles that you got, you know, your agents, they'll send you out for this. And that was a long time ago, when I first started out. I had an agent with a Heseltine and Baker, who would read the scripts first and see if it's something that they felt was good. But that seems to change. You know, now it's like people just send you out, send you out, send you out. And you look at it. And you have to like I've gotten them to the point whereby they will say, well, let's see if you like this, if you want to go up for this, as opposed to the other way around. But yeah, you go out and you audition and you try to do your best. I'm constantly nervous about it, because I try to a lot of people audition with the script and read but I tried to go in have everything memorized, that I can be free to do what I'm wondering,

again, this is I'm channeling my former theater director. So when Larry Marshall walks in somewhere to audition, when people know, he's saying at the Met, he's saying Allah Scala, he has done Sporting Life got a Tony nomination, do you so they know you have this truly impressive career behind you? Do you feel like people treat you differently? Do you feel like it matters? Do people acknowledge your past or it's irrelevant?

They don't give me any special deals. You know what I'm saying? They will backfill and it also depends on who you're auditioning for. There's a new crop of people will look at something and it's just on the page. There. other people who have I've auditioned for who have seen me. So that's a different thing altogether. But most of the time is very respectful. And they acknowledge that I have a track record.

I'm curious, as you look to your next decade, and you have to think about, these are some things I look forward to, these are things I like to continue to do. These are things I like to do more of in my life or less of, like, do you think about the future that way? Maybe you don't,

I think when we were talking, you know, put together project on Bert William, who was a black face comedian. And, of course, the black face is something that we are very against it in terms of what it represents. I going through his life, and realizing that there's more to him than that black face. That was just something that for the times that he was in, that he had to do in order to work or work at a level that was afforded him. There was in his songs, there were some things that were just so kind of true about human nature, I just and put in a very funny way. And with comedic style, I started listening to a number of his songs and got very interested and said, I would really like to do these songs of his, bring them forward that and you know, to appreciate who he was not to bring these back and make them hits or whatever, that kind of stuff. But to let folks know that this was a man who opened so many doors for us, in the later generations to be able to develop our craft and go forward. He really was at the top of so many things. He was the first in a full length musical on Broadway, and starred in that in 1903. He started delving into recordings early in 1896. He was like really the first black recording artists. He was like the first that was, you know, was popular they with Columbia Records, he started out with RCA Records. And with Victor records, he they kept his catalogue around long after he died. He recorded over 100 songs, you also wrote, he was also the first black performer star to be presented in a film in 1914. It's so many things. He was the first black artists and I'm trying to think what else but he was the first black artists to headline at the Ziegfeld Follies. And of course, and they were like restrictions there. He there was sort of understood that he was to not ever appear on the stage with a female performer at any time, and that he was to stay in his dressing room, it was time for his appearance, and that he was not to take any southern tours for fear of causing a riot from seeing a mixed cast. I mean, there was a lot of stuff that he had to go through.

As I'm listening to you to tell the story I first of all, I feel your passion for this project, which is palpable. But I'm also thinking, wow, that's what an amazing historical introduction you offer to someone that people don't really know about. Who do you perform this for? Who's your audience for this?

I'm going to be doing it for a theater group called Out of the Box Theater. In February. I'm supposed to go and do it in California, outside of San Diego with a group that presents performers and it's supposed to be, I think, a collaboration with the San Diego State University. And what I like to do, I would like to take this around to colleges. I'd like to educate and especially black colleges, because I think this is a person that we need to know in terms of history.

If you look back and let's say if you were to give younger Larry some advice about life based on what you have learned, and this is not to change anything or rewrite the journey of life but just based on what you know now, Larry is you could whisper in younger Larry's here, what do you say?

Well, as far as I would say, I wish I had studied more. I think I was frivolous in a lot of ways. With my time I went to the New England Conservatory of Music and study. I looking back I probably should have gone to the Boston Conservatory of Music because they're, they have a theater department. They have dance there, and I never took any dancing essence I just picked up everything I could, I would have spent more time on the keyboard really learning how to play rather than just tinkling around. I mean, there are things whereby I just really needed to be have been more serious. I was always looking for the performer as opposed to having the substance there. I've never took any really any kind of like heavy duty acting lessons and getting into because I came out of the Conservatory, which and next thing you know, I'm just going and I'm getting jobs at that time. I just, that's what I would say yeah, which study more I would be more focused.

That's such a wonderful wisdom. Before we say goodbye. I would imagine there are listeners who are thinking, wow, I Where can I find some of Larry's music? Where has he recorded? What albums Is he on? What past albums might you be on? Where can people find your singing?

Okay, well, I'm on the Houston Grand Opera. Porgy and Bess, also on Play on, which was a Broadway show that was taking using Duke Ellington's music. That was a 9097. I would say, those are the two things those are

two really good places to start. Thank you so much for what they're really the gift of this conversation, and I just celebrate you and the really extraordinary life you have had and are continuing to have. So this was a pleasure. Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much.

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