“Diva-Monic” Files #1
There’s a little horror in everything. Hell, there’s even some scariness on the Broadway stage (witness the recent Young Frankenstein and The Addams Family) and in Disney films (who didn’t have a classmate who fled from the room during Snow White’s clutching and violent forest ordeal?). Considering this then – actress, cabaret star and director Sharon McNight is the perfect, venomous subject for this first edition of the “Diva-Monic” files.
Sharon McNight: Silk Stalking with Ursula’s Legendary Portrayer. By Brian Kirst
www.sharonmcnight.com
“I don’t think I’ve ever played a totally evil character. They all have some kind of humanity or humor to them,” states the husky voiced, completely eclectic Sharon McNight.
Still the generous and commanding McNight has found herself playing some compelling, noticeable villainesses on the stage and in the recording studio. In fact, as Diva, Queen of Inner Space in the Broadway production “Starmites”, McNight even found herself nominated for a Tony Award in 1989.
“I ran Inner Space in this comic book universe and was feared by all Starmites! For eight shows a week I danced in high heel boots on a razed stage. My knees hurt for weeks after the show closed.” While that seems like enough to cause a temporary case of grumpiness, the rewards McNight received from Starmites were many, though. Besides her Tony nomination, “Al Hirschfield (famed celebrity caricaturist) did a drawing of me. I got to meet Mayor Koch.” She did discover, though, “I found the other actors didn’t know show business. They showed up and did their jobs, but I had been providing my own stuff, doing my own booking for years before that. It’s how I made my living! Just after our opening one of the actors asked me, after our 6 month contract ends are you going to extend? I was like we have to get people’s butts in the seats before we can even think about that, honey! I found them a bit immature, I guess.”
On a purely exterior level, though, McNight did find co-star Rob Estes from the syndicated sex n sun wonder Silk Stalkings, “Just cute, cute, cute! My main memory is of how cute he was. Every time they called me in, though, it seemed I was doing something else. So, I’d have to quickly drive into San Diego and get it done. It was fun to shoot in San Diego with the sun shining – although I couldn’t reach the alarm in the car I had to drive. It was way under the dash, so someone had to sit underneath and blow it for me. “
No one had to help McNight reach the high notes for her role of the iconic Ursula on a concert style recording of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”, though. “It was a great honor to do that role. My voice is lower than some women’s and I have always loved the ‘characters’ and the women who played them – Kaye Ballard, Eve Arden, Ann Southern, Betty Hutton – and Pat Carroll (the original Ursula). I did meet Pat Carroll. She was 82 and had done the role twenty years previously. We had dinner and I played her both of (the Ursula) songs I had done. She was sweet and kind – just the best.”
As for the recording process, itself, “I looked at every phrase and asked myself how can I make this funny – can I make this scarier, more colorful? How can I make this have energy, color and passion?” Unsatisfied with the ending of Ursula’s signature song, McNight asked to do it again – with the final result bringing critical raves and a signature take on the tune. “The ending of the song just wasn’t dynamic enough. So, I said let me see if this works – and I held the note forever. That ending’s only in my version.”
Thankfully, there is no ending to the versatile McNight’s career, though. Battling the very real horrors of AIDS, McNight often takes part in musical benefits for the cause. This is something that utilizes all of McNight’s powers as a producer, director, performer and writer. “They tell me – Sharon, you’re kind of gruff. We need that. We don’t have time to mess around.”
Interestingly, the intuitive McNight has been messing around with the formal structures of entertainment practices almost from the beginning, though. While most cabaret acts follow a similar structure of show tunes and standards McNight “started singing country with my first night club act. I’ve been yodeling since I was a kid. My uncle was a salesperson for a radio station, so I grew up surrounded by country musicians. I love Roy Rogers. Country music is beautifully simple. It’s simple themes – not a lot of complications.” Although – “I did have to teach a classical pianist how to play country. It’s a different situation – a lot of fills.”
Which, in the end, sounds a lot like McNight herself – wonderfully different, filling the world with gruffly passionate and truly funny (and okay, okay – occasionally scary) entertainment.
