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[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi, everyone. I am Martín Acuña, and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:16] Martín Acuña: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today's guest is the amazing and incredible Tonya Pinkins. She is a Tony Award actor and singer who has starred in nine Broadway shows, including the original Caroline or Change. In addition to being an actress and an author, Tonya is also a playwright, a director, and an educator. You may also have seen her or heard her on the Chicago Strangler, on Discovery, Scandal, Gotham, Madam Secretary, and All My Children. Tonya, I am honored to have you here. Thank you so much for being on Backstage Talk.

[1:03] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you so much for having me.

[1:05] Martín Acuña: I am truly honored. So I just went through your bio very quickly, but tell us one random fact and something on your bio that you think it's worth mentioning.

[1:20] Tonya Pinkins: I don't think it's on my bio. I've been to 61 countries.

[1:26] Martín Acuña: I love it. I love it. That's quite a lot. I absolutely love it. So, Tonya, tell us a little bit about your upbringing in theater and how you ended in this wonderful industry.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: I'm from Chicago, and I think my mom used to take me to etiquette classes when I was about three or four. And then when I was maybe eight or nine, she took me down to some theater classes downtown Chicago. And then she would put me in the modeling classes, you know, at Sears, Roebuck. And in elementary school, we had a teacher there who would put on the, you know, the Broadway musicals and rent the costumes so we kids could, you know, wear the really great costumes and stuff like that. And that's my beginning. And then I started working, doing commercials and modeling and industrial films and did my first professional play when I was 16 years old at the Goodman Theater. And then my first Broadway show when I was 19 years old with Hal Prince and Steve Sondheim, Merrily We Roll Along.

[2:37] Martín Acuña: That is incredible. And what a great way to do a debut on Broadway. I mean, with the biggest of all, right? How was that experience like?

[2:53] Tonya Pinkins: It was a really good training for all of the ups and downs of show business because everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And surviving that with the best of the best, it was like, oh, okay. It's good. It's bad. It's up. It's down. And that's what it is.

[3:14] Martín Acuña: Yeah. Such is life. A roller coaster, right? A Merrily roller coaster.

[3:19] Tonya Pinkins: Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. But let's go back a little bit. Which was your aha moment between etiquette classes, modeling, acting classes, all the way to you starting professionally in the industry?

[3:33] Tonya Pinkins: Gosh, I feel like I have aha moments all the time.

[3:38] Martín Acuña: I love it.

[3:42] Tonya Pinkins: I've been living down in Panama and I think I've been having lots of ahas there, like just realizing how colonized my mind is and really trying to peel back the layers of the onions and always remember that whatever I think, it's so small in the scheme of all there is to know and to always be willing to let go of what I think I know because I don't know anything.

[4:16] Martín Acuña: I love it. And as a performer, it's a constant process of deconstructing what we think we know about acting whenever you start a new role or whenever you change a cast, whenever you start with a new director. I feel like every night for me is a new performance. It's a new day. It's a new audience. It's a new weather. I'm not the same person. And I just had the privilege of doing Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. And I think I could do that show for years and not know everything that she was doing in that play. There are still moments where like, you know, I feel like there should be a laugh there. And I tried 49 different ways in the 49 performances, never got it, you know, so there's just more to work on.

[5:03] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I love it. I love it. You have a vast experience under your belt, right? You've done a lot of theater. You've been on Broadway several times, but why musicals and why Broadway?

[5:16] Tonya Pinkins: Well, Broadway is the pinnacle of musicals other than the West End in London. I've never played the West End yet, may never get to. I think, you know, when you're growing up and the shows that come on TV, which is how everybody learns about everything, it's Broadway. And so I would see the Tony Awards and dream of getting to be there and win one and stuff like that.

[5:45] Martín Acuña: I love it. I absolutely love it. And I love that you keep dreaming on always pushing yourself a little bit forward, a little bit higher to the next step. I just really love that. So how would you summarize all your journey in the industry? You just mentioned that you constantly have aha moments and new discoveries about who you are, not only as a person, but also as a performer, as a professional. So how would you summarize all of it?

[6:17] Tonya Pinkins: I don't know if there's really a way to summarize it, but I'm curious and creative, you know, curious and creative. I made my first feature film that came out last December, Red Bill. I turned that into a game. I feel like everything I do is just about being creative and allowing the sort of divine force that animates everything to express in, through, and as me. So I'm always looking for how to express more of that fully.

[6:52] Martín Acuña: Love it. Let's double click on your feature film on Red Bill. You, you've been on stage, you've been on camera several times on TV, on other films, but you've also directed, you've also written. How has it, how has it been the experience of changing the hats between one thing and the other?

[7:10] Tonya Pinkins: Well, making the movie was super empowering. I like being the boss.

[7:16] Martín Acuña: You are, let me tell you, you are a boss.

[7:25] Tonya Pinkins: I like being the boss and just giving me that, you know, bird's eye view where you see all of the things. And so I think that coming back from that, having to manage every single detail, I bring that to my work as an actor too. Seeing all the details and just yeah. And just feeling aware of what we do as artists should be praised and celebrated. And so often artists are treated as if they're disposable.

[8:03] Martín Acuña: Yes. Yes. And I think that, that was personally what hit closest to home when COVID hit back in March, 2020, when, when at the distance all the way here in Columbia, I was just seeing images of Broadway being closed. Something that I never ever would have imagined of a lot of TV and film studios stopping their productions because everyone had to be home. So yes, artists usually are treated as disposable. And all of those artists who made things for you to be able to watch when you weren't home, people started making things in their own homes and stuff.

[8:51] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Yes. Yes. So, so yeah, it's been like a wild, wild journey of reckoning and knowing that art is so very much needed for anything to move forward. Right. Because we see society as a whole is always looking for the next way to express itself. And it's usually through art first and then the rest comes by. So yeah, I agree with you on that. I absolutely agree.

[9:25] Martín Acuña: Tanya, what piece of advice would you give those youngsters or maybe not that youngsters anymore that want to be in the industry that want to enter this industry?

[9:39] Tonya Pinkins: I would say, become the help that you think you need.

[9:48] Martín Acuña: That's what I'm trying to do right now.

[9:50] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Rub that mic.

[9:52] Martín Acuña: Become the help that you think you need.

[9:55] Tonya Pinkins: Yes. Yeah. What a beautiful, beautiful piece of advice because we all need, for me, it's always been all the ships rise with the tide. And lately for me, I've been valuing so much when someone speaks my name when I am not in the room. That is the kind of people that I want around and I want to work with. So absolutely. I loved that. I love that. Tanya, before we close, which are your top five favorite musical theater shows?

[10:31] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I picked six because I'm in one of the five. So I'm going to give you six.

[10:36] Martín Acuña: I love it. Go ahead.

[10:38] Tonya Pinkins: So Sweeney Todd.

[10:40] Martín Acuña: Yeah.

[10:40] Tonya Pinkins: Evita, Carolina Change, Falsetto Land, City of Angels, and The Band's Visit.

[10:50] Martín Acuña: The Band's Visit. Yes. Yes. I love those six. My last question for you, you, as I've said before, your journey is amazing. And I know that what you have in front of you will be even better. How would you define the Broadway community?

[11:16] Tonya Pinkins: I hope right now Broadway is going through its own reckoning and a transition to make it. Something needs to change. It's been known as the Great White Way for a long time, and that needs to change. I think some good options would be for Broadway to be in all five boroughs so that there were Broadway eligible theaters in Queens and Bronx and Brooklyn. But the Broadway community of artists is very generous, always giving of their time to raise money to help those in need. So a really, really generous community.

[11:52] Martín Acuña: I love it. Tanya, from the bottom of my heart, all the way here from Columbia, I'm sending you hugs. Thank you so much for being here. It is an honor to have you.

[12:07] Martín Acuña: Thanks, everyone, for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.