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[0:10] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the round table with me, Robert Bannon. Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. Thank you for listening to us on the Broadway Podcast Network or watching us on our virtual talk show. You know, we've had the privilege of having a lot of really amazing artists on the show. And um, the opportunity to start talk to our next guest is such an honor. Not only does she have two Tony Awards, not only is she nominated for a Grammy coming up this Sunday, which is gonna be a moment, but if you haven't seen Kimberly Akimbo, if I start to sing it, I'll just start crying. Victoria Clark, I'm gonna cry. I just started, I start, I like the way you see the world. I like your point of, and I'm just bowling, bowling. Victoria Clark is here.

[0:55] Victoria Clark: Hi, hi Robert. It's so good to see you. Thanks for having me on.

[1:00] Robert Bannon: Oh, are you kidding? We uh yes, please. I would love I I can just I would just sit in your in the in and watch you food shop, clean your apartment. I just I'm fascinated with your art and artistry. You are so wonderful, and we are so grateful to have you here.

[1:16] Victoria Clark: Thank you. It's cool to be here. I appreciate it. I last time I saw you, I saw you out and about at Broadway Barks, which is a cause near and dear to your heart. And we talked about the puppies. And since that moment, you have had quite a run. Kimberly is running, and people can get their tickets till April, and you have a Grammy nomination.

[1:38] Victoria Clark: I do. I just feel so blessed. Um, yeah, so Kimberly's had this incredible run. We won the most awards of any show last season. Um, there were incredible nominees for Broadway soundtrack for the Grammy, and we're the only show that's still running that's nominated. And as you know, like we have a small company, we're only nine of us, right? And so my my we're nominated as a you know, as the album, but I'm also nominated as a soloist. But I represent all the soloists on the album because this year only four people were eligible per album to be nominated, and that seems I mean, sorry, Grammy Awards, but that seems so arbitrary, right? Because um, I think it should depend on the show. And we have five um incredible actors, Bonnie Milligan, who was also nominated, Justin Cooley.

Oh, sorry, she nominated and won for best supporting actress. Yes. Justin Cooley was nominated for a Tony Award. Um, let's see, uh, you know, Steve Boyer and Allie Mozzie. So all five of us do uh quite a bit of solo singing on the album, plus the additional four actress um who play the teenagers. So um, you know, we uh I'm proud to nominate this incredible group of people.

[3:01] Robert Bannon: Well, the album is streaming everywhere, so you can listen to the album. You can also get your tickets through April to see Kimberly KimballTemusical.com. So grab your tickets to come on down. As a Jersey boy myself, the show is so funny. The jokes about New Jersey are so funny. If you're in New Jersey and you haven't seen it, you need to see it. But if you're anywhere, it's a universal story, and it must be amazing when you leave the stage door, get letters, or people come up to you how much the show means to people.

[3:29] Victoria Clark: You know, thank you for saying that. First of all, it it has a wide appeal for sure, and it the show is so full of humanity and humor, and literally life and death. Yes, so there's something for everybody. You know, and it's about family and and you so um our existence and and how we're all so deeply flawed, but but deeply, deeply in search of meaning and um relationships that can heal us and can support us. And so um it's you know what drew me to the show was the humor. I I've never I rarely read a script that makes me laugh out loud, but this one did. And I'm so delighted that we're still running and we're running till April 28th. And the audiences, yes, they the people after the show, uh sometimes they make me cry because they're crying, and it's it's just great to have a a piece of theater, a piece of art remind us what's important about life and what's important about um being alive because we it's so easy to get sidetracked right in our lives, and we and we start to prioritize things that really don't matter at the end of the day, they don't, and this show reminds us to um really stay grounded as much as possible and um you know keep loving, basically.

[5:01] Robert Bannon: That's that's what I get out of it. And that's what we all get out of it, and the music is amazing, and this cast, like you said, we're being I'm beating this horse dead as a doornail, but this cast from this cast, all of you all as an ensemble and as the collective cast, being able to have spoken to them all. Allie, there is not a more beautiful song on Broadway right now than her singing Father Time. I will weep, weep, it is just a good idea.

[5:28] Victoria Clark: I know. She sounds she sounds amazing. Here's the thing about oh, can you go back to the picture of the teens? Is it possible? I want to say their names because they are so starting from the left. That's Michael Iskander. They're this is in the second act, and we're all playing an Uno game. So that's Michael on the floor. Next to him is Justin. Um that's me and the long hair. And then next to me on my left is Nina White, and then Fresnel Hogan and then Olivia Hardy. And um these five kids are so incredible. They're still in their 20s. Justin's barely 20. And um it's true that Steven and Allie and Bonnie are just they're like the Theater Olympics, in my opinion. It's like watching athletes in their prime. Um, but in addition, these five youngsters have really um made me fall in love with theater all over again.

[6:23] Robert Bannon: Well, I have to Justin Um is one of the most brilliant performances. It is a new one, it's not an easy role that he plays. It's he's quirky, it is it's very particular, and he just gives such heart and such such soul to this character, and you believe every word that he says. It you all are a tour de course on that.

[6:44] Victoria Clark: I agree, I agree. I love them all so much. Well, do you mind and and forget Bonnie? She's the funniest thing going, but oh, she's a rock, and she is so she is so supportive. I mean, I feel like um she is the wind beneath my wings. Yes, literally. Like the wind power of her voice, but just being on stage with her is with everyone, really is is such a delight. And um, I feel so blessed. I'll be I'll be very sad when this is over.

[7:16] Robert Bannon: Oh, I'm well, the rumor is the rumor is that maybe Victoria Clark is gonna hit the road and do a couple of dates and sing with some some fancy orchestras or Philharmonics, and there's there's lots more music left to be had by you.

[7:30] Victoria Clark: There are some really fun dates coming up with the Boston Pops, both in Boston and at Tanglewood. So I'll be posting about that when the time comes.

[7:39] Robert Bannon: So follow Victoria on Instagram, go to Victoria J. Clark so you could stay up to date on all the work to come. Do you want to go down a little memory lane trip with me? Do you mind?

[7:46] Victoria Clark: Yeah, let's do it.

[7:49] Robert Bannon: Well, one of the second show I ever saw in my life, I got tickets for my 12th birthday from my parents to see how to succeed in business without really trying. I remember it at the Marriott Marquee and was enamored by the musical theater world of it all. Do you go when you go back and think about you know Sunday in the park with George being an understudy and and and you're and then going on guys and dolls and how to succeed? What are you is it a blur? Do you have specific memories from each moment?

[8:17] Victoria Clark: Do you absolutely? Oh yeah. When I moved, you know, Sunday in the park was my first Broadway job, and I was covering three women, and I didn't bring anything to the theater. I was so green, you know, it was my second equity job. I I didn't know, like I sort of got my um equity card by accident um on a theater for young audiences contract because I um didn't intend to be an actor, so I wasn't really looking for it. And so when I got to the theater, you know, I I didn't even bring a box of Kleenex. I was just kind of sitting there. I had been told by the other understudies you're never going on, and so I was like, okay, I'm never going on, you know. So I uh I sat at my spot in my dressing room on the fourth floor, and that's now the room that Nina and Olivia share.

So that's very moving for me that they're up there in my room, uh, what used to be my room. And um, yeah, I didn't have Kleenex. I didn't someone finally just said to me, Don't you at least want to bring like a photograph of someone that's important to you? I guess nothing on my spot. I didn't even have makeup. Um, and I never did go on, but I did get to rehearse on that stage, and um this is now not a secret, uh, because I'm telling you, uh, but every night I look up at the spot in the balcony, which was my favorite place to watch the show, and I see myself as that 25-year-old, 24, 25 year old, and we have a little moment where I connect with her and I I just say, Hey, if you could have fast forward 40 years, here you are, you know. So it's kind of moving to be back in that space.

[9:59] Robert Bannon: Wow, wow, that is that is to be in touch with that person. Well, you you brought it up, your journey to acting was was is some somewhat unique. You're from Dallas, and you go to Yale and roll to NYU, but you go for your master's in fine arts with directing and stage directing kind of as the forefront.

[10:20] Victoria Clark: With um with writing and sort of dramaturgy and new musical work as a focus.

[10:27] Robert Bannon: Yeah, that was my focus. So how did that transition happened. How did this equity card to to Broadway kind of journey happen?

[10:35] Victoria Clark: Well, um, I think it's kind of a it's a very strange but funny story. I think um no one, none of the none of the writers wanted to present their own material and they knew that I love to sing and act and just be silly and you know kind of fart around a lot. So um they they gave they would always give my scripts to to hear the material out loud and the casting people who would then cast equity actors in workshops of this now this is a very prestigious program. It's NYU's musical theater graduate musical theater writing program. So we're talking Winnie Holzman, George C. Wolf, you know, Robert Robert Friedman and Steve Ludvack, God bless him. He just passed away earlier this year. But um you know these are the people asking asking me to read their material and I was like sure you know so the casting folks saw me do many many different kinds of things and they um one one day one of them pulled me aside and said um gee I don't know if you're thinking about this but you've you've got the soul of an actor and you have um you could be an actor right now you can make a living as an actor and I I remember I just laughed at him I was like oh I'm not gonna do that that's for like you know like actors um but I think that's really that's what um that's I think that's what in a weird way that was my way in because I wasn't self-conscious about it and I didn't really think I was good enough and I didn't want it. I just kind of thought I think deep deep down there's a little girl in me that that always wanted it, but I had dismissed it, right?

[12:22] Victoria Clark: And so I don't take any second on stage for granted because I realize it was an unusual way for me to get in, but I'm so grateful to be able to share these stories and to channel them through my voice and my body.

[12:39] Robert Bannon: Well, can we just say as an audience of people who have enjoyed you since I saw you at 12 years old in How to Succeed in Business that we're grateful and we thank you because we know it's a lot, a lot of nights, a lot of times away from your family, a lot of rehearsals, and you sacrificed that so that we can enjoy your art. So thank you.

[12:57] Victoria Clark: Um, it is our truly speaking of shows that I saw as a kid, there's Titanic.

[13:02] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[13:04] Victoria Clark: That was a big monster of a show, and I remember being a kid when that comes down from the ceiling, the lookout comes floored. Like this is the generations of people who look at your shows that I remember being a child and being so moved by this work. Um, it's funny because now, you know, so that gets revived at Encores this year, which is so exciting. And full circle, Bonnie Milligan is playing Alice Bean, which is the part I originated. So I'll be there opening night for sure.

[13:35] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[13:36] Victoria Clark: We talked to Marty, and you know what's funny is that it was ahead of its time in the way that the production was and in the score, and it came out before the movie.

[13:43] Robert Bannon: You guys were on the Titanic wave before it all became a well, you know how ideas are just in the zeitgeist.

[13:51] Victoria Clark: Yes.

[13:52] Robert Bannon: And uh, writers encounter this all the time. They'll say they're working on such and such a project, and then someone else will come out with the same exact play, or the themes are exactly the same.

[14:04] Victoria Clark: And so this happened, yeah. Cameron was working on the movie, and we won Best Musical that year, and it won Best Film. So it was kind of the year of the giant singing ship.

[14:17] Robert Bannon: Yes.

[14:17] Victoria Clark: Well, we could go on forever. I mean, we have a little Sister Act moment, we have a Cinderella moment, which this costume is to die for. We have a Gigi moment. And then, of course, we would be remiss to not talk about, you know, Light in the Piazza. Um, when we come to see you do a symphony date, what is your set list? You have a solo album that came out a few years ago. I'm sure you have other songs that you love to sing that maybe you've never performed. What is an evening with Miss Victoria Clark like?

[14:47] Victoria Clark: Well, um, the cabaret shows are gonna be slightly different than the orchestra dates, right? Um, because in the cabaret shows, I do a lot of storytelling, and it's quite silly. There will be audience participation, and maybe even in the big orchestra concerts. I love pulling people up from the audience and involving them. Um, I'll definitely be singing at least one song from Piazza, if possible. And um, I did a solo album with Maury Yeston last year called December Songs, which were all orchestrated by Larry Hockman, and they're incredible orchestrations. So I will be doing at least a handful of those on these big orchestra dates, and um, you know, some other songs from my career and some beautiful arrangements of standards and things, um, and maybe a few surprises, definitely.

[15:41] Robert Bannon: Well, we're yes, we're so excited. Well, I the Blessing Ring is was something you worked on that's an autobiographical show. Is that something that you still wouldn't?

[15:52] Victoria Clark: Yes, but it has to do with how the voice surprises us, the singing and speaking voice, how it surprises us as we age and as we gain more life experience. And so um, it's probably gonna be one of those shows I never really finish, but I'd like to get some version of it together in time to, you know, be able to just try it out in a couple of places. So that should be coming along in the next year or so.

[16:18] Robert Bannon: We're here for it. I'm here for all of it. Sign me up. Where do I sign up? Take my credit card right now. Um, what you also uh television and film, someone who just didn't aspire to be an actor and then now have television and film credits. Did you are you also accredited or uncredited? I don't know, that voice in Disney cartoons. Like, are you really on Hunchback? Are you really in...

[16:36] Victoria Clark: Well, you know, there was a time, uh gosh, 20, 30 years ago, I can't remember now, 25 years ago, where um all of those big choral numbers in the Disney animated films were recorded here in New York. And there were about 16 of us who would then double and then triple the tracks. We would sing it, and so those big, so like, um, God bless, God bless it, God bless the outcast.

[17:04] Robert Bannon: Yes, yes.

[17:05] Victoria Clark: So there I'm singing on that. I'm one of the crazy voices that pops out of a window in, uh, uh, one jump ahead of the breadline, and then for the next few Disney movies, they moved that choral singing somewhere else, I think probably LA. Um, but I was very lucky to sing on some of those animated films, and yeah, that was fun.

[17:26] Robert Bannon: That is fun. We tried to dig that little tidbit up and see that because that's fascinating to be...

[17:33] Victoria Clark: I can't even tell you. My son asked me once, which voice are you? And I can't even tell you now, it was so long ago, but I should have written it down somewhere. Um, TV and film, uh, how is that compared to stage when you're almost famous and Homeland and Good Wife and Pose and Blacklist, all the shows that you've done? What is it like to be on a set versus a stage?

[17:56] Victoria Clark: Fantastic. It's so great. Um, it is a completely different kind of workday. Um, instead of telling the whole story chronologically every single night, you're only telling one piece of the story. So there has to be obviously a lot of work that goes into prepping so that when you come to the set that day, you know you don't have, in many cases, you don't have a second shot of it like in the theater. Like you learn something every night from the audience. So you're like, oh, oh right. I don't know why I didn't figure that. Even here we are like 14 months into our run of Kimberly Akimbo, and I'm still learning, I'm still discovering. So um with film and TV, it's much more about first instincts and um just landing in the moment and listening so carefully and doing your whatever that that day, that moment, that impulse is and feeling comfortable in front of the camera and just capturing that and not getting ahead of yourself, which is hard to do, right? You know, it's hard to stay right here.

[19:00] Robert Bannon: Yes, in the moment.

[19:01] Victoria Clark: I'm working on that every day. But there have been so many inspiring performances by women over 50, 55. I mean, Anayad, I don't know if you've seen that yet. Annette Benning and Jodie Foster both are incredible. I saw um Sandra Hula in Anatomy of a Fall. I'm fascinated by her performance. Um, Olivia Coleman and Mel DeStanton um on The Crown. I mean, I just was blown away by Mel DeStanton. I mean, these women, I mean, and these and the um the female directors who are really going after female-driven stories and trying to debunk a lot of, hey, no one would think twice about a man behaving this way. Why do we still, after all this time, why do we blame women for being strong and having opinions, right? So some of the stories that are coming out now are very inspiring to me and um definitely want me to really are sort of like inspire me to pursue more film and television for sure.

[20:07] Robert Bannon: Yes. Well, and if you haven't seen Nyad people, please see it. It's so inspiring. You can do anything after you see the Kimberly Akimbo-esque. It's very, it is, and you will feel good and have all the feels on the journey and the ride through it. And Anatomy of a Fall. I mean, you talk about a nuanced performance, and woo, they are acting. That is a, and that little boy. I forget his name, but oh my, that I think it's brilliantly directed. That film. I made the mistake of watching it the first time without English subtitles because I thought, oh, a little bit of French. Yeah, and I was like, then I was like looking over the internet. Exactly what is he saying in his final monologue to the jury? Like, oh, I have to see the entire story. I was like, uh, I think I need, okay, we're gonna go back to the subtitles.

[20:53] Victoria Clark: Oh yeah, that was a mistake.

[20:55] Robert Bannon: I had the subtitles on from the go.

[20:57] Victoria Clark: So here's a silly question, but a fun one. You looked so gorgeous the other day at the New York Grammy luncheon or event that was had in New York City. Yes, your sequin black. Do you have your outfit ready? Are you ready to head over to the Grammy Awards? Will you be there?

[21:09] Victoria Clark: No, I don't. I'm gonna be performing in New York, I'm gonna be at the theater because there are a lot of people, you know. I hate not to be at work. Um, so I'm not sure who's representing us. Um, hopefully, Janine and David, Lindsay Bear, Janine Chazori, our brilliant show creators slash authors. So I'm hoping they're going. But I need to text them and make sure they're going.

[21:34] Robert Bannon: Well, Sunday, if you've got tickets, that means that Victoria Clark will be in. She will be in the show on...

[21:42] Victoria Clark: I'm gonna be there.

[21:43] Robert Bannon: Get your tickets because she will be there. We are so excited for what's to come. We thank you. I was with um Matt Gould, who has Lumpika coming to Broadway, and I said I'm gonna interview Victoria Clark, and he was like, I love her so much. She is, you know, you are beloved by this community.

[22:00] Victoria Clark: I'm I feel so blessed. And um, I thank you for lifting up theater and theater artists and the way we make theater and why it's important. I think it's in danger. It we're in danger right now, right? Um, because we don't, you must be there in the present moment with these pieces to experience them. And um, we're in danger of going extinct because everyone's getting so attached to their screens, but nothing can replace that relationship between a live audience and a good story and the artists who are communicating it. So thank you for lifting up our community.

[22:43] Victoria Clark: It is my honor. I'm so grateful to be a little part of it all. You guys have to get your tickets, everybody. Go to KimberlyAkimboTheMusical.com. Get your tickets before the end of April. Follow Miss Clark on Instagram at Victoria J.

[22:56] Robert Bannon: Okay.

[22:57] Victoria Clark: Follow away. And I'm gonna be singing. We're on an adventure. We are all on a big great adventure together. And uh, I don't know what we're gonna find, but I'm excited to go on it with you. Thank you for all the work and Robert. I appreciate it.

[23:10] Robert Bannon: Thank you so much. How lucky are we to have Victoria Clark? I am dead. I love her so much. She's the sweetest.

[23:19] Victoria Clark: We're events.

[23:26] Robert Bannon: Don't know what we're gonna find. We're leaving what's behind behind you all by my side.

[23:31] Victoria Clark: It's almost those are almost the words.

[23:33] Robert Bannon: Well, I love Kimberly Akimbo. It's a touching beautiful story, and I am so excited that you're here. If you want to watch more about or learn about more about me, you know what I'm saying. Go to RobertBannon.com.

[23:41] Victoria Clark: That's right. Go to RobertBannon.com or follow me at Robert M. Bannon. Listen to my friends here at the Broadway Podcast Network. Listen to everybody here on the Broadway Podcast Network because they're doing such amazing work. Go see a show, a Broadway show, an off-Broadway show, a regional show, a tour show, a community theater show, someone playing the piano in a subway station, whatever you want to do, support art and artists today. That's what we're all about. The best is yet to come. Thank you so much for being here. I love you for being here. And uh until next time, this is The Roundtable. Bye, everybody.