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[0:05] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Welcome to the Roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart, Spotify, Apple. Wherever you listen to art and artists talking about art, I'm excited about our next guest. She's a little youngster. I'm so my shirt is older than her. She's got a brand new show that you need to see and check out that's coming. I love people who take this business in their own hands and create something. It's Belle Noire, a dazzling tribute to the icons of jazz. It's going to be at K Playhouse. It is on June 16th. And you can get your tickets right now. Kayla Lewis is here at the Roundtable. Welcome to the show.

[0:45] Kayla Lewis: Thank you so much for having me.

[0:47] Robert Bannon: Wait, you're a student still?

[0:51] Kayla Lewis: No, I'm not. I'm not. I swear to goodness.

[0:54] Robert Bannon: You're done.

[0:55] Kayla Lewis: I'm done.

[0:56] Robert Bannon: You swear.

[0:57] Kayla Lewis: I'm done.

[0:58] Robert Bannon: She's a graduated superstar here. Wait, when did you first discover music? Where'd you grow up?

[1:04] Kayla Lewis: Um, so I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Um, I guess you could say I discovered it thanks to the musicians in my family. Yeah, I grew up in a, I guess, a relatively musical household. My uncle on my mother's side is a classical musician, and he kind of taught me and my siblings how to play instruments growing up, but then my dad is a New Orleans traditional jazz musician, and I grew up going to his gigs all the time, so I was kind of surrounded by music, especially jazz. So I guess New Orleans, I guess the music finds you. You don't have to even find it.

[1:43] Kayla Lewis: Yeah, yeah. You're just planted right in the music. So jazz, when you talk about jazz, we had Boni James here yesterday, and I was telling him saxophone plays. I said to him, like, jazz has so many different styles. You can be smooth jazz, you could be old school jazz, you can look at jazz in many different ways. What were the people that inspired you growing up?

[2:03] Kayla Lewis: Um, I would definitely say people that I'm, you know, honoring in this show, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, of course, you know, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, who I was a huge and I still am a huge Michael Jackson fan. I know he's not jazz, but like a lot of what he did was very inspirational and helped shape my career trajectory. Um, so many people, I mean a lot of theater folk too, so I guess you could lump them in there.

[2:35] Robert Bannon: Yes, absolutely. Well, at what point did you decide? Okay, look, I'm gonna be in it, I'm gonna be a singer, and I'm gonna make this my career. I could have been a nurse who sings at church. I could have been a teacher who, you know, who just does some community theater on the side, but you decided this is it. Like, I'm gonna go for this.

[2:54] Kayla Lewis: Um, to be very frank, I didn't really know what I was gonna do. I had double majored in, well, briefly double majored in computer science and, I guess, music liberal arts, because my parents were like, you're gonna be broke, you're gonna be a broke, you know, starving artist. But I mean eventually, you know, they came around. But I tried to do that because I was like, okay, I need something to fall back on. So I did sing, you know, obviously, to fulfill the other half of that program, but eventually I was just like, you know what? Computer science is not for me. I'll just minor in it and take over with the music part. But I think it wasn't till recently that I was just like, you know what? Let's go for it. Let's go for it. You have to go for it.

[3:44] Robert Bannon: So you came to New York.

[3:47] Kayla Lewis: Yes.

[3:48] Robert Bannon: When did you, you came to New York for school?

[3:50] Kayla Lewis: Pre-pandemic, yes. So actually, I first came here in 2018 through a program between my undergraduate school and NYU. They kind of have like a sister program where they send people there, you know, and vice versa. Um, and I honestly, like I'm gonna be very, very frank. I loved my teacher, my voice teacher that I had up here. Her name's Harlan Blackwell, excellent lyric coloratura soprano. Um, yeah, I basically fell in love with her and her teaching style. I still talk to her to this day, but she made me want to come back. I was like, you know what? I could do grad school.

[4:34] Robert Bannon: So what was grad school like and what was NYU like?

[4:38] Kayla Lewis: It was very interesting. Um, the first, you know, semester went as according to plan. 2019, I came back for my master's in classical voice, not jazz, and it was really fun. I really appreciated the classes that we had as well as the professors. Then come that spring semester, we had the whole hoopla of we don't know if we're gonna be back in school or not. We transitioned to, you know, virtual school, and it was an adjustment for sure, but it wasn't terrible. I kind of rolled with it, and it allowed me, I feel to explore a lot more things, especially because we were trying to learn how to navigate the virtual universe, especially as performers. You know, I learned a lot more about recording. I took a class with a really great teacher. And I think I just kind of learned, I'm like, oh, I kind of like this little virtual activity. Um, I had to do my recital in my living room in this very apartment.

[5:54] Robert Bannon: I was gonna say the virtual performance. This show was born out of the pandemic and virtual peeing or virtual. I think we learned some. We learned we could do it, you could create right there where you are.

[6:06] Kayla Lewis: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I mean, creativity is limitless, and I think we kind of understood that during this time. I was having a grand old time. I mean, you know, I feel bad for, you know, all the things that happened, like especially no live performance like we wanted at that time, but I don't know. I feel like it allowed me to explore my creativity a lot more. So I didn't mind it.

[6:33] Robert Bannon: So, where did the idea for this particular show come from? I want to give it a good old-fashioned plug. I want people to know that it's gonna be at the K-Play House on East 68th Street. It is on the 16th. The link to get tickets is gonna be below. It's a dazzling tribute to the icon. I love this title. Jazz at Belle Noire, how did it come about? And what made you say, I'm putting on my own damn show? I don't need nobody.

[6:56] Kayla Lewis: I'm literally, um, it was kind of a spur of the moment thing. I mean, my mother and my grandmother and I, we really connect over a lot of these old vintage movies. My grandmother is gonna be 99 in September, so to add some context, I wanna hug her. She grew up watching. Please, she would love a hug. But yeah, no, she grew up, you know, looking up to a lot of these icons, you know, back in the day. She told us about, you know, the fact that they were, you know, fashion icons, and of course they listened to their music and danced to their music all the time back in the day. Um, and I used to grow up like watching a lot of these, well, one TCM Turner Classic Movies. Love it. Exposed to that from, you know, jump.

Uh, and I think another thing that really played a big part was the fact that we used to watch a lot of documentaries on, you know, classic black Hollywood stars. Um, yeah, and so I think at one point we were just kind of reminiscing and looking at old videos, um, some of the cutaway scenes. Uh, there's a really good book that kind of gives history on like black Hollywood and all the things behind it by Donald Bogle. And we were looking at some of those cutaway scenes which were scenes that were clipped or that were able to be clipped out of film if they were, you know, being shown in the south, so we didn't have to see, you know, people of color. Um, yeah, those were the times. But um, we were looking at them and we're like, oh, it would be so cool if like, you know, somebody recreated this, um, you know, some of these scenes, and we did find a few.

There's, um, I think her name is Chani or Chani Masonette. She did a really cool rendition of Dorothy Dandridge's "You Do Something to Me." It was excellent. And we were trying to find more. Like, we were looking at all through all of these songs, like, um, by Lena Horne, others by Dorothy Dandridge. We're like, did anybody recreate these? And we're like, oh, no. Okay, well, so like after that, I was like, okay, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go because I had, since you know, started going to Jim Caruso's cast party. I was like, oh, I'll just do some of this stuff there because you know they provide an outlet for you to kind of experiment musically and theatrically. But then at some point I was just like, you know what?

I kind of want to put this all together and make a show. So I told my mom, like, you know, I got an idea for a show, I got a name, Belle Noire. What you think about that? It just came out of that. And my mom, she was super instrumental in all of this too because she was like super invested.

[9:46] Kayla Lewis: She's like, Did you find anything? Did you do anything? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, there it's there's not much out there, although it's like we found stuff now, you know, some things, but we just wanted to take a lot of those things that we used to watch and put it into one big show, and that's kind of how this was built.

[10:05] Kayla Lewis: And people are gonna love it. Shout out to Jim and shout out to Billy Strich and everybody who lets you have that mic and that time to be able to put on a show and practice material. You just are watching Turner Classic movies, singing at Monday night at cast party, and then you say, I'm gonna put on a whole show, but you don't just do a little show at no shade, like it's not a little cabaret joint somewhere, like you're going to K Playhouse. How did it happen that it went there?

[10:31] Kayla Lewis: Well, okay, so it ended up being an issue of time access space, you know. So we had wanted to find a smaller space originally because we're like, I we don't really expect to like, you know this wasn't supposed to be a huge thing, if I'm gonna be very honest. But um, yeah, we were looking at different spaces, and they either didn't have the time within the time frame that we were looking at, or um, you know, something else just kind of came up to where it was just not gonna be possible. So we had K Theater was kind of last resort, just because we're like it's too huge, but you know, if we need a spot, it's there, and they worked with us, so we ended up there.

[11:28] Robert Bannon: I am so so excited that you're going to be there. Now describe your family's coming.

[11:35] Kayla Lewis: Yeah, okay. And what's your who's playing music? Do you have a band? You have can't what's going on?

[11:40] Kayla Lewis: We do, we do. So this is a very um a very New York New Orleans group, if I have to put it anyway. Um, my father has been helping with like music coordination. Uh so we've got a whole band coming up from New Orleans. Uh it's gonna be all New Orleans uh players. Um, and then here I was privileged to connect with amazing creatives. Um Brian Davis and Mickey Davidson were really crucial when it came to shaping the movement portion of this show. Cause I'm like, I like to dance, but I'm not a choreographer, so I was really um grateful to have them part of the team to you know make it flow really well.

[12:31] Kayla Lewis: And um I've got like a great two great guys tap dancers, amazing dancers in general, Adante Powers and uh Darnell Williams. I'm gonna say his last name is he can bonk me on the head for that. Um, and you know, I was really uh really really blessed to get contact with them from Brian Davis. Um we also have one of my favorite people, Dandy Wellington, a part of the cast. He is a huge vintage creator, band leader, cultural curator. Um I just I needed him in this show. I told him, like, hey, look, if you're if you have availability, I would love if you could do this one thing because this is you, and my cousin will also be a part of uh the crew. She's gonna be dancing for one of the pieces, and she's an amazing ballet all around dancer.

Um yeah, so it oh most like okay, I don't want to forget this guy because he's just been pivotal in helping me navigate New York in general, especially the New York swing scene. Um, Sammy Coleman, he is an amazing swing dancer, swing dance teacher. He helped choreograph uh and and put together a lot of the swing pieces that you'll see in this show, and I I needed him because I was like, I want to honor swing dance too, because I'm like, all of this is a part of that era, and it this is kind of like a love letter to you know the the black female icons, but just black Hollywood in general and and black jazz, the black jazz scene in general.

[14:10] Robert Bannon: What I love what I'm what I'm gathering, which I did not know, which you need to know, everybody, is that this is not just a park park and bark show where she's gonna stand there and and sit, which would be amazing and beautiful and gorgeous. But you're gonna get a full evening of dancing band, New Orleans, New York, the best of black culture, the best of jazz, the best of times gone by, the best voices, the best musicians. They're gonna come up, they're gonna sing out, and you're gonna be entertained thoroughly. And it's not just gonna be a snoozy night, Kayla, where I'm gonna go listen to some jazz and fall asleep. You're gonna come with some soul swinging fun times.

[14:48] Kayla Lewis: Yeah, we we call it um Lanyap back home where I'm from. Like it's we it it's it's a concert, but there's extra. A little lamb yap, if you will.

[15:02] Robert Bannon: Good. Okay. I'm excited. I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited for you. I want people to get a ticket. What can you give us a sneak peek? A little sneak peek of the set list.

[15:14] Kayla Lewis: There's some hidden gems, there's some songs we might know. Yeah, there's a little bit of everything. So there's yeah, there's there's a little piece of something for everyone. So um, there's gonna be, you know, some standards that you're familiar with, maybe some Ella Fitzgerald tunes, maybe some tunes that or or renditions that you've heard made popular by Billy Holliday. But we've also got some tributes to some of those cutaway clips. I don't know what people have seen from those, but I do hope that what they take from the show is the fact that you know these exist. Like you've seen what I did in the show, go look at the real thing. You know, so um I it's gonna be some of those cutaway scenes and also some uh I guess I don't know if you would have called the music videos back in the day, but it is functioning like that, where they recorded like Dorothy Dandridge doing a lot of her elegant and flirty pieces with a bunch of background male dancers. So there will be that, yeah.

[16:21] Kayla Lewis: Um there will be a piece I will say that was it will make sense in context, I think, but it is uh a bit different than the rest because it allows me to utilize my classical training, the one piece. Um yeah, but it's gonna be a lot of fun. There will be some little gags here and there. So I think it's gonna be a good time.

[16:48] Robert Bannon: This is gonna be a good time. Go see look. If you are looking for an evening out, something new, unique, something to do, Kayla's got you covered. How is it for you before I let you go? Is how do you how do you hand how are you handling the business side? Because now it's not just your singing, like this is your baby. This is you what people working for you, you're promoting, you're sharing, you're doing. So how how has that been for you?

[17:10] Kayla Lewis: Uh it's definitely overwhelming. I mean, because it's a completely different, it's a different aspect of this business, I guess you could say. I mean, I've had some um, I guess experience you could say with it, just because I I also did um uh did some schooling in uh performing arts admin. Although it doesn't exactly replicate everything that I studied getting that degree, it it it does tie in. So I think it's like it's overwhelming, but it's I'm learning how to work with it, and it's like, you know, it's all applied. Like the more you do it, the more you get used to the process.

[17:49] Robert Bannon: I'm so proud of you. I don't even know you, Kayla.

[17:52] Kayla Lewis: Thank you.

[17:52] Robert Bannon: But I feel like you're just a go-getter. You're out here making things happen. And that's what's amazing about this business. See, you're not gonna be a broke. Don't listen. You're not gonna just be a broke artist waiting tables till you're 106 years old. You're out here making things go. Let's go. Where can we follow you on social media?

[18:11] Kayla Lewis: Well, okay. You can follow me on Instagram at K-L-E-W-T-O-U. I call it Clue to You because I am Clue and I'm coming to you. And you can also find me on Facebook. It's K Lewis. And I'm sure it's like if you put an at K Clue to You on there too, you'll be able to find me. And I also have an upcoming website.

[18:36] Kayla Lewis: Okay. It'll be coming soon, but it'll be K Lewis.com whenever it pops up.

[18:36] Robert Bannon: K Lewis.com.

[18:42] Kayla Lewis: Yes, K Lewis.com.

[18:43] Robert Bannon: K Lewis.com. Get your tickets. I want everyone to know that the tickets are on sale. You can get a ticket right now. You better get your little self together. Belle noir, dazzling tribute. It's gonna happen on the 16th of June, K Playhouse, right there on 68th Street. You have no excuse to get started at 29. You can't even take a taxi to the theater for 29. And you can get yourself a seat and come see this show. Congratulations, and we look forward to all the next show you have, come on back.

[19:12] Kayla Lewis: Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

[19:14] Robert Bannon: My pleasure. Thanks for being here.