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Detroit native Angela Birchett plays Allie Nelson in “The Notebook,” running Sept. 22 through Oct. 4 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. (Photo courtesy of ATG Detroit)<\/p>\nA career in musical theater wasn\u2019t on Angela Birchett\u2019s radar when she was a youth growing up in Detroit.<\/p>\n
The daughter of a musician and bandleader, she was on a singing path, studying classical and opera styles. But a role in a mid-\u201990s production of \u201cPearly\u201d for Detroit\u2019s Mosaic Youth Theatre proved to be an awakening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was one of the youngest cast members playing one of the oldest characters,\u201d Birchett, 47, says via phone from the Washington, D.C., stage adaptation of \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d which kicks off the new Broadway in Detroit season this week at the Fisher Theatre. \u201cI really kinda got my chops kind of digging in the dirt, being the green one who didn\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Mosaic founder) Rick Sperling pushed me. He said: \u2018You\u2019ve got natural instincts. Now we\u2019re gonna add some technique to it.\u2019 That\u2019s really where this all started for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis\u201d has been an accomplished stage and screen career during which Burchett has appeared in Broadway productions of \u201cHell\u2019s Kitchen\u201d and \u201cThe Color Purple,\u201d and in touring editions of \u201cHairspray,\u201d \u201cDreamgirls,\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t Misbehavin’\u201d and more, and on episodes of TV\u2019s \u201cLaw & Order: SVU,\u201d \u201cThe Equalizer,\u201d \u201cBlindspot\u201d and \u201cKevin Can Wait.\u201d The Renaissance High School graduate, who also worked for Detroit Public Schools, has appeared in \u201cThe Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel\u201d and \u201cKirk Franklin: A Gospel Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still learning,\u201d Birchett says. \u201cI\u2019m a forever student. I\u2019ll never know it all \u2014 and I want it to stay that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also become adept at playing older characters.<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d she is the oldest of three iterations of Allie Nelson\/Calhoun, while in \u201cHell\u2019s Kitchen,\u201d Birchett was the matriarch\/mentor Miss Liza Jane. And in \u201cHairspray,\u201d her first major stage production, she was portrayed \u201cMotormouth\u201d Maybelle Stubbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be honest if I didn\u2019t say I kind of think about that sometimes,\u201d Birchett says of the castings. \u201cIt\u2019s been a world where I\u2019m playing roles older than I am. But I feel that what is for me is for me. If everything aligns and it\u2019s the time to do it, I do it and don\u2019t worry about why. We\u2019ll see what happens when I\u2019m actually 60, or actually 70s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detroit native Angela Birchett plays Allie Nelson in “The Notebook,” running Sept. 22 through Oct. 4 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. (Photo courtesy of ATG Detroit)<\/p>\n
Birchett grew up the oldest of three sisters on Detroit\u2019s northwest side, near the University of Detroit Mercy\u2019s Outer Drive Campus. \u201cWhen I go home, I always take a walk through the neighborhood,\u201d she says. \u201cNothing much has changed. Some of the neighbors are still there. I\u2019ve been all over, and it\u2019s still my favorite place in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father, a weekend musician, sang and led bands, while Birchett and her sisters started out singing at Greater Grace Temple, and all went on to careers in music. \u201cAs soon as I was tall enough to be seen over the pulpit, they put me on a little box and started me singing,\u201d says Birchett, who later directed the church\u2019s choir. Her father taught her the rudiments of singing and harmony, as well as drums, with Motown and gospel as key influences. When she was 12, Birchett was also the youngest member of the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, playing percussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always been part of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve always been singing. I tried to do other stuff, sports and all that, and, nah, that\u2019s OK. (Music\u2019s) what I\u2019m here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birchett studied vocal performance and education at Kentucky State University, graduating in 2002 and returned to Detroit to teach, helping to establish the choral department at the Paul Robeson Academy and serving as an assistant director in Mosaic\u2019s music department. Nevertheless, moving to New York \u201creally started pulling on me. Every six months or so, friends would call me \u2014 \u2018Ang, when are you gonna stop teaching? You should be in New York!’\u201d Her break came when an emergency replacement was needed in a production of \u201cSmokey Joe\u2019s Cafe\u201d in 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey needed a replacement,\u201d she recalls, \u201cso I put myself on tape and got the part. I told my principal, who said: \u2018OK, here\u2019s the deal. Finish your report cards, turn \u2019em into me and get outta here. Don\u2019t tell the other teachers, don\u2019t tell the students \u2014 and don\u2019t come back.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all on the fly. I didn\u2019t have a plan. I drove to New York in 2006 and have been there since. It was kind of destined to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A Hefty Challenge\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Notebook\u201d was on Birchett\u2019s radar before she began the show this summer. She saw the hit 2004 film adaptation before she read the Nicholas Sparks novel it was based on and became \u201cobsessed, like everybody else\u201d with the romance and its many twists and turns. She attended the musical \u2014 with Grammy Award-nominated songs by pop singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson \u2014 to watch a friend in the cast, and was impressed. \u201cI was not sure how they were going to pull this off, both as a stage version and a musical, but it was really wonderful,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n
Playing the older Allie, whose Alzheimer\u2019s disease has confined her to a care home, presented an entirely different kind of challenge than any of Birchett\u2019s other roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m used to being in roles where I have a lot of heavy singing,\u201d she explains, \u201cand in this, I really don\u2019t sing at all, very little until the end of the show (\u201cI Know\u201d). So for me, it\u2019s more like a play. Allie is watching this story that, unbeknownst to her, she wrote down before she started losing her memory<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a hefty challenge, but I\u2019m very happy to accept it. I rarely get to sink my teeth into a role of this magnitude, as an actor. I spend a lot of time physically on stage, watching the story happen. It\u2019s a really cool exercise in active listening and being present. Your brain doesn\u2019t get to wander off or zone out.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m enjoying the vocal break, I\u2019m not gonna lie,\u201d she adds, with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Birchett says that serving as an observer in her character\u2019s own story \u201cis like a playground for me as an actor. It\u2019s almost like it\u2019s a new show for me every night. I can literally go into this world with no fear because (Allie) doesn\u2019t know. I may have flubbed a line or said something a little bit off from what the script says, and it\u2019s fine because she literally spends her entire time, up until the end, trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not perfect, so as an actor, you don\u2019t have to be perfect. We get to see her figure it out, because everyone around her knows what the story is except her. So each night it\u2019s like I\u2019m learning it for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she winds into her tenure with \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d Birchett has other aspirations in the theater, among them taking on Mama Morton in \u201cChicago\u201d or the lead role in \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman \u2014 The Chaka Khan Musical\u201d now in London. Mostly, however, Birchett says: \u201cI want to do some new things. I want to sink my teeth into stories that haven\u2019t been written yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have some ideas of things \u2014 maybe something on a smaller scale, like a one-woman show. But I really like bringing other people\u2019s ideas to life, so hopefully I\u2019ll keep getting opportunities to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Notebook\u201d opens Tuesday, Sept. 22 and runs through Oct. 4 at the Fisher Theatre,\u00a03011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit.\u00a0313-872-1000\u00a0or\u00a0broadwayindetroit.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A career in musical theater wasn\u2019t on Angela Birchett\u2019s radar when she was a youth growing up in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[967,181,23,143,145,144,420],"class_list":["post-470771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}