美国国家公共电台 NPR A Campaign For 'Often The Hardest-Working People On Stage' — The Chorus

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Tonight, the 2018 Tony Awards, Broadway's highest honors, will be handed out at Radio City Music Hall. They'll go to lead and featured actors in plays and musicals but can't go to some performers who shared the stage with those leads. Jeff Lunden went to find out why the chorus of a musical might deserve its own Tony Award.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "A CHORUS LINE")

JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE¹: Remember "A Chorus Line?"

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "A CHORUS LINE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) One singular sensation every little step she takes.

LUNDEN: That immensely popular 1975 musical looked at the stories of some of the people who often work completely anonymously² on Broadway. Kate Shindle is president of Actors Equity³, the union that represents actors and stage managers. She says chorus members not only sing and dance but sometimes play instruments or move scenery.

KATE SHINDLE: Often the hardest-working people on stage in a lot of respects who could never really be recognized for that work.

LUNDEN: Equity wants to change that. It's petitioning the Tony Administration Committee to not only consider choruses for awards but their counterparts in plays known as ensembles⁵.

SHINDLE: There is a misperception, I think, sometimes in our industry that everybody's trying to be a principal actor, and that's not the reality. There are also people who go from show to show to show and they're not trying to get their name above the title. They just want to be a part of the community.

LUNDEN: That's a perfect description of John Treacy Egan, a burly actor with a sweet voice. He has played lead roles on Broadway, but in the Tony-nominated revival⁶ of "My Fair Lady," he's in the chorus, alternating between a snooty, upper crust lord and a cockney street seller.

JOHN TREACY EGAN: I'm one of the four costermongers who are in the street scene in Covent Garden where we meet Eliza Doolittle and then get to sing that beautiful four-part harmony of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" with her.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "MY FAIR LADY")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (Singing) Wouldn't it be loverly.

EGAN: (As costermonger) Where ya bound for this spring Eliza? Biarritz?

LUNDEN: Egan gets a few solo lines in the show, but most of the time he's one of 25 chorus members.

EGAN: We're down in the dungeon⁷.

LUNDEN: He changes costumes in the depths of Lincoln Center Theater's basement.

EGAN: Some little gel in the hair so I don't look so freshly washed.

LUNDEN: He needs one more touch before he can go on stage. He heads back upstairs, down another hall, to the wig⁸ room to get mutton chop sideburns slapped on.

(SOUNDBITE OF SMACKING)

EGAN: She has to smack⁹ them to make sure they stay on.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hey, hey, everybody, this is five minutes, five minutes to curtain call please.

EGAN: Perfect.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Five minutes, five minutes.

EGAN: Now my call is five minutes, so we're ahead of the game.

LUNDEN: And five minutes later, the show starts.

EGAN: Oh, we've started.

LUNDEN: "My Fair Lady" is a fairly typical musical from Broadway's golden age. Egan's in several numbers, but he has a lot of downtime in between long scenes that feature the lead actors, or principals.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "MEAN GIRLS")

BARRETT WILBERT WEED: (As Janis Sarkisian) Now you know, Cady, Regina George is not your friend. We're your friends.

LUNDEN: Over at the Tony-nominated musical "Mean Girls," set in high school, the pace is quicker. The chorus is on stage almost all the time, says Kamille Upshaw, a Juilliard-trained dancer as she limbers up before the show.

KAMILLE UPSHAW: And if we're not on stage, we're changing, which is just as tiring. If we could just sit for two seconds, that would be nice, but we don't have that luxury.

LUNDEN: This is only Upshaw's second Broadway show. Her first was "Hamilton."

UPSHAW: The thing about both of these shows which I really love is that the ensemble⁴'s used to its capacity as a storytelling mechanism¹⁰, and that's to create a world around what's happening with the principals.

LUNDEN: In other words, the chorus or the ensemble isn't just stage dressing¹¹. Upshaw and Egan have created their own characters with their own personas. And Egan says while they're on stage standing¹² behind the leads, they have to look like they're talking about something that has to do with the show even if they're not.

EGAN: You can be talking about where you're going to dinner, but you have to make it look like you're talking about something that's happening onstage. The audience can tell if they're looking.

LUNDEN: And what happens backstage is as important as what happens on stage, says Kamille Upshaw at "Mean Girls."

UPSHAW: It's very choreographed¹³. You have to know where to stand. You have to know when this prop¹⁴ goes off. We move everything in the show, so we move the lunch tables. These things are heavy. So we had to develop a system as to how we could do that as a unit and not be injured. Broadway's hard (laughter). It is. It's hard, but I love what I do so it makes it very easy to come to work every day.

LUNDEN: For his part, John Treacy Egan says even though he's been performing on Broadway for 20 years, he still gets goosebumps.

EGAN: Sometimes you wake up and you go, oh, my gosh. I'm going to go be in a Broadway show today.

LUNDEN: Both of them will be seen on the Tony Awards broadcast tonight even though they won't be eligible¹⁵ to win that shiny medallion yet. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 anonymously   

ad.用匿名的方式

参考例句：

• The manuscripts were submitted anonymously. 原稿是匿名送交的。
• Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 536 teachers anonymously. 方法采用自编“中小学教师职业压力问卷”对536名中小学教师进行无记名调查。

3 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

4 ensemble   

n.合奏(唱)组；全套服装；整体，总效果

参考例句：

• We should consider the buildings as an ensemble.我们应把那些建筑物视作一个整体。
• It is ensemble music for up to about ten players,with one player to a part.它是最多十人演奏的合奏音乐，每人担任一部分。

5 ensembles   

整体( ensemble的名词复数 )； 合奏； 乐团； 全套服装（尤指女装）

参考例句：

• I love to play in all types of ensembles. 我喜欢参与吹奏各种各样的合奏曲。
• The 5th Brigade is now taking 895 Land Warrior ensembles to Afghanistan. 第五旅现在携带895套陆地勇士装备去阿富汗。

6 revival   

n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振

参考例句：

• The period saw a great revival in the wine trade.这一时期葡萄酒业出现了很大的复苏。
• He claimed the housing market was showing signs of a revival.他指出房地产市场正出现复苏的迹象。

7 dungeon   

n.地牢，土牢

参考例句：

• They were driven into a dark dungeon.他们被人驱赶进入一个黑暗的地牢。
• He was just set free from a dungeon a few days ago.几天前，他刚从土牢里被放出来。

8 wig   

n.假发

参考例句：

• The actress wore a black wig over her blond hair.那个女演员戴一顶黑色假发罩住自己的金黄色头发。
• He disguised himself with a wig and false beard.他用假发和假胡须来乔装。

9 smack   

vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍

参考例句：

• She gave him a smack on the face.她打了他一个嘴巴。
• I gave the fly a smack with the magazine.我用杂志拍了一下苍蝇。

10 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

11 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

12 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

13 choreographed   

v.设计舞蹈动作( choreograph的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• There was some carefully choreographed flag-waving as the President drove by. 总统的车经过时，人们按精心编排的动作挥舞着旗帜。
• Achim had choreographed the dance in Act II himself. 阿希姆自己设计了第2幕的舞蹈动作。 来自辞典例句

14 prop   

vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山

参考例句：

• A worker put a prop against the wall of the tunnel to keep it from falling.一名工人用东西支撑住隧道壁好使它不会倒塌。
• The government does not intend to prop up declining industries.政府无意扶持不景气的企业。

15 eligible   

adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的

参考例句：

• He is an eligible young man.他是一个合格的年轻人。
• Helen married an eligible bachelor.海伦嫁给了一个中意的单身汉。