Ricamora lights up musical Soft Power

Drama teacher to get award

LOS ANGELES, June 2, (Agencies): Conrad Ricamora didn’t set out to be an actor. Growing up, the “How to Get Away With Murder” star lived all over the world, from Iceland to Florida, due to his father’s job in the Air Force. Though he enjoyed singing and dancing when he was little, by the time he hit middle school, “I realized guys would be ridiculed if you did that, so I quickly stopped and started playing sports.”

It wasn’t until his junior year of college, where he was majoring in psychology, that he took an acting class. He chose to do a monologue from Lanford Wilson’s “Lemon Sky” about a boy meeting his estranged parent. The actor, who says “my father was born in the Philippines and my mother is white,” elaborates on how the play spoke to him. “My mom left when I was an infant and I didn’t see her until I was eight years old,” reveals Ricamora. “So I felt I could speak with some authority on stage. And it was electric; it really changed my life.” From there, he went on to get his MFA from the University of Tennessee and started taking singing lessons — “finding my voice” both literally and figuratively.

That stunning voice is on full display in “Soft Power,” now making its world premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles before continuing a run at The Curran in San Francisco. Playing Chinese movie producer Xue Xing, Ricamora sings, dances, and romances Hillary Clinton in the ambitious “play with a musical” collaboration between Tony winners David Henry Hwang (who wrote the book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (who wrote the music and additional lyrics.)

Ricamora

To even try to describe “Soft Power” is to court madness, but here goes. The story begins in 2016 with Xue courting DHH (a fictionalized version of the playwright played by Francis Jue) to write a TV series set in Shanghai. They attend a performance of “The King and I” as a fundraiser for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and Xue’s girlfriend Zoe (Alyse Alan Louis) discusses how such musicals can work as a delivery system to learn about other cultures.

But all this is uprooted when Hwang is stabbed in the neck in an apparent hate crime (the real-life Hwang really was a victim of such an attack) and he fantasizes a wild East-meets-West musical starring Xue and Clinton (played in the musical by Louis). Splashy numbers follow that skewer politics, examine cultures, and satirize America’s love for McDonald’s and guns.

As one can expect, it elicits a passionate response from viewers. “I haven’t seen anything in the theater that has touched on themes that are so current in our everyday lives right now,” notes Ricamora, who previously appeared on Broadway in “Here Lies Love” and “The King and I.”

He continues, “The resonance of the show changes daily with what’s happening in the news. A few days after the latest school shooting, there was a palpable tension in our theater. And people are still really raw over the 2016 election.” While he recognizes this can be triggering for some audience members, he adds, “I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Theater can provide an escape, but it also should be a place where we all come to debate and think and keep our minds on when we’re in our seats.”

To borrow a theme from the show itself, Ricamora says “Soft Power” is itself a great delivery system. “I want people to be entertained and I think that they are. Sometimes shows can get preachy and heavy and I feel like because the show has such great dialogue and music and stagecraft, it’s entertaining,” he says, adding, “Leigh Silverman was telling me her friend called it ‘the sweetest piece of chocolate with a razor blade inside.’”

Ricamora became aware of the project last year, while he was shooting “HTGAWM” in LA, and sent in an audition tape. In fall of 2017, he was in New York and able to audition in person, but just with the first scene of the show, before it becomes a musical. Though it was explained where the show was going from there, he says it was still in development. “I was putting a lot of faith in these amazing creators and jumping in,” he says. “But I’ve been a fan of both Henry and Jeanine since I started doing theater. I knew I was in good hands.”

Ricamora’s day job as computer genius Oliver Hampton on the hit Viola Davis series didn’t interfere with rehearsals, which began after “HTGAWM” wrapped for the season. His character was only intended to be in the pilot, but the role continued to grow and the actor was made a regular in Season 3. Oliver is another role that touches many lives, as the character is HIV-positive. “I don’t think I had an awareness of what a big impact the role would have until I started getting letters from people who are living in the closet in Middle America or people who are HIV-positive and so thankful they get to see their situation playing out on TV,” Ricamora says.

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The special Tony Award that honors educators this year will go to a drama teacher who picks her high school’s shows, builds the sets, hems the costumes — and nurtured many of the young people demanding change following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Melody Herzfeld, the one-woman drama department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, will be presented with the award onstage June 10 at the Tony telecast.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Herzfeld told The Associated Press. “But I hope that this award will remind everyone of how vital and important arts education is to our kids. Drama, music, art, creative writing — that’s how you make good citizens.”

Herzfeld saved 65 lives by barricading students into a small classroom closet on Valentine’s Day when a former student allegedly went on a school rampage, killing 17 people.

She then later cheered as many of her pupils led the nationwide movement for gun reform, including organizing the March For Our Lives demonstration and the charity single “Shine.”

The annual honor bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University recognizes US educators from kindergarten to 12th grade who have “demonstrated monumental impact on the lives of students and who embodies the highest standards of the profession.”