Berloff turns to directing
When “Straight Outta Compton” co-writer Andrea Berloff was tapped to direct “The Kitchen,” a female-driven mob drama for Warner Bros.’ New Line Cinema division, the assignment came just as it seemed she’d hit a glass ceiling. It was a personal come-to-Jesus moment.
“I reached a point where I thought, ‘Well, I think this is it. I think this is as (much) as I’m going to get a chance to achieve,’ ” says Berloff, who received an Oscar nod for her work on “Compton.” “I definitely felt like I was losing out on opportunities and not being afforded the respect my work had merited. I was incredibly frustrated and didn’t quite know where to put that energy.”
It was during this period of disillusionment that she was offered the chance to adapt the DC/Vertigo comic book series “The Kitchen,” a 1970s Irish mafia story set in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. It revolves around a group of mob wives whose husbands are busted in an FBI sweep. After the men are sent to jail, the women assume their positions at the top of the hierarchy. Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish star as the gangster wives in the film version of the story.
“‘The Kitchen’ hit at exactly the right time that I was feeling angry enough to think to myself, ‘What would happen if women could take over? What would that look like?’” Berloff says. “(Because) the Irish mafia is not all that different from Hollywood.”
It was important for Berloff and producer Michael De Luca to cast against type for two of the leads.
“I was really trying very hard across the board to make sure I was casting actors who are very talented but not necessarily the stereotype of what you would see in these (roles),” says Berloff. “People who were interesting to watch and would deliver incredible performances.”
“We were trying to be surprising,” De Luca adds. “I’ve always believed comedians and comic actors can usually make the transition to drama.”
As for Moss, who shines as a woman struggling to realize her power, Berloff says, “She’s the Meryl Streep of our generation. She would do one take, and I would look around and think to myself, ‘Oh, my God, how am I supposed to make that better?’ ”
Berloff was approached to write the script, but after falling in love with the story, she decided to throw her hat in the ring to direct as well — despite having no directing experience.
“I knew they liked the script enough to move forward, and so just like any other director I went in and pitched my heart out,” she says. “And they were kind enough to hire me eventually.”
That makes Berloff one of only a handful of women directing major studio releases this season.
Since its inception more than three decades ago, the Chicago Sinfonietta has been at the forefront of redefining what a symphony orchestra can and should do.
The European model of operating squarely within the boundaries of Western classical repertoire and soloists was too confining for visionary conductor Paul Freeman, who launched his ensemble in 1987. As early as 1990, Freeman’s singular group collaborated with the Modern Jazz Quartet, later playing alongside jazz harmonica wizard Howard Levy and with the rock band Poi Dog Pondering in a reimagining of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”
So it seems fitting that the Sinfonietta will close this season in collaboration with jazz violinist Regina Carter, a MacArthur Fellowship winner who, like the Sinfonietta itself, has shattered barriers. In performances May 11 at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville and May 13 at the Auditorium Theatre, she’ll play the Chicago premiere of David Schiff ’s “4 Sisters,” a violin concerto celebrating the legacies of Aretha Franklin, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
“It’s a nod to four very powerful vocalists,” says Carter of the kind of opus one doesn’t encounter often in symphonic settings.
“The first movement is called ‘Soul,’ for Aretha. ‘Scat’ is Ella. ‘Sassy’ is Sarah. ‘Satin’ is Billie. There are some very challenging spots in there.
“Sometimes I look at this stuff and I think, ‘Oh my God, that is so hard!’ But if I’m not looking at it, and I’m just improvising, it’s some stuff I would do” while improvising herself, adds Carter.
“It’s a head game. Once I get past all the notes, once I stop panicking … it’s just fun to hear, and to hear the orchestra get to do a little groove. I’ve heard the Sinfonietta is the orchestra to do that.”
Yes, indeed, for like trumpeter Orbert Davis’ Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, another genrebending ensemble, the Sinfonietta embraces alternative performance practices. In a city thick with both classical and jazz musicians, the Sinfonietta has built its identity on inclusion of all kinds: personnel, repertoire, soloists and aesthetics.
“For us, even from the very earliest part of our history with maestro Freeman, there was always this kind of daring programming that he did, that pushed the edges of the genre,” says Sinfonietta CEO Jim Hirsch.
“That’s always been a part of our DNA. … That’s part of our artistic viewpoint and vision. And we had wanted to perform with Regina for years and years.
“She’s a brilliant artist, but also an artist who has done some very interesting crossover work.”
To say the least. Carter’s diverse discography includes “Ella: Accentuate the Positive,” a joyous homage to eminent vocalist Fitzgerald; “Southern Comfort,” a journey into folkloric music of the American South; “Reverse Thread,” an exploration of African songs spanning epochs; and “Paganini: After a Dream,” which takes on music of Ravel, Debussy and Piazzolla, among others (recorded on a Guarneri instrument that was Paganini’s, making Carter the first AfricanAmerican and the first jazz musician to play it).
Why has Carter stretched so far stylistically?
“It’s the way I was brought up, just hearing all the music I was exposed to in Detroit,” she says of her hometown.
“So I never knew that there were genres, so to speak. It was just music. I was listening to everything: the jazz station, with Miles Davis; on another station I might hear Chicago; my brothers playing Motown.
“It was just music. When I first moved to New York, people would tell me: You have to pick a genre and stay in that lane. And I thought: ‘No, I just don’t.’” And she hasn’t. Since last year, Carter has been formally championing another cause: safety, security and opportunity for women in jazz, which remains a male-dominated world. As artistic director of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center AllFemale Jazz Residency, she has found herself in position to encourage young women following her path.
“It was so inspiring to me last year,” remembers Carter. “There were two young ladies who came, pianists who had never played jazz before. Everyone was so patient. I took them aside and worked with them after camp, hearing them rehearsing and cheering each other on, and to watch them in just one week blossom — I felt like a proud mama bear.”
Not lost on Carter are recent media reports about women jazz musicians and students being abused by older men in positions of power.
“When you see all the stuff that’s happening in some schools with these teachers, and you hear the things they (women students) talk about … it’s unimaginable,” says Carter.
“I want them to have a space to feel where they can play this music and learn, not only learn about the music, but learn some tools to maybe help them deal with some of that nonsense.”
Has Carter, a groundbreaking musician, had to face sexism or worse in the world of jazz?
“I think I’ve been lucky, and I’ve been blessed,” says Carter.
“My instrument helped: It’s not like there were oodles and oodles of jazz violinists. I think if I played maybe trombone, saxophone, I might have run into some of those situations,” meaning competition is so fierce that it can make individual musicians feel vulnerable to abuse.
“Some of these ladies play saxophone, and if they’re in a band, and something is happening to them, they might think they have to take it, just to keep the job.”
Carter seems determined to show her young charges that they don’t have to.
At the very least, they can look to her career as a model of how to do what you want to do, regardless of anyone else’s expectations.
Regina Carter appears with the Chicago Sinfonietta, conducted by music director Mei-Ann Chen, at 8 p.m. May 11 at North Central College’s Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville; and 7:30 p.m. May 13 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; ticket prices vary; 312-284-1554 or www.chicagosinfonietta.org.