Broadway actor embraces cabaret setting
Broadway-bound Telly Leung is making a Pittsburgh stop along the way for “Broadway Showstoppers,” the first time the Trust Cabaret will feature four performers in one series show.
The season finale at the Cabaret at Theater Square spotlights Mr. Leung, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate and Broadway star of “Godspell,” “Rent,” “Wicked” and more, along with Tony winner Cady Huffman (Ula in “The Producers”), Alton Fitzgerald White (Mufasa in “The Lion King”) and Mandy Gonzalez (Nina in “In the Heights” and Elphaba in “Wicked”).
Mr. Leung’s next Broadway gig is in “Allegiance,” with George Takei and Lea Salonga. It’s the first role he has originated from inception. The hard-working actor — you may have spotted him as a Dalton Academy Warbler on “Glee” — also is a regular on the concert scene, creating shows for 54 Below in New York and Feinstein’s in San Francisco, among other cabaret hot spots.
This is his first time performing in Pittsburgh since 2003, when he returned for a Pittsburgh CLO production of “Miss Saigon” after making his Broadway debut in the revival of “The Flower Drum Song.”
For the Trust Cabaret show, the singers will offer songs from shows they are known for, and then some.
“I will be singing stuff from ‘Flower Drum Song’ and a song from ‘Company,’ my senior show at CMU — Billy Porter directed that show — for all of my professors in the house. And also from my new musical, ‘Allegiance,’ give Pittsburgh a taste of that, and a song from ‘Rent,’ which meant a lot to me and is a big part of my career. These are songs that are already in our muscles as performers.”
In “Allegiance,” about the Japanese-American internment during World War II, Mr. Leung plays young Sammy Kimura, who is torn between fighting for his country and family loyalty. Mr. Takei plays Sam later in life, as a veteran remembering his family's relocation from their California farm to an internment camp in Wyoming.
The show, which originated at the Old Globe in San Diego, arrives on Broadway in October. Mr. Leung began the process with readings in 2009.
“You think about it, a musical, that’s about how long it can take, or longer, from first reading to New York — if it makes it at all,” Mr. Leung said. “I’ve worked with Stephen Schwartz a lot, and he said ‘Wicked’ took seven years. ... I think most audiences have no idea this show really began almost a decade ago. To be a part of it from the very, very beginning, to see it to its goal, Broadway, it’s a unique experience that some people never get to realize.”
When he is working in New York, Mr. Leung tries to make himself available as a mentor to Carnegie Mellon theater students hoping to follow in his footsteps.
In Pittsburgh for the Cabaret series, he expects to see a lot of familiar faces from his college days, including Claudia Benack, a voice teacher who he thinks of as his “college mom.”
He loves the connection of working a relatively intimate setting, where he can share his story with the audience and sing the songs he loves. He was on the phone after a night of song at 54 Below, which he calls his “New York club gig home,” and he has played similar venues from Tokyo to the Hippodrome in London.
He takes his cue from seeing the legendary Barbara Cook in concert and having the feeling that she was inviting him, personally, into her living room for a chat and then “Oh, by the way, that reminds me of a song ….”
“It’s not Telly as Angel [in ’Rent’] or as Boq [in ’Wicked’]; the audience wants to know your story. How is it that this little Chinese kid from Brooklyn went to Broadway via Pittsburgh? Everybody has that experience in some way, and through music and backstage stories, they see themselves. In cabaret, you can connect on a very human level. The audience hungers for that, the intimacy and humanity and live music, and that’s why cabaret is making a comeback and is more important now than ever.”