Clay Aiken breaks free of Simon Cowell’s dire Broadway warnings
“American Idol” judge Simon Cowell hurled the word “Broadway” as a weapon at contestants who harbored pop-star dreams. Clay Aiken, who finished second in season 2, was one of them.
He recalls, “Simon used it to criticize us: ‘You’d be better in musical theater than here.’ ‘You should be on Broadway but you shouldn’t be a pop singer.’ “
That was 2003, and Aiken has never forgotten those words. But he broke free when he replaced David Hyde Pierce in “Monty Python’s Spamalot” in 2009. Speaking within days of Friday’s opening as Teen Angel in Pittsburgh CLO’s “Grease,” Aiken was relating how, 16 years after “Idol,” he has performed in professional musical theater productions sporadically — in his hometown of Raleigh, for North Carolina Theatre, and in “Spamalot.”
“And I did another one in Ogunquit, because it was a month on the beach during summer in Maine,” he says. As for Pittsburgh, “There are only a few other companies in the country that are as good as CLO at what it does. That was the main motivation for coming here.”
He has played Pittsburgh many times as a solo artist, but this is his first time in the Benedum Center and “it’s just beautiful,” he says. As “Grease’s” Teen Angel (Frankie Avalon in the film; Billy Porter, among others, onstage), he has one song — “Beauty School Dropout” — and plenty of time to watch the youthful, energetic CLO ensemble. At 40, he is busy with concerts, recordings or as father to Parker, 11, but he says these CLO kids make him feel old.
“I certainly love the opportunity to do something silly and fun for a minute or two and then let the young people do the dancing,” he says with a laugh.
Here’s more of Clay Aiken on the post-“American Idol” years, Pittsburgh CLO and “Grease,” and how he has been
dazzled by the Pittsburgh Cultural District.
Is your song in the show something you’ve ever thought about doing before?
Not really, but the music of “Grease” is also really great and very adaptable. I’m doing a little Clay Aiken version of it. The music is written in such a way that you can make it current, and this production specifically is very modern-day, and it’s a very diverse cast.
There are at least a half-dozen high school-themed musicals on Broadway today, and it seems that “Grease” led the way. What do you make of all the high school musicals?
When you grow up anywhere outside one of the big cities, musical theater is really the only chance that kids get in high school to perform. They don’t have a pop music program at the high school in Wade County [N.C., where he grew up]. They have musical theater … that’s the opportunity that kids have to express themselves. I think, smartly, writers and producers have recognized that that’s the audience.
Why has “Grease” endured for nearly 50 years?
I grew up watching Nick at Nite [when] it was still “The Donna Reed Show” and “Dobie Gillis,” and those shows made the ‘50s look like everyone was wholesome and sweet and completely unrelatable. “Grease” did it in a way that I think is still relatable. I’ve got an 11-year-old, and I was watching the cast do scene work yesterday and I was like, “Oh, God, is this what I’m in for?” Rizzo’s nasty now! ... The CLO version is the real, raw version, and not the sort of idealized way we’ve seen the ‘50s for so long in movies and on TV. I think that’s why it’s really relatable and has had longevity.
When you did ‘Spamalot,’ how did that change the way you look at musical theater?
I didn’t have any plans to do Broadway when I did “Spamalot,” and part of that was having Simon Cowell tell me not to do that for however long. But I didn’t expect to absolutely love it. And part of the reason is that you are part of a community and a family when you are on stage, and prior to having done that, everything I had done had been just me. I toured with Kelly Clarkson in 2004 and that was the closest I had to a cast member. While that can be fun, it’s also a lot of pressure, and it can be lonely. … I’m just going to say it. It’s kind of nice sometimes to not be the star. I think I fell in love with that more than the musical theater part of it.
And that brings us to your Broadway Christmas show with “Idol” winner Ruben Studdard: “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show.” You had a New York City run in December with sold-out shows and great reviews. Any chance of reviving that?
We can’t do it this Christmas, but it’s something we would love to do again … we just like working together. We went back to the “Idol” Fox finale, and we were the only two people who have kept in touch with each other from their season. Bo Bice hadn’t spoke with Carrie Underwood in years. Fantasia and Diana DeGarmo didn’t talk, and he and I, we had just talked the previous week. We always thought that was so strange. We just like being together.
What’s your experience of Pittsburgh and CLO previous to this?
I knew about CLO because it’s one of the best summer stock companies, and it’s got a national reputation. I just hosted the Triangle [Rising Star high school musical awards for Central and Eastern North Carolina] a few weeks ago, and that’s a part of the national Jimmy Awards, and that was started in large part because of CLO. So I knew that, too. And I have been to Pittsburgh multiple times on tour, starting in 2003 … and it is just amazing what you’ve done. I’m thinking, “I could live here.” ... I’m looking out right now onto your Theater Square and it really is spectacular. I hope people in this city realize what they have.