Acting Coach

You have this big personality, big stage presence and--$$(Nodding head).$$Okay. Now when you were growing up probably, I would think funk music was the number one music and all that sort of thing, did you feel kind of odd being in a Broadway--$$Yes--$$--you know?$$--very much so. Very, very, very much so. It's interesting. And I may end up reviving it but I did a show back in New York [New York] called 'A Brief History of White Music in America' and it was three African American performers and the whole prem- it was fabulous. And the whole premise was, you know, it's a well-known fact that all of, of, of or most of, or much of, all of, of contemporary pop white music gets its roots from the blues, you know, The [Rolling] Stones, and, you know, all of that. And so for, you know, we've all sort of paid homage to the fact that, that, that, you know, white popular music is, is rooted in, in, in black musical traditions. So this show that I did was a, a flip on that was, was having black musicians pay homage to all of the amazing music that's been created, you know, by white people or whatever. And so there was a line in there, I sang, 'To Sir, with Love,' which is, one of the most memorable movies for me growing up, that and 'To Kill a Mockingbird' were two of my two favorite movies growing up as a child. And, and so, I sang the, the theme 'To Sir, with Love' in this, in this particular show. And I, I started, I introduced the song by saying most little black girls grew up wanting to be Diana Ross, well I never did, I grew up wanting to be Lulu. And then I, I sang this song, and it wasn't that I wanted to be white, it was that this song, this movie, Sidney Poitier, this whole British thing really spoke to me and this, and I loved, you know, this song. And so then I, and then I would sing the song. And so I did feel like an odd bird because, of course, my parents [Velma McAfee Williams and John Williams] would, the only music that we were allowed to listen to, you know, pop music or R&B was Diana Ross and The Supremes and the Jackson 5. My mom, we would have to sneak out of the house or be with friends to listen to, you know, Archie Bell and the Drells or Marvin Gaye, forget about it, you know what I mean, she just, we couldn't. And so we, we grew up listening to opera. My mom could tell you the libretto of, you know, nine, ten operas. I mean she's a huge opera, we, we were members of the, of the, of the Houston Grand Opera, we'd go and see, you know, season subscribers, we thought, we went to the ballet, we went, you know, all of that and theater and all of that. And so I did feel a, amongst my black friends, I did feel odd and I felt, and I led sort of a dua- you know, a, a double life. I had my life with, with my white friends and then I had my life with my, my black friends because nobody black, nobody black was listening, nobody knew, no one black knew who Judy Garland was when I was growing up, and so I did. And I remember, I remember watching 'Imitation of Life' and, and just losing it at, you know, crying, you know, hysterically, why is mom, why is the world like this, why do we have to, you know, why, why does it make any difference, why aren't we all the same. I mean it was, it was a huge problem for me that that I just wouldn't take, I wouldn't take on. I wouldn't accept that I was different. And I remember even as recently as being ten, eleven years old, so like in the '60s [1960s], in the late '60s [1960s], in Marshall, Texas, you still, when I'd go to the movies with my cousins, they were, it wasn't like it was legalized, but it was inbred that the black people sat upstairs and watched the movie, and, and the white people went into the, you know, down stairs. And I remember going in to the down stairs area and my cousins pulling me back and saying you can't do that, you can't go, you know, we, you know, we have to go, and being furious that that they were, you know, 'cause it was all, it, it had been abolished, segregation had been abolished by now but it was just all of these--$$It was custom.$$--customs, customs. And so I, you know, I did, I early, early on felt incredibly odd because I had interests that that other black kids my age just didn't have.$What year is that?$$That was nine, I wanna say '91 [1991], '90 [1990], '91 [1991]. And, and I continued to do theater from here. And then I got a wonderful opportunity, I was hired for a television series called 'Sweet Justice,' that starred Cicely Tyson and Melissa Gilbert, 'Little House on the Prairie.' And I played this character Ruby [ph.] who owned a supper club, very similar to in 'Ally McBeal.' Are you familiar with that television series? All the lawyers would go to this supper club and hang out and there was this woman, Vonda [Shepard] somebody that sang. So that was basic, that was sort of the premise of, of, of the, we were the precursor to that, that, that the lawyers in Cicely's firm would come to my supper club, Ru-- Ruby's [ph.] and hang out. And so it was a recurring role. And if they, if it had been picked up for a second season, I was going to then become a season regular and actually even get to sing. It, it would be sort of it like, there's a, there's a restaurant in New York [New York] called Chez Josephine's, which is owned by one of her adopted sons, Jean-Paul [sic. Jean-Claude Baker].$$(Simultaneous) And that's Josephine Baker, yeah.$$Yeah. And, and that's a, it was gonna be sort of like that, it was gonna be where they'd come in and I'd, I'd sing and entertain. I was very excited about it. And then they canceled the show. And so it became, again, it, it just, I had these two daughters and either I was working, so I was providing for them but I was away from them or I wasn't working and I was with them and money was tight. And so I had started a, a little class for my younger daughter because she was very, very shy, she was incredibly shy. And I thought that, just like it had helped my brother get over his shyness, a theater class for my daughter would be great. And so the combinat- the impetus for me doing it was to be a good mom and to help my daughter with some of her issues and it then became my livelihood and my second career. So from one class of fifteen kids, you know, (unclear) (simultaneous)--$$(Simultaneous) Now, now what year is this when you started the class?$$I started it, Alana [Adderley] was, I wanna say she was nine or eight, so this was probably '94 [1994] or ninety--yeah, '94 [1994], ninety, ninety, ninety, somewhere around there.