NEW YORK (AP) — It's only fitting that Keshia Lewis had her most successful theater season playing a mentor role.
A Broadway veteran now in her 40th year in the business, she plays the incredible piano teacher Ms. Liza Jane in the production. “Hell's Kitchen” who inspires the show's young heroine to embrace music.
“Sit down and study,” she tells her new teenage students. This role is Alicia Keys. A young man looks at an older woman playing the piano and says: “For the first time in my life, I saw in her the woman I could someday become. She is strong, majestic, and a queen.”
Lewis is the kind of cool, serious, wise head who radiates skill, warmth, and professionalism, helping rising star Marea Joy Moon make her Broadway debut in the lead role.
“She's an earthy, royal woman who brings a powerful sense of grounding every time she walks in a room,” Moon says, “and from our first conversation, I knew I wanted to learn as much as I could from her.”
A special spring has arrived for Lewis. Her musical is 13 tony award nomination And it was her first Tony nomination, she's already won awards from Outer Critics and Lucille Lortel magazine.
“This is all I've ever wanted to do since I was a kid. This is the only thing I was really trained to do,” she says. “I would do the same thing in any other profession. I love what I do. It doesn't feel like work to me.”
Lewis made her Broadway debut at age 18 in the mid-1980s with the original theater company “Dreamgirls,” and went on to star in such productions as “The Gospel of Corona,” “Big River,” “Ain't Misbehavin'” and “Once On This Island,” opposite Morgan Freeman.
The theater world almost lost her: She left “Once on This Island” early to star in a TV pilot, but was heartbroken when it didn't work out. For six years, she taught fifth and sixth grades and worked at a magazine and a shelter for homeless pregnant young women.
Her love for acting consumed her until she decided to return to auditioning in 1991. She knew she was rusty, so she auditioned for things she knew she would never book, such as her role in “The Sound of Music” at the Santa Barbara Theater. I did. civic light opera.
“I thought no one would ever cast me in The Sound of Music. But it happened. I got cast as the abbot. That was my start. ” she says.
The Ventura County Star's critic was impressed: “As the Mother Superior, Lewis brought a frenzy out the lobby door in 'Climb Every Mountain,' with a well-timed intermission and a powerful closing performance from her song that will be second to none.”
This role led to Rodgers and Hammerstein's series of shows “South Pacific'' and “The King and I,'' which made for some interesting work. “And I definitely thought, 'Okay, you should have come back,'” she says.
Since his return, Lewis has appeared on Broadway in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Chicago,” “Leap of Faith,” “Cinderella,” and “Child of a Lesser God,” and off-Broadway in “Mother College” and “The Skin.” She appeared in “Of Our Teeth'' and “Marie and Rosetta.'' His television appearances include “The Blacklist,'' “Madam Secretary,'' “Royal Pains,'' and “Blue Bloods.''
“I feel like I could write an encyclopedia about what I've been doing for 40 years in this industry,” she says.
“Hell's Kitchen” director Michael Greif had known Lewis from her days on “Big River” and thought she would be perfect for the role of Miss Liza Jane.
“Keshia is a wonderful teacher both on and off stage,” Greif says, “and she brings a wealth of experience, wisdom and generosity to every encounter with Maria and our incredible ensemble, many of whom are making their Broadway debut.”
Lewis initially read the script without knowing that Keys' songs would be used or that the central teenager had ties to the Grammy Award winner.
The setting is Manhattan Plaza. Keyes grew up in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen District, an apartment building that provides affordable housing to people in the arts. The apartment includes the Ellington Room, a multi-purpose space with a piano, where in the musical the heroine meets Miss Lisa, Miss Lisa, and Jane, a collection of Keyes' mentors.
Luis knows both the facility and the rooms very well. She attended a nearby high school and one of her closest friends lived in Manhattan Plaza. She also sang at her friend's father's memorial service in the Ellington Room.
Keys personally worked with Lewis on two of her biggest songs, “A Perfect Way to Die” and “Author of Forever” (both already released), and the team paid for her piano lessons to prepare for the role.
Lewis also related to the musical's coming-of-age story of a young woman and single mother navigating the tough streets of New York on a deeper level.
“I was a single mother with a son. My son is now 20 years old and in New York. So on a very personal level, I'm trying to figure out what's being said and what I'm trying to convey. She brought all of that with me and what she gave me so I could fly on my own.”
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Mark Kennedy is http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
