ANTHONY WARLOW

Sunday, July 15, 2012

RICHARD AEDY: Hello, you're on Sunday Profile with me, Richard Aedy. Welcome to the show.
Today - a bit of a treat. You'll be meeting this man.
(Sound of man singing)
Anthony Warlow in his most famous role as the Phantom of the Opera.
He's had a remarkable life. He was still in his 20s when he won that part. And he was still in his 20s when he
became very, very ill, you might remember.
But now he's 50. He's one of very few people who make their living as a musical actor, a man who sings
mostly on stage in musicals, so always telling a story, always acting as much as singing, and always part of a
company. It's an old-fashioned showbiz career.
At the moment he's playing Daddy Warbucks in Annie, the show is in Melbourne. But he's not in it for much
longer because he's been asked to reprise the role somewhere else on really the biggest stage of the lot Broadway. And it could be his biggest break yet.

Related Audio:
Australias best known musical theatre and
opera star, Anthony Warlow, to make his
Broadway debut

So just a few weeks away from getting on a plane for New York, how's he feeling a about it all?
ANTHONY WARLOW: It has come at a very good time in my life, in my career. I'm 50 years of age. I'm
age correct for the character that I'm playing. I've had two goes at playing Oliver Warbucks in Australia - first
in 2000 and this time round for this season.

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And the proposition that came to me was so ongoing that when the announcement was made to the cast and
then of course the Australian press that I was going over, the excitement had gone.
I know for a fact that when I get there and I start rehearsing with these incredible talents and then I walk onto the stage of the Palace Theatre and I know that we have
that month of previews and then we open, it's going to be a very different animal that inhibits my body then I'm sure. But at this point I'm riding with the punches to be
honest.
RICHARD AEDY: Yeah. The, I don't know, the sheer fuss of opening night, how do you feel about them?
ANTHONY WARLOW: I hate them. I'll be honest with you. I absolutely hate them. And the reason for that is that we try to, particularly in Australia, we don't have
the luxury of normal periods of what they call previews.
Now a preview season in America is one month. And that gives all the members of the cast ample opportunity to be able to find a character, get what we call show fit
vocally and physically for the role. So by the time one month is up you've basically found the essence of what you're going to be doing and you're fit and ready to go.
You're supple and all the machinations are working.
Then it's a matter of that one night. And if I was ever to be a director I would say to my company: just be true to the story that you've told over the umpteen
performances you've given and try to make it actually not the best you can do tonight, because it won't be the best you can do.
Because there are people out there who have a critical eye. They're there watching and they're perhaps waiting for failure. And some members of that audience is
waiting for absolute spectacular performances to come out. And in a rare situation I'm sure that happens. But the anxiety of the night itself is so palpable that it's better
just to just sit back one step and just do a really fine performance.
RICHARD AEDY: Well opening night is November and so previews start in October. When do you need to get over there?
ANTHONY WARLOW: By very great kindness of John Frost, he's allowed me to leave the Melbourne production one week before the end of the season. So I fly
to New York on Tuesday the 7th and then I've asked them for a couple of days to get over jetlag, get into my digs as they say, and start rehearsal on the Monday the
13th, so.
RICHARD AEDY: Can you get away with less rehearsal time because you're actually playing the role now and you're so familiar with it?
ANTHONY WARLOW: No. The, I will be there with the company from day one. And I gather it's going to be a five week rehearsal period. It could be longer.
I believe that this production could be so totally different to what I've been experiencing here in Australia over the last 12 years. When I go over there I'm kind of an
alien. Well I am an alien.
RICHARD AEDY: You're an alien, yes.
ANTHONY WARLOW: I am. And so I have to then you know hope that the intrinsic characterisation that I have poured into Oliver Warbucks here in Australia is
still going to be right for that.

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Now James Lapine who is a wonderful director, and he brought us Into the Woods and Passion and he's a wonderful playwright as well, I don't know exactly what his
take is going to be on the show. I hope that he will allow us to have the essence of comedy which is what it's about as well because it is, you know, one of the oldfashioned musical comedies. But he may say, look, I want Oliver Warbucks to actually be very straight in this.
And that's fine too because it's, you know, it's trial by fire for me. And I will go over there with an, as I've said in the past, an open heart and an open mind and
constantly take in the learning process.
RICHARD AEDY: I mentioned the critics I suppose for a reason. I know they're always out there when a show opens. But this is an iconic American musical. It's a
much loved American story. You're this Australian bloke.
ANTHONY WARLOW: (Laughs) Yes. Look this is one of the amazing things. There are two wonderful things about this journey that I'm about to embark on.
The first is the simple fact that I have been invited from the Australian stage to go directly to New York without being, number one, a film star and have film cred,
number two having done this production in the West End for a year and then gone perhaps to Canada and then being invited to New York.
I am going in to create from scratch a new Daddy Oliver Warbucks for the 35th anniversary production of Annie. So that's a big coup for me.
The second amazing thing is that they're asking this Australian boy from Wollongong to come in to New York to play a New Yorker. So that's one of the greatest pat
on the shoulders I think any artist can be given.
RICHARD AEDY: No pressure then?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well there is a pressure but I do have a gift for voices. I love observing both vocally and by sight. So I take on a lot of those elements of
people around me.
And look quite frankly I've been to New York about five times in my life for holidays and some business trips here and there. But whenever I'm there I think I'm going
to say, don't be an Australian, just when in Rome, do what the Romans do.
I go there and (in New York accent) I ask for coffee, I go down to the concierge and I talk to them, you know, (in Bronx accent) and sometimes I'll be a Bronx sort
of person, (in upstate New York accent) then I'll be an upstate New Yorker. And so I try to deliver the essence of the people that are around me. And that hopefully
will come into this, the picture when I'm playing Oliver Warbucks.
RICHARD AEDY: And it's an interesting time for it to happen. You're 50 and of course you're exactly the right age for the character. But I would think that many of
your fans here would be really surprised that you're only making your debut on Broadway at 50.
ANTHONY WARLOW: (Laughs) Some of them have been surprised. I have been invited in the past to go over for particular projects. Some of them, I'll be honest
with you, are projects that I thought at the time, no, it's not, I'm not right for that at the moment.
But there always has been that hurdle of American Equity. And it's a tough beast.
RICHARD AEDY: This is the union of performers isn't it?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Yes. Yeah, yeah. A very tough beast. And they need to be shown that you have cache, you have theatre credibility, you have an audience in
your home country that denotes you as a star.
Now I obviously had champions in the production team.
And I believe when I was on the phone to James Lapine whilst performing Annie in Brisbane recently he said to me, "Anthony, I've never cast a role like this in my life,
not ever knowing the person." He said, "I've YouTubed you. We know you can sing." He said, "Do you know, do you do the production in Australia with American
accents?"
(Laughs) And I said, (in American accent), "Of course we do, yeah, we do it with American accents."
He said, "Oh that's good, that's good."
And so it was a kind of a baffling thing for him. I said to him, "James, my question to you is, how in God's name did I become part of this equation? How did I even
get into this?"
And it seems to be, and I will find this out no doubt when I'm in New York, that Martin Charnin of course who was the original lyricist and director of the 77
production and the team being Charles Strouse and Thomas Meehan, had final say on the casting of this production.
Now that's what I was told. Now it may not be exactly that. But I know for a fact that when Martin Charnin was here in 2000 and they wrote the new song which was
put into the show just for me, he'd said to me, "I finally found a Warbucks that is right for this production."
Now I took that with a certain amount of salt (laughs);
RICHARD AEDY: Yes.
ANTHONY WARLOW: ;at the time.
RICHARD AEDY: Still, feather in cap.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Absolutely. And then there was a song that was written for me. Now having said that, this time round I've actually deleted that song from
the production.
And I told that to James Lapine who said, he said, "Boy, that's a very brave move to make."
And I said, "Look, the song was great." I said, "But, as far as I was concerned as an artist it didn't really enhance or project the scene." I thought to myself that you
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know, it's about this man who is nervous about adopting this little girl. He wants to do it. He's always been, he takes what he wants in life. He's a self-made man.
And this, the song was dare I say a monologue where he was doubting the possibility of why should he change a thing, why should he have a little girl in his life.
And I thought that's great and it's one way of looking at that scene. But really it's, it wasn't propelling the essence of what the scene was about.
RICHARD AEDY: So it's a kind of vanity vehicle for the star.
ANTHONY WARLOW: I think so. And James Lapine seemed to be very happy about that decision that I made because he said, "I really want to get back to what
the essence of this show is about."
And there are two things about it. The first thing is that it's, it has universal heart. It's a great tale. It's a kind of soft love affair between an older man and a young girl
who has a tenacity that he has but he sees something in her that is, was perhaps him in an earlier incarnation.
Now one could say that it's about a little girl who has nothing in her life but the will to dream, and a man who has everything in his life but someone to share it with. And
he finds this in Annie. He's a self-made man. This little girl is a street urchin who has to be self-made. She's not the kind of child that would be a con artist. She's just
tough and she has tenacity and she has truth and honesty in her life. And he likes those qualities in her.
RICHARD AEDY: This is Sunday Profile. I'm Richard Aedy and my guest today is one of Australia's most successful performers and really a man who's had a unique
career - Anthony Warlow - who will be making his Broadway debut in the US later this year.
I want to go back a bit because we do that here on this show, Anthony, to the 1970s in Wollongong and you're into musical theatre while at high school. How did you
get started?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well I remember at the age of, and I'll say this, 10 and a half, 11, I had a natural boy soprano. And my father one day came home from
work and he said, "Anthony, would you like to learn to sing properly?"
And I said, "I'd love to."
And he enrolled me into the what was known then as the Wollongong Branch of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music.
And then came the Arcadians Musical Comedy Group. And they were holding auditions for the musical Oliver. I was invited by my piano teacher at the time, Claire
Logue. So I went in and I auditioned and I sang Where is Love and didn't get it.
And that's fine. I was put in the chorus, one of the urchins. And that was the beginning of my love of observation and watching people on stage and finding, I suppose,
finding what the elements of building a character was.
Because my mother said to me, "The man who was playing Fagan, I can never forget, it had nothing to do with what you were meant to be doing on stage. All you
were doing was watching his hands, his face, your mouth was moving when he was doing the dialogue." (Laughs)
RICHARD AEDY: So you were kind of sucking up the craft.
ANTHONY WARLOW: I was. I was a sponge, an absolute sponge. And from that role I then went and did win the role of Kurt in the amateur production of;
RICHARD AEDY: Sound of Music.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Sound of Music. And when I left school, I finished my HSC and the Conservatorium had built itself up and had formed the Conservatorium
Theatre Company. And we had a production of Man of La Mancha that I was, I loved and I was desperate to play the role of Don Quixote.
So you can imagine this 18 year old coming along and them saying, no look, we know this is an amateur production but quite frankly we really need someone who's
older.
So what do I do? I grab all my makeup ability (laughter) and I sit in front of the mirror for three hours. My father was a beautiful portrait photographer in Wollongong.
I came out of the bathroom at about six o'clock in the evening I remember and put - this is what I did - I went and put the recording on of The Impossible Dream. And
it was Richard Kiley singing from the Broadway production. And I mimed to this thing dressed (laughter) in whatever I could muster, with this face and this hair as Don
Quixote.
My father said, "Right, get in the car. We're going down, I'm taking a photograph of this."
So he came (laughs);
RICHARD AEDY: And these days it would be going on YouTube and we'd be able to find it!
ANTHONY WARLOW: Oh absolutely! (Laughter) Oh absolutely. And so he did this beautiful portrait of me which I still have. I took that photograph to the audition.
And I said to the woman who was directing, Heather Pulsford, I said, "Heather I understand that I may not be right for this but I want to go behind a screen, I would
like you to look at this image and I would like to do the dialogue and sing the song. And if I can move you, as if it's a radio play."
So she allowed me to do it. I did it. She said thank you very much.
At about nine o'clock that evening the phone rang at home. My father answered it. And he said, "Anthony, there's a phone call for you. It's Heather Pulsford."
So I went to the phone. She said, "Anthony, when you left the room I couldn't stop crying. We'd like you to be our Don Quixote."
RICHARD AEDY: One of the roles that - I suppose the role that shot you to stardom was as the phantom on The Phantom of the Opera.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Yes.
RICHARD AEDY: And really that had been up till then owned in a sense by Michael Crawford.
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ANTHONY WARLOW: That's right.

RICHARD AEDY: How big a challenge was that, to step into that one?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well massive, and considering that I was the youngest in the world at the time to do it. And that's another story which is extraordinary
because the, we were doing Les Miserables at the time.
And John Robertson who was the executive producer of Mackintosh at the time in Australia said to me, you know, "Are you going to audition for this?" I said, "Well
I'll audition for Raoul."
Well about a week before the auditions started he came to me and he said, "I think you should have a crack at the phantom."
I said, "Well look I know I can play the phantom but I'm too young. It says in the brief that he has to be, you know, 45."
And then he reminded me. He said, "Anthony, half your face is covered in a mask," and he said, "it's about your histrionics, it's about the way you move."
And I said, "Well that's true." So I went in and I auditioned as Raoul and was really disappointed with the way that I did it, probably because I was dealing with two
characters that I was trying to present on the day. So consequently I came off stage beating myself up.
So when the audition for phantom came along and I said to them, "Look I have only received this music in the last week. I don't know Music of the Night. Would you
mind if I read it from the score?" They said no, that's fine, of course.
Well that in itself made me even more angry with myself because I thought surely I could have learnt the thing, you know.
Well the anger that was in me presented itself in such a, apparently an enigmatic performance on that day that the final thing, I sang Music of the Night and then there's
that piece that the phantom sings if you can remember in The Angel where he sings almost with a boy soprano. And then he sings this great line which is (singing): "You
will curse the day you did not do all that the phantom asks of you".
And the last note is held for a number of bars. Well the poor pianist is doing this da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da while I'm singing: "you".
I was so angry with myself and I was so defiant I pointed to Hal Prince wherever he was and I sang this note forever. The poor pianist had finished and I kept singing
the note and then stormed off stage without even being asked to leave. And I thought well that's it, I've, you know that's my career down, finished.
Well a week later of course I get the phone call: we'd like you to be our phantom.
And apparently as soon as I left Hal turned to Cameron and said, "We've found our phantom."
RICHARD AEDY: That's a wonderful story.
ANTHONY WARLOW: (Laughs) It's a great story and it's absolutely true.
RICHARD AEDY: Now when you, a bit after that of course, not long though really, you were 29, top of the tree;
ANTHONY WARLOW: Mhmm.
RICHARD AEDY: And you get cancer.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Yeah.
RICHARD AEDY: Which obviously would have been devastating. How do you remember the day you found out?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well I remember leaving the production. I did one year of the show and it was, because I gave it everything that I could possibly give a role,
I just decided that I wanted to try other things.
And I took about two months off after I'd finished the show just to have a rest. And during that time that was when I discovered this small lump behind my ear.
And my temperament had changed and I was, I was just a different kind of person. And I was feeling as if I had over time, if you can imagine honey flying through your
veins, it being quite thick.
And then I recorded an album and I was doing a publicity tour of that with radio and what have you.
And during that time Harry M Miller offered me the role of Pilate in the concert version of Jesus Christ Superstar with John Farnham and Kate Ceberano. So I was
excited about that. And I thought well this will be good, this will put me in another league.
And we were at a hotel in Sydney about to do a launch when I got out of the car and literally collapsed, went into the room and everything was spinning around. And I
put it down to just exhaustion from running around, doing publicity.
We had a surgeon come and have a look and a friend of his was Chris O'Brien, sadly who's now passed away. Chris came and looked at me and checked me all out
and he said, "I think we should have a biopsy done tomorrow."
So I went to the launch, the actual press launch of this, and I still, I can remember the footage, with a face blown up like a balloon and presenting myself as, you know,
going to be the Pilate in this production. And I thought well if it's benign and it's just something that I'll just continue on do it, if not I'll just have to pull out.
And as it turned out it was not benign. And I went in the following day and had it removed. And it was lymphoblastic lymphoma. And I started with the process of
chemotherapy and radiation and some six months later and oral therapy after that.
And that was the beginning of the change really for me. I asked the question why once. But I literally thought to myself I'm too young. I'm too young to go;
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RICHARD AEDY: That's it, yes.

ANTHONY WARLOW: ;this is not right. And I thought I'll get on with this. And whatever I had to do. I put on weight, which was a good thing they said, lost all my
hair of course. That now is my badge of honour. It's my signature.
RICHARD AEDY: It is.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Yeah, so, and perfect for Daddy Warbucks.
RICHARD AEDY: But how, you know, 29 years old. You're barely, these days, you're barely a grown-up. I mean you'd been a professional for a long time but
you're barely a grown-up. You know how it is. We get through to 30 before adolescence is really over. And all of a sudden the most grown-up thing almost
imaginable happens. How did you get through it?
ANTHONY WARLOW: With all honesty I got through with great faith, with love of life, an absolute love of life, and the simple fact that I try to look at the glass as
always being half full. And that's my philosophy.
I love the work. I've been very, very blessed in my life and career that I've been able to do what I love.
RICHARD AEDY: But when you, when you get to the end of your run - and I know you've signed a contract for a year and maybe it'll be extended and maybe after
a year you'll have had enough. But when you get to the end of the run, if you do as well as you always have, you'll have no more worlds to conquer.
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well that's okay because I've had an experience, you know, in the past of revisiting roles for instance, which I never thought would happen.
And I see nothing wrong with that because what it does it actually clarifies the characterisation that one can give a role. It clarifies the history and sometimes it throws
out the baggage. And I've been surprised that a lot of the elements that I have retained have been absolutely right for this character.
And with phantom I sang the role a lot more than I did this time round because audiences were being taught what Phantom of the Opera was about. This latest
incarnation people knew what the show was about so I decided not to sing it as much. I decided to give it more of an actorly bent.
RICHARD AEDY: So is that part of the future then - less singing, more acting; perhaps a day in which there isn't any singing?
ANTHONY WARLOW: Well you know I would be quite happy to do that. I think that what I have been able to do with the roles that I've performed over the years
is to really take them on not just as a singer but as the actor.
Because when you look at a lot of musical theatre books they can be quite skeletal, or skeletal (laughs). And I try to build up an interesting, characterised flesh on that
skeleton.
And that's, you know, I think basically I'm a relatively instinctive but intelligent actor who tries to work out the arc of a character and make it interesting not only for
you to play but for an audience to follow.
RICHARD AEDY: Anthony Warlow.
If you want listen again or get hold of the podcast of the interview, go to the website: abc.net.au/sundayprofile.
Sunday Profile is produced by Connie Agius. I'm Richard Aedy and there's only one way to go out.
(Music from Annie: Tomorrow)

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