Crystal Monee Hall
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
A nation on the edge, on the verge, the center can hold when two ideas can merge.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
My mom has a beautiful voice, and I learned how to sing listening to her sing on Sunday mornings in church. I had my first solo in the choir when I was like, I don't know, seven or eight. You remember what you sang? I do, I do. It's a song called I May Be Young. Can I hear a bit? The chorus is like, I may be young. Do, do, do, do, do. And never get old. May not have money. Silver and gold.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
I have a savior. His name is Jesus. I can feel him down in my soul. And then my solo was like this. Oh, how I love. That's how I sung it, too. It was like that.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
I did. Yeah. It's a source of pride for me. My dad was in the first class of black people to ever matriculate there.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
I loved it. No, I did. But I was like, I am not happy. I'm going to go to New York and I'm going to sing. And I don't even know if I knew what that meant. I guess in my mind, I was going to like lay across a piano in like a shiny dress. What was your first job? I came to New York. I auditioned. I took the first job I got. It was a Disney cruise line.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
And the next thing that I got was the non-union tour of Rent. And I did that for a year.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
It's like really short sits in cities like we would sleep on the floor of a bus. I mean, like a Greyhound bus. We didn't feel it at all. Could I do it today? Hell no. But then I was ready for the world, honey. I was a road dog. After I did that non-equity tour for a year, I went directly into the Broadway show. And you started as a swing, is that right? I started as a swing.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
I mostly played Joanna, Mrs. Jefferson, the Seasons of Love soloist. I closed it out, so I was there for about the last four or five years.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
The first lyrics in 90 Day War are a nation on the edge, on the verge. The center can't hold when two ideas can't merge.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
So it starts with everybody goes, whoa, which I thought was so cute because it sort of sounds like the word war. But it goes... You know what I mean? Suddenly we're in some sort of rock... thing, but we're like in 6-8 and there's this military snare under it.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
The creative team, you get your upfront to work on the show, whatever that is. And that depends on, you know, how much cachet you have and how long you've been in the business and what you can command. But after that, you don't get paid. You don't get any money as you're going. You hope that it is something that is very, very lasting and that you will be able to get all of that back in.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
But that's not necessarily promised. It's a hope and faith thing. You know, you got to love it. You got to love it.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
I can say that first-time composers are generally making for an upfront between 18 and 25,000. Right now, I am inside of the dream. And that's Daniel Watts.
Freakonomics Radio
629. How Is Live Theater Still Alive?
There's a long way to go. Yes, there is. There's a long way to go. I guess I should be knocking wood.