Best Of: 'Book of Mormon' turns 15 / Actor Clarke Peters

The tensions?

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The book of Mormon is celebrating its 15th year on Broadway. We'll hear from two of the original stars, Josh Gad and Andrew Reynolds. The show is beloved and/or offensive, which isn't surprising considering it was co-created by Matt Stone and Tray Parker, the creators of South Park.

Gad remembers the first time he heard the show song, "Has a Diga Ebu Way."

"I called my agent at the time and I said, "I don't think I can do this show." And he said, "Why?" And I said, "Because I don't want to get killed."

“Later, actor Clark Peters, whose breakout role was in the HBO series The Wire as Police Detective”

Lester Freeman. He co-starred as a Vietnam vet in Spike Lee's Defive Bloods and co-stars in the new series The Burrows. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This message comes from lies.

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The book of Mormon is celebrating its 15th anniversary on Broadway. It received nine tonies, including Best Musical and Best Score. My guess were stars of the original Broadway cast. This weekend marks the end of their week of cameo appearances in every show as part of the anniversary celebration.

The book of Mormon revolves around two young Mormon men who are very excited that they've reached the age where they're assigned to a mission. They're hoping to be sent to an exciting, beautiful place, but they're assigned to Uganda, which is dealing with the AIDS epidemic, war, and famine. The show is a satirical, but kind of affectionate, but could also be considered kind of offensive.

Look at Mormon beliefs and then I have TA of some young men. It was created and written by Tre Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, along with Robert Lopez, who co-wrote the songs for Frozen and Avenue Q. A 15th anniversary remastered edition of the original Book of Mormon cast recording, along with new liner notes and photos, will be released later this month.

Let's start with the opening song, hello. As the young missionaries are being trained on how to go door-to-door, proselytizing, we'll hear the opening of the song featuring Reynolds and the conclusion of the song featuring Josh Gad.

Hello, my name is Elder Price, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book.

Hello, my name is Elder Grant, it's a book about America, a long, long time ago. It has so many awesome parts, you simply won't believe how much this book can change your life. Hello, with you like to change religions, I have a free book written by Jesus. No, no, Elder Cunningham, that's not how we do it.

We're making things up again, just stick to the approved dialogue. Hello, my name is Elder Cunningham, and we would like to share with you this book of Jesus Christ. Josh Gad Andrew Reynolds, welcome back to Fresh Air, congratulations on the 15th anniversary. Thank you.

Thanks for having us back. I'm delighted to have you here.

“I love that song, I think it's a great opening to the show, I'm wondering since it's”

all about two missionaries training to go door to door, did you have people coming to your door when you were growing up who were Mormons trying to convert you? I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and there is a pretty large Mormon population there, as well as a large Jehovah's Witness population. So we did, but I grew up extremely Catholic, and not that we weren't kind to these young

people when they came to the door, but it was, I think it was something that we were

be like, "Hubbly." Here they come.

Did you ever let them in?

Oh, no, we weren't. Did you try to convert them?

“No, we didn't go that far either, I think she was just like, "Oh, we're Catholic, and”

you know, but thanks for stopping by." I grew up in South Florida, and Hollywood, Florida did not have many Mormons from what I remember knocking on our door. It was only sort of later, going into the process of Book of Mormon, I actually did not know a lot about the Mormon church, I had to sort of research a lot about it.

Terry, I do just very quickly, when we were in rehearsals for the workshop, I decided that I should be a good little actor, and I should go to the Mormon temple. Remember this? And I should meet with some Mormon missionaries. So I got myself and snared in a very strange relationship with these two young men.

I met with a handful of times, and they were so excited that someone wanted to talk to them, and that I solicited them, and then they said, "Can we come to your home?" I lived with my boyfriend at the time, and the apartment was pretty clear to gay men live there. I mean, it was like real mid-century off the charts, you know what I'm saying?

And so I was like, "You know what? Let's let them come in." So these two Mormon missionaries came over, and there's like immediately, there's like a picture of my boyfriend, and I, like, on the mantle, and so I had to explain to them that I was like, "I'm actually in a musical about the Mormon Church, and they were sort

of shocked." But then it was so helpful because they really opened up to me about how scary and disappointing it was to be a missionary at times, and especially being a missionary at New York City. They were like, "No one will speak to us. People are very mean to us," and then I was like, "Well, where are you hanging out?"

They were like, "Well, they sent us to Times Square, and I was like, "Well, you got to get out of Times Square. You cannot be hanging out in Times Square, boys." However, your voice has changed in the past 15 years. You've sung a lot.

You've done a lot. You're older. I was in Salted yesterday when our producer came up to me and said, "You sound so much

better than you did back when you first did it."

Really? Yes. And I was like, "What? Did I really not sound good when I first--?" No, you sounded great.

You can tell me now, Andrew. No, you sounded fantastic.

“Well, you don't know how to, is that a compliment or an insult?”

Well, that's what I'm wondering. I think you sound the same. I mean, look, our voices are different. 15 years. There's a lot of weird tear.

You know, some of it is muscle memory. I would say some of it comes back. I got to perform this number, I believe, on Stephen Colbert Show, that was the number that I sang on the Tony Awards, and that's very nice. But that weirdly, as we were rehearsing it, it was still somewhere like lodged in live

voice. And I think you're having a similar one. The same thing when I found out I was doing this, I played the album in the car and I started to sing along. And some of those high notes, I just was like, "Oh my God, I can't--how am I going to--?"

And I actually asked them to lower it and they laughed and said, "No." And then I started to sort of do it on my feet. And just like you said, something clicks and it all sort of like, it's like writing a bike. It's just sort of in there somewhere.

Now the physical side of it, Terry is a little different. Physically doing some of these numbers, that's where the aging process really catches up to you. You mean, like you can't sing as much as you are? Well, you can't.

I can't dance as much as I used to. The singing part is a little easier to control, the physical, the knees, the getting up and down off the ground. That's all a little bit different. Although you're lucky, you don't have to do any of the big dance numbers.

That's not a coincidence. I said, "No." I said, "No." I said, "No." They were like, "Do you want to do this big dance number?"

And I said, "No, thank you."

When you first read the book for the book of Mormon and then heard the songs, what was

a reaction, because depending on who you are, it's hilarious or incredibly offensive.

“The script changed so heavily, and I don't know what this says about me that I remember”

reading it when I was auditioning for the show and not being phased by any of it and just sort of like, "Okay." That sounds great. And then, because I'm playing this Mormon missionary who is shocked by all of these things that are being said, so it was very easy to sort of, you know, to play that part, because

a lot of it is sort of shocking and is not your typical musical theater fair.

was funny. I certainly didn't think it would be still running on Broadway after 15 years and would have toured to Salt Lake City. I didn't think that they would have done that, but it did.

“I was involved from the very first workshop, and I remember getting a demo, and the first”

song I heard, I laughed my butt off. It was, "Hello," "bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump."

Second song was, "To buy to, we're marching toward to door, and these songs were just so

fun." The song called "Hassadiga Ebuai," and at that point I called my agent at the time, and I said, "I don't think I can do this show," and he said, "Why?" And I said, "Because I don't want to get killed." So with "Hassadiga Ebuai," it's like Hakuna Matata from the Lion King, and a general in Uganda

sings it, and he's saying when things are really bad, there's famine, there's war. Everybody has aides, but when we think about that, we lift our hands to the sky, and we sing "Hassadiga Ebuai," and you're expecting that that's going to be a really inspirational phrase. What that really means is, you know, it's an explosive, addressed to God, and there

are so many people who will never get past that, I'm sure, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone,

the creators of the show along with Robert Lopez. When I interviewed them, they said, "That's the point where you know who's in, and who is out." That is true. That is true.

My answer would be, I'm just shocked 15 years later, and how many people are in.

“Well, but I think it speaks to, I think it speaks to people who are having, you know,”

there are horrible things that are happening around them, horrible things that are happening to them, and it speaks to this fear of the absence of God in those moments. So I think Trey and Matt and Bobby have written something that I think really pulls from like a deep truth that, or a deep fear that people have, which is, is there a God where his God gone, and it's set to this really sort of playful, animated music, but the question

is, is there a God in this place? My guests are Andrew Reynolds and Josh Gad. They start in the original cast of the Book of Mormon. This weekend marks the end of their week of cameo performances in the show. As Sunday they performed at the Tonies, we'll hear more of our conversation after a break.

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“I want to start with, I believe, and that's, like, your big showpiece Andrew, and so I want”

you to describe the context of the song. The context of this song, I mean, Bobby Lopez has been very open about, it was very much inspired by the song, I have confidence from the sound of music, that it is its elder price, sort of, building himself up, to go back out and reaffirm his faith, and he's going to double down on this, and he's going to go and try to convert these people

in Uganda after he arrives, and nothing is going in the way he wants it to, or the way he hoped it would, and he feels very beaten down. But then he has this moment where he decides, I can do this, I can do this, and I'm going to start with the village warlord, that's going to be my guy, and I'm going to start with that guy, and if I can convert him, then everybody else will fall into place, and so most

of the song is him building himself up to do this. So let's hear Andrew Reynolds from the original cast recording of the Book of Mormon singing, I believe.

I've always longed to help the needy, to do the things I never dared, this was the time

for me to step up, so then why was I so scared, a warlord who shoots people in the face, or what's so scary about that? I must trust that my lord is my tier, and always has my back.

got created the universe, I believe, that he said is the only son to die for my sins,

and I believe the ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America.

“I am a Mormon, and a Mormon just believes, you cannot just believe part-way, you have to believe”

and it all, the problem was doubting the Lord's will, instead of standing tall, I can't allow myself to have any doubt. It's time to set my worries free, time to show the world with elder prices about, and share the power inside of me, I believe, that God has a plan for all of us, I believe, and that plan involves me getting my own planet, and I believe that the current president of the church Thomas Potsence Beach directly to God. I am a Mormon,

I am a Mormon just believe. So that was Andrew Randall's from the original cast recording of the Book of Mormon singing, I believe. There are some really high notes in that, yeah. I know one night you lost your voice, right before singing it, and you managed to get through the song. That happened many times, but you know, you do a show eight times a week for you lost your voice on stage many times. I mean, yeah, over the course of my career,

that's something that happens, I mean, not just in the Book of Mormon, but in other shows, like you learn to sing through sickness, and you learn to sing through, I mean, there are nights where there are certain notes missing in your voice, all of a sudden, and you don't find out until you're on stage in front of 1200 people, and you're like, oh, boy, and you just have to figure out a way to sing around it. But it was, you know,

after previews, after opening, after the Tony Awards, I hadn't missed any performances. And, you know, I started my careers of replacement. As an understudy, I just, I was not accustomed to the idea that I could call out of a show, and I probably shouldn't have done the show that night, but I remember it was like a couple of weeks after the Tony Awards, and, um, and I sang this duet that, that Josh and I sang called you and me, but mostly me,

and it was kind of a disaster. But I just continued. I just continued with the show, and I was like, I'm gonna try to make this work. It was actually remarkable to watch. But then, by the,

“I don't know, I pulled that very deep out of my soul, and I got through, I believe, somehow,”

and, like, sang the whole thing. And, I amazed myself that I could do it, and then I got to another song that's called Orlando. I don't know if you remember this Josh. And it's supposed to end with a

a little fall set of thing where I say, um, and I'll never go back to, and I'm supposed to go,

you. And instead, I went, never go back to you. And the curtain flew up, and all the missionaries come out, and everyone was like, yeah, and then the, after the bow is that night, I walked off stage, and I, I remember Karen Moore, our stage manager was standing there, and I burst into tears, and I said, I have to, I have to, I have to miss a show. And she said, you're allowed to miss a show, and I just, like, cried and cried about it. It was so, yeah, I didn't, it had never occurred to me.

I sometimes get, I sometimes get larynxitis when I get to her. Sure. And I hadn't larynxitis

just a few weeks ago, and I always say to myself, your voice will come back, but there's a little

part of my brain saying, what if it doesn't? Absolutely. You go through that? Absolutely. Or, when your voice is low, and all of a sudden you sound like, you know, like, Kathleen Turner,

“and you're like, is it, will it always sound like that? You remember when I had larynxitis”

opening night of Gutenberg? Yes. Josh got very sick when we did Gutenberg night. And we call it Dr. Footlights on Broadway. You can sound terrible, and then all of a sudden you get on stage, and something adrenaline happens, and Josh got through this whole two-person show that we did with a lot of music in it, and you just did it. There was no option. There was no option opening night, two words and show, not many options. Well, Josh, let's hear your big number in the show.

This is man up. Do you want to explain the context? Yes, so, you know, for all of Act One,

a big... You're like a builder price, and he's the lead. And he actually, you know, there's a

“do-out with the two of them called you and me, but mostly me, where Elder Price sings about”

the fact that this is really his journey, and Elder Cunningham can be a sidekick on that journey. He can, you know, have a small little part of that journey, but he just basically needs to stay

out of Price's way and follow. And Elder Cunningham is very happy to do that, because he's never

had somebody who will actually not leave an abandoned him, and then something happens over the course of the first Act, and Cunningham finds that he's been abandoned, again, but for the first time in his life, he has somebody in the form of this character, Nabalunki, who's one of the villagers, and she

“basically tells him, "Hey, why don't you take the mantle? Why don't you show us the way forward?"”

And this sparks a light bulb moment in Cunningham, and he decides that for the first time in his life, he has an opportunity to take the reins to step from the role of sidekick into the role of the main star. And so this song is that sort of culmination of that journey. Let's listen to it. When faced with his own death, Jesus knew that he had to man up, he had to man up, so we crawled up on that cross, and he stuck it out, and it manned up,

Christy Mandor, and taught us all what real manning a piece of bow. And now it's up to me, and it's time to man up, Jesus had his top, and now it's time to man up. I'm taking the reins, I'm tossing the bear, just like Jesus, I'm growing a pair. I've got to stand up, can't just clam up, it's time to man up.

“So, Josh, do you hear a little bit of foot loose in that song?”

I've never thought about that until now. Yeah, it's definitely, well, it's got a very

80s quality to it. I remember, from the very first workshop that song is existed, and actually, the very first workshop we did, train that and Bobby had not written any of act 2. So, the show just literally ended with man up, but it wasn't an ensemble, it was just me, and it ended with me, basically, being like, man up, and that was it. And they were like, we went to black, and so it evolved into what it evolved into. But, you know, the influences

of each of these songs, including man up, comes from a place of absolute, weird devotion to musical theater on the part of train parkour, Matt Stone. Obviously, Bobby Lopez comes from that world. But when you look at train, you tell the first thing you think of is not necessarily like musical theater acumen. And these are two guys that people forget when they wrote a South Park bigger longer on-cup, the feature film adaptation of the comedy central show, they got a letter from Stephen

Sontheim who's probably the most acclaimed composer and lyricist of the 20th century. And he basically said, this is one of the top 10 most brilliantly realized musicals he's ever seen. And I really do think that the reason part of the reason the show endures is because each one of these songs is instantaneous ly hummable. Each one of these songs, you say, "Footlose" in the case of man up. But each one of

these songs reminds you of something, but it's never past each. It's never sort of making fun

both. Thank you so much for coming back to our show. Oh my gosh, thank you for having us here

“the best. Thank you for keeping us on track. You know, most interviewers don't have that”

in them to deal with Josh and I together. We were very disciplined today. We were very disciplined. Well, thank you for that. We took this very seriously, very seriously. We're huge fans of viewers in VRL and it's a real honor to be back here, so thank you. Josh Gad and Andrew Randall's starred in the original cast of the Book of Mormon, which is now celebrating its 15th anniversary on Broadway. So many of us became aware of what a great actor Clark Peters is from his role

in one of the best TV series ever made, HBO's The Wire. He played police detective Lester Freeman, who helped track down the drug dealers that detectors were looking for through his research and his analysis of wire taps. The series was co-created by David Simon, who also co-created the HBO series Trimay, said in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Peters co-starred in that too as a Mardi Gras Indian chief who returns to his damaged home and tries to rebuild his life.

In Spike Lee's film to five bloods, he was one of the four of Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war. Now is one of the stars of the Netflix series The Burrows. Clark plays one of the residents in the retirement community that promises an almost utopian chapter of your life. But some of the residents start dying while others start experiencing some very disturbing inexplicable encounters and visions. Something's going on and it seems to be

something supernatural. Clark Peters grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, but moved to Europe in the 70s and settled in London where he continues to live and is speaking to us from. He's been in London stage productions of the musical's Geys and Dolls, Porgy and Bass, and Chicago as well as dramas. He co-wrote and co-starred in the original production of the musical Five Guys Namoe,

which was first staged in London, it moved to Broadway where it was also a big hit.

Clark Peters, welcome to Fresh Air, it's such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. I did all that. You did a lot more than that. I figured let me keep my intro short so we have more time to actually talk. I could have gone on and left out a lot of series and movies. So let's get to the boroughs. So the cast is largely in their 60s and 70s because it's set in a retirement community.

You yourself as Clark Peters, you're in your mid 70s. What kind of roles do you think you would have been offered at this age? When you started professionally, acting professionally in the 1970s? Well, I picked this profession so that I would have longevity.

I could still be acting at 100 if it comes to it. But starting out, I always

always played old people. So in driving Miss Daisy, for example, with Dame Wendy Hiller,

“I think I was in my late 30s playing Oak, who was well up into his 80s and I”

looked at a diary that I'd written and in one one paid it was, I'm tired of playing old guys because there's no future in it. But I'm still playing old guys. What have you told you about the role in the boroughs? To tell you the truth honestly, I didn't want to do the boroughs because someone had likened it to stranger things, which I hadn't seen before this offer came through. What I didn't want to be doing was acting as I'm chasing monsters until I'm 80 years old. But then I read the script

and I thought, oh, I can resonate with this journey, with the quest that that art is on. And then I looked at the cast and I thought, oh, there's just no way I can say no to this. There are roles for older people where, especially sometimes when the cast is all about older people, where I send something condescending. They're either like, oh, it's so cute. They're on an adventure. Oh, it's so cute. They're still walking. Oh, it's so cute. There's still breathing. There's still breathing.

“Oh, it's so cute. They fall in love. Do you get offered roles like that and what do you do?”

Yes, I try to let people know that just because we live in a society where we

something to offer. And I like to at least have that conversation, you know, that the elderly

“remember the past. You know, and if you want to move forward, you've got to talk to some older people.”

You know, and yes, we do fall in love and just we do have adventures. And there are still things to discover, even at this age, I'm not going to slow down just because accept the generic and there's that just does not make sense. That's the furthest from my mind and hopefully from my body. You know, so finding roles that are like the boroughs, you know, where there's a group of people who are the same age, having an adventure, I like that. Otherwise,

you know, I've been somebody's dad, somebody's grandfather, you know, I just like to be somebody's brother, somebody's lover, you know, and just carry on as life is, as it really is. Clark Peters is one of the stars of the new Netflix series, the boroughs. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. I'm Terry Gross and this is fresh air weekend. You know, every day on up first NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast,

we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story, our questions.

What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow a first wherever you get your podcasts and start

“your day knowing what matters and why. I hope you're not tired talking about the wire,”

but it is one of the best TV series ever made, maybe the best, and you were one of the stars. So can we talk about that just a little? Sure. Talk about a lot. Thank you. So you played police detective Lester Freeman and you're the detective who finds clues through like online research and files through contacts, wire taps, and you can put two and two together and synthesize the clues that you found into some kind of path. But you start off in this series, working the

pawn shop beat. And I want to play a scene from early on in the first season. You've just

found an important clue that no one else on the investigation has been able to find, identifying who Avon Barkstale is. Yes. And so he's one of the two major drug dealers in the series. So here's a scene where detective Jimmy McNulty comes to see you in your office. He's impressed with the work you've done, but when he walks in he finds you putting together miniature models of furniture and McNulty's played by Dominic West and he speaks first.

So you're a police after all. You know what you're doing but you haven't been doing it. Along you've been in the pawn shop unit. There are two years and four months, 13 years and four months. I gotta ask you. What exactly does a police officer assigned to the pawn shop unit do? You intake reports from registered pawn shops and all items valued over $50. Then you make an index card for that item. Then you file that index card. If someone wants to find out

something stolen has been pawned, we'd love to see if we have an index card. If we do, we do. If we don't, we don't. You did that for 13 years and four months. Why do you ask out of homicide? Well, no ask about it. You got the boot. Uh-huh. What'd you do to piss them off? Police work. I think I need to buy you a drink. Just one. I heard you say as we were listening to that four months. Just one. You remember the lines from that? I remember the scene.

“This was one of your first scenes, right? Is that also why you remember it?”

No, I didn't remember it until we started to hear it. Oh, and then it came back to you. And then it came back to me as, yeah. I'm not one of those actors that holds on to this stuff here. I'm amazed, you know, when Emecullen, for example, were all of a sudden out of nowhere, started reciting reams of Shakespeare that is appropriate to a particular moment that we're living today.

I don't have that kind of mind. But when I hear something like that, it's like playing music. You know what, you know what, key you're playing. And you figure I remember this melody. Yeah, so you pick it up from there. Is Lester the role you auditioned for? Uh, is that audition for Lester? No, I don't think I did, but I was quite happy to land

he's, you know, because he does do police work, you know, he doesn't have access to the internet.

“You know, um, it was old fashioned research, and you went through volumes and of tombs of”

information, whether it was banking or whether it was in this particular instance, um, real estate records. And then having to cross reference that, you know, uh, my mind likes that kind of agility. You know, uh, and I liked that being applied in, um, in Lester's, in Lester's life. Did you only know the scenes you were in or did you also get to see what was happening behind the scenes in city politics? And, you know, among the drug dealers and the corner,

the corner boys, and did you get to see their scenes? Or did you just know what you would know as your character? No, back then, you know, we, we would get the whole episode and you would read the whole episode, uh, nowadays, you know, you get to see and you have no idea the context

“of the scene. And you're asked to audition. I can't do that. I refuse to do that. I think that”

that really makes our job as actors very difficult. When we have the whole story, then we can see how we fit into that story and how we can either enhance, enhance that story, sell it or, or, or, or whatever, you know, at, at the end of the day, the star of any story is the story you're telling. It has, it's not the person, you know, who's at whose name is above the title. You know, it's, and when that becomes more important than the story that we're telling, you know, then we just,

we as actors just become commodities. You know, I push back against that. I really do, you know, and as far as like reading every episode, I couldn't wait until the next episodes came. And I was

always looking for that moment that said, Kima, maybe saying something to McNulty, like, uh,

did you hear what happened to Freeman? He caught one while he's put him against it. You know, I never expected to be there that long, you know, but, uh, thank the Lord I was. What did you think of the police when you were growing up? And did playing a police detective give you an empathy for police that you maybe didn't feel before? I grew up with great respect for the police because in Anglewood. Anglewood, New Jersey. Anglewood, New Jersey.

We knew the police. We went to school with their children. They knew our parents, you know, and so it was almost something that you may want it to have to aspire to. Going through the 60s and in 70s, I lost total respect for the police because of their abuse of power. I don't have a lot of respect for them now before that same reason. Yet for those who are working that beats and who are trying to do the right thing, I have the greatest respect for.

And I know that we can be in a society that is police in the proper way where the community is well is part of the health of that community with the police. I know that it took you years to

actually watch the wire. So my question is, what's wrong with you? Um, work. I never had time to slow down

long enough to watch it. And there's nothing wrong now, now that I was well done. You surprised at how good it was? Yeah, I was. I actually binge watched all five seasons. I had a double knee replacements and I was recuperating and I thought, you know, I've only seen

“the first two episodes of each season because that's what they would show before. We finished shooting”

and then I'd come back to England. It wasn't being shown in England and I would start work until the next season of shooting. So I never got a chance to watch the whole, a whole season, you know. But then we were sitting there with this ice pack on both of my knees. I just binge watched, I thought this is really good. I think I may even watch a twice. You know, it's just a really at the nuances of different people's performances. But also the information that's being imparted

concerning our society. You know, that I found very, very insightful. Yeah, agreed.

So you settled first in Paris and then you moved to England, largely because of

here, which you had auditioned for several times in New York and never got. What's your theory

“about why you were getting more roles in England on the stage than you got in New York?”

First of all, my career began in England. My first professional job was in England with the Whatford Rep. Rep. Company doing guys and dolls. That's such a great show. The songs are so good. You've let Skymaster send, right? I did. Yes, three times there and then twice with the National Theatre. How great is that? So you got to sing "Luck be a Lady" and I've never been

ever before. And also the best song in that is my time of daily. Oh, you are so right and

it's not in the movie. Yes, that's right because he couldn't sing it. Well, it's got unusual intervals. Was it hard for you to sing? Do you want to do a few bars of it? It's such a great song. My time of day is the dark time a couple of deals before dawn when the street belongs to the cop and the janitor with a mop and the grocery clerks are all gone and the smell of the rain washed pavement comes up clean and fresh and cold and the street lap light fills the gutters with cold.

That's my time of day. My time of day and you're the only doll I ever wanted to

“share it with me. I was singing the wrong key but it's still lovely though. I got what a great song”

and pleasure to hear you sing it. You have a pretty big range, right? That was like a really deep at the end. Yeah. I'm a bass baritone with tenor tendencies I sort of like to say. That sounds dangerous. As it came out, that's probably the wrong way to prove for it. So did that make you flexible and what kind of singing ports are you got that you had like the bass and the tenor tendencies? Yes, yes. By the time we go to a to porgy and porgy and best,

I mean that's in my middle range but will you crown or porgy? I was porgy. Oh wow. Yeah, I liked I loved that. Well best of you is my woman now. It's beautiful. I'm not going to sing that one, Terry. That's a hard one. How has being black in London different from being black in New York or other places that you'd been to in the U.S.? Let's go back to why I was I came to England. I can address that particular question through theater. What England had to

offer or the way I feel I was successful in England was first of all because I was an American.

Secondly because I was a black American and because the culture of America concerning entertainers in theater and in musicals is something that is already part of our culture of the American culture. In England people of color here coming from the Caribbean or coming from Africa do not have that same sensibility in theater particularly at that particular point in time in musicals. So it was to a large degree. It was easier for me than then my Caribbean or African

counterpart to get the same roles. Do you understand exactly what you're saying? I don't think musicals are like a big tradition in Jamaica. No neither are they in England but a pantomime is yes that's the musicals are big in England. Yes they are now now they are. They weren't them? Well they weren't not not for people of color. Oh I see what you're saying. Yes you're not for people of color at all and because the because the dynamic the political

“dynamic had to change to a larger degree I think that I was helped it was here to help facilitate”

that change or that acceptance. There was a musical called bubbling brown sugar that came in 1978.

and three white dancers and singers and the story is basically we take them on a tour of what

Harlem was like during the Renaissance and during the heyday of Harlem. It was a kind of show that

“you had acting that you know do comedy everything and it's the first time I think that that”

generation had been introduced to this quality of performance particularly by a black company.

What songs did you sing in bubbling brown sugar? I sang sophisticated ladies

Yes. I sang the Elington's. Yeah, the Elington. Gosh yes. That also has some unusual intervals. I get them dulling. I get them to leave me. A few bars? They say

“into your early life romance game and in this heart of yours burnt a flame. A flame that's”

liquored one day and died away. That's really nice. What a thought that less deferment it seemed like that. You also had a small background vocal part in the 1977 hit Boogie Knights by Heatwave which part is you? The base part? Got you keep on dancing keep on dancing that part. You know you're very sneaky they're Terry. Come on I got your number but even before that there's a better there's a better one. Don't I'm a trading head and a hit with a song called Love

and a fashion and you're on that too. That was the first that was 76 that one. And your part is

oh give me a love. So so why don't we hear that track and you singing based on it? No, just make love with a fashion. Sick me all the long song but this time of the

“middle education saying it's saying it's saying it's saying it's saying it. You know that's what”

that I love. One small with the feeling, give me love, give me love, give me love. As my guest Clark Peters singing the base part on Joan Armaterning's Love and Affection. Clark Peters I have so enjoyed talking with you and hearing you sing thank you so much. Thank you thank you Terry and catch you the next time around. Yes. All right be well. And you. Clark Peters is one of the stars of the new Netflix series The Barrows.

Fresh air weekend is produced by Theresa Madden. Fresh airs executive producer Sam Brigger. Our techno director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. On consider this NPR's afternoon news podcast we cover everything from politics to the economy to the world but every story starts with a question. NPR we stand for your right to be curious to make sense of the biggest story of the day

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