You definitely know Fantasia Barrino from her breakout days on American Idol, but the talented Grammy winner is now far beyond the reach of reality TV — instead, she’s tearing up the stage and delivering a truly show-stopping performance in her second endeavor on Broadway in the new musical After Midnight, celebrating the world of the Harlem jazz clubs of old.
Barrino is the first in a rotating guest star roster, meaning that she’ll only be dazzling audiences for a few months before k.d. lang joins the show (Feb. 11 – Mar. 9) followed by Babyface and Toni Braxton (Mar. 18 – 30). There’s no doubt that the revue is a fun ride for the audience, but we wanted to know whether Barrino was having as much fun onstage as it looks. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is yes.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What do you love about this show and what gets you excited when you think about what you’re a part of?
FANTASIA BARRINO: I love everything about this show, let me say that. Everything! The dancers, Dormeshia [Sumbry-Edwards] and Jared [Grimes]; the simple things like “Creole Love Call,” how beautiful that is. It has no words but just hearing [Carmen Ruby Floyd] sing it gave me so many different emotions. I was like that the entire play!
Do you have a particular affinity for jazz?
Jazz music, the fact that we are doing something like this on Broadway, I feel is much needed and long overdue. Jazz music is a different language—it’s not the same as R&B, it’s not the same as most music that a lot of us listen to, especially our young people, but I feel like it’s what people need to see because it’s where it all started. It’s so elegant, it’s so classy, it’s so sexy, and most of all, it stands for those people who came before us and who went through so much. Music was their way of feeling like they could make it through.
You get to sing four amazing songs in the show. Did you have a previous connection to any of them?
Actually, on one of my tours, we did the Cab Calloway “Hi-De-Ho” to open the show. But some of the songs were new to me. Coming into this play is when I really got to listen to “Stormy Weather,” “Zaz Zuh Zaz”… I listened to a lot of Billie Holliday, a lot of Ella Fitzgerald, but these songs I had never heard. I had to think, “Can I pull it off as well as keep it authentic and not make it 2013?” I wanted to really represent those great people who came before me and sang those songs. Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Barbra Streisand, Etta James. I looked at the history of these talented, amazing women, and I got so tickled because a lot of things that they went through and the ways that they felt, I kind of feel like I’ve been there and felt that, too.
What’s it like for you to feel the energy in the audience?
Sometimes — well, most of the time — since I was a little girl, I kind of zone out and black out when I’m on the stage. A lot of the songs that I sing, I relate myself to. My very first song is “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and in the beginning when I come out, the song says, “Gee, but it’s tough to be broke kid, it’s not a joke kid, it’s a curse. My luck is changing, it’s gotten from simply rotten to something worse.” And so I relate myself years back, when times were hard and things were tough for me in regards to the industry, relationships, family… so I’m almost ministering to myself, and I do pick up that a lot of people in the audience may feel the same way, so I zone out!
Do you zone back in during the finale?
Yes! When we get to the last song and we do “Freeze and Melt,” it’s where I’m like “Oh, okay, I’m here!” And I see everybody in the audience. For me, [zoning out] is a good thing because sometimes you may not want to see somebody making a certain face. The black out is me going away with the music and being in that moment.
Read more: http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/12/13/fantasia-barrino-after-midnight-broadway/
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