Posted by | RayCornelius
Rising theater actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph doesn’t consider her current role in the Broadway musical version of the movie Ghost a coincidence. In fact, it’s a character she’s very familiar with and one she believes she was meant to play.
Randolph stars as the cantankerous, storefront psychic Oda Mae Brown, a character that was originally played by Whoopi Goldberg in the 1990 film version and one for which she won an Academy Award.
Randolph recently talked to the Huffington Post about how she landed the acting gig in both New York and London productions and how the show’s special effects are…well…out of this world!
On being familiar with the character Oda Mae Brown…
So for me, my environment is where I pull this from. It would be different if another person, no matter what color they are, but I think for me, growing up in Philadelphia, growing up with Motown music, and growing up in the church, it just came natural for that this would be the character that I would began to create who has soul and a sense of religion.
On getting cast for both NYC and London shows…
The day that they were supposed to announce [my Broadway role] publically, they had called me and was like, “Listen, we need you to go to London. The woman [Sharon D Clarke] got hurt and we want you to take over the role until your contract in New York starts.” So they told me on a Friday, I then flew into London on Sunday, and they gave me the script at the airport, went into rehearsal on Monday and then the director said, “You’re going to go on Friday night.” But miraculously, when you’re on your grind, it’s amazing of what you’re capable of doing. If someone would have asked me to do that in advance I would have said there’s no way. But I think the opportunity arose and I knew that I had to get myself together and rise to the occasion.
On the musical’s use of LED technology and onstage illusions…
It’s amazing, I really feel like it’s so appropriate for this show. If you think about it, when “Ghost” was done as a movie, that was the first movie where we had these new special effects being introduced into the genre of movies. So in a way we’re doing the same thing, but now we’re taking it to a different level for theatre.
Catch Da’Vine Joy Randolph in Ghost: The Musical at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
