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Tonya Pinkins is a Tony Award®-winning performer who has starred on Broadway in Jelly's Last Jam and Caroline, or Change, among others. She is currently appearing on Broadway at the Cort Theatre in Radio Golf, the 10th and final play in August Wilson's decade-by-decade chronicle of aspects of African American life throughout the 20th century.

August chronicled a people in a century. The beginning is Gem of the Ocean, which is about blacks who are coming immediately out of slavery. For the rest of the plays, you see how slavery was imposed in other ways. You meet all these characters for whom slavery is theoretically abolished, but it is still present in other forms. These people always have their connection to their story, their song, their legacy, and their history, in the form of the character Aunt Ester, who dies in King Hedley II.

In Radio Golf, you're meeting the first generation of the middle class. This is the first and only play of August that deals with the middle class. My character, Mame Wilks, is the first professional woman in an August Wilson play. What you are seeing in the play is what the dangers are when you lose track of the history. You have characters who have escaped a large part of the legacy of slavery. They can own radio stations and play on golf courses. But something has been lost inside of them because they don't have their connection to the past. August is asking, How do you go forward and make progress and still keep your head straight, and take care of those whose backs you've climbed upon to get where you are?

Having worked on several of Wilson's plays, what have you learned about portraying his characters?

August's language, the rhythms--they just work, they play on their own. I came in with this idea that I was going to do all this stuff, and then I got very ill one week and couldn't do anything. I saw how the material played much better without all of my 'mayonnaise' on it!

What has been August Wilson's most important contribution to American theatre?

The most important thing is that for the first time in the commercial theatre there were African American characters that I thought were real. When I first came to New York as an African American woman, most of things I was being asked to do were very stereotypical. People would say, “Oh, that's not ‘black' enough”--and these were people who didn't even know what ‘black' was, and that black isn't any particular thing. So it was the first time a writer in a commercial theatre was writing characters that I knew the truth of. August created 77 characters for actors who would have never otherwise had those chances.

You are known as one of the busiest people in show business. Is it true?

[Laugh] Well, I'm as passionate about my teaching as I am about my acting. I also have a book called Get Over Yourself!: How to Drop the Drama and Claim the Life You Deserve. I get as much fulfillment out of writing and teaching as I do out of acting because it's an immediate connection with another person. My book is written as a conversation between myself and the reader, and by the end you should be different.

You also do a lot of television work and film work. How is appearing on stage special for you?

It's the best high there is. Film is a medium that belongs to the editors. They shape and control your performance and you get no feedback. In theatre, there's this immediate gratifying relationship between actor and audience. They let you know if they like it right there in the moment. There's just nothing else like that for me.

Get information on and tickets to Radio Golf.

View a list of Tonya Pinkins' Broadway credits.

The Jersey Boys have been busy. Currently you can catch the fellas performing on Broadway in New York, and as part of two different companies currently touring North America, with Las Vegas and London productions coming soon. Getting these productions up and running is no simple feat. Take this story as example: The company currently playing in Los Angeles began with the show in San Francisco, where for one very special week they performed in the evening while a new company of actors rehearsed on the same set during the day. The original San Francisco group then traveled to New Haven, CT to re-rehearse the show on a brand-new set, then back across the country to Los Angeles to begin performing. Meanwhile, the actors who had been rehearsing during the days in San Francisco took over performing there. Confused? So were we. Fortunately, Production Supervisor Richard Hester helped us sort it out.

"What I am responsible for," explains Mr. Hester, "is overseeing scheduling for the entire creative team. We have a director, two assistant directors, a choreographer, an associate choreographer, an assistant choreographer, a musical director, and the casting office. I move those people all over the place to make all these different companies happen. In addition to that, I oversee the show artistically and technically."

As if that doesn't sound like enough, the rehearsing and launch of the second national tour in San Francisco presented a perplexing logistical challenge.

"Every day a switchover had to happen. All the costumes for the evening company had to leave the building, and the new costumes came in for rehearsal in the afternoon. Then at five o'clock everything switched back again. Each cast travels with their own microphones and their own props, because the microphones and the guitars are pretty specific to the actors, because of all their different heights. So we had two complete sets of costumes and props in a building that barely held one."

With the heavy demands on actors and singers in the show, searching the country to find the best talent becomes a major commitment.

"Each company requires four Frankie Vallis” says Mr. Hester. "We have one that plays six times a week and one that plays two times a week, and then there are two understudies. So it's not just finding someone who can star in the show, it's finding four guys who can carry the show for each company. That's a tall order. We're in the middle of casting the Las Vegas company, and we are literally going all over the country looking for people. And not just Frankies - all the characters. We've been casting in Las Vegas and Los Angeles and next week we're going to Miami and Nashville and after that we'll have auditions in New York."

Despite a few minor differences between the various productions (linked to the technical demands of each specific theatre across the country), you'll always experience the same show. "No matter where you see Jersey Boys, you're going to see the best possible show you can see,” says Mr. Hester. “You're going to see the show that everyone saw on opening night on Broadway."

Get more information about Jersey Boys.

Big Business for Broadway in the Just-Ended 2006-2007 Season

According to data compiled by the League, Broadway box offices in New York City took in a record total of $939 million throughout the 2006-2007 season, which ended on May 27. Attendance saw a 2.6% increase over 2005-2006, with nearly 12.5 million paid admissions. Playing weeks, the best measure of overall productivity, was the second highest on record. The season featured 35 new productions, including 12 musicals, 11 plays, 5 musical revivals and 7 play revivals.

The Buzz

Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski and Pierce Brosnan have begun filming the movie version of the international hit musical Mamma Mia!, which is now in its sixth year on Broadway, while Nicole Kidman will star in the movie version of David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole.