A-LISTS theatre HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
MIT STOKESCHELL’S BRIAN HOLIDAY POPS CONCERT by bill biss Nominated for four Tony Awards and winner of one for Best Actor in a Musical for Kiss
Me Kate in 2000, Brian Stokes Mitchell is considered one of Broadway’s finest musical leading men. As The Rage Monthly discovered, his theatre and family roots stem all the way back to San Diego. Though Mitchell is currently starring on Broadway in Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, he will miss a few performances there and fly into San Diego for a special series of Holiday Pops concerts at Copley Symphony Hall from Friday, December 17 through Sunday, December 19. His love of this season is in full bloom as we got into the holiday spirit during a recent interview. Brian Stokes Mitchell is no stranger to San Diego in the least. Asking him about this,
he responds, “I get there at least once a year. Sometimes, two or three times a year be- cause my dad still lives there. I have lots of friends who live there still. Mostly I just come to visit my dad who just turned 90 this year. We first moved there when I was about six and then my dad got a job working for the Navy. We ended up moving to Guam and the Philippines where we lived for eight years. Then, when I was 14, we moved back to San Diego. My theatrical roots are there…I started out at Starlight Opera, San Diego Junior Theatre and the Old Globe Theatre. Pretty much, every theatre that was there at the time.” The show Mitchell is starring in now is called Women On the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown and just opened last month. Yet, Mitchell is excited to perform for our Holiday Pops. “Anything for my fellow San Diegans,” he exclaims. It must be noted that Women On the Verge is the first time that Mitchell is in a full-length musical opposite Patti LuPone. “Yes. It is. We were supposed to do Annie Get Your Gun at Rivinia this year and I ended up getting a feature film instead. So, we actually didn’t get together until this show. We’ve known each other so long. We’ve done lots of concerts and benefits such as Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDS and for The Actor’s Fund. But…we can’t remember when we first met actually (laughter). For this series of concerts with the San Diego Symphony, Mitchell is presenting a few musical gems from his Christmas CD, Ring Christmas Bells. He adds, “I think we’re doing ‘Sleigh Ride’ and I may do ‘Grateful.’ That isn’t technically a Christmas song but to me it is because it’s a song about being grateful. What better time to be grateful then at Christmas of course. You’re grateful for your friends, your family and grateful for what we have. The gift of life, I think. I’m also doing an arrangement I did called ‘A Crazy Christ- mas List’ with ‘The Christmas Song.’ It’s a wacky arrangement that I created. Also, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ with so many soldiers…men and women in the armed services who are in way too many fields of battle right now, it’s a way to honor them and keep them in our thoughts and prayers.” Continuing, he puts it this way about his joy in doing these San Diego performances.
“First, I’m in San Diego, where my dad is. It’s where so much of my childhood was spent. It feels like going home to San Diego. I love performing with that orchestra. San Diego is actually where my mother passed away, so there’s a huge connection of her. I loved Christmas there too and I always think of her.” What are a few of Mitchell’s favorite CDs that are always played during the holidays?
“First, I’m in San Diego, where my dad is. It’s where so much of my childhood was spent.
It feels like going home to San Diego.
I love performing with that orchestra.”
“Wow. There are so many. I would say, Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration. That’s one of the ones that I love. Oh man…that’s a great question. Whitney Houston did a Christmas album and her rendition of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ I think is the best ar- rangement ever done. She just sounds incredible. There are also a lot of old Christmas albums like Harry Belafonte, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir…that goes on forever. We probably had fifty different Christmas albums we would play in our house. The thing about Christmas albums…it’s like breakfast. It’s kind of hard to screw them up. It’s such great music that it’s almost impossible to make it bad. It reminds us of childhood or the time we spent with our mother or our family. The music hits us in such a deep and resonate way.”
Holiday Pops: A Winter Pops Concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell December 17- December 19
Sandiegosymphony.org 619.235.0804
18
RAGE monthly | DECEMBER 2010
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