Apr 30, 2020
The incredibly talented Sasha Allen joins us on today’s episode. You Might Know Her From Camp, The Voice, for colored girls…, Hair, and Pippin. Sasha talked about how the cult film Camp shaped her career, finding balance between her music career and the theatre, how The Voice uplifted her when she was down on her luck, and the power of Ntozake Shange's choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. All that goodness, plus her behind-the-scenes experiences backing up The Rolling Stones. Sasha was our last in-person interview for a little bit but we’ll be back next week with something new and fresh.
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Discussed this week:
Vintage eyeglasses shop in East Village: Fabulous Fanny’s
WTF apparently Mr Moneybags from Monopoly never wore a monocle we all just assumed he did
Cucumber on Amazon
Queer as Folk featured Sharon Gless in a wig
Galt MacDermot who wrote Hair died in 2018
“Good Old Fashioned Loverboy” is the most underrated Queen song of all-time
Babylon (the gay club in Pittsburgh on QaF)
Grey’s Anatomy loved to release soundtracks
The High Fidelity tv series is a soundtrack heavy show starring Zoe Kravitz (Jessica Hecht has a cameo)
Damian loved Belle & Sebastian and The Magnetic Fields
Anne urges Damian to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Sasha opens Camp with “How Shall I See You Through My Tears” from The Gospel at Colonus
Oral history of Todd Graff’s Camp by Louis Peitzman
Worked with Diane Paulus twice (Hair & the nat’l tour of Pippin)
Got some circus skills while doing national tour of Pippin
Sasha comes from artistic family (great great grandmother was first black person accepted at Juilliard, brother is an artist, daughter dances at Alvin Ailey)
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (Ntozake Shange)
Angela Bassett at for colored girls last year
Performed “Age of Aquarius” on Letterman etc but then “Hair” was chosen for the Tony performance
Appeared on Season 4 of The Voice and “Not Ready to Make Nice” got her the 4 chair turn
Worked with Adam Levine and
Shakira on The Voice
Sasha Allen was on an earlier vocal competition Vh1’s Born to Diva
Andrea Martin, Priscilla Lopez, Lucie Arnaz, Adrienne Barbeau all played Berthe on Pippin tour
Ranks herself as singer, actress, dancer
Blue Bloods opp Donnie Wahlberg and Power opp Omari Hardwick
Sasha’s ex worked with NKOTB
Naturi Naughton sang on Power
Was in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down the Wind at Kennedy Center when she was 14
Watch 14 year old Sasha in Whistle Down the Wind starting at the 1:04:25 mark
Aquarian mother; Libran daughter
Connected to ¾ women in
20 Feet From Stardom
(Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill)
Merry Clayton originally sang the female solo
in Gimme Shelter. She passed the torch to Lisa Fischer, who passed the torch to Sasha, who
was on Season 4 of The Voice with Judith
Hill
Mick Jagger making Mick Jagger faces behind Sasha when she wails on “Gimme Shelter”
Went to LaGuardia School of the Arts where she was friends with Nicki Minaj
“White Boys” from Hair
The Rolling Stones treat her the best. Mick & Keith hang out and give great gifts.
We love Joey McIntyre